The weirdest part...

...isn't so much that this new Chris Cornell song was produced by Timbaland and sounds completely bizarre when compared to anything he did with Soundgarden, Audioslave, or even the rest of his solo career. No, the weirdest part is that, in spite of how bizarre and initially off-putting it is, I actually really like it now. A lot.

And beyond that:

I finally got around to listening to Dessa on Midmorning. Or at least part of it. The feed cut out at the 25 minute mark or so, so I think I missed about half of it. Maybe it'll work someday.

That said, she, Aby Wolf, and someone else I desperately want to know more about did a pretty sweet a capella song. It's not new, necessarily. It might be the first recording of it that's been released though. She followed it up by reading a bit of one of her essays, and then doing a frighteningly good version of "Mineshaft," again with help from Aby and friend(s).

That's all condensed here.

My new thing

I downloaded the Cenospecies album a while ago. I didn't really get around to listening to it until this weekend. I'm kinda really in love with it right now.

For those of you who don't know anything about them (and are too lazy to click on the above link), they're a very shortlived group that P.O.S. was in circa 2001. As far as I know, it was pretty much his first major rap project. I'm almost certain it was the first full length album he recorded. The group is him, another emcee (Syst, I think he calls himself), and their DJ (Anomaly, who has worked on a bunch of things locally, most notably Atmosphere's Lucy Ford album).

It's really good. If you like P.O.S. at all, I highly recommend checking it out. Lyrically, it's probably as good as anything he's ever done. The production is vastly different from his recent stuff, but in a totally interesting way.

I don't normally go out of my way to advocate downloading albums, but this one is out of print, so it's tough to find it anywhere. I got it here:

http://community.livejournal.com/_doomtree/43665.html

I guess it's been a good week.

It seems to have taken a roundabout way to get there, but it seems to have been a good one.

For one, I got my tax rebate checks back. Without a doubt, they're the biggest tax returns I've ever gotten. I imagine that's because money was withheld based on the idea that I'd have a decent income all year, and then I wound up having a very minimal income for the last half of the year. So they took a lot of money when I was still making money, and then they gave it all back when they found out I didn't make much of anything after last July.

Beyond that, my review went well. It took about 15 minutes. It was basically "We hope you don't leave because of the change in management" with a little bit of "The one supervisor here who actually knows you had good things to say about you" mixed in. And the end result was a 50 cent raise. Good deal.

And then today...

I got my acceptance letter from the U. I'm gonna be a teacher. It's kinda weird. I think I have more work to do between now and April 1 than I did when I initially sent in my application. But, by and large, it's good news, you know?

I met Pat tonight

He's my new boss. I talked to him for approximately 2 minutes.

My review is tomorrow. With him.

I had to turn in a self evaluation before my review. I gave it to the one supervisor I have who I still kinda know. She in turn gave it to him. As she did so, I heard him say something along the lines of "Who?" and then she had to explain to him who I was.

This is gonna be great.

I think my boss just got fired

I guess maybe I'll find out more when I go in to work tonight, but I got a call this morning from our owner. It seemed very intentionally vague and cryptic. She said something like "We've had a change in leadership." She then went on to say "Pat ______ will be taking over as center director. Have you met Pat?"

I have not met Pat.

She never really mentioned what became of my old boss. However, I get the impression that if she hadn't been fired, we would've: a) gotten more advanced notice, and b) been told something like "She decided to move on to something else." The purposeful vagueness makes me think it must not have been her choice.

The worst part of it (for me, anyway) is that I'm due for a 6 month review (and possibly a raise) next week. I don't know if this will affect when that gets done at all, but I can definitely say I'd rather go through my review with the boss I've worked with for just shy of 6 months rather than with the boss I'm meeting a week before my review.

The Truth is Here

Some other musical notes:

-I bought two CDs today. The first was the new Kelly Clarkson. I was torn on whether or not to buy it. I have her two previous albums as well. I downloaded Breakaway by...less than legal... means. I bought My December. Part of that was me feeling like I had more of an obligation to support her putting out the album that she actually wanted to put out last time.

By all accounts, My December was a failure. I thought it was really good. She didn't put out the album that her record company wanted her to put out, and I think that cost her the support that she would've normally gotten. With that in mind, I wanted to support her and her desire to make the music she wanted to make.

Normally, albums like Kelly Clarkson's are those I'm most comfortable downloading. But with My December, I got the feeling that buying it would make the kind of statement I was wanting to make.

I don't know what compelled me to buy the new album instead of downloading it. But, for what it's worth, it's really good.

-The other album I got today was the new Brother Ali EP. In the grand scheme of things, I think it may be a little disappointing, but only in the context of what he's done before. Shadows on the Sun is a brilliant album. The Champion EP, in my mind, improved on his full length album. For an "EP" it was spectacular in terms of length and new content. The Undisputed Truth is a fantastic album, at least on par with anything he's ever done. The Truth is Here EP is, relative to his past work, mildly disappointing. Champion was 9 new songs, most of them pretty brilliant. The Truth Is Here is 9 new songs, about half of them pretty brilliant. In some sense, I suppose that's mildly disappointing. In some sense, it's really damn good.

-Beyond that, the other things that I've noted as really good lately have been the last couple Doomtree CDs. The new P.O.S. is spectacular. Without a doubt, it's my favorite of his albums. "Optimist" and "Purexed" are both fantastic.

Lastly, the new Sims "False Hopes" is damn good. I'm totally looking forward to the new album.

Hooray! I'm for the other team!

Always classic

Tonight I shadowed an English ACT lesson. In the relatively near future I imagine I will start teaching people to prepare for the English portion of the ACT.

It reassures me to no end to know that I can refer back to Schoolhouse Rock on Youtube.

In the lesson I shadowed tonight, we went over parts of speech, including interjections and conjunctions. I can say with absolute certainty that everything I know about both is based largely on their respective Schoolhouse Rock videos. And I think I was born well after both were made. If not for them, I would have no idea how to explain either concept.

Our generation has largely failed in regard to edu-tainment. It saddens me.

Heaven knows I'm miserable now...

I've spent the last week or so being as sick as I can recall being in at least probably 10 years. I think it probably started last Monday night. I remember walking out of work and feeling chills even though it was a pretty average temperature out. That was pretty much it for Monday night though, and I didn't really think much of it at the time. Then I woke up Tuesday and felt terrible. I had a fever and my whole head was congested. But then as I got up and started moving around, it seemed to get better. So I took some DayQuil and went to work. And that's when it all fell apart.

By the end of my shift, I started to feel like crap again. When I got home, I took some more medicine and started drinking water like crazy. I took my temperature and despite being on DayQuil, which is supposed to reduce fevers, I had a fever of just shy of 101 degrees. So I called in to work on Wednesday. I can't remember the last time I called in to work because I was actually sick.

So Tuesday night was awful, Wednesday was all pretty terrible, and Thursday started off pretty bad as well. The only way I got sleep either of those two nights was to take NyQuil. It would knock me out for about 5 hours, then I'd have to wait an hour to take a second dose, which would knock me out for another 5 or 6.

It was Thursday night when the fever started to die down. To this point, that's the only symptom that's really changed. My head is still congested, especially my ears, which makes for some lovely dizziness. I did learn some fascinating stuff about health care these days in my travails though:

I went to the quick care clinic at Cub Foods on Friday. For people without insurance, it costs $60 per visit. On the other hand, if I wanted insurance, that would cost me about $300 per month right now. And it wouldn't cover these visits at that rate. I decided to go when, after the fever was gone, I was completely convinced that this felt exactly like every sinus infection I've ever gotten, only worse (and as someone who gets allergies pretty much every spring followed about half the time by a sinus infection, I have a pretty good idea what they feel like). And I figured antibiotics would help.

So, I went in, saw a "doctor" (or more likely one of those nurses that's allowed to prescribe medicine), and was told "Oh, sounds like a viral infection, like a cold. If it doesn't get better after 10 days, then come back and maybe we'll consider it a bacterial infection." I assume that in order to do this, it will cost me another $60.

After being told I wasn't going to get any medicine prescribed, I decided to at least get some over the counter medicine that actually works. After spending a few days on DayQuil and NyQuil and finding they weren't helping my nose, I decided to look up a thing or two. It turns out the drug that replaced Sudafed (making it Sudafed PE) which is now in pretty much everything "may be no more effective as a decongestant than a placebo.".

So I decided I should get some medicine with the real stuff, which they hide behind the counter. I wanted a box of regular Sudafed and a bottle of NyQuil D (apparently the "D" means it actually works). So I picked up the little cards, brought them to the counter, and was told that I could only buy one item at a time (because meth dealers are apparently notoriously easy to dissuade, I guess). Luckily my mom had driven me (due to the aforementioned dizziness), so the pharmacist allowed her to buy one and me to buy one.

So now, just shy of a week into this sickness, I feel about exactly the same as I have for the last 3 days. Since the fever's been gone, I've been pretty functional, but I wouldn't mind going back to feeling comfortable again.