Nostalgia Music
So Nate and I were discussing music that was super nostalgic to us the other day. Surprisingly, I didn’t really get too much into music until the end of high school (probably because CDs were way too expensive for me to ever buy and I didn’t have the incredibly enabling device that is the iPod just yet). But a lot of the albums I did buy are ones that hold a high level of nostalgia. Any time I hear a song on any of these albums, it brings me right back to the time in my life when I’d play said album on repeat on my little portable CD player.
Let’s recall a few, shall we?
Good Charlotte – The Young And The Hopeless
I bought this album at Hastings because I LOVED “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” and then realized I liked all the other songs on it as well. I played this a lot in my junior and senior years in high school, and probably a little bit before that as well. “Girls & Boys” is underrated for how good it is.
Black Eyed Peas – Monkey Business
Senior year of high school. I would start this CD EVERY TIME I drove to school in the morning. I lived close enough to the high school that it only ever got through “Don’t Phunk With My Heart,” haha, but that and “Pump It” immediately make me think of those early morning drives to school.
Ashlee Simpson – Autobiography
Another one I bought because I loved one of the songs after hearing it on the radio (“Pieces of Me”). This was mostly my first and second years of college, I think. “Better Off” is such a sweet song.
Weezer – Make Believe
The summer in between high school and college. I listened to this album SO MUCH, yo. I bought it for “Beverly Hills,” but “Perfect Situation” might be my favorite.
Green Day – American Idiot
Another one I listened to incessantly during that summer between high school and college. I also remember listening to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” back when I was in my bike-riding phase, but that was a few years earlier, I think.
iBlog
Today was freaking horrible. Therefore, I shall focus this blog on three things that have nothing at all to do with my life at the moment.
1. Seriousness: Steve Jobs
I credit Steve Jobs with the initiation of my love of music.* The second generation iPod mini (with colors silver, blue, pink, and green) came out in 2005 and I remember my dad asking me if I wanted one. I pretty much had no interest in it. I had a grand total of five music CDs and a rockin’ portable CD player decorated in stickers. Why would I want to change that?
He got me one anyway, though, for Christmas 2005. Enter iTunes plus a $50 iTunes gift card for my birthday two months later and I was suddenly introduced to the fact that I now had the power to find ALL THE OBSCURE SONGS I’D EVER LOVED. It took like two months for my meager 40-something-song library to grow to 400+. The portability factor—along with the fact that I could now purchase songs individually and therefore didn’t have to weigh the pros and cons of buying a whole $15 CD for just one or two songs—made me want to listen to music.
Haha, and now look where I am.
So I thank you, Mr. Jobs, for your business sense, your inventive mind, and your desire to continually make/improve portable media products for gadget lovers like myself. If I had any extra money at this time, I would upgrade my current iPod (I need a bigger one, haha) in your memory. But that will have to wait until I’m not dirt poor.
RIP.

Found on Imgur.
2. Creepiness: Googol
So remember when I blogged about Google’s Profiles and how it was freakishly similar to the product Google Face as I described in my NaNo Googol written last year (last part of this blog)?
Well, if Google merges with or takes over Apple within the next year or so, then I FREAKING CALLED IT AGAIN.
What I wrote:
“After the death of Steve Jobs in the early 2000s, Google’s founders felt there to be no other option but to approach Apple with a merger deal, offering them almost any stipulations they desired in exchange for being able to essentially mix the two companies into one giant hyper corporation that would push the limits of the known size of any company that had ever been in existence. […] Of course, prior to his death, Jobs had anticipated Google’s future moves. He knew that the corporation in charge of providing internet goers everything from facial recognition to “street views” of Pluto to basic search would not be so quick to pass up a merger opportunity with any company they thought was and would continue to be a successful internet partner. […] He knew a merger with the giant that was Google would most likely require sacrifices on the part of his own company. These sacrifices, however, he was not too willing to make. The impression Clarke gathered from the literature was that Jobs, in a somewhat secret move several years before his death, had created and documented several heavy handed stipulations and bargains that would have to be met in order for any sort of posthumous merger to take place.”
Including, as I go on to describe, a redesign of the Googleplex to match more the style of Apple.
Fun times.
3. Silliness: I Gotta Feeling
I’m not into hating specific types of music and I actually like this song, but this review is pretty great.
30-Day Meme – Day 6: Your favorite music video.
Oh crap, that’s tough.
I love The Music Scene by Blockhead because OMFG COLORZ:
But I think my favorite music video has to be for White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes. Watch this and tell me it’s not the most beautiful, sad thing ever:
I could watch that over and over and over and over.
That is all.
*Actually, such a statement is a bit of a misnomer. I’ve always loved music in the sense that I’ve loved playing it…I guess I should say that Mr. Jobs initiated my love of listening to music in general.
