Dear Cam Newton,

Congratulations on the BCS championship, you definitely defended your hiesman status in that game. How awesome did it feel to win, after such a turbulent season with all that scandle stuff involving you taking money from colleges? I had your back the whole time, clearly you are too much of an upstanding citizen to partake in illegal activities, and went to school just for the education and opportunity to play good football. I was wondering though, with the NFL putting salary caps on rookie contracts next year, will you go into the draft this year and get paid or will you wait and finish your college education before going to the NFL? I bet that decision is one that requires lots of thought, but if it were my decision, I would take the money.

-john staiger

Embryonic: Excellent Album

The Flaming Lips most recent album of original music, which came out in 2009, (their other new album was a cover of Floyd's Darkside of the Moon), is one of my favorite new albums of the past few years, and even the past decade. The Flaming Lips are band that have swayed between several different musical styles, often mixing electronic and rock sounds together. Some of their albums I have found particulary dull, such as "Soft Bulletin", and to a lesser extent, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". These albums I would consider too much in line with standard, boring indie fare of today, although "Yoshimi..." should be lauded for being a semi-concept album in this day and age of singles rather than albums. Embryonic is also a semi-concept album, not exactly telling a story, but all the tracks are united by common themes and common sound. This is an album to sit down and listen to the whole way through.

While not all of the tracks can stand for themselves, they are all intruiging to listen to, and I enjoyed every bit of the album. All too much these days albums are essentially three songs the band put a lot of work and production into, and the rest of the album is just filler. Since the album is well over an hour long, I will just discuss a few of the tracks that really stood out for me.

"The Sparrow looks up at the Machine" is the second song on the album and my favorite. The song's guitar and vocals are heavily destorted. The rythmic pounding of the drums and heavy, heavy bass puts you into a trance like state almost from the beginning. The songs lyrics, about finding truth in an age of machines, and the numerous mentions of dreams fit perfectly with the music, which as well as putting one into a dream like state, also feel almost like industrial equipment pounding away in a factory.

My other favorite song from this album was "Worm Mountain". I am not sure of the significance of the song's meaning, but this one I like just for the sound its self. Similar to "The Sparrow... the guitar and bass are really distored and heavy. Really, Really distorted and heavy. The riffs and bass hooks are really catchy too.

Last but not least, my third favorite song, "The Ego's Last Stand". The song has a really catchy double bass line. It is one of the more minimilistic songs on the album, being mainly just bass, a touch of percussion and singing for most of the song. Towards the end the drums and guitar kick in, making for a terrific crescendo as the finale.

Please let me cook dinner...

My parents are away on a business trip, and my aunt is staying with me and my sisters. While she may be a nice person, she really, really doesn't have any idea of how to cook. On some diet involving only the consumption of raw vegtables, she makes herself fresh salad every day. The rest of us are not so lucky. She has already cooked most of the meals for the week and frozen them. Tonight we had spaghetti cooked three days ago -not leftovers- but specifically cooked to be eaten three days later. What madness is this? Spaghetti is arguably one of the easiest foods possible to cook. Step 1: Boil water. Step 2: Turn burner down and place spaghetti in water, leave for ten minutes. Step 3: Pour spaghetti in a colander and serve. Why can't she just do that at dinner time? The bread, which was French, was also bought several days ago. French bread is notorious for going hard the day after it's baked. I live two hundred meters from Dan and Whit's. Fresh bread was within easy range of acquisition. I don't mind that you are one some crazy diet in which you can't eat carbs, but think of the rest of us. Cold, tastless mush is not something to look forward too after a hard day of school and practice. Please let me cook.

Grammar Topics APW 3

Anderson, Darcy	Misplaced modifier
	Comma after intro items
Callahan, Katherine	Free modifiers
Erdei, Mandy	Misplaced Modifier Part phrase
	pluperfect
Johnstone, Kate	comma between coordinate adjectives
Kuehlert, Esra	dashes with parenthetical stuff
Lawless, Nicole	No comma w/ conj if compound oject
Liu, Evan	MM
	MM
Lufkin, Steven	commas after intro elements
Papadoliopoulos, George	hyphenated adjectives
Rosen, Emma	Sentence fragment (part phrase)
Smith, Tyler	Frag
Staiger, John	Use of reflexive pronouns
Stephens, Chris	dashes as (that is, defining sub-group)
Tengdin, Priscilla	No comma with compound predicate
Voelkel, Harry	Comma not needed
Wild, Claire	Fragments

How I Feel

This post is for the essay that was due so long ago I don't even remember what it was. But here is my post anyway, better late then never right? Today I'm a little tired, and it doesn't help that I'm wearing a snuggie. I am excited, however, for the Patriots game versus the Jets, because I do believe that they will crush the Jets. Go Pats! I am also excited for next week because I don't have many exams, like at all. I only have two days of exams wednesday and thursday, and then we have Feb. break which is a always a good time. But I'm a little nervous for the new semester, because I fear change, but it is what it is.

letter #5

The hardest thing about this whole letter/blog-writing thing is remembering every single paper to write a new letter. It seems the further I get into the class the more likely I am to forget things. Right now, I'm so tired I don't even know what to write. I'm all applied to college, and it's making me not even want to do anything. Vacation felt like forever, yet didn't last long enough. And now waking up for school every single morning is killing me. I feel like it'd be a little bit easier if I wasn't up till two am the nights prior but it's all a habit that takes time to resume. One habit I would love to be done with though is high school. Only five more months and then I'm done forever.