Caramel Apple Pops

I think that Caramel Apple Pops have the least or most incompetent quality control of any food that I can think of.  Some of them have tiny apple-flavored hard candy cores surrounded by huge piles of caramel, and some are big chunks of apple candy with a diminuative glob of caramel stuck to one side.  Almost none of them look "right."  It doesn't really end up mattering; they taste good in whichever configuration you find them, but you never really know what you're going to get when you open one up.

It's Not Me, It's You

The short version:
Coldplay—X&Y: 6/10
Ozomatli—Embrace the Chaos: 7/10
P!nk—Funhouse: 9/10
Lily Allen—It's Not Me, It's You: 9/10

I've been listening to the followup to Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head, X&Y, and I like it a little better than that one, but it's rather similar overall.  What I find particularly strange is that two of my three favorite songs on here weren't even singles—my strong favorite of the disc is Square One, the opener.  After that, I like Talk, which was the third single, and then X&Y, which again was not a single.  The album itself is a bit above mediocrity, sort of inoffensively decent.  I could live without it, but I don't regret owning it.

A more interesting disc I've been also listening to is Ozomatli's Embrace the Chaos.  I don't even know what to call it: a sort of rap-infused Latin pop, perhaps.  It's an eclectic mix of weird sounds, but it works out pretty well.  I really like Sueños en Realidad, and Dos Cosas Ciertas and Vocal Artillery should give you a good example of what some of the rest of the album sounds like.  I can't really recommend it to anyone in particular, but it's worth taking a listen and seeing if it's your thing.

After hearing Jason play it in the car, I picked up P!ink's latest CD Funhouse, and it's excellent.  It's full of party rock anthems, but there are some slower, more heartfelt songs as well.  The whole album is put together and flows really well.  The opening track So What is fantastic and sets the tone for much of the rest of the disc, even though the next few songs are rather somber.  I also love One Foot Wrong, which is in the "darker" half of the album, but still fairly energetic, and Bad Influence is quite good too, back in the party mood of So What.  Really, I can't say that it's the perfect party CD or anything like that given the number of slower introspective songs, but I can definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys energetic pop-rock.

Also excellent is foul-mouthed Lily Allen's newest, It's Not Me, It's You, produced by the "bee" from The Bird and the Bee, and while it has similarities when compared to the latest Bird and the Bee album, it's got more of a wilder side.  I can't get enough of Fuck You, and Everyone's at It and Never Gonna Happen are both pretty glorious too.  Part of the appeal is admittedly the Sarah Silverman effect, hearing this cutesy, perky music playing behind the lyrics of this bitchy, somewhat slutty Brit.  But, the music certainly stands on its own, and I'm looking forward to checking out her debut album.

I haven't really decided what I'm going to listen to next.  There's plenty more in the queue, though.

Here we go again

So, I've got a boyfriend again.  It should be easy to remember because it's the same one as last time.

Jason and I talked again tonight for quite a while, and we agreed that we are still clueless, and we were clueless when we broke up.  We value each others' friendship too much to risk it, but fear doesn't seem to me to be a valid reason to end or avoid a romantic relationship.  So, we're going to give this another shot.  In reality, we've sort of been boyfriends again for months now in everything but name and corresponding Facebook hyperlink.  But, it feels nicer to not be pretending otherwise.

For simplicity's sake I think that I'm just going to say that we've been together for eight months, with a rough emotional patch in there that lasted a few weeks and was brought on by confusion and relationship inexperience.

Unfair

Why is it that when it's warm I feel very sleepy, but I also can't sleep?  That just seems unfair.

Intern

In a couple weeks I'll have worked at Microsoft for five years: a pretty significant chunk of my life now (about 18%, if you're counting).  I'll get a little crystal trophy thing to commemerate the occasion.


I've got my own intern for the summer now... it's an interesting notion having that kind of responsibility over someone.  It's nice that they trust me enough to give me someone else's career to nourish or ruin—just apparently not quite enough to actually promote me.

Delicious

I think that a great place to store candy at work would be in one of those biohazard sharps containers you see at doctor's offices. You could get such a weird reaction from someone seeing you reach into one to get something to eat.

Hmm

I think I may have just flossed my filling out of place.

Too real

I got my new TV delivered yesterday, a 55" LED LCD.  My initial impressions are that it's gorgeous, and the picture definitely looks better than I expected based on in-store observations.  Plus it's an inch and a half thick, so it looks pretty striking.  I haven't given it a good high-def test yet, but I plan to soon—I did watch the first few minutes of Quantum of Solace on it, and it was actually sort of eerie how sharp it looked.  My previous TV was 1080i and this one is 1080p, but the picture looks so much sharper and smoother than before.  Actually, it's sort of creepy how smooth the picture is compared to before (or honestly, any other TV I've watched).  Car chases are supposed to be furious and blurry, but on this TV everything was sharp and identifiable.  It looked quite unnatural: it actually looks too real to me.  I found my first Blu-ray experiences sort of strange as well, and now I love the extra picture quality, so I'm sure that this will pass over time, but for now it was a fairly unexpected consequence of upgrading to a nicer TV.

Hooray!

Ted: Well, Torr says that his battle with cancer is finally going to be over in a couple months.
Travis: Hooray!
Ted: Not the "hooray" kind of "over."
Travis: Oh.