Xatal

I apologize for the lack of posts, I’ve been rather busy these past few days. One of my big projects was upgrading to Windows 7 Professional Edition.

Upgrading an operating system or switching computers is never a quick task, and moving over gigabytes of music, movies, and games, organizing partitions, and mass-installing programs always makes for a long day.

But I’m loving Windows 7! Here’s what I’ve noticed: Keep reading »

At 4:30 AM last September, I woke up to my loud and annoying alarm clock for the last time. I threw the last of my luggage into the car and made one last quick check through my bedroom to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything important. As I turned on my iPod, I said one last goodbye to my house before leaving for college.

The drive was pretty long and I was definitely sad. Leaving the town that had been my home for the last nineteen years was definitely a weird feeling. Even though I’ve never especially liked the town, it’s always been “home” to me. I was sad knowing that all my friends (and my girlfriend) would still be back at home, and that I would have to hope I could make just as close of friends.

Moving in was a bit unnerving. Seeing the empty dorm room was very intimidating, knowing in the back of my head that I’d have to make it feel like home the best that I could. As I said goodbye to my parents that night, I knew that I was really on my own now, with a stranger as a roommate in a place where I knew virtually nobody. Keep reading »

So for today I’m back in my hometown to attend my girlfriend’s graduation ceremony.

Although I’m not done for the year quite yet, her high school is, and tonight’s her graduation. Listening to her talk about everything that goes in before graduation definitely brought back a lot of memories — senior trip, awards ceremonies, graduation practices, graduation, and grad night. It certainly has caused me to reminisce more than usual, and I’ve found myself missing a lot of my high school friends more in this last week. Keep reading »

Last night I traveled up to San Francisco to see my favorite band, Opeth. The last time I saw them, I was a sophomore in high school and barely knew there music.

I was once again blown away. Keep reading »

Before I left for college, I worked at a fitness club. One of the best benefits of working there was free membership — I was able to use the facilities whenever I wanted for free. I did my best to take advantage of this and worked out quite a bit, and by the end of it I was actually in pretty good shape.

Of course, sometimes laziness would prevail for a while at a time, and I would lose some of what I had gained, but for the most part I was good about keeping the habit going.

At college, I’ve tried a few times to get into the habit of the gym again, seeing as I once again have free membership due to being a student, yet it’s been a lot tougher. Keep reading »

I’m a member of RateYourMusic.com — I use it to rate albums I listen to and to decide which albums to listen to. It’s really a nifty site.

Anyways, today I glanced at my page and saw that I’ve broke 1,000 albums! I’m proud :D

I’m sorry for the sporadic updates — I’ve been a bit busy lately, and haven’t had much time to write good posts.

I was glancing at my Last.fm today, and I’ve finally cleared 200,000 plays. I’ve only seen a handful of people on the site who have more than that, and so I’m, for some weird reason, pretty proud.

My last.fm artists list

I listen to music just about whenever I’m on the computer, and I listen to my iPod when I’m out and not with other friends. Over the four years that I’ve had the account there, I guess the playcounts have just built up over time. I started back when the site was called AudioScrobbler and took weeks to update, and I’ve watched Last.fm mature into a gigantic music site.

Most of that is metal, but I like to think that I spread my listening over a large amount of bands — my most-played band (Opeth)  doesn’t make up even 10% of my total playcounts. I do listen to other genres besides metal, including reggae, post-rock, and indie, so I also like to believe I’m at least somewhat balanced in my musical tastes.

If you have a Last.fm, what’s our compatibility?

After a long 3 weeks of classes, work, and just about everything in between, I’m taking advantage of the three-day weekend to go back home. It’s quite the trek back — about 6 hours, using a combination of bus, train, and car, and it will set me back a cool $30, but it’ll definitely be worth it.

I hope everybody has a good weekend, and enjoy your Valentine’s Day! Use it to be grateful for the ones you love. There might not be a post on Monday, depending on how my schedule goes, but there definitely should be one on Wednesday.