Posts in category "Photos"

The Everyday Sickness Of Stress

Thumbnail: Card by Elle

I called in sick again today, but this time I did­n’t go in.

In Psych 101, you learn that a group of stu­dents are sprayed in the face with the cold bac­te­ria dur­ing their exams, while a con­trol group is sprayed dur­ing the reg­u­lar school year. The result is that the stu­dents going through their finals are more than twice as like­ly to get sick. Stress low­ers the immune sys­tem, and the les­son here is that there’s a direct con­nec­tion between the health of the mind and the body.

Knowing this isn’t enough to pre­vent it. Sometimes it all adds up, and you get worn down.

Little sur­pris­es come in the form of friends offer­ing to pick things up from the phar­ma­cy, peo­ple I’ve nev­er even spo­ken to ask­ing if I’m okay, or care pack­ages from ex-girl­friends, con­sist­ing of choco­late bars, vit­a­min C drops, African peanut soup, a DVD of BMW shorts, and even a get-well-soon card.

Trolley's B-Day '05

Thumbnail: Chillin outside
Thumbnail: Strike a pose
Thumbnail: Shots of Jag
Thumbnail: Dual Stella cans
Thumbnail: Cheers

A cou­ple of shots (no pun intend­ed) from Trolley’s birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, also mark­ing my first for­ray into the dig­i­tal SLR cam­era world. I had no idea how much was involved in pho­tog­ra­phy until I start­ed going ful­ly man­u­al (quite a change from my sim­ple point-and-shoot Elph), but just try­ing to achieve what’s “tech­ni­cal­ly” cor­rect has made me appre­ci­ate both what the pro­fes­sion­als go through and what the artists try to express.

Thrice = Love: Far From The End

The con­cert was quite amaz­ing. The set last­ed just over an hour and a half. Nothing was per­formed off the first album, which makes me think that Thrice actu­al­ly knows how weak an LP it was. They did two encores, one of which was Dustin play­ing an acoustic ver­sion of Staring At The Sun, and the oth­er which was a short lit­tle piece from the mid­dle of The Abolition Of Man, where Dustin actu­al­ly hands off his gui­tar to a guy who comes on stage with a grey hood­ie, and walks into the crowd to scream the last few bars. Unfortunately, my mem­o­ry card ran out of space dur­ing the LAST WORD, ulti­mate­ly ruin­ing the clip.

It was good to see that peo­ple knew all the words to Artist In The Ambulance, and Deadbolt (which they did­n’t play until every­one was yelling it in cho­rus).

Thumbnail: Crowd
Thumbnail: Dustin with acoustic guitar
Thumbnail: Stage

On his celebri­ty, Dustin once said, “It’s pret­ty awe­some. A lot of peo­ple throw under­wear at bands, but our kids bring us books”. If I ever had the chance, I’d give him Huis-Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre.

There’s more that can be said, but I think I’ll put this to rest for now.

Thrice is Love.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End

Thrice = Love: Introduction

Thumbnail: Thrice ticket

It’s been more than two years since Thrice has released a new album, until Vheissu, just five days ago. I’m still explor­ing the tracks, approach­ing each song with an open mind, but nev­er dis­sect­ing too much through analy­sis. Due to the uncer­tain­tiy of what to expect, lis­ten­ing to some­thing for the first time is always a lit­tle dif­fer­ent.

It can be eas­i­ly observed that they’ve grown through all of their full-length albums. It’s dif­fi­cult to lis­ten to Identity Crisis (2000), because of how rough and unde­vel­oped it is. The Illusion of Safety (2002) was much improved, intro­duc­ing a unique, exper­i­men­tal style, though heav­i­ly influ­enced by punk and met­al­core. The Artist In The Ambulance (2003) took things a step fur­ther, achiev­ing tracks that were both esthet­ic and intel­li­gent.

Ever since I stopped smok­ing weed on a dai­ly basis, of which a great deal of time was spent lis­ten­ing to music, I’ve been ener­vat­ed by the fact that songs would nev­er sound as good, until this album.

Vheissu has renewed my hope. Saved my life.

It goes beyond every­thing else to a com­plete­ly spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence, from the album art­work to the chords and the key sig­na­tures. Thrice has reached out with music that is haunt­ing, mov­ing, emo­tion­al, try­ing things that they’ve nev­er tried before. Dustin Kensrue sings more than he screams, even goes falset­to(!), only occas­sion­al­ly call­ing on his hard­core roots. Electronic sounds, piano, acoustic gui­tar have been worked into the tracks them­selves, instead of being rel­e­gat­ed to the intro­duc­tions. The mixed meters are less obtru­sive, but still inter­est­ing enough for prog-rock fans. Even with all of this, they con­tin­ue to defy gen­res, as they’ve done in their pre­vi­ous albums. It all works.

Thrice is com­ing to town, and the con­cert is just six days away.

I was only intro­duced to Thrice in the last two years, but I’ve been through a lot with them. Different apart­ments, room­mates, girl­friends, breakups. Even the lyrics speak to me, lift­ing, mov­ing, nev­er crash­ing. I only ask one thing.

Gimme a girl who loves Thrice.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End

This May Feel Cold

Thumbnail: Holter monitor

I’m lying down, naked from the waist up, gig­gling uncon­trol­lably. The nurse damp­ens some tis­sue with rub­bing alco­hol, and rubs down my tor­so method­i­cal­ly. I feel it evap­o­rat­ing off my skin, star­ing at the ceil­ing, unsure of any­where else I could appro­pri­ate­ly keep my eyes. Suddenly, there’s a sharply drag­ging pain on a small area, and I see her mak­ing quick, short arm move­ments in one direc­tion.

“Ow, what is that?”, I ask jovial­ly. I’m still gig­gling, a result of my ner­vous­ness. She picks up on this.

“It’s sand­pa­per. Haven’t you ever been exfo­li­at­ed?”

The sand­pa­per removes the dead skin, mak­ing the elec­trodes stick bet­ter.

“Are you telling me that this is going to make my chest glow, and reduce the appear­ance of any lines and wrin­kles?”

She play­ful­ly returns, “On these five spots, yes.”

Afterwards, I’m told to sign a form with a short expla­na­tion on what is being done, that acknowl­edges my under­stand­ing.

Holter mon­i­tor­ing pro­vides a con­tin­u­ous record­ing of heart rhythm dur­ing nor­mal activ­i­ty. There is no dis­com­fort asso­ci­at­ed with the test.

I’m giv­en a jour­nal to record any abnor­mal heart­beats, whether it’s a skipped beat, an extra beat, or an irreg­u­lar beat, but for the 24 hours that I’m wear­ing this device, I don’t write in it once. It’s a guess­ing game for them, to sort out the what’s nor­mal and what’s not. After any test they do, urine, blood, stool, holter, they say the same thing: we’ll call you if any­thing shows up in the results.

They always say, no news is good news.