Thoughts on The Grammy's and Being A Failure

For some reason I put being a failure as the second part of the title, but as it turns out, it is the first thing I talk about. Talk about being a failure at organizing. Another thing I found out I failed at? Early celebration. Yes I know this all sounds convoluted, just wait for it. So the Computer Science program here at UW does not exactly grade things "quickly". I get it, I really do. The programs do probably take awhile to grade and there are a lot of 302 students. Normally I would not really care, but in this certain situation, it felt like a slap in the face. Today I got my grade back for the Ant Colony Optimization Program. (Yes it was exactly as exciting as it sounds). Ants and tunnels, pretty boring stuff. I worked pretty damn hard on it. Looking back at my notes from the assignment, they looks like the scribblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, I was not all that impressed with my grade. I wont go into numbers, but let's just say one little mistake propagated into a lot of points marked off. I felt really confident about it when I turned it in. I was so confident and happy about being done with it that I grabbed my friends and went out for some celebratory Parkour, and well the rest is history (THAT IS HOW I BROKE MY BACK). In other words I probably should have waited to see my grade before celebrating. My not have spent my Halloween weekend in the Hospital.

Segway....

That great moment when you find out your professor is on my oxycodeine than you are.....

Grammys.
I heard Skrillex is going to be nominated for Best Artist. Now don't get me wrong, I like me some Skrillex. But I think Best Artist is kind of a stretch. Supposedly Bon Iver is also getting nominated for Best Album (These are all rumors from Reddit's Ugly Sister Tumblr at this point). I get what the "Grammy People" are trying to do. I mean it is probably a good thing that they are expanding to all genres of music. And yet I can't help but to get a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. I am just worried that they will take it too far. I was content with the way things were. The Grammy's did their thing with their music, and I did my thing. At the risk of sounding like an incredibly douchey hipster, I will say that I would rather not have all my favorite bands performing at the Grammys. In the end I guess it just goes to show that I just don't listen to obscure enough bands. Moral of the story... I failed again.

Here is not a very obscure band, but a badass song.




-KGM

ps- My scouces tell me the nominations were announced on TV, but I like my joke so I am going to keep it that way. I am going to hide this down here in case anyone wants to call me wrong.

Thoughts on Hurrr Durrrr Herp Derp derrr

Goddamn...
Computer science is one of the most frusturating thing on this planet. At first it's easy. The lines flow from my fingers like Leslie Nelson in Scary Movie.
(blog check list: clever movie reference CHECK)

After writing comes the finger crossing and the running. This step requires a lot less work, and a lot more hope. Not surprisingly the hope is always in vain. It never works the first time, and I don't think it should. But let me tell you when you stare at the same 10 lines of code for 2 hours until realizing that you have a > (greater than) instead of a < (less than), it sucks.
(blog check list: complain about something sucking CHECK)

Seen we are in the computer vein I wanted to talk about Grooveshark. I had obviously heard of Grooveshark, but it was a month or so ago that I discovered its true beauty and power. I mean it fills the spectacular void left by my inability to acquire music while on the University networks. I am actually very proud of my self, resisting that good old convert youtube to mp3 button. (by the way if you don't have that add-on you should get it,awesome). Grooveshark gives me almost every song I could ever need to listen too, granted I don't actually have them; but still. Another great thing about Grooveshark is that it allows me to artificially inflate my musical repertoire. I always felt like being "hip" to all those new, underground indie bands on the radar this week was just too difficult. It is way too time consuming to be that "music kid". I put up a decent effort, when I get the chance, but Grooveshark really helps. Grooveshark - "Helping you seem like a bigger hipster than you actually are since March 2006"
(blog check list: talk about hipsters and stuff CHECK)
(Also I looked up that March 2006 on Wikipedia....citing sources like a boss)

Well what is left.... rant or politics....
I chose you Rant-A-Chu...
This one is on country music, more or less. I am not talking like willie nelson country, not Johnny Cash country. Nay the rant is directed at this new Country. This sexy-tractor bullshit. Some kid posted a video on our UW-Madison class facebook page. To a song called red-solo cup. By Toby Keith. Now I am familiar with several Toby Keith songs. One in particular is called "Beer for My Horses". Now any actual Red-Blooded American ranch who needed his horses to work hard for him is probably not pumping his horses full of beer. Granted it is used as an old time cure for horses that do not sweat enough, I doubt Old Toby knew that. Keyword there being old... goddamn. This red solo cup video is ridiculous, the guy is walking around a college rager. He is 50 years old. What is he doing at a college age party. In the song he states (originally in a more rhythmical manner) that anyone who prefers to drink beer out of glass over a red solo cup does not have a pair of testicles. Last I checked sasparilla didn't come in a red solo cup.
(blog check list: rant CHECK)

I could go on for days about new country music and how I despise it. But to each their own I suppose!
Here... enjoy it...



-KGM

Goddamn I am Slacking

So much as been going on this past week. This guy played Amazing Grace on his BAG PIPES!!! earlier and I threw down with the other "hipster" kid on bands that "you have probably never heard of." So before I got here my mom gave this pretty serious talk about intelligence. She basically said that I was going to a school full of really smart people. She had been a very intelligent person, top of the class in her high school, and had not dealt so well with being around everyone who was just as smart or smarter than her. While I have yet to encounter this phenomena, mostly because I could care less if people are smarter than me. But imagine the same idea, only with music. Then times it by 1000x. This kid dragged my ass through every conceivable musical genre and listed off 100s of bands that I had never heard off. My hipster ego was quite battered. They said college was about getting out of your comfort zone and I was very uncomfortable with this kid knowing all of my super random bands and what not. I mean come on! On another note, my History of Science class is freaking incredible. I sat in a 90 min lecture while the professor was just dropping knowledge bombs left and right. I could not be happier with the University of Wisconsin. I will do my best to not skip like a week of posts.

As for the music, this one goes out to the kid in my house who brought his bagpipes to college. You sir, are a total badass.



-KGM

Thoughts on Being Snobby About Music

So it has always been the running joke with a few of my more hipster friends, mainly Twitter, that the less people to have heard about a band is directly correlated to how cool said band is. I have seen some extreme examples of this, like one time I was given some Cd's by a friend, before giving them up he made me swear to not tell other people about the band or let them listen to it. Pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but honestly I think a lot of people out there truly believe that if a band is popular they must suck. This whole thing came up on the UW facebook group, I had to chime in to defend Skrillex because I don't care how popular that boy is, he is freaking beast. Anyways I sorta met this kid who is an incoming UW freshman who makes some dubstep, mash-up, remixes ect ect. I came to an amazing conclusion that I could earn serious fucking hipster cred by using on of his songs in my blog. So yah...
Today's song is by this guy, you have probably never heard of him...he is pretty obscure... For real though show him some love, he has some sick remixes and he is a UWisc student, meaning he has to be a super genius badass. Also show the new URL some love, and tell your friends and stuff. Pictures from Virginia trip be up tomorrow night I swear on my monkeys grave.

DJ Britt - Fish don't Fry in the Kitchen.
Check this boy out! DJ Britt on Soundcloud

DJ BRITT - Fish Don't Fry In The Kitchen by DJ BRITT


-KGM