Well, I heard the Switchfoot one. It's not the best thing I have ever heard, but it's not bad either. However, I realise now why I like instrumental songs more than ones with vocals. Vocals give me one more thing I need to concentrate on. I just like to let the music flow without having to focus on the words. I'm just lazy, I guess. There is some good stuff on there, though. I liked Easier than Love, Politicians, Golden, and We Are One Tonight. The only problem is I don't understand most of the lyrics. It feels like I'm in English class all over again trying to figure out what the words mean, and I don't like that much. Oh well.

On the other hand, I'm really digging the other CD I got, even though I'm only five songs in. Even if I haven't heard/don't recognise the original song sometimes, it's still a really good CD and it sounds like whoever's playing it is having a lot of fun with it. Recommended for jazz fans, Christian or not. There are no vocals (it's all instrumental), so non-Christians can't tell the difference anyway.

I went against one of my morals today.

I bought something because it was popular without knowing if I liked it or not. House of James (a local Christian store) was having a huge tent sale today and I took advantage of this to buy some music. I bought Switchfoot - Nothing is Sound, which, even if it goes against what I think about popularity, should be a good listen. I'm ripping it right now, and it's gonna go on my iPod in a sec.

I also got a CD full of hymns made into jazz arrangements, called Jazz in the Spirit. It's gonna be interesting.

The band concert was great. Everything went well, and I got to see some unsuspecting audience members jump in Mazama. The best part? I won the service award this year, for volunteering to play in so many groups. Awesomeness.

Yay! iPod's here!

Actually, I think it came on the worst possible day. I have a French poetry project due tomorrow and I'm about half done it. I promised I wouldn't open it until I was done it. I wanted to play with it...

I wish this were true.

Darn you Gamespot, for giving me false hopes!

Oh, by the way, we're doing the annual bridge project in calculus right now. We make a bridge using different mathematical curves and lines and we find the volume of it. Sorry, Joel, but your 100% Strong Bad bridge is going down. What we lack in a creative thing we can draw with calculus functions, we make up for by doing a lot more work. How, you may ask? First of all, we were allowed to extend our bridge length from 80m to 1200m, because longer bridges, like the Patullo, span that long. Second, we're making a double decker parabolic bridge with triangular bars going between the two decks (see the part in the middle for what I mean, it's not done yet), and we can't just multiply the number of bars by the same area in order to find the total, making it about 30-40 shapes to integrate in that part alone. Third, we're graphing the ground as its own 3-part function involving a square root, a sine wave and an exponential function. Fourth, we're using a secant function. We don't learn how to integrate those in this class. We're also using a reciprocal function. Fifth, we're using exact values whenever possible. Sixth, putting everything on a central x/y axis, for a reason you'll see in a sec.

Finally, there's one other small detail that I should note:















There are at least 50 functions in that picture, most of them vertical lines with an annoying restriction I have to put in which involves finding the value of different curves of different points, and there are at least 40 of those. I had to find two values per line.

We're going to try and get it printed in the drafting room. The paper will be about 4 meters long.

edit: more progress has been made since that last picture (more diagonal bars), and a line count gives me 109. Score.

w00tness

The Canadian Parents for French at my school is having a free breakfast for French Immersion grads and we're allowed to bring a guest. The person I asked to go with me (my prom date, actually), said she'd come. Yay!

Oh, and band concert in a week. It's gonna be fun. I'm not playing every song this time, like in Café Jazz, but I am in a lot of them, including junior and senior jazz, concert band and choir (playing bass). It's gonna rock. (no pun intended. In fact, there isn't much rock in there anyway.)

Now if only the stuff I ordered would get here...

Note to self: when trying to configure Gmail to work with an email client (such as Apple Mail, because I was using it to send pictures, do it shortly after you've set up the account. Gmail's handy little archiving thing does not work very well when it comes to email programs, because of the huge inbox.

sigh...

It's Friday night right now and I'm bored. I really have no interest in doing anything right now. Actually, there is one thing I have an interest in doing, but I'm too nervous to do it. I won't say anything more, except that it's not anything bad. Seriously.

One thing to take off my wish list

I have the OneUps Volume 1 on order. They're having a liquidation sale right now and all of their CDs are 5 bucks (US) and then 5 bucks shipping (to Canada, at least). I've been wanting this CD for a while, so it's really worth it for me, and I might not have another chance to get it anymore.