For you gamers out there, AND for those who don't, here's my take on why game music resonates so well with us.

I perceive that people are much more interested in shooting people in a game then playing through a story.  Even Modern Warfare 3, all the Call of Duty games, and Battlefield games aren't played for the story.  They are played for the fast-paced multiplayer aspect.  While there is some strategy and eye hand coordination involved, it is pretty mindless.  You die, respawn, and continue to rack up kills.  You don't need great music for this.

The olden days of 8-bit Nintendo games were something else altogether.  True, there were similar aspects of dying and the starting again, but this was done with various save points.  If you died midway through something, you had to start over and do it again from the last save point, which can be incredibly frustrating.  As opposed to multiplayer first person shooters (FPS), games used to have more story involved.  Yes, you also had to be eye-hand coordinated (in the case of 8-bit Nintendo, a 4-way directional pad and two buttons), but you played your way through a story, even if it involved shooting something. 

Where there is good story, there is also be the best music and fondest memories.

People recognize and enjoy the Original Zelda music because they had to explore a world, save a princess (doesn't it seem like most stories involve saving a princess, the world, or universe?).  Countless hours were spent burning bushes to see if it revealed a hidden stairwell.  And yes....you died numerous time. 

But here's the difference between dying in a FPS and a story based game.  In a FPS, death doesn't really matter.  Sure, you'll tick off a bunch of people on your "team" if die too much, but death is just an means to continue the game.  In a game like Zelda, Castlevania, Dragon Warrior, Ninja Gaiden, or Guardian Legend (one of Nintendo's greatest heroines) death entails a finality to part of the story.  You did not save the princess, the universe, or defeat evil.  You hated dying because stopping there ended the story in failure.  In spending the time to play through a story, you became part of it.  Such a personal investment was accompanied by great music.  In fact playing the music often recalls the best memories of fighting through adversity to reach a goal.  Whether this was to defeat Dr. Wily, Dracula, or to save Zelda or the universe, the music was what made it memorable.

Next time you play a game with story, pay attention to the music.  It's done for a purpose.  Sometimes it's a march, a fugue, or opera.  Whatever the case.  Enjoy it and get back to playing stories!

Hey all,

Today, I'm going to tell you the top songs that I seem to repeatedly listen to.  Nothing special....unless I start to analyze why I seem to be listening to these songs. 

1) Airplanes Part 1 (B.o.B.)

2) By Your Side (Tenth Avenue North)

3) Pirates of the Caribbean (Epica)

4) This is Us (Backstreet Boys)

5) Wheels of Fortune (Doobie Brothers)

6) Metal Gear: Sons of Liberty (London Philharmonic)

7) Jesus Left Chicago (ZZ Top)

8) I Love You More Than You Know (Blood Sweat and Tears)

9) Get Your Way (Jamie Cullum)

10) Reunion and Finale (Randy Edelman, Gettysburg Soundtrack)

11) Hallelujah (Rufus Wainwright)

12) On Parole/The Bishop (Les Miserables 10th Anniversary)

13) Iced Over (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Live at Carnegie Hall)

14) Outro (Slide Show Baby)

15) The Search is Over (Rock of Ages Soundtrack)

On another note, My Samsung P2 from 5 years ago or so has finally decided to crap out on me....well, the input jack.  It's become....loose, so that the inconsistent connection creates static and muffled sound.  Time to find a new mp3 player!

Greetings!

I know that all of you are waiting for the second part to my quantum physics and dating personalities, but I have put that on hold for a bit.

I just wanted to relay this particular experience the other day while I was walking back home from work.  It was a darkening night, with clouds, but not entirely blanketing the sky.  You could still see levels of blue that shaded toward indigo lower on the horizon.  People were still out, making their own ways home, and the from time to time I heard the rattling of wheels on the CTA and the rumble of the bus as it took off.  I was listening to a song by Slide Show Baby called "Outro."  It's the very last song on the self titled album.

As I walked home, I thought about my life in general.  I must admit that this was precipitated by a recent conversation I had over lunch, but that night, I had that "oceanic" feeling of peace wash over me as I walked home to the music.  It was a divine moment where I took in all that was going around with unusual detail, as if I was looking at the world from a 3rd person's first person view.  It was the curious sensation that I was watching myself, kinda like John Malkovich.  The music was magical.  It just fit with everything that was going around me.  The people walking by, the cars zooming past, the wind blowing past in various speeds.....the street lights as the glow yellow-orange in overhead in rows against the sky.  Surreal.

The song has a 3/4 pattern, but I found myself walking in regular step.  Now, you music folks will know that walking in 3/4 is awkward.  You can't fit a 3/4 pattern well with a two-step, but if you stretch it to a 6/8, you can do a 3 on 2 that works.  It was exactly like playing Fantaisie-Impromptu by Chopin.  Well, perhaps it didn't work quite like that, but I found myself walking as I would normally walk, at a somewhat brisk pace.   

What was going on in my mind?  Well.  I kept thinking that I'll never get everything I want in life, and it's not as if there is some quantifiable goal, thing, or number that once possessed will make me feel complete.  There will always be more.  There will always be things which I cannot have no matter how much I want it....be it a career, fitness, intelligence, or even love.  The key for me is not to get bogged down with the disappointment of not reaching any of those "goals."  In fact, some may have to be given up so that other possibilities may arise.  Does this mean that I will give up on fitness in favor or intelligence?  A career over love?  It might come to that, but I tend to think in parallel for my whole self rather than serial when it comes to overarching categories.  Career, fitness, intelligence and love are all separate from each other.  Within the category though is a serial progression.  As examples: I've had a serial progression in careers, and for those that have been more experienced in relationships than I, a serial progression of significant others.  Since it is a progression I am talking about here, decisions are made where one thing is given up in favor of another.  

I find myself in a quandary over all these parallel circuits because each must undergo significant change in the coming year. 

Why worry about these things you may be asking me?  Perhaps it's because I've reached a certain age, but my life is certainly different than I thought it would be.  Who knows, perhaps for the better?  To quote from the move The Rookie (with Dennis Quaid):  There are some things in life that you want to do, but then there are things in life that you were meant to do."  I sometimes wonder if I'm doing doing what I'm meant to be doing.  All that balancing of circuits with the finite amount of energy that I have must result in an ordered life right?  Or is life just pure chaos determined by random chance?  At this point I think that despite chance encounter, I derive meaning from it.  Moreover, I choose to direct my life through chance.  I work with what is presented in front of me.

A bus zoomed past as the song ended, and it was fitting that I didn't get on it.  There have been many buses in life that I haven't gotten on, and many that I've had to exit prematurely.  In the end though, I still have myself with the buses that I have taken.  Why get hung up on the buses that I've missed?  In this case, life is the journey, not the stops along the way.

Currently Slide Show Baby By Slide Show Baby "Outro" see related

Greetings viewers....the few that I have left.  True, I always say this and always fail, but I will try to be more up to date with my blogs.  I know, you've all been sooo disappointed by my lack of entries and wish that I had a twitter account.  Sadly, a twitter account is something I will probably never get.  Now, onto the topic of the day.

I was recently in conversation with some friends of mine about Schrodinger's Cat.  I had to write a paper on Judaism and Physics and included my rudimentary understanding of quantum physics.  It then dawned on me that a lot of people carry about their relationships quantum terms.  How is this you say?  Surely you jest?  Well, let's see.  This can work for either sex.  Bear with me here.

First, Schrodinger's Cat.  Basically this scenario places a cat in a box where after one hour there is a 50% chance that it will be dead.  The Copenhagen interpretation states that until the observer actually looks in the box (the collapsing effect), the cat is in a state of both dead AND alive.  Schrodinger proposed this cat paradox as a critique of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics.  In reality, of course we "know" that the cat is either dead or alive after one hour without ever having opened the box.  The cat is not in some "smeared" state of dead and alive. 

Taken to relationships, I would think that most people go into relationships with Schrodinger's interpretation.  There are boyfriend/girlfriend (BF/GF) materials in people that we consider as potentials.  This is an assumption that we make, a probability, but at a given moment they are either BF/GF or not.  They do not exists in a "smeared" state.  Even after time has past, and a switch has been made, they are one or the other, not both.  It's like looking at the Wittgenstein picture of the rabbit-duck.  When you look at it, it is either a duck or a rabbit, but never both at the same time.  Of course this also presumes that you know what a duck and a rabbit is.  The point of dating here is to test whether someone is or isn't a BF/GF, or have that material.

For others however, these people seem to approach their relationships from the Copenhagen point of view.  The potential is there all the time, but BF/GF exists in a "smeared" state.  A person could be BF/GF material at any time, but becomes so only after being "observed" as being so.  This is kinda like the whole being friends until something clicks scenario.  These people don't really date, but "hangout" more.

Ok....so this is it for now....I'll get deeper in my next blog.

Hello all,

This is a long post in coming.  No, it's not the one where I critique Jerry Coyne's book Why Evolution is True.  That must wait until I have more time, though...it's approaching a year since he actually met with some people at the Chicago Temple.

No, what is on my mind other than graduate school is homelessness.

My Homelessness...

True, it's a far cry from actual homeless people on the streets.  After all, I have a warm place to stay and comforts that they do not have.  But, is a place to stay at night (even temporary) what we call home?  Is it what I call home? Is home where I spend most of my time?  Is home where my heart is?  Is home a particular community?  Is home a spiritual home?  What does home mean to me?

If it's a merely a cozy place to live, then home is not my physical place of residence.  I don't LIVE there....unless I choose to vicariously live through other people's digital lives.  No, I LIVE my life outside of the home.  I don't even spend most of my time physically there.  It's a place for me to crash after long nights of school and work.  Let's face it, we only LIVE our lives in our waking moments unless you believe we are in the Matrix.  Depressing as it may sound, when I say I'm going home, it's so that I can pass into oblivion before I start the cycle again.  This can't be what I mean by home.

If home is where the heart is, then I carry it wherever I go right?  This sounds pretty good, until I realize that this concept of home means to forever wander where the heart leads.  There is an element of emptiness that constantly needs to filled by something, be it life goals or love (in this case I mean that special someone).  What if you have never reached goals in life?  Had to give up on them?  What if there has been that special someone yet?  Of course, here I over romanticize.  I don't think you need to have someone "complete" you, but there are days when you look around and feel a bit empty.  The grass indeed greener on the other side, even if I know that going there won't provide you anymore sense of contentment than where I currently am.  Thus, the heart is never full at anytime to permanently call it home even though I carry it with me all the time.  It is no place to find comfort, unless you find emptiness such a source.  It is always searching for something else.

Home then, is perhaps the people with whom we associate.  We have our work communities, our church communities, our social communities.  This too however is dissatisfying.  The home is a composite.  It is by nature fragmented and kept together by sheer will and physical effort.  Heaven knows I have tried to keep in contact with all of my communities, but invariably choices have to be made as to which ones are important and which ones have to be temporarily suspended.  Home here, is determined externally, so is not intrinsic to myself.  At best, I have "homes" but not a home.  Perhaps this is a good thing because then I can hop from one to another, finding sources of comfort, permanence, and belonging.  This like the heart however, is a wanderer, searching for something else and can only work at the expense of giving up on self contained concepts of home.  Furthermore, this particular home concept is only as good as the communities themselves. 

Being a seminarian of course prompts the question.  What about God as home?  Well what of God?  If seminary has taught me anything, God-talk is exceedingly complex and frustrating.  Because of the fear of creating idols, no concept of God is truly God.....well....except for Jesus...when He was around.  Yes, I am a Christian so I confess a Trinitarian concept of God, and I'm beginning to understand what the Trinity is and how the Trinity works.   But.   Given the contextual nature of theology and the various Trinitarian concepts out there, be it Latin, Asian, African, which one is the "right" one?  Suppose all of them are and thus the mysteriousness of God is because of God's fecundity.  It is not that God is incomprehensible because of some unknowable quality....the Kantian noumena.  Again, dissatisfying because then it seems that whatever God-talk we have is at best is only symbolic and thus while in Tillich's terms participates in the divine, is not the divine itself.  There appears to be no truly genuine way describing God without making God...not God.  God as home then....doesn't appear to be a home if it is something that I can never get to until after death.

So what is home to me?  The fact that this post is titled the wandering soul suggests that I have no concept of home.  I am always emigrating somewhere.  I am always an immigrant in someone's life.  The transitory nature of home however dissatisfied I may be with it, is probably the best I concept I have.  There is a need for permanence, belonging, comfort, and my soul seeks after it.  Does this mean that I'm depressed, sad, and lonely?  Far from it.  I am genuinely happy, just not complacent.  To be completely at home somewhere means to me that I have become complacent with life....with LIVING.  Thus home is a dynamic concept.  It takes the fragmented, transitory concepts of home, combines it with hope, and then permanently makes it a part of my self identity.  Home then is permanently within me, but I am never...at home.

So....time has had its effect on this blog again.  Well, here is something for a change of pace.  A headphone review!  The Bose IE2 ($99; pictured right) vs. the Klipsch S4 ($65; pictured left). As a test songs I used Tower of Power's What is Hip, Backstreet Boys' This is Us, Doobie Brothers' Long Train Runnin', Escala's version of Requiem for a Tower, and Amici Forever's Canto Alla Vita.  The mp3 player used was the Samsung P2.

So I've been using the Bose IE2 for some time now and find them adequately perform.  These are not noise canceling headphones.  Rather, they sit in the bowl or your ear and channel sound through silicone buds.  This makes for a comfortable fit, and unlike the previous model, the buds have a curved triangular tip that wedges up on the middle part of your outer ear.  This keeps the buds in place during a workout.  I have used them during 10 mile skates and rarely had to adjust them.  They also allowed the ambient noise to filter which in the case of skating about is probably safer.  The buds themselves come in three sizes, S, M, L.  I found that for my left ear I need the L while my right needed the M.  Overall, these buds are very comfortable and you can listen to music for extended periods of time without feeling uncomfortable.

As for the sound, I noticed a lot more high end then usual which was a bit startling.  At times the treble seemed to be just too much, which took away from the bass of the music.  Nevertheless you could hear much more detail.  Cymbals and high hats were clear and crisp, and the bass was thumping per usual of Bose products.  Coupled with the P2 player, the sound was fantastic. 

Comparatively, the Klipsh's S4 are in-ear noise canceling headphones.  For these to work right, a proper seal needs to take place between the buds and the ear canal.  I took these on a 10 mile skate and was surprised to find that the held in place very well.  They did a good job of noise canceling.  In fact I had to turn down the volume to lower levels than I had with the IE2 headphones.  However, during my skate I found the cord to thump annoying against my shirt.  I could hear the beating of the chord as I took each skating stride.  I can only imagine what this would be like if I was running.  I also found the S4s to be much more intrusive.  I had to take them out because they became uncomfortable after awhile.  The buds do come in the same three sizes, but I could not find the same seal with the M or S buds.  Because I felt uncomfortable with the L buds, I switched to the M ones for a while, but because they didn't seal as well as the L ones, they allowed as much ambient sound in as the IE2s.

This is problematic because the bass sound of the S4s depends on that seal and without it falls off dramatically, which was not the case with the IE2s.  Unfortunately, the seal also "muddles" the sound, since there is some "bone conduction," and becomes quite bothersome....on top of the sound of the chord (which btw has bad chord management and feels flimsy) tugging on the ears or tapping on the shirt.   However, in a quiet room, the S4s did a fantastic job of reproducing sound and detail, just as good or even better than the IE2s.  I would venture to say that the deepest bass and the highest treble were found in the S4s, but you had to have the right listening environment to be able to appreciate it.

My recommendation?  If you are going to be active with them, I would spend the extra money on the IE2s.  The combination of sound quality and comfort justifies the price premium.  If however, you want an indoor pair the cheaper S4s are a good alternative.

I've written about this before and have talked to people about it.  But I don't feel I can come to grips with how I'm starting to like country music.  It has actually been annoying enough for me to comb through my music library to try to find the source of what makes country music that much appealing to me than before....and I'm failing at it.  What precipitated this enough for a blog post?  Lately I've been listening to Bon Jovi's single What Do You Got?, and it is a great song.  Why do I find it so appealing though?  Lyrics are one thing, but the music.....that's where I think the differences lie.  Well, of course it is, but what makes country music "country?"  The twang?  The harmonization?  The instrumentation?  The subject matter?  Let's be clear.  There is the difference between old country and new country.  The new country is more rock than country, so that's probably the main reason why it has more appeal, but what makes the designation country different from "country?"

Let's take a look at his album Lost Highways.  Yes, listening to Summertime and Everybody's Broken definitely tells me that What Do You Got is at least country influenced.  Switch to the album Have a Nice Day.  Bell of Freedom, which is clearly in the "rock" section, sounds like it has similar qualities to What do you Got.  Switch to the Crossroads "Greatest hits" album.  All the power ballads sound the similar.  Always, Bed of Rose, I'll be There For You....all classified as rock.  They all have vocal harmonization, stringed instrumentation, and a certain twanginess.  However, none of these songs are country!

Is it the type of vocal harmony?  Well, it certainly isn't a musical type.  Listen to Wanted Dead or Alive on the Rock of Ages musical soundtrack...that goes too far.  Backstreet Boys?  Oddly enough kinda....Listen to the songs I Still...and Safest Place to Hide on the Nevergone album...the "rock" album for BB.  The Doobie Brothers and Boston also use a lot of vocal harmonization, clearly Classic Rock.  Sample Listen to the Music, Jesus is Alright, Black Water (the most country sounding...), though to be honest, Boston might be pushing it a bit with harmonic.....analysis.  Doobie Brothers also has similar instrumentation. 

And then it dawned on me.  Country Rock essentially puts all the various pieces of musical genre into one.  It takes the rock, the vocal harmony, the strings, even organ and piano into one.  And THAT is what appears to be bothering me.  You would think that combining everything into one super genre would be good.....but for some reason I'm holding back.  Perhaps it is because combining everything makes the individual genres lose their distinctiveness?  (Oh...History of Christianity I flashback....sorry).  I don't know.  I'll let this stew a bit and see what results.  In the meantime, I have some Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tower of Power, and Paramore to tide me over and break the monotony of Country Rock.

This word is pretty much the description of what's been going on for the past 3 months or so.  I decided to write on it after experiencing the a cold winter night not sufficiently wrapped up with blankets before going to bed.  I woke up in the middle of the night shivering a bit.  I wasn't exactly asleep, but at the same time I wasn't awake either.  Sound pretty horrible right?  Especially after really waking up the next morning knowing that you did not get a restful night of sleep.

At the same time, this is how I think about God and Christianity in general.  Perhaps this is the scientist talking, but there's a certain level of uncomfortable that is needed for me to grow, that is a selective pressure.  Too often I get comfortable with tradition, not that it is a bad thing, but being comfortable does not prompt me to new action.  That said, I don't want to be too uncomfortable.  Misery only discourages growth.  The trick then is to find that right level of being uncomfortable, but not forced.  It's not like you need to experience a little bit of wrong before you can be right.  Rather, a recognition that there is a little something more to a story than what appears on the surface.  And THAT is worth digging into.  How does what feels uncomfortable define.....or redefine....what you believe.

Perhaps the word uncomfortable is a bit negative.  Imagine this.  You are climbing a wall and you see a hand hold that is just beyond your reach to get a really good grip.  But it's there....if only you had a centimeter or two to your fingers.    You can either jump at it risking the stability you have in your footholds, or take a more patient approach.  Are there any other footholds nearby?  Can you step up and reach it at the same time?  Or are you stuck in the footholds you have.  Chances are that you only really need to jump as a last resort.  There are other ways to get to that hold....if that's what you really need.  For me, the courage is to step and reach at the same time.  Many a times I've seen that hold, but was too comfortable with the footholds that I already had.  All I had to do was let go of one of my footholds, trust that my one foot would hold my weight, and step up to reach the next hold.  The times I've done it, the feeling was awesome.  Yes, there was a precarious moment when my body did not feel balanced.  My ears were telling me that not everything is as it should be.  But then I reached that hold, got a new foothold, and everything was stable again (It also helps to have a good belayer too).

Christianity it not all about Scripture and Tradition.  It is also about Experience and Reason.  True, experience and reason can be faulty, but without it Christianity is static....and that is what I see as part of the problem and the reason for Christianity's decline in Europe and the United States.  Christianity has been, should be, and will be dynamic.  It will always evolve.  Personally, my concepts of God are always evolving.....slowly even...an that is a result of being "uncomfortable."  Does that mean I'm a liberal Christian?  No....I don't think so....I'm just not willing to be constrained by a theology that holes itself up in Scripture and Tradition.  I recognize its value, but in a time when such views increasingly encourage exclusivity rather than openness creates a the tension that turns people away from the Church.....that what I know about God is the right and only way to think about God.  Well.....experience should tell you otherwise.  Scripture should tell you otherwise.  Reason should tell you otherwise. 

Hello good people.

My last entry was sometime in Feb.  That is a long time.  I've decided to resurrect this blog, and as countless times before keep up with it.  I've been meaning to really because I've had so much to say, but life has gotten in the way.  Things like getting a degree, applying for MORE school, and now school itself.  Well, time for some reflection (as if I don't do this enough already).

I am a generalist.  I am no authoritative source on anything. Jack of all trades but master of none.......and I like that.  It's what allows me to be interdisciplinary, flexible, adaptable, which has essentially describes my entire life, and perhaps why I loved my liberal arts education.  Minor Myers Jr. would be proud I think.  The question is, what place in society does such a person have?  At best, such people lie between extremes of knowledge.  They occupy the middle ground between groups of people who are the experts in their fields.  At worse, they are ill-qualified to be authoritative figures.  Is there a market for such people, or will what I like be irrelevant in a society that places value on people who are deemed experts?

I suppose it is a matter of balance.  I wonder what a society would be like if there were fewer experts and more generalists?  Would we get more things done?  Instead of knowing all there is about one particular subject, perhaps know a lot about 3 subjects?  Well, maybe not necessarily equally, but to a level where a person would be proficient, skillful, and be able to contribute to society.  Would education be viewed in a different way then, where we wouldn't be pigeon holed into one particular profession that determines what is and should be important for the rest of our lives?  I think, maybe, if we were more multifaceted, we would make better neighbors.  We would genuinely be interested in what other people do, and perhaps see....more purpose in what we do.  

Eh, so much for changing the world.  Now for a bit of theology, since that's what I do nowadays.  I looked out the window on the 14th floor of my building to see the gridded streets of Chicago.  The cars were busy making traffic, like little ants, doing what they do...And I let out a big sigh.  I wondered, what does God see?  Does he see a world where everything was good, or does He shake his head, seeing a fallen creation?  Is He on the verge of wiping creation out and starting over, shaking his fists in the air as if there was someone else to blame for all that is wrong in the world?  The problem with a God outside time, One that sees time all at once, is that the end is also the beginning.  To know all that will happen must necessarily create restraints on what and how things can be made, which is disconcerting if the world is supposed to be the way it is now...that it IS the best possible world.  Here we have a closed system, one that limits freedom, constrains diversity, and is overall rigid.

I cannot imagine creation like that.  More on this in another blog.

It's interesting how memories are recalled, and how life events come together.  This past weekend was one of those trips back in time.  I haven't skied in 5 or 6 years, but with a cadre of graduate students, I hit the slopes last Saturday.  It took me a bit to remember how to ski, but once acclimated, I was fine.  I skidded once on a patch of ice, but did fall otherwise.  I even had the familiar motion sickness towards the end of the day.

But that's not what struck me this weekend.  It's been more than 10 years since I had been in northwestern Illinois, the place where I spent early teen life.  My town was pretty much all on one street.  The Post Office, the gas station, the grocery store, the bank, and the church...  I drove through a lot of the of those towns Friday night.  I couldn't help but smile as I drove through at 30 mph.  I played little league in most of these places.  P and 2B, and  little bit of CF. 

Winding through curvy roads up and down hills in the dark brought back another memory.  Shortly after coming back from the National Young Leaders Conference I kept in contact with a certain girl.  A number of times I made the trip out to small town USA to visit her.  Dark roads.  Winding roads.  And flicking the high beam on my headlights in my parents Toyota Corolla, driving.  Driving through a starry night, away from all the light pollution of the big city.  All precious moments.  Kinda fitting that the last time I saw her, I gave her a precious moment figurine.  Interestingly enough, I located my old NYLC binder that I saved in a closet at my parents place.  Wonder what the rest of the Lincoln group is up to now a days?

The final memory that comes to mind is where I went to Junior High School.  The town where I played in a bowling league.  The town where I had my first night out after a canceled 8th grade dance.  The town 40 minutes away on a school bus.  Gone are those days.  I wish I had time to stop by and see the changes 10 years may have brought, but I didn't have time, so I drove past, just like the rest of the fleeting memories for the night.  Besides, I doubt much has really changed.