Archive for November, 2007

8 Year-old Genius Inventors

Posted 06 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Fun

These kids made me smile. I came across this on digg.com this afternoon. I sure could have used a pair of these growing up.

Moving Music

Posted 04 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Blogs, Friends, Fun, Jesus, music, Spirituality

So I’m stealing this from Amy, check out her blog for the original post.

Music can have a strong emotional pull on me – invoking happiness or sadness, and not always related to a past experience. As I thought over my favorite artists I realized the ones a top the list have the strongest grip over me – Derek Webb, Counting Crows, Damien Rice, Ray LaMontagne, to name a few.

Sometimes a song in it’s completeness – music, lyrics, vocals – draws out a feeling of joy. For me, worship music often follows this line, but as my previous post showed, fun ska or punk music can do it too. Other songs just make me want to cry. Here are a couple of those types:

“Fix You” by Coldplay – Coldplay is an interesting band for me, the vocals usually pull me down but the guitar and drums make me want to move and sway which makes me smile. This song though just makes me teary.

“Colorblind” by Counting Crows – I’m a sap for a sad piano song, well any piano song I guess, but the start to this song causes emotion to well up and my eyes to fill. Then the violin sets in and I’m gone. This song is probably the most consistent tear invoker on the list.

“The Blowers Daughter” by Damien Rice – Soaked in pain, you can hear the hurt in Damien’s voice and it moves my heart to morn with him.

“Black eye” by Jeff Tweedy – This one doesn’t always get me, but on days when I feel alone and distant from God, forgetting his grace and love, this song reminds me of all the walls I’ve constructed and how good they are at isolating me.

“Let that be enough” by Switchfoot – So worshipful, so prayerful, it centers me on God and illuminates ways I’ve chosen my way instead of His. It strips me down to a simple child like faith and puts me back together.

This was a lot of fun for me, what songs make you want to cry. Or if you like, what songs make you joyful?

Just For Fun – Lots of Music

Posted 02 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Blogs, Friends, Fun, music

Last night Josh put on some Five Iron Frenzy songs at the haus – I haven’t listened to FIF in like a thousand yesterdays. Reese Rooper has been tickling my ears as I smile remembering concerts of the high school and early college years.

Tonight I’m going to hear my roommate and good friend Matt Wondra play some sweet tunes at a coffee house near ISU. Ben, Amy and I are driving over together. Check out Matt’s MySpace page to get some samples of his superpowers.

I used my emusic monthly quota to download Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (because I’ve respected Spoon for a while but don’t own any of their stuff) and Josh Garrels – Over Oceans (under Josh’s recommendation). Both albums are super sweet.

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Now playing: Five Iron Frenzy – Dandelions
via FoxyTunes

Halloween funness

Posted 01 Nov 2007 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun

So yesterday was Halloween. Ben Chase, Matt Wondra and I had initially planned on doing a group costume for a party a couple friends were hosting, Matt had to cancel do to some prior commitments though. Ben and I almost didn’t go to the party cause our costume wouldn’t quite work-out, also because neither of us really felt in the party mood. I’m glad I went though, it was a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of Ben and I. Ben was Shadrack, Matt was gonna be Meshack and I was One Bad Amigo. So we were Shadrack, Meshack and One Bad Amigo 🙂 We thought that was clever and pretty funny.