When I’m in the mood to pound out awkwardly-strummed renditions of my favorite alt-country songs, (which, lets face it, is just about all the time) I’ve found altcountrytab.com to be just the thing I need. For those of us with poor ears, or that are just too lazy to sit down to figure out a song, (guilty on both counts) this is where it’s at. Let’s see, they’ve got Wilco, Johnny Cash, Whiskeytown, Neko Case, and… Jimmy Eat World?? I suppose that to raise some petty issues about where exactly the genre boundaries of alt-country lie would be to miss the point. The point is, I love this site.
Monthly Archive for December, 2002
Brett’s recent top 25 songs list naturally prompted me to throw together a list of my own. This is what I came up with.
Top 25 Songs in the Entire Universe
(as of right now and in no particular order)
1) “I Really Should Have Gone Out Last Night” – Dirty Three
2) “A Shot in the Arm” – Wilco
3) “Sunflower” – Low
4) “Folsom Prison Blues” – Johnny Cash
5) “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” – The Smiths
6) “If You’re Feeling Sinister” – Belle & Sebastian
7) “Mutiny in Heaven” – The Birthday Party
“Who Are You” – Tom Waits
9) “Seven” – Sunny Day Real Estate
10) “Bled White – Elliott Smith
11) “Let Down” – Radiohead
12) “The Bells” – Pedro the Lion
13) “Letter From an Occupant” – The New Pornographers
14) “Savory” – Jawbox
15) “Kiss Off” – Violent Femmes
16) “The City” – The Dismemberment Plan
17) “Alison” – Elvis Costello
18) “I See a Darkness” – Bonnie Prince Billy
19) “Suedehead” – Morrissey
20) “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” – Weezer
21) “I Drive a Lot” – Starflyer59
22) “Break” – Fugazi
23) “Lovesong” – The Cure
24) “Paranoid” – Black Sabbath
25) “Hyper-ballad” – Bjork
Of course, all standard disclaimers apply. At any given moment there are so many other songs that could have easily been on this list, but I suppose that’s always implicit in lists like these.
Remember that thing I said the one time about wanting to be a software engineer? Scratch that. I wanna be in a Smiths cover band.
Time for some backstory, a little exposition if you will. In my entire life there have only been two things that I wanted to do for a living. Until I was thirteen, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Around the age of thirteen I began to realize two things. One was that I really wasn’t Air Force material and the other was that I really really liked making computers do things. In fact, I realized that there really wasn’t much of a limit at all on the kinds of things you could get a computer to do if you knew the right way to tell it. It was then that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life building software. (It was probably also then that I guaranteed myself four years of high school without a single date, but that’s beside the point). So let’s jump forward a few years. I’ve graduated from college with a degree in Computer Science. I got good grades and I’ve got a pretty solid resume. Theoretically, I should have all the things I need to convince someone to let me build software for them. And yet at this point, I’m something like 0/13 on my job offers to interviews ratio. That’s right, I heard back from Cerner a couple days ago and they decided to pass on me. It’s frustrating, and in the case of Cerner, more than a little discouraging. When I read the news from them, I kind of felt like all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs. I really wanted to work for them, and I can’t figure out what I did to convince them that I wasn’t right for them. For that matter, I’d like to know what I must be doing wrong in all my interviews. I don’t think I’m entirely without a personality or any kind of conversation skills but I can’t seem to convince anyone that all I really want to do is build good software and that I’d be qualified to do it well. At this point, it’s all I really think about anymore (as a quick check of my recent posts will clearly show). I’m trying not to let this get me down too much, but all the same it’s something I’d really like to get behind me.
Back from my interview with Cerner. Kansas City was actually really nice, and I had a great time. It was also much less stressful than I thought it would be. Most of the time it seemed like Cerner was trying to impress the recruits as much as we were trying to impress them. If that was the case, it worked because I was really impressed with Cerner and I think I’d really like to work for them.
Alright, this is it. My only suit folded up as neatly as possible in my dad’s old garment bag? Check. Printed out my travel documents? Check. Sudafed and tissues to stop this cold from turning my head into a giant exploding ball of snot? Check. Song title related to trip in name only frozen in Winamp for the duration. Check. Wired nerves? Double check. I’m off to the airport way too early tomorrow morning to see what these new-fangled homeland security airport measures are all about. With any luck I’ll be on my flight at 10:15 and off to lovely, tropical Kansas City for my interview on Tuesday.
Elsewhere