Has anyone else seen the date “July 23th” anywhere? I saw it on a certificate that my friend got at XC camp, and I also saw it on asofterworld and now am seeing it all over the place! What is the deal?

While searching for ways to increase the range of my new iTrip, I ran across an interesting post that claims that Apple will be unveiling a new breed of iPod on Monday. Sounds exciting.

I am leaving for cross country camp tomorrow morning until Friday afternoon. I am looking forward to running myself to death. It will be loads of fun.

On another note, I saw Anchorman today. I thought that it was an extremely funny movie. Has anyone else that has seen Will Ferrel screaming in a phone booth with a fake moustache thought that he looks a lot like Scott Sanders? If I am able to get a picture of that part in the movie I will try and show everyone the comparison.

It’s a couple days before I leave for the grand U S of A, and I figured I would share a gem of the internet I discovered while I was here. Well, discovered lends me too much credit. I shamelessly stole this addy from my Korean host’s bookmark list when he wasn’t looking.

The site is www.bugs.co.kr

I obviously haven’t had the chance to try it out from the states, so I don’t know if it’s banned or restricted. But I have to say it’s quite incredible. The site is similar to Amazon.com. You can search for artists and look up their songs, discography, album pics, ect. Unlike Amazon, which will allow you to preview perhaps 10s of select tracks, you can usually listen to the whole album. For free. In a winamp-ish minibrowser window. If you have an account with the site you can even save tracks to a custom playlist. What it boils down to is that you don’t need to own a single CD, just an internet connection and IE (it won’t work in mozilla). I can’t vouch for the audio quality; I’ve been listening with cheapy headphones on my laptop.

So provided you can connect to the site, you will see a smattering of Korean. Actually, you’ll probably see a bunch of “???” or ASCII characters since I doubt you’ll even have Korean installed on your computer. No matter though, simply click “Music” at the top menu, then fill in the band or track name you want to search for in the (only) text box. I’ll not insult your intelligence any further; you should be able to get the band playing in your ears in no time from there. If the audio icons next to the tracks are greyed out, then they’ve been told to stop offering those songs. Some of the most popular bands (U2) will have all of their albums greyed out, but other, more obscure bands may be fully available for listening. Don’t try to download the music, that option isn’t offered. Though I suspect that the tracks are placed on the computer somewhere…

There’s a rumor that this site will start requiring a paid membership in the near future (2-3 months) so get your headphones on now. I’ve found this is a great way to preview bands you’d never have had the monetary guts to risk earlier. But of course, if you like something, buy the CD. Artists get paid too little as it is…

I’m done here.

Last week I was told that one of my best friends fell off a roof while he was painting for his summer job and cracked his head open. He was airlifted so Seattle and was preparing for operation the next day. He couldn’t feel anything below his chest and the doctors told him that he had a 50% chance of being paralyzed. I heard all that before I went to church camp. Now I had a pretty good time at camp and the realism of the injury hadn’t really set in yet. We were all told at camp that when we got back home after experiencing the spiritual high at camp that we would be slammed with problems and stuff bringing you down as soon as you got home. Well, that was true. When I got back I heard that after the operation he was paralyzed from the chest down and the doctors don‚Äôt think that he will ever walk again. If you have any spare time in your day maybe you could just stop for a second and put in a good word for Nate Higgins with God, Buddha, the Irish or who ever you think can give him the support that he will need to get through this. Thanks.

It all started in Barnes & Noble with a killer iPod playlist. And I was listening to the same songs all day long. Now here they are for your enjoyment. Partake!

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 7

01: Iron & Wine - “Sodom, South Georgia”

02: Alaska - “Rust and Cyanide”

03: Howie Day - “At the Stars”

04: Neutral Milk Hotel - “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”

05: Neutral Milk Hotel - “The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1″

06: Rilo Kiley - “Papillon”

07: The Decemberists - “California One”

08: Bright Eyes - “Nothing Gets Crossed Out”

09: Ben Folds - “Songs of Love”

[42 MB MP3 :: 45 Minutes]

Check it out!

Update:
Well looking at the site statistics it seems that I can’t trick most of the readers into going to my site and staying there. More than half of the readers visiting the “Aqquaintance Tree” story thing realize where they have ended up and drop out before the end. So here is the final version of the “Aqquaintance Tree” you lazy bilge rats.

I feel like a pirate!