Team

My team's annual year-end banquet and awards ceremony took place last night. As a senior, it was my last. To be totally honest, it made me very sad. It really accentuates the end of my college career. I don't want it to end.

I know I'm moping, but it isn't like I don't have a good reason. I've tried my hardest to use my time in college as best as I can. I've tried to have as much fun as I could, to leave this place without any regrets. The regrets that I already have, I've tried to rectify. For the most part, I've been successful. I don't think it's possible to move through life without those 'should haves' and 'would haves'. Do I have more than most? Maybe. Thinking about it makes me very sad, so I try to avoid the subject.

Back to the swim team banquet. Swimming has been such an integral part of my life for so long. I lived and breathed the sport for so long. These past two years, though, with these guys, on this team... they have been fantastic. They are such a dynamic, fun group of people. They work hard, they play hard, and they drink even harder. And I'm going to miss that. I've really come to identify myself with them - I am a swimmer. I am a member of a team. Being a member of a team, especially one so closely-knit as this one, is an incredible feeling. We're like family, our bonds forged with chlorine and alcohol.

One of the younger members of the team was nice enough to put together a photo-retrospective of the past few years. It was nice to remember some of those great times. There are so many characters, so many friends, that I hope to never forget. I'm going to miss them. I'm going to miss that feeling, that comaraderie. I'm going to miss working hard to push others to excel. Will life ever be this much fun again? I'm sure I'll find something to fill that void - I'll keep in shape, I'll focus my energies elsewhere - but it'll never feel the same.

Pearl Jam; The Rise and Fall of

The early 90's. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was an epoch of belief and incredulity, it was the era most of us affectionately call 'Grunge'. So many good bands sprouted up in this era - Silverchair, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and, of course, Pearl Jam.

To me, Pearl Jam's first three albums, Ten, Versus and Vitalogy, are staples of the genre. Do you remember the first time you heard Even Flow? Sure, it's been played and played again on every rock radio in the U.S. - and probably around the rest of the world, too. It's been played so often that I sometimes forget to listen to it. I've heard it so many times that I no longer acknowledge how vibrant the recording is and how youthful Eddie Vedder and company sound. They were violent, energetic, and angry at the world. Pearl Jam was a force to be reckoned with in those early years.

A few years later, the guys from Pearl Jam released another good record, Yield. Grunge was dead or dying - the band was forced to adapt. Yield was a triumph in may respects. Pearl Jam managed to bridge the gap, becoming one of the most excellent alternative rock acts of the decade. Even more surprising, though - they were still together! Few other grunge bands could make that claim in 1998.

Then the proverbial shit hit the hypothetical fan. I don't know what changed, but Pearl Jam started to feel old. Something about their music seemed stodgy. It sounded forced, muddled, boring. Binaural was absolutely forgettable; Riot Act was just plain bad.

Now we have a new album from these aging rockers. It's self-titled. The cover art is among the lamest I've ever seen. Yes, that's an avocado. And playing the thing is like listening to five guys crush empty cardboard boxes with baseball bats. It just sounds bad.

There's not a single memorable riff on the entire album. Eddie Vedder's once distinctive, quavering cry has turned into a mangled, unintelligable whine. They're trying to market this album as a 'comeback' album. Unfortunately, I don't see it. I don't agree with any of the mainstream reviewers who like this disc. It might be Pearl Jam, but it's not the Pearl Jam I want to hear. This album makes me want to go back to 1993 and listen to Versus a few more times. It honestly makes me sad - these guys just can't do it any more.

I'm sure this album will get just enough acclaim to keep the band going steady for a few more years. I wish they'd just stop. I'm sure they'll sell a billion copies, too, to all the same nostalgic Gen-X'ers that miss the old Pearl Jam. And I'm sure a lot of you will like this album... I just wish I could listen to it without cringing, you know?

Gary Lightbody

This guy didn't always annoy me. In fact, I was a huge fan of Snow Patrol's first major-label release. There were a lot of really fantastic songs on that record. I don't mind that side project he worked on a few years ago, either. Sure, the Reindeer Section sounds like a folkier Snow Patrol, but I guess that's what you get when you lump every Scottish indie musician together in a studio and record what happens.

There are actually only two things about Gary Lightbody that actually annoy me. The first is his name. I'm fine with 'Gary'; that's a normal name. I've come to know my fair share of Gary's in my lifetime. It's 'Lightbody'. Doesn't it seem all too fitting that the lead singer for the band that most successfully emulates Coldplay and the whole 'shoegaze' genre would have a last name like that? Lightbody? The guy can't be serious. I hope it's not a fake name; it really makes him seem like he's trying too hard. What do you think people would say if Ben Moody made an emo record? No one would take him seriously just because his last name fits the genre too well. It sounds just sounds dumb.

The second thing that's got me irritated with Gary Lightbody is one of the tracks from Snow Patrol's latest album. The song is entitled 'Hands Open' and the album's called 'Eyes Open'. The song isn't bad until the second or third verse. After the second chorus, we're treated to this brilliant piece of lyrical imagery:

Put Sufjan Stevens on /
and we'll play your favorite song /
"Chicago" bursts to life and your /
sweet smile remembers you /

What?! You can't do that! You can't just drop a name like Sufjan Stevens in the middle of some throw-away dream pop song! What a lame plea for indie cred points! Now, don't get me wrong - I don't know anyone who's a bigger Sufjan fan than I, but those lyrics just irritate me. It just rings false. I feel like this is something Kid Rock would do.

I'm a cowboy bitch and I'm walkin' around /
Listen to Skynyrd 'cause I like the sound /
"Sweet Home Alabama," dat's my favorite song /
Shoulda put it in the soundtrack to dat movie "King Kong" /

You wouldn't buy that, would you? No. I didn't think so. Now that I think about it, though, those lyrics are actually better than Lightbody's. I should probably just shut up - I know I couldn't do any better. But at least I know enough not to try.

Air Conditioner Foam

I re-installed my window A/C unit the other day in eager anticipation of the warm weather to come. Trust me, it's easier than it sounds. The machine probably weighs a good fifty pounds and my room's three stories up, so positioning it half-hanging out of the window is pretty difficult. I'm sitting here right now hoping it doesn't just shake loose and plummet onto the head of some unsuspecting homeless person.

I don't know if you've ever had to deal with a window air conditioner before, but they always come packaged with these dark foam strips that you're supposed to use to seal off the cracks between the air conditioner and the window frame. Too bad it's damn near impossible to actually fit the foam into those tiny spaces while you're using all the strength in your fingers to keep the whole box from coming loose and killing someone. You're forced to go in after the fact and jam the foam into the cracks like a hapless sailor trying to plug his lifeboat with a wad of day-old chewing gum.

There's a small but surprisingly bright desk lamp sitting not far from the window where the air conditioner's installed, but thanks to my inability to skillfully wield those foam strips, it's turned from light source into a veritable mosquito magnet. I don't know where they're all coming from, but their corpses are slowly accumulating on top of my desk's otherwise insect-free surface.

Now that I think of it, there are a lot of things that work about as well as those foam strips. Iron-on T-shirt design paper, for instance. Or those do-it-yourself internet learning courses. My housemates can't even figure out how to use one of those 'fill the handle with dish soap' sponge contraptions. There are so many things out there that seem like such a good idea, that should be so easy to apply, that just look so much better on paper than they do in real life.