Random Ramblings

Another newsdesk update…

Schools cannot legally “out” gay students – This is picked up off of another blog, I haven’t got an actual newslink at this point, but here’s what I found funny about this. Quoted out of sequence…

“It’s a really good thing for the case and for other students,” Nguon told the paper. “I hope it would, like, tell [school officials] that they can’t … go around invading people’s privacy rights.”

Charlene Nguon alleged that officials unfairly disciplined her this year for hugging and kissing her girlfriend on campus.

Okay, now, am I the only one who finds it funny that she said that little bit about the school invading her privacy rights and yet she was disciplined for making out with her girlfriend in public? First off, I think the schools ought to be keeping the teenager’s raging hormones in check at school, straight or gay, they’re there to learn, not to get it on in storage rooms. Secondly, if you’re kissing your significant other in the hallway, that’s really not private, so you lose the legitimacy of the “right to privacy” bit. Third, they’re bloody teenagers. Until you’re an adult, I don’t think you really HAVE a right to privacy as your parents can search your stuff at any time.

German youth group puts together Biblical erotic 2006 calander – Oh joy… A 2006 nudie calendar just for Christians! “Anyway, it doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that you are forbidden to show yourself nude.” said one student. Apparently she missed Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”…

London market offers musical sandwich. – That’s all well and good, but can he sing like sinatra? Play trumpet like Armstrong? Maybe even do sax like Kenny G? What about Piano like Tesh?
…
Okay, I’ll shut up now…

That’s it for today, folks, have a great week!

Tags: Humor, News by Andrew Laine
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So becoming a musician (however unnotable of one) has made me try to draw on as many influences as possible to expand my ideas for melodies and such. In this search, I happened upon Linkin Park & Jay-Z : Collision course. Basically, the CD is a bunch of Linkin Park songs mixed against a bunch of Jay-Z songs.

Let me make two things perfectly clear. Firstly, while I have respect for Jay-Z’s ability to spit on the mic, I have zero respect for his lyrics, and to be honest wanted to take a black & decker drill to my eardrums every time he opened his mouth in the songs because of his proclivity for four-lettered words and degreading remarks about women.

I’d also like to mention that I have something of a background with this matchup, because I did, before I started listening to Christian music almost exclusively, listen to linkin park. Now, I like their sound (it’s not one that I feel has ever been repeated by another band), but their lyrics are angry at an ambiguous someone (it’s hard to tell if it’s directed at a father who wasn’t there, an angry girlfriend, or God, for that matter). I kind of have trouble listening to them very often because of this.

Okay, now that my disclaimers are out of the way, I will say that I was impressed by the CD. Once I got past Jay-Z’s lyrics, the pairing of the rapper with the rock group actually worked well. Particular favorite was the cross of “Encore/Numb”, although other notables are “Jigga What/Faint” and “Dirt off ya shoulder/Lying From You”.

Now, this got me to thinking… There aren’t a lot of Christian CDs like this one out there. I mean, at work we had Smash ups, but Steven Curtis Chapman vs. Grits? That’s not what I’d really have in mind (don’t get me wrong, it was a decent CD, but it was missing something). That got my brain working. If there was going to be certain artsts whos songs I thought could go together, what might be good ones to do it with? Here’s what I came up with, some with actual song crossover ideas, some just with artists.

Tobymac vs. Thousand Foot Krutch
Now to some this may sound odd, but hear me out. Tobymac’s best known for his rap. TFK’s best known for their rock. One song that I personally always wanted to try remixing into one coherent song was Tobymac’s “Phenomenon” vs. TFK’s “Phenomenon”. It just seemed funny to me that two songs came out the same year that had the same title, and when I’ve listened to those songs, I think they could pull it off. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are other songs I think could work. Say, cross TFK’s “Move” with Tobymac’s “Slam”, maybe “Puppet” with “Yours”. And lest we forget, Toby’s got a proclivity for the remix. (C’mon, how many other artists do you know who put out a CD, remix it a year later, then wait two years for a new album?). I think this could be a HUGE smash-up potential, if someone would take it and run with it.

Kutless vs. Grits
Now this is probably the closest I’ll get to something sounding like LP vs. JZ, and it’s another one I think might be a good one. Kutless is no stranger to rap-guests, between having Benjamin on their first two albums and Jon Micah guesting on KJ-52’s album, they’re familiar with some rappers. Why Grits? Think “Not What You See” vs. “I be”, maybe “Pride Away” vs. “Here We Go”. “Fly Away” vs “Video Girl”, even? I think the two could play off each other well just because of the total contrast of their sounds.

Pillar vs. Kj-52
Okay. Anyone who’s ever heard Pillar’s album “Fireproof”, KJ-52’s “Collaborations” or “It’s Pronounced Five-Two” ought to know exactly what makes this a good match. KJ-52 and Rob Beckley play off each other really well. Imagine a whole album with the two of them rocking it (or rapping, should the need arise). You don’t even need to think about if that’d be a good crossover.

Cross Movement vs. ?
I’m being rather ambiguous with this one. For the time being, I think Cross movement would sound good paired off against a hard rock group, the problem is, I can’t figure out who. It’s there, somewhere, I KNOW it’s there… I don’t know, though…

Now, all I gotta do is get Brandon Ebel and Tobymac on the horn and we can get cracking on this…

~Andrew =)

Tags: Music by Andrew Laine
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It seems microsoft has decided not to air one of its new commercials for the X-Box 360, which is a pity, because despite the obvious reason they didn’t air it (it could, in the day and age, be enough for Microsoft to potentially get sued for contributing to the delinquency of a minor or worse, depending on how the lawyers spin the tale), it’s probably one of the most clever commercials I’ve ever seen microsoft do. And that’s saying something, because usually I absolutely loathe Microsoft’s commercials.

You can see the video here on Google Video. Now, don’t get me wrong. I find nothing funny about people in a train station pulling out guns all at once and slaughtering each other. But people pulling out their hands as guns and falling over when someone points at them and yells “BANG!”? That’s freakin’ hysterical… Anyway, check the video out, it’s actually suprisingly good.

Tags: Humor by Andrew Laine
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