You can run on for a long time,
...sooner or later, God'll cut you down...
I'm up early to get some stuff done before meeting with the boss man later this morning, but I just have to tell you guys a few things.
First: the last Johnny Cash album, "American V: A Hundred Highways" is... great stuff! The man wrote it as he was dying - he and his son and a recording engineer did most of the voice recordings in his hospice bed. It's replete with broken and old Johnny Cash breaking his cackling voice, struggling to sing along with haunting melodies and some good gospel-ish and roots rock music. Man, it breaks your heart to listen to it, because he was basically singing out his last message:
Lord, help me smile
Another smile, just one more smile;
You know I just can't make it on my own.
I never thought I needed help before;
I thought that I could get by - by myself.
Now I know I just can't take it any more.
With a humble heart, on bended knee,
I'm beggin' You, please, help me.
Come down from Your golden
Throne to me, to lowly me;
I need to feel the touch of Your tender hand.
Remove the chains of darkness
Let me see, Lord let me see;
Just where I fit into your master plan.
It's almost something that should be said in private between a laboring man and his Lord, but all the same, it's awesome to hear it, and it makes some good music to listen to. It's like when he's singing "Hurt," but without the self-humiliation.
The whole album dispenses with all attempts to avoid death: Johnny's singing about his own death, about his own life, about his fears and faith...
Where the road is dark and the seed is sowed
Where the gun is cocked and the bullet's cold
Where the miles are marked in the blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road
Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring
My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing
I got a song to sing, keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Further on up the road
Where the way dark and the night is cold
One sunny mornin' we'll rise, I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time
Searchin' through the dust, lookin' for a sign
If there's a light up ahead well brother I don't know
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul
So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Second: I found a program called MediaMonkey that basically allowed me to organize and completely correct all the screwed up (or in a lot of places, completely missing) ID3 tags for my mp3 files. It was never really a problem on my PC because I had some playlists made up, or I could easily browze to folders in a few clicks. But on my video iPod, it was a real pain to have over 1300 songs titled "Unknown - Untitled 01" and so on, without artist or track info. Not only that, but it synchs up with Amazon.com's catalogue to automatically download and enter the track/album/artist information. Nifty stuff.
Furthermore, it allows me to delete crappy iTunes from my computer, since it manages the iPod data transfer directly. No more iTunes jacking file associations and other general crappiness.
Third: one of my dad's friends is a snake-keeper, so I'm going to work something out this weekend as regards a python or milk snake or boa... something, anything, will be totally awesome. Apparently he's checking with a lady with animal rescue services to see what they may have available. So it's like a free snake that would otherwise just get tossed out and get run over by a Buick.
Fourth: the 1998 Ford Taurus will be mine shortly. Air conditioning feels so extravagant... I'm so used to just wearing undershirts and changing if they get too sweaty. I suppose it won't hurt anything showing up places I'm driving to not sweaty as a mug. And now that my iPod is all sorted out, it'll be great to have a decent stereo to plug it into. No more CDs everywhere - just an iPod with all my music. Hurray for consumerism. My quality of life is going up.
Fifth: I forget.
I'm up early to get some stuff done before meeting with the boss man later this morning, but I just have to tell you guys a few things.
First: the last Johnny Cash album, "American V: A Hundred Highways" is... great stuff! The man wrote it as he was dying - he and his son and a recording engineer did most of the voice recordings in his hospice bed. It's replete with broken and old Johnny Cash breaking his cackling voice, struggling to sing along with haunting melodies and some good gospel-ish and roots rock music. Man, it breaks your heart to listen to it, because he was basically singing out his last message:
Lord, help me smile
Another smile, just one more smile;
You know I just can't make it on my own.
I never thought I needed help before;
I thought that I could get by - by myself.
Now I know I just can't take it any more.
With a humble heart, on bended knee,
I'm beggin' You, please, help me.
Come down from Your golden
Throne to me, to lowly me;
I need to feel the touch of Your tender hand.
Remove the chains of darkness
Let me see, Lord let me see;
Just where I fit into your master plan.
It's almost something that should be said in private between a laboring man and his Lord, but all the same, it's awesome to hear it, and it makes some good music to listen to. It's like when he's singing "Hurt," but without the self-humiliation.
The whole album dispenses with all attempts to avoid death: Johnny's singing about his own death, about his own life, about his fears and faith...
Where the road is dark and the seed is sowed
Where the gun is cocked and the bullet's cold
Where the miles are marked in the blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road
Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring
My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing
I got a song to sing, keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Further on up the road
Where the way dark and the night is cold
One sunny mornin' we'll rise, I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time
Searchin' through the dust, lookin' for a sign
If there's a light up ahead well brother I don't know
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul
So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road.
Second: I found a program called MediaMonkey that basically allowed me to organize and completely correct all the screwed up (or in a lot of places, completely missing) ID3 tags for my mp3 files. It was never really a problem on my PC because I had some playlists made up, or I could easily browze to folders in a few clicks. But on my video iPod, it was a real pain to have over 1300 songs titled "Unknown - Untitled 01" and so on, without artist or track info. Not only that, but it synchs up with Amazon.com's catalogue to automatically download and enter the track/album/artist information. Nifty stuff.
Furthermore, it allows me to delete crappy iTunes from my computer, since it manages the iPod data transfer directly. No more iTunes jacking file associations and other general crappiness.
Third: one of my dad's friends is a snake-keeper, so I'm going to work something out this weekend as regards a python or milk snake or boa... something, anything, will be totally awesome. Apparently he's checking with a lady with animal rescue services to see what they may have available. So it's like a free snake that would otherwise just get tossed out and get run over by a Buick.
Fourth: the 1998 Ford Taurus will be mine shortly. Air conditioning feels so extravagant... I'm so used to just wearing undershirts and changing if they get too sweaty. I suppose it won't hurt anything showing up places I'm driving to not sweaty as a mug. And now that my iPod is all sorted out, it'll be great to have a decent stereo to plug it into. No more CDs everywhere - just an iPod with all my music. Hurray for consumerism. My quality of life is going up.
Fifth: I forget.
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