From the Rooftops

From the Rooftops

Looking out at the city he begins to think:
How will this matter?
Where will it leave a mark?

It’s no Frost,
no Eliot,
thankfully not Thoreau.

Is this doomed to sit here,
alone and empty?

Or will it be like those of Dickenson,
only to come to light after he fades to black?

He sits and wonders,
as the storm rolls in
and the tide sweeps out.


From the Rooftops by William Sowards is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

within a lonely coffee house

> within a lonely coffee house

1967

I look out to the tables

from my place upon the stage.

One sits in the middle of the crowd,

empty

with a mug of coffee

and a stein of beer.

Odd.

The tables are a lustrous brown

a plastic like glaze

and a few chips here and there.

She sits in the corner

cup of tea in her hand.

A smile crosses that angelic face,

and I know

This is my muse.

The iPhone in my hand and I exchange a look.

“Paper is so cliché”

And I begin:

It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting on a train,

little black book in my hand

writing.

It wasn’t long ago that I looked up

up from that book

and saw it.

A pond, a blue pond

it was somewhere between Jackson

and 48^th.  In a place no one,

no one at all

would expect to find it.

Yet there it was.

Every day I would get a glimpse.

A puzzle,

A mosaic,

piece by precious piece it came together.

Finally, I understood.

Three years passed on that train.

Life

Death

Love

Loss

Hate

Apathy

All together.

All apart.

Yet that pond sat unchanged.

A man once asked,

How is this possible?

This isn’t how the world works.

I replied:

Correct, it isn’t.

If it is not possible,

then you change the world.

I looked up

to a filled table

with stein and mug in hand

and a single tear

flowing from

a blue pond.

within a lonely coffee house 1967 by William Sowards is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Grooveshark: Pandora but Without the Box

I don't know how, but about a year ago I discovered one of the best music sites that has ever come into existence.  Grooveshark is a simple music sight that allows a person to listen to pretty much any track that is posted to the site for free and it's completely legal.  Think Hulu but for music.

I'm sure that all of you have used Pandora, the online radio site.  Being part of the Music Genome Project (and having sold out to corporate influences) Pandora only allows you to listen to songs that sound like a certain artist.  So, if you wanted to listen to say...all of Pink Floyd's Meddle on Pandora you would be pretty screwed however on Grooveshark you are ready to go.

What else is nice is the ability to create playlists and share them with others.  In my time with Grooveshark I've heard some really awesome playlists that people have created.  Ahh, the memories....

Anyway, Grooveshark is awesome.  Check it out.

Links:
Grooveshark
Pandora
Hulu
ODST Secrets

Short Post, Big Idea

Hey,

So, I'd make a long post on something but I'm really busy right now trying to get ahead in work for the ODST release next week.  As of right now the plan is for my friend LoneWolfCommando (it's his gamertag, hit him up if you want) to pick up the game at midnight, play some Firefight (think Gears 2's Horde mode but with Brutes instead of Grenadiers) and then go into the campaign.  But, today I had a brilliant idea.

As we go through the campaign we are going to find all of the skulls, audio tapes, and what-not and post the locations and videos to a blog.  I just made it and hopefully we can get it working as soon as we start playing.  But, I'm not going to leave my crüe (so awesome that you win an umlaut) empty handed.  Here are a few Halo 3:  ODST vids to wet your appatiet.  Also, check the Link Dump for sites.







Links:
ODST Secrets
Bungie Studios

Gamertags:
LoneWolfCommando (my friend)
quantumrun (me)

Daikaiju Attacked Phoenix

Last night I went The Ruby Lounge in Phoenix and saw Daikaiju, one of the best surf rock bands I have ever heard (not to say that I have heard many in all fairness to other bands that may exist).
The Ruby Lounge has a kind of 1950's-ish feel. The walls are covered in a ruby red paint with tasteful nude paintings. The bar made is made out of oak I believe (the mood lighting, though extremely good made the bar rather hard to see), and the stage was set just slightly above the floor allowing band members to easily go into the crowd and play extremely close the audience.

I arrived at about 8:50, the show was supposed to start at 9:00 however the opening band didn't come out till around 9:45. The Surfside IV was fairly good, but rather generic. Most of the songs that they performed were covers of other surf rock songs or surf rock covers of classic rock. Like I said, good but generic.

After a short intermission to change out gear (extremely short for all the gear that they had to change out, only about 20 minutes), Daikaiju came out. Their stage presence was amazing, truly fantastic.  With a digital projector throwing Japanese like images on the wall behind the band wearing kabuki masks and Under Armour shirts sporting the bushido the band had a very foreign feel.
The music that reverberated out of the amps was some of the best I have heard. I'm talking music here, not just surf rock. The volume was a little loud for the first song (it's 24 hours later and my hears are still ringing) but the rest was the perfect just-a-hint-to-high that all rock needs to have. I really can't explain the sound, for that I apologize, but I can provide you with a link to their site to here some of the bands tracks. All of what they do is purely original, minus a few surf rock classics that all must do at one point or another.

I first heard about Daikaiju through Escape Pod and mentioning that fact scored me a few stickers along with the kickin' shirt that I bought. The great thing about this band, that I found out while I was buying the shirt, is that they are cool and highly approachable. They love what they do and they love their fans. Good music and a friendly band seem to be a rare thing today, but Daikaiju has it going.
So, to sum this up. It was a great band, a good band, and a good venue along with a few rather interesting people there. All in all a solid 9 out of 10.

Links:
Daikaiju
The Ruby Room
Escape Pod

Just a Geek (Sorry Wil)

Hi, I'm Will Sowards and I'm a geek.

Wow, that's my first sentence. Sounds more like something I'd be forced into saying at a support group. Anyways, I'm 18 going to ASU and have a severe addiction to geek stuff. Battlestar Galactica, I watched every single episode (most when they were released). Star Trek, saw the new movie four days before it was release. Legally. I've been to two scifi cons (and at one got to play Rock Band with Wil Wheaton, AKA Wesley Crusher), however I have not dressed in costume (I'll let the anime wackjobs have fun with that one).

Ohh, just got distracted by the trailer for Section 8. It looks amazing but the demo was terrible. Ugh.

Anyways, that me.

Links:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

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