Drake Warren

drake @ 2003-12-04T14:01:00

2003-12-04T20:45:27Z

does anyone i know ever glance at this journal? part of me wants to move back here to vent my frustrations with the world (mostly regarding jamie at the moment). i'm mulling over it at the moment. nothing will be said that i don't mind people reading, but i want people to put some effort into finding out how i really feel. few put forth the effort these days.

drake @ 2001-11-02T19:54:00

2001-11-03T02:02:06Z

wang

drake @ 2001-04-02T16:09:00

2001-04-02T21:05:28Z

i think i was irrationally annoyed earlier...maybe. then again, maybe i just had ignored any opportunity to be annoyed before and am finally noticing how annoyed i should be. *shrugs*

drake @ 2001-04-02T13:30:00

2001-04-02T18:26:06Z

this song is one of those songs that i could listen to for eternity...i've had it playing on repeat for almost 2 hours...

So very bored...

2001-02-10T15:57:07Z

Bored

2001-02-10T15:56:33Z

drake @ 2001-02-09T20:05:00

2001-02-10T02:03:30Z

noticing from Aria that I have Early Adopter status on this journal and not on Darksoul...hmmmm...how interesting...

Politics

2000-10-18T23:17:04Z

First things first I guess, before I get into my rant. I know, I haven't updated my Live Journal in awhile. Thanks for constantly making an issue of reminding me Aria!?! Life's been pretty boring lately. Work, Eat, Sleep, Work, Eat, Sleep...that's about all my days are for the most part. To let people know, I've been working at a Temp service since July. In August, they placed me with the MS Society, a charity organization to help fight Multiple Sclerosis. I'm one of two who know how to use a PC. The rest of the people in our office are pretty dim, which can lead to some pretty amusing stories of System Admin hell, but that'll be for another day. As of Monday, I now officially am on the payroll of the MS Society. And that's about the extent of things.

And now on to my real post. I've been listening to National Public Radio a lot while at work in the past month, and I've grown increasingly saddened by our candidates. It seems that everytime I turn around, they are saying one dumb thing after another stupid one, as if they hadn't a brain cell at all. This morning NPR played highlights from last night's debate in St. Louis. I was dismayed to hear them both sound like idiots through almost every topic. The issue of the internet and movie industries was brought up, calling for stricter restrictions to help prevent kids from having access to porn and violence. Both "Curious" George Bush and Al "The Robot" Gore called for computer companies to make it available for parents to see where their kids have been online. (Attention morons: Parent's can do so. It's a simple little thing people with a brain like to call the History Folder!!!) They also both wanted laws enacted to force companies to stop marketting violent games to children. (As a consumer and video game nerd, I'd like to know where all of this violent advertising is at, because I very rarely see a violent game or movie advertised anywhere except on cable anymore. The more violent films have their advertising during programs oriented towards adult viewers, not during Pokemon.)

There were other things that came up that were just maddening, but the above was the most disturbing to me. It would seem that our candidates, rather than pointing the finger at, *gasp*, bad parenting (how could they single out the voter like that...) Rather than angering many of the outspoken and yet underintelligent groups of parents and Christian organizations (how ironic that these people, whose ancestors religiously committed such atrocities as the Inquisition, the Crusades, and have fought/still fight battles amongst themselves, should think they can try to advocate for more peaceful entertainment), they take the side of these mentally unstable nuts and fight for what they'd like rather than the average person, or even the intelligentsia. And why? Because unfortunately, idiots like them are the majority of voting america. And so rather than caring about real issues or even researching the issues that are being called for by the voting majority, they view what they are told as the truth. Of all the things I heard both gentleman ramble on about, neither sounded like they'd done any research at all. Myself being a 19 year-old guy and knowing more than two politicians trying to become president, I was very disturbed.

The more I see about these chuckle-heads, the more I dislike our country. It's as if some how the two worst candidates that could be legitimately chosen were put in the position to be our potential president. On the one hand we have George W. Bush: Born into politics, snuffed a bunch of coke in college (and yet it was a problem that Clinton tried pot once?), allows himself to be the tool of every rich white person in the US, has no clue what to say without his advisors helping him along, and is just generally foolish as to the ways of politics. Captain Kill sounds more appropriate than Mr. President, as he would be the leader of the state with the most inmates put to death, especially without good cause. Then there is Al "I'm a Android" Gore, who only shows emotion in the most useful occasions, and then is emotionless the rest of the time, has no concept of what he's talking about and so he rambles incoherently like a college astro-physics professor, and is just generally inane as a human being. He flip-flops his position minutely to calculate for every possible contingency, just in case he might anger some group of voters.::shakes his head:: These two guys are a joke...I'll continue later...

Napster and Metallica...

2000-09-17T07:18:22Z

Ok, first off let my let you all in on my standing on this issue. I am a firm believer that the reason artists are poor is not due to piracy by consumers but by the profit-greed of the captilist machine that is the record industry. Unless you happen to be on of a few lucky bands, corporate bastards will suck the life out of you so much that you have to tour to stay alive or else the record industry will sue you for your mother's teeth for breach of contract. Bands that have been around the block, such as Metallica, Aerosmith, and even newer recruits like Marilyn Manson, The Offspring, Limp Bizkit, etc...can manage because they've been there long enough to succeed in beating the system. They've had such huge returns on their music that they can be successful famous musicians. But the only way a musician can truly make money on an album is if it sells huge. They recieve such a small percentage that unless it goes platinum, they could just as well be working at the mall. As a friend of a local band here in Kansas City, I know how the lives of your average musican goes. Regular job in the day, and rehearsals when all the guys are available, a gig now and then.

So you're prolly asking, where do you stand? I stand on the side of music as an art, not as a consumer item. If you go to a museum, most charge only a small fee to pay for upkeep of the museum, and then you may look at all the art you like. The internet, as well as a playground for the new tech-geeks and nerds like myself, is a place to share information and culture with the world. Culture = art, music, way of life, etc. But if we can't freely share our nation's music with the world, then what's the point of calling it an art? I've known guys who play for the art. These same guys use napster and while they would be slightly upset that they may lose a few dollars to some kids sharing their cd down the road, they'd be more upset that there would be one less kid out there listening to their tunes. Napster is here for the exchange of music that otherwise would still be bootlegged on tape by some guy for his buddies anyway. Aside from a small bit of wasted time, nothings different except now that guy can listen to it in his car, in his home, in the middle of the park with a cheap tape player rather than an expensive MP3 player. I'll bring this up again in a moment...

Napster can easily be used to a band's advantage. The Deftones brought out a new album not too long ago and instantly posted a track or two to get people listening. It's been selling fairly well with hardly any exposure other than that. When Metallica's S&M album came out, I hadn't heard a thing about it. But in looking at some guy's mp3 collection I saw he had a few tracks from it and I grabbed them. I ended up buying the cd because I was impressed. Had I not grabbed them, I prolly wouldn't have bought the album. Who won here? Record execs, not Lars. He maybe recieved a whole 15 cents from the deal, but prolly less. And yet I purchased the album due to Napster, Lars's most hated creation since probably the Backstreet Boys. And I'm not alone. I've heard others say the same of several of their albums. And yet he dost protest...

::laughs:: what brought me here in the first place was the liner notes of their Garage, Inc. album that came out last year. For no good reason I was reading through it when I noticed that our good friends at Metallica are guilty of the same crime themselves...here it is, as quoted from the liner, James Hetfield speaking on his early days with Lars Ulrich:
"I would stay over at his place for days at a time, making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet."
Piracy much? Wait, that can't be, not from the new lords of the copyright...but there it is, in print on the 4th page of the liner in an album of covers that they had originally broke the copyright on years ago to play in smaller venues and on demo tapes or as b-sides...you be the judge...

<`~Drake~`>

drake @ 2000-09-13T22:56:00

2000-09-14T04:01:03Z

"You can kill yourself now because your dead in my mind..."

"Sometimes it hurts so much to lose the one you love..."

"And if I open my heart to you, show you my weak side, what will you do?"

"I hurt myself today to see if I still feel..."

"When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed."

"Some of them wanna abuse you; some of them wanna be abused..."

General Nonsense...

2000-09-11T02:34:21Z

::looks out into the darkness:: Did you ever notice that you can see a star that is faint when you don't look at it, but when you turn your focus on it, it fades away mysteriously? Eerie...some people are like that. There are people who are really hard to get close to. But if you give them a chance, they start to open up. Then you get to know them, but once you get so close, who you've known is gone. They retreat back into themselves, returning from whence they came. Don't know why that came to mind, but hey, thought I'd toss it out there...

<`~Drake~`>

drake @ 2000-09-09T22:25:00

2000-09-10T03:30:37Z

UCLA's marching band doing Come Out And Play from the Offspring...I think I've finally gone off the deep end...

drake @ 2000-09-09T19:28:00

2000-09-10T00:32:23Z

Today has been tiring, at best. I spent around 5 to 6 hours doing yard work. I hate yard work. I'd live in a house with painted rocks for grass rather than have to do yard work. Of course, no one agrees with that idea. ::sighs:: But I've had my shower, I've cleaned up, so things are a little better.

Think things are starting to get patched up with Jake and I, which is nice to know. Kinda miss the little bastard. :) It was good to talk to him though. Haven't had anyone about to have the amusing conversations about tech stuff with for some time now, or about Life, The Universe, And Everything...

::sighs:: Bored to death, but, nothin to do...adios all, until later..

drake @ 2000-09-09T01:35:00

2000-09-09T06:42:29Z

Day 1: So this is it, the rest of your life...it's all downhill from here...

So if you're reading this, you're either surfing the LiveJournal site or are actually me reviewing this for no good reason. You've gotta be pretty bored, either way.

So my life is a dead end. It's not official, but it might as well be. I've got no good chance at a future. I haven't saved any money for college that starts in a month and a half. I don't want to leave the job I have at the MS Society through a temp agency, but I also don't think they'll have the money to take me into their payroll. And so I'll be moving on to a new hole in the ground job, one that'll stink, that I'll hate. Prolly full of yuppie scum rather than wierdos like me. C'est la vie...

So the world itself is just mad. I was wandering the mall about a month ago and it got me to thinking. Do the mundane people in shopping malls really enjoy hanging out there like they seem to do? It doesn't seem all that interesting to me, nor entertaining. And yet, so many go every weekend just because they enjoy it. Monkeys enjoy throwing their own feces too, doesn't make them intelligent. But what brought me there? Sheer boredom and a need to be among the masses. And yet by being among them, I became detached from them and began to see into their beings. Of course I didn't understand them all, but in general, I began to realize that they came expressly for the sheer mundane nature of it all. What better way to get away from anything bad in life than to go somewhere where you do practically nothing. No need to think too hard (wouldn't want that brain to get too much exercise...) or exert any effort mentally. Just the occasional "Does this fit?" "Does this look nice?" "Does my ass look fat in these shoes?" ::shakes his head at the world:: I'd love to find that stuff intriguing...and for a yellow lamp to slaughter me in my sleep

<`~Drake~`>