It's here! Eeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The big day came this week: Clay Aiken's new album came out on Tuesday! Woohoo, w00t, yippee and all that! I took a few days to listen ::mumblemumble:: times, and now I think I'm ready to do my own little review. Keep in mind that I am COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY biased, and I am NOT ashamed of that, and will not even TRY to be 'objective'. (btw, there is NO objective opinion, ever. Everyone has SOME sort of bias.) So, here goes my very unobjective, fangirly opinion.

Track 1: On My Way Here: This is a very pretty ballad with a really nice message. I really like the 'faith has conquered fear' line. It's actually a good reminder for me that faith can conquer ALL fear, even when you don't feel like it will. With God, we need not ever fear. I forget that all too often.

Track 2: Ashes: I am a big fan of the songwriter of this song, Nichole Nordeman, as well as a big fan of Clay's. I can see the Christian undertones in the song. I love the beat and the melody of this song, and I LOVE the little techno bits in there.

"Turn around and see what love's done for me.. you would not believe how I used to be; so cold"

Ain't that the truth? You can apply this in a romantic way, or a spiritual way, but it definitely speaks to me spiritually.

Maybe love requires, walking through the fire, to set me free to rise up from the ashes

Once again, it could be applied a couple of different ways, but for me, it speaks to me in a spiritual way. I think of James 1:2-4 when I listen to this song. It's in my top 3 on the album.

Track 3: Everything I Don't Need: I'm in the minority in the Clay fandom with this, but this song is just okay for me. I like some of the bluesy things he does with his voice, but it's not my favorite song. Sometimes I found myself wanting to skip past it, and it's the only song I felt that way about. But sometimes the mood is right and I can get into it.

Track 4: Something About Us: What a sentimental, romantic song! This could become a wedding standard. A classic. Clay does it beautifully. It reminds more of an old Sinatra song, or another crooner and he does it well. It's nice on this song, but I do know I don't want a whole album of this sound from Clay. It's gorgeous, but in isolation. *G*

Track 5: Falling: I LOVE Falling as well. I love the little techno bits in it as well. I think we've all felt like this before, out of control, and barely keeping it together. Not being able to let go of things in the past and move past them. One of my top three.

Track 6: Where I Draw the Line: This song speaks to me quite a bit. A little too much sometimes, which sometimes makes it hard to enjoy the song! LOL. I love the chorus. I find myself singing it to myself alot even when the music isn't playing, so I guess that's the sign of a good earworm!

That's enough for now. I'll post my thoughts on the rest of the songs later.

11 Days and Counting!!!!!

Eeeeeeeeeee!! Clay's new album comes out on May 6th, and I can't wait! The clips are fantastic!

All That Glitters... includes me and all of my students

I just finished washing out the cake of glitter left in my hair from a day of smashing 'cascarones'. Glitter on the scalp itches, y'all. To be fair, I totally deserved the smashing, since the egg I broke over one student's head was filled completely with blue glitter instead of just the few shakes that most of them had in them. Heh. I was snickering evilly as I filled that baby up to. :-P He got his revenge, however, and I absolutely deserved it. :-D

Hit number two came after I tapped an egg on the head of a girl in my class, and not realizing who had done it, she whipped around and whopped me a good one right on top of the head. It kinda hurt, but I deserved that one too. ;-) THAT one was the caker, because she rubbed it in quite well. At least we'll have good luck, even if we will be finding glitter in our ears for a month! And...it's all on videotape, so I'm sure THAT'S going to show up again. Good times. I'll miss them when they graduate. :sniff:

The World's Thinnest Laptop

Gizmodo has photos up of the new Macbook Air in 'real life' action. Pretty sweet. While I personally detest glossy screens because they glare like crazy, I do get why people like them. They do make a nice picture if there is no light around to glare on the screen. And 3 pounds! Even if you do have to use an external optical device, this is pretty insane. I guess they've figured just how thin you can make something and still have cd/dvd drive in, and the Macbook Air is thinner that.

You can watch the guided tour of the Macbook Air here.

Let's try this one more time....

I finally fixed this blog after it got messed up by blogger, so I will be using it again. Yeah! I haven't been the most prolific blogger in the world; I tend to get excited about something new and then taper off. Since my students are doing blogs now in digital design class, I decided I should practice what I preach, and lead by example. :-)

While the theme of this blog in general is techie stuff, I tend to write about whatever I feel like anyway.

I have tired of this color scheme, however. Any suggestions?

Insect Spies

Doesn't this scare the crap out of you just a little bit?

It reminds me of the X-Files episode where the metal cockroaches were attacking people and we were left to ponder if they were robots sent by aliens to spy on us. Perhaps these scientists saw that show too.

Making Purdy Pictures...

Okay, so school last semester didn't go as well as planned, so my blogging time got all messed up. Things are back to an even keel now, I think.

I thought I would post a link to a program that I found for people who like to do graphics, but don't need an application like GIMP or Photoshop (which costs beaucoup bucks). It's called Paint.net. It's like Paint on steroids! My students can do quite a lot with it. It supports layers and has special effects, and alot of the goodies that people often turn to Adobe Photoshop for... and best of all, it's FREE! It is, sadly, a Windows only program. You can download it here: http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

If you are on a mac, GIMP is your best free option for making those blends and avatars!