I’ve just started yet another new blog. This one will link to good, free, downloadable, complete music albums from around the web. I’m pretty sure it’ll be updated more often than any of my other blogs, and it’ll likely also garner more interest. Check it out; I’ve already posted more than a dozen albums, and I’ll try to update it daily! Tell your friends!

Free Albums Galore

I haven’t read through the Bible for a long time, so as I’m reading through it now, I frequently come across very interesting passages I’d forgotten. The latest shows God pleased with a lie:

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.” [Exodus 1:15-20]

I was brought up to believe it is never right to lie, but here God blesses the midwives because they lied to Pharaoh to save lives. Hmmmm….

The funniest short film ever made, Buster Keaton’s One Week (1920) is a hilarious slapstick masterpiece. It’s old enough to be out of copyright, so I put it up on FileFront for you to download. If your media player can’t play the .avi file, VLC will.

And hell, why not a film meme, too?

1. Total number of films I own on DVD and video.

Boy, not many. 20-25. Don’t have cash to actually own too many movies.

2. Last film I bought.

Been a while. The Star Wars trilogy, I guess.

3. Last film I watched.

Batman Begins.

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me.

Safety Last! (1923). The first silent film I saw as an adult opened my eyes to a world of “other” films I could enjoy. After this, it’s been silent, foreign, avant-garde, whatever.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). I think there’s a good chance there will never be a funnier, more quotable movie ever made.

Better Off Dead… (1985). Inexplicably, this early Cusak comedy always makes me laugh harder and longer than other 80s teen comedies. And it’s not even that “good.”

American Beauty (1999). Once my favorite film, and I once thought this might be the best mainstream film ever made. Still a deeply touching portrait of wonderful (read: fucked-up) people.

The Lion King (1994). One summer when I was about 9, I watched this movie every other day with my brother. So I’ve seen it more than any other movie, I think. Endlessly enjoyable. Somehow, Nala is hot.

5. If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?

Huh. Um… God?

Gotta keep up with the latest meme. Seems like I’ve read it a hundred times in the last week, time to write up my own answers:

Total volume of music on my computer:

94 GB in 17,609 files. There’d be a lot more if I didn’t delete 80% of the music I downloaded (because of my then-narrow tastes) from 2001 through 2004.

Last CD I bought:

Steve Roach - Dreamtime Return (1988). Two hours of new age bliss. If Allofmp3 ever decides to add Dream Theater’s Octavarium (2005) to their catalog, that’ll be the next one I buy. Or maybe Trance (2005) by Michael Gordon (of Bang on a Can All-Stars fame), which I thankfully caught on Kyle Gann’s awesome PostClassic radio station.

Favorite song from that album:

It all blends together as a cohesive album like it’s meant to, so I can’t pick a favorite track.

Song playing now:

Shivaree - “I Close My Eyes”. When I started writing this it was an unidentified compilation of medieval music I just digitally restored from a cryptically marked cassette tape from my dad’s attic. While revising this post, I’m listening to Transmutator’s trance cover of Metallica’s “Orion”.

Songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot:

Newsboys - “Lost the Plot” was the first song I learned to play on the guitar and its pained lyrics still make my eyes water. Right now I listen to TV on the Radio - “Young Liars” more than any other song.