The Slip

More of the same today at work. The same guy that called in sick the day before called in again. And the call volume had not subsided - in fact it seemed almost worse than Monday. We all joked that we're going to all call in sick tomorrow, but it was still a rough day. And the craziness didn't stop when work ended. Some moron decided to park their car on the inside shoulder (fast lane shoulder) of I-35 in rush hour traffic. A whole car full of people were walking up and down the shoulder looking for something. This resulted in a massive backup and an accident on the right-most lane, leaving only the middle lane available for people to pass through.

DeAnn got Clara, but it didn't afford me getting home any sooner. Dinner was ready when I got home, bless her heart, but by the end of it, I just crashed on the couch. The crash was not to last long: the neighbors decided to share their culture through a new stereo system, and Clara would not calm down. When I decided that I'd had enough screaming terror and went to lay her down, I tried to change her and she explosively pooped while I was in mid-maneuver. -.- Had to CFH on that one. I decided that I needed to just kinda decompress for half an hour - I went to Best Buy to get a Bluetooth headset and just kinda bask in the techie goodness and relax for a bit.

Static did not go off tonight. I'm starting to wonder about it: we're all starting to get kinda lackluster about FFXI in general and easily finding new things to do. I know I've lost a lot of interest lately in doing anything in-game. I mean, I only logged on this whole past weekend to fish, campaign and do a whinja burn. That's not a lot. Ame and MC are starting to play WoW, Keri is hardly on at all anymore and even TS is getting a bit burned out. I think I might call a month break for static, let everyone get their heads back about them and decide if it's still something I want to spearhead. Demetrion, a guy that we're friends with IRL and left the game a few months back made a post about how much breaking turned his life around: I can't help but wonder if I could be bettered with a complete break.

Anyway, I did a little fishing while listening to The Slip from DeAnn's machine. I also burned Halo 27 to CD for the drive to work in the morning. The album borrows heavily from a hard garage influence, especially noticeable right from the first tracks. That's not to say it's void of downtempo gems that NIN are renown for since Year Zero (this almost feels like a sequel, the first track "999,999" picks up where Year Zero left off...), as well as a couple really nice, almost ambient tracks that are completely instrumental. Hard and driving, downtempo and chill all on the same album? Yup, it's that much win.

As for the lyrics, I've yet to be disappointed by Trent's ability to wield the English language with finesse and impact. There was a lot going on in this release, but there is an overarching theme of resignation. Sure there's the driven aggressiveness of "Letting You", but overall it's noticeably tempered with a very somber, almost defeatist tone. It's almost like he's acknowledging the thing he's been doing all this time (at times giving a nod to his age) did not give him what he was looking for; something that everyone (including that particular someone) seems to have found. All but gone seems to be the seething animosity from his much earlier albums. Now it's just that old hurt that never seemed to go away and he just learned to live with it instead.

The combination of wall-o-sound tracks and the powerful, albeit quiet, downtempo and ambient tracks round this album out and paint a murky picture of where NIN are taking their music lately. As a former producer and DJ, I can't help but wonder how many producers and DJ's are drooling over the prospect of having vinyls of some of these tracks. I could totally see "Letting You" getting tossed into a hard garage or drum-and-bass set. :D

Not sure what I have going on for tomorrow. I'm just not interested in FFXI much, and that schedule used to be the staple of my free time. All I can say is I hope everyone is in the office...