So I realized that I may have judged the new NIN album, Year Zero, a bit harshly. And I did so before it came out. I judged it on its premise and overall tone before I had even picked it up.

Two things have basically compelled me to change my attitude. One, the album itself is a good one, with classic NIN quality and depth. Trent Reznor is a musical genius, you can't deny that.

Also, the thought and effort put into this album (with the viral marketing campaign [read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_Entertainment]) is astounding. Of course, having a company do this for you is awesome, but I'm definitely thrown back by all the details that went into the marketing before this album came out.

Side note: Notice that 42 entertainment has been responsible for 3 awesome franchises/releases: Halo 2, Year Zero, and The Dark Knight, forthcoming in 2008. And you thought I had an unhealthy obsession with the 3...

That said, the album itself is good. Better than 2005's With Teeth, with its good old fashioned rocking out industrial edge NIN. (My favorite song from 2005's album was this one, which only appeared on the vinyl & foreign versions).

Still though, I can't help but gravitate to the album in 1999 that made me love NIN: The Fragile. Now I know I've talked about this album previously, but this time, I want to go into WHY it is this album I love so much.



When I took a trip to Australia in 1999, I fell in love with the song "The Perfect Drug." This never appeared on an album, only as a single between the albums The Downward Spiral(1994) and The Fragile(1999). I heard it on a friend's CD down there and couldn't stop playing it. It had been 4 years since anything came from NIN's studio though...

Only a week or two after my return to the States, I found the first single from the forthcoming album. The title was simple, the graphics just the same. "NIN | Halo 13 | The Day The World Went Away" was all that was on the cover.


*oddly enough, this plant is apparently a very poisonous one, native to Australia. Most of the plants/imagery used for the album were inspired by this and another plant, also native to Australia I believe*

Those not familiar with the "Halo" theme - every CD or album release is given a Halo. Not sure why, but currently there are 24. That's 24 official releases from NIN since 1989.

The Fragile has many instrumental tracks on the album. The only other instrumental to appear before it was a track titled "A Warm Place" on The Downward Spiral. You can listen to it here.

Anyway, being that the song with the same title as this entry is my favorite NIN track, I figured I'd go into the why of it.

There are currently 5 variations, 4 of which are done by Trent Reznor himself (one is by a producer friend of his, and I'm not sure it's any good as I haven't listened to it for years). Anyone who hasn't listened to The Fragile should know it's a very organic sounding album, sometimes very mellow and sometimes not. It's one of the best albums I've ever listened to, simply because the themes and music fit together so well. Not every band does this, continually churning out lists of singles for the radio waves. If it's not my favorite album, it's at least in the top 3.

The first single on the above mentioned CD contains 2 versions of "The Day The World Went Away." One is the album version, another is a "quiet" version.

Subsequently, an album released in 2002 was set with remixes of tracks from The Fragile and live versions of the tour in 2000. So, on that set, one is a live version, the other is an acoustic version.

I am going to provide links to each one here, so you may have a listen.

Album version:
http://www.travisprange.com/Album.mp3
Notice how this one is similar to the Live version, except the 2nd half of the song is hard-edged, while the Live version goes the way of the Acoustic one.

Quiet version:
http://www.travisprange.com/Quiet.mp3
Notice this one where the chanting at the beginning is the theme of the song. The overall feel is very different from the Album version.

Live version:
http://www.travisprange.com/Live.mp3
This one I think is just awesome and sounds better (to me) than the Album version. I recently had to find the Album version on the internet since I have lost it.

Acoustic version:
http://www.travisprange.com/Acoustic.mp3
Utilizing mainly just drums, guitar and a piano, this one is a good mellow version to listen to.

Ultimately, I like them all, but one of the biggest reasons I love NIN is because Trent Reznor can take a song that is good from the beginning and completely morph it into something else.

If anyone is interested in any other tracks, be sure to let me know. I highly suggest listening to The Fragile, beginning to end (2 discs) to get the full effect of this great album.

Then again, isn't that how albums are supposed to be listened to?

So I've again realized what a tech geek I am. No seriously. My center channel on my old surround sound system was broken (on the amp) and just wasn't working entirely the way it should have. So instead of spending 200+ dollars by fixing it (I bought it 5 years ago), I've been looking around for months on systems I liked.

Lo and behold, I found a good deal for one at Costco this last week. So I spent my bonus money (and a little bit more) from 4 months ago to buy it. It's twice as powerful as the old and has more features.



It has an iPod doc connector, so I can stream music straight from that and browse playlists, even play videos from the iPod onto my tv. Not terribly different from the Xbox 360, except for the video part.

It has HDMI inputs, so it can upscale DVD's to 720p I believe. It has XM satellite radio support, and 1000 watts of pure goodness. The bass is earth shattering. Playing Halo 2 never sounded so good!

It makes me realize how fast technology evolves, and how much I enjoy evolving with it. Though I haven't taken the plunge into the HD DVD's yet, simply because I think the blu-ray vs. HD DVD thing is stupid. Eventually I figure I will get into that, after all...I do have an HD capable television and an extremely able sound system.

Along with that, I have a ton of DVD's. Ever since I started buying them in fall of 2000, I've accumulated nearly 200 DVD's to this point. I've steadily expanded my shelves, and am nearing a point where I will have to buy another. I just love DVD's though, I've always been a movie guy.



On a different note, The Police concert I went to was awesome. I know it was a month ago, but still it was one of the coolest shows I've seen in a long time, the energy and lighting, the extended/altered songs. It brought back a lot of memories growing up and I really liked the whole thing.

There was an album cover that they had that utilized LED lights, similar to something you'd see on an alarm clock.



They had a cool theme through one of the songs they played from that album that had a bunch of designs, flashing and moving and fading.



I recreated it crappily with the supplied gif animation.



Anyway, I've been thinking a lot lately that I want to get back to Waco or Texas in general and see some friends that I haven't seen in a while. I'm starting to look at heading there for Baylor's homecoming in November, but of course trying to figure out the details as best as I can. Though I could honestly care less about homecoming for hardly any school, and football, I must admit seeing everyone again after years is enticing. I've certainly grown a lot of those friendships, and it excites me to be with those same people again for one cause/purpose.

Anyway, a lot of things are in the works right now for the next year or two. I'm excited about all of them - including work, travels, and other side projects. I feel lethargic sometimes but I know I'm working towards new and different things. I'm feeling good about all of them, and I am assured that even though I don't know what the future looks like in detail, it is very, very bright.

It’s difficult to write about a car that I really had never been passionate about until about 3 weeks before I figured I could drive it. I knew, for several years, that I wanted to rent a car for my 25th birthday. I mean, what else are you going to do on that day?

I had figured, for a year or two, that I was going to try and rent a Corvette. I would have preferred to rent a C6, just because they seem so refined (even though the styling/design is more evolutionary than revolutionary). Alas, much time spent scouring the internet and calling up a few rental companies revealed that a Corvette wouldn’t be easy to obtain, or cheap. I only found out that Hertz at the airport was getting a Corvette added to their fleet this summer. Yes, that’s singular. So anyway, that was a pointless pursuit, so I decided to find something else.



I had always kind of debated if I wanted a sportscar, or something more ridiculous, like a HUMMER, or something similar. I’m a die-hard fan of the H1, but couldn’t care less about the H2. H3, same story. Now the H4 might actually be a good Wrangler contender, so I haven’t turned my nose up at it quite yet.

Still though, I decided that I’d never really driven a sportscar, unless you consider a 1993 Cadillac Eldorado “sporty,” so why not? The Cadillac is fast, but cushy and doesn’t have the feel of sportiness.

So, inevitably I went with the 350Z. It was the cheapest of what I was looking to get for a day (about $190 with insurance - just in case I destroyed it!), and seemed like it would be a lot of fun. Plus, it didn’t hurt that a friend had mentioned they were awesome to drive. Thanks for that one, Kevin.



Awesome indeed. I did hit 110 twice between Denver and Boulder (I really could’ve gotten it higher, but a 110 mph ticket would have been costly enough), and ended up driving nearly 330 miles that day.

I took it up to Estes Park, one of my favorite drives in the world, simply because the drive up there is full of twists and turns, and incidentally includes many places to pass people who aren’t doing 70 mph. I am normally lucky to hit those curves at 40-45 in the Jeep. I took pictures up in Estes, didn’t really do much there, and drove to Boulder and around Denver some more.

Overall, I really enjoyed my day off from work (I’ve only taken off 5 I think since starting there in September) and spoiling myself with the taste of sportiness for a day.

Through my adventure, I realized a car like the 350Z would be bad for me though. I do consider myself a good driver (though a bit crazy), but even a car with that much power I think I would push too often, and inevitably take it too far. I think one (if not all) of the following would happen: 1. I would kill someone else in an accident, 2. I would get a LOT of speeding tickets, or 3. I would end up killing myself.

So I think I’ve decided that though I enjoy the sportiness of a car, an SUV such as my Wrangler is a good fit for me. It’s sporty enough, 4WD, and a convertible. Though its days are definitely numbered, at this point it’s a perfect fit and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another one.



I decided this year though that I’m going to do something different every year for my birthday, to hopefully keep it fresh and interesting. Even if it means spending some extra money, I’m more than willing to save up for that than to spend money here and there on smaller crappy stuff.

So I think 2008 may be the year I skydive. I’ve always wanted to, so assuming someone will push me out of a plane (who am I kidding?! I’m sure many people would love to), I think that’s what I’m going to do.

Life’s an adventure. It’s a mistake not to take advantage of that.

So I've intentionally not updated this thing in a couple weeks because I have some really cool pictures I want to include with an update of what's been going on in the last week or two, but I can't get them off the camera just yet.

I returned from Tulsa this weekend, driving about 1700 miles to go see the band I've wanted to see forever, Gravity Kills. The concert itself was awesome, with a decent opening band, and the middle one wasn't really that great or anything to write home about. But Gravity Kills just rocked. It was so cool to see the band that I've loved for so long finally live. I would have gone out to meet up with them downtown (they were hitting a bar afterwards), but had to leave early the next morning (Sunday) to return to Denver.

The noise from this band was utterly insane. They were labeled as industrial/rock (ala NIN or Stabbing Westward), but the concert barely used any sampling or industrial elements, probably because they were all pre-recorded and just played from some audio source.

The concert was more like a heavy metal band though, and it was just awesome. The floor dropped with the bass, the vocals were great, and I realized how much I've missed and loved this band. Brought back some memories of discovering them (from my sister) and listening to them (mainly on a train trip my sophomore year of high school).


Oh-so-crappy picture of the concert with my camera phone. The videos would've been cool, except the sound overloaded my sound and comes across horribly.

It wasn't a cheap trip, but definitely worth it. The keyboard stand that they use (which is legendary) was actually really cool. The keyboardist had a performance all his own with this thing, I couldn't believe how sweet it was. I can't even describe it, but this cool video shows its unique properties:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEXA8SwB ... mp;search=

So this is the 3rd show they've played in about 30 months. They broke up in 2002, but I'm hoping the recent activity may point towards something new. But time will tell, I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

If anyone wants their music, just let me know and I can point you in the right direction.

Anyway, just wanted to write a little something and get that up here. I'll be posting more pics and such when I get them onto my computer, including the 350Z I rented for a day (too much fun!) and the trip to Tulsa with some interesting pictures.

Hope everyone's doing well and staying sane!

So, Spider-Man 3 just came out this weekend. Or was it the Playstation 3? I get the two mixed up. I can’t keep track of Sony’s naming/lettering schemes.



I think this company’s out of new ideas for fonts.

Anyway, this isn’t a Sony bash, as much as it is a Spider-Man 3 bash. Now I admit, I saw it opening weekend (just as I’ve seen the previous 2 on opening weekend and liked them - I was never a Spidey fan), but I think this movie had 2 major things going against it.

1. Batman Begins. There’s no doubt in my mind that BB is THE benchmark for super hero/comic book films, and I’m sorry, but Spider-Man doesn’t make the cut.

2. This movie was way too busy. I mean, it was 150 minutes of Spider-Man, but seriously, there were too many villains. Sandman? Great effects, cool character. Over the top but not necessarily in a bad way. New Goblin? Meh, we’ve seen that before. Harry Osborn’s a jerk. Venom? Pretty cool effects again, but didn’t really DO a whole lot. And let’s not forget the black Spider-Man suit, turning Peter Parker into a complete douchebag.

So wait, did I just count 4 villains? I think I did. The stories for each of these characters (as well as numerous side-plots and such) did no help to the film. In the end, they all clash to give us a cool 10 minute scene, where good triumphs over evil once again.

So, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t really BAD, but it wasn’t really GOOD, either. Which brings in my next point and the whole point of this entry: why all other superheroes just don’t add up.



Batman. Nuff said. The one thing to establish the bat from all other superheroes is the fact that Batman does not have super powers. His alter identity is Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy. Batman’s superpower is money, which means that, in theory, anyone who has enough money could use it to thwart crime and become him. The most realistic of the superheroes, he’s also my favorite.


I mean, how cool is this?!

It’s just always been a down to earth thing, and I’ve never been too involved in fantasy. Admittedly, I enjoyed the first X-Men film (and the 2 after), along with Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. But then along came Batman Begins, the film to kick every other ass in town. I do realize X-Men 3 came out after BB, but still, X-Men 3 was better than the mediocre Spider-Man 3.



Not even last year’s Superman (which I was excited about) was that great. So Batman Begins is my absolute benchmark for all super hero movies, but then again maybe I’ve been such a die hard Batman guy for so long that I just won’t consider the others because they are too far-fetched.

A friend pointed out to me that Batman is too far fetched, too. I agree, but out of every single one of them, Batman is the only one that could be an average joe, with billions of dollars at his (or her) disposal. Batman is the commoners super hero, and to me will always be king. I simply can’t wait for “The Dark Knight” to hit theaters next summer. We should be seeing a trailer for that in the next 6 months or so.

So when that comes out, the true Batman craze will begin. I hope it crushes Spider-Man 3’s records, but I doubt that it will. SM3 will do very well in the box-office (as it’s proven already this weekend), but it’s just a mindless popcorn flick to kick-start the summer. It’s good for the industry, but bad for ego. Apparently they’re going to do Spider-Man 4, 5, and 6 now. And indefinitely. Well, at least there’s 2008 (and probably 2010 or 11) for Batman Begins sequel(s). And let me tell you: THOSE will define the genre. And they will change your mind, too.