Daily Archives: December 26, 2002

Watching T.V. at home and decided to give some of my own thoughts to the year in review.
I guess the main thing is the continual demise of music as we know it. Number one on my list is Avril Lavigne for destroying music:
“Rock & roll wild child Avril Lavigne hit big in summer 2002 with her spiky-fun debut song “Complicated,” shifting pop music into a different direction. Lavigne, who was 17 at the time, didn’t seem concerned with the glamor of the TRL-dominated pop world and such confidence allowed her star power to soar.”
Anyway. I keep on hearing her described as some punk-pop princess. If she is pop, then that is a sad, sad way for punk music to die. Wearing ties does not make you cutting edge. Ms. Lavigne is def. one of the worse things to come out of 2002.
Another has to be Ashanti. She is not a bad singer, but what did she do? She made guest appearances on every rapper’s album. And then she rode Notorious B.I.G. coattails forever on Foolish and Unfoolish. And then Soul Train had the nerve to give her the Aretha Franklin Award over Alicia Keys or India.Arie or anyone else. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs.
O.K. Good Charlotte. They do absolutely nothing for me. Don’t see what the big deal is with them.
**sigh** Christina, Christina….or X-Tina. Why? That’s all I want to know.
And do we really care about J.Lo and who the hell’s she’s marrying this time. Is it 3 or 4 Jenny?
And please, why is Jennifer Love Hewitt STILL putting out albums?
I mean the whole year would have been lost if it wasn’t for Nora Jones. I personally thank Ms. Jones for saving me from the rest of the filth and garbage that was put out this year. If you have not heard this album, then you need to go out and get it now.
I also have to thank Missy Elliot and Timberland from saving me from P Diddy and…well mainly P Diddy and his quest to destroy Rap and HipHop as we know it. Just flip it and reverse it baby.
Dave Matthews Band also contributed to saving music, even if it was a somewhat diluted album called Busted Stuff. The original LilyWhite Sessions sound so much better.
I think the biggest event for me was discovering Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. I’ve heard the song before, but this year, I heard the entire album. It might be heretical, but that album has bought me closer to God than anything in a long time.
What else? Movie wise, I’ve been out of the loop since the 2nd part of the year. Spiderman delivered, Star Wars: Episode II was an improvement, and Men In Black II was a big disappointment
I was also out of the loop for most of the televison seasons. Although I have to thank FOX for American Idol, or at least the begining episodes. “It was suppose to be sung like that!”. **sigh** Good times. Also enjoyed the Buffy the Vampire season and The Osbournes. Wrestling kinda sucked this year.
Oh, thank god for another season of The Price Is Right. Bob Barker is still alive and there is still some good in the world.
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Well, it wasn’t as bad has I thought it would be. Tried to get Angie to take me to the bus terminal or at least to BART, but her meeting got rescheduled. So I decided to take a taxi, cause I really didn’t want to lug my luggage up the hill to the bus stop and then onto a bus and then onto BART. $25 to get from my house near SF State to the Transbay Terminal. Oy vey is all I have to say; thank god I don’t have to depend on a taxi to get around town or I would def. be broke.
So I get to the Greyhound terminal and it is just dirty and run down, with bums all over the place; your typical SF day. And there is a line that is not moving of people waiting to get their tickets. I’m glad I got their earlier than what I was planning too. So eventually I get my ticket, and I go and wait in line for my bus, but there is one that is leaving 30 min earlier and I get put aboard that one.
Well, the bus smelled funny, and there was a kid on board, but there were only 5 other people on the bus. So we went on our merry way, first to Oakland, then to Sacramento. It was interesting to have someone else drive through the traffic; it gave me alot of time to observe other drivers and take a look at the cities. I didn’t know that there was a lighthouse on Yebra Burena Island. And you wouldn’t believe all the nose pickers that I saw. The other interesting thing is that I could have sworn that I saw Amber Price’s brother, Ryan while we were stuck in traffic in Vallejo.
So I make it up to Sacramento 2 hours ahead of schedule. The Sacramento station is just a mess; people all over the place and no one knows what’s going on. I get in one of the lines hoping that it is the right line that I need to be in. In this line are some very angry people; just bitching and complaining. Oh man, I had to put up with an hour of this before the line started to move. I eventually get dumped on a bus, luckily it is an express bus that stops at fewer places. I ended up in a seat that didn’t recline sitting next to some guy from Stickton going to Vancouver, WA to see his family. I wish that I had gotten a seat next to the buisnessman with his laptop. Him and the people around him were watching Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on DVD. Of course, there was a ghetto ass family on the bus that opened a huge bag of cornnuts, which stanked up the whole place. They did have a little girl with them, but she was well behaved and didn’t cry too much.
We drive up to Redding and make our first stop. At the bus stop, we find out that our bus is going to be a super express, meaning that we will only make a couple of 10min stops and go almost nonstop to Portland. I tried to get some slepp, but my seat didn’t recline, which sucked. Also, the guy next to me was bored and wouldn’t shut up. He was bugging me and his sisters; eventually, they told him to shut up. It was cool driving through Oregon, looking at the snow on the ground and passing through the cities.
We ended up in Portland around 4/5am. Compared to the other bus stations, Portland was like the Hilton or something. I decided to spend money on food and got some pancakes, bacon, toast, and coffee for $5. It was SO GOOD. Not sure if that was cause of the time I spent on the bus or what. I also blew some quarters on the Adams Family pinball game that they had there. I used to play that game all the time with Sam Arintok at Solano. Oh man, have I lost all of my pinball skills, I didn’t even get a replay.
So around 7am, we get back on another bus and head up to Tacoma, which too about 3hrs. So I ended up in Tacoma around 11am, 3 hours ahead of schedule. Overall, it wasn’t that bad of a trip and I should survive the trip back. **knock on wood**
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