Brett’s recent top 25 songs list naturally prompted me to throw together a list of my own. This is what I came up with.
Top 25 Songs in the Entire Universe
(as of right now and in no particular order)

1) “I Really Should Have Gone Out Last Night” – Dirty Three

2) “A Shot in the Arm” – Wilco

3) “Sunflower” – Low

4) “Folsom Prison Blues” – Johnny Cash

5) “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” – The Smiths

6) “If You’re Feeling Sinister” – Belle & Sebastian

7) “Mutiny in Heaven” – The Birthday Party

8) “Who Are You” – Tom Waits

9) “Seven” – Sunny Day Real Estate

10) “Bled White – Elliott Smith

11) “Let Down” – Radiohead

12) “The Bells” – Pedro the Lion

13) “Letter From an Occupant” – The New Pornographers

14) “Savory” – Jawbox

15) “Kiss Off” – Violent Femmes

16) “The City” – The Dismemberment Plan

17) “Alison” – Elvis Costello

18) “I See a Darkness” – Bonnie Prince Billy

19) “Suedehead” – Morrissey

20) “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” – Weezer

21) “I Drive a Lot” – Starflyer59

22) “Break” – Fugazi

23) “Lovesong” – The Cure

24) “Paranoid” – Black Sabbath

25) “Hyper-ballad” – Bjork

Of course, all standard disclaimers apply. At any given moment there are so many other songs that could have easily been on this list, but I suppose that’s always implicit in lists like these.

Remember that thing I said the one time about wanting to be a software engineer? Scratch that. I wanna be in a Smiths cover band.

Time for some backstory, a little exposition if you will. In my entire life there have only been two things that I wanted to do for a living. Until I was thirteen, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Around the age of thirteen I began to realize two things. One was that I really wasn’t Air Force material and the other was that I really really liked making computers do things. In fact, I realized that there really wasn’t much of a limit at all on the kinds of things you could get a computer to do if you knew the right way to tell it. It was then that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life building software. (It was probably also then that I guaranteed myself four years of high school without a single date, but that’s beside the point). So let’s jump forward a few years. I’ve graduated from college with a degree in Computer Science. I got good grades and I’ve got a pretty solid resume. Theoretically, I should have all the things I need to convince someone to let me build software for them. And yet at this point, I’m something like 0/13 on my job offers to interviews ratio. That’s right, I heard back from Cerner a couple days ago and they decided to pass on me. It’s frustrating, and in the case of Cerner, more than a little discouraging. When I read the news from them, I kind of felt like all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs. I really wanted to work for them, and I can’t figure out what I did to convince them that I wasn’t right for them. For that matter, I’d like to know what I must be doing wrong in all my interviews. I don’t think I’m entirely without a personality or any kind of conversation skills but I can’t seem to convince anyone that all I really want to do is build good software and that I’d be qualified to do it well. At this point, it’s all I really think about anymore (as a quick check of my recent posts will clearly show). I’m trying not to let this get me down too much, but all the same it’s something I’d really like to get behind me.

Back from my interview with Cerner. Kansas City was actually really nice, and I had a great time. It was also much less stressful than I thought it would be. Most of the time it seemed like Cerner was trying to impress the recruits as much as we were trying to impress them. If that was the case, it worked because I was really impressed with Cerner and I think I’d really like to work for them.

Alright, this is it. My only suit folded up as neatly as possible in my dad’s old garment bag? Check. Printed out my travel documents? Check. Sudafed and tissues to stop this cold from turning my head into a giant exploding ball of snot? Check. Song title related to trip in name only frozen in Winamp for the duration. Check. Wired nerves? Double check. I’m off to the airport way too early tomorrow morning to see what these new-fangled homeland security airport measures are all about. With any luck I’ll be on my flight at 10:15 and off to lovely, tropical Kansas City for my interview on Tuesday.

Well here it is, Black Friday already. While it may not technically be the biggest shopping day of the year, I’m sure it will still manage to move CompUSA down a few more circles of retail hell. I always swore to myself that I’d never work retail during the holiday season, and yet here I am. Granted, I never started swearing that until I started working retail, but I’d still really hoped that I’d get to miss out on this experience. I suppose it can’t be so bad. I mean, if nothing else I’ll get to listen to eight continuous hours of Christmas music today. So that’s… yeah… *sigh*.

Ok, I know things have been a little slow around here for a while. That’s due mostly to the fact that my life has been anything but slow for the past few weeks. In the past month, I’ve had about 8 job interviews, all through the OSU engineering career services. Thank goodness for them. I’ve still got nothing definite, but I did manage to get at least one second interview so far. It’s with the health care company Cerner, but the catch is, it’s in Kansas City. I fly out there in the beginning of December to see their campus and interview, so I won’t really know what I think about it until then. I’m a little worried that once I get out there, I’ll find out that the position wouldn’t even be available until next summer though. That’s already happened to me during several interviews. It seems a lot of companies interviewing through the career services center assume that everyone they interview is graduating the next spring. I can’t really wait that long. I need to get out of this CompUSA nonsense, right now.

Who needs sleep? Today we started carrying Bawl’s Guarana Soda at CompUSA. We got in 75 cases full of wakey-wakey. Naturally, I had to pick up a case for myself and I downed a bottle at work. Bad idea. It was certainly stimulating, but the downside was that all the caffiene energy made it seem like time was passing at a crawl. Nanoseconds dragged by as I stared at the clock on my register. Time never really flies at CompUSA though, so maybe I can’t blame the soda too much. The verdict: Perfect for staying up for GTA: Vice City, less so for passing time at someplace you’d rather not be. It doesn’t hurt that they managed to score the best product marketing tie-in of all time with the “Grab your Bawls and Run Like Hell” slogan.

So apparently, I’m considering switching coaxialflutter over to an all ticket stubs, all the time format. I’ve just gotten to go to a lot of great shows recently, that’s all. Like Sigur R&#243s! And Sigur R&#243s! Then, there’s Sigur R&#243s! I enjoyed the show, in case it wasn’t apparent. From what I heard tonight, I think I’ll really like some of the stuff on their new album as well. It was a nice surprise that I got to go, considering the show sold out within a day or so of tickets going on sale back in October. Fortunately, more tickets were released as the format of the show was changed to take advantage of the hugeness of the Mershon Auditorium on campus. It was still nearly packed, and I ended up being seated fairly high in the balcony but I was glad just to have gotten in at all.

Wilco did an excellent job of making my first trip to the Promowest Pavilion a good one. It was a great show, more expensive that most I go to but well worth it. The set was just about perfect, and I was pleased that they played nearly every song I was hoping they would. Of course it helped that they played for about 2 hours. That’s a nice change of pace from too many shows where it’s over after about an album’s worth of songs. Once again though, man has triumphed over machine and proved that no matter how loud a sound system a venue has, it will never be as loud as the drunk guy hollering along out of tune right behind you. I think I’m going to get rid of my stereo system and replace it with a couple of drunk guys in boxes. It’ll sound horrible, but man will I be able to crank it up. (Note to self: Can’t ever have too much Wilco. Be sure to catch “I am Trying to Break Your Heart” while it’s still at the Drexel.)