listen to…

Everyone has those bands.  The bands that you hear so much about from your friends, or in magazines, but you never listen to them yourself.  No time.  No dedication.  No place to start.

I recently crossed the band Arcade Fire off of my to-listen-to list.  At the suggestion of a co-worker who likes them, I bought their album Funeral.  Based on the fact that I loved this album and was right in assuming that I would, I plan on crossing other bands off of this list.  All I need, is a little help. 

Alot of the bands on my list are bands that my friends listen to; specifically, friends who’s musical opinion I trust.  So, if you listen to the bands listed below, or want to suggest another – drop me a line and help a sister out. E-mail or Comment.  (or call or IM me for those in the know) 

I’ll make you a customized Beatles mix or something equally rad that I know about doing.

Bands Mindy Thinks She Will Like:

-Weezer

-Wilco

-Tom Waits

-Joy Division

-Mates of State

-Jeff Buckley

-Regina Spektor

-Beck

-Modest Mouse

 *Tegan and Sara were on my list until a few weeks ago when they were artist of the week on MTV.  Now they’re off the list and i’m pretty sure I don’t like them.  Maybe it was just the clips that were floating about or something, but I was severely unimpressed.  If you’d like to change my mind, i’m not opposed to one last shot, Tegan and Sara.  If those are even your real names.

telephone

Remember  way back in kindergarten, when the teacher had everyone in the class sit around in a circle and play the telephone game?  The person who started it thought of something to say, for example “I had cereal today”, and then whispered it to the person next to them.  Then that person whispered it to the next, and on and on it went until eventually everyone in the circle had heard, decoded and then encoded the same message again.  Only by the end “I had cereal today” has become “i hate venereal disease”.  I think there’s a reason why our kindergarten teachers spent so much time on this.  Mrs. Hayes was on to something.  Miscommunication is the devil and it will haunt us all forever.  Too many people go by their own interpretations of things when alot of the time, they’re wrong.  Whether it be what someone has said, something they’ve done or even a stupid look that you think someone gave you.  People shouldn’t assume that they know exactly what something means, because although you might be right, you may very well be wrong too.

Although, Timmy DOES hate venereal disease, he wouldn’t bring that up in an innocent game of telephone, he’s five. 

nature vs. nurture

Being a psychology minor / philosophy enthusiast /nerd, I’ve heard the arguments and theories from both teams nature and nurture.  For those playing at home, the nature vs. nurture debate is about where personality, intelligence and behaviors stem from – either from your DNA, genes, heritage etc (nature) or from your personal experiences (nurture).   I’ve always been on the fence on the issue, but I lean more toward the nurture argument.  Probably because as far as epistemology is concerned, I always liked the tabula rasa theory (Aristotle?).  Anyway, I always thought we’re all a product of our experiences and that we aren’t limited or confined upon birth to being a certain way. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking but I believe it none the less. 

I wrote a thesis paper last semester where I had to come up with my own personal theory on where I think personality stems from so I won’t go too in depth into this, but if you really want to read it I’ve uploaded it – link at the bottom of this page. It’s a pretty easy read if you’re into this sort of thing.

A few weeks ago I went out for lunch with my family, and my brother was asking Mum all the questions about our Opa because he passed away when we were very young.  I was seven and he was nine, so we didn’t really get to know him.  Mum and Dad were giving him alot of pretty superficial responses like “He was a very good man” and “he was happy, kind of stern but very happy”.  This wasn’t enough for my brother so he kept prodding until he got some more concrete examples, and something suddenly occured to my mother.  “Mindy is alot like him actually, alot, alot like him”.  She listed all these things that he would do, specific instances of him displaying certain behaviors and characteristics that I do and have as well.  The similiaries we have run the gamut from the bigger personality traits like being very decisive and motivated (and judgemental, shhh) down the little things like going “hmmm”, “mmhmm” and “mmmm” (that last one is the “psychiatrists ‘mmmm’, not a ‘mmmm’ this is delicious ‘mmmm’) and thinking that these are somehow appropriate responses as opposed to using actual words.  (I need to stop doing that, I know.) 

So now I don’t know what to think.  Like I said, I was only seven years old when my Opa passed away so it doesn’t really make any sense that I should be so much like him, and that all of these personality traits have really only come up in the last few years.  So, I’m back on the fence. 

What do you think about the whole thing?  I’m being serious, i want to know what everyone thinks on the issue – where do you fall on the debate and why?  Comment or e-mail me. 

Here’s a link, on the off chance you’re interested in learning more about this without getting too technical.  Nature Vs. Nurture – How Hereditary and Environment Shape Who We Are

On a completely unrelated note, this Saturday evening Vh1 is playing No Direction Home, the Martin Scorcese documentary about Bob Dylan.  I’m a big Bob Dylan fan and I actually own this DVD, but I must say this; If, you are not already a Bob Dylan fan, don’t watch it.  You’ll hate it.  It’s very long and quite frankly, it can be tedious.  If you are a Bob Dylan fan and would like to get to know more about his life and where he’s coming from, definitely watch it – you’ll love it and it’s a great introduction to the finer points of his early career. 

I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving, and thank you to everyone who messaged me / texted me / emailed me or whatever to make fun of me being a non-celebrating foreigner. 

mindy munizaga – cognitive social modeling theory

guilty pleasures.

It’s 3am and I’m listening to “Faith” by George Michael.  I know what you’re thinking.  Clearly, Mindy has done lost her damn mind.  She listens to The Beatles and Bob Dylan and Elliott Smith!  What’s she doing with George Michael?! 

 Well, I’ll tell you what i’m doing with George Michael.  

I don’t believe in ‘guilty pleasures’.  My thinking is, if you’re aware of something being a ‘guilty pleasure’ you already don’t classify is as being “good” in a traditional sense of the word.  It’s not real “quality” music,  and you shouldn’t feel bad about listening to these guilty pleasure artists such as George Michael because they aren’t indications of a real serious connection with the music, otherwise you wouldn’t be classifying it as being a ‘guilty pleasure’. You’re just enjoying it on a superficial level.  You enjoy it for what it is, not because you can relate to it specifically or because it moves you profoundly or changes the way you look at the world.  If I wanted to be moved by music i’d put on the artists who really do give me chills and stir the soul etc. Something a little more serious than Last Christmas. 

Although, that is pretty serious there.  I mean, he gave you his heart and the very next day, you gave it away?

that aint right.

(I had a really, really great weekend.  Big thanks to everyone involved.)

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

I’ve recently had two seperate conversations about teleportation. It was a little odd, but they made sense contextually.  Both conversations started because teleportation would have solved our problems.  I could teleport myself to Boston to see Kara and have some toast with her.  I could teleport myself  to see Jenn, who lives only twenty minutes away.   Teleportation rules.

However, these conversations opened up a whole can of worms.  After putting a little thought into it, I’ve changed my mind about teleportation.  Essentially, I believe that teleportation, although RAD, would mean doom for mankind.  The world would fall into shambles as we all literally became one global community.   You want to hang out with a kid from Madagascar? Oh ok.  Guess what?!  You just got some weird disease that they only have there and you brought back one of Darwin’s birds, now they’re killing the Blue Jay’s that hang out at Sean’s.   This is the end.

Economies would fall apart.  People would become even fatter and lazier as we wouldn’t ever need to walk or drive anywhere.  McDonalds drive thu would be useless, just teleport your food to your couch.  You don’t even have to get into the car.  Double Cheeseburger, no pickles?  ZAP.  Fat.  (Although, this would lower the chances of drunk drivers getting into accidents in the name of 4th meal.  But Teleportation Under the Influence (TUI) would become an issue.)

You would meet every creepo who added you on myspace, in real life.  Rick from Florida thinks you’re cute?  Guess what, he’s in town and wants to meet up.  E-voiding people would become next to impossible.  You can’t put your teleportation machine on vibrate and say “oh i didn’t hear you teleport in.  It was on vibrate”. 

Those PSA’s they run on NBC late at night would be useless.  It’s 11PM, do you know where your children are?  Well, they could be asleep or they could be in Antarctica.   And hanging out with an Antarctic drug dealer as well. 

Technically, would teleportation enable time travel?  If I sent myself from here in Connecticut, US of A back home to Sydney, AU of Stralia, where they’re ahead something like 14 hours- would have I just broke some time / space continuum? 

I just read a little about teleportation in Wikipedia (can you tell i’m bored at work?) and my brain exploded. This is too much.  There’s a reason I didn’t major in Physics.

But I can certainly conclude that I do not support the scientific exploration of creating teleportation for every day use.

On that note, I’m out.

Please teleport responsibly.

it happens.

Imagine coming home from a long day of work, you take off your jacket because it’s bloody freezing out.  You collapse on the couch and say to someone, “I had the worst day…”  As the wheels in your head are a-spinnin, thinking about how you can explain the horror of your day to somebody who’ll listen to and appease you, they say “eh, it happens.” 

It’s pretty rude.  It makes the complainers’ complaints seem invalid and groundless, and all they wanted to do was vent for a little while.  And i’m not talking about the “oh I stubbed my toe” complaint – because that really does just happen, but I mean the legitimately bad days.  I only mention this because I know someone who says this all the time and a few days ago, I really wanted to complain to them but I reconsidered based on this.  Despite what you may think, i’m not much of a complainer (yes, i know that right now i’m complaining about being unable to complain…) but I just like to think that if I were going to complain, you’d listen. 

On a completely unrelated note, I want to talk about mix CD’s for a while.  I like to think that most people in the world have seen the movie High Fidelity (if you havn’t seen it, watch it.  Or better yet, read the book by Nick Hornby of which the film is based, then watch it).  In the movie, there’s a great quote. 

“The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.” 

 I make alot of mix CD’s and playlists.  As anyone who’s been in my car knows, that’s usually what i’ll listen to when I’m driving, and i’ll listen to albums at home or work (currently listening to Abbey Road for instance).  I like to think I make good mixes, and i’ve been told that I do; however, I don’t have a strategy when making one.  I mean there are some obvious rules.  I don’t put a song by Bright Eyes on and then listen to Journey (although, that would be interesting).  I try to stay in the same genre, and try to avoid having too many songs by the same artist on the one mix.  Unless of course, i’m making a mix of an artist to expose listeners to brilliance (Hi Jenn! Elliott Smith!). 

So tell me, Internet – Do you have any rules to play by when you’re making a mix CD?  I’ve found some advice and how-to lists but I feel like they’re either very serious or very stupid, it’s not working for me. 

the awkward first post

Hello World,

I have no idea what to talk about, which isn’t exactly a great set-up to encourage you to keep reading, but really, what constitutes first-post material?  What did you write about? I feel like there should be some sort of introduction thing involved in this, but most people who read this know where i’m coming from anyway.  And for those who don’t, they’ll find out as I write more. 

 I’ve used livejournal for the past year or so, but I always treated it as more of a blog than a “journal” per-se because I don’t think posting deepdarksecrets on the internet is a good idea.  Even if you make it private or friends only.  The people who you allow to read your privatedeepdarksecrets should be people you’d talk to about your problems anyway.  It just complicates things.  So this was a big motivation in moving to wordpress.   Also, my friend Sean Henri has a glorious blog and I want to be just like him when I grow up.  So does Holly Patrick.

 I think that’s all for now.  More to come over the next few days as I get used to the in’s and out’s of this newfangled wordpress contraption. 

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