I'm writing the script for Red Hood Rider! I know, I have better things to be doing, but...I love doing this! I'm getting plenty of writing done, and I'm loving how things are going with the scriptwriting. I'm making it fairly good, and I really, really think that I'm going to keep the promise I'll deliver at the end of the first chapter. (Basically, know how Ruby is based off of me? As in, was spawned as being a magical girl vampire version of me, way back in March or so? And how she's the protagonist? In a setting where she holds immense superpowers, immense political importance, gains a lot of friends, gains a lot of new superpowers as required, is the chosen one, and basically is destined to succeed? All of that, while given good justification, makes her quite explicitly a Mary Sue. And I plan on telling people to give it a chance, since I'm writing around that limitation, and the second chapter really helps to deliver that with its Sally focus.)

Since I missed blogging yesterday, let's do two blog posts today. It could arguably be made to be three, but eh, I'll figure out some awkward segue into the second topic somewhere. This will be a bit of a lengthy blog post, too, though not nearly as long as it should be, in all probability. (I don't know, I haven't typed it, yet, but given what I'm setting out to type I have little doubt I won't be as thorough as I want to be.)

For starters, my ring was instantly noticed by my family, though given it's still in the season, they didn't think much of it. I'll probably have to take it off for family nights from now on, though, because the season's over. (I don't want to draw too much attention to it.) I also take it off during work (which I had today, subbing for someone briefly), but only when on the guard chair. I've found that my finger has already gotten so used to the ring that my hand feels weird not having it on.

So I think I'll continue to wear it for the majority of the day the majority of the week. It feels good, both sensually and mentally, to have on there. And whenever the ring is absent, my finger feels like it's missing something. I've become addicted to having makeshift jewelry on me. My hairties plus my glow-in-the-dark wristband are makeshift bracelets, my whistle for work is a makeshift necklace, my bat-ring is a makeshift ring, all that's left to complete the package would be makeshift earrings! (Yeah, that...won't happen. Ever. Just too much a risk.)

Speaking of things that happened yesterday, though, recently I encountered a person that is interesting. (Well, technically, I encountered them a while back, but this is the first time I heard them explain what they are in actual detail.) Basically, they're a multiple-personality person. The original personality, by description of the second and now currently dominant personality, experimented with dreams, reaching full lucidity in them and apparently experimenting with time in them (think loosely like Inception), until eventually, by creating the second personality, the original personality ascended to godhood.

What I found interesting about the description, though, is that I have a CF friend who holds weird beliefs and says they have become a god, too. It's just that in their case, it's through the occult. The occult granted that person access to basically parallel dimensions, a sort of spirit (or maybe even dream--maybe you can see where this is going) realm, where their true self was shown, and they interact with things we understand to be deities on a daily basis, some good, some evil, some just weird, some that just show favoritism, a whole bunch of variety like that.

I've touched on that before in this blog, I think, and I just felt like reinforcing that I've always found that sort of thing interesting. And I admit that I developed a bit of a theory that maybe these two people who both had reached godhood had reached the same thing, just by different methods. And, yes, this carries an implication with it: for me to think this, obviously it means that I believe it. While I realize that makes me a bit of a crazy lady...yes, I actually do.

Why?

Well...because I do. I fully believe, after all, there's a scientific explanation for everything. We just don't necessarily know what that explanation is. There's SO much that our current understanding of science cannot explain, that we KNOW for a fact happens. And there are certain things that even science has only its best guess on, theories rather than actual indisputable proof. Why NOT have those sorts of things exist? Maybe not in the sense that they are experienced. Maybe the godhood of dreams isn't true godhood, maybe the occult is themselves only witnessing their interpretation of things and doesn't have the picture perfect, maybe so, but that also doesn't mean they're entirely wrong, either.

There's things that ancient cultures believe about that science hasn't been able to pin down yet, but which the ancient cultures did (and sometimes still do), producing results. For instance, ki/chi/xi/chakra/whatever you call it. I believe it exists. It doesn't, as far as I know, allow me to blast a building into smithereens. But I fully believe that bodily energy exists. Science hasn't been able to prove it does, but it has some reasonably-solid results suggesting it does.

Basically, I have an open mind to the world being...not nearly as much as we tend to think it of being, of it being a mere fraction of the actual truth, of the actual world. Science might be able to show us everything in theory, but in practice, science has a lot of the same limitations as religion, with the two being more intertwined than most rational people are willing to admit. Many, many scientific breakthroughs were dismissed by people at the time, simply because it was outside their current rules, their current laws, of how the world worked. Yet time and time again, the breakthroughs were proven real, and then later became the new norm.

That's generally why a good scientist doesn't instantly dismiss this stuff as crazy, all at the risk of potentially being labeled crazy themselves. They'll point out the weaknesses, they'll maintain skepticism, they'll feel it out to see if it has a potential to be real, but not openly dismiss it as being entirely impossible. After all...think about it. How much sci-fi has resemblance to fantasy? Sci-fi is, explicitly, fantasy in space, with things like elves turning into things like Vulcans.

...Now think: how much of that sci-fi has not only become real, but in many cases, been surpassed and even made to look dated? If you think about what the computers in Star Trek were capable of compared to what an average smartphone can do these days, the smartphone wins by a hands-down landslide, yet alone, supercomputers we have these days. That's through scientific and technological breakthrough.

Now think about our understanding of the human body. We've been studying the human body for thousands of years, and we STILL don't know everything about body and mind. Miracles that defy explanation, things that we simply don't know how they could happen being accurately recorded as having happened, mental conditions we're beginning to know more about, the relationship between chemicals and suchforth in the body, everything we know about our bodies and minds is rapidly, rapidly evolving.

And who's to say this is any different? It's certainly outside the norm. But what if the world we know, the world that operates by the rules we know, isn't the entirety of the world? There's some scientific backing for this idea, at the very least. (What if, for instance, dark matter and/or dark energy were actually things from this ethereal plane?) The world is full of mysteries yet to be fully explored. And people saying they have this sort of existence, this godhood, fascinate me, because I think they're doing exactly that.

I think, I really think, they're AT LEAST partially right. That they've stumbled upon a realm we don't really know yet, in spite of our efforts to get there. They've said what they've seen, and while it's possible they're just loonies, it's just as possible to me if not moreso that they're onto something. Because in my view, it actually makes more sense that way. I don't believe every claim of the paranormal out there--there are plenty of people who make this stuff up, to scare others and/or to get attention, and/or because they're crazy.

But I don't believe every claim is false, I don't believe every case being documented is a hoax, I no longer hold a "I'll believe it when I see it" mentality as I did when I was younger (I never did hold an outright feeling of it being fake, though), even though I do have some healthy dosage of skepticism behind them. I hold belief, faith, that there's at least some truth behind these stories, these documentaries, these things, because to me?

I have to hold that fundamental belief that there's more to our world than...what we know of our world. It's what makes more sense to me, and it's also a belief that makes me feel more happy. 'Cause, honestly, if there's nothing else. If we're it. The highest form of life, that just vanishes into nothingness on death. Especially if we're the only life in the universe? As unlikely as that sounds to me. If that were the case.

Life would suck.

So having a lil' supernatural in my life? Fully fine by me. Even if the result is that I get labeled a nutjob.

So you'll notice no blog for yesterday. As it happens, I remember what I blogged about. Not just "what I wanted to blog about"; I remember actually blogging about the subject.

It had to deal with me wondering about how I effortlessly was managing multiple blog posts every single day, including weekends, when now I struggle very much to do so. I considered work schedules about it, and went on a couple tangents here and there.

I remember it vividly. The blog post was real.

...Except I can't find any notes of it, traditional or digital, and it's not on here. And not on any site. So I'm pretty sure I dreamed I blogged, thought the dream was real, and let it be.

'Cause last night, I went to bed thinking I had already blogged. Given the above, you can tell that I had something to blog about! If I had thought I needed to, I could have, easily, given I also went to bed earlier than normal.

But I didn't because I thought there was no need.

When...apparently...there was.

So, uh.
I guess I'll have to reset the counter for continuous daily blog posting...again.

Yesterday I made two blogs, which I suppose balances out with my utter lack of blogs today. SO much stuff I was planning to do...none of it got done.

...Well, mostly. Dancing has rhythm which requires music, and I'm starting this blog referencing it, butstill...not the focus of the blog post I'm writing! So anyway, I went to square dancing tonight. There was a Halloween dance, with a finger-food potluck. One of the things there was a cupcake with one of those cheap dollar-a-dozen rings in the frosting: a bat.

I took it, and much to my surprise, it was a comfortable fit on my ring finger. Not only that, but for the most part, it didn't get in the way of me doing anything! (Heck, I'm typing this blog post with the ring on to test its viability, and all signs point to: yes!) So I decided to keep it, and now am wearing it.

It's a bit of a risk, and I'll have to take it off for work, but I'm thinking of continuing to wear it as another makeshift jewelry piece. It feels good on my finger. Minor pinch to the skin, but it's not squeezing the skin and suffocating my finger; it's not tight at all. It's really perfect, honestly, for me to wear long periods of time.

Yes, it looks ridiculous, but so does my glow-in-the-dark bracelet that I've come to wear as a security-yet-comforting item. And while it can never hold the same sentimentality that said bracelet does (the bracelet having spawned Red Hood Rider), I'm thinking of immortalizing it all the same by incorporating it into Lord Ventrella's design. After all, Lords often wear rings, and the ring of a vampire should be dark and whatnot, so it makes sense for it to be a bat.

...Plus, it fits Ruby's character so much to have an item like that become attached to her. I actually think it'd be a neat way to give a shorthand for showing her status as the vampire lord, with it kinda acting as if one of the nine pieces of eight in Pirates of the Caribbean: a status symbol out of something that should be junk. Just in this case, said piece of junk, rather than being obscure, is something easily recognizable to vampires and instantly marks Lord Ventrella for who (s)he is.


...Speaking of Red Hood Rider, I've been compiling some mental notes. Mostly involving Ruby's super modes (how it's possible to combine them, yet she receives a warning not to combine all four at once), but also touching on Vili a bit. Such as why she's called the Violet Ranger. (Lavender tube top is technically purple, pants are technically a very dark purple rather than black, and she's a "one-problem, one-person" type of Ranger rather than Power Ranger, with the role of Power Ranger being given to Whitney.) Small stuff like that. Should probably get to writing those notes down before I forget.

Hey, so you know about THE tune, right? (Archive binge if not.) So today, I was tapping my hand on a table, doing a bit of an attempt at making a thump-thump noise: the (continuous) rhythm of a heartbeat. I realized there was a bit of a tune forming in my mind, and instantly, I had a suspicion.

So I took my own pulse...and simultaneously, I ran my head through THE tune. My tune. And...yep. I found, much to my amusement, a perfect match. Without conscious effort, they were perfectly synchronized, heartbeat and tune. My tune, THE tune, got its original tempo from me. Quite literally, it is a tune about me, because it's taken directly from me.

Worth noting is that, interestingly enough, it's my standing heartbeat rather than a sitting/lying down pulse (the two are not the same; my heartbeat slows down significantly upon sitting/lying down), but I've checked it both ways now, multiple times, and confirmed: the pulse matches the music which matches the pulse.

In hindsight...this makes sense, since I also found out through experimenting that I have a tendency to walk to the rhythm of my heartbeat. No joke. I was taking my pulse, and realized without trying, my steps were matching the rhythm. Why is this relevant? Because THE tune first manifested, the first time I started thinking about it...while walking. Specifically, at college, walking from my car to wherever I plopped down. I began running my head through a tune about then, probably two years ago by now (maybe not that long, but certainly over a year since THE tune predates my blog), and if I got the tune from my footsteps and my footsteps come from my pulse, I indirectly got the tune from my heartbeat.

So while I can't say for sure that this tune is my soul, I now CAN say for a fact that at least it's my heart!

So a couple of additional musical things I wanted to talk about: for a start, I'm not sure who they'd replace/kick off positioning-wise, but AWOL Nation definitely deserves a place on my top-15 band list. For me, I find it absolutely tragic that they are best-remembered for their first big hit (almost to the point where for the longest time, they were considered one-hit wonders), Sail, when every song I've heard from them released later has been even better. (In fact, they get better with age. Sail, being the first of their singles that got attention, is actually their weakest work; their sound has only continued to evolve with time to be superior with every iteration given time.)

I can't even remember them all (I think that Heroes, the one sparking this thought when I heard it, was an earlier release as well, though I'm not sure), but AWOL Nation songs are, and I think you realize how significant this statement coming from me is, of Black Keys quality to me. (Just in case you don't: Black Keys are my second-favorite band of all time, second only to Muse, who they almost supplanted as favorite band until Muse released some new killer stuff to recement themselves as #1. So saying something is of Black Keys quality is, quite literally, the highest praise I can give.)

Not only is it that quality, it's that consistency, too! Not to mention, pretty much a similar fairly hard rock sound as well. (That meaning: they place a lot of emphasis on guitars, frequently fast, covering a lot of different notes.) Even better? The thing sparking this realization was hearing an End Session song of the day about them, which reminded me that they are absolutely killer live. One of the few things about their sound which can be criticized (the gritty voice)? Completely and totally absent from live renditions, making them BEAUTIFUL. I absolutely love their songs.


The other thing I wanted to talk about a bit is a note on country music. This isn't something really specific to country music, I suppose, but country music is the relevant topic of the day because it's what I actually heard some of, so it's why I need to make a note about it. I heard about five or six or so songs today as part of work (I subbed today), all of them in a row, on the same station, with me right there hearing them clearly.

...And none of them were problematic, not as individual songs or not as a whole from having listened to all of them. None felt boring, repetitive, or mediocre. They were good. So when I say I don't really enjoy country music (see above, this is what I mean by not something specific to just country music), as with most genres, that is a generalization that I feel I need to clarify. A station which knows how to select their music well, I can actually listen to and enjoy.

This station (I think it's 94.1?) was definitely that type. It knew how to avoid the pitfalls of country music. But now that I think about it, I'm now thinking that my issue with country music may be that the majority of what I've heard and understood country music to be has been that it lacked energy. It might be talking about something the person is/was passionate about, but was done in such a manner that in the midst of dozens of songs written similarly, it comes across as monotonous.

...And the songs I was hearing today? Didn't have that problem. This country music, in fact, was pretty close to my preferred genre of alternative (rock), maybe with a little bit of rock and roll (what I grew up on) thrown in as well, a sort-of midway point between the two, in fact.

...That...might take some explaining. But basically, the music I heard almost all had prominently both a singer and at least one backup singer, maybe having harmonies involved (not sure on that), something which alternative music has but not in abundance yet rock-and-roll almost always did and which the country-as-I-normally-perceive-country doesn't. Then, you throw in bass guitar (muted a bit, like rock-and-roll) and percussion to get basically a band going. Practically the only strong difference between alternative (rock) and the country songs I heard is that they had the roles of violin and guitar switched, with the country songs having the violin dominant and the guitar supporting it. (Whereas alternative is vice-versa.)

This gave the songs multiple layers, giving them depth and dimension that rendered them very much worth listening to. If all country music was that good, I'd probably listen to it way more often, and actually be enjoying the experience rather than just tolerating it. Good beats, good rhythm, good catchy singing that was well-done, not just in one song but in multiple. That's how to do proud to a genre people outside it generally roll their eyes at.

And this sort of criteria applies to any genre. Electronic music, for instance, is something that I'd listen to more often if there was actually that amount to depth. Some (alternative) bands that have electronic music know what to do (for instance, MGMT I believe would be classified as electronic), and I listen to them. But most that I hear fail to achieve that multi-layered effect, and get the whole balance of energy wrong. (Too much, too little, too much then too little, you get the idea.)

Still, though, I know it's possible to make good music for basically any genre. There's even ways to do good rap. (Don't have an obnoxious voice, don't be just talking, have some sort of tune be it music or a second person backing you up, etc.) And I felt like talking a bit about that today.

I felt like exploring the senses of an autistic person slightly. Basically, know how I talked about sound a bit yesterday? Well, there's a lot more than that which is different about me. For instance, when it comes to my sight, I am unusually sharp at seeing things that nobody else can see.

This...is very, very difficult to explain. Basically, the best way I can do so is to talk about an example from ComicFury that happened quite a while ago. (Somewhere between 2012 and 2014. No idea where.) It was talking about how JPEGs, when properly done, can look just as good as PNGs. The person advocating this gave a picture, originally some other file type (BMP I think), and posted what it looked like as both a JPEG and PNG. Most people agreed that it looked the same.

...But it wasn't. I could tell there was something different about the two images by looking at them side-by-side. I couldn't tell what it was, but I could tell there was a difference between them, and I struggled to figure out how to explain this to them. After a little back and forth, the person managed to figure out that, yes, I did have a sharp eye for it--there were in fact differences. I believe it mainly had to do with the JPEG doing some aliasing (or is it anti-aliasing? Whichever is the one that blurs the differences between colors), albeit very subtly, as part of the compression, whereas the PNG left it as-was.

This made sense, since to me, when I looked at the images, I never was saying that one was better than the other. I was just saying they looked different from one another, especially in the colors, and that's because I was right. I ultimately was concluding that the difference between the two could easily be an artistic choice in style (because some artists prefer sharp, crisp differences, and others don't), but I knew that it was a difference, something that most people didn't notice that I did.

That type of thing happens all the time. I spot little things that others don't. My eyes just work differently. In what I see, in what I focus on, too. I will jump to areas that others don't. I find things that way a plenty. And then there's also how my eyes perceive the world. Think about things like objects. I see the lines in them. I see the shapes in them. I see them as if they were a 3-D object being created in a program, sometimes complete with a spine, an outline, and whatnot. I see things flow. I see things blocked out. I see both the architecture and natural methods, compiled simultaneously in my head to project what the object is.

At the same time, I can also see how that object would be applied. A pencil may be just a pencil in my hand. It may be a pencil in the hand of a character. It may become a Jokeresque weaponized pencil. It might actually be a dagger or even lightsaberesque energy blade of some sort. It could be a spear. It could be a gun. It could even be a spaceship. I calculate all of these whenever I hold the objects I fiddle with: I'm projecting not only what their shape is, but what that shape is good for.

My ears work the same way. They've got a distinct downside. I can't make out what others say very well. I often have to ask them to repeat what they say multiple times for me to hear them, and even then, I probably didn't perfectly get the message, with me mostly relying on body language to more or less guess at what they just said rather than actually having heard them. I fake it, but words from others simply don't get processed in my brain very well.

It goes both ways, too. I can't actually vocalize myself and know I'm getting the message across clearly. I mumble. This has a bit to do with my autism, but it's also my ears. I can't really hear my voice that well so I don't know if it's barely a whisper or a loud shout. Volume is all wrong all the time. It simply doesn't work, my ears' ability to pick up on language and know sound-wise what to do. (This, incidentally, contributes to why I'm considered tone-deaf. Yes, I hear crystal clearly, with absolute clarity and precision, EXACTLY how my voice is off. I'm well aware of the problem. It's just I utterly and entirely lack the capacity to FIX it.)

That's the downside. The upside? My ears are hyper-sensitive in ways that surprise others. I can hear things long-distance that most people think I shouldn't be able to hear. (Admittedly it works the other way, though; I can't hear things long-distance that people think I should. Again, fundamental difference in how my mind works compared to theirs.) I can pick up on multiple conversations from multiple places (though this has the disadvantage that I need to listen to one with focus else I end up listening to none), even with distractions, in a way that I imagine is pretty rare.

Not too unusual, but I'm getting warmed up. My ability to hear background sounds is incredibly good. All those sounds other people filter out? I can hear them. This sounds good, but...the result is more often than not a minor form of misophonia. Especially chewing, ESPECIALLY smacking lips when chewing. (Don't even get me started there.) That sensitivity to sound can be extremely disruptive to my ability to focus, get rest, etc.

It does have the upside of letting me know when something's wrong, or picking up on neat little things others don't (like wolves in the distance, light rain on the roof, and similar), but mainly, my different hearing manifests in the form of music, as I touched upon yesterday. I can't actually harvest this ability, much to my absolute frustration. I've tried, but there's simply no way of describing it and having it be accurate.

But basically, think about any song. The average song has around 5 parts, give or take one, when you include percussion and singing. It can potentially go up to something much higher (orchestral music will have an entire orchestra, after all), but that's around the average, going up to 8 or 9 but generally never below 3. (It needs at least two unless you're a really competent singer.)

Those typically being: singer, backup singer, percussion, bass guitar, guitar, second guitar, keyboard, and other miscellaneous instrument of the band's choice: saxophones were an old rock favorite, which have made a comeback in pop music. Trombones/trumpets are a decently popular choice in genres too for their unique sound. Flutes and other woodwinds exist. A hugely popular one are string instruments, particularly the violin and/or cello.

Obviously, these don't all run at once. Usually, they're replacing something. (For instance, cello can replace base guitar or even normal guitar depending on the part. Woodwinds/violins can replace more traditional keyboards, and trombones/trumpets/saxophones can replace more electronic keyboards. The list goes on and on for what can replace what.) But a band usually can get up to that ~8 range with only 4-5 members, which a lot of bands have.
Singer and backup singer each playing an instrument, percussion, bass guitar, guitar (3), and then whatever else is needed is a really popular combo across most genres. (Keyboards and a second guitar are probably the largest for a band of five that I would listen to, though, because while alternative music is, well, alternative, a lot of alternative bands especially alternative rock bands use that sort of combo to produce epic music.)

...My point in this is that I can pick up on each and every one of those parts, at all times. Most people when listening to a song will only hear the three or so most dominant. The others lay in the background, enriching the song. But I can pick up on them, and if I focus on them, track them the entire song. (Thing is, of course, being that I never can focus; I get distracted by the 'shiny' so to speak in more dominant parts that are catchy at the moment.) Percussion plays the whole song, but it's usually not just hitting the bass drum and more than just simple snares. I can hear the change, I can hear it, at all times, even though my body has trouble tracking the different aspects of percussion at a single moment. (Know that patting head while rubbing stomach thing? Percussion is like that. I suck at it; there's a reason I was a bad percussionist. So in a song, I'll try to tap my foot to one percussion element and use my fingers for another, and it never lasts long.)

It's not just percussion. The bass guitar changes rhythm a lot, producing a lot of different notes. In fact, sometimes, the bass guitar in spite of being in the background is more busy than the actual guitar in the foreground! I know because I listen to the song, can hear it, and pick it out and know it's there, working.

And so on and so forth. This even works for similar instruments. How do I even know there are two guitars playing? Because I can hear them both, at the same time, overlaying one another, with the bass guitar also playing. One guitar will be dominant, being the main instrument, but that second guitar exists. It even works for things that aren't guitars. For electronic music, I can hear different types of electronic music playing even if they're similar, and track the different parts. Different bells? I can tell.

I see these different musical fine points. I can tell a lot about music. Fine details. Small things, changes in volume, pitch, and whatnot. I can hear it all. That's why I can pick up on a band being that particular band. Admittedly, I'm only as good as I am because I listen exclusively to The End. I wouldn't be able to identify different Adele songs. I could be better, if I listened more frequently, if I looked these things up rather than letting them pass as just guesses, if I listened to them outside of The End, basically, if I was more proactive with my musical listening.

...But the skill is still there, as something that most people probably only have the general sense of. My ability is mostly natural, because while I love music, I'm not a music buff. It's just that I can hear that thing, and know it is of this one thing, even though I can't tell you how things worked to get there, or be able to do much about it.

This is the way my mind works. That sharpness, yet having the debilitation of not knowing how to do anything about it. Incredibly frustrating sometimes, but I've learned to live with it.

So during The End Unplugged, I heard a song I vaguely felt I knew, but for the life of me, couldn't place it. So I listened, and ran through the possible bands. My first instinct was an Offspring song, even though it didn't seem to match their musical signature as I know it.

...That, uh. Might take some explaining.
See, every band has a unique signature that allows you to identify it as them. Even similar bands sharing key members. (For instance, Death Cab For Cutie has a distinctly different signature from Postal Service. I happen to suck at guessing which is which because while the difference is there, my personal ability to distinguish between similar signatures sucks. I can do it in theory, but without looking up the song online for absolute confirmation, with me only knowing their songs via the radio, and only having limited exposure to them, it's basically just my natural ability, which is...high enough to know there's a difference, but low enough where I'm doing nothing but a best guess.)

Said signature, of course, is just like a real-life person's signature over the years: it can change with time, members, albums, and even recordings (i.e., live vs. studio), which is why I didn't rule out Offspring--because it could have been a live recording during a time period where I hadn't heard their norm rendering their signature hidden, there was the possibility (albeit improbability) that it was them. Yet the more I listened, the more I doubted it was them.

I did briefly consider Rise Against as an option (Rise Against having some vague similarity in their signature to certain periods of Offspring music), but having heard End Sessions from them, knowing their sound doesn't change as much as most bands, and having a fair idea of their signature being different, I ruled it even less likely than Offspring. I quickly shot through other options, running the gauntlet from Killers (instantly ruled "no"; don't know why it even crossed my mind), Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, and then, I had a breakthrough.

From the moment the song began, it sounded familiar, even though I didn't recognize it. Running through the bands and songs of theirs that I knew, though, eventually led me to listen closely enough to find why it was familiar: there was a very notable resemblance to both An Honest Mistake and Believe. (Different parts of both.) In other words...a third Bravery song I'd never heard before that moment, but still recognized as being theirs.

Makes sense, of course, because I loved the song. I love the Bravery songs so much, memorizing their lyrics as much as I can, relying on them, listening to each aspect of the music, that it made perfect sense for a song I was loving that I vaguely recognized yet didn't know, for it to be them. By finding their signature, I identified it. Of course, I didn't know for sure, just having it as my theory, but my coworker later confirmed my suspicion. Felt good.

Mom and dad were away, so had a family night with siblings. Good experience, watched lots of anime, am now dead tired and need to work tomorrow, so no entry today, either.

Sorry.