My Musical Companion
This is a Samsung YP-T7Z. It was released in America over seven years ago in early 2005. For an MP3 player this old, it still looks pretty modern, huh? Aluminum unibody, color screen, FM radio, voice recover, and even more. This little guy was pretty feature-packed back in the day. Sadly, many more players have come and gone, and this little gem has been long forgotten. You can’t find this player anywhere anymore. Try buying one online; they’re nearly impossible to find. So why am I talking about this player? What’s so special about this piece of aged hardware? Well, it’s because it has a lot of sentimental value to me.
If you’ve been around me recently, you know that I’m always wearing a Sansa Clip Zip on my arm along with a pair of Adidas PMX 680 headphones around my neck. I use them both nearly every day when I’m at school. They’re really useful and convenient together, but unfortunately, they’re also of little sentimental value to me. The YP-T7Z is a different story though. I received this as a gift for my 16th birthday from my mom. During that time, my mom was suffering from immense pain in her lower back. Her spine was injured and she was in desperate need of surgery. The only problem was, she had no form of health insurance and thus was unable to afford for it. My birthday was coming up around this time. I was fine with skipping it because my mom’s condition was more important to me. Regardless of that, my mom, despite her bad health and financial situation, drove me to the store and bought this top-of-the-line MP3 player with her own hard-earned money for me.
I still remember that moment perfectly. My mom was so ill and it seemed like death could creep up on her at any moment, yet she was still willing to show how much she loves me. I used this player all the time and I always had it with me. Unfortunately, I lost it sometime around the end of my junior year of high school. I spent days backtracking and searching for it with no success. I was really upset that it was gone. As I said earlier, this is a rare device so finding a replacement wasn’t easy. After a five years of searching, I found one from someone living in the UK. It took a little bit of haggling, but he agreed to sell it to me, and I’m glad too. When I received it, I was immediately reminded of my early high school years and how much my mom cares about me, even if she isn’t the type to show it all the time.
I don’t plan to use this player on a normal basis, I have the Clip Zip for that. For now, I’m just going to keep it at my desk to make up for lost time. And yes, my mom did receive her surgery. I wrote about it a while back.
Prof. Layton = Classy Study Music
I will be starting off my final exams in roughly 12.6 hours. They will last over a period of over 26.5 hours. During this time, I’ve taken the time to grow accustomed to some new study music, specifically in the Professor Layton puzzle game series. It sets a very classy mood and just helps my mind stay adept while care-free. I’ve been playing these four songs and some others on repeat for a while now and it’s been helping. Perhaps this style is not everyone’s cup of tea, but to each their own.
Good luck to everyone with finals.
The Lower Class
Anthony, a longtime high school friend of mine has been hard at work with The Lower Class:
The Lower Class is an alternative hip hop trio formed in San Marcos, composed of Josh Tatum (Pliny Science), Anthony Torres (imaGenius), Xavier Palin (Kartune). They are known for their humorous lyrics, layered references, and unconventional style. Each member brings their own approach to rapping that blends together seamlessly.
Here’s a small snippet of “Complex.” More music is available on their website, along with their album dropping on December 9, 2011.
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Garage Sale
My close buddy Anthony, also known as imaGenius, is a passionate enthusiast when it comes to exploring the very unique aspects of music and everything that it has to offer. Today, he has released Garage Sale, a well organized assortment of thirty tracks featuring various sampled tracks that promotes music in the old school hip-hop style. If you have any musical listening interest in hip-hop, rap, pop, house or lounge, or even enjoy music from artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Common, Will I Am, or Kanye West, then I would encourage you to take a few moments to listen and enjoy it for what it is. Below you’ll find a just few of my favorite tracks as well as the download link to the entire mixtape so that you can experience it for yourself.
Download Here
When I Wake Up
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Your Life
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See
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Three
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I know where you got this one from, lol.
Review: Pandora One
Slightly less than a year ago, I started using Pandora‘s internet radio service. I first asked for Paramore and it gave me Fall Out Boy. I hated Fall Out Boy, and for this I hated Pandora and gave it no mercy. Lack of music from eastern Asia (specifically Korean) was also a total bummer and a disadvantage when compared to last.fm. I boycotted Pandora for a short time and stuck with last.fm. Come to find over time, last.fm was very disorganized with duplicate songs, constant repetitiveness, and incorrectly tagged music. I would hear the same song repeat as much as three times in a row or hear music from a completely different genre that didn’t even relate. For this, I decided to give Pandora another shot. After getting to know how it worked, it surely did not disappoint.
Always working in front of a computer screen, whether at home or work, I found Pandora to be quite the companion. I was slowly discovering new music, artists, and genres that I have never heard about. It became addicting. Unfortunately, it all came at a price: a 40 hour per month time limit and 10 to 20 second advertisements every 3 to 6 songs. I would always use up my 40 hours halfway through the month and the advertisements began to become annoying. I can’t even count how many times I’ve been repetitively told by the same advertisement that the Baseball world series was on TBS. For a reasonable price of only $1, you could suspend the 40 hour time limit for the remainder of the month. I was fine with that, but those freaking RAMEN ADS! They were getting persistent! Figuring that Pandora has already given me a lot for so little, I decided to succumb, pay $36, and become a victim of Pandora One for an entire year. It’s been over 9 months since then. Only question remaining now is: was my money wisely spent or did it become a lost cause?