Muse is a band that has never put out a bad record, but they have gotten a little silly on some of their records with the over-the-top bombast and production. Regardless, nobody can accuse Muse of a lack of talent, creativity and huge sound, which is to be commended. To summarize, they have roughly followed this career arc:

1999: Bashed for being Radiohead rip-offs
2001: Crazy prog-rock that is too crazy and too prog for an American record deal
2003: Reemergence as a stadium-worthy with some political leanings
2006: American relevance from an album that sounds forced, but attention-grabbing
2009: A much more focused effort with a well-deserved opening slot for U2

Then there's this. Muse recently appeared on what appears to be a completely ridiculous looking Italian TV show. Apparently they were told they must lip-sync their performance and they agreed. However, they made it interesting by switching roles. For your reference, in the video, the singer/guitarist plays drums, the drummer sings/plays bass and the bassist plays guitar/keyboard. The entire thing is one big joke and nobody seems to notice, or care.

It was strange doing the following last weekend:

-Flying on an airplane on September 11. Eight years after that date actually started meaning more than just another day, so much of life has changed. Certainly the increased security and scrutiny at airports is there, but even life on the ground has changed a lot. The price of oil, the White House administration and even tiny Mexican towns are a lot different now than 8 years ago.

-Visiting an NFL stadium on the opening weekend of the season, but not to watch a game. NFL stadiums have a different feel to them, especially one like Soldier Field that is visually interesting on its own, much less when something impressive is happening inside.

-Eating pork rinds at an honest-to-goodness high-end restaurant.

Ok, there had to be more to that last entry's train of thought than was demonstrated. Time is a weird thing, but hopefully that's not really of interest to anyone. It's just odd how time dictates so much, yet is so abstract. Time is told by atomic clocks and swiss watches, but also the ocean's tide, the moon and the earth itself floating in orbit. Kinda odd.

Once you grasp how and why time is told, there's the confounding matter of time moving fast and slow sometimes. Why is this? Of course a second is always just a second and a minute is always just a minute, but perception of time varies greatly. Eight hours of sleep feels a lot different than eight hours of ditch digging, just like a 5 minute massage feels a lot faster than 5 minutes of holding your breath. Is time actually slower? Well maybe, but most would assume these differences are just the result of how the brain and body respond to different stimuli. This begs, is time really that powerful or important if we can alter it with our simple minds? Time seems have a bit of an identity crisis. People want their week-long vacation to somehow last longer than a week, yet people can't count to ten accurately without saying a 4-syllable, 11-letter word ("Mississippi") in between each number.

Just to further over-analyze and bother, how is it that simultaneously one person could be having a "fast" day and another could be having a "slow" day? What is actually moving faster or slower? Well, it just "feels" longer or shorter, you know? That may be true, but does it mean anything? Is a busy day at work more likely to feel long or short? Some would say long because they were forced to do so many things and when you think about one thing, then another, then another, that implies a great deal of time passing. However, some people feel like staying busy makes time go by faster. For instance, this blog entry has taken about 20 minutes to write so far because SportsCenter is on, but it doesn't feel like its been that long. However, 20 minutes of just typing on this inane topic would seem like an eternity by comparison.

So, in some weird way, are some people moving in fast motion while others are moving in slow motion, but your brain just can't process the difference? Maybe, in some strange space-time continuum kind of way. Thing is, if you stop and think about it, it doesn't really matter if you think about it for 10 seconds if it feels like you think about it for 10 minutes. What is 10 seconds if it feels like 10 minutes and all you have to show for it is a headache. Right?

"Time" is the name of a song by many artists, including Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Ben Folds, Anthrax, Alan Parsons Project, Hootie and the Blowfish, Megadeth, Sarah McLachlan, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Waits. Clearly, time plays a pretty major role in whatever, be it music, sports, politics or life in general. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but some people still have a slight misunderstanding of how universal time is and how it is basically a constant in everyone's life, not just their own.

"Time is very important in my life"

These inspiring words were uttered by a client on TLC's highly-esteemed show LA Ink. The specifics of this client aren't really important, although it may have been the overweight stand-up comedienne. Regardless, she wanted to get a tattoo of a pocket watch because of how important time is to her.

It seems that time is one of those things that is kinda important to everyone. This may be nothing more than digging for something to complain about, but it fits the theme of this entry. Would it be silly if someone got a tattoo of money or gravity because of their importance? Why not oxygen or nitrogen?

All of the aforementioned musicians obviously thought time was important enough to write a song about it, so maybe there's something to this. Pink Floyd appropriately started their "Time" with a recording of an alarm clock and metronome, along with other time-keeping devices. Then again, they also have the song "Money" that starts with the sound of cash registers and coins clanking. So, there's the secret to making a historic album like Dark Side of the Moon: just record sounds and name the song after whatever sound is contained. Moving on...

Thank goodness for calendars!

Ok, this entry wouldn't be complete without some ranting about a Facebook status, but try to deal with it. Who says this (aside from the obvious)? In today's technologically-advanced world, is a calendar something that really needs to have its praises sung, as if somehow people might forget about its existence? Aren't calendars just one of those commodities that can taken for granted among anyone with the facilities to read Facebook? Would it be any better if someone expressed such admiration for modern marvels like indoor plumbing, newspapers or peanut butter and jelly in one jar? Clearly some people are just too easy to please.