The Cricket Conspiracy....WHAT?!?!

So, I've said that I was going to talk about this months ago, so now, I will finally talk about the Cricket Conspiracy. Ok, so the first thing you have to know is, I don't like bugs, especially spiders. But last year around my birthday party, which was in April, it was really hot, so we had to keep all of the doors open so we didn't die of heat in the house. Because of that, a crap load of bugs came in to my house, the most memorable ones being the moths and, you guessed it, the crickets. There were some huge moths in my room for a few weeks, let me tell you, they were gross looking and very huge. But, at least they went away after a few weeks(maybe because they died in the heat), the crickets on the other hand, decided to stick around for a few months longer. These damn crickets conspired against me for months just to torment me. I would go in the shower at night, and when I would come out, there would be a cricket, just sitting there waiting for me. So, many times I would go from the shower to the toilet, and I would literally get dressed standing on the toilet, and if I had to, I would climb onto the counter if I had to put stuff on my face in the mirror. By then if I hadn't screamed or been rescued, I would have to talk myself into jumping off the counter so I could run straight to my room and jump onto my bed. Those little piece of crap crickets had me so paranoid in my own house, it was ridiculous. I had to thoroughly examine the floor so I could walk through the house or into a room. I would literally search my house for these things. The reason I would scream sometimes is because I would see one when I wasn't expecting it or when they would jump close to me. If I was searching for them to make sure the coast was clear, I wouldn't scream, only if they did something unexpected.

Another reason why it was a conspiracy is because it seemed like they would wait for me to go in the shower, right when everyone in my house was starting to fall asleep, and hop right under the bathroom door, to wait for me to get out of the shower. And now matter how many we got rid of (by throwing them outside, unless they decided to be in the shower, then they went down the drain), they always seemed to be around the house. What's worse is that when I would go dog sit for my aunt and uncle, there would be crickets there too. It's like they knew I was leaving my house, so they called in the troops to follow me to my uncle's house. Don't you see how they were out to get me?

Well, there is one piece of good news, I haven't seen a cricket in my house for at least a month or two. I really hope it stays that way, I'm praying for it.



**Breaking News!!(at least for me)**
OMG OMG OMG OMG, I just heard that The Matches are going on a hiatus. They don't know when or if they will get back together again. So, I'm a few days late, it still injures my soul. I loved that band. They were so unique and had such a great sound. I'm really gonna miss them. I'm especially upset because I won't be able to see their last Southern California concert. My life will never be the same without them and I hope they decide to get back together soon. They are all such great people, I've met Shawn, Jon, and Dylan, and they were all so nice. I wish them luck in whatever they decided to do as individuals, but maybe not too much so they will realize that they need to come back to be The Matches. *goes and cries*

**Update** as soon as I posted this, there was an advertisement on the next page and it looked like this:


Ironic, right?

I had a 21st Century Breakdown, but don't worry, it's Nothing Personal

Ok, so I just finished listening to the new All Time Low CD, Nothing Personal, and I actually enjoyed it for the most part, which is weird because I never really like CDs the first time I hear them. Maybe it was because I just finished listening to 21st Century Breakdown and I was still on the wave of happiness from it, who knows. Anyways, this is kinda my thoughts on both of the CDs since I just listened to both of them (yeah I really finished listening at 1:40 in the am).

I think there's a reason why it took me a long time to comment on the new Green Day and a short time to comment on the new All Time Low because they are so different structurally. 21st Century Breakdown was like an acquired taste, if you will. It took a few listens for it to sink in (the total times I've listened to it is now nine). Another reason why it took me so long to comment on it is because I didn't listen to it right away. It took me weeks to listen to it for the first time. One reason is because I wanted to take my time with it and listen to it all the way through because it's supposed to be like a story and I wanted to sit down and listen to it all the way through in order without stopping and with no interruptions and I had too much going on at that time to do this. To be completely honest there was another reason. I wanted to hold on to the American Idiot era because it was so great and I was a little scared to jump into it even though all the critics thought it was great, even better than American Idiot (however, I don't always believe them, they hated Warning and that was one of my favorites). So now that I've had the time to listen to it all the way through nine times, listen to the lyrics, and let them settle in, I feel like I can talk about it better. It really took me a while to fully embrace it, but now I love it and I just want to keep listening, but I limit myself so I don't listen to it over and over all day.

On the other hand, my feelings toward Nothing Personal were quite the opposite. I was really excited to buy it and hear it. Not that I wasn't excited to buy a new piece of Green Day history, but 21st Century Breakdown meant the death of an era that I loved so much, but I have now realized that the new era will hopefully be as good as the last. I was just scared for them because I really didn't want them to fail, not that I thought that they would, I knew they would pull it off, I just had that little nagging feeling in the back of my mind saying how could anything get better than American Idiot, or even close to that level. Well, it took them some time, but they definitely got there, and I'm so happy for them. Anyways, back to Nothing Personal. The first time I listened to it I liked most of the songs. While 21st Century Breakdown has characters and a plot line and a theme, Nothing Personal, to me, is just a collection of new songs, like most CDs out there, which is not a bad thing (not that CDs are that simplistic, but I hope you get what I mean). With 21st Century Breakdown, since it has a story, it takes much longer to digest and to really get what they are trying to convey. With CDs that are like stories, all of the songs have the potential to have at least a double meaning, if not multiple meanings beyond that. Again, Nothing Personal is the opposite of that. Songs could have a double meaning, but not necessarily. This is definitely not to say that the songs are transparent, some songs you really have to dig deep to understand what they are really saying. So in that sense there is kinda a double meaning; what you see/hear on the surface, and what it all really means that we, as the audience may never know. So if you look at it that way, CDs with a storyline can definitely have more that two meanings per song: what you see/hear on the surface, the song's meaning to the storyline, and maybe even the songwriters feelings toward someone or something in their life that the audience doesn't know about. All of that just to say that Nothing Personal, as a whole is just less complex to the ears and brain than 21st Century Breakdown. I'm sure writing music, whether there's a storyline or not, is hard, so I'm not trying to insult either bands' songwriting skills, I'm just saying that with 21st Century Breakdown there is more for the brain to digest.

I love the sounds of both CDs. With 21st Century Breakdown, I hear a lot of influences from older Green Day CDs. I even made a list of new songs that match old songs. Not to say that the songs are exactly the same, sometimes they just have the same beat, or one song just reminds me of another. It's a great CD. A lot of the songs either start out slow or soft and get faster and/or louder and some just keep building tension, and there are a lot of highs and lows, the music never stays in one place. There are so many great songs, it's hard to choose one favorite, but right now a few of my favorites are The Static Age, Peacemaker, Last of the American Girls, Viva La Gloria, wow they are all so great. I think I like acts 2 and 3 the best, I don't know why, maybe it's just because the mood as it progresses just keeps getting better and better. One last thing, I really love how it all comes together like a musical, the two songs at the beginning recur again (well they start off the same but go in different directions), just like a musical, it starts with the introduction song and it goes full circle and recaps the introduction at the end. Five stars for 21st Century Breakdown. You can really see how much the band has grown musically and Billie Joe's vocal range, as well as the rest of the band's musical and song writing abilities.

I like that Nothing Personal has a range of different sounds. It's not completely something new for music, but it's new for All Time Low. They change it up a lot more with this CD, but at the same time, the songs had a familiar feeling, I don't know how to describe it, like I could just sing the words even though this was the first time I heard the CD. Of course I've been listening to Weightless and Dammned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don't) since All Time Low leaked them on their own, but it was nice to hear the songs as part of the rest of the CD. I really did love all the new ATL sounds up until Walls, and my feelings continued with Too Much. In my opinion those songs could have been left out. It sounded like they were hip hop songs for most of the song, they did break it up with a rockish sound, but I didn't really like those sounds too much. The rest of the songs were really good in my opinion. I also really like Therapy, it really showed Alex's vocal ability, which could also be seen on the rest of the CD. Overall I give it four stars. I think they have grown, at least a little, musically, but for the future, I'd love for them to really blow me away, like what Green Day did to me, which I started to see a little bit. Maybe I'm asking too much, but maybe it will happen with a little more experience and time.

Oh yeah, by the way (whoa, I haven't actually typed out those words in a long time, usually it's just BTW), I thought it was interesting that there was a song on both CDs that used some form of the word elated (for 21st Century Breakdown it was Restless Heart Syndrome and the word was elated, for Nothing Personal it was A Party Song (The Walk Of Shame) and the word was elation). I had no idea what that word means, so I looked it up. This is what I got from Dictionary.com:
e⋅late  [i-leyt] e⋅lat⋅ed, e⋅lat⋅ing, adjective
–verb (used with object)
1. to make very happy or proud: news to elate the hearer.
Which is funny because that's how I feel about both CDs. I'm so glad to have new songs to hear and learn so I can sing them when I see them live.