Plane Lapse
“I am over you finally”
“That’s what you said before. How do I know this is any different from the last time?”
“Because of this.” Click.
Whew. That felt good, thought Elliott. Elliott just told the girl he had been in love with for the past 7 years that he was ready to move on. He was over her. He didn’t care about their past, present or future relationship statuses or possibilities.
This was a lie.
Elliott slumped down into his uncomfortable seat on his Northwest Airlines flight. He swore that his wood chairs at his dining room table were just as comfortable, if not more comfortable than these tail-numbing, airplane seats. Whatever; I’ll fall asleep once we get in the air, he thought. He was so glad to be flying home. It has been a long time since he’d seen the tall, green pines and the wide-leafed oaks of the Southeast. He knew his mom was getting his room ready. He could picture her making the bed, pulling out a guitar for him to play, and filling the frig with some of his favorites. Mmm…
Brrr. “This is your captain speaking. Thank you for choosing Northwest airlines today. The flight is going to be right on-time. We’re going to try and make up some time for you in the air. Hopefully we can get you in ten to fifteen minutes early. The weather is perfect, but there might be some slight turbulence until we get near the
Elliott pulled out his CD player from his messenger bag and put in a mix he made for this trip. He looked around and knew he was the only one on the plane with an actual CD player, and not an iPod or some other variation of an MP3 player. He joked that he was retro, but he really was just scared to invest so much money into something that was easily lost or stolen like a MP3 player. But he knew it was only a matter of time until he succumbed to technology. Maybe he would just wait until they could install a mini-speaker into your ear and listen to music wirelessly. It was only a matter of time.
He adjusted himself in his chair. His eyes were starting to get heavy. He was fading away to the soft, simple words of Rocky Votolato. His eyes closed like a vault door, with an echoing thud. Elliott would only remember two things as he stepped into his subconscious. First, he remembered his doctor telling him his “hallucinations” were nothing to worry about. They would wear off. He just got a little too creative when his subconscious took the wheel. And second, that the song that just started was one of the best songs he’d ever heard. It was Idioteque by Radiohead. It was a shame this song would play a part in scaring the hell out of him later.
Elliott twitched in his sleep. He twitched more than the average twenty-something year old. Sometimes he twitched so rough that it would wake him up, but this kind of startling twitch only seemed to happen when he was sleeping somewhere he wasn’t used to. Like this plane.
Elliott twitched just hard enough for him to wake up. What the…, he thought. He pried open his left eye just slightly; he didn’t want too much light to get in and start the photosynthesis process of a headache. When he opened his eyes, he felt the turbulence. It was weird that the turbulence didn’t wake him up, or that he didn’t notice the turbulence until his eyes were opened. But maybe it was just him being groggy.
He opened his other eye and slowly let his squinting eyes adjust to the fluorescent airplane lights. As he tried to adjust, he noticed the other passengers. They looked a little edgy. Some of them even looked frightened. Elliott was not too unnerved at this; he knows what turbulence can do to people. He brushed the peer-pressured-worry out of his homeward bound mind. But as he did so, he realized Idioteque was still playing. That’s strange. How long have I been asleep?
Elliott looked down at his new, brown Penguin watch and saw that he’d been asleep for about an hour. Ok good, he thought. The CD had just played all the way through. It couldn’t be the repeat switch; that broke years ago in a freak mini-screwdriver fight with his brother. The combination of 56 worried passengers, 8 frightened-looking passengers, and a repeating song that repeated for an hour without a repeat function, would have made him push aside the natural, no-worries attitude for a second, and contemplate the probability that he could be starting to get freaked out. But no, everything was fine.
The plane thudded.
Turbulence is so stupid, he thought. Why doesn’t God just keep the wind and other turbulence causing things out of the stratosphere? Elliott shifted a little in his seat and closed his eyes again. Idioteque was still on.
Who’s in the bunker?
Who’s in the bunker?
The plane thudded again.
Elliott opened an eye, but quickly closed it again.
Here I’m allowed, everything all of the time.
Here I’m allowed, everything all of the time.
Right when Elliott drifted away a sharp jerk swept the plane. There was a unified gasp throughout the plane. Everyone grabbed their armrests and held their breath. Elliott wasn’t asleep anymore. The plane jerked violently again, only this time harder. People were starting to make very scared noises. Babies began to cry. Young girls began to whine and cry with frequencies I thought were reserved for dogs. Grown men were perspiring, and their wives were saying prayers. Elliott just sat there playing over and over the thousands of possible outcomes in his mind.
Brrr. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing turbulence. Please stay seated and calm. We’ll be…” Brrr.
Brr. “No, don’t do that. Hit the stabilizer; we’re going to lose cabin pressure. Donald! Stop!” Brrr.
Brrr. “Is this….Donald….whined the….relieve….missing another….no time….” Brrr.
Elliott felt his stomach rise and then drop in his torso. He felt his eyes turning blood-shot. Lunch was taking revenge on him. As he used his index finger to hit stop on his vintage CD player, the plane shook harder than the first two times, throwing the older lady beside him into the aisle. Why wasn’t she wearing a seatbelt? But as his mind was asking the question, the emergency exit to Elliott’s left bent inward. The sound was similar to a sledge hammer hitting the side of your car. Elliott tightened his seatbelt as a second, much-larger areo-sledge hammer indentation was made. Elliott let out a murmured “Oh no” as the emergency exit door ripped off the plane. A tornado-like wind thrashed into the plane. Everything not attached went flying. Books and magazines were everywhere. The luggage compartments flew open, emptying all their contents everywhere. The bags were hitting people, knocking them out.
Elliott screamed, but no one heard him. His scream fit with everyone’s else’s screams. He was going to die. They all were, but he was going to die.
A little girl slipped from her mother’s grip and was sucked out of the plane. Elliott slammed his eyes shut. This is not fair, Elliott cursed. His chair creaked with a slight jerk.
“Oh no!” Elliott yelled.
Elliott grabbed the chair beside him, but his neighbor’s chair was ripping out too. He wildly groped everywhere within arms reach. He had to find something to hold onto, but there was nothing! He reached again for his neighbor’s chair, but it wasn’t there anymore. It streaked past him, out of the plane and into the sky. The jagged metal base of the chair slashed his shins as it flew by. The pain was intense! Elliott gritted his teeth together hard. He could feel the blood pouring out. He wanted to reach down and feel the damage, but every time he leaned forward, another chair would fly by ripping more flesh out of his legs.
“Help! Oh no! No! No!” Elliott screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Sir? Is everything ok?” someone asked.
Elliott looked to his right and saw a stewardess, with not a single hair out of place, standing amidst the chaos. Visual wind was blowing all around her. People were screaming everywhere. Kids were being thrown outside the plane, right past the stewardess. As every vein in Elliott’s body was bulging from him trying to stay in place, he considered something. Hallucinations. Was this a hallucination? If it was, it was his worst one so far.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to lower your voice and calm down. You are disturbing the other guests,” politely asked by the pristine stewardess.
It was a hallucination! Elliott closed his eyes hard again. He tried to visualize things right before he woke up. Uncomfortable chair. Radiohead. Vintage/ghetto CD player.
Elliott opened his eyes. The stewardess and a few other guests were looking at him with a confused expression. The airplane wasn’t chaotic anymore. All the luggage was where it was suppose to be, and all the chairs were in place, bolted to the ground. It was a hallucination.
“M’am, I’m sorry. I have hallucinations. Please forgive me,” Elliott said.
“It’s quite alright. Would you like a beverage?” asked the stewardess.
“Yes M’am. Do y’all have Dr. Pepper?” Elliott said.
"No, but we have Mr. Pibb. Would you like that?" she replied.
"No, I'll just have a water then," Elliott said.Headline: StumbleUpon.com Will Make Us All Late For Something
Sub-Head: It’s impossible to be bored when you have “StumbleUpon”
By Josh Titus
Life Writer
How many times have you had a class cancel leaving you with nothing to do, but wait for your next class to start? Next time that happens, go to a computer lab and check out StumbleUpon.com. Instead of counting the tiles on the ceiling, surf the Internet with the expert help of StumbleUpon.com. You’ll be surprised what’s out there and realize what you are missing.
StumbleUpon.com is a website that helps you surf the web, and discover and rate websites, videos, pictures and news articles that are similar to your preferences. When you sign up (it’s free), you choose from 500 topics that interest you and from those preferences, StumbleUpon.com shows you websites that fit your personality. When you “stumble” and find a site you like, you click the “I like it” button on the add-on toolbar. Then that site is saved on your profile with StumbleUpon.com and slowly you are able to develop your profile with sites that interest you. But if you don't like the site, give it a thumbs down. There is a network of over 2 million people as of March 16, 2007 you can include in your web surfing. If you find someone who has similar tastes, you can add them as a friend and their “I like” pages are tossed into your “stumbling.” With each site you find you have the options of giving it a thumbs up or down, and/or writing or reading a review on it.
Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, and Justin LaFrance founded StumbleUpon.com during the later years of college. Gradually the website began to attract “stumblers” as the company took off in Calgary, Alberta in 2002. Eventually Silicon Valley investor Brad O’Neil invited the three to California where the project started to take professional form. Last month they hit the 2 million-member mark, with thousands signing up each day. StumbleUpon.com became really popular in December 2006 when they added StumbleVideo. This trendy addition allows users to search through online videos coming from popular sites such as YouTube.com, Myspace.com, and Google video.
Fans of Mozilla Firefox (and newly added Internet Explorer) are able to add a plug-in of StumbleUpon on their web browser. When you’re bored and have time to kill, just click the “Stumble!” button that’s embedded on your toolbar and automatically you are finding filtered sites that are just for you. Andy Walker of g4techTV said, “It's kind of addictive ... when you have time to surf it really does allow you to find some unique and relevant sites." Haytham Bennani, from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, or better known as “khiZeus” on SU, said, “This is by far the best toolbar on the internet today. The functionality and versatility that SU provides is stunning, on par and beyond my highest expectations. The archive of stumble-able sites grows each and every day, and the content is absolutely amazing. Two huge thumbs up for this program and its developers. Can't wait for the toolbar to make it big!”
The Internet is a vast, seemingly never-ending screen of information. It has become a vital part of our society and grows more anchored every second. If used correctly, a person can substantially become more knowledgeable about everything this world has to offer. StumbleUpon.com is stepping stone in realizing how the Internet can be simple and catered for you.
Teaser: StumbleUpon can be addictive, so use caution when using it.
Pull quote: “The functionality and versatility that SU provides is stunning…” - Haytham Bennani
Headline: “Pandora.com killed the radio star”
By Josh Titus
Life Writer
Let’s pretend music has DNA. Every band you know has a genetic make-up that makes it who it is (and what it sounds like). And just like people, we all have similarities and differences. For instance, a band such as Incubus consists of genes like hard rock roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, extensive vamping, major key tonality, and political lyrics. And like Incubus, the band Radiohead has similar genes of major key tonality, subtle use of vocal harmony, and melodic songwriting. But unlike Incubus, the singer Britney Spears possesses a genetic composition of pop rock qualities, danceable grooves, minor key tonality, a breathy female vocalist, erotic lyrics, and repetitive melodic phrases. Now if only someone understood that music was as complex as the same DNA that makes us unique. Well in 2000, someone did.
In 2000, Tim Westergren started the Music Genome Project and eventually Pandora.com. Pandora.com is a web site that offers free music euphoria. At Pandora.com, you type in a band’s name that you are into and it searches its huge database of music to find bands of similar qualities or similar DNA. Each of the hundreds of thousands of songs at Pandora.com are listened to and “hand-clicked” through over 400 musical attributes including melody, harmony, tonality, rhythm, form, lyrics, and hundreds of other attributes. After typing in your band and enjoying the music, you have the pleasure to customize that particular station (with each new band you enter, you start a new station). The band you entered becomes the root of that station and with each song that the Music Genome Project deems similar, you have presidential power to sign it, veto it, or even pocket veto it. By giving the song a thumbs-up, you approve it and give Pandora.com the chance to find other songs comparable to the new one you like. By giving the song a thumbs-down, you kicked it out of the station for good. If you don’t do anything, Pandora.com puts it on the back burner and gives the song another chance later. Pandora.com is all about you- the music lover. They want you to be able to enjoy great music you already know and to find new bands that already fit your tastes. As UVSC student Jacob Russell, who spends 1 to 6 hours a day on the site, says, “Pandora.com makes for good sexy time.”
While Pandora.com is great and easy to use, it has things that can be disappointing. Freshman Stuart Buchanan-Jackson says, “The only I don’t like is that you can’t specifically play a certain song.” Due to copyright laws, it cannot play a specific song you are in the mood to hear. You are able to type in the song and hear songs similar and eventually hear the song you want, but never right away. For that reason Pandora.com was #3 behind music pay-sites iTunes and eMusic on Entertainment Weekly’s Best Music Websites. Another thing that bothers 19-year-old Jessica Hocker is “it can only skip 10 songs within an hour.” It is another copyright stipulation that restricts you from having “radio ADD” and flipping through songs too quickly. But even with these slight imperfections, Pandora.com made the list for Time magazine’s “Top 50 Web sites of 2006.” That is quite the achievement today with the Internet being as innovative as ever.
Aside from Pandora.com (my personal favorite), there are many other good Internet radio providers. Here are a few of the others that I think are worth listening to:
BYU student Devin Carroll said, “Internet radio is by far one of the best ways to discover new bands.” Everyone has agreed with that. Jacob Russell discovered Hot Chip’s “Over and Over,” Jessica Hocker found Gatsbys American Dream’s “The Giant’s Drink,” Stuart Buchanan-Jackson came across Rocky Votolato’s “Passing White Daises,” and I found Kings of Leon’s “On Call.” So say goodbye to your FM radio because after listening to the commercial-free and financially free Pandora.com, you will probably never go back.
Teaser: What do The Police and Ok Go have in common?
Pull quote: “…Pandora.com makes for good sexy time.” -UVSC student Jacob Russell
