Indistinguishable from Jesse

Chuck Norris can dereference a NULL nsCOMPtr.

This meme escaped from LiveJournal into the standards-based web design world. Sander passed it to me and Tristor also tried to pass it to me. Sander's post got me hooked on "Tower" by Vienna Teng, which I had somehow missed last time I visited her site, so I feel obligated to spread the meme. Also, the voices in my head said that if I didn't pass it on, I would be ridiculed by LiveJournal users and would not find any good music for a whole month.

Total volume of music files on my computer

11.5 GB in 2567 MP3s, 67 OGGs, and 24 WMAs.

Last CD I bought

To Touch The Stars. This CD contains Garry Novikoff's "Dog on the Moon", which was good enough to get me onto Garry's mailing list.

Playing right now

Enya - "The Celts". My Audioscrobbler profile lists the songs I've been listening to the most.

Five songs that mean a lot to me

"Threes" by Mercedes Lackey, Julia Ecklar (women's version), and Bob Kanefsky (men's version). Helen knew the song from reading the Mercedes Lackey story from which it came, and I knew the song from listening to filk music. The song came up in a conversation in Emily's room, either by me mentioning filk or Helen mentioning Lackey. I invited Helen to my room to hear it and other filk songs. We hooked up several weeks later and stayed together for over a year. "Threes" are also my favorite varying-chorus songs, closely followed by "Ballad of the Shape of Things" and "Seven Drunken Nights in Space".

"Terra's Theme" from Final Fantasy 6. Several days into FF6, I heard this theme after coming out of a cave, and felt like I had known it for my entire life. Yes, I know that's something an RPG character would say. Maybe I had heard someone play a self-arranged piano version of the song (Ezekiel Chang from Ross?).

Vertical Horizon - "Everything You Want". I first heard it on the radio when I was in a car with Sara Saperstein. She had heard the song before and mentioned that she liked it a lot. Ever since then, I have associated this song with her.

Kathy Mar - "The Word of God". A beautiful attempt to reconcile Christianity with science.

Joan Baez - "Through Your Hands".

Five songs that can make me cry

This was one of the easier questions. It's hard to pick my favorite songs, because there are many songs I like, but there are only a dozen songs that have ever made me cry.

Julia Ecklar - "The Phoenix".

Julia Ecklar / Jordin Kare - "Pushing the Speed of Light". You have to know some physics to understand this song.

Alanis Morissette - "Your House". My favorite example of irony in an Alanis song.

Evanescence - "Bring Me to Life". Amy Lee's voice (at the beginning) makes me cry, not the lyrics. I learned about this song be attending a cappella concerts -- I heard three good a cappella versions of the song before I heard Evanescence's version.

Tish Hinojosa - "Donde Voy" is the only non-English song that makes me cry. I found this song soon after listening to the treasure map CD Voce, which contains Tish Hinojosa's "Las Golondrinas".

Five favorite that I've known for over a month

Blackmore's Night - "Beyond the Sunset"

Blackmore's Night - "Cartouche"

Claremont Shades - "Techno Fusion"

Inoj - "Time after Time"

The Corrs - "Breathless"

How I discover good music

• Friends with similar tastes in music, including Jeri, Ishani, James, and Michelle.
• My parents.
• Treasure map CDs with songs by many artists, such as Voce and the Magnatune rock compilation.
• Parodists such as Weird Al, The Capitol Steps, and Bob Kanefsky.
• A cappella concerts and CDs. I have Helen to thank for introducing me to a cappella music, which is great both itself and as a way to learn about a wide variety of music.
• Amazon recommendations. Audioscrobbler has the potential to unseat Amazon for this position in my life.
• Radio.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton

• Matthew Thomas.
• Grey Hodge, who jumped up and down in #bs begging me to pass the baton to him. Tristor already got him.
• Adam Sacarny, the only person in my blogroll who has written much about music.
• Michelle, who knows about a world of Christian music that I'm missing out on for the silly reason that I'm an atheist. She introduced me to Jack Johnson and was indirectly responsible for introducing me to both Jennifer Knapp (through Holly) and Avalon (by bringing me to a Christian concert).
• Jeri, who has introduced me to many good artists. She does not have a blog and hereby must start one.
• Ishani, who introduced me to Bryan Adams, Hoobastank, and Josh Groban. She does not have a blog and hereby must start one.