Unashamed about the T&N back catalog

As part of the effort to rip my entire CD collection, last night I tackled some old-school hardcore albums like the Helpless Amongst Friends compilation, Overcome's “Blessed Are The Persecuted”, and Unashamed's “Reflection”. Tonight I put the Unashamed album on for some nostalgia, and I must say it's quite good, if you like that kind of hardcore. Some good grooves, and vocals you can actually understand (unlike, say, Zao's vocals).

When I looked at my Last.Fm client to see what it said about Unashamed, it gave me a link to buy that track at Amazon.com. What? But this album is from 1996! Tooth and Nail was still a pretty small label back then, and I thought they'd pretty much given up on their back catalog. Well, think again: everything from Wish For Eden's “Pet The Fish” to Plank Eye's “Spark” and more are available for download in mp3 format! Of course, unless you just can't wait to hear these gems, you can always save money by buying the used copies available through Amazon.com, but at least you can check out the song samples before deciding whether you still like Focused's first album (I do), or whether it's just nostalgia trying to waste your money.

Oh, and for added fun, try reading the customer reviews. Most are from 8-10 years ago, and you get excellent reviews like The heaviness and syncopation of this albumn is awesome. It sets the standard for all Tooth and Nail releases. (about “Pet The Fish”... really...) and Oh man, this is the greatest CD in the history of Christian hard music. (about “Stone” by Sometime Sunday... I'm not making this up...). I mean, I like some of that old stuff, but those people needed to get out more and listen to some good music.

Pinching every last penny

Somewhere between my free-spending days of college (where I built a great CD collection) and my wedding, I went through a dramatic turnaround. I came to realize how stupid it is to carry balances on a credit card, and I developed what was to become the personal budgeting strategy that carried me and my family through graduate school without any real hardships. In that time I have taken an interest in finance, and I hope to talk about it from time to time in this blog.

The guiding principal of my budget is that every penny that comes into my possession is labeled and categorized, and every penny that leaves is as well. Each financial transaction has to be accounted for, and this keeps me from spending too much without realizing it.

Today I spent a few hours completing the transition from keeping my money in a normal bank (okay, credit union) and instead putting most of it in a money market account through Vanguard. I have my paycheck direct-deposited there, and I have two automatic monthly withdrawals that will move money back to my bank for things like rent and auto insurance. I hope to get some good return instead of having my monthly expenses just sit in a checking account.

Final Four Time!

Earlier today my NCAA Champion pick, Memphis, beat UCLA to advance to the finals. Right now I'm watching one of the more exciting games I've seen in the tournament this year: North Carolina is clawing their way back against Kansas. I picked UNC to lose to Memphis, so naturally I'm rooting for them in this game, but I really don't like either UNC or Kansas.

I've been a little disappointed with the tournament this year (and not just because IU was eliminated early (again)). The teams at the top have been so dominating that several of the games were decided in the first half. I haven't run the numbers, but I'd love to see different stats on average margin of victory and number of blowouts this year compared to usual. And of course this is the first time in history that all four 1 seeds made it to the Final Four.

UNC closed to 4, then Kansas (finally) scored a few times, and now it's a five-point game. Very exciting.

Update: And then UNC stopped playing. Another blowout.