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Crush 40

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Crush 40 - Live and Learn (theme from Sonic Adventure 2)

#obey the brave

Live & Learn

Jun Senoue, Johnny Gioeli

How’s it goin’, cats? Today is Sonic’s birthday! Happy 21st, you sassy, speedy thing! This one’s for you!

I think that if you know Sonic, you definitely know this song, right from the beginning lick. And I’ve gotta say, that lick is very catchy! I love the vocals for this—I think this is one of Crush 40’s best numbers, at least vocally. I love the guitar background for the verses, my ear is drawn to it, and it creates that little bit of depth that I really like. The pre-chorus has the drive to it that brings us to the climax of the chorus, with some nice choral movement. I love the harmonies in the vocals there, in both the pre-chorus and chorus, even though they’re fairly simple. The guitar fills that are thrown in throughout are also very nice; they squeal, but it suits the genre and fits with the mix. I love the main solo, I spent quite a while transcribing it doing my 8-bit arrange of this piece, and I love how it dips and dives, and even the obnoxious meedly-meedly-mee’s at the end sound cool because of the genre. The bridge section right after that mixes it up with the prominence of that that chromatic chord, the flat-IImaj(7), which is very effective. It’s also something your ear isn’t used to in a rock tune like this.

I think my favorite part is the last chorus, because it integrates this background riff in there:

It’s not that complicated, just a syncopated scale rhythm, but it sounds so cool in the back of the mix! Not to mention all the straight eighth guitar rhythms that are in the back during all the choruses. You can say this game is overrated, but this theme is pretty damn cool, if you ask me. This is also a theme where the time given to beat up the final boss in question, good ol’ Finalhazard, is the same length as the song, which is 4:28. I think I did it in 4:29 or something really close, so that the screen was flashing red, and everyone on ARK was screaming at me to HURRY UP. It was good times.

At any rate, you’re all Sonic lovers, so I hope you celebrate his birthday in style! I know the blue blur has been pretty influential to me, in the little over a year that I’ve known him. Keep on keepin’ on!

“But you can hardly swallow, your fears and pain. When you can’t help but follow, it puts you right back where you came.”

Same Mistakes

One Direction

My jammmm. Currently obsessing over <3

More Mistakes

In a career in medicine, one is bound to make TONS of mistakes. Hopefully these mistakes don’t seriously affect the patient, but unfortunately sometimes they do. Either way I think it’s good to admit your mistakes and learn from them.

So here goes my most recent one.

Last week I was inducing labor on a pregnant lady with post-dates. My first thought when I went to see her that morning was “I should just do a quick ultrasound to make sure the baby’s head is down”. But I didn’t do it. Why? because we had a recent ultrasound report saying baby was head down, and babies very rarely flip back up that late in a pregnancy. Also, when I went to check her cervix, I felt bony head.

Live and Learn

Sega

Live and Learn - Sonic Adventure 2

Helena Bertinelli....so why does it matter that she doesn't look Sicilian?

Right…so I see a few people confused and questioning why some people are a bit upset that an Anglo looking actress was cast as the Sicilian, Helena Bertinelli on Arrow tonight…

Just to be clear….for those who don’t actually know? Live and learn.

Racial tension is actually a huge cultural problem in Italy. There is history of discrimination between the Northern part of the country and the Southern part of the country, in part, due to the racism that the Northern people had against people from Africa.

To this day, Southern Italians, and particularly Sicilians, face a stigma from the Northern part of the country for not being “white” enough. This is an actual thing. That happens. Sicilians, in particular, were seen as being lower class because many of them, at one point, shared blood with people of color. Specifically, with African people. It’s also not a coincidence that the majority of the poverty in the country occurred in the South.

The Mob actually developed, in part, out of these kinds of dynamics and was influenced, in part, by this poverty that was taking place due to discrimination. Cultural appearance played a part of this and caused a great deal of tension.

So yes…the physical appearance of the actress playing Helena mattered. And no…the CW network and more specifically the producers of Arrow didn’t pass the test. They failed.

This is an actual thing. Skin color actually contributes a great deal to discrimination in this culture. The darker and less “white” looking people were considered too “African” and were considered “dirty.” The contempt that the Northern part of the country had for Black people and any influence they might have over the people was a cultural touchstone.

Want to see what I mean? Ask an older generation Sicilian person where their olive skin comes from. Just watch how quickly that older person will bend over backwards to try and tell you that they don’t share blood with people of color. The paranoia of being associated with being Black in this culture is an actual thing to the point that many older generation Italian-Americans will now get extremely angry if you suggest that their lineage might connect them to Africans. The racism that exists in this culture due to the paranoia of being associated with people of color runs deep. DEEP. So yeah…casting an Anglo actress in this role is a thing. Live and learn, people.