AIM Profiles...

from xkcd.com

TV should be more like this and less like... everything on E!

I was googling a song we're playing in Jazz band and found this video on YouTube:



Yeah...

Who Likes Jazz?

To those interested: The SDSU Jazz Ensembles will be presenting their completely free of charge fall concert. Both Jazz Bands will perform a wide variety of selections and will feature many talented soloists. The event starts at 7:30 in the Performing Arts Center on the north-east corner of campus; there is no admission charge. I personally recommend it!

Three-month old charged with robbery, extortion and banditry

Via Fark.com: Click here!

Check it out

I was stumblin' around the internet tonight and found this. It made me happy.


Click here to find out more.

Sad day

I miss Jamie.

That is all.

Jawjuh or Georgia

Who likes truly portable water?

See what I mean here.

Things are normal again.

So, I'm officially back in Brookings and happy. After way too much time at home and Hy-Vee, and not having enough internet, I'm back. Not surprisingly little has happened since my last post with the apex being the 2nd annual Black Hills trip. Other than that, summer of Jack 2006 was pretty uneventful. With this I close.


That's it.

Just for Jamie

@:-}

Lollers from the TechTV Days

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Homestar Runner - Sad News

Found this on Digg.com - for those who were fans of homestarrunner.com...

Seems the largely popular animation site has suffered a personal tragedy. The father and business partner of the HomeStar Runner crew has passed away. Just thought the fans might want to know and maybe leave some kind thoughts.

read more | digg story

Why I love Gmail....

P.S. Ask Brandon why Photoshop and inflammables should never mix...

A Smorgasboard of Music (Iowegians not included)

To all who are interested:

This weekend is the SDSU Music department's annual Spring festival. And I Jack Thoreson will be performing in two wonderful concerts. First, on Saturday, April 29th The SDSU Concert band under the direction of Mr. Jim Coull will put on a wonderful concert featuring some great music. The doors open at 1:30 p.m. and the show will begin at 2:00 p.m. with the SDSU Percussion Ensemble. Second, on Monday, May 1st the SDSU Jazz Ensembles under the direction of Dr. Rick Crawley. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the show starts at 8:00 p.m. with Jazz II. Jazz I will finish up the second half of the concert.

All performances are in the Performing Arts Center
General Admission is $7, students and senior citizens $3.
One ticket will get you into all performances throughout the week.

Please come and support the SDSU music department!

Also - however estrogen laden they may be, Quaker "Quakes" rice snacks are pretty damn good.

Whoops

I just found out how to change the time on my recently played tracks... I am no longer running on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

Hardees is great:

I really miss Hardees: Click here to see why

Diet beverages, here I come!!!

Artificial sweetener cleared of cancer link...

New research shows that aspartame, the artificial sweetener used in diet sodas, aren't so bad after all.

read more | digg story

Another Exciting Weekend for Jack

This past weekend was pretty nice, with a great ragtime-esque concert, swing dance and a day off what could be better? I drove the 45 minutes home Friday night and attended a concert for hurricane relief. It was a group from New Orleans with a clarinet, trumpet, guitar, sousaphone /valve trombone, and trap set. They are called "Doreen's Jazz New Orleans" and were probably the "funnest" jazz group I've seen. Doreen is the leader on clarinet with an amazing sound that rivals the old-school big band guys like Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, and maybe even Artie Shaw. All in all, a great time. Anyway, Doreen and her husband (the sousaphone player) lost their home to Katrina and are traveling around the country putting on concerts to raise funds to rebuild their house. Pretty cool.

Then, Saturday night was the Black Student Alliance Swing Dance. It was a fun time even if there were maybe 10 people there who weren't either associated with the Jazz bands or the BSA. Oh well, I got to dance with Amy. After I was done playing, the gang and I stuck around for a few Jazz I tunes, then hung out at Perkin's for awhile. The night was capped off with a showing of "A Mighty Wind," with me falling asleep during parts of it.

Finally, you have probably noticed a slight change to my bloerg. The charts show an inside look at my musical tastes. Mr. Brandon Van Westen introduced me to this useful in a useless kind of way website: last.fm. If you are interested, let me know and I'll try to tell you about it or direct you to more knowledgeable sources.

Mint Tingle (R)...

LOL ROFLMAO BTWBBQ...

Shameless plugs

I received word today, that the Roosevelt High School Marching Band will be in a 4th of July parade celebrating Sioux Falls' 150th anniversary. Any interested alumnus should contact the Roosevelt Music office by emailing Mr. Macklin - macklsha@sf.k12.sd.us (the phone number will be posted here asap) by April 3rd. Two short rehearsals are tenatively scheduled for July 1st and 3rd at this point. Uniform will consist of matching shirts and shorts. You must be able to provide your own instruments (large instuments and perc. excluded) and make any and all rehearsals. Pass this word along - they are looking for a large group to perform.


Also: This Saturday in Brookings, the SDSU Black Student Alliance is holding a Spring Swing Dance at the downtown Park & Rec building. Admission will be $6, dress is semi - formal (no jeans / t-shirts) and the dance will go from 8:00 - 11:00 p.m. Email me for directions, or questions: jackthoreson@gmail.com

Cool story

I found another cool story that I thought I would share with everyone:

Amish Amish Neighbors help rebuild tornado stricken house in one day

Even more ironic is where I found this story: Fark

Kinda makes me wish I was raised as an Amish, then converted to modern Christianity. (Just so's I could at least drive a car)

Post Spring Break... Post

I'm going to start this post with a striking article:

The Invention of Artificial Light May Slowly be Killing Us...

Once humans possessed the technology of artificial light, we extended our usable waking hours by an average of 13%. Some researchers believe that this modern convenience, credited with bringing the human race in from the dark, may also be responsible for numerous ills...

read more | digg story

This was taken from one of my favorite places to internet at: www.damninteresting.com

My Spring Break was not the most exciting week off from school I've ever had, but it was a good time. Activites ranged from spending time with Amy, Brandon, and Jamie to working... that was pretty much it. We ended up going to Augie's jazz festival to listen to and watch Roosevelt's jazz bands. In between jazz II and I, we cruised on over to Sioux Valley hospital to donate some blood with Brandon winning the race. Jamie gets an honorable mention for trying... Jazz II by the way, sounded very good with a balanced selection of tunes and matching ties. After the blood letting, we headed back to Augie, arriving just in time to hear Jazz I. Unfortunately, a bout of sickness had made its way through the band and in the middle of a great Clarinet solo, the lead Tenor player got sick and had to leave. The kids finished up the naked song with composure and quickly went on to finish their set. All will be better when the two bands make their way up to Brookings on April 4th for the first ever Optimist Jazz Festival.
Other spring break activites included a "night on the town" with a decadent supper at Burger Time on w. 12th, laid back coffee drinks at the Downtown/Minnesota ave. Starbucks, fine shopping and employment oppourtunities at Target, and some exsquisite cinema at the residence of Ms. Jamie Englund. All in all, a nice vacation. Now, however it is back to the grind with a paper due and a recital this week. Then after that, maybe some paintballing next week or weekend...

UPDATE:
Due to recent questions / comments, I was made aware that there was no mention of The 'Vee in this post. Here goes...

I did work at The 'Vee during spring break too, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was an ok week with hours in both GM (general merchandise) and CSV (Customer Service / Video). That's about it... Nothing really exciting happened (sorry Ashley).

2 days

Wellity wellity wellity... it seems as though there are only two measly days left before I start what is apparently the greatest experience of upper level education: Spring Break. I really don't understand how working at The 'Vee and hanging out with Amy, Brandon, and Jamie (also in alphabetical order;) is going to change my life in any way. (No offense guys) Granted, I will not be traveling to Cancun or Tijuana, but practicing my lower lip off for this blasted Ferling recital. BTW - everyone who will be in the Brookings area on Thursday, March 16th is welcome to come to an absolutely FREE concert at fabulous Peterson Recital Hall in the prestigious Lincoln Music Center housed on the beautiful South Dakota State University campus. A night of fun will be in store for everybody with all forty-eight of FERLING'S FAMOVS STVDIES for oboe and saxophone being performed in their entirety - in order! Yeah... Anyway, I'm really more excited for Jazz band, I officially have a better mouthpiece now - a Berg Larsen 110 hard rubber. So my jazz setup is as follows: Selmer Paris (R) Series III Tenor Saxophone with... Berg Larsen 110 hard rubber mouthpiece and either LaVoz med. soft or Vandoren Java 2 reeds. Delecious. Wailing out anything from Chuck Mangione's "Feels so Good," to Gordon Goodwin's "Whodunnit?" (from their new unreleased album, "Phat Pack") never felt so good (oops... heh). That's what's shakin' in the music world of Mr. Jack Thoreson and things are only looking up.
So if I don't see anyone during spring break: be safe, have fun, and don't be afraid to gimme a call if you are stricken with boredom.

Jack's Weekend part I

As most of the people who read this blog know, I go home to Sioux Falls nearly every weekend to work at my beloved Hy-Vee. I'm going to start posting funny events and situations from The 'Vee. This past weekend was pretty normal - lots of lottery tickets, photo processing and stamps. I never understood how people can come in and buy twenty dollars worth of lottery tickets twice a week every week on the dot. It's not like they're bad people, some of the "regulars" who buy lottery tickets are my favorite customers. But when you see them drop that much money and win at most three to four dollars you kind of feel bad selling tickets to them. Oh well, lots of them have told me that if they win a big jackpot, they'll share the wealth (fringe benefit of working with lottery tickets). Probably my favorite part of customer service is either working the postal counter or processing photos. I like doing postal because you get to meet some cool people as well - for example, there is a guy who used to (I haven't seen him in awhile since I work mostly days now) come in and mail off sports cards; baseball, basketball etc... and you get to chat with him a little while you get his packages all ready to go. I really like to see when a parent or friend or spouse of someone in the armed forces comes in to send off a care package, the joy that they get from sending it and the joy that the person will get at the other end - it's kind of cool to be a part of that. Wow, that was pretty sappy. I better find some cool hunting stories to talk about on the next post or something. Oh and photos - I just like doing that because I'm a huge nerd and a gadget freak. And processing photos is a very methodical thing... I like that too. I'm a dork; what can I say?

To end, I ask the question:
Why can't there be more news articles like this?

Happy Birthday SDSU...

Much has happened since my last post which was close to the beginning of the semester. January has come and gone, and along with it memories and good times (which were had by all). Those who read regularly know that I said in the begininning of this blog, that I wouldn't update on a regular basis and as a man who is "not gonna lie," I had to hold true to myself.
Today was the official 125th anniversary of South Dakota State University and a spectacular (if not almost too flamboyant) gala was held in the Student Union to celebrate the occasion. Notable guests included Jim Woster, President Peggy Gordon Miller, and others. Pretty much the only reason I went was to watch and listen to SDSU Jazz Band I, which was to say the least, pretty darn good. Also, a new flavor of SDSU ice cream was unveiled, "Campanile Crunch," and it was... interesting to say the least. It consisted of a vanilla ice cream base with assorted crunchy items, (sounds pretty normal so far) such as corn, sunflower seeds, peanuts, wheat, and cashews. Anyway, music stuff has actually been going pretty well, I've discovered that the more I practice, the happier I am, and consequently the happier Dr. Crawley is when I go in for my sax lessons; who'da thunk? Speaking of sax, I will be quitting the tasty, yet deadly metal mouthpiece for a Berg Larsen hard rubber piece. Delicious. Finally, I went with some members of both jazz bands to the Dakota Jazz club in Minneapolis, MN (link here) to see the Charles Mingus Big Band. In short, it pretty much ruled. Despite my naive attitude towards semi-formal food, dinner went ok. I ordered what I assumed would be some type of beef stir fry, but turned out to be four tiny appetizers for about $9.00 after 18% gratuity (yeah). All in all, some great music, good food, and a rememberable time. To close, I quote the great Conan O'Brien: "Stay cool my babies."

Fricking Freezing Friday and

Please be aware that I know that you know that I know that you're aware that the title of this post sucks - a lot. But it truly describes the mood and temperature here in wonderful Brookings, SD. With the current air temp at -6 degrees farenheit and a windchill of -22, our planned movie night sounds like a a good idea now more than ever. This "movie" night involves the "Fearsome Foursome" (which I just titled btw) Me, BigB, Amy, and our special Sioux Falls friend, Jamie Englund. After just finishing a delecious albeit pornographically expensive supper of Papa Johns pizza and breadsticks, we are going to head to Wally World to get some snacky crap and then commence with teh cinema. (lollersauce, roflcopter, etc.) I am really excited for this weekend though - I get to go to Minneapolis, MN to see the Charles Mingus Big Band. Dr. Crawley and the math professor who plays bass 'bone in Jazz I are each driving a van full of students. Good times.
Well, it's about time I wrap this up as we begin our cinematic adventure...

Vadala Onion...

The first two weeks of spring semester have been going very well. First, I got to start four exciting new classes: Composition I, Wellness, Sociology, and Jazz Band (I was actually serious about Jazz Band). Comp is going to be ok... I was worried at first but the teacher seems to be pretty laid back. I don't know what to think of wellness yet, except for what I've heard, which is... it sucks. Sociology is going to be pretty interesting. Jazz band is going to freaking rock. I didn't realize how much I missed playing in a Jazz Band. After six years of it, and then not having it for only a semester really made me miss sitting in a five piece sax section. I'm on lead tenor which leaves bari as the only sax or part I've never played in a Jazz setting... besides the soprano, which doesn't really count anyway. I am still playing bari in concert band too, which is going ok. I do have a few new vices to admit folding to with the turn of the new semester: 1) I have a newfound love for Fluegelhorn great Chuck Mangione. I can't stop listening to "Feels So Good", and it doesn't help that we're playing it in Jazz Band. 2) I may begin playing on a metal mouthpiece... ok, nobody really cares I know... 3) Finally, I have regained my love for Total Raisin Bran. I will end this post with a few quaint words of advice: Do not eat Hot Tamales Fire. They suck.

Day Two...

Started Jazz II today... Good Stuff. Despite being handed a slightly leaky Selmer USA (R) tenor with a dingy stock mouthpiece, things looked promising. We warmed up with some scales and good old "C Jam Blues." We then played a tune called "Moten Swing." Then Dr. C handed us what was probably Chuck Mangione's most famous tune - "Feels so Good", a tasty rock samba 70's jazz tune. Tomorrow brings the infamous studio forum and hopefully a Selmer Series III (which I was promised) to "play some mean jazz on." Concert Band went okay with a new tune handed out, bari sax. gets old kind of easily though when the music isn't challenging. All in all, a good day. With this post, I leave everyone with a website to visit... here

Classes start, Taylor is an entertainer, and Hansen sucks...

Today was the official start of "spring" semester classes and tons o' fun ensued. First, Sociology is hopefully going to be a hoot... even if it is in Rotunda D. Dr. Mendelsohn seems like the kind of guy who could have mentored under the great Mr. Pope of Roosevelt High School legends, he is bitingly sarcastic and witty, yet realistic. Delicious. Music theory started off not with a bang, but more like the sound of a major 7th chord against a whiny girl signing about how much she loves her man. As some of the early comers entered the classroom, Dr. Taylor's class was just leaving and one of my classmates asked if he was going to teach the class (jokingly). Taylor proceeded to attach a smirk to his face and amble over the the first row of desks, he then bent over slightly and looked each of us in the eye then muttered - almost under his breath, "I'm an entertainer". Deadly laughter ensued for about a minute. After a light lunch of Triscuits (R) and granola bars, I made the trek to Hansen to hall for my Composition I class. Needless to say I underestimated travel time and was a few minutes late. The class went quickly and looks to be an utter joy. To end on a fun note (ha - music pun) I talked to Dr. Crawley today and discovered that I made Jazz II on lead Tenor Sax. and start tomorrow. Good Stuff. Now, I leave you with a quote which made my day, "You know, you can't have somebody rapping about, 'kill the pigs and screw the world,' when you've got a maj. 7 chord in the background." - Mr. Jim Coull 1-18-06

Tuesday's Gone

Classes will officially start tomorrow after over a month of downtime. I will begin the spring semester of my freshman year of college with a little bit of music theory and then go to composition. All in all, a day chock full o' book larnin' is in store for good old me. I still haven't heard about the jazz band results, but hopefully I'll find out tomorrow and get underway with that. I'll finish this week, go home and work this weekend and maybe see some friends who used to work CSV at the 'Vee with me. Also, for those who give a rip, my toe was healing nicely until it split open again on January 11th. More stitches were installed and will be removed on January 27th. Fun times.

Back in the Saddle...

So, to my and everyone else's expectations, I have not updated in exactly one month. In that month, I have been away from many things: Brookings, The Internet, SDSU, and Tiny Nelson. Hy-Vee has been consuming the majority of my time while not attending SDSU; however KOTOR has also been sucking up lots o' minutes as well. With that in mind, I would like to leave everyone with a few words of advice... SAVE YOUR DAMN RECEIPTS!!!