O Jeez, The Wreckage

I just got back from Maryville Metalfest. There were ten bands spaced out from 4pm to roughly midnight, but since I can't be out past 11, I got headed home at 10pm and missed the headliners, which is lame, but I certainly got my money's worth. Brandon, Phil, and Nathan spent the night at my house last night, and I took Nathan home at 2pm. I was watching the first "episode" of the Band of Brothers mini-series marathon on the History Channel, and now here I am, at 10:55 and it's still going on. Anyway, back to Metalfest, when Brandon and I got there, we payed our five dollar admission and got a blue star drawn on our respective right hands. We then entered the decrepit, air-conditioning-less, and crowded Alnwick Community center's gym. Looking to our right roughly fifteen yards, we have the stage, covered in speakers and various equipment. Looking to our left, we have Will, Marvin, Coty, and all the merch tables for the ten bands. So we take our seats and exchange our greetings when a man carrying a large video camera walks to our section of the bleachers. He then tells us that "they" were going to film the concert for a DVD, and he wanted to get a reaction shot from the bleachers before the show started and we'd all be busy bustin' our various moves. I say "they" because I still have no idea who organised all this. Anyway, on the count of three, we all lost our frikin' minds and yelled and screamed for this camera guy. A few minutes later the first band is set up and playing, they demand that we all come out of our seats and dance, which we do happily. They were good, awesome energy, good material, technical issues, pretty much sums up all the performances, so I'll refrain from describing the music itself in the future. So at this point, I'm not really going crazy, just kinda bobbing rather than banging my head. Got a little more rowdy for the second band, started to mosh, started to really get into the music. Them comes the third band, and a series of songs and moshes which took me off my damned feet for the rest of the night. Seriously, when they were finished with their set, I was finished period, it was about 6:30 at this point, and I was dehydrated, bruised, and sore in every possible way. So I went to the refreshment table and got a soda because they didn't have water for ssome dumb reason. Then I went outside to Will's car to get some rest away fromt he crowd in the relative calm of the parking lot. Chilled there with Higgins, Will, Marvin, and Brandon for a while, sharing battle stories and trying to get some rest for the next set. Sometime around then, Joey shows up and quickly becomes the life of the party as per usual. Will, Coty, and Marvin go off to watch the next show, and Brandon and I drive back to the highway to find a gas station where we then spend thirty minutes sitting in the ice cream section eating a candy bar and drinking a bottle of tea. We now head back to the gym for more metal and end up just chilling with Ramiz, Robby, Joey, and Coty in the parking lot (it wasn't like you couldn't hear the music out there anyway). The 4th band's set is over and Will heads back out to the parking lot for whatever reason. Sometime around here, I knocked the R off of the name plate of a Buick Roadmaster, not that I did this on purpose, but the letters now spell oadmaster, which I think is an improvement. The five of us were just sitting around, relaxing, when Joey comes out excitedly and tells us that the back half of the building is rumored to be haunted, and that we now have to go with him to check it out. Seems like other people ha heard the rumors too, as many of the windows were broken and the doors had been pryed more than once. Not only that, but on one of the doors someone had scratched DIE kill kill kill kill into the metal with a knife. Joey loves this kind of thing, and took lots of pictures, which he stopped to show to some girls from another school none of us knew who were hanging out in front of the steps to the closed part of the building. We introduced ourselves to them and were invited to join them in sitting there, which we did. After about ten minutes of sitting there with these girls, we decided we should move, so we went back around back of the building to a small playground/baseball diamond. Will, Joey, Coty, and I all stayed at the playground as the girls walked off with Marvin and Brandon. Eventually, after many profane jokes about what they were all doing back around the other side of the building, we decided to go after them. Will decided to go back to the gym, Joey broke off mid-search to go talk to another girl he knew, which left Coty and I to try and find the errant group. Coty got a phone call from his mom, and I got tired of looking from Brandon so I just called him. He, Marvin, and the girls were back at the playground, and we joined them. Joey and Will showed up eventually, and we all just started doing laps around the building talking amongst one another. As it began to get dark, we all settled back in front of the steps, and continued our conversation. At some point and for some reason, I mentioned the name Romines, at which point a group of people stopped and asked who I was talking about. After they found out I was talkign about the same Romines they knew, they asked us if we knew any bass players who were good enough to play in a band they were putting together. A few names popped into my head, none of which were really very good ideas. Two of the three people moved on soon after, but one of them decided to stay and talk with us. We found out he was a gaurd of something or other for the Defense Department, and they were putting him back through school at current so that he could resume his job because they'd upped the minimum degree you needed to do his work. We continued to chat about the government for a while, but he wasn't there for too long. However, when he and I finished our conversation I realised that most everyone had relocated a ways across the parking lot, and I walked over to tell Brandon we'd have to leave soon. He didn't feel like going home, so he got a ride from Will, and I went home by myself. Before I left, I gave the girls my cell phone number. They said we'd have to hang out again some time, and I let them know that unfortunately my phone is rarely on, but that if Will was around, then I would probably be around too. Right, so that was my day from two to ten. I'm really sore, and really tired. What can I say, it was an awesome day. I only have one real complaint. What's up with metal band names now-a-days? Is it just me or are most of the names just "Verb the Noun"(IE: Awake the Suffering, Against the Opposition, Resist the Restraint, these were all at the show today)? 

A-Thons

I recently decided that I wanted to marathon all the Modest Mouse music I've got (all of it excluding two EPs the contents of which were realeased on other albums). This was awesome, it resulted in me hearing whole new meanings to songs, and made me feel... well, worn out frankly. Please understand, their Discography is 9 hours 41 minutes and 49 seconds long. That being said, it took me 3 days of on and off listening to finish. The rules I set for myself were pretty simple (music has to be on when using the computer, if that music is from my player, it has to be MM). I took a full hour's break to watch My Morning Jacket on Austin City Limits, which was awesome.

NOW, onto future stuff. I have realised that marathoning my music is something fun that I can do to pass the time when I'm in an indecisive mood, and with that in mind, I've embarked on a Sonic Youth-A-Thon. This will take a bit longer as their music adds up to 11 hours 21 minutes and 53 seconds. So, yeah, I just felt like making a post about this project because, for me even more than most people, listening to one band's discography is really difficult.

A Big Update

Friday:

I didn't go to school. I thought I was sick, but it turns out it was just allergies. I blame all the tree-sex. Later on that afternoon, I'd say around five-ish, I went over to Brandon's to pick him up so we could go to the concert on Saturday. After Brandon and I got back to my house, he downloaded Steam onto my computer, I didn't really need or want it, but whatever. All in all it was a pretty uneventful night, we sat in my room and played Left 4 Dead and The Orange Box. I love Valve, I really do. I dislike a lot of things about Left 4 Dead, but it's still the only real decent zombie game we've ever gotten. It's good to get Team Fortress 2 back, but I now suck at it all over again.

Saturday:

Brandon and I woke up way too early (around 9a.m.), and promptly left for Habitat for Humanity without breakfast. I had my mom's debit card with me because I was supposed to withdraw 20$ from the ATM near McDonalds, but I completely forgot about it until I got to Habitat. I called when I got there because I suddenly remembered, and she was understandably worried, no big deal, really. We went up to the 2nd floor of Habitat because that's where they keep all their clothes. We looked very homosexual picking out clothes for eachother, and I think most of the other people was in the store were very uncomfortable. After Habitat we went back to my house and dropped off the debit card. From there, we went to Fotthills Mall where absolutely NOTHING was going on. Out of boredom, we decided to go to Hasting's. We walked around browsing their movies, music, anime, manga, comic books, and whatever else we could find. I bought Black Lagoon Volume 005, which I just finished reading (it was awesome). It was free comic book day, so I snagged 10 off the rack, mostly junk, but they may be interesting (haven't gotten to any of them yet). With that all done we went to Tomato Head for lunch which was great but wiped me out as far as money went. After Tomato head, we went back to my house to sit around until my mom was ready to leave for the concert. Little did we know that our friend Nicole needed help taking some videos off of her Sony Handycam due to Windows Vista troubles, so we drove over to her place and picked up the camera then back to my house to install the software on my mom's computer. It took us a while to figure everything out, it was mostly Brandon's work, but I helped (when I wasn't lounging on the couch/bed in the room). After we finished up there we drove back to Nicole's, dropped it off, and made our plans for tomorrow. After we drove back to my house, we headed down to Market Square in Knoxville for the concert. There was a guy playing a guitar on the street in front of the parking lot, he looked pretty disheveled but he was good. We walked to Tomato Head to get an early (7 p.m.) dinner, but it was too crowded. We went to some asian restaurant instead because we thought they had sushi, unfortunately that was a different asian restaurant. I ordered a baked tofu salad which sucked because it was too much tofu and not enough salad. On top of that, they used this weird wasabi dressing which was way too hot for me. On the up side, however, there was a group of people playing African tribal music which made for good entertainment. After dinner we headed over to The Bijou to see Amos lee with Mutlu (pronounced moot loo) opening. Mutlu was great he was really funny and had a song about the "sexy, naughty side of board games", most funny use of "TRIPLE WORD SCORE" ever. Amos was great and also really funny. He looked like a zombie every time he got into the music and started dancing around. His encore took about 3 songs and 20 minutes which was the second longest encore I've ever seen (Built to Spill takes top honors for one 45 minute song as an encore). As we headed back to the car after the concert, that guy in front of the parking garage was still at it playing his heart out. He'd been playing for about 4 hours straight from what I could see, so there was no way I wasn't going to give him at least a few bucks (two to be exact).

Sunday:

Today was a great day. Nicole and Brandon and I went to the mall and then Hasting's where a book of sexual positions told us what the best postion was for sex on our respective birthdays. We spent about 20 minutes in the manga section conversing about nothing, then another 20 in the anime/movies section, another 20 in music/comics/toys, and another hour or so just browsing around the store aimlessly. We took Nicole home, came back to my place and dicked around doing nothing. Then I took Brandon home. After I got back I read Black Lagoon 005 and ate dinner. I've been watching House and CSI since then. 

I could Write a lot more about Sunday, but I think this blog is long enough. Nicole is yelling at me on Skype as I type to publish this one, and I think I'll do just that. 

 

Not Sure if I'm Mad or Happy

I was going to take a nap, but then the Sci-Fi channel started playing Startrek: Enterprise ( the new one). Normally I wouldn't care as this show isn't really all that good, but this time the Intrepid crew of the Enterprise have decided to travel back in time accidentally to World War II. I can stop watching, an alien race that I don't recognize are SS officers. This is entertaining as hell. Someobody just died or passed out or something. The Captain is being bathed by some woman and I can't tell if she's supposed to be black, asian, or an alien race, but regardless she lives in France. Oh, she's black, and they're in Brooklyn? Oh, I get it, this is an alternate history, the Nazis are pwning everything. I get it now, even better. Well, I'm going to watch the rest of this now.

EDIT: massive frustration, in the last 15 minutes of that two hour special I nodded of during a commercial. This happened just in time for me to miss the conclusion, as I woke up with the bad guy screaming and (maybe) dying.

Oh me, oh my

It's hot, dammit. I'm listening to Jackson Browne's Greatest hits. Brandon is playing Gmod with David and some random other fellow. Daniel is yelling at the xbox about how someone's JDAM is messing up (his more colourful language omitted). I have nothing to do, so I thought I would update this blog with some completely unuseful information about my current situation. Brandon's Skype chat with Niccole died when we went up to Andy and Matt's house to try and ruin Andy's day. I feel like I accomplished this by stuffing both his harmonica and his back scrathcer down my pants. Keep in mind that it's sweltering out, and that I'm perspiring in unmentionable places (in other words my balls were sweaty). The picture on the front of the Yakov Smirnoff DVD Brandon bought when we went to see his comedy show is glaring at me looking every bit like a russian Al Borland. Speaking of Al Borland, Home Improvement was a fantastic show. I remember I used to laugh my ass of when Tim made those jokes about how Al was always wearing flannel, and then feeling like a dirtbag piece of shit when I found out that Al wore that flannel as a tribute to his dead father. It's a very touching story, really. I remember crying when I saw the last episode of Boy Meets World as a little kid, but I remember cryingnot only when I saw the last episode of Home Improvement, but bawling my eyes out when Jonathan Taylor Thomas left, and then even harder when he came back for Christmas. I think I'll always feel like Home Improvement and MASH had the best two sitcom endings of all time. *sigh* Good times, but anyway, what else did I want to say? Ha Ha, Brandon drank too much pineapple juice and now feels sick. That's what he gets for taking the whole damn thing. Brandon called David on Skype and now David and Daniel are bitching at eachother about who is hated more by their respective families. Brandon's room is an amalgamation of dumb shit and awesome shit. For example, there's a Pokemon: Battle Revolution poster right next to a Shaun of the Dead one, and a Pink Floyd: The Wall (movie) poster hanging above a door with a giant magnetic horseshoe hanging from the doorknob and a big pile of dirty pants at the bottom rendering it unopenable. That's okay, I suppose, there's nothing behind that door but his dad's collection of Altoids cans (don't ask me).

The Listen or Die Podcast

seems to have fallen through spectacularly due to lazy-ness on the part of it's creators (Brandon, Nathan, Andy, and Myself) and my current lack of transportation. The point of this blog isn't for me to announce the indefinite hiatus of a podcast that only had two episodes, however. Mainly I'm writing this blog to fill in whatever poor bored soul wants to read up on my daily life about what has been going on lately with me. Here it comes. Get ready. Wait for it. Wait for it. NOTHING!

That's obviously a bit of an overstatement, but it was still a pretty boring long-weekend, most likely because I'm still down in the dumps about losing my car and, subsequently, my freedom, or at least my hightened sense of it. I did manage to accomplish a few things, however, mainly I went to Nathan's 17th birthday get together (I say get together because party conjures up images of pointy hats and cake of which there were none) and managed not to hurt myself with the exception of some glass shards which got stuck in my hand after I tried and failed to reenact a bar fight by smashing a beer bottle on... something. It was fun, but unfortunately I feel like we may be reaching the last of the "get togethers" since we're all coming quickly upon the age of eightteen and we're starting to feel childish sitting in each other's basements eating too much, getting sick, and playing Halo. Anyway, as I said, it was good fun, I played pool almost constantly and went on a rant about how much I hate Irish people in an attempt to get into Jared's head which worked, a little too well. I went home the next day feeling happy and not really thinking yet that this would probably be the last of such celebrations. 

Other than that, I picked up some photos from Target, and really like quit a few of them. Others aren't so great, but eh,  I realised I would end up wasting some film when I started experimenting with different stuff. Mostly what I've been working on is shooting all the outdoor lights in my neighborhood. It might sound a little weird, but I really like the effect it gives sometimes. The problem is, these lights aren't very bright and many of the photos I need involve some mild for of breaking and entering or at the least some extremely suspicious behavior on mine and Brandon's part. So as a result many of the pictures had to be taken from a greater distance than i wanted or at a weird angle or in a hurry or something like that, and most of the ones I really had hopes for didn't turn out at all. 

I've been listening to this one album almost non-stop, and one song in particular has me pretty much in love. The band is This Mortal Coil, the album is It'll End in Tears, the song is Song to the Siren. I think the best way I've heard This Mortal Coil described is gothic dream pop, and it personifies this song specifically. I've never been a big fan of goth music, and so understand that this isn't some gushy unrequited love song, and understand that for me to be recommending gothic music to people means that I'm extremely taken with it. 

Other than that, I really haven't done much of anything, I went to Earthfare last night and got some dinner, which was good, and I ate some of said dinner for lunch today. I read some from one of the many books I need to finish at the moment, and after I finish this blog I'm gonna go read Of Mice and Men for Mrs. Wallace. Usually I would blow off a school-related book if there was another book which I liked better that I wanted to read, but OMaM is a classic, and I really like it, AND it has a deadline, so my other books are just going to have to wait for a while.

Hurm... it seems I wrote quite a bit for someone with "NOTHING!" to say.

Congrats to me

I've now officially filled my ipod (30GB) to capacity. I knew this day was fast approaching, but it feels so surreal, my ipod is more of a nostalgia generator for me sometimes than a music player. For example, I heard Modest Mouse for the first time whilst on my way to Canada for the first time, and I wore that album OUT and it'll always be in my mind. Also, I remember reading the Drizzt books by RA Salvatore while listening to Stadium Arcadium by The Red Hot Chili Peppers so that one is lodged in there pretty far. 

The albums that pushed me to the 30 GB mark?

Beck - Odelay

Rollins Band - End of Silence

Queen - like 4 greatest hits albums

Joy Division - The peel Sessions / Closer

Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

Raveonettes - Whip it on

This Mortal Coil - It'll End in Tears

Yardbirds - Greatest Hits