Wednesday, September 26, 2007

A softer view of things

As an experiment, I have for the past week not listened to any hard rock. Those of you who know me will also know how excruciating a trial this has been for me. However, as it nears its' completion I find that it has been a very good and educational experience.

My appreciation for other genres has increased by leaps and bounds, and the constant drone of Craig's Metallica has become, to say the least, an irritant. I never realized how ridiculous that band is. It's music for 30 year old men who live in their parents basement and wish they were good at fighting. How sad.

Other various bands whom I previously loved have also lost their appeal. The constant anger, frustration, angst and overall unrest is almost tiring. Often times I would be irritated for no reason and wonder to myself "What am I all upset about? Everything is going great and I have no valid reason to be angry but I am." I think I found the answer. This sort of music really feeds those emotions no matter how small the initial feeling, and soon you're in a rage over virtually nothing. Very interesting indeed.

This is not to say I'll give it up entirely. It's great to work out to. I will definitely lay off the stuff a large amount though. I just feel better this way.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Say "No" to mutants

After the battle of the bands show Bruce, my brother Tylor, myself and a newly acquired tongan friend Mika caught this huge, weird-looking bug. The front of it looked like a crab; it had a crab's head, the little beady crab eyes, even pincers. The back half looked like a cockroach body. It was all sick brown and had wings capable of flight. The length of the body was a little more than 3 inches and it was an inch and a half wide.

So we catch the thing and put it in a bottle and I of course say "How much will you guys pay me to eat it?" Bruce offers 25 bucks, Ty's friend Adam offers 5, and the tongan offers his respect (which alone makes it worth it in my book). So it was on.

After pouring the thing out of the bottle and struggling to catch it for about 10 minutes, I finally had the devil in my hand. Bruce is filming the entire incident, so I make sure to hold it nice and close to the camera so all can see very brave and hearty I am. Then, without further adieu, I put the sucker in my mouth.

It takes 5 minutes of straight chewing, and the thing tastes like a horrid mixture of swamp water, eggs and sage. The wings, in particular, are exceptionally chewy and take longer than the whole rest of the creature to soften up. Everyone is saying how gross it is and laughing and Tylor is trying not to puke his wee weak guts out. It was hilarious.

Saturday morning. I wake up with a fever, a severe headache, a sore throat, and have lost all desire for food. "What could have possibly caused this," I deliriously wonder to myself. It couldn't have been the bug, could it? No. Not possible. If it was the bug, I'd have like diarrhea or I would be vomiting or something. Wouldn't I? We may never know.

The simple fact is I'm still sick and that 25 bucks sounds like less and less the more I tell people. We don't need a wheel of morality for this one folks; just don't eat giant mutant crab-cockroach bugs. Trust me.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Concert Report

Well I'm told it went well. To go on and on about how we owned the opening band and played the best we ever have would be prideful, so I'll leave it to my younger and rash brother. I was really pleased though. The only problem we really had was the microphone deciding to go out during our last and probably best song "High". I'm still not quite sure the blasted thing will still work, but what can you do?

The thing I was really pleased about though was a comment the drummer of the other band made to me. "This is the largest crowd we've ever played to man," he told me. Sweet. These guys have been at this for 2 years plus and our first show is bigger than all their previous ones. I took that to hopefully be a sign of good things to come. Friday we have the battle of the bands at Ream's and the following Wednesday we try out for a similar event held at UVSC. I'm told the attendance is supposed to be somewhere near 500 people, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that things will go well and we will get in.

Thanks to everybody who came out to support us and special thanks to my beautiful Andrea. I don't know what it would have been without you, girl. Probably a whole lot less vacuumed three times over. ;) You're the best.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

The sleep never comes

So my band, Part II, is having our first show tomorrow (well technically today, I guess) and sleep seems impossible right now. I'm absurdly worried about whether or not there will be a decent amount of people, what if I forget lyrics, what if we just suck and we thought we were good this whole time, you know. The usual. I'm also ridiculously excited. Because the possibility that the exact opposite of my worst fears comes to pass and the event is a rousing success.

Regardless, displaying a very intimate part of my soul in front of a crowd of people whom I largely know on a first name basis is going to be intense. There's no getting around it. Entertaining people you don't know is much easier, as they don't feel obligated to like it and you (the entertainer) don't feel pressured by expectations, imagined or otherwise. I think this is going to be a really good learning experience for me either way. There will be a post-concert post summarizing the evening's proceedings, I'm sure. Until then, my brethren, I bid you adieu.

Friday, August 31, 2007

iMsosickofvaincommercialism

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20502777/wid/11915829>1=10252

This may possibly be the most ridiculously disgusting thing I have ever seen. iPods are basically the Ambercrombie & Fitch people's way of saying "Look how much richer and more tech-savvy I am than you".

In reality, there is far less functionality for these devices, as you can only use them with the specific interface program iTunes. Why not just click and drag mp3 files, I ask you? "Well iPods are just better," is the inevitable answer. Nice logic.

In a society where putting a lower case "i" in front of a noun makes it cooler and more expensive than a different and more practical option, it seems we just don't need a good reason to do anything anymore.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Day 6

Captain's log. This is the 27th day we've been out in the wilderness, alone save for the company of a few friendly looking birds that bite us playfully when we pass out along the trail. They're fairly ugly, noisy things but I've never been one to judge based on appearances.

The Gimp finally died of dysentery yesterday. I feel that sense of loss similar to the feeling one has after a very satisfactory defecation experience. I feel it should be mentioned also that I tried very hard to dissuade him from eating the 4 years-expired contents of the Chef Boyardi can which led to his untimely demise. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't really stop a horse from drinking the deadly, bacteria-filled, festering lake water", my father used to say. Never knew how true it was until now.

Andrea is still missing, and I had all but given up hope when a wonderful thing happened. As I was writing the last entry of this log, a vision was granted to me. In my vision, a flying pig who identified himself as Rufus Waynewright III told me not all was lost and the great pork huntress would return to us.

He then handed me a dandelion and told me that if Tim could learn to love another and earn her love in return before the last petal fell, the spell would be broken. If not, he said, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. I, of course, nodded politely and thanked Rufus and showed him out the window which he had flown in from, immediately discarding the glowing little flower. I had no idea what the fellow had been rambling about, and he had obviously traveled a very long way. Everyone knows mystical travelers often lose track of who they're talking to.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Day 1

Captain's log. I'm not really sure what the date is anymore; I only know Andrea has been gone for about a day. Already we've run out of bacon without her to hunt wild boar and without fresh meat, the men's morale has started to waiver. All I can tell them is "just keep on keepin' on, boys." and then they complain about my poor grammar. It's hard to take responsibility for a shipwrecked crew.

Tylor and I went hunting today and shot 11,000 pounds of meat. But we were only able to bring back 700 for some reason unknown to me. The gimp fell off the back of the wag....off the back of the ship and broke his ankle. And Tim was bitten by a snake whilst on a plane.

End of entry.