Now, here's the thing...

Expired post...

2009-06-05T13:10:00.002-04:00

Finally! An update!

2008-12-01T16:04:00.005-05:00

Been busy, haven't updated in three and a half months. Not great, but here's something...

We went to some more shows.

Saw Ludo on 10/22 at the Recher Theater and they were awesome! They did "Part 1" from "Broken Bride" (I would have bet good money that they wouldn't have done anything from that album) and one of my absolute favorite songs by them - "Hum Along"!!

We also saw Cobra Starship (Fangs Up!) with our friends Sing It Loud at Sonar on 11/19! It was an AWESOME show!!! Because Lisa got me tickets early, we got to go to a meet and greet with MOST of the band before the show started (Gabe never showed).

I got to actually meet Vicky-T (insert me squealing like a little girl here) and I got to get her autograph and give her a photo of her that I shot from the pit at Warped Tour!!! She seemed really excited for the picture (either that or she was just being nice, either way I'm happy about it).

We gave Ryland a picture of JJ, so the band could have a picture of their (to our knowledge) youngest fan.

Cobra's show was great. We got in just in time to be one body back from the rail, but by the time Cobra came on, Lisa was on the rail (and I had a hand on it to keep from being swept away). Everyone in the crowd was super-pumped to see them and sang along with all the songs. I nearly went deaf during "Prostitution"! I hope Gabe gets over the stuff going on with his throat so they can get the third album finished and get back out on the road next year.

It was also great to see our friends in Sing It Loud again. Their show was nearly as good as Cobra's was! I bought the album from them and got everyone but the newly-shorn Keiran to sign it for me. My buddy Ben from Sing It Loud even got out on stage with Cobra to do the rap for "Kiss My Sass"! It was just a-MAZE-ing!!!

The other opening acts were "Forever the Sickest Kids" (who were better than I had expected) and "Hit the Lights" (who I had never heard before that and they were pretty good).

Sing It Loud is coming back to do a show at Rams Head Live on December 28th with All Time Low and we are going to try to get tickets for that one as well. Merry Christmas to us!!!

Well, that took a while...

2008-08-17T20:10:00.002-04:00

OK, so I wasn't able to write for a while - but I need to get back to it.

Item 1. We saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Some of it was good and some of it kinda sucked. Note to film-makers: you have computers available, why not use them to keep from having to shoot all of the action scenes of the old man from behind his back to try to cover that it's a stunt man?

Item 2. We went to a cool restaurant later that same week, Amer's Cafe. It's a great American /Mediterranean /Egyptian place (which also has GREAT pasta). Lisa wanted to go because they have belly dancing on Friday and Saturday nights. The belly dancing was fun for her, but I think she could do as well herself on most of the dancing.

Joseph wanted to go because kids get to make their own pizza. They give the kids the dough to roll out and put on a cooking plate, then the sauce to spread, the cheese to put on and finally the pepperoni for topping. He had a lot of fun (and it was a delicious pizza)!

Lisa had a seafood thing that she really liked and I had penne with four cheeses, which was very good. The portions were big for Lisa and I and not overpriced. Next time pizza for me tho!

Item 3. We went to see Iron Man a second time because Lisa liked it so much. It's got to be one of the greatest comic book to movie translations (if not the best). The fight with Iron Monger is too long, but that's the only real weak point in my opinion. I actually like the fact that in the Middle Eastern fight Iron Man doesn't just subdue the bad guys by pulling his punches. Unfortunately, it makes me want to see The Incredible Hulk even more to see if it's a good translation and I'm still worried it will kinda suck.

Item 4. We went to the Virgin Festival on Lisa's tickets. Quick list of some highlights: watched Paramore perform from the "Soundboard Skybox" (built into the third story of a scaffolding thingy), we were on the rail for Taking Back Sunday (Adam is crazy with that "swing-the-microphone-around-your-neck" thing!), wandered the eco-friendly midway, watched the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus (it was super-cheesy, but in a good way), saw some of Iggy Pop and most of Stone Temple Pilots performances from the grass.

But I was blown away by how AMAZING the Nine Inch Nails set was. There was some of the ambient krap from "Ghosts" that I don't really like, but the rest was great. They did my favorite NIN song ("Wish"), which I never would have thought they would perform. They performed all the hits and a couple off the newest album that I hadn't heard, but were mostly good. The light show thing that they had for the stage was also really cool. There's one part where they lower a light frame from above the stage that it reaches all the way from left to right and Trent is walking back and forth in it and it looks like he's surrounded by static. It doesn't sound as cool when I describe it, but it was neat!

We walked over to see a little of the Kanye set while NIN was deep into ambient trance and it looked like it was a good show. I read later that it was supposed to have been amazing, but we had to choose. That's the bad thing about multistage festivals. I wanted to see She & Him as well, but they started during when we had the skyboy passes for the Paramore set and ran into the Taking Back Sunday set, which we didn't want to miss. Maybe I will get to see She & Him another time...

Item 5. Joseph and I went to see Stat Wars: The Clone Wars on opening Friday at a matinee.

They fight robot armies - which we really have seem a lot of already, more if you count the very good Tartakovsky cartoon that we already had on Cartoon Network. They try to rescue a Hutt child and discover the mystery behind who really masterminded the kidnapping. Anakin gets a Padawan named Ahsoka Tano, and Father Knows Best hilarity ensues. It's just such a pilot episode for the "at least 100 episodes" (per George Lucas) next Cartoon Network series.

It looks like it goes after the Tartakovsky series, but obviously before Revenge of the Sith, so we get Commander Cody back with Obi-Wan and we can show some of their relationship being built. There's a new clone side-kick established for Anakin as well, Captain Rex. Not a lot of new named characters, but we get to see ones that we already know and a lot of nameless window dressing (a Star Wars hallmark since the original movie - I'm not complaining).

I almost wish I owned Revenge of the Sith so that I could go and check to see if there's a nameless jedi who could be Ahsoka Tano getting cut down when they give Order 66, or if she will die / leave at some time during the series. But only almost...

So I'm another year older...

2008-07-31T14:03:00.000-04:00

And, as always, I tried to learn something on my birthday yesterday.

I learned that I share my birthday with French actor Jean Reno ("Leon" / "The Professional" is a great movie!), two Soyuz Cosmonauts, musician "Buddy" Guy, Sid Kroft (of Sid and Marty Kroft 'fame') and actress Jaime Pressly (from "My Name Is Earl").

I already knew that I shared the birthdays of vocalist Kate Bush, genius mastermind Henry Ford, composer Puccini, Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, actress Hilary Swank and author Emily Bronte (who had a brother named Bramwell Bronte).

In history, I found that: Baltimore MD was founded in 1729, slave rebels took over the slaver ship Amistad in 1839, the Civil War "Battle of the Crater" was fought in 1864, corn flakes were invented by Will Kellogg in 1898, the 1st Penguin book was published starting the paperback revolution in 1935, the women's Navy auxiliary agency (WAVES) was created in 1942, Elvis Presley made his debut as a public performer in 1954, "In God We Trust" was adopted as the U.S. national motto in 1956, Social Security was established in 1965 (not that it will probably still be there for me), Apollo 15 landed on the moon with the first lunar rover in 1971 and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975.

Some people who died on my birthday include: Pope Benedict I in 579, Confederate general George Pickett in 1875, first Chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck in 1898, 122nd Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1912, Superman co-creator Joe Shuster in 1992, actress Claudette Colbert in 1996 (back in the day she was a Betty!), Howdy Doody side-kick "Buffalo" Bob Smith in 1998 and Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in 2007.

I also found out that I share a birthday with the great Charles "Casey" Stengel. I know very little about sports in general, but I recognized the name at least. Casey played outfield for the Dodgers (1912-17), Pirates (1918-19), Phillies (1920-21), Giants (1921-23) and Braves (1924-25). He then went on to manage the Dodgers (1934-36), Braves (1938-43), Yankees (1949-60) and Mets (1962-65)! Stengel won 10 pennants and 7 World Series with the Yankees and is the only manager to win 5 consecutive World Series (1949-53). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 25th 1966, five days before he celebrated his 76th birthday.

One other thing that I learned (not at all related to the above), Notepad2 is not Notepad++. Each of them is good, but the one that I was looking for is actually Notepad2.

But can I get it now...?

2008-07-28T12:42:00.001-04:00

I found this on LiveJournal and had to take the test.

It's depressing, but I could "live" with it (ha ha ha). I would just like to get a hold of it now!

$3940.00

Update: It turns out that I'm better off than I thought.

It seems that:

I'm the 58,641,004 richest person on earth!
And I'm in the TOP 0.03% of affluence!

I'm gonna find some of the people above me and see if they can float me a loan!

By the way, if I can get just one-half of 1% of them to each give me $10.00, I'll be up by NEARLY THREE MILLION DOLLARS!! That would sure move me up on the list!!

Check out where you are on The Global Rich List!

(If you're above me, drop me a note -
I've got a favor I'd like to ask you...)

Goin' to the Virgin Festival!

2008-07-24T03:48:00.000-04:00

Today Lisa won tickets to the Virgin Festival on August 10th!!!

She called into a local radio station to explain International My Chemical Romance Day to them and gave a nice plug for Music Saves Lives. They gave her tickets (originally) to a concert with Poison and Sebastian Bach (the DJ said it was the closest concert to MCR he had tickets for?)... Blah! She decided that we wouldn't even use them and contacted the station to say thanks but no thanks and they offered her Virgin Fest instead!!!

Woo Hoo!! We're gonna see Nine Inch Nails, Kanye, Iggy Pop (and the Stooges, but I only care about Iggy), She and Him (Zooey!!!), Taking Back Sunday (Lisa's psyched) and Paramore! Is that the weirdest line-up in history or what??

Public Service announcement: Please check out Music Saves Lives. They are really trying to get people to get involved in blood donation (hey, if I can do it you can do it) and getting registered for the Bone Marrow Registry.

The Bone Marrow Registry was even easier than giving blood, they just have you swab the inside of your cheek to type you. We spoke with Russell from their organization in Richmond recently and he said that in 5 years of being in the registry he's not been matched yet. But the more people we get in the more chance there is of finding matches for those who need them!

Especially hit them up if you're going to Warped Tour, they are giving out VIP passes for people who sign up!!

Now, here's the thing...

2008-07-23T00:47:00.000-04:00

OK, so I'm starting a blog.

I know myself pretty well (I've been around me most of my life), so this will probably be sporadic and somewhat choppy.

But I'm gonna try!