Saturday, June 4, 2005

Satisfying.. Exponentially.

So, concert.

We ended up leaving around.. 6, I'd guess. We had a half day of school, so one of my friends came over and we just wasted time until around 5:00. Due to.. Something, Friend B was unable to attend, and to make use of the $45 ticket my brother ended up going. The ride down was fairly uneventful. I was under the impression that the famous Wiltern Theatre would be in a very upscale, swanky area, but no, it's on the fringes of ghetto Koreatown, but it seemed safe enough. We parked, and I surveyed the crowd.

I'm aware that the Pixies fanbase does not consist of people my age, but I did not see one person anywhere near my age. I saw a 17-year-old, maybe, but that was it. Kind of freaky.

(Later on, in the show, there were a bunch of drunken bitch-women who kept standing up and dancing in front of us. Oh, and some potheads. The second they started Where Is My Mind you could virtually see the smoke cloud rise above the Loge.)

As we were walking, avoiding scalpers and trying to make sense of Korean Engrish on signs, a car pulled up to the back entrance of the building. I turned around, and wouldn't you know it, there was Joey Santiago. Joey Goddamn Santiago, lead guitarist of the band, trying to explain to the immigrant traffic guy that he was in the band and had to get in. He was just sitting in his economy-friendly crap-car.. Perfect voyeur photo oppurtunity.

And this happens just after I handed my dad the camera and he went back to the car to put it away (they were doing pat-downs on people, and our camera.. Isn't very compact). He stood outside the back entrance (right by the parking complex) for about ten minutes, but there wasn't time to get the camera out of the car. We had to get in line to get in.

And what did we get in line for? An irritatingly long opening act by a band called the Bell Rays. For those of you who don't know them (I had never heard of them, but Friend B used to be into them), they're a sort of.. Thrash-rock punk band with a large-and-in-charge soulful black woman with an afro and a tambourine. We got in just as they were coming out, and when we saw the black woman facing away from the stage, we all thought Kim Deal had an afro.

Which didn't make sense. We were scared and confused.

Our seats were actually kind of far in the back. I'd say there were six rows behind us, six in front of us, plus the Loge and standing room, but they were still great seats. It's a cool little hall.

The stage setup was simple. The amps were pretty small, and there were odd lighting fixtures in the back that reminded me of this scene in Devil May Cry 3. There was some pretty nice light work, though.

According to Pixiesdiscs.com, the track list went:

In Heaven, Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Here Comes Your Man, Where Is My Mind, Mr. Grieves, Bone Machine, Broken Face, Isla de Encanta, Gouge Away, I Bleed, Monkey Gone To Heaven, Gigantic, Ed is Dead, Cactus, I'm Amazed, Nimrod's Son, Vamos, Dead, Tame, The Sad Punk, Hey, Caribou, UMass, Wave of Mutilation.
Encore: Debaser.

Kim sang In Heaven, like Tony said. In the middle of Isla de Encanta Frank Black messed up the lyrics, stopped the song, laughed embarrassingly for a moment, and they started the song over. During the Vamos solo the drummer threw one of his drumsticks at Mr. Santiago and he played using that.

The crowd went nuts when Frank Black shouted "HEY".. Including me, which is interesting because I rarely show excitement in public.

Friend A, on the other hand, was gaily headbanging and screaming the lyrics. Friend B had to sit next to him and pretended she didn't know him.

When we were exiting the building the manager came up, opened a fire escape and told us to exit through there. We asked about the live-recorded CDs, and he said that we would be able to go around the front entrance and get them from there.

That, of course, didn't happen. By the time we got around to the front people were already lining up for the second show. I just bought the CD online when I got home.. It should be here late-July.

On the way back we stopped at Denny's and had crappy pancakes at 11:30 at night. By the time everyone was dropped off and I was home it was 12:30. I fell asleep rather quickly.

--

God, it must have been "Perverted Suspense Flick" on television tonight. I turned on the TV about halfway into One Hour Photo, in which Robin Williams plays a crazy stalker guy that works in the photo department of a Walmart-like store. It was an entertaining movie.. I wanted to see it when it came out, but I never did.

Something interesting: The kid had a Gundam model early on, and later Robin Williams buys the kid an End of Evangelion action figure. I also noticed several Hello Kitty items. There was some sort of weird animephile thing going on there with the director, I think.

And after that was "The Glass House," a movie in which these kids get orphaned and have to live with this pedophilic, drug-abusing mobster neighbors. It wasn't a very good movie, though it did remind me of A Series of Unfortunate Events (another non-good movie.. Good books though).

So there you have it. Two entirely unrelated stories mixed together in a poorly organized blog entry for your reading pleasure. *takes a bow*

EDIT: I have a piano recital tomorrow.. I have the song down fine, I just don't feel motivated to play. I'll do it and get out of there quickly, I think.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Thursday, June 2, 2005

Bush is so dialup.

Comment Commentary

Mimmi- That was the idea.

Shin- I have never talked to either of them in my entire life. I can't help but feel like I'd be the tagging-along make-the-situation-awkward young whippersnapper in that situation. :(

PsychoValkyrie- That's why I don't do these things. Even if I was particularly good at a non-classical instrument, I wouldn't want to play in front of a horde of unappreciative poo-heads.

--

Pixies Pixies Pixies tomorrow, woot. Presently, everything's running smoothly- even the person who's never heard any of their music (she's into techno, but wanted to come anyway o_O) seems to have everything in order.

According to the Wiltern LG website, cameras are strictly forbidden, but I'm probably going to smuggle one in anyway. If only for the sake of all of my devoted blog readers!11

Additionally, tomorrow is my school's Open House, but there's no way in hell I'll be going to that. I'm just abusing the fact that it's a half-day by going to my friend's house and doing non-educational things there.

--

I reached my AR goal today, which means that I will never have to deal with this shitty system again. Hahaha.. I feel as if a heavy burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. Sure, next year I'll have to read an ungodly number of book pages a month, but it's better than having restrictions on what to read.

There's not much else to say, except that I've been bringing my camera to school and taking pictures. It's not just for random kicks or anything- I want to take up photography for art, not just so I can bother my friends (though I achieve both).

I'm not the greatest photographer in the world, and my camera takes some god-awful blurry pictures.. But I'm learning. I don't want people to pose for my pictures- I want to capture real emotions in a real setting. People don't seem to understand it.. It's been misinterpreted as voyeurism on several occasions.

Even though it was consensual.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Hey, I can play two-string power chords too. ;_;

Comment Commentary

Shin- Yes, I believe that our final rhyme scheme was ABAB, and it ended with "Oh yes, this thing is freaking sweet."

Mimmi- Well, we still have it. We took it to a private groomer today.. Apparently, he had a load of ticks on him, and he's got severe diaper rash from all of the hair blocking up his.. Um.. Fecal dropway.

Tony- Windows Movie Maker hid the compression button from us. User friendly my ass.

PsychoValkyrie- I've considered trying out AMVs.. But that would turn out poorly, I just know it.

Tony- SHH. My teacher doesn't need to know that.

--

So the talent show was today. This is bad thing. Last year the show was so horrible that I think my soul was literally sucked from my body and put through some machine that made me lose all faith in humanity. It was that awful.

And this year they didn't even pull the bleachers out for us to sit semi-comfortably. Woohoo, we got the floor.

Actually, there was one part that I was looking forward to. This one guitarist from our PE class was the first act (accompanied by some guy I don't know on drums), and played a medley of Metallica, Nirvana, some other hard-sounding band and Weezer (I don't know how he did it, but somehow The Sweater Song fit in with Metallica). I knew he was decent at playing, but not this good. I was very impressed.

(They were lacking a bassist, though. HMMMM..)

..Yeah, and after that electrifying performance, we got to watch untalented black girls do jumprope and try to gyrate sexually to uninspired R&B. Hooray.

I'm seriously hoping that talent shows will display talent in high school.. Perhaps that guitarist will spark some sort of performing arts brushfire. All I know is that I died inside after this one, for the second time at this school, and I don't think I'll be able to handle four more years of that.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

And it was mediocre.

Comment Commentary

James- We need a warcry.

Mimmi- You're tearing me into too many different directions..!

satan665- Actually, $45. I know how you feel.

Shin- What if they do cavity searches?

--

So today I had a friend come over to finish all of this invention project stuff. We still had to do a commercial, which I wanted to just do with a regular camera, but he intended on doing it digitally. I figured that would be too much of a pain (as I only have Windows Movie Maker and I never used it before), but it turned out nicely.

Basically, our big thing is that our product can hold "10,000 novels." That's obviously a BS statement, since I didn't bother doing any sort of research with this, but nobody cares anyway.

So we start off with a shot of my friend with a ton of books on his lap- a pile of encyclopedia volumes and other sorts of books that reach over his head.

Then, in true Apple fashion, we have a bright purple background and the iPod font go on about how great our thing is. Actually, watching it over again, it's more reminiscient of Adult Swim, when you consider how everything's worded. It might be a tad too casual.

Anyway, we wanted to use my digital camera to throw in a couple of moving shots, but that didn't happen because Windows Movie Maker is a bitch and doesn't support .MOV files.

..It's .MOV. MOVIE. Stupid Microsoft.

So we stuck with still images when they were supposed to be moving. It's kind of cheap-looking in that way. Then we threw the Apple logo in at the end.

After that, we threw in a 30-second clip of "Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies, which I felt was kind of appropriate for this product. "Where is my mind?" "In the iTome! :D"

It turns out that the program saves things as .MSWMM format, which is totally stupid, but we found a way to save it as .WMV. Then we burned it to a disk at an awful resolution when played fullscreen. I don't know how to fix that.

And then the teacher insists that we make a jingle. A jingle. Our project's a little too non-amateur for that.

..At least, I hope so. <_<

While we were doing all of this, my dog was barking nonstop at something outside. I looked outside briefly and thought he was just barking at the new neighbors, and went back to my work. But my mom went outside for something, and saw a dog with dirty, matted white hair on our driveway. It trotted up to her, and plopped down by the front door. We got it food and water.

The interesting thing about this is that three years ago, before we got our current dog, a very small puppy just like this one came up to our door. Like the one we found today, it had matted white curly fur. It had the same face, and the same body structure.

I swear to God that this has to be the same dog from three years ago, and that somehow it remembered us when we gave it food last time. It came back here searching for some sanctuary.

This is why I have dubbed it either Victor or Hugo, in honor of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

It's still in our backyard.. I don't know if we're keeping it or not. It's a sweet little dog, but I don't know how our other pets would react. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.
Comments (5) | Permalink

Monday, May 30, 2005

By the by..

Comment Commentary

Tony- No, I left out Last Splash because I forgot it. I'm lame like that. Another prime example of how lame I am.

Mimmi- Well, you could steer me towards mass murder a little more.. And cut back on the gluttony influence. :o

Shin- I'm beginning to think that I should just start whoring burned CDs off of everyone instead of buying this shit. As long as I can rip it and have it on my iPod, I'm cool.

--

My God, the Pixies concert is in four days, and I am excited. If they allow it, I shall bring my camera and take many pictures, and if they allow it, I will rabidly demand merchandise.

--

I did a lot of work for that lame invention project today. We invented the "iPod for books," which I thought was a neat idea, until I found out that Sony stole the idea from us a year before we came up with it.

Too late to change, anyway. Besides, nobody will know.

--

So,James's Guild Wars Guild, dubbed the Quantum Kabuki Troupe, is now up and running. The only reason I joined was for the cape, God, why would I want to play with those losers anyway!?! >:O

Regardless, I made a little image out of a random screenshot I took. You can find it here.

Ignore the text. Just marvel at the BEAUTY of the picture. And the lighting.

..And the godawful texture on the right. Shit, that's horrendous. o_O
Comments (4) | Permalink

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Still expecting?

Comment Commentary

Tony- For whatever reason, I have some sort of grudge against Spanish and refuse to learn it. I'm indifferent towards Latin.

Mimmi- But that's being a delinquent! Are you trying to turn me to the dark side?

Shin- I made a similar crack about my school at registration. There were actually kids who already knew Spanish taking the class. Slackers.

PsychoValkyrie- I used to try learning Japanese, but I gave up. I'm too impatient for self-teaching.

--

I came across the video for Blue Orchid by the White Stripes today. It's definitely a strange video, though still cool. It kind of reminds me of the Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground video, but more appealing to the Hot Topic crowd.

Maybe it's just the black and red. I dunno.

I was also looking for leaks from their new album today, but they all seem to have been removed by now. It comes out next week, anyway. I don't have to wait much longer.

--

I started writing up a list of albums I need to buy last night, after reading some of Tony's 150 Musicans That Rock (and listening to his FlamPlayer stuff, which I shall greatly miss). I don't know why anyone should care about this, but I'm putting up what I have so far anyway.

- The White Stripes- Self-Titled, White Blood Cells, Get Behind Me Satan
- System of a Down- Mezmerize, Toxicity, Self-Titled
- Modest Mouse- Moon & Antarctica, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and others
- Say Anything.. Is a Real Boy
- Tweaker- 2 AM Wakeup Call
- The Arcade Fire- Funeral
- The Von Bondies- Lack of Communication, Sympathy Sounds of Detroit
- Ted Leo and the Pharmacists- Hearts of Oak, Tyrrany of Distance, Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead
- DJ Tiesto whatever (too many albums to count, though most of them are remixes, according to my friend)
- The Breeders- Pod, Title TK
- Deep Black (I forget the album names)
- The Jesus and Mary Chain- Munki, Psychocandy, Darklands and whatever else they might have that iTunes isn't showing, as I am too lazy to do cross-referencing
- Stephen Malkmus- Face the Truth
- Glassjaw- Everything You Wanted to Know About Silence, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- Beck- Mellow Gold, Odelay, Sea Change, Guero
- Marilyn Manson, if I can somehow obtain it without my parents thinking I'm becoming a satanic mass-murderer
- Polysics.. Any CD, as long as it has this one elusive song on it. I found the video for it, loved it, can't find it anymore, and don't know the name. I've been searching for it all night.

I'll be adding more, but for now, all I have to say is this: Well, Tony, I hope you're happy for making me want at least $150 in music before putting 20 musicians up on your site. >:|

--

Random whoring: Another Industrialization thing on DeviantArt. I demand you check it out.

--

I was supposed to write up legal documents for an English project today.. But that didn't happen. I probably would have if I knew what the hell I was supposed to be writing. "Legal Documents." Sure, teacher, but what KIND?

She's always vague about these things, and it sucks.

We were supposed to invent something, but my friend and I were lazy, so we just made an "iPod for books." Uninspiredly dubbed the iTome, we made a mockup derived from the iRiver PMP, and a ripoff ad using an image of the guy from Masterpiece Theatre.

My friend was supposed to make the actual physical version of it today but odds are that, like my documents, he didn't do it.

--

I bought Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones today. I loved the first one, but never bought it, and now I have the second one. At the moment, I'd have to say that the characters seem a lot more flat than the ones in the first one, but I've only played for a little over an hour, so I can't say that for certain.

This is just to hold me over until Advance Wars DS, though.. My God, that game is going to be sweet.

EDIT: Something funny I just noticed: My iTunes library goes from Marilyn Manson to Maroon5. Quite the contrast there, eh?
Comments (3) | Permalink

Saturday, May 28, 2005

But it's sweet regardless.

Comment Commentary

James- I didn't think Lumiloop would be that interesting to play, but I thought Luminaria would be cool. Oh well.

Shin- Didn't the Seven Dwarves live in western Germany during the dark ages, though?

Godel- WHOO, OMFG LETS MAKE A CLAN!!

--

So, the other day, I was at my friend's house when he had to go to his class registration. I had already done mine (A-L instead of K-Z), but I had nothing else to do, so I tagged along. Instead of arriving late like last time, we got there earlier than most people, though despite being there early, we still had to give up our seats for other people.

While we were in the corner (staring at some little kid who had Need For Speed whatever for DS), I was half-paying attention to what the math guy was saying, and he mentioned the dates for summer school.

I knew them before, but I had a different mindset this time around:

It's three weeks.

It ends on July 15 or something like that.

That includes the week of the Fourth of July.

Which cuts two days out of my Anime Expo-ness.

I sobbed hysterically for about ten minutes, then went to get a Vanilla Coke out of the vending machine.

I'm angered, but optimistic. Friday and Monday aren't that important.. From what I could tell last year, Friday was just a half-day of discount exhibit hall items and the closing ceremonies. Monday is probably similar. I can probably go directly from school to Anaheim on that Friday, and at least get my tickets.

Plus, the Fourth of July is on that Monday, so we might have it off anyway.

--

On a similar note, I seem to have been abandoned in electives this year. A lot of people seem to be taking Spanish instead of Latin (We only get two language options. LAME), which is kind of lame, but people have been opting for drama instead of art, as well.

We get crap-electives. And that is crappy.
Comments (5) | Permalink

Friday, May 27, 2005

Behold, filler!

A classic family-friendly Disney film in which Donald Duck tests atom bombs and wanders Berlin in pursuit of an effeminate Hitler.

..I've got nothing.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

I'd say

Comment Commentary

PsychoValkyrie- Eh, it's competition. He has 100,000-something up now, and though I'm not hell-bent on it, I'll defeat that someday.

Though I just know it will be somewhere where the score doesn't count, like in an arcade or something. -_-

Evil Jedi- Then the cycle continues. :|

Shin- And omfg i still cant believe there were five seconds of jar-jar in RoTS. WTF!!11

..Seriously, though, I involuntaril hissed when that bastard showed up onscreen.

Dagger- I wonder if George Lucas will do anything decent again.

Tony- 100,000.. It makes me cry.

And his pimp comment doesn't help much, either. ;_;

Karmi- It took you that long to notice it. XD I've had it for like months now.

Godel- Is he still calle Pacman in France?

Azure- IT'S NOT FOR YOU.

--

IGN seems to be completely 100% convinced that Nintendo's bringing Electroplankton stateside, so that's another $20 I can put toward something else (namely, next-gen console X).

Lumiloop and Luminaria look like they are the shit, from what IGN's videos are telling me. I like the sounds they make more than the other ones.

I started playing Devil May Cry 3 again two days ago. I never really beat that damn game.. I got stuck on Mission 11, said "screw it" and didn't look back.

Until I was bored on Saturday. And when I'm bored, I will do anything. Hell, when my brother was on Guild Wars earlier, I just went over to the piano and actually played. Voluntarily.

MADNESS.

Anyway, Beowulf is a pretty boring boss. At this point in the game, the bosses aren't all that challenging. The pattern's always the same: Jump/roll, air hike around, stab-stab.

Of course, that's oversimplifying it. It's still a cool combat system.. Beowulf just doesn't bring anything new to the table. You jump over things he throws at you. You roll. The end.

And then I pulled out The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. I got that game around Christmastime.. Played ten minutes of it, kind of gave up on it, and got back to Knights of the Old Republic (ANOTHER game I never beat.. God, there's a backlog of them).

Once you get into it, though, it's amusing. I'm really awful with the stealth in this game, for whatever reason, but it's still nice to gouge inmates' eyes out with "shanks." :D

--

The Pixies concert is in ten days. I am very very excited, but I don't know what to expect. First off, I have no idea what the Wiltern is like, second, I have no idea what kind of fanbase will be there, and third.. Well, I can't think of a third. But some sort of concert-going pointers would be appreciated.

And now, being the pissed off little nymph that I am, I am off to sleep.. With angsty fervor.
Comments (6) | Permalink

Monday, May 23, 2005

Watch out, foo.

Comment Commentary

Lea- ..Eventually. <_<

Tony- Ah, I thought it notified people automatically, no matter what.

James- So it's back to cartridge-hunting for me. ._.

Shin- You'd put Return of the Jedi all the way down there? Dang.

PsychoValkryie- Yes yes.

Godel- I didn't say it's my favorite. I just said that it meant a lot to me.

--

So, I finally overthrew Tony's Pacman score on Group Sounds today, and then I came back a couple hours later and noticed that Charles stole the title.

So then I was like "Aw hells naw" and bitchslapped him by 20,000 points. :D

..I have no life. God, I'm sad.
Comments (7) | Permalink