25

1. I have so many friends [that I don't know] on myspace, that whenever someone posts a stupid bulletin [or many], I delete them on the spot.

2. I like small cars because of the way it shakes when other cars speed by.

3. The stream of water in showers tickles my butt.

4. I still like Dashboard Confessional.

5. Most of my life is spent trying to decide if I want to be an introvert or extrovert.

6. I have watched countless films across my [short] life, yet I still don't think I truly understand what makes a good film.  I think I've started to just this year.

7. I don't think Heath Ledger was taking his prescribed doses.

8. I greatly miss and think about those that I spent Sunday mornings with, but I fear they don't share my nostalgic notions.

9. I have the best girlfriend in the world.

10. I had a fear for a long time that I would record people that I would be envious of, wishing that I was on the other side of the console.  That fear has since changed to me hoping I am good at my job, to help fuel the artists on the other side.

11. I believe in the face of the man on the moon.

12. I never thought I would use three prepositional phrases directly in a row. [See above.]

13. I fear being over-the-top in public, because I think people will suppose I'm gay.

14. I stopped doing homework in 6th grade because I realized I would still pass.

15. In high school, I was upset I didn't have a collection of anything, but I didn't want to collect things that people normally collect.  So, I started collecting hotel key cards. I had about 4 of them (I don't stay in hotels often) when my Dad caught word.  I now have over 60, from all over the United States.

16. I believe the wealth of information available to me on the internet has left me unsure as to what I should believe in in life.

17. I know more about Secondhand Serenade than most people on the planet. Go ahead, do your research. I still know more.

18. I have a massive memory for the random and insignificant things in life.  This seems to surprise people when it comes out, except for my girlfriend, who I think knows even more than I.

19. Facebook became something very strange to me once I moved, as it showed me that friends from all the different little cliques I was in started to become friends with one another.  At the same time that the world became a bigger place to me, the world looked a lot smaller back home.

20. My sophomore year of High School, I gave a controversial speech about the harms of pornography...sometimes I wish I could put that speech to use.

21. I struggle with consistency...a lot.

22. Small animals are easier to understand than small children, and that weirds me out.

23. I got really hyped up when I saw the website for Blueprint Studios in Manchester, UK, thinking I would go off and become a staff member there.  That idea has slowly diminished. It remains the coolest studio I've ever seen though.

24. One of my dreams is for the chance to sit down with Andy Hull and to hear him speak about his life.  I believe that will never happen, and I'm okay with that.

25. I took longer to complete this than anyone you know.  I started writing this on Monday.

The Power of Distance

Like a strong right from Fedor...

Like a head kick from Mirko...

Like the hurricanes that hit Orlando...

Like a rum and coke without the coke...

Like a cold night without a jacket...

Right to my face.

The only good thing about Affliction

Fedor is officially my favorite.

How could I not realize that he's the Jose Moncada of MMA?

I'm just waiting for the plugs.

Don't worry, Tracie, you still own Fedor.

You're my favourite forever.

Inauguration Day

Well, here goes nothin'.

Cotton Crush

The bricks get laid, and they get torn up, and laid again,

but the bricks always get torn up again.
Your friends won't wait, so don't believe that shit when they say they'll wait.
Trust me; your friends will not wait for you.

Then you'll be stoned in some park,
just nodding your head and pinching your arms,
when a girl walks along.
She's humming your song,
with your t-shirt on.
That's when you're done,
Oh, that's when you're done...

There's a cotton crush
down in the southern states.
But back up here, man, we've got
so much thread and space
to waste, waste, waste.
There's a microphone
picking every word up
and it shuts itself off
when it's sure that's its heard enough.

The quiet can scrape all the calm from your bones,
but maybe it should.
Maybe we need to be hollowed

to get up and grow,
and stop fucking around,
to kick off our braces and start straightening out.
Let's sift through the static
to find a simpler sound
Let's sift through the static
to find a simpler sound...
simpler sound than the shit that's clouding our heads now

Revolutionary Road

I also had the chance to take a gander at Revolutionary Road, as it is going to be one of those films come Academy Awards time. It was a rather depressing film, as my girlfriend would tell you, and it ends up becoming the film representation of why some people just should not get married. Or, rather, why some people shouldn't get married after meeting someone at a party.  The film doesn't go into much detail about their courtship, and so I can't really say if it is telling me not to get married or simply be careful with whom to choose.

Either way, it's depressing as hell.  I mean, a marriage can only go so far when you have an unfaithful pansy like Frank, and a sometimes impossible woman like April.  And if you have a combination of the two...well, I guess it's all downhill from there.

I will say there is one character that I absolutely loved: the neighbor's insane asylum-ridden son, John Givings, played beautifully by Michael Shannon.  Shannon has always been an interesting actor to me, a guy with a rather soft speaking voice to begin with, with a soft way of acting as well.  If you haven't seen the movie, then I don't want to say too much about the character, but he seems the only sane character actually in the film.  And he gets away with saying the most amazing, true statements because his mother is always giving excuses. "He's sick," she says.  Well I don't care what he is, he's freakin' genius.  He picks apart Frank (for being the pansy he is), and he stops, looks at April, and realizes she is making his life hell as well.  He makes sure no one is left unaccounted for.  Beautiful writing there.

As a whole, I was left not really sure what to feel.  This seems to be a trend lately, as I have seen many films that leave me just...confused almost.  Benjamin Button, Full Metal Jacket, Enduring Love, and now Revolutionary Road.

Ugh. I'm gonna go home and watch Wall-E: a film that truly knows how to tell a story.

Full Metal Jacket

So I watched Full Metal Jacket last night, finally. It was fascinating, to say the least, to watch after taking in the entire Band of Brothers set. They are nearly polar opposites. Of course, BoB is a WWII epic, where FMJ is seated near the end of the Vietnam War.

There was a lot I couldn't understand with Kubrick's film. Why was Pyle clearly literate during altercations with the Sargeant, and yet so absolutely retarded around Joker and the other recuits? What was being said by having the infantry member at the end resemble Pyle, but not carry some of the same characteristics? Why are the men performing CPR on men who have been shot in the leg/stomach/face?

I felt the battle sequences in FMJ were horrid. Unrealistic, cliche, and at about the level that I could write. Kubrick was never in the war, and so I feel like he read about the Marine training, but skipped everything after that. It was really interesting to watch the unrealistic parts after seeing the much more real Band o Bros.

That being said, FMJ stands as one of the few films that has made me feel nauseated while watching. There's a shot as the men enter an area that they are pretty sure is infested with enemies; the camera stays low, hovering low among the men, with an epically long shot as they move up. The shot continued, making me wish it would end and ease my risen emotions. That scene feels like a TWO on the nausea scale compared to the completely unnerving moment in which Joker and Rafterman are talking to the helicopter gunner.  This is a man who is gunning down anyone he sees, regardless if they look like soldiers or not, with a mounted machine gun, smiling and laughing while he does it. His response as to how he is able to shoot women and children is, "Easy. Ya just don't lead 'em so much, ha, ha ha! Ain't war hell?"

So all of this said, I looked up some different opinions dissecting the film. So far no one has mentioned anything about the medics on the field or the similarity between Animal Mother and Pvt. Pyle. These questions will just sit in the big pool of ambiguity that is a Kubrick film.

I laugh loud. I get it.

Ever since I changed classes here at Full Sail, I have been getting some weird looks. You see, I laugh loudly. I know this, and my previous class had come to know it. For example, my buddy Rob in my old class said that he missed me in the back of the class laughing at everything, even the not funny stuff.

So, now that I'm in this new class, my fellow students simply don't know who I am. So when this kid in the back of the class starts laughing out loud at random things, I literally get kids turning around and looking right at me.

Tell me, when did it become weird for people to find joy in life? The reason I laugh at these things is because I truly find joy and humour in a wide-variety of things. Take Frisky Dingo for example, which has a completely ridiculous story-line, and yet I find great humor and comedic timing. Needless to say, not many people find humor in something like the graphic to the right.

"Welcome to you are doom?? And why is doom in quotations!?"

Fine.

It's funny okay?

I'll laugh and be merry.

You give me dirty looks.

And the world goes round.

Fedor Emelianenko

So...this guy is ridiculous. I'm waiting for the day in which he loses randomly in some strange fight in which Arlovski (his next opponent) knocks him out...it's unlikely, but that's how MMA works.  But here is a little tribute to the man who Tim Sylvia said punched him harder than anyone else (who has faced Arlovski...thrice times?), the man that Sherdog.com said "In a sport where defeat afflicts everyone not named Fedor Emelianenko...", the man that seems to feel no emotion.  Here are some photos...

A photoshopped Tim Sylvia running from Fedor.

Fedor in a photoshoot.

Fedor giving his 7' 2" opponent a good armbar.

Fedor mocking his fallen opponent.

No smiles necessary.

Oh,

and happy new year.

=]]

It's been a while

but I'm back.

I'm back, okay?

And this isn't because my beautiful girlfriend is forcing me to do this, I swear.

I've always wanted to start blogging again, I am just horrible at managing my time.

I got my shipment from Amazon yesterday, cables, movies, and a couple books. Overall, it's a pretty dang positive box to get from Amazon, even though it took almost a week to travel the two hours from Jacksonville.  Everything said and done, I'm quite ecstatic for the sound/video setup in my place now, as I feel I have to turn DOWN the volume at night, because the sound travels so well.  It's beautimus.

For those of you who don't know, I'm working on some awesome consoles this month, a Rupert Neve 9098i (72 channels, pictured above with my amazing crackberry camera), and an SSL 9000J (42 channels).  If you were to add up every button and every fader on the Amek (the 9098i), it ends up being around 100,000 things to push, move, and change.  Needless to say, it's pretty intense.  I enjoy it though, as it pretty much the largest piece of equipment I've ever been in a room with, save for the film mixing console, which has something like 96 channels on it.

This is an exciting month, with possibilities of changes coming soon, and improvements in life.

I am excited.

More excited than you know.