Definitely, this is the wrong place to be...

Best Albums of 2009 and other stuff

2010-01-07T22:47:00.004-05:00

Once again, it has been a while since I have written in here! And I do have news! I am an alumni of Broward College! I have my Associates of Arts Degree in Art/Graphic Design, and I didn't even know it! Apparently I graduated on 12/18/09 so its kind of cool to think I got it done before the decade was up. Now I have to apply to FAU, or somewhere I don't know. More on that later, here are my ten favorite albums that were released in 2009:

10. Dinosaur, Jr. - Farm
9. Mos Def - The Ecstatic
8. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
7. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
6. Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx, Pt. II
5. Dan Deacon - Bromst
4. Doom - Born Like This
3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
1. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Yea, I know Neko Case being number 1 is kind of weird but that album really stood out to me. I listened to it the most by far, and I am most familiar with it. Therefore, it is number one.

I am still going to school at Broward College this semester even though I have graduated which I found out by logging into my BC account online to notice my status had changed to "Non-Degree Personal Enrichment". So I went to look at my transcripts to see what was up and it said I had graduated on the 18th. Anyway, I would have to go to school anyway this semester if I would want to keep my Bright Futures due to all the recent changes thanks to the fantastic of the American people and the government alike. So this semester I am taking Drawing 1 (mainly just to go over the basics), Beginning Printmaking (!), Intro to Philosophy, and Life Drawing (AGAIN!) I can't wait til we finally get started this coming week. We already have a model coming for life drawing, and are supposed to have 3 preliminary line sketches for printmaking for a potential print using plexi-glass!

And as for one last thing, I am going to California next Thursday to visit Allison and her family. We plan on going to San Francisco and doing the Alcatraz night tour, which I anticipate to be freaking awesome.

Lots to look forward to.

So until then!

-Jason

2D Design

2009-11-09T16:23:00.002-05:00

Ray assigned a project in 2d Design where we had to pick two common compositions out of fifteen and two come up with an original piece using these two different compositions.

The 15 he gave us to choose from were:
Grid
Circle
Triangle
Diamond
Central Location
Two Centers
Bridge
Cantilever
Even Spread
Radial Burst
Diagonal Emphasis
Horizontal Emphasis
Vertical Emphasis
Curvilinear
L Shape

See if you can pick out which ones I used.

-Jason

Charcoal Gestures

2009-10-11T22:47:00.003-04:00

More gestures like the ones before except this time I used a charcoal pencil rather than a bamboo brush.

Few months

2009-09-27T14:56:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I have updated this little blog of mine, and since I have a 4 day weekend off of work and school (what luck!) I thought maybe I'd do so. School started on August 24th. This semester I am taking Life Drawing, 2-d Design, Graphic Design 2, and African American History. My favorite of all of these is definitely Life Drawing. It's my first class of the day on Monday and Wednesdays. It wakes me up and it is the most relaxing thing I have ever done. I wish I could just take life drawing all day. But sadly I can not. But I CAN take it again next semester! Here are a couple gesture drawing I did with a bamboo brush and india ink. Gesture drawings are meant to be quick "signatures" of the pose.

I like the two in the middle.

Also those Beatles remasters caused a short frenzy at work. For about a week almost all of our calls and customer questions pertained to the Stereo box set that we and most everyone else quickly sold out of. I bought a few of the individual albums (Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers, and Revolver) in stereo (only way to buy them individually--and I think Abbey Road is only available in stereo maybe?). But they sound fantastic. All the instruments sound crisp and are really fleshed out. The swirling sounds of Day in the Life are entirely more atmospheric than they have ever sounded. So I'd recommend picking a few up. On a related note here is a picture of George Harrison I drew in my spare time.

I've never been really good at portraits but I think it looks like him enough I suppose.

Bonnaroo

2009-06-17T17:33:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I went to Tennessee with various friends to go to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. It was a lot of fun! Lots of good music, crazy people (not as many naked one as I expected), and good times. Unfortunately I could not find my camera charger and my camera's battery was just about dead, so no pictures from me. Instead I stealing pictures and videos from people.

The bands I ended up seeing were Animal Collective, Nine Inch Nails, Phish, Ben Harper & Relentless, The Mars Volta, Neko Case and Public Enemy. Out of all those, I'd say my favorites were Neko Case, The Mars Volta and Public Enemy. However I came back from Bonnaroo wanting to listen to Phish.

Here is a video I found on Youtube of Neko Case playing the opening track on her new album at Bonnaroo

She was fantastic. Part of the reason why I liked her performance so much is that her voice held up so well live. The band she played with was pretty bare bones--just bass, 2 guitars, couple of back-up singers, and a drummer. So it was interesting hearing them play some of the bigger sounding songs with more instruments being the smaller band that whey were.

I kind of saw Public Enemy on a whim. We were all watching Phish, and about an hour into their set Kat and I decided to get some food and see who else was playing. We came across Public Enemy just starting their set. They played with a live band which definitely made the music a lot more engaging and fun to listen to. This was pretty much my first Public Enemy experience too. I've heard some of their singles and what not. Lucky for me they played their entire album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back" plus some other hits. Needless to say I now have a copy of "It Takes a Nation..."

Here they are performing Don't Believe the Hype

The Mars Volta was pretty much everything I expected. One of the most intense acts I've seen. They really get into it. The musicianship of these guys is incredible. They played mostly all my favorite TMV songs. Highlights included Goliath, Drunkship of Lanterns, and ending their set with the monstrous Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus--three of my favorites. However they were a little unprofessional. They opened with Goliath but stopped 10 seconds into it because Omar's guitar wasn't tuned. Laaaaaaaaaame. But after that hiccup the show was fantastic. Here is a video of them playing their song Goliath.

So all in all it was a fantastic weekend. I would definitely do something like this again provided the set is good, and the money is available. Not something I could do every year though.

-Jason

I turned 21

2009-05-25T10:05:00.003-04:00

I turned 21 this past Wednesday. But that's not really important.

I also went to California this past Wednesday to see Allison's solo exhibit of her paintings at her school. We also did other things like go to the Oakland Zoo, walk around Berkeley, and help her mom give their cat medicine. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of Allison's gallery, but you can see her paintings on her Flickr page on the right hand side. She is incredibly talented.

I did take a few pictures at the Oakland Zoo...

When we saw this monitor lizard one of the handlers was feeding him big fat caterpillars from a jar with tweezers. He saw us watching so he led him right up to the glass so we could see him eat. I didn't get a picture of him eating as I was too late with my camera. But that is shortly after he ate it.

And that's us taking a break by the monkeys.

There are also a few pictures from the reception that Allison's mom took

There's me next to a painting of me

And there we are at the reception with another of her paintings in the background.

-jason

Night of the Living Dead

2009-05-11T17:44:00.004-04:00

In the past few days I have been going through some of my comics for stuff to draw. It has been a while since I've actually done this so its been kind of a slow process and whatnot. Yesterday and today I was working on drawing this severed zombie head from my Night of the Living Dead comic. I'm rather pleased with how it came out:

-jason

Captain America

2009-05-07T15:29:00.004-04:00

Since schools out and I don't work at Barnes and Noble again until tomorrow, I thought I would draw a little today. I was paging through my New Avengers collected graphic novel until I found something I felt like drawing.

Here is what I ended up with. I scanned my drawing and did a live-trace in Illustrator to get the solid black and white without it looking too sketchy.

-Jason

New Job

2009-05-02T19:59:00.001-04:00

Hey Everyone!

I now work at Barnes & Noble.

I'm had my orientation on the first, and met everyone--they're all real great! I'm looking forward to working there.

That's all

-Jason

Cross-hatching

2009-04-13T22:02:00.004-04:00

Day 2 of our still life's in computer art had me giving cross hatching a try. Now I have only really done this a few times with an actual pen, so I haven't had as much practice as I'd like. But I used the brush tool with a charcoal brush because I liked the grainy line effect and free-hand drew it on the screen as I looked at the skull on the desk. I am rather pleased with how this looks even with my lack-of cross-hatch experience.

as usual, I'd like feedback. Any cross hatch tips I could use?
-jason

Jawbone

2009-04-08T16:52:00.003-04:00

Today in computer art we had to do a still life in Illustrator. Mr. Smith brought in various objects for us to draw. I had a jaw bone.

Drawing from real life in Illustrator was certainly an experience. I used the pen tool to do this so it was a lot of guess work and trial and error as to where anchor points should go. I enjoyed drawing it, but the teeth were tricky. I had to keep counting to make sure I had the right amount and they somewhat corresponded with the jawbone on the table.

-jason

Jason as type

2009-04-06T12:37:00.004-04:00

Hey everybody!

We had to do a self-portrait in Computer art using type.

Kinda plain, but it was fun!

-Jason

The Earplug

2009-04-02T13:18:00.004-04:00

Our new project for Graphic Design is to make a newsletter. Mostly so we know how to use Quark and know how to correctly layout a newsletter. Plus this could be a really good portfolio piece. Today we had to decide what we wanted our newsletter to be on. He suggested it be something generic as the subject matter wasn't too important. I chose to do a music newsletter. I had trouble coming up with a name and one of my classmates suggested "The Earplug" which was good enough for me. We also had to start designing a masthead logo. Here is what I came up with in Illustrator:

let me know what you think!

-jason

Three Cantina Musicians

2009-03-25T15:44:00.003-04:00

In Computer Art we had to re-imagine a classic painting. After much deliberation, I decided to do the cantina band from Star Wars like Picasso's Three Musicians.

-jason

Homework over Spring Break

2009-03-09T10:12:00.005-04:00

Hello!

It has been a while since I posted anything in here. Since my last post I went to Cape Canaveral to see a shuttle launch, but then it was canceled. So no shuttle launch unfortunately.

I also will be attending Bonnaroo this summer! The line-up is great so far:

I am really looking forward to seeing Bruce Springstein (not really a fan, but how could you not see The Boss?), Phish (again, not really a BIG fan but...), Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, David Byrne, The Mars Volta, TV on the Radio, The Decemberists, Coheed & Cambria, Animal Collective, and Neko Case to name a few. So that should be lots of fun come June.

I had some homework for my Graphic Design class. We had to make 5 300x300 pixel icons for Intro to Graphic Design. We had to use the tools in Photoshop to make a picture of a tree, a person, a house, and 2 of our choice. Here is what I did:

-jason

I love Keith Olbermann

2009-02-06T18:57:00.001-05:00

Stuff

2009-02-05T18:02:00.002-05:00

I haven't put anything here in a while. So I thought I'd mention that I changed the banner at the top. I just have to mess with the image size a little bit so it doesn't look so wonky up there. I also have a project for my intro to graphic design class. We're supposed to pick words that are very descriptive and figure out how to present them so that they illustrate their meaning. Here are four that I did, I just have one more to do.

-jason

First Project

2009-01-15T16:10:00.004-05:00

We started our first project in Intro to Graphic Design last Thursday. We are supposed to make a poster for our fictional client "Mr. Peabody" who is apparently putting on a magic show. Here is what I came up with for my group based on the idea we decided on today.

I don't think its great or anything, but I don't hate it either.

-Jason

Fox and Friends

2009-01-10T12:37:00.001-05:00

I like to watch The Young Turks channel on youtube, and I came across this clip they posted. Take a look and laugh!

Here is me making a tuxedo look awesome

2009-01-03T17:17:00.004-05:00

So my friend finally posted some photos of the wedding I mentioned before.

Here is my friend Rebekah and her husband Justin (who coincidentally is my friend too!) after the event.

and here is me in the tuxedo I had to rent

and me dancing....

feel free to laugh at me in the comments section! Pic credits go to my good friend Summer pictured with me below.

Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

2009-01-03T15:15:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone. I have done a lot of things over my Christmas break including throwing a boomerang, being a groomsman in a wedding, and finishing a quilt with my grandma. I'll post more in depth when I have stuff to share.

Anyway, more about 2008 music I like...

Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

2008 has been a pretty mediocre music year. I don't think anything incredibly amazing was released (that I listened to at least). Most albums of this year seemed inconsistent to me. They failed to keep me interested the entire time I was listening. This album by Sigur Rós is a good example. The album starts out great with Gobbledigook, and the incredibly energetic horns of Inní mér syngur vitleysingur. The best part about this album is how playful it is. The worst part is that the playfulness get drowned out by overdrawn and overdramatic songs like Festival. However I do like some of the more softer songs like Fljótavík. Very reminiscent of their ( ) album. As much as it looks like I've complained about this album, I do like it a lot.

sketch

2008-12-11T23:27:00.005-05:00

I have been walking with my cat every now and again just to see where he goes and what he does. Anyway, I thought it was funny observing his different mannerisms when he would walk along the sidewalk. So I kind of concocted an idea in my head, and I did a sketch today. I really like how it turned out, so I think I might turn it into a few paintings or something.

-jason

Inside Outside

2008-12-11T16:37:00.005-05:00

So Neko is now an inside-outside cat--that is he goes outside now. It happened when my mom left the kitchen window open a few weeks ago and Neko slipped out without anyone knowing. Ever since then he's wanted nothing else but to go outside. So we got him a collar with a bell on it and hoped for the best. I didn't know what to expect at first, but turns out he's a really really good cat. He comes every time I call for him and he comes back into the house every hour or so. I took some pictures of him with my phone today doing his thing outside.

neko is art

2008-12-06T20:10:00.003-05:00

i just finished my portrait of my cat neko. i accidentally ended up using a really dark blue to do the dark spots in the background. and i think it worked rather well. it helped to differentiate it between neko, the headphones, and the chair. the chair looks a little wonky, but i kind of like it. it gives it a bit of a personality. anyway, enough of me talking about it.

-jason

Background

2008-12-04T17:07:00.001-05:00

I started doing the background of my painting. It needs to be a lot darker so that it doesn't blend into the foreground so much.

-jason

microcastle

2008-12-03T22:25:00.001-05:00

I think I might try to write about my favorite 10 albums from 2008. I'll just do one at a time as I listen to them in no particular order other than how I feel. so here is the first.

Deerhunter - Microcastle

Just to say, I had never heard this band until I listened to this album. So this is coming from someone who is unfamiliar with them and everything they had ever done. I really enjoyed how each song logically lead into the next. It made the album one cohesive piece instead of 12 separate songs. A lot of the piano work on the more ambient tracks was really fragile sounding and in arpeggios, which reminded me of Brian Eno's Ambient series. However the album can quickly go from soft single string guitar plucking to full on drum filled cymbal crashing jams with oscillating guitars. However as chaotic as it may seem, it is also very graceful and relaxing to listen to.

Favorite songs:
Cover Me (Slowly)
Agoraphobia
Little Kids
Green Jacket
Saved By Old Times
Neither of Us, Uncertainly
Twilight at Carbon Lake

Contrast

2008-12-03T10:28:00.001-05:00

I darkened some darks, and whitened some whites. Observe:

-jason

More cat progress

2008-12-01T15:09:00.000-05:00

Today I painted the chair that Neko is perched on. I have to admit, I am really liking how this painting is coming together!

it should be finished hopefully by the end of the week.

-jason

A little update

2008-11-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

I spent my afternoon today playing with Photoshop CS3. I'm not very well versed with how it works, so what took me maybe 2 or 3 hours could probably take most people like 30 minutes. I mostly experimented with the gradient tool, and got an idea of some of the different filters you can apply your image. So I took this green background I had made, and...well...I'll just show you.

Opinions?

On a somewhat unrelated topic, I decided I need to write in here more. So I will.

-jason

I am painting my cat

2008-11-29T23:44:00.000-05:00

The fall semester is winding down and winter break is merely a week away. I am working on my last project for my Color and Composition class. It was an open project as long as we got it approved by the instructor, so I decided to do a portrait of my cat. When I approached Mr. Stitsky about my idea, he said it was good, but told me to try to capture his personality. I believe I have done just that with the drawing. I started painting it last Wednesday and so far, its coming together pretty well. Take a look:

Imagine it turned to the left.

-jason

I'm Back From San Francisco

2008-08-25T21:22:00.000-04:00

And life returns to normal. Not necessarily a good or bad thing. I had one of the best times of my life there this past weekend though. I visited my friend Allison and she showed me around a little bit. We went to Berkley and went to the music store around there. Nice college town. We also went to Alcatraz and took the audio tour. Besides the music festival, that was my absolute favorite thing because when I was growing up I really loved that old Clint Eastwood movie Escape From Alcatraz. The audio tour talked about the islands history from way back in the colonial days before the gold rush all the way up until it was shut down in the 60's (I think it was the 60's). Here are some pictures:

Every cell was presented like this to arriving prisoners.

Outside the door where the inmates tried to escape during the gun fight. That leads to the courtyard. I just like the composition of this picture.

The notorious dummy head

Alcatraz from where we were having fish and chips at Bubba Gump.

And now of course the music festival. It was a lot of fun. As expected. The acts that we saw were Beck, Radiohead, Dredg, Liars, Regina Spektor, and Primus. All of them were great. Beck surprised me by playing Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime from the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack and Loser. I didn't get any pictures of him because there was a sound board tent right in front of our view. Lame. But I did get a far off picture of Radiohead and Primus, great pictures of the Liars and Dredg (who's bassist looks like my friend Jon), and a few semi-far off ones of Regina Spektor. Observe:

Radiohead. Their fiber optic light show is incredible. Also worth noting, as they were playing the fog and mist started to roll in real heavy, so it kind of made it real atmospheric and surreal to watch and listen to them play their songs. The sound cut off twice when they were playing which was kind of lame, but they were still on the top of their form. It felt like they were having as much of a good time (if not more than) as the many fans watching them.

Dredg. They were pretty good. They mostly played new material which no one knew, with a few fan favorites.

Dredg's bassist that looks like my friend Jon!

We also decided their singer looked a bit like Mark Ruffalo. A bit.

Liars were my second favorite act after Radiohead. Watching Angus Andrew (pictured here) march and strut around the stage while doing whatever he does into the microphone is just so much fun. Their performance here was absolutely incredible.

Liars.

Haha

He also wore a weird shirt.

After they had played their set, Allison and I were walking around and saw two of them just walking around. So I got my picture taken with them and my CD signed.

Regina Spektor. Despite my not liking her album too much, she was very good live! Hhhhhhmmmm......

Primus! They were very good. They played all the good ones. Opening with the beginning riff of Rush's YYZ and going into Here Come the Bastards. They also played Jerry Was A Racecar Driver, My Name is Mud, John The Fisherman, among many other fan favorites.

Well that's about it for my pictures. I really liked San Francisco. It was a very nice clean city and pretty much everyone was friendly.

i am lazy

2008-06-28T00:36:00.000-04:00

so i have done some cool things in the past few months that i didn't let you guys in on. most importantly i saw radiohead. twice. the second time some friends and i went to tampa the day after their west palm beach show. then we drove over to orlando and caught the liars (who opened for radiohead those two previous nights) playing a club show. so yep. i also forgot my camera.

however i am here to report that i will be attending the outlands music festival in san francisco this august. i can't wait. there are so many good acts playing. here are the ones i will be seeing: radiohead (3 times in one year!), beck, primus, devendra banhart, dredg, the walkmen, liars (again!). i'm only attending the first two days of the festival though. monday is school you know.

outlands music festival

cool!

I have finally showered

2008-03-09T23:06:00.000-04:00

So this weekend, I went to an annual music festival held down here in South Florida (Big Cypress to be exact) called Langerado. I went with my brother and a couple friends of mine and we camped out there from Thursday until Sunday and listened to music.

Thursday wasn't really too eventful at all. We just set up the tents and screen house and what not. I caught a bit of Les Claypool's set but ended up going back to the campsite about half way through. I was pretty tired. But it had rained a bit and everything got wet. So Thursday night wasn't too great.

On Friday we all aired out our stuff. Everything dried pretty fast. After waking up and sitting around for a few hours, a few of us decided to head in to see The Walkmen.

They were pretty good. I had never listened to them before, but I liked them.

After seeing The Walkmen, we made our way to Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars. They were kind of an African reggae band. A bit samey, but fun to watch and listen to none the less. During their set, the artist who does all the art for Langerado (Lebo) did a live painting. It was pretty fun to listen to the band play their music, while he painted.

They were really fun to watch, and we couldn't stop laughing at the constant smile on the bassists face:

and here is Lebo's finished painting:

After Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, we all kind of just wandered around for a bit until The Roots were scheduled to perform. They put on a very energetic show which included a Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix cover. Both of which were very impressive.

The Roots finished up at 9:30, and we made our way to the Beastie Boys. We set up our stuff a little farther back so we could sit down on the ground and rest for a bit. So I didn't get any pictures of them playing. But we did happen to see a naked man get arrested. We even took a few pictures! It was so funny.

Other than that the Beastie Boys were pretty good. They even played some of their instrumental stuff, which was very good. After seeing them, a couple people made their way back to the camp site, while Dave, Rachel, Jon, and myself went to go see Phix, the Phish cover band. I'm not too familiar with Phish, but I did have a great time watching them for an hour and a half or so. They were scheduled to play until 4 AM or so, but we only stayed for a little bit. People had brought a lot of glow sticks with them, so everyone was throwing them in the air all throughout the time we were there. It was a whole lot of fun. I even took a little video of it which I will put up here as soon as it uploads. But here are some pictures for now.

That night it rained again. But once we heard thunder and lightning, we moved everything we didn't want to get wet into the car, and hung out in the screen in for the night. The next day the first band I saw was Antibalas. They were incredible. There was so much energy and enthusiasm for the music, and they were definitely having just as great a time as the audience was.

After seeing Antibalas, we made our way to the Chickee Hut to see The Benevento Russo Duo.

After seeing them, we went back to the campsite for a bit. Mostly to put on more clothes because it had become quite chilly at this time. We went back and ended up hanging out for a bit. REM had gone on while we were over there, but we heard it from where we were at. We made our way over to REM about a half hour or so into their set, and just set up our blanket on the ground and listened to them. After that, we had made our way back to the Chickee Hut to see Pelican and Dan Deacon. We say in the cold through Pelican and once they were up, we moved up closer to the stage. Once we were waiting around for a bit we all learned that Dan Deacon had already played an hour or so ago at another stage. So we went back to the camp site a little bummed out. He is really a lot of fun to see live.

Sunday was the last day of the festival. Not a lot of big bands playing (that I really wanted to see) so most everyone left around 2 or 3. I stayed for a bit and saw Minus the Bear, who I had seen back in November. They are a good live band.

After them that was pretty much it. So I didn't leave much longer after they played. Overall I had a very fun weekend, and will definitely be going back next year.

LAAAAAAANGERADOOOOOOO

2008-02-20T17:44:00.000-05:00

So I know I said that I wouldn't really be blogging unless I travel somewhere outside of the state or something, but I think this must be included in here. I mean it isn't every day that I go to a four day music festival right?

So yes. Langerado is in a couple of weeks. I am very excited about it! It will be in Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in the middle of the everglades. From the sounds of our plans we will be taking two cars and just carpooling there. It's not too far, but unlike last year, it is a little too far to drive up and back each day. Plus they will have bands playing really late into the night. AND camping was all inclusive so why not!

So like I said before Langerado is a music festival that will take place from March 6th - 9th. There are quite a few bands playing so I will just post up the setlist as released by the festival.

The artists that I am most looking forward to seeing are:

Beastie Boys
R.E.M.
The Roots
Medeski, Scofield, Martin, & Wood
Les Claypool
Minus the Bear
Blind Melon
Benevento Russo Duo
Vampire Weekend
Pelican
Dan Deacon

Those are the main ones I really want to see. I'll be seeing more artists than that, but those are the ones that I am most excited for.

So anyway, until then....

Ok so I lied

2008-01-02T02:58:00.001-05:00

I'll do the update now. The rest of my videos finished uploading!

This video is of Do You Realize. I only took the end half of the song because my camera was running out of space.

AAAAND of course the crowd pleaser, She Don't Use Jelly! I am proud to say that this song as well as Do You Realize are among my grandparent's favorite Flaming Lips songs!

And of course, the countdown to the new year as well as Auld Lang Syne.

And that is me at Flaming Lips Alley. We accidentally found it today while wandering around the Minor League baseball stadium. It intersects with Mickey Mantle's street!

Video

2008-01-02T02:07:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! Here are some of the videos I took of the event. Actually, I didn't take one of them. My friend Jon (whose blog you should check out) took this video of Wayne in the giant bubble into their opening song Race For the Prize.

and here are a couple that I took. I still have a few more that are uploading.

This first video is the same as Jon's, but not as good. It doesn't have the Race for the Prize song or Wayne walking on the crowd. I had to put my camera back into my pocket real fast because Wayne walked right over where I was.

They also played a cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. It was awesome because they did it like a sing-a-long with the words in the backgrounds. Wayne kept encouraging the crowd to sing a long. It was so awesome. Plus they always do a great cover of this song.

They also really changed things up when they played one of their older songs from the album "In a Priest Driven Ambulance" entitled Mountain Side. I was super excited when they started playing it because it was so unexpected. It's not a great quality video if you don't really know the song. But it was hard to take as well because of all the balloons plus I was jumping around and generally having a great time.

They also played a special sing-a-long version of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 with just the keyboards. Again, Wayne was encouraging the crowd as best he could to sing a long. It was different, but quite fun.

Another highlight from the show was when they played the song from their latest album "At War With the Mystics" entitled "Vein of Stars". It was simply incredible. Before the show, everyone got laser lights from the stage hands and what not. And during this song, Wayne told everybody to just shine the lasers directly at him the entire time. Half way through the song, all the lights went out and Wayne was holding up this mirror and reflecting the lasers back into the crowd. It was such an incredible thing to witness. But sadly no video :)

I still have about three more videos to upload. So I will do that tomorrow night.

For now, I am going off to bed.

Get Ready to Totally Freak Out!

2008-01-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

So We went to the Flaming Lips show last night. It was incredible! I have never witnessed anything so spectacular and elaborate. Balloons were every where. Lots of lasers and lights and fog and more balloons. It's really hard to describe. So I took some pictures because I knew I would have a difficult time describing it.

All right!

That is the stage as we were walking into the arena. Notice the elaborate stage set. And the 5000 balloons behind the stage.

That is the UFO. It's a stage prop that the Flaming Lips use when they are coming onto the stage. I have a pretty decent video of it that I'll put up.

Balloons!

Wayne came out before the show to tell us what was going on. Basically his nephew's band would come out to play, then The Flaming Lips, then at 11:30 we would do our own countdown so that we could go outside and see the fire works that the city of Oklahoma puts on every year.

The show started, and all kinds of crazy noise started playing and that big UFO lit up and descended onto the stage. Steve, Mike, and Cliff climbed out of the bottom of while Wayne stood on the top inside of a giant plastic inflatable bubble. Once the bubble was entirely blown up, he walked out onto the crowd! He was right over me. I got some pretty decent pictures. Observe:

And as you can see, after that nothing but craziness ensued:

I have a couple videos of full songs and the UFO in action, so once I get them all uploaded, I will post them up.

The Flaming Lips

2007-12-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. I thought I'd do a little post about the Flaming Lips in case any of you aren't too familiar with them.

Basically they're a band that I like. And they're from Oklahoma City. They've been around for a long while (mid 1980's or so) and have had only 1 commercial radio hit.

Albums to check out by them would be

Transmissions From the Satellite Heart

The Soft Bulletin

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Those are pretty much the big 3. The first one is a little more straight forward and abbrasive than the other 2. I would recommend either The Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi as a first listen.

Other links to check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_flaming_lips

lots of info on the band including a discography and a history.

http://www.flaminglips.com/main.php

official Flaming Lips website

http://www.myspace.com/flaminglips

Flaming Lips official myspace. Sample music and whatnot.

I hope this has been educational!

The adventures continue...

2007-12-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've been on this thing. Since my last day in Belgium in fact. What a good time that was. I think about it almost every day. Anyway, I am not here now to reminisce. I am here now to inform all of you of my latest outing. I have never been so excited about an upcoming event as I am right now. Do you want to know what it is? Is the suspense killing you?

WELL HERE IT IS

That's it! On December 31st, I will be flying to Oklahoma with my friends Rachel and Jon (we'll be meeting our friend Dave up there) to see The Flaming Lips! That's right! THE FUH-LAMING LIPS! IN THEIR HOME TOWN! ON NEW YEARS EVE!

Anyway, we will be there until about the 3rd or 4th, I am not quite sure which we get back. I should probably look. But I'll do that later. But once we arrive, there will be an abundance of excitement and ribs. Lots of ribs. Apparently we will be eating ribs for the duration of out stay. I will be bringing my camera to document all of this, and once I will return, I'll give you all the re-cap.

Move along, there's nothing left to see

2007-06-18T11:34:00.000-04:00

All right. Well it has pretty much come to the end of my trip. I spent the day packing all my stuff up, and charging batteries (cell phone, computer, iPod, Gameboy...you know). I still have a few more things to pack, but I'll get to it later. I thought I would take a break and share some stuff with you all.

Yesterday I bought a lot of chocolate to bring back home. A LOT. Like maybe 12 bars. I hope I have enough to go around. I also bought like four bags of those Crispy M&M's because we don't have them in the States anymore. They're my favorite. So I had to get some.

So yea. I had a great time and met some awesome people while I was here. I think I have learned a bit about a different culture and about myself that I wouldn't have been able to learn otherwise. I am really glad that the opportunity came up that I would be able to take this trip. I mean, there is no better time than now to do stuff like this, right?

I can definitely see myself traveling somewhere again (perhaps next summer?). So until then....

BRUGES

2007-06-16T14:43:00.000-04:00

So today I decided to venture off to Bruges by myself. I had heard too much about it not to go. Also paging through the book Jon let me borrow....yea. Had to do it.

It was really rainy this morning. It rained for maybe half the time I was there. Also the train from Brussels to Bruges was about 10 minutes late, but it still managed to arrive in Bruges on time. So that was good.

So yes. It was very rainy. When I got out of the station I just walked towards this huge tower that turned out to be Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, or in english, The Church of Our Lady. I wasn't quite sure where to go, but I figured if I kept it in front of me and just walked in that general direction, I would end up at it.

I also tried to take a picture of it when I thought I had a good view. But it was really grey out and it didn't work out how I wanted. BUT! I accidentally got a really neat picture out of it. Look:

Pretty neat, huh?

And here is this little canal I passed.

See how rainy it was? It didn't really bother me much because I came prepared with an umbrella and my jacket. I actually kind of enjoyed the rain.

So I just walked around for a bit and took some pictures of some streets I was on...nothing special.

I finally arrived at the Church of Our Lady. It was so massive.

I went inside as well. There was some pretty neat art. What stood out most was the statues. They were so dramatic. I mean all the statues I have seen in the cathedrals have been dramatic so far, but this one just seemed a bit more for some reason. It was really pretty. I didn't take any pictures inside though so you'll just have to take my word for it.

After I left the Church of Our Lady, I followed the map in this book to Markt, which seemed like the town center kind of deal. Even though it wasn't really in the center. I took a picture of the Belfort (or Belfry) of Bruges. Again, massive.

There was a little model of it outside.

After seeing that I decided to take a break for lunch.

Sooooooo good. Seriously.

I also walked around Markt for a bit with my fries in hand and took some pictures.

At the center of Markt there is a statue of Breidel and Pieter de Coninck who were two guildsmen who led a rebellion against the French in 1302.

Breidel and Pieter de Coninck

After sitting down to finish my fries, I took out the book, and looked at the map for a bit. Fem had told me that if I do end up going to Bruges, that I should go to the Groeninge Art Museum. So I located it in the book, and figured out how to get there and I was off. It was relatively easy to find so that was good. Unfortunately you couldn't take pictures inside the museum, but here is what the outside looked like:

The museum was great. It had all Flemish artists. Jan Van Eyck being the name I most recognized. They even had these audio guides where you would punch in the number next to the painting, then hold it up to your ear like a phone, and it would tell you all about it. So that was neat! The museum was definitely my favorite part of Bruges. So thanks Fem (if you are reading this)!

So after spending a few hours at the museum, I decided it was time to head back. I retraced my steps (which turned out to be easier than I thought) and made it back to the train station. I even took a few pictures on the way back.

Again, that's the Church of Our Lady. You can see it from just about anywhere in the city.

And I decided since it was less rainy on the way back, that I would try to take the same picture I took at the beginning. It worked!

So I got back to the train station and I am waiting for the train. An old lady sits next to me and takes out a bottle (of some beverage) and tries to open it. She couldn't do it. So I tapped her on the shoulder after watching her attempt to get it open for a minute, and I make a motion like opening a bottle (since I don't know Dutch) and she gave me the bottle, and I opened it for her. That was my good deed of the day.

After that I got on the train and took a video of my train ride back. Not the whole thing, just leaving the Bruges station. I had to split it up into two parts because it was too big for youtube.com to upload all at once. So, enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

So that was my small trip to Bruges. It was great and I may go back tomorrow and catch some of the stuff I missed.

MECHELEN!!!

2007-06-15T17:09:00.000-04:00

I can say Mechelen correctly! I have been practicing all day today.

So yes, that is where I went today after I got back from Gent earlier this morning. I met up with another Incuboarder named Julie, and I hung out with her and her friends at a tavern. It was really fun. All of her friends were really intrigued that I was from America because they had never met an American before. They were all really nice and said that I made a good impression on them as an American. So that made me feel pretty good about myself. Haha.

We also played foosball and stuff. And got more fries!!! Man seriously, I love the fries here. No stoofvlees (which I can now pronounce perfectly!) sauce but I did have a kipcorn with my fries (which I hear is LIKE chicken...but I don't care....it's tasty!).

So yes. Two entries in one day! I had a good time.

And tomorrow, Bruges for sure!

GENT.....AGAIN!!!

2007-06-15T06:10:00.000-04:00

So I went back to Gent yesterday. I kind of wanted to meet up with Fem and Nele one more time before I leave for home on Tuesday. It was fun. We went to this garden at the university there, then we went to an art museum. The art museum was really neat. I even wrote down two artists that I really enjoyed: Edgar Bytebier and Gustave Den Duyts.

After we went to them museum, we got some food. French fries! Yum....

And we also went to a chocolate bar and I had a milkshake. It was the best milkshake I have ever had.

They also tried to teach me some dutch. They gave me this art pamphlet and told me to read it. Apparently I can pronounce the words pretty good! But I had no idea what I was saying.

Yea, so sorry this is kind of a short entry. In a few hours I am going to Mechelen to look around for a bit. So that should be fun. And Saturday we are going to Bruges to see some stuff. I have been told to go to the Groeningen Museum.

BRUSSELS

2007-06-12T13:51:00.000-04:00

So for the past two days, I have just been walking aimlessly around Brussels. I figured, it would be fun, and I'll probably see a lot of stuff I wouldn't otherwise. So I just went for it!

Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures. My camera's battery died (I charged it back up today). So this entry will just be words.

On Monday I walked through this park near here. It was the same one we went through on Saturday. But it's a nice park. Lots of trees and stuff. It doesn't sound too exciting, but it was a good walk. I was kind of looking for the musical instrument museum, but I couldn't really find it. So I ended up back in Grand Place and bought €15 worth of chocolate. I am going to buy more at the end of the week. I have to make sure I have enough to go around.

When I felt it was time to go back to the hotel, I got lost. I walked for about an hour in the wrong direction. But I eventually found a Metro station, which was good. I got inside the station and looked at the Metro map and figured out where I needed to go, and what Metro's I needed to take. So that was easy enough.

The next day we planned on going to the Musical Instrument Museum. But for a couple simple reasons, I ended up going alone (which was cool). I found the museum pretty easy, thanks to the map in this Brussels book a friend (Jon) let me borrow before I left.

The museum was really nice! There were maybe four floors of exhibits on specific kinds of instruments (like strings and organs, folk instruments, etc...). When you go into the museum, they give you a pair of headphones so that when you stand in certain spots in front of certain instruments, you could hear them play! It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. I spent about 2 hours there. I think my favorite exhibits were the folk instruments, and the horns (mostly the trumbones and lower sounding horns). I had a great time there by myself.

After the museum, I decided to walk back through the park. I really wanted to get a cone of fries, but I saw a waffle stand instead and got a waffle. It was so good.

So that was my last two days. On Thursday I should be going back to Gent just for the afternoon, then on Friday afternoon I will be going to Mechelen, and either Saturday or Sunday, we will be going to Bruges. So I have some good stuff to look forward to.

More Blogs About Buildings and Food

2007-06-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

So out of the 3 blog titles I have had so far, I am most proud of this one. Because all my pictures have been either of buildings or food, and not so much people. Except for in my last post.

Also, I think it is clever because it is like that Talking Heads album (More Songs About Buildings and Food). So yea. Clever title. But enough about that!

Yesterday we were going to go to Bruges, but we ended up doing Brussels instead. It was a lot of walking.

We walked for a bit and got something to eat. I had a sandwich and some water as pictured below.

That is the actual sandwich and water I was drinking (and no it wasn't turkey).

So we ate and then headed off to Grand Plaza. I took lots of pictures on the way there. Including this one of this clock.

Pretty cool, huh?

Again there were more Cathedrals and old looking castle-type buildings. It was very pretty.

We also saw a bunch of those living statues. It was really funny! It reminded me a lot of Hot Fuzz.

So eventually me made it to the Grand Plaza place. It was so pretty. I mean, there wasn't much there, but the buildings were breath taking! I couldn't help but think that I didn't get enough pictures of it.

That's my friend Rebekah and me in Grand Plaza

That is my crappy attempt at a panorama shot. But I think you can see what I am getting at...

So we walked around Brussels some more and saw some more cool things like....

This waffle stand! (I don't know who that person is)

This was on a wall

That is me lighting a prayer candle but not saying a prayer.

And am I the only person that remembers "The Adventures of TinTin"? Come on! He had a show on Nickelodeon if I remember correctly!

And that is me taking a break from walking. I'm drinking a Coca-Cola which comes in smaller cans here. Also, it tastes a bit different. I think at least.

We eventually made it to the peeing statue. It is called the Manneken Pis. It was a pretty tourist-y attraction. There was a big crowd around it.

You can't really see the water too well, but I assure you, it is there.

So after we did all that, we got on a metro, and headed for Atomium. Atomiom is basically this giant model of an atom.

Pretty cool!

And here is me with Atomiom:

So yea! That is pretty much it for the day. We didn't do museums because no one wanted to go with me, so I plan on checking them out sometime this week. Beer museum, comic museums, musical instrument museum.....I'm excited. Also, we're going to try to do Bruges and Antwerp sometime this week, or this coming weekend. So there is also that to look forward to!

GENT

2007-06-08T06:02:00.000-04:00

So I am back in Brussels from Gent today! I had such a great time. I met up with some friends that I made on this Incubus message board I have been frequenting for about 5 years now, and they showed me around, and I made them do really tourist-y things.

I made all my trains and stuff pretty good. It got easier. I think I have the whole metro/train system down. I also took some pictures from the train:

Some graffiti leaving the Midi Brussels station

The view from the train was really pretty on the way to Gent Sijt Pieters station in Gent.

Lots of cows

When I arrived in Gent, Nele and Femke met me at the train station. They took me through this park that was pretty close to the station. There was this cool cave thing that we walked under. It was pretty neat.

There were wild chickens in the park!

After we went to the park we walked around the town for a bit. They took me to a Belgian music store where I bought a Radiohead EP that I didn't have! So that was cool.

Then after that they took me to a comic book store because they knew I liked comics. We just kind of looked around for a bit. We left the comic shop and I took a few pictures of the city as we walked:

The smallest house in Gent

We ultimately arrived at Graslei (which is a street of some kind) where we took a boat tour on the river. There were all kinds of cool things to see. Lots of old buildings, and castles, and statues. It was very rich in history. Unfortunately I only remember a little bit of what the guide said. But I took lots of pictures:

This is Het Gravensteen. It is now a kind of museum. Later on in the day, Fem and I went inside.

Some graffiti I saw from the boat that I thought looked pretty cool.

And that is the dead-end in the river.

So after the boat tour we went into a few cathedrals. They had all kinds of religious art in there so it was pretty neat.

After the cathedrals, Nele had to leave. So Fem and I went to that Het Gravensteen place. It was really cool. It is basically a museum where they have all kinds of medievel weapons and torture devices and stuff.

You could also walk along the wall of Het Gravensteen. It had little doors along it and stuff so you could look at Gent from very hight up. It was a very pretty view.

I forgot to mention that we looked at all the exhibits backwards. So after we were on the wall for about an hour (we sat at the top for a while because there were a lot of big spiral staircases to climb) we went back inside the museum to see the things we missed.

That was pretty much the end of the exhibit. It was super interesting. I had a lot of fun. After this Fem and I got dinner. She took me to this place where they serve french fries. I had mine with mayonaise and like this deep fried chicken thing that I forgot the Flemish name of. It was so good. Seriously. I'm not even lying. They were extremely delicious.

We took the french fries back to their place and ate them there and I watched the dutch version of the office "Het Einland" (I think that's what it is called if I am remembering correctly). It was.......interesting.

But yes. I ended up spending the night at their place and took a train back to Brussels in the morning. I had a lot of fun and I will miss them.

Ignore my horrendous hat hair as I was wearing a hat all day.

So now I am in Brussels

2007-06-06T18:27:00.000-04:00

Yep.

I arrived earlier today.

Becky's roommate met me at the airport and we took a series of trains and metros and whatever back to where we are all staying. Needless to say, it was confusing.

I took some pictures from the first train.

That's some house. No history behind it (that I know of). I just thought it looked kind of cool coming up from behind that hill.

And again, I have no idea what this is. But it looks cool!

Also, I had a Belgian waffle at the train station. It was delicious.

Then we got back to the hotel and I took a nap until about 6 or 7. Then we went to this pub down the street called Fat Boys and I had this for dinner:

In case you can't tell what that is, it is cheese fries and a beer. A Trappist beer. Which is apparently only brewed by Trappist monks or something. But yea. Healthy, right?

And this statue was inside the Fat Boy's place. It's a hot dog. Putting mustard on himself.

Alright. That is all I have to report today. Tomorrow I will be going to Gent and doing stuff there. So....yea. Until tomorrow.

Here is the deal....

2007-06-05T01:02:00.000-04:00

Greetings everyone!

So let me give a little introduction. First off, the title. I got it from a lyric in a Beck song. Plus I get lost a lot and usually end up in the wrong place. Secondly, I decided to make this little blog to document my stay in Belgium (for which I am leaving tomorrow at 12:45 EST). Then I was like, well, why not just make it for every trip I make (outside of Florida)? Not just Belgium! So here I am! First post in what should be many to come. I am going to try to do a post a night just to re-cap my day.

Right now I am sitting in my room anxiously awaiting my flight for tomorrow out of the country. I'll be flying out of Ft. Lauderdale, into Charlotte, then into Philadelphia, then ultimately into Brussels at which I should arrive at 10:45am (er...Brussels time) on the 6th.

I have 3 comic books, 2 books on Belgium, a 17 hour playlist on my iPod, my Game Boy DS (with 3 games), and noise-canceling head phones that I bought specifically for this trip. So I think I will be set.

So I guess I will see some of you guys soon, and some in a few weeks! And be sure to check back about every night (starting with the 6th).

OH! and also, I would like to thank my friend Nat for making that fantastic banner for me at the top! She did a great job, no?