Wednesday, June 27, 2007

It is Good


it is good to be playing music again. Monday and tuesday night, my current project (that makes me sound cooler than i really am) played a few open mic nights: short, sweet, and simple. they were auditions to get "real" shows and be allowed to play more than fifteen minutes. they went well and i would say that we got the gigs at both places which will hopefully lead to more and more. Anyway it was good to play music again and as always it felt good to hear people like what you do. ironically one guy told us that we should move down to L.A. and play music down there, we would be sure to get a record deal...he doesn't know much about L.A.

The Art of Whimsy

Monday, June 25, 2007

Amy Kuney...Demo

So like i said i would buy the album and tell you about it. the first track is terrible. way over-produced. it sounds nothing like the girl we saw play. in fact it also sounds nothing like the rest of the cd. the rest of the cd does a much better job capturing the sound of amy kuney. however, i am not a huge fan of the producing of the cd. the first song aside, the cd is a lot better but there are a few things that just don't sound good: Levels of certain instruments or vocal lines and arrangments of some of the songs. (it sounds like a an album recorded for pre-production. Get some ideas down and see how they sound, and fix things from there). But these problems are not enough to bother me into not listening to the cd. the cd is not all bad either, the last track of the cd is perfect in my opinion. A simple song left alone. the only thing added was a violin which fits the song perfectly. I would give the album about a 3 out 5 but i like the songs so i would buy it again. She also has a track on her myspace (love is trippy) which i think should have gone on her album but it didn't.

family vacation

Being married brings many new problems...we are planning our first little trip as a married couple, and now that we have our own place we can't just get up and leave. We have plants that need to be watered daily, animals to feed, and bills to pay. We need to get this stuff taken care of before we can go. I guess this is what responsibility is. Also, before we were married we could stay just about anywhere, colette would stay with here friends or family and i would stay with my friends. Now that we are married we want to stay together, and the old places were usually a couch or a spot on the floor. Not as appealling when married. So as we plan for this little vacation a place to stay is needed...a small problem with married life, but i would say it is worth it.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Day Two

You all need to read this...

Thursday, June 21, 2007

"overdressed"

"Caedmon's Call returns to what they do best with their new album titled Overdressed. The seminal folk-pop act has moved to a new label home at INO Records with this release, a revival of their acoustic guitar-driven sound. Overdressed also features the return of Derek Webb to the Caedmon's fold, adding his vocals and songwriting to the album and upcoming tour."

Preorder their cd here. You know you want to...

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

too far?

Why do christians take love songs and turn them into songs about Jesus? Colette just heard a song on christian radio covering Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed." Good choice in music, but why did they find the need to replace or add "Jesus" into the song. (Not metaphorically but literally). What would happen if we continued this to other art forms? I'm thinking of selling this to christian book stores. What do you think?

Sunday, June 17, 2007

grill master

Going over to my parent's house on the weekend has sort of become the thing that we do. On these trips we usually do our laundry, which is why we try to find an excuse to hang out there on the weekends: free laundry, free food. These are not the only reasons, but some very good ones. however, there is some give and take. i have become the resident bbq-er. that is what i do. mom buys the meat and i cook it. it certainly beats clean-up and i think that i am getting fairly decent at it. So for father's day, it is no surprise that i found myself at my parents bbqing dinner. tonight was shish kabobs. I have never really thought of cooking these before until i put them on the grill and realized something rather obvious. "i just put a bunch of meat and veggies on very thin, dry pieces of wood and then set them over fire. i wonder what will happen?" I wasn't really surprised after opening the lid for the first time and seeing about half the shish kabobs sticks were black and crispy. (I am not sure who thought stabbing your food with wood and then cooking it over a fire, but their intelligence should be questioned). Anyway i soon also discovered it was difficult turning shish kabobs without either breaking the stick or burning your hand or pulling the food off. it was quite a learning experience but by the second batch i was practically an expert, and dinner turned out ok.

overall, i had a good fathers day, nice and relaxing with the whole family. always good to be able to have the whole family gather around the table to eat a good home cooked meal. if you are father and reading this i hope you had a wonderful and relaxing day.

Friday, June 15, 2007

you're gonna die Bob, well retire.

"Blowing kisses to the camera, Bob Barker signed off on 35 years on "The Price Is Right" and 50 years in daytime TV in the same low-key, genial fashion that made him one of daytime TV's biggest stars." to read more click here

Of course i watched the show, bob barker and the price is right are america. They have been around for 35 years. Nothing in hollywood lasts that long. Being the last show, many huge bob barker fans came out. People were waiting in line for 5 days. And these people, i would not classify them as normal. Most of the people looked as though they have no life other than bob barker and the price is right. My favorite moment of the show was one man after being called to "come on down" was so excited that as he was jumping down the aisle forgot to move his feet and fell flat on his face. it was amazing.

Amy Kuney

With Colette gone for the night at a business meeting, I was left home with nothing to do. So i decided to check out a concert at a new christian coffee house i discovered while looking for venues to play. there were two acts, Amy Kuney and some other guy that i don't remember the name of, we will call him ted. Ted had the sound system and decided to push the start of the show back an hour but did not tell anyone about this. So as we all waited i think there were three of us there, one of which was Amy, we had no clue why he was late. About twenty minutes late he finally showed up, set up and the show began. Amy started and is really impressive. She has a talent for song writting. i was immediately impressed and plan to take colette to see her tonight in Sacramento. Her website is amykuney.com and i would recommend listening to "Breaking Bad Habits" if nothing else. I am going to pick up the cd tonight so i can tell you how it is.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

I've Been Memed

Ok so here we go, some things you probably don't know about me...well 8 things to be exact.

1. I hate the idea of having an actual 40 hour a week job. I think i have worked one for about 2 months in my entire life. I am now 24 years old. Wait make that 3 1/2. A part time job turned full time so i quit.

2. I took guitar lessons when i was little (don't remember how old). But i never learned how to play anything, until i started hanging out at the Hamilton's.

3. I am a closet Kelly Clarkson fan. I am ashamed to admit it but i am.

4. Moved to tears easily. Not sure why, perhaps i have too much estrogen in my system. And not like tears just the watery eye part.

5. Struggling to come up with number 5. I never now what to write about myself

6. Animal lover, currently I have two lizards and one cat. All of which are awesome.

7. Swam in the ocean in the middle of the night with about 60 partially nude men, until the cops came...also walked a block to Jack In the Box sat and ate a meal wearing nothing but boxers and a wife beater with about 10 other similarly dressed men, all in the name of tradition.

8. Hate going to school, I don't like being told i have to do something...yet I want to be a school teacher.

Alright, there you go. I am finished, and i get to name others to do the same thing. James Pierce, the Agees, and Cory sorry don't remember you last name. give me a break i just heard for the first time a few days ago and it is difficult. So to those three/four people. You have no choice in the matter, by reading the above you are contractually bound to doing this.

Monday, June 11, 2007

****

Mel Gibson, in my opinion, has sort of gone off the deep end so to speak. I was not thinking this movie was going to be very good. I was expecting a boring rendition of how cortez came and killed all of the mayan indians. Perhaps i never watched the previews since this wasn't what the movie was about at all. If you don't know what is it about i won't spoil anything for you, other than to say if you don't like subtitles don't watch this movie, unless you speak...mayan? If subtitles don't bother you watch the movie. A mild disclaimer, there is a bit on nudity: it is about indians, what did you expect? A bit of sexual humor and a bit bloody. I guess i would say if you thought braveheart was ok than this movie is just fine. I just would not recomend this movie for children at all (escpecially since you will be reading the movie to them).

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Green Thumb

On our honeymoon, my wife and i purhased some plumeria plants. By plants i mean, a stick that if you give soil and water it is supposed to grow. After six months, we have growth. We are excited. We only had one casualty, but we have two successes. We officially have green thumbs. The only thing about these plants is that they sort of look evil, right now. You be the judge.



Apology

If you found that last blog a bit harsh I apologize. No offense was meant.

My Mistake

My mother invited us to a musical at their church, she said it was the story of samson and delilah set to the music of grease. I said why not, could be good or at least entertaining. Somebody wrote it and got it published. When we arrived at the church we soon discovered that the time on the ticket was wrong, the play was not going to start for another two hours...we should have known this was going to happen since the date of the tickets did not match the day (friday, June 10th). though to be more fair it was on the tickets twice and one of the dates was written correctly. So after much battle with my nephews to leave, they love church and thought this meant they weren't going to go, we got food. Dissapointingly, i was not hungry i was expecting to eat after a two hour play so i just had food to hold me over. Oh well, it was now time for the play. (If you were in the play, don't read any further, or if you liked the play don't read this either) Upon sitting down, I began to read the little pamphlet about the play, (playbill i think it is called), only to discover my mistake. this play was never published, no no no. It was written by a fellow church go-er who got the idea and wrote the play on a plan trip to Israel. Seems a little quick to write a musical. Now i was getting worried, but at least the music will be good, right? Read (past tense) a little further only to discover that the music for grease withouth vocal tracks doesn't exist...probably for this very reason. So how do you do a musical without music...you find someone to record the music to grease without the words. that is easy enough, right? Well, after the first song i realized just how hard it must have been. Playing the music to grease with only drums, bass, and acoustic guitar just doesn't quite cut it especially when the drummer is not always on time. But the acting, that must have been ok, you ask. No it was your typical bad church acting. All pretty bad except one or two shinning stars. In fact one person's bio even said that she loved singing and acting, but had been cut from both plays and choirs she tried out for in high school. But what about the overall production, something to save this play from possible ruin. Nope sorry not going to happen, each scene was around 7-10 minutes, i would estimate and the time between each scene change? about 3-5 minutes. So a quick boring scene, boring scene change, boring scene...you get the idea. The only saving grace to the play was the singing. Those with main parts that did sing, were good singers, they saved the play for me. So would i go again no, but i ask this question...why are christians ok with being less than par (if that is a golf analogy shouldn't they be more than par?) on most artistic endeavors?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007




pretend this is my heading, brody's recent blog failures reminded me to try this again. and it doesn't work. still.

The Best and The Worst.

I am not quite sure what to say about Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. On one hand the book was really good. The story was amazing, at times i was on the egde of my seat, so to speak, wanting to know how things would turn out. The character develop was extremely well done. I can't imagine Dickens would have become famous with this not being true of his books. However, the book at times was confusing. Many of the characters had several different names that they went by. So i was constantly trying to figure out who was being talked about. To compound this problem the book reads very slow. If you are the type of person that won't continue reading unless you are hooked within the first few pages, don't even bother trying to read this book. But like i said, the story is amazing so if you can if you can get through the slowness of the book i recommend reading A Tale of Two Cities.

Monday, June 4, 2007

New Music


So I am in a band called "The Art of Whimsy" we just put up a song on myspace.com/theartofwhimsy. the song is a pretty rough mix, pre-production sort of thing. So check it out and tell me what you think about it.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

in light of stupid names...

ky and i have decided that all of our children's names will be spelt correctly but bear a single "X" or "Z" to begin their name... just to throw people off. it will be a silent letter of course, so zraymond will still just be raymond, but with a silent "z". it is perfect. and we will call him "Z" for short :)

hey, worse things could happen

Chuck E. Cheese

My next birthday party is going to be a Chuck E. Cheese. Yesterday was my nephew ethan's third birthday. And since his brother just had a big party that involved planning and invitation and dozens of little kids, mom decided to throw a smaller party that involved little or no work. Chuck E. Cheese or CEC as was decided upon, the place where a kid can be a kid. For only $121 we had more than enough pizza, and drinks, for 7 adults and 2 kids. Plus we left with almost a whole pizza left over. On top of all that we also got 250 tokens. Now in Chuck E. Cheese, every single game costs only one token, so with 250 tokens we could all act like little kids, running around from game to game with no concern for the cost and not playing so many games that the "kids" are left bored after twenty minutes. We all played games for about three hours before running out of tokens it was great. Among my favorite games were skeeball, and 99 cents. Skeeball i am sure you all know how to play, but 99 cents was a game of luck and skill. You are given a rubber ball and you must roll it down a short ramp and try to get it down certain paths just big enough for the ball. there are about ten different paths which change in "amount" after each roll. the point of the game is to try and get as close to 99 cents without going over. The closer you get the more tickets you get. Colette and I played this game for quite a long time. So with that being said I want to be a kid again and have my next birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. So anyway Chuck E. Cheese is the place where a kid can be a kid and adults can be kids.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Books

While listening to the Adam Corolla show i was presented with a genius idea. while danny bonaduce was high on crack for the better part of two decades he read books that were important to other people. So i am asking you, what books are important to you (besides the bible). What books influenced your life or simply books that you think everyone should read. you see i have a lot of time to read at my job and i have run out of books that i know i want to read right now. so what books do you want me to read?

The name revealed

those of you on the edge of your seat on how to actually pronounce the name. (i know of at least ten million of you). The name is pronounced Elijah. Ya i don't get it either, the name looks like a girls name in fact i was looking for a girl as i called role, until someone said, "oh, elijah." And then i realized, "she" would be a "he" with parents that can't spell.