Holy fucking shit. Hands down, the most amazing packaging I've ever seen for a record. The weight, the size, the presentation, what is included... the artwork, the slipcase. Just absolutely fucking brilliant. Well worth the $80 or whatever I paid. Wow. And I haven't even listened to the bonus CD yet.

Labels: music

A little over a month ago Bryan and I thought we were good enough to play the gold layout at Renaissance. But we were not. Not at all. Bryan was set to turn 30 in about 2 weeks, so I'm going to let his excuse be that he was old. Mine will be that I felt sorry for him and wanted to let him win. Sound good? Good. Just look at the determination on my face here tho. I'm not sure I can pull of the "I wasn't trying" excuse, but I'm going to try. Despite the determination, I still ended up with a drive that looked like... well... like it was thrown by someone who can't throw a disc. But, still... look at that form. It's beautiful. Pay no attention to the thud of the disc hitting the tree. And yes, I know the picture shows a backhand and the video shows a forehand. So I cheated and threw two times. So what.
Then, of course, there's Bryan trying to drive. Why does he always look so damn goofy? And how the hell does he manage to throw better than me with a form like that? But, you know, regardless of how the drives went, I'm going to go ahead and say that I made this putt. Even though I'm pretty sure I did not. Because, of course, I wasn't actually trying to make it. If you look behind the goal to the left, I believe that is Bryan's approach shot. But, then again, there's a disc in front of the goal too, and Bryan has this nasty habit of throwing everything in his hands at the goal if he misses a shot he thinks he should make. There are always discs all over the place. It's amazing we don't lose more than we do. More discs, that is. We are both obviously losing at disc golf.
Even though we don't do mulligans... even though we've never really done mulligans... Bryan always seems to think that he's allowed to take one. And perhaps it's karma, but the mulligans rarely seem to actually be any better... kind of like this one did not. But once he actually got out from behind the fence, you can see the ferociousness with which he attacked the next shot. Well, actually... that is probably the next next shot...
Not that I'm completely trying to rag on Bryan. After all, he IS supposed to be the winner of this game. Even though the youtube fuziness makes it damn near impossible to actually see where this goes, this was a decent shot. Especially if you don't think about the fact that this was the 2nd shot on this hole and, technically, Bryan should have had to have taken it with his penis out.
I know it seems like it, but I really am not only trying to make fun of Bryan. I'll get mine too. But this is just so precious. There's a little sign at the end of the teepad that says something like, "If, by some freak of nature, you miss the mando, you must retee." This was so close to being a freak of nature... One day tho... we'll see it...
I think I recall saying something, after we'd finished the front nine, about how my score was equal to my course record and how Bryan's was 3 or so over the course record. After only being halfway through. And the 2nd half is much more difficult. It was a rough day...
I think this is Bryan trying to describe, visually, where his level of play is compared to mine...	Then he tries to put those words into actions and throws the disc directly into the jungle...	While I, forgetting my oath to lose, go ahead and knock down this amazing putt. (Although, in reality, I'm pretty sure I missed this as well) Because, of course, I was actually remembering to try to lose.
Now I know this throw looks beautiful. I know I look sexy as hell. And I know that you can't actually see where the disc went on youtube. The disc went left. Way left. Given the evidence of how gorgeous I looked while making the throw, however, it should be pretty obvious that this was on purpose.
And then there's #13. I hate this hole more than any other disc golf hole I've ever played. I don't understand why there is more photographic evidence of this hole than any other. Except, perhaps, b/c it takes so fucking long to play it b/c I'm so fucking terrible at it. I was even all down in my post-throw stance the way I usually do it when there's a good throw to be had... But you can just tell by the way I'm looking off into the distance... NOT happy. This went over the line of trees that is supposed to separate hole 13 from hole 11. They run parallel to one another. Sadly, this was not going to be the worst thing to happen to me on this hole...
Bryan is always better at holding things together on this hole. If I come close to losing on this course, it's b/c of this hole. That held true this day as well. Although I'm pretty sure this resulted in a 4-point swing, it's not like Bryan had it completely easy. Throwing out of trees is never fun, and you can imagine him snapping that shirt thing like he was a woman who just got told that the mall was closed.
Approximately 15 shots later, we can actually see the basket. Bryan, showing no signs of his age, makes a nice approach shot... Maybe his best form of the day. And his shot certainly ends up in a much much better place than mine... And these aren't nice oak trees that are fun to climb. No, these are pine trees. Very prickly pine trees. Very itchy pine trees. With branches close together... Not really the most fun I've ever had involving a tree and a frisbee.
Bryan tried to use his big bear hands to shake it down, but the tree was nobody's bitch... had to find another solution...
I'm not usually terrible at 14 either, but this didn't work out. Bryan's standing at the goal when taking this photo. Pretty sure that I, yet again, missed. Although, come to think of it, this one might have actually gone in for a bogey... Things kind of turned around for me on 15 tho... Bryan chucks his disc way way right, and I... well... you can see:
		Yeah... this is where my drive landed. The hole is right there. For birdie. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not I made it...
As this game finally began to end, I was down by 1 with three holes to go. We had some memory left in the camera, so I guess I can let these next two videos speak for themselves.
It is now tied...
And now I'm down by two... wow. I usually love this hole. I often par this hole. But not today. Because, if you recall, I'm trying to lose to make Bryan feel better.
So... last hole, and I'm down by two. My plan is working perfectly. But now count the number of shots we each take... and listen to Bryan's assessment of his score...
I really don't know what else I could have done to try to lose this game. But Bryan still had to try to cheat to get the win. Real classy. And so, of course, I had to set the record straight. Perhaps had he not TRIED to cheat, I would have cheated for him so that he could feel better about himself. But this kind of brazen disrespect for the game would not stand. Maybe next time... maybe.

Labels: bryan, Disc Golf

I was planning to write about this long ago. Really, I was. Sarah bitched at me last night for slacking off on my quickness tho, so I'm trying to make up for lost time. Now it's one month later, and I hardly remember what happened. I do recall being pretty psyched to be at The Milestone again. And pretty ashamed for not being there more often. But I was also pretty psyched to see The Silent Weapons play in a place with good sound. Sadly I've got no audio/video from that night... I tried, but the lighting was so freaking low that making videos was just silly. And yeah, so I really don't remember any details past what I just said. Dammit. It must be the drugs. So, I guess mostly, here are some photos from their set.
The one in the middle is my favorite. But it only beats out the one above b/c Jason is standing in front of Josh.
Uhm... and I just poured the Rum & Sprite I was drinking into a clear class. I think I forgot the Sprite.
	Allison also had recently dyed her hair purple. This photo got me kind of famous. myspace default photo famous. And, dammit, I hope that I actually took it and not Sarah and that I'm not just forgetting yet another thing. Regardless. The purple was sweet. Then this other thing happened... later...
As is often the case with shows in Charlotte, the crowd was, sadly, rather sparse. I suppose it's slightly understandable this time as it was a Tuesday night. With a new band from Charlotte and a band from Chicago. I really wish I'd had some recording of the show, cuz this was absolutely the best the actual sound has been. I like being able to hear Eliza sing. I think she looks great, but, ugh, I ALWAYS just want to hear her better. It was much much much better at The Milestone than I've heard it before. Given, of course, I've only heard them at SK Net and the Bucket Shop (which is now NOTORIOUS for shitty mics...), but still. I do recall being glad that the levels sounded better and that I could hear Eliza. Dammit, I wish I could remember more better. I do know that I often feel that I'm just waiting for a wall to come down when I get to see TSW play. I really like what I hear, but I just have this feeling that it could *sound* so much better. It'll get there. The songs are really fucking good, and everything happening on stage is pretty sweet. (and, damn, Josh knows his way around the equipment on stage.) Anyway. It's good. But totally has a lot of room to get better. A lot of very fillable room. It'll get there. And it's great fun to watch it progress. Also, I'm eating Cheetos. mmm. But the other reason that the lack of bodies on the floor was sad was b/c this random band from Chicago called Bang! Bang! was actually really fucking cool.
But before I get that, here's the last photo. Of Eston. Because he's completely a diva and would be pissed if I didn't post. Well... not pissed. I've seen Eston pissed. I don't think I've quite gotten that far on his bad side yet. <3 Eston.
From what I've heard since, Bang! Bang! is actually quite the popular band up Chicago way. They've certainly got more friends than filboyd studge... The lighting came on for this show, and I probably should have recorded something, but I had no idea what to expect, so I just listened and watched instead. What a novel idea. It was this kind of punk/pop thing that leaned more towards the whole punk thing instead. And I thought it was really badass. If I wasn't so poor, I definitely would have bought a CD. (speaking of which, why the hell aren't Silent Weapons CD's for sale at shows??) Anyway. I kind of think this is the kind of thing that I might get tired of if I were to try to listen to it for an extended period of time. Not that that makes it less good... just not exactly what I'm looking for long term. For a random discovery as a band that happens to be playing with another band that I like? Wow. Maybe one of the best one of THOSE bands I've heard in a long long time. They had a really good stage presence too. Cuz it completely seemed like they were just having a great time. I don't think I've ever heard a cymbol solo before either... And the guitar string broke, so we got the Flying V. And it all happened like everyone there were just friends having fun. the fact that I recall that may or may not have anything to do with something I find missing in day-to-day life. Hm. Although I'm getting old and boring and bald and rarely venture outside the safe confines of my apartment to discover anything unknown, I'll keep my eye on this band... maybe they'll play somewhere near a stop of the new light rail. Or, hell, maybe they'll come back and play with The Silent Weapons again. I really liked it.
Jack Flash Jason, dude! You're always in the way!	Gretta Fine	Nick Kraska
Although Holster was actually headlining the show I, yet again, missed their set. Allison had to work early, so we took off after Bang! Bang! had finished up. But the end of their set certainly worked out for the end of the show. I know there's a video of this whole thing floating around somewhere b/c the guy next to me was holding his phone up recording it all. I don't really remember exactly how it happened but they, somehow, managed to get all the prettiest people in the crowd up on the stage for a nice little dance party to send things out. Of course I didn't join, cuz I didn't want to make anyone feel bad. With my skillz. But that's good for everyone else who is a dude b/c it means that I have a couple of photos. So there's that. And there's my awful awful words that are simply here to fill space b/c I have these pictures, and I didn't want to do nothing with them.

Labels: Allison, concerts, Eston, music

I wanted so many times while driving to flip, to skid and flip and fall from the car and have something happen. I wanted to land on my head and lose half of it, or land on my legs and lose one or both. I wanted something to happen so my choices would be fewer, so my map would have a route straight through, in red. I wanted limitations, boundaries, to ease the burden; because the agony, Jack, when we were up there in the dark, was in the silence! All I ever wanted was to know what to do. In these last months I've had no clue, I've been paralyzed by the quiet, and for a moment something spoke to me, and we came here, or came to Africa, and intermittently there were answers, intermittently there was a chorus and they sang to us and pointing, and were watching and approving, but just as often there was silence, and we stood blinking under the sun, or under the black sky, and we had to think of what to do next.

Dave Eggers (You Shall Know Our Velocity)

Labels: Books

holy God... that band fucking SUCKS. And tho I feel like a little middle-schooler or something, I will also say that Dot Dot Dot should not be off. Especially in favor of Denver and blah blah...

Labels: music

This past Saturday, Allison and I went uptown to the Charlotte Torch Rally (for Sudan). It was kind of lucky that we knew it was happening; I was just randomly screwing around online one day and came across the page. I'd vaguely remembered it when I serendipitously heard an episode of Charlotte Talks on NPR that was talking about the rally. So, luckily, I remembered, and we managed to get there before it was over... albeit it barely. This also ended up being the first day that either of us had gotten to ride the light rail, which was an added bonus. Probably would not have gone if we had had to drive and find a place to park. I did screw up and made us walk all the way to East Blvd, which took about 20 minutes... I didn't know there was a station less than 5 minutes walk from my house. I certainly needed the exercise, but I wish we didn't get there so late. Lateness aside, riding the train was really cool; I'm more excited than I probably should be that we finally have it. It was crowded, but I didn't care. There's something about riding a train through the city in the midst of a few hundred other people that connects you to the things by which you are surrounded. No worries about traffic or light or pedestrians... just getting to look around at all these little pieces of the town I'd never seen before in a pretty relaxed manner was great. After we got off and were walking to center city, I happened to notice that we could see the entire reflection of the Bank of America building behind us in whatever glass building was in front of us. I'm sure many many people see this every day, but I hadn't noticed it before... I thought it was really cool, and I tried to get Allison in the photo, but it didn't work. It's still a neat picture, I think.
I also noticed a lot of people wearing Davidson paraphernalia as we were walking. I thought it was odd and only later that night did I find out that Davidson was playing Duke in the arena. (and only barely lost) When we got to the rally, the very first person I saw was a girl I had slightly known from Davidson. I wish I could remember her name, but I can't. We caught the tail end of one of the speakers talking about stuff that I mostly already learned from the Dave Eggers thing a few weeks prior, and we headed over to the booth housing the banner to be sent to the Chinese embassy. I'm sure they're going to throw it away as soon as they get it, but it's still kind of cool that our names are on it. The guy speaking finished, and then some band started playing. We both looked at each other in that *groan* kind of way. The band was fine, but they sucked at the same time. They sounded, as Allison put it, "like every Christian band ever." They sang some songs about how it wasn't the fault of the refugees that they were refugees and about how it sucks to be raped or something. But it was all just that lame tame contemporary Christian sound, and what was the point of having a band there anyway? Everyone cleared out from in front of the stage when the speaker left and the band started. I felt kind of bad for them, but it was still funny. It kind of looked like they wanted to rock out (especially the bass player), but they just... couldn't. I don't suppose I actually have any sort of point here other than to say we went. The crowd wasn't huge and, while there were a lot of cameras there, the coverage on Fox News that night was for maybe 30 seconds. I'm not really sure what good this thing did, but maybe it did something. It's hard to get across REAL ideas and feelings at this kind of thing, I believe. But at least, I guess, people are trying to do something. They did take donations, but I'm poor and didn't give; I don't know what the results were. And although that signed banner looks pretty cool, it's depressing that, in a city of approximately 700,000, they could only amass a few hundred signatures. That thing should be covered.
All-in-all, it was definitely a good day despite feeling insignificant and lame in the face of terrible things happening to real people. I've been too busy to really read lately, but I'm still making progress in What is the What. And it's really fantastic. And frightening. I learned another reason why those george bush mother fuckers should all go to hell tho. Said better than I could do it from the Asia Times newspaper: It's the oil, stupid. And why don't we stop them now? Well the genocidal Muslim government of Sudan is cooperating in w's "War on Terror." We wouldn't want to offend them by telling them to stop killing all the Dinka. *sigh* 2011 can't get here soon enough. Provided, of course, we don't watch it go to fire in 2010... :)

Labels: george bush

I almost finished filling out my application, yesterday, to be on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. They asked if I had a myspace or similar internet account. I put www.schmakt.com. I wonder if that will disqualify me immediately. They also asked what was my greatest achievement in life so far. Would it be too presumptuous to say that I was accepted to be on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? I think it would be, but I can't think of anything else. Here are my options so far:

• I graduated, with Honors, from a shitty high school even tho I had a zero average in my Trig "class."
• I've kept the same job for over 8 years even though I often hate it.
• I'm not dead.

eh. I need to do some work now. Something will hit me when I sleep.