One overdue update coming up!

[Listening to: Shudder to Think - Red House from the album "Funeral At the Movies & Ten Spot"]

Well, things have been pretty good on the homefront. Let's start with Friday. I hung out with Jessie for a little while, then her friend Chris wanted to come by and visit. At first I had no idea who he was, but when he came, I realized it was the same Chris I met a week or so before and we've been trying to set up a time to get together and jam. We all hung out, and his friend Connor came along and joined us. I broke out my guitar and we played various songs. Chris is pretty good, and Connor is great, then again he's in the Hartt school. The night went by and we went our separate ways for a bit. I hung out with Josh in the 7s. Chris calls me up and asks to come over with a few friends. He comes by with four others with him: Foon (sp?), Rachel, Melissa and Hana. Chris was shot down by Hana earlier in the night, but they stayed cool. Fun was had, we hung out with a lot of random people, and sometime during the night, we lost Foon, Rachel and Chris. So Hana, Melissa, Rich (Josh's suitemate) and I just hung out in the 7s for a while, until Hana got a call from Chris saying he was jamming with a few people in Regents. We all go and see what was up.

Chris was jamming with his friend Ian, and Ian's friend from home Jason. Jason had his acoustic guitar and a folder with about 34 or so original songs with him. His songs were good, a lot were based on life experiences. He's been though a lot in his short life. Hana and I decided to join it the songs. As it turns out, Hana is a vocal performance major. She knows a thing or two about singing. Such a beautiful voice she has. After a song or two, Chris wanted me to join in the singing since apparently I "have such an amazing voice." So in one song, Jason sang, and Hana and I harmonized. It came out amazingly well. Hana and I we both shocked at how good it sounded. Everyone else was blown away. The highlight for me was when Jason asked me to help him sing one of his songs, the first verse he'd sing, the second verse I'd sing an octave higher. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to record that because that song came out fantastic. The good vibes and good music went on until around 7am. We started around maybe 3am or so. We all went outside to take a break around a quarter to 6, and we noticed the sun rising. 'Twas mighty beautiful. I had to run and get my camera from my room, and also my sweatshirt because it was ball-freezingly cold outside. I got some nice pictures walking around the Village. Around 7 we all decided to call it a night, or a morning, because Jason had to head back home. We all had a great time, we all hope to catch up with him again.

After I got some sleep, I got a call from Chris around 1pm, I was still in bed. He and Connor were jamming, but I wouldn't have been able to make it, so I caught up with him and Hana around 3 for lunch. I also ended up meeting my friend Thaddeaus, who plays keyboard. We asked him to join us in our jamming, so we all went to his room and jammed with him for a little while before he had to go out. Afterwards we all hung out in the gazeebo by the pond and played a bunch of different songs. We caught up with Rachel and Foon from the night before. Foon knows his way around the guitar. Josh came along and watched us jam for a bit. After jamming at the pond, it started getting cold, so we moved our session to Josh's dorm. I bought my electric guitar with me so I could finally crank up my distortion the way I want. We had a fun session there, especially since people kept coming in/alternating. Chris left to take a rest for a while, and Connor took his place, Josh joined in on bass, and Chris' friend Ned came in with his electric. We jammed for about an hour or so there. Dave called me and asked what I was up to, and he came by not too long after. He knew I had my electric guitar with me, and he also knew I learned how to play Coheed and Cambria's "Welcome Home", so he bought the lyrics with him, so he, Josh, Connor and I did an impromptu rendition of it. It turned out decently. Throughout the night Dave and I played our Hott Lixx songs. After a while everyone I jammed with went on home, so it was just me, my guitar and my distortion pedal. I then proceeded to just jam out on my own. I played for a good hour, maybe more. It's been officially named "The One-Hour Guitar Solo" by those that have heard it. It was a freeing experience just knowing that I wouldn't get in trouble for playing obnoxiously loud, and I took advantage as much as I could.

So, yeah. My musical odyssey lasted for about 10 hours or possibly more, I lost count after a while. It was an experience I'd love to have again. I met and vibed with new people, and made new friends. How can you get any better?

Ph34r 73h 4fr0n3zz!!!

My hair after a few minutes fighting with the blow dryer:


Out of control!


Under control

Real post coming soon....

Phonepost via LiveJournal

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Phonepost via LiveJournal

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Phonepost via LiveJournal

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Another Weekend Gone By....

[Listening to: The Hott Lixxx - Can't Not Think About You]

This weekend was good times I must say, and noone overdid it on the hootch this time.

Friday, Dave was in a very creative mood, so he and I got together and hammered out two new Hott Lixx Songs. They're called It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Chlamydia and Can't Not Think About You. Go to http://www.myspace.com/thehottlixxx and check them out. I think they came out really good despite the fact that our recording studio cost me tens of dollars. Jessie and Danielle came over later that evening, and they, CJ, Dave and I hung out for a little while. Danielle saw a few of her friends outside, so while we waited for her to come back, Dave and I performed our three songs. Jessie enjoyed them quite a bit. 'Twas a good night.

Saturday, CJ, Dave and I go eat at the Commons, and afterwards, Dave and I got together, rehearse for a bit and we recorded the songs. We closed all the windows to keep out outside noise, but police sirens ended up in one of the songs. Oh well, as soon as I buy my desktop recording box, I won't have to worry about things like that. Later that night, CJ and I invite Dave, Doug, Erin, Alyssa, Lauren, Kristina, Christian Nikki, and Melanie to have fondue with us. We had apples, pretzel sticks, kielbasa (drool), Ciabatta bread, and cheese cubes (that's right, cheese cubes) to enjoy with the fondue. CJ felt that the cheese cubes were a bit much in terms of enjoying with fondue, but Dave, Christian and I thought it would be a good idea. It turned out to be a great idea! It was really good. I may try a different cheese the next time we have fondue night. Kristina also made a really good dip made of sour cream, chili and grated cheese. I still think about how good it was. After fondue, we enjoyed a really chessy movie with Bruce Campbell in it, called Man With the Screaming Brain. Since Bruce Campbell was in it, it was automatically awesome by the unwritten rule of Campbell's Law, stating that any movie with Bruce Campbell, no matter how terrible, is awesome by default. After everyone left to go to bed, I decided to go out for a walk around the Village to see what was going on. I headed over to the 5s to see what kind or revelry was going on. When I got there, someone happened to be playing the Numa Numa song, aka the worst song in existence, but for reasons unknown, drunk people love it, especially drunk girls that want to dance with me. That was a hilarious moment. I saw a few friends along the way. I shared a beer with my friend Dylan, who kept getting his hat stolen by Drunk Girl (I have no idea who she was, so that will be her moniker for this post). Drunk Girl liked my fro quite a bit. "I wish I could steal your fro but I can't!" Dylan liked the fro too. A lot of people have high respect for the fro, especially those who cannot grow them. Randomly while in the 5s, this kid named James offered me some Jack Daniels hidden in a bottle of Coke. JD is some good stuff, the burning sensation means it's working. For the rest of the night I hung out with my friend Justin, we swung through the 6s, 5s and 4s, and along the way witnessed a fight in the middle of the lawn. I don't know how it started, but when word of a fight broke out, everyone ran to see it. Public Safety broke it up relatively quickly thanks to the tried and true pepper spray. One of the PS officiers had a night stick out, and I was hoping to see someone get their ass kicked by it, but the guys who caused the fight were relatively compliant. Justin and I spent the rest of the night at the 4s, talking to a whole bunch of cool people, including Chris, who's a huge Incubus fan. We talked about Incubus and sang songs for a good half hour. i'll have to catch up with him one day and jam with him. Then there was Ned, the artist, Joe, the Canadian (he had a Canadian flag tie on to show that he was from Canada), Brian and Manu (no stories behind them, just regular cool guys). Sara made an appearance along the way, always a pleasure to see her. About 2:30, everything was wrapping up, so I called it a night. It was a good night.

Nothing special for Sunday except for season premieres of Family Guy and American Dad. That's some good television right there. That's all for now. More posts to come as stuff happens....

Good Stuff....

If anyone here grew up watching Doug on Nickelodeon, or the later shitty Disney version, you may or may not like this following webcomic spoof. I found it hilarious. Check it out: http://www.punksandnerds.com/d/0149.html

Real update later in the day....

Have you hugged your toilet lately?

[Listening to: QB3 - Boom! from the album "The Form of Space"]

Well, this weekend sure has been an interesting one to say the least. Thursday Ron and Christian came by and we had a semi-surprise party for Kristina. Fun was had, pizza was eaten, pictures were taken, and Dave and I got together and performed for everyone. Good times. Friday we all got together and played Beer Pong at Ron's request. We used Gary's beer that had been sitting in the fridge for about a week because we couldn't snag our own beer since it was after 9pm. CJ and I teamed up against Ron and Erin. We lost horribly. But we had fun anyway. Ron, CJ, Dave and I made the rounds a few times around the Village. Ron narrated what he saw around him in the style or Randy Newman. He talked so much trash about people, and loud enough that they could hear him. Ron didn't care though, because that's just how Ron is. The highlight of that night was when we found a bottle of vodka on the ground. It was a bottle of Vox, one of the finest vodkas around, and you could tell it was good just by looking at the bottle. We also noticed that there was a little bit left. Dave took the bottle, examined it a little, looked into it, poured some of the contents into his hand and drank it. Apparently it tasted like heaven, although there's the chance that he may have been tasting the saliva of others that enjoyed the vodka before him.

Saturday, Saturday was a lot different. I played Ron in Beer Pong (we got our own beer this time). I played 3 times. I lost all three times. So that was basically 6 beers for me right there. But I wasn't finished. After that game, I made myself a mix drink. It was Mudslide, Cream soda and Rum. 'Twas very tasty. Still wasn't done. I was feeling the buzz at that point. CJ had lost to Ron at Beer Pong, but CJ didn't finish his beer, so I did him a favor and finished it. I decided to go out and take a breather for a bit. As I walk outside, I happen to find my friends Jay and Scott, and Scott has a backpack with him. Said backpack was full of Rolling Rocks. I couldn't say no to Rolling Rock, so I enjoyed that one. A few minutes later I notice Lauren lost ot Ron at Beer Pong. She was in the same situation as CJ, and so I took the beer off her hands. For those that haven't been keeping count, that's approximately 9 beers and about a shot of Rum. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know how I felt at that point. A few of us decide to go out for a walk, and that was where I made the statement of the night: "I can't feel my lips!" Seriously, my lips had gone numb, and they felt all rubbery and whatnot. Anyway, along the way I see Rich and Will, and Will is tipsy himself. We all walk around and make our way to Josh's in the 7s. We were having fun and whatnot, partially because everything seemed more funny to me and I was laughing in a high pitched laugh, the same Brian from Family Guy laughs when he's drunk. It was about that time that my body decided to let me know that I had enough. That was when I had my first intimate encounter with the toilet. It would not be the last of the night. I was too gone to go back to my room, so I made my temporary bed on Josh's recliner. I braved the storm in my stomach a few times that night, but in the morning I was fine. I cleaned myself up and headed back to my room, but I saw Ron and CJ along the way, and they were heading to the Commons, so I decided to get something in my stomach since most of it's contents were gone at that point.

Sunday, CJ and I drive Ron home. We chilled at his house for a while and then we headed back. It's supposed to be a 90 minute trip, but it ended up becoming a 3 hour ride due to the fact that Worcester Mass. is one gigantic circle. CJ and I left Ron's at a quarter to 5 and made it back to Hartford sometime after 7. After that trip I chilled out for a while, then I went and hung out with Josh. I hung out with him, his sister Becky (who started school here this year) and his friend Jay Stone from Josh's hometown. They had plenty of drinks there, but I made sure I didn't make a repeat of the night before. Plus, I wasn't much in the drinking mood. I had a beer, but I just couldn't enjoy it. Can you blame me?! Anyway, we spent the night playing Monopoly and Texas Hold'em. I wasn't too much in the gaming spirit, but I had a good time anyway. Towards the end of the night, Josh, Jay and I forged a tickle assault against Becky. Fun was had by all, except for maybe Becky, but we all had fun that night.

Monday, still trying to recover from Saturday, my midsection is sore because I used muscles I hadn't used in a while when I threw up. I took it easy, walked around a bit, enjoyed the nice day, called a few people. Nothing too special since I had all the fun I wanted to have in a weekend. Overall, good times were had by all, and I explored a different side of me. Not that I'll be exploring that side again anytime soon, but hey, live and learn.

Back In the Swing (2005 Edition)

[Listening to: QB3 - Before Dawn from the album "The Form of Space"]

Happy September everyone! I'm here back exactly where I was in May, sitting on my side of the corner in my dorm, on my computer. I moved back to school on Sunday after a long period of not knowing if I'd be able to get all my stuff back up to school due to the fact that my dad is on some "all about me" shit right now. But it's all good, I have a mother that rolls with the punches, a very good driver and friend, and a very brave aunt that let us borrow her minivan for the day, so all went well. Classes are going to be a bit hard this term, but I'm ready to take on whatever is ahead of me. I'm also planning to find a jorb in order to pay for the laptop that I want to get. I'm pretty optimistic about this year, especially since RLC 111 is looking pretty bright the second time around. Room 1101 has two new suitemates. In the place of Kyle (who ended up in Park River somehow even though he was status 3 that lucky motherf.....) is Gary, a senior and Communications major. He's pretty laid back and cool. In the place of Ron (who transferred to Worcester State since he got his Associate's Degree) is Curtis, an electrical engineering student from Hong Kong. Really nice guy, hard to understand at times but we all like him. Darren and CJ are still here, I'm very happy about that.

Now that I got that out of the way, I have to talk about Friday before I headed back to school. Friday night, St. Clair and I went to see an Indie Fusion group called Root Valdez. They were performing at this spot called The Lucky Cat in Williamsburg. It's a nice little spot, I like the intimate feel and vibe of it. I had talked to Fred Gerantabee (the guitarist) and Chris Heinz (the drummer) on this forum for Indie label Ghetto Crush Industries. They persuaded me to drop by for the show. What a great show it was. Along with Root Valdez was a band called Soleo, and Acid Jazz/Funk group. They were incredible! Their band hits were on point and were their specialty. There was this Salsa song they played, that was the highlight of their set. I wish I could hear it again and again.

Soleo and RV switched sets through the night, keeping things fresh and giving the bands a rest between sets. Root Valdez killed it on their sets man! They are such a cohesive band, that in the first song, the bassist was running a little late, so the keyboardist and Fred G played bass notes, and the bassist came in during mid song and joined in like he had been there the whole time. I have to say, Chris Heinz is a hell of a drummer. I had never seen any drummer play 16th notes so cleanly with one hand and 32nd notes without missing a beat. He also did some crazy sound effects with his drum kit, like echo with no effects pedals or anything. Just watching him work his magic was entertainment in itself. Fred G had his guitar hooked up to his laptop using a MIDI pickup, and he had a bunch of different effects using his copy of Reason, and he had some wild sounds coming from his guitar. It was great watching everyone contribute to the surreal sounds that resulted. The saxaphonist was absolutely on fire through the night. He played tenor, alto and soprano sax throughout the sets and even the flute! I don't know what else I can say as to how awesome these guys were!

I got a chance to meet and chat with Fred and Chris. Both really cool guys. Chris recognized me from the message board, which was really cool. Fred said whenever I'm in town to let him know and we'll get together and jam or he'll buy me a drink or something of the sort. I will definitely take him up on the offer to jam, because I'd like to learn a few things from him. Maybe I'll take him up on the drink as well! I also got to meet the sax player, though I never got his name, and I also got to meet Joe Hardy, the bassist from Aleda, a very cool Indie Rock group.

Ah, let me tell you about Ryan and Jill. St. Clair and I decided to take a breather outside for a bit, and while we were out there, we met these two people named Ryan and Jill. I'm not sure if they were a couple, but anyway, we were sharing stories of where we live and where we used to live. Ryan had lived a few places, including Crown Heights at one point. He talked about how he moved from Western Mass, to Crown Heights, to Vermont of all places, and back to NY. His Vermont story was hilarious! He talked about how boring his Vermont town was, and everyone in the town was bored, so they decided to sleep with each other just so they could have a story to tell. Everyone knew who was sleeping with who since the town had only about 40 or so residents.

Ryan: They would wake up one morning and say to themself: "You know what, I think I'm going to sleep with Bob's wife. That would make things interesting."

That story had St. Clair and I rolling. Ryan kinda reminded me of David Cross just a bit, both in appearance and the way he talked. Ryan and Jill were cool people. Jill was realy cute and petite, she had to have been at most 5' tall.

Root Valdez was getting ready to close out the night with one last track, but had to end abruptly because all acts, according to the bar's policy, are supposed to wrap up at 12:30. It was around 2:30 at that point.

Fred: Alright, we're gonna end tonight on a high note! (Someone in the bar notifies him of something) Okay, I guess we're gonna end it here. I think that note was a C#! (Laughs all around)

I was hoping to hear Mind's Eye, and I think they were gonna play it for the last song, but oh well, it was a hell of a set, with songs from their latest album and songs from QB3, a previous album. I left that night with a new found appreciation for two great bands, new friends, and some amazing pictures! St. Clair had an equally great time. What a great night that was.

And now I'm back to the old grind, but what a way to top off my summer!