Archive for February, 2008

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Order 66

February 29, 2008

There are a thousand times anyone can count that they said they would change a money spending habit. I’ve just hit a thousand and one. Just when I think I’m doing well on controlling my spending money…I get hungry. When I get hungry I spend money on eating out all week. Then when I want to make an important investment, no cash.

My important investment this time around? An electric-acoustic guitar. Specifically this one.

I am taking drastic measures to not spend any money. I have no problem taking orders from myself and following them. I am executing Order 66 and NOT touching my debit or credit cards for anything. If I need food, I’ll scrap some shit together at home. But no swiping PERIOD. I’ll take 20 bucks out of my checks each week for small expenses here and there, but once that’s gone it’s gone.

I’ll keep updates on my new orders and how well I comply.

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Open Mic Adventures 2/27/08

February 28, 2008

I loved being in a band in high school. It was probably the best times I ever had with the two coolest kids. We had a lot of fun and we made music that we liked. I never saw me playing music in any other situation, especially solo. But times change and people go to college and work and get old. Times are rough for everyone right now but we all get through it.

I decided to hit the open-mic stage again. Although I can’t say it worked out as well as I’d hoped. I was trying to write a new song so I didn’t have to play the same one twice. I ended up writing a new song on the day of the open-mic which was not the best idea. It is a song I am proud of, however I was hardly comfortable with it. That was the first mistake I learned from. The second mistake was not being energized enough. It’s impossible to go from sitting on your ass watching TV and then jump up and play. It just doesn’t work. But that’s basically what happened, except I was watching the other people. My first open-mic was great because I was full of energy and I got up there and blew myself away with how it sounded. I hope the crowd liked it just as much.

Here’s what I will do to prepare for the next one in two weeks:

1. Have songs ready and practiced before the day of.

2. Be fucking excited and full of energy before stepping foot into that place.

3. Stop spending money on shit so I can buy a guitar.($200 Headphones were worth it though)

I’m gonna skip the next open-mic so i can better prepare for THE RETURN OF THE JEDI.

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Ryan Blogs The Oscars (yo queiro Oscars)

February 25, 2008

I decided to do something I have never done before, and that is to sit and watch the Oscars in it’s entirety. At the same time I will be blogging as I go when different shit happens. We’ll see how this works out.

Welcome to

“Ryan Blogs The Oscars”

8:23 pm- Just sat down and the pre-show red carpet is on. I have my taco bell as this years Oscar dinner. And it’s an extra special dinner because I won a bean burrito from that coin drop game.Okay so Regis is one of the reporters, he’s my favorite old dude. He’s been around so long he can do whatever he wants, I hope he slaps somebody.

8:30- Loving the 3D bigass montage opening.

8:32- WHAT! i didn’t know Jon Stewart was hosting! I should pay attention more

8:39- 2 tacos and one burrito down…biiig mistake. And Jon keep the laughs going.(hopefully not too much…the tacos)

8:40- Gaydolph Titler. YES! Okay here comes the first awards. JENNIFER GARNER!!! If i didn’t eat those tacos I’d be a little more physically active, ya know, heh, ya know?

8:43- Streisand is so ugly.

First Commercial Break: Jon Stewart hosts= awesome, Costume Design Oscar=who cares, Winner of Costume Design=Skeletor, Taco Bell= Bad choice

8:49- good montage of past 80 years, but please no more Celine Dion OH RUSSEL CROWE! awesome guy.

I’m glad Jon just portrayed the stupidity of watching a movie on a phone.

Best Animated Feature Film

My guess- gotta be Ratatouille, not that french shit they just showed. FUCK penguins.

Winner- Ratatouille DUH! Love Pixar and they definitely deserve it. Even though I wished it was funnier.

YES! He got kicked off stage for taking too long, gotta love it.

Makeup award OH MY GOD I HOPE NORBIT WINS!

oh no such luck though.

8:58 they are loving kicking off winners with the music.

8:59- Amy Adams gets to sing. This song is going to make my ears bleed, but it won’t deter my eyes from staring at her chest.

Second Commercial Break: So far so good. No wasted time. Norbit will never win. Steve Carrell is hilarious. Saving my last taco for later. Katherine Heigl was nervous as shit so i feel kinda bad.

9:07- Best Digital Effects-

My Pick- TRANSFORMERS!!!

Winner- Golden Compass. bull SHIT! Transformers gets it and you KNOW it.

9:09- Cutaway to Harrison Ford smiling, clapping, ignoring whatever his wife is trying to say.

9:12- Okay somebody tricked those foreign people into saying that stuff in their acceptance speech coughTIMBURTONcough

9:15- Best Supporting Actor

My Pick- Casey Affleck for being a crazy bastard in Jesse James and excelling at it

Winner- Javier Bardem “No Country For Old Men”, I can live with that, he was fucking scary…friend-o

Third Commercial Break- Cool can’t wait for Owen Wilson to come in and have everyone try to avoid the big elephant in the room. Time for the last taco.

9:25- another musical performance? what the FUCK!

9:28- Owen Wilson, and we are all supposed to pretend it’s all okay. He even feels it, he is just straight out monotone. Then again, I’d be be pissed reading all those foreign titles too.

9:32- Why are all the short films foreign?

9:38- Best Supporting Actress

Winner- Tilda Swinton “Micheal Clayton” What the hell is she wearing? AWESOME joke about Clooney and the batsuit with nipples. Best acceptance speech so far.

Fourth Commercial Break- My last taco is cold.

9:43- And we’re back, with Jessica Alba who is hott as hell but unfortunately has shown she can’t really act.

9:46- Best Adapted Screenplay

My pick- Either “There Will Be Blood” or “No Country For Old Men”

Winner- No Country For Old Men, Coen Brothers. Seems all good, but i hated any time an old man was talking in the film.

9:52- Miley Cyrus…WHY!??! another SONG!???!!! WHY!!?!?!?!?!

Fifth Commercial Break- A pretty solid show overall, minus all the music performances so far. But I guess I understand why it would be in there.

10:00- WHAT this is awesome. He announced Dame Judy Dench and Halle Berry but Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill came out in their place, fucking awesome.

Best Sound Editing

Winner- Bourne Ultimatum, what the FUCK how did Transformers NOT win!!! Bourne was awesome but what about giant fucking ROBOTS and clanks and noises and transforming shit.

10:05- Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill again are hilarious, bickering about who is going to be Halle Berry and who’s Judy Dench.

Best Sound Mixing

Winner- Bourne Ultimatum, AGAIN transformers loses. I’m no sound expert but robot noises are better.

10:07- Best Lead Actress

My Pick- Ellen Page, just because everyone wants to see her win.

Winner- Some French Hottie

Sixth Commercial Break- Having Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill on stage was fricken awesome.

10:17- Bringing us back, Wii Tennis on a HUGE screen equals awesome. Colin Farrell looks like Jesse from Full House with that hair.

Aaaand another song. I saw them perform this song on Conan or Leno or something, it’s kind of an annoying song.

10:22- Jack Nicholson, YES! He’s crazy. and old. Are we really going to see all the last 79 movies to win best picture listed one by one?

10:29- Jon Stewart is being awesome. Nicole Kidman has like a trillion dollar necklace on. Cameron Diaz in the audience, has she been in anything lately?

10:33- That’s one old dude. Getting the honorary Lifetime Achievement Award. Boy this guy likes to talk, but they’d feel to bad to give him the music boot.

Seventh Commercial Break- Starting to feel dragged out a TINY bit.

10:41- Penelope Cruz, yes, she is hott as hell, but i hate her accent.

10:44- Great, another Enchanged song.

10:48- John Travolta dances in like a HO-MO.

10:51- Jon Stewart just bashed the guy who just won, “wow, that guy was arrogant”

Eight Commercial Break- Anticipating the imminent Heath Ledger tribute. Seeing that is going to be unreal. What’ll be even more unreal is seeing him as the Joker this summer. Just saw a preview for a TV Movie with Puff Daddy in it, wow he should not be acting. Shit or is it P. Diddy.

10:58- Cameron Diaz, sure she’s a hotty but I’m not a blonde kinda guy.

11:01- oh man, im drifting off. I’ll make it through.

11:02- A tribute to dead film people. Showed Heath ledger at the very end of it. and then a very subtle outro to commercials.

Ninth Commercial break- i have itchy eyes dammit.

11:11- Awesome Tom Hanks intro by Stewart.

11:14- This chick who just won looks like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

Tenth Commercial Break- Getting a little uneventful for a bit.

11:23- Harrison Ford, cue the Indiana Jones theme. MAN he’s old now.

Best Original Screenplay

Winner- Juno, duuuuhh, give it to the stripper to create the Hollywood success story. But it was well deserved.

Tenth Commercial break- Getting towards the end i think.

11:28- Best Lead Actor

My Pick- Daniel Day-Lewis for being fucking crazy. please NOT Johnny Depp

Winner- Daniel Day-Lewis thank god. This guy is insane I don’t know how he does it.

Eleventh Commercial break- Best picture is next and i’m betting on There Will Be Blood

11:40- Best Director

My Pick- No Country For Old Men

Winner- No Country For Old Men

11:44- Best Motion Picture

My Pick- There Will Be Blood

Winner- No Country For Old Men, I don’t like this choice a whole lot. But it wasn’t too far off. But I still don’t like the choice.

Well that was that. I can’t say I’ve fully enjoyed watching these awards all the way through. It had it’s moments though. They kept me entertained enough to stay awake though. Looking back at this whole coverage thing I just did, if you didn’t watch the oscars then it might mean nothing. Hope you enjoyed reading this if you DID watch though.

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TV Time

February 24, 2008

I don’t watch too much TV. I mostly get my shows on DVD but hope to break that expensive habit, basically hoping for the future of when you can watch anything free on the internet without any ads for a small flat fee. That my friends IS the future.

But while I am stuck in the now, I will stick to my DVR. The two shows I watch every episode of on late night TV is Late Night with Conan O’Brien and SNL.

Let’s start with the “Cone Bone”.

When I decided back in October that I loved Conan O’Brien, the writers went on strike. I was stuck with repeats for a month. But I was happy that those repeats included The White Stripes performance. When Conan came back on the air without the writers, I was super excited. His show was one hundred times better than it had been before, no offense to the writers but Conan had it going good. I mean EVERY skit, gag, joke and outburst was hilarious. I kept every episode.

When news of the writers strike being over came out, I felt sad. But i had a glimmer of hope that maybe everyone at Late Night saw how much better the show was and would adjust things. Nothing changed. It all went back to the normal formula and I was left bored again with most of the episodes. He has his moments in each episode but not like the Strike-era. Those were by far the best episodes of Conan O’Brien ever. When he soon takes over The Tonight Show, I hope things change. I’d hate to see the same ol’ format take over.

The format I’m referring to is: ten minute monologue, skit, maybe another segment, guest, possible skit/segment, guest, music performance. When the writers were gone the format was for the most part thrown out the window and it was tons of Conan shenanigans. I miss the beard.

The second late night show I love is Saturday Night Live.

Now I KNOW most of the show is crap most of the time. But when it has its moments, it HAS it’s moments. And I’ve noticed that things have been getting better as the years of this cast has gone on. I miss Tina Fey, and I really miss Jimmy Fallon. Those were probably my two favorites when they were on.

Of the current cast, my favorites are Andy Samberg and Bill Hader. I wasn’t always the biggest Hader fan until last night’s brand new episode back from the strike. Bill Hader did this SPOT ON impression of Daniel Day-Lewis’s character from There Will Be Blood. It was one of the funniest sketches ever. It also had a joke on . Unfortunately those two movies weren’t seen by a lot of the general viewers and it may not have been found funny by everyone. But if you did see There Will Be Blood you will laugh your ass off. Bill Hader does a whole play on the “I drink your milkshake” speech from the movie.

I’m also a huge Tina Fey/30 Rock fan, so I was thrilled that she was hosting and actually going to be in a bunch of the sketches. She is every fanboys crush and I am a bit of a fanboy myself.

I will tread on through the disappointment of most of the Conan episodes and the obvious dead parts of SNL. But the funny parts are so worth it.

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Sick World, Sick People

February 20, 2008

I was just checking out my blog stats today. For those of you who do not use wordpress, there is a feature in which you can check out how many people have viewed your blog and how they got there if they searched or clicked on a link.

This is what I found under the search terms that people used to get to my blog:

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Now before you attack me and ask why there would be such a thing on my blog, check out the first paragraph of my Jumper Review.

Ya know, I know this shit happens, but I never wanted to come to such close realization to it.

Gotta love the interweb.

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The Travel to the Secret Stash

February 20, 2008

When I was a youngling, my family went on quite a few trips. My Dad was the navigation guru, he had visual maps in his head and all he had to do was look at it once. I don’t believe we ever actually left New England but we still saw some stuff. We went to amusement parks and other historical places that I could care less about. I loved the rides. That was the highlight of the trips for me, not even arriving but the actual travel. As I got older that love for being on the road grew more as I got into music. I love traveling and being able to listen to two or three full albums in one shot without stopping. Nothing has changed.I just took another trip, and I haven’t taken one in a long time. This time my brothers, Dad and I went to Red Bank, NJ. What’s in Red Bank you might ask? Well in my last post I wrote a whole lot about Kevin Smith, that was intended to be an introduction to this story but I got way to into it. We were headed towards a little place called Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash.

We estimated that it would take about 4 hours to get there. I was thrilled equally for the ride and the destination, for a change. This trip was different because it was actually something for my interest and not a trip planned by my parents. I prepared for the trip the day before by getting a ton of new music to listen to. Then I headed to a local store and bought a sweet pair of headphones for $180. They were Bose brand and Bose knows that those headphones could have been sold for $100 bucks, but they also know there are people like me who are willing to pay $180 bucks anyway. I got them cheaper then the Bose website sells them for though. Good game Bose, well played.

The next morning came and my Dad said he’d be at the house to pick us up and leave at 9am, so we made sure we were ready by 10am for when he actually would show up. We left at around 10:45am and were on the road about 2 hours. I loved it. I listened to a couple albums on my awesome new Bose headphones. We hit the Cracker Barrel for breakfast…at 1pm. If you haven’t been to a Cracker Barrel I suggest you go there, they make my favorite pancakes. They also have a game that gets played with little golf tees on a wooden triangle, and it basically tells you how stupid you are.

We drove off again after breakfast and stopped at a rest stop with a McDonalds. I just have to make a point of saying that rest stop fast food employees are the most grumpy, depressed people you will ever meet in your life and I highly recommend getting an education to anyone. I understand though, you work at a 24-hour McDonalds rest stop and the only other food in walking distance for your lunch break is the McDonalds rest stop across the highway. I never appreciated my good ol’ neighborhood McDonalds so much.

After about 5 hours and about 200 miles, we arrived at the stash at 4pm. I looked at the outside and the big sign that I’ve been dying to see, and then “FUCK I didn’t bring a camera!”. One of the biggest mistakes of my life. There was a lot of cool displays in there that I could have stood next to. Such as the big sign that says “Brodie’s” that was used in Strike Back, a couple uniforms worn by Jeff Anderson and Rosario Dawson in Clerks II, and a lot of other small things from the different movies.

Fuck, I should have brought a camera.

I guess I never realized before how much the Stash is more of a comic book store than a Kevin Smith movie store. Which now that I know that, I think is really awesome. The store isn’t just a money making scheme by selling View Askew production stuff, it is a really really good comic book store. I don’t read comics, and I can tell that it is way up there as far as comics go. They had tons of action figures, statues, figurines, signs, and EVERYTHING that I would buy if I had the cash. Unfortunately, we hit this place in the dead of winter where I have very little cash to spend and I spent too much anyway, but it was so worth it. Kevin Smith personally signs so much stuff in that store, which is really cool of him.

Here’s the stuff I bought.

Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash

The Bag…It’s awesome right?

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Jay and Silent Bob posters

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Signed Kevin Smith Inaction Figure

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Signed Book

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A shirt with Brodie “Saaaaay…would you like a chocolate covered Pretzel?

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Need I say more?

We were in there for about an hour, my two brothers and I loaded up and then checked out. The guy at the counter was Walt Flanagan. I recognized his voice from one of the Smodcasts but he seemed a little grumpy so I was too afraid to say anything. He was also in most of Smith’s films, mostly as the fanboy who only says “You tell ‘em Steve-Dave”. It was cool to meet someone who is pretty much good friends with Smith, but that and the store was about as close as I’d get to seeing Smith himself.

We pretty much got dinner at a Red Bank Subway and then hit the road back home. Was the trip worth it? Well, a total of 10 hours was on the road and 1 hour spent in the store. It was fuckin’ cool though. My iPod just barely made it the whole average of 10 hours. I listened to a couple Movie Blog Podcasts and a Smodcast on the way back home. Then hit the new music again.

I think if I go there again it will probably be an added destination to another place, because the 10 hour trade for 1 hour was worth it this time, but again it would be slightly inconvenient. If you ever get down in that area and are a Smith fan, or even more so a comic book fan, then you should definitely stop by the store. It’s real easy to get to off of the Garden State Parkway too.

My next goal is to go on another road trip, start small, but actually drive it. The love of the road goes along well with being a musician. What better way to travel than to be on a concert tour at the same time. That would by far be the most rewarding lifestyle for me. Travel for 8 hours listening to music or watching awesome movies, and then hitting the stage to play to about 10 or 12 people. Fuck yes.

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Pillow Pants 4 Life

February 20, 2008

When I was 12 years old, my brother put on a movie called Mallrats. I was in no way prepared to see a topless fortune teller with three nipples. It very well could have been my first time seeing nudity in a movie, but I’m not quite sure. It is an interesting way to start though. I saw it because my older brother was watching it in the living room so what choice did I have but to watch it. Then when I was 13 my older brother took me to the movies and he ordered tickets for Rat Race, but when the movie started I realized that we hadn’t walked into the Rat Race theater but into a movie called Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I loved that fucking movie. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, probably because I never heard any talk like that before. I was hooked right from the first musical number:

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Mother mother fuck. Mother mother fuck fuck. Mother fuck mother fuck.
Noise noise noise.
1 2 1 2 3 4
Noise noise noise.
Smokin weed, smokin weed.
Doin’ coke, drinkin beers.
Drinkin beers, beers beers.
Rollin’ fatties, smokin blunts.
Who smokes the blunts? We smoke the blunts.
Rollin’ blunts and smokin

That was quite possibly the start of my path down indecency and fuck and fart jokes. There’s no better humor to make somebody laugh their ass off and at the same time want to throw up. For a while, I didn’t find out about the man behind this movie who was right in front of my face on the big screen the whole time.

When I was 16 years old was when I started to realize how much I loved movies, and then I started to really appreciate them and see some insanely good films. I went on a rampage and depleted any savings I had from working on DVD’s. I then came across Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back and my reaction was pure fucking joy at finding this movie I saw 3 years ago. There was a shitload of special features and I eventually found out about Kevin Smith through that DVD. I did some research and found out about all his other movies.

I saw the genius in this guy and bought all his movies. All of them are hilarious, and at the same time they have great emotion and heart to tie it all together so it isn’t just some stupid comedy. I’m pretty sure most of us have seen at least one of his movies and there is no denying that these movies are some of the best of our time.

He also does Q and A’s and released two DVD’s of those. You can totally see how he can make these movies when you listen to him talk. This guy can tell stories, I mean he can TELL a fucking story. Being funny as hell is also a plus.

He also does a podcast called Smodcast that features mainly Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, but once in a while has some guests on. Those are also hilarious. It’s hard to listen to those if I’m in a public place, I end up looking crazy by laughing out loud. The stories between Kevin and whoever he has on are always hilarious. I recommend listening to those.

Okay this post was originally supposed to be about my trip up to Red Bank, NJ to the Secret Stash but I guess I’m going to have to do a whole new post about that.

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50th Daytona 500

February 17, 2008


I watched the Daytona 500 today. I haven’t watched a Daytona 500 since the 2006 race. After that I started working and just threw that passion out the window against my own free will. But today is another day, and another Daytona 500. I got home around 530pm and that was about right at the halfway mark. All the cars were still in the race, so I assumed the first half was uneventful and let it go. By the last ten laps of the race I remember why I love NASCAR and couldn’t remember why I stopped watching. I was a little frustrated with the last couple yellow flags but I got over it quickly. The last few laps were making me wish I wasn’t watching this thing from my tiny TV and wishing I was in the stands. I’m not one to scream and holler at any spectator event but I think NASCAR would do it.

It was interesting seeing Dale Jr’s new car and new sponsor. I can’t say I’m too crazy about the “amp energy” car, Budweiser was a much cooler sponsor. But it’s not about the sponsors, and I think they take the fun out of any conversation about racing(except for the car that had the huge Viagra logo).

I try not to pay too much attention to Dale Jr., obviously he is given a lot of attention because of his legendary late father, but you can’t deny it. So I kept an eye on him anyway. I think he raced pretty good but he really got a little screwed towards the end when apparently there was too much talking on his radios, and he consequently missed a pit stop. Good race Dale.

As for Tony Stewart, guess all that hair didn’t help. He was running pretty strong, but just didn’t quite make it in the end even with those M&M’s up his @%&.

Ryan Newman…not much comes to mind when I think about him, because again I’ve missed a lot of racing over the past couple years. But that stunt at the end worked out pretty well for him, I think he just got lucky with that little shove but then again, thats racing. So congratulations to Ryan Newman. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on that #12.

Newman wins and does what any Daytona 500 winner would do, he spins the hell out of those wheels. But if you look closely the entire inside of the car is now clouded with smoke and all he could do on the track for a bit was move slowly with smoke pouring out the windows. Now I’m no stoner, but c’mon that was funny.

I’m glad I caught this race today, and I now have a full season of NASCAR ahead of me. Sweet deal.

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Open Mic Adventures – 02/13/08

February 15, 2008

It has been a challenge lately for me to write new songs on the guitar. Then put the songs together and practice them. I just have a lack of places to do so. I finally jumped on that shit because I wanted to play at the open-mic. I was working on a song and it was the day of the open-mic, and i had to scrap the song because it was crap. It was just repetitive and got annoying, and not because I practiced it ten million times, it was just a boring song.

I love when I can say, “damn i wrote a shitty song” and move on. I’m not sure if thats a generally easy thing for a musician/songwriter to do, but hopefully they all do it. Even though I was confident it was going to work, I’m glad I came to the realization that the song sucked and should never be heard by the ears of mortals for they might go deaf.

I was angrily strumming my guitar trying to think what i would play at my open-mic debut, and dug an older song out of the vault. It was a song that I played with my previous band, so the challenge was how can i make it sound good acoustically. I practiced it and a plus was that i was mostly comfortable with the song already, i knew all the words no problem and I knew how to play it. I took a break and went home, then about an hour before leaving for the show I picked up the guitar again just to get it down, and then I made the best modification to the song. I just changed the pre-verse riff from a boring, overused, progression into a brand new thing. Since it was a brand new riff I made sure to play it over and over so i wouldn’t draw a blank when I got on stage.

I showed up at the open-mic and there weren’t too many people there yet. I decided to wait to put my name on the list until the second half. It paid off because more people showed up as it got later. The first bunch of people that got up on stage included a 50 year old blues guy, that told me he got divorced and kicked out of his house, and was sniffing lines of coke. So THAT was cool. I loved a line he used in one of his songs.

The older we get
The better we used to be

That stuck out to me, it is true for the most part. Sure there are plenty of cases in which people get better as they get older, but there’s always a point where you get in your life and then it all goes downhill from there.

I have a friend who was also performing there that night named Andrew. He always does a hilarious stand-up routine based on whatever he was doing recently. I was up right after him, and i decided to tell a story about me and him prior to playing my song.

“Hey guys, i just want to say that Andrew is one of the funniest people I know. And when I was 7 years old i accidentally saw his mom in a bra.”

“HEY it’s not like shes hideous or something!” Andrew yelled from the back.

I came back, “No no, i know. (then in a creepy whisper) It was good”

During the first hour of the show before I played, I was just pumping myself up with energy. I was bouncing around to all the songs, and I was even bobbing up and down to stories/poems/comedy. I think that payed off a lot. You can’t just like get up from sleeping and play a show, it just doesn’t work like that. It was crazy, trying not to sound cocky but I sounded way better than I have ever heard before. Singing wise mostly.

My friend Ian let me borrow his guitar because I couldn’t get my electric-acoustic in time for the show. I also talked about that.

“I want to thank Ian for letting me borrow his guitar for this performance. I couldn’t come up with enough money to get one by today. Apparently not as many people want my body as I thought.”

Did anyone laugh? Well the problem I have is I tend to not remember ANYTHING when I get off stage. I basically just do my thing and some how blackout about the rest. But I asked my supporters(about 2) and they said that there were some laughs. And for whatever reason there was an obscene amount of middle-aged people there, so they probably didn’t appreciate my vulgarity. Especially when Andrew got back up for another routine and I yelled from the back

“I saw his moms tits!”

It was good.

Thank you to everyone that told me “good job”. Even though I was a dick and acted like you were lying. Sometimes I just don’t know how to take a compliment. Thank you.

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My “Jumper” Review

February 15, 2008

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2.5 out of 5

It was always a dream of mine as a kid to be able to teleport anywhere. I’m not talking about that “beam me up scotty” machine, I mean stand there and teleport anywhere. I’m sure as a ten year old kid I was hoping it would be into a girl’s locker room or something. This movie takes teleportation to whole other awesome level. If I could teleport I would want it to be exactly how they do it in this movie.

The story follows a character named David. He finds out he can teleport at a young age, and sees it as a way out of his bad home life. The story also introduces a character called Roland. We find out that he is part of a religious-like group called the Paladins who hunt the people with the ability to teleport. David eventually learns how to use his power and uses it to rob a bank, fast forward ten years and he is living in a New York City suite presumably paid for by his awesome ability.

Roland hears about the bank robberies and David is added to his hit list of people called Jumpers who all have the ability to teleport. The story mentions history of the Jumpers and Paladins and their battle that has been going on for centuries. Another character, a jumper, comes into play and he actually fights back against the Paladins, and Roland is on the top of his list.

The jumping effects in this movie are amazing. They take a simple concept of teleporting and use it in a lot of creative ways. I couldn’t have seen them portray the ability any better then they did. I also liked that the ability wasn’t as simple as think of any old place, they had to have either been there before or have to look at a picture to get there. Basically they create their own arsenal of jumping spots in their heads all over the world.

Hayden Christensen was average acting-wise. He overplayed the part a bit on some more subtle moments, but I thought he was fantastic during scenes of action. Samuel L. Jackson was by far the best character in the film. He was so intensely scary and just did everything 100%, he is one of the best actors and this part just shows how much of one he is. The other jumper that David meets was pretty solid in his part. He was probably the second best part of the movie right behind Samuel L. Jackson.

Now for the disappointments:

The opening was terrible, out of all the ways to introduce the jumpers they chose the worst one. Hayden Christensen was just narrating as they showed him jumping to different parts of the world and being overly cocky.

By far the biggest problem with this movie was the huge potential it had and how they completely missed it all. There was a small part of the movie talking about Jumpers and Paladins, and how they have been battling for centuries. There is an amazing character played by Samuel L. Jackson and the overall mythology of it all. They decided to follow one kid, who in comparison to all the mythology was insignificant, and how he went back to some girl he had a crush on as a kid.

Once you realize the whole potential of this film, it turns out to be a bit of a waste. Not only did it ignore all that potential, but it could have been longer even with the little bit of story they decided to use.

I still recommend you go see it for all the good things i mentioned. Yes, it is disappointing but there is still some things worth seeing here.

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