Just recently came back from Monday night's "No Fear music tour," at the House of Blues in Anaheim's Downtown Disney district. The show featured "Killswitch Engage," "Dragonforce," "Chimaira," and "He Is Legend." Once again, another metal show with a sea of guys wearing black shirts, with the guys populating 95% of the audience. But that 5% of girls though? A good amount of them were pretty damn smokin hot! It's humorous watching all the guys look and just grin whenever they see a hot girl walk by them. Speaking of looking, a lot of people were actually turning their eyes towards the shirt I was wearing. I seemed to have been the only one wearing the "Colonel Sanders" lookalike KSE shirt, that features guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz (who wasn't performing because of a back injury), and people were getting a kick seeing it.

I did go to the show to specifically see Dragonforce and Killswitch Engage. I didn't care too much for He Is Legend or Chimaira. Oddly enough, it turned out that Downtown Disney security and Anaheim Police Department put an alert out to watch out for some of the fans attending this concert. Apparently, the last time Chimaira had a show at the venue, there was almost a small riot from their fans. Luckily, that didn't happen this time, since the majority of the attendees were there for Dragonforce and Killswitch Engage.

This is my first Dragonforce show, and it was quite the treat. Billed as the fastest power metal band around, I was curious to see if they can pull off the speed they showcased on their albums with a live performance. The answer to that is yes...and I don't know. The sound mix at the HOB put the bass up a little too high for my taste that it drowns out a lot of the guitar sounds. It sounds like they are pulling it off, but I can't completely commit to that statement. They do know how to make an entertaining performance though, with the band members walking around the stage a lot, jumping around off things like the speakers, platforms, and just jumping around for the heck of it. The keyboardist even pulls out a keytar, which is something I never thought was a very metal thing to do... hehe. If you've never heard of Dragonforce before, you need to be told that their songs' lyrics are hella long. Long enough that the average fan couldn't really sing along often. That was never more true than when the lead singer stopped singing the chorus of one of their songs, and while he was expecting to hear the crowd sing it for him, there was nothing. They stopped the song altogether at that point and one of their guitarist goes "THAT was piss-POOR!" After a laugh from that, they continued playing. Awesome performance, and I'd definitely like to see another show from them again.

Now this is I believe my third Killswitch Engage show, and it was absolutely incredible. They played a good amount of songs from all their albums (not counting the indie first release), and while I didn't know all the lyrics to their songs, I sure as hell knew how to headbang to them. A little after a couple of songs, singer Howard Jones ended up lecturing the crowd for "looking like they are sleeping." I've mentioned this myself many a times in previous concert blogs, but fans nowadays need to be more active. This is a metal concert for cryin out loud, headbang like there's no tomorrow at least. He goes on pointing out some people who were on their cellphones, and ended up making fun of them. It was awesome! The last time I saw something like that happen was at last year's KROQ wienie roast when Rob Zombie did the same kind of rant. Later on in their setlist however, the fans redeemed themselves. When performing what is probably one of my most favorite KSE songs; "End of Heartache," Howard Jones asked the audience to sing the song to the band, and to my surprise practically the whole crowd sang the whole song and knew the lyrics. Singing that song with a whole crowd was an awesome moment to highlight the night. KSE rocked!

The show was completely sold out, and man were there a lot of people in attendance. We were all packed together like sardines in a
can, and it was pretty much a sauna in the venue. Oh, and since this is
the House of Blues and it's absolutely no photo/video/audio taping
rule, I do not have pictures or videos from this concert. Unfortunate,
but I at least was simply able to enjoy the show without too much
distraction.

Random Warlocks

snackout (video)

white chicks with gang signs (video)

the Apple iRack (video)

How we hacked the Super Bowl (video)

BeatBox de la Nouvelle Star 2007 (video)

war on drug prices (link)

Conan O Brian's iPhone commercial (video)

baby with gun (video)

Sand Castle Explosions Backwards v.1 (video)

vote for the worst American Idol (link)

Ever since Google bought youtube, the site has been pretty unreliable in some video searches because of all the lawsuits, and it's been a lot slower than before because of the boost in popularity. However, I can't deny the fact that it is still the premiere site for the largest collection of videos online. Lately, I've started taking advantage of that fact by watching the fansubbed releases of "Naruto Shipuuden." I used to just download the bittorrent of the show, but this is kinda more convenient. It's definitely different than it was a decade ago, when I would have to literally request VHS copies of anime fansubs through snail mail. So now that I dipped my foot in watching an anime series through youtube, I've gotta say, pretty cool. I'm definitely going to check out some other series that I can watch on youtube.

movies I've seen recently...

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)  A-

Well this is a very entertaining film, meant to shake things up with America's premiere motion picture ratings board; the MPAA. In my opinion, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" may be a documentary, but it's terribly one sided in it's opinion, that it's really more of an opinion piece on the subject matter. Director Kirby Dick does a great job showing us his pursuit on figuring out why the MPAA acts like such a shady secret shadowy group, and asking opinions from film makers who were affected by them. Part of the fun of this movie is the detective work that we get to observe, when the film makers hired a private investigator to help them out. The MPAA is a broken system that needs to be reworked from the ground up, and this film proves it. This is a group that considers a one second shot of pubic hair more outrageous than a shot of a person getting their head blown off by a gun at close range. When watching the DVD, make sure you check out the deleted scenes, as those are also quite essential to watch.

Ghost Rider  (2007)  C

This is what I would call a "throw-away" comic book movie. "Ghost Rider" is not really that great, but it isn't downright horrible either. It plays like it wants to be this fun movie to watch, and in it's defense, it is kinda fun.  It's quite forgetable though, and the characters aren't all that memorable. Even Ghost Rider himself is merely an adequately made CGI effect, that really should have been better. Nicholas Cage gets to act "like Nicholas Cage" and even tries to liven things up with some odd mannerisms, that gives us a clue that we really aren't meant to take things seriously in this film. This could have been a great movie, but right now it really is just an average flick you'll catch on TV once in awhile.

Breach  (2007)  B-

This is a movie that doesn't really need to be seen on the big screen, because visually it's not that arresting, and the pace of the story is a little slower than I wished. However "Breach" is compelling in that we are witnessing how the FBI eventually stopped the greatest security breach in U.S. history. Chris Cooper does another solid work as the master spy, and really shows us a man who carefully made sure not to ever get caught. Not really the most action packed film to watch, but the subject matter is interesting enough to see through.

Especially Random In Michigan

Crazy acid throwing woman (video)

PS3 To Cure Cancer (link)

Giant Robot Dinosaurs (video)

Stephen Colbert gets Captain America's shield (video)

Sonido Lasser Drakar (video)

Subaru Impreza wire frame sculpture (pics)

Jazz Dispute (video)

It's about You (quiz)

helicopter stays down (video)

Jay And Silent Bob: The F-ng Short Version - NSFW LANGUAGE! (video)

-- Stan Lee talks X-Men -- (my youtube)
-- Beer Chugging on Attack Of The Show -- (my youtube)

Well, this past day has been a very unproductive and productive day.

I'm in the middle of my five days weekend and I hit a bit of a snag. Just like what happened the last time last year, I noticed that the temperature gauge of my car is going a lot higher than it probably should. I was taking my car in for a 55,000 miles service anyways, so I'll let them check it out while I'm there. It turns out that the local mechanic I took my car to last year didn't do a good job with my radiator / air condenser problem. This caused a huge problem, and I now have to get it fixed again, costing me $1300+! Friggin A! I'm never going to go to some no name local mechanic who has no accountability to do their job correctly ever again!

The car had to be worked on for six hours today; from 10AM - 4PM. To pass the time, I was listening to an mp3 of the Kevin & Bean show, took the shuttle to the mall, walked around the mall, watched a movie (Ghost Rider - only movie that was convenient to watch at the moment), walked around the mall some more, and got back to kill about another hour before getting my car back. There was a risk of them keeping my car over a day, but thank goodness that didn't happen.

I almost got into a car accident today too. When I was taking the shuttle back to the dealership, the ride was going smoothly, when I noticed a truck merge in our lane a couple or so cars away. A second after that truck merged to my lane; and braking btw, I was thinking to myself "why isn't my driver braking?" Sure enough the driver suddenly notices the truck and slams on the brake, SSCCREEEEECCCCHHHHH! No harm done I guess, and I was oddly enough not even remotely scared the moment it was happening.

I swung by my fiance's work place and helped her out with some work... humorously ofcourse. I'd like to think I was entertaining her at the same time I was helping her, although she could have easily have just been getting annoyed at my antics. Then after work, went home to feed the dogs, then went to Black Angus for dinner.

Being that for the most part I was doing things to pretty much just waste time, I would call it being unproductive. At the same time though, I got my car fixed, saw yet another movie, helped out with my fiance, and even went out for dinner with her on what would have been a normal work night for me, so I would kinda call that also being productive. Hence why I would call today a very unproductive productive day.

Going to see Meg & Dia again later tonight, at the El Rey theater in Los Angeles. I'll just re-edit this post later tonight (or very early tomorrow morning) after the show.

Well, here I go...

So I left for the El Rey theater at about 6:05PM, an hour later than I wanted, especially since the first act starts playing at 7:30PM. I wasn't sure if traffic or parking was going to kill me, but I'm sure I could at least make the 8:15PM with Meg & Dia. Roughly 30 miles away from home, it just occurred to me, I left my digital camera at home! Damn, I'll have to rely on my cellphone camera, which I guess is better than nothing. It however made me realize that I'll get to enjoy the show a lot more with less distractions from me taking pictures and what not, so maybe there's a positive in this. Anyways, traffic wasn't horrible, parking wasn't horrible, and I was there at about 7:15PM. Not bad. I gave Shannon a data-DVD of the photos I took at the Glasshouse this past saturday, since she asked me for them, and since she was able to get me that photopass and all.

I found myself a spot near the side front of the stage, and "Jonezetta" started to play. I didn't get to hear them play the other night, but I'm glad that I got to hear them now, because they are pretty good. I like the sound they have, and I even bought a copy of their CD after the show, and even got the lead singer to sign it.

In between their set, I got to talk with a couple of other Meg & Dia fans who were standing next to me. That is one of the best things about going to their concerts, I get to meet other fans. One of them was even pretty loud and lively. She unfortunately felt that other people in the room may have thought she was annoying because of that, and commented about how UN-lively a lot of the audience were. I told her to ignore them, and just to continue enjoying the show. Also what she said is sad but true, and I've said this before myself, people who go to concerts should at the least get into the music. Bop your heads up and down at least for cryin out loud.

Meg & Dia played another solid performance, and stuck to the same setlist they did in the Glasshouse. This time around, Meg joined Dia in going barefoot on stage. Just like I noticed in Pomona however, Meg & Dia fans for this tour was a lot less, compared to the fans of "Bayside" and "Anberlin." That just reminded me that they are still quite the up and coming band.

After their set and also while Bayside was playing, I was pretty much just hanging out with whichever band member was kicking it with the crowd at that time. I briefly saw John, Carlo, and Meg, but they had somewhere else to be at that time. The next best thing ofcourse is to go hang out with Shannon at the merchandise table. Suddenly, I get approached by an old board member friend who I met from last year's show at the Alley. He even bought me a drink, which was cool of him to do so. Dia all of a sudden shows up, so we approached her, chatted it up a little bit, took pictures, signed my ticket, usual stuff. John then came out soon after, and even took over the merchandise table.

Dia disappears somewhere all of a sudden, but Meg shows up a little later instead. My friend offered her a drink and we just hang out with her and Shannon. I went and offered Shannon a shot of pure vodka, which embarassingly enough was the wrong thing to get her, because it'll be much too strong as it is. We went back to the bar, she asked for some cranberry juice, mixed it up with the vodka and split it to two shot glasses. She gave the other one to her friend, and the next thing I knew, I was having drinks with Meg, Shannon, and two hot friends of theirs. Pretty sweet. Later on, Carlo took over the merchandise table, so me and my friend went over there to hang out with him.

Anberlin started playing, listened to a good chunk of their set, went over to get myself a grilled chicken sandwich (haven't eaten all day), and the next thing I know it, the whole show was over. Afterwards outside, I said bye to Carlo, John, and my board member friend. I couldn't get back in to say bye to the rest of the band unfortunately. Oddly enough, I was even able to have a conversation with Carlo's mom of all people. We chatted in Tagalog, and jokingly questioned her whether the show was too loud for her (she said she was just fine - rock on). That's pretty much how I ended the whole show, I talked with Carlo's mom. I wouldn't have guessed.

Until the next Meg & Dia show next month!

p.s. Security was pretty strict with their no video taping policy, and stopped so many people caught doing that. It made me feel a bit better about forgetting my digital camera at home.

Strip My Random Mind

Pete & Brian's Knock Knock joke (video)

parking lot nut shot (video)

this magician's got talent (video)

robotic parking garage (link-video)

Guy drives through mall (video)

How to dance at a rave (video)

South park Wheel of Fortune (video)

Russian Mafia Grave Tombs (pics)

origins of Gears of War (link)

R2-D2 Mailboxes (link)