I'm sorry, but I can't seem to get enough of this Kanye meme that's been going around...
http://kanyelicious.appspot.com/ - Try this, it's pretty funny (click here for an example)
Urban Dictionary term for "Kanyed" - To get interrupted by a self-absorbed raging douchebag during a moment of glory.
interrupting Kanye meme takes over the internet (link)
I'mma let you finish .com (link)
If I remember correctly, the last time I saw "Blink182" was seven years ago at the KROQ LA Invasion, and after they broke up a few years after that, I figured I would never see them in concert again. I'm also pretty sure that I've never seen "Weezer" in concert before either. Well September 17, 2009 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, CA, changed all that. Blink182 is on their reunion tour, and this particular stop had Weezer as the main opening act, plus "Taking Back Sunday" and "Asher Roth" as the openers.
By the time me and my friend got to the venue, Asher Roth was finishing up their set... at least I'm sure that was the band that we could hear from the parking lot. While we were walking through the parking lot, we saw roughly about eight teenage boys and girls get busted by police officers for underage drinking and possible marijuana use. The kids seemed to at least be cooperative, admitting that they were 18 years old and all. Oh well, that was a nice brief distraction. We then went to stand in line to get in, got a drink ($13 beer! + $9 cocktail of Irish Whiskey with Coke), and by the time we got to our seats, Taking Back Sunday was finishing up their set with their last two songs.
When Weezer was up on stage, they started things off with a short cover of "War Pigs" by "Black Sabbath" which was really nice. As soon as they started playing their own song, Rivers Cuomo was unfortunately having mic problems, and we couldn't hear him. His mic was just cutting in and out on him, so I probably heard the crowd sing the song more than we could hear the band. The mic problem was thankfully solved sooner than later. One thing that I thought was pretty cool, is that it seemed like the whole audience knew all the words to their songs. My friend described it as being in a group karaoke session with Weezer just being the band playing the music. Some of the sing-a-longs with the audience was epic, like when they were singing "Perfect Situation" with a lot of the wwoooaahhhh ooohhhh, woooaaahhh ooohhh, woooooaaaaahhhhhhh, woooaaahhhh!
What's personally funny to me is that when Weezer started playing "Say it Ain't So," I couldn't help but think of the resurgence in popularity for that song because of it's inclusion to the video game "Rock Band" (I know I hear that song a lot in Rock Band parties). Speaking of that song, while I was recording it on video with my camera, my batteries died out before the song ended. Say it ain't so indeed. Thankfully I had another spare set of batteries, that I could only guess whether that would last all the way through the end of Blink182's set (they did).
Weezer had a great set list, with I believe was about 15 songs, which includes two cover songs ("War Pig" and "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by the Clash), and a new song called "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To." Rivers Cuomo had a great stage presence and a playful personality, that included joking with the audience and even jumping on a trampoline. It was an awesome set, and I wish they could have played longer.
Psycho Mike from KROQ made an appearance on stage while the crew was setting up Blink182's stuff. It would have been funny if he actually did an impromptu performance, but all he did was say that Blink was coming up next. Ok.
By 9:30PM, Blink182 took the stage and ruled the rest of the night. Their stage setup was mostly just some lighting stuff with not much flash; well except from the flashes coming from the strobe lights. Two guys with guitars and a drummer was all it was to get the crowd pumped up. As is the case with this band, along with the rock music, we also expect funny things being said, and we thankfully got that. This was the return of Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker, and Tom Delonge, back together again, the way we want it to be. Blink182 is back, woo hoo!
The crowd consisted of teenagers to people twice that age, which shouldn't be surprising due to Blink182's popularity. What was a little bit of a surprise to me however was how much they mostly played their popular songs from their last two albums of the 2000s; with a heavy emphasis on their self-titled release. The crowd ate it up though and were very very enthusiastic to sing loudly along to those songs, seemingly more so than their "older" material. I'm guessing these kids who were ten or more years younger than me, relate to the Blink182 from the 00's more than the previous decade; which is okay... I guess. How times have changed. They did play some of their popular songs from the '90s, which even included the song "Carousel" from their first album and even ended their whole set with the song "Dammit" from my most favorite album of theirs; "Dude Ranch." In the end, those of us who grew up with Blink from their first albums were also happy.
At the encore of the show, Travis Barker did a nice drum solo performance that involved having him and his drum set platform elevated above stage. They raised his platform several feet up in the air, twisted it side to side, and even spun it around. Travis still continued to drum along with no problems. Did I mention Travis is freaking great on the drums? No. Well he is. Travis is incredible on drums.
Despite some people in the audience clearly still holding a little bit of a grudge against Tom Delonge for breaking up the band in the first place, I think he pretty much won back the audience with his comedy. After being so serious when he was with "Angels & Airwaves," he is now a funny guy again with the potty humor and the immaturity. He may still have that funny slow-mo walk that he does and his guitar stance is kinda... weird, but Welcome Back Tom! We missed the YOU from Blink182! Tom by the way has improved a lot on his guitar skills (probably due to his time on AVA), with some nice improvisations on the solos to the songs.
This past night was the Mark, Tom and Travis show indeed. It was really great, was awesome, and was fun times all around. This performance proves that they are indeed legends of rock, and I'm look forward to the future of Blink182.
* click here for the PHOTOS I took from the show *
* click here for the VIDEOS I took from the show *
* Early edition of the usual Random Links Friday. I'm actually considering moving it to Thursdays though *
Random Joy Ride
10 Crappiest Public Apologies (link)
If video games were realistic (pics)
POV: Girl Buys Condoms (video)
Most Ridiculously Awesome Fight Scene Ever (video)
Play Fight Turns Into Real Fight - NSFW language (video)
Cross Country Time Lapse (video)
Every Kenny Death From South Park (video)
The Freshman 15 (video)
Woman Rams Car Right Into Moving Train (video)
Ernie Anastos: "Keep F-ing that chicken" - NSFW language (video)
Google Japan animates Google Street View (video)
They Tik R Jawbs! (video)
| What Season is Your Soul Connected To? Your Soul Is Connected to the Spring |
 You are open-minded and always up for a fresh outlook on life. You don't cling to ideas or beliefs. You are sweet hearted and have good intentions. Even though you've seen a lot in life, you remain innocent. |
What I've been listening to lately...
1) Filmspotting - #273
2) Marie Digby - breathing underwater
3) Megadeth - endgame
4) Muse - the resistance
5) Danger Radio - used and abused
6) Beatallica - masterful mystery tour
They say that one thing which defines that a person is "old" is when they are out of touch with the music of the day. I suppose I see the logic in that rationale, as people tend to relate to a span of music that they "grew up with." Music after all reflects a certain age generation, so it's not surprising to embrace that. A particular age group might stick to a particular era like the 70s or the 80s as examples, and doing that definitely makes them seem old and out of touch.
Here's a question though. What does define the music that you grew up with? I'm guessing one of the top answers for people would probably be the music they listened to in High School and College. For some people it's defined by age, from early in their pre-teens to their late 20s. Do people really relate to the music they listened to when their age consisted of only one digit? Can you still embrace or discover new music in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond? I know for sure I can, as I'm still discovering and loving new music artists that are coming out today, and I'm near my mid-30s. I am however noticing that I am starting to lose touch with what's considered popular music nowadays. Am I showing my age?
Part of the problem with not knowing what's considered popular nowadays, is because the medium of discovering music has been splintered so much. You can discover music through live concerts, listening to the radio, hearing particular artists through word of mouth, internet popularity like in youtube, exposure through TV and Movies, etc... But what if you aren't making much effort listening to several of those mediums? In my case, I don't listen to the radio much anymore, and just opt to plug in a music CD or mp3s. Radio in particular is important though right? Because it supposedly defines what's popular in music today. I can understand why the radio plays particular songs over and over and over again, because it increases it's chances of being heard to people like me who hardly turn on the radio anymore. Of course that's one of the reasons I stopped listening to the radio, but whatever.
Going to the Billboard.com website, and looking at the top 10 songs from the "HOT 100," "Billboard 200," "Digital Songs," and "Radio Songs," I admit that I have no idea what half of the songs were. In particular it's the teen stars and the R&B / Hip-Hop songs that I'm definitely out of touch with. Jay Sean, Pitbull, Jason DeRulo, Drake, Trey Songz, etc... These are just a sample of top ten artists of today that I am going "WHO?" I'm not completely out of touch though, as I am familiar with Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Silversun Pickups, Kings of Leon, or Colbie Caillat, and some of them I actually consider myself a fan.
So despite the fact that I'm showing my age by slowing moving away from knowing what's considered popular today, I'm not completely out of the loop just yet. In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in this with people in my age group, or even people much older than me. Music can after all be ageless, and the key here is that as long as you are actively still discovering new music, being "old" makes no difference.
Random Spaceman
"YOU LIE" with Joe Wilson (video)
Kanye West Interrupts Obama's Speech (video)
Wrong Hole (video)
Right wing mother cries on CNN - Hilarious Parody (video)
Remix: Friendly Health Care Town Halls (video)
Stormtroopers' 9/11 (video)
"You Lie!" Interrupts Other Famous Speeches (video)
Retarded Tests (video)
Anxious Dog (video)
50 things that are being killed by the internet (link)
7 Beloved Celebrities And The Awful Things You Forgot They Did (link)
learn something new every day (pix)
This past week, "The Beatles" have once again entered into the mainstream (did they ever leave it?) by releasing their albums once again in the original mono and newly remastered stereo versions. However it's probably the release of "The Beatles : Rock Band" to the current video game consoles out now, that's more significant to the youth of today. A combined effort by Harmonix (creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band), Electronic Arts, MTV, Apple Corps Ltd, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison, and Yoko Ono Lennon, have released a very very special video game that successfully represents this celebrated, popular and influential band.
The Beatles : Rock Band is quite beautiful to look at, with great virtual facsimiles of Paul, John, George, and Ringo, recreated areas that the band played at (venues and studios), and even creative imagery that go with the songs (The Abbey Road Studio sessions in particular are simply gorgeous to look at). This game also follows the band's history from it's beginnings at The Cavern Club in 1963 to their very last public performance together at the rooftops of the Apple Corps building, as well as bonus photos, audios, videos, historical information about the group, and some animated sequences that are just a wonder to see. Containing 45 songs by the band, with additional songs that you can download in the near future, this game is a great demonstration of the band's musical prowess, which covers so many musical genres that it's incredible to hear what they were able to accomplish in less than a decades time. Since the game probably won't be able to have all the songs by The Beatles, it's highly lucky there will be many favorites that unfortunately will not appear on this game.
Like the other Rock Band related video games out there, The Beatles : Rock Band plays very similar to those, and also supports those plastic guitar and drum game controllers (Guitar Hero instruments too), as well as up to three game compatible USB/wireless mics. In a purely gaming stand point, this game's difficulty is relatively easier than the other music game counterparts out there. Admittedly, it's not like game developer Harmonix can make The Beatles' music any harder (or easier) than they already are in real life, and this way the game will be accessible to those who don't have much experience playing video games in the first place. For the video game novices, they can always just use this game like a karaoke machine, and the ability to do vocal harmonies simultaneously supporting three singers total is a huge plus. For video game veterans out there purely looking for a challenging music game, The Beatles:RB honestly may not necessarily be for you. Despite the long replay value the game has, the "story mode" itself isn't that long, and can be beaten within three hours. I consider these complaints quite minor really, because the production value and quality is so top notch.
The Beatles : Rock Band by far is currently the best single band music rhythm game out there (even beating "Guitar Hero : Metallica," which was the best single band music rhythm game around when that was released). The combination of the game play, the songs, the graphics, the personality, the history, etc... was just so well put together here that it was very easy for me to feel euphoric while playing this game (and kinda emotional at the last songs on top of the Apple Corps rooftop).
If you are a huge fan of The Beatles, you'll definitely want this game. If you are a mild fan of The Beatles, you'll want this game. If you aren't a fan of The Beatles, what's wrong with you?! I keed. Seriously though, check this game out.
- The Beatles : Rock Band is available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii game consoles.
- Courtesy of "poopsam" from gamefaqs.com - Here's something you can do to watch the dreamscapes, while being able to listen to the full song. All you need is a mic and a controller, so plug in those two. Then go to the game and load it up. Once you're at the main menu, go to the game modifiers and turn on performance mode. Then go to quickplay, play as the singer, and then toggle No Fail - Mode to make it it so it's on. The you're set. Pick a song, play it on any difficulty, and then watch and enjoy.
- You can also connect the drum's pedal to the guitar, and use that to activate "beatlemania."
- top 10 things you didn't know about The Beatles (link)
- All the Beatles songs on youtube, with lyrics, and annotations (link)
| What Beatles Song Are You? You Are "All You Need is Love" |
 In some ways, you are a bit of hippie. You think that peace is still very undervalued in this world. You feel like people make life too complex. Happiness is often as simple as just allowing yourself to be happy. |
I had my taste of the Disney Convention called the "D23 Expo," and it was honestly very lackluster for what is being dubbed as "The Ultimate Disney Fan Experience." It had all the elements of the convention experience, exhibits, panels, vendors, costumes, etc... but it was more or less lacking in size. Admittedly, I can't expect it to be like the San Diego Comic-Con, Anime Expo, or E3, but still, this is coming from Disney so I thought more money would be spent on the event. Nah, I'm simply being unreasonable, because clearly they did spend some money here, using the majority of the Anaheim Convention Center's space and all, even though half of the floor space seems to be dedicated to lines or sitting areas, and lots of open areas because it definitely wasn't overly crowded or anything like that. It sure had a lot of staff members at just about every single corner though, to help out with anything. But enough of that, what did I see at D23?
The first thing I did was take a photo with a Disney character; Mickey Mouse in this case. May as well be the first thing I do right? I walked around the convention floor, wandered around art galleries, looked at the games exhibit (there's a $50 Wii game for Toy Story Midway Mania?), ended up at the equivalent of the Disney Store there, stood in a 20 minutes line for the register, "oh look there's a booth for the US Postal Service," and then stopped at the tech booth because I saw a motion controlled Wall-E toy.
Well I suppose the "Disney Technology Magic" booth is one of the better ones at D23. Besides a photo-op with an Electrical Parade Turtle, I mostly checked out the 3D tech displays. Using those 3D glasses that movies use nowadays on a 3D enabled HDTV, I got to check out some movie trailers in 3D. Then I noticed they had one of those 3D cameras connected to one of the 3D-HDTVs, pointed at us and showed what we looked like in 3D vision. THAT was pretty cool. I put on the 3D glasses and promptly did the whole "hand popping out of the TV" angle, and I was having fun like a little kid at that point. Those 3D-HDTVs by the way supposedly cost something like $8,000 each. hhmm, how many times did I type "3D" here?
Next up, I went in the "Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Pavilion," which is like a showcase sneak peak to the future of the Disney parks. In there I got to see what they plan to do with what used to be the "Timon" parking lot at Disneyland, and it's going to be "Cars land." There was a display on the autonomatronics, and we got to see what President Lincoln looks like underneath the suit (that sounded wrong). A life size fully animated Wall-E was also there for photo ops, and that was pretty cool to see. Another neat feature there was this interactive sand game called the "Storytellers Sandbox," which has visual graphics projected on the sand, and we used our own hands to manually create the landscape by moving the sand around. Pretty cool. There were more displays on stuff for Hong Kong Disney, the Disney Cruise, The Hotels, etc... but that was pretty much it.
Next place we walked through was D23's equivalent for a dealer's room. Wasn't really much, about 3 to 4 rows of vendors, and they were primarily Disney related. I suppose that makes sense in a Disney Expo, but still. A little more variety would have been nice.
The LOST pavilion was definitely one of my favorites, especially being that I'm a huge fan of the show. It had props straight from the show displayed, and it was pretty cool seeing Sawyer's letter, John Locke's letter to Jack, Penelope's letter to Desmond, etc... up close to the point that I could read them myself. They also had a large group cast photo of the show displayed, so I promptly "put myself" in the picture. Actually the guy I asked to take the picture for me just didn't "get" what I was trying to do, and his shots were horrid. Eventually my wife finally showed up and I got the shot I was looking for. The actors who played young Benjamin Linus and Dr.Chang were also there to sign autographs, but I unfortunately was too late to get in line for that. Oh well. There was also a fake "LOST University dorm room" displayed there, and it had a lot of easter eggs from the show littered around it, which was a nice touch. There was a dresser there and when I opened one of the drawers, it was filled with souvenir pencils, which I prompted to get a few, except apparently I wasn't suppose to help myself as the guy in charge of the booth informed me. Sorry.
After we walked through a few more booths, we proceeded to go up to the second floor, to check out the "Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives," but the line took long enough that we decided to skip that and opted to leave D23 right there and then. There were panels that I could have checked out (like at the third floor), but there wasn't much that I wanted to really see. D23 has panels similar to the ones Disney participated in at Comic-Con, making big announcements for future movies/TV (check the news reports online), and celebrities made appearances like Johnny Depp, Miley Cyrus, John Travolta, Tim Burton, Nicolas Cage, Robert Zemeckis, Jerry Bruckheimer, and even the Muppets. Apparently however, they actually clear out the room after a panel ends, which means that you have to go back in line for the next panel if you want to see that too (kinda sucks). Not only that, but apparently they do not allow you to bring your own items for autograph signings that weren't obtained/purchased on site (sucks too).
Despite my over all disappointment, D23 2009 is the first expo of this ambition for Disney after all, and it's a good showing for it's first year with room to grow. Can't say if I'll go back next year though and it's honestly highly doubtful I will. I was just curious to see how it is, and let's just say that it's not worth it just yet. Considering that a 1 day general pass cost $37, and how a 4 day pass cost $111, it's just not worth going for what it offers. You can get a discounted price if you are a "D23 Member," but that's a yearly cost of $75. I on the other hand was able to get a pass for $5 (ask a Disney employee to buy a pass for you), so the expo was thankfully worth it with that price of admission for me. I suppose if you are a die hard Disney fan, D23 is going to be a lot of fun, but if you are only mild fan, you may want to just stick with reading about it from the internet. Like this.
*click here for photos I took from D23*
Random Human
Funny "Enemy Of The State" review (pic)
Joe Wilson to President Obama: "You lie!" (video)
Literal Campaign Videos - NSFW language (video)
About to be fired Jacksonville DJ quits on air (audio)
Ponyo Is On A Boat - NSFW language (video)
Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis - Charlize Theron - NSFW language (video)
The Greatest Fight Scene Of All Time (video)
stuff Christian Culture likes (link)
Glow-in-the-Dark Stick Man Dancers (video)
Soleil Moon Frye -- Bringing Punky Back (video)
9 best cities for bachelors - NSFW (link)
IGN's top 25 videogame consoles of all time (link)
I remember a friend of mine telling me "you never wait for us to see a movie," and my response to that was "because if I waited, I'll hardly ever get to actually watch movies." There used to be a time when me and my friends would at least watch that one big movie released for the weekend, but that was YEARS ago in High School / College. Now we all more or less have our own lives, that casually going "let's go watch a movie" needs to pretty much be planned in advance. Then there's the whole reality that not everybody has the same tastes in movies, so that in itself is limiting to what you can or cannot see. With all that in mind, I can see why movie critics tend to go by themselves to movie screenings, because it's a lot easier planning a trip to see a film when you don't have to worry about another person's availability or preference. This is something I've learned for quite a while now, and have actually been doing.
As a person who loves watching movies, it oddly enough means more for me to be able to see a film that's still currently released. The problem I find is that there are many movies currently in limited release that I also want to see, and sometimes I have to drive far just to see some of them. There are a few movie theaters nearby (around 10 miles away) that on occasion show these limited released films, but they don't happen as often as I would prefer. Lately I've taken advantage of going to the Laemmle Playhouse in Pasadena, CA (30 miles drive), that specializes in limited released films. The other option that I've also taken advantage of is streaming recently released movies that's actually available "on-demand" via xbox LIVE movies, Netflix streaming, or Cable/Satellite, which is really a cool thing to be able to do this day and age (I'll expand on that in another blog post). Because of all these options I now have today, I have already been able to see 47 of the movies released in 2009 so far. Compare that number to how it was in 2004, when I was only able to see a total of 33 movies that were released in it's first run that year (the rest I had to wait for home video the following year).
Clearly by now you can tell that I go to the movies because I love movies, and not for the social experience. Sure it would be nice to have a "movie buddy" (or buddies) that is willing and able to go to as many movies as you, but that's hardly an available option. So if you consider yourself a fan of going to the movies, then you should have learned that going by yourself is completely okay. Some people feel insecure about going by themselves, but that's not the kind of attitude an avid movie goer should have.
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