10 Songs I Am Crazy About (List 1)

Originally I was planning on posting 10 songs each month that I am crazy about, but I figured that wasn’t enough. I am going to try to post a list as frequently as I can. Here is list #1. You can listen to the songs by visiting their MySpaces which I linked to in their names. Enjoy! EDIT: You can listen to this mix here.

10] Tired Irie – “Sumerian”

9] Cage The Elephant – “In One Ear”

8] Mystery Jets – “Young Love”

7] The Young Knives – “Terra Firma”

6] Los Campesinos! – “You! Me! Dancing!”

5] Badly Drawn Boy – “Once Around The Block”

4] Great Eskimo Hoax – “He’s Doing His Ritual Dance”

3] Foals – “Astronauts & All”

2] Youthmovies – “If You’d Seen A Battlefield”

1] This Town Needs Guns – “If I Sit Still Maybe I Will Get Out Of Here”

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5 Things I Would Take With Me if I were Stranded on a Deserted Island

Okay. Here’s the situation: For some unknown/unexplainable reason, you are being relocated to a deserted island and you are allowed 5 items. They can be anything (except a boat, you little smartass). Here is what I would bring:

1)Funyuns

This tasty synthetic onion flavored ring snack is probably the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t remember when I discovered Funyuns when Funyuns discovered me, but ever since I can remember, I have had a strong love for them. My ability to survive on a deserted island increases tenfold with the inclusion of Funyuns. If you haven’t heard of/tasted funyuns, don’t talk to me until you do. You haven’t lived yet. Each Funyun is like a tiny  little halo stolen from an angel, if that halo were onion flavored.

2) My iPod Video

As cliche as it is, I would take my iPod with me. Music is a huge part of my life. I am always listening to it. I can’t imagine life without music. It would suck when it ran out of batteries (which would be after like 3 hours with my iPod). For the sake of this not being a stupid thing to bring, let’s just pretend that it has infinite battery power… and the ability to download new music… and movies… Oh and it would have to have an anti-scratch finish on it because everyone knows how shitty those things get when introduced to sand.

3) Hacky Sack

Hacky sacks are the perfect fun, time-wasting activity. After a while on a deserted island, I’d imagine I would get some mad skills at hacky sack. If I ever got off, I could probably walk down the sidewalk while hacky-sacking. People would pass me and go, “Hey. Look at that guy. He is really good at that. He must not have a life.” And then I would have to tell them that I was on a deserted island. Then they would call me stupid for bringing a hacky sack out of any possible item to the island instead of like a satelite phone or a tent.

4) Jason Statham

I’m not gay. Now that we have that cleared up… First off, how safe would you feel if you knew Jason Statham had your back? Like really? Also, I am pretty sure Mr. Statham and I would be friends in real life if he knew me. He just hasn’t met me yet. One of these days I will be walking down the cereal isle at the supermarket, and I will see Mr. Statham putting a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran in his shopping cart. And I will be like, “Oh my god! It’s Jason Statham. And his favorite cereal is my favorite cereal.” And he will be like, “That makes us fuckin’ pals then,” in his accent. Then we would like so hang out.

5) Journal

If I were to be spending all my time hanging on the beach with Jason Statham, I would want to be able to write down all our adventures. With the kind of fast-paced life Jason Statham lives, we’d probably experience a ton of crazy adventures. Once we got off the island we would produce the adventures into movies. Not long after I would meet some amazing girl, because what girl doesn’t want to date Jason Statham’s best friend. Then Jason (we’d be on a first name basis by now) would deliver a speech as my best man at my wedding reception. Naturally it would be like the best speech ever because of his sick accent.

What would you bring? Post your five in the comments.

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Trip To South Dakota

So my goal to keep an active blog hasn’t exactly been met. Anyway, I spent a week in Rapid City, South Dakota visiting family. During my stay in the Black Hills, I took many photos. If you are ever have the chance, I highly recommend you check out South Dakota. It is surprisingly beautiful there. Also, if you are a wild west buff, there are plenty of old towns that host mock gun fights in the streets.

Having already seen Mount Rushmore four or five times before, I wasn’t too excited when my family decided to pay a visit. After all, there is really only one to see at Mount Rushmore. Five minutes passed and I had seen enough. There was a gift shop of course, but every gift shop in South Dakota has the same things: postcards of the main attractions/nation parks, tshirts with wolves on them, leather biker jackets, lame colored rocks that come in those stupid little pouches, shot glasses, knives, and jewelry. If you’ve been to one gift shop, you’ve been to them all. There was also a mini-museum but I’d seen all of it before, besides I can’t imagine much has changed since I’d last visited.

After Mount Rushmore, we went to Sylvan Lake. If you have seen National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets, it is the place from the scene where Nicholas Cage sticks his arm in that one rock and pulls that pretty lame joke on everyone. They make it seem like the lake is directly behind Mount Rushmore in the movie, but in reality it is in an entirely different location. To give you an idea, Mount Rushmore is in Keystone and Sylvan Lake is in Custer State Park.

Sylvan Lake is gorgeous. The drive up was amazing. I say “up” because the lake is located in the top of the Black Hills. I would have posted some pictures of the drive but I was half unconcious do to lack of sleep. When we got there, we busted out the food right away. As we ate, we watched a bride and some wedding guests run around the lake while all the chairs/tents they set up blew over. Sucks for them. After lunch we rode paddle boats around. Paddle boats seem like a good idea, but that is only if the paddle boat is in full operational order. Lets just say that the pedals could have used an oiling (back in 2006) and that my side had a minor hole in it. Even though with each minute I peddled my knees were slowly developing into those of a 75 year old man’s and with each swoop of my feet I kicked water back at myself, I was in awe at the beauty of the nature.

After paddle boats, we took a hike around the lake. It was very pretty. My family got pissed because I kept stopping to take pictures and were even more pissed that these pictures did not include them.

Three/fourths of the way around the lake I found a large rock structure which I climbed. My cousin and I spent 30-45 minutes trying to find a way to get to the top of one rock form. Well, we found one way, but it would involve a large 10 foot leap onto a 45 degree incline. After seeing the 20 foot drop, we voted on an alternative strategy for reaching this rock. After what can only be described as “shimmying” across narrow cliff, we finally reached a climbable wall. We took our time once we got to the top of the rock. Again, this pissed off the rest of the family of whom we told we would be back “in a jiffy.”

This picture below is from the top of the rock my cousin and I climbed.

After Sylvan Lake we went to Spearfish Canyon, one of my favorite places in South Dakota. The drive was the prettiest of the entire trip.

The main attractions in Spearfish include waterfalls and rivers. This one below is Bridal Veil Falls.

It was a good trip. Again, if you haven’t been to South Dakota before, I really suggest you pay a visit. Hope you enjoyed my photos. You can see a few more on my flickr.

South Dakota Flickr Gallery

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The Whitest Boy Alive – Dreams

Artist: The Whitest Boy Alive
Album: Dreams
Release Date: 11/26/07
Label: Bubbles
Rating: 10/10

For my first album review, I chose my favorite album of all time.  For those of you unfamiliar with The Whitest Boy Alive, which I suppose is most of you, WBA is a minimalist alternative/pop band from Berlin. The band consists of singer/guitarist Erlend Øye , bassist Marcin Öz, drummer Sebastian Maschat, and Daniel Nentwig on Rhodes piano and Crumar. Some of you may know Erlend Øye from the Norweigen indie folk/pop band Kings of Convenience or from the song ‘Remind Me‘ by Röyksopp which was featured in the airport caveman commercial by Geico.

I will start with my favorite song on the album, ‘Inflation‘. Not only do I think it is the best song on the album, but it may be my favorite song, period. It starts out with a simple guitar phrase after which is joined by a borderline disco bass line and a crisp drum beat. After the intro commences, Erlend Øye comes in on vocals with some of the shortest and to-the-point lyrics I’ve heard. There is a mysterious element to this song that grabs onto me. No matter how many times I listen to it (which by now is probably somewhere in the 300+ range), I enjoy it just as much as the first.

The next best song on the album (and probably WBA’s most popular song) is ‘Burning‘. More upbeat than the other songs on Dreams, ‘Burning‘ starts out with a snare drum crescendo into a homogeneous combination of guitar and bass. Unlike ‘Inflation‘, this song uses longer lyrical phrases during which the guitar cuts out except for a few key backup sections. In between each phrase the guitar enters for a quick solo, exhibiting scale ascending/descending strums.

Another song worth noting is ‘Golden Cage‘. It begins with a pumping bassline after which the characteristic minimalist guitar provides for excitement. While the guitar part may be lacking in number of notes, the melodic strums throughout the piece carry the song. With lyrics such as “So of course I miss you and miss you bad… But I also felt this way when I was still with you…“, the song captures and sparks emotion within the listener.

I highly suggest this album. The Whitest Boy Alive bring a new style to the table with ‘Dreams‘, a style unheard of before. Please check them out:

The Whitest Boy Alive Official Site
The Whitest Boy Alive Myspace

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First Post!

Hello to those reading this. This is my first post on my new blog. On this blog, I will feature new music I have discovered, movie reviews, photography, and basically anything else that strikes me as interesting.