Again with the forgetting

Well, shit.  I'm pretty bad at this, haha.  I apologize to Mandy for my lack of dedication. : )  

I haven't much to say today.  On Thursdays I usually have a set Thursday plan where a couple of my friends come over and we watch some specific show, our first one was Deadwood and now we're on The Wire.  Well, those plans were canceled last night, so I decided to go out with some other guys.  That was a very good idea on my part, especially since it was with six guys.  Easily my favorite "type" of hanging out is when it is with males; I'm very bad at hanging out with girls.  That's my excuse for not writing- I went out. Shh, don't remind me about all the other bits of time during the day that I could of done the blog.

Well, I looked at the news today, and of course almost all of it is bad, like I complained about before.  It's so god damned depressing reading the news- and I do know several people who don't even care to look anymore.  Not sure if that's a valid excuse, but I can appreciate the reason why.  Especially after I read the story about Seath Jackson.  This young 15 year old was lured to a house where he was beaten and shot several times- he tried to escape but was shot again.  His body was then burned and his ashes spread into paint cans and thrown into a garbage bin.  This was done to him by a group of six people- 4 being tried as adults, 2 as minors.  Supposedly over some girl.  There are some aspects to human behavior I don't understand.

I went and searched for a good news story, and came across one from Baraboo, WI.  This good samaritan saw a house on fire behind his own residence and he ran over, scaled the porch up to the second floor, knocked out a window and helped a woman escape the flames.  The fire department arrived to the scene right after he helped her down- who knows what the difference in time would have made, but it's a great fucking story.

What was the nicest, most good-samaritany thing you've done?

Song of the day (Thursday): Bloc Party - Flux [maybe my favorite BP song and the video is awesome]
Song of the day (Friday): Taproot - Calling [very suited to me for some reason]

Brother's suggestions

I finally have had someone suggest what I should write!  This makes my job a thousand times easier since I don't have to sit here and ponder and ponder.  My brother suggested that I give a review on the Decemberists concert and the first episode of Game of Thrones, so here goes!

For the Decemberists' show they performed at the Overture Center for the Arts instead of at the Orpheum, the venue I last saw them at.  I'm not sure if the band looked into what the Overture is like, for they seemed very much surprised that the crowd was sitting down and quite orderly.  The Overture has a feeling of class, and has seating that goes right up to the stage- not ideal for having a dancing, standing crowd.  In fact, the band urged fans to come up to the stage, but after mere minutes, security guards were forcing people back.

Needless to say, I think this reporter got it right when he said "the Decemberists warm up Overture Hall."  It certainly was the first rock concert I've gone to where I stayed seated the whole time.  Also, I was way up on the third balcony, and while it was still easy to see everything, it's harder to stay pumped enough to stand.

But, aside from that, the show was still very good.  I really enjoy their latest CD 'The King is Dead,' which has a slightly different feel for me from their other albums.  If you haven't seen them live, I highly encourage it.  The band likes to mess around- they mercilessly teases the security guards that were acting like douchebags- but they also sound just as good live as on their albums.

Now, Game of Thrones first episode was also very good, I thought.  The creators did a great job of picking a cast that is relatively unknown, not fake-Hollywood gorgeous, and matched to how I imagine the characters in the book.  My friends thought they could have picked someone other than Sean Bean, since they think of TLOTR, but that connotation didn't really come to mind for me personally.

The settings are absolutely amazing, oh my god, everything looks so good and beautifully foreign- I especially liked King's Landing and am looking forward to upcoming episodes where it'll be shown more specifically.  It's been a few years since I've read Game of Thrones, but it seemed to me that they've done a really good job of following the book as best as they could.  Impossible to add in all the details, but still a great job.

Some of my favorite details: the Hound's helm is awesome, the godswood is really neat looking, the girl they picked for Arya is perfect, and that I already hate Sansa and Prince Joff.

Song of the day: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

Concert

Tonight I am going to see The Decemberists with my dad.  We're going out to dinner first for pizza and then heading over.  My dad is hilarious at concerts; he has a slower clap than anyone else at shows and he says the most ordinary words as praise.  He says things like "okay" and "pretty good," but with the same feeling as someone saying "awesome" or "rock on."  It's quite the sight.  Love it!

I will have to give an update on how the show goes, but I bet it will be awesome because I've already seen them in concert once.  They are one of those rare bands that sound just as good live as they do on their albums, so I'm not too worried.  The venue is an interesting choice, so that will be my wildcard.

In other news, I really liked Billy Collins and I'm glad that I decided to go and see him.  And, as a bonus, I ran into two other friends so we all got to sit together.  Quite a pleasant evening- maybe I'm getting more classy with these outings to poets and whatnot ; )

So, I'm leaving another Decemberists' song as my song of the day since I'm seeing them tonight!
Decemberists - Don't Carry it All

Poetry

I'm not one for poetry, really.  I'm not sure why.  I guess out of all types of poetry I am the most receptive to prose that is written in a poetic way, if that makes sense.  For example, when I was in undergrad, I took an environmental studies course in which we had to read a book called Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild by Renee Askins.  It was the way I felt when I read it that I really enjoyed.  Here's an example passage:

"That's how the summer evenings of my early childhood passed, our Volkswagon parked alongside some meadow, with its nose edged into the tall summer grass like a huge Lab sniffing the dirt, with my mama counting the deer.  It's also how I learned to count, but for years I would be confused about what numbers really followed others because my mother's voice would drift off at fourteen or thirty-seven, like the sun slipping behind a darkened cloud into some secret shadowed place that concealed the loneliness of a young mother, and then suddenly her voice would reemerge brilliant and warm on twenty-six or forty-three.  I doubt that it mattered to her how many deer there were, the numbers were only a mantra to give order to the loneliness, to arrange an eternal evening according to a knowable rhythm.  Occassionally she would remark on how large a dawn had gotten, or on the limp od a doe, but mostly she would just count, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty... and the light would fall and her voice would trail off and the deer would slip back into the shadows."


In any case, tonight I am going to be seeing a poet with a friend of mine.  His name is Billy Collins, and I don't really know anything about him.  But, I did find at least one poem that I liked that I will share with you.  It's called "I Go Back To The House For A Book."


"I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at the doctor's office, and while I am inside, running the finger of inquisition along a shelf, another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book heads out on his own, rolls down the driveway, and swings left towards town, a ghost in his ghost car, another knot in the string of time, a good three minutes ahead of me- a spacing that will now continue for the rest of my life."


 I hope it will be a good show.  What are your opinions on poetry?
Song of the day: Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
  

Game of Thrones

Today is a big day.  Today is the airing of the first episode of the HBO series Game of Thrones, which is based off of George R.R. Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire.  You can check out Martin's website here, although I have to warn, it's not the most impressive website.

But, I will say the series is in my top three favorite series, and I encourage you all to check it out.

So, tonight I am off to watch this with my friends- I hope that you'll find it as captivating as I do!
Song of the day: Delta Spirit - Motivation (watch 'till the end and you'll see my favorite part with them catching chickens, besides the lead singer is hot)