Nonsensical Blithering...

Today has been interesting. I came to the realization that if my brain were wired into Twitter, the entire world would probably hate me. It's a good thing it isn't then.

I made a lot of interesting observations though...

Andrew WK's long lost brother was driving in front of me on a motorcycle with KC Chiefs stickers plastered on it and a BMW helmet. That's something you don't see every day. He was also chunky. Sadly I didn't get a photo because the light turned green.

It was also apparently bring your idiot to Sonic and get half price happy hour drinks. I almost got crunched into by some stupid woman on her cell phone, basically blocking the entrance, then when I cleared that obstacle, there was an SUV just sitting out in the middle of the drive area turned on with no one in it. I'll be avoiding that Sonic for a while...

That's really all I can think of right now. It's been a long long day, and I'm ready to go home and sleep for about a month. I haven't worked this long of a shift basically anywhere since February. Luckily this one is basically babysitting a photo lab, at least today, and I can relax and listen to good music. Nothing wrong with that.

I went to a show last night, it was pretty good, what I was able to see of it. I had to leave before the last band, which was a shame, but I listened to them on Myspace and it was ok, but nothing special. It seems like it's that way a lot around here. Maybe I just have extreme expectations, I really don't know. It's nice to see talented bands, and sometimes talented people in so so bands... that's usually the gist of it. One or two people play their hearts out, the others spend too much time on drama and need to grow up. I guess that's just how it is. I mean, look at Pink Floyd... same thing. And hell, Roger Waters is still taking The Wall on tour... ugh.

Speaking of The Wall, I did actually try to watch it a few months ago. I got to 'One of My Turns', said screw it and went to HyVee for lemon cake. I mean, I do enjoy the album, but the movie was just terribly depressing, plus Bob Geldof is creepy.

I think I'm becoming grizzled, at least at some aspects of life here. The whole KC metal scene thing really bugs me, hopefully some changes will come about in the next few months. I just wonder how much I'll have to do with it. After the other crap involving metal that happened earlier this year, I'm hesitant to take part in projects, other than the Dio tribute, especially if the whole money and power and status things come into play. That's not worth it, and I'd rather be a speck of dirt than a clump of angry mud. That isn't the best analogy but whatever. At least I try, sometimes.

I've been trying to work on my website and WordPress is a pain. I did finally figure out how to fix some things, then I screwed my account up, so I'm trying to wait for it to update and work the bugs out. I did find a nice tutorial, so perhaps I can actually get my photo albums up. I'm still kind of confused as to how everything is going to be organized, but we'll see. Part of me is angry I didn't just use older coding, but that's the nature of technology. The minute you get good at something, the rules change and you are made obsolete. Technological Decay I suppose is a good way to put it... Survival of the brainiest at least in some terms.

I dunno, I guess I can go ahead and hit publish post and be done, hopefully I will be able to go home soon and get some quiet time and rest.

And just for the record, I really can't stand Savatage.

Thank you and goodnight.

I'm basically a slug...

So, I have 11 days left until class is over. I've managed to secure a domain for a photography website, and that's about it. I did mess with it some on Friday but my brain's just not wanted to wrap around doing a bunch of stuff. I probably will just lug all my stuff to class tomorrow and work without distractions like sleep and food and Mr. Babypants.

I've been listening to 'After' a lot, and it's just amazing. The depth of it is mind boggling, and well, I love it, that's really all I feel like saying right now. It's so nice to find something new and exciting that can almost replace several different bands that I forgot about in the past. It's interesting how it reminds me of Mr. Bungle and Alice in Chains (Emperor goes without saying), yet Ihsahn was more influenced by stuff like radiohead. I think it just shows that you can get cool and workable ideas from many sources. I will say that he has one of the most beautiful singing voices I've heard in quite a while. Plus, he knows how to use it, he doesn't jack around with stupid stuff, and I appreciate that.

Anyway though, I dunno. Other than that, I spent most of my day sleeping because it's basically miserable out. Maybe the rain will settle things down for a bit. Maybe not, I dunno...

New Stuff

So, I spent money this past week. It's not exactly a good thing, but at the same time, I'm glad I made some music purchases. Firstly, I bought a copy of Emperor's Live Inferno LP at Ear Waxx, and it is fantastic. :) I'm kind of sad it doesn't have the booklet that was advertised with the CD, but it happens. It sounds great and I really wish I had the chance to see them live.

I also picked up Ensifernum's Victory Songs, which is also pretty cool. I really enjoy them and feel kind of dippy that I never bought an album before, but these things do happen.

Last but not least, I picked up After by Ihsahn (can you see a pattern here?) and it is amazing! I was really impressed, I mean, I knew it would be really cool, but it has a lot of depth and experimentation on it that makes it transcend genre. I also found out that angL is out on vinyl, so I'm going to have to track that down as well.

For now though, I better go back to packing. I have my dishes finished almost, most of them in one big box, but hey, I'm making use of the 15 boxes provided by the moving company. There's no use to put only two or three things in each one. Blerh.


And yeah, that's about it for now, since I completely forgot this was open. Oops...

A completely new take on buttpants...

So, I was binging on Emperor for several reasons, and I came across a really cool bootleg of a show from 1997. I'm embedding one of my favorite tracks, "With Strength I Burn".









And yeah, the buttpants... I'm not really sure how or why Ihsahn wore those pants, but... yeah. It raises some questions in my head. Was there glue involved? Where would you put keys in these converted buttpants? Do they actually qualify as buttpants in the truest sense of the word? I think they do. I'm not really sure how they couldn't since at some points it's hard to tell if there ARE indeed pants ON his butt.

And now, the infomercials have started, and I'm up way too late, but the question will linger... what the hell?

Chasing Mummies, a concise review (well, ok, not really)

History's new Zahi Hawass miniminiseries debuted last night. It was, like most programming nowadays in the tired wasteland of extended basic cable, a reality show, fraught with way too many Americanisms to make it an exciting experience. I digress. Let me present the premise of this juggernaut through the exciting world of being an Egyptologist.

Firstly, we meet the American documentary maker who was able to finagle six months of access to Dr. Hawass and his expeditionary teams all over Egypt. It's very similar to a movie we all know and love, but this 'host' and director isn't nearly as amusing as Rob Reiner was in This Is Spinal Tap. It's sad too, because it had a lot more personality, and so did the entire cast. Basically, the first episode started off and running complete with disarray at the step pyramid at Saqqara, which is currently being restored. Yeah, I don't know, it beats me why all of a sudden they HAVE to restore all this stuff, because it hasn't been there for several thousand years. *rolleyes* Workers and professors and doctors and sycophants are running around everywhere, and Zahi takes some doctor from America on a tour of the tunnels, which made me feel really queasy. As much as I love Egypt, I think that would totally freak me out. He made sure to point out that things were very unstable under there, and that there are 3 miles of tunneling under the pyramid. Nice foreshadowing, doc.

Of course, in a show like this, there have to be Americans. It's some kind of prerequisite, because Americans need to see themselves? In a show about Egypt? Well, ok. Whatever. They have a group of interns and fellows, following Zahi around in a press-style gaggle until some girl named Zoe shows up. Unfortunately for her, and them, she wasn't even the intern they were expecting, and I guess the other girl never shows up. Someone just lost an office job... jeez. Zoe kind of reminds me of Sarah Silverman, except Sarah Silverman is funny and intelligent, and would know better than to open her mouth in ignorant schoolgirl babble around a guy who snaps at anything.

Basically after Zoe showed up, was late, the wrong person then begged to go in the pyramid ASAP, I knew it was going to be downhill. Steep, plummeting reality show goodness. Really, when is Bret Michaels going to pop up in an episode? Or maybe History couldn't get him because of the press junket and everything. I'm sure they got CC DeVille instead. I'm sure the Egyptian gods will love him, and I'm sure there were court jesters back in ancient Egypt. Seriously though, Zoe's little needy escapade got her stuck in the pyramid tunneling, with a cameraman, in the dark, for hours. I'm sorry, but if most other people are exiting the pyramid, I would too. How dumb can you be? I mean, granted I do get a touch of claustrophobia, but it is dark there, desert in fact, there are scorpions, all sorts of things, oh, and that's right, a HUGE pyramid over your head, that is unstable... You wouldn't need to tell me twice.

So of course, Mr. Director gets the phone call that the girl and the cameraman are trapped in the Saqqara pyramid, and then there is a lot of clever montaging of frantic camera angles, whilst Zahi yells at another American while they drive to the pyramid. They find the girl, and no one is hurt, and it makes no sense to me why she even got to stay. Of course, this is probably the grizzled and cynical part of me irritated at the kind of person who would make a mockery of a gift like that. I can only imagine, to be able to have unprecedented access to parts of Egyptian history that no one even gets to see would be amazing. Why screw up with silly little things like not paying attention, or opening your pie hole when you have no reason to speak?

I have this feeling the rest of the episodes will carry on in this same fashion. I know from the previews of the series that Zoe also loses control of her bladder in a tomb. I don't know if that is supposed to be funny or sensational, but for the most part it feels like they're making a mockery of a history and culture I really love, and that makes me loathe to watch. I was really excited about this, really glad there was a SERIES, a whole freakin' series, on mummies, and Egypt, and adventure. It's about as depressing as the made for TV miniseries of The Memoirs of Cleopatra, which was neither a memoir or about Cleopatra.

I'm just not sure if this is supposed to be something to learn from, or merely something for the laymen who know nothing about Egypt, nothing about the amazing history and rich artifacts. I'll be happy if and when they make a series the for the people who can understand the importance and wonder of Egypt in a mature and reverent light.

Getting really fed up

I am really getting tired of waiting... Every time I look stuff up on Gamma Ray US tour dates, there's nothing. No one knows, no one posts things on websites, and all the interviews say are oh in fall, in fall. Riight. Obviously it's not happening. I talked to a friend who said they will come next year. I wonder if that will do like this year. I will postpone planning a trip to Germany or Europe (if I can even afford it) and then they will be here while I'm there. It seems like this whole thing is a comedy of errors and I really would like to just not care anymore.

I probably sound impatient, and I am, at least a bit, but I've been under the impression they were coming in fall since oh, December or earlier. No, it was earlier than that, back when I emailed to get information... Oh they're planning to come in spring. Oh, well no, sorry, it got pushed back. Instead of coming while they're IN this hemisphere, they're going to come in fall. Now, Kai will say in interviews oh, we're coming in late fall, and does anything pop up anywhere? Nope.

I guess I'll believe it when I'm standing in front of them, because other than that it's basic hearsay and empty words, and it all makes me really tired.

Muh Flickr account

I had to make a Flickr account for class, so here's the linkleberry:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saraerobbins/

There's not much on yet since I started it just last night, but I hope to add a decent amount of work that is representative of what I've been doing lately. :)

Zpacks suck and I have the hiccups

So today I have a photo shoot. Of course that means I'm sitting in my pjs, feeling like crap and it is 3 pm... I'm on the third round of antibiotics to get rid of the staph infection in my ear, and apparently it's basically gone, except for the pain that still comes and goes. Woohoo. Unfortunately, this time around, the Zpack is really beating me up. I think I'll have to get probiotics or something when I'm finished with all of this. Ugh. I'm not making a video about it, I can assure everyone of that :P

I'm going to start getting things ready for a website this weekend for my graduate class. Hopefully it will be easy. We talked about some stuff and it doesn't seem like it will take too much, not like a few years ago. Now it's all templates, easy for whomever to throw stuff up online, and if you pay a little, they format it for you. I just hope I can get something that is nice that won't break the bank.

Ahhwell. I guess that's it for now. I'm going to get up before long and get ready to go. Really! I am!! I swears it!!

Updates and whatnot

So I was sitting here, writing an email to someone, then I looked and realized I wrote the same email back on the 2nd. I suppose when I have something to say, it sticks with me, even if I have already taken care of it. Maybe my brain is full.
Of course I'd write an email to someone, who else would I write to? A plant? A vegetable? Marek? Well, he does have an email account (yes, I know) and I haven't checked it since 2007... so yeah, not even going there.

I also wondered why I was so freaking tired, then it occurred to me, I just finished up 8 hours of classes in about a month and a half. That is a lot, almost, in fact, full time for summer, which is 9 hours. I'm finishing my last 3 hours this month, which will make it a grand total of 11 hours in about 2 and a half months. So yeah, I'm a bit braindead, just a smidge.

I'm glad I didn't hit send, I've gotten really good at not doing that, it saves me feeling like an idiot, and there's no real need to repeat myself if I've said things once. Plus yeah, it's the department of redundancy departmental department of departments. Need I say moar?

Marek is currently roosting on the scene of his last barf. Not pleasant yeah, but at least I was up way too late/early piddling around listening to Deep Purple stuff on Youtube because I'm lazy and didn't want to plug in my external hard drive... blerh.

Oh well. I think I've bantered on enough, yerrrf. Here are some of the montages I worked on for my summer digital imaging class. Basically I used a lot of layer masks, extended exposures within the camera and other stuff like that. During the process I also had a handy dandy staph infection in my ear, my computer got a major virus, and all I wanted to do was sit in front of the TV and watch Doctor Who or World Cup stuff. Luckily for me, I still prevailed and was able to pull off some pretty awesome work :D





The Pictorial Evidence:

































































I think they're pretty self-explanatory. I hit some creative roadblocks in the middle bit, where I basically doubted my entire idea and couldn't see the whole 'metal documentary' stuff as a collage. I looked at tarot cards and got some ideas there that really helped me out, and I'm very happy I took that detour. Talk about strange, it ended up being exactly what I wanted. Life definitely is a wheel... but not with chains made of steel.

XD