BEDN Day 24- Hank Green's "This Machine Pwns Noobs" Album Review

I dont even want to go and count how many days i've missed for blog every day november. I'm a huge failure at this but I have lots of free time the rest of the week so lets see if I can crank it out the next few days.

Where can I even start? I guess I'll start with my expectations and how they were blown away. While I enjoy Hank's first album, So Jokes, I can't help but feel as if many things about it are missing or undercrafted (is that a word?). Many of the songs on So Jokes are great as they are in their acoustic glory, but then there are songs that I feel are badly recorded that make me want to press the skip button. It seems that all problems I have with So Jokes were looked into for This Machine Pwns Noobs.

I first expected This Machine Pwns Noobs to be in about the same format as So Jokes. I expected to have heard most of the songs and get a few surprises as a result of "album versions" of songs. If you're someone who just cant get into the simple acoustic and quirky lyrics of Hank's songs, you may want to give This Machine Pwns Noobs a bit more of a chance than So Jokes. I expected many of the songs on the album to be simple acoustic versions. I'm not sure why I expected this but I am here to tell you that ALL THE SONGS ARE STUDIO QUALITY VERSIONS! This right away makes the album feel more complete and makes the album overall feel like a huge achievement on Hank's part.

The album starts with the amazing song "DFTBA". You would think that a rap influences song by Hank would be disastrous but it's actually put together very well and the song is extremely catchy.

The next song gets me very excited. "This Isn't Hogwarts" goes into a category that i'm sure MANY people are excited about: Hank making wrock songs. It's easy to connect with this song and it's possibly my favorite on the album.

Next is "The Anglerfish". I don't have much to say on this song because I'm very desensitized to it from listening to it countless times off the DFTBA Vol. 1 Compilation. It's a great song. It seems to get better with age.

The song "I Know" is like a lyrical tornado (that's a compliment). You'll want to listen to it over and over.

Nothing too special to say about "Mules Are So Half Ass". I enjoy the amount of instrumentals on it though.

"Scuzzy Kizoozle Curl" is another one of my favorites on the album (one of my favorite Hank songs overall). The song is fantastic and Hank's accent in the vocals and the fiddle in the background gives the perfect mood that was originally intended for the song.

"Protons and Neutrons" is a song that I wasn't particularly excited about when it came out on YouTube. But this version, while still simple (probably the most simple on the album) has some excellent guitar work in it and makes the song much more than it was before.

"Dead Boy's Girlfriend" is another wrock song on the album. I'm not too fond of it because i'm not really into these kind of slower songs. The lyrics are pretty great though.

"Demolition Derby" is excellent. The fast paced lyrics and the intertwining instruments and backup vocals make for a fantastic song.

I really enjoy "Fathers of the Founding Fathers". My only complaint with this song is that Hank reaches a limit in his vocal range during the chorus and repeats a high pitched part a few times that makes me cringe when I hear it. Other than that the song is still great. It has some really amazing electronic instrumentals in it.

"Ulcerative Colitis" is great. It's got catchy off-beat lyrics that make for lots of replays of the song. This song reminds me A LOT of They Might Be Giants. The song makes me feel sad though because Hank talks about a disease he has and all the money that it's going to cost him.

"I'm Not Edward Cullen" I see as similar to "Dead Boys Girlfriend". I like the lyrics. They seem to be depicting young girl's irrational views towards boys since the Twilight craze.

"Crime Dramas Suck" is a very very catchy song with great instrumentals.

"Jesus Gets Nothing For Christmas" is another song that has a lot of great studio quality

"The Vegetables" is just as you remember it in Hank's video. Funny and ridiculous.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE "Nerdfighteria Island". I have since it first came out. This is a great example of the amazing things that can come from many people working together on something.

"It All Makes Sense In The End" isnt really for me but i'm sure lots of other people like it.

On the whole, this album is fantastic. I'd say its more "male friendly" compared to So Jokes. It's also better than So Jokes for those who do not like low quality music. You can see how much They Might Be Giants has influenced Hank in this album. The packaging of the album is also a high point for me. It comes in a nice digipak, complete with awesome graphics, pictures, A LYRIC BOOKLET!, and some great illustrations for each song.

This album is a must buy.

BEDN Day 21- This isnt working out

I have something to write about but I dont have the time today to write it.

My twitter account is being weird again.

We've got Thanksgiving duty this year and i'm going to be busy getting stuff ready all week.

Only two days of school this coming week.

I'm buying a guitar on Friday :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

BEDN Day 20- FAIL FAIL FAIL! (and strange occurences)

I think ive completely missed two days in a row. I'm not entirely sure, i keep losing track of the date.

Ive just watched Charlieissocoollike's new video where he shows you around his room. It freaked me out because a few days ago I recorded a video showing around my room and I was going to start editing it today. This is creepy and it's not the first time it's happened. During "Sixty Second September", Miles..or maybe it's Myles...or...idk (Blade376), put up a video that I had the idea for already. He was yelling at inanimate objects. I had thought about doing a video about that a few days before his came out. It's really creepy when things like this happens.

You may have seen my "Electronic Persona" video (if not it's here:

)

you'll notice that lots of the video and the audio sync up. This was all completely unintentional. I edited the entire video until it was how I wanted it and the target length and then when the video was done I threw in the music last. There are multiple places where I looks like I edited the video according to the music... but I didnt.

This kind of thing happens so often that there's a special word for it.... I actually dont remember what the word is but when I was talking about this with my video art teacher and he told me about it.

Oh crap....

you know how usually when I start with no ideas and I just start writing and it turns into something? welllllllllllll that's not happening for some reason today..... nothing else is coming to mind of the subject.... crap.

I got Hank Green's new album in the mail yesterday. I'm going to listen to it lots more a post a blog reviewing it but what I can tell you instantly is that ITS FREAKING AMAZING! If you even remotely liked his first album then you will easily love the crap out of the new one. It has blown away my expectations.

Im going to just end this blog because I have editing to do and college stuff to take care of today. There was an exit exam I didnt know about and the office didnt tell me that I had a deadline to turn in this application thing so I might have to wait an extra semester before i can graduate :(

BEDN Day 17- Going on tangents actually turn into an overall theme here. Weird.

November is half over (holy crap! ALREADY?!) so I'm probably supposed to be all excited or something that BEDN is half over. I'm actually to the point where im irritated that November isnt farther along. I thought I was going to enjoy this more than I do but I also thought that I would come up with things to talk about each day. It went SO WELL for the first week or so. About 4 of the blogs or so that i've done this month I really enjoyed writing and seeing how they turned out overall. Then there are those other ones (like this one probably) that are just...ehhh. But, i guess that's part of the writing process. Being an art student I should know that not everything you do will turn out. Sometimes it turns out better than you imagined, sometimes it's just as you imagine, but probably MOST of the time it turns out worse than you imagine.

If you're at a point where you're doing something (writing, art, etc) and things are starting to turn out how you expect/better than you expect half or most of the time, you've probably been doing whatever it is that you do for a long long time and have had lots of practice to get where you art. On the whole, I believe that I do not have the patience for these kinds of things.

In my case, i guess it would be art. (since im an art student I feel obliged to say that). I'm in my 5th semester of art college (by that I mean the art program that the community college :/ ) and I have these kinds of experiences all the time. For the most point, i experience disappointment. There are a few things that I have made in my 5 semesters that I am VERY proud of, the others are basically just practice. Kind of like a learn from your mistakes sort of thing. Of all the stuff ive made at school I only appreciate about 10% of it. And only about 4% of that 10% is stuff that I have blown myself away with (that may not have been the best choice of words).

I guess im sort of opening discussion about this general topic rather than telling you something giving an opinion. What I'm mostly trying to say is that whatever you do, you're ALWAYS going to do things that dont turn out right. This is supposed to happen. Humans are not perfect and we're supposed to learn from mistakes.

Another interesting aspect of this is you might do something that is really important and amazing at the time, and then it becomes useless and lame over time.

A great example of this is YouTube videos.

When I started making videos I was trying to put as much as I knew into them. I started off VERY inexperienced. After a year I got so sick of the baggage that came along with the crappy videos that I made (which seemed really awesome at the time I made them) that I decided to scrap the entire channel and start over with my new channel PaulSaysThings. If you look at my videos in order you can literally see growth and development. I learn new things and try new things with videos all the time. The more time I spend with them the more angle I begin to think about. Something that i've found to be important now that I didnt even think about when I started was to think about my videos from the perspective of the viewer. I had some videos on my old channel that were 5-7 minutes long. When I get on youtube nowadays and see a video in my inbox that's that long, unless I really care about what the person has to say I dont even bother with the video. I wasnt even giving useful or entertaining information in these older videos. I was just talking about my week or whatever. It was horrible. But at the time, i thought it was pretty great.

So you're going to have bad ideas. It'll happen. You need to learn to embrace is and just tough it out. I have problems with this even now. I'll think of a video idea and put it off, and put if off until eventually I dont even like the idea anymore. But it is important to write things, make videos, make art, etc when the inspiration hits you. Dive right in and hope for the best. It (usually) wont always turn out but you will almost always gain SOME kind of knowledge or experience from it.

Im trying to think of a good metaphor for the creative process. I guess I could say its like hunting (?). I've never been hunting but it's like: you go out in hopes of killing many furry aminals. Sometimes you get more than you hoped for, sometimes less. Hunting actually has more chance involved than creating things but you catch my drift.

So maybe it's a good idea to dive into something with no expectations?

Maybe it's good to have NO expectations?

However you do it, if you enjoy it, keep doing it over and over again. Refine your technique. Learn. Train. Hone your skillzzzz. Eventually you may get so good at whatever you do that even the things that turn out bad arent all that bad.

Like Dream Theater's albums. (OH GOD NO DONT MENTION DREAM THEATER AGAIN! NO STOP! NO MORE DREAM THEATER BLOGS!) Their 8th album is my least favorite. However, this doesnt mean that it's not a completely fantastic album compared to other music because they have a refined technique that allows their flaws to still be above par.

I repeated myself alot in this and it's been kind of a weird blog but I hope it was somewhat interesting. By now you may be able to tell that my writing is kind of a start to finish sort of thing where I dive in with a few ideas and little to no expectations and see where it takes me. Writing is probably the easiest thing for me to do while following these guidelines I've talked about. I'm having a weird/hard time explaining myself because im in a self conscious mood because of things that have transpired today.

Even if I didnt like how this blog turned out, I DID gain something from it: I thought of a topic for tomorrow's blog :)

BEDN Day 16- Spoiler Alert!

this is a video im going to do for Video Art. If you dont want this to spoil it, then dont read it. Either way, you'll probably see the video by the end of the month on youtube. (assuming you're subscribed to me)

[Opening Scene]

(4 people are talking at a party. One is telling a joke)

Person 1: “…and then the bartender says, that’s not a coat rack, that’s my wife!”

(persons 2-4 stare at person 1, unamused)

Announcer: “ARE YOU TIRED OF NOT BEING THE LIFE OF THE PARTY?

“HI, IM BOB LOUDVOICE AND I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT MY NEW PRODUCT: SARCASM! SARCASM ALLOWS YOU TO BE A HUMOROUS RIOT AND A TOTAL ASSHOLE AT THE SAME TIME!”

Person 2: “Did I ever show you a picture of my daughter?”

(person 2 holds out a picture which person 1 takes and looks at. The person in the picture is undoubtedly ugly)

Person 1: “Wow. That’s the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen!”

(person 1, 3 & 4 begin laughing)

Person 3: “Hahahah, wow, you’re such a dick!”

(person 1 continues laughing then stops and turns to the camera)

Person 1: “Thanks sarcasm, for giving me the humorous ability to be a dickhead”

Announcer: “CALL NOW TO ORDER SARCASM AND RECEIVE A FREE BAG FULL OF CRAP THAT YOU DON’T NEED!”

Disembodied voice: “You’ll be the life of the party with sarcasm! Call now to order and receive your free bag of crap! Also from the makers of sarcasm: Irony!”

BEDN Day 14/15- I'm a bad blogger...

I missed yesterday. I got home late and had to go right to sleep and didn't have time to blog at all. Im going to take the usual masochist way of doing things and say that I will allow myself to be punished. That was pretty much the agreement when I started this so if you have any punishment ideas you can leave them in the comments. Discussion of this will also continue in my next video for 7awesomebookworms on Wednesday.

This morning I did some work. yay! I helped my godfather move stuff around at his work and got $20 after only 1 hour of work! WOO! Unfortunately this $20 will be short lived. Im currently waiting for my friend to call me so that we can go to Guitar Center where I will spend this $20 and a few of it's other $20 friends on a hard case for the guitar that I have yet to purchase. I have a coupon that expires the end of the month so I figure I should just use it anyway and then hopefully i'll get the $200 I need for the guitar at Christmas. That's the plan. Im telling all my family to just give me money. That's what they did last year too when I bought my new bass guitar.

I'm not looking forward to this week.

Tomorrow when I get to class im going to sit there and stare at my project that i've already started and hope that I can think of other things to add to it. Then I need to write a script for my next video art project. We have to do a 30-60 second humorous commercial. At some point this week i'll have to film it as well. I have a history test this week meaning my tuesday class will be easy cuz it's all review and then thursday i'll take the test and then get out of class early. Nothing too exciting going on in my other class.

My friend in the hospital called me last night. He's finally doing better. It looks like he'll be coming back home in the next week or so.

I just went downstairs to move something and OMFG I found my CD that i've been missing for about 3 months. Yesterday I found the remote control to my laptop while cleaning out my car. Who knows why the hell is was under the folding seat in the back but at least i found it. I also vaccumed the inside of my car and washed the outside so that's pretty sweet.

Ive got the chartjackers song stuck in my head for the 5th-ish time. I dont even like the song.

Ive got about 144 pages left in the fantastic Ballads of Suburbia and then i'm excited to start reading Harry, A History. I'll probably re-read King Dork after than and then hope that another book falls into my lap because im out of things to read.

This blog kinda sucks but maybe you think these things in my life are actually exciting.

Meh, probably not.

BEDN Day 13- "blueprints for future homes"

ok, so I totally ripped off the title from a song by Norma Jean. But I think it's a pretty good title considering in this blog im going to talk about my plans for my place of living when I can finally move out.

This type of thing (moving out) excites me. (Although it took a while before I started REALLY REALLY wanting to do it) So naturally, ive thought about it A LOT!

I have many many plans for what it's going to be like living on my own. It's probably going to be about another year or two at least before I can afford it though :(

First I need to get a job. Meaning I need to put in an application, get a call back for a job interview and actually have them set up a freaking time to interview me. You may think that I've just said that out of experience. Well, I have. Toys R Us called me for an interview and said they'd call back to set up an appointment. I called them about 7 times in the 5 weeks that they didnt call me. The last time I called up there they said "i'd let you talk to the hiring manager but he's actually doing interviews right now." I took this to mean, hey, we did interviews and didnt call you so we dont want you but were not going to fucking tell you. were just going to ignore you till you get so frustrated that you'll leave on your own accord.

Bastards

AAAAAAAAAAANYWAYS.

Living on my own is probably going to be the coolest thing ever. I was kinda freaked out by it for a while but i've gotten to that point where I want to do it and have gracefully accepted that feeling inside of wanting to do it. Hopefully I can channel that into the effort i'll have to put in to get the gears turning to get working on it.

I view living on my own as complete and total control over pretty much aspect of my life. I cant even fathom how awesome this is going to be. Of course i'll be all like, "AHHH, i hate bills, blah blah" but there are going to be so many things to look forward to that it will be worth it.

I guess i'll start at the surface. I have a few (very childish) plans for initial moving in to my own place.

Over the past few years I have bought lots of my own furniture for my room. I get to keep all this furniture. When I got the bookshelf, dvd shelf, dvd rack, tv stand, other shelf and this weird wire cart with shelves on it, I knew that I was making an investment for my future. I think im probably going to leave my TV though. Im going to let my brother have it and get a better one. Im going to try to use this as compensation to my brother because he's not going to be happy when I take the Nintendo 64 with me.

Jeez, i just thought about it and im going to have to buy a bed frame :/

Ok, so ive got some of my organizational furniture out of the way. One thing I plan on doing at some point in time (depending on how much space I have to put this thing in). I want to get a ginormous book shelf. One that's big enough to call the area where it's at "the library" or "the study". The other thing involved with that is that im going to need enough books to actually fill the shelf. It doesnt have to be entirely full but it will look weird w/ giant book shelves and only like one shelf of books. Im hoping that I can acquire a decent amount of books in the next few years. I dont know why but the thought of it just excites me. The idea of bookshelves and different people's bookshelves and ahhhh. I dont even know, its just awesome.

A few other decoration type things that I plan on getting once I have my own place and have room for them: Im going to go to slackers and buy a cardboard cutout of Boba Fett. They also have HUGE posters there so i kinda want to get one of those too.

Ok, enough of the fantasy things, now is when I talk about the awesome life changes I'll get to have.

I am a very organized person. While I let things get out of hand sometimes, i generally like everything to be neat. I strongly believe in the phrase "a place for everything and everything in it's place". It makes so much sense to me. I have a special place for almost everything ever and I put things back where I plan them to be when im done with them. A messy room gives me a headache. A clean room puts me in a very good mood because my environment is not cluttered. The problem with this love of organization is that the rest of my family does not share this love. My mom does to a certain extent but she does not have enough time and energy to keep up with the mess that my dad and my brother can make. They're both really bad at putting things back. My dad leaves dishes and cups all of the house. He'll also put trash anywhere except the trash can. So when I live on my own, EVERYTHING will be clean all the time. If something is a mess, it's going to be my fault in the first place so I wont feel like I have to live in other people's mess. Plus, how messy can one person be living alone as opposed to someone living with three other people.

Ill be able to eat perfectly. I eat about half as healthy as I actually should. We'll, some things that I shouldnt eat just happen to be in the house. When im on my own, ill be able to eat healthier by not buying certain things and only buying the good/healthy ones.

The clean-ness and eating right (not to mention eating on my own time) are the two big things. There are other things like my life schedule will be based around MY life, not other people (other than school and/or work of course). There are other things that I will probably enjoy that I dont even know about yet that I will find out about when I actually start living alone.

Im looking forward to it so much that im afraid im going to like it too much and than possibly hate it when I have to start living with a girlfriend/fiance/wife. So for now, im just not going to think about that yet.

BEDN Day 12- Today was argh

today started pretty cool. Had a test first class so it got out early.

In bowling I got 138 and then 149 (a new high score!)

History was easy and stuf.

Went to hang out w/ my friends today.

But my twitter account keeps getting locked. My password was stolen and I keep trying to fix it. It's really annoying. I cant get on or anything. I hope it works out

I know my blog has been bleh for the past few days but Im just not able to do it as usual. Things happen.

I got Harry, A History today and I cant wait to read it so im going to go finish this other book.

BEDN Day 11- Yesterday's situation to the max

Pretty much not available to do lots of writing. Today is both the 4 year anniversary of me playing bass guitar and the 2 or 3 (cant remember :O) year anniversary of my grandma's death. Really weird because my mom spent the day in the hospital with my brother seeing a specialist.

Yes. Today was pretty cool tho.

I made this awesome video that you should watch starting at 2 minutes into it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuh8R2BuBW0

BEDN Day 10- Ok, so sometimes things get real...

Like this project. It's obvious that it will be nearly impossible to decently blog every day in a given number of days.

Today, my brother is sleeping in front of my computer. I cant wake him up because he has trouble falling asleep. So i cant sit in my domain and think for a while and I have to use this computer. It's not very good for deep thinking stuffs.

Today I got super inspiration for #nanowrimo 2010 out of nowhere while sitting in the hall at school. I wrote two pages of things I came up with including about 2 major plot points but Im looking for more overall theme. see, those of you that are doing nano probably think that im putting too much thought and effort into it already. but the way I see it, the more I play it out like this the more comfortable I will be and hopefully I'll easily glide through it.

Anyways, this is all I can manage today. At least it's something. Im going to go read for 1000000000 hours and re-read "ballads of suburbia" by stephanie kuehnert and be all excited because it's amazing.

BEDN Day 9- Writing For the Sake of Writing/ NaNo 2010

I dont really have anything to talk about today but the reason why Im doing BEDN is because I didnt think I was ready for NaNoWriMo. So this whole BEDN thing is basically NaNo prep. It's writing for the sake of writing and for the sake of gaining writing confidence and credentials. Letting the writing flow and flow and when it doesnt flow, FORCING it to flow until it hurts!

In a way I guess you could say im forcing it now. Maybe somewhere along the line here ill think of something on my mind that I wish to speak about.

I guess I could talk about NaNoWriMo 2010 and how I'm getting really excited for it. At first, when I heard about NaNo I was like "that's something that Im totally not interested in at all". Yet somehow ive transformed my mood about it (tragically it was until a good few days into November). I actually wish I could have talked myself into toughing it out and doing NaNo this year. In a way I guess Im glad I still didnt do it because I wasnt/am not (?) nearly prepared for it. I know you may think that I am over thinking the whole NaNo thing. Chances are, you're right. If there's one thing i know how to do, its over think things and panic about them.

So basically I have an entire year to set up a plot for NaNo next year. This may sound like Ive given myself way too much time and it seems completely ridiculous and that i'm going to slack off till the last minute but honestly, ill need a good amount of time to think about it. Ive actually thought about it a lot already. The reason I need so much time to do things like develop plots is because my mind words very weird-ly. I get super impassable creative blocks all the freaking time. For example, right now for my plot so far i've come up with some basis for a few characters and a few good events that I want to include. These were easy to come up with because they are all from my personal experiences and I think they have profound meaning or will be really cool when I put them in novel form.

Other than those few things I can't think of ANYTHING else for a plot. Everything I think about is all from personal experience. Once again, my amazing powers of over thinking have taken place and I cant just think outside the box for once and come up with something of a plot that is not based entirely on my personal life. I dont want to write about my personal life that much because all the novel-esque things that I think about with personal events are really agnsty and poopy.

I dont want to write a depressing Catcher type novel, but those are the only things I can come up with. I do enjoy that kind of writing though. Theres a special poetic kind of quality to establishing misery in quirky ways. For example, right now im reading this fantastic book "Stoner and Spaz". The main character has cerebral palsy and every time he mentions something about his mangled form, its depressing, the character is trying to be bitchy about it, but the words used to write about it give it a sort of adoring quality. Maybe I can write a depressing type novel if I just know how to do it right.

I guess I just need to come up with a good conflict or a good something that a character can overcome. I really need to get like a main like, a starting point, a turning point, and an ending point. Sounds easy right? Well nothing comes out. I have this same problem when I make art at school.

Come to think of it, NaNoWriMo is a good thing for me even if the only thing I get out of it is learning to deal with over thinking things.

Ok, for my own personal benefit im going to write out a few things that I have figured out.

-The writing will be in first person. That im sure of. Not sure why but It just feels right so im going with that.

-The main character will be male because I dont think I could write first person and have a girl for a main character because I am not a girl so I dont know how to depict thoughts inside of a girl's head.

-Many personal events will be used to influence the events of the novel. Such as my experience with drug use (not experience of using them myself, but knowing people who do and being in that environment with them). I have not yet decided if the main character will be doing these drugs or not. It's something that I enjoy reading about though- hearing the characters describe the effects.

Other things that ive experienced that will be included are some of the dramatic situations I had in gradeschool. For example, I found out near the end of 8th grade that lots of people thought I was going to shoot up the school. I already turned this idea into a successful art project so im going to milk it further for character development.

Im also thinking about writing about my current experience with my friend in the mental hospital. Its a very strange situation. As my friend was having a panic attack in his front yard I looked at my friend (who happens to be an aspiring writer, something that I dont really think of myself as) and we both mentioned how this will be great inspiration for writing in the future. I figure a year from now, next november, i'll have even more on the subject to write about because more will unfold. It may even unfold to the point where I wont want to talk about it in writing anymore.

- the people I know are so defined within themselves that MANY of them are going to be making appearances as novel characters.

-i am very interested with the concept of a person's perceptions inside their own head (of themselves, life, how the world works, interacting with others) versus those perceptions from the view of other people's perceptions. One time I got so caught up in the idea I wrote a page of a screen play of sorts about a movie/video/tv show/whatever where most of the dialogue was just inner monologue.

The idea of multiple viewpoints on a given subject fascinates me. The fact that you can think about something one way and someone can come along and easily put just as much thought into it as you do yet come up with an entirely different understanding of the subject.

that's about it. at least all the ideas that came to mind when i tried to recall my list of ideas.

see? i do have ideas. good ones (at least I think so). I just need a nice way to kind of place them all together. and THAT is precicely what is going to keep my mind buzzing for the next year. Im hoping that eventually it will all just kind of work out and I wont have to put my brain through a shredder to make it my bitch so it can come up with good plot ideas.

wow, that blog actually kinda turned out ok.... weird.

BEDN Day 8- How I met Muse but didnt know who they were :(

The title is mostly self explanitory. However, it raises all questions as to how it went down so here's the story:

We were at this place called "Fast Lane", they sell old cars. My dad was looking at this really cheap 1950 Ford that he was thinking of buying. While we were there there were these three guys walking around looking at stuff. We ended up running into them and while i was close up to them I noticed that they seemed familiar but I couldnt quite figure it out. They stared at me with this weird look (which I would later find out was a look of "do you know who we are and that is why you're staring at us?). My dad decided to get the car. While we were in the office finalizing everything we got to talking about the three weird young guys walking around because the owner of the place said that they each bought a car. He said that they were some band from the UK called Muse and i was like OH! THAT'S WHERE IVE SEEN THEM BEFORE! (they all drove mini coopers btw, it was pretty rad)

I had just seen their video for "Hysteria" a few days/weeks before this. I had never known about them until that video because that's when they made some headway in the US. So I went home and looked up some of their music, but my my naive 14 year old self listened to their high vocals and said they suck. Now, years later and with a better sense of good music, i really love Muse and have major regret for not talking to them while i was in their presence.

What are the chances of running into internationally famous people from the UK in a highly unsignificant location in the dead center of the US? Weird.

BEDN Day 7- Movie Collection

This is kinda like yesterday's blog. I get people asking about my DVD collection, here it is in no order other than how they're sitting on my shelf:

Mean Creek

Full Metal Jacket

Stranger Than Fiction

Hot Rod

Office Space

Mr. Woodcock (its signed by Billy Bob Thorton!)

Grandma's Boy

Shoot 'Em Up

Little Nicky

Knocked Up

Sling Blade

A Simple Plan

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Dazed and Confused

SLC Punk

Hamlet 2

Snakes on a Plane

Kung Pow!

Napoleon Dynamite

Art School Confidential

Hot Fuzz

Charlie Bartlett

Half Baked

Pineapple Express

Van Helsing

Anchorman

Aeon Flux

Across the Universe

The Big Lebowski

Reign of Fire

Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lords of Dogtown

The Fast and the Furious

300

Daredevil

Wanted

Zoolander

Death Race

Iron Man

Team America

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Resident Evil: Degeneration

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

American History X

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Shawshank Redemption

Austin Powers International Man of Mystery

Austin Powers the Spy Who Shagged Me

Austin Powers Goldmember

Superbad

I Am Legend

Transformers

21

Juno

Finding Nemo

Super Toopers

Coraline

Edward Scissorhands

Meet the Parents

Meet the Fockers

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Clerks

Clerks II

Primal Fear

Fight Club

Saw

Saw II

Saw III

Saw IV

Saw V

Child's Play 2

Child's Play 3

Bride of Chucky

Seed of Chucky

Dawn of the Dead (original)

Dawn of the Dead (remake)

Land of the Dead

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Death Proof

Planet Terror

Silent Hill

Final Destination

Final Destination 2

Final Destination 3

Friday the 13th (original)

Friday the 13th (remake)

The Grudge

The Grudge 2

My Bloody Valentine

28 Days Later

28 Weeks Later

Sweeney Todd

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters For DVD

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 1

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 2

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 3

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 4

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 5

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 6

Metalocalypse Season 1

Metalocalypse Season 2

The Brak Show Volume 1

The Brak Show Volume 2

Tom Goes to the Mayor

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! Season 1

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! Season 2

The Office Season 1

The Office Season 2

The Office Season 3

The Office Season 4

Chappelle's Show Season 1

Chappelle's Show Season 2

Invader Zim Volume 1

Invader Zim Volume 2

Invader Zim Volume 3

Die Hard

Die Hard 2

Die Hard 3

Die Hard 4

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters 2

The Matrix

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Revolutions

Wayne's World

Wayn'es World 2

Harry Potter 1

Harry Potter 2

Harry Potter 3

Harry Potter 4

Harry Potter 5

X-Men

X2

X-Men The Last Stand

Underworld Rise of the Lycans

Underworld

Underworld Evolution

Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean 2

Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Spiderman

Spiderman 2

Spiderman 3

Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring (4 disk)

LOTR The Two Towers (4 disk)

LOTR The Return of the King (4 disk)

Red Vs. Blue Season 1

Red Vs. Blue Season 2

Red Vs. Blue Season 3

Red Vs. Blue Season 4

Red Vs. Blue Season 5

Red Vs. Blue Bonus Content

Star Wars I

Star Wars II

Star Wars III

Star Wars IV

Star Wars V

Star Wars VI

Star Wars Bonus Material

Star Wars Clone Wars Season 1

Star Wars Clone Wars Season 2

Star Wars The Clone Wars

Fanboys

Blade

Blade II

Blade trinity

Blade: House of Chthon

Mean Girls

Shriek 2

Dane Cook Vicious Circle
Hawthorne Heights This Is Who We Are

As I Lay Dying This Is Who We Are

Coheed and Cambria The Last Supper

Underoath 777

Tenacious D The Complete Masterworks 2

Dream Theater Chaos In Motion

Slipknot Inside the Nine

The Blue Man Group The Complex Rock Tour

SNL Best of Will Ferrell

SNL Best of Will Ferrell 2

SNL Best of Chris Farley

SNL Best of Mike Myers

SNL Best of Adam Sandler

Borat

Tenacious D The Pick of Destiny

Talladega Nights

The Wedding Crashers

Dickie Roberts

A Knight's Tale

Beverly Hills Ninja

Robot Chicken Star Wars

Happy Gilmore

Billy Madison

Northern Exposure Season 1

Northern Exposure Season 2

No Country for Old Men

The Italian Job

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

The Pursuit of Happyness

Disturbia

Secondhand Lions

The Prestige

Crash

Stand and Deliver

The Illusionist

BEDN Day 6- My CD Collection

I get lots of people on YouTube asking me to do a video showing my entire CD collection. I dont really want to look like an asshole showing off all those CDs and the video would take forever to do. So instead, here's a list of all of them.

Im going to write them in the order they are on my shelf. They're in racks according to genre and some of them are a bit mixed up. Keep in mind lots of them are copied, I have only ever sold one of my CDs so I dont actually listen to lots of these anymore. Some of these are my brother's CDs and I REALLY dont listen to some of those. Some things are grouped against the alphabetical ordering. For example I have Slipknot and Stone Sour together as well as System of a Down and Serj Tankian and Say Anything and Two Tounges. Anyway here they are:

Metal:

3 Inches of Blood: Fire Up The Blades

AC/DC: Back In Black

AC/DC: Live

Adema: (self titled)

All Shall Perish: The Price of Existence

All That Remains: Overcome

The Autumn Offering: Embrace The Gutter

As I Lay Dying: Frail Words Collapse

As I Lay Dying: Shadows Are Security

As I Lay Dying: An Ocean Between Us

Atreyu: The Curse

Atreyu: A Deathgrip On Yesterday

Atreyu: Lead Sails Paper Anchor

Avenged Sevenfold: Sounding The Seventh Trumpet

Avenged Sevenfold: Waking The Fallen

Avenged Sevenfold: City of Evil

Avenged Sevenfold: (self titled)

Bullet For My Valentine: Hand of Blood

Bullet For My Valentine: The Poison

Bullet For My Valentine: Scream Aim Fire

The Black Dahlia Murder: Unhallowed

The Black Dahlia Murder: Defluration

Black Tide: Light From Above

Black Sabbath: We Sold Our Soul For Rock N Roll

Buckethead: The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell

Buckethead & Friends: Enter the Chicken

Born of Osiris: The New Reign

Bring Me The Horizon: Count Your Blessings

Chevelle: This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In

Chevelle: Vena Sera

Cradle of Filth: Lovecraft & Witch Hearts

Cradle of Filth: Nymphetamine

Cradle of Filth: Thornography

CKY: Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild

Despised Icon: The Ills of Modern Man

Dethklok: The Dethalbum

Dethklok: Dethalbum II

Disturbed: The Sickness

Disturbed: Believe

Disturbed: Ten Thousand Fists

Disturbed: Indestructable

Dragonforce: Inhuman Rampage

Dream Theater: When Dream and Day Unite

Dream Theater: Images and Words

Dream Theater: Awake

Dream Theater: Falling Into Infinity

Dream Theater: Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory

Dream Theater: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Dream Theater: Train of Thought

Dream Theater: Octavarium

Dream Theater: Systematic Chaos

Dream Theater: Black Clouds & Silver Linings

Dream Theater: Live Scenes From New York

Dream Theater: ScoreDream Theater: Greatest Hit (...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs)

John Petrucci: Suspended Animation

Liquid Tension Experiment: Liquid Tension Experiment

Liquid Tension Experiment: Liquid Tension Experiment 2

Drowning Pool: Sinner

Evanescence: Fallen

Evanescence The Open Door

Extreme: Pornograffitti

Five Finger Death Punch: The Way Of The Fist

Godsmack: (self titled)

Godsmack: Awake

Godsmack: Faceless

Godsmack: IV

Guns N Roses: Appetite For Destruction

HIM: Dark Light

Headbanger's Ball

Headbanger's Ball Volume 2

Headbanger's Ball: The Revenge

Hellyeah: (self titled)

Iron Maiden: The Essential

Judas Priest: The Essential

Job For A Cowboy: Doom

Job For A Cowboy: Genisis

Job For A Cowboy: Ruination

Killswitch Engage: As Daylight Dies

Kittie: Spit

Kittie: Until The End

Kiss: Gold

Korn: (self titled debut)

Korn: Follow The Leader

Korn: Take A Look In The Mirror

Korn: See You On The Other Side

Korn: (self titled)

Korn: Greatest Hits Vol. 1

Lamb of God: New American Gospel

Lamb of God: As The Palaces Burn

Lamb of God: Ashes of the Wake

Lamb of God: Sacrament

Lamb of God: Wrath

Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park: Reanimation

Linkin Park: Meteora

Linkin Park: Live in Texas

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget: The Best of

Mastodon: Remission

Mastodon: Leviathan

Mastodon: Blood Mountain

Mastodon: Crack The Skye

Metallica: Master of Puppets

Metallica: (self titled black album)

Metallica: S&M

Norma Jean: Redeemer

Paul Gilbert: Get Out Of My Yard

Pantera: Cowboys From Hell

POD: Satellite

POD: Payable On Death

Rage Against The Machine (i just made a mix of all their singles)

Slipknot: (self titled)

Slipknot: Iowa

Slipknot: Vol. 3 The Subliminal Verses

Slipknot: All Hope Is Gone

Slipknot: 9.0 Live

Stone Sour: (self titled)

Stone Sour: Come What(ever) May

Static X: Wisconsin Death Trip

Static X: Machine

Static X: Shadow Zone

Static X: Start A War

Static X: Cannibal

Static X: Cult of Static

Static X: Cannibal Killers Liv

eStatic X: Beneath... Between... Beyond...

Sonic Syndicate: Love and Other Disasters

Suicide Silence: The Cleansing

Suicide Silence: No Time To Bleed

System of a Down: (self titled)

System of a Down: Toxicity

System of a Down: Steal This Album

System of a Down: Mezmerize

System of a Down: Hypnotize

Serj Tankian: Elect The Dead

Underoath: The Changing of Times

Underoath: They're Only Chasing Safety

Underoath: Define The Great Line

Underoath: Lost in the Sound of Separation

Underoath: Survive/Kaleidoscope (live)

Whitechapel: This Is Exile

Stuff that people would call "emo" or "scene" or "screamo" or "hardcore" music or popular rock that's closely related to that kind of stuff. Basically you're very likely to see these bands on Warped Tour. Out of all my CDs, this group probably has the most that I dont really listen to anymore:

18 Visions: (self titled)

A Static Lullaby: (self titled)

Aiden: Nightmare Anatomy

AFI: Sing The Sorrow

AFI: Decemberunderground

The Almost: Southern Weather

Bayside: The Walking Wounded

Blessthefall: His Last Walk

Chiodos: Alls Well That Ends Well

Chiodos: Bone Palace Ballet

The Devil Wears Prada: Dear Love, A Beautiful Discord

Fall Out Boy: Take This To Your Grave

Fall Out Boy: From Under The Cork Tree

Fall Out Boy: Infinity On High

Family Force 5: Business Up Front Part in the Back

Family Force 5: Dance or Die

From First To Last: Dear Diar, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count

From First To Last: Heroine

From First To Last: (self titled)

Hawthorne Heights: The Silence in Black and White

Hawthorne Heights: If Only You Were Lonely

Lost Prophets: Start Something

Lost Prophets: Liberation Transmission

The Matches: E. Von Dahl Killed The Locals

The Matches: Decomposer

Madina Lake: From Them Through Us To You

My Chemical Romance: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge

My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade

Paramore: All We Know Is Failing

Paramore: Riot

Panic! At The Disco: A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus: Don't You Fake It

Say Anything: ... Is A Real Boy

Say Anything: In Defense of the Genre

Say Anything: (self titled)

Two Tongues: (self titled)

Senses Fail: Let it Enfold You

Senses Fail: Still Searching

Senses Fail: Life is Not a Waiting Room

Silverstein: When Broken is Easily Fixed

Silverstein: Discovering the Waterfront

Silverstein: Arrivals & Departures

Simple Plan: No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls

Story of the Year: Page Avenue

Story of the Year: The Black Swan

Taking Back Sunday: Where You Want To Be

Taking Back Sunday: Tell All Your Friends

Taking Back Sunday: Louder Now

The Used: Lies for the Liars

Regular ass rock, alternative rock, classic rock, popular rock, etc:

3 Days Grace: (self titled)

3 Days Grace: One X

3 Doors Down: The Better Life

3 Doors Down: Away From the Sun

Avril Lavigne: Let Go

Avril Lavigne: Under My Skin

The Beatles: Abbey Road

The Beatles: The White Album

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Breaking Benjamin: Saturate

Breaking Benjamin: We Are Not Alone

Breaking Benjamin: Phobia

Breaking Benjamin: Dear Agony

Boston: Greatest Hits

Coheed & Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silence Earth III

Coheed & Cambria: Good Appolo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1 From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness

Coheed & Cambria: No World For Tomorrow

The Doors: Greatest Hits

Eve 6: (self titled)

Flyleaf: (self titled)

Flogging Molly: Drunken Lullabies

Flogging Molly: Whiskey on a Sunday

Hoobastank: (self titled)

Hoobastank: The Reason

Incubus: S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

Incubus: Make Yourself

Incubus: Morning View

Jet: Get Born

The Killers: Hot Fuss

Led Zeppelin: III

Led Zeppelin: IV

Led Zeppelin: Greatest Hits- Early Days, Latter Days (2 disk)

Ludo: (self titled)

Ludo: Broken Bride

Ludo: You're Awful, I Love You

Michael Jackson: Number Ones

Modern Day Zero: Coming Up For Air

The Mountain Goats: Tallahassee

The Mountain Goats: We Shall All Be Healed

The Mountain Goats: Jack and Faye

The Mountain Goats: Nine Black Poppies

The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride

Muse: Absolution

Muse: Black Holes & Revelations

Mute Math: (self titled)

Nickelback: Silver Side Up

Nickelback: The Long Road

Papa Roach: The Paramour Sessions

Pink Floyd: The Wall

Queen: Greatest Hits

Ra: From One

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Greatest Hits

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium

Relient K: MmmHmm

Saliva: Blood Stained Romance

Seether: Karma and Effect

Seether: Finding Beauty in Negative Places

Shinedown: Leave a Wisper

Shinedown: Us and Them

Shinedown: The Sound of Madness

Staind: 14 Shades of Grey

Smashing Pumpkins: Greatest Hits

Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist

Sugarcult: Palm Trees and Power Lines

Yellowcard: Ocean Avenue

Yellowcard: Lights & Sounds

Weezer: (the blue album)

Wolfmother: (self titled)

Punk/Pop Punk/Ska:

Bad Religion: Stranger Than Fiction

Bad Religion: The Empire Strikes First

Blink 182: Dude Rance

Blink 182: Enema of the State

Blink 182: Take off Your Pants and Jacket

Blink 182: (self titled)

Boxcar Racer: (self titled)

+44: When Your Heart Stops Beating

The Clash: The Essential

The Dresden Dolls: (self titled)

The Germs: (GI)

Green Day: Dookie

Green Day: Insomniac

Green Day: Nimrod

Green Day: International Super Hits

Green Day: American Idiot

Good Charlotte: (self titled)

Good Charlotte: The Young and the Hopeless

Good Charlotte: The Chronicles of Life and Death

Good Charlotte: Good Morning Revival

Jawbreaker: Dear You

Jawbreaker: Bivouac

Nirvana: Bleach

Nirvana: Nevermind

Nirvana: Incesticide

The Offspring: Greatest Hits

The Ramones: Greatest Hits

Rancid: (self titled 1993)

Rancid: Let's Go

Rancid: ... And Out Come the Wolves

Rancid: Life Won't Wait

Rancid: (self titled 2000)

Rancid: B Sides and C Sides

Rancid: Let The Dominoes Fall

Reel Big Fish: Turn the Radio Off

Rise Against: The Unraveling

Rise Against: Revolutions Per Minute

Rise Against: Siren Song of the Counter Culture

Rise Against: The Sufferer and the Witness

Rise Against: Appeal To Reason

Misfits: (self titled)

NOFX: The War on Errorism

NOFX: I Hear They Suck Live

NOFX: The Greatest Songs Ever Written By Us

Screeching Weasel: Weasel Mania (greatest hits)

Sex Pistols: Nevermind the Bollocks

Sixer: Beautiful Trash

Sum 41: All Killer No Filler

Sum 41: Does This Look Infected?

Sum 41: Chuck

Sum 41: Underclass Hero

Social Distortion: (self titled)

Stuff I havnt found a category for and internet/youtube/wrock stuff:

Tub Ring: Zoo Hypothesis

Tub Ring: The Great Filter

Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny

Tenacious D: (self titled)

Flobots: Fight With Tools

The Bloodhound Gang: Heafty Fine

Insane Clown Possee: The Great Milenko

Mindless Self Indulgence: Tight

Mindless Self Indulgence: Alienating Our Audience (live)

Mindless Self Indulgence: Despierta Los Ninos

Mindless Self Indulgence: Another Mindless Ripoff

Mindless Self Indulgence: Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy

Mindless Self Indulgence: You'll Rebel To Anything

Mindless Self Indulgence: If

Mindless Self Indulgence: If Remixes (3 disk)

The Moaning Myrtles: Toilet Humor

Justin Finch-Fletchley: And The Half Blood Pizza

Lauren Fairweather: Devil's Snare

Hank Green: So Jokes

Hank Green: This Guitar Pwns Noobs (i dont have it yet but I ordered it)

Driftless Pony Club: Expert

DFTBA Records Vol. 1 Compilation

Dr. Noise: Silent Echoes

I have some random songs on my computer that arent full albums as well.

BEDN Day 5- Different Today

Im still going to write a blog but im not going to post it. My friend is in the hospital right now. They're not sure but it's pretty much schizophrenia. At this point he could either snap out of it after a few days or just stay like this. I cant stop thinking about it.

BEDN Day 4- I swear no Dream Theater this time. This is about telemarketers

One of the things I cant stand the most is telemarketers. We seem to have more than usual call our house ALL THE FREAKING TIME! It just really annoys me because the ones that we usually get are just asking for donations. There are many reasons why I hate telemarketers.

1. If it's someone doing a survey, they'll just start telling you about the survey and make you sit on the phone for 5 whole minutes, THEN explain that you need to be 18 to do the survey and you have to hang up. I had this problem many times before I was 18. Now if I say hello and they just keep talking and dont let me speak I hang up on them.

2. They call at the most horrible times. It's always during something that I dont really want to stop doing to go answer the phone. This is especially bad when we get a few different ones calling in the same day.

3. They pronounce my last name wrong almost every time. It's Huber. They pronounce it "Hubber". The "e" at the end give the "u" a different sound. It's vowel grammar, go learn some.

4. They often do not ASK for someone even though they're looking to talk to someone in particular. If I answer the phone, many times the telemarketer will assume that I am my dad.

5. The times of day they call at do NOT make sense. One called today at 8:20 am. My mom had just left for work. Here's how the situation went. Notice that many of the other things I mentioned already happen within the same phone call.

I was about to leave the house to go to school when the phone rang. I picked it up and said hello. The telemarketer started talking to me thinking I was my dad in a country accent (I dont like hicks). I told him that my dad wasnt there and that he was WORKING because it was 8:20 in the freaking morning. He asked for my mom. I said no, they both work, this is way too early.

6. When my parents DO happen to pick up when they call they tell them that we dont want to donate to whatever they're collecting for. But they KEEP CALLING CONTINUOUSLY!

Reasons to actually like telemarketers:

It's very fun to mess with them. Ive noticed that many of them use a compute to dial the phone number. If you've ever picked up the phone and said hello and then heard a pause followed by a noise like someone is picking up a phone, this is what's going on. The computer tells them someone has picked up and they connect with the call. Many times ill just breathe really hard into the reciever and this will trigger the computer and they'll pick up. There are many things one can do at this point:

-Most of the time they'll say "Hello" and ill just sit there and make no noise and see how long they stay on.

-You can mess with them by doing things like talking in an accent, asking them weird questions or pretending like you cant understand what they're trying to tell you.

-If you're in a really bad mood when one of these people calls you I find it acceptable to go off on them. I understand that they are doing a job to try and make a living, but something about this field of work I find repulsive. Not to mention if it's a company or organization that has kept calling over and over. If i notice the same thing on the caller ID a few days in a row, i let them know very rudely that they need to stop calling, especially at times during the day when people work.

Try different techniques when messing with telemarketers. My brother has some good ones. He's pretended to be Japanese, pretended to be violent and insane. Made strange animal noises over the phone, etc.

One of the really great ones that ive done is if you say hello and the telemarketer DOES ask for someone, tell them to hold on and then put the phone down. Go do something else and come back later to see if they're still on. One time I made a sandwich and came back and the telemarketer was still there and I told him, oh, im sorry he's not here.

You probably think im a dick for doing these kinds of things but somehow I dont feel bad for doing these things at all. Probably because these people really annoy me and i never have to see them and i will never have another encounter with them ever.

BEDN Day 3- Continuing Yesterday's Dream Theater Blog...

I know you're probably thinking that im about to do something very boring but I want to talk about the opposite side of Dream Theater that I talked about yesterday. On the surface, Dream Theater seems like a fast heavy metal band but that's probably not even the majority of their music. It 50% of their music at it's very most but it's probably lower than that.

Dream Theater has a soft side where they show talents other than fast and technical. Their first few albums while sounding a bit more 80's hair metal-ish actually convey a LOT more emotion and mood than you would think of coming from a band that plays the music that I showed in yesterday's blog.

Dream Theater believes that nothing should be holding them back in their music. They keep this in mind and never play anything strictly because it sounds like something "their genre" would play.

The best way to describe my points is to sample more videos. At least this is more of a watching/listening blog that reading just like yetsterday :)

Please excuse some of the cheesiness this video may give off. This is the first slow song on technically their first album that was released very early 90's and still had an 80's power ballad influence. I used to HATE this song when I heard it but there are MANY things about it that I really like now that I took the time to appreciate the musicianship of everything.



Here is a FANTASTIC song off their newest (10th) album "Black Clouds and Silver Linings". The song is about writer's block:

Here is a heavier yet still very slow and chill song. This song comes from their 9th album, Systematic Chaos, which has a futuristic type theme. This is one of the songs that most newcomers to Dream Theater will not enjoy. You have to get used to Dream Theater's singer. At first I hated the crap out of him, but after a while you start to accept him and then realize how talented he is and suddenly cant picture this music with any other vocalist.

So ALL of their songs arent insanely long. I think I probably exaggerated a bit yesterday when I mentioned the length. Most of their newer stuff IS quite long thought but you can quickly adapt to the songs because the cinematic type experience of the music carries you through the songs. This song is a good mixture of slow jam with a few heavier riffs in it (which start to pick up at around 2:45). The mood of this song is very awesome. This is one of my top 5 favorite Dream Theater songs. This song is a very good example of the kind of adventuristic side of Dream Theater's style:

Here's a slow yet very happy type of song with some great piano work:

If you watched that video that I posted on yesterday's blog about Liquid Tension experiment, this is a little more that kind of style. This is one of my top 3 favorite Dream Theater songs. Around 1:40 it starts to get this 90's club feel to it. Ignore the keyboard player moving around weird. He's a different guy that was only on one of their albums. This was off their 4th's album, Falling Into Infinity. The whole album has a Pink Floyd kind of feel to it which REALLY stands out in the solo that starts at 4:25.

This last song here is another one of my top 3 Dream Theater songs. It's from their second album, Images and Words, which many think of as their debut album because their true first album was really bad and has a different singer that gave the band a terrible overly done 80's sound. The vocals are very impressive in this song. Also, if you love 80's videos in the first place, you will enjoy this:

So I hope that you can now see the two kinds of Dream Theater. This blog is more about their roots and more meaningful type of music (even though most of it is very thoughtful and intelligent). I thought I would lay out their complete story so as not to give the wrong impression of them because I thought differently of them when I first listened to them as well.

BEDN Day 2- Why I Love Dream Theater So Much

Last winter I met (technically re-met. I knew him when I was little but hadn't seen him in like 10 years) one of my good friends Jeremiah. He was really into this band called Dream Theater. I heard him talk about it a little bit and eventually I saw a live DVD he had. I was blown away by the sheer amount of skill these musicians have.

I didnt pay too great of attention to them right away though. After a while I got into listening to the music with him as he played video games and stuff. We discussed the various albums they have and I decided which ones I wanted to check out first.

I started by listening to their third album, Awake, first because that was the only one he had other than their greatest hits album. He'd lost most of them over the years. I got SO INCREDIBLY INTO IT! I was also constantly looking up the band on youtube and stuff and seeing the technical abilities these musicians are capable of.

For a good reference point, here's a video of a song of theirs that they only play live. Its called "Instrumedley" as its a mash up of instrumental parts from various songs they've written:

The album that I first had by them is a bit 80's sounding and while is known as one of their best albums, still doesnt showcase everything they're capable of.

There is SO MUCH to get into with this band. They have 10 studio albums, one EP and quite a few live albums. They also have dozens of side and solo projects, the biggest one being Liquid Tension Experiment, a jazzy rock band that's like Dream Theater but with a completely different feel:

Their 10 different albums each have their own feel, mood and theme to them. This wide range of sounds plus the deep storytelling of the lyrics allows Dream Theater to be THE BAND for anyone to obsess over. There are so many things to just kind of think about with their music. Lots of it is interconnected as well. For example, the drummer, Mike Portnoy, used to be an alcoholic and made one song on each of their 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th album that span over the 12 step program in Alcoholics Anonymous. The last and first songs of sequential albums 5-8 are connected starting with the last song on the 5th album, connecting through the first on the 6th, last on the 6th to first one the 7th and so on. The 8th album, Octavarium (8, octa, get it?) starts and ends with the same note hit on a piano making the whole album becoming one continuous circle. It's fitting with the album cover which can be seen here along with one VERY IMPRESSIVE song from that album:

So many little things like this keep one interested in the band and wanting to find out all these fun little details about them.

Having acquired all 10 studio albums my addiction has reached its full potential. I have severe trouble picking favorite songs or even a favorite album because it's all so equally good that I feel like im cheating one album if I were to pick something over it.

Having so much material is also one of the ways im able to stay so interested in the band. You cant ever get tired of the music because theres so much of it and you can constantly switch between their abundance of songs. The other thing is that an average Dream Theater song is about 7-12 minutes. There is so much to just one song that it's nearly impossible to get tired of one of their songs.

The biggest thing about this band is their skill. They are so completely techincally brilliant. They've all graduated fancy music schools. As my friend says "I believe that a musicians job is to fuck the shit out of the instrument that they're playing." That's exactly what every one of them does. Each member of the band can easily be listed as one of the top 5 musicians for their respective instruments. In my opinion the drummer could be in the top 3 and their keyboard player is easily the number one most highly skilled keyboard player of all time.

Their singer can hit a high F#. Its quite impressive:

Their drummer is unlike anything I've ever seen before. To truly get him you have to SEE him play. The way he plays is very precise and almost roboticly perfect:

Their bass player plays a 6 STRING BASS! So you can imagine how great he must be:

And their guitarist plays very uniquely and completely unbelievable:

I think these videos pretty much speak for themselves.

If you'd like to get into Dream Theater i'd be happy to help guide you into it.

Over the past 10 months Dream Theater has climbed up to be my favorite band. I honestly can't see coming across anything in my lifetime that I will put ahead of them.

BEDN Day 1- One Year Nerdfightersary!

Today, one year ago, was the day I became a nerdfighter. I subscribed to Vlogbrothers just over a year ago. Today is the day I bought Looking for Alaska one year ago. Little did I know that John and Hank would be visiting my city in 2 days (november 3rd, 2008). I did not find out until 3 days AFTER it happened. I had JUST subscribed to Vlogbrothers and I didnt yet know what was going on. I didn't know they were on a tour. This is a huge regret now.

Becoming a Nerdfighter I took on many new things. I was a fairly nerdy person in grade school. It sucked so I tried to change myself in high school. I kinda of took on a different persona for a while. After becoming a nerdfighter i sort of gave in to repressed nerdiness from grade school. It has changed the way I think. I now value things like intelligence much more.

A HUGE change is the amount that i have been reading. I've read more books in the past year than I did in the previous 10 years of my life combined since I have become a nerdfighter. I used to read about a book every two months or so and have now reached up to a maximum of one book per week.

I have gained so much from becoming a nerdfighter. The whole youtube community to start with has inspired me to do lots of great things. All the different youtubers that are involved with nerdfighters feel like a sort of home on the internet. Throw in the way to socially network with these people (twitter, facebook, skype) and you're in for a completely different way of interacting with people.

And the QUALITY of these people is astonishing. Lots of nerdfighters seem to find that they become better friends with other nerdfighters online than people they know in real life. I can easily agree to this. Theres just some level of intelectualism and love for "nerdy things" like reading and certain movies and stuff.

The stuff that comes to be as a result of nerdfighters blow my mind all the time. One mentionable thing is DFTBA records and it's sort of second sub-community within nerdfighters.

Every aspect of nerdfighters flows together to create something that has completely changed the person I am. Its very hard to explain though. It has given me so much. I cant even believe the things that have ended up in my life as a result of making the decision to becoming a nerdfighter. Ive met so many amazing people, ive branched out and tried new things, ive taken on many new loves of things I havnt seen, watched, heard, or done before.

The whole nerdfighter thing by itself isn't even what amazes me the most, its the huge amount of other things that changed in my life. Nerdfighters kind of rippled and affected many different parts of me. Such as twitter. Theres no way I would have twitter if I wasnt a nerdfighter. And if you use twitter, you know the kind of amazing endless crazy kind of world it can be. Other things like dailybooth and even this blog that kind of let me broadcast myself to other people via various forms of creative outlets. I could just about write a blog in itself for each subject of my life that nerdfighters has influenced or brought to life.

Such as the people i know because of skype. It is impossbile to explain how amazing friends through skype has become. They're like people that you can relate to more than anyone else you could ever know in regular life because they're all here in this community BECAUSE we are so compatible with each other through our nerdy interests.

Nerdfighters is like steroids for your mind on some levels.

If you would like a bit more of a synopsis of certain events that have come to pass as a result of me becoming a nerdfighter, i'd like to direct your attention to another blog post where I recently

discussed the difference in my life starting with having slow internet, going through becoming a youtuber and ending with where I am with youtube and all the people I know through the internet: http://paulsaysthings.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-i-came-to-be-where-i-am-now-on.html