Gift of Music

Hey! This grand idea is now one year and one day old! Crazy! Okay, so in addition to the long dry entry to follow, I'm happy to announce that I've recorded even more music on this beast (meaning my computer), and my partner in crime is formulating some meaningfull words, e.g. lyrics, for the masses' to consume. There should be a way to put it on here for free...but HOW? On another note, I'm wearing my "I'm a Pepper" a.k.a. I'm a corporate shoe shirt today!

This post goes back the to the Monday after J and A's Wedding. It was a trip that began here, in Mpls., early on Monday morning and ended in Chicago Illinois (pronounced ill-i-noyz for those of you who don't know the RIGHT way to say it). Non-g/f and I were on our way to see Oasis. I was excited not only to drive to Chicago for my first time, but to see one of my favorite bands finally after being a fan of theirs for over 10 years. I won't waste your time by giving the sordid details of the 6+ hour drive (Yahoo!), but needless to say, we arrived in one piece. I have to say, the correct spelling of piece always looks funny to me; i before e except after c and after w in weird! Why? Because the English language if f*cked up like that! Sorry, just took my lithium. I'm ok now. There were two opening bands, the first, the Thieves, either an Aussie or British band, and Jet, an Aussie band. Both bands were awesome, but I was quite taken aback at the crowds reaction to Jet. No one in the entire crowd seemed to respond to them, not that they didn't like them, but no one moved at all! I was scared! I've never seen an entire stadium not respond to a semi-well-known band like that. Anyway, the crowd at least knew the radio hits, well, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl", anyway. I was more dissapointed by the crowd than by Jet's performance (which was great)!

The time had come for Oasis! I don't even remember what they opened with but it didn't matter because I actaully got to see them! They played a phenomenal show, so phenomenal was the sound quality, that it sounded as if I were listening to the recording on the cd! Some highlights - brilliant orange lights during "Turn Up the Sun", giving the feeling of standing watching a sun rise - "Wonderwall", "Don't Look Back in Anger" & "Champagne Supernova", including many of the Definitely Maybe songs (my fav. album of theirs). Liam kept just staring out at the crowd like a nutter! Crazy Brits! There were a few of the Noel songs as well (where Liam left the stage and Noel sang alone). I ruined the end of "Don't Look Back in Anger" for everyone around me, as non-g/f explained later, when Noel was waiting for everyone to stop singing, so he could sing the last line alone, and I sang with him. After an encore, which they played some cover song that not many people knew, including myself, they were done, and we went home.

I would put something that a member at oasisinet.com wrote, but I don't want to get hell for it, so here's a small recap - They opened with F*ckin' in the Bushes. The next four songs were from the new album Don't Believe the Truth. Then came Bring it On Down, Little by Little, Rock n' Roll Star, Morning Glory, and Champagne Supernova; they played more then I listed. The encore gave us Songbird, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger, and finally My Generation (the cover).

Piece (yes, it's intentional),

P-Wagz

Jwedding

8/8/2005

Jolly Good! Literally! Er...yeah, so without too much further ado, here comes a blog thingy (oh, yeah, post!). So, I've spent the summer reading the Harry Potter series, and two of Dan Brown's books, as I've already said at one time. There will be an extended delay on the long philosophical post that I promised, or at least, I think I promised. I also managed to balance my check book finally, after spending countless hours across two different days this summer. This balancing followed about seven months of back-logged bank statements. I still am disagreeing with the bank [although they say I have more money :) ], but it's ok because I haven't agreed with the bank on my balance since I opened the damn account. Time to start anew, I think. What idiot couldn't balance their checkbook? Apparently this idiot, yes the one who's life you've been reading about since last August! Onward Ho!

J's wedding took place about a month and a half ago. I attended and non-g/f was my "and guest". Me, being the procrastinator that I am (refer to previous paragraph), bought his gift a few days before the wedding. He received bed sheets from my "and guest" and me. Because I didn't have a ton of money, I didn't buy any gift wrapping paper, and had to have it wrapped about an hour before the wedding took place (talk about your close calls). We arrived at the church out near Mistake Lake Casino, shortly after the wrapping on Saturday the 18th of July. There were many people there and we took a seat in the back pews. I thought that we were the only people that were friends of J and A that were there at first, but then I saw a few familiar faces from the bachelor party. After sitting for only about 10 minutes, the ceremony began. The wedding march was Canon, I forget the key, played gorgeously by a violinist. There were two ministers (I believe that is the correct title) that gave speeches. The first one was very religious about the role of man and wife according to the Bible. The other one was more real, I guess is the best way to put it. The second minister gave a much more uplifting and touching speech in my opinion. After that, the vows were given and J kissed A. I was very happy for them both! Then the wedding party left and moments later the newlywed husband and wife entered and led each and every row out of the church, which I thought was unorthodox for a wedding, yet putting a very original and special touch to their ceremony. We all hugged when it was our turn to leave, then exited the chapel area and greeted some of the people we knew already outside. After I briefly talked with J again, and gave him my map to the VFW for his relative, the non-g/f and I were off to the reception. It was the fastest wedding I have ever been to in my life. We must have been out of the church in about a half hour. Maybe all weddings are that short and I owe to the fact that I haven't attended one in a quite some time and that's what made me think J and A's ceremony was very brief.

The reception, as I said, was held at the local VFW. We sat at a table with Blue Pumpkin's mother, his two cousins, his aunt and uncle of direct relation to his cousins, and a few friends of ours. The deejay was an interesting fellow, he played the biggest mosh-posh of tunes I've ever heard in my life, but I guess he did a fine job. When most of the guests were settled in, the wedding party entered and were seated to some crazy top 10 hit. Next they announced that they would only kiss if people sang a song with the word love in it or one that had to do with love. They kissed only handful of times during the evening. Some other highlights include: two of us at the table kept fighting for the delicious little chocolate wedding-favors. Blue Pumpkins mom was scaring me about my best man speeches for his wedding, I danced with A and J for a dollar, and so did a few other guys. Overall, it was a good time. The food was delicious, served buffet style, and had a southern feel considering the types of foods compiled. After about 3-4 hours, we bid J and A farewell, and drove home.

Later,

P-Wagz

Odds n' Ends

Here are some things that have needed dealing with/posting for quite some time. Here they come and they are so mished mashed it will drive you into utter madness upon completion of reading them. First and most important, I am Blue Pumpkin's best man! I'm nervous and excited at the same time.

I will be posting one more paper from the writing class from last semester so keep your eyes peeled!

The end of last semester. Where to begin, where to begin? I don't know if I mentioned this, but in my world music class, we had to do a final ethnography project. This project consists of going out and researching music in culture on where ever your interests lie. I ended up choosing to do my project on the community focused African dance class. I focused primarily on the symbolism of the drum and even participated in some of the class dances for some hands on stuff! You would be amazed what a drum represents in some African cultures. I interviewed the drummers (there are actual live drummers just for the class) and learned much from that! At the end of the semester, I attended the final performance and had a blast! I will also be taking the class this coming fall! Me...in dance!! Gwaa ha ha, prepare to be stunned. If any of you remember the way I used to dance in high school, you know the world's in trouble!

My finals overall went well; I know this because I did pass all of my classes. My expository class was very barely, my most favorite class. I say that because I had world music, guitar II, and microbio last semester all together, and they were all most enjoyable. I believe I already posted my final paper for that class a while ago. Wait...nope, just checked, I haven't. Well anyway, once you read it (and I post it), this might make more sense. We had to write a non narrative essay on any topic and it had to have a specific style. The style could be any one you chose. I chose a Credo, which is writing about one's beliefs, and possibly one of the harder styles to write a non narrative essay on. After I finished writing it, I figured it was a narrative, but I was told by my prof. that the first part was non narrative and the second part went into a ranting that turned into a narrative. I also didn't truly stick to my guns and the paper ended up shifting, I guess is the best word to use. My biggest problem came when I submitted the final draft and I was told I had to come in and explain how my paper wasn't a narrative. this means you had better be prepared for a good argument, because if you fail the argument, you fail the final paper! I thought I was screwed. I put together my best argument, and when I went and gave it my all; I lost. My own prof. saved my ass from himself and told me that I pretty much walked the borderline on narrative/non narrative, I just didn't argue it that well. He was generous enough to not fail me on the paper, although I was sure he was going to, and I became even more of a fan of his. I also learned that my roommate was in the freshman version of my class that day, which was pretty cool. Also, I learned that my prof. collects papers from students not only to use as a teaching aid, but as an assemblage of good works for submission for publication. He wants to use college level writing for a book to help teach a college class in writing! I feel honored!

For Father's day, I took my Godfather and my father out for golfing down the street from my parents. That was quite fun. I lost miserably, but claimed to have ousted them both. Following that, my rents and I attended a grad. party for my cousin. Whoa, that was weird. My aunt remarried a few years ago to my now uncle who has two girls. I haven't gotten used to the fact that they are indeed now my cousins. The party was very nice. She's attending Kansas state, but doesn't know where her concentration will lie.

More recently, I attended another of my cousin's grad. party. I don't think he's going to college, but I'm unsure.

There was another squirrel story that I wanted to tell. Back in the days when the squirrels broke into my apartment, there existed a day where a squirrel attacked some innocents. I came home to find my lithops (living stones) all ripped from their pots and scattered near the window sill one day. There was a lone one laying in the middle of my roommate's futon with it's soil and pot scattered on the floor. I was totally confused at first - was this some kind of joke my roommates were playing on me? I investigated further and found that a squirrel had chewed through the screen on the windows, violated my poor lithops, grabbed one, carried it across my other roommate's keyboard, and manhandled it on the futon. Surprisingly, the lithops sustained close to no damage and I repotted them all. My roommates and I took pictures of the "evidence" left by the squirrel, mostly, foot prints on the light dust of the keyboard.

I have a mac, as you long-time readers know, and I have a little piece of software called GarageBand. It acts as like a little studio for the user. It has functions I can't even begin to describe. It even adds effects to my guitar for pedals I don't even own! It's a poor college student's wet dream...er...yeah..... I started recording some music with it, and if I find the time, I'll post some samples of it; I guess the service would have to be free as well. One step closer to the dream!

I have a correction to make about meeting my fav. bands. I've meet three of them. I also met the Smashing Pumpkins. It was back in 2000 with their release of Machina: The Machines of God. Everyone was there except James Iha, who was sick or something, so his brother was in for him. I assume this had something to do with the bands original break-up which was blamed on Iha by frontman, William Corgan.

Another correction. Nathan, from the band Papa Roach, is actually named David.

I read my whole blog the other day... Wow. It actually isn't that bad, with the exception that the last few posts have been a little long and dry. I noticed many errors and have corrected them, so if you ever read them (I can only hope) again, you are in for a surprise! I have to say that this thing should be taken in doses. It's sort of like the warnings they put on medication, read no more than a forth of a post in any given 24 hour period. In case of accidental overdose, water down with some good reading.

Did I mention that I have been working four separate jobs at the library this summer - just for full time! No overtime! During one of my shifts, a girl from my first year Chinese class entered and talked to me for about a half an hour. It was good to hear from her again and see that she was doing fine.

Alright, everyone breath!

P-Wagz

Blogaversary

In 9 days it will my blog's first year anniversary! Come celebrate it by posting on the 22nd, I will greatly appreciate it. I'm trying to finish up to big blogs for y'all so there will be new material. Don't worry it's coming. Today marks move out day for my old roommates. I now have a large empty space across the room. ::Tear streaks down face:: But I will see my old roommates anyway next year, I'm sure. After one night and one morning of cleaning, I'm a little tired. It was embarassing because the house fellow who checked our room caught very obvious things that I totally forgot to clean, but all's well now. Now I await my new roommate who has already been living in the apartment for the summer to move in my room. He was staying in the other bedroom until my present roomy moved. Okay, 'nuff boring stuff. I'm at work working, so I should probably skedaddly-doo!

Peace,

P-Wagz

Humorous bumper sticker I saw recently: Tree hugger, soil worshipper. (I'm lovin' it [I also hate McDonald's.]!)<---talk about your messed up symbols!

Tidings Over

Here's to whet the ol' whistle for a while...

Credit is given to the non-g/f.

Fungus Amongus

Thanks and have a good one!

P-Wagz