Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Captain' s Guide to Better Living

A couple months back, my uncle passed away. He often would hand out this little slip of paper with his tips for a happy and healthy life. It certainly meant something to me coming from a successful entrepreneur, inventor, engineer and long-living person.

With that in mind, I've decided to come up with my own list of things to help make you almost as kick-ass as me. Now it's nothing compared to this song, but maybe you'll take something from it. In fact I won't go so far as to guarantee anything with these; in fact I won't even say they "work". They're just several things I thought of that when analyzing my behavior I try to do that make me feel good. And if you're feeling as good as the Captain, you're in pretty great shape.

-Do something silly every day: That's right, every freakin day, do something that you can think of the next day and chuckle to yourself about. I tend to try to do this at work where any amount of silliness gets me more bang for my buck.

-Do something fun every week: I can hear it now. "Doing something fun costs money and I'm not a corporation seizing entrepreneur of the high seas such as yourself Captain!" To that I say "you're a whiny little bitch". Fun is hanging out with friends, playing a video game for 5 hours, splitting a bag of candy with a co-worker. Everyone has their own definition of fun, make time for it.

-Take someone out or make dinner for someone else every month: If you can't afford to take someone out, invite them over when you make dinner. You do eat right? Conversation over food is an age old tradition. Ask anyone who knows me, I spend more time talking than eating when I have food in front of me.

-Do something fabulous every year: Pretty self-explanatory I think. Once a year you should be able to do something that you really want to do and maybe haven't done before. I'm generally thinking of a trip, but maybe you go to a crazy party or take a week off of work and spend it at the beach. I can't do this all for you, you'll come up with something.

-Personalize when talking to people: I generally try to refer to people by name. You should do the same, especially when addressing me.

-Meet lots of people: (even if you don't like people) The more people you meet or know, the more knowledge you can absorb. And knowledge is power!

-Keep in touch with old friends: This is of course assuming you still like them. Nevertheless we live in a world now where you pretty much can stay in contact with anyone you want anywhere during any time. There is generally a reason you were friends with these people in the first place, why waste that effort?

-Try new things: "new" being anything you've never done before. I used to not, but I do now. I used to be poor, now I'm less poor, coincidence? I think not.

-Laugh at, and make fun of yourself a lot: It will suck less when others do it for you.

-Root for the New York Mets: This really goes without saying.

-Have a dream: There is no order to this list, but this may be the most important. Seriously how many people can honestly say they have some sort of dream still? I hope it's a lot, but I kinda doubt it. Around high school (or perhaps even before) I think most dreams are beaten out of us. This is lame and stupid. Anyway, I think it should be something somewhat based in reality, but just out there enough. I mean if it was something totally obtainable, who would dream about it?

Monday, May 28, 2007

The Happy Recap (Part 1)

Been meaning to write this up for a while. (Hey look TWO posts this month!)
It's a good thing I have a schedule of all the shows I went to as I would never have remembered all of these. On to the list!

My Chemical Romance & Rise Against @ Nassau Coliseum on 2/23
Got there a bit late and missed some of the Rise Against set which was disappointing since they only wound up playing 30 minutes or so. Otherwise it was good to see them as I was more excited to see them than MCR initially. Nevertheless I thought MCR was pretty good, they essentially broke the show up into their last two albums; first 45m off their latest album and then last 45m off their second album. I can't recall if they played anything from the first, I'm thinking not. One awesome aspect of the show was that since there were so many teenagers there, there was practically no line for beer! I also got to see some drunk chick in the guys bathroom and Evan ran in to some friends he hadn't seen in a few years. All around a very good start to my concert going season!

From Autumn to Ashes @ The Crazy Donkey on 2/24
My first back-to-back concerts. This one I hadn't planned on attending ahead of time, but it turned out to be OK. I wasn't expecting much actually but still had fun.

Killswitch Engage @ Roseland on 3/1
The night started out like any other, but man would it get crazy. First off, this was and is the roughest show I've ever been to. Constantly being pushed around until finally just being overtaken by the wave of people falling backwards in front of me and buckling to the floor. No one helped me up; not fun at all. I left where I was in the middle front and waded to the side and watched the rest of the show. Bad viewing angle and all, I was a bit disappointed. Did get to meet the guitarist from killswitch after the show though as he came over to near where Lee and I where standing, pretty cool. That would only be half the night though!
I should really have devoted a whole post to it, but to sum it up quickly....Nick's car got towed, we ran through the rain looking for it, took a cab to the impound yard (then more running through the rain), waited for like 3 hours and then got blackmailed in to paying an exorbitant fee to get his car back. Awesome.

Anti-Flag @ Irving Plaza on 3/8
As much as I didn't really enjoy the killswitch show, this was just the opposite. The opening act (Alexisonfire) I thought was great and wound up purchasing their CD there for a mere $5. Anti-Flag was outstanding as well and to top it off they brought out their special guest Tom freakin Morello!! to play a tune. He was in his Nightwatchman mode so he did "This Land is Your Land" with like 15 people on stage, very cool. All in all a fantastic show. Unfortunately my after show bad luck continued as the subway was late due to track work, I missed the earlier LIRR train and then got caught in the farmingdale station because of a track fire! Nothing better than being on a train with no heat when it's 20 degrees outside and there is a fire burning a few hundred feet away. It was very tempting...Ugh... didn't get back until 4:30am on a weekday. You guessed it, awesome.

Clutch @ Irving Plaza on 3/20
Back at irving for another show. I find it neat the total difference in the crowds to all these shows I go to. Near polar opposite from the anti-flag show. Where as then I was certainly one of the older people there, at this one I was probably one of the few in their 20s. Good show and I took a taxi up to Penn rather than relying on the train. Lesson learned.

Lamb of God & Machine Head @ Roseland on 3/22
How cool is it when one of your favorite bands plays in a venue you can get to on your birthday? About as much as it sucks that when you get there the band has already played. Then some sucky band comes on and plays in what should be the Machine Head time slot. Ugh!! Oh yeah I felt pretty shitty about this one... Even worse once I heard the new Machine Head album and read they put on a kick-ass show later on. Scott Ian was at the show though which was kinda cool. Anyway, we wound up leaving early because the power went out when Lamb of God was playing and went down near union square to have dinner. I thought it turned out to be a pretty good night after the show, especially since no cars were towed!

Down @ Roseland on 3/31
Odd in that Down was the only band playing that night. No opening acts whatsoever. I got there at 8 expecting to see some band, any band and I watched a Down DVD for an hour. The one interesting aspect of this was that every single person was there to see Down and Down only. So the whole place was rocking during the entire show. Several Dimebag tributes, myriad Anselmo ramblings, but no Pantera songs. Good show though.

Friday, May 4, 2007

No Intro Needed

I can't say much about this video other than it's pretty scary what we as a country are in to right now.

"Gun Markets of Pakistan"