Josh Ritter - Temptation of Adam

Ukulele Cover 11.A
Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter

This song has way too many words.

Journey Proud: Dragon*Con

Atlanta, GA, hosted a lot of events this Labor Day weekend. ESPN Game Day, the Black Gay Pride Parade, Dragon*Con. I want to say that I was surprised to hear all of this, but then I remembered Atlanta is a very strange, sketchy place. I didn't attend the former events, but my Saturday afternoon was already strange enough.

For those of you who aren't nerds and have somewhat of a life, Dragon*Con is a tremendous gathering of all things comics, movies, gaming, cosplay (Costume roleplaying. You've probably seen at least one in your life. They're the really weird teenagers that where cat ears and tails around in the grocery store), and general nerd-dom. It's like the San Diego Comic-Con, but over here on the east coast (If you're not familiar, here).

This was my first Dragon*Con and I was pretty excited. I've been going to Charlotte, NC's Heroes Con for a couple of years and I could be more happy with my experiences there. I've never been dissatisfied with what I've seen there. The staff is wonderful and friendly, the vendors are incredibly nice, and there is always a wonderful group of artist and writers to meet and speak to.

I left around 8 and drove the two and a half hours to Atlanta and that was fine up until the last fifteen miles or so.

Dear Atlanta driver in the Audi with the customized license plate,
You cut six people off. You didn't use your blinker. And you were driving in the car pool lane for about three miles. You are not cool and you are a terrible driver.
Love,
Thomas

I find my exit and I can see the hotel, but then traffic is stopped for about ten minutes for a very large parade. At first I was thinking, "Oh, there must be a game today or something." But then there's a bright flash of yellow and all these flags and then I see three of four people dressed as Super Man. "Oh, okay I found where I'm going... Awesome..." We finally get moving again and I start looking for a place to park. This was only my third time in Atlanta and I wasn't really sure what the parking situation would be, but I was pleasantly surprised that there were so many parking lots with very reasonable prices. Win.

I'm still a few blocks away from the hotel and I didn't research as well as I should have so I just followed a couple Jedis and Storm Troopers and eventually I found where I was going. At first I was really confused, there was no table up front to register and get a little name tag or bracelet to let you in, but I just figured it was no big deal. But everyone had one... And after walking around for about twenty minutes, I find a little information table and they tell me to go the Sheraton and get my pass... Oh, that's about three blocks away. Awesome.

Walk back the way I came and find the other hotel and follow this blue tape on the ground and get in line to get my pass. The line looked really short and after slowly moving up we go into this room that's full of people. Oh... we just waited in line to get into another line. We walk through all these ropes, fill out a form, and wait there for at least an hour and a half, just to get registered. This is when I got really bored and started asking people questions:

Q: If you could be anywhere else other than here, where would you be?
A: The US Open or a bar.
Q: What's the farthest you've walked in one day?
A: Twenty miles. Hiking the Appalachian trail. Probably farther.
Q: Where are you going and why?
A: Here. Well, at first it was because I was hoping to get laid by a hot cosplay girl, but now I just want to get out of this line. I don't know. I'm just here cause I'm bored.
Q: What made you the happiest you've ever been?
A: Probably when I had my first child. But right now, getting out of this line is going to make me pretty happy.

So that line was fun. Finally got my ticket to get into the main rooms and wander around for about twenty minutes trying to orientate myself in this ridiculous cluster of booths and people and trying to figure out where I need to go to meet Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy). After wandering into one of the other hotels there are these huge signs that say "Walk of Fame." Taking that as the place I needed to be I just wander into this big hall and start to look around for anything to do with Harry Potter. I see all this tape on the floor and all these people standing in lines and I'm really confused and then I see Lou Ferrigno. He's like three feet in front of me and I kinda freak. If you've never heard of him, just one word. Hulk. And really he is one of the scariest people I've ever seen. I look up (for real, had to look straight up just to see his face) and he says, "Hey." I smile and walk away. Eventually I find the line for Felton and I stand there for like half an hour. All these people keep talking about him and how they stalked him on Twitter. That's really creepy.

But the line finally starts to move and I'm at the little PR section and they say, "Okay, what do you want signed?" I show them my book and ask if he could just vandalize it in character. They give me a funny look and say, "Okay, you don't want a picture?" I look at the pictures and I ask if I could get it for a discount since I was getting it done for a friend. The woman stares at me for a second and I give the biggest grin I can muster and she says, "Sure, I don't care." The big body guard guy behind her looked really pissed, but I just smiled and it all worked out. Another guy was giving me really mean looks but I kept smiling and he laughed a little, so win.

Tom was pleasant. We didn't get to talk a lot. He mentioned that he played guitar and I said I played ukulele. He was impressed. He asked what kind should he play if he get's one. I said baritone if he's played guitar for a while. Then he said something about Wendy's and he took another sip of his Red Bull and then shook my hand and shuffled me along. It probably wasn't worth the thirty dollars to meet him but this was:


I wandered around some more, saw a lot more scary looking people. I wasn't really paying attention and I heard some woman say "Oh my God, there is nothing hotter than a man in a kilt. Whatcha got underneath there?" I did not turn around to find out.

Got to meet Gina Biggs who writes a webcomic that I've been reading. Very pleasant and nice. Spoke with Sanford Greene, another artist who I actually know and I saw at Heroes Con a few months ago.

It was four o'clock by then and I was stupid tired. I was very impressed with myself that I found my car with no problems. Way to go, internal GPS.

All in all, Dragon*Con was interesting to say the least. It wasn't the "comic book" convention I was looking for but it definitely made my Saturday about six times more interesting. And like all conventions I go to, I spend entirely too much money. For one, the price to get in for just the day was insane. $50 is entirely too much to be there for one day. I'm still very mad about that. I'm sure if I had been able to figure out where the panels and screenings for really terrible, old movies, then it would have been worth it. But I was more concerned about meeting some writers and just looking around. Meh, so it goes. Whether or not I'm going back next year is up in the air. I'll need a really good reason to go.

Oh, and where was the free stuff? No one offered me buttons or pins or posters or anything. I would walk right by their table like three times, make eye contact, smile, and look at all of their stuff. Nothing. Lame.

Here's what I've learned from Dragon*Con:
It's very disorganized. Like pretty much every convention. But this was ridiculous. Come on Dragon*Con, lock it up and draw some better maps.
I really dislike people that use a sheet of paper as a fan and they go in these huge sweeping motions to try to cool themselves off. It's not going to get you any cooler by doing that. And you're fanning your smelly odor right into my face. That's really gross.
Lou Ferrigno is one of the most intimidating people I have ever seen.
Tom Felton has a firm handshake. Just thought you might light to know.
Comic book conventions are very accepting of people who wear little to no clothing. Just say you're an elf and they're like, "Oh, okay. Cool costume."
Steampunk is probably the coolest thing ever.
(Thank you ladies. You win the prize for being the coolest cosplay I saw all day)
Miles driven: 361.9

Top 20: Books

About a month ago, I had a conversation in the comments with my favorite blogger in Texas about Harry Potter and books. It was a rather lengthy discussion that you can go back and read it if you'd like, but to sum it up, we have very different opinions on what books we like. But that's a good thing. It'd be too incredibly boring if we all liked the same books, movies, and shows and we all melted into this boring, lifeless being with no personality.

Here are my top twenty books and some reasons why they're there:

1. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
(It's just so easy to love. I see myself as Coraline in a lot of ways. I'd much rather go and see something I've never seen, but a lot of the time I think the same old boring things I see everyday are the most interesting. And I'm pretty much talking to myself all the time.)
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
(Zusak is an incredible writer and this is the most well written book I've ever read. A lot of people have giving it a lot of crap, saying that it's very unrealistic, but it is a work of fiction.)
3. Paper Towns by John Green
(Margo Roth Spiegelman is one of the most interesting characters I've ever read. There were times when I was reading that I wanted to yell at her and stop reading, but John Green is just so good at making a character so deep and complex that you have to finish.)
4. Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther
(I read this for the first time in ninth grade, and I've read it twice since then. It changed my perspective on dealing with tragedy and learning to cope with loss.)
5. Ender's Game by Orsen Scott Card
6. Harry Potter: HBP by JKR
(It's my favorite in the series. The character development is the strongest and it really bridges the entire series.)
7. Looking for Alaska by John Green
8 (tie). An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
8 (tie). Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
10. Kiss Me Like a Stranger by Gene Wilder
11.New Spring by Robert Jordan
12.The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie by Agota Kristof
(One of the strangest and creepiest books I've ever read. It really plays with you and you're never really sure what parts are true in the story or when the characters are telling lies about the story they're in.)
13.Nuklear Age by Brian Clevinger
(Super heroes that are bad at their jobs. Comedy at it's best.)
14.Harry Potter: COS by JKR
(There's so much packed in that is so important and you'd never know unless you've read all the way through the series. Every little detail and event is so well thought out.)
15.Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
16.The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan
(Very good collection of short stories, all intertwined to make a complete story.)
17.Harry Potter: POA by JKR
(Two people: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.)
18.Without You by Anthony Rapp
19.The Hunger Games by Suzanna Collins
20.Rice Boy by Evan Dahm
(Even though this is a comic, Evan Dahm is a very talented writer and artist. He has another series he's working on called "Order of Tales" that's even better, but it's not quite finished. Very in depth story and world that he's still building and can go in any direction.)

This took a lot longer to write up than I thought. I'm sure there are lots of books that I could have put in here, but as of right now, I think these are my favorite. What are some of your favorites and if you've read any of these, what did you think of them?

Ben Folds - Gone

Ukulele Cover 10.C
Gone - Ben Folds

Cool things, like sleeping and getting bad haircuts.

Montana is huge

For about eight months, probably more, I've been planning a road trip to the west coast. It was a two week trip, across about twenty states, and I'd planned to visit as many tourist traps as possible. When in Rome...

But with just about anything I plan, there are conflicts. Lots of them. Several people had shown interest in going and seemed pretty game to go. Unfortunately, things fell through and they couldn't go and the kicker, I got called for Jury Duty on June 1st, the day I had planned to leave. I only had to serve one day, which I am very thankful, but it pretty much ruined all motivation to try the trip.

But after a few weeks of moping around the house and whining about not getting to go, my dad agreed that he would be able to go for a week to get as much of the trip in as we could. He need to be back by Monday afternoon for some meetings, but as long as he was back in time, we'd keep driving. I knew that there would be no way to fit in everything I planned, so we ended up cutting a little over half of it and focusing on driving through the northern part of the country.

Dad and I have flown across country in private planes twice before, so I wouldn't be too much different. But rather than having to worry so much about day light and getting to an airport by a certain time, we'd be able to switch off with the driving.

We didn't leave until Monday afternoon and didn't go very far. Only about 450 miles. But the next morning started off very strangely. It's about 8 o'clock in the lobby of a little Holiday Inn somewhere in Tennessee. I've got a little cup of Raisin Bran (it's all that was there) when a biker (who was driving his truck and pulling his motorcycle) said, "It's it a blessed and beautiful day?" We answered and said it was and Dad noticed his shirt was from a bike rally in Sturgis, SD. Since we were heading that way, Dad asked him about it. This turned into about a twenty minute conversation about motorcycles, riding through Indian reservations, and giving me a lecture on staying away from drugs, alcohol, and wild women. Then out of nowhere, pulls out a pistol and starts telling us about it. But he doesn't use regular bullets. No, he would never kill a man, but he would shoot little bbs that would probably hurt like crazy if you got shot in the chest with them. He blessed us and wished us safe travels. Not even into Day 2 and a guy pulls a gun on us.

Drove all day Tuesday and only made it to Nebraska. About 600-700 miles driven that day. Not quite where I'd hoped we'd be but Missouri is a really crummy state to drive through when the weather is bad. The interstate was super lame and just straight for about 300 miles. Nothing too incredibly interesting.

By Wednesday, I'm driving through rain just about non-stop. I'd driven pretty much the entire time. Dad drove maybe 140 miles and then said for me to take over again. Finally made it into South Dakota, and the first of giant things on the side of the road. The Pheasant of Gregory, SD. Gregory's sign said it was "The Happening Place!" That's a lie. All I saw was this giant Pheasant and two or three mills, but I guess for people in South Dakota, that's pretty happening.

Winner, SD. Because it's awesome. Half way between Missoula, MT and Indianapolis, ID. Just in case you were wondering.

Yes, I fell. It was raining and slippery.

Wall, SD. The Wall Drug Store is a pretty famous place. One of the oldest surviving drugstores. It's a pretty big stop and it's super busy all the time. But a giant Jackalope is worth the stop. They're supposed to give out free ice if you ask for it, but foolishly forgot to ask. Fail.


Sturgis, SD. We had to stop. And the rally started that weekend. There were at least a thousand motorcycles there already and it didn't officially start for another four days. Unreal.

Devil's Tower, WY. If you didn't know, this was the country's first National Monument. It's pretty amazing. It's about 30 minutes off the interstate, but it's worth it. Lots of Native American history. You wouldn't think that a big rock in the middle of Wyoming would be that interesting, but when you look about it and see a giant mountain sticking out of the middle of a valley, it's pretty awesome. It's a pretty big plot point in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." If you haven't seen that then you should, too.

This picture doesn't do it justice. Try Wikipedia, or you could just go.

By Thursday, Dad is starting to get pretty worn out. I'm doing all that I can to get to Washington. But then we get into Montana.


I can see why no one is ever in a hurry in Montana because it will take you all day just to get across about a third of the state. "Big Sky Country" is an understatement. Visibility in SC is around 5-10 miles, or at least what I'm used to. Montana: anywhere from 50-150 miles. When you see that mountain, get used to it. You'll be driving towards it for the next few hours. By the time we got to Helena, I couldn't go any farther. It would take us another three or four hours to get into Washington and it would be 9 o'clock. I'd given up on getting there for this trip and headed south.

Idaho has a little panhandle we had to drive through and it's the same as Montana. We started measuring distances between the mailboxes we'd see every once and a while. Farthest distance between two mailboxes: 37 miles. I do not envy rural mail carries in the west, I praise them and ask "How?"

Utah was the same way and so was Colorado and Kansas. Lots of space to cover.

I drove home all Saturday and into the night to get home. We made it back around 7:30, checked the messages and took about a four hour nap.

So what have I learned.
1. Pepsi products make me burp a lot.
2. "Cows" is the best game ever.
3. Montana is far larger than I expected.
4. There are actually plenty of jobs out there. Fence repair and hay farming is in high demand in the west.
5. Days Inn is one of the dirtiest places I have ever been.
6. Yes, the mountains are beautiful. But when it takes you three hours to get around them, they kinda lose their appeal.

I'm really glad that I finally got to go and it was worth the wait. Couldn't quite get everything in that I wanted, but there's always next year. 2010: Forks or Bust.

And one more time: Harry Potter is awesome.


We got lots of looks and comments. Most of them were positive. We may have broken a few people's hearts.

MGM - So Desperate

Ukulele 9.A
So Desperate - The Mountain Goats

My voice can't go that high and hold the same key. I can barely hold a key as it is.

Half-Blood Prince (Spoilers!)

For about two years we've waited for this movie. We whined when it got moved back SEVEN months, but Twilight was good. I won't say that I wasn't disappointed about the date change, but I've waited longer for books (Paper Towns: a year and a half) and video games (Smash Bros.: two years; Duke Nukem: still waiting...). I'm a pretty patient person and it was worth it.

The opening was, of course, very over the top. Order of the Phoenix was the same way, very dark and lots of CGI to get you hooked. I would have liked to see more of the Unbreakable Vow and Snape(Alan Rickman) right at the beginning, but it would be hard to hold attention after a big CGI fight.

Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) was alright. I wish he didn't have that confused look on his face the entire movie. I always pictured him as a more confident teacher. For every scene he was in, it looked like he was just trying to remember his lines and just "Ugh..."ing until he could spit something out.

Ginny (Bonnie Wright) and Luna (Evanna Lynch) just keep getting better. Bonnie is right on the edge of getting too awkward and never goes over which is just what I wanted to see. Luna has been my favorite student since she first appeared and I love that she is getting more lines. I wished that Neville (Matthew Lewis) had more lines. He only speaks in one scene, as a waiter at Slughorn's Christmas party. Not acceptable.

Tom Felton has nailed Draco perfectly. I've always seen HBP as the best character development in the entire series, Draco especially. I used to hate his guts and he was too whiny, but I really like the change from being cocky and "Mister Big-Shot" to troubled and torn about what is right and wrong. I would have really liked to see him in more scenes talking to himself with very choppy sentences.

Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as Tom Riddle was amazing. He was exactly how I saw Voldemort as a kid. Maybe a little taller, but the way he delivered his lines was great.

The editing and directing could have been a lot better. I thought that they just spit out a lot of the lines and just moved on. There needed to be a beat between a lot of Dumbledore's (Gambon) lines. Snape's deliveries were the best up until his list few. He rushed it a little but I don't know if I could have been able to sit through another twenty or so minutes of just pauses between lines.

"Sectumsempra" was the best part. Almost exactly how I thought it would go down. Myrtle yelling "Murder in the bathroom!" would have been beautiful, but it's been clear for a while that she won't be in the rest of the movies. Maybe a little more blood or something a little more horrifying, but regardless.

"The Cave" was nearly perfect. I wished it was a little slower and that Dumbledore would have acted "weaker" so that he seemed more run down after drinking the potion. He seemed perfectly fine when they got back to the Astronomy Tower. He could have breathed a little heavier or hunched some, anything. I never saw him standing straight up and speaking pretty clearly. Could have looked a little run down.

Yes, they left out a good portion of the book that would have been great to see. The fight with the Death Eaters a the end, more with the Felix Felicis would have been great, more about finding the Half-Blood Prince would have made more sense, and the funeral would have made a better ending.

Sure all of that would have been great, but could I sit through a four hour movie? Probably because I'm a big fan of the series, but the movie needs to be marketable too. They got everything that needed to be done: The love story with Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, the Horcruxes, Tom Riddle's past, Voldemort rising to power, and Snape killing Dumbledore. The producers and editors have to keep it to the point without ruining the book. It was exactly what it needed to be.

The reason we complain and nitpick every little detail is because it's not the book. It will never be as good as the book was. But we're so dedicated to the series that we want it to be everything we hoped for. The book is always going to be better, but the movies bring the characters a little more life and they give us another reason to dust off our robes and draw lightning bolts on our heads. They make us incredibly happy.

10 out of 10