Dragon Masterpiece
This was my attempt following along with a youtube tutorial.
UnSung Musical Groups
Here is a list of musical groups that are certainly well known but not necessarily well appreciated. They’ve produced many hits and are overlooked as the cream of the crop. Essentially these are groups that I would play far more often than the radio plays their songs.
The Kinks
Pete Quaife, Dave Davies, Ray Davies, Mick Avory.
Let’s be clear and understand that the Kinks were started in 1964 which was essentially the same time the Beatles and the Stones were in their hey day. I don’t think many people would argue that the Kinks were more significant than either of these groups because they weren’t. Their music gets lost in this time period due to being overshadowed. They are like Dominique Wilkens. Back in college I would listen to the Kinks for hours and just enjoy myself and the music. They have received plenty of notoriety and are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but aside from Lola, All Day and All Night, and You Really Got me, it’s safe to say you probably haven’t heard much of their music. A few personal faves are David Watts, Living on a Thin Line, Come Dancing, Catch Me Now I’m Falling, Waterloo Sunset (my all-time fave), and Sunny Afternoon. I could easily name another 10 that are worth listening to. This group deserves more mention than they get.
Boston
1976 Version of Boston
Boston fascinates me because you don’t hear any of their songs from any album but the first one and there’s one single from the second. Boston’s first album Boston, ranks as the best-selling debut album in U.S. history with over 17 million copies sold. It has 8 songs and every song (maybe not Something About You) gets radio play today. The next album, Don’t Look Back, really only had Don’t Look Back as a single, and I’ve heard A Man I’ll Never Be a couple of times through radio play. Boston premiered in 1976, Don’t Look Back in 1978, and then Third Stage was 1986 and nothing came of it except Amanda. The band battled with legal troubles throughout and never reached the peak of their debut album. It’s unreal to think that a group could produce one of the best albums of all time and then never get back to that point. Rock critics strictly hold longevity against them considering they weren’t able to continue making first class music throughout, which I understand. Somehow, someway, they were able to come together at one time and be a staple of radio for the next 30+ years. I always liked Hitch a Ride.
Dire Straits
Mark Knopfler, David Knopfler , John Illsley, and Pick Withers (drums and percussion).
Dire Straits were formed in 1977 and Mark Knopfler is essentially the group which he proved with his successful solo career. Their most popular album, Brothers in Arms, has sold over 30 million copies which is tremendous. I can’t think of a song they’ve made that I’ve gotten tired of hearing. Every time Money for Nothing comes on I know the little faggot is a millionaire. In Sultans of Swing I know guitar George knows all the chords and Harry’s got a daytime job and is doing alright. Romeo and Juliet is perhaps my favorite love song and I don’t like love songs. Still today I hear Dire Strait songs that I listen to for the first time and find myself wanting to the know the titles so I can listen to them again. Skateaway, So Far Away, and Lady Writer all are songs I won’t switch away from. The group disbanded in 1987 and Knopfler went on to do solo projects and film soundtracks which ended Dire Straits. In 2007, Knopfler said he did not miss the global fame that came his way at the height of the band’s success, explaining that “It just got too big”. It’s a shame because he had an awesome, distinguished voice and could rock the guitar.
The Cure
Simon Gallup, Jason Cooper, Reeves Gabrels, Robert Smith, Roger O’Donnell
Everyone starts with Just Like Heaven and Friday I’m In Love. These songs will catch and people will delve deeper into Pictures of You, Love Song, Boys Don’t Cry, and Close to Me. If you are still getting into the Cure at this point, you’ll start hitting some wonderful songs that don’t make the airwaves as often as those infamous jams. A few personal faves are Lullaby, Fascination Street, The Caterpillar, and Why Can’t I Be You. This band isn’t a few hit wonder considering it’s estimated they have sold 27 million albums as of 2004. They are a staple of New Wave music and made classic music throughout the late 70’s and into the 80’s. I find myself listening to more of the Cure now than I ever have and won’t stop until I get sick of them. Robert Smith, the lead singer, seems a bit kooky.
Rate the Katy Perry Shop
Some color changes to a Katy Perry picture
I’m sure people who view this web site regularly will think it’s pretty weird that I use Katy Perry in my Photoshop attempts but you have to understand that I have to practice to get better and she serves as a good model. Combine this with the idea that she probably gets searched more than anyone beside Gaga and Rihanna and this gives me hope for an influx of traffic. This would actually be a tad bit incorrect thinking based on past results and the incredible traffic I received from Brandi Passante a few years back. That traffic hit me because there weren’t a lot of other pictures in cyberspace about Brandi. Katy Perry probably has millions which would leave anything I do in the depths. Nevertheless, I still have to continue practicing and she works out fine. Call me a creep, I don’t mind. This was actually two backgrounds combined which is more advanced than what I was doing before. Give me another month and I’ll start producing some finer work.
Messing around with Photoshop and using Katy Perry as my model.
Money Cometh and Goeth
I ended up winning the FanDuel for 500 bucks which was a pleasant surprise. I remember the days when 500 dollars meant something more than it does now. This is one of the horrible aspects of getting older, money loses value emotionally and in relation to expenses. In other words, this $500 dollars was spent before it even hit my bank account (or better said, put to use in Fanduel again). In the past week I received an $177 bill from Comcast, $50 from the water department, $65 from gas company, and $594 for car insurance. So as you can see, the 500 dollars isn’t even touching my normal expenses so how could I get excited over winning it? It hits my bank account and I’m glad I have it, but it doesn’t change anything.
In college I always had about 1,000 bucks in my bank account from working over the summer and this seemed like a huge sum of money compared to my friends. Notice if I won the 500 dollars in college I would have been going nuts. Once I started working for the family business, I really started earning some cash and had little to no expenses. I lived at home for 2 years, drove my mom’s car around, and didn’t even pay for utilities. My only expenses were gambling losses with CK4 in AC. After 2 years of sweet living, I moved out and leased a car which brought about rent, insurance, and car payments. I had plenty of disposable income at this point in my life and invested far too much in relation to my money in the stock market thinking nothing could go wrong. At approximately the time I invested, early 08′, things went wrong. I irrationally sold some of the positions which proved moronic but when you are living in a time period where the financial sector is literally disappearing, it didn’t seem so irrational. This both ended and started a new life for me.
Over the next years I was still making a comfortable salary but expenses caught up with me. For the past 5 years I haven’t saved a single cent. I spend what I earn and that’s not even saying I’m a wild man, I just haven’t made more money in relation to my expenses. Sure I could do better saving, but I work to live and not live to work. If you read the blog, you’d know I purchased a home which was a wise decision in terms of building equity and hoping that home values stay put but with my luck, I tend to buy at the top. Either way, I’m bombarded with home expenses which I know will never go away and all other riff raff that comes along with purchasing. I’m not crying, I’m just informing any younger person that the older you get, the more shit comes your way. What used to be 50 dollars, now feels like 500 dollars.
The amazing thing is that I’m a Finance major. I’m the one who is supposed to be good at this stuff. How are other people supposed to handle expenses without the basic concepts of math and debt? It’s no surprise that the top 1% (the smartest people) control the majority of the money as the rest of the population suffers. Money is the root of all evil but try living without it.
Name That Celebrity
I have no idea if this is too challenging, too easy, or too stupid, but it gives me a chance to mess around with Photoshop. My personal feeling is that it’s far too easy but I think that could be because I know who they are. Reverse google image won’t work either so don’t try.
FanDueling to the Money
The Fanduel team below will most likely lead me to a $500 dollar cash prize, $475 net. Many thanks go to the Wevs and the Wads who both played integral parts in its creation. I originally had Eric Decker and the Wads suggested Tavon Austin who not only outperformed but gave me more cap space. Then the Wevs told me, “Ike Taylor sucks” and Josh Gordon was going to go nuts which is exactly what he did. I added my main man Jamaal Charles which was the icing on the cake for a big week. The only way I don’t get first is if Frank Gore goes for 26+ points in a half point ppr. Happy days are here again. Actually I am probably down about 250 for the season in FanDuel and another 200 betting so this will bring me back to even.
The Pigskin Pickem is also providing huge entertainment as the Shee is tied for 3 in the world out of 500,000+ entries. I’m not too shabby at 226th but 8 games behind which is pretty major at this point in the season. We had the Pats last night in what can only be described as a thriller. Unfortunately, the group we are in is my brother’s work and the sheer domination from outside competition isn’t my intention. The Shee and I have a tie-breaker set up for tonight (both going the Niners obviously) that will have one of us winning 8 of 12 weeks? I seriously feel bad.
As a football themed post, my fantasy teams are almost all finished with an outside chance of hitting the 6th spot but that’s mostly wishful thinking. The Wild Turkeys need everything to go right next week but that is what happened last year so I still have hope. I don’t have much of an explanation for why I was so terrible this year but it’s just the was the cookie crumbles in fantasy. A few players on the shit list though are Steven Jackson, Run DMC, Dwayne Bowe, Trent Richardson, and Doug Martin. The players I love this year are Cam, Jamaal, Josh Gordon, and Kendell Wright is slowly creeping up the ranks. Rough season though.
To finish this post I will write about our intramural co-ed football team playoff game. To keep is simple, we got rolled by what was, frankly speaking, a better team. It wasn’t all that much fun losing. They hit open spots and their players didn’t make mistakes and our offense wasn’t as sharp as theirs. Tough season. We’ve never been able to climb back to the summit of our very first season what was probably 4 years ago.
New Dresher Wawa Review
I had the pleasure of visiting the newly opened Wawa by the Fort Washington turnpike entrance in Dresher. I’ll start by saying I’m an avid Wawa fan even though I haven’t been going as often as I did a few years ago. The benefits of Wawa are that their gas prices are always competitive, their coffee is customizable, and everything feels clean and tastes good. I tend to be a person of routine and routinely getting the same items at Wawa is something I look forward to. Back to the Dresher Wawa.
I think I counted something like 16 pumps at their gas station and all their equipment was modern and obviously brand new. Gas was $3.23 which was fair even though I saw it in Jersey for $3.09 yesterday. It was in the morning and this place was already crowded. I entered the store and the bro ahead of me held the door open and I heard an employee say “bless you” when someone sneezed. I walked to the clean coffee area and got a cup of coffee that was piping hot. The coffee area was being cleaned as I was getting it so it was evident this area was someone’s responsibility. I also got a sausage, egg, and cheese Sizzli which was well made and delicious. There were 3 cashiers working and no line. The price was over 4 dollars which I thought was expensive but I suppose I was also paying for the experience. I left satisfied.
I count about 10 people but there were easily another 10 in line.
After the round of golf I played today, I had to eat lunch. I wanted to go to Primo’s but it was too crowded so I went back to the aforementioned Wawa. Packed wasn’t a proper description. There were at least 20 people in line and 6 employees dishing out sandwiches. Once again it was a smooth operation and I waited under 10 minutes for the entire transaction to take place. My turkey club was well made and I had no complaints. A bro even opened the door for 4 people in a row. All in all, unless this Wawa is putting on a show for it’s opening, everything was outstanding.
Back To Health
My mother texted me the other day and asked, “how are things going?” I replied with, “all good, the days are passing”. As with the majority of times I write something, I was aware that this may be construed as depressing. I pride myself on telling it like it is and I went with this answer because it was the truth. The Earth doesn’t stop spinning and time doesn’t wait for you. You either make things happen or watch it pass by. I’m casually watching it pass by but enjoying it as it goes. Things are looking up though.
One nice thing is that I’m finally able to work out properly again. Today I put down 4, 6 minute miles on a treadmill which was a huge undertaking considering how out of it I’ve been the past 6 weeks. My knee injury really sidelined me and its taken to this point until I’m close to what I’d say is full strength. Not surprisingly, I got hurt as I felt I was nearing my peak athletic performance but the reason being I was pushing myself as hard as possible. This injury wasn’t by mishap. Stupidity perhaps, but trying as hard as I could push my body led to injury. I’m finally back to running again and it feels good to be able to get back to regular form.
The two things that I need to do coming up are learn German and learn to ski. I’m heading to Germany in February and it would be nice to learn the language. The problem is that I find it incredibly time consuming and boring. I still have plenty of time but it’s not something I enjoy. Learning to ski is a completely different matter(horn). I got frostbite on my foot in college and hate the cold weather. In February, I have a colleague who wants to take me skiing on the alps. This is obviously intimidating considering he grew up on the mountain and I’ve barely completed a green circle. I plan on heading to a mountain over the course of the next few months if anyone is interested. I would even coordinate the trip if I can get enough people. The comment section wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Anyway, these little challenges just take some time to learn and I can overcome them but as I said before, I’m not wild about either.
Other than that, life is good and I’m feeling good physically and mentally. Winter is coming and I expect good things to come.
Old Movies Watched in 2013
I make it a point to catch up on movies that are referenced but I’ve never seen. I still need to see the 1st half of Jaws, Citizen Kane, Terminator, ET, and Rocky but I’ll work on that. Today I bring you a list of 5 movies that I’ve watched over the past months that I felt deserved my time. 4 of them I watched for the first time and one I re-watched.
Rhett and Scarlett
This movie is a staple amongst famous movies. It’s constantly called wonderful and this urged me to sit through this 3 hour 45 minute flick. Everyone has heard the, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” by the man of men Rhett Butler aka Clark Gable. Vivian Leigh plays Scarlett O’hara who has to be in 90% of the scenes. The movie is set in the civil war period and follows Scarlett around on her love quest for far too long. I would never, ever, want to watch this movie again. Once was enough but I’m glad I did if that makes sense. The dialogue is pretty good and I picked up on weird insect lines like, “angry as a hornet” and “waiting like a spider” so I will certainly say there is plenty of thought into this movie. I liked Scarlett throughout but I didn’t care about her romance.
Mystic River – 2003
I don’t know what urged me to DVR Mystic River other than the description in Comcast. It received a few Academy Award nominations, has the elite Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins for stars and is directed by Clint Eastwood. To its credit, it manages to hold the attention of the audience within the first 5 minutes and doesn’t let up. Unfortunately it doesn’t improve that much but it also doesn’t get worse. It grabs you in, holds you, then drops you at the end. I thought the mystery throughout was intriguing but not a movie that I would say is that next level. A solid B. Here’s the trailer if you’re interested.
Beetlejuice – 1988
It just isn’t that good. I’ve heard about it in popular culture but never had the chance to watch it and I’m happy to watch it once, but won’t watch it again. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play the dopey leads, Michael Keaton is fine as the foul mouthed Beetlejuice, and Winona Ryder steals my heart as 17 year old Lydia just as she did in Edward Scissorhands. The dance scenes are great but the plot sucked. Simple as that.
Miracle – 2004
Disney’s adaptation of the USA’s Gold Medal in the 1980 Olympics
After being in Lake Placid this summer, it seemed only fitting to watch this movie. Getting the full glimpse of Herb Brooks stadium and the Legends of the Oval, I knew I was finally ready to watch this flick. Kurt Russell was believable as Herb Brooks and that was all there was in terms of acting. The team members were mildly appealing but I couldn’t find much to grab on to in the movie. The Russian game was oddly hyped considering how big of a game it was in reality. The movie needed to focus more on what was happening around the games and less on the hockey to make it have more of an impact. I understand it’s a Disney movie made for kids but than that’s what I’m going to treat it as.
Austin Powers International Man of Mystery – 1997
I’ve seen this movie more than once but probably not for 10 years so I am familiar with it. I’m not going to review it as a movie because it’s not about being a movie. The plot isn’t pivotal and you watch this movie for the laughs. You can pick it up anywhere and know where your at. All that being said, I did have a few favorite parts.
The “Right” is classic as this point. Had me cracking up.
Nerd Alert, Evan will like this.
And this wonderfully timed line.
Don’t Clog Up My FaceBook Feed
From articles I’ve read about teens losing interest in Facebook and their major push with ads and corporate input, Facebook is no longer the “hot” social media. The stock is maintaining momentum with a strong push towards mobile which is pretty much the only thing you have to say if you want to sound like you are in tune with what is going on. From what I gather (good phrase), Facebook is maintaining popularity amongst the older crowd, 40+, because it’s new to them whereas it was new to Generation X 10 years ago. This is preferred by Facebook because they are the demographic who has, and spends, money. Problem with this is that this group isn’t all that interesting and quality content is severely diminishing. I want to add a clause that it’s not that older people are not interesting, it’s that they don’t know how to appeal to the masses.
Stay at home moms and the unemployed tend to rule my Facebook news feed to the point that I don’t want to log on. For some unexplained reason I’ve had an influx of activity where I accepted, and requested, about 10 new friends. I have to assume that this activity opened the flood gates to people who are in my network. So without being the dickhead of the past, I decided to accept all requests. Big mistake. Within the first 12 hours of accepting their request I was littered with 2 profile picture changes of head shots. Head shot profile changes are screaming for attention. I can deal with a profile picture change quarterly and even monthly, but not weekly or daily. It clogs up my feed and immediately makes me think the thoughts I’m thinking now. Essentially, I don’t need or want you to be my Facebook friend.
It’s not just the head shots, the lack of interesting content is what is killing Facebook. Sometimes I’ll see some interesting links but am too scared to click them because 9 out of 10 are ads or spyware. The other problem is that people in general are boring. Twitter allows you to follow as many celebrities, comedians, pornstars, and athletes as you want who update with clever and fascinating tidbits. Facebook has me following 400 of my lame “friends” who update me about flat tires and bad hair days. It’s a matter of time before people start fleeing in droves.
So I don’t spend the entire post bashing Facebook, I do think it is a worthy place of displaying events and giving you a last resort way of contacting someone. Invitations of a party is perfect because people can get the details in a public setting. Also, there are cases where you know someone but don’t have their number and you can direct message them which is better than nothing. I know there are some people who use Facebook as their own blog or diary but these people are far and few between who post noteworthy work on Facebook. I find it neat to be on the edge of trends like these even though I’m still probably a year behind.