I paint picture jot it and dot it/but won't print it/my project is photogenic

When the boys with the Tech's throwin up they sets..


And the spot so hot the ceiling starts to sweat..


That’s when the beast come out:



















The poor result of boredom late at night. Might actually take this concept and turn it into a (decent) collage later..when its not 2:45AM.

Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

Using this as a way to kill time while waiting to get tired enough to sleep. Hopefully it won't backfire and actually keep me up.

LIFE:
Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. And for those of you who didn't, I hate you. Just kidding, I really don't care who did/didn't say it..I've never been big on celebrating any sort of holiday/event, let alone my own birthday. Today was just an ordinary Sunday for me, with the exception of a recovering back and two(?) pulled muscles in my neck.. Work 8:00AM-5:00PM, attempt to study from 6:00PM-8:00PM. Watched the BET awards at 8, and now I'm sitting here. Maybe I'll celebrate later on this week. We'll see.

I was nervous about taking summer classes for the first time in college, but so far its going well, even though I've already missed 1.5 days of classes. I had a test already in my 4 week Econ class. I didn't really study too much and got a B along with scoring ~10pts above the average..I hope the class is curved. Midterm in that class later this week.

LOVE:
Put up an old blend of Michael Jackson - Remember The Time blend w/ Cypress Hill by Ron G :)

Two new Lupe snippets of what is said to be tracks off of We Are L.A.S.E.R.S. leaked earlier tonight, and I'm liking what I hear. One of them sounds like hes rapping over a Dre beat. My biggest complaint is with the music leaking in general, because his album isn't even scheduled to drop until December, even though hes 95% done with the album already.


The 2009 BET Awards were tonight..Live. What a mistake that was. This years show (and past) seemed very unorganized and not very thought out. I give them a half of a pass this year because of completely restructuring the show literally last minute to honor Michael Jackson. But when you're BET (Under MTV's giant label, which is under Viacom), you should have a staff capable of producing a quality live show. Even things such as Jamie Foxx (the host) not knowing when they were coming back from commercial, or the sensors letting the swear words slip out, and then censoring words after that, which were just normal words. There were also dirty versions of songs being played for award winners stage entrance music. I'm also not sure how much of an influence BET has on artist's acts, but some of them were set up weird and just not made for that type of show..some parts shouldn't have been made for anything :(

Onto the performances in no particular order..

by

Beyonce had a great performance as usual, singing Ave Maria and..something else..I forgot. It was solid as always. I wasn't really feeling the little wedding gown type outfit she had on..but its Beyonce, so who cares.

Keri Hilson's performance was just eh..I think she needs to work on her live singing a bit. Shes hot though, so I don't care. Jamie Foxx & T-Pain performed Blame It,. They switched it up by having Snoop come out and mashed it up with Drop It LIke It's Hot beat..but Snoop didn't really do anything which was lame. Then TRavis Barker came out and they flipped it again. Travis always provides so mcuh energy into his remixes and always delivers. Ciara had a shoddy MJ tribute..

>

Maxwell gave an always solid performance of Pretty Wings. If you don't know who he is, I suggest you check him out and watch the video above.

Ne-Yo did a good job doing a MJ tribute performance also. Not too sure about those glasses, but the singing was on point.


Jay-Z performed D.O.A, which sounds muhc better live than on the track. The live instruments give it that extra bang and hard hitting sound it needs on the beat. I hope No ID adjusts the beat for the album version. I feel like the beat needs to come a little bit harder, Takeover style.

Besides that, they did several tributes to Michael Jackson like Jamie Foxx dressing up and moonwalking. It definitely looked and felt rushed, but it was, so I give them a pass on that.


The best (and hardest to watch :/) part was at the end of the show. Janet Jackson came out (big props to her for doing that so soon), saying few words, but displaying miles of emotion, and then Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo closed the show by doing a nice duet of Jackson 5's I'll Be There. I just wish that it was a better awards show that went on instead of a BET/MTV event. :| I'm assuming some network/company is going to put together a 2-5 hour tribute special within the next week or so though with tons of interviews and performances. I sit eagerly awaiting.

Afterwards Jay-Z's D.O.A. music video premiered..I wish I could be in Vegas this weekend to see him tear it down live with this. Video below:



AND THE PERSUIT OF HAPPINESS:
We keep getting new items at work..and I keep wasting my money on them :|


Haven't tried any of them yet, but I've heard good things about all of them, and they all sound good.


Finally, after about 4 (Yes, four) years I invested in some insoles for my work shoes. It took me this long to finally buy them because of such a big selection. I was always too lazy to look and see what materials are the best, what brands, what a decent price is, etc. But today while at work I decided to waste some time and take a quick look at our selection. I landed on these because I figured the fabric/memory foam ones will eventually just get smashed down and be ineffective, whereas gel shouldn't, or not as much anyways. I'll report back with results once I work again. Does anyone else use gel insoles? Are they worth it? Can you feel a noticeable improvement?

I feel like everything is spinning around me right now..so that's probably a sign I should get off of this and go to sleep.

continuing on with the tiny tributes..

Pickups

Some of these are old, but I'm trying to avoid doing homework, so they'll have to do for now.








And...junk food:


S'mores!

Found it!

“There’s only a couple people in this world that are supposed to be immortal…we just lost one” -Estelle

Homie Tell Me Whats Good

Time for an actual post with (little) content.

I haven't been doing too much lately. My life essentially consists of being in class, at work or at the library. If everything works out schedule-wise, I'll finally be done with school this coming Spring term. Ended this past term with a 3.65 and i'm hoping to get about the same for summer term.

I feel like I'm really old right now..I'm almost 24, I messed up my back somewhere inbetween walking home and sitting down to eat dinner earlier this week, and then on Friday messed up my neck between the time of me waking up and getting dressed. My body is giving out on me :(

Although I have more money right now than I have in awhile, I've also went on a spending spree..expect pictures late next week once I get all my packages. I also really want to build a new computer to replace this ~8 year old desktop I currently have, but after buying a bunch of stuff I feel like I should put it off for a bit.

My Vegas trip has been killed, because no one has enough money to go right now..and I don't want to go by myself :|

Maybe I'll have an amazing birthday to make up for it..but i doubt it.


I started watching the TV show Weeds awhile back, and I definitely think its worth watching. It's light and easy to watch, and the episodes aren't completely dependent on you knowing exactly what happened in the last episode or whats going on in the big picture. It has some nice darker humor in it and a good amount of 'oh shit!' moments that suck you into watching the next episode.



Ever since I first heard about Twitter, I disliked it. Even after hearing about Talib Kweli & ?uestlove using it, I still didnt like it, and refused to join it. I saw it being the next big social networking site, and the social networking site of 2009 (Which it has become), even though I thought it was a dumb idea. Both myspace, facebook and essentially every other networking site out there has a 'Status Update' feature that isn't limited to 140 characters, and they all have several other features. But Twitter's simplicity (and celebrity usage marketing) made me think it'd be successful. It's also something quick and easy to use anywhere, especially on phones. I finally gave in and signed up only to attempt to win a pair of shoes (which I didn't win), but recently gave into using it as a way to kill time.

Art vs. Artist

At just about mid afternoon nearly every major news, blog and social networking website experienced a slow down, and some even came to a complete halt. CNN seemed to slow along with BBC, while Twitter completely stopped working completely for me, and Reuters gave out even before Twitter. TMZ's single article skyrocketed to the front page on Digg.com receiving over five thousand digg's in under 40 minutes, with almost two thousand of those coming within the first ten minutes, at one point averaging at over 150 Digg's every thirty seconds. All social networking status updates turned to one topic, and nearly every radio station across the nation all began playing music by the same artist. This is definitely the biggest artist/celebrity/famous person to pass in a long time. From what I can remember anyways.

Even though I didn't follow his music too closely, I still liked and enjoyed everything I heard from him and definitely respected his work and his huge legacy and influence on music and art as a whole.

I've seen a lot of people talking trash immediately following his passing because of his obscure lifestyle, and I think Questlove said it best: "I think its time we let him rest in peace and learn to separate the ART and the ARTIST. --that is the MJ i will forever remember." It's interesting how the media and news companies can spend so much time prying into a man's life and tearing it down for the last decade, and then in an instant do a complete 180 and praise his legendary status.

I hate some really good quote to end this post...but I can't find it now :[

Locked in!

In the famous words of Diddy...LETS GO PEOPLE!!!

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Just got out of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen midnight showing about an hour ago..and now its time for a review.

There aren't any spoilers in this review, so read on, even if you haven't seen the movie yet.



Preface: I've heard a lot of people talking trash about the movie, saying how its filled with overdramatic camera shots, corny lines, too much action, and a simple/predictable storyline. What I have to say about that is that this is a Michael Bay movie based on an 80's cartoon of giant transforming robots. You should know what to expect from him before you even see a trailer of the movie. Don't expect to see some deep and meaningful movie like Crash, X, or Citizen Kane. If that's not your type of movie, you probably won't like it. But it's like going to see Up and saying its bad because you prefer live action movies instead of animated movies. With that being said, lets proceed:

We Showin' You The Good:
This movie was filled with essentially nonstop action like the first, along with wide angle rotating panning shots, some great shots of landscapes and cityscapes, slow motion explosions, dramatic music, amazing special effects, long fight scenes and humor accompanying even more Autobots and Decepticons than the first movie, and of course, Megan Fox running in slow motion.

The overall story of the movie was done fairly well, although it could've been executed better in delivery of certain scenes. They did a decent job at taking you along the journey while also stopping to explain what's going on,although some parts seemed useless. It's all basically straight forward and laid out in front of you, which people may or not like. I think with a movie like Transformers, that should be expected though. I don't go to see an action movie with giant transforming robots to see a movie that will make me think on a philosophical level. I go to be entertained.

Another good thing was seeing specific Autobots/Decepticons and parts of the story from the original series.

They managed to (attempt to) insert a lot of humor in this sequel. There were several corny lines, but I expected those coming from a Transformers movie. Some of the humor worked well, some of it came across as trying too hard and could've been delivered better, and some was just a swing and a miss. Needless to say, there was a lot more humor than in the first, and several lines/scenes had the entire theater laughing.

The Bad:
Be prepared for a long movie. Two and a half hours long. Although I definitely thought this movie was long, I also thought The Dark Knight was long, but still good. The first thing it reminded me of was Bad Boys II, with its long run time and a long fight/action scene at the end. Now that I actually think about it, these movies are very similar with their overall plot setup, insertion of humor and action, and of course, directing style.

The Ugly:
Just like the last one, the special effects were amazing. At times, much like the first one it was hard to tell exactly what was going on in the fight scenes because there were so many pieces of metal flying around and they were all the same color, making them blend together when the two bots clashed. I don't see much of a clear cut solution, and I'd much rather have these more realistic looking bots with incredible detail than a bright pink Autobot fighting a neon blue Decepticon with clear fake outlines that make them look like unused ideas from Power Rangers.

Also, at times, even for a Michael Bay movie there were some unneeded wide angled rotating camera shots..ie. someone just getting out of a car. I think the main issue with this one compared to the last was execution wasn't done correctly on certain scenes.

This Is For The Hood:
The movie was a lot more overtly sexual and much more vulgar than the last. This can go either way on whether or not it makes the movie better or worse. At times I thought some of the profanity was too childish or unnecessary and detracted from the movies overall appeal, but at other times it helped make the scene/line as funny as it was.

As far as the movie being over-hyped, I think thats another thing that's all personal opinion. Its a sequel to a movie that's grossed over 708 million dollars, and also based on a hugely popular 80's cartoon which in itself spawned it's own wave of movies, toys, lunch boxes, apparel, etc. So I think it is to be expected that this sequel will be heavily marketed. Whether or not the consumer falls into this 'over-hyped' movie is all up to them. I think many people have fallen into it, especially those who have never even seen the original series or toys. But I also think there are people who just liked the first movie and hope the second one is just as good, if not better.

You Got, To Love Me:
As far as whether or not it's better than the first, I think that's more up to personal opinion. I thought it fell short of the first one mainly because certain scenes should've been much better than they were. But I still look forward to seeing it again in theaters, only at the IMAX the second time around. Overall this was a fun and enjoyable movie which surprisingly had me emotionally attached to several characters, drawing out anger, laughter, sadness and happiness. If you liked the first one, you'll like, if not love the second one. This movie was worth my $9.50, being surrounded by high schoolers (who made me feel really old) and waiting in line for over two hours to insure good seats.

In the jungle with the leaders

Haven't updated with any real content in awhile...hopefully i'll do that later today. Heading up to Beaverton for a hopefully smooth dentist appointment in an hour :/