D E C E M B E R 0 3
First quarter ends. Site is redesigned into the "widescreen letterbox" format. Espiritu records a Christmas song. Jason Mraz concert review. Eugene and Andrew remember the strap keyboard and Bomberman. Dave and friends make a Christmas card. Don throws a Christmas party.
Now Halfway Decent Samurai?
Welcome to the newly redesigned Okaysamurai.com. While we now resemble an online magazine more than just my personal site or a promotional tool for the band, it's still the same eight guys writing the same stories about hitting geese with golf balls or having boxes of crayons thrown at them.
I leave for Atlanta tomorrow morning, but I had a relaxing and fun break back home in Virginia. As always, it was great hanging out with the band again - these guys will be my best friends for life, whether they like it or not. Santa delivered big time this year. I got the Boss RC-20 Loop Station, which has added an entire new world to my music. Andrew and I continued our gift tradition - he gave me Gigli on DVD, and I gave him a crappy Corey Feldman kung fu movie and a Playstation 2 scooter fighting game. On the video game side of things, I got Viewtiful Joe, Sarah got SSX3, and Andrew got Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - all three are unbelievably cool. I'm sure that Andrew will write about his big present after his upcoming NYC New Year's Eve trip.
Make sure to listen to Eric's Christmas Mix two posts down (great job as always, Eric - definitely hearing the recent Beach Boys influence). Is this guy amazing or what? Happy New Year and enjoy the new site.
Monday, December 29 at 7:24 PM
There's Always A Wu Tang Reference
So, I'm here in Hamburg, NY enjoying the Christmas holiday with the family. It was great. On the way up on the 24th, it was raining. But at 11PM Christmas Eve, it started to snow, and we had three inches by Christmas morning. A white Christmas after all. Thank God for Buffalo, New York, the short-sighted answer to the question of global warming...
Hmm, I wanted to write a post that would get all in the holiday spirit, but it's just not working for me right now. Instead, I'll just say that "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is one damn weird movie. Good, but messed up. It's about the guy who hosted the gong show. He wrote a book claiming that he was also a secret hit man for the FBI. Messed up. But at least Drew Barrymore is in it.
We just had Mexican food for dinner. I'm very full.
My brothers and I went to see Lord of the Rings today, but there must have been 37,000 people at the theater, so we left and came home and watched football. Maybe tomorrow.
Lately I've been playing Sim City on the old Super Nintendo. I've never accomplished the major goal of getting 500,000 Simcitizens, but right now I have 490,000. Just something to think about over the holidays. I know you're inspired. Anyway, maybe I'll get that inspirational post up soon, maybe I won't The craziness around here never ends. That's it for random ramblings for now. I'm going over to Lardo's house with my brothers to play Madden Football, then I'm going to the local watering hole to hang with the killer bees.
Peace...
Sunday, December 28 at 4:54 PM
Merry Christmas from Virginia
Hey all, just wanted to wish you all a merry christmas. I just got back from Virginia on the 18th and have been pretty busy since getting back. I plan on staying here until the end of January to work on my cd. Thankfully Jeff and Don are both nice enough to lend me some of their gear.
Anyway, over the weekend I decided to record a little xmas medley in the spirit of christmas. It's a little arrangement including "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)", "Winter Wonderland", and "Jingle Bell Rock". It's a little jazzy, a little rocking, and a little musical theater, broadwayesque, haha. You'll get a kick out of it. That's me on all the instruments and vocals so forgive me if it's not perfect... Anyway, I've posted it on a geocities server for your listening enjoyment, but we all know how crappy geocities is with their bandwidth, so if it's not available to get when you look, just try in an hour and it'll be back again. Enjoy! CLICK HERE
Friday, December 26 at 8:11 PM
Return of the Awesome; 2004 Redesign
Everyone else in the world has already said it, but I'll say it anyway: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was an incredible movie; the best I've seen all year. The large-scale war was beyond anything I've ever seen in a movie before. Having never read the books, I was surprised and entertained at every twist and turn. My only (minor) complaint was the overabundance of fade-outs during the last 45 minutes; I thought the movie was over about 6 different times. But I'll be very surprised if it doesn't win Best Picture on Oscar night. Expectations for these movies were at a fever-pitch, and somehow Peter Jackson exceeded them. I'm sold on traveling to New Zealand at some point in my life too. It was great seeing the movie with the Okay Samurai crowd (and honorary member Jinsoo) since we all went vocally nuts when cool things happened in the fight scenes. Check out Jeff's site; he should have a review up soon.
The visit to Baltimore was short but fun. Mike and Nick were sick, but that didn't stop us (Charlie and Tammer included) from playing marathon sessions of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. Mike and I rocked out to the point of me breaking two strings. My visit to Vitamin was also cool - Alexey was extremely friendly and informative. Their calling card is ridiculously creative: a prescription bottle with their contact info on the label and breath mints inside. Cool company all-around.
I'm happy to say that our daily visitors for okaysamurai.com have almost tripled since I started attending PC; thanks for continuing to check in on us. I'll be updating the site in early 2004 to be more reader-friendly and professional looking - right now fun stuff like Shoot is buried in the navigation. I'm trying to emulate an online magazine instead of a typical blog, with a staff page, more in-depth writing and interviews, and even fake monthly magazine covers. This site continues to be my favorite way of keeping in touch with people, but it's also evolved into something else. The emails I get keep me motivated to continue. A few weeks ago, I got a letter from a teacher in Haywood County, Tennessee, who read the TFA Chronicles and asked me questions about her own discipline system. A lot of old friends have written short notes like "MORE SHOOT!" and the inevitable "Is Eugene single?". Tonight, I got an email from Owsley's record label about sending me a copy of his new album to review. So again, thanks for reading, and I hope you'll like the upcoming redesign.
Saturday, December 20 at 8:29 PM
Sick Acoustics like Pooh Sticks
It's shweet having a college-sized winter break again. I'll be in Baltimore tomorrow to visit a design agency and my old TFA roommates, and then turn back around home for yet another Okay Samurai reunion to see the new Lord of the Rings movie. Most of my time at home has been spent playing guitar and working on a solid setlist. I'm at around 16 songs right now (10 originals, 6 covers), about 1/4 ready to go, 3/4 rough. One thing I'm focusing on is making the covers more interesting and creative, mixing similar songs together to create new choruses. My favorite is a mix of every Outkast single into Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River, or as I like to call it, Cry Me A River Over Baghdad, I Like The Way Mrs. Jackson Moves Like A Polaroid Picture At McDonald's (I'm Lovin It). Another song takes the clock tower theme from the Castlevania video games, and with lyrics and a new arrangement, it's now called Monochroma. And I'm also wondering about playing a Korean pop song from 2001 by this guy called Position (but Shinhwa is still the best of the Kpop bands - new album coming soon!). Jeff Ma (manager) and I were talking today about acoustic guitar acts and how the coffeehouse stereotype is that you must be sitting on a stool and playing original love ballads with cliched metaphors like "I'm falling, catch me" or, straight from high school creative writing class, "no one understands me." In other words, I'm glad I got hooked on Tenacious D. Not to say I'm against slow songs or love songs, because I've got them too, but for a live show you gotsta rock out! By the way, in addition to starting his own website, Jeff Ma will also be writing on okaysamurai.com in the near future, being that he has joined the extended OKS family.
I'll write again on Sunday night after this weekend's events unfold.
Thursday, December 18 at 8:29 PM
Back In Burke Bacharach
Last night was Don's semiformal Christmas party, so I got to hang out with familiar Robinson High School faces: Don, Nick, Jeff, Peter, Kristen, and of course, Jeff Uhr's brother. I was wearing a sweater vest and carrying a pipe and music reference book, which got a lot of compliments. Highlights: 1) The power going off for 30 minutes. 2) Jeff and some random girl attempting to tell me a riddle about a wolf, pig, and sheep on a raft. After 15 minutes, they figured it out and exchanged multiple high-fives. 3) Andrew being fascinated that a girl was named Dustee - "like the manager of the Cubs, only with two e's." 4) Little penguin snacks made out of two toothpick-skewered olives, carrots and cream cheese. 5) Driving home slowly at 2AM as snow piled up on the roads.
Sunday, December 14 at 6:49 PM
Wednesday, December 10 at 10:22 PM
One Down, Seven To Go
My first quarter projects are up in Shoot. I was on a 6 hour sleep / 18 hour work schedule since last Monday trying to finish all of these; it feels good to be settled back in normal life. Critiques went very well; two out of three judges were very positive, and one was a little more critical, but he made good points (and has a reputation in the school for being a one-man firing squad). "Why is this printed differently? How did you cut this? What else do you do? Why did you come to this school? With this project, it looked like you were almost at the finish line and tripped." But critiques are so short (15 minutes with each person) that these guys don't have much time to say anything except criticisms. The best compliment came from the judge I was fearing the most - my typography instructor (html doesn't allow for em dashes, sorry). I mean, if the space between your "S" and "O" on your book title is 2 points too wide, this guy would be the first to notice it. But he said, "You went beyond what you were asked to do. You're where you need to be for a first quarter student, and I actually think you're a little above that." The last judge was positive as well, and he'll be teaching me a logo class next quarter.
On to the projects. The treehouse got the best reception ("It's 92% there" and "swivel it for me" barked judge #1), followed by the board game box art and the bags, especially the Explorer Sack. The creation of these projects was fun, but exhausting. Every day last week I found myself driving to places like Home Depot, Michael's, several art stores, a fabric store and a digital printing shop. I did things I had never done before, and the experimentation was exciting and frustrating. The temple for the board game was made out of the stuff they use to make tunnels for model trains. The grass for the treehouse is tiny specks of spray-mounted green foam. A friend sewed the Explorer Sack and I hammered in the eyelets. All of the books were hand-bound with sobo glue. Fun, no? But I am surrounded by extremely talented people whose projects are equally as cool (and often cooler!) than mine. People tackled these projects in all sorts of different ways, and the end results were nothing short of exceptional. Anne Marie made a milk carton box to feed the animals with at her petting zoo exhibit. Alison created an elaborate fold-out children's book about an ostrich. Jeff put together a well-designed scarf with a pocket that could roll up into a pillow. Katie's books were the best that I've seen. Jen's cutout poster is insanely detailed, with hundreds of tiny triangles creating the background. I'm lucky to be friends with all of them.
And here's a pretty funny story - I went to the print shop on Friday to pick up some work. There were some girls from PC's rival school, Creative Circus, who were trying to fill out an order and driving the lady behind the desk crazy. They didn't know what software they had used to make their work, didn't have their fonts ready, and were complaining about their teachers. I was fairly dressed up for no particular reason, and the woman behind the desk peered around the girl and asked if she could help me. I said I was picking up an order for Okay Samurai Multimedia. The girls turned around and looked me over like my imaginary company was real, and the woman behind the desk treated me with a lot more respect than the students and got my order right away. The "Okay Samurai Multimedia" logo was put on just about every project.
First quarter is over and I don't report back to school until January 5! I leave for Virginia on Thursday. Oh whatever shall I do during that time? Visit the Baltimore crew, make an appearance at Don's prepped-out country club party (my scarf and sweater vest are gonna rock your world), work on the demo, practice with Andrew and DESTROY HIM IN AIR HOCKEY (that's right, the trash-talking has begun), see The Last Samurai and Return of the King, and possibly redesign the website.
Music really helped me get through last week. A live recording of a 12.2.02 Howie Day show was great - yet another artist who uses a looper (a gadget that is at the top of my Christmas list). Obscure yet rocktastic, Owsley has a new album out, The Hard Way. Eric Espiritu, if you're reading this, I've got to say that you would love this guy. Commercial pop/rock at its finest. I'm starting to love it just as much as the first album. I was skeptical about Harry Connick Jr.'s Harry For The Holidays, but the girls got me into it - I absolutely love this album. Best Christmas album ever in my book, although I enjoyed listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas CD too.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Monday, December 8 at 9:17 PM
Too Tall Jen Jones drives a white mini cooper, true THAT!
Other recent discoveries:
Ajay Berry works at the office next to mine in Crystal City. Matt Axelrod is a spanish teacher and works out at Golds Gym Ballston.
Saturday, December 6 at 2:49 PM
Ferenczy, Unfiltered
So, I got an email from Dave today asking these two questions:
1) How long does school go before winter break? Because I definitely want to come up to visit with my amp and guitar.
2) When, oh when, will the great Mike grace us with another okaysamurai.com entry?
So I figured, "hey, I have a lot to do, so I should post RIGHT NOW!!!!" Yeah, so here goes a few random ramblings and updates. First, I got a new car. A silver 2003 VW Passat 5 speed and it's sweet. But I still have the old green 94 Ford Taurus and it's sitting out on the street in Baltimore city, waiting to get sold. And the great part about this car is that the keyless entry system opens whenever someone in the vicinity clicks their keyless entry. So my car spends a lot of time sitting on the street, in a city with an incredibly high car theft rate, UNLOCKED. This has been going on for about 4 months now. My car is still there. That should tell you something about what kind of shape it's in. It looks like something the Wutand Killer Bees would be driving around in with $4000 rims, hydraulics, and a hot tub full of "fly honies" (yeah, I'm gangsta) in one of their videos. Wanna buy it?
Random thought number 2: I've gotten very patient and almost zenlike at school this year. Today, one of my kids was acting like a jerk, so I told him he couldn't do the class project anymore. So he threw a box of crayons at me. Not the big crayola 132-pack, just a 24-pack of crayons. And I hardly yelled at him at all. I just sent him to the office. But things are better at school this year. 86 of my 110 kids passed the first quarter. I think that must be some kind of record for a teacher who actually makes them work to pass.
What else. Oh, layoffs at school. We're supposed to find out which 15 people at school are gonna be losing their jobs on Friday. That sucks. Hope it's not me, because that would mean I couldn't get things thrown at me anymore. Dammit. Plus, then I'd have to go make a lot of money being a chemical engineer, instead of makeing model watersheds. Daammit dammit.
I'm growing my beard back. Fun times. I look scary.
I have hardly played drums since Dave left. I'm really looking forward to him coming up here with guitar and amp. We have school till the 23rd, so get your behind up here soon, son...I need to play some "Under the Boardwalk" and "Mike's Got a Fat Ass."
Anyway, that's all for now from Baltimore. Floor is lava...
Wednesday, December 3 at 5:48 PM
Tuesday, December 2 at 1:42 PM
Nobody Bombs Like Bomberman
I came across the infamous strap keyboard the other day while I was cleaning out some stuff under the air hockey table. Unfortunately the strap was nowhere to be found. I seem to remember that Eugene took it off when he realized that he needed it to carry his cello. On a related note, Okay Samurai Factoid #743: Post-jamming games of bomberman have brought about many classic catch phrases throughout the years. While playing the pipe level on the first super bomberman Eugene fell victim to a bomb hidden in one of the tunnels. Demanding to know who had placed the fatal bomb Don shouted, "Who dropped the bomb that got the Eugena?" For those not familiar with the game, when one character is killed all of his items are scattered about the screen. After many instances of people scrambling heedlessly for the items and inadvertently running into exploding bombs it was determined that "you get greedy, you get dead." Another time, having already killed David's character and within moments of killing mine, Don told me to "go meet your dead brother." I won't even get into the multitude of Mario Kart or Tetris Attack catch phrases now except to say, "Now the hunter becomes the hunted."
Monday, December 1 at 10:56 AM
The Greatest Invention Known to Man
Okay, I promised Jeff I'd post a good old Okay Samurai Factoid, but for the longest time, I couldn't think of one. But one did pop in to mind while I was waiting in line at Best Buy at 5:00 in the morning for their Mega 6am to 12 noon sale. Was it worth it? Let me describe my experience to you in Credit Card Terms: Samsung DVD Player - $50, Italian Job on DVD - $12, Getting your foot runover by a shopping cart because some lady wanted to snag the last copy of Britney Spears' latest album - Priceless. Now on to nostalgia.
Okay Samurai Factoid #263: I was always one for inventing musical things, ie - my sony stereo/bass amp, my old hit stix drum set/speaker box, and of my course my g string/G-String. But my greatest invention was one that surpassed all that came prior. I got the idea from an old Ram Jam Concert I went to where this guy was playing the keyboard except it was like the one's from the 80s, strap and all! It rocked and so I decided to go straight to work. After months of research and intense reverse engineering, I found an old Casio 8190 keyboard along with some screws and a strap that went to my cello case. I worked long into the wee hours of the night, but it paid off. The next day at Jam Practice at the Werners, I presented my new invention. It was called...."Strap Keyboard." Unfortunately it didn't get alot of airplay because 1. There were no audio outputs to plug it in and 2. I think the one speaker it did have was blown out so it was just all distortion. But if you guys still have it, let me know.
at 8:56 AM
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