Monday, August 4, 2014

Friday, May 9, 2014

My band's album is finally getting released this month! :D

Alright, my band's first full-length album is finally getting released within the month! :D For those of you who don't know about it, I'll give you some background...

So, a few years ago a life-long friend of mine(drums) and his dad(guitar/vocals) started a music project called "Government Hate Mail". XD Epic name, right? Anyways, not long later my dad got wind of it and was asked to play guitar in the group as well. Soon after that I figured I'd volunteer to play bass, since that was the only instrument left available, and they were totally cool with me joining the group. :D
The songs "First Rage", "Cry Baby", "Lights Off Reality", "Zippo", "Watch What You Wish For" and "Follow Me anyway" were already written by the time me and my dad joined, so we had enough songs to play live shows or just practice in our little jam-room together. But my dad always likes to bang out tunes left and right while just sitting at home and sometimes just waiting for us to plug our instruments in, and before long the songs "Punch Face", "Y", "Lofolow", and "Zombieland" were created.
So in March of 2013 we started recording our full-length album in a studio run by Kevin Nettleingham of "Nettleingham Audio". And now we're done. :D

So that's the story, and now the entire album is available for Pre-order, so check the link:

Thanx for checking us out! :D

Thursday, May 8, 2014

My close call

I could have died a couple nights ago. O_O

Me and two of my bros(Otto and Solomon) wanted to put on our creepy masks and film some creepy stuff in a small woods near a school when it was dark. We'd been there several times in the past, but hadn't gone together in the dark before. But right when we were about to leave our dad told us(somewhat angrily, because we didn't inform him earlier) that he didn't want us running around in the woods in the dark.

Obviously we were mad, and didn't understand why he wouldn't let us go since we were bringing flashlights and stuff. Now that I think about it now the whole escape sounds a little stupid.

The next morning there were 2 cougar sightings in the same vicinity where we were planning to go have fun in. O_O

*Coughs*

Now I'm QUITE glad we didn't go...

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Monkey Man strikes again(with his side-kick, The Clown).

Have I told you guys about The Monkey Man before? Well, if not, I'll fill you in.

The Monkey Man is... Well... Me. :D

I bought a monkey mask several years ago and have used it to terrify and stupefy people ever since. I've taken on the alter-ego of "The Monkey Man" and use that identity to stir fear in the hearts of the lawless. :D

Epic, right?

Anyways, my brother Solo and I decided to put a note on the window of a car parked in front of a fire-hydrant near our residence. To contain our identity, he donned his creepy clown mask, and I donned my Monkey Man outfit. We circled the complex of Townhouses we live in before approaching the car so that anyone watching wouldn't see that we live literally 10 yards away from the vehicle, and then stuck the note under the car's window-shield-wiper. The note contained something of this nature: "Don't park in front of a fire-hydrant again, OR ELSE." <-- Something like that.

After that, we ducked around the corner of a complex garage, ran down a small hill, wrapped up our get-ups into a bundle, and then walked back home very un-suspiciously.

Job well done, I say.

Here's a vid of the experience, but I dramatized it just a tad. XD

The Monkey Man sighting <--link to the vid

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Eye-floaters...

Anyone get eye-floaters? In other words, those little black spots in your vision?

Well, I've got one annoying little spot in my right eye that I keep mistaking for a little gnat flying around... XD

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Changed my mind.

I was gonna go through the last 3 books of the War of the Spider Queen, but I kinda lost interest. Read 'em for yourself if you like. I was really angry by the time I finished the series, so that kinda fired up my desire to share the tale with you guys, and now that anger's for the most part melted away.

Oh well.

Maybe I'll go through the last half of the series some other time.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Book series review of "War of the Spider Queen" part 1

Well, I finished a book series recently that I hadn't previously read before, which is fun, I like broadening my horizons a bit. This series is part of the "Forgotten Realms" world created by R. A. Salvatore.

The interesting thing about this series is that it's composed of 6 books, and each book is written by a different author. O_o With each book overseen by Salvatore, to make sure it all works.

The book series is called "War of the Spider Queen". Lol, the title just sounds evil, doesn't it? XD

First off, I'd like to mention that this series--In my opinion--should not be read by kids at LEAST under 13 or 14. Why? Weeeeell, I'll get into that in a bit and explain, but I'll just abridge it for now and say: Intense/cruel violence, implied sex, language, and just downright evilness. The only thing that's mostly constant is violence. Based on this rating I'm giving it, you may go: "AHHH, TAKE THOSE BOOKS AWAY FROM ME!!!", but I ask you to read this whole review and all I have to say about this interesting series. :)

**WARNING: SPOILERS**

The story begins in the underground city of Menzoberranzan. A dark elf city. The culture of these dark elves(commonly called "drow" in this book) took me by surprise with the fact that men are held in quite low-esteem. "Males" as they are typically called in this book are all of lower importance, lower authority, most even of lower stature. The city is mostly run by priestesses and matron mothers of the goddess "Lolth", AKA, The Spider Queen.

The hiccup in the beginning of the story is that the great and terrible goddess Lolth has been silent for far too long and has no longer allowed her priestesses to use spells. Of course, her priestesses are unsure why, and attempt to wring an answer from the goddess, but to no avail. One of the main characters of the story is a dark elf priestess by the name of "Quenthal", who is tall, foreboding, beautiful, ruthless, and carries a whip with several living(and speaking) venomous serpents. When this silence occurs, some enemies of hers send assassins to take her out. Fortunately for her she manages to defeat every assassin. One of her subjects was found to have been helping the assassin. Quenthel thought about killing her but instead punished her by cutting off her fingers and cutting out her tongue. She explained how effective it was for avoiding future problems from the person, no fingers to hold a weapon, and no tongue to speak. She was right. Not long afterwards, her sister Triel Baenre, a matron mother of great importance, assigned Quenthel to travel to find the goddess Lolth and to find out why she was silent. Triel sends her son Jeggred with Quenthel to assist her on her journey. Jeggred is a large hulking beast, a half-demon half-dark-elf. I'm not sure how an elf can...eh...sexualize with a demon...but whatever. XD That's fantasy for ya.

Also in Menzoberranzan is a mage by the name of Pharaun Mizzrym. He's an extremely powerful magic-wielder, with an equally powerful wit. When he is first mentioned in the story he is shown hanging out with a friend of his, a dark elf by the name of Ryld Argith. Ryld is a fearsome muscular warrior with a large sword he named "Splitter". Throughout the book you can see why he called it that, he splits quite a few things. The two friends make a lethal pair, and serve as two other main characters to this series. Pharaun is assigned(because of a magic experiment gone wrong that killed several students) by the archmage of Menzoberranzan to discover why males have been disappearing from the city mysteriously. Ryld is bored with his current lifestyle, and decides to accompany him. So the two journey off following clues as to where the disappearing males are sneaking off to. They travel to the poorer parts of Menzoberranzan and eventually discover that the missing male dark elves have been running off to assist a goblin uprising against the city. Pharaun and Ryld unraveled the plot, but not before the goblins and renegade dark elves started revolting. As Pharaun and Ryld attempted to escape pursuing foes, Pharaun...betrays Ryld...and leaves him trapped to fend off pursuers to give himself more of a chance at surviving. *Glares* That's just uncool. This is something that should be taken note of, dark elves in these books care 99% about themselves only, and their own plans to achieve power and survive. It irritated me how easily Pharaun could just throw their friendship out the window just so that he could escape with his hide. Although Ryld survived the encounter, it set a deep rift between the two that would never be mended.

Soon after all this, Pharaun and Ryld meet up with Quenthel and Jeggred, along with a scout named Valas, and a drow priestess named Faeryl Zauvirr to find the cause of Lolth the Spider Queen's silence.

Let me just add something real quick. The funny thing about Pharaun is that he's pretty witty. He's not afraid to tease or mock Quenthel about most anything. And as I already stated, males are held as much lower people than women, so to speak in such ways to a high priestess of Lolth is quite an offense. But Quenthel can't do much about it because Pharaun is a powerful wizard, capable of destroying her in seconds if he desired. So it's just kinda funny to see this evil female elf put in her place a lot. XD

 They first travel to a city called Ched Nasad, where they encounter an army of creatures called "Tanuruuks" led by Aliiza, who is what is known as an "Alu-Fiend". What's that? Well... An alu-fiend is a female that is half demon and half human.

One more thing about Aliiza. She's a baaad girl. XD I'm kidding, but I'm also serious. She represents everything wrong with a lot of women. She sleeps around with anyone who's good looking. Regardless of the fact that she already has a "lover". Her insatiable craving for bodily pleasures is just uncool. She's gorgeous, too, so that kind of helps her out a lot when trying to attract people...

Anyways, Aliiza took a particular liking to the powerful, witty, and attractive Pharaun Mizzrym and...did...y'know...with him. It wasn't shown, but it was obviously implied and then ended the chapter.

After that the party was betrayed by Faeryl Zauvirr to a matron mother in Ched Nasad. Quenthel and Jeggred get captured and held in the dungeon. Faeryl had suffered some unpleasantries from Quenthel and Jeggred in the past, so she made sure that they felt some pain as well.

Fortunately, Pharaun and Ryld were on top of things and managed to rescue Quenthel and Jeggred. Before this was accomplished, however, they ran into a priestess named Halisstra and her incredibly beautiful battle-captive named Danifae. After almost coming to blows thinking each other enemies, they managed to get along and decide to become allies. Nothing exactly is special about these two new companions at first, but that had yet to change...

Once Quenthel and Jeggred were rescued with Halisstra and Danifae's help, revenge was taken upon Faeryl. This would be one of the more disturbing/cruel paragraphs in this series. Quenthel allowed Jeggred to do what he willed with the restrained and fully-concious traitor. I won't go into more graphic detail than I have to(the book didn't necessarily either, but it did a good job of making the reader grimace), but it involved Jeggred piercing one of his claws under her chin up through her mouth, pinning her tongue, and going farther up. And then he slashed open her midriff, allowing her...insides... to fall out freely. He then commenced to eat her.

*Shakes head rapidly in disgust* Blech. At first I thought "Well, she was a traitor, she had it coming..." but now I think "A traitor to who? A servant of the Spider Queen?" There's nothing good about the Spider Queen or her followers. True, Faeryl did torture Quenthel and Jeggred somewhat, but still, a death involving being cruelly sliced apart and eaten alive is no picnic.

Anyways, I'm moving on, mercifully...XD

After that, the group of seven now moved to escape the city which had fallen into chaos from attackers and was collapsing. Pharaun commenced to teleport them all out safely and barely saved the beautiful Danifae from a death of being crushed by rubble. The teleportation sent them far up to the surface of the world. Up on the surface the group continues onward to find followers of the god "Vhaeron" to assist them in finding Lolth. On their way, Halisstra get's captured by followers of the goddess "Eilistraee". (I know, lots of gods and goddesses in these books...) In their dungeon, one of Eilistraee's followers by the name of Seyl attempts to convert Halisstra to their faith. Halisstra refuses multiple times but Seyl keeps coming back. Halisstra plays along with them finally, pretending to be interested in converting from her faith in the Spider Queen. It's kind of sad, because the book showed that Seyl genuinely hoped for Halisstra to convert and become a follower of Eilistraee and to experience the love and acceptance that faith had to offer. And Halisstra just planned to trick them.

Let me just throw my 2 cents in about the Eilistraeen faith. This faith is as close to Christianity as you're gonna get with these books. Now I'm not trying to insult Christianity by comparing these books to that, lol, but I'm just saying. There is love, joy, fellowship and forgiveness involved in the Eilistraeen faith, meanwhile with the Spider Queen...there's hate, rage, evil, and death. Out of the two, it seems as though the Eilistraeen faith is the much better option.

However, as Seyl and a few other of Eilistraee's priestesses lead Halisstra to a ceremony in hopes to convert Halisstra, Halisstra outwits them and strikes. She manages to kill one of the priestesses, wound another, and then fatally wound Seyl. As Seyl lays dying and Halisstra robs her of her pocketed belongings, Seyl... Isn't angry. She's not cursing Halisstra and voicing her rage at her like someone who served the Spider Queen would do. In fact, Seyl forgives her and tells her that she still has hope for her. And then she dies. This will haunt Halisstra for the remainder of the series and baffle her. Such love and compassion is unknown to those of the Spider Queen. This was somewhat of a cool and sad moment.

Eventually Halisstra makes it back to her companions, and they consult the high priest of Vhaeron to assist them in finding Lolth. The priest agrees, and through a bizarre mechanism, they manage to visit Lolth's domain using their spirits. Their bodies all lay asleep in a room in the temple of Vhaeron, guarded by Jeggred, and their souls are used to travel to Lolth. When their souls make it through the "Demonweb Pits" and reach Lolth's domain, they find that she's blocked off inside a construct, and will not answer their prayers.

Halisstra is deeply hurt by Lolth's silence, and begins to question her long held faith. Meanwhile, the priest of Vhaeron betrays them by gating Vhaeron himself into the Pits, where he plans to kill Lolth and become the dominant Drow deity. "Selvetarm", Lolth's protecter, engages Vhaeron in battle, during which Pharaun communicates to Jeggred to kill the Priest's body. Jeggred does so and the priest dies. Vhaeron fails in his mission to kill Lolth's protector, and the 7 companions escape with their souls back to their bodies in the temple. The companions failed to reach Lolth, but they decide to make another attempt, and to find the Spider Queen in the Abyss.



Well guys, that's 3 of the books covered right there. :) There's SO much more info to the stories that I left out, so to experience the whole intense tale you'll have to read them for yourself.

In my next blog post I'll cover the gist of the last 3 books in the series, and I must say...These last 3 are the saddest. :( I'm still trying to get over them.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this post, and I'll see you chaps next time. :D



                                                               Quenthal and Jeggred:




Pharaun Mizzrym









Wednesday, January 29, 2014

I got the bar removed from my mouth!!! :D

Remember that post I made about the bar the orthodontist put in the roof of my mouth to widen my jaw? Well...IT GOT REMOVED TODAY!!! I'm sooo glad, 'cause now I don't sound like Sid the sloth, and I can make clear "sss"s and "tuh"s. Talking is gonna be so much more fun...

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Me playing guitar

As the title suggests, this is me...Playing guitar. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPOwupGmhJc

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Saw Desolation of Smaug (WARNING: SPOILERS)

Yep. Saw it. And I was not entirely blown away.

Was it good? Yeah, I would say it was a good movie, I would see it again. Was it a fantastic movie? Yeeees, I guess you could say that. Was it extremely well made? The animation was pretty good, but I wouldn't say the plot/events that took place were well made.

Let me give you some background of my "Hobbit"familiarization. I've had the book read to me several times as a kid, and then I've probably read it myself. Along with that, I've seen the cartoon movie of the Hobbit countless times. So I've had a pretty good idea of how the story goes, and have been somewhat attached to the story, and am sensitive to change.

Desolation of Smaug was good, but...most of the events in the story that were so catchy and had impact in the book's readers seemed to be rushed in the movie. For instance, Mirkwood forest. They were in that forest for maybe...Ten minutes of the movie?? Or less??? The spiders were cool, but there was no conversing between Bilbo and the spiders. It was all just rushed so the movie could get to the action. And more action and more action and more action and more action. Which is kind of weird, I'll admit, because if a movie doesn't have much action then I typically don't enjoy it. XD And then Tauriel shows up... And I have a question relating to Tauriel... Why is she in this movie at all??? WHY??? She doesn't need to be there. All she does is just kill orcs in RIDICULOUSLY cheesy ways and fall in love with one of the dwarfs. She didn't need to be in the story. Another scene that wasn't rushed, but man oh man oh man oh man it was NOT in the book. The whole Smaug vs. Dwarfs fight scene. What the heck. It was crazy and action packed I'll give it that, but WHY? They just wanted to extend the movie another hour? I thought they were trying to make it look like a video game after a while, it was just: dwarfs evading Smaug, make it to a different level, run into smaug again, do something crazy, escape again... Ok, we get it. Smaug is too stupid to kill a few dwarfs. Smaug was cool, don't get me wrong, he was a killer dragon with an epic rumbling voice, but I dunno...

It was a good movie. I won't go through every detail of what I like or didn't like about it, but it was fun. :)