It's The End Of The Year As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Here it is, time for the year in review. It's a long one, so bear with me.

LOW POINTS OF THE YEAR
*Running For President break-up (twice, no less)
*Getting dumped
*Kicked out of Money Can't Buy Knives
That's actually all of the major league bad shit...Easily outweighed by the

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
*Forming Money Can't Buy Knives
*Running For President rocking Howard's Club H one time
*Marvel's Civil War story arc
*Seeing my favorite band (Strike Anywhere) twice this year (in PA and Cleveland)
*Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers w/ Nick, Jeff, Ryan, Chris, Chad and his little lady
*Getting a girlfriend
*Putting together a new band (One Nation Under) and having the best first show I've ever had despite less than a month of practice
*The discovery of Jaeger
*Crunk Manor & Campbell Hill shindigs
*Winning this fall's 48 Hour Film Festival
*My (read:Jeff's) new Epiphone SG
*Getting my own place
*Winning the Outstanding Associate of the Summer scholarship at RU
*Finally receiving Counselor of the Week at RU
*This past summer at RU
*Guitar Hero II
*Drunken X-mas with beer pong and rounds of Guitar Hero II so intense that I was accused by the game itself of "rocking out too hard"

THE BEST OF THE YEAR
ALBUMS
Strike Anywhere-Dead FM
A Global Threat-Where The Sun Never Sets
Johnny Cash-American V
Regina Spektor-Begin To Hope
Justin Timberlake-FutureSex/LoveSounds
Nelly Furtado-Loose
mc chris-Dungeon Master of Ceremonies
Tenacious D-The Pick of Destiny soundtrack
Rise Against-The Sufferer and the Witness
My Chemical Romance-The Black Parade
DethKlok-Metalocalypse soundtrack
SINGLES
Johnny Cash-God's Gonna Cut You Down (American V)
Regina Spektor-Fidelity (Begin To Hope)
Rise Against-Ready To Fall (The Sufferer and the Witness)
Strike Anywhere-Instinct (Dead FM)
Nelly Furtado-Maneater (Loose)
Justin Timberlake-Sexyback (FutureSex/LoveSounds)
Tenacious D-POD (The Pick of Destiny soundtrack)
Meg and Dia-Monster (Something Real)
KT Tunstall-Suddenly I See (Eye To The Telescope)
Twisted Sister-I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas (A Twisted Christmas)
Christina Aguilera-Ain't No Other Man (Back To Basics)
My Chemical Romance-Welcome to the Black Parade (The Black Parade)
"Weird Al" Yankovic-White and Nerdy (Straight Outta Lynwood)
The Killers-When You Were Young (Sam's Town)
That's all the good I can recall music wise. The Bouncing Souls' Gold Record did not make an appearance because, well...I never got to listen to it.
MOVIES
V for Vendetta
Thank You For Smoking
X-Men:The Last Stand
Snakes On A Plane
Talladega Nights:The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Clerks II
The Return of Superman
Mission:Impossible 3
Lady In The Water
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Silent Hill
Beerfest
TV
Heroes
South Park
The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
Metalocalypse
Saturday Night Live

WORST/MOST DISAPPOINTING OF THE YEAR
ALBUMS/SINGLES
Norma Jean-Redeemer
Fergie-London Bridge/Fergalicious (aka My Humps Pt. II-III)(The Duchess)
U2/Green Day-The Saints Are Coming
Blue October-Hate Me (Foiled)
Red Hot Chili Peppers-Stadium Arcadium (Should've been a single album)
Hinder-Lips of an Angel (Extreme Behavior)
Anything by James Blunt
MOVIES
The DaVinci Code
The Omen
Pirates of the Caribbean II:Dead Man's Chest (More on account of disappointment...it was too long and it was too much cat n' mouse for the last hour...but I'm sure the final installment will round it out and make it a good trilogy overall)
American Dreamz (Again, more disappointing than anything)
Crank
Miami Vice (Although it looked very nice)
TV
Grey's Anatomy (zzzzz...zzzzzzzz...zzzzz)
Beauty & the Geek
Parental Control
Mind of Mencia/Drawn Together/Family Guy/Freak Show
Minoriteam
Assy McGee

There's the year end list. There's a lot of things that should've made the list, but I didn't get out to the movies half as much as I would've liked to and it's difficult for me to keep current on new music (the mainstream stuff, anyway) when VH1 and MTV only play the same twelve videos three hours a week...and I refuse to listen to the radio.

It is officially t-minus three days before I move into the FratCave permanently. I could still use some help moving in on Friday and then I go back to BG for the semester on Saturday. New Year's is still on, so that should be a good time. Until then, later days, triangle faces.

Quickly, Old Chum! To The Fratcave!

Just took my last final. The semester's over! Yay!

Now I get to clean up, pack and move out so that I can do it again in about two weeks! Right now, the plan is to tentatively move into the Fratcave on either the 28th or 29th of December. Any help with moving in would be greatly appreciated, so if you're not doin' anything come along, it'll be fun! I'll also be looking to ring in the New Year at the Fratcave to officially break the place in, yet another incentive to help!

I'll be coming home tomorrow and should arrive sometime around 5-6ish, so if you want to come see me, do it! Because a good portion of my break is going to be devoted to cleaning and packing back home, finishing up the Christmas shopping that I as of now have not yet begun and finishing up my screenplay for Experimental Film which is roughly a third complete at this moment.

I'm pretty excited for next semester because of the following-
*POPC 470-Culture & Comics
*Screenwriting (If I get into it)
*Experimental Film
*The Fratcave
*My driver's license (finally)
*A Nintendo Wii
*Good times with good friends
*48 Hours/BG Film Fest
*Friend's projects
*One Nation Under (the band)
*The possibility of starting up a pop punk band that doesn't suck even remotely with Corey

That's pretty much it for now. Catch you greasy fools later.

"You got red on you."

Purty Pictures And Other Stuff

First, some sketches.


This is a sketch I did about two weeks ago of Sonic the Hedgehog. Considering I did it in roughly five minutes I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, but I'll be taking another crack at a couple more Sonic sketches to try to get it down better...plus the left arm really bugs me.


This is a sketch I did of my friend Cory from work about two months ago. I'm happy with the overall form, but the inking could've been better and I went with the colors seen because I couldn't remember what the hell color clothes he was wearing and green and gray? Eww. I didn't touch the hair because there were too many pencil lines left over when I scanned this one in.


This is a caricature I did of myself a month or so back based on a South Park style characterization of myself. I'm actually pretty content with the facial expression, I think it sums up my general discontentment with red guitars quite well.


I also did this sketch about a month or so ago, and out of all that I've done this is probably the one that I'm happiest with it. It's a quick sketch I did of the Punisher inspired by Steve Dillon's artwork on the Marvel Knights series. I think my only gripe with this one is that the eyes are a bit awkward but I'm really pleased with the shading on the facial features.

I penciled and inked all of these by hand, then scanned them into my PC and colored them using Macromedia Fireworks MX. For the next batch I'm going to use Adobe Illustrator and see which one I prefer. The big problem with these sketches (that are easily noticeable if you look at them for more than a moment) is that after the inking stage of the sketches I forgot to go back over and erase all of the pencil lines, hence the very minute areas that are devoid of any colors as well as the faint traces around the outer areas of the sketches. I also need to avoid shading any areas when I ink (some of the shaded areas, noticeably on the Punisher's hair, were shaded by my trusty inking pen and my pencil, which created some difficulty when attempting to shade with the Fireworks software) so I can see how the shading is defined with the software I use. Any and all criticisms, feedback, et cetera are more than welcome regarding my budding artistry.

In other news, I have a new band. We've been practicing for about the past week or so and we have our first show coming up next Thursday (November 30) here in Bowling Green at Howard's Club H for the University Film Organization Fund Raiser show. We're called One Nation Under and we sound about like Running For President did right before that band was dissolved except now we actually have lead guitar parts and solos from time to time. It's $5 at the door and if you're not doing anything, you should definitely come, it looks to be a fun time and I'm pretty excited to finally be playing music again. It would pretty much mean the world to me if you were able to make it to this show...so you should do it.

In other other news, I'll be home tomorrow night for Thanksgiving break. Later days.

Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary

I want the following for my birthday-

*I want to be independent in every sense of the word and not have to rely on others to take care of me anymore. I need to be able to stand on my own two feet, and that's what this is about more than anything.
*I want the apartment thing to work out. It is a crucial component of the previous want.
*I want a do-over. Nothing specifically, just a second chance at everything that's happened this semester and a lot of the things in it.
*I want to be content with the course that I'm on in life.
*I want to be able to stop thinking about some of the things I've been thinking about lately.
*I want to finish my script, I want to shoot it and I want it not to suck.

If I'm lucky, one of these things might happen.