Mmmmmm....... Concerts..........

(Wow, I fail at this whole 'blogging regularly' thing.  Here's a post that's been waiting for a while, I finally got around to finishing and posting it.  Enjoy!)

So, this one time, I said I was going to blog about every task completed.  I've been doing pretty good at keeping up with reviewing all the movies that I've watched since starting, (at least the ones that I hadn't seen before) but I've been doing terrible at keeping up with the concerts that I've been to.  I'm going to try to remedy this now, with short but awesome reviews of several concerts that I've been to over the past few months.

Thrice - (7.13.10)  This was quite possibly one of the best concerts I've ever been to.  I wasn't a big fan of any of the opening bands, but they weren't terrible.  Once Thrice started though, I kicked it into high gear.  To be fair, Thrice is definitely NOT a band for everyone.  Their style of rock is rather on the heavy side.  Especially since we were at a smaller venue, (In the Venue, for those who were wondering) the mosh pit was ridiculous!  I came home from this concert voiceless, tired, and sore.  And that's how I could tell I had a great time.

Ben Folds - (7.17.10)  This was definitely a more chill concert than Thrice.  It was held up at Deer Valley, for the summer outdoor concert series with the Utah Symphony.  Hearing Ben Folds' songs arranged with a symphony was one of the prettiest things I've ever heard.  That didn't stop him from rocking out with some of his classics, but the encore was perfect.  He came back out and played an orchestrated arrangement of 'The Luckiest' dedicated specially to his wife.

Candlelight Serenede - (8.28.10)  So this concert was way sweet.  It was an all day outdoor benefit concert in support of rescuing youth from slavery and the sex industry here in Utah and the US.  There were a whole bunch of sweet bands, and I actually found some new ones that I've listened to a lot since, like Steel Train and Making April.  My favorite part of this concert though was when Relient K covered Africa by Toto.  About 3 notes in I was like, 'Is this what I think it is....?'  And then it was.  It rocked my socks.  Also, Nick Hexum performing with his younger brother both on acoustic guitars was pretty sweet.  And then, to top it all off, Chris Carrabba playing a bunch of Dashboard songs.  All in all, a rockin' day, despite the wicked sunburn that I had for the next couple of weeks.

Anberlin - (10.5.10)  It's thanks to this concert that I know about Crash Kings, which is one of my new favorite bands.  So favorite in fact, that I actually purchased their CD off of amazon.com rather than simply listening to them on grooveshark.  Crash Kings opened for Anberlin, and they kind of rocked my world.  Then Anberlin came on, and they were also way amazing.  My only complaint about this concert was the lack of moshing.  It was a little bit bigger venue than Thrice, and admittedly, Anberlin is less intense than Thrice, but still, there were several songs that definitely should have had some good pits.  There weren't any.  That said, still an amazing concert.  (side note: I LOVE the shirt that I got at this concert.  It might be my favorite concert/band shirt yet.)

Fun. - (10.16.10)  Well, this concert is just what it sounds like: a bunch of fun.  :)  But really, it was a sweet concert.  Steel Train (see above, performed at the Candlelight Serenede) opened for fun. which was cool, since the lead singer of Steel Train is also the guitarist for fun.  I think my favorite moment of this concert was when Steel Train played a song that they wrote for Yo Gabba Gabba called 'It's Fun to Dance.'  Basically, the whole crowd got to be little kids for that song.  It was wonderful.  Then fun. took the stage, and it was also wonderful.  They are a very unique band to watch live, and very entertaining.

And that's that.  A summary of the concerts that I've been to recently.  There aren't any in the immediate future that I'm planning on, but when Linkin Park comes through next year, I'll for sure be there.  Heck, if it comes down to it, I'll road trip to see them.  But anyway, until next time!

3 months

Good thing I posted last Monday.  Tuesday marked 3 months that I've had this blog.  That's kind of weird to me to see how fast time flies.  I mean heck, it's already almost the end of September.  That's like a quarter of the way through Fall semester!

Weird.

Weekend of Awesome

So, this weekend was rather awesome.  First off, Friday night we had a Stake opening social, followed by a dance party.  Although our ward didn't 'officially' win any awards, we know we're the best, simply because we were like the only ones dancing to start the dance party.  Also, our bishop and his wife joined in the dancing.  Coolest bishop ever?  Perhaps.  After the dance was over, (it was held outside, btw) we saw that the sprinklers were on across the field.  So some of us ran through them.  And it was fun.  And then we came back to my place and watched Better Off Dead.  Such a great movie!

Saturday was also full of awesome.  I got up and played ultimate in the morning, then got ready to host the football watching party at my apartment.  I had made bean dip for the occasion, and other people brought cookies and brownies and other snacks.  There were lots of good games to watch, which is a good thing, since watching the second half of the BYU game was just painful.  Oh well, there's always next week.  Except we'll probably get owned by Florida State this Saturday.  Oh well, there's always the NEXT week.  :)

Then yesterday was a ridiculously long day, but way sweet.  We had a regional conference in the Marriot Center, with two Apostles in attendance and speaking.  Then later in the evening we had a CES fireside with another Apostle.  Add that to the awesomeness of our ward sitting together for both of these events, and then ward prayer and such afterward, and you get a pretty rockin' day.  Now it's Monday morning, and back to the grind of work and school and homework.  Not much has changed since last week on that front.  I'm still getting my trash kicked, with not much time to play, (other than weekends, of course) but it's all good.  Well, that's all for now.

P.S. LP's new album is still amazing.  Full review forthcoming.

Waiting For the End

There just aren't enough hours in the day.... So, these first couple weeks of school have kind of been kicking my trash. I don't really have a whole lot of time to play anymore, which is really sad. There are some things that I'm just making time for, like the ward intramural ultimate team that I'm playing on tonight. I hope we do well. Also, watching the football games on Saturdays. That's another priority. Anyway, I've been listening to Linkin Park's newest CD on repeat for all of yesterday and today, and it's kind of blowing my mind. The whole album has a very different feel from their previous records. I won't give a full review yet, but here is just a section of lyrics from one of my favorite songs, 'Waiting For the End.'




waiting for the end to come,
wishing i had strength to stand
this is not what i had planned
it's out of my control


flying at the speed of light
thoughts were spinning in my head
so many things were left unsaid
it's hard to let you go


i know what it takes to move on
i know how it feels to lie
all i wanna do is trade this life for something new
holding on to what i haven't got


................


picking up the pieces now, where to being
the hardest part of ending is starting again




Until next time, may life be as un-busy as possible. :)

Lagoon!

So last Saturday, I went to Lagoon with a whole bunch of friends. And it was awesome.  The end.




Just kidding!  We went as kind of a last celebration of a summer full of awesomeness.  We left Provo at about 9:30, and stopped at IKEA on the way up for breakfast.  They have these way sweet breakfast plates for like 2 bucks and they're actually really filling.  After that, we headed up to the park.  I'm actually kinda surprised at how much we were able to fit into one day.  We started with Wicked and Colossus at the one end of the park, and just rode pretty  much every ride on the way over to the other side.  We had a couple of food breaks, but other than that, we were just riding awesome rides all day long.

We finished up the day with a ride on the ferris wheel, then one more on the Samurai in the dark.  We had about an hour left, and we decided to go ride Colossus and Wicked as many times as we could before the park closed.  We ended up going on Colossus like 3 or 4 more times before they closed it.  All in all, it was a ridiculously fun day, although also crazy tiring.

So, funny story:  at the first food break, I'm waiting in line and I see that they have this deal where you can get a 44 oz. mug and free refills all day long for 12 bucks.  I'm debating with myself whether or not it would be worth it.  I figure, if I refill it twice, I'll have gotten my money's worth.  It turns out that  I ended up sharing it with everyone else in the group, so we refilled the mug 10 times!  Plus, now I have a mug that I can take to the gas station and refill.  I think that was a pretty solid purchase.

And that's the story of the awesomeness of Lagoon.


P.S.  I got Metroid: Other M yesterday, but I've only played it for like an hour and a half, due to work and school and other obligations.  My early impressions are that it's a way fun game, but with more action and less exploration than other Metroid titles.  Full review to come.

P.P.S.  I bought a Moleskine notebook at the bookstore today.  I don't really know what I want to do with it yet, though, so any ideas/suggestions would be welcome.  :)