The Appleseed Cast + Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) @ The Pike Room, Pontiac MI.

SHORT POST!  So I went to a show on the 24th (Easter), it was The Appleseed Cast, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate), and A Great Big Pile of Leaves.  Shot some video there, only have two uploaded so far though, The Appleseed Cast with the song "Poseidon," and Empire, Empire with the song "Documenting Thirty Days."

I tried a new codec on The Appleseed Cast video and well, I'm not pleased with it.  It looks like total garbage to me, choppy awful frame rate and way too compressed.  The options I was going for shows in the Empire Empire video.  I would have re-done the TAC video, but it was late and I didn't want to wait another hour or two while the video encoded, so I said whatever, set it to upload, and went to sleep.

Blah, blah, blah, here are the videos.  Remember, you can full screen 'em and watch them in full high definition (720p + 1080p). Watch them if you want to:











If anyone's interested in seeing some more video of The Appleseed Cast, let me know, I have a few more videos that I need to upload and I can post them if anyone wants to see them.




-Matt

! ! ! FLOWER BATTLE OF THE MILLENNIUM ! ! !

The two contenders being held high by their Patron Saints. 4-26-2011.

THIS ENTIRE ENTRY WILL BE IN ALL BOLD UNDERLINED CAPS TO CONVEY THE FEELING OF BEING AT A MONSTER TRUCK RALLY OR BEING EXPOSED TO A MONSTER TRUCK RALLY ADVERTISEMENT (all of the text was about to be blinking too, but I was afraid it would cause people to not even read this, so no blinking!).  OR MAYBE IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE READING AN E-MAIL FROM YOUR MOM WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO USE A COMPUTER TOO WELL AND IS COMPLETELY IGNORANT TO ANY FORM OF ETIQUETTE ON THE INTERNET.

SO THE FLOWER BATTLE OF THE MILLENNIUM HAS BEGUN!!!  IT ACTUALLY STARTED THE OTHER MORNING WHEN I WENT TO WAL-MART TO GET SOME GROCERIES AND SAW SOME GARDENING STUFF.  I WILL SKIP THE BORING PART ABOUT ME WANTING TO GROW FOOD AND HERBS AND STUFF THIS SUMMER (I'll write about this in a serious manner later, can't ruin the vibe right now.)BUT ANYWAYS I SAW THESE TWO STARTER KITS: ONE WAS FOR FRENCH MARIGOLDS AND ONE WAS FOR RED ZINNIAS. 

I THOUGHT TO MYSELF: 

"WHICH ONE WOULD BLOOM FIRST?  I WONDER WHICH PLANT WOULD WIN IN A FLOWER BATTLE TO THE FIRST BLOOM WHEN THEY HAVE IMMINENT DEATH LOOMING OVER THEIR HEADS FROM BEFORE THE TIME THEY'RE EVEN CONCEIVED?!"

WELL, I JUST HAD TO BUY THEM AND FIGURE THIS OUT WHILE DOCUMENTING THE FIGHT ALONG THE WAY.  YOU CAN SEE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE POST WHAT THE CONTENDERS AND THEIR ACCOMPANYING PATRON SAINTS LOOKED LIKE BEFORE THEY WERE PLACED INTO ACTION.  ON THE LEFT, YOU HAVE RED "JUST CAUSE" ZINNIA, TO THE RIGHT, YOU HAVE FRENCH "INFANT JESUS OF PRAGUE" MARIGOLD.  THAT PICTURE WAS TAKEN ON APRIL 26TH 2011, THEY WERE PLANTED JUST A FEW MINUTES AFTER THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN.


BOTH FLOWERS ARE RECEIVING THE SAME AMOUNT OF WATER, SUNLIGHT, HEAT, ETC.  THEY'RE SITTING SIDE BY SIDE IN THE WINDOWSILL.  THEY WERE PLANTED AT THE EXACT SAME TIME SO NEITHER WILL HAVE AN ADVANTAGE OF ANY SORT.  FAIR ONE ON ONE ACTION.  


SO HOW IS THIS GOING TO GO DOWN, YOU MIGHT BE ASKING YOURSELF.  SO WHAT IN THE HELL IS THIS EXACTLY, YOU MIGHT ALSO BE ASKING YOURSELF.  THIS SEEMS MORE LIKE A COMPETITION AND NOT A BATTLE!  YOU MIGHT ALSO BE SAYING THAT, BUT OH MY GOD ARE YOU MISTAKEN.  YOU SEE, THE BATTLE WORKS LIKE THIS:


- FLOWERS PLANTED UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS, EXPOSED TO THE SAME ELEMENTS.
- FLOWERS GROW.
- FIRST PLANT TO SPORT A FULLY BLOSSOMED FLOWER IS THE VICTOR.
- WINNER GETS PLANTED IN THE FRONT YARD, GREETING EVERY PERSON TO ENTER MY HOMESTEAD.
- LOSER GETS FED TO A STRAY DOG ON THE STREETS (DEATH IS FILMED AND BROADCASTED TO THE WORLD VIA INTERNETZ).

YOU'LL NOTICE THAT THE ABOVE CLAUSE HAS BEEN STRUCK OUT, THIS IS BECAUSE AN AUDIENCE MEMBER EXPRESSED THEIR CONCERNS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE LOSER AND SUGGESTED THAT I SHOW SOME RESPECT AND ALLOW THE FLOWER TO KEEP WHAT LITTLE OF ITS DIGNITY THAT IT HAS LEFT.  I AGREED TO DO SO.

- LOSER IS GIVEN TO AN OLD PERSON WHO MAY POTENTIALLY KISS IT, BUT WILL PROBABLY FORGET TO GIVE IT WATER, THUS CAUSING IT TO HAVE A WAY MORE BRUTAL DEATH THAN A DOG EATING IT ON THE STREETS.


THAT LAST PART IS TOTALLY NEGOTIABLE THOUGH, SO IF ANYONE HAS ANY SUGGESTIONS AS TO WHAT SHOULD GO DOWN IN REGARDS TO THE LOSER, PLEASE COMMENT AND VOICE YOUR SUGGESTIONS/CONCERNS.


THE FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE SNAPSHOTS OF THE CONTENDERS AS OF TONIGHT, 4-29-2011.  AS YOU CAN SEE, RED "JUST CAUSE" ZINNIA IS STRAIGHT KILLING IT RIGHT NOW.  BUT THE TABLES CAN TURN AT ANY POINT, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.  ONE CAN DIE, ONE CAN HIT A GROWTH SPURT, ONE CAN JUST DROP THE BALL, YA KNOW?  FRENCH "INFANT JESUS OF PRAGUE" MARIGOLD IS SHOWING HIS TRUE TRICK ASS MARK COLORS BY NOT DOING ANYTHING BUT GROWING A LITTLE FUZZ IN THE DIRT, BUT THAT'S JUST A PRECURSOR TO GROWTH, SO HE COULD BE REVVING UP HIS GROWTH JUICES TO EXPLODE FROM THE GROUND TO DROP SOME HEIGHT ALL OVER "JUST CAUSE."

LOSIN'.

WINNIN'.

THE NEXT FLOWER BATTLE POST WILL FEATURE SOME SNAPSHOTS OF EACH CONTENDER'S PATRON SAINT WHICH ARE THOSE ONE LONG TUBE LIKE CATHOLIC CANDLES THAT PEOPLE HANG ONTO WHEH THEY'RE TRIPPING REALLY HARD AND ATTEMPT TO COMMIT SUICIDE BY CRUSHING THEIR OWN HEADS WITH THEIR OWN HANDS WHILE TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP BUT THEY CAN'T SLEEP BECAUSE THEY'RE TOTALLY LOSING IT AND THINK THE BEST ROUTE TO TAKE IS THE HEAD CRUSH.




-MATT

Rain, triple bag cups of spiced tea, and a swollen throat.

Lil' sweetie pies being bow ties lookin' into each others eyes, just look at these guys! Cool rhymes, bro. 

Above: Katie on the left, Adam on the right.

    Today I'm feeling a little bit under the weather, and the weather is pretty damn low today.  Overcast and crying.  Rain, rain, rain.  It's sticky.  I'm sitting here with a throat that's swollen together trying to gulp down some strong hot spiced tea thinking about what's next.  I took some pictures on the 20th and had intended on making a blog entry that day, but for some reason I passed it up.  I suppose I'll play catch up now.

    So on April 20th, I was supposed to go to Detroit to Saint Andrew's Hall to shoot/interview a very well known band called "TV On The Radio," with my friend Sarah Raymore who is working with Motor City Blog.  Luckily, I "won," some free tickets to this show thanks to Sarah, but unfortunately, due to some pretty uncommon circumstances, I was unable to use those tickets.  When I say uncommon circumstances, I mean something along the lines of oh, you know, the bassist dying that morning.

!!!NEWSFLASH!!!

     Yeah, strange and sad 'eh?  We almost had this guy's last show and interview documented if the universe had just waited a few hours to kill him off.  It could have gotten us a sliver of recognition possibly, and maybe some cash dollars.  Still, would have been better had he not died, but if he just HAD to die, then I wish it would have waited for the next day.  I heard that he had lung cancer, brutal.  What I don't understand is the absolutely sudden death.  I was always under the impression that cancer kills you over time, not immediately like a heart attack or brain aneurysm or something like that.  Oh well, the world will never know.  Nonetheless, sad news.  I have two tickets to what would have been the bassist of TV On The Radio's last show of all time.  The concert was for the day he died.  I'm giving one of them away, so if you want one, reply and let me know and I'll pop it into an envelope and get it to you.  Doesn't matter where you are in the world, you can have it.  I'm totally unfamiliar with this band, so I don't really care too awful much to let it go.  My loss, your gain.

Tickets for what would have been the bassist for TV On The Radio's last show of his life. Want one? Reply and say so.

     Needless to say, those plans were canceled.  Instead of having an eventful day, I ended up roaming around a bit with my pops, Patrick Kelly.  He's a single man with a sweet house and an awesome job.  Full of love and charm, looking for a lovely lady to steal his heart and give him babies.  So if you're on the prowl and you lack a penis, click his name above, add him on Facebook, and let the macking ensue.  Anyways, we went to Home Depot, here's two observations that I made while we were there.

This was a post in Home Depot.  One of those plastic coated ones that keep you from getting to certain things that you aren't supposed to mess with or be near.  I liked that face, the lack of teeth reminded me of Kentucky and this next picture..

If you're cooking up meth in a trailer somewhere, at least take a little precaution and wear one of these.  Why don't all meth addicts use one of these?  They look sweet and could possibly ensure that you live long enough to stay up a few more weeks doing more meth.  May also prevent scanning from other dimensional meth-wavers according to Jimmy Tango.

    And in closing, I'll leave you with a tip that a friend of mine had to learn the hard way.  The tip I'm speaking of is as follows:  Don't pick up women from bars in Detroit while you're drunk and take them home with you, otherwise you will get hounded for kisses, your genitals, loving, a place to stay, quarter ounces of weed, and miscellaneous pills.  

Proof of tip concept above.

    Thanks to everyone who's subscribing, commenting, sharing the blog, and keeping up!  It makes this worthwhile and so much more fun.

NEW PICTURES ARE ABOUT TO FALL OFF OF MY WALL SO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THOSE BEING SENT SAILING ACROSS THE GLOBE.  These are way sweeter than the first round, so get excited.

-Matt 

Clicking this link wont affect anything but the amount you've read in your life and my hit counter.

7 Days of this blog as a whole, 2 days and a couple hours worth of the chain letter-esque entry existing. Click it for the screenshot's original size.

The image above is a screenshot of this blogs stats from the last week.  Two days and a couple hours ago I was bored and decided to do a little experiment to see if people still made a big fuss over chain letter like headings and titles.  Of course with a heading such as "Click this link or someone in your family will die tonight and you deny Jesus Christ in your heart," I was expecting quite a few people to be closet scaredy cats and click the link over and over in hopes of preventing the death of loved ones and securing Jesus Christ's position in their hearts, thus securing their soul from hell.  Well, I was right about a little of it, but I also made a wrong assumption or two.  Here's what I gathered and why in my opinion.


Scenario #1:  Link posted on Facebook -> People read the title, saying "Dammit!" to themselves, immediately regretting grazing their eyes across it -> Link clicked -> Read post -> Feel stupid and wonder why they did it and/or Feel very safe and secure now that a family member will not die and they will not be bastardized in the eyes of Jesus Christ.

Scenario #2:  Link posted on Facebook -> People read the title, saying "Dammit!" to themselves -> They click the link -> Read post -> Spread the link like wildfire. -> Feel very safe and secure now that a family member will not die and they will not be bastardized in the eyes of Jesus Christ.

Scenario #3:  Link posted on Facebook -> People read the title, saying "Lol, this shit is stupid." -> End of Story.

Scenario #4:  Link posted on Facebook -> People read the title, saying "Lol, this shit is stupid." -> Link clicked out of curiosity. -> Link re-posted in hopes of Spagetting a few people into clicking the link, thus making this experiment work better.

Personally, I was torn between two expectations that are near polar opposites of each other.  The first was that people would secretly click it because they're scared to death that something out there actually enforces chain letters or they click it out of sheer paranoia.  The second expectation was that the whole mid-90's chain letter phenomenon had come and gone and people had finally wizened up.

Conclusion?  Scenario #3 with a hint of Scenario #1 accompanied with a little wiser internet population.

P.S. Happy Easter, I hope you all find all of the eggs at your family gathering and ruin the day for everyone else.

Thoughts?  Comment and let me know.



-Matt

Click this link or someone in your family will die tonight and you deny Jesus Christ in your heart.

First and foremost, you are not going to die tonight and neither is your family.  You are not going to hell, and this post certainly will not guarantee you a seat in heaven.  Viewing this post will not influence the course of your life in any way whatsoever.  Well, it will influence your life in a very positive way, or at least it will if I have anything to do with it, it will.  Hopefully this blog will bring you some sort of enjoyment.

This post is actually the foundation for a post that I'll make in a day or so after I comb over a few results.  This post has nothing to do with you dying, or your family dying, or you going to hell or making it to heaven based on your clicking or not clicking of this link.

I'm seeing if there's actually an influence of chain-letter style headings which I despise, hate, loathe, condemn, shun, and every other word that can be used to express my sheer disgust with the things.  I'm sure it WILL have an influence, but I'm just curious as to how much, I'd say the effectiveness of chain-letter-esque things hit its peak in the mid to late 90's.  I'll fill you all in in a day or two with the final verdict.

Results will be posted after they're observed :).

Please help this little "experiment," be a success and spread this link around.  Share it on facebook, e-mail it to people, send it over IM, etc.  At the bottom of the post, there are some sharing options, use them!

Thanks!

-Matt

APRIL 21ST 2011. JUDGEMENT DAY.

Thanks, Skynet.

And also, thank you.  10 Subscribers via e-mail so far!  You can subscribe to get e-mail updates by submitting your e-mail address in the box on the right side of the page.

Chili's? Went there. Lightning? Tried to take pictures of it. Failed? Yes. Wanna know how to succeed? Continue reading.

    Tonight, me and my cousin Patrick went to Chili's.  It was happy hour, that means that you solely gorge on appetizers.  Patrick's choice was some kind of nachos with chicken and jalapenos on them, I ate one, it was good.  I took it to another level with TWO appetizers, yes, two of them.  I got boneless buffalo wings AND cheese sticks.  I thought for sure I was going to eat all of it, but I failed.  That isn't all I failed at tonight . . .

This is exactly what I see when I'm driving down the road with Patrick in his big ole green van.

    What else did I fail at tonight?  Well, I failed at taking pictures of lightning.  I know HOW to take pictures of lightning, but gale force winds and torrents of rain kinda messed that up for me.  I weighed the situation's pros and cons mentally:

Sweet pictures of lightning + Loss of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

!!!VS.!!!

No pictures of lightning + Preservation of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

    Needless to say, I chose contender number two, the preservation of my stuff.  I did manage to snap a couple shots before I realized it just wasn't worth going for and wiped my camera down and put it away.  No direct lightning in the frame, but it's kinda obvious what is going down.  Keep in mind that these pictures were taken at about 1:30 AM, so it was pitch black outside.

Looks like there was some lightning in the lower right, but unfortunately not directly in the frame.  You can see how brightly lit it caused the night sky to be though.

Again, taken in the dead of night.  No direct lightning in the frame, but you can see what's going on nearby in the lower left of the frame.  I compressed this picture way too much on accident, but it isn't a good picture so F it.

    So, are you wondering how in the hell you're actually SUPPOSED to take a picture of lightning assuming that you have proper cover, equipment, and all that?  I'll tell you how, and no, it isn't setting your shutter speed super fast and having godlike reflexes.  

HOW TO TAKE PICTURES OF LIGHTNING:

Things you'll need/be better off having:

If you buy from these links, I get like 15% of the the sale, so yeah, buy awesome things for sweet deals and help me get paid!

- A DSLR camera. Sweet deal for an awesome camera for beginners --> Canon EOS Rebel T1i

- A tripod (recommended).  Sweet deal for a so-so tripod --> Vista Explorer 60" Lightweight Tripod

- A remote shutter release (recommended). Super cheap shutter release -->  Remote Shutter Release for Canon Rebel

- Lightning.  Sorry, you can't buy this.
- Patience.  Or a paper towel with a mountain of xanax on it:

Mount St. Totem Pole for patience. Seriously though, don't do xanax mountain or any drugs at all for that matter.

 

    Step #1:  First off, if you have a tripod, set it up and make sure it's stable, frame your shot.  If you don't have a tripod, get ready for some tedious stuff like being ABSOLUTELY 100% COMPLETELY STILL for like a minute or so.  If you're tripod-less, frame your shot on something sturdy and stable so that you can hold the camera down without moving it.  If it moves, chances are your shot is gonna look blurry, so don't move!  Pretend someone is going to kill you if you move, just don't start crying, that will probably cause you to move.

    Step #2:  Now you want to switch your camera into manual mode, or whatever the setting is called on your camera where you can tweak all of your settings.  These are the settings I've had the best results with in the past, so apply these, but feel free to play around with stuff, you might stumble upon some crazy new method that blows everyone's minds, remember, the most awesome things ever discovered or invented came into existence by accident.  Recommended settings are as follows:

- Shutter speed:  Bulb

- Aperature, f stop, whatever you want to call it:  ~8.0

- ISO: 100

- Focus to infinity (if your camera has it, it's this symbol ∞).  If you can't figure it out or your camera simply doesn't have it, get the sky in focus the best you can, this can be pretty hard, so just do your best.

The rest of the settings are up to you, but these are crucial.

    Step #3:  You'll most likely want an exposure of about 30 seconds to 1 minute.  You can deal with a pinch lower, or you can deal with longer if the light isn't too overwhelming in the area that you're shooting in.  2 minutes is tolerable.  So when you feel like you're going to see some lightning, press the shutter release button, hold it! If you don't have a shutter release, get ready to hold the shutter button for a long time!  It's totally possible to get several strikes in one exposure, so get creative! 

    Step #4:  BDDDAP YUP, BDDDAP YUP!  You just took some sweet pictures of lightning, great job!  Post them and acquire slews of women. 

    So if you've done everything correctly, you should be happy right now.  And if you've messed up, which is totally your fault and not mine whatsoever, just comment and we'll try to figure out what went wrong and get you on the right track for next time!

Goodluck!

-Matt