I went to Metallica/Godsmack last night, and it was pretty sweet. Lots and lots of pyro and explosions, very loud. Haven't had a concert make my ears ring in a while. Been in a really good mood lately, and looking forward to christmas. I think I'm about to do something that's going to affect the rest of my life, and I don't know how it's going to play out. And I'm terrified and excited all at once.

- posted by Aaron @ 7:20 PM

 
Well, thankfully that first day she left was the worst. It's been a little easier since then. Still shitty that she's not here, but not as bad. Anna, Luis, Tim, and Lauren have helped, all 4 of them rock quite exquisitely. They all got me a big calling card to talk to Erica with, that was pretty awesome of them.

I'm *crazy* excited about my new place. I'm getting a new bed the day I move so my back won't hurt as much (stupid 9 year old mattress not working anymore...) I've already gone and starting picking out stuff for my new place. See, when I moved into where I am now, I didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff because I knew two other people would be living here and there wouldn't be much space for it. But now I can decorate the walls with whatever I want, get tables and lamps and whatnot of my choosing.. It's gonna be great.

And I had a very Wayne's World moment yesterday. I went to Guitar Center because I needed some picks for my acoustic, but since my electric is dead (and wasn't that great to start with) I wanted to try a few out and get an idea for what my next one will eventually be. The first one I tried was the one that the lead guitarist from AC/DC uses. It was pretty neat, decent enough; pretty basic. Then I tried the one that Slipknot, Slash (the lead guitarist from Guns N' Roses), and Coal Chamber use. It was pretty cool. Much more of a heavy, rumbling metal tone. But I don't want a one-trick pony; metal isn't *all* I play. I tried both of these through a basic, kind of "eh" Crate amp. Nothing special.

Then I went to the Gibson Les Paul section. This is what Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Godsmack, System of a Down, and countless other big name rock bands have used. But the thing is, other types of musicians use it too. It's very versatile. You can turn it up and it's got the most thick, wicked crunch you can imagine to play metal. You can turn it down a bit, and get some wailing for blues and stuff like that. Then you can turn the distortion off and just get a beautiful clean tone to play normal stuff like Collective Soul, that kind of thing. I'm not schooled enough in playing blues yet so I don't need that, but the thick metal and warm clean tones really appeal to me.

Most guitars are one-sided. The Fender (my first guitar) is more for clean tone like John Mayer and all that. The Ibanez (my current dead guitar) is for bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit. The BC Rich line is all about brutal heavy metal, like Slipknot and the like. The Gretsch is for jazzy, swingy Brian Setzer type stuff, but nothing else. None of these really sound great on more than one type of music, except the Les Paul.

It just sounded so amazing. I'm used to how my current guitar sounds, since I've had it for 5 or 6 years, and how certain songs sound on it. But when I played the songs on the Les Paul, it was just so *different*. That, and the fact that instead of the "eh" amp, I played this one on a Marshall amp (also very widely used with big name rock bands) so that may have biased me, but still. So anyways, I decided they were going to be my next set-up at home. That's a famous combination in the music world, a Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall amp. The price: $1799 for the guitar and $799 for the amp. Wow.

But like Wayne Campbell, despite the price... it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.
- posted by Aaron @ 1:21 PM

 
Well, I finally fixed a problem with this thing. I was too lazy to ever come up with a new poll for people to vote on, but I was hesitant to just delete the poll, thinking I may come up with something clever. Well I know me. It's been on the same poll for about 6 months now, so I just deleted the thing.

Had dinner with Tim and Lauren tonight, was nifty. Does anyone aside from Erica even read this anymore? I know people used to, but I don't think anyone but Erica even reads this now. Meaning, it's actually more like a personal journal than a public thing; which I guess is nice. Don't always want everyone reading everything you think, and all.
- posted by Aaron @ 12:07 AM

 
Hmm, much has happened since my last post. That "I think I may ask the front office about a 1 bedroom" is now official. I am moving out from my current 2 bedroom and into a 1 bedroom on June 19th/20th. That's right - no more roommates, just me. It'll be like a breath of fresh air. I've hated how since there was two of them, they always tried to outvote me on how things would be done, like bringing countless pets home without consulting me. Also, it bugged me how all the furniture and whatnot was thiers, so it felt like I was living in thier apartment, not my own. Well now it'll be my furniture, my rules. And it's spacious enough that Erica could come down and stay with me for a week or something if she wanted to. I'm even more excited about this than when we first got the 2 bedroom. This is my lease, my apartment, my home. Not sharing with anyone this time. It's gonna rock.
- posted by Aaron @ 12:59 PM

 
I think I'm going to go ask the front office today to look at the 1 bedroom apartment I've been thinking about. I'm leaning towards trying to move out by July or August into my own apartment in the same complex. What amazes me is that as nice as my complex is, it's also the cheapest one in Sugar Land from what I've found. Complexes that aren't as pretty or as well located as mine cost more, I can't figure it out. Oh well, I'm not complaining. And the nice thing is, I think I'm about to get another raise. After doing the math, I think the raise by itself would cover a fair amount of the cost difference between where I am now and a 1 bedroom.

I'm always afraid of change, but this time I'm excited. I'm going to do something to better my situation and I'm glad I'm doing it.
- posted by Aaron @ 12:14 PM

 
Well now that both Erica and Phil have seen Kill Bill 2, I can comment on it. Particularly on what Phil thought of the movie.

He gave it a 7 out of 10, which you could say is a "slightly above average" movie to him (6 and below is usually not that great, 8 through 10 are very good on his scale). While I very much agree that it was the lesser of the two movies, I feel he was a bit harsh. It would be near impossible to top the sheer energy and coolness of Volume 1 (which Phil gave a 9 and I gave a 10), and that turned out to be true. But though you did leave with a feeling that it may not have been quite as good as the first, it was nowhere near the level I felt after Star Wars Episode I or Matrix Reloaded. Even though I walked out thinking that Volume 2 was not as good as Volume 1, it still kicked more ass than most movies I've seen. And that is a testament to Tarantino.

I do agree with Phil on the climax though. The way she killed Bill was appropriate, and I think the proper way to end the fight.. but I expected a 6 minute samurai swordfight to precede that; a swordfight to end all swordfights. But then again, how could Tarantino possibly do that? He had already created the coolest fight sequence in history when Uma Thurman took on a room full of Yakuza ninjas and Lucy Liu in Volume 1. What could he come up with to top that? Still though, I would have liked to see *something* more than a 20 second fight between Bill and Uma Thurman.

However, there's reasoning behind this that many won't understand. You can clearly tell, all the way through both movies, that Tarantino intended this as both a spoof of and a tribute to old kung fu movies from the 1970s. He wanted to update the genre and make the mother of all kung fu movies, while still retaining some elements of the old movies he is paying tribute to. One of these elements is the climax. In many old kung fu movies, the final battle is very talky and the actual fighting is fairly short. You see this in Volume 2, Bill talks to the Bride for 10 to 15 minutes before they fight, and the actual fight is quite short.

For this, I have the utmost respect for Tarantino. I'm sure that he knew making an ending that talky and with such a quick fight, a few fans would be disappointed and not understand why the climax was so short. But he didn't want to compromise his ending. So Quentin, still wanting to give the fans a great time, made an ending that was a fitting tribute to old kung fu movies... but created the best fight scene in history for us and put it in the middle of the movie. He didn't compromise his vision, and managed to make it one of the most exciting movies I've ever seen.

Sure, Volume 2 wasn't as good as Volume 1. But that's like saying cheesecake isn't as good as cheesecake with cherries on top. The cheesecake is still damn good. Despite its flaws, it was still better than most movies I've seen, and I have to give "Kill Bill Volume 2" an 8 out of 10.
- posted by Aaron @ 2:18 AM

 
Well, I ended up seeing Kill Bill 2 tonight. I won't say anything at all about it, because at the very least I know Phil and Erica both want to see it, and I'm not spoiling anything. I was going to see Punisher on Saturday, since for some reason I'm off, but Erica wants to see it (kickass!) so I'll hold off and go to Bedrock instead. I ended up not going the other day because Tim was busy and I had a bunch of stuff to do anyways. Which works, because now I can spend a good hour or two in there just looking around. I hope to buy a bunch of old issues of stuff I haven't read before, and maybe some new issues of the Garth Ennis Punisher. The new Punisher comics have this cool sense of dark humor that really works well, from what I've seen.

Looks like I'm going to miss the Hatebreed show on Tuesday, which is ok since I just saw them 5 months ago. I just hope I get to go to Ozzfest this summer. Why do none of my friends like metal? Erica does, but she'll be in Wyoming. Luis does, maybe him; but he just went last year. Seriously, it's like I made friends with a bunch of Enya fans. Not that there's anything wrong with Enya, she's cool with her Celtic self... it's just that a big loud sweaty balls-out metal show is a whole lot of fun to go see sometimes.

I have a thing for B-movies, cult movies, whatever you want to call them. Some just call them bad. Anyways, one of my favorite genres is that of the zombie movie. I've heard for years about the reputation of one "Re-Animator". Apparently one of the better zombie movies, has a cult following and all. I figured with all that talk about it, I should check it out. I'll never get that hour and 40 minutes back. Man, was that *ever* a shitfest. Awful. The director should be beaten with copies of his own movie. There's a simple equation, fackface: millions of zombies taking over America is scary; one zombie that doesn't even kill people flailing around a hospital is not scary. Is it really that tough to make a zombie movie? Just have zombies kill people and bring about the end of civilization, that's the only way they can be scary.

All in all, it sucked. Re-Animator had lame zombies. I've seen slices of pie that are scarier.
- posted by Aaron @ 4:33 AM