Vampire Weekend - "Vampire Weekend"

Okay so, starting off. When I first made this thing I told my friends that I'd be slapping up some music reviews. I've been toying with the idea of writing some reviews for awhile, and it was honestly one of the big motivations for starting this bad boy. I would like to say that it's taken so long to write one because I've been perfecting the art, honing my skills and all of that. But of course that's a lie. So without further ado, here's my review of Vampire Weekend's debut album.

I first heard about these guys from someone I work with. He told me that they drew a lot of their beats from African drum rhythms and gave them a high recommendation. Anyway, I got the album and went home to give it a listen.

Simply put this is some good stuff. Some of their songs don't seem to have a lot of Afro-pop influence, but maybe that's just because I'm not too familiar with Afro-pop. A lot of their songs seem to have a Baroque quality to them as well, harpsichords rocking out and all of that good stuff. All of it weaves together to create a good, mellow sound. Throw in some good vocals from Ezra Koenig, the vocal dude, and you've got a band that has some really moving songs. I recommend them to anyone who's looking for some good indie music.

"Mansard Roof" and "A-Punk" are the singles from their debut album, but I highly suggest checking out "Oxford Comma" as well. Really all of their songs are worth a listen or two.

The Genius of Marketing

Alright well, to start things off, my current job put out a bulletin a while back asking people who blog to try not to mention the company name, or any of the company policies. This will be the first of probably a few posts to mention the job, so for simplicity I'm going to just call my job and anything referring to the name as "Job".

A few months back my job had a short-lived policy stating that if you convinced some poor sap to apply for a JobCard, then you got the chance to win one of six amazing prizes. Said prizes ranged from a pat on the back to a DVD of your choice (so long as it was under $13.78 USD). Now, somehow I managed to do this, I don't know how I did it or else I would be doing it all of the time, because hell I can always use some more DVDs. On this occasion I managed to win a DVD, and I noticed that Batman Begins was within the price range, and I didn't have it so I ended up picking it as my awesome super free DVD JobCard reward.

Keep in mind this was a few months ago, and at no point have I forgotten that I have it.

Fast forward to today, another normal day at Job. Now, at Job I can usually be found wandering around on the side of the store that has the toys and the electronics and all of the things of childhood dreams (this is no coincidence). Late in the evening I was wandering around when something caught my eye. It was a DVD box set thing upon first glance. Something was calling to me though, Higher Power wanted me to look at this DVD box set thing again. Now, Higher Power never tells me to look at DVD box sets, so I felt obligated to do so. I was rewarded greatly for my effort, for there in front of me I saw the most beautiful thing I have yet to see in my short life on this earth.

Limited Edition Batman Begins Gift Set

Ridiculously long name? Check. Holographic card thing to draw it's prey within distance? Check. Super cool special features to cause it's prey to spend hard earned money on it? Oh hell yes that's a check.

I saw this and immediately bought it, causing me to bounce up and down and clap my hands like some well trained puppy who just got a wicked awesome puppy treat. Let me go ahead and list all the super cool special features that this lovely purchase came with.

• The actual movie
• A 128 MB Flash Drive with 18 pictures from The Dark Knight on it
• A two minute sneak preview of The Dark Knight
• Holographic Card thing
• Special Batman Begins post card things
• $7.50 dollar coupon towards the cost of a ticket to see The Dark Knight

Now, I've been following the Dark Knight for quite awhile, so there's not much I haven't seen or heard about it. Those eighteen Dark Knight pictures? Yeah I've seen them all. The two minute sneak preview? Yep, saw that too. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had just spent money (actual money not Monopoly money) on pictures and video clips that I saw before. Not only that I saw before, but that I saw for free on the internets.


Marketing Strategy? If you're reading this I want you to know one thing. You've made a fool out of me for the last time. I know I've said that before, but this time I mean it. I know I've said THAT before too, but just get off my back and let me live my own life.

Mom, don't read this

So I celebrated the past holiday (America's Birthday Day for those not keeping track) by doing the thing that we Americans tend to do best.

My friends and I blew things up and marveled at the pretty colors that showed up.

Now, I'm just a college kid, and college kids can be really dumb sometimes. I am no exception. The day's events included three roman candle battles between my friend and I. Worry not! We both had paintball masks on, so we were completely safe from harm. Other notable events included a failed attempt to launch a bottle rocket from my shoe while I was wearing it, resulting in the first injury of the night.

At some point I realized that the sticks of bottle rockets could fit in the holes of the button on my pants. Needless to say not too long after this discovery I was launching bottle rockets left and right, giving a whole new meaning to the term "crotch rocket". Now, there were some problems on the launch pad, resulting in me frantically knocking the rocket away before, well before some damage was done to vital organs. This little stunt coupled with me having to knock a few bottle rockets away eventually led to the last few injuries of the night, a bunch of burns on my hands which are already fading into memory.

Those were really the only notably stupid things that we did. Some other stupid things we did included throwing lit bottle rockets into the air (timed so that they shot off in random directions), and throwing packs of firecrackers and bottle rockets into the campfire we had going.

I will never forget the four of us standing around, belting out the Star Spangled Banner while the fountains and big artillery shells went off around us.

God bless this country

Initiating Blogging Formation

By now I'm sure we're all excited for the upcoming Batman movie, and if you're not, well then that's unfortunate. Every time one of the many trailers shows up on the television box my heart skips a beat. Every time I see a production still my palms get all sweaty and I start to feel light headed. I feel like I can say for certain that this will be the most amazing movie I have ever seen, and will see for quite sometime. Every time someone starts talking about this movie at work, I melt into a puddle of some weird kind of goo stuff. And out of everything I've seen, I really only have one thing that I'm worried about.

I'm worried that I won't survive the movie.

With each passing day I get more and more excited, and right now I'm more excited for the Dark Knight than I have been for anything I can remember. I'm worried that when I'm actually sitting down in the theater, watching the actual movie on an actual movie screen, my heart will just not be able to take the excitement and will surrender, throwing up some sort of flag I would imagine. It's been a good life though, so I ain't got any regrets.