Anyway, after we met and went on our first date I remember thinking of this Deftones song (listen to it below) that I’ve always loved.

Deftones – “Digital Bath”

[Audio Clip: View Full Post to Listen]

You move, like I want to
To see, like your eyes do
We are, downstairs where no one can see…
New life break away

Tonight I feel like more
Tonight I…

You make the water warm
You taste foreign, and I know you can see
The cord break away

‘Cause tonight, I feel like more
Tonight I feel like more
I fell like more…
Tonight…

You breathed
Then you stopped
I breathed, then dried you off
And tonight I feel, feel like more…
Oh, tonight, I feel like
Feel like more…
Tonight, I feel like more
Feel like more…
Tonight…

It’s 2010 and we have a black president in office for the first time in our nations history. How far we’ve come, right? Well, that’s what I thought until I opened my census form (click thumbnail image for larger view) a couple days ago. As I filled it out I finally got down to the “race section” where I chose “white”. But, as I scanned further down the form I saw “Black, African Am., or Negro”. WTF?!?

I mean, come on people. This is ridiculous. Who created/approved this? Oh, and why wasn’t “white” expanded to include things like “honky” or “cracker” etc.? Only fair…

I guess today the census people apologized for it. Check out the video interview with the U.S. Census Director for more info (haven’t watched it yet).

I am an “ESTJ” personality which means Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging or Extraverted Thinking with Introverted Sensing. Approximately 13% of the American population is like this apparently. Here’s the summary:

You are great at getting things done. You like to run the show and make things happen. You are responsible, conscientious and faithful to your commitments. You like structure and can remember and organize many details. You systematically set about achieving your goals on schedule and as efficiently as possible.

You are driven to make decisions. Often you base your decisions on your own past experience. You are logical, objective and analytical and have great reasoning power. In fact, you are unlikely to be persuaded by anything but logic.

You are realistic, practical and matter-of-fact. You are more interested in “real things” than intangibles, such as abstract ideas and theories. You tend to not be interested in subjects for which you see no practical application. You know what’s happening around you and are concerned primarily with the here and now.

Because you live by a certain set of rules, you are consistent and dependable. You tend to be traditional and interested in maintaining established institutions. You are consistent in your relationships although your emotional and social life is not as important to you as other aspects of life. You are comfortable judging others, and can be a crisp disciplinarian. Your personality type is outgoing, sociable, direct and friendly. You are usually easy to get to know, since “what you see is what you get.”

Interesting. So, I dug a bit deeper. ESTJs generally have the following traits:

• Natural leaders – they like to be in charge
• Value security and tradition
• Loyal
• Hard-working and dependable
• No patience with incompetence or inefficiency
• Excellent organizational abilities
• Enjoy creating order and structure
• Very thorough
• Straight-forward and honest

Of course there must be negatives as well:

• Can be impatient
• Not always OK with change
• Little patience for inefficiency
• Can talk a lot or interrupt frequently (haha!)
• Focuses on present needs at the expense of future ones

All in all pretty interesting. Glad I took the test…

Oh, and if you can’t tell by looking at my blog design, the White Stripes are by far my favorite band! So, you know I’ll be there…

Here’s the synopsis of the film:

From the cinematic genius of Emmett Malloy is spawned this unprecedented account of The White Stripes reality- their unrivaled musicianship, and unfiltered commentaries on life and life on the road, all in the Canadian summer of 2007. Through his 16mm camera lens, Malloy brings to full exposure the essence of Jack and Meg White in his documentary “Under Great White Northern Lights.” The film was conceived from the band’s initiative to do the undone- tour each province in Canada, every reasonable (or unreasonable) nook of the landscape including bowling alleys and city buses, in order to deliver their legendary sound to unsuspecting townspeople and diehard fans alike. And as to be expected, the duo does it all. They play their longest show ever at the Savoy Theater on their 10th anniversary, only to balance it out with a subsequent one-note ensemble. And somewhere between tinkering on old pianos and firing off cannons in an empty field, the band evokes and sustains a most intimate connection with their audience. “Under Great White Northern Lights” illuminates the soul of the White Stripes, their rooted spirit for Rock ‘n Roll, and their unshakable dedication to their fans. As Jack White simplifies it in the film, “from the ocean to the permafrost” he and Meg only come to delivery some of the most unforgettable performances our generation has ever seen.

Anyway, a friend posted this image on twitter earlier and I thought it was worthy of reposting.

You can buy the image above as a poster or printed on a t-shirt here if interested.

Here’s one sent to me by a friend titled “Late For Work”

Anyway, the more and more I watch/listen to it the more and more I relate it to my own life in a lot ways. Sure, I’m not a heroin addict but the angst he must of felt and the inability for him to help some things/people in his life I can relate to.

It’s a sad song but definitely one of the greatest I’ve ever had the pleasure to listen to…

Anyway, my roommate also happens to be a lawyer and he’s doing all the LLC paperwork for me. Everything will be official here in the state of California in about a month.

In the meantime I’ve filed to reserve the company name so I can start building out my website and create business cards etc. The state has received my reservation request apparently but until I get written notice back I’ll have to refrain from mentioning the name.

What I can mention is that the company name has something to do with the Orange fruit. So, before I could start working on a logo I needed to brush up on my orange drawing skills – LOL. So I fired up Adobe Illustrator and started going at it. Between just messing around and following a few ideas I found on the web I came up with the image below (click to enlarge).

Again, this isn’t the final logo design. I just wanted to see if I could create good looking orange skin and leaves in Illustrator. I’m actually really pleased with how it came out. Now that I got this down it’s on to creating the real logo. More info soon…

I’ve seen SY quite a few times in the past and look forward to seeing them again this time around. But, for now it looks like there’s no Los Angeles or San Diego shows?!? The only California stop on the schedule for now is Oakland, CA. Sucks… I hope they add at least one LA show!!!

Anyway, I found this little gem of a video on YouTube and I hope you enjoy it as I did. It’s their network television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman. I’m not sure what year it was filmed (late 80s?) and the quality of the video is crappy but it’s a great performance and still worth checking out.

They basically have 2 albums. “Glasvegas” and “A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss)“. The 2nd album was released along with their self-titled one as a bonus disc of sorts. Not only are the songs great the albums really flow nicely from one song to the next. It’s the kind of album that is best heard from start to finish.

I would have to say their most popular song (and one of my favorites) is “Geraldine”. I also really like “Please Come Back Home” so I’ve attached that one below as a preview. Check it out…

[Audio Clip: View Full Post to Listen]

Finally, check them out via the iTunes Store if you want to grab the album.

I have satellite radio for a reason. No commercials, dedicated genre-based channels, and so I can listen to more music and less talk. It would be great if when driving to/from work I could just hear one song. Thanks.

But, here I am today. Sick of smoking and hating the way it makes me feel. I of course also know all the bad things it can do to your health as well. I won’t go on and on about all that here, but, the bottom line for me is I’m just tired of it and no longer want to deal with its many burdens.

So, I started reviewing popular ways to quit. Patches, pills (ie. anti-depressants), hypnosis, seminars, you name it. I don’t particularly want to use any nicotine replacement systems (ie. patches or gums). I know that within 12 hours of your last cigarette the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal and your oxygen levels go back up to normal as well. And, within 3-7 days of your last cigarette you’re body is basically no longer chemically dependent on nicotine and any withdrawals start to subside. So, why keep feeding your body that shit for weeks after quitting? Didn’t make sense to me.

I definitely do not want to use any type of prescription pill like Zyban or Chantix. These are either anti-depressants or chemicals which interfere with the brain’s nicotine receptors. Both of these types of drugs have a long list of possible side-effects which I won’t bore you with. But, a few in particular bother me like thoughts of suicide, depression, vivid/strange dreams and so on. No thanks…

Everywhere I read about various stop smoking programs I kept seeing Allen Carr’s “EasyWay to Stop Smoking” book and seminars. So, I bought the DVD and the book online and will be giving that a try. It supposedly has a high success rate and I liked that it didn’t require drugs of any kind. I’m definitely skeptical but after reading all the reviews and checking out all the info on the program I’m trying to stay positive and give it a fair chance.

Why did I finally decide to try quitting again today? Well, on-top of a myriad of other external forces (friends, family, general heath concerns) I’ve had this cough/sore throat and congestion for a little over a week that just won’t go away. I finally felt so crappy today that I visited my doctor and he said I most likely had whatever cold bug that’s going around currently and it’s turned into a slight respiratory infection because I smoke. Lovely…

Anyway, hoping this program will work for me. Wish me luck.

Cool right? Well sorta… Tapulous, the people who created Twinkle, also allow people without a Twitter account to post tweets via their own network/service. So, other than seeing my friends tweets (which is the point), I also have to withstand a constant stream of random idiots blabbing about all kinds of dumb shit and posting pics of things I really don’t need to see.

Basically you get a lot of “I’m bored – talk!” or “Hey, check out how sexy I am (pic attached)” etc. Oh, and let’s not forget about the occasional guy who sends me a pic of his junk and some creepy proposition. Even if I was gay I would still find it equally disturbing so, yeah, can we stop that now?

Not to pick on “kyri1″ but here’s a perfect example. As a matter of fact it’s the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and made me finally remove Twinkle and go with TwitterFon.

By far the best track on the album is “Olympic Airways”. But you should also check out “Red Socks Pugie”, “Cassius”, and “Tron”. All excellent songs… All in all it’s a great indie rock album that deserves more attention. You can check out a few of their songs (lo-fi audio stream) at the band’s MySpace page.

“Decode” by Paramore
“Full Moon” by The Black Ghosts
“Spotlight (Twilight Mix)” by Mutemath
“Eyes on Fire” by Blue Foundation
“Never Think” by Rob Pattinson

Again, a lot of good songs on this soundtrack and it’s definitely worth a listen. But, one track on the album really stands out from the rest in my opinion – “Eyes on Fire”. It’s a track recorded by the band Blue Foundation from Denmark. The muted/distorted guitar riffs, slow hypnotic drumming, and haunting vocals by Kirstine Stubbe Teglbjærg really make this a song (and band) worth checking out.

[Audio Clip: View Full Post to Listen]

Click the play button above to check out the song “Eyes on Fire” in its entirety.

Anyway, here are the highlights and a few pics:

• Had a full house – just about everyone made it which was great.
• Got some great gifts – thanks everyone!
• We managed to drink roughly 14.5 gallons of beer which is something like 154 12 oz. cans!
• After the bar (yes, we also went to the bar) myself and 10 others got stuck in the elevator in my building – thanks Martin for breaking us out.
• We found out that 3 grown adults sitting in 1 Ikea chair = disaster – thanks Martin for replacing the chair, lol.