Yay Music

I’m listening to Justin Timberlake’s new single, “Suit and Tie,” while pledging to support Kevin Devine’s Kickstarter. I never said my taste wasn’t eclectic 🙂

I’m digging “Suit and Tie.” I’ll probably buy it on iTunes when I get home tomorrow. (I don’t like buying music on my iOS devices because it always seems to become permanently housed on the device.)

I’m also pretty stoked about the KD Kickstarter, and not just because it was fully funded between the time I learned about it this afternoon and the time I was able to actually go to Kickstarter and check the details. It raised, like, 60 grand in a day, which is super impressive. I decided to fund it anyway, though, because I think that 50 bucks for two vinyl albums is a pretty good deal.

It looks like 2013 will be a pretty good year for me, musically speaking. When I wrote my 2012 music in review post less than a week ago I knew that two artists I like are putting out new music this year: Frank Turner and City and Colour. And now I’ve got two more artists to add to the list: Justin Timberlake and Kevin Devine. And Kevin counts twice since he’s putting out two records: one solo record and one record with the Goddamn Band (and have I mentioned that Jesse Lacey is producing the GDB record, because yay). So that’s five (5!) albums I have to look forward to in 2013. Maybe my musical good luck will continue and Brand New will release their fifth record as well. (And if they launched a Kickstarter, you can damn well believe that I’d fund it in a heartbeat.)

Until tomorrow.

That Could’ve Gone Better

You know what’s not fun? When you go from thinking, “hey, my team’s about to sweep the hated Braves,” to “eff you, Larry.” That’s not fun. (Random side note: I really wanted to name this post “eff you, Larry,” but I thought better of it.)

Everything had been so positive about the Phillies today until the bottom of the ninth, too. They called up Justin De Fratus and Jake Diekman, which made me very, very happy. (I have a bit of a crush on De Fratus and have been waiting all year for him to get added to the big league roster. It would’ve happened much sooner if he hadn’t spent most of the year on the DL.) Cole Hamels had an at bat before he threw a single pitch. And Dan Uggla wasn’t playing for the Braves.

Here’s the thing about Uggla: despite myself, I find him attractive. He’s got that whole dark hair and light eyes thing going for him. Not to mention his arms. (In my defense, it’s hard not to notice his arms since he wears a jersey that’s too small.) When he’s in a game, I find myself checking him out and then I get mad that I was checking him out. It’s terribly annoying. But it feels good to get that off my chest.

At least I have Jesse Lacey videos on YouTube to cheer me up. (And they really never fail to cheer me up.)

Until tomorrow.

Join Me On Other Networks

(Man, I felt like a douche just typing that.)

I had a surprisingly inspirational visit to Facebook this afternoon. First, my personal cheerleader sent me a message with a link to her brand new Pinterest page. (Woommate, I’ll link to it if you want, but I thought it best not to without explicit permission :)) She also called me a “blogging ace” in the message, which I thought was lovely. Then I checked my timeline and saw that Brand New had shared a link to an interview that Jesse gave about a week ago. (Not that anyone is surprised to hear this, but the interview made me ridiculously happy. The only way it could’ve made me happier is if Jesse had announced an album release date. But since they haven’t finished writing it yet, that would’ve been kind of difficult.)

Now, how the hell was any of this inspirational? Well, the Jesse Lacey interview was posted on the interviewer’s Tumblr. Which, when combined with my personal cheerleader’s message, finally inspired me to pull the trigger and create my own Tumblr. For everyone’s sanity (myself included), I kept the same username. My Tumblr is pretty bare bones thus far, but I know that I’ve got time to work on it. The hardest part will be remembering to do so, but I see so many awesome things on other people’s Tumblrs that I want to reblog that I think it won’t be that hard.

After my success with the Tumblr I was finally ready to tackle something I’ve wanted to do for ages: change my Twitter username. I’ve told myself that I’d be more active on Twitter if I changed my username to something further from my actual name. So now begins the great experiment of whether or not that’s the case. I couldn’t use kristininprogress as my username because it has too many characters, so I settled on KrissyOy22 (as you can see in the sidebar). I was shocked that KrissyOy had already been taken because it’s one of my old nicknames from college and I never imagined that anyone else would have the same nickname. But apparently someone does. So I had to attach my favorite number that isn’t Pi.

While I’m at it, you can follow me on Instagram as well: kristininprogress.

My next step is to come up with an avatar that I can use across these many networks. Then I’ll try to figure out what kind of original content I can put on Tumblr. (Kind of a big deal since that was always the big question that kept me from joining.) Maybe I’ll go the lazy route and just post links to all of my posts here. I’m pretty sure WordPress has a feature to do it automatically as well. We shall see.

You may be wondering why I’m not pimping my Pinterest page. That’s because I didn’t actually start one 🙂 I’m more tempted to join Pinterest than I’ve ever been before, but thus far I have managed to abstain. Don’t know how long that will last, but I might be able to use my Tumblr as a pseudo-Pinterest, so there’s that.

Until tomorrow.

Stuff

So yesterday was Jesse Lacey’s birthday. (It is not weird that I know that.) I honored the occasion by exclusively listening to Brand New. (This is actually different from most other days. I have lots of stuff on my iPod and I like to spread the love as much as I can.) Man, sometimes it is good to do that.

I would’ve acknowledged his birthday yesterday, but complaining about FOX’s All-Star Game broadcast actually seemed more important at the time 🙂 In retrospect, though, it would be wrong of me not to mark the occasion with a YouTube video or two. Right?

The Kevin Devine-ified version of “Jesus” is actually a good segue into another thing I wanted to mention. I just found out today about this new release from Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band. I really like Kevin, but I have a tendency to forget just how much. And then I come across something like this that is just so damn good that it forces me to remember how awesome Kevin is. So that was eight bucks very well spent. Someday I may even get to see him live. Especially if he does manage to tour with Frank Turner. Holy balls, that would be amazing. So thanks, Brand New, for mentioning this release on Facebook 🙂

Plus and also, Roy Halladay is pitching for the Threshers tomorrow. Which is awesome. But I can’t freaking go because I have an online class. On the plus side, though, it is the last class meeting for this particular course. This semester is almost over. (Glory hallelujah!) But I have a crap-ton of stuff to do between now and next Friday. Wish me luck.

Until tomorrow.

Come Back Justin Timberlake (And Bring Sexy With You)

I have a confession to make: I love Justin Timberlake’s music.

My love for Justin’s music dates all the way back to early *NSYNC (though it took years for me to be able to admit that – I had issues with pop music when I was in college). I did a good job of keeping my dirty little secret a secret, too. When my grandmother gave me Justified for Christmas, my brother was shocked that I was legitimately happy with the gift. But that record was so damn good, of course I was excited to get it. And when FutureSex/LoveSounds came out, my friends at work were shocked that I wanted to run to the mall to pick up a copy. Their shock didn’t stop me from doing just that, though 🙂

What prompted this random Internet confession?

My personal cheerleader texted me this afternoon that she was listening to “Rock Your Body” on the schizophrenic Philly radio station (some people call it BenFM). This made me jealous and prompted me to wonder a) why I wasn’t listening to JT at that moment and b) why he hasn’t put out new music in six years. It also reminded me of one of my very favorite (NSFW) YouTube videos.

Don’t misunderstand me. My love of Justin Timberlake extends to his acting career. I think he’s a good actor, but I also think that somebody really needs to bring sexy back again. I mean, it’s not like Jesse Lacey is ever going to bring sexy back. *mental high-five for working Jesse Lacey into a Justin Timberlake post*

Oddly enough, I never did end up listening to JT today, so let me end this post with a Justin Timberlake music video dance party.

Here’s wishing all of us a new Justin Timberlake record in the not too distant future. Or at the very least, a JT dance party 🙂

Until tomorrow.

The Internet Is The Best

Because things like this exist.

Neutral Bling Hotel: an album of mash-ups of Neutral Milk Hotel’s fabulous In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and hip-hop songs. It’s pretty much amazing. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but I really like what I’ve heard so far (even with the sacrilege that is mashing up “Oh Comely,” which is one of my favorite songs, with “Teach Me How to Dougie”). Some of the highlights (thus far) are tracks 2 and 9, which combine “The King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. 2 & 3” with “Jesus Walks” (track 2) and “Ghost” with “Forgot About Dre” (track 9). Actually, track 9 kinda made me sad because I used to know all the words to “Forgot About Dre” and I seem to have forgotten a lot of them in the years since college.

I am, however, feeling pretty awesome about the fact that I’m not particularly late to this Internet party. I’m normally the last to find out about things like this. But this only went up on Bandcamp on Thursday, so that is categorically impossible. Hooray!

I think I’ll be listening to these songs for a while, but in the meantime I’ll watch this video of Jesse Lacey covering “Oh Comely” to get the bad “Teach Me How to Dougie” taste out of my mouth.

Until tomorrow.

Van Gogh Up Close

We went to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Art Museum today. It was amazing. The exhibit was focused on Van Gogh’s close up nature studies so it wasn’t full of his most well-known works, but the pieces were phenomenal. And there were several pieces that I knew. And others that I’d never seen before that I loved.

It was incredible to be standing feet from these canvases that Vincent freaking Van Gogh painted. A couple of times I was super aware of that and it felt not unlike standing in a room with Jesse Lacey. (Granted, Lacey’s on a stage, but that doesn’t mean we’re not standing in the same room.)

So thanks for the ticket, Robair 🙂

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to read a bit more of Mockingjay before I go to bed. I finished Catching Fire after we got back from the museum and I obviously had to jump right into the final book.

Until tomorrow.

Oh, I Get It

I’m ashamed to admit it, but it wasn’t until the third or fourth time I saw the new Old Navy commercial with Mayim Bialik that I realized they were making a Blossom reference.  Even with the Joey Lawrence cameo.

In my defense, though, I very rarely watched Blossom.  I’ve probably seen more The Big Bang Theory episodes with Mayim Bialik than Blossom episodes.  I think that’s the problem, by the way.  The first few times I saw the commercial I just thought, “oh, Mayim Bialik, that’s cool.”  It didn’t strike me as weird or anything since I’ve seen her on TV a lot the past few years.  If it weren’t for The Big Bang Theory, though, it would’ve been weird to see her on TV and I probably would’ve gotten the joke sooner.  Oh well, there’s always something to make you feel kind of dumb, right?

Rather than allow a TV commercial to make me feel dumb, I think I’ll sit here and watch this video of Jesse Lacey covering Archers of Loaf’s “Web In Front” that I just found.  (God bless the Internet.)  Random story: I wanted desperately to go to this show, but I couldn’t because it was in Pittsburgh and I was in Tampa and I didn’t have a good reason to go to Pittsburgh.  (Not that a Jesse Lacey solo show isn’t a good enough reason to go to Pittsburgh.)  And I was working a temp job, which meant no paid time off.

Until tomorrow.

Spring Break! Woohoo!

USF is on spring break this week.  I had completely forgotten that that was a thing until I saw it on the semester calendar.

I’m going to spend this spring break the same way I spent every spring break when I was an undergrad: staying home and doing nothing.  Woohoo, indeed.  Admittedly, home is in Florida now, so that is slightly better than spending spring break in southeastern PA.  My “do nothing” plans for this week include lounging poolside, although I can almost guarantee that I won’t actually get in the pool.  The water’s too freaking cold.  Reading poolside is just a way to get myself outside and work on my tan.  It’s kinda mind-boggling to me that my arms are sorta perma-tan now, but the rest of my body is, like, eight different shades of pale.  And that needs to be worked on.

I suppose my fondness for spending spring break at home could be attributed to laziness, but that’s not really it.  I just never understood the urge to shell out a couple grand to travel to someplace warm and crowded with thousands of drunk college kids.  The someplace warm bit I can appreciate, but the crowds of drunk kids bit kills it for me.  I do not, as a general rule, enjoy crowds.  I have had to make conscious decisions to stop whining about crowds and just enjoy myself at many different concerts.  And these can be my favorite bands, like Brand New.  Thankfully, telling myself to get over it has always worked, but you would think that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to have to do that.  Just being in a room with Jesse Lacey on stage should be enough for me to ignore the jerks around me, but that hasn’t always been true.  Nor do I really enjoy drunk people.  (Now, drunk people I know aren’t a problem, but random drunk people drive me nuts.)  So you can imagine how much I love crowds of drunk people.

Actually, I know that I said my plan is to do nothing, but I really should do some schoolwork.  I know myself too well to really expect that to happen, but it should.  At least the forecast for this week is excellent, so I should at least get some pool time in.

Until tomorrow.

Curses, Foiled Again

Earlier this week I considered this title for a blog post I composed in my head and never actually wrote.  But I don’t remember what the post would have been about anymore, I only remember that I was going to use this title.  Undoubtedly something more interesting came along.  Oh wait, I know.  A mere 24 hours after I wrote my epic blog post about Brand New and how they became my favorite band, including the clusterfudge that was the first time I saw them live at Bamboozle ’07, Brand New were added to this year’s Bamboozle line-up.  I was so excited because, you see, in my head the Bamboozle is always the first weekend of May and I’m actually going to be home the first weekend in May.  But no, this year’s Bamboozle is the third freaking weekend in May and I can’t go.  Boo!  But then I read this interview with Jesse Lacey in which he states that the band is “intent on getting music out” and felt much better.

S’anyways…  None of this Brand New stuff has anything to do with why I chose to use this title for this blog post.  I half-composed today’s intended blog post in my head over the past several days, but I have to put it off again.  The plan was to continue my reading autobiography.  But the plan was foiled.  By me.  After dinner I decided to get my daily reading in and picked up The Magician King.  And then didn’t put it down until it was finished.  When I picked it up there were over a hundred pages still to be read and I got too wrapped up in the story and couldn’t put it down.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  It just meant that I won’t get to write about discovering my favorite author until tomorrow (and even then I might decide to write about the Oscars instead).  C’est la vie.

Y’know, I’m actually impressed with how long this post is considering that I completely forgot about my blog until about 20 minutes ago.

Until tomorrow.