It's not in my nature to be mysterious...

one eye on the road and one on you

2011-06-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Carrolls (minus JoJo and Sammy) begin the long walk to Maryland.

Things don't change too much for me anymore. I've been at the same job for 5 years, living at home for 4 years, driving the same car for 3 years, and avoiding abrupt changes for as long as I can remember. Sadly, today is one of those difficult changes I've been hoping to avoid. My brother Brodie, his wife Jen, and their three kids started the long drive across country for their move to the DC area this morning. Brodie has basically lived with me or near me for my whole life. I remember being sad when I was in grade school and found out he was moving out of the house to an apartment about 3 miles away and I thought I would never see him again. Plus, I've gotten used to seeing Jen and the kids on a weekly basis their whole lives (the kids' lives, not Jen's,) so it will be strange to watch them grow up through Facebook pictures and videos now and only see them a couple times a year. Coincidentally, one of my best friends, Jason, flew to DC this morning for an interview with the intention of staying there permanently. I guess the bright side to all this is that I now have people to visit in DC, but it's kinda depressing that I just lost half of my friends in one day.

However, I guess the circle of friendship is kinda like the circle of life because I just got another best friend, Brigitte, back from New York. She's been busy doing awesome Hollywood stuff, but it's reassuring for me to know she's around. Plus, I've spent a lot of time the past few months reconnecting with other high school friends and hanging out with my coworkers more often. And to top it all off, my temporarily handicapped friend Caitlyn is still talking to me even though I dropped her on her face.

In other news, I noticed I'm about halfway through the list of summer concerts I mentioned a couple posts back. Fun at the Glass House was pretty...well, fun. I didn't get close enough to make any form of vague contact with my future wife, Emily, and our paths just barely missed each other on the way to the parking lot, but our Words With Friends relationship is still going strong. The Death Cab show at the El Rey was excellent. I've seen the full band twice before, but never in such a small venue. Ben Gibbard is pretty much a hero of mine, so I got a huge rush from being within about 20 feet of him. U2 at Angel Stadium was also pretty spectacular. The show was similar to the Rose Bowl show I saw a couple years ago, but the song selection was better and it was refreshing to see it through the eyes of Brodie and Jen since they had never really been to a real concert before. Hopefully, I've still got the National at the Hollywood Bowl to look forward to in September if I can gather some troops to go.

i won't get better, but some day i'll be free

2011-05-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just a quick follow-up to last week's dream. I had another good one last night. I was up late at night doing a Simpsons coloring book when my dad came in wanting to borrow a U2 book. I wasn't really sure why he was so interested, but I pulled a bunch from my shelves and went through the subject matter of each one with him. Eventually, my mom came in and told us that Robert Downey Jr. had just called and wanted to hang out for a little bit at our house while he was waiting to shoot a movie. A few minutes later, he walked up to the door and seemed really excited to see me because he hadn't seen me since I was a little kid. He looked kinda sweaty and hyper though, so I got the impression he was back into some kind of drugs. He brought a pretty attractive girlfriend with him and she seemed to be hitting on me, but I was ok with it. The end.

i love you like grave danger

2011-05-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

One of the few upsides to keeping this blog is that when I have an amazing dream, I can write it on here and it enables me to relive it in my head any time I happen to look back on this and read about it. Last night, I had a whole bunch of isolated dreams. In one, I flew to New York with Caitlyn to visit Brigitte and happened to run into Sarah K. on the way. In another, I was working on a class project with a study group of Adrianne G. and Sara J. In another, I was playing Mario Party with Matt and Carrie and I kept poking Carrie and saying "tiiiiny stomache" in a high voice to somehow make fun of her for no longer being pregnant.

Those were all enjoyable, but the reason I signed into Blogger and wrote this is so I'll never forget the final dream of the night. I was on an anti-terrorist task force with actor John Krasinski (Jim Halpert from the Office) and we were trying to use statistical programming software to identify potential terrorist threats. Our plan was to cross-reference different types of data to see if certain keywords ("bomb", "explosion", etc.) would show up for certain people. The only real detail I remember is that John seemed to think "goblins" was an important keyword to go on the list and I was making fun of him for it.

Anyway, that's all the exciting news I've got. I've watched about 90% of the NBA playoff games over the past few weeks and I've taken up playing pool, but I'm still not very good. The Lakers getting swept by the Mavs was one of the happiest sports events of my life. I've also been blessed with another nephew, Declan Hartley Carroll, but I haven't met him yet. Hopefully I'll get down to San Diego soon to meet him.

If anyone still reads this and has a question you want answered, post a comment. Otherwise, you're just gonna get a whole lot of boring.

i think the kids are in trouble

2011-04-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

Where to begin...I guess the most important thing is family. I've got a new nephew. Samuel Bradley Carroll was born on March 10th in the same hospital as his older brother and sister. Usually, I'd post a picture here, but if you really want to see him, then you probably already know his parents Brodie and Jen and you can find pictures on Facebook or whatever. Everyone's doing well, and the baby's turned out to be a pretty calm one so far.

Exactly one week after that, I turned 26. Last year on my birthday, I worked from 9am to about 10pm and then got denied at McDonald's when I went out for a celebratory Shamrock Shake. This year, I got sick and ended up working from home while watching basketball. I'd say it was still an improvement from last year though. I didn't do anything too crazy this year for my birthday, just had one dinner with family, one dinner with friends, and watched a lot of March Madness all weekend.

That's about it for exciting news and other major milestones. Sleepwalking news has been busy though. A couple weeks ago, I woke up to find myself standing on the other side of my room holding my framed Brandon Flowers poster. I tried to hang it back on the wall, but couldn't find a push pin on the floor to hold it up, so I eventually gave up and went back to sleep. In the morning, I found the poster sitting on the floor and realized it had been nailed in. Then last week, I had one of my best sleep experiences yet. I woke up around 3am with my acoustic guitar in my hands and my electric guitar resting on my lap. Judging by the position of my hands and the notes I was hitting when I woke up, I think I was trying to play Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately, it probably didn't sound that great since 1) I was asleep and 2) that guitar is tuned specifically for Skinny Love by Bon Iver.

Speaking of music, summer concert season is coming up and here's my expected schedule. Anyone going to any of these?

4/14 - fun. @ the Fox Theatre in Pomona
6/7 - Death Cab @ the El Rey in Los Angeles
6/17 - U2 @ Angel Stadium in Anaheim
8/18 - Death Cab @ the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park
9/11 - The National @ the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles

the businessmen, they drink my blood

2011-02-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentimes to everyone once again. As I was looking over some old February posts, I realized the Duffman is always my Valentine, but I never post pictures of him, so there you go. He looks pretty serious in this picture, but he's really a nice guy. This year was another ordinary year for Valentine's Day. Worked all day, then came home and ate some pizza with Duff. We also watched the super-computer Watson play Jeopardy and do really well. That scares me a little though, cause it seems like a pretty straight path from there to the world of Terminator. At least if that happens, I'll know my purpose in life...but I'll probably have to compete with a lot of other guys named John Connor for the leadership position.

In other news, despite my protest to some of the Grammy nominations, I did end up watching the entire Grammy broadcast last night, and it had some worthwhile moments:

Good: Muse rocked out with a pretty straightforward performance.
Bad: The protesting actors running around stage probably sounded like an interesting idea in theory, but they were more distracting and silly than entertaining.

Good: Mumford & Sons had my foot stomping and were complemented nicely by the Avett Brothers.
Bad: Bob Dylan was cool in his time, but he really needs to stop singing.

Good: Arcade Fire winning best album and ending strong on Ready to Start.
Bad: Arcade Fire making their Grammy debut with Month of May, one of their worst songs ever in my opinion. It sounds like it could be a high school band's first attempt at songwriting. (By the way, check out this tumblr in response to Arcade Fire's win)

Good: Cee-Lo with G-Pal.
Bad: The 20-minute unecessary show-opening tribute to Aretha Franklin, followed by Lady Gaga's boney-shouldered performance of her new song Born This Way...I assume it's about being ugly.

Worst of All: Justin Bieber, Jaden Smith, and Usher all on the same stage. The Grammy's should be ashamed of themselves.

i stomp my boots before i go back in

2011-01-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, I haven't been so into the blogging thing lately. With newer online social outlets like Facebook and Twitter, it's kinda easier to just summarize my thoughts into short fragments and pictures and spit them out that way. Plus, more people are going to read those thoughts (whether they actually want to or not.) However, as I was sitting here with roughly an hour left in the first day of the new year, I realized I had to do my annual New Year's Day summary of how my life is going. Sadly, like this blog in general, not a whole lot has changed and I don't have much to say.

Before I get to that, I guess I should give a little update on the Christmas and New Year's Eve festivities. Christmas was a little different this year, but still good. My oldest brother Jamie and his kids decided to stay in Seattle for the first time since the kids were born. It was a lot quieter around the house, but we didn't really get the same early-morning Christmas excitement as we've always had. Matt, Carrie, and I stayed up until about 3 or 4 in the morning playing video games on Christmas Eve though, so I guess the freedom to sleep in was pretty nice. I also got the second worst cold of my life starting Christmas Eve night and lasting through pretty much today. I don't mind colds too much in general because I get to miss work and it gives me a reason to wear pajamas all day, but I wouldn't recommend this cold.

For New Year's Eve, I broke my streak of sitting alone at home watching TV with my dog to meet up with some high school and college friends in West LA. It was good to get out for a night, and I got maybe 3 miles worth of walking exercise, but I may resume my TV/dog tradition next year. I think bars just aren't really my thing. They're too loud to talk in, too expensive to drink in, and dancing...well, I don't understand dancing. It's not that I'm too cool to dance or something like that. It's more like I'm an alien visiting Earth and I can't comprehend your strange rituals. Hearing funk/techno/R&B/etc. music in a dark room doesn't cause a reaction in me to walk out to an open space, partner up with someone, and flail my extremeties. People say I'd understand if I drank more, but I don't see why I'd want to use rotten liquid to trick my brain into enjoying something it wouldn't enjoy in a rational state. Also, I've had my share of alcohol before, and it never made me want to dance. Just sleep.

Anyway, here's the much-anticipated annual New Year's life evaluation:

Family: I lost a great aunt and a cousin in the past few months, but as the circle of life goes, two new additions to the Carroll army are on their way. Brodie and Jen found out they're having their third kid next March but they're going to let the gender be a surprise. Then Matt and Carrie found out they're having their first one next May and it's a boy. My name recommendations were Waluigi or Salacious Crumb, but I don't think those are gonna make the shortlist.

Friends: With each year, I can feel a little distance growing between me and my friends. It's sad, but I guess that's how things go. I did get to see Pat a lot over the past week and really picked up quickly, so that's been good. Plus, Jason is now back from Portland indefinitely, so I will be able to see him on those rare occasions that I find the courage to make my way into Canyon Country.

Work: Just had my four-year anniversary at my job. I don't know if I'm really proud of that, but I guess I should be proud that I survived the summer of layoffs. Also, I've recently taken up the habit of going to movies and having video game nights with some of my co-workers, so that's helped me fill a void and enjoy the things that made my younger days more fun.

Love: Natalie Portman just got engaged, so I guess it's over between us. Plus, Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson filed for divorce and that's kinda jaded my hope in true love.

Hobbies: I'll be honest...Potential Difference is in a bad state right now. I have a feeling our summer show at the Orange County Fair may have been our last. Scott and I have been writing songs together for roughly a third of our lives, but I think he's finally lost that loving feeling. There's no Gallagher feuds going on between us or anything; we're still BFF's. I think trying to make it as a band just isn't what we hoped it would be like, and it's no longer a big priority for him. I'm hoping to find a way to finish the album somehow, but it's going to be difficult. Motivation and support is always helpful, so if you've ever had anything nice to say about the music, now's the time to say it.

As far as other hobbies go, TV is still high on my list and going strong. Also, this year, I finally went to a foreign country that isn't Mexico. Granted, Canada isn't very far away or very foreign, but I enjoyed it a lot. I also got to see Portland and more of Seattle while I was up that way, so it was a great experience.

Appearance: My hair's a lot shorter than it was at this time last year, but it's still long enough to be kinda cool. I started off going for the Boone from Lost look, but it looks a little different every day. I've also started doing the Spartacus workout routine a few days a week, but I don't look like a Thracian gladiator just yet.

Alright, 2011...deal me something good.

let me be your comet, i will fly

2010-11-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

First of all, happy Thanksgiving. We had kind of a strange one this year at the Carroll house. As far as my memory goes back, Thanksgiving has always been a time of having way too many people eating dinner at our table (or sometimes tables.) We usually have our own full-size family of 2 parents, 5 sons, 2 to 3 wives, and a handful of kids, but then my mom also tends to invite over everyone she can think of to join in. This year, we were gonna skip all that and drive down to my brother's restaurant in Carlsbad, but changed plans last minute to stay home and do the usual. It was hardly usual though. We ended up with just my parents, my brother Travis, our friend Steve, and me. It was pretty relaxing being able to watch TV and talk without all the commotion, but it was a little strange.

The rest of my Thanksgiving break so far has been playing Wii, drinking cider, watching Party Down, and working on music in my room. That's kinda nice since it's the opposite of last weekend, which was the largest concentration of physical activity I've had in the past year. Maybe not that much compared to a normal person, but I did part of a Spartacus workout on Saturday, then bike riding, then 2-on-2 basketball Sunday, then Xbox Kinect (which is surprisingly good and pretty tiring), then more Spartacus.

I haven't written on here in a while and I'm starting to remember why. Time to go do something else.

Top 5 reasons I'm looking forward to December:
1. KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas show
2. Inception on DVD
3. Christmas
4. New Christmas songs from Coldplay and the Killers
5. New Year's Eve

PVS pt. 3: Seattle

2010-10-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Trey contemplating his attack on the monster fountain.

Trey the fake-smiler, Riley the doll come to life, and me hanging out by the Space Needle.

Jamie and I took the kids for a ride around Greenlake park...

And made some stops to take in the view and get some pictures.

I spent one of my days wandering around the University of Washington and ran into this familiar character...I don't think it was Charlie though.

Enjoyed my flight home on Virgin Airlines while alternating my attention between the seat-back TV and the sunset.

It's been well over a month since I got back from vacation, but I'm finally posting the end of my series now because it's raining here in Southern California and it reminded me that I hadn't written about Seattle yet. After about a week hanging out with friends in Portland, and exploring by myself in Victoria, I took the boat back to Seattle to see my brother and his kids for a couple days. Although I was a little tired and ready to be done traveling, I'm glad I made the stop in Seattle. I got to cover a couple touristy things like the Space Needle and the University of Washington, but I also got to spend some time riding bikes around the lake and just playing with the kids. The weather was pretty nice at first, but the Pacific Northwest let me know my vacation was over by sending the rain in on Saturday. I flew home that night in the luxury of a Virgin Airlines plane with free TV for every seat.

Overall, it was a fun trip, but maybe a little too much solo travel for one week. I think next time, I'll stick with something simple like a few days on the beach in Hawaii, or a nice cruise. In the meantime, back to a life of work and fantasy football.

PVS pt. 2: Victoria

2010-08-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

The Parliament Building for British Columbia.

The Sunken Gardens at Butchart Gardens.

More of Butchart Gardens...the term "gardens" makes the place sound a lot smaller than it is.

My sweet hotel room for 3 nights. I wanted to call up all my friends and have a party...but then I remembered I was on an island in Canada.

Sunset at Laurel Point.

While Portland and Seattle are both nice places with a good mix of city life and fresh air, Victoria was the most scenic stop on my vacation. From what I've heard, most of Canada isn't too different from the States...just a little friendlier and having a misguided sense of pronunciation. However, Victoria was like no place I'd been to before. It definitely had a British vibe with cobblestone streets, castle-like hotels, horse-drawn carriages, and street buskers along the harbor. I think you'd run out of activities (and money) after a few days, but it's a really nice place to walk around and relax.

Monday: After getting off the Amtrak train in Seattle, I walked my way from the south side of downtown by Qwest Field all the way to the Space Needle to catch a boat out to Vancouver Island. The boat trip was nice. Not a lot of scenery once you're out on the water, but I'm happy I didn't get sea sick or anything. I got into Victoria that night and took it easy after checking into my hotel and finding out I was given a free upgrade to a king suite with a kitchen.

Tuesday: Being in Canada on the release day of Arcade Fire's new album left me feeling obligated to go out and buy a physical copy as a souvenir. I left my hotel with the intention of walking around until I randomly came across a record store, but then immediately I saw an advert for a new Best Buy on the same street I was walking on and thought I was in luck. 3 miles later...I finally dragged myself into Best Buy only to find they didn't have the album for some reason. On the plus side, I made friends with three Best Buy employees who were partly excited by the news of a new Arcade Fire album and partly by meeting a real Los Angeles resident. They directed me to a record shop a couple blocks from my hotel and my mission was accomplished.

Wednesday: Any website about Victoria and any person who's been to Victoria will tell you the main attraction on the island is the Butchart Gardens. Not being much of a gardener myself, I wasn't too excited about it, but figured I should go anyway. It turned out to be pretty cool, as you can see from the pictures above.

Thursday: Packed up my things and got back on the boat to the Seattle.

While the architecture, gardens, and general atmosphere of Victoria were all really great, I think my most lasting memory will be of the women of Victoria. I don't know if it's because it's a tourist town, or part of British Columbia, or what, but there were attractive girl-next-door types all over the place. Every gift shop, restaurant, supermarket, etc. had at least one good-looking, friendly girl I would like to have talked to longer. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure I saw at least three different local girls who I would have married on the spot. If only I had social skills and a worthwhile life to offer them in the States.

where the mice call shots in the corner

2010-08-26T22:52:00.000-07:00

Brandon Flowers @ The Troubadour

I know I'm in the middle of a 3-part series on my vacation, so pardon the interruption, but I felt like I should give a quick review of my evening with Brandon Flowers at the Troubadour. I'm terrible at writing reviews of anything, but here are just some quick thoughts for the unfortunate people who couldn't get into the show and would like to know more about it.

I'm not a big fan of singers leaving their bands to go solo, but when I first heard about Brandon Flowers' new album Flamingo, I was immediately on board. I like him as a person and he writes a lot of the Killers' songs, so that's enough for me. Then, when I heard the instrumental version of "Only the Young" on his website, and the first single "Crossfire", I started getting more excited. Needless to say, I put my speedy password-typing fingers to work to get tickets for his sold-out, 500-person capacity show at the Troubadour.

Scott and I got in line on the sunny side of the building about 3.5 hours before the doors opened to try to get close to the front, then waited inside for another hour or so. There was no opening band to keep us entertained, but a comedian came out and did his best for an unwelcoming crowd. Overall, Brandon's show was really good. He was his usual shy-but-charming self and put plenty of energy into the songs. We got to hear 8 songs off the new album, plus an epic reworking of "Losing Touch", and a very suiting cover of "Bette Davis Eyes."

Most of the new songs sounded pretty strong. I had already heard "Crossfire" and "On the Floor", so those sounded especially good, but "Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts", "Was It Something I Said", and "Magdalena" all got stuck in my head pretty quickly. Even "Swallow It" has grown on me (especially since the iTunes release this week) and I'm looking forward to hearing Jenny Lewis on "Hard Enough."

If I had the choice to do things over, I would definitely go to the show again, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed when I left that night. Brandon's been in a major band for most of the last decade and played shows all over the world, yet he still cut the show short at 45 minutes and didn't do an encore. I can understand the idea of a warm-up tour where you go out and play a few songs and give people a brief preview of the album, but this was a little insulting. He's got 3.5 albums worth of Killers material he could pull from and he claims to love playing covers. Even an encore of one of each would have pacified the audience and sent me home happy, but instead we all stood there clapping and calling him down from the glass room above for about 20 minutes, until one by one, audience members began hanging their heads and sulking away. Scott and I hung out a while longer, even after the drumkit had been torn down, in hopes that he might come out and play an acoustic song. And to make things worse, Brandon ended on "Playing with Fire," the slowest and arguably the weakest song of the night, and left without playing "Only the Young," the song that built up everyone's interest in this album from the beginning.

I guess they say a good entertainer should leave the audience wanting more, and maybe that was Brandon's plan all along. Despite my disappointment that night, I still went home and pre-ordered the most expensive Deluxe Version of the album, complete with signed Las Vegas lithograph. And even though I claimed that I didn't really want to see him again after that miniature show, I'll most likely be fighting for tickets next time he comes around Los Angeles.

PVS pt. 1: Portland

2010-08-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

The view of East Portland from the hospital on the hill.

Did I mention it was a zero-gravity hospital?

Washington Park (in Oregon)

Japanese Botanical Garden at the top of Washington Park

Jason contemplating at the top of the Ira Keller Fountain

I have too many good pictures from my vacation, so this is just a small sample. If you want to see more, look at my Facebook albums. If you don't have Facebook...you should.

Of the 3 legs of my vacation (Portland, Victoria, and Seattle), Portland was the most fun. There wasn't a whole lot of touristy stuff to do there, but it was good to have a free, unstructured weekend with a couple of my best friends. I don't like writing long stories, so here's a day-by-day breakdown of the trip:

Thursday - Went to LAX straight from work and met up with Jason and John Paul at the Portland airport. Since it was late and Jason had work the next day, we just spent a couple hours playing darts and Cards in Hat before going to sleep. (For a brief history on Cards in Hat, try searching it in my blog's search box.)

Friday - John Paul and I spent most of the day wandering around the northwest side of Portland taking pictures and looking for excitement. We found a supposedly haunted pizza place for lunch, then walked/hiked up to the Japanese botanical garden at the top of Washington Park. Once Jason got out of work, we went out for a wild night of Mazatlan margaritas and Voodoo donuts.

Saturday - With a mission in mind to find good Portland food, the three of us set out to explore the southwest side of the city. After several hours and miles of walking, we unfortunately gave up and ate lunch at the mall food court. However, I must admit that was one of the best meals I had on my whole trip. At night, we went to the local baseball stadium to see the minor league Portland Beavers take on the Salt Lake Bees...and I realized the only sport more boring than major league baseball is minor league baseball. After that, we went out for a bit with Jason's coworkers and got the inside scoop on Oregon politics.

Sunday - As you can see from the first picture above, we drove over to the OHSU hospital and took the skyrail thing up to the top. There isn't a whole lot to do once you're up there, but it's worth it for the view of the city. We then took a quick drive through the east side of Portland to check out Apizza Scholls (pretty overrated) and to take John Paul to the airport. Jason and I took it easy for our last night and hung out at a coworker's apartment for dinner.

Monday - Took the early-morning train out from Union Station. To be continued...

the high road is hard to find

2010-07-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

So the big Potential Difference OC Fair show at the Hangar ended up being a success by our standards. Despite 3 hours of traffic, we still made it to the fair with plenty of time to kill and wander around. I had never been to the OC Fair before, so it was an interesting experience. I didn't realize how big and busy it was going to be. And while it did seem like a fun place to kill some time and money, unfortunately most of the things there are aimed at making you feel a little sick...which isn't the best way to prepare for a performance. I still managed to wander around for a bit with my brother and his wife and eat some really good pizza, but I decided to save the spinning rides and deep-fried Twinkies for my next visit.

All in all, it was definitely the best venue we've played. The worst part of most shows is unloading all the gear from our van, walking across parking lots, squeezing through hallways, and trying to quickly set up in the dark, but this show was a piece of cake. We pulled our van up about 5 feet behind the venue and had a full staff of roadies provided by the fair to help us get organized and set up. It would have been nice to fill the 1,200 seats in the audience, but at least we got a good amount of traffic from fair-goers passing by and checking us out. Hopefully we can play there again next year. If you'd like to see a little bit of the show, check out the Potential Difference YouTube Channel.

I don't have any pictures yet and I don't have much time to elaborate more because I am busy packing for my first real vacation in a while. I'm not much of the travelling type, but with my friend Jason temporarily living in Portland and my brother possibly leaving Seattle soon, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to explore the Pacific Northwest for a week. I think most of all I'm looking forward to a few days by myself in Canada to relax and hopefully celebrate my 4-year anniversary as an economist by not working.

See you next month with some pictures maybe.

fools rush in where angels fear to tread

2010-06-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

After a couple years of looking like a caveman, I finally built up the courage to part with my long hair. Every other time I've thought about going short, I got cold feet at the last minute and backed out. But this time, I gave my stylist a picture of Boone from Lost and let her go to town. It's kind of a relief to have it gone...it's like wearing a cowboy hat for 2 or 3 years and finally taking it off. It feels good.

Anyway, that's the most blogworthy news I've got for this month. The sports world has been ugly: USA lost in the World Cup today, Coach John Wooden died last week, and the Lakers won the NBA championship. D-Bags will be free to flaunt their arrogance around Los Angeles for another year.

In music news, Brandon Flowers' first single has hit the radio. I like it, but I was hoping for a bigger departure from the Killers on this album. I think that's still possible though with the other tracks, so I'm looking forward to the release in September.

In the meantime, I'm working up a scheme to do some travelling. I think I'll be making a little tour of the Pacific Northwest to see Jason in Portland, my brother in Seattle, and any Canucks that happen to be wandering the streets of Victoria or Vancouver. If you have any thoughts that might push me toward one or the other of those two, let me know because I still haven't completely decided.

Well, that was a disjointed blog post, so let's end with a random list...

Top 5 Movies I want to see (Unreleased, in theaters, or on DVD):
1) Inception
2) Toy Story 3
3) Knight and Day
4) Iron Man 2
5) Shutter Island

Honorable Mention: The Informant!, The Other Guys

we got a word for that kind of odd in english...it's called suspicioius

2010-06-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Looks like I haven't updated this in about a month and now seems to be a good time since I'm locked in my room all weekend. My brother flew down from Seattle with his two kids and for some reason my niece cries and hides in the corner whenever she sees me. I would blame it on my general ugliness, but my other niece loves me and asks for me to come back whenever I leave the room, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on. Anyway, my banishment from the rest of the house gives me an excuse to hang out in my room and relax and do things such as the following:

1. Continue messing with my new computer. A few weeks ago, I was trying to catch up on Lost before the finale (which was awesome) and my laptop started dying. It kept getting slower and slower until I couldn't even open the calculator without a long pause. So I went out and bought a new HP laptop and I'm pretty happy with it so far. Also, since it has a built-in webcam, I'm now a part of the world of Skype. Unfortunately, my only friend is my parents...whose computer is downstairs...making Skype kinda pointless.

2. Continue messing with my old computer. The downside to my new purchase is that my Mbox (recording contraption) is not compatible with Windows 7. My best bet is to get my old laptop running well enough to last through an hour or so at a time of recording, but it's still struggling with that.

3. Watch movies.
a) Last night, I finally watched Inglourious Basterds and I was pleasantly surprised. I'd been wanting to see it since long before it came out, but I felt like I'd be let down since I'm not a big Tarantino fan. However, I think he restrained himself to some extent so I really liked it, even though I could have still used a little less gore and a little shorter runtime.

b) A couple nights ago, I bought and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. I couldn't get anyone to see this with me in theaters because everyone thought it was just a kids movie, but it turns out it wasn't much of a kids movie at all. It was basically like any other Wes Anderson movie, but animated. I ended up liking it a lot, and as with other Wes Anderson movies, I'll probably like it more over time.

c) I also have Sherlock Holmes and Traitor in my desk, but haven't gotten around to watching those yet.

And in non-things-I-do-in-my-room related news, Potential Difference now has two shows coming up at Orange County Fair. From what I've heard, the first is July 23rd at 10:30pm and the second is August 12th at 5:40pm, both in the new Hangar facility. But in the meantime, we're working hard (or at least as hard as we usually work) on making a real album to be out early next year. We'll soon be entering the design phase for album art, which is fun, but involves a lot of decisions. Feel free to give us input on what you look for in an album.

Update: I played catch with my niece for a little bit and I think we're cool now. And on a side-note, when my nephew was crying, I cheered him up by putting Duffy in a big cardboard box and telling him it was a present, but Duffy jumped out and ran away as soon as the top was opened. I was going to sing "It's my dog in a box...", but I didn't think that was the right audience for Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg references.

heaven knows we've got a lot to lose

2010-05-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

Highlights from the past few weeks:

She & Him @ the Glass House, Pomona ~ My concert-going has slowed down over the past couple years, so this one was a last-minute decision when a co-worker ended up with an extra ticket. I'm really glad I went though. Before the day of the show, I only knew about 6 songs (courtesty of Fort's blog) so I crammed in some first album listening and took off for Pomona after work. Aside from being in the middle of nowhere, the Glass House is a pretty cool place because it gets high-level indie bands while still having an intimate atmosphere and somewhat cheap tickets. M. Ward was a stud as always and Zooey was even better live, so I recommend checking them out.

Potential Difference @ the Good Hurt, West LA ~ It's hard to tell if it was a good show or not from my view, but at least I don't remember any big mistakes, so I'll take that as a success. Thanks to everyone who went. And if you didn't go (or you want to go again), it sounds like we'll be playing the Orange County Fair on July 23rd at a new 1,200-person venue called the Hangar.

New phone ~ I've had a Motorola Razr for the past 3+ years and I've been resisting moving up to the smartphone market, but I finally made a half-step and got a Samsung Rogue. It doesn't have all the advancements of a Droid or an iPhone, but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

TGI Friday's ~ After phone shopping, my parents suggested TGI Friday's for dinner. I was really in the mood for mozzarella sticks, but decided to get a burger instead since I hadn't eaten much all day. Much to my surprise (since I didn't read the menu too closely), the bacon cheeseburger came out with a big flat mozzarella stick on top of it. Despite playing a concert and getting a new phone, I think that was the highlight of my weekend. Plus, the Grand Marnier margarita for $7 was pretty good too.

Dreams ~ I've had a good string of interesting dreams lately:
1) I rented a small storage space in Fresno and put a box of assorted donuts in it. I really wanted to eat one, but for some reason, I thought it was a better idea to save them for my next trip to Fresno.
2) I was sitting right here at my computer when my backyard flooded and I saw some white whales swimming below me. It was pretty cool at first, but got kinda scary when they got closer.
3) I played a game of full-court basketball against a bunch of former US presidents. I don't remember the teams, but I do remember Lincoln trying to dunk and missing.

the party don't start 'til i walk in

2010-04-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Quick reminder:

Potential Difference is playing at the Good Hurt in West LA this Friday night, 10pm. For details, check out the Facebook event or the club's website.

And stick around after our set because our friends The Kepler Mission are on at 11pm.

moats and boats and waterfalls

2010-04-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I just looked at my last post to see where I left off, and I have to tell you that the part about my final trip to Carlsbad was a lie. After going there last month to help my brother Matt and his wife Carrie move, I decided I needed more closure and went back one more time for Easter. So Saturday night, my brother Travis and I packed up our things and made the drive down to meet up with Matt at Carrie's restaurant while she finished her shift. They had already moved out of their apartment, so we spent the night hanging out in a couple restaurant bars and then wound up back at the hotel room with some coworkers and friends until about 4am. From the stories I've heard and my few encounters, I get the impression that the lives of restaurant employees are pretty well represented by the movie Waiting. It seems like they spend their days dealing with annoying customers and then let loose pretty hard most nights. Anyway, I woke up Easter morning in the hotel bed with two girls and looked down to see Matt asleep on the floor with giant novelty sunglasses and a large inflatable monkey. I then reached for what I thought was the TV remote from under Trav, but it turned out to be a pistol. If I go into any more detail, none of that will seem nearly as cool, so I'll stop there. We packed up our things in a hurry so Matt and Carrie could get to their last days of work, and then I spent the day wandering around the beach, eating all the brunch I could manage, and fighting off earthquakes.

Speaking of hotel parties, I finally saw the movie The Hangover and I have to say I was slightly disappointed. It was definitely a solid movie and had some laughs, but I think a year's worth of mega-hype hurt it a little. Also, this is one case where the commercials gave away too many surprises. But given I haven't really seen any new movies in the past 6 months or so, I was happy to see anything. I think if I watch it again down the road, I'll probably enjoy it more without the expectations.

Now on to more important stuff. If anyone is still reading this and you like music and you live near LA and you aren't in my band, Potential Difference is having a little contest for free tickets to our next show at the Good Hurt on April 30th. Just email potentialdifference@gmail.com with your full name and your favorite P-Diff song (if you don't know any, there are three in the little player at the right side of this screen to get you started) and 10 lucky winners will have their names put on a guest list to get into the show free. The contest ends this Saturday (4/17) at noon PST, so you should go ahead and do it now. If you want more details, check out the Facebook event or the fan page.

come on skinny love, just last the year

2010-03-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not really all that into birthday celebrations these days, especially now that I'm on the verge of a quarter-century with no real accomplishment behind me, but this year, I decided I should do something. My first order of business (as a mentioned a couple posts ago) was to buy myself a new guitar. After many shopping trips and a lot of online searches, I landed on this little fella. A lot of people are anti-Ovation, but Scott, Fortner, and I all agreed it was pretty nice, so I bought it, named it Ezra James Sharkington, and now Ezra and I are sitting at home spending the last night of my first quarter-century together. I'm happy with my purchase, plus now I can use my old guitar for crazy tunings, like Bon Iver.

The other part of my birthday celebration was a weekend trip down to Carlsbad to hang out with my brother and his wife. They're planning on going on a road trip with no destination or timeline, so I figured I'd go down to help them move stuff into storage and enjoy the town for possibly my last time. For me, going to Carlsbad is like an old man buying a motorcycle; it's sort of a way to relive my youth, or at least what I like to think my youth was. I eat lots of junk food, buy stuff I don't really need, talk to pretty girls, and play video games all night with my friends. This trip was no exception. After all the moving was done each day, we rewarded ourselves with all my favorite foods. Saturday night was quesadillas at King's, Sunday brunch at Bellefleur, Sunday night pizza at Pizza Port (my new favorite pizza), Monday we just had cheetos and tortilla chips with homemade dip for lunch, followed by another trip to Pizza Port for dinner. We filled the remaining time with Mario Party and shopping. I feel tired and sick now, but it was all worth it.

Anyway, have a good St. Patrick's Day and please wear green...that's all I ask of you.

turn and face the strange

2010-02-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

I thought I should address the new look on here in case any of you noticed and are wondering. I'm not too savvy when it comes to html and all that stuff, but Blogger just made it really easy to format and add gadgets, so I made some updates. The display is slightly different but nothing crazy, and a little cleaner looking than what I had before. Plus, there are some cool features on the sidebar. You can now listen to some sweet Potential Difference tunes and join our new mailing list while you're reading (I disabled the auto-play to spare you after the first few visits to the blog.) Also, at the top you can search within the blog for interesting items. I'll get you started with some examples: raccoon, Tom Hanks, Star Wars.

The other reason I'm posting today is because over the past month and a half, I watched the entire 5.25-season series of LOST, and now that I've run out of old episodes to watch, I suddenly feel empty. At least I've got about a dozen more new episodes to slowly watch live over the next few months until the series ends. I'm not gonna go into any details here about my thoughts on the series because it's really best that you go into it with no knowledge or expectations. But anyway, here are my personal ratings by season:

Season 1: 10 / 10
Season 2: 9 / 10
Season 3: 7 / 10
Season 4: 10 / 10
Season 5: 8 / 10
Season 6: 6 / 10 (There's still plenty of time to turn it around though.)

And finally, some comments about dreams again. I've had a lot of good ones lately that I meant to write down and share, but I've forgotten the details of most of them now. I do remember though that I've had a lot of celebrity cameos. I think I've had about 8 main characters from LOST show up in different dreams in the past month, plus one where I was friends with Stevie Wonder (who had ESP like in the VW commercial), and one where my brother was friends with Brad Pitt (I was hanging out with him at my brother's house and he proposed to Angelina next to me.) That's all sounding pretty fun right now. Maybe I should take a nap.

will you be my constant?

2010-02-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentimes to those who enjoy the holiday. I don't really enjoy it, but I don't really hate it. It's actually kinda similar to the other two holidays this weekend, Chinese New Year and Presidents' Day...none of them really affect me. Although, for those of you who really dislike V-day, I've discovered a way to make it better: fill the day before it with constant disappointment. That way, the next day feels pretty fulfilling even if nothing happens.

Part of what I'm referring to is last night's NBA All-Star Saturday events. This is probably my favorite sporting event of the year (closely followed by the Super Bowl and the first two days of March Madness), so I've been looking forward to it for the past month or so. However, this year was somewhat of a disaster. I won't go into too much detail, but the main issue was that the whole night lacked excitement. Most of the events were missing big-name players to make it competitive, and the ones who did play didn't provide much entertainment. Worst of all was the dunk contest, which had one decent dunk out of 12 and it was from a wild-card who ended up not winning. The best part was during the silence as the winner was about to be announced, when Charles Barkley (on the sidelines doing TNT commentary) said, "Maybe they'll both lose." Cheryl Miller, standing between the two finalists at mid-court about to announce the winner, turned around and said, "I heard that, Charles Barkley."

The other major disappointment of the day was a guitar-hunting trip with my friend/advisor Fortner. I woke up in the mood to buy a guitar so we spent a few hours driving around trying different ones and in the end, I couldn't find the right one. This might actually be a good analogy for why I don't have a Valentine though. When I got there, I saw a Martin that I liked right away. It was beautiful and elegant, and I was attracted to it at first sight. It even seemed like a good fit at first, but the more I played it, the more it felt a little unnatural, and I knew that somewhere down the road I might not be as happy with it, and would probably regret committing to it. I put it aside for a while without completely ruling it out and looked at some other guitars for a bit. I did find another one, a Breedlove, that I kinda liked. It had a nice sound to it, quality material, and a good feel. Plus, the price was extremely reasonable, so it was the logical choice. But for some reason, I didn't feel much of a spark with it that really made me want to get it. So between the pretty one that didn't really have the right personality, and the sensible one that I wasn't very attracted to, I went with nothing.

Anyway, I'm gonna go enjoy the rest of V-day by filling out some tax returns and watching Lost. Here are a couple pictures from the last Potential Difference show at the Good Hurt. Overall, it went pretty well so we've already decided to go back on April 30th at 10pm and play with our friend The Kepler Mission . Should be a good night. If you want more details, or more pictures from the last show, look us up on Facebook or our newly created Reverb Nation page.

Potential Difference rocking the inside of the Good Hurt.

Potential Difference rocking the outside of the Good Hurt. (This one makes me laugh partly cause we unintentionally made a nice diagonal line while trying to all jump at once...and partly cause Scott seems to be doing some type of bird immitation for no reason.)

put your feet up, baby, it's christmas time

2010-01-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

Going to Wakefield Court in Saugus to look at Christmas lights is probably my favorite current Christmas tradition in our family.

What was Santa doing lurking around my room in broad daylight?

Merry Christmas, ya'll. I've got more pictures than this, but I already posted them on Facebook so you should just go check them out over there. This was another crazy year with all the little kids running around, but with all the sleeping and TV-watching I do, I suppose I could use some excitement now and then. Christmas has changed a lot since I was little, but we still try to keep some elements alive...like driving around to see Christmas lights, lighting candles at church on Christmas Eve, and exchanging gifts to some extent. I got the new Super Mario Bros. game for Wii, an iPod alarm clock that lets me fall asleep to the sound of the ocean, a coin jar that counts my money, and an assortment of clothes, money, candy, and gift certificates. Overall, the holiday break was nice, but very short seeing as how I was at work until 4pm on Christmas Eve.

Also, happy new year, ya'll. Most of the New Year's Eve's I can remember were spent sitting at home watching TV with my dog, but since this was the big 2010, I figured I should go out and do something fun. However, after working until 6pm, I gave up on that idea and just went home to watch LOST and drink Mike's hard apple cider. Good times.

Without further ado, here is my annual New Year's life assessment blog post:

Family: No new nieces or nephews this year, but I'm one sister-in-law shorter. It was a sad situation and it's going to be rough on my brother and the kids, but maybe it's for the best.

Friends: Not much going on in the friends department. With everyone spread out across Southern California (and now Portland), it's hard to keep in touch. I guess I'll just have to settle for Facebook friends.

Work: Still an economist in West LA. It's not exactly fun, but it keeps my bank accounts happy. Sometimes, people ask me why I haven't found a job I really love, and I think it's mainly this:
1. most of them just don't appeal to me,
2. the ones that do seem mildly interesting, I don't feel qualified for, and
3. I don't put too much time and effort into looking because I hate the application process.

Love: See 1 through 3 above.

Hobbies: Potential Difference is still going slowly, but steadily. We have a show coming up two weeks from today at the Good Hurt, and we've started working on a new song for the next show after that. We also would like to record an album this year, but that's a pretty ambitious dream considering the speed we work at. My other hobby of TV-watching has developed nicely over the year. I'm now current on Entourage, Californication, V, The League, Community, and Flashforward in addition to all my old standards (The Office, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny, etc.) I just started LOST a couple nights ago and that seems promising.

Appearance: I'd have to say I'm a cross between Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men and the guy in the ladywig from the UPS commercials. I really should cut my hair short, but I can never seem to pull the trigger on it.

Anyway, here's to a new life in a new decade.

you look for a legend, i'm looking for common ground

2009-11-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

Well, first of all, happy Thanksgiving. I don't feel all that thankful today, but I don't really have much to complain about, so I guess I should be thankful for that. This year was kind of a weird year for us. We were going to go down to my brother's restaurant in San Diego for a big fancy Thanksgiving brunch, but ended up settling for a quick trip to IHOP in the morning and stuffed crust pizza for dinner. Unfortunately, after waiting excitedly all day for Thanksgiving Day pizza (after requesting it in place of traditional food for the past 15 years or so), I went to place the order and found out Pizza Hut was closed. Meanwhile, I spent close to an hour with my parents trying to pick out a movie to watch. Here is an excerpt of that conversation:

Mom: How about Cloverfield?
Me: You guys don't want to see that. It has monsters.
Dad: How about Jaws?
Mom: No, that's 40 years old. When we were young, that would be like watching something from the 1920's. How about Memento?
Me: You guys saw that and Dad didn't like it cause they're all bad guys and Mom thought it was too confusing.
Mom: Walk the Line?
Me: Dad doesn't like people impersonating Johnny Cash.
Dad: Yeah, impersonate Abraham Lincoln or someone I don't know.
Mom: Vanilla Sky?
Me: You guys won't like that one.
Dad: How about Casablanca?
Mom: No.

And this went on for a while until I gave up to go jogging and they went to Blockbuster and settled on New in Town.

Anyway, I've gotten sick of blogging in general, but felt obligated since it's a holiday. I think I enjoyed this back in college because it was a break from homework...but now that it is the closest thing I have to homework, it's not very fun anymore. So here's a brief list of the highlights of November:

1. fun. concert at the Troubadour - They played the whole album plus two Format songs, so I was pretty excited. Also, Emily (the hot female in the band) sat next to me at the bar after the show. I said a few words to her, but decided not to go any further, partly to avoid looking like every other slimeball who has talked to her after a show, and partly cause her boyfriend was there. I did talk to the bass player of the opening band (Dusty Rhodes and the River Band) for a while and he was very cool.

2. Release of the first ever live Killers DVD - It took me a couple days to get through it all, but it was a very good setlist and very good camera work. I recommend it if you're a fan of the Killers or concert DVD's in general.

3. A dudes' night out with John Paul, Jason, and Steven - We ate excellent burgers, watched some football, saw The Men Who Stare at Goats, and hit up Yogurtland and Foster's Freeze after. The movie was definitely the weak point though. Not much plot or character development, and not really funny enough to be just a simple comedy.

4. Lots of TV watching. I'm all caught up on the usual stuff (The Office, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny, SNL, Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, FlashForward, etc.) so I've moved on to some new things. In particular, Californication, The League, and Life and Times of Tim. All good stuff.

So if you're on the West Coast, enjoy the last 51 minutes of Thanksgiving. And if you're still reading this and want me to keep writing on here in the future, give me something to write about.

you give it all but i want more

2009-10-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Still recovering from seeing U2 at the Rose Bowl with about 96,000 other people, so here's a quick recap in pictures:

Here's the spaceship before the show. I spent this time watching the tunnels with my binoculars and caught a brief glimpse of Colin Farrell. He was too far and too fast for a picture though.

Black Eyed Peas opened and were better than I expected. They pretty much just stuck to the hits and Fergie did one of her songs to our side of the stage.

In an odd twist, Black Eyed Peas brought out Slash from Guns 'n' Roses to cover Sweet Child of Mine.

U2 played for about two hours and played about half the new album, but the stage was the real highlight of the show. Here, the main tv screen unfolded to become a giant set of smaller screens for City of Blinding Lights.

The screen gave us a pretty sweet video of the band's heads dancing along to a remix of I'll Go Crazy (If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight) with Larry wandering around playing a hand drum.

Green and foggy for Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Red and warm for Where the Streets Have No Name.

Somewhat patriotic looking for One.

With or Without You was one of my favorite songs stage-wise cause they had two disco balls shining lights around the stadium through the fog and Bono stood in the middle wearing his jacket covered in laser pointers. At the end, he hooked his jacket onto the hanging mic and let it fly away into the belly of the spaceship.

All in all, it was a good show. Our seats were fairly close given the size of the venue, but we were behind the stage, so we didn't get quite the connection to the band that others might have gotten. I'm interested to see how everything looks in the live YouTube video stream that's gonna be used for the DVD release. The one major drawback to the whole event was the crowd. On one hand, it was cool to see all the different tour shirts and license plates and hear U2 blasting from every car in the parking lot, but being in one place with that many people is also a bit frustrating. And after waiting to get in the parking lot, the food tents, the merchandise booths, the front gates, and the seats, I realized the only thing there with no line was the horizon. (See what I did there...album title joke.)

In other news, I also went to Texas recently for a work retreat. We played volleyball, frisbee golf, foozball, ate a lot, drank a lot, and in general had a good time. Here's a couple pictures:

We took a little booze cruise along the river through Austin during the day.

And then wandered the city at night.

We also saw the bats under the Congress Bridge, but there weren't as many as usual cause it was past season.

if you look like that, i swear i'm gonna love you more

2009-10-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

Phoenix @ The Greek Theatre

The rest of Phoenix.

Metric opened for Phoenix and were also awesome.

Usually when I sit down to write on this, I don't have much to say because either a) I haven't done anything exciting in the past month or b) I've done too many exciting things to go into depth on them, so I just kinda gloss over them. This time, I think I've done some exciting stuff lately, but I can't really remember anything besides the Phoenix concert at the Greek in September, so I'll just stick with that.

In most cases, when you want to quantify how good your seats are, you measure it by how close you are to the stage. But now that I've been up against the stage at my last two concerts, I have to start quantifying proximity by how much audience is left behind me. With those rules in mind, this is the closest I've ever been at a concert. If you haven't been to the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park, it's sort of like the Hollywood Bowl, but maybe a third of the size...and Scott, Jon, Jeannie, and I were up against the stage to see Phoenix and Metric. It was a great show with pretty much perfect setlists from both bands and a lot of energy. Our buddy Red (actually named Christian) on the far right walked over and gave Jeannie a guitar pick at the end of the show. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me walk to my car in the parking lot to get my camera, so the shots above are from Scott's phone. As for video, I found this clip on YouTube from someone who was right next to us. You can see my head in the bottom left at the beginning of the song:

Anyway, the new TV season has started. Here's my assessment:

The Office ~ I'm not crazy about the Jim and Pam relationship storyline for this year (I'm avoiding spoilers), but I like some of the other developments that have been set in progress so far in the first few episodes.

Community ~ I'm pretty excited about this show, mainly cause I love Joel McHale and I've been wanting to see more of him on TV. I think the show's still in the process of setting up the characters and everything, but I think it will prove to be a solid part of the Thursday night lineup if NBC gives it enough time.

SNL ~ The Thursday night stuff was never all that great, and the premiere of the Saturday night stuff was incredibly weak (including U2), but I can't wait to see Ryan Reynolds on tonight. He's been long overdue for a hosting spot.

How I Met Your Mother ~ I watched the first 4 seasons over the summer, and the new season has been pretty funny so far.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ~ The first episode was a little weak, but it's definitely picked up since then. At this pace, it could be better than season 4.

FlashForward ~ I'm giving this one a try. The pilot was pretty intriguing even though I'm not crazy about 1-hour dramas.

Glee ~ I might give this one a try if I get some time.

Parks and Recreation ~ I gave this one a try and I think I'm about done, unless I'm really bored. It still just seems like a weak attempt at the Office. I'll admit though that the second season has been slightly better than the first.

slow down, we've got time left to be lazy

2009-09-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Since the last time I told you how I was too busy to write on here, things have only gotten busier. Let's see if I can do it chronologically:

August 8th:

My first friend on vacation.

A couple elephant seals on the beach north of Cambria. The rest were sleeping.

I drove up north to a sleepy little beach town called Cayucos (just Northwest of San Luis Obispo) to spend a week in a rented house with my family and celebrate my dad's birthday. Cayucos isn't exactly an exciting place, but It's a good place to get away from normal life and relax for a while. I spent a lot of the trip wandering around town by myself, looking for dolphins, seals, interesting birds, and whatever else I could find. The rest of the time was spent hanging out with my family. We flew kites and played frisbee on the beach, played shuffleboard at the saloon, watched movies and played Taboo at the beach house, drove around to nearby cities, cooked big meals every night, watched a meteor shower from the outdoor spa, and played video games in the back room all while keeping an eye on four little wild children. It turned out to be a good week.

August 15:

The whole family before parting ways from the beach house...although we all ended up back in Valencia for more swimming and eating.

When the vacation finally came to an end, I drove home to enjoy a couple more days laying around and avoiding going back to work. And by laying around, I suppose that means helping a friend move in Los Feliz and driving to Santa Monica to see a coworker's band The Kepler Mission put on a solid show at The Good Hurt. I was pleasantly surprised by this venue and I think P-Diff might look into playing there sometime in the future. I'm getting out of order, but while we're on the topic of P-Diff, we got together and finished recording a cover version of the song Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn, and John. If you've seen us live in the past couple years, you've probably heard us play this one. So now you can hear it whenever you want.

August 22:

My memory is fuzzy for these few weeks, but I know they involved a trip to Hollywood to see the Kepler Mission again, a trip to the airport to send my brother and his wife off to Germany, some dogsitting and babysitting, some rough days at work, and a trip to Carlsbad involving the purchase of a pocket watch and an all-nighter of Mario Party 8.

August 27:

I made a last-minute decision to see Franz Ferdinand at the Hollywood Palladium when tickets dropped to $10. The show was great and FF put in a lot of energy, but the crowd was a bit rude for my taste and I ended up very tired by the end of it. (I didn't bring my camera and I don't feel like posting my fuzzy little cell phone picture.)

August 29:

Janine and Kekona's Wedding

Me with the happy groom. Apparently, witnessing a wedding gave me gray hair.

The next weekend, I drove up to the Fess Parker winery in Los Olivos to see my old co-worker Kekona get married. It was a quick trip that started with fast food in Buelton and ended with Danish pancakes in Solvang, and it was a lot of fun. I haven't been to too many friends' weddings so far. It's an interesting/frightening experience, but in this case I think they're perfect for each other, so I'm happy to show my support.

August 31:

About as close as we could get to the band fun. live at Spaceland in Silver Lake.

Steven, Connor, and Kim of P-Diff with Jack, Andrew, Nate, and Emily of fun. Also, a random friendly fan on the side.

And to finish off the month of August, I had one of the best nights of my past many years by going to see the band fun. at Spaceland in Silver Lake. For those of you who were fans of The Format, after the band broke up, singer Nate Ruess got together with Jack Antonoff of Steel Train and Andrew Dost of Anathallo to create this new band with the same style of the Format, but even stronger. Kim, Steven, and I got there pretty early and ended up being at the very front of the stage with Nate leaning over us and Jack almost hitting us at several points. The show was awesome and I've had the album playing on my iPod nonstop. We got a chance to talk to them a bit afterward and they were very cool.

Instead of continuing on into this week where I worked way too much and slept way too little, I'll end here and say that August was a very eventful month. Here's to September.

don't you want to just curve away?

2009-08-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

Top 5 reasons why I've been too busy to write on here lately:

I'm addicted to Entourage and How I Met Your Mother. With all my other shows on summer break right now, I decided to try out a couple new ones. Now I find myself craving it during the day and watching two or three episodes each night.
I went to a Coldplay concert a couple weeks ago at the Home Depot Center. It's hard to compare concerts in general because the whole experience can change based on the band, the setlist, the openers, the venue, the seats, the crowd, etc., but I think this was probably the best concert I've ever been to. We had good/expensive seats toward the front in the center, and Coldplay played a great show with pretty much all my favorite songs. Despite the fact that their music is played on every radio station every day and they make millions of dollars, they're still somehow underrated. Ever since the concert, I've been trying to write new music, but I've still got nothing. By the way, if you haven't seen the new Strawberry Swing video, check it out: http://www.coldplay.com/videostrawberry.php .
For reasons I won't go into right now, my nephew and niece from Seattle have come to stay with us indefinitely. Kids are fun for a little bit, but I'm glad I'm not a full time father. It's hard to get anything done until after 10pm or so.
I bought Wii Sports Resort. I haven't played it a whole lot so far because I'm trying to save it for my family vacation to Cayucos next week, but I've played enough to give each little game a try. So far, my favorites are frisbee, swordfighting, archery, and ping pong. Basketball's starting to grow on me though, and bowling is always solid.
Since we can't write anything new, P-Diff's been working on some old songs and some covers. Expect a new cover song to be posted on the site in the next month or so, and possibly a concert announcement too.

the atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how...

2009-07-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

I've never been a big fan of traditions. I don't see much point in doing the same thing every year just because you do it every year...unless it's something fun that you'd want to do anyway whether it was tradition or not. When you do the same routine every day or every week, people say you're stubborn and stuck in a rut, but when you do it every year, it's tradition. I don't really get it.

That being said, the 4th of July is one holiday where I do enjoy doing things mainly out of tradition. No matter how hokey the local parade is, I try to go every year (even though I can't seem to find anyone I know there lately.) I don't really like horseshoes, but I look forward to going to the local horseshoe tournament to watch my family compete. And the fireworks show at the mall isn't the most impressive display, but it's what I grew up with. So this year was no exception to the tradition:

You'd think he'd be happier with two flags...

I was hoping to get better action shots of the horseshoe tournament, but everyone lost too quickly.

After a long day of parade watching and swimming, Joseph likes to let loose with a good rave.

The mall fireworks were decent, but not as good as the fireworks the next night at the Hollywood Bowl.

I ended the weekend by seeing Death Cab for Cutie with the LA Phil, Tegan & Sara, and the New Pornographers at the Hollywood Bowl. The whole concert was pretty solid, but this finale brought everyone to their feet.

And finally a little light painting to kill some time.

people always told me be careful what you do

2009-06-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Better things to do on the internet than read (or write) my blog:

Know Your States ~ Being a geography game, this one's kinda nerdy, but my brother turned it into a competition. I'm currently in the lead with a perfect score in 107 seconds.

Relationship Chart ~ Also on the nerdy side, but if you understand graphs better than you do relationships, you'll appreciate this.

The Cryptic Canvas ~ You have to look at the pictures and figure out what movie title they represent. It's supposed to be great movies of the last 20 years, but some of them probably wouldn't be considered great by anyone's standards.

50 Comedies ~ Similar to the last link, but only comedies. Also, a lot of them are very recent comedies that didn't do all that well, so I imagine this puzzle would be near impossible for someone trying it 10 years from now.

Circle the Cat - Looks pretty tough at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. This was also from my brother Brodie.

And on a sad note, RIP Michael, Farrah, and Ed.

i like to rock and roll all night...and part of every day

2009-06-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

So the last 3 years since college haven't been a particularly eventful time in my life, but this week I changed that by watching 12 movies in 8 days...including a full-on Terminator marathon. Blockbuster had a deal where you could get unlimited movies for a week for $10 and I felt obligated to take full advantage of it. Anyway, here's the results:

The Terminator ~ A- ~ Great movie for its time, but 25 years later, it seems a little dated. I like the more serious tone than the other movies and it does a good job of taking a pretty standard sci-fi movie and making it more interesting to the general public.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day ~ A ~ This is sort of the terminator movie that the other terminator movies get judged by. It's a good summer blockbuster that still has some dignity and credibility to it.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ~ B- ~ The difference between 3 and 2 is similar to the difference between 2 and 1, but more so and it ruins the movie. It has a decent premise and I liked the ending, but there's way too many dumb action scenes and stupid one-liners to keep this one respectable.

Terminator Salvation ~ A- ~ It got surprisingly bad reviews, but I liked it a lot. It had a good plot that keeps the terminator franchise worth watching, and several great actors giving intense performances. I'm sure I could find some problems with it on the second watch, but my first impression was very positive.

Taken ~ A ~ After seeing the previews, it looked like one of those generic action movies that would slip through the cracks and you'd never hear about again, but it was great. Liam Neeson should be Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer's dad. The movie actually plays out similar to a season of 24, so if you're a fan of the show, you should check it out.

Valkyrie ~ A- ~ I wanted to see this one in theaters and never got around to it, so I'm glad I finally rented it. It's less of an action movie than the previews made it out to be, and more of a political thriller. Even as someone who is incredibly bored by the mention of a historic fact, I enjoyed this one a lot.

Chaos Theory ~ B ~ I'll admit it...I have a man-crush on Ryan Reynolds, so I'll watch anything with him in it. He's entertaining and funny in this, but overall the movie isn't anything memorable.

Role Models ~ A ~ I also have a man-crush on Paul Rudd, but even without Paul Rudd, this is a good movie. It's not a family-friendly movie, but as far as recent vulgar comedies go, this might be my favorite.

Step-Brothers ~ F ~ Looked like it had potential from the cast and previews, but I turned it off halfway through. On the plus side, It contained the most unusual DVD special feature I've ever heard of: "Commentary with Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Adam McKay, special guest NBA star Baron Davis and Scored by Jon Brion".

Gran Torino ~ B+ ~ Even though I didn't have much interest in seeing this movie, I assumed it would be really amazing, but I actually didn't think it was anything that great. It was a decent story and Clint was good, but the other acting was pretty bad and the writing was sketchy in parts. And Clint, if you're trying to create a sentimental, heart-touching moment at the end of a movie, don't put in a song on the soundtrack where you're singing. It's just silly and kinda confusing.

In Bruges ~ B+ ~ Colin Farrell is always entertaining, especially when he's using his own accent, but this dark comedy could have been slightly less dark and slightly more comedy. I've already started liking it more though the more I think about it.

Funny Face ~ B ~ Audrey Hepburn's pretty cool, but this movie didn't really have much central conflict to keep the plot interesting. It was more just a showcase for singing and dancing. I watched it while laying on the grass in a cemetery though, so maybe I didn't catch everything.

pretend every slot machine is a robot amputee waving hello

2009-05-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Looks just like the real New York City...I assume the subway system looks like a giant roller coaster from far away.

There's something exciting about seeing the Statue of Liberty, a castle, and a palm tree all next to each other. Plus, if you spin in a circle, you'll also see the Eiffel Tower, a giant lion, and a pyramid.

Potential Difference on the set of Soul Cat with Jorge Garcia.

It's unfortunate how I can go weeks without anything interesting or blogworthy happening to me, and then all of a sudden, several things will happen in a short amount of time. The past week or so has been full of new experiences and little sleep. It started last Wednesday, when Potential Difference followed in the paths of crossover greats such as wil.i.am in X-Men Origins: Wolverine or Sugar Ray in Scooby-Doo 2 by stepping into the movie business. Through a friend of a friend, we were invited to play a band at a frat party in the movie Soul Cat starring Jorge Garcia (Hurley from LOST...or more importantly Hector from Becker.) It was a long night, and we spent the first 8 hours just standing around waiting, but it was fun. We filmed our scenes with Jorge around 1:30 am and got to talk to him a bit in between scenes. He seems like a nice guy. We also played some basketball behind the frat and took pictures here and there. Eventually, we finished showcasing our poor acting abilities and packed up our stuff in time to go to sleep at 5am for a few hours before going to work the next day.

A couple days later, I packed my bags and drove to Las Vegas for the weekend. Growing up, Vegas was sort of a second home to me. I was baptised there, I spent many holidays there, and the majority of the Carroll side of my family lives there. However, I went against the usual trend, and stopped going to Vegas around the time I hit college. So after a few years of absence, I made my return with all of my immediate family to attend my cousin's wedding. It ended up being a lot of fun. This was one of the only trips where we stayed at a casino (New York New York) and got more of a balance between family time and the more traditional Vegas time. Although I'm still not all that into the "Vegas time" part, I can understand it a little better now. Staying in a hotel/casino is like having a party at your house where you can drink and stumble up to your room whenever you want without having to worry about cleaning up after the other guests. In the end though, I spent more money on donuts and pizza than drinks, and after several hours of gambling came up one dollar short, so you shouldn't rely on me too much for a proper analysis of Las Vegas.

PS - I bought the new Phoenix album after hearing them for the first time on SNL. It's pretty good. Check them out.

PPS - I watched the movie Kate & Leopold the other night. It's not an amazing movie or anything, but it does give further explanation on the history between Wolverine and Sabretooth.

i don't feel like titling today

2009-05-06T00:35:00.000-07:00

I think a few big events have happened since the last post. For one, Potential Difference played another show, this time at Joe's Joint near Beverly Hills. Overall, it was a good experience. It started off as a pretty lazy Sunday which I spent sitting around the house in my pajamas re-watching some old TV shows. Eventually, I got dressed in the late afternoon and met up with the rest of the band to go to the club. It was a nice little place with a very friendly staff and not much pressure. Despite that, I still managed to make pretty major mistakes on just about every song, but most people didn't seem to notice much though since the sound wasn't too clear. We played a few new songs, took some pictures in the hidden lounge, and hung out with the headliner Funk the Band. I'll try to put up a few pictures when I get them.

In other news, I went to see the Wolverine movie with John Paul and Liiiz after several months of anticipation. When I first heard they were making a movie just about Wolverine, I didn't have much interest. What really drew me in was the extensive cast of supporting mutants, and in the end, they're what made the movie in my opinion. Wade Wilson and Gambit in particular (but also Agent Zero, Wraith, the Blob, Bolt, Emma Frost, young Cyclops, etc.) were really fun to watch and could have used a lot more screen time. That being said, I just heard they're moving forward with a Wolverine sequel and a Deadpool solo movie, so we'll see how those go.

As a celebration, I went to 7-11 and got a Gambit slurpee cup. If they made a Wade Wilson one, I'd buy several of them, but unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen. Also, I'm a little disappointed that they're making Terminator slurpee cups with no John Connor. When I was a kid, I could never find those personalized license plates or toothbrushes with my name, so I was hoping this would be my opportunity to start buying a bunch of John Connor crap. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer.

the 6 o'clock alarm would never ring...

2009-04-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, ya'll. I used to be a fan of Easter when I was little, but it's become a little more tedious as I've gotten older. Of course, the spiritual implications are great, but as far as the holiday rituals go, it's not the best holiday. Basically, it's Thanksgiving (my least favorite major holiday) minus the time off of work. Plus, this year, my mom wanted to go to a sunrise church service, so it's been an extra long day. I made it through the morning with the breakfast of champions (a Pop Tart and a Red Bull), but I'm starting to wear down right about now. I'll probably end up crashing and taking a nap right when our company gets here for dinner, but I'm fine with that.

In other news, Potential Difference is returning to the stage two weeks from today, April 26th at 9pm. The show is at a little bar in West LA called Joe's Joint (formerly The Joint.) I've never been there before, but it should be a good show. If you want to go, just show up and tell them you're there to see Potential Difference. Admission is $7.

And speaking of P Diff, happy birthday to Kim tomorrow.

sweet, sweet hangin'

2009-03-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing new to report... just thought I'd check in. Happy belated St. Patrick's Day, and thanks for all the birthday wishes. I didn't really do much this year since my family's saving up for a vacation, so we stopped doing the whole present thing. Instead, I ate a lot of excessive meals with people that week and ended of feeling pretty gross for a while. Other than that, I've been just been watching March Madness and seeing some movies here and there. Quick reviews:

Watchmen ~ B ~ I congratulate the movie on being able to take such a bizarre comic and turn it into a really captivating movie with a great deal of realism among the fantasy. The special effects were good enough to never take you out of the mindset, but a few plot points seemed a little weak and none of the characters were very likeable to me. My main criticism is that Zack Snyder seems to think slow motion is the answer to everything, and I disagree. The DVD's for this and 300 should include an option to play all scenes at normal speed.

I Love You, Man ~ B- ~ It had several good laughs and plenty of funny actors, but for the most part, it was kinda disappointing. I'll see anything with Paul Rudd at least once though.

In concert news, there's a lot of good stuff coming up. Let me know if any of you are going to any of these:

The Shins - Hollywood Palladium - May 10
Death Cab w/ the LA Phil - Hollywood Bowl - July 5
Coldplay - Home Depot Center - July 18
U2 - Rose Bowl - Oct 25

in my dreams, i'm off and running

2009-03-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

I guess nothing blogworthy has happened to me since the leak of the U2 album. But that in itself is a good summary of how things are going right now. Not a lot of excitement these days aside from new music and movie releases. Tonight, for example, my parents went out partying with their friends while I stayed home and watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again with Duffy. I haven't seen it in a few years, but it's still one of my favorite movies ever...and now more so since I realized Tobias from Arrested Development is in it.

Speaking of dreams (or movies about dreams, rather), I haven't had many interesting dreams to report lately. I did have another Terminator-related dream where I was being chased through DC alongside Sarah Connor, Cameron the robot, and Jim from the Office, but I don't remember enough details to get into that. What I do remember is that I don't like this whole time change business we went through last week. Every morning I wake up an hour earlier than I should be and take out my anger on my alarm clock. It's like the scene in 40-Year-Old Virgin where Steve Carrell's character cusses out the lady waxing his chest for no real reason. I know the alarm clock is only trying to help me...and I'm the one who gave it the order to wake me...yet I still hate it so much.

PS - Happy Pi Day

force quit, move to trash

2009-02-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

First of all, happy belated Valentimes. I spent this Valentine's Day in a similar fashion to my New Year's Eve...with my dog and a Stuffed Crust pizza...except this time John Paul drove up too to watch the NBA All-Star events and play video games. All in all, I thought the 3-point contest and dunk contest were a little boring this year, but I did appreciate the silly drama and wardrobe changes involved. I think Howard did a fantastic job reviving the dunk contest over the past two years, but this year Robinson earned it.

In music news, U2's new album (due out in March) was leaked recently due to two different online music sites accidentally selling the album too early. I'm not sure how that happened and how many people were fired, but I'm grateful that I got to hear it. That being said, I'm also a little disappointed with this album. Like I said recently about the single, U2 should be making higher quality music at this stage of their career and with 4 years since the last album. The music is still decent as far as modern bands go and the production is very intricate, but as a whole I feel like the songwriting is a little weak on this one...most of the songs are very slow and sleepy with a similar vibe to the Passengers and Million Dollar Hotel albums. Hopefully, it will grow on me with more listens.

Finally, since the part of my brain that makes dreams is working a lot better than the part of my brain that writes songs, here are a couple more amusing dreams since the last post:

I went on a road trip with three Stephen Colbert's...one in the passenger seat and two in the back. We stopped at gas station and one of them got out to fill up the tank while the other two argued in the back. I watched and laughed as they presented their arguments over who had a better seat. One was sitting in a large child's seat while the other had torn out the bottom of my seat to add more legroom. The one with the leg room ended up conceding to other one because the child seat could play music. At that point the third Colbert came back from the pump and did his fake angry yell when he realized that we had locked him out.
Myself and a couple friends were back in high school and trying to sneak into some large gym where all the "cool" kids were hanging out. It started off Mission Impossible style where we were wearing black, skin-tight clothes and crawling through the vents until we dropped down into a courtyard area where other kids were eating. We then slipped into the gym where we were confronted by all the "cool" kids (skaters who drove big trucks and had spikey hair) and we were kicked out after getting into a big fight. At that point I woke up, but when I fell back asleep, I started back at the beginning and had a second chance at the dream. This time, I realized that all the hot girls were in that outside courtyard area, so I hung out with them instead. This dream probably says my subconscious feels that if I could go back to high school, I would stop trying to be cool and just enjoy the people around me...and go talk to the hot girls.

i could be a ghost

2009-02-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

Franz Ferdinand playing a free 9-song set at Amoeba Records in Hollywood.

Three big music-related items to talk about today:

As you can see, I saw Franz Ferdinand at Amoeba last week. They played a free show of mostly new songs on Friday to follow up the album release. After getting rejected by everyone in town, I decided to just leave work early and go by myself. The traffic was painful, but I got there 2 and a half hours early to find a line of about 300 people wrapping around the block. I thought about leaving right then, but decided to stick around. I'm glad I did since I got a decent spot for a good show, plus an autographed poster.
The Grammy's are tomorrow night. This should be an exciting one with Coldplay, Radiohead, and Death Cab all nominated. I've heard rumors of Coldplay doing Lost+ with Jay-Z, and Radiohead doing something with the USC marching band, but we'll see what happens.
Finally, and most importantly, P-Diff has released the first new song in 9 months. It's called "I Could Be a Ghost" and it's a bit more mellow than some of our other ones, so we hope you like it. Please give us some feedback and become a fan on Facebook if you haven't already.

PS - A couple nights ago, I woke up standing in my room across from the bed holding my Independence Day poster in one hand and all the thumbtacks that were holding it up in the other. I don't remember what I was dreaming about that made me feel the need to take it down from the wall.

i live to dream again

2009-01-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

"I hate listening to people's dreams. It's like flipping through a stack of photographs. If I'm not in any of them and nobody is having sex, I just don't care." - Dennis, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I've been having more strange dreams lately, so despite the above sentiment, I feel the need to throw them out there.

1. I was driving home on the 405 and someone in a car in front of me called the radio station I was listening to in order to play some kind of trick on the car next to him. All of a sudden, one car crashed into the other and I crashed into the back of them, getting sent through the window. I went pretty far and had to walk back to my car in traffic, but then woke up when I got there.

2. I went to a Clipper game with my friend Mitch to find that the game had changed greatly since the last time I watched. For one, to add excitement, the Clippers' new mascot was Hellboy and there was now fountains of water shooting out of the backboard and the big TV above center court at all times. Also, the Clippers were playing a team called the Marvel Universe whose mascot was the Incredible Hulk. It was all very strange, but enjoyable.

3. I quit my job to start taking night classes at my old high school. My first class of the night was a jogging class taught by Danny Devito. I sat through about half an hour of introductory lecture, then I had to run a mile. Unfortunately, right when I finished, I woke up and felt extra tired for the rest of the morning.

4. This one is probably the most complex and existential. I woke up in the middle of the day in a house I'd never seen with people I didn't know. I walked around for a bit until I saw myself in a mirror and saw that I wasn't the person I'd known all my life. Then, when I saw the old Connor on TV, I came to the realization that the last 23 years had all just been an intricate dream of being some celebrity. Maybe there's some truth to that one.

when the red man can get ahead, man

2009-01-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Inauguration Day, ya'll. Obama's in office and I'm already seeing change...I got a free donut at Krispy Kreme. I also decided to take the morning off to watch the coverage, so that was nice. It's funny how out of all the great speeches today (particularly Obama's), all the websites seem to be focusing on the minor slip-ups in the oath. I don't see why they have to make a big deal out of that. I think Justice Roberts was just doing a little old-fashioned inaugural hazing by changing the words Obama was supposed to repeat. I'm sure Justice Stevens has plans to teabag Biden at some point too.

Speaking of long-awaited world events, yesterday my favorite band U2 released the lead single off their first new album in 4 years: Get On Your Boots. I have to say I'm a little disappointed. It's not a bad song, and I would probably be really into it if it was from some new indie band, but I feel like it doesn't quite meet the standards of what U2 should be doing. After all the claims of exploring new musical territory, it sounds a bit like Bono spent the day listening to "That's Not My Name" and "Pump It Up" and Edge spent the day playing Guitar Hero, and then they got together and wrote this in 5 minutes. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'll accept it for now, but I hope the rest of the album is better.

On the plus side, Coldplay have released a surprisingly good video for Life in Technicolor ii. Whoever made the puppet for Guy probably should have looked at a picture of Guy first though.

explain it to me in star wars...

2009-01-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty long spell without any interesting dreams, but recently I've had a few good ones:

Sunday: My friend James Fortner was trying to help the musician Tom Waits make an album for his girlfriend's birthday, so Fortner asked Scott and me to help out. Tom wanted to record all the tracks live, and I didn't really know any of the songs or the chords I was supposed to play, but I managed to improvise pretty well. Also, we didn't have enough guitars, so Scott and I had to trade off during songs sometimes.

Tuesday: I worked a long day at the office, and then packed my things up and went downstairs. When I got to the elevator for the parking structure, there was a big line of people about 40 people long to use the elevator, so I just had to wait there and talk to the building staff guy for a while. Right about that point, I woke up from the dream and realized I was sleeping in my car, just about to start my actual day of work. Needless to say, that day at work felt very long.

Saturday: I was in an episode of 30 Rock. I don't know who my character was supposed to be, but I was walking down the street with Tracy Morgan and we ran into a strange homeless guy played by Dave Chappelle. Also, everything I said seemed surprisingly witty.

A couple weeks ago: I was about to eat a dead, dusty turtle with a fork and knife, and when I cut off the head, a spider ran out. One of the most disturbing dreams I've ever had, so I won't go into any more detail on that one.

Anyway, I just bought a new keyboard and a flat iron, so I'm gonna go be emo for a while and then watch 24 or the Golden Globes.

let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once

2009-01-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, merry Christmas. Mine was very hectic, but still fun. This year, we had the entire immediate family over, plus a couple friends, so it was spent watching the kids run around and get in trouble while eating tons of holiday-themed junk food.

Secondly, happy new year. I spent this New Year's Eve with my best friend and my true love (my dog Duffy and a stuffed crust pizza, respectively) watching Cloverfield. The movie was actually kinda cool. I think if they'd ditched the silly looking monster and bought the rights to Godzilla instead, it might have been better, but I liked the whole home video gimmick to it. If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching at least once. Looking back at my January 2008 entry, this New Year's Eve wasn't much different from the last one, so maybe I should continue with tradition and summarize the past year...

Work: Still working at the same place. Not the most exciting job, but I'm thankful I have one in this economy.

Friends: Same as last year, except now Sarah's moved away and Scott's always busy. At least I've got the Duffman and my brothers.

Family: No new sisters this year, but I got my first two nieces. I've met both of them now and they seem pretty cool. Hopefully they keep it up as they get older.

Love: Pass.

Hobbies: I think we only released one song in 2008, which is pretty pathetic, but we did play the Knitting Factory which had our largest audience for a ticketed show. 2009 should be a more productive year if we can get over the writer's block. I guess my other hobby is TV. I've been getting into Scrubs and 30 Rock mostly while continuing to follow The Office, Flight of the Conchords, and Terminator. I also had prime seats for Coldplay, the Killers, and Blind Pilot and decent seats for Death Cab this year.

Appearance: I'm somewhere in between Frenchman and caveman right now. Although I am crossing into girl now that I've been getting my hair cut at a salon and I just ordered a flat iron online.

Here's hoping 2009 has some drastic improvements.

Top 5 Albums of 2008:

Viva La Vida ~ Coldplay
Day & Age ~ The Killers
Narrow Stairs ~ Death Cab for Cutie
In Rainbows ~ Radiohead
3 Rounds and a Sound ~ Blind Pilot

Honorable Mention: Tonight by Franz Ferdinand and No Line on the Horizon by U2 were both postponed to 2009, but I'm sure they would have been good.

live every week like it's shark week

2008-12-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

I finally got some pictures back from P-Diff's show at the Knitting Factory, so here you go:

Hope you're all enjoying the start of the holiday season. I'm a little sick of Christmas in general. It was always my favorite holiday as a kid, and I liked going out and shopping for my family, but then our family kept getting bigger and bigger. A few years ago, we decided to switch over to a gift exchange...which for me, actually pushes Christmas into the negative fun category. I'm still happy though to get some time off work for sleeping, watching movies, and jumping on Brodie's new trampoline.

Anyway, the best KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas lineup I've ever seen is about to ensue in a few minutes (The Cure, The Killers, Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, and Vampire Weekend all in one night.) I thought about going, but it didn't work out, so I'm just gonna kick back and watch the webcast from my bed.

Good luck to everyone in getting through the last few weeks winding down to Christmas and the new year. And if you can think of any amazing gifts for under $30 that anyone in a family gift exchange might want, let me know.

goodnight, travel well...

2008-11-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

The Killers on Jimmy Kimmel Live (taken from my not-so-great camera phone):

This has been a very out-of-the-ordinary Thanksgiving week. It started off Monday when I got an email around noon saying I'd won tickets from Indie 103.1 to see a live taping of the Killers on Jimmy Kimmel's show the same day. I called up Scott and left work early to go pick up the tickets and get in line. The security team was pretty rude, but eventually we got inside the gates to the outdoor stage and grabbed positions about 10 feet or so from the stage between Brandon and Mark's spots. We had to stay crammed into this area with people all around us for about 2 hours before the Killers came out, but they made it worthwhile. They played Human and Spaceman for the taping, and then Losing Touch, Neon Tiger, Sweet Talk, When You Were Young, and All These Things That I've Done just for us. Despite all that excitement, the high point of the night may have been when a girl a couple people down from Scott in the crowd tapped him and said, "Are you in Potential Difference?" It turned out to be just another one of Kim's friends, but at least the girl behind us thought we were kinda famous.

Usually I'm not a fan of Thanksgiving (aside from the 2 days off) because I'm not a big fan of Thanksgiving food. Every year, my mom makes a big meal and invites family friends over, and I spend the whole day waiting around to watch people eat a bunch of food. This year, we decided to switch things up and drive down to Carlsbad to eat at my brother's restaurant, Bellefleur. I've praised this place several times on my blog before, and it was awesome once again. I had lamb, swordfish, waffles, bacon, sausage, prime rib, carrot cake, gummi bears, and mimosas, but I still wanted to go back for more.

All in all, it was a good holiday weekend, but this morning brought some bad news. About 12 years ago, my friend Steve bought a black lab and named him Brueggar. Brueggar practically grew up at my house since Steve was often travelling or busy with business dinners and things. I taught him how to swim in our pool and he became good friends with our old dog Whitney. A couple years ago, Brueggar started going blind and had trouble moving around Steve's apartment. He was still happy and was always excited to see me whenever I would house-sit for Steve, but he was always bumping into things and getting nervous about falling off ledges. This morning, he finally started to show he was in pain and Steve decided it was time to put him to sleep. Brueggar was always sort of a step-dog to me, so I'm really going to miss him, but I feel even worse for Steve. As a single guy in his 50's, Brueggar was like Steve's best friend and someone to come home to every night after work, or after long trips away. Brueggar had a good life and a good owner, but sometimes it would be nice if dogs could live forever.

RIP Brueggar

i saw the devil wrapping up his hands

2008-11-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

Our first ever office 80's party...well...since the 80's I suppose...

For a guy that claims he never does anything, I've been pretty busy the last couple weekends. To make a long story short, they involved a UCLA game, a comedy club, several stuffed crust pizzas, Smash Bros, a sprained ankle, music recording, a cold, an 80's party, Mario Party, two leaked albums, and a lot of good ice cream.

If you're wondering, the two albums are The Killers' Day & Age and Coldplay's Prospekt's March EP. The Killers' album is one that kinda has to grow on you I think, partly cause it's more mellow and experimental than their previous albums. It comes on very strong in the first 3 songs, but after that it goes in different directions with the sleazy-sounding Joyride and the calypso-sounding I Can't Stay. I'll admit the back half of the album is not quite as memorable as past songs, but Losing Touch, Human, Spaceman, A Dustland Fairytale, and This is Your Life put the album as a whole on the same level with their others.

Coldplay's EP is pretty interesting. It doesn't quite have the catchy singles you'd expect to see on a real album, but all the songs here are very well-crafted and mature, which is probably why they were considered too good to be B-sides. In my opinion though, Lost+ and Lovers in Japan (Osaka Sun Mix) could have used more work to separate them from the original tracks.

Kanye's 808's and Heartbreak is online now too, but I haven't listened enough to give a good review.

Everyone have a good Thanksgiving weekend and let me know if you're in the SCV.

dreamin' of the obama sun

2008-11-05T15:49:00.001-08:00

at night they would go walking...

2008-11-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

About 75% of our LA office.

Orlando Bloom and Kim Jong Il...the battle we've all been waiting for.

Happy Halloween, everyone. This was a pretty good one overall. I wasn't expecting much participation from the office, but as you can see, it went very well. After work, I went to the West Hollywood Carnival, which wasn't much of a carnival, but it was still pretty crowded and crazy. My two favorite costumes of the night were a girl dressed as Chris Martin and a guy dressed as Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky.

Go vote on Tuesday.

the lights here are softer than you'd think

2008-10-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

The best part of any good hotel is the lazy river.

The Riverwalk area of San Antonio.

I think my travels for 2008 are officially over, but the trip to San Antonio was a lot of fun. I went for a work retreat, but that doesn't mean it was a big weekend of meetings and team-building exercise like everyone always assumes. The days were full of good food, pool hopping, and river cruises; the nights were full of good food, spa hopping, and a little too much drinking. Unfortunately, now we're all back in work mode and waiting for the Thanksgiving holiday.

In other news, the election is getting close. I've never been a super political person, but I feel like I've gotten more involved in this election than previous ones. However, I also feel more annoyed by politics than ever. Between some of my hyper-conservative family members and hyper-liberal friends, I feel like if this is a microcosm of America, then it's no wonder that we end up with politicians who have to hide their true opinions and play into the rash beliefs of stubborn people. With that being said, I'm not doing any good by sitting around and complaining about it, but I'd like to encourage anyone reading this to put some thought into anything you're voting for rather than following the commands "your" party gives you. (However, also keep in mind that about 99% of sources for political information are biased one way or the other.)

Anyway, have a good Halloween and election day.

Things to look forward to in November:

Day & Age - The Killers
Prospekt's March - Coldplay
Two days off for Thanksgiving
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E on DVD

Honorable Mention: the end of presidential campaigning, 808's & Heartbreak - Kanye West

had a dream you were two towns from me

2008-10-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Connor of Potential Difference and Israel of Blind Pilot

Since I don't have pictures from the P-Diff concert yet, I'll start with the best concert of last week. Friday night, Sarah, Myley, John Paul, and I headed over to Molly Malone's on Fairfax to see Blind Pilot. When we got there, it was a bit crowded for the band before them, but in between bands we were able to slip forward and grab a table in the front half, which we didn't really use since we ended up standing through the whole set. The band was fantastic live with a guitarist, drummer, upright bass player, banjo player, and xylophone player. They played 7 songs from the current album and a couple new ones that made the next album seem very promising. Their bike tour from Portland to Southern California is coming to an end, but you should try to catch them some time before they're famous.

Afterwards, John Paul and I went on a quest for Pizza Hut stuffed crust pizza which failed when we finally found one, but it was closed. Luckily, we fulfilled that quest the next night after helping Scott move stuff from one storage unit to another all day. The stuffed crust pizza played a close second to the Blind Pilot concert as the highlight of my weekend.

Anyway, the Potential Difference concert at the Knitting Factory went very well overall. Playing shows is always somewhat of a pain since they involve about 2 hours of moving gear around and only about half an hour of actual performance. As far as the performance goes though, we were pretty happy with it. It felt a lot better than previous shows we've done, and we had a very friendly audience of at least 60 people, probably more. Hopefully we can put a few more songs together and go out again next month. Pictures when I get them.

PS - I'm going to San Antonio. I'll be back Sunday.

will your system be alright when you dream of home tonight?

2008-10-06T22:54:00.001-07:00

I'm sleepy and about to go to bed, but I thought I should say this one last time: Potential Difference is playing the Knitting Factory on Wednesday night. Call me if you want tickets.

In other music news, all my favorite bands are going nuts right now. The Killers played SNL this weekend with the lovely Anne Hathaway hosting. They did a couple songs off the new album and I'm getting pretty excited for that. (You can check out the videos via the Oct. 4th news section here.) Meanwhile, Coldplay announced they're releasing an 8 (9?) song EP next month. Originally, this was supposed to contain some worthwhile songs that weren't put on the last album, but now they've added some real major items such as Life in Technicolor II (the version with lyrics) and Lost+ (a remix of Lost! with Jay-Z on it.) U2 and Franz Ferdinand are also off working on their albums which should be released early next year right around the time the joy of new Coldplay and Killers music starts to fade.

Now time for sleep, work, and practice. Wish us luck.

i'll always love you though, new york

2008-09-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

I couldn't decide which pictures from my New York trip to post here because I'm running low on space and I had like 50 to choose from...so I went with only the pop culture related ones. See if you can guess which movie/TV show each one is related to.

Answers:

Big - The FAO Schwartz where Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on the piano.

The Office - Michael's favorite New York pizza joint.

Star Wars - Lego Chewbacca

Flight of the Conchords - Double points for doing the band pose in a bandshell.

Seinfeld - The outside of Monk's Cafe.

So I'm back from New York and it was a blast. This is the first vacation I've ever taken where I felt like I really got a solid understanding of my geography and felt independent enough to explore everything on my own. I was going to run through all the things I saw, but you might as well just go look at my Facebook photo album and you'll see most of it.

if i say i'm an oil man, you will agree

2008-09-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

Duff and Scully...the famed crime-fighting doggy duo.

Where I spent another weekend.

Joe was pretty excited about his Peter Pan Halloween costume, so he's wearing it a month and a half early.

And Noelle is still just chillin'.

As you can see, I spent some of my weekend trying to learn how to use my camera. I'm pretty happy with it so far. I especially like that color accent mode that lets you isolate a color and switch everything else to black and white. It makes every picture look like a scene from the movie Sin City. I spent a lot of time following around Travis and Michelle's new dog Scully...named after the Dodgers' Vin Scully, not the female lead in the X-Files...don't worry, we've all pointed that connection out to Trav. Scully's pretty awesome. He's like an arctic Ewok.

The only other thing I did this weekend was watch There Will Be Blood. It was definitely a well-shot and edited movie, and I like the development of Daniel Day-Lewis' character (especially his rivalry with the preacher), but I don't know if I'd really recommend it to many people. It's been growing on me since I watched it though, so that's always a good thing.

Anyway, I'm off to New York this week.

Conversation halfway through There Will Be Blood:
Mom: I thought this movie was supposed to be about the Bloods and the Crips.
Dad: What, where did you get that idea?
Mom: I don't know, that's just what I'd heard about it.
Me: Even after I told you earlier today that it's about an oil baron in the early 1900's.
Mom: Well, I might have heard you say that, but I still thought it was going to lead into the gang wars between the Bloods and the Crips.

(If anyone remembers me telling you a story about my mom saying a similar thing about a different movie, please let me know. I've been trying to figure out what movie it was, but I can't think of it.)

PS - I've got the actual tickets now for the Potential Difference show at the Knitting Factory on October 8th. Please let me know if you want to buy some.

the word's on the street and it's on the news

2008-09-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not one for making quick decisions or major commitments, but this week has been a series of major choices for me.

Thursday: On my drive into work in the morning, I got a call from the Secret Service (Brodie was working the phones this week) wanting me to book a flight to New York for the UN conference. I don't travel that often, and Brodie was kind enough to offer me a place to stay and a plane ticket, so I agreed. I don't really have any big plans, but I'd like to meet up with some friends and maybe see some of those famous NY touristy type things like Madison Square Garden, Central Park, and Times Square.

Friday: I realized that I'd probably be wanting to take some pictures in New York and my camera broke about 2 years ago. Usually, I'd just borrow my parents' camera, but they'll be in Italy, so I just went ahead and bought a new one. It's nothing fancy, but it's an upgrade from the last one I had.

Also Friday: After looking over multiple contracts and offers, Potential Difference decided to book a show at the Knitting Factory. Yep, you heard it here first (unless you've checked the MySpace today or talked to anyone else in the band), we'll be playing the front stage on October 8th. The show starts at 8pm (although we'll be on a little closer to 9pm) and tickets are $10 I think. We'll have the tickets soon, so please let one of us know if you're interested in going.

Today: This might not seem like big news or even blogworthy news to most of you, but I got a haircut. For me, it was an important event since I haven't got a professional haircut in about 6 years, making this my first trip to a haircutting-place since well before I started this blog. My hair was starting to turn into a giant mushroom helmet type object and I could no longer control it on my own. I went to an old friend who now works nearby, but I told her not to cut it too much. You probably wouldn't notice the difference if you saw me, but it definitely feels lighter to me.

Speaking of bizarre twists in my life...I'm reading a book...for fun! When Stephen Colbert first got his own show, I thought it was pretty lame since it was basically a rip-off of the show that made him popular to begin with (The Daily Show.) But recently, I've started to see the brilliance of it and now I've checked out his book from the library. I don't think he'd be too happy about that though since he's made a few mean remarks about those socialist, card-carrying library card carriers.

there's so many adjectives meant for a fugitive

2008-08-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

The passport guy told me not to smile.

...so I killed him. On the plus side, the cops let me use my passport photo as the mug shot.

Aside from slowly turning into the guy who shot John Lennon, nothing much has been going on with me. I saw Tropic Thunder with Pat over the weekend. When I saw the previews for it, I put it in the renter category, but then I started getting really excited for it once I read all the amazing reviews over the past week. However, I'd have to say it was about as good as any other comedy. Some funny scenes, some great cameos, but all and all, pretty much what you'd expect to see. I will say that there is one advantage to seeing it in the theater, but I don't want to ruin anything.

I've also been having some strange dreams lately. Last night, I had a dream that I went to England. At the beginning of the dream, I was with my friends and we rented a convertible that could drive itself. This came in handy when we had to duck during multiple high speed shootouts between the cops and gangster cars around us. Somewhere along the way, my friends turned into my coworkers, and then eventually into my family. The rest of the dream was kinda frustrating because I really wanted to get out and see the city since we were only spending one day in England, but my family wanted to stay in and watch TV. Eventually, I got out a little bit and walked around an old run-down neighborhood where I found Colin Meloy of the Decemberists doing a little concert with Brad Pitt on guitar, Robert Downey, Jr. on bass, and a couple other celebrities on the other instruments who I can't remember now. The strangest thing is that Colin Meloy was also in my dream last week, where he was putting on a concert at the mall. I don't even really like the Decemberists. As long as I'm getting free dream concerts, why can't they be from bands I like?

i'm gonna make this pencil...disappear

2008-08-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I got to work pretty early, so I parked and reclined my seat to take a nap. After about 20 minutes or so, I looked up at the rearview mirror and saw a cute girl sitting in a yellow truck parked behind me. Usually my co-worker always parks right behind me since the spots are designated by company, but I let it slide and went back to sleep. A while later I looked again and she was still there. I figured she was probably on the wrong floor, but I looked at the sign above my spot anyway to make sure it really was my spot. Unfortunately, the sign said "Gen Tech" which is not my company. I felt like an idiot and started trying to think of a way to get out of my blocked-in spot without having to go back and tell the girl in the yellow truck that I'd been on the wrong floor for about half an hour so she could let me out. At that point, I woke up and realized I actually was in my own spot and there was no one behind me. It's funny how dreams are even more believable than usual when they pick up where you left off in real life.

That's all the news I've got this week. I saw The Dark Knight and Pineapple Express. The Dark Knight was amazing, and Pineapple Express was pretty funny all the way through. I also watched Vantage Point twice last weekend because I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Today's Conversation Highlight:

Mom: Dad doesn't want any presents for his birthday this year.
Dad: Yeah, I'm over 60 now, we don't need to be doing that for anymore of my birthdays.
Brodie: Come on...you've only got a couple left.

PS - RIP Bernie Mac

i'm just a prisoner in a reign of love

2008-07-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Introducing Ms. Noelle Marie Carroll - July 15, 2008.

Introducing Ms. Riley Nekia Couture Carroll - July 18, 2008.

These guys need no introduction...but in case they do, it's Coldplay.

The best seats I've ever had for a concert of this size.

So in the span of 4 days, I went from being an uncle of two to an uncle of four. I was at work when both of my nieces were born, so I was notified via emails from my mom, followed by phone calls from the proud fathers. It'll be fun in a few years when we have 4 little kids running around.

The day Noelle was born was also the second day of Coldplay's tour, and I was sitting second row at the Forum to enjoy it. I've seen Coldplay three times before, U2 once, Franz Ferdinand once, the Killers twice, the Shins twice, Belle and Sebastian twice, and Ben Gibbard/Death Cab three times, but this was the best concert I've ever been to. A big factor was the seating, but it was also just an all-around good show. The setlist was good (12 new songs, 9 old ones), the effects were awesome (lasers, magic balls, butterfly confetti), and the band sounded great. My only complaints are 1) they're using so many backing tracks that's it's starting to turn into karaoke, and 2) they should have transferred into 'Talk' right after the 'Talk' techno remix interlude part. If you want to see some videos we took, check out Kim's youtube page. My favorite video on there is 'In My Place' where they came out right next to us in the second half.

Anyway, now I'm off to see The Dark Knight and Hollywood U2. I'll let you know how that goes.

PS - A recent conversation with my mom:

Mom: I really like Denzel Washington and that other black actor...what's his name...
Me: Other black actor?
Mom: You know, there's one I really like...he's equally as famous as Denzel.
Dad: Morgan Freeman?
Mom: No.
Me: Samuel L. Jackson?
Mom: No.
Dad: Forest Whitaker?
Mom: No.
Me: Terrence Howard?
Mom: No.
Dad: Will Smith?
Mom: No.
Me: Danny Glover?
Mom: No.
Dad: Cuba Gooding, Jr.?
Mom: No.

This went on for a while...

Mom: No, you know...that guy that was in the movie where the two guys turned out to be gangsters...

We gave up, but later found out that the answer was Jamie Foxx in Collateral.

PPS - About a week after my encounter with Tom Hanks, I got stuck in traffic on Wilshire next to Jason Schwartzman.

mama said they's my magic shoes

2008-07-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

What happens when you're hanging out with Tom Hanks?

We go on bike rides together...

We tap each other on the opposite shoulder and laugh when the person looks the wrong way...

We tell people he's using his experience from That Thing You Do! to become the new manager of Potential Difference...

The 4th of July weekend ended up being pretty similar to the usual, but still a good break from work. My dad and Brodie took the horseshoe championship once again, the burgers at Caitlyn's house were delicious, and the fireworks at the mall were respectable...nothing new. I think the highlight of the weekend was seeing WALL-E for Phuong's birthday. I always like Pixar movies (Finding Nemo and Toy Story especially) but this one was really good. WALL-E and EVE remind me of little kids or baby animals playing together and they were very fun to watch. Now I'm tempted to get a WALL-E robot...mainly so I'd have a friend.

Speaking of friends, you're probably wondering about the pictures of my new BFF Tom Hanks above. On Wednesday, Kim found out that they were shooting some scenes from The Da Vinci Code prequel Angels & Demons at UCLA. We started walking around with a few of her friends when we stumbled upon several trailors, a catering table, some lighting rigs, some foreign cars, and a bunch of crew members around Royce Hall. We ended up hanging around there for most of the night watching Ron Howard tell Tom Hanks and a few other cast members to do the same scene over and over. The filming we saw probably only represents about 5 to 10 seconds of the movie, but took about 3 to 4 hours to complete. Anyway, it was totally worth it.

As soon as they wrapped the shooting, we ran toward the trailors to try to intercept Tom. Right when we thought we had missed him, we turned around and he was riding toward us on an old-fashioned bicycle. We waved him down and asked for a picture, but he continued to roll on by. The second he passed us, his conscience started to weigh him down and he went slower and slower until he finally put his foot down and said, "Alright." He seemed like a really nice guy, but he said he was so tired from shooting and he was worried that a swarm of people would come if they saw him stop. Since he was in a hurry, we rushed the pictures and they didn't turn out as great as we would have liked. However, the time it took to get the cameras ready and take a couple pictures was long enough for me to think, "Is it weird that I've had my arm around him this whole time?"

It was a good night, but in retrospect, I wish I would have waited around to meet Ron Howard after he finished reviewing the dailies. I could have gotten an inside scoop on the Arrested Development movie.

PS - My new niece Noelle Marie Carroll was born yesterday morning. More on that and last night's Coldplay concert coming soon.

appletini, please...easy on the tini

2008-07-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been doing a lot of stuff lately, but haven't really felt like sitting down to talk about it. I took a mini-vacation a couple weeks ago, which ended up being action-packed and a good break from the usual. It started off in Agoura Hills on Saturday afternoon drinking appletini's at a BBQ at my boss' house, which led to Saturday night on the beach in Carlsbad with a flashlight trying to grab grunion and throw them out to sea. That was one of the hottest weekends of all time, so we spent a lot of it on the beach, but we did find time to fit in a champaigne brunch at Matt's restaurant and even a 70's themed roller-dance party. One of Carrie's co-workers had her 30th birthday and rented out a roller-rink for the night, but had everyone dress in 70's clothes. I just grabbed one of Matt's old shirts and flipped up the collar, but Carrie rocked some knee-socks and Matt was sporting the Village People sailor suit. The party host complimented me on my wristband, but I don't think she realized that wasn't part of my costume. I've always been more of a roller-blader, but I adapted to roller-skates pretty quickly...until I started trying to do tricks and things didn't go well after that.

On the way back from San Diego, I stopped in LA to catch Death Cab for Cutie at the new Nokia Theater. They don't add a whole lot of flare or surprises to their show, but they definitely play the songs well. It was interesting to see the variety in their setlist. Most bands weight the number of songs from each album very heavily toward the most recent ones, but at this show they picked out the best songs from each album and played them evenly.

Overall, it was a very good 3-day weekend, but the past two partial weeks of work have worn me down and I'm ready for 3-day holiday weekend coming up Friday. Happy 4th of July!

PS - Happy birthday to my brother Jamie today and my brother Matt a couple weeks ago.

i don't want to follow death and all of his friends

2008-06-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

For a work party last week, I had to dig through my pictures to find one of me circa 1988. I'm more surprised by what computers looked like circa 1988.

Also, in 1988, I was a student of Medicine and Rock and Roll. I could re-construct your face after melting it with a guitar solo.

First of all, happy Father's Day...yesterday. We had a nice day of hanging out by the pool and relaxing. It was a good way for me to recover after the previous day of eating ice cream and playing Wii Fit at Jason's house all day.

In all the Coldplay excitement, I forgot to mention another encounter I had with nature a week or so after my last nature post. One night, I was having trouble sleeping when I heard some noises outside my window. It sounded a little bit like a car alarm that kept honking in sets of three...but not quite. I got up and walked downstairs to the back sliding door, but could only see a shadow in the corner of the yard. When I turned on the light, a raccoon bigger than my dog ran up to me with a live crow in its mouth. It threw the crow down on the floor and resumed tugging the insides out of the crow's stomach to eat them while the crow continued caw-ing at it to stop. I was tempted to try to scare the raccoon away, but by that point the crow was as good as dead anyway. I watched the sad, creepy process for a little bit longer even though I didn't really want to. Every once in a while the raccoon would look up at me through the glass and it knew I was watching, but also knew I was no threat. And the whole time I kept imagining I was hearing that Phil Collins song "In the Air Tonight", where the narrator watches another guy kill someone.

The whole thing was pretty chilling, but I can't help but think about how freaked out the raccoon must have been if that was the same one I saw outside Brodie's house the week before. Every time he goes into a backyard in the middle of the night, I'm in the dark behind the window staring at him quietly.

It's hard to capture that kind of moment, but this was the best I could do...

i don't want a cycle of recycled revenge

2008-06-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

So today's the big day...the Coldplay album leaked. I've been listening to it all day and I like it. It doesn't seem to have as many instant singles as the other three albums, but the album is really solid all the way through. 'Violet Hill' and 'Viva la Vida' were definitely good picks for the first singles, but I think 'Violet Hill' is more representative of the rest of the album. The rumor is that 'Lovers in Japan' will be the next single, and I think that's a good choice too. I don't want to pass any judgment or rankings for the album just yet, but here's a quick summary of the songs:

Life in Technicolor ~ Has a nice build-up and probably would have been the best song on the album if it continued as a real song, but unfortunately they kept it as a short instrumental.
Cemeteries of London ~ This song sets the darker tone for a lot of the other songs on the album. It's centered around the acoustic guitar and a pretty rapid drumbeat, but still gives off a moody rock and roll sound like 'Spies'.
Lost! ~ The acoustic version has been floating around for a few weeks, but this version has full on tablas, hand claps, and organs. It sounds like it could have been a remnant from the X & Y sessions, but I don't know that to be true.
42 ~ A 3-part song that evokes a mix between Radiohead and late Beatles (especially a little bit of piano in the beginning that reminds me of John Lennon's 'Imagine'.) This one actually reminds me a little of the song 'X & Y' too.
Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love ~ Here is the first of three pairs of 2-for-1 songs. The first song has a refreshing, U2-like chiming sound created with piano and guitar that isn't too far off from the acoustic version that debuted on the radio last Monday. The second song is a slow, but heart-warming tune based around what sounds like a piano on heavy tumbling delay.
Yes (Chinese Sleep Chant) ~ Although some people have been saying these are the best songs of Coldplay's history, I'd have to say they are my least favorite. 'Yes' is a very dark, discordant song full of weird guitar streaks, possibly Chinese strings, and very low vocals. This song seems to come from the same place as 'High Speed' and 'Twisted Logic'. 'Chinese Sleep Chant' is a loud, rocking, shoe-gazer type song that reminds me of the original 'Your World's Turned Upside Down' that they debuted when I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl in 2003.
Viva la Vida ~ You've all heard it on the iTunes commercial by now, and I've summarized it on here before. I think this is still my favorite song on the album. It would have been nice to have one more bright, upbeat song like this on the album to balance it out.
Violet Hill ~ You probably should have heard this one by now too. It's also pretty great.
Strawberry Swing ~ For some reason, I expected this to be the throw-away song on the album, but it's actually pretty good. Another somewhat-Beatlesque song, it has a dreamy sound to it and some very sweet, honest lyrics.
Death and All His Friends (The Escapist) ~ 'DAAHF' was premiered on Grey's Anatomy a couple weeks ago. It has an 'Amsterdam' feel to it with a slow building piano part and complimentary guitar chimes. The conclusion is a big, bouncing sing-along followed by another hidden track that is basically the same as the first half of 'Life in Technicolor', but with a few words.

The album comes out on June 17th here in the states. Go get it and the previous three albums if you don't have them. (Yes, I will be buying it too despite already having the songs.)

the water is warm...but it's sending me shivers

2008-06-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

I've got a few unusual things around my room as decorations...a softball autographed by some girls I knew in high school, an unopened bottle of champaigne, a non-operational shoe-phone, a blue monkey, an empty can of Dr. Pepper with a picture of Wolverine that looks much more like Colin Farrell. These things all have some meaning or purpose for being there, but one item I don't know the background of is a medium-sized doll wearing overalls that sits on my windowsill. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and saw him sitting on my desk...and I was holding his socks. I sleepily put his socks back on him and moved him back to the windowsill, but woke up a little while later holding one of his socks again. I'm starting to think that maybe he just walked into my room one day and waits for me to go to sleep before he comes to life each night...kinda like snowmen.

Speaking of things coming to life at night and haunting me, I've had a couple experiences with nocturnal animals recently. I think I already wrote about my dog getting sprayed by a skunk a few weeks ago, but last week, I almost got hit. I was walking home from Brodie's house one night while talking on the phone and staring down at my feet. As soon as I ended the call, I looked up and realized I was about 5 feet away from a skunk standing on its front paws, ready to go. You'd think I would have learned from my last experience, but still my first thought was, "Hey...a kitty." After I realized what it was, I backed off and watched it meander away into the neighbor's yard.

A couple night later, I was house-sitting for Brodie and met another friend while I was starting to lock all the doors and turn off the lights before going to bed. I walked to the back sliding door thinking the light was on in the yardand I flipped the switch, accidentally turning it on, so I automatically turned the light back off. In the split second it was on, I thought I saw something staring at me. I flipped the light back on one more time, and there was a giant raccoon standing next to the door about ready to steal some dog food. The best way I can describe it is that it was like one of those cartoons where the character runs into a closet to hide, turns on the light to see a monster growling at him, turns it off, then turns it on one more time and screams. I almost got a really good picture of it, but then Bro's dog saw it and scared it away.

...but that was when i ruled the world

2008-05-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

Once again, there's nothing important to tell you about me, but there is some good music out there. Death Cab's album came out last week and it's pretty great by my measurements. "Cath..." is still my favorite song, but I also really like the 3-song run of "You Can Do Better Than Me", "Grapevine Fires", and "Your New Twin Sized Bed."

In Coldplay news, we're supposed to be getting something big tomorrow. Lots of people, including me, are hoping for the announcement of a B-sides album to go along with the release of the main album. However, now that they have a commercial for iTunes playing Viva La Vida, I'm wondering if their big news is just them releasing the song as a single. We'll see.

even heroes have a home

2008-05-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

P-Diff in space...flying on a Mario Kart. No Asian driver jokes, please.

With new Death Cab and Coldplay songs coming out left and right, and Jon Brion ending his reign of brilliance at Largo, P-Diff couldn't help but be inspired to post a new song called "You Said" on the MySpace. This one's been floating around in different forms for about a year and has finally been recorded. We also took time out of our busy space-pilot schedule to change our profile picture. Enjoy.

In other news, I finally saw The Darjeeling Limited. I'm a pretty big fan of all of Wes Anderson's movies, but I was a little disappointed with this one. Maybe it was because I didn't catch some of the humor on the first watch, or maybe it was because we watched it at one in the morning. All in all, it definitely had the style of his other movies, but not as much wit and plot.

PS - Since my last post, Coldplay's put out two more songs, "A Spell A Rebel Yell" and "Viva la Vida". The first one's ok, but the second one is pretty awesome. It reminds me of something out of a musical like Beauty and the Beast or Enchanted. I'm interested to see how they'll pull it off live.

if you love me, won't you let me know?

2008-04-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

Excuse me while I nerd out for a little bit here. Three big things I've been waiting for have all arrived consecutively over the past 3 days. In chronological order, here they are:

Mario Kart Wii ~ Although Smash Bros. is my favorite Wii game so far, I've still been excited for the new installment of Mario Kart. They did a good job building on the basic formula for the racing mode, so I'm pretty happy with the little bit I've played so far. Unfortunately, they tampered with the basic battle mode and really screwed things up. Hopefully it will grow on me, or else I'll have to go buy the Gamecube version.
New Death Cab songs ~ Yesterday, Death Cab for Cutie posted live versions of two songs from their new album Narrow Stairs. "Talking Bird" is a nice little song, but on first listen, isn't anything that amazing. I'm really liking "Cath" though. It's got a cool groove that's reminiscent of their older stuff. Plus, the lyrics are good as usual. Today, they posted the album version of that song on NPR.
New Coldplay single ~ Following in the footsteps of Radiohead, Coldplay posted the lead single off their new album Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends on their website as a free download for this week only. I'm already really into "Violet Hill" and it sounds like it will be a good indicator for the rest of the album. It still sounds like Coldplay, but has a new earthy tone somewhat like "Tranquilize" by the Killers. I'd been hearing that Coldplay were going to abandon the traditional piano and falsetto vocals for this album, but that's obviously proven wrong by this song...and I'm glad.

PS - With all this good music appearing online, don't be surprised if P-Diff puts something out in the next week or two.

PPS - Congrats to my sister on being named Miss Valencia. She said I can be Mr. Valencia by association.

when life gives you lemons, just say 'f*** the lemons' and bail

2008-04-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

Today my house-sitting duties have come to an end. It was kind of nice to have some time to myself and a lot happened in the past week. Last Sunday, I went to the El Rey for the first time to see a concert on the Hotel Cafe Tour. I wasn't super familiar with the artists, but it sounded promising and I'm very glad I went. Ingrid Michaelson, Cary Brothers, and Meiko were the main headliners I suppose, but everyone that played was amazing, and they all kind of interacted throughout the show. We got to the theater about an hour before anyone else was there, but the wait was worthwhile since we were at the very front against the stage. Cary Brothers even threw us his broken guitar pick.

The rest of the week was spent watching movies with the Duffman. Yesterday was the one day that I planned on watching movies all day, but ended up trapped in the Scrubs marathon. It was nice to spend half a day on the couch eating pizza, laughing, and going in and out of sleep. All the laying around the house by myself brought Duff and me closer...at least until tonight when I took him for a walk and couldn't save him from getting sprayed by a skunk. Even if I had realized the danger right away when I saw it, I don't think I could have stopped Duff from getting hit. However, in the approximately two seconds between me seeing the skunk standing with his tail in the air and the attack, this series of dumb thoughts went through my head: is that a small child?...a moving lawn gnome?...a badger?...badgers have stripes, right?...no, it's a raccoon...hmm, Duff smells like skunk. Luckily my parents are back to take over from here.

Movies I watched this week:

Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels ~ B+ ~ Very cool and stylish. The plot and characters were pretty entertaining, but I think I would recommend Snatch if you're looking for that type of movie. Same director and similar type of movie though, so they're both good.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall ~ A- ~ On first viewing, I think it's my favorite of the recent string of Apatow's movies. I should probably watch all of them again though before I make any definite statements.

Walk Hard ~ B+ ~ I wasn't expecting much from this movie and ended up avoiding it in theaters, but it was actually pretty good. Lots of great appearances from actors in the Office and SNL, along with lots of other unexpected cameos.

me and my friend saw a platypus

2008-04-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

This has been a long week. I started off the week house-sitting for a friend. I had big plans to rent all the movies I've been wanting to see, but ended up just watching a couple episodes of Get Smart each night and going to bed early because I have tonsillitis. Also, because his dog is old and blind and wants me to go to bed early every night. It's sad to see dogs get old, especially when you've known them since they were puppies. I even taught the dog how to swim when he was little, but now he can barely walk around the house without running into walls and things.

Later in the week, I switched over to house-sitting my own house while my parents are in Florida. My parents' dog has always been extremely attached to them, so I feel like a dad who gets to bond with the kids by letting them stay up late and eat junk food while the mom's away. I'm still hoping to watch some movies, but all I've watched so far is Blow. It was pretty good. I like most movies of that style...lots of montages with witty narration by the main character. Somebody please warn me though if my hair starts to look like Johnny Depp's in that movie.

Anyway, I'm off to see Ingrid Michaelson.

call it, friend-o

2008-04-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna be house-sitting for a while, so I figured I should write a new post now before I go. UCLA just got knocked out of the playoffs, so I'm not in a great mood. Other than that, things have been slow as usual. I watched No Country for Old Men last weekend. I was kind of disappointed at first, but then the more I thought about it and read analyses online, I started to really like it. I went into it knowing that most people don't like the ending, but I was still kind of caught off guard by how strange it was. Now I'm okay with the content of the ending, but I still wish it would have been presented a little differently. Overall, it's an awesome movie though.

Current Playlist:

Feist - I Feel it All
Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
Ingrid Michaelson - Breakable
Kate Nash - Mouthwash
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations (I've recently realized that despite the chorus being overused in commercials and movies, the verse in that song is amazing.)

like a book elegantly bound, but in a language that you can't read

2008-03-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that I was in a plane crash. I was back in high school and we were going on a field trip to some type of open-air stadium. Instead of taking school buses, we all loaded on to several 30-passenger airplanes and took off. I was sitting by myself because I didn't really know anyone else on my plane very well, and then I heard someone behind me say, "That's strange, it says we're going to land in 2 seconds." I looked out the window and realized we were headed straight down, but it didn't really affect me that much...I just kinda realized it was the end.

We hit the ground pretty suddenly and I put my head behind the seat in front of me as a blast of pressure brushed over me and ripped off the roof of the plane. After that, all of us on the plane looked around at each other, then slowly stood up and walked away. A few had injuries, and a few were kind of shocked, but it seemed like everyone was alive. For the rest of the dream, I hung out with old friends at this open-air stadium and everyone respected me for surviving a plane crash.

In real life, things have been busy. Friday night, I made an impromptu trip to Largo to see Jon Brion again thanks to Caitlyn and her parents. It wasn't the best setlist I've seen of his, but there were definitely some good parts in there...like the 15-minute piano-heavy cover of Radiohead's Creep and the one-two punch at the very end of Stray Cat Strut and Tainted Love with David Garza and Sean Watkins.

Sunday, I was going to drive down to Carlsbad to hang out with my brother and his wife for Easter, but ended up calling an audible and going up to Ventura Harbor with my parents and uncle for fish and chips. The food was good, but going on long car rides with two talkative, conservative, older men results in me wearing my headphones the whole trip. Is it bad when your first thought after being asked a question is, "Which answer will result in a shorter story?" I'm not trying to be mean though...I think maybe I just don't have as much interest in stuff as other people do. I wish I did.

PS - I just stumbled across Death Cab for Cutie's new single this morning. It's pretty solid. It reminds me a little more of their older stuff than their last two albums, but it's hard to say what the new album will sound like. I'm looking forward to it though.

do i look like i'm negotiating...

2008-03-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

The first night of partying...

The second night of partying...my guest list didn't change all that much.

On an unrelated note, I've got two nieces on the way.

Thanks everyone for the kind birthday wishes, and happy belated St. Patrick's Day to you all. It wasn't an incredibly exciting weekend, but it was nice. Saturday night, I had a man-date with Jason and watched Michael Clayton. It was a pretty good movie, but not really as good as I expected it to be after all the hype. I especially don't get how Tilda Swinton got an Oscar for her performance. Anyway, Sunday night, Brodie and Jen made dinner at their house and I hung out with John Paul and Jason afterward. Monday, I worked all day and came home to another family dinner. Good times were had by all.

i am ready for a fall

2008-03-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

I caught a wicked flu this week and spent about 22 hours of Wednesday in bed. My little TV only gets about 15 channels, with only about 4 or 5 of those getting any decent shows, so I ended up watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report 3 times each over the course of the day. The only thing keeping me alive now is knowing Smash Bros Brawl will be out in a week and 2.5 hours.

I've got nothing else to talk about, so I'm gonna open up the floor to some Q & A...

oh, i'll be the one who'll break my heart

2008-02-15T22:36:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Valentimes, everyone. Nothing new for me...just worked a little late, drove home, gave my valentine Duffman a big hug, and went to sleep. It's been a long week, but it's the weekend now, so I'm happy. And to top it off, it's NBA All-Star Weekend, one of my favorite holidays of the year. Now if only my bosses viewed it as a holiday...Presidents' Day too for that matter.

Last weekend, I drove down to San Diego with my mom to help take care of my sister Carrie while she recovered from getting her wisdom teeth removed. It was nice to go on a little road trip and do some relaxing. Plus, the highlight of the weekend was when I was mistaken for John Mayer while sitting at the bar in my brother's restaurant.

I had an interesting dream last night...actually, the dream itself isn't that interesting, but more the fact that I can remember so many details of it. I still haven't figured out the first half of my dream, but my memory picks up at the part where I'm wandering around a museum at UCLA. The museum was kinda set up like the Science Center by USC, but instead of displays with learning experiments, everything is games. Ski ball, basketball, air hockey...those types of games, but there were no quarters or points or anything...just the basic element of the game sitting there to be examined. I wandered around this museum for a while until I got bored and exited to the restaurant/visitor center where I ran into John Paul. We decided to get some brunch so we sat down in a booth and John Paul ordered a big stack of pancakes with butterscotch and chocolate chips. Mitch, Stephen, Matt, and Fausto stopped by to say hello and they were all wearing Stanford sweatshirts. After brunch, I somehow walked back to my house in Valencia and ran into the four of them again. They were going to go somewhere to watch the NBA All-Star game, but they needed to take my parents' car, so we argued for a bit while they kept trying to pull the car out of the driveway. Meanwhile, my parents were standing behind me talking to a neighbor and my dad kept throwing shrimp at me. At first, they were just the little pink cooked kind so it didn't bother me too much, but after a while he started throwing live black ones to annoy me. I finally flipped out, grabbed the key from the ignition, threw it at my dad, and stormed off to my room. Once I got to my room, I put on a DVD of Justin Timberlake's Future Sex / Love Show concert which I had bought because I had temporarily confused him with Chris Martin. It ended up not being that bad though...especially the part where he covered Coldplay's "Yellow"...which was actually "The Scientist." The end.

PS - Grammy's were last week. In my opinion, the best performance was Alicia Keys featuring John Mayer. Plus, I enjoyed seeing Kanye assert his dominance over the wrap-it-up music.

in your favorite sweater with an old love letter

2008-02-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Super Bowl Sunday and belated Groundhog's Day. I didn't do anything to celebrate the latter, but I did go to Jason's house today for the Super Bowl. I never liked the Super Bowl as a kid because I just had to sit around with my parents' friends until the game was over and then usually ended up having to miss the Simpsons afterward. However, since I started going to Jason's the past few years, I've become a big fan. Plus, it was nice to have friends again for a day.

Earlier this week, I had a last minute change of plans and went to the Ryan Adams concert at UCLA with some friends from work. I only know about 20 of his songs, and I think he only played 4 or 5 of those, but I enjoyed the show. I am by no means a country music fan, but Ryan Adams makes me see the good elements of country that can be enjoyable when applied to rock. There was no opener and he played for about 2 and a half hours, which is pretty amazing for today's shows.

Other than that, things are boring as usual. I've been having several dreams lately where I'm a very important person...usually a hot shot in whatever field I'm in. The one I remember best is where I was at some sort of secret agent training camp and I had to play a game of tag with the other 20 agents. We all had loaded guns, which confused me because I didn't want to shoot my fellow trainees. I pulled some pretty slick moves and tagged everyone out there without having to fire my pistol.

you must be of noble birth to compete

2008-01-26T16:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen very many of Heath Ledger's movies, but for some reason his death has really been getting to me this past week. Maybe it's just one of those moments that everyone has where you realize how sudden and permanent death is. You hear the news one afternoon and just sort of hope there was a misunderstanding and it will be retracted the next day...but it's real, and it's final.

It says a lot about death, but I think what's bothering me more is what it says about life. Lots of people, including myself, spend their lives hoping for a life like Heath's. Popularity, wealth, good looks, a beautiful wife and child, and his future looked even brighter over the next 10 or 20 years. If his death was a suicide (which I really don't think it was), then maybe the things we hope for won't make life any better. If it was an accident, then maybe we should try to extract more joy out of the boring lives we have now because you never know how fast you can lose it.

Anyway, I don't like writing these kinds of posts, but like I said, it's been bothering me. And I think my brother Brodie's just disappointed that there won't be a Brokeback Mountain 2.

Rest in peace, Heath.

half an hour...one bag...plus the guns...i'll make pancakes

2008-01-13T20:10:00.001-08:00

I had a strange string of dreams last week. The first night, my dream was about my dad and me trying to carry big cakes around the side of our house when I skunk walked up. We couldn't run, so I just had to be calm while it crawled up my back and clung onto my neck. I was bracing for it to spray at any second, but then my dog walked outside and the skunk went straight for him and got him instead.

The next night, I had a dream that my brother Brodie had a 3-story boat docked on some secret beach in Southern California and he got a call from his crew saying that the ship was sinking. We knew we couldn't save it, but Bro wanted us to go with him and help eat all the fish that were being kept on his boat before it sank.

The third night, I dreamed that my brother Travis threatened to kill me with his knife collection, so I ran away from home. My car keys and the keys to Bro and Steve's houses were inside my house, so I couldn't get them. I don't know where I lived for a while, but eventually I went to the airport to see my brother Matt and I ran into Trav there. Things were a little awkward...because of the death threats and all...but we got over it.

So far, none of those dreams have manifested in real life. Actually, maybe the first one did a little bit. I left the house and went out to my car a couple nights ago and started to drive away when I heard a thump underneath me. I circled around and shined the headlights on my parking spot and saw a big possum standing there looking over its shoulder at me (pretty much just like this.) I don't think he was hurt or anything, but he looked kinda scared and he eventually walked away and hid under the neighbor's car.

Other than that, things have been slow as usual. I went to the Dragonfly to see Lexi's band Siva Noir rock out. Also, since 24 probably won't be coming back anytime soon, I started watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It's pretty entertaining, and I'm one of main characters...so that's fun.

my fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation

2008-01-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

In the past week, a couple great things have come my way. The first is the revival of American Gladiators. This was one of my favorite shows growing up, and although I don't remember which day of the week or time I would have been watching it, I do remember knowing all the events and gladiators and all that. Assault, Cannonball, and the Eliminator were my favorite events back in the day, and two of them are back in the new show. They managed to do a pretty good job of preserving the strong points of the old show, despite trying to add more 'edge' and make things more 'extreme.' The gladiators are all morons (except Crush) and Hogan says 'brother' a little too much, but at least now I have a TV show to look forward to each week during the writers' strike.

The other thing is orange Tic-Tacs. They're not really new or amazing, but they're good and they were on sale. Plus, I've been in the mood for some after seeing Juno.

Top 5 songs I get really excited about when they start playing on the radio:

Foundations ~ Kate Nash
No One ~ Alicia Keys
1 2 3 4 ~ Feist
The Underdog ~ Spoon
Born to Run ~ Bruce Springsteen

PS - When trying to pick a movie to go see with my dad, my mom said she didn't want to see Alvin and the Predator. I think I would want to see that movie though.

the highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power-drive

2008-01-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, everyone. I've had a history of lame New Year's Eve celebrations, and yesterday was no exception. I ended up working a full day and then watching TV at home with my dog until midnight. We also watched Smokin' Aces. For some reason, I've been wanting to see that movie for a while despite all the bad reviews...but it wasn't all that great. I liked the style and characters and everything, but they could have done better and maybe cut out some of the stupid stuff to make it a little more cohesive. I'm a sucker for Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds though, so they kept me entertained...along with the Matthew Fox scene.

Anyway, I was reading through some old posts (yes, because I'm that awesome) and I came across my New Year's post from a couple years ago, and I figured I should do that again this year. So here's the updates for 2007:

Work/School: Done with school and I've been working as an economist for about a year and a half now. Work is work.

Friends: Living at home has isolated me quite a bit. I still see Scott and Sarah a good amount, but for the most part, my brothers are my closest friends now.

Family: 2006 gave me a new sister in Carrie, and now 2007 has given me a new sister in Windy. Apparently, Jamie neglected to mention this during his visit last week, but he and Windy got married about a month ago. Also, 2007 gave me news of two little nephews or nieces on their way in 2008, so I've got that to look forward to.

Love: Pass.

Hobbies: Potential Difference is still going pretty strong. We have our phases in productivity, but we did manage to get out 3 small shows, 2 new songs, and a Christmas CD. I suppose you could consider driving my other new hobby. I bought my first car in October and I've spent about 3 to 4 hours a day in it...not voluntarily of course.

Appearance: I lost my gold locks late in 2006, and stayed pretty neutral for most of 2007. Lately, I've been letting it grow just to see what happens, but I look pretty disgusting most of the time.

Predicted Top 5 Albums of 2008:

Coldplay - There's much talk of this album being their 'reinvention' album.
U2 - They're notorious for delaying albums, so it might not actually happen this year.
Franz Ferdinand - Supposedly more dance-y than the last album, but may lose some of the catchiness that they're known for.
Death Cab for Cutie - I don't know much about this one, but hopefully it will follow the trends of the last two albums.
Ambulance LTD - The band broke up, but Marcus claims to be carrying on the name in his solo work.

Honorable Mention: Radiohead's In Rainbows technically gets released this month. I'm not a big Radiohead fan, but the album's not bad.

oh, santa...i've been waiting on you

2007-12-25T22:02:00.000-08:00

The children fear Santa...

Duffman and I enjoy portraying characters from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. That's a terrible picture of both of us though.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope the holidays are treating you well. I know I enjoyed my little vacation. I spent most of it playing with my nephews...I suppose I should keep practicing since I've got some more on the way. I forget if I mentioned this before, but Brodie and Jen told us shortly after Thanksgiving that Jen is pregnant. And now this weekend, we got the news that Jamie and Windy are engaged and expecting another baby, which makes me an Uncle x 4.

Other than that, the weekend didn't involve anything too unusual, except maybe for Sunday. Jamie, Brodie, Matt, and I went to the gun range to do some trap-shooting with Matt's shotgun. I wasn't really looking forward to it that much, but it ended up being pretty fun. I 'sploded plenty of disks with my excellent marksmanship, but I left with a big purple bruise on my shoulder from my poor technique. After that, we went to the local bar Doc's Inn and played some Golden Tee. As Brodie put it, what are the odds that 4 of the Carroll boys would be at Doc's...and Trav wasn't one of them? Anyway, I think Sunday represents the manliest I'll ever be in my lifetime.

Back to work for a few more days...

if you are chilly...

2007-12-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

Artwork by Rick Gilliland

Happy holidays, everyone. In honor of the season, P-Diff have put together a few Christmasy songs for you to enjoy. "Snowmen and Angels" is an original song of ours about the plight of the common snowmen and the snow angels who keep them company. "The Way I Am" is a cover of a beautiful love song by Ingrid Michaelson, which isn't exactly a Christmas song...but close enough. Finally, "Only at Christmas Time" is a remix of sorts on the original sing-along carol by Sufjan Stevens. You can hear all of these heart-warming tunes on the MySpace or the new Facebook page. Please become a fan if you're not already.

Anyway, I just need to stick it for one more day until my 4-day Christmas break begins. It's a little disappointing now compared to John Paul's 6.5-day break and Scott's potential 9-day break, but 4 days is better than nothing. Right now, my mom, dad, and dog all fell asleep watching The Jungle Book while my nephew is running rampant around the house. 4 days might end up being long enough.

today, my heart swings

2007-12-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

It seems like in America, kids are raised to have very big dreams of being destined for great things. We're taught that we all have a good shot at becoming famous movie stars, rock stars, athletes, astronauts, billionaires, and those sorts of things. And as we get older, we start to realize that it's not all that likely, but we still keep that hope thinking eventually it'll happen out of the blue. Then one day, something triggers the realization that it's really just not gonna happen and it hurts. I'm not trying to be pessimistic or anything, but today was one of those days for me. Not in the career sense though...I don't think that realization will hit for at least a few more years. I'm talking about the news today that Jessica Alba is pregnant and ready to settle down with her boyfriend. I knew the odds of us getting together were slim, but today is a big indicator of the death of that dream. So sad...

Anyway, last weekend was a very good weekend. I left work right on time Friday to go to AFI with some friends and watch the premiere of a short called "Penny Dreadful." It was fun to be in a different kind of atmosphere and to see a bunch of people celebrating their hard work. I spent most of Saturday catching up on some reading and video games, and then drove down to San Diego by myself later that night. Matt, Carrie, and I watched Hot Fuzz into the early morning and went to brunch the next day. After rewatching a few episodes of Arrested Development, I drove up to the studio in Torrance and spend the rest of the night fine-tuning a recent project with Scott (details coming this weekend maybe.) Overall, the weekend was a good balance of things. Alone time, time with friends, time with family, time to be lazy, creative time, good food, beautiful women, and a little bit of sleep. I wish the rest of my life was that balanced.

That reminds me...while in San Diego, I had a dream that I was driving to work on the 405, but instead of a car, I was just sitting in a swivel chair on wheels and pushing with my feet. Timothy Dalton's character from Hot Fuzz rode up next to me on his chair and we had a long chat. I asked him if he ever got tired doing that, and he said he only got tired if he was having a good laugh.

i can't get much wronger

2007-12-04T21:58:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, I'm doing alright...I just haven't had anything meaningful to say in the past couple weeks. Thanksgiving was good. We had Bro's wife's family and a few other friends over and spent the day eating and playing the Wii. I don't really remember what I did the rest of the weekend, but I'm pretty sure I wasted it. Now I'm just looking forward to Christmas.

I've also had two dreams in the past week where I'm friends with Kanye West. Don't know what that's all about.

P-Diff news to come in the next week or so...

that wrecking ball is ringing and i'm not satisfied

2007-11-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, ya'll. I got a half day off of work today and I'm headed into a 4-day weekend, so I'm in a good mood. I've never liked Thanksgiving much...seeing as the whole holiday just revolves around one big nasty meal...but I'm always thankful for the time off. Usually, I'd use this time for a lot of sleeping, but I've been having creepy dreams lately. I had one where my family moved into a beat-up old shack in the deep South and our neighbors were all disturbing-looking rednecks like the ones in the movie Deliverance. But after a while, I realized they were all actually just actors from Saturday Night Live playing rednecks, so then it wasn't so bad.

I had another dream that same night where something happened that caused everyone in the world to turn into zombies except Scott and me. We spent most of the dream driving a car around side streets trying to run over zombies, but it was all very scary. It got me thinking about how scary it would be if everyone did actually turn into zombies. You wouldn't be able to catch a plane or a boat to get away because all the employees would be zombies. You could maybe try to drive to the middle of nowhere, but you'd have to get out eventually to get gas...and I'd imagine that the zombies would all hang out at the gas station for that reason. Man, I hope I die before that ever happens.

Anyway, have a good Thanksgiving.

tonight, this engine's failing

2007-11-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

Once again, I'm house-sitting for Brodie and Jen, but this time it's for the whole week and weekend. It's nice to have a place to hang out and watch movies and play with the dogs, but unfortunately I don't have much time since I'm at work most of the day. I think they always have me house-sit because they know I don't have any friends. If I tried to have a party, I think the only people that would show up would be my parents...and one of them is out of town this week. Anyway, taking care of the dogs gives me two free friends, so that's nice.

Since I started staying there, I've been having strange dreams. Last night, I was doing earthquake drills in my office with GOB from Arrested Development. The night before, I was surrrounded by a few big spiders in their webs until a crazy old lady shot one with her handgun and set me free. We'll see what the rest of my stay has in store for me.

PS - If you want to see me putting the Cono in economics... http://www.welchcon.com .

and please...remember me...at halloween

2007-10-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Matt and I decided to celebrate our new cars by taking an awkward picture.

On an unrelated note, over the past week Joseph has developed a need to run over and hug me every few minutes when he's around me. I'm hoping that girls also develop this need in their early twenties.

The last couple weeks have been full of events and distractions. As you all know, the big fires hit this area pretty hard. We were sort of surrounded by the big ones in Stevenson Ranch and Canyon Country that turned the sky dark brown all around Valencia. Luckily, my neighborhood was safe from the whole thing...although, my brother Matt's restaurant in Carlsbad had to be evacuated. On the bright side, I also bought my first car that weekend. Scott's sister just got a permanent job with Honda, so she decided to sell her car to me. It's got navigation and a sunroof, and it's wicked awesome.

Since then, I've been doing a lot of driving in the traffic caused by the fires and truck crashes and everything else. I also took a trip to the zoo with John Paul and Jenny, and a trip to Best Buy to buy a new Nintendo Wii. I've been putting it off for a while, but my mom finally pressured me into splitting one with her so that we could have it around the house during the holidays. I was hesitant at first, but now we're all pretty excited about it. Stop by if you want to play.

Anyway, Happy Halloween. I worked all day and got home late to find a bowl full of candy and no trick-or-treaters. Sweet...

PS - Happy birthday, Adrianne.

from the cascades to puget sound

2007-10-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Seattle from Queen Anne's Hill

Jamie and me by Lake Washington I think

My Parents and Trey at Gasworks Park

Me standing on the outside deck of the Space Needle, taking a picture of the reflection from the glass on the inside deck...kind of confusing...

Jamie and Trey charging the monster fountain outside the Key Arena

Speaking of monsters, this is the troll that lives under the bridge on Troll Street.

After Big Bear, Vacaville, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, and Austin, I made my last little trip to Seattle last weekend. I was expecting a rainy 5 days of sitting inside the house watching my nephew play with his toys, but the weather ended up being great the whole time. As you can see, my brother was a good tour guide and showed us all around the city. We got to see the big hotspots like the Space Needle, Pike's Market, Queen Anne's Hill, and also some really cool things I didn't know about...like the troll. All in all, Seattle is kinda like a nicer version of San Francisco. I was also really surprised by how nice the University of Washington's campus was. If I ever go back to school, I might consider going there.

Current Playlist:

Tranquilize ~ The Killers ft. Lou Reed
The Way I Am ~ Ingrid Michaelson
Same Old Scene ~ Roxy Music
Always for You ~ The Album Leaf
Whatever (Folk Song in C) ~ Elliott Smith

mr. t is the lion king

2007-10-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Where to begin...Texas turned out to be pretty fun. I had my own room at a huge hotel hidden away in the woods...with a big screen high def TV, a lazy river around the pools, an actual river, a water slide, horses, a golf course, and more. We had a a couple little company parties in the banquet hall, and then we all took a shuttle to downtown Austin for a night. 6th Street is basically four or five blocks of bars on both sides of the street with live music at almost every bar. It ended up being worthwhile.

This weekend has also been pretty short, but fun. On Friday, I went to the Landmark Theater with Jenny and Jason to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It's very long and pretty slow moving, but it was also interesting in an artistic/biographical kind of way...not your typical cowboy movie. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck were good too.

I did a lot of running around this weekend between house-sitting for Brodie and doing car loan stuff, but I did manage to go to Largo again for Jon Brion with Jenny, Vena, and Sherita. He played some awesome songs as usual (Eternal Sunshine theme, Same Old Scene, Nowhere Man), but the highlight was when he called up Ben Gibbard from the audience to play a couple covers and an unreleased song that the two of them had written a while ago. It's always cool to see Jon bring up friends to play, but this is the first time I've wanted the guest to stay longer. Needless to say, I think that was the best trip to Largo yet.

Anyway, if you don't hear from me for a while, I'm probably in Seattle.

keep the car running

2007-09-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

I've never considered myself much of a traveler, but I haven't been spending too many weekends at home lately. A couple weeks ago, I decided to take a one night trip up to San Luis Obispo where I met up with Scott, Matt, James, Fausto, and Sara to hang out at Fortner's new house by Cal Poly. We had a good time watching TV, playing games, and throwing the tennis ball around. Unfortunately, I had to leave early to get some work done, but I got to meet up with Jason, John Paul, Mitch, and Stephen in Canyon Country when I got back.

After another busy week at work, John Paul and I took off for San Diego to attend the Street Scene festival. I've been wanting to go to a music festival for a long time now, and we figured this was the right time after finding super cheap tickets on Craig's List. We only went for half a day, but got to see Mute Math, Sondre Lerche, the Album Leaf, TI, Paolo "The Piker" Nutini, Spoon, Louis XIV, Arctic Monkeys, and the Killers...the last two being the highlights of the night. Also, going to my brother's restaurant in Carlsbad for brunch was equally amazing. I think I wrote about this brunch last Easter on here, and everything from that post was just as good this time. Hopefully my trips this weekend to Austin and in two weeks to Seattle will be as fun as my trips to San Luis Obispo and San Diego.

One drawback to the weekend was that I didn't get along very well with my car. I always wondered how people could lock their keys in their car, and now I finally did it...with the engine running and the radio blasting and everything. Luckily, we were able to find a nearby road assistance guy in Carlsbad who opened the door with a coat hanger. The car got me back on Monday night though by running out of battery at a gas station. On the plus side, after buying a new battery at Sears, my radio stations were all reset and I accidentally found my favorite radio DJ (Valentine) who had disappeared from Star a week ago.

Somehow among all these travels and work and car troubles, Potential Difference has managed to post another new song on the MySpace. 'Losing Rest' is another one we've been playing at recent UCLA shows that finally has a recording. Hope you enjoy it. Also, you might be hearing some more new stuff before the holiday season if we can keep ourselves focused.

PS - Happy birthday, Kelly.

you could lie, but just do it soon...

2007-09-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

That picture means P-Diff posted the new song, "Fugitive", on the MySpace. It's been a little over a year since we posted our last official recording, but we think it's worth the wait. We heard about the competition between Kanye West and 50 Cent to see who could top the charts with their new album releases, and we decided we wanted in on this too. But at the last second, we thought 50 might call off his side of the deal if we won, so we decided to post our song a couple days early. I suppose we could still challenge another artist with a release this week...but there isn't much else to choose from. I guess we'll have to settle for challenging the DVD release of Fragglerock: Season 3. It's on, Fraggles.

Other than that, I don't have much else to report and if I did, I'd be too tired to report it. I've been working about 11 hours a day this week and there's no end in sight. I know that's nothing compared to what some people work, but it's a lot for me. I did get a chance to watch the VMA's though. Kind of a weak year overall, but the Britney 'comeback' was definitely worth seeing. It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer told his overweight and lazy helper monkey Mojo to dance. I don't intend that to be mean or anything...just watch that scene and you'll see the similarities too. I felt kinda sorry for her though, so I hope she can pull things together eventually.

PS - Happy birthday, Sam.

do you think about me now and then?

2007-09-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

Lots of people complain that my health is sort of a conundrum. I don't eat much, and when I do it's usually pretty unhealthy...but I still manage to avoid getting sick for most of the year. And when I do get sick, it's generally pretty mild. The last major sickness I had was probably the summer after high school when I lost my voice completely for about a week. Since then, I've mainly just had little 24-hour cases of sore throat or sniffles. Odds are that some day, I'm gonna get hit with something huge and life-threatening and it will all catch up with me. My bet is on diabetes...sad, but true.

Anyway, my point is that I'm starting to get something right now, so I decided to play it safe and work from home tomorrow. The nice thing about that is that I can sleep an extra hour and a half (the time I would be spending in traffic) and still be up and working at 9am.

Other than starting to get sick, I had a pretty fun weekend. I spent Saturday in the pool to hide from the heat, and then went out to do some shopping. I didn't buy anything, but ran into my old friend Adam at Best Buy, my sister Michelle at the mall, and another old friend Lora at McDonald's. I used to say Brodie was like the Mayor of the SCV because we would always run into people he knew whenever we went anywhere, but now maybe I can run against him.

Sunday, my parents rented a convertible for their anniversary and let me tag along with them up to the Ventura Harbor. I bought them some good seafood for lunch and a couple sweet hats for myself.

Monday, Labor Day, I went a day-long driving spree of the LA County with Matt, Fortner, Sarah, and Sara. We hung out at the Science Center, ate free ice cream at the Heritage Museum, read notes on the Elliott Smith memorial, and played 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon at a dozen other places. All good times.

Side Notes:

Check out Kanye West's Graduation and the New Pornographers' Challengers if you get a chance. Both have some really good songs (although they also have some pretty mediocre ones too.)
Should I cut my hair?

RIP Pavarotti

my place is usually a little tidier than this

2007-08-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is one of those posts where I don't really have anything interesting to say, but I feel obligated to write something anyway. The last few weeks have been pretty busy with work, and last weekend John Paul, Jenny, and I made a quick trip up to Vacaville to go to a wedding reception for my best friend from grade school, Brian Hansen. We left Valencia around 10am Saturday morning and got back around 4pm Sunday afternoon, but the trip was still pretty fun. Oddly enough, we pulled up next to Brian and his wife at a stoplight about 5 miles away from the reception. I honked and gave him a nod...he looked at me, looked away, and drove off. Finally, after following him to the reception and confronting him in the parking lot, he eventually recognized me and we all had a good laugh. I'll try to get a hold of some pictures for any of you that might know him.

After the reception, I went to see Superbad and happened to run into another old friend from high school, Brian Whitney. The movie was probably the most vulgar movie I've ever seen, but it had some pretty funny parts.

Nothing much else to report. Last night I had a dream that I was stranded in Bakersfield and some guy was trying to kill me by putting me in a small shark tank. I escaped him once and then ran around a college campus trying to make friends so I could hide.

time to get out of the desert and into the sun

2007-08-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy week...

Wednesday: After a busy day at work, I picked up John Paul from school and went to see the Format at the Avalon in Hollywood. If we had gotten there early enough to see all 5 opening acts, it would have been a very long night. Luckily, we stopped for dinner first and got there in time to see Limbeck, a comedian, the Honorary Title, and the Format. The openers were alright, but the Format was very good. They brought in a 3-piece brass section and a 3-piece string section to play the majority of both albums (except for my favorite song.)

Thursday: Another day of work fueled by a RockStar energy drink and Poptarts. At the end of the day, I pushed through the traffic and got home in time to see The Simpsons Movie with Pat. Overall, I would say it was just as funny as a typical episode, but you kind of expect more when you leave your house and pay to see it. There was definitely some funny stuff that they couldn't put on TV though.

Friday:

My parents turned 60 this year, and as a surprise gift, my mom organized a family vacation in Big Bear for my dad. I spent most of Friday packing and driving through the mountains to get to our cabin and meet up with the rest of the family (i.e. 5 couples and two babies.) It was a very nice place, but I had the impression I would get bored pretty quickly. Overall, I think we all had a good time there.

Saturday:

Saturday, along with the rest of the days, revolved around these two little rugrats. They're at the age where they can find and break just about anything, so we had to keep a close eye on them. Also, they like to get up very early...and since I slept on the couch in the living room, I was on their schedule. This trip really made me realize that days can feel very long when you stay up late, get up early, and don't do much all day.

Sunday:

In the morning, I followed the guys around and took pictures of them golfing. In the afternoon and night, I watched the kids and played pool and ping pong in the garage. Good times.

Monday:

This was the only day that I really got out to see more of the town. We all took a trip to the alpine slides. If you haven't been there, it's kinda cool. You buy a ticket, ride a ski lift to the top, and then ride down a big luge-type thing. Later in the day, we spent an hour or so at the bowling alley and then went to the park to play bocce ball and eat pizza.

Tuesday:
We packed up and drove back home early enough to let me recuperate by the pool and look at pictures from the trip. The trip was very tiring, but a lot of fun.

I almost forgot to mention that the real surprise of the trip happened Saturday night. Though my mom had been secretly planning the trip via email with all of us kids, we were also sending our own secret emails to put together a birthday/anniversary present for my parents. We decided to all chip in and pay for them to make a trip to Europe next year. Seeing as their favorite TV show is "Wheel of Fortune", Brodie bought a home version of the game and rigged an event puzzle to be "Sal & Jim go to Europe next year." We all got together Saturday night in the living room and played a few rounds to get warmed up and then slipped the rigged one in. My parents fell right into it and eventually solved the puzzle before the even figured out what was going on. Here's a picture from afterwards, but you can't really read the board.

PS - Happy birthdays to Caitlyn and my nephew Trey. Happy anniversary to Brodie and Jen.

they call me the hip-hopopotamus

2007-07-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that I hiked down to a little secret area behind some mountains with a groups of friends. The area was sort of a big grassy park with lots of trees and a little cabin, but it was right next to the ocean. It seemed like a pretty awesome place until I noticed the rabbits. They were unusual rabbits with little ram horns on their heads and they were super fast. They kept running at me, jumping up, and biting my hands. Eventually, I figured out that the best defense was to punt them when they got close, but then I found out they could turn invisible for about ten seconds at a time. They also could spray odor like a skunk. It was a very frustrating dream.

Anyway, Caitlyn has introduced me to the HBO show Flight of the Conchords (which you can find on YouTube) and now I'm totally hooked. If you like shows like The Office and Arrested Development, you should check it out.

i've given thought to leaving

2007-07-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know where I left off last time, but things have been pretty busy lately. Friday night I went back to Largo with John Paul, Kandi, and Martha to see Jon Brion again. The night got off to a rough start with traffic and car troubles, but the show was outstanding. Fiona Apple dropped by for a few of my favorite songs, Benmont and Jon had a new Hammond organ to play with at the front of the stage, and we had a front-row table for the whole thing. The biggest highlights for me were:

The vocoder and piano version of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On"
Jon pretending to be Randy Newman covering Kanye West's "Gold Digger"
The eerie organ version of "Here We Go"
Jon, Benmont, and Grant Lee Phillips rocking out on "Benmont and the Jon" (a.k.a. "Benny and the Jets")
Fiona Apple singing Buddy Holly's "Everyday"

After that, John Paul came home with me for the next four days. We spent Saturday eating, swimming, and driving around LA with Jason trying to find a movie that wasn't sold out. We failed and ended up watching Blood Diamond back at my house. Sunday, we went to Torrance to work on some P-Diff recordings. I know I always say this, but we really do have some new music coming out soon. Hopefully two in the very near future, and then maybe a few more by the end of the year.

Last night, I saw Ratatouille with Camber and Alicia. I'm pretty much always impressed with animated movies these days. Toy Story and Finding Nemo are still my favorites, but all of Pixar's movies seem to have good stories and entertaining characters. This one is no exception.

On a final note, in the style of PBS, I must interrupt your reading to ask for a contribution. As you know, Scott and I have begun producing Trish Johnson and her video is now in the running for STAR's new contest. If you could just take a second and visit this page, you can scroll to the bottom and vote for her. If you'd like to watch the video, I've also put a link to youtube. I'm sorry I don't have any totebags or umbrellas to offer you, but we'd all greatly appreciate it if you voted. (No, Scott and I aren't in the video, but we do play cello and piano in the song, respectively.)

Vote

Watch the Video

how are things on the west coast?

2007-07-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

Things have been alright I suppose. Traffic and work were both fairly light this week. The 4th of July ended up being pretty good. I mean, I basically did the same thing I do every other year, but I enjoyed coming back to something familiar. I walked around the parade and ran into the usual, reliable parade-goers...Kelly, Brent, and Kyle, plus my sister Michelle was in the parade this year. Then I went on to the neighborhood horseshoe tournament to watch my Dad and Brodie win it all (and they almost had to play Matt and Trav in the finals.) That horseshoe tournament generally results in a lot of good quotes and monologues, but the only one I really remember was this one by one of Matt and Trav's friends regarding the perennial arch-nemesis of the event, Dr. Good:

Giancarlo: "Yeah, so my plan for heckling is to go only for Jim, Brodie, and Dr. Good over there. Yeah, you hear me, Good? You're getting heckled. Ah, he's ignoring me. That's what he did when I told him earlier too."

Reading over that, I think it was one of those things where you had to be there. Anyway, we all went to the mall at night to watch fireworks with my nephew Joseph. He's a little over 1 year old, so he can kind of enjoy them now. I don't think he liked them much at first, but he grew to like them by the end.

Other than that, the week has been a lot of driving and watching movies. I saw Transformers on Thursday with Kandi and John Paul. I wasn't expecting too much from it, but it was very entertaining for a big summer action flick. I also saw Pirates 3 late last night with Jason and his siblings after downing a RockStar to keep me awake. It was fun to watch, but a little confusing and unsatisfying. And I'm still waiting to see Ocean's 13.

On a final note, here are a couple conversations with my mom. I think of myself as someone who gets along with his parents pretty well, but sometimes I just don't understand them...

Me: I put my shoes in my bottom drawer so I can get to them easily.
Mom: What? That's a waste of space!
Me: But I don't have anything else to put there. I fit the rest of my clothes into the closet.
Mom: But you've got too many shirts in this closet. You don't want them to get wrinkled.
Me: So...you want me to put my hanging shirts... into a drawer... so they won't get wrinkled?
Mom: Err...well...it's a waste of space!

Mom: Could you hold up this window so I can see if I like it?
Me: Ok, where?
Mom: Right there, above the computer.
Me: So you're thinking about hanging this fake window in front of the real window?
Mom: Yeah.
Me: Why would you hang a window in front of a window?
Mom: It's an architectural thing...
Me: I see...

it's time to work it out

2007-07-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

After a wild weekend of packing, cleaning, moving, recording, and working, I'm finally settled in at home. All my stuff wouldn't fit back into my old room so I had to throw some things out and store away other things in the rafters of the garage. In the end, I ended up with a pretty sweet setup in my room. I bought a wireless router today and installed it, so now I've got my laptop running smoothly from my desk. A couple feet to my right is a nice, soft, elevated bed. A couple feet to my left is my favorite keyboard on an old stand I found. And behind me are my guitars and my old practice amp all ready to go. Considering I don't rely too much on food, I really only need to leave my room for work, the bathroom, and the occasional TV show. Who needs friends when I've got...who am I kidding...I'm so sad and lonely.

As for today, my work was kind enough to give me a half day off along with all of tomorrow off for the 4th. I'll most likely be watching the parade in the morning and watching my brothers play horseshoes while taunting their competitors in the afternoon. I forgot how hot it is in this city, so tomorrow might also involve a lot of hiding in shadows.

Anyway, happy fireworks, everyone.

i build barriers around me

2007-06-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

So after 4 years of being a student / posing as a student, this is my last week in Westwood. In some ways it's a little sad. I'm gonna miss being able to walk to the Village and get Diddy Riese, or walk home from work and run into a movie premiere. On the other hand, I'm a little tired of living in a messy apartment with a scary manager and being surrounded by college students. And as much as I'm gonna hate commuting on the 405, I've had enough of dealing with buses and busfolk for a while. Last week, I made the acquaintance of a very friendly bum whom Pat would consider a chain-smoker. The conversation went something like this:

(Man standing at the bus stop walks over to where I'm sitting on a ledge. He points at the ground and begins to talk with a lisp and an unusual amount of spit.)

Man: Do you want that?

(I look at the ground not seeing anything of importance and look back at him.)

Me: What's that?
Man: Do you want that?

(I take another look but I'm still confused whether or not something is really there.)

Me: Emm...no, that's alright.
Man: Oh, good...thanks.

(The man grabs a dirty, stepped-on cigarette butt from the ground. He lights it and begins a conversation with me.)

Man: How are you?
Me: Oh, I'm doing alright.
Man: Good. Where are you going?
Me: Over to the Brentwood area...by Wilshire and Bundy.
Man: Oh, yeah, yeah...I've been there. That's where I got this ring.

(The man proceeds to explain the histories of his Chinese ring, his Russian ring with a rupal in it, his homemade ring, and his necklace that has mysterious origins. He also goes into detail about the warranty he has on the Russian ring and where he can mail it if anything happens.)

Me: Wow, that's pretty nice.
Man: Yeah, alright, see ya later.
Me: See ya.

(The man walks away for about 20 seconds and then comes back.)

Man: Hey, how are you?
Me: Emm....I'm good...

(He notices my WWJD bracelet.)

Man: Oh, that's nice. Is your name Will? Willy?
Me: Ehh...yeah, Willy.
Man: Alright, Willy! Well, I'll see ya later.
Me: Alright, see ya.

(As he left, he stopped with delight and picked up another smashed cigarette butt from under the bench.)

Anyway, this week is mostly packing and cleaning and moving, but Scott and I have also started recording Trish Johnson, a solo artist from UCLA and accomplished participant in Spring Sing the last two years. We're only working on one song at the moment, but I feel like we're already off to a good start. P-Diff has a few songs in the works too, so look out.

The Photo Album

2007-06-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

DAY 1:

Pat posing by a man whom we believe to be descended from Copernicus.

Pat and me looking for graduates...or maybe girls...or maybe Copernicus.

Can you find John Paul, Jason, and Mitch? This reminds me of the scene in Ocean's 11 when the casino explodes and everyone turns around except George Clooney and Matt Damon.

DAY 2:

Scott wearing the face of a graduate. He's the one with the nice camera, so we don't have as many pictures from Day 2.

DAY 3:

Ah, the Grunion Run...also known as the Grundie Run.

Matt got his grunion to do tricks...

...I prefer to hold mine and scream like a girl.

DAY 4:

And finally Pat's turn to graduate...although the girl behind him doesn't look like she thinks photography is appropriate at graduations.

One last tender moment between Richie and Pat.

made his life a lie so he might never have to know anyone

2007-06-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm back to normal life after a nice 3 and a half day weekend and all I have to show for it is some graduation programs, a pair of brown jeans, and a wicked sunburn. Still my mini-vacation was a lot of fun and it was a nice break from work. I'm pretty sure I told you about days 1 and 2, so I'll skip ahead...

Day 3:

After sleeping in and kicking back for the first half of the day, Scott and I began our journey to San Diego around 5pm and got to my brother's restaurant around 7pm. After checking out the outlet shops and getting some good deals, we followed my brother back to his apartment. We really had no plans for that night, but it ended up being my favorite part of the whole weekend. Matt and Carrie made us some pizza and really good burgers, we watched TV for a bit, watched Sin City on DVD, then Carrie suggested we check out something called a grunion run happening on the beach. We really had no idea what to expect from this, but we gave it a try around midnight anyway. As we got close to the beach, we couldn't really see any people or any activity, so we decided to keep going down to the water. We still couldn't see much except for a few glimmering specks here and there...that is, until the tide receded and we saw hundreds of little eel-like fish jumping around the beach. We spent the next hour or so watching the fish, taking pictures of the fish, taking pictures with the fish, catching and throwing the fish, and talking to a strange old man who reminisced on the glory days of the grunion run.

Day 4:

Scott and I got up early and drove a little further south from Carlsbad to get to UCSD. I've only been there once before, so I'm glad I got to go back one more time before Pat leaves. The ceremony was really nice with a band and doves and everything. However, after about an hour and a half of speeches and another hour of name/major reading, we were happy to get out of the sun. We went to dim sum, 7-11, and Pat's place with the family and friends before heading back to LA. Pictures of the weekend to come...

On a side note, ever since high school, people (usually girls) have been puzzled by the fact that I like a lot of male actors, but I don't really have a top 5 of female actresses. I took a little survey thing yesterday, and I think it helped organize my thoughts.

Top 5 Actresses (Based 95% on Looks):

Jessica Alba
Natalie Portman
Scarlett Johansson
Keira Knightley
Camilla Belle

enough to break the ice

2007-06-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

Stephen, Scott, Me, John Paul, Jason...now if only we had some girls...

The run was shorter this year, but going through the tunnel was kinda cool.

The Justice League keeps the the streets safe...

So once again, I've postponed writing long enough to forget all the interesting things I had to say. One of the highlights of the past couple weeks was seeing Jon Brion again. It was a good long show with about 8 guests, including Glenn Phillips from Toad the Wet Sprocket, Jason Boesel from Rilo Kiley, and all of Nickel Creek. Jon played some of the usuals (More Than This, Love of My Life So Far, Femme Fatale, Waterloo Sunset) and some other good ones like Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes, a 20-minute looped version of Bowie's Heroes, and a sped-up, vocoder-heavy Freebird. For me though, the highlight of the night was an impromptu slow-dance version of Girls Just Want to Have Fun with David Rawlings and Benmont Tench. Somehow it managed to be one of the most beautiful and funniest songs I've ever heard at the same time.

Wednesday night I got to say my goodbyes to UCLA by doing the Undie Run one last time, as seen above. The turnout was slightly better this year than last year. I'd like to see an attendance number, but I would estimate somewhere around 8 to 10 thousand students. I'm gonna miss that tradition...I would consider doing it again later, but it seems pretty creepy to be doing it more than a year after graduating.

Speaking of saying farewell to college, I'm also in the middle of a graduation tour. Yesterday, I left work early to have one last dorm lunch and then watch the big L&S commencement ceremony. My little ones are all growing up so fast...sniffle. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the guest speaker and he actually gave a pretty good speech. Today, Pat and I returned to Pauley Pavillion to catch Scott's Engineering commencement and then went to Versailles for lunch. Tomorrow begins the third stage of the tour where Scott, Kris, and I road trip to San Diego to see Pat's ceremony. Wish us luck.

Anyway, congratulations to all the graduates and happy birthday to my brother, Matt.

i could feel at the time...

2007-06-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a very family-oriented weekend. I spent the majority of the weekend hanging out with my nephew and helping my brother and his wife move into their new house. It was also Joe's first birthday, so we had a party. I don't think one-year-old's really appreciate giant sandwiches and mocha cake, but it was still fun. It'll be nice having them around when I move back to V-town at the end of the month. The only other big thing I did that weekend was go on a double date with Pat. I mean...it was just the two of us, but we went to BJ's first and then continued our dinner at Elephant Bar...so it was basically two dates.

Anyway, as opposed to my family-oriented weekend, I suppose this weekend is my Oriental-family weekend. (I know that's a pretty outdated term, but I saw the opportunity for a play on words and I took it.) I went to Scott's taiko concert earlier today and tomorrow night I'm going to Kim's Music of China recital. And also along the lines of Asian culture, I bought Lost in Translation earlier today. I've had Roxy Music's "More Than This" stuck in my head for a few days, so I felt a need to watch that movie again.

In other news, I had a dream last night that I went to some kind of party in a friend's backyard and the dinner they were serving was just a plate of snakes and lizards. Out of obligation, I ate about half a plate full, but I was about to throw up. Some of them were alive and I had to cut their heads off first with my fork. The only other dream I remember from the last few weeks was one that ended with a montage sequence of my family and I bathing walruses while singing "Baby, You're a Rich Man." I mainly just remember being impressed with my dad's previously unseen guitar solo skills.

if i could escape...

2007-05-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

It's unfortunate how as you move along through life, the things you want are always a little more expensive than what you can afford. Or at least that seems to be the trend in my life. When I was a kid, the big thing for me was Batman and X-Men action figures. They were probably only about 8 dollars or so at the time, but it was enough to not be able to buy them on my own. As I got further along in grade school and then into junior high, I took a strong liking to NBA jerseys. I waited for every birthday and report card and Christmas to talk my way into getting a brand new 42 dollar jersey from my parents, seeing as how I usually only had about 30 to 40 dollars on me during good times. Toward the end of high school and beginning of college, I started taking on high paying jobs as a tutor, a money counter, a mover, a carpenter, and a newspaper delivery boy. These jobs kept enough money in my wallet to easily buy a jersey, but by then I wanted sunglasses.

These days I'm working enough to buy a new pair of Armani Bono glasses every day, but unfortunately I need a car. After that, it will be a condo, then a house, then eventually the one thing no man can truly afford...a wife and kids. Anyway, in the meantime I'm gonna keep checking Craig's List for a used Prius.

For the past month, I've been going through another big Death Cab for Cutie / Postal Service phase. If I haven't said this before, I apologize to Sam for the time I said I didn't like Ben Gibbard's voice and I apologize to Brigitte for the time I said Plans didn't meet my expectations.

Also, should I be embarrassed that this is my current playlist:

The Sweet Escape ~ Gwen Stefani (To me, this is what the rest of the radio pop world should strive to be like.)
My Love ~ Justin Timberlake
Say it Right ~ Nelly Furtado
Don't Stop Believin' ~ Journey
Saeglopur ~ Sigur Ros
Here (In Your Arms) ~ HelloGoodbye

i'm in los angeles today

2007-05-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

So I've already been able to mark a few things off my list of good things in May. I saw Spider-man 3 a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good, but definitely should have had a few scenes cut out. I went to Spring Sing. The acts were pretty standard, but the company was the best I've seen in my 3-year experience. I celebrated Mother's Day with my family. It was nothing too exciting, but still good.

However, the #1 event on my list was crossed off a couple nights ago. I saw Ben Gibbard play a solo acoustic show at Royce Hall on UCLA's campus. As you can tell already, I have a list-maker personality type. Most people know who's on my list of favorite singers...Bono, Chris Martin, Brandon Flowers, Alex Kapranos, etc. And you might also know Jon Brion and Elliott Smith are on my list of musical geniuses. But few people know that my top two favorite lyricists are Ben Gibbard and James Mercer. So having Ben Gibbard on stage with a microphone and a guitar (or a piano for 4 or 5 songs) is the ideal setting to showcase his lyrics.

The whole show was outstanding and I already consider it one of the best concerts I've ever been to. The song selection was fantastic, the sound quality was perfect, and even the openers (Johnathan Rice and David Bazan) were pretty solid. Going into the last two songs of the night, I would have given the concert a solid A, but then Ben Gibbard gave a little speech. I don't know the exact words, but he basically said he'd been wanting to do a particular song for a long time, but never really had the missing element to do it. At that point he called out Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and performed an acoustic version of "Nothing Better", one of my favorite songs of all time. I give the concert an A+.

Speaking of list-making, here's a list I've been keeping of favorite songs that I've seen performed live.

"The Scientist" ~ Coldplay ~ Hollywood Bowl, Verizon Wireless Amph., Arrowhead Pond
"One" ~ U2 ~ Arrowhead Pond
"Kissing the Lipless" ~ The Shins ~ Ventura Theatre, Hollywood Bowl
"Take Me Out" ~ Franz Ferdinand ~ Greek Theatre
"Nothing Better" ~ The Postal Service ~ Royce Hall
"Anecdote" ~ Ambulance LTD ~ Glass House Pomona
"Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" ~ The Killers ~ Wiltern

PS - Happy birthday, Kris.

do i know what a rhetorical question is?

2007-05-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

Possibly the largest crowd for a Potential Difference concert.

Cono zoning out and forgetting lyrics.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone. I spent the weekend at home with my mom and family...mostly eating, shopping, and playing with Joseph. I like being home, but it's a strange mix of boredom, comfort, and frustration all at once. We'll see how things go when I move back there in a couple months.

As you can see in the pictures above, P-Diff played another show at Bruin Plaza. I think three consecutive performances there is enough to call it a residency. Unfortunately, we were a bit unprepared and not playing our best, but hopefully the kids enjoyed it.

Not much else to report aside from strange dreams and sleeptalking. The other night in my sleep I thought I lost some sort of receipt between the wall and my bed and I asked John Paul to tell the person under my bed to push it back up. Needless to say, John Paul was not helpful. I also had a dream that I rescued a raccoon and a fox while housesitting for a friend. I let them outside for a while and heard them rustling in the bushes, but then it turned out to just be John Paul rustling in his bed when I woke up. I was disappointed.