Matt and Kim are the happiest people around

I’ve recently got into a Brooklyn-based duo, Matt and Kim. Like Mates of State, they are married, and carrying on a completely functional band.

And I love it.

They’re slightly younger sounding and more upbeat than Mates of State, but still quite similar.

Again, I love it.

Where did I first read about them…I was reading Jim Shearer’s IFC blog, “The Indie Ear,” and he posted a blog about the coolest couples in music, and Matt and Kim were one of them. Others includes Jason and Kori from Mates of State, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Gavin and Gwen, and Win and Regine from Arcade Fire.

So I was curious. Well, turns out that Jim posted another blog a few days later about Matt and Kim stripping down to their socks in their newest music video (“Lessons Learned,” above”). Then I was really curious, so I searched around the internets via Google and found their self-titled first album, and then the newest one, Grand.

Since then, they’ve been the other band that I haven’t stopped listening to, aside from City on Film, Hey Mercedes and Braid.

But anyway. When you do find Matt and Kim on…Myspace I think…and you will, “Don’t Slow Down,” “Daylight,” “Dash after Dash,” and of course “Lessons Learned” are my favorites. You can pick out some of your own, but I highly recommend them.

I actually read in an interview that the new record, Grand was recorded in Matt’s childhood bedroom. Isn’t that cute? Everything about them is cute. I swear they are always smiling. As you can see in the “Yeah Yea” video above. They still are smiling even if they are getting pelted by nasty food.

Oh, and today is a good day so far. Well, I lost internet connection for an hour, but for the Threadless prizewheel thursday videos, Kristen and Bob played a song I chose for Bob to DJ tomorrow night. I didn’t get a spin, but it’s okay, because it was “Paris is Burning” by Ladyhawke. Bad. Ass. Song.

Go listen to all of them.

Now!

❤ Abby

The end to a wonderfully relaxing weekend

Mother, Father and Libby came home tonight at 9:30, and it marked the completion of the most relaxing weekend I’ve ever had.

Seriously. Short film screening on friday. The zoo on saturday. Work out at the Y and out to dinner for mexican food yesterday. Downloading a buttload of music and taking the dog for a walk today. And only a little homework. I have yet to finish tomorrow’s reading for Faust, but I’ll do that after I’m finished writing this.

I’m pretty sure I’ve downloaded almost 200 songs in the last 4 days. Most of them were some work of Bob Nanna’s, and some were Matt and Kim, some were Chester French, the Amelie soundtrack, Aloha, and The Go! Team.

I don’t know why I had the sudden inkling to find a bunch of Bob Nanna’s stuff, but after watching the Prizewheel thursday videos from Threadless, I became a little curious about the people that work behind the tees.

And what I found was a treasure trove of musical projects on Nanna’s part. I believe he’s been a part of four bands, and just recently, started up another one. And all of this since the early 90s. The only one I could find online for the low low cost of nothing was Hey Mercedes, the last band he was in, which is similar to The Get Up Kids, Jimmy Eat World… late 90s indie rock. The earlier ones were more punky – makes sense, since the guys were younger. But I’ve developed a little infatuation with Nanna’s music. It’s nice to get little jingles each week for Threadless and covers on the Prizewheel thursday videos. What are the Prizewheel thursday videos? Well, they’re only available for Threadless’ Facebook friends, hosted by Bob Nanna and Kristen Studdard. They ask random questions for fans to write back in the comments, and they pick people to spin the wheel to give them gift cards, dance parties, “one of each,” in which the winner gets one of each of that week’s new Threadless tees. And what makes Prizewheel thursday so much more entertaining is that Bob and Kristen record a video each hour from 11 am until 5 pm. For me, it’s from 9-3, since Chicago is two hours ahead, but it’s still funny.

I completely went off on a tangent…HEY! But what I was trying to get at was the prolificacy of Nanna’s music groups. And they all have something a little different to offer. I’m listening to his solo project, The City on Film, at the moment. It’s softer and more acoustic that any of Nanna’s previous bands, and similar to Rocky Votolato and the New Amsterdams. I highly recommend you hit up his last.fm pages.

The City on Film
Hey Mercedes
Braid
Friction

And perhaps check out the Threadless mini-jingles on BNanna’s Threadless profile. My favorite is “Africa.”

Heck, just go HERE.

Don’t sue me for having a little crush.

I can’t post any of the City On Film stuff since they’re .m4p files, itunes DRM-protected, but here are a couple Hey Mercedes songs.
Stay Six
Unorchestrated
And one of the Threadless jingles. It’s appropriate.
Blog

I’m eagerly awaiting some recorded material from Certain People I Know.

And one last random thought. I wish all of the world looked and operated as Montmartre, France in Amélie. Where I could leave notes in men’s pockets and they would come find me in my brightly-colored apartment and then kiss me without speaking. Oh how life would be so much more interesting.

And I didn’t realize that Nino in the movie was Mathieu Kassovitz, who directed La Haine, a French film we watched in my Intro to Film studies class fall quarter. Now that was random.

❤ Abby

No Oscars or comic books for us.

No, we didn’t. But all the movies were really good, so I didn’t feel bad.

First of all – I HATE TRAFFIC. As stupid as I was to leave at 4 p.m. driving south on 1-5, I was on the highway for an hour and a half. I literally made it 10 exits in almost a half an hour. That’s the one thing that makes me so angry – breaking on the highway and being so fucking cautious that it slows down the cars behind you for a good 20 miles. I’m surprised that my voice isn’t gone, because I was screaming at the top of my lungs for 10 miles, and I swear my head was going to explode. So I made it to Michael’s apartment right at 5:30, which is when the Capital Theater opened their doors, but it was okay because when we got their at 6:10, the show hadn’t started yet. Little did I know – the screening was at the same time as the Arts Walk so Capital Way was blocked off for a good three blocks. I sure made it easier to find the theater in the daytime though. Last year, we were basically lost for 20 minutes trying to find it.

Shit! I forgot to ask if we could have our tapes back! I was in such a rush to go pee that I didn’t ask Cooper. Dangit. I don’t even remember what was on that tape after our film. I think it was footage from my project fall quarter for Critical Approaches to Mass Comm. where I interviewed Libby and Courtney. At least it isn’t anything embarrassing.

Our film was second to last on the schedule, so we got to sit through basically all the videos before getting to ours. But that also made me more nervous, because ours wasn’t nearly as good as some of the other videos. This one – called Untitled, that won audience favorite – did the idea that we thought of at one point, to just make it about deciding what to do the movie about. It was so funny. And it was one of my favorites.

Overall, the films were much better this year than last year, which made me feel worse, because Sweet Adeline was better than Video Games. But then again – I had a lot of shit to do last weekend so I didn’t have time to do anything better. I think there was only one that was really dumb and didn’t make any sense. There were a couple other ones that didn’t make much sense, but they were shot really well the editing was really well done.

The film that won first place – Fir – was one of them. I wish I could find it on Youtube, but it wouldn’t have the full effect, because instead of editing in the music, they played live music as the film played. Drums, guitar, distortion pedal, electric violin – it was all very cool. Michael said at one point that it made him uncomfortable because it was so bizarre. Kind of frightening too. But deserving of the first place prize – since it was so damn original.

I found several videos on Youtube, which were pretty funny – not any of the winners, but got a lot of laughs.

ROFLMAO.

There were 19 films total, and ours was number 18. I will say that we got laughs at points where people were supposed to laugh. The reactions were appropriate – when I got socked in the tit, people went “ooohhhh.” When the movie was over, people clapped. But the points where people laughed the most was when Libby and Courtney first popped on screen, and when Libby zoomed in on Ian’s, or “karate kid’s” face towards the end.

So I was proud of our movie, but not remotely expecting to win anything, which is how we felt last year. I wasn’t bitter this time.

Which is good.

But I have to go get ready to leave for the zoo. I’m going today with my Uncle, his friends and their kids. I haven’t been to the Point Defiance zoo in a good 10 years. So it should be fun. I’ll take LOTS OF PICTURES. And it’s a nice day, so that makes it much better.

It snowed in Reno last night. Seriously. Libby got there thursday and Mom and Dad – GET THIS – got there last night. But that’s not the funny part. When Mom and Dad woke up at the butt crack of dawn yesterday, they were going to park their car at my uncle Jerry’s house. So they got there, in Auburn, and my Dad checked online to see if he could print their plane tickets. APPARENTLY, my father doesn’t know the difference between AM and PM. Yeah. He woke my mom up that early to then come back here at 9. And the drive back at 5:30 to make their 8 P.M. flight. I have material to make fun of my father for a good week now. Haha.

I vlogged when I got home last night.

❤ Abby

Dr. Faustus makes me angry

I read Dr. Faustus senior year of high school, during the spring, so I don’t remember anything from it except the demons and Mephistopheles. I honestly remember Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (even though I HATED IT) more than Dr. Faustus, mostly because of Joey’s interpretive dance. I’ll see if I can find a link to it so I can post it.
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I found it!
Joey Interprets Joyce
It’s hilarious. Especially if you read the book.
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But I’m currently reading Goethe’s Faust for my literature class, and if I’d remembered anything from Dr. Faustus, it would have made writing our daily responses much easier, also today’s lack of comprehension could be attributed to my insane weekend. Once I actually start reading Faust, it will be easier to get into. Hopefully. I don’t want this whole quarter to be me half-assing these books. Next week will be better. Or just tomorrow will be better. I didn’t feel like going to class today because we were still talking about Gulliver, and I needed to do homework for my other class, and start on my paper on Gulliver for my literature class.

But I’m blogging instead.

Lordy I’m easily distracted.

The paper came out today, which is a relief, because I was worried that somehow the universe would hate me and make the printer do something wrong or the formatting would be wrong or all the pages would be blank.

Front page

I’m just glad that everyone worked out alright, because we had to do all the layout from my Mac, because CS3 isn’t convertible to CS2. Fucking Adobe.

So I drove down to Olympia last night to drop off our movie, and I almost couldn’t find Old School Pizza, but I found it quicker than I did last year. Thankfully, it wasn’t dark like February of last year either so it was easier to see the street signs and the big building will graffiti all over the walls outside – that was obviously Old School. But unfortunately, Cooper and Zack weren’t there yet when I arrived, so I left it with the cashier. Hopefully they got it because she said she’d been collecting entries from other people. I’ll be seriously pissed if they didn’t get it, because then this weekend would have been for NOTHING. Hell, it was fun anyway. Just stressful and made me age a good 3 years.

Not really. But I’m off to read what I have to of Faust, and maybe get some lunch. Ooo, maybe I’ll get that yummy salad with the raspberry vinaigrette, craisins, candied walnuts and feta cheese. It’s absolutely scrumptious.

❤ Abby

Video Games

I’m finally finished shooting, capturing, and editing our movie. We did one last shot this morning and all the voiceover and music.

Why, is this entry titled Video Games, you may ask?

Well, that’s the title of our movie. It’s about “live action” mortal kombat-style gaming. Instead of video game characters, Libby, Courtney, Lindsay, and Ian were our characters. Laura and I were the ones actually playing the game. I was so stressed this weekend, because Indesign CS3 doesn’t convert to CS2, so I had to do all the layout on my computer for the Ledger.

And when I got home from the Ledger, I couldn’t find the cord to capture the video from my camera, so I didn’t get editing until 10 o’clock. I went to bed at about 3:30 a.m, after all the initial editing was done. This morning I woke up to shoot one last scene with Libby and finish up this thing.

I got 5 hours of sleep. And I’m not tired.

At all. It’s weird. Now all I have to do is drive my tape down to Old School tonight at 7 to turn it in. I just want to get it overwith, and got watch all the films on friday.

I’m just pissed that I have to miss James Carville tonight.

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And now I give you –

VIDEO GAMES

I’ll upload a higher quality one later.

Yay!

❤ Abby

We’re getting “shot to the face.”

I wished I didn’t have a paper due next thursday on Gulliver’s Travels.

Because I have WAY too much crap to do this weekend. Layout, start reading Faust, response paper and literature essay due thursday….AND SHOOTING.

Yes, it is that weekend again, the one that consists of three intensive days of filming our short masterpiece. I’m not sure exactly how long it has to be – that we’ll find out tomorrow night from the prompt, as well as the rest of the limitations for our story. However, I’ve been brainstorming some ideas, so we don’t have to cram brainstorming and scripting friday night and saturday morning before we head out to Tacoma for shooting.

Why will we be shooting in Tacoma, you may ask?

Well, I will be doing double duty – layout and filming at the same time. But thankfully, Libby doesn’t have a tournament this weekend, so I have her as my minion all weekend to help. Last year she only had one small part in making our video – her last line “Shit.”

Needless to say, she’ll have a much larger part in making this movie this time around.

I’m really hoping that we win something this year, because last year’s prizes were very delectable, at least they were to Ian. He was practically foaming at the mouth when they announced a grocery bag full of comic books as one of the prizes.

We still need to think of a team name. We didn’t have one last year and it was lame, because all the groups who made good movies had cool names.

For some reason, based on last year’s video, I wanted to call our team “Stanley’s Bitches.” I don’t know why, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. As well as the crazy storyline of Stanley, the cheating blender, headlong into alcoholic oblivion, selling his body on the streets of Tacoma. With some sort of car chase involved. But I want some sort of deeper social commentary involved. That’s how “Sweet Adeline” ended up last year. That’s the thing that pissed Ian and I off about some of the other films in the competition – some didn’t make any sense and didn’t have a lot of substance. We’re hoping to redeem ourselves this year.

Just a reminder.

❤ Abby

“I’m going to marry him.”

That’s what my sister said after she saw Kris’s performance on American Idol tonight.

Even though he’s 23, and he’s married already. But still. *Swoon*

This will be taken down within a few hours, because Fox hates Youtube, but I figured I’d post it now, and replace it with some other audio recording later.

Not only is Kris irresistibly fine, he can sing, play guitar AND piano, AND he chose the Oscar-winning song from Once – a pretty obscure song compared to the rest of the cheesetastic shitballs that the rest of the idols chose. I honestly thought that if Lil Rounds would have chosen Whitney from Officer and a Gentleman, I would have thrown the remote at the television.

I don’t know what the hell Randy was talking about when he “didn’t get” Kris’s performance, but a performance I “didn’t get” and who I never really “get” is Danny Gokey. He has no originality, can’t change up a song at all, choses constantly cheesy songs enough to make a middle-aged woman fangasm, and is annoying.

What’s also driving me crazy about American Idol news is how much the freaking talking heads are shitting over Adam’s gayness. “Will his sexuality damage his game?” Bill O’Reilly said last week on his “show.” I only caught it because it was on the television at the YMCA. I can’t escape it.

But anyone who’s just catching on to Adam’s dragtastic photos online are dumbasses. We’ve all known it for over a month, and it obviously hasn’t hurt his game at all yet. I honestly think it’s helping his chances. We haven’t had an openly gay idol since Clay Aiken, and it’s about time we had another one.

This gif makes me laugh.

❤ Abby

These are not spirit fingers. THESE are spirit fingers.

There are chocolate eggs on my television.

Mostly because my sister wasn’t here yesterday morning to help me collect them. I know, it’s retarded that my mother stuff hides chocolate crunch eggs around the living room, but hey, it’s nostalgic.

But my sister as at church yesterday morning, so there was no point in collecting them all for myself, because then it would completely gluttonous. We’ve just been gradually eating them throughout the day. I’m actually quite glad that we didn’t collect them all yesterday, because then we’d be consuming even more calories than we did yesterday.

It was ridiculous.

Deviled eggs, quiche, cheese potatoes, massive amounts of apricot-mustard glazed ham, carrots (the one somewhat healthy thing) and lemonade cake.

It was really good.

But I feel so fat and bloated today. Not only did we eat so much cheese, salty ham makes you retain water, so I’ve basically been expending liquid all day. And dealing with my neurotic dog.

I swear she has anxiety problems. I honestly don’t know what the hell her problem is half the time. I took her to the vet today to get an allergy shot, and she was whining even before we left, and even moreso once we got there. I don’t blame her for that, since she’s had a couple bad nail-clip experiences at the vet. She’s been napping the whole time since we’ve been home pretty much. I wish I had the luxury to nap all the time.

We should have brought her to Grandpa’s house yesterday to play with Lucy, but there were too many people there, and not enough room in the car with all the food. Millie would have had fun though, cause Lucy’s getting quite big. She’s almost too big to hold in your lap anymore. Which is why I took advantage of her size yesterday, and held her whenever I could.

God, my lips are chapped right now.

Nevermind, but I hate mondays. It serves a rest, homework day before classes tomorrow, but I really haven’t done any homework today. I’ve been doing dishes, working on my novel, and I just watched Bring it On on Encore.

If you just said those last three words, you say “on on on” three times on a row. Wow.

I forgot how inexplicably entertaining that movie was. It’s nine years old, and yet it’s still funny. And at the time, I had a major crush on Jesse Bradford, who appeared in all of like…three movies that I ever saw. Bring it On, Clockstoppers (the lame time-bending Nickelodeon movie), and Swimfan (stalker thriller which featured Bradford shirtless most of the movie). I actually just realized that he was Balthasar in Romeo + Juliet.

He’s nice to look at, now that I think about it.

But I love Bring it On. It’s so campy and absurd, but hilarious. And it was before Kirsten Dunst became Kirsten Drunkst, the twat.

“These are not spirit fingers. THESE are spirit fingers. And THESE are GOLD.”

Such a timeless line.

I just hate all the stupid sequels they made after the original in 2000. Bring it On Again; Bring it On: All or Nothing; and Bring it On: In It To Win It.

Yeah, I only saw All or Nothing because my sister wouldn’t change the channel from ABC Family, but it’s dumb. As are, I’m guessing, the other two.

None can live up to the hilarity and originality of the first movie. Yay satire!

I should go, because I’m kind of on a roll with my novel. I finally wrote an outline, so hopefully it will give me some direction. I just hope I can fit the whole story into one novel. I’m not sure right now, but I’ll see how the first 100 pages go. Then I’ll know how the rest will go.

I can’t believe Bret chose Taya.

I hated this fake skank.

I know, it’s pathetic, but I watch Rock of Love. I honestly do, and I feel terrible for watching it, because it is what’s frying our brains, as well as our eyes from Bret Michael’s disgusting tan. Shows like this are what people talk about when they talk about the “dangers of television.” They aren’t talking about NCIS, The West Wing, or Dexter. They’re talking about shitty television about skanky chicks with fake tits trying to get famous by sleeping with grotesque has-been rock stars. And what doesn’t make sense to me is how he was ever famous. Poison SUCKED ASS. A lot. And by the look of them, probably literally. I never got why girls were into guys like this in a 80s. At least Bon Jovi was cute, and like…guy cute.

They look more female that I do.

And, is it me, or does Bret look like Renee from cycle 8 of ANTM?

It might just be me, but the lips and eyes look real similar. The chin is really the only big difference.

Weird.

❤ Abby

My mom’s newly-found stolen purse

So, I finally went through my mom’s purse that the road clean up guy brought over a few days ago.

The purse in question.

This WAS a checkbook.

Nine-year-old floss.

See the date? This little notebook was rusted shut because of the pen, so I tried prying it open.

Mmmm, rusty paper.

I hate it that the Bon Marche doesn’t even exist anymore. Stupid Macy’s.

I don’t even remember the last time my mother wore horrendous lipstick like this.

Apparently, the stupid kid who stole my mom’s wallet didn’t know how to use a credit card.

Old Bic pen! I wonder if it still works…hmmm.

I wish there was some other sort of clue, or story to anything that may have been left in it. Maybe I just have a secret wish to find something that’s been lost for so long. Like a message in a bottle, or a time capsule, or even a TREASURE CHEST. That would awesome.

Note to self : find a treasure chest.

❤ Abby

All eyes on them in the center of the ring just like a circus

I didn’t go to the Britney Spears concert last night. Let me set the record straight. But being in Tacoma at the same time as all the wasted chicks in short skirts and glittery tops gave me a more than interesting experience.

My last class gets on at 8:30. Right after the concert began, and unbeknownst to me, the people from the Tacoma Dome turned the parking garage into $10 event parking. I’m not sure when they made that switch, but I’m so glad I didn’t skip my first class yesterday. A jumble of girls in their skank-gear were all waiting at the Link stop in front of the school, and that’s where all the fun began. They were dancing around in their hooker heels and singing Womanizer for all the street to hear. Needless to say, we don’t normally get people like that on the light rail. As soon as the Link pulled up to the station, it was already more filled than usual, so all of us students stood and grabbed onto a railing.

I will never grab the railing again. It as this menagerie of tanned bimbos with their bra straps hanging out and they equally tan gay pals, who took way too much advantage of everyone’s personal space. Girls were tripping over on to people, and this guy almost fell into me when the chicks asked him to take their picture. And one of the gay men standing towards the front of the bus – I shit you not – “dropped in like it’s hot” against the window and the railing-turned-stripper-pole.

Like I said, I’m avoiding touching anything on that light rail from now on.

Again the bimbos sang their little hearts out with some of Britney’s “oldies but goodies.” The same guy who used the railing as a stripper pole started up a rousing round of “I’m a Slave 4 U.” (I hate when songs who text language in the song.) It was hilarious.

Because they were all hammered.

At least the Link ride was funny.

Getting out of the garage – not so much.

As soon as I took the elevator up to the 7th floor – where I always park – I could see the vast amount of cars parked everywhere around the dome. Somewhere along the water front there was even a loud speaker playing songs from “Circus.”

It was Britney Mania.

The whole garage was full up to the 5th floor, but the top two were pretty bare, but what I noticed as I was driving down the many floors – all these cars are really nice cars. There were maybe 10 beater cars in the entire garage. Every car parked was extra shiny, and either extra large, or just extra luxury. I was interesting because normally the cars parked at the garage are a wide array of models and price-ranges, but not tonight. These were cars of spoiled teenagers and well-off twenty-somethings.

What you can learn about a population when you pay attention to the cars parked in the largest parking structure in town.

I had three near misses on the six floors I travelled down, these chicks in huge gas-guzzlers not really contemplating someone coming around the corner. They drove through the aisles like they were the only car in the garage, straddling the center line – making me maneuver around the bitches.

Pissed me off.

What pissed me off even more was after I got out of the garage. I’d gone through one traffic light, and once I got past the intersection, this lady had parked all cockeyed, half in a non-parking spot, half in the road. I sat there for 30 seconds, ready to honk vigorously at the woman, but there were cops and street guards around, so I was “patient.” And then two tween girls rushed across the road to get in their mommy’s car.

Fucking kidding me?

I’m so glad I don’t need my mother to drive me to concerts anymore, and I’m so glad that I don’t have any interest in going to concerts at ginormous venues used for things other than music. The biggest venue I actually like going to is the Paramount, and it’s beautiful AND comfortable. The Key Arena kinda sucks. And the Tacoma Dome – well, I’ve been to two graduations, stars on ice, and Disney on Ice. Seriously. I was little, so shut up.

I had multiple stressful moments with drivers all the way home. Pussy drivers who hesitate when they are trying to merge are the WORST. Ugh. It happened three times. And I was getting close to Olympic Drive, going 58 in a 55, this douchebag passed me – and honked! I’d understand honking if I was going like 45 in a 55, but I was technically SPEEDING. And once he passed me, he really didn’t get that far, because the rest of traffic slowed down when it went from three to 2 lanes.

I hate other drivers.

❤ Abby