i hold out hope but thats just me

so it's new years and you have no one to spend it with. Fireworks are going off . You stay at home and watch the ball drop and nothing seems to be going your way these days. You imagine yourself in New York city with all those happy people and then you turn on “radio days” and skip to the end so you can watch the new years eve party there and imagine you're with them welcoming in 1944 and filled with hope.real genuine hope.

here's a playlist to welcome in the new years with some of my favorite songs ever.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e44c2162f49e8f9b91b20cc0d07ba4d2aa23105704534e53

1.Skankin Queen by The Bodines

2. New Years Kiss by Casiotone For the Painfully Alone

3. Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders

4. Contrast and Compare by Bright Eyes

5. Go and Tell Your Father by The Cannannes

6. Tugboat by Galaxie 500

7. Black Cab by Jens Lekman

8. Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega

hopefully by tomorrow i will have put up my top albums of 2008. ive been lazy lately so i'll kick it in gear.

i hope you guys have a good new years spending it with people you love and hopefully 2009 will be a bit better than 2008.

have fun.

i miss you coming home late

Expect a new years eve mix tape/ blog when I'm not so tired.

p.s just watched 'the science of sleep' for the bajillionth time and I absolutely adore that movie.

goodnight world.

then you fade away

So today my family and I made our annual trip to Baton Rouge to stay with my grandparents for Christmas. We planned to leave at 8 this morning but of course we didn't leave till noon. It was cloudy and I slept most of the drive, and I we stopped at my favoriteeeeee grocery store restaurant in the world: Old Tyme Grocery in Lafayette that serve the best Po Boys in the world.

Luckily for you guys I have tons of free time on the trip/now and I documented my journey for you guys.


My favorite type of day.


the infamous.


my bro.


my feet.


my mom and my bro.

And on the bright side I arrive at my Grandmas house to find this waiting for me:


(No nuts in those cookies, duh)

God I love my grandma.

I just want to be your tugboat captain

For the past two years I have worked at a Christmas party for some of family friends. It's a pretty big party and I always end up bar tending for whatever reason and I'm kind of glad because do you know how awkward it is to serve food to someone? Not like stand behind the counter and dish out food but walk around with a tray and offer food to people. It's incredibly awkward so I am glad I just serve wine since I basically just stand around for a lot of the time. I had so much time me and my friend Alex took some pictures.



I try and be creative and artsy every once and awhile.


Me, Kayla, and Alex


If I were to be any character in the movie "cocktail" based off of this picture alone it would obviously be Tom Cruise.






I'm eating a shrimp, not pulling at my lip.

*Also for those people who actually read this blog (if anyone actually does) I think this is kind of turning into a picture blog. Ever since that movie blog with the pictures of Woody Allen films I feel like I need to post a picture for each post or whatever.

Friday

When I was in sixth grade I had my first girlfriend (then I went on a dry spell until my senior year in high school but thats another story). Anwyays me and this girl, Alex, never talked in person- only through notes that we passed. She was a year older than me and I havent spoken to her since the last day of school in sixth grade.

I still have all the notes she gave me since I'm a weirdo, and I was looking through them for the first time in 6 years last night and I found this one that I liked.



I guess I was shy back then too.

Wednesday

Well one year ago today I met you.
I'm not as sad about the whole situation but more so about being nostalgic for the way I was feeling at the time. I miss the nervousness of going out on a date and just thinking of how lucky I was that someone liked me. I remember driving home and being so so happy with the way things were going I would play "Obstacle 1" and yell "It's in the way that she poses!". It was just such a nostalgic time and I think that that month, with the coldness of the winter and just the excitement of everything, was probably one of the best of my life.

Anyways I just felt like I should write this down, it was fun and I miss it but it's in the past and now it only feels like a hazy memory in my mind.

Tuesday

Oh well.
At least you can't say I didn't try.

Monday pt deux

I really like this Casiotone For the Painfully Alone shirt and I was thinking about buying it....



but I think if I wore it I'd get stopped by everyone I met and would have to stand still so they could read it. Then they'd probably look at me like I was crazy.
(I have friends by the way, I just like the advice. )


I've been listening to The Cannanes a lot lately. I'll post one of their songs in my next blog if I remember.

Monday

Does anyone know when the National Geographic channel all of a sudden started being good? I think they have better shows than Discovery now. 

Saturday

So instead of studying I have decided to make a holiday play list for your guys with it's very own original artwork by yours truly! Try and hold back the excitement as best you can!

Anyways, I've been thinking of what I should put in my play list, like an overall theme, and I decided on mostly 80's/90's songs that deal with falling in love and falling out of it (which is basically most of the songs I listen to). Some of them deal with frustration ("Brassneck"), some with nostalgia ("Indian Summer") and others just sweet pop songs ("Pure").

The whole idea of this is to give you something to listen to when you're driving home from a New Year's Eve party and things may have not gone your way (or maybe they did) and you just need something that's a little sad.
Enough of me being a downer already, here's the list.



Track listing:

1. Hey Sandy by Polaris
2. Anorak Christmas by Nixon
3. Young Adult Fiction by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
4. New Mate by Figurine
5. Strange by Galaxie 500
6. Pure by Lightning Seeds
7. White by The Field Mice
8. Different Drum by The Pastels
9. Indian Summer by Beat Happening
10. Contrast and Compare by Bright Eyes
11. She Keeps Me Alive by Nixon
12. Brassneck by The Wedding Present
13. Theme From Nice by Nice

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jojngdguioz


For those of you who dont have never downloaded an RAR file I'll tell you how.

1.You'll need WinRAR to get the songs out of the folder that they are zipped in. It's a free program (even though it will say you have to buy it just exit that little box).

2. Once that is installed double click on the folder that you downloaded from me (it should say "and go our seperate ways" with a stack of books next to it)

3. Click on "extract" at the top and choose where you want to save the songs.

Wallah

Those instructions were if you were using Windows. If you have a mac you can probably just click on it and it will tell you how to extract it by linking you to the program you need.

Thanks if you downloaded-let me know what you think.

Wednesday

Andrew and I took our friend Courtney out to dinner and then to get coffee because she is transferring to North Texas next semester. We took her to Pei Wei, paid for her meal, and I bought her "The Secret History" as a going away gift (my favorite book of all time btw)

Anyways, aftwerard we went to Common Grounds and got some coffee and sat outside by the stage. We were basically the only ones out there for a while since it was freezing cold. After about fifteen minutes a lady comes up on stage and starts setting up on the stage for something- turns out she's a interpretive dance performer.
Now when I think of interpretive dance I think of stuff like people twirling those really long ribbons around them-well I was wrong.
She did weird dances like the ones where you make a triangle over your head with your arms and then rock your head from side to side; it kind of made me think of some ancient Egyptian dance or maybe a song by a one hit wonder eighties band.
Now there is only ten people outside watching her at this point, but she acts like its a packed house. Halfway through she gets the mic and starts giving a speech. At first I was like "what in the world..." she kept saying stuff like "seel all the records" and "its my sons birthday today, I am a dallas cowboy cheerleader" then she started talking about abusive relationships and how we are all God's children and not to forfit our morals for the person we love and that God has a person out there made for us that will love us like he wants us to be loved.
It went from being reallllllllyyyyyyyyyyy weird (and me kind of feeling sorry for her) to me actually enjoying listening to her.
She then proceeded to do a dance to that beyonce song "irreplaceable" and then concluded with a dance number to "New York New York".
It was quite the experience, and an enjoyable one at that.

Wednesday

Got in a wreck today-not too  bad, just a few scratches. It wasn't my fault and all in all it only took about an hour from when it happened and with the cops. 

finals suck but on the bright side the new "Pains of Being Pure at Heart" album leaked yesterday so I've had some new study music.

check 'em out. 

http://www.myspace.com/thepainsofbeingpureatheart

Also I have noticed that I have been using "-" far too much. It's kind of similar to my phase of using the most comas possible. Got to kick this habit before it gets any worse. 

Movies pt 1

So I guess on this blog I'll just post whatever I feel like writing about and since I am re watching "Stardust Memories" I'll talk about my two favorite Woody Allen movies (even though all of them are great).


Stardust Memories

I would have to say this is probably one of Woody Allen's most criminally underrated films. Shot in beautiful black and white its amazing. The dialogue is very realistic and we get to see the slightly morose Allen throughout.

Allen plays Sandy Bates, a well known and prolific film director, who is having a film convention for his life works. He travels to the hotel "Stardust" and when arriving he is filled with a sense of regret as he has to relive three of his past relationships.

It's heartbreakingly beautiful, with a mix of the happy times in of the relationships and the eventual break ups. We also see parts of Sandy's childhood memories. From performing a magic show to pretending he was a superhero. 

It's a great movie and I absolutely love the scene with Dorrie when she is laying on the floor and "Stardust" by Louis Armstrong is playing with Sandy talking. It has to be one of my favorite movie scenes ever. 

Favorite scene:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=K3GOu0HuMP4

Annie Hall

Although the first Woody Allen movie I saw was "Manhattan", "Annie Hall" was the one that got me hooked. I have never seen a movie shot so well. A mix between the early years of their relationship with the later ones is amazing. It is really a funny movie twinged with an underlying sadness. 

Allen play Alvy Singer, a neurotic comedian, who starts dating a woman named Annie Hall played by Diane Keaton. Their relationship is not filmed in order, instead you start off with perhaps the best opening scene of any movie I've ever seen: Alvy Singer standing in a room giving a monologue about his views on life and how they relate to his relationship with Annie. Its all really so sad, and I hate to admit this to anyone (especially the on the internet) but the last scene had me on the verge of tears. If you ever have the chance to see it (or if I know you I will probably try and force you to watch it at some point), its definitely worth it a million times over. 

Favorite scene:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxlfvI17oY

Monday

I kind of want to be a prolific blogger, like writing a blog everyday on two blogs. The problem is I dont have that many ideas.

Ill try and think of something tonight.