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1/2 A Cold Show Please

Had another ticket thrown at me yesterday. “Hey Oz, come see Voodoo Glow Skulls and Mustard Plug at Bottom of the Hill with me”. Sweet! Alright, sure I was into them way back in high school, but I’m down for a good skankin’!

Now I love all genre’s of music, and I’ll make fun of them all equally, so lemme say this. Skankers are funny. And in ska music, there is only one kind of dance…the ‘Hop and Kick’

Exhibit A:

Chicken Dance, by Oz

Anywho, despite the chicken dancin’ going on around me, it was a great show, and like my post title says, it was 1/2 a cold show, because I knew 2 out of the 4 acts playing that night. On the list we had:

Random Hand
Knock Out
Mustard Plug
Voodoo Glow Skulls

All very good acts, dance inducing even for myself. And I say its a sign of a good show if I still can’t hear out of my left ear the next day.

Last time I was given a free ticket was also to a ska show and I had made the mistake of wearing flip flops to that show. Word of advice, don’t ever go into a ska show with flip flops expecting to leave with a complete pair. I was lucky that time, stayed on the fringe of the mosh pit and left with both my shoes. *phew*

Last night though I decided, there can’t be such a thing as a bad ska show. To me ska music is just so much more lively, and energetic, sometimes happy that you can’t help but tap your toes or swing around a bit. What are signs of a good show to you?

Contrasting

Man made organic, by Oz

I often feel the need to pump up the contrast on my photos. There’s just something to the look of them that I like. Perhaps its more saturated looking for me, or perhaps more aged. I’m not sure. But I feel its the ‘edge’ I need to get my photos to stand out. I often thought more advanced photographers were pulling off this contrast-y look by some settings in their camera. And well I hoped too because I find photo editing a bit tiresome and repetitive. So I’m still convinced there are some settings in my camera that I haven’t become familiar with that can achieve this look. Or at least make my photos suck less. I’ve had my camera for over a year now and I swear I’m only really using about 20% of its full potential, and I’m incredibly sick and tired of shooting in auto mode. Fudge if I stick with auto mode I’m better off using my Canon point and shoot.

Be Gone Car Balls!

Ladies and Gentleman, we are one step closer, ONE STEP CLOSER to freeing ourselves of these retched call balls! Let the state of Florida lead the way in this revolution!

From The Corner:

From Florida Capital News:

The Florida Senate on Thursday passed an amendment to impose a $60 fine on Truck Nutz, one brand name for the novelty item on vehicle trailer hitches that resemble the dangling southern end of a northbound bull.

The proposal would make displaying bull genitalia reproductions on a vehicle subject to a $60 fine, moving violations and points against a driver license.

Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, said he had a set on one of his vehicles, which he described as “all pimped out.” They are no more than “an expression of truckliness,” he said, although he’d acceded to his wife’s request to take them off.

“I find it shocking we’d tell people with metallic testicles on their bumpers that this is a violation,” said Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale. “There’s got to be better things for us to spend time debating.”

Geller suggested this ban might be followed by prohibiting silhouettes of nude women on truck mud flaps.

“We’re basically going to have the bumper police,” King said.

I have a feeling that Senator King is now the, uh, butt, uh, of a few jokes about acceding his “Nutz” to his wife. Probably best not to legislate the line between offensive and tacky — and the last thing we need to do is give the hosts of Top Gear more ammunition to attack American truck culture.

I only like spam in my sammiches

Twitter! I demand you clock in some more downtime and do something about that damn spam!

Anytime you twitter something, a damn bot scans your message for keywords and then you suddenly have a follower of that keyword.

Eggzamples:

I would love for this anxiety attack to go away. There really is no reason for it.
That somehow made it an open invitation for ‘panicattacks’ to start following me.

Yesterday was crazy. I did score myself an awesome Naish shirt and stickers though.
And don’t ask me how that made ‘debtconsolidation’ to follow my twitters.

I don’t get it, whats the point? Following me isn’t going to provide them with any kind of advantage or incentive that will bring in my business. Do these ‘marketers’ (using that term ever so loosely) honestly think I’m going follow them back and then click whatever spam link they may or may not post? But I guess that question applies to why spammers even bother with email. They figure with all the doofuses online someone is bound to click on “n Huge Saving For Pills >>> Buy ViagraPill, Cialix, Phentrimine, Levitr, SQMA, Tramadol drlvdt wdiciz fcuc34m”.

Speaking of doofuses, apparently Facebook has implemented its own integrated chat application. My opinion is still out on that. It looks nice, not too incredibly wonky. But I just don’t see the point. Part of the appeal of Facebook to me was that people could leave messages on my wall and I could get back to them whenever I wanted. I like the passive way of communication we’ve taken recently. I prefer anyway of conversing with text more appealing because I don’t have to spend as much attention to them if they were on the phone actually talking to me. I know I’m not the only one that likes it this way.

Not Overheard: Dirty lolspeak

“My perfect mate would speak lolcat to me in bed”

i cn beez havin oargazims nau? plzkthx
mah peenus lemme sho u it
lolyeah lolyeah lolyeah ehnnnnnn
no! they be takin mah rabbit

Ha.

Laughing Burning Squid Man

I’ve always considered Laughing Squid to be the internets version of Burning Man. Full of weed, alkaline dust and hot air.

But I’m ashamed to say that the past few weeks I’ve been looking forward to new posts on the inflated blog site.

My only guess as to why is because they let me in on neat lil’ events that are happening and I’d probably like to go to.

BUT NEVER BURNING MAN.

(oh and really, this was just a whiny post to test out my twitter updater)

What to do, what to do?

Sniff, by Oz

Cows make great photography subjects, quite unlike cats. Cows move very slowly, so no worries about that blurry cat head shot. They seem very interested in you, unlike our feline friends. They also provide great (and perhaps gross) photographic opportunities in which the cows will lick other cows urine will peeing. Yeah, I’ll spare you that shot.

When I’m not thinking about cow urine, I spend my time trying to figure out whether not my next photographic investment should be on a nice flash, or that dreamy Sigma 10mm lens a friend let me play with last week. I already have 3 lenses in my arsenal, so it would be logical to pick up a flash. I know if I were to go that route, I’d have to spend a good week reading up on all the… ‘flashy stuff’? I know nothing of flash, I can’t even get the built on flash on my D40x to do what I want.

So flash? Or Lens?

Rant: Up Yours Mezzanine

What are you?! A club? A music venue? I’m confused by the bouncer that was cupping my balls to double check that I didn’t bring in a gun or GOD FORBID a camera!

Seriously, drop the act. Your FiDi/Marina cologne makes your ass look fat.

I’ve been to shows here before, I noticed the ‘no cameras’ rule but always thought that was the bands choice. Oh no, lets check again…

You see what I see there? The camera dipshittery rule isn’t because of a band’s penis getting too big, its the Mezzanine’s vagina thats whining.

I’ve been to three shows here. First for The Knife. That was great, I was too busy swooning over the Swede siblings to bother with the pretentious stink that was floating above. Next up, Ghostland Observatory in November of 2007. Okay, again, not so bad, snuck in the camera, got some great shots. Again Ghostland Observatory in April of 2008. I was elbow deep in bouncer gropings and twatilicious bangles and bags. Thats it, you’re done Mezzanine, and no, I won’t be calling you tomorrow.

Eff you. Eff you and your $6 Coronas.

Morbid Curiosity

It just isn’t Richmond without hearing the symphony of sirens 5-6 times per day. Normally, they just pass through, a teaser of some hoodlums wrong doings, I think nothing of it and carry about my day.

But if you’re lucky you’ll get the full 10 minute orchestration, sometimes with encore performances of 5 minutes or longer. Today, I was in the middle of today’s performance, oh the thrill.

Oddly though, I actually had to stop myself and say ‘Oh thats not safe, you shouldn’t go down there and check it out like the curious cat you naturally are’. Damn it. I wanted to see some blood. So I pouted silently while making a mental note to check the news later in the day to see what happened. (I never remember to do that).

Curiosity is a strange thing. It drove me to watch 2 girls 1 cup, (which by the way is down right disappointing), it was responsible for my secret page views of rotten.com. I feel I can stomach anything, nothing is too gross for me. And I like to push my limits.

So that to me is what curiosity is more about, its about pushing myself. But never will I EVER EVER check out bonsai kitty again. ANY.THING.BUT.THAT.

Cold Shows

You know the shows you go to where you’ve never heard of the band but you go anyway? Anyone have a better term for this than ‘cold shows’?

Anywho, whatever I do call it, I always end up having a blast and oddly enough liking the opening act more than the headlining band.

For example:

The Bravery (3/13), opening act: Here Here
The Cribs (4/3), opening act: Ra Ra Riot
Mat Nathanson (11/2), opening act: Ingrid Michelson
Streetlight Manifesto (3/31), opening act: Zox

All those openers I thoroughly enjoyed, the only other cold show I’ve been to was Ghostland Observatory at Cafe du Nord (10/17/06) and they didn’t have an opener (well that I saw) and fell in love with them.

So safe to say, I’m down for any show whether or not I know or know of them.

Rock on!