Wednesday, February 28, 2007

How many gov't employees does it take...

"Mr. Rodgers, we realize you were told that your passport would be delivered before you are supposed to leave the country on 3/9, however, due to the passport change and the fact that we remain understaffed, you will need to pay 75.00 to guarantee your passport is there before your scheduled leave date."

Thanks.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

So my lease on non-melancholy blogging has expired.

I've gotta get some of this out.

I decided this evening to clear off some HD space and move a bunch of stuff to my external. Lo and behold, I stumbled across a bunch of old Boxing Day demo's. Not the stuff you've heard a million times from Above It All, but the stuff we were working on for the follow-up prior to hitting critical mass and imploding.

Two of the tracks were the best that ever came out of us. They would beat out some of the Universal tracks - even in their un-produced, un-filtered, demo quality sound glory.

They reside on a few hard drives...3 or 4 to be exact...and will probably never be heard outside of a few people.

Those few words..."never be heard"...make me angry. But I think they make me more sad than anything. Sad that that time of my life is over - that the greatest band no one ever heard of will remain unheard for the most part - that my dream hit the wall and shattered, And I couldn't stop it. All I could do was scrape up what I had left and move on...to school, to growing up, to trying to figure out where I want to end up. To settling for second best, at least for the time being.

I dont know, I even feel like a sap writing this. I probably should have just had a few drinks and stayed away from the keyboard. Theres alot worse things that can happen. I still have my family. I still have Jen and Nemo. I still have my mind and my creativity. I still have my life and nothing wrong with me that I know of. All that said, I still grieve the loss of Boxing Day.

Theres a method to this madness somewhere, and I just have to stick it out to figure it out I guess.

It all seems a bit sharper I guess because I also found out this week one of my favorite bands, Concrete Blonde, has called it quits again after releasing some new stuff a few years back and touring behind it. No chance to for me to hear Wendy live, unless Johnette wanders out to the east coast for some touring behind her solo project.

Thanks to everyone who believed. Thanks to all of you who didnt, you pissed us off and made us work that much harder.

Thank you all, and goodnight.

N.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Pictures...PLEASE PLEASE CRITIQUE

Ok, so I got my first batch of photos processed rudimentarily and out on photobucket. My professor isn't helping much in the way of critiques, presumably because he knows I have no photography background.

I would appreciate it if any of you out there would take a look and critique me via comments here. What you like, what you don't like, even more detail if you wish as far as contrast, cropping, etc. I like what is coming out, I just want to know where I can improve. Feel free to point here from your blogs as well so maybe I can get more. Thanks in advance.

Here's da "pitchers" (as they say down here in the south). Make sure you view the full image so it doesnt look all pixelated.

Thanks a ton!

N.

PS - the photo of the reel is watermarked b/c I am considering a print run of it. I'm in correspondence with Penn via email to avoid any trademark issues. That's the rough version of it to further dissuade thievery.