This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization --
it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away.
Your love will be
safe with me.

You could beg for forgiveness
as long as you like,
or just wait out the evening
and always ask me why.
Yes, you'll only leave me dry,
so I'll ask you kindly to make your way.

In this heat, we're lying in a boat that rocks side to side.
On the rivers, we'll float down.
In and out, we climb upon the banks and we watch the shadows
whilst the sun begins to float down.

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Good times with the fam. Callahans, Bouloses, Diazes, Lingats. Don't like Filipino uncle drinking parties, though. Is it so bad that I don't want to drink? Gah, anyway.

Bought the Metal Gear Solid Collection for the PS2 (well, my brother did, and that mean's it's mine since he doesn't like it), Dragon Quest VIII (for 15 dollars!), and Viewtiful Joe (for only 5 dollars!!). It's the best thing.

I need to save up for Disgaea DS, Chrono Trigger DS, & Persona 4. This is going to be an epic holiday gaming season. If available, I'd like to buy a Gameboy Advance SP, but we'll see what's in the cards. I need to work my butt off. Let's do this thing.

Olympics Party at my house on the 8th.

Planning for The Great California Trip 2008 today, so pack your bags if you're go.

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When was the last time I talked about music, specific music, not the oh-so-amazing-shows I talk about, never really specifying acts but rather the experience? Well, that and there's also talking specifically about Chromeo and Girl Talk, maybe that feature I did on the top played songs on my iTunes, but let's conveniently forget that, ok?

Anyway, I used to do this all the time, embarrassingly urging non-existing readership to listen up, but now that there are at least three of you out there that check this out, and only perhaps two regularly (you know who you are), I can try to impress my taste in music and we can talk about it later IRL, k bbs?

PONYTAIL

First of all, Ponytail are the most incendiary, spastic band I've heard in a long, long while. The video is for their song "Die Allman Bruders." Lately, I'm tired of mopey (boy)bands that leave me stiff and restless. I love my noise rock because you can move to it, and when you go to shows, you don't just stand and appreciate the music. I LOVE Ponytail. You should too! Yay!

Second album, Ice Cream Spiritual, out now. Here's a teaser of every track on the album on YouTube. The opening track, "Beg Waves," is stellar, "Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came from an Angel)" is transcendent. BTW, their first album's name was Kamehameha, which is all sorts of awesome in itself.

THE LOW LOWS

That tirade against "stand'n'ppreciate" music being said, I love La Blogotheque and coincidentally we both love the Low Lows. Maybe not as lightning-y (Ratatouille ref, fresh to def) as the previous band, and OK, fine, they're sorta mopey, but they produced a beautiful album, Shining Violence, that you would all probably like a lot better than Ponytail, despite Ponytail's obvious greatness.

Check out the French blog's treatment of Bon Iver while you're at it, since I've been hyping him and ya'll need an introduction. Actually, check out their feature on Elvis Perkins, St. Vincent, and Arcade Fire since you're there anyway. You're just an in-site search away from great music. It's not like your summer would be any less productive, right?

MOST EVERYTHING ON ABDC

My obsession with this show is spilling into my iTunes library. I've gone through phases when I can't stop playing or singing to myself the songs from the crews' routines.

These include yet are not limited to: Michael Jackson's PYT (Jabbawockeez, Week 5), Britney Spears' Toy Soldier (Fanny Pak, Week 3), Usher's Love in this Club (SoReal Cru, Week 2), Mariah Carey's Touch My Body (Fanny Pak, Week 4), Janet Jackson's I Get Lonely (SoReal Cru, Week 5), Ciara's Like a Boy (ASIID, Week 2), and of course Chris Brown's With You (SoReal Cru, Week 4). If you haven't noticed, SoReal Cru gets all the good songs. Slow Jams FTMFW!

I chose to feature this video, not only because crewmember Brian is a total cutie patootie (inducing me to 14-year old Tiger Beat subscribing girl giggles and squeals), but because I love their dance to this, especially the three guys in the centre around the 1:04 mark, which coincidentally also further cements his cuteness. Also, LAWL at Lil Mama's comment, "You put so much choreography into that piece, I had to try to pay attention to you guys." HAHA So you weren't before?

So I've been waking up to this song and I've been playing it nonstop since I heard it in Kevin's car for the first time, the lo and behold SoReal Cru is dancing to it a few days later. This is the cheesiest, cutest, sweetest summer song EVAR. If the line "Baby, you're the best part of my day" doesn't make you smile then you have an icebox where your heart used to be. Gatdang it makes you feel SooooGooooood. HAHA my mouth is agape at how adorable this song is. Read the lyrics for chrissakes! Amirite or amirite? Teehee

An aside: the lyrics site I linked is SongMeanings.net and I use it because it's one of the few moderately well layouted lyrics hubs and also because people get to comment their opinions of what songs, well... mean, in the comments section of each song. My favourite for "With You" is that "This song is about how columbus discovered america and all the hardships the indians went through due to the white man." HAHAHA True that, username heygurlheyyy. True that.

Also, from reading the comments, I've realised that "With You" has the same beat and acoustic guitar as "Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé. HAHA Oh well, I love this song (maybe even more now). Chris Brown's voice is butter.

This week's episode is a Missy Elliot Tribute and I'm SoExcited! Last time I make that awful pun, I SoSwear.

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Good week of purchases & music, but first of all, this is the first redesign (not really, just a palette swap) since the switch from gold and purple to orange and blue. Also, it's not in any way influenced by this photo.

Yester was a good day, watching The Curiosity of Chance which really just tried to hammer in as many gay coming-of-age scenarios into one movie. I did like that the straight guy that befriends the gay guy in this movie, whose name is Chance (whodathunkit) wasn't just trying to express his own gayness, just because meaningful straight guy, gay guy friendships in queer cinema seem to always be playing towards a romance.

Why aren't the token object-of-desire-straight-guys of queer cinema never just straight and open-minded? And if they are just friends, like one of Chance's sidekicks (the other being the also typical straight-girl-with-attitude-and-bicuriosity), he's just a flat character for comic relief? That is, until the of-course-it-was-gonna-happen-spoken-too-soon ending where they kiss and it's left up to the viewer to decide if it was Chance's fantasy or if it really happened.

Ah well, it's not like the movie was trying to be the Citizen Kane of queer flicks, it even marketed itself as a typical high school movie, but I like my high school movies to have depth, ambition, and bravado. You know, like Mean Girls.

Anyway, before that, Lorraine and I went to Gamestop and I picked up Persona 3 FES and Odin Sphere. Epic.

Movie at Lorraine's house with Nades, Kelsey, & Jack. I just remember the lawls during that movie but not what caused them, and know that the lawls were NOT borne from the movie itself. Afterwards, YouTube Videos, reminiscing about old Nickelodeon live action shows, & blueberry muffins.

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