Feeling My Way Home

So, the other day at the bank, the cute teller girl gave me her number. Great way to start off your day.

I know I've been talking about blogging about southern hospitality. I know, I know. I'm lazy. Sue me.

Things I plan on purchasing once I fall into a large sum of money:

• a new iPhone.
• a new vehicle, probably a truck.
• an parking garage to longboard in.
• more longboards for said garage.
• a massive underground house.
• an ostrich as means of transportation in said house.

I went and saw Inglorious Basterds this weekend with some friends. Actually, it was my friends anniversary with his girlfriend, and he invited me to the movies with them. I was like, "Ok?". But....he and I had talked about going to see the movie when it came out, but he had also promised to go see it with his girlfriend. So basically, I'm tagging along on their evening anniversary date, haha. To be completely honest, it wasn't awkard at all, and I can say that with no sarcasm, whatsoever. I seriously forgot it was their anniversary. We were all just having a good time, friends hanging out at the movies, like you did when you were younger. Good times.

I hate when people say, "I don't mean to be a bitch, but..." or "I don't want to seem like a dick, but...". It doesn't soften the blow of dumbass-ness that you're about to lay on me.

If ya bum's leakin'....ya need to be seekin'...Roc-a-Pads.

Radiated Men Will Eat The Flesh Of Radiated Men

I'm growing a mustach.

So remember how I said I was going to keep you posted on my garden that I was growing in my backyard? Yeah, I just got lazy (big surprise). I mean, it's still out there. It's just that I don't want to have to go out there and take a picture everyday of some garlic and green onions growing in my backyard. But the good news is that everything is growing pretty good out there. I cut a stalk of green onions for some dip I made. Quite delectable, I might add.

Black people can get sunburned. Mind boggling, I know! I guess I got burnt while out at Summer Fest. I remember about two days after the Fest, my back and shoulders stung to the touch, but only slightly, nothing painful. And then on Sunday, I noticed that my shoulders were peeling. I'm a walking contradiction!!!

I had planned a pretty extensive blog post about southern hospitality, or probably just hospitality in general. I'm saving that lecture for tomorrow. I'm kinda zapped of energy. I came back from my two week gym vacation. I'm taking it kinda easy, but not really. Whatever. I worked out, came home and took a nap, and now I'm ready to go back to sleep. Marvelous.

'05 plus 4 pennies!

Prepare The Laserbeam

I'm hungry.

Yesterday, around 5:30p, my mom tells me I need to drive up to Waco to drop some stuff to my sister. I had been home all day, doing absolutely nothing. Sitting around on my ass. Watching anime and eating cereal. And at 5:30, she decides it's a good time to tell me I need to drive to Waco. But whatever, though. I made the trip up there, dropped the goods off at my sisters apartment, then went to hang with my friend Joey. Joey was the first dude I met when I moved into the dorms at SFA. So I head over to his place. We catch, reminisce over our first days of college together. In walks Joey's roommate, a guy of similar height, size and stature to that of T-Pain (including the dreads). He's in a tizzy because he wants all of us to go check out this bar. The reason being that it was karaoke Not wanting to upset anybody rocking dreads, we proceed to go to this bar called Scruffy Murphy's. Literally a hole-in-the-wall. But a packed hole in the wall. Why so packed. Karaoke, my friend, karaoke. Since the sign-up list was hella long, we decided just to sit and watch others make complete asses of themselves...err, I mean sing like angels. Fast forward to about 1:45am. All three of us are feeling pretty good from the beverages we've had (2 Long Islands never hurt anybody). The DJ annouces that this will be the last karaoke song of the night. A loud roar of "Booo!!!" goes up. Up on the stage emerges two stereotypical frat guys, getting ready to sing "Gangster's Paradise". I say to myself, "This should be quite interesting". The music starts, and the guys begin to "rap". I put rap in quotation marks because I most certainly wouldn't call it rapping. It sounded more like two guys stumbling over words that they once had memorized 10+ years ago to be cool, somehow had forgotten them after all these years. Joey's roommate, Ken, had had a few more Long Islands than I had. After the first verse, he looks at me and says, "Yo, let's get up there and steal their song." Again, not wanting to upset T-Pain's doppeganger, I went along with him. We muscled our way through the crowd, and ran up onto the stage. I'm not going to lie, those two guys did look a little startled, but who wouldn't if they saw T-Pain Jr. and the black Incredible Hulk run up to them while bumbling through a one-hit wonder song, haha. Once on stage, we both preceeded to steal the mic from each guy and take over. Once we did, I heard a cheer and applause from the crowd. We finished the song like it should've been done, with two black guys bumbling through the song. That way, if we mess up, they'd say, "It's ok, they're black guys, they know what they're doing.

Done posting for the night. I know my phone is somewhere in my room, I just don't know where I set it down. Oh well...

Happy International Lefthanders Day.

Panama Hell Hole

Hello Erica.

It's Wednesday afternoon. I'm taking a break from cleaning my bathroom to write this. Today for lunch I made chipotle enchiladas. Quite tasty, I might add. I've taken a week off from the gym, as well as this week, too. I figured it was time for a break from the weights. Waking up at 7 for 8am workouts, then working 8-hour shifts everydays for 4 months can certainly wear your body out.

I'm really diggin' the fact that I'm blogging again. Although I know nobody reads this, I thinks it's a grand way to chronicle my thoughts and feelings. I just find it entertaining to read my older posts and notice how much I've changed in my ideals, beliefs and my word usage, haha. Whatever.

John and I with Asli Omar, the singer for The Tontons.

Acid Boy

Biting the bullet.

This past weekend I attended the Free Press Houston Summer Fest. It was advertised as "Two glorious days of music, art and summer love". To be completely honest, it was exactly that...and more. Much, much more. I'm going to try and relive this past weekend, while spinkling in some humor and pictures along the way, mmmk? Get it? Got it? Good.

(John) Pham and I had been planning on going to Summer Fest just to see The Tontons for about 3 weeks. When I went to the Summer Fest and read the lineup of acts, I knew I had to go both days. Scheduled to perform were The Tontons, Fat Tony, Prince Paul, Devin The Dude, and The Octopus Project. In my mind those were the only groups that I wanted to see, but I came back each day with a handful of other bands that I became a fan of.

So, at first it was just Pham and I, then another friend of ours, Jill overheard us talking about it and wanted to tag along. Why the hell not. The more, the merrier. Plus, she's still kinda new to Houston, and I thought it'd be cool for her to check out our music scene. All three of us head down to Eleanor Tinsley Park on Saturday, and we get there around...hmmm, I'd say 12ish, 12:15. We walk through the gates, without having to show any tickets or even having my backpack checked, which I found quite odd. But I didn't care, I was pumped to have a jolly good time. The first thing is see is the sprawling park set underneath the fantasic Houston skyline.

It was still hella early, so there weren't that many people there yet. We walked past the massive mainstage, navigated our way past the Merch Tent (as it came to be known by) and other vendor tents to the second stage. A group calle Juz Coz was the first group we saw perform. A hip-hop group consisting of two members, Pham and I really were groovin' to there song "Ilovevideogames", which was made up of old Nintendo sound effects and talked about how you used to leave you Sega on pause while you slept so you wouldn't have to start over the next day.

Now, before I forget, I want to introduce a very special person to EVERYBODY at Summer Fest. He goes by the name Michael, or "Happy". The three of us simply called him "Acid Boy", for the simple reason that we thought this dude was on an acid trip. During Juz Coz's set, we saw Acid Boy rolling around in the grass and dancing around in a really weird way. You know that stereotypical image of hippies at Woodstock? Imagine that embodied in a dude (probably in his early 20's) at 12:30 on Saturday afternoon...in Houston. Words can't describe this guy. He literally became the unofficial mascot of the festival, as Of Montreal put it.

Such a free spirit, this kid was.

After watching Juz Coz, we wondered around to the park for a while, to kill some time before The Tontons played. Mind you, it's early August in Houston. The heat was killer. Dude were taking there shirts off, chicks walking around in swimsuits, really laid back. There was a massive cooling tent adjacent to the main stage. It had these huge shop fans blowing air and misting fans to cool people off. VitaminWater was nice enough to provide free bottles of VitaminWater to everybody. Back behind the cooling tent, near the playground, they had set up dunk tank and a large inflatable slip and slide. After touring the park grounds for about an hour, we headed towards the mainstage to catch The Tontons. What a great band, seriously. There's nothing else to say other than they rock.

Summer Fest had it's fare share of colorful characters. They definately helped add to the atmostphere that made Summer Fest a great festival. Insert the Hug Guy. This dude was walking around with a sign that read "Hugs Not Drugs" and offered free hugs out to everybody. You couldn't help but laugh as he walked up to you giving free hugs. Haha, around 3pm, when it was hell hot outside, I saw that he had changed his sign to read "sweaty Hugs Not Drugs"<---(pre-sweaty hugs)

Now, around this time, Pham and Jill were getting hungry. So after The Tontons's set, we went to the concessions tent. People were ready for the concessions tent, but the concessions tent wasn't ready for all the people. It took them 25 to cook 4 burgers. Luckily for me, I had eaten before I left the house. After those two jokers finished eating, we went to the cooling tent to snatch some VitaminWater. They did have regular water for sale, keyword "for sale". I wasn't going to pay for lame-ass water when they were giving away supercool water for free. Around this time I heard this new group playing on the main stage. It was a mix of latin musica and ska. It was hypnotic, I mean, there wasn't one person in the crowd gathered in front of the stage what wasn't dancing. Since it had that ska feel to it, kids were skanking and moshing at the same time, which was a first for me. I couldn't help myself. I jumped right in the middle of that mess. A cloud of dust had risen up infront of the stage from all the movement. Unfortunately, I forgot to grab a cd. Don't worry, I'm already working on getting a copy in the near future. Los Skarnales, my favorite group of the day.

Wow, looking back, I've typed a lot, and I'm not even halfway through the day yet.

Let's see...

After Los Skarnles, we watch Fat Tony and Super Smash Bro. perfom. A very good hip-hop duo that everybody should check out. Don't sleep on these guys. I'm not going to go into too much detail on all the artists I saw. I'm going to save that for another post on the Houston music that I've recently discovered.

To avoid the heat in the afternoon, I decided that we should go hit the slip-n-slide. We walk over to there, only to discover that it had been deflated. So I headed to the dunking boot to cool off. Thanks alot to whoever set that up, by the way. I remember talking to some guys while hanging out at the dunking booth. After about 30 minutes of dunking and getting dunked, I decide to pack things up and head on. This is where I meet Zack. He asked me if I'd seen his friend we'd been talking to. He had tried calling him, to no avail. I said I hadn't, but he was welcome to hang out with us until he did. Zack took me up on our offer and hung out with us while I attempted to dry off. Zach is originally from Pittsburgh, now living in Austin. He came down to Sumer Fest with a friend of his, also from Pittsburgh. Ok, so now, I was getting hungry. Not wanting to stand in that monstrosity of a line for concessions, I voted that we venture out to see what food options we had around us. We left Zack, still looking for his friend, and began our journey for food. 5 blocks and about 20 minutes later, we wound up on West Grey street, maybe a block away from the West Grey Cafe. We plopped in, grubbed, and headed back to the concert, full with all kinds of comfort food. We get back just in time to catch the last of Broken Social Scene's set. As we head to the stage for Explosions In The Sky's set, we bump into Zack agian. Still not having found his friend, Zack becomes an adopted member of our group for th rest of the evening. After the last group performs, we make our way towards the car, Jill, Pham, Zack, and I. Still having some fight left in us, we decide to go out for drinks and food. (Haha I'm rushing this because it's 1am and I'm hella tired). We drive downtown, off of Main St. where Zack's hotel is. He goes in to change clothes real quick. Apparently, his friend had left the concert early because his phone was busted and went back to the hotel. We take them just down the street to the Flying Saucer to knock down a few brews. Around 12, we all leave. We exchange numbers, and wish each other good tidings (seriously, who the hell still says that crap?). Pham, Jill and I head back to our side of town, completely exhausted after the first day of awesomeness that was Summer Fest.

Mass quantities of people.

Hill Sledding. Some kids grabbed empty trash boxes and made sleds out of them. Obviously. It was actually lots of fun.

Ok. That's all for tonight. I think I'll post Day 2 of Summer Fest tomorrow. A good day for all. With that being said, good night, Brandon.

Brewed With Attitude

Some early Saturday morning ramblings.

• I have a goatee, and it not as itchy as I thought it would be.
• I've had this blog for about 5 years. Wow.
• Converse are the greatest shoes on the face of the earth. When I get married I want to get married in a pair.
• My workout iPod crashed on me the other day. This'll be like, the 4th iPod that's crapped out on me.
• Being single has its perks, but it mostly sucks.
• I have 2 skateboards, and I want another one.
• Lance Armstrong is probably the greatest athelete off all time, in my opinon.
• Still debating on getting a tattoo. I don't know...
• I want to go skydiving.
• The organ and electric guitar have to be my favorite musical instruments to listen to.
• I'm super excited about Dethklok's new album coming out next month.

Random picture:

Yours truely, comedian Pablo Fransico, my friends Ryan and Tessa LaRue.

Blood On The Ground

I must say, it feels good to blog again, even though nobody reads this. It just feels good to get this stuff outta my head, you know?

With that being said, let's delve into today's post.

I've been listening to a lot of indie music lately. I came across one band named Caddywhompus. They're really, really, really good. But don't take my word for it, check 'em out yourself.

Speaking of music, tomorrow I'm going to the Free Press Summer Fest. Lot's of talented bands playing, including: Fat Tony, The Tontons, Of Montreal, Devin The Dude, and The Octopus Project to name a few. Schwing!!!

Today at the bank, I think the teller lady was hitting on me. I'm not good at picking up signals from females. A girl basically has to tell me she's into me before I know she's into me. Yeah, I'm pretty dense in that area. But I digress...I think she was definitely hitting on me. She said I smelled like chocolate and that she likes chocolate (?), she asked me if I lived in the area, where I work, where I go to school. Ok, now that I think about it, she was either flirting with me, or planning to stalk me. Regardless, it should add some excitement in my life.

You know what I hate? When people don't wave back at you when you let them into your lane while driving. I mean, c'mon.

Random picture:

David, me, and Jeff hanging out at a 4th of July party this year.

Sounds from the Robot Forest

I have a garden.

A few weeks back, I was cleaning out the fridge, and I noticed that some of the veggies had started to sprout (some green onions and a couple of cloves of garlic). Instead of throwing them away, I decided to plant them in my backyard and watch them grow. It's like my little mini-science fair project, except this time around, I'm going to win first place. I planted them by the garage, and watched them start to grow just after a day. But about a week ago, I noticed that they seemed to stop growing. Fearing the my organic garden would eventually cease to be, I came across the idea of relocating them to a new spot. I cleared out the old flower garden and made room for my new garden, Organic-R-Us.

Here's a picture of it after I cleared it out, before I planted the onions and garlic.

For kicks and giggles, I filmed myself working in the new garden. I've been really fond of the time lapse feature on my camera. In my effort to abuse and over use it, I filmed myself gardening...in time lapse mode. How original.

Whatever. I like to film stuff. Speaking of film stuff, you should check out some of my skate videos. Which reminds me, I need to fix my skateboard. Crazy, I know. A 24 year old man who still skateboards. Ok, now I'm starting to ramble.

And now for you're viewing pleasure...

Haha. I had to put the song in there. So classic. I'll try and keep you posted with pictures and more time lapse movies of my organ-o-garden.

I was thinking the other day at work (a first), about all the good times I had while at SFA. Sometimes I'll be by myself or working, and something will remind my of a crazy time I had while at SFA, and I'll just bust out laughing to myself. And now, I want share some of those good times with you. I think each day, I'll share some crazy-ass'd story or situation I was thrown in. Like, right now, I've got two hilarious stories. Ok. So, here's one I remembered yesterday while I was out jogging:

I believe it was a Saturday. My friend Cory had told about a friend of his having a luau party, with a couple of kegs of beer. While at work that day, I mentioned the party to my friend, Chris, who said he'd be down to go the party. So, night time comes around. Chris picks me up and we head out to the party. But before we get there, we stopped to pick up some beer. I grabbed a 6-pack of Shiner, Chris snatched some Heineken, and we were off. Now, you're probably wondering why the hell would I stop to get beer if there was already going to be beer there? A few particular reasons, young grasshopper.

• I don't like to drink that water'd down light beer.
• What happens when the kegs are floated?? You're out of beer, duh.
• I don't like to show up to a party and mooch off of someone elses beer.

I have been to quite a few luau themed parties, and all them have been failures. This party...was no different. There were a couple of tiki torches, a beach ball, and those cheap Hawaii themed cut-outs (a picture of a guy surfing, a hula girl, a volcano, etc.). I was like, whatever, it's better than sitting at home. Somebody had the bright idea of having a bonfire going. Although it went with the theme (I guess?), its was early May. It was already hot enough without a blazing fire going. So Chris and I are standing around the bonfire with everybody else, enjoying our beers. Everybody's having a good time. Then I noticed a guy across the fire staring me down.

I whisper to Chris, "You got back, right?"

"Oh yeah, of course. What's up"

"That dude over has been muggin' me since we got here"

Right after I finish my sentence, the dude gets up and walks over to us, never taking his eyes off me. When he gets over to us, he walks right up to me and says:

"Hey man, can I have one of your Shiners?

"You can't have one. I'll sell you one if you want.

He gives me this puzzled look, then rattles the idea around in his head for a moment. He agree's to buy a off me. At first he says $2. I then explain that Shiners are cheap, and that I'd sell him one for $5. Highway robbery, I know, but it gets way better. The guy looks in his wallet, and sees that he doesn't have enough, so he says he's going to borrow some money from a friend. While he's gone, Chris and I start laughing at what an idiot this kid is. A six-pack of Shiner beer is roughly $6 (give or take a dollar, depending where you purchase it from). For a dollar more, this kid could've bought his own six pack. Anyways...the dude returns with a smile on his face and money in hand. He begins the put the money in my hand while counting it aloud.

"1...2...3...4...5. Five bucks. Here ya go"

When he counted that third bill, I saw that it wasn't a $1 bill, but rather a $10 bill. I saw it, but he didn't. I gave the gentleman his beer and promptly put the cash in my pocket. I grabed Chris and told him it was time to go. He asked why, and I said I'd tell him in the car.

"It better be good, man"

"Oh, it is!"

Once in the car, I explained what happend. I had just made $14 of one beer that cost me roughly a dollar. I decided to leave before the guy realized he gave me too much. We left and found another party to chill at.

Thank you, random-dude-that-gave-me-too-much-money. Thanks for buying my lunch the next day. Does taking his money make me a bad person? I think not. He should've double counted. Oh well. That chicken sandwich was damn tasty...

Pom to the rescue!!!!

Follow The Leader

I'm trying. I really am...

As many of you know, I used to run cross-country and track in high school (Varsity State champs my senior year). After graduation I took some time off from running. When I transfered to SFA in 2004 I decided that I wanted to start back running again. My first year in the dorms, I met another freshman named Jarrod who also used to run in high school. We became really good running buddies. We'd go running every night at 9 for our evening runs around campus and around town. During the winter months, after our runs, we'd walk back to our rooms to gather our things for a shower. Since the showers took for-ev-er to warm up, we'd go into the shower rooom and turn on the showers to get them warmed up. I had a favorite stall that I like to shower in. What was so special about this stall? Nothing really, it was just really spacious. Oddly enough, Jarrod had a favorite stall, too, haha. So when I'd go and turn "my" shower on to warm up, I'd also go and turn his on, too. We'd go into our rooms, grab our towls and soap, then head back to the shower, where the showers would be nice and hot. There'd never be anybody else in there, so Jarrod and I were free to talk about whatever without having to worry about others listening. Good times. Yeah, running back at SFA was just about as fun as running in high school. Jarrod and I even ran in the schools annul Race for Life breast cancer fun run. Jarrod and I always placed in the top 5.

I said all of that to move into my next topic. Running

I work out...alot. Even on my days off from the gym, I work out. I've beeng going strong for about four months, with no break (other than my usual one day rest day). I decided that it was time for me to take a week off and let my body rest. But like I said earlier, even when I'm not supposed to be working out, I am. So, this week, instead of working out at the gym, I've just been doing cardio. I've been running at the park for the past couple of days. I have completely forgotten how different running on a treadmill is from running at the park. My calves, quads, and hammys are super sore. I might try some swimming tomorrow...

While I'm on the topic of working out at such, allow me to step up on my soapbox for a minute. Topic #1: People on their phones. How the hell do you expect to get any kind of workout accomplished while you're yappin' on your phone while on the treadmill or while walking at the park. First of all, you certainly can't be paying attention to your surroundings. I think it's just as bad as driving and text or driving and talking. Oh, oh, oh!!!! And the people that just stand around and talk. I hate you the worst. You're just sitting there on the machine that I need you use, running you're mouth about some gay recipe you saw on Good Morning America, or how if you meet this month's quota, you'll get that bonus and finally be able to buy that new Chevy Camaro that'll get you through this mid-life crisis. You know? I really could on forever about the things that piss me off while at the gym. But I'm not. You know why? Because I'm hungry, that's why.

Good morning.