New Year, New Room

Let's start with a confession. I watch Hoarders and I'm convinced that I'm one personal disaster away from being one. So... I’ve been rearranging/reorganizing my room since last weekend and it's almost done. I’ve added in a 2x8’ chalkboard-- well it was a piece of wood that I made into a chalkboard with some help from Lowe’s. I'm very excited about a new room and I might just have to add in a new purchase from the holidays… a map. It’s an old classroom roll-down map that I got at an antique store when I was staying with my aunt and uncle. I’m thrilled to own it and if I can’t put it in the living room, it will be going up in my bedroom. If the big map goes in the living room, then my other map that I’ve had framed since 2005 and have never hung will go up, maybe beside Aunt Maline’s creepy portrait. I'll also be making room for my Paul Cordes Wilm piece, so stay tuned.

My trip to see my aunt also produced good fruit other than the map purchase. She passed down my grandfather’s camera to me and I was super excited about it because I had never seen or heard about it before. I did some research and it’s a 1935 Zeiss Ikonta 530/2.
He got it in Germany before the war and I’m not sure how much he used it but it’s in great condition and I have 3 lenses for it too. So I finally bought some film for it and have taken 2 pictures so far. It’s super sweet but takes some time to actually take the picture and get everything ready. It might be an expensive attempt to test it out, but I’ll let you know when I get the film developed. They should be pretty cool pictures even if they contain lame subject matter, but we will not be wasting film on stupid faces.

As for SAD, you know the treatment, Liz Lemon: Sun, St. John's Wort and human interaction. Oh and don't live in Chicago or Seattle. If you need actual attention, we can work on that or Casey Clardy can reply with a treatment plan.


Ashley, you asked for some reviews, so here you go:

Fantastic Mr. Fox:
Greatest movie I’ve seen in a while and I went to see it again last week. It’s very clever and fast and not as predictable as I thought. Great soundtrack and it’s amazing to see how much work they put into making movies of this style. It's a cuss of a lot better than others I've seen this year, but that might be because I can’t remember other movies I’ve seen pre-October. Go see it!

Vampire Weekend's "Contra":
They’ve been getting a lot of press lately and some interviews have said the new CD was going to be great. This was much anticipated for me (because I like them a lot), but I feel like I didn’t know this album was coming out until 2 weeks before it did. I know… shocker. Reviewers said VW is known for their unusual African beat and I almost thought they were crazy until I bought the new album myself. Yep, African beat is a good way to describe it, and it’s almost a little “islander” in the rest of the percussion. It’s really good so far and I’ve been listening to “Cousins” since they released it as a single and it’s one of the fastest from the album. "Contra" is a good slow one and "Diplomat's Son" is really good. This album is just as upbeat as the last and maybe even more so. We're still just talking and becoming friends, but I think it will compare well to the previous release. Buy it!

Buyer's Remorse:
Dead Weather's "Horehound" - it should be awesome with all-stars under Jack White's lead, but it's not... sorry. I'm more mad than anyone that this didn't pan out.

Semi-remorse:
The Beatles "White Album" - Okay, before we begin, no I don't think this was a bad purchase or bad album, but I wish I could buys single songs from them on iTunes because let's be honest, who knows all of the songs on this album? You don't, don't act like you do. So I bought the #1's and that helped. Don't get me wrong, I love the Beatles more than you, but I don't have money for songs I'm probably not going to listen to that much. Upside: great album to add to my collection when Jesus judges me on my musical taste. Yes, that's going to happen, read your bible.

I have some other updates on the organization known as my family, but those will have to wait. Okay Tina, I'm out. Miami 2014!