This Lovely Thursday...

Today I went to the comic shop and picked up some CHEAPO comics... 5 for $1.00.

Then I came home and worked on a few different ideas for my website... still sort of in a corner for what exactly I want to do but it's starting to get somewhere... should expect to see something up by next week. 

after a bit I decided to see when the new mario baseball game is coming out for the Wii.. and it was out today, so i had to go pick that up. Not a bad game, although I've been playing the old Nintendo game, RBI baseball... so I'm sorta used to baseball games right now. It's pretty fun, with all the different pitches, hits, ball parks, and players. 

Weekend Madness part 2: Renaissance Festival

Sunday:

My aunt Joann, her boyfriend Ted, and my cousin's Jesse and Danielle, Gretchen and I all went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. That was probably the best Renaissance festival that I've ever been to. It actually rivaled the State Fair. We all had a blast. As soon as we got there, Joann and Ted both said that they needed to buy a couple mugs because then when you buy drinks they just put the beer, wine, or mead right into your mug/cup and you just walk around with that all day. I purchased a Leather mug from a shop that everyone said was the best for leather mugs. they have an online store HERE. I also got a cork topper for it and leather strap to latch it onto a belt, or in my case, a belt loop. 

For most of the day I was drinking Premium beer. But Ted had me try some mead from this one little stand and I ended up linking that a lot. So I finished the day with a few glasses of mead. I tried the regular mead, the Egyptian mead, the raspberry mead and the honey mead, but I ended up going with the strawberry mead... Oooh that was good. Might have to try to make some of that myself. 

Weekend Madness part 1: State Fair

Friday:

We went to the Minnesota STATE FAIR. My family and I. Grandma, aunts and uncles, cousins, parents and Gretchen. We got thereat about 7:30am or so. Most of the food stands didn't open until 9:00am so we walked around and checked out a few things before we began a nonstop eating frenzy. 

Gretchen couldn't make it as early in the morning but she showed up around, I want to say 11:00am. The first thing I always get when I'm at the fair are the Luigi fries... pretty much just breadsticks with melted mozzarella cheese on them and served with a side of marinara dipping sauce. Doesn't sound like much but WOW, they can't be beat. Cheese curds are also a must for many of my family members and myself. I also love the corn on the cob, corn fritters, pronto pups (corn dogs), ice cream from a certain stand near the Kid way, mini donuts, alligator on a stick, honey sticks, cinnamon rolls, Australian Potatoes (Ausi Potatoes), 1919 root beer, and probably many more things that I can't think of right now. 

My cousin Chevis, her husband Dan and their son Daniel all showed up later because Daniel wasn't feeling very well earlier that day and he had a fever. After a while everyone left and it was only Chevis, Dan, Gretchen and I left. My aunt Janice brought Daniel home when she left. We stuck around for the hypnotist show that was starting at 8:00pm. Once we got there and were seated, Dan volunteered to go up on stage and be hypnotized along with about 20 other people. It was great, the hypnotist, Hypno-Chick, had him thinking he was Donald Trump and he was signing autographs for people in the audience. 

That was a good night...  

Trading party at Robotlove

So I went by Robotlove and picked up a few new simpsons toys that just came out... and noticed this nice little thing...

Desktop Landscape — How To from keenley projects on Vimeo.

It's a little desktop landscape...

check it out at desktoplandscape.net

I saw it and was planning on buying it until I flipped it over and saw the price tag... $45!

wtf

More Comics.... more confusion

Today I went to my comic joint and picked up the 3 new issues that came out today... then I found a bunch of back issues that I want to read... then I got a call from Dan, telling me that he was going by a different comic shop and was wondering if I needed any from there... so I ended up buying about 20+ comics today... 

the collection is building...

Now to figure out which OTHER comics I need before the Fall-Con this October. 

Star Wars Clone Wars

Just got back from Star Wars the clone wars. Good, not great. I think it was another one of those movies where I was expecting too much.... I mean, IT'S STAR WARS!!! I guess I just thought it would be more like the clone wars cartoons. The animation wasn't quite up to par. It almost looked like the movie was rushed and not as much time was put into it as there should have been. Especially when they talk. The mouths being synced must have been a real challenge for the animators. 

Overall, if you're a star wars fan, you'll probably like it, even though it's a bit childish. But I'd still wait for DVD. 

Visitors

My aunt and uncle, Barb and Tim, just got into town yesterday and will be staying for about a week. They live in Denver Colorado and let me stay with them when my friends and I go down there for snowboarding every winter, so I figured they could use my room for as long as they need it. Until then, I've taken over the Living room. Moved my computer out here and everything. 

Rocking out and some shorts

Tonight was my advanced screening of the movie being released next Wed. The Rocker. I must say, it was way better than I thought it was going to be. After being on a roller-coaster of how good I thought the movie would be, then how bad I thought it would be, it ended up being great. I saw it with Dan, Janice, and Marietta. We all loved it. We even got free shirts while we were lined up to get into the theater. 

After that movie we headed over to the Cine-Fest. A short film festival. It was very interesting, not quite what we expected, but interesting. I believe all of the movie creators were from Minnesota, which was pretty cool, but also made a few of them lack in one way or another... I don't know why...

Tropic Blunder

Tropic Thunder was another one of those movies where my hopes were too high up to begin with. Therefore the movie was somewhat of a let down. A funny let down, but still a let down. 

Ben stiller was the director of this mishaps and the only thing that made this movie somewhat bearable was the fact that it had an all star cast including Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., matthew McConaughey, and Tom Cruise. But even that didn't save the movie. Overall pretty stupid... looking forward to The Rocker tonight, followed by a short films festival. Hopefully these later movies will make up for what was lacking in Tropic Thunder.

new comics and finished trap shooting

Today was started off by going to a comic store with dan and picking up a new comic at about 10...  at noon we went to another comic place and picked up a few more comics... I ended up with 2 variant covers, which basically mean that they are more rare than other covers. This was great fun... 

dan and I played games until his son woke up and then I left to go trapshooting. 

at the trap, my dad and I finished off the last few spaces in our trap... which means we shot ahead about 2 weeks so that we are done and finished up the season. Overall our shooting wasn't too bad. I think I shot a 21 when I first shot with my dad and Chelsey (my cousin) while they both got 22. The next round I think they both got 19 and I got 23.... then we finished it off with my dad and I tying. Today was the first time this season that my dad beat me and that we tied. It was also the first season that my dad was on our league team. I'll have to watch myself next season so that he won't ALWAYS beat me... :)

ixnay* on the atoos-tay

nobody ended up getting tattoos after all... the place was closing at 12 and we got there at 10... in my book that's 2 hours but the chick at the front desk told us that, 20 minutes from then, the one artist left would start a tattoo that would take him about an hour and a half... putting us right around 12 and no time for our tats...

maybe next time...  :(

Pineapple Express to Hilarity

Today I went to see Pineapple Express with my long time friend Mike. I think I may have hyped this movie up a little too much because I was expecting Platinum and only got Gold. The movie was HILARIOUS, don't get me wrong. I just thought it would be a little more... i don't know... BETTER.

There were a few factors that may have been throwing me off though... Usually I don't take text messages while I'm in a movie... but I was expecting some this time around and they game during some of the coolest action scenes. :(  

Also, and I'm usually pretty good about this, toward the end, I had to PEE.... SO F*CKING BAD!

I mean I was about to pee in my drink cup, it was so bad. That may have taken away from the ending. I really wouldn't mind seeing the movie again and I hope that I will soon. 

I think the reason I had to pee so bad was because all of the laughter. 

Overall the movie was funny, very unbelievable, but funny. About as funny as I hoped it would be but just not quite as good...

I'd say see it if you though it looked at all interesting. 

Level 7 accomplished...

I think I officially reached a new level of NERD tonight... from level 6 to 7...

I finished reading the All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder and I must say that it had it's ups and downs but all together it is better than Jim Lee's other baby... Hush. It is only better in the story. The art is the same, both by Jim Lee, and that makes the two of them the greatest comics ever written...

 

YAY me for being a dork 

omg... i'm behind

Lately, it's been fun, but not TERRIBLY exciting. 

I went to a going away part for my Graphic Design teacher, Ambica Prakash. Rode my motorcycle to Stout and got there around I think 7 or 8. It was really fun catching up with a few of my teachers. I ended up staying at my old roommate's new place in Menomonie, Zac's place. Zac, Chad, Derek and I all stayed there that night and went to breakfast the next morning. 

Yesterday I picked up the newest addition to my vinyl family, my Unicornasaurus.

the newest release by Joe Ledbetter

I've finished a few more comic books and I've also started a few new ones. All batman, and all good. I just started reading the All Star Batman and Robin the boy wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee... Just as good as Jim Lee's other baby, Hush. 

I think the reason I like Hush and this Batman series is because it's a little more dark than most batman comics I've read. Darker in ways that Batman, in more than one case, ends up beating someone to a bloody pulp. I know it doesn't sound very appealing but it is very exciting. The most recent thing in this book was that batman broke a guys arm and then explained to him that it is a compound fracture and that it will never heal, not right anyway... not nearly right.

Tomorrow is the day of tattoos. I'm not getting one but Chevis, Dan, Dan's friend Chris, and my girlfriend Gretchen are ALL getting tattoos... at least that's what they have planned. 

Dan's getting a bull, the spanish bull... look at the balls on that sucker.

Chevis is getting her name, in a way that i designed... not sure what colors yet... also not sure about the star yet.

I forget what Chris is getting... I believe something in Latin... he's a Latin teacher. 

and Gretchen is getting 3 starts... another design by me. 

as for me... no tattoo yet... not until i create something I like enough to have on me for the rest of my life. I was talking with Jerry, my uncle Tom's brother in law and he was saying.... if you create something why not just rend it really nice and put it up on your wall so you can look at it every day?... he's kinda against tattoos though. 

Jim Lee's Autograph :D

Saturday, 08-02-2008... Jim Lee, the man who's art has sold more copies of a single comic than any other comic in the world, was doing signings at the Source Comics off of Snelling and Larpenter. Dan and I, naturally, showed up. The night before I went up with Gretchen to check out the store and how to get there, good thing we did because they gave out numbers for the line. I got 2 cards, #975 and #976... this was going to be a long day. 

Jim Lee finally showed up around 1:30 and started signing... the whole even was supposed to be held between 1 and 4. But it took about an hour and a half to get through the first hundred. 

I saw my buddy Jesse's little brother Jeffery there and asked if he was going to stay. He said no and then offered me his ticket... #557. When we got that, dan and I each jumped in line under the one ticket. The guys were fine with it and we ended up getting 2 signatures each, the limit per ticket, even though we only had one ticket. 

This was taken with my iPhone

This was taken for his blog... and we're in the back :D

Jim was a very cool guy but you could tell he was getting tired... my only regret was not asking him for a quick sketch inside of my book. Other than that... AWESOME!

The Mummy should not have returned

Just got back from The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and I must say.... WOW... that was bad. It was better than I expected because I set the bar VERY VERY LOW before I left. I wasn't planning on ever seeing the movie... that's how low I set the bar. But I was invited to go with my mom and her friend, both of which thought it was also bad. 

Basically, if you wanna see it, expect very little and it will be better than you expect. Overall it was entertaining, explosions, monsters, fighting, shooting, etc. But be advised... not much to get out of it. 

Zoo and Trap shooting

Today was a good day. We (Gretchen, Kari, Matt, and Laura) took Torii, Chase, and Noah to the Minnesota Zoo for a day of fun in the HOT HOT sun. We even got to see turtles mating...   :D

First Saw this...

stuck around and saw this. 

Later on I went trap shooting with my dad and scored a 24 and a 21. I believe my dad got a 21 or 22 and a 19... first round was the best for both of us. 

anyways, good times.