Well this kinda fell apart like I thought it would. As of right now, I've decided to get this thing back up to date, get it a new look, and try to do some more interesting things with it. The summer came and went without much to say about it really. After Bonnaroo I didn't really do anything special in particular. And with this amount of time past, I can't recall anything of epic idiocy to report. Although I did go to a Phillies game over last summer with a few friends which ended up interesting. Firstly, we were in the upper level of Citizen's Bank Park, and not many were around us. I think when we went to the game the Phillies were doing pretty terribly, so not many were in attendance. Before the game, cameramen were all around the stadium getting people on the big screen to waste time. After a few different groups appeared on the screen, a bunch of familiar faces showed up. All the friends I was with were on the screen, except for me. The cameraman had decided to fit everyone into the picture besides me, which seems to be just like my luck.

Soon after, the pre-game activities began, which started with the throwing of the opening pitch. Someone not much younger than myself goes up to the mound to throw the first pitch to the Phanatic. The ball makes it about halfway to him before hitting the ground and rolling to a stop. I began to laugh and mock the guy, claiming it to be "the worst pitch I have ever seen". Well I soon came to regret those words, as I soon later found out that it was Down syndrome awareness night. All I can say is thankfully we were almost alone in the upper level. I felt really bad about that, and only reflecting on that long after does that seem funny.

Beyond that, there hasn't been much of anything good to report. A semester or nothing great has come and passed, and I'm close to finishing another. The only news is in regards to the future, which includes the concerts I plan on seeing over this summer. Firstly, I am very interested in Lollapalooza. They have an amazing lineup(The Raconteurs, The Black Keys, Radiohead, and Wilco to name a few), although I'm sure that a decent amount of bands I want to see will have conflicting times. As long as I get a summer job with a good salary, I will be more than willing to head out to Chicago for an extended weekend of great music. Besides that, the other concerts I'm looking forward to are The Flaming Lips, who are playing May 24th at Penn's Landing, and Pearl Jam, playing at the Susquehanna Bank Center (the old Tweeter Center in Camden). I overslept the morning Pearl Jam tickets went on sale, so all I could find were lawn seats. I think I'm going to risk not getting a ticket to try and score some from a radio contest though.

In other news regarding the future, I'm still looking forward to get some sort of band together for the summer. I've had the drive more than ever just to play music recently, and I don't even care if I get to do another open-mic night or not. I just want to sit down with others that I know and play something, anything. In that regard, some form of the Stiffly Stiffersons are due to come back, whenever Dave is home I'll be looking forward to practicing.


That seems long enough. I'll leave you with one of the best videos I have found in a while. This is a parody of a car dealership, which is very well done. Welcome to Big Bill Hell's (NSFW):

What an incredible time. But I suppose I better start at the very beginning. After a lot of arguing, we decided on taking Dave's Alero on the 12 hour ride. We began the trip a little later then expected, leaving my house at about 7:00 PM. We then proceeded onto I-95 for the first leg of the journey, which took us into Virginia. Somewhere in VA, Staunton I believe, drivers rotated and I took the wheel for the next part of the trip. I began driving a car I never drove before at 2:00 AM on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit. That was pretty strenuous, thankfully almost no traffic was around. We hit a problem about halfway into my portion of the drive, where it began to rain incredibly hard. There was one other time I can remember when I was out in rain that hard, but I wasn't on a highway. It came suddenly and on the first curve in the storm I didn't slow down enough and momentarily lost control of the steering from the flash flooding that was happening on the highway. That was one of the scariest moments on the trip to me. After that it was much more relaxed and slower driving, until Mike took the wheel and delivered us to Manchester, TN.

We arrived at the line to get into the festival campgrounds, which was easily 4 miles long when we arrived, and growing longer. Coincidentally, a Sonic was directly across the street from where we entered the line. I had to take the opportunity to try their food, since I never have before and I don't see the possibility of going to one anytime soon. I ran over and ordered my food quickly, but as soon as the order was placed I got a call from Mike saying that we had just started moving rather quickly and I should be getting back to the car as soon as possible. I then waited for the food to arrive and started running down the line to catch up to the car. After running for about 3 minutes straight, I gave up and walked for another 5 minutes before reaching the moving car about a mile into the line. For all the work, I still think that the food was worth it. It reminded me of Zac's in some forms, but Sonic has larger burgers.

Skipping the rest of the wait and seeing all the beautiful VW buses in line with us, we passed the checkpoint and made it inside the campgrounds. Another 10 minutes of slow driving got us to our camp area, Camp Rusty Griswold. We then set up our tent and shade tarp, which got all of us sweating. We then ate some lunch on the grill we brought down, and headed down to the camp area. Thursday didn't have any bands we really wanted to see, so we got checked out the comedians. The first group we saw was Lewis Black with John Bowman and Finesse Mitchell. Lewis didn't do much of any new material, so I laughed but it could have been better. Finesse Mitchell did a good job though. We left the comedy tent only to get back in line for the next group, which was David Cross, Aziz Ansari, and Nick Kroll. They did much better than the first group, and they all had stuff I was laughing very hard at. We then left Centeroo, got something to eat, and went back to the tent to sleep.

Friday gave us a clue to what we would wake up to every morning at Bonnaroo, which was a pool of our own sweat. The fan didn't help much either, and we all ended up waking early. After a grumpy morning, we headed over to Centeroo and to the Something Else tent for air conditioned fun with jazz music. The two bands we saw, Doug Wamble Quartet and Robert Glasper Trio, did a very good job performing. I am not a big fan of jazz music, but I came out liking the music and seeing myself at home listening to it. After we got ready to face the heat, we went over to the main stage, the What Stage, to see Kings of Leon. I don't know their music but they performed well. After that, Dave and Mike went to see Lily Allen, but I had to go over and check out The Black Keys. Those guys did an amazing job performing, and they had much more enthusiasm and power live than I could have ever expected. We again made an early night by getting food soon after that and heading back to the tent.

Saturday was definitely the zenith of the entire trip. We again awoke to oppressive heat and sweat everywhere. We ate lunch at the camp area and passed time in the shade tent until about 3:00 when we finally headed down to Centeroo to see The Hold Steady. They did a good job, although I don't know much of their music. Next was Spoon at the same stage, which did an excellent set, which I unfortunately had to leave early to catch a good spot for The Flaming Lips at the Which Stage. I saw Franz Ferdinand perform during the wait, and they had a performed a good set as well. Once they left, I along with 50 other people rushed the stage to get as close as possible for The Flaming Lips. I made it to the second row, which was spectacular to me. Next came a 4 hour wait until they performed. The crowd made the most of the time by singing songs from the band ("She Don't Use Jelly" and a few others) as well as singing "Happy Birthday" to Kliph, the touring drummer, and some people in the audience. The Flaming Lips came on and went crazy on stage. It was the best night of my life to date. Here is the setlist:
Soundcheck: War Pigs

Race for the Prize
Tapsmir
Fight Test
Mountainside
Free Radicals
Yoshimi Pt 1
Yoshimi Pt 2
Vein of Stars
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Taps
Superman
Pompeii AM Gotterdammerung
She Don't Use Jelly
Do You Realize??

Encore 1:
The W.A.N.D.
What is the Light?
The Observer
Encore 2:

Moonlight Mile
3000-21 / Sympathy (Outro)

The song "Mountainside has not been played since Ronald Jones left the band in 1996. That was incredible. "Moonlight Mile" made me like The Rolling Stones all over again, too.

Sunday, it was quite a grueling stretch. The Which Stage had Wolfmother to The Decemberists to The White Stripes all in a row. We brought a full stomach and 8 water bottles, which was just enough to survive the 8 hours in the crowd. We made it late to Wolfmother, but they sounded a lot like they do on the album, which is a cool thing to see. The Decemberists I have never heard much from but they had a very well choreographed show, and it kept me entertained. The White Stripes topped off the day though. Their show (it was the first time I saw them live) had a fair share of new and old material, and I loved hearing "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" live. Some crowdsurfers intruded on my fun, but otherwise I enjoyed everything about the set.

We then left early to get a head start on making it home and sleeping in climate-controlled rooms and beds. What a great time. I'm already looking towards what to do for next year. If anyone reading this liked what they have read here (preferably if you know me), ask about next year's trip. I want to plan stuff as soon as I get a group that are dedicated to going.

Here are my pictures from the event. http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike.Krisac/Bonnaroo

Well, not all things can always work out as planned. The hunt for a bus has ended with us empty handed. We had made plans with the owner of the graffiti bus discussed earlier and decided to buy it. We got a friend and contributor to the bus situation to agree to drive and pick it up. But, we ran into a major miscommunication when the person to pick up the bus found out it was in New York City. The ad on Craigslist appeared in the northern New Jersey area, which apparently has an overlapping area with NYC. Upon noticing the situation, our friend, Eric, decided it was too far of a route and couldn't pull it off within the schedule of his day. Obviously we were now on bad terms with the owner, and I can only assume it was sold to some lucky person, damn them.

That was about the zenith of our search, with only rejections and bad timing for all other possible buses. So, unless fortune shifts into our direction for one time this summer, we will be holding off the search until next year, where all contributors will be more able to use the vehicle. The other assumption is that we should have more money by summer next year, so our variety will be increased from the bottom-of-the-barrel rust buckets that we originally could barely afford.

Bonnaroo, on the other hand, has been working quite successfully for us. The lineup that was announced has many names which we want to see, and even without a bus, we will be taking either Dave's or Mike's car, albeit much more tight. Dave and I have been arguing over multiple topics from where to camp to what to bring, but I know we can get some sort of compromise, and the only reason we argue is to voice our opinion so that we will make all of us get the most out of our festival. I want to keep costs to a minimum, and avoiding getting things that I know there are readily accessible alternatives to. The festival has also showed me to new bands that I haven't heard of before, which is a very appealing factor to me. The biggest two right now are Gov't Mule and The Black Keys, which the first is a jam band formed of the backup performers of the Allman Brother's Band and the other is a blues-rock duet out of Akron, Ohio which have the same mentality of The White Stripes. Both are now on my list of bands to see in the festival, and I am already excited to see them.

Since I haven't written much on my own stupidity, I'm deciding to expand this to a more broad idea. The plan I have currently is to have a weekly album review to show what I have been listening to, or what I really believe to be "good" music, although "good" is entirely subjective, especially in music. I have thought of what album I wanted to explain first, and I think I know which one to pick. Feel free to critique my ability (or lack of), since this is my first real attempt at anything like this.

Album Review:
The Gerbils - The Battle of Electricity

Members of the Elephant 6 collective, The Gerbils fail to disappoint in this beautifully done album. I was first introduced to the recording collective when I heard about Of Montreal from a friend, and instantly loved and appreciated the music they created. I looking into the group Of Montreal was affiliated with and found The Gerbils. I could only find the first album by them, Are You Sleepy?, which I enjoyed for it's lo-fi and twee pop. About one month later, I decided to buy an album off of Amazon.com, and I saw that I could get free shipping if I paid about the price for one more album. So, after some searching, I found this album and decided to buy it, without knowing the exact contents of it, which I try to stray from doing. I am very glad I have bought it. The first song on the album, "Are You Underwater," was an instant attraction for me to listening to the rest of the album. From the beginning I see a new direction that the band moved in, away from a twee pop sound and to a more well orchestrated and composed style which really works well for them.

Then, I notice the "songs" of the album are spread between these segues of about a minute or less, which usually perform a fantastic job of transitioning from one song to the next, creating what I believe to be a much more profound listening experience from beginning to end. And where the areas occur of a more jangling guitar sound, the song has much more cohesiveness than their initial work, which sometimes almost felt completely disjointed and working against the movement and tempo of the rest of the band. The singer, Scott Spillane, has a voice which distances some people from their work, has some tonal areas which could be improved, but overall this album is much more instrumentally powerful than anything, and I happen to like his voice.

So, all in all. I believe The Gerbils made a very solid album, with transitions and layered songs which keeps you listening over and over.

Rating: 92/100

Highlights: "Are You Underwater," "Lucky Girl," "A Song of Love," and all the transitions.

If interested in hearing or buying, Amazon's got you covered. Click here to hear The Gerbils' sophomore work.

Hooray for another semester of fun in Penn State. I'm sad to report that I have no moronic events that have transpired since last update worth mentioning, but I do have much information on future plans, including for the summer break. My friend Dave originally wished to go to Coachella, a music festival in California which takes place this year in late April. Unfortunately, I have classes until May, so I could not go on a trip, especially one all the way to the other coast.

I convinced him that the concert would be an impossibility, and I deferred the attention to another music festival, Bonnaroo. This one is in a much more accessible date (June 14-17) which set the idea that we would wait to see the bands that are going to play there and decide for sure if we want to go. We do have one other alternative, Lollapalooza, but we would rather go to Bonnaroo since the area is more open, and camping is allowed.

From that point, we tried to recruit some other people to the cause. We found a few, but only Mike was steadfast in the idea of going. Then a major tangent occurred in our planning. The consensus was that we did not want to take a trip just to the festival, where Dave then planned a nine day adventure, forming a circle which passes through Pittsburgh, Chicago, and a few others before arriving at Manchester, TN. The next agreement was that we did not want to make the trip in a car, which was probably driven from the fact that Dave's, Mike's, and my car are all pretty small (mine couldn't come close to making the trip anyhow). We planned to get an RV, but a couple problems faced us. First, we needed someone at least 25 to rent and drive the RV, which none of us were, and we could not get the kind of money needed to rent one. We found out that it would be better to just buy another form of transportation. And what else would you take to a music festival than a VW bus. So thus is our current position, and we are currently in negotiations for a vehicle, but waiting for a final response from the seller. It is a graffiti car and in not too bad shape.

In other news, I have been listening to the new Of Montreal album, which is a wonderful work, in my opinion. Now I like almost every band out of the Elephant 6 collective, and trying to find more on them. I suggest you have a listen to it, or at least find the new video from the album on youtube and watch

Sorry for taking so long to find a reason to post something new on here. Having common sense was very necessary towards staying strong in my classes. I am happy to inform that the second set of exams went well, and the semester is now close to an end. Of course, my inner moron could not keep bottled up forever, and showed his wonderfully hideous face one night around two weeks ago.
I was ending a marginally-pleasant Thursday, turning off my computer and getting in my bed. Going with tradition, I was not able to get to sleep immediately, which actually came to my advantage for this night. Dave, my roommate, was having the same trouble, which sparked some conversation between us while we both laid in our own beds. The conversations quickly morphed to a fart-sound contest, using armpits or backs of kneecaps. Our own fatigue only made the situation only more hilarious, which made a highlight of the day.
About ten minutes had past since the fart-sounds had ceased and I still could not get to sleep, as if some inner region of my conscience was trying to grab my attention. Well it was, and it was then that I remembered about a programming project that I had due for my CSE 121 class was to be handed in online by 10:00 p.m. that night. I had forgotten to send in the project, although I had completed the project the day before. The assignment was pretty simple, and I thought I could wait until tomorrow in case I thought of anything else to include in the code. Well, I waited for a little too long, as it was now 3:24 a.m. I sprung out of bed, yelling a melange of "shit"s and "fuck"s, and ran to my computer. I turned it on and hoped the program could still be accepted, but the box to put the project in was taken away. I quickly wrote a half-sensible email to my professor on the situation, hoping that mercy will be taken on my situation. I then went back to bed, my conscience raping me with "how could you"s and "you idiot"s.
I asked my professor on my situation later in the week, which he said that I'd get "...at least some credit." Better than nothing, I suppose. Had to happen sometime, since I came so close last time just wasn't enough for me to learn from my mistake.

Now for other stuff. I just finished a programming project that had brought me to the edges of my sanity. The gaiety I felt when I had solved that which my professor could not figure out was something that I'll remember for a while. I just sent the project in about a half hour ago, which was a very relieving process. One more project to go in my CSE class and I will be done with them. My last lab for physics was also today which was nice, although the class was really easy. Only one more recitation to go to and then I'll only have lectures to go to until the exams.

I also had a very nice revelation over the past month which was very nice. Sometime in most people's lives, the revelation occurs that your life will not be an eternity (although some times definitely feels like it is). The need to accomplish things, however stupid they may be, is infused in you and initiative is taken to complete those things. I always sort of understood the concept that I will die sometime, but never thought of it beyond that point. I finally had the full realization laying in bed last Sunday night, with the songs of "I'm Afraid of Dying...Aren't You??", "You've Got To Hold On", and "The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness" running through my head. Death comes, and always will. The fact, however badly everyone wants to cover it, will remain true for all time. To truly make the most of life, you need to revere that your death will come someday. From that acceptance, you'll have all the willpower and determination to do whatever you dream of...

Sorry to end on an quasi-existential note, but I thought that it was a cool thing to experience. If this hasn't happened to anyone yet, you'll know whenever the same happens to you.

Last little note, I highly recommend all of those songs listed in that previous paragraph. Even if you don't like that kind of music (alternative) at least appreciate the implications of the lyrics.

This weekend was a true testament of an truly unique adventure; one probably unable to be accomplished with anyone other than the group I was with. The weekend was looking up, as I was going to my brother's apartment (as usual protocol for Fridays after classes). I learned that we were planning to see the 8:15 showing of Borat at the Premier, since the theater in State College did not have the movie (which was stupid beyond belief) . Rich decided to tag along because he had no dinner plans and the movie would be a bonus. One thing to know about Rich is that he hates the cold more than anyone on campus, which helps out later.

We arrived at the apartment and had a nice, quick dinner and left for the bus stop at College and Allen. The group had now enlarged to my brother Ryan, his friends Jimmy, Chris, Ryan A, Steve, Cynthia, Pete, and Cody. We were about to cross College Ave when the bus for the Nittany Mall drives off without us. We then proceeded to wait for the next hour, waiting for another bus out. By the arrival of the next bus, about 10 more college students (all going to see Borat) and 10 kids were waiting for the same ride out to the mall, which made a very cramped bus situation.

The bus arrived at the Premier and a stampede began to reach the ticket booth. We made good time, but we still couldn't get there before the shows until 10:00 were sold out. We got the 10 p.m. tickets and now had to find something to busy ourselves for the next hour and a half. Cody told us about a Big Lots nearby and we agreed to waste time in there, as well as get some cheap snacks. Instead of going along the paved roads of the oh-so-beautiful asphalt, we chose to cut through an unlit field of weeds and tall grass, seeing that it will save time. The task became more arduous than previously imagined, since many of the weeds had grown thorns and the ground was very rugged. I began to complain in the usual way about why we chose to do this, when I stumbled and fell face-first into a thorn bush. I got up quickly, and noticed a branch of the dagger-weed lodged itself along my nose. I yelled, "There are thorns in my DAMN NOSE!" Which brought a rousing chuckle to the group. I then noticed I was bleeding and began my obscenities once more, now including the fact that my nose was bleeding at a pretty quick pace.

We finally left the field and I got my brother to remove the hellish twig and then headed to Big Lots to for more fun. I couldn't find the bathroom, so the next logical step for my brother and I was to bust open a bottle of soap and use it to clean myself up. Another bad idea, since my hands were now covered in a concoction of soap and blood. Cynthia found a bathroom for me, and I finally cleaned off my nose and stopped the bleeding. We continued looking around in the store, where I got some candy for the movie.

Because we didn't learn our lesson the first time, we went back through the field to get to the Premier. This route was a little different, bringing more hills and holes. The biggest hill was at the beginning, and we went in a row over the slope with an almost vertical drop. My brother went and got down fine, Cynthia went next and fell at the end, toppling Ryan over in the process. I began going down about then and tried to sidestep around the two fallen bodies, but there was a hole that I could never expect. I tripped on it's edge and fell backwards, almost into it. My limbs were out of it, but my torso was covering rather large hole that I couldn't feel the bottom of. I managed to get up and out of the field with now more troubles. We saw Borat, which truly exceeded my expectation of it.

The last situation of the night was the bus ride back. We left the theater around 11:35, and the last bus left at 11:30, which left us stranded. We weren't shocked over this, since we had a good idea that we would most likely miss the bus if we watch the 10:00 show. Thus began out trek back to campus, which only one person in our group knew how to navigate, Cody. The walk home was winding and, synonymous with the night, long and physically draining. The walk was covered in about 2 hours, and the distance, as calculated by Jimmy with Google Earth, was 6.4 miles. There were many back roads taken in it, and the consensus was that if a horror movie-esque event was about to happen in out lives, it would have occurred that night. Highlight of the evening was Chris' statement, "Lets do the first mistake in all horror films, split up." We passed multiple farms, one had the sound of pigs being slaughtered inside. Around then, we lost Steve and Ryan A, which caused more worry, as they didn't answer their phones.

Everyone got home safely, and the moonlight of that spectacularly-cold Friday night was a cool thing for our walk home. Most of my face had gone numb, but we all had a good time. This weekend was certainly a memorable time, one that will be loved and remembered. Remember to have an upbeat look on life, since seeing how shitty it was is a lot less fun that remembering all the fun we had.

If anyone made it through this post, my praise to you.

For everyone's enjoyment, a nice little song from a favorite band of mine. I think it's a wonderful bedtime story.



The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness - The Flaming Lips

Here we go

They started up the hill
With their young lives exploding still
They love to dream and run
They have the grass and the trees and the sun
They dreamed of the gold they’d find (they dreamed of the gold)
At the top of the hill as they climbed
No one would ever doubt
Their spirit and strength could never run out

There they go

But the hill was steep and long
They never thought they’d be wrong
They climbed through the hill and all
There was a mountain a thousand feet tall
And with the gold still in their minds
They used their young lives to climb and climb
And by the time they got to the peak
They were old and they were weak

There was no gold that they could find
It was all just in their minds
They had dreamed and they had run
They found the grass and the trees and the sun
And said what do we do now
Spend the rest of our lives climbing back down
Or we can treasure what we find
And make it golden in our minds

That’s what we’ll do

Hello.

I got bored not doing many of the things I should be doing (reading journals for eng15, webassign for phys211 and math141, and studying), so I decided to create yet another internet based way to track my ass down and bore you with my own stupidity. I'll probably end up forgetting I own one of these in about a week. Oh well, such is my life, many starts with little finishes.

I should probably tell a little about myself, but not too too much. Then our relationship would get all awkward. Nobody likes awkward. My name is Mike, but I have plenty of other monikers including Mikey Poo, Snuffy, Adam (large adam's apple), K-Mart, Smugg, and plenty of other derivations. I was known through high school from many friends to have a good Bill Cosby and Greased-Up Deaf Guy impressions. I seek humor in anything, since it is my coping mechanism. I played percussion through middle and high school. I know, band geek right? Social groups didn't happen too much to me; I had quite a wide variety of friends and well-acquainted people. I take being "laid-back" to new extremes, although this year I have been trying to keep ahead of my classes. I am currently a freshman at PSU, and the life up here isn't bad. Musically, I believe I am quite alternative, and by alternative I speak of The Flaming Lips, Spacehog, The Unicorns, along with some classic rock artists thrown in. Music defines a lot of my life; I love hearing songs that you can apply morally. That's enough for now.


I suppose I can make use of this to archive my blunders and general stupidity to the viewing public, as well as any other general information I deem important enough to include.

Stupidity of the day:
Today I forgot a programming project due in my computer science class. I had to go to my brother's apartment to drop off stuff for the trip home this weekend and decided to stay there for a little while. I finally ended up leaving around 9:40, and realized upon reaching College Ave. and Allen St. (around 9:50) that the project was due at 10:00. Well, I was wailing many obscenities in my head to myself as I began to run full-fledged back to my dorm. The cosmos had finally shifted into my favor, for I had actually lucked out in arriving at my room to get the assignment in by 9:58. I had completed it before the day it was due, but I hadn't structured the output in a completely great way. But any amount of points I get is better than nothing, and I'm pretty sure it works well.


If you can't find humor in your mistakes, what's the use of living? Most of life is comprised of mess-ups, so you'll have to learn to enjoy them somehow.