Did you catch the webchat Franz did on Thursday? I wasn't aware of it, but I stumbled upon some links to videos of the chat: http://community.livejournal.com/franzferdinand/786924.html?#cutid1.

I'm still in my Franz phase and haven't been listening to much else, aside from the occasional Muse song.

That's neat that the Muse board had a contingent at the Amoeba gig hehe. Lucky buggers.

Kasabian is band I keep hearing of, but have yet to check out. I'll look into them too. I downloaded two Kaiser Chiefs albums recently that I have yet to listen to in full. A lot of Brit rock lately for me. A lot of downloaded music in general this month.

Now that FOTC video, that was lol worthy!

Did you hear about Muse opening for U2? Talk about major epicness!

http://www.muselive.com/index.php?m=single&id=4502

Did your friend like Muse because of Twilight? Or vice versa? Or was it random coincidence she likes both? And does she only like SMBH? Yes, that was a lot of questions, sorry.

Yeah that's what makes the whole thing so tragic... unfortunately she just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Do you want HQ versions of the concerts? I converted them for my iPhone so they should also work on the iPod. And/or I could burn you the DVDs so you can watch them on TV (yes!).

It's hard for me to pick a favorite. I like HAARP because of how epic it is. HAARP was actually how I first got into Muse. I bought it on a whim, then I picked up all their other albums after that. =) Glasto is also epic but I agree, the DVD tracklist is lacking. (How can you leave out SS and the stage trashing at the end?!) And then I love Hullabaloo for its raw performance, it has more of the older material, and the bonus DVD is entertaining to watch.

I'm letting one of my coworkers at the Apple Store borrow my copy of HAARP because I just learned that he LOVES Muse. Then I found out that another one of my coworkers also loves Muse -- she said to me, and I quote, "We should hang out more!" -- and got to see them live in L.A. a few years ago. So lucky... I want to see them live someday. Even if I have to fly somewhere to do it!

Don't worry, I can understand how you feel... again, I was the same way in high school. I'm sure that leaving the islands for a bit will help and I encourage you to do it.

 

What parts of Cali have you been to? I prefer San Fran over L.A. but that's just me.

Gah, I know! Muse, bring it on already!

Two of my favorite gentlemen in one av... and it's a real pic! (as opposed to a Photoshopped, combine-two-pics-in-one pic!)

Good job on the Franz recommendation -- I can't thank you enough! They're now my new bus ride soundtrack. Right now, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is my favorite of their three albums. You may have led me to my new favorite band. And about the beach music, my sister was actually the one who wanted me to bring Muse CDs. I guess that's a good sign! Listening to her and her friends sing along to their songs was amusing.

Sorry to hear about your car incident! Hope your parents will see the light and take you to the DMV. You don't want to procrastinate on getting your license... take it from someone who knows because I still don't have mine! I know, lame, right? That's one of my goals this year: to finally get my license. I have my permit, so I've been practicing. I need to working on my turning because sometimes I make wide turns. Also, driving on the freeway freaks me out, but it's inevitable.

Good morning! (Good afternoon here.) How are you?

My mom's traveling to the P.I. next month. I thought I was gonna go, but now I'm not sure. I work two jobs and my full-time said ok, but the weekend one is not sure yet.

Haha yeah, rowdy at a Jimmy Eat World concert. Maybe "rowdy" isn't the right term... it was pretty much just crowd surges, like when suddenly it seems like the crowd decides to push towards one direction all at once. My sister couldn't keep her balance at one point and fell, and that's when we decided to go outside for a bit to catch a breath.

FF's self-titled album and YCHISMB were both nominated for Grammys; I didn't know that until a few days ago. Not that I usually care about the Grammys, but that's cool they've been recognized here in the States. Unlike Muse... which is odd because I'd think Muse in comparison are much more massive than Franz, even though they're both pretty popular. Maybe whoever decides on those awards doesn't like Matt's voice. But yeah, I like YCHISMB, but I could see why some people wouldn't. They have a different vibe or sound going on with that record.

Wow, I had the same thought about Alex looking like Cillian Murphy in the video for "Michael" too! I guess that must mean we're not seeing things!

Congratulations on your permit! I know, it's like once you get the permit, no one wants to make time to teach you. Same here. Hrmph. I've thought about getting driver's classes, but I'm afraid of getting a mean instructor. Plus you have to pay for it, which I feel is unnecessary if you already know someone who could teach you how to drive...

Franz on Craig Ferguson in two days! Woo hoo!

Haha, yeah I know, I'm sorry. I think I also just ran out of things to talk about! But yeah, you have a point. They did only play a few shows last year. But they were high profile shows, so probably another example of "quality over quantity."

That's cool! I wish I had friends that liked Muse. I have a few Apple coworkers who dig Muse but it's hard making friends with people you only work with once a week.

I'm trying to put together a trip, possibly to Phoenix, with a few of my friends from high school. I'm trying to make it so that it's the same weekend in April that Franz Ferdinand will be performing there but it's tough because of the different schedules we have. We're trying to do a weekend trip so we don't have to worry about taking leave. My one good friend is a teacher and my other two friends are bank tellers, so you can imagine the challenge. But it would be so cool, especially if we got to see Franz! Oh and Arizona stuff too. I've only been there one other time so it'd be nice to go back.

Hey Kylee! I've been doing great, keeping busy with work and hanging out with friends. I wanted to go to the movies today but it looks like I'm gonna be home with the family and enduring my neighbors' crazy propane bombs, ugh. I'm gonna try to ninja my way to the TV as soon as my dad gets sick of Nat Geo's "Dog Whisperer" marathon and pop in one of the Muse DVDs in celebration of the new year. We'll light up some of our fountains later tonight. I'm not a fan of the loud stuff lol.

Yeah, I guess Hawaii's one of the last places in the world to get to New Year's, huh? Damn time zones. Happy new year! =)

So how about you? Gonna be doing anything special in celebration?

Hey Kylee! I've been okay, just busy with meetings and cranking out website designs. I know, I'm so proud of the guys! Someone sent me a link to that interview through Twitter this afternoon so I was watching it at work . Thanks for sending me that link though because I couldn't hear some of what was being said. (Didn't want to turn it up too loud because there was a client meeting going on in the other room.) Plus I left my earbuds and phone at home which was a bummer. But yeah, I'm glad they won best live band, though I wasn't that surprised! =D Best album art and Matt as sexiest male too! (I love the look on Matt's face when the interviewer said he won - he looked so shocked! "I'm too short to be sexy!" )

How've you been doing?

Oh btw, I was going through AFI's website the other day and I caught your friend's shoutout to you and your dad on his blog. I noticed he spelled your name wrong though! I bet that must be common for you. It's right here: http://begintransmission.afireinside.net/raine. Lucky he got to meet and record with them! =)

Hi Amethyst! Cool, we both have uncommon names lol!

Yeah, would be cool to meet up there!

Hmm... I would think the brown colored layer in saturation mode wouldn't work in all cases. It really depends on the picture you're working with. I haven't figured out a formula for determining what color works or doesn't work, but playing around with different colors and trying each blend mode (and opacity) helps!

I have a couple of LiveJournal icon tutorials saved that I'll point you to:

http://community.livejournal.com/__belfrycons/4439.html (this one was done in Paint Shop Pro but should also translate to Photoshop, GIMP, etc.)

http://community.livejournal.com/color_freakshow/1692.html

They really break down each step and help set a foundation for giving photos that "look." But again it really depends on the photo you have, as you might not need to do all the steps for certain photos.

Holy crap! *hugs* That's a scary dream! I hope it hasn't shaken you too much. I don't like dreams like that at all, especially when you wake up and start crying.

Isn't it weird though how detailed it is, and how random those details are? Like, marijuana ball? White supremacists? Vietnamese guerrillas? Stuff we wouldn't normally encounter just trickles in are dreams somehow.

I actually prefer "Darts of Pleasure" too, but the other day I was listening to "Words So Leisured" on the bus. I was feeling a bit tired and the song came on and I was like, "Oooh, he sounds really sexy on this." Hehe.

Hope you get all that stuff for your birthday! If not, you could get the Muse stuff for your birthday and the Franz stuff for Christmas. Or vice versa.

I'll let you know about Sound Bites. I just ordered FF's DVD too, so I'll let you know how it is too.

OT: Tornado in Kapolei today. First heard about it through Twitter, then my coworker said he passed by it right when it was happening. Strange weather we've been having... what's next, hail?

I caught the rebroadcast last night, thank goodness! I enjoyed it. I cracked up with that sign that one girl passed to Alex that read, "You can drink my vodka any time!" And there was that other one, something about "Franzy pants." Oh fans.

I haven't heard any of Friendly Fires' music until now; I'm streaming the music they have on their Myspace. Are they from Scotland, too? Seems like they make dance-able music, too.

I did. I put the Photoshop question in a separate comment but I realized I could just add on the question to my previous post by editing it.

I mailed your DVDs this afternoon! I had to put both Hullabaloo discs on dual-layer DVDs because they couldn't fit on the standard ones. They played fine on my DVD player so hopefully they should also work on yours.

I also included a disc with movie files of the three concerts that you can play on your computer or iPod. Since I was already burning you HAARP that way, I figured I may as well throw in Hullabaloo and Glasto too. The files all have chapter markers, so you can skip around (after enjoying the concerts in their entirety, or course )!

I gotta tell you about the dream I had last night. I went to go see a Franz Ferdinand concert with a couple of Apple coworkers I had lunch with last weekend. There was a special booth outside that was selling special tickets (probably front row or something) and no one was there, I couldn't believe it. So we bought our tickets and lined up. I remember a random guy showing me a map of the venue and telling me that the band usually comes out from the right, but he recommended going somewhere in the middle to hear the best sound. Then I realized I hadn't brought a camera. Conveniently, there was a camera shop next door, so I ran out of line and looked for a camera. Then I woke up. But yeah, it was interesting how detailed my dream was, especially with that guy recommending where the best place to stand was.

Then the night before, I had a dream that I went online to buy FF tickets and they sold out!

Anyway, I hope your week is off to a good start!

I know, Franz Ferdinand in wizard outfits ! Apparently a couple of the guys from Radiohead and Pulp's lead singer ended up replacing them. They were actually a rock band/wizard group in the movie. (I Googled it lol.)

Four-day weekend?! Lucky you! Did you have yesterday off or are you having Tuesday off? Is it a waiver day of something?

I love Matt's red hair in your avatar.

Nope, neither of them won. According to the Grammys website, the White Stripes won best alternative album in 2005 and Gnarls Barkley won that same award in 2006. But whatevs.

Have fun at the rave! Where's it gonna be? And congrats on getting that final driver's ed slot!

I majored in advertising. I was originally going to take up journalism, but I lost interest in it. I kind of lost interest in advertising, too (maybe disillusioned is a better word), which is why I'm doing web stuff now. But every time I see a crappy local ad on TV (which is all the time), I feel the urge to make something game-changing.

I found torrents for Franz's two albums and Flight of the Conchords and am downloading them as I type this. Thanks for the suggestions! I know what you mean -- LimeWire sucks, especially when you want to find good quality files! And a link to the premiere would be great, thanks!

I think the guy's okay. The news story said they released him out of the hospital shortly afterward, so I'm thinking his injuries weren't too serious.

I'm gonna go to a candlelight memorial tonight to honor my high school freshman English teacher. Apparently she was murdered at random and in broad daylight on Friday... we're all deeply saddened that it had to happen to such a wonderful teacher and person... makes you wonder what this world is coming to these days...

I totally believe you. I had a math teacher that would do both: pile on the homework AND fail most of the class. I ended up passing that class (it was trig) with a C but only because she gave me and another classmate (who I work with now) an extra credit writing assignment because she knew we both could write (we wrote for the paper). That trig class is my least favorite class of all time. Big surprise right?

An extended "Lucid Dreams"? Nice! It's finished downloading for me so I'm starting to listen to it now. "Propane Nightmares" is playing and just launched into the synthy, dance-sounding riff, woo!

Yeah, she was a great teacher and a good person who didn't deserve to leave the way she did. After work today, I left a lei at the makeshift memorial that's been growing at the front of the school and I could feel myself tear up. I wish I had visited her one last time... but I guess there's no use for that kind of thinking now. I'm gonna miss her, we all will.

I tried making you a copy of HAARP but the disc is copy protected. What I can do is make you a file that you can play on your computer.

And yeah, that's probably my favorite avatar I've made! Dom's facial expression really does look like Gollum in yours!