A special thank you to my readers

I just wanted to take a moment to let my readers and followers know how much I appreciate all your support, comments, and feedback.  THANK YOU so very much!!!  

Two Exciting Thoughts

First thought: I can't wait for this Sunday! It's Superbowl Sunday! Yippee!!! (Does anyone even say "yippee" anymore or am I showing my age?) Although I'm not a big football fan (or a big sports fan for that matter), I do LOVE to see championship games and this Superbowl game is one I don't want to miss. My all-time favorite female solo musical performer, Madonna, is gonna perform at the half-time show!   I am so excited!

Justin and Mila Kept Their Words

When Justin Timberlake accepted Corporal Kelsey De Santis's YouTube invitation to accompany her to this year's Marine Corps Ball, I'm sure there were many skeptics like me wondering if he'd actually keep his word. After all, it seemed like one person after another suddenly started inviting celebrity after celebrity to some event or another for a little while.

Who is Rebecca Black?

I guess you can say that today, I'm going to contribute to the viral popularity of a widely criticized music video.  I can't help it.   When I came across the Video Ga-ga post on Yahoo today, I got curious and watched the video...adding myself to the more than 3 million views this aspiring singer named Rebecca Black has had on this video, a dramatic jump from the less than 4000 views it had last Friday!

3DG's Break video rocks!

I joined the Three Days Grace Street Team on FanCorps a few days ago and found it to be a really cool source for 3DG widgets, photos, and other downloadable promotional 3DG material. If anyone wants to join, click on the Street Team logo above to access the FanCorps sign up page for 3DG.


While I'm speaking about 3DG, have you seen their latest video for the new release "Break"? It is a truly rocking song and the video just makes you want to get up out of your seat and move your body - dance, shout, headbang, strut, anything but stay seated! No pun intended but the video seems somewhat of a "breakthrough" style with its mostly colorless theme. Then as the song progresses, you see pink paint get spilled and spattered all over. I'm not sure why they chose pink for the paint color. Maybe it's some kind of statement for Breast Cancer Awareness? I'll have to do some googling to find out.

In the meantime, the new video is available on YouTube if you want to see it. Embedding has been disabled so I couldn't repost it here but you can check it out at this link: BREAK video by Three Days Grace.

And if you want to sing along, here are the lyrics:

Tonight my head is spinning
I need something to pick me up
I've tried but nothing is working
I won't stop, I won't say I've had enough
Tonight I start the fire
Tonight I break away

Break away from everybody
Break away from everything
If you can't stand the way this place is
Take yourself to higher places.

At night I feel like a vampire
It's not right but I just can't give it up
I'll try to get myself higher
Let's go we're gonna light it up
Tonight we start the fire
Tonight we break away.

lyrics obtained from CD insert

Tarsha's Second Life

I wanted to invite all my readers to check out this new rockin' video from one of my Myspace friends, Sheldon Tarsha, a vocalist who has previously worked with Steven Adler of Guns N Roses before breaking out on his own. He sings lead for his band of the same name. Kinda looks like Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers, doesn't he?


See the pic of Anthony Kiedis below:



If you want more of Tarsha, check out his myspace site here.

Got Wood and Power Saw?

Now here's an artform that I haven't mentioned yet in any of my blog posts about art - WOODCRAFTS. And this guy, Randy Boni - does absolutely amazing works of art with his power saw and wood! He's an artist and craftsman from Tennessee. He does commission work for this type of art, too, and will work on-site as well. He even teaches this skill to those who request his tutoring.

I really like the details he puts into these works of art. Imagine carving such intricate lines using a power saw! That takes an amazing amount of skill and talent!


Image from Abundance Acres


Image from Abundance Acres


Image from Abundance Acres

Wanna see him in action? Check out his YouTube video and watch how this master craftsman does his work.

To view a gallery of his awesome wood art, visit his website: Abundance Acres.

Neat stuff, huh?

Seether's Breakdown Video

Wow! I was checking out some videos on YouTube and found this Seether video for the song Breakdown, which appears on their Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces album. This video is just amazing! I like how they did the Rubik's cube thing with it. Very impressive!


Breakdown


Incidentally, I also posted an entry about Seether's remake of the George Michael classic, "Careless Whisper". You should check out that post if you haven't already. Just click here to read that post.

Sneak Peek at Vanquish's Upcoming Album

Photo by Vanquish Fan Graphics
My favorite local band from Richmond/Hampton Roads, Virginia is Vanquish. I mentioned them in one of my earlier posts and post updates as I can. I manage a fan page on myspace dedicated to promoting this awesome metal band. The page promotes other local musicians and other bands I like as well but mainly, it's there because I wanted to bring more exposure to this talented group of musicians.


Photo by Vanquish Fan Graphics
The band has been working hard for over a year now on putting together their second album and will soon be releasing the album. They've uploaded two tracks from the new album on their official myspace page so their fans can get a preview and give them some feedback. One of the songs they posted is Lost Cause, which you can listen to (the demo version) and watch them perform in this video clip my sister took for me during one of their NorVA performances. I uploaded it to my YouTube page, along with a few other videos I have of them from their shows.



I figure I ought to post some of the collages I put together of the band members to introduce my readers to the band members. (After all, I am a Photoshop artist myself).






Please be sure to visit the band's myspace page and listen to their music! If you're a myspace user, please be sure to add them to your favorite band friends, too. And don't forget to check out the gydget I created for metal music lovers like myself. I have the narrow version displayed on the right hand column of this blog.

Lebanese music, anyone?

My brother-in-law has been doing some research work in the Middle East for about a year now and he introduced me to some music from a really lovely Lebanese singer named Nancy Ajram. I just thought I'd post about her to share her music with others. She does have a beautiful voice and a pretty face to look at while watching her videos on youtube.





Check her out sometime and see for yourself.

Almost Halloween!

Yay! My favorite holiday is coming soon - Halloween!!! The reason why I love Halloween is not just because it's so much fun to dress up in costumes, but because there's always so much chocolate candy around - LOL! Many mothers I work with often bring the "extra" candy that their kids get from Trick-or-Treating to work because they don't want their kids consuming so much candy at home. So we get to have candy all day long at the office.

Anyway, I thought that I would share a few fun and interesting Halloween videos I found on YouTube. I didn't pick any gorey, horror videos - you can have your fill of those from the video stores and television. I just picked out a few that I thought my readers might have a little pre-Halloween fun with.

The first one is a song from one of my favorite MySpace friends, Creature Feature. They know how to make all year long feel as fun as Halloween. I met them while they were still a lesser-known indie band and got their CD autographed for my son who enjoys the same kind of music I do. The band was soon signed on by Sumerian Records and now have their CDs available at many great places like Best Buy and Amazon Music. Here's Creature Feature:



And since I love rock music, I thought this was a great Halloween rock video. This is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas featuring the song "This is Halloween" by Marilyn Manson:



If you've followed my blogs, you'll know I also love cartoon animations. This one is a Halloween video featuring the Happy Tree Friends. It's called "Out of Sight, Out of Mime". It's only about two and a half minutes long, and while it has some animated violence in it, it's only a cartoon!



Finally here's another interesting one, called "Do They Know It's Halloween?" featuring the music of Arcade Fire from Montreal, Canada. I thought it was a really creatively done piece.



Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween celebration this year!!!

Easter Video

Okay, this is not a music video, but I found this one YouTube while searching for Easter videos. I thought this was pretty cool. At first I thought that perhaps someone just had too much time on their hands and created these images just for this video. Then I decided to try it out myself on the google search engine and the search items they put in really did work. Check this out and try it out yourself!



Have fun! And HAPPY EASTER, everyone!!!