PROJECT ROBOT

the project robot story has reached its startling climax.

go play, if you want.

G.P.O.Y.W.

away we go

this movie looks great. it's kinda hilarious. totally reminds me of the movie garden state in a weird way. in 2004, when we were all in our early 20's, garden state totally spoke to us. now it's 2009 and we're in our late 20's / early 30's and look at how the topics have all changed.



another thing i totally support about this movie: jim halpert with a beard.

perfect.

sometimes the internet blows my mind.

it's SCARY, man.

anything you would ever want. ANYTHING. it's out there on the internet. like it's made just for you. endless niche possibilities.

so, let's say, for instance.. you like it when people cover old pop songs in a really sad way. let's say that's one of your favorite things.

for the purposes of this discussion, let's choose the hit song "heart of glass" by blondie. a classic.

okay, let's make it sad. totally sad. throw some mandolin in there. maybe some sad harmonies. hell, might as well make it haunting while we are at it.

okay, this song is just about perfect for phil.

but something is missing.. can we get a visual in there? something to look at while we mope in sadness?

maybe tell a sad story or something.

WAIT! i've got it! why don't you throw some civil war shit in there? phil loves the civil war. he's practically obsessed with it lately.

a sad song combined with the civil war. sounds about perfect, right?

thanks internet!


courtesy of brie, who sent this to me, because she is epic and wonderful... and she KNOWS THINGS.

the band is old school freight train. the battle being reenacted is the battle of stanardsville, va.

did i mention i love the internet?

more courage wolf!

freedom week 2009

one of the greatest decisions i made in my life was to indulge in FREEDOM WEEK. if you were a blog reader here from the very beginning, you will remember freedom week 2008 as one of the first things that ever happened on this blog.

freedom week kicked off in february of 2008 when i forever left behind the world of temping and my boring wachovia temp job, and started working at my real job. the week in between the two jobs was deemed as the ultimate fun party week. a whole week of no job, no responsibility, and a commitment to epic fun.

the week itself was a little blurry, but i seem to recall:
- getting a tattoo
- sleeping in every day
- lots of netflix
- duckpin bowling
- short pump mall
- the science museum
- delicious bbq at double t's
- lots of drinking

and probably 100 other epic things that i don't even remember because i was too busy being FREE.

now that i'm in between jobs again, freedom week 2009 kicks off again on april 17th.

i haven't quite worked out the details for this year's freedom week, but it promises to be epic as well. i must emphasize, for those unfamiliar, that freedom week is not about PARTYING every night. it's about having FUN. specifically phil-related fun. which may not be considered fun by other people. those people suck.

anyway, friday the 17th will be big-time celebrating.

saturday the 18th, we kick things off STRONG with a RICHMOND CIVIL WAR HISTORY BUS TOUR. for only $23, i will be spending 4 hours on a bus learning about richmond civil war history. with stops at tredegar iron works, hollywood cemetery, and the battlefields at gaines mill and cold harbor. get ready for some serious nerd-level shit. if you're down to join me, just holler. but if you're not down for some serious historical learning, don't try to front.

any other suggestions for freedom week, friends?

let's get PUMPED! FOR FREEDOM!

new job town.

well guys, sorry if i'd been acting vague the past few weeks.

i have been keeping something hidden from the internet for the past few weeks and it was definitely a challenge not to talk about it, because it's such a huge deal for me. well, now i'm letting the cat out of the bag.

friday of last week, i got a job offer from a really great agency here in richmond and i accepted. i am leaving my current job and moving on to a new opportunity that i think will really be a huge step in the right direction for me. i will be working primarily in retail video, working in a similar role to what i am now, acting as a liaison between the client and other brands and working to develop original video content.

it is a great move all around. i'll be making more money, doing work that i find interesting, working at a place with a great reputation for quality creative work, and hopefully in a place where i can meet some new people with similar interests and goals. on top of all this, my commute is officially cut into 1/3 of its previous length, not to mention the distinct possibility of being able to bike to work. (take that, carbon footprint!)

i can't tell you how excited i am about all this and how difficult it has not been to share my excitement during this long crazy process.

i am a little sad, of course. my current agency has taught me so much and given me so many opportunities along the way. it welcomed me back after i spent a year on tour and it's always had my best interests at heart. it will be sad to leave the people i've come to work so closely with over the years, but everyone here understands the need to move forward in my career and they've all wished me well.

over the past several months there has definitely been this vague sense of dissatisfaction and a giant question mark when it came to the question of what my next move was going to be. this is a great great next move and i'm super excited. it also answers a number of other life questions i've been tossing around in my brain. so, now it is safe to say that i'll be in richmond for at least a few more years, which is very exciting for me because i love this city and i wasn't quite ready to leave her yet. there are still more civil war battlefields for me to check out nearby.

thanks to all of you blogreaders who have been in-the-know during this process and helped me with advice, guidance, and everything in between. you guys are amazing.

here's to a new chapter!

via ffffound.com.

are you there, god? it's me, cookie monster.

via ffffound.com.

macrock, you are a BEAST!

this weekend was the epic musical event known as MACROCK. each year, a ton of bands descend on harrisonburg in our tiny little virginia version of SXSW. i hadn't been in a few years, so with some convincing from kenny, i decided it would be a worthwhile adventure and a chance to get out of town.

the day started roughly. friday night's late night shenanigans on the rooftop resulted in both kenny and i getting only 4-5 hours of sleep. we did our best to rally, energize, and then hit the road. the road to harrisonburg is long and shitty and only gets awesome during the last 45 minutes when the mountains come into view. we stopped in charlottesville for taco action, made a bunch of disparaging remarks about the town, and then sped on our way.

upon arriving in harrisonburg, we checked out the label expo and panels. in our foggy AM stupor, we were unable to leave early enough to catch any panels. bumout. the label expo was a bit spotty this year. a few cool booths, but overall nothing thrilling. after that, we kicked things into awesome-mode by meeting kevin and chad for drinks at the rooftop of dave's taverna. i'd never been up there before, but it was the ultimate springtime beautiful day chillspot. so perfect.

we headed over to the artful dodger to start watching some bands. we bumped into all our richmond pals there and had a good time catching up and laughing. some great bands played including algernon cadwallader, which was a big highlight for me. my pals in worn in red played and did a fantastic job as well. after that, i ran over to the court square theatre to catch my friends in the cinnamon band. they had an awesome set and i picked up their new CD EP and a t-shirt. i was a little bummed knowing that i wasn't going to be able to put out their record on vinyl, but it sounds like big things are starting to happen for them, so i'm thrilled for them.

sarah, kat, and i hit up dave's taverna again for dinner and beers. we opted not to go to the ONE BIG SHOWCASE that EVERYONE was going to. the line went around the block and it just seemed like a big waste of time to stand in line for 30 minutes and then be inside a sweaty hot venue where it's impossible to get beers. so we opted instead to go to this new bar that had just opened called "jack brians". i called it "wooden bar" because you could tell they just put all the wood in and it had this "lumber" smell. it was actually pretty awesome. i felt like a lumberjack as i drank my cheap beer.

i had a bunch of random conversations with random people. i was accused of being a "hipster" twice, which made me feel awkward and uncomfortable, especially considering that this was a topic we recently covered here on the blog.

after the show let out, we all headed to this ridiculously huge house and proceeded to drink copious amounts of beer, talk to even more random people, and marvel at the hundreds of people crowding every corner of the house.

i had a conversation with a girl who was getting an international business degree. she was saying she didn't know what to do with her life. i told her even if you think you know what to do with your life, you never really know. then i told her we'd meet in that kitchen in two years at macrock 2011 and tell each other what we'd figured out in the meantime. i told her i'd probably have a kid. and that his name would be roscoe. let's hope that's not actually what goes down.

at 4:00am, i managed to sober up to a point where i realized we had no sleeping bags or places to sleep. i corralled a very drunken kenny and an also drunken sara and got us in a cab and then off to the beautiful DAYS INN. once we arrived in the room, i immediately got in my bed. i put in the headphones and reveled in the joy of finally being able to sleep after fighting it off all day.

today we awoke, groggy and still somewhat sleep-deprived. we made our way to little grill, for a macrock tradition that i was fortunate enough to tag along for. there was a bit of a wait to get in, but once we got our food, i was in hippie vegetarian heaven.

the drive home totally sucked and i was a shitty passenger, nodding off on the regular while kenny was trying to hold it together and not fall asleep and kill us both. thank you kenny for driving.

i came home desperately craving the nap i so deserved, but instead i went to go see bill's piano recital. it was his first one ever and it was actually really cool and i'm glad i was able to go.

all in all, a great weekend. and apparently, it made for quite the long blog. if you even made it this far, i applaud your patience. perhaps i should have released this in installments or chapters.

anyway, the gist is .. macrock = good. harrisonburg = missed. live music = good + missed.

quotes.

i apologize if this is a little on the inside, but i wanted to remember these quotes from last night for the rest of my life, so i'm blogging them here to remind me:

"double fuck you, george washington." - liz


"i will bury your gross face under the ground." - bill chubb


"i wish i was a turtle!" - krysta

oh facebook.

not sure why i found this as funny as i did, but this made me laugh harder than anything has all day.

this was all in reply to our neighbor david who posted the same status message about 15 minutes prior.

punisher vs. batman

man, here i was talking at length in my blog about PUNISHER vs. BATMAN and acting like it was a hypothetical scenario.

little did i know, they already made a MOVIE about that shit!

i can't believe i missed this when it was in theatres. the special effects are stunning.

more nerd confessions.

if you're someone who hangs out with me on a semi-regular basis, you probably also hang out with my pal ian. ian is an awesome dude. he is also the world's deadliest bike polo player. ian also works in a comic book shop, so he is super knowledgeable about all things comic book related.

during drunk late night hang outs with ian, i would usually talk to him at length about my favorite comic book as a kid. THE PUNISHER. the punisher was a badass because he had no superpowers and he usually got the shit beat out of him. all he cared about was justice and vengeance. you see, mobsters killed his whole family, so the punisher proceeded to spend the rest of his life fighting crime on the STREETS. i know what you're thinking.. phil, batman doesn't have powers either. he's pretty cool too. but to that i say:

fuck batman. the punisher would destroy batman in a fight.

i don't know. maybe there's a comic where batman fights the punisher. this is unlikely. i will have to ask ian.



anyway, for my birthday ian picked up these new punisher comics for me at his shop. and i've been reading them and here's the thing.. they're totally awesome. i never thought i'd enjoy reading comic books again, but they totally rule.

so last week, ian brought me a whole new batch of punisher comics, but this time he brought something else over. this comic called "loveless". it tells the story of this confederate civil war veteran who returns to his home after the war to find his hometown a much different place. basically there's a lot of shooting people involved. but needless to say, i never thought i'd be able to combine my nerdy love of the civil war with nerdy love of comic books.

big thanks to ian for upping my nerdiness tenfold.

pixar vs. dreamworks

i don't watch a lot of computer-animated movies, but this made me laugh because it's totally true:



from slashfilm.com.