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It's been a while since I posted anything, but I had to write something about our new guitars.
For Christmas 2006 Danielle bought me Guitar Hero II. We immediately became addicted to it and have been playing it and all it's many incarnations nearly every day since then. We play Rock Band a lot now and also Guitar Hero III. I've had every custom version you could find and even created my own custom versions of Guitar Hero, so you could so we are addicted to it.
All this video game guitar playing really introduced us to a lot of new, at least to us, music like some of the classic hits of The Rolling Stones, Santana, The Allman Brothers and many more. We really have learned to appreciate good music and the complexities of some of the guitar pieces.
So, we decided it's time to start learning to play the real guitar. I searched around and found a beautiful Yamaha Pacifica for Danielle that matches her personality so well. I picked up the guitar three weeks ago and it sound wonderful. Luckily we have a large boombox that has a guitar input and can be used as an amp. The only thing was that it had no effects like distortion, flange, whammy, etc. .
I am all into effects when it comes to sound so I had to get her at least a distortion pedal. So we went to Guitar Center to pickup a distortion pedal. The place was ridiculously loud and discordant, but very fun to shop at. We found a nice effect pedal called "Death Metal". I was just about to buy it when I noticed a very nice Digitech RP300 guitar effects and amp modeling device. It had all the effects you could want in one box and it could model the sound to be more like vintage amps and even rotary speaker amps (look that one up). The amazing thing is that this device was originally hundreds of dollars, but we got it used for about eighty.
Then I see what I am truly looking for, an amazing Dean Vendetta guitar for myself. The price was stunning (in a good way) and I really like the minimalistic approach to it's design. It fits me quite perfectly and sounds wonderful. I couldn't resist so I had to buy it (the voices told me to).
We get home and try out my new guitar and the RP300 effects system and they are both truly is amazing. You can get nearly any effect ever used on a guitar in any song you could think of with the RP300 and the guitar was wonderful. We were really happy with both purchases.
So, by the next weekend I had to have an effects pedal myself, so what I did was buy one of the newer small RP50s from Digitech for Danielle and took the RP300 for myself. Danielle is more interested in playing good guitar than just playing with effects so giving her the less robust version made sense because she really just wants some good distortion for now and can get into the more detailed stuff later. Being a programmer, I am constantly into the detailed little parameters that these devices deal with so I wanted the more complex version to toy around with.
Well, here we are now. Danielle really loves her guitar and has named in Alice, as in Alice from Alice in Wonderland. As a sort of matching name; mine is called Alex, as in Heir Kommt Alex by Die Toten Hosen. So one of our goals is for Danielle to be able to play "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, which references Alice in Wonderland, and mine to play "Heir Kommt Alex", which simply means here comes Alex..
We have a bunch of learning materials and are giving some time to learning to play them. The most important thing for Danielle right now is to reacquaint herself with her original passion, the Violin. She has an absolutely stunning one-piece body violin that sound wonderful.
She started practicing it again recently and stunned me at how she could just pick it back up after many years and play it really well. She also realized that she could still read music just fine, something I've always had trouble with myself. So, I am really happy with all of this. We've got two awesome guitars, a gorgeous violin and we are proceeding towards musical heaven.
I will post something again soon about our progress. I've linked to a picture of our guitars below.
 Current Mood:  happy |
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Last night Danielle and I went to the Guitar Hero II tournament and our first match was against each other. I didn't think this was right so I chose to have Danielle move on into the competition.
She then played one of the better guys at "Laid To Rest" by Lamb of God. This is not one of her favorites so she was a little worried at first. Buy in the end she came out ahead and moved on to the finals.
In the finals she played another girl at "Rock This Town" by The Stray Cats. Yet another of Danielle's least favorites, but she pulled ahead and won the match and was crowned the champion.
She won 2 tickets to see a rock band called SPOON on May 5th.
So it was fun and Danielle did great considering her hand had been seriously injured by the cat two days earlier.
SeanCurrent Mood: happy Current Music: Apoptygma Berzerk |
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Last night Danielle and I went to The North River Tavern and competed in the Guitar Hero II Tournament.
We had an amazing time. Danielle competed first and kicked major ass playing Strutter by KISS. She got 99% of all the notes and won her first match.
I played Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies and got around 95% of the notes which is really great considering I really don't like the song and would have never chosen it to compete with.
The second round Danielle played War Pigs by Black Sabbath. She tied with the guy on note percentage and unfortunately lost because he had a few hundred points more. She was still really proud and so was I.
My second round was playing YYZ by Rush. That is one of my favorite songs and so I kicked ass and won and was able to play in the finals.
I played another of my favorites Jessica by The Allman Brothers for the finale. I did well, but the guy I played against got a 98% on it and that was better than I can do for now.
So, I lost the finale, but I don't care one bit because we met some wonderful new people and had a hell of a time playing.
After the tournament Metalsome Inc. came on and they are a live band Karaoke setup that allows you to sing a lot of song with a live band instead of a cd backing track.
I have never in my life sang Karaoke in public, but I thought I would try and so I sang Enter Sandman by Metallica. I did OK and oddly enough I didn't have a hard time getting on stage in front of a large crowd at all.
Danielle sang a mix of We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions by Queen. She did a great job and was congratulated a lot at the end.
So we had an amazing time and met some great new people and look forward to doing it again very soon.Current Mood:  accomplished Current Music: YYZ |
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Danielle's birthday is coming up on the 9th of August. We always go to Florida to visit her dad and that's sort of her birthday present. So, usually I just get a little something for her aside from the vacation.
This year I thought I would get her something a bit more special. While my dad and I were at Wolf photo checking out their cameras I decided to go next door to Petland and see how their baby ferrets were doing.
Well, I get in there and there are quite a few beautiful little ferts running around and so I stick my hand in there and they all attack it and start trying to climb up my arm. They were all sweet, but one in particular stood out. It was a tiny little female that weighed less than my cell phone. She was very sweet and playful and only bit me very gently, which is a big plus since baby ferts are teething for a while and some can bite very hard.
She would bite my finger and do the crocodile death roll, but she bit so gently that it was so cute. So, I couldn't resist and I took her home as a birthday present for Danielle.
Needless to say, Danielle was very happy to have a new baby fert.
We introduced her to our two others, Fen-Fen & LiLi, and they both really liked her immediately. The cats are still indifferent and pretty much pay no attention to her, unless she jumps on them and then they notice her.
We had to immediately go to home depot and buy some special rubber stuff to go on the bottom of the door because she is so tiny that she can crawl under the 1/2 inch space under the door.
We finally decided on her name as well, it's Kiwi. So now we have our two kitties, Shen-Shen & Ki-Ki, then our three ferrets, Fen-Fen, Li-Li & Kiwi.
 Current Mood: ecstatic |
| » Hangin with Mr. Cooper (Mark Curry) |
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Danielle and I had a great time last night at Mark Curry's show at the Funny Farm comedy club.
We always like to go to the last show of the evening because the comedians are not restricted by time and can stay longer if they want, and he certainly did.
The earlier show he was on for about 1 1/2 hours, for the show we went to he was on stage for about 2 1/2 hours.
He was absolutely hilarious and has one of the nicest personalities I've seen before. He was interacting with the crowd and had a connection with the crowd like nobody before.
At the end of the show he let Danielle and myself come on stage with him and take pictures (in my pics section). We talked just a moment and it was great. He is a wonderful guy and is funny as can be.
Jul. 8th, 2006 @ 03:21 pm
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| » RAZR's Edge & Fireworks |
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We had a great week so far, last weekend we got new phones, a Silver Motorola RAZR for me and a Pink RAZR for Danielle.
Luckily we have a discount with Verizon and got them both for a total of $60, so we're very happy about that. I also know a guy who knows a guy and he sold me a Motorola H700 Bluetooth headset for $20, it retails for $120 at Best Buy.
We went to see Superman Returns in IMAX 3D on Saturday night. It was absolutely amazing in IMAX and the film itself is really good and we are planning on going to see it again.
Monday we went and watched fireworks in Duluth and it was a great show. Then on Tuesday we went back to the Mall of Georgia to watch their fireworks. It was amazing and we had a great time.
Then on Wednesday we went to the comedy club and saw the auditions for the Dirt Poor Comedy Tour, which consisted of about 30 amateurs trying their best to be funny, I stress the word TRYING. Some of them were absolutely horrible and actually didn't get one laugh the entire time they were on stage.
The greatest thing about that night was that since Ron "Tater Salad" White from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour was dropping in to keep his skills up while here at home, just a few miles from my place. So he did about 20 minutes of material and it was very funny.
Then Ralphie May, from the 1st Last Comic Standing, dropped in because he is in town to do a show at the Punchline. We had a chance to talk to him after the show and he is a great guy.
The whole 3 hour show cost only $10 each, yes ten bucks to see Ron White and Ralphie May.
Well, it was a great week and tonight we are off to see Mark Curry (Hangin' With Mr. Cooper) at the comedy club for free. It's good to know people. We haven't paid for more than 10 shows out of the 60 or so we've seen in the last couple years.
Time to get back to work...
Jul. 7th, 2006 @ 04:49 pm
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| » DL Hughley |
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Saturday night at midnight Danielle and I went to the comedy club to see one of our favorite comedians, D.L. Hughley. The show was absolutely amazing and it was great to see him in such a intimate setting as a comedy club instead of the arenas that he normally does.
So, we had a wonderful time and had a chance to talk with him after the show, definitely something you couldn't do in an arena setting.
It's been great lately because we've been able to see a lot of great comedians at the Funny Farm Comedy Club and D.L. has got to be one of the funniest ever.
Jun. 12th, 2006 @ 10:38 am
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| » Anniversary / Comedy |
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Last wednesday (10th) was our 9th anniversary. It's been a wonderful 9 years with her and I am very happy to be with her.
We went to Outback for dinner and went to watch the environmentally friendly movie "Hoot". We had a good time and the movie is actually very good.
Thursday we went to the comedy club to see Jim Florentine, of "Special Ed" fame "I've got mail.... YAAAAAY!!!". He was absolutely hilarious and kept interacting with Danielle and I through the whole show and told everyone its our anniversary. The funny thing is that the whole show he seemed like he was talking to Danielle, it was kind of strange, but I know that a lot of comics find someone in the audience that give them a smile and laugh a lot to keep eye contact with and it helps them stay focused.
After the show we got to meet with him and he was a really nice guy, which is almost hard to believe if you've heard him on tv or radio before and especially how he absolutely terrorizes people with prank calls and hidden camera gags.
Yesterday we had the privelege of seeing Ron "Tater Salad" White, from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, at the comedy club. It is extremely rare that he ever does a show anywhere other than a 10,000 seat arena, so it was really cool to see him in such an intimate setting and it was really fun. He is very funny and tried out a bunch of new material that nobody had heard before. It was great because some of it wasn't that funny and he was testing it on us to see what we thought before he used it in front of a sold out stadium.
I only had my phone camera on me, but I did snap a picture of him. The quality is quite terrible, but its a picture anyway.
May. 18th, 2006 @ 10:43 am
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| » Aries |
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Last night Danielle and I went to see one of our favorite comedians from Mad TV, Aries Spears, he is the guy who played Master P in Master P's Theatre, and did the Shaq impressions so well.
We went to the Funny Farm Comedy Club to see him and it was amazing. This is probably around 30 to 40 times we have been there in the last few years to see comedians, but probably the first time that almost the whole audience gave a standing ovation at the end of the show.
He was so funny, doing a lot of comedy about race, love, music, etc. We had a wonderful time and he is probably one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen in person. There is only a few more that come close to this level of talent as a stand-up comic, like Bob Sagat (if you haven't seen Bob Sagat's stand-up then you can't even imagine what I am talking about because he is one of the most offensive and funny comedians you will ever see).
So, after the end of the show we went to meet him and talked for a minute then took a picture with him. He seems like a very nice guy. I now realize that I need to remember to bring my camera when we go see comedians so I can have a picture to remember them by.
Apr. 29th, 2006 @ 01:06 pm
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| » Funny week |
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Danielle and I have had a very fun week. On Wednesday we went to watch 25 comedians all in a row audition for a new comedy show that Robert Townsend is producing. It was really great to see that many comics all together.
One of them was so nervous that he forgot his material and just walked off stage. A few more of them just completely sucked, but there were quite a few good ones and it turned out nice.
Last night we went to the comedy club again to see Reginald D Hunter, who is originally from Atlanta and now living in the U.K.. He was absolutely amazing and one of my favorite comics I have ever saw.
After the show I talked with him and his dad, now I realize the reason he was nervous is that his dad was seeing his act for the first time. I am sure that was nerve-wracking.
We've been to the comedy club about at least 30 to 40 times in the last couple years and have seen some really great comics, so I have to give a shoutout to Marshall Chiles who runs The Funny Farm Comedy Club and is also a comedian.
So, it's cool, I have met and had chats many great comedians... Jeff Foxworthy, Jake Johansen, Paul Provenza, Ralphie May & tons more.
Apr. 14th, 2006 @ 11:01 am
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| » BT |
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Last night we went to one of the nicest dance clubs in Atlanta called Eleven50 to see one of our favorite Trance artists of all time, BT (Brian Transeu).
We got there around 10:15pm and had a caricature made of us and then had some DJ lessons from someone and then roamed around for a while and around midnight BT came on and started his set.
It was absolutely amazing, we were only 3 feet away from him dancing away and having so much fun. We stayed until around 2am then were so tired we had to get home and get some sleep. So we had a wonderful time and are probably going back to Eleven50 next weekend to see Gabriel & Dresden.
Apr. 1st, 2006 @ 02:05 pm
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| » Funny |
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Last night we went to see a great comedian, Doug Benson, best known for his part in the show "The Marijuanalogues". We got in free to see him, which has happened a lot lately since we have become friends with the resident comedian Marshall Chiles.
The show was great and we laughed endlessly all night. It's hard for the comedians to get a Thursday crowd going good, but he did a wonderful job.
We have been going to the comedy club every weekend for the past 3 weeks and prior to that we probably have been there 30 times or more in the last couple years.
I've been lucky enough to see some people that I really like and even talk with them, including Dave Chappelle, Paul Provenza, Bob Saget, Jake Johansen, Ralphie May, Charlie Murphy, Greg Giraldo, Bill Burr & tons more that I can't remember right now. So, its been fun.
I am really excited today because we are going to see one of my favorite Trance musicians, BT (Brian Transeu), who is truly one of the best in the world. We get to see him completely free at one of the nicest clubs in Atlanta called Eleven50.
Mar. 31st, 2006 @ 09:54 am
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| » The cutest music video EVER!!! |
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I stumbled upon what has to be the cutest music video every made.
It's a video for the Fatboy Slim remix of the old "The Joker" song by the Steve Miller Band.
I'm not going to say anything about it except if you don't like it then you kill kittens in your spare time.
http://www.fatboyslim.net/video/jokerscreen2.htm
Feb. 26th, 2006 @ 07:22 pm
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| » The switch |
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After 10 years or so of using Internet Explorer I have finally sent it to the graveyard of unused programs.
About a month ago I decided to try installing Internet Explorer 7 Beta since I am addicted to the cutting edge of technology & software. I was very disappointed with it's new layout and functionality. The problem is that it was now installed and I had to use it, but it sucked so bad that I decided to really give Mozilla Firefox a serious try.
I installed it and started playing around with the tabbed interface and fell in love. Then I added Greasemonkey and a bunch of Greasemonkey scripts that will modify the webpages you visit, as in turning off banner ads & changing the layout to suit you, and also I installed a bunch of other extensions like an FTP client and weather forecasts.
Just today I am writing this entry using a FireFox extension called Deepest Sender which lets you write LiveJournal & other blog site entries right in your browser without having to actually go to LJ and sign in and all that stuff, it does that all for you... You can download this extension for FireFox at the link below:
http://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1811
So, it was hard to say goodbye to Internet Explorer after so many years of good service, but once you really give FireFox a try you will never go back to IE again.
Yeah, this sounds like a big ad for FireFox, but it deserves as much attention as it can get.
You can download FireFox at the link below:
http://www.getfirefox.com
Feb. 23rd, 2006 @ 11:43 am
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| » The funniest thing I have seen in a long time |
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There is an edited version of the State of the Union speech that rewords things in such a way that I was literally laughing so much tears were coming out of my eyes.
This is hilarious:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6294985583987289451
Feb. 6th, 2006 @ 01:56 pm
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| » The ultimate hands-free |
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Are you tired of holding the phone up to your ear while you are driving and risking an accident?
Well, try the new hands-free product that allows you to talk without using your hands.
Feb. 6th, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
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| » Funny Bible stories |
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I found a very funny wesbite called the Brick Testament. They recreate all the stories from the Bible using Lego characters. It's great.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
Jan. 13th, 2006 @ 05:57 pm
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| » Met Jeff Foxworthy |
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Danielle and I were just browsing around Barnes & Noble looking at books and we ran into Jeff Foxworthy. I wasn't sure it was him at first, until I heard him talk to his sister then I knew it was him.
So we went up and just said hi and told him we enjoyed his shows and stuff, it was nice and he told us happy new years and it was nice meeting us and we went on our way.
It was pretty cool to meet him and have him tell us happy new years. He seems like a very nice person. It's kind of cool to realize that he lives only a couple miles away from us here in Alpharetta.
Jan. 1st, 2006 @ 11:57 pm
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| » Warm Christmas |
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Just happy to write that we are in sunny Florida celebrating Christmas with Danielle's dad. It was amazing to be outside with no coat and the sun shining beautifully on Christmas, it was about 70 degrees here.
We have had a great time so far just spending time talking with her dad, Robert, and his wife Marcella.
We watched more episodes of Kim Possible than I knew existed. Its really cool that her dad likes cartoons as much as we do. He is really into South Park, which is our absolute favorite as well.
We watched Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire last night with him, which was our third time, and we are going to see The Chronicles of Narnia again tonight with him.
So we are having a great time and all is good. We are heading back to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon.
Dec. 27th, 2005 @ 06:25 pm
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