Put Me Out

New song from The Used.

I think it's badass.

...

That is all.

The Prestige: Book Review

So, last marking period in my school I took a creative writing course with my current English teacher. I really liked the class, as it mostly consisted of watching movies and writing with those movies structures and themes. One movie stood out in particular to me and that was The Prestige. It was an incredible movie that made me wish I could have seventh period a few times in a row so I could watch the whole thing. At that point I figured out that there was a book that the movie was loosely based off of, and after a friend of mine had bought and read it, it was my turn to give it a read. (It just so happens that this assigned book review is part of a grade and I read the right book!)

To start off, the book is told from multiple perspective throughout. The first section explained a man named Andrew Wesley, who was investigating a news story and came across a young lady named Kate Angier. She asks him to stay, as she believes he is actually Nicholas Borden, who was believed to die when they were both young. She invites him to read the stories of their ancestors, Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden. And so they do, and the book really gets going with the tale of Alfred Borden. I think this was probably my second favorite part of this book, simply because I loved the way that Borden's character wrote. (It was recorded as a diary/journal/yaddayadda) Here was explained the feud that the book is all tied around. At a seance that Angier was doing, Borden attempts to expose him and starts this crazy fight that lasts both of their lives. This creates a crazy chain of events leading to a wild and fantastical story, which also includes revelations of Nicholas Borden's story, as well as Angier's side of the feud. Each of these perspectives unravel an absolutely insane plot that will always have you wanting more.

(Summary is kept brief! As I would not like to spoil this incredible work to those who have not read it.)

Overall I loved the book. It was honestly the best read I've had in a long time. I think it was the way it was told that really caught my attention. Borden's perspective was so interesting and it really caught your attention. You could really get a feel for the character, as if he really existed! Which I think in the end is what all writers want to entice the reader into thinking. Although I found the beginning parts of Andrew's story to be a bit dry, his parts of the story became equally as interesting. The funny part was, Christopher Priest(The author, oh yeah, did I forget to mention that?), was so good at making each character have their own personality. I felt like I was really reading Angier's side of the feud through his journals and not just a stupid interpretation, a ditto Borden's. Also, I found Angier's part of the story to be the most interesting by far. The parts of the book were recorded as journal entries and always had you wanting to turn the page to see what happened next. I give the book a 9/10. Simply because of my slight disinterest in Andrew's introduction. Though, I guess I can't really expect a book to grab me at the first paragraph.

Also. Go see the movie. A lot different, but it's so good it may influence you to read the book.

Tuesday

So, I woke up today thinking it was Wednesday and was unhappily surprised at the fact that it was Tuesday. It's hot. Like, I don't like when it's over 65 degrees, and although it may not be quite that, it is muggy as fuck. I hate when I have to sit in school and sweat all day. So over the weekend was Saint Patrick's day, which me and my friends appropriately named it Saint Rachet's day. If you don't know why you can look it up on urban dictionary or something. Perhaps we're just so hip that we're the only ones who say it. Needless to say, it was a good time. The purpose of today's blog is to simply ease back into the whole blogging business after the weekend of forgetting about it. So, sorry this isn't anything interesting. First period, can't exactly expect much to come from my brain here.

The title

So, as it would seem, 7th period has become the time for me to throw an entry down for this blog. I've considered pre-recording vlogs for days where I don't want to write. I do plan to write on this daily, or at least on weekdays. Once if not twice a day. Today, I will explain why this blog came into existence and what the subjects are I write about.

Why: Well the main reason why is that it is a grade for my English class. Then again, why the hell would I write for only the class? Well, I wouldn't, but I like writing and I like expressing my views and what better way to do it than a site that only my classmates can see and not the enormous amounts of people on facebook who would disagree with me, bitch, piss, and moan. So there, is my reason for keeping an active blog.


What:

Okay so clearly you can read at the top "Games, Metal, and shit I talk about." Or however I punctuated that. Here's what that means.

Games: I'll be honest, I play a fuckton(for lack of a better term) of videogames and I often want to express how I feel about certain games, publishers, mechanics yadda yadda. Here it seems pretty open, and some of the people that play the games with me can see what I have been writing. Plus, I can rag on games that other gamers would drag me down to a ditch and beat my ass for.

Metal: Like I said in my previous post, my main music genre that I listen to/play is Metal. Be it metalcore, metal, death metal, it doesn't matter. I listen to it all and more. Here, i'm going to be sharing my thoughts on new metal albums and bands, updating you guys on my band personally, and so forth.

Shit I talk about: This is just generalizing any other posts I make on here. Because lets face it, although the two fields above are popular in my life, there are other things that go on in the world and i'd like to address my opinions on those as well. These will consist of either my life's events, politcal/media events, or even random shit I've observed in my day. (My English assignments will be classified under this category as well.)

And that's about it for this period's entry, here's a spinny thing to stare at.

Netherwind

So I'm sitting here in my 7th period study hall. Nothing to do, and no one to talk to besides the white box I can put words into. I think there's a class in here. Way more people than usual. The system here is so screwed up with how they go about their passes to the library. Regardless, anything is better than Drake's room. At least here I can go on a computer and do this.

So, it's time I explain the picture at the top of this blog. That is a picture of me and my band, Netherwind. I think it was about...tenth grade that a friend asked me if I wanted to be in his metal band with another one of my friends. I of course accepted and started playing guitar for it. Now here's the fun part, I suck at guitar, and  quite frankly we were all pretty bad at the time. But I can't explain how cool it was to say that I was in a band! A metal band! By the end of middleschool all I could listen to was metal. So the first arrangement, and I say arrangement because the band never happened, was Her Void. A fictional post-hardcore project me and two other friends had made with the discovery of our instruments. At the time I was with Aaron, my best friend and the guitarist of my current band, and Dan who later became the vocalist of my next endeavor. That, was of course, Aggro. A shoddy line-up of mulitple people that had either been in the fictional band or helped bring us together. Just with our luck, The Invasion was created the year we started. It was a school fundraiser to show off your band and help the school rake in a little cash. I'll explain a bit further on, but I will say that not once have we successfully (In any line-up) played The Invasion. We worked with a temporary drummer until the show, which I will post the video below. It was in every essence, a bombshell. But everyone in the crowd who liked us loved it, because I guess they couldn't understand a damn thing that was happening. Shortly after that, we lost our drummer and picked up a new one. Unfortunately as well, we lost our lead vocalist and I was bumped up to the lead. I had a lot of fun too. Although I was hardly any good at it and would often get extreme headaches from doing the screamed vocals improperly. A few month before the second Invasion, our drummer had a bit of a fallout with the rest of us and he left. We were luckily able to adopt a new one, Alex who is now the drummer of a pretty successful local band named Jonestown. It was then I made the suggestion that my friend Daulton be bumped to lead vocals and I go to bass guitar(which we had been lacking throughout our time together) However, due to various circumstances, the rhythm guitarist Kyle was put on lead and we were a four man act. After the drastic line-up change we had become, Look At You.

Now, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy my time in Look At You. Because I learned a lot from it. But damn was it high-tension for the bandmates. Practice time and transportation was always a problem, we weren't very efficient with our writing regiment, amongst other things. But for a time, it was the most fun shit I had. We had a decent setlist, a few original songs, and The Invasion was right around the corner. The Invasion was less of a bombshell than the last, but a bombshell nonetheless. Which again is due to various reasons I'd rather not discuss. Then came our first real show at the local Youth center. And lemme tell you what, nothing felt cooler than being on that stage with the crowd in front of me jumping up and down. I had fun playing the bass, and doing back-up screaming. Everyone who went was proud, everyone who went thought we were cool (or at least it seemed it.) For a time I was on top of the world, happy that we had this going for us. Then prom came around. Which may I add, was the absolute WORST time of my life. Although I did get 300 dollars at the after-prom party haha, score. So we had a show the same day. And due to more of these unfortunate circumstances that kept happening for me, I couldn't go. Our vocalist was furious, and if I didn't already have a good bit of money spent on prom I wouldn't have gone. The other two were understanding, but that's where the wall between all of us started. Alex and Kyle didn't get along and for reasons I won't discuss nor go into high detail about, eventually that led to Alex leaving. With him gone, Look At You slowly died, even though some new drummer prospects came along, our guitarist was already long gone, and it was over.

I would post a video of one of Look At You's shows, but unfortunately they all have been taken off the web and erased from existence shortly after Netherwind was created.

And so I went along with my life, bummed, remembering the cool times of the band. Wishing things would've gone a little better. Especially after I saw Alex's new band and the headway they were making around our town. (We didn't get along for a long time after L@Y's breakup) It wasn't until one day, Aaron had talked to me about a band idea. I thought it was highly far-fetched, but he asked me to be the vocalist. Me, missing the role I once had, was more than happy to take the offer. We started out with several original songs, just me him and our drummer, Dale. And eventually got our second guitarist and bassist.

Our first show was a little rough, to say the least. But overall everyone who went had a great time. I mean even with all the mistakes, it was just fun. Definitely cool to be on the same stage Look At You had once played on again.

 We started making, no, cranking out originals one by one. It was incredible! Everyone was so much more fit to be in a metal band. I can honestly say i'm more proud of my band today than any other accomplishment I may have made haha. Today, we are rather successful, making new songs, finding sources to record an EP. And often have shows locally (If you're reading this you should attend one, they're a great time!) We've even played with Jonestown and me and Alex talk frequently about the bands. Regardless. My time in bands have helped me become better as a vocalist and guitarist as well as increased my understanding of music. I'm all too grateful for that.

My morning