HEY THERE Y'ALL

So it's Friday night, I'm sitting alone because my plans got canceled, and I'm writing a blog post. Here's a picture of a giraffe.

Anyways, I was just going to say school is almost out, which means very shortly, we will no longer have this blog. It'll probs remain up, but if not, you can go to our personal blogs! Each one of us has one, so here ya go:

EJE
IBI
OMO
Clyde

I think they're all great. Especially mine. Just kidding, it's just a blog. So GO! Read us being entertaining! Mostly the others, not me, I just rant! Give this page and our own personal blogs more views! We like views! Gracias!

- EJE, the one whose blog url and title are in Estonian

Podcast!

Here you go!


Ezine Podcast from Vinyl Staff on Vimeo.

EJE's probs last post

It took me so long to get on here, I forgot what I was going to talk about. All I know now is that I am leaving Google Chrome forever. It wouldn't let me log out of my own email on blogger, so I was just sitting there, pressing the log out button for like 5 minutes straight. My face resembled this:

I'm not even kidding. Now, imagine that hippo yelling obscenities. That was what I looked like.

So, yeah. Blog post. I actually had something to post about. Finals, possibly? I haven't been able to eat with my friends for the past 4 days because I've been so busy. AVP and ezine are stealing my lunch time away. But that's not what I came on here to talk about. What I AM going to talk about is our podcast.

Our podcast/video shall be up tomorrow after school! Unfortunately, I've had some issues with it. I finished editing it today during forum (editing is not so great, I didn't have a lot of time), but then there were compression issues and our school computers suck... so basically I can't upload it until tomorrow night. But if you want something to look forward to, go watch some Ke$ha music videos! Here are the ones featured in our video (just little snippets)(unfortunately it doesn't let me upload nice fancy copyrighted videos, so clickity on the linkitys)(what would this look like if it were multiplied out?):

1) Your Love Is My Drug

2) Tik Tok

3) Stephen

4) We R Who We R

5) Blow

Also, if anyone understands the shirt, I love you. Don't you just LOVE the Muppets? I do. LOVE. SHIRT THAT IS COOL.

- EJE who is too hyper. PS get us 4000 views before the school year ends, please. Thanks.

'Irishness' -- so a thing

So Obama is in Europe for a bit touring for... whatever reason, while Netanyahu stays and talks to Congress. (Funny, thought surely he would be leaving after all that... guess not. Never to early to campaign in a foreign country!)

Anyway, he stopped in Ireland today. While what's trending on the BBC right now regarding the visit isn't really political, I kind of like these sorts of stories, ones like Obama visiting a little tiny Irish town and making lots of people very happy at once with his amusing quotes.

Hello Dublin! Hello Ireland! My name is Barack Obama of the Moneygall Obamas, and I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way. 

Anyway, mostly, though, I love the BBC's infographics.

Irishness. Irishness is a thing. Because the BBC said so.

Britishly yours,
Yes, "Britishly" is a word,
IBI

Teehee

So a while back, I renamed my iPod so I could see this. Thinking it was just an urban legand that it actually said "Syncing '(insert ipod name here)'" I found it useless, as mine always just said "Syncing iPod".

Until tonight.

- EJE, who is easily amused

Awwww....

I feel really bad for this poor puppy.

Also, I have a public service announcement for you: Mucinex DM has the side effects of dizziness and confusion. Do not take it before you go to school or work or any sort of thing like that unless you know it doesn't affect you. That stuff is reeeeeeeally strong.

- EJE

Hipsters kinda have good music.

I feel weird for admitting this. But I came across the Yellow Bird Project (www.yellowbirdproject.com/), where they reminded me of lots of indie bands that I like. But you know what? I think they're ALL hipsters. So here are a few hipsterish* songs that I like:

5) Skinny Love - Bon Iver

I first found out about them on an article about hipsters. I think they qualify.

4) All to All - Broken Social Scene

I originally got this song for free when my aunt got Starbucks. 

3) The Con - Tegan and Sara

They're not super hipsterish, in fact, they're kinda well known, but I still lo-o-o-ove this song. 

2) Truth - Alexander

This song was free on iTunes, so I bought it. It made me happy. Kinda makes makes me feel old westernish.

1) Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

This has made its way into popular... everything now, but the guy is a hippie, so you know what? He's a freaking hipster. 

LOVE,

Your hipster EJE

*Disclaimer: A lot of these are somewhat popular.

You're welcome.

I had nothing to do.

 - EJE

Clyde adores film cameras! (FLICKR!!)

October, a set on Flickr.

I love film cameras! Getting your film back and not knowing what you're getting, finding those accidental overlaps and stains and splotches that unintentionally made your photos into art...ah nothing can beat film! So have some pictures I've taken with it!

Myspace Photos

Here you go, guys! Our beautiful myspace style photos. IBI is the blonde, OMO has short brown hair,EJE is the hipster who doesn't generally wear those glasses, and Clyde is the master of myspace photos.

- EJE

Btw, this is our hundredth post. Not the 100th posted, but the 100th written.

Clyde tells you how to take an "attractive" Myspace picture

So yesterday Vinyl was out in the hallway, innocently taking our press pass photos, when an idea struck us. A lovely yet terrible idea. We decided to take our press pass photos as...Myspace pictures.

Yes.

Taking Myspace pictures is a complex art and I have heard it takes many years for the 12 year olds who take them to master the art. However, back in the day of 2008 when I myself was 12, I was quite the cool Myspace photo-taker myself. Not quite a master, but dang I could rock that peace sign and too much eyeliner look. Fo real.

Anyway, I decided to share my tips with you even though it's now 2011 and pretty much no one has a Myspace anymore. So, here is how to take a "cool" Myspace picture...whatever that means.

1.) Find a place with good light and nice scenery for the background. The preferred place for hip Myspacers is usually their bathroom. Because nothing expresses the complexity of your soul quite like a toilet hangin' out in the back of your profile picture.

2.) Put on some makeup. Some frequently used looks include raccoon eyes, zombie stitches on your cheeks, duct tape across the mouth, and fake fangs. Don't forget to tease your hair and color it with marker because your parents won't let you actually dye it because you are 12.

3.) Position the camera. You want an angle that will give away just enough of your face while still looking "mysterious" and "deep". And also make your head look enormous. Try holding it at arms length above your head. This will make you look like a deranged but adorable alien and also make you look abnormally thin.

4.) Hide your face. Use your overly long emo bangs, a hand, or even a flower held inexplicably up to your eye. Holding random objects up to your eyes shows how "unique" and "interesting" you are and will also help you hide the face you're probably self conscious about if you're taking Myspace pictures in the first place.

5.) Upload and edit. After you've got approximately 465 copies of the same shot with slightly shifted angles, upload to your computer and Photoshop the heck out of those suckers. Up the exposure so that it looks like you have no nose. Change it to black and white to make you look EVEN MORE "deep" and "sensitive". Make your eyes red so that everyone thinks you're a vampire with a tortured soul. Who is 12.

So there, now you have it! Now you can go out into the world and take tons of pictures of your emo self! Enjoy!

OMO got distracted by flowers and her camera again.

handmadegiraffe's photostream on Flickr.

TAKE. THIS. SURVEY. I mean, if you want to.

COLDPLAYY and other thoughts about the ACL lineup

This is a repost from my blog. Because I think everybody needs to know.

Coldplay is definitely my predominant thought about ACL. If it can even be considered a thought. It's more of an echo. That keeps echoing. Coldplaaayyy..coldplaaaaay....coooooldplaaaaay.

Colldddplaaaay

Coldplay and Kanye West will be the Friday night co-headliners. Coldplay vs. Kanye = easiest choice of my life. Now, before I start oozing over Coldplay again, I'm going to list some of the bands I'm most looking forward to or believe I will look forward to more after listening to more of their music.

In no particular order at all, possibly even a peculiar order:

1. Bright Eyes - Why? Who are Bright Eyes? I'm not the person to ask, I just like their.. Actually, no. This isn't even the band I thought it was. I was writing about the Local Natives, who performed at ACL last year. I like their song Gorilla Manor. The Local Natives' song, that is.

2. Old Crow Medicine Show - I haven't actually listened to them either, but they participated in the Railroad Revival Tour with Mumford and Sons and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, so they have to be cool, right?

3. My Morning Jacket - I will definitely be checking these guys out. I'm Amazed played on the radio frequently a few years ago, and every time I hear it, I'm reminded of the good old days when I still rode horses (before I fell and broke my arm..). I can picture myself listening to it inside my mom's car at Sonic, waiting for my limeaide to be delivered. Oh yes.

4. Alison Krauss and Union Station - I had no idea who Krauss was until she released that famous album, Raising Sands, with Robert Plant, who was the vocalist for Led Zeppelin when he was young. Great album. Gone Gone Gone is a pretty cool song with a friggin hilarious music video. Oh, you funny middle-aged musicians.

5. Cee Lo Green - For one reason only. "Forget" You. Watch it.

6. Iron and Wine - They're lovely. Really. And if anyone has Iron and Wine CDs they'd like to lend me, go ahead, if you know who I am. If not, I'll frequent the library and Half-Price over the summer. Well, I'll do that anyway. Have a beautiful sample here, listen to Naked As We Come.

Samuel Beam, a.k.a. Iron and Wine.

Also (as a sidenote, because I'm not yet a devout listener to any of these bands)~ The Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, and Broken Social Scene (a Canadian indie rock band) will be performing as well, not to mention the tens of other bands I haven't mentioned.

These bands are not the extent of my interest, but I am neither willing nor do I have time to write about all of the bands that even remotely appeal to me. So, those are the big highlights in my mind. What do you think?

~ OMO

EJE is Cheesy

So I had a HUGE part already written out... and it was deleted. Sucks, right? Yeah. So here is the much less funny version that I had to rewrite in haste as I attempt to finish this blog post so I can do algebra two homework.

I know it may be hard to believe... but I'm a hopeless romantic. Yes, beneath this tough, bad-ass exterior is a girl who dreams of homecoming and her wedding to Rupert Grint and feeling like a princess. The Notebook is one of my favorite movies and I always want the people to get together in the end of movies and books.

So basically, I'm a normal teenage girl.

Isn't he hot? How could you not love him?

But I think my favorite part is what comes along with love: the love songs. Love songs are the best, and think about the amount of balls it takes to write on. It's like, "Hey, I'm going to write you a song (that you may or may not have the same feelings about me that the song expresses) and release it for the ENTIRE FREAKING WORLD TO HEAR." I could never do it. Plus, you have to get the feelings into a song that musically sounds good and into lyrics that aren't crap.And that is why I LOVE love songs.

So here is my list of my favorite love songs that make me want to cry or kiss someone. (Click on the song titles for links)

10. Juliet - LMNT

Probs not the best way to start off my playlist, but this song has a special place in my heart. It was on one of the playlists that my gym teacher in elementary school had, so I would run to it all the time. They also played it at Playland Skate Center all the time and Skate World, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE roller skating, so I heard it all the time. It's a terrible song, but it's adorable. (Unfortunately, there is no real music video for it.)

9. Your Song - Elton John

I have to admit - I just recently discovered this song. I had heard it before, but I just found out who it was by. I discovered it after listening to the Ellie Goulding cover, and I realied, "Hey! I've heard this before!" I feel like it should actually be about a child, but I don't think it is. Either way, it's adorable sweet.

8. You're My Best Friend - Queen

While this is a song about friendship, it still warms my heart. It's still a long song, and it's Freddie Mercury.

7. Kiss The Girl - The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid was my favorite movie as a child. I had Ariel dresses, and every time I saw a large rock, I would go sit on it and sing the song where she's sitting on a rock. I would comb my hair with forks. I watched that movie so many times, I could probably sing every lyrics to every song correctly. However, this is the sweetest song. Want to hear a cute story? When I was in 6th grade, I had my first "boyfriend", and my friend decided to dictate "our song" every week. (EVERY FREAKING WEEK. It lasted only about a month, which is good, since we went out for 8.) This was one of them, so of course I hear it now and look back and think, "Wow, 6th and 7th grade... boy, was I ugly." Which warms my heart. So pretty much, this song is cute.

6. She Is - The Fray

I generally like the Fray, but I'm not like a huge fan. HOWEVER, this song makes me want to get up and dance and smile and go be happy. It's just cute.

5. Every Time We Touch - Cascada

This song is so fun. The music video is hilarious. It's a great dance party song. I always get super excited when I listen to it, and it's sweet. Plus, the guy is really cute. Who doesn't love nerds in libraries? I sure do.

4. Halo - Beyoncé

Have I ever mentioned I'm a Beyoncé fan? Because I am. Not only is she HOT (she's one of the two celebs I'd pick if I had to chose a celebrity crush of the same gender), but she's an AMAZING singer, and she actually writes (or at least cowrites) most of her songs. Pretty much everything except If I Were A Boy. And this song always makes me smile. What on earth is she doing with Jay-Z? There are so many better people out there.

3. Every Coldplay song ever written. No Joke.

Every time I listen to Coldplay, I get thrown into a nostalgic little slide show in my brain of past memories of friends and people and family and everyone and awesome and sad times. I'm not sure why. DAMMIT, CHRIS MARTIN! But they're just all so... so... yeah. It's mostly X&Y and Parachutes, however, Green Eyes makes me want to cry every time, and it's on A Rush of Blood to the Head, so there's always exceptions. Some of the best ones for emotion are: Green Eyes, Til Kingdom Come (look, it's at ACL!), Parachutes (my old ringtone), Fix You, and A Message. 

2. Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley

What kind of cheesy love song list would this be if I didn't include this song? It's a classic. You get rick rolled with it all the time. Personally, I love being rick rolled, it gives me a chance to listen to this song.

1. Hey Molly - Mike Lombardo

This is possibly the cutest song I have ever heard. After I bought it, I listened to it ten times a day for four days straight. I'm not kidding. Currently, it's my 4th most played song at 61 plays (I have over 1700 songs on my iPod, so that's a lot for one song), only beat by two Coldplay songs and one Journey song. It was written for indie artist Mike Lombardo's song writing class when the prompt was "geeky love song". And that's exactly what it is - the cutest and funniest song ever. So GO LISTEN TO IT. The iTunes version is better than the youtube version, but whatevs.

And now, question: If you had to choose a celebrity to date of the same gender, who would it be?

Sincerely,

EJE

Clyde defends Ke$ha

Yes, it is true. I, Clyde, have a secret. Okay, fine, it's completely the opposite of a secret because I'm pretty sure anyone reading this already knows, but whatever. It still feels like a secret because of the overwhelming amount of SHAME I feel whenever I mention it to anyone.

I, Clyde, like Ke$ha. Yes, it is true. And no, I do not mean I just find one or two of her songs a little catchy or fun to dance to. I mean, I LIKE KE$HA. Really and truly. I think all of her songs are genius and her music videos are hilarious and she just might be my spirit animal if that spot wasn't already taken by Lucius Malfoy.

Let's face it though, Ke$ha will never quite be QUALITY MUSIC. You can tell this from the dollar sign in her name. And how many times she says "slut" in a single album. However, she does write all her own songs and she did work her way up from being dirt poor to the top of the charts. You gotta respect that, yo. And, anyway, not all her songs are mindless crap like everyone seems to think. Okay, they kind of are, but from songs like "Stephen", you can tell that she doesn't take herself seriously and seems to be making fun of herself most of the time. And, have you seen the music video for "Blow"? Prime Minister of Uzbeckistan and making out with unicorns and munster cheese? Now that is some quality comedy right thar.

EZine does karaoke -- the sequel

IBI polls you lot

Clyde's quiz of fantastical proportions!!

Music fest POLL!

Music Survey by EJE

A photo essay of EJE's brother con una camera fancy.

Because I can press buttons and turn lenses and my grandma has a fancy camera, here are some pictures. A lot of them are repeats... but whatever. You can search through them at your leisure.

Not so attractive baby Cassius and Pancetta... who looks like a creeper in that second one. Creeper?

And here are some flowers. A lot are of the same flowers. They were from people to my step mom.

 

 

 

Here's his balloon.

Mis padres y mi abuela. La fotografía es de sus boda.

That's my cat. I just like her.

A(ctually) C(aught) a L(icense)

That is, I actually got three-day passes for ACL! They went on sale at 10:00 a.m. today, and they sold out in less than 120 minutes. After an agonizing wait online, many unfourtunates discovered that the tickets were already gone. But no worries, there are still single day passes that will be available on May 17. The festival lineup may be released on that date as well.

For the past few years, ACL has been held in October, a nice time of year for avoiding the sweltering Texas heat. However, this year, ACL has reverted to its original date in September. This change brings back memories of dripping sweat, dehydration, and blistering sun beams. But it's all worth it to hang out on the Zilker lawn and listen to live music for three days straight.

The Austin City Limits Music Fest location

~ OMO

EJE's response to Osama bin Laden's death

Wow.

So, Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Now, I am never happy about the death of anyone. However, I feel like I can be a little happy considering he contributed to the deaths of 3,000 innocent civilians, and if there's anything I hate, it's innocent people dying because of people who think they have the right to kill anyone.

This is... wow. Except now, I'm super worried for our country. Al Qaeda isn't completely gone just because their leader is. It makes me incredibly selfishly glad that my family lives no where near any huge government building.


And now for the whole, "Where were you when you found out that Osama bin Laden died?" thing that will become important when I'm old.

I was sitting on my computer when Madisen message me saying "do you know what's going on?"


So then she sent me a link and I was like, "Holy shit." My step dad was overjoyed and said even though he doesn't believe in revenge, he's glad bin Laden is dead. This is all so crazy.


So yeah, important moment in history, and Americans outside of the White House are celebrating by singing our national anthem and Queen. Good night.


- EJE