the butler will serve you now

PropertyOfZack Contest : : The Early November

Tue, 08 May 2012 17:48:34 -0400

The Early November are heading out on tour later this month with The Wonder Years, The Swellers, and Young Statues and PropertyOfZack has teamed up with them to give away ten (10) tour posters. The posters are 18x24”, silk-screened, limited to 200, and designed by Brian Mietz. The contest will end on May 17th, so find out how to enter below!

To win one of ten tour posters from The Early November you must do each of the following things:

Follow PropertyOfZack on Tumblr.

Follow The Early November on Tumblr.

Reblog this post on Tumblr.

Check out the tour routing and ticket links if you have yet to below by clicking “Read More!”

Read More

Hey dad, what do you think about your son now?

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:27:31 -0400

Hey dad, what do you think about your son now?

Get in mah belly.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:35:33 -0500

Get in mah belly.

Oh thank you Kindle Fire, I can “borrow” The Hunger Games.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:33:21 -0500

Oh thank you Kindle Fire, I can “borrow” The Hunger Games.

So good.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:31:47 -0500

So good.

Hmm

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:26:30 -0500

Hmm

Video

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:21:05 -0500

<3

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:19:37 -0500

I will fuck this up I fucking know it.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:14:52 -0500

I will fuck this up I fucking know it.

I've Given You All

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:09:50 -0500

It’s a sober sight
The old alcoholics that drink by the train
Riding Good Will bikes and constantly running away
Wearing starter jackets for teams that haven’t existed since the nineties
With discouraged faces they’re counting down days
And pulling at paper bag forties
Man, I’m sorry

Missin’ some people right now.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:06:32 -0500

Missin’ some people right now.

Miss you pops. Happy Father’s Day.

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 02:02:56 -0400

Miss you pops. Happy Father’s Day.

Missin you right now, pops

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:02:04 -0500

Missin you right now, pops

Animal Farm - George Orwell I decided to re-read this book for...

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:22:51 -0500

Animal Farm - George Orwell

I decided to re-read this book for no real particular reason. I didn’t have anything else on tap for the moment and just picked it up. Glad I did for the most part, I liked it a good deal more than I remembered. It does make me want to read some other Orwell, I like the way he writes. On to the summary/review.

The conditions on The Manor Farm are reprehensible. Animals are mistreated, overworked, and underfed. Mr. Jones, the owner, is a drunk and a mean one at that. An old boar tells all the farm animals of a dream he had, a dream in which all the animals are free and the tyrannical humans have been driven off. Long story short, his speech incites them to rebellion and they succeed. The newly named “Animal Farm” is free. At least for a little while.

The smartest animals on the farm, pigs, naturally lead. They also eventually steal. And become more like those they once rebelled against.

“Animalism” is the name for the way animals should behave and there are seven commandments. These commandments are in place for the betterment of all animals, for all animals are equal. The main goal is survival, happiness for all animals - no humans!

The top two pigs, Snowball and Napolean, can never agree on anything. Something has got to give…Napolean takes over. The dumber/lower animals are taken advantage of and meant to work work work. The ultimate goal is to build a windmill that will better the lives of all animals, only its really hard to build. Hardwork must be put in first. Over and over and over.

Martial law reigns. The allusions to Stalinism and Democracy and government in general are powerful and pervasive throughout the whole book - obviously, as this is the book’s intent. The pigs and dogs rule by fear and lies. Lies upon lies until slowly the pigs are breaking all their own rules and acting like tyrants themselves.

The most likeable character in the book, Boxer, is a powerful horse with no quit in him. You have to root for him, he is the best. Without spoiling it, Boxer is apart of some truly wonderful literary work. The fate of his character is powerful.

The book is depressing and eye-opening. Definitely very applicable to our government and people in general, it is a scary thing feeling like you have no control. What can we really do anyway? I will read some more Orwell in the future.

I need to read something that ends happily ever after now. Or non-fiction. Maybe something with aliens.

Just finished another Stephen Hawking book and boy let me say,...

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:54:59 -0500

Just finished another Stephen Hawking book and boy let me say, this one was a little harder to follow than some of his other, more accessible titles like “A Brief History of Time,” and “The Universe in a Nutshell.” ESPECIALLY after reading super simple C.S. Lewis children’s books for the last few weeks.

“The Grand Design” by Hawking and fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow is a book, like most of Hawking’s others, that attempts to explain such mysteries as why the universe was created, why do natural laws work the way they do, to find a unified theory of everything, and to try to explain why a creator is not necessarily necessary for the existence of the universe (or multiverse).

There is about 8 or 9 chapters in the book, and the first 5 or 6 are pretty brutal, making one learn new terms and definitions like M-Theory (a popular and criticized theory that is a candidate for the theory of everything), the anthropic principle (the idea that we can draw conclusions about everything around us based simply on the fact that we exist) and many, many others.

I won’t lie and say a good portion of this book didn’t go right over my head, because it did, but in these books, to me at least, there are moments and pages and times where something seems to click and I feel, at least momentarily, like I understand the universe just a little bit better than before. And that’s worth it to me.

Hawking proposes ideas from other cosmologists and physicists that take time to truly understand (I understand parts of some) like that of M-Theory that instead of the 3 dimensional world we experience (four if you count time as the 4th dimension) there are actually 10 or 11 dimensions of space-time but most are too small and curled up to notice, detect, or effect our lives in a daily sense. There are alternative histories theories, based on experiments with electrons and photons and other tiny pieces of matter that come to some conclusions that there is no single definite history of the universe but instead that every history of the universe happens.

These books are not for everyone, that’s for sure. I like em though. I wish there was more I could say about the book right now because there’s loads of stuff I didn’t even touch on but the truth is I don’t have a great grasp of most of it and probably need to re-read the book at some point (and learn all the necessary definitions beforehand). Regardless, Stephen Hawking, you’re a beast.

On to the next one.

Foods me and the lady have recently created and then destroyed.

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:24:08 -0500

Homemade parmeasean crusted shrimp

Delicious homemade potato skins

Creating the Crab-Crusted Masterpiece

The Masterpiece.

Semi-Related, delicious Cozy Corner

Foods me and the lady have recently created and then destroyed.

Ah, the circle of life. It’s crazy and amazing.

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:20:39 -0500

Ah, the circle of life. It’s crazy and amazing.

Ok, this is the book I wanted to read originally. As fate would...

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:40:56 -0500

Ok, this is the book I wanted to read originally. As fate would have it, it wasn’t as good as I remember but still no doubt enjoyable.

I read the Last Battle, mistakenly, and it turned out to be a better book. Anyway, The Magician’s Nephew is the book that begins the entire series. In a nutshell, it tells the beginnings of Narnia and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”.

The main reason I wanted to re-read this one is because of the origins of the Witch, which are awesome and because there is a particularly cool area in the book where all the worlds are connected and it is, for me at least, a very good read. It was also pretty cool to read the final book in the series and then turn around and read the first book, a change of perspective.

As per usual, the main protagonists are two children, Digory and Polly who end up becoming the first humans to discover Narnia (on the day of it’s creation). They accidentally release Queen Jadis in the ruined world of Charn, and yada yada yada they all end up in Narnia and all kinds of hijinks are in store.

A great chapter in the book is the one that describes Aslan creating Narnia and choosing select animals to become talking beasts. It is written beautifully and it gave me goosebumps.

I really just like reading some C.S. Lewis, simple, easy to read style. And talking animals are cool.

On to the next one, some Stephen Hawking.

I just read “The Last Battle” for the third time, I...

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:26:00 -0500

I just read “The Last Battle” for the third time, I believe. I read it this time by mistake as in my head I wanted to read a different Narnia story (which I have figured out is the 1st book in the series and this one was the 7th and final novel).

I really do love the Chronicles of Narnia series. Yes, they are children’s books. But they rock. These are the only books by C.S. Lewis I have read but in these, for obvious reasons, the writing style and everything about reading the book is so simple. At the same time he still manages to be really good at imagery and storytelling. It’s a nice combination.

Being the final book in a pretty epic series, this book starts and goes out in style. The book starts off with such a ominous and somber tone. Seeing as this is the last battle, it makes sense. A clever and cunning ape gets all sorts of devious ideas into his head and sacrileges the great Aslan. Uh oh. C.S. Lewis was a devout Christian and all these books have deep Christianic themes throughout them. The ape is a false prophet.

The most prominent and obvious religious undertone is having and keeping faith. This is important in the salvation of all the protagonists and the major downfall of the many villians (The ape, the Calormenes, the cat).

C.S. Lewis really has a skill for creating extremely likeable albeit simple characters. I really felt for them. I got goosebumps approximately 3 times reading the last 2 chapters. Yea.

He uses a fair amount of second person narrative which is almost always a no-no. I personally don’t think it adds much to the story but I also don’t think it is particularly bad. Being a childrens novel he uses it well for the most when he thinks he needs to.

The books aren’t very long and they’re quick reads. I’m gonna read the one I meant to the first time now, The Magician’s Nephew.

It’s also kind of funny since lately the topic of happy endings (in books or movies) has been coming up. This was a good one.

Struggles

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:49:29 -0500

Whew, the weight of constant sports betting is finally weighing me down. Rough month or so. Basketball (NBA/NCAA) is just way, way harder than football. Get it together, baby.