Of all the things

I just added voice lessons to my list of things I want to get better at. Well, singing was already on the list, but now I have sadly decided I can't learn to sing on the internet. I took guitar lessons to learn guitar and I guess this is the same kinda thing you need interaction with to learn correctly. But dang. So now I need to decide if I want to take voice lessons through school or guitar lessons. Tough choice, but I'll probably go with voice. well, maybe.

Old notebooks

I like notebooks. I always have and probably always will. I like to scribble, jot, and spill in them. I've done this since freshman year in high school. See, I never understood note passing. I guess I never had anyone to pass notes to, but even then it seemed strange. When I did pass notes, I would always laugh or something and be really obvious. It ruined it. So I wrote whatever was on my mind. Freshman year, I started to write my thoughts in a notebook. It was my first blog like thing. When I read it over I always laugh because it captured my thoughts pretty darn well. That was the motivation to get a myspace and blog on there. Then eventually I came here.
But that was an unintentional history lesson, and the main point was to share some of the things I ended up with in this years 5 subject notebook. My thoughts about them are in '()'s.

A punk song:
Red ink change the truth
Red ink give me proof
That I am in charge

Red ink the government
Red ink makes me think
That I am in charge

Red ink splotches grow
Red ink now you know
That I am in charge

Red ink bleeding through
Red ink onto you
If I was in charge


Two four line things:
Two people sharing headphones, a blanket and a moment
Sharing music, warmth, and words
Infatuation is a young feeling
Developing into a failed relationship
(haha, wonder what I was thinking of then, :) )

White space always touching
Maintains structural stability
the black is the implied
We see what isn't there.
(it's a stencil!)

Parts of a song?:
Rolling ball pen
rolling on then
it stops, dries up dead
rolls empty again.

Out of fuel
out of ink
I'm dried up
trying to think
(I kind of like it, but it's short)

Some sort of punk anthem:
This is a call/For those looking for
A place to call home/I don't want to go it alone
Come on join our lines/for this will be our time
To prove the power of our mind/To leave some ink behind
(I love the last half line)

So yeah, that's that.

Camera needs

Alright, I need some help from the reader base. I want to have an place online to store my pictures. I know Flickr is a big site that I am frequently directed to when I browse people's albums. But there is also photobucket and Picasa that offer the same 1 GB storage for free. Flickr is 100MB monthly and run by yahoo. Picasa is a part of the google structure which makes it seem beneficial to using blogger.
My question is this, what do all of you use? I feel like I'm a little behind in getting a photo account due to the lack of a camera until now, but I also don't know what anyone else uses. I think if everyone uses one or the other it'd be simpler to join that, but w/e. My main need is to link with this blog and Picasa has a definite one up by already storing all my pictures that I've uploaded here. But flickr also has blogger support.
Also, any recommendations for SD cards or cases? I haven't decided if the no name brands of flash media is worth the lower price or not.

Some stencils

Sitting in coffee news and my battery dies, so I start drawing. I get some good work done and here are a few stencils I got. This will be a mARTin post, because it's been a while and I feel bad about that. This can make up for all the missed posts since it's like 3 stencils at once. I could spread them out, but that feels like cheating you all.

Your bad eyesight is cute

I'm in coffee news right now. Colin and I decided that a line drawing of our setup in my basement would look cool, so I took some pics and came here. I wore a messed up hello blacksmith shirt in honor of the band, it's one that got water on the back logo and so it blotched and we can't really sell it to anyone. So I go up to order and of course it's the indie girl that works there. Short, black indie hat, over sized indie glasses (the kind my mom wore in the 80's, not even joking, I was converting VHS to DVDs and they were there in '85). So I goto pay and she asks if I made the shirt I'm wearing. I say yeah I did, and we have a short conversation about my band and how she's seen me wearing the shirt. I say that it might have been my friend Colin too, since it probably was. But I got a compliment on the shirt, which other people say they've gotten, but I never have. And I got to talk about being in a band and making shirts and all that cool stuff that I like with someone who I know has no connection with me.
It was awesome.

Camera hassle

So, yesterday I bought a camera. The Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ5 in black. This is the latest version of a camera my friend Ben Corner has. His is really nice, so I went with that. It was also about $150 off of retail and so it was a good deal. However, the place I bought it from is a very confusing place, topchoicedigital.com. It's an online retail site that has a lot of stuff. So I bought it and then they called me today to verify that I wanted to buy it or whatever. And then the sales representative asks me if I know what the camera comes with. I say, kinda, I know the basics. And says, well you know the battery it comes with last only 20 to 30 minutes. Holy crap, that's not very long at all. So I say, no I did not know that. He then offers me a 120 dollar battery half off if I buy it with the camera. Hmm I smell something fishy going on here. Why would a default battery only last 20 minutes and why are they pushing this longer life battery that I know I could find cheaper from other sites, I did a lot of research into all this. So I ask if I can call back in a bit after I think about it.
I do research and take a break and call back just now. The guy goes, so do you want the 2 or 4 hour battery? And I ask how it is possible that a camera only lasts for 20 minutes. He says, and this is where I get upset because it goes against my ration thinking and the research I did, that the camera uses the same amount of battery when it's on whether it is taking pictures or not. A professional photographer will take 200 pictures in 20 minutes and so they get the most use out of said 20 minutes. I would be wasting them while not taking pictures. From my knowledge, cameras take more battery when they are taking pictures, especially if they use flashes. So he says it's 200 pictures or 20 minutes, which ever come first. Also, their site shows two batteries, a long life and an extended long life. Both under $60. And they don't say anywhere how long the life is.
So, I know some of you have cameras and would have first hand experience. How would you say your camera drains battery, by picture or by being on? because I think they were just trying to get me to buy a $60 battery.

What to do, what to do, want to do something.

I say "so" way to much. I was going to start this entry as "So..." but I wrote this instead. Anyways, so I'm doing laundry right? And I do laundry like my Dad I guess because I can't do anything else until the laundry is done. I'm trying to clean my basement, but I find myself just sitting here. Hmph. I also can't bring myself to do much right now. I jammed on guitar and drums, but only one instrument is boring sometimes. Then I knitted some and did a few rows of my scarf. I want to go outside for fresh air and maybe grab coffee somewhere to wake me up, but all my pants are in the washing machine. Argh. So I decided to write a blog I guess.
I'm sorry for the lack of consistency these past few weeks. I have been busy and out of it most all the time. I'm either really busy for a few days or out of it for the rest of the days and in between them. Like, I've stayed up to about 4 or 5 every night for the past 4 days. Last night I went to bed at 1:30ish and laid in bed for at least 2 and a half hours. I know because I listened to two albums all the way through. This is what people told me to do instead of watching shows like destroyed in seconds and dicking around the internets. But it didn't work. I thought way more than I wanted and freaked out and made goals and made plans and realized my plans and goals weren't completely realistic and that it all is too stressful and that I should give myself 7 hours to accomplish two things, laundry and clean my basement. Because it will take me the 7 hours today to do that.
Yesterday Hello Blacksmith had a impromptu band meeting/practice. It was great, we have a good idea of what we need to do in the next two weeks. And we have the basic layout for our CDs designed. Just need to do some finalizing. But that was really nice.

I think my pants are done, time to dry them.