shawn's journal

day twenty-five

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:24:09 GMT

1. It was Christmas, duh hah
2. Got all of the CDs and DVDs I had asked for.
3. Got my 55mm-200mm lens for my camera
4. $375 from my family
5. Hanging out with Jon, Alison, Jeff, and Jim
6. Lego Rock Band
7. Texting the most random shit with Alison til like 4AM

Wow, I actually managed to do all 25 days no matter how little the number of things that made me happy were. This was fun and it was nice thinking about the little things that made me happy rather than just the overall. We don't enjoy the little things enough. Thank you Mike for this awesome idea. :D Come up with more awesome ones.

christmas.

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:33:37 GMT

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time of year, and yes I was happy earlier, but a lot of things have come to my mind. My mother allowed me to open my gifts early around midnight, so I was happy about that. And although I do like a lot of what she got me, mainly because it's exactly what I asked for, I feel like I don't need or want what it was that I asked for anymore.

I asked her for a $200 multi-effects pedal for my guitar, I get it, try it out, I don't like it at all. It's fun to mess around with but it's not something I NEED and I feel bad about it. It doesn't have any good sounds that I feel like I need or really want, and the tones all sound very digital and crappy.

I feel like I've done this for a long time now. She'll get me something, I'll use it once, and never touch it again. I don't feel like I'm appreciative of all she does for me and it makes me feel awful. I swear, the woman buys me more stuff than I'll ever need in my life, and I don't even seem to show her enough appreciation for it. I need to stop just asking for things on a whim and end up having her spend money because I'm too lazy to get a job and earn my own money to waste on pointless things. She also ends up buying me things that I think I'd mentioned like once or twice and I really have no desire for them anymore and I just feel bad about it. Just the thought of asking her to return something makes me feel awful.

I've always thought about myself when it comes to Christmas even since I was little. I remember in gradeschool we would have a thing where you could buy presents for our parents and such and I would spend a good portion of the money on something stupid/semi-expensive for myself and buy her something small and cheap. Like three or four years ago I guess when the Xbox 360 came out, I asked for one for christmas. How do I repay her? By waking up majorly early to set it up and not waking her up to watch me open everything like I've done since I was born. She came downstairs and cried. I fel absolutely horrible and still do to this

I feel like absolute shit right now, and as if I'm a terrible son. I know I'm not, but the fact that I can't even appreciate all of the nice things she does for me makes me feel that way. Here I am, 2:30 on Christmas morning crying.

I hope everyone else has a wonderful Christmas. Perhaps later I'll finish up the 25 days of happiness.

day twenty-two + twenty-three

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:52:44 GMT

Twenty Two:

1. Vocal lessons trying to sing Taylor Swift
2. Our teacher, Kim, loving the little lyric switch we do in the song
3. Jim got his car fixed
4. Hearing some new North Farewell stuff in Bruce's car
5. New Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood :D

Twenty-Three:

1. Jon enjoyed the shirt that I got him. :D (it was a light blue shirt that had a thumbs up and "you like this." on it.)
2. Just making it on to the train
3. The train ride there
4. Robots & Racecars
5. The Skylife
6. Victory In Numbers
7. Code Red
8. Waiting for our train
9. Jim dancing at trains
10. Have fun being stabbed
11. Keep rollin, roll-OW!
12. Jon.... Thank you. (walking away dramatically to undramatic music)

I'm sure there was more but I can't remember.

Thanks Jim, Jon, and Noel for an amazing night. :D

Merry Christmas-Eve everyone.

days twenty and twenty-one

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:56:31 GMT

day twenty:
1. hanging out with jon for a bit
2. hanging out with jim / jeff

day twenty-one:

1.Red Robin
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st3OshYNVBA

the past few days have been kinda boring i know. :\

i'll update later for today.

day nineteen / rambling

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:05:30 GMT

1. Watching Conqueror of Shamballa. :D
2. Taking a couple sweet photos while the snow fell.
3. Jon's house :D
4. Watching Hot Rod
5. "Oh Kathy" in french.
6. Pineapple Express.
7. Jon, your house looks weird upside down.
8. It's pi-o-clock.
9. So much else that I can't recall exactly.

Now that I'm done all the GOOD stuff, I'm gonna rant a bit.

Yay fifth wheel. Jon's got Noel, Brandi's got Jeff to talk to, but I've had nobody really. I mean yes, I've been talking to them, but I wish I had someone special to talk to for hours on end. Someone that makes me happy like they have. It's been so long since I've actually liked someone and I miss it. I realize I've said this before but I've got nothing else to talk about/write about right now. Like I said, Jon's got Noel and Brandi has Jeff. Meh. I don't have anything else to say. I'l just continue to sit here listening to music while they do their thing.

we were so proud.

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:17:16 GMT

i've been doing a lot of thinking, especially about my future recently. i want to mature myself in 2010 in a few ways. i want to be serious about things that i enjoyed the thought of in the past but never brought myself to pursue because i had no motivation. i want to make myself a happier individual by fulfulling the goals i've had for a while but never got done. i know it's a bit early for the new year's resolutions, but for the first time in almost 20 years of life i want to be serious about them. these are the three major ones for me.

1. join a gym, eat better, lose weight.
all my life i've been a bigger kid. i've gotten made fun of to the point that i wanted to die on numerous occasions in my life. i have honestly forgotten almost everything i remember about gradeschool because i hate remembering how miserable i would get because of some of the immature pricks in my classroom. just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. i don't remember ever being comfortable with my appearance. i hate when other people take my photos because i hate how i look when someone that isn't me takes the photo. the sight tends to disgust me unless they somehow manage to get me from a good angle, generally an above shot from the front. i'm tired of it, and i really want to make a change and i want for 2010 to be the year that i finally do it.

2. get my license, buy a car, drive.
i've been putting it off for way too long. i'm almost 20 years old and i've only driven a car maybe 3 times in my life, without a permit for that matter. i hate having to rely on others to get me places. don't get me wrong, i love the fun car rides with jim, but it would make things so much easier for me. not having a car is the reason i never did anything when it came to advancing my education. during my life, my mom has never driven due to a car accident she was in 20-something years ago which just kinda ruined her entire driving experience for her. since i was a kid we've had to rely on friends and family to get places and as much as i've enjoyed taking rides from people, i'd love to be able to do that for myself. i want to be able to drive around blasting music that i love without having to worry about someone saying how much they hate a band (no offense jim <3). i want to be able to go places when i want to, when i need to, when i just feel like going for the hell of it.

3. write, write, write.
not quite as serious as the other two, but i still consider it to be a big thing for me, is songwriting. since i started playing guitar and being able to come up with chord progressions, i've been dying to write songs but i've never been able to actually do it. it frustrates me because i've got probably 5 or maybe more songs that i've started in the past that i've never come close to finishing. i've got full music for like 3 songs that i want to get done and i can never flesh out lyrics to them. i love just being able to sing what jon provides for our songs, but sometimes i feel like i need to do something on my own. i can pull random lines out of the air at times that end up being really good in my opinion but i can never build on to it and i really need to focus on that. i'd love to be able to say that "i wrote that song," and not just "i came up with some of the guitar parts for that song," or "i contributed a line or two to that song." i want to know that i can actually write songs on my own without the aid of others. i want to make music of my own, not to try and gain any recognition or popularity, but just to be able to do it.

i just want to be entirely proud of myself.

i guess that's it. i should probably get to sleep but i really want to finish Conqueror of Shamballa tonight since i won't be able to watch it tomorrow considering i'll be at jon's house all night.

2010, bring it on.

days seventeen and eighteen.

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:21:59 GMT

thursday:
1. hanging out with Jim/Jeff/Brandi for a bit
2. our talk about tuna
3. tropical punch rockstar. best energy drink i've EVER had.
4. new episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. although, technically i watched it at 8am on friday morning haha, but oh well it counts to me.

friday:
1. got jim's backup vocals finished for the recording of our cover
2. rocking out to A Day To Remember in Brandi's car
3. rocking out to I'm On a Boat in Brandi's car haha
4. neshaminy mall with Jess, Kelly, Brandi, and Jim
5. Fullmetal Alchemist t-shirt for half price :D
6. Kelly let me borrow Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa
7. oxford valley mall with Jim, Kelly, and Brandi
8. more tropical punch rockstar
9. taco bell at midnight with Brandi and Joe

today was so much fun

day sixteen.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:59:05 GMT

didnt do much today but it still was pretty good.

1. Got a bit more acquainted with Melodyne, will be very helpful for future recordings. :D
2. Listening to / starting to learn God & Mars by Days Away. <3
3. Saw a Cameta Camera box on the porch earlier, meaning that I'm getting my 55-200mm lens for my camera for Christmas.
4. Me and Kiersten struggling to figure out a song.
5. Jill Murray! I miss her so much and it was nice getting to talk to her tonight. :]

day fourteen AND fifteen

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:35:42 GMT

k well i got lazy yesterday and didn't update so i'm gonna update both today.

YESTERDAY!

1. FMA: Brotherhood <3
2. Bawls <3
3. Found a pair of glasses that I'm probably gonna buy after christmas.
4. Latest episode of It's Always Sunny. Flip-Flip-Flipadelphia.

TODAY:
1. Vocal lessons. I always seem to enjoy lessons for some reason.
2. Got Subway :D
3. Quakerbridge mall for the first time ever.
4. YO I'M READING MACBETH.
5. Hello, my name is Leonardo.
6. "What Is Love?" by Nevershoutnever. This song is so different for him and I just love it.

-edit-

7. New Spill Canvas song! :D <333

day thirteen.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:03:03 GMT

So I suppose this is the midpoint for this whole thinger. Anyway, today wasn't that bad I guess.

1. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. :D I watched it like all day.
2. Figuring out the intro riff to "Phone Numbers Don't Dial Themselves" by Nobody Yet. It makes me happy any time that I can figure something out on my own without the assistance of tabs.
3. Metalocalypse <3
4. Coming up with even more cool acoustic chord things haha.

I honestly can't remember much else, today wasn't very eventful honestly.

Oh well, tomorrow will hopefully be better. :D

day twelve.

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:21:00 GMT

i'm a bit late but this is for yesterday:

1. watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood for hours haha.
2. going out with everyone to Nifty Fifties for Jeff's birthday
3. getting the waiters to sing to him
4. going back to jon's house to hang out
5. messing around with some cool old chord progressions

i can't think of much more, but i'm sure there was more.

day eleven.

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:53:44 GMT

so today went really well. i had a lot of fun and many happy moments.

1. i beat .hack//OUTBREAK. only one more game to go!
2. playing a show @ st paul's
3. people seemed to enjoy our Taylor Swift cover. Nobody Yet's friend Dani came up to me and hugged me saying that us doing that made her entire night haha.
4. Robots & Racecars <3
5. Nobody Yet <333
6. going out to eat with everyone after the show
7. the ride home after the show, so much fun.

gah. today was so fun. :]
hopefully tomorrow will be good too.

day ten!

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:35:32 GMT

my throat needs to stop hurting so i can sing tomorrow. i'm gonna freak out if it still hurts when i wake up. :[

anyway!

1. blasting the pokemon christmas bash cd in Jim's car :D
2. band practice
3. us randomly playing like 3 weezer songs randomly during practice
4. brandi brought me sonic earlier on in the evening

i think that's about it for the most part?

day nine.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:20:00 GMT

1. my mom got me some Bawls (the energy drink) when she went to target

2. with a little tweak to the URL and using the view>page style>none thing on firefox, i've found out that currently my shirt has 82 votes. the next highest shirt in the local category has 52. the voting ends on sunday, and it looks like i have a good chance of winning. :]

3. this:

that is all.

day eight.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:30:22 GMT

today was pretty fun.

1. band practice. i always love practicing with the band.
2. lettuce
3. Cps030292: it's rivers
Cps030292: you're worried
Cps030292: we'll send him flowers
Cps030292: CrisSerocil @RiversCuomo <#

I thought there was more but I can't think of it. D: oh well

4. Linkin Park.

day seven!

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:11:27 GMT

definitely better than yesterday! :D

so, lets go through what made me happy today.

1. TWLOHA bracelet came in. it looks so cool.
2. driving around with jon/jim/chris/trish.
-jim's face at one point (http://twitpic.com/smbb5)
-big willie style skipping like crazy
3. cinnamon pretzel from auntie anne's. oh my god amazing.
4. laughing about old livejournals with chris
5. Pokémon Christmas Bash!

i feel like there may have been more but that's all i can think of.

day six.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:45:41 GMT

today actually wasn't a very great day D:
i didn't do anything today and I found out Rivers Cuomo got in a bus accident yesterday and he ended up with 3 broken ribs. because of his injuries, the weezer/jack's mannequin/motion city soundtrack tour has been canceled. :[

so uhh... happy things?

uhmmmm..

1. I beat .hack//MUTATION? I guess that made me kinda happy.
2. I learned to play some A Day To Remember songs
3. Metalocalypse Christmas Special.

Yeeeeeahh, really boring things today. :\ Maybe tomorrow will be better.

day five.

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:34:06 GMT

so today was a pretty good day, not gonna lie. :D

1. a christmas carol. seeing my best friend / other friends / cec people perform this holiday classic was just awesome. because of it being the last night of the play, the seniors did a few unscripted things, such as bob kane yelling "bring out your dead!" and jon yelling "ho ho ho, merry christmas". god it was all so good. also, kiersten's very good at playing a drunk.

2. the ride to/from the golden dawn.

3. the golden dawn. jim had a few silly moments haha.

jim: this place is pretty big. i mean, it goes all the way back there.
me: ... those are mirrors.

and an old man was like saying bye to someone behind jim and he waved at the guy. haha oh jim. :P

but yeah that's about it.

day 4!

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:16:13 GMT

things that made me happy:

1. the GAD tonight was so much fun with everyone. i love my friends so much.

2. on the ride home i laid down across the backseat. i don't know how but when we were in morrisville, i just knew that we were there. i don't know what it was but i just KNEW it. i couldn't see anything outside so it's not like i could tell where we are but i just had that feeling. i don't know why, but i just like that feeling. it gave me like a sense of comfort for whatever reason.

nothing too exciting really haha.

day three.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:21:44 GMT

1. one week until Weezer/Motion City Soundtrack/Jack's Mannequin in the pit. :]
2. i was bored and listened to some of our old recordings and i realized just how much better we've gotten since then.
3. i'm feeling a lot better than i have.

this made me happy today.

day number 2

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:53:13 GMT

i learned last night that not only does nyquil make me feel better, but rather than putting me to sleep, it wakes me up. i went up to bed / took it at like 1:30 and didn't manage to go to sleep until about 6am.

anyway some things that made me happy, as lame as they might be.

1. going to the Ready-Not-Ready Hot Hopic show.
it was so funny because at one point the one guy who works there, sean, took the microphone and was like "someone give me a topic" and a kid yelled "shitty girlfriends", and this girl stormed out extremely pissed off at the kid who said it. eventually sean started improvising a song about twilight which eventually evolved into a song about the girl who stormed off and then he read a text message the girl sent the kid who originally said "shitty girlfriends". i was dying.

2. i went into GameTrader and saw a "duke" xbox controller and it brought back so many memories of playing halo 2, i had a lot of fun with that game.

3. jim showed me the house in stonybrook that has their christmas lights synchronized to music. i'd never seen it before, and if you haven't check out a video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu0gDBc9V2A
OR go into Stonybrook in Levittown after 5:30 and tune your radio to 88.3 i think it was? to watch/listen in.

4. kelly's comment on my journal from last night, i dunno why but that made me happy haha. :D

and that's all i have to say about that.

day 1 of happiness?

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:30:43 GMT

what made my day good?

it seems that there are a bunch of people voting for my shirt design to win some cash. it sure would be nice to win that.

other than that, not gonna lie today kinda sucked. i'm sick as anything and i didn't even wanna move out of my bed today. oh well, time to go back and die in my bed again for the night/play .hack//MUTATION.

will tomorrow ever come?

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:29:15 GMT

When we look into the future, to the place we haven't gone, see what we haven't done, we have known it all along.

If we wait until tomorrow, will tomorrow ever come? This is where we're coming from, and we're not the only ones. When we find ourselves in trouble, we can find ourselves a way. You can find a place to stay, and the place is always safe.

If you have a heart that's in pain, don't be afraid, you're not to blame. There's a better world inside of us, where we always thought it was. You don't need to hide. You can open up your eyes, and you'll discover that there is another world.

Sorry for the sidetracking there, but although Andrew WK may write a lot of songs about partying, he is one hell of a musician / lyricist. I find myself listening to his song "Totally Stupid" so much recently. That lyric snippet above is from near the end of the song. I love how well written and powerful it is in the song. So awesome. :D

But anywho, I haven't felt the need to update this recently :/ oh well I suppose. Everyone else has been going through a lot of stress and shit the past few weeks and I've just been kinda here, trying to help any way that I can.

I've been trying my hand at writing some songs, not necessarily FIF songs but just songs that I can write so I can prove to myself that I can do it. I came up with a chord progression the other night, it's a bit darker sounding / doesn't sound like what any of our songs would sound like so I don't think I really would like it to be one of our songs. In addition, the majority of it is the same three chords all song. I just sorta started singing random words over it, and it sounded kinda cool so maybe I'll try and finish that up and record it and put it up somewhere.

For a while now I've wanted to actually just write some songs for myself. I come up with so many chord progressions that are never exactly good enough for FIF stuff in my opinion, and mostly sound best on acoustic if you ask me. Stuff that distorted powerchords just wouldn't be able to reproduce. I really hope this isn't making me sound selfish, I just think it'd be cool to write stuff that's separate from my main musical concentration, Forever is Fleeting. I'd prefer singing Jon/Jim's lyrics in front of a bunch of people than my own anyway.

But speaking of Forever is Fleeting, we've got a few songs in the work (I love how I always say that, and months go by and we finish ONE song haha) one being about a certain video game character who happens to have two backside appendages. I'm really looking forward to finishing any of the songs we've started, especially the one I mentioned. We've got a free acoustic show tomorrow (friday) at St Paul's with about 7 other bands, and I'm REALLY looking forward to it because it's not often that we play acoustic, not to mention with that many awesome bands on the bill.

I don't know what else I should write about. I was going to write about how I miss having feelings for anyone, but like... I dunno I feel like it'd be one of those cliche LJs I used to write. I mean, it's been months since I've had real feelings for someone. I miss having something to shoot for, ya know? I don't really hang around people who are like 18+ so it's kinda hard to find someone to like without worrying about some sort of legal mumbo jumbo on my mind. I'm gonna be 20 in like 3 months, and I haven't done anything more than a normal kiss with a girl, and even that hasn't been for almost a year now. I've tried dating sites, pathetic I know, but all I get are the crazy girls who are desperate for attention. Yes, I enjoy the extra attention, but sometimes it gets out of hand and creepy, kinda like the girl I wrote the one entry about. She still IMs / texts me and expects me to answer... seriously?

Meh.

here, it's clear, that i'm not getting better.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:26:58 GMT

Don't let the title fool you, I'm fine haha.

So I don't recall if I mentioned or not but about a week or so I entered this little contest to see Weezer in NYC and you had to be one of the first 75 to email them back to obtain a spot for you and a guest. Well, last friday as I was about to get my hair cut I received an email telling me that I had indeed been chosen to see them. Today (well, Tuesday technically) me and Jim headed to NYC to see Weezer play for only about 150 people.

Really bad picture unfortunately, the lights made it hard to get a good picture of them without them appearing all white haha. I should've brought my little camera and taken some decent photos, oh welllllll.

They didn't play a very long set but it was still pretty sweet. Half of it was interviews and the other half was performances.

It opened up with Rivers doing a cover of The Killers' song "Human", accompanied by a cellist, violinist, and pianist. There's a video of it here.

The rest of the set went as follows:
-I'm Your Daddy
-Why Bother
-Say It Ain't So
-If You're Wondering If I Want You To
-Buddy Holly

I had a lot of fun, that's for sure. I can't wait to see them again in December with Jack's Mannequin and Motion City Soundtrack.

That's about it for tonight.

tonight i'm leaving all my worries and my problems in the house.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:38:26 GMT

My god, Weezer's new album Raditude leaked, and it is SO MUCH BETTER than the Red album and at first I really doubted that it was gonna be good. The song I Don't Want To Let You Go literally had me tearing up because of how beautiful of a song it was and how heartfelt the words were.

The only thing I can complain about is the fact that Lil Wayne is on the song Can't Stop Partying. Thankfully, I know how to work Audacity and I managed to edit his part out perfectly without it sounding weird. :D

Anyway, tonight was amazingly fun. I don't know what it is, but even though Yardley Methodist shows are never that great in terms of sound or anything, for some reason it has the most fun atmosphere. I was messing up so much tonight, and my voice was giving out on me because of my cold, but I still had fun with it and didn't let it get me down. Jim's bass drum messed up during take advantage but like, I didn't even let that bother me, I just kept on going like it didn't happen.

I don't really know what all to say other than I love all of you who came to the show tonight. All of you who bought a shirt tonight. All of you who stuck around and watched us. All of you who also played with us tonight, Nobody Yet especially. And above all else my best friends and my band mates (who also fall under the best friends categor. Jon, Kelly, Jim, Chris, Jess, Nicole, Joe, Brian, Mike, you're all amazing and I want to thank you for helping make tonight so much fun.