at some indistinguishable point between last winter and yesterday I got over the fact that hopesfall changed their sound a bit on their most recent release and so today I lost all control of my faculties and bought “A Types”.

I never thought I’d ever say this, but the kids writing the reviews on amazon.com are right: once I got over the fact that hopesfall doesn’t scream 100% of the time I found they are just as genius — if not more so than before. their musicianship is still top-fucking-notch. it just took me this long to figure these guys out. I’m an assclown.

[edit: okay I jumped the gun. this is still very good stuff but they'll never top classics like dana walker or the end of an era. no way.]

yesterday was a big day in hope sets sail land, what with the hugely anticipated release of the scary kids scaring kids full-length debut and the nba draft both happening at once.

what can I say about the scary kids full-length that I haven’t said already? I was already familiar with every track that was gonna be on it thanks to their purevolume page. this is one of those rare albums that I can like every track. that doesn’t happen too often (thus the “rare” rank).

and the nba draft. univ of utah went down in sports trivia history by producing a #1 pick in the nfl draft (alex smith to the san francisco 49ers) and a #1 pick in the nba draft (andrew bogut to the milwaukee bucks). of all athletic powerhouse schools out there, who would have thought. I don’t know dick about the nfl but I’m gonna go ahead and project bogut to be the rookie of the year next year.

and now I’m really hungry.

so yesterday I somehow thought going to see the new batman would be a good idea. guess what? I fell asleep for a bit earlier on in the movie. much like star wars episode 3.

so every time I walk out of these big movies I announce that hollywood blockbusters just don’t do it for me. they simply fail to hold my attention much in the early goings of the plot development. however, since I never fucking learn, I still might go see war of the worlds. but I just don’t know anymore. if I fall asleep on that one I might as well turn my back on hollywood completely.

going back to batman bygones (I call it that because that $10.75 — yeah, TEN SEVENTY FIVE now — just isn’t ever coming back), I thought it was interesting/funny how the batman mask covered everything on christian bale’s face other than his MOST DISTINGUISHING FEATURES which are his super pointy mouth and teeth and lisp.

man, I’m done talking.

[NOTE] I’ve since seen this movie and I agree that it is pretty fucking kick-ass.

why is it that everyone assumes every dog in existence is male? namely mine. hayley being an insanely fucking cute dog people stop her/us all the time when I’m walking her.

she’s a she. thanks.

it’s hump day already? this morning I thought it was still tuesday. what the. so that means I’m a day late checking out the latest scary kids scaring kids update (which was, as it turns out, gooooood stuff as expected).

so I ended up getting the funeral for a friend cd yesterday. it’s alright, it’s not kicking my ass like I expected. one good thing is that streetcar is still pretty damn good and now it’s in my ipod now. nice. thank you atlantic records for not making it a pain in the ass to rip the songs — I didn’t have to go though the nonsense I went with the a static lullaby cd (boo, columbia).

speaking of major labels snatching up these bands, good ol’ taking back sunday finally signed with a major (warner bros). took ‘em long enough, huh? I guess that buyout was hefty enough so that the majors had to wait till they put out their second album for victory.

so it’s like seriously 90-something degrees these days. hot, muggy, sticky, life-draining. so I had that going for me when I went to my kung fu class the other day: my class is held at this medium-sized studio in a fifth-floor walk-up in chinatown.

air conditioning? fuh-huck no.

so in the blazing heat and no a/c and only HOT TEA (!) to drink I had my work out. needless to say I was pretty goddamn thirsty when I stumbled out of those five floors of stairs back down to ground level.

I made my way to one of the non-descript chinese grocery stores (as there are many in … chinatown) and went straight for the drinks fridge. I grabbed the biggest thing I could find, which happened to be a tall orange can.

PAPAYA MILK, it said. 24oz of milk, papaya, (some chemical), (some other chemical), and (the last thing listed in the ingredients list). for $1. it could either be AWESOME or THE FUCKING WORST THING EVER. why not?

I pop the thing open. it’s filled with this milky orange substance, as expected. first sip…

… inconclusive. I can’t decide if this stuff is good or horrible. keep drinking…

… the stuff has that fruity pungent smell, as expected of something with papaya in it. let’s keep drinking…

… I just don’t know about this. I may be leaning towards it being “gross”. but I’ve come too far to go back now (over half the can is gone by this point). gulp gulp…

… ok, wait, surely this stuff isn’t made of REAL milk. look at the label: MILK. not powdered milk or some sort of parmalat-like super shelflife milk. I dunno why, but I keep drinking (about 80% of the can is gone by this point)…

… ok, let’s look at the back of the can. maybe it’s made real close by so it wouldn’t have been sitting on the shelf for too long. towards the bottom of the can:

MADE IN TAIWAN. OH MY GOD.

I think the new funeral for a friend is coming out tomorrow. I will probably end up getting it, though aside from streetcar I’m not too crazy about the other two album tracks they’ve leaked on purevolume. but then I haven’t gotten a new album in a while, so.

the problem with going to any FFAF-related site these days is that they have their album cover plastered everywhere (naturally). unfortunately the album cover is a picture of this school girl opening her blazer towards the viewer, and that’s really the last thing you want a coworker to see you looking at.

in unrelated news I need to see these two PICTURES:

howl’s moving castle

muderball

but if you haven’t you really need to see this:

http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/25560

are there spoilers in here for those who haven’t seen episode 3? who cares.

so there’s this thing called the nba draft that happens every year in late june.

see, what happens is these nba teams select unproven teenagers and offer them millions to sit on the bench for a few years, at which time they’ll either:

1. get cut
2. get more money

the teams generally select college players, but lately they’ve been on this kick of picking high school kids or european beanpoles who can’t make the starting lineup on their own team.

this year the race is on for the top spot between these two guys andrew bogut and marvin williams. bogut (19) is a sophomore out of univ of utah, who’s 7′ tall and played for the australian olympic team last summer. williams (18) came off the bench for 2005 ncaa champs — univ of north carolina. yeah, that’s right, HE WASN’T EVEN A STARTER and the teams are drooling over his potential.

based on those two profile tidbits you’d think bogut’s a surefire pick to be #1 right? turns out the rumors are batting around williams going #1.

say what? yeah.

you have a legit 7-foot olympian, and an “athletic” 6′9″ kid who didn’t start for his college team.

I just don’t see why there’s any question.

I posted our doggie’s photos up in the photo gallery. just as an fyi, I sure as hell don’t want to be One Of Those People who force doggie photos on people.

but yeah.

[NOTE: the photo gallery didn't make a webhost transfer made a year or so after this post]