Yesterdays Pictures Are Old News

So, everyone else is doing top 10 reviews and what the hell, I might as well too. I'm really bad at remembering what came out when, but I'll do my best. Also this is just my opinion so don't be all like "OMG wHeRe tEH FuKK iS FaSt TYmz?!" Okay so here goes nothing...

10. Goodbye Blues - The Hush Sound: Same as Pretty Odd in that it was really good for a while, now I enjoy it but I don't go out of my way to listen to it.

9. Pretty Odd - Panic at the Disco: It's a fun, light hearted cd. It's nothing brilliant or great but it's not bad. It was fun for a while now if a song comes on shuffle I don't turn it, but I don't go out of my way to listen to it.

8. Folie a Deux - Fall Out Boy: It's good, definetly better than Infinity on High. Some of the songs make me really happy, others I don't really listen to.

7. Ghosts - The Gay Blades: I love this cd, I love The Gay Blades. It gets a little slow at times but I love the music.

6. Weekend Warriors - Secret Lives! of the Freemasons: It's a good cd, very fun to rock out to, it's odd that I put this before The Gay Blades becuase I actually like them better but this was a better cd.

5. You're Awful, I Love You - Ludo: It's so fun. I love driving around at night with Erica blasting Love Me Dead, plus they're so fun to see live.

4. For My Friends - Blind Melon: Even with out Shannon Hoone they managed to create a brilliant record.

3. Acoustic EP - Motion City Soundtrack: So what if it's not a full album? It's made of win sandwhiches.

2. The Glass Passenger - Jack's Mannequin: It's amazing, it's Jack's Mannequin what else could it be? Swim and Resolution are both on my top 10 songs list that I don't feel like trying to write.

1. Shudder - Bayside: It's a cd that I can't skip a single song on, I love everything about this cd.

Tadah! That's it, my top 10. Honorable mention to Hawthorne Heights, Fragile Future and From First To Last's self titled CD. Next year I'm looking forward to some new Ben Lee, Two Tounges, Envy on the Coast, Green Day, and Taking Back Sunday.

Check out a quick review of my 2008 here!

2008 was a good year, of course with it’s ups and downs (hey, like an elevator!) a lot of big things happen this year, lots of stuff I’ll never forget.

January

-I got to interview Matt Taylor (through email) and got a full page of 2 MCS articles in the school newspaper. I was thrilled J

-I had my first ever boyfriend, I was very happy, it was a great beginning to the year.

-Along with having a boyfriend, I had a few other firsts ;)

-Saw Cobra Starship with a hella lot of my friends and took the most epic picture ever with Gabe.

February

-Turned 17 and had an amazing birthday party with all of my friends.

-Wrote a parody of “Bird and the Worm” by The Used called “Kid from the Womb” It’s hilarious, if I do say so myself.

March

-Went vegetarian for a month to see if I could do it. I did it!

-Saw Bayside for the first time ever and fell incredibly in love with Steel Train

-Saw Envy On The Coast for the third time. Probably the best show and one of the best days of my life. I will never forget it, and it was all with my favorite, Andi. Some pictures of that here

April

-A church in our town exploded.

-Discovered a crazy love for Ben Lee.

- Saw My Chemical Romance with Andi and Erica at The Congress . Found love for Billy Talent. See pictures here

- Saw Chiodos the very next day with Andi and Anthony. Anthony was sick and Andi and I were exhausted. We hung out in back and concentrated on not moving.

-On Day of Silence my schools vice principal, Mrs Bella/Bukowsky was killed by a drunk driver. The following Monday was one of the saddest days of my life as our entire school mourned her.

May

-Skipped school for the first and last time. Only one class, but yeah, ha ha.

- Skipped school (well, my mom called me in) with a bunch of my best friends to go to the Madison Zoo for the day. We got lost on the way and laughed the whole way there. This was probably the best memory of the year and a day I will never forget. We were all so carefree and child like. It was freekin amazing.

-Anthony and I broke up. I freekd out and posted a zillion angry myspace bulletins, very immaturely, about it.

-Went to the Honda Civic Tour with friends, met up with a girl who I hadn’t seen since we were way little, had Matt Taylor and MCS sign the article and interview from my school newspaper.

June

-Andi and I had a day of fun when she got back from New York and we advertised Buzznet in a local parking lot.

-Made the first ever Urnnica video with Erica.

-Gave blood with Erica and Andi, and got backstage passes(which we didn’t end up using) to Warped Tour. It’s fun to give blood!

- I got a new laptop that I now find to be falling apart. It needs a new battery and the USB Port needs a fixen’.

July

-Watched The Exorcist for the first time, it’s great, ha ha.

-Saw lots of awesome bands at Summerfest including; Sick of Sarah, The Niki Barr Band, Jack’s Mannequin, Linden, Paramore, The Dollyrots, The Butterfly Assassins, Danger Is My Middle Name, The Frantic, Sing It Loud, Ludo, and more!

-Andi and I randomly left for Dekalb to see The Frantic with Treaty of Paris and had a scary and violating experience with The Kung Fu Girls 0.o

-Got a Polaroid camera.

-My grandma got really sick for the rest of summer, almost died, and I was really really scared.

August

-Had a supercalifragilisticaexpialiamoshesh time at this summers Warped Tour, which including seeing Motion City Soundtrack from side stage and meeting a super creeper.

-Went to 3 super fun bonfires hosted by Nikki, Adam, and Aaron. They were all spectacular and fun.

-Saw Almost Famous for the first time ever.

-Saw Envy on the Coast with The Gay Blades, Secret Lives! Of the Freemasons and The Sleeping at Reggies(supersketch) with Erica Andi and Vicky. Unique experience, but sadly no Uncle Brian. See pictures here

-Went to Projekt Revolution with free tickets from my journalism class. Saw Hawthorne Heights without Casey and cried, got a drumstick from Armor For Sleep, and was bored the rest of the day. Andi and I watched a lot of people that day, also Erica’s dad scared the shit out of me.

September

-Started my senior year.

-Started my first ever Buzznet project.

-Went to Sub T with Andi and met up with John (ounceofwentz) and met Kerri (hidedontseek). I happened to fall in love with Holiday Parade as well. This was certainly incredible. See pictures here

-Had fun at homecoming

October

-Got a new camera!

-Went to Forgotten Shadows Halloween show.

-Celebrated Andi’s 18^th birthday party in costume as Demi Lavato.

-Went trick or treating with friends as Raegen from The Exorcist

-Had a huge Halloween party.

-Got a photopass for Sing It Loud

-Went to the show and the list never showed up so I ended up having to leave my camera at the box office. It was a very different show for me. Came close to crowd surfing (thanks to Evan and Jake)

-Became fascinated with Charles Manson

November

-Obama wins!

-Saw The Frantic at The Metro with Andi.

-Saw Steel Train with Nikki and Erica. Nikki and I danced the night away and had a blast. Super fun.

-Finally got my drivers license (after failing the road test 2 previous times) still cant drive though, no insurance.

December

-Went to my first concert alone. Saw The Ting Tings, Jack’s Mannequin, and Death Cab For Cutie. It was incredibly different than going to a show with friends, it was nice though.

-Was supposed to go see Envy on the Coast and Taking Back Sunday but the snow ruined it.

-Was supposed to see The Hush Sound and Treaty of Paris but the snow ruined that too!

-Sent out Christmas cards to some of my Buzznet friends and the Buzznet office.

-Was sent a magical box of gifts in return from Buzznet. That was crazy!

It’s December 30^th and I’m pretty much done with plans for the year. I left out some things and probably forgot to mention others but this is a general round up of memorable stuff that has happened. It really has been a good year, I don’t really know what else to say about it. I really hope 2009 will be as good, and hopefully better than 2008.

“All I know is I’m not quite ready to let go of this past year, I have so much to show”

This Snow Show was unlike any other I've been too - okay, maybe not the concert itself but the experience was definetly something other than the usual thing for me. And here is how the magical tale began to unfold....

I babysit from afterschool until 6. I begged people all day for a ride to the show, becuase Andi was no longer able to take me. I babysat, very ansty, until 6 on the dot. I got home at 6:05 and rushed my favoritest relative, Grandma, out the door. I felt really bad becuase she was nervous to drive in the snow, but once we got on the expressway she was thrilled she was taking me. She used to dance and swim and hang out at the Eagles Ballroom all the time when it was still a ballroom that is.

I arrived at the venue roughly 3 minutes before 7, when the concert was supposed to begin. I got out of the car alone at the same time as two girls got out of a car in front of us. Once inside they asked if I came alone, I explained my situtation and they kinda wandered off. I got checked for cameras and stuff and then went up a zillion sets of stairs to the Ballroom. I had my old camera with me. Now, the Ballroom is my least favorite room at The Rave. It's too big and the crowds just also seem to be worse than the crowds in the other rooms. There was already a massive crowd all around the stage so I decided to get a tshirt right away for the hell of it. I really wanted the purple "I <piano> Jack's Mannequin" shirt, but they didn't have my size, so I got one that says "Swim For Your Life" on it and on the back it says "Jacks Mannequin. Good enough for me!

The Ting Tings, were really upbeat!

A few minutes before The Ting Tings started I got 'into the crowd' which means I got in front of a few people kinda on the sidelines of the crowd. I could see fine, I don't really care for them so it was no biggy. They are a very radio-hit, one hit wonder band. They're not horrible, terrible, atrocious, vomit inducing, or anything like that but they definetly aren't wonderful and I wouldn't consider purchesing their cd. All of their songs sound the same. They did have a lot of energy on stage, however few people in the crowd shared that energy, but what can you expect from a Death Cab crowd? Towards the end of their very short set, a guy came out and then came back into the crowd with a girl, I of course followed them in and ended up 5 or 6 tall people back.

I soon found the people in front of me had an immense love for Jack's Mannequin - hey so do I! But did I talk to them? No, I wasn't in the mood(if that's the word) to put myself out there. Sometimes I'm up for talking to strangers, today it was interesting to be at a show alone.

Lookit Andrew sing! INCREDIBLE MAN, HE IS.

Jack's Mannequin came out next, of course, and I went absolutly spazzoid nutzo in love. I sang along to every song and danced my ass off. They played all my favorites, even Lullaby/Hammers and Strings! They played a good mix of new and old songs, but I was surprised they didn't play American Love becuase that seems like it would be a good song live. Andrew talked less than he did at Summerfest but still managed to mention beer, milwaukee, and friends. I love him, I really do. If there's a Jesus, it's him, I promise you that. Jack's Mannequin are rapidly becoming one of my favoritist bands. I think I'm using the lyrics "If you left it up to me everyday would be a holiday from real" or lyrics from "I'm Ready" or "The Resolution" for my senior quote. They are up their with MCS for sure! I basically went to this show for them, and them alone, and it was worth it. I had so much fun. Both at Summerfest and now, I always feel like it's just me and the band in the room. They're music means so much to me, they're lyrics have helped me a lot, and they are magic in music form. I am so in love. They were spectacular, there's not much else I can say about them - without going on for days, that is.

After JM, I left the crowd to use the restroom. There was such a huge long line, and two girls got in a fight about something and yea. After that I realized I would not be getting back into the crowd. This crowd was similar to that of Silversun Pickups and Ok Go with Snow Patrol. A few people for the first to bands and then a huge amount of unmoving, unfun, not concert people people for the last band. This crowd was not hyper or very fun. They weren't the kind of people to walk through to get a good spot. I don't like Death Cab for Cutie much anyways though I guess. I went through a short Death Cab binge last year sometime and whenever they were on The OC all the time, but I don't own any full cds and yeah. The singer really looked like a creeper, haha. I sat down on some steps for a little bit of their set and walked around the rest of the time. I saw a girl pass out or faint or something, everyone including her friend were just kinda like "Uhhhhhhh" and stared at her for the 30 seconds she was out. There were a lot of middle aged people at the show too, its so weird to be surrounded by that age group and be a teenager. I'm not saying its weird for not teenagers to go to shows, there just usually aren't that many at shows I go to. So, I was on the left side of the stage the whole time, so I decided to wander over to the right side. HOLY SHIT. The whole back of the room and right side smelled more like drugs than Lollapalooza! Somehow everyone must have been smoking weed and those little brown ciggarette things. It was horrible, I went back to the left side soon.

I told you I walked around and was in way back...

 I surprisingly new a lot of the songs Death Cab played, but they kind of bore me so as soon as they left the stage I went down and out(TAI REFERENCE NAO) and left. I got a victory records demo cd and atticus sticker upon leaving the doors, and then turned the corner and walked to the front of the building. I was really afraid I wouldn't find my mom who was picking me up around 11. I had no clue what time it was. I saw Robert as soon as I turned the corner, we got in the car and left. They must have been their for a while becuase they said they saw some guys of Death Cab outside becuase they parked next to their van or something. I duno about that, haha.

Pictured above is my reaction to the show, thumbs up motherfuckers!

It might be kind of weird, and it's definetly weird to say, but I thought about life a lot at the show, a lot of self reflection too. Jack's Mannequin generally get me in that kind of mood, and Death Cab tend to make me kind of nostalgic, I suppose. With all that's been going on in my mind and life lately I guess I should have expected it, but I thought A LOT. Life, right? I don't even know, there is so much I just don't know any more, but this show was a really good release. I'm actually really happy I went to the show alone, I needed this time to be by myself but doing something I love and listen to great music. I got a lot out at the show, it was a great holiday from the constant stress that I've been under lately. It feels so good to get that out, even if just for one night. I've been home since 11:18 (it's 12:18 as I type this very word) and I'm so happy, relieved, and thankful of what I got to experience tonight. Jack's Mannequin makes me happy, and a break from life makes me even happier. It was a good night. I can't wait to see JM again, and I really hope this uplifted spirits thing keeps up for a while, at least until Envy, next Thursday :)

Goodnight, Internet.
"I'm alive and I don't need a witness to know that I survived."