Am I seeing double? I hope not, they’re both dreamy.
Posted by Richard Mankhey
I’ve been a fan of Grag Laswell since I saw his video for “How the Day Sounds” featuring the ever-adorable Elijah Wood (video here). His voice is sexy, his music is right up my alley and well…he’s just sexy;
Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy…or just a sign of my personal preferences (i.e. taste in men), but imagine my surprise (and delight) when I discover the music of Mat Kearney recently. The man has a beautiful voice that, not surprisingly, sounds remarkably similar to Greg Laswell’s. His latest single “Closer To Love” video can be seen/heard here.
Well guess what the cat looks like?
Coincidence that he’s so sexy and uncannily similar in appearance to Greg? Need a better juxtaposition?
Uncanny, huh?
“Video Games Live” and my trigger finger
Posted by Richard Mankhey
Being a self-admitted geek (or ‘adorkable’ if you will…someone else called me that once…) I was looking forward to going to Wolf Trap on July 10th to see the National Symphony Orchestra play video game theme songs for the “Video Games Live” show. I was also excited to hang out with K*****; our first date was actually seeing the Indigo Girls and Matt Nathanson at Wolf Trap back in July.
So the concert was great. For real. They showed videos of different games while the National Symphony Orchestra played in time with what was on the screen…montages of Mario Bros, Warcraft, Halo, Zelda, Pong…they had a LIVE Skype chat with the inventor of the video game (Pong, actually but it was the first video game) Stephen Behr (I think it was Stephen) and he also invented the game Simon. Wow!
But there were so many nerds there it was ridiculous. One of my other housemates Jason was there and he’s a total geekfest. He plays Halo all the time on his xbox and he has a Sega Genesis and anyway, Jason called me afterwards to tell me he was backstage meeting the creator of the “Civilization” games (Sid Meyers) but he’d met him three times before so it wasn’t *that* big of a deal. Lol. But it was great. Very moving…they had a choir and several operatic and epic songs (like during the God of War game scenes) with a mezzo-soprano opera singer singing her lungs out. Wow again!
K***** brought all these cute little food things (and wine and beer and bug wipes) and we sat on the blanket in basically the same spot as we did for the Indigo Girls concert and the weather was perfect. I was whistling periodically during the concert and it dawned on me about halfway through that it was starting to irk K***** because “When I watch movies or concerts I switch off my brain and get tunnel vision and loud whistles and noises interrupt my enjoyment. It’s okay to do it in between songs but not while I’m into the music/movie/whatever” (or so he says).
I told him “You could have just said something but I think you’re the type who thinks it’s better to grin and bare it (but he wasn’t grinning that’s for sure) and what is that? Some Southern thing (he’s from South Carolina, you know)? Look, all you have to do is ask and I’m more than happy to whistle between songs and not blab during the songs so you can enjoy them too. It’s called COMPROMISE and I didn’t bring you here to piss you off, right?”
*sigh* He said “It’s hard to be honest because it takes courage so it’s easier to not say stuff most of the time.” I said, “I used to fool myself into believing the same thing but you know what? That kind of attitude plants seeds of contention that eventually grow into things that cause people to break apart when a few words from the start could have prevented.”
When did I get so wise? *giggles* But he’s right; it’s simple but NOT easy. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right choice.
The rest of the weekend has been me tackling some side web design projects for some leads my housemate is giving me (she makes and sells purses and I’m helping her with her website in exchange for freelance project leads. Here’s her website if you wanna look: http://www.kuradesign.com. I just need to get MY dang website and portfolio up so I can go to these people and say “Let me do your web design and here’s what I’ve done before so hire me!”.
It’s hard to get around to doing that so I’m trying! I’m also uploading my 212 GB of digital photos to Flickr slowly. They have UNLIMITED storage for videos and pictures for $20.95 a year. Amazing. I highly recommend checking it out. Picasa is insanely priced.
After they’re all uploaded I’ll have to organize them all which is feeling like a daunting task in and of itself…not to mention the two boxes of actual photographs I have yet to scan to digital format and upload and organize (the real photos document my high school and college adventures). Apparently I’ve always had a camera hair-trigger finger.
But where’s the harm in that?
Strange relationship
Posted by Richard Mankhey
Sometimes I come across snippets of wisdom I’d like to save for later or humorous perspectives on life that strike me funny and this is both of those.
My continual fascination and flabbergastedness with Twitter, Facebook, and such drew me to this humorous picture which was oddly appropriate to find today because at my company monthly team meeting we discussed the impact of social media on businesses and if you know anything about Twitter, this is priceless:
As I said, I’m still slightly confused by the whole Twitter thing but I’m on it [bobalouie], my mom’s on twitter [SuDeepe]…it’s kind of like Facebook status updates, but most would call it a form of “micro-blogging” since you’re limited to 140 characters. I kind of see it as a “Note to myself” tool that you can send things to on the fly and have collected in one place for later.
For instance, here is an OBVIOUSLY important tidbit I posted about 5 hours ago:
“Wednesday is officially Champagne Day! Since about 4:30 pm…woo-hoo!”
In addition to this narcissistic micro-blogging you have the added dimension of being able to “follow” people and get updated by SMS text message when they “tweet” or update their status…and people can follow you, also. It starts to get complicated when you don’t want to offend anyone and NOT follow them, or by not replying to their direct messages (some treat Twitter like another IM client), which brings me to the pearl of wisdom I mentioned earlier that has soooooo many more applications than Twitter, it is relevant and strangely related to the cartoon above:
“Seeking approval from others is a full time job with no vacations or benefits.”
Ain’t that the truth?
My Life Would Suck Without You
Posted by Richard Mankhey
Or so says Kelly Clarkson in her new single (which I looooove). Check it out here: My Life Would Suck Without You
Ms. Clarkson is firmly entrenched in the pop genre and still holds the crown (tiara? Stanley Cup?) as the First & Most Successful American Idol EVER. I’m a biased fan. Is it obvious? I do like the new song…if only because it’s using a social meme to boost it’s popularity, but she’s doing it with style! It’s already on my iPod.
Lest you think I have a narrow musical taste, I’m ecstatic to brag report that I will be going to see Fleetwood Mac in March at the Verizon Center for their 2009 “Unleashed” Tour.
…and THEN! Holy crap. I’m going to see Lady GaGa at the 9:30 Club at the beginning of April. It’s going to be a musical few months.
Speaking of music/concerts, I just went with my co-worker, Anna, to see “Secondhand Serenade” at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA and he was good, but in my opinion just a blond Chris Carrabas of “Dashboard Confessional” what with all the lovesick, drippy, emo anthems.
Anyway, while I was in the giftshop browsing actual Compact Discs of music (archaic, no?), I saw KD Lang grouped with a genre of music I’d not considered her a part of (Who knew? Everyone’s crossing over these days!). Check out the photo below. Click on the image to change pictures. The other photo is of Anna and the adorable lead singer, Chris, from White Tie Affair:
Madonna-rama-ding-dong
Posted by Richard Mankhey
I have a love/hate/want-to-dress-like relationship with Madonna, but then most gay men do…or are supposed to anyway…that issue in and of itself is probably worth a complete sociological study…
Anyway! So I laughed out loud when I came across this little blurb in Blender Magazine’s February 2009 issue:
Literally Laughed-Out-Loud. So witty. While I’m making fun of Madonna, I’ll also share this little gem I came across on Fresh Hotness, a NSFW blog devoted to erotic images of males and occasional ‘Desperate Housewives’ clips:
See what happens when you don’t let your children tweeze or shave their eyebrows? I’m talking to YOU Mom!