The middle of the day

Ok, so 9:49 AM isn’t exactly the middle of the day, but when you’ve been up since 3 AM it sure feels that way.

So I did a little redesign of the oao site and I really like it. Compare the new theme to the old one and see what you think.  While you’re there, hit up the sounds/words section and listen to 2 tracks from their second EP, due out soon... they are really rocking.

So my man Sean just pointed me to a band called Evanescence.  They’re a techno-rockish band with a semi-retro feel, but then they have some pretty piano songs... and I like them.  The vocalist is female, and sounds like Tori Amos mixed with Sarah McLaughlan on some of the tracks.  My Immortal especially -- this song is amazing. [Update: peep the lyrics.]

And my friend Ben, who not only takes cool photos and cool photos but also listens to awesome music, recently introduced me to the movie Donnie Darko.  This movie was apparently in theaters for a couple weeks a while back, but I had never heard of it.  So Ben was like you gotta check this movie out, and I was like ok... and then I heard a review of it on NPR and they were saying how awesome it was, so I was like man, I really gotta see this!  So I did, and well, it was really really good.  It’s a deep and semi-confusing movie about such things as space-time, schizophrenia, and giant bunny rabbits, with choice quotes like "how did you feel being denied these hungry hungry hippos?"  Although it’s hilarious, it’s not a comedy, nor is it a silly/stupid type movie.  What I really love about it is that Donnie is real.  He’s not some sissy hollywood actor playing some cheesey role, he’s just a normal (albeit psychopathic) person.  And he’s so stinking cool.  Anyway it’s one of those movies you need to watch a few times to catch all the details and put it together, and I can’t wait to watch it again.  From a Christian perspective, it was a little heavy on the cursing, but not any worse than real life, and there’s no sex scenes or nudity or anything like that.  Rock!

Oh, and I said that Ben listens to awesome music... he got me into two bands in particular that are just amazing.  A Static Lullaby are like a mix between Thursday and Taking Back Sunday.  They are just so good.  The do the semi-punkish hardcore with emo singing and screaming in the back thing, and they do it beautifully, better than most stuff I’ve heard.  The second band is In Pieces.  This band is like a more raw, more emocore version of Thrice, and they are really really good.

Garrett over at LinuxArt just posted some photos from last fall that are very nice... they make me wish all this snow would go away... and I love snow!  This one is my favorite.

Finally, I made a new theme for my site too.  It’s a very plain, old-school-internet type theme and I rather like it.  It’s called retro, and you can select it by clicking the link in the very top left-hand corner of this page.