TUSC Rail Jam

On December 3rd, Temple University's Snowboarding Club held their first ever rail jam, which for those of you who don't know that means--it's a competition. There were 33 competitors, all but one were men. Some of them were members of TUSC and others were from TUSC's sponsors.

The members of TUSC made the rail jam a reality. They woke up at six in the morning to pick up fifteen tons of snow from various locations. Also, TUSC received a lot of support from their sponsors--Red Bull, Big Boulder Mountain, just to name a few.

Mother Nature

While you are mundanely walking around Temple University in North Philadelphia, you expect to see nothing out of the ordinary. Squirrels, buildings, pigeons, friends, but yesterday I witnessed something extraordinary--a hawk feasting on its prey, a pigeon.

When I was walking back from class I saw a small crowd of people, staring into a tree next to Beury Hall. After I looked for myself, I saw a hawk perched on a branch picking at something between its pair of claws. By this time, there was not much left of the pigeon except for wing and a little more. Supposedly, the hawk was gnawing on an entire pigeon out near the Bell Tower but he/she moved back behind Beury Hall to a tree, which is where I first encountered the animal.

What was happening before my eyes was something I have never seen before. A bird of prey devouring their victim. It was as if I was watching a live episode of Plant Earth.

One man, who was very knowledgeable about the hawk, was providing me and fellow onlookers with plenty of information about the bird. He was very passionate about this hawk and a little too excited to see the hawk in action.

Since I always carry my camera with me, I was able to snap sweet photos of the hawk's afternoon meal.



^The black thing in the branches below the hawk is a pigeon wing. The red meat is pigeon meat.

Change

Barack Hussein Obama will be the next president of the United States. Finally, we can put to rest the election. No more political commercials, no more John McCain, no more Sarah Palin, just Obama. I could not ask for a better person to lead this country. He is so well cultured and personable which is exactly what we need in a leader of our country. If you don't know what I mean when I say that, I recommend reading his autobiography--Dreams From My Father. Barack has lived an unusual life compared to many Americans. He has experienced many different lifestyles and cultures that has led him to be a very well rounded man. A man who fought long and hard through this campaign and he was rewarded for efforts.

^Broad and Cecil







^ Supplies needed to work a corner for Obama





^ Two Obama volunteers



^ These people pitched a tent outside of the polls on 16th and Jefferson.



These photos are in no particular order. I did my best to document the evening. Please, let me know what you think of my photos. I need critics. Feel free to criticize my writing too.

After seeing thousands of people come out to celebrate Barack Obama's landslide of a victory, it made me think. Do all of these people know what they voted for? Do they know the substance behind Barack Obama or did they simply vote for him because he was a black man? Or since their favorite muscians were very outspoken for Barack? I just hope people did their job as a voter and educated themselves with knowledge about the person they voted for.

If you haven't read his autobiography, you should go buy it right now. I'll even let you borrow it. There's nothing wrong with getting to know where our future president has come from. He's a pretty cool guy and he's a pretty decent basketball player too.

It's getting late. Sleep time.

Adios.

Tomorrow

So the day the entire nation, maybe even the world, have been waiting for is finally here. Tomorrow is Election Day. Tomorrow will decide who is the next president of the United States. Thinking about tomorrow and the outcome makes me nervous. Tomorrow will be equivalent to Christmas eve and a Radiohead concert.

It will be like Christmas eve because I will be anticipating all day long to see what happens. Who will win? The suspense might kill me; however, now that I think about it--- if I were to die from anticipation, it would have happened months ago. My guess is somewhere around June or July, when Hillary Clinton was still waging war against Barack Obama.

It will be like a Radiohead concert because they are my favorite band. I buy tickets to their shows months in advance and I am forced to wait for that day to come so I can experience their music live. In the end, enduring those 3 or 4 months for that magical experience is worth every second of it.

I have backed my candidate since all this talk of the election came about. I have volunteered my time for him by passing out flyers, making phone calls, informing my friends about his views because I truly do believe in what he has to say. I believe he can help put the United States back on their feet and lead us in the right direction.

I want everyone who is reading this, the 4 of you who read my non-sense, to make sure you go out and vote. It's one of your rights as a citizen. You can vote, you can have your say in who leads our country, I don't see why you would pass up this opportunity. So please, don't be lazy. Go vote. If it's raining, bring an umbrella; if it's cold, bring a jacket; don't let anyone or anything stand in your way.

Oh yeah. One more thing. VOTE!

That is all.

Cheers to Barack Obama!

Riots In The Streets Of Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. Wow, I never thought I would be able to say that. Anyway, I did my best to document the madness that occurred in Center City afterwards. I'll let the photos do the explaining. I took over 700 photos last night, in which about 80 of them were worthwhile. I'll post as many as I can.
























Let me know what you think about my photos.

Cheers to the Phillies winning the World Series!

News Worthiness

Today in my Journalism and Society class, my professor brought up an interesting point about broadcast television and the stories they cover. What should be considered news worthy? Is a story about an old lady's Jesus statue being held hostage actually worthy of being nationally televised? Or do they simply exploit this little old lady in order to entertain their audience?

While I was sitting there in class, I thought about another clip I had seen a few weeks back. It was about a supposed Leprechaun sighting in Alabama. That's right...a leprechaun. Do you really think the TV station felt that people needed to know about this alleged sighting? Or were they only trying to entertain their viewers?



There's no way this story is news worthy. The TV station covered the Leprechaun sighting just to get a laugh out of their audience and it worked. Well, I don't know that for sure but I can say that my friends and I thought it was hilarious.

I must be off to a meeting for The Elitist Magazine (More details about the magazine will come sometime in the future.)

Cheers big ears

It's been a while, how you come back in style.

It has been quite some time since I have updated my blog. I have been doing a lot of physical writing in my notebook/journal but I didn't feel the urge to post it here. However, I am going to start posting daily because I need critics of my writing so that I can improve overall as a writer. So please, if anyone is reading this, criticize any piece of writing you want. I won't hold it against you if it is a negative thing.

Yesterday the Eagles played the Falcons. The Eagles won 27-14. In my opinion, the Eagles did not play well at all except for those few drives that ended in touchdowns. Donovan McNabb did not look like he was in top form. This doesn't surprise me though because lately, Donovan has been very inconsistent, which worries me as an Eagles fan. Anyway, I was able to snap some photos of the game. I hope you enjoy.










Across the street from the Lincoln Financial Field, the Phillies and Cole Hamels could possibly win the World Series tonight. Unlike the Eagles, I have complete confidence in our number 1 man-- Mr. Cole Hamels. The NLCS MVP appears to be unstoppable right now so we'll see what happens tonight. I'll have my camera with me at all times to document the hysteria that will occur if the Phils do win tonight. Tonight has potential to be complete madness. Be safe everyone.

Lets go Phillies.

Cheers

Anonymous

When I was in 7th or 8th grade I had a subscription to Transworld Skateboarding Magazine. I read each magazine I received religiously. One of my favorite skateboarders at the time, Tosh Townend, was in an ad for either Spitfire Wheels or Element Skateboards. Anyway, whatever company it was, they released a series of ads that had a different quote for each issue. This particular quote caught my attention the most so I made sure to write it down somewhere. Eventually, I memorized it. However, I could never find who wrote the quote. Still to this day, 5-6 years later, nothing.

You can choose to go back towards safety or forwards towards growth.
You do not simply exist,
But decide what your existence will be.
Life is ultimately self-determined.
-Anonymous

For me to get a tattoo, it would have to be something meaningful and there would have to be a lot of thought behind it. This quote is a candidate for when/if I get a tattoo. I still haven't decided.

Pretty sweet quote? I think so.

Location: Syracuse

Right now, I find myself in a place I have been many times before-- Syracuse, New York. The only reason I come here is to visit my two friends Michael and Alex. Otherwise I would probably only know about this place because Donovan McNabb played here a while ago. Whenever I come here, we always have a fun and sometimes wild time together. They live in an ideal college house with three other people. Four of the five roommates are in a band together--Minutes Per Second. (The two recordings are pretty raw but still good. They're currently in the studio right now.) This band is awesome especially live. Alex sings and Mike plays rhythm guitar. The lead guitarist, Tyler, rips and Dave, the drummer, kills on the skins. The bassist, Jeff, provides the final piece to the rhythm section. I recommend checking them out. Although, I may be a little bias since my two friends are members but looking past that, they really got something good going on there. I'm in the process of booking them a show in Philadelphia. I'll keep you updated here.
Tonight should be crazy. My friends and I have a date with Mr. Jim Beam tonight, which should lead to a great night and a shitty morning. It's worth it right? I guess I should apologize to my liver now.
Mike and I are taking it easy right now in a local coffee spot--2nd Story Books. This place is sooo sweet. We walk in and they have The Black Keys "Rubber Factory" playing straight through. (If you don't know about these two dudes, make sure you listen to them somehow. Rubber Factory is my favorite by them) To me, it is essential to have good music whenever you are in a public area. If this place had elevator music playing, I would have been back at Mike and Alexs' place by now. However, this is not the case with this place. The environment is very comfortable and laid back, exactly how it should be. Also, I'm glad this is not a Starbucks. I always enjoy supporting a local business instead of feeding the Starbucks' leviathan.

My battery is about to die on here so I must depart.
Don't worry about me, I'll be safe tonight. You be safe, make sure you wear your helmet.

Until next time....
Cheers

Feed The Animals

Tonight I am going to a dance party. Girl Talk's dance party at the Starlight Ballroom on 9th and Spring Garden, which is one of the best venues in Philadelphia. Girl Talk, the name, is a very strange name for an artist(If you even want to call him that.) I am not sure where the DJ himself came up with the name but I am willing to bet there's an enterntaining story behind it. He takes clips from popular songs, that I cannot stand alone, and "mashs" them into one long song. A better way to describe what Girl Talk does is he creates one long remix with hundreds of songs. If you're interested in hearing what this sounds like, go to Girl Talk's Myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/girltalk) Download the CD...it's FREE. You may pay something but I recommend you don't. In my opinion, he does not deserve to get paid for what he does. He rips off other artist's songs and "mashes" them together. However, I will/did pay to see him do his thing live. Tonight should be very interesting, I can't wait. If anyone else is going and you're reading this right now--make sure you say hey if you see me. I'll be the blond haired kid with yellow adidias.

Cheers

PS-Check out track number 5 "Set It Off". It's my favorite song off Girl Talk's album. He has Jay Z rapping over Radiohead's "Paranoid Android"--that is genius. The best of two genres on top of eachother. After that little segment, he goes right into Mary J Blige--perfect. Girl Talk knows what works and he does what he does very well.

Summer of Radiohead Part Two

The second Radiohead show was on August 12th at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey. This time the weather was perfect compared to my last experience with Radiohead. 85 degrees, sunny, not a cloud in the sky--I would have been depressed if it did rain that day. I'm not kidding either. (Feeling hopeless in an endless downpour has a tendency to replay in my mind.) Also this time around I had better tickets, I skipped a class last year to secure my presale tickets. Radiohead likes to be very mysterious when it comes to presale so I did not know where I was sitting until a month before the show. I knew no matter what thouhg, I was going to have pretty sweet seats. The presale was in April which meant I had to wait five months for the show. For the Virginia show, I did not buy the tickets until four days before the concert. My friends and I tend to be very impulsive when it comes to concerts.




^My favorite photo from the show. ^



Weird Fishes/Arpeggi


There There

This show was phenomenal. The other show was great but since I was at my so called "hometown" venue it added to the show. The energy of Philly crowd is so much more intense than any other city I have been to. Philadelphia has an amazing atmosphere for shows, whether you're at the First Unitarian Church or the Susquehanna Bank Center. The only downfall to this show was that I lost my wallet.(Remember to always button that back-pocket button whenever there is one there.) Other than that, I could not have asked for a better way to end a summer that kicked off with the same band-- Radiohead.





Faust Arp






If you ever have the opportunity to see this band, do it.
As Thom would say,....."Cool beans!"

Cheers