Sleeping Beauty Fireworks

This photo was taken during the Disneylands Summer Magic fireworks show at Disneyland in California and features a single firework streaking above Sleeping Beauty's castle.

Japan Pavilion at Night

This is a 30-second exposure of the Japan Pavilion at Walt Disney Worlds Epcot center. The building in this photo features the Teppan Edo Restaurant. Teppan Edo is a Japanese restaurant in the Japan Pavilion in Epcot Theme Park where the spirit of authentic Japanese cuisine is celebrated through the culinary talents of Teppan Chefs cooking traditional dishes on grills at your table. Be entertained in the communal ritual of Teppan-yaki style cooking in one of the 6 picturesque Teppan Edo dining rooms as skillful chefs chop and stir-fry fresh shellfish, meats and vegetables at your table, served with Udon noodles and steamed rice. Or dine on sushi, croquettes and other authentic dishes.

5%

Sending out a little hope for change. I know he is not going to win, but please give a thought to voting for Gary Johnson tomorrow. Yes, he is not going to win, but if he gets just 5% of the vote, it gives the Libertarian Party equal matching funds from the Federal Government. It gives the Libertarian Party automatic access to be on the ballot in every state (right now, two states will not put Johnson on the ballot).

In other words, it will give US 50% more choices going forward and we will not be stuck with two bad choices like we have right now.

So please, vote Gary Johnson.

No Offence, But Your Offence Is Terrible

On Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings took on the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle. It was a game I was hoping the Vikings would win, but was not expecting it as it is tough to win in Seattle (Just ask New England and Green Bay). This second-half of the schedule for the Vikings is going to be a tough one, and if they can't find a way to move the ball through the air, it could be a VERY long 7-game stretch.

There are a lot of people piling onto the "Bench Christian Ponder" bandwagon after he failed to even reach 100 yards passing for the 2nd time in 3 games. But how much of that blame goes to Ponder? We have exactly one wide reciever that can get open, and his name is Percy Harvin. The rest have not been able to do anything other than get pass-interference calls (Thank you Jerome Simpson for all two of those). So who exactly is Ponder supposed to throw to? There is also the issue of the offensive line not being able to block what the opponents are throwing at them, giving Ponder no time to figure out where to throw the ball. And then finally, we have Bill Musgrave and Leslie Frasier. These two guys need to figure out how to get this passing attack going. It has appeared that there has been zero plan of a)How are we going to attack this defense, and b) what is our identity over these last four games. The opening four games of the season, we had good plans, and they worked. Lately? It's like they completely forgot how to game plan. And then that brings us to Ponder. Yes, he has no WR's to throw to, yes, he has no time to even think about throwing it to them, and yes, the coaching staff has failed miserably in how to fix these issues. But there HAS been times where Ponder DID have open receivers and DID have time to throw it. And he missed.

The Vikings right now have possibly the two best offensive players in the league right now in Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin. Adrian is easily the best runningback in the league. And Percy is the best weapon in the league. Opponents have to defend Peterson, which should be leaving the passing game wide open. Why is that not happening? Even with the defense stacked against Peterson and leaving the WR's alone, we still see AP blowing up and putting up numbers that can only make you shake your head in amazement. And our offence can only put up 44 net yards through the air despite no one defending it. This shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. What is going to be difficult is figuring it out while playing a schedule that has us facing Detroit, Chicago twice, Green Bay twice, Houston, and the Rams.

I'll be very happy if we can sneak 3 more wins out of the season. Anything more than that will be a complete shock, and perhaps a sign Fraiser, Musgrave, and Ponder have figured out that the football does travel through the air.

Cinderella's Christmas Castle and Fireworks

I took this photo a few years ago while at Walt Disney World in December. I have to tell you, the christmas lights they put on Cinderella's Castle during December are breath-taking. I have yet to see a photo that does it justice. Anyway, I snapped this photo while the Christmas Wishes fireworks show was going on at the Magic Kingdom theme park.

You can click on the photo to see it in a larger view. And while there, please click the 'like' button to share it with your friends.

Dessa - Alibi

This is a live recording of the song Alibi, by Dessa. The song appears on two of her albums, the most recent version being on the album "Castor, the Twin".

Castor, the Twin is a studio album from Dessa, a member of Minneapolis indie hip hop collective Doomtree. It was released on Doomtree in 2011. The album features new arrangements of her previously released songs. The original production has been replaced with live instrumentation on piano, vibraphone, mandolin, viola, double bass and timpani. The final track "The Beekeeper" is an advance single from Dessa’s next album due in 2013.

Prince - Little Red Corvette

Oh, how I love this song. Prince's Little Red Corvette. It has been a song I have played incessantly for 30 years now. The version in the video above is his performance of it at the Montreux Jazz Fest in 2010. I remember reading and hearing about how back in 1982/83, when Prince's 1999 album first came out, John Mellencamp would stop his concert, grab a boom box, set it on a stool on the stage and play this song to the crowd.

"Little Red Corvette" is a song by the American musician Prince. Released as a single from the album 1999 in 1983, the song was his biggest hit at the time, and his first to reach top-10 status in the U.S., peaking at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was also his first single to perform better on the pop chart than the R&B chart, due to the pop/rock format of the song. The song combines a drum machine beat and slow synth buildup for the verses and a full rock chorus. Backing vocals were done by Lisa Coleman and the classic guitar solo was played by Dez Dickerson. In the song, Prince narrates a one-night stand with a beautiful but promiscuous woman (the "Little Red Corvette" of the title); although he enjoys the experience, he urges her to "slow down" and "find a love that's gonna last" before she destroys herself. In addition to the title, he uses several other automobile metaphors, for example comparing their lovemaking to a ride in a limousine.

Prince got the idea for the song when he dozed off in Lisa Coleman's pink Edsel after an exhausting all-night recording session. The lyrics came to him in bits and pieces during this and other catnaps. Eventually, he was able to finish it without sleeping.

Stevie Nicks got the idea for her 1983 song "Stand Back" from "Little Red Corvette." She heard Prince's song in her car, wrote "Stand Back" that night, and called Prince, who came into the studio and played keyboards.

Marc Broussard - Home

I have been a member of the website last.fm for almost 6 1/2 years now. It is a website that tracks everything I listen to on my media player, and this song by Marc Broussard called Home is the song I have listened to more than any other song over that time. I first heard this song sitting in the back of my best friends car as we drove over to St. Paul to play some football with a bunch of friends. This song is an absolute classic. I just wish Broussard had some others songs that I enjoyed.

Foo Fighters - Wasted Light album

Over the last 12-months, there is no album that I have listened to more than the Foo Fighter album Wasted Light, according to my account at last.fm. I am posting the video to their song These Days as it has so far been my favorite from the album, although it is an album that has MANY songs that I absolutely love. The tracks I Should Have Known, Walk, Rope, Arlandria, and Dear Rosemary also get played on heavy rotation in my media players.

Wasting Light is the seventh studio album by American alternative rock band Foo Fighters. It was released on April 12, 2011 on RCA Records. As frontman Dave Grohl wanted a record that would capture the essence of the band's earlier work and lack the artificiality of digital recording, the group recorded in Grohl's garage in Encino, California with only analog equipment. The sessions were supervised by producer Butch Vig, with whom Grohl had worked on Nirvana's Nevermind. Since the old equipment did not allow for many mistakes to be corrected in post-production, the band spent three weeks rehearsing the songs, and Vig had to relearn outdated editing techniques. The band went for a heavier and rawer sound to contrast with the musical experiments in the previous albums, and most of the lyrics were written as Grohl reflected upon his life and possible future. Guest musicians include Bob Mould, Krist Novoselic, and Fee Waybill.

Bruno Mars - It Will Rain

This song, It Will Rain by Bruno Mars is the song I have listened to the most over the last year as tracked by my account at last.fm. It is a song that I instantly fell in love with the first time I heard it, and the song continues to be an absolute favorite of mine.

"It Will Rain" is a love ballad co-written and produced by Bruno Mars and his songwriting and production team, The Smeezingtons. The soundtrack disc hit stores on November 8th, 2011. Bruno described the new song as "think of the darker side of love". The agony and torment of heartbreak in the lyrics describe the universal emotional pain of relationship bonds like oxytocin relationships, sexual arousal, bonding and romantic attachment and behavioral addiction, being ripped apart that results in depression. The music video for "It Will Rain" premiered on November 10, 2011 on MTV. Bruno Mars falls for a girl in the clip and it shows the pair going through different emotions like love and anger. It also features footage from the film Breaking Dawn: Part 1, the fourth film in the Twilight saga. The video for the song was then uploaded on YouTube by Mars' label Elektra Records. Although some reviews were mixed, for example Rolling Stone, which gave the song three stars out of five, saying it "sounds a little bit like "Wild Horses," and "a lot like Mars' next radio juggernaut", the song was highly popular and successful. Mars and his label Elektra Records celebrated the singer’s fourth #1 single on the Billboard Top 40 chart with this song.

4th Day of November, We Need a Purple High

All The Critics Love U in Montreux by fonkdoc

It is November 4th, which ALWAYS brings a Prince lyric to mind from his song All the Critics Love U in New York off of his 1999 album. The song is 30 years old now, and here in this video, we see Prince making it new again in a live performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Mickey Mouse

It all started with a... I took this photo of Mickey Mouse during a parade at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park. I have always enjoyed watching the parades from the end of Main St. USA so that I am looking directly down the street towards Cinderella's Castle. Standing there has always given me the ability to get photos like this one here.

Epcot's Chinese Pavilion

This shot is my favorite photo of all the pics I have taken in Epcot. It features the China Pavilion's main building, with both it, and the full moon reflecting in the pond the surrounds it.

Click on the image to view it larger. And if you like it, please click the like botton and share it with your friends.

Adventureland Sign

This photo is of a Tiki Indian head that is a part of the entrance sign to Adventureland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park.

Mint Condition - In The Moment

I'll never understand how this band isn't bigger than they are. This right here is REAL music. It is an actual, living, breathing, RnB band. I also love that they are from right here in Minneapolis. This song right here is from their new album "Music @ the Speed of Life". Go check it out. Lots of good music you're not listening to if you don't.

Jamey Johnson - In Color

This song by Jamey Johnson makes me melt every time I hear it. It doesn't matter what is going on around me, or what I am doing, everything stops when this song comes on. Unfortunately, I haven't enjoyed any of his other songs yet, but this one is something I can never listen too enough.

Something Corporate - Konstatine

Andrew McMahon has got to be the most unheralded songwriter in the history of music. Back in 2002 I stumbled across an album titled "Leaving Through The Window" by a band named 'Something Corporate'. I fell in love with the album. I later bought Something Corporates album "North". Again, I loved the album. Andrew McMahon was the singer/songwriter for Something Corporate and his piano/punk/rock was something I just fell in love with. After the band finished up touring for their North album they decided to take a break. They were not planning on killing the band, they just wanted to get away and rediscover what made them become Something Corporate in the first place.

Andrew put together a side project called Jack's Mannequin. On the day Jack's Mannequin finished recording their debut album 'Everything in Transit' in 2005, Andrew was diagnosed with Leukemia. He is now in remission, and in 2008 Jack's Mannequin released The Glass Passenger. I've absolutely loved these two albums as much as the two Something Corporate albums.

This past Saturday, Feb 20th, I got the chance to see Jack's Mannequin in concert at First Ave. and it was one hell of a show. I was on Youtube today and came across some videos from that First Ave. show. As I was reading through some of the comments I saw some talk about a song called Konstantine and how people scream for it to be played at every Jack's Mannequin concert and Andrew doesn't like hearing that. I had no idea what they were talking about.

Tonight I was online and I decided to look up Konstantine. I found out its a song from the Something Corporate days that wasn't on either of their two albums released here in America, but was on an album released in Japan. I then found a video of the song. I took a listen.

Fuck me.

This song makes me melt. Listening to it is like being in heaven for 9 minutes.

Here it is. Something Corporate - Konstantine




And as a bonus, here is a live performance of it.




From the wiki for this song (yes, the song has its own wiki):

"Konstantine" is a song by alternative rock band Something Corporate. The song is the third track of their album Songs for Silent Movies, which was only released in Japan.

The song is about lead singer Andrew McMahon's relationship with his ex-girlfriend Krystal and their breakup.

Although the band has stopped touring, fans of McMahon's new band, Jack's Mannequin, still request the song to be played while the band is touring. McMahon refuses to play the song and has said in a recent interview, "If I ever play it, I’ll have to play it forever, every night. If it weren’t such a big deal for me to play Konstantine, then I probably would play it. But the truth is, as soon as I bring that song out one time, I will never be able to walk through a venue, no matter what band I’m playing with or no matter where I’m at, and not have people chant and cheer for it.”

Moon Over Expedition Everest

There was a beautiful full moon on the night I shot this photo of Expedition Everest at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park. I lucked out in that a jet had just flown past and it's contrail was still visible in this shot.

NHL Cancels More Games

Today, the NHL reached out and canceled games that had been scheduled through Nov. 30th. This is just a complete joke that these two sides can not figure this out considering they both have agreed that the split should move to a 50/50 split. Right now the players get 57% of the pie. If both sides agree on that 50% split, what's the hold-up? Well, the owners want to want to cut the players salaries down to size so that the salaries will fit into that nice 50/50 split right now. Yeah, never mind that these same owners are the ones that signed the contracts to pay out that much money. Why honor their own signatures, right? The "promise" that the players will get any of the money cut this year paid back out the remaining years of their contracts (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Well then what happens next year when paying the players this money back, the players pie gets up over 50% again? Do the owners throw another tantrum and stomp their feet and hold their breath?

On the other side you have the players, who in their last offers to the league said they wanted to get the players share down to that 50% split, but neither one of their official offers got down that far while giving them sizable raises each year. That sound you just heard was my head slamming against the desk a few times. How on earth can you say you agree with that 50/50 split and turn in two different offers stating that they both get down to 50%, when in fact neither of them do?

These sides are SO close to figuring this out, why can't they see how easy this is? Owners, honor the deals YOU signed. Players, how about accepting slightly smaller raises each year through the deal? If they simply cut 1.5$ off the current 57% salary cap each season, they will get to their beloved 50/50 split in four seasons. With the leagues revenue growing as fast as it had been up until this ridiculous lockout, they players salaries will still be going up even with the lower percentage of revenue going to them. If they sign a seven-year deal, the last three seasons will be played with both sides splitting the revenues 50/50.

Now, someone go knock some sense into these two spoiled babies, show them how simple this is to figure out, and for the love of all things frozen, can we have some NHL hockey?!?

Tinkerbell

I took this photo of Tinkerbell during a night time Pirate and Princess Party parade at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park.