I had a great time this Christmas break. I went and greeted the Puebla team return, the Ross Returns, and the Thailand team return. Lots of fun. Then I stayed in Atlanta for a couple of days. I went to the aquarium.

I got my wisdom tooth taken out. I went home and chilled with the family and Kevin. We went to a Christmas tree light farm. It was cool.

We watched a bunch of great movies. Capturing the Friedmans was really good. Some good French ones. We saw a random French thriller at the Midtown Art Cinema. That was fun. My parents and sisters kept kidding me about only watching movies with subtitles. My favorite was L’Auberge Espagnole.

I saw my dad’s band play at this cool place with live video. The night before James Brown died I saw his guitarist play with this other band covering only Georgia-born songs, including James Brown’s tunes.

I got a fisheye camera for christmas.

I had a great Christmas. I hung out in Atlanta for New Years. I saw The Holiday 3 times. I went to a birthday party at the new Ru Sans. It was grrreat.

I can’t wait to celebrate some new birthdays! Kerry and Ashley! My birthday is one month away exactly. Less Than Jake February 2 and 3 Jacksonville!

Some cool classes hopefully. Learning flash and about Computational Journalism. Maybe a French New Wave film class. EAS.

Glad all of my girls are back.

I will be going home Wednesday night, with or without Kevin. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. If he comes with me, then we will go to his house on Friday and get a Christmas tree for his mom. Then I guess we’d head over to Atlanta for the weekend, back to skool.

Things I am thankful for:

friends & family

funny videos

the Internet

Less Than Jake

making fun of people

people making fun of me

shoes

people that make me laugh

ice in diet coke

the beach

camping

road trips

getting lost

good food

movies

concerts

Kevin and I laughing at the same things

dogs

blue pens

scarves

weird stickers in weird places

graffiti

my favorite jeans

email

porches

reeses

campfires

new music i’ve never heard

people that cheer me up

my ability to cheer others up

Jesus!

what are you thankful for? leave comments.

I’ve dropped computer graphics. yuck! We’ve finished the mtvU game and started the new Cartoon Network game. Today we went into a conference call and we had a bunch of good ideas praised by industry pros. It made us feel real good. GO Georgia Tech! haha. And I finished my first video for my experimental digital art class, and now I’m working on the second. I think I’m changing my idea and I’m going to do a piece about Peachtree Street I think. It’s an interesting place, lots of people and things to see.

Kevin convinced me to get Google Desktop. It is pretty cool. I’ve got my own hungry kitty!

We had a very successful Open Mic Nite. Many friends came. At one point, more than 40 non-CCFers were there! Amazing! Everything went sooo well!!

I saw From Exile at Tasty World in Athens and at the Masquerade in Atlanta.

I went on the CCF Fall Retreat. It was good. Outreach is hard.

Been painting with my small groups and on my own.

Went home last weekend. I saw a bunch of movies: Science of Sleep (amazing!!!!), Thank You For Smoking, and The Ninth Gate.

I’ve been experimenting with crazy pictures lately.

I saw Less Than Jake! and the Queers!

The Queers were good. At the Drunken Unicorn. Kevin got to see his favorite, and I got to see mine. Both our favs in one week! We’re spoiled!

Things I’ve been listening to:

Lady Sovereign (November?)
Random

Built to Spill (Friday)
Girl Talk (Last weekend, i missed it!)
Primus (November)

it’s 11:06 pm here in Atlanta and I’m deciding on what I should do. I have a programming project due Tuesday night at 11:59:59. It sucks. The class is computer graphics and we are doing a ray tracing program. it’s hard.

thats what i gotta make, planes, spheres, shading, light, and all. ugh. it’s not coming along well.

i’m taking screen captures of videos for my research project.

I’m working with some grad students and mtvU. we’re making a game that will be used as promotion for the Woodie awards.

I’m making a video for my Experimental Digital Art class. The theme as portraiture. I’m getting 10 of my friends to be in the video. They say “My favorite person is _____.” That’s it. Then I’m gonna edit it all crazy, somehow. I hope it turns out. I think it could be kinda cool.

I’m kinda referencing Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests.

So I think I’ll pull an all-nighter tomorrow night to get my cs project done by 12 and then work on my video that is due at 2pm on Wednesday. I have class/work/class/conference call for Wednesday.

Lots of work to do!

I like this quote:

The less authentic the facts about a man, the more romantic and interesting he becomes.

–Alexander Rodchenko, “Against the Synthetic Portrait, For the Snapshot”

El fin.

The foyeur was where everyone met before going out for the night or going to lunch or school.

The top of the elevator was so cool, thank goodness Brad and Matt didn’t break it.

There were weird fire hose cases in the hotel. They were on the walls every 10 feet.

Our room was amazing. Dana is playing with her new camera taking a picture of our closet across the room.

Our TV worked sometimes. It was especially nice to watch MTV Italy and make fun of all the crazy european music videos. I will say “Applausi per Fibra” was my all time fav.

Every time we entered our room, to have electricity, you had to put your key into this little slot next to the door. Later did we figure out that it could be any object that would be sensed by the little laser or something inside. One time, I was in the shower, and Dana decided to leave and take the key with her, and 5 minutes later, I was in the bathroom. ALL the lights turned off. They are very energy conscious in Italy, so there were auto lights in the halls and the rooms. I had just gotten out of the shower and it was pitch dark in the bathroom.

On the way to skool

This was the strip where I frequented King Whippy and we found many some dead pigeons there, and many little kids almost getting run over by cars.

Mosque across from skool

The tunnel to Slovenia right next to the skool and Pizza Mania, our second home.

The breezway to skool

Graffitti wall in the back of skool

Random pot beer found behind skool

Near hotel, first night

Shannon gives us a quick walk to the town hot spots on the first night

We find Buzz in Gorizia. A little piece of home.

Chris’ first contact with a little car

So I know many people have wondered about my trip to Italy. I am here to recap it for you in a little picture diary. Later, I plan to make some sort of video slideshow with commentary. It should be pretty funny. Look forward to that.

We arrived in Italy late May. My group was the first to arrive that day. I flew into Philadelphia first, waited five hours, then boarded the plane for Venice along with Dr. Nitsche, Jamie, Angela, and Derek. Man was I glad to see those guys.

This is the airport bar. Essential for every airport in Europe, anyone can buy a coffee or a glass of wine.

We were so bored waiting for everyone’s flights to come in, we decided to take pictures of people taking pictures of coffee cups.

We finally got to the train station. We had to haul ass to get everyone’s luggage on the train.

Everyone was sleeping,

talking,

or taking pictures on the train.

There were many picture-worthy sites on the way to Gorizia, the town in Italy where we were staying.

The first thing we always do at a new place is wait…

It is raining when we first get to Gorizia.

The first thing we do when we get to Gorizia is… play monopoly at a bar!

We try the wine.

The toilets are confusing for some.

We expect warm and sunny weather in Italy, yet we get rain for a week straight.

Our hotel, the Grand Hotel Entourage.

cafe/bar/fizzy water

push not pull

crazy drivers

gelato/pizza/multi-course meals

italian film

roberto nanni, the coolest guy ever. look him up on imdb.

soccer!

wine

great people

traveling

king whippy/scary crazy dude

getting lost

meeting random kids

hanging out at the castle discoteque.

crying at the discoteque

who really knows what “prego” means

drunk romanian sisters

lotto tickets and 16 year olds

free wine

alma, a guatemalan woman

knowing enough spanish to be called “caliente”

train rides without sleep

7 people in a 6 person sleeper car for 8 hours no ac

earlier today I went with my whole family to my cousin John’s wedding. it was at clemson. man the drive there is pretty weird. its pretty farmy and has that old town feel the whole way. i kinda liked it. it was about the same drive to atlanta except with a bunch of stop lights, so it really does take 2.5 hours.

the wedding was fun. i video-ed it with the help of my family since they suckered me into it.

i am still kinda packing right now. i just got abby to help me weigh my bag, and it is pretty much like 48 of the 50 allowed pounds. i need to take some crap outta there. its pretty heavy, i will not want to lug that crap around. i’ve decided not to take my computer. wait…

I’VE DECIDED NOT TO TAKE MY COMPUTER.

omg, i am going to die when i get there. 5+ weeks with no personal computer. man oh man. i’m bringing my video camera, my external hard drive, and my digital camera that i just bought a 2gig card for. so i’m pretty set i think. so that means i will not be updating this as much as i want to while i’m abroad, but i will.

the next post will include a hello from italy plus an “instrumental” playlist of 5 songs for mike and everyone else who reads this. it will be interesting, i’ve found some good ones so far and im determined to find some awesome ones on the plane.

So I’ve gotta get to putting as much music on my pod as possible + emptying some stuff out of my suitcase + packing my carry on = a hella lot of crap to do in one hour (its now 3:25AM) before I gotta start showering, etc.

everyone have good summers, i’ll be updating this site and my flickr site.

so i’m gonna try my best with this first one.

for those who don’t know whats going on, i quote mike with the backstory:

“after requesting a cd of the works of the fine atlanta band, snowden, my rival, jill, retaliated with a mix cd of unfathomable proportions. wounded by my inability to immediatly assert my own cred, i decided to declare war on the fiend. this is part one of ??? of the war on jill. the department of homecred defense has chosen five SMDs (songs of mass destruction) to unleash on the enemy.”

this means i have to post back five songs. there are many things to think about when doing so. do i retaliate with similar songs? do i do some world music? classics? covers? ah the possibilities are endless. should the songs have a theme? a meaning? haha… ah too much right now while i’m still recovering from my music loss. thank god i backed up my music collection around february. i don’t have any music people have sent me since february. i do have cds, but no single tracks or anything… which blows. so if anyone besides mike wants to give to the “jill needs her cool music back” foundation, contact her for further details.

My first song is Jens Lekman’s “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill.” I love this song because of its raw feel. It definitely is raw.

Song 2 is “Not Even Stevie Nicks” by Calexico. I love the imagery in this song.

The third’s kinda chill and I listened to it randomly today, Jet to Brazil’s “One Summer Last Fall.” …”a ghost in this prison bed, short sheeted and shook dead.”

#4 is “I’m still your fag” by Broken Social Scene. I like the guitar a lot, the lyrics too.

The last song is Cursive’s “Pulse.” I really love this song. “God was an atheist.” It’s so weird. Does God believe in God? I guess so… hmm… what’s the meaning?

This is gonna be fun… Mike, I propose some sort of theme for next time. Ha, I’m not proposing it, I propose you come up with it.

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On another note, I watched Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. It had pretty good music and the animation was impressive. It was just ok for me. Then I watched Thumbsucker by Mike Mills. I seriously loved this movie. It was so good. The soundtrack was good, I liked the colors, I liked the actors, I liked the acting. I liked the story. It was awesome.

The next night I watched The Squid and the Whale by Noah Baumbach, which I saw in theaters, which was good the second time, and Steve Martin’s Shopgirl. I really liked Shopgirl. The ending was really simple, and Jason Schwartzman was hilarious as always.

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I went to my sister’s graduation on Saturday. It was weird seeing the graduation from above. I graduated in that place only two years ago, and maybe in two more years, I’ll graduate college. weird.

i attempted to make pad thai for my family tonite. it went kinda crazy. they all liked it, but i thought it wasn’t like it was supposed to be. they hadn’t tasted it before, so, what do they really know? ha.

i don’t have to retake my cs class! yay! i’m so freakin happy. i have a feeling my prof didn’t fail anyone.

yesterday, i bought a bunch of new skirts and shoes for italy, since my mom accidentally gave away all of my shoes to goodwill. long story…

i found this new channel called “TheTube.” It plays a ton of old music videos. it’s freakin awesome. they play old music as well as new, journey, def leppard, dave matthews, jamie cullum, the cure, the cranberries, no doubt, john mayer. it’s great. i love digital cable television.

if any of my ex-roomies :*( read this, i watched a new law and order svu tonite. it was great. it was a good one.

the other day, my dog, snickers went a little crazy on me. she barked at me for fifteen minutes straight. then she started clawing and jumping on me. this would not quit, even if i pet her. she’s gone a little crazy. the vet said she has anxiety and she has to take drugs when she gets out of control. i had to give her a double dose that day, it was bad.

kelsey drives now! ahh! less than a month!

last friday, the vellotones played a gig at the mission in the aug. they covered all rolling stones songs. they did like 3+ sets. they played a bunch of random stones songs in the first set, played “some girls” straight thru, then played a bunch of other random songs. it was great! they did such a great job! my dad said he was a little nervous, but they pulled it off! he was cheesy w/a chart board, but whatev, they’re lame, thats the vellotones, and my dad.

i’m not complaining about the lack of heat right now…

atlanta sunday night - thursday, abby’s graduation, then atlanta again sunday - thursday, then my cousin’s wedding at clemson, then plane for italy on the next sunday! then italy and then europe, and then california!

hope everyone’s having a great time adjusting to life at home for this brief week or so. later dudes