Merry Christmuck everyone. Here's the part where I tell you what I got xD

A training book of the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps
A CD collection of piano classics by composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Schumann
A Hornline Shirt of the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps
A $10 gift card for Amazon
Oreos
Cheddar Cheese Pringles
A football hoodie (wth, I'm in the marching band)
Misc shirts
A light-blue tie with a Majin Buu M on it
Rawhide bones and a plush chew toy (I found out later that these were for my dog, but, well, they were in the same bag as the crapload of misc shirts and the dumb tie)

Everything after the Pringles I didn't give much care for; but hey, it's the thought that counts. I hope the people I'm giving the shirts and hoodie away too like it more than I do.

Merry Christmuck guys, have a nice Boxing Day tomorrow if you celebrate it. I'm off to listen to my CDs <3

Snow, in South Jersey, and it's sticking. Who woulda thunk it?

But seriously, it's snowing, it's sticking to the ground, it's about 5-7 inches right now, and it's continuing to snow. This is:
1. Proof against global warming, since it hasn't snowed in South Jersey in December in years
2. Awesome
3. I should be getting money, for
1. Shoveling
2. The very fact that it's snowing. See Kara? This is what happens when you're absolutely optimistic.

*Runs off to enjoy the snow and possibly get hypothermia*

Well, in the spirit of the season, although your ears are probably quite used to it already, I thought I'd post Christmas music! So here's something awesome that you may, or may not have found:



Every now and then, OC Remix comes out with something epic such as this. Best part is, it's up for download xD

I believe I can sum up today as a bad luck kind of day. Not a bad day, just horrible luck.

So, after much waiting, I finally got a copy of Finale 08 off a friend of mine. My original plans for today was to spend the whole afternoon working with Finale for my plans in Brass Ensemble next year; unfortunately, these plans were cut short. McAffe pops up and alerts me of a Trojan found within a file I needed to extract, thus cancelling the installation process.

Next, I don't consider this bad luck but, a good friend o mine just found work after looking, baby sitting at the house across the street from me. So I'm like "Wow man, that's cool!" and I tell my mom about it. This is where the bad luck comes in. She yells at me for not opting to take this opportunity. Come on, I have work next-door already baby-sitting. This guy has been looking for months! I want to place bets that my dad will yell at me too.

Oh, and my bro went to chill with a friend over-night, leaving me with the dog that my sisters are too wimpy to take care of by taking outside so the dog can do her business.

I've had worse days than this, I just feel kind of angry that my mom is pissed off at me for no good of a reason; and, more importantly, that my work for brass ensemble has been halted until God knows when yet again. Even so, don't expect me to come out of bed tomorrow.

"Put that cookie douwn!! NOOUUW!!" From Jingle All the Way

Well, for starters: happy birthday hly_drgn_swrd ! Enjoy whatever you have planned for today.

Next, today is the Christmas Parade that the marching band participates in yearly. Traditionally, we start off with a 4 hour long party, which include food, music, and a Secret Santa (of which I went through much hell to buy the right gift for the person I was assigned). The coolest part of the party, or at least based on my opinion, we are allowed to decorate our instruments to fit the Christmas theme. Always a fun thing.
With that said... see you guys in a few hours if I decided to write a follow-up entry.

Music -
Performance (mainly marching band)
Appreciation of music
Exploration of music
And my goal of becoming a teacher of music

1.) benpc91 , Happy Birthday, you're 18, enjoy your no longer being a minor-ness

2.) When exactly did the world stop making sense? I just remembered the creation of Invisalign, the clear plastic braces created a few years back. Wouldn't the creation of them make real braces obsolete? I'm a freaking musician, why would you give me braces? Moreover, why would you wait until I've been playing for 6 YEARS and I'm a Junior in High School to give me them? Why not give me Invisalign instead? At least then, all that would've been necessary are extractions. My stupid dentists then follow braces with something else dumb: Once they are removed, THEN they give me Invisalign. Well, the job's already done, let's give them something that would've benefited them long ago! Stupid dentists.

It's been a rough weekend filled with work, and.... more work. Yeah, I guess that sound about right summarized.

So, it was Saturday at 9 AM when we were all at the school readying for rehearsal. At first, we were outside working our asses off, then we took a break and relocated to the gym; which wasn't as intense when it came to work. It was shortly afterwords that we found out the competition that day would be held inside due to foul weather (xlillyflowerx.livejournal.com/27037.html). But our director felt confident in us, as he and the others were blown away by our sound.
Apparently, that was the case at the actual competition too.
Like last year, it was a Cavalcade of Bands tourney, so the scoring system works different from the TOB circuit. But hell, for a persnickety set of judges, a score of 85.20 and 1st place out of 4 is damn good (two bands tied for 3rd).

Moving on, today was a day like none other. Instead of rehearsing prior to leaving, our director had us come in later, pack up, and leave for the competition. He informed us that, thanks to last year (pikohan.livejournal.com/18082.html), we were entering as the "Defending Champions." Love the title. So we gave our performance, a plane flew overhead between two songs, and we left feeling confident, as we blew the crowd away, again.
And then, the scoring came around.
4th place with a score of 80.20.... Woodbury High School!
3rd place with a score of *murmuring* and High Percussion.... Cinaminsin High School!

Not 4th, not 3rd, we could be in second.... And, no, I don't know Cinaminsin's score.

2nd place with a score of 85.45....

Suspense....

Kingsway High School!

Oh shit, if they got 2nd, and our name hasn't been called yet....!

1st place with a score of 85.70 with High Drum Major and High Auxilary....

Say it already you son of a---!

BARNEGAT HIGH SCHOOL!

The following pictures happen in the course of half-a-second.








We f*c**ng did it. Not only did we beat our score from the difficult circuit, we placed in 1st, kicked all the other bands in the buttocks, and set the highest score set by our band! What a season! Nothing but improvement since competition 1, and closed strong with f**king 1st place. After a few football games, one tends to forget what victory feels like (pikohan.livejournal.com/31887.html). Now I know what it feels like to win first place via earning it, and today shall be remembered for years to come. G'night y'all, I love you~

P.S. xlillyflowerx , I won't see you in school tomorrow, I'm staying home =_=

Starting tomorrow, as part of the marching band schedule, is "The Weekend from Hell," as most of us call it. It consists of a football game (which we'll most likely lose (I lost the game dammit)), a competition held at our rival school the following day, and the TOB championships, where we will be going up against three (possibly only two) other bands, to finish off the weekend. Following all this, is a rehearsal on Monday. So, four days of marching band. I'll post an update of how the championships went on Tuesday.

Some predictions - Considering how well our last competition went, we could've been well into 83-84 had the competition last week not been canceled. Our score was 82.55, which was a three point leap, and that was thanks to adding a ton of effects and cleaning the drill.
Over the past two weeks, all we did was clean the drill and try to put a little more intensity into the music. Not to mention, effects were added.

If you wish to see our 82.55 performance, here's an embedding:


See you all on Tuesday~

Cancelled due to rain.

HOLD IT INDOORS YOU FOOLS.

Okay, best freaking performance ever. And last night, we actually were in direct competition with another band; so, we actually had a little excitement when listening up for scores.

"In second place..." the announcer started off, making it difficult to keep the rest of the band quiet, "With a score of 81-point-0-5..." Silence. "**** High School!" Oh shit, he didn't say our name.
"And in first place..." I turned to see the look on everyone's face as a friend and I told them to scream as loud as they can. "With a score of 82-point-5-5..." f***ing suspense. "B**ne*** High School!"

82.55! That's a freaking tremendous leap since our last competition. In fact, it's also the highest score that our band has ever set (considering we've only been competing for four years).

I'm definitely remembering this night for years to come... especially since our director's probably going to work us three times as hard this week.

The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps. I got close watching them at BLL6, but that's just not good enough. If I had the money, I would definitely fly across the country just to see them and hear them play.

Our goal - 80.00 or above

Our Score - 79.20

And we probably would've reached it if it weren't for those meddling torrential downpours, out-of-breathness, and that color-guard member bringing her cell-phone onto the field.

But, it wasn't a bad competition. We had fun warming up, we hung out in the rain (which was cold, REALLY cold), fun bus rides to and fro, and I got to assist leading in something.

Okay, today was the second home game of the season. At first, it was pretty good. We tied with them straight before the first-half ended (our performance was the best of the season btw), had an awesome third quarter off, and when we came back, we were 7 points in the lead. Yeah, life was great. Then the other team got a two-point goal, bringing the score to 21-16. There was but two minutes left in the fourth quarter, we were 47 yards away from scoring the touchdown that would win us the game (that I just lost), when all of a sudden, PENALTY. Our team was pushed back 10 yards, no big deal, just play through again. PENALTY. Pushed back 10 yards. PENALTY. Pushed back 10 yards. PENALTY. What the fu--?! Now there was 47 seconds left, and the opposing team was 3 yards from a touchdown. Lo and behold, they scored, making the score 22-21. We lost, we knew there was no way in hell we were winning that with only 42 seconds remaining.

Hey football team, our last home-game we lost 30-29. Now we lost the second home game of the season 22-21. And last year, you lost every game but one. GET YOUR ASSES OFF THE BENCH (especially you Don).

I have two, and both are equally as epic.

Three years ago, I was in my middle school's jazz band when we went to go compete at another place. Along the way, we stopped at a local Burger King for lunch. There, our bassist ripped his pants. But that's not what made the day some awesome.
When we were on the buses getting ready to get back home, our director told us our scores were better than our rival school's scores.

A couple of months back, I went way out of town to watch DCI Big, Loud & Live 6 in a theater far from where I live. Quite simply, I was blown away by all the amazing performances, especially my favorite, the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps. During their performance, "A Ballet for MARTHA," I almost felt like crying. But what put me even more in that state was that they were in fifth place.

Okay, so yesterday was our first competition of the season where not only did we give a performance that we felt was pretty epic, but we also found out a pretty important fact. This season, we're not alone in the Group 2 Regional category.

There were a ton of other cool bands there, the most notable, however, was a band by the name of "The Long Orange Line." They certainly did live up to their name seeing that they were the only Group 4 band. According to the man in the press box, this band performed in every Disney location in the world, played their music on the Great Wall of China, and perform in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade every year. Go figure, they also had an awesome themed show: Led Zepplin.

Enough about other bands though. When it came to scoring and the man in the press box spoke "In Group 2 Regional..." we went dead silent. "with a score of 77.15..." Nice score for the first of the year. "*Insert the band name of the dude posting this here*" We broke out in cheering. Who cares if it was second place?

Tagged by koretetsu and xlillyflowerx

1. What would Wikipedia change your name to?
Bread (disambiguation)

2. What's your favourite drink?
Angela Morant (wtf? It would've made more sense if I got this for name instead of Bread. Come to think of it, bread sounds like a tasty drink)

3. When you turn on the radio, what station is it set to?
Tokunagaia

4. Your favourite meal of the day is?
Mark Taddiken (why am I getting people's names when there's questions about food?)

5. What time is it?
ICA IS-29 TIME! (starts singing I'm on a Plane)

6. What's on the TV now?
Erwin Rüddel

7. Look around where you are, what do you see?
Two of a Kind

8. Close your eyes and click on 'Random Article' three times. What does it display?
Octagon, Octagon, Octagon

9. Your favourite cartoon character is?
Courageux class ship of the line

10. Your biggest fear is?
1813

11. Your pornstar name is?
Illegal Aliens (film)

12. You start a political party, the name of it is?
Jugulo-omohyoid lymph node

13. There's a new TV programme people are talking about, and it's called?
Josh Miller

14. You walk into a classroom. You're about to teach?
(Music, but due to this meme) Potters Bar rail accidents

15. Your secret obsession is?
Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (Well, I guess the protagonist does look pretty cute, must convert into a Pirate though >:O)

16. You conquer a country. What do you name it?
Inkhundla

17. You receive a text from somebody, the message reads?
Comparison of S.M.A.R.T. tools

18. Your new religion is?
Steering wheel (ship) (WTF?! Yeah, I'm a pirate, but I'm not gonna worship a wheel like cavemen do!)

19. Your retirement plan will take place in?
Slitting Mill

20. You release a hit song. It's called?
Säynätsalo Town Hall

21. You learn a new language. It's called?
Naked Songs - Live and Acoustic (I never heard of this band, nor heard their music. I'm going to guess that if I learned a language named after them, their songs ought to be pretty illegible)

22. You will be reposting this as?
OR1L8 (That's right peeps, I'm posting as what makes smelling stuff possible... Wasabi does that too >.>)

Happy birthday mugiwarasilver , www.youtube.com/watch (I'm a crappy gift giver xD)