It’s been friggin’ forever.  If you missed me, I’m sorry.  If you didn’t - WHY NOT!?!?!? : )

First, my band has finally finished their album.  You can listen to some sweet new tracks at our MySpace page.  You can check out the fine artwork (by our good friend and former band member, Josh Hardy) on Facebook.  The album “drops”, as they say, on November 21st.  If you’re in the southeast you should come to our totally awesome release concert at New Brookland.  If you’re not, you should pick up a copy (or seventeen) as a Christmas gift for a music lover you know.  The details for how to buy it will be available on the MySpace page on the the 21st.

Movies. I’ve watched a healthy group of films since the last time I wrote.  Here are the best:

Slither - A hilarious horror film.  An SAT example could be Slither is to Monster Movies what Shaun of the Dead is to Zombie Movies.  Completely entertaining and worth your time.

Twin Daggers - If you like terrible martial arts films as much as I do the you will love this.  I haven’t laughed out loud this much at a film, not to mention when I was by myself, in a long time.  Available at your local Redbox.

Music.  For those of you with an email that ends in .edu you should check out Ruckus.  It’s great if you spend a healthy amount of time at a computer and you like new music, two categories I happen to fall into.

TV on the Radio - Radiohead meets Prince and probably a ton of other bands.  So much variety it’s hard to describe.  But it’s good.  Very good.
Amanda Palmer - Her solo album was produced by Ben Folds and she has an amazing story posted on her website … and the music is pretty good too : )

Fleet Foxes - Spiritual successors to the Beach Boys.  Lots of harmonies and reverb but no cheesy copy-cat songs.

Other. 

My sister-in-law’s blog is totally awesome.  Which means I get in on the ground floor when she starts her own brand one day …. HA! : )

Derek Sivers sold CD Baby and made a mint.  He’s taking that money and using it to help independant musicians become more successful.  He might look a little funny but he is totally admirable and has some great advice.

And one day soon I will post the final beard pictures : )  The wife ended up liking it so much that I kept it scraggily for a good while after.

This past week we passed a great benchmark in the beard timeline - the half-way mark. It’s hard to believe (I say this to you who don’t think about it every day like I do) that it’s already been almost 4 weeks (tomorrow). But it has. I do have one small confession to make: I shaved a little off the mustache. Some unruly facial hair was driving me absolutely crazy and since the lip hair (really corners-of-the-mouth hair) isn’t essential to a glorious beard I buzzed it for my own sanity.

In non-beard news, we will be laying down the vocals for the album in the coming week. We’ve finally finished about 99% of the editing (for the instruments at least) and started on the mixing. It’s shaping up to be one great sounding album. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. We’re also coming close to having a release date and album title. I will keep you informed on both of those bits of information as well.

Here are your long awaited beard pics. Since my beard photo creativity has plummeted (some might say “never existed”) feel free to send me some ideas. Keep in mind that I have to take the pictures with the camera on my MacBook so exotic location shots are fairly out of the question : )

Day 19

Knoxville smile

Day 20

Forgot to take the picture while I was actually awake smile

Day 21

Forgot again smile

Day 22

Getting too lazy to take a different picture smile

Day 24

Pretty in lavender smile

Day 25

My headphones are way bigger than yours smile