High falutin' and putting on aires.

Hey, I just drew a new... drawing. Go figure. I pretty much like it a bunch.

Every time I listen to "Decode" by Paramore and it comes up to the end of the song where Haley sings "I think I know" with an excess of drama, at that moment I am always reminded of Death Note. There is a probable similarity in the music here and in the Death Note opening song for the first several episodes (not the later ones with the heavy metal introduction). I don't know if it's because of the Death Note comparison or because it's just a sweetawesome melody, but it's my favorite part of the song. Absofrigginlutely. I guess I might be slightly melodramatic, myself.

While I'm on the topic of music, I thought I'd mention a local artist. Her name is Srna, she's friends of my best friend, and has incredible control over her voice and a talent for melody and lyrics. She calls her music acoustic healing and easy listening. If you want to check her out, she's on Myspace. I recommend listening to Heavy Bones and Love Broke, especially.

This past weekend I was spending time with my dad a lot. We visited my brother, as well, watching a couple of movies: Yes Man and The Spirit. The Spirit sucked like some sort of sucking monstrosity, but Yes Man was more than tolerable. Zooey Deschanel is so adorable. I wish she was my big sister or something.

Anyway, my brother has been in a spot of trouble for a while and is often in need of financial help. What with the jobs available coming to a near stand still, it's really difficult for someone as unmotivated as my brother to find one, let alone without a high school diploma. We're all rather worried about him. My mom is in constant distress over his impending homelessness. I wish he'd pull his shit together and make an effort at life for himself rather than sit around and play video games all day and living off of the generosity of his friends and family. I want to still be as close to him as I have been throughout my teenage years, but after my realizations about his decision making and delibrate lying towards his familiy about his situations should have the obvious effect of driving me away. But it isn't, because I love him to death and I can't seem to stay angry with him for longer than overnight.

My dad gave him some money because of it, and my grandparents gave him some money as well for the whole Christmas charade. (Yes, they gave me some, too.) My dad thought it only fair that he gift me with something as well. I'd already told him that I wanted some lenses for my camera to increase my knowledge and skills in photography, so he told me to look for what I needed online provided that what I get is less than $300. I somehow managed to find some pretty amazing deals.

I've got a Canon Powershot S3 IS. I don't know much about cameras and all, but I'm pretty sure it's an amateur camera. I know it has some pretty awesome features, regardless. Anyway, I went looking for some compatible lenses via Google. I love Google.

Eventually I found some deals: a wide angle and macro lens, a teleconverter lens, and adapter for just $70, originally priced at about $250. Ca-ching! So with a bunch of money left over, I opted to get another package: a lens hood, filters, and a tripod for $30. Then I found another lens for $30 that I thought was pretty cool: a super wide angle panoramic macro fisheye lens. What a mouthful, eh? But that should help get me some of those really awesome super macro photographs that I'm looking for. I figured that's all I'd need to start out--not that I know what else there is out there for an amateur photographer.