A Lot Like Love

I will never get sick of watching this movie.  Sweet, cute and funny, with

Neil Gaiman: Best Commencement Speech for the Arts, Ever

You Are What You Think You Are

I started thinking along the line that if you put your mind to something, you could do those things.  When you think positive about those things, you have a better chance of getting them done.  If you think you can’t do it, you won’t do it.  If you want something to happen, pretend it has already happened.

– Willie Nelson in Willie Nelson: An Epic Life

Nothin’ Like a Good Western Quote…

“Boy, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”

Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I just watched this the other night.  It’s still good, no matter how many times you see it or how old it is.  If you haven’t seen this or don’t remember this line, you need to watch it soon.  It’s classic.  I’m also about to start a Clint Eastwood marathon any day now.  After watching this, I found out they did a movie called Blackthorn.  It’s a fictitious account of what could’ve happened had Butch Cassidy survived the supposed shoot-out and live out his days in anonymity.  I started it, but didn’t get to watch the whole thing, yet.  What I watched was pretty good.

Slacker

So, I know I’ve really been slacking on the posts lately.  I can’t help it.  I’ve fallen out with inspiration.  At least, in the graphic design area.  I’ve picked up crochet and macrame, recently.  That’s been taking up most of my evenings.  I know.  I’m totally geeking out.

Really, I haven’t felt like being on the computer for the amount of time it takes to create some good works.  Maybe once I get back in the groove, I’ll post some free frames.  As, it seems, that’s what people would like.  But, that won’t be all, as I don’t find frames very fulfilling.  I like doing it as a way to give.

Actually, I’ve been thinking how it would be really nice to start creating things to donate.  I haven’t looked far enough into this or done enough creations to start it out yet, but the idea is there.

Hopefully, I’ll be around more.  This intermission wasn’t intentional.

Big Fish — The Best Movie Ever

No argument will convince me that there is a movie anywhere that is better than Big Fish, (except maybe Alice in Wonderland).  It’s a Tim Burton film (surprise, surprise) from 2003.  It is also a novel written by Daniel Wallace in 1998.  By far, this film addresses everything you need to know about life.  There is loss.  The impending loss of a relationship you are still unsure of.  There is regret.  The unspoken kind.  There is love.  Pure, sweet love.  There are choices.  The kind that change the path your life is on or, alternatively, the life your path is on.

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Fairy Winter

A beautiful winterscape from Italy.

Davide Capponi photography

This is a view of Valtournenche, a nice ski resort in Val d’Aosta, Italy. This has been shot with my iPhone 4s. The app used to shot the image was HDR Pro, cropping and adjustments were done using Snapseed, further editing was done using ShockMyPic, Dynamic Light, Pic Grunger and PhotoToaster.

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Vibrant Wood Pattern

These are some really wonderful nature pics. What gorgeous images and colors! Only nature can provide beauty like this (a good photographer doesn’t hurt).

Great work, Jeffrey!

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• Grain of Wood (revealedpresence.com)

She & Him. I mean the band, not those two weirdos over there…

She & Him

That’s right, She & Him: the band, the duo.  I thought there was no way they could be anything that great before hearing them.  Hey, one of the members is an actress.  I mean, come on.  How good could they be?

Well, they are good awesome great rock.  I can’t stop listening to them.  It’s official; I’ve become addicted.

For those of you who are unsure of who this even is, the band consists of members Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward.

Zooey Deschanel is an actress.  The first movie I saw her in I hated.  It was Gigantic.  There wasn’t anything I enjoyed about the movie.  As it follows, I didn’t care much for her either.  As time went by, I dreaded seeing more movies with her in it.  First was (500) Days of Summer, not so great either.  Although, most beg to differ.  A small part of me liked it, but then the part of me that hated Zooey talked the other part into hating it as well.  Then came Your Highness ( I admit, my dislike for her was mellowing slightly), which is an awesomely hilarious movie.  Finally, what really did it was Our Idiot Brother.  This was the best movie I’ve seen in a really long time (blog post soon?).  Highly recommended.  Her acting was also wonderful in it.  She had me convinced.  It was just the Gigantic movie that I disliked and not really her.  I figured there must be other movies she was in that I would like as well.  I believe that’s a correct guess.  Recently, I watched The Go-Getter.  This was pretty good, too.  Then, I saw an article about her a week ago.  It had her and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of Hesher, another goodie) singing “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”.  I thought, “Wow, they’re actually pretty good.”  She has a really smooth and gentle voice.  I’m not sure if the article had mentioned her band or if I looked it up.  Regardless, this is how I came to know She & Him.

I don’t really know a whole lot more about Matt Ward than you could read on their band site.  Therefore, I don’t have a background story about my knowledge of him.  I do know that they met on the set for (500) Days of Summer and they did a song on the movie soundtrack.  Apparently, he seems to always have been involved in one band or another.  The music on these albums are as great as the lyrics.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to lessen his role in the duo.  I just know less about him.  After seeing that in print, I’ll have to now check out the other stuff he does.

She & Him have 3 albums and 2 singles out.  I also found another one, not listed on their site, called B-sides.  As far as the other 3 albums, one of them is a Christmas album where they perform various traditional songs called A Very She & Him Christmas.  The other 2 albums are called Volume One and Volume Two.  They’re composed of 13 songs each, a nice number you might say.  Would you believe she wrote all but 5 of the 26 songs?  That’s pretty good for any band.  Nowadays, they have this thing called songwriters and the musicians don’t actually write any of this great stuff themselves.  I suppose that’s another topic.  Needless to say, I think it’s quite impressive that she is so artistic and original when she really doesn’t have to be.  She is a successful actress, after all.

There are quite a few songs I favor here, but I’ll mention a few.  I prefer Volume One to Volume Two slightly.  From the first album, “This is not a Test” has a really nice sound to it.  It’s not as airy as some of the others.  It’s a little more upbeat.  Then, there’s “I was Made for You”.  Wow.  Totally retro!  It’s almost hard to believe this is a new song from today, in a good way.  It’s like flicking on the oldies.  Awesome.  “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” is sweet.  A lot of nice harmonies going on.  Her background vocals and lead are nicely blended.  The music fits so well.  I love the clever lyrics she came up for this one, as the rest.  On their second album, “Gonna Get Along Without You Now” really stands out for me.  It’s so light and pretty.  Her voice is so delicate. It’s just sounds sweet and wonderful.  However, it’s really about the least sweetest things.  That probably makes it even better.  “Home”, what can I say? Who doesn’t want to be ‘where your heart is home’, especially if it’s as pleasant as Zooey makes it sound?

In conclusion, I give the works of She & Him two big thumbs up.  Love the tunes, guys.  Keep ’em comin’.

Next for me & She & Him…  I don’t know.  I’ll probably buy their shirt.  Yeah, I like them that much.  😉

Related articles

• Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Duet, The Cutest Thing Ever (huffingtonpost.com)
• Zooey Deschanel reveals her New Year plans with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (thesun.co.uk)
• Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Duet: ‘(500) Days of Summer’ Couple Reunite for ‘New Year’s Eve’ (moviefone.com)
• Levvit-deschanel So The Next American Sweetheart? (socyberty.com)