Seen & Heard | August

Here it is, the end of August! I can’t believe how fast the year goes after summer ends. Once it becomes July, the rest of the months just slide on by! I’m already getting questions about what I want for my birthday and it’s only four months away! Even I haven’t that far yet! Okay, I have but it’s still too far into the future to really think about that in my opinion. My friend Ania and I were talking about this a few weeks ago, she had seen people countdown to Halloween! I saw my first one the other day! People seem to be more excited for the month of October than getting through September first!

I know I’m happy for September! All of my summer shows ended on the 19th starting with Wild N Out and then of course, the show that I didn’t think I’d so sad about but The Astronauts’ Wives Club ended for its first season! I don’t know they would do a second season after how the entire season played out. I do hope there’s a new season since ABC took off my Forever. As for my other shows like Mistresses, I Am Jazz (which I love too!), Mysteries At The Monument and Ink Master are all still going strong! The big comeback for my mom and I is the 21st season of Dancing With The Stars. I love how we always think we’ll never make it through summer break, but we do. We were very distracted in other interests this summer so it was smooth sailing! I’ve stopped watching Total Divas a couple of weeks ago! I love the Bella Twins and Paige very much, but everybody else has just become very whiny and too much for me to handle!

As you can see from the two movies I’ve decided to include in this post, I had a kid friendly but educational month! Somehow it was ruled by the Duff sisters on accident! I follow Haylie Duff on Twitter, I love watching her show on Cooking Channel, but she had promoted a Lifetime movie she starred in at the beginning of the month called His Secret Family. To tell you the truth, I’ve never watched a movie with her in it! I read the summary on the guide and I recorded it on my DVR. I watched it in three hours if I can remember correctly! It was pretty good, very suspenseful! My first “adult” Lifetime movie I’ve watched in a long time! A few days after that, I was up late looking through my guide again and found that The Lizzie MacGuire Movie was on ABC Family at 1am!! Who puts a movie like that on so late when there are others who would gladly like to watch it too! Is it too hones if I say I realized how cheesy it was and skipped through most of it just to sing the song at the end? Well, I did!

Back in January, I did the first installment of different movies I wanted to see this year and there was a film on it called Playing It Cool with Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie. It is a romantic-comedy type of movie. I always love it when Chris is in these of films, because he is pretty hilarious! It’s taking me a bit longer than I wanted to finish it but it’ll happen soon! A film that everybody in my family has seen but me, was Fury with Brad Pitt and Shia Labouef. I’ll be honest as bloody as it is, it’s very interesting! However, it’s safe to say I’ve seen WWII in every perspective now. I’ve been trying to find films that have had people buzzing about since the announce of their production was in motion, Foxcatcher was one of those movies and it stars Channing Tatum and Steve Carroll. Sadly I was interested at first but then I lost it so I deleted it on my DVR. Even my mom didn’t want to watch it! Lastly, the movie that I found a week before premiered on HBO was The Theory Of Everything and it was worth the wait! So, so good! It literally surprised me honestly because I don’t like able-bodied actors playing out disabled person but I couldn’t see anybody but Eddie Redmayne as Dr. Stephen Hawking!

I’ve recorded another kid friendly, it’s crazy how people when they go to think of the story lines for movies and they switch things around, I love the movie Shark Tale purely because of the fact that’s our world but underwater, in a fish’s point of view! It’s cute! And Will Smith voices him so of course that makes things 10x better!! I found it playing on Cartoon Network, hardly watch anything on there since the early 00s. Whenever my sister and I were kids, they used to do an all day marathon of Scooby-Doo. I don’t know who loved those days more, us or our mom. I also love finding concerts on TV. I have maybe 6 of them on my DVR right now and they range from pop to rock. I just recently added one by the band OneRepublic. So far so good since I’ve never been THAT big of a fan of them.

My sister’s boyfriend has been really nice and has let me rent a couple of movies here and there. The first time he asked if I wanted anything, I told him no because I only have one way to watch DVDs and that’s through my laptop but since it’s been freaking me out lately with its unpredicatble timing to want an update I just stopped asking for movies in general. That’s why I’ve been living off anything that plays on out movie channels. The second time he got me something, I liked it but I don’t have a clue what it was! He’s been letting me borrow his game consoles to watch these movies. They’re a little strange and my mom and I are too afraid to touch them. This time he got me Insurgent and I was sooo excited! I was so giddy that I think I scared the shit out of him. I never got to finish it but it was good in the parts I got to see!! I’ll rent it again soon and finally complete it.

What I’ve Listened To:

I love finding songs from my favorite TV shows, a little more than hearing one during a movie. Before all the shit went down on Mistresses, Callista (Jennifer Esposito) was standing out a hotel balcony thinking about tossing her wedding ring off the ledge and during this scene a beautiful song comes on. It was “Made For You” by Niia. It was a small scene, considering it was the end of the episode but I had to listen to it twice and that next morning I went on Spotify, found it and the rest is history! You guys know that I’m also a bit quick to judge. As I just recently published a post called “Better Than The Original” where I was talking about my favorite remixes. I can be hard to impress. I love Tiesto’s “Secrets” the way it is. So when I heard Diplo’s remix I wasn’t feeling it at first. Leave it to me two months later I’d cave after the BPM channel played it on the air. They haven’t played it since, I’d say it was fate, what do you think?

I also did a review of the new Bring Me The Horizon song. They released a second single a little bit after that release called “Throne” and I managed to surprise myself again and I have to say I might’ve reviewed the wrong song! This one is so much better! Rihanna’s not having the best time grabbing my attention lately. It took me WEEKS to get into both of her new songs! I can finally listen to “Bitch Better Have My Money” now! Getting back into the rock scene a little, the symphonic metal band Leaves’ Eyes released their new single called “Halvdan The Black” and man, is it good! You can read my review here. I also did a review of Prince Royce’s song “Back It Up” too if you want to read that one too! Rob Thomas is one of those artists that I like, but I don’t know it can be hard to explain sometimes whenever a band you like has a singer that does the same music as a solo artist. However, “Trust You” doesn’t like Matchbox Twenty thank god!

Some new songs, first up “Ghosts” by Feenixpawl featuring Melissa Ramsay. I really love this song! I almost know every word! Icona Pop is back with a new single called “Emergency” that I reviewed recently. It’s pretty great as well! I love to watch performances on TV and YouTube, but I’m only able to watch/listen to EDM mixes through YT so I’ve been finding more and more music that way. I watch too many JackU and just plain Skrillex shows. I know, I gotta stop but they’re all so good! I mean, I love watching the crowd’s reactions to every song that they play. A song that I’ve been hearing a lot in both sets is called “Burial” and it’s by Yogi & Skrillex together, featuring a couple of other rappers. I only like it because I can’t get enough of that damn beat! If I can just find out about that other one, I’d really be a happy camper! I will find it soon.

Life Lately | 4 Months

Howdy!

On Monday, you’ll be getting my normal summary of what I’ve been watching and listening this month. It’s been a little while since I’ve given you an update on our babies! We are not very good at keeping track of their birthdays, we barely know who is from which litter at this point! The newest kittens seem to have been born at the same time, back in April. So all of them are four months old! We recently found out that all of them are boys except for our calico, Toni. Majority of you know that we have two black/white kitties and three gray/white ones, well one of them didn’t have a name. I’m still puzzled why we never named him, but before we found out he was actually a boy I had come up with his name, it’s Felix. At first nobody liked it. Blondie still calls him “FiFi” to be honest with you! That is the second kitten that I’ve successfully named. I say this because usually somebody hates the ones I come up with and changes them.

I tried my best not to get attached to these kittens. When it was just Bootsie and Midget’s litters, it was a small group and in the beginning we had homes for most of them… and then Wren came around with her three and we only gave one kitten away. When I realized that there was no hope for dad and we weren’t going to be giving any more of them away I started to come around more and more. I honestly love little Otis, but he is my mom’s baby! So I can’t exactly bond with him like I have with Stormy. I’ve been around a couple of the others but they never seem to like my feet or wheelchair(s) except for Mr. Felix. My mom recently brought him into my room the other day while I was on the floor. At this point I already had Ozzy and Otis. I felt a bit spoiled to have 3 different kittens in my room in one day! He came in and it was completely different from the other two, he was loving the one-on-one attention. We chatted. (I was blessed with sneezing and meowing like a cat at birth!) He kept rubbing up against me and climbing up my back and hands to reach to bump heads. It was so sweet! Blondie said that means they recognize you as “family.” You learn something new everyday!

Yesterday afternoon, I went on the floor because I was a little bored. My sister was doing her laundry in the bathroom and I knew she would be distracted so she wouldn’t hear me open my door and I started to scoot out into the small hallway, waited a bit until she was done and as soon as she turned off that light I shouted “boo” and she jumped right out of her skin. I couldn’t help myself! Everybody loves scaring the shit out of me, thought it would be some good revenge! However my ass is screwed for later! Oh well! Anyways, I scooted into the living room and got my kisses from ChiChi and I went into the kitchen, all of the babies were laying by the door. My mom opened up the door and let me scoot outside, the cats didn’t know what to do with somebody already down at their level. I had Tubby, Felix and Stormy–all my babies–around me purring and growling at one another! All I kept thinking was, “please don’t jump on me to attack him!” After probably 20-25 minutes I went back inside because I kept getting bit by mosquitoes and they were bored/scared of me.

The real reason why I was on the floor, surprisingly wasn’t cat related and no, I’m not lying! Last week I had a mini breakdown. It’s August and through the beginning of October I am usually very aware of my emotions. I get so scared I’ll crawl back into my depression and I’ll never want to come out again. Leave it to me to have a breakdown just before my mom was to go to bed because she had to go to work that morning. I say I had a “mini” breakdown but it might’ve seemed like a big one to my mom since she hasn’t seen me like that for a while! I have a lot of frustrations and nobody knows how to help and I just feel like it’s no use to say something. I just keep my mouth shut and then this happens… it sucks because I honestly hate making people feel like crap but I also feel like they give me a lot of excuses nowadays and I don’t want to hear those types of things. I believe actions speak louder than words and I want something that’s going to motivate me and make me feel better about how my life is going! I don’t like hearing the same things over and over again.

One of the things my mom suggested I get back into doing was something that I loved to do when I was little. When my nana worked out in her garden – my dad too! They would always need mulch or what we used, tore up newspapers. It was something that my sister and I used to do a lot to help out! Apparently I was the only one who seemed to really enjoy it because even when it was autumn/winter I would still do it! I remember it being a good therapeutic way to get my aggressions out. So after being out with the babies, I asked my mom had any used newspapers. I went back in my room and she laid out two small stacks of them. I shut the door and put on Butcher Babies and all my problems were gone! Well, almost! Once I get the rest shredded they will be. 😉

I hope everybody has been enjoying their weekend!

Song Review: “Gone” by 8OH8 featuring Krem

I love doing music reviews. I finally get to be honest about what I am hearing. I write about what I like and don’t like about the certain track/artist or group. At times I feel like I’ll be too honest and nobody will listen to it to see what they think. Whenever I find new music to review I try to keep an open mind, especially if it’s something I normally listen to a normal basis. I also only go by what I hear from my TV and what I find through Spotify. Every once in a while I’ll find something through SoundCloud, but it’s really rare. I’ve never gotten too many requests. If I do, they’re usually not legit. I’m happy to say this one was. Somebody on Twitter sent me a tweet about having me review a song that apparently they couldn’t stop listening to. It was late at night and I told them I’ll listen to it and see what I could do.

Well, I’ve listened to it and I have to say, it’s good. I couldn’t stop bobbing my head while listening to it, so that’s a good sign! I don’t hate it because for a lot of hip hop tracks you hear to on the radio they can be too overwhelmed by all of the other elements in the song. I like simple beats, but I also want something that’s going to grab my attention and have me listen to it on repeat, you know? This one was a bit too plain for me.

So listen below and tell me what do you think? 

EP Review: “Fire & Ashes” by Xandria

Ever since I got into the whole EDM craze, I’ve noticed a decrease in my metal intake in a day/week. It’s sad that when I think I’ve found as much as I can in one, I move on to another genre. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll give up listening metal music completely, that’ll never happen! I love symphonic metal a lot! I spent a good five years exploring the vast amount of bands in both rock and metal that now I need to explore other genres. Now that I’ve said my peace about that, let’s get on with this review!

Xandria is a symphonic metal band from Germany, after Manuela Kraller’s departure Dutch singer of Ex Libris’ Dianne van Giersbergen took over the vocals for their album “Sacrificium” that came out in early 2014. When the news was announced that they were going to have a new singer, I was sad. I think it’s fair to say a lot of people were upset about it. After we as fans discovered that the new singer would be Dianne, I was a bit hesitant. I took a chance on liking Manuela, I didn’t want to be let down again. So I listened to Ex Libris a little and after two songs I kind of fell in love with her too! Now fast forward to summer of 2015, the release of their EP called “Fire & Ashes.” I honestly hate when symphonic metal bands do EPs because I always want more than five or in this case, seven songs.

The way they explained it on their Facebook band page was that on the EP the first three songs were brand new tracks, then they remade two of their older songs, they replaced their past singer’s voice with Dianne’s and to round it out they included two covers. All three of these new songs sound like a good continuance of their album.The first song is called, “Voyage Of The Fallen” and I am very different in this genre than I talk about with my other reviews. I always say I love a good slow start to an album or EP, but for bands such as these a big, powerful track will grab my attention more than anything. That’s how I became a fan to it in the first place was the giant production it seems to have in every song you hear. Dianne has a very powerful voice too, she makes everything sound great. It’s a nice balance between them! The next one is called “Unembraced” has a softer beginning, but grows as it continues on. This one isn’t as powerful, but I don’t mean that in a wrong way. It’s still beautiful with more of a gentle sound throughout. The third song is “In Remembrance” and I love the introduction, hell the entire song is just gorgeous! Gentle and simple, you honestly don’t want to hear anything too crazy if it’s with this title! It’s a beautiful metal ballad.

The first song they chose to redo was “Ravenheart” which was the single and album title that came out in 2004 with their former singer Lisa Middelhauve. Of course, I’ve listened to this song in its original context so I’m going to be pretty honest about it. Not much of it has changed, Dianne definitely didn’t change the dymantics to fit her voice range as much. It’s fairly soft in both songs. When new singers sing the older songs, they sometimes change little notes, make them higher or last a little longer and I have to say Dianne did not do that. The second song they redid with Dianne is called “Now & Forever” and it’s off of their album “India” that came out in 2005. This song has a more melodic rather than a pure symphonic sound to me. So the redo for this song is a little better, but I think Dianne and the guitars sound stronger in this version than the original. The first cover they did, I actually reviewed as a single because I honestly didn’t think I’d write the review for the EP. If you want to read what I thought of their cover of Sonata Arctica’s song “Don’t Say A Word” just click here. The first cover they decided to include is Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) and I have to say, I’m not feeling it yet. Hopefully I’ll come around to it soon!

EP Review: “This Mixtape Is On Fire” by Dillon Francis

This has been on my list to review since the damn thing was announced. I actually told myself back in June that I wanted to come out of this EDM craze for a bit and go back to rock/metal but I was still going to listen to this and review it. I’m not fully out of it like I wanted to be, but I’m okay with it. Dillon Francis is becoming a new favorite of me. I’ve listened to his remixes and his first album, Money Sucks, Friends Rule and I’m so happy I went out and listened to him on my own. It happened like a month before “Get Low” was being played everywhere on advertisements!

There is a difference between this EP and his debut release. Which subgenre do you categorize it in, the answer is simply: moombahton. The definition of this word plainly explains that it’s a mixture of both house and raggaeton music. I love raggaeton music, always have. I’m slowly introducing myself to the whole house thing for a lack of a better word to use here. I’m still debating whether or not I like it. However, I am loving moombahton a lot! It’s a very unique genre. I honestly need to find more of it because I’ve been living off of both Dillon and Major Lazer, which I’m not complaining. I just want more and maybe I’ll find more DJs experimenting with it soon!

This EP has a total of seven tracks and he got quite a few people to work with on this. So let’s start with the first single that was released that made me all sorts of happy and it’s “Bruk Bruk (I Need Your Lovin).” I love when tracks surprise me! From the moment it started, you know it’s going to make you dance. It’s the how “hard” that you are going go and then you find out and it’s perfect and you’re not going to be sitting still through the rest of it! The next one is called “What’s Your Name” and it features Calvin Harris. It has a house type of intro going on. I think it’s good and different, but right now it’s not one of my favorites. I’ve listened to it a lot since it came out and I don’t know. Just not feeling it. The third one is, how do I say this nicely? IT’S FUCKING AWESOME! Sorry, it needed to be said. I love everything about “Bun Up The Dance” like seriously! This one does something weird to me, I cannot stop dancing to it! It’s ridiculous of how much I’ve listened to it already! Oh and it features Skrillex and honestly you can’t even tell! Sounds a bit harsh, but you think it’s all Dillon because he’s came up with some crazy shit before! Totally got me by surprise!

The next one is called “Pull It” and it features Bro Safri and it’s another one of those very weird songs, but I like it! It’s not like anything that I normally hear on a daily basis. Let’s face it, nothing I listen to can be considered “normal.” There are so many sounds and in some way they all mesh up together amazingly. Really good! And there’s a track called “Coming Over” that has another house DJ on it by the name of Kygo and James Hershey as a guest singer. It’s totally a house type of song but it’s not bad! It’s nice and easy going, this feels like a good summertime song, almost perfect ending to the summer of 2015! The last one of the brand new tracks is “Lies” and it has Chromeo on it. This has such a simple, almost elegant introduction. However, it also makes me think of it like a house version of 2Pac’s “California Love” is that bad? I love the guitar solo, that’s definitely something that you don’ hear in dance music! Lastly there’s a remix that is of “I Can’t Take It” and oh my god, do I love this so much! It’s called the Party Favor Remix, which sounds about right! Every time I hear this song I get so fucking happy! I’ve said that F word a lot in this review! I don’t say it unless I mean it and it is!

This mixtape is on fucking fire! You should get it! Not even joking, you really should. If you want something different, just buy it and then maybe you’ll start to understand why my hips and lower back have been giving me problems for the last couple of weeks!