It’s past my bedtime. I just got back from seeing Mute Math at Chattanooga’s own Rhythm & Brews. I’m too frazzled to really provide you with a concert review other than to say it was what’s for awesome. Mute Math. They’re what’s for awesome.

Some highlights:

Go support some live music, kids.

Fantastic photography portfolio from Emily Shur. Portraits, Polaroids, travel photos… all top notch stuff. (Even with the strike 1 for resizing my browser. I despise fullscreen Flash 90% of the time.)

Tokyo Plastic returns with a slight stylistic departure for the Little Fella. Slightly disturbing, extremely well-done, and killer sound design (listen to it with headphones for maximum stereo appreciation.) P.S. If you’re a 3DStudio Max guru, they’re hiring.

My brother-in-law’s band Calus has a new album coming out soon (that I’m doing album art for.) Check out some tracks on their MySpace if you are inclined to love brutal, crushing Southern-tinged metal. That first track SLAYS me.

The Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank carries five, is armored, has it’s own PA, plush interior, and can be yours for the value price of $19,999.95, which you should know is a STEAL if you’ve been in the market for a tank of your own. Did I mention it’s called the “Badonkadonk?” (via Rocketboom)

voltron.com is counting down to the DVD release.

New goods at Daughters of Affluence for the boys and the girls, including this jacket that I designed and some other fun apparel and jewelry.

Happy Monday. If anyone’s in the market for a decent point and shoot camera, this Canon PowerShot A430 is $133 shipped (assuming the deal is still valid.)

I doubt there will be much in the way of coherence or any real sense of importance to this post, but sometimes I just feel like thinking via writing and hey, this is my website – it’s even got my name on it – so I’m going to write.

I’m sitting in my apartment. It is a beautiful sunny day outside and I have the blinds up and that wonderful quality of natural light that makes everything glowy and warm and casts those movie-esque shadows in all the right places is hitting my white walls. I’ve been listening to low-key electronica-ish music for most of the afternoon (The Album Leaf, Air, Tycho, etc.) and I still have paint all over my hands and jeans from working on some new paintings earlier today. I played guitar for a bit. I’ve gotten sloppy, but I’m ok with it. (Mostly.) I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some chips, and grape Kool-aid for lunch and as I was eating I wondered, “Hm… is this the kind of meal “adults” are supposed to eat? If so, should I feel bad for enjoying it so much?” I illustrated some posters that I’ll be selling soon. I really like them, I hope you do too. I fell down last week going up some steps and gashed my left shin and today I hit the wound squarely on the corner of my desk. I am amazed at how my tolerance for pain has shruken since the days when I would regularly crash my bicycle into trees/asphalt/cars/fellow-children and come home bloody, but somehow still extremely happy. Nonetheless, it looks like my collection of scars is growing at a decent clip.

So that’s the surface of things. That’s what my life looks like today. But there’s a weird kind of tension in the air in my life right now. It’s not the spring fever type of tension (because, though it’s difficult to argue the presence of it, that variety of “fever” is no respecter of seasons for me.) No, this is the “standing on the edge of something” waiting tension – the kind that is good and true and right to walk in and take in and live out (if I can be so cheeky as to talk in such grand, sweeping, romantic phrases. Can I?) I like it. It makes me want to write poetry and try to capture what I’m feeling/thinking, even though I’m fairly certain I’ll fail in that endeavor.

I like it because it doesn’t matter that the thing (or experience or person or event or whatever the waiting is for) isn’t here yet – because I know it will be eventually. You don’t stand on the edge of something and wait for nothing. I am far too optimistic to buy into that. And while I’m waiting, I’m just going to keep doing lots of things, mostly at once, because that seems to be the only course of action that keeps me from spending too much time in my own head, overanalyzing scenarios that never happen, feeling depressed about things not occurring that, in reality, were never promised to me in the first place. The human capacity to be pissed about things that don’t exist is really quite astounding. In conversations with people, I often tend to lump together my art-making exploits under the banner of “well, I’m just trying not to be bored” but lately I wonder if there’s more to it. I wonder if it’s more a case of I do it because it makes me happy. Because I am content in the creative process.

Happiness is a rare thing these days, it seems. At least in America. I can go an entire day and not see one happy person. Somehow, I’m certain that is NOT the way things should be.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see puppets performing Motorhead’s classic rock anthem Ace of Spades, then boy do I have a treat for you.

I’m pretty sure I just found my next vehicle. Is that thing me, or what? (If you don’t actually know me, let me clarify and answer for you with a resounding “mmm, yeeesssss.”)

Waste some time killing sprouts. The sound design totally makes this.

One of my favorite musicians is crazy-good guitarist Monte Montgomery. He unfortunately rarely plays outside of Texas and even more unfortunately, I’ve missed two recent shows in the Southeast. Nonetheless, go visit his MySpace to hear a pure-Texas-awesome new version of 1st and Repair. Then go read Lee‘s review of last night’s Greenville show.

I’ve always thought that showboat soccer dribbling was sort of a useless parlor trick, but it’s a dang good trick sometimes. I like his finishing move.

Brand company Attik turns 20 and launches a new site with lots of updated work. They’re responsible for projects like the branding of Toyota’s Scion line, nikewomen, and the recent brand repositioning and repackaging of SoBE.

The best fight scene ever. Stay until the end (gruesome as it may be) and the fantastic action movie one-liners. (via Gilmore)

Blurbomat on how the music scene (or the web, or people, hipsters, etc.) is so exclusive, elitist, and small. You know what I’m talking about… things are only cool if no one’s heard of them and the second something goes “mainstream” (what does that even mean?) it ceases to be cool. Nothing actually changes about the thing, save more people enjoying it. You people… grow up.

In the past few days, Prom Night Fist Fight (and to a lesser extent my Moblog and Polaroid site) have been getting insane amounts of traffic due to the building web buzz about Tubatomic’s Revolver FiRE script. The speed at which sites/products/apps can go from unknown to well-known in the web community often astounds me.

How to convert VGA cable to CAT5 cable. Potentially handy for home theater projects, conference rooms on a budget, etc. but 1. how does it affect the image quality and 2. is it really more cost effective?

Peter Reid has updated Our Common with photos from the Anyamo IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) Camp in Gulu, Northern Uganda. Amazing photos, heartbreaking poverty and “living” conditions.

Homestar Runner has a video podcast (iTunes Music Store link) of all their various tomfoolery now.