All-district

It's been a while since we got the results, but I'm going to go ahead and talk about all-district anyway.

I am currently the 4th best trombone in the district! Under Jake Tabor, Kaci Beard and some stupid Freshmen girl named Erin Burba that I hate. With a burning fiery passion. But anyway, we all did awesome at all-district, and Nash said both of us made stupid little mistakes or we would have got 3rd and 2nd. Oh well.

SUMO PAINT PICTURES

Drew all of them on SumoPaint. It's awesome.

All-district today, wish us luck please.

All-district auditions are tomorrow.

So most of the band is stressing out over All-District auditions at Mayfield tomorrow. To understand our concern, you have to have an overview of what happens there and what happens if you get in; that sort of thing:

All-District is a district (duh) wide competition for middle and high school band students, which are held at separate locations. Each band director from every participating school is given audition music for each instrument, to be distributed to the students when the directors deem them ready. The students have a period of time to practice and learn the music, along with the appropriate musical scales. The school then travels to the location hosting the competition and plays the selection in a blind audition before a panel of judges. Each individual student performs and returns to the common room set up by the hosting location. At the end of the competition, the judges give each director a stack of folders, which contain a few pieces of music. These folders are awarded to those students who made the cut. These students go on (in January) to play in a full band of the district's best, a great honor and a great opportunity to learn.  I  MUST GET IN.



Practice. Practice. Practice.

Captcha monster. Do it.

The creators of a few other blogs and myself have decided to unleash a previously-untamed awesomeness into this rotting world: Captcha monster. This blog is most promising, because we don't have to make content up on our own. As you no doubt know since you're on blogger at the moment, posting comments can be a hassle. The internet overlords must have written proof that you are not a robot: the captcha. These annoyances do have their purposes though. After our compilation of random words is nearer to completion, we will start to write things using the words so graciously given to us by the Captcha Lord. Also expect pictures of the Storage Room Monster/Captcha Monster to permeate that blog. Just a warning.

ba-BAM! Reverse Karma!

Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Mallory... Melody. Melody woke up one morning to find her alarm clock ringing and buzzing, before transforming into a large jewel-encrusted dragon-mancer. Visibly shaken, Melody left her house and walked down her driveway. She stood, and was suddenly consumed with the urge to tackle the fierce yellow beast that she found sitting in the road. She ran toward it, guns a'blazing, when the yellow beast opened it's toothy maw and swallowed her whole. Melody calmly strode down it's esophagus and into its belly, where she met a number of other people sitting in flesh colored seats. One such denizen on the beast was speaking to some comrade of his "Eww, that slimy Josh Tabor, I hate him." Now, it just so happens that Melody was section leader over Tabor in band, and she was openly hostile to the cretin that dared disrespect her favorite Rookie. She turned and proceeded to stop the little fool into his PLACE! After being sacrificially regurgitated by the evil yellow beast, Melody hopped her way over some water and shuffled into a building that looked strangely like a prison, except with rancid fumes bursting forth and children, oddly enough, willingly going inside. She entered, and found herself in the band room with a bunch of other awesome people. Still angry at the Josh-Tabor-mean-kid experience, she threw down her bindle as a sign of her discontent. Her refreshment was impaled by a clarinet screwdriver, and exploded molten cola over her various personal effects.


And this is the story of why Mallory Eubanks shouldn't try to be nice.

Bloggery and such is harder than expected.

Back before this blog was assigned to us, I already had a blog on Blogger. It was easy and effortless; writing about anything and everything I wanted with wanton abandon because no one was going to read it. Now I feel like everything I write needs to be perfect. I sorely miss my illustrations, but I just haven't had the time. After the School Play is over, I'll have much more time to draw and quality-write this blog. Consider these past few posts as an attempt to lower your expectations. That is all. Please return to your regularly scheduled chaos and mayhem.

Captcha

As I was going through today, getting my 4 comments for the week, these final three captcha started sending me a message.


"Sator"
"Betcha"
"Plideri"

I'm not sure what a Sator is, or why it was betting a Plideri.


I'm pretty sure this won't count as a real post.

Your expectations mean almost nothing.

Why do we take so many tests? I don't understand these "colleges" that only give futures to people who meet their expectations or requirements. Who are they to decide if someone is going to end up on the streets, half-dead and homeless? Who are they to dictate the terms within which someone has to live their entire life? One could argue that they are playing God. Should anyone have that kind of power, basically the power of fate? I don't think so. Least of all a bunch of stiff suits that, in the end, only really care about the bottom line. Colleges are businesses too; are they the right place for the posterity of America to be herded into, based on how well they play Eenie-Meenie-Minie-Mo on a scrap of paper? Oh sorry, my bad, I meant "Answer Booklet."

The Penguin.

It was a dark and stormy night and...

Me and my brothers were getting ready for Halloween. Hannah (my slightly deranged neighbor that I've known for longer than I've known either of my brothers) got the idea to be a scarecrow, which my brain interpreted as "the Scarecrow" (a Batman villain with fear-gas powers). I then decided to fit in with this Batman theme and proudly proclaimed myself as the Penguin: Flightless bird-inspired evildoer in a three piece suit and with a .45 caliber umbrella. Obviously, I am awesome. Some of my accessories:

Actually, that last one includes Mallory of Lyricsyrup, wearing a Joker shirt, which brings me to my youngest brother's costume.

Devin was the Kid Joker, complete with creepy makeup, green hair and bow-tie. It was hard to even be in his general vicinity without feeling the need to run for the hills. Dawson, the other brother, dressed up as the Riddler, an insane puzzle-obsessed baddy that can't help but leave clues for Batman and friends. 

And that's how I went to school dressed as the Penguin. Expect an update/subsequent post with Trick-or-Treat pictures.

Regionals = dissappoint

So we went to Regionals last Saturday with the intent of making it to State Semifinals in our heads and freakish amounts of excitement in our hearts. The seniors gave emotional speeches and the director assured us that if we did our best, and the judges did their jobs, the scores would take care of themselves. The entire band tried their best, and before we knew it we were standing on the sidelines anxiously awaiting our scores. In performance order they rang out: (eight bands make the cut)
1. Owensboro Catholic
2. McLean County
3. Murray High School
4. Russellville High School
5. Mayfield High School
6. Metcalfe County
7. Cumberland County
and...
8. Hancock County

We were crushed. Half of the band immediately started crying, a quarter was speechless and holding back tears, and the other quarter were frantically ranting and raging about how "there is no reason to be crying" and "we know we did our best". I wanted to destroy the last quarter. So we all went home and had emotional speeches and cried and were depressed and we all went home and died. THE END.

On a completely different note, next year band is going to be much more legit. I myself am going to be one of the two Section Leaders for low brass, along with Kaci Beard. This means I'm going to have to be awesome and have responsibilities and stress and stuff. Go me.

Regionals Week.

So last Saturday, the CCHS Rocket Regiment traveled to the Hopkinsville Stadium of Champions to compete in the band competition there. The setup for the event was as follows: Preliminary Competition, followed by Finals competition for the winning bands. Since their was one other band in our category, we were guaranteed a spot in Finals. The preliminary run wasn't very good, but everyone thought the Finals performance was our best ever.

Apparently, we were wrong.

The announcement came back that we had gotten 9th place out of 10. We were completely speechless. The band we beat was all but a joke in KMEA, so we knew we weren't that good. Turns out, that run was one of our worst visually EVER.

Regionals is this Saturday, and we most certainly have a chance at advancing. So we are actively working our tails off. Wish us luck.

Music.

So recently, I have been learning the to play a new instrument, the baritone.

The technique is different, but the valves correspond to positions on the trombone, which is my main instrument. I've kinda just been playing it by ear for a while now, but this past weekend I actually sat down and practiced it with the trombone music I already had.  I know have a basic understanding of how the baritone works. Go Music!

9-11

So I had to watch a conspiracy documentary yesterday about 9-11, and as a result I truly believe the government had something to do with the terrorist attacks on the WTC, Pentagon, and the Flight 93 crash in Pennsylvania. As such, I have pretty much lost faith in our government I may have had in the first place. I am not, however, someone who plans to destroy them or something. I am simply concerned that our elected officials may be more concerned with monetary gain the the protection of American lives, and also their tendency to lie and keep information from the under the radar. Such as Former President Bush saying he saw the first plane hit on television, when this was never televised. (The only video was a private one.) Not that I really believe Bush is intelligent enough to keep up a national conspiracy for 10+ years, but it does explain his strange behavior on the day of the attacks. I will end this post with a quote  from the documentary, and also a random picture of a basket-esque building.


"America... where do you draw the line in the sand?"

Football is not my sport.

Once upon a time, my dear father decided that his sons needed some time "throwing the pigskin". I, being of course a band geek and member of the speech team, was reluctant to join in. Maybe blatantly opposed would be a more accurate term. My father ran back spiritedly, throwing the football through the air straight at me. At first I sidestepped the incoming projectiles, but on penalty of eternal torture, I stepped forward and caught the ball. My smaller brother was not so lucky. Here's a picture of what happened:

My brother caught the ball.. with his face. 

Sports are not for me.

Compulsory post for this week.

So our teacher is making us blog once a week, with the result being a class of 20ish students get to play on a computer and type about their lives.
I will most likely use this blog to ponder the meaning of life and post developments in my story (which by an odd coincidence was assigned by the same teacher.) For your regularly scheduled programing, please refer to my other blog.