Wait... This Isn't Sunday?

Maybe I'm just a nerd, but this is awesome/hilarious/chalkfullawin:

NERD LIST 2009!!!!

There are two things that nerds are good at in this world:

1) Seeing the world as completely black or white (ex: Vampire Diaries/True Blood/Twilight/anythinginvolvingvampiresmadesrecentlythatdidn'tcomeoutofsweden - Sucks, Dr. Who - Awesome)

2) Making useless lists that no one (obviously excluding the person writing said list) cares about.

Today feels like a number 2 day to me.

Dave's Favorite Records of 2009:

Frank Turner - Poetry of the Deed

Bomb The Music Industry - Scrambles

Teenage Bottlerocket - They Came From The Shadows

Andrew Jackson Jihad - Can't Maintain

Bouncing Souls - 20th Anniversary Album Thing

O Pioneers!!! - Neon Creeps

Lucero - 1372 Overton Park

The Swellers - Ups and Downsizing/Welcome Back Riders

MewithoutYou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright!

Owl City - Ocean Eyes

Dear Landlord - Dear Homes

Polar Bear Club - Chasing Hamburg

Broadway Calls - Good Views, Bad News

Chris Wollard and The Ship Thieves - S/T

North Lincoln - Midwestern Blood

Banner Pilot - Collapser

Rx Bandits - Mandala

Tegan & Sara - Sainthood

Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20's

Nothington - Roads, Bridges and Ruins

Cursive - Mama I'm Swollen

Mariachi El Bronx - S/T

Shook Ones - The Unquotable A.M.H.

Manchester Orchestra - Mean Nothing To Everything

Dead To Me - African Elephants

Dave's Favorite EP's of 2009:

The Lawrence Arms - Buttsweat and Tears

Classics of Love - Walking in Shadows

Rumspringer - S/T

Iron Chic - Shitty Rambo

Did I miss anything?

What are your favorites?

Where the hell were the good ska albums this year?

Let me know in the comment section!

Return of the Animated Robot!

The Winner of the ultimate Half Past Two fan is...

This time with more sound effects!

ewwwwwwww.

dr. garcia says that i dont need surgery and that is AWESOME! but there are some problem areas. can you see them? so gross!!

Life isn't all Santa Barbara Roses

Every one has a path, a journey, an endless struggle. Moments of clarity and true contenment can be found in any lifestyle. Find time in the day to get beyond the surface of what we show the world and become what you are (whatever that might be). If your an A-hole, own up to it and be an A-hole. Remember that Socrates said "the unexamined life is not worth living".

The " " part below is from this Minus The Bear song I've had on repeat for two days straight:








Hey. Who knew things would be so hard? Don't worry, I'm here pulling for you. Even when others say its a lie, you'll be happy if only for a few. Back to the depths of an untamed consciousness, eventually I will awake trying to be what is true.
This glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Take off your prescribed lenses, I don't want glass between us.
Put on your shoes, lets go to the beach around two thirty in the morning, I feel like dancing like me.
"Dont Cry, I'll bring this song to you" and shake our hearts free of this dust.

im obsessed

i bought a new goldfish today. his name is andre, like andre the giant. hes the white one in the tank and anchovy is the orange one. look at the difference in size!!



they're the same type of gold fish, ryukin, so maybe someday anchovy will get as big as andre. I LOVE GOLDFISH!!

xoxo,
tara

Dear Tyler Moore and Robot

It is a well known fact that there is only one robot in existence capable of taking my place in this band. I am speaking of course of Johnny Five, no other machine in the world can produce the same emotion driven songs while keeping the edge of "punk rock" attitude that make HP2(.1) the greatest lyrical band of all time:

So allow me to make this perfectly clear, unless Johnny Five and Johnny Five alone (no Steve Guttenburg, no Michael McKean, no oddly Indian sounding gentleman from Bakersfield) walks into our next practice, you're stuck with me sir.

Sincerely,

Country Dave

Fans Continue To Keep Us Cool

Instead of providing the blog with new content, I'm going to do a recent recap of some amazing things that fans have made for us.

Jake Von Super Fan (@IchBinJake) somehow managed to start a string of baked good themed tributes for HP2. His "timely" cake was given to us at our CSUSB gig a few weeks back and we have yet to reciprocate his kindness with another unreleased HP2 cover. We are still waiting on pics from his HP2 pumpkin.

Melody (@MelodyAnnZ) decided to "kick it old school" and set the oven to preheat on 450 for some Closet Polar Bear themed masterpieces.

And the next development in fan tributes is fan blogs! Skanko (@RudytheRudeBoy) is singing our praises over at his blog Half Past Two! They are Awesomest to Live. The site is quite pink.

Lastly, in case you had any inclination that our band was a thankless endeavor, I would like to present this evidence:

I received this card in the mail a few days ago from the good folks at the CSUSB Women's Center, who were nice enough to have us headline their recent Femme Fair. With email/txting/@twitter replies/myspace messaging/facebook walls/random new eCommuncation of your choice these days, it really means a lot when someone sits down to write you a note. So thanks CSUSB, we really appreciate it.

In case you were wondering what other past fan presents we've received, check my older blog post Fans Keep Us Cool.

The Shape of Things To Come...

Country Dave, we (Tyler and his robot) are expecting your rebuttal shortly.

UGGGGHHHHH

this cold is killing me, i can't think of anything to write this week, i can't even be bothered with proper capitalization or grammar, so instead here's pictures of my awesome cat boseph:

sibs

everyone should have an adorable (practically) twin sister.



hug your siblings!!

walken

i dont know...

flu shots are stupid.














at the suggestion of some of our twitter followers (whiskkeyace and bigmouth_) enjoy this old music video by fat boy slim featuring one of my favorite actors:



off to band practice!!

Desert Island Question

What is your favorite album of all time? Why?

For me my top 3 are all Jazz albums. Heres a hint for my Number one:
Miles is the front man, Trane and Cannonball complete the horn section.
Give up? Heres a "remix" of one of the tracks off said album.

YOUR Turn. Favorite album?

Liar's Dice

Kids!

Well it's been a few weeks, hasn't it? I know, I know, I'm sorry, but I've been quite the busy beaver as of late.

But that's all in the past, let's focus on the now. And what an exciting "now" it is: it's Halloween night!! In honor of this fine holiday, I've decided to share my second favorite game (maybe we'll talk about my first favorite some other time) and latest obsession with all of you fine folks.

Sidebar: Since it is Halloween after all, I do feel obligated to tie this blog in with the holiday somehow. So be on the lookout...hopefully I'll come up with something by the end of the blog.

Without any further ado, allow me to present you, the fans:

Liar's Dice

Liar's dice can be played in groups of between 4 and 8 people, and the only equipment you need is one large, opaque cup per person and six dice per person (d-6's for all you M:TG/D&D nerds out there).

To begin, everyone sits around a table and rolls all of their dice in their cups, Yahtzee-style. Then, without showing their dice, players flip the cup face-down on the table so the dice are covered by the cup. Players can look at their own dice at any time by lifting up one side of the cup, but can't look at their opponents' dice.

Someone starts the game by calling a bet about the TOTAL number of dice they think are under all of the cups combined. For example, if there were 6 players, (36 dice total) an opening guess of "five 3's" (that is, five dice out of all 36 have 3's on them) is a very reasonable bet. Players continue making guesses in a similar fashion, proceeding in a counterclockwise order, but they must "raise" the guess the previous player made. There are three ways one can "raise" a guess:

1) Players may guess the same quantity of dice, but guess a higher pip than the previous player. (Dice terminology sidebar: the dots on dice are called "pips".)

For example: If the player to my left made a guess of "4 fives", a raise of "4 sixes" would be kosher.

2) Players may guess a higher quantity than the previous guess, but guess ANY pip.

For example: If the player to my left made a guess of "3 twos", a raise of "4 ones" would be acceptable.

3) Combining rules 1) and 2), players may raise both pip and quantity in a guess.

Guesses do not have to move in a sequential order, raising from a quantity of 1 to a quantity of 4 is allowed, as is a pip raise from 2 to 5.

If, during a player's turn, they think that the previous bet was incorrect, they may call "bullshit" (or BS for the PG-13 version) on the last guess. When bullshit gets called, all players reveal their dice and it is determined whether or not the BS-ing player was correct. If correct, the player who called bullshit loses a dice, which gets placed in the middle of the table. If the last guess was incorrect, the guesser loses a dice in the same fashion.

It is important to note that if there are MORE than the guessed quantity of dice, the player who called bullshit still loses. So a guess of "five 6's" is really a guess that there are "AT LEAST five 6's under all of the cups".

A round ends after a player calls bullshit and someone loses a dice, and the next round starts with the person who called bullshit. Play continues until there is only one person left, the winner.

Now, LD is, as all good games should be, easy to learn, but very difficult to master. Maybe next week we'll talk about some strategy. And I guess I'll share the obligatory story (that has a fun little ring to it) of how I came to be in HP2, although I'm sure all of you clever kids out there could probably piece 90% of it together from everyone else's entries.

Obligatory Halloween Tie-In: Oh hey! My roommate and his girlfriend are dressed-up as a pirate and a wench, respectively. Liar's Dice got popularized by its brief appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean II. Nice!

Seeya kids,
Snuggles

Oh yeah, and I was just kidding about the M:TG diss, I love Magic. But I was serious about D&D. Just kidding. But seriously.

The Half Past Two Story: Country Dave Edition

Hey we have a theme going, great because I'm terrible at thinking up blog ideas!

I guess I blame my mom for this whole thing, her and her guitar. When I was a kid she'd get out the acoustic guitar and sing old folk tunes and we'd all sing along. To this day I can tell you all about the plight of The Blacksmith of Brandywine (make it one for Washington and all his gallant men, one for the girl that once was mmmiiinnneee...).

When I got to middle school I figured, "I like singing, I guess I'll join the choir." So I joined, almost sang with Tara, got stood up by some bitch named Katelyn Reynolds one night, and sang "In bridges she burned or the way that he died" solo in Seasons of Love, etc. At the end of 8th grade I actually got an award for being the boy most willing to go out and make an ass of himself in front of people (please ask Tara about I'm Screaming at a White Sheepdog for more info on this subject).

During the summer between 8th and 9th grade my friend (the aforementioned) Doug Carter told me he'd started a band. Instead of telling you the story of what happen with this I'll give you my thought process right after he said this:

Holy crap, a band, I want to be in a band, I could play piano, oh wait Doug's playing piano...I could learn a horn, no Doug says he has a bunch of them already.....GUITAR! Mom does it and it doesn't look too hard!

"Does your band need a guitar player"

"Do you know how to play guitar Dave?"

"no."

"Do you own a guitar?"

"no."

"Sure you can be in our band."

So one chord dictionary/trip to the music store later I was in a band playing guitar!

(free jeff era Dave guitar)

After that band quit my friend Jeff and I decided we wanted to start a ska band, Free Jeff was born. Check out Tyler's post for the links to all that. What's important to remember about Free Jeff is that we held one core value, that ska wasn't just dead, it was Uber dead.

Right after Free Jeff ended I decided, "that's it, ska bands are too much work, too many people, I'm never going to be in a ska band again." A few months later I joined Bad Ash, pre-existing ska band looking for a guitar player and new drummer. This is where I met a man named Dustin Richardson (check out the writing credits in It's About Time to find out why this is important).

(Dave and Dustin, BFFS FO' EVAR!)

Bad Ash broke up (after we recorded an EP that to this day I've never actually heard), and I mentioned to Dustin (the drummer of Bad Ash), that I'd like to start a punk band someday. Out of that idea came the Anti-Fun Society. We wrote songs, put out an album that when back and forth between okay and terrible, played a bunch of pay to play shows, and broke up before album number two was done.

(a tune you may recognize)

FUN FACT: I was at the very first HP2 show in the crowd, Tyler was in it, Snuggles was in it, I figured I'd check it out. By all accounts the first show was not very good (sorry guys), but they had this crazy energy on stage, and I knew I had to be a part of that. After the show I talked to the guys and said, "um.....hey, you need a keyboard player?" The rest, as they say, is history.