The Lowest Part Is Free, But He Can't Leave Home

A brief photo essay from my senior year at Penn State, and my second year at University Park.

Been Thinking Little Thoughts

A list of small pleasures:

• The smell of a freshly opened pack of cigarettes.
• When the battery meter on the Zune turns green.
• Rolled coins.
• The combination of the color orange and trains, both real and toy. 
• Graffiti, corrected for spelling and grammar. 
• The combined smells of smoke fluid, light oil and grease, and the ozone from open frame motors. 
• The sublime flavor of a beer after a shot of bourbon. 
• The search through a stack of unsorted vinyl singles, and the discovery of every song you recognize. 
• When the song or band I was just thinking of comes on the radio. 
• Getting the laces on a pair of Chucks to exactly the same tightness on both feet. 
• Discovering that the new album came out, whatever band it's from. 
• Good coffee and bagels. 
• The sound of a train hitting a joint in the rails. 

Oh No! There Goes Tokyo

With Halloween come and gone, I'm giving you playlists for Halloween to fit classic rock and alt/indie tastes (those of you who listen to screaming death metal and that nu-metal shit seem to have trouble discerning between Halloween and all the damn time, so go away).

A Classick Rock Halloween

1. Welcome To My Nightmare - Alice Cooper
2. Season Of The Witch - Donovan
3. The Wizard - Black Sabbath
4. Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group
5. Daily Nightly - The Monkees
6. Space Invader - Pretenders
7. Hell's Bells - AC/DC
8. Fire - The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
9. Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf
10. Death Walks Behind You - Atomic Rooster
11. Tales Of Brave Ulysses - Cream
12. Mr. Roboto - Styx
13. Space Truckin' - Deep Purple
14. Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner - Warren Zevon
15. Witchy Woman - The Eagles
16. Grey Ghost - Henry Paul Band
17. Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix
18. Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult
19. The Battle Of Evermore - Led Zeppelin
20. The Trees - Rush
21. Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
22. My Clone Sleeps Alone - Pat Benatar
23. It Came Out Of The Sky - Creedence Clearwater Revival
24. Robot Man - Scorpions
25. The Unknown Soldier - The Doors
26. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
27. Boris The Spider - The Who
28. Welcome To The Machine - Pink Floyd
29. The Sound Of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
30. Fire On High - Electric Light Orchestra

Trick-Or Treating On All Saints' Day

1. Strange Times - The Black Keys
2. Monster Hospital - Metric
3. Roland - Interpol
4. It Came From Japan - Von Bondies
5. Young For Eternity - The Subways
6. Midnight Show - Killers
7. Witchcraft - Wolfmother
8. We Are Not Alive - The Flying Eyes
9. In Cairo - Hot Hot Heat
10. Is She Weird? - Pixies
11. Wrong Time Capsule - Deerhoof
12. Voodoo - Godsmack
13. Welcome Home - Coheed & Cambria
14. Nine Riders - Early Man
15. Knights Of Cydonia - Muse
16. Everybody Knows That You're Insane - Queens Of The Stone Age
17. I'm Your Villain - Franz Ferdinand
18. Demon - Sleigh Bells
19. Phenomena - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
20. Robot - Futureheads
21. See Through Head - The Hives
22. Last Caress - Misfits
23. Invincible - OK Go
24. Hypnotize - The White Stripes
25. Chainsaw - The Deathray Davies
26. Safari - Breeders
27. Pretend We're Dead - L7
28. Hardcore UFOs - Guided By Voices
29. Thinking Of A Dream I Had - The Walkmen
30. My Poor Brain - Foo Fighters

Hope you got a new needle for your record player.

Old Charlie Stole The Handle

I've blogged briefly at times about my Lego train hobby before, but I found a picture in a file on my computer that shows my collection at a very early stage. 

This was taken at my third apartment at Penn State; I've also previously blogged about my room's decor in this apartment. The components of set 4563 are visible; the red locomotive, red boxcar in back, yellow/black flatcar in front of the locomotive, and barely visible behind the steam locomotive and said flatcar is the blue gondola. Most of my reinterpretation of set 3225 is also visible; the aforementioned steam locomotive, the wooden gondola coupled behind, and the yellow/black/gray ballast dumper. I hadn't built the coach at the time. Also visible is the auto carrier from set 4544, coupled behind the locomotive.

I had been designing some cars since I discovered the LDraw software online a couple years prior to this picture. One of my more ingenious designs, sadly, is completely obscured by the High Life bottle - a tank car. However, at the time it was designed, I posted at least one picture of it on this blog. In the foreground are parts for the black/yellow boxcar I designed, and an incomplete green/white gondola as well.