asimplechord

1. Work. It makes me tired to think about it right now. The part of medical publishing I'm working in isn't really that much writing so much as it's editing and processing paperwork and getting authors to agree on the changes. Which goes about as well as herding cats. There's one abstract I'm trying to push through approvals for release that the authors have seen (and thus implicitly approved) no less than three times, and NOW they decide they don't like something. Dear Person-Who-Probably-Wasn't-Paying-Attention-Before: TOO LATE. At this stage no content can be altered, only disclosures and author order changed.

2. Maleficent. I liked it, but it a) had some issues and b) borrowed heavily from other Disney movies (not just Sleeping Beauty).

3. Music: Riot Fest tickets went on sale. Rise Against and The Offspring and The Cure and and and. The awesome of the line-up makes me feel less sad about not going to Bonnaroo this year.

4. More music: Indigo Girls were at the House of Blues last night. They have a lady touring with them playing fiddle and she was AMAZING. They closed the set with a cover of the Devil Went Down to Georgia instead of Closer to Fine (that was next to last :D) and the combination of her fiddle and Emily Saliers' guitar. Unf.

5. And still more music: On the subject of the HOB... Empires are playing a show there in a couple of weeks. I kept thinking that the music hall was a super big venue for them to be playing, but I think that it's actually NOT as big as the Houston HOB's main venue. But larger than the Peacock Room.

6. The last thing I'll say about music (for this post): Elvis Costello, come to me. :))))) NEXT WEEK.

OK. Now I'm gonna go changing into running clothes and go sweat for a while.

+ Bonnaroo happened. I didn't take pics, really, and I'm not going to talk about each act, but Frank Turner was as amazing as always. Nas never disappoints. I still don't get the appeal of Macklemore. And I'm not even a casual Beatles fan, but JFC, Paul McCartney can put on a show. Three hours. It was like watching living history. And really, who else in the world can tell a story about a show with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and not come off sounding like a name-dropping douche? At one point a stuffed walrus doll landed on stage, and he propped it up on his piano and serenaded it. Yeah. What more can I say?

+ Paper #2 of 2013 is officially out, and we got the proofs for #3. Paper #4 was resubmitted in my absence. There are a few things I will correct if/when it is accepted and proofs arrive.

~ The house is listed. There's been an open house. No offers yet, but I'm not going to give up hope.

+ Now You See Me. I really enjoyed it.

~ I appear to have developed an Andrew Shaw problem. I blame Tabby.

- Aaron's car is in the shop until Tuesday at the earliest. Life in the 'burbs does not make two-people-one-car at all convenient, especially when it comes to meeting pre-existing goals in differing locations.

~ Soundgarden. They played the Bayou Music Center Friday night. It was an okay show. IDK, Ben Shepherd was phoning it in, the guitar didn’t sound crisp (I’m not sure if it was Thayil’s playing or the sound system), and they need to either project stuff or have a light show, not both. The song choice was good until the very end, when instead of performing something like Outshined or Slaves and Bulldozers or basically ANYTHING upbeat, they performed Like A Suicide and Rowing. Most. Depressing. Songs. Ever. I had tickets to the show in Austin on Saturday, but didn’t feel like making the drive for a lackluster repeat.

+ The Hush Sound. River City Extension opened for them. I’m perplexed about why they were all shirtless, and I thought they used to have more members, including an actual trumpet player? But I like their music and energy. Did not care AT ALL for Hockey. Just, boring lyrics, too much 80s influence, weird vocals effects.

+ The French Open has begun! This is great, as we ‘ve reach the point in the season where there is no longer hockey every night. I’m excited to see if Sharapova can repeat or if Serena will maintain the stranglehold she’s had on clay this spring. And if Rafa’s return takes him back to the finals.

~ Work stuff. I applied to a couple of jobs in Chicago this weekend. And updated my past employers, since they will probably be contacted by future employers. It’s weird; my thesis advisor has been sitting on a paper for 13 years, not doing any work on it. She’s a serious procrastinator. When I applied for faculty positions back in the day, I got notices from various institutions that they’d love to interview me but they were still waiting on her letter of reference. You can imagine how much I appreciated that. So I emailed the prof the other day expecting to get zero response, but she replied WITHIN ONE DAY. And she’s got a student who’s interested in the subject of that last paper, so it MIGHT ACTUALLY GET PUBLISHED SOME DAY. It’s been so long, and other papers have been published on the topic, so what I wrote will have to be re-evaluated. But it might not hide on a shelf forever. I’m excited about that!

+ Star Trek: Into Darkness. I didn’t have high expectations for this movie, because it’s Star Trek. The even-number movies always suck. But I enjoyed it for what it was, despite some annoyances, particularly the flip in Kirk’s and Spock’s roles between this movie and original The Wrath of Khan.

+ Lagunitas' Gnarlywine. Delicious. I'm not always a fan of Lagunitas, but I'd drink this one again. But probably not much of it, because at 9% alcohol it knocked me on my ass.

+ Bush. Reliving my university years, musically. Still, the bassline to Come Down will always make me pause to listen.

+ People watching at BuzzFest XXX. Worth the price of admission.

- My knee is swollen and my calf is super tight. Ugh. Maybe I'll do something lower impact this afternoon.

+ The Aeros made the playoffs! They need to win tonight and the Checkers to lose if they want home-ice for the first round (doubtful), but whatever. Playoffs for their last season in Houston!

+ Mostly cleaned up the coffeeshop AU, so that might be posted soon?

+ why_me_why_not is the best. Last night I texted her I need someone to tell the story of Jeff Skinner, Secret Romantic. His favorite book is essentially an adventure/romance! The rest of the guys laugh about him taking dates to see chick flicks, but he actually doesn't mind? (Also, he gets laid a lot because ladies think he's sweet and sensitive on top of being a hot young athlete, so he wins all the way around. And, predictably, we spewed ideas at each other on the topic until long past we both should have been asleep.

+ Rafa's making a come back (crossing my fingers, anyway) in his match against Djokovic at Monte Carlo. Vamos!

So this happened. (LOL, "Each sent the Moody Theater audience -- which seemed more local and more fan-heavy than most SXSW crowds -- into howls and even some moshing." Because the pit was composed almost entirely of Green Day fans who guaranteed that if they got tickets, they would show up, else be blacklisted to future events.)

I missed FOB, but I think Green Day was a worthwhile exchange.

( And then this happened. )

I returned home to find that Aaron hadn't suffered a relapse (he was just whining about being left to entertain himself), ( and this happened )

And I posted some fic: Celebration's impossible, genderswap hockey RPF, filling the "celebratory kiss" square on my trope bingo card.

One other good thing? BRMC's new album is out, synced to my iPod for the day's listening.

Now I'm going to go do some lab work, and tonight's the Revival Tour's stop in H-town. And possibly ponder vampire or werewolf fic. (Or porn.) It's Tabby's fault. And she's awesome for it. :)

GUESS WHO IS GOING TO SEE GREEN DAY ON FRIDAY?

:D :D :D

Fuck yeah, SXSW.


OK. Now back to the fic I was poking at. Maybe something more will fall out of my brain now that I've jostled it with a ridiculous dance of glee.

+ ( live music, A+, with a side of family dysfunction )

+ So, after THAT, we drove back to Houston in time to see The Mountaintop. Appropriate on the day before MLK Jr Day. I enjoyed the set a lot, and I really liked the first half of the play, but when it turned a little surreal, I started to check out. Until the final scene, which was gorgeously done.

+ On the subject of hockey: #mnwild's Granlund scored his first NHL goal, Parise scored (I was the saddest panda, staring at the pic of his stall in the Wild dressing room [I just typed staal, guys, idek] and Wild jersey, you don't even know), the NJ Devils won. And SUCK IT, FLYERS. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if the Devils are my "husband" team, the "boyfriend" team is going to be the Wild this year. Sad side note: please do not let the Aeros fail to renew the lease for Toyota Center, because I don't want them to move to Des Moines. D:

~ What is going on with Michael Phelps' face? Seriously. (Related, in that the pic I saw of him was in a Deadspin article about the Ravens winning the AFC championship: already so tired of the Harbaugh bros storyline. Thank fuck there's hockey and tennis to distract me.)

OK. Now I'm going to go switch back and forth between the Li Na/Radwanska QF match at AO (and then Daveeeeed's QF match) and the Red Wings/Blue Jackets game. And think about the next square to be filled in my trope_bingo card.

a) Does the new album in March mean BRMC might be at SXSW? PLEASE YES. Although, really, empires and Butch Walker are enough inducement already.

b) :( Our friend W will not be able to make it to HTx for the marathon this weekend after all. Spouse's work travel/child care/not able to get a standby seat on the company shuttle issues. Sad, because we haven't seen him since the marathon last year.

c) My ankle is still so sore. I don't know what I did to it - it didn't pull while I was running, but I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and it was so sore it hurt to walk. I've been icing it for ~20 minutes a night, but it's still swollen half the time, and this morning I skipped the gym because it hurt just to walk down the stairs when I got up. Tonight, no excuses. I'll just have to use the elliptical instead of a treadmill to lessen impact.

d) We're supposed to stay with friends in midtown tomorrow night and then (I will) bicycle over to Allen/Montrose for brunch to cheer the marathoners (including A, who's running the half-marathon) on as they go by, but if it's really going to rain, I'm not sure I want to add biking in the rain (least favorite) + sore ankle together. Perhaps I will be a sofa slug instead. Least supportive spouse ever, that is me.

e) Finished Lori Armstrong's Merciless. On one hand, I appreciate that Mercy is a flawed human being who makes no excuses for her drinking and other behavior. But I really do not understand how the character and the author are going to reconcile her actions with her relationship with the law (in the form of her lover, the county sheriff).

f) One more gulp of coffee, then into lab I go.

I had an entire rant-y post about my colleagues typed out, but seriously, I need to stop the negativity, so for the entire month of November I'm going to try (TRY, I make no guarantees) to only post positive things.

Today's:

+ Both Girl In A Coma and Against Me! are in town tonight. (So's Sharon Van Etten, btw, but not at a convenient locale.) They're playing separate rooms in the same venue and GIAC goes on at 8pm, while Against Me!'s openers don't go on until 9pm. So I'll get to see them both. And hopefully also have some of Lucky's nachos, which are delicious.

+ Started the third replicate of the final experiment for the manuscript resubmission. Cross your fingers!

+ Spent my lunchbreak watching the Cabbie Presents zookeeper shenanigans and scrolling through the hockeyplayerswithpets tumblr. I feel like this was time well spent.

+ LOL, Wisconsin insult from the MN Wild blogger in this post about the Aeros' Granlund winning the AHL rookie of the month title.

1. I am really really loving Automatic Systematic Habit a lot. That link is to the mini movie. It was a free download from iTunes last week. Might still be? Garbage performed it on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. I asked twitter this, but seriously, WTAF is Shirley Manson wearing? Did she sacrifice her grandma's sofa slipcover or drapes to make it?

I am hopeful that they will rescheduled the post-poned Houston show soooooon.

2. It's like the music gods are looking into my brain. Tim McIlrath and Brian Fallon on the same tour again? I made squeaky noises of glee yesterday when I heard the news.

3. Cleaned out my closet. Does that mean that it's okay to buy these shoes in nude/burgundy after all? Ugh. I want them, but I don't NEED more shoes. Except for black flats, because the soles of the pair I have are separating from the upper.

4. Oh, Daveeed. I was all set to watch an epic 3-hour match this morning, but he squandered at least nine break points in the first set. Rafa was sort of sloppy early on. And then once he won the tie-break, Daveeed's wheels came off. (I have the Nole/Fed match on now, and holy crap the Italian fans are vocal about their love for Nole.)

5. Live music pimp! Without A Face is playing a free show at 9pm tonight at Fitzgerald's. It's not a very convenient venue in terms of location or parking, but free music!

6. Bonnaroo tickets arrived! And the set times have been released! That means I will be off work for a WEEK soon, with nothing but music to do. :DDD

7. Um. I thought I had another thing to say, but it was probably just bitching about work, and no one needs that negativity in their life, including me.