asimplechord

1. Work! Boss is out of town at a professional meeting, so there have been no "I know you're busy, but can you please do this too?" conversations. I appreciate this.

2. Aeros. :( They still haven't (and probably won't) signed a new lease with Les Alexander and the Toyota Center. It's 99% certain that they're moving to Des Moines after this season.

3. Also Aeros: Eric Haula is supposed to play in his first AHL game tonight. :) Curious to see the Gophers' leading scorer at this level. And there are plenty of guys he's played with or against on the team, so.

4. Leftover birthday cake for breakfast: still an excellent life choice, no matter how much my trainer disapproves.

5. As much as I'm enjoying Empires' Live In Chicago, I still feel that this must be said: GIMME THAT NEW MUSIC. I KNOW YOU'VE RECORDED IT.

6. Apparently it's a good week for music on the internet: Frank Turner's live EP is streaming, and so is Fall Out Boy's Save Rock and Roll. WELL DONE, BUTCH WALKER. WELL. DONE.

7. Clayton Stoner. Why is he still playing? Oh, right, because apparently the Wild only have three useful defensemen, and they need warm bodies. Can't they call up Kampfer? Scandella? Mara, even? Ugh, that pass was so ugly.

That high-pitched shriek you heard a couple of hours ago? That was me, realizing that Patrick Stump is going to be in Texas on his tour, 26-28 August. SMALL VENUE AWESOMENESS. :D :D :D

In other news:

1. Sasha is back in my possession. I love my car. I live in the 'burbs, and I drive an unfortunate amount, and I MISSED MY iPod DOCK AND MY DECENT GAS MILEAGE AND MY EZPASS. Now I have them back, and Sasha is pretty and shiny again. My commute time is halved. I am marginally less cranky at the end of my work day now. Marginally.

2. Finished Tropic of Chaos. It's an interesting read, examining what Parenti calls the "catastrophic convergence" of climate change and political/economic policy of the Global North as applied to the Global South. [For GK fans, you'll be amused to hear that when citing The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy National Security Implications of Global Climate Change, a product of CNAS & CSIS, Parenti says that it was produced by "the most scientifically literate of the lot" of DC think-tanks.]

3. Is anyone else planning on going to the Empires show in Austin on the 18th?

1. ( accidental holiday travel )

2. ( work )

3. Lollapalooza's full lineup has been announced! In addition to Muse & Foo Fighters being headliners, PStump, Gold Motel, Smith Westerns, Ellie Goulding, Fitz & the Tantrums, Best Coast, Explosions in the Sky, and and and.... :) <- me

4. Petraeus to CIA? Uh. Really? I mean, I get the other shifts: Panetta to DoD to ease them into budget cuts that Gates alluded to. Allen to ISAF makes sense. Ditto Crocker to Afghanistan. But seriously, what's the payout of bringing Petraeus to the CIA, other than, you know, getting him out of Afghanistan? He's not political. He's never been political, at least in terms of electoral politics. I don't think he'd voice any complaints or make any endorsements in the upcoming re-election campaign, so why the shift?

5. The third round of Rolling Stone's cover contest is underway. Empires made it through! So did Fictionist, who I didn't know before the contest, but am now quite enjoying. Go vote!

I feel like all I ever do here now is whine about work. :( BUT FOR THIS POST, NO WHINING!

1. SXSW in less than one week. Stamps! Gold Motel! Empires! Hopefully Electric Touch and Taddy Porter and Discos! I don't think I'll get there in time for the Black Cards show, but that's alright. At least four days of music music music.

2. harriet_vane has tempted me into comment fic about Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield accidentally cuddling and going on shellfish dates. IDEK.

3. Paper should go out to MCB Oncogene tomorrow. FUCK, YES. I want it off my desk.

4. Indian Wells. :D :D :D J is there (or going to be this afternoon, rather) so I expect full reports on Ana and Nole and SStosur and Rafa and Nando's fauxhawk.

5. I didn't really have a fifth point, but for symmetry reasons I like it as the number of items on a list. Um... prompt me? I feel like I really am coming out from my fandom hibernation.

I was going to post the other night, but I got distracted.

Friday night! Aaron and I went to see Tyrone Wells, and who should be there but shutyourface, who was up front to see Tony Lucca! I didn't even know Tony Lucca was one of the openers until we got there. (Once again, we arrived when the show was supposed to be starting, and the opening act was already near the end of their set. I didn't know them, so it wasn't a big deal, but that does not give me a positive impression of the venue. Two thumbs way down, House of Blues.)

TYRONE WELLS. I don't know what to say other than he's a tall, bald, white dude (named Tyrone) who beatboxes AND yodels in the same set.

Yeah.

Most amusing moment: TW started the intro to Remain, and Aaron asked if he just said the name of the song was Romaine.

Me: Yes, he's going to sing to us about his love for lettuce. He's a big big fan of Caesar salads. :D

For the rest of the weekend I:

- watched most of S2 of The Wire (oh, Ziggy)

- cleaned out my closet & boxed things for Goodwill

- vacuumed and dusted the house (*sigh* Why can't the cats learn to vacuum? Or, you know, NOT SHED.)

- hung out with mercurybard & eckerlilas & her bbs

- did a wee bit of lab work

- watched UC's Conversations With History video of Nate Fick. I need to not have watched it, tbqh. B/c him saying that he believed that US foreign policy was generally a force for good? Uh. Um, okay, if you ignore manifest destiny, and essentially occupying and dethroning a monarch in order to aid US corporations like Dole/United Fruit, etc., among other things, I suppose you could see it that way. I was amused by minutes 21-23, when he discusses methods of dealing with mortality & danger in-theater. Who can he possibly know who uses the "superman" vs. "dead man walking" method, hm? ;)

- tried to read Lone Survivor, which is an autobiographical narrative of the loss of Seal Team Ten in Afghanistan, but I had to put it down. a) The general tenor of the author's descriptions, including calling their mission "God-given" when it was no such thing - it was mandated by the Shrub (about whom the author writes in glowing terms), not any deity - makes my blood pressure sky-rocket. b) It's told in a way that reads like a casual conversation, with a limited vocabulary and scope, and that's pretty disappointing after the last few military-related books I've read.

I also tried to read The White Queen, which is a fictional account of Elizabeth Woodville's life. She seems like she could've been really interesting, right? Wife of Thomas Grey, widowed, then wife of Edward IV, mother of the two murdered princes. But it's told in the first person. Yeah, no. Not working for me.



What else did I have to say?

:(( PStump's showcase looks like it'll be wicked difficult to get into. But. EMPIRES! They have a show that night. (Also, you should go buy BANG if you haven't already.)

Monday... was Monday. I found a water spot on the ceiling in the foyer, which I hope doesn't mean the roof needs to be replaced. But it's nearly 15 years old, so it probably does. There's also a growing mud-puddle in the side yard, right where the main pipe brings water to the house from the street, and I'm afraid *that* means the pipe needs to be excavated and replaced as well. Awesome. Just when we were thinking that our tax-return could be used to replace the living room furniture we've had for a decade, another necessity appears to suck it away.

But today is Tuesday. Tuesday is going to be a better day, right? RIGHT? :D?

I just sat through two hours of meetings. Time to get some lab work done before the next meeting.

<3

First, thanks to inkandchaos, vic_ramsey, xingou, and the anons who sent me snowflakes! ♥

Second, someone needs to tell me to save money (and don't freeze my ass off) and not go to Chicago/Urbana to see Empires and Gold Motel at the end of January.

Third, meme-ishness.

Day 01 → My favorite song
Day 02 → My favorite movie
Day 03 → My favorite television program
Day 04 → My favorite book
Day 05 → My favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever strikes my fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes me happy

( What photo(s) made me happy today? )

M'kay. Now I'm gonna go look over something why_me_why_not sent, then read some Gabe/William fic.

Have a good evening, y'all.

And remember, midnight CST, BANG. :)

Day 01 → My favorite song
Day 02 → My favorite movie
Day 03 → My favorite television program
Day 04 → My favorite book
Day 05 → My favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever strikes my fancy

( And that is... )

In other news, I am DONE with my holiday shopping! \o/

And I've got an alarm set to listen to Q101 at 9pm central for my favorite Chicago boys. &EMPIRES;

:D NEW MATT SKIBA SOON!

:D Vegetable skillet + Valpolicella + sofa cuddles while watching Criminal Minds = good way to spend the evening, but that means that tomorrow night will be occupied by vacuuming and such in time for why_me_why_not and snarkyrainbow's visit

:D Dear Jack yet to be watched

:D Raditude and Say Anything still to be listened to

:D Two more sleeps until why_me_why_not and The Used :D

:D I got a sort of cool result at work, doing an assay that's relatively new (for me)

:D Mm, leftover Tootsie Rolls from Halloween

:D Tomrad needs to stop telling me about the prints that are on sale at Forevernever. I don't have any more wall space to hang things, not even in my office. I already have signed posters that are still sitting in poster tubes. I don't NEED a Panic print or an empires one. Right? Not even as a birthday gift.

:D I started re-reading a Snape-adopts-Harry Harry Potter fic that I liked back in the day, and now I'm thinking OMG, WHY did I like that? It's over-wrought, over-written, and three times as long as it needs to be. Every bad thing that could be done (short of non-con, b/c it's a PG13 fic) to Harry is done to him - worse that JKR's wretched treatment of her hero. It clearly crosses the line from hurt/comfort to badfic. I was so easily pleased when I first got into HP fandom. But evidently people still like this fic, b/c there's a sequel that gets tons of comments and lots of praise for each installment. I am sort of boggled.

Friday was the beginning of Chicago shenanigans! (And Minneapolis, since I decided after winning M&G there to actually ATTEND that concert.)

( Fangirl funtimes )

I have to get some sleep so I can be coherent for work tomorrow, so here are some pics without commentary. They're not particularly awesome pics, but if you take them and use them, let me know. I'm having issues with Photobucket and my camera, which appears to have duplicated EVERY FUCKING PICTURE, so when I get it sorted out, I'll upload more and comment about the Minneapolis show. ♥

( pretty tour is pretty )

ETA: photo album is here

First. Chris Cornell on Sunday night? Amaaaaazing (even if I wasn't at barrier b/c MrIris doesn't like to do that - one crowd surfer gets dropped on his head and he refuses to be up front!). I was not particularly impressed by the band that opened for him, Outernational. They had a sort of funk sound, really driven by the bass-line. I'm not sure if that was deliberate, originally, or if it was because the lead guitarist wasn't that good.

Chris Cornell started his set with Part of Me, which is my least favorite song from Scream. But that meant it could all go uphill from there, right? And it did.

You guys know I'm a CC fangirl, right? Yeah. His voice. Seriously. And he sang for nearly three hours. IDEK how he does it.

He did a good mix of Soundgarden, Audioslave, his older solo stuff, and new stuff. And he covered Billie Jean and some Marley and some Zeppelin. And a medley of All Along The Watchtower, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and... another song. The crowd was definitely more into the Soundgarden stuff, though. Even You Know My Name didn't get much response from them.

I... have to admit, I am not the world's biggest fan of his new album. It's not because it's more pop than rock, I think. Not a genre issue. I mean, I love his bluesy version of Billie Jean, and I listen to his version of Ave Maria all the time. HIS VOICE, OKAY?

He and Timbaland did a decent job writing music that suited his voice and would broaden his audience. But I think the lyrics are repetitive and simplistic than I'm used to from him. Some of it'll go into my "music to sweat to" playlist, but none of them will outstrip the Live In Sweden bootlegs for most-often-played.

So. Went home, slept three hours, stumbled to work to feed and split cells, then back home to shower, then I picked up vic_ramsey and headed to Austin.

vic_ramsey, playfullips, and arielchan have already recapped the Snakes and Suits gig, so I won't go into a ton of detail, but

a) Sean Van Vleet - Before yesterday, I'd have said he had an awesome voice and I loved his songs, but didn't find him attractive. And he's still not in the "I'd totally bang him" category, but he's got a presence, and he's personable, and yeah, I'll have another sip of that Kool-Aid.

b) I got the set list that was by Max's feet. I am inordinately amused that the last song reads "Haley", which is not the title's spelling on the album.

c) Yay for fangirling Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder with SVV approximately sixty seconds before William Beckett started his cover of Jeremy.

d) Thumbs down for the "Sexas Posse". Seriously? There are so many inappropriate jokes I could make about a bunch of high school kids using Gabe Saporta's term of... I guess you could call it affection... personally. And unironically. I am restraining myself.

e) I like Bill Beckett and his boy haircut and his little black glasses and suspenders, but twenty songs of mostly just him (including Damien Rice and Death Cab covers)? Eh. I prefer the entire band, tbqh.

f) LOL at Tom Conrad wearing bedroom slippers. Actually, during SVV's rendition of Hayley, he sat back in the corner with his head down, eyes closed - SLEEPY BOYS! - and I wanted SO MUCH to take a picture of him like that, but I felt like a creeper. So. No pic.

g) I'm still squeaking happily when I think about the fact that they have enough stuff written and plan to go back to the studio soon. And Max will be producing again. :D

( Speaking of pics... )

I took one crappy picture of the This Providence guys, and I talked to them when they were at the bar because they were just STANDING THERE expectantly, and NO ONE was approaching them. But I remain unimpressed.

And finally. I filled out the comment fic that went along with The Perfect Gifts Are Little And Lacy the other day, but I didn't have a chance to edit or post it, so I'm gonna do that tonight, hopefully.

THEN I'M GOING TO WATCH LENO, OKAY? :DDD

And then I've got a hot date with my pillow, with which I have not spent nearly enough quality time lately.