Excellent News!

Long-form blogging is so 2005, but Twitter can't hold all these words I've made.

2009-10-27T06:11:25Z

Oh right, yes. LiveJournal. I haven't read/written here in several months, and I kind of get the feeling that not a lot of the other people on my friends' list have either, save a tenacious handful. Oh, the internet.

It's been a busy summer. I took four music-related trips this summer: Chicago, St. Louis, Chicago again, and Seattle. The first was to see Robyn Hitchcock on a Friday and NPR's "This American Life" live on a Saturday; the second was for the So Many Dynamos' album release show; the last two were two of Harvey Danger's official breaking-up-the-band shows.

As an aside: In the last twelve months, three of my favorite bands have broken up and another two have lost band members. The rapid-fire onslaught forced me to realign how I feel about bands breaking up/changing line-ups in a way that is surely healthy in the long term. Which is to say: it is not the end of the world. Really. The world would have ended five times and life clearly marches on. My personal level of investment in music-as-a-concept is sometimes just as tied to the musicians I like as to their music, and watching them all dump each other recently is an aid in not romanticizing the whole affair. Still: there are people, and combinations of people, that I will miss watching on stage. But I digress.

The concerts were, all four, great highlights of great weekends. The first Chicago trip was with my mother, a great travel companion and my most recent Robyn Hitchcock convert. Being a Robyn Hitchcock fan is like being in a secret club; I've made several friends, both online and in real life, by virtue of a shared admiration for him. I've made many fellow-Harvey-Danger-fan friends too, but the difference is that I've never actively sought out the company/friendship of a Robyn Hitchcock fan community. People just find out that you like Robyn Hitchcock, and Now You're Friends. The phenomenon and the fans both skew towards awesome.

St. Louis was hot and friendly, both quietly friendly and very, very loudly friendly. I've spent close to three years watching the guys in So Many Dynamos survive a gauntlet of nasty van accidents, bad tour situations, having their gear stolen, and perpetually running out of money and raising funds any way they could to keep going, and in spite of it, remain tenacious as all hell, and gracious, super-nice guys on top of it. It was wonderfully satisfying to watch them have a really triumphant hometown-hero sort of show; I was proud of them and proud to be there for it.

Chicago, the first of two Harvey Danger weekends this summer, was one of the most surreal concerts of my life. For one: a bunch of online friends came to Chicago for the show, and there was a bit of a fan meet-up as a result, as well as a definite people-from-out-of-town section standing in front of the stage. And two: I knew the members of all three of the bands. Which sounds namedroppy but is truly just a reflection on the fact that, while I'm a loyal and generous fan, I'm also a little obnoxious/high-maintenance as fans go, and when I love a band, the band tends to know it. I don't think it's necessarily a character failing, but it's no claim to greatness either. Anyway. The end result was that I was in Chicago, a city where I've never lived, and I knew the people in every band on-stage and most of the people in the crowd around me.

There is this refrain from a Bound Stems song: "We'd been apart for a long time; now we've come back and we're ready. Everyone feels like a good friend. Everyone feels like a good friend!" It rattled around in the back of my head the whole night. First I watched the wonderful (in every sense) Evan and Paige as Sleepy Kitty, playing Chicago in their second public performance ever, and doing a bang-up job of it. Next was So Many Dynamos, in an absolutely explosive performance: they are nearly always high-energy but they were ignited that night; I would only find out after the fact that Ryan was leaving the band and it was, secretly, his last show. And then, finally, Harvey Danger, a band I'd fly to the moon to see, glorious and truly quitting while they're ahead, while they're still good, while they're still great. Standing in Schubas, gripping the stage monitors with my fingertips, watching all these musicians and thinking not only of their music but of the things they've told me about it, about themselves and each other and what made the music, the band, the night come together... everyone feels like a good friend. Everyone feels like a good friend!

And Seattle, which was themed by having private moments and personal thoughts in very public settings and situations, which is fine, which is the point (and, one could argue, sometimes the entire point) of live music. I love live music for the intensity of it, for its power of catharsis, and Seattle was intense in exactly the ways I needed it to be. Oh and the music was good too. The only downside: just a smidge of permanent tinnitus, from hanging my chin over Sean's monitor for close to fifty songs over the course of their two final shows. It is unlikely that I will have learned my lesson from this.
_____

My new year's resolution, which was to branch out and listen to lots of new music, and especially lots of new music created by people other than the personal friends of musicians I already like, has been actually going swimmingly! I've been consciously seeking out music through avenues that don't immediately breed back into themselves: I went through a period in 2007-08ish where I effectively only discovered the existence of a band if they played the same night as a band whose show I'd gone to see; since a lot of bands tour with their friends-who-also-have-bands, I completely missed out on entire cities/labels/echelons-of-popularity/et cetera. (For example: I listen to lots of Pacific Northwest music, and lots of Midwest music. I listen to very little Southeastern and New England music. I doubt I could name a half-dozen currently-touring Brooklyn bands. One would argue that it might be cheaper to fall in love with East-coast bands, but we know that's not the point.) And, since I fixate on small quantities of music instead of hoarding a diverse collection, I don't actually require a lot of different music to keep me happy.

But! 2009 has changed some of that! I've been stellar about following up on recommendations, both from fellow music fans and musicians; I've started retracing steps back to non-current music that I missed the first time around, particularly the stuff that has influenced what I love now. (Biggest example: early '90s lo-fi/college-radio. Who's got two thumbs and didn't know anything about Pavement a year ago but is super-pumped that they're doing a reunion tour now? This one! And I almost certainly would have loved them when I was thirteen, too, if somebody in semi-rural Kentucky would have played them for me.)

So I've listened to dozens of new-to-me bands this year, and I'm proud of myself for that. I know that at this point, a lot of music fans have listened to hundreds of new bands this year, but in 2008, I could have probably counted the number of different musicians/bands that made it into my CD collection on one hand, so I'll take it.
_____

I'm hitting three concerts in the next seven days: SMD tomorrow night and Wednesday night, and Blind Pilot (a new-to-me band this year, and absolutely one of my favorite discoveries of 2009) next week. Everything else in life is fine. I keep Twitter updated like mad; it is likely that I will eventually regret not keeping a regular blog this summer and fall. I keep restarting and self-consciously aborting a dedicated concert blog; perhaps keeping the concert blog should be my resolution for 2010. In the meantime, it is likely that this year's Music Year In Review, which I'll cobble together in two months, will be much more exciting and fulfilling than last year's.

Spelling Bee 2009: The Finalists

2009-05-28T17:22:10Z

Your 2009 finalists are:

19. Ramya Auroprem
65. Serena Laine-Lobsinger
88. Kyle Mou
89. Aishwarya Pastapur
103. Kennyi Aouad
110. Kavya Shivashankar
139. Sidharth Chand
158. Tussah Heera
170. Neetu Chandak
201. Anamika Veeramani
276. Tim Ruiter

Of my team, still-standing include Kavya, Kennyi, Serena, and Tim. I was sad but unsurprised to lose Veronica and Sriram--they'll both be back for several more years--and it was a bummer to lose adorable Paige, but losing Zachary Zagorski is the real tragedy for our team. Z's played a great game and he'll be missed. As a result of Z's departure, Kennyi has been promoted to deputy captain.

Startlingly, only three of my ten predicted top-finishers are still in. Kyle, Kavya, and Sidharth, I saw you guys coming, as did EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD, but the rest of the finalists contain some wonderful surprises.

Interestingly, the last three spellers--Neetu, Anamika, and Tim--are the three seventh-graders that made it. Everybody else is in the eighth grade and, win or lose, will not return. Keep these three on your radar for next year--unless, of course, one of them wins. :-)

If you're still looking for a kid to root for, I'm imploring you to adopt either Tussah Heera or Neetu Chandak. I wish now that I'd grabbed both of them after all. SO ADORABLE.

Tonight, 8:00: it all goes down!

Spelling bee 2009: Prelim Round-Up, Semifinalists, and Predictions!

2009-05-28T04:27:28Z

The first broadcast round of the Bee this year was broadcast exclusively on ESPN360, ESPN's online channel that is only viewable to people with specific ISPs, none of which service either my work or home internet addresses. However, Georgia Tech gets ESPN360, and earlier tonight, I hauled down to the library to take notes on the performance of each speller that has become a semi-finalist.

The round broadcast was Round 3. In Round 3, every speller in the competition got a chance to spell one word, and a correct answer added points to your Rounds 1 and 2 totals. In other words, an incorrect answer in Round 3 was not an automatic disqualification. After Round 3 was over, all spellers were ranked, and the top 41 were taken as semi-finalists, to begin competition on ESPN tomorrow morning.

You can read all of the semi-finalist bios together on one page here. Below are the notes I took from their Round Three performances. This is, of course, to aid you in choosing your favorite kid. :-D

The Semi-Finalists

7. Esther Park, 7th grade - Her word was "ocarina" and she nearly laughed when she heard it. Girl definitely has some Legend of Zelda in her world.
11. Brandon Whitehead, 7th grade - he squeakily spelled "Parnassian" without hesitating. He knew it cold.
12. Paige Vasseur, 8th grade - spelled "tourlourou," a type of crab, correctly. She's tiny and if off-the-charts in terms of adorableness.
16. Josephine Kao, 8th grade - She has "Class President" written all over her, and as it's her fourth time here, she's good at this game. She nailed "mostaccioli."
18. Alex Wells, 8th grade - Oh my god, this "kid" is older than me. His profile says he's 13, but he's obviously taller than me and has a boomingly deep voice. He correctly spelled "amadelphous."
19. Ramya Auroprem, 8th grade - No humor, no hesitation. The girl exuded confidence on "phonasthenia."
36. Claudine Broussard, 7th grade - "Cuchifrito." Like Ramya, she knew it and she hit it and she didn't have a doubt in her mind about it.
37. Laura Newcombe, 6th grade - She was a little hesitant and obviously nervous about the crowd, the most actually-kidlike of the finalists so far. Admittedly, "alim" isn't the hardest word this round, but she can't help being pitched a softball, and she did get it correct.
40. Veronica Penny, 5th grade - She has a great poker face for an 11-year-old. She spelled "nyctipelagic," one of the hardest words this round, slowly and deliberately and correctly. I couldn't like her style more.
56. Vincent Medina, 8th grade - A little less visibly comfortable with the competition than some of the other competitors. It didn't keep him from correctly spelling "octogenary."
60. Miguel Gatmaytan, 8th grade - It's always a little strange to me when the boys' voices are already very deep. He had absolutely no trouble or hesitation on "nidificate."
65. Serena Laine-Lobsinger, 8th grade - Baby hipster alert! Baby hipster alert! The girl with the purple hoodie and the two-toned sidebangs had no problem with "typhlology."
70. Talmage Nakamoto, 8th grade - This cutie from Hawaii was totally nonplussed by "inexorable," which is only the second word after "ocarina" that this browser hasn't thought was misspelled. Love the bangs, Talmage.
88. Kyle Mou, 8th grade - Kyle's old hat at this, and had no problem with "coriaceous." He continues to be adorable and look younger than his 13 years.
89. Aishwarya Pastapur, 8th grade - Bless her for the moment of wind-in-the-vacuum when she asked for the etymology and the judge said, "The dictionary provides no etymology for 'bodegon.'" She got it anyway.
97. Vaibhav Vavilala, 8th grade - Another favorite to win, his poker face was perfect, as was his spelling of "attritus."
103. Kennyi Aouad, 8th grade - I can't decide if this kid is totally cool or a total dork. Either way, I like him. He grinned at the judges as he scored with "retrocedence."
108. Shari-Jo Miller, 7th grade - The one competitor from Jamaica was perfectly composed and perfectly mannered, and her spelling of "pilpul" matched.
110. Kavya Shivashankar, 8th grade - Her oversized teeshirt and ponytail make her look deceptively unassuming and unthreatening. You wouldn't have guessed that her measured-in-delivery spelling of "mesophilic" came from one of the three favorites to win.
139. Sidharth Chand, 8th grade - As it turns out, Kavya and Sidharth will be spelling back-to-back for the entire semi-final and final rounds. He grew out the mustache for the occasion. His German word "springerle" was difficult due to its pronunciation and roots, but he nailed it without any struggle all the same.
151. Brent Henderson, 8th grade - The blondest kid in the bunch paced out "oleiferous" with no fanfare and no missteps. His grin when he sat back down, though, was completely adorable.
158. Tussah Heera, 8th grade - She spelled "cecity" with her giant, doll-like eyes closed. If you like so-serious-it's-precious kids, she might be your champion.
159. Avvinash Radakrishnan, 8th grade - He and Talmage have the same barber, I think. He was all business with his correct spelling of "thremmatology."
163. Michael Sun, 8th grade - He's a hand-speller. You know what I mean: he covers his mouth, spells into his fist, and then repeats his answer into the microphone. This might be going out of style--he's the first finalist I've seen who's done it, and it used to be de riguer--but it secured him a correct spelling of "sauterelle."
168. Kevin Drew, 8th grade - Most of the kids who showily spelled their words without asking for information did not actually make the semis, even if they got their Round 3 word correct. I generally see it as a bad sign. He did make the semis, though, with his no-info-required spelling of "florulent."
169. Sriran Hathwar, 3rd grade - TINY AND ADORABLE I LOVE HIM FOREVER. This nine-year-old was the youngest to make it to the semis; there were two more that did not make the cut. Look for him to be a media darling tomorrow night. No trouble at all with "ommatophore."
170. Neetu Chandak, 7th grade - She cheerily stepped away from the microphone and spelled "picayune" to herself first before correctly repeating it to the judges. She doesn't actually have the manic grin that her profile picture implies. "Cutie-pie" applies.
181. Zachary Zagorski, 8th grade - Getting a correctly nuanced pronunciation on "urisk," a good-natured Scottish goblin, proved difficult. Even with little useful meta-info available to help him work it out, he spelled it correctly.
183. Siraj Sindhu, 8th grade - His word, "witloof," was pronounced "wit-loaf," and there was no way to get it correct unless he knew it cold. He did.
200. Tino Delamerced, 7th grade - He falls into the category of kids that is going to be hopelessly dorky until his junior year of college, at which point he will figure things out and become a total catch. He didn't struggle with "pogrom."
201. Anamika Veeramani, 7th grade - Even the pronouncer struggled with the different pronunciations of "alcazar," and she might have taken a bit of joy in listening to him trip over this Arabic-to-Spanish word in the three times he gave the five pronunciations. She got it right.
204. Nicholas Rushlow, 5th grade - This eleven-year-old recognized "cauterize" and spelled it with a seriousness and measure that speaks well to his future in this competition.
218. Connor Aberle, 7th grade - He's having a mustache contest with Sidharth, and he is Oh So Very Portland. After spelling "macroscian," he went to go form a dancey post-punk band with Serena Laine-Lobsinger.
231. Sukanya Roy, 6th grade - A death-grip on the microphone and some back-of-the-placard finger-spelling helped her secure "Bauhaus."
239. Keiko Bridwell, 8th grade - Another possible favorite to win, the word "mahout," a Sanskrit elephant-keeper, didn't even make her blink. She knew it cold. Watch her--this could be her year.
249. Akshay Raghuram, 6th grade - He listened to each piece of information from the judges adorably slack-jawed before correctly spelling "gouache," which apparently rhymes with "squash." He has high charm-the-media potential.
251. Mouctika Paluri, 8th grade - Another serious, down-to-business speller in cute glasses. She had no trouble with "oblocutor."
255. Aditya Chemudupaty, 7th grade - A cutie-pie in an oversized sweatshirt and round glasses, he handled "nenuphar" with no struggle.
270. Andrew Traylor, 8th grade - His bio says he wants to be a video game designer. He got "magus" and was visibly delighted. I can only imagine that tonight, he's high-fiving Esther Park, the girl who got "ocarina."
276. Tim Ruiter, 7th grade - I can't place who this kid reminds me of, but his mannerisms definitely remind me of somebody I know. Either way, he's a cool kid. "Echard" was no problem for him.
283. Eleanor Runde, 8th grade - She and her casually messy red-headed braids had no trouble with "tahini." She's from Seattle and tahini is delicious.

My Top-Ten Prediction

Ordered by competitor number, here are my predictions for the top ten finishers in this year's bee:
13. Josephine Kao
56. Vincent Medina
88. Kyle Mou
97. Vaibhav Vivilala
110. Kavya Shivashankar
139. Sidharth Chand
159. Avvinash Radakrishnan
181. Zachary Zagorski
239. Keiko Bridwell
251. Mouctika Paluri

My Team

This is my favorite part: Every year, I craft a team of my personal favorite kids. Not the ones with the best chances, necessarily, although I pick them out of the semi-finalists, so they all have a chance, but I do intentionally leave some of the best kids off my team to avoid stacking my own deck. (Case in point: Only two names on the "top ten predicted finishers" list are also on this list.) No, these are just the kids I like best. This year, I'm limiting myself to a team of nine, and I wanted to choose a dozen more. These are the kids for whom I'm cheering the loudest tomorrow night:

Paige Vasseur
Veronica Penny*
Serena Laine-Lobsinger
Kennyi Aouad*
Kavya Shivashankar*
Sriran Hathwar
Zachary Zagorski*
Akshay Raghuram
Tim Ruiter

Captain: Kavya Shivashankar
Deputy Captain: Zachary Zagorski

*Indicates returning member of 2008 team

________________________

Your turn. Who's on your team? Go.

2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee: Pre-Game Picks!

2009-05-26T18:09:44Z

The 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee starts today!

This year, the webmaster for www.spellingbee.com has been really, really on-the-ball. In previous years, we didn't get any information on the spellers until just days before the bee, but a full two weeks out, we got names, ages/grades, hometowns, pictures, and--new this year--mini-bios. Color me thrilled!

Sadly, they've removed all round results and word lists from prior years, making some of this analysis really difficult--I've had to go from incompletely-cached pages on Google (archive.org doesn't have last year's posted yet) and my own notes. I've sent a request for them, though, and if they respond I'll make it available.

As always, I'm providing now a pre-Bee analysis of the field. They start with 291 spellers this year, and 40-50 will advance to the semi-finals, from which 10-20 will advance to the finals.

Rules reminder before looking at the field: To compete in the Bee, you must be in the 8th grade or under, and under the age of 16 by three months. There is no minimum on age or grade; the youngest spellers are usually 9 or 10 and in elementary school. If you win the Bee, you cannot compete again, but any other finish, you can, provided you're still eligible from an age/grade perspective. You have to qualify every year by competing on community levels, and you're usually sponsored by a newspaper. Although it's called that "National" spelling bee, and the vast majority of competitors are American, students can be from other countries, and Canada always sends a strong team.

Here we go!

Last year, there were 12 finalists, and three of them were under the 8th grade, making them theoretically eligible again this year. All three of them made it. (Good job, guys!) They are:
88. Kyle Mou, 8th grade, from Illinois. This year will be Kyle's third time at the rodeo; he finished 10th last year. He's pretty effing adorable.
110. Kavya Shivashankar, 8th grade, from Kansas. She finished in fourth place last year. She's been in the top ten spellers three years in a row now, making her the obvious statistical favorite. That said, she'll need to remember Samir Patel, the 2007 runaway favorite who, after coming in 3rd in 2005 and 2nd in 2006, didn't even make semi-finals in 2007, his last year of eligibility. As long as Kavya keeps her head in the game and doesn't let the media attention get under her skin (and she will be the media favorite), she's got a fantastic shot.
139. Sidharth Chand, 8th grade, from Michigan. He was the mind-blowing dark horse last year: In his very first National Bee ever, as a seventh-grader, he came in second place. Was it a fluke, or is he a late-arrival 2009 contender? Keep an eye on him.

Kyle, Kavya, and Sidharth:

Of the 45 semi-finalists in 2008, 12 have returned. (There are 69 total returning spellers; the ones not listed here didn't make the 2008 semis.) Plus Kavya, Kyle, and Sidharth, they are:
5. So-Young Iris Chung
16. Jospehine Kao
43. Émilie Lafleur
40. Veronica Penny
56. Vincent Medina
97. Vaibhav Vavilala
181. Zachary Zagorski
239. Keiko Bridwell
251. Mouctika Paluri

It is very likely that one of those twelve will be the 2009 winner. Of course, it's possible that a first-timer or a low 2008 finisher will sneak in, as Sidharth did last year, especially because these are kids, pre-teens, and teenagers, who do a hell of a lot of changing year-to-year. Keep a special eye on Jospehine, Vaibhav, and Keiko, all of whom (like Kavya) are in their fourth year of national competition and all of whom placed in the teens last year, just barely missing a chance at becoming finalists. Last year, there were two fifth-year finalists (meaning that both first reached the national Bee in 4th grade!), but this year, with no fifth-years at all competing, the four fourth-years will be reckoning forces.

Josephine, Vaibhav, and Keiko:

Other kids to watch:

I'd think that sharing a sponsoring community with a recent winner would be a high-pressure slot. Here are the four kids whose sponsoring newspapers also sponsored a recent winner, and the year of that winner:

99. Michael Spors, 2008
23. Caroline Bell, 2007
162. Eesha Anagha Ramanujam, 2006
18. Alex Clifton Wells, 2005

All four of them are eighth-graders who have made it to the National Spelling Bee for the first time this year. Michael, of course, cannot be blamed for this: Sameer had him shut out until this year! If Michael makes it to the semi-finals, watch for the interviewers to grill him on his relationship to Sameer and whether he "feels pressure under the shadow of a champion" and other unintentionally cruel psych-out questions.

A couple more kids that might feel the pressure a little more keenly than the rest: 166. Hannah Evans and 48. Christian Smith. Hannah is the younger sister of Matt Evans, who had been a favorite the last couple years and is now too old to compete; Christian is the younger brother of Jake Smith, who was a semi-finalist last year. They've both got access to potentially the greatest coaches any speller could want, assuming the sibling dynamic is there, and as neither of them are 8th graders yet, I would mark them this year but watch them closely for 2010.

Hannah and Christian:

Those of us in Atlanta can keep an eye on sixth-grader 67 Julia Denniss, our hometown hero. As a sixth-grader and first-time national competitor, her chances are not historically soaring, but the experience is excellent and she'll definitely be worth watching in 2010 and 2011.

Julia:

Of course, there are nearly three hundred awesome kids competing this year, and you should absolutely pick your favorites to cheer for. I've got Kavya for the win, while lizzie9208 favors Sidharth, affejunge has picked Kyle, and former-tween-author watchmebe has chosen current-tween-author Christina. Who's your pick?

I AM THE MOST CLEVER. OTHER CLEVER PEOPLE, STAND ASIDE

2009-03-09T02:20:25Z

So, we finish watching the most recent Dollhouse tonight, and I make one observation and one speculation.

Observation: Topher reminds me of Wash from Firefly. A lot. Other than the fact that Topher is a little morally compromised/bankrupt, he's got a heavy dose of Wash: his patter/mannerisms when freaked out or under pressure (the mouth-agape pauses followed by rapid talking, the way he dives for his control panel when things go bad, the way he delivered "I'm scared. I'm scared like a little girl," et cetera), he cheery geekiness, the way in which he is totally mastermind at his technical job and kind of a doofus otherwise. I've felt like Topher has a heavy dose of Wash for the last couple episodes, but this one especially ran it home.

Speculation, based solely on the episodes: Alpha has, as part of his personality threads, a heavy dose of Topher. He was perhaps programmed to be an assistant to Topher. At least-familiar, they'll have the same skillsets, at most-familiar, he's essentially Evil Topher. Topher is a vain dude, and probably put a bit more of himself into Alpha than he should have; Alpha will likely behave a lot like Topher himself.

So I make this observation and speculation tonight to Ross, Lisa, and JD, and Lisa giggles madly and points me to a character-actor spoiler:

Alan Tudyk is going to play Alpha.

GUYS? I AM AWESOME AT THIS GAME.

Also: My friend Jess, who I met while studying in New Zealand, definitely just wrote the most Kiwi LJ entry in the history of blogging. I'm a little in love. <33333

I hope and pray for Hester to win just one more 'A'!

2009-03-06T19:45:12Z

It frustrates me a little when the songs that everybody remembers from a musical aren't the actual best songs in the musical.

Right now, I'm listening to The Music Man, which includes two songs about the virtues of women: "Shipoopi" and "The Sadder-but-Wiser Girl." Everybody knows "Shipoopi," but "Shipoopi" is an irritating song, an earworm that represents one of the low points of the soundtrack. Very few remember "The Sadder-but-Wiser Girl," and that song is fantastic--it's possibly the funniest, most clever song in a very clever show.

Or take Fiddler On the Roof. The instantly-recognizable "Sunrise, Sunset" is pretty, but ultimately a yawn. On the other hand, "Far From the Home I Love," Hodel's melancholy ballad near the end of the show, is breath-takingly (and heart-breakingly) gorgeous.

(As an aside, I do think that this song is nearly always performed poorly in recordings. Because it has some very high notes, and because the actress who plays Hodel has to have a very good voice for the rest of the show, this song is often performed much too operatically and pretty-voiced, which is totally inappropriate for the song. If Hodel doesn't sound on the verge of tears, she's doing it wrong.)

Footloose is a crazy-fun show, but two of the best-known songs from it, "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It For the Boy," can't hold a candle to the mischievous, gleeful fun of "Dancing Is Not a Crime."

Everybody can sing half a dozen different songs from Grease, from "Greased Lightning" to "Summer Nights" to "We Go Together," but if you always tune out when the sleepover girls start "Freddy My Love," you miss the most clever song in the entire show.

I could go on. But you know what I mean, right?

AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, SLUTS

2009-03-06T04:50:14Z

My picks are (in order) Nijah, Fo, Allison, and Teyona. Nijah is fucking gorgeous, Fo is completely adorable, Allison has THOSE OMG EYES, and Teyona has the best body, I think, of the entire group (her face stresses me out, but I'll bet she photographs gorgeous).

My pans: Tahlia's sweet, but she has no business being there, burns or no burns--she doesn't have a great face or body shape or walk. Kortnie is about the skinniest "plus-sized" model ever; if I was going to guess, I'd have guessed Tahlia was bigger than Kortnie, and neither of them are even a little heavy. Sandra and London are intolerable and I want them to die in a fire together.

My wildcard jury is out on Celia. I definitely have strong feelings about her; however, I am on the border between hating her and loving her more than life itself. Plus: she seems like an awesome person. Minus: she has crazy-eyes.

What about 'chu?

Tweedle Leedle L337

2009-03-02T16:33:26Z

I don't think Twitter encourages a healthy attention span. It feeds the part of me that, by nature or by nasty habit, would like to only think about a given thing for fifteen seconds tops and then move on to something non-sequitur. There are times when this is okay, and times when this is not the least bit good.

At work, I like checking Twitter between micro-tasks (a large chunk of what I do is a series of dozens-to-hundreds of micro-tasks) because it's the right length for me to rinse my brain a little without getting completely off-task and derailed. As a result, Twitter is my micro-break of choice when I'm having a good, productive day that involves less big-picture thinking and more minutia work (like today).

So when Twitter's website goes down on a day like today, it makes me want to STAB.

Also, a poll:

View Poll: Exporting Twitter

My very-specific software need

2009-02-21T10:11:19Z

Okay, so I'm starting a project for which I need a calendar-style program. I feel like what I need should be easy, but it's very specific, thus I naturally can't find it extant online.

Purpose of software:
This software will allow the names of events, their dates, and their locations to be input, then exported to a report for eventual publication on a blog. This software is an improvement over manually creating such a report, because it will (1) allow data entered over multiple data-entry sessions to be sorted and aggregated, (2) keep the user from needing to re-enter Location Names and URLs every time a new Event is created, and (3) handle coding all links to HTML for blog publication.

A Location Name is a pre-specified venue only selectable via a dropdown menu. There will be approximately thirty Locations.
A Location URL is a URL tied to the Location Name. A Location URL cannot exist without a Location Name.
An Event Name is entered via text box and has no validation rules.
An Event URL is entered via text box. It must be associated with an Event Name.
A Date is a valid calendar date, as recognized by the back end of the software. (2/29/09 need not apply.) For any combination of Location Name/Date, there should only be one Event Name. However, it is not necessary to validate against that, and in cases where multiple Events are created for the same Location Name/Date, multiple database rows should be created, rather than one Event overwriting another Event.

Front end:
The front end will require three data-entry-style windows and two report-style windows.

1. Data entry window: Events by Location
Upon opening this window, the user will be presented with a dropdown of possible Location Names to select. Upon selecting a Location Name, users will see a list of existing Event Names, Event URLs, and Dates, and be able to add Event Names, Event URLs, and Dates. This can be done however is most elegant (or easiest), but two possible methods include:
-A. Calendar-style - dates ranging from the current date to the 90-days-out date appear in a column, and next to them are a pair of text fields. Existing Event Names and Event URLs are listed next to their corresponding Dates, but are editable; dates that do not yet have an Event Name/Location can have their Event textfields edited.
-B. Text-entry-style - Two columns of text-entry boxes are available; the first column is for entering Dates (and is validated against a mm/dd/yy format, or however you validate dates) and the second is for entering Event Names/URLs.
A Save button commits all changes to a database in cases where both Date and Event Name are present; Event URL is not a required field. Tiny red Xs next to existing Events and Dates will delete that Event from the database. (Bonus feature: a pop-up that says "Fix your shit, slut" if either a Date is entered without an Event, or vice-versa.)

2. Data entry window: Events by Date
Upon opening this window, the user will be asked to select a date. (Coder's discretion on how this is done.) Upon selecting a date, the user will be presented with a list of existing Locations and Event Names/URLs, and two columns for new input. The first column will be dropdowns of Locations to select, and the second column will be corresponding Event Names/Locations. A Save button commits all changes to a database in cases where both Location and Event Name are present; Event URL is not a required field. Tiny red Xs next to existing Events and Locations will delete that Event from the database. (Bonus feature: a pop-up that says "Get with the program, whore" if either a Location is entered without an Event, or vice-versa.)

3. Data entry window: Location Maintenance
Location has two pieces to it: Location Name, and Location URL. Users should be able to add/edit/delete Locations' Names and URLs. A Name does not require a URL, but a URL does require a Name.

4. Report window: Events by Location
Upon opening this window, the user will be asked to select a Location. Upon selecting a Location, the user will see all events for that location in the following format:
(When Event Name does not have a corresponding Event URL) Month ##: Event
(When Event Name DOES have a corresponding URL) Month ##: <a href="Event URL">Event Name</a>
It is important that this can be cleanly copy-and-pasted directly into an HTML entry form (or to put a finer point on it, a blog entry).

5. Report window: Events by Date
Upon opening this window, the user will be asked to select a Date. Upon selecting a Date, the user will see all events for that Date in the following format:
(With both URLs) <a href="Location URL">Location Name</a>: <a href="Event URL">Event Name</a>
(With Event URL only) Location Name: <a href="Event URL">Event Name</a>
(With Location URL only) <a href="Location URL">Location Name</a>: Event Name
(With neither URLs) Location Name: Event Name
Again, it is important that this can be cleanly copy-and-pasted directly into an HTML entry form.

Of these five screens, I only really need 1 and 5, Enter Events by Location and Report Events by Date. The other three are nice-to-haves, in order of priority: 3, 4, 2.

So, if this is something that can be spit out in half an hour, I'm looking for a favor. If it's something that can be spit out in an afternoon, I'm looking for somebody who knows a 19-year-old at Tech who's looking to earn forty bucks. If it's more complicated than that, then, um, how hard is it exactly?

This American Life, LIVE

2009-02-17T05:48:14Z

Those of you who know me (AND I THINK THAT'S EVERYBODY) know that I am completely obsessed with This American Life.

Well.

April 19, I'm going to see it as a live performance in Chicago.

So what I'm saying is, if you want to too, you should come to Chicago and see it. It's the Sunday night. I have two tickets in anticipation of this. They're really good seats, too.

Also, Robyn Hitchcock is playing in Chicago that Saturday night. You know that "Who's the oldest living person you'd sleep with?" question? My top three are Ira Glass, Robyn Hitchcock, and John Flansburgh. If They Might Be Giants do a Friday-night show in Chicago, I will hit my Old Dude Trifecta. I know that this is relevant to your interests.

Let me know.

Don't be a stranger

2009-02-14T07:07:40Z

I did not feel like going to the concert I attended tonight--I was exhausted an in an ultra-crummy mood, the sort of mental place where my only wishes were pajamas, delivery Chinese, and a movie. I really did not want to haul my cranky butt out to stand alone in a sweaty basement full of underage hipsters for the evening. (I never want that, particularly, but it's part of seeing music at the Drunken Unicorn, and I'll take the underage hipsters over the underage metal kids or underage punks any day.) But I made myself go.

I'm so glad I did. I fell in love a little with a band.

They're called The Weeks and they're from Jackson, MS. They played a great, super-tight, high-energy set. Each individual member of the band was a joy to watch, a rare thing that makes a band borderline-magical. Their bass player was uncommonly good for an indie-rock-band-bass-player (I definitely got the impression that he'd done Jazz Band for course credit at some point in his life). Their two guitarists occasionally threw down guitar solos that I actually enjoyed, and an enjoyable guitar solo is sort of a rarity for me. Their lead singer had a great voice and stage presence, and has one of those faces where he looks familiar; by the end of the set I was half-convinced I'd seen him in another band, and other-half-convinced I'd gone to high school with him. And the drummer? Not only very good at his job, but also made the best faces in the history of the world while he drummed. And occasionally, when there was a slow moment in a song and he wasn't drumming, he'd sing and pantomime the lyrics. As a result, the lyric I remember had something to do with smoking and choking, because those were the pantomimes. The entire band did a lot of singing-along-while-playing, actually, which always charms the pants off me; I love bands that grin at each other and sing along and visibly have fun with each other while on stage.

The room loved them. If these guys stay together and touring, they're going to generate a lot of fans very, very quickly.

I came home with the CD of theirs, of course. Sometimes I buy an album from a band that I see live while I'm still on-the-fence about the band itself, having enjoyed a set but not been thrilled by it, interested to see if the CD will push me over the edge into fandom. As a result, I've come home with great albums that have turned me into a solid fan of a band, and mediocre albums that have made me decide not to bother finding out when the band'll be in town again. I haven't listened to it yet, but I know that The Weeks will have had to have made a terrible album for me to lose interest. And my prediction is that this album is not going to be terrible.

(Bummer: I was not into the other two bands, the local acts that I'd actually gone for the purpose of seeing, per my Listen To Some Damn Local Music Initiative. Or else The Weeks had set the bar too high and I resented the other two bands for not being them. I definitely preferred Winston Audio over O'Brother.)

Kicking neurosis in the teeth

2009-02-09T17:47:08Z

For a very long time, I've worked under the neurosis that I was uninterested in local music. This has nothing to do with any perceived quality-of-music and everything to do with the fact that I didn't like the idea of musicians I like living in the same city as me. In my mind, this is a justifiable requirement for Enjoyable Music; I didn't listen to local musicians the way other people don't date co-workers or employ family members. These were life-facets that I simply didn't want to mix up.

However, like most reasonable people, I occasionally come to terms with the fact that something I'm doing arbitrarily is silly, and that I need to cut that shit out.

So, that said. Were you interested in getting into the Atlanta indie rock scene? I know the venues and the ropes but none of the bands, and we can be discovery buddies. This is your jumping-off-point invitation if you'd been contemplating taking up local music as a new hobby.

Next show I'm attending is this Friday night at the Drunken Unicorn. The bands are Winston Audio, O'Brother, and non-local openers The Weeks, all of which sound like solid bands from their MySpace page. It's Winston Audio's CD release party; it starts at 9 and, because it's an all-ages show, it'll be over by midnight. Let me know if you want to come!

...my other neurosis is that I dread bands' self-Google-Alerts, which means I've written but haven't posted concert narratives for Los Campesinos!/Titus Andronicus and The Morning Benders/The Submarines. They will hopefully be posted Early This Week, as I am determined to keep my resolution of blogging about every concert I attend this year.

Until you climb too high

2009-01-28T21:40:29Z

I've been getting vertigo a lot lately, most noticeably when I stretch (especially if I'm holding my breath while stretching) or laugh really hard. It doesn't matter whether I'm standing or sitting. It only lasts a few seconds, no longer than the length of the stretch or the laugh itself, but you never realize how many times you stretch and laugh in a day until you get ultra-dizzy and can't see anything for a few seconds afterwards each time.

Is that, uhm, a problem?

"One last thing: Skate with your heart!"

2009-01-24T06:43:57Z

I have to clean like a bandit tomorrow. Our house has the faint, lingering aroma of the inside of a cat (whatever question you were about to ask, the answer is "Yes") and there are clothes and dishes everywhere. It's unappealing. Tomorrow night I'm babysitting. Sunday, my parents are coming into town.

So my weekend is pretty much spoken-for, which means I should have done something awesome tonight. I did: I watched the Disney original film "Ice Princess," starting Michelle Trachtenberg, Hayden Panettiere, Joan Cusack, and Kim Cattrall, and it was GLORIOUS AS ALWAYS. "Ice Princess" is one of those guilty-pleasure movies that I will ALWAYS watch, given the opportunity.

(This opportunity was brought about by the fact that when I went to get Les Savy Fav tickets on Wednesday for their show tonight, it was already sold out. Oops. Les Savy Fav, Michelle Trachtenberg, same difference.)

That said, does anybody want to do breakfast/brunch on Sunday? I could use a little social time this weekend.

"Time to make the cornbread stuffing, y'all!"

2009-01-20T14:32:10Z

So I had this bizarre dream last night: I was making Thanksgiving dinner with Britney Spears. She was trying all these disastrous cooking techniques--in particular, trying to grate raw, unfrozen chicken with a cheese grater--and the entire kitchen smelled awful.

Then I woke up. The clock said it was 5:00 AM, a time I normally never wake up on my own, and I laid in bed, contemplating how vivid the dream was, how its very vividness must have woken me up, how I could still smell that awful cornbread stuffing she'd made...

Then I rolled over. Into the cat barf next to my pillow.

Harnessing the Power of Social Networking

2009-01-16T00:13:02Z

I've got it in my pretty little head that I want a laptop.

How do I even begin comparison-shopping on that?

In Which Amy and I Make a Startling Discovery

2009-01-13T21:44:44Z

scottique: I haven't seen Oliver and Company.
watchmebe: Are you anti-joy?
watchmebe: It's Joey Lawrence. As an orange kitten.
watchmebe: There we have it folks
scottique: Hahahaha. Wow.
scottique: You make a compelling argument, Ms. Pearce.
watchmebe: I rest my case
scottique: Because yeah. That does sound like joy.
watchmebe: And Billy Joel does the music
scottique: That'd be like if Jonathan Taylor Thomas played a lion cub in a movie with music by Elton John.
watchmebe: IT'S LIKE THE EXACT SAME!!!
scottique: I bet I would like both of those films.
watchmebe: if such things existed of course

Soft Paws Success!

2009-01-08T02:22:59Z

I was really expecting Soft Paws, the little plastic tips that are glued to the ends of cats' claws, to be a totally impossible ordeal with Pandora. Even though Elizabeth and Amy said it wasn't too big a deal, I expected a fight from my cat, who is very set in her ways. Pandora is a very good cat and requires very little discipline, but because of that, she is very much used to getting her way: because she's good about not clawing the furniture, she's never had her nails trimmed in the five years we've had her; because the dog understandably gets on her nerves, she's allowed on any non-food-related surface in the house; because she's good about batting at the dog, claws-in, we've never had to think about doing anything to mitigate her claws. We'd never declaw her, but we'd never trimmed or capped her nails either.

However, on Friday we're adopting a little grey cat to be named Prodigy, and one thing Pandora deeply despises is (spoiler alert!) other cats. The last thing I want to do is spend my Christmas bonus paying for kitty retinal scratches, so they're both getting Soft Paws before they meet.

I did Pandora in four little sittings: one paw trimmed, the other paw trimmed; one paw capped, the other paw capped. I let her run off and chill out between each one, but she was actually very good about them; the most defiant behavior she gave me was a throaty growl and a few symbolic, very-gentle hand bites. (She is the master of the symbolic bite. She does it all the time, as a sign of affection as well as irritation, and it doesn't hurt at all. Gentlest biting cat ever.) The whole thing, breaks included, took less than an hour.

If we had any reason at all to keep them on her beyond her meeting with Prodigy, I absolutely would--she was a champ.

Of course, now that I've bragged on my Original Kitty for being such a trooper about the Soft Paws, I'm totally sure I'll be on the receiving end of an absolute shitstorm of scratches from New Kitty when he gets capped on Friday.

Music 2008

2009-01-02T07:17:34Z

22 Songs Over Which I Obsessed, Ordered By Performer:

The entirety of The Family Afloat, Bound Stems [0]
"Excellent News, Colonel," Bound Stems [1]
"This Harness Can't Ride Anything," Chin Up Chin Up
"Hey Radio," Rich Cronin [2]
"Dining Car," Harvey Danger
"Here It Goes Again," OK Go [3]
"The President's Dead," Okkervil River
"9 to 5," Janie Porche [4]
"Oh, La," Ra Ra Riot
"Keep It Simple," So Many Dynamos [5]
"The Mesopotamians," They Might Be Giants
"Underground," This Busy Monster
"Yes We Can," will.i.am

[0] When I sort my iTunes by most-played count, Bound Stems fills 13 of the first 40 slots. This is way more than any other band. By a staggering, possibly embarrassing amount.
[1] From 2007 to 2008 with love and ink.
[2] Sadly, although unsurprisingly to everybody else, this track comes from my Most Disappointing Album Of the Year.
[3] I was late to the treadmill party, obvs.
[4] 14, if you count this track.
[5] Easily the most recent addition to this list. Mostly obsessed with the first 0:18 of the track.

What This List Made Me Realize:

This year, I really hunkered in my musical bunker. I listened to a few new bands, but the vast majority of my year was spent listening to the same bands and their friends as 2007 and before, loudly and on repeat. My favorite four or five favorite bands now are mostly the same favorite four or five bands I've had for the last several years. This in itself isn't a problem, but the lack of expansion is. In my defense, several of my favorite bands have been quite busy this year. And, um, I was very high-stress about the election and I needed comfort music. Still, though.

(A lot of people think that, because I listen to bands with whom they aren't familiar, I listen to a wide variety of music. Confession: I really don't.)

And The Goal For 2009 Is Thus Set:

Try to find one band a month that really re-excites me about the rewards of listening to new music. Audition more than one band a month for this role. Get obsessed with them for a few weeks, make sure I know when they're coming to Atlanta next, and then move on and find somebody else about whom I can get excited.

List That I'm Uncomfortable Making, Because It'll Feature The Same Damn Bands As Last Year's List:
Top Ten Concerts I'd Like To Relive

Oh Go On, You Know What The First One Is, Because It's Obvious:
Right, the Harvey Danger every-song-ever extravaganza. And the second one would be Bound Stems and So Many Dynamos together in Chicago.

List of People Who Are Surprised By This:
[null set]

I grew up the same way you did

2009-01-01T18:57:46Z

The week was great, if short. I swam in the ocean and clicked my tongue at wild dolphins and plucked giant hermit crabs out of the surf and drank more Coronas than I can count, and my hair is summer-blonde and my skin is sunkissed. I look hale and happy.

Last night was a magnificent party. There was a moment while I was sitting outside on a deck chair in front of the fire pit, champaign in one hand and cigar in the other, warming my toes under the cauldron full of logs and Christmas tree scraps, friends standing on both sides of me, people I love piled onto the porch swing across the fire pit, when I was thinking, We are the luckiest people. We work hard but none of us deserve this much wonderful. Nobody does. It was perfect.

I have jobs today, but I'm happy to do them: wash our sandy, damp laundry, take down the Christmas tree, retrieve Layla. It's 2:00 PM and I haven't gotten dressed yet. Vacation unwind for the win.

My luck got a little dry in 2008; everybody's did, and it's probably because we acknowledged it too much. 2008 was sent off in a lovely way, though, and I'm hopeful for 2009. ("I'm hopeful. It says so on my neck.") Blessed and lucky 2009, guys.

Best Grown-Up Christmas Ever

2008-12-26T02:15:38Z

Ross and I just had the most excellent Christmas of our adult lives.

Christmas Eve, we had msbeanhead, goodgoodwill, and bigpeteb over for Christmas Eve dinner. Peter made a delicious pot roast and veggies, and Will and Claire made mashed sweet potatoes, and we lit candles and ate at the table and drank a couple bottles of wine, and it was perfect. Will and Claire's son Damian, a year and a half old and transitioning quickly from "baby" to "toddler," played with Layla all night, and it was the MOST ADORABLE THING EVER. We opened a couple gifts, then went to mass at an Episcopalian church in Alpharetta where Peter was performing. Came home, finished the wine, and turned in for the evening.

This morning, we woke up, made ourselves hot chocolate with Bailey's and sliced French bread with butter, honey, and cinnamon in the oven, sat down on the floor in front of the Christmas tree, and opened presents. After opening our gifts to each other, we curled up with a blanket and the Bailey's and watched The Price Is Right's Christmas episode. Will, Claire, and Damian showed back up, along with Peter, and we watched Love Actually and nearly finished the Bailey's. After Will, Claire and Damian left, anytree arrived, and Peter made a delicious meal of ham, mashed potatoes, and broccoli casserole while Sarah and I drove around Norcross and Duluth, looking for an open grocery store to buy horseradish. (We found one: The Super H Mart, an Asian grocery that was very open and very busy.) We ate and drank and were merry. Now our beloved friends are all gone, and Ross is sleeping while I pack and get ready to drive to Sarasota later tonight. We'll leave when it's still dark, drive through the dawn, and arrive in the morning for a full day of snoozing on the beach.

I love our friends, and our little house, and our tree, and good food and drink, and Christmas hymns and the prayers I'll never forget, and clever gifts, and every little part of this holiday. Good Christmas.

Drop the needle: it's Christmas!

2008-12-25T00:27:47Z

We made a Christmas video for you!

My favorite Christmas lyric in the world is, "A thrill of hope: the weary world rejoices!"

Hope. Rejoice, even if you're weary. Merry Christmas, guys!

Coming over for Christmas Eve and Christmas? You should!

2008-12-24T16:24:22Z

Hear ye, hear ye!

Everybody's welcome to come over tonight for Christmas Eve love, and tomorrow morning for Christmas morning presents!

Tonight we'll eat dinner, enjoy nibbles, drink wine, gaze lovingly at the Christmas tree, and maybe watch Love Actually or Die Hard if I can get hold of a copy. Ross and I will be ready to start entertaining people around 6:30. I'll be attending Christmas Eve services at Christ Episcopal Church of Norcross; we should plan on arriving around 10:15 or 10:20 for their 10:40 choir performance and 11:00 Eucharist. EVERYBODY'S WELCOME, and to me, there is very little as lovely as an Episcopalian Christmas Eve service. Join me, or keep Ross and the wine company.

Tomorrow morning, festivities will start at 10:00 AM. We'll eat breakfast, drink Bailey's, and open presents!! The tree will keep twinkling as we nibble and nuzzle through the morning. We'll wrap up in the early afternoon, as Ross and I will need to finish preparing for our trip to Florida.

Here's our address.

Love you guys. I'm happy for everybody who's spending Christmas with their families, and can't wait to see my friends who aren't. :-)

Ra Ra Riot and So Many Dynamos

2008-12-15T07:15:40Z

Friday afternoon, Ross and I made a break for Nashville for a perfect capstone-to-the-year show: So Many Dynamos and Ra Ra Riot.

Here is the Thing: Ross and I have very little overlapping musical taste. For most of the bands I like, his reaction ranges from total indifference to active disdain. However, we're both Decemberists people, and by that logic, a few months ago I thought I might be able to get him into Ra Ra Riot. Huge success! So now we're both Ra Ra Riot fans, 85% because they're awesome and 15% because we can enjoy them together, and the prospect of seeing them and So Many Dynamos on the same ticket meant that there was zero chance I was missing a tour date. Fortunately, their two closest dates--Nashville and Athens--were driving distance, and since Athens was out due to our social schedule, we headed to the Exit/In with the excellent dot_and_line.

The Exit/In was, by the way, a great venue. The stage was as a good height and was the right size, both of which are pretty important--the way I see it, a suboptimal stage probably won't ruin a show, but it will absolutely keep a good show from becoming a great one. Stages that are too low or too high discourage audiences from getting close; my favorite stages are between hip-height and sternum-height, and nothing pisses me off more than a "stage" that is just a raised platform six inches off the floor. That's not a stage, that's a tripping hazard! Stages that are too big for a band either encourage the band to spread out and zap some of the intimacy from the show, or cause the band to huddle together anyway, creating a weird sense of scale; stages that are too small inspire crowding and collisions, especially for bands as big as Ra Ra Riot or as animated as So Many Dynamos. The venue had ample floor space, some stools and a balcony/loft area in the back, and a not-unreasonable selection of beer (nothing on draft, but you can't have everything). And it was non-smoking, which I love; I wish Atlanta would go non-smoking in more of its venues. (I love the Drunken Unicorn, but I hate smelling like the Drunken Unicorn.) We got to the Exit/In just before doors opened, and were the 10th-ish people in the venue; although Ross wanted to grab a front-row spot audience-left, in front of Ra Ra Riot's cellist, that spot had already been grabbed by the first people through the door, and we ended up in a just-as-perfect spot right-of-center.

The bands were great. I wrote a lot about each of the three bands, and then deleted it, and then wrote a lot more and deleted that too. Suffice to say: success. Good room, good luck, good audience, good vibe. Everybody had a good night; we heard our favorite songs and came away happy. Chatted with the guys in SMD after the show, congratulated Ryan on his engagement, heard all about the differences in touring with Ra Ra Riot versus touring with asscore bands, and invited them to stop by for food the next day, on their Nashville-to-Athens drive. The night was cold and pretty, and when Ross and I crashed on Jacquie's futon, I was still too wired to sleep for two hours.

Woke up the next morning, hugged Jacquie goodbye, and trekked back to Atlanta. Rolled in, made a pot of corn chowder, fed los Dynamos and sent them to Athens, got gussied up, and went to the office Christmas party. Stayed for less than three hours before admitting exhaustion defeat and driving home. An attempt at a game night with Lisa and JD was aborted by my falling asleep on their living room floor. Dragged home and slept very well.

I've spent lazy Sunday enjoying the hell out of newly-acquired music and mentally decompressing. Tonight, apocalypsos inspired me to make cookies, and so now a plate of lovely-looking cocoa rum balls are setting under saran wrap, waiting out the recommended few days to fully mature the flavor. My hands smell delicious.

Back to work tomorrow. Satisfying weekends make the office so much better, truly.

Last concerts of the year

2008-12-09T23:10:34Z

Last Friday, I went to see MC Frontalot, with MC Lars and YTCracker, with ridingsloth. This should have been an incredibly fun show, and parts of it were, but poor planning on everybody's part made the overall night kind of a bummer.

Poor planning on the booking agents' front:
MC Frontalot has a documentary called Nerdcore Rising that they're showing in cities on the same nights as the tour; the idea is that you're supposed to be able to attend the movie and then go to the show. However, they put the Atlanta movie in Midtown and the concert in Marietta, more than thirty minutes' drive away. JD and I watched the film, then dashed to the car and sped up to Marietta, arriving just minutes before MC Lars and YTCracker started. We missed the first three bands entirely. And the movie theater? Had maybe fifteen people there, all of whom did exactly what we did.

Poor planning on the performers' front:
MC Lars and YTCracker performed as openers for MC Frontalot. However, their set went on for well over an hour, nearly an hour and a half. They demanded a lot from the audience physically--nearly every song had some variation on put-your-arms-in-the-air or everybody-jump or call-and-response, and by the time their set was finished, the audience was visibly exhausted--and didn't really have the energy to respond to headliner MC Frontalot.

Poor planning on the venue's front:
Nobody told the performers that there was a midnight curfew. MC Frontalot, the obvious main draw, didn't take the stage until nearly 11:30. He did literally three songs and was just warming up when the venue managers told him he had fifteen minutes left. True to their word, four songs later they chased him off the stage. Laaaame.

Poor planning on my part:
Because I had to work late, then go directly to the theater and then the concert, I missed dinner entirely. Low blood sugar makes me cranky; if I'd been properly fed, I might have written off YTCracker as simply not my thing. Instead, I came away with a firm opinion of him as fucking irritating and an asshole to boot. MC Lars and MC Frontalot seemed cool, though, as did the band.

So. I'd go see MC Frontalot again, but only if he's not touring with YTCracker, and I absolutely won't be going back to Swayze's again. Not serving any beverages, let alone alcohol, is kind of whack, but it's an all-ages rock venue in the suburbs, so I can forgive it that--it's trying to do something that most people aren't willing to try to do. However, not warning the performers of a midnight curfew and allowing the headliner to take the stage with only a half hour to perform? Is entirely inexcusable. That was a major fuck-up.

This Friday, I'm going to see Ra Ra Riot with So Many Dynamos in Nashville, and this will almost certainly be my last concert of the year. This show is very nearly guaranteed to rock my face off. I'm excited.