The Wacky Adventures of Con

Ah, Michigan

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:57:22 GMT

How nice to be in Michigan in the summer, if only for a week. As much as I enjoy my life down in Houston, I cannot tell you how happy I am to have the opportunity to get out of there for two weeks during the summer (the second week being Comic-Con coming up at the end of July). When I arrived here on Friday and got to my uncle's new house, he and my mom both complained about it being sunny and "hot". A measure of how I've grown used to being in Houston- it was in the mid-80's and yes, sunny, but I thought it was very pleasant out. On Saturday morning I went running and it was pretty darn humid- but instead of being humid and in the low 90's at 9 in the morning, it was humid and in the low 70's. Going to a place where "summer" doesn't equal hot temperatures with oppressive humidity really makes visiting the place where I lived for the first 30 years of my life feel like a vacation. I'm going to go running again today in a little bit, but it's a cloudy, drizzly day, and it's struggling to get out of the low 60's. That's cool even for Michigan in the summer. :p

We had a family barbeque yesterday. My cousin Susie is getting married in September, so they had a wedding shower for her at a park down in Grosse Pointe. Then the rest of my mom's side of the extended family was invited for the bbq portion. I was shocked that nearly everybody from that side of the family made it out. This side of the family doesn't exactly live close-by anymore, but aside from my cousin's husband who works for the CIA, everybody was there. Unfortunately I have no great goofy stories to tell, because it was a pretty low-key event. None of my uncles got drunk enough to get into an argument, my grandma's annoying old boyfriend didn't say anything highly offensive, and with Eric doing the cooking, the burgers and hot dogs turned out great. Still, it was nice to see everybody. Especially with more of my cousins getting married, we almost never manage to get everyone together at an event, even Christmas.

Busy Weekend!

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:12:09 GMT

I'm heading up to Detroit on Friday for a week visiting my family. It should be fun. :)

On Saturday, Judy and I made a mini-road trip to New Braunfels, Texas, to see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. If it seems like Judy and I go see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers a whole bunch, well, we do. This was the 4th time we've seen them in a little over a year. It would be five, but they're stopping in Houston while we're going to be in San Diego for Comic-Con. :( They played at Gruene Hall, which is the oldest dance hall in Texas. It was originally built in the 1880's, but like the rest of Gruene, was basically abandoned in the early 20th century. People came back into Gruene in the mid-70's and restored it and now the whole little town is a National Historic Place. The hall is a big room that's screened-in on one side and open-air on the other. That other side includes a dirt yard filled with picnic tables, and the bar only serves beer, wine, and sangria. It was a very down-home kind of place and a really cool spot to see a show.

Clyne was great, as always. They change their setlist every night, so you never see exactly the same concert, but they do play a lot of the same songs from night to night. And with a resume now that includes 7 albums worth of material, there are a lot of great songs they almost never play when you see them. So we were pretty stoked when they told us they were going to speak to the management at the end of the night and try to book a Friday-Saturday weekend later in the year. Getting to see them on two days in a row would hopefully give us a chance to hear those half-dozen great songs they never seem to play. I'm thinking, if it happens, about bringing a posterboard with a list of those songs on it, holding it up, and crossing them off one by one if they play 'em. :p

Hotels that were close to Gruene were all sold out by the time I went to make reservations, so we ended up staying in Seguin in a Holiday Inn just off the highway. It was a decent place, but the Chili's across the street where we went for dinner was slooow. So that pretty much ruined our plan to check out the rest of Gruene before the concert. I ended up drinking a lot of water at the show, plus two big Cokes at Chili's, plus half of a 20 oz. bottle of Mt. Dew at the end of the night. So I embarrassingly ended up having to get up 5-6 times during the night to have to pee. I felt really bad because I probably woke Judy up every time I got up, but I couldn't just hold it and go back to sleep. Speaking of going to the bathroom, on the way home yesterday we stopped at Buc-ee's store, just off the highway, to get some bottled water. They advertise on billboards how great their bathrooms are, and Judy went and claims that they really are that amazing. And then the Sunday Q&A column in the Houston Chronicle also mentioned how great the bathrooms are. So, next time I head to San Antonio or New Braunfels, I guess I need to make another stop at Buc-ee's and actually go into the bathroom to see for myself.

After that restless Saturday night, I had to deal with being tired and feeling sort of queasy for most of the day yesterday. It wasn't the most fun drive back, but at least it was easy. I managed to do the whole trip on one tank of gas, 380 miles on 11.5 gallons. It's the best gas mileage I've gotten in six years of owning my Honda Civic. Yesterday was also Jenn's birthday, so we went to see Get Smart, which was funnier than most reviews are saying and a really great update of the franchise. We also watched Boy Meets Girl, a Canadian indie movie from '99 starring Sean Astin. It was cute, despite being a little over the top, and Judy was incredulous when I confirmed that the movie was taking place in Toronto just from hearing the sound of change hitting the table in a coffee shop. Anybody who's been around Canadian currency, though, knows there's a big difference between the sound of quarters, dimes, and nickels hitting a hard surface vs. looneys and twoneys hitting it.

Then I went to bed about midnight and slept for 8 1/2 hours without getting up once. And I feel normal today. There is my ridiculously over-detailed post for the month.

Nice!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:06:24 GMT

Last night, The Roots played a show in Houston and I did not go, despite not having anything else to do. This seemed a little odd to me because I've liked The Roots for years and have never gotten to see them live. Despite their reputation as hip-hop's best live act for many reasons, not the least of which is that they're a live band instead of a couple of dudes rapping to backing tracks. But for some reason, I couldn't decide whether to go or not. My attempt to get a free press ticket via PopMatters didn't work, and I just couldn't summon up much excitement. I dunno what the deal was, but I decided that since I couldn't figure out why I wasn't enthusiastic, I stayed home and saved the $30 ticket price and the gas.

On the other side of show news, Coheed & Cambria just posted a MySpace bulletin saying that their show at a casino outside of San Diego on the Sunday night of Comic-Con will have shuttle service leaving from the Convention Center! And tickets for the show are only $12. When they announced the date, I looked at the shuttle options that the casino provided at various points around San Diego, and it didn't look promising. But now that they've announced shuttle service, I'm definitely going. I imagine Scott and Judy will come along, and we'll probably drag Jenn, too, since it will be a nice evening outside instead of in a smoky, too-loud concert hall somewhere.

I got myself out to exercise yesterday. Since it's still miserable outside I decided to use the stationary bike inside the fitness room. I rode for 30 minutes (also did 15 reps on each arm on the 30-pound weights), but unfortunately the electronics on the bike no longer seem to work, so I couldn't set the resistance for gears or anything, but I did get a good workout. It's thundering out right now, so I'll probably go ride again a little later. I definitely feel the soreness today from not using a bike for months.

Ugh, Summer in Houston

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:25:16 GMT

I was tired tonight, so I went to be relatively early. When I got up shortly after 8, I checked the temperature, and it was only 75º. I decided it would be a good morning to get off my ass and go out for a run, since I'm still not getting enough exercise. Twice a week, maybe. As soon as I stepped outside, I was sweating. Clearly, the typical Houston summer humidity has returned. We had a period of 3-4 days last week when I actually went running in the afternoon because although it was hot, the humidity was gone for a few days. Still, I managed to do the planned 2.5 miles, but for the first time this year, I had to turn down the shower until it was basically putting out cold water isntead of hot. Ugh. This is why people try not to go outside in Texas in the summer. Even in the air-conditioned apartment, I'm not exactly comfortable. I would be more comfortable if the maintenance people had put up the new ceiling fan that I bought on Memorial Day weekend! But still, it sits on the floor, inside of the box, just waiting. I need to stop by the office today and complain about that.

Swimming and Izzard

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:32:53 GMT

This morning, I am a little sore. I ran from here over to Judy and Jenn's place yesterday afternoon, about 2.5 miles, and didn't do any stretching afterwards. But I'm usually okay without stretching if I run less than 3 miles. And the soreness is in my upper legs, in muscles that aren't used too much in running. So I can only conclude that the time we spent in the neighborhood pool is responsible for the soreness. We went swimming there on Sunday afternoon and it was the first time I'd really been swimming in a couple of years. Once I got over the embarrassment of my fat belly and ugly-looking back, it was a lot of fun! We took Evelyn along and she really seemed to enjoy it. On Sunday, I did two laps of the pool (25 meter-length, half of Olympic-size), and I was surprised at how worn out it made me. It really had been a long time. But yesterday I did 6 laps over the course of the day and it was easier. But it must've been enough of a workout, 'cause I feel the soreness today. But that's good, too, because it's a lot easier to swim in the middle of summer in Houston for a workout than it is to run in the heat. Ugh.

We also went to see Eddie Izzard do a stand-up show last night. Jenn and Judy are gigantic Eddie Izzard stand-up fans, and have been for years. I've seen a few of his videos, and generally enjoy him, but truthfully I'm a bigger fan of him as an actor. His show last night was well-worth seeing, though. He had me laughing a hell of a lot in places, and I was extremely impressed because he talked for a full 2 hours! No water with him onstage or anything. I can't even talk for like 15-20 minutes before I need some water. :p Seriously, I was hoping for a 90-minute show, and he went way beyond that. I'm sort of bummed now that I didn't go see him in Detroit a few years back on his last U.S. tour, but nobody wanted to go with me back then.

Hooray!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:38:58 GMT

My youngest brother Steve called tonight to let me know that he'd been hired for a teaching job! He just graduated from Western Michigan University and has been sending in applications and doing interviews far and wide. He did a videoconferencing interview with a district in Oregon last week and they called today to let him know they were offering him the job. He's going to be teaching band in Florence, Oregon. It's on the west coast of the state, about an hour from Eugene. So I guess that would count as getting a job in the far and wide. His girlfriend Rebecca is going to go with him, so he won't be completely on his own in a new place.

Man, I thought I was moving far away from home when I came down here to Houston two years ago. But Steve is going even further away. I'm really happy he was able to get a job so early, though. When I got my first job, I wasn't hired until well into August. He gets most of the summer to plan and prepare, and since he'll be doing all band for the entire (relatively small) district, he's gonna need that time.

Summer Vacation, Ghetto Arcade and Mini Golf, and ACL Festival

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:31:57 GMT

School is over! I have removed everything I need and gone over the official list and I am done. Kids left by 11:30 in the morning yesterday, and after lunch I worked from 1-3:30 organizing, cleaning, checking equipment back in, etc. I wasn't sure if I had been too lazy over the last week and a half and left too much to do, but turns out I hadn't. I was able to get everything done in an afternoon, so I don't really have to go back to the school until teachers report on August 20. So that is very nice. Clearly, since I got up a little past 8am, I'm not quite in full summer vacation mode yet, but that will come soon.

Judy asked me if I wanted to do anything special to celebrate being done. I said, "Hey, let's check out the Zuma Fun Center and see what that's like." Malorie was online a few weeks ago raving about her Zuma in North Carolina, so we had started thinking maybe the one by us, which we always pass by when driving places, was actually worth going to. Tuesday is their special day, $12 for unlimited video games and mini golf, so off we went. Turns out the place is really run down. About half of the video games in the arcade were turned off, and many of the ones that were turned on didn't work right. Like shooting games where the gun doesn't work. Judy tried a hunting game and the gun actually shot, but it only hit the exact center of the screen. There are about 6 Ski-ball machines, and only one of them was operating. Not because the rest were broken, we figured out, but because they only had 3 actual balls left in the entire place. The bucket of balls for mini golf had about a dozen to choose from, all white, except for the really grimy-looking sea green ball. And the apathy was contagious! We only found one adult-sized golf club at the counter, but once we got near the course, there were another 5-6 of them just lying around, left there by people. The mini-golf itself was a little old in some places, but at least it was actually playable. So, we won't be going back to Zuma again. Ever.

The Austin City Limits Festival schedule came out yesterday, and although the overall lineup doesn't match last year's, the good news is that I'll be able to see everybody I want this year. The ACL people haven't scheduled any conflicts between the groups I really want to watch, so props to them. They've also spread them out evenly over the three days, too, so there won't nearly be as many dead spots as last year. This makes me happy. http://www.aclfestival.com/schedule/day1.htm

Exercise

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:28:36 GMT

I went running yesterday morning. It was the only time I ran this past week. Now that it's summer in Houston, it's that much harder to get the motivation to get out there in the heat and run. And I really do hate the treadmill, although the stationary bike is alright. But school ends on Tuesday, so I'm hoping to get up and get out running in the mornings or later in the evening. I'm about to have a lot of time on my hands and it's ridiculous to think I can't get in some exercise 4-5 times a week, even in the Texas heat.

So yeah, I have two days of school left. There are things I need to clean up and get organized over these couple of days, because I really don't wanna hang around the school more than I have to- especially not with summer school starting the day after regular school gets out. I'm ready for the summer, but on the other hand, I'm not exactly in the summer mindset yet. I'm still thinking of the things I need to get through even though it's really pretty much over. I'm sure by the time my 2-week Orff training class comes around in July, though, it will be no fun getting up at 6:30 or earlier to get down to that class.

Caught Up and Weddings

Mon, 26 May 2008 20:11:48 GMT

I just finished writing my review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull over on my review blog at http://reviewingchris.livejournal.com. I liked the movie, but that isn't the point of this entry. I'm actually caught up with my reviews at this moment! Anybody who has my review blog on their friends' list or visits it probably knows that I go to a lot of movies and almost as many concerts. So many that I basically gave up reviewing new albums a while ago because I just couldn't handle the load. Well, I'm back reviewing albums, but only for popmatters.com, which means that most of the cd's I personally buy goes unremarked upon because I still don't have the time.

But the arrival of my 5-day Memorial Day break has allowed me to sit down and do a bunch of writing, so for the next 90 minutes, the review blog will be current. Until I go out to see another movie with Judy that starts at 4:30 pm. And I have a free pass to the critics' screening of The Strangers tomorrow night. A movie that I would not have paid for but am perfectly willing to give a chance to since I get to see it for free. So the point is that this moment of triumph will be short-lived, but since I only have 6 more days of school for the year, hopefully this brief catch-up will let me be much more current with the reviews this summer. I'm sure I'll get plenty behind once school starts up again in late August, though. But I may be almost like a real critic with timely reviews during the summer movie season! Hopefully...

I went to the wedding of one of Judy's childhood friends last night. It was a beautiful, albeit short (15 minutes!) ceremony, and the rest of the night was a lot of fun. I was happy to go along and really glad that Judy managed to enjoy herself, because I know she was nervous about going to a wedding as her divorce process starts to get rolling. On Saturday night, we went out to the "Fiesta" (actually a couples' shower) for my colleague Angie, and that was fun, too. It was a rather small gathering since it was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but Angie had a really good time, and I think her fiancé did, too. Her wedding is in about 3 weeks, and it's outside, so we're hoping that it's just about as short as Anh's was, so we can get inside the air-conditioning as fast as possible.

Hanging Around

Tue, 20 May 2008 00:02:58 GMT

Judy and I went to see the Houston Roller Derby last night. It's a 4-team league, and unlike the roller derby that used to air on tv, it's a real sport. It's all girls now, which I guess gives the sport a certain simultaneous sexist/girl power appeal. I guess they thought that they couldn't draw a crowd if it was just a bunch of dudes rolling around hitting each other. But the girl thing is working, I guess, since there are dozens of these small leagues in cities around the country now. Anyway, they compete on a flat track, which is frankly much easier and cheaper to set up than a banked track. Apparently all you need to make a flat roller derby track is a bunch of skate-friendly tiles and some colored tape. They take out the seats at the medium-sized theater downtown and put up their track. They had a few rows of seats around the track as well as space to sit on the floor right on the edge of the "crash zone", but we decided to head up to the balcony to get the view from above.

This turned out to be a good call, as we got to watch the action all around the track and figure out exactly what the rules were. I already had a pretty good idea about most of them, but there were some idiosyncrasies that took a bit to figure out. But once we did, the whole thing was a lot of fun. There were two matches going on, one between a Houston team and an Austin team, and another between two of the Houston teams. They run it so the first match goes for a half, then they rest and the second match goes for a half. Then they have halftime and they come back out and play their respective second halves in the same order. For $10 (plus $6 parking), it was a pretty great deal, so we are definitely planning on heading back to see them again.

I also went to see Radiohead on Saturday night, which was very cool. Their light show was amazing and the band themselves were awesome. They only gripe I had was that the setlist was very heavy on In Rainbows and Kid A. Not that there isn't good stuff on those albums, but they only played 4 songs total from The Bends and OK Computer, and "Street Spirit" was the only great song of the four. So, no "Paranoid Android", "Airbag", "Exit Music", "No Suprises", "Fake Plastic Trees", "Just" or "My Iron Lung." So that was a bummer, but really, despite the amount of griping I just did, it was a really good show.

School's almost over. I'm so ready to be done.

And....Release

Wed, 07 May 2008 03:41:40 GMT

Had my spring concerts at school today. Two shows, one in the morning during school, one in the evening. Things went pretty smoothly and there were no major issues. And now I can relax. They were the biggest events I had done at school, time-wise. We had the second grade musical, the choir, and the tone chimes group all play and it lasted for about an hour. So it was a pretty major undertaking. But now there are 17 days of school left for the year and I can basically relax. And Judy came over to hang out afterwards and we watched some of The Office and Reaper. Yay!

We (me, Judy, and Jenn) went to see Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy) last weekend. She was showing one of her films and doing a Q&A afterwards. The film (Liars, Lovers, and Lunatics) wasn't great- something about burglars holding a dysfunctional family hostage, don't bother to track it down, just rent the awesome Denis Leary-Kevin Spacey flick The Ref instead- but the Q&A was very fun. Amber was very nice and funny, and she tended to ramble on with long stories when she answered a question. I got to ask her my question about the terrible B-movie Intermedio, a horror flick about a group of kids running around a mine. In it, Amber was wearing a cast on one leg that was never mentioned in the script. So I asked about what had happened to her foot before the movie and got a story about how her mom rolled a garbage can full of concrete over her foot, fracturing it in multiple places and causing her to have a months-long hospital stay. But the movie offer came right in the middle of her convalescence, and they didn't care that she had a hurt foot. So she did the movie anyway. Heh.

Time for a Post

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:45:31 GMT

It's been a while since the last update here. Things continue to go well. I had my year-end evaluation meeting with my principal this week (a mere two weeks after the post-observation meeting, but whatever), and it was very good. I have my final concerts in about a week, so I'm busy getting the kids all ready for that. And as of right now, there are a mere 24 school days left in the year. Hooray!

We went to see the Kids in the Hall live last week, and it was hilarious! They're in the middle of touring the U.S., so if you've ever been a fan of theirs, I give the show my highest recommendation. The show was 90% all new material, too, which was a huge change from their 2000 live tour where they had a total on one new sketch (which was completely derailed and ruined by a heckler when I saw that show). So go see it. Some of their famous recurring characters do make appearances, like Buddy Cole, Kathy and Cathy, the Chicken Lady, and Gavin. I won't spoil any of the new bits, but it was all pretty good to awesome.

What else, what else...going out to do an anime showing tonight as well as probably seeing Harold and Kumar. I'm looking forward to that. And tomorrow Judy and I will probably go out to the art theaters and do a double feature of Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? and Young@Heart. And next week the real fun starts with Iron Man and the coming of the summer movies. I heart summer movie season. Although, to be honest, I really never stop going out to the movies, no matter what time of year it is. Oh, and I'm going to see Between the Buried and Me and the band 3 tomorrow night. Both bands will be on the Progressive Nation tour with Dream Theater and Opeth, but since Dream Theater are apparently a bunch of dicks, that tour actually won't be stopping anywhere in the American south that isn't in a state that borders the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean (translation- they're playing California, Atlanta, and Florida, but nowhere else south of Virginia and Ohio. I'm glad that BTBAM aren't dicks, I'll be happy to see them again.

Time to Talk Austin City Limits Festival

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:01:15 GMT

Well, the lineup came out today (although not the schedule, of course), and I think it looks pretty solid. Which is good, because I have my ticket already. No, it's not as awesome as Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza this year, but it rarely is. And I lament the absence of the awesome Battles in the lineup, since they are playing literally every other major festival this summer. And I really like them and want to see them live. Otherwise, here are the acts I'm most excited about seeing:

Gnarls Barkley, Beck, Neko Case, Drive-By Truckers, Against Me!, Band of Horses, The Mars Volta, Foo Fighters, N.E.R.D., and Jenny Lewis.

The Mars Volta makes me especially happy, because it's the perfect setting for me to see them in. I own all their albums, but I skipped their show in Houston last night. I'm afraid that instead of hearing great musicians play rocking songs, I'll hear a bunch of great musicians randomly noodling for the better part of 2 1/2 hours and be bored as hell. This way, I get to see them among a pile of other acts for 60-90 minutes, and don't have to feel ripped off.

The second tier of interesting acts for me are as follows:

Vampire Weekend, John Fogerty, David Byrne, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Yonder Mountain String Band, Gogol Bordello, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, The Raconteurs, The Black Keys, Yeasayer, Iron & Wine, Tegan and Sara, Erykah Badu, Galactic, Okkervil River, and the South Austin Jug Band.

It's not quite as "OMG that's Great" as last year, but there are plenty of bands to look forward to, many of whom I've never seen live.

Some Things

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:34:54 GMT

Okay, we had a little conversation here about movies and shows being filmed in New Mexico last week. And I was curious to find out that both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood had been filmed there. Because here in Houston, whenever those two films were mentioned in the newspaper, they talked about how both of them were filmed out in west Texas.

Turns out that most of No Country, besides the scenes in the wilderness, were indeed filmed in New Mexico. But There Will Be Blood was filmed entirely in Texas and California, and not in NM as was believed by the New Mexicans around here. Ticky's former paper, the Albuquerque Journal, even had to blog a correction about it here: http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/content/view/6046/2/ Not a huge deal overall, but it was an interesting look at the Texas/New Mexico "rivalry" and how each state emphasizes "movies mad here!" and sorta ignores the other state.

I bought my first of two summer plane tickets this morning. After not being able to find a flight under $350 when looking last week, I was able to find a flight for $274.50 to Detroit for the end of June- 4th of July. I'm leaving Friday morning, June 27, and coming back in the afternoon of July 5. Should be a good trip and I was glad to get a decent price. I felt like I had to jump on it now or it might be back to annoyingly high prices the way the airlines are going right now. I still need to buy my San Diego (Comic-Con, yay!) ticket, but early indications are that I'll be able to get one for under $300 there, too. There goes my hope of getting the credit card debt back under $3,000 this month, but with a little luck, I'll get there by June.

I was bored last night, so I bugged Judy into coming over for a while, even though she was feeling icky. We watched this week's The Office (I'm very happy The Office is back, but damn was "The Dinner Party" a depressing episode!) and another episode of Invisible Man. Then we ended up just hanging out on the couch for a couple of hours and chatting. Turned out to be a very good night. Tonight, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead is playing a one-off show here in Houston at Numbers. Since I've never gotten to see them live before, I'm gonna try to go. Hopefully they'll mostly ignore the Worlds Apart album in the set. That way I'll enjoy the show more.

Today was a Good Day

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:42:42 GMT

I had my post-observation meeting with my principal today. Sure, it came more than a month after the actual observation, but that was okay. Nearly everything she had to say to me was positive and generally really good. She loved the lesson and how I taught it. So that was a nice way to start out the day. I've already signed my contract for next year, and I found out that she will find a way to pay for my $100 summer workshop with school money. And we set down a date for my final concert of the year, which was exactly the date I was expecting.

I also brought in my French horn to play for the students today, which is always fun. The kids love it, even the jaded 5th graders. And they all love it when I finish my presentation by playing the theme song from Star Wars. And I finally remembered to call and make dentist and optometrist appointments, which may not seem like a big deal, but since I'm on my last pair of disposable contacts, I need to get some new ones pretty quickly.

I got a letter from a new media research group called IMMI today. They want me to be in on their market research stuff, which amounts to them giving me a special new cell phone that monitors everything I watch and listen to. But the phone is free and I get to keep my number and they'll pay the cancellation fee for Verizon. So...I get to matter in the ratings process and save $50 a month on cell phone bills. I think I'm gonna do it.

Spring Break is Relaxing

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:27:02 GMT

This week is my spring break. And although it's a week after the big SXSW festival in Austin, I'm still taking a trip over there on Friday night so me and Judy can go see Roger Clyne. Who isn't stopping in Houston this time as he comes through Texas. We're hoping that maybe a Friday night show in Austin will draw more than the few dozen, maybe 100 people that came out to the Continental Club on Sunday nights about a year ago and again last fall.

My brother Scott came down to visit and hang out for the week. He's taking a week off of work now, since they wouldn't let him over Christmas. We don't really have much in the way of plans, besides seeing some movies (Rambo at the cheapie theater, Doomsday on Sunday, and probably Horton Hears a Who tonight) and playing video games. He's also catching up on reading all of the comic books that have come out in the last few months that he hasn't read. We're big dorks. I might talk him into doing something interesting like going down to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

I'm still writing music reviews for PopMatters.com. I'm getting about one a week posted on the site, but you won't notice me unless I link, because they run a lot of music reviews. Still, it's nice to be doing the writing gig on a semi-professional basis now. Things are going very well in my personal life now, too, as any sharp-eyed reader of the boards and some specific blogs will be able to figure out. But I'm trying not to come out and make any pronouncements or anything for reasons that will be obvious to those in the know. And if none of that made sense to you, just ignore it for now.

I Forgot How Awesome Rocket From the Crypt Was

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 01:06:10 GMT

Just got their new cd/dvd R.I.P., the live document of their final show on Halloween 2005. Damn, these guys were a fantastic band. Punk rock energy, horn section, and really good songwriting. I guess now would be a good time to mention that I'm annoyed at my brother Steve all over again for losing a choice selection of my cd's a few summers ago while working a painting job. RTFC's Scream, Dracula, Scream! was among them, and these days it's out of print. Which also means that digital services like iTunes and Amazon's digital store don't have it either because Interscope retains the rights to the album.

I'm also drowning in new cd's right now. The PopMatters gig is starting to take off, and I received 3 new cd's just this week. Add that to the two albums (RFTC and the new Mike Doughty) that I got from Amazon today, plus the four cd's Marty burned for me and the new Flogging Molly that came out this week. Plus the new Nada Surf disc and They Might Be Giants kids' albums, and I bought TMBG's Venue Songs cd/dvd at the show on Thursday. It's a lot to listen to, but with spring break a week away, I may get some time to get to it all.

I get to review Porcupine Tree's Nil Recurring EP for the website, which is cool because I now have a physical copy of it. I acquired it on the internet when it came out in the fall because it only had an extremely limited print run, and the record company is charging full album price for a 4-song disc. Which I will definitely be complaining about in the review. :p

Oh, and after all the whining about feeling crappy, I'm doing quite a bit better today.

Ohhhhhh

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:01:28 GMT

I've felt kind of icky this week. I'm not sure what's going on with me. At first I thought it was allergies, and it may well be. I think it started late Tuesday night when I was tired and hungry after going to see the Lucy exhibit and then was exhausted and sort of coughy on Wednesday. I went out running after school and my throat was raw, and then I was tired for most of the night. Yesterday was They Might Be Giants, but I had lost maybe 70% of my voice by the end of the school day. I also started getting oddly cold during the day. It wasn't chills as I think of them, there was no shivering or waves of cold involved. It was just like, "wow, I'm cold." And this continued into the night at the concert as it was a chilly night, we were near the back of the room, and they had the doors open. This annoying feeling of cold has continued today, and frankly it makes me feel like my mom, who always seems to be freezing even if the room is fine to the rest of us. I'm hoping it's temporary.

I also had some weirdness with my left leg hurting this week. Annoying pain in the thigh region, like it was falling asleep, but sharper. This has been happening on and off for a week or two, but not enough to really think about. But on Wednesday and Thursday it happened to be "on" most of the days and barely "off" at all. But that feeling has really subsided today, so I'm hoping it doesn't recur. If it does, though, I may have to find a doctor here in Houston. I should probably just get a physical anyway, it's been years since I've had one.

So aside from the sickness stuff, which is notable because I rarely get sick at all- except last year during allergy season- so it probably goes back to that. Texas has stuff that I'm allergic to, apparently. I never had these kind of problems in Michigan.

We went out to the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Tuesday to see the Lucy exhibit. Lucy is one of the best-preserved specimens of a fossilized ancestor of humans. She's like 3 million years old and was the oldest skeleton of its type when it was discovered back in '74 (although not the oldest anymore). Houston made a controversial deal with Ethiopia to transport it out of the country for exhibit for the first time ever. Many people were very upset that they would shamelessly take it out of its home country, but whatever. It wasn't damaged at all in the transport, and I got to see it, so I don't really care. We took the behind-the-scenes tour, which was extremely detailed (okay, just a bit too detailed for my taste, but not by much) and definitely cooler than just walking through it on our own. Turns out there's a lot of cool regular stuff at the museum, but they were closed when the tour ended at 8, so we didn't get to look around at all. We'll have to go back at some point.

Last night was indeed the They Might Be Giants concert, which was great. It had been 6.5 years since I'd seen them, and it was awesome to see them play again. The setlist also contained some great rarities, notably my favorite B-sides/Misc. T songs "Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal" and "It's Not My Birthday." We were supposed to meet up with a couple of people at the show, but as per usual, we did not find any of them. Next Tuesday is Flogging Molly, though, and my friend Isaac from the anime meetup group is gonna be there. He's a very large Mexican guy, so we don't expect there to be any trouble at all finding him at the show.

Austin and a Punk Rock Show

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:09:42 GMT

Hey there, it's been a while. We went out to Austin this weekend and hung out with my friends Marty and Tonya again. A great time was had by all. We went to see the Master Pancake guys make fun of Back to the Future, and in the process found out that the second theater at the new Alamo Drafthouse downtown is way bigger than the first one. It was a hilarious show, although maybe not at the same heights as Roadhouse. But Roadhouse is possibly the perfect bad-yet-entertaining B movie, and Back to the Future remains a pretty good movie on its own.

We also watched the first film from Cinematic Titanic, which is basically everybody else who was involved with MST3k who isn't part of The Film Crew. The movie they riff on is called The Oozing Skull, and it's a pretty fun one. I'd rate Joel and friends at just about the same level as The Film Crew, though. Quite funny, but not yet up to the best MST's. On Sunday we went out for a delicious breakfast and walked around the University of Texas, which is a very nice campus.

Oh, I had the second part of my official observation for the year last week. My principal told me afterwards that I did a fabulous job. It's nice to get vindication that I've had the ability to teach music all along. I always knew I just needed to find the right situation, and this is it.

Last night Judy and I went to see NOFX. The show was a ton of fun, as the ratio of NOFX's music-playing to banter is basically 1:1 these days. Luckily they are very funny guys, so the banter parts of the show were great. The setlist was strong, too, with classics like Leave it Alone, Lori Myers, Stickin' in My Eye, and Perfect Government, and newer stuff like Dinosaurs Will Die and Separation of Church and Skate. The clear highlight of the show, though, was The Decline played in its entirety. All 15+ minutes of it, minus the key change in the fadeout at the very end. It was awesome.

Next week is They Might Be Giants, the week after that is Flogging Molly, then the next week we're going back to Austin to see Roger Clyne, then the next week is Moe. It's good that the spring concert season is pretty full this year.

Conventioneering

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:15:41 GMT

I'm back from San Antonio, where I had an enjoyable few days at the TMEA convention. I went to workshops, some of which were educational and interesting. A few were dull and boring. I also attended a few concerts, by a couple of "elementary" honor choirs (do they really count as elementary if they include 6th graders?) and by the Lamar University Wind Ensemble. The Lamar group was great, their program was well-chosen. A Gabrieli brass piece, Rhapsody in Blue, Charles Ives' Intercollegiate March, the premiere of a wind transcription of a new piece named Ave Maria, and a piece called Raise the Roof (for timpani and wind ensemble- it features a solo timpani player, and it was extremely cool).

I also have to give a huge shout-out to Judy for coming through for me while I was gone. She got online Thursday morning and got us Radiohead tickets for their Houston show! Even though she really doesn't know any of their music. I'll make sure she does by the time we go to the concert. I found out after I got home today that the tickets went onsale at the Radiohead website at right around 8 a.m. and were quickly gone, so she got on there at exactly the right time. Hooray Radiohead and Judy!

Frustration!

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:49:01 GMT

Life things are pretty good right now. There's a few issues which have to be sorted through which are not small, but I'm not going to discuss them here at the moment.

No, this post is about music. There's an awesome, awesome tour coming up this spring. Dream Theater is bringing Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, and Three on tour with them. The first three of those bands are spectacular, and Three isn't bad themselves. If I still lived in Detroit, I would be attending this show. However, since I live in Houston, I apparently won't have the opportunity. Supposedly Dream Theater has a long history of screwing over Texas, this past summer's tour was the first one they had done here in years. And after that brief reprieve, it seems they're going to return to that pattern. So there's no Houston date. In fact, the closest the tour gets to anywhere in the south is Atlanta and Florida.

Even though I've seen all 4 of those bands live in the past, the prospect of seeing them all in the same show was really, really exciting and I've been pumped about this tour since it was announced back in November. Now I'm just very frustrated.

A Post of Interest!

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:16:11 GMT

I'm bummed that the Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl and finish the perfect season. It's disappointing to me, but probably not to the legions of people who hate the Patriots. But I hate the smug assholes of the '72 Dolphins even more, and it bums me out that they're somewhere popping the champagne right now.

I went to see There Will Be Blood today (enjoyed it, didn't love it), so I missed the first half of the game and whatever awesome commercials there were in the first half. Oh well, I don't feel too bad about that at all.

It's February 3rd, and it made it up to 80 degrees here in Houston today. Some people love that, I'm not one of them. I still prefer it to be cool in the winter. I check the forecast, just hoping for nights when the low creeps in the low 30's around here. I suppose I lived in Michigan for too long, and the actual seasons are one of the things I miss most while living here.

Things continue to go well at school. I get officially observed this week, but that's not too much to worry about- I'm looking forward to actually teaching music this week, too. Last week was a lot of testing and virtually no teaching.

Oh, and the big news. I've been "hired" (no pay so I'm not sure that's the right term) to be a music reviewer for http://www.popmatters.com. This is a great pop-culture review site so I'm pretty excited about it. I'll be getting free cd's to review, and possibly I'll get to branch out to other stuff eventually. I'll let you guys know when my first review pops up. But I'm getting the chance to get out beyond my little review blog, and that's exciting.

I Feel Like I Need to Post

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:08:47 GMT

It's been quite a while since I've made one. Although I continue to update reviewingchris, so you can click over there to see my favorite albums of 2007. I decided to hold off on the movie list until the end of January this year so I could see those Oscar movies that don't get released outside of New York and LA until now.

Things at school are going really well right now, so that's good. Nothing much to complain about. My mom had a couple of scares over the past week, but it's looking like she will not need a hysterectomy and that she likely does not have breast cancer. So hooray for that!

You Came Up With the Breeze

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:19:32 GMT

Yes, it's Sunday morning. And I haven't made an entry in a long time. I had a great time up north over the Christmas break, and it was nice to come back down here with 5 more days left in vacation. We had to go back to school on Thursday, which kind of sucked, but hey, a 2-day week isn't too bad. So now I'm just having a lazy Sunday, trying to figure out what I'm gonna teach this week.

I got a lot of video games for Christmas, and bought a lot of cd's with gift cards and stuff. So I've been trying to play and listen to a lot over the past week. I was gonna start Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on my DS but I ended up playing through nearly all of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin instead. I've had that game since last Christmas, but never got that far in it. I wasn't in the mood right after finishing the first DS Castlevania game.

Judy and I went over to see her friends Anh and Michael on New Year's Eve and it was a lot of fun! Judy started playing Guitar Hero there and quickly got hooked. So now she has her own guitar so she can come over and play and stuff even though she doesn't own a PS2, so that's cool and kind of surprising. We also finished watching Dexter season 1 over the break. Dexter is a great show. Makes me want to dump my HBO subscription and get Showtime instead.

With the writers' strike and lack of new programming, I've started to catch up on Torchwood. I recorded the entire first season on my DVR but didn't get around to anything beyond the premiere episode until Christmas break. I'm on episode 5 now and it's pretty entertaining. I'm not sure why it's taken so much shit from my group of friends. Sure it's no Doctor Who, but it's solid. Maybe it goes completely off the rails later on, I dunno. Right now I'd put it about on the same level as Blood Ties, another entertaining genre show that wasn't great but was fun to watch.

Speaking of new programming, the new version of American Gladiators premieres tonight. I'm very excited about this because I was a huge fan of the original show back in the day. Should be a lot of fun.

Boxing Day in America

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:41:16 GMT

Some retail expert was quoted in the paper yesterday about how the Commonwealth countries have boxing day on December 26, and how in the United States December 26 has become gift card redemption day. I have $45 worth of Best Buy gift cards and I do intend to use them today, so maybe he's right.

Christmas was nice. We used to do my family, then my dad's side of the family, then my mom's side of the family all in one day. But starting last year, we are now doing my dad's side of the family on Christmas Eve. So we went over to my grandma's house and opened presents and had dinner there, then me, my dad, and my brother Steve went to a local church where we've been playing for the last few years to play Christmas carols with my uncle. We're a brass quartet and we play for about a 1/2 hour before the 10pm service, then usually two quick songs with the choir at the beginning of the service and we're out of there by 10:15. It's a nice and easy way to earn $150 and worth lugging my French horn all the way up from Houston.

Christmas day is now more relaxed with only one stop for the day. So we opened presents in the morning here at my parents' place and then headed off to my aunt and uncle's about 2pm. Opened more presents over there and had dinner and talked to the extended family. It was good to see everybody again and to answer the generic question "How's Texas?" over and over again.

I got a bunch of stuff that I asked for, including the Hot Fuzz 3-disc edition and Super Mario Galaxy and Nights for the Wii. And a bunch of other stuff. It's gonna take some work to repack everything for the way home, but I still have 2 days left here in Michigan.