Goings on and what nots

Last Saturday we all went to go see the new Harry Potter movie and it was awesome! We saw the matinee and I was fully expecting obnoxious children to be everywhere, but surprisingly the kids were well behaved. Maybe because it’s PG-13 and not a little kid movie. It’s been too long since I read the book, I’ll have to read it again soon. I won’t say anything else so as not to spoil it for those who haven’t gone yet. We went to Souplantation for dinner and they had veggie black bean chili! Made my night (I’m easy to please).

Sunday I learned how to play regular dominos at the neighbors’ place, as opposed to Mexican train dominos, which looks like this:



Regular dominos has some of The Math, but I think I got it down sort of. I also did a great job of sticking to my healthier eating habits by drinking almost an entire bottle of Pinot Noir by myself and eating about half a pizza. Yeah, there are anti-oxidants in the wine, and there were vegetables on the pizza. ‘Nuff said.

I am going home for the Thanksgiving and my parents live in the stone age without the internets (and no cable or satellite TV. Whatever will I do!). Right now it is 33 degrees in good ‘ol Hudson, WI but it feels like 29, because 33 isn’t cold enough doncha know. Rain/snow mix predicted, overnight lows in the teens. Right now it looks like the temp won’t crack 40 the whole time I’ll be home. Always good to be reminded of why I put up with LA. I’ll be back next Tuesday. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours y’all!

They grow up so fast...

My sister just sent out proofs of her engagement photos. Look how adorable! They will make such cute babies. I can’t believe the wedding is less than a year away now. How things change…I am getting old.

Never Trust A Prankster

This is a picture of the Merry Pranksters’ Further bus that we snapped on our way out of Vegas (I think photo credit goes to TBone?). There was a 40th Anniversary Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test held in Vegas on Halloween night, but some of us had to work on Tuesday so we missed out :~( But it’s so cool that we randomly ended up rolling next to this bus on the Vegas strip! I checked out this site and it looks like we missed quite the party. Michael Kang of SCI performed with Bassnectar. Bet that was cool. The event was thrown by thrown by Zane Kesey (son of Ken Kesey). Why does work make me miss all the cool stuff?

Hey You Got Me Rockin' Now

I heart you Mick! <3

This last Tuesday Jason and I were treated to a Rolling Stones concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The tix were a birthday present from Jason’s dad. I went straight from work and ended up beating everyone getting there around 6:30. They finally arrived and Jason and I went off to find our seats. We had the “cheap” (yet really not cheap in any way) tickets landing us allllll the way at the top of the Bowl (nose bleed section, I started getting lightheaded from the elevation as we climbed up to our section), but it was a nice gift so I will not complain. This was the first time I’d been to the Bowl when it was sold out and damn there were so many freakin' people! Serious traffic jams (pedestrian and car) getting in and out of there.

The opening act was seriously lame. Some blond chick (she needed to dye her roots in the worst way) running around stage and singing “ooooo oooo” and “owww owoww owwww”. I think she might have stubbed her toe on something. BORING! At least we were way in the back where the sound wasn’t very loud and we could make fun of her without having to scream. It took them about an hour to set up for the Stones after that. More sitting around and twiddling our thumbs listening to some Beverly Hills chicks behind us discuss how many calories they had just consumed in cheese and where they would get their couture gowns for an upcoming party.

Around 8:45 they finally took the stage! Here’s the set list:

1. Start Me Up
2. Shattered
3. She's So Cold
4. Tumbling Dice
5. Rough Justice
6. Rain Fell Down
7. Won't Take Long (1st time!)
8. Bitch
9. Night Time (Ray Charles cover! Awesome.)
10. Slipping Away
11. Infamy
12. You Got Me Rockin'
13. As Tears Go By
14. Get Off My Cloud
15. Sympathy For The Devil
16. Paint It Black
17. Honky Tonk Women
18. Brown Sugar
19. Satisfaction
20. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
21. Jumping Jack Flash

I’ve never really counted myself a Stones fan in particular, but they are one of the great bands of classic rock. And man, for an old dude Mick Jagger has still got those sexy moves. YoW! The major disappointment with this show would have to be the crowd. I have seen some lame-o LA crowds but this one, at least in our section, takes the cake. People were sitting down, very few were so much as smiling, or nodding or tapping a foot to the beat. Never seen so many people seemingly so depressed to be at a rock concert. The Rolling Stones people! It felt a little weird for me and J to be the only ones rockin’ it out, but damn if I was gonna sit down and not shake it like you should at a Rolling Stones concert.

Keith Richards man, what a trip. How is he even still alive? He came out to front for “Slipping Away” and “Infamy”. I do not know these songs, and the performance wasn’t particularly great IMO, so I took this as an opportunity to rest my legs and chill for a bit.

By “You Got Me Rockin'” a lot more people were on their feet, and the vibe got a lot better. The set list from there on out speaks for itself. Good ol’ classic Stones. The crowd even sang along to “YCAGWYW”.

My favorite highlights: Night Time, As Tears Go By (see video here!), Paint It Black, and of course Brown Sugar.
Here’s a good review by someone who knows a lot more about the Stones than I do.

Rock on y’all.

Fun with Photoshop

Ever take a picture that was just plain unrecognizable? They might seem like useless shots, but add a few Photoshop effects and voila, I call it art. The following are available in fine prints for gazillion dollars each.





Also, here's a few pictures from last weekend at Vegoose. It was a hella good time and T-N-A the C-N-A (aka Teena) came all the way from Madison to rock it out with us.

I heart you Teena!

Teena and Devil in a Blue Dress (aka Becca meine freunde) in front of the Great Pumpkin.

Performers outside the cabaret tent.

Best unicorn costume ever.

Jason is a horny Viking.

See lots more at my flickr.com page.

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween.

This just in...

Close-mindedness and Bigotry OK, as Long as it’s “Religious” or “Moral”

Don't have enough to be outraged about today?

How about Pharmacists refusing to help a rape victim?

Or Target stores giving their bigoted employees the A-OK to discriminate against you in their stores?

Man, what a great country we live in.

Cutest. Baby. Ever.

I ain't whistlin' no Dixie

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Upper Midwestern

0% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

WTF? How the bloody hell did I end up more Yank than Upper Midwestern? I’m from freakin’ Wisconsin. And what exactly is “General” American English anyway? I also notice that there is no “Southwest” or “West Coast” dialects. Another bunk quiz from blogthings? Say it ain’t so. They do have some strange things they say in the Midwest that I grew up with and just decided sounded weird later on. Like “pop”, and the Midwestern pronunciation of “roof”, “root”, “bag” and “bagel” are all a little off. Ya der, hey, don’chya know, you bet’chya.

In other news, Madison Halloween got a bit out of control again this year, and I missed it. My sister went for the State Street experience, but made her exit before the tear gas came out, so she had a really good time. We were at Vegoose having our own wild crazy fun time. Pictures coming soon (oh, who am I kidding, whenever I get around to uploading and posting them).

Also, I managed to come to work an hour early today. Me. So. Tired. I was too wiped out by the time we got home last night to remember to change my freakin’ clocks. Guess I’m leaving early today. Yipee!