Yesterday my roommate and I stood outside for 5 hours to see Rogue Wave and Spoon play at Cafe Du Nord for $10. It was totally worth it.
We discovered the "secret" show online last week and the excitement of seeing the band that wrote "Eyes" from the "I think we should have sex" episode of Friday Night Lights was almost too much.
I assumed other Rogue Wave fans would feel the same way but much to my surprise no one else there had even seen the show. I asked quite a few people and got the annoying San Francisco answer: "I don't own a tv," like 30 times. AGGGGGG!! Why is everyone all of the sudden too good for TV?
I pushed my way to the front and was determined to get some sort of Friday Night Lights related reaction from Rogue Wave. I screamed "Dillon Panthers Rule." Nothing. No recognition. They definitely heard me because I was screaming in between songs and people were giving me strange looks.
Finally, after screaming "Friday Night Lights", over and over again, the lead singer of Rogue Wave looked at me and said into the microphone as he sighed and looked at his feet:
"Friday Night Lights, Oh... My.. God..."
I don't think Rogue Wave watches the show.
Both bands were great. Even though I had to stand next to this weird guy who stole trail mix from a local bar and was selling drugs to people while in line, I had a great time.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Do you have a friend who is ALWAYS wrong? I have...
Do you have a friend who is ALWAYS wrong?
I have had a few of these people in my life. When you first meet them you think its you. Bus no. It becomes clear that it is definitely them! They give you completely random incorrect facts to feast on throughout a random evening.
The weird thing is that they are always completely wrong! Not even close to right and thanks to the pen and paper I keep in my purse, google assures me hours later that it is in fact them and not me. And by the way, Gene Wilder was not a writer on Frasier!
The most remarkable thing is that I do this. That's how I recognize it. If I'm telling someone about an article I read or something I heard from a "reputable source" I will spice it up a bit it the crowd gets bored.
Some of my stories sound something like this:
So I was out fishing and then I caught this huge fish ... and then it flopped around a lot ... and then it IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT FIRE AND STARTED SPEAKING SOME ASIAN LANGUAGE ....
Anyway. Check Wikipedia, that's all I'm sayin.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
I have had a few of these people in my life. When you first meet them you think its you. Bus no. It becomes clear that it is definitely them! They give you completely random incorrect facts to feast on throughout a random evening.
The weird thing is that they are always completely wrong! Not even close to right and thanks to the pen and paper I keep in my purse, google assures me hours later that it is in fact them and not me. And by the way, Gene Wilder was not a writer on Frasier!
The most remarkable thing is that I do this. That's how I recognize it. If I'm telling someone about an article I read or something I heard from a "reputable source" I will spice it up a bit it the crowd gets bored.
Some of my stories sound something like this:
So I was out fishing and then I caught this huge fish ... and then it flopped around a lot ... and then it IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT FIRE AND STARTED SPEAKING SOME ASIAN LANGUAGE ....
Anyway. Check Wikipedia, that's all I'm sayin.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Monday, July 9, 2007
I watch the news because I have a lot of time on m...
I watch the news because I have a lot of time on my hands. I was thinking that News would be much more interesting if we weren't always at war. I watch the News Hour (because I think I'm better than you) and all the stories that don't have to do with our overseas fuck-ups are cool. I was fascinated by the piece they did a few weeks ago about the compromised protection of the Bald Eagle. I also enjoyed last weeks piece on elderly airline pilots. However, all I hear about is political reconciliation military strategy in Baghdad. I care, but not to the point where I want to exclude all other things. Thank god for the coming(?) election.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Molly Shannon in Talladaga Nights
Molly Shannon pretty much does the same character over and over. I have always found it annoying except for in Talladega Nights. She plays Greg Germann's alcoholic wife. I have always found older alcoholic women on TV disturbing because I fear I will end up like them. Molly Shannon is HILARIOUS as a drunk. Imagine all that Mary Katherine Gallagher crap but channeled in a great way.
I miss my stories
I have been feeling depressed lately. I feel like something is missing and I have been wondering what it might be. But today something made me feel a little better. I remembered there is a new episode of Big Love on tomorrow night. Something to be excited about.
What do I miss? TV. TV sucks during the summer. Occasionally we have Big Love, or that one summer when 90210 did new shows during the summer, something to hold on to, but its not enough.
I really miss 30 rock.
I heard Alec Baldwin wants to leave the show after the second season (when his contract is up). NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
What do I miss? TV. TV sucks during the summer. Occasionally we have Big Love, or that one summer when 90210 did new shows during the summer, something to hold on to, but its not enough.
I really miss 30 rock.
I heard Alec Baldwin wants to leave the show after the second season (when his contract is up). NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Friday, July 6, 2007
TRANSFORMERS!!
This movie is amazing. It was just like going back to when Independence Day opened and seeing it in the Theater again only like a zillion times better and Shia LeBeouf is so hot. I remember watching him on Even Stevens and thinking he was hot but now I can say this in public. The special effects were amazing. I think I may have to see it again.
Interesting Fact:
Producer Don Murphy decided, after listening to feedback from Transformers fans, to use the voices from the "Transformers" (1984) (and its spin-off The Transformers: The Movie (1986)). Veteran voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who provided the voices for the iconic Transformer leaders Optimus Prime (Cullen) and Megatron (Welker), were auditioned personally by director Michael Bay, who feared that their aged voices would be noticeable. Cullen was confirmed to reprise his role, but Welker's voice had aged too much and besides didn't suit Megatron's new alien look, and so Hugo Weaving took the role of Megatron. However, Welker reprises his role as Megatron in Transformers: The Game (2007) (VG).
(imdb)
Interesting Fact:
Producer Don Murphy decided, after listening to feedback from Transformers fans, to use the voices from the "Transformers" (1984) (and its spin-off The Transformers: The Movie (1986)). Veteran voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who provided the voices for the iconic Transformer leaders Optimus Prime (Cullen) and Megatron (Welker), were auditioned personally by director Michael Bay, who feared that their aged voices would be noticeable. Cullen was confirmed to reprise his role, but Welker's voice had aged too much and besides didn't suit Megatron's new alien look, and so Hugo Weaving took the role of Megatron. However, Welker reprises his role as Megatron in Transformers: The Game (2007) (VG).
(imdb)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The New York Times is Trying to Keep Me out of Florida
This New York Times article has given me something new to be afraid of: huge fish jumping out of the water for no particular reason and injuring me.
July 4, 2007
Summertime. Fish Jumping. That’s Trouble.
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
BRANFORD, Fla. — “Lots of artillery out there,” an old man hollered from the safety of the Suwannee River’s edge, and he was right. The sturgeon were jumping high and fast, twisting their armored girth in midair and returning to the depths with a stunning splash.
On the water, there was reason to be anxious. Florida’s season of “sturgeon strikes” — law enforcement’s term for collisions between the state’s largest freshwater fish and hapless boaters — was already well under way.
It may seem bizarre, but it is no joke. Leaping sturgeon have injured three people on the Suwannee this year, including a woman on a Jet Ski and a girl whose leg was shattered when one of the giant fish jumped aboard her boat. Eight others were hit last year, and with traffic growing on the storied river, sturgeon are joining alligators and hurricanes on the list of things to dread in Florida.
“These injuries are very impressive,” said Dr. Lawrence Lottenberg, director of trauma surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine in nearby Gainesville. “You’ve got people sitting on the front of an open boat, and the boat is going 20, 30, 40 miles per hour. The fish jumps up and usually slaps these people right across their face and upper chest. Almost every one of them universally has been knocked unconscious. If you’re not wearing a life jacket, you’re going to fall in the water and potentially drown.”
Fortunately, most sturgeon in Florida stick to the Suwannee, which winds 265 miles from southern Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico. Known as gulf sturgeon, they migrate between the river, where they spawn in spring and relax in summer, and the gulf, where they return in the fall to feed. They have no teeth or temper, only a pressing, mysterious urge to jump all summer long.
“You’ll be sitting out there,” said Melanie Carter, who boats on the river with her husband, “and then all the sudden, 5, 10 feet away from you, a big one will jump up and scare you half to death.”
Sturgeon have been around since the dinosaur age, and they look it. They have long, flat snouts and hefty bodies covered in sharp, bony plates. Gulf sturgeon can grow up to eight feet long and weigh 200 pounds, but even the smaller ones can inflict serious harm. In recent years, injuries have included a broken pelvis, a fractured arm and a slashed throat.
Brian Clemens was motoring down the Choctawhatchee River in the Panhandle in 2002 when a sturgeon “jumped up and hit him dead center in the chest,” said his wife, Joy. It broke his ribs and sternum, caused one of his lungs to collapse and put him in intensive care for three days, she said, adding, “There’s a permanent dent in his chest where that fish hit him.”
Wildlife officials have posted signs warning boaters to slow down. Leah Daniel, a friend of Ms. Carter, said there was only one other precaution to take: “Pray.”
Fear is not rampant on the gentle river, lined with ancient cypress trees and moss-draped live oaks, but curiosity is. No one knows for sure why sturgeon jump.
“We say, ‘Pretty much because they can,’ ” said Karen Parker, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. She said the jumping seemed more frequent this year and last, maybe because sturgeon favor deeper water and are feeling cramped with the river unusually low.
Ken Sulak, a biologist with the United States Geological Survey, has ruled out several theories. Since sturgeon do not jump in spawning season, Dr. Sulak said, the jumping must not be for reproductive reasons. And since they have no freshwater predators but occasional alligators, it is probably not an escape response.
Might they jump for joy?
Doubtful, Dr. Sulak said.
His guess is that sturgeon jump to let other sturgeon know they have found a good spot to hang out. They seem to gather mainly within six short, narrow stretches of the Suwannee where there are deep holes, so they do not have to waste energy fighting the current. They fast and relax all summer, basically “just going to the spa for several months,” Dr. Sulak said.
They can use the rest. The federal government has listed gulf sturgeon as threatened since 1991, and for nearly a quarter-century Florida has outlawed catching them. Ms. Parker said there were now 3,000 to 5,000 of them in the Suwannee; Dr. Sulak puts the number closer to 7,000.
But with more people using the Suwannee, more farm waste flowing into it and urban regions eyeing it as a source of water, the sturgeon’s future is uncertain, said Bill Pine, a fisheries professor at the University of Florida.
Dr. Pine would like to see speed limits on sections of river where sturgeon congregate. The state has imposed such limits along miles of “manatee protection zones,” but with fierce objections from boaters who say the restriction spoils their fun.
Some irate boaters have called the wildlife commission and railed against sturgeon, Ms. Parker said, even asking the state to “kill all of them so people can enjoy the river.”
Others think the fish are purposely attacking boaters who invade their turf, but Dr. Sulak said sturgeon were as docile as lambs. He sometimes acts as their public relations agent, encouraging curious boaters to watch as he nets sturgeon for population counts. They lie quietly on a scale in his boat, their rough, cold bodies looking bronze one second, greenish gold the next.
Some onlookers melt. “Once they see they’re not monstrous, they don’t have big teeth, they’re not mean — they’re kind of lovable, in a way,” he said, “that kind of defuses things.”
Jim Tomey, sitting by the riverbank, said watching for sturgeon was his summer ritual. As he spoke, one burst out of the water and returned with a mighty smack.
“I love to come down here,” Mr. Tomey said, “and sit and watch them fish jump.”
July 4, 2007
Summertime. Fish Jumping. That’s Trouble.
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
BRANFORD, Fla. — “Lots of artillery out there,” an old man hollered from the safety of the Suwannee River’s edge, and he was right. The sturgeon were jumping high and fast, twisting their armored girth in midair and returning to the depths with a stunning splash.
On the water, there was reason to be anxious. Florida’s season of “sturgeon strikes” — law enforcement’s term for collisions between the state’s largest freshwater fish and hapless boaters — was already well under way.
It may seem bizarre, but it is no joke. Leaping sturgeon have injured three people on the Suwannee this year, including a woman on a Jet Ski and a girl whose leg was shattered when one of the giant fish jumped aboard her boat. Eight others were hit last year, and with traffic growing on the storied river, sturgeon are joining alligators and hurricanes on the list of things to dread in Florida.
“These injuries are very impressive,” said Dr. Lawrence Lottenberg, director of trauma surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine in nearby Gainesville. “You’ve got people sitting on the front of an open boat, and the boat is going 20, 30, 40 miles per hour. The fish jumps up and usually slaps these people right across their face and upper chest. Almost every one of them universally has been knocked unconscious. If you’re not wearing a life jacket, you’re going to fall in the water and potentially drown.”
Fortunately, most sturgeon in Florida stick to the Suwannee, which winds 265 miles from southern Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico. Known as gulf sturgeon, they migrate between the river, where they spawn in spring and relax in summer, and the gulf, where they return in the fall to feed. They have no teeth or temper, only a pressing, mysterious urge to jump all summer long.
“You’ll be sitting out there,” said Melanie Carter, who boats on the river with her husband, “and then all the sudden, 5, 10 feet away from you, a big one will jump up and scare you half to death.”
Sturgeon have been around since the dinosaur age, and they look it. They have long, flat snouts and hefty bodies covered in sharp, bony plates. Gulf sturgeon can grow up to eight feet long and weigh 200 pounds, but even the smaller ones can inflict serious harm. In recent years, injuries have included a broken pelvis, a fractured arm and a slashed throat.
Brian Clemens was motoring down the Choctawhatchee River in the Panhandle in 2002 when a sturgeon “jumped up and hit him dead center in the chest,” said his wife, Joy. It broke his ribs and sternum, caused one of his lungs to collapse and put him in intensive care for three days, she said, adding, “There’s a permanent dent in his chest where that fish hit him.”
Wildlife officials have posted signs warning boaters to slow down. Leah Daniel, a friend of Ms. Carter, said there was only one other precaution to take: “Pray.”
Fear is not rampant on the gentle river, lined with ancient cypress trees and moss-draped live oaks, but curiosity is. No one knows for sure why sturgeon jump.
“We say, ‘Pretty much because they can,’ ” said Karen Parker, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. She said the jumping seemed more frequent this year and last, maybe because sturgeon favor deeper water and are feeling cramped with the river unusually low.
Ken Sulak, a biologist with the United States Geological Survey, has ruled out several theories. Since sturgeon do not jump in spawning season, Dr. Sulak said, the jumping must not be for reproductive reasons. And since they have no freshwater predators but occasional alligators, it is probably not an escape response.
Might they jump for joy?
Doubtful, Dr. Sulak said.
His guess is that sturgeon jump to let other sturgeon know they have found a good spot to hang out. They seem to gather mainly within six short, narrow stretches of the Suwannee where there are deep holes, so they do not have to waste energy fighting the current. They fast and relax all summer, basically “just going to the spa for several months,” Dr. Sulak said.
They can use the rest. The federal government has listed gulf sturgeon as threatened since 1991, and for nearly a quarter-century Florida has outlawed catching them. Ms. Parker said there were now 3,000 to 5,000 of them in the Suwannee; Dr. Sulak puts the number closer to 7,000.
But with more people using the Suwannee, more farm waste flowing into it and urban regions eyeing it as a source of water, the sturgeon’s future is uncertain, said Bill Pine, a fisheries professor at the University of Florida.
Dr. Pine would like to see speed limits on sections of river where sturgeon congregate. The state has imposed such limits along miles of “manatee protection zones,” but with fierce objections from boaters who say the restriction spoils their fun.
Some irate boaters have called the wildlife commission and railed against sturgeon, Ms. Parker said, even asking the state to “kill all of them so people can enjoy the river.”
Others think the fish are purposely attacking boaters who invade their turf, but Dr. Sulak said sturgeon were as docile as lambs. He sometimes acts as their public relations agent, encouraging curious boaters to watch as he nets sturgeon for population counts. They lie quietly on a scale in his boat, their rough, cold bodies looking bronze one second, greenish gold the next.
Some onlookers melt. “Once they see they’re not monstrous, they don’t have big teeth, they’re not mean — they’re kind of lovable, in a way,” he said, “that kind of defuses things.”
Jim Tomey, sitting by the riverbank, said watching for sturgeon was his summer ritual. As he spoke, one burst out of the water and returned with a mighty smack.
“I love to come down here,” Mr. Tomey said, “and sit and watch them fish jump.”
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