So, yeah, a long weekend with too little sleep, then four days of work and now I've got a moderate cold and despite the doses of DayQuil and albuterol (that's to ease the coughing) I'm feeling pretty shitty. But I've got work tomorrow and I hate letting a show recap get to its one-week anniversary, so I'm gonna give this a try. I'm thinking the happy memories will distract me from my ills. ( Golden Gate...Divisadero...Turk...Fillmore! )

It was really an excellent weekend, not just for the shows but for seeing old friends and meeting new ones! Maybe next time I'll get to go out East instead. In the meantime, I have memories and pictures. k1cup, hope you had a good trip home!

I really wanted to get this recap done earlier, before all the memories trickled out of my brain, but, you know, there's that job I have to go to now, and the fact that I'm getting old and tired, so now it's four days later and I don't know how this is going to turn out. Probably short, and summary. ( But I've thought that before and it didn't turn out that way, so let's just plunge into it, shall we? )

Now that I'm done being a killjoy, you can take a look at the pictures and setlist. Fillmore recap coming up! (Maybe tomorrow? Depends on how late I stay out with k1cup. :P )

I think the two most important lessons I learned last night are

1. never lose faith in Dan Miller; and
2. it is possible to arrive at a show 15 minutes before doors and still get into the front row, without being rude

I've decided for this set of shows I'm experimenting with embracing the ephemerality of the experience. Which means basically that I might not be doing so much the extremely detailed blow-by-blow I usually do. ( We'll see how that works out. )

I think I might need a nap before heading down to Santa Cruz to meet up with k1cup. And here are last night's pictures and the setlist. I hope tonight will be good too (and longer!).

I think this one is going to be shorter than usual, partly because it's so very much after the fact, and partly because the show itself was so short. ( But let's see how it goes. )

Wow, that report was really short. That's got to be a record of some kind. And here are the photos and stuff. Can't wait until September!

I'm not saying we drove 400 miles each way just so I could go to a They Might Be Giants concert, but the fact remains that those 400 miles had to be driven in order to make it possible for me to go. And it's been an excellent trip so far (we're heading back home on Sunday).

I have pictures and one video, and, of course, ( lots of memories. )

But as always, I can't wait for the next one!

Yeah, so because of my different teaching position this term I didn't have class the first week of the quarter (last week). So during my second week of spring break I decided to learn how to use Dreamweaver, mainly because I figure when I need to start looking for a job it might be useful to have a skill of some kind.

Of course when I sat down with my new copy of Dreamweaver 8 for Dummies (hey, I am just starting out and all), instead of choosing some simple test site for my first learning project, I decided I wanted to redo entirely my TMBG site. Which isn't really that complicated a site (there's no dynamic content or anything particularly tricky about it), but because of all the photos it comprises about 2000 separate pages. Thank goodness for templates! Doing the photo album sections was still a huge pain though since there doesn't seem to be a way to batch-apply a template automatically to multiple pages at once. (If somebody out there knows to do that, please let me know.) Also when I re-generated the albums, all the comments I'd written on invidividual pictures were lost, and I didn't feel like going back and re-adding them each individually by hand (although I might do that sometime in the future).

So anyway, I'm pretty happy with the result. (And I color-coordinated it with my LJ, heh.) If you do take a look at my new site I'd love to hear any suggestions you might have. I think I worked out the navigation options pretty well, but then, I already know what I have and where it is, so maybe it seems easier to me because of that.

And eventually I guess I should update my other pages. I need to rest a little while before tackling the rest of the project though.

hobbitgrrl and I had been planning to go to the free TMBG concert in St Louis yesterday, but after monitoring the weather reports and seeing forecasts in the 20s with possible snow, and considering this was an outdoor show, we finally, though not without regret, came to the conclusion that this trip would be too crazy even for us. I know, right? Too crazy for us? Who knew that was possible? However, after reading the comments of some people who did go, I think we made a wise decision. There will always be another show, and I'll enjoy the next one much more not having lost any of my appendages to frostbite.

Seriously. An outdoor show in the midwest in February? Who thought that was a good idea?

So on Saturday instead of taking that road trip to hypothermia I stayed in town and went to help out at a quizbowl tournament, meaning I was surrounded by nerds of an entirely different sort. Of course the real fun came at the post-tournament gathering for NBA Jam and beverages, where the highlights were leahrosmerta's bullying of the first-years; myamphigory's demonstration of the proper usage and pronunciation of the word "yinz"; and, most of all, the smaller Seth's repeated, increasingly maudlin declarations of how horribly he misses Kannan. They have, after all, had an ocean between them for the entire school year. But then, who doesn't miss him? The answer, as was well established last night, is "nobody."

And it's now the Year of the Pig—that wonderful, magical animal. So

to everyone!

Okay, we made it back from the zoo show without being either completely roasted or soaked, so based on that alone the day was a success. Really we did have a fine time overall. Here are some pictures and videos. I realized that all of the videos are missing bits from the beginning (I guess my trigger finger's not quick enough) but I think they will do.

There's already a pretty exhaustive banter summary on the wiki so I'll try not to repeat too much of that. And hobbitgrrl has all the really exciting stories. :P But ( read on to find out all about our day at the zoo. )

And my neck still hurts. But it was certainly a most excellent time. Hope we get to do it again soon!

My brain is still kind of melted from the heat and the rock, so I hope you'll forgive me for not being quite so detailed as usual. Oh, who am I kidding, I know really you're thankful for the change.

( This is the TMBG part. )

( And this is about the rest of the night, including Flaming Lips. )

Overall, a satisfactory day. What's funny about it is that we were annoyed that the festival organization sucked so much, but it's pretty obvious that if the organization had been better, our experience would almost certainly have been worse. So I'll just be thankful that things worked out as they did.

Here are the photos and videos. I apologize for the wobbliness of the videos; I rested the camera on the barrier, but I guess I was unconsciously dancing along the whole time, making them a bit shaky. It's not like Lars von Trier seasickness-inducing camera work, though.

Now let's hope the weather for the zoo show will be nicer than this...

Okey-doke, my trip to the zoo yesterday was quite successful. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they've dropped the membership fee to $40 (from $50), and the lady also gave me an extra free parking pass, and then we went to the Big Cat House and got to witness the tiger and the lion yelling at each other, which was probably the highlight of the visit.

So, I now have tickets for the TMBG show for leahrosmerta and psyknife. The member discount price was $18 even, and it appears that anyone who has a member ticket may enter the park 15 minutes before non-members if one so desires. Let me know if you want me to mail your ticket or otherwise get it to you before the show date, or else we can just meet there on the day. (leahrosmerta, we'll probably see each other sometime before then anyway.)

I also asked where in the zoo exactly the show would take place, and was told they set up the stage near the flamingo pond. Then it's just sit on the grass or whatever you want to do. I hope the animals in the park enjoy the music...