Awkward meals with other people's families; A show I didn't really pay attention to; Car; Another night at Numbers; More things break

10/21

Friday rolled around and I managed to fall into a nice sequence of events which allowed me to go out despite my carlessness. Graham was putting a happy hour together, and so I had him pick me up. We ran into program administrator Wanda walking her dogs, and invited her, and she joined us along with Matt and Amber Baker for some drinks at the Ginger Man

By the time it was just Graham and I again, I had consumed at least a pitcher of beer. Graham's parents had just returned to town with Graham's visiting cousin and Graham invited me to go to dinner with them. Interacting with strange adults makes me a bit nervous under the best of circumstances; doing so after I've been drinking hindered more than it helped. But I got some barbecue from Goode's out of the deal, so it was entirely worthwhile.

We went to a wine bar afterwards and polished off a bottle. I got a call from Lauren and Chris who were kind enough to come and pick me up to go hear the Fatal Flying Guillotines at the newly reopened (boo!) Mary Jane's. I ended up not being in much of a mood for listening to local bands and spent most of the evening out back talking with Chris and Zana.

Levi and Zaina were there, and I finally got to do something I had wanted to do for quite some time:

Zaina, this is Zana. Zana, Zaina.

I'm not sure if it amused anyone else the way it did me.

10/22

Saturday was Car Day. Jeff and Jim picked me up to take me to College Station to meet mom and dad and pick up the car. A short drive later, I saw my beautiful car for the first time. We had lunch at Wendy's (Jeff and Jim temporarily laying aside their distaste for the corporation's contributions to the Republican party).

Then I got to drive my car back to Houston. I loved it.

I stopped off at Susan and Jerry's and did laundry and had dinner, swung by my apartment, showed Sabrina and Shawn the new ride, and then we went to Numbers to hear Dan and John spin. Attendance was low, which meant that it wasn't quite the indie rock prom I had promised Sabrina. Dan and John both did good sets. Cindy came by; S&S left, and, after a little while, Cindy and I decided to take off in search of better things.

10/23

I was enjoying a nice leisurely afternoon, when my computer started running very, very slowly. I gave it a reboot, and... nothing. I booted from DVD and ran the disk utility only to be greeted with bright red letters informing me that my hard drive was failing. This was bad.

I took the laptop up to school to hook it up to my work machine and attempt to scrape whatever data I could off of it, but I had no luck. I did swipe the lab laptop (which I should probably return) so that I wouldn't be completely without internet (which didn't work so well, as you will see).

I had a backup that was probably at least a month old. I could live without the additional data on my PowerBook, but I didn't really want to.

Happy hour; Engagement party; Things continue to break; &c.

10/14

Post-car shopping, I had Stephanie drop me off at Buffalo Wild Wings for a graduate school happy hour. Wings were eaten. Good times were had. I talked to Danae a bit; she's engaged but super cute and reminds me very much of Lindsey Bacon from the high school days. I also spent some time talking to Kim, who I completely failed to remember meeting at Char's party the previous weekend, until I asked her what she did, and she reminded me that we had that conversation, and that I had started it out by asking, "So, what do you work on? In two sentences or less?" Oh yeah...

Anyway, Kim's a grad student across the street at UT; her connection to all of this mess is that she's funded by the same organization that funds me. I got her back story; she's from somewhere midwestern. She spent a good deal of time bitching about the fact that her boyfriend hadn't called her in a week. I informed her that I was in no position to be giving out relationship advice, but that it seemed like a bad sign. Turns out that he was from back home, had moved down here, lost his job, was unhappy with his options here, and had returned from whence he came and they were doing the long distance thing. Maybe I was in a position to be giving advice after all.

Cindy showed up and told me that we needed to talk. I got a little scared, not having any idea where she was going with this. She, in her endearingly awkward way, first said that she thought there was an "attraction" between us, that it wasn't just a drunken hookup, and I agreed. She then told me that she didn't feel like she had time for a full time boyfriend, and I told her that I thought we both had lives and friends and school and weren't ready to sacrifice any of that yet, and that I was OK with keeping things fairly committment-free. We then moved onto the subject of continuing to date other people, and we were in agreement that this seemed like a good idea.

So I was relieved. No bullshit to deal with. Excellent.

The night went on, and Char and Leroy attempted to gather people up to transition to their place. Kim had insisted that I ride with her, and Persistent Sara joined us. Turns out that Kim has absolutely awful tastes in music. Staind and their ilk. I'm going to burn her Death From Above 1979. Maybe it will be a step forward.

We got to CLW's place (Char-Leroy-Will), where the guys outnumbered the girls by quite a bit. At one point, I was sitting out back around the fire pit, with Cindy, Sara, and Kim, and there was some sort of vaguely sexually harassing behavior going on from some of the other guys that were there, and I considered life's little ironies. I started feeling embarassed for the guys that were out there and went in, confident that the ladies could fend for themselves.

Awkward ratios aside, there was a good time to be had. Char and Leroy made the mistake of putting their Crown out and then were surprised when it was gone by the end of the evening. Apparently Val flashed people at one point, though I missed it. Rodrigo was there and, as is typical, was a little rough in expressing his affections in his drunken state, which almost got him in trouble with Leroy and Char. Kim was taking off and asked for my phone so she could put her number in—a first for me. Cindy was ready to go soon after that and I had her give me a ride home again.

10/15

Saturday night was Graham's engagement party at his parents' place near Rice. Due to car issues, I didn't have any clothes that were quite as formal as I would have liked, but I made due with my dressier jeans (don't you dare say a word, Sabrina), the nice Banana Republic shirt Rebecca had given me for my birthday (which I had to iron), and my brown sportcoat. I looked pretty hot, in the end.

Char, Jessie, Tiffany and I arrived, got some wine (no red, sadly), and moved on to check out the spread—and an impressive spread it was. I was glad I hadn't taken time to eat.

Char and Graham have a history of exchanging pranks; somehow, Jessie ends up as the third party that helps either of them get the other. That night, Char and Jessie were determined to steal the keys to Graham's Audi. Which they managed to do, and parked it down the block.

Most of us were mystified when, during the toast, everybody kept referring to Graham's fiancé as Angela rather than Kennedy. Turns out that Kennedy is her middle name, and she hates it, but a professor from college started calling her that, and it stuck with all of her college friends, through whom Graham met her, and thus that was how we were introduced to her. When they got engaged, she demanded he start calling her Angela.

That's his story, at least. I think that, maybe, they're twins, and Graham's trying to switch on us without us knowing. Maybe they killed the real Kennedy. Poor girl.

Later on, Graham broke out some scotch that pretty much killed all of us except him. I know I at some point accused Bellowes Bourbon of tasting like gasoline, but this really did. Nothing smells like that without being seriously bad for you.

People filtered out. I got to check out Graham's B&W speakers (which probably cost maybe five times what mine do), and I could tell why people pay so much money for them—accurate or no, they sound impressive and detailed.

Char and I took off eventually, and stopped by the West Alabama Woodrow's to visit Leroy, dropped back by Graham's, gave "Angela" a ride home, made off with a plate of the spectacular desserts that Graham's mom had cooked, and called it an evening.

10/16

Jeff was nice enough to take me to the grocery store so that I could stay fed through the following week of carlessness.

Cindy picked me up to do dinner at a Thai place in the village (whose name eludes me). She suggested we should order two entrees. I ended up eating pad thai and tom kah gai for the rest of the week. Not that I complained, mind you. Our conversation was characteristically awkward. But hey, I guess these things take time.

10/17-20

The next week was relatively uneventful, for the most part. My parents picked up the car (not without incident, as it was lacking side airbags which he let slide, and they tried to charge him a fee for transporting the vehicle from another dealership which he didn't). Chris was nice enough to take me shopping for car alarms. I spent some time researching car alarm and iPod hookup options.

The clock battery for the iMac finally arrived, and I installed it, only to discover that it didn't fix the problem. I tried a few other things and pretty much came to the conclusion that the iMac was dead. Bah.

The week of car shopping

10/10

I got the call from the mechanic Monday morning; the Camry was, for all intents, dead. The water pump had been out, which in turn caused the timing belt to go out, and, as Dan would later explain to me, caused valves to open at the wrong times and become bent. Pete's estimate was $1800. In some ways, that would have been worthwhile to prevent me from spending five ten times that on a new vechicle, but, combined with the $1500 or so that had been put into it over the summer when it needed a lot of suspension work, new tires, a new battery, and then inspection and registration, it was time to move on.

So after a brief consultation with Dad, we officially decided that I was in the market for a new ride. He suggested looking at new or low-milage used Camrys and Corollas (one of which he had recently driven as a rental car), so I started out with Car Max, called a couple of dealerships, and arranged to have Stephanie take me to the nearest one that evening for my first night of test driving at the Toyota dealership on the South loop, just a little ways from me.

I started out with a used Corolla, which at the time seemed OK. It felt peppier than my old Camry, but was still fairly plain. The size didn't seem an issue at the time. I then drove a used Camry that was pretty much what I had expected; it was, more or less, just like Mom's.

I next had the Toyota guy pass me off to a Scion guy. The xA is their smaller hatchback, but they only had one on the lot, and it had already been sold. I moved on to the slightly larger xB, the one that looked like a shoebox on wheels. It was surprisingly likable on the inside; its odd geometry made it surprisingly spacious. I don't remember being crazy about the way it drove; in paritcular, it felt very underpowered. But it was kind of a fun little car, too, and I could see why people would buy one. But not me. Too self-consciously hip.

Next up was the tC, their coupe. They had two on the lot: a manual, and an automatic, but the automatic was technically the property of Toyota and I couldn't test drive it without proof of insurance, so I just had the salesman take me for a ride in it. But I liked what I saw. It seemed to drive quite well, had some pep, was fairly sporty, and, despite its coupe-ishness, fairly spacious in the back. And then there were the magic words, iPod integration.

We called it a night and got some La Madeleine's for dinner.

10/11

Will was next in line for taking me to test drive. We started out with another Toyota dealership, this one on 59 near the loop, and I had somewhere gotten the idea that the Matrix was worth a look—which it was. We looked at a used one. It had manual locks and windows, and so there is no way I would have bought that particular car, but it was as good a time as any to test drive it. Will liked the spacious back seat; I liked the slight gain in elevation, the more interesting styling (continuing my migration to the idea of a hatchback), and the sportier (but still somewhat sluggish) ride. I spent some time playing with it in an empty parking lot and we returned to the dealership.

I had the kid that was helping us show me what they had in terms of Corollas, and was ready to test drive one again, but the asshole told me that his manager told him he couldn't spend any more time test driving with me. I walked off the lot without even checking out their new inventory.

We moved on up to the Toyota dealership where Jeff and I had such a bad experience when he was test driving the Prius, and though we didn't encounter any overly pushy salespeople, there wasn't much positive about the experience. The salesman obliged my requests, but didn't seem particularly interested in me, or in helping me find the car I wanted, and only perked up near the end when I started asking for price quotes. I finally got to try out the tC, but was unhappy with the lack of headroom and felt miserably cramped. I took another Corolla out, this time feeling much less happy with it. Maybe it was having just had a negative, claustrophobic experience with the tC, but it felt very small.

But still, I was encouraged by my experience with the Matrix. I had initially been hesitant to consider it; it seemed too self-consciously hip and youth-oriented, but Will and I had both liked it quite a bit. We went and got some Mexican at Molina's (decent, with a good green sauce, but nothing that will make me seek it out again) before I called it a night and went to read up on the Matrix.

10/12

By the time Jeff came to pick me up, I was feeling overwhelmed and burned out. The Matrix was hard to find and seemed expensive for what it was; the Scions hadn't panned out; and the Camrys and Corollas were feeling very boring. I had decided, though, that I should at least check out the Hondas, so we went to the Honda dealership on the South loop. I hadn't expected to like the Hondas as well as I did. I never had a particularly good impression of Mom's old '90 Accord. But I started out with a used Accord, which I liked, and which felt peppier and more fun than the Camry, but was more expensive, as well. Next up was a new Civic. They didn't have a sedan for me to check out, so I test drove a coupe, and really liked it. The interior was a bit ricer-ish, but the car was great fun to drive and certainly felt peppy. It didn't quite feel like I was doing something "different" the way I did with the Matrix, but other than that, it was my top pick at that point.

Graham and Stephanie had both suggested I take a look at the Mazda 3. I didn't have a particularly good impression of Mazda; they seemed like the Compaq to the Dell of Toyota and Honda. But Stephanie said that it was a very stylish car; Dad had mentioned a good review in Consumer Reports, and Graham had said that the auto magazines and blogs had great things to say about them. So we rolled up to a Mazda dealership on the opposite side of the road.

I started out looking at the lower-end 3i model. The styling didn't hit me immediately, but once I sat down in the car, I started to like it more. The interior styling felt more European, like a Volkswagen or an Audi. The presence of an automatic transmission with sports shifting seemed like a good sign, as I had only seen that feature on much more expensive cars. Once I started driving it, my opinion of it grew even higher. Much peppier, and I loved the way it handled. It hugged curves (Salesman: "You can feel how well it handles on this S-curve. You could probably take this at 80 if you wanted to." Me: "I am taking it at 80."). By the end of the test drive, I was pretty much sold on the car.

I decided that I should check out the hatchback. I liked the styling a little better; it was a little more distinctive. It made the back seat feel a little roomier, too. And the hatchback was not available in the smaller 2.0 L engine; only the 2.3 L, which was an excellent excuse to get the bigger engine. I took one out, and, if there ahd been a doubt before, there wasn't now.

That great stride forward accomplished, we finished out the evening at Late-Nite Pie.

10/14

Lots of reading, searching online, and so forth behind me, I had settled on the 3s hatchback, abandoning my intentions of giving the Matrix another shot. I was down to two colors: "strata blue" (a darker blue with a hint of purple) and "copper red" (a burgundy with a hint of orange). Stephanie had expressed her desire to help me negotiate a price, so, a list of quotes in hand, we started making the rounds to the dealers that night.

My best offer was a place Dad had found in Arlington that had one for $17.8k (approximately invoice), and a dealership on south 59 near the beltway, who had the car for $18k even, which was just above invoice. But a dealership on 10 had the blue, which was, at the time, my preferred color, so we went out to see what we could do. I gave the car a quick test drive, and, demonstrating that my test drives two days before hadn't been a fluke (Stephanie: "Do you always drive like this?"). The price was $18.3k, and we couldn't get them to budge, so we walked.

10/15

Early Saturday afternoon, we went to check out the best offer I'd gotten in Houston, the $18k one. The guy had sworn that he could get me whatever color I wanted, but that turned out to be a dirty lie. The cars were quite popular, and the dealers hesitant to shuffle them around.

So that left me with a silver one. I really didn't like the color that much—it felt very mid-'90s—but the deal was good, and the car was there and ready to be driven off the lot. And when I got there, he sweetened the deal more, offering me free tinting and an alarm. It wasn't quite the car I wanted, but damn was it a fine deal. Stephanie and I went to Whataburger, got some lunch, and I mulled over my decision. I called the dealership with the blue one to give them a last chance to get my business, but they still wouldn't move on the price. Finally, with some encouragment, I decided that if I was going to spend this much money on a car, that it should at least be one that I really liked, so I called Dad and told him to buy the red one in Arlington.

And then I felt relieved.

Immobile; Party; Fourtet

Thanks to the recent events of my life, I continue to be approximately three weeks behind. Let's see what we can do about that.

10/7

The Keck retreat over, I planned on going to the "Eighties for the Ladies" party that Dan was DJing at, but he and Kristin had to cancel, so I headed over to the gay district to meet Jeff and Jim for drinks.

I had noticed a noise that sounded like a belt slipping and thought that perhaps I should have that looked into. On the drive over, a knocking noise had developed. I was working on finding parking when my "check engine" light came on, and my car became pretty difficult to drive. I pulled over to the side of the road, without the benefit of power steering, or, really, even acceleration. The engine died; I restarted it long enough to back up into what would have passed for a proper parking space were it not for the presence of a fire hydrant.

I called Jeff and Jim who came and waited with me until the tow truck came, and then we went to a gay piano bar, where, sadly, no one was playing piano, which pretty much killed my interest in the place.

10/8

So, the first day of carlessness began. I did laundry here at the complex, sitting out by the pool in the newly beautiful weather and reading my new book (more on that later) while I waited.

Will eventually came by to pick me up, as he, Char, and Leroy were hosting a housewarming party at their new place. After picking up booze and assorted other supplies (and being disgusted to learn that Randall's doesn't seem to be stocking the national beer of Texas these days), we went to get the party started.

It was a good evening. Char and Leroy cooked. BCM Lauren came, which was the first time I had hung out with her in quite some time. Sabrina and Shawn came. LS Chris showed up and made an impressive attempt at chatting up Zana. The guys had dug a fire pit out in the back yard, which was a nice touch. LS Lauren and her sister Dru (who seemed cool) came too, and Colin was, apparently, a fan. Cindy came by too. I met, and quickly forgot, Kim, who played a part in goings on the following week. BCM Lauren decided that I really needed to get laid, and that switching from beer to mixed drinks was the key to that, not realizing that the optimal level of drunkeness for picking up girls is not "as drunk as possible". She and Will also seemed to hit it off well, bonding over Gilmore girls, and there was something familiar about their interaction.

The hour grew late, the crowd thinned, and I decided Cindy was an excellent candidate for giving me a ride home, among other things, so when she announced her intentions to leave, I requested a ride and we took off. I apparently missed some good times, such as Graham's getting to stay out late, and Leroy and Zana disappearing into Leroy's bedroom, followed by somebody scaling the second floor balcony to figure out what was going on.

10/9

I had Cindy pick me up for the Fourtet show at the Proletariat the next night. Things were a bit awkward, but I suppose that's just often the way such things are. Fourtet was a little disappointing; I was expecting another Caribou and instead got fairly bored watching some guy stand in front of two laptops. Eh. Consider me non-plussed.

Bad karma

I must have done something ridiculously bad. Stephanie asked me if I'd been eating babies.

Let's recap:

• The iMac died, not of a run-down clock battery, but of a fried analog board, which is about a $300 repair.
• My car died.
• The hard drive on my PowerBook failed.
• My cable and internet have been out since Monday. The soonest that those fucking bastards at Time Warner could guarantee that they would make it worth my while to stay home all day (with no TV and no internet) is tomorrow.

Hopefully that explains everything. There are wonderfully fascinating stories behind all of these events, most of which involve me spending money to remedy them. I'll tell them soon. Maybe once I get internet that doesn't involve me being in lab.

In the mean time:

No TV and no internet make Matthew something something...
Go crazy?
Don't mind if I do!

White nationalist teen pop

I'm not so surprised to discover that this exists; it's more that I just never even considered the possibility.

BRMC; Chuy's; Law school bullshit; Retreat

10/3

LS Lauren talked me into going to check out the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Meridian. "Do you want to ride together? And by that, I mean will you come pick me up?" Sure, baby. Whatever you want.

After discovering that the Meridian's entrance had moved to the main room (presumably so that they can close offf the smaller secondary room), we came in, I delivered a pack of cigarettes to Dan, and we caught the show. It was... well, eh. I get the impression that their previous stuff rocked out a little more; this newer album seems to be much more country/southern rock. I was left with the impression of a mediocre Magnolia Electric Co. "BRMC: boring audiences since whenever they were formed." was Dan's comment.

But Lauren and Dan kept handing me Lonestars, which wasn't so bad.

10/4

I made the mistake of leaving my sunglasses at Sabrina's back on Sunday, and so was subjected to the harsh light of day. Sabrina chose to ransom them until I did something I was going to do anyway, which was to make an audio CD of a Real Video review done by one of their professors.



One copy of Rogue Amoeba an hour, and a little editing in Audacity later, it was done. I handed Sabrina a stack of CDs the next day and was once again protected from the damnable morning sun.

10/5

Had to put a poster together for the retreat run by my funding agency on Wednesday, which I dreaded and put off until Wednesday afternoon. After the trip to Sabrina's to give her the CDs and then a quick dinner, and some more procrastinating, I went up to lab and had a late night finishing it up.

10/6-10/7

The conference/retreat thingy was, well, fairly boring as usual. The food was even thoroughly mediocre. But it was a great excuse to not be in lab. The law school crew took had their first test that day, and so were starting their weekend early. I snuck out of the conference, and was free and mobile at 3:00 on a weekday for the first time in a long time. I joined the crew at the Tavern, which I liked for its free popcorn. I made it through a few beers and had some good fun with Sabrina. I'm pretty sure LS Lauren and I chatted about fashion. I know. It surprised me, too.

I had helped Char through buying a home-theater-in-a-box system (the mere thought of which causes me a bit of pain, but at least I got him something deecent for his money), and he wanted some help setting it up, buying some cables, and getting some speaker stands, so we dropped by his new place (more on that when I talk about their housewarming party), hit Best Buy, then IKEA, and finally grabbed some Whataburger.

Day two of the conference was more of the same, though the talks were a little bit more my speed, and I had to babysit my poster. After Sabrina got out of class, she showed me where the magic happens, taking me on a school of the law school. We also learned that a pint of ice cream is, in fact, a lot. Probably more than one person should attempt to eat in a sitting.

Fruit Bats; Jessica's party; Mono (again!)

9/29

Law School Lauren joined me for the OC, something which should always be shared between friends, like good food, good drink, and good music.

9/30

Seatle's Fruit Bats were performing at Walter's that Friday night, so I headed up there, got a cheap domestic draft, and caught the end of the opening band. The Jessica (who, it happens was newly single, not that that fact was particularly relevant) showed up and apologized for her drunken heckling of Thom. Kristin arrived soon after that. There are pretty good odds that Zaina and maybe Levi were there.

Several songs into the band's set, a guy in a tight, vintage striped polo made his way to the front of the audience with a chair and sat down. This was a little odd, but, you know, people get tired of standing, so I didn't really give it much of a second thought. A song later, though, I looked over, and he was reading the Houston Chronicle, in low light, page by page. The lead singer of the Fruit Bats noticed (it would have been hard to miss) and asked if it was some weird Houston thing; perhaps a polite jesture akin to burping after a good meal. A few people hassled Newspaper Guy, but he sat there, obstinate, continuing to read, throughout the rest of the show.

Odd scenesters aside, the Fruit Bats' folky rock was enjoyable, if not particularly remarkable. I bought a shirt, not so much because I was crazy about the band, but more because I wanted a new shirt. I'm pretty sure I've jumped some sort of shark here.

We went to the Proletariat afterwards; I don't remember anything particularly eventful having occured, but perhaps that demonstrates why I need to get back to writing about events that have happened in recent memory.

10/1

Jessica saw fit to invite me to the graduation party her parents were throwing for her. She downplayed it quite a bit, saying it was more for her parents' friends, but there were a number of people there under 35, too. I showed up, feeling a bit awkward because I didn't know many people.

It turns out that LS Lauren's step sister is friends with Jessica, and I suppose either her dad or step mom is a friend of Jessica's family. I met them, attempted to talk shop with her radiologist dad (and managed to offend Lauren, to whom I had declined to explain my research because I get tired of doing it in a half-assed way in polite conversation, particularly during the commercial break of the OC), and excused myself to join some people my own age.

I later spent some time talking to step sister Courtney, whom I had apparently met at my birthday party, and who commented on how different I was when I wasn't drunk off my ass. I remember talking about religion, family, law school...

I later turned to talk to another girl nearby, an art teacher who looked like a more full-figured Liv Tyler. I told her this and, I think, it pleased her to no end to hear so. She later told me that my name was "comforting", but she was pretty drunk and later pretty much passed out, so who knows what that meant.

Once the adults started to filter out, Jessica started to recruit for the pool. Of course, nobody had swim suits, so we all made do with underwear (thank God my boxers had a button-up fly that night, though I should have known as apparently that's the only way to go swimming in Jessica's pool). I won't deny that siwmming with girls in their underwear was an enjoyable experience.

In the not quite so enjoyable column, though, was the hot tub that never would heat up. Dacia, along with a girl who only seemed to speak in trailed-off sentencces and inchoerent mumbling, was trying to convince people to make out in the hot tub, sadly, with little success.

Anyway, another late night of drunken swimming at Jessica's, and another thoroughly enjoyable evening.

10/2

Thanks to Sabrina for having me over for dinner on Sunday night.

Later that evening, Japanese atmospheric rockers Mono were performing in Houston for the third time in just over a year. Chris (of Lauren and Chris) was supposed to join me but couldn't make it; Lauren had to study; but John and Cindy made it out, as did recently-graduated-from-grad-school-and-returned-to-med-school M.D./Ph.D. Donald, who was apparently looking for something to do and invited by Cindy. I'd never hung out with Donald before, but I'm always glad to see more BCMers at shows, and I think he enjoyed himself.

And me? I totally blissed out. I got my buzz on thanks to cheap Shiner, closed my eyes, and drifted away in a sea of viscous music. They're not the kind of thing you want to go driving to, but in the dark on a calm Sunday night, they're fucking transcendent.

Thom

First off, apologies about the lack of updates and managing to get even further behind. My car died on Friday 10/7, and I got the news that the damage was just to great for the ol' girl to go on on Monday, so from then on I was consumed with the process of buying something to replace it. That is its own saga and will get its own post, but first, an attempt to catch up. Six posts need to be written...

9/27

As Houston was miraculously spared by the hurricane, Thom stuck to his original schedule and came to Houston to spend some quality time with me. He arrived in time to pick me up, and we went to Mi Luna for some cheap happy hour tapas and margaritas. We then walked down to the Ginger Man for some nice beer, and a phoned-in chat with David, before taking off for a local strip club...

Just kidding, Ali. Actually, we met Sabrina and her crew for some drinks at Poison Girl. Sabrina set the tone for the evening with a round of shots celebrating Thom's passing of his qualifier, and Thom continued along those lines. Sabrina documented the evening with photos. I'm pretty sure interesting and worthwhile things happened, but it's been a while, so just use your imagination.

9/28

When I woke up and was getting ready on Wednesday morning, I was surprised to find that my sink was clogged. Now, sink clogs aren't uncommon when you are bearded or have long hair (or both), but rarely do they build up overnight. I made a mental note to pour a bottle of Draino down it when I got home. But then, the problem had disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived.

Come to find out later that Drunk Thom couldn't quite make it to the toilet and vomitted in the sink, and then fixed it the next day while I was gone. Mystery solved.

Last year when Thom came to visit, we went and gorged ourselves at Fogo de Chao on massive quantities of meat, and decided to repeat the experience. It was worth every penny.

Dan was doing a gig at Clark's that evening, so Thomas and I went and his TAMU friend Brent joined us for a few Lonestars and Dan's short DJ set before going to Poison Girl, where we ran into Jessica, and, sepparately, Kitten and Jill. Jill, if you will remember, was Chris and Lauren's friend and the reason that Dana (of standing me up, apologizing, cancelling on me and apologizing, and then standing me up again) was at the party where I met her. Anyway, apparently Dana asked about me, which made me feel vaguely vindicated, or something.

Kitten was in rare form that night, frequently demanding tamales, though the tamale salespeople had not yet shown up for the evening. By the time they did, Jill had left, as had Dan and Kristin, and it was down to Thom and I with a quite drunk Jessica and a quite drunk Kitten. Kitten bought tamales and demanded our help in eating them before pretty much passing out and then being escorted back to the Poison Girl business office for a nap.

Around the same time, Jessica was attempting conversation with Thom. Things eventually came around to Thom's choice of field, and whether or not his participation in science made him implicitly in the failings of America's approach to Medicine, or something. The chat eventually gre into some sort of argument, and I couldn't quite tell who was right and who was bullshit, as I hadn't been paying close attention. Jessica would, days later, admit to being full of shit and apologize for drunkenly berating Thom. It was funny to listen to at the time, though.

Conclusion

One down, five to go. Catch you kids tomorrow, perhaps?

Refuge at ACL day 3; the Return

Bryan and I once again made a slow start of things on Sunday, having a great sandwich at Jimmy John's before we hopped on the shuttle to the festival along with Rebecca and Kelly. It turned out to be good that we skipped some of the earlier shows, because the heat and the dust were both worse.

We got there an hour ahead of the Arcade Fire's performance to get good spots. It was hot. Really hot. Sitting there, directly in the sun, on the ground, waiting, I was absolutely miserable. But finally, the Arcade Fire came out and rocked my world. I swear that the temperature dropped ten degrees immediatelyl. Their set was, obviously, more streamlined, which I think worked to the band's benefit. They weren't quite as magical in broad daylight, and the heat detracted somewhat, but their set was damn fine.

The Decemberists played on an adjacent stage immediately afterwards. I was worried that their lack of gravitas would be a drawback when directly compared to the arcade fire, but it's a credit to the band that they put on a compelling, fun show. Bryan and I found a spot in the crowd that was, as it turns out, Courtney-adjacent. Sara spotted me, so I went over to join they and Kristina for the rest of the set. Sara is, apparently, a huge Decemberists fan, further confirming my theory that their music is made for English majors and literary types.

Anyway, just a great set, as expected. Once again, I didn't get to hear them perform the entirety of "The Tain", sadly. "We Both Go Down Together" was a highlight. During "The Chimbley Sweep", the band reached a quiet point in the song and vamped. Colin motioned for the crowd to kneel down, and, as people gradually understood, we did—except for one asshole in the center of the crowd who wouldn't. People threw shit at him, which made up for it. Once everybody else had kneeled, Colin sang the next bit of the song quietly, and when he hit the loud part, everybody jumped up. The crowd participation didn't end there, as their closing song was "The Mariner's Revenge Song" (which they had also neglected to play at the Houston show). For the climatic moment in the song when the protagonist gets swallowed by the whale, the band signaled the crowd to scream by bringing out a cut out of a whale's jaw and attacking Colin with it.

Bryan and I took off for some water before going on to catch Franz Ferdinand. They were playing on the main stage, where a crowd was already gathering to see Coldplay. We made it as far into the crowd as we could, which was still pretty far from the stage and impacted our enjoyment of the show a bit, but the boys did well.

After their set, we fought our way out of the crowd to catch the end of Wilco's wankerrific set and catch my sister so that I could get her car keys and we could get Bryan on the road. There was a breakdown in communication, however, and Rebecca was already deep into the Coldplay crowd, so Bryan and I had to fight our way back through the crowd, even further and in the dark), but we eventually accomplished the mission, I dropped Bryan off, picked Becca and Kelly back up, and then they dropped me off at Courtney's.

Courtney had taken the day off work the next day, and I sure as hell wasn't driving to Houston that night, so we went out to paint the town red.

Except we were both pretty tired. We went to Trudy's for a couple of Mexican martinis (I sprung for sweet, sweet Cazadores) and some food. We talked, as we tend to, about music and girls, and Death Cab's Transatlanticism was on the PA at Trudy's, so we even had appropriate sad bastard music. We ended up calling it a night after that. But a good time was had.

After a leisurely morning, I picked Rebecca up for lunch at Hyde Park Bar & Grill. I had their famous french fries (the secret, it seems, it lots of batter) and a wonderful Kobe beef burger. I dropped Becca back off at school and drove home without incident.

Dan and Kristin hosted a dinner to get rid of some hurricane supplies at their place that Monday night, so I went and had some good food and enjoyed the good company. I was wiped out physically and socially from the weekend, though, so I didn't make the transition to Cecil's.

Refuge at ACL, day 2

Bryan and I decided not to make a priority out of the bands playing earlier on Saturday; instead, we targeted Built to Spill's 2:30 show. So, after a leisurely (less euphemistically, unconscious) morning and some very lat Taco C breakfast, Becca dropped us off, cargo shorts laden with bottled water.

Once at the festival grounds, we quickly caught up with Courtney, her girlfriend Kristina who supplied us with sunblock, and her brother in their well-placed spot in the audience for Built to Spill's set. We were there a little early, but I soon saw lead singer Doug's bearded face on stage and the band was on. The set was enjoyable, but seemed to have been chosen fairly randomly. Had Sabrina been there, she would have been thrilled to hear "Carry the Zero". I was happy to hear material from Perfect From Now On, namely "I Would Hurt A Fly".

I was not happy to hear the incessant chatter of frat boy types. Tall, gangly frat boy types who were standing right in front of me and ruined my view every time they leaned their pimpled faces over to talk to their equally disheveled friends. That aside, the show was ultimately not particularly stellar, but it was a festival set, so I'll give them a pass.

We kept our strategic location for Death Cab's upcoming set. I met Courtney's cute red head law school friend Marty (Martie?)(actually, there seemed to be a disproportionately high number of cute red heads as I walked around ACL; perhaps I need to move to Austin), who, Courtney, I desperately need an in with.

Anyway. The crowd started to fill in, but I soon got a call from Levi and Zaina who needed Dan's ACL tickets to get in, which were in my posession. Some confusion about which gate they were coming in and a couple of treks across the park later, I found them. The next trick was getting back to Bryan et al. for the show. I don't know quite how I made it through the maze of lawn chairs and people, but I did, just in time for the band.

Considering Death Cab's newly acquired, questionable fan base, their possibly mediocre new album, and the limits of the festival format, the band put on a quality show. I tend to think most bands are better in the dark, but they were still thoroughly enjoyable, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Next, we made our way over to catch the Walkmen, but we were pretty far back, and the sound was overly loud, so I don't feel well qualified to comment on their set.

We skipped out on Jet (good choice there) to get a good spot for Bloc Party, and it made all the difference in the world. I hadn't really gotten into the Killers/Walkmen/Franz Ferdinand thing that they do yet, but those British kids put on a kick ass show. It was the best surprise of the day, and their album has probably now secured its place in my top ten for the year.

Becca came and picked us up, and, showered and full of frozen pizza, we went over to her friends' place for a hurricane and 'rita party, where we were disappointed by a non-functioning hot tub. Bryan and I were also going to put in an appearance over at Courtney's, but were warned ahead of time not to bother as there was some drama with the security at her complex.

So, tired, rocked, and more tan, we finished off day 2 and slept to prepare for day 3.

Server downtime

The iMac is currently dead, hopefully from a rundown clock battery. I disassembled good ol' Charlene (the iMac's sometimes name; see the "Dead Putting Society" episode of the Simpsons) this evening and she's currently hanging out on the green couch, awaiting a new battery on order from RadioShack (which apparently doesn't stock them anymore).

Consequently, my homepage, the images on this 'blog, and my FTP server are down. Hopefully I diagnosed the problem correctly and Charlene will be back to her life of semi-retirement, serving up files for a long time to come.