Putting the bullshit to rest & Woodrow's; Sub; Gilmore Girls; Sam Jayne & Fruit Bats (again); American Dreamz (dreamz with a Z); TV on the Radio; Beer

4/17

So I presented lab meeting again. Not exactly pleasant, but it was done, at least.

I went home a little early to retrieve my new toy from the leasing office. More on that later.

Apparently I went to Woodrow's that night. I can't remember the specific occasion, really.

4/18

Will joined me for a Gilmore Girls viewing. We probably went to dinner or something. This is the exact reason I need to take better notes.

4/19

The Fruit Bats were playing again at Walter's, and opening up for them was Sam Jayne from Love As Laughter. Cindy and I went to the show, but hadn't realized that the Plastic Constellations, who I have a certain fondness for, were opening, so we missed them. But Sam Jayne was great, and played a lot of Love As Laughter songs. I was going to buy a few of his band's older CDs, but he only had his solo albums and the band's newest available.

The Fruit Bats played, and, well, I'm not a huge fan or anything, but it was entertaining. They mentioned newspaper guy, who was there last time they played, but he wasn't around for a repeat of his previous escapades.

4/21

We stuck around after the Friday seminar long enough to get through the beer that was available to us, and then went for dinner at Texadelphia.

Will was keen on going to see American Dreamz, so a group of us met up to do that. It was somewhat entertaining, but couldn't decide whether it should be a satire of American Idle or of American politics. Mandy Moore and Hugh Grant were very entertaining; it was a shame the film didn't focus more on them. It certainly had its moments, but was a bit uneven overall.

We went to some bar in the strip mall on the other side of 59. Can't remember the name of it, but it was surprisingly charming for a strip mall bar.

4/22

Cindy had picked up tickets to see TV on the Radio play at Warehouse Live. It was my first experience with the new venue, which, true to its name, features live music in a converted warehouse building on the other side of 59 from downtown, near the Meridian and the convention center.

Chris B. had made a reference on his robot concert reviewing blog (or whatever it is; I just wish he wouldn't take credit for stories I wrote for him before he decided to go his ego trip, though he eventually abandoned the site like so many of his other projects—rant over) to enjoying seeing a band in a venue that wasn't completely dilapidated. I may have been biased by the venue's ticketmaster affiliation, but it felt too new, too yuppie, too faux-everything, too inauthentic. I'd rather deal with dirty floors and smelly bathrooms than add 50% of the ticket price in ticketmaster fees. Or at least, I would have preferred they spend the money on adequate parking rather than rugs.

Regardless, we had chosen to pay, just like we chose to pay $3.50 for cans of Lonestar at the bar. The owner of the venue was purported to have sunk some money into buying a decent sound system; someone needs to tell them that it won't do you any good when your sound guy can't mix and when you have brick walls and no acoustic treatments.

The band's performance was hit or miss. Their material from the Young Liars EP held up quite well, and the band had energy, but, with the exception of "Ambulance", none of their newer material followed through on the promise of their debut EP.

Still, it was a nice evening.

4/23

"Beer". Now that's rather unspecific. I'm guessing I went up to Woodrow's for drinks, maybe with Will, but who knows?

School bullshit and retail therapy; Car retrieval; Molé black & tan; Two Gallants; Easter

4/10

So I gave my lab meeting, only to discover that the boss was in a particularly difficult mood, and decided to make an example out of me by making me represent lab meeting the following week. He assured me it was nothing personal; I assured him that I found that hard to believe when I was the one it happened to.

So I happened to have a gift certificate to Best Buy and decided on a little retail therapy. Unfortunately, they didn't have the games, CDs, or DVDs I wanted (continuing evidence of the declining usefulness of brick & mortar electronics retail). I ended up with a new spool of speaker wire and banana connectors that I needed for when some of my new toys arrived. Additionally, the speakers I have in my bedroom were wired using some ancient cable I had that had oxidized quite a bit (the copper was turning blue), and was also too short to begin with, so I got went ahead and tackled that project and ended up with something that was, if nothing else, much more neat and pretty than it had been.

4/11

My car had taken a few days longer than expected, but when the rental car's paid for and doesn't suck, it's not really that big of a deal. At the time, though, I didn't realize that insurance would cover the "upgrade" to the bigger car, so I was glad to get the good ol' 3 back. It took me a few minutes to adjust to, but it was ultimately good to have my zippy and maneuverable little car back.

4/12

Thom had sent me three bottles of Rogue Chipotle Ale. One I had consumed almost immediately; one I saved to split with Cindy. I was excited about trying a pepper ale, but found that the spiciness and pepper flavor wasn't really noticeable. The smokiness of the chipotle, however, was, and as the beer got warmer, it became overpowering.

Anyway, the Rogue web site had suggested combining the beer with their chocolate stout to make a "molé black and tan". Cindy and I didn't prepare enough in advance to pick up Rogue's chocolate stout, and so settled for the Young's variety. The combination was quite good, actually, and I really preferred it to the chipotle ale alone.

4/13

Jeff and I had, rather randomly, happened upon one of Two Gallants' previous shows in Houston and were delighted and surprised. We had missed their next Houston engagement (out of sheer laziness), so we made sure to catch this one. I actually didn't enjoy it as much as their first show that I saw. I dont' know whether they lacked the element of surprise, or whether the playing was sloppier, or whether the weaker material of their new albumw as a problem, but there you go. Still, the rock stomp of their clever, folky songs is always worth something. I snuck out before they came on to make a call and wish Becca a happy birthday.

4/14

I stayed late in Houston, hoping desperately that UPS would show up with my new subwoofer so that I could either play with it, or at least have it to play with when I returned, but to no avail. I left at 4:00, which was pretty much the last possible moment to leave to make it to dinner at 7:00 in Waco. The sub arrived at 5:00. Bastards.

I was to meet up with my parents and the Hoffmans for dinner at the Claypot (formerly Le Café, a name that I kind of liked). I somehow managed to be early, got a table, took a sugggestion from the cute waitress (a bit Bethany Perryman, that one) and tried the ginger hot tea. I almost made it through the pot by the time they arrived, which was no surprise given how good it was with a bit of a ginger bite to it, and sweetened with evaporated milk.

I have some nostalgia about the place, and was always fond of their jalapeño clay pot, but I hadn't been there since my senior year of college, let alone since my recent foray into Vietnamese food. Still, nostalgia won out and I went for the clay pot, but also ordered a cup of phó because, well, that's how you judge Viet cuisine, right? Since I ordered the cup, what I basically got was just the broth, which was all I really needed. It was very flavorful, with a little something extra that I couldn't figure out.

The claypot itslef wasn't quite as strongly seasoned as I remembered, but still quite tasy, and as a bonus, everybody was impressed with my new chopstick skills. We all had a nice meal; Becca showed up from Austin after we had all finished, but we waited on her to eat.

We returned to the Casa de Ward for a bit, and then Becca and I went out on the town. I had wanted to check out Cricket's, but the line was out the door, so we had a round at Bogart's. By the time we finished up there, things had thankfully cleared out at Cricket's enough that we coudl go grab a couple of rounds there.

4/15

I had ordered a new computer for Dad to replace the one that he had picked up around 1998 for his Office and then later adopted at home. It took quite a bit of my day (and most of my evening) to figure out the ins and outs of getting things like e-mail transferred over to the new Dell, getting software installed, and so forth.

In between, we did a bit of shopping. I took Becca to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick out her birthday present: a chef's knife. Dad cooked crawfish for most of the family for dinner, but grilled up a NY strip for me with a nice wine sauce.

4/16

We did the whole church thing for Easter, and then Rebecca and I took a detour to check out the wonders of the Waco sinkhole:









(Edit: People have asked for more info. Here's the Trib's sinkhole blog—yeah, you read that right, though it doesn't seem to have taken off. I'll try to add some more comprehensive links. The weekend after it happened (first of March?) they ran a full front page on it. It was a big deal.)

Afterwards, we returned home for a rather rushed lunch with the Hoffmans of baked potatoes from Uncle Dan's. I hurried off as quickly as possible, intending to return to Houston before the leasing office closed for the day. I made it, but discovered that the leasing office had closed for Easter. Bastards.

So I hoped for a while, probably watched some DVR, and then went up to school to work on that damnable lab meeting presentation.

Car and Rudyard's; Ginger Man; School bullshit; Dinner/Movie; Barbecue

4/4

So after talking to my insurance agent, I had resolved to get my car repaired. I could do so for the cost of half of my deductible (since my "accident" involved an "uninsured driver"), and State Farm (they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for) would provide a rental car for me. I called the Mazda dealership here that I like and got their recommendation on a body shop.

I took the morning off, dropped off my car, got picked up by Enterprise, and waited while they worked things out with my insurance company (which I really thought they would have taken care of the previous day when they wer supposed to have been contacted by the body shop, but my expectations were too high), and was eventually offered my choice of two Daimler Chrysler vehicles: a Jeep something, and a Dodge Charger.

The choice was obvious: it was time to play Wards of Hazard. I took the Charger and headed back to my apartment.

This seems as good a time as any to talk about the car itself. It was a big, four door beast of a thing, and it felt like it too—the steering was much looser than I would have liked from a "performance car" and reminded me of driving Dad's old Ford LTD.

Obviously, Enterprise didn't have the version with a Hemi, but instead the more practically priced six cylinder version. Accerlation initially seemed unimpressive, but probably was, in reality. The power was there when I needed it, but never really felt like it was there. The thrill of acceleration was missing.

Except for in the audible department, where the engine performed beautifully. It roared when you told it to, and even if you couldn't really feel the power kick in, you could certainly hear it. It was a big, deep, throaty sound. I think the Mazda sounds pretty good for an ecconomy car, particularly at higher RPMs, but it couldn't compete with this.

Exterior styling was nice, but too overly macho for my tastes, though I'm sure that's true of pretty much anythind Dodge makes. That's their schtick. Interior styling was absolutely, disgustingly dull. Again I though of an old 80s sedan like the Ford LTD.

But hey, it's better than getting a Neon or something.

Anyway, since I had the wheels, I figured I'd use them and went up to Rudyard's for a couple of rounds with Dan &c.

4/5

Inspired by our recent trip to the Saucer, Cindy and I attempted to check out free pint glass night at the Ginger Man, only to discover that the glasses are usually all given away before 6:00 in the evening. We had some beer anyway. I think that might have been the time when we tried some of Lindeman's lambic beers, which I like for their very fresh-tasting fruit flavors. I think I also tried New Belgium's Bier de Mars, which is also apparently a lambic, but in the more traditional sense of being a wheat beer fermented by wild yeast, rather than the more fruity Lindeman's version. I found it to be quite tasty as well.

4/7

I had to give a departmental seminar to the students in the program, which was a pain in the ass. It was pretty much the same talk as last year, and one guy in particular, who's a bit of a dick about asking questions like "Why is this interesting?" and "What's the point?" and that sort of thing—questions that aren't essential to the understanding of the presentation, but only serve to make my life more difficult; the type of things that would be fine for a one-on-one post-presentation discussion. The talk went long; people got bored. Blame the asshole in the corner back there.

Will and I went and saw "Thank You For Smoking." I think we probably had dinner first, but the location of said dinner eludes me. The movie was thoroughly entertaining with an unbelievably good cast—the kind that bursts at the seems and makes everyone seem underused. Also, give it credits for not going for the easy, feel good ending where the protagonist lets his conscience get the better of him and he sees the error of his ways. Nope; moral ambiguity permeated the thing in a beautiful way.

4/8

My notes would seem to indicate that I did nothing this Saturday night, which seems unlikely, but then again, it's plausible since I was in the middle of my Prince of Persia addiction at the time.

4/9

Dan decided to host a good ol' fashioned Sunday afternoon barbecue, so Cindy made a salad, we picked up some sides from Goode Co.: beans (their pintos, inferior to their transcendent Austin baked beans), jalapeño cheddar bread (I've never had better), and BBQ sauce (lackluster). We stopped by Kroger for salad dressing, Stubb's BBQ sauce (far superior to Goode Co.), and beer, where we selected Pyramid Apricot Ale (something I'm quite fond of) and PBR.

Dan had quite a crew gathered. Here's a link to photos from the BBQ. I ate myself into a thorough food coma, consuming way too much brisket, salad (to Cindy's credit, a hit), pickels, jalapeños, and jalapeño bread. There was watermelon, too. And lots of beer. And good company and good times. And I think I caught a brief nap on Dan's couch.

We eventually left, as I neded to prepare for lab meeting the next day, but not until after I managed a real nap. Then it was off to school for that annoying night-before work that I hate so much...

Cooking; Ginger Man; the Mink; Bryan night 1; Bryan night 2; Voxtrot/Spain Colored Orange; Dessert

3/27

Mom & Dad have been on a new diet recently, and though i'm skeptical of its scientific merit, I think it does a good job of incorporating particularly filling ingredients. Particularly, I had a stuffed bell pepper dish they made with bulgar wheat, which makes a good substitue for starches like rice.

So I decided to experiment. I cooked up some taco meat using an off the shelf seasoning mix (but adding some of my own touches. With that I sauteed some fresh tomatoes and jalapeños, some cilantro, some black beans, and finally fortified the pound of meat with some bulgar what (it was a cup uncooked, but matched probably three quarters of the volume of the beef once cooked. The mixture needed more seasoning once the what was added, but in the end it tasted pretty good, particularly over fresh tortillas with cheese. Thanks to the extra bulk from the wheat, they were quite filling, which was the original goal.

3/28

Cindy and I ended up at the Ginger Man for beer. These nights, too, ran together, although I suspect this was the night we ran into some people Cindy knew from school, particularly Donald, who stuck around longer to have some extra rounds with us.

3/29

Dan and Kristin were hanging out up at the Mink, so I went and joined the for a few rounds. Nothing out of the ordinary...

3/30

Lisa was in Galveston for a conference, so Bryan caught a plane to Houston to hang out with me for a couple days before catching up with her and going to visit relatives. After picking him up at Hobby airport and getting a little lost trying to get to Midtown from 45, we met up with Cindy and (eventually; there was a misunderstanding) Sabrina at Mai's for a little Vietnamese food. Sabrina had to cut out afterwards (stupid school), but the remaining three of us went on to the Harp for some additional rounds. I tried St. Arnold's Summer Pilsner for the first time; it was good. A little extra hoppiness in there added some good flavor.

Bryan made a reference to the blog in passing in front of Cindy. That's a no-no, Bryan.

3/31

I put in a half day at school while Bryan went for lunch with Sabrina and crew. He came to pick me up afterwards, which was when disaster struck—or, rather, when I realized disaster had struck. There was a dent in my car. A big one. In the passenger side door (which explains why I hadn't noticed it before). I suspect that it happened in the very tight parking lot in Austin, or perhaps that questionable type with the red civic that parks next to me at the apartment...

Anyway, I tried to swallow that, and enjoy my afternoon with Bryan. We played some Nintendo and listened to the 5.1 mix of The Soft Bullettin that I had recently acquired. Sabrina came and picked us up for dinner at Goode Company, and then we went downtown to the Flying Saucer. We each picked out flights of five beers (although two or three of my top choices were taken), and then had a few pints of our favorites. Cindy joined us at some point.

4/1

Cindy and I did dinner at Thai Spice. My first couple of trips there weren't overly impressive, but this time around our Tom Kah Gai and curry were really good. Afterwards, we headed to Walter's to catch Voxtrot. They were good, but my appreciation for them has grown substantially since I've started listening to their two EPs.

Dan and Kristin took off before Spain Colored Orange to catch James McMurtry, who I would have liked to have seen, but we chose to stick around for the show that we had already paid for. I had previously caught part of a Spain Colored Orange show and heard enough to catch my ears, but Cindy and I got bored and took off.

4/2

Cindy brought over some good desserts from Whole Food and we watched Grey's Anatomy.

V; Onion Creek; Happy Brina Birthday; DJ Sharbs

3/20

Will and I, continuing our resolution to better take advantage of the Angelika's cheap date night, decided to go see V for Vendetta. The movie was excellent; Alan Moore should reconsider his decision not to put his name on adaptations of his work. It was also quite brave to put out something so critical of the nations current "give up liberty to gain safety" crowd, and something that makes a hero of a terrorist. If you haven't seen it, pick up the DVD when it comes out.

We made a quick stop by Midtown Woodrow's afterwards.

3/22

Cindy and I made a date for beer and ended up at Onion Creek. I was disappointed in my bloody harry, which didn't have enough bloody mary mix in it for my tates and seemed particularly bland after having mastered the mixing of micheladas. Cindy's own michelada turned out rather bland as well. I think I ended up getting a Snakebite or something else of that nature that was a step up.

I like the place a lot (bland beer mixers aside). It makes me think of my first spring/summer in Houston, when I would meet Dan and Kristin up there quite a bit. I should go more often...

3/24

Sabrina was back from her trip to Japan and ready for a belated birthday celebration. Cindy and I only barely caught up with them at the Harp in time for a round before we departed for Star Pizza, where our group managed to create impossibly high noise levels in their upstairs room. As always, the pizza was excellent.

We returned to Sabrina's to split the rather, um, undersized cheesecake that Shawn had picked up, and began a game of Cranium, the game that had almost ended Sabrina and my friendship back in the fall of '03. I also am not really a fan of boardgames these days; they reek of the sort of forced socialization that I remember from church. I much prefer the forced socialization that comes from the decreased inhibitions that drunkeness brings.

But hey. It was a good time. Sabrina loved her Youth Group t-shirt. And she had a cool sushi plate set from Japan for me, too.

3/25

Dan was DJing at the Proletariat. These nights are starting to run together the way the Cecil's nights used to, but I think this is a night that I went alone and late (thanks to being in th emiddle of one of the Prince of Persia games), hung out for a while, had some beer, and enjoyed some good music.

Magnolia Electric; Austin and SxSW; Return to Houston

3/17

The MCB department has an annual St. Patrick's day party. Stephanie tried to lure me there with promises if a cute girl in a Modest Mouse shirt, but all she really needed to mention was the keg of Harp that was there, which I partook of.

I skipped out of work early and stopped by home for a while before getting a call from Will mentioning that Ryan Donowho (Ryan Dono... who?) who played the ill-fated Johnny on the OC was up at Woodrow's, drinking. Though I'm sure there are tons of celebrities in Houston on a daily basis, I don't run into them. And though he's no Peter Gallagher, Adam Brody, or Rachel Bilson (the only ones that really matter), I figure what the hell, so I went up to Woodrow's to get a glimpse. Maybe if the place wasn't crowded and he hadn't been with a big group of friends, I would have struck up a conversation, but it was overrun.

Hardly worth going up there for, probably, but Will needed a ride anyway, so, after retrieving him, Cindy, and Jeff from their various dwellings (or bars), we headed up to Rudyard's a bit early for the Magnolia Electric Co. show. We ordered some of Rudyard's great bar food for dinner and then paid the cover to go up stairs, grab a good table up front, and play some pool.

A few beers into the evening, the man himself, Mr. Manolia, Jason Molina came out, and the band played a kick ass set. There were some nice new arrangements of the slower songs from their current What Comes After the Blues (an uptempo "Hammer Down"), a couple of songs I wasn't familiar with (could have been new or could have been part of the huge Songs: Ohia back catalog), and some stuff ("Don't This Look Like the Dark") from the limited edition live album Trials & Errors. There may not have been anything from their six-eigths of perfection self-titled debut (if it was, it was drastically reworked). Overall, though, great. Molina's assembled an extremely talented band, and if they keep the set excessively short, at least it's of high quality. It'd be nice if they took the time to stretch their limbs a little more.

The banter was sparse as well, but Molina did talk about the glittery pink unicorn shirt he had on, the fulfillment of his plan to wear something as outlandish and likely to get him beat up as possible.

The venue was really quite perfect for seeing the band—sit down, great sound, a bit rustic—and the crowd was respectful. The show over, I checked out the merch and grabbed a couple of Songs: Ohia albums I didn't have. They once again had no t-shirts with them, so I'm still very thankful that Thom picked one up for me last year.

I introduced myself to Jason, who's just a stand up guy, extremely pleasant, and a great storyteller (ask for the one about when he got slipped a roofie and robbed).

3/18

Cindy had previously put a bug in my ear about going to Austin with her for the tail end of South by Southwest; I had been resistent for my usual homebody reasons, Rebecca being out of town, my uncertainty about being able to get into any worthwhile shows, and unanswered questions as to whether Cindy and I were carpooling or spending the weekend together.

Plus, she was planning on leaving in the morning and I don't do well with anything that requires me to get up before the crack of noon on weekends.

In the end, though, I could tell that she really wanted me to go, and owing to some other drama from the previous night (probably something to do with the fact that I was out with the guys instead of her on Thursday), I decided that I could handle placating her.

We got a late start but eventually were on the road to Austin in the 3 (rather than her rapidly-aging Mazda MX-3). It was a nice time of the year for the drive up 71, what with the wildflowers and all. We got into town and braved the crowded SoCo neighborhood to Guero's. It wasn't as crowded as one might expect given that Austin was in the throes of South By; the wait wasn't bad and gave us the opportunity to have a round of drinks. I got the queso flameado with beef fajita meat, and it was as good as I've had; my first Guero's experience was positive.

We made some brief attempts at catching up with wristband holders Dan & Kristin, but instead opted to swing by Rebecca's place (she had left me a key) and rest up before meeting Cindy's friend Sara for dinner at a cute little middle eastern market/deli. I wasn't overly impressed (compared to the glory of Niko Niko's), but it had enough charm to get by.

We opted to head downtown and see what we could see. We discovered that Magnolia was headlining across the street from Emo's under a tent, backed by Okkervil River and somebody else of some note (I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness?). We looked into getting in, randomly ran into LS Lauren and Chris, came to the realization that there's no way we would get in, and scouted around. We realized that there was an absolutely kick ass view from the alley behind the stage. We made a note of that and went off in search of beer.

Cindy chose Lovejoy's, which turned out to be a good choice. The interior was appropriately dank and divey (a bit Rudyard's, but with some of the dive-yness from Scruff's), they had their own "Here's to the crazy ones" style mission statement painted on the wall by the bathroom, and they had their own microbrew. I'm not Thom, so I don't have extensive notes on the three varieties I tried, but they were all unique takes on their respective styles and I found I enjoyed them all.

Cindy and I were about to take off to return to the show, when, walking to the bathroom, I spied a blonde girl out of the corner of my eye. She looked a lot like Kristin. On second glance, she was Kristin. So we hung out a little longer (and happend to try some of Lovejoy's homemade snack mix, which I plan on ordering next time I'm there).

We eventually made it back to the alley in time to catch about 3/4 of Okkervil River's show. I'd seen them 2.25 times before, and I must say that they benefit greatly from playing shows in their home town. Will Sheff is always an emotive singer, but his vocal performance was as intense ane beautiful as I've ever seen it. It was a great experience.

The view from the Alley was good; it was slightly obstructed, and mostly a rear perspective, but probably much closer than we would have been on the other side of the fence. While we were out there, we saw Jason Molina and talked to him a minute. He was again wearing the pink glittery shirt. He remembered us. We chatted a bit about Okkervil River. I was hoping he'd be super cool and get us into the show backstage, but I guess that was overly optimistic of me.

Magnolia played their set, and it was good, but identical to the previous night's, and couldn't compete with the more intimate venue. Courtney and crew came by briefly to say hi. During Magnolia's last song, the sky opened up. There was a small tent set up nearby, so Cindy and I went and stood under it, and discovered that it was the roadie tent. There was some brief banter about how we would have to help them carry equipment, and I mentioned my apptitude for dropping amps, and they told me I'd fit right in.

3/19

We got a late start on our journey home. We took a detour by Zach's Austin record store, quickly found the small indie ghetto, and picked up a few used CDs. He had a nice little place that was quite full for 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon.

We stopped by Jimmy John's for a sandwich to go. I don't know that Cindy appreciated it fully, but I was in heaven.

Ted Leo and his Pharmacists were supposed to play in Houston that night, but cancelled. Incidentally, Molly, Katie, and Cindy were all intending to go to that show, so maybe it's better that it didn't happen.