Austin

5/19

I left Houston a little later than I intended, but a few hours and some good music later, I arrived in Austin in time to bolt a sandwich and change before the Wards took off for Becca's graduation.

It was hot as fuck, and they were still cleaning up from one graduation and preparing for the next (what is this, a movie theater?), and it was hot as balls out, so while Dad was parking the car and Becca was preparing to graduate, I found a door that was unlocked for mom and I to sneak into. Soon we took our place, listened to the speaker, saw Becca walk, and migrated to the Texas Exes building for the reception. We partook of the free chapagne (some of us more than others, although Dad would later claim that the half glass he had made him sick), talked to Becca's teachers, and then went for dinner.

It was our first experience with Korean food. Mom made the mistake of going for the seafood soup, which a little... exotic. The rest of us went for grilled meat ("barbecue") of various types, which was... pleasant. The most interesting (and variable) thing was the side dishes they brought out. There was kimchi, of course, which I wasn't crazy about; some green beans with a strange sauce on them; and in a truly odd turn, vienna sausage sorts of things. There was other stuff, too, most of which wouldn't really agree with Americanized taste buds. But it was an intersting cultural experience.

After a brief stopover at Stein Mart for the parents, we returned to Rebecca's apartment, my parents gave her the ring they got her for graduation, we had the tres leches cake that Dad had made, and then Mom and Dad took off for the evening.

Becca and I started out at the Cedar Door, which claims to be the home of the original Mexican Martini. Whether or not they're authentically the first is not really relevant, given the poor quality of the drinks we were served. I was not impresssed. After round one, we made our exit and headed over to East Austin.

I can't remember the name of the next place we went (I'll try to update later), but it was my first experience in East Austin, and it was a positive one. The place was a nice hipster sort of bar. We took a seat on the ground outside (no chairs available) and started in on the leftovers from the cigar night a couple of weeks previous. It must have been that one damned cigar, because it caused me some serious problems again. But other than that, it was a nice evening out with my sister.

5/20

Mom and Dad joined us for brunch at South Congress Café. We enjoyed the salsa sampler, I got an omlette with wild boar sausage that was served with marinara sauce and was tasty. There was some debate as to the proper owner of the fruit cup: me or dad, which I was pretty sure was mine considering I had ordered breakfast and he had ordered an appetizer. A week or so later I proved my correctness by looking the menu up on the internet and sending it to Dad. That's a Ward family characteristic, making sure that we know who was right and wrong. My meal also came with a very good potato pancake made with gouda. Oh, and I went for their signature bloody mary again, which mom was brave enough to try.

Mom and Dad skipped town not long after that, and after some debate as to exactly what to do with our evening, we eventually settled on starting out with pizza at Home Slice. After getting on the waiting list, we walked across the street to Guero's to have a round of micheladas, returned, and got a table. We got some beer (Fireman #4?), ordered salad (it comes out served on a pizza pan; cute), and ordered a white pizza with roasted bell pepper. They missed the "white" part of things, but the waiter noticed and not only replaced the pizza but also let us keep the extra one. Great customer service there, and we left him an appropriate tip. The pizza was excellent too. The place reminded me of a fancier Late Nite Pie.

Our next stop was drinks at the Hotel San Jose's hotel bar. Despite dealing with a bitchy bartender (and I'll note that I get very tired of being constantly carded in Austin), they served up a nice michelada, and we went and sat in their beautiful courtyard. Becca swore the waitress liked me. I don't know where she got that idea.

We decided it was time to expand our gathering, and with Becca's friends MIA, we turned to my contact list, and arranged to have Courtney & Kristina, as well as Cindy (in town for her brother's graduation) and her two brothers meet us at Trudy's North.

Shit. I have a love/hate relationship with Trudy's. I've had bad experiences with their waitstaff, I resent their two-mexican-martini limit, and they're overly bitchy about incomplete parties. But damn to they make a fine drink. So we had to start out at the bar while we waited for Cindy and co. to arrive, and of course we were just getting our drinks when they showed up and we were finally allowed to sit at one of the many empty tables.

It was nice to have a chance for Cindy and Rebecca to meet, and it was a lot of fun hanging out with Courtney, as always. I enjoyed the maximum two mexican martinis, was reminded that I was "cut off" by our asshole waiter, and we called it a night soon after that.

5/21

Becca took me to Juan in a Million for lunch, and I immediately liked it, as it very much reminded me of Leal's (shut up, Bryan). We started off with two big glasses of horchata, which was new to me, and I very much liked (think the taste of cinnamon rice pudding and the texture of a glass of milk). Becca recommended the Don Juan breakfast burrito plate, which didn't disappoint. I had enough left for another meal.

Pretty soon after that, I braved the heat to return to Houston.

Headphone Update

I certainly think Grado Labs is the cat's pajamas. I've got a pair of their SR 60 headphones, the gateway drug to hi-fi sound. Sure, they're a little ugly, but in sort of a retro, nerd-chic shortwave radio kind of way.

But holy shit... what were they thinking? This shit's ugly as sin. I'm sure they sound great, though. Considering they use the same parts as the SR 60s, they probably even sound better than my previous low-budget favorites, the Sennheiser PX100, a kickass, and quite portable set... though, at $10 more, they should be better. But wow. Fugly.

In other headphone news, the Senns have been supplanted as my work headphone in favor of the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. I had, way back in the beginning of my iPod days, a pair of sony's MDR EX71LP in-ear headphones, my first experiment with the ear-canal style (think earplugs with built-in headphones. They eventually fell out of favor with me (the sound wasn't really that great for the price), and I decided I wasn't really a fan of the ear-canal style. The cord ends up being microphonic (think stethoscpe), you can hear your pulse, your footsteps, and you can't hear what's going on around you.

But sometimes, blocking out the outside world is desirable. People who feel the need to talk loudly in a non-English language into their cell phones (on speaker phone, no less) on the bus, or just talking loudly in general, or blown speakers playing "soft rock" (when did this euphemism for easy-listening top 40 crap become acceptable?) are all candidates. As are freezer alarms from neighboring labs going off, and other incidental background sounds.

Plus, since I last shopped for them, the rift between the $50 Sonys and the $300 Etymotic has been filled nicely by lower-end models from Shure, Etymotic, Futuresonics, and Ultimate Ears. After doing some reading, I decided Ultimate Ears was the best in the $100 range, and ordered a pair of their Super.fi 3 Studio headphones, thankfully from Headroom who have a decent return policy.

And well, they were great... mostly. Sound quality was quite good overall, with clarity and resolution rivaling my stereo. And it was really nice being able to block out the outside world... on the bus, at work, etc. But the bass was very shelved down. And if I'm going to spend $100 on headphones, I might as well spend another $100 to get ones that I'll be happy with.

Hence, the Super.fi 5, which are a beautiful headphones in every way. Clear, resolving, easy to drive, and just a tad bit punchy. Of course, at $200, I'm getting close to the high end. But damn, these are fine. The last time I tried to go back to the Sennheisers, it was a bit painful. The bass sounded bloated and everything was a bit blurrier, by direct comparison. They're a quite good set of 'phones, but can't compete with something that's 4x the price. I thought maybe I'd still use them, but they're beginning to seem quite superfluous.

Brick; Sabrina; Will; Nick

5/15

David and Thomas had lent their endorsement to Brick, so when it made its way to Houston, I organized a viewing, opting to take advantage of the Angelika's cheap date night.

Cindy and I met up with Dan and Kristin for a rushed meal at Mai's and we all caught up with Will and Bill at the theater just in time for the movie. Cindy and I shared our free popcorn and soda with Dan and Kristin, who, in return, let us partake in their smuggled-in candy. It was very symbiotic.

The movie was a clever little thing. It was a film noir piece, but in a high school setting, and while at first the juxtaposition of the serious film noir elements with such young characters and a setting concoted with such an obvious nod and wink from the director lent the film some comedy, that really just gave the flim a chance to draw you into the dark story while your guard was down. In the end, it may not have been quite perfect, but novelty and cleverness went a long way toward providing an entertaining film. I intend to see it again.

C & I dropped by midtown Woodrow's to join Bill & Will (just back in town from a wedding) for a round or two after the film.

5/16

Due to Sabrina's (and, to a lesser extent, my own) school business and busy-ness, we hand't see each other in quite some time (since Bryan was in town, actually). So, both of our schedules finally cleared, we made a date and hit the Gingerman for some beer (it's so nice now that we share that affinity). I introduced (I think) Sabrina to Lindemann's lambic beers, and we also gave the G-man's beer mixes a try ("Dirty Hoe"—Hoegaarden and Lindemann's, which was good). It was a good chance to catch up with Brina.

5/17

Will and I opted once again to make a comic book store run and then grab some dinner at, umm, that Mexican place that's at Greenbriar and Richmond... you know the one. They had a good white queso and I indulged in a happy hour margarita, but we had unknowingly showed up on karaoke night, so we had to rush up the process of getting our bill, paying, and getting the hell out of there.

Afterwards, I drafted Will to help me put up my new surround speakers (previously a two person job, though I soon found out that due to some slight geometric changes, now a very difficult one person job). Despite things not quite going the way I expected, he still proved himself useful.

5/18

Nick was in town, briefly, for business, so I resolved to take the afternoon off to grab some lunch with him, check out his barely 24 hours old MacBook, and let him give my new stereo setup a listen.

I had signed up for a seminar on MATLAB to take place that day, but it turned out to be pretty pedestrian, so I had no problem whatsoever skipping out on the second half. Nick picked me up from school and was in the mood for Star, so we went and hit their lunch buffet before returning to hang out at my place for a while.

Art Brut; Lauren; Cindy, BBQ, Happy Hour; Rudyard's and, randomly, El Ten Eleven

5/9

I hadn't ever bothered checking out Pitchfork darlings Art Brut last year, but I did so in advance of their show at the Proletariat and liked what I heard. Garage rock/punk music with clever, theatrical half-spoken vocals.

They pulled this off pretty well in concert, too, and their "regular guys" look went a long way towards supporting their "anybody can and should form a band" missino statement. Particularly good was their performance of the ode to ex-girlfriend "Emily Kane", wherein lead singer Eddie Argos sings about still being in love with his high school sweetheart. Performing it live, they removed the bridge, stopped the song, and the Argos inserted an epilogue. Having heard the song about her on BBC Radio One, Emily Kane apparently got back in touch. They caught up on things, and the realization dawned on Argos that he wasn't still in love with Emily Kane, just in love with the memory of being in love with her. It was a beautiful addition to an already great song, and exactly the sort of artistic context that a good live show can provide.

5/12

I hadn't hung out with BCM Lauren in quite some time. After what may or may not have been an incident in which she and Chris cut themselves off from me (more or less) because of suspicions about my interest in Lauren (which, by then, was no longer an issue), I had pretty much left it to her to call the shots. But the night that Char and I were hanging out at Han's, he asked if I had seen her lately, and mentioned that a little birdy had told him that I didn't call her enough and should perhaps do so. He wouldn't elaborate, but I took the hint and sent her an e-mail.

So I was hanging out on Friday night (actually, being super dorky and comparing all the sets of speakers I had at my disposal before sending my trade-ins in), when I got a text message from her, and after a little back and forth we decided to go out. We had a couple of rounds at LZ's, and then went for food at House of Pies, where we split some pie, some breakfast foods, and fulfilling Lauren's craving, some tater tots.

It was nice to have the chance to hang out with Lauren.

5/13

Martin from lab needed a ride to the airport, so after a mad dash to get ready, grab my comics, and pick him up, only to find him in no particular hurry, I deposited him at IAH and headed on to Susan and Jerry's, only to find that they had gone to Waco for Mother's Day.

Laundry done, I headed back to civilization and Cindy and I hit up Goode's for some BBQ dinner. There was a sparsely attended graduate school happy hour at Woodrow's that we hung out at for a while before leaving with some of Cindy's friends. Kim was there and swears Cindy gave her a possessive look.

5/14

Dan, Kristin, and John were hanging out at Rudyard's (nothing wrong with getting some $1 Lonestar tall boys on a Sunday night), and I opted to join them. While we were there, I happened to notice, not entirely consciously, the CD that was on in the background—and like it.

A short while later the announcement was made that the band whose CD was just playing would be playing a free (well, it wasn't supposed to be, but low attendance changes things) show upstairs, so we went up to check it out—and it's a good thing we did.

The tallboys didn't hurt, of course, but seeing El Ten Eleven play that night was blissful. The duo seemed to have a little more energy live than they do on record (an after-the-fact observation), and their pleasant guitar-based instrumentals had some nice early Built to Spill and Modest Mouse similarities (the band members liked it when I told them that after the show, particularly being compared to bands that weren't just instrumental), but the most exciting part was watching. Like when Final Fantasy opened for the Arcade Fire, El Ten very much relied on a seamless use of looped melodies and counter-melodies. Only instead of a single violin, one band member laid out a beat on the trap set, while another used a double-necked combination six string guitar/bass guitar (totally hot), building up layers of bass lines and guitar figures. It was incredible to see one person produce such intricate music through the judicious use of simple technology.

It was a wonderful surprise and a great way to end the weekend. I highly recommend seeing the band if you get the chance, and the CD (which I was almost guaranteed to buy since I liked them and saw the show for free) is a pleasant listen, too.

Day off; More beer and more cigars; Chaos; Band practice; Another day off; New toy; M:I; Cinco; Beach party; Under the weather

5/1

Considering that some people take a full week off after their committee meetings, I felt justified in taking a week off. The boss was out of town, and my first priority was editing a paper, which I could at least look like I was doing from home.

It was glorious.

Char decided that he wanted to do a proper smoking night, so I made my first trip to the Briar Shoppe to get some pipe tobacco for Char and Angela, and cigars for Cindy and I. The girl working the counter seemed a little surprised that I was asking for suggestions, but was willing to help. I ended up with a Java "wafer" (pressed somewhat flat) cigar for Cindy. For myself, I picked up the suggested Jose Seijas special edition manufactured by Tabacalera De Garcia, the last one they had. I bought a Macanudo just in case.

Cindy and I went over to Char's that evening, and we had a nice laid back time sitting in their back yard enjoying our various tobacco products. I was probably most impressed with the Java that Cindy had (Becca finished off the remains of it when I was in Austin and liked it). Mine was enjoyable, but I don't know, maybe it was too serious of a cigar for me. In the end, it kicked my ass and made me more than a bit nauseous, so we eventually made our exit.

5/2

One of the monthly computational biology talks was given by Dr. James Yorke who coined the term "Chaos", up in the med center's one and only fancy restaurant, Trevisio. The lecture was sort of scattered but had some nice bits. Afterwards, there was beer, wine, and the ubiquitous cheese/fruit trays.

5/3

I had twice before attempted to sit in on one of Vincent and Jeff's jam sessions. Jeff plays rhythm/lead guitar, and Vincent plays bass/rhythm guitar. Since Jeff bought me a nifty USB MIDI keyboard for my birthday last year, I actually had something that I'm (in theory) capable of playing. I plug it into the PowerBook, fire up Garage Band, and have a nice selection of software instruments (and, potentially, loops) to play around with, though I pretty much stick to grand piano, electric piano, clavinova, and organ.

So in this first session, I pretty much stuck to playing one-handed chords (or worse, the roots of the chords). I had to look up a few things (completely forgot what a 7th chord is, for example) and review a few scales. Overall, it was a rocky start, but I had fun.

5/4

The next round (and most highly anticipated) of my stereo upgrade was due to arrive via FedEx, so I elected to work from home, and this time actually did so.

This was almost rendered moot by the lazy-ass FedEx triver, who couldn't be bothered to do something as trivial as try to deliver the package to my actual door; instead the bastard just took it straight to the office. Thankfully, I checked the tracking page (an hour after it had actually arrived), and realized it was there. So I went and picked them up, assembled them, hooked them up, and took a listen. Again, more on that later.

Will wanted to catch the midnight showing of Mission: Impossible 3, so Cindy and I met up early for dinner and I introduced her to the wonderful thing that is Pei Wei. We split an order of their new (since the last time I went, which was some time ago) pork lettuce wraps, which were a nice variation on the original chicken dish, which substitued butter lettuce (a nice complement to the other flavors) and added some pineapple (also a nice complement to the pork), and maybe did away with the mushrooms. We also split an order of Blazing Noodles, which weren't particularly blazing, and were enjoyable, but probably not somethign I'll order again any time soon.

Cindy ran an errand at Half Price Books, we came by my house and watched the Daily Show/Colbert Report, and then picked up Will for the movie. The movie was enjoyable, probably better than the second one (never saw the first). Tom Cruise remained likable on the screen despite his continuing decent into Scientological wackiness.

5/5

Post-Keck, Will invited Jeff and I over for spaghetti and meatballs, which was quite good (I dont' think I had ever had Will's cooking), and then, as Cindy and I had been unable to get anyone else in Cinco de Mayo celebrations, we went and had Margaritas, first at a place on Richmond near Montrose (can't remember where) that was overpriced and not particularly impressive. We then intended to move on to somewhere else but found Chapultapec overly crowded. We briefly considered the Proletariat, but ultimately decided against it for similar reasons. In the end, we returned to my place and I attempted grapefruit margaritas, but I still haven't been able to match Courtney's prowess.

5/6

Viraj managed (a little later than usual) to organize one last beach party down at Quintana beach, so Cindy and I gathered up some sausage, some beer, and headed down south. The crowd wasn't exactly mine, but it down by the water it was a pretty pleasant evening. The sausages were good (if a little gritty from inevitably picking up sand). The fire was nice. The PBR and High Life were cold. We had a nice walk down by the water, and returned to the fire only to discover that the mosquitos had found our little gathering, so we opted to leave rather quickly and began the drive home.

5/7

I hadn't had much to drink at the beach, but I felt like crap the next day (maybe it was the sausage?). I recovered later in the day and had a pleasantly quiet Sunday.

Ernie's; Pre-committee meeting; Comics with Will; Burgers and Volcano; Committee meeting; Sticking it; Islands; Beer and cigars

4/24

Char had polished off his committee meeting earlier in the day and so he wanted to go out and get some drinks. Mine wasn't taken care of yet, but I saw no reason to let that get in the way of things. He, Will, and Samara were up at Ernie's on Banks, which is a place that I've always found rather charming, so I went and joined them.

We had a niced time, but one of the negatives of the construction of Ernie's is that there's a a small downstairs area with its own bar, a much larger upstairs area with its own bar, and then a nice balcony attached to the upstairs. On slow nights (which seems to be all fo them), they close down the upstairs bar, and for whatever strange reason this necessitates them closing the balcony as well, which is a shame since it's a nice little place to hang out, with a nice view of the museum district and the park across the street. Oh well.

4/25

My committee member M., who is Graham/Char/Jeff/Tiffany's PI, couldn't make it to my actual meeting, so I drove over to U of H to meet with him. As always he was engaging, interested, and helpful, and, as Graham and Char have observed about him in the past, he seemed to know what I was doing better than I dod.

4/26

Will and I have, once a month or so, taken to leaving work a little early on Wednesdays (meaning between 5 and 6 instead of after 6) and hitting the comic shop. So we did that. Will wanted to do dinner, but Cindy and I had already made plans towards that end, so I bid him adieu.

We had for a while talked about going out with the express purpose of getting burgers, and had declared that this would be the occasion for it. We settled on Becks Prime, which I had always thought would be more of a sit down place a la Fudrucker's (probably from the "prime" in the name), but turned out to have a fairly standard fast food setup (albeit with a deck that would be very nice if not for all of the Kirby traffic going by mere yards away, and all of the drive through orders occuring mere feet away).

But who cares about atmosphere? It's the burgers that count, and they had us covered. The meat was quite flavorful. Nothing else really stood out, but when the taste of your burgers is that good, I guess it doesn't have to. Good stuff. I need to make a return trip sometime soon.

Cindy's friend Reika had just finished her qualifying exam that day and was celebrating at the Volcano, so we went and had a round. I was excited about introducing Cindy to the strawberry basil margarita, but ours that night were quite substandard, which was a damn shame (especially for such a pricey drink). I selected a Pim's cup for my next drink, which includes the british pim's liquor (a relative of gin, or so the interwebs tell me), and the interesting combination of ginger ale and fresh cucumber slices. I had remembered Molly's being good when we went to the Volcano that one time, but I found it disappointing that particular night. Maybe it was good with the first sip but not drinkable enough to last through and entire drink. I forget.

4/27

This time, I actually got down to business and got ready for the committee meeting (well, eventually).

4/28

It was committee meeting day. I hadn't planned to do snacks, but caved at the last minute and picked up a dozen cookies and bottled water from the Coffee Corner (cost: $10). The meeting itself went fine. In contrast with the meeting with M. on Tuesday, no one really had anything helpful to say, but neither did they kick my ass over everything, so it was a success over all.

Our student lecture was afterwards. This is what happens when I get bored:


One of my committee members sent me an e-mail that afternoon to resign. We're required to have one member outside of the department, and the boss had suggested R., on the strength of his being "a smart guy". But apparently "smart" and "intellectually curious about subjects outside of one's immediate field of expertise" are two different qualities, as he complained that what was going on was not anything he knew anything about, and rather than, say, try to understand and offer criticism from the perspective of an outsider, he chose the path of laziness. The boss was "disappointed in him", for what that was worth.

Will had sold me (and a rather large group) on the idea of seeing Stick It. I had fond memories of watching Bring It On one summer during college with David and Win (as part of a triple feature also including Bullworth and Barton Fink), finishing the evening with that particular movie (selected on the strength of Win's argument that it contained "so many cheerleaders") at around 4:00 in the morning. Consequently, I agreed. Cindy followed suit.

What we didn't realize was that it was all a rather large conspiracy on Will's part to make Char see it and be miserable, which was effective in the end. For my part, I had thrown back a few shots before leaving the house, so I think I was best able to appreciate the film, though I sobered up towards the end. The coup de grace was, however, the crowd, which consisted almost entirely of tweens and teens. I found them amusing enough in my state, but I was probably the only one.

Afterwards we went to the Tavern on West Gray. Cindy drove so I proceeded to get my drunkeness back. Jeff came out with us, which was a rare occasion. Char had left. Val, for her part, spent her time up at the bar getting hit on. Will and Samara chatted. It was a pretty good time.

I have a vague recollection that maybe Cindy and I went for some food afterwards, but I can't recall specifics and I think that odds are, it didn't happen.

4/29

Having seen one good Unicorns show (May 2004 in NY) and one bad Unicorns show (their final one, in Houston, December 2004), I might have been a little concerned about how it would turn out having 2/3 of the Unicorns on stage for the Islands' show at Walter's, but given the strength of their excellent album, I really wasn't.

Cindy and I showed up at Walter's, made our way to the nice little spot between the bar and the far wall, had some drinks with Dan and Kristin, and settled in for the show. The band was big, multi-instrumented, and dressed all in white, all of which were reminiscent of the Polyphonic Spree. They marched in from the parking lot to the stage and a theatrical style, which was a nice little gimmick. Also, they get points for being the first band I've ever seen to incorporate a bass clarinet. The show was very high energy, and I had a great time.

4/30

Char called me up and was interested in getting some beer and smoking some cigars. He suggested we make a return trip to Han's Bier Haus, a notion that I seconded on the strengths of the place the first time around. It's a nice little joint, laid back, good selection, open-aired. We sat at the patio out front. Char had picked up a pack of Backwoods cigars, which are a nice small size for casual smoking—so, of course, we went through the entire pack. For such a cheap cigar, it's a very plesant, laid back, and pretty much unobjectionable smokable. We also had some good beer (Pyramid Apricot) and some cheap beer (Lonestar, a surprisingly good cigar companion), and had a nice chat.