New Toy; Shopping; Dan, Wii, TV; Lamb Stew; Dacia's Birthday; School

1/29

Got a cool vintage receiver that Oliver was getting rid of. I'll talk more about it in an upcoming post.

1/30

My hi-fi habit necessitated some new furniture. In the living room, I'd long had the crossover and amp for my subwoofer leaned up against my TV stand, the Mac mini and Wii hiding to the left and right of the TV, and the record player that Cindy had bought me was sitting on my floor in front of a plant.

In the bedroom, the subwoofer amp/crossover was also on its side up against furniture, and now that I had a new receiver I didn't have a place for. Ideally these things would go on an audio-grade stand (spiked feet, high mass, stable), but the rest of my gear isn't, and honestly there are probably better things to put money into.

So, off to IKEA for cheap furniture. I ended up with something that was either a very small TV stand or a minimalist night stand. Either way, it had two shelves appropriately sized for audio components and looked sturdier than some of their other options. They only had a light-colored finish, which wasn't ideal, but I was eager to get something accomplished, so I went for it and grabbed two.

After that, on to the grocery store, then home to assemble and set up the new furniture.

1/31

After a trip to Whole Foods, I dropped by Dan's place. Dan had managed to break his mp3 player, so I loaned him my old 4th generation iPod until he could buy a new one. Cindy was picking up sandwiches for dinner so we invited Dan to join us.

Back at my place, we indulged in some wonderful sandwiches from Jimmy John's, newly opened in Houston, and played some Wii. Dan took off and Cindy and I watched some TV.

2/1

I had, for some time, been wanting to check out Alton's recipe for lamb and barley stew. Check out the link for more, but it turned out well, and it was only a pain to clean the fat off the roast and cut it into chunks. Next time I'd just buy lamb stew meat and save myself the trouble.

2/2

Dacia's birthday @ the Mink, Dan DJs, we eat

Handily, Dacia decided to have her birthday party at the mink, and Dan happened to be DJing upstairs. I got him to guest list us so that we could move between the two. Caught a "band"/DJs who did video game remixes called Extra Man; they were awesome and I bought their CD. Dacia's girlfriend made some surprisingly good vegan cupcakes.

Dacia and co. eventually left for lesbian bar Chance's, and, curious as I was, I was also tired and hungry, so instead Cindy and I walked a couple doors down to Tacos A Go Go. It's a charming little place: appropriate decor, high ceilings, only slightly expensive, simple menu, taco-focused dining experience, appropriate late-night ambiance. Go with the corn tortillas if that's your thing; it's that kind of place.

Afterwards, we went back to the Mink and bid Dan adieu. I spared Cindy the experience of listening to my brand new Extra Man CD.

2/4

It was Super Bowl Sunday, and though there weren't any big parties in the picture, I had many things I would have rather been doing, some of which actually involved watching the game, than preparing a lab meeting presentation. Yet there I was.

Cheap date night; Sabrina & Ghostland Observatory; Arcade Fire leaks & blues; Pool; Car show & school stuff

1/22

It had been a while since we'd taken advantage of cheap date night (actually now it may be "student night" which isn't as good of a name, though it may be more accurate) at the Angelika. Cindy had been wanting to see Pan's Labrynth, so she, Will and I went and enjoyed the cheap ticket, free popcorn and soda.

The movie was, I guess, a disappointment. It tells of a girl's escapism, using a fantasy world to avoid and confront the problems she encounters in living through the Spanish Revolution. But the fantasy world really wasn't the focus on the movie, and it didn't complement the film's plot as well as I would have liked. Not a bad piece of flimmaking, but not spectacular, either.

Afterwards, we drug Will out to the Proletariat to see Dan DJ. Will eventually got a little bored and Leroy came by to pick him up, but I think we all enjoyed the beer and tunes.

1/23

Band practice, except I forgot my laptop. My keyboard plugs into it and is basically just an input device; the laptop turns the button presses into music. But the keyboard is USB, and there shouldn't have been any problem plugging it into Jeff's home theater PC. Except there was. So we messed with it for an hour or so, our efforts confounded by the week wireless signal his PC was receiving.

Eventually we gave up. I played on Jeff's Moog instead, but I realy a lot on chords, and analog synths only produce one note at a time. It wasn't half bad, though, and I certainly wouldn't deny that the Moog is a nice piece of gear.

1/25

Sabrina and I had not hung out in quite some time; the last time I had seen her was probably after the Joanna Newsom show (and her finals), so we caught up over Mexican food and margs at Chuy's; see Sabrina's account of the evening for more information. Needless to say, it was some much-needed hanging out time and a lot of fun.

Afterwards, Cindy and I met up with Greg, who had recruited us to go (for free!) to the Ghostland Observatory show. I knew next to nothing about the group. Turns out they're a duo; one wears a cape and works the electronics, while the other, at least at first, appears to be either a slim, flat-chested girl with pigtails, or a very slim boy with pigtails. Turns out it's the latter. He does the vocals, dances around, and provides the charisma while the other guy provides the beats.

The music is, perhaps obviously, dancy. Not quite my thing, but they're good at what they do, and I enjoyed it, particularly once I was a few beers into the evening.

They managed to sell out the Warehouses' small room, which surprised the hell out of me since I hadn't heard of them. Cindy reminded me (and reminded me again last time I brought it up) that they had been big on the festival circuit and that not every band blows up because of Pitchfork.

1/26

I'm sitting in Friday afternoon seminar when I get a text from Dan: the new Arcade Fire album has leaked.

In case past posts didn't make it clear, I'm a big fan. They're great on record, they're great live. They rock, they have complex, multi-instrumental arrangements. They're emotionally touching. They're sad but hopeful; enthusiastic, even.

So I've been waiting very impatiently for a follow-up to their 2004 debut album, and when I had a chance to get my hands on it, it became a priority. I stuck around for the beer after seminar, but as soon as I got home I threw the copy that Dan had sent me on the stereo and had a nice listening session. And then fell asleep on the couch.

Oliver and I have this thing. He invites me to blues shows and I never come, and I invite him to rock shows and he never comes. I decided to break the cycle, and so when he invited me to come see Texas Johnny Brown at the Big Easy.

I'd never been to the bar. It's divey but by no means intimidating or scary. Oliver and crew had a table, and pitchers kept coming, so after providing one of my own, I grabbed a seat and soaked in the blues. The blues are one of those genres like jazz and classical that I enjoy but don't claim to know anything about, so I certainly won't attempt to critique this old African-American's art. But it certainly sounded good to me, and a couple of beers in with those soothing sounds hitting me, I felt like life didn't get any better.

Plus, I had the Arcade Fire to return home to!

1/27

Cindy and I hit up Mai's for a late dinner, and then Joined up with Char, Angela, BT (that's "Black Tiffany") and a friend of hers at Slick Willie's for some pool. As usual, Cindy schooled all of us and I sucked. But I don't have to be good to enjoy it.

1/28

Char picked me up and we went to the Reliant convention center to check out the Houston car show. For what was essentially advertising, a $10 entrance fee seemed a bit pricey, but it was fun. I enjoyed checking out the "obtainable" cars more than the exotics, particularly things like the Mazdaspeed 3, RX-8, and CX-7; the VW Golf GTI; the Subaru Impreza WRX wagon and WRX STI rally car, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, and, slightly less realistically, Audi's various A and S offerings (I'm particularly fond of the A3) and some of BMW's stuff. Of course, looking at the exotic stuff was fun too, but it's more fun to play the "what car do I want to buy when I have a nice job and am out of grad school" game than the "if I could pick any one car, what would it be game?".

Afterwards, I had to get up to school to get some work done and get some shit done.

Classical conditioning

Is there anyone in America in the 13 to 40 age bracket that does not now associate steel drums with "Girls Gone Wild"?

Brought to you by me listening to "Heart It Races", the new single from Architecture in Helsinki.

MazdaPi

I'm almost ashamed I didn't come up with this.

But not really.

Pitchfork Watch

Pitchfork on Monday reviewed Stars' "new" Do You Trust Your Friends?". It's a song-by-song remix of their absolutely wonderful Set Yourself On Fire, and despite the great source material, my first listen left me utterly bored and I give it about a 25% chance that I'll ever listen again.

Remixing well is tough; you have to make enough changes that the song sounds "fresh" and that you've actually added something meaningful to it, but you also have to retain enough of the song that you don't lose what made it great in the first place. For most of these songs, the remixes manage to paradoxically stay too close to the material while managing to remove the spark that made me like the songs. In the end, boring.

Covers give a band a little more freedom, but it helps if you actually like the band doing the cover, and you still want to have some parallels between the coverer and the coveree. Although most of these groups are in some way tied to the Canadian scene whose big names I'm a fan of, they're for the most part not that interesting to me.

Pitchfork also spends some time addressing the phenomenon of all these remix albums. They can be shameful cash-ins, they can be a way to keep the band's name in the conscience of a press and fans who move so quickly on to the next thing with music being so readily accessible. The only one that I remember Pitchfork liking was Bloc Party's Silent Alarm Remixed, and that may have even been setting a bad precedent.

Bottom line, bands need to find a way to keep themselves on the minds of their fans and the press, without burning themselves out by touring too much and constantly having to put out new music.

The tupperware of microwaved leftovers of that is these albums, however, is not it, and bands would be smart not to put them out lest they cheapen their best efforts.

Hi-Fi 101

If I'm going to follow up on my promise to start posting more stuff about my interests, you're all going to have to learn a bit about hi-fi. I'll try to make this as painless as possible.

Source

Let's start with a CD. You all know CDs, right? Shiny little things that used to be all the rage ten years ago? So CDs store a bunch of songs in digital form. Let's go through the process of turning those bits on the CD into music, and in doing so take a tour of hi-fi equipment.

So, the CD has to go into something, right? You think immediately of a CD player, of course, but a CD player actually consists of a couple parts that can be purchased sepparately.

The first is the transport. It's the mechanical part, including the motor and the laser, that pulls the data from the CD.

A transport can output the digital signal straight to a digital to analog converter (DAC), which produces the corresponding analog signal.

This is electrical current that rises and falls with the peaks and dips of the sound wave it represents. Actually, you have two signals, one for the left channel and one for the right channel. They go out over interconnects, often called RCA cables because of the most popular type of connector, those round thingies with a little metal tip sticking out that are usually color coded red and white, with red representing the right channel and white representing the left.

Amplification

The interconnects carry this line-level signal to a pre-amp. A pre-amp usually has a bunch of sources besides a CD player hooked up to it, and allows you to pick which one you want to listen to without haveing to unplug and replug the interconnects for different sources when you want to listen to a different piece of equipment.

The pre-amp takes the analog signal from the selected source (still the DAC of the CD player), and does something else useful, which is to allow you to change the volume of the signal, by amplifying or reducing the volume of the signal.

But the electrical signal at this point is still very low power. It takes quite a bit of energy to make enough sound to fill up a room, so the pre-amp outputs this volume adjusted signal, using another set of our old friend, the interconnect, to send the signal on to a power amplifier.

The power amplifier ups the energy of the signal significantly. Exactly how much depends on the particular amp you're using, but we'll assume here it's, well, enough.

Speakers

Enough for what? Follow the electrical signal along 2 wires (speaker cables) to a pair of loudspeakers. The electrical signal hits a magnet, which makes the speaker cone vibrate at the frequency and amplitude (pitch and volume) conveyed by the signal.

Now the tricky thing with speakers is that small speakers don't handle bass well, and large speakers don't handle treble well. So what you see most of the time (unless your speakers are cheap or you're into the really weird shit) is a speaker incorporating multiple drivers of varying sizes that cover different frequency ranges. To make sure each one only produces the frequencies in the appropriate range, you use a crossover to apply a high pass filter (high frequencies "pass" through) to the smaller speaker and a low pass filter (you can figure that one out) to the larger speaker.

Generally the smaller speaker is called a "tweeter" and the larger speaker is a "woofer", a perhaps overly clever bit of onomatopoeia . A speaker with one tweeter (.75-1" in diameter is pretty normal) and one woofer (4-6.5" diameter) is called a 2-way speaker, one with a tweeter, a "mid woofer", and a subwoofer (8, 10, or 12", commonly) is a 3-way speaker, as is a design that uses a tweeter, a "mid-treble driver", and a woofer. If you have one tweeter and two woofers of the same size, it's called a 2.5-way speaker, and so forth.

Combinations

So we've covered the following parts so far:

• CD transport
• DAC
• Pre-amp
• Power amp
• Crossover
• Loudspeaker

But we can combine some of these pieces into the same component.

For example, it's almost univeral, particularly in what you'd find at, say, Best Buy to see the CD transport and the DAC in one box, and the whole thing is your typical CD player. Actually, it's even more unviersal to just see a DVD player instead of a CD player, but the principle is the same.

It's also quite common to combine the pre-amp and the power amp into one box, which is called an integrated amp or integrated. Add a radio tuner to an integrated amp and you get a receiver, which is the most common for of amplification you'll see.

If a receiver can do more than 2 channels of amplification, and has a DAC which can decode surround sound, it's a home theater receiver. It's also common for an HTR to be able to switch video sources in addition to audio sources and pass the video on to a TV or monitor, so you don't have to change inputs on both the TV and the receiver.

Amplifiers that only amplify one channel of audio and are designed to be used in pairs (or more for a home theater system) are called monoblock amps. If two of these go in the same box, it's called a "dual-mono" design. If a stereo amplifier can be used as a monoblock amp, it's "bridgeable".

It's also pretty common to see CD players with digital audio outputs that let you bypass the built-in DAC and use a standalone one or one built into an HTR. This is because the DAC is usually the most expensive element in a nice CD player.

Some high-end CD players also acept digital inputs so that you can use their DACs for other sources. Some even have volume control so you don't need a pre-amp and can hook straight into a power amp.

If the amplifier is built into the speaker, the speaker is an active loudspeaker. Sometimes these even have their own source switching and volume control, as is common with computer speakers.

Another possibility is that you want to add a sepparate subwoofer to take over the bass duties normally handled by your main speakers. In this case you have an additional crossover which sends the very lowest frequencies to the amplifier that powers the subwoofer, and the higher frequencies to the speaker's own crossover. Subwoofer crossovers can be built in to an HTR (often referred to as bass management), an external box, or part of the subwoofer itself. Same for the amplifier, although you see it in the receiver only in cheap home-theater-in-a-box setups, and usually see it bolted to the back of the sub (a plate amp), or, occasionally, in its own box.

Now, imagine that instead of pulling bits off a CD using a transport, you pull them off a hard drive, and then send them on to a DAC. What you have is a digital music player that plays CD audio that just so happens to not be stored on CD. Essentially, you can do this running iTunes (or whatever software it is the infidels are using these days). Or instead of pulling the bits directly off a hard drive, the music player could even grab them off the network. Maybe you could even compress the CD audio using mp3 or something even better so it takes up less space on a hard drive. Wouldn't that be fancy...

So that gives you an overview of the basic parts of a stereo system, so the terminology won't be completely alien to you when I start throwing it around in future blog entries. Next time I'll talk about the equipment I have, and where my system stuff fits in to the schema described above, why I chose the gear I did, and what gear I ultimately aspire to own.

MLK; KILLER ICE STORM OF '07; El Tiempo & Bukowski

1/15

In a cruel twist of fate, I spent my day off mostly sleeping, as I had some symptoms that some would think might indicate that I was sick. So I slept it off, had some green tea, some emercen-c, some fruit juice, slept it off some more. There were better things I could have been doing, but at least I wasn't at work.


1/16

Things got cold, as in below freezing, which means, of course, that civilization is at risk of grinding to a halt. And, God willing, no school.

Dan called me up and he was braving the apocalyptic weather for some drinks at Rudz. At the time, the weather hadn't quite worked its way below 32, and the precipitation was minimal, so I figured I'd risk it. We also made a stop off at the Proletariat before calling it a night.

1/17

Of course, God was not willing (or at least school wasn't), so I was greeted by this message:

Weather Update: College open
posted 01/17/2007

Update: 5:30 A.M. - Jan. 17

The College is open and conducting normal business operations. Employees who live in northern, western and 290 areas, where there have been higher accumulations of ice, should contact their supervisors about arriving late to allow time for roadways to be sanded, ice to thaw and travel to be safer.

All employees are encouraged to be cautious in traveling to work. Employees unable to come to work due to personal situations must contact their supervisor and arrange for time off.

Dicks.

1/19

Cindy came over for Grey's Anatomy and we attempted to make snake bites, but we never could get the Guiness to layer properly on top of the cider. One day I will learn...

1/20

I was lazy Saturday afternoon, then ran around taking care of some errands, in the process finding some bargain GameCube games. I gave up on going out to Susan and Jerry's, and instead came home.

I stopped off to get the mail, and, moments later my phone rang; apparently Oliver was in the complex. He was going out to dinner with some friends to El Tiempo, which I had only been to the one time, and he invited me along, so I decided to join them.

I ended up not really knowing anyone, which was definitely awkward, but hell, them's some good fajitas.

They were then going to meet up with some people (including ones I actually knew), but I figured I'd try to catch up with Cindy.

We were going to go to the MFAH for one of their shindigs, but we arrived late and the line was around the block. Some people were buying museum memberships to jump to the front of the line, but they were pretty expensive and it just wasn't worth that. I had lobbied against it from the beginning, feeling strangely antisocial, but Cindy had told her roommate we would meet them there. But you can't argue with the facts, so we left.

Instead, we went and rented a movie and then picked up some ingredients for sangria. The sangria turned out decently, but I think I can probably do better in the future.

The movie was Factotum. My familiarity with Bukowski is only really due to Modest Mouse; their previous album had a song named after him, and their song "Long Distance Drunk" was based on a short story (which I actually read). The movie was pretty good. The story arc wasn't particularly strong, but the acting and dialogue were good and I'm guessing it gave a pretty good feel for Bukowski's style.

1/21

Not much going on Sunday. Did some cleaning up and such, and played some DS.

School; Farewell Kristin; Genetics Retreat; Etc.

1/8

Preparration for my journal club talk. I could elaborate but that would bore all of us.

1/9

Did the journal club thing. There's this idea that some idiot came up with somewhere, that people are expected to defend and explain the articles as if we wrote them. I sidestepped that neatly. Turns out the article I picked was pretty crap, since I acknowledged it up front, I didn't even have to try to defend the article.

I figured there's nothing to get a bunch of sharks going like some fresh blood, but, well, apparently nobody cares about journal club.

I'm sure Kristin wanted to sneak off to Austin with as little fanfare as possible, but Dan put together a little good bye party for her. As we so often have, we gathered at Mi Luna for dinner.

Afterwards, continuing Kristin's trend toward the new and different, we eschewed the usual bars and went to Dirt. It's just south of I-10, not too far from Walter's. Their Tuesday gimmick is that for every drink you order, they flip a coin, and you can call it to get the drink free. After thinking about it, there's no real way for them to maniuplate it to their advantage (except for, say, doubling the prices, which is a distinct possibility). Cindy and I not only failed to beat the system, but lost to it, getting one drink out of four free. The bar itself was dark and uncrowded, and, well, I wasn't overly impressed, but I think I'd go back just for the coin flipping.

Dan's got some photos up on his Flickr page.

1/11

The boss, as usual, wanted all of us at the genetics retreat. As usual, I showed up late, skipped the talks, snuck in a nap in the hotel room, and showed my poster before starting a solid evening of drinking. I managed to obtain quite a few spare drink tickets, which helped, because the department cheaps out at two tickets per person.

As with the retreats, the party's the boring part; it's the after party where the real fun starts. I showed up with my cooler o' beer at the room of a couple of genetics girls. The girls were smart enough to realize that if you don't want to get in trouble with the hotel over the state of the room, you tip the maids. Of course, why put your own cash down when you're young and attractive and have men around to do it for you?

So the girls offered to wrestle if we could come up with $20, which wasn't too hard. Which was pretty nifty.

So the party was good. The girls had managed to get whoever was in the adjoining room to contribute their room, too, so for once we had plenty of space to spread out, and no noise complaints.

I met a nice girl named Katie, who not only had good tastes in music but was in a band too. Of course, neither of us being single, this wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but it was nice to have someone to converse with. It's funny how you can be in a place for four years and still meet cool new people whom you had no idea existed.

By the time the girls kicked everybody out, I was thoroughly drunk and went back to my room, which, due to a snafu in my registration (apparently the registration e-mails went to a different Robert Ward), I had my own room. Bizarrely, while I went to sleep in the bed by the window, I ended up waking up in the other window. No explanation for that one...

1/12

I slept in, went to lunch, and then we had to have the traditional superfluous lab outing. I took of as soon afterwards as possible, and then, I think, opted to take a nap and skip the seminar.

Cindy and I went up to Rudz for dinner after an aborted attempt to try out Goode's Armadillo Palace. Then we found out that Kristin was out at Poison Girl for her last night in town, so we joined up.

1/13

Cindy and I (eventually) made it over to Dan's to help Kristin pack up the moving truck. I was surprised to see how much of the stuff in the apartment was hers; it looked a little barren afterwards. The highlight of the experience was getting Dan's Yaris up on the trailer; he was driving the truck to Austin and needed to be able to drive his car back. The first time, we realized the trailer wasn't hitched properly and it started to tilt as soon as he started to drive up on it. After that, we realized that the wheelbase of the car was so narrow that it barely fit on the tracks of the trailer. I'm surprised no damage was inflicted.

My parents were in town, so I went to catch up with them at Susan and Jerry's for while.

I drove back, and then met up with Char for beer and pool.

1/14

I drove out for lunch with the parents. Later that night Cindy and I met up with Will and others at the West Alabama Woodrow's, and then we took off to Late Nite Pie for some belated dinner.

Please Come to Houston, Arcade Fire

Pitchfork's got a nice interview with "I can't believe that were number 2 on Billboard the week of their release" band the Arcade Fire.

It's a very good interview, actually. As opposed to, say, this interview with Wilco, where Jeff Tweedy comes off like he doesn't understand what made Wilco's best work brilliant and what makes their current work kind of lame and disappointing (and I'm fully prepared to eat these words and sound like an idiot later if I end up liking the album), Win Butler seems to get it. He really does, God bless him, and I can only hope that means more and more Arcade Fire brilliance to come.

By the way, these shorter posts are inspired by Nick Means' recent blogging revival, and are an effort to post more frequently, and to include content about things I care about, and not just things about me (which I'm sure you all know is something I care about, but, well, you get the point...). No doubt these subjects will bore some of you, but maybe you'll see something interesting, and maybe you'll learn somethings about me by example.

NYD; Day off; Two Rows'; Children of Men; Monster Trucks; Work

Spurred by a friend request from Erica Shatford on Facebook, I begin pilfering profiles to find (well, I could keep this aliteration thing going, but I won't) people (OK, couldn't resist) to add to my friend list. Facebook is so much more pleasant than the blight that is Myspace. Anyway.

I spied a quote in Lindsey Bacon's profile that now has me listening to a junior year of high school staple, Everclear's fun So Much For The Afterglow. Ahh, memories.

Speaking of memories...

1/1

New Year's Day was nice and quiet. I took the opportunity to finish settling back into my apartment after my holiday absence, got some good DS time in, made a nice pot of slow-cooked black beans (leftovers from salsa), and generally relished my free time, as I am wont to do.

Cindy was supposed to meet me up at the Prole to see Dan DJ, but as I was about to leave I got a call from her saying she'd had a flat, and though she could change it herself, she was feeling a bit isolated, so I jumped in the car and headed up to meet her and provide security service.

After that, on to the Prole. All the Prole nights are running together, but doubtless there was beer and good company.

1/2

In a brilliant stroke of strategery, I had told the boss that I would be getting back in town on the 2nd and would return to work on the 3rd, and thus managed an extra day off without incurring any difficulties. It was glorious.

1/3

Another night up at Two Rows', probably organized by the kids in the program. The problem with writing these entries 4 months out is that things like Two Rows', the Prole, Woodrow's, and (formerly) Cecil's all blend together. But it's unlikely that anything particularly distinctive happened.

1/5

Cindy and I went to join her brother for the pre/post-apocalyptic Children of Men which had been getting good reviews. The film was technically impressive (though the whole apocalyptic London thing may be overplayed; see 28 Days Later, V for Vendetta, and, most recently, 28 Weeks Later), with appropriately weird atmosphere, great acting and camera work, etc., but I found the overall plot disappointing. No real payoff, no real explanation of anything.

We dropped by Woodrow's afterwards, presumably meeting up with Will and others for beer...

1/6

I'm pretty sure this one was Angela's fault. She and Char decided that it was worth checking out the monster truck rally, and, deciding it was a perspective-expanding experience, Cindy and I opted to join them. Coming back to civilization from Susan and Jerry's, I met Char, Angela, and Char's friend whose name I can't remember at Angela's place, chugged a beer, and then took off to pick up Cindy and park at an apartment complex near Reliant. Char had some mini bottles of Cuervo; I quickly polished mine off on the walk over, figuring a buzz would only improve the experience.

It's funny that something as simple and common as a monster truck rally could sell out the fucking Reliant stadium. But it did. We got there, got beer, and settled in.

I have to say, the "race" section of things blowed. Completely boring. Well, the truck races. The ATV races were reasonably entertaining. But once the races were over (really, how much racing can two monster trucks do on a football field?), the "freestyle" event began, and that's where we got to see big ass trucks with big ass tires destroy other vehicles, and that's where things got good.

You could tell who had money because they were the ones that let loose. The ones who didn't may have crushed a few cars, but the ones who did made sure that they rolled their trucks, blew things up, etc. And if you can't see what's great about watching a truck jump over a mobile home, clip the top, roll a few times, and then burst into flames while the driver walks calmly out, well, I don't know if I can still be your friend.

(pictures coming later for proof)

Afterwards, some dinner. I think it was Cindy that suggested 59 Diner, which was apparently an old high school hangout for her. Nothing special, but I had a decent burger.

1/7

Notes say "dinner"; that's not very descriptive. Presumably I ate something. Maybe Cindy cooked? I dunno. Anyway, I had to put together a presentation for our lame journal club at school, so afterwards I got to work hunting down a paper to review.

Pitching the Fork

Pitchfork totally nailed their review of the new Wilco album. I agree 100% and can't help but wonder what the hell Tweedy is thinking. I'll probably skip buying this one, which is saying a lot.

On the other hand, they like the new Jana Hunter. It's a solid album. With an 8.0, it's a shame they didn't give her "Best New Music" or "Recommended" status.

Wankel My Ride

In case I have any gear heads or aspiring gear heads amongst my readership, or if any of you don't believe that I'm sort of into this whole car thing now...

...Mazda has a nice overview of the history and technology of the Wankel rotary engine. Oh, sweet, sweet RX-8, I will drive you some day. Perhaps even own you...

Christmas, Robyn, poker, the obligatory night of nothing, bar hopping, return to Houston, NYE

12/25

We awoke, had a nice breakfast, and then opened presents. I got my Nintendo DS and some games, plus some comics, CDs, a nifty vintage shirt from Becca, and a set of cutting boards. Becca liked the fancy remote I got her, Dad liked the presents that he had pretty much picked out. Mom was taken aback by the pottery lessons we gave her, as if she was scared of actually taking them, but I think she ultimately enjoyed them.

Lunch was good too, particularly the Turkey that had been the source of so much contention.

Eventually the evening rolled around, and David, Thomas, Win, Bennett, Goates, and myself all piled into Thom's grandparents' Buick. Someone (*cough* David *cough*) insisted on going with his intellectual "let's slum it with the common man" bullshit and we went to some small bar on N. 19th not too far from MCC, got weird looks when we came in, had a round and played a game of pool, and left for the next spot just up the road, which was, thankfully, closed. From there I think we went next to the bar (Shooter's? Booter's?) on Valley Mills near New Road, which had seen a bit of a country western face lift, had a couple rounds there, and then on to the sister bar on Lake Air (which could also be Shooter's or Booter's), which still looked like it used to be a strip club. Next to Chapter 11, which I'm actually kind of fond of.

There was a girl there who spotted my "Remember the Alico" t-shirt and introduced herself. She asked about the shirt, and after my brief explanation of living in Houston, etc., she summarized it by saying that I was "representing", which I suppose was accurate. We chatted a little more; turned out she was an art person and trying to do something for the art "scene" in Waco. She compared herself to a Buddhisatva (which I think was just meant to be humorous rather than arrogant/condescending) in that she had found "enlightenment" (i.e. moved away from Waco) but come back to teach the unenlightened (i.e. the Wacoans). Also, she mentioned that she had dated two girls I knew. Huh. She invited me some art show she was putting together (which I wouldn't be in town for) and insisted I track her down on myspace. Check.

Anyway, there was lots of drinking that had been done by that point, and thankfully the driving was not my responsibility. As was pretty much inevitable, Two Minnie's (right down the block) was settled on as the next destination.

Two years prior when we went, it was basically deserted, but this year the "joint was hopping", as the kids say. I wasn't particularly excited about Waco strippers, but the beer kept flowing which was good enough for me. David kept handing me dollar bills to use, and I kept redirecting them to Jordan and Bennett.

By closing time, we were even drunker, particularly Bennett. We went on to IHOP to get something to soak up the alcohol.

So, another nice, debaucherous Christmas night. But, thankfully no emergency room trip this year.

12/26

As is also traditional, we tried to catch up with Robyn. We ended up meeting her, first trying Cricket's (too fucking crowded) and then heading next door to Bogart's (formerly Malone's). Robyn had Cara Beth in tow, much to my surprise (they tend to go in and out of speaking to each other). After a round or two, we migrated to Scruff's (which had rearranged, much to my shock and consternation), I had my "Ziggy Jack" (Ziegenback and Jack Daniel's, a creation of one of the bartenders), and then we made a second night of IHOP.

12/27

David decided to host a poker night at his father's place in Temple. A lack of planning meant that Win had already gone there without giving us the chance to carpool, which briefly pissed me off, but really going to Temple is no different from going to visit my Aunt and Uncle (except perhaps not as visually interesting), so it wasn't a big deal.

So there was beer and poker. Despite Win's online poker activities and David's frequent mocking of my decisions, in the end it was down to me and Bennett, with me leading substantially. But I tire of poker quickly, so we negotiated a truce. But hell, I won $15.

12/28

As always, there was one night when shit just didn't happen. In this case, David fell asleep. So, it was a night for me with the DS. Which is not all bad.

12/29

The last night in town. David once again pushed the blue collar bars, and we compromised on Fred & Wally's. Beer and pool were consumed and played. We tried to catch Kacie McClain but no such luck. David was leaving the next morning, so I picked that day as the time to...

12/30

...go back to Houston. I left in the early evening, car packed up. With my new phone complete with screws, and leaving Waco where it got crap reception, I oficially called and got my number transferred to the new phone. Which meant I incurred a $150 charge with Cingular for breaking my contract (and was also charged sales tax, what the fuck were they selling me that got taxed!), but that would later be mitigated by Ebaying the old phone, and since the new one was free, I ended up getting teh whole deal done for $50 or so. Not bad.

Anyway, I got back in town, got unloaded, and caught up with Cindy. It was good to be back.

12/31

I saw a post online that Toys 'R Us had a nice clearance special on DS and Gameboy games, so I went for the first time in years. Actually the last time I went was sophomore year of college in Waco, when I was having some difficulty tracking down the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Anyway, I ended up finding a couple of good bargains. After that I made a comic store run, and then met Cindy back at my place.

We decided that for NYE we would make some fresh salsa and then cook dinner. The salsa turned out well. Dinner was some NY strip steak that Dad had sent home with me, green beans, and mashed potatoes. We learned a couple of lessons from that dinner.

First, if you don't have something to mash with, don't use a food processor. The potatoes will resemble library paste. Second, if you combine garlic, butter, and lemon juice, and heat it up (as in making a lemon butter sauce), it turns a strong shade of cyan. Strange but true.

One option was to join Dan at the Proletariat for the NY party there (it turns out that things had gone south with Kristin and that she had decided to move to Austin after all). But since we don't hang out with Cindy's friends much, we opted to go to Jim and Nikki's place to join them, Tyson and Louisa for a relaxed evening. There was beer and the salsa was a hit. By the time we considered leaving, Dan was already gone from the Proletariat, so we stuck it out there.

It's not quite the wild party I really want for NYE, but it was nice enough, and we still managed to stay out pretty late.

P.S. I want it noted that I stayed up late just to finish this post. There's a token of committment there for you.