announcements

first of all, a very happy birthday to cap'n guthrie. welcome to yr mid-twenties.

secondly, i'd like to use this forum to apologize to the arcade fire. i've been pissed at you for 4 years i believe, and refused to give yr last jab at musicmaking, funeral, a decent chance. i can't remember why that was, but i'm sure it had something to do with the irritating amount of hype you got (and continue to get). superfluous hype has the same connotations to me as smallpox, so i tend to avoid the source. and then i forgot about you so everything was cool. however, recently you went and put out a new album, the single from which i heard on many a night listening to satellite radio while scrubbing down the espresso machine and doling out unnecessary orders to my closing crew. i liked it, surprisinlgly, and yesterday while feeling particularly frivolous i went ahead and bought the album. i listened through once on the way home and was entranced. really. and entranced isn't generally a way that i feel about things; especially things that i so vocally hated. subsequently, i decided that i should go ahead and give that first album another go. i love it. love it so much. thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson, arcade fire, and that lesson is to quit being a dipshit. and once again i'm sorry.

third, speaking of entrancing things, i finally went to that explosions in the sky show i've been yammering on about for the past three posts and as many months. i'm not going to bother describing it because it would a) not do it justice and b) sound like i was trying too hard. i'll just leave my review at this: best live show ever.

fourth, it's march and i am mad. ncaa basketball is where it's at, which is interesting considering i don't even really know how a game of basketball is played. nevertheless, i filled out a bracket which is awesome, i have espn.com added to my bookmarks, and sometimes you might see me shouting things like "oh come ON! what the fuck was that?! don't blow it, kansas!" at television sets in bars. it's very exciting.

andrew bird and run-on sentences

having money is awesome because it means i can pay for things like shows and not have to worry about sacrificing meals for it. i had been holding off on buying my ticket to see andrew bird in may because when all was said and done it was going to end up costing me somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 (how can it possibly cost $4 to print a ticket, put it in an envelope, and mail it? and what exactly is the "service" that charges me $3.75?) and i wasn't sure how ready i was to part with that. and then i remembered that i spend that much money in 2 nights at j. brians, and also that money is for spending and not for looking at, and also that tax refunds are coming, so i said fuck it. i bought the overpriced ticket and i'm stoked.

that being said, i have a few things to accompany that thing that i said:
1. the new andrew bird album is terrific as all creation.
1a. the phrase "terrific as all creation" is my new favorite combination of words until it loses its novelty. thank you random movie poster at hard times.
2. the show is may 20th, which is delightfully close to my birthday which i kind of don't care about because really, who cares about birthdays after 21?
3. if yr my friend, you should probably also buy a ticket to this show and hang out with me. mostly because andrew bird is awesome but additionally because i am awesome and also because you are awesome. i only make friends with the awesomest. duh.

on why joe lennon is my personal hero this week

so i found out only 2 days ago that the dismemberment plan is getting back together to play ONE SHOW in april. i love d-plan, not to mention they're one of those bands from my freshman year of college that when i listen to now, i'm essentially paralyzed with nostalgia. in a good way. and i missed every easy opportunity to see them when they were still together, justifying it by sayingto m'self, "oh whatever, you can always see them again later." dumbass. don't ever tell yrself that.

anyway, i really wanted to go to this show. tickets went on sale at 5 pm yesterday and i figured they'd sell like those proverbial hotcakes, if i can ever figure out why people buy hotcakes in such a rapid and desperate manner. i was working and went on my dinner break at 6, speeding home listening to "gyroscope" and running to my computer, only to find out--o surprise!--the show had already been listed as sold out. this is a fucking HOUR after tickets went on sale. you'd think this was justin timberlake or something.

bigh disappointed sigh. oh well. once again, i console myself with thought of the explosions in the sky show in just less than 2 weeks (which, suckers, is also sold out in charlottesville AND dc) and move on in the world.

except! later that night i see joe. we'd been talking re: this d-plan show the night before, so i ask him if he managed to get tickets at all. he said yes as casually as if i'd asked him if he enjoyed breathing. but then he followed up with "i got you one, too," as if i was honestly expecting that. and then i find out that alex, randall, and heather are also on board for this delightful evening. high fives are appropriately dispersed.

happiness is such hard work.