Ketchup

It's going to take me a little while to catch up on everything. I went in to work for 3 hours when I got home yesterday. You know how the first day back from vacation kind of sucks because you are catching up on emails and all the other things that sat while you were gone? Well, it was like that. So I will do some real posts when I catch up. For now, here's one of the shots from the butterfly exhibit.

Small Update

This is going to be a very short post. I've been having a great time on my visit to Holli and Faith. We went to a butterfly exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History yesterday. I got tons of butterfly shots, but when I tried to upload a few it wouldn't recognize my camera. So the butterfly bombardment may have to wait until I get home.

The Radiohead show was both great and not-so-great. The band's performance? Great. The weather? Sucked balls. It rained quite heavily the whole time, and since we had lawn seats that was not so great. In fact, it's still raining now. I ended up having to miss 5 songs because I was starting to shiver from having soaking wet jeans and jacket sleeves (everything else was poncho-covered). Everyone else headed to the car earlier, so that's why I say "I". I'm very glad that I have covered seats for the next 2 shows that I am going to!

Packing Schmacking

Man, I'm wigging out. I hate getting ready to travel. I hate packing. I don't know why, but I don't like it. And I'm only going to be gone for 5 days, it's not like I'm going to the moon.

I can't wait to get there, but I hate that both Holli and Faith are ill at the moment. Hopefully they will both be on the mend soon!

This video has nothing to do with anything other than I think it's really funny. This news anchor recently moved to Dallas to do one of the morning news shows. So of course, this video has gotten some notice around here. It's a giggle!

Music Pants Gone Crazy

My music pants have gone crazy today. In fact, they've gone so crazy that they just pretty much flew across the room.

Reason 1. I found out this morning that there is a new Nine Inch Nails album, and you can download it free on the Infernets. I would rate myself as just a moderate fan of NIN, but I just really love the concept behind this. I mean, who doesn't love free stuff? And while I like Radiohead's music better, this download blows the doors off the In Rainbows download in an important way (to me anyway). This download is available in high-quality audio. You can download it as FLAC files or in WAVE format. WAVE is actually higher-than-CD quality. I don't even have the equipment to take advantage of it. And you get artwork too. And did I mention it's free? What makes this even more amazing is that NIN just offered a substantial free download in March of their previous album. I don't understand how Trent makes money off of this (maybe by generating buzz for the tour), but then again I guess he doesn't really need any more money anyway.

Reason 2. Yesterday I received an email from a friend telling me that Tom Waits was holding a press conference today at 9AM. Honestly I had kind of forgotten about it until this afternoon when I saw an item on a music blog that I read that Tom announced a tour and that Dallas is one of the stops! As you'll recall from my posts about my trip to Memphis in 2006, Tom Waits was a long-time holy grail of concerts for me. To get the chance to see him again would be awesome. And he'll be here only a little bit more than a month from now! If he's coming to your town and you can get tickets - just go! Don't think about it, just do it!

Reason 3. Radiohead-A-Palooza 2008 is fast approaching. During RAP 2008 I will attempt to see Radiohead 3 times in 3 different cities all in one week! First stop: Washington, D.C. next Sunday. And not only will there be Radiohead, there will be Holli and Faith!

Man, I'm all worked up now and I've stayed up too late again!

New Tenants

Damn, I should be in bed by now. Lately Sunday evenings have turned into the equivalent of the day before vacation for me - I feel like there are so many things that need to be done before the week starts for real and I end up waiting too late and not getting them all done. Like blog posts!

The end of this school semester is approaching quickly. There was lots of drama with our group project last week, but we got a pretty decent project turned in. Several of the people all but disappeared, and I was writing stuff until a couple of hours before deadline and sending it to the person collating the report. I'm just glad to be done. I have to finish writing a short paper about my internship and then I will be done for the semester. This summer is my last semester. I don't feel the usual feeling of freedom, though, because in the first week of summer semester I have to do the "final project" deal where I have to write 3 papers in one week. Not looking forward to that.

There's a bird construction project taking place on my front porch. Some barn swallows have built a nest of mud and straw out there. I didn't know that they could just build one on the side of a brick wall! I don't see that it will hurt anything, so I'm letting them move in.

It's almost done. I wish I would have taken some more photos during the construction - it was kind of interesting to watch it take shape.

Apocalypse Cake

Tonight I was working at the library, and at one point I decided to go up to the break room because sometimes there is food in there, and I was a little hungry. Lo and behold, I forgot that there was going to be cake. One day every month they bring in a giant cake that's half chocolate, half white cake to celebrate the birthdays for that month. So there I was all alone with the still ample remnants of today's cake. My impulse control was poor. It was kind of like throwing a bucket of chum at a shark. I feel shame.

I haven't had much time or inspiration for photos lately, but I did sneak a few shots in last Sunday at a field close to my house. I just wish I had remembered my monopod. I'll have to go back.

Junkies With Monkey Disease

I've been pretty busy trying to wrap up this school semester. I have a group project that is due next Thursday. Our group has to create a website for a museum with art objects of our choice. "Our" choice (definitely not mine but I was outvoted) was "cemetery art". Sure, let's pick the most depressing thing we can think of! I'm a little nervous, it seems like some parts of the project aren't coming together all that well. We shall see.

The Cat Power show has been rescheduled, but not until October. That seems like a long time to wait. My heart could explode by then or something.

I recently watched the DVDs of "Flight of the Conchords", and thought they were really funny. Their first official CD came out last week, and I bought it. It's all songs from the show, but a few of my favorites aren't on there. If you're into 2-man New Zealand novelty bands, you could do a lot worse. I was quite disappointed to learn that they are playing in Washington D.C. while I will be there, but the shows are already sold out. Dammit!

Here's a video from the show. Bret writes a song for his girlfriend Coco, and Jemaine helps out:



Leave these poor sick monkeys alone
They've got problems enough as it is.