16 posts tagged “josie”
I wish I *could* feel better, Tylenol Sinus, believe me.
I have a cold. I'm not one of those men who somehow turn into the walking wounded when they get a minor sniffle. More than anything, being ill just pisses me off. I can barely breathe properly at the best of times with my stupid allergies, but this just exacerbates the problem and makes me snippy. And tired.
Then to make matters worse, I had to wear a scarf to combat the cold weather this morning. While in the summer, buses are air conditioned to freezing point here in Chicago, in the winter, the heat is full blast and you're too packed in to successfully remove and replace clothing. Scarf plus cold plus heat... ugh. Hate, hate, hate.
Other than my immune system coming under fire, this weekend was quiet. We spent most of it packing things up ready for our move (if it ever happens, we're still waiting for our mortgage nonsense to be signed off); I finally completed Tales Of Vesperia - an effort that took over 50 hours of play time, all in; and Josie came to see as us it's been a billion years.
After my last move (across an ocean, no less) I have definitely gotten more ruthless about throwing things I don't need away. Not that my brother Ricci can agree with this, seeing as his attic is half full of guitars and CDs and books.
Anyway, this week, we are crossing things that our mortgage and all that come through so we can just worry about being ready to move on 22 November. Yes please.
UPDATE: We are clear to close, we are definitely moving!
Well, it's over. I meant to post a recap of who I saw on Saturday yesterday morning, but I got sidetracked; and I've been in bed feeling like rubbish all day today. Not sure whether Lollapalooza's to blame or some other source of lurgee, but I can at least see straight now.
So, Saturday. We got to Grant Park in time to see a snippet of Foals. I had no opinion on them either way, which is odd considering they're one of the many "saviours of rock n' roll" that get trotted out by the NME every year. I also caught a little snippet of The Gutter Twins, featuring the inimitable Mark Lanegan. I wasn't paying too much attention, but they sounded alright.
The first band proper for me was MGMT, whose weird Bowie meets dance sound was perfectly suited to the festival vibe. I really enjoyed them, and their guitarist's shredding all over 'Kids' was fantastic.
Josie went off to see DeVotchKa, who are like a Hispanic gypsy folk take on The Smiths, while Jess and I hung out waiting for Brand New to come on. We saw them live already, but in a terrible venue full of teenyboppers, so we were hoping they'd be better at a festival. Not so much. The highlight of their set was the dudes brawling a few metres away from me. It's a shame, because on CD, they're great.
At least frontman Jesse Lacey was as disappointed as us, at one point telling the crowd "You should all be watching Explosions In The Sky."
Somehow, there was a big gap for us, until we ended up watching Okkervil River while waiting for Broken Social Scene to come on. They weren't what I expected (the name conjured up rootsy blues, but they were more folky and upbeat). I liked them.
Then Broken Social Scene... Broken Social Scene were my second favourite band after Radiohead. For a band with such an inconsistent line-up, they manage to be consistently awesome, and played some of my favourites including '7/4 (Shoreline)' and 'Farewell To The Pressure Kids'... and they had Amy from Stars with them, awesome.
We caught the tail end of Toadies' set (apparently they were big in America, never heard of them... and gladly so), then sat patiently waiting for Rage Against The Machine. I had chosen them over Wilco as I don't know that I would get to see them again.
I was... kinda non-plussed. While musically, they were tight, it sounded exactly the same as the CDs. To me, part of the appeal of seeing a band live is seeing how they mess with their arrangements. Add to that the fact they *kept* stopping so Zach could lecture the moshpit, and it wasn't all that entertaining. A massive shame. I wish I had seen Wilco now.
Sunday was the least action packed of the three days, reflected by the fact we were able to head down so late (not helped by The Weakerthans pulling out).
As we arrived, we could hear Iron & Wine and decided against them as they would be a bit of a Debbie Downer. So, our first act of the day was the brilliant Saul Williams. The girls weren't fans, but he did put on an energetic performance.
We caught snippets of Blues Traveller and Love & Rockets, but the next band proper was The National. Having seen them in the colossal United Center supporting REM, I wanted to see if their sound fared better in a relatively smaller environment... and I am pleased to say it did. I love them.
After they left the stage, the girls went over to catch the start of Kanye West's set while I watched Nine Inch Nails. I'd seen them before and really enjoyed them, but for some reason, the magic just wasn't there this time around... I think mostly because they decided to kill the mood a short way into their set by playing some of the instrumental pieces from Ghosts I-IV... which, while great to listen to when you're chilling out, is not really much fun when you're stood in a field.
They did play an awful lot of material from The Downward Spiral, though, which sort of made up for it. Especially 'Closer'.
Overall, it really was a good weekend, marred only - really - by feeling horribly ill today.
It's hard to believe that it's already August, and odd that I'm attending my second Lollapalooza since moving here. Crazy!
Yesterday, after an oddly productive morning at work, I left the office to meet Jess for lunch then headed to meet our friend Josie. She's in town to join in with the shenanigans.
When we dropped her stuff off and endured the slow buses down to the festival grounds, we had missed the first few songs by Gogol Bordello, the band she wanted to see. Their music wasn't really my thing, but their gypsy punk was at least entertaining to watch.
We started to watch Mates Of State, but live they're very difficult to endure - the already ear-damaging vocals do more damage when they're out of key - so we went to wait for Jess by the merchandise stand, hearing little snippets of what I think was Grizzly Bear, judging by the schedule.
With Jess now a part of the gang, we went on down to see Bloc Party. Last year, we bought tickets to see them but didn't think we knew them well enough to justify going. They're really great live, so naturally I regret that decision. They didn't play their best song, 'Little Thoughts', but they busted out 'Helicopter' and 'Like Eating Glass', so I was happy.
After hemming and hawing about whether to stay in place for Radiohead (who were over an hour away), we decided instead to go get food. This had the added bonus of putting us in line with the stage CSS were playing on. I feel bad that I didn't give them my full intention, they sounded tight live, and were obviously far more entertaining than the annoying-sounding Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks they were competing against.
- 15 Step
- Airbag
- There There
- All I Need
- Nude
- Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
- The Gloaming
- The National Anthem
- Faust Arp
- No Surprises
- Jigsaw Falling Into Place
- Reckoner
- Lucky
- The Bends
- Everything In Its Right Place
- Fake Plastic Trees
- Bodysnatchers
- Videotape
- Paranoid Android
- Dollar And Cents
- House of Cards
- Optimistic
- 2+2=5
- Idioteque
Highs:
- 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi'!
- The awesome radio sampling on 'The National Anthem'
- 'Idioteque' (even though we heard it from outside of the venue as we didn't want to be crushed by the rumoured 75,000 people as they left)
Lows:
- 'The Bends' was played way too slow. There are awesome guitar lines on the verse with the line "The planet is a gunboat on a sea of fear", but the build-up to them didn't work.
- We were too far to see Thom's crazy dancing, boo.
- NOTHING from Pablo Honey? Boo!
I think 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' is a strong contender for my favourite song of all time.
It's crazy times right now. Lots happening. After the surprise birthday party last week, we were somehow more manic this week.
On Thursday, Jess and I got out of work early, went to see WALL-E and had dinner together. Afterwards, we met co-workers at a bar as it was the day of Laura's birthday. They had been there since they got out of work, so we were by far the most sober people there. Until Lindsay's Doug showed up. Poor guy. We ducked out of there early.
I... can't actually remember what we did during the day on Friday. I do know we got lunch and did a bunch of shopping at Target, but other than that, I think we bummed around. At 7pm, we met up with Laura with a mini-picnic then went to the harbour. Lindsay and Doug met us there and we all sat on the waterfront to have our picnic. Eric and Mitchell showed up shortly after, just in time to watch all the fireworks going off along the lake.
We dumped shit off at home, then went to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks.
On Saturday, we had a ton of errands to run. We paid our economic stimulus cheque into our bank account, went through the pre-approval process at AT&T (ahead of the iPhone 3G release on Friday!), then Jess went to the dentist while I took a faulty item back to Target. We were going to go to a barbeque, but after having a long nap, we just went to our favourite Mexican place and chilled out.
Today, we went for lunch and did more shopping. We needed more sporty clothing as we've been asked to fill in on my office softball team. Yes, me, playing sport. I know, right? Anyway, we got all of that stuff, got it home then got ready for our first softball practice. There were only a handful of people there, but we got a good go of it. Neither of us was as bad as we expected - I connected with the ball a lot, and wasn't a total washout at catching. Bowling (sorry, pitching), however, was another matter.
This week is going to continue the activity. We're taking tomorrow off as we have a lot of chores to do. We have Wolf Parade on... Tuesday? I can't remember. I need to listen to their new CD more. Hopefully this means we get to see The Josie after what seems like forever. Thursday is the Big Kahuna - my green card interview. After aeons, it's finally a reality. Jess is currently wading through a file of paperwork the size of Alaska so we're ready. Then Friday is possibly iPhone day, if they have enough in stock.
Busy busy busy.
On an unrelated note, one of my favourite albums of last year - Heresy & The Hotel Choir by Maritime - came with a bonus 7" featuring two songs. One of those songs was called 'Boy From School', and was pretty awesome...
It turns out, it was a cover of a Hot Chip song...
Which was also covered by Portastatic...
Where did that weekend go?
I left work at a reasonable time on Friday night and met Jess at home. We went to a vaguely Irish pub to grab a bite to eat, then headed to the Metro to see Nada Surf.
The opening act was The Jealous Girlfriends, a four piece featuring a girl on vocals/guitar, a guy on guitar/vocals, a guy on keyboards playing bass lines and synth parts, and a wee chap on drums. First and foremost, the drummer impressed the crap out of me, he was great. I liked the band's music, too. I'm struggling to compare it to anything... when the guy sings, I hear the twat out of Snow Patrol, but the girl reminds me of someone and it's been annoying me for days.
They're kinda shoegazer indie rock, I guess. Whatever that means.
Nada Surf were pretty freaking great - helped in no small way by the addition of Martin Wenk from Calexico on keyboards and trumpet. He added what Jess called a "Debbie Downer" vibe to the gorgeous '80 Windows', and brought some swagger to songs from recent album Lucky.
Matthew was very upbeat and chatty, getting the audience to participate on harmony vocals and talking up a storm. It was a really enjoyable show. As far as I can remember, they played...
From High/Low:
'Stalemate' (which morphed into 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division)
From The Proximity Effect:
'80 Windows'
From Let Go:
'Blizzard Of '77'
'Fruit Fly'
'Blonde On Blonde'
'Inside Of Love'
'Hi-Speed Soul'
'Kilian's Red'
'Happy Kid'
'Paper Boats'
From The Weight Is A Gift:
'Concrete Bed'
'Do It Again'
'Always Love'
'Blankest Year' (with audience participation on the "fuck it!")
From Lucky:
'See These Bones'
'Whose Authority?'
'Beautiful Beat'
'Weightless' (with audience participation on the "ooh aah ooh")
'I Like What You Say'
'The Fox' (for which Matthew donned a creepy looking fox hat)
Some dude kept screaming out "Popular!" but was thoroughly denied. BURN.
Saturday was a nice, sunny day so we went out for brunch, I picked up a game in Best Buy, then we headed down to the zoo. Despite the abundance of Americans, it was entirely pleasant. Having a zoo so close by is highly recommended.
After that, we schlepped home and had a quiet night in, watching The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. It was a really enjoyable film - and not as crazy long as I'd been led to believe.
I had to work on Sunday, preparing the latest project to go into QA. An unrelated emergency sprang up that we managed to contain, but we still got everything we needed to do done by 5pm. I left work and went over to meet Jess and Josie. We did a little shopping, went bowling (oh yes, all three of us are awesome at bowling) then took Josie to the train station.
And that was my weekend.
I was tagged by Gargoyle for this meme, so it's fitting that I'm reading a book about creatures of the night. It's Day Watch/Dnevnoy Dozor by Sergei Lukyanenko, the second book in a trilogy that tells of the struggle between the forces of good and evil in modern day Russia.
So the rules are that I have to open the book at page 123, skip five sentences then share the next three sentences with you all. With that done, I have to tag three of you to do the same on your blogs. I think I see how this works. So um, the sentences.
"The camp was sleeping. There were lamps lit here and there on the pathways and an almost full moon hung in the sky. Nights like this are great for the werewolves: they're at the peak of their powers, they can transform easily and at will, they're full of high spirits, the thirst for life, and the urge to hunt, to tear living flesh to pieces, to stalk and pounce on their prey."
I pick Rob, Josie and Jess as I don't know that anyone else reads that much.
http://www.livenation.com/event/getEvent/eventId/314732?c=dm-384756&p=36247631
I saw this and thought of shoes you.
Oh Monday. Monday is the stray dog sniffing your butt crack as you wake up passed out on your doorstep after a heavy night of drinking. Monday is a teenage boy having sex - it comes too soon and is always disappointing and awkward. Monday is generally repulsive.
We had a good weekend, but like every other weekend, it just doesn't last long enough.
On Saturday, we got up super-early and headed out to pick up a rental car from the nearby Hertz. We got a beast of an SUV - the sort of thing NASA uses to transport rockets to the launch pad - and drove it back to our place to load it up with a desk for Josie and a ton of stuff for the thrift store.
The car had one of those little navigation computers in it (well, being an older model, the small display unit was connected to a giant black box in the glove compartment) but we very quickly discovered it sucked: somehow it lost track of where we were on a major freeway. Never a good sign. Eventually we made it to Josie's and waited till she got home to give her our desk.
From there, we bundled down the road to IKEA to pick out and pick up a new desk, lamps and other little odds and sods we needed. We spent a fair amount, but we had saved money for this occasion, so it wasn't too bad.
With the car loaded up, we then went to lunch at a place called Claim Jumper. Apparently, it is a chain from California. The food wasn't bad - my burger wasn't the best I'd had, but it was still tasty; and the baked potato I chose to go with it was dee-lish-uss.
I can't remember the sequence of the afternoon, but we went to a mall and a Target to do some shopping (Jess and I had Target vouchers, and had a list of things we wanted for the cats and the house, too). After that, we dropped people off and drove back into the city - first taking things to the thrift store as planned, then unloading our own crap before taking the car back.
Sunday was just as manic. Jess got up early to return the car keys, then we started the laundry off and I got to work on putting together the desk. I'm happy putting IKEA stuff together, it's usually only when things require more than two hands that I need help. With that and the laundry done, we got lunch, I went to pick up a cable and looking at mobile phones, then we had a lazy afternoon.
I'm pretty tired right now... and it's going to be a busy week with seeing Josh's band, turning 28, staying late Friday to launch this site (I fixed the last two bugs today!) and the rest. Eek. Pencil me in for a weekend of sleep ASAP, please.
How are you spending New Year's Eve?
With the Three J-Amigos: Justice, Jamba Juice and Jusband.
Today is what Americans refer to as Black Friday. I believe it is named thus because of the moods of all the retail staff who have to open up stores from as early as 4am (JC Penney, are you insane?) and face wave after wave of bargain-hunting customers trying to burn off the caloriegeddon that is Thanksgiving, the day before.
My first Thanksgiving was good. Jess and I got a minor lay in before tidying the house in preparation for our guests. Josh, Josie and Buster arrived some time after 2pm and while Jess prepared dinner, Josh and I played copious amounts of Guitar Hero II and III (it was the first time I had tested III's wireless Les Paul with II and it worked perfectly). We also roped Josie in to play some Scene It? (she thrashed us).
There was a minor kitchen mishap with a tray of Yorkshire puddings, but dinner was tasty. We had turkey and roasties and green beans and stuffing and pie and freshly-baked bread thanks to our bread machine. Nom nom nom.
After that, the four of us played more Scene It?, as well as disastrous games of Clue (aka Cluedo) and Cranium, the latter reinforcing why I hate board games. They didn't leave till late, so we got plenty of time to hang out and play with Buster, who is the sweetest little monster around - harassing cats, violently abusing soft toys and getting into things.
Today we had a longer lay in before heading down to Best Buy to check out their deals. It wasn't as packed as I expected, but there were still lots of little brats ("Daddy, I want Mario for Hannukah!" - thwap!). I managed to get one of Jess' Christmas presents, as well as Labyrinth and Monty Python's The Holy Grail for $5 each. Barry Argain.
After that, we went for lunch and overheard a bunch of people talking about how global warming isn't real (it's apparently part of God's plan for us) and how wrong it is for their children's teachers to suggest otherwise; as well as talking about 9/11 and all that jazz. Americans are funny.
