ACL Friday

I took the day off from work on Friday and made it down for ACL early Friday afternoon. I took the downtown shuttle, and was clever enough to skip the wristband redemption line at Republic Square where it would've taken twenty minutes and used the one at Zilker Park that took two minutes.

I could hear Vampire Weekend as I was walking in, but didn't go to that stage to get a closer look. Instead I sat down at the BMI stage in time to see the last few songs by Sunny Sweeney and plan my next move. She's got a video on MEtv now, and she played that song last. I remember seeing her several times at the Poodle Dog Lounge a few years ago and it's cool to see she's going places.

Jamie Lidell is a British guy doing soul music. Most of it was very minimal, with just his vocals and either piano or electric piano on the nord. They had a guy playing two saxes at once. I've never seen that before and it was kinda cool. Also I couldn't tell but it looked like Jamie was humming some bass parts.

Mates of State was just OK. They also have a video out that I've seen a few times. The drummer is as gangly as he appears on the video. This band is a husband/wife duo. That usually bothers me for some reason. Their disco beat was excessive and their vocals were out of tune with each other a bit.

I wasn't close enough to Hot Chip to really hear and enjoy them. That AT&T Blue Room stage is too quiet this year. They used a lot of keyboard effects, and got jammy/repetitive too soon, so I got bored.

Jenny Lewis at the WaMu stage was great. I got close enough to see her facial expressions, and her vocals were amazing. She used what looked to be a real piano, but with only four or so octaves. What do you call that? Also, the cool pedal steel didn't actually have pedals at all. It looked extremely portable. Maybe this is the kind I should get.

David Byrne was much better than I expected. I'd read some reviews of his latest stuff that weren't too great. I didn't expect any, but he did several Talking Heads tunes "Once in a Lifetime" (my favorite) and "Life during Wartime." I really enjoyed watching the weird dancers. They were dressed in white and doing some really silly looking moves. I worked my way up to the side of the stage so I could see better.

I watched a little of the headliners Mars Volta and Manu Chao but didn't get into either, so I left early. Walking back to the car took awhile with pit stops at Uncle Billy's and Shoal Creek Saloon.

There were a few early bands I would've liked to see today (Old 97's and local band Black and White Years), but I got going too late. I'm going to try my bicycle, but I'm in no rush now. I'll get my normal Saturday migas and probably be down there between 3 and 4. Tomorrow I really do want to get there early to see Nicole Atkins, but we'll see. That would be a really long day if I watch the whole Foo Fighters set.

Ike Blew My Sail

A few years ago, I went to a dedication of a monument composed of the sail from my first submarine (blog entry here). It's located at Seawolf Park in Galveston.





Below is a picture of what's left of Seawolf Park. The sail is at the far right. Ike rotated it almost 90 degrees! The full video is here.

Turning into Trojan?

I purposely did not run yesterday as I knew my legs needed a day off. Of course, then all I could dream about last night was getting my run in. And then all the stupid complications of having to be in a suit for work and not having everything to change into, etc. And flirting with that nice girl at work, but I digress...

And now I am posting an entry at 7:30 am? Very Trojanesque.

TPIR New Season!

Monday was the first day of the 37th season of TPIR! They changed the set a little bit, with a box theme on the backdrops and new shiny numbers on the wheel with a slightly different font, I think. Wheel bonuses are now $10,000 and $25,000, up from $5,000 and $10,000, which is nice.

Gas Money is a new car game they premiered. It's not bad, but not that exciting either. At least the guy won it! Lots of cars on this one. The showcase winner had been on TPIR before 34 years ago when she was only a few years old, and she won two cars and two trips with a $50,000 bid on a $52,000 showcase. Good show!

B.P.M.

I've known for awhile now that when my beer vs. exercise ratio got out of whack (i.e. too much beer, not any exercise) I end up feeling horrible physically and mentally, and also look bad and act (too) grumpy. This rut had been going on too long, so over a month ago I imposed a beer per mile rule on myself, and it has been working well so far. I went from running zero miles per day to 2-3 miles per day immediately, and my beer consumption fell off accordingly. I need to start lifting again and am in danger of settling into too slow a running speed, so I need to figure out how many beers to earn for a weight lifting workout and should probably modify the formula to account for speed. I've been saving up beer for ACL fest this weekend. See below for my progress.

Weather

The weather last week was delightfully mild. I was actually able to run outside several times. Thursday I ran through neighborhoods near my apartment on a route intended to scope out a few houses for sale. Monday I did the full moon hash in east Austin, on which I was able to maintain FRB status for most of the trail and solved many checks that the lazy hashers couldn't be bothered to. I've been running a helluva lot lately due to a rule I imposed on myself a month or so ago. More on that later.

Shows

This weekend went quickly. Friday and Saturday were fairly uneventful, while yesterday I ran the Human Race 10K and watched Ben Harper perform in front of the Capitol. LJ's DJ put on some great soul music last night, so I hung around there for awhile last night too.

Our next scheduled gig is opening for Bob Schneider in November, which means I'll have plenty of time to practice. Our four day fair gig starts on Friday, which means that this week is a three day work week and so is next week.

September/October I'll be partying like it's 2005, with Foo Fighters headlining ACL fest and Weezer coming to the Frank Erwin Center. The Weezer/FF concert in 2005 was the best concert I've been to, with the possible exception of Ben Folds Five in 1999. Ben Folds is also coming to Stubb's in October, so I'll probably see what he's been up to as well.