Return of the Roommate

was around this weekend, visiting his parents who moved from NJ to NH a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen him since the 30th, but this was the first time we were able to really hang out in years. Friday night Jon got a ride to my work (which is really close to NH) and we drove back to Boston to meet up with to grab some food at Tasca before seeing Peeping Tom and Gnarls Barkley over at Avalon. The tickets said 7pm, but I checked the Avalon website (which is terrible, and took forever to navigate) which said doors were at 6pm and the show started at 7pm. Now, I’ve probably seen 100 shows in my life, and I can’t think of a single time where the show started “on time”. We got there at 7:03pm, and not only was there a 7:05pm game at Fenway (which Avalon is across Lansdowne from), but there was a line of over 100 people outside the venue. As we got on line, it was clear that Peeping Tom (the band I was actually there to see) was already playing.. So I missed about 20 minutes of their set waiting on a line outside, and was pretty pissed. But I calmed down once I got inside… The part of their set I caught was good, they even played a Lovage song (“Anger Management”) sparking an internal debate over whether it’s a cover song if you play the song of another band you are in… Who knows… I’d like to see Peeping Tom as a headliner though.. With only one album under their belt it might be difficult, but Patton isn’t afraid of playing covers, so I think they could put on a good set.

After a quick stage flush, Gnarls Barkley’s 14 piece touring outfit took the stage. Another band with only one (relatively short) album under their belt, but they put on a great show. I was impressed as to how an album recorded by a producer/laptop weenie and a vocalist/lyricist was translated to stage. They did a faithful rendition of most (if not all) of the songs on the album, but with an album that’s only 35 minutes long their set was really short. Whatever, I mean, I’d rather have one tight set than one padded with crap, but a few well-selected covers might have been nice. But whatever, the show as great, even if it ended before 10pm. This is the real reason the show started so promptly, because the bloodless motherfuckers at Avalon didn’t want to interfere with their lame dance club night. Hey, I’d be happy if shows always started on time, but I think a 15 minute delay is appropriate if half the audience is waiting online outside.

Saturday, we had brunch at Moogy’s before heading to Harvard Square and MIT for some tourism. We caught the Fogg Museum at Harvard which was great, as well as the new Stata Center, hideously designed by Frank Gehry. After tourism, we had some delicious Imperial Pizza, and Jon and I headed to NH to have a shower at his parents’ house (our bathroom is still not done) and to meet up with Garrett at “Boston” Billiard Club in Nashua, NH. It was a great time, Jon and I quickly reverting to our old “Garrett Music Quiz” selves… It’s amazing how much he DOESN’T know about music. I mean, even if you can’t remember the title “Penny Lane” you should be able to figure out it’s The Beatles…

Sunday, Corinna and I caught Beowulf & Grendel with the film club. It was a really good adaptation of the poem (as I remember from reading it 15 years ago). It focused on Beowulf hunting Grendel, but none of what came after that. I guess that should have been obvious from the film’s title, but I was oblivious. Anyway, it was really enjoyable (besides Sarah Polley, who’s delivery was dead as a board and who didn’t even try to fake an accent).

Take me back, Journal, I’m sorry!

I’ve neglected the hell out of my journal lately… Some of that is because nothing is going on… But I have also just been lax, I will try to be better, but… no promises… :)

My sister, came up this weekend for a weekend of frigid Boston fun… We had a few things lined up to do, but we ended up indoors most of the weekend due to the extremely low temperatures.. We hit up Bartley’s, Candlepin Bowling, Pool at Flattop Johnny’s, and the film club. Hopefully she enjoyed herself, and hopefully she will come back when it is warmer out and we won’t be so shut-in.

We caught “Why We Fight” last night, and while it was quite “preaching to the choir-y”, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The discussion after the movie was a bit heated, though, as it tends to get after these political films…

I think I’m finally getting over this cold… I’ve felt good for the past few days, although I am still a little congested, I can at least think, etc. I had my sister bring up a bunch of old CDs because I recently realized that there was a big hole in my email archive from when I was using BeOS. So I got BeOS running on an older machine and restored my old email from backup. I had to go through some hoops to get the BeMail format mail into something Mail.app under OSX could import, but once I figured it out it was a no brainer. It’s amazing what 5 years can do for your knowledge of an OS, it took me quite awhile to get my bearings in BeOS again… I had a little nostalgia, but it is definitely pretty dated by today’s standards.

Ok, Let’s Play Pool

Almost time to go off to my Billiards class…. That class is usually relaxing, and I hope it is today as well… I have been getting slowly better at the game, hopefully that will improve as the quarter moves on. This weekend is catching up with me, and I should have really gotten more rest. I am really tired right now, and I still have 2 more classes to go today. :)

I am looking forward to this upcoming visit, since Chuck is going to visit (weather providing). In chem lab I was daydreaming about things to work on for AliveJournal. Last Thursday I spent a decent chunk of time trying to betterify the code I had written for music and moods, and I ran into a brick wall…. I had reverted the code and had just gone with what worked, but I think I am going to give it a second try (I hate letting code beat me.. :P).