adrian is rad

I saw the Headphones last night at Cafe du Nord. Serene Lakes and Crystal Skulls opened for them.

Serene Lakes were enjoyable. Sort of emoish or like the mid-90s band Seam. They had free CD EPs at the concert and I got one. I haven’t listened to it yet.

The Crystal Skulls have a lot of potential in that they have two members, Yuuki Matthews and Casey Foubert, in common with the great Seattle band, Seldom. In the end, though, they were not that good. They would start out a song and it’d sound good but it’d ineviably turn bad. The harmonic ideas were noodling and random; the chords just seemed to go from one random chord to another in an unsatisfying manner.

The Headphones played a short but enjoyable set. David Bazan and TW Walsh have good non-verbal communication and are tight when they play together. John Vanderslice was in the front row and seemed to be enjoying the show.

I should let everyone that doesn’t know already that Ken didn’t win on Jeopardy!. It was over by final jeopardy on the third day of three.

I always sort of like the Engineer’s drinking song that we sung at ye ol MIT. The chorus of it goes like this:

We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the engineers
We can, we can, we can, we can demolish forty beers
Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum all day and come along with us
For we don’t give a damn for any old man who don’t give a damn for us.

I decided to poke around the web a little bit and, what do you know, people sing it elsewhere. Here’s a bunch of verses from schools and engineers all around the world!

Who knew?

There is now a Cape Town Craigslist, the first one in all of Africa. Good work, Craig. Cape Town is where it’s at!

There are currently about 100 posts on the entire site. That’s sort of like the Pittsburgh CL. ha!

After day two of the three day point total final of Jeopardy’s Ultimate Tournament of Champions, we have:

It’s not looking good for Ken. He looked embarrassed at the end of the day yesterday. He slammed down his buzzer after the Double Jeopardy round. He’s never been up against competition like this before.

I have no doubt that he can win still, but he’ll have to go on a tear. Pull yourself together Ken!

Ken Jennings had a strong start, but he’s up against good competitors on the finals of the Jeopardy Ultimate Tournament of Champions.

It’s a three day point-total event the points from yesterday will be added to today and tomorrow’s totals to get the Big Winner.

(I think they’re calling them points instead of money because they aren’t actually playing for the amounts on the board here—the winner gets $2 million, 2nd place gets $500K and third $250K.)

The results from yesterday:
Ken Jennings: $16000
Jerome Verede: $16400
Brad Rutter: $18400

Brad’s won a previous big money tournament and as such is the only person besides Ken to have won over $1 million on Jeopardy. Jerome started out quite slow yesterday, not answering a ton of questions, but getting the ones he answered right. I’d say he’s the dark horse (much like mim, the dark horse!) Jerome’s won four matches against the best of the best to get to this stage and Brad three (he had a bye in round 1).

It’s really incredibly evenly matched. Ken’s still got that twinkle in his eye, though. I can totally see him just snapping and being like “alright Jerome and Brad, I gave you a chance, but now I WIN” and going on a six category sweep of the board in Double Jeopardy.

As much as I want to see Ken win and am confident in his abilities to win, I’m a bit nervous. Go Ken!

I went to Aquarius Records while I was in the city yesterday. I was surprised at how small it was for a well-renowned record store.

The haul and first impressions:

• the Mountain Goats the Sunset Tree I really like this. I think it’s his best studio album (that is, non-boombox album). I’d heard it before, but bought it because I liked it so much. The songs are good as are the production (thanks, John Vanderslice) and the orchestration.
• Death Cab for Cutie John Byrd EP Limited edition EP sent to special independent record stores like Aquarius and Amoeba. Recorded live. Pretty good from first listen.
• 13 & God s/t This is the collaborative album between the Notwist and Themselves [I told this to someone and they wondered how that worked out and I laughed. It’d be really PoMo if the Notwist had made a collaborative album with themselves.] Good. Not what I expected but I didn’t really know what to expect. More experimental, more hip hoppy (vocals), less rocky/ poppy.
• the Album Leaf Seal Beach EP [reissue] Take a very good EP and reissue it with five bonus tracks. Yeah, it’s good.

Yesterday morning I went swimming in Aquatic Park, in San Francisco. Aquatic Park is protected from the nasty tides and choppiness of the Bay, but’s just as cold. Estimates yesterday were in the high 50’s in degrees F.

I went without a wetsuit or even a swim cap. I waded in and it was cold but manageable when I was standing in there waist-deep. When I dove in and started swimming, I immediately came up and treaded water for a couple minutes; I had gone into panic-breathing; I couldn’t control my breathing. I settled down and started swimming and I felt I did alright. I wasn’t swimming all that fast and my natural stroke (without lines on the bottom to guide me) apparently veers a lot to the right. But the cold wasn’t unbearable and I actuallly got used to it after a bit.

I might go up again next weekend.

how’d everyone do? I drove because it was raining and because I had my radio show before hand. Not much of an excuse, I know.

I bike 3-4 times a week to work, on average, though. That counts for something, right?

Adrian is rad.

Andyl and I saw Fever Pitch on Sunday Night. I liked it.

It’s a movie about a fanatical Red Sox fan (Jimmy Fallon) and his priorities with new non-Red Sox fan girlfriend (Drew Barrymore) based on a book about a fanatical soccer fan.

It’s by the Farrelly brothers (Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber), so there is some gratuitous (and funny) bathroom humor, but mostly it’s a love song to the Red Sox and their 2004 season. And something of a love story between Fallon and Barrymore too.

Both Andyl and I came out of the movie, somewhat strangely for a movie about a team and a girl, very nostalgic for Boston. I knew where Drew Barrymore’s character lived (based on the First Baptist Church, at the corner of Comm Ave and Clarendon, you see as Jimmy Fallon leaves her apartment); it’s probably around 93 Marlborough. That was about a five minute walk from tEp; fenway was about a fifteen minute walk. It’s all very familiar.

Caveats to my liking this movie:

• I like the Red Sox.
• I like Boston.
• I like Jimmy Fallon (but even that couldn’t get me to watch Taxi)
• I like Drew Barrymore.

I went to the BoSox vs. Oakland A’s game tonight at the Coliseum. It was a really exciting game!

Sox out to an early lead. Oakland scored a few runs to a 5-3 lead and then the Sox scored 4 in the eighth to take the lead, which they held onto to win. Very exciting.

The Coliseum is an old concrete cookie cutter stadium, but it’s actually sort of charming in that way. Lots of bathrooms, quick to get out at the end of the game without much battling the crowd. The bleacher seats are cheap and the view isn’t bad at all. And the Oakland fans are quite devoted. I like that. Even though in the end they will LOSE to the Sox. HA!

here’s a partially done song that I worked on this weekend. I have a banjo part for the chorus and the verse and some vocals for the chorus.

I don’t completely hate how my voice sound here. Just mostly.

I had a guitar part in over the verse banjo part (the plucked part) but I couldn’t get it right so I took it out. Maybe I’ll try again later.

The click-track is not permanent (probably). It just needs the rhythmic backing and I haven’t done a real beat yet.

I’m not happy with it. It needs a decent beat and some more parts and a vocal melody.

I finally got back and scanned some of my photos from my company’s trip to Cabo San Lucas in February. Here’s where you can find them.

I also scanned in some pictures of Pittsburgh mostly of friends, but some are of Pittsburgh and the AFC championship game.

So during my radio show on Thursday, I set a new record for callers with 8 (only two of which were friends of the hosts).

We had lots of good music. Good flow.

from Asthmatic Kitty

Sufjan Stevens
* w/ Liz Janes
July.15 San Diego, CA - Belly Up Tavern - * w/ Bunky
July.16 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theater - * w/ Bunky
July.17 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
July.18 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
July.19 Santa Cruz, CA - The Attic
July.21 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater *
July.22 Seattle, WA - Triple Door *
July.23 Seattle, WA - Triple Door *
July.24 Vancouver, BC - Richard’s on Richards *
July.27 Boise, ID - Neurolux *
July.28 Salt Lake City, UT - Lo-fi Cafe *
July.29 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater *
July.30 Aspen, CO - Belly Up Aspen *
August.1 Phoenix, AZ - Rhythm Room *
August.2 Tuscon, AZ - Plush *
August.19 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
August.20 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

Tickets went on sale for the GAMH shows today. I bought two for each show.

I saw the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou the other night [it was pretty good, not Wes Andserson’s best, which may be Rushmore] and now I really want a Team Zissou red knit beannie cap.

The Onion shows it in the Swag Year in Review like I want it, the ribbed hat with the stop light on it . I’ve seen a lot on ebay that don’t look like that. They have movie title embrodiered on them (which I suppose I could rip out), they don’t look particularly ribbed and I haven’t seen the stoplight logo.

(Not to mention they’re expensive.)

Andy, your theater doesn’t happen to have any of these promo items lying around?

Useful background:

• I used to only swim breaststroke. I was good at it.
• I hurt my knee in August 2003 and can’t swim breaststroke anymore.
• I hurt my elbow last April and didn’t swim from then till January.
• Now I swim freestyle with an elbow brace and some pain.

I don’t really time myself swimming anymore, but yesterday I was curious as to how slow I am so I did so. Slightly pushing it (but mostly just gliding along), I did 800m in 15:40. That’s not bad! I used to swim the same distance breaststroke in about 16:00—well technically I was doing 800 yards in ~14:30—if I was going at a pretty good clip. Now freestyle is a faster stroke (1/3 faster usually), so almost the same times for the two of them isn’t that great on an absolute scale, but considering I’m swimming injured and I’m definitely not swimming my fastest, I’m pretty pleased that I’m not coming in at like 18 or 20 minutes for that distance. Go me!

I’m swimming the 1.5 mile alcatraz swim in July. I think coming in <1 hour would be a good goal and <55 minutes might be nice.

I went to the Pirates @ Giants game last night with Quincy and, what do you know, they won 5-2.

I have to admit, I’m not a great fan, in the classic sense. My teams are not infallible and in the case of the current Pirates, I didn’t go to the game expecting them to win.

They got off to a slow start and were down 2-0 when Jason Bay smashed a ball into left center for a 3 run home run. Things looked up from then on out. There was a ton of good fielding (on both, teams, actually) and a couple more solo homers from the Pirates. Let’s go Bucs!

Quincy bought the tickets Monday afternoon and we got seats in the front row on the first base line. The (non-enclosed) Pirates bullpen was about 10 feet away. Apparently I got on TV too! Mike Bokoch, fellow Pittsburgh-Peninsula transplant, watched the game and saw me. I was right in front of a kid that got a ball from a ball boy. According to Mike, the shot stayed on us for about 30 seconds! I’m famous!

In other strange news, I ran into Balaji Sarpeshkar, someone I knew from high school (USC Class of ‘99 rules!) at the Caltrain station after the game. I don’t think he recognized me and I didn’t give him much chance to figure it out; I shook his hand and told him my name (because it seemed he didn’t recognize me) then bumbled for a couple seconds about how it was weird to run into him and then said I had to make sure I caught the next train and then did so. Maybe he’ll google for his name (everyone does it. it’s natural) and figure out who I am and whatnot.

I’d heard this song a few times (well parts of it, I’d usually switch the station or whatever) where there’s this sort of drunken shout frat boy anthem that goes “Beverly Hills! That’s where I want to be!”

I don’t pay attention to the pop music that much, so I just figured it was some one-hit crap band that makes crap music like that and for some reason the big radio stations played it because they do that.

Well! Turns out it’s Weezer. Oh man. Where have “My Name is Jonas” and “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here” gone?

On Wednesday, Gumbeaux and I saw Boys of Baraka as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Here’s a pretty good article about the movie and the story of the school. (Username:bugmenot90@mailinator.com
password: bugmenot, courtesy of bugmenot).

A few years ago Baltimorian (?) and philantropist Robert C Embry, Jr. and his Abell Foundation started a boarding school in the Kenyan bush for 20-40 “at risk” inner city boys a year. The idea was to get these kids away from gangs and drugs and shootings and give them personal attenion in teaching. The movie follows four kids as the go through this program and come back to Baltimore, some drastically different and some not.

I liked this movie quite a bit. The four kids they follow are really interesting. They are so genuine and funny. The editting must have been really hard; I bet there was just so much that they could have included. I would have liked to see more about their time in Kenya, particularly the boys’ reactions to Kenya and their interactions with the locals.

The scenes there were very familiar to me; my short trip to rural Tanzania looked very similar. I wanted to tell people around me at the theater that I’d seen these scenes and the people.

Because of circumstances beyond the directors’ control, it wasn’t the movie they probably set out to make and in the end it wasn’t the movie that I wanted it to be. (It’s sort of a spoiler so I won’t say what happens.) That was a bit disappointing.

There is something about documentaries that can really effect me. I guess it’s because these are real people and events that really happened. They can show you the goodness of humanity (and sometimes the badness). The characters are endearing. Other documentaries that I really liked: To Be and To Have and Spellbound.

One thing that sort of angered (I don’t know if that’s the right word) both Gumbeaux and I was the audience reaction to some parts of the film involving one of the boys Devon. Devon’s christian and he wants to be a preacher. In fact, he has the whole African-American evangelical preacher style down. (you know, the sort of agitated style with the vocalizations as emphasis: “I would like to ask you Lord huh! to help us huh!”) And he preaches at his Church when he gets back. People laughed at this. Not a “that’s cool” sort of amazed laugh but a condescending laugh. People also laughed when Devon was in Kenya and he was on the phone with his family and the preacher happened to be there and he told Devon to testify to the people. As Gumbeaux put it, if people have an enlightened enough world view to want to see a movie about this, then how is it that they are so condescending to these displays of christianity?

I could say more about this but I think this is as good a point as any to stop.

Me and the roomies are having a party tonight. (yes, I know that sentence that is grammatically incorrect and I don’t care.) I am preparing a Serious Kick Ass Motown playlist. [Technically Sam Cooke and a couple other of these artists weren’t on the Motown Label but they’re close enough.] People will want to shake their bootie.

Go ahead and prepare this play list at home at tell me that your bootie doesn’t shake.

Without further delays, here is the playlist:

1. My Girl The Temptations
2. The Tracks Of My Tears Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
3. Baby I Need Your Lovin’ The Four Tops
4. Don’t Mess With Bill The Marvelettes
5. Cupid Sam Cooke
6. I Want You Back The Jackson 5
7. Chain Gang Sam Cooke
8. Twisting the Night Sam Cooke
9. I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
10. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) Marvin Gaye
11. (What A) Wonderful World Sam Cooke
12. Going To A Go-Go Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
13. Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
14. I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) The Four Tops
15. Jimmy Mack Martha And The Vandellas
16. Someday We’ll Be Together Diana Ross & The Supremes
17. You Can’t Hurry Love Diana Ross & The Supreme
18. I Second That Emotion Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
19. Please Mr. Postman The Marvelettes
20. This Old Heart Of Mine The Isley Brothers
21. Stop! In The Name Of Love Diana Ross & The Supremes
22. The Tears of a Clown Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
23. My Guy Mary Wells
24. Twenty-Five Miles Edwin Starr
25. Dancing In The Street Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
26. Where Did Our Love Go Diana Ross & The Supremes
27. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Some song names you might not recognize, but you’d probably recognize the tunes, that is, if you listened to oldies/ motown stuff.

Ken Jennings, Jeopardy all-time champion, game show all time champion, and my hero, lost on Jeopardy! in November after 74 straight wins. A sad day, for sure.

But never fear! You will be able to see him again! The Jeopardy Ultimate Tournament of Champion top contestants will face Ken for a three day show down May 23-25. Get ready!

My normal cohost was out of town, so I did a radio show by myself.

This is what is looks like when I pick all the music.

Considering where I’m from, this is not a blog, but a blogh!

hyuk hyuk!

Here’s another sufjan song for yunz. It’s one of my favorites off of the yet-to-be-released Illinois. So delicate. So well orchestrated. Such a sweet guitar part.

The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! by Mr. Sufjan Stevens. (He’s so dreamy!)

There’s a sort of breakdown part where most of the instrumentation pulls back about 3:47 in that reminds me a whole lot of another song. I could figure it out for the longest time.

The answer is somewhat embarrassing and I think it may be one of those things that if you know to look for it (ie if you don’t notice it but I tell you) it’ll be all that you notice, so I’ll put it behind the screen, so to speak, in case you don’t want to know.

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