show buddies…
Mat, Ali & I at the Mary Timony/Scissors for Lefty show @ BoTH last week.
I have so many photos to upload & posts to write… but work comes first. Stay tooooned. :)
alive & kicking
which is somewhat surprising after the week (and weekend) I had!
I hit 5 shows last week, and in between that had a birthday party & lots of little mini parties. By Sunday morning my body was pretty much punching me for forgetting I’m not 19 anymore. Oh, right!
So I downloaded about 434 photos yesterday, appropriately documenting the last couple days of madness. And suffice to say there’s some that won’t even get posted… we had that. much. fun. :)
But first, to the gym – where I can remind my 30 year old body, I really am trying to stay healthy amidst my rock & roll nightlife.
Ex-Boyfriends w/ Get Him Eat Him
Hey all – I’ve posted photos from Tuesday’s night show at Bottom of the Hill – check em out!
I caught the tale end of Pidgeon, who I’ve known about for awhile now and actually really like their recorded stuff. But live they were very loud & screamy. But I didn’t care, you know why? Because I had just gotten a tasty burrito & I was eating it at the bar in the very back, with a nice cold beer. It was awesome!
Get Him Eat Him was really good! They all were about 16 years old (minus maybe the lead singer? he coulda been 19). Apparently they’ve recently been signed to Absolutely Kosher, so they were pretty stoked on that. Anyway, even though they were all just kids up there I thought they sounded pretty good & it was entertaining to watch. Check out how awesome the lead singer’s shirt is:
Get Him Eat Him rocks out @ Bottom of the Hill 8/2/05
ZazzGirl, how bad do you want that unicorn t-shirt? :)
Ex-boyfriends were great, as always! Their songs are so pop-fantastic, and because I’ve been listening to them for awhile now it takes everything I can muster to not belt out the lyrics right along with Colin. HA! They were great and it was fun to see John, Ted, Anthony, Jay & Blair!
Again, photos are here, none of my party peeps though, see how nice it woulda been if there was!? Also no flash shots. Lastnight’s show I did, though – coming soon!
shopping fever
I want this Le Sport Sac duffle bag:
I think I had a Le Sport Sac fanny pack when I was 9.
(grr… they keep changing the links, which sucks. So here’s a link to their site. The image above is their Large Weekender Bag in the Park Print material if you’re wondering)
hard-fi w/ hijack the disco @ cafe du nord
Sunday night Ali, Leslie, Misty, Ted (and a number of their friends) all made it out to see Hard-Fi and Hijack the Disco!
As you know, we LOVE the Hijack boys… seriously I’m kinda in love with each & every one of them. Not only are they absolutely amazing musicians, but they’ve all become good friends that I look forward to hanging out with!
They played a ton of new songs in their set, but it was fun because Ali & Leslie had never seen them (despite hanging out with a few of them at my parties), so it was fun that a few of the songs were new to all 3 of us! I can’t wait to get their new album!
Hijack the Disco‘s Dave (vox/guitar), Trevor (drums) and Mike (vox/bass)
Trevor & Mike were sportin stache’s for fun (they grew them for this show & then shaved them off the next morning! ha!), which irked Misty to the hilt, but provided endless fun for them to taunt her with them. hahaa! For the record, I am not anti-stache. Misty, on the other hand, is TOTALLY anti-stache. I’m making you a t-shirt, Misty! hahaa
And while we’re on the topic of how we prefer the hair on our men, I just want to say I love mohawks and if you’d consider getting a mohawk for me (and it won’t look hideous on you), then I already like you. I’m pro-mohawk!
OK, so we all pretty much chatted through Send for Help’s set. I like their music, but I’m there with Misty that they just don’t seem to pull me in live. ah well… gave us a chance to talk to the hott & sweaty Hijack boys. haha! Oh, and I got to go into the green room w/ Trevor which (being the fan girl that I am, I get all excited about things like this) makes now makes it Cafe du Nord, Bottom of the Hill & Bimbos that I’ve seen the backstage/green rooms of. Ya, I know, I’m a dork… but when you love music and shows as much as I do, it’s fun to see the *other side*! hahaa.
Hard-Fi went on & impressed us all! They were great! It was incredible how many songs we knew of theirs – thanks to Ted/Bagel Radio playing them all the time, and having them on his compilations! woohoo!! I actually even thought they’d done a few covers, I knew the songs so well… but now that I listen to them again & look up the songs, I realized they are theirs! I even mentioned this to Ted, and I’m sure he was like “what the HELL is she talking about?!” Hi, I’m a dork. hahaa. Anyway- they were great, you’ve got to check them out!
Hard-Fi
Here’s all my photos from the evening, and here’s Misty’s post & photos, and Ted has his photos up, too! Ted’s photos are much better, because he’s not afraid to look like a total pro photographer with his big fat camera. So he goes right up there AND uses the flash! :) I need to remember to at least take a few flash shots… the red light makes it hard to get good ones.
Anyway – it was a blast! Check out both these bands asap. They’re awesome.
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UPDATE: I almost forgot, I shot 2 vids, too. Sound will be crappy – but I like video’s because at least you an see the people moving! :) Here’s a video of Hijack the Disco & a video of Hard-Fi.
Haloscan users: how to find the post for a comment or trackback
Awesome! Check it out!
I’ve needed this for so long! :)
vids!
First, a few hilarious videos from the party have been added to the previous post. While I was at it, I optimized & posted a few other videos I had taken but hadn’t uploaded yet…
Ben Lee free show (related post w/ photos, 7/6): watch video
Santa Cruz w/ Chris, my brother Max & his gf, Samara (original post w/ photos, 7/22):
– max plays guitar at the mystery spot
– max’s hit: “pink cow/purple cow” (scout’s stuffed toy)
– playing frisbee on the beach
Coachella 2005 (original post w/ photos):
– Arcade Fire’s set – Even though I’d seen them a number of times at smaller venues, this was like a spiritual experience. I get chills just watching this!
Kitty vids!
– kazoo’s jump! – the amazing acrobat kitty!
– kazoobie playing with string
– snuggly kazoobie
Fat pants & Fuzzy boots (cutie neighbor kitties): video 1 | video 2
Bloc Party @ The Fillmore (original post w/ photos): 4 videos
taco party!!
Saturday night I had a taco “mini party” at my house! And, with all the lovely bottles of tequila I was given on my birthday, we had some tasty margaritas flowin, too! woohooo!!
Look at me, I made tacos!
Now if that’s not enough of a recipe for a fun party – throw in several cases of beer, a few sets of delicious homemade brownies, some Def Leppard & Whitesnake (oh yaa!!) and hats!!!
Trevor & his posse of hott ladies
Taylor, Hez, Willo & Darren strike a pose
Oh & you can’t forget the stuffed lemon! What a hit!
Trevor is serious about his love for the lemon, and Ali looks like she’s puckering up from the sourness!
Taylor & Hez, havin fun
My friends Dan & Sarah came and it was so fun to have them in mi casa, and party with them again!
Dan, me & Sarah drinkin tasty margaritas!
It was kinda crazy because between Dan, who I know from High School, and Molly Butcher who I grew up with in Steamboat (and now she lives in the east bay) AND Taylor is cousins with another girl I grew up with from Steamboat! Wild!
Me & Molly!
We all had a blast! Thanks to all of you who came out & made it such a fun party! Big thanks to Hez who came first & helped me get ready for the party – and for Taylor, Trevor (kick ass drummer from Hijack the Disco) & Darren who came early and stayed almost all night making it SOOO fun!! To Lyne for her photo taking madness, and to all the lovely brownie bakers!!
Overall it was SUCH an awesome party!! I even have some HYSTERICAL videos that Taylor took, that will really bring it home… I’ll try to upload & post them today. Here they are! SO FUN! (you can tell we were having a good time, eh? haahhaa!!)
def leppard 1 | def leppard 2 | trevor plays with one arm, in tribute! | random party vid 1 | random party vid 2 | beer bottle mics! | darren & hez rock the party
However, one last photo – This is one from Darren & I’s “self portrait photo shoot” in the chair that left us, as you can see, CRACKING UP!!!! :) SO FUNNY! hahaa!!
For all these photos & more, check out my Taco Party Photo Album and Hez’s post & photos, too!
COOLEST WIDGET EVER!
OK, I’ve totally fallen in love with widgets. Actually, mostly just one… and it’s not even part of Mac OSX’s Dashboard! The best part is all you PC PEOPLE can use it, too! huzzah!
What is it? Konfabulator‘s iTunes Companion. It is so awesome! If you use iTunes, and have ventured down the path of trying to grab artwork for your CD’s either using Fetch or something similar, then you know how time consuming it can be. Well, Konfabulator’s iTunes Companion is not only this cool little interface that allows you to play/pause/etc – but it actually goes out, grabs the artwork & downloads it and copies it into your iTunes for you!!! uhh… RAD!
So because I’m a big geek, here’s some screenshots for you to check it out for yourself. You can choose to have this side/info window open or not, but personally I think it’s awesome that while shuffling randomly through your massive collection, you can 1.) Quickly see all the other songs on that album 2.) View all the other albums you have by that artist 3.) Get to your entire library & 4.) Playlists! (numbers & detail reference to the thumbnails below, showing the buttons highlighted. The 5th one is his donate button)
FYI, you can actually choose to turn pretty much anything that you see here (control panel, progress bar, track info) on & off… or have it only appear when you roll over the cd cover. pretty sweet!
I use the medium size (above), but you can also have it small like this:
Or really large, like this:
And if it can’t find the artwork – you can either use a custom image (my custom image is one I pulled from Threadless artist Gary Gao), have it be a blank CD jacket (not shown here), or a Not Available message – which as you can see, at any time the cd jacket can be clicked to instantly search google images if you want to find the artwork yourself!
Keep in mind it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty damn close. I find myself wanting to use it like the power user that I am, but it’s doing quite a bit of work so you can’t pound on it too hard – and be patient if it doesn’t update right away, etc. The developer (Knut August Johansen from Norway!) has no doubt worked on it for hundreds of unpaid hours (I donated to him because I love it so much). But, it’s definitely kick ass & if you’re patient with it and/or are willing to kick him some money – I have no doubt it’s only going to get better & better. Oh – big tip: Read the document that comes with the app, you’ll learn a lot (go figure).
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For Mac Dashboard users – I highly recommend you check out a little app called Amnesty to accompany your widgets/dashboard. It’s actually similar to Konfabulator in the way that you can use just one widget at a time. When I first found this it was a godsend, because one of my RAM slots died & my computer had been chugging. To update you, the other day I got a new 1GB stick of RAM to put in the one slot that still works so I’m a bit better now, but for awhile there hitting F12 just made me wait for it to update all the widgets for a couple seconds – when usually I am only going there for one thing anyway! So Amnesty is awesome for that reason… check it out! Oh, and just in case you want a look see of the rest of them – I found out about Amnesty from this fun list of “widgets of the week“.
Other widgets I use and/or have tried: tiny url, evite, googlemaps, weather (standard), craigslist, sprint minutes, and I even downloaded this all recipes one – even though I never cook things fancy enough to need a recipe! Thought it might inspire me. ;)
There WAS a cheap gas widget on apple’s site, but now it’s disappeared. So here’s a link to Konfabulator’s Cheap Gas widget. However, when I was looking around at the different options for finding (widgets & google mashup websites, etc) I actually found that cheap gas widget wasn’t as accurate (?) or up-to-date as this site: SanFranGasPrices.com. The night I checked all those out I was going somewhere & successfully followed the tip-off to a place that was 2.48/gallon vs most of the ones around me I was seeing that were 2.58+ so I saved .10/gallon! woohoo!
Oh – there’s a few BART schedule widgets, too, for those of you who take it. Now, tell me what your favorite widget is!
Kaiser Chiefs w/ Brendan Benson & The Cribs @ The Fillmore
The Cribs opened up & they were pretty good, but I sort of tired of their set near the end in my anticipation for Brendan Benson’s set. They reminded me a lot of the Libertines though, and overall I like their sound. I’d be into getting their CD.
Brendan Benson was way more mellow than I would have liked… and he didn’t do much to connect w/ the audience, which was kind of a bummer… but you can tell they’re all very solid musicians – and I like his voice & his lyrics, so overall it was cool to see him play.
I think I would have enjoyed him more in a smaller venue. I have been loving his CD, and in comparison it’s great (due to the powers of studio production) because you can really hear how beautiful his voice is. Lastnight the bass was drowning it out a little too much for me… but it was still pretty good. Highlight: the drummer was totally entertaining to watch! Gotta love drummers & their funny faces, eh? :)
Kaiser Chiefs (I probably have & will continue to spell that Cheifs, so tell me if you catch it wrong somewhere :) were AWESOME!!! As you may recall, I had seen them play at BFD and was blown away at how fun they were live. Same deal lastnight.
Ricky (lead singer extraordinaire) is SO fun to watch, he gets the crowd absolutely wrapped around his finger! As far as I’m concerned every single song of theirs is an absolute hit & I have SO much fun dancing and watching them perform. Ali & I both found ourselves dazing out to his dreaminess. ha!
I got some GREAT shots lastnight, but sadly the worst of em are the Kaiser Chiefs – mostly because the Fillmore floor was doing that thing where you’re sure it’s going to fall out from under you it’s moving so much – so it was pretty hard to keep the camera still. That & Ricky is quite the moving target, because he doesn’t stop once the entire time! I should have taken a video to get one of his cute “jumps a la butt crack”. ha!
If you have a chance to go see them, you absolutely must. They’re so fun!
Here’s all my photos from the night. (Complete w/ a photo of Misty & Ted and Ali & I, too! I’m trying to get better at at least snapping one shot of US at the shows!) Read Misty’s review (and rant about leprechaun hats) of the show, here.