My parents are cooler than me

I don't know about you all, but I grew up listening to stories from my parents about this concert, and that festival, and so and so's live act, and yadda yadda yadda. I didn't think anything of it when our weekend's included watching illegal concert tapes that they recorded and I would occasionally have to cover my eyes but NEVER my ears. My parent's weren't hippies - more like stoners, I'd say. I recently found out that they grew weed behind the basement fridge where I would keep my Kool-Aid Bursts.

So, I mean, they are definitely cooler than me. They're repertoire of concerts is incredible: Queen, the Stones, Dylan, it goes on. This made me feel the need to re-evaluate my list of concerts to compare and see myself as a rad-hipster as well. So please enjoy the following list of my top 5 concert experiences:

5. Sitting three rows from Interpol at quite possibly the coolest venue (Benedum Center) for an avant-garde band.

4. Taking my shoes off and moshing in a cloud of dust while the lead singer of Gogol Bordello was passed around above the audience balancing himself on a large drum.

3. Walking 3 blocks from my house to see Tom Gabel of Against Me! rock out perfectly. I mean this guy has been scream-rocking for over a decade and his voice sounds amazing, also.... HE PLAYED AN OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW SONG! Gotta love a guy who can go from punk to folk without skipping a beat (reminds me of my Craigger)

2. MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ MMJ + MS = #2
The above equation sums up my second favorite concert experience. Standing in line for 20 minutes to watch My Morning Jacket play for 3+ hours (about 30 songs)! This band is what unbelievable concerts are made of, every song sounded incredible, we were right by the beer stand, they played all of our favorites, and Matt Salopek was there!!

1. Best concert ever (well, so far). June 2007, Manchester Tennesse, me, Craig, and Sting. Seeing The Police at Bonnaroo was definitely #1. From the beginning it was chaos: when Craig and I threw a backpack of IC Light over a wall in front of police and SWAT so that we could drink, shoving our way into the front third of the 300,000 people who were there, watching Craig relieve a little message in a bottle for Sting, oh and did I mention we were so ***happy to be there*** that I was halucinating cavemen in the crowd?!

Take that, Mom and Dad.

Nirvana and Against Me!

So I just napped in the quiet room of Benedum Library - something I haven't done since college! It's nirvana in that room. I can take my shoes off, sprawl out, and it's absolutely silent. Only con is that it's surrounded by windows so every engineer and their brother (...or sister) can watch my sleepy time habits.

People I am fed up with:
1. Dr. Federspiel - just a play on words here, although I am FED up with him and his math homework assignments
2. MEDCO - I am trying to get my prescription mail ordered to me so I don't have to pay $45 every month and go to CVS and wait on that dumb red couch, but everytime I call to work it out there's an issue. Either I have to get my pharmacy to fax the prescription AGAIN or their computers are down, or my phone dies (ok, so that's my problem but still...)
3. Construction workers at Benedum. As if you could possibly fit any more skeezy men into this building, they go and hire 50,000 construction workers to gawk at the females, piss on the co-ed toilet seats, and chatter outside the classrooms all day. Also, I have come to the conclusion that a construction workers day consists of 10% construction work, 70% eating lunch, and 20% going to the bathroom.

That's my rant. Obviously I am a little cranky when I wake up from naps. I have to go to Fed's class now and BS my homework assignment.

Take care, cyber kids.

OH! And guess what?! Against Me! is playing at Garfield Artworks, literally a block from my house! If anyone out there is an Anarco-punk fan looking for some fun, let me know and I'll get ya tickets! Show's Nov. 23 (sorry, Ved).

Wasted (Time and Money, not Alcohol)

How much time have I wasted waiting for busses? I mean mathematically it's a challenging question:

If I wait on average 10 minutes/day for a bus (54C) or shuttle to the Biotech center that comes to about an hour a week. And if I am in school for 30 weeks out of the year, I mean good god, that's more than a day I have been waiting around twiddling my thumbs. I suppose it's better than the time I would waste walking everywhere, but at least I'd be working out or enjoying scenery. While standing and waiting, I'm literally doing NOTHING, even my thinking is stupid cause I am distracted by things like birds or near car wrecks.

But if I try to multi-task (by blogging, like I am now) I most likely miss the bus and the process is dragged on.

Similarly, how much money have I wasted on parking tickets? See, when I end up missing said busses or shuttles, I usually resort to driving which commonly ends in some sort of ticket. Any of the following which I have memorized due to frequent occurences:

$11 illegal meter parking in Friendship (x3/year)
$25 illegal meter parking in Oakland (x100s/year)
$15 street cleaning in Oakland (x20/year)
$8 all day parking in O'hara garage (x2/year)

All of these added to the $168 and $21 I paid for a Biotech center parking pass and H-area permit zone, respectively. The math is mind blowing.

I'm not going to eat this week to make up for all this lost time and money. I do plan on continuing to drive to school, wait for busses, and drink, so the balance will still end in the red.