Rough Draft

Rocking the Grog Shop

Apparently I never wrote about the Fall Out Boy, Mae, Motion City Soundtrack, Rufio show at the Grog Shop 2 weeks ago. Dana and I got to Coventry around 6:30 since both our tickets and the Grog Shop website said the show started at 7. However, when we got there, the people at the Grog Shop said the doors didn't open until 7, so we wandered around Coventry for a bit. Almost everything was closed though, even Big Fun. Then around 7 we went back and got in the Grog Shop. We looked at the merchandise stands for a bit. I really wanted to get a Fall Out Boy shirt, but I didn't really like any of the ones they had. Then we went and got right up in the front row and then we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally at 8 o'clock Fall Out Boy took the stage.

This was the third time I've seen Fall Out Boy, and they get more fun each time. They played just about every song off their album Take This To Your Grave and they played a new song. Seeing the crowd, you would have thought Fall Out Boy was the headliner. The highlight of their set, was at the end when Pete climbed up the wall and across various bars and pipes on the ceiling and hung upside down singing the chorus to their final song. They said they would be back in December with Less Than Jake, so I'm looking forward to that.

Mae played next and also put on a good set. Their music is not nearly as rocky as Fall Out Boy's, but it was really nice to listen to. The keyboard player had 3 different 3 keyboards that he played. I'm glad I got to see them live, and it's made me want to listen to their CD some more.

Motion City Soundtrack played third and were excellent as well. Their keyboard player had an Apple logo sticker on his keyboard. They played most of their songs off of I Am The Movie, including my personal favorite The Future Freaks Me Out.

After Motion City Soundtrack played, Dana and I went over to the merchandise area again. I was able to get everyone in Motion City Soundtrack to sign my CD cover from their CD that I bought over the summer. And I found all but one member of Fall Out Boy and got them to sign the baseball card I had which came with their CD.

After that Dana and I got some seats by the bar and sat and watched game 6 of the Cubs-Marlins series with the drummer from Fall Out Boy which was fun.

Eagles vs Jets

The Eagles beat the Jets 24-17 on Sunday and are now just one game behind the Cowboys for first place in the NFC East. For the first time this season, the Eagles offense looked sharp. Andy Reid mixed the run and the pass well, including using all 3 Eagles running backs. Buckhalter ran for 2 touchdowns. McNabb passed well and was able to get some balls to his wideouts and just looked a lot more confident on the field. The only bad thing about their offense was pass protection, as evidenced by McNabb getting sacked 5 times. The Eagles' pass coverage was a little disappointing, since there were several plays, including the flea flicker during the first quarter, where the Jets receivers were wide open. Overall though, the Eagles looked sharp and it looks like once again Andy Reid has been able to pull his team together and get them back on the winning track.

I'm Back

I installed Panther on my Powerbook over the weekend and yesterday finally got around to getting this blog back online. Moving a Movable Type blog from one place to another is actually quite simple. I just backed up my /blog directory and exported the SQL database. After installing Panther, I installed this MySQL package and loaded database into it. The only thing I had a problem with was installing Bundle::DBI and DBD::MySQL. Bundle::DBI installed fine, but DBD::MySQL wouldn't build. After a couple google searches, I turned up this page which provided me with the solution. Simply type perl -pi -e's/MACOSX/env MACOSX/' Makefile after building the MakeFile and all is well. Now with Panther installed and the blog back up, I can finish up Recent Tunes soon.

Eagles vs Giants

Thank you Brian Westbrook. Thanks to his punt return for a touchdown with under 2 minutes left in the game, the Eagles pulled out a 14-10 victory against the Giants. Westbrook was also responsible for the Eagles' other touchdown. He ran the ball in for a score early in the first quarter. Neither team played a very good game. Once again the Eagles' offense was paltry. McNabb was off (possibly due to his injured thumb) and Eagles' receivers had at least 6 dropped balls. McNabb also got sacked several times and was under pressure from the defense a lot more than usual. At some point late in the 4th quarter Fox showed a stat saying the Eagles hadn't been in the Giants territory since sometime with about 3 minutes left in the first quarter. If Washington loses to Buffalo, the Eagles will be in second place in the NFC East, only behind the 5-1 Cowboys. Hopefully, the late game victory will spark the Eagles and things might *finally* fall into place for their offense. They've played 6 games and none of their wide receivers have a touchdown reception.

One other note, Bobby Taylor played his first game since getting injured in the season opener against Tampa Bay. He played very well, and was responsible for breaking up the Giants pass on 4th down, as they were trying to score the winning touchdown at the end of the game.

Eagles vs Cowboys

The Eagles lost a somewhat crucial game to the Cowboys last Sunday 23-21. Had the Eagles won they would have been tied for first place in the division with the Cowboys. Instead the Eagles are tied for last, and sub 500 again at 2-3. The game wasn't on here in Cleveland, but I've read a few summaries of the game. Apparently the Eagles started the game with an onside kick, something they did a few years ago on opening day to the Cowboys. That time the Eagles recovered the kick, unfortunately on Sunday, the Cowboys returned the kick for a touchdown. Despite that the Eagles were able to comeback and held a 21-20 lead with less than 2 minutes left. The Cowboys kicked a field goal to make it 23-21, but there was still enough time for the Eagles to come back. Unfortunately, before they got in field goal range McNabb fumbled and the Cowboys recovered the ball. The Eagles are still suffering from a lot of injuries. Even McNabb was playing with a bruised right hand that he got when they played the Bills. The NFC East is still wide open, so it's not over for the Eagles by a long shot. They have another crucial division game against the Giants this coming week. Hopefully the Eagles will be able to start pulling things together and looking like the team that has gone to the NFC championship game the last 2 seasons.

Apple Retail Stores and Live Music

I've been checking the Apple Retail page for news about the Cleveland Apple Store opening and though I haven't found anything about that, I have seen something called Music Nights. On October 15th, Thrice will be playing at the store in Santa Monica, CA and Thursday will be playing at the SoHo store. Very, very cool. I've bought both of the bands' recent albums from the iTunes Music Store. I'm hoping they release some live recordings from their performance on the ITMS, like Less Than Jake did a month or so ago. I'm also hoping the Cleveland store has some bands playing at it after it opens. Cleveland does have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after all.

Kill Bill

A bunch of us are going to see Kill Bill Vol. 1 on Friday. Jeff ordered tickets online, so we are good to go. It looks like it's going to be an excellent movie. Since the movie got split into 2 parts, I'm looking forward to seeing how Vol. 1 ends. I'm definitely expecting a crazy cliffhanger type ending to Vol. 1 from Tarantino.

New Music

I've picked up 2 new CDs in the last 2 days. My preorder of The Early November's album The Room's Too Cold came on Monday. It came with a DVD and a signed poster of the band. Ace told Sarah at the concert last Saturday that it took them days to sign all of the posters. Overall, the CD is good stuff. There's a nice mix of slower, acoustic songs and faster, rock songs. The DVD that came with it includes a documentary, a live performance of Every Night's Another Story, and an acoustic song.

Then today while we were at Wal*Mart in a somewhat impulse purchase I picked up the new Coheed and Cambria album In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 which came out today. I had read really good things about it on Absolute Punk, but wasn't really planning to pick it up. But after seeing it for $10 at Wal*Mart and the fact that it came with a DVD, I decided to buy it. The CD is 12 tracks (including the bonus track) and just under 1 hour and 10 minutes long. I've listened to it once tonight and like it a lot. I'm not quite sure how to describe the music, other than to say it fits in with the types of music I generally listen to, though it definitely has a distinct sound. Now, I've purchased the most recent Thrice, Thursday, and Coheed and Cambria albums, I really should go to see the three of them at the Agora October 18th.

I also want to mention the new Death Cab For Cutie album, Transatlanticism, which also came out today. Definitely one of the best albums of the year. Ben Gibbard is a lyrical genius, and I think everyone needs to hear this album.

The next music purchase for me will be October 21st when Something Corporate's North comes out. The Punk Goes Acoustic compilation also comes out that day, so I may end up picking that up as well.

Eagles vs Redskins

The Eagles played the Washington Redskins this week (the Eagles' first inter-division game of the season) and held on for a 27-25 victory. Once again the Eagles were without Vincent, Taylor, and Dawkins on defense. Fortunately for the the Eagles, the Redskins passing game was pretty bad. Lots of bad throws and dropped passes. The most important overthrow being on the 2 point conversion attempt by the Redskins at the end of the game, which would have sent it into overtime. The Eagles offense looked good in the first quarter and through most of the second quarter, but after that, they couldn't get a lot of good drives going. This also marked the Eagles' first win at their new stadium. Next week, they play at Dallas, who is currently leading the NFC East with a 3-1 record.

Dole Orange Strawberry Banana Juice

In an effort to drink less soda, I bought some Dole Orange Strawberry Banana Juice at Giant Eagle this week, and it's some of the best fruit juice I've had.

Update: The Orange Peach Mango Juice is also quite delicious.

Drive-Thru Invasion Tour

Dana, Kurt, Sarah, and I went to the Drive-Thru Invasion Tour at the Agora Theater last night. It was a really fun time. The line up was The Early November, Senses Fail, Allister, Homegrown, and The Starting Line.

The Early November is a really good live band. They said they'd be doing a headlining tour soon, so I'll probably go see them when they come back. Their new album, The Room's Too Cold, comes out on Tuesday. I already preordered it, because by doing so you get a DVD and a poster. It shipped last Thursday, so it should be here Monday or Tuesday.

Senes Fail was also really good, though the mosh pit got really crazy during their set. Sarah left partway through because some guy tying his shoes bit her leg. Dana and I ended up going to the back of the pit shortly after that because there was too much crowd surfing and neither of us really wanted to have our glasses knocked off.

Allister played next and put on an excellent performance as always. Unfortunately, all the bands played pretty short sets (6 or 7 songs) so it wasn't as good as when they played after Finch last year, or during their headlining show. After Allister played apparently Sarah and Kurt went out to the merchandise stand and Scottie (the lead singer/bass player of Allister) was there. Sarah had Scottie call my cell phone from her phone, but I was inside the theater, so I didn't hear it ring :( . I'm still mad I missed out on meeting Scottie, especially because I had my Last Stop Suburbia CD cover and a Sharpie with me.

Homegrown played after Allister. They were decent, though I only knew a couple of their songs, so their set wasn't as fun as the others.

The Starting Line were the headliners for the tour. This was the first time I've seen them live, and they were great. They played a bunch of songs off of Say It Like You Mean It, as well as a couple new songs that will be on their upcoming album. They also played Make Yourself At Home off of their acoustic EP which will be out November 25. I can't wait for that to be released, it's going to be really good. They also did one of the better encore's I've seen. They played their "last song" The Best of Me, which is their most well known single. A lot of bands pretend they are done before playing their most well known song, so you know they're coming back. There were a few chants of "TSL, TSL, TSL" and "One more song, One more song" but the lights had come on and people started to leave, so it didn't seem like they'd be coming back out. But after a couple more minutes they came back on stage to do their cover of Jennifer Lopez's song, I'm Real. Before they played that, Kenny (the lead singer) was trying to get the guys in the crowd to sing to some Justin Timberlake song, but it wasn't going so well, since no one really knew the song.

All in all, another very enjoyable concert.