Rough Draft

Random Entertainment Update

Haven't updated in a while, but here's a rundown of what I've been up to.

Last Thursday, Jeff and I went to see the San Francisco Symphony at Severance Hall. Case gives away tickets each week to see the Cleveland Orchestra, and Jeff one last week and invited me to go along with him. This was my first time seeing an orchestra/symphony at Severance and really my first concert of that type period. I enjoyed it a lot and thought the musicians were pretty amazing. I was amused by the guy in front of us that was shouting "Bravo!" at the end of the show.

Friday afternoon and evening turned out to be entertainment packed. Lynn and I watched Love Actually in the afternoon, which I actually enjoyed a lot. Jeff and I went to the 7 pm showing of 21 Grams. It was a pretty good movie. The actual plot was pretty weird, but the real hook was the very nonlinear manner in which the story was told.

After that, I walked up to The Spot to see Lynn sing with Case in Point at the Casino Night. They were missing a few members due to the play Where's Charley (more later), but still sounded really good. On a side note, congratulations to Lynn on getting the solo for White Flag, I'll be looking forward to hearing that at their spring concert or Spring Fest. Speakeasy performed after Case in Point, so Lynn and I stayed for that. Bryan Munch, one of my Lego Lab group members, is in it and had a couple solos. I also recognized another Brian from my Music Theory class.

After Speakeasy sang, Lynn and I stopped by the Silver Spartan for some food and milkshakes. The food itself was good, but the service was pretty lacking. The waitress forgot my order, then after writing it down, she brought out my french fries and Lynn's eggs, but still forgot we ordered milkshakes. Lynn also had to go up and ask for a fork.

After that we went over to Thwing (after finding a sign and checking the location) to see the midnight, err 11:59, performance of Where's Charley. Sean and Kim from CiP had two of the main roles and a girl from my music theory class had the other main female role. It was a good show, and kept me entertained. Actually, I should mention the play wasn't quite what I was expecting, since the flyers for it implied Amy was in love with Charley, a crossdresser. In actuality, Charley was just an actor, and through certain circumstances, had to end up pretending to be his aunt.

YACC (Yet Another Cool Concert)

I found out yesterday that Less Than Jake, The Early November, and Fall Out Boy will be at Peabody's in Cleveland on April 22, just one day after SoCo and Yellowcard. I've been wanting to see Less Than Jake for a while, so I just might need to hit 2 concerts in as many days. I'll have to wait and make sure the Cocoa Programming Competition awards aren't rescheduled for that day though.

iTunes Sessions

Thanks to my iTunes RSS feed, I found out about the Get Up Kids - iTunes Sessions album that was added to the ITMS Tuesday. The album contains 4 acoustic tracks off their new album, Guilt Show, plus 2 acoustic versions of older songs Action and Action (one of their best songs) and Better Half.

Last Stop Suburbia

Allister is going to be at the Grog Shop Saturday May 1 for their Last Stop Suburbia Tour. Huzzah! Hopefully I can get them to sign my ALLISTer R0x0rz t-shirt.

cIP

Lynn's a cappella had their first concert of the Spring semester on Thursday during the Thwing Atrium hour. I got out of Lego Lab a little bit early, which was good since I got there just a couple minutes before they started singing. I was talking to one of my Lego Lab partners, Bryan Munch, who is in another a capella group, Speakeasy, and he decided to come and watch also. The concert itself was very good. My favorite songs were: the opener (What Went Wrong by Blink-182), Keep Me a Secret by Ainslie
Henderson (Lynn arranged that song), The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and You Do (a song from a Family Guy episode). I'm definitely looking forward to their next concert on April 16th at 7 in the Rough Rider Room.

Concert Goodness

Finally today there is a Cleveland date posted for the Yellowcard/Something Corporate concert. It's at the new Scene Pavilion in the Flats on April 21. I can't wait. Almost all of the tour dates for that tour had been posted for several weeks now, so I was really afraid they weren't going to hit Cleveland on this tour. I'm really excited for this show, as is Lynn since Yellowcard and Something Corporate are the two favorite of the bands I've introduced her to. Other notable upcoming concerts include Death Cab for Cutie on March 31 and Sugarcult and Motion City Soundtrack on April 10, both at The Odeon. It had been several months since I went to my last concert, so I'm really excited that there's a bunch of good shows this spring to go to.

Midterms

I've made it through my last round of college midterms. Fortunately, mine were spread out pretty evenly throughout the week, unlike Jeff who had 5 exams in 2 days. Overall I think I did well on all of them. Hopefully I'll get the music theory one back tomorrow. The only bad part about the midterm week is I've been fighting a terrible cough and cold all week, just like half the campus it seems. I think I'm finally starting to get better, and thankfully Lynn didn't seem to catch it since she's going to visit her friends in Wales over spring break.

Spellbound

Lynn and I watched Spellbound, a documentary on the National Spelling Bee, this week. I found it very interesting, and some of the practice those kids do is insane. One kid did 7000-8000 words every day. The best person they featured in the show though was a 7th grader from New Jersey named Harry. He couldn't sit still for a second, and made some really entertaining comments. During the Bee itself, one of the judges had to say "Harry turn back around to the mic and finish your word." Though we were rooting for him, he didn't win, and we checked the National Spelling Bee website to see if he made it the next year, but sadly he did not.

Weekend Stuffage

Last Friday Lynn, Phil, Jeff, and I went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World at Strosacker. Lynn had a small incident with the door at Rockefeller when we were cutting through there. The back doors to Strosacker were locked, but some people were just coming out of Rockefeller, so she ran to grab the door before it closed. But as she ran to stop the inside set of doors from closing, she banged into the outside door. The important thing though is she did get to teh inside door. But then a beeping noise started since the door had been open too long. She closed the door, but one of the people that left had come back to make sure she wasn't hurt and he swiped us in. The next morning when she did have a nice purple bruise, but she seemed proud of it. Jeff and I had already seen the movie, and the second viewing was just as good as the first. Unfortunately, I didn't remember all of the parts Lynn wouldn't want to see, so she saw a couple things she could have done without. Overall though she said she liked the movie, which is good.

Saturday, the 4 of us went to Phnom Penh since we hadn't been there in a while. I got the Asian Basel Fried Rice, which is excellent. The only other dish I've had there, which is also great is the Pad Thai. They're very similar so it usually comes down to whether I'm in the mood for rice or noodles. After that we went to PETsMART so Phil could get some new fish for his AquarIBM (a fish tank made from an IBM PS/2). He ended up getting 4 fish, 2 of which had a little Mickey Mouse design on their tail, which was cool. On Sunday morning though, one of the fish didn't look very good, and was just sort of laying in the plant in the AquarIBM. Very strangely though, that afternoon the fish had completely disappeared. We checked all over the tank, but it wasn't anywhere to be found. Apparently one of the other fish, or the plecostomus ate it. Phil said he had seen the plecostomus occasionally nibbling on the fins of the guppies, but these new fish were significantly bigger than guppies.

Sunday night we went to Chipotle because if you bought a burrito that night (Feb. 29) you got a coupon for a free burrito anytime this week. As expected though, the line was incredibly long, so we walked down to Grum's sub shop and ate over by the park in Coventry since it was pretty nice out.

E-Week Banquet

Last Thursday Phil, Jeff, and I went to annual the Engineers Week Banquet. We had never been there before and since we're seniors, we decided for $7 we should go to it at least this once. We got to the Renaissance Hotel downtown around 6. There was a reception upstairs where we wandered around for a while, and Jeff and I talked to Meral and Tekin Ozsoyoglu for a while. The dinner was excellent, especially the spicy tomato soup and the raspberry cheesecake desert. The main course was chicken wrapped in ham along with rice, green beans, and carrots. The Keynote presenter was John Nottingham of Nottingham Spirk Design, a design company based here in University Circle. The title of the talk was "Relentless Innovation". The talk was very interesting and included a lot of examples of really cool products the company had designed, such as the twist and pour paint can, a swiveling Christmas tree stand, and an electric dish scrubber to name a few. As Jeff said the talk focused more on the company's innovations rather than how to innovate, which it would have been nice to hear his perspective on. Overall though, as I said, the talk was really interesting, and he also mentioned Steve Jobs, Apple, and Pixar when someone asked him who inspires him.

What's the Dillio?

On Wednesday last week Lynn, Dana, and I went to see Mest, Fall Out Boy, Matchbook Romance, and Dynamite Boy at The Odeon. This was my first time at The Odeon and this was Lynn's first "punk" concert. Too quote Mike when I told him that on AIM: "How cute :D". We got to The Odeon around 6:00 and there was already a pretty long line outside. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30, but we didn't actually get in until 6:45 or a little later. Overall I'd say The Odeon is about the same size as The Agora Theater, and there were probably a good couple hundred people at the show. We started out pretty much in the center of the stage, and fairly close to the front, unfortunately though a circle pit opened up right next to us during Dynamite Boy's set, so we ended up moving to the right side of the stage and a little further back. All the bands put on a good show, though I was mainly there to see Fall Out Boy and Mest. Matchbook Romance was good, but I hadn't heard many of there songs and it's always more enjoyable when you know the words and can sing along. I was really glad they played The Greatest Fall Of All Time since that was one of their songs I actually know, and it's a good song. Fall Out Boy put on a good set as always. They're a really fun band to see live. Mest was also really good. They opened with Until I Met You, which I guessed they would since they opened with that at the Good Charlotte show, and it's its the first track on their new album. I really like the song and it does make a great opener since its fast and catchy. My other favorite songs they did were Hotel Room, Drawing Board, and the closer Cadillac ("Jump! Jump!"). The only disappointment was they didn't play What's the Dillio?. I had a good time, and Lynn said she also enjoyed it. The last concert I had been too was in October, so it was nice to get to a concert again, and I'm looking forward to a bunch of upcoming concerts.

Comedy Night

On Tuesday night last week Lynn and I went to the Comedy Night at The Spot to see Mike Birbiglia. Lynn went to the comedy nights they had in Swansea fairly often and enjoyed them, so she thought we should check out the one's here. It was supposed to start at 9:30, so we went down to catch a Greenie at 9. When we got to The Spot there were only a couple other people there. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to play some air hockey, even though Lynn said she wasn't very good. I beat her the first two games, but she beat me the last three. The show didn't actually end up starting until 10 for some reason and one of the first things Mike talked about was that he thought the show was supposed to start at 8 so he had been wandering around the campus for a while. I enjoyed his performance, and we also got to see Scary Vampire Girl introduce him and two guy's from wrestling team wrestle each other (Mike bet $10 on the guy that lost), and of course there was also the free boxers. I had a good time and we'll probably try to go to the Comedy Night's again. We were going to go this week, but I had computer graphics homework to work on and by the time it would have been time to leave Lynn didn't really feel like going out anyway.