Packing it in…
By Eric | May 20, 2003 4:57 pm
The last exam went well this morning… afterwards I caught Carlo and two of his friends for lunch, we went to Big Dogs and got a plate… mmm mmm good! Then I came back home, poked around a bit, then back out to procure myself the new Staind and Deftones albums…
[aside]
I love how everyone is putting extra stuff into the package… first the Cold album came with a DVD, the Staind one did as well (40 mins long!), and the Deftones album has an extensive multimedia section… gotta love flash!!
[/aside]
Ran to Wegmans to order stuff for saturday, and then called Cornell to check on my interview status…. apparently they’re down to two candidates, and I’m one of them… *crosses fingers*… I’m hoping! End of the week I should know…
In any event, short of picking up my cap and gown and walking… my school obligations are done!!! I’ll have much more to say on the subject once I find the time, I’m too busy getting around doing nothing right now 🙂 hehe
Topics: Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: friends, NT, wegmans
Winding it up
By Eric | May 14, 2003 8:21 am
The judicial paper is all done and going to get handed in today, the wines final is done… I got my take-home History final passed out yesterday… and as Scott alluded to in his comment, the dart board is no more… I patched the holes in the wall (there were far less huge ones than we thought!), and redid the gouges from our fallen coat rack (RIP).
As Shakespeare said it… It’s usually Much Ado About Nothing. 🙂
Picked up Year of the Spider yesterday… not like I didn’t have it before anyway, but to have the real one is nice… it came with a temporary tattoo, the secret song is Gone Away, and a DVD! The DVD has some good stuff on it, but everytime they talk to the fans, I cringe. I feel ashamed sometimes to be lumped in with “fans” of the bands that I listen to, because once on camera, they sound as far away from intellegent as one could possibly get. Would it kill someone to speak in a coherent sentence? Say something about the music other than “Man… these guys rule, I built my whole life around this band…” No, no you didn’t. And if you did, seek help. While I get into my music pretty deeply, I can take it at face value, and I’d like to think I’m intellegent enough to know when a band is just that, a band. [/ENDRANT]
Anyone care to explain why I had to pull the equivalent of a full head of hair out of my tub drain this morning, so much so that it wouldn’t drain?? And that’s BEFORE I took my shower… mmmhmm… I’m not running a barber shop out of my bathroom last I checked.
Topics: Blog | 4 Comments »
Tags: music, NT, wine
05/02/2003 Pearl Jam (Buffalo, NY @ HSBC Arena)
By Eric | May 2, 2003 11:59 pm
Finally! Ever since I got smart about my music (which I’d say was around 1994), I’ve had an affinity for Pearl Jam. Alas, I’d never seen them… until now! Me and Tiff got there during the set change, so we didn’t have to see Sparta (blech). So we’re sitting tight at center ice, about 15 rows up, and then the boys come out! They opened with Love Boat Captain, and proceeded to play for roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes!! 3 encores!! Not gonna go song by song, but I can say that highlights for me were definitely Elderly Woman (just a great song), Evenflow (Mike’s solo was incredible), Deep (totally was not expecting that one!), Black (just a great emotional take on it), Betterman (the crowd singalong was amazing to hear), Crazy Mary (the extended jam in the middle was awesome), Smile (another surprise!), Soon Forget (Eddie came out with his ukulele and sang to a dummy that was supposed to be Bill Gates), and the closer Yellow Ledbetter. There were a myriad of covers along the way, including The Police’s Driven To Tears, CCR’s Fortunate Son, Patti Smith’s People Have the Power, and The Who’s Baba O’Riley. The crowd was on their feet the entire time (in the seats also!), everyone sang along to practically everything, and the band just plain sounded great! Despite the fact that we had a drunk puking girl behind us, and a couple next to us that were yelling at each other every other song, nothing was going to take away from Pearl Jam, and after listening to the bootleg a couple times since the show, I’m still convinced this is one of the best shows I’ve been to in a looong time! The complete setlist was as follows: LOVE BOAT CAPTAIN, BRAIN OF J, HAIL HAIL, SAVE YOU, CORDUROY, SMALL TOWN, I GOT ID, EVEN FLOW, FAITHFUL, DEEP, GIVEN TO FLY, SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE, WISHLIST, GREEN DISEASE, INSIGNIFICANCE, BLACK, GO, ENCORE BREAK 1, FREE JAZZ, DRIVEN TO TEARS, BETTERMAN, CRAZY MARY, DO THE EVOLUTION, ALIVE, ENCORE BREAK 2, SOON FORGET, SMILE, FORTUNATE SON, SONIC REDUCER, PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER, ENCORE BREAK 3, BABA O’RILEY, YELLOW LEDBETTER.
Wishlist
Green Disease
Insignificance
Black
Go
Driven To Tears
Betterman
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 05/02/2003 Pearl Jam (Buffalo, NY @ HSBC Arena)
Tags: 2003, Buffalo, HSBC Arena, Pearl Jam
A “Full” Day
By Eric | April 26, 2003 1:08 pm
Full was definately the word, I got a plate from Henrietta Hots for lunch (late lunch), and then me and Tiff went to Dino for dinner early, to beat the rush. Yeah, I was full 🙂 Anyway, I did a CD run friday morning, finally got Steal This Album and a NFG cd for Tiff, and then after dinner, we did some shopping, and went to Fantastic, where unbeknownst to me, used CD’s were buy one get one… so I picked up the first Ultraspank and the Adema EP… plus the real copy of Primer55, and since I got a free cheap-o one too… I went the goofy route… Warrant’s Cherry Pie! hehe… How lame…
Speaking of lame, as if the NIN song “La Mer” wasn’t ripe enough for lame jokes, in Pittsford we saw two buses full of these peoples, and the bus even said so!
I guess this is a real bus company… thanks to google we now can see these self-professed lamers in their own transportation 🙂 And the website is even better: GoLamers.com… Like theyre a team or something… Go LAMERS!! YEAH!
At 10 we headed to the Distilery to meet the Math Stat crew, and after finally getting seated, we had ourselves a pretty good time! They split us over two tables, since we had about 15 people, but nonetheless, we had a great time 🙂 We got some doubles of pictures from a previous Wild Wings excursion, so those will be making their way onto the picture page sooner or later.
This morning I actually cleaned the bathroom… miracle of all miracles 🙂 It’s inhabitable now 🙂 Probably gonna tackle some homework, watch Game 2 of the Lightning – Devils, and then tonight is the Knighthawks-Bandits playoff game, thanks to Karl’s brilliant idea 🙂
Topics: Blog | 2 Comments »
Tags: Nate, NT, shopping, tiff, Work
04/22/2003 New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Less Than Jake, The Disasters (Rochester, NY @ Blue Cross Arena)
By Eric | April 22, 2003 11:59 pm
Disclaimer: This was Tiff’s show! Having said that, we arrived while the Disasters were on. The only real punk band on the bill, they were probably pretty good as far as punk bands go, but I have no knowledge of these things, so yeah. Whatever. Less Than Jake was next, and while they weren’t bad either, ska isn’t my thing, and as Tiff put it “They weren’t as good as I’d hoped they’d be.” My thoughts exactly. Then it was time for Good Charlotte. Now may I remind you that this crowd was mostly comprised of 13 year old girls, many of whom had never been to any type of show before (Tiff asked a couple). You’d have thought the Beatles were here or something. The screaming was louder than the band was!! The crowdsurfers came out in full force, thank God they were light, but I got landed on a couple times, and scared the bejeezus out of one of them 🙂 Anyway, all the screaming and whatnot was for naught, because let me tell ya, Good Charlotte sucks even more live than they do on TV. They just kinda stood there, not a lot of energy, the songs were about nothing in particular, and they just plain sounded bad. A couple songs out of tune, and just…. blah. After an hour of that, the set change came about, and finally the one band that Tiff wanted to see, and I was kinda interested to see NFG as well. Easily the best of the four bands, they had a hell of a lot more energy than GC did, but surprisingly, the crowd wasn’t nearly as crazy. Probably blew their wad on the first three bands… I’m sure it helped that I recognized a bunch of the NFG songs, but regardless, it seemed to me that they just had a better live show than everyone else. So despite being a crowdsurfer magnet, and pretty much feeling like a babysitter for all the 12 year olds around me (hehe Tiff didn’t really need me at this one), I managed to have a decent time.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 04/22/2003 New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Less Than Jake, The Disasters (Rochester, NY @ Blue Cross Arena)
Tags: 2003, Blue Cross Arena, Good Charlotte, Less Than Jake, New Found Glory, rochester, The Disasters
04/18/2003 Sister Hazel, Jared Campbell (Harrisburg, PA @ The Whitaker Center)
By Eric | April 18, 2003 11:59 pm
Tiff and Becca’s Excellent Adventure would be an apt title for this, since Sister Hazel is the absolute favorite band for both of them, but that’s not to say I didn’t have a good time! 4.5 hours to Harrisburg, PA from Rochester, and well worth the trip. We got into Harrisburg much earlier than we thought we would… so we had essentially 3.5 hours to kill before they opened the doors… there was a mall-like shopping center attached to the Whitaker center… so we checked that out… got some dinner, bought some playing cards, and sat up on a covered walkway/bridge that had a perfect overlook of where Sister Hazel’s bus was parked… naturally, this came in handy! We saw a couple people start hanging out by the bus, then one of the guys came off the bus… so we raced down there, and the girls got pictures with two of the guys (Jeff, the bass player, and Ryan, lead guitarist). After much more bumming around, we got into the small-ish 660-seat theater, found our seats in the 2nd tier (although still a great view, and rather close!) and watched the opener, Jared Campbell. He’s from Binghamton, and it was just him and his acoustic guitar, and he wasn’t half bad. I remarked to Tiff that “I liked him better when he called himself John Mayer”, because he did kinda sound like him. Just like last night… he starts goofing around and playing the beginnning of Mayer’s “No Such Thing”… dead on! I’m two for two 🙂 He did a bit more goofing around, playing snippets of a Dave Matthews song, and of all things, the Proclaimers! And oh yeah, his own stuff was pretty decent also!
Then it was Sister Hazel time… they sounded excellent, and looked to be having all kinds of fun up on the stage. The setlist was: Life Got In The Way, Just Remember, Change Your Mind, Your Mistake, Champagne High, Beautiful Thing, Everybody, Strange Cup of Tea, Your Winter, Swan Dive, All For You, Happy, and Thank You. Come Around was on the list but for whatever reason didn’t get played. I was very impressed with the musicianship and talent that these guys have, and the crowd seemed to be really into it as well. I think I had more fun just watching Tiff and Becca become all giddy and excited, as I usually am at shows! I took some pictures, but from the distance we were at, and it’s a digital camera, a lot of them are kinda blurry (I’m posting them anyway!). After the set, I noticed a setlist looking kinda lonely on the stage… I ran down the stairs and by the time I got down there, it was taken. Not to be denied, I hit up the sound man, and asked if he still needed the SH setlist… he’s like “Nope…”, turns to his colleague and asks if he can give it to us, turns to me and says “Here ya go!”. 2nd setlist in a row for Tiff 🙂 So we headed into the lobby, and agreed that we weren;t going to stay for the Badlees, aside from not being interested, home would come that much earlier. However, I figured we’d wait 20 minutes or so and see if any of the Sister Hazel guys would come out. Not 5 minutes later, Jeff (who we’d met earlier), and Ken, the lead singer, came out! Jeff motioned over to us (recognizing us from before), and the guys signed Tiff’s setlist, and the girls got a picture with Ken as well… It was a great show, and the 4.5 hours back even went rather quickly… Needless to say the girls were thrilled with the show, and I had myself a great time as well! 🙂
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 04/18/2003 Sister Hazel, Jared Campbell (Harrisburg, PA @ The Whitaker Center)
Tags: 2003, Harrisburg, Jared Campbell, Sister Hazel, The Whitaker Center
Finger Eleven DVD Stars?
By Eric | April 18, 2003 1:14 am
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps… in a nutshell, the show was awesome…. good mix of the new and the old. If Sad Exchange somehow makes it onto the DVD, he’ll be referring to me as “Loud Guy” yelling for it! (Kinda fitting, isn’t it?) And by the way, theres a good reason we’ve all never heard of blankface (the openers)… they suck ass. (as always, review is forthcoming.)
Good Lord, lotsa driving ahead tomorrow… Harrisburg, PA is the destination, and Sister Hazel is the reason… Tiff and Becca’s Excellent Adventure, with me just chauffuering 🙂 hehe..
Topics: Blog | 3 Comments »
Tags: driving, NT, tiff
04/17/2003 Finger Eleven, Blankface (Buffalo, NY @ Showplace Theater)
By Eric | April 17, 2003 11:59 pm
I ventured down with Jason and his roommate Colin to this one… Finger Eleven taped a live DVD at this show (in fact, it was the whole point for the show, as it was an off-date for them). We got into the place, and the openers, Blankface, were a crappy local emo band. Their singer sounded just like Robert Smith from the Cure, and I remarked to Colin as such… so what do they play? A Cure cover! Love Song… blaaaaaahh… anyway, they got done, we waited around a bit, and then it was F11 time! I cant remember the order, but they opened with Above, then into a couple of new ones… Absent Elements and Last Scene of Struggling. They also played drag you down, quicksand, complicated questions (a new one), conversations (new), for the ocean, suffocate, therapy (new), other light (new), sad exchange, tip, obvious heart (new), and closed with what will be the first single off the new album, Good Times, and then First Time. There was a lull after one of the songs…. so naturally I took the opportunity to yell for Sad Exchange… Well, it was a good call, as Scott (F11 lead singer) said “Yep, you got it… there ya go loud guy! Not that that’s a bad thing, I like the enthusiasm!” and they proceeded to play it! So with any luck, maybe I’ll make it onto the DVD… 🙂 It may or may not have been the cameras, but they were much more enthusiastic than certain other times I’ve seen them, continuing the energy trend from the Fort Erie show over the summer… definately worth the $13 to get in, and the new album should be great.
Above
Absent Elements
Sad Exchange
Suffocate
Quicksand
For the Ocean
Conversations
Obvious Heart
Thousand Mile Wish
Tip
Good Times
Encore:
One Thing
Costume for a Gutterball
Other Light
First Time
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 04/17/2003 Finger Eleven, Blankface (Buffalo, NY @ Showplace Theater)
Tags: 2003, Blankface, Buffalo, Finger Eleven, Showplace Theater
ICE ICE BABY!
By Eric | April 5, 2003 4:23 pm
Yep, it’s been rather icy here the last couple days, finally started melting today… Thursday afternoon it really started… making Tiff’s car trouble that much more frustrating… Thursday night was low-key, no one really wanted to go out in the weather… Friday morning I hit the gym with the Genny Park boys and Lisa, and then met with Dr F to dicuss the book doings… Got to go to lunch at Jay’s with him! Came back and met Tiff in the labs, played some more racquetball… then after getting cleaned up, Tiff and Rachel came to pick me up for dinner, we grabbed Scott, and met Shana and her roommates at the Macaroni Grill… after that we hit the mall to get a couple of birthday things for Karl… we found the best and cheapest gag gift ever at the dollar store… STOOL SOFTENER!!! Try that one on for size… we almost got him the matching home enema kit, but we thought that might be too much 🙂 So after chilling at Tiff’s place for a bit, it was off to Genny Park to rally the troops, and after an extended hiatus, we finally made our way to Empire… had a good time there for an hour or so, and then where else? DENNY’S!!!
This afternoon was a Thrift/CD run for me, and at the Archive on East I hit the jackpot big time today…. not only did I get the new doubleDrive CD a month before it comes out… but I got a promo for YEAR OF THE SPIDER!! (Yes, IM me, I’m working on it… you can’t play it in the computer, but CloneCD may be working some magic for me… :))
Party at Genny Park tonight… be there or be not there!
Topics: Blog | 3 Comments »
Tags: Baby, NT, tiff, weather, Work
More Work, More School
By Eric | April 2, 2003 4:50 pm
The job search continues as well… but its been work and school for the past three days, nothing terribly exciting. Work has been good, and they saw fit to name me Employee of the Month! So I get a nice U-Lot reserved parking pass for the month.. fun wow! Not sure how much I’ll actually use it, but if ya got it, right?
Took the first judicial process test today, not sure what to expect on this one, although it was much better than I’d thought… Maybe studying does pay off… go figure!
Picked up the new Cold single today for Stupid Girl… Chris Vrenna did the remix, and it’s weird… very slowed down, strings, lots of echo-y kind of stuff… *shrug* I’m still way more excited about the album coming out 🙂
Topics: Blog | Comments Off on More Work, More School
Tags: NT, Work