SLAP THAT BASS!

I was having a Crash Kings video watching party last night in honor (actually in my state of withdrawl/depression) of having it be the longest I have gone without a live show, and so I was watching the playlist of Crash Kings videos from when we saw them in Portland, ME.

IN MY OPINION: Best concert ever. Or, that we've seen from them. I thought everything came together to be quite perfect. Energy wise? It would probably be the Middle East show from August. With the Mercury Lounge show from May coming in second.

YOU GUYS - this will be the FIRST month I HAVEN'T seen Crash Kings. Since December! I've seen them at least once a month. AAGGGOONNNYYYYY!!!!!! MISSERRRYY!!!! HORRORRR!!!!

Anyways. What was I saying?? Oh yeah! I was going to relate this back to the subject of this entry.

SO, while I was rewatching the videos, I can't remember what song it was in... but someone yells to Mike, "SLAP THAT BASS!!" I laughed to myself.

I'm sure they were referring to the lines from the movie, 'I Love You, Man,' and not the classic Gerswin song sung by Fred Astaire in Shall We Dance. Either way - I laughed.

SO! I've forgotten to mention some things that I wanted to mention. Let's begin:


1. I've had this article opened in my tabs ALLLL FREAKING WEEK. And I keep meaning to post it, and then I forget. NO, it's not the Hanson article from last week. (this kind of situation happens a lot. Hence why I always have like, a billion tabs open.)

REMEMBER MY FRIEND HOLDEN?!? In the band Breakthrough Frequencies?! I see him when I go to The Space. Well, he posted this article to Facebook the other day and I was so impressed by it, that I saved it and said, "I have to post this for MY friends!!"

So, you know how sometimes people will interview big shot music people and be like, "what is on your iPod right now? What songs inspire you?" WELL - this newspaper from New Haven, CT asked Holden those very questions!! And he answered them! Like a big shot music person!! I couldn't believe it! I was like, "wow! I know that guy!!" Super cool.

So, please check out the article here! Holden talks about his fave songs and songs that inspire the sound of Breakthrough Frequencies. NICE. That's a win.


AND IN OTHER EXCITING FRIEND NEWS....


2. RYAN! Yes, my friend Ryan, has a GIG tomorrow night!!! Saturday night!! And I'm going!! Super excited about this. One of her music teachers has an awesome band and they asked Ryan to sing with them! YES. Here's the link - it's the first concert listed. Jazz, Yiddish and Beyond!! I can't wait. I really enjoy some good klezmer. I'm gonna try and get my mom to come with me, but she doesn't know that yet. Not sure if they'll allow cameras or what, but if they do - get ready for some great pictures! I'm totally going to be like an excited mom. I'm just so excited for Ryan! A gig! With a real band!

Also looking forward to some sweet jassss music. Also looking forward to the clarinetist. I think there'll be one. And as a former clarinetist myself, I enjoy watching it in action.

Ha, actually, I hated playing the clarinet. Why did I do it for so long? I remember in 6th grade I used to talk about randomly leaving my clarinet places. Throwing it off of a bridge, I think, also.

Yep. Dedicated music student, right here. I was a dedicated choral student. I remember when I was a junior in high school, I had a day where I had dance class in the morning, then treble choir, then chamber singers. What a great day, right?! The best. Ohhhh I loved chamber singers. And treble choir.

And the jellyfish. (anyone get that?! the jellyfish!!?? REMEMBER!?! any former chamber singers reading?!?! anyone!??)


WELL. That might be all I have to talk about. Two excited friend things!! Pretty awesome. I know I spend a lot of my time talking about gorgeous rock stars, but now it's MY FRIENDS who are the gorgeous rock stars!! Nice!

Did I mention my sleep schedule last night? I'll take some time to do that now:

- finally fell asleep around 4am
- woke up at 5:32am
- woke up at 6:15am

that's it! And I'm still awake! And it's currently 9:18am. Friday. 24th September. I'm working right now. From 8 to 11ish.

I'm sleeping with the baby monitor on, so it's always an extra struggle to sleep. Most of it usually happens during the daylight hours. Except on days when I'm working. Like right now. I'll probably take a nap when I get done with work. Assuming I'm tired.

If I fall asleep when I'm not tired and I wake up for some reason during the night, I will still not be tired. And it will take me a while to fall asleep. And then most likely, I'll wake up again, and STILL not be tired. This will continue until I am pretty exhausted. And then I'll sleep all day.

Anyways. Enough about my messed up night schedule. I have no idea how I could work a real job. Or, a job with "traditional" hours. I guess mostly likely I won't be sleeping with baby monitors in my bed.

ANYWAYS. I have to go pick up a resident at work and bring her to an appointment. So, I'll talk to everyone later! What a great entry, right?! Yes! I have great friends. And these are new friends. What great new friends! Talented friends. I think I hang out with the right crowd.

Ok! Have great Fridays! I'll talk to everyone later! End of the week hooray!

Enjoy the day!!


LOVE!

I started writing this on Tuesday... but then didn't finish until Wednesday...

It's Tuesday!! My favorite day of the week because:

1. It's the second part of the first name of my cat that I love so much. Seriously guys, she's the best.

My least favorite day of the week because:

1. I usually end up working from 12:30pm until 10pm. Which makes for a long day.

But! I had last night off. I knew I was going home for the day on Monday, and I also knew that my boss usually stays overnight on Mondays. This is handy in situations where:

1. River City Extension is playing a show on Monday night and you need the night off (which happened back in August)
2. You know you won't feel like driving home

I went with option number 2. So, I emailed her quite early in the day and asked if she'd be interested in working the overnight. And she emailed me back and said, "I would love to!" YAY FOR ME. Because, I got the night off. And Kara was so happy she almost started crying. :)

So! We had a fun sister day. It's fun having a sister who likes to bake and cook. For example: I got home and (semi-jokingly) said to Kara: You should make us breakfast sandwiches and homefries.

AND THEN SHE DID! Like, she just made them. Started chopping potatoes and onions, boiling the potatoes on the stove. It was unreal. And did she ask for any help from me? No. Bonus!

And then I came up with the brillz idea that we should cook a nice dinner for when my mom got home from her day of work, which was going to be presumably horrible, as it always is. So, then we start thinking up recipes and Kara decides she wants to make lobster bisque and shrimp scampi. Shrimp scampi is one of my mom's faves. I had never had it before.

So, we went out to buy ingredients! Stopping first at Dunkin Donuts for a quick coffee break, which was cut short when a bee landed on my sweater. Then we decided we needed to leave.

Don't blame me! I'm a wimp because I've never been stung by ANYTHING. EVER.

Then we headed to the grocery store and stocked up on necessary ingredients and unnecessary ingredients. It was fun. I like running errands with Kara. Whatever we do, we have fun together.

Then we went back to the house and Kara immediately started cooking. I made a deal with her that if I downloaded every Ke$ha and Taylor Swift song that she wanted, we could put it in a playlist with music that I also like. (Mainly, Crash Kings.)

My big job was to open the bag of salad and put it in a bowl. Not only do I hate cooking, but I don't think Kara would have trusted me with any of the fancy things.

And - everything turned out DELICIOUS. Like, so delicious, you wouldn't even believe it. Like, NO, you won't even believe how delicious this food was. Restaurant-worthy.

We had a nice mother, daughter, daughter night. It was super fun, actually. Then! We all watched the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars! THE SITUATION! Audrina! Bristol! So good!!

Afterwards, me and Kara watched music videos on Demand. Which, is more fun than it sounds, maybe.

Something I can't believe is how popular music videos still are. Like, there's really no place to watch them on actual TV, but people still get super excited! And they're still super elaborate and fancy. I would have thought music videos would have dyed out when reality television overtook MTV and Vh1. But, no! People still love them.

So, we started out with Crash Kings, 'You Got Me,' which is a nice family, friendly video. Kara wasn't happy we had to watch it, but I really insisted. Then we moved onto Ke$ha and Katy Perry. And Lady Gaga. And Taylor Swift. And more Taylor Swift. And then some more Taylor Swift.

I tested Kara by asking her if she could choose one to be her girlfriend, who would she choose, Ke$ha or Taylor Swift. She chose:

GIRLFRIEND = Ke$ha
BEST FRIEND = Taylor Swift

We lead an exciting life.

So then, after all the Taylor, I insisted that Kara need to watch the 'Hey Bulldog' video that Crash Kings made, because she's never seen it. So, we got on my laptop and watched it. And she loved it! She said,

KARA: That was really good! Why can't all their videos be that fun?!?!

I KNOW, RIGHT?!! So fun!!! She looveed the air piano part with Tony at the end because she recently confessed to me that she plays air piano at work every time 'Waiting for This' (that song by Hanson mentioned a few entries back) comes on. NICE, right?!

So. Moving on.

Last night I made a great dinner. I really have no food in my house, so the next few days are going to be kind of scrounging ingredients together to make something good. But last night, I took out the rice and decided I wanted to make it coconut lime rice.

So, instead of boiling the rice with water, I boiled it with coconut milk and lime juice. Then I threw in a couple splashes of that Dole Pina Colada juice I had. DELISH. But, be careful because the rice seems to burn more quickly when it's cooked with coconut milk.

Then, I heated up some black beans. Mixed them with some lime juice as well.

Then, I warmed up some little tortillas in the microwave. I really wanted a sauce to go with this meal, because I love sauces. So, I took out:

- soy sauce
- pina colada juice
- sweet and sour sauce
- hawaiian marinade

and mixed small portions of each together. Voila! Sauce!! It was pretty good! I put the rice and beans in the tortilla and topped it with the sauce! Quite delish. I put a little too much sauce on, so it was kind of gooey, but still good.

And then this afternoon for lunch, I mixed the rice and beans together, heated it, and threw in some golden raisins and mandarin oranges. Great! I really liked that. Tonight I'll probably make the same, only add in chopped mango.

I love putting fruit in rice. It's very enjoyable to me.

Anyways.

I also started re-watching The O.C. I know what you're thinking, "didn't you just finish watching it?" Ummm.....kind of. Yes. It hasn't been very long, you're right.

But now! The Fall shows are starting. GLEE!! That was Tuesday night. I'm going to watch it tonight and I'm VERY excited.

I'm kind of tired today. I slept a long time last night, but it was very interrupted.

- went to sleep around 1:45am
- woke up at 4am
- woke up at 5:32am
- woke up at 6:15am
- woke up at 7:05am
- woke up at 7:55am
- woke up at 10:32am
- woke up at noon
- woke up at 1:20pm

and THAT'S when I finally got up. I'm sleeping with the baby monitor on again, so sleep is always pretty rough. And also, there were a lot of phone calls this morning. Which always confuses me. Why does anyone need to get in touch with anyone before like, 9am?

So, I was sleepy today, so I took it easy. I was also feeling bad because I was gone all day Monday and worked all day Tuesday, so I hadn't spent much time with Ruby Tuesday. She gets upset if I'm gone for too long, so I wanted to just spend the day with her.

It might sound crazy, but it's not! I swear it's like she's a baby. But better!

Anyways, tomorrow is the big Crash Kings day. Day 49. Since December 13th, 2009, Thursday, 23 September 2010, is the LONGEST I have gone without seeing them live. It's NO WONDER I've been itching to see them so badly. And I STILL have to wait another MONTH. Ohhh it will be so horrible.

But! Some great shows in between including:

- Blood Feathers on 7 October in Boston
- ZOX on 9 October (or maybe it's the 10th...) in Providence

Both of those shows are possibilities. Wow, those dates are coming up pretty quickly, aren't they? Yikes. I should get my plans together.

Time is SO WEIRD when you're not in school.

So, I'm listening to The Shins right now, and quickly realized that I have doubles of almost every one of their songs. How did that happen? Weird. What is the band that reminds me of The Shins? Black Bells? No. That's the band with Ben and Austin. BROKEN BELLS! Yes. I think that's them.

WAIT A SEC.

I just learned some interesting, guys. The lead singer of Broken Bells IS THE SAME GUY as the lead singer for The Shins!!! THAT'S WHY they sound so much alike!!!

Man, I have a lot of these moments. Like a few months ago when I was like, "wow, that singer Morrissey sounds a lot like the lead singer of The Smiths." Lo and behold - SAME GUY.

Am I the only person who doesn't know these things?! Man. And when I find out, I'm just so amazed!

It's like, amazing to me when people from other bands are in other bands. Kind of like the guys in Black Bells. Haha. Wow, that was a confusing and funny night. Also, an awesome night.

ANYWAYS.

So, tomorrow I'm wearing my pink Crash Kings shirt. It's been decided for a while now.

Also, we're having a fire safety group tomorrow night! I'm excited about that.

Alright. I'm going to go heat up my delish supper and watch GLEEEE!!!!!! I'm so excited I can't even stand it!!!!!

Ok! Have a great night! And a great Thursday!!! I'll talk to everyone later! Be well!


<3,
J.

a couple spooky things

1. HOROSCOPE for today, Sunday, 19 September, 2010.

In the shower, during breakfast, on your commute, while you work, this question keeps nagging you: what if I were doing something else with my life? Longing for change is perfectly normal, but while sometimes you can shrug it off, perhaps these days call for taking that desire a little more seriously.


2. Remember Darren? The guitarist for Phantom Planet who I have a crush on? Yeah. I remember Darren. Well, him and his girlfriend did a cover of 'Killing Me Softly,' and I think you all should listen to it because it's quite good. It's very sexy and spooky. Plus, what a great song, right?! Who doesn't love that song? Great! So it's decided - you'll have a listen!




(You may now continue having a great day.)