DMB Concert & T's Visit

Posted , . Last Modified March 25, 2006 at 14:20

The DMB concert was fantastic, surpassing the show I saw in Tampa a few years ago by far. We (Philip, Mia, Tristan & I) got there just as Jurassic 5 was on their last song, which was a shame because I really wanted to see them. Ben Harper was alright, but I don't really know his music at all, so Tristan and I walked around the O'Dome for most of his performance. DMB's performance made the whole $60 ticket worth it. The setlist was damn close to perfect:

1. Don't Drink the Water
2. Pig
3. Hello Again
4. Grey Street
5. So Much To Say
6. Too Much
7. One Sweet World
8. Cry Freedom
9. Lie In Our Graves
10. Warehouse
11. Where Are You Going
12. Stay
13. Everyday
14. All Along the Watchtower

As we were walking back to the car, we see the motorcade leave the parking lot, with Dave in the front seat of the lead bus, beverage raised in salute to the people on the street.

After the concert, we pick up Josh and Fleming and go to Xs. Because of the concert traffic and an accident on University, it takes us almost an hour to get there and find a parking spot. While we are waiting in line to get in, we see Mariah walk out. She tells us that it's packed inside (and there is a $5 cover), so we go to a house party a block away instead. This turned out to be a really good call, since they have a keg of Yuengling and a full bar. Brandon, Hans and Terry meet us there, and we all have a fun night. The best part was when Josh went up to some random chick and asked her where she got her tan. Good stuff.

Saturday we go to the mall, and then Tristan and I walk around Campus for awhile, taking lots of photos. My photos are up, check Liminality to see Tristan's. After that, we go to Bento's for dinner (really good sweet & sour chicken) and then watch the game here at PC. With five minutes left to go, we figure the Gators have the game all wrapped up, so we drive downtown and go to Sky. We get there around 11:30, and after waiting in line for about half an hour, they let us up into a completely deserted club. Last time we were there it was the same way, and twenty minutes later all of a sudden it was crowded as hell, so we figure it'll be the same way. Instead, it stays deserted all night long. For most of the night, Tristan was the only one dancing. We still had a good time, but by the time Josh and Chris get there at 1:30 (the bouncer refused to let them up, saying they were closing), we were ready to leave. My guess is that since we lost, nobody really felt like going out and partying, and the post-game traffic was insane. It was definitely a fun weekend, and I am really glad I didn't have any homework, because after two late nights, I am in no shape to be concentrating on anything right now.

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Wise Words

Posted , . Last Modified March 25, 2006 at 14:20

We have an administration that is more ruthless, more subject to corporate influence, more militaristic, more ambitious in its desire to seize control in all parts of the world - even in space - more dangerous than any we've seen in American history. It has the capacity to send its armed forces all over the world, to kill large numbers of people, to use nuclear weapons. And the members of this administration seem unconstrained by the democratic idea of listening to other voices. This is an administration that won only 47 percent of the vote in a tainted election and was put into office by a five-to-four vote of the Supreme Court. Yet it immediately seized 100 percent of the power and began to assert that power abroad. We have an administration that has been unrestrained in its use of power; that believes that, with ten thousand nuclear weapons and a hundred military bases worldwide, the United States is in a position to do whatever it wants. All of this makes the present moment a very important one in history. Howard Zinn, from the July 2004 issue of The Sun

The whole article is online, a very interesting interview with an extremely politically active historian. Just another reason why we should all be reading The Sun.

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Michael Moore at UF

Posted , . Last Modified March 25, 2006 at 14:20

Michael Moore isn't really Pro-Kerry as much as he is Anti-Bush. Insanely, fanatically Anti-Bush. The speech was very enjoyable, playing out much like one of his movies. He brought up some really surprising facts and stories about Bush and the war in Iraq. For instance, did you know that at the bookmobile for the soldiers in Iraq, the number one most requested author is Michael Moore? Or that in the 2000 Presidential debates, in response to a question about Iraq, Bush specifically said "I am not interested in country building or regime change." Ironic. Now that the DVD is out, I want to try and catch Fahrenheit 911. Moore said that he is trying to getting it on TV somewhere on the night before the election, which would be pretty incredible seeing as the DVD wasn't even supposed to be out until Thanksgiving. One of the funnier things he talked about was his thoughts on copyright theft today. He said that as far as he is concerned, people can bootleg his books and DVDs as long as more people get to see them. He also insinuated that he is responsible for getting bootleg copies of Fahrenheit on the streets of Bagdad. It's hard for anyone on the fence to vote for Bush after hearing Moore speak, that's for sure.

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Game 3: Almost

Posted , . Last Modified March 25, 2006 at 14:20

Our closest game yet. The other team wasn't as good as we were (and had no idea about the rules, the refs we yelling at them in sheer frustration for the entire game), but for the first half we sucked pretty badly. It was scoreless until the last two minutes of the game. They scored a touchdown and barely got the extra point. We have something like a minute and a half to score and get the extra point to bring it to overtime. The drive starts out well, with a few first downs, but then a rushed pass is picked off. If the other team had any sense at all, they would have kneeled four times and the game would be over. At the very least they should have kept the ball on the ground. Instead they make a wild throw that Josh intercepts. Now we have less than a minute to score. Aided by a couple QB sneaks, we get it in the endzone with seconds to spare. We go for one on the extra point and manage to squeak in. Overtime is played by college rules, but we each only get one drive. The team that scores and holds the other team to less points wins, otherwise it's a tie. They get the ball first and pretty much just run it in. They go for one and the receiver manages to hold on to a bobbled pass. Now it's our turn, and on first down they sack us, pushing us back five yards. The second down is a complete pass, putting us back to where we were before, and on third down David A. runs it in. If we just went for one point and got it in it would be a tie, so instead they play for the win. They go for two points, which means they have to get it in from the ten yards line instead of the five. The other team rushes two guys, and David A. rolls left with both of them on his heels. He slings it to Chris (not the Third, the other Chris) who almost gets it, despite the fact that it definitely wasn't the best throw I've ever seen. A loss, yes, but a hard fought one. Since everyone who had a game last week automatically got a win (which is everyone but us since we had a bye week), we now have no chance of making the playoffs. At least there is four on four in the Spring. Too bad I won't be a UF student anymore.

My weekend has been pretty relaxed, with the exception of Friday night. Ross Penrod flew down, and pretty much as soon as he got here everyone started drinking. Alec and Ross went shot for shot with the Tequila Josh left last weekend, and by the time they left to go to Market Street, Alec was already belligerent. I was planning on going with them, but when Alec starts yelling at our neighbors for no reason at all I sense a foreshadowing of the night to come and I stay home instead. I have a peaceful evening of programming, and go to sleep at 12:30. At 1:10 I get a call from Alec: "Dude, I have no idea where I am. How do I get to my car?" Somehow he got separated from everyone else and started wandering the streets of downtown Gainesville looking for his car so that he could go to sleep. He hangs up on me while I am giving him directions. I call back four more times, to no answer, and then I say, "Fuck it, he's on his own." and go back to sleep. After ten minutes I come to the realization that he is incredibly wasted and that there is no way on earth he is going to find his car. Instead of letting him sleep in the gutter (which, in retrospect, I should have done), I call some more, finally reaching him. I tell him to stay where he is, then I throw on some clothes and hop on my bike, pedaling like mad to downtown. When I get there and start calling him again, he doesn't pick up. "This is fucking great." I start doing a spiraling search pattern of downtown, and run into Alec and Charlie walking down Main. Apparently they had been looking for Alec for the last two hours, and finally find him just before I get there. I throw my bike in the back and drive them home. We get back to Pebble Creek without any problems (except for Ross yelling at the top of his lungs, directly into my ear, every time we pass someone walking).

Once back at PC, the fun really begins. As soon as we pull in, Alec rips the keys from my neck and runs upstairs. I get to the front door to find it locked. "Odd," I though, "but then Alec is really drunk. He probably doesn't know what he's doing." I unlock it with my keys (which thankfully I have; I don't think Alec would have let me in otherwise), and try to get the keys back from him so that I can drive Noodle home. He refuses to give them to me, instead sitting in his chair, looking straight at the wall, and saying, "Leave me alone. Leave me alone." Only, it comes out more like, "Le me alo." After exhausting my negotiation tactics (reasoning, tricking, yelling, grabbing), he finally drops them and I grab them and run out the door. I am a step away from leaving when I here a loud thud. I go back to find that he punched a hole right through the wall. As I walk in he says, "Now look what you've done. I hope you're happy." I couldn't even begin to respond to that, so I leave to take Noodle home instead. When I get back, I see that my computer is gone. Fearing the worst (that he threw it in the dumpster, or something equally horrible), I turn the apartment upside down looking for it. I finally manage to rouse him to consciousness and he points to somewhere under the bed. He hid it in a pile of dirty laundry, behind his shoe rack. After that, I am so angry that it takes me hours to get to sleep.

The next morning Alec doesn't remember a thing (of course), including where he hid my iPod, which I discovered was also gone sometime in the mid-morning. We find it later in his sock drawer. I tell you, Alec is one sneaky drunk. I hope everyone takes a lesson from this, mostly not to act like Alec when you are drunk. I don't even want to think of what might have happened if he had got further downtown and said the wrong thing to some random guy on the street.

On a totally unrelated note, I found the address to Erika's website again (it got lost, along with most of my bookmarks, a couple of months ago when my hard drive completely filled up. It turns out that OS X does very strange things if you fill up your drive, including deleting important preference files). The only reason I point this out is because she has some amazing photos of her backpacking trip down the Sierra Nevada, which looks like it could be the most beautiful place on earth. She also drove a bear away by throwing rocks at it, for which she has my eternal respect and awe.

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Hurricane Jeanne

Posted , . Last Modified March 25, 2006 at 14:20

This one wasn't as bad as Frances, in terms of wind, rain, and damage, but it was just as boring. At least we only missed one day of school this time.

Friday we went to a couple of parties. Heather Graham had a 21st birthday party that we went to first. The beer was great (Killean's and Yuengling), but the party was full of nothing but guys and Chris didn't think he could dance there, so we left after an hour and went to a Tri-delt party the Alec knew about at Royal Village. This party was great, and Chris had a captive audience for his moves. We stayed there pretty late, and as we were leaving a group of four hispanic guys walks past us. One tries to start a fight with Josh (which I think he was thrilled about), but his three buddies apologize and drag him away before I even knew what was going on.

On Saturday the weather wasn't bad yet. The football game got moved up to 11:30 AM (really early for all of us, Josh slept right through it), and we made so many mistakes that any team other than Kentucky would have kicked our asses up and down the field. But since is was Kentucky, we won by 17. We played poker later that night, with Josh taking all of our money.

Sunday morning was pretty peaceful until noon or so, when the wind really started to pick up. It was pretty similar to Frances, lots of wind with decently heavy rain, but nothing hard enough to make me fear for my windows. Everyone came over and hung out here again, and we played Halo until it became really boring, at which point we switched to poker (it was a good thing we did, the brown outs came pretty frequently at that point, although we never lost power for more that a few seconds). Chris came out on top of this game, after a heads up battle with an unwilling James. Nothing really happened after that. We drove around for a little while to survey the damage (curfew be damned) and then Flemming made cookies and we drank some more.

The damage wasn't as bad as Frances, and it was on a completely different side of town this time. Last time, the nieghborhood just north of campus, where Chris, David, and Mariah live, got hit the hardest, but this time it was the east side of campus, over by La Mancha and Sorority Row that got hammered. Tri-delt alone had three enormous trees down, one right on top of someone's car. I took some pictures, but because my battery was completely drained, none of them actually came out. These hurricanes are getting to be a huge pain in the ass, I hope this was the last.

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