cutest dudes ever

my dad just emailed me the following pictures/captions:

nels is on our team now!!

NO!! Not Carl Pavano again#%;@%?

obviously nels is the cutest baby ever. and my dad is pretty damn adorable for taking pictures of him in that hat and making up those silly captions. i love those boys.

moose wins 20!

for the first time in his 18 year career mike mussina has won 20 games in a season. i was at work "watching" the game on yahoo's boxscore and freaking out. i was seriously soooooo nervous. don't believe me, check my twitter. haha! poor moose would have reached 20 wins a few starts ago if he hadn't had so many games blown by the bullpen. so it was extremely nerve wracking since it was the last chance he had to win this season.

at the age of 39, most people think that mussina has pitched his last game. his career record is 270-153 so he would have to stick around for possibly 3 more seasons to reach 300 wins. and that's if he stays healthy. he's had some pretty bad luck in the injuries department over his career. i think that finally achieving a 20 win season might be enough for him. i know it's enough for me! he better get into the hall of fame :)

this is cool

lots of blogging today! weird. anyway, i just saw this on the band of horses myspace blog:

Band of Horses Announce Austin, TX Club Show

BOH will perform a benefit show for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians on Saturday, September 27th at the Parish in Austin, TX. The show is in conjunction with the launch of Blurt Online, a new music website from the creative team behind HARP Magazine.

Doors will open at 10:30 p.m. following the conclusion of the day's music at the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival. James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards are slated to open with music beginning at 11 p.m.

Band of Horses will perform at midnight.

awesome! however, the times seem odd. james mcmurtry AND the heartless bastards are playing between 11:00 and midnight? that's not very long. however, that means band of horses could potentially play for 2 hours. do i think they're going to? no. i wouldn't really mind being in bed by 2:00 though since i have to work at 10:30 sunday morning. grrr.

protest posters

under the radar magazine is auctioning off the protest posters featured in their protest issue 2008. i think this is a very cool idea. here are a some of my favorites;

my festival picks

just as i predicted, i have a funny feeling today knowing that acl festival is underway and i am not there. i decided to take another look at the schedule and pick what i would be seeing, if i were there. there are only about 5 per day that i deemed worthy of my time.

friday:

vampire weekend 2:30-3:30
m. ward 4:30-5:15
mates of state 5:15-6:00 (but i would leave before 5:45)
jenny lewis 5:45-6:45
david byrne 6:30-7:30 (if i wasn't too hot and or tired to stick around)

saturday:

fleet foxes or old 97s 12:30-1:30 (realistically i would not be at either of these because the next best show is 4 hours later)
black joe lewis and the honey bears 4:00-4:45
mgmt 5:30-6:30
conor oberst and the mystic valley band 6:30-7:30
iron and wine 7:30-8:30 (if i wasn't too hot and or tired to stick around)

sunday:

stars 3:30-4:30
neko case 4:30-5:30
okkervil river 5:30-6:30
raconteurs 6:30-7:45 (but i would leave before 7:30)
band of horses 7:30-8:30

out of all of those acts david byrne, vampire weekend, and fleet foxes are the only ones i haven't seen and that's pretty much why i decided to skip it. if you know me at all, you know that i'm no stranger to seeing the same bands multipleeeee times but for my money, at a festival, i want to see something new and exciting.

ian ball, buddy, and wine!

buy tickets here!

yay!

yes, ben kweller is a'comin' back to austin. well, he's coming home to austin and playing at antone's on november 2. it's been over a year since ben has played in austin (even though he LIVES here now!) so this is certain to be a great show. ben will be playing some new material off his forthcoming album, changing horses. i know i'm super stoked about it and you should be too! buy your tickets soon, you don't want to be left out...antone's is a pretty small place so this is bound to sell out.


for those of you who aren't in the austin area, make sure to check ben's website to see if he's coming to a town near you.

we shall be released

you can get a free download of wilco and fleet foxes covering i shall be released! all you have to do is go here and pledge that you're going to vote in this year's election. like you weren't already going to vote though, right?

i got a huge smile on my face around 2:12 into that song. this happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs and i've been lucky enough to see wilco perform it. i really love this version with fleet foxes too. anyway, just go download it.

and vote! make sure you're registered in your county. visit vote for change to find more info about registering, absentee voting and to find your polling location.

i love austin

a couple of pics from this afternoon...brunch at hickory street and a red velvet cupcake at hey cupcake! mmmm!

another aftershow

on tuesday night i was complaining to lori that band of horses weren't playing an aftershow next weekend. they're one of the few bands playing acl that i really want to see. today they announced an aftershow at the parish with james mcmurtry and the heartless bastards. i am SO stoked on many levels. i love the parish. it's small, indoor, and almost always very well air conditioned. some of my best concert experiences have been at that venue:

-adam from taking back sunday swinging from the rafters
-mates of state+nada surf from the front row (also went backstage so lori could geek out over nada surf)
-a "secret" lyle lovett show
-ben gibbard making a surprise appearance and singing "cold jordan" with jenny lewis
-my first joseph arthur and the lonely astronauts show
-gomez rocking the house with ALL of my favorite people in the crowd
-finally meeting chad from dispatch/state radio
-my first buddy show

yeah, i'd definitely say that place has created a lot of wonderful memories for me. and i have no doubt that band of horses will be added to my list of great parish experiences.

tickets go on sale tomorrow (9/19) at 10:00am.

torn acl

i'm not going to acl fest this year. recently i've started to feel weird about that. i don't want to go but i know that some part of me is going to feel weird when the festival is going on and i'm not there. i decided to go back through my old blog and find some things i've written about past festivals. they'll be labeled as pros and cons.

cons:
-i am physically exhausted and i still have 2 more days of this. i hope i can make it. i have blood on my shoes from them rubbing the back of my heals, i have blisters on the bottom of my right foot and my legs are soooooo sore. (2004)
-the heat really got to me on sunday after rilo kiley though. i felt realllly shitty for about an hour and then i was fine. you people wouldn't believe the amount of dirt that was flying around that place though. i had to clean dirt out of my ears each night. it was quite disgusting but quite worth it in the end. will i go to acl again next year? probably because i'm crazy like that. (2005)
-i'm going go try to take 'er easy today because i'm worn the fuck out from yesterday. (2006)
-ben kweller took the stage a few minutes late and said, "sorry for the delay, i'm having a double nostril nose-bleed." he tried to make it stop, he even put a tampon up there, but it wasn't happening. he had to cut his set short. he only did like 4 songs :( (2006)
-i think it was more exhausting than any other year. i feel like i could turn into rip van winkle now. awww yeah. (2007)

pros:
-the pixies rocked my life away. they were fucking incredible. i can't even tell you. wow. (2004)
-then we watched elvis costello. holy shit. i smiled the entire way through his set. and he wore a purple suit which was the cutest thing ever. he encored with "alison" which almost made me cry. seeing him was one of the highlights of my life. seriously. (2004)
-i seriously just had the best weekend ever. (2004)
-music-wise the weekend was perfect. (2005)
-the vip lounge is fucking amazing. damn!! (2006)
-i ran into joseph arthur and the lonely astronauts at the airport on thursday night while i was waiting for meghan to land. (2007)
-i just need to say that arcade fire BLEW MY MIND tonight. i've seen them a few times before but this was out of control. their stage set up right now is freaking fantastic! AND they played an ENCORE. i am almost positive that in all the years i've been going to ACL i've never seen anyone do an encore. granted, it was only one song but it was the one song that i was going to be REALLY upset if they didn't play. wake up! i almost cried because it was so moving to be in that gigantic crowd with everyone singing along and dancing. (2007)

so oddly enough, my list of pros is longer than my list of cons. i know that i've had some really, really amazing times at the festival. but i also know that i am always sooooooo miserable when i'm there. if the lineup were better i would probably be going this year but i just can't muster the energy to spend 3 days in the heat watching bands that i don't really care that much about. i mean, there are definitely bands that i would like to see but not enough to make it worth it for me. i'm still a little torn over my decision but i know it is best for me.

she did it again

congratulations, jenny lewis, for making another fantastic solo album. i don't like acid tongue as much as rabbit fur coat but i've only listened to it a few times. it could easily grow on me. it's good to hear a studio version of fernando since she's been playing that one at shows for a couple of years now. and i just love her voice. i could listen to it all day, probably. i'm really glad i bought that ticket to see her with conor oberst and m. ward in a couple of weeks. i don't remember if i blogged about it but i had sort of convinced myself that i didn't want (need, really) to go to that show but then i realized that i would be super bummed if i missed it. frontgate's website didn't have any tickets available but the la zona rosa site did. i don't know what's up with that.

we finally won trivia last night after many weeks of coming in 2nd to the upperdeckers. it was very satisfying. and i finally got the seinfeld question! there is a seinfeld question pretty much every week and we hardly ever get them right. it's frustrating because i know that i've seen every episode of that show at least once but when i'm put on the spot, i can't really remember anything. haha lame!

my short trip to chicago is 3 weeks from today. i'm super anxious about it! and i use the word "anxious" in both the good and bad way. ugh, i dunno. i'm just kind of stressing because i'm non-reving and because it's such a short trip. i almost wonder if it's even worth it but i already know the answer to that.

someecards.com

i've been perusing someecards this afternoon (for the millionth time) and decided to share some of my faves.

happy tin/aluminum anniversary!

this fall marks my 10 year "anniversary" with alison, alanna, dana, and josh. i just looked up the traditional and modern gift table for anniversaries and the modern gift for the 10th anniversary is diamond jewelry? daaaamn. we haven't had an official anniversary celebration but hopefully we'll do a dinner or something soon.

we went out last night and discovered that our creekside doorman has saturdays off now. i may never see him again! okay, not really but it's still weird. also, bonsai wasn't at side bar. maybe he's on his yearly trip to the homeland. at least, i think he goes yearly. anyway, 7th street was just all topsy turvy last night with the absence of the doormen.

i ate at the hot dog king next to red eyed fly for the first time since sxsw. it was amazingly delicious. i mean, it was just a hot dog and it only cost $2 but it realllly hit the spot. unfortunately i spilled ketchup on my pants though. doh!

my future's so bright

back in february i bought a pair of fabulous sunglasses at target. on sunday i pulled them out of my bag and they were broken. wahhhh! i have several other pairs that i was able to choose from as backup but i was SUPER bummed. i mean, these are great shades. see for yourself!

anyway, after work i went to target to try to find another pair. i searched high and low and came up with a pair in white and a pair in brown. i realllllly wanted black, damnit! after 10+ minutes of searching i FINALLY found a pair! now i'm thinking i might need to peruse a couple of other target locations to stock up in case this pair breaks anytime soon. haha!

michele bachmann is a fucking idiot

and carville is a badass.

tucker bounds is a jackass

there is A LOT going on with sarah palin right now. i don't really even want to get into all of it but i had to post this video.



ohhh mccain's people are killing me!!

an arranged marriage

nels got to spend some quality time with his future wife, carmen, last night. unfortunately, carmen has, like, 3 other boyfriends so we don't really know how good nels's chances are. she's about 10 months older than he is. that might seem old now but when they're 80 it won't matter :)