I actually enjoyed a concert!

Not only did I enjoy the concert. But I boogied my butt off!

A couple months back, Mike asked me if I wanted to go to a Ghostland Observatory concert. I look at him like he's whacked, as usual, and he hurries to inform me that it's at a sit-down venue. My interest is piqued. It's at Hogg Auditorium on UT campus by the Union. Odd place, I think, but since it's not some smoky packed club with no air conditioning, I agree.  Friday, January 19th, rolls around and he keeps reminding me and I keep attempting to forget. See, concerts disconcert me (HA! cheesy, but good, no?). As soon as they come around, even if I've had months of notice, I get pissy, angry and flat out depressed. I am starting to recognize when I am going through these stages, and try to not go through them. Yah, doesn't work too well. I did want to go, but I was still trying to think of every possible excuse for me not to go. Mike knows me well, so he tells me all the things that will be ok - it's a big place, you have assigned seats, no crazy crowding, etcetc. I manage to actually get dressed and get into the car to go there. Most of the battle is won at this point.

We met up with a couple of Mike's friends at some college bar near campus, and they were about to leave. Mike goes up to get him a beer, and me a beverage of some sort, and comes back with Guinness for him and an Ace pear cider for me. He actually had 2 pints of Guinness cuz he ordered me one, then saw they had the cider. Anyhoo, in the time that I drank my 1 pint, he drank both of his. This took maybe 3 minutes. Then we all get going. Mike's friend Brian proceeds to tell us we can keep our cars there and walk to Hogg. I keep trying to tell them it's awfully far, and it's friggin cold, and I have no friggin jacket. But, no, we walk. It was definitely over a mile away. Oh, yah, and I was wearing heels. Karma did make an appearance, cuz about half way there, Brian realized he forgot his tickets in his car, so he and his date had to turn tail.

We finally get there, and it's kinda crazy with tons of people in the foyer, but we get to our seats pretty quickly. We were 11th row on the left hand side of the stage -- great seats. After awhile, Mike decides to brave the bar lines, and gets us a couple beverages. Not cheap - for two it was like $24 or something. Insane, but tasty :) Oh, the tickets said it started at 9pm. We get there on the nose, and we wait, and wait, and wait, and then while I was in line for the ladies room, I overheard one of the security dudes talking that the opening band was coming on at 10:30 and Ghostland was probably going to be on around MIDNIGHT. Holy crapola. Oy vey, we are there, we shall sit and people watch. Mike makes more trips to the bar.. and eventually the opener starts. While I won't say I did not like them, I will say it was a very odd choice of bands to open for a pretty upbeat band like Ghostland. Calling them a downer would be a crude understatement. They finally finish. I go to the restroom again (lots of liquid intake), which was incredibly entertaining actually.. but that's a story for another time. And could quite possibly turn out to not be as funny while sober, I bet. They come on stage just as I'm heading back to my chair. Not one butt was in their assigned seat. Everyone was up, and dancing. If you haven't heard of them, it's two dudes from Austin, and their music is very techno-rock, for lack of a better description. Check out their myspace page for some music sampling. The singer is so entertaining and energetic, it's infectious. Oh! There's some videos of them on YouTube. Here's one that didn't suck too bad. And yes, that's a dude :P Our photographer friend Victor was there (Mike saw a chic with an untorn ticket and asked if she needed to sell it, voila, ticket for Victor - beyond last minute), and he took some pictures from his seat. He's used to getting a press pass for this stuff, so he was none too happy about his location. But beggars can't be choosers, no?

So, this is a little bit old in the telling, but I thought old news was better than no news. 

Music, the soundtrack of life

Mike and I signed up with Yahoo! Music recently. It was a really good deal -- two years for the price of one. So, for $59.88 each, we have 2 years of streaming music. Cool thing about this is if you rate stuff, it will recommend music for you. Mike's already pretty excited about it because he's found a couple bands he's never heard of before, and loves 'em. Previously, he had Rhapsody, but decided to switch cuz his friends had moved over and the great price deal. Most of his friends had scooted over to Yahoo! Music, cuz of price, selection, quality, and other music snob reasons. Oh, should I call them "audiophiles"? Nah, snobs.

I did not have an account with Rhapsody, so Mike would just get me music when I wanted something. I like this dealio much better. The suggestions are mine and mine only. To say that Mike and I have different tastes in music would be a gross understatement. Overall, I would say Mike likes singer/songwriter type stuff. He does like some things out of that genre, but mostly, that's it. Me? Well, I'm all over the frackin' place. I'd say my reigning fave is Ben Harper. However, I listen to anything from DMX, Black Eyed Peas, Justin Timberlake to Madeleine Peyroux, Imogen Heap, and Edith Piaf. I can almost say the only thing I will not listen to is country, but there are just no such things as absolutes in life.

So, after getting this all set up, I got curious about different plugins or whatever, mostly in order to avoid the work I needed to get done. What I found was a way to get listings of my music listening trends. So, I've put together a page that will list out what I'm currently listening to, and weekly stats, and overall stats. I put it up on the -----^ top bar as My Tunes and over to the side ---> as The Shit I'm Listening To.  I thought it was a pretty nifty idea. I got this all with the courtesy of the most interesting site last.fm.  I'm sure it's just the music industries way of keeping their finger on the pulse of the listening audience, but whatever. Maybe this way it'll actually be a more accurate picture of what people are listening to, instead of telling them exactly what they should be listening to -- a la radio. However, I am looking at it as just another way to peak into all that is MOI. You'll have to tell me what you think. Or maybe even suggest some tunes for me to add to my repertoire.