audio: "two trains." moonshake.

this weekend was a big series of ups and downs. even now, i'm not sure i'm in the proper mood to be writing about any of it, but i'll try all the same...

Friday, after work, Mariam picked me up and we went to Chinatown. was fun...as usual, there were some things missing that had been there when last we went, and some new things that had sprouted up in their places. went to Ken Kee's for food...had excellently good curried chicken and a bunch of other goodies. she had a tapioca mango freeze to drink, and i had some cold bubble tea. thought about saving some of the nice chewy boba bits and mailing them anonymously to a certain boi located in Ohio, but decided against it. though it would've been funny. XD

amongst other things, a branch of Aji Ichiban has opened up in Chinatown Square Mall! O.O;;; SO dangerously good! we of course got lots of candy...and some lemon ginger. bonus was that a lot of the stuff had sample dishes set out above it, so you could try things out and figure out what you wanted a little easier if you hadn't had a particular kind of candy before. nummy. ^-^ and yay for varying degrees of dark chocolate! (we of course got extra dark...^^)

later on, met up with Spaz up by the Double Door and went to the show...and this is where i've got extremely mixed feelings.

as for the bands? La Makita Soma was on first, and was excellently fun and good. in fact, their set prompted me to hop over to the ATM and get some cash (thus meaning i payed a fee, which i NEVER do) out to buy a CD, as i stupidly only had a couple of dollars on me beforehand. went and bugged their bassist Mark for a CD and chatted a bit, and it was fun. have not yet listened to all of Brighton Park, but so far have enjoyed what i have listened to. ^^

next up was VHS or Beta. they seemed promising enough at first, and weren't *bad*, exactly...but it seemed like it was one long extended dance wank jam session. fun enough to dance around to, but sorta eh. kinda boring. *shrugs* it just seemed that everything sounded pretty much the same, so it got old kinda quickly.

finally, The Baldwin Brothers. who were doing a CD release party thing, and had tons of guests appear. and they were fun...but not as much fun as they'd been opening up for Bis, unfortunately. Spaz thinks, however, that i'm probably a little biased because of other circumstances...

see, this is where the mixed feelings part comes in. so we're sat at a little cafe table near the stage, as there aren't many people around and it seemed nice, to be able to sit down and be up so close to the stage. and for La Makita Soma, this was fine. but then more people came in...and in specific, these old, past-it bastard drunken yuppie hipster BASTARDS (can you feel the love in my heart for them? --;;;) come and decide to stand right by us. or in some cases, nearly ON us. one bitch nearly was sitting in my lap, clambering up onto the platform that held the bar stools and table we were sitting at...when there was PLENTY of room on the floor next to it...and standing directly in front of me and blocking my view with her annoying yuppie arse! and to make matters more irritating, she was HOLDING HER EARS while doing so!!!! why the FUCK were you there if not for the music, lady?!?!?! oh wait...i forget, this is primarily a bar. it just happens to also have bands coming through that might be a little more fun than many other "bar" bands. *glares*

she also proceeded to deposit her empties on our table...just reaching over and plopping them down there. and then one of her companions, a similarly attired past-it old guy sipping a Corona and trying to look cool in his probably far overpriced blue denim jacket...LEANS HIS ENTIRE ARM all over our table. our very tiny table. apparently the Corona is too heavy for his aged hand to hold, so it's up to our poor little table to support it. i LOVE people like this.

and the CROWD? the ones up front were fine, and there was one guy in front of me who i wanted to dance with...cos he was dancing up a storm and having a GREAT time doing it! and a lot of other people were giving him strange looks, but he inspired me to get up and dance some...and it was fun! i should've done it more. but most of the crowd was just standing there, all cool and disaffected...and i HATE that. i can't see why or how you could do that.

so the conclusion i reached (again) was this: i love shows. i love live music, i love going to see people play. i love MUSIC, period. and when the crowd's on, it's truly a great experience. but all too often, i find myself really hating the people at shows i go to. all too often, i find myself really disliking people in general. this was a good example of that. *growls*

afterward, went home and fell asleep. went up to this Aprilia thing with Spaz that was held in some northern suburb...and afterward, found a shopping strip in (i think) Libertyville or Mundelein that had a comic shop and a used CD store in it! being bored, we stopped in. the comic shop was pretty disappointing...so on to the used CD store. which had a lot more stuff than i would've thought it would...some of which was good, some of which was overpriced. picked up Lush's Spooky on CD, as my cassette tape had all but died quite some time ago, and i think i've only held onto it for sentimental value at this point. ^.- and although they did have a lot more random stuff than i'd have expected of them, did not find a used copy of Whore. sad. i want that album badly. ^-^

had practice Saturday night, where we worked on some new stuff...the spot's been cleaned out and vastly rearranged, and is REALLY much nicer than it had been before...all thanks to Dale and Jon. on the way home, Jon and i witnessed a really fucked up accident. we were going west (out to my house) on 290 when Jon noticed a car also heading west...but in the eastbound lanes. now, i've seen cars back down entrance ramps before...but i've NEVER seen someone going the wrong way on an EXPRESSWAY. and we were doing about 65, and this guy was going much faster than us...and weaving drunkenly, as was not entirely surprising given that he was going the wrong way on the expressway in the first place. >.<;;;

Jon pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911, then pulled over onto the shoulder and threw on his hazards to make the call. by this time, the moron had had a head-on collision with a minivan. both drivers would HAVE to be injured, the way those cars hit. (this was around the 9th Avenue exit, for those of you familiar with this area.)

it was really, really, really fucked up. i really hope the people in that minivan are okay...i mean, i'm sure there were injuries, because the way the cars hit, there couldn't NOT be. but...man. it was really horrifying, watching and hearing them collide and seeing the glass go to pieces and the cars crumple up...we were told we didn't need to stay and give eyewitness reports, but.

so we went on...we'd already planned to stop off at Denny's or an IHOP or something previously, and so we stopped at an IHOP by my house and tried to calm down. went home, went to sleep.

Sunday, spent a good portion of the afternoon staring at waveforms and editing and tweaking things and trying to make usable MP3s from bits of our last show. whee. highly exciting. staring at the waves long enough is very, very relaxing...it's kinda nice, in a way. and kinda not. i felt really, really drained by this weekend, mostly.

oh, and my keyboard may be broken. and it's not even really MINE!!!! >.<;;;

also, i've come to the decision that i'm putting off school for another year. cos i really do want to pay off the debt i owe, or at least a good portion of it. sat down and did up a budget for myself the other day, even...such a drastic step as i've never taken before. need to obtain an additional part-time job. and more importantly, need to hurry up and get my license so i can go get that job.

whee. maybe more later, maybe not. am in a strange mood.