Our Family Just Keeps Growing

Today we welcomed Ralph (named after the Thornbirds character) into our family. He's a cactus and is so far living strong. We haven't had a lot of luck with plants before, but I'm taking control and responsibility for him. Anyone have any shirts that would fit on a cactus?

No More Ants In My Pants

About a week ago we noticed there were ants in our bedroom. Needless to say, I was not pleased. So I killed all the ants, found the errant Starburst that brought them to us, and figured it was done. I was wrong.

They kept showing up; I kept killing them. I decided it was time to play hardball and picked up a ant trap from Albertsons. This brought ants out of the woodwork...literally.

I never knew how hard it was to take pictures of ants until today. They're quick little devils and my camera doesn't like focusing on them. I took the pictures at noon, and now about eight hours later only a handful of ants are still alive.

Problem solved.

Hopefully.

Rainy Spring Break BBQ

I've totally come down with BBQ fever this year already. And not even a rainy day will ruin it, I mean, c'mon, its spring break. So we got together some awesome ingredients and started marinating. We had Garlic Pork, Lemon Pepper Shrimp and Mushrooms, Red Wine Mushrooms and Garlic, Salt and Pepper Asparagus.We got everything on skewers and I fired up the grill. I use Matchlight, because it is by far the best charcoal in existence. Then we got to grilling.

Our grill is tiny and I had to monitor it constantly to keep the food from burning. I do like the multi level grill, so things like asparagus don't burn while I cook meat. And yes, I wore socks and sandals because I kept coming in and out of the house to check on the food. I think it turned out pretty darn good. While we were cooking, our friend Candice showed up, so she joined us in downing the grub.

Then it was off to watch a mediocre House, although there were a few awesome scenes.

My Cat Is A Model

My cat loves to wear clothes. He thinks he's people, and it might be the greatest thing ever. He came to us sans clothes, so we picked him up some clothes to relax in.He wants more treats, so we told him he would have to get a job and pay for them himself, so we went out and bought him some work clothes. Anyone looking for a hardworking cat who has a background with the Microsoft Office suite?

Old Shoes/1985/Earl Grey Hot Tour Kickoff

Last Friday night Old Shoes, 1985 and Earl Grey Hot kicked off their northwest tour at the Missoula Public Library. I hosted the show on behalf of the library, and 20 people showed up, despite a lack of advertising. Here's the pictures:

Old Shoes

1985

Earl Grey Hot

Who Makes Me Want To Survive This Week?

Aesop Rcok. Damn. Aesop Rock kills it. I don't think I know anyone in Hip Hop who keeps coming incredibly sick. Every time I hear Aesop Rock on a track, I feel like he destroys whoever he's rapping with. See: Aesop with Del on the Wu Tang Meets the Indie Culture. And his solo albums? Legendary to say the least. People who don't understand just don't get it. Don't worry, someday you'll figure it out. But, for now, take my word for it. Aesop Rock will make you want to keep living, and give you a reason to fight. But fuck listening to me, listen to the man himself. And thank him for giving you a reason to live another day.

I Hate You, Go Find MP3s For Yourself, Stream His Tracks Here

Casiotone For The Painfully Awkward

First things first, I was very excited for this show. I'm fairly new as a fan of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, but everything I've heard from him has gotten me excited. I went down to the Crazy Daisy right after I finished work and unfortunately missed Old Shoes, but was right on time to catch Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. I really dug their singing saw, and the music was good, pretty low key, but still good. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it through the show without a little help, so as soon as they finished their set I rushed to the gas station to grab some Sparks and Pabst. I returned to catch the last two songs from my friend Matt, who plays under the name 1985. I was bummed I missed most of his set, but since I'm seeing him play again on Friday I figured it was worth it to have a few drinks.
Purrbot was up next. I think Nathan may be one of, if not the, most consistent live acts in Missoula right now. I have yet to see him really butcher a song, or seem uncomfortable on stage. And the fact he writes some great songs helps too. He joked around throughout his set, which lightened the mood of his otherwise heavy material.

Finally, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone took the stage. It was a shame that the crowd (minus Mike, John and myself) decided to remain seated through his whole set. He kept making comments about how he wasn't sure how dancy songs would be received and had trouble with his audio mix. He thought he needed to play very quietly and seemed very reserved. The music was great, however. It was really amazing to watch him recreate his songs in a live setting. I especially enjoyed his cover of Graceland, which he ended his set with. Had the crowd not been so incredibly awkward, the show would have been even better.

St. Patrick's Day Means BBQ?

The weather has been incredible in Missoula. I'm already leaving the house in a T-shirt. So, what better than a parade and the first BBQ of the season?

First the parade:


And, one picture of a little boy patiently waiting for his candy:


Then it was off to Arriba! for some Nachos and Margaritas. Oh and one Irish Car Bomb...because it was St. Patrick's Day after all. 3/5 of the Victory Smokes managed to make it out, which is pretty damn impressive.

Then, since it was light and we were still hungry, we went to pick up some booze (Sparks Plus, PBR and Wine) and some meat (New York Steak, T-Bone, Chicken, and Boca Burgers) and got busy with a little BBQ action.


Then Mike and I wandered the streets of Missoula to submit a demo CD to get into Totalfest, the big music festival in town. We were late with our submission, so we figured we would go to the listening party and drop our CD off in person. We didn't make it. But, luckily the listening party was today, and we got our CD in. And we got tons of exercise walking around for the better part of 2 hours.

Enough for one day? I think so.

Working Hard, or Hardly Working?

I work, as many of you already know, at the Missoula Public Library. My days are spent either at a public desk or tucked away in the bowels of the building working on computer related stuff. You know...websites, setting up machines, etc. Another thing about me you need to know is that I need music around me at all times. I'm not too fond of lugging CDs back and forth from work, and not too keen on using any space on my work PC to download or rip CDs, so my alternative? Online internet radio. I've found a few gems that I thought I would pass on.

www.pandora.com

Pandora is my staple for longer periods of work, when I just want something to play and not have to mess with anything. All you have to do is go to the site, and enter the name of an artist or song you like and it will feed you more songs that are related to the ones you picked. Then you have the option of giving songs a thumbs up or thumbs down so each station is "tuned" to your personal preferences. I like Pandora because you can have many, many stations and the stream is almost never interrupted. There are advertisements, but they are very limited and don't affect or interupt the listening experience at all. The major downfall of Pandora, is you're limited to more mainstream artists, and usually older material. Which leads me to...

www.hypem.com

The Hype Machine is my new standby, as it feeds from blogs and gives you the newest music, with some good older stuff as well. One definate advantage is the hype machines ability to open in multiple formats (winamp, real player, windows media, itunes, or flash) so you can skip around, listen to tracks again, or back up a few seconds and you have none of these options in pandora. The Hype Machine also gives you the option to link directly to the blog the music was pulled from. Great! This has become my favorite I think.

Other notable stations include:

www.barsuk.com - Their online radio station is great, but doesn't change all that often. But who needs to change when you have music as good as they do.

www.kpunk.com - K Records has an online mix tape that changes more often than barsuk, but still not very often. You gotta love K Records.

www.last.fm - I haven't had much luck with last, although I hear its very similar to Pandora. The times I've tried, my stream has gotten cut off and I've gotten frustrated.

Oh, The Movies I've Seen...

I've totally been neglecting updating this blog, but no more. My St. Patrick's Day resolution is to start updating this blog on a regular basis. Lately, I've been to more than a few movies, so I'll go ahead and give them some free promotion.

300

300 was a very, very fun movie. I was a little worried right off the bat when they tried to tell a "story," but the action started up less than 20 minutes in, and didn't let up. Most of 300 is plain old-fashioned eye candy. Interestingly, the movie was shot totally inside on blue screens and the world was completely created by animators. I think this is an awesome concept for a movie based on a graphic novel. Which brings me to another point. 300 has been criticized for not being "historically accurate" and while I was a history major, this movie is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel NOT the actual event. I'm all for bending facts and making things up in the fiction world, that's the whole point. The action scenes were very well done, the editing was paced so that you could actually see what was going on, unlike the battles in other movies. The effects were great, and some of costumes were incredibly cool. I would recommend 300 if you are into blood, gore, and great one-liners.

4 out of 5 Bloody, Decapitated Heads.

Zodiac

Seriously, is there anyone alive who doesn't like Jake Gyllenhaal? He may be the most likable actor in Hollywood. Zodiac was a pretty good movie. David Fincher came through with something much more subtle than any of his previous films. This is no Fight Club kids. If you suffer from ADD or have a short attention span, then don't even think about this film. Don't get me wrong, this isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it does clock in at 158 minutes, which helps the story, because the killer was never officially caught. Despite its length it kept me totally absorbed, thanks to great acting. Robert Downey, Jr. gave an incredible performance and Chloe Sevigny played the role of the bitchy wife extraordinarily. I was pleased, for once, to have the violence played down. We only get to see a fraction of the blood we could have, and this adds to the suspense somewhat.

3.5 out of 5 Late Night, Heavy-Breathing Phone Calls.

Jackass Number 2

I made my girlfriend watch this movie with me, since she refused to watch it with me, since she lost our Oscar pool. (I picked half of the winners...not to bad) So we rented it and got lots of booze to fuel our experience. I have to say I was disappointed in the movie. A lot of the content seemed to have been culled from the spin-off shows (Wild Boyz/Viva La Bam) and that seems to make it like a bonus material disc. I liked the first one much more, but there were a few redeeming moments in this one. The skit at the end with Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers) was fantastic. I would say it is an enjoyable movie to watch if you're drinking and want to be able to come and go without paying much attention. My Girlfriend, incidentally, liked it much better than the the first because the skits are shorter and there are way more.

2.5 out of 5 Kicks to the Crotch.

So that's it for this round. Stay tuned for more reviews, rants, random pictures, etc.