On Awesome Shows

So I've been extremely broke (like overdraft broke) for the past few days. I don't get paid till this monday and my friends were getting tired of feeding me. So a friend of mine who'se in a drawing class needed nude models and I agreed. 2 night and 4 hours later I get 10 dollars and a meal. Meh, but any way I took said $10 and went to the Camel to see David Shultz and the Skyline Band, Paleface, and Itchy Hearts.

I missed most of Itchy Hearts and wasn't too impressed by what I did see. I think they're a highschool band? Either way there was 10k kids there watching them, all from high school.

Paleface came on next and I didn't expect much out of them but half way through the first song I was in love. It's a guy and a girl, the guy (Paleface) sings, plays guitar, and harmonica. His voice varies from Louis Armstrong gravel pit to a decent tenor falseto. He was full of energy and while Varia and I were dancing came down to dance with us. The lady is a drummer who also sings, beatiful voice, really cute. They've got a very folky sound about them which I loved. I went home and wiki/last.fmd them and it turns out that Paleface has been around for a really long time. He even tutored under Daniel Johnston. Check it.

David Shultz and the Skyline Band were really good too. They played some stuff from an upoming album which is exciting. After the show I went up and talked to Paleface and DS for a bit. Good stuff. $7 Better spent on a show than food!

On Loving the Cannibal Queen

So I graduated Saturday. While the ceremonies themselves were awesome, and I had an amazing day, night and otherwise. However, this being the first day after the weekend of, I don't find myself in the blissful arms of a carefree summer. In fact I am far from the Golden Summer that I thought was well within my grasp.

I had to give my first progress report to Dr. Bettinger today. Dr. Bettinger is not one to beat around the bush, she is very direct, has a short temper, and my lack of background in the majority of the aspects of this lab is not helping me out. I sat down in her office and was immediately made to feel like an idiot. Not fun, so I went to go pick worms for a practice assay tomorrw. All of the worms had burrowed under the auger so I couldn't get to them and concidering I was looking for just L4s it made it even worse. I picked 20 and got one of the more senior techs to look over my picking. "Lets see what we've got: an adult, a dead worm, an L3, oh there's one!" yeah didn't do well. It was about 3:00 and I was begining to worry about making it down to Dr. Porter's for my Drug Discrimination. Long story short Bett's was a crap shoot today.

On a lighter note I finished downloading Miniature Tigers' Tell it To the Volcano. I'm really digging it, it's what I've been listening to all day on repeat. I kind of want to have a cup of coffee right now, I'm gunna stay up and read a bit. That's one good thing now that it's summer, I haven't fixed my xbox and stuff, so I've been hanging out with people alot more than I feel like I would if I had it fixed. Having to work every morning is kinda hampering that but it's ok because I don't have any money anyway.

So anyway, summer comes with it's ups and it's downs. Let's see how this last year rides out.

On Random DC Trips (Part 2)

So after posting last night Jennie, Aimee, and I sat around the house, or more I sat around while they went through some kind of photo book “remember him he was so gross lolololol!” we all went down to the stoop to smoke a cigarette and one of Aimee’s friends Dan was walking by. He sat down and talked to us for awhile, Jennie got really excited when Dan told her about the Derby.
J: What is it?
D: It’s a Bar
J: Is it cheap?
D: Yeah
J:FUCK YEAH! Does it have PBR?
D: yeah I think so
J: FUCK YES SNACK GO GET YOUR SHOES!

Jennie and I ran upstairs and got smokes and my shoes, but we went back down and disappointedly got talked out of going to the bar. As an alternative Dan invited us down the street to play 4 square and have some BBQ. Apparently 4 square is a big thing in Mt. Pleasant. To our dismay we went with Dan to the house he was talking about but 4 square and the BBQing had been put away. We still hung out on the porch with Dan, Beth?, and some other kid, plus Jennie and I drank leftover beer from a party that Aimee’s roommate had a few days ago. Not like floaters, they were still closed when we took them out of the fridge.

We had a good time, hung out for a bit, shared some stories, etc. Everyone decided it was bed time so the three of us walked back to Aimee’s and after chatting and a cig or two Jennie and I blew up the air mattress and passed out.

I woke up to Jennie talking to Aimee as she was going out the door for work. We lounged around in our PJs for about an hour then packed up and left Aimee’s. We put a little more money on our Metro cards and got on green. After we switched to red our car pulled off to let another train pass and then broke down, or something? Long story short we sat there for maybe 20 min at a 20o angle. Train started up and we were on our way again.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, got back to the car got on 95 eventually, stopped at Wawa for some food, listened to some fun music. The usual. I got back into Richmond around 4:45ish.

All in all this trip was amazing, it was phenomenal to get out of the city, and I had a lot of fun. Thanks to Jennie for getting me to go and for paying for some stuff. Thanks to Aimee for housing the two of us for a few days. I’m psyched to go back, but this time I’m taking my bike, Jennie said that 2am on a Sunday is the most supreme time to ride because no one’s on the road. I look forward to my next trip back and to the many other roadtrips I’ll take this summer. This trip showed me that there is much bigger and better things in the world than Richmond, Va. It’ll always be my heart but it’s time to move on. Thanks for the great times.

On Random DC Trips (Part 1)

So Thursday I got out of work a little late, 7ish, and I my friend Jennie asked me if I wanted to go to Taco Bell, she insisted to pay and so I went with her and caught up and had a really good time. We went back to her place and hung out, played with her new kitten and then went down to the look out, with the kitten in a backpack, it wasn’t so keen on that part. While down there Jennie was like do you wanna go to DC tonight? I reminded her that I was really broke and told her that I had stuff to do tomorrow. A little cajoling later I txt’d Jason and told him I wouldn’t be in to run on Saturday.

We packed up our stuff, got gas and ciggs and then set out at about 10. We stopped in Manassas at a party that a friend of Jennie’s (also a friend of mine’s brother) was at/having. There were really drunk highschool kids everywhere and the cops showed up because apparently there was some tanked 17 year old girl waiting on the corner near the main road. After getting directions 5 times from someone we went to the Vienna Metro station at about 2am, we parked and got tickets.

This was my first time riding an underground transit system in the U.S. I’d ridden the underground in London before and really liked it and the Metro was really awesome too. About 3 stops in a gaggle of drunk bros got on, right then I knew that it would be a good weekend. There was one in an orange shirt (polo) who kept making really awesome “I’m drunk but I’m trying to explain something difficult to you” faces. Highlights from over hearing these bros also included “no man, girls are a lot dikier than you think” “I don’t care if I’m a 3rd wheel can I get in on this?” Good times to be had by all. We switched from the orange to the red are Metro Station, and then onto the green after that.

We got off at Columbia Heights and walked a few blocks to one of Jennie’s friend’s houses. After a quick 7-11 trip we hung out for awhile then blew up the air mattress and passed out around 4am.

Jennie and I woke up at like 12:30 to a note from Aimee (the friend) telling us that she had gone to work and left a set of her apartment keys. After changing out of our PJs and getting ready Jennie and I went to Sticky Fingers, this Vegan Coffee Shop/Bakery. The food there was so tight, I got a phat mint (vegan thin mint but bigger) and Jennie got an amazing cinnamon roll.

We came back to Aimee’s and decided to go to the National Zoo, which was less than a 10 min walk from Aimee’s apartment. Jennie and I spent the day walking around looking at: Sea Lions, Bears, not wolves, Beavers, not Armadillos, Red Pandas, etc. The Beevers were really tight because they would walk up to you and stand on their hind legs and pose for you so you could take a picture of them. It was a really really awesome time, best of all, it was free!

We walked back to the place we were staying and hung out for about an hour until Aimee got off work, we then walked to Soul Veg, this phenomenal vegan/vegetarian restaurant, I had vegan pepper steak, this ballin ass mac and cheese and corn. The food was stupid good and the guys there were really friendly, they talked to us and told us 20 times to come back next time we were in DC.

I’m really glad I went on this trip, I think it was a good end cap to school and it was really nice to get out of Richmond for a bit. It’s made me realize just how not perfect fist city is and if anything is making me want to get out even more. DC has been awesome, thus far and I expect nothing less tonight. Should be leaving sometime tomorrow back in the afternoon/early evening. More updated then.

On Finishing

I just took the last exam of my undergraduate career.

Shoop da whoop.

(nowwhat?)

On Walking 4 More Blocks