On Saturday I asked a guy that works at the coffee shop I frequent (and by that, I mean, I go there almost every day, so they named my drink after me. All Ralph or I have to do is walk in, somebody behind the counter holds up one or two fingers, he or I will respond and that many of my drinks are made, regardless if there is a line or not. The owner was the one who named the drink after me. Aaaaah the power of being mayo :P ) and I asked him when his band was playing next. Going back to the Bay Area reminded Ralph and I how much we miss listening to good live music, preferrably in dive bars with good beer. So CoffeeGuy says that one of his bands just played the night before, but this other band he’s in will play *this* Friday. I ask him the name of the band and he says Pink Black. I got really excited because that was the local band that opened up for StellaStarr 2 years ago and we really liked them. So when I told Ralph, we decided we’d have to go see them.

Anyway, our friend’s band, JewDriver, is doing an 8 day west coast tour and decided to stop in Reno along the way up to Seattle. Ralph was checking in with our JewDriver friend to see when they would be stopping in Reno and JewDriver friend says April 4th…the opening act will be Pink Black. Yay! How fun that a local band we liked enough to look for their cd in the Local Band section of Tower, but never found, has two shows, that we know of so far, for us to see.

On Saturday I asked a guy that works at the coffee shop I frequent (and by that, I mean, I go there almost every day, so they named my drink after me. All Ralph or I have to do is walk in, somebody behind the counter holds up one or two fingers, he or I will respond and that many of my drinks are made, regardless if there is a line or not. The owner was the one who named the drink after me. Aaaaah the power of being mayo :P ) and I asked him when his band was playing next. Going back to the Bay Area reminded Ralph and I how much we miss listening to good live music, preferrably in dive bars with good beer. So CoffeeGuy says that one of his bands just played the night before, but this other band he’s in will play *this* Friday. I ask him the name of the band and he says Pink Black. I got really excited because that was the local band that opened up for StellaStarr 2 years ago and we really liked them. So when I told Ralph, we decided we’d have to go see them.

Anyway, our friend’s band, JewDriver, is doing an 8 day west coast tour and decided to stop in Reno along the way up to Seattle. Ralph was checking in with our JewDriver friend to see when they would be stopping in Reno and JewDriver friend says April 4th…the opening act will be Pink Black. Yay! How fun that a local band we liked enough to look for their cd in the Local Band section of Tower, but never found, has two shows, that we know of so far, for us to see.

According to Ralph, the neon “sculpture” in the afore-mentioned post was a penguin. My hatred for the dj continues.

Today was so beautiful, if a bit cold still. The sky was blue, the air was fresh and I had to go out and take some photos for a freelance gig. I really hope winter is on its way out (I could give a rat’s ass about Punxsutawny Phil’s “prediction.” He gets dragged out of his hole before he even has a chance to make a shadow, much less see it, and everyone knows that.), but in case it’s not, we planned a little bit of snowshoeing for next weekend. :P

Today was so beautiful, if a bit cold still. The sky was blue, the air was fresh and I had to go out and take some photos for a freelance gig. I really hope winter is on its way out (I could give a rat’s ass about Punxsutawny Phil’s “prediction.” He gets dragged out of his hole before he even has a chance to make a shadow, much less see it, and everyone knows that.), but in case it’s not, we planned a little bit of snowshoeing for next weekend. :P

Last night was my kind-of-surprise-party, meaning, it was mentioned to me and I thought it was a joke, but it turned out to be real. Ralph and Cody thought it would be fun to get the boys together to meet at the new gay bar where “our” old gay bar used to be. First Ralph, Cody and I went to the 4th St. Bistro for dinner (because one of their appetizer specials is foie gras, which I absolutely love when it’s sauteed with fruit. That night was quince and it was served with gingerbread slices. w00t!) then proceeded to Neutron nightclub.

Many years ago (nine, actually) it was the bar where I met most of my boys, including Cody, my dearest, best friend. However, many years ago, it also played better music and was fun. I tried. I tried really hard, but staying there was made painful, thanks to the crappy DJ. From what I gathered, his theory is, if you play music really loud, it gets really good (because you are now deaf). His music selection was awful. AWFUL. Any modern song that sampled an 80s song was played. If he wanted to play a song that did not have an 80s sample in it, HE PLAYED AN 80s SONG ALONG WITH IT. I hate him. I hate him now.

Then, to add to my hatred for him, his music kept stopping because he was over-heating his equipment (so he says). The first time it went out was about 5 minutes after the music got unbearably loud. As we looked at him with utter contempt, we noticed this neon light behind him and couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Well, we stared at it for a few minutes to try and figure out what it was when the dj suddenly gets back up (he was crouching underneath his set-up to find records) and it looked like he was rising out of the neon “sculpture.” Cody tells us it looks like labia to him, now that the dj just “popped out of it.” We all agree, but I have issues with these 3 squiggly lines that are above the main part. So, having to yell over the too-loud music, I say, “A vagina that needs chapstick” RIGHT when the music died. Everyone in that bar stared right at me and for this, I hate that dj forever.

I got dragged onto the dancefloor a few times, but the music was so bad, I wasn’t really into it (and i was really looking forward to a good night of dancing. I think we’ll go to 80s night at Vino this friday to make up for it.). Finally, after an especially disappointing song, I told Ralph that I was done. I actually got my hopes up when the music started on a particular song, bounded onto the dancefloor and then about shat myself when I heard that it was another poorly sampled mix. So we said our goodbyes and left at about 2am. I hope this dj isn’t a harbinger of things to come in my 30s now that tomorrow (the 6th), I will be a hating-that-dj-30-year-old.

After work we met a girl I used to spend a lot of time with in my early 20s, but lost touch with, and her husband for wine tasting and dinner at a restaurant we all like. Life is good. We (at least on our end) had fun and enjoyed the company immensely. We caught up and just enjoyed the company (even if we, especially I) dominated a lot of the conversation. I hope we continue this friendship to the fullest. These are great people and the coming weekend already is a nice one for this night alone. These simple pleasures in life make everything better.

After work we met a girl I used to spend a lot of time with in my early 20s, but lost touch with, and her husband for wine tasting and dinner at a restaurant we all like. Life is good. We (at least on our end) had fun and enjoyed the company immensely. We caught up and just enjoyed the company (even if we, especially I) dominated a lot of the conversation. I hope we continue this friendship to the fullest. These are great people and the coming weekend already is a nice one for this night alone. These simple pleasures in life make everything better.

Went and saw Underworld 2 last night. The highly anticipated sequel to a movie I really liked was a huge disappointment to me. In all honesty, it could have been due to my dark mood last night, but I’m really doubting that. First of all, who let the ugly, bad-acting guy (who played Michael Corvin) back in? Couldn’t we just say that after becoming a hybrid, he went and got his teeth fixed? Kate Beckinsale seemed to recapture Selene for the most part, but there was *something* missing. Perhaps falling in love and developing moo-cow eyes whenever she was looking at Michael made her seem less incredible than in the first movie. Maybe it was her newly developed quasi-sassy attitude (versus the hardcore attitude in the first movie), which I can only assume came about after killing the man she idolized as a father-saviour. I don’t know, but her persona lost its mystique.

It makes me think that if I didn’t like it, poor Ralph must have been planning all the ways he can hold this over my head (“No honey, I don’t think I can fix the plumbing today…Why? Well why did you make me sit through Underworld 2?”) because he didn’t much care for the first one. More that the plot line didn’t sit well with him than anything else. However, he seemed genuinely interested in seeing the sequel, so he can’t hold it over my head for too long.

So the powder room has been a headache because there’s always something leaking. Turns out the basin of the toilet had a crack in it. So Ralph went and got a new one at lunch today and hopefully we can call it good tonight. I had a packed week this week, including some freelance and attending a lecture on growing veggies. Speaking of veggies, the green house tipped over in the wind when we forgot to bring it in last Friday night. So for a few hours on Saturday I was doing emergency transplants, using any container I could that had some heft to it. The only things I had on hand were boxes that you get from places like CostCo and Sam’s Club, so the tomatoes are in a tequila box, the various squash and eggplant are in a pizza dough box and some of my sugar snap peas are in a box that my fancy door knob came in.