it's days like these that keep me on my winning streak

I've seem to have hit the illegal download jackpot lately. I finally found a decent copy of "These Days," which is apparenly the most impossible to find Kasey Chambers song ever. It's a live acoustic version, but I'll take anything over the crappy copy of the recorded song I have now. I also found a bunch of her singles, with a whole load of live tracks. Including "Nullabor Song!" *loves* Then I found a complete copy of Let it Scream, which I only have a cassette of. OMG! "Father Mother Son" *tear* I found Roxy Blue's Want Some this morning before work too, and I can feel I'm close to finding Trouble Tribe. Honestly, take Roxy Blue, Trouble Tribe, The Scream...add in Kik Tracee, Southgang, Wildside, BBJ and FP's Whipped (all of which I already own) and you have my junior year of high school right there in a nutshell. And then, I also found a torrent for Skid Row's Oh Say Can You Scream, which I still think is the hallmark of band home videos. It finished downloading yesterday and I had to restrain myself from staying up late to watch it. There's so much good stuff! I should try to dig out my VHS copy and transfer it to DVD.

Note to self: Don't forget to look for a torrent for yesterday's Ellen with John & Rainn from The Office when you get home.

My mom's uncle Gabe died on Wednesday. (I've mentioned my 2nd cousin the writer before - she's his daughter) He was 94, so this isn't a sudden thing or anything. I'm not real big on funerals, but since that's one part of the family we actually talk to, I'll be at the service on Saturday. Along with every other Lebanese person within a 30 mile radius. I can already hear my uncle harassing me about showing up to church more often. I think the last time I was there was my grandmother's funeral in 2001.

On a very odd related note, I just looked my grandma up on findagrave.com and she's listed as being buried in a cemetary that she is most definitely NOT buried in. Huh?

Otherwise, this weekend is pretty quiet, which is good. I have almost 300 pages of the book club book yet to read, not to mention my road trip diary, Ratt & Skid Row photos to edit & upload, laundry, and trying to get myself better. Next weekend is going to be busy with Holiday playing multiple times and Laura's Oscar party, so I need to get this stuff done now.

Oh, Holiday on March 4th at Jersey's anyone?? I have to work so I can't make it down to the Austin show on Friday, but I'm going to try to make at least one of their Mall of America performances too, if anyone wants to come along.

That's it for now, I think. I've been given a project I completely don't understand or know how to do, so the rest of the day should be interesting.

I'm still not going to Skid Row tonight, since I had some sudden expenses come up this week and really shouldn't spend money going out. And by sudden expenses, I mean I went on a CD buying spree. Well, and I had to replace my CD player at work. And I have to figure out what to do about my printer, since it suddenly died. Boo.

YAY!!! I finally figured out how to put both a header and a background image in my journal!! I'm so proud of myself! My background image is some rather plain text, but I like it. I may keep it that way. Now that I know the coding though, I can change it anytime I want. And no, I can't explain how I did it to you. I've looked at so much code lately that I have no idea what's what.

I just got a weirdly random email from Troy Patrick Farrell, the drummer for Tramp's White Lion. Seems that "someone" forwarded him my lj post about the White Lion/EZN shows I went to in March, and he felt the need to explain the way they acted at the Hayloft show. Uh, okay. That was like soooooo 4 months ago! Hmmmmmm...I can't possibly imagine who would forward that to him to try to start trouble. Definitely not someone at the show. You know, the show in Detroit. *coughtheskankcough* Of course, I have no proof, so I'm just going to keep my mouth shut.

I just picked up my photos from KC. OMG! The pic of Chad & I is soooooo adorable!! And a couple of the DD pics I illegally took actually turned out. Rizzy, you're really going to love one of them, even though Nick is kind of teeny tiny. =/ Now I have real motivation to finish my KC recap tomorrow.

No reason for these. Just that I was looking for a different pic and ended up drooling over these instead.

( Click here for band boy hottness! )

*waves hello* I'm finally home! The word for the weekend: sweaty. Friday's additional word: D-R-U-N-K. Saturday's additional word: suburn.

Oh, and Rachel Bolan is MORE hottttt right now than I've ever seen him. *le sigh*

It was fun! I spent too much money. I'm glad to be home. Julee, I got your shirt. I'll mail it out tomorrow. Or maybe Tuesday.

I'm off too shower & get some of the stink off of me. And my hair is all tangled from driving with the windows open, not to mention fried from the sun, so a nice deep conditioning is also in order.

I heard that Miss Rikki has piccies of muh boys though, so that's where I'm going first!

I am going to be very good and post a whole entry tonight. It's been a while since I've really posted anything. And yes, I still have not told the tale of my trip to California. I still don't really feel like it. Maybe later this week.

Oh, and I know she won't read this, but I am so happy for Ann. They caught the guy last night! She was so excited that she called to tell me about it twice. If you don't understand, then move along. Nothing to see here.

So, my weekend started with me being "motivation girl." I got up early and finally mailed out my package for the gift exchange on the LAG board. I did some shopping and then made my way back home. I decided to do some excavation work on my apartment (otherwise known as cleaning) and I picked up every single piece of clothing that I own. I washed almost all of it and then actually hung it in my closets or put it in my dresser. Much better than the usual pile on the floor. I also made a big pile of stuff to get rid of. I just have so much stuff that I never wear. It's not worth keeping it around. This took most of the day yesterday, as I have a lot of fucking clothes.

As the last load was washing, I started going through all of my photos from the Obsessive Girls Tour. I needed to gather some of them together for reasons I'll disclose later. I get so melancholy when I look through them. Not just cause there's so many of that Muscat fucker. But because I had so much damn fun! I hope they tour next summer, but I just don't think it'll be the same.

I finally peeled myself out of the chair and got ready to go out. I met my new friend Susie (tootser) for dinner at Denny's. She's so much fun! I'm glad she spoke up on the Faster board one day that she was looking for people in the Twin Cities. We talked a lot about my adventures from this summer. She wanted to know if I knew what had happened to the Faster board since it now seems like it's filled with 5-year-olds. I told her a little bit about what happened and how she can find the regulars in other places.

We then wandered down the block to The Rock to settle in for Skid Row. Even though the doors had only been open for about an hour, there were a lot of people in there. There were quite a few people jammed up by the front of the stage already, so we made our way over to the Rachel & Scotti side so we could get a place up front. We were surrounded by an army of little Vietnamese men who were very pushy. There were also a couple of very drunk chicks on our other side, one of whom was wearing the same shirt I was. Oh, the horror!! (Although, as Susie said, I looked much better in it) A very tall beautiful woman managed to sneak through the tall men and stand on my left. We talked a little bit and I just kept thinking that she looked really familiar. When I got home, I figured out that it was Cherie from the LAG board! I wish I would have figured it out at the show. I think the strange guy that had been wearing the Tuff shirt at the Elgin Sludge show was there too. I talked to him at the Sudsy's show in Cincinnati and I think that where he actually lives. So, people from other states are beginning to look familiar. Perhaps a sign that I road trip too much??

Anyhow, we waited through a couple mediocre opening bands. Susie's friend Sara showed up, but she wasn't really into the whole "rock" thing. Finally, the Skids got on stage. This was the last night of their mini-tour and they were ready for a good time! Rachel is HOT. Just fucking HOT!! I wanted to lick him all over. Scotti is so much damn fun to watch. He jumps, kicks, sits and is generally a huge bundle of energy. He was staring at all kinds of people in the audience until they'd react to him and then he'd just laugh at them. Johnny sounded great & had a great rapport with the audience. He really looked happy to be there. I had a hard time seeing Snake & Phil from where I was. The crowd was SO into the show. Jumping up and down, fist pumping, singing along and head banging galore! It was so much fun!! Except for the little men who kept pushing against Cherie & I. Space people, space. And again, I'd like to mention the Rachel Bolan is HOT!! I'll have the photos to prove it soon. They were having such a good time & goofing off that he was laughing and smiling a lot, and I know I got some good photos.

After the show, we decided to hang out since they usually come out in the crowd. I had seen a guy wearing a Sludge jersey, so I went up to him and asked him who he was. Turns out that he was greengoblinrulz, otherwise known as Brian. We ended up standing around and talking to him & his friend for almost an hour. They were pretty cool! They were going to make sure that we got on the bus to party, but the guys were nowhere to be found. Turns out that they went back to the hotel to shower and were going to come back. It was getting late, so we decided to take off instead.

I got home and fucked around on the computer for a while before going to bed. I hate when I'm wired like that when I know I need to get some sleep.

I got up this morning when Bren (taylorea) called me. I had a KILLER headache even though I'd only had one drink at the show. My back & neck were in bad shape. They'd been bothering me all week and a night of headbanging didn't help much. Still, I dragged myself out of bed and drove over to Bren's. When I was there the other night, she had somehow talked me into joining her at a Creative Memories scrapbooking class. Yeah, that screams me. *join me on the sarcasm slide* We walked into the banquet room not really knowing what to expect. It was like we had entered another dimension. All of these soccer moms and old ladies had all of their scrapbooking supplies laid out everywhere. People had suitcases full of this shit!! It was absolutely amazing.

Bren had a $100 gift certificate from her wedding so we pretty much spent our time there picking out supplies for her. My mom has done some scrapbooking stuff, so I knew what to look for. The consultant chick was totally trying to push her into buying everything they had, but I wouldn't let them do that to her. Instead we picked out some essentials and a bunch of stickers and decided to see if my mom would let us borrow her stuff. She was on her way back from Chicago, so we called her and she was happy to let us borrow it if we could find it in the house.

We pigged out on the turkey dinner that was provided and then decided to leave. It was too hard to concentrate around all those people! While we were totalling up our supplies so we could get out, Ann called me. She just sounded so much better! I'm so glad for her and can't wait to see her on Halloween! She asked what I was doing and was quite speechless when I told her. I don't think she ever expected that answer! Bren & I went to my apartment to pick up a couple things and then went over to my parent's house. My dogs were so happy to see me! I haven't seen them in a couple weeks so I had to give them lots of love. Bren looked through the books my mom made for my brother while I searched for the scrapbooking supplies. I finally located them in my brother's closet (along with a huge bottle of rum) and we went back to Bren's.

We then spent the next six hours watching Disney movies and working on scrapbook pages. Since Bren had brought it up, I had warmed up to the idea and decided to make a book detailing my psychotic rock star stalking adventures. I worked on a few pages from the Sludge tour while Bren worked on pages for her honeymoon. Her husband, Andy, couldn't handle it and had to join in. He's one crafty bitch! :) lol So there we were, singing along to "Hakuna Matada" and cutting up photos. Just a little different from the night before! Ann called again to tell me her news, and I was like "uh, you already told me." She was just so happy to tell people that she forgot she'd already called me! She was a little shocked that I was still scrapbooking. But it was fun to hang with Bren all day. We decided to do it all again next Sunday. (Well, except for the roomful of psycho cropper women) By then, we'll have a better idea of what we want to do and what supplies we need.

I finally got home and flipped on the 'puter. Only to learn that my cutie Trent has left Blackstone Cherri. *sob* Say it ain't so!! It's so tragic and sounds like it's all over some chicks or something. Ridiculous! I really hope that he'll change his mind!!

Anyhow, that's my weekend in a nutshell. It's an exciting life, ain't it?