not falling down

Three entries in two days! Madness! Today was the first day since coming home that I’ve actuallyspent entirely in my pajamas, eating ice cream and watching NewsRadio. I’m slipping.

(Parenthetic insert: I watch too much tv lately, because I’m usually the only one in the house, andit gets quiet. Aside from confirming that daytime tv is entirely ass-based, I’ve come to reallydespise the new Clorox Plus commercial. You know the one, where there’s the fake-calypso guy in thebackground singing “Mama’s got the magic of something something, Mama’s got the magic of CloroxPlus.” It’s one of the most mind-itching jingles in years, and also, what the hell? Can’t Daddy dothe wash too? Or are men just not good enough, you sexist swine? I do my own laundry! Maybeyou should too!)

I did have a long day yesterday, though, what with the concert (below) and having been up at 0530 hrs before that. Today I finished up thefirst xorph.com wallpaper, which I’ll post in ExtraCredit when I’ve updated THAT page, and checked out my server-side hit tracking. This alwaysproduces different results than the offsite tracker, but I usually use the latter for the (stupid) reason thatthey’re easier to read. I believe this is because Extreme only tracks whole pages, whereas theserver tracks every .inc and image I host, producing outrageously inflated counts.

It also produces very different search attempts, though, which I’ve yet to figure out. For example,according to it, searches for “sabina kudmani” have led to my site on not one but twooccasions. I don’t think I’ve ever typed the words “sabina kudmani” until just now, and then thetime right before that.

I’m a little afraid now, actually, because this could easily turn into a vicious cycle: I sayconfused things about “sabina kudmani,” which makes Google bump the site higher in its rankings,which means even MORE people come here looking for “sabina kudmani” news and resources, and I getever more boggled and it becomes a running joke, et cetera. It could end up being like the Mac Hall / Digimon thing.

I’m borrowing the Leonardonic term DSR, forDumb Search Results, to apply to the following:

• “wartime cartoon russian rhapsody:” Cartoons are mentioned here fairly often, I guess, but it’snot like “rhapsody” or “wartime” are words I type every day. Or ever.

• “stupider:” I say this, but I don’t think I’ve ever written it. Someone contradict me.
• “gremlins wwii” or
• “gremlins from the kremlin:” I guess those two go together, but I can’t for the life of mefigure out a) what they are or b) how they ended up here. I’m inclined to think that the server isexperimenting with recreational hallucinogenics.
• “threaded drill bit:” The only word, of those, that I remember using is “bit,” and it’s notexactly uncommon on the internet.
• “beetle bailey hardcore comix:” The hell.
• “marcellus soul band aid:” I do know where this one came from. I still had to mention itbecause “Marcellus Soul Band” would be a great name for a–well, you get the idea.

I don’t really want to know what kind of horrible error in an automailer could send timestampinformation that screwed up.

Finally, Sumana gets to see Guster and all I get are the stupid Gin Blossoms! What is this bullshit? I gotripped off! But I’m happy for her, I guess. Dang.

The Gin Blossomswere here. Here. Last night. I saw the Gin Blossoms last night. Here.

I put up a brave front, but the fact is I know almost nothing about music. This is a vast improvement over, say, 1998, when I knew literally nothing about music (embarrassing anecdote: I once asked Erika “So, what other songs has U2 put out besides ‘With or Without You?’”).

So 98-99 was my Big Into Gin Blossoms period. I actually own their greatest hits (only they could make their third album a greatest hits album [for the record, a couple of non-hits on there aren’t bad]). I knew nothing about pop or instrumentation or songs that had more than three chords, and they were a lot of fun to listen to. This was right after they broke up, I believe, and “Hey Jealousy” was still likely to get a cheer if it came on the radio.

It is frankly bizarre to think that I saw them live in concert last night. Granted, EKU is a large school, and it’s kind of surprising they don’t get more bands, really. I think Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds were here once.

Anyway, my friend Erin (Michalik), an RA comrade for two years running, called me at 6 and asked if I’d be willing to go see the Gin Blossoms for free. We got there as they were finishing their first song (”Follow You Down,” naturally) and there were like a hundred people there.

A hundred people. At a Gin Blossoms concert.

Maybe another twenty people arrived during the whole show. The Coliseum can hold something like two thousand. This is not the saddest part. No, that would be the lead singer actually asking people to try stage-diving. Or trying to run out into the crowd with a corded mike. Or getting said mike tangled around the chair he stood on (making him roughly my height). Or the fact that he dressed like he really wanted to be in The Strokes.

I felt bad for them, really. What’s it like to play to audiences of thousands, then break up, then get back together and find yourself playing for a hundred dispassionate kids at Eastern Kentucky University? Granted, this is probably just karma catching up to them for selling the same song so many times, but still.

I did have a lot of fun, in a surreal kind of way, and it was nice to hear the songs–exactly the way they sound on the albums, but much louder–again. It was good to see Erin again too.

I feel better for Angie. The man’s playing to crowds nearly as big as the Gin Blossoms, for Pete’s sake. Also, they both do Rocket Man, and Angie does it a lot better.