Binary Tuberculosis

Well I’ve been swimming in live music the past several days.

Last week I caught The Smashing Pumpkins at the Orpheum Theatre with Thomas & Garfield. Billy Corgan, he’s talented, but man, his new Pumpkins album is the suck. He did play a long show though, which I must love him for, plus he played many a good song. Set The Ray To Jerry made my night, thanks Corgan.

The next night I grabbed some dinner with the Chows in Chinatown and then we headed to The Roxy to catch Spoon in action. My first time at the Roxy and I gotta tell ya, I like that venue. The stage is a bit low, but it’s cozier and cleaner than The Avalon. Spoon performed their magic, but some tall douche-bag in front of us annoyed the junk outta us. Tall people should be required to stay in the back, dorks.

Saturday night I headed to Great Scott with a buddy and caught a few bands: The Octopus Project, Enon, Ho-Ag, and So Many Dynamos. The Octopus Project were the headliners, they’re an instrumental band and their gimmick? One of the performers rocks at playing the theremin. Yeah, the first (only?) musical instrument that can played without touching it. They were surprisingly lively and good musicians, plus they didn’t overdo the theremin playing, which was a plus.

So Many Dynamos were probably my number one pick for openers. They’re stage talkers, which I always enjoy, love the on stage banter. So apparently David Arquette is a fan of theirs since he jumped on stage at one of their shows, thus they dedicate a song to him at every show. Also, they were at the Keene, NH Pumpkin Festival that weekend as well and they wanted to perform. So they apparently talked somebody into letting them perform on stage. The stage? Jesus Is Lord Tour. What they said about that?… “We sold three CDs after the show, those people are in for a surprise”.

Last night we went to see The New Pornographers, again at The Roxy. I almost didn’t make it, I hadn’t received the tickets and there was a “no exceptions” rule to tickets being giving out again without a weeks notice. Luckily they made an exception (not talking about Ticketmaster) and canceled my ticket barcodes and put me on the will-call list. Whew.

The show was perfect (almost…freaking tall people). Neko and Dan were both there, which was stupendous. They’ve been missing some shows, Neko because of her solo tour and Dan because…he’s lazy? They played everything I wanted EXCEPT Letter From An Occupant, alas. But it’s OK, I made up for it by falling in love with Kathryn Calder. A “new” New Pornographer, but a great addition I think. Randomly met up with a couple friends there, didn’t realize they were going to be at that show. Talked with em for a few afterward, that was a bonus.

Grabbed some ice-cream a bit before midnight (gotta love J.P. Licks late night) and then headed home.

This past Sunday I grabbed some sushi at Minado and a flick at the IMAX with a couple friends. Both co-workers, one of them a new intern from Austria that I’m “officially” mentoring. Yeah, I’m kinda sorta in charge of this 23 year old grad student for about 8 months, gotta show him the ropes in Bioinformatics. Good thing unofficially it isn’t that big of a deal and he’s totally cool and another guy is helping me out, so at least now he’s both our responsibility.

So onto the movie. Transformers, only one of the greatest animated shows in existence, uber nostalgia here. The movie? Hit the right spots in action and Shia LaBeouf is a dork so he’s extra cool in my book (he was Even Stevens people!). What was wrong with the movie?…

• Effing Michael Bay…EVERY girl is a hottie. Nice to look at, but honestly, why why why?
• A bit too “kid like” in some scenes (the garden scene).
• Action was too up close, a bit tough to make out what was going on.
• Even the geeky NSA chick was super hot…and with an Australian accent…with a sexy neck tattoo! Effing Michael Bay.
• Some parts were just absurd, not the “sciency” parts, common sense stuff (I’m not writing any spoilers, so no examples here).

It was a good action non-thinking nostalgic flick. A perfect popcorn movie if you will, more emotional obviously than a mental exercise, which is fine by me. I’d watch it again.

OK, lets get to the meat.

How’d I do in the 5K (3.1 miles) race? Well out of 478 folks I got 112, here are the stats:

• Place: 112/478
• Time: 25:14
• Pace: 8:08
• Age Group: 18-29
• Place/Group: 48
• Place/Sex: 85 M

So I did “OK” for my first race ever, I’m hoping my next one I’ll do much better, considering the no food/water thing most likely hurt me this time around. OK, so not so “OK”, but gimme a break, my first time you freaks.

Tags: running