Mike Patton, you’re my hero

What ever happened to musician rivalries?  Did they go out of style?  They shouldn’t have.

Epic concert fail.

Apparently I’ve missed yet another concert this fall!  Opeth was in town over the weekend and I was completely oblivious.  Here is the conversation between Kate and I about this:

Kate:  How did you miss this?

Me:  I knew it was later in the year and I guess I just lost track, I mean its September already.

Kate:  Actually its October.

Me:  …

So apparently I’m oblivious to more than just who is playing in town this weekend.  I’m pretty bummed out I missed this live:

Next time, I guess.  Time to invest in some kind of calendar, perhaps?

Operation Solo Dad: Day Three (I skipped a day)

So we’re on Thursday.  I skipped yesterday, was just too damn tired.  And honestly, nothing exciting happened.  The kids were fine, didn’t give me any grief at all.  I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of this parenting business.

Tonight I’m feeling adventurous, so I decided to take all 3 out to dinner.  They’re missing Kate, and I think doing something fun out of the house would be a pleasant distraction.  To all the employees of the Olympia Red Robin, I apologize in advance.  And if people stop hearing from me, it means the kids were too much and I overdosed on the bottomless fries.

The bad news is that I missed seeing Children of Bodom.  They played in Seattle on Tuesday, and I wasn’t able to go due to Kate being out of town.  Next time, I suppose!  So to tide me over, here’s a clip because I know everyone who likely reads this just LOVE this band (HAH!!).  ENJOY!  (A little bit of swearing in the beginning, but really, who doesn’t want their metal bands to not swear?!)

So while Violet is napping and I can ramble, I recently got in touch with an old friend I hadn’t talked to in probably 5 or 6 years.  It occured to me that I might be somewhat of a bad friend.  I lose contact with people too easily.  Having a family, a relationship, the kids.. these are my excuses, but I wonder if it’s how I tell myself that its natural, its part of getting older, when really I’m just a jerk.  It’s not like I can say that my interests have changed, either.  I still enjoy the same stuff I did when I was younger and had no responsibility.. video games, music, sci-fi/fantasy, etc.  Now I just have to actually balance those things out with being a “grown up” and a parent.  Tangentially, it still scares me that I’m considered a “grown up” now.  It should scare you, too.  YIKES.

I may be onto some serious self reflection here.  Or not.  Maybe this will come up here again once I’ve had some time to mull it over in my head a bit.  We’ll see.

I love Rage Against the Machine

At the RNC, after their concert was shut down:

OH YAY YAY YAY

Children of Bodom headlining tour?! Coming to Seattle in September?! Tickets on sale THIS WEEKEND!??!?!

MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED.

LITERALLY.

Dream Theater & Opeth in Seattle

One of my favorite things is discovering new (to me) music.

Earlier this week I went to see Dream Theater playing in Seattle. They had 3 other bands with them as part of a progressive rock tour, but Gabe and I had bought tickets before we knew this – we just wanted to see Dream Theater live.

Anyway, we got there right before the third band to play, Opeth, took the stage. I am so happy that I got to see this band live. Nothing is cooler than being blown away unexpectedly by a live band. I had heard a couple clips of their stuff, but had no idea how awesome they are.

I’ve been listening to their album Damnation quite a bit, the album which featured the song above, called Windowpane. They put on a great show, and I’m sure I’ll be picking up their live CD in the near future.

Dream Theater put on an amazing show. I didn’t know all the songs, I’ve only recently started listening to DT, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying them. They played a couple songs that I really wanted to hear and they didn’t disappoint.

Now I’m counting the days until Iron Maiden comes to town. I can’t wait!