count your blemishes...you can't, they're all gone

Weekends + rock shows + best friends = happiness!

Friday night I trekked up to Austin for my belated Valentine's Day gift: Built to Spill concert for me plus 3 friends. The 3 I chose were Aneil, Chad, and Amanda. Alex added himself to the mix, and was a welcome addition indeed.

Built to Spill, whom I adore, are pretty awesome in general, but when they "jam" it sort of kills me a little. Hi hello I love pop songs which are typically 4 minutes tops, so the extended jam is a little exhausting. Here's some incessant jamming in action:

Luckily, however, their set was basically a greatest hits collection. Here is a good one of Doug (complete with fluffy beard) playing my favorite, Carry the Zero:

Here I am attempting to casually make a photo in which we look like we're a couple, but due to awkward camera angle my head is larger than his entire body.

Amanda and Alex attempt to pose for multiple cameras paparazzi style:

I love these two:

The cosmos were working in our favor, because multiple best friends appeared later at Club Deville, since Sean's band played a show down the street also! I loooove running into best friends out on the town and it was much fun indeed. Some of Aneil's friends were there too, so it was festive indeed. Here are some cuties:

Neha and Sonal are adorable sisters:

We are not sisters, but apparently are in love with our own, and each other's faces:

These lemon drops were the beginning of the end for Amanda:

I like this boy:

Unfortunately I didn't take any pics at lunch the next day, but it was lovely, as there were meat pies and Sean and Carol and Amanda and Alex and Kat and Such and Chad and Aneil. I had the best time ever! And gorged myself on flaky buttery yumminess.

Aneil and I went on anniversary special date Saturday night. First, he took me to Cavender's Boot City to try on boots:

I liked them but am going to wait before purchasing because as it turns out boots are pricey! But I look sort of adorable I think! We also tried 2 fancy restaurants, but the wait time was ridiculous so we ended up at my fave, Z Tejas, where I ate the richest most delicious fish ever. I washed it all down with rum, so by 10:30 I thought I might pop and/or pass out...oh! the epicurian lifestyle I lead! Extravagant! So instead of a night out on the town with friends or a movie date, I opted to have Aneil take me home so I could change into pajamas and fall asleep during the SNL monologue. Pathetic.

So, good weekend overall. It turns out I love: rock music, best friends, boyfriend, meat pies, cocktails, and overeating. No doi.

In weekday news, I had to come home and cram for my Marketing test but I think I did okay. The rest of the week I will be busy putting together my Management paper. School is exhausting, and apparently studying while simultaneously watching "Scrubs" season 4 works pretty well.

Houston janitors have gone on strike due to the recent formation of a janitor union, so it might start getting stinky in our building. Today the building manager went from bathroom to bathroom to drop off bottles of liquid soap, since there was no one to refill the soap dispensers in the bathrooms. Oy.

I am an idiot and had to call Tivo to make sure I understood how to fast forward/rewind. Apparently when you fast forward it auto rewinds a little to allow for better commercial manuevering. Brilliant, but apparently confusing for little brown girls trying to Tivo "The Bachelor".

Apparently Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of a potential "mega-volcano" and if it ever erupts it will wipe out all of mankind and restult in an ice age. Ruh roh.

FM radio observations from my trip to Austin:

1) Light rock radio plays entirely too much Faith Hill. Also she sucks. The song "This Kiss" gets worse every time it is played, and could very well cause the Yellowstone mega-volcano to build enough pressure to erupt any day now. Light FM must be stopped! Her other song, "I love the way you love me" or something like that, may even be worse.
2) Celine Dion's Titanic song has not held up very well (i.e. it sucks so so much), despite its Oscar win. Blaugh.
3) The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" is really really awesome. This is true even when considered completely independently from its association with "Cocktail" (although who doesn't love a good Elisabeth Shue movie?) and viewed apart from the Beach Boys' brilliant catalogue. It's just great, great great.

I read a funny article today rating the top hits of 1964 and the writer's review of Doo Wah Diddy is hilarious. Here is a sampling:

As you can see by my dramatic re-creation of Mr. Mann's inner monologue, I am generally underwhelmed by this tune. HOWEVER. Its Wikipedia page does contain what I believe to be the greatest sentence in the history of Wikipedia: ''The song would later achieve worldwide fame when it was performed by Jesse and the Rippers on Full House, sometimes in medley with the Beach Boys' 'Kokomo.'''

As anyone who knows me could attest, I love Full House in a weird way. I'm sure once I figure out the damn Tivo functionality I will start recording reruns off TVLand. I love Uncle Jesse and the Rippers and their belief that a 60's cover band with no original material could maybe just maybe land a record contract with a major label! Love it!

2 ,yes 2, "Kokomo" references in one journal entry! Score!