Sad Songs

Shannon and I went to see Damien Jurado this past Wednesday. Incredible show, nothing like a bunch of depressing songs to lift your spirits.

With sad songs on the mind, here are 5 that I really dig right now:

Damien Jurado - Medication - A song about a guy who can't be with his married lover, so he spends time with his suicidal brother and prays that God will take his brother's life to ease the pain. First time i heard this was Wednesday night.. brutal.

Pedro the Lion - Second Best - A wife convincing herself its ok to be second best and trying to rekindle the romance with her husband at a hotel. This song floored me when I first heard it.

Brand New - Jesus Christ - Deals with being alone, trust issues and a loss of faith. A great sad song on an album of sad songs.

Neil Diamond - I Am I Said - A man trying to prove his existence despite being alone and far away from home.

Ben Folds Five - Evaporated - Probably one of the saddest songs I know, and without a doubt one of my favorites. Not sure what its about, but considering his song Brick is about an abortion he and an ex had, its quite possible its about the same experience. Heart breaking.

Viva Las Vegas

Well in about an hour we are headed to the airport to being our Vegas Vacation. Here's hoping I can at least break even! In addition to the poker we will be playing for hours on end, Ron and I are also planning on playing a round of golf in near 100 degree weather (yikes!) and hitting up The Gun Store, were we will shoot various machine guns and feel like bad asses.




Go see Tropic Thunder for these two reasons:

• Robert Downey Jr. who excels at playing an Australian playing a black guy
  
• Tom Cruise, who I despise as a person, putting on one of the best performances of his career
  

Vegas

Well we leave for Vegas in 18 days and are pretty excited to go. Shannon hasn't been there since she was a kid, and last time I was there I was a 20 year old constantly looking over my shoulder as I played blackjack. It will be nice to go back and be able to sit in the casino, legally, and relax with cocktails.

Ron and I decided to head over to the Livermore Casino on Friday to prep ourselves for Vegas. However, the only thing we prepared for was how to lose money (and, hopefully, that does not happen in Vegas). We sat at a 3 -20 spread limit game, where the blinds are $1 & $3 and the max bet and/or raise is $20. We got murdered. I got no cards (best hand I was dealt all night was pocket 4's) and Ron got a ton of good hands dealt to him, only to get beat by a player that should never have been in the hand. People were taking down $150+ pots with King high or a set of sixes they hit on the river. I left a broken man, but knowing if I had a big enough stack, in enough time the table would be mine for the taking. Just gross.

Random Things That Are Going On

A lot of stuff is going in right now... here are some bullet points

• My Grandma is moving down in about a week and a half - and is going to live with my parents in Manteca
• We are finally getting the Altima fixed
• We are trying to buy a house (going through the loan approval process right now)
• School, as always, is keeping me busy
• Shannon wants to be a baker
• I want to open a Whisk(e)y restaurant
• Pliny the Elder is for sale
• We are going to Vegas in just over a month

When You Are Engulfed In Flames

Shannon and I had a four day weekend to celebrate the nation's 232nd birthday.

On Thursday I got up bright and early to head down to the DMV and renew my drivers license that expired a few weeks back. I then came home and picked up Shannon and headed to Hacienda where we planned to spend hours upon hours at the theater, taking in 4 movies. Well we got through Wall-E (super good) and Iron Man (also really good) before Shannon had had enough of the big screen. Instead of buying tickets to our next planned move, The Hulk, we headed over to Barnes & Noble to pick up some books and budgeting and starting a bar/restaurant (that's a whole other blog post, but yes, I have a few bars I would like to open). We then headed home and relaxed for a few hours before heading off to dinner with Charlie and my pops. The Elephant Bar in Dublin is now open, and we had to wait about a half hour before getting a seat. But thats ok, the food was good and the E-Teas were quite refreshing. After dinner we all went back to the apartment to watch Dan in Real Life (not really what I expected, but good).

Friday morning was spent cleaning the house and shopping. My dad was coming back out to BBQ and celebrate the 4th. We got the place all cleaned up and headed to the store to buy the food: a combination of steak, chicken and hot smoked sausage worked out quite well. In addition to my dad, Charlie & Pletcher showed up, as well as Jake, Melissa and little Adelaide. We had a great time just sitting, eating good food, drinking good beer, and chatting. We also watched Drillbit Taylor (dumb). With BBQ & Beer left over, we decided to host a poker night the next day to help move through the food and drink, as well as to see some other friends.

We spent Saturday morning cleaning again and setting up the house for two tables of poker along with enough sitting room for those not playing. We had a pretty good turn out with 10 players: Charlie, Pletcher, Tyler, Jake, John May, Ron, Cate, Lori, Karen and myself. We also had a number of people rooting us on: Adelaide, Melissa, Allison, Sarah, Laura and Shannon. We had a blast - Ron ended up taking the tournament, with Charlie in second place and me taking third.

Sunday will be spent relaxing and reading the latest David Sedaris book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames. I'm a huge fan of Sedaris, and I can't wait to dig into this book. He mostly writes about growing and how insane his family is. I definitely recommend checking out his stuff.

Beer, Sausage & Hookahs

Last night Charlie, Shannon and I headed out to SF to meet up with Alyssa and hang out for the night. Turns out Jake Foster was there as well, which ruled, but alas, we did not get to see little Adelaide (hopefully tonight though!). We picked up Alyssa and her roommate and met Jake out at Toronado's, one of the best beer bars in the city.

I had always heard a lot about this place, but this was my first time there. Great selection, lots of local microbrews and stuff you don't see in pretty much any other bar.

Next door is Rosamunde Sausage Grill, which has an amazing array of sausages. I ended up eating duck sausage and lamb & beef sausage - so good. They let you order the sausage and then take it next door to the bar - fantastic!

After spending a few hours at the Toronado's Jake had to head off to pick up Melissa, Kari & the little one so shortly after we headed off as well and made our way down to Kan Zaman Cafe, a middle eastern bar/restaurant that lets you smoke Hookahs indoors. After about 20 minutes were were able to grab a spot at the bar and ordered some drinks and some apple tobacco for the Hookah. It was Shannon and my first experience with a Hookah, and we throughly enjoyed it. None of that nasty tar flavor, but arm rich appley goodness! I also had an Arabic Latte (I think that's what it was called), which Alyssa, suggested. It was great, nice middle eastern spices mixed with coffee & milk. Yummm...The night was a blast, and we will definitely be doing more of these... Shannon and I were talking about how we don't get out enough (walking around downtown Pleasanton just isn't cutting it anymore).

Hatred or mistrust of humankind.

One of my favorite bands is back with their first album since 2003...
Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure

Here is the video for the title track: