Virgin Fest

We got our tix for the Virgin Festival in the mail this past weekend. I'm actually pretty stoked to go... it was a pretty pricey ticket, but the line up looks pretty solid. And even The Who is gonna be there! Didn't they have at least 6 or 7 farewell tours?? Sarcasm aside, I've never seen 'em, and even though Keith Moon and John Entwhistle are dead, I'm looking forward to it. Can't say I'm all that excited for the Chili Peppers tho. We may bolt before they come on to beat the traffic.

But with the New Pornographers, Drive By Truckers, and Raconteurs there, it should be fun. I'm also kinda interested to see/hear Gnarls Barkley, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Kasabian. Plus it sounds like a bunch of other people we know will be going, including a few from work, Travis & Rosana, and the Shooks. At least we won't be the only oldsters in the crowd...

New pictures

Fourth of July pics from the Columbia picnic, from James's BBQ, and from the fireworks in Columbia Heights.

Pics from a visit to Liz's mom's house with our nephew Braeden and our neice Abigail. They might look a little dark because the camera was inadvertently set to the "Twilight" setting.

Pics from our vacation on the shores of Delaware at Rehoboth Beach.

X and Rollins Band

Greg, Pete, and I went to go see Rollins Band and X (Riverboat Gamblers opened -- we missed 'em) last night at the 9:30. Good show. X was great, I thought, and better than the last time I saw 'em. They were tight, played great songs, and looked to be enjoying themselves a lot. Two small complaints: John Doe's comments about DC and the sound. It always gets a bit old whenever someone comes to town and then all they can do it make comments about the government and politics, like nothing else is going on around here. The sound was a bit shoddy I thought -- guitars and vocals could've been higher in the mix. But hey, maybe I'm just losing my hearing. Aside from that, they rocked.

Rollins Band was cool. I was never that into them that much when they were current, but watching Henry Rollins perform is pretty wild. The guy is just intense. He means it (man). I was a pretty big Black Flag fan... well, before stuff like My War, but I never really got into Rollins Band, so it was interesting to see them. It was their original line up too, same as X. The music was pretty good, but man was it LOUD. The bass drum was so loud, all of my clothes were vibrating. Had to stuff some napkins in my ears. Gotta remember to bring/use earplugs more often! Interesting thing: there was an old couple sitting up in the balcony where performers wait and watch other bands perform. We were wondering if they were Henry's parents?? He is a local guy... Dunno. During Rollins' set, Exene from X came through the crowd to go backstage and had her hands covering her ears! A little bit funny. Guess she wasn't into it.

The show was also *very* punctual, which I appreciate when I have to go to work the next day. Rollins: on at 9pm on the nose. X: on at 10:30. Show over before midnight, home by midnight, buzzing and ringing.

StumbleUpon

I've been using the Firefox browser at home for a little while now, and I checked out some of the extensions you can get for the browser. One of the ones I've tried is called StumbleUpon, and it's pretty addictive. It suggests Web sites that you might like based on categories that you select when you sign up. Yea, you have to sign up, but it's free and a pretty cool service, I think.

Firefox has a set up where you install a toolbar in your browser and then you can just click the Stumble button and you be redirected to a random site that has been rated as one you'll like by other people (ie, tagged).

OK GO Treadmill Dance

This is pretty impressive if you ask me.

Second place in contest

A few months back, I entered a contest on emusic.com to try to ID as many musicians in two TV commercials as possible. Well, turns out I tied 2 other people for second place! So I won a 4GB Nano (etched w/ "From your friends at emusic.com" on the back...) plus a free one year subscription to the emusic.com site. Pretty cool, I must say. I got my Nano just in time to take it to beach but only put a few podcasts on it for Liz. She loves NPR. Thanks emusic.com!

The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Check out this video from Hold Steady...