Things have been quiet in Jet Wolf Land for a little while. Except they haven't exactly. The past few weeks – heck, the past
month has been hectic indeed. Of course, there was the anniversary trip to the coast and all that entailed, but Mike had actually taken off about 10 days around that time, so we had a lot of fun. Some game playing, some
West Wing marathoning, And A Good Time Was Had By All.
Just as Mike's vacation was winding to a close, my mother was arriving for a vacation. Everybody already knows about the Katrina nonsense that surrounded all of that, so her trip was well timed indeed. Not the least of which due to the fact that it was my birthday.
Birthday Blah BlahMum arrived on the 7th, and two days later I woke up a very old and decrepit Jet Wolf indeed. We wound up going to the mall, though I honestly can't remember exactly why now (frankly, we took so very many trips to the mall, it's impossible to keep them straight). We'd gotten a big dinner just the night before at
McGrath's, and since our night would be absorbed by the concert, I declared the night before to have been my birthday dinner.
I woke up to greetings abounding, and some rather hilariously distressed text messages from Amy, all but screaming because her Internet connection was down and she couldn't supply me with my birthday art. However a workaround was established before too terribly long, and I got
my art-type present. I think my squees of pure, unadulterated delight were heard all the way in Australia. (And I'm still squeeing. I
adore it. < squishes Amy>)
In terms of more physical gifting, my loot list is as follows:
From Amy:- The best of New Order
- The 25th anniversary DVD of The Wall, which is very cool as I can now retire my VHS tape and enjoy the really freaky animation sequences in enhanced digital freak.
- Dangermouse S1 & S2 on DVD, which, can I just say, tickled the hell out of me. I adored DM growing up, and getting to watch them again is a treat.
From Mum:- My new laptop, of course, to whom you guys have yet to be formally introduced. Her name is Glorificus. She has colour-changable LED lights. She is more powerful than my desktop PC. She has a widescreen monitor. Simply put, she rules.
- Tickets to see Tori Amos on my birthday.
From Mike: - An Oz bust and a Buffy bust (not out yet). These join my statue collection, consisting of The Judge, The Gentlemen, Fyral Giles, D'Hoffryn, and Dark Willow. Sadly, I lack any sort of room for these, so they're all still in their boxes ... but the boxes are very pretty.
- And the big pressie, an autographed poster. One that I shall hang with pride next to my X2 poster (though not literally because there's not much wall space left in the computer room). Sadly, I do not yet have photographs of its aweinspiring goodness, but I shall tell you of it regardless.
The poster itself (27x40) is one of those iconic sort of Buffy images. Sure, it has Boreanaz on it, but from back when Angel was really interesting, so that's perfectly okay. It's not the image that's so cool though. What makes it so are the signatures that cover it [actor and character name included for those not as up on their Buffyness]:
Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Nicholas Brendon (Xander), Anthony Stewart Head (Giles), David Boreanaz (Angel), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), Seth Green (Oz), Amber Benson (Tara), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn), Eliza Dushku (Faith), James Marsters (Spike), Kristine Sutherland (Joyce), Juliet Landau (Drusilla), Mercedes McNab (Harmony), Danny Strong (Jonathan), Marc Blucas (Riley), Julie Benz (Darla), Robia LaMorte (Jenny Calendar), Bianca Lawson (Kendra), Lindsay Crouse (Maggie Walsh), Adam Kaufmann (Parker), John Ritter (Ted), Harry Groener (The Mayor), Mark Metcalf (The Master), and Joss Whedon (Numfar...and that creator guy).
I'm still swooning from the cool.
Additionally, although Mike claimed it was a "just because you're you" gift and not one for my birthday (something which I dispute, as I feel guilty for getting it otherwise), a few days after I received a Nintendo DS.
Can you guess why I got one?Let me take a moment of time here to say
oh my god this is so fucking cute. I turned into a gooey puddle on the spot. I'm so very not kidding. These little guys ... you can play with them, and rub their tummy, and take them for walks,
and they bring you presents! They make happy little puppy waggles when you scratch their head, a-and they'll catch the frisbee when you throw it, and you can name them and get them to respond to their name! I am ... I just can't ... Look at the video on the site! And it's only the barest fraction of cuteness! I heart my Nintendogs and their little furry digital paws, and how they chew on the teddy bear I got for them, and how excited they get when you "come home". Oh! I implode from the cute!
....okay, now that's out of my system. It's been festering, you have no idea. I wish I could take screencaps from my DS, so I could share the cute. I would icon them. Seriously.
I move on. That night, we departed for the
Clark County Amphitheater to, as previously mentioned, see Tori Amos. The concert was nicely timed, karmically speaking, I felt.
Tori Loves Me and I Love ToriThe only time I've ever been to Washington state was when I first moved to Portland and accidentally went too far north on I-5, so the fact that the concert was a little bit over the border was pretty cool. (I don't get out much.) The only other outdoors concert I've ever been to was Smashing Pumpkins back in 19mmmrph, so this added another level of cool. It's a nice venue, I must admit. Although Mike had serious issue with some of the vending practices, but
he already ranted about that one. We (Mike, Mum and myself) arrived way early, however, so we find a table underneath a bit of cover to help protect us from the rather frigid wind, and then spent the next hour and a half or so talking about wrestling. The classic stuff. Mid-'80s WWF. Which, yes, I used to watch. A lot. Shut up.
We found our seats easily enough, and although they were about as far left as you could go, they were extremely close to the stage, and I was pleased. Tori brought with her two opening acts. The first were
The Like, who I'd never heard of until now. I wish I knew enough about music to explain how they sounded, but the best I can think to say is that I, uhm, liked it. It took them a couple of songs to get warmed up, but once they had, it was entirely enjoyable. They said their album was being released within a few days (possibly "tomorrow", I can't recall), but I can't seem to find it in the brief search I did. I wasn't so blown away that I'm going to spend the next hour desperately searching so I can order it, but if I happened to find it, I'd definitely consider picking it up, so consider this a recommendation.
The second opening act was
The Ditty Bops. Now these guys, I think I can sum up a little more easily. The first adjective that comes to mind is
weird. Now I'll say up front that I applaude that they're doing something different. It's not all guitars and drums and rock. It's a fiddle, and a ukulele, and a sound that makes me remember the good ol' days of prohibition and flappers and the G-Men. I confess that their set turned more into a thirty minute personal mock between the three of us, but they were good at what they did. I can't deny that. I just wanted them to stop.
But we weren't there for the opening acts, we were there for Tori. (Or, well,
I was there for Tori. The others were there for me.) She did not disappoint. I would present a list of what she played, but honestly, I can't entirely remember. She mixed things up pretty well between her albums, but as my favourites are and probably will remain "Little Earthquakes" and "Under the Pink", I got a special thrill when she played anything from those albums. She opened with "Original Sinsuality", which makes sense as I believe that's the name of the tour. Other songs that I
do remember her playing include: "The Power of Orange Knickers", "Goodbye Pisces", "The Beekeeper", "Spark" (which was very strange to hear, considering that it was just her and her piano), "Icicle", "Baker Baker", "Silent All These Years" (one of my personal favourites, so a
huge treat for me) and, on one of the encores, "Happy Phantom".
For the piano bar, she played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", but I didn't recognize the second song. What was best about the piano bar, however, was the little song she'd made up from one of the requests she'd received. I believe its title was something like, "Why aren't you coming to Oregon?" I desperately wish I could remember the lyrics, but they consisted of stanzas like, "Why aren't you coming to Oregon? / We have lots of trees / Don't just go to that place up north / It rains here too / And we don't obsess about coffee / So I asked my agent, 'What do you think?' / And she said, 'I don't know, it's not on the route.' / And I said, 'Fuck that, we're coming back to Oregon'." Except, you know, much funnier. It was worth the price of admission for that alone.
The other highlight was toward the end of the night. For her second encore, she played "Baker Baker". Not one of my favourites, but hey. I just have to wonder if it's not one of her favourites either though, because somewhere in the second verse, she messed up the lyrics. "I fucked that up, that's not right," she confessed with a laugh, which the audience happily shared. "Let's try that again." But then she messed up once more and just surrendered and started making up new lyrics. I was getting pretty tired by that point so I can't remember them sadly, but I do recall laughing quite heartily at the time. It's all well and good to go and see a performer, of course. And you go to enjoy the music you like performed live, right there for your benefit. But there's something invaluable about getting to see just the regular human part as well, and none of us are more human than when we mess up.
Typically speaking, I hate my birthday. I'd rather just stay in bed and forget the day altogether. But I really did enjoy this one. Yay me.
It's getting late here now and this post being as huge as it is, I shall continue tomorrow. Topics to cover: TV successes and failures, Louisiana vs. Oregon, and how tremendously cool I am.
"Primeval"
