October Weekends, take 2.

My weekend started out with a show at the Middle East that featured Dr. Dog, Delta Spirit, and Hacienda. Hacienda and Delta Spirit were some of the best "opening" bands I've seen. I'm definitely going to have to go and try to track down some of their tunes. The show started late, however I entertained myself watching the Red Sox play in the mean time. I actually only ended up staying for I estimate, half of the Dr. Dog performance. This was primarily due to the show's really late start. Dr. Dog didn't get on stage till probably quarter of 12:00. As the T (subway) service can be dicey after 12:30 (they shut down around this time), I ended up leaving around 12:20. The cab ride can be as much as $35 to $40 back to Melrose and that didn't seem like a real attractive option. I might of considered it, but to be honest when Dr. Dog got on stage they turned their volume way too high. The vocals sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, and I could feel them resonating in the beer can I was holding. I threw ear plugs in, when they weren't even half way through the first song and it was still too loud. I'm tempted to send a comment to their web page as sort of an FYI, but I'm not sure how serious they would take it. I'm sure it would have been great if they care more about sound quality and less about the shock & awe of being louder than the openers. One thought was that their systems just were set too high for the small Basement club that is "The Middle East".


Kate came over on Saturday and I had prepared a tomato tortellini soup (from a mix that my Aunt Rita had purchased for me) and made up some Italian sandwiches. The soup is great and I look forward to finishing the rest off this week.


Sunday I got up early and set a pot roast up in the crock pot for supper. Kate and I had pancakes for breakfast, and then afterward she helped me clean my car (which was desperately needed). We walked up into the Fells Reservation and then back to Main St. to supplement our feast with apple cider and pumpkin pie. It was a lovely autumn feast. Kate said she felt as though she were a puritan settler eating a meal during harvest.
I was feeling pretty lazy and tired all day for some reason...

Smoken Joe's

Kate took me out to a new BBQ joint in Brighton Center tonight called Smoken Joe's BBQ. The food was excellent, affordable, and the atmosphere was laid back and casual. As an added bonus a decent jazz group began performing as we were finishing our meal. We were reluctant to leave but decided we wanted to spend the rest of our time walking around on such a nice evening.

I wanted to add in this amusing Conan O'Brien clip where he took some liberties of the debate footage.

A rather uneventful weekend

The Red Sox played two exciting games, although it is a shame that tonight's ended the way it did. I really didn't want the Angels to break their losing streak.

Saturday was a day of many errands, laundry, my car inspection, and taking the air conditioner down for the season. In the evening Kate came over and she and I got some take-out from Liberty Bell. I had fish & chips and she had the chicken finger plate. The fried food and cole slaw was very satisfying . Saturday Night Live had one of the best shows I've seen them put on in quite a long time. Their take on Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Frank, and President Bush giving a press conference on the bailout was spot on, albeit marginally exaggerated (by a hair or so). The Killers were the musical act. I had seen them on either SNL or Conan back when their first album came out and recalled their performance being rather poor despite having liked samples I had previously heard in a record store (which honestly made me write them off). They seemed to give a solid performance this time around. Their take on the post punk/ new wave sound to me doesn't quite measure up to Interpol, or their precursors from the 80s (The Cure, Joy Division, Stone Roses, etc.) but I still would say their are probably better than most of the crap on pop radio today. I really got a kick out of the lead singer because his stage antics were basically a study of David Byrne's Talking Heads days... stiff spastic, at times symmetrical movements, with an oddly disconnected expression on his face as he sang.

Sunday didn't go quite as planned. Kate and I were going to go to the Topsfield fair, however, we headed out a bit too late. After sitting in traffic for an hour or so, we decided to cut our losses, turn around and get lunch. We stopped at Chili's on rt. 1 and had a mediocre chain restaurant meal. The chips and salsa were good if nothing else. Next I decided to head back to my apartment a bring a lamp that I don't use much to Kate's. It is one of those cheap dorm room lamps, and actually it belonged to Tim Hayes and he left it behind. Kate was going to put it behind her standing mirror in her room, however when I tried to clean the plastic lamp shade it broke in pieces. (I was very sad) We tried looking to see if there was something that we could use as a substitute but our search at K-mart and Target proved fruitless. I ended up saving the energy saving light bulb I had in it and tossed the lamp. On a positive note Kate did manage to get some shopping out of the way while we were looking around.