THE BLOG: January 2012

Monday, mid-morning, the lights flicker in my office....then everything goes dark. The droning sounds of fail safes pound my ears.

The generator refuses to automatically kick on. Pitch black and silent...The lack of registers beeping at every item being sold. The absence of easy-listening non-top 40 hits playing above shoppers' heads to keep them from concentrating on how their favorite food is now $.15 higher than the previous week and is now missing 4oz. as well. One by one cell phone screens come alive to break darkness.

Is this a concert?

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2 Hours Before

I walk towards the back-dock and pass the seafood counter when I notice that Joe is not prepping the department for the onslaught of the day's sales. He's not here but his helper that isn't suppose to be here on Monday is. Something's not right.
He gets my attention.
"Did you hear about Joe Estrada's wife?"
.
.
.

FUCK

Wife of over 20 years had lost her two year battle with cancer.

I had listened for the past couple of years of what he was doing to treat his wife. Trips to some clinic in Minnesota and some new laser treatment here. The tumors had gone away for half a year but just three months ago they showed back up in her brain and heart. Her doctors told him there was nothing else they could do for her. He couldn't give up so he started trying some home-grown shit. He bought a juicer and some expensive and I do mean expensive water purifier/electrolysis device.
The last thing I can remember him telling me last week when he brought me a cup of this water.

"I can replace money, I can't replace my wife."
"You're going to see a miracle."
"God has guided me to all the right people."

I couldn't show it, but this fucked me all up hearing him say this.

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!@#%$$@#$

Down goes Zappos!
People fucking around again via the interwebs. This is why we can't have anything good, people.

...and we ring in MLK day with not a single or double, but a triple homicide.

Pisses me off that I brought out my trash only to remember later there's no trash service today and the bag is now riddled with holes thanks to the squirrels.

BUT HEY....

.....it's gorgeous outside.

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So enough time has passed since the shows I saw in December. Enough time that the memories are starting to run into each other and I'm beginning to forget things. Better do this now or never.

TEXAS

Started off by getting to the car rental place at KCI 15 minutes before "fuck I forgot" opened so we could get our car. I always used Dollar in the past but decided to go the route of "fuck I forgot" because they were like 30 bucks cheaper than Dollar. I think they were new to the car rental scene. So anyways, the counter dude walks in shocked to see us there. "You guys must have had an early flight". Then he goes into the usual prying question. "Where you guys going?" Texas. "Uh, our cars don't go to Texas."

OH SHIT!

It was like a scene out of Office Space

Yeah, these cars are primarily for business folks and only registered to be in a four state area. Didn't you get the memo?

OUTTA THERE

Then we headed to trusty ass Dollar and used our net book to register a car for 6:15AM.

It was funny how the lady was pushing us to get the step-up from the economy because economy didn't offer cruise control. No thanks lady, I'd like the Aveo please. The car had the buttons for cruise control that I ignored for three hours driving because I thought they were disabled. Turns out they weren't. *Insert evil laugh here*

Lesson learned. Never use "fuck I forgot" unless you only plan on driving in MO, KS, NE or IA.

RAIN

There were maybe like two or three fifteen minute windows where it wasn't one form or another of the wet stuff coming down. I think I passed by 3-4 wrecks due to the shit.

HOUSTON

Finally made it to the same place we stayed at two years prior. Still had the same creepy ass elevator. Remember trying to find somewhere to eat at 10 at night. Only close option was the ghettofied McD's that had cops with two yutes in handcuffs across the street. Classy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpNgONH2ncI

The next day we had time to kill before we needed to be at the venue. So we took are happy asses to the Houston Zoo.

Cat Scat Fever

The forecast for that day was cloudy with rain moving in by midday....and yeah, it certainly did. As soon as we entered the primate exhibit the sky opened up and it starting POURING down. The one umbrella between the two of us was no match for that torrential downpour. It was the longest exhibit in the world and by the time we stumbled out we were drenched head to toe.

We needed to change our clothes and what better place to go shopping than your local Goodwill store. Maria found one close by so we headed there and bought some shit and for some damn reason they didn't sell socks but they did have this sexy thing.

Next we found a Walgreens that only had these XMAS themed socks. Whatever, that shit's comfy.

Then stopped by a FIVE GUYS and fattened ourselves.

OFF TO THE SHOW

Found some cheap parking garage and walked two blocks to the HOB. Escalator ride to the third floor. Pretty awesome to have some protection from the rain. Some guy pulled me aside who recognized my exist trace shirt and gave me mad props and asked if I had seen them in Seattle. No :-/

Then the fellow opens his button up shirt to reveal that he is wearing the same f'ing shirt and tells me he was there. haha,

SMALL WORLD

VIP CLUSTER

Everyone's an expert.

AWKWARD / VIP

I think this was the one where some lady was wearing a red harlot's outfit that was all about the sideboob. I just remember the band members making comments amongst themselves and chuckling with each other when they saw her come up for her photo.

SHOWTIME

DIR EN GREY Setlist House of Blues, Houston, TX, USA 2011, TOUR2011 AGE QUOD AGIS (Overseas Leg)

Typical issue of sound not being potted correctly at the start of a show, but man when they hit Lotus that's when it sounded amazing. The two-punch from Marrow was a pleasant surprise. Damn it was good. Funny moment happened when I caught myself saying OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD out loud when the recognition of Decadence was going to be played hit me.
I was wondering how the new songs would make the crowd react and I think for most of the middle of their set it made many NOT react. I can't blame them on TSUMI TO BATSU though. It's more of a performance piece. Speaking of performance, Kyo stole those shows both dates and what I hear from a Denver source he did the same there. This was the only show ever I've seen that they did not play The Final. Thank god because they played Kodou in the spot I believe would have been reserved for The Final.
Maria was next to this bad ass dude who was singing along the whole show which made the show one of the coolest yet. It was so much better than the lame ass whoops and hollers I do at their concerts.

Love that pouty foot stomp during his "last song" announcement.

Show ended and we stumbled into the direction of the car. The ground was nice and wet. When we were within a block of the garage me and Maria noticed that rare sight of money on the sidewalk. As we got closer I could make out the denomination of the bills...and they weren't $1's. They were $20's...and a lot of them.

BRING ON THE BAD KARMA

DALLAS

The drive to Dallas was short and sweet and we made it there around 3 or 4:30 in the morning.
The clerk had our reservation but said that we didn't have credit towards the room. WTH?! Here we go with the Karma.

The next morning I spent 45 minutes on hold before a Travelocity representative picked up. After another thirty minutes of back and forth between me and her and her with the hotel it turned out the hotel declined Travelocity's credit card. How the fuck?! Why wasn't this handled months prior when I paid for the damn thing. Craziest shit ever.

Anyways there was a shooting at the Amtrak that day. Another reason the government will trump up to install TSA at the rails.

Met up with Oregon's wild child Alex at her hotel and got to sit down and talk about her two week excursion to Japan after the earthquake. Her stories/pics/memorabilia were awesome.

We went to some Italian place she had been to the night before that apparently had an awesome menu but when we went there they only had five meals you could choose from. We learned they convert to that style of operation during the day. Weird.

VENUE

We get down to Trees late and play IMDB's iphone app to pass the time. Turns out I am horrible with movie knowledge.

VIP CLUSTER
?Blur?

I just remember seeing someone in a hospital bed in front of the stage.

ಠ_ಠ

SHOWTIME

DIR EN GREY Setlist Trees, Dallas, TX, USA 2011, TOUR2011 AGE QUOD AGIS (Overseas Leg)

Mic issues again. Kyo slams his mic down at the end of Hageshisa to...Then he comes back out for Obscure and beats his chest like an animal with the microphone. What a performer! Plays a little hide-and-seek with his jacket at the end of Rotting Root then rips that shit off for REPETITION. Ladies 'gasms commence. BEELZEBUB performance was mind blowing.
Standard good shit continues. HYDRA 666 was on fire. The phony ass trees in the place with the fog and Kyo's mask made the moment magical.

Love the intensity of the guitars in this song. Glad they played it.

POOF! OVER

Only thing I wish to hell they played was Decayed Crow.

Maybe on this upcoming metalcore tour.

We picked up some grub then dropped off Alex. Back at the hotel we realized we ganked her poster by accident.

THANKS

I decided to take the I-35 way back home. Forget that 71 highway nonsense.

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GRADUATION

FLY KCI

Me trying to save some cash once again chose Frontier over Southwest to get to Denver. Of course some shit would come up. The gate next to ours was a flight to Vegas that boarded a half an hour before ours. We get on ours soon enough and the minute past our departure time I knew something was afoul. Apparently something was fucked on the Vegas' plane and the "higher ups" at Southwest were giving them our plane and we had to deboard and wait for the Vegas plane to be repaired. So we then find out our "new" plane had frozen water lines. Whatever that means and there's a chance we won't be flying at all that day. They then come back a half an hour later saying they can jerry-rig it somehow by using the laboratory's water supply but we wouldn't have access to the johns.

FUCK

but they gave us free TV for the 90 minute flight.

We land and then I make the dumbest mistake ever and go out the wrong side of the train at the end of the lime. At took like 4 trains later before I could correct the mistake. I've only flown to Denver like 10 times before. Jackass.

PARTY

I like catching her at her happiest. :D

PROUD MOMENTS

Pretty awesome how the graduation was on a Sunday during a home Broncos game aaaaand the convention center is down the block from the stadium. So driving for me was fun. I still beat Alicia's boyfriend getting there so I felt like a thug.

Shit was inspiring. But there was this family behind ours that wouldn't stop blabbing about the damn game. Sneaking out to find a TV somewhere and relay the score to others. Ended up God was taking that day off.