Green Day Reborn????

Most of you probably know that Green Day has been my favorite band since I first heard of them in 1994 (holy shit I'm old! I was a freshman in college!!!!!! 18 years ago!!!!!!)

Ok, that took a sudden turn for the worse. Must focus...

The last couple of years, I've used the internet to learn about new music. I've found a website (of course its blocked at work so i can't find it right now) that shows the top 40 (or so) most played songs on "alternative" radio. This list seems pretty constant with music I like, so once a month or so I go through it and make sure all of those songs are on my j-pod (with the exception of put-me-to-sleep Jack Johnson type songs). So this is how I learned of a band called Foxboro Hot Tubs. I listened to song once, without knowing who it was and I just assumed it was a Green Day song. I know that they're working on a new album, but it's not supposed to be released until July. Seems weird to have a new song debut almost 5 months before the album comes out, but I was excited. I found out it's not actually Green Day. Wikipedia, here I come! Turns out nothing is official, but it says this:

While the band's history is, as yet, unknown, they are believed to be comprised
of the members of Green Day who are, according to rumors, performing "garage"
music under a nom de plume.

Interesting. You can download music from the bands' website for free, but of course...blocked at work. Actually, the website isn't blocked, just when you actually try and download a song...DENIED! Oh well, I can wait a few hours til I get home. But I'm very excited to hear the rest of these songs. And Billy Joe (lead singer) says he's got about 45 songs written for the new album. Holy crap!!!!!!


EDIT - apparently 1994 was only 14 years ago...thanks Stacey! :)

Another trip to Jacksonville

Lots of interesting stuff to report from this weekend. I'll try my best to make it brief. (HA!)

(Nurse) Kim met up with me in Atlanta and rode with me to Jacksonville Friday. Got into town and met up with Tracy & Stacey and others at the local Mellow Mushroom. Some people know of Mellow Mushroom as a pizza place (some may not know it at all) but the version in Jacksonville is more like a bar it seemed. Still pretty cool. Tracy was being a party pooper and wanted to go home, but me and Kim stayed and hung out at "The Shroom" (I just came up with that! I'm sure i'm the first too). Right about at last call time, I went back to the bar to get a last beer ( a Newcastle - draught, of course) and was rejected. The taps were cleaned and closed out. I went back to Kim to give her the bad news, she went up there and next thing I know, here comes Kim with 2 very very dark glasses of beers? What the???? Well, apparently the bartender liked her boobs better than mine, so she got us beer. Oh well, whatever. After the bar we went back to Tracy's place and popped in Talladega Nights. Kim was asleep within 10 minutes. Funny movie!!!!

Saturday I got tricked into going to a shoe store with Kim & Tracy..THATS not gonna happen again!!!! After that we went to this place called CRAZY Sushi. It didn't seem too crazy, but I'm not a sushi guy. Later that afternoon me and Tracy drove up to Jekyll Island for my friends' Jill & Josh's wedding. Before I left I got the address for the hotel and got directions from google. As we're headed towards the island the directions took us in a different direction than the signs for Jekyll Island. I definitely got suspicious, but stuck with the directions. Shouldn't have! We wound up in Saint Simon's Island. the street name is apparently on both islands, and google maps screwed me over. Finally we got to the hotel and to the wedding. Oh, on our way to the wedding, I found out my friends Mike & Courtney got engaged. So thats pretty cool. No one seems to listen to my "stay single" advice that my Grandpa gave me!!! Anyways, the wedding was pretty cool. I tried to get drunk enough to dance, but it just didn't happen. They actually had a cool idea for the music at the wedding - they emailed a select few of the guests and took song requests. They had a band for the first part of the reception when we were eating, but after that they just setup Josh's ipod. I thought that was a pretty neat idea. Anyways, I, of course, requested "Get Low" (you know, the sweat drop down my balls song). At the wedding Jill kept telling me it was coming up next, but it never came!

Sunday morning just as we were getting back on the interstate, I was passing a truck who decided to shower poor little Vickie with oil. It was ALL over my windshield, my hood, my bumper and just everywhere. A couple exits later I finally decided to stop at a gas station to make sure it wasn't coming from my car, and it wasn't. I really wish I took a picture, but I didn't. It really was everywhere. We grabbed 2 squeegee's at the gas station and just completely wiped my car off. Not fun. But it wouldn't be a road trip with Tracy if bizarre stuff like this didn't happen!

Sunday we drove back to Atlanta. Then this morning after I woke up, my TV in my bedroom (not Mitsa) was on Sportscenter just like its supposed to be. I walked into the living room for a minute and I heard the sound from the TV go off and heard some odd noises. I went into my room and smelled smoke. Something inside my TV blew up!!!! I couldn't do anything with the remote, so I wound up just unplugging it. Looking inside the TV you can see a bright orange glow...not quite a flame, but something was definitely burning in there! So...now I need a new TV. And since Mitsa has spoiled me, I'll probably have to spend a good bit of cash on a new TV now. Nothing huge, but definitely something HD compatible.

Thats a pretty eventful weekend, huh?

My weekend in Jacksonville

Fun with bullets...

Things I learned this weekend:

• If you win the lottery, you will spend money on coke (the powder form).
• It is perfectly acceptable on a dating game show to ask if you've seen your dad's ballsack.
• It is very important to put sunscreen on the tops of your feet. And on your lips too! movie quote time:
  Can you bring me my chapstick? my lips hurt real bad! Ugh! Idiot!
• I-16 is perhaps the most boring interstate in the US. At least the DUI checkpoint was entertaining.
• Carl is the only person amongst our group who is capable of seeing shooting stars.
• Drinking wine from a plastic cup on the beach at night isn't the worst thing in the world.
• Feeding birds should be illegal in the US, or just ban all idiots from the beach. I got shit on because some friggin foreigners kept feeding the damn seaguls.
• Jacksonville isn't a popular Memorial Day destination for seeing girls in bikins.
• Don't ever go to - or take part in - a Tijuana donkey show (I didn't, but I think Tracy or Stacey did) :)

I feel the need to expand upon the feeding of the birds lesson. I'm not exactly a regular beach go'er but I know some things. For example, typically the wind blows outward from the ocean towards the beach. So, this friggin family of foreigners - we'll call them the Retard family - sitting in front of us showed up with TONS of bread to apparently feed to the local seagulls. As soon as they start that, the entire worlds population of seagulls show up. They're all hovering over the Retard family. Now, the winds were pretty strong, so where do you think the seagulls shit lands? Nope, not on the Retards...on us. They were asked to move at least 3 times before I got a bird turd on my arm. Finally we got Papa Retard to stop, but then Junior Retard, Jr and his brothers kept going. And this is after Matt's towel was hit twice and a couple of other bombs landed amongst our group. The moral of the story...please don't ever feed seagulls when people who don't want to get shit on are around. This has been a public service announcement.

I Can Feel My Legs Again

So I flew out to Salt Lake City last Saturday, Sunday we (me, Tracy, Stacey, Rory) toured the city. Don't ever go to Salt Lake, there's nothing there for our types! First (and mind you, I was with 3 girls and I was the only guy) I got dragged to some Mormon choir/orchestra thing. Apparently these people have their performances broadcast nationwide on the radio Sunday mornings. I was just trying to sleep, but every time I got close to dozing off, they'd get loud. Not cool!

After that show it got worse, these girls wanted to go into this house called the "Bees House". (I think). Its the house that was built and lived in by Brigham Young - an important Mormon guy. Anyways, we go in, and I'm thinking maybe we just walk around for 5 minutes and be done. Yeah right! We walk in and we are greeted by this obnoxiously happy - but really cute - Mormon. She's just so damned excited to tell us all about this house, and I was trapped! Turns out its a damn 40 minute tour of this house. I couldn't possibly been more bored and uncomfortable. And then she starts asking questions and she learns I'm jewish. At this point, I'm very scared of this girl!!!! Anyways, we finish the tour and they give us these cards where we can sign up to receive a mormon bible and a pair of white boys will come to your house to "teach" you about the mormon lifestyle. So, naturally, I put down a friends' name, address and phone number and finally get the hell out of there!

After that, I was promised to have my lunch, and more importantly, BEER paid for since I was such a good sport on the tour. HA! Like I'm gonna find beer on a Sunday in Utah! Oh well, I got a free lunch! After that I had some leverage on our Salt Lake visit. I made them go check out the Delta Center (sports arena, where the Utah Jazz play and where some hockey was played during the 2002 olympics). We couldn't get in though. Then we saw a really old railroad station. Then we walked around the University of Utah. The opening and closing ceremonies were held at their football stadium. So that was pretty cool, but its a pretty small stadium! We walked around campus, I think we saw maybe 4 people. Its cold there! They stay inside I guess! Anyways, that was about it of the Salt Lake tour. Sunday night we drove to Park City, Utah where we skied. We had a really nice place to stay, I even wound up having my own room. Which was nice because sleep is cherished on these trips!

So skiing for 4 consecutive days is a bit much. By day 4, my legs were shaking as I went down the mountain! I actually decided to stop halfway down my last run and just kinda parked myself on a little snow hill for a half hour. It helped!!!!

There was 7 of us in our group. 3 snowboarders, 4 skiers. One day I'll have to try snowboarding, but I think I'm supposed to get good at skiing first! I hadn't skied in about 10 years, but remembering how to ski actually came back pretty quickly. I only fell once on my first day, and that was on purpose because I was just going too damn fast! They made me start on a "blue"! (green is for beginners, blue is intermediate and black, well, black is HAIL no!) But it worked out, after I fell, and then 20 minutes later when I was able to finally pick myself up (with help from a stranger - kinda embarrassing) I got pretty good after that.

Day 2 had a slight scare, I was going slowly down a hill, and these 3 people came up from behind me and I heard a guy say "careful, Hurricane fan on your left" (I had my FSU gear on) So this lady passes me and I could tell she was new at this. I tried to just stop and let her get far enough ahead of me. A few minutes later I'm right behind and her and she falls right in front of me. The only was I could avoid her was to try and jump over her. Yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea, I'm pretty sure my knee met up with the back of her head. I was fine, but I was so scared that she wasn't! She was fine, and I got alot more cautious the rest of the time. Which probably wasn't the best idea. Its no fun being cautious while skiing!!!!

Day 3, my friend Stacey introduced herself to a small tree. It didn't seem bad at the time, but she had a bruise on her leg about the size of a cantaloupe! It was huge! I wanted to get a picture but she wouldn't let me :)

Day 4 I had a pretty good bellyflop, that kinda hurt a little. I was just too tired and should've probably called it a day before that run! Oh well, all in all, it was fun. These guys have made this an annual thing, so I may be going back next year. Next year's destination: Wyoming. We'll see if I'm up for that. I can't imagine anything in Wyoming being fun!