Yet another weekend comes and goes with a bang... now we find ourselves back at work. Mine was quite nice, actually. I spent Friday evening with a collection of friends old and new eating chicken wings and talking about basketball (is anything really better than that?). At one point we realized that one of our tablemates not only wasn't a sports fan, but actually hadn't been born at the time that many of the games/teams/players we were discussing were doing their thing. Of course, there's only one polite thing to do in this situation, change the topic...

to old school hip-hop jams that came out largely before he was born.

You'll be happy to know that after great discussion a few truths were unearthed:

1. We probably knew the only two or three people in all of Appalachia that owned a South Central Cartel album.

2. Naughty By Nature actually had some good songs that weren't party jams.

3. Nothing gets a party started like some Naughty By Nature.

4. People either seem to love or hate Ant Banks... I hate him.

5. In the category of "Best Notorious BIG Song" the nominees are, "Machine Gun Funk," "Warning," and "ThatonesongthathedidwithBoneThugsNHarmonyonLifeAfterDeath."


Saturday brought mountains of excitement as we set out on a journey to Cincinnati to see the world's only remaining rock band, Oasis. Of course, when I'm excited about something I'm about as reasonable as a kid on Christmas Eve that just wants to open ooooooone present, so we set out on the road at just after noon to make an 8 o'clock show just up the road... we were late and missed the opening act (sorry Redwalls, we barely knew ye). There were some surprises in store for us, as there certainly are in any journey.

I ran into Blake Shelton in the bathroom. If it wasn't Blake Shelton it was a guy that looks just like what I remember Blake Shelton to look like... and he answered to Blake Shelton. Now, normally that would be a lock, but on a trip to Nassau once I ran into a man that claimed to be Danny Trejo but actually turned out to be Robert Davi, so anything is possible (yes, that's a true story, I have several witnesses).

Surprise number two, Oasis t-shirts were THIRTY DOLLARS. Now, I'm sorry, but I know how much it takes to make a t-shirt, and if Old Navy can sell them fifty for a quarter then would someone explain why one that simply says, "OASIS" on the chest needs to be THIRTY DOLLARS? Look, for thirty bucks I want Liam Gallagher to personally customize my shirt with a Bedazzler.

I danced in the aisles with a rather attractive blonde who, God bless her, was every bit as good of a dancer as I am. If you haven't seen me dance then let me assure you, that last line wasn't a compliment. As we both started to realize that we were really bad dancers we just slowly started doing the pogo. Feeling that we'd made the right choice we pogoed through the second half of a cover of "My Generation" and then nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

Of course, no trip to Cincinnati would be complete without a certain level of jackassery. And when you've got Kenny and Cory, a few cold beers and a thousands of people to make friends with, well, you know it's coming. Needless to say we strolled back to Vickie and Rachel's 2nd floor walkup with an army of slightly (or very) inebriated Oasis fans, leading them in a rousing version of the theme song to WKRP in Cincinnati... and from what I hear, it was a very dramatic rendition.

Switching gears for a second: if you're not cheering for George Mason at this point then you have no soul.


I can't imagine that anyone could have watched that game without going into hysterics. Shortly after the UCONN buzzer-beater to tie up the game, Kevin called to inform me that it was over, UCONN would destroy them in overtime. I feigned optimism, completely sure that he was right, luckily we both were wrong. I will say this, if anyone can show me a Final Four bracket that includes Florida, UCLA, LSU and George Mason I'll rename my blog in your honor.

Finally, closing out the weekend was my first viewing of the David Lynch classic, Eraserhead. As I had anticipated, the film really wasn't that great. It's largely what you'd expect, a "weird for the sake of weird" low budget first film from a man that would become a legend.

It's worth watching, but pretty much exclusively for academic reasons. It' nice to watch Lynch using shots and tricks in this film that would later turn into staples of his work, and it's easy to see how this film would really have created a buzz in it's initial release. Unfortunately, as with many films it just doesn't hold up with age. If you're interested in a clinic on photography, lighting and post-modernism then you may consider this the finest film you've ever seen... but if you're actually looking for a story or a mild level of entertainment the please just put the DVD down and slowly walk away.

Not that it sucks... just not my thing.