Month: November 2001

I fully expect all area bloggers to attend tonight’s tomorrow night’s dfwblogs happy hour at the Meridian Room. And I don’t want to hear that same old “I’m too busy fleeing from the Northern Alliance” excuse. (Okay, I’m a bit calendar-challenged today. Is it too late to claim a jetlag excuse?)

Got a flu shot today, for the first time ever. (I’ve always preferred leaving my health in fate’s hands.) Not so bad an experience. Although the list of the flu strains I’m being protected from (New Caledonia! Guangdong! Johannesburg! Panama!) reads like the itinerary of the world’s worst Grand Tour.

If I was Iraq — and thank heavens I’m not — I don’t think I’d pick now as the time to start launching mortars across the border into Kuwait. (A story that isn’t getting much attention today, thanks to that small matter of another plane crashing in New York.)
Let’s see: ever since 9/11, there’s been a huge debate in the administration over whether or not to make the War Against Terror a War Against Saddam and let Bush fils finish what Bush pere did not. For the moment, the Wolfowitz kill-Iraq wing seems to have lost the debate. If I’m Saddam, I’m on my best behavior right about now. But then again, I’m not a megalomaniacal dictator, so maybe I’m missing something. (Attention ex-girlfriends: it is neither the time nor place to comment on my megalomania.)
Plus, you’ve got to love any wire story with a sentence like this: “[UN spokesman] Bagga said Kuwaiti border police have also complained that 15 minutes before the mortar firing, two Iraqis ‘in khakis’ were spotted firing several rounds from a Kalashnikov in the direction of the Kuwaiti border.” Iraqis in khakis. Is Halloween already over? ‘Cause I’ve got a costume idea.

Death Cab for Cutie was quite good, I thought. Ben Gibbard, the lead singer, was much more, well, kinetic than I thought: on disc, he sounds like this fragile, sensitive soul who writes sad, gorgeous songs, but on stage, he’s a wild man, forever doing that shoulder-jerk dance geeky high school boys do when they’re rockin’ it on the dance floor. They didn’t play one of my favorites, the ultimate breakup song For What Reason, but they hit on just about all the other highlights of their back catalog. And the stuff from the new album sounded great live.
Plus, unlike certain bands I could mention, they took the responsibility of a Sunday night show seriously and were done by 12:30. They also dispensed with the most irritating rock and roll ritual, the lengthy wait for the encore. Twenty seconds of crowd yelping, and they were back out on stage to recreate the odd Bjork cover that comes on the bonus disc of the new CD. I like my bands user-friendly.
Leia and Matt, who came with, were quite tired after a long day of hamster declawing, and unfortunately they had to leave a bit early. Hope they liked ’em. If you missed the show, here’s a good downloadable Death Cab concert from April 2000. (Matt, I assume you’ve already found this page, but if you haven’t, go hog wild — lots of stuff you’d like. And here’s some more DCFC MP3s. Hey, that kinda rhymes.)

A group of us blogish types are going to see the illustrious Death Cab for Cutie tonight at the Gypsy Tea Room. Let me know if you’re interested in meeting up.

I was thinking about going to see my old local college team, the Ragin’ Cajuns of the University of Louisiana, take on UNT. Of course, I was still sound asleep this afternoon when they played, but in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t go.
(UL used to be known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana [USL] before an unfortunate name change a couple years back to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. It’s unfortunate because no one knows what to call the school now. You can’t just call it “Louisiana” or “UL,” since there’s also a UL-Monroe. [Even though Monroe is a much weaker school than Lafayette.] “UL-Lafayette” is a mouthful; just try saying “ULL” five times fast. The best solution I’ve heard is “ULaLa,” pronounced “ooh-la-la.”)
And remember, free CDs available a few posts down. Four already taken — grab the rest before they’re all gone.

Wow, my body is more on Japan time than I thought. I couldn’t sleep until 6:30 a.m. this morning. (I spent the time doing some coding — geek! — and checking my server stats — ego-driven geek!) I thought after the very fine birthday party for Mark last night I’d be ready for bed. Or at least after he and I were forced to down birthday shots. But no — and as a result, I’m just waking up now. (I’m a slacker extraordinaire.)
In unrelated news, I had a story in the Religion section of the paper today. I didn’t even know it was running today until someone mentioned they liked it. I wrote that story back in August, but terrorist-related religious issues have been filling the section’s space since then, so my little piece on a religious TV show kept getting pushed back.

Just because you’re listening to Prince late at night doesn’t mean you should actually look at the lyric sheet. “Let’s look for the purple banana ’til they put us in the truck”? Huh?

I doubt much of what I write appeals to a particularly broad audience, but I worry most about the times I write about sports — I imagine most of you couldn’t care less about problems on the Saints‘ offensive line or Erubial Durazo‘s postseason stats. But hey, it’s my blog, so I’ll post what I want.
But the sportsphobic among you do have one thing to be grateful for. The estimable Jason has set up a blog dedicated to our shared obsession, North Carolina basketball. Each fall around this time, UNC hoops becomes an addiction, and I’ve bored countless girlfriends over the years with tales of Shammond Williams heroics, Derrick Phelps’ defense, or other such madness. (Okay, not countless, but several.) College hoops is, without a doubt, the finest sport of them all, and you’d probably be hearing about it in the coming months if Jason hadn’t set up this blog. Now, I’ll just post my thoughts there and spare you the bother. (My first post just went up.)
And, in case you can’t tell, I’m still on Japan time, which is why I’m posting at 3:12 a.m.

If you’re not as jetlagged as I am, get up a little early in the morning and go run the Freedom Run 5K. My friend Dena is helping organize it; your registration fee goes to the American Red Cross. Just don’t go and pull a Rosie Ruiz.