Copying Jill's post

They didn't have "physics" as an option, but if you mix math, engineering, and philosophy, that's what you'd get, I think...

You scored as Mathematics. You should be a Math major! Like Pythagoras, you are analytical, rational, and when are always ready to tackle the problem head-on!

Mathematics 100% Engineering 100% Philosophy 100% Psychology 92% Chemistry 83% Biology 75% Sociology 67% Linguistics 67% English 58% Journalism 58% Anthropology 58% Art 33% Theater 25% Dance 8% What is your Perfect Major? created with QuizFarm.com

Concert Retrospective

In light of Jill's recent post and next weekend's Tulsa trip to see Ben Folds, I thought I'd take a look back at some of my favorite concert memories over the years. (Plus, I had about 30 minutes to kill and couldn't figure out what else to do.) Main events are listed first, opening acts are in parentheses. My somewhat dorky music taste got better as I got older, I'd like to think...

The O.C. Supertones (Ghoti Hook, Stavesacre): My first real concert. I was in 7th grade and Kyle's dad took us. We were at Bronco Bowl in Dallas (before they tore it down...anyone else remember Bronco Bowl?). This is where I got my first taste of the ritual of concert t-shirt buying, a staple for anyone even somewhat involved in the live music scene.

Five Iron Frenzy (Switchfoot, The W's): I promise they won't all be cheesy Christian ska/punk bands. I went to this one with my dad, Kyle, and Max Kunisch. Switchfoot only had one album out at the time. The concert was in the attic of punk-rock church somewhere in Hurst or Richardson or somewhere like that. The AC wasn't working, and it got so hot that people started passing out and they had us all go outside for like 20 minutes or something. This is one of my favorites to look back on, because I liked Switchfoot so much and they were opening for Five Iron in the attic of some church, and now they are on TRL and stuff. Crazy. Plus, Reese Roper (Five Iron's lead singer) was still in his habit of wearing bizarre outfits on stage, and I think he was dressed as an African shepherd or the Sheik or something that night.

Eric Clapton (someone whom I'd never heard of and whose name I can't remember): This was awesome. We were in High School (junior or senior year, I don't remember). Kyle's dad took me, Kyle, and Andrew to see Eric Clapton for Kyle's birthday. It was at Reunion Arena. EC played for almost 3 hours, and it never once got boring, not even a little bit. He was absolutely incredible.

Ryan Adams: In summer 2005, I was living in Austin working at National Instruments. Kyle lived in San Marcos at the time and was a music writer for the Texas State newspaper. He called me one day and told me that was covering the Ryan Adams concert he had two free tickets to see him the next night in downtown. He played two sets, including almost all of the "Heartbreaker" album, and it was free and spontaneous.

Ben Folds, Rufus Wainwright (Ben Lee): The same summer, I drove to Arlington on a Friday, then drove to Tulsa, OK (4.5 hours or so) on Sunday afternoon, saw Ben and Rufus that night, then drove back to Arlington that night, arriving at around 4 AM. Then I drove back to Austin the next day, but it was all worth it. Ben Folds is my favorite, but Rufus put on the best show I've ever seen, hands down. If you ever get the chance to go see him, take it.

Honorable Mention: Counting Crows/Goo Goo Dolls, Dream Theater/Joe Satriani (mostly for unintentional comedy value), Lyle Lovett, Cornerstone Festival (where I saw, among many others, Larry Norman and Stryper...To Hell with the Devil!!!).

Please feel free to share your favorite concert memories.

Long, strange weekend...

Alright, I have a few interesting things to say here.

First, on Thursday, I had a run-in with the 14 year old EE student here. He is this little, nerdy looking kid with a squeaky voice. His parents should be drawn and quartered for sending him to college like that. Anyway, I was walking out to my car, passing the Petroleum Engineering building, and he comes out of the door about 5 feet in front of me as I was passing, glances at me furtively, then proceeds to run towards the door I was walking towards in the goofiest manner possibly. He was running such that his feet sort of stomped and his armed flailed crazily in all directions. He stopped at the door and opened it for me. I said thanks, and he, in an extremely squeaky manner, said, "no problem." Then he ran off the other direction in the same crazy way. No one else was around to see it either, which really was a shame.

On Friday, I saw a bicycle pulling a cart with a guy in a huge bear suit on it. They were riding around campus in the middle of the streets. Bizarre. I have no idea. I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Also, Friday, I finally convinced my physics professor that the pulsating charged sphere does not radiate power. Quite exciting, considering we'd been arguing for almost a week about it.

Saturday, I was at a Robot competition for junior highs and high schools West Texas, and, needless to say, I saw some crazy people. Who joins the robot team in high school? I guess I was part of the state finalist MathCounts team at Boles Jr. High, so maybe I can't really talk here...

Saturday night, I saw "The Departed". It was excellent. Pretty gory and crude, but great. Definitely a guy-movie, though.

Soul Handshake

The other day I got my first authentic black-guy handshake. A few weeks ago, I was walking up the steps to my apartment, and this black (I think he was actually mulatto) guy with baggy pants coming up behind me. He looked a little thuggish, and he looked like he was trying to catch up to me, so I was a bit concerned at first. Then he asked me if Nils (my roommate, Sven's brother) was home, as he proceeded to walk in the door behind me. At this point I was still a bit concerned, since for all I knew he could have just discovered that a guy named Nils lived there and that he wasn't me and then used that information to gain just enough of my confidence to get into our house, and he was planning on robbing and killing me (OK, so that's a slight exaggeration...). However, he turned out to be a really nice guy. We talked for some time about school and stuff for a while. His name was Shahrazad (I'm not sure if he spelled it the same as the Arabian Nights guy). Anyway, he came back over last week and when I opened the door, I got an enthusiastic black-dude handshake (you know, the kind nerdy white people do jokingly, but black guys do them and they seem cool). Probably my first and last.

On another note, this has been a depressing football season. The Red Raiders are killing me, and Drew Bledsoe...don't even get me started. He does not look like an athlete. Bill Simmons (with some help from a reader) summed it up best, I think, in his article from last week. The awkward softball game analogy is spot-on.

The Texans are clearly the second-class NFL team in Texas in every conceivable way. Why wouldn't they try to feud with the Cowboys? If you were Gary Kubiak, wouldn't you be making little passive-aggressive digs to get Dallas people riled up, like: "We have all the respect in the world for Bill Parcells, he was one of the greatest coaches ever," and "We're nervous about playing Drew Bledsoe. We've been dropping easy interceptions all season. This will be a big test for us." They really need to work on this.

My favorite random Bledsoe e-mail of the week, from Eugene in Madison, Wis.: "Did you see Bledsoe getting up after he ran that touchdown in against Philly? His teammates were helping him up like they thought his spine was broken. The celebration looked like something you would see at a company softball game, where the fat, uncoordinated boss that nobody really likes nearly kills himself trying to beat a throw to home, and everyone kinda awkwardly celebrates the fact that he scored, but they don't really like him, and they kinda wish he was a little more hurt than he was, but they pretend to kind of care that he might be hurt. Right?"

Again, I think Dallas needs to make a QB change.

Oh well, at least hockey season has started, and the Stars are 5-0. On a side note, if you are a fan of the Stars announcing team (Ralph Strangis and Darryl Reaugh) you should read this article by John Buccigross. It always makes me nervous whenever they get national attention, because I'm afraid ESPN is going to steal them or something.

Strange Commercial

I just saw a commercial for the US Army reserve. The kid was talking to his dad, saying he was going to enlist, and the dad was like, "I don't know", but the kid convinces him with some argument like, "I'm going to be a part of something special," or something along those lines. Anyway, it was very moving. After that, the commercial voice guy says something like, "call today to see about strengthening your community and your country by joining the US Army Reserve." They give some other info about it, and then it says, "also, you'll receive a free sports watch." A sports watch?! I can just hear potential callers, "I'm thinking about committing to joining the armed forces, and I don't really know if I want to spend my life in this way, I'm really having doubts about it, but when you decided to throw in that watch, mmmm boy! I jumped all over this. I mean, sports watches are worth AT LEAST $10, that's a great deal." I don't know if I want the people who are dumb enough to take that offer defending our country...

The Cardinal Rule of Football

Here's a quote from an article on ESPN.com regarding Texas Tech's 31-27 victory over Texas A&M.

Tech trailed 27-24 when Johnson outleaped A&M cornerback Jordan Peterson to make an acrobatic catch in the front corner of the end zone, stunning the crowd of 85,979, the eighth largest in Kyle Field history.

As the teams lined up for the decisive play, Harrell spotted the single coverage on Johnson and called an audible.

"I was like, 'Robert against that guy?'" Harrell said. "I like our chances."

Dusty Thompson's (my college minister) Cardinal Rule of Football: Never put a slow white guy in single man coverage against a large, fast black man.