Rule 32: Enjoy the little things in life.

So it’s that time of year again when everybody in a fifty mile radius of Chicago (possibly more) goes car crazy (moreso than usual).  I am within this fifty mile zone, so yes, myself included.  That’s right folks, the Chicago Auto show was here.

Now, I’m not a huge car guy, but I do like shiny things.  So, in lieu of  my indepth analysis of this years cars, here’s pictures of shiny things!

–theindiegeek

So let me break it down for you, I recently had the opportunity to see Owl City in concert.  That’s the good.  The bad: it was at my alma mater, the good old Valparaiso University.  Now I wouldn’t say I hate going back to VU, rather the contrary, I go back fairly often to see my sister and a few friends still there.  But I would say I hate being in enclosed spaces with hordes of VU students.  Partially my crowd-strophobia (is that a word?), partially ‘didn’t I finish four years of this recently?’, and partially ‘I hate VU administration’.  But hey, it was Owl City.

Might I say that it seemed like the town of Valparaiso had gone crazy that night?  There were people lined up before 6PM for a 7:30 show.  Note: They weren’t trying to get tickets, all had been sold out well in advance.  Also, it seemed like half the town was drunk, (drivers included).   Valparaiso drivers aren’t shining examples of driver paragons, but this was nuts.  People stopping in the middle of roads for no reason, parallel parking attempted doomed to fail from the start, etc.  Also, plenty of crazy people at BW3’s, but that’s normal.

Owl City

Stopped at BW3’s for food, skipped most of the opening band then headed to the show.  Having elected NOT to wait in line for hours, I walked right in.  Opener played a few songs. Nothing fantastic, but ok.  Sounded like a poor man’s Yellowcard. And then I waited. And waited.  The opener finished around 9 PM, pretty sure it wasn’t until about 9:45 that Owl City came on.

An impressively large group for a band that started out as one guy in his basement, Owl City was quite fun to listen to, and they put on a good show.  Adam Young did a good job, despite being sick.  And yes, his vocals weren’t spot-on because of it, but I don’t blame him for it, not his fault nor his control.  Props to Adam Young and Owl City for doing their best and performing well.  They pretty much ran straight through Ocean Eyes, something I had no problem with. Great album with plenty of good songs.

Wasn’t a perfect show though. To be honest, pretty far from it.  And I mostly blame VU.  Honestly, who holds a concert on a Thursday night, people either have class or work the next morning.  But my biggest gripe of all is the acoustics.  The concert was held in the Union Ballroom, as it was put on by Union Board.  The Ballroom is a big long box with terrible acoustics.  It felt akin to wearing a foam hat.  Everything felt really muffled.  Had I not known the songs, I wouldn’t have understood what he was singing.  Union Board, leave concerts to The Source, they know how to do concerts, and quite awesomely I must say.

To wrap up, it was a pretty good show, not great, but that’s mostly due to the venue and Adam’s illness, no fault lies with the band. I look foward to seeing Owl City again in a real venue.

PS: Thanks to Kylee for the pictures.

At last, the battle was won.  The enemy was defeated, and the great Warrior had his victory.  At long last, his campaign against the evil was complete. But at what cost?  The Warrior looked over his shoulder to where she stood to see the joyous look of victory on her face.  But she was not too be seen.  He frantically searched and after a few seconds he laid eyes upon her.  She was lying on the floor, crumpled, blood seeping from her wounds.

The Warrior ran over to her, not bothering to sheathe his sword, instead carrying it with him still drawn.  As he approached her, he could see what had happened; a stray spell had hit her, for it was not by a blade her injuries were made.  He shook his head in defiance, for such a great victory could not happen the same time at this terrible tragedy.  He knelt down and gathered her into his arms, her long auburn hair getting tangled in his armor, her crimson blood spilling onto his hands as he tried to stem the bleeding.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t good enough” she tried to say as she choked.  He reassured her that nothing was her fault and she had performed beyond perfection.  ”Remember when we met?  Who knew it would end like this?” She whispered.  He nodded.  Of course he remembered when they met.  He had been a mercenary, hired to defend a village from raiders, she was a wandering Ranger, passing through.  Together they defended the village, and after seeing each other’s prowess in battle, decided to join up together.

“Don’t try to speak,” he said, “a cleric will be by soon, you’ll be fine.”  They both knew he was lying. “Shh, be still,” she said, “It was good, not a bad end to a life spent wandering. Goodbye, my love.”  He was unable to say anything.  The Warrior simply held his Ranger and watched the life leave her eyes.

“What’ll he do now?” One of his allies said. “Endure.  Endure as he’s always done,” another said.  For indeed he had endured.  There were many friends buried beneath the ground they traveled.  But this time was different.  No one was sure what would become of the Warrior.

He moved his hand to close her eyes, removing it from one of her wounds.  The blood from it spilled out, onto his blade.  He closed her eyes and goes to wipe the blood from his blade, but at the moment he touched it, a faint magical sensation ripples through his arm and into the sword.  Without any explanation, the sword starts to change.  It grows longer, thinner, sharper. More like her.  But the most drastic change is that the blade itself became the auburn color of her hair.  He did not understand but he accepted.  He cut off a lock of her hair and wrapped it around the hilt.  It was fitting that since he was a different man, so should his weapon, a veritable extension of himself, also be different.

He gently laid her down and stood up.  His allies, having seen what happened, offered no claims of “It’ll be ok” or “I understand”, but rather bowed their head in reverence and respect for the fallen: the Ranger, and all their lost.  For on that day, the price of victory hit them all like a resounding gong.

Recently, a friend lent me the DVD Directions by Death Cab for Cutie.  Directions is a visual companion to their album, Plans.  Each video has a different director who was given essentially total creative freedom with their video.  This results in a very creative myriad, each one being quite different from the rest.  The band themselves do not appear it apart from an introduction at the beginning of the DVD, and in the music.  The real goal of the DVD is to present a different way of experiencing the music.  Instead of merely an audio coming from your CD player, the video hopefully enriches the experience that much more.  Do I feel they accomplished that?

I do.  I have been a fan of Death Cab (and Plans) for some time.  But still watching the videos for the songs felt like a new, but familiar, experience.  Well worth watching, a few of my favorites are “Crooked Teeth”, “Jealousy Rides with Me”, and “Summer Skin”.  It is an entertaining experience, the culimination being more that merely a sum of its parts.

–theindiegeek