my coachella reporting falls horribly short this year for a couple of reasons. first being that my camera has been broken for months and i have yet to replace it, so anything visual i have to offer would be that i’ve been fortunate enough to have handed down to me by my friends. second being that halfway through day two, jessica caught some sort of mean stomach flu — presumably from a malicious corn dog that snuck in with the otherwise quality festival food — which resulted in her throwing up for the remainder of the day and me keeping an eye on her, and both of us missing the latter half of the day, i.e. all the big acts like yeah yeah yeahs, go! team, tool, scissor sistors, what have you. bummer, huh? we found out later that stacy got sick too that night, zach and james both were ill on monday, and then i was blessed a full 36 hours later with my own vomitting fits tuesday morning. awesome!

nefarious viral plagues aside though the overall experience was still a great one, and i’m sorry my illness and business this week prevented me from sharing more of the details. if anything, the whole weekend was probably worth it to catch daft punk live, the definite highlight of the weekend (thanks to jen for the videos… huge files but you HAVE to see it). i mean, you really can’t beat some of the arguably best dance music ever made coming from guys in space helmets from atop a mysterious pyramid structure surrounded by LED light effects. other highlights were the magic numbers, bloc party, lady sovereign, white rose movement and for sure kanye west and sigur ros. eagels of death metal were fun but all their songs sound the same to me. phoenix sounded pretty flat live which is a shame cause i think they could have done much better if they tried.

needless to say after a weekend of heat, standing, noise, 50 thousand people, not showering, sleeping in hot tents, etc., this past weekend i was in more of a ‘let’s sit down and watch TV’ mood, so cinco de mayo was an excuse to have people over and play guitar hero, and the rest of the weekend was fairly low key as well. headed out to E3 though this week, so time to ramp up for more overstimulation and entire days spent on my feet!

Thousands of people rallying 2 blocks from my house.

my desk calendar says today is holocaust rememberance day. should i have sent out cards or planned a party?

look at that, i forgot to tell you all about last week at one of my boss’s going away parties where me and my coworker brought the house down (puns!) with our enthusiastic and none-too-clear-headed rendition of ‘jump around’. later i sang ‘livin’ on a prayer’ with a few girls and stood on a chair for part of it. umm, i think i like karaoke more than i should. probably stems from the same part of me that can’t get enough guitar hero, that being the part that is furious at itself for never pursuiing a career in ROCKING OUT.

saturday jess and i advanced through two rounds of a 64 team (i know, it’s crazy) beer-pong tournament at shaun’s big ‘shawapalooza’ concert/barbeque thing. my love for her was renewed several times over in the first round when she sunk five out of the six cups in probably less than 10 throws. i picked up some slack in round two but round three we were totally robbed by some ringer they brought in, which was unsportsmanlike and uncouth to the highest degree. you’ll find no such injustices at MY beer pong tournament, that i can assure you (cough*may13th*cough). plus it’ll probably be an invitational so there should only be maybe 16 teams instead of a vast army of frat-guys whose skills are unfairly developed in the art of all things drinking game. as i said, WE WERE ROBBED.

also: high school friends in the house! good old roomie pat was in town for a wedding and we treated him to some nicely overcast and non-summery beach volleyball and zankou chicken. then i distracted him with a movie to keep him from telling embarrassing stories about my past to my current lady friend in a deft maneuver i call “watching batman begins because it is awesome”.

such a full weekend i forgot to make my routine sunday call home, pretty much completely, until late last night. parents, if you’re reading this, i’m not dead, just kinda hungry. happy holocaust day too, sorry i forgot to send a fruit basket or anything.

not sure if i got lucky or unlucky — having gone to monday night’s cubs game at dodger stadium where they won, where maddux pitched an amazing game resulting in very few hits, but where i was standing in the concession line during the 5th inning when almost all of the cubs hitting and baserunning and scoring happened, not to mention it being the shortest ball game i’ve seen in ages clocking in at only 1:59. i mean, they won 4-1 and nothing much challenged that in the second half of the game. whereas last night’s game was a lot more hard-fought, zambrano was less consistent but made for a much more tense battle, and it went right down to the bottom of the 9th where unfortunately the dodgers pulled it out. would i rather be in the stands for a winning dull game or a losing nailbiter? tough call. i do know that it’s hard to appreciate a great pitching game from the top deck of dodger stadium though; it’s almost like watching from the blimp.

ah well let’s hope they pull out the series tonight so i can go back to gloating over my silly dodger-boosting friends tomorrow.

it’s new music month here, i picked up two albums a couple weeks ago and two more last week, so i’m swimming in good stuff. for now just the two i’ve had more time to digest…

the flaming lips – at war with the mystics – 3 stars
don’t get me wrong, i love the lips. i have maybe three quarters of their catalog and no regrets so far. but i’m afraid this album might be falling into the same trap as yoshimi did, in that there are three or four standout tracks, and i couldn’t remember the rest if you paid me. i wish i could give them a handicap for loving the flaming lips as an idea, which i do — watch wayne coyne in an interview, or their documentary fearless freaks, and i dare you to not to fall in love with him for his general demeanor and attitude toward life — but standing alone as an album i was just hoping for a little more meat to sink my teeth into, especially after what, four or five years since the last one? it’s good but not amazing, that’s all.

jens lekman – oh you’re so silent jens – 4 stars
this came out last year so there’s plenty more that’s already been said elsewhere, but i tend to agree with most of it so far. i’ll just summarize to save you the trouble: lots of swelling sweet pop songs and a beautiful voice that rings a bit of magnetic fields, but a little less writerly and a little more swooning. strings and horns and pianos make the album feel rich even if there are a few songs they probably could have left off, but what else is new? really good for singing along and it’s cute how all his “th” sounds turn into d’s. brother–>brudder; other–>udder; even the–>duh. adorably scandinavian.

don’t believe me? go to his site on secretly canadian and get ‘black cab’, or grab the new pay day song, maple leaves. great stuff.

a bit slow at work today so i’m prowling the internet for inspiration and info. clicked NY times of course, because you have to, and was greeted with a lead headline proclaiming:

RUMSFELD FACES GROWING REVOLT BY RETARD GENERALS

and i almost yelled out in laughter at the mental image of such a revolt by a horde of very slow-moving, formally-dressed generals who have overcome their disability.

but it said, “retired”, not “retard”, so i caught myself and just realized i’m stupid.

also, this week’s tiny showcase print (‘stereo friends’, doug boehm) was super badass cool. i wish i could pull a magic lever in my bedroom or something and get 20 dollars for random stuff like this. there are so many neat things in the world i’d love to have but never actually get because i spend all my money on food and drink too quickly. speaking of which, i am thirsty. have a good weekend.

i’m not going to get all reviewy again already because there’s no need to OD on my own half-explained opinions for why things are especially good. besides, i don’t have anything really interesting to say about this other than i’m enjoying it right now. but in terms of a pay day song i’m gonna have to go with a track from the new ghostface killah album fishscale. every time i hear the champ i want to get in a ring and punch someone. in the FACE.

i’ve also been playing around with what should i read next.com this week and i really like the idea. basically the same idea as amazon recommends, but with a really simple and clean format and not associated directly with any seller (at least not on it’s face). sure, i already see several improvements they could or should build in, but as is it’s kinda cool just to check out the favorites lists of people with whom you share several overlapping books. i think i went a little crazy taking down titles for my own personal ‘i should read that!’ list though… it’s exciting and daunting how little a dent i ever seem to put in that ever-growing thing.

okay, i was really hoping i’d have an excuse to go to the body shop and snap a picture or two before posting this, but i haven’t and i realized i might want to remember this later, so now is the time to write it down.

saturday night i may have killed my car.

or rather, the guy who made an illegal left turn from the southbound lane on highland crossing wilshire, where there is a slight curve making it so that someone going full speed in the northbound inner lane through a very much green light, such as myself, might not be able to see them until, say, the moment they yell “holy shit” and only get a chance to slow down halfway before plowing into the aforementioned guy and sending him spinning 180 degrees around the axis of his front end, as well as sliding across the pavement to tap a car waiting at the red light on wilshire — or at least, that’s what i think i saw through the smoky haze following the rapid deployment of both airbags. so technically he killed my car.

so now my poor matrix, whom i have loved dearly and taken on at least a dozen fondly remembered road trips, is sitting in a body shop in hollywood awaiting its verdict; ‘too much damage to be worth repairing’, or instead the alternate ‘lots of damage, and this might take a while…’

should be fine, since the other driver (a) was making an illegal left (those big red circles through the arrows do mean something, (b) was clearly witnessed by the other guy who got tapped as in the wrong, and oh yeah, (c) didn’t have a license and got his car impounded. but luckily the car’s owner, his relative, has insurance from what i gathered. whew. let’s hope i get the funds to either repair or replace, otherwise i’m gonna lose the otherwise calm demeanor allowed to me by the fact that neither myself or my girlfriend in the passenger seat were injured in any way.

and i promise to share a picture of my smashed up ride if i do end up having cause to go visit it (e.g. some sort of automotive last rites need to be performed or i need to sign something before they start operating).