Awesome.

Awesome is the only word i can think of to describe the Muse concert i attended last Friday. Even if viewed from a purely musical standpoint, the performance was awesome. Such incredible song writing and arranging skills, and spot on musicianship are rarely seen in artists these days. The songs inspire and make one move and think and emote. But it wasn't just great songs played well (although Muse have great songs and play them well). It was the show. Brilliant use of green lasers and multi-colored LED spotlights and other lighting combined with the stage set (three sky scraper platforms that descend into the stage). My seats weren't the best (even though i bought them pre-sale, the best i could get was second level at some odd angle to the stage...pre-sale is a crock of shit). Despite the less than great seats, the mix wasn't too bad and the volume of the PA was loud but not deafening or harsh. Muse opened with "Uprising", possibly one of their best songs ever and played a good mix of songs from albums old and new alike. The Silversun Pickups opened for Muse and were just amazing to see live too.

I missed the first song from the Silversun Pickups as traffic getting to the venue was as fucked as i'd ever seen Seattle traffic. It took a full half an hour to travel just two miles. Of course, asshole drivers zipping past the line of cars patiently waiting their turn to exit the freeway and going to the head of the line and stopping traffic until someone let them in didn't help matters any. One stupid asshole found out he was fucking with the wrong fag. The guy almost hit my car as he was trying to weasel his way in front of me just a couple car lengths from the end of the exit lane. I held my ground and he had to get behind me. He then had the balls to roll his window down and shout something to me about being a stupid fag, blah blah blah. Seeing as how traffic wasn't moving anyway, i took the opportunity to calmly put my car in park, get out and ask this prick just what the FUCK his problem was. I stated that if he wished to spend the next few weeks in a hospital bed recovering from untold injuries, that he should by all means continue his present course of action. If, however, he wanted to spend his weekend breathing unassisted and moving under his own power, that he should offer and immediate apology. I said all of this in a fairly calm and cool tone of voice. This obviously had an effect on him, as he was stammering out his apology giving excuses as to why he was acting like such a prick within half a second of me ending my little speech. I was back in my car and on my merry way and i didn't even hold up traffic. The idiot kept about five car lengths back even though we were only traveling at half a mile an hour. Eventually, some other cars merged from another lane and i didn't see him again. It felt good to put this prick in his place.

I met the boyfriends psycho Christian parents for the first time on Sunday. He invited me over (with their permission) for Easter dinner. His parents are really nice people, but they don't much like gays and aren't really thrilled that their son is gay. My bf was REALLY stressed about the whole thing because of how past boyfriends have been received by his parents. But, things went fairly well and he said that his parents actually like me, despite the fact i get gay with their son. Maybe it's because i'm not a bum and have real career unlike bf's past. The food was really great too. His dad is an exceptional cook. But i was a bit nervous after hearing horror stories about how things have gone with past bf's. But he seems to think things are OK with the parents this time. He also seems to think this is a huge step in our relationship as well, as he said he has only ever brought home guys he is really serious about. He sent me a text after i took him home to tell me just how much he loves me and that he loves me no matter what. That made me happy. He also said he misses me already, even though we had only been apart for about 45 minutes. I miss him too...

Sunday also marked five months that i have been seeing my bf. Wow. Has it really been five months?! We are practically an old married couple in terms of gay relationships. There has been some talk about moving in together in the not too distant future. I'm a little scared about that honestly. I'm happy about having him around all the time, but that's a huge step. And he's my first real boyfriend. So, first time having a live in boyfriend is spooky. I am scared about him being my first serious relationship too. I wonder if that concerns him? I wonder if he worries that i will get bored with him and want to try something new with someone else. I of course won't do that. I love him so much i don't have the words to express it. I am concerned too, because everyone always warns me about not going to crazy over the first guy i fall in love with, that first relationships never last. I think they're wrong and i would be perfectly happy with him for the rest of my life. I mean, anyone who knows just how fucked up i am and STILL loves me? He's deffo a keeper!

Well, this has been long winded enough. Time to sign off. I hope you all had a nice Easter.

Until next time...

Let's see...

Yay! Muse is coming to town in April and i've got my tickets in my hot little hands. I can't wait! Good times. After three and a half months of waiting, my new S5 finally arrived a couple of weeks ago. It is, believe it or not, better than the car it replaces. The electronics in this car far surpass that of the old one. The new one also has a really slick adjustable performance differential as a part of the Drive Select system. I haven't had the chance to test it's effectiveness yet, but in theory it will make cornering performance even better than ever. It's really quite a bit of fun to drive in any event. Now, if i can only be a good boy and take it easy on it for the first 1000 miles and break it in properly. I feel quite snobbish with a new Audi A4 and a new Audi S5 in my garage. Quite snobbish.

Anyway, i'm dead fucking tired. Time for bed. Laterz.

Uprising

Hiya! OK, so i just got home from work and i'm tired as hell, but OMG what a fun night! I spent my breaks at work texting the guy i met at the concert. :D We have a lot more in common than just the music we listen to. We both love hiking, bicycling, science, music in general, a bunch of other stuff i'm to tired to think of at the moment lol. He seemed very interested in what i do for a living, and i offered to get him in for a tour and he was really excited about that. :P I learned about him a little bit too, and he seems like a really nice guy. He seems a bit like me in some regards (the good ones mostly, but he seems kind of shy like i am). He's still in college, so he's a bit younger than me. But given that we seem to get a long so well, i don't think that will matter much regardless of where this winds up going. I really enjoyed talking with him, and he seemed to like talking to me too. Our conversations flowed really well. We never seemed to stall on any one subject. In fact, i have been home for almost two hours and we have been texting ever since then (he finally said goodnight a few minutes ago). I'm really trying to keep my hopes from getting to high, as i still have no idea if he's even gay or if he knows or suspects that i am, etc. Deep down though, i really do hope this will turn into something more than just a friendship. But i really feel stupid even entertaining that thought. The reality is that it just isn't likely to happen. I'd only be setting myself up for disappointment by expecting anything more than just a friendship. But even with as little as i actually know about him, i really like him (and not just his good looks lol). I probably sound rather foolish rambling on like this. In any event, he will no doubt be a great friend, as we do have so much in common and have proved we can talk for hours about all sorts of things. It seems funny now how nervous i felt talking to him at the concert. It's interesting how asking one little question about how he managed to get such a good seat has got me as far as this, and with so much more possible in the future. Enough of my blather...

Are you sick of me posting songs yet? Tough shit. Get over it. :D So, concert boy mentioned to me that Muse is his favorite band. Muse is one of my favorite bands too. As a way of having a conversation starter, i bought their new album "The Resistance" Wednesday night (i got to Best Buy five minutes before they closed and got the last copy on their shelves...talk about luck!) and gave it a few listens. I would have bought it eventually anyway, but i had a little extra motivation to do it in a timely fashion. :P OMFG, what an absolutely fucking brilliant album! I have listened to this disc non-stop all day...in the car, on break at work, for the third time since getting home from work...haha. Without further ado, "Uprising"...

Kneel and disconnect...

Well, i'm just back* from the Porcupine Tree concert in Seattle (by "just back", i mean several hours ago lol). Wow...what an absolutely amazing show Porcupine Tree put on! I'm not talking about grandiose theatrics, glamor and glitter. Instead i'm talking about the absolute pinnacle of musicianship. Not only is Steven Wilson (Porcupine Trees main songwriter and front man) a musical genius, but all the other members of the band are integral to making the band what it is. Each musician has mastered his craft and the net result is a band that plays super tight and are even better live than they are on the best produced studio album you could imagine.

The show was played at The Moore Theater in Seattle. That venue is one of the most amazing places i have ever seen a concert at. I may be off by a year or two, but i believe the place was built in 1907. What a gorgeous piece of architecture. A anyway, i bought my tickets online directly from the band. I just placed an order for two tickets, and never really had a choice as to where i was going to be seated. Lucky for me, it was a reserved seating venue, not general admission. So, imagine my surprise when i pick up my tickets from will call and see "row A" printed on my ticket. Holy shit!!!! Front row seats to see my favorite band play live!!!!!!! How could this night get any better?!

Well, about 10 minutes before the opening act ("That 1 Guy" - fucking incredible, btw...lol) appeared on stage, a super cute guy caught my eye. Well, imagine my luck when he sat 3 seats away from me. Yeah, he is VERY cute! So, it's pretty easy to start up conversations with people at concerts because everyone is there to see one particular band play. Easy icebreaker. The problem is, there are 2 other people between him and me, and talking across them would be awkward at best. So, i keep stealing glances at him trying not to be too conspicuous, wondering how i can start a conversation with him without looking like a complete twat lol.

So, after That 1 Guy played his amazing set (seriously, his music is indescribable...one man making an incredible amount of music, all on a self made instrument that looks like it was pieced together using scraps of pipe from the Home Depot), there was a brief intermission before Porcupine Tree took the stage. Oooh...maybe i can talk to the cutie! But damn the luck, both people in the seats between us stayed put. Oh well...

For the first half of Porcupine Tree's set, they played their new album "The Incident" from start to finish. Steven Wilson described it as a "song suite", meant to be played and listened to as one continuous piece of music. Being parked two feet from a stack of loudspeakers was great! I could feel a concussion wave with each strike of the bass drum and with each bass note and heavy chord played...fucking awesome! And being 10 feet away from the band and being able to see them all play live was pretty cool too. :P

At the end of the first half of the set, the band took a short intermission. As the lights came up, the two guys sitting between me and cutie got up and left. To where, i don't know and really don't care...this was my chance! So, i slid a few feet over and said "hi" very nervously and awkwardly...lol. I felt so stupid. Guys who i am really attracted to intimidate the hell out of me. I got all clammy and sweaty, despite the fact that i'd been rocking out pretty hard the previous hour and didn't sweat then. Note to self...nerves make me sweat. Back to cutie...after my initial and very awkward hello i asked if he'd seen Porcupine Tree live before, to which he replied no, this was his first time seeing them live. I talked about the last show i saw a little bit, and how this venue was way better. I then asked him how long he'd been listening to them and what his fav song and album were etc. The convo was moving along, but i was nervous as hell and was coming up silent a little to often for me to feel comfortable and that only made me more nervous. So, we eventually started talking about other bands we liked and he mentioned a few i'd never heard of, and i mentioned a few he'd never heard of. Then he mentioned Muse, another one of my favorite bands! Just as he mentioned Muse, the lights went down, and Porcupine Tree took the stage to play the second half of their set.

The second half of the set was just as amazing as the first, and contained a lot of really good songs from their back catalog of material. Again, i really can't stress enough how amazing this band is live! Every song they played had a life of its own, full of power and emotion. And just the sheer difficulty of some of the songs they played inspired awe as they were performed flawlessly. Did i mention this was the opening night of their US tour, and was the first time the band had played any material from the new record, let alone the entire thing? It was pretty cool to be a part of the first audience to hear a new album played live.

After the encore, which was cut short due to some bullshit noise ordinance in Seattle, the lights cam up and i turned to cutie and resumed our convo where we left off. I said, "so Muse is your favorite band eh?". His eyes lit up and he told me they had a new album out as well (which i'd read about, but almost forgot about until he mentioned it). I asked him how it was in comparison to their older material, and he asked what albums i liked best, and i told him in order the ones i liked best. He smiled and said he liked their albums in the same order i liked them. :D Coincidence? lolz. So he described the new record a bit and how it fit in the line up. So, he started to make for the aisle and was saying it was good to talk to me, etc, when i said "I should give you my number so we can talk music!". "Yeah! That would be cool!". So, i introduced myself proper and so did he and we exchanged mobile numbers. :P

Now, i have no idea if he is even gay or not, and i'm not quite sure if he knows i'm gay (probably not, as i look and act pretty straight, although lately i have been dressing a bit more metro lol). But still, i was able to strike up a convo AND get the phone number from a cute guy! Granted, i cheated and used the concert as a conversation starter, but who really cares? I got his number lol! So, if nothing else, i made a new friend. I'm not holding my breath, because he was younger than me, and even if he is gay, probably wouldn't be interested in me in "that way". But i'll take what i can get. A new friend will be nice, and a cute one at that. :p Maybe it's better i went to the show alone. If i'd gone with someone, who knows if i'd have had the opportunity to talk to him, or if whoever i went with would have got to talk to him instead of me...

After that, things went to shit...lol. I parked 8 blocks from the theater to avoid the traffic mess on the streets closer in. I even parked for free, since i got there after 6pm...lucky me! But, as i was driving to the freeway, i got about 1/3 of the way there when traffic stopped. Dead fucking stopped. Gridlocked at 11:15pm on a Tuesday night ffs. It took me 45 fucking minutes to drive the mile to the freeway on ramp. WTF!?! I was about to have a serious road rage episode...lol. No reason for it, no construction, not really anything going on to warrant that level of gridlock hellishness. But i maintained an even strain, thinking of the cute guy who i got to talk to and whose number now resides in my mobile phone...lolz.

On the car front, the insurance rep i'd been dealing with rang me up today and told me she had fought long and hard with the home office, and finally got them to agree to pay me almost what i'd paid for my car, plus sales taxes (9.3% in my county) and licenses and registration fees. All told, i'm getting $415 less for my car than what i paid for it. Plus, the service and maintenance plans and the GAP coverage i bought are all refundable pro-rated to the date of loss. All in all, not too bad. Now to nail the bitch who hit me to the fucking wall with the bodily injury/pain and suffering suit. I want to see her living in a cardboard box under the interstate... *laughs evilly* She picked the wrong guy to run into. -_-

Once again, i shall end my post with a song. This is a cut from Porcupine Tree's newest album "The Incident" called "Time Flies". Pretty good tune, and the videography is pretty interesting too. So, does anyone actually watch/listen to these songs?