You're Gonna Get Yours

Getting ready to head to Orlando in a few hours for a work conference. I'll be back Wednesday afternoon. Hopefully, the girls won't give Deb too much trouble. Lily's started saying our names: Dada, Mama, and Hannah (although sometimes it sounds like NaNa); she turns nine months on Wednesday. After what seemed like an eternity, she's also moving around the room a lot; not quite crawling, but somehow working her way across a room to get to things.

Caught the Pixies/Mission of Burma show on Wednesday at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. The Pixies were amazing. I had already heard some of the bootlegs from when the tour kicked off in April, and they sounded good then, but they've really kicked it up a notch. They played about an hour and 45 minutes, plowing through about 30 songs with a minimum of stage banter. The tickets were general admission so I could've joined my buddy Novack on the floor, but dangit, I didn't feel like standing the whole time. Especially not when I could join Briggy and his wife in the stands from a decent vantage point left of the stage. Burma ripped through a smoking set, too, with Roger Miller turning up the guitar skronk to make up for the absence of tape looper Bob Weston. Most of the people there weren't sure what to make of Burma, but they were great. The crowd itself was a mixture of aging nerds such as myself (and much older) and college kids who probably just got into the Pixies in the last few years. I was annoyed a few days after the show to hear that the Pixies announced a December 9 show at Avalon in Boston, where I would have preferred to see them. Can't go now, but if I had the choice months ago, I would have taken the Avalon show over a hockey rink.

The Olds is running well so far. Got it inspected yesterday so it's officially street legal. I will post a photo when I get back so you can get a glimpse at its pimptastic magnitude. In the meantime, allow me to share a tribute to the Ninety Eight from hip hop legends Public Enemy.

The NHL and its players union are set to talk Thursday and Friday for the first time since before the lockout began. Seems like this is a last-ditch effort to save the season. The union is making a proposal, although I'm not sure it will make a difference. I hope so.

Tip o' the pin to the UNH football team, which lost yesterday to Montana in the quarterfinals of the 1-AA playoffs. Okay, they didn't so much lose as get totally destroyed, 47-17; the score was 44-3 before they scored a couple of late TDs against Montana's reserves. But regardless, it was a great run and an impressive season, so salutos, my friends.