Come Hear Uncle John's Band

One of the Christmas presents I received from my mother was the album Workingman's Dead by The Grateful Dead. The first half of the album is studio tracks, while the second half of the album is live stuff. Right now I'm listening to the live version of "Mason's Children".

Hearing live Grateful Dead tracks reminds me of one of my greatest regrets music-wise: I have never seen The Grateful Dead in concert, even though I had several opportunities.

One summer, one of my co-workers at the time was going, and she was asking all of us whether we wanted to go with her. Of course I wanted to go, but I decided against it. Later in the summer I was going to be going on a trip with my mom, and I wanted to save money for the trip. I figured that The Grateful Dead came to town every summer and played at Soldier Field, so it was no big deal, I would go next summer for sure.

The summer goes by. My co-worker said the show was great. My mom and I left for our trip. My mom worked that day, so we left in the early evening and drove until after midnight. When we finally got to a hotel for a night we decided to try to see some news, since neither of us had seen any news that day. We must have turned on CNN or Headline News. Guess what the first story was... the death of Jerry Garcia. Yes, he died the day I left for the trip that prevented me from seeing them earlier. It turns out that show I didn't go to was the last concert he ever did.

Ever since then I have tried to not make a similar mistake. If I have a chance to go to a concert, I go. I am upset that I never saw The Grateful Dead, Nirvana, or The Who with all of the original members.

Rivalry

Tonight I'm going to my first hockey game in two years. The Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Detroit Red Wings. It should be an exciting game. Actually, I don't know how exciting the game will be because it will probably be a rout, but it will be exciting to be there. Sometimes the action in the stands is more exciting during Hawks/Wings games than it is on the ice.

In the cheap seats, where the "real fans" sit and get very drunk, a lot of fights tend to break out. Drunk Blackhawks fans and drunk Red Wings fans have a tendency to go at it, or at least they used to, especially when the game is on a Friday or Saturday night.

I almost got caught in the middle of one of those fights once.

About nine or ten years ago my friend and I went to a Hawks/Wings game. The game was sold out, but the seats next to us were empty. The people just didn't show. When my friend got up to either use the bathroom or get another beer, she met a couple of guys who had standing room tickets. She told them we had two empty seats next to us, and she invited them down to sit with us. One of the guys was quite attractive, and that was the reason she wanted them to sit with us. She introduced me to his friend. He looked like a slightly younger, slightly overweight, very drunk version of Dave Coulier. Yes, I was the wingwoman on this one, taking one for the team so my friend could talk to the cute guy.

Sitting in front of us were some Red Wings fans. I don't remember how many there were, but I remember at least one guy and his girlfriend or wife were there. They were really quiet. The Wings were winning, and they would stand and clap when the Wings scored, but weren't talking trash to the other fans or anything like that. Amazingly enough, none of the other fans sitting around us gave them any crap, either. It was quite respectful, and not what you usually expect to see up in the nosebleed seats. That is, until my friend invited this cute guy and his dolt friend to sit with us.

The drunk Dave Coulier lookalike started ripping on these Wings fans right away. I told him to shut up, but he wouldn't. It was really annoying, and I hated sitting next to this freak. It was mortifying. The Red Wings fans in front of us were doing a really good job at ignoring this guy. At some point something happened. I think the Blackhawks scored or something; it was something where we Blackhawks fans were on our feet. We were all standing and the Wings fans were still sitting there. So drunk Dave Coulier starts trying to get in the face of the guy sitting in front of us. It's not working, he gets angry, and decided to kick the back of this guy's chair really hard. On his foot's way to making hard contact with this dude's chair it made contact with my knee. Ow!!! I screamed, but Dave Coulier didn't seem to notice. This finally got the Wings fan's attention. He calmly stood up, and not even raising his voice asked what this idiot was doing. Dave Coulier stood there fuming. You could almost see smoke coming out of his nose, you know, the way the mascot for the Chicago Bulls does in that little video before the starting lineup. This Red Wings fan didn't want to fight, he just wanted to enjoy the game. Coulier's friend, myself, and my friend eventually got this guy calmed down, and he sat back down.

Soon the game was over, and it was time to leave. Coulier asked for my number. I just looked at him with a confused look on my face and said no way. How could he even think I would want anything to do with him after that performance? He asked why, and I said, "Because you kicked me in the knee!" His response: "I had to defend the Blackhawks' honor." What?!?! He started it!!! He inappropriately got in the other guy's face! I didn't know how to respond to that, so I told him that it didn't make it okay for him to kick me. He never apologized! And he couldn't understand why I didn't like him. Idiot.

Tonight we're sitting in the rich people seats, so I'm pretty sure I won't have a similar experience. Also, I will have a boyfriend with me, so I won't have a drunk Dave Coulier lookalike hitting on me.

I'm morified

I was getting tiling on my television. I called Comcast to have them come out and fix it.

At first the guys (yeah, 2 came out) said that it was probably my box. The are using these new boxes that are really sensitive, and sometimes result in tiling. The whole thing is digitial, so it was my normally analog channels that were tiling. They said they'd give me an old box and it should be fine.

So one of them was working on my TV, and the other wanted to check all the wires going to the main box in the stairwell of my building.

I must stop here and say that with the candidacy exams, knitting gifts, and puking all day Sunday, my apartment was in a sorry state. I cleaned my living room before they came by.

So one of the guys wants to see all the wiring, to make sure there isn't a bad wire causing it. It turns out some of my wiring was old and they were going to replace it while it was here. They started looking for the initial outlet. I found it. Behind a drawer in my bedroom closet.

They had to work on it there. Where there was a pile of clothing on my floor, including my underwear. Because I didn't clean my room. Because I didn't think the cable men would have to come back there.

I was so mortified. I'm sure they've seen worse, but still. One of the guys used to be married (it came up off-hand when he mentioned something about an ex-wife) so I know he's seen piles of women's clothes before. But still. All my underwear. God.

At least my cable looks good now.