lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Friday, May 30, 2003
"You don't own a TV?  What's all your furniture pointed at?"
Did anyone besides me recognize Larry Cedar of "Square One" fame in the season finale of "Gilmore Girls?"  Happy happy joy joy.

An-updating we will go.
So yeah I did.  How to Lose a Guy... was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I mean, parts of it were very bad and very stoopid, but parts of it were actually quite funny.  And it was successful with the most important ingredient in a romantic comedy: chemistry (something, say, Two Weeks Notice was severely lacking).  And we've gotten quite a few CDs, but don't worry, there are still plenty I want for my birthday that I will let you know about shortly.  ;)

A-golfing we will go.  Or, more accurately, a-spectating we will go.
Annika did quite well in the first round of the Kellogg-Keebler Classic, with two bogeys, eight birdies, and two eagles, shooting a course-record 62 and giving herself a three-shot lead (for now).  Gee, I think we will go to the second round tomorrow.  I wish we could go on Sunday to see her actually win (wink), but we have to play stupid bells at church.  Stupid, stupid bells.  But the point is, for the first time ever I get to see her play in person.  Tomorrow.  Yeah.  I think I'm going to pee my pants.
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Thursday, May 29, 2003
For your consideration...
Tonight at 8/7c on CBS is the beginning of the latest installment of The Amazing Race. This is perhaps the best show of its genre (the so-called "reality" shows) on television. It is essentially a riveting game show played on a global scale instead of taped in a boring TV studio. It has vivid scenery from all over the world, an exciting pace, and legitimate competition that doesn't involve any sort of "kicking off" or "evicting" of opposing teams--they even help each other sometimes. If you're the sort of person who believes all "reality tv" is crap (which most of it is, I won't lie), this would be a good thing to watch for proof that good television doesn't have to be scripted or the news (not that the news isn't scripted, but... you know what I mean). Just a thought. And a very good one at that.
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A lunch of linkies.
This one it is cute.
This one it is funny. (And may contain a couple of things that could be offensive to some of my readers. But mostly it's just funny.)
This one it is... um... it is.
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Friday, May 23, 2003
This Week's Celebrity Sighting of the Day
WHO:  Tom Hanks.
WHEN:  Monday, May 19, 2003.
WHERE:  The Late Show Starring David Letterman.
And there's oh so much more!  We attended a Milwaukee Bucks game with him last year!  And hung out with him while we were in college!  And, I believe moM and daD even met him once disc golfing in Ames!  Y'all never knew we had such serious celebrity connections, did'ya?  (Or it could be that he's just a guy we know from college who was part of a Dave Top Ten List of people with celebrity names. Honestly, that would be pretty cool, too, right?  Way.  If that were in fact the case, I would probably put a little 12-second video clip online for you all to see, and I would have even made sure it was relatively small--say, ~250K--so that even all y'all with slow connections could watch it.  That would be spiffy of me.)
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Thursday, May 22, 2003
I have a dream...
Well, okay, I HAD a dream last night that the day before the Colonial kicked off, in some sort of practice round, Annika shot 4 on a par 4, then 4 on a par 8 (that one's my favorite), then 8 on a par 3. Uh huh. Those were the only three holes I saw in my dream (I was apparently there in person watching), but if you add those up that's actually what she shot in her first round today: +1. Freaky. She was actually at -1 for a while, and overall she played quite well. I am ever grateful to the USA network for televising all 18 holes of her first two rounds so I can feed my obsession properly. Muchas gracias.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2003
This all makes me rethink the idea of going to that Foo Fighters concert this summer...
We went to a concert last night in Milwaukee.  Evanescence with 12 Stones and The Juliana Theory.  All bands I've heard of.  All bands with some sort of Christian connection.  Sounded like a pretty good time.  And maybe at an outdoor festival or CY Stephens it would have been.  But a good time this was not.  Oh, where to start?

First off, the venue.  It was at a little place called The Rave.  This was the mostest suckingest venue at which I have ever attended a concert.  It has a big, empty floor (no seats, just like House of Blues--I really despise that), where people are crammed in like sardines for hours, and then a very skinny balcony running all the way around the edge (including behind the stage), where we were--right to the side of the stage, so we basically had a view of everyone's profile.  Not a horrible vantage point, really, and also with the speakers not pointed at us, which was good as far as keeping the loudness... not as loud, but bad for hearing practically any vocals seeing as they mixed the vocals so low we sometimes couldn't even tell someone was singing unless we could actually see their lips moving (especially during Juliana Theory).  Lovely.

More problems:  it didn't start till 8pm, and as it turns out there was YET ANOTHER opening band.  Yeah, so that's FOUR bands.  Oh, the agony.  Why?  Well, you see, the biggest problem of the night was the smoke.  From all the smokers.  THE SMOKE FROM ALL THE MILLIONS OF SMOKERS (okay, maybe not millions, but it seemed like it).  When they turned some lights on between bands, the amount of smoke you could see hanging in the air was truly horrifying.  We weren't even in one of the smokiest sections, but before the first band even went on my body was already feeling the effects, and by the time Evanescence finally went on I felt so sick I seriously thought I might have to leave.  I was so miserable I wasn't really able to enjoy their set at all.  I just wanted it to end.

It didn't help that they sorely disappointed me by not doing a single slow song and not even having a keyboard there at all!  If anyone knows Evanescence's music, you will understand why this was completely incomprehensible to me.  Imagine, if you will, a Michael W. Smith concert without piano.  Yeah.  I felt cheated.  I also would have felt cheated by the fact that the headliner played for all of 50 minutes, with no encore, if I hadn't wanted to get out of there so badly.  And to say the lead singer's, um, outfit (picture, if you will, a ripped up pastel skirt over black-and-white striped tights, combat boots, and a black tank top with ridiculous huge fairy wings strapped onto her back) made me roll my eyes at its total over-the-top-ivity would be an understatement.  I still like their music, but... BARF.

Now for the other bands.  The opener for the openers was Reach 454, who swore a lot and played what, as far as I could tell, was hardly a step removed from pure white noise.  They played for an inexplicable 35 minutes.  12 Stones was definitely better, and as Josh said, had infinitely more stage presence.  But they were still heavy on the loud and light on the tune.  They only played for about 30 minutes.  Then Juliana Theory came out, and that's when things got weird.  They were the opening band I was most looking forward to, as I had heard good things about them and had checked out some of their stuff in the weeks before the show.  And I liked a lot of what I had heard.  But they didn't have a keyboard player either (they have quite a bit of piano on their albums), which bummed me out, and they showed hints of greatness during their set, but overall were much louder and harder than their album selves.  And now the weirdness:  after only about 25 minutes, and without even playing their current single, the one song I knew for sure they would play, they very abruptly and without a word to the crowd left the stage at the end of a song.  And the crowd booed.  Then they booed again later when Evanescence was thanking all the opening bands and mentioned their name.  Huh?  Did I miss something?  Did they boo because they didn't like them (which I wouldn't get), or because they just suddenly stopped and left?  And why DID they just stop and leave?  What the heck was going on there?  It's all so bizarre, and makes me feel somehow cheated yet again.

So, in summary I'd just like to say that the evening as a whole was a big fat miserable let down and not worth my $15 plus ticketmaster stoopidfees.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003
I believe we all remember a little thing known as The Giant Cheeto of Algona, Iowa.
I thought so.  Well, as a means of introducing my readers to the likes of my dear younger sister's new piece of man candy, here is an excerpt from an article which contains a lovely quote from our boy (with whom Josh and I will have the pleasure of disc golfing for the first time come Monday):

"Opinions will continue to clash over the giant Cheeto. For some residents, the Cheeto is a blessing, for others it is a curse, and for others it is just a potential meal. Eric Yunginger’s only comment was, 'I want to eat the Cheeto.'"

Karleen:  I approve.
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Monday, May 19, 2003
The good news is that for the first time in months we can once again play Windows Media files on our computer. The bad news is that the majority of programs that were on our computer now have to be reinstalled, some from CDs which we don't have much of a clue of their whereabouts. This includes all them useful Microsoft programs (please ignore the oxymoron) like Word and Excel. So the gist is that until we get things fixed, I can't open the Steve Taylor Song Tournament bracket to finally finish that sucker off. I am very sorry and will get it up as soon as I can.
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Thursday, May 15, 2003
Sure, so yesterday I can't think of a single thing to write about and today there are like a zillion little things floating around in my mostly-empty head so I might as well completely empty it out don't you think.

Two Iowa State things:
1)  I'm sure anyone who knows who Ennis Haywood is already knows that he died very suddenly last weekend.  Here is an article with a nice sentiment (though kind of oddly written).

2)  On a somewhat lighter note, here is a lovely photo showcasing a few Iowa State basketball players determined to return boy bands to their old glory days with their new group The Pretty Boys, headed by hunkalicious Jakey "Trey" Sullivan.  Their first album, B-Ball Broke Your Heart, featuring the soon-to-be hit single "Dribblin' 4 Your Love," will be in stores later this month.  Look for it!

A TV thing:
Okay, did Gillian really die on the season finale of "Judging Amy?"  I'm not sure I like that so much.  I understand that having both her and the baby be completely healthy might have seemed a little too perfect, but isn't about time for something good to happen?  Hasn't that poor family been through quite enough in the past year with stalkers, custody battles, murders, various members getting shot at, fiance's deaths, etc.?

An eclipse thing:
We all know that there is a total lunar eclipse tonight, right?  I hope we do not have all the clouds they say we are supposed to have.  But we always do.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Happy Anniversary to me.

Oh, okay, and to Josh.

Geez, I just have to drag him everywhere, don't I?  ;)

(I love you, my sweetie-poo!)

Okay, I'm done.  Sorry.
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Monday, May 12, 2003
And now we are so conflicted, we do the dance of indecision!
OK. Cornerstone costs $45 per stinking day. Matteo's movie is being shown on Wednesday morning. There are approximately zero good bands playing Wednesday (not counting Delirious, who I kind of like but just can't get that excited about), which means we would essentially be paying $90 just for the two of us to attend the world premiere of his film. Uh...huh..... Friday at Cornerstone, however, are the following bands: Steve Taylor, Waterdeep, Lost Dogs, Over the Rhine, Relient K. Probably worth $45 a pop. Except. That same day (which also happens to be July 4), if we didn't go to Cornerstone we could see The Wallflowers, Pete Yorn, and Guster perform at Taste of Chicago for FREE. So we have several bands we would both want to see for $90 plus gas, or three bands that Bethy-Annie really wants to see and Josh might only be semi-interested in but for no more than the cost of a couple of El rides. Why oh why? Oh why?
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And now we are so happy, we do the dance of joy!
NBC renewed "Ed." I am so ridiculously happy it is really quite sad. I am also secretly not unhappy that, ahem, "Good Morning Miami" got picked up, and am disappointed but not at all surprised that "Mister Sterling" won't be back. Kind of a bummer. However, "Ed" is moving back to Wednesday at 8/7c, when I would have preferred it stay on Fridays at 9/8c. Especially since rumor has it that "Smallville" is moving to the same Wednesday time slot, which would not only be unwelcome ratings competition, but will also leave us with no back-up to taping "Ed" while we're at choir. But I'll deal. It's back and that's all I care about. It is rather difficult to hold your breath for a month. I don't recommend it.
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Friday, May 09, 2003
Something stinks...
From the Iowa State Alumni Association email newsletter:

"The Iowa Supreme Court overturned an Ames ordinance that outlawed
smoking in restaurants until 8:30 p.m., ruling that the ordinance was more
restrictive than state laws. The decision was the result of a lawsuit
filed by eight Ames restaurants against the city of Ames."

What stoopidness. Of course it was more restricitve than state laws. Hello? Since when can city ordinances not be more restrictive than state laws? What they can't be is LESS restrictive than state laws. If they can't be either, then there can't be any such thing as ordinances, now, can there?

What stoopidness.
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Thursday, May 08, 2003
A note to Steve G.
I believe one should not enter such a contest if one has never swung a golf club in one's life.

A note to J.J. Abrams.
You just love giving me heart attacks don't you?  But don't take that the wrong way, please.  I like a little excitement in my life.

A note to Beth-Annie P.
It is very strange indeed to go back and read your own archives.  Please do not do that again for a good, solid, fourteen and three-quarters months.

A note to Eddie P.
Make your wife get off the computer.  It is unhealthy, it is.

A note to Andrew F.
Jen.

A note to Andrew V.
A girl.

A note to Nic Harcourt.
Please stop making me like even more music.  It is not nice.

A note to Norm W.
Do you ever read this?  Please tell me so I can know.

A note to George P.
Fine.  I shall revive the ST tourney.  Just as soon as I find the Excel file with the bracket.

A note to Annika S.
Please oh please kick a decent amount of PGA butt next weekend.  Pitty pitty pweez.

A note to Alexander K.
Congrats on your forthcoming graduation.  Don't foget to tell us all what dark corner of the Arctic Circle you end up banished to.

A note to Kayleeny W.
I have not much to say to you as I talked to you for an hour on the phone yesterday, but I don't want you to feel left out.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003
So I have this annoying habit of discovering new music.
Seriously.  I hear about an artist through word of mouth, or through a song on a compilation CD, or through a song on the radio, or through internet messageboards, and then I go listen to samples somewhere like barnesandnoble.com and then need to go and download songs and listen to them until I decide I need to buy a CD.  It is all quite a pain in the royal patootie.  The good news for all y'all, though, is that then I get to pass on good music to my friendlies.

So here for your pleasure are a few of the latest songs I am quite digging:

"Satellites" - Doves.

"Afraid to Fail" - Josh Rouse.

"Fishing" - Widespread Panic.

"Love for Me" - Guster.

And pretty much the whole Guster album Lost and Gone Forever, especially "Barrel of a Gun", "Center of Attention", and "Two Points for Honesty."  I can't decide whether I can stand to wait and ask for it for my birthday in a month and a half, or if I should just buy it for myself right now.  Hmmmm.

If anyone would like to hear full versions of any of the above songs, I can accomodate, just let me know.  And please listen to them if you have the ability.  That's what they're there for.  They are way cool and I will cry if you don't.  Is that what you want?  To see me cry?
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Tuesday, May 06, 2003
This sucketh.
Larry's gone.  I'm not going to get into it, but put simply I'm not so much agreeing with what went down.  And that's that.

That and I forgot to push the tape into the VCR to tape Gilmore Girls tonight while we were gone, so, well, it didn't.  Booger.  Booger, booger, booger.
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Monday, May 05, 2003
Look!  Mark Nash!
This is my official Agape report.  I will forget to post about something, so expect an add-on or two within the next few days.

We got there in time to see Kaly's friend Melissa Harper(who came up here with her last November for the Sixpence concert and stayed with us), perform in the Battle of the Bands (just her and her guitar--think Jennifer Knapp).  She was quite impressive, but perhaps unfortunately the judges were Five Iron Frenzy, and they did not pick her to go on and perform on the main stage on Saturday.  Kaly is quite bitter about this, so please do not mention Five Iron Frenzy around her for the next few years at least.

Speaking of FIF, their performance was, well, loud (and not usually particularly on pitch--lovely), and just not that enjoyable to someone like me with the exception of "A Flowery Song."  It was a little annoying to have to sit through almost an hour and a half of them and then have Sixpence only play for about an hour.  That's just sick and wrong.

Speaking of Sixpence, their performance was, well, amazing, and overall seemed a bit more polished than when we've seen them earlier on this tour.  They still played almost all new songs plus their two hits, the only exception being... are you ready?... "Love, Salvation, the Fear of Death."  That alone made the whole concert for me.  No, they didn't have the wicked bass part, but they really changed the whole song up and it was just brilliant.  Kind of made me wish I'd brought something to tape the concert with just so I could listen to that again.  But no encores and the set was just too dang short.

So now today's headline comes into play.  I don't know just how "inside" the inside joke that is "Look!  Mark Nash!" is, but perhaps I should explain to anyone who is confused.  Quite a few years ago at Cornerstone, we kept seeing Mark Nash, (former) drummer for PFR and husband of Leigh Nash (Sixpence's lead singer), around the grounds.  So somehow it came to be that every time we'd see him, whoever saw him first would say that now-infamous phrase to the others.  This has continued off and on ever since, especially at music festivals or Sixpence concerts (or on a couple rare occasions PFR concerts--ha ha), mostly now just as a joke when someone just looks like Mark Nash or there's really no one there at all.  You know, just stupid stuff kids like us do.  (This has even gone so far as to have decorated a birthday cake with the phrase "Look!  Mark Nash!"  That's not strange, is it?)  So now that you have a bit of background, it will make sense that earlier that day one of us pulled the ol' Mark Nash joke, as Sixpence was performing that evening.  We honestly didn't actually expect to see him--hence the funny.  We especially didn't expect to see him wandering around the concessions after the concert that night with Justin Cary (6P bass player) buying a corndog.  It helps keep life in the joke when we can say it and actually mean it once every couple years (and yours truly had that distinctive honor this time).  It's funny how the silleyest little things can make you just so happy in a particular moment.

Over the Rhine performed in the Late Night Coffehouse that night.  Now, they're one of those groups I've always heard good things about but have never really listened to and never managed to stay up for for one of their midnight shows at Cornerstone.  And we were already kind of sleepy waiting for this concert to begin, so we figured that once again we wouldn't manage to stick around for much of one of their performances.  But once they started, I was completely sucked in.  It was just horribly impressive.  I don't know if I've ever experienced a musical performance I would consider as flawless and beautiful as this was.  They just completely blew me away, even though I didn't know a single song (with the exception of a cover of Gershwin's "Summertime," which I love).  And now I have to start listening to them (incidentally, they're in the middle of recording a new, apparently very long album--if anyone didn't know that and was interested).

We camped on the grounds that night with Kaly, and she told us all about her recent adventures in... life ;).  Incidentally, our tent was sheltered under a cattle barn type thing, which probably kept us a tad warmer (it got down to about 40 that night), but also made voices from other campers carry quite well.  I couldn't believe how loud it still was at 2am.  I mean, what is this, Cornerstone?

The next day the weather was absolutely perfect--about 70 and sunny--and we went disc golfing (only one 9-hole course anywhere near Greenville, unfortunately).  We saw The Benjamin Gate, who were very good and managed to cram a whole lot of songs into a relatively short set, which was quite nice.  I was pleasantly surprised that I recognized pretty much all the songs they did and knew a few of them quite well.  That makes for a much more enjoyable concert experience.  The one thing that surprised me was that Adrienne (the lead singer) looked so much younger (and more normal) in person than she does in any of their album photos.

Saturday night Switchfoot was actually pretty entertaining for a band who only have a couple of songs I recognize (reminded me a bit of Lifehouse with less distinctive vocals), and I may have to check some of their stuff out, too.  Jars of Clay's performance was a bit different than what I've seen from them lately--it was an exclusively acoustic set, and they were all standing quite close to one another as opposed to being spread out all over the stage.  Even though we were very far away, it lent itself to a more intimate feeling.  The fact that they were also back at Greenville where their whole musical career started also gave the concert a more relaxed and friendly feeling.  They also had a shorter set than I would have expected (just over an hour), but they had a few shockers in that they performed quite a few songs from their first album, including "Boy on a String" (which made me very happy) and "He."  They also did a cover of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," which would have been funny enough in itself, but the way they set it up as something serious that they hoped would touch people's lives as it had touched theirs and then started the song reeeeeeeeaaaally slow and drawn out and without instrumentation so you couldn't even tell what it was at first... I honestly cracked up when it became clear what song it was.  Jars hasn't entertained me quite that much at a concert in a long time.

Oh, yeah, and then we got home about 4:45am.  It was really great to get to hang out with Kaly and Steve, especially since we may not get that chance at Cornerstone this year.  It was all quite worth it.
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Thursday, May 01, 2003
Okay, I'm peeved.
We bought our house all of two months ago, and just like that we have to pay potentially hundreds of dollars out of OUR OWN pockets to have part of the sidewalk--that the CITY owns--in front of our house fixed. OUR money. WE have to find and hire a contractor. WE have to obtain a permit to have the work done. WE have to pay for it. And it's not even OUR property. This sucks.
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Summer is calling...
So Agape is this weekend. Wow. I guess this must be the official start of summer if we're already going to our first Christian music festival. It just doesn't seem possible. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing Kaly and Steve, as well as seeing Sixpence, Jars of Clay, and The Benjamin Gate (and hopefully Melissa will make it to the Saturday Battle of the Bands competition, so we can see her, too--go Melissa!), and even to camping (or should I say "camping")--even though it might be a bit chilly at night (hey, this time of year it could be worse). We camped in freezing weather in Wyoming last May, so we can handle 40s in southern Illinois. Unfortunately we have to be back here at quarter to 8 on Sunday morning to play bells, but doggone it, I'm gonna get my money's worth out of the fest, so we're staying for Jars of Clay Saturday night and driving the five or so hours back starting at about 11pm. Oi. But hey. We've done much worse before.
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