I've been pretty obsessed with Hospice by The Antlers for the last few months. I'm sad I didn't get into it until after the new year. It would have definitely been high on my 2009 Top 10 list. It's such a gorgeous and powerful album.

I have almost seventy gigs of music. I don't understand how I get into music ruts.

I also need to find my iPod. studying on campus is depressing without it.

I finally got to listening to the Free Energy album. Am streaming it off of Lala. I saw them open for Foreign Born back in February and I really liked them. Might have to go back and buy it this one. It's light and catchy. Perfect for finals studying. It's really hard being an indie music geek. I need more time and more money to fund this.

Record Store Day Saturday. Excited.

By request, here are some other videos.

1) I have no idea what inspired this, but we were making Andrew apologize to Venice for something.

2) This is when we went to a square to watch Germany play Turkey in the EuroCup. Germany just won and there was a lot of random screaming. We decided to join in.

These videos take a while to upload, so I'm only posting these two for now.

Every so often, I go through all of the pictures from the trip to Europe. Brings back so many memories. I wish we could do it again.

An hour of my life I could have used to outline, but I guess it's kind of like a good morale boost...right? Or it just makes me depressed because there's no way this is happening again any time in the near future (or ever). *tear*

Every time I look back through the pictures, it brings back some random new memory.

This is what I relived this time around:

i hate how there are like 15 live shows that i want to see within the no-fly zone of finals. there are several bands i've been dying to see who are doing shows mid-late april to early to mid-may. why?granted, some are sold out. i would have actually gone against my judgment to see beach house at bimbos, but that is sadly a no-go. the crazy in me almost sees this all as a challenge, but i don't think i can blow off studying for finals the night before to see live music like i did as an undergrad. thinking back, i did that way too often. ugh i really want to see the antlers though.

new musical discoveries: the living sisters and moonlight bride

On Saturday, we decided to see the first Earthquakes game of this season. They were playing Real Salt Lake who are the defending MLS champions. We knew it wouldn't end well, but we also want to support MLS soccer...so yeah.

Chris made us go there very early. They'd been announcing on the radio that they were giving away jersey style shirts to the first five thousand people. Somehow that meant we needed to be there an hour and a half early. We got our shirts. On the other hand, so did people who were trickling in 30 minutes late. Oh well. Gave us some time out in the sun.

See these nice seats we had? Didn't last long. Will explain in a bit.

We were also there early enough to watch them stretch. Always fun I suppose.

We also had these great third row seats for the first half of a game. They were really good. At some point in the beginning of the game, one of the Real Salt Lake players flipped over that white guard rail like right in front of us. It was AWESOME.

You see? Earthquakes player is arguing with the Ref. Trying to card him. He got red carded later in the game. Sadness.

Which brings me to another point. One of the reasons that I love soccer is that I LOVE to watch the dramatics they put on to get their opponents carded. It's absolutely delightful.

Anyway, so we had these great seats. Then this family came and said we were in their seats. Chris squabbled with them over the tickets for a while until one of the kids pointed out that we were in the wrong section. I don't know. I wasn't in charge of finding the seats. I was too busy looking for free swag. I guess this was a bit of karma though. The night before Umma made me James and Mia go watch Mitty's production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (kind of awkward considering Mia's the only one who went there...three years ago). When we got there, some girl was sitting in Mia's seat and we fought her for the seat.

So we had to move up to higher seats. In all honesty it wasn't that big of a deal (except for the fact that we had a lot less leg room). We were at a higher location so we could see more of the field. Thus, we were still happy. (Except for James. He sulked for most of the game).

In the end, the Earthquakes lost 0-3. It was depressing, but this frustration is really only part of the true soccer experience.

Assuming we're both in the area over the summer, Chris and I hope to go to more of the games. We're kind of planning around watching some of the better MLS teams play, so I think we're in for a lot more depressing games from an Earthquakes fan perspective.

We went to Eduardos afterwards for dinner. Meant we missed out on Earth Hour. Oh well. Next year.

Umma's been cleaning out random things around the house. Yesterday, I found this opened self-addressed letter from Pres lying around. It turns out it was some letter they had us write to ourselves senior year of high school to be sent out four years later. I'm sure they were expecting us to write something inspirational, but mine was a list of 28 things I wanted to have accomplished by May of 2007. I accomplished one, arguably two.

10) If you're still not a Phantom Planet fan (especially after hearing the mp3 of Turn Smile Shift Repeat live), I swear I will come from the past and punish you.

(Check, but I'm sure 2003 Alea would have been even more devastated than 2008 Alea when Phantom Planet went on "indefinite hiatus")

18) Should be a lead activist for world peace.

(This is the arguable one that Dinah and I both think should count. I wasn't a world peace activist but I was a big green activist on campus. I think all the time and energy I bled into CalPIRG should count at least for that much).

Everything else on the list was ridiculously unachievable, but I'm pretty sure that was the point. Here are some highlights (comments in bold):

1) Have at least two bestsellers
3) Started your own band. (It'd be nice if you play at the Grammy's, but I'm not requiring it of you).
5) Be "mates" with Colin Farrell ( I don't know why this is on the list. I thought he was gross in high school. Still not a big fan, but I really liked him in In Bruges )
12) You should have been awarded the following awards (of course you are not limited to these): Oscar, Grammy, Tony, Nobel Prize, AFI Lifetime Achievement (WTF?), etc.
15) You should have been granted the chance to poke The Strokes. (Sounds dirty but there was a radio contest a couple of months before called "Poke the Strokes" where you could win a chance to meet them).
16) Should have discovered the cure for cancer, AIDs, and any other incurable disease.
17) Found a solution to world hunger.
21) Own an island and call it Guau.
22) Co-created a time machine and cloning machine with Monica.
24) Because of you, Calculus should be banned in high schools.

Okay, it's time for me to go to sleep.

I've been obsessed with Animal Collective's song Bluish recently. Went through and listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion again. I forgot how amazingly good it was.

What has happened to this world?

Why is that Chris is the one going out early tomorrow to plant trees and I'm the one turning him down? Why is it that I was the one who knew about the Blizzard lawsuit over the Glider bot and had to explain it to him?

When did we start living in bizarro world?

I've got other things that I might write about later (like having lunch with Adam Savage of Mythbusters, doing my first exec edit, writing my first Yelp! review, etc.). On the other hand, it's been a long, long week and I think I need to get some sleep.

I've amended my 2010 resolutions (did I have any to begin with?) to include reading all of Jane Austen's works. I think I've gone through life for too long without having done this. It's also a task slightly more achievable for me than the 50 book challenge. (I must say I did a pretty good job on that last year, though.) I've only read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. I started reading Persuasion on my iPhone (let's go public domain books). Probably will revisit the ones I have read because it's been a while. Though, maybe I'll spice things up a bit and read Pride Prejudice and Zombies instead of the original. That's right. I'll go there.

There was an ice cream social on campus today. Hastings throws them every one in a while. Basically it means that a bunch of law students get to live out every five year old's dream and have ice cream for a meal. You might think it's a little juvenile but for stressed out law students, they are actually kind of amazing.

Anyway, I should work on my Trademark Prosecution paper for a bit so I can go to bed.