All right. Hoping to post here more often. I'm not feeling well so instead of lying around and doing nothing (rather than writing my brief), I'm going to post about the Sondre show. A short one as I have a brief to write and reading to do.

Saw Sondre Lerche on Sunday. Promoting his latest album, Heartbeat Radio. Amazing album. I missed him last year when he was at the Great American Music Hall because he was playing the second day of school and I didn't know anyone to go with. Did want to miss it this time around, so I got two tickets and said Chris would go as default. But because I didnt' want to drag Chris because he usually puts a damper on things like that, so I ended up getting Yaeri to go with me.

Anyway, drove into the city and picked her up from the Tower. Drove to the parking garage near the Great American Music Hall. I had no idea how the cheap tickets for the GAMH worked, so we wandered around for a while asking everyone until someone at the movie theater told us we validate it at the venue. Fair enough.

We got to the GAMH around 7:30 and it was kind of awkward. So they do this thing there where you can get dinner before the show for a more expensive ticket. The one other time that I went there was for the Noise Pop festival so we didn't really experience it. But it was kind of weird coming into the venue and seeing all of these tables with people eating. And the security guards were like super anal about it too because they were more expensive tickets. So if you even thought about getting near the tables they were on top of you.

The show starts and it's still like that. People are eating and us cheapos are lined up behind the tables. This left a super awkward floor space in the front. It was kind of awkward. Anyway, other than that, the opening act, JBM was really good. I really enjoyed his set and was kind of sad that I wasn't closer to the stage for it.



Also he was kind of cool because he was playing guitar and drums at once. That's a level of multitasking that I will never attain because I can barely play the drums on Rock Band. ...among other things.



Great set in general.

After he finished, we grumbled a little more about the whole table set up until Sondre went on stage. He started with Good Luck, which is a great song. I'm pretty sure that's what got me through OCI. Haha.



Once he finished the song, he said that there was too much empty floor space in front of him, so Yaeri and I rushed the stage and got pretty front and center spots. As in we were front and center. As in we were within spitting distance. It was nice.

Anyway, trying to keep this short because I have a brief to be writing, so let's do highlights.

x he's got an amazing voice

x he puts on an amazing show

x unplugged rendition of two way monologue





MVI_9751.AVI


x did mostly songs from heartbeat radio, but he did a lot of songs from two way monologues and faces down. he also did one song from phantom punch. nothing from duper sessions though.

x he did words and music

good show over all












after the show we stood in the line to meet him. never mind the fact that i'd met him twice before but i got kind of star struck this time around. ... it was a really good show.



i also got jbm's album because i really liked him.

on the way back to the car, some girl stopped me and asked me why i knew all the songs he performed. ...they were on all of his albums except for the one cover he did, so i don't see why i wouldn't have known them. it was a strange question and an awkward moment because i wasn't sure why she was watching me and not him. i just responded with an awkward laugh. wasn't sure how else i was supposed to respond to that.

anyway, it was a great show and I can't wait for the next time he rolls around this part of the country.

I haven't posted here in a long time. After we got back from Korea things got super hectic with school starting and OCI and everything. 2L in general has been a very hectic year and I'm waiting for some breathing room.

I did see the Dodos last Friday at amoeba. that was fun. And Sondre on Sunday!

I just wanted to hop on with the hope that i'd get back into this and also to comment about how Gossip Girl's portrayal of college students is just a tad off-base. College students do not generally turn down free sushi and alcohol, especially when the other option is to watch a documentary about a local garden. of course, if you haven't seen the episode, this doesn't make sense to you.

I got a new car this weekend because Gianni is stealing the CRV. 2008 Hyundai Accent. I'll post a picture maybe.

I just have to jump on here and say that now that I am in Korea, it's really hard to not be able to pull out the phone at random points in the day and text in Tweets. I never realized how addicted to Twitter I actually was.

Oh. If I freak out because I can't find my Treasure Island ticket, it's in the LOL Europe Shutterfly book. As I will probably not remember this and will freak out over losing my pretty expensive ticket, someone please remind me when the time comes.

Going to Korea tomorrow. Won't be blogging here, but will be using a special Korea (take 2) blog. It will be here: http://whoamgkorea.blogspot.com/. We're watching Coraline right now. Part of my summer of nerding over Neil Gaiman. Even bought another one of his books for the trip. Woot.

I spent this past weekend in SoCal. Decided to fly down for Kristina-izzle's birthday party. Weekend went by super fast and somehow I managed to squeeze in a decent amount of OCI research. Speaking of which, I need to hurry up and finish the research process so I can start the actual application process. Whatever. I'm working on it.

Anyway, flew in on Friday. Umma and James dropped me off pretty much right after work because they had to go somewhere. This meant that I spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with the San Jose airport. It's actually beginning to look pretty nice. Like real airport-looking. Not that I looked around much. I situated myself in one of those comfortable seats that Southwest set up, plugged in my phone and played a lot of Monkey Island. In a perfect world I would have finished it by the time I was in Irvine so I could rub it in my lovely boyfriend's face. Unfortunately, I have yet to finish it as I've been working on OCI stuff.

I got to Irvine a little after nine. Chris and Mia picked me up and we went straight to Second Spin. I used to be intimidated by this place, but they had like absolutely none of the CDs I wanted. I found this lame and sadly mourn the loss of the Tower Records that was once down the street and the Virgin Megastore in the other direction. So sad. Anyway, we went there and then we drove out to Fountain Valley and got extremely healthy carne asada fries fom Alertos for dinner. Played a lot of Monkey Island when we got back. Good times.

Saturday we woke up super early. Well, by early I mean 8 am on a weekend. I don't know why. It just kind of happened. We eventually decided to leave and went to Wing Stop in Lake Forest for lunch. Mia decided to be a cocky Asian person and get their Atomic wings even though the guy there warned her several times that this might not be a good idea. Man they were hot. Even when you coated them in Ranch Dressing. Mia could only finish two. There were two left, so Chris and I decided to have another dumb competition and see who could finish their wing first. We assumed that I would win seeing as Chris has always been weak when it came to spicy foods. We were wrong. Not only did he win, but he was the only one who didn't die afterwards. Good times. Their lemon herb wings, or whatever Chris chose, were really good.



I also checked Twitter right as we were finishing our meal and found out that the Kogi truck had just set up shop in Costa Mesa. Too bad they didn't post anything about that before! We so would have gone.

After that we went to the Spectrum to get Kristina birthday gifts. This resulted in us looking at puppies in the puppy store. They were really cute. Not as cute as Bruce, though.

We got back and I did some research for OCI. We got ready and drove to Taps in Brea for Kristina's birthday party.





We were actually one of the first people there even though we got there right at 7:30. It was fun seeing a lot of the UCI group again and catching up. The food was also super good. Kristina set up some three course meal thing for us. So I got gumbo, fillet mignon and crème brule. So good. It also came with some cream ale thing. Good stuff.



We drove back and I think pretty much Chris played some Monkey Island and I did some research when we got back.

We got up early on Sunday to go to a morning showing of Food, Inc. Before that, we stopped by Newport Beach to get cupcakes at Sprinkles for breakfast. Good stuff. Mia didn't want to see Food, Inc., so she saw 500 Days of Summer. Food Inc was very good. It's a documentary about a lot of the sketchy practices of the food industry. It kind of covered a lot of stuff that I had read about in Omnivore's Dilemma, but it's definitely a must-see movie. Kind of made me not want to eat meat anymore. We'll ignore the fact that I have eaten meat several times since seeing the movie. It'd be hard to do anything until school starts anyway. Will just reduce meat consumption for now and see where that goes.

We ate at Avanti Cafe afterwards, which is this little vegetarian cafe in Costa Mesa that I have always wanted to try. They were like real vegetarian, not “fake meat” vegetarian. Didn't quite expect that, but the caprese salad I had was very good.

We went back and I packed and got ready. Hung out for a couple of hours. Ate artichokes together, got Red Mango, and then Chris dropped me off at the airport.

That's about it for the weekend. This week's been going by super fast and I cannot believe that I'm almost done with my summer externship. This summer went by way too quickly. Not done yet. Got Korea next! Woot.

Today I got to see my Miggs show of the summer. It's crazy that ever since I saw them for the first time over six years ago, I've seen them at least once every summer. I think there was one summer where I missed them completely. It was a sad one, but it was made up for because we had seen them ten times that first summer. Crazy times, for sure. They opened for Matt Nathanson today, which was fun because I downloaded his album on Amazon about a month ago and liked it. I also got to be backstage again, which was kind of legit.

Another reason I was happy about this show? It was Music in the Park, which meant I only had to walk a few blocks to see them. I got there a little after five. I entered on one side of the stage and saw that Don was on the other, so I hopped over several people who seemed like they were otherwise comfortably seated on the grass to say hi to him. We talked for a few minutes, and he told me to go to the other side of the stage and he'd get me in backstage.

Got backstage a little after their sound check. It was so much nicer to be there than out in the crowd. For one, I didn't have to deal with the smell of pot smoke on my suits. I also wasn't out in the crowd. I was also backstage, which is kind of legit.

They had some performances first from some people in some singing contest. They were okay. I can't complain because they all sang circles around anything I can do.

Miggs was up next. They put on a great show. They played a lot of songs that I knew and a lot of songs that I had only heard once or twice before. I don't think I'd heard the second one they played, actually. It was super catchy. I meant to ask Don what the name of the song was, but I forgot to.

The one song they didn't play that I wanted them to play was To Be Wrong. Actually, I wanted them to do Taste too. Oh well. It was a lot of fun. They went through SO MANY covers for Options though. Including Journey. Hella cool.

Between sets, I saw members of the San Jose Earthquakes hang around backstage. Seeing as I'm trying to start getting into soccer, I wanted to go say hi. However, seeing as I have never once seen the Earthquakes play and know nothing of the team, I didn't. Too bad, too. I wanted one of the beach balls they were giving away to everyone in the audience. Actually, scratch my last comment. I think I vaguely remember the Earthquakes coming to SFC once. Maybe I dreamt this. I don't remember.

Matt Nathanson was up next. I sat by the side of the stage for his performance. It was kind of cool because he walked right behind me to get on the stage. I guess he'd have to seeing as that was the entrance of the stage, but whatever.

I was actually very much impressed by his performance. He had some hilarious banter between sets, including making fun of Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys, giving us a rundown of the Hannah Montana movie, and playing part of Lose Yourself by Eminem. He also covered Blister in the Sun, which was kind of legit.

All in all, it was a good show. The train ride back was kind of crazy, though. Most crowded I've ever seen the lightrail and most people had no idea how to actually ride the light rail correctly as most of them realized halfway through that they were on the wrong train. Fail.

Oh, by the way. You know the obnoxious person you see texting backstage during shows? I was totally that person today. I was texting people during Matt Nathanson's performance. I wasn't bored or anything, mostly texting people things about the show or consoling my boyfriend about not being able to go to Blizcon anymore. Wait--why am I defending my actions? Backstage texters are too good for that. I wonder if the crazy Matt Nathanson fans were talking about how evil I am. Like they really cared.

Tomorrow's Friday. Casual day. I also fly to SoCal for the weekend. Will write about my fun exploits there. We're thinking of crashing a Comic Con party. Speaking of which, I need to pack still.

Before I start my post officially, I'd just like to point out how angsty and emo my little brother is. Here is my little brother the last few times I've taken him places:



This was at Bastille Day.



This was at the Inter game.

I have a series more of them. This should be a new feature on the blog. Angsty James pics. I'm sure this is going to be a regular feature on the up and coming Korea blog. (Still deciding whether I want to resurrect the old one or make a new one, by the way.)

Anyway, I wanted to post some pics from the Inter game. Oppa, James, Uncle Brian, Chabba and I went to Stanford Stadium to see Inter Milan play Club America last Sunday. They're touring as part of the World Football Challenge or something like that. I don't know. Mia, Chris, and Kristina saw Inter lose to Chelsea the other day at the Rose Bowl. Milan got their butts handed to them in a game against Club America yesterday too, I think.



Anyway, I assumed that Club America would be some US team. Figured people wouldn't be that into it. Was wrong. Apparently it was a Mexican team. Being that we are in the great state of California, this meant that the Inter Milan fans there were greatly outnumbered by the Club America fans. It was slightly scary, but it also made the game a little more entertaining. Nothing about soccer will frighten me as much as being in Germany for a German game did. Few things in life, actually, are as scary as that was.

Anyway, we got there a little before the game started. Early enough to watch the team members warm up. Also early enough to put on our war paint. Being that it was very hot that day (way hotter than it was today when I was FREEZING at Music in the Park), the face paint had pretty much melted by the time we got there. This gave us a unique challenge.











The game was a lot of fun to watch. I decided about a year ago that I wanted to get into soccer. Part of this came from being in Europe at the time of the European Cup. Ask me why this didn't happen when I was in Italy when they won the World Cup. Seriously, ask me. I won't have an answer. Anyway, I also figure that I need to follow some sport. Why not choose the sport everyone else in the world loves? Anyway, this was a fun start. I don't really know too many soccer players other than the really big ones and a hand full of players on the Italian national team, so I wasn't sure what to expect.



Let's see.

I got a weird picture of Matrix (as Oppa insists I refer to him because I wore his jersey and all).



I got pictures of various players rolling around on the ground in pain.






Oppa says that Balotelli's supposed to be the new hope for the Italian team. I wasn't seeing it today (or at the Chelsea game for that matter), but I hope that this is just because it's pre-season.







I got to see Ibra in one of his last games wearing an Inter jersey. Even though he wasn't really into it, he totally danced circles around the other players.








I got a cool shot of Cordoba after he scored the goal for Inter.



My snotty uncle figured Inter'd lose. They did. It was sad. It was close though. Ended with 1-1 and then Inter lost during the penalty kicks when Viera missed the goal.



It was a fun game though all in all. Glad I set this up. After the game, we decided to get something eat. Seeing as we wanted to escape the gloating Club America fans, we ate at Chevy's.

I'll post the last of the pictures that I liked from the game.

















That's about it. Next, I'll be posting my Miggs post.

Oh yeah, throughout the game I also tried multiple times to text to win a free Inter Milan jersey. I didn't win. I'd be a lot happier if I had.