Tuesday August 30, 2005: Dave Matthews Band: Phoenix, AZ: Cricket Pavilion.

Despite the oppressive heat, the concert was amazing! Dave came out and intoduced the opening act, Slightly Stoopid; he welcomed the crowd saying, "I feel like I'm standing in the sun with a hair dryer pointed at me. Seriously, it's as hot as a bastard out here tonight-a nice bastard-but a bastard, nonetheless." Dave and the Band gave us a sensational two-and-a-half-hour show packed with energy and then came back for an encore. Which is impressive given the unforgiving heat that lasted long after the sun went down. Here is the set list from the show:

Everyday

Dream Girl
Stand Up
Say Goodbye
Rhyme & Reason
Hunger For The Great Light
Crash
Smooth Rider
American Baby Intro
American Baby
Seek Up
Dancing Nancies
Louisiana Bayou
Ants Marching
__________________

You Might Die Trying
What You Are

Bored

Saturday Night Live blows these days. The end.

Alley Cat

Well, we can cross "Pro-Bowler" off my list of alternative career choices. Sad story: so I went to dinner with some co-workers tonight, and later, someone had the brilliant idea to go bowling. It was heinous! I bowled a 34 and a 42. How is this possible?! I am an embarassment to the bowling community.

So the question has been posed: what music has most impacted your life? For me it is Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. I remember buying it, locking myself in my room, and listening to it straight through twice. I was mesmerized not only by the songs and the lyrics, but also the CD booklet (I know, it should have been on vinyl). On the inside there is this amazing, rambly analysis of the album by Pete Hamill. Who is Pete Hamill? I don't know. But he sucked me in with this deliciously worded essay,

"In the end, the plague touched us all. It turned up in America,
breeding in-a-compost of greed and uselessness and murder in
those places where statesmen and generals stashed the bodies of the forever young...."

I read it a million times and still didnt know what it meant. But it meant something. And it was good.

Here's the Thing About Thursdays...

1. So, here is the thing about Thursdays. Sure I have work in the morning, but for the life of me I can't make myself go to bed early. It's like there is some invisible force that requires me to stay up late on Thursdays. And I've finally found out what the deal is....Thursday was "going out" night in college. On Firdays you just went to class as a formality: you know, sign the roll and try to stay awake. So tomorrow is just a formality. I thought I'd share.

2. In other news: The digital cable proved to be more difficult than I imagined. First of all, I can't move my entertainment center away from the wall. So that's as far as I got before I stopped. Not to mention there are wires and cables all over the place; It's just out of control back there.

3. Did I mention that Matt and I are headed to Pheonix next week for the Dave concert? We are skipping work and heading up for the concert on Tuesday. i can't wait. It will be one more band Matt and I can add to our growing list of concerts (T-minus 5 days).

*The Thrills
*The Kings of Leon
*Bruce Springsteen
*and now, The Dave Matthews Band

Let there be cable!

For I so loved my boyfriend that I finally got digital cable. (Just in time for football season)

T-minus 12 days till kick-off

Somebody has a case of the Mondays!

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head

It has just been one of those days. So this morning I wake up, 5 AM, and it is absolutly pouring outside! Had I been in college, this would have been one of those days where I would have skipped all of my classes and slept in. Unfortunatly, I am a member of the real world. So I managed to make it to work....and I'm the only one there. Odd, I thought I was the one who would be late. So i jump out of the car to open the two gates in front of the school. (Keep in mind it is still pouring). Now i am wet. Students and parents are starting to arrive by the dozens. Luckily, I have a key to the school, and I know the alarm code--I've never had to use either, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that both will work. I open the front door and immediatly this rediculously shrill alarm is blaring. I punch in the top secret code, AND.......the alarm is still alarming. I punch it in again and again and again....nothing. Panic ensues. I call the principal. She's like "what are you talking about? You did the code right. Besides, we have a silent alarm" Turns out that it was the school's weather radio. Thats right, the school's rediculosly loud weather radio. It just wanted everyone to know that, yes, it is raining outside. Thank you.

In other news, my sister left for Russia today. A year in Russia. Good luck lil sis!

This One Goes Out to Nick...

Since Nick seems to be the only person who reads this, this one is dedicated to him.

What wild and crazy times we had! Remember that time we were unassumingly hanging out at your apartment when your roommate brought home crazy old woman for a little sleep over? And remember that time I came over to proof read a paper for you and as soon as I got there, you sat me down with a 15 page paper and a red pen and proceeded to leave me there at your appartment by myself while you went to a Theta date party? That was the night I almost stole your dog. But it was all good because then I got a Wild Turkey and coke out of it. And who could forget the time that you wrecked my car? Those were good times, my friend, good times. And now that my insurance has forgiven me, I'm glad we can look back on those day and laugh!

HAPPY bIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FIONA,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

This Time of Year

"There's a feeling in the air,
Just like a Friday afternoon..."

So there I was at the gym, loving on my ipod, drowning out the rest of the world, and loosing myself to "deep thought" music. I decided to change it up a little and take a spin on the ole treadmill, rather than my normal eliptical machine. It was just like power-walking!! My mind drifted back to college, which was just a little over a year ago-eventhough it seems like ages. I could remeber every path me and Jenny and Katie and Chas took on our couple-hours-long power walks while we talked about life, love, and sorority house drama. Those were the days. In my mind's eye i can remeber every inch of that campus: that muddy section on the sidewalk in front Hume that I always manage to get stuck in, the japanesse magnolia on the corner of Bondurant that had the biggest and most gorgeous blooms every spring, that bump in the sidewalk in front of the library that I couldnt help byh trip on daily, that rediculously steep hill heading from coliseum drive up to the education building (and how we always got "hollas" from the phi beta sigma house as we passed by), and of course the grove and the circle that just cant be put into words because it's not something that isnt meant to be written about; it's meant to be felt. Gosh i miss that place. If i could do it all over again, here is what i would do:
1. spend an hour just walking around that campus every day
2. make it to one of those early morning walks around campus with the cancellor
3. miss more sorority meetings
4. spend more friday afternoons at sardis
5. eat luch at the union on a Thursday and hear one of those student bands play
6. go to thacker mountain radio ritually
7. go to a frickin baseball game for crying out loud!!!

Ah well, grad school is just around the corner. I'm sure there are more good times ahead of me. So here is the question I pose tonight: If you could do it all over again, what would you do different?

So there i was, making an important phone call to my boss, no less, when my phone literally breaks in half--right down the middle of the flip!! Story of my life! So the two ends are like hanging on by a wire, and im holding the phone up to my ear with two hands. So that little ordeal landed me in the Verizon store for a good 2 hours while I waited for a customer service representative. Finally, i got William. I told him i needed the cheepest phone he had....well, that one was $178. No lie! He wouldnt even sell me the old-school, non-flip phones because he said they are phasing them out and you can only get it with a two eyar contract. Whatever. So another flip phone it is. It doesnt even have caller-id on the front which i reall miss. However, it does come with two changable face plates: one teal and one blue with stripes. So at least for $178 i can still afford to be cute! i said this to Will, he laughed, and then he said he would transfer my phone books onto my new phone for free (eventhough, this is $10 charge). What a guy!

THEN he showed me this amazing trick that i just MUST share with EVERYONE...

Okay-- so you know how 411 now charges $1.75 a call. Well, Matt uses this feature like its going out of style, and yes, its nice, but those fees rack up. So if you need a number, next time send a text message of what you are looking for (lets say, i want to get take out from El Charro, I send the message "El Charro, Tucson, Az" and send it to #46645, hit send and it automatically send me back a text message that gives me the number and address of what I'm looking for. You can even get driving directions, movie listings, you can even look up words in the dictionary. It's a service provided by Google, so you just type in what you are looking for like you would type it into the Google search field. And best of all, it's FREE!!!! *Happy Dance, Happy Dance* So now i use it everyday, just so that i can read text messages on my new phone!

"The Axe"

So yesterday began the first day of school. I won't lie, working from 7am-4pm like the rest of the real world is not as easy as it looks. My alarm clock has never seen 7am, much less 5am. I am literally up before the sun!

As far as the students are concerned, things are great! Granted, it's only the second day of school, but i think we have a good crop this year; it seems like all the trouble makers from last year are gone. So far, no problems. I wont lie, i love being lead teacher. It's a great feeling of control knowing that your co-workers will approach you first when they have problems, and students listen to you when you say something. When I walk by, they sit straighter in their chairs and furiously scribble down notes in their notebooks. I'm known as the "mean one," if you can imagine that! Some people call me Marie "The Axe" Harkins.

Everyone else is doing so why not me...

It seems that all of the cool people have "blogs" these days, so here is my attempt at cool-dom.


Test......Test....One, two......Is this thing on?