John Butler is a madman on the 12 string guitar

Words cannot describe how much the John Butler Trio rock live.

The best word I can think of to even begin to encapsulate the awesomeness of this show is "powerful". Powerful in all of it's meanings. The music, the sound, the lyrics, the attitude - all just blew me away.

The show was billed as an "acoustic" show, but I don't know if it would be possible for them to rock any harder. John Butler has an amazing effect on his acoustic guitars that rivals any electric rock guitarist. Half way through the show he played an eight minute solo instrumental on the 12 string that expanded my known world on what is possible on that instrument. The rest of the show he continued to astound switching from 12 string, to Dobro, to lap slide, to banjo and even some ukulele. The bass and the drummer were equally as mind-blowing on their respective instruments. The final encore song went on for a good ten minutes featuring an incredible bass solo followed by an amazing drum solo that left everyone in the crowd screaming for more. Between songs throughout the night John Butler would bring it down and tell the crowd a little bit about the song and where he was in his life when writing it which gave a very cool intimate "Storytellers" feel to this sold out show at the Fox.

Basically what I'm getting at here is that the John Butler Trio rocks. If you haven't seen them live make it a top priority. That's all I'm saying.

The Shins Rock the house and Cliff Diving at "The Most Exciting Restaurant in the World"

Wow.

Let me tell you something, Denver. You put out quite the night. Even hitting rush hour straight on couldn't put a damper on this evening.

It's been so long since I've been down to Denver during a rush hour that I completly forgot they existed. I'm used to trying my patience on Shields and Mulberry trying to get home from work - that's nothing compared to going 7 mph on a four lane interstate jam packed with cars. And then just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" came on the radio and all was better. Check out the music video for that song if you don't already know what I mean.

Then it was time for dinner - not my choice, but I was all for it when I heard what Cynthia suggested and all of the sudden we found ourselves at the entrance to the Denver, nay, Colorado landmark: Casa Bonita. I hadn't been there for probably 20 years and it definitely was everything I remember and more. Self proclaimed as "The Most Exciting Restaurant In The World" I would have to agree. It's set up exactly like an amusement park all the way down to the line you have to wait in to order and to get into the actual restaurant. Then once you get to the tables you're surrounded by palm trees, cliffs, water falls, old "Mexican" posters and decorations, Mariachi bands and high school actors and members of the local dive team who work part time putting on a melodrama with cliff diving every 15 minutes. Pretty spectacular. We had fun.

Then it was on to The Fillmore to see The Shins. It'd been a couple years since I had seen a show at The Fillmore and I forgot what a great venue it is. We got there in time to catch the last few songs of one of the opening bands - Viva Voca - a duo that had kind of a catchy Weezer type sound to them. The girl sang and played an electric two necked guitar/bass while the guy sang and played keyboard and drums at the same time. Pretty cool to watch.

Then The Shins came on and rocked the house. I've got their new album "Wincing the Night Away" and was sure that they'd start with the opening track on the album "Sleeping Lessons". I was right, and it just got better from there. After "Sleeping Lessons" they went right into "Austraila" followed by "Pam Berry" immediatly into "Phantom Limb" which was incredible. Next they played a couple songs off their oldler albums "Kissing the Lipless", "Girl on the Wing", and "Mine's Not a High Horse". After that came "New Slang" when all the 16 year old girls (and other Garden State fans) when crazy and started screaming. Definite highlights were "Saint Simon" (which totally made Cynthia's night) where they got the whole crowd to sing along on the "La la" parts. "Pressed in a Book" was a definite favorite of mine as well as "A Call to Apathy". They ended the show with "Girl Inform Me" which was a great high energy song and a perfect song to go out on. The sold out crowd was great and the Fillmore even gave the band little trophys for selling out the show which the brought out on stage and showed everybody.

Overall it was an awesome show - one that I would reccommend not to miss when they're anywhere nearby your area of residence.

Here's to another fabulous night, Denver. Rock on.

Strange Happenings in Local Ice Chest

Check this out:
I filled up a normal ice cube tray midday and then 8 hours later we needed some ice, and upon removing the tray from the freezer we found a freak occurrence. Sometime during the freezing process, normal everyday physics had flown out the window and left us with the ice cube shown. Dennis put it in his tea and as far as I know is still living normally, so it must have just been the physical properties of the ice cube that had changed inexplicably and not the chemical properties. What made this freak occurrence take place? We are without explanation.

Weird dream

I had this crazy dream last night, which is weird because I usually never remember my dreams. Our family was visiting some friends who lived right by a harbour on an ocean and there was a big steam powered paddle boat that was just floating out in the harbour. Then my dad and I thought it would be a cool picture if I were to jump in the ocean - it was shallow enough to stand - and push the huge boat around. But as we started walking down to the water this big storm came up and the water got really rough, but I thought I'd do it anyway so I jumped in with my clothes and sandals on and the water immediately took the sandals off of my feet. I kept looking around the bottom for the sandals, but all I could find were other people's flip flops. I was so mad at myself for not taking off my shoes before jumping in and now they were gone forever.

When I woke up this morning I was so disappointed and still mad at myself for losing my sandals. And then I realized that it was just a dream.

Shoveling for days!

So there was a blizzard in Colorado. Everybody in the country knows this. We were on national news and not only because DIA had to cancel a thousand flights. We got about two feet of snow on the first blizzard and then a week later we got another eight inches. Fun times, unless you've got a two wheel drive Oldsmobile that doesn't like snow and ice.

Wednesday I had taken the day off of work with the intention of doing brunch at Lucille's (one of the best breakfast places in Fort Collins) and then the brewery tours with some friends of mine. Budweiser was already closed so we decided to meet at Lucille's at 11:00. By this time it was a full on blizzard. Then we made our way over to Fort Collins brewery (leaving my car at Lucille's) and to our utter disappointment they were "closed". The door was unlocked and there were people working there, but they refused to give us any tasters. We were there, they were there and the beer was there, but for some odd reason we left without any tasters. Disappointed to say the least. Then it was New Belgium Brewery. We got there just as they were closing up the registers, but being the cool people they are, they showed us around a little and gave us an awesome taster and a couple glasses and bottle openers. Then it was on to Odell's who were completely open and acting like nothing was any different than any normal day. So after a great taster at Odell's and a great tour we headed over to Wal-Mart to buy Madden 2007 for Nintendo Wii. For the rest of the afternoon (with the blizzard raging outside) we were working up a sweat playing football.

When we emerged from the basement to walk and get food it was as if we were in some post-apocalyptic zombie movie. I kept waiting for the looting to begin. At least a foot of snow with more coming down and cars were beginning to become abandoned. Needless to say the pizza tasted amazing.

Upon reaching the car we found it to be covered in snow with a huge bank behind it, but with a couple pushes and gunning the engine the car bashed through the snow and was able to drive away. However...it got stuck about three blocks from the house...

The next three days were full of movies and shoveling. Then it was Christmas, which was nice, and then the next Thursday it snowed another eight inches. More shoveling and watching movies.

It might melt by March...

Happy New Years!

Another quick barrage of movie reviews

"Shopgirl" - Not sure if I really liked it. There were definitely several parts that just made you feel awkward, and I'm not a big fan of movies that make me feel like that. Steve Martin did a decent job, but more of the definite older man of the picture - think "LA Story" or "Father of the Bride" with no humor. Jason Schwartzman is also good in it, but his performance is where a lot of the awkwardness of the movie comes from.

"Topaz" - A good spy film. It's old and so kind of slow, but I enjoyed it. Not Hitchcock's best, but definitely not one of his worst.

"Cool Hand Luke" - You need to see this movie. It's a classic. Paul Newman and George Kennedy are incredible. A great story about the unbreakable will of a man.
"That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker."

"Junebug" - Not quite sure what I thought of this movie. The performances of the cast was good enough, but the story was nothing to spectacular. Although it didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, the was nothing quite memorable about it either. Good one to skip.

"Hoodwinked" - Thought it was going to be much better than it was. It had it's moments, but as is it in most of these movies, the moments that it has you've seen on the previews and the rest is just filler. Could be a good family movie, but then there are others that are much better.

"Terminator 3" - Pretty sweet. Good third film of a pretty cool trilogy. Although, I wouldn't be completely floored if they released another. Arnold's back and bad as ever although this time even more than in Terminator 2, you have no idea how he's going to win as out matched as he is. The story is definitely good enough to keep you entertained through the parts that have a little less action although those parts are few and far between. Check it out for a good entertaining couch night.

"The Squid and the Whale" - Didn't like it. Very disturbing. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney had really good performances, but if I had never seen it I wouldn't be any less for it.

"Munich" - Powerful movie, powerful filming, writing and acting. Another good serious Stephen Spielberg success.

"Pride and Prejudice" - I haven't read the book, nor have I seen the BBC edition of the movie that came out a while ago and is about three times as long. I've heard that people who have read the book or seen the other version are really disappointed with this movie, but I thought it was actually pretty good. Donald Sutherland as the father of the girls does a great job, and Keira Knightley does a great job as well, although I'm a little biased on that point.

"The Sentinel" - Great movie. Intense all the way through and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The performances of Michael Douglas, Keifer Sutherland and Eva Longorina do not hurt the film either.

"Saint Ralph" - I really liked this movie, although there's some stuff in the beginning you're going to have to look over. Don't watch this movie with your parents but I think watching it separate from each other, each party would really enjoy it. A story about a boy with everything against him striving to do the impossible: win the Boston Marathon. It's definitely a drama, with some great funny parts in it as well as a lot of things to really make you think.

"Lucky Number Slevin" - Fast paced filming, smart writing, quick dialog and great performances from the all star cast make this a film not to miss. A little violent in times (it's about two rival gang leaders and a hitman) but that's easy to look over in a film this good. Sir Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman play the two rival gang leaders and have an incredible scene between them. Bruce Willis is still in his prime and there are two surprisingly good performances from both Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu whom I'm starting to like more and more with each movie I see them in.

"Art School Confidential" - Not as good as I thought it was going to be. Couldn't tell if they wanted to make it a mystery, a romantic comedy, or just a stupid college life run of the mill comedy. For me it ended up turning into the last one, just with out being very funny. Skip it.

"X-Men III: The Last Stand" - Wow. Really good movie. Action packed, good story line, great acting and unexpectedly dark. Very cool effects. Best of the trilogy. See it if you liked the other two, or even kind of liked the other two. If these type of movies aren't for you, then you probably won't see it anyway.

"Cocktail" - It's okay. Nothing too special although there's a good 10 to 15 minutes of Tom Cruise and co-star Bryan Brown doing some really cool bottle tricks while bar tending in crowded NYC bars. Other than that, I think it was only popular because it came out shortly after "Top Gun".

"The Break Up" - Surprisingly more of a drama than a comedy, although it definitely did have its laughs. Vince Vaughn is Vince Vaughn, and if you've liked him before you'll like him now. Same with Jennifer Aniston and same with John Favreau. The writing is pretty good though, and for all it's billed as a comedy - it's a good serious movie that I think couples will really enjoy.

"A Prairie Home Companion" - I liked it enough, but nothing really great. I think I liked it as much as I did because I've listed to the radio show enough that I really got the characters. It was interesting seeing Garrison Keillor as an actor, but I would definitely say that John C. Reilly and Woody Harrleson stole the show. Their number towards the end of the film was a high point in the film for me and had me laughing out loud. A good family movie with not a lot to it.

"The Prestige" - Really good movie. Thriller that keeps you guessing (or at least kept me guessing, Julia caught the ending much sooner than I did) until the end, or nearly the end. The writing, filming and acting are incredible - there's not one weak link in the cast. See this movie.

"Sahara" - Fun entertaining movie. Steve Zahn is great and gives you laughs in his role as only he can. Matthew McConaughey is perfect for the lead character and I hope (although I think some of Clive Cussler's fans will disagree) that they will continue with this character and make some of the other books into movies.

"Borat" - You'll either love or hate this movie, and if you love it, there will still be several unbelievable scenes that make your jaw drop and your mind have to ask yourself if you actually just saw what you think you did. There's enough press going on about this movie that I don't need to review it any further.

"Clerks II" - Not as good as Clerks I, and I didn't really feel that it had quite the Kevin Smith touch as his other movies, but as a sequel goes - it accomplishes what it needs to. It's a nice wrap up and a nice continuation of some running gags throughout the Tri-city movies. There were a couple of great dialogues reminiscent of the first movie and those definitely made me laugh out loud. There just weren't enough of them for me.

"Superman Returns" - Pretty good. I really liked Kevin Spacey, thought he did a great job as Lex Luthor. Decent story line as well, but nothing awesome. For as much hype as it got and for as big as it needed to be as a new Superman movie, it fell a little short for my liking. Not that I didn't think it was a good movie - it was a fine movie - but nothing special. A good, entertaining, Sunday night flick for the whole family.

A Trip To Paradise

Wow. What to say about an incredible week spent with great friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world? I spent last week in the town of Paraiso in the Dominican Republic with two great friends from high school and junior high, one of whom is a Peace Corps volunteer down there working with a coffee cooperative. Now I'm not extremely well traveled, but I have been to my fair share of the world and I must say that the beaches of the southern coast of the Dominican Republic where the most breathtaking beaches I have every seen.

So because I can't tell you everything about the trip - it would take way to long, as those of you who know me realize ;) - I'm just going to give you some highlights:

-fresh fruit: It's incredible. Oranges, grapefruit, papaya, passion fruit, avocados, sweet lemons, bananas, and coconuts. First time eating fresh coconut and trying to peel them from their outer shell with a machete. Good times.

-people: Everybody we met were so helpful, gracious and wanted to be the best hosts they could be. We were offered fresh made Dominican coffee in every house we went to, very sweet coffee, but I enjoyed it. Everybody made us feel very welcome and all of Kat's friends became our friends in a matter of minutes.

-the first view of Paraiso. After driving down a road near the coast line, you wind up a fairly large hill (mountain) and as you turn the corner and start the decent you have an amazing view of the green landscape, the blue sea and sky and the white of the clouds and the sand. Beautiful.

-riding on a "moto": The main mode of transportation and my first time on a motorcycle. There's not a better way to see the scenery around you though.

-the weather: I mean come on! It's December and I'm in shorts and a t-shirt, sunny all the time hanging out on the beach in the Caribbean Sea. Pretty sweet.

-Bahia de las Aguilas - Bay of the Eagles. Two hours in the back of a truck carrying 11 people, but it was a fun ride and the destination for the day was absolutely worth it. White sandy beaches, clear sky, blue water, snorkeling, eating freshly caught fish, picking up little blowfish, laying in a hammock in the shade of a tree, walking the beach during an incredible sunset.

-Santo Domingo: Overall not my favorite, and glad we only spent a day there, but it was cool seeing the Colonial District of the first European city of the New World. Standing outside Columbus' house, visiting the first Cathedral of the New World walking by the remains of the first hospital.

It was just an incredible time. And even though I don't speak Spanish (I'm learning though!) I was able to have a great time and understand a lot of what was going on and make some great friends. I will be going back.

20061205_Trip to Paradise