Fanatic

Chemtrail is making its first on-stage appearance at the Stone Pony tonight. There’s an interesting mix of bands: first a cover band (they were great) and now a reggae band called Dub Proof (v.mellow; Pretty sweet). There will be one more band, then Chemtrail, then the headliner, The Joe Harvard Band, and finally a closing group. I’ll post another pic & maybe an audio file if I can manage to grab one.

Or, maybe not so much.

I got an email from MoveOn.org today that was pretty funny– it was about a not-so-great comment made by McCain’s team today. Right up there with Al Gore inventing the Internet. Actually, I’m not sure what Al Gore really said, but it will forever be remembered this way.
So I wonder if McCain will be remembered for this?

The actual quote (I think?) is in this short article at Politico. OK, OK, I see what was intended here was not ‘he created the Blackberry.’

What’s interesting is the actual intent: that somehow the Telecommunications in the US over the past 15 years is something to marvel at. Umm.. maybe they need to take a look at South Korea, Japan, or even Europe and their mobile communications before they start raving about ours.

Premier innovation indeed.

I read lots of books when I was little and had quite a collection of Dr.Seuss. But one book I didn’t have (and until last week didn’t know the story of) was Horton Hears a Who. It’s a great story– loved the moral to it (and so as not to spoil it for others like me who don’t know the story, I won’t elaborate).There were so many funny parts, but like many, my favorite was the character Katie. J tells me that she wasn’t in the original story (it was one of his favorites that he made his mom read many times), so she was apparently added in for… comic relief? Worked for me.

It also reminded me of this shirt at Threadless:

Chemtrail- Top Advant Garde Act, originally uploaded by katatak.

Chemtrail was nominated in 4 categories for the 15th Annual Asbury Music Awards which were held at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park¹ tonight. Although they didn’t win any of the individual awards, the band as a whole won Top Advant Garde Act! We decided the Advant Garde is where they put all the other bands that don’t really fit into any of the other 10 genres to which they awarded a ‘Top Act’ trophy. Whatever genre they are considered, this is a super-awesome pat on the back for them. The other awards for which they were considered were Top Drummer– Chris Lukens, Top Guitarist–Dan Ridenour, and (of course!) Top Bassist– J.Maggio. sweet.

One of the coolest things about the band’s honor tonight is that there was a ballot that anyone could fill out to vote… but we didn’t know about it. So this somewhat of a popularity contest wasn’t something that we sent out emails to all of our friends to vote for. I even had someone ask me about who did the voting- if there was somewhere online that she could go to give them a vote, but in all my searchings around, I’d not seen any links to this ballot (until now- found on Google). We did find out at some point after the ballots were due in (possibly even between Thursday and tonight), so at that point we couldn’t ask friends to vote. So that just makes it all the more cool that they won.

Congratulations, Guys!!

1. Asbury’s music scene is likely somewhere the size of a lake in the whole ‘big fish-small pond; little-fish big pond(i.e. ocean)’ kind of metaphor, so Chemtrail seems to be growing quickly in this lake. I suppose lakes come in many different sizes, too, so I shall try to quantify this. The announcer at the awards ceremony claims that Asbury is an internationally known music scene and I’d agree with that. Not known, necessarily to the average Joe, but to anyone who’s done his/her homework on the American music scenes (esp. independent music), Asbury is likely known. Even I, who had no real knowledge of music scenes had heard of this place in New Jersey where Bruce Spingsteen got his start: a place called The Stone Pony. That’s where the Music Awards were held.

I’m very excited to report that Chemtrail’s debut album, Via Satellite is now available! You can get it from the iTunes Music Store, CDBaby, and Napster, as well as at any Chemtrail show or from us.

If you haven’t already, you should try the SimpsonizeMe promotional site. As you can see here, J and I are standing in the lush open fields of New Jersey where you can clearly see the chemtrails in the sky

The site does take quite a bit of load time (and I usually consider our connection here quick) so be forewarned.

Previously you would have seen my SouthPark Kat — make your own here.

I realize I never posted our M&M personalities, either. I don’t think they’re as good, but still fun:

In other news, our cable company’s new HD offerings include the KungFu network…

Got to Barnes & Noble at about 12:40am. Took about 25 minutes to go through line (They were calling wristband numbers 351-400 at the time and I had 308– excellent timing! Could have been a bit earlier, but still…) Went in and got in line. THe people who saw my number seemed surprised that I was coming in so late. Got the book, got home, boiled the kettle, discovered we’re out of milk… Ah, well…

1:30am– Start Reading
3:15am– Laundry Break
3:30am– Starting Chapter 6
4:00am– Go to bed
10:15am– Chapter 7
11:00am– break to wake J
11:15am Chapter 7
12:30pm– food & chat break
1:15pm– Chapter 12
2:40pm–potty & laundry break
2:55pm–mid chapter 15
4:00pm–Laundry break
4:10pm– Chapter 18
4:50pm- finished Ch 19 The Silver Doe - off to Chemtrail Concert

10:45pm– starting Ch20
12:30am– finished 22 — Off to bed — times questionable

10:15am- Starting Ch23
12:00pm– Finished 24
12:10pm– Starting Ch25
1:10pm- Finished Final Hiding Place
1:15pm– start
1:55– finished 29
2:30– Starting Ch 30
6pm– finsihed

Total: 16 hours, 5 minutes.
Awesome.
Can’t wait to read it again and pick up what I missed the first time…

Try as we might, isn’t this always how it seems to end up?

That’s right, my friends, THE question has been popped so we’re officially engaged! The best part is the where and when of it… I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this out loud, but if I did, I know I didn’t say it to him, because I wouldn’t want to put any expectations there. But I’d always thought it would be so cool to get a proposal at a U2 concert because the GA of St.Louis on the Elevation tour was absolutely amazing and (here comes the sappy romantic stuff)… to have a song playing live in the background while your focus is drawn to the one you love…
Well, that’s it- At the Philly GA this past Monday, the concert was amazing. Even the reviews online are starting to claim it was the concert of the year. The crowd was amazing and the boys were absolutely electric… but then I got a little distracted from it all when, after Bono’s schpeal about the One Campaign, they picked the first notes of “One” and I was drawn into an embrace with a ring at the center. *sigh*
OK, so there’s my sappy story of the matter and here’s the photo to go with it. Since I’m not much for writing reviews, I’ll soon add the link to my flickr account which will have photos from this and the MSG concert, and to my Fanatic page which will aslo have the photos.

So after the MSG concert last week, a guy that was near us came up to me and asked if I would share my photos with him. As it turns out, he and his girlfriend were there from Poland, so I got his email (and gave him mine) so I could share the wealth (should any of it turn out). It so happens, also, that I have two friends who moved here from Poland and who could serve as translators for me, since I’m not sure of his fluency in English (it sounded a little broken) and I definitely know my fluency in Polish is non-existant. That all was Tuesday night.
Wednesday I edited and printed out the final draft of my letter to MacMall requesting all my rebates after the whole computer debacle… Maybe I’ll write on that at some point… or maybe not since the letter took me 3 pages! Anyway, I decided to shred my previous drafts (why, I’m not sure, since I hardly ever shred anything).
Thursday morning on the way to work, I realize that it was on the back of the first draft of the letter that U2guy (as I am calling him, though I’m guessing his name might be Jack, from his email), wrote his email on! Yikes! Now, I would like to think that most people would do something like this if they screwed up, but I’ve been notified by several people that no, in fact, for someone they don’t even know, most people would just blow it off. But your’s truly likes her jigsaw puzzles and noticed on the way into work that her shreds were still in the bottom of the bag (it had already been changed the evening before since I was leaving late). So I had a little fun and got U2guy’s email back…