“Congratulations! You have been selected to attend an exclusive Meet and Greet with Ben Folds on May 29.”

Sooo, since April of last year, I’ve seen Ben in Springfield, Kansas City, St. Peter, Duluth, Vienna, Carey, Nashville, Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, Green Bay, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kirksville, Kansas City (#2), Knoxville, Asheville, Durham, Charleston, Atlanta, Omaha, Manhattan, and Fayetteville.  Another Kansas City show on Saturday will make 24, and the October 31st show in Minneapolis will make 25, but I’m sure I’ll see him a few times in between this weekend and Halloween.

To the dipshit employee at Star Bucks on Main St. in Kansas City that made my grande iced vanialla/raspberry soy latte today – does a picture help?

Google reader kicks ass.  I just wish someone would have told me about it sooner.

I’m crunching work units like a mofo.

Alright, so I’m only 20 pages into it, but “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature” by Steven Pinker is great.  I better read a bit more before I talk it up too much.

Here’s two words I ran into today that I thought meant something else:

Droll, adj:  Amusingly odd or whimsically comical.

It doesn’t mean dull?

Fatuous, adj: Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.

This one had stumped me.

So I’m thinking about changing my tag line -

Frankapalooza, it harkens back to a simpler time.

What the hell is up with bakery employees stuffing the tissue they use to grab your donut into the bag with your donut? Isn’t that tissue to protect my donut from their filthy hands? What would one of them think if they were at Subway, and after the “Sandwich Artist” made their sandwich they proceded to take off their latex gloves and stuff them into the bag along with the sandwich? YUCK!

…and I don’t want to hear about all the filthy shit that goes on in back either. I don’t have to see that.

So we’ve been spending a lot more time with Roy and Brian’s new dog Tagan (sp?) lately.  We’re both ready to rush out and buy a border collie today, but we’re tying to be practical, do our research, and evaluate our habits to see if we can really handle another addition to the family.  As a consequence, Roy is getting a lot more attention, and he’s responding well to it.  He’s only been around other dogs a few times in his life, and we’ve rarely taken him on walks both because we’re lazy and  he’s always seemed happiest when he’s gnawing on a peanut butter chewie and sitting in a lap.  That’s changing though.  We’re committed to exercising the little (fat) guy a lot more and trying to train him.

I hope I’m writing part two of this post in a few weeks to report we have a new dog and a happy well-exercised poodle.

UPDATE – We brought Finnie home Sunday (June 1st) .  She’s an Australian Shepherd.  Aside from losing a bit of sleep the past few nights, we’re have a wonderful time with her.  She’s learning fast, and she’s growing like a weed!

04/02/08 – Springfield, MO (MSU)

• We hadn’t been to a Ben Folds concert before so we didn’t know what to expect.  Our seats were 30-40 rows back just a bit stage left.  This was the absolute loudest sound I’ve ever experienced.  I closed my eyes and it literally felt as if I was swimming in sound during Narcolepsy.  Ben’s studio stuff is fantastic, but his live performance is unbelievable.  Oh, I shouldn’t forget to mention Eef Barzelay either.  It was just him and his electric guitar on stage, and he tore the place up…I’ve bought two of his albums and 4 Clem Snide ones since.

04/05/08 – Kansas City, MO (UMKC)

• There were less than 1000 people at this concert, and the energy was pretty low.  We volunteered to help out just so we could get in, and we were assigned “security”.  Ya, you read that right security.  What this really meant was we got free t-shirts, a close-up view stage left, and the authority to glare at the irritating little shits that wouldn’t shutup.  The show was great, of course, but the best part was getting to meet the band afterwards and getting a picture of us with Ben.  Eef cut his act off short unfortunately, since the crowd was sooooo dead.  Black Violin also performed.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t piano rock either.

04/19/08 – St. Peter, MN (Gustavus Adolphus College)

• This was part one of our Ben Folds Minnesota Road Trip 2008.  We stood out in the cold a couple hours before the show, but we were rewarded with  getting to see the show from dead center about 3 rows back.  The sound system was crazy loud and the crowd was great.

04/20/08 – Duluth, MN (UMD)

• By far the best show I’ve ever seen.  We watched from the front row stage right so you could see every facial expression, and I didn’t miss seeing a single note being pounded out on that abused piano.  29 songs and we got another picture with Ben afterwards.  My only complaint and I can barely even categorize it as a complaint is that it wasn’t loud enough.  It was loud, but it wasn’t make your ears bleed loud like I like it.

05/28/08 – Vienna, VA (Wolf Trap)

• Ben Folds East Coast Road Trip – Another great concert of course.  We even got Effington t-shirts from our Benfriends L met on The Suburbs message board.  We were stage left in the fourth row, but unfortunately I had a big fat head bobbing back and forth blocking my view of Ben half the time.  Again, it wasn’t nearly loud enough…I guess it would have been difficult to get an open air show as loud as a school gymnasium.  The Wolf Trap venue was absolutely georgeous.  We  were under this giant wooden canopy that covered all the reserved seating in front of the lawn seats.

05/30/08 – Cary, NC (Koka Booth Amphitheatre)

• Ben Folds East Coast Road Trip – Great show, great venue.  We were center stage second row.  The crowd was pretty dead throughout the show, but Ben’s family was there and he did a lot of messing around between songs.  No autograph or picture though.

09/07/08 – Nashville, TN (Schermerhorn Symphony Center)

• <coming soon>

10/03/08 – Fort Wayne, IN (Embassy Theatre)

• <coming soon>

10/04/08 – Louisville, KY (Kentucky Center)

• <coming soon>

Here’s a short video of Ben performing The Luckiest from the Duluth show.

It’s a little early to start the holiday countdown, so how this instead: 

1. xcopy c:\boot d:\boot /h /e
    It is a directory
2. xcopy c:\bootmgr d:\bootmgr /h
   it is a file
3. Mark partition as active

Stop thinking about buying it, and do it now.