Mopping Janet

That's my band's name. I'll post the story behind the name one of these days. Suffice it to say it involved alcohol and a blonde.

For the past few months Chefdino and I have been putting together a band. The primary goal is to create original music. We went through Craig's list here in Raleigh to put it together.

I hadn't really started a band from scratch in years. What an ordeal...

My wife turned 40

I suppose I shouldn't post a woman's age. Whoops. I did it anyhow. Heh.

She turned 40 last Thursday. I wanted this birthday to be memorable in a fun way. So no serious gifts! That's not to say she didn't get some cool stuff, just no jewelry or appliances or anything that is overly typical for a birthday. I mostly went with a theme of getting her stuff she enjoyed growing up. So here's a run down of the goodies:

• The kids each painted her a picture and I framed them - Nicholas did the family and Danny did a beach scene - very cool stuff!
• Then the kids painted her a wooden stool - basically a really nice barstool type chair - she can use this in her own crafts work area. It's very colorful. Our kids rock!
• Melissa was really into the pogo stick as a kid. She'd bounce up and down the stairs and all around the neighborhood. So I got her the FLYBAR 1200! This thing is a serious piece of hardware. It can go up to six feet in the air! Oh hell yes, this thing is cool!
• She also really got into the hula hoop. In fact, she one the hula hoop contest at a large family affair a couple years ago. She smoked everyone. So naturally I got her several hula hoops. As it turns out I should have bought those online because they were sold out everywhere around here - I had to go to 8 stores to find them.
• I got her a talking ALF doll. If you don't remember the show ALF then this will mean nothing to you. If you remember the show, you are probably already giggling. It's pretty funny. Our smaller dog wants to tear ALF to shreds. I think he gets pissed that ALF is always saying "here, kitty, kitty".
• Then there were a bunch of things like a paddle ball set, kaleidoscope, etc.

The day before her birthday the kids were so excited about the gifts that we gave them to her a day early - LOL.

We had a party on Saturday. It was a great crowd and a great time. It's really kickass to be surrounded by great people.

Oh, in keeping with the theme of things I had bought a ton of candy from our childhood era. You can get anything on the Internet. Stuff like wax lips, pixie stix, Zotz, Charms, bottle caps, those wax bottles with colored sugar water in them, etc. All the kids at the party went nuts with this stuff. It started off as a pretty big box full of candy. I couldn't believe how much those little monsters ate! I was lucky to get some Zotz!

Melissa had treater herself to a new outfit for the party. She looked great. Really great.

She had a blast. We had friends and family from out of town as well as some of the excellent folks we've come to know since we've moved to NC.

Queensryche

My wife and I drove down to Myrtle Beach on Sunday to catch Queensryche at the House of Blues. It was an "evening with" so no opening band - that was a good thing in this case because Queensryche kicked ass. Geoff Tate brought it. He sounded even better than last year (which I thought was great too). The band was really tight. The guitars sounded great. They played both Mindcrime albums (I think in there entirety). And they topped the night off with a nice encore of several of their other classic tunes. All told they played for about 2.5 hrs or so. Very impressive show.

The House of Blues is not that big of a venue but it was PACKED. The crowd reaction sounded like an arena - the crowd was LOUD. There were a couple drunk a**holes near us that kept spilling drinks and bumping into us - so I farted. Oh, and after the last tune Scott Rockenfield tossed a couple sticks out and of course people went diving for them and came up throwing punches - Scott just shook his head in disbelief and walked out. What kind of moron throws down for a pair of drum sticks?