NYE 2006

Bryan sent me a ton of pictures that he took from our New Year's Eve party back in 2006... You can make up your own captions... Thomas is, quite obviously, the star...

Sliding Rock

Back in May Austin and Miho stopped in during a trip down for Aaron Dunham's wedding. Austin wanted to go hang out in the mountains and invited us to come along for a day. It was cold and rainy, but it ended up being a lot of fun. And also the location for one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. We spend most of the time at Sliding Rock, which was not technically open yet. (Oh. And it was cold.) I guess there had been some big storms or something... So this big freakin' tree that we were standing right next to just cracked right in half while we were standing there. It chopped another tree in half and fell square across the rock. Had we arrived 5 minutes earlier, we probably would have been sliding on the rock and squished. 5 minutes later, and we would have missed watching this tree plunge to its death on the smooth rocky surface below. Obviously I was too fat and old and slow to actually get that on camera, but here are some photos of the trip anyway.
I've never figured out why it is cool to take pictures of people while they are driving. This is what happened tho.
Usually, from this angle, you should be able to see the rock. Instead, you see the newly fallen tree...	You can see it better here...	This is just the pool that you fall into at the end. Way behind Austin, Allison and Miho are walking in the water.
See? There they are... Crazies. Did I mention it was cold?	Austin got bold and sucked the gut in...	And eventually everyone got wet. Which is not a sexual reference to Austin's gut. As far as I know.
Never seen an albino squirrel before...	Miho (I think) took the pictures of this waterfall on the way back out of the park.	Not only did no one get hurt... But everybody actually looks pretty happy. Even with me in the picture!
I think I mentioned that it was cold... we all tried it anyway...

Bear Den is Swinging

Or at least it was over a year ago. I think the first photo is one of the coolest of Allison... she likes the second one. The second one reminds me of Deana Carter...
Weird poses. Odd. She never does that...................		Sideways is the best way.
The poor kid to whom this swing belonged will never swing in it again. :(	And whatever strange super-power that Allison has to make weird faces that make people next to her out of focus...	...Brooke was not amused...

Radiohead (and Liars)

EDIT: Direct downloads of 192kbs mp3's of this show are over here Saw Radiohead last night at the Verizon Ampitheater in Charlotte. Managed to get there about 2 hours early but had to walk around the parking lot and drink Captain and Sprite by myself b/c Allison was stuck at work... Tried to wait, but it wasn't going to work, so I went in to catch the opening band. Knew they were opening, but I never looked them up... I suppose that, since Deerhoof opened in Amsterdam, that I was going to dig whoever it was. And that worked out. I had a video, but I deleted it to save room for another Radiohead song instead. I still have a shitty 1GB memory card in my camera... But they were cool. Except that they finished, and Allison was still sitting in the car.........................
But she did manage to show up with, really, just seconds left before Radiohead came on. Frightening... but everything worked out in the end. She's funny looking in this photo. Oh yeah... and just before Liars went on, I finished Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and it was awesome and really at all the kind of thing I thought I'd like. Like the ending isn't typically a kind of ending I'd appreciate, usually... Not now...
I think this is probably my favorite photo... He was crazy dancing all night. I tried to do that too, but now I just hurt and no one much thought I was very cool. Which is best. We were row 12 behind the pit, far stage right. I think we were maybe slightly closer than the last time, but I think I would have preferred to sit a few rows further back and to be closer to the center. Wonder how those seats are allotted, actually... all the way down the middle and then to the sides? hm... regardless. It was still awesome, and we were still plenty close. :) I don't really have anything insightful or interesting to say... there is very little I would have changed... setlist was fantastic, sound was great, light show was great, Allison made it in time... So I'm going to not say anything and just post the photos and videos. (Oh... I would definitely pay another $75 to see that again.) ((And there was some stupid review about Radiohead/In Rainbows/Previewing the Show in Creative Loafing this past week. It was dumb. It sounded like "Radiohead are so past their prime." or "In Rainbows is a weak effort from a formerly great band." Something like that. It sucked.))
Tried to grab one more picture as they were leaving the stage, but I was still all shaky from the sound or the movements or something, so everything was blurry. This is still kind of... cute, I guess.
I start to film pretty much every song that gets played... and then stop if I don't like it or something... so it's always pretty random or luck-of-the-draw as to what I end up actually getting and keeping. There There showed up pretty early... I guess it's not "cool," but I still really like this song, and I kept the video of that. Got Myxomatosis the same way, and it's badass enough for me as well, so I kept that and, given the size of my tiny memory card, I was done with the filming. The sound kind of sucks, which is too bad, b/c it was actually just about perfect when we were there... So it goes... There There Myxomatosis