Guitar Dog

"Among God's creations, two, the dog and the guitar, have taken all the sizes and all the shapes in order not to be separated from the man."

- Andres Segovia

Weekends. I Prefer the Weekends.

The last 2 weekends have be absolutely killer (pun intended). Not only were they random and fun, but they helped chip away at the 101.

The last 2 weekends combined:
The Killers at Susquehanna Bank Center
Brian & Dawn's Bridal Party party
Gaslight Anthem at the Stone Pony
Long Beach Island
Carla & Craig's Wedding
Andrea & Dan's Italian Market Festival Party
The Shins at the Electric Factory
Planting of our herb & flower garden

That being said...
54. This Gingered Honey Salmon recipe puts me over the halfway mark of my 50 recipe goal (26 of 50):
57. Now that the garden is planted I must maintain it until the end of the summer for it to count. The garden includes: red bell pepper, rosemary, cilantro, dill, thyme, chives, Thai basil, basil, parsley, and strawberries.
69. My show tally is now up to 7 out of 25.
73. 2 more songs of the week (24 of 52):
Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band - "Nikorette"
Japandroids - "Young Hearts Spark Fire"
99. New place from our Philly guide book: Italian Market.

The Killers

Best rock show I've ever seen.

Toffee With Your Vicodin

Mini 101 Update:

54. 2 more recipes:
Rice, Black Bean, & Corn Salad













Apple Thyme Chicken













69. Saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at the Barbary with Andrea & Dan. I don't have any pictures, but I've provided a lil' video for y'all. A buzz band that's buzz worthy... nice.



73. Song for the week ending on 05.03.2009: Keane - "The Lovers Are Losing"

Also, updated this post with recipe pics.

Hobbits

"The foot that proves Hobbits may have existed."

Full article here.

Tied

61. Learn how to tie a tie. Out of necessity, it is done. Proof:
How did I do it? The Internet!!! Tell me this guy isn't completely weird (best part: 2min 20 sec):

Biweekly

The state of Pennsylvania has me claiming benefits "biweekly". To me, this would mean twice a week, but what they mean is twice a month. To see who was right I went to dictionary.com. Now I have another reason to be confused by the English language:

"bi-week-ly [bahy-week-lee]
–adjective
occurring every two weeks.
occurring twice a week."

Phew

Big 101 in 1001 Update:

7. Went to the dentist. Twice.
14. I was able to access my college computer without having to enter my password. Turns out there's an easy way around it and I was able to get access to all of my files. The computer is still at my parents, so I'll have to bring a drive next time, but I did gain access so I'm counting it.
29 & 42. I planted 10 trees via plantabillion.org (it's only $1 a tree so do it!). The first 5 trees cover #29 and the second 5 trees cover "Do something worthwhile on Earth Day." I wanted to do something out in the world on Earth Day, but it sort of snuck up on me. I couldn't find any last minute clean-ups or anything like that in the area, so I'm counting the tree planting.
47. I sold 5 things on eBay. They all happened to be DVDs I'd never watch again in a hundred years. They're out of the house and I made money.
54. 3 more recipes down:
Fish Ragout with Limes














Chicken Breasts with Rosemary & Lemon














Chinese Pork & Vegetable Stir-Fry














65. I learned to play along to Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'". So what if it's only 3 chords in the same pattern over and over for the entire song? It's recognizable. It counts.
69. Attended 3 shows:
Gaslight Anthem / Heartless Bastards at the Trocadero
Death Cab for Cutie / Cold War Kids at the Tower Theater
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at the Spectrum
... which brings me to 70. I photographed the Gaslight Anthem gig (pics here & here) and the Death Cab show (pics to come) so that's 2 out of 3. Now, the Death Cab show is kind of tricky but I'm counting it. I received the photo pass from Ra Ra Riot's management, but they went on earlier than they were supposed to and we missed them. The Cold War Kids started basically as soon as we arrived so I didn't have my bearings about me. I was only allowed in this corner with a terrible view of the stage, so I got photos but they kind of suck. Then I found out that Death Cab had a separate photo pass and I wouldn't be allowed to shoot them. However, we had pretty close seats and I was able to snap a few before getting busted by security.
71. I took a really long freakin' time but this one (Geek-out on iTunes #1: [assign Year, Genre, and Album Art to all songs]) is done. You try doing that without going crazy during the process. Unemployment definitely helped this one get done...
73. Some new songs to the ongoing playlist:
... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - "Bells of Creation"
Love - "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero"
Silversun Pickups - "Panic Switch"
Superchunk - "Learned to Surf (Acoustic Demo)"
74. I recyced my old iPod through Apple when the hard drive crashed. In doing so I was given a discount off of my totally awesome new 120gb iPod. Screw iPhones.
76. 2 Best Picture Winners out of 15: saw Slumdog Millionaire.
78. More books are done:
"Obama: A Promise of Change" by David Mendell... I should tell you that this is a children's adaptation of an adult book, but it was a gift, so I read it. It was close to 200 pages and I did learn stuff about Obama that I didn't know before so it counts.
"The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink
"Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs
99. We've gone to a few places in the guide book I had never gone before:
The Wachovia Spectrum
Buddakan
The Trocadero

Phew.

No Reservations

"Travel isn't always pretty.
It isn't always comfortable.
Sometimes it hurts.
It even breaks your heart.
But that's OK.
The journey changes you.
It should change you.
It leaves marks on your memory,
on your consciousness,
on your heart,
and on your body.
You take something with you.
Hopefully, you leave something good behind."

-Anthony Bourdain; taken from No Reservations: Malaysia.