Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took.  These are ones that I kind of like.

Did you know that you can walk right up to the base of the Hancock Tower on Clarendon Street?  Here’s a little taste of what it looks like…

Let’s stay on the topic of Skyscrapers.  You can’t walk up to the base of the Prudential and stare up into infinity toward the top, but you can get pretty close.

Now for the third and final skyscraper in the set.  I have no idea what the name of this building is, but I remember seeing it in the early stages of construction.

Now how about a dome.  This is the Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Parker Street, bordering the Campus of Wentworth Institute of Technology, and just a block or two away from the Museum of Fine Arts.

On to dome #2… which isn’t actually a dome, it’s a mural on the side of a building between Boylston and Newbury Streets right near Mass Ave.

This next domed building is The First Church of Christ. Scientist.  This building has always seemed a little out of place to me.  When I look at it I can’t help but wonder what people like Cotton Mather, or the Puritans of the seventeenth century would have thought about having it in their town.  Of course to me, having all of these disparate things right on top of each other is what makes Boston so great.

Finally… I had no idea there was a reflecting pool in Boston.  This is right next to the Christ. Scientist dome.  I must have walked past this a thousand times in the past, but this is the first time I ever noticed it.  On the far end you can just make out a fountain.  This weekend we had our first really warm days of the season (temps in the 80’s) and the fountain was full of kids cooling off.

I think maybe some day in the coming weeks me and the camera will go back into town to take some pictures of the cooler looking buildings near Government Center, as well as the Common, the Public Gardens, and the Charles River.  I think it’s a plan.

I sure am.  I haven’t touched my guitar in over a month, but right now the world is conspiring to really make me want to be in a band.

Last week I went to see The Glass Set at the Middle East.  It was the first time in over a year that I went to a bar to see anyone.  I miss it.  Me and a friend or two used to practically live at TT the Bear’s, with The Middle East being home away from home.  I miss the volume, I miss the energy, I miss hearing new things that I wouldn’t otherwise ever be able to hear.  I just miss it.

Then yesterday the rock equivalent of a 1000 megaton bomb was dropped on the not-so-unsupecting world.  Mission of Burma’s new record, The Obliterati.  They made more than half of the songs available on the ‘net via The Obliterati website and their myspace profile, but damn if it isn’t infinately better when taken within the proper album context.  As I listened to it for the first time yesterday while driving home from the Burilington Newbury Comics I made sure everyone on Middlesex Turnpike and Concord Road was introduced to it through my car windows.  I kept having the same thought spin around my head… “Yes.”  That evolved into, “Hell Yes,” which evolved into, “HELL YES!” and so on and so forth.

The first pressing of the record is being released with a bonus DVD too.  This was a nice little treat for me.  The DVD contains four songs shot at The Tsongas Arena on December 2, 2004.  Burma was there opening for The Pixes.  I was there too.  Hell, it’s the Tsongas Arena in December, my hockey home away from home.  The two very sweet older ladies who run the coffee stand (and who also sell the awesome home made cookies that I usually gorge myself on during the second intermission) both joked that I was there at the wrong time.  I felt sorry for them once the music started because it was loud.  Damn loud.  I sat in my hockey seat which was as far away from the stage as possible.  That was okay, I was sick as a dog that week and didn’t really feel like pressing into the crowd.  (everyone who didn’t catch my bug that night can line up to thank me now)  Anyway, now I have this cool little DVD as a reminder of the ass kicking night of rock at “The Senate.”  (The Senate… that’s what I want everyone to start calling The Tsongas Arena… Paul Tsongas was a US Senator… get it?)

So I’m listening to Mission of Burma… thinking back to last week’s show by The Glass Set… thinking about going to O’brien’s this week to see Emily Grogan… and missing being a musician.  Maybe I’ll write an email to some of the guys from Break Even and see if they’re sick of not being in a band too.

Who knows.  Until then I’ll leave you with a line from The Obliterati.  The song is called “Nancy Reagan’s Head”, written by Clint Conley and the line is, “I’m haunted by the freakish size of Nancy Reagan’s head / No way that thing came with that body.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought Nancy was a Martian.

Thanks Mission of Burma!

Who would have thunk that such mindless violence could be so damn entertaining?

We went to Peace Dale Shooting Preserve in Wakefield, RI.  We were supposed to be there at 2:00pm, but both drivers took wrong turns along the way and everyone was late.  Those in my car were latest, but all four of us were looking intently for that friggin’ turn off 138 West, and all four of us missed it… twice.

Once we finally got to the site we had a quick and dirty lesson on shot-gun safety (which was ultimately ignored by the guy working with us on at least two occasions) and use, and then they gave us some easy targets to start with.

We’d bought 50 targets/shells each, and the first round we did we took five shots.  John the Bachelor went first and hit three out of the five targets.  That  made me seriously nervous because I was convinced I wasn’t going to shoot anything but air.  When my first turn came I took a gun, listened to the instructor for a bit, loaded a shell, took aim while feeling more than a little bit like a doofus (and a hypocrite too, let’s be honest), and called, “pull” knowing I had zero chance of hitting anything.  The little orange clay pigeon came out from behind the tree line in the distance, high in the air… I tracked it, waited for it’s arc to peak (thanking my calculus classes for the first time ever)… lead it a little… and !BLAM!

Do you know what happened then?

That little bitch of a clay pigeon burst into about 10,000 pieces.

I hit the target with my first shot.  Un-freakin-believable!

Of course I missed with the next four, but who cares… I hit one!

The second round I hit two more, but was still feeling kind of lost.  I knew what I was trying to do, but for some reason when I hit the target it seemed almost as if I had my eyes closed.  I wasn’t sure what I was doing right, and therefore I couldn’t necessarily replicate the process.

In the third round however, my eyes and my hands started communicating and I really started getting it.  After that point, the misses were few and far between, and when I did miss a target I could immediately tell what I did wrong.  I was really comfortable with the gun, and (dare I say it?) firing it started to feel natural to me.

I’m not going to go buy a gun, and there is no NRA membership in my future… but I’ll probably go back to this place again and unleash the Wrath of Rob on some more clay pigeons.

Remembering that this was a bachelor party, it may seem strange that there were cameras present… but this is me we’re talking about, so here are some pictures.  The shots where you see me were taken by Larry, so I felt obligated to include one shot of him as well.  The rest are my brother The Bachelor.

The Bachelor takes aim……

….still aiming….

….and KABLAM!

Notice the ejected shell flying through the air?

And the bachelor reloads for the next shot.

The Best Man takes aim as the Bachelor fires… notice the ejected shell about to hit the table between us.

Larry takes a shot… he’s left handed so I was standing on the opposite side of the gun, but you can still see the shell being ejected.

I took a few souvenirs.  Two used shells and a chunk of one of the targets that I shot.

And one more picture of me, complete with the ejecting shell.

After we finished playing gun nuts we went to Foxwoods where the tables were unkind to all.  We met up with three more people who couldn’t make it to the gun range and then started in the buffet.  I ate enough food for a small village in a third world country.  Lets just say that if Sally Struthers saw how much food I ate she’d kick my ass.

As for the casino… I’m not a gambler at all.  I’ve never had money to speak of, and the idea of just throwing it away on a bet is a little terrifying to me.  I tried a little, but not really.  I ended up placing a total of $25 worth of bets, and I never won a penny back, and I gave another $20 in chips to The Bachelor who promptly lost it at a poker table.  Larry isn’t a gambler either, so we spent most of the night just wandering around the building, checking the place out.

Those who were gambling were eaten alive by the house.  They all agreed that they had a lot of fun, but they were also pissed off at how bad everyone did.  At least everyone kept within their means.  No one made any ATM runs during losing streaks.  That’s a good thing.

So my brother the Bachelor had a great time at his Party.  His shoulder was sore from having a shot gun kick it 50 times, but otherwise he was very happy with the festivities.  That’s just the kind of day I wanted him to have.

My little brother is getting married next month, and we gave his single life a nice send off.

Next stop… the wedding.

And went 0 for 4 in the semifinals.

Sorry to the teams I picked… I obviously jinxed you.

I picked San Jose and they lost to Edmonton.  Edmonton at least has Sergei Samsonov, so it wasn’t a total loss for a Bruins fan.

I picked Colorado and they lost to a team named after a Disney movie.  How embarrassing for the (former) Nordiques.

I picked New Jersey even though I was routing for Carolina, and Carolina won.  I should just go right on picking with my heart instead of my head.

I picked Ottawa and they lost to Buffalo.  I hate Buffalo, oh so much.

So now we come to the Conference Finals.  I know I’m making my predictions after the first game of the Western Finals, but I made it pretty clear who I was picking in the past so it shouldn’t be a cop out.

In the West.  I pick the Edmonton Oilers to win.  Go Samsonov you little (former) Commie.  Sammy’s gonna skate circles around those freakin Ducks.  I don’t care how good Bryzgalov was in the last two rounds, he and the mallards are going to lose to a real hockey team.  Go Oilers.

In the East.  Carolina all the way.  I loathe Buffalo with a passion that nearly reaches my passion for blue eyed blonds.  I want Buffalo to be eliminated and I want it to happen in an embarrassing four game sweep.  Let’s go (former) Whalers!

So there are my third round picks.  If the second round is any basis for my skills at prognostication, we can expect a Buffalo Anaheim Stanley Cup Finals.  Urgh… that would be a fate worse than death.

The Official Terrible Joke of the Party will be:

I hoid of a Shot-Gun weddin before, but I ain’t neveh hoid of no
Shot-Gun Bachelah pahty!

I figured I’d throw in the New England phonetics just to paint as clear a picture of the bad joke as possible.

The downside of this occasion is the money I was saving for today was put into fixing my car… so I’m broke.

The solution to this connundrum?  I rolled all of my nickles, dimes, and quarters… the grande total?  $240

My basement was flooded, but there was no real damage.  We managed to pump it out fast enough that it never got more than ankle deep on me… which is knee deep on most people, seeing as I’m a Sasquatch type of guy.

My brother and sister both live along the Merrimack river.  Brother was lucky as the water never reached his side of the road.  Sister wasn’t quite as lucky.  The first floor of her building has been destroyed.  Fortunately she lives on the third floor, but as of now the board of health won’t let anyone inside.  Eventually she’ll be all right, but as of right now she’s homeless.

The rain stopped, and the river reached it’s peak height, on Tuesday.  On Thursday I took a ride into Lowell to try and see what I could see.  Of course my good friend Super Camera came along for the ride.

My first stop was a small park/river walk located behind the Tsongas Arena, about a quarter of the way between the Aiken Street and Bridge Street bridges.  After that I tried to get some shots from other locations along the river, but it being Lowell and all I was unable to park anywhere.  So I just drove over four of the five bridges and pointed the camera out the window.

On a tech note, I’ve been using yahoo’s free geocities service to host these pictures.  Unfortunately they have a very low cap on the amount of data transfer per hour, so chances are these pictures won’t be available.  But what the hell… I shrunk them down pretty small in the hopes that they wouldn’t be shut off too often.  Otherwise they are straight from the camera with no touch ups.

Keep dry everyone

I said something about it being the first and only time I will ever get a spot that close.

I was wrong.

Tonight it was me and Larry and Nawal.  I pulled into the garage and said, “Wait till you see the spot Kelli and I got on Sunday.” Just as I finished the sentence the spot came into view… and once again it was open.  I pulled in and claimed it as my own!

Victory!

Once again I took blurry crappy camera phone pictures to prove my good fortune was not a figment of some hallucination.

Let us all join hands and celebrate the Magic Parking Spot.

Amen brother’s and sister’s!

We also went to the Middle East and saw The Glass Set tonight.  I do so miss having local bands to follow around town.  I will see this band again.  I’m very glad I went.

I chatted with Veronica P. on MSN today which was nice.  Always nice to connect with some one from the System Lab and the old Tech Talk Plus show.

There was an accident on 128 North this morning that slowed traffic on 128 South.  I got a camera phone picture that kinda sorta almost shows the clean up.  You can see a blurry flat bed truck picking up a disabled car…

Still though, there wasn’t much of note today… except for the bitch talking on her cell phone driving on route 3 North tonight who cut me off not once but twice.  Hopefully tomorrow it’ll be her car in a ditch somewhere.  Learn to drive you half-wit.  Enough automotive editorializing.

Tomorrow night at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge is The Glass Set.  Good stuff.  If you’re in town go see them, and buy a CD or two while you’re there.  I’m 99% sure I’ll go, but that 1% is causing trouble.  I haven’t been to the Middle East in years.  I’m looking forward to it.  It’s also been about a hundred years since I’ve seen Leah Callahan on stage.  The last time she was with a band called Butterfield 8.  They were good… not as good as Betwixt but definitely worth a listen.  I’ve lost track of the number of times I saw Betwixt.  At least once at the Middle East, at least once at the Lizard Lounge, and few times at TT’s, including their final show.  Many times, each time better than the time before.  That’s one band that I miss, but I’m looking forward to seeing The Glass Set tomorrow… maybe they’ll be the next band that I go out of my way to see.

I’ll know tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow won’t be a generally forgettable day.

Okay, ready?

I saw something on route 3 south this morning that made me laugh.  It was a pair of box trucks, seemingly in formation, driving through the traffic jam just after the 495 ramps.

Esentially it was an oxymoron.  The two trucks had a business name painted on the back door and on the side panels.

“Christian Party Rentals”

Christian Party.  What do Christians do when they party?  A few thoughts come to mind…

Burn Witches?
Mass Self Flagellation?  (there’s no way I spelled that right)
Group Baptism in the Hot Tub?
Persecuting Other People’s Faith?
Burning Copies of The DaVinci Code?
Burning Copies of Harry Potter books?

So after I stopped laughing I went to their website, and it doesn’t seem to have anything specifically to do with Christianity.  The site seems to go out of it’s way to mention that the founder of the company was named Arthur Christian.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.  Just to show I’m a good sport I’ll link to their website: Christian Party Rental

Total change of subject…

Wanna be famous?  Immortal even?

My blog has been viewed 397 times.  If you think you might be #400 leave a message and bask in fame forever.

Total change of subject again…

Colorado finally scored a goal against the Ducks.  I definately jinxed them.

Red Sox 10 – Yankees 3 in the 6th inning…

and all was right with the world.

Damn what a life I lead!

So tonight there was a scheduled pilgramige to The Border Cafe.  It was supposed to be me, Kelli, Kelli’s friend Jenna who a week ago officially joined the Border Cafe Disciples, and Larry.  Jenna was ill (hope you feel better) and Larry was up to his eyeballs in grad-school work.  So once again, the trip to Mexican Restaurant Mecca was just for me and Kelli.

Kelli is going to be sick of my dumb ass.  Everytime I see her I manage to take at least one camera phone picture of her.  I think the only pictures she has of herself are from my crappy camera phone.

Tonight I went over the top… just a little… but there was a reason for it.  Something incredible happened to us tonight.  Something amazing.

But I’ll get to that soon.

I picked up Kelli at around 6:30pm

She didn’t know I took that picture.  She’ll probably smack my dumb ass for that.

When we take the trip to Harvard Square for our Mexican food fix we generally park in a garage off of JFK street.  It’s a narrow little spiral of a parking garage.  On just about every trip we end up parking on the third story or higher.  Last week I parked on the roof.  In other words, it’s a popular little place.

Now for the miracle.

Not only did I get a spot on the first level, but I got the second spot up the ramp.  We could hear the guys in the ticket booth at the exit talking to each other.  It was amazing.  We were in Spot Number Two damn it!  In the gate, and park… in like 50 feet!  It’s a first time occurance, it never happened before and it shall never happen again!

I took a picture to savor the moment.  Kelli, who is now my offical model, was in the shot to prove it was real.

There we see Kelli, my official model, standing behind my car.  If you look on the wall behind her you can see a very blurry “1” which shows that we are on the first floor.

I’m looking at the picture and I still don’t freakin’ believe it.

Then we went to The Border Cafe on Church Street and had Mexican/Cajun food until we were sick.  Kelli, my official model, indulged in the margaritas and some form of beef fajita.

After dinner it was back to the garage to marvel at the magical parking spot.  Now the only car that was luckier than mine had left, so despite the fact that we parked in the second spot, we were now the single closest car to the exit.  Absolutely Amazing!

Now we crossed the Charles river at JFK street and there were three police cars blocking the ramp to Storrow Drive.  No problem, I figured I’d find a place to turn around, recross the river, and take Memorial drive back toward Route 93.  But fortune remained with us (or so we thought) and after I turned around and retraced our route back to the Storrow ramp, the cops were moving.  I pulled right in line behind them and pulled onto Storrow…

But I thought we were lucky, truth was we were not.  The three cop cars were directing traffic for two Mass Highway work vehicles, and just after pulling into traffic they each took a lane and stopped, blocking the entire road.  I noticed two Mass Highway workers jumping into man holes, so something was going on but we haven’t figured out what.

I did however take a picture on which you can just barely see the flashing lights ahead of us.

So all in all it was an enjoyable night at The Border Cafe (I had the Blackened Chicken with Jambalia, and Tejas Chicken as my appetizer.  Excellent as always.) and we managed to get the best parking spot in the dizzy garage that anyone has ever gotten…

And we have established the fact that Kelli is now my Official Model.

The only downside of the whole thing is that May 8th is my birthday, and I didn’t take the day off, so my weekend ends now instead of extending another day.  Outside of that, the Border made for a successfuly weekend.

Amen to that