I saw a pretty amazing band last night: Video Hippos. they're from Baltimore. you can click through different sections of their site to hear mp3s and .wav files of some of their songs and watch a video... and there's some other songs on their myspace page as well.

their show is more of an event, with on-going video projections to a backdrop behind them while they play that sync up nicely with the music. the music itself is very nice as well, sort of a cross between nintendo/chip tunes (with their electronic aspects anyway), twee, a bit of late-80s manchester/early shoegaze and a dash of SY-style guitar noise-cum-melody.

one thing I'm rapidly noticing though is that their recordings don't do their live show a lick of justice... so if you get a chance, go see them.

I grabbed a CD-R they made 25 copies of b/c they ran out of copies of their "official" CD, so I guess I've got a bit of a collectors' item or whatever... here's the cover (CD-R is pinned to the back):



ps - the in-laws are GONE! woo-hoo!

so am I the only one having trouble getting chat to open, or is it fuckered for everyone right now?

the window pops up but all I get are the ads at the bottom and then... nothing

EDIT: nvm, it's ok now

on a side note have I mentioned how annoying it is when relatives come to visit? cuz yeah, my brother-in-law is here right now and FFFUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he's up and down the goddamn stairs to stuff his face with something else in the kitchen every five minutes and I can't get any privacy in here. I know I'm in a common room here, but even my F-I-L who lives with us 7-8 months of the year stays the fuck in his own room after 11pm or midnight...

on the brightside, they'll BOTH be gone by the end of the week (B-I-L is here to take F-I-L back to his place for the summer). at this point, even though I know we'll have zero help with the kids for 4 months, I CAN'T. FUCKING. WAIT.

having our house to ourselves. imagine...

anyway, enough with the pity parade

ps - don't forget to tell me how cute my fembots are

added some more recent pics of my fem-clones to the "family&stuff" album if anyone's interested. here's a few samples (they cropped weirdly in here anyway, so now you have a reason to go look):

oh. my. fuck. skullfucked. brains splattered everywhere.

BTA played their first-ever Canadian show here on Thursday and then in a very small University town 20 min. from here tonight. a completely different experience both times. tonight it was mostly people from here who drove the 20 min to see them. there were other bands as well as locals in the bar, but they cleared out after about a song and a half. same setlist both nights, except tonight they replaced one of their own songs with a fucking CORONER cover (!!!!). as much as it's possible to follow or memorize their songs (for anyone besides them at least), it seemed like there were... alterations, of certain parts tonight... slow-downs and/or speed-ups and possibly a bit of improv... but who can tell.

I hoped to take more pictures, but got too distracted when my face started melting. pics or it didn't happen though, so for what little I did get,

Behold... the Arctopus:
(there are two more in the album under my pics that don't crop nicely here)

almost 2 weeks and they're still with us:





so they've only shat on the deck beside the pool, which will wash away easily enough... and the kids love it, so as Bob Marley might say, no harm no fowl (hehe, couldn't resist)... no harm YET anyway... that said, if they start shitting in the water, or keep coming back once the pool is OPEN, then measures will be taken...

in other news, Behold... the Arctopus are supposedly playing a gig in our little town tonight... the promotion has been pretty sketchy to the point that I'll believe it when they show up... but that said, the guys who run the venue are out of town on tour with their own band, so cutting them some slack for that this could actually be on the up and up... I sure fuckin' hope so, anyway. wish me luck. if they do show, they're also supposed to play another town 20 min from here on Sat., so I'll probably get to see them twice

first the panic attacks...

and now this:





yup. ducks in my pool.

now all I need is for my mom to try and have me whacked...

guess what I got for my 10th anniversary?

I got to taste a brown boob with a white nipple

oh, and Pan-galactic Gargleblasters FTW.

in other news, my wife finally agreed to what I've been saying about the cats all along: even though they might not be the names we'd choose, they've had those names for 8 and 5 years, respectively. changing them after that long would just be mean.

the new kittehs are settling in well, for the most part. they freaked out a bit at first when they got here - they were with the same person for most of their lives so far ("boo-boo" is 5.y.o. and "sweetie" is 8.y.o.) and they were used to an apartment (we're in a house), so it was a bit of an adjustment for them. but they seem to be comfortable now.

"sweetie" might just end up keeping her name - she is possibly the most affectionate cat I've ever met, she just looooves getting the love, she'll snuggle and let you pet her endlessly if you're willing. she really lives up to her name and we figure we'd end up calling her that half the time anyway since she's such a sweetheart. for some reason though, she looks kind of bitchy in any picture I've taken of her so far... case in point:



and then there's "boo-boo". she hid in our closet and pretty much stayed there for the first few days. she'd come out after the kids were in bed though, and she's played with the string toys a few times. I should mention that the previous owner gave us a whole bunch of stuff for them as well - food, dishes, a litterbox, carrier, one of those perch things and an assload of toys. there was also a tiny couch and a teddy bear to go with it all, which she emphatically insisted belong to "boo-boo". for the first few days I found this odd - we set it up in a corner of our room and neither of them went near the damn thing. then the other day I saw "boo-boo" sleeping on it for pretty much the whole day. since then, I've seen her grooming and actually cuddling with the teddy bear a few times. sooooo cute. she's weird around people though - the previous owner said she had been a stray and suspected had been abused before being taken in... I'm beginning to believe it, because she'll often rub her whiskers up against door frames and furniture like she wants to be petted there, but will cringe away and approach reluctantly when I put my hand out to pet her. hopefully she'll adjust. anyway, here's a pic of her on the couch - it turned out a little dark b/c I had to snap it quickly in order to actually catch her there:

welcome new kittehs

their names will be changed, but we haven't settled on the new ones yet, so for now the names they came with:

"boo-boo":


"sweetie":

R.I.P. Velcro