(no subject)
Going to Bamboozle for two days instead of one is definitely the way to go. This way our days spent concert-going were equal to our days spent driving. Not that time spent traveling across PA isn't quality time, but it's certainly a very different sort of fun than we had the rest of the weekend. Driving out to NJ on Friday wasn't that exciting, nothing spectacularly good or bad seemed to happen. Although we did encounter an exit that told us it would take us to "The Land of Make Believe." This was an official road sign, mind you. Also, they've got the craziest jug-handle intersections in NJ. I feel like by this point in time someone should have tested all the traffic patterns and found out what works best (roundabouts, left turn before or after everyone else, etc).
We stayed with my mom's high school friend again (LindaLindaLinda), who makes her house quite easy to find by displaying a Red WIngs tire cover on her car in the driveway. Not so many of those in NJ. It wasn't quite enough of a landmark to keep me from driving past her house at least once though.
The venue for Bamboozle (the parking lot of Giant's Stadium) is only about 50 minutes from Linda's house, so we left with about an hour and forty-five minutes before the first band we were thinking of checking out (Josephine Collective). It ended up taking about 2 hours to get there, what with road construction and turnpike construction, so we only got there just in time to catch most of the set of the first band we seriously were planning on seeing (Farewell). I considered putting all the music related stuff under a cut so those of you who don't care could skip it, but it's really a very integral part of the weekend. We almost stuck to our schedule exactly for day one, only swapping out Madina Lake for a little bit of The Audition, cause the bubble-tent Madina Lake was playing in had a ridiculous line at that point. Apparently we aren't die-hard fans. Also all the rain they were predicting for this weekend turned into just a bit of mist/raining towards the end of day one, which pretty much only stiffened our resolve to not stay and watch Snoop Dogg.
Day two might be considered even more successful, what with getting there in plenty of time to see the bands we wanted to and swapping out the clouds and cold for sunshine and sunburns. There were certainly some interesting musical choices going on that day, including (but not limited to) Gym Class Heroes singing that Prince song about doves crying, Alien Ant Farm's bassist looking like he might die of happiness throughout the entire set, and bands just being overwhelmed that they got to play on the same stage as Bret Michaels ("I can remember the time I heard my first Poison song...")
Bamboozle probably wins as my favorite place ever to people-watch. Not only do you get the regular cast of characters (Batman and Robin, Winnie the Pooh, a gorilla and various giant bananas), but also people who are dressed in what they clearly consider to be normal fashion, but which I might not even be willing to consider for a halloween costume. Maybe the best example I can think of that I would be quite happy to never see again consisted of a guy wearing super skinny jeans with a pair of those 70s track/booty shorts over them. I can not think of a single situation that would call for such attire. This weekend also reinforced my theory that very few people look good in skinny jeans, boy or girl. There are so very many different body types, and maybe 3 of them max lend themselves to the skinny-jean fad. Also on a wardrobe note, crowd-surfing in a mini-skirt is never the way to go. Lots and lots of people who somehow labeled themselves as givers of free hugs, and I was amused every time two of them would pass by and exchange free hugs. My favorite was the guy who labeled himself the "Hug Whore" though. I hope he puts that on his resume.
Driving back from the concert to Linda's, we saw an official sign by the side of the road proclaiming "Caution: Children Sleigh Riding." This provides an excellent segway into the other fun signs we saw, such as " Buckle Up Next Million Miles," "Remove Sunglasses," and "Headlights On ?" (note the spacing of that last one). We also got to drive through at least 3 mountains, which I enjoyed a ridiculous amount, probably much more than I would have had I been the one driving through a mountain full of construction. Driving through all those mountains, I saw just one large mountain goat, standing proud and surveying the great freeway of PA which was his domain.
Well I'm about done documenting things for the night. Oh yeah, also on the way home we stopped at a new sort of fast food restaurant which isn't quite named after Ron Paul, and also manages to remind me of Braveheart. Maybe it was Rob Roys? But anyway, I had my first day of work today, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Except improve my left-handed writing skills. And go through the shelves in my cube and clean out my old notebooks from last year. I know at least one person's used that cube since I was there, but I swear everything's in the exact same place I left it. Also, one of the Scott's apparently moved or left, so now there is only a trifecta of Scotts (once my dad gets back from India), the fourth has been replaced by a Mohammad.
Oh boy, I forgot I had a whole list of all the bands we saw and something fun about each. I'm not up for that now though, getting up early turns me into a wimp. Maybe that'll magically appear sometime in the next couple days/months/when i manage to have a bit of free time.
comment if: you would want to legally add some sort of punctuation to your name.