Killswitch Poker 300
The last few days have been uncharacteristically filled with activities.
On Friday I went out with Blake, Craig (plus wife), and Frank to see 300. It was exactly what I expected: a violent story about bad asses being awesome. So far Hollywood is two for two with converted Frank Miller graphic novels. Hopefully this trend will continue. Afterward we went to Cheddars for some of the worst service ever. Ted showed up (since it's spring break) and Frank came over so we played some DOTA and watched Ted launch cars into space using only a shotgun in Crackdown.
Saturday we scheduled our first in (hopefully) a continuing series of poker games with Craig, Frank, and (not this time but eventually) Mike. I bought a $50 chip set so we wouldn't have to use shitty plastic chips. We made Awesome Dip version 2 (chili + cheese + meat + salsa) which everyone agreed lived up to its name. The game was fun but Ted wouldn't play because, as we all agreed, he's gay. In the end Craig and Blake agreed to split the pot rather than spend like two hours battling it out. Hopefully next week will be better. Now we know that we'll probably have to start earlier to get the game finished before really late.
Tonight Blake and I went downtown to see Killswitch Engage, DragonForce, Chimaira, and He is Legend live at the Verizon Wireless Theater brought to you by Verizon Communications a division of Verizon Inc (they basically wallpapered the place with red check-marks). We got there a little late, but it wasn't really a big deal because it turns out that He is Legend is awful. Granted they had to set up their gear with most of the stage being taken up by the other bands' stuff, but that doesn't make up for sucking. Next in line was Chimaira, which put on a much better show than Blake or I expected. They made really good use of beat detecting strobes and stuff. The highlight of their performance was when the lead vocal dude encouraged everyone in the audience be super violent. I think that marked the peak size of the mosh area for the night. Blake and I were (fortunately really) seated in the balcony area so we didn't have to deal with that crap. They played a fairly short, but high energy, set and cleared out so that DragonFroce could set up.
DragonForce was actually kind of disappointing. Sure they were good, and sure they were pretty funny running around on stage with their trampolines, but they just weren't that great. During the fantastically long solos the lead vocal dude amused himself by spitting water into the crowd. That struck me as a lame thing to do. He was also never satisfied with the volume of the crowd, and you could tell that the crowd was not really getting into it since mostly they were just kind of standing there, and half the time when he would hold the mike out for us to complete some lyric it'd just be really quiet. Their light setup was also kind of lame after Chimaira. The best thing they did was at one point four of the guys got in a little circle and played each others instruments. Pretty funny.
After a really long stage clearing and arranging time Killswitch came on. Killswitch alone would have been worth the ticket cost. Some highlights: Howard forgot that they had performed not only in Houston before, but on the same stage. Their bassist corrected him and it was pretty funny. At some point he also said something about being black, which served to point out that he was probably one of about five in the building (counting the huge bouncer guys), amusing the crowd. He had everyone form a giant rotating mosh pit, which while the single largest area, did not span the combined effort of the crowd during Chimaira. It lasted a long time so he commanded a reversal, which led to more dudes slamming into each other. Toward the end of the show he encouraged people to surf up to the stage in large numbers to say hi to him. I'm sure this really pleased the bouncer dudes, whose job seemed to mainly consist of grabbing surfers and shoving them back into the crowd really hard.
Now I'm partially deafened, but it was worth it.
On Friday I went out with Blake, Craig (plus wife), and Frank to see 300. It was exactly what I expected: a violent story about bad asses being awesome. So far Hollywood is two for two with converted Frank Miller graphic novels. Hopefully this trend will continue. Afterward we went to Cheddars for some of the worst service ever. Ted showed up (since it's spring break) and Frank came over so we played some DOTA and watched Ted launch cars into space using only a shotgun in Crackdown.
Saturday we scheduled our first in (hopefully) a continuing series of poker games with Craig, Frank, and (not this time but eventually) Mike. I bought a $50 chip set so we wouldn't have to use shitty plastic chips. We made Awesome Dip version 2 (chili + cheese + meat + salsa) which everyone agreed lived up to its name. The game was fun but Ted wouldn't play because, as we all agreed, he's gay. In the end Craig and Blake agreed to split the pot rather than spend like two hours battling it out. Hopefully next week will be better. Now we know that we'll probably have to start earlier to get the game finished before really late.
Tonight Blake and I went downtown to see Killswitch Engage, DragonForce, Chimaira, and He is Legend live at the Verizon Wireless Theater brought to you by Verizon Communications a division of Verizon Inc (they basically wallpapered the place with red check-marks). We got there a little late, but it wasn't really a big deal because it turns out that He is Legend is awful. Granted they had to set up their gear with most of the stage being taken up by the other bands' stuff, but that doesn't make up for sucking. Next in line was Chimaira, which put on a much better show than Blake or I expected. They made really good use of beat detecting strobes and stuff. The highlight of their performance was when the lead vocal dude encouraged everyone in the audience be super violent. I think that marked the peak size of the mosh area for the night. Blake and I were (fortunately really) seated in the balcony area so we didn't have to deal with that crap. They played a fairly short, but high energy, set and cleared out so that DragonFroce could set up.
DragonForce was actually kind of disappointing. Sure they were good, and sure they were pretty funny running around on stage with their trampolines, but they just weren't that great. During the fantastically long solos the lead vocal dude amused himself by spitting water into the crowd. That struck me as a lame thing to do. He was also never satisfied with the volume of the crowd, and you could tell that the crowd was not really getting into it since mostly they were just kind of standing there, and half the time when he would hold the mike out for us to complete some lyric it'd just be really quiet. Their light setup was also kind of lame after Chimaira. The best thing they did was at one point four of the guys got in a little circle and played each others instruments. Pretty funny.
After a really long stage clearing and arranging time Killswitch came on. Killswitch alone would have been worth the ticket cost. Some highlights: Howard forgot that they had performed not only in Houston before, but on the same stage. Their bassist corrected him and it was pretty funny. At some point he also said something about being black, which served to point out that he was probably one of about five in the building (counting the huge bouncer guys), amusing the crowd. He had everyone form a giant rotating mosh pit, which while the single largest area, did not span the combined effort of the crowd during Chimaira. It lasted a long time so he commanded a reversal, which led to more dudes slamming into each other. Toward the end of the show he encouraged people to surf up to the stage in large numbers to say hi to him. I'm sure this really pleased the bouncer dudes, whose job seemed to mainly consist of grabbing surfers and shoving them back into the crowd really hard.
Now I'm partially deafened, but it was worth it.