Stuff? I like stuff!
Today's tale begins with the forging of new lens. Two pairs, actually, since Lenscrafters didn't quite get the first set right. But, like all great things, art cannot be rushed.. And so art was forged, twice, and placed within the graceful, yet protective encasings of a frame.. Or something.. The net result is I was an hour late in starting off the day for everyone without a sole noticing why.. Either that, or they're too polite to say anything.. Whichever. ^_^
And so our party of four -- Bryan, Judy, Kevin and myself -- did make the journey to Belleville. I'd mention another intriguing tale of trying to pick up Kevin and getting lost, stuck, and confounded by his damnable apartment building except that he saved us the trouble by waiting outside.. Also, I never did tell the first tale, so who cares, ne? The trip there was fairly uneventful, as far as my current memory tells me. There was one rather frightening moment, however, when I glanced up in the rear-view mirror to witness the most horrendous pair of jaws bearing down on us. Making these jaws even more terrifing was the giant grill set between the rows of jagged teeth. Yes, that's right -- a Mack truck had teeth on its front grill.. It was actually rather frightening, really.. ^_^' Kevin tried to film it, or, at least, I think he did -- I was too busy trying to not get eaten to know. Judy tried to take a picture of it, after dropping her camera in my trunk, and somehow managed to actually get a suprisingly clear shot of it. I don't mean that I doubt her abilities as an international spy, but rather I'm amazed to see such a clear picture taken from the inside of a vehicle hurtling uncontrollably down the highway.. Jaws is after us?! VRRRrrroom~!
Let it be known that the Peter Pan soundtrack is beautiful. Let it also be known that it's lousy driving music; I actually forgot we had music on at all at one point, as it gets so quiet and drowned out by highway interference. On the other hand, VeggieTales makes excellent driving music! I must acquire some cds now.. Sebu~~~! XD
Belleville is a quaint little town. The sign before Belleville that indicates the first entrance to Belleville which is actually not Belleville, is not so quaint. I do not like that sign. Belleville, I like. Very cute, pretty little town. Bryan did a fairly good job of detailing what we actually did there, so I'll not bother in repeating his words. Aside from maybe adding that there was concern for the boys' safety on the rocks was only reinforced when one of them (who shall be anonymously referred to as "Kevin") managed to actually slip and fall flat on his face while attempting to climb down. :P
So the park was pretty, the company was good, the bridge was cool, the weather was nice.. and stuff happened. For further details, see Bryan and Judy's entries. Oh, and Kevin got drunk.. on half a Smirnoff. ;P
Which brings me to that which hasn't been covered: Blood, Sweat & Tears. The theatre was small, and culmulative amount of naturally coloured hairs within was even smaller. It was a room full of about two hundred baby boomers, and us. Woot. I'll bet we looked quite out of place, there. ^^ After some obligatory theatre advertising for upcoming shows (I got the impression that the theatre is somewhat struggling for money), David Clayton-Thomas and friends made there appearance, blaring straight into More & More.. Very cool. One thing I did notice, however, was that he's definitly showing some age. He's lost the growl and upper range one hears on their original recordings, which definitly took some of the edge out of the music. That said, his voice is still powerfully strong and dead on accurate. Just his voice alone lends him so much stage presence, it's so uniquely booming.. Definitly something to envy. Apparently there were gigglies going on to my left (I was in an aisle seat), but I was too awed by their performances to notice. David might be the closest thing to being the only original member (most of the band, save one, were new, young recruits), but the talent was through the roof. The younger trumpet player showed his age both during his solos and reluctance to dance quite as freely as the older trumpeteer (new word!), but what he lacked in musical experience he certainly made up for with some technically astounding fingers. He blew through scales like there weren't even there.. No, really, he blew through them.. Through his trumpet! ... ... *crickets*
Watching the trombonist's solo definitly made me wish I hadn't dropped the intrument some years back, but oh well.. Fantastic performance, for sure, definitly worth my money. My only beef was perhaps that it was a tad short, weighing in at ~95 minutes, and that, aside from the solos, the set list was almost identical to their greatest hits/singles albums. It would have been nice to see them play a tad longer, maybe even just twenty minutes more, and throw in some more obscure tunes that never got any radio play.
Deciding the night was too young to turn in just yet (neverminding the fact that it would still take us two hours to get home), we returned to the park where some interesting things happened. Namely, two middle-aged men were parked in seperate cars not too far from one another, just sitting.. waiting. God knows for what, though I imagine it wouldn't be legal. We parked at the far end of the lot, away from their presence, under the safety of a lamppost so that, in theory, one could easily see our car and know it was safe. After deciding it was too creepy to try and enjoy the swings when there was a creepy guy watching us from his car just six feet away, we head back out to the same peninsula we had surveyed earlier. There, we sat, discussed ghost ships, dead bodies, and filmed random shots of darkness. Then another car pulled into the lot, which kind of creeped me out -- I didn't want us to leave the park only to walk in on something they'd rather we not live to tell. So, attempting to get a closer look, I borrowed Kevin's camcorder to zoom in on them. It was at this point that I discovered the extent of their nefarious ways; it seemed, as a measure to prevent little punks like us from meddling in their affairs, they had planted various traps about the park in order to dissuade our attempts to film them! In other word, I smacked my leg into a stupid metal post that was just sticking out of the cement. Who sticks metal posts in cement anyways? >:| It hurt, though it was nothing serious; just bruised, mainly. After discussing the possibly of dying to Nazghul, most of the cars in the lot left, so we returned to the swings.
At this point, I decided it would be a good idea to bring our car closer to the swings, so it wasn't a long run across the lot to reach it. Remember that lamppost I parked under for safety? Bad idea. I couldn't see my car, as it had been buried by a teeming swarm of insects. I'll be they got a kick out of seeing my swat my towl at the car door for no apparent reason. :P
And so the event dwindled down to an end, with a long car-ride home; Kevin & I listened to random music, Judy slept, and Bryan was reportedly creepy. Personally, I thought he was sleeping most of the time; goes to show he might just be the killer we should be fearing after all!
Granted, after dropping Bryan off, I kept Kevin and Judy at my house for another four hours, but hey.. ^_^'
And so our party of four -- Bryan, Judy, Kevin and myself -- did make the journey to Belleville. I'd mention another intriguing tale of trying to pick up Kevin and getting lost, stuck, and confounded by his damnable apartment building except that he saved us the trouble by waiting outside.. Also, I never did tell the first tale, so who cares, ne? The trip there was fairly uneventful, as far as my current memory tells me. There was one rather frightening moment, however, when I glanced up in the rear-view mirror to witness the most horrendous pair of jaws bearing down on us. Making these jaws even more terrifing was the giant grill set between the rows of jagged teeth. Yes, that's right -- a Mack truck had teeth on its front grill.. It was actually rather frightening, really.. ^_^' Kevin tried to film it, or, at least, I think he did -- I was too busy trying to not get eaten to know. Judy tried to take a picture of it, after dropping her camera in my trunk, and somehow managed to actually get a suprisingly clear shot of it. I don't mean that I doubt her abilities as an international spy, but rather I'm amazed to see such a clear picture taken from the inside of a vehicle hurtling uncontrollably down the highway.. Jaws is after us?! VRRRrrroom~!
Let it be known that the Peter Pan soundtrack is beautiful. Let it also be known that it's lousy driving music; I actually forgot we had music on at all at one point, as it gets so quiet and drowned out by highway interference. On the other hand, VeggieTales makes excellent driving music! I must acquire some cds now.. Sebu~~~! XD
Belleville is a quaint little town. The sign before Belleville that indicates the first entrance to Belleville which is actually not Belleville, is not so quaint. I do not like that sign. Belleville, I like. Very cute, pretty little town. Bryan did a fairly good job of detailing what we actually did there, so I'll not bother in repeating his words. Aside from maybe adding that there was concern for the boys' safety on the rocks was only reinforced when one of them (who shall be anonymously referred to as "Kevin") managed to actually slip and fall flat on his face while attempting to climb down. :P
So the park was pretty, the company was good, the bridge was cool, the weather was nice.. and stuff happened. For further details, see Bryan and Judy's entries. Oh, and Kevin got drunk.. on half a Smirnoff. ;P
Which brings me to that which hasn't been covered: Blood, Sweat & Tears. The theatre was small, and culmulative amount of naturally coloured hairs within was even smaller. It was a room full of about two hundred baby boomers, and us. Woot. I'll bet we looked quite out of place, there. ^^ After some obligatory theatre advertising for upcoming shows (I got the impression that the theatre is somewhat struggling for money), David Clayton-Thomas and friends made there appearance, blaring straight into More & More.. Very cool. One thing I did notice, however, was that he's definitly showing some age. He's lost the growl and upper range one hears on their original recordings, which definitly took some of the edge out of the music. That said, his voice is still powerfully strong and dead on accurate. Just his voice alone lends him so much stage presence, it's so uniquely booming.. Definitly something to envy. Apparently there were gigglies going on to my left (I was in an aisle seat), but I was too awed by their performances to notice. David might be the closest thing to being the only original member (most of the band, save one, were new, young recruits), but the talent was through the roof. The younger trumpet player showed his age both during his solos and reluctance to dance quite as freely as the older trumpeteer (new word!), but what he lacked in musical experience he certainly made up for with some technically astounding fingers. He blew through scales like there weren't even there.. No, really, he blew through them.. Through his trumpet! ... ... *crickets*
Watching the trombonist's solo definitly made me wish I hadn't dropped the intrument some years back, but oh well.. Fantastic performance, for sure, definitly worth my money. My only beef was perhaps that it was a tad short, weighing in at ~95 minutes, and that, aside from the solos, the set list was almost identical to their greatest hits/singles albums. It would have been nice to see them play a tad longer, maybe even just twenty minutes more, and throw in some more obscure tunes that never got any radio play.
Deciding the night was too young to turn in just yet (neverminding the fact that it would still take us two hours to get home), we returned to the park where some interesting things happened. Namely, two middle-aged men were parked in seperate cars not too far from one another, just sitting.. waiting. God knows for what, though I imagine it wouldn't be legal. We parked at the far end of the lot, away from their presence, under the safety of a lamppost so that, in theory, one could easily see our car and know it was safe. After deciding it was too creepy to try and enjoy the swings when there was a creepy guy watching us from his car just six feet away, we head back out to the same peninsula we had surveyed earlier. There, we sat, discussed ghost ships, dead bodies, and filmed random shots of darkness. Then another car pulled into the lot, which kind of creeped me out -- I didn't want us to leave the park only to walk in on something they'd rather we not live to tell. So, attempting to get a closer look, I borrowed Kevin's camcorder to zoom in on them. It was at this point that I discovered the extent of their nefarious ways; it seemed, as a measure to prevent little punks like us from meddling in their affairs, they had planted various traps about the park in order to dissuade our attempts to film them! In other word, I smacked my leg into a stupid metal post that was just sticking out of the cement. Who sticks metal posts in cement anyways? >:| It hurt, though it was nothing serious; just bruised, mainly. After discussing the possibly of dying to Nazghul, most of the cars in the lot left, so we returned to the swings.
At this point, I decided it would be a good idea to bring our car closer to the swings, so it wasn't a long run across the lot to reach it. Remember that lamppost I parked under for safety? Bad idea. I couldn't see my car, as it had been buried by a teeming swarm of insects. I'll be they got a kick out of seeing my swat my towl at the car door for no apparent reason. :P
And so the event dwindled down to an end, with a long car-ride home; Kevin & I listened to random music, Judy slept, and Bryan was reportedly creepy. Personally, I thought he was sleeping most of the time; goes to show he might just be the killer we should be fearing after all!
Granted, after dropping Bryan off, I kept Kevin and Judy at my house for another four hours, but hey.. ^_^'