Main Man

July 9th 2008 by E..

Considering I didn’t do much of anything this holiday weekend, I’ve been away from the blog for far too long…

On Thursday, Dad got off from work early (along with the rest of the country), so we went to Jersey to have dinner with my aunt and uncle…we went to a nice little place in Smithville (which is where they live; about 20 minutes from Atlantic City and far, far away from the greater Philadelphia area)…we went back to their house for tea and desserts, where we talked about all sorts of things including life with a new baby, since my aunt is expecting to have one very soon (more on that later)…there were some figurines that were on their kitchen counter that I found to be particularly interesting…

Day 324 - July 3rd, 2008

On July 4th, we somehow slept right through the broadcast of the National Hot Dog Eating Contest from Nathan’s Famous…from what I heard, Joey Chestnut won again, which means that Kobayashi will probably punish himself by not eating anything until next year’s competition…how’s that for a ‘reversal of fortune’?…

We had a nice little barbecue at my grandparents’ place (which included some grilled pineapple…mmmmm)…as patriotic as my grandparents are, I was surprised to see that the only things that were overtly July 4th-related were the napkins on the table…oh, and some Freedom Melon…

Day 325 - July 4th 2008

On Saturday, I watched a special on PBS about diners in Pennsylvania…don’t take this the wrong way, but outside of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh (and, to a lesser extent, South Jersey) the rest of Pennsylvania may as well be Alabama…all of the people interviewed in this special (which was quite awesomely from the early 1990s) said the same thing about each diner: “I’ve been coming here for 75 years and the food is exactly the same as it was back then”…I’m thinking, doesn’t that go against some health code?…in keeping with the spirit, we went to our local diner (where I’m nearly sure the food isn’t 75 years old), and brought home some really dry brownies and old people cookies…

Day 326 - July 5th, 2008

As I may have mentioned before, the weather here has been absolutely kooky…if you’ve ever been to Florida, you’ve likely encountered the erratic, stop-start rain that comes around every 10 minutes…it’s been like that in Philadelphia all week, and was especially lousy over the past few days…on Sunday, after an abridged Folk Show, the sky around Center City was filled with a very gloomy-looking mist…I did my best to get a shot of it from a moving vehicle without looking like some kind of Sky Paparazzi…

Day 327 - July 6th, 2008

It was all back to work on Monday morning…there are a few trains that run on SEPTA’s Regional Rail lines that are absolutely tremendous…the Comet II (1987) the Shoreliner III (2000), both made by the Bombardier Transportation company…there are so few of them, I can’t tell if they’re phasing them out or testing them before they’re re-introduced…the cars are a lot longer than the ones on the regular trains, and the insides are a sort of retro-luxurious…there’s wood paneling and leather seats, and some cars even have a standing area in the middle with a door halfway into the car!…riding on these is always a treat because they very rarely run on the line that I take…lucky for me, though, I got to ride on in to XPN yesterday morning…it’s like riding a 1970s living room into the city…I feel like Mr. Brady should be collecting tickets and then mowing the Astroturf…

Once again, the rain behaved like a Franz Ferdinand song in its jerky stopping and starting…I went to Cosi in 30th Street Station with my Philly Local friends to get lunch and it started pouring as soon as we stopped out of XPN…of course, it stopped raining as soon as we got to 30th Street, but that kind of luck follows me everywhere…as a cosmic balance, though, I got some neat stuff yesterday, including a brand new CD from country punks This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, and a (very silky/fuzzy) shirt from really great sorta-local band The Shackeltons, who sent a few of them to Y-Rock…

Day 328 - July 7th, 2008

…they’re going to be playing at the XPoNential Music Festival (you know what goes here), which totally starts Thursday…I might not be able to catch The Shackeltons, though, since I’ll be spending most of Saturday (and then Sunday) at the Kids’ Corner Music Garden, which will be a load of fun, I can just tell!…

Today, I straightened up my room a bit, and am preparing to integrate all the stuff that came from my dorm room into my room-room…it won’t be easy, but it will (hopefully) end with a much more aesthetically pleasing living space…I also went to the mall with Dad and wandered around while he got his hair cut and dyed JPiC Red…I got a Minor Threat t-shirt from Hot Pockets, i mean Hot Topic…and I got a book to take with to California…

Day 329 - June 8th, 2008

Tomorrow, I’m going to get the final info about board-opping for the Festival (I’m going to be at the board for a few hours following my Y-Rock show on Friday)…then I’ll see you at Fest, maaaaaaaan…

E.

Lyric of the Time:
I fell in love with the sweet sensation
I gave my heart to a simple chord
I gave my soul to a new religion
Whatever happened to you?
Whatever happened to our rock’n'roll?
Whatever happened to my rock’n'roll?

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