For now I will give you the wrap up for 2009.  I may have some words on the last decade later.

This year in live music: Broken Social Scene, Lymbyc Systym, The Submarines,  SXSW (Flosstradamus, Asobi Seksu, Titus Andronicus, Chairlift, the DJs from the Hood Internet, Kanye West, Big Sean, GLC Consequence, Really Do, Tony Williams, Mr. Hudson, Kid Cudi, Common, Erykah Badu, Buck65, B.Dolan, Sleep, Sage Francis, the Obits, Handsome Furs, American Analog Set, the Rosebuds, Bishop Allen, Au Revoir Simone, These Arms are Snakes, Cursive,  Passion Pit,  the Soft Pack, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Matt and Kim, Amplive, Franki Chan and Curt from Flosstradamus, and Echo and the Bunnymen),  Crystal Castles, Loxsly, the Dears, Great Northern, Passion Pit, Harlem Shakes, Clues, Explosions in the Sky , De La Soul, El Ten Eleven , Free Press Summerfest (Broken Social Scene, Explosions in the Sky, Prince Paul, Voxtrot), Los Campesinos!, Broken Social Scene,   FFF Fest (Royal Bangs, Crystal Antlers, Foot Patrol, Sugar and Gold, Vega, MC Chris, Neon Indian, Yeasayer, Les Savy Fav, Pharcyde, Atlas Sound, Why?, Broadcast, Dj Numark,  Lucero, MIssion of Burma, Buraka Som Sistema, GZA, Kid Sister ) Regina Spektor, Hockey, and Pheonix.

This year in non-live music: I am still having Last.fm iPod scrobbling issues.  Here’s to this year’s new albums that kept me awake at my desk. NASA, Mos Def, Amanda Blank, Del tha Funky Homosapien, Discovery, Walkmen, Headlights, Passion Pit, Yo La Tengo, Heartless Bastards, Animal Collective,…

This year in Sewing: I entered the Little Black Dress Contest and helped a friend who is writing a book on green clothing design.

This year on the interwebs: I am still bad about updating Twitter.  I have fallen in love with hulu and the hood internet.

This year in Movies: (theater) SXSW (RIP: A Remix Manifesto,  500 days of Summer,  Died Young, Stayed Pretty, The Time of Their Lives, Yes Men Fix the World,  Alexander the Last, and  I Love You, Man), Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, (dvd)Persepolis,  Thank You for Smoking, Fast Food Nation, The Yes Men.

This year in Books: Goodreads This is what I read: Story of the Eye-Georges, Bataille, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper- Diablo Cody, He’s Just not that into You- Greg Behrendt, Fast Food Nation- Eric Schlosser, The Other Side of Thirty- M.A. Thakor, The Manual- Steve Santagati, Another Roadside Attraction- Tom Robbins, Love is a Mix Tape- Rob Sheffield, Even Cowgirls get the Blues- Tom Robbins, Choke- Chuck Palahniuk, High Fidelity- Nick Hornby,

Here is the list of things I neglected to do in 2009 along with excuses for not doing them:

1. More bike rides (and maybe a bike with gears). No new bikes.  I did go on a few long rides though. I would bike more if I weren’t allergic to outside.
   
2. A jumble of personal goals: tolerance, being a better person, being more trusting, baggage reduction, etc… I haven’t made things worse (At least I don’t think I did).
3. Design for another fashion show.  Hopefully Stitch, when it returns. Stitch did not return this year.
4. Demolish the back porch and fix the fence. Those are still there.  The plan is to ditch the whole house.
5. Road trip. Didn’t happen.  I flew to Seattle instead.

2010 will be my 33rd year.   My Yenta says it should be one of the best.

Photo by Sweetleafhappy

So I have been trolling the internet to see what other people posted about Fun^3 Fest.

So far the best write up I have found was on So Like Yeah.  They posted the Cheapskates’ Guide to Fun^3 fest for Day 1 and Day 2.  I was wondering how people were getting so f-ed up during the fest (Seriously, this is a recession and festival beer ain’t cheap.).  Last year I saw some people tossing liquor over the fence to a buddy.  This year not so much. I saw a flask or two but nothing as creative as boozenoculars.

(edited on 11/9/9 after a good night’s sleep)

It is way past my bedtime.

I came home, showered (to remove mud and to get the smell of smoke and bad weed out of my hair) , tossed in a load of laundry,  made dinner, and now I am eating a vegan chocolate cupcake and writing to you.

First, let me thank the people that run this fest and make it magical every time.  You let me pick up my wristband early so I didn’t have to stand in line.   For the low price of $79.97 (Early Bird in the house)  I saw 20 acts in two days.  Many of which I hadn’t seen before.   Although I didn’t partake in food and beverages, there were a ton of choices for me, the vegetarian who also avoids HFCS).  Thank you!

Second, let me complain to the fest organizers about having to make my own grid schedule.  The website was nice and flashy but there is something to be said for low-tech (umm, it runs faster).  I had some issues making the scheduler work.  I have up and made myself an excel spreadsheet.

Lastly, Is there a person I can complain to about the people who got to the show late and tried to push their way tot the front?  Or can someone do something about the people smoking bad pot?  Better yet, can umbrellas be banished?

Here is the photo montage from my weekend,  you can get the details after the jump…

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Two days, four stages, ninety artists!

I bought my ticket two nights ago.  It will sell out kids. The lineup is something you would never in a million years expect to be in our itsy bitsy Waterloo Park  (Just inches from “Mexico”).    Just goes to show that you don’t need to spend time and money growing grass to get people to come.

I was torn between the regular pass and the PIP pass.  M and I had VIP last year and had a blast. But the question is how close to the stage will a PIP pass get you?  If it is the same access press has, it is definitely worth it (BTW, if anyone out there is looking for someone to cover the event, let us know).  I went with the regular pass for now.  I may inquire about upgrading it later.

Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to the event.  I should have tips for the festival along with my schedule.

Twitter Fail Whale

So M, 10HDG, and I hit the Houston Free Press Summer FAIL! Fest this weekend. Houston Free Press made an attempt at making their own Fun^3 Fest.  Granted, one could say it was a good first attempt at an indie music festival in Houston.  But I think that these guys overextended themselves with a two day, two stage festival full of music with no outside food or beverages. The whole weekend I was haunted by this image.  The sign of disappointment.

The first failure was getting into the festival. Our tickets were at will call.  We stood in the will call line, then some festival staff walked by the line and said that anyone with a printed confirmation or a phone with confirmation on it could walk up to the gate.  How was this a Fail! moment?  Well, we got to the gate in no time but we didn’t receive our VIP wristband or $20 in food/drink tickets.  We walked around in the sweltering heat trying to find someone who knew how to remedy the situation.  After walking to the other end of the park I managed to find someone to get us VIP wristbands but they didnt’ have food vouchers.  M and 10HDG didn’t have cash and apparently the festival only worked in shiny beads and trinkets food/drink tickets  that had to be purchased with cash.  At this point we were hot, tired and  ready to leave.  Emailling paypal to try and get our money back was sounding like a good idea.  We went back to where we entered the park and finally got someone of authority (they had a walkie talkie) to get us the tickets.  We also found an ATM. (more…)

Just like the Walkmen declared.  We said that 2008 was going to be a good year.  Not just a good year but the Best Year Ever!  I can’t say that it was mind-blowing but, it was definitely better than 2007. We picked up our tired, broken souls and we moved forward. “Out of the darkness and into the fire…”

For now I will give you the wrap up for 2008.  The best of 2008 will come later.

This year in live music: Brothers and Sisters; Quiet Lovely; Les Savy Fav; Ghostland Observatory; SXSW (What Made Milwaukee Famous, the Constantines, Shout Out Louds, NERD, Explorers Club, El-P, Dizzie Rascal, Dan Oh, Staccato, Flosstradamus, Fuokids, Cut Copy, Moby,  Ra Ra Riot, Bound Stems, MSTRKRFT, and Kimya Dawson);  Ra Ra Riot;  The Little Ones: Prince Paul; Tapes n’ Tapes; Flosstradamus; Thao and the Get Down Stay Down; Ratatat; Voxtrot; Cool Kids; David Byrne; Weezer; Tokyo Police Club; Girl Talk; Brothers and Sisters; FFF Fest (The National, Atmosphere, Deerhoof,… and You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bishop Allen, Centromatic,  Parts and Labor, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Spinto Band, Frightened Rabbit, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, The Dead Milkmen, Clipse, Franki Chan, and Toxic Avenger); Rosebuds; and Matt and Kim.

This year in non-live music: I now own an iPod.  According to Last.fm, my top 10 bands are: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltzin, the Eels, Girl Talk, the Sea and Cake,Tapes n’ Tapes, British Sea Power, Frightened Rabbit, Wilco, Atmosphere, and the Pixies.  I do like these bands a lot but there is a problem with last.fm and the iPod scrobbling.  It doesn’t catch a lot of things that I listen to because I don’t sync my iPod frequently enough.

This year in Sewing: I taught a few more classes at FirstSamples.  I did some more alterations.  I taught M to sew and gave her a sewing machine to play with.  Designed a line for a fashion show and I entered a design contest. I volunteered at the Swap-o-rama-rama at Maker Faire.

This year in Bikes: I managed to ride my bike the 10 miles to Megan’s house and back.  I bought a “new” bike.  A Japanese Mixte that I stripped, repainted, and rebuilt.  It should be ready to ride in 2009. I learned how to be a better urban cyclist from M and the pedi-cab drivers downtown during SXSW.

This year on the interwebs: I redesigned climbinginskirts.com (I also migrated the content from Blogger to Wordpress).  I finally signed up for Twitter (I am bad about updating it).  I learned to love and hate facebook.  I abandoned myspace. I signed up for Goodreads and Last.fm.  I downloaded iTunes.  I’ve viewed countless things on YouTube.

This year in Movies: (theater) SXSW (Nerdcore Rising, Choke, Bananaz, and Bulletproof Salesman);   Iron Man; Juno (which is going to get my best sountrack award); Wanted; 21; Wall-e; and Milk. (dvd)  Four-eyed Monsters, Darjeeling Limited, Batman Begins, Cars, Rattatouille, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, the Prestige, and Harry Potter (Goblet of Fire and Order of the Pheonix).

This year in Books: I signed up for Goodreads so I can actually keep track of what I am reading.  I also made use of my library card.  This is what I read: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - Sedaris, The Between Boyfriends Book - Chupack, Barrel Fever - Sedaris, Holidays on Ice - Sedaris, The Game - Strauss, The Sweet Potato Queen’s Field Guide to Men - Conner, Bringing Down the House - Mezrich, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Chabon, Heat - Buford, Strip City - Burana, Tropic of Cancer - Miller, The Sexual Politics of Meat - Adams, Little Birds - Nin, and Sex and Bacon - Lewis.

Here is the list of things I neglected to do in 2008 (in order of regret of not doing them) along with excuses for not doing them:

1. Travel: It doesn’t have to be out of the country. New Zealand will probably be postponed until 2010 because my traveling buddy has a house to pay for. Now that I have a new car, I am thinking road trip. I would like to go back to some of the places I stopped during the geology road trip from hell (GEO 660).  No road trips. But I did manage a semi-high speed chase after the hit-and-run incident.
2. Interact with real people (not on the internet). As more of my friends move away I realize that I want to spend more time with the people that are here. I will also need to branch out before I end up alone. I should also cut back on my internet stalking habit.  Still stalking on the internet. But I did manage to meet a bunch of new people this year.  I went on 17 dates.  That is more dates than I have been on in my entire 31 years of existence.  I made some new friends and I got to know a few friends a little better.

Not sure what 2009 will bring. I haven’t written up any plans just yet.  Here’s to another good year.

So I was crashed out on my big couch and what should I hear at the end of an episode of Chuck?  Umm, my new favorite band.  M turned me on to them a few months ago.  Their live show at Fun^3 Fest was amazing.   I decided to check out M’s shots of the cute scotsmen only to find out that there were none of my personal favorite (so I have a thing for tall dork boys with glasses).  M, why are there no pictures of Andy taken with your BAC?

I suppose I will have to upload the pics I took at Fun^3 Fest.  In the meantime check out this video.  M was at this show.

Emily photographing, originally uploaded by iamcootis.

I just thought this was fun. Basically this is what I did most of the weekend. I really enjoyed it though. Now, I just need to learn and take more pictures.

So once again my hetero life partner comes through. M left me yet another amazing voicemail message (the last awesome one told me that we were going to see David Byrne). She managed to score us backstage passes to Fun Fun Fun Fest. She also found a buyer for the tix we bought ages ago.

So what does one get with backstage passes. Ummm, free stuff… and for the majority of the festival we got to stand right in front of the stage or on stage. M’s big ass camera (BAC) was really helpful in getting us front and center (One of the festival dudes later told me that I had to remove myself from the front of the stage. Only people with media wristbands or BAC’s could go up there. Apparently there were problems).

Anyways, the weekend was a success. We got through it with minimal drama, a shitload of pictures, and I think that we will be removing dust and dirt from ourselves for the next week.

Stay tuned for pictures and the list of shows we caught.

Random Observations:

• The Hipster Bandit- Even the dudes from the Spinto Band had to comment that the hipster scarves were actually functional this weekend. With all the dust it made sense to cover your face with that israeli scarf (or rock the SARS mask like a few brave people).
• Dudes wearing pink - please stop
• Fake moustache- Could it be the right accesory for the corduroy jacket?
• Bad weed- Once again I will say that festival attendees who can actually afford weed are smoking the stuff that the homeless people won’t touch.

Useful Festival Gear:
So I noticed that very few people are prepared for an all day outdoor festival. Granted, the door people search your bags for weapons, booze, and food. But still, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pack a few things. This is what was in my bag:

• Tissues - also useful when the port-o-potty is out of TP
• Hand Sanitizer or Moist Towlettes
• Visine/Eyedrops
• Extra Sunglasses
• Earplugs - I prefer the reusable swimmers earplugs. I bring disposable ones too, it is a good way to make friends.
• Camera - with extra batteries and memory (note that cameras are not always allowed at festivals but you can check ahead of time).
• A descent size bag to carry all your stuff (your friend may or not be willing to be your sherpa). I carry a messenger bag. M usually has her cycling backpack.
• Cash - not all events take credit or have an onsite ATM
• Empty water bottle - staff might prevent you from taking in water, but they can’t stop you from bringing an empty bottle. You can usually find a water fountain or restroom to fill it up.
• Sunscreen
• Coozie- Most of the time the beer chicks are somewhere in proximity distributing them. Never when you need them though.
• Chapstick
• Sweater/Sweatshirt- It’s good to dress in layers. By the end of the night you will be glad you packed it. I usually stick a hat in my bag for that reason.