Ben and I went to see “The Sleeping Beauty” performed by the Atlanta Ballet yesterday.

I’d never seen the whole thing (just bits and pieces, mostly of the Rose Adagio), and I’d been wanting to for years. So we made the 3.5 hour trek down to Atlanta and back yesterday for that purpose.

The ballet was absolutely enthralling. The Rose Adagio was wonderfully executed. Carabosse was the best and most beautiful evil fairy I’ve ever seen, and the pas de deux between Aurora and the Prince in Act III blew my mind. I was lost in the music and the dance nearly the entire time. It seemed at times the dancers were actually creating the music with their dancing, instead of it being pre-recorded. I had to stop myself from giving Aurora and Prince Desiré a standing ovation in the middle of the third act. The sheer beauty of it brought tears to my eyes.

Back from Atlanta. I don’t even know where to start…

I need to find some setlists for the concert because I can’t remember everything that was played. The Strokes and Tom Petty both rocked, as to be expected. The biggest surprise of the evening was when Stevie Nicks came out and sang three songs with Tom Petty.

We went to AWA on Saturday for a little while. Started out in our mage costumes but got way too hot and Ben’s hat wasn’t cooperating, so we took them off after a couple hours and roamed around like normal people. Took a couple pictures. Haven’t found any of us yet, but I just got home and I think we have plenty of mage pictures as it is.

I know this is short, sorry. I’ll try to find some setlists tomorrow and give more details.

Random stuff…

Anyone who has talked to me lately knows that I’ve been sucked into the obsession that is Guitar Hero. I’ve been playing for about two weeks now and am progressing. When I first started, I couldn’t get through the first song on easy, and today I just beat “Bark at the Moon” on medium (and the medium level as a whole) and the first five songs on hard. It was a big accomplishment for me to get through “Infected” on hard, simply because it is the song that really introduces you to quickly moving your hand up and down on the frets. I didn’t do it well, but for awhile I had the rhythm going with a 4x multiplier.

Also, if you hadn’t heard, the Wii was announced to be coming out on November 19th for $249. That misses the window for my birthday party (which will either be the 11th or the 18th depending on if Sabrina is coming up or not), so we may have to have an encore party a few weeks after (so you should buy me Wii-motes for my birthday).

Ben and I are going to go to Atlanta this weekend. We’ll be going to the see Tom Petty and The Strokes on Friday night and to Anime Weekend Atlanta all day on Saturday. We were going to go see “The Science of Sleep” as well (the new Michael Gondry movie), but apparently it’s only in limited release this weekend. We did, however, go to see “The Last Kiss” last weekend, and it was good. I wanted to absolutely murder a few of the characters. But good.

The “Dear Friends - Music from Final Fantasy” concert was last night.

I thought it was pretty awesome. I haven’t really played most of the games, so I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as Ben did, but I did recognize several pieces and thought it was all wonderful. The setlist was as follows:

“Liberi Fatali” from FF VIII
“Zanarkand” from FF X
“Terra’s Theme” from FF VI
“Theme of Love” from FF IV
“Dear Friends” from FF V
“Vamo’ Alla Flamenco” from FF IX
“Love Grows” from FF VIII
“Aeris’s Theme” from FF VII (Ben made me close my eyes since I’m currently playing this and he didn’t want me to see any of the scenes they showed, bleh.)
“Not Alone” from FF IX
“Ronfaure” from FF XI
FF I-III Medley
New Melody from FF VII Advent Children
“Final Fantasy”

After that, they did an encore, playing Sephiroth’s theme from FF VII. And then they played it again for the second encore.

I probably enjoyed the Final Fantasy theme the most. That was just awesome.

As a side note, I would just like to say that Atlanta’s street system is horrible. What is the point of having 14th street intersect with 14th street and Peachtree running parallel to Peachtree? When you’re trying to find the intersection of Peachtree and 15th street, it makes it impossible. Especially when most of them are one way streets.

June, already?

Sabrina and Matt’s wedding was beautiful. Pictures are up in the photo gallery, as usual. Brina sent me some of the pictures she had too, and I might get around to posting some of those as well.

My car died last week. Some belt broke and it died on the way to work. Cost me a pretty penny to get it fixed and, therefore, I cannot afford Bonnaroo this year. Chance thinks we should all set up a tent at the Manplex and create our own Bonnaroo. I wonder if we could get Mars Volta to come…

Ben and I will be going to Atlanta on the 25th of this month for Dear Friends - Music from Final Fantasy. That should be pretty cool. I haven’t really played much of the games (hey, I’m working on FFVII!!) but I do enjoy the music a lot.

Then in July I start summer school. Ew. And then in August, fall semester starts. My two month reprieve from school is not long enough. Thankfully I will be graduating in December. That can’t come fast enough. Please donate to my “new car OR buying a house” fund.

Back from Six Flags…

We arrived in Atlanta around 7 pm (after wasting endless time at Wal-mart, in traffic, and going the wrong way a few times). We met up with Frances and went to the park. We immediately headed over to the Superman and got in line. An hour and a half later, we were to the front. Then the ride broke down. Then it was fixed. Then it broke down. Then it was fixed. Then it was our turn. Then it broke down. Then it was fixed. We finally got to ride it, but for some reason it wasn’t nearly as AMAZING as last time.

After that, we went on Acrophobia, since it had been closed when we went in July. It was okay, but I remember the Hellevator at Kentucky Kingdom being a little better. After that, it was Batman and Batman again. Then it was 11 pm and the park was closed.

The next day, Joe showed up and he and Frances headed into the park earlier than Ben and me and got a Q-bot. When we finally ventured out of the hotel and into the park, it was about 3 pm. We ate and made plans to meet up with them after they got off the Mindbender. So, when we did, we got in line for the Georgia Scorcher, another ride we had skipped last time. We waited in line maybe about two hours for it. It was a stand-up coaster and definitely a ton of fun.

After that, Frances and Joe had to go ride Superman (their Q-bot time was up) so Ben and I went on the Ninja. We wanted to go on Batman again after that, but it was closed, so we went on some smaller stuff, like the parachute drop, the swings, and this spinny thing inside a dome. We had a lot of fun. Then we went back to the hotel, where we managed to stay up till 3 pm talking with Frances and Joe.

It was a really fun trip. Pictures, as always, can be found with the others.

Back from Atlanta!

That was a great trip. We left early Wednesday morning and sped towards Atlanta. We arrived around 11:30 or so, got turned around a few times, and eventually ended up at our hotel. Since it was still early, we couldn’t check in, so we freshened up in the bathroom and were soon on our way to the Marta station.

It was blazing hot outside. We had packed a ton of water, even though you are only supposed to have one bottle per person. But the security really wasn’t that tight. After walking around aimlessly for awhile, we finally found the schedule board. Jason and Becka decided to go off to find the Maurice stage while Ben and I opted for the Brian stage where the Vandals were about to start. The Brian stage was out in the parking lot in the hot blazing sun, while the Maurice stage was in the cooler ampitheatre. So we ended up going back and forth, trying to cool off. Because of this, we ended up seeing some very sucky bands on the Maurice stage and a couple cool ones. Bands we saw included: the Vandals, the Casualties, New Found Glory, Yellowcard, NOFX, Avenged Sevenfold, and Bad Religion. Very cool stuff.

When we got back to the Marta station, we couldn’t remember which station to get off on. So we tried one. Wasn’t it. Tried the next one. Wasn’t it. Tried the next. Nope. We did this five or six times before we finally found the right one. We were all pretty exhausted by this point.

The next day we slept in till about 11:30 before getting up and going to Six Flags. The first thing we went on was the Free Fall, which was pretty awesome, although I’m sure Acrophobia if it had been open would have been more awesome. Then we went on the Georgia Cyclone, which was an old wooden coaster. That pretty much sucked. Very shaky. And painful. Ow.

After that, we took a break for lunch. We left the park (due to insane prices) and went to Wendy’s, where I found out that you can pay $3 for a miniscule amount of chicken strips. Then it was back to the park.

It was starting to get really hot again at this point, so we went over to Splashwater Falls to stand on the bridge and get soaked. But that didn’t happen. There wasn’t a whole lot of splash that hit the bridge. We didn’t want to wait in line for that, so we continued on our way.

The next ride we hit was the Ninja, which is a coaster. It was pretty cool, but was nothing compared to what was coming up: Superman. Oh. My. God. Greatest coaster ever ever ever ever ever. We were in the front. It really felt like you were flying. Can’t even describe it. If you’ve never been on it, GO NOW. I mean it. Stop reading this and GO.

We were getting hot again after that (the wait for Superman was over an hour), so we decided to hit a water ride. We found Thunder River, which is one of those water rides with the big tubes that hold a ton of people. I got moderately wet on that and it cooled me down a bit.

It was beginning to get late at this point, so we headed over to Batman the Ride. That was pretty awesome too, in a different sort of way than Superman. It’s a hanging coaster, very reminscent of the Hangman at Opryland (RIP). We went on the Mindbender after that, which was the world’s first triple loop coaster, and it has no over-the-shoulder restraints, even though it has loops, so you can put your hands up even upside-down which is pretty cool. We went on Batman two more times after that, since we were right there and the park was about to close.

After all that, we drove home. It was a very fun trip, and we hope to go back to Six Flags in a couple months when it’s cooler and less crowded. I’ve put up some pictures in the gallery if you want to check them out.

Leaving for Atlanta in about 31 hours!!

I’m so excited. I haven’t been on a vacation in forever. And, I know, this is only like a two-day vacation, but it’s better than nothing.

We’re leaving Knoxville around 7:30 on Wednesday morning. Then we’re going to go by the hotel, park the car, hop on Marta, go down to Hi-Fi Buys, and spend all day there at Warped Tour. Then sleep. Next day: Six Flags! I can almost feel the adrenaline rush from the coasters now.

I will be sure to post tons of pictures when I get back.
I still need to do a ton of stuff before we go. Such as, clean out my car, pack, burn some CDs, and I can’t even remember what else. I made a list last night, but I lost it. Meh.

My hair color has been fading. It’s not really black anymore, just dark brown with some dull red streaks. So I redid the red streaks today to intensify them. Except I’m not sure I hit the same places where they were before, because now I seem to have huge chunks of red streaks. The aren’t really streaks anymore I guess. Just chunks. It’s interesting.

What a weekend!

Where do I begin?

Ben and I left Knoxville around 2:00 on Saturday and drove to Atlanta with no problems. We had a little difficulty locating the hotel once we arrived, but found it quickly enough. We headed over to Gwinnett Arena around 7:00. The show was scheduled to begin at 8. I didn’t bother taking the stealth cam with me this time around. We went inside and went down to the floor. Hardly anyone was there yet, so we sat down against the wall towards the front.

Burning Brides came on at 8:00. They were good, much better than I was expecting. The lead singer told he had a surprise for us, and Josh came out and played drums on one song. Then James came out and played guitar on the next one. That was pretty cool. Anyway, I was fairly impressed by them, and I think a lot of other people were too.

A Perfect Circle came on at 9:30. I had an excellent view this time. We were standing on the left side of the stage, pretty close to Jeordie, and like the second “row” of people. I had a great view of Jeordie, James, and Maynard the entire time.

They opened with “Vanishing,” of course, with Maynard behind the screen. When the screen came down as they went into “Pet,” Maynard had a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger placed in front of him. He also had a sign that read “Maynard Dr.” on his microphone stand. Hehe.

I was very, very happy with the setlist for this show. Basically, every song that I didn’t get to hear in Indianapolis, they played in Atlanta. I actually think this show was possibly better than the one in Indy. Maynard was really getting into it. It was just awesome.

Here’s the setlist:
Vanishing
Pet
The Hollow
Magdalena
Weak and Powerless
Orestes
Blue
Thinking of You
Brena
A Stranger
The Package
3 Libras
The Nurse Who Loved Me
Gravity
A song that James sang
The Outsider
The Noose
Judith

Very awesome show.

Afterwards, I couldn’t remember where I parked, so we wandered around the parking lot for awhile. We finally found it, and then it took forever to get out.

Ben before the concert.	Ben after the concert.
Me after the concert.	Dinner!

The next day, we decided to go to the Mall of Georgia, which is like the largest mall in the south. We checked out of the hotel and went to get in the car. It wouldn’t start. We determined that it was the battery and got someone to jump us.

We got to the mall and walked around for a bit. Personally, I think I like Opry Mills better. Although the Mall of Georgia does have an Armani Exchange store (*drool*). It had a neat little outside area with a fountain that kids could play in and some other stuff.

When we got ready to leave (I actually didn’t spend any money), the car wouldn’t start again. Wonderful. The battery is officially dead. We start trying to figure out what to do. We go back into the mall and find a mall security guy and he gets someone to jump it for us.

We start driving down the road looking for an Autozone or Wal-Mart or something. We happen upon a Sam’s Club and decide to stop there. It was already getting kind of late and we were ready to get back on the road to Knoxville. We go into Sam’s, locate the kind of battery we need, and go to pay for it. Well, guess what? My Sam’s Club card had expired. Bleh. So, we get someone there to jump us off and continue our search.

We found a Wal-Mart down the road. We go in, buy a battery, come back out, determine we need a wrench, go back in, buy a wrench, come back out, and finally finally finally get the battery replaced. Finally. Ugh.

So then we get on I-85 to begin our journey back to Knoxville. And get stuck in traffic. For an hour and a half. I’m not lying. We went 14 miles in 1.5 hours. Oh, and did I mention it was raining through all of this?

We finally got back to Knoxville. And now I’m completely broke once again.

I somehow just got roped into going to another concert. In Atlanta. On April 8. At least I’m not driving.

So many things to look forward to that it is quite sad that it is only February 27.

Tickets go on sale to Nextfest on March 1. Spring break starts March 6, and I have two weddings to go to that day. I also am gonna be helping my best friend with her wedding plans while I’m in Clarksville. On March 9, the bands that are playing at this year’s Music Midtown will be revealed, so I can see if I want to get tickets to that, and tickets to that go on sale on March 13. April 7 is the Jewel concert. April 17 is the APC concert. April 30 through May 2 is Music Midtown, assuming I go. And then around May 12, I’m going to San Fran!

Really, that’s a lot of traveling in the next few months. Clarksville. Indianapolis. Atlanta. Asheville. San Francisco. Wow.