Broomball

I was going to blog about leadership and, specifically, servant leadership and how earlier this month I saw a laughable example of that executed.  But, as I know, blogs are public, and so maybe this is something better talked about with friends face to face.

Suffice it to say that Broomball 2008 was fun.  It actually happened like three weeks ago, but I haven’t blogged about it yet.  Last year during Broomball, Amanda and I were just figuring out that we liked each other, so there were some fun memories involved from Broomball 2007.

Also, I’ve received and used the webcam since I last blogged.  So far, it’s exceeded expectations.  It’s more compact and has better picture quality than I expected.

One last thing: hats off to the Phillies for winning the World Series (like a month ago, but still).  However, it does cramp my style:  I like baseball a lot, as you know.  I’m slowly working my way towards having a cap for every team (and by slowly, I mean very slowly).  This summer, I saw a beautiful light blue Phillies hat with a maroon “P” on the front.  I was thisclose to getting it then, but passed.  Now I wish I had, because

1. I can’t find one on the interwebs, and
2. I would feel like a bandwagon jumper for getting one (although I did have a Phillies hat in middle school, after my friend Nate moved out there and got me one for my birthday, which I thought was a pretty cool thing to do)

Oh well.  I suppose if I find one when I’m home over Christmas break or something, I might just have to snag it anyway, even though other people will just think I got it to be a frontrunner.

Filed under: Uncategorized , baseball, Broomball, hats, leadership, Phillies, restraint, servant leadership, World Series

My Gen 2008: Day After

I’m sure the videos will get posted by the usual suspects soon, but for now let me just say that last night’s show was probably the most entertaining student event I’ve been to here.

Setlist and comments…

Intro – Nice enough medley.  Actually, much of it was pretty impressive.  I’m not sure why the “Umbrella” section was so long, so low, and so much different from the actual song.  Enh.  The intro slideshow was rather…tedious.

“Clocks” by Coldplay -  It’s pretty easy to forget how great this song is, because you’ve probably heard it to many times in contexts where it doesn’t fit.  Bopper sold the Chris Martin bit perfectly – Make Trade Fair equals sign on the hand, enthusiasm, hand gestures, cascading piano triplets, hollering encouragement to the audience and bandmates.  It sounded good, too, down to the vocal harmonies and the abrupt ending.  This set the bar high for the whole show.  One of my favs.

“All You Wanted” by Michelle Branch – A pleasant enough rendition of a pleasant enough pop song.

“Hysteria” by Muse – YES.  Okay, the bass here was tremendous, the energy was high…this was probably the finest song of the night in my opinion (the paper gave it silver, after “Apres Moi”).  This was, technically, very difficult, and they very much KILLED it.  Also – they did it as a trio (as does Muse), which was the most impressive to me (I half-expected they’d use 4, until I was told otherwise).

“Jumper” by Third Eye Blind – To some extent, recognizable songs work better in this format, as more people are interested in the performance, recognize the chorus, and so on.  The vocal part here is difficult, and Jordan did a fine job of it.

“Apres Moi” by Regina Spektor – Easily the most unique, weird, unusual performance (I mean that in the best way).  It’s always great when acts take a bit of a chance with costumes, song choices, the theatricality of their act, etc., and it pays off for them.  It did here.

“Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys – Tons of energy, tons of Sammy II guys, and it was going to feature my guitar until Scott broke a string and had to go to a backup.  Rob dropped his pick, which was too bad.  Same with the tempo problems.  Still a lot of fun.

[Intermission] – Now is as good a time as any to talk about the skit narrative.  They covered the usual topics, but I appreciated the angles, especially the “Pastor Mark” skit and the Beat Poet.  The singing bee kept the audience entertained.  The fashion show was goofy (not bad goofy, just goofy).

“Idioteque” by Radiohead – Okay, I suppose for uniqueness, this is right up there with “Apres Moi”.  Very adventurous, and the performers were obviously enjoying themselves.  Luke’s vocals got buried in the mix during the second or third verse, but this was still lots of noisy fun.  Loved the dancing

“We Both Go Down Together” by The Decemberists – pretty much nailed it.  A fun song.  A band from my high school used to cover this song all the time.  Nice minor touches, too.

“Ready to Run” by Dixie Chicks – sounded nice.  I could take or leave the Dixie Chicks, though – mainly leave.

“9 Crimes” by Damien Rice – Everyone was SO QUIET for this one.  This is a song with a lot of gravity, and they nailed its subleties.  Nice job, Kayla and Bitsy!

“Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls – Bopper does it again.  Good to see Looper up there with his mandolin.  At this point, everyone is charmed by Bopper.  Seriously.

“It’s Gonna Be Me” by *Nsync – Another favorite.  This is another of those “perfect for My Gen” sorts of songs, and the guys did a great job and had fun with it.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Bopper, Chris Martin, Coldplay, college, Damien Rice, Dixie Chicks, Dropkick Murphys, friends, Goo Goo Dolls, Michelle Granch, Muse, Music, My Gen, My Gen 2008, Nsync, Radiohead, Regina Spektor, Sammy II, The Decemberists, Third Eye Blind

VIP MGN Tickets

Remember my VIP seats for Airband 2007?  And my recap of My Gen 2007 (in which I didn’t have VIP seats, because no one did)?  Well, this year, there are VIP My Gen (they’re calling it MGN this year, so I’m indulging them, because that’s ridiculous), and guess who has two thumbs and a VIP seat?

This guy.

It should be pretty good.  At least, it better, because some guys and I tried out with this song, and didn’t get in (there were some sound problems that were sort of out of our hands – i.e. my guitar was too loud on the solo – but we still nailed it), and I know of at least a handful of other good acts that got cut, so I have high hopes.

I was going to give the setlist with links to videos by the original artists, but realized that might not be a good idea for a number of reasons.

Also, No Shave November!!  I meant to put something about it in my last post.  I’m participating, and I’ve never had more facial hair.  I wish, however, that my facial hair was more brown and less strawberry blonde (the sideburns are brown).  I tend to think that having an unshaven neck adds to the holistic experience, by the way.  However, I do plan to shave between now and next Wednesday, as I’m accompanying my girlfriend to her family’s Thanksgiving, and don’t want to look like a bum the first time I meet her family, so I’m not the most adherent follower, I suppose.

At lunch today, Amanda pointed out that NSN (like MGN, but less confusing) is a good time for romantic relationship development, because, if you have a bad beard, there is some absence of shallowness required from the female side to really appreciate that you’re not shaving anyway.  We sort of had that – last November is when we first had that, “so I like you…” conversation.  I’m getting to observe that from outside the situation this year, as a friend and an acquaintance are getting to that point as we speak, and the male party has a pretty goofy set of facial hair.

I’m going to make coffee.

Filed under: Uncategorized , "MGN", Airband, Airband 2007, Amanda, coffee, fall 2008, My Gen, My Gen 2008, No Shave November, romance, two thumbs, VIP

Assorted Thoughts

I think that it takes some heightened level of contentness and relaxation to allow your iPod to play continually on shuffle.  I’m almost there – I still skip a lot of songs, but at least I’m better than I previously was about saying, “I’m sick of randomness, I just want to listen to a coherent album rather than a parade of songs.”

Is it creepy to find and/or read the blogs of acquaintances who are not necessarily in the “friend zone”?  A lot of people @ TU blog, and I happen to RSS subscribe to many of them.  Many of these people are my friends, but some are only acquaintances (aka we’re facebook friends, ha).  I suppose that by blogging, you implicitly agree that these sorts of things are okay.  I know that I am okay with it and even would welcome feedback from such friends/acquaintances.

This is sort of a procrastinatory blog – I’m working on a paper rough draft.

This morning, Amanda described the pastor’s trousers as “emergent pants”.

If you live reasonably close to Indianapolis, you should go to the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s performance of “A Christmas Carol” sometime this Christmas season.  It’s well done and unique; I’ve seen it twice this decade and loved it both times.  Oh, and there’s plenty of tasty places to eat in downtown Indy after the show, too.

Because Woot! is awesome, Amanda and I will each be receiving a Hue HD webcam ($100 value, purchased for $20 each) at some point during the coming week.  This will make communication immeasurably easier while she’s in Ireland this spring (ps – I’m jealous of her). [note:  Hue HD's website seems to be down right now]

Friends often enforce the idea that I have a broad vocabulary, but sometimes, I surprise myself with my inability to spell/use the right homonym.

“Christmas Time is Here (Instrumental)” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio off of the Peanuts Christmas Special album just came on during shuffle; I almost forgot to skip it.  By the way, if you own 1 Christmas CD, that should be it.

I want to write a memoir, even if no one would read it or find it interesting.

This is the sound of Dauthan ending this post before he gets around to saying too much.

Filed under: Uncategorized , allusions, blog, blog meta commentary, blogging, Christmas, college, emergent pants, facebook, friends, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Indianapolis, iPod, Music, my memoir, procrastinating, rando, shuffle, TU, webcam, Woot!

Advent Conspiracy

Americans turn Christmas into something much more grotesque than it ought to be.  It is the celebration of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Savior of all, coming to Earth as a baby, and yet Americans spend

$450,000,000,000 ($450 billion) EVERY YEAR to celebrate.

Advent Conspiracy thinks that’s ridiculous, and they’re going to do something about it.

The idea:  why don’t we buy less, dial our November 20-something through January 2nd intensity down a bit, spend more time with the people we love, and give the money we save to do greater good?

Because if $450 billion didn’t seem ridiculous already, it will now:  Lack of clean water kills more people than ANYTHING else.  Big problem, right?  How great would it be to keep all those people alive?  It would likely only cost $10 billion ($10,000,000,000).  So, collectively, if America doesn’t buy its dad a tie for Christmas, we can make sure that no one in the world goes without clean water.

Let’s do it.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Advent Conspiracy, America, Christmas, clean water, Jesus

Thanksgiving Steak?

I love Thanksgiving.  While winter is my least favorite season with regards to weather (by FAR), I enjoy the festive atmosphere of that Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s time of year.  I appreciate what Thanksgiving means, too.

However, I don’t like turkey very much.  Ham I like much better, but I have had an idea for awhile that I think would top them all:

Thanksgiving steak.

Think about how great that would be.  You could still have all the “fixins” as they say in Nashville – green bean casserole, cranberry salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. – but instead of ham or turkey, you could have steak.  In fact, I think that when I have a family, that’s what we’ll do – Thanksgiving steak dinner.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Christmas, Holidays, ingenuity, New Year's, New Year's Eve, STEAK, Thanksgiving

“Finally” iMix

…can be bought here.

It’s a mix of recent personal favs, songs with specific relational significance, and songs which generally fit well in the song cycle.

It probably wouldn’t take forever to figure out this list’s original purpose.

(Note that the description mentions that two songs from my original playlist could not be on the iMix, for two different reasons.  The first is “From Me to You” by the Beatles, which couldn’t be included because iTunes doesn’t carry the Beatles catalog, although its addition has been long rumored.  The second song is “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson.  You can buy the studio/album version here, but the version on the playlist was from her Daytrotter session.  Daytrotter is a music blog that has artists in to their studio to record “live in studio” editions of their own songs, be they well known or unreleased or anywhere in between, or covers.  They almost always give them away freely and legally, although I think sometimes artists request that they not be posted and then sell them commercially.  Anyway, Ingrid’s is available at the above link.)

Filed under: Uncategorized , Daytrotter, iMix, Ingrid Michaelson, Music, the Beatles