I woke up this morning, and found my hair rough and my ears cold. I had left the window open last night, and the sun had creeped through filling my room with golden light, as if the chilly breeze was casting the blinds aside, telling me that it was time to get up.
Two eggs, two hashbrowns, and three sausages please.
Thursday, I went over to Pat’s for a long-planned table tennis marathon. Before we started, he cooked us dinner; rib-eye steak grilled on the barbecue, a fresh vegetable stir-fry, and bruschetta as an appetizer. The steak was marinating all day in a garlic and oil sauce, and the bruschetta spread was made using extra virgin olive oil and basil that he grew himself. It’s great to have a friend whose passion is cooking and eating.
We ended up playing for about an hour and a half, because we ended up speaking for so long and I had to work the next day. Every game was close, and every best-out-of-five match went to the fifth game, with a deuce for match point during three of the five matches. He was leading by one the entire time, but I adjusted my timing and took less risks, and ended up winning the final match 12–10.
It was frustrating to be playing in his basement because I’m used to a much bigger area with much better lighting. The ball was hard to keep track of, and I didn’t have the same flooring to maneuver on, so it felt like my legs were glued to the ground. My toes started getting raw and painful about half way through, due to the fact that I usually play with my weight shifted off the heel, but I was able to ignore it, concentrate on playing, and follow through with a narrow win. I realized that the distance I stand away from the table is proportional to the distance of the table to the wall. Unfortunately, this means that my timing is all screwed up depending on the location that I play. I need to work on being consistent in all playing conditions.
So there I was, sitting at my desk with my poppyseed bagel with plain cream cheese, starting to get hungry. I decide to get something hot to drink, so I grab my change, and walk to the hot drink dispenser in the kitchen. I grab a pack of choco and put it in the slot of the machine, insert my two quarters, and watch the machine inject brown water into my mug. In my head I have the taste of rich and creamy Second Cup hot chocolate, and this is what I’m expecting as I walk back to my desk before I take a sip. There were little solid bits of brown floating in the liquid, what I assume was just undissolved chocolate powder.
I take a sip. This hot chocolate is so fucking disgusting, that it’s hilarious. It’s not just bland and watery, it goes through levels and layers of bad taste. It starts out like instant hot chocolate from powder mix with a little too much water mixed into it. Then there’s a little hint of ash that fades before the distinct taste of burnt metallic cookware. The finish is all water, with no other taste whatsoever, aside from a hint of something that’s too light to be distinguishable.
And as I keep drinking this, I can’t help but laugh after every sip. It’s the most vile, most putrid, most comic cup of anything I have ever had.
This morning, the sky was ashen grey, and the pavement turned blacker. It all reminded me of night, when the sunset just passes, and the night-time healing can begin. Except this was morning, and the rain washed the world before it had woken up.
When taking a sample of progressive metal fans, one will find that the subset is almost entirely comprised of males, most of which are much taller than the average Asian guy. This makes it extremely difficult for the average Asian guy to see the band during progressive metal concerts, which was the case during the Dreamtheater show on Wednesday. As can be seen from the picture, I went up to most of the other peoples necks. Although there was the chance to go straight up front since there was no mosh pit (cause who can mosh to music that changes time signatures every other bar?), the area was too densely packed to get anywhere.
At first I thought that the crowd was mostly made up of the same “type” of people, but Trolley pointed out that he’s never been to a show that was more diverse. All I saw were lots of blond, Caucasian males, but he only saw lots of differently aged people. And it was true…while there were an extremely limited number of females in attendance (although I’m sure that Anj was there), there were also people from my age to twice my age. It was odd to see a lot of guys old enough to be my father at the same concert as me.
There was no opener because their set went for almost three hours. They first performed for an hour and a half, and came back for three encores. One of the encores was the entire 45 minute long track on their Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulance album with no pauses. I’ve also never seen a band measure time like they do when performing live: somehow they manage to count their rests with perfect timing when the lights go out. Even though this is done on the album version of Endless Sacrifice, the impressive thing is that they have different tempos for their shows. Most other bands need a cymbol hit to keep time (like what Manson does during Antichrist Superstar at the Hartford show), and it’s always a dissapointment to find out that a band can’t count notes in their heads.
Portnoy’s drumset owned half the fucking stage.
There’s a running joke between the members of DT, where they replace lyrics of their songs with “you can eat my ass and balls”. I first found out from the Metropolis 2000 DVD, when they all jokingly sing it instead of “there can be no peace of mind” during behind-the-scenes the commentary. At one point during the Wednesday’s concert, LaBrie replaces “take me as I am” with “eat my ass and balls” and I had to burst out laughing. Then I noticed that no one else was laughing.