Rockrant

Getting Back on the Horse

Although there isn't any snow yet, it is still damn cold. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to start writing on this blog again. A few things have changed since I wrote on here in May 2005. I traded my green smallframe Vespa for a Lambretta Cento. I got the Cento running and drove it around a little bit, but there was a terrible noise from the transmission when the clutch was pulled in so I decided to rebuild the engine. I am still in that process.

I also found a couple of Vespa 400 cars that I bought and have been slowly working on. I have had them for almost a year now and there has been some progresss. The engines have both been removed from both of the cars and I will be able to make one good one out of the two. I wrote about the restoration process a little bit on a free blog, but I think that I will transfer all of those posts over here just to make it a bit easier.

All of my MMM articles can be found on the Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly website.

Back In Action

Wow, I haven't posted here since August 1st. Since then I turned 26, moved in with my girlfriend (don't tell my grandma), and worked. Jodi and I went to see the Bruce Springsteen show at Xcel, I knew that all of the bands would just make a cameo appearance, but it was still pretty great. It was at the same time that the twins were playing the yankees, so John Fogerty came out and said something about the twins winning and then jumped into Centerfield on his Louisville Slugger Bat/ Guitar.

I finally got to see Jonathan Richman. Two bits of terrible news in one day, the first that First Ave. is closing the second Bush was reelected. The show was supposed to take place at First Ave. so it almost didn't happen, but it was moved to The Cedar Cultural Center. It was fun, when we got there most of the crowd was sitting on the floor listening to the first opener. The second band was Robyn Hitchcock formally of the Soft Boys, now just himself. He was pretty funny, telling many stories in between songs and some commentary about the reelection. Jonathan was great, but he didn't play for very long. I heard that the show really depends on how the crowd is, I thought that the crowd was pretty attentive. So much so, when he would sing without the mic, you could still hear him clearly in the back of the room. He played Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gough, both for at least 10 minutes. I could have done with shorter songs and more of them.

Jodi and I also saw the Black Eyed Snakes at the 400 bar. We got there early enough so that we had a table, it also meant that we saw both of the opening bands. One of them Trailer Park Queen was pretty decent. They were a parody band and said that off the bat with the song "We are a parody band" instead of "We are an american band." An indie rock parody band they covered the pixies, lou reed and others. Black Eyed Snakes were great, my favorite song from the new album maybe "rise up".

Random Affairs

Kind of Random right now

Eternal Sunshine... long title, excellent movie. I watch the latest previews on the apple website when I get board so I have been waiting for this movie for a while. It is the classic love story... boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. With Eternal Sunshine the story is told in such a great way that it doesn't seem tired or staid at all. The movie gets extra points for having mark ruffalo in it, much indie cred. Jim Carrey is great, he is almost forgiven for The Mask. See it Love it.

While fixing my computer after running the buggy File Vault that comes with 10.3, I found a pretty cool program for finding the names of songs in itunes. Musicbrainz You enter the song that you don't know exactly what it is or where it came from and it will come up with the title.

Complicated Fun is doing a really great I hate (love) 1984 with guest writers. I was 6 in 1984 and the only thing that I really remember is the summer olympics.

I have started to work at Scooterville part-time wrenching on and selling scooters. It is pretty great, I worked for a whole summer just trying to get money to work on my first scooter, now I am getting paid to do it. Now though, I have no interest in riding them, I would rather ride by Trek mountain bike that I have changed into a fixed gear single speed.