The home stretch

July is almost over, and I've got three weeks left in Seattle. Feels like less, since my roommate will be leaving this week, and it'll probably fly by after that with Finals week in Pasadena the following weekend, and then last week of work which will be a joke.

It's really sucked following Crown because I'm not a part of it this summer and they're doing so well. I can't wait to finally see the show at Semis, and I don't even want to think about how high that corps can get by the end of the week.

After I'm home, it's a week of working at band camp in the evening. Since it's my first time doing anything like it, and all I have to draw from is what the techs at Crown did during my summer, I'm a little worried I might expect too much or push too hard. I'll probably be the good guy rather than the bad guy that week just to play it safe. As for what I'll be telling them, probably nothing more than "Get your feet in time", "Look at this form", and "Why aren't you playing, why isn't the horn on your chops". I'm sure there's more I could help out with, but I think just being on the field fixing small sections would be points of help.

That's all I've got. Three weeks!

McLovin

My friend's girlfriend got a couple of passes to a sneak preview of Superbad (by the 40 Year-Old Virgin people). This friend Jabbers me at work about it, and after IMDB'ing it, I decide that the movie's premise on IMDB is really stupid: Two high school best friends (Jonah Hill, Michael Cera) go on a mission to provide alcohol for a graduation party in hopes of losing their virginity.

And yet I still make the trip to Bellevue after work for the movie. And the plot was indeed as silly as it seems: these two high school seniors need to get girlfriends so that they can have two solid months of sex before leaving for college (so they won't be such noobs when they get there). Think American Pie meets Girl Next Door meets Super Troopers, but WAY less mature.

The highlight of the film for us, though, were the two cops (Seth Rogen and Bill Hader) and "McLovin", the "25-year old Hawaiian organ donor". Seriously, I'm going to be making reservations for McLovin for a while.

So if you like dirty and crude humor (you'd better, that's basically all they've got), then go download this movie. I can't see it being as popular as 40 Year-Old Virigin (haven't seen it), and it runs a little long. I'd probably watch it again if I didn't have to pay money for it.

HARRY POTTER

So yesterday I played paintball for the first time with a group of interns. As much fun as it was to yell Halo quotes and crouch and slide and shit, paintballs REALLY fucking hurt! Got shot in the knee once that really hurt, once in the wrist, once in the chest, and one right in the goggles when I stood up to take a peek. While it was really fun and really challenging once I figured out how to move around correctly, I don't think it'd be something I'd want to take seriously. I'd play again in the future though.

And when I came home, HARRY POTTER WAS WAITING FOR ME. Just finished about thirty minutes ago. I can't believe it's all over. Almost feels like the emotional crash after coming home from tour.

Speaking of tour, OH MY GOD CAROLINA CROWN! Fifth place, beating the Phantom Phucking
Regiment! Next on this apparent drum corps hitlist is the Bluecoats, but I almost don't want them to pass them because I would like the pleasure myself to do that next season and stick it right back in their face.

So now I guess it's back to playing video games and reading the BK Lounge book.

License to Wed

So I saw License to Wed tonight with a couple of friends I've met here. It was okay, for a romantic comedy. I mean, Robin Williams can do no wrong, and Mandy Moore is, well, Mandy Moore. The girl from Dodgeball and Zoolander, or the girl who was Melody on Hey Dude, (apparently Christine Taylor, but you will always be Melody in my heart) was really fucking skinny and really fucking orange. Gross...

Santa Clara beat Crown tonight. Saw an ad for the Quarterfinals broadcast... got sad because I'm not helping Crown get better. :[

Drum corps literature

So since Amazon is paying me buttloads of money this summer to not do drum corps, I decided to give back and purchase the two drum corps books on the site.

The first book I started to read was On the field from Denver, Colorado...The Blue Knights! It reads pretty much like someone's journal or blog, and I've only read about 30 pages. Personally, it's not that interesting since it goes into a lot of detail and I already know exactly what's going on ("Ohhhh my god it's so hot" and "Ohhhhh my god I'm in so much pain"), and talks a little too much about grab-ass time for my tastes. Most of the reviews on Amazon are from older former marching members, so they're much more nostalgic and enjoyed it more, but being only a year removed from the experience, it's nothing thrilling. Maybe I'm STILL bitter about being 8th... but I doubt that's it. I'll probably like it more in a few years once I've been in real life for a while.

What I read today in about 2-3 hours was The Lorin Solo, which is the "BD" book, but it stands much better on its own as a novel. I guess I could relate to the main character, the 20-year old hopeless romantic (me much more hopeless than romantic, but obviously I'm not exactly going to be looking out here in Seattle), and I enjoyed it much more than what I read of the BK Lounge book because it doesn't really go into the gory details that I'm not interested in anymore and focuses more on telling a good story. It's a little weird that they talk about marching members that are married... maybe just because the people in Crown are much younger than most of the big boys. But like someone on Amazon said, if someone wants to make a movie about drum corps, they should do something like this, especially the part about a fine for saying "band" instead of "corps".

So I think I'd recommend the BK book for people who want to know what it's like to do drum corps or for the nostalgic FMMs, and I'd recommend the BD book for everyone else who'd like something to read on a plane and who think drum corps is kind of cool but who would be bored to tears by me going on about it.

I wish there were a book that could capture the essence of what it's like to march but not have be as long-winded as the Blue Knights book, and not really technical so that it just sounds like band camp. Maybe like a collection of vignettes, picking out the highs and lows and skipping the days where the same thing happened as before. The kind of things Matt and Klesch would talk about when we ask them to tell us a Star story or a Cadets story. Next summer I'm definitely keeping a journal on tour for something like this.

This is me trying to stave off real life, but I really wish I were marching right now.