I have a new web-related pet peeve: unheard of search engines that open up in pop-up ads which automatically set themselves as your home page and install a toolbar in your browser. This has happened to me with three separate search page ads. The worst was Xupiter, which also installed something that made my browser automatically jump to them any time I got a page not available message or when a page took too long to load. The worst (or best, depending on your perspective) part was that every time it did I got a graphic pop-up ad for amateur porn. So every time a page wouldn't load I wound up staring at obviously silicone enhanced boobies. And feeling both very inadequate and grateful that I don't have kids. For that one I had to go dig around on their site to find an uninstaller application to get rid of it. Grr.

Anyway. Had a lovely time last night, as mentioned before. Last Exit did a great job -- for the most part. During their cover of Green Eyes Ted stepped too hard on his volume/distortion (or whatever -- I don't know guitars) pedal and screwed up the song, and they all just froze and stared at each other in horror for a good 30 seconds before recovering enough to turn it into a joke and finish the song. That was funny. Oh, and we also got mooned. An SUV drove by with three bare asses hanging out the windows. The guys were too busy playing to see, but the audience got a kick out of it. I was mostly concerned about the kids getting frostbite on their butts, 'cause it was frickin' cold last night.

On Christmas Stacie took my acoustic guitar home to restring it and tune it up for me. He had it with him last night, and he'd also polished it and made it look all pretty and he used it in the show. And then he wouldn't let me have it to take back home. Looks like I'm going to have to stage a guitar-napping if I ever want mine back. 'S okay for now because I don't have time to practice (I know two chords; my goal is to learn how to switch between them without having to stop to reposition my fingers), but dammit, I want my guitar back!

Terrence showed up at the tail-end of the set, which actually worked out for me because it meant that we could actually talk without having to shout at each other. We sat there for at least an hour conversing. It was nice. Every time we've gotten together over the last couple years (which hasn't been nearly as often as we should) we've both had other people with us and other stuff to do (i.e. watch movies) and schedules that demanded we go our separate ways when whatever event we'd gone to was over. So it's been a really long time since we've just hung out and talked. I'm glad we got to do that. And it's made me all nostalgic about the people we used to sit around gabbing with until the wee small hours of the morning when we were in college (the first time). Sigh.

So, the band is finally cutting a new demo tomorrow, which is fabulous news, as their current demo simply doesn't do them justice. When a band sounds ten times better live than they do on their CD then you know something's wrong. Although to be fair part of it is simply because they've grown so much as both performers and musicians since cutting their last demo. They're not going to the same studio that did their last demo. This is a rich friend who has his own studio and is letting them use it, and hopefully he knows what he's doing and this time their CD will be a good representation of what they actually sound like. That would make my job so much easier. No more, "but they sound better than that. No, really! Trust me, they do!"

I was going to upload digital pics from their past few performances to their web site today and set up a gallery, but I left my camera in the minivan and my mom has taken it and gone somewhere that she probably told me about but that I've forgotten about. So instead I'll get to work on the DL cds.