Summer broke loose, again. And while it’s a little too hot during the day (I have a hard time getting used to the heat if I’m not given more than four days of it in a row), I just love the nights. Sitting outside at 4:30 in shirt and shorts, drinking beer and babblig about this and that and all the rest while the sun rearms for another assault.. on to the news and random facts..

• Been to the Melt! Festival and while being not quite what I expected I had a great time. We missed everything on Friday for rain, beer and stuff came in our way, but we caught a glimpse of 13 & God and the whole show of The Faint vs. Bright Eyes on Saturday. I feel like a fscking groupie having seen them three times in three weeks (June 24th, Ulm, Juli 6th, Karlsruhe, Juli 16th, Gräfenhainichen). Well, I guess there’re things worse that this. Anyhow, there was lots of ‘electro’ which, at least for me being unconditioned for that genre, did actually sound like plain stupid techno. Something for everyone I guess.
• Speaking of worse things, punknews.org writes that Karate broke up. I only know this band for about two months now and also only their selftitled album, but I really like it. Well, at least there are a few more albums to discover.
• I’m just going to get my new ID and passport from the town hall, be right back. re. Well, that was a two km walk and I’m soaked, like totally. Wayyyy toooo hooooot, I’m melting. Blub. Or not. Very pretty girl handed me over my new papers, San Francisco, here I come. At least if I get it managed to look for a flight anytime soon.
• Got myself a towel for I’m dripping all over the place. Urgs.
• /. writes about the world’s smallest MP3 player. Well, probably not too handy to carry a cube around in your pocket, this might hurt. And no ogg. Sebastian got himself a Shuffle (de) and seems to be pleased. Well, this might get boring but somehow I don’t get tired saying that: no ogg. iRiver to the rescue: The T-Series. With or w/o battery, small size, light-weight and, you guess it, ogg-support. I probably will get one of those.
• A friend just messaged me that my copy of Dance Of Death arrived, great. Exciting hours with SA Pendergast to come.
• Under no circumstances must MMORPGs be installed during summer. I’ve been reading a lot of Penny Arcade and combined with the bad weather the last few days (weeks?) it created an urge to play something. I had a still sealed box of EverQuest 2 lying around that I got from my brother a few months back. I tried the demo Trial Of The Isle which lets you play seven days and up to level 6 and you guess it, it got me. I even went to my local hardware dealer today and got myself a memory update for my XPC (2x512MB). Great. I’m sooo weak. Oh, and I had to reanimate my wintendo installation. Pretty lame, huh?
• Penny Arcade brings me to more WebComic recommendations: The obligatory Questionable Content and it’s little sidekick indietits, best punk-webcomic, Nothing Nice To Say (make sure to read Mich’s comments, there are some pretty interesting thoughts every now and then), Punks And Nerds (OK, Bruceman is pretty lame but they’ll get over it, hopefully..) and …hey suburbia! (which is not reachable right now).
• And last but not least: after decades of die-hard training sessions, strict diet, tons of proteins, steroids and testosterone injections, I can finally do five push-ups while doing a handstand (which is, not a real one but with my feet leaned to a wall *cough*). I did it and so can you: Build it and they will come. Err, guess I screwed that one up, must be the steroids, gotta go..

I’ve been to Munich for a Sick Of It All show yesterday. Those guys are quite amazing. 20 years and still kicking. None of this Tough Guy attitude you’ll see at most hardcore shows, just plain, feel good spirit. Stretch Arm Strong supported, I saw them for the first time and quite liked them, although, if I got it right, there was some “dedicated to our troops” babbling before one song..
The other two bands playing that evening were Crushing Caspars from Germany and Amen from the states, the later looking like some really troubled bad taste fashion whores or as a friend put it: “The singer looks like a bad rouged mixture between Marilyn Manson and Glen Danzig, just fatter”. Well, so true. But if you didn’t look at those guys, the sound wasn’t that bad at all.

On Friday, Bright Eyes and The Faint are playing at the Ulmer Zelt. I already secured my ticket and well, it’s a whole new indie-world out there. First preparations for the Melt! Festival..

Enough for now, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s summer, finally. There are way better things to do than to hang around a computer, that is, if you don’t own a notebook.. thinking about it, the Powerbook’s screen isn’t bright enough to compete with our sun anyway.

Random trivia:
Cut off my dreads last week. Seven years of cultivating those things and they were gone in seconds. But honestly, it’s a whole new feeling. Awesome, great, light, easy, flexible, fast-dry, cushion-feeling and I don’t know what else.. errrr. Maybe I post some before-after pictures some time.

punknews.org writes that Rumbleseat (acoustic side project of Hot Water Music‘s Chuck and Ragan) will finally release an retrospective. Great news. Check out “Cursing Concrete” available from their site.

Weekly random facts exclusively brought to you in corporation with Hangover and Shortage-Of-Sleep.

Well, the hangover isn’t that bad. Lately, after drinking and before going to bed I consume considerable amounts of something non-alcoholic, preferably juice mixed with water or something.. great to prevent headaches in the morning. Of course, this is common sense, I just never found the discipline doing so until now. Another nice thing is being cooked for at 4am. Thanks Katja, delicious pasta, although I’m not quite sure if I had valued it appropriately, my condition considered..

So yesterday’s evening turned out to be pretty fun drunk after starting somewhat disappointing. We went to Munich to see Rise Against and Alexisonfire. For some reason we didn’t pre-oder ticket’s for we thought “Hey, how big can it be”. How wrong we’ve been. Sold-out. But I somewhat expected that. Speaking about selling out, Rise Against signed at a major label last year, statement: “We want to reach more people”. Well, sure, and that’s pretty much what they did. I’m not saying that all bands that leave for majors suck in general, but somehow it just smells rotten.. oh, Anti-Flag also did it recently. Anyhow, they are playing in Stuttgart tonight, but there’s also Further Seems Forever playing tonight at the Backstage, guess I’ll go for them. Would be 3x Munich this week, I’d say that’s a personal best..

While getting drunk after driving back to Ulm (serious thunderstorms on the way, great light show..) I had a thought about a former liaison. I still dream about her (literally) every now and then, normally nothing I’m looking forward to, but the last one has been different. She looked awful, behaved the same, in short, she left a pretty horrible impression. Well, that probably might be considered a subjective image of someone. I guess everyone experiences this all the time with people, but sometimes it hits you pretty out of the blue. People just look better the more we get to know and like them – and vice versa. How I’d love to show her an image of herself as seen in this last dream.. healing takes some time, more as expected.

Also, I had a talk with a friend that was pretty due. Maybe a little bit inappropriate after a couple of beers, then again, maybe not. Cleared up open “issues”, at least to some extent. Definitely better now..

Anyhow, as long as there are all those little, unimportant things to distract oneself.. maybe I write about them later – more random facts to come, no gut-spilling in disguise, I promise.

Just returned from a concert at the Backstage in Munich. Support has been Semana Santa. Metalcore from Wangen, Germany. I saw them a couple of times now, and every time they seem to get better. Or at least I like their sound better. They cleared the stage for Hand To Hand, who have just released their debut, A Perfect Way To Say Goodbye. That’s quite a title for a 1st album, isn’t it? What I don’t get is that Hand to Hand is always referred to as (Ex- As Friends Rust). AFAIK Zach (drums) is the only connection to As Friends Rust, sound-wise there’s definitely no similarity. Not even the slightest. They are playing pretty intense, errr, well, emocore with a good portion of metal. Sort of. I somewhat lost track of all the genres and sub-genres. Anyhow, great show, I really enjoyed it. Check the band’s pages for listening in..

Now for the noise: on my way home I lost my muffler. There have been quite some sparks flying around on the highway.. fortunately it happened just before an exit so I could leave the highway and loose the muffler completely on safe terrain. No problem, I packed the muffler into the trunk and drove the last 80 km unsilenced. That was a nice ride. I don’t understand that some car-tuning freaks do this to their cars and themselves on purpose. Crazy world.