Did you ever get hung up on a little thing and then it becomes a big thing? I do that every once in a while. You'd think I'd see it coming by now, but apparently not.

The latest instance is really stupid so I'll be brief. I had to fill out an application for Pacific Gas & Electric and they want you to fax it back to them. I don't have a fax machine any more, plus I have some questions about the application and I want to pick up some info about solar power incentives. So I figured I'd just drop the damn thing off at whichever of the two huge PG&E buildings is the right one downtown and actually talk to someone about the other stuff while I'm there. Ha!

It's taken me three days, four PG&E offices that "don't handle" my type of application - each one incorrectly directing me to the next address - to finally give up. The icing on the cake was the last office where visitors needed a security escort just to enter the building. The sign on the door helpfully gave the extension to call security, so having come that far, I plugged the four digits into the house phone mounted outside the main entrance. No answer. Eventually, a voice attendant asked me to enter the extension of the party I was trying to reach. Well, I'd already done that, but I tried entering it again. And when that didn't work, started over and didn't enter anything new. Same result. The infuriatingly pleasant voice attendant came back with, "we're sorry you're having trouble. Please try again later." Yeah right! Next time I'm looking for an excuse to go postal, I'll do that!

So I faxed the damn thing after all. It would be easier (and faster) to deliver a first-born and give it to them. But I don't have time for that either.

Even if you are one of the peeps who may have been mildly interested in my Arctic Monkey stories to begin with, you're probably sick of them by now. But here's one more. I'll throw in a real-life example of the law of supply and demand to spice things up.

Even after three hours of milking my way through Kathy's birthday afternoon [inlink]twisted,333[/inlink] drinking binge, I managed to stay conscious for Arctic Monkeys AND made damn sure we all got there in time for the Spinto Band. Knowing this was going to be a sold-out show, Larry bought four tickets. The lucky winner of the extra pair was Larry's friend Dave and his wife Pascal. Well, turns out Pascal had a really bad experience at the Franz Ferdinand show last October, so they decided she better not take a chance on another sold-out show. WTF! I was at that show, and it must have been a really, really bad experience to cause that much of a negating effect! Anyways, the back-up lucky recipient turned out to be Dale, who works for a recruiting firm (if anyone ever needs to find a job out here) and was also writing a review of the show for some local music 'zine. So he was writing down every damn thing we said about the show/bands. Naturally I talked up the Spinto Band, since I had already seen them the day before at Amoeba and again that night at Cafe du Nord. (Does that make me a groupie?)

The show was great, so I won't even go into that. They ended with "A Certain Romance" (currently my usersound if you want to hear it) and NO encore. That's the second show we've seen recently with no encore. I hope this is not a trend. Speaking of encores, I'm really glad I got to see the Spinto Band headline their own show. They do an awesome cover of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" which they squeezed into the Amoeba set and again at Cafe du Nord, PLUS a cover of The Motors' "Airport" for the encore at Cafe du Nord. And you know how I love my 80s tunes. Anyways ... back to last night's show.

We started chatting with these two British guys (Larry's a real anglophile, so he can pinpoint exactly where they're from and which bands originated from nearby and all that sh!t). When the guys went to recycle their beers, one of the British guys confided to me they had paid $260 on eBay to buy their two tickets for the show. Whoa! When Dale got back, I figured he'd be interested in that little tidbit of information for his story. I mentioned it to him and out came the notepad.

I thought I'd better check the facts myself. Looks like with shipping that was the going rate:



I think the lesson here is clear: Scalping can be damn lucrative! No wait, that's not it. I mean: Buy your tickets in advance!



My $13 ticket even included a complimentary Spinto Band kazoo. Who doesn't love a band that plays the kazoo? Maybe if I start practicing now there's still time for me to become a rock star. ;-)

I finally moved my earrings into my new place. I can't deal with packing them up any more so I just leave them on the rack, put the rack in a plastic bag during transit, then hang them on the picture rail. That worked great moving from my old place to temporary quarters with a couple different sets of friends in Alameda - no holes in the wall, no muss no fuss. Now that they're in my new place I need to buy some picture wire so I can lower them down to Victorian ceiling height (11') from Bungalow celing height (7' or so).



The top row is 8 feet from the floor. I'm 5'3. Some people have a library ladder for books, I need one for earrings, lol.

I really should get out from behind this computer more often. I have so much fun when I do.

So I caught the Spinto Band at Amoeba today. Started out kinda liking them, then liking them, and finally really, really liking them a whole lot. Yeah, I even bought the CD. (Thanks for the enviro-friendly packaging, guys! I appreciate that.) I'm even thinking of going to see them at Cafe du Nord tonight. But since I saw them for free today, and will see them tomorrow with Arctic Monkeys for a mere $13 (thank you GAMH!), I kind of hate to pay $10 to see them tonight. Contrary to popular belief, I am not made of money. There is one guy on craigslist looking for a date to the show tonight. Maybe I'll look him up and at least save $2 on an advance ticket.

So March is my friend Kathy's birthday month (the official party was last night, plus drinks tomorrow on the actual day). She's Irish-born / Italian-adopted, so with St. Patrick's day in close proximity, she pretty much lays claim to March as an all-out excuse to drink the rest of us under the table. I'm a lightweight to begin with, so that's not hard. The thing that's killing me this year is, I said I'd meet for drinks tomorrow (her actually birthday) because the crew that works at the West Coast Since trading hours are EST, they start work at 5am and hit the bars by 2:15pm. Then I'm supposed to meet Larry and his 2 friends at the Hemlock Tavern at 7PM for a brew or two before the show. So I have to pace myself or I'll be under the table by the time the Arctic Monkeys come on. Yeah, it's not easy being me.        
    

Craptastic cell phone pic of Spinto Band at Amoeba

p.s. - oh, NOW you tell me!

Wow. Great show last night! I am really kicking myself now for missing them the last two times. (Yeah, I was kicking myself before, but even more now.) They used to open for the Lovemakers (gave Lisa & Scott a shoutout at the show last night). I've seen the Lovemakers four times with Larry since the first time we saw them open for Kaiser Chiefs at Slim's last March, but never with She Wants Revenge. The Kaiser Chiefs show was the first Larry/Ed encounter - which is way too long a story to go into now - but it turns out Ed hates the Lovemakers. He says they're the only band he's ever walked out on. (Which just goes to show, it pays to window shop [inlink]twisted,329[/inlink] when it comes to music buddies to compensate for anomolies like that.)

Anyway, when Larry started going out with Britta he took her to see the Lovemakers with She Wants Revenge at the Fillmore last November (without me, obviously, since they were just starting to get together). Then, they were going to see both again co-headlining at Mezzanine on New Year's Eve. But instead of going to the show, they broke up. In other words, I missed two great double bills for nothing!

All I can is, if I could go back in time, I would do things differently. Ok, that might not be at the very top of the list, but still.

p.s. - I'm really not heartless. Just practical.