Author: ryan

Shout Out Louds

Tonight Kelly and I went to see the brilliant Shout Out Louds at Berbati’s Pan. We started off the evening going to Huber’s for a drink, then moving on to Shanghai Tunnel for some food before heading into Berbati’s.

Unlike the Editors show, it was pretty empty when we arrived, so we were able to sit in the back and relax while the two opening acts played. The first was Johnossi, a duo (who, like Shout Out Louds, also hail from Sweden) who’s sound was pretty hard rock, with a couple near-pop songs thrown in. Sadly, about halfway through their set the guitarist’s sound dropped out so there was a forced intermission while they scrambled to fix the problem, poor guys. The second opener was a group called Nico Vega, who were also pretty loud and heavy. They were (to me) an odd pairing for Shout Out Louds, unlike in just about every way, but I was impressed the female singer’s powerful voice. She had some serious pipes!

Shout Out Louds went on sometime around 10:45pm, and put on a fantastic show. They sounded great, hitting every beat and note perfectly. They opened with The Comeback from their first album, and finished with the brilliant Tonight I Have To Leave It before an encore-like final few songs. The singer had mentioned how exhausted they were, not getting any sleep for the past two days and were about to call it a night after Tonight I Have To Leave It, but then somewhat last-minute they decided to play a few more songs before finally leaving the stage. They put on a great show, and if they were as exhausted as they’d said, it didn’t come across in the sound at all, I could only tell by watching the faces of individual members, they looked tired, but were pro’s the whole show.

There was a downside however, the rudeness of certain idiots in the crowd. I’ve heard stories before that Portland is, sadly, somewhat known for it’s rude audiences. It’s something I’ve only recently began to notice, but tonight I couldn’t help but feel both angry and embarrassed by some of the fuckers in the crowd. If you’re not there to support the band, then get the fuck out! Stop being rude. I tried to let it pass and just enjoy the show, but there were a handful of morons who ended up ruining the mood for me at times. Argh! All of this aside, it was still a great show.

Beer Food

Time at the Tun

Met my good friend JB at the Mash Tun for some beer & conversation after work. Had a great time hanging out with my lil’ sis! Later Kelly met me there and we had some dinner before walking home. Fun night. Tired. It’s only Wednesday. Urgh.

Entertainment Movies

Order of the Phoenix

Today Kelly and I went back to Kennedy School a little past noon to catch the 1pm show of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was good, though seeings how I’m currently about 100 pages from re-reading the book (and no, I haven’t read books 6 or 7 yet) I was a bit annoyed at all the differences between the book and the film. I understand why most of the changes were made, I mean, the book is 850+ pages, and in order to really capture it properly the movie would have been 5 hours long. However, it was so badly truncated in spots, and whole character sub-plots were cut out that it made it feel like it was somewhat hollowed out. It was still good, just not as true to the book as the other four films have been. Oh well.

We got home and watched more Heroes. Such a fantastic show. I’m going to be sad when I’m caught up and go from DVD marathons to waiting week to week for new episodes.

Beer Entertainment Movies Travel Work

Home, Simpsons, Moon

Since yesterday’s post, I attended most of the rest of the conference, sadly missing the last speaker in order to catch the flight home. The flight took a bit longer than was scheduled, arriving a bit after 8:30pm (instead of 8:10), though thanks to a co-worker (and his wife, actually) I got a ride home rather than having to take mass transit. I was able to spend the evening catching up on Kelly’s last couple days, as well as sharing my experiences of my trip.

Today was, thankfully, pretty mellow. Kelly had class, so I was able to sleep in a little bit (with the cat at my side). I woke up around 10:30am, made coffee and had some cereal, and finished the rest of my unpacking, doing laundry, and generally getting things back in order.

After Kelly’s day of class, I met her at Kennedy School around 5:30pm. We sat in one of the bars, had a couple drinks, and then went down the hall to the theater to watch The Simpsons Movie, which was fun and worth seeing (a few scenes had me nearly wetting myself with laughter). After that, we went to the local grocery store before heading home.

As I set in to play some Call of Duty 2 online I got a call from my brother T who wanted to come into town to the Moon & Sixpence for a few pints, so I ended up there hanging out with him for the remainder of the evening. Good night out, though I hope tomorrow Kelly and I can relax around the house a bit. Of course, if it doesn’t rain too badly, I might just get in some yardwork. The curse of homeownership. 🙂

Beer Food Travel Work

San Francisco report

I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday just fine (though late) and thanks to a coworker’s brother who lives in the area made it to the hotel. The hotel itself is very nice, though I’ve got some gripes (no free WiFi in a four-star hotel? bah!). We then went to a creperie restaurant called Ti Couz for dinner (I had a savory crepe with sausage, cheese, and tomatoes, yum!). That night my coworkers were babies and went to bed around 10pm, but I was eager to walk around a little bit so I went up to this pub called Johnny Foley’s for a couple beers before going back to the hotel to sleep.

Yesterday I had to get up pretty early, as registration started at 7am. Got up, got registered and got breakfast nice and early. Then we filtered into the event hall and got sat down up close for the first half of the day. The first half of the day was great, with great speakers and interesting topics. After a lunch break, the last half the day was a bit less interesting to me, but ended good.

After the conference was the hosted after party at a wine bar up the street. Had a fun time meeting people, including a customer of the product I work on for SuperSweetCo. After spending a couple hours there, I left to visit another pub I wanted to stop by (Elephant & Castle) and had a couple pints and a meal before walking back to my hotel.

On the way home however I decided to stop into a spot across the street from the hotel, House of Shields, which was a great old spot, and there were several other people who were attending the conference there that I got to meet and hang out with. After being there a little later than I’d hoped I went to the hotel and to bed.

Today my phone decided to thwart my plans. I woke up at 9am (the same time the first speaker goes on). I woke up at 9am because my phone (which I use for my alarm clock) decided to power itself off overnight. Urgh. So I missed breakfast, and was starving by lunch. The day has been a mixed bag of good presentations and some that are less interesting, but overall it’s a good conference.

I’m set to fly out at 6:45pm, getting home around 8:15 or so. Hopefully it’s not late departing like the flight here was. This means I have to leave shortly so I can use mass-transit for an hour to get to the airport.