I helped my sister-in-law and her family move today. They live in Lacey WA (just north of Olympia), which is about a two hour drive from Portland. We wanted to arrive as early in the day as we could, so Kelly and I got up at 6:30am, got on the road at around 7:45am, drove up I-5 through a nasty rain storm and arrived in Lacey shortly after 9:30am. The move wasn’t too bad, a lot of the small things had already been moved during the past week, but that left the really heavy items. My brother-in-law and I moved desks, dressers, cabinets, beds, etc, and then some of my brother-in-law’s friends arrived to help pack some of the heavier things (giant entertainment center, huge and heavy matress, etc) and finished moving at around 1:30pm. Boy was I exhausted (still am).
Before Kelly and I drove back home there was this mission I had to complete. There’s this beer I love, a German beer from Munich’s famous Hofbräuhaus, the Hofbräu Original (a delicious lager, my favorite beer next to Guinness) that had been distributed here in Portland until a few years ago when the distributor stopped importing it (which still confuses me greatly). It is, however, still distributed in parts of Washington, and since I was in a vicinity known to sell it, my mission was to track some down. Fortunately, the one store a friend of mine had recently purchased Hofbräu from was no more than a few miles from my sister-in-law’s house. So we drove to the store and I did a little dance of joy when I saw the beer on the shelf. I bought what they had on the shelf (ten 500 ml bottles) and left the store, still dancing (well, as close to dancing as I could manage, after spending four hours moving heavy furniture).
Drove the nearly two hours home (frustrated all the way by folks from Washington who insisted on using the passing lane for cruising at slow speeds), and on the way decided to swing by our favorite English pub, Moon & Sixpence, for a couple pints before going home. I’m home now (as of 10pm), sore as heck, but enjoying the Hofbräu Original very much. What a day!
Next we went to Holocene and waited in line a bit before 9pm. We finally got in, got a couple drinks and then the first of two opening acts went onstage, Horse Feathers and they were really good. Very mellow acoustic music. The lead singer reminded Kelly and I a little of 
Finally, at about quarter past midnight, Talkdemonic took the stage. We’d seen them once before at the Doug Fir, and as before, they were fantastic. The ‘band’ consists of two people, a guy who alternates between drums and keyboards, and a girl who plays the violin. They perform with a pre-recorded track (off of a computer) of some beats, bass lines, and/or guitar riffs, and the guy of the duo (Kevin O’Connor) drums or plays keyboards to it, while Lisa Molinaro, the violinist, beautifully plays over top of it all. It is truely beautiful music, and really fun to see live. Despite the fact that it’s not your traditional rock show (there are no vocals of any kind) they really do rock, and they have a sound that is very unique. I’m listening to their new CD Beat Romantic now, and it is really really good. I highly recommend it.