Attended Stellastarr* at the Shelter. It was a somewhat weak performance as feared as lead-singer-with-weird-voice-guy (that I'm too lazy to look up) was unable to maintain the odd 80s british thing over the cacophony of the rest of the band. Having never been to the Shelter before, I was blown away by their sound system. Not impressed, just actually knocked over by how loud it was.
How loud was it?
When I put in my earplugs (isn't it pathetic that earplugs are SOP to attend a concert?), I thought I had inserted them incorrectly, as I was getting no reduction in noise. After experimenting, I realized that they were in properly, it was just that the sound was so great that it penetrated my flesh and skull, liquifying my brain to turn it into a perfect amplifier and deliver yet more volume to my ears. I literally had to keep my mouth closed so that the sound waves wouldn't somehow echo in the back of my throat and cause my ears to run screaming from my body. (And yes, I did use literally correctly. It's just the second half of the sentence that is ridiculous. The first part is true. When I opened my mouth, the music got louder.)
In addition, the sickness that struck during the Darkness concert struck again, leading me to the stunning conclusion that maybe the mushroom burger at Bo's Brewery was not contaminated, and instead my stomach for some godforsaken reason doesn't like being vibrated by insanely loud bass notes for periods of longer than an hour.
Now I am all for loud music. I love feeling bass notes, but when my internal organs (not known for their keen hearing) say uncle, maybe it's time to turn it down a little. The problem is that the people running the boards at the shows have all been deafened by years of attending way too loud shows. Four hours later, my ears are ringing and I WAS WEARING EARPLUGS!!!!!!
Is it possible to set the general volume of concerts around that of movies? Action movies are plenty loud, and I don't hear many complaints of movies being too quiet (probably because recent concerts have reduced my ear drums to sobbing piles of ooze). That way, maybe I'D ACTUALLY GET TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!!! Stellastarr* really suffered from the backup vocals being unable to hear that they were way out of tune. Especially the guitarist on the left. Wow.
The reason CDs sound good is that the songs are balanced, and every instrument is given the opportunity to be heard. Concerts are cool because you can hear variations of a song that reflect the musician's talent. Recently, concerts have just been struggles to figure out what song they're playing because it all comes out as one really loud fart. The Killers opened for Stellastarr* and were awesome, but it would have been nice to understand more than just the words "soul" and "soldier" for the entire night.
I'm so old.
P.S. I'm hoping that the open-air venue of Coachella will allow most of the loudness to dissipate, but that effect will likely be lost when everyone else wants to "move up".
Today was expiration day in the options world, meaning the day that comes once a month when options have to be exercised or they expire worthless. Basically, it is time to take a look at how you are doing and make a few trades.
After one month, I made about $200 on one covered call on IMM. Through a freak occurence, OptionsXpress accidentally closed my covered call before I wanted to, but to my luck, I bought back the option at the low price for the day and then watched the stock climb $1.25. Since I have 100 shares, that's $125 for me on top of the $100 I made on the covered call itself. Good times. I've already had stuff like that bite me in the ass, so I'm glad it turned out well for me this time.
In addition, I legged into another good one, for OSIP. I wrote another covered call on this one with the May 40. Currently trading at $36.20, I sold GHUEH at $3.40. What does this mean? I own 100 shares of OSIP at $3620. I make or lose a dollar for evey penny it goes up or down until it reaches $40 a share, and then I make nothing above that. I also make a dollar for every penny that the option premium, GHUEH at $3.40 goes down. The premium is the entire option price if the stock is below $40, and (Stock price - 40 + option price) if it's above $40.
Confusing? A little. But I make $340 if the stock stays flat for a month, I break even if the stock goes down to $32.80, and I make $720 if it finishes the month above $40. So now, I sit and wait for May 21st.
In addition, the reason I'm taking safer investments, like covered calls, is that the road trip will be keeping me from obsessively checking on my stocks for over two weeks. It looks most definite that we will not be back until a full two weeks after we leave, as opposed to the 11 days we originally thought. What does that mean? We miss another softball game and have a pair of Strokes tickets to unload. Call Amber if you want them.
The good news is that it looks like we're going to hit a lot of cool stuff. I'm almost done uploading my picture backlog, so I'll be ready to send up the new ones from the road. Amber and I also plan to have detailed financial records for reference if others want to make the trip later. This will be a fully online event. T-minus 9 days and counting.
And by that I mean the NFL Draft.
No, while I am excited about the upcoming NFL Draft this weekend, (and praying that the Giants pass on Eli Manning and pick up Gallery or Sean Taylor) I am much more excited about this Monday's coming departure for the "Chris Across America Trip". Alright, I need a better name for this thing. All suggestions are welcome.
We have procured many of the things we will need, like bottles of water and Compact Flash to USB adapters, but I still feel that much of this is still wildly unplanned. Part of that's good, but I would feel better if I knew where we were staying in SF and LA. Right now, I'm waiting on some people to get me info on good places to stay in those cities, so there's not much I can do there, but I still feel like I should be doing more.
The thought that has crept persistently into my head the past day or two is the prospect of renting a convertible. It looks like it would cost about $900 for the two weeks. That's a ton of money, especially for the unemployed like myself, but I still feel a desire to throw caution into the wind, because I don't think an opportunity like this will come around again. I've been trying to rationalize it, and my latest attempt actually kind of worked. I checked the Kelly Blue Book value on my car, and the value decreases by $400 if I were to put 8,000 miles it, which should be about right for the trip. That means that renting the car would actually only cost me $500 in real money. That's $35/day for sunshine on my face and blue skies all around. I'm getting pretty close to saying yes.
And then I just took a look at my check book. Ugh.
And then... The stock market went well my way again today, and I'm up another $350 today. That's about ten days of the car. I'm really only paying for four days!
I'll have a decision in the next day or two.
Until then, I need names for the trip, so please submit them via comments below. The winner gets the satisfaction of being the winner, and isn't that what it's all about?
P.S. I brought back my old TiVo from the grave tonight, so I'm in a very "King of the World" mood with my stock luck and technical expertise. Maybe that's what's filling my head with this car talk.
Again, both until the NFL Draft on Saturday and until Amber's and my departure on Monday. If you haven't checked the forum in the last day, a flurry of activity erupted in relation to the possibility that the Giants may trade up to the first overall pick in the draft. I think it is not an overstatement that the next five to ten years of the Giants hang in the balance between now and Saturday at 12:45 (When the fourth pick hits the clock). Throw in some championship boxing at night (The non-sucky Klitschko brother vs. Corrie Sanders - the current belt holder who beat the sucky Klitschko brother for some heavyweight belt. I'm not sure which one as the heavyweight division sucks.) on HBO and day 2 of the draft on Sunday and it's a beautiful sports weekend.
Sometime during that weekend, Amber and I have to firm up our somewhat shaky plans over the next two weeks. A PD out in CA has expressed some serious interest in talking to Amber for an afternoon shift, so we might be stopping there. I have two cousins who live near San Fran, Brian Whitman in LA, and no hotel reservations after Coachella. Good times.
However, we (Jackie, Jeff, Emily, Amber and I) saw another band that is now a must-see at Coachella. Muse played a free show at St. Andrew's Thursday night and put on one hell of a show. We were all really impressed with their performance, both musically and entertainment wise. Their light show was way more than expected for such a small venue. They had an arena-sized light show in a place that holds about 750 to 1,000 people. The crowd was into it (thankfully, we missed the mosh pit by viewing from the balcony) and the sound was surprisingly good. It wasn't even that loud as I often complain.
The only drawback was that it was a free concert, so we got there at 7:30 for an 8:00 show to make sure we got in. After freezing outside for about 45 minutes, they let us in, so we could look at an empty stage. An opener showed up after awhile, followed by some roadies fidgeting with stuff, and then Muse. First song: 10:30 PM. Are you kidding me? Three hours of waiting around? I would have much rather paid $15 and gotten my three hours back. Not to mention finishing at 11:45 on what was clearly a school night for most of the audience of this all ages show.
Well it's a busy weekend upcoming as I must finish the site preparations for the trip. I'm still undecided as to a title, but I like the suggestions. I'll pick something by Sunday.
Until then, please take a look at my new index page. It's still a bit buggy, but I'd love any input you guys might have, as well as anything that looks messed up. Hopefully it will be ready before I leave.
