The Cure, Agganis Arena, Boston, 5.12.2008

The Cure show last night was absolutely nuts, they played almost 3 hours! Just when you would think they were done, they would play 4 more songs! The show was great, not quite amazing…the old stuff (Disintegration and before) was amazing, the new stuff just doesn’t quite hold up as well, which I think was evident last night with how different they played the newer stuff, almost like then know their new stuff isn’t as good so they need to try harder to make it interesting.

The second and third (yes, they went for 3) encores were the best part of the show, they played some great old stuff, Play for Today (probably one of my favorite songs of all time), Jumping Someone Else’s Train, Killing an Arab were frickin awesome.

They played 6 new songs (presumably for an upcoming release), the first couple, Sleep When I’m Dead and The Perfect Boy where really good, the others were just ok. But it is The Cure, so I’ll end up buying the album anyway.

There where a couple of interesting omissions from the set list. The first, Friday I’m in Love, I didn’t miss (really kind of their worst song that was popular). The second, Fascination Street, was an epic omission. I can’t believe they didn’t play it, luckily they played enough of the older stuff to make up for it. (And they played it when I saw them in ‘97, one of my all-time, top 5, favorite concerts).

The other disappointment was the venue, the acoustics kind of sucked (might be because they lined the back wall with tile and we were sitting right in front of it) and it overall was a little to loud.

Overall though, an awesome show, can’t believe it had been over 10 years since I had seen them!

See the set list after the fold…

I thought working from home was going to be a nice change of pace from the normal cube farm most of us work in. And it has been, but its hard. Its hard staying focused and not getting distracted by housework, the pets, the game system, etc. The usual tricks and advise all help, advise like having a room dedicated to work (a home office) so you can shut the door, having a routine to start the day (like showering, getting dressed, etc) being the most important. But the biggest trick I’ve found that that has helped me stay focused and get into a work mode is wearing shoes.

Thats right, shoes.

For the first month or so I was just wearing my slippers (we try to not wear shoes around the house) and just never felt like I was at work. But once I started wearing shoes all day, it made a world of difference. Now I get up, do my morning routine and put on my shoes. Then I head to my home office and I’m mentally ready for the work day.

So I couldn’t stay away…I flew home for the first two world series games! What an amazing experience and one of the more impulsive moves I’ve made! There is nothing better then world series baseball in Boston. The first game was fun but a complete blowout, 13 to 1, Red Sox. Beckett was dialed in, he’s been the hero of the 2007 playoffs, no question.

The second game was close, 2-1, with the Red Sox prevailing on a great pitching effort by Schilling and lights out pitching from Okie and Paplebon.

The Sox then rolled into Colorado and finished off the series. Two World Series Championships in 4 years!!! Amazing! With the Patriots 3 championships in the last 6 years, and the Celtics relevant again, this is becoming the golden era of Boston sports.

It was also nice being home for a few days, got to play some video games, sleep in my own bed and see the dog!

Lelia and I took a week-long trip up into Scotland that was brilliant. First stop was Inverness and the Highlands. It was great up there, very quite (Inverness closed down at 6p) and picturesque. We took a boat tour of Loch Ness (didn’t see Nessy though…) visited several castles, and had several great meals.

The highlight of the trip was meeting up with Eric and Amy for a day trip further into the Highlands and the Isle of Skye, beautiful country. We visited a castle, drove around a lot, had a whiskey tasting and saw lots of cattle and sheep.

The last few days of our trip we spent in Glasgow. Interesting city, small, lots of shopping. Visited a few attractions devoted to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow’s most famous architect and artist.

With our friends Eric and Amy in town, we decided to hit up one of London’s most popular clubs, Turnmills and party all night.

We got to the club about midnight and left about 5am. We bounced from room to room (three rooms all with different DJs) and enjoyed always short queues to the bar. It was a brilliant club night, capped off by Tall Paul and an excellent set by Paul Oakenfold.

We’re thinking about hitting up Turnmills one more night before we go, but it’s taking 2 days to recover!

Now I know that Philly is not in Europe, but Lelia and I are heading back to the states for several days to go to a friend’s wedding. It will be nice to be back in the states for a few days and visit with some friends!

So what have we been doing? Well, Lelia’s sister and brother-in-law were out to visit, so we spent the last 4 days hanging out with them. It was great to see them! We walked around London and Greenwich, visited Leeds Castle (the castle was cool, the but the maze on the grounds was awesome), went for afternoon tea and saw a play called Rhinoceros at the Royal Court Theatre.

Afternoon tea was fun, but I think I enjoy the pub traditions of England a little more.

I have reorganized my pictures a bit, breaking up each major city/country into set and creating a collection of those sets.

The overall collection, Eurotrip 2007, contains sets for all our photos from England, a set for Paris, a set for Amsterdam and a set for Brussels.

Just got back from our trip to the continent, had an amazing time! Started by taking the train to Paris, Paris was awesome, we had a blast hanging out with Lelia’s friend Camille, who took us to some great places for dinner and drinks. The rest of our time was spent visting the sites, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Versailles, and walking around Montmarte.

Next up was Amsterdam, what a great city. The canals and architecture were just great. We spent most of our time there just walking around. And drinking Heineken. We also went to the Van Gogh museum and took part in the local Indonesian cuisine.

From there, we went to Brussels for the day. Where Amsterdam felt laid back and more fun, Brussels felt more like a working city. Definitely beautiful in places but had some sketchy places as well. The things I enjoyed about Brussels was the cuisine, the major dish bring Moules Frites (Mussels and fries), and the beer. I tried about 5 different beers walking around that day, and they were all great!

We are off to continental Europe in the morning! First stop is Paris for 3 days, taking the train through the chunnel to Paris. From Paris we’re taking a train to Amsterdam for 2 days. After that, its back to London via Brussels, where we’re going to spend the day prior to heading back into London Waterloo.

I can’t wait to see Paris and eat lots of good cheese and drink lots of wine. Amsterdam and Brussels will be great for beers, especially the Belgian beers in Brussels. And i’m looking forward to seeings some sights to I guess

So, probably not much surprise, but I’m not to good about keeping this blog up to date…so lets try to recap what we’ve been up to!

So over the past weekend, a old friend of mine (Max) was in town with his girlfriend visiting London and Paris. So we all hung out and had dinner and a few drinks, it was nice to see a friendly face! The rest of the weekend was spent taking advantage of the Open House weekend where many London sights opened up to the public and wandering around the Thames Festival, a festival along the south bank of the Thames.

Tuesday, we spent the day in Brighton, a popular town on the southern coast of England. It was beautiful day to walk along the beach and around town, get a cup of tea and some freshly made donuts! I would totally go back there, especially to spent a night because the town looks to have a pretty exciting night life.

I am still updating my flickr stream regularly, check it out for our latest pictures!