Bob Saget

Bob Saget came to SIUE campus for a stand up comedy show on April 21. Saget is of course from Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos fame. Tickets for students were only 10 bucks, and I saw Dave Coulier do stand up about a year ago, so I figured I should complete the Full House set. The two have starkly different ideas on comedy. Coulier is still super clean. He did all kinds voice impressions and cutesy stuff like that. Saget on the other hand, has embraced the dark side. I'd say a good 20 percent of his show consisted of accusing various audience members of bestiality.

My iPhone takes pretty terrible pictures in the dark, but I feel obligated to include one.

Saget's segment of the movie The Aristocrats gives one a good understanding of what to expect. The movie's tagline is "No nudity, no violence, unspeakable obscenity". I'd say that sums up Bob Saget's stand up quite nicely.

A Couple of St. Louis Blues Games

I have a new interest in sports: hockey. I still don't watch it on TV, but I really like going to the games. I've been twice now.

The first match I went to was so awesome that I'll likely never be able to best it. On February 19 the St. Louis Blues played the Anaheim Ducks and stomped them thoroughly 9-3. With such a high scoring game, plus a couple of solid fights, I really enjoyed myself. My friend Seago had managed to get Club Seats, which include food and drinks, and that really topped off the awesome experience.

According to this I could have been enjoying my free stuff for a whole hour before the game started. I'll remember that next time.

The second game I attended was April 1st against the Calgary Flames. This time they lost 3-2, and food actually cost money. In spite of these setbacks there were some redeeming qualities to the game. The game happened to fall on April Fool's Day, and they played a joke on a couple of guys wearing Flames jerseys. They were told on camera that they had won amazing tickets, then when they showed up to claim them they we laughed at. There was also a pretty large pile up sort of fight that I enjoyed. Good times.

This game we were closer to the action and at a bit different angle than the previous game.

Charlie Chaplin in St. Louis

This Christmas, instead of buying my parents something that would most likely gather dust in a closet somewhere, I bought them tickets to a show in St. Louis. We all went to a showing of Charlie Chaplin's silent movie City Lights along with the St. Louis Symphony playing the music. The show was at Powell Hall.

The lobby was very nice. I think they even allowed patrons to bring food and drinks they bought here into the theater, which is rare.

The movie was so awesome. That was my first time seeing a silent film, let alone one from the great Charlie Chaplin. I'd like to see his other stuff now. Apparently Chaplin was one of the victims of McCarthyism. He had his visa revoked during a trip abroad, and decided he had been harassed enough and didn't want to return to the United States(cite). Very interesting.

Vampire Weekend in St. Louis

I recently went to a Vampire Weekend show at the Chaifetz Arena on St. Louis University campus. I had only first heard of the band a week before going to the show, so I didn't have much background information. They have a very unique sound and the show was entertaining. A review of the show in the St. Louis weekly paper Riverfront Times begins "It's extremely difficult to write about a band that does everything right", so that is some indication that it was liked by those with tastes more refined than my own.

At a point early in the show someone in the back of the crowd started whipping glow sticks in big bunches through the air. I assumed that this was part of the show (the reviewer thought it was just a generous fan). Either way the effect of everyone waving them around was cool.

After the show I acquired the band's two albums at a little known place called "the Internet". They also have a few music videos, with "Giving up the Gun" being by far the nicest. It's the best video I've seen in some time, and I've watched it several times already. The song has some cool Japanese influences and has an all-star cast, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, and Lil John.

This one has nowhere near the production value of that previous, but it does have a good energy to it.

Going to Washington, D.C.

I haven't been doing too much that I think is worth writing about lately. Currently two part time jobs and applying to MBA schools is taking up the majority of my time, but tomorrow I'm finally doing something exciting! I'll be in Washington, D.C. for about a week.

This is my third time over there and I've already got many of the monuments and museums out of the way, so maybe this time I can experience a bit more of the city proper. I'm looking forward to some ethnic cuisine and some quality exploring. The description of DC on wikitravel is pretty awesome: "[DC] has a collection of free, public museums unparalleled in size and scope throughout the history of mankind, and the lion's share of the nation's most treasured monuments and memorials. The vistas on the National Mall between the Capitol, Washington Monument, White House, and Lincoln Memorial are famous throughout the world as icons of the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation." Sounds pretty epic. Stay tuned.