And I say your uncle was a crooked French Canadian and he was gut-shot running gin

First off, the internets are no help in trying to find out if gut-shot is hyphenated or not. What about French Canadian? What say my copy editing peeps? Maybe I just should have picked a different quote.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you what Madison is all abuzz about today. The entire city is in a collective swoon from last night's Decemberists concert. Colin Meloy and his buds played their album, The Hazards Of Love, straight through then came back and played some more. But why let me tell you when you can read Josh's review here.

Josh also got a photo pass to take some pictures at the show. Since I was coming along, however, I snagged the pass and showed him how the professionals do it (or people who used to be

professionals and didn't get paid for the photos they took). There's a small photo gallery attached to his review, but I've added some extra pics exclusively here at Sad & British. Let's marvel together at Colin Meloy who was dressed (as Kelly said) "like an Amish kid on Rumspringa."

And now a plug about a plug

Kelly (Lady Bear Kelly, not copy editor Kelly) wrote a lovely little plug for Tune Me Up today. You should go here and read it forthwith. Then you should become a Tune Me Up Facebook fan or follow our Twitter. Then you should tell all your friends about it.* Then you should spend all your money buying playlists. It's just that simple people!

*Seriously, though, it would be nice if you could tell all your friends about it.

I'm sick and tired of you setting me up

It seems like every September I give a big plug for Coltrane Motion right before the MidPoint Music Festival. They play there every year and they're always one of my favorite shows. Well, this year, I'm giving them a surprise late July plug as well. Go here and check out their MySpace page where you can download two Bruce Springsteen covers they did. It's easy and free! That's becoming more important as an increasing number of my friends are finding themselves unemployed. **sigh**

When we get together there's no need to be clever

First off, an update on the strawberry plants. They're all grown up now and looking lovely. Like expectant parents we are waiting anxiously for the first berries to be born (except unlike expectant parents we will then eat the children, so I guess that's a bad simile). We had one perfect berry the other night but some critter stole it before we got around to picking it. Tippy really needs to work on catching a rabbit or chipmunk or anything bigger than the tiny, tiny mice he seems so good at getting.

But the real news today is Harry Potter! I've been anxiously await my chance to go see the new movie and I even managed to quickly reread The Half-Blood Prince to get ready. That, of course, meant that I also had to reread The Deathly Hollows because I can't remember what happened in that book anymore either. I guess my stroll through the collected works of Alexander McCall Smith will have to be put on hold for a few days.

Shawn and I are going to see the movie tonight and early reviews are sounding pretty positive. Of course I would probably love it even if it was as stifled and awkward as the first movie. I'm probably most excited about just getting out of the house.

So that's all I have today blog readers. I'm considering getting back to listening to some albums if I can ever get through File Under Easy Listening by Sugar. We'll see.

It's business time

In case you don't follow my Twitter (and why don't you?) or see me on Facebook you might not know what I've been doing for the months and months that have passed since I left journalism (or journalism left me).

Besides applying for tons of jobs and getting the odd phone call, I've decided to start up a business. It's called Tune Me Up and it takes advantage of all these years of my life I've spent listening to and reading about music. We create customized music playlists for people who are interested in having some new music, but don't have the time. All you have to do is fill out our fun questionnaire and tell us what you want to hear. A few days later, the playlist arrives at you door.

Things are just getting started, so I'm trying to get the word out. So tell your friends and become a fan on Facebook. I'll be starting a blog for Tune Me Up to share some iTunes tips and music updates, but I'm going to try and stay on top of Sad & British, too. I'll definitely be posting updates on how the business is going. I'd love to be able to do this full time, so lets hope it works!

Some photos

I now present a series of random photos from recent days. Enjoy!

Have you fed the fish today?

Let me tell you about life in Wisconsin so far. It's freaking cold. I've been told the rest of the country is experiencing a meteorological phenomenon known as summer. I have merely experienced a couple of days where it was warm enough to take my jacket off. My dad keeps assuring me that it has been unusually cold. Ten to twelve degrees below normal he says. I'll believe it when I see it, I say.

Yesterday was the first day that I began to believe. Temperatures were in the mid 70s so we headed out to the park for a picnic. That's the other thing I've learned about Wisconsin. They don't waste a minute of any warm weather they might get. All sunny days must be spent outside, preferably drinking.

Having just procured a Wisconsin fishing license, I was ready to bring the pain to the fish of the Wisconsin river. Now I've been told that the shallow, snag prone river is not the best place to fish, but just look at what I caught:

Behold the mighty catfish! It took hours of expert angling to reel in the sucker, but state regulations said I had to return it to the river. That's too bad, because I think it was the perfect size for a Tippy snack. He really likes fish.

In which my mom becomes addicted to Bananagrams

It all started innocently enough. I went over to Madison to spend the weekend with Josh and Kelly and check out all the amazing cheeses and lakes the area has to offer. You can read all about it here because I was too busy eating milk products to blog about it.

Anyway, one night that weekend Kelly busted out the Bananagrams so we could play a game. Considering I've tried to live a Scrabble free life, I was really no competition for Kelly and her ruthless wordsmithing. I liked the game, though, and thought it might be something fun to play with my parents. I'm always trying to find activities for them these days. You know how it is. I don't want them out on the streets all day getting into trouble.

I found the game on sale at Target one day so that sealed the deal. That evening I showed my mom how to play and a Banagrams monster was created. Now we spend part of each evening locked in vicious competition and looking up obscure words (dui, anyone?). We're closely matched so it usually comes down to the last tile or two. I'm also pretty sure I could give Kelly a better run for her money these days. After all, I have a lot of practice.

I try not to contemplate that this is what my life has come to - sitting around all evening playing word games. I try to focus on all the good I'm doing ion the world, like keeping my parents out of gangs.

I should be able to make jam by Monday, right?

Behold the best garden project ever! Why clutter up your back yard with flowers and other useless plants when you can create a strawberry pyramid? Yep, that's a three part dirt layer cake of 50 strawberry plants. My parents and I spent most of Friday and part of Saturday constructing and planting this beauty, complete with watering nozzle sticking right out of the top. I consider it a beautiful (and practical) piece of minimalist yard art.

The plants are teeny tiny so if we're lucky we'll have strawberries by August. That gives us about 2 weeks of harvesting before the Wisconsin winter sets in. But oh, what a two weeks!

You seem like a soldier who's lost his composure

Two thoughts occurred to me pretty quickly upon seeing Gomez at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee last night:

1. Why have I not seen these guys in concert before?

2. This might be the only band that I've loved for 10 years, but don't know a single member's name*.

The show was really good (leading to question number one) and they played a set list that sounded like a greatest hits compilation. Three of their first six songs were tunes I've used in mix CDs over the years. It was just about the perfect set for a fan who's loved them for years but never seen them in concert.

So why have I avoided Gomez? I'm not sure. It's not like they've never played a show near me. I can think of two concerts they played in Cincinnati in just the last couple years. I think I just took them for granted. I thought they might be too much of a stoner jam band live and wasn't interested in watching a mob of dreadlocked white people noodle dance all night. Turns out I was wrong.

 

The show was tight (partly necessitated by a little too much reliance on prerecorded backing beats) and the fans were more like middle class thirty somethings than Phish phreaks. Did I mention the $3 pint cans of PBR? All in all it was a good time, and I vow to catch them again when I get the chance. Hopefully, it won't take another 10 years.

*Wikipedia tells me that the members of Gomez are: Ian Ball, Ben Ottewell, Tom Gray, Paul Blackburn and Olly Peacock. Sorry about that guys!