muted

scaleboogie

i'm two episodes into season one of the wire and it definitely has me hooked. thanks are due to jose and drew for telling me how good the show is and making me want to finally check it out. thanks are also due to gina for giving me the season one dvds for my birthday. so, ummm...thanks, y'all!

* * *

i'm not sure why it doesn't happen to me much anymore, but falling in love with a band is still one of my favorite feelings. over the past week or so, things have been getting pretty hot and heavy with !!!. yup, the band's name is !!!. no joke. i guess it's pronounced chk chk chk. anyway...

a few months ago, their latest album, myth takes, leaked onto the internet. i had heard of them and was curious, so i bit. i remember being wowed by the first song but not paying much attention beyond it. however, the buzz for the album kept getting louder and louder so a few weeks ago i started listening to it more closely. i couldn't believe it was the same album i had lazily listened to months earlier. love was in the air.

myth takes was released last week so i bought it. itunes had their cover of the magnetic fields' "take ecstasy with me" (i loooove the mf version, by the way), so i bought that. when i made my voyage to newbury comics as i do every time i go home, i bought their previous album, louden up now (which i'm listening to as i type this).

i'm in love, everyone! i want to shout it from the rooftops...or just post about it here.

* * *

last night after drew left (he came over to watch the wire) i flipped on espn. i had seen earlier that umass' NIT tournament game against alabama was going to be on at 9:30 and since it was only 11ish, i figured i might be able to catch the end. there was a time when it was common to find umass basketball games on tv. the "golden era" started a handful of years before i attended and peaked during my freshman year when the team made the final four of the ncaa tournament. it's much harder to catch their games nowadays so i was quite happy to see that the game was still in progress when i turned on espn.

the first thing i noticed was that the game was taking place at the mullins center on the umass campus. in the ncaa tournament, a bunch of teams gather in 4 places across the country and start playing each other in those places which means that there are no true home games for any of the teams. i guess the NIT tournament does things differently.

it was cool to see the mullins center on tv again. i only recognized a few of the players' names from the one other time i was able to catch part of a game this season. umass fell behind by 7 in the second half but came back to take a 3 point lead with 5.5 seconds left. of course, alabama hit a 3 with no time left on a truly incredible play to send the game into overtime. the teams went back and forth in overtime. alabama tied the game again but left like 6 seconds on the clock. some umass dude (i forget his name) took the ball down the court and swished a jumper with 1.5 ticks left. the mullins center went nuts. alabama's last ditch attempt to send the game into a second overtime came up well short. nice.

i can't really describe what it felt like after six beers to sit alone and watch that. i know i'm trying not to think too much these days, but it was impossible given the subject matter and the cirumstances.

i am glad i watched, though.