Perpetual Smile

The day in photos, because everyone else has done it

Mike convinced me to come to the park with him to do a little hiking, drink a lot of Gatorade, and to get my ass whooped at Scrabble. (I am so addicted now. To Scrabble, I mean. Not getting my ass beat.)

We took the main trail to the rapids clearing, as I call it

The view is totally breathtaking; these BlackBerry pics don't do it justice

He didn't even know I took this shot. Wonder if it'll make him comment for once? (Yes, he reads every post here, guys!)

I've had these so long I don't even remember how long I've had them. Probably since I was like 14 or something. I apparently take good care of my stuff!

The obligatory Facebook/MySpace/pickyourpoison couple shot.

It is so good to be young and in love... and so cute how he has to break his neck to kiss me. We're both going to be very friendly with the chiropractor if we get married.

Oh yeah, and he cut his hair and shaved! Shocked, aren't ya?

We brought the travel Scrabble along and played in one of the park's pavilions. He's thinking very, very hard here.

This is my Scrabble hand of DOOM! Be afraid. Very, very afraid!

Praying to Scrabble Dictionary god for a word he can use to continue to clobber me with his witty wordsmithing.

I have more pics from today, but Lil Tony is in them and I’m not sure if his and Mike’s mom Tracy would mind if I posted them here. All in all, it was a fun day.

Today I ate my lunch with a plastic spoon and knife, since we ran out of forks in the cafeteria at work:

It’s a lot harder than you’d think.

The NIN show last night was amazing. I know I say that about every concert I go to, but this one truly tops them all. There’s no way to even describe how incredible it is to see NIN live. I don’t think I could ever explain, in words, what it’s like. You would have to see them for yourself. We got lucky, too; apparently tonight’s show in Worcester, MA is canceled because Trent is having throat problems.

The opening act was an obviously college band called Deerhunter. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good either. The lead singer had a strong voice with some range, but you couldn’t really hear him over the noise of the guitars. They pretty much sounded like a garage band, minus the energy. They didn’t have much of it. After every song, the lead singer said “thank you very much”. I did feel bad for them when he announced their last song and said NIN was up next, because the whole crowd went nuts. After every other song a few people clapped and cheered, but not as many as when he said “this is our last song”.

When NIN came on, though, you could feel the energy building. On tour with Trent Reznor were Alessandro Cortini, Josh Freese, Justin Meldal and Robin Finck. I’ve never seen NIN live before but I thought the band he put together for this tour was pretty kickass. Mike said they are the best, so I’ll back him up. (:

I took some photos and video before a security guy came over and made me stop. You can see official photos on NIN Flickr page. (Some of my favorite parts of the show were the desert, the red backlights, the red and white buttons (which one of the band members came over and pressed) and the ghosts. I really loved the rain part of it, but I can’t find any photos on their stream and couldn’t take my own. The screens were set up to make it look like it was pouring on the stage, and one screen was like the glass of a window. Then someone wiped away the “steam” on the window and you could see the band through a little looking-glass. It was fucking awesome.

I do have one regret about the night: Close to the end of the show, Trent told everyone they would be hanging out at Denny’s down the street if anyone wanted to come hang out. Since Mohegan Sun is huge and a time-warp, we had no idea where Denny’s is. It so would have rocked to hang out and eat breakfast with someone I admire so much.

That hand at the end was the security guard. He totally ruined “Closer,” dammit.

You can view the rest of the photos I took here, in the NIN Lights in the Sky album I made.

And just in case you wanted to hear the rest of “Closer”: