Guilty of Neglect!

I know I am shockingly delinquent in putting up the latest pictures of our house addition--there's furniture in the studio, a working bathroom, and everything. The only things left are some tile trim, furniture in the new bedroom (not a top priority at the moment), and the room that was the studio which will soon be my office. That one's still dirty and floor-less.

It's been busy, though--too busy, apparently, to perform the seemingly simple task of connecting my camera to the computer and uploading the pictures which were taken over a week ago. We had friends come into town from Hawaii--longtime friends of Rob's who we don't see so often since they moved to a tropical island. So, during the week and a half that they were in town, we had kind of cleared our schedule (except for household construction) so that we could hang out with them, although unfortunately they ended up having many more family obligations than they'd originally expected. Oh, well.

We did have a great time on New Year's Eve--Rob and I went to a Mars Volta concert in San Francisco, and took Bart so we didn't have to worry about driving except to and from Dublin/Pleasanton. After we arrived, the opening band came on, which turned out to be complete shite, the crappiest crap that ever was crapped, but then the second opener was a total surprise and unexpectedly awesome. I had heard of the DJ Peanut Butter Wolf before, but knew nothing about him. He performed an awesome and REALLY eclectic set, complete with visuals--mainly video clips from the songs he played. This is but a short selection of some of the music he played:

• Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A.
• These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra
• Peek-A-Boo - Siouxsie and the Banshees
• Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
• The 1980s "Pepsi Generation" commercial with the little kid who's dancing around like Michael Jackson, and then Michael Jackson shows up
• A Message to You Rudy - The Specials
• Black Mountain Rag (?) - The Byrds
• Trans Europe Express - Kraftwerk
• You Dropped a Bomb on Me - The Gap Band

Shiva H. Vishnu, to quote Apu. Usually one of my problems with DJs--at least, the kind who spin records for dancing (as opposed to the sound-artist type, which PBW definitely is)--is they aren't eclectic enough to reflect a range of music (and I do enjoy a wide range). Peanut Butter Wolf did not have this problem. Not at all. Plus he associates with DJs I do like--Q-Bert and Cut Chemist.

Of course, The Mars Volta were awesome, and we arrived early enough (before the Craptacular Shite Extravaganza) to see them do a special half-hour acoustic set. Oh, and we drank a lot of beer. That was nice, too.