Some of you may know that I recently journeyed to Atlanta, Georgia to visit my friend Erin. Here is my courageous story.

I left work at approximately 6:30 pm Monday Night...My flight being at 8:40, I was running behind by 30 minutes. After reaching I-95 I realized that I had left my IPOD in my desk at work. Cursing my foolishness I pressed on.
The Delta termainal at Philly's airport is the worst terminal ever. Featuring a Burger King, a Turkey Salad Express, and a bar, I decided some Burger King was in order. After meeting and chatting up a blonde hotty in line (Tori from New Hampshire, in town visiting Lasalle University...Look me up if your reading this and come here for school!) I went over to the bar and ate so I could watch the Braves game on the TV. The waitress told me I had to leave if I wasn't going to order anything so I left and stood next to the door and watched the game and stared at her out of spite. Then it was time to board my plane.
After an uneventful flight with no music and only a Summer Movie Preview of EW to read I pretty much killed time by looking at all the pretty lights out the window and singing Saves The Day songs to entertain myself.
Arriving in the beautiful city of Atlanta I met my hosts for the trip, Erin and Dustin. We proceeded back to their place to watch Ace Ventura:When Nature Calls and hang out. I'm becoming bored writing this story so I'll just skip to highlights now.
Tuesday:Wake up, Erin cooks me breakfast, we go to the supermarket and get supplies to make a birthday cake for Dustin. We got a funfetti cake mix.
For lunch we hit up The Philly Connection, a chain of Philly Cheesesteak restaurants in the south. They were not up to par with Philly Cheesesteaks from Philly.
Next up was the Coco-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta. Its here I taste Coke's from around the world. Apple! Watermelon! Ginger! If you ever go, do not try the Beverly Brand. It tastes like tree roots and gin.
As we exit the museum I see a girl slip and fall in the rain. I clapped then asked if she was ok. Her friend was like "Yeah HaHA thats really funny." And I'm all like...Yeah it was.
Then its on to The Underground mall...a mall that is Underground. This mall sucks.
After a brief stop back at the house Erin and I go to the Parisian Mall for a quick foodcourt dinner (The mall is gorgeous, Great Wraps in the food court however leaves something to be desired) before the Jimmy Eat World/Taking Back Sunday show at the Gwinnett Center.
The Gwinnett is surprisingly nice and HUGE. Openers The Format are sufficiently talented and I purchased their CD. Then TBS rocked the house down, and JEW brought them right back up to rock them down again. I won't review the show because I've reviewed like 44 TBS's shows before, but Jimmy Eat World's live show is so so so great, and the stage setup with dozens of TV's was awesome. JEW even busted out "The World You Love" which was just surreal and amazing and gave me goosebumps. One of those tunes. Erin even captured the entire performance of "Sweetness" on her swank new digi-cam and I will endeavor to post it here (All the pictures will be up in the picture section in the next day or so). Then we drove back home and went to bed.
I woke up at 5:45 am for my flight back. Delta's terminal in Atlanta is way better than the one in Philly, it being their hub and all.
In conclusion, I had a really fun time and Atlanta is an interesting city to visit...Maybe someday I'll go back and eat some BBQ from one of the 42 places in a one block radius, or at one of the 993 Waffle Houses. Thanks for having me Erin, Dustin, and Ted Turner!

Everyone whose anyone who knows me knows that every once in awhile this questions arises: "Does anyone remember that sitcom where presidential puppets hung out in a bar?"
Well after years of searching (and finding the answer once, then promptly forgetting it) I have it. And I'm documenting it here.
The Show:D.C. Follies.
The Year:1987
The Premise:Bartender Fred Willard operats bar D.C. Follies, located right near Capital Hill. The patrons though were a bunch of Sid and Marty Krofft puppets, including but not limited too:Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Andy Rooney, Woody Allen, and Oprah Winfrey. Sometimes even real live celebrities like Betty White and Robin Leach would drop by. Clearly someone was dropping a lot of acid.
If anyone has any copies of this show, please get them to us. Its obvious this needs to be studied, so future generations don't have to suffer the same fate.

As Mike said...things look slightly iffy...but here goes.

Kicking And Screaming - May 13
Mindhunters - May 13
Monster In Law - May 13
Layer Cake - May 13
Unleashed - May 13
Star Wars:Revenge Of The Sith - May 19
The Longest Yard - May 27
Madagascar - May 27
Lords Of Dogtown - June 3
Mr. And Mrs. Smith - June 10
Batman Begins - June 17
Herbie:Fully Loaded - June 24
Bewitched - June 24
Wasabi Tuna - June 24
War Of The Worlds - June 29
Rebound - July 1
Fantastic Four - July 8
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - July 15
The Wedding Crashers - July 15
Bad News Bears - July 22
The Brothers Grim - July 29
Stealth - July 29
Must Love Dogs - July 29
Doom - August 5
Dukes Of Hazzard - August 5
The Pink Panther - August 5
Untitled Mike Judge Movie - August 5
Deuce Bigalow:European Gigalow - August 12
The 40 Year Old Virgin - August 19
Domino - August 19

There you have it...Your 30 Summer Movie Season Movies as of right now...barring schedule changes, additions due to good previews and word of mouth, and movies I don't want to see but end up seeing anyway that I didn't list.

I'm sure Justin will be posting a complete schedule of all the summer movies he wants to see now that EW has released its summer movie preview issue, but I have to say that after a cursory flip through, summer looks to be on par with Jan-April of this year: awful. I mean, I'm excited about Star Wars, Hitchhiker's Guide, and Wedding Crashers, but after that there's not that much to look forward to. All the Will Ferrell movies look pretty sorry.

Spielberg? War of the Worlds? Aliens? That's the best blockbuster you could come up with? Bewitched? Dukes of Hazzard? Why don't I just watch Nick at Night?

Good thing we did the 100 last year...

Even so, I enter this summer with hope. Who knows what hidden gems await us? After a winter this bad, there have gotta be some winners on the way...

Learning from RJ's example and being pushed over the edge by constant sellouts on Ticketmaster.com, its tonight in this late hour do I finally realize that saving money is a waste of time, and I should be spending it all on life experiences. Now being that my life is mostly focused around rock concerts, travelling, baseball, and meeting women currently, all my money will henceforth be going towards tickets and travel expenses. I hope some people want to take some crazy trips, because no more will I haphazardly spend money on DVD's, magazines, CD's, or other wordly possessions I'm out of room for anyway. From here on out its go time.

I know this is short notice readers, but tomorrow, Tuesday April 19 2005 is FREE ICE CREAM CONE DAY AT BEN AND JERRY'S NATIONWIDE! Hit up A B&J's for a scoop of Chunky Monkey, Chubby Hubby, or yes, even some Phish Food! If anyone out there in WWSG land actually does go, type in and let me know what flavor you opted for!
I'll see YOU at the Ice Cream stand.

Viva Le Free Food!

Its always sad when a group in the genre I love so much goes the way of the dodo, so its my sad duty to report that after one final tour, The Get Up Kids are calling it quits after a decade together. I was never a huge fan, but the one time I saw them they did rock the house sufficiently. So if you ever thought about checking them out now is the time to do so.

June 23 - Electric Factory - Philadelphia PA
June 26 - Starland Ballroom - New Jersey
etc, etc. Final show 4th of July weekend in Kansas City!

I know several readers of this site who will be sad to see them go.
And if you have nothing better to do check out some of these great now defunct bands CD's:

Fenix TX
Ozma
Journey

So as another summer approaches, I'm reminded of something I frequently point out: Baltimore's a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit it. The reason of course, is that Baltimore is your classic tourist trap. I like to differentiate between places lots of tourists go and places I consider to be actual tourist traps. Washington, DC, Disney World, Tokyo, the Belgian Congo; these are places lots of tourists go, but there are also lots of things for them to do when they get there. A tourist trap is someplace you go, then when you get there, there's nothing really to do. You have no choice but to spend lots of money on crappy food and worthless souvenirs.

How do you design a perfect tourist trap?

1. Proximity to water - People are drawn to water like flies to a corpse. If they see boats nearby them, they instantly feel like something special is going on. Beaches are acceptable, but run the risk of people having too much fun without spending a lot of money.

2. At least one, but at most three "National somethings" - To give a tourist trap a shred of credibility it has to have something recognized nationwide, like a zoo, an aquarium, a giant ball of twine, whatever.

3. The following restaurants should be in close proximity: Hardrock cafe, Cheesecake factory, Pizzeria Uno, and some sort of generic Sports bar or arcade-gaming restaurant bar thing.

4. Nearby malls and/or outlet stores are an absolute requirement.

5. Design a set of attractions that guarantee you cannot see them all in one night, necessitating an overnight stay or return trip to do it all. Make sure the reason all these attractions cannot be enjoyed in one day is long lines.

6. Avoid building theme parks, as these may create an actual environment of fun.

7. Place an adult drinking zone nearby, so that adults can slip the maid $5 to check up on their kids while they wallet gouging cover charges and inflated drink prices. Who says a margarita can't cost $12?

Do you like D Level celebrities? Then Hollywoodiscalling.com is for you!

Hollywood is calling has listed many of the worst celebrities in the history of the world, available for a 30 second phone call at a standard rate of 19.95!
Now you too can chat on the phone with:
Saved By The Bell's Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins)!
The Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno!
Welcome Back Kotter's Horshack!
Boxing World Champions Leon Spinks and Larry Holmes!
Renegade Lorenzo Lamas!
American Gladiator Lazer!
The guy who played the Machete Zombie in Dawn Of The Dead (that ones going to be Joe's Birthday Present)!
and of course, Kato Kaelin!
These poor souls really need our money to live on, please order a Happy Birthday Greeting for a friend today of yours today.

I was thumbing through the new issue of HMR and was flabbergasted to see that MGM is finally releasing the most disturbing children's movie of all time on DVD...THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE. It streets on July 12 and will run between $9.99 (Best Buy/Target) and $14.99 (Blockbuster/FYE). I haven't seen this movie in over 16 years, but from what I remember it's full of vomit, urine, boogers and everything else that 7 year old boys love. Don't miss it!

Today as I walked through the Inner Harbor food court, I saw one of the women who works at Chipotle... then she saw me and smiled and waved!

Soooooo in the past 8 days, I've seen Newfound Glory With Reggie And The Full Effect, Presidents Of The United States Of America (!), Less Than Jake with Allister and Hidden In Plain View, and Taking Back Sunday...all that rocking and I managed to grab 3 of 4 setlists!
Each show had a certain charm, with some highlights being Ian from NFG giving me his setlist, seeing someone in the crowd at NFG literally pass out and then get surfed over the railing, the show stop, water poured on the guy, him wake up and jump up and down excitedly and the crowd go nuts.
I saw Peaches played live as a captive audience of a couple hundred rock to PUSA. I watched as PUSA made every person in that damn audience go all the way down to the ground for the quiet part of a cover of "Shout", and then explode out when that part ended.
I made Scotty and Kyle from Allister sign my DVD copy of The Sleepover (Scotty's reaction:"You bought this?!?!") And watched as Less Than Jake pulled two ugly people from the crowd and make them kiss on stage.
And finally I witnessed an awesome TBS set at West Chester University including Adam's newly shaved head, 6 ripping tunes from their first album, 2 rocking new songs debuted for the first time ever at a show, and a crowd that so wanted more, that TBS came back out to encore even though they had no songs left. Requests were taken from the crowd and "...Slowdance On The Inside" was played (first time I've ever heard it live at least) which was just SICK with the entire crowd doing the "Tonight won't make a difference" line over and over again.
In conclusion, I have seen some shit.

Its come to my attention that posts from one Amy Tai haven't been made in quite awhile, so I'm officially reaching out to her. Please come back to us and post again! We need your opinions on things! Here are some possible subjects you can respond on.

The current state of sitcoms on television.

The band The Academy Is...The short version of their name is TAI...coincidence?

Current quality of food at chain restaurants the nation over...Including, but not limited to Applebees.

Space programs viability in making it to Mars in the next decade.

Anything else you can think of.

That I decided to go to austria, bratislava, and budapest, and ireland and costa rica and florida to boot.

Don't panic. Share and enjoy.

The band: Presidents of the United States of America
Location: Ram's Head Tavern, Power Plant Live, Baltimore
Thursday 3/31

Want to be part of a strange crowd of misfits and miscreants? Go catch a 90s alt-rock-Seattle band playing some local dive for a non-tour appearance. And if you should want to catch such a band, PUSA should be at the top of your list. PUSA brought the thinly filled house down with an hour and a half set featuring all their classics: Peaches, Lump, Kitty, Boll Weevil, Video Killed the Radio Star, We're not gonna make it, Mach 5, and a buncha others. The 5-string team of PUSA were consumate professionals up on stage, winning the small crowd over almost immediately with their energetic and humorus performance. "New stuff" was kept to a minimum but the few new songs they did play sounded pretty good. All told, PUSA played a mind-shattering 25 song set... it really would have brought the house down 9 years ago.

On another note, the Ram's Head was a lot like PUSA: all dressed up and no place to go. It had 3 huge bars, a large balcony area, three food stands, home-brewed beer, and was sparkling new and clean. Somebody book some more popular acts at this place...