Week of May 30th: BFD

I was just thinking that I flew through the May posts and then I realized that I was exerting my new option to not write about each and every new thing... Don't worry, it will be worth me skipping over the boring stuff to get to the plethora of posts I have for July (I've been keeping track of what I plan to write about in the Chronological Archive tab so see for yourself).

BFD was the day after the CFA exam so it was basically the first real day for me to let loose. For those of you who don't know - BFD basically stands for "Big Freaking Deal" and it's big concert that the local rock station, Live 105.3, puts on every summer. On Cinco de Mayo, I had invited a bunch of friends to go to a Mexican bar and restaurant with me. Live 105 had a booth there and they had a pinata full of prizes. My friend, Oleg, got in line and since it was a few days after my birthday, I took it upon myself to cut him in line. Turns out - I pulled the last envelope with tickets so I invited Oleg to be my guest to the concert.

BFD was conveniently scheduled the day after my big CFA exam so I was excited to have a fun filled day planned. Oleg and I planned to meet up with my friends Filip and Dom as they had also won tickets on Cinco de Mayo. We got there early as I would recommend to anyone going to the Shoreline Ampitheatre. EVER. Always go early. One time I missed all of the opening acts of a concert because it took an hour to park. So our two cars got there early and missed a lot of the crowds. After enjoying some beverages and having a very entertaining encounter with a young man who was "too drunk" to go to his job as "alcohol enforcement" we decided to head into the show.

BFD is a festival style concert so there were tons of options to choose from. Luckily - the concert provided these temporary tattoos with the schedules for the three most popular stages. I thought this was pretty genius (until I tried to get it off before work the next day...). I didn't have much of an agenda so we just followed the crowd from stage to stage until it got closer to the main stage perfomances.

Since I was the most excited to see Snoop Dogg and Linkin Park (and super tired from my test the day before), I volunteered to go save some spots on the lawn area. Even though it was a few hours before the bands came on it was still packed. Luckily I was able to grab a spot and proceed gentley into nap land.

My friends joined me and woke me up just in time for Snoop Dogg... who was incredible. It was really cool hearing a lot of his songs that I used to listen to in high school. There's something a little nostalgic about that. Plus, he was just hilarious and cracking jokes the whole time. I also don't think there are many artists who can perform a sold out concert... in sweatsuit, but Snoop Dogg pulled it off.

I have always loved Linkin Park and they also did not disappoint. They had really cool black and white lighting that just looked amazing. It's also nice putting more of a face to the members. The singer has such an incredible voice and was so emotional with his singing which contrasted nicely with the rapper.
The rest of the band was also very talented and were constantly switching instruments to create the beats.

BFD was a lot of fun. I definitely am going to check out the line up for next year.. and maybe even stay awake the whole day.

Week of December 6th 2010: Eve Lounge and Cat Club 80's Night

I decided to start my December right by spending the first two Wednesdays at two separate open bar events. The first was the SF Weekly Benefit that I wrote about last week and the second was my company's annual holiday party. I was very lucky to get a job in the middle of the recession at a company that weathered the hard times reasonably well so we've always been fortunate to have a rather great holiday party. In fact, it's the more or less the thing people warn you about when you join the firm. Last year, our CEO told us that we would sell our computers before we stopped having this party - it's that much of our company's culture.

Despite all of that, this year was relatively tame in my opinion. Although there was lots of drinking, and a few of the managers were heating up the dance floor (caught on iPhone video by some of my East coast coworkers), nothing really ridiculous happened. So, we did what we do every year and headed out to another bar afterward.

You'll be shocked to learn that I am part of the social committee at work (or as we like to call it, the Party Planning Committee, PPC for short) so when they announced last call at the party, I was being asked where we were going next. I sent out a couple text's and learned that Eve Lounge was open. I'd been wanting to go there since a friend's boyfriend is involved in the place and I figured it would be nice to bring a few patrons with me.

I'm not going to lie... my experience at Eve is a little fuzzy. I remember there being a lot seating and I remember having a great talk with a coworker who is joining the Peace Corps in a few weeks. I remember seeing the usual suspects flirting and dancing, but mostly I remember being a floater. I spent a little time talking to the IT guys, and a little time with the boys that I talk sports with, a little time with the New York office employees, and a little time talking a little more in depth with the one or two other people that for some reason I've always clicked with. For some reason in this group, floating really works for me.

Anyways, maybe next time when I make it to Eve, I won't be so far along in my night and I can give you more details about the place.

Although most of the next day was a little slower, I felt like myself by the time I got home the next night. So when I got texts from a friend asking me to come out to Cat Club, down the street from my apartment, I couldn't say no. Little did I know, it was also 80's night so I was in heaven. I love the 80's. Sometimes I joke that I would have been better off being born 15 years early so I would have been a young adult in the 80's and gotten able to really enjoy them instead of listen to 80's covers and re-watching Back to the Future.

80's night was really fun. I would highly recommend going with a group though because the place was a little seedy. Anytime I got too far away from my group of friends I was approached by some guy that gave me the creeps. I'm pretty sure there were at least half a dozen incarnations of Disco Stu so make sure you have a friend of your preferred sexual orientation who will pretend to be your significant other when you need an easy out from a persistent creepster.

Don't get the wrong idea, it was still a really fun environment. If you love to dance and love 80's music and don't mind getting hit on by some characters then you will have a great night. Plus, I got the DJ to play "Just Like Heaven" which is one of my favorite songs (and on Rockband 3!!).

Ok, I have a fat kitty who just made a bed out of my arms and I'm losing circulation in my fingers. Boa noite readers!

Week of September 27th 2010: (Part II) Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

San Francisco is known for festivals. Ok, maybe not known for them, but if you live here you know that in the summer and fall there are festivals and concerts almost every weekend. It's really fun to check some of them out and I admit, I've been horrible about going to them. The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is probably one of the ones I've been the worst about.. it is a 3 day festival in Golden Gate Park, it's completely free and I'd only heard good things about it.

The Festival is mostly bluegrass but as the title suggests, it's not strictly limited to it. In fact, MC Hammer is known to make an appearance some years...  The fair if Friday-Sunday one weekend a year and I decided that I would go for a couple of hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Arriving at the festival, I was immediately surprised at how big of a production it was. The event was also very popular. It almost felt like a time warp... I could see exactly was San Francisco must have looked like in the sixties.

I'm not very familiar with bluegrass festival but I found a couple of more mainstream acts to go see. On Saturday, I wanted to see Fountains of Wayne so once we got there we wandered around looking for their stage (which happened to be just about on the opposite side of the park). The band was fun to watch and they did a couple of covers, a little bit of Bluegrass and of course, "Stacey's Mom." We also were standing next to a guy that had the fluffiest dog I'd ever seen in my life. I have no idea why I didn't get a picture of it but the thing looked like a bear and was super sweet.

After Fountains of Wayne, we decided to wander a bit. Shannon wanted to get some kettle corn and I was little hungry as well so we hunted around for some food. As much as Shannon like kettle corn (a whole lot), I love seafood so when I saw a crab and shrimped stuffed artichoke stand, I knew I was in heaven. The stand carved out the center of the artichoke and stuffed it and then covered the whole thing in a crab louie sauce. Every part of it was amazing and again I am wondering why I didn't get a picture of something...

On Sunday, I was excited to see Elvis Costello. The festival was much more crowded on this day and especially near Elvis's stage. Try and I eventually managed to get near the stage and find a place to sit down. It was a fun set to watch and by the time he was done, the Giants had qualified for the playoffs! There is nothing like listening to good music and then having your baseball team win an important game!

Try and I had fun watching the band but when they were done we decided to just head home since we didn't want to fight through the crowds.

The concert was very fun and it was nice wandering around and listening to music that is outside my typical interest. The food stands were good and not too pricey (relative to some events). I wish it had been just a little less crowded though!