Last Update From The East Coast

The Rundown:

- Went to a Mozart concert on Saturday night at the Kimmel Center. Incredible seats (Frank is the man. The Shit. The Man-Shit.) So close I felt like I could reach out and grab the conductor's ass. None of the players even looked at the conductor doing his thing (something you don't notice from the nose-bleed seats). Exotic Mozart was the theme. All of his Turkish-inspired music. Intense. Beautiful. Almost fell asleep though, too tired. But picked up again when violin soloist came out. Fucking riveting. Then some opera singer came out to sing some arias. Little too pompous. Conductor seemed like a very arrogant jerk the whole time. Part of the job description probably.

- Walked face-first into a locked door a couple days ago and broke my aviators. Not my most graceful day.

- Now have 19.45 gigs of music thanks to Emily. This way safer than BitTorrent stuff. Still a bit wary of anti-piracy winds. Currently rocking the reggae-ska-punk-rock stylings of Sublime. More to them than just the handful of radio hits, for certain. More socially conscious than I had previously thought. Definitely owe a lot to Bob Marley, the first and foremost socially conscious reefer.

- Done with classes today. Not looking forward to home. Will be boring, except for (hopefully) daily basketball and occasional meet-ups with long-time-no-sees. Little sad to be leaving. Eric was an awesome roommate. Next year will totally rock 'n' roll though.

- China soon. First or second week of July. Not sure what to expect this fourth time. It's been seven years since the last time though, so things probably much different. Grandma must be getting old.

[EDIT]

- Watched Junkyard Jazz perform on the street outside Fresh Grocer, right there on the corner of 40th and Walnut. Just a guy surrounded by plastic buckets and metal pans, going at it with drumsticks. Laid down some ridiculously phat beats. (Yes, I did just say that.) Paid 10 bucks for their five-track CD. It was awesome shit. I dug it. That's 10 bucks in support of our underground music artists. That's 10 bucks in defiance of Britney Spears, Inc.

- An empty room is one of the sadder places to be in this world.

And thus concludes the Philadelphia chapters. Texas next.