Ants on the Melon
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Last year one of my favorite bands broke up, the Hot Club of Cowtown. Their website has stated that they might play a show together every once in a while, so I’ve been hoping that I would be able to see them perform again. Well, I just noticed that they are going to be playing 3 sets on Saturday, December 16th at the Luna Fine Music Club in San Antonio. Fortunately, I will be in town that weekend, so you can imagine that I am very excited! Luna’s website lists the booking at “Elana James and the Continental Two”, but Elana’s site says that it will be a Hot Club show. In addition to the Luna sets, there will be performances earlier that day at Central Market. Woo Hoo!

Thursday morning I drove over to Covington, Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with the Taurman family. In addition to a wonderful meal, they had also planned a fishing trip for us to go on the following day. Friday evening 5 of us piled into Chad’s truck and headed down to Cocodrie, Louisiana.

We had a room reserved at Boudreaux’s Marina, a nice little place operated by Andre Boudreaux and his family. After getting a little sleep Friday night we woke up before 6 am and had a nice breakfast at the marina. As soon as breakfast was gone we piled in the boat to head out into the marsh and start fishing. Normally there are several different fishing guides who can take groups out, but as it turned out, all of Andre’s guides had taken the week off to go hunting, so he took us out himself.

It didn’t take long before Choose was reeling in the first fish, a speckled trout, and pretty soon we were all pulling them in. We caught lots of trout, red fish, and black drum and by the time we went in around 1pm we had caught enough food for everyone to have dinner. We also couldn’t have asked for better weather for the trip (I took this video while we were fishing, its 22 secs, 21 MB).

Andre Boudreaux is the real deal, no question about it (with a last name like “Boudreaux”, how could he not be?). He also gives guided tours for those who want to catch alligators, and his stories about those trips are pretty funny as well.

This trip reminded me of how much I enjoy fishing. Sadly, I haven’t gone much since I moved away from Virginia.

Thanks to the Taurman family for a great time!

This week I finally saw the movie I had been waiting for, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about seeing a movie. I thought it was hilarious, although some parts where rather embarrassing as an American (those idiot fratboys).

I’ve also been reading more about the man behind Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen, and I learned that he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in history (like me!).

Some of his Ali G and Borat skits get really awkward, and I don’t know how he keeps from laughing during his interviews. I also think it is awesome that he rarely leaves his character, even when he is in an awkward or dangerous situation. He even gave the 2004 Class Day speech at Harvard as Ali G, which I think is pretty funny. Apparently things got a little crazy while Baron Cohen and his crew were making the Borat movie. I found a great article that talks about what he and his crew endured during the filming of the Borat movie. From the article:

The FBI often followed the filmmakers, whom the residents of several locales suspected of being terrorists. In the nation’s capital, the Secret Service questioned the filmmakers outside the White House, and at a Louisiana location, state troopers investigated the strange group ostensibly making a documentary. Again, Baron Cohen’s determination to stay in character – even while facing Secret Service and state police questioning – was impressive. “He never let on that this wasn’t ‘real,’” says Larry Charles.

Although Borat and Ali G are my favorite of Baron Cohen’s characters, I was excited to learn that a Bruno movie has been announced, along with 5 other movies Baron Cohen is currently working on.

But until then, there is plenty of Borat material on YouTube, most of which isn’t in the movie. If you look around, you can find some real gems on there.

I returned yesterday from my 5th trip to Las Vegas in the past 15 months (yes, I like the place). This time I was only out there for 2 days, for a mini family vacation (only part of the family, and only a couple days). The highlight of this trip was seeing the new Beatles’ Cirque Du Soleil show, LOVE.

After having an incredible meal at The Tillerman, we headed over to the Mirage to catch the show. This is the third Cirque show I have seen, and this one did not disappoint. Although there were less acrobatics in LOVE than most other Cirque shows, it was still amazing. LOVE tells the story of the Beatles’ lives, surrounded by their music. I’ve always been a Beatles fan (the first song I learned to play on the guitar was Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood”, thanks to Dad), so it was very exciting to get the chance to experience the Cirque show.

After the show I was thinking about other people/groups throughout history that have never been able to be replaced. Everyone pretty much agrees that there has not (yet) been another band as influential as the Beatles. But what else? The next thing I thought of was Michael Jordon. I don’t really follow sports, but when Michael Jordon was playing basketball he was seemingly invinceable, and I have not heard of anyone else like him since he retired (the first time). I imagine Steve Jobs will probably also appear this way once he retires. Alan Greenspan also comes to mind.

I imagine it would have been awesome to see the Beatles in concert, and to be around when they were changing the world. I wonder if we will ever see anyone as great as they were, or if the world we live in can handle such a revolutionary music group again.

I really love Southwest Airlines. I just went to checkin online for my flight tomorrow and saw this message:

Wireless Checkin now available via your web-enabled mobile device at mobile.southwest.com. See Wireless Access for more details.

You can also download flight schedules and cancel boarding passes from mobile devices.

I bought this ticket to Las Vegas with a Southwest Voucher that was rewarded to me. If you are unfamiliar with Southwest, for every 8 flights you take with them (roundtrip counts as 2 flights) they give you a voucher for a free flight. What a company!

I used to fly Delta exclusively because they had been pretty good in the past, but now I try to fly Southwest whenever possible. Some people don’t like the A/B/C style of seating, but I love it since I always get an A seat. For the big carriers I now prefer Continental over Delta. Delta really went downhill over the past few years, it just goes to show what poor management can do to a company. I also noticed that Jet Blue now flys from Houston Hobby to Richmond, Virginia so that might be a good option for traveling to/from back home, as I’ve heard great things about that airline as well.

This weekend I was trying to find tickets to home for Christmas, and while they are pretty expensive, its really nice to be able to get direct flights, that’s not something that happened often from San Antonio. One thing I do miss about San Antonio is how accessible the airport is from everything. On the other hand, I hated the parking situation at the SAT airport, which was expensive and hard to get to. At the Houston Hobby airport I parked for an entire weekend for $8, and the pickup service runs quite frequently. In SAT it was normally $20 and I always had to wait for 15 minutes or so for the economy shuttle to pick me up.

Southwest also recently celebrated a victory in their struggle with the Wright Amendment. Good times for the little airline that could!