You know you can still hear that theme song in your head.
Yup. Happy 9-02-10.
Sep
02
Aug
25
I Survived Uproar
So. I survived my first rock fest.
This post is going to be mostly photos (and video) and not so much on the words. ‘Cause it was really all a blur. (A very, very fun blur.)
We were really excited and to be there. Can you tell?! Mike was really pleased with our seats too. (Totally made my day to see him so surprised!)
We got to meet Corey Taylor and the rest of the guys from Stone Sour. I got the cover of their CD single autographed.
The Jägermeister stage featured: As Summer Dies, Hail the Villain, New Medicine, Airborne and HellYeah. Hail the Villain was freakin’ amazing. They’re big in Canada but haven’t made as much of a name for themselves here in the US yet, unfortunately. As Summer Dies (a local Buffalo, NY band) was pretty great too.
The main stage was: Halestorm, Stone Sour, Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed.
I liked Halestorm pretty well; Mike and I agreed their drummer, Arejay Hale, is freakin’ amazing and SO fun to watch.
Stone Sour, sadly, fell a little flat. Still totally worth seeing … but somehow they seemed sort of disinterested in performing? Maybe it was just me.
A7X flat out stole the show. Check out how they opened their set…
(Uh, yah. That may have been me screaming when the guy jumped out of the rafters there.)
A7X’s tribute to The Rev was a tear-jerker. Mike Portney (the drummer from Dream Theater) really held his own though, and it was great to see fans giving him a warm welcome.
While I think A7X could have easily carried the show themselves, getting to see Disturbed was just a bonus. I can’t believe this year marks the 10-year anniversary of The Sickness being released.
Yup. Happy times.
P.S. There are more photos on my Flickr photoset for Uproar Fest – here.
Aug
16
Long Time Coming: Rockstar UPROAR Fest
In case you haven’t seen it all over Twitter or Facebook (heh), this is where I’m going next Sunday with Mike…
I am SO. FREAKING. PSYCHED!
This will be Mike’s 10th time seeing Disturbed. (Not necessarily on purpose; they have just happened to play at several festivals — Ozzfest, Mayhem, etc. — that he’s been to over the last several years.) He promised me about 5 or 6 years ago (when he’d only seen them maybe 2-3 times) that he would take me to see them. For a whole variety of reasons, it never happened.
It was really purely a whim when Mike told me to check the dates that Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed were playing. (I don’t think he realized it was a “fest”; I know I didn’t.) When we saw all the bands that will be playing … well, it was just a MUST.
Sunday, we stopped at Giant Eagle’s Ticketmaster counter to pick up the tickets. Mike stayed in the car with Little Man (we were on our way home from church) while I ran in to get them. Again, on a whim, I asked the clerk to check if there were any good seats left at a reasonable price (I was assuming most of the good tickets would be gone with only a week till the show). We would have been just as happy with lawn tickets, but I managed to get seats in the front of section 200 (dead-center)!
The best part? Seeing Mike’s face when I went back out to the car and told him the seats I got. Total jaw-drop reaction. It completely made my day!
Aug
13
Bad Attitude
It’s Friday the 13th.
Ink Assassins is doing $20 tattoos. (Ya know, in case you care.)
Me? I’m feeling snarky. Snarky may not even cover it. I have a full blown case of “WTF is it a full moon or did everyone on this planet suddenly turn into idiots”-syndrome.
The other day, I had the unfortunate chore of having to go into a WalMart. You want to see me go into an extreme rage? Put me in a busy WalMart store.
Hordes of people shuffling around like zombies with glazed over eyes, staring at the ceiling and randomly stopping every three feet to check out the amazing roll-backs on Snuggies and snack cakes (like, OMG). Meanwhile you’re just trying to run in and out and grab some batteries or something and you’re tripping over these asshats left and right. MOVE for God’s sake.
Oh my good Lord don’t EVEN think you’re going to try and buy a Sharpie this time of year … the back-to-school aisle is treacherous. Misbehaved little snots hanging off the shelves, laying on the floor and/or running into people with the 750-pound pile-o-crap in their parent’s cart.
I think maybe I should start avoiding human contact in a retail-setting. People seem to lose their minds when shopping. (Black Friday stampedes, anyone?) I swear I’m ordering everything from Amazon.com from now on, including toilet paper. (Don’t believe me? They totally sell it.)
Apparently I’m getting crotchety in my old age. Old age being 28. Woo. I always was an overachiever and ahead of my peers.
(By the way, this is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Lighten up.)
Aug
05
PNC, You Deserve a Cookie
I love my local branch of PNC Bank. They’re always so helpful. Today was no exception.
(Note: this isn’t a paid endorsement. No one at PNC is paying me or giving me anything. This is purely my opinion – I was so pleased I had to share!)
I stopped in earlier today to discuss some options with my accounts. The bank representative helping me today introduced me to the PNC Virtual Wallet, a program directed at Generation-Y. This program has been around for a few years, but it was entirely new to me (I’ve been living in Tennessee –a non-PNC state– for the last 3 years). I think it’s an absolutely brilliant setup.
Here, watch the video; it explains the system much better than I can:
So, you have three accounts: Spend (a free checking account), Reserve (an interest-bearing checking account), and Growth (a high-yield savings account). All these accounts are connected and you’re able to transfer money among the accounts as much as you want (with the exception of Growth/savings, which has a maximum of 6 outbound transfers per month). All of the accounts have a $0 minimum balance. There’s built-in overdraft protection (if you spend too much of your Spend account, it pulls from Reserve without charging you any fees).
Even better, you get tools to analyze your spending and track your bill payments. It’s much like Quicken, Microsoft Money, or Mint … but without the added expense of buying third-party software, or the hassle of having to connect your accounts into a third-party website.
The only downside to the program is that you can only write three checks per month (any additional checks cost $0.50 each). PNC Virtual Wallet is squarely aimed at the generation that’s married to their debit cards and online banking. (Which, I think, is a lot of us these days.) Normally I only write one check per month for my storage unit rental, so it’s perfect for my purposes.
Did I mention PNC Virtual Wallet also has an impressive iPhone app?
The tech behind this program is really … well … cool. It’s nice to see an “old-school” bank stepping up like this. Kudos, PNC.
Welcome
Amanda (or Mandi, if you prefer). A 28-year-old code monkey, currently living in Erie, Pennsylvania. Terminally empathetic Pisces. Tech-obsessed. Knitter. Animal-lover. Coffee-addict.
