Entries Tagged as 'alhambra summer jubilee'

Fedex Delivery Guy Rant, And Foreigner At the Alhambra Summer Jubilee

Quick-hitters:

- Man-Ram: 2 for 4, HR, 2 RBI, 2 R, .500 batting average since the trade.

I’m just sayin’ :P

By the way, what is it going to take for Joe Torre to realize that Ramirez-Kemp-Ethier MUST be his outfield against any RHP??? Does Torre have something against Ethier?

And does anyone want Andruw Jones? We’ll take a bag of sunflower seeds for him!

- (Un?)fortunately, it appears that Sprint has fixed my billing issues from yesterday, and I only owe the correct amount of $31.77.

Drat. I really wanted to yell at them too!

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,300 and still falling.

Big-box-in-living-room-o-meter: nine and rising :P

- Dear Fedex delivery guy,

2 <– This is a TWO.

3 <– This is a THREE.

1 0 2 <– This says “ONE ZERO TWO,” as in “Unit 102.”

1 0 3 <– This says “ONE ZERO THREE,” as in “Unit 103.”

If a package is addressed to “Unit 102,” you should probably leave said package in front of the door labeled “102.”  You probably should not leave said package in front of the door labeled “103,” and you definitely should not stack three huge, heavy boxes in front of the door labeled “103.”  What if my neighbor couldn’t move the boxes, and, therefore, could not get into his house?

(And you most definitely should not do this on consecutive days.)

I’m thinking about asking my neighbor if I could stick a sign on his door with a huge arrow on it and the words “ONE ZERO TWO is over there!”

- As soon as I found out that Foreigner was headlining the August 2nd edition of this year’s Alhambra Summer Jubilee, I circled this date on my calendar.  That was several months ago.

We swung by Victory Restaurant for lunner—a late lunch/early dinner—and had the grilled garlic with chicken.  In other words, it was a grilled piece of chicken with a crapola of chopped fried garlic on top.  Good stuff, though it was a shame that we couldn’t get there in time for the lunch specials.

We got to the Jubilee at around 5PM, and apparently they now require you to get wristbands before you could sit in the bleachers.  These wristbands had section, row, and seat #s on them; I don’t recall getting assigned seating at last year’s Jubilee.  After we got our wristbands, we strolled onto Main Street where we listened to this “band” butcher GnR’s “Sweet Child of Mine” for 30 seconds, or 29 seconds too long.

After that horrific experience, we went east of Garfield to a drink shop (I forget the name), where I had a Green Apple Green Tea.  At least, that’s what they said the drink was; it tasted like slightly watered-down Apple Pucker.  It was ridiculously sweet!  I felt like I was eating one of those green apple lollipops.

From 6-7 and 7:30-8:30, we were entertained by 80z All Stars.  They weren’t terrible, but I couldn’t really get into the music, as I was anxiously awaiting for Foreigner.  Finally, at around 8:45 (fifteen minutes later than scheduled), Foreigner finally came on stage, starting off the night with Double Vision.

When the second song came around—I believe it was Head Games—some guy who sat directly to our left returned to his seat, and proceeded to royally piss me off.  He got to his seat, but instead of sitting down, he started singing and gesturing to the band!

Picture this:  Head (gesture) games (gesture)…It’s you (gesture) and me (gesture) baby (gesture)…Head (gesture) games (gesture)…and I can’t (gesture) take it (gesture) anymore (gesture)…

(EDIT:  After a bit of deliberation, this douchebag’s act reminded me of this.  Go to 1:07 in the video, and focus on the guy in green.  Note the gestures, and then realize that the douchebag sitting next to us gestured at Foreigner

Not much later, the guy left again, and thank goodness that he never returned.

As for the rest of the concert (Note:  I’m recapping this off the top of my head; if I made a mistake somewhere, please let me know):

1) The first half of Waiting For a Girl Like You, sans strings, was incredible, as well as their new “remix” of Say You Will.  I especially loved the latter.

2) Urgent got the biggest screams of the night…at least by the individuals near me (and my ears have yet to recover from all that screaming).  Jukebox Hero was S T R E T C H E D out to nearly fifteen minutes, mostly of crowd interaction, and they could have ended the show right there without anyone being disappointed.

Fortunately…

3) After Long, Long Way From Home (a song I’ve heard once or twice before), Foreigner played an amazing rendition of I Want to Know What Love Is, and they could have ended the show after that song.

4) Then again, what better way to end a concert on what started as a hot summer evening than with Hot Blooded?  Right?

Awesome concert overall, and the fact that it was free doesn’t hurt.  And thank goodness that the Lou Gramm Jr. left us after only a few seconds of torture.

Day At The Beach Ruined, And Pat Benatar In Concert


- So we decided to head out to Dockweiler Beach today, in an attempt to escape the valley heat.

Bad idea, but not for the reason you might have expected.

As soon as we reached LAX, the sun decided to disappear behind a slew of clouds. When we finally arrived at the beach, the winds and the lack of sun made the weather unbearable. Never mind the fact that the water was COLD, so much so that we didn’t spend more than a few minutes in the ocean itself. To keep warm, we started jogging back and forth in the sand.

(Tangent: I forgot how hard it is to run on the beach, and it doesn’t help that I’m not exactly at a high fitness level.)

We only spent a couple of hours on the beach–most of us were napping or reading a book–before we decided to pack up and leave. That was money well spent, eh?

So what does one do when a trip to the beach gets ruined by a lack of sunshine? Easy! One goes to the beach again the next day! No word yet on which beach we will be going to…

- After the trip to the beach, we went to Alhambra’s Summer Jubilee to see Pat Benatar in concert! In short, the concert was quite an enjoyable experience*.

* - except for the following:

  • the idiots occupying two rows in front of me, tossing popcorn at each other, crying because the ushers were only doing their job, talking and giggling throughout the concert, and basically not giving a damn about people around them. Did I mention they had two little kids with them, who did nothing but squirt water and toss popcorn at each other, causing the adults to act like children and retaliate?
  • one woman in said group that wore a backless shirt, when she really shouldn’t have (if you know what I mean)
  • another, ahem, “heroically portly” woman who kept leaning backwards, jabbing my knee every five seconds
  • the #1 Pat Benatar fan screaming “Sing Heartbreaker!” after every freaking song, and then screaming “Sing Heartbreaker!” even after Benatar sang it.

Benatar sang a bunch of songs I’ve never heard of, but she also sang Invincible (awesomely good, btw), We Belong, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

(Tangent: I should mention that a song can only be considered “awesomely good” by me if I’ve actually heard it before.)

Of course, at the end, she sang “Love Is A Battlefield” to the delight of the crowd. Yes, that was awesomely good too.

With regards to the morons in the stands: all we needed was a beach ball, a fight in the stands, overwhelmed security guards, a USC v UCLA debate, and a “Joan Jett sucks!” chant, and the experience would have matched that of an LA Dodger game in the cheap seats. Any true Dodger fan knows exactly what I’m talking about.

(I know, what should I have expected from a free concert?)

That’s all for today. Happy blogging!