Ultimate

I spent this weekend hanging with three of my best Goathouse friends, Brien, John, and Sam. We spent the weekend partying it up, with the main event being a Gogol Bordello concert at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, KS. This adventure has really revived my spirit and enthusiasm for living life to the fullest. I've been working out this week and jamming through work with Gogol tunes in my head.

I'm going to try my best to post one set of lyric interpretations every day for the next while because no one should go without a little Gogol in their lives.

"Ultimate" is a song about living out your days to their fullest without regret of or despair from what's past. It's a song about taking everything you can from life. (Hence my inspiration for this post.) I wasn't able to find a translation for the Russian/Romani part. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ULTIMATE

If we are here not to do
What you and I wanna do
And go forever crazy with it
Why the hell we are even here?

There was never any good old days
They are today, they are tomorrow
It's a stupid thing we say
Cursing tomorrow with sorrow

When we stand here in a row
Looking like a bunch of heroes
I know that-a deep inside
Nothing more than bunch of zeroes

O skolko utechki tepla
Vot takaja vot sudba
Nam segodnja suzhdena
A bit mozhet chto kogda da-j povezet!

There was never any good old days
They are today, they are tomorrow
It's a stupid thing we say
Cursing tomorrow with sorrow

Stepping on the trail of ultimate
I would never choose to die
Give me rest of all the secrets
Give me new culture of life

Ultimate!
Ultimate!
Ultimate!
Ultimate!

Wish You Were Here Contest

On my old blog, I held the "Wish You Were Here Contest".  The co-winners hailed from DC and Seattle, so I have been on a mission to visit both cities.  Here is my proof of visiting DC:

I will be fulfilling my promise to visit Seattle somewhere between November 20th and 29th.  It's already in the works.

In addition to my west coast trip, there are a number of things that I am looking forward to right now.  In the immediate future, I have tickets to a Gogol Bordello concert.  I'll get to hang out with a couple of good friends during my stay, which is honestly more appealing that actually hearing the band.  I miss having my college friends in proximity, but I'm glad that we've managed to stay in touch for the most part. 

Mega-update

Here are some pics from the Cards game I saw on my birthday weekend.  Derek and I had a lot of fun, and it was definitely the closest we've been to the action on the field.  I think my favorite part was watching Scales, the left fielder for the Cubs, give us a homerun.  It bounced right off of his glove and over the fence.

Mmmm...that was before my haircut.  Look at those sexy sideburns.

Cardinals win!

Here's a pic of my roommate giving our mutual friend, J, a haircut.  Usually we have to get him drunk before trying this.

I was offered the same service, but I declined.  In other news, Ohio is a vile frozen wasteland of corn, trees, and computer work.  I was going to bitch about work here, but I changed my mind.

Ohio does have a few places of interest, one of which is "The Jaol", an old jail turned bar.  I was really hoping that the establishment would have kept some characteristics of the original structure when designing the place, but it looked like a normal bar on the inside.  The waitresses did wear little cowgirl sheriff outfits that I enjoyed.  Maybe I should have snapped a picture of that.  I'm sure there are other places in Ohio just waiting to be discovered.  Maybe next week...

Oh yeah, I went to the Schlafly Bottleworks this weekend!  It's a pretty small brewery, as you might imagine, but the beer is top notch.  I had the Schlafly hefeweizen, pale ale, oatmeal stout, and dry-hopped APA.  The oatmeal stout tasted a lot like coffee, which was a bit of a bummer.  I can understand why you would have it for breakfast though.  It is a serious full-bodied beer.  I highly recommend trying some of the seasonal Oktoberfest beers across the US.  I have been a huge fan so far, especially of the ones in Ohio.

As some of you may know, my mom bought me a violin for my birthday.  I can't get the damn thing to make a sound, and I swear I tried applying rosin like 100 times.  I'm taking it to the string shop tomorrow to get some help.  Hopefully, they'll be able to hook me up with an instructor while I'm at it.  I'll let you know how things progress.