this friday, steve, dan, and i loaded up the honda with 2 acoustic guitars, an accordion, and about 25% of dan’s drum kit and departed for wooster, oh to open for americana rocker matt hoover at seattle’s. we stopped by notable pittsburgh vietnamese eatery tram’s kitchen for three orders of chicken fried rice to go and hit the road. if you’ve never eaten at tram’s, i highly recommend it the next time you get a hankering for vietnamese cuisine.

before we left, steve had the wherewithal to grab trevor’s gameboy for diversion whilst traveling.

about trevor: what you have to understand is that he is an unabashed empiricist. his see-it-to-believe-it disposition makes descartes look like tertullian. you may recall his last post. if not, take a look at it to see a blend of skepticism and joe-bashing at it’s finest. and then take the time to review the evidence below for yourself.

that’s not imovie magic folks, it’s raw tetris skill. for the record, steve beat tetris earlier that day. and though trevor has undoubtedly made more attempts than the rest of the band put together, he has yet to see 11 dancing russians and a space shuttle with his own eyes. just please remember this the next time we’re in conversation and i share with you an interesting bit of trivia.

having defended my honor, we arrived at the show to find that not only is seattle’s a purveyor of freshly roasted espresso, they also have a full bar, including draught beer by the pint (or tall glass, if you prefer your brews 20 oz. at a time). steve was happy to find in one establishment the only two liquids i have ever seen him consume: coffee and libations. i was happy to drink complimentary guinness from a glass the size of my head. and all three of us were happy to be in wooster playing some of our new material acoustically to a packed house.

thanks to matt hoover, his band, and seattle’s for hosting us. thanks to jillian and tony for coming out and bringing friends to the show. thanks to dan and kyle for introducing yourselves and conversing with us. thanks to everyone who showed up and listened. and special thanks to trevor for giving me yet another opportunity to exonerate myself and display his tendencies towards disbelief in one fell swoop.

Last evening we had the privilege of traveling to State College to perform our new material. During the 3 hour trip, Megan and Joe pulled out a head lamp and a game boy and proceeded to play Tetris. That’s right, you can’t get much more old-school than playing Tetris on car trips, that is unless you have one of those Tiger hand-held LCD games (ah, the memories).

While we were waiting for our ears to pop from the elevation changes on the trip, we discussed the lore behind the game of Tetris. Megan thought that Tetris was based on some sort of physical game; I scoffed at her. Joe claimed that you could actually win at Tetris; I said, “Not possible.” Personally, I have never done it, so I stand firmly on the opinion that you can’t ever win Tetris. Joe gave detailed descriptions of what it was like when you won and from what he says, there are dancing Russian girls and a space shuttle. I don’t believe it.

One thing you must know about Joe is he is a josher. He will say absurd things that sound true with a straight face to try and dupe the gullible in his presence. Joe does this so often that it’s hard to tell when he’s telling you a factiod that is actually true.

So, in light of this evidence, should I believe him, or stand stubbornly on my initial opinion that you can’t win at Tetris?

A super huge thanks to Jesse, Eric, and Shane from Roustabout. We had a great time playing and look forward to coming back soon! Maybe by then I will have played enough Tetris to win or prove Joe wrong!