Maui takes the Enterprise! He puts the GALAXY in danger! I’d been craving the DVD release of the new Star Trek movie and was more than willing to spend the extra money for the limited edition in-the-starship packaging! 
Kristen sneaking up on Maui to save said galaxy. If you’re curious as to who triumphed, look around you and let me know if the universe still exists! 
A beautiful show tonight. An exhausting one too – I’m getting old! But a good show. The two Dogfish Heads that we’re in the habit of playing (Gaithersburg and Falls Church) are invariably homes of some of the kindest and most enthusiastic fans in our home arena. I don’t know what it is about those places – perhaps it’s just the whimsical name – but I feel we’ve almost never had a bad show at either venue. Which, after having steadily played both once at LEAST every three months for the past two years, is really saying something.
Last Monday, Heather and Kristen and I went to see Tears of Mars at the Quarter in Baltimore, MD. It was really cool to see them on a real stage, rocking like only they can. His voice is frightening. (and amazing). And in front of us, dancing in veiled blackness, a wraithlike figure kept dodging and weaving. Beautiful moving beestie… 
I had to capture him in a flash, slowing him and freezing him in time… 
Last night we played Michos in Reisterstown, which is generally a similar-feeling night.
High-energy with a lot of crowd synergy, but the remnants of Black Friday was drunken and disinterested and Heather was sick and Kristen was sick and I was just getting over being sick – it turned into a “just get paid” gig halfway through the night and we struggled to keep our smiles on. There were good points – really good points – several people who had come to see the bands that were playing in the venue upstairs from us got sucked in by us and stayed with us for the night, the food was fantastic, the waitresses are always spectacular examples of eye candy and in general we have some good draw there… but our regulars were kind of frustrated with the bar regulars who, right around 11.30pm were really done with listening to Live music and were making a HUGE amount of noise. For a venue with three or four different rooms in it, it’s ultra-obnoxious when a woman screaming at the top of her lungs to be heard over the band doesn’t, for example, just go somewhere where we’re not quite so loud. Certainly it’s stressful for her poor lungs and throat?
Anywho – Thanksgiving was really great, and I’m looking forward to Christmas. We’re thinking of having a party! Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see. Maybe after this week I’ll sleep through the rest of December?
I-95 is dark, solely Christmas lit with the running illumination of 18-wheelers and tail lights, and we’re forgoing the radio for the sweet silence that we deserve after so much of our own aural output. I’m looking forward to my bed and hoping no-one’s let the cats into my lair, because they do so Love to abuse the soft folds of my bed. I’ve stepped on Cassie today, and sat on Orion, so there’s no trust there, but they have short memories and think they own the place, so I’ll take nothing for granted.
Speed cameras spark at the unwary SUV ahead of us. They’re becoming omnipresent in Maryland. Soon speeding will no longer be the tax of the careless gamble, but the accepted toll of the affluent. No points accumulate, and there’s no immediate enforcement or obstacle. When it comes to things like that, if the law is truly meant to save Lives rather than raise revenue and enforcement becomes unavoidable, certainly it would be wiser to just add limiters in the vehicles themselves? I figure the fact that cars are ALLOWED to go 95mph means that someone somewhere wants to make sure they can make a buck off of it. I guess one can argue that we’ve got the right to break the law, but the laws are there for a reason, right?
No matter – just passed a cop with his flashing blue and red out and about doing his job. It’s a risky job but we’re out of PG County so he’s allowed to intercept solo (as opposed to having to wait for a second patrol car). And so we gauge the class and quality of our environment. “Report Suspicious Activity” reads our glaring orange digital roadsigns. A sure sign that all is well, that no known crisis is demanding our attention.
Should mean clear sailing all the way home, and what does it say to me that such an ominous, Big Brother-like message should register no further response? I think I’m very, very tired.
*Malcom died of a heart attack when he was 40 in 2014 inspiring the chorus of Glom of Nit. I was shocked to get the phone call, the same day I read that Terry Pratchett had died. – rob 10/07/19
