If you can dodge a wrench.....

Norm and I are at Gateway Medical Research again, enduring the second part of our three period study. Each period has three days: check-in day, study day, and check-out day. Today is study day, meaning today is the day where we take the pill being studied and get our blood drawn the most. I'm typing this during our first two hour break between draws (all other draws have been hourly or half-hourly). By the time we go to bed tonight, we will have been poked 15 times.

The movies have been better today. Dodgeball and then The Longest Yard. And then, this dude puts on Ladder 49...again. WTF, bro? We watched that last week! I have no interest in re-watching a movie that could be called a "firefighter drama", nor do I respect "firefighter drama" as a legitimate genre of film. Why do they do this to us? Maybe the pill and the blood draws are just distracting us, and this is a Ladder 49 tolerance test. This is the beginning of a really bad Kubrick movie for sure.

Also, I've witnessed two extremely passive agressive phone arguments that people in our study have had with their significant others. First, at 4 AM when we were waking up and this dude's girlfriend was still out partying, I got to hear the "Why are you hanging out with that dude? I'm going to kick his ass. Why are you hanging out with that fat bitch? You don't even like her. I don't need to get your friends to vouch for you, I know they'll just lie for you" conversation, and less than an hour ago I witnessed the "So you're not going to work, you're just going to drink with Mark? Are you already drunk? I don't even want to talk to you right now, you're not being very nice" talk. Party!

Playing shows feels good, and I'm glad we have been doing it more often. A few days ago, we played with a bunch of bands we usually don't play with (Harvey, Novella, Tonight at Seven) at a great new venue in Alton, IL called illiNoise that we hope continues to do shows. They get the shows catered, so anybody over 21 gets free beer with admission until the kegs inevitably run dry. We have the RFT music showcase on Sunday in the Delmar Loop (we play at 4 PM) and we MAY be playing a party in Edwardsville on Friday? Not sure.

OH, and we're getting ideas together for videos for our Youtube channel. More info to come, but it's going to be fun.