*No Doubt, Banachek

My sister and I saw No Doubt play at the Nissan Pavilion on Sunday. She had gotten free lawn tickets, and it was a nice night. No Doubt put on a helluva good show! So much energy!
Unfortunately we missed Paramore opening for them because of TWO EXTRA HOURS of traffic on top of the hour and a half to get there. The traffic was the last 15 miles to the place, all the way in. And it was nasty traffic getting out -- the traffic cops were just sitting around not directing traffic or making a good flow. Ugh.
Worth it to see No Doubt? Hell yeah!
Ever going back to Nissan Pavilion? Hell no!

We got late night McDonalds on the way home and reminisced about NY and getting late night McDonalds with Uncle Ray. ^_^


Monday night I met Stevo at Denny's Magic Shop for a magic lecture by Banachek. Good lecture! Aside from good tricks and material learned, he has a lot of knowledge & stories and didn't have enough time to share it all. But the lecture was 3-4 hours long, which is very cool because a number of lectures the group of us have gone to in the past 6-9 months ["69 months?" "No, 6 TO 9 months..."] have been short, and content-wise disappointing.
I got to see & learn more mentalism, Stevo got to see more metal bending. We're happy. ^_^
He & I hit up a Double T Diner afterwards for a bite. It was fun to just hang out with Steve, as we haven't done that in ages. (Ocean City? Yes...)

Because there were twice as many magicians there as normal (75 instead of 30-35) and none we wanted to associate with, we spent a bit of time before & after commenting to ourselves on the state of magicians in Baltimore. Eek! If you are 50-100 lbs overweight, are egotistical, desperate for attention, with few-to-no friends and a one-upmanship complex... you'd fit in with the Baltimore magicians.
It's no surprise that any of the few magicians that were good had left Baltimore to get known (like Aaron Fisher). So pathetic.
It's like Jason always said -- we had more talent & skill with sleights and performing in the first year of learning magic than these guys have in decades of it. QTF!
Of course, even if we arrive not slicked to the nines, the guys who work with Denny know us by name and call us "The Rat Pack of Magic". We were given that title [Spencer, Jason, Stevo & I] because we'd usually show up in lounge shirts, slacks, and wingtip shoes. We're mellowing out nowadays, but still always looking snazzier than anyone else. B-)