We got down to Philips around 6:00 with the hopes that we’d be able to sneak in a nice dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s, but that was thwarted when we got there to find an hour and a half wait ahead of us. We also tried Taco Mac, but the line was out the door. So, Food Court at CNN Center it was! Ah well. We have an anniversary coming up, so maybe we can go somewhere nicer for that.

The opener was a band called Sleepercar, which is apparently a side project of Jim Ward, formerly of Sparta. On the Jeff Holland Scale for Grading Opening Bands (JHSfGOB, where a 10 equals “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO BUY THEIR CD RIGHT NOW” and a 1 equals “Your singing is SO BAD that you make me want to take my finger, push it through my eyeball into my brain, and swirl it around for a while” [bonus points if you can place that quote]), I’d give them a 7. Fairly enjoyable, but alt-country isn’t really my thing, and they at least sounded pleasing.

Coldplay took the stage around 8:45, and the crowd was immediately on its feet. The set was a pretty good mix of old and new, flipping back and forth between standards like “Clocks” and “Speed of Sound” to some of the newer stuff from Viva La Vida. The stage setup was really cool, I thought, with a separate “crowd stage” set up in the back corner of the arena that the band used to do a small acoustic set towards the end of the show. In all, I thought it was a great show, and probably about equal to when Jeff and I saw them in 2005. There were some things I liked better about this show (it was more music-heavy than banter-heavy like the last show), and some things I liked less (the odd techno-set they did in the middle where they ruined “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face” and “Talk.”) I will say this - even if you hate Viva La Vida, the songs on that CD play VERY well to an arena. I actually got chills when they started the title track, and probably my favorite part of the entire show was “Lovers in Japan,” complete with technicolor butterfly confetti streaming from the rafters and Chris Martin exuding Bono-like energy as he ran around the stage.

Here’s the set list with a few comments:

Life in Technicolor - I actually immediately thought this would be a great intro song when I first picked the CD up. I was not disappointed.
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Speed of Sound
Cemeteries of London - The crowd REALLY got into this one - “singing la la la la la la la ley…”
Chinese Sleep Chant - It was interesting hearing them pair songs differently at the concert than they did on the CD.
42
Fix You - I was actually a little surprised they didn’t save this one for an encore. Though I’m glad they did a completely different encore set than when we saw them three years ago - some bands get in a rut.
Strawberry Swing

Techno Mini-Set:
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face - I leaned over to Jeff halfway through this and told him that I thought I could hear Scott yelling obscenities all the way from Louisiana.
Talk - I was not so much really a fan of either of these versions.

Green Eyes - I’ve noticed that they always try to do a little something extra for the Atlanta crowd on their tours, and this was their little gift to us this time, I guess. Chris said they hadn’t played it at all on this tour yet, and he mused that it was “total sh*t” as he fumbled over the first couple of notes.
Postcards from Far Away
Viva la Vida - This seriously gave me goosebumps. So beautiful live.
Lost!

Acoustic Set from “Crowd Stage”:
The Scientist
Death Will Never Conquer - Will sang lead on this one. The crowd loved it!

(Dance Remix of Viva La Vida played between main set and first encore)

First Encore:
Politik
Lovers in Japan - Probably my favorite moment of the show. This song plays excellently to an arena. If I say anything more, I’ll wind up gushing, so I’ll stop now.
Death and All His Friends

Second Encore:
Yellow - People started leaving after Death and All His Friends, but Jeff and I knew better - they hadn’t done this song yet, and I knew it had to show up at some point. When the house lights didn’t come up, I stayed put in my seat.

(The Escapist played as the band exited the stage)

In all, a pretty darn good show, I thought. It’s still hard to find another show that will hold up to my experience in Chicago seeing U2 back in 2005, but Coldplay never fails to pull the crowd completely in to their shows. I’ve definitely got the whole post-concert depression going on today.

PS - SCOTT, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO COMMENT IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE NICE. SO THERE. Haha!

I did not vote for the guy who won. I voted for McCain. That decision was not an easy one to make, though, and if I was honest with myself, I’m still pretty firmly on the fence regarding the choice the two major parties gave us (I did not even consider any of the third-party candidates. Ralph Nader runs every single time, and I’d rather pull my toenails out with pliers than vote for either Bob Barr or Cynthia McKinney). In the end, though, I went with McCain for a few reasons. First, although I consider myself pretty much a straight up the middle moderate, I still lean right on more issues than I lean left on. I’m also not a fan of large government, and I think that some of Obama’s policies will lead to more government intervention than necessary in our daily lives. I was also praying VERY hard that if McCain won, that he wouldn’t die or resign before his term was up, because the thought of Sarah Palin as president scared the bejeesus out of me.

So, seeing as how I almost voted for him, I am not convinced that Obama is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to our country. I’m actually rather excited about watching his presidency unfold. And even if you are firmly in the McCain camp, you can’t deny the historical importance of this moment. So, even though I did not vote for him, I am going to pray for Barack Obama and his presidency. I pray that God give him the guidance to lead our country effectively for the next four years, and possibly another four, should he get re-elected.

Now that I’ve gotten the comments about our president-elect and Senator McCain out of the way, it’s time for me to turn to the American people. Maybe it’s just because I was never really one to follow politics until Bill Clinton’s presidency, but I’ve noticed that, for the past 16 years, roughly half of the country has been hoping for the downfall of whichever president we have in office at that particular time. Many conservatives itched at the possibility of tossing Clinton out of office, and the same can be said for liberals who were calling for Bush’s head on a plate. Quite frankly, that is shameful. As I said above, even if you did not vote for who was elected, that person still needs your support and prayer. I am not saying you have to agree with their policies, but you can disagree respectfully.

One thing that I am hopeful that the right does after this election is to realize that fear-mongering is NOT an effective campaign practice. If anything, it bites you in the rear. I’m positive that is one reason why Elizabeth Dole lost her senate seat. I also received COUNTLESS e-mails about how Obama was a Christian-hating Muslim in disguise who wanted to wipe Israel off the map. One of the most laughable ones even stated that the Bible (the book of Revelation, specifically) warned us against electing a Muslim president. I could think of two problems with that statement off the top of my head (one, that Obama isn’t Muslim, and two, Islam did not exist as a religion until after the book of Revelation was written), and I’m sure I could find more issues with it if I researched it further. My point is this: if you disagree with a candidate, that is fine, but spreading outright lies about him does nothing but give his supporters more ammunition.

I guess I’m basically saying “CUT IT OUT” to the American people. Stop it. I’m tired of seeing grown adults acting like five year olds and resorting to childish measures to discredit those who disagree with them. I’m tired of seeing friends of mine refusing to speak to other friends because they voted differently. I’m tired of my country being so vitriolically divided on itself. Let’s move forward and be big boys and girls about this. I also encourage you to visit this website and think about a few things: http://www.respectourpresident.org.

And with that, I am done with the political talk for another four years.

You may remember several months back during Primary Season where I was venting about the sheer volume of phone calls I was receiving from one Mitt Romney. For those of you who don’t recall, in the span of three hours, his campaign called our house not fewer than seven times. I made up my mind right then and there that unless the voice of God Himself told me I had to vote for Mitt Romney that there was no way in hell I would cast a vote in his favor.

You’ll be glad to know that not much has changed during the general election. I’ll give both presidential candidates credit: I have yet to receive a phone call from either of them. However, our Senate race is going to drive me batty. I’m not usually an irrational person, but if you call a sleep-deprived mother of twins THREE TIMES while she’s trying to take one of the rare naps she gets, she’s gonna get cranky. And probably won’t vote for you.

Screw it, I’m flipping a coin.

2. Upon burning my fingers, said a few words that I’m going to have to remind myself to stop saying soon, or else I’m going to have them repeated back to me.

3. Remembered that normal people use canned pumpkin.

4. Learned that four sugar pumpkins make a crap-ton of pumpkin puree. Will be baking muffins well into April.

5. Realized that I hate the smell of cooked pumpkin when it is not accompanied by pumpkin pie spice.

6. Baked approximately 5,987 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Beginning to think that these muffins are actually what Jesus fed the multitude, rather than the fish and loaves we’ve been taught since children.

7. Dropped one muffin on the floor and watched it fall apart during the act of transferring it from the muffin pan to the cooling rack. Wept silently for ten minutes.

8. Ate not more than four but not less than three muffins straight out of the oven. Felt my ass grow by a quarter-inch.

9. Stared blankly at my overflowing kitchen sink. Wished I had a magic wand and Molly Weasley nearby.

10. Sat at the kitchen table and typed this blog entry. Noticed muffins on cooling rack across table from me. Felt ass grow by another quarter-inch.

2. I recently added Twilighters.org to my feed reader. Yes, it’s run by people literally half my age. Oh, and they have a video podcast called “Bite Me” that is scarily reminiscent of “Goth Talk” on SNL (I swear one day the guy and the chick on it are going to refer to themselves as Azrael Abyss and Circe Nightshade). Go ahead and mock me.

3. I’ve recently become addicted to Flair on Facebook. Two years ago, I would’ve told you being on Facebook itself would’ve qualified me as “lame,” but I’ve sunk even farther. I check for new Flair more often than I should (and yes, before you ask, most of my Flair is Harry Potter related). Though I don’t get the random Flair people create saying they’re going for 2,000 Flair Credits. I appreciate them, because they remind me that I am still somewhat normal.

4. One of my new goals is trying to score above 1200 on Spider Solitaire on the “medium” setting. Go ahead and call me Creed Barton.

It was during one of these perusals of my iTunes library that I discovered that I must have had a momentary lapse of sanity on several occasions, because there are quite a few songs that I do not recall downloading at all there. At first, I thought I could blame one of my late night bouts of insomnia and heartburn during my pregnancy (and therefore the cause was obviously “pregnancy brain”), but no, the songs were all downloaded BEFORE I got pregnant. So, I’m at a loss as to what happened.

Here are the ones I have no memory of downloading:

- “The Human Hosepipe” by Harry and the Potters (I’m blaming this one on Kari)
- “Hysteria,” “Supermassive Black Hole,” and “Starlight” by Muse (I’m thinking I’m going to have to blame my emo/goth/intellectual alter ego for these)
- “Angel” by Aerosmith (WHAT THE HELL?)
- “Ana’s Song” by Silverchair (I… have no good explanation.)
- “Song 2″ by Blur (WOOHOO!)

Has anyone else had this happen? Oh, just me? That’s what I thought.

I was never cool or popular, nor did I really have any desire to be either of those things. I had a smallish group of close friends, and we were all pretty much those who didn’t quite fit into any of the usual groupings you see. Maybe that was the bond that held us together - we weren’t jocks, we weren’t goths, and we weren’t super-geeky. We all seemed to have class together, but our performance in those classes varied widely from those who always made straight A’s to those who really didn’t give a rat’s ass as to why they were there (I fell somewhere in the middle). We had pretty widely varying political and social ideas, and those led to some pretty heated disagreements on occasion, but we were friends, and we were there for each other.

I didn’t date much in high school, either. I only seriously dated two guys, the first of which was a SPECTACULAR failure and a cautionary tale about why you should listen to people if both your parents and your friends don’t like the guy (suffice it to say that having a rich daddy doesn’t mean you can buy yourself a personality). The second wasn’t so bad - it just wound up that we were better off as friends, and we’re still friends today. I went to prom with guys who were friends both my Junior and Senior years. I’d known most of the guys I went to high school with since elementary school, so I guess it was just hard for either me or them to see the other as anything other than an acquaintance. Plus, I had a bad habit of telling guys when they were acting stupid, and apparently they don’t like that. Oh, and there was that one time when I jokingly told a guy I was a lesbian and he believed me, heh.

As an only child (and a girl to boot), my parents were probably a little more overprotective than some of my friends’ parents were. I had the earliest curfew of any of my friends (10:30), and Mom and Dad refused to budge when I begged and pleaded to extend it to 11:00 (I believe my dad told me “Someone’s got to go home first. Might as well be you.”). Luckily, my friends were pretty accommodating and willing to take me home so I wouldn’t break curfew, and Mom and Dad were pretty cool about letting them hang out at my house until they had to go home if they wanted to (and on occasion, they let me stay out a little later if I called and told them I was just down the street). Of course I thought my early curfew was monstrously unfair back then, but now that I have daughters of my own, I’m sure I’ll be as strict as my parents were. Besides, I think I turned out okay.

There are a few things I wish I had do-overs on, of course. Those of you who didn’t know me back then may find this a little surprising, but I had a hard time sticking up for myself. I wish the backbone I grew in college had come in a few years earlier, I guess. I also wish I hadn’t been so willing to walk away from situations rather than confront them, especially with regards to friendship. I also wish I was a bit more willing to laugh at myself and not be so melodramatic back then (but what former teenage girl doesn’t?).

In all, though, I’m at the point now where I can look back at high school and see where my experiences there made me into the person I am today. I learned a LOT during those years, about myself, about friendship, and about God. I won’t say I’m willing to go back and do the whole thing over again, but I do have some fond memories of that time. I hope in another ten years, I can look back and say the same thing. Though I think I’ve had much more fun in my twenties than I did during my teen years.

Not too much has been going on in Holland Land lately, although we did recently celebrate Erin and Grace’s first birthday! It’s hard for me to believe I’m the mother of toddlers now, especially when I have moments where I forget I’m a mom in the first place. They’re doing new things every day, and I couldn’t be prouder of them. But I won’t gush about them here. That’s what this page is for.

As far as reading material, I’m once again delving into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And, as usual, I’m finding things I missed the first four times I read it. I’m also beginning to read The Children of Men, something I picked up about a year ago but never started. I’ve also got The Painted Veil to read. (Perhaps I should start reading books that aren’t already made into movies?) I also was one of the unfortunate folks to get thoroughly sucked into the Twilight saga. I know, I know. Melodramatic vampire romance novels do not exactly seem geared toward nearly 30-year-old women. But so help me, they were entertaining. And I’m kinda looking forward to the movie (Cedric Diggory as Edward Cullen? Yes, please.).

As if my transformation into a 15 year old wasn’t aided enough by my literary choices of late, I’m starting to look for new music, since, well, I haven’t really bought anything over the past year, and I miss listening to music. A few of my friends have suggested Paramore, and I’m liking what I hear from them. I’ll probably pick one of their CD’s up when I have play money again at the beginning of October. Jeff’s also made a big push for Mae as well, and I’m liking Singularity in particular. On a whim, I picked up Missy Higgins’ second CD, On a Clear Night, and I LOVE it. Love love it. I’m also open for suggestions, so if you have any, fire away.

That’s about it for me lately. What have you guys been up to?