roll over, eindhoven/la-re-do, a deer, a female deer

the joy of being alone.

sometimes i undervalue the perks of having time to think, time to breathe. according to CNN, most americans have replaced "free time" with "weisure", or rather "work + leisure". a portmanteau word. another abbreviation for our fast paced lives. perhaps it is more fitting to create a blend from this simple equation: work + leisure = seizure, or as i'd like to call it, weizure. i recently purchased an iphone - the shining beacon, the sexy face of weizure. it's an overwhelming device, and when i'm in my multi-tasking/rapid text message/websurfing/twitter mode, i can feel my tongue rolling back into my esophagus.

work and leisure should be separate entities, you know, like church and state (here's looking at you, bush administration). my at&t contract is less than 90 days old, so when i went to buy an international plan for my european tour, i was denied. i knew what this meant - in order to communicate with my bandmates, i'd have to remember their hotel room numbers and whereabouts. no phone calls, no text messages. this also meant that i'd have no access to a 3G network. no social networking, tweets, friend requests, or anything of the like.

and suddenly, less anxiety. more fresh air. time to breathe!

which brings me to my last two touring locations: eindhoven, nl and laredo, spain.

holy shit. maybe last year i was jaded or ignorant, because i don't remember this kind of beauty. on sunday we played to a packed house in eindhoven at one of my favorite clubs, effenaar. effenaar has the BEST backstage food. a delightful vegan buffet comprised of a salad bar, curried vegetables, and cayenne eggplant. oh yes, i could live here.


the sidewalks have separate bike lanes with traffic lights, so i'd be less prone to a serious bike accident like this one:


i could also live in spain. goddamn. here's the view from my room:


it took us a full day of travel to get to laredo. our connecting flight in madrid had technical issues so we had to take a shuttle bus to another plane. naturally we didn't get to eat very much, so when we arrived in laredo, robbie and i went searching for a restaurant (at 11PM). after getting totally lost, we found a group of 3 restaurants: telepizza, the texas embassy, and dablos. which one sounds the most appetizing? i knew you were going to say telepizza. however, we used our collective brainpower and ultimately decided on dablos, and it was one of the best meals i've had in a long time.

also, they had duff beer in stock!


the next morning svalgard, robbie, and i went to the beach. swimming in clear ocean water. this is the life.


last night we performed at an indoor soccer arena with filthy habits ensemble and the grand kazoo. a complete evening of zappa music. such great people.

and now, on to berlin. you better "take my breath away", berlin! (get it? like the band berlin? from top gun?)