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they say I shot a man named gray

NP: Bob Dylan - "Blood on the Tracks"

Yesterday was my birthday. 21st birthday. It's funny, it seems like it took forever to get here, probably 'cause I've gone through four years of university before hitting that magic age.

So anyway, it was a good day. I had classes & work during the meat of the day, but once dinner time came around, the festivities began. We went to Applebee's first, though I only had one drink there. If you've ever been to an Applebee's, you may be familiar with the "Brewtus", which is a 20 or so ounce oddly-shaped glass of beer. I had one of those, Killians. Like the only decent thing they had on draught. So a plate of nachos later, we were outta there.

Next came the Dylan show. We parked in one of the out of the way dorm lots & walked over to the arena. The place was pretty full when we got there, I was surprised the show sold so well. This town is notoriously bad about supporting any rock shows that accidentally stumble through here. So we find our seats, which were actually way good. After ten minutes of classical music coming over the PA, Dylan and his band came out on stage. Let me comment on the lineup -- it was Dylan and two other guys on guitar, a bassist and drummer. No keyboards, no backup singers, nothing. Just an old-fashioned rock n roll lineup. The first three or four songs were almost country/bluegrass sorts of things on all acoustic guitars and upright bass. Now Dyaln's back catalogue is just massive, so I didn't know these songs. But they were good. Then, instrument change, and the set turns into a blues/rock sort of thing, lots of groove & extended jams. More songs I really didn't recognize, but damn was the band tight. Later on in the show, he played stuff that was more familiar to me. "If Dogs Run Free", "Highway 61 Revisited", "Maggie's Farm", and the highlight of the show for me, "Tangled Up in Blue". In the encore he did most of his bigger 'hits' like "Forever Young", "Like a Rolling Stone", "Blowin' in the Wind", and that new-ish song he wrote for 'Wonder Boys'. I think it's called "Things Will Change" but I'm not totally sure. But overall, it was an excellent gig. Good mix of familiar favorites & more obscure stuff, and the band was just shit hot. I did not expect to be rocked that hard by Bob Dylan.

So post-gig, we went and picked up Steve, and headed down to the bars down by the river. We walked by about a half-dozen places before settling on Jeremiah's, which worked out just fine. Steve bought a round so I got a pint of Newcastle Brown. How awesome is it that I found Newcastle on draught in this town? I wouldn't have expected it. So we stayed there for about two hours. Steve and I played some tunes on the jukebox...U2, Alice in Chains, Beatles, Nirvana, The Who, Violent Femmes, etc. Around midnight the place started getting packed, so once our songs were over we left & headed over to Ragsdale's which is just a block down the road. It was a lot less crowded in there, which is better as far as I'm concerned. The bartender lady gave me a free shot of my choice, so I chose Absolut Citron. The "shot" was more like 2/5 of a plastic cup, it was just a ton of vodka. So I drank most of that down. Overall, the night's alcohol consumption can be broken down as follows:

(1) x Killian's "Brewtus"

(1) x bottle Guinness draught

(1) x pint Newcastle Brown

(2) x bottles Budweiser red label

(1) x apple flavored shooter thing

(1) x gigantic glass o' lemon vodka

(1) x bottle Heineken

(1) x pint Boulevard ale

I'm amazed I didn't get sick. Instead I just had a very healthy buzz the whole night. Perfect. We left that pub when it kicked us out at 1.30am. By that time it was just me & Steve, so we walked back home.

We ended up being out a bit later, as we were hungry. So Steve, being not really drunk at all, took us to Taco Bell (eek!). But they were, get this, out of meat. So we left & went to Steak n Shake instead. I got back in the door around 2.30am and hit the sack about an hour later. So that was my birthday. It was as excellent as they come.

Oh, and yesterday right before I left for the evening, Sara called me. She wished me a happy birthday. We made plans to go out, from which I just got back from a little while ago. I know I'm lame, but it made me happy to see my friend & have a proper conversation like we used to do all the time. Yeah, it was good.

And that's it for me. I want to send out special thanks to deidre for all the b-day wishes. I wish you could've gone out with us, too.

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