Things have not been moving along as far as our band goes. Our drummer works like 7 days a week now and never has time to play. This makes it a wee bit hard to practice. Also because we usually practice at his house. Also, I lost some of my confidence the night I went to Volcano Joes for the open mic night. I feel like I sounded like crap. None-the-less, I am going to go back all this month and try to build my confidence. Our bassist, I think, has lost a little faith in the band as well because we haven’t been able to practice. But him and I still play together. I think that once we have a party or something where we all play together for an audience, things will improve. We’ll see. Summer is here. This is our chance to play. I just hope we can get things rolling.

Yesterday was a fine day. A fine day indeed. One of it’s fine moments occurred at Volcano Joes; a nice college coffee house. This month they are having Open Mic night on Mondays. So last night I went with Holly to class so I could go to VJ’s and listen (and maybe play) to the live music. Here was the plan: 4:45: Drop Holly off at class 5:00: Sit at a nearby park and play guitar until 6:30 to practice a little to decide if I wanted to play at VJ’s. 6:45: Order some food at VJ’s while listening to any others that were going to subject themselves to playing that night. 7:15 – 8:00: Sit around waiting for Holly to get out of class and not playing guitar due to being a wuss. Here is what actually happend: 4:55: Drop Holly off at class 5:05: Sit at a nearby park and play guitar until 6:15 to practice a little to decide if I wanted to play at VJ’s. 6:30: Ordered some food and drink 6:35: While grabbing a seat and waiting for my food, got tapped on the shoulder by someone who ditched out of class. Holly. 6:50: Received my food and ate with Holly while the open mic fun began. Then we proceeded to listen to the open mic host play music and tell us how he really hoped someone would sign up so he didn’t have to play all night long. 7:00 – 7:40: Sat around even more being a wuss and not signing up. 7:40: Holly decided she would help me out and went out to the car to get my guitar and songbook. 7:50: I found myself sitting in front of a microphone with a guitar on my lap and the host announcing my name and requesting a warm welcome. Yay. (that is a sarcastic yay) 7:50 – 8:00: I played to very nervous songs for an audience of probably 15 or 20 people who probably could have cared less that it was open mic night. 8:00: I let one of the VJ’s employees borrow my guitar so he and the host could play and show the uninterested audience just how much better my guitar sounded in the hands of someone else. 8:15: Packed up my gear along with Holly and proceeded to the car where we would drive home and enjoy the third very fine moment of the day. Ok, so I probably wasn’t that bad, but I was nervous and not very confident. But I plan on going back every monday through the month and seeing if I can’t build my confidence and beat the nervousness. What can I possibly lose?

Exercising is good. Wrestling is better. I’ve been in a good mood. Check out this picture that the head of the Caledonian Society sent me.

Now that sums up the Scots. Scotch, bagpipes, and haggis. Oh yeah. We didn’t get to play music this week, but I have been playing a lot. On Monday, I am going to go with Holly to school and go to Volcano Joe’s just next to the school. On Monday’s they have open mic night. I think it from 6-10pm. I’m going to bring my guitar so I can head to the park or beach and play. If I’m bold enough I might sign up for the open mic night at Volcano Joe’s. We’ll see.

On Wednesday, I suddenly decided that I would hop in the car with Holly (who was heading out to go to class) and go to town. I dropped her off at school and headed over to Dan’s Guitars to buy strings. Then I headed down to Waikiki and walked along the beach and watched the sunset. It was really nice. It is so fun to just watch people. After the sun went down, I went back to UH to pick up Holly. We agreed that I would meet her at Volcano Joe’s at 8pm when her class got out. I showed up at 7:30pm to find Holly and her classmate had already got out of class and had time to order some drinks. So I just ordered me a pizza and sat with them. It was a nice night out. Cool weather, clear dark sky, perfect. It was a grand night.

Last night at midnight we had over 600 people lined up outside out theatre waiting to see Star Wars. We had two prints of the movie and ended up playing it in 4 theatres. How did you manage that, you might be wondering. They called me in to interlock the film. Basically run the film on one theatre, then along the wall to the next theatre. Anyway, it was a fun night. There were only a few people with costumes though. A little disappointing. Oh well. We watched the movie on Tuesday night. Oh what fun. It was an awesome movie. Worthy of being a Star Wars movie. Unlike Episodes I and II. On the downside, I have not gotten to sleep before 3:30 am for the past 3 days. Tonight is no exception. So with that said, our theatre was nothing compared to our leading theatre near Waikiki. They had a whopping 2400 or so attendees for the midnight showing. Craaaaazzzzy.

Star Wars comes out on Thursday. Koolau is having a midnight showing of Star Wars. That would be at 12:01 AM on Thursday morning. Naturally they feel they have to have me there. For some reason they always do. “Mike, we have a special showing of ‘Harry Potter’ on Friday. Can you come in and interlock it for us? The other captains don’t know how.” “Mike, we have a school show on Friday morning. Can you come in that day and make sure so-and-so does it correctly?” “Mike, we have a midnight show of Star Wars. Can you come in and teach them to interlock and then run an interlock on the show?” “Sure, why not?” So I get to go watch “Star Wars” on Wednesday night. On another note, I got my computer back today. Apparently when something went wrong with it, there was a chain reaction and one thing broke another. There was a total of around $1200 or so worth of repairs done. Good thing I bought Apple Care. I paid $0. What a sigh of relief. I have finished reading “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Now I need to see the movie. Will that happen. Not likely. We have not really watched as many movies as we used to. Oh well.