I’ve been wanting to see Flogging Molly live for a long time, so on Saturday, we went to the Oyster and Beer Fest in San Francisco. The cost for admissions for a full day of music was a reasonable $15, so I was expecting the other shoe to drop–hidden parking fees or super long lines or something like that. But while there were fees and lines–especially to get beer–it wasn’t bad at all. The festival took place on a green lawn overlooking the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a lovely day. People seemed in a good mood. The price for food and drink wasn’t bad, considering. And yes, there were lines, but we got to skip the major one because we bought our tickets ahead, so I didn’t mind.

We met up with Robin, who was hanging out with his co-workers, and Rachel, who was hanging out with her friend Lindsay. We spread a blanket under a palm tree and waited for Flogging Molly to come on. That band is awesome live. Of the three concerts I’ve been to lately, they were the most fun. I was able to get right down by the stage while they played, although my pictures of the band aren’t that great. By the end, we were all dancing jigs by the palm tree.

I got a lot of good pictures that day. Here are a few:

The crowd by the stage listening to a rollicking song. San Franciscans can be so reserved.

Robin, with a beer in his pocket

Random girl in red

Kyle and Rachel talk

This guy had attitude

Robin and his friends cheering Flogging Molly’s finale

I will start talking about my writing life on here again presently. In the meantime, here’s some Flogging Molly.

Update: Marcia wrote about the festival too.

It was the weekend of festivals. On Saturday, I went to the San Francisco Oyster and Beer Fest to see the band Flogging Molly. On Sunday, I went to Maker Faire in San Mateo, which is put on by O’Reilly to promote Craft and Make Magazines. I took lots of pictures, too many for one entry, so I will split it up into two.

I will start with the second part of the weekend, the Maker Faire.

As an O’Reilly author, Kyle was asked to host the “Hacker’s Lemonade Stand,” where he answered questions about Knoppix, Ubuntu, or Linux Multimedia. Here he is at the booth helping some girls:

I, on the other hand, wandered around and looked at the crafts at the Bazaar Bizarre and all the exhibits. I saw robots, strange-looking bicycles, and explosions. But one of the neatest things for me was walking into the Make Store where O’Reilly was selling its books and seeing not one, but two, giant posters of the covers of Kyle’s books hanging on the wall. Here is the picture of the Knoppix Hacks poster (he’s almost done with the update of that book, by the way).

Wandering around, I got tons of article ideas and ended up buying some coasters and an art print. Here are some pictures:

The main room of the fair

This kid was playing a video game using that plane as a controller

Pirate guy

By wearing that suit, that guy was playing music on the computer just by moving his body.

Knitting and drumming at the same time, for some reason.

They were shooting fire with those gun things. It made children cry.

The children were happier with the giant robotic giraffe.

He will write you a poem about anything.

Tomorrow, part two of my weekend: The Beer Fest and Flogging Molly.

Last night, I dreamt about vampires. I was in a big quasi-Victorian room like an old-fashioned laboratory with card cabinets and nooks and doorways. Most of the dream consisted of me locking windows because it was going to be night soon, and we had to make sure that the vampires couldn’t get in.

But in true horror movie fashion, I forgot one section of the windows, and at nightfall the vampires came in anyway. They were a bunch of quaffed cool-looking people, the kind of 20-somethings who go to LA clubs to snort coke. A couple of celebrities were with them, and I remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know Cameron Diaz was a vampire.”

The vampires were clearly going to eat me, but at the moment they were too busy deciding who was going to hook up with whom to bother, giving me an opportunity to go into the kitchen and grab a knife. Brandishing it high, I ran out and stabbed my knife in one of the vampires, and … nothing happened. The knife handle just stuck out of its chest.

“I thought knives were supposed to kill you,” I said.

“Only stainless steel knives,” said the vampire.

“That knife is stainless steel,” I said.

The vampire rolled its eyes. “Obviously not,” it said.

I took the knife out of its chest and realized that the problem was that it was coated stainless steel, which blocked the stainless steel properties from affecting the vampire’s heart. So I ran into the kitchen to get a metal scrubber to rub the coating off the knife, but one of them followed me in there to kill me. Luckily, my favorite tomato knife was in the kitchen, and so I stuck that in the vampire instead. It worked, but instead of poofing like they do in Buffy, the vampire bled all over me like Tom Cruise does in Interview with a Vampire when Kirsten Dunst stabs him. As the blood and vomit went everywhere, all I could think about was how my pants were dry-clean only and this was going to be annoying to get out.

Then this delivery driver unlocked the front door with a key to give me something I had ordered–thus letting in more vampires–so I told him to LOCK THE DAMN DOOR. And that’s when I remembered that I could levitate things with my mind. What a relief. Instead of stabbing the vampires, I could just levitate the knives and shoot them at them, stabbing them in the heart and avoiding blood and also danger.

Just as the dream was getting good with me getting to save the day with my levitating powers, I woke up. I discovered I was squeezing my hands into fists, probably because I believed they had knives in them. I don’t know how long I had been doing this, but I’m guessing a long time. They are kind of sore now.

This is the second time this week I have caught myself making fists during sleep. So maybe it isn’t the writing that’s causing the sore hand problem after all.

Kyle is from Kentucky, so at some point, we decided to have a Kentucky Derby party. Never mind that neither of us had ever been to a horse race, we wanted to eat fried food. On Saturday, we invited a bunch of people over to do just that. Here’s a rundown of the day.

Guests begin to arrive:

Marcia

Chris

For food, we had delicious drinks in Laura’s Kentucky Derby glasses. I made bourbon balls and Derby Pie, but that is not enough to feed people, so we got KFC:

Yup, fried chicken, gravy, biscuits, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and cheese curds. All food we hardly ever eat, so it went over big.

Eric (in the mirror), Justin, Stephanie, Kat, Aaron, Dustin, Kyle, and Chris

Next was the race. Did you know it lasts only two minutes or so? It does. To make things interesting, we all bet on the horses–a dollar a horse, all even odds.

Aaron, Robin and Laura watching the race

Likewise Stephanie, Kat, and Chris

No one called the winner, Street Sense. However, Aaron, Paul, and I called the 4th place winner Imawildandcrazyguy. We split the pot three ways, $5 a piece.

Afterwards, we went outside to play Horse Shoes (Get it? Horse shoes?) Justin took some pictures of that in his recap of the party. Meanwhile, I dragged Marcia and Laura to the Artist Colony to see where I’ve been writing.

Laura

Me and Marcia in the tent

Finally, we played with the hacked X-Box, which our friend helped us set up. Kyle and Stephanie are both awesome at DDR. Toward 5 p.m. or so, people started to go home. Still, more fun was to be had when Kyle and other guests started using the DDR pad as a controller for old Nintendo games. You haven’t lived until you have played PacMan with your feet.

Kyle on the second level of Mario Bros.

Good times.