Peelander-Z, The Captains, The Emeralds

Last night I went to a pretty awesome concert staring Peelander-Z, with The Emeralds and The Captains opening. I was very impressed with The Captains, even though I have never heard them before. Really their performance would have been much better if they had a larger crowd. They need the crowd to dance and get involved, but they had a hard time pitching that idea to a crowd of 20 or so mostly male audience members. They have a very 60's Japanese type sound that they called "Group Sounds". They described themselves as "The Last Group Sounds" since there probably aren't any other bands that still sound like this. It was their first US tour, and I doubt they'll return to Chattanooga anytime soon, unless they hook up with the radically different Peelander Z again.The second band was The Emeralds. They have more of a surf-rock kind of sound. In some respects, they remind me of the pillows, but I'm not sure why. I've listened to them for a while, and I had bought music from them on iTunes, but I wasn't prepared for something this awesome. The Emeralds truly shine when playing live. They made sure everyone was as close to the stage as possible and they had everyone sing along whenever possible. The Emeralds are the best band that isn't TsuShiMaMiRe that I've seen play live. Until I see another female bassist kick her leg over her head while rocking out, TsuShiMaMiRe will remain in a league of their own.
The final show was Peelander-Z. Peelander is just plain fun. Everyone becomes part of Peelander-Z and things just go insane. This show Peelander was better than ever because they had a very small crowd. This dragged everyone in the room into the performance which really made it something special. At one point, one of the members of The Captains was on stage playing the guitar, some random girl was playing Peelander Red's bass, a random guy was on the drums and the audience was beating on random instruments that were tossed to us. I was standing next to one of the Emeralds and we were both beating away on our random metal pieces we were given. It was just plain awesome.

Fencing, etc.

So I'm fencing now. I had a club meeting last night. Fencing's pretty fun. I'm no pro at it, but I'm learning. I'm an épée fencer. An épée is the heaviest sword as well as the only sword in which you can score by hitting any part of your opponent. I'd like to learn to use a saber as well, but I enjoy the prospect of having to guard my entire body. I'm on the taller side of people on my team as well, which gives me a reach advantage.
I participated in my first scored bouts this Tuesday. I lost my first match, but won my second. Pretty much the whole night I alternated between winning and losing. I felt that wasn't bad for my first go at scored matches. I'll need to get better though.

The Book

Well, as some people know, and others...well, don't, I'm writing a book. Right now I'm about 30 pages into the process, and, I'm not totally sure, but my pacing seems way off. As long as I get the basis down. The entire book is finished...in my head, but it just needs to get off onto the paper. I have the problem of when I work on writing sometimes I get distracted with some new idea and I want to start writing a different book.
A brief rundown of what's up with it is the main three character's planet is destroyed by a massive planet eating ship that uses the core of the planet as a power source. There is more to the ship than that, but I'm only giving a very vague amount of information here.
So the three are now homeless, their families and friends are all dead. They team up with an eccentric ship captain in hopes of stopping the black ship from destroying anyone else's home.
While yes, it does very much follow the typical "Space Opera" style of larger than life heroics and an evil that threatens the universe, I hope to make it very interesting and compelling while still paying tribute to that style. Keep your eyes open, I'll upload more information every once and a while.

So lazy.

I really get pretty lazy. I have not updated this since May. May. That was quite some time ago. I mean...since then I've been to Japan, got to see my lovely girlfriend, poisoned a man on accident, learned at least a dozen recipes, began fencing, told a girl's fortune, restored contact with my sister, met a really kick ass guy from New Zealand, and started school back up. Alright, I suppose I'll now update every day (-ish).