Friday Leftovers (Jan. 22)

My weekly collection of thwarted blog posts and random thoughts. Could you imagine if I made each of these a post on its own? I'd have more than 1,000 posts by now. And no readers, because you all would have gotten tired of my million posts per day.

Word Association

Play here.

1. Weak :: Fragile
2. Flashy :: New
3. Sack :: Quarterback
4. Business :: Pleasure
5. Purple :: Rain
6. Fan :: Store
7. Airline :: Flight
8. Guide :: Tour
9. Lunch :: Sandwich
10. Exercise :: Running

Explanations/details: Purple Rain is not a good running song. It would be okay if it didn't drag on at the end for like three minutes. I have Prince's Greatest Hits CD (first George Michael, now Prince... the revelations continue... I like 80s music okay?) and every time I listen to Purple Rain I skip the end because it just goes on and on and on. - The fan is in reference to our fans that keep us cool in the summer, and fall. We have them stored in our garage up in the rafters.

Coachella

When you live in a certain area for so long, you sometimes take things for granted. For instance, I was talking to a fellow runner during last week's run and she mentioned how her family has a Chinese exchange student living with them, and that the student really wanted to go to Hollywood to take a picture of the sign. I kid you not, I have never ever been to Hollywood to have my picture taken with the sign. Honestly, I don't know if I've even seen it in person. Hollywood has some pretty shady areas and I don't know how to navigate down there. The last time I went to Hollywood was in 2002 when I went to the Pantages Theater to watch The Lion King.

Anyway, to a lesser extent there is the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Not sure if you are familiar with it, but this is a massive three-day event filled with live bands and all sorts of chaos. You can go to any single day or buy three-day packages, so you don't necessarily have to make a three-day weekend out of it.

I've never been, but it draws a ton of people every year. Last year, when the headliners were Paul McCartney, The Killers and The Cure, it drew 160,000. In 2007 when Rage Against The Machine played, it drew 180,000.

I'm not much of a crowd person, so those figures make me want to go less. But I always look at the lineups and see what I'm missing. This year's lineup was announced earlier this week, and the show is going to take place on April 16-18. Jay-Z is the headliner for Friday, Muse for Saturday and Gorillaz for the last day.

I know my blog buddy Christy would love to catch Muse there.

Some of the other acts that catch my eye:

* DJ Lance Rock will be there Friday. He is the guy in the orange jumpsuit (and creator) of Yo Gabba Gabba! which is a fixture in our house. If he took Muno, Brobee, Plex, Toodee and Foofa with him, that'd be awesome (if you are wondering "What the..." it's okay. I haven't lost all my marbles, just a few).

* Faith No More was one of my faves way back in the day, but either I lost track of them or they fell off the map.

* I'm wondering if one of my other blog buddies has a second career we don't know about as Zoe is one of the acts for Saturday. Hmmm... might have to do some investigating.

Here's the full lineup. I have to say that I've not heard of a lot of those acts, but that's actually pretty normal. Since I have children, I'm way out of touch with a lot of things, plus this festival provides opportunities for a lot of up-and-coming acts... (up-and-coming is a nice way of saying obscure).

Would you brave up to 150,000 people over three days?

Another Reason For No Coachella

I might have a race that weekend. In fact, there's a good chance I will run a race that weekend. April 18 is the Run Through Redlands and I might run the half that weekend. There's another race that weekend but I've sworn off talk of Marathon No. 2 until after Surf City, so I won't go there right now.

El Niño Grande

A few weeks ago, I was out in the backyard and came across a near-dead insect. It startled me because it was so big. I thought it was a bee at first but when I looked closely, it didn't look like any bee I'd ever seen before.

I left it as I'd seen it, struggling on its back, moving its legs slowly, not really trying to turn over or do much of anything.

Later, I went out and put it on top of the doghouse and figured that if it died I might as well try to preserve it. I wanted to show Mrs. LB, but I forgot all about the bug for a few days.

When I remembered it several days later, I went to the doghouse and it was still there. It was dead of course and quite stiff, but looked in pretty good shape. So I took a picture of it and sent it along to a friend of mine who is into bugs. He's actually an entomologist so I figured he'd know what it was.

Sure enough, it's a cricket. Actually, a Jerusalem cricket, or a potato bug. It's also referred to as a Niño de la Tierra in Spanish. And while they're native to the Western US and Mexico, I've never actually seen one until now. Strange.

It's now sitting in a jar in my house. I'm actually keeping it for my friend and haven't had a chance to go give it to him. I would try and torment the girls with it but they are totally unafraid of it now since I went to that well often at first.

Separated At Birth?

Remember my "pink fish" comment from a couple of days ago, when I had a gaping mouth for some reason at the end of my 22-miler?

Well, what do you think?

The Pink Fish and a pink fish

Do you see the resemblance?

Thanks to reader Jephy's Mom for passing the fish image along.

LB's Song of the Week

My weekly nod to children's music...

Last week I had a song by The Roots from the show Yo Gabba Gabba! on here. Well, because DJ Lance Rock will be performing at Coachella, I figured I might as well throw on one of the Yo Gabba Gabba! songs.

This song is pretty cool.

Brobee is singing about the party in his tummy.

Incidentally, last night I invited chili, sweet corn muffins, cheddar cheese and water to the party in my tummy. It was a rockin' party.