Then today, as I exited my apartment on the way to [work](http://www.oit.duke.edu/) I noticed a line of parked cars, including my car, all with neon orange “PARKING TICKET” envelopes on their windshields. Apparently the city had put up “No Parking” signs on the telephone poles at some point and again utterly failed to inform anyone. I’ve been parking outside my building for as long as I’ve lived here with no trouble whatsoever. I came home last night after doing the grocery shopping and didn’t notice the new signs, assuming they were there already. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten, unless some small, barely noticeable change takes place, in which case you get a $10 parking ticket.

To their credit, Ally and Kia in the leasing office had no idea they were going to be ticketing, and agreed to take $10 of next month’s rent if I’m unable to successfully contest the ticket. Still, it’s the *principle* of the thing.

This past Saturday night, there was a music event at a new bar downtown called [The Pinhook](http://www.thepinhook.com/). It was billed as a [steampunk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) gathering, which I’ve severely missed since [The Clockwork Ball](http://www.myspace.com/theclockworkball) moved to Chapel Hill with the closure of Ringside, so Betsy, myself, and our mutual friend Karaya who was in town from Atlanta suited up and headed out.

After a very pleasant two-minute walk from my apartment, we arrived at the club, newly inked membership forms in-hand — due to NC liquor laws it’s a private club for members and their guests, but membership is available to anyone 21 and up and it only costs $2. Unbeknownst to us, the event was 21+ only, and Karaya is unfortunately not quite there yet. However, because we’d clearly dressed up — I was wearing a fedora, a vest, and a tie; Betsy was in what I can only describe as an angry/sexy flapper dress; and our little goth pumpkin was wearing custom black and silver bloomers and a corset — the gentleman manning the door made an exception, put big black X’s on the back of Karaya’s hands, and let her in as our guest. It was very cool of him.

The Pinhook’s space is very nice. It’s airy and spacious, and non-smoking so you can actually enjoy said air, with a handful of classic arcade games, a pinball machine, and a bunch of random board and card games. The stage is at the far back of the club and is low enough to the ground that there are no steps, but high enough to elevate the performers above most people’s heads. It engenders a very personal feeling with the people on stage. We saw four bands perform, three on stage and one I’ll cover in a moment.

The first band we saw take the stage was [Veronique Diabolique](http://www.veroniquediabolique.com). I’d read about them in the Duke employee newsletter, in an article about employees in bands, and I was instantly intrigued. I would best describe them as French Gothic rock. The lead singer sings entirely in French — except when they did their awesome cover of They Might Be Giants’ *Don’t Let’s Start* — and it really makes for a very unique and enchanting experience. I would have preferred if her mic was either better leveled or less grainy, but I still enjoyed seeing them very much and look forward to do so again.

Throughout the course of their set, one of the guys who was clearly in another band was wandering through the audience distributing booklets of some sort. Leaning over to a table lamp in the corner so I could read it, it turned out to be a book of [sea shanties](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_shanty). As in sailors’ work songs from the age of sail. I was more bemused than anything, so I stuck it aside and continued watching Veronique Diabolique perform. After their set was done and they started clearing the stage, the gentleman who’d handed out the pamphlets directed our attention over to a corner off to the left, ninety degrees from the stage. The band [Oyster Destroyster](http://www.myspace.com/oysterdestroyster) had set up and was prepared to lead the crowd in the singing of some sea shanties. To describe this as utterly brilliant doesn’t begin to express how delighted I was. It gave the audience something to do between sets other than mill around looking bored as well as gave the previous and forthcoming bands a crowd distraction so we didn’t get in their way or bug them while they were trying to tear down or set up. We sang a few songs, and when we were done the next band was pretty much ready to go.

What we saw in front of us was [Senryu](http://www.myspace.com/senryu), but that doesn’t really describe it. It was two guys, a guitarist and a drummer, the first of which was wearing a cape, a pair of long-johns, and a pair of black tighty whities on the outside. His partner in crime — because he certainly didn’t look the part of a crime-fighter — was wearing a referee’s jersey. They explained that they were from Knoxville, TN, and had no idea what steampunk was, so they just started putting on clothes and that’s what they ended up with. They took a look at Wikipedia and it said something about underwear, so they figured they were good to go. They launched into set of raucous, high-energy, sometimes-psychedelic rock. They were also great, and had phenomenal stage presence and rapport with the crowd and were very well received. For their last song they brought in a bass player who was simply exceptional. They’d driven from Knoxville so I kicked a couple of bucks into their gas fund. We also bought their new CD and they threw in an EP for free. I love buying albums directly from the artists because you know they’re getting the money they deserve and it’s fun to talk to them and get a better impression of what they want their work to mean. Senryu got a great crowd response at the end of their set, and then it was on to more sea shanties while the third band prepped.

As [Lemming Malloy](http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=218722763) took the stage, we realized that the bass player from Senryu was their drummer and is an amazing musician. They had a weird blend of cutting-edge and retro sounds to their music, spread across several layers of complex interplay, and were a bit more mellow than the previous band without being even remotely sedate. They were obviously more connected to the steampunk scene as well, and their lead singer Jay Cartwright has this *awesome* [tricked-out steampunk keytar](http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=218722763&albumID=270007&imageID=15056149) that is a work of art in and of itself.

After having seen four great bands, we briefly retired to a friend’s house for an after-party and then went home and collapsed into bed. It was a wonderful night and I wish all the success in the world to both The Pinhook and the very talented artists we saw there this weekend. I certainly know I’ll be checking it out more frequently.

Hit the page, [join the list](http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldbullies/join), and let’s start a conversation.

This last weekend was really great. Friday night [Betsy](http://onlyevenprime.com/) and I just hung out. Saturday, we went over to our dear friend Kassi’s house in Wake Forest to help her celebrate her birthday. She recently came back from a London/Paris trip and had lots of amazing and beautiful pictures to show us and gifts to give. Betsy made this awesome pork chop dinner, and we watched some [Doctor Who](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/), drank some [sparkling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling_wine) [rosé](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosé) wine, and just enjoyed ourselves. Sunday was more hanging out at home with Betsy.

Monday, Kassi came over to hang out with us, and we found out that [Six Plates](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/) does half-price bottles of wine on Monday nights. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Six Plates here before, but it’s one of my favorite restaurants. The premise behind it is that there are exactly six entrée options with a menu that rotates every couple of weeks. With each entrée are paired six ideal and unique wine-by-the-glass options of wines that you’ve probably never considered trying before. [Matthew Beason](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-about-matthew-beason.html), the owner, noticed that when people went out to eat they were rarely willing to experiment with wine, so he applies his wine knowledge — which is extensive — to helping folks find new flavors and styles. Chef Ted Domville uses all local ingredients whenever possible, and it’s just a wonderful place.

Kassi and I had the Cane Creek pork chop with white “baked beans” and bok choy, and Betsy had the Braeburn Farm sirloin with caramelized sweet potatoes and tobacco onion rings. It was all amazing. We started with the cheese plate — which is brilliantly presented on a piece of slate with the cheese names written in chalk, along with fresh honey and honeycomb and some crusty bread — and a bottle of Californian rosé which was unlike any other rosé I’ve ever tried. With and after dinner, we had a pinot gris which was also simply delightful, and then we finished up with the chocolate mousse trio for desert. It’s a great place, and I absolutely recommend everyone who likes good food and good wine at reasonable prices check it out.

• TiVo HD
• TiVo Wireless G Adapter (for the old TiVo Series 2 unit in my bedroom)
• Linksys WRT54GL wireless router
• A couple more HDMI cables

I hooked up the TiVo HD to plain old basic cable for now, but Time Warner’s arriving tomorrow to set up my digital cable and give me a CableCard adapter for the TiVo. I realized I had a bunch of devices in the living room that need to be on the network, and rather than put all of them on the wireless individually — which, in some cases would require purchasing an additional wireless adapter for the device — I could just get the Linksys router, slap the awesome and free Tomato third-party firmware on it, disable the routing functionality, and set it up as a wireless bridge to my main wireless router. Then I can just plug things in to the LAN ports on the “router” in the living room and they appear to be on the same network as the rest of my LAN. Neat stuff. I also finally put an 802.11g adapter on my older TiVo, which means I can shut off the 802.11b network that I was running solely for its needs.

Here are some photos:

I’m looking forward to enjoying this thing for a very long time.  Here are some photos:

Today, however, I had the sublime experience of being able to return their parking permit to them. I was paying about $30 per month to park in the decks here at [American Tobacco](http://www.americantobaccohistoricdistrict.com/), and that’s something I no longer need now that I both walk to work and am provided two permits — one for each bedroom in my apartment — by the leasing office. That’s around $360 a year I’ll be glad to have back.

I drove out to [Legends](http://www.legends-club.com/) in Raleigh last night to see a [dear, dear friend](http://bejipan.livejournal.com/) off before she moves to Atlanta. I’m going to miss her, and I got in pretty late because I didn’t want to leave the club. This morning I awoke with a headache — which isn’t uncommon for me after not getting enough sleep — and one of the construction people was in the courtyard alternately banging and circular-sawing. The joys of living in a construction zone. I can handle headaches; I can handle noise. But the two of them together? Ugh. I’m looking forward to an evening in, and getting to bed early.