Omaha was...interesting. We got there on friday night at about seven, checked into our hotel, which was pretty nice. Mark got some drink tickets for the "manager's reception" or some such shit, so he brought two cranberry juice/coke/vodka things up to the room. They were very very very heavy on the vodka. So we drank those and walked down the hill to the nearby grocery store, where we purchased a sixpack of Rolling Rock and a sixpack of Stoli Citrona. Which, incidentally, is fucking yummy. We ordered some pizza, drank, watched tv, and went to sleep.

Saturday:

Got up, ate complementary breakfast, showered, and went down to the "Old Market" area to shop and stuff. I wanted to hit up the Antiquarium first, but our way was blocked by some weird St. Patrick's Day parade. So we went to a different record shop, and that parade ended. We finally got to the Antiquarium, where I bought The Faint - Blank-Wave Arcade on pretty white vinyl and a nice Nick Cave poster. I was happy. We ate some lunch at the Garden Cafe, where our waiter was a cockface and we discussed the sad sad phenomena known as "scenesters". Because Omaha, apparently, is made up almost entirely of them. Scary, really. Anyway, we walked around some more and came upon a peace rally!

"Huzzah!" we thought. It was supposed to end where we we at, but kids kept marching through about 8 blocks of Old Market, blocking traffic and dancing in the streets, before returning to the main group (we jumped in with them, of course ^_^ ). When we arrived back at the little park the main rally was at, cops on horses were waiting. It got ugly. The cops started yelling at people and telling everyone to disperse out of the park (which is bullshit, because it's fucking public property, and Mark and I, for one, were just hanging out). They started arresting people, and some kids ran. One of the girls who ran got caught by a horse cop, who dragged her by her backpack for a way and smashed her into a wall. Mark saw some kid get clubbed with a nightstick. I'd never seen cops actually act like that before.

i know people were taking pictures, so i'll link them when i find some.

it was on the news and stuff.

anyway. then we walked back to the car and chilled at the hotel before going over to the sokol at about 6:30. Doors for the Desaparecidos/Cursive show turned out not to open til 8:30, and so we hung out outside the Sokol for a FUCKIN LONG FUCKIN TIME. Finally, the doors opened. The show was in the Auditorium, which is larger than I'd thought. Sorry About Dresden got stuck in Indiana and had to cancel, so Small Brown Bike played first. They were thouroughly mediocre.

Desaparecidos took forever to get onstage. The wait, however, was well worth it. They opened with Manana, went into (i think) What's New For Fall, then Greater Omaha, then Happiest Place on Earth, then (i think) Man and Wife the Latter, then Mall of America, and i can't for the life of me remember what the last song was, because i was completely hoarse. Conor's guitar fucked up during the last song though, so he grabbed the mic, started running around the stage like Cedric from fucking At the Drive In, destroyed the drumset, and otherwise went completely crazy. It was fucking amazing. You should have been there.

We skipped out on Cursive. I was tired, I've seen them before, and I was getting claustrophobic from all the people.

Walking to the car, we passed by Conor sitting outside around the side of the building. He looked tired.

We went back to the hotel, watched Iron Chef, and went to sleep.

Sunday: got up, ate complementary breakfast, checked out of hotel, drove home.