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This is going to be a short entry, because I am just to about to go to a group meeting, and my parents are in town, so I'm running around like a crazy person. But I need to make you aware of some important facts!

Number 1! Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous have released two new mega-hits! You may have already heard over on Tom's blog-o-sphere, but have recorded two recently custom party songs (because, as you know, we write a new song for every party where we play!). The first song, Come With Me Iff You Want to Live, is about how in the future, man is at war with robots, and how a universal health care plan is man's last line of defense. We wrote it for a party at Gabe's house. The next song, Hurricane Dan (2006), is about a Hurricane. Specifically Hurricane Daniel, which hit Hawaii. We wrote it for Katrina's graduation party. It rocks, if I do say so myself!

Also, I am leaving for Italy on Saturday. I am super jazzed. I am going to Genoa for a conference (ECOOP, where I have a workshop paper, and another paper that I co-authored). Should be a blast. I am also going to travel around just a little bit after the conference is over, so wish me fun. I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

Just in case that you doubt we played Art All Night at 10:30am, now there are pictures to prove it. Thankspepperedjane!

Oh man, this weekend was really busy, but really fun. Those of you around Pittsburgh know that the weather was unbearably nice, and everyone was outside with their dogs and gardens and iced coffees and whathaveyous.

Friday night I joined some Pitt students who were celebrating the end of their semester. Thanks to the weather, a normal party turned into a porch party, which was quite a bit of fun. Only problem? I didn't get home until like two, even though...

The next morning I woke up at 9 or so for the 11am Urban Hike. It was the first one of the season! We were in the Mt. Oliver/Allentown area. That's sort of in between the south side slopes and Mt. Washington. It was really nice mostly due to the weather, but there was a good crowd, a couple people brought their dogs, and we even discovered a new park, Grandview Park, with great elevated views of downtown.

Than night, a Sick Ridiculous concert! We played at a party for our friend Cortney's birthday. The sound was really good for a party, and the fact that we had an extremely audience resulted in a large amount of fun being had by me and Tom. Thanks to those of you who were there. We wrote a new song about universal heath care and time traveling robots called, "Come with me if you want to live."

Today, we had another Sick Ridiculous show, this time at Lawrenceville's Art All Night. While the crowd wasn't quite what I heard it was the night before, it was surprisingly good for 10:30am. I did think our playing suffered a bit. I think we need more warmup or something, but it took about 15 minutes before we were clicking and sounding decent. Thanks DOUBLE if you made it out this am.

Then, lunch of Dim Sum, afternoon backyard sitting and dinner at the Grand Concourse in Station Square. I will go pass out now!

Check out the Waffle Shop web site right now to see the cool dudes who are on the front. Then go to the "About" section to see yourself (at least if you went to the show). 

Check out some pictures from the Waffle Shop Show! Someone who works there took some (that's drxiv) and Tom took some too.

Update:
Hey! Turns out drxiv doesn't actually work at the Waffle Shop, but is rather a CMU grad student just like me! Still, thanks!

Last night's show at the Waffle Shop went really well! Thanks to those of you who made it out, we hope you had a great time. And as always, no guilt to those of you who didn't make it. Our bylaws explicitly prohibit the guilt-tripping of our own friends!

Technically, the show went okay. We thought it sounded pretty good, and definitely better now that Tom has a new guitar with a built-in pickup. However nothing beats professionally managed sound, like that that we received at the Lava Lounge. When we're doing the sound ourselves, it kind of hard to tell about the overall volume, mix, etc.

But fun-wise, the show was great. I think the Waffle Shop is a great place to play, we got interviewed, we got to debut our own custom waffle, Twix Ridiculous and the Sick Bisquik-ulous, a waffle with baked-in Twix candy bars, and there was a great turn-out. I think this may have been the most people they ever had at the Waffle Shop, based on the way that the people working there were taking pictures. Actually, that would make plenty of sense since normally people won't come in if all the tables are occupied (they were) but they will come in if there is a band playing, even if there is no more available room (they did)!

Pretty soon we should have some pictures up, and a little bit later we may even have a link to our interview. You see the Waffle Shop is some kind of reality TV show on the Internet, and as part of our performance there was a bandatory interview. WAFFLE SHOP!

 Let's say this weekend you're walking around East Liberty, minding your own business when all of a sudden you realize, "Man, I am so hungry right now. I sure could use some sugar and startch!" And let's say that you also happen to like music of a, let's say, Business Casual variety. Well it would be to your advantage to walk into the Waffle Shop at 11:15 for a Sick Ridiculous & the Sick Ridiculous show, wherein you will also be served waffles by the friendly patrons.

It's Saturday night, we are the only band, and it's free, save for the money you spend on a waffle. But considering the one time I went there I spent like two bucks on a waffle and another dollar on my hot chocolate, I think you will leave satisfied. 

Special things: We may have a custom waffle. We will have a new song.

Don't forget (if you ever knew in the first place) that tomorrow, Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous will be playing at the Lava Lounge which is on the south side. It should be rad. Here's the full recap, and more details can be found here, here and here.

Last night Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous played a party; the CS CMU Open House Weekend After-Party. The party was great. There were tons of people. And while our set started off a bit rocky, eventually we got it together and made something good happen. This included our final, and newest song, OPENHO~1.MID, a ode to Open House Weekend. I encourage you to go out right now and download it for free at the following uniform resource location: 

http://www.last.fm/music/Sick+Ridiculous+and+The+Sick+Ridiculous/Custom+Party+Music/OPENHO~1.MID

To those of you who showed up and cheered us on, thanks!

There are some great pictures from last night's gig, thanks to Tom, Tom's Camera and Brendan (who was taking pictures while we played). Click on this picture and it will take you to the whole roll. They look pretty great!

Success! Our show went pretty well last night.

I really want to thank any of you guys who came out, especially people that came but that I didn't really get a chance to talk to because I was being a big shot rock n' roll jerk. We didn't end up going on until like ten so it was great that so many people showed up. More people to talk to, and (I hope) people weren't quite as bored waiting as they might have been.

We also made a little bit of money, which was a total surprise to us. But don't worry. At SR&SR we like to spread the wealth, and we have a plan for reinvesting every penny we made back into our fans. We're keeping it a secret for now, but it's going to be great!

Just one last reminder: If you're making weekend plans, you might want to include Satuday night at the Smiling Moose, on Carson Street. Sick Ridiculous is in fact having their first gig.  

Last night Tom and I did a little bit of flyering. It was really cold, so I can't say that it was extremely fun, but considering that it was only three days before our gig and we hadn't really put up any flyers at all, we felt we had to do it. Big props to places like the Beehive and Starbucks who actually let you put up posters. I was actually a little nervous while doing this because of the time in college when Rand and I got busted by a cop for putting up flyers.

There's also been a last minute change to the line-up. The band Olympus Mons will no longer be playing with us on Saturday, and instead we'll be joined by Pittsburgh's own Big Hurry. This is actually pretty rad since I have seen Big Hurry now like two or three times and enjoyed it. They are like some indie disco rock type of music. Bummer about Olympus Mons though. Their music sounds pretty rad.

 

It takes a special band to make their first video before their first gig. We are just such a band.

This weekend, instead of our normal practice, Tom decided we should record our brand new song "Is it live or is it Maxwell House," and then make a video out of it using his sweet new camera. It is here:

http://vimeo.com/2874624?pg=embed&sec=2874624

You really should check it out. Not only are we pretty proud of the song, but the video is somewhat humorous and the quality amazing, due to Tom's swank new camera. Yes, we've got HD.

Also, Steelers won so that's like a double-dose of sweet.

So the Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous concert last night did not happen. Lame.

In the end what happened was that they were unable to get confirmation from some or all of the bands before the date of the Local Artist Showcase and therefore they canceled it, but didn't really let us know or were unable to. We tried to get in touch with them in various ways, all of which failed, so we didn't actually find out this until like 7:45pm last night.

Anyway, if you went or thought about going and were disappointed by its cancellation, I am really sorry. We were disappointed too. The only thing I can say as a consolation is that we will be playing a real, live, actual, confirmed concert Saturday February 7th at the Smiling Moose (9pm, on the South Side). It's with two bands we like, Central Plains and Olympus Mons. If you come out, it would make us so happy!

Full Details

The Management

Just a reminder, Sick Ridiculous is playing a gig tomorrow night (Tuesday)!

Full details.

Thanks

Last night Pittsburgh's own, Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous played at Brianne's birthday party. We had a great time, and debuted a few (3?) new songs. We ended up playing three separate times during the night, including as late as 2am. This happened because people kept showing up, and getting upset that they had missed the music. Thank-you guys for feeding our large egos! Also, the first set was a little sub-par, due to some string-related issues. 

With any luck, we'll record a few of the new ones tomorrow, so you can hear that.

The party itself was pretty rad too!