Took the summer off mostly. Sorry about that, MLD. I return to tell you of a culinary adventure embarked upon by yours truly and Mrs Lydonwrites, namely our anniversary dinner at the Victor Cafe in South Philly.

The Victor Cafe is situated at 1301 Dickinson St and is a converted row house (like many fine eateries) in this fair city. The food is Italian cuisine, mostly southern Italian, featuring some usual suspects in chicken, veal and fish dishes, with specials made daily by the chef. You don’t see what you like, chances are you can order up something special from the kitchen. Mrs Lydonwrites had a tortelloni in a cream sauce with asparagus and prosciutto, while I had the Linguine Calamari Faust, which was a fancy way of saying linguine fra diavolo. Why do it that way? Well…

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So I haven’t bought a lot of new music lately, probably because I’m behind the times and have been busy, but that changed this past weekend. I picked up 3 discs for 9.99 each at FYE, which, incidentally, is the least I’ve paid at FYE for cds ever. Here we go with some short and sweet:

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As you probably DON’T know. Lady Gaga is performing on the Today show, today. Actually right now. It’s a record turn out for the Today Show Toyota Concert Series. Nearly 20,000 people at their last count. People slept on the street for this event. Of course, with my sleepless night, I was up in time, so I have coverage.   Read more of this article »

I’ve been meaning to write about this record for over a month, but I guess I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. There’s no doubt that when the songs are good, they’re great. From what I can gather, the band is made up of a bunch of nerds from North Jersey and is named after Shakespeare’s play. The record is full of Civil War themes including clips of recited speeches from the era crossed with seemingly anachronistic references to modern ideas like cars. I often describe the record as Civil War punk, but punk doesn’t really accurately describe the diversity of their sound. The lyrics tend to be appropriately angst-filled but that angst is often hidden behind fun sing-a-long chants like “The enemy is everywhere!” and “You will always be a loser!” The whole package is nothing if not interesting.

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It must be something about the Lehigh Valley. I ended up in the same shopping center where I first heard this story over a month ago and finally got to find out how it ends as soon as I walked into a store. It turns out she’s with the skater boy and she’ll be backstage after the show. She’ll also be in the studio singing the song he wrote about the girl he used to know. Which is strange because she’s actually singing a song she wrote about the boy she used to know. Sometimes she sends me spam comments.

Also, I’ll never understand the interpersonal dynamics of women like those I witnessed where I heard this song today. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but women often don’t like each other for seemingly no reason.