As far as shows, you missed one hell of a rockin night with the Avett Brothers Saturday. =) glad you had a good trip. ive never been to Hawaii =(

WELCOME BACK!

Glad you had a great time.

I spent four days Pop Conning.

Wonderful, but there was some great shows this weekend -- and thankfully, Blue Scholars at the Pop Con itself!

Your photos look amazing, Kyle!

My coworker and I had grand visions of a culturally rich program and "resource fair" for the Dalai Lama event at Qwest Field. On the Seeds of Compassion website only vague descriptions were provided..."Resource fair from 11:30-", "Speakers starting at 1:" and so on. We expected hippies everywhere, as this was an event on "compassion" and perhaps a few protesters, or at least people out to make their stance heard. What better way to invoke change for Tibet than with a Dalai Lama event?

What we were presented with instead was a "resource fair" of "Enroll your kid in our EXCELLENT academy TODAY!", "We provide you with tips on how to be a BETTER parent!" and so on and so on. Nothing about Tibet, nothing culturally rich; in fact, it was more like a watered down, Americanized Dalai-lite event safe for the suburban moms--who were precisely the main ones in attendance. Nary was there a hippie to be seen! It was crazy the lack of counterculture in the crowd. They were even serving food from the concession stands. What was this, a football game?!

The speeches, presented by guest speakers like Christine Gregoire, were totally just ass-kissing to the Dalai Lama, or perhaps contests to see who could use the word "compassion" the most in their allotted time. Nothing substantial or eye-opening was really presented by these speakers, save for perhaps the guy who wanted to put the event on to alert us all to the plight of foster children.

Thus, we left. I have no idea what the Dalai Lama said, unfortunately, although it is available online. The whole vibe of the event was just not jiving for either my coworker or I. We went in expecting to be educated by one of the greatest teachers in history, but left feeling robbed by the politicians and bigwigs interested in putting such an event on their resumes.

The Cops and Lonely H played at the Salmon Bay Eagles hall in Ballard for a private party, and both bands were great, but The Cops put on a rowdy set of great rock for the lucky attendees...

Wow, that's really depressing, Elle. I could kind of tell from the people on the bus heading to see the Big DL that it was gonna suck, but wasn't really blaming the people behind the event itself -- till now.

THE COPS RULE LIVE. On a very positive note. Sometimes I wonder about the injustice of this world, when a band that kicks this much ass doesn't have a fan-base the size of The Who's.

Elle, that's so sad! I saw the Dalai Lama on monday when he came and spoke at the UW. It was quite the opposite of what you described! They were awarding him an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Human Letters) and it was all very official, but his giggly nature made it quite enjoyable. He was given plenty of time to speak (I understood most of it, he had a translator to help him with his "broken english"...) and afterwards took several questions from the audience, which gave him time to tell plenty of stories from his travels. It was great, I'm sorry your experience wasn't. :(