The Smashing Pumpkins were great for 2 hours with half of the original band and three newbies rockin' the Fillmore with songs old and new. Billy took time out to sing a song he wrote that day. And the crowd generally had a good time. That was until the show stretched to 2.5 hours. With a half hour jam session that dragged on and on and one song in the encore, it wasn't the ending I would've envisioned, but going up to see them was still well worth it.

Also worth it was the Simpsons movie. My only quibble with it was that most, if not all, of the funny jokes were already seen in the trailers and the promo clips, defusing the buzz that surrounded the movie. Great seeing them on the big screen though.

According to simpsonizeme.com, this is what I'd look like as a Simpsons character. Not Asian at all, but the program's still pretty cool and I am Simpsons yellow.

Two music notes:

I've listened to the Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist CD all week in the car. I really like the first half...pure Pumpkins, songs you can listen to over and over again. Tarantula's great, 7 Shades of Black and That's the Way My Love Is are awesome. The last half is kinda iffy. Not a big fan of United States or Pomp and Circumstances but Neverlost has its moments. Maybe seeing them live will make me a fan of these songs. That's next Tuesday, the 24th.

Garbage is out with a best-of CD along with a new single. That comes out tomorrow.

Without spoiling too much, lemme say that "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is a bit underwhelming. The storyline revolving around Dolores Umbridge goes on far too long to keep me interested while the ending, the only worthwhile part to watch, feels rushed. I've liked the series' turn to darkness, especially in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" but there is too much of it here in the literal and figurative sense that you're being pounded with the same message over and over again...Lord Voldemort is coming. Yes, we heard you the first time. All in all, it's worth watching to see the further development of Harry Potter, but don't expect to be entertained with fancy spells and fast Quidditch matches.

The rest of the few pics I have are on Flickr.

After Transformers let out at 10:30 pm Monday, I had 6 hours before I had to leave for my flight to Chicago. Unless you try to stay awake the whole time, one should not try this. I was dead tired walking onto the plane. I don't know how I made it, but I'm glad I did.

Airport security was tight but caused me no problems, with the exception of my checked bag being "randomly chosen" for inspections for all 3 legs of my trip. The plain black bag must have scared the shit out of them. O'Hare was actually the best airport with no lines to speak of. Walked in and wondered what to do with all the time I set aside.

In a preview of things to come at Jon's wedding, the San Jose-Chicago leg of the trip was spent with about 60 Christians headed to Illinois for vacation. Once that seatbelt light turned off, the whole plane seemed to rise in unison to socialize. It got so bad, the pilots needed to turn the light back on. However, 4 short hours later, I'm there. Well, gotta wait another 3 hours on a bus to Madison to see Jeanette, so 7 short hours later, I'm there. Boy, it was muggy. Highs in the 80s and pretty humid. I'd rather have Vegas' 118 degrees than this.

As you might expect, people move to a different beat up in the Midwest. Madison's big tourist spots are the capitol and the nearby lake. And that's about it. The wind at that lake was crazy. As the capital of the state and a college town, things were rather empty for the summer recess since everybody was on vacation. The few people left were drinking beer. Whether it is quality brews or Pabst Blue Ribbon, beer was being consumed in large quantities. The beer did make "Black Snake Moan" a little bit more bearable, but still it's just an okay movie. Every scene with Justin Timberlake is a laugh riot since he has to cry in every scene he's in.

After a few minutes of depression in the morning (the light in Jeanette's bathroom was so bright, you could see where my future bald spot will be), it was off to Chicago with Jeanette, Hai and Andrew. The day was modeled after Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Okay, there wasn't a Ferrari but a Chevy Cavalier. No French food but there were French Fries at McDonalds. The game was with the White Sox instead of the Cubbies. No Art Institute or parade but we did listen to "Twist and Shout" in the car. Sears Tower was good. It's amazing what you can see 103 stories up. Wrigley Field had that classic look I remember watching on TV. And the Orioles beat the White Sox, which only happened because I was there, right?

The 4th of July in Chicago probably showcases the best of the city because after the fireworks display at the baseball game, you walk out with a great view of the entire city skyline ablaze in more fireworks. It was a great sight. What wasn't a great sight? Two drunk guys coming up to me to compliment my Office shirt, the third such encounter that day. But this particular one concluded with a pat on the back and a slap on the ass, so I'll file that one under weird.

Thursday meant a flight to Vegas to meet up with my brother among other people. We stayed at the Westin Casaurina, a nice, out-there hotel that never got too crowded, especially in the casino, making for a pleasant experience. Since I'm still writing this, I was not involved in the shooting at the New York New York casino. I stayed up until 4 gambling on slots and blackjack. Blackjack I was in for $120 and was down to $10 before a rally got me back up to $250 before retreating to $170, making for a $50 win.

I'd never played blackjack with my brother but this is his strategy, which I had never seen used before. If the dealer is showing a 6 or less, more often than not, he's going to bust. So if my brother also had 11 or less, he would double his bet every time, essentially betting on the dealer to bust. It sounds crazy but it worked for him all night.

I got back late Friday night just to wake up on 7/7/7 for Jon's wedding. The ceremony was at 10 so I needed to leave by 7 to get to Placerville and to pick up Hai and Claire along the way. I had my GPS with me, but if you know those things, they'll steer you toward the shortest route, not necessarily the best route. So the GPS had us going up steep inclines and declines and on dirt and rocky roads. Not the best of drives especially when 10 miles down, it's all pavement to the bride's parents' house where the ceremony was taking place.

It was a nice and simple wedding that ended with Jon and Rosemary walking down the aisle to the theme from "Star Wars". And that was pretty much my weekend. It was the drive back from Sacramento where fatigue really hit me. Apparently, I dozed off on 101 around Tully since a car swerved behind me when I slowed to 40. At least I was driving straight. In any case, that woke me up enough to get me home, so that on Sunday, I rested.

First off, the Smashing Pumpkins' new CD is being streamed on AOL.

"Transformers" first and foremost aspires to satisfy people who thought highly of it years ago. The screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are becoming veterans at it with Mission: Impossible under their belt and Star Trek in the near future. And for the fans, they should be satisfied by the rock'em, sock'em nature of machines that are more than meets the eye doing battle. But the movie as a whole is a disappointment and it's mostly because of the "primitive" humans as Megatron describes them. After a thrilling opening scene to demonstrate the power of the Decepticons, the film degenerates into a bunch of eBay jokes and awkward one-liners by Shia LeBeouf to gain the affection of the admittedly attractive Megan Fox. Soon, the aliens are fully introduced and finally the movie has some cohesiveness, highlighted by Optimus Prime rallying the troops. But treating humans as though they could be equals in the fight between Autobots and Decepticons is absurd. It contributes heavily toward the muddled final 30 minutes until the situation is resolved and we're left wondering what just happened.

Wild fact of the night: Darius McCrary, Eddie Winslow himself from "Family Matters", voices Jazz.

A little sleep and I'll be on a flight from SJC starting at 6:30 am. I'll update by Wednesday night at the latest...I think.