I'm blogging from Jessica's computer in Denton, which feels strange, since I'm technically on tour. Being here now makes it feel like I never left two and a half months ago. We drove here right after the show in Austin last night. Whitney did a crazy amount of driving over the course of the last couple of days, so it's good that he's got an entire day to pretty much rest up before the show. There are several computers here, so we can spend lots of time working on booking the three weeks of shows we're adding in July and August. We're going to finally go up to Canada. If you can help with shows east of Toronto, please e-mail us.

We tested our PA for the first time yesterday, and it does work. One of the speakers was completely punctured, so we're down one speaker, and none of it looks very pretty, but at least it functions properly. We're still going to try to get it replaced, though. Why should we have to deal with a PA that is less than perfectly functional, just because some drunk kid decided to drive into our trailer?

We're down to only six people in our entourage. We dropped Benni (one of our friends from Germany who was along on the entire tour) off at the Greyhound station in Tucson the other day. It was sad to see him go, but we understand that he wants to see the U.S. from a non-touring perspective. Where we didn't have time to see the Grand Canyon or the Redwood Forest (this time), he will. We wish him the best of luck and hope to see him really soon, though.

Breakfast time!

The last few days have been very interesting for us. Not only did we pay through our noses (I don't even want to say how much) to get the transmission repaired on the van, but we had to drop Lack off at the airport last night, only to come back and see that a drunk driver hit our trailer while it was parked on the street. The worst part is that the only reason the trailer was parked on the street was that we had to get the van repaired, and subsequently rent a U-Haul truck in order to get to our show in Anaheim. Luckily, the show was one of the best ones of our entire tour. A ton of people showed up, and for some reason, we have some ticketmaster tickets that just say "FORSTELLA FORD at Chain Reaction". We thought that was pretty funny.

We've got the van back now (it runs great), and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get money for the trailer and the PA that was inside, which appears to be broken. The PA head is definitely in several pieces, and the speakers look pretty messed up as well. The driver of the car was underage, extremely drunk, and insisting that a> he has insurance and b> his mom is going to be really pissed. Indeed!

Considering all of this, we're still in high spirits. We're looking forward to just continuing the tour, even if we have to go without Lack, who were extremely generous and helped us out with the repair cost, even though they could've easily left and said "sucks to be you guys". It was an amazing honor to have them here with us, and I hope they left with a feeling that this experience was a good one. Obviously, it's not as good as touring in Europe could be, but it's definitely not a horrible experience, either.

Oh, sure, update with bad news and make it seem like tour isn't going really well. Despite the last entry, tour has been going amazing. We don't really seem to find much time to go online, but it doesn't really bother me. There are enough other things to do that it doesn't really matter. We're currently in Santa Cruz, where the weather is amazing and the classic rock bands are even better. haha. That probably doesn't make much sense, unless you're here. We're very close to the boardwalk amusement park, where they have Friday night concerts. Tonight was the "classic rock all stars". Some guy from that band Cannibal and the Headhunters was in the band that played tonight. Never heard them? Me neither, but they do that "na na na na na na na na na na na na na" song. Maybe you know that one?

We only have a few more days left with Lack, which is disappointing, but we're going to carry on. In fact, we've lengthened our tour, but news on that is still forthcoming.

The news about full stacks is true, though Whitney prefers that we just use the term "stack", not full stack. Full stack makes it sound like too much, when really "half stack" is just too little!

Anyway, I must be off. I trust that this update will suffice and that the matter can be considered closed.

i will update this with news....

"we had a super shitty show yesterday. we didn't even play, because it was so shitty. we have been on tour for almost a month now, and this is the first time we've ever had as how where only like 5 people showed up. oh yeah, we have full stacks now. it sounds fucking SWEET. guitars don't feed back or sound shitty, and it looks cool in a funny sort of way."

take care!
-mark

Well, we had our first day off yesterday, but it wasn't because of a show falling through. At least, not in the usual sense. We showed up to Mr. Roboto Project in Pittsburgh, and everyone was standing outside in the rain. We couldn't really figure out why, but we assumed that no one had been there to unlock the doors and that the show hadn't started yet. Well, what really happened is that because of the storm, the power had gone out on that block, and they were standing outside because it was really dark inside. We stood around for a few hours, hoping the power would come back on, but it never did. Actually, just as Pg.99 were driving away to the "replacement" show, the power went back on, but then a loud booming sound was heard as another transformer blew out. We still managed to get paid (pretty well) from the door, thanks to some generous people who didn't ask for their money back. That helped out a lot, since we had to fill our gas tank three times that day.

We're still going to have a day off in Milwaukee, though. We tried to get the Globe, and several other venues, and nothing worked out. Some shitty Drive-Thru records band is having a show at the Globe, and I forgot what was up with every other place. We didn't feel like setting up a last-minute house show, just for the sake of playing, because we can definitely use the day off. We've still played 20 shows in 20 days, even with one day off, which is pretty unheard of for us.

Anyway, I guess that's all there is to say. We're having a great time still, and we're excited for Martin (the long-haired German) to come over and join the tour on the 9th.