Friday, May 16, 2008

With no regard to chronological order...

The Flyers won last night to stay in the playoffs. We've had fun watching the games and rooting for our underdog. They are down the Stanley Cup semi-finals 3-1 in whats being called the "Pennsylvania Civil War" with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but we're thrilled with how they've done considering that they weren't expected to even make the playoffs and are now missing their top two defensemen. Its always fun when your team works best under adversity and pressure.

We went to a Phillies game. They were playing the Padres. I commented to Maggie that I think this might be the first time in my life that I've gone to a baseball game and the home team that I have gone to see has actually won! It was "dollar dog night," and many hot dogs were enjoyed. (Oh, and by the way: it's true what they say about Phillies fans. Hint: its not "they are nice and civil." It would have taken the two of us to count on our hands how many fans we saw thrown out of the game.)

We saw Spoon in concert (with openers The Walkmen) at The Electric Factory. Maggie and I have been huge fans of Spoon for some time now, and relied heavily on their latest album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" to get us through the long drives to and from Philadelphia during the move. The show was unbelievable - best live performance I've seen both in stage presence and musicianship. Their set spanned 5 albums and clocked in at over 1.5 hours, which was a show of endurance and the quality of their catalog. What made it even better was that our friend Emily, whom Maggie met in Spain and lives in Philly now, met us at the show. It was a blast hanging out with her.

We also made the quick jog down to the greater DC area to visit Maggie's cousin Terry and other family for the twins' birthday. For those who remember, these are the little premature twins that Maggie nannied for. This weekend was a blast, seeing family, hanging out with little kids who are too smart for their own good, and relaxing away from home.

I've had a chance to do a lot of reading, which I love. Having studied literature in college, you'd think I would have gotten my fair share of reading in, but its an entirely different thing reading for pleasure than reading for class. On my reading list: The New Yorker, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky (Read it NOW! It both gives an intimate look into the volatile political state swinging from Socialism to Communism in Czechoslovakia and also an intimate look into what it means to be human), The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (Reading this currently. I loved the first half of it but now its turning a bit labored and misguided), and various personal finance titles.
We've also watched several great movies. One that I would say Maggie and I both found side-splitting was Woody Allen's Bananas. Between books and DVDs, we've been keeping Upper Moreland Free Library very busy.

Oh yeah, and I graduated from college.

































We hope you are having a nice Spring!

P.S. Leave us a comment to let us know that you are keeping up with us. Hmmmm... give us a movie recommendation.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey guys! Glad to see and hear that you are having such a wonderful experience. Any chance you'll be back for a visit come October?

We miss you!

:)Annie (and Jeremy)

Unknown said...

Hey glad to hear you guys are enjoying Philly! and keeping busy to it seems!

Kristina said...

i guess i should pay better attention as to who is logged in... dc is davids log in not mine! lol anyways hope your summer is going great! - Kristina

Jeremy Benson said...

Brad and Maggie,

1. why dont the flyers spell it with a ph? you know, for philly?

2. this was months ago.

3. I've read 4 Murakami novels, and am just getting into a collection of short stories. I enjoyed Wind-Up Bird chronicle the best, i think, but the short story its based on didnt stand up to my memory of it. Maybe its a translation thing?

4. Im in Madrid with Laura. she says hello.

5. movie recommendation: search for "flea market montgomery" on youtube and watch the long version.

Jeremy Benson said...

i own the Bass Saxophone but i've only read Ëmoke, the first story. Both of them are much slower reads than Engineer of Human Souls.

ill check out la cuevas.