I refuse to grow out of certain things:

Cartoons? They’re the only thing on TV worth watching!

Eating cereal right out of the box? The stuff should be treated the same as a bag of potato chips!

Jumping down stairs? That’s how I plan on dying.

On that list as well is the band New Found Glory, or as the purists call them A New Found Glory, or as the fans call them NFG, or as they called themselves on stage Saturday night A New Found Glory.

My iTunes file directory is frowning at me right now.

Still, after all these years, I can’t stop liking the punk pop band that taught me how to hop around AND play power chords at the same time. Before New Found Glory came along, I thought the only song using the C, G, A, F chord progression was “Dammit” by Blink 182. But I was dead wrong. Then “Hit or Miss” brought me back to life.

Thus, the zombified, high school-er me became a fan of an actual band. There have been flirtations with the phenomenon. I had all of the BareNaked Ladies discography and I liked Surf Ninjas because of its subtle tributes to The Beach Boys, but never before had I bought tour shirts. Never before had I bought DVD documentaries.

NFG is a big deal to me.

And I got to see them live on Saturday with buddy and music writer, Joe Pelone. Doubts I had about myself still being able to enjoy something like a pop punk show evaporated quickly as I found myself remembering all the words to songs I hadn’t heard in years.

Not to say the show was perfect.

The dudes are older and slower. Jordan doesn’t sing as high as he used to but his voice breaks the same amount. They were opening for Dashboard Confessional, who I’m only in the mood to hear when I’m too depressed to listen to music. Plus it was a dang acoustic show. Punk rock acoustic show! They did some fun things with alerted versions of certain songs to fit the instruments, a piano ballad-y “My Friends Over You” stood out to me, but the rest was a little phoned in. If you’re going to phone something in, it needs electricity! That’s basic science, NFG!

New Found Glory will always be one of those bands that I like. No excuses. Even when they release an album as bad as Coming Home and even when their self titled album is being re-released for the 10th anniversary and makes me feel a jillion years old I will be a fan.

Wait.

Ten years? Seriously? I’m going to be spiking my ear hair before their next show at this rate.

P.S. – Is it bad form to do a music video for a song about domestic abuse in a MMA setting?

Yeah, might be bad form.

Tags: concert, Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory

Being sick is a chance to slow things down. To take a look around. To realize what’s really important.

Wool socks.

It is my belief that I am making no exaggeration when I say wool socks are the most important thing in the world. Now, maybe it’s because when I am ill I become incapable of thinking about things which aren’t dangling off my immediate body or… or maybe I’m becoming my father.

My dad has asked for wool socks every Christmas I can remember. When Christmas day comes he gets always gets at least one pair and gleefully lets everyone in attendance know his stance on cold feet.

“There is nothing worse.”

I have one dang pair. ONE. One not-very-thick-in-fact-maybe-a-little-on-the-thin-side pair of wool socks. This is not cutting it.

“There is nothing worse.”

These socks are only suitable for display.

How did I get sick? Ooooh you know, only sacrificing my body for my friends by participating in a Dance-A-Thon. Probably in support of H1N1. We raised a lot of money for that widdle disease and I’m sure it’ll make us proud.

It seems somewhere between eating greasy pizza, dancing my heart out to Backstreet Boys and returning for more greasy pizza I contracted a deadly illness.

I say “deadly” because my face is leaking fluids I don’t see regularly (presumably they operate in the background, keeping my eyeballs and lack of a proper nose functioning.) I can only guess how important these fluids are (My Guess: THE MOST IMPORTANT) and thus must announce my probably demise.

Luckily, I have a back up plan. I’ve been leaving behind my DNA in hopes of being cloned. I how this water spilling from my nose will do the trick. To be safe, I’m collecting it in tissues for easy identification by the scientists.

Yet, I’ve run out of tissues. I’ve been forced to find other means of disposing of my face juice. One of my two wool socks has already been used which leaves only one remaining.

I have no more.

“There is nothing worse.”

Tags: backstreet boys, dance-a-thon, ill, sick, socks