On the 3rd of July, LeMars held a downtown concert at a new performance stage. The Knack was playing! Jake, Brian, DJ, and I went. It was a good rock show, but as with all these sorts of things, it was depressing as well. You know, the "Puppet Show and Spinal Tap" sort of thing: Old guys playing rock; disinterested people idly watching.

It also sort of bummed me out that The Knack never took off after "My Sharona." There's so many of those great mid-to-late-70's power-pop bands that should have been long-lasting international superstars, but never were (i.e. The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Big Star, etc.). You can also see this with a lot of great current power-pop groups that don't get the respect they deserve (i.e. Superdrag, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, etc.).

This always surprises me, too, because everybody's favorite band (The Beatles) started off basically as a power-pop band. It's obvious that everybody loves power-pop. Why don't they show it more often? Jerks.

Survivor was playing after The Knack, but we left. Who cares about Survivor?

Instead, we went to "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." Maybe it was my initial lowered expectations, but I thought the movie was awesome. Throughout it, I was jumping and shrieking and laughing and cheering. Goddamn. One part has The Terminator firing a gun with one hand... and holding a casket in the other! Yeah. It's that good. Death to "The Matrix Reloaded." Long live the new flesh of "Terminator 3."

4th of July was... whatever. It rained, so we didn't get to watch "Skyshow" (LeMars' fireworks display) at the fairgrounds like we've done for the past 10 years or so. Annually, my friends and I go to the fairgrounds (that's where they fire off the fireworks), wearing red, white, and blue. We yell out patriotic slogans every time a firework goes off and generally act obnoxious. A lot of LeMartians are there. We ruin their time.

This year, we made signs to hold up during "Skyshow." They said stuff like "Fireworks!" and "An Eagle" and "Hy-Vee!" Unfortunately, we never got to use them.

Today, I bought a zebra finch for the movie. Shooting with Karen Schroeder (my former high school teacher) begins on Monday.