SCARED KIDS

I recently went to see Scary Kids Scaring Kids, a band I enjoy more than most, play what is probably their last show in Salt Lake. I have posted things about musical events I have gone to before but this was one of the better shows I have been to. As you may know based on the posts that have preceded this I find mosh pits funny and entertaining, in many cases more entertaining than the band on stage due to the silly antics that take place in there. This was particularly the case for the Scary Kids part of the event.

SKSK announced that they were breaking up the band and were going to go on a farewell tour of the country to let people that have supported them a chance to see them a final time if they wished to do so. I have seen some pretty gnarly things at shows in the wild commotion of the crowd. This show had my three of my new favorite moments all within about 30 minutes of each other.

Moment 3: This was not one single moment per se, but an ongoing assault that just seemed to pick on one particular girl in the crowd. Each time a pit would form I would see this small girl on the edge of the pit getting pummeled over and over. It seemed as though she wanted to be on the outside edge of the pit due to the frequency that I would see her there, but if you looked at her face you could see that she didn't want to be there. The pushing and bodies slamming against each other seemed to get her to the edge like an object rising out of vibrating sand. Eventually she was next to me and I took pity on her and tried to guard her from getting slammed. I actually ended up standing right next to her, but the inertia of the bodies going straight at her were often too much for me to stop and would end up slamming her still. There were a few times where she was knocked down and once when her phone was knocked out of her hand.

Moment 2: There was a kid that was terribly annoying that was always in the pit running around being very aggressive. The way the venue was set up was interesting. You could surf the crowd and get right up on the stage with the band. There were quite a lot of people crowd surfing and i find it quite unpleasant to be kicked in the back of the head or have a body fall on me when I am watching the band. This is what made moment particularly enjoyable for me. I was watching behind me and keeping an eye on the surfing people and the pit. I watched the annoying kid get a boost from his friends to crowd surf and as he was being lifted there was a thin spot developing in the crowd. He was tossed into the air and with no crowd support he landed on the ground. I gathered from the visual evidence around that he was not hurt very much but he did hit his head.

Moment 1: While the mosh pit was in full force there were a bunch of hardcore dancing kids. I avoid these kids because they swing limbs wildly and I have seen people leaving the pit with blood all over themselves. There was a slight lull in the pit where there was only a handful of kids in there, one was a small girl, that were dancing around and running into the people on the perimeter of the pit. The small girl ran into the guy standing next to me and said, "C'mon man, push me back." This was a mistake that I can't fathom she will make again because although the guy was a bit reluctant to push her back in he did it with quite a bit of force. This in itself is quite funny to me, but here is where moment one comes from. Right as he pushed her we both see a hardcore coming straight for her, but not just straight for her with arm swinging, straight for her with a roundhouse jumping kick. This hardcore jumped, spun, and put the sole of his shoe right on her face with force. There was a gasp from the people that had just seen this event. The hardcore felt pretty bad and stood stunned with his mouth hanging wide open as he stared at his victim lying on the floor. It is standard pit protocol to pick people up when they go down, and as such the small girl was quickly picked up. She was lifted up and asked if she was okay, she gave a nod but then stumbled, much like a fighter that had just been knocked out, into the thick crowd and vanished. The people around me were all still in shock from this, and it took her vanishing into the crowd before I could think of anything to say about it. I turned to the guy next to me that had seen the whole thing go down and asked him the only thing that I could say, "I think that is the craziest thing I have ever seen happen maybe, dude, um, did that guy just seriously roundhouse her in the nose? Jeez. Seriously, dude? Jeez." Looking back I realize that it wasn't the most intelligent thing I could have said, but if you saw what I did you would be too shocked to make a great sentence as well. I guess the point to the story is, don't ask to be pushed?

FEMALE WARIORS

Last semester I purchased 4 books from the bookstore at the University of Utah and on Amazon.com. The books cost me more than 400 dollars to buy. It was incredible to see the prices for the books that were not even a new edition. I was buying used books for over 100 dollars. I came to the conclusion that if I bought the books used for over 100 dollars that I would be able to salvage some of that expense in the selling back process.

I try to buy my books for college almost exclusively from the internet, but there are some cases where you must buy "specialized" books from the university. I hate the specialized books that are made uniquely for a single university, but that is beside my point.

In the past I have made a net profit from selling my books back to the book store at a university, or at a third party kind of book buy-back store. This was not the case last semester. I went to sell back my 4 books that were still in nearly pristine condition. I was offered an astonishingly low amount for the books.

The money maker was going to sell for about 20 dollars. The other 3 combined for about 15 dollars. I was devastated by the loss from my investment. I declined the terms of the sale and decided that I would venture to the very same place that I have grown to love over the years, Amazon.com.

I posted my money maker online. There was a considerable amount of time that was used on signing up for the ability to use the website among other things. I had to verify that I was indeed the person I claimed to be. I had to offer a credit card number. As you can see there was a considerable cost that was included with this process.

The book sold today for 30 dollars. That $30 has a percentage taken from it from amazon.com so that they make money. I was aware of that percentage when I signed up to sell my book. I chose to do what I did.

Now we can get to my hate. I find it incredible that we have such a system that it is impossible to expect to resale your books from college for anywhere close to 50 percent of what you buy them for. I don't like to buy text books.

Although I made more money on the book than I would have without Amazon.com it is unlikely that I will use that service again soon. If anyone is interested in owning some text books let me know. One is about sports economics, one is statistics, and one is about the banking system and money. I will give them away to a good home.

Signed,

Hater