we went to a heavy metal festival. well, we mostly thought of it as a metallica concert, but it was a festival, with a whole bunch of other bands.

and some other stuff.

anyway... I was surprised, because I enjoyed the metallica show a lot more than I expected. they're actually very good at what they do. the singer acts kind of stupid sometimes, but it was a lot less annoying than it could have been.

it was fun. half an hour before the first show we talked to this excitable australian who wasn't sure how he was going home. he had been travelling in the US for some time, and he was apparently just going with the flow the whole time. he had a beautiful tatoo of a pirate ship on his side --- he said it took seven sessions, and it was the most painful thing ever. I kept thinking it must be nice, not worrying about stuff like that.

at the end of the show, they turned on a bunch of lasers. thus I could look at these beautiful examples of turbulent transport. because there was smoke from fireworks, and the lasers showed 2D cuts of the smoke.

I guess it's not easy, trying to understand how all the pieces of someone's life fit together. sometimes it's easy, because you can say that the environment imposes something. I guess it's easier, as you get older, to want things that seem from completely different worlds. and to combine them. and to find it quite natural that you think of one when you see the other.

if you were to ask me fifteen years ago, I don't think I would say I'd go to a metallica concert. but a lot of things have changed since then. surprising amount, actually.