Trust the Ferret, the Ferret is Wise

I just got back from seeing Jonathan Coulton (his site was down during the show, but seems to be up now) with Paul and Storm at the Birchmere in Arlington.

It was fucking AWESOME. Paul & Storm, it turns out, are two of the dudes who used to be in Da Vinci's Notebook, which I didn't know. They were funny and awesome, and Jonathan Coulton was fucking awesome, and also funny. They packed the place, which was over 400 people, and there were two standing ovations and an encore of two songs.

Some highlights.
- The Birchmere is a really cool venue, and decorated all sorts of interestingly.
- Meeting up with kjatar, and his friend and friend's girlfriend, whose names I have shamefully forgotten. kjatar looks a little like Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2. Not how I expected for someone I've known online for an absurd amount of time. Also, they helped by saving us good seats.
- Paul and Storm singing their song "Opening Band" and getting to the line of not having panties thrown at them. Three sets were subsequently thrown on stage.
- One of which was a pair of men's briefs.
- One of the others of which was a minuscule thong, which Paul called an eyepatch, and said he'd have worn as an eyepatch, but his wife wouldn't have approved.
- Paul and Storm's audience participation pirate song, and the varieties of "ARRR!"s involved from the audience.
- A wiseass in the audience (not me) called out "Freebird!" and Paul and Storm played it, with a few modifications, and the audience waved their cell phones since only like two guys had lighters.
- Apparently many people in the front had coordinated to bring plush octopi and monkeys (and a jellyfish and a toucan?) to which they'd pinned $1 bills, or notes.
- One of the notes was a guy asking him to play a bachelor party in Vegas, in exchange for a room and travel fare and such.
- This led to a comment about Neil Diamond already turning the bachelor party down, which led to a really awesome singalong of "Sweet Caroline" with no preparation.
- The audience response part of "Re: Your Brains".
- Getting my CDs signed by Jonathan Coulton, who seems to be a really nice dude, and was willing to talk to a big line of fans and sign all sorts of things even though it meant he didn't get out till midnight, and overall seems a really cool dude.
- The Awesome.

More details later. Sleep now. Also later, picture.