118 days, but who's counting?

If you've been reading our blog very long, you've probably picked up on the fact that I'm a bit of a U2 fan. (OK,OK, before Carrie calls me out on this, I'm literally a card-carrying member of the fan club.) It all started when I "borrowed" my brother's dubbed copy of "Under a Blood Red Sky" in the sixth grade—since then, I've gone from requesting "Sunday Bloody Sunday"at elementary school skate parties to flying cross country just to spend my birthday sitting outside sports arenas in hopes of scoring prime concert tickets (I did).

It's an illness, and at times—like right now—the symptoms are more severe than others. You see, there's a new album on the way, and while I've been following the band's progress on it for the past year or so (what did dorks like me do before the Internet?) last week I came across a rumored release date (November 18) which means the countdown has unofficially begun. My once-every-third-year Christmas is just around the corner. It's only a matter of time before I will be standing outside some Best Buy—or whichever store the UPS man hits first—hoarded gift card in hand waiting for the doors to open.

See, I told you I was sick.

But that's four months away you say, what are you going to do in the meantime? Well, I'm happy to say I won't be waiting in silence. Today marked the release of remastered versions of the band's first three albums, which included bonus material—among it a few songs I've never heard before. So, for me, today was the equivalent of a kid getting to open his stocking on Christmas Eve—except Santa's not coming for another four months.