Category: Uncategorized

dammit.

so last night, neil and i went to see the flaming lips, but due to some misjudgments on the set times, we showed up right in the middle of their first song. not terrible, right? we heard ‘race for the prize’ as we were walking up, so it wasn’t like we missed a huge part of the show. i felt bad, but not awful. but then i read this spin recap this morning:

The concert began, naturally enough, with the Flaming Lips being born. For drummer Kliph Scurlock, bassist Michael Ivins, and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd that meant walking through an elevated door in the middle of a multimedia screen onto which a huge, digital vagina had been projected. For lead singer Wayne Coyne it meant appearing on stage curled up in what initially looked like an adult-sized placenta.

Thankfully, it turned out to be the frontman’s patented inflatable plastic bubble, a crowd-surfing apparatus he immediately put to good use while canons shot confetti into the air, dozens of giant balloons were released into the audience, and a phalanx of backup dancers hit the stage dressed as mini-skirted white mice or shag-carpeted abominable snowmen.

when else in my life will i get to see a band climb out of a giant digital vagina!?! for once in my life i show up late enough to miss most of the opening band waiting period, and miss that? the world is truly cruel.

not news to most culturally current people, but we have recently discovered that lost is indeed a terribly engrossing show. frustrating in its incessant not-answering of questions, probably. even more so in its characters’ baffling tendency to not ask seemingly obvious questions in the heat of the moment, which would easily untangle the latest mystery if asked, certainly. but at the very least, you always want to see more.

one scene a few episodes into season two had us laughing uncontrollably at its sheer sloppiness though. either someone didn’t read the script correctly, or characters were transposed and never fixed, or they said fuck it, it’s more convenient this way, let’s just go for it, and i have to share. i’ll do it in code though to not spoil anything big for non-viewers.

so, there is a couple, ms A and mr B, and another dude, mr C. at one point, mr B and mr C go on a trip to try to get help. they’re not expected back any time soon.

things don’t quite turn out, so B and C end up heading back to camp. in this scene, mr C is the first to arrive, and he’s in a lot of stress, and appears very suddenly to ms A, the first person to see him and realize they’ve returned. he’s worked up, but reassures ms A that mr B is fine, and goes on to do some other things in a very rushed, tense manor.

later in the episode, mr B finally makes it back to the camp, and the whole crowd welcomes him back from his dangerous journey. they’re so happy to see him, and it’s one of those swelling music moments. but where is ms A? she’s on the beach doing laundry. not following mr C around asking about mr A. not waiting patiently at the edge of the jungle to see him return. calmly doing her chores, and suddenly pleasantly surprised to see her man return. tearful romantic reunion, etc.

what the fuck happened with this scene? if anyone else out of the dozen main characters could have been that first person to see mr C come back, and it would have made sense that ms A was on the beach for that surprise reunion with mr B. and if it had to be ms A who first saw mr C return, how could she possibly be the absolute last person in the camp to see mr B finally come back too?

once i pointed this out to jessica we laughed our way through the rest of the slow-motion, circling-camera embrace that followed, it was so absurd. it’s extra funny that a show entirely about intricacies could have missed such a glaring detail, but i guess when you’re mapping out a whole crazy 7-year mystery, some of the minor points are bound to get glossed over.

my current theory is that the butler did it, and it turns out the butler was a palm tree someone made angry way back in the pilot episode, and the palm tree only exists in the dream of baby jesus, but hey, we’re barely getting started, so who knows.

i’m generally an easy-going person. it’s pretty hard to ruffle my feathers, because most things are easy to laugh off if you don’t take them too seriously. not easily insulted, not often that frustrated or angry at the world, etc.

last night though, spencer and i sat down after weeks of down time to finally record another podcast. a couple minutes of test audio led me to believe everything was sounding great, and we were off on an almost 90-minute episode. it was a great show. covered some really cool stuff i think people would’ve liked to hear about. had great conversation, were appropriately funny and insightful. good podcast.

then afterward, i went back to listen/edit, and for the entire duration (minus the couple minutes of test at the beginning), the audio was all distorted and fuzzy. it sounded like spencer was talking into a makeshift walkie talkie on the planet hoth. for some reason, my voice was fine the whole way, but he was not just fuzzy but mostly indecipherable. a total loss of show.

like i said, i take most things in stride, but i was fucking pissed. more so, because there was nothing to be pissed at. the equipment just failed us despite working fine in a test, and there was absolutely nothing to be done. i think that was the difference that drove me nuts, really. most things are out of my control, so i don’t feel injured when they aren’t perfect. but most things can also be corrected, or at least tolerated. this was a freak incident that was irreparable. and it’s actual creative work that’s just totally lost. i could have punched a baby, i was so mad. especially now that he lives farther away, and it takes a decent amount of drive time just to get together in the first place.

lessons for the future: maybe invest in better microphones? don’t trust audio software that comes free with a mac? i’m not even sure. definitely going to be checking the recording as we go in the future, instead of assuming it works at the end because it worked at the beginning. but goddammit, that would have been a solid episode.

mmmmm, affordable gourmet is the best. our anniversary dinner at breadbar, temporarily taken over for dinners by a limited-run menu called ‘ludobites’, was a lovely evening of food. heirloom tomatoes with feta mousse was particularly good, grilled tenderloin beef with goat cheese was perfect, and our dessert was a chocolate cupcake with foie gras frosting and bacon syrup topping. that was possibly the most interesting and complex-flavored dessert i’d ever had. that and a couple more dishes that were yummy if not as memorable for only $100 for two, and we brought our own wine. fantastic.

of course, we stopped by sheddy’s for a few drinks beforehand, so by the time we got home we were well under the spell. we didn’t even manage to finish the wine at dinner, and once at home cuddling on the couch trying to enjoy the last glass, we basically passed out. not the wild night of romance one might envision for an anniversary, but honestly, lovely all the same. that girl makes a good date, let me tell you.

oh yeah, a couple other interesting things this week too.

firstly, our four-year anniversary was this week. this is why we’re getting married. even after this many years of spending almost every day together, i still can’t get enough, we still look forward to hanging out with each other, and i for one still get excited every time she kisses me (or more if i’m lucky… yuck! too personal!). now i just have to pick a nice place to celebrate with a fancy dinner this weekend. hmmm. has anyone heard of this ‘olive garden’ place? i hear that when you’re there, you’re family, and that sounds nice.

also, with plane rides and extra vacation days, i’ve finished a few books. netherland is highly recommended, the way through doors, not so much. you can roll over either on the sidebar there for my brief reviews. i’m just now getting into world war z, which seems like it’ll be a whole lot of fun. ZOMBIES!

hey, who’s back from vacation? rather, who has been for days and was too busy being post-vacation lazy he couldn’t even type out his itinerary?

for the record (ie before i forget), here is a quick rundown of the things i did while out of town on vacation.

portland:
burgerville: local joint with crazy-thick milkshakes
kennedy school: an old elementary school that is now like a mini-mall of bars. rad.
voodoo doughnuts: delicious, creative doughnut creations. mind had tang as a topping; tangy doughnuts are genius. some people got maple bars with bacon.
powell’s: most impressive bookstore in the USA. total book-nerd paradise.
deschutes: brewpub with great sandwiches and tasty local brews.
pool party: adam’s family were kind enough to host us, including cooking up the hugest steaks i’ve ever eaten.
saturday market: craft fair. got some neat shirts.
portland international beer fest: basically the best way to spend an afternoon EVER. tons of microbrews arranged around a nice park. hours of chilled out, tasty brew fun.
rogue: another brewpub, definitely on my top 5 small breweries.
screen door: sunday brunch, amazing praline bacon that will blow your mind. also: sausage corn dogs.

seattle:
got in late sunday (awful traffic), ordered pizza and played poker, then…
dubliner: nice little divey place in fremont
fremont: cool artsy neighborhood, forgot the name of the delicious greek place there. also had banana bread gelato and a mini-scoop of strawberry-jalapeno. neat!
city center/duck tour: walked around, saw the needle, rode the tour busses that are also boats. that alone was amazing.
university district/thai thom’s: got more shirts at a buffalo exchange, took home yummy thai food
more fremont bars: with patios. many many drinks outdoors in beautiful weather.
dick’s: ate a bag of them. good burgers.
alki beach: poorly prepared for the heat, we drove out, sat for a while without water, sandals, or adequate beach blankets. sweated, left.
umi sake house: oh. my. god. want to go back to seattle, that sushi was so fresh and delicious
other downtown bars: there were at least four of them. many drinks. too many in one case, but not me (*ahem*jessica*ahem).
roro’s bbq: great sandwiches, also in fremont.
pioneer square, etc: a last stroll through the nice city streets
airplane: took us home.

i’m sure for those interested there will be pictures floating around soon, but damn, it was fun hanging with the guys for almost a whole week just bumming around the northwest, and bravo to my girlfriend for being the only female who could possibly have handled it.

in a couple hours we’re off to portland for the weekend, then up to seattle for the following few days, then back here to finish out a nice vacation. don’t expect too much blogging until it’s over; i worked like crazy for the last week or two and am ready to unplug big time.

do be prepared though for a possible uptick in funny drunken twitter messages or regrettable photos with misspelled captions. it is a trip with a bunch of buddies intent on basically drinking and causing trouble around the pacific northwest for several days. can’t wait for saturday’s beer fest!

poor jessica, i hope we don’t bro her to death.

this week, we got a new alarm clock. the reasoning was that for a long time, we’ve had a stone-age single-alarm model, but wake up at different times. that meant jessica kindly had to reset it for me almost every day (the girl is a saint, i know).

but as a generous person, i finally decided to pick up one of those new-fangled, dual-timer, ipod-cradling wonders of wake-up technology and relieve her of this burden. of course, this is only an exciting purchase if you’re a very dull person, and wouldn’t normally warrant blogging about.

however, i didn’t realize how ingrained morning alarm behavior becomes when you’ve been using the same clock for over ten years, and i’ve both surprised and disappointed myself in the last few days in dealing with this new doohickey.

first, it took us almost ten minute to figure out how to set the two alarms, because of all the fancy features like: volume options (how do i know how loud “12” is on a brand new alarm clock?), and the luxurious ‘do you want this alarm to go off just once, every day, only weekdays, or only weekends?’ option, signified on the clock face by the totally obvious shorthands F 1, F 1-5, F 1-7, or F 6-7. How could we have been so foolish?

second, after choosing to get up at 8am F 1-5 (weekdays), i had an early meeting one day and had to switch it to 7am. since my hands could have set the old one with my eyes closed, knowing exactly which buttons to hold and for how long to change times, i fumbled again with its modern replacement trying to set a single day deviation. turns out, i accidentally entered 6am, and the next morning both jessica and i fought with it for several confused minutes in the dim dawn hours trying to correct my mistake. you haven’t seen comedy until you pit groggy morning brains against new technology. she picked it up, tried to fix it, gave up, handed it to me, i said, ‘just put it on the table!’ and got out of bed to run over and fix it, then was never quite sure it was right and feared going back to sleep and being late for work for the next hour.

what a delightful addition to our household.

on a positive note, alarm clock sounds have come a long way since i was in high school, the time of my last timepiece purchase. the classic abrupt scream (REEEE REEEE REEEE) of alarms from sleep-aid commercials and poorly chosen ringtones is a thing of the past with these high-tech wonder-clocks. now, not only does the sound start softly and gradually grow in volume, but ours replaces the high pitched wail with an almost comforting, deep base tone (woomp woomp WOOMP). the experience of waking up to this new sound is miles less panic-stricken and painful. who would have thought such a minor thing could change the day’s first moments so drastically?

so we’re off to a rocky start, but hopefully this relationship will be as long as the one that preceded it. maybe once we’ve been together a while, we’ll even start spicing things up by introducing ipod-songs into the mix. who wouldn’t want to wake up to the sweet sounds of slayer?

if you’re curious, this is our new friend. i’m also curious: do other people wake up to music? if so, what songs?

and does everyone have these new way-less-agitating alarm clocks? have i been needlessly agonized for years by an old-school alarm?

goodness. for a three-day weekend in which i was working for all of friday and a few hours of sunday, we packed it in good. thursday night drinks with the dudes — both church and state and cork bar are excellent downtown spots worth checking out — got it off to a good start.

friday night, public enemies was a kind of a letdown to be honest. not a bad movie by any means, but just kinda… there. too bad. michael mann should have just made a fictional gangster movie in that era with johnny depp and it could have been a lot more exciting, i think. or at least have more something.

saturday was basically the best. all day it was beer (mostly w/ pong), burgers, fireworks, friends, delicious cupcakes, winning at taboo (i RULE at taboo, even after a day of beers), and other great stuff. since it was both the 4th of july celebration as well as jessica’s birthday party — actual birthday today; happy birthday, darling! — it was that much more fun. the cupcakes from hotcakes were yummy, and i have to take some credit for these hilariously cute slippers i got as a gift. i’m gonna laugh every single time her feet get cold and she walks around in these things. not in a bad way though, they’re too precious.

then good old hollywood bowl last night, with death cab turning in a wonderfully pleasant set, preceded by the adorable tegan and sarah and the should-have-been-given-a-longer-set new pornographers. man, i love going to the bowl, it’s too bad that was the only show this summer i was interested in buying tickets to.

whew. for a period over which i had to give up a lot of my free time, i did a pretty good job having some fun too. but it’s not over yet; still gotta figure out where to take my lady for a birthday dinner tonight. hmm. better get on that.

al franken is a senator! it’s been so long and such a joke it’s almost impossible to conceive of the actual person actually going to washington to be an actual senator who passes actual bills (but wait, they don’t do that, do they? *rimshot*). mainly, i’m proud of jessica, who only what, 8 months later, can officially be dubbed the winner of the voting prediction poll from back in november. what a nail biter! haha. way to go, baby.

if she asks this weekend at the barbecue, the reason none of us got her a birthday present is that we thought that a filibuster-proof majority was gift enough. right guys? [nudge nudge]