two.points.collapsing

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]

what happened to our fun loving friends? both friday and saturday we were up for at least a little kind of fun and couldn’t for the life of us wrangle a party crew. even a little poker or trivia group would have done the trick, but nope. i hope they weren’t all having a blast without us. we may be engaged and settled, but i don’t think we’re dead weight yet, are we? god, i hope not.

maybe it’s just that people are slowly trickling out of town even still. we did end up getting some delicious sushi & kushi imai, which i’d never been to and turned out to be excellent. definitely going back. and we went with jessica’s old roommate jordan, who is the next on the list to move away (to dallas!? poor guy…). we’re going to make it up next weekend though, i swear. july 4th birthday barbeque and fireworks, and hopefully more with the extended holiday time.

we also started our very preliminary only hypothetical apartment browsing, not because we want to move, but because we want to pay less. the plan is to just have some competing offers for negotiating power, but hey, maybe we’ll see a place that’s not too bad, get shut down in the bargaining process with our current managers, and end up moving again. if nothing else, it’ll give us a good reason to have a party.

lastly, i am in love with the cd hometowns by the rural alberta advantage, and so here is a track to sample. we also discussed the album on a recent podcast. in other under culture updates, if you missed the LA film fest, i reviewed the two great movies we saw, in the loop and humpday, and spencer just today posted a write-up on some great ‘summer jams’ to take the place of an actual honest-to-god summer jam, of which, he contends, there are none this year.

this blog isn’t going to do much good as a diary of my life if i never post here. damn you twitter, with your short, too-easy updates. quick look back:

never made it camping, because it was raining and we got a flat tire on the way up the mountain. boy, was that fun. apparently it was beautiful once you got closer to the top, but we never got that far. anyone need some fire wood? or want to go make-up camping soon?

last weekend we went to two LA film fest screenings which were both great, and i wrote reviews over here if you’re interested. go check out both, and support funny movies that aren’t stupid so we don’t have to put up with a whole bunch of year ones and dance flicks. also, moon and away we go were really good. in fact, i’m on a crazy good streak of movies right now. luckily, i’m skipping transformers and holding out for public enemies.

busy at work but in a sort of in-between phase on the big projects where it seems everyone is trying to figure out exactly what we should be doing, not actually doing a lot. it’s a necessary part of the process but harder to see progress happening, or feel like you’ve accomplished anything. all i know is it’s been a long week and i’m looking forward to some weekend action now, and even more to the long holiday and vacation shortly after.

i’ve said it a thousand times but i think i’m going to try getting back in the habit of at least a couple paragraphs every couple days, because as fun as twitter is it’s easy to get lazy and use only that. at least i have the excuse of another website i’m putting a lot of energy into (subscribe to the podcast! comment on some articles! let me know we’re not wasting our time on that stuff, i’m so needy… okay not really).

also: celebrities that didn’t matter to me are dying and seeing people on tv having vigils or other nonsense seems really bizarre and misplaced. i just finished a david foster wallace book, and he’s been gone for a while, but that made me much more sad because after reading the book, at least i thought, ‘wow, this is a talent that probably had a lot more to offer, and it’s gone’. i’m pretty sure michael jackson had long ago contributed about all he was going to. i guess it’s sad when people die but not tragic like he was stolen from us.

good week. and by good, i basically mean we stayed home every night burning through my box set of six feet under and i was totally fine with that. halfway through the series, it starts getting to the point where you know the characters so well, all the upheavals matter so much you have to keep watching to make sure everyone comes out okay. poor fisher family, nothing ever stays good for very long with them.

we ended up choosing up in 3d last weekend for movie night, and that was not a mistake. those pixar cats always do it right. don’t know if the 3d makes it a better experience, frankly, because there’s a weird discoloring effect with the glasses that to me isn’t outweighed by the depth of field effects. pixar movies are already gorgeous, i don’t really need those ‘oooo, those balloons are moving toward me’ feeling to enhance the movie.

tomorrow we go camping somewhere new that i’ve never been. i don’t even know how to get there yet. someone else planned it, and i’m just going along for the adventure. cross your fingers i don’t fall in a crevice or get attacked by mountain lions.

but first, coworkers decided it’d be fun to skip out early this afternoon and go see the hangover. not bad! checking this stuff off the list left and right. too bad i’m not going to vegas tomorrow though instead of camping. there will probably be far fewer opportunities in the forest to repeat choice lines from the film. oh well, at least if i bring enough beer, the hangover part is reproducible.

man, summer is here in so many ways except for the part where it feels summery. damn you, june gloom.

but in other ways, it’s totally here. there are big cool movies coming out every weekend this month i almost have no hope of keeping up with. i want to see up AND drag me to hell, and the hangover and away we go are both coming out this weekend. how can i possibly cover off on all these? time to start deciding which can wait for netflix-land.

people are having parties and barbeques left and right. we went to a party every day over memorial day weekend and i could barely survive the continuous flow of beer and good times. having that much fun is exhausting.

and every band in the world is on tour, too. i’ve been to 3.5 concerts in about two weeks’ time. decemberists were great, thermals were really good, animal collective were… well, about what you’d think. passion pit are pretty good at convincing you they are a fun band, even if i’m not full-on crazy about the album. it’s good, but not incredible.

and, sadly, we’re in the annual video game desert. if not for infamous on ps3 fortunately coming out, there’d be almost nothing for me to play right now. luckily, i have books and dvds for this time of year.

the most interesting thing out of all the fun though was a female arm wrestling tournament we went to last sunday. something i would normally say, ‘eh, no thanks,’ except that somehow miraculously five or six of our friends decided to participate. and let me tell you, as soon as the first match started, it was riveting. we didn’t even know half the people, having been invited through a friend (thank you, byron), but every match, it was impossible to look away. even more when people i knew were battling out, a few of which went on for several minutes during which neither seemed willing to concede. i was clenching my own stomach and arm muscles without even realizing it. who knew?

and i was especially proud of jessica, who may have been mismatched in her first bout, being the smaller, cuter of the participants, but when paired with amanda, used her iron will to win probably the longest-drawn-out match of the day. that girl is fierce!

well, we had ourselves a weekend alright. parents came in thursday night and it was pretty much continuous activity until i dropped them off monday morning. father’s office thursday for a dinner of the best burgers ever was a good start to things. friday we drove up to wine country, found our hotel and some mexican food, then drank the afternoon away one sample at a time. i think it’s safe to say my mom was a little giggly by the end. decent steak dinner at the hitching post in buellton, then a few games of pool that i completely lost to my dad, three in a row. shameful. after all the beverages though, it ended up being an early night.

the rest of the weekend back in LA was fairly low key, but still good times. saturday was an excellent food day with zankou chicken for lunch and cube for dinner, which are both amazing, obviously. in the afternoon we strolled around the neighborhood (melrose, the grove, etc), and we stretched out dinner with an extra bottle of wine and basically called it a night. when you start at 5 it’s a little tougher to make it past midnight.

then sunday, brunch at toast, watching some sports on tv, and a nice afternoon BBQ. sadly lots of people had other plans, but even with a small crowd it was nice to have a family-style afternoon with parents and friends intermingling. considering they’ve only been out here once at graduation, it was long overdue and good to see that everyone got along. also, we cooked both beer-boiled bratwurst AND carne asada, so by the end of the day i was too stuffed to move. soooo good.

overall it went great. they had fun, we had fun, and i think we represented LA pretty well. if only i had another day or two to do nothing, but hey, that’s why it’s wonderful that memorial day is coming up this weekend. summer has arrived and the good life is here.

well, here’s what happens when you leave town for a couple days on a work trip. sure, you get a lot of reading done on the plane. maybe have a couple beers with a cool coworker and get some face time with clients. all well and good. but you also miss the annual beer pong tournament that you started five years ago. sad, right? and not only do you miss it, but your girlfriend and teammate of many years has to go and WIN the WHOLE THING without you, proving that in at least this one aspect of your relationship, you are the anchor that is weighing her down. haha.

kidding of course. i think we’ve established that we’re both better when we’re not teammates, probably because all that lovey dovey nonsense gets in the way of serious competition. and i just kind of suck generally; i’ve had to accept that.

other news in the last few weeks? we did another podcast over here, talking about star trek, free comic book day, etc. that was fun even if we got a little rambly and it meant going back to do an awful lot of editing to make it into a decent show. of course, when i say ‘awful lot of editing’ i don’t really mean i chopped it all to hell. half of the problem is the slightly-too-basic nature of apple’s garageband making it sort of a pain to do even run of the mill stuff.

biggest is that my parents are flying in to LA tonight for a long weekend of what i hope will be lots of fun. heading out to wine country tomorrow, then back in town for the weekend, so i hope i come up with suitable things for us all to do. my main struggle is figuring out which awesome restaurants to go to in a limited time window, but then of course i suppose there will be hours during which we aren’t eating that i’ll have to figure out as well. maybe my parents will be useful additions to a trivia team?