Yesterday (Thursday) not only did I do that whole Anniversary booking thing, but I went to the bank and depotisted a paycheck, and also moved some money out of savings to pay for that whole Anniversary thing. When I got home I got a call from Linnea, who wanted help with making the favors for Lena's upcoming party (today).
Since she was in the area, Linnea picked Carrie up from work and came over. We quickly decided that she needed to either find the cord for her digital camera or else borrow her brother's (he has the exact same camera). So she left and had lunch. I also had lunch, of Mandarin chicken. Then Linnea and the girls came back—Linnea had found the camera's cord. So I made party favors, which consisted of little stickers of Lena to be pasted onto the top of little boxes of chocolate given out to the guests. They printed out very well; I'll see the finished product tonight.
Around 5:00 I drove up to Seattle and arrived in the international district. I found a primo parking spot just across the street from Pink Godzilla, and noted that the parking meter said 6:04, which meant I didn't have to pay.
As I was backing into the space I got a call from Sandy, who said that she and Mathias were just a couple of blocks away at Bush Garden. I had already eaten din-dins (the rest of my Mandarin chicken), but I would gladly join them for some sushi! I had miso soup, tekka maki, and Bush roll (which was tuna, salmon, and one other fish with spicy sauce). Very tasty.
After that the three of us walked over to that Oasis Tea Zone place and joined in the Seattle DS Connection group. We played Bomberman (I came in 2nd), Big Brain Academy (I routinely came in first or second), Tetris (I was usually one of the first ones to lose), and then a game of Mario Kart (which I won). There were only about eight people there, which was a good size, although Leia was unable to make it due to the fact that she has some sorta class she attends during some weekday evenings, including last night. Boo!
Then I drove home and actually ended up getting there only minutes after Carrie got home from the class that she taught.
This is Chris dot com
Friday, June 30, 2006
Some Day I'll Ask a Favor of You
posted by Christopher at 3:24 PM 
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It Was the Only Warning We Ever Got
posted by Christopher at 2:49 PM
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The Wicker Man
Looks like they're going for a more straightforward horror movie with this remake, although you do get to see a quick shot of the eponymous individual.
posted by Christopher at 2:16 PM
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Welcome to Tangoland
I find this website to be terribly appealing.
posted by Christopher at 2:13 PM
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Thursday, June 29, 2006
Anniversarary Plans
Today I booked the "Anniversary Package" at the Lithia Springs Inn in Ashland, Oregon for our 2nd wedding anniversary this September.
posted by Christopher at 4:34 PM
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Dancing Barbeque
Yesterday (Wednesday) I don't remember much of what happened during the day. Carrie called me to pick her up for lunch just as I got into the shower, so I didn't get her message until I got out. When I called her she said that she went and got a sub sammitch so I needn't pick her up.
After work Carrie & I made a nice snack to eat while playing Mario Kart. We didn't make a full dinner because at 8:00 we were going to go over to Cat & Chris's house for barbeque and dancing. More on that later.
Before we left we prepped a big baking pan full of nachos (in honor, I joked, of us just having seen Nacho Libré) and a pitcher of margaritas. I prepped two salmon patties, one by putting it in Mr. Yoshida's Sauce (yes, there really is a Mr. Yoshida) and one by putting pats of butter and slices of lemon on it.
Then we drove over to Laura's house to pick her up and took her to Cat's. Carrie drove away to go pick up Lawrence after he got off work at Starbucks. When Laura & I went inside we discovered Chris sound asleep on the couch but no sign of anybody else. Chris is almost impossible to wake up when he's out, so Laura and I just started putting our stuff in the kitchen. Soon, though, a carload pulled up and out poured Cat, Brandy, and Heather. Brandy left to go buy some asparagus, and soon Carrie returned with Lawrence, and shortly thereafter Melissa & Travis arrived.
Strangely, Steph showed up but only for a few minutes before she left again, saying that she was "just passing through" and couldn't stay.
We all watched So You Think You Can Dance, which I contend is only entertaining when you watch it with a large group of peoples. It helped that our nachos were so danged tasty that every single last scrap of 'em were gobbled up. Some time during the show Chris Fantz showed up as well. The barbeque was lit and tasty salmon was cooked, along with Brandy's asparagus and several other meat products such as spicy sausages and marinated chicken. It was a lots of fun.
What wasn't so fun was the fact that after the Dancing show the girls watched an episode of The Hills, the horrifying sequel to the horrifying Laguna Beach. Chris Fantz wondered if I was going to write in this website about watching The Hills. I pondered for a while whether I should write about it at all; if I don't write about something in here I tend to forget it. But that would be dishonest of me, eh?
I drove Laura, Lawrence, and Carrie home in that order. Then I had some trouble falling asleep and had really stressful dreams that I don't remember, except for one that involved a bus terminal and some sort of paperwork. Carrie said I was moving around a lot during the night. Well, stressful dreams'll do that!
After work Carrie & I made a nice snack to eat while playing Mario Kart. We didn't make a full dinner because at 8:00 we were going to go over to Cat & Chris's house for barbeque and dancing. More on that later.
Before we left we prepped a big baking pan full of nachos (in honor, I joked, of us just having seen Nacho Libré) and a pitcher of margaritas. I prepped two salmon patties, one by putting it in Mr. Yoshida's Sauce (yes, there really is a Mr. Yoshida) and one by putting pats of butter and slices of lemon on it.
Then we drove over to Laura's house to pick her up and took her to Cat's. Carrie drove away to go pick up Lawrence after he got off work at Starbucks. When Laura & I went inside we discovered Chris sound asleep on the couch but no sign of anybody else. Chris is almost impossible to wake up when he's out, so Laura and I just started putting our stuff in the kitchen. Soon, though, a carload pulled up and out poured Cat, Brandy, and Heather. Brandy left to go buy some asparagus, and soon Carrie returned with Lawrence, and shortly thereafter Melissa & Travis arrived.
Strangely, Steph showed up but only for a few minutes before she left again, saying that she was "just passing through" and couldn't stay.
We all watched So You Think You Can Dance, which I contend is only entertaining when you watch it with a large group of peoples. It helped that our nachos were so danged tasty that every single last scrap of 'em were gobbled up. Some time during the show Chris Fantz showed up as well. The barbeque was lit and tasty salmon was cooked, along with Brandy's asparagus and several other meat products such as spicy sausages and marinated chicken. It was a lots of fun.
What wasn't so fun was the fact that after the Dancing show the girls watched an episode of The Hills, the horrifying sequel to the horrifying Laguna Beach. Chris Fantz wondered if I was going to write in this website about watching The Hills. I pondered for a while whether I should write about it at all; if I don't write about something in here I tend to forget it. But that would be dishonest of me, eh?
I drove Laura, Lawrence, and Carrie home in that order. Then I had some trouble falling asleep and had really stressful dreams that I don't remember, except for one that involved a bus terminal and some sort of paperwork. Carrie said I was moving around a lot during the night. Well, stressful dreams'll do that!
posted by Christopher at 4:18 PM
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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
One of Five
Yesterday (Tuesday) I got off my bum and wrote one of those Movie Reviews that I've been threatening to write for the past few weeks! I rawk! Only four more to go...
Read it here:
Read it here:
X-Men: The Last Stand
What else did I do? Let's see if'n I kin umember. I picked up Carrie for her split-shift and after lunch she took a nap. I walked around Linnea & Christine's neighborhood, but nobody seemed to be home at either place. When I came home I watched the final episode of Veronica Mars - Season 1. Now I know all the answers... for the most part. There was one unanswered question (other than the cliffhanger stuff) that I don't think they ever answered.
In the later afternoon Carrie & I gratefully went to Trader Joe's. Now the house actually has food in it! Whoa! On our way home we drove by the Tarbets' house. The front door was opened, so I cautiously approached and said, "Knock knock!" out loud. There wasn't an answer for a little bit, but then I heard Linnea upstairs.
"Jay?" she said.
"No, it's Chris. I left my sunglasses here on Sunday"
"Yeah, they're right there on the mantle."
I saw them. "Ah, I see them."
"I'd come down and say hi," she said, "but I'm mostly naked right now."
That seemed fair enough.
In the evening, after taking Carrie back to teach her class, I ran a load of dishes and had some of that The Last Samurai movie on in the background. I actually liked what I saw, although it made it even more abundantly clear that Tom Cruise can only play one character. It also made me wanna look up the information about the real events on which the movie is (very) loosely based. So I did.
I picked up Carrie and Laura and drove Laura to her house. When Carrie & I got back home the movie was just ending... or so I thought. Damn, but the ending(s) of that movie go on and on and on, don't they?
posted by Christopher at 10:49 AM
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Face Off
I finished off the 5th disc of Veronica Mars yesterday (Monday), watching one episode during breakfast and another during lunch. Carrie didn't come home for lunch, so I had the whole place to myself, though I found it frustratingly difficult to get any work done for some reason. About the only thing I really accomplished to completion was to get Neighbor Gary's photo galleries online: http://thisischris.com/terrapin/visual.html
In the later afternoon I suddenly felt atrociously tired. It really felt like my face was trying to pull away from my skull. It was fascinating. Kind of like the pressure of a headache without the pain? Yeah, that'd be a good way to describe it. Kind of.
At any rate I fell asleep for about 45 minutes before Carrie called and I went to get her. We still didn't have any food in the house, so we were faced with the same dinner quandry as the previous day. Yesterday we decided to send me to MSMII and pick up some sandwiches. I got a 9" italian sub for me and a 6" vegetarian sub for Carrie.
It was a rather hot day, and those are the best days to get Carrie to go see a movie, due to the fact that movie theaters are usually much more air-conditioned than the outdoors. So we decided to go see Nacho Libré. I called Brandy to see if she wanted to join us, but she was hanging out with Carly that evening. So we called Lawrence and he was eager to join us.
Carrie & I played a game of Mario Kart before leaving to pick him up (he doesn't have a car), then we went to the old AMC on Mildred and saw a very, very funny movie. It totally had the feel of a Wes Anderson movie. Fascinating. I now have, what, five movie reviews to write? I'd better write one today. I know I planned to write a couple last week, but for some reason I was insanely busy last week and it just flew by.
We brought Lawrence to our place after the movie and Carrie schooled him a bit in a game of Mario Kart. But it was really his own fault; he insisted on picking the gold car (the "pimpmobile" as he called it) rather than a more easily-controlled car. There was a CD from Neighbor Gary waiting in the mailbox when we got back, containing more songs for me to post on his website.
We took him home around 11:30 then came home and went to bed, sleeping above the covers due to the heat. The overhead light in the bedroom seems to be a little bit broken. You can pull the chain to turn it on/off, but it doesn't spring back up to reset the switch; you have to push the chain back up into the fixture until you hear it click. Annoying. I don't know enough about ceiling fan light fixtures to look into it myself right now...
In the later afternoon I suddenly felt atrociously tired. It really felt like my face was trying to pull away from my skull. It was fascinating. Kind of like the pressure of a headache without the pain? Yeah, that'd be a good way to describe it. Kind of.
At any rate I fell asleep for about 45 minutes before Carrie called and I went to get her. We still didn't have any food in the house, so we were faced with the same dinner quandry as the previous day. Yesterday we decided to send me to MSMII and pick up some sandwiches. I got a 9" italian sub for me and a 6" vegetarian sub for Carrie.
It was a rather hot day, and those are the best days to get Carrie to go see a movie, due to the fact that movie theaters are usually much more air-conditioned than the outdoors. So we decided to go see Nacho Libré. I called Brandy to see if she wanted to join us, but she was hanging out with Carly that evening. So we called Lawrence and he was eager to join us.
Carrie & I played a game of Mario Kart before leaving to pick him up (he doesn't have a car), then we went to the old AMC on Mildred and saw a very, very funny movie. It totally had the feel of a Wes Anderson movie. Fascinating. I now have, what, five movie reviews to write? I'd better write one today. I know I planned to write a couple last week, but for some reason I was insanely busy last week and it just flew by.
We brought Lawrence to our place after the movie and Carrie schooled him a bit in a game of Mario Kart. But it was really his own fault; he insisted on picking the gold car (the "pimpmobile" as he called it) rather than a more easily-controlled car. There was a CD from Neighbor Gary waiting in the mailbox when we got back, containing more songs for me to post on his website.
We took him home around 11:30 then came home and went to bed, sleeping above the covers due to the heat. The overhead light in the bedroom seems to be a little bit broken. You can pull the chain to turn it on/off, but it doesn't spring back up to reset the switch; you have to push the chain back up into the fixture until you hear it click. Annoying. I don't know enough about ceiling fan light fixtures to look into it myself right now...
posted by Christopher at 10:31 AM
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Monday, June 26, 2006
Faceplant
Yesterday (Sunday) I solved a fascinating geometry puzzle whereby I managed to wrap a baby shower gift with too-small pieces of wrapping paper, and made it look nice to boot. Yes, Carrie went to another baby shower yesterday, this one way the heck up in Everett. Took her almost two hours to get there and almost two hours to get back.
I, meanwhile, cleaned the living room up and set Roomba loose in it. Then Fools Play practice happened, and Taisha was actually able to attend, which was a nice change. Geoff burned me a CD of all the old Crazy Boy Floyds stuff that he had on his laptop, so I finally have most of those songs...
After everyone left I watched an episode of Veronica Mars before Carrie came home. We couldn't figure out what to do for dinner. It was a hot day, so we didn't really want to cook. We thought about Katie Downs, which I thought was too expensive. Plus, since it was a hot day probably everybody else in Tacoma was thinking about Katie Downs. We mused briefly about going to The Parkway or maybe even going to MSMII Deli and getting a sandwich.
But a phone call with Linnea settled it; we were going to go over to their house for some barbequed hot dogs and some home-made onion rings. Heck yeah! We made a spinach salad and I grabbed a couple of beers to bring over. The onion rings Jay made were really good.
After dinner Carrie & Lena were playing on the grass. Lena really likes to roughouse with Carrie because it's basically impossible for her to hurt Carrie. But it's not impossible for her to hurt herself. Case in point: when Lena ended up vaulting off of Carrie's back and landing face-first on the grass. Whoops!
It took quite a few visits from "Dr. Chris" for her to feel better. Carrie felt pretty bad about it, though.
Eventually we came home and I worked on some intarweb stuff while Carrie worked on some dishes and bedroom stuff. Then we watched a couple of episodes of Veronica Mars while Carrie played some Mario Kart DS before going to sleep well after midnight.
I, meanwhile, cleaned the living room up and set Roomba loose in it. Then Fools Play practice happened, and Taisha was actually able to attend, which was a nice change. Geoff burned me a CD of all the old Crazy Boy Floyds stuff that he had on his laptop, so I finally have most of those songs...
After everyone left I watched an episode of Veronica Mars before Carrie came home. We couldn't figure out what to do for dinner. It was a hot day, so we didn't really want to cook. We thought about Katie Downs, which I thought was too expensive. Plus, since it was a hot day probably everybody else in Tacoma was thinking about Katie Downs. We mused briefly about going to The Parkway or maybe even going to MSMII Deli and getting a sandwich.
But a phone call with Linnea settled it; we were going to go over to their house for some barbequed hot dogs and some home-made onion rings. Heck yeah! We made a spinach salad and I grabbed a couple of beers to bring over. The onion rings Jay made were really good.
After dinner Carrie & Lena were playing on the grass. Lena really likes to roughouse with Carrie because it's basically impossible for her to hurt Carrie. But it's not impossible for her to hurt herself. Case in point: when Lena ended up vaulting off of Carrie's back and landing face-first on the grass. Whoops!
It took quite a few visits from "Dr. Chris" for her to feel better. Carrie felt pretty bad about it, though.
Eventually we came home and I worked on some intarweb stuff while Carrie worked on some dishes and bedroom stuff. Then we watched a couple of episodes of Veronica Mars while Carrie played some Mario Kart DS before going to sleep well after midnight.
posted by Christopher at 11:20 AM
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The Great Golden Eye Recreation
As seen on Break.com
If only the movie could have been like this...
posted by Christopher at 9:56 AM
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Sunday, June 25, 2006
Kidnapped by Chang
Yesterday (Saturday) Carrie & I gratefully slept in until after 10:00. I got up and did my daily computer routine (which is what I'm doing right now also). Teen Titans was a 2nd or 3rd season episode; boo. Carrie went and hung out with Linnea and her girls.
I printed out 4x6 photo versions of my Robot & Bird drawings. Carrie wanted to use #1 to put in a frame for the Baby Shower she was going to. I also printed out #2 just to see how it would look cropped like that (they were both originally 8x10, so moving to 4x6 meant I had to crop out quite a bit).
Linnea & Crew came back with Carrie, and I showed off my POTW #2 to Linnea. Shortly thereafter Mike and Taisha picked me up.
We went all the way out to Kent to have a late-ish lunch at Chang's Mongolian Grill. Taisha went back to the bar three times. I only went twice. Man, that was a lots of foods. Taisha said it wasn't as good as the one up north, but she still ate quite a bit of it. I put lots of garlic and ginger sauce in my foods. Mmmm... I ate quite a bit as well, seeing as how I hadn't eaten yet that day.
We then headed south, stopping by the Tesoro near the movie theater in Lakewood. I got a 44 ounce water there. Taisha got a 64 ounce root beer. They didn't have any 64 ounce lids.
We then went straight to Studio 321 an hour early. Taish and I both collapsed and slept due to food coma from the ungodly amount of Chang's we'd consumed. We all woke up about 5:45 and went over some of the Cinema format stuff, but then Taisha started to feel bad due to "the condition." She felt steadily worse as the show approached and so made the wise decision not to perform.
Leia and Kedar were the first people to show up for the show. Leia (who looked super cute, by the way) told me that the party didn't end up ending until 3:45 in the AM. That's late! The audience then steadily continued filling. We actually had a really big, really good crowd that was really into the show. Good on us!
So Mike, Geoff, Ed, and I performed the full-length Cinema format. Our movie was called "Shirley You Joust," and was about a Jouster named Sir Lee (pronounced "Shirley") and an absurdly violent doctor named Dr. Joust. Sir Lee had two bumbling sidekicks, and Dr. Joust had a female nurse ("The Lady") and Friend himself. In the end, after drinking river water that made them invincible and slaughtering 10,000 guards, they fought to a standstill (Dr. Joust riding on Friend, and Sir Lee riding on his two sidekicks who were dressed as a horse with arms). But the slaughtering of the guards released so much blood that it summoned Huitzilopochtli, who actually was a lot like the Merovingian from The Matrix trilogy.
To defeat him, Sir Lee's javelin, Dr. Joust's Super Scalpel, and The Lady's heart joined together to summon Captain Peace (in a scene remarkably similar to the summoning of Captain Planet). Capt. Peace and Huitzilopochtli then went off to fight in heaven, leaving the world to its own devices.
It was crazy goodtimes.
Afterwards it was Rib Eye as usual, then Leia and Kedar drove me home 'cause they left first.
I wish peace upon you all. Gross!
I printed out 4x6 photo versions of my Robot & Bird drawings. Carrie wanted to use #1 to put in a frame for the Baby Shower she was going to. I also printed out #2 just to see how it would look cropped like that (they were both originally 8x10, so moving to 4x6 meant I had to crop out quite a bit).
Linnea & Crew came back with Carrie, and I showed off my POTW #2 to Linnea. Shortly thereafter Mike and Taisha picked me up.
We went all the way out to Kent to have a late-ish lunch at Chang's Mongolian Grill. Taisha went back to the bar three times. I only went twice. Man, that was a lots of foods. Taisha said it wasn't as good as the one up north, but she still ate quite a bit of it. I put lots of garlic and ginger sauce in my foods. Mmmm... I ate quite a bit as well, seeing as how I hadn't eaten yet that day.
We then headed south, stopping by the Tesoro near the movie theater in Lakewood. I got a 44 ounce water there. Taisha got a 64 ounce root beer. They didn't have any 64 ounce lids.
We then went straight to Studio 321 an hour early. Taish and I both collapsed and slept due to food coma from the ungodly amount of Chang's we'd consumed. We all woke up about 5:45 and went over some of the Cinema format stuff, but then Taisha started to feel bad due to "the condition." She felt steadily worse as the show approached and so made the wise decision not to perform.
Leia and Kedar were the first people to show up for the show. Leia (who looked super cute, by the way) told me that the party didn't end up ending until 3:45 in the AM. That's late! The audience then steadily continued filling. We actually had a really big, really good crowd that was really into the show. Good on us!
So Mike, Geoff, Ed, and I performed the full-length Cinema format. Our movie was called "Shirley You Joust," and was about a Jouster named Sir Lee (pronounced "Shirley") and an absurdly violent doctor named Dr. Joust. Sir Lee had two bumbling sidekicks, and Dr. Joust had a female nurse ("The Lady") and Friend himself. In the end, after drinking river water that made them invincible and slaughtering 10,000 guards, they fought to a standstill (Dr. Joust riding on Friend, and Sir Lee riding on his two sidekicks who were dressed as a horse with arms). But the slaughtering of the guards released so much blood that it summoned Huitzilopochtli, who actually was a lot like the Merovingian from The Matrix trilogy.
To defeat him, Sir Lee's javelin, Dr. Joust's Super Scalpel, and The Lady's heart joined together to summon Captain Peace (in a scene remarkably similar to the summoning of Captain Planet). Capt. Peace and Huitzilopochtli then went off to fight in heaven, leaving the world to its own devices.
It was crazy goodtimes.
Afterwards it was Rib Eye as usual, then Leia and Kedar drove me home 'cause they left first.
I wish peace upon you all. Gross!
posted by Christopher at 11:15 AM
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Saturday, June 24, 2006
Happy Birthday Party to Leia (Leah)
Just to clear up something: her name is for reals spelled "Leah." I know. I've seen it on her check card. But I spell it "Leia," because that's how it is in her email, and her website is leiapico
(http://fallenearth.org/blogs/leiapico). So there.
Anyway, yesterday was her birthday party. But that wasn't until the evening.
In the morning I got up at 6:30 and finished prepping the Bead Factory workshops for upload at 8:00 in the AM. I was successful. I took Carrie to work, got her coffee, and came home with plenny of time to upload the new classes. I then stuck near my phone so they could call me with any problems (only one came up) and any full classes.
I was really tired due to the fact that I didn't get home until almost 1:00 AM due to seeing the Locust Street Taxi show. I watched the rest of the Æon Flux episodes and kind of napped (but kind of not).
I picked Carrie up for lunch (I'd already eaten some sushi, so I did not eat with her), and she informed me that Brandy had made some cookies. So when I took her back I went inside with her to eat Brandy's cookies (sounds dirty when I type it that way). I parked and we started walking to the store just as Brandy & Carly parked on their way back from lunch. Carly apologized for not calling me back on Monday, but I said that it was okay. We went to the party room where Carly squealed with glee over how cute the tiny, bit-sized, cupcake-shaped cookies were. I realized she'd never seen Brandy's famous cookies before!
I came home and brought out all of my painting supplies to work on my Painting of the Week #2! I was painting away, and at one point I stood up and looked at what I'd done so far, and it was one of those "Holy s--t, I did this!" moments where I'm surprised that I was actually able to produce something so cool. Here's the finished painting (click for a closeup):
I really like the way it came out. I especially like the touch that the robot is using a walking stick. I painted it with a much looser, more "painterly" style than my usual, tightly-controlled style (my first POTW was kinda loose, as well... could this be a new era in my paintings?).
I picked Carrie up from work and she went shopping because she's going to two different baby showers for two different people this weekend. So she needed some things to give as presents. I finished up painting while she was gone, and when she came back we made din-dins together: chicken in a marsala cream sauce with lots of onions & mushrooms over brown rice. It was rather tasty.
Then I wrapped up the painting and called Leia for her address, gathered my stuff, and drove up to Redmond for her birthday party. Also attending (other than Kedar, of course):
(http://fallenearth.org/blogs/leiapico). So there.
Anyway, yesterday was her birthday party. But that wasn't until the evening.
In the morning I got up at 6:30 and finished prepping the Bead Factory workshops for upload at 8:00 in the AM. I was successful. I took Carrie to work, got her coffee, and came home with plenny of time to upload the new classes. I then stuck near my phone so they could call me with any problems (only one came up) and any full classes.
I was really tired due to the fact that I didn't get home until almost 1:00 AM due to seeing the Locust Street Taxi show. I watched the rest of the Æon Flux episodes and kind of napped (but kind of not).
I picked Carrie up for lunch (I'd already eaten some sushi, so I did not eat with her), and she informed me that Brandy had made some cookies. So when I took her back I went inside with her to eat Brandy's cookies (sounds dirty when I type it that way). I parked and we started walking to the store just as Brandy & Carly parked on their way back from lunch. Carly apologized for not calling me back on Monday, but I said that it was okay. We went to the party room where Carly squealed with glee over how cute the tiny, bit-sized, cupcake-shaped cookies were. I realized she'd never seen Brandy's famous cookies before!
I came home and brought out all of my painting supplies to work on my Painting of the Week #2! I was painting away, and at one point I stood up and looked at what I'd done so far, and it was one of those "Holy s--t, I did this!" moments where I'm surprised that I was actually able to produce something so cool. Here's the finished painting (click for a closeup):
I really like the way it came out. I especially like the touch that the robot is using a walking stick. I painted it with a much looser, more "painterly" style than my usual, tightly-controlled style (my first POTW was kinda loose, as well... could this be a new era in my paintings?). I picked Carrie up from work and she went shopping because she's going to two different baby showers for two different people this weekend. So she needed some things to give as presents. I finished up painting while she was gone, and when she came back we made din-dins together: chicken in a marsala cream sauce with lots of onions & mushrooms over brown rice. It was rather tasty.
Then I wrapped up the painting and called Leia for her address, gathered my stuff, and drove up to Redmond for her birthday party. Also attending (other than Kedar, of course):
It got pretty hot in that little apartment with that many people. We played some Wario Ware and some Mario Kart, and even a little Mario Tennis. We watched an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t about how horrible the Endangered Species Act really is. We ordered pizzas.
Leia really liked the painting. It was her birthday present from me!
I finally left at 12:15 and drove all the way on home. It took a little less than an hour. Carrie had been up late as well, watching the rest of Veronica Mars. Now she's watched the whole season, and I'm still just on the third disc!
posted by Christopher at 11:56 AM
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Hitler Cats
Finally, a website that celebrates cats that look vaguely like Hitler. It's about damned time.posted by Christopher at 11:32 AM
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Friday, June 23, 2006
Give 'em The High-Tech Finger
I don't know whether I want a gadet like this for my car. It might get me run off the road or shot.
I definitively want the Nintendo Amusement Park to be given a big budget and made real. That would be awexome.
I definitively want the Nintendo Amusement Park to be given a big budget and made real. That would be awexome.
posted by Christopher at 9:39 AM
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1000!
Holy crap, I just passed 1000 posts on this weblog. That's frikkin' insane.
Anyway, yesterday (Thursday) was a very busy day. I worked like a crazy person to finish up the album design for Locust Street Taxi. I also prepped about half the Bead Factory workshops for upload.
It was a lot of work, but even though I had so much to do I still got really, really sleepy and ended up taking a nap(!) in the late afternoon with Carrie.
I made pizzas for din-dins, and after I took Carrie back to class I worked more on the BF stuff. Then at around 9:00 I drove up to Seattle to see Locust Street Taxi play at The Central Saloon. I had to drive around the blocks a few times to familiarize myself with the area and find suitable parking (which I did a couple blocks down and one block over). There were about 30 bikes parked outside the Central, although there didn't seem to beany many bikers inside at all. I wonder where they all went?
When I got there the Straight-A Students were playing. They're another band from Bellingham, and their bass player reminded me a lot of Ryan from The Wastelanders—not in skill level or anything like that, but just in the way he moved and held the bass. They did a punky version of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" that was pretty funny. They don't seem to have a website, though.
Geoff joined me some time during their set. He was doggedly tired (of course).
Nathan Geyer the Orange Fool and Franco of Locust Street Taxi stopped by. I hadn't seen the Orange Fool in forevah! 'Twas cool, 'twas. I gave them their album design. I was all professional with them and burned them a CD with all the files, and included it in a folder with printouts of all of the pages (cover, insert, traycard, CD itself), a cover letter explaining the contents of the CD, and an official invoice.
They played for about an hour and 15 minutes. Nathan said they hadn't played together in six months, so they sounded pretty tight in light of that fact. They looked kinda... lazy isn't quite the right word. They just looked like they were hanging out up there for the most part. A few songs they really got into, but for the most part they were just chillin'. Ed joined us during the third song they played. The Gibbs brothers were the only people able to come to the show due to the insane last-minuteness of me going to it.
It was midnight when I got back to my car and drove home. Carrie was still awake because she had made the mistake of putting on Veronica Mars in the bedroom, and that show is just too interesting to fall asleep to. So I put on some Home Movies (which, don't get me wrong, is very interesting; we just have all the episodes memorized by heart), melted her some havarti cheese in a bowl, and ate my last piece of pizza.
Anyway, yesterday (Thursday) was a very busy day. I worked like a crazy person to finish up the album design for Locust Street Taxi. I also prepped about half the Bead Factory workshops for upload.
It was a lot of work, but even though I had so much to do I still got really, really sleepy and ended up taking a nap(!) in the late afternoon with Carrie.
I made pizzas for din-dins, and after I took Carrie back to class I worked more on the BF stuff. Then at around 9:00 I drove up to Seattle to see Locust Street Taxi play at The Central Saloon. I had to drive around the blocks a few times to familiarize myself with the area and find suitable parking (which I did a couple blocks down and one block over). There were about 30 bikes parked outside the Central, although there didn't seem to be
When I got there the Straight-A Students were playing. They're another band from Bellingham, and their bass player reminded me a lot of Ryan from The Wastelanders—not in skill level or anything like that, but just in the way he moved and held the bass. They did a punky version of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" that was pretty funny. They don't seem to have a website, though.
Geoff joined me some time during their set. He was doggedly tired (of course).
Nathan Geyer the Orange Fool and Franco of Locust Street Taxi stopped by. I hadn't seen the Orange Fool in forevah! 'Twas cool, 'twas. I gave them their album design. I was all professional with them and burned them a CD with all the files, and included it in a folder with printouts of all of the pages (cover, insert, traycard, CD itself), a cover letter explaining the contents of the CD, and an official invoice.
They played for about an hour and 15 minutes. Nathan said they hadn't played together in six months, so they sounded pretty tight in light of that fact. They looked kinda... lazy isn't quite the right word. They just looked like they were hanging out up there for the most part. A few songs they really got into, but for the most part they were just chillin'. Ed joined us during the third song they played. The Gibbs brothers were the only people able to come to the show due to the insane last-minuteness of me going to it.
It was midnight when I got back to my car and drove home. Carrie was still awake because she had made the mistake of putting on Veronica Mars in the bedroom, and that show is just too interesting to fall asleep to. So I put on some Home Movies (which, don't get me wrong, is very interesting; we just have all the episodes memorized by heart), melted her some havarti cheese in a bowl, and ate my last piece of pizza.
posted by Christopher at 8:15 AM
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Thursday, June 22, 2006
What's Cooler Than Being Cool
I'm crazy busy today, so I don't have much time to type this. Let's see if I can just hit the highlights of yesterday (Wednesday):
Carrie had the day off again. She hung out with Linnea and her daughters quite a bit. At one point in the afternoon Carrie, Linnea, Lena, Baby Eva, and I all went to Cold Stone and got some ice cream. I think the last time I'd gone to one of those place was at the end of last summer with Brandy. I think it might be almost another year before I go back; that was a lot of sugar. I had the "Candy Land" combination in a waffle bowl. Yowzah.
We went to Borders and Half-Price Books looking for a birthday present for Lena. When Carrie was young she had a big, coffee-table book about Disneyland that had a lot of pictures in it. She thought we'd be able to find a more modern version of something like that for Lena. Well, apparently a lot of things similar to that exist for Disney World, but not for Disneyland. We came home empty-handed, but later that night Carrie found a Disneyland 50th Anniversary Viewmaster thing on teh intarwebs, so she ordered that for Lena. Hopefully it'll get here before next Friday (Lena's party).
I barbequed some burgers for din-dins. Carrie sprinkled on some blue cheese while they were cooking, and I ate mine in an olive roll for a bun. Pretty tasty.
There were both a Ghost Hunters marathon and a Mythbusters marathon on last night. I opted for Mythbusters.
Carrie had the day off again. She hung out with Linnea and her daughters quite a bit. At one point in the afternoon Carrie, Linnea, Lena, Baby Eva, and I all went to Cold Stone and got some ice cream. I think the last time I'd gone to one of those place was at the end of last summer with Brandy. I think it might be almost another year before I go back; that was a lot of sugar. I had the "Candy Land" combination in a waffle bowl. Yowzah.
We went to Borders and Half-Price Books looking for a birthday present for Lena. When Carrie was young she had a big, coffee-table book about Disneyland that had a lot of pictures in it. She thought we'd be able to find a more modern version of something like that for Lena. Well, apparently a lot of things similar to that exist for Disney World, but not for Disneyland. We came home empty-handed, but later that night Carrie found a Disneyland 50th Anniversary Viewmaster thing on teh intarwebs, so she ordered that for Lena. Hopefully it'll get here before next Friday (Lena's party).
I barbequed some burgers for din-dins. Carrie sprinkled on some blue cheese while they were cooking, and I ate mine in an olive roll for a bun. Pretty tasty.
There were both a Ghost Hunters marathon and a Mythbusters marathon on last night. I opted for Mythbusters.
posted by Christopher at 4:34 PM
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Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Abalou, Capoeira, Abalou!
Yesterday (Tuesday) I spent the almost whole morning (after waking up, of course) working on the Locust Street Taxi album cover, incorporating their notes of my original rough.
Then at 1:00 my dad came over and the three of us walked down to Primo Grill for lunch. I had the Ahi Tuna special. It was one of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. It's really spectacular.
After we walked back home Carrie drove off to see her own dad, and my dad and I went to the Washington State History Museum so he could look at the big model train they have upstairs. I'd never actually been in to see any of the exhibits there before (although I had gone inside in order to do a Fools Play show once... a long time ago). There's always something I find delightfully cheesy about museums where the mannequins have speakers in them and voice actors read off scripted dialogue. There was a lot of that in this museum. Also upstairs they had a life mask of Abe Lincoln. Also a hand mask—his hands were surprisingly small for such a tall man.
After the museum we walked across the Bridge of Glass and back.
Anyway, I got home before Carrie and continued to work on the album cover. She came home and took a nap until about 5:45, at which time she commenced to cook din-dins: pork chops, potatoes with onion & garlic, and mixed vegetables. Rather tasty, especially the potatoes.
At 7:15 I left to go get my ass kicked by capoeira at Barefoot Studios. I actually did much better this time than the first time; I didn't have to take nearly as many breaks, and the breaks weren't nearly as long. The three students there (me, Jimmy, & Steph) are all at very different skill levels: Steph is in great shape and is a dancer; Jimmy is in great shape but is not a dancer; I'm not in great shape nor a dancer.
I came home and relaxed with Carrie for a bit. At 10:00 I started watching the new ECW show (the first match of the night had someone go through a table, and also throw a chair into someone else's knees only to have it bounce back and hit him in his own face). Neighbor Gary stopped by to drop off some discs of his website content, and stayed to watch the last half of the show.
Then I went to bed, where Carrie played some Mario Kart DS to make herself sleepy. I played some Animal Crossing after that until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.
For some reason last night Fantastico was very aggressive in her affection, to the point where she would rub up against my face while I was asleep, thus making me no longer asleep. It was very strange, as she usually steers clear of our heads during the nighttime.
Then at 1:00 my dad came over and the three of us walked down to Primo Grill for lunch. I had the Ahi Tuna special. It was one of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. It's really spectacular.
After we walked back home Carrie drove off to see her own dad, and my dad and I went to the Washington State History Museum so he could look at the big model train they have upstairs. I'd never actually been in to see any of the exhibits there before (although I had gone inside in order to do a Fools Play show once... a long time ago). There's always something I find delightfully cheesy about museums where the mannequins have speakers in them and voice actors read off scripted dialogue. There was a lot of that in this museum. Also upstairs they had a life mask of Abe Lincoln. Also a hand mask—his hands were surprisingly small for such a tall man.
After the museum we walked across the Bridge of Glass and back.
Anyway, I got home before Carrie and continued to work on the album cover. She came home and took a nap until about 5:45, at which time she commenced to cook din-dins: pork chops, potatoes with onion & garlic, and mixed vegetables. Rather tasty, especially the potatoes.
At 7:15 I left to go get my ass kicked by capoeira at Barefoot Studios. I actually did much better this time than the first time; I didn't have to take nearly as many breaks, and the breaks weren't nearly as long. The three students there (me, Jimmy, & Steph) are all at very different skill levels: Steph is in great shape and is a dancer; Jimmy is in great shape but is not a dancer; I'm not in great shape nor a dancer.
I came home and relaxed with Carrie for a bit. At 10:00 I started watching the new ECW show (the first match of the night had someone go through a table, and also throw a chair into someone else's knees only to have it bounce back and hit him in his own face). Neighbor Gary stopped by to drop off some discs of his website content, and stayed to watch the last half of the show.
Then I went to bed, where Carrie played some Mario Kart DS to make herself sleepy. I played some Animal Crossing after that until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.
For some reason last night Fantastico was very aggressive in her affection, to the point where she would rub up against my face while I was asleep, thus making me no longer asleep. It was very strange, as she usually steers clear of our heads during the nighttime.
posted by Christopher at 9:19 AM
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Don't let me forget about this
There's a Special Pleaseeasaur Show Friday, June 30th in Seattle! Also there will be The Shins and David Cross. Sounds like it might be a good time...
posted by Christopher at 10:54 AM
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Jiggety-Jig
Yesterday (Monday) was another very uneventful day. For breakfast I ate the leftover biscuits & gravy from my NWdinerblog outing on Sunday. I worked through the morning and by the early afternoon I had the new Bead Factory workshop schedule up and running. I had a cheese enchilada for lunch. I did more laundry. That kind of thing.
I called Carly at one point during the day to see if'n she wanted to bring over some Veronica Mars that evening (say, between 7:00 and 10:00), but she never called me back so that didn't happen.
For dinner I made potstickers and watched a few episodes of Æon Flux with commentary. Peter Chung was funny because he didn't want to interpret the stories; he wants the viewer to be able to draw his/her own conclusions, so there were some times when he was stymied about what to say about the story. They talked a lot about the voice acting and the writers and stuff like that instead.
Finally around 10:30 I left to pick Carrie, Steph, & Christine up from the airport. Much to my surprise, however, I discovered that it was impossible to get onto I-5 north from Sprague Ave. (or Highway 16 at all), which is how I usually do it since it's the closest onramp to my house. There were no signs or anything warning me that the interchange was closed; I only discovered when I drove past it and couldn't get over due to those large orange traffic barrels blocking the road. Unfortunately, in order to get to that onramp you have to commit yourself to getting on I-5. Since I couldn't get going north, I discovered myself going south.
So I had to get off on 38th St. South and head parralel to I-5 until I got to Highway 7. Thankfully the interchange from Highway 7 to I-5 was still open. But at that point who knew?
Then a few miles down the road (just past Johnny's at Fife), the three left lanes were closed. I-5 north became a one-lane freeway. Hooray! It stayed that way until Federal Way.
Needless to say, I was much later to the airport than I had anticipated. But it was okay, because Steph was on another flight and it didn't get in until after Christine & Carrie, so we actually got to the airport around the same time.
I have never seen the SeaTac Airport so crowded. I drove around the arrivals loop and it was jam-packed. I got stuck in the third lane over (from both directions), and the car in front of me decided to be nice and let people get in front of it. Unfortunately, it decided to let everybody in front of it. We didn't move at all for about five minutes. And when we did move it was maybe five feet at a time, with much more waiting in between motions. The big SUV behind me though for some reason that it was okay to stay only two inches away from my bumper. I was tempted to put it in reverse just to see what they would do...
Anyway, the girls loaded up and Carrie demanded to drive, I assume because she was too stressed out about traveling to risk becoming even more stressed out about me driving (I'm not a bad driver at all; she's just kind of a control freak when it comes to driving, and can't relax unless she's behind the wheel. I have no problem relaxing in the passenger seat, so she usually drives, so it was no problem at all). We dropped Christing and then Steph off and then came gratefully home, where Carrie was very appreciative of the cleaning effort I had made.
We were going to watch Veronica Mars, but Jack Klugman and Ghost Hunters Jason & Grant were going to be on Conan, so we watched that instead, although I fell asleep immediately after Klugman came on. Carrie fell asleep long before even that.
I called Carly at one point during the day to see if'n she wanted to bring over some Veronica Mars that evening (say, between 7:00 and 10:00), but she never called me back so that didn't happen.
For dinner I made potstickers and watched a few episodes of Æon Flux with commentary. Peter Chung was funny because he didn't want to interpret the stories; he wants the viewer to be able to draw his/her own conclusions, so there were some times when he was stymied about what to say about the story. They talked a lot about the voice acting and the writers and stuff like that instead.
Finally around 10:30 I left to pick Carrie, Steph, & Christine up from the airport. Much to my surprise, however, I discovered that it was impossible to get onto I-5 north from Sprague Ave. (or Highway 16 at all), which is how I usually do it since it's the closest onramp to my house. There were no signs or anything warning me that the interchange was closed; I only discovered when I drove past it and couldn't get over due to those large orange traffic barrels blocking the road. Unfortunately, in order to get to that onramp you have to commit yourself to getting on I-5. Since I couldn't get going north, I discovered myself going south.
So I had to get off on 38th St. South and head parralel to I-5 until I got to Highway 7. Thankfully the interchange from Highway 7 to I-5 was still open. But at that point who knew?
Then a few miles down the road (just past Johnny's at Fife), the three left lanes were closed. I-5 north became a one-lane freeway. Hooray! It stayed that way until Federal Way.
Needless to say, I was much later to the airport than I had anticipated. But it was okay, because Steph was on another flight and it didn't get in until after Christine & Carrie, so we actually got to the airport around the same time.
I have never seen the SeaTac Airport so crowded. I drove around the arrivals loop and it was jam-packed. I got stuck in the third lane over (from both directions), and the car in front of me decided to be nice and let people get in front of it. Unfortunately, it decided to let everybody in front of it. We didn't move at all for about five minutes. And when we did move it was maybe five feet at a time, with much more waiting in between motions. The big SUV behind me though for some reason that it was okay to stay only two inches away from my bumper. I was tempted to put it in reverse just to see what they would do...
Anyway, the girls loaded up and Carrie demanded to drive, I assume because she was too stressed out about traveling to risk becoming even more stressed out about me driving (I'm not a bad driver at all; she's just kind of a control freak when it comes to driving, and can't relax unless she's behind the wheel. I have no problem relaxing in the passenger seat, so she usually drives, so it was no problem at all). We dropped Christing and then Steph off and then came gratefully home, where Carrie was very appreciative of the cleaning effort I had made.
We were going to watch Veronica Mars, but Jack Klugman and Ghost Hunters Jason & Grant were going to be on Conan, so we watched that instead, although I fell asleep immediately after Klugman came on. Carrie fell asleep long before even that.
posted by Christopher at 10:17 AM
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Monday, June 19, 2006
Assignment: Sausage
Yesterday (Sunday) morning I drove a little ways up I-5 to Johnny's at Fife, where I joined the folks at Northwest Diner Blog: Eggs, Grits, Syrup, Bacon, and Bacon's sister. We all ate breakfast there, and afterwards it was decided that I should write the review of that place. So look for the first review from Sausage, coming soon!
I drove straight home from Johnny's so I could put my leftover biscuits & gravy into the fridge. Then I hit Fred Meyer's so I could buy my dad some impatiens for Father's Day. I selected four big plants, but the checkout area in the gardening section was hampered by an incompetent checkout lady, so I had to walk all the way across the store to the self-checkout area to buy the danged flowers.
From Fred Meyer's I drove straight to my brother's apartment for Fools Play practice. Leia joined us there, which made three days in a row that I hung out with her! Mike, Geoff, and I came up with a new format idea (a format that showcases each of the Fools), and some fascinating new miming techniques.
Geoff told an amusing story, so I'll relate it to you here: On Saturday Geoff went to a barbeque slash martial arts demonstration, which was held outdoors. He demonstrated some monkey staff stuff. At one point during the routine he plants one end of the staff in the ground and scurries up it. Then he's supposed to leap off and swing the staff around, catching it behind him. However, when he got up on the staff it felt strangely stable. He realized that the tip of it had sunk several inches into the soft ground. So instead of leaping off and swinging it behind him, he simply leapt off and left the staff sticking straight up out of the ground. He then motioned to it as if to say, "Ta-dah!"
After practice Mike & I went straight to our folks' place. We had a chicken dinner that included blueberry juice as a beverage (available at Safeway; it's really tasty). Dad got flowers from all his kids. Jason & Alexa were there as well.
Around 7:00 we all went to the Gateway Cinemas nearby and saw Pixar's Cars. It was a horrible theater, though. The floor hadn't been cleaned, and the sound was for crap. But the movie pleasantly surprised me by being better than I had expected. That makes four reviews I have to write! I'd better get cracking...
I got some really painful gas towards the end of the movie, so I went back to my folks' house and releived myself before driving home. I put on John Frankenheimer's Ronin to sleep to, which might not have been such a good idea because it's kind of a brainy movie in parts, so it kept me much more engaged than a fun romp like The Rundown.
I drove straight home from Johnny's so I could put my leftover biscuits & gravy into the fridge. Then I hit Fred Meyer's so I could buy my dad some impatiens for Father's Day. I selected four big plants, but the checkout area in the gardening section was hampered by an incompetent checkout lady, so I had to walk all the way across the store to the self-checkout area to buy the danged flowers.
From Fred Meyer's I drove straight to my brother's apartment for Fools Play practice. Leia joined us there, which made three days in a row that I hung out with her! Mike, Geoff, and I came up with a new format idea (a format that showcases each of the Fools), and some fascinating new miming techniques.
Geoff told an amusing story, so I'll relate it to you here: On Saturday Geoff went to a barbeque slash martial arts demonstration, which was held outdoors. He demonstrated some monkey staff stuff. At one point during the routine he plants one end of the staff in the ground and scurries up it. Then he's supposed to leap off and swing the staff around, catching it behind him. However, when he got up on the staff it felt strangely stable. He realized that the tip of it had sunk several inches into the soft ground. So instead of leaping off and swinging it behind him, he simply leapt off and left the staff sticking straight up out of the ground. He then motioned to it as if to say, "Ta-dah!"
After practice Mike & I went straight to our folks' place. We had a chicken dinner that included blueberry juice as a beverage (available at Safeway; it's really tasty). Dad got flowers from all his kids. Jason & Alexa were there as well.
Around 7:00 we all went to the Gateway Cinemas nearby and saw Pixar's Cars. It was a horrible theater, though. The floor hadn't been cleaned, and the sound was for crap. But the movie pleasantly surprised me by being better than I had expected. That makes four reviews I have to write! I'd better get cracking...
I got some really painful gas towards the end of the movie, so I went back to my folks' house and releived myself before driving home. I put on John Frankenheimer's Ronin to sleep to, which might not have been such a good idea because it's kind of a brainy movie in parts, so it kept me much more engaged than a fun romp like The Rundown.
posted by Christopher at 8:40 AM
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Monday Morning Readings
Here are some articles I found interesting. Enjoy them on this fine, dreary Monday mid-June morning:
How To Make Anything Look Like a Toy
Anything Into Oil
Vitamin C: Cancer cure?
How To Make Anything Look Like a Toy
Anything Into Oil
Vitamin C: Cancer cure?
posted by Christopher at 8:31 AM
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Sunday, June 18, 2006
Brain in a Dish Acts as Autopilot and Living Computer
So it looks as if scientists have finally created a kind of living-tissue neural network computer: UF SCIENTIST: “BRAIN” IN A DISH ACTS AS AUTOPILOT, LIVING COMPUTER.
So what do they do with it? They teach it to play Quake 3. Watch the videos (bottom of the page).
So what do they do with it? They teach it to play Quake 3. Watch the videos (bottom of the page).
posted by Christopher at 9:12 AM
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Guilty of Blasphemy
Yesterday (Saturday) was kind of a day off. It was kind of relaxing. I didn't really do much of anything at all.
I had my leftover Djembe Soul sides for breakfast and watched all of the Æon Flux shorts (the pilot and then the ones made for Liquid Television). I cleaned up from the painting done on Friday (see that post). I ran a hurkin' huge load of laundry. I made potstickers for lunch.
I played a WFC game of Mario Kart DS. I got connected with two other people. The first one dropped out before the first race even began. The second one played 2½ courses before dropping out. Sigh. Doesn't anyone learn video game ettiquette anymore?
I drove down to Fools Play where me, Mike, Ed, & Taisha performed Fools Play Trial. It ran really, really long—it was a 2½ hour show. We debuted the Daredevil Terrorist with Taisha as the new terrorist, due to Ed not wanting to do it anymore. We also debuted the "Original Sounds" line game, and did an "Ensemble" longform. I was the defendant. My client (Taisha) was found guilty of blasphemy. Boo!
A weird thing: Brandy showed up at the theater about halfway through the show, stood in the back for maybe ten minutes, and then left. Weirdo. I'll have to ask her what was up with that.
There were a lot of people in the audience, including some people we hadn't seen in a while like Hannah and Cassie. There were also several new people, so my brother was sure to be at his most offensive. Sigh.
After the show a lot of people went to Rib Eye, and it was already strangely packed by the time we got there. I sat with Hannah, Mathias, Leah, and Cassie (Leah crammed in between me and Cassie). Later Cassie moved to another table and Sandy took her place. Then Cassie came back so Sandy moved to the other side of the table and there were six of us at a four-person booth.
I stayed there much later than usual due to the fact that there was nobody waiting for me at home. Boo!
I had my leftover Djembe Soul sides for breakfast and watched all of the Æon Flux shorts (the pilot and then the ones made for Liquid Television). I cleaned up from the painting done on Friday (see that post). I ran a hurkin' huge load of laundry. I made potstickers for lunch.
I played a WFC game of Mario Kart DS. I got connected with two other people. The first one dropped out before the first race even began. The second one played 2½ courses before dropping out. Sigh. Doesn't anyone learn video game ettiquette anymore?
I drove down to Fools Play where me, Mike, Ed, & Taisha performed Fools Play Trial. It ran really, really long—it was a 2½ hour show. We debuted the Daredevil Terrorist with Taisha as the new terrorist, due to Ed not wanting to do it anymore. We also debuted the "Original Sounds" line game, and did an "Ensemble" longform. I was the defendant. My client (Taisha) was found guilty of blasphemy. Boo!
A weird thing: Brandy showed up at the theater about halfway through the show, stood in the back for maybe ten minutes, and then left. Weirdo. I'll have to ask her what was up with that.
There were a lot of people in the audience, including some people we hadn't seen in a while like Hannah and Cassie. There were also several new people, so my brother was sure to be at his most offensive. Sigh.
After the show a lot of people went to Rib Eye, and it was already strangely packed by the time we got there. I sat with Hannah, Mathias, Leah, and Cassie (Leah crammed in between me and Cassie). Later Cassie moved to another table and Sandy took her place. Then Cassie came back so Sandy moved to the other side of the table and there were six of us at a four-person booth.
I stayed there much later than usual due to the fact that there was nobody waiting for me at home. Boo!
posted by Christopher at 8:22 AM
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Saturday, June 17, 2006
The First of Many
Yesterday (Friday) I got up at a reasonable time considering I woke up alone. I made an enchilada for breakfast and did my usual morning routine. I then washed a whole bunch of the dirty pots & pans in the kitchen.
The sinks had gotten a little grody so I filled one of them with water and poured in some bleach. Bleach kills everything! Plus it makes the sinks nice and sparly white. Around noon I walked down to the Neighborhood Market and bought some Rolling Rock. I took a shower when I got home and then continued to clean up the house.
I put all of the dining chairs into the office and set Roomba loose in the living room, and then around 3:00 Leia came over (while Roomba was still running). We went to lunch at The Rosweood Café. She had the roast beef & cheddar sammitch; I had the tuna melt with a cup of Manhattan clam chowdah.
We came back to my house, put on some Firefly, and broke out our paint sets. Yes, that's right. Yesterday I painted the first "Painting-a-week" painting. Here's how it came out:
I think it's rather pretty. It's also surprisingly close to the color study I did on the computer beforehand.
Leia also made a painting. Here's what she came up with:
Is that moth underwater? How and why? These are only some of the mysteries of painting that may never be answered.
When we left to go to The Rosweood, I discovered an Amazon box on my front porch. Inside was a birthday present from Jeremiah. He has decided to send out birthday presents to all of his friends in June, regardless of when their acutal birthdays are. I think it's a cool idea, but I would go so broke if I tried to buy things for all of my friends all at once. Anyway, he got me the Serenity comic book Those Left Behind, which explains what happens between the series and the movie; and the complete Æon Flux director's cut DVDs. Thanks, Jeremiah!
I tell you this because I finished my painting a bit before Leia finished hers, so in the interem I read the Serenity comic book. Now I know... don't you wish you did?
After completing our paintings, Leia and I played a game of Mario Kart DS (which I won) before she left.
Very shortly thereafter I was retreived by Heather, Chris Fantz, and Brandy, and we all went to dinner at a place in downtown T-town called Thad Martin's Djembe Soul (pronounced Jim-bay), "...a fine Southern restaurant with a Touch of Africa." On the way there Heather was stressing out in a very entertaining way about being late to our reservation, even though we were only going to be maybe two minutes late. She needn't have worried; there were plenty of open tables when we got there.
The menu there is really cool. There are only a handful of entrés, but you get to choose two sides, and every table gets a bowl of hush puppies before the meal comes. Let's see who ordered what...
The sinks had gotten a little grody so I filled one of them with water and poured in some bleach. Bleach kills everything! Plus it makes the sinks nice and sparly white. Around noon I walked down to the Neighborhood Market and bought some Rolling Rock. I took a shower when I got home and then continued to clean up the house.
I put all of the dining chairs into the office and set Roomba loose in the living room, and then around 3:00 Leia came over (while Roomba was still running). We went to lunch at The Rosweood Café. She had the roast beef & cheddar sammitch; I had the tuna melt with a cup of Manhattan clam chowdah.
We came back to my house, put on some Firefly, and broke out our paint sets. Yes, that's right. Yesterday I painted the first "Painting-a-week" painting. Here's how it came out:
I think it's rather pretty. It's also surprisingly close to the color study I did on the computer beforehand. Leia also made a painting. Here's what she came up with:
Is that moth underwater? How and why? These are only some of the mysteries of painting that may never be answered.When we left to go to The Rosweood, I discovered an Amazon box on my front porch. Inside was a birthday present from Jeremiah. He has decided to send out birthday presents to all of his friends in June, regardless of when their acutal birthdays are. I think it's a cool idea, but I would go so broke if I tried to buy things for all of my friends all at once. Anyway, he got me the Serenity comic book Those Left Behind, which explains what happens between the series and the movie; and the complete Æon Flux director's cut DVDs. Thanks, Jeremiah!
I tell you this because I finished my painting a bit before Leia finished hers, so in the interem I read the Serenity comic book. Now I know... don't you wish you did?
After completing our paintings, Leia and I played a game of Mario Kart DS (which I won) before she left.
Very shortly thereafter I was retreived by Heather, Chris Fantz, and Brandy, and we all went to dinner at a place in downtown T-town called Thad Martin's Djembe Soul (pronounced Jim-bay), "...a fine Southern restaurant with a Touch of Africa." On the way there Heather was stressing out in a very entertaining way about being late to our reservation, even though we were only going to be maybe two minutes late. She needn't have worried; there were plenty of open tables when we got there.
The menu there is really cool. There are only a handful of entrés, but you get to choose two sides, and every table gets a bowl of hush puppies before the meal comes. Let's see who ordered what...
- I ordered the Southern smothered chicken
- Brandy got the gumbo
- Chris got the two-meat meatloaf
- Heather got the Southern fried chicken
Before the meals came my phone informed me that I had a message. It didn't ever ring to let me know that someone was trying to call me, but it happily informed me after the fact. 'Tupid phone. It was Carly from the store, wondering if she and Laura could come over to my place that evening and watch some Veronica Mars. I went outside the restaurant and called her back at the store and told her that I was going to see a movie with Brandy & Heather, so unfortunatley I couldn't watch a DVD with them. But they were more than welcome to come see the movie with us! The movie started at 9:30 and they were closing, so it was going to be a tight fit. Carly said she should call Brandy, to which I replied that I was having dinner with Brandy right then; did she want to talk to her?
So I went back inside and passed my phone to Brandy so she could pass on some more information.
The food came and was really, really excellent and not the least bith health-conscious. There was also a live bland, Blues Alliance, which was a straight-forward blues band. Fortunately they weren't turned up too loud, so it was still possible to have some conversation at your table.
For my sides I got the mac & cheese and the green beans; Brandy got the collared greens and the candied yams. I should have gotten the yams. They were fantastic. I repeatedly told Brandy not to worry if she couldn't finish her yams, because I would be happy to eat them for her. Really, it would be no problem; I wouldn't mind. Unfortunately she was able to finish them. I was not able to finish my sides. After they were boxed up Heather drove us down to The Grand Cinema. She had to drive around the block a few times before someone pulled out of a space where we could park, but it was an excellent space just across the street from the theater.
When we went inside we discovered that there was a line stretching from the ticket-taker all the way along the lobby and out the front doors. After using the restroom we discovered that this was not the line for our movie. Indeed, we could go right on in. At The Grand they don't print out individual tickets for each person; they just print out one piece of paper no matter how many tickets you buy. Brandy had bought all the tickets earlier in the day, including one for Geoff, whom we expected to meet us there. He wasn't there yet, so Brandy told the ticket-taker to let him in when he got there, and then we headed into the theater to get seats (we were the first ones in there!).
Well, turns out we needn't have bothered. Geoff's truck was dead and he was stuck up in Seattle. He tried to call Brandy, but her phone didn't get any reception in the theater. Mine did, though, so I passed along the bad news. Brandy went out and told the ticket-taker to change that extra ticket to get either Carly or Laura in. Chris, Heather, and Brandy sat in one row, and I saved a couple of seats in the row in front of them.
Well, turns out we needn't have bothered. By the time the movie started the girls still hadn't shown up, and I was sitting in a row all by my lonesome. So I moved back a row to sit with my friends instead. Carly & Laura never did show up, so I guess they weren't able to close in time to make it. Too bad; that would have been fun.
The movie, by the way, was Brick. And it was abso-freakin-lutely amazing. That's another movie for which I have to write a review. I'm three behind, and come tomorrow I'll be four. Hopefully I can crank out a couple next week, so watch for those.
When the movie let out it was after 11:00, so Heather et all dropped me off at my house. I put my sides in the fridge and basically went to bed. I put on The Rundown and played some Animal Crossing before falling asleep all alone.
P.S. My computer crashed the first time I tried to write this blog entry, so I had to write the whole thing over again. I hope you appreciate that fact.
posted by Christopher at 12:09 AM
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Friday, June 16, 2006
Animator vs. Animation
This is a pretty funny flash cartoon. IMHO LOL ROTFL GFOMH!
posted by Christopher at 11:54 PM
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Movies, Movies, and More Movies
Yesterday (Thursday) I wrote a new movie review! It's for Art School Confidential, which I saw towards the end of may. You can read the review here:
Art School Confidential Movie Review
I tell you what, it's a good thing I wrote that a movie review yesterday morning, because that very afternoon I saw another movie. And I'm going to see another one tonight. And another one Sunday night.
Anyway, I met Brandy down at The Grand Cinema at 1:45 or so, and we saw A Prarie Home Companion, written by Garrison Keillor, starring Garrison Keillor as Garrison Keillor. I am going to write a review of it (just after I write my review of X-Men: The Last Stand), but here's a quickie right now: This is one of the best movies I have seen this century.
I came home and worked up a quick idea for an album cover for Locust Street Taxi (if you're interested you can click here), and did a couple of loads of dishes and basically was kinda bored. I talked to Carrie and she suggested calling Lawrence (since Christine is also out of town), but I decided to concentrate on cleaning up the house more instead. I played a couple of WFC games of Mario Kart DS while in the background was a ridiculous Sci-Fi Channel movie about a black hole set loose in St. Louis.
I put on NWA-TNA when I went to bed and played some Animal Crossing before getting sleepy and switching over to Home Movies (season 2 disc 3) and falling asleep.
posted by Christopher at 9:03 AM
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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Stiff Peaks
Yesterday (Wednesday) I spent basically the whole morning helping Carrie get ready for Milwaukee. She actually didn't have much left to do, just packing. I did drive to Bartell's and grab four Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos, and then swung by the liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka. For Carrie.
Carrie drove away in the Lareau's giant car just before noon, though she stopped back really soon afterwards to grab another small suitcase for Christine. Carrie too the Veronica Mars DVDs with her! Boo!
Just after noon I drove up to Seattle and parked by Sandy & Mathias's apartment. I then walked down the hill towards Seattle Bagel Bakery, where Sandy works. I was running a little late so I only got about halfway there by the time Sandy got off, so she walked towards me as I walked towards her and we met just east of I-5. We then walked all the way back to the apartment, uphill the whole way. Quite a jaunt, and Sandy does it every day, the nut.
We decided we wanted to bake a cake, so Sandy broke out the 1950s-era Betty Crocker cookbook (authentic vintage) and we looked up a recipe for chocolate angel food cake and quick fudge frosting. We then drove the two blocks to Safeway because we didn't feel like driving, and picked up the ingredients we needed. We also picked up this really cool silicone baking pan. It was all rubbery and wobbly and spiffy. Also we grabbed a slice of brie so that for lunch we could spread it on the bagels that Sandy brought home from work.
Mathias called and said that he was walking his way back from Cobalt because their whole system had gone down, and they'd basically sent everybody away with the option of coming back later in that day or making up the hours over the course of the next few days. Mathias chose the second option.
So Sandy & I ate our bagels with herbed brie and drove down to Uwajimaya where we met Mathias. Mathias suggested that we just park somewhere nearby and walk to that Bush Garden place for lunch. But when we walked there we discovered that it was closed due to it being that weird time in between lunch and dinner during which some restaurants aren't open.
We walked instead to a chinese place called The Purple Dot Café, which had an enormous menu, but was also offering Dim Sum. It was too late in the day for them to wheel the carts around and show us stuff, but they gave us the Dim Sum list and we gleefully checked off several items. There were steamed barbeque pork buns, fried stuffed tofu (stuffed with prawn), a really good beef wrapped with that sticky jelly-like paper stuff, pork balls, a huge plate of curried noodles with vegetables, and a couple of other things I can't remember. The leftovers filled three entire take-home boxes, and the grand total only came to $14 per person! Not bad at all.
We walked to that Oasis Tea Zone and the two of them got some bubble tea. Sandy spotted a meter maid hovering around and so headed back to the car because the meter was a couple of minutes after expiring. She wasn't ticketed, though, thankfully.
We headed back to their apartment and were going to bake the cake, but Sandy got sleep so I gave her a foot rub and talked to Mathias while she dozed. Mathias showed me the Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 video, which looks like it took an insane amount of time to put together. It is very impressive.
Sandy woke up around 5:30 and then Mathias got sleepy, so he napped while Sandy & I baked a cake. Y'know what? Making frosting from scratch is really easy. At least, making that quick fudge frosting from scratch is really easy. But baking a cake from scratch is kind of tough work. At least, baking that angel food cake from scratch is hard work if you don't have an electric egg beater. The directions said to whip three egg whites until they formed "soft peaks," then add sugar and whip again until it formed "stiff peaks." This caused Sandy & I to giggle a lot about me whipping her soft peaks until they got stiff and other inappropriate innuendo. It also took freakin' forever to do.
But eventually we got some stiff peaks and folded them into the cake batter, and then poured half of the batter into the silicone cake pan and stuck it in the oven for a half hour.
To pass the time while it baked, Sandy showed me Tom Green's movie Freddy Got Fingered. I don't know if I'll have time to write a review of it, but it is really a fascinating movie. And I laughed an awful lot, but that might just be because I was sitting next to Sandy, who laughed pretty much throughout the whole thing. And Rip Torn is awexome.
We took the first half of the cake out of the oven and poured the rest of the batter into the silicone cake pan and put that half in the oven for a half hour. Mathias woke up and watched the last half of the movie with us. Then after the movie it was time for me and Sandy to assemble the monstrosity.
We put down the bottom layer and covered it with the fudge frosting. And then Sandy, perhaps inspired by the craziness of the movie we just watched, decided to experiment. Fortunately her experiments were sound: she sliced up a banana and put that on top of the fudge frosting, and then took some creamy peanut butter (I had to argue in favor of the creamy, else she'd have used chunky) and smeared it on top of the banana slices. Then she put a couple of big daubs of peanut butter in the remaining frosting and I stirred it in. The second layer went on and she dollopped on the rest of the frosting and started spreading it around. It was such a momentous occassion that I took some photos:
Sandy spreads
Covering up those stiff peaks
Finally, after Sandy sliced up another banana for the top of the cake, we were done. I had Mathias take a picture of the three of us (me, Sandy, and the cake) to commemorate the moment:
The happy family
And then we all had a slice, and man-o-man was it delicious. I mean it was really, really good. Go us! We kicked that cake's ass!
After cake I played a game of Cybernator for the SNES. That has still got to be one of my all-time favorite SNES games. I got maybe halfway through it, or a little bit further, before I ran out of continues. Then it was time for Sandy to go to bed and for me to drive home and do the same.
Carrie drove away in the Lareau's giant car just before noon, though she stopped back really soon afterwards to grab another small suitcase for Christine. Carrie too the Veronica Mars DVDs with her! Boo!
Just after noon I drove up to Seattle and parked by Sandy & Mathias's apartment. I then walked down the hill towards Seattle Bagel Bakery, where Sandy works. I was running a little late so I only got about halfway there by the time Sandy got off, so she walked towards me as I walked towards her and we met just east of I-5. We then walked all the way back to the apartment, uphill the whole way. Quite a jaunt, and Sandy does it every day, the nut.
We decided we wanted to bake a cake, so Sandy broke out the 1950s-era Betty Crocker cookbook (authentic vintage) and we looked up a recipe for chocolate angel food cake and quick fudge frosting. We then drove the two blocks to Safeway because we didn't feel like driving, and picked up the ingredients we needed. We also picked up this really cool silicone baking pan. It was all rubbery and wobbly and spiffy. Also we grabbed a slice of brie so that for lunch we could spread it on the bagels that Sandy brought home from work.
Mathias called and said that he was walking his way back from Cobalt because their whole system had gone down, and they'd basically sent everybody away with the option of coming back later in that day or making up the hours over the course of the next few days. Mathias chose the second option.
So Sandy & I ate our bagels with herbed brie and drove down to Uwajimaya where we met Mathias. Mathias suggested that we just park somewhere nearby and walk to that Bush Garden place for lunch. But when we walked there we discovered that it was closed due to it being that weird time in between lunch and dinner during which some restaurants aren't open.
We walked instead to a chinese place called The Purple Dot Café, which had an enormous menu, but was also offering Dim Sum. It was too late in the day for them to wheel the carts around and show us stuff, but they gave us the Dim Sum list and we gleefully checked off several items. There were steamed barbeque pork buns, fried stuffed tofu (stuffed with prawn), a really good beef wrapped with that sticky jelly-like paper stuff, pork balls, a huge plate of curried noodles with vegetables, and a couple of other things I can't remember. The leftovers filled three entire take-home boxes, and the grand total only came to $14 per person! Not bad at all.
We walked to that Oasis Tea Zone and the two of them got some bubble tea. Sandy spotted a meter maid hovering around and so headed back to the car because the meter was a couple of minutes after expiring. She wasn't ticketed, though, thankfully.
We headed back to their apartment and were going to bake the cake, but Sandy got sleep so I gave her a foot rub and talked to Mathias while she dozed. Mathias showed me the Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 video, which looks like it took an insane amount of time to put together. It is very impressive.
Sandy woke up around 5:30 and then Mathias got sleepy, so he napped while Sandy & I baked a cake. Y'know what? Making frosting from scratch is really easy. At least, making that quick fudge frosting from scratch is really easy. But baking a cake from scratch is kind of tough work. At least, baking that angel food cake from scratch is hard work if you don't have an electric egg beater. The directions said to whip three egg whites until they formed "soft peaks," then add sugar and whip again until it formed "stiff peaks." This caused Sandy & I to giggle a lot about me whipping her soft peaks until they got stiff and other inappropriate innuendo. It also took freakin' forever to do.
But eventually we got some stiff peaks and folded them into the cake batter, and then poured half of the batter into the silicone cake pan and stuck it in the oven for a half hour.
To pass the time while it baked, Sandy showed me Tom Green's movie Freddy Got Fingered. I don't know if I'll have time to write a review of it, but it is really a fascinating movie. And I laughed an awful lot, but that might just be because I was sitting next to Sandy, who laughed pretty much throughout the whole thing. And Rip Torn is awexome.
We took the first half of the cake out of the oven and poured the rest of the batter into the silicone cake pan and put that half in the oven for a half hour. Mathias woke up and watched the last half of the movie with us. Then after the movie it was time for me and Sandy to assemble the monstrosity.
We put down the bottom layer and covered it with the fudge frosting. And then Sandy, perhaps inspired by the craziness of the movie we just watched, decided to experiment. Fortunately her experiments were sound: she sliced up a banana and put that on top of the fudge frosting, and then took some creamy peanut butter (I had to argue in favor of the creamy, else she'd have used chunky) and smeared it on top of the banana slices. Then she put a couple of big daubs of peanut butter in the remaining frosting and I stirred it in. The second layer went on and she dollopped on the rest of the frosting and started spreading it around. It was such a momentous occassion that I took some photos:
Sandy spreads
Covering up those stiff peaksFinally, after Sandy sliced up another banana for the top of the cake, we were done. I had Mathias take a picture of the three of us (me, Sandy, and the cake) to commemorate the moment:
The happy familyAnd then we all had a slice, and man-o-man was it delicious. I mean it was really, really good. Go us! We kicked that cake's ass!
After cake I played a game of Cybernator for the SNES. That has still got to be one of my all-time favorite SNES games. I got maybe halfway through it, or a little bit further, before I ran out of continues. Then it was time for Sandy to go to bed and for me to drive home and do the same.
posted by Christopher at 9:27 AM
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Four Full Games
Yesterday (Tuesday) Carrie went to work, but only until noon o'clock or so. She was off the rest of the afternoon.
Neighbor Gary stopped by around dinnertime. I made stuffed salmon and a sausage-with-vegetable medley. The sausage part came out better than the salmon, I think.
After din-dins Neighbor Gary played a grand total of four complete games of Mario Kart Double Dash with me and Carrie. That's about three straight hours of playing. He's getting much better very quickly, although he still starts his slides a little late.
Carrie & I watched Disc 2 of Veronica Mars when we went to bed. Mmm... good stuff, that show is.
Neighbor Gary stopped by around dinnertime. I made stuffed salmon and a sausage-with-vegetable medley. The sausage part came out better than the salmon, I think.
After din-dins Neighbor Gary played a grand total of four complete games of Mario Kart Double Dash with me and Carrie. That's about three straight hours of playing. He's getting much better very quickly, although he still starts his slides a little late.
Carrie & I watched Disc 2 of Veronica Mars when we went to bed. Mmm... good stuff, that show is.
posted by Christopher at 10:48 AM
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
I am Sensitive
Yesterday (Monday) Carrie & I managed to somehow sleep through seven or eight different alarms. We woke up only a half-hour late, though. I went for a walk after dropping her off, and it was a wee bit drizzly.
Actually, it has rained every day for a long, long while. I haven't had to really water the garden much these past couple of weeks. As an awesome side effect of the rain, though, my flower bed has really taken off. Lookitthat:
Pretty! I like the way it is coming along. Except for the danged lilac shoots coming up all over the place.
Umm... y'know, Leia called me last night and asked me what I'd done during the day and I had the damnedest time trying to remember, so let's see how I do. I had neglected teh intarweb during the weekend, so I played a lot of catch-up in the morning. I showered. Umm... yeah. Maybe I can't remember what I did because there was nothing particularly memorable about my day.
I picked Carrie up from work for lunch and made myself a cheese quesadilla. After I took her back I swung by the Fred Meyer bank and deposited her paycheck, as well as my quarterly $3.25 (or so) check from Microsoft. Awexome!
I picked Carrie up after work and we played a game of Mario Kart. Neighbor Gary came over around 6:00, right as Carrie left to do some shopping. She came back with various sundries, as well as Veronica Mars - The Complete First Season
. She called me on her way back and so into the oven I tossed two pizzas and 13 mushrooms that I had stuffed with gorgonzola and pepper-jack cheese (seven pepper-jack, six gorgonzola). The three of us ate that for din-dins. Plus Gary & Carrie had some salad.
After that Carrie & Gary played a game of Mario Kart. Gary likes to play Wario because Wario's taunt consist of him slapping his own ass with both hands. Unfortunately the big cars are hard to control (Wario is a big character). So the two of them started a new game and Gary chose Yoshi (medium) and Baby Mario (small). I suggested Daisy's car because it's pretty stable and has good acceleration for a medium car. He did much, much better. I took over for Carrie at 9:00 and finished up the game. Gary got 2nd overall instead of 6th like he did with Wario.
After that Carrie continued readying herself for Milwaukee, and Gary & I went into the office and continued prepping his website: Terrapin Productions dot Net. There isn't all that much up there right now, but what is up there is pretty sweet. I'm rather happy with the design of it all.
Jay Tarbet was supposed to come over as well so I could help him make a letterhead, but it was rolling around late and he hadn't shown up, so I called and we re-scheduled for some time today (Tuesday) hopefully.
I played a lot of Jonathan Coulton for Gary. He really dug the "Soft Rocked by Me" album cover:
I also showed him the Pac-Man Prank video and the absolutely hilarious Patrick Stewart scene from the british TV show Extras. Originally Gary was considering crashing on our couch for the night, but he forgot his overnight bag and so went away around 11:00.
I played a game of Mario Kart DS over WFC while in bed. I talked with Leia about this when she'd called, but lately it's been impossible to gather four people for Mario Kart DS. At least one person ALWAYS drops out during or immediately after the first race, and someone else usually drops out before the last race, so in the end it's just me and one other person. This time only the one person dropped out in the first race, so there were actually three of us by the end (I came in 2nd). After that I played some Animal Crossing and went to sleep while Veronica Mars played on the TV in the bedroom.
Actually, it has rained every day for a long, long while. I haven't had to really water the garden much these past couple of weeks. As an awesome side effect of the rain, though, my flower bed has really taken off. Lookitthat:
Pretty! I like the way it is coming along. Except for the danged lilac shoots coming up all over the place. Umm... y'know, Leia called me last night and asked me what I'd done during the day and I had the damnedest time trying to remember, so let's see how I do. I had neglected teh intarweb during the weekend, so I played a lot of catch-up in the morning. I showered. Umm... yeah. Maybe I can't remember what I did because there was nothing particularly memorable about my day.
I picked Carrie up from work for lunch and made myself a cheese quesadilla. After I took her back I swung by the Fred Meyer bank and deposited her paycheck, as well as my quarterly $3.25 (or so) check from Microsoft. Awexome!
I picked Carrie up after work and we played a game of Mario Kart. Neighbor Gary came over around 6:00, right as Carrie left to do some shopping. She came back with various sundries, as well as Veronica Mars - The Complete First Season
. She called me on her way back and so into the oven I tossed two pizzas and 13 mushrooms that I had stuffed with gorgonzola and pepper-jack cheese (seven pepper-jack, six gorgonzola). The three of us ate that for din-dins. Plus Gary & Carrie had some salad.After that Carrie & Gary played a game of Mario Kart. Gary likes to play Wario because Wario's taunt consist of him slapping his own ass with both hands. Unfortunately the big cars are hard to control (Wario is a big character). So the two of them started a new game and Gary chose Yoshi (medium) and Baby Mario (small). I suggested Daisy's car because it's pretty stable and has good acceleration for a medium car. He did much, much better. I took over for Carrie at 9:00 and finished up the game. Gary got 2nd overall instead of 6th like he did with Wario.
After that Carrie continued readying herself for Milwaukee, and Gary & I went into the office and continued prepping his website: Terrapin Productions dot Net. There isn't all that much up there right now, but what is up there is pretty sweet. I'm rather happy with the design of it all.
Jay Tarbet was supposed to come over as well so I could help him make a letterhead, but it was rolling around late and he hadn't shown up, so I called and we re-scheduled for some time today (Tuesday) hopefully.
I played a lot of Jonathan Coulton for Gary. He really dug the "Soft Rocked by Me" album cover:
I also showed him the Pac-Man Prank video and the absolutely hilarious Patrick Stewart scene from the british TV show Extras. Originally Gary was considering crashing on our couch for the night, but he forgot his overnight bag and so went away around 11:00. I played a game of Mario Kart DS over WFC while in bed. I talked with Leia about this when she'd called, but lately it's been impossible to gather four people for Mario Kart DS. At least one person ALWAYS drops out during or immediately after the first race, and someone else usually drops out before the last race, so in the end it's just me and one other person. This time only the one person dropped out in the first race, so there were actually three of us by the end (I came in 2nd). After that I played some Animal Crossing and went to sleep while Veronica Mars played on the TV in the bedroom.
posted by Christopher at 9:22 AM
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S Curves
If anybody out there wants to buy me this book, I really wouldn't mind. Seriously.posted by Christopher at 9:19 AM
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Monday, June 12, 2006
Bop till You Drop
This is a really good idea: Podbop.org Music Site
posted by Christopher at 2:53 PM
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Uuhhh?
This made me laugh so hard I cried. Seriously.
posted by Christopher at 1:22 PM
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All the Time She Laughs at Those who Shout Her Name and Steal Her Clothes
Yesterday (Sunday) Carrie & I got up early-ish and drove down to Tully's across from The Harvester. There we met Steph and Katie (who were about 20 minutes late) for coffee. Well, they all had coffee; I had water. It was our very last chance to hang out with Katie, because when they left Tully's they went straight into starting their road trip to St. Paul, Minnessota, where Katie is going to attend Law School. They should be somewhere east of Idaho as I type this.
It was good to see Katie. I will miss her.
Carrie is leaving for the midwest herself on Wednesday, so we spent the day getting her more ready. This involved, incidentally, driving up to Tukwilla/Burien and having brunch at Pancake Chef. Last time I went there I had the blueberry fritters, and while they were very good they were not pancakes. So this time I made sure to order pancakes. The pancake sandwich, to be precise, with bacon and scrambled eggs. And I made sure to specify sourdough pancakes and real butter.
Them sourdough pancakes is good times.
Carrie had a crab omelette, which was made with real dungeness crab. You could tell, because there was a tiny bit of shell in the bite I had. It was delicious, however, despite that one slightly crunchy bite.
From there we ended up going to Southcenter (which isn't called Southcenter anymore, but I forget the new, idiotic name) where Carrie bought shoes at Macy's and tank tops slash camisoles at Lane Bryant. We swung by Target on the way out and bought some little sundries, but nothing of great import.
When we got home there was much dishes and laundry and preparing for Milwaukee. I took a shower, then drove out to Pearl to go to the Safeway there, where I bought tortillas, salsa, limes and a couple other things I can't recall. I also bought a bottle of shiraz because liquor stores close down at 5:00 on Sundays 'round these here parts.
I came home and cleaned (Roomba had run around a bunch while I was out shopping), and Carrie & I worked in a quick game of Mario Kart before I started cooking chicken in a big ol' wok.
While I was cooking Brandy and Carly showed up. Carly had something very important with her (other than Brandy), but I'll get to that in a minute.
I removed the chicken to a bowl and added onions, peppers, and garlic to the wok while Brandy served up Hypnotiq (hootch) and Carly grated cheese. She asked me at one point if she'd grated enough. I know, can you believe it? When it comes to cheese, there is no such thing as enough. Con Queso!
We decked out the dining room table with the tortillas, chicken & vegetables, salsa, sour cream, and limes, and everyone made their own fajitas! We settled on the couch and the gold chair and slipped into the DVD player that very special thing that Carly brought. Everyone's new favorite show: Veronica Mars
I know, I know, Veronica Mars just finished its second season, but I was never in a position to watch it, except for times in the middle of an episode in the second two-thirds of a season, which is not when I wanted to start watching it.
Anyway, we watched the first 15 minutes of the first episode of the first season when Laura called. I drove over there and picked her up and brought her over to our house to join the festivities.
We ended up watching the entire first disc. It is a very good show, with a couple of reservations (very minor):
It was good to see Katie. I will miss her.
Carrie is leaving for the midwest herself on Wednesday, so we spent the day getting her more ready. This involved, incidentally, driving up to Tukwilla/Burien and having brunch at Pancake Chef. Last time I went there I had the blueberry fritters, and while they were very good they were not pancakes. So this time I made sure to order pancakes. The pancake sandwich, to be precise, with bacon and scrambled eggs. And I made sure to specify sourdough pancakes and real butter.
Them sourdough pancakes is good times.
Carrie had a crab omelette, which was made with real dungeness crab. You could tell, because there was a tiny bit of shell in the bite I had. It was delicious, however, despite that one slightly crunchy bite.
From there we ended up going to Southcenter (which isn't called Southcenter anymore, but I forget the new, idiotic name) where Carrie bought shoes at Macy's and tank tops slash camisoles at Lane Bryant. We swung by Target on the way out and bought some little sundries, but nothing of great import.
When we got home there was much dishes and laundry and preparing for Milwaukee. I took a shower, then drove out to Pearl to go to the Safeway there, where I bought tortillas, salsa, limes and a couple other things I can't recall. I also bought a bottle of shiraz because liquor stores close down at 5:00 on Sundays 'round these here parts.
I came home and cleaned (Roomba had run around a bunch while I was out shopping), and Carrie & I worked in a quick game of Mario Kart before I started cooking chicken in a big ol' wok.
While I was cooking Brandy and Carly showed up. Carly had something very important with her (other than Brandy), but I'll get to that in a minute.
I removed the chicken to a bowl and added onions, peppers, and garlic to the wok while Brandy served up Hypnotiq (hootch) and Carly grated cheese. She asked me at one point if she'd grated enough. I know, can you believe it? When it comes to cheese, there is no such thing as enough. Con Queso!
We decked out the dining room table with the tortillas, chicken & vegetables, salsa, sour cream, and limes, and everyone made their own fajitas! We settled on the couch and the gold chair and slipped into the DVD player that very special thing that Carly brought. Everyone's new favorite show: Veronica Mars
I know, I know, Veronica Mars just finished its second season, but I was never in a position to watch it, except for times in the middle of an episode in the second two-thirds of a season, which is not when I wanted to start watching it. Anyway, we watched the first 15 minutes of the first episode of the first season when Laura called. I drove over there and picked her up and brought her over to our house to join the festivities.
We ended up watching the entire first disc. It is a very good show, with a couple of reservations (very minor):
- They use a very bad video/film stock that makes things move weird at times. It does not look good.
- Every interior of a car scene is done with bluescreen, except for a handful that were in a convertible. And all the bluescreen stuff looks awful.
But those are my only complaints, and I can very easily look past them.
Carrie is going to go out and buy the first season tonight, but then she's going to take it on the plane with her. Hmm... I'll have to get Brandy and/or Carly to come over here with one of thier copies (Brandy owns it too) so I can watch some more while Carrie is gone...
posted by Christopher at 9:03 AM
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Sunday, June 11, 2006
The Reason for the Chopping Party
Yesterday (Saturday) was plenny busy. Carrie & I went to Trader Joe's in the morning. When we came back she made two prosciutto & basil cheese balls. In the afternoon we made baklava, which is quite the intensive process. There were breaks, however, wherein we played some Mario Kart.
At 5:00 we headed down to the Tacoma City Ballet space and started setting up for Melissa's Engagement Party. The reason we had a Chopping Party on Friday Night. We set up the food and cleaned up and the like; we could have used a couple more hours to get everything set up before people started to arrive, but oh well. 'Tweren't my party. At one point Carrie had me run back to the house to grab something she forgot, but she forgot that she'd forgotten to put on jewelry before we left, so I didn't grab that as well. Fortunately the store called so she had the girls grab some things and bring them over when they came.
I did have a very good time. Tonnes of Bead Babes were walking around everywhere, and they were all gorgeous (in fact, twice during the night a Bead Babe leaned over and told me how gorgeous Carrie looked, to which I heartily agreed; but other than my wife I thought that Brandy in her burgundy dress with the plunging neckline, and Gretchen in her short green dress, were the hottest). Brandy brought her old friend and formerly-regular Fools Play audience member Pat as her plus-one. He's graduated from college now and works at a fireworks place. But still hasn't come down to see the show since he started college. Boo!
Nicole and Kate Molly showed up as well! So that was really cool to see them again.
The food was all really good, but it was shockingly filling; I could only eat about half a plate before I started to get too stuffed. But the champagne flowed freely all night and a good time was had by all. Even Carrie's folks showed up (and had a good talk with Katie).
Festivities started winding down by 11:00, and we started cleaning up. Geoffs showed up around then to help. I ended up taking home the remaining carrot cake. All of it. It fit in four containers and is currenly in my fridge.
At 5:00 we headed down to the Tacoma City Ballet space and started setting up for Melissa's Engagement Party. The reason we had a Chopping Party on Friday Night. We set up the food and cleaned up and the like; we could have used a couple more hours to get everything set up before people started to arrive, but oh well. 'Tweren't my party. At one point Carrie had me run back to the house to grab something she forgot, but she forgot that she'd forgotten to put on jewelry before we left, so I didn't grab that as well. Fortunately the store called so she had the girls grab some things and bring them over when they came.
I did have a very good time. Tonnes of Bead Babes were walking around everywhere, and they were all gorgeous (in fact, twice during the night a Bead Babe leaned over and told me how gorgeous Carrie looked, to which I heartily agreed; but other than my wife I thought that Brandy in her burgundy dress with the plunging neckline, and Gretchen in her short green dress, were the hottest). Brandy brought her old friend and formerly-regular Fools Play audience member Pat as her plus-one. He's graduated from college now and works at a fireworks place. But still hasn't come down to see the show since he started college. Boo!
Nicole and Kate Molly showed up as well! So that was really cool to see them again.
The food was all really good, but it was shockingly filling; I could only eat about half a plate before I started to get too stuffed. But the champagne flowed freely all night and a good time was had by all. Even Carrie's folks showed up (and had a good talk with Katie).
Festivities started winding down by 11:00, and we started cleaning up. Geoffs showed up around then to help. I ended up taking home the remaining carrot cake. All of it. It fit in four containers and is currenly in my fridge.
posted by Christopher at 9:36 AM
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Saturday, June 10, 2006
Chopping Party
I don't have much time—we're super busy today. So let's see what I can both remember and type in what little time I have to do so.
Yesterday (Friday) we got Carrie to work about an half-hour late, which wasn't bad at all. In the morning I called the vet for Fantastico (Carrie swears she saw worms), and they had an appointment at 2:30 the very same day. So I called Carrie so she could schedule her lunch break around that. She at that moment learned that they were going out for lunch for some sort of store meeting, so she would not be breaking at all.
So at 2:30 I packed Fantastico in her kitty carrying case and took her to Affordable Animal Hospital to get a worm shot. It took really no time at all. Everybody in the office was cooing over how cute Fantastico was. When we took her out of the carrying case in the back room she practically jumped into my arms and tried to bury herself in my coat, the poor thing. But it was over very quickly, and then there was just one incident where she hissed at a dog through the bars of the carrying case and we were back home.
She was only angry at me for about an hour, and then all was forgotten.
After that I fell asleep at my keyboard. I think it's funny when that happens, but unfortunately I don't often keep typing, so I have no good examples of "sleepy writing," like Sarah Hamel had in college.
I picked Carrie up after work, and we tried to play some Mario Kart, but we were both too tired and she ended up going to the bedroom and taking a nap. I played some Mario Kart DS with random people over WFC.
At 5:30 I woke Carrie up (kinda) and made breaded cod for din-dins. Then around 6:00 we washed a couple of cutting boards and some good knives and headed over to Melissa's for a Chopping Party. What's a Chopping Party? Well, that's when Melissa is throwing a huge engagement party (today), and manages to rope all of her friends into doing the dirty work for it. So we chopped and cooked food. For example, I started out by cutting sliced cheese into smaller slices, and then moved on to sliced meats. After that I sliced tomatoes to be put into the food processor (to make bruscetta topping), and then later on I sliced baguettes to make crustini. There were a lot of peoples there, including all three Chrisses and their respective wives, Christine, and Lawrence.
Carrie & Chris Gouker went to the store a couple of times to buy containers and the like so there would be places to store everything.
We got home around 9:30 and did as much kitchen cleaning as we could, including running a load of dishes, before Carrie was too tired to continue.
Yesterday (Friday) we got Carrie to work about an half-hour late, which wasn't bad at all. In the morning I called the vet for Fantastico (Carrie swears she saw worms), and they had an appointment at 2:30 the very same day. So I called Carrie so she could schedule her lunch break around that. She at that moment learned that they were going out for lunch for some sort of store meeting, so she would not be breaking at all.
So at 2:30 I packed Fantastico in her kitty carrying case and took her to Affordable Animal Hospital to get a worm shot. It took really no time at all. Everybody in the office was cooing over how cute Fantastico was. When we took her out of the carrying case in the back room she practically jumped into my arms and tried to bury herself in my coat, the poor thing. But it was over very quickly, and then there was just one incident where she hissed at a dog through the bars of the carrying case and we were back home.
She was only angry at me for about an hour, and then all was forgotten.
After that I fell asleep at my keyboard. I think it's funny when that happens, but unfortunately I don't often keep typing, so I have no good examples of "sleepy writing," like Sarah Hamel had in college.
I picked Carrie up after work, and we tried to play some Mario Kart, but we were both too tired and she ended up going to the bedroom and taking a nap. I played some Mario Kart DS with random people over WFC.
At 5:30 I woke Carrie up (kinda) and made breaded cod for din-dins. Then around 6:00 we washed a couple of cutting boards and some good knives and headed over to Melissa's for a Chopping Party. What's a Chopping Party? Well, that's when Melissa is throwing a huge engagement party (today), and manages to rope all of her friends into doing the dirty work for it. So we chopped and cooked food. For example, I started out by cutting sliced cheese into smaller slices, and then moved on to sliced meats. After that I sliced tomatoes to be put into the food processor (to make bruscetta topping), and then later on I sliced baguettes to make crustini. There were a lot of peoples there, including all three Chrisses and their respective wives, Christine, and Lawrence.
Carrie & Chris Gouker went to the store a couple of times to buy containers and the like so there would be places to store everything.
We got home around 9:30 and did as much kitchen cleaning as we could, including running a load of dishes, before Carrie was too tired to continue.
posted by Christopher at 1:02 PM
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Friday, June 09, 2006
Robots Stick Together
Yesterday (Thursday) Carrie did not have class, which meant she did not have a split-shift. We ended up getting her to work a half hour later than usual just due to general difficulty getting out of bed. It happens sometimes.
In exciting news, I may be designing the album cover for the next Locust Street Taxi album! I'm looking forward to that.
Leia called while I was cooking potstickers for lunch, and we talked about physics (she's taking a physics class) and other such stuff for a while. The intstant we hung up and I finished cooking the potstickers, Carrie called from the store to be picked up for lunch. Talk about good timing!
So we had lunch together at the house, then I took her back to the store and swung by the house to grab my stuff. I then high-tailed it up to Seattle. I got up to Sandy & Mathias's apartment, but Sandy was out at Target buying a new game for her DS. She settled on Pokémon Trozei
.
While she was doing that, I walked around her Capitol Hill neighborhood and encountered a good handful of people who when I glanced at them I thought they were men, but upon second glance I would notice features that made me realize they were just very masculine women. Also, two extremely cute Japanese girls, and a woman who ended every sentence with "dude."
When Sandy got home she let me into her apartment so I could go to the bathroom. Then she warmed up some noodles for us for lunch (even though I'd already eaten). After that we walked to the new-ish Trader Joe's on Capitol Hill. We bought green tea mochi. And then walked back.
When we got back we played that Trozei game. It's a crazy Tetris-like came, but absolutely nutz. We played it two-player for a while on "cooperative" mode. Then she tried out the one-player "endless" mode. They're not exaggerating. It really is endless. She played for like a half hour without losing, and it just kept getting more and more crazy. It was exhausting for me just to watch it!
So exhausting, in fact, that when she finally quit we both just fell asleep on the couch until 5:00.
Y'know, it was really fun hanging out with just Sandy. I hardly ever get to see either Sandy or Mathias without the other; they almost always come as a pair.
Sandy drove us down to that Bubble Tea place across from Uwajimaya, and we picked up Mathias and walked to Pink Godzilla.
In exciting news, I may be designing the album cover for the next Locust Street Taxi album! I'm looking forward to that.
Leia called while I was cooking potstickers for lunch, and we talked about physics (she's taking a physics class) and other such stuff for a while. The intstant we hung up and I finished cooking the potstickers, Carrie called from the store to be picked up for lunch. Talk about good timing!
So we had lunch together at the house, then I took her back to the store and swung by the house to grab my stuff. I then high-tailed it up to Seattle. I got up to Sandy & Mathias's apartment, but Sandy was out at Target buying a new game for her DS. She settled on Pokémon Trozei
. While she was doing that, I walked around her Capitol Hill neighborhood and encountered a good handful of people who when I glanced at them I thought they were men, but upon second glance I would notice features that made me realize they were just very masculine women. Also, two extremely cute Japanese girls, and a woman who ended every sentence with "dude."
When Sandy got home she let me into her apartment so I could go to the bathroom. Then she warmed up some noodles for us for lunch (even though I'd already eaten). After that we walked to the new-ish Trader Joe's on Capitol Hill. We bought green tea mochi. And then walked back.
When we got back we played that Trozei game. It's a crazy Tetris-like came, but absolutely nutz. We played it two-player for a while on "cooperative" mode. Then she tried out the one-player "endless" mode. They're not exaggerating. It really is endless. She played for like a half hour without losing, and it just kept getting more and more crazy. It was exhausting for me just to watch it!
So exhausting, in fact, that when she finally quit we both just fell asleep on the couch until 5:00.
Y'know, it was really fun hanging out with just Sandy. I hardly ever get to see either Sandy or Mathias without the other; they almost always come as a pair.
Sandy drove us down to that Bubble Tea place across from Uwajimaya, and we picked up Mathias and walked to Pink Godzilla.