Posts from August 2009

“She’s a peach, she’s a doll, she’s a pal of mine.”

I liked this movie more than a lot of people I know. It has its problems, I’ll freely admit—problems with pacing, structure, and voice acting. But it still managed to completely suck me into its darkly beautiful, fantastical world. I saw it twice and paid the exorbitant 3D fee both times, so that should tell you something. [Read my full review]

He made another one! WOO-HOO!

So, as anyone who reads this probably knows, last week was hot. Weather-wise, I mean. High temperatures the whole week. Record-breaking high temperatures. I believe it got up to 103 degrees somewhere in western Washington.

Seeing as how this is the 21st century, the “information age,” the weather forecasts leading into the week were kinda hard to miss. I knew it was going to be hot. I don’t do terribly well in the heat; I tend to get overheated rather easily. So I did a very sensible thing. I went to Home Depot.

They had several boxlike air conditioners in stock. I of course looked for the cheapest one, which was $100. But they didn’t have any in boxes, just a couple of display ones. So I bought a display-model air conditioner for $75 dollars.

I set it up and the bedroom, and during the hot week my wife and I spent the majority of our time (time we were home at any rate) comfy in our nice, air-conditioned living room.

That was all well and good for the bedroom, but there were times when I needed to work in the office, which, due to being on the southwest corner of the house, is often the hottest room in the house. The cold air from the air-conditioned bedroom couldn’t be stretched out enough to reach the office. The air conditioner only cost $75 after all, so no use expecting such miracles from it. Instead I went and bought a $3 styrofoam cooler and constructed my own air conditioner much like this one. It worked not nearly as well as the actual air conditioner, but the air that came out of it was much cooler than the air in the office.

So the extreme heat wasn’t actually too bad for me for the long stretches. Every once in a while I’d get too hot, but I’d get in range of the air conditioner when that happened.

The funniest thing about the week for me, though, is another side-effect of living in the 21st century. The social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) became basically a week-long bitch-fest about the heat. I swear 75% of all posts last week were somehow commenting on (usually complaining about) the heatwave. Sometimes the same people would complain every day, sometimes even several times a day.

I thought the sheer volume of it was kind of amusing. Is complaining about the weather really going to make it change? I never posted a single thing about the heat (until right now, of course), and instead of complaining, which would not have made me feel any less hot, I took steps to ensure that I had nothing really to complain about.

Link of the Month:
Ponoko
A terrific service: upload your vector-line files to this website and they’ll laser-cut your designs out for you and ship them to you—or your customers! There are a variety of materials (with a variety of thicknesses) to choose from, including multiple colors of acrylic, bamboo, and felt, and most of them can also be engraved as well as cut out. A brilliant way to mass-produce your ideas.

Album of the Month:
Order of the Crimson Wizard: Secrets From the Far and Distant Hills
These guys are a hoot. A local Bellingham band, the Order of the Crimson Wizard were described to me as “Castlevania Rock.” That’s not a terrible description; OCW infuse their high-energy rock with large doses of classical motifs and gothic lyrics, but they’re not in any way a whiny emo band. These guys rock. This is their debut EP of seven fun, fast, dramatic, kick-ass songs. If you have a chance to see them live, I also highly recommend doing so. More OCW at their MySpace page.

Book of the Month:
Robot Dreams by Sara Varon
A simple, beautifully-drawn, nearly wordless graphic novel about a lonely dog who builds himself a robot friend. A very intelligent musing on the fragility of friendship and the nature of loyalty, guilt, loss, and redemption. Shockingly moving and at times very funny, this wonderful story will stick with you for a long, long time. More Sara Varon at her website.

My younger sister got married in front of the Vashon Island lighthouse yesterday, so I was kind of busy with that instead of updating my “Of the Month” stuff for August. Don’t worry, I’ll get to that tomorrow. In the meantime, please to enjoying the many of photos that I photographed of the wedding!