Posts from March 2012

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen recently. It is a Lego® recreation of the climactic Winchester Pub from Shaun of the Dead. And it has a chance to become a reality.

If it receives 10,000 votes, it will go into the consideration pool to actually be produced as a Lego playset. For reals.

So what is all y’alls waiting for!? Go on and vote for it:

LEGO® CUUSOO | The Winchester – Shaun of the Dead.

A bunch of my favorite musicians and bands are having a bunch of shows in the area this Spring, so I’ve compiled a list here. There are a lot more shows than this happening, of course, but these here are the ones that I’m either going to attend or would like to attend:

March 30, Friday

A Pancake Party with Julia Massey & the Five Finger Discount!
@ Monkey Grind Espresso, 518 North 85th Street, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 13, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount, Three Ninjas, & DvOd!
@ Mars Bar, 609 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

April 16, Monday

Marian Call!
@ Forza Coffee, 5275 Olympic Dr. NW, Gig Harbor, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 17, Tuesday

Marian Call!
@ Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 21, Saturday

The Jesus Rehab Album Release!
@ The Josephine, 608 NW 65th St, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 27, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Empty Sea Studios, 6300 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

May 12, Saturday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Eddie’s Trackside, 214 N Lewis Street, Monroe, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

June 2, Saturday

Locust Street Taxi!
@ The Spar, 2121 N 30th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
Details TBA

I would love it if all of you could join us for some/all of these shows. Even the ones that I don’t end up going to myself. Can you join someone if they’re not doing the activity? Does that count as joining? THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS SHUT UP.

Last Friday Carrie & I went down to the Merlino Arts Center (where The Grand Cinema is) to attend Tacoma City Ballet’s Free Spring Dance Extravaganza Preview & Choreographers’ Talk.

The three choreographers involved each talked a bit about the dances they are going to present at the actual show next month, then had their dancers do some excerpts. Afterwards there was a brief Q&A. All-told it lasted just about an hour. And it was very smart, because now I actually wanna go see the full show. See, before I was kinda on the fence about it. But now there are some dances that I’m actually excited to see: Miss Erin’s whale songs dance, Joel’s slapstick 1930s hotel comedy, and Travis’s dance that he wrote the music for himself (on a cello—It was very cool to see Trav play the cello live, even though he won’t be doing that for the actual show).

Afterwards we went down to The Hub for a bunch of appetizers and beer. As we were leaving the ballet school, though, Carrie & Travis made a bet as to how long it would take for Melissa to notice that Travis was wearing socks & sandals and then yell at him for it. But it took her way longer to notice than either one of them thought, so nobody won.

Here’s a neat little video where they took a photograph from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and re-constructed it into a 3D image of an enormous dust devil on Mars:

An interesting thing about Mars is that because its atmosphere is so thin and its gravity so low, huge dust devils form rather easily. But for the same reasons enormous dust devils like these are also exceptionally weak; they couldn’t really do much more damage than a regular-sized dust devil here on good ol’ Earf. In fact, dust devils are claimed to be responsible for fixing two Mars rovers (by blowing all the dust off their solar cells).

What’s that you say? Cite my sources? Frak, dude, I don’t remember where I read that. Heck, maybe I’m mis-remembering something I read years ago. But it sound right, don’t it?

Here’s an adorable live-show-footage video from one of my favorite geeky jazz vocalists (don’t say that combination of words a lot), Marian Call, with some special “guests” to back her up:

Marian has done shows with the bigwigs of geeky music, like Molly Lewis, the Doubleclicks, and she was even involved in w00tstock (but not the one that I went to, unfortunately) and just got back from JoCoCruiseCrazy, the geekiest music cruise of them ALL.

Marian is going to be in Seattle towards the end of this month playing with Kirby Krackle on Friday, March 30th at Seattle’s Hard Rock Cafe.

She’s then going to be hitting a bunch of locations all up and down the Puget Sound sometime in the middle of April. Carrie & I are planning to see her when she swings through Tacoma. You should join us!

Tacoma, WA // Tues. 04.17.12: Mandolin Cafe
The lovely Mandolin Cafe welcomes Marian back for an intimate evening show. 6-8pm, free, all ages, $10 recommended artist donation.

Mandolin Cafe, 3923 South 12th Street, Tacoma, WA.

More Info:
• Marian Call’s Website

I must say I am rather excited for this venture: Felicia Day and friends are starting (on April 2nd) a new YouTube channel called “Geek and Sundry” that includes a bunch of interesting-looking shows. Here’s a trailer:

I have to say I am probably most interested in Wil Wheaton’s “Tabletop” show, which he says “combines Celebrity Poker with Dinner For Five, but we play boardgames instead of poker.” I am also curious as to just what the heck Paul & Storm’s show is going to be like.

More info:

Geek & Sundry’s YouTube Channel

Geek & Sundry on Twitter

Felicia Day on Twitter

Wil Wheaton

Paul & Storm

SH:AGOT (or Shagot as I will henceforth call it) is a very fun, bright, lively, and enjoyable flick. It lacks, however, a certain magic cohesiveness that the 2009 Sherlock Holmes had. The 2009 movie had a freshness and newness that made it exciting and delightful, which is almost impossible for a sequel like this to recapture. What it does recapture is the spirit of fun and excitement and the excellent cast chemistry. [Read my full review]