Apparently there was a gang-related shooting a few blocks away from my house at around 4am. Kelly and I were sound asleep, I don’t remember waking up to anything anyway. This isn’t the first thing to happen in our ‘hood’ since we’ve lived here, but this particular even is far less worrying to me. Some idiots were presumably partying in a warehouse on NE 42nd Avenue, and then around 4am a gun was pulled and fired into the warehouse injuring 5 people before continuing east where more shots were fired.
Gang ‘culture’ (you know, the one glorified by hip-hop songs about gunz, bitchez, and bling) is self-destructive and very, very stupid.
According to this article by local news channel KATU, neither witnesses or victims are cooperating with the police. I presume this is for fear of being known as a snitch, this is anyone who talks to police about, well, anything… even if it means protecting some shithead who shot you. What? WHAT?!? I’m sorry, that’s insane. What good is all that respect from those around you when you could wind up dead tomorrow because you kept quiet?
I’ve added some videos from a CNN piece on this snitchin idiocy.
After a fairly long and mentally exhausting work week, Kelly and I went back to our old haunt, the Goose Hollow Inn, for dinner with our good friends Jason & Jen. Been a while since I’d been to back to the Goose, and even longer since we’d seen J & J. Had a great night catching up with them. I had a few pints of Guinness and the Goose’s famous reuben sandwich. Delicious, and filling. I’m feeling quite drowsy as I write this. Looking forward to my week and a half off, which starts… NOW! *passes out*
*wakes up briefly* while linking to the Guinness website I discovered they have some new strange contraption called the Surger, some kind of sonic burst delivered to a flat-looking pour from a can that activates the nitro bubbles forming the cascade and head associated with a keg pour (videos on guinness.com). Huh. I want to try one someday, hopefully a bar around Portland has one at some point. I’m interested in comparing it to a real keg pour. *passes back out*
After another long days work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at Kennedy School at around 6pm for some dinner and then to the theater to watch The Bourne Ultimatum. The movie was good, however I find it hard to give a fair review of it for a couple reasons. First, we met early enough to eat dinner and have a few beers, which made me a little ‘relaxed’, and second, the theater was heated to about 100 degrees, only adding to my generally sleepiness… so I found myself fighting drowsiness during some of the film. Not to say the film lacked any action. It was packed with it. Just that the combination of everything didn’t put me in an attentive state. Without seeing a seeing it a second time I can’t say for sure, but I liked it, just not quite as much as the first one of the series.
After getting home around 10pm I headed straight for bed to finish the last 20 or so pages of the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hollows. I’d been trying to finish it for a few days, and early this morning I was reading it while sipping on coffee before I had to force myself to get cleaned up and go to work. It meant stopping during the big finale. I think I want to re-read the last chapter or two straight through this next weekend, but it was a good finish to the series. Also, I’m glad to finally be done with those seven books. Time to move on.
In other news, The Hobbit is finally getting made! (queue a little Hobbit-like jig from me) The spat between New Line and Peter Jackson has apparently been resolved so he will be executive producing what will be two more films (still unclear exactly as to whether it’s going to be simply splitting The Hobbit in two, or if it will attempt to broaden the story to include some of the other, related stories. Either way, I’m very excited about being able to watch more of PJ’s interpretation of Tolkien’s world.
Mondays are never very fun. Work was fine, just, you know, Monday. For the 2nd Monday in a row I had a new designer in for the day (who will be helping me with the product I work on). The designer (Amy) won’t start until January 2, but it’s been good to get her in and get her up-to-speed a bit before she formally starts.. After work I met Snooks at Kennedy School for a bit, chatting largely about music. Had fun. Got home around 10pm and read for a bit before the blissful sleeping. Oh, also, I finally got my Radiohead “In Rainbows” box set in the mail. Hooray! Beautiful packaging, smartly assembled, and I finally got to hear the 2nd disc of music that wasn’t available as the digital download a few months back. Very nice. I’m just not sure where I’m going to put the box itself yet. Bookshelf? Too big for that. Hrm.
Today was a largely restful day, thankfully. The only thing I did away from home was going with Kelly to a birthday party for our friend M & J’s daughter (who turned 1) at this very kiddie friendly spot called Peanut Butter & Ellie’s. It was, uh, bright, and colorful. However, if I had a wee one it’d probably be a decent little spot I guess. Not sure it mattered to the 1 year old, but there were plenty of others with 3, 4 and 5 year olds who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. However we got to see some friends and chat for a bit before Kelly and I came home to and watched the last two parts of the three-part SciFi Channel movie Tin Man, a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t too bad. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was entertaining and far superior to the other crap that channel pumps out… just look at their list of ‘original movies’, you’ll get the idea.
Today Kelly had class all day, and that meant I had the day to myself. I had grand plans to continue organizing my office, but instead spent most of the day playing video games. Played some Call of Duty 2 online for a bit, and then spent some time playing OpenArena, the free Quake 3 Arena game (based on Q3A’s open-sourced engine). It had been a number of years since I’d played Q3A, and had forgotten how even though the graphics are pretty ‘lo-fi’ compared to modern games, it’s still a blast to play (literally, KABOOM). There are several really fun maps to play, and it’s just as fast and furious as Q3A was. Neat!
Tonight Kelly and I went to my company’s holiday party, held at Holocene. It was a good time; open bar, tons of snacky foods, a live band, and an excellent speech from the CEO. Here are a few photos from the party, taken by a coworker). After hanging out until 10pm Kelly and I stopped briefly at Moon & Sixpence on our way home before calling it a night (Kelly has class tomorrow).
There, now that that’s out of the way, while reading through Digg tonight I came across a really good article chronicling the career turn-arounds of certain musicians/bands. The first on the list was Radiohead which included a music video for “Just” from their album The Bends. Having never seen it before, I was amazed by it’s brilliance. It’s among the best music videos I’ve ever seen (next to this video by Sigur Ros, and “Hurt” covered by Johnny Cash). The kind that is intelligent, tells a story, and is more like a short film than the kind of garbage that does nothing but glamorize the singer and his gang of “ho’s” and his “bling” (thinking about most rap videos, which is about all you ever see on MTV) or about how sexy and sensual the female singer is.
Below, for your viewing pleasure, is the video for “Just” by Radiohead
Got up early today. Well, early by my Saturday standards (8:30), and spent most of the day being somewhat productive. I continued cleaning my office, cleaned the kitchen, the garage, the car, etc. You know, super exciting fun stuff. Oh, I also IM’d all day with my loser friend Martin. What a loser! (yes, I expect a response from you, you loser).
Tonight Kelly and I met our friends Ty and Aymie (as well her sister and brother-in-law) at Moon & Sixpence for some dinner and drinks. We were joined later by Miranda & Brian, and even later by my brother Travis. Had a good time hanging out. Had the cottage pie. Still full. Gruhhh.
Oh, today I also created my masterpiece. My friend SD sent me a mix CD (the prize for winning a blog contest: closest guess to the birth date of his son), which arrived in the mail last week (the CD, not his son). Naturally, a home-made mix CD doesn’t have cover art. I like cover art (so does my iPod), so I created one. The CD had only the phrase “Van Man” written on it, a fairly common nickname due to my long Dutch last name. I grabbed an oddball image from his blog and created this: Behold the awesomeness.
Hello readers (the, um, five of you). Here’s a recap of the week, with an added bonus weird Portland fact at the end (which you must read through all the following junk to discover… because I say so).
Sunday: After spending most of the morning reveling in the rawk greatness I’d seen the previous night, Kelly and I watched Rescue Dawn, which was fantastic.
Monday: I met Snooks after work for a couple pints at Kennedy School, where I got to talk in a limited fashion about Battlestar Galactica: Razor (which Snooks hadn’t yet seen, so I had to skirt around, well, pretty much everything).
Tuesday: I met my friend MB at Rialto (around the corner from my office) for lunch. Had their reuben sandwich. It was no Goose Hollow reuben, but it was good. However, I was left that afternoon feeling generally full and icky. I’m not blaming it on the sandwich, I think I was fighting off a cold. Stayed in and read about 200 pages of the seventh and final Harry Potter book. Was nice to have an evening in while Kelly was out seeing a play.
Wednesday: Kelly and I met after at Binks after I left work for a quick beer before going home and watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which was, uh, not great. Not quite as crap as I was expecting, but definitely not my favorite of the three.
Thursday: Kelly and I met at Rose & Thistle for a few pints before coming home and listening to some old cassettes (which came up because over the previous weekend I’d finally gone through all my old tapes and boxed a bunch up to donate somewhere).
Today: After a couple weeks designing the interface for a bunch of new features for SuperSweetCo’s next release of it’s flagship product (culminating with a demo at 4pm) I hung out at a work happy hour where I got to learn some funny shiz about some coworkers, before catching the train homeward. On the way I stopped at Moon & Sixpence for a pint of Old Speckled Hen before catching my bus connection home.
Oh, just in case you’re wondering, I’ve still got Van Halen stuck in my head. I’m still rawking out!
Tonight I went out with my longtime friend Sean to see Van Halen play at the Rose Garden Arena. Yes, you read that right. Van effin’ Halen, with David Lee Roth back as the lead singer!
How, you might ask, would I be going to such a show? Well, it’s a good question, and it requires a little bit of storytime… Back in elementary school I was into Van Halen, and introduced my friend Sean to them. Before I’d even reached Junior High, the “Roth Break-up” occurred, and I remember lamenting that I’d never get the chance to see them. I was also never a big fan of their Hagar-era reincarnation (“Van Hagar”). Fast forward 22 years… Sean, bless him, heard of the Halen + Roth reunion tour and immediately thought of me and bought he and I tickets to the show (well, his wife bought the tickets, thanks Mel!). While Van Halen has been off my personal playlist for many years, they occasionally resurface when I get the itch (equal parts nostalgia and the desire to rawk out).
Despite my fears (you know, of them being something of a sad, ghostly version of themselves, aided by walkers and IV’s… and catheters) they were great, and it was a blast. They really did RAWK, and despite their age they both looked and sounded great. Granted, DLR wasn’t able to hit his high screechy vocal accents the same way he did at 54 years old as he could at 26, he was still one hell of a front-man, and the energy onstage between he and Eddie Van Halen was that of two longtime friends having a heck of a good time.
The original lineup was almost complete, the original bassist Michael Anthony (who has sided with that loser, Sammy Hagar) had split with the group, and was replaced with Eddie’s son Wolfgang, who was excellent in his own right and seemed to fit in very well with the band, both in namesake and talent.
The band played nothing but Roth-era Van Halen, and sounded really good. There were, naturally, moments where the songs strayed from their album counterparts, either by mid-song improvisational guitar solos, or vocal changes by Roth, but there wasn’t a song that wasn’t as fun and rockin’ as the originals. Some of the standouts for me were pretty much anything they played from their first album, of which they played a LOT (if not all), which was a pleasant surprise since it’s the one album I actually leave on my iPod and enjoy listening to occasionally. It was also a long show, pretty much non-stop except for a VERY brief break before finishing the show with Jump. They went onstage at around 8:30 and played until 11:15, pretty much non-stop, featuring some amazing solo breaks by both the drummer Alex and Eddie.
Before the show Sean and I went to Rose & Thistle for some beers and some food, and after the show we hit Kennedy School for another beer or two and some fries, both of which served as nice ‘bookends’ to the night. Had a blast, despite how hesitant I was about the evening earlier today.
Oh, and if the pictures from my crappy phone ever make their way to my inbox, I’ll post ’em here, though I doubt they’ll be worth it. The above photo is credited to the official Van Halen website.
Apparently there was a gang-related shooting a few blocks away from my house at around 4am. Kelly and I were sound asleep, I don’t remember waking up to anything anyway. This isn’t the first thing to happen in our ‘hood’ since we’ve lived here, but this particular even is far less worrying to me. Some idiots were presumably partying in a warehouse on NE 42nd Avenue, and then around 4am a gun was pulled and fired into the warehouse injuring 5 people before continuing east where more shots were fired.
Tonight I went out with my longtime friend Sean to see 