Author: ryan

Categories
News Politics

Idiots

idiot gansta wannabe 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.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Categories
Beer Food Work

End of a week, Night at the Goose

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*

Categories
Beer Entertainment Movies Work

The Bourne Potter Hobbit

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.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Music Work

Monday, and more Radiohead

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.

Categories
Entertainment Movies

Tin Man

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.