Author: ryan

Categories
Entertainment Movies

Here come the Fuzz

This afternoon Kelly and I joined Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog to see Hot Fuzz. The movie was hilarious, and anyone who likes Shaun of the Dead will like Hot Fuzz. Both films were written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. And both films do the same thing, take a style / genre of film (zombie movies, or in this case, 'action cop drama' movies) and put a unique (and comical) twist on the whole thing. I highly recommend it.

Also, during the previews, we saw one for another movie starring Simon Pegg called Run, Fat Boy, Run, which also looks to be pretty funny. Too bad that won't be out until 2008.

Categories
Beer Entertainment General Movies Work

Unghhh

What a week, and what a day.

The past week has been pretty crazy at work. SuperSweetCo is prepping a new version of the software that I worked on a few months back. The UI is changing a little bit, which means that there's quite a bit of work for me to do. I can only hope the changes are received as big improvements. Stress!

After work yesterday I decided to walk homeward for a bit, the weather was nice, and I needed the physical and mental break from the week. I ended up walking about halfway home (at little over 3 miles) before catching a bus. Once I got home I drank a few beers and watched some movies from Netflix that K had already seen during the week. One of them was a pretty good (and quirky) romantic comedy called Happy Accidents. In general, anything with Vincent D'Onofrio I like… and Marisa Tomei isn't hard on the eyes either.

Today I had to get up early to help my friend Jenn move. In general helping a friend move is relatively easy, not because I'm all that fit, but it's normally pretty straight-forward… move stuff from point A to B. However in this case my friend Jenn swapped houses with a friend who lived about 3 blocks away. This might sound simple, but it's not. It meant that myself and the 10 other hard-working blokes had to fill the moving truck for a couple hours (climbing and descending steps and stairs, weighed down with heavy boxes, furniture and appliances), only to get to the other house, unload all that stuff, only to refill the moving truck with the stuff from the other house… effectively starting all over. Despite a couple beers and a short pizza break, after four hours I was exhausted. I'm not used to that level of strain. Oh, and the best part was about half-way through it started raining. Whee! All my complaining aside, I was still happy to help Jenn move. Just hope I never have to help move a house-swap ever again. It's a bit like rubbing salt in a wound. 🙂

After getting home and washing the stink off, and spending a couple hours relaxing (and letting the soreness set in) K and I joined Mr & Mrs Ghost Dog at the Mash Tun for a fantastic meal and some delicious beers. One of the beers that both GD and I enjoyed was a brown ale called Turbodog from Abita Brewing Co. in Louisiana. It was a delicious, quality brown ale with a slightly sweet and bitter flavor. And, it's got a cool name! 🙂 Had a great night, but I'm feeling very sore. I suspect tomorrow is going to suck. 

Categories
Beer General Travel

Ant report, beer, hotel, and a trip to Washington

I've been busy the past several days. Work has been very stressful. I have a lot to get done prior to a new software release (coming in a couple weeks). On Wednesday I worked from home, and had an "Orkin Man" come over and look into the ant issue. To my great relief, we don't have carpenter ants (whew!) but instead have a non-destructive nuisance called oderous house ants. Apparently it's pretty common in the area, and while they can be hard to get rid of, they're not a destructive. We'll see what we can do with store-bought ant-killing pesticides first before paying for an extermination treatment that's usually reserved for carpenter ants. Apparently the inspection was free, at least, unless we get a bill in the mail later.

On Thursday my brother Travis and I got together for our weekly beer drinking session. Had a good time, though made it an early night (due to the aforementioned work stress).

Friday after work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at the McMenamins Back Stage Bar (mentioned before) and had a delicious spicy mac 'n cheese dish with blackened chicken, and a couple pints of Terminator Stout. Later we drove Miranda home to hang out, but not before stopping at Belmont Station to buy a few beers for the weekend (Smithwick's, Coniston Bluebird Bitter, Old Speckled Hen, and a few other things). 

Today was pretty productive, despite sleeping in a bit. Kelly and I finally booked a hotel for our upcoming trip London. We chose the Park Plaza 'Sherlock Holmes' Hotel. Despite the rather touristy name, and after digging around for probably 20 hours total in the past week (using a combination of Bookings.org, TripAdvisor, and a great Google Maps and hotel search mashup called MashedHotels) we found the Sherlock Holmes was in a good location for a "decent" price (I added quotes because pretty much everything in London is really expensive). After some knuckle-gnawing, I opted for the more expensive 'suite' room. I figured that since we will be there for 8 nights, I wanted to spend our nights in as nice a room as I could afford this time, rather than going for the low-end budget route we usually go for. After booking the hotel, and going to get a haircut, Kelly and I drove about a half-hour north into Washington to visit my longtime friend Sean and his family at their new house. They had just finished moving this morning to a house that sits on ten acres of land in a beautiful and secluded area. It was great seeing them again, and I'm glad they finally found the spot they'd been looking for (for the past several years). After getting back to Portland we hung out at the Mash Tun with our friend Jenn at the Mash Tun for a bit, before going home. What a day! 🙂 

Categories
General News Travel Work

Travel news, and stupid ants

So something I didn't write about earlier like I should have, Kelly and I booked our flight to London late Sunday (yup, after I ate two full plates of meat, maybe that had something to do with my complicity?) We're leaving Saturday, April 28th, flying British Airways direct from Seattle to London, and will return on Monday, May 7th. We're both really looking forward to the trip, despite Kelly's recent unemployment. This all seems so familar. Perhaps this means Kelly will find a kick-ass job and start shortly after our return. It just seems so weird. See Kelly's post for all we plan to do while in London. All of that aside, we'll also make it over there a couple months before the smoking ban that will take effect in July. My last chance to enjoy a pint and a fag in an English pub. Hooray for me!

Now for the downer, Kelly yesterday pulled a beeping smoke alarm from the ceiling only to get covered with ants. Here we thought we'd solved our ant problem, only to discover hundreds of them in the walls. We have an exterminator coming out tomorrow, but dammit, so annoying, and potentially a very expensive issue. Grrrr. Stupid ants.

Categories
Food

Full

To follow up on yesterday's post, we went to the Brown Derby with my family, and though I wasn't able to get the burger I wanted (they were only serving their champagne brunch) I did eat copious amounts of meat and potatoes. My mom informed me that I celebrated my first birthday at the Derby, and naturally ended up wearing most of the birthday cake. Anyway, pretty fun time, I'm probably going to be full for a couple days.