blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Entertainment

  • Just Hangin’ around

    Last night was kind of funny… funny in that “I’m, like, an old man now” way. My ‘plans’ to stay up irresponsibly late, with the stereo cranking out the heavy metal and dancing in my skivvies (what with having the house to myself and all) were ruined by a combination of a couple beers and general exhaustion. I dozed off sometime around 11pm watching some old Humphrey Bogart film. Awoke at around 1am and lurched my way to bed.

    Not much to report today. Woke up early to the cat biting my leg, got out of the house at a decent time, and got to the office where I spent my day taking care of some of the last bits of the big new feature I spent the last few weeks working on. Another hot day in Portland, and only now (as it’s now dark) has it cooled off to what I call an “acceptable level”. Had a good friend stop by for a beer and a smoke, and now I’m just cooking up my chicken on the grill.

    Tomorrow I’ve got my first annual employee review at SuperSweetCo. Well, a bit more than a year (more like 1.25, shit happens, we’re all busy). I’m a little nervous, only because I’m not sure what to expect. Hell, perhaps I’ll write tomorrow that I’ve been fired for being too much of a dork. Or maybe I’ll have been promoted to Grand Poobah. Time will tell. 🙂

  • How to be the perfect girlfriend

    Saw this video via Digg.com just now. Hilarious (and yet, oddly accurate).

    Yup, still slacking off. 🙂

  • Spamalot!

    Saw Spamalot tonight, but first, a recap from my busy week: WORK. Yup, that’s pretty much all I did. I spent my time working on a new feature for SuperSweetCo‘s flagship product. It was a lot of fun to create (from creating the mockups to the actual development) but it was really complex and demanded my full attention through the week, both day and night.

    Friday evening Kelly and I brought dinner to my brother, sis-in-law, and “Hank” my new nephew. Kelly had spent the afternoon making delicious pasta dishes that we shared (well, not Hank, obviously) and later Travis made me hold Hank. I’m not comfortable holding babies, I fear dropping ’em (they can be awfully squirmy, hehe). It was a nice evening, though towards the end of the evening I was laying on the couch about to fall asleep, and it was only 10pm! By the time we got home and unloaded the dishes from the car I was done and just went to bed.

    Today was good, since I’d gotten around 8 hours sleep (despite our cat’s earnest attempts at nudging me awake every 20 minutes, starting around 5:30am). I spent the day tinkering around the house, but did manage to take my newly fixed bike out for a spin. It was a fun ride, but I didn’t get very far from home because I soon discovered just how out of shape certain leg muscles were. After getting back I cleaned up and Kelly and I headed into town to meet friends for dinner and a show.

    We met Miranda & Brian, and Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog at the Goose Hollow Inn for dinner and drinks. Had a nice time on the deck, the weather was great, and naturally so was the sandwich (mmmm… reuben). After that though we all piled into Ghost Dog’s car and drove down to the theater. It was Monty Python time!

    Spamlot!Spamalot was very entertaining and while I’m not a big fan of musicals, this show was a lot of fun. The writing, sets, costumes, and cast were fantastic. There were a lot of changes from Holy Grail, such as Dennis (Arthur: Old woman! Dennis: Man. Arthur: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?) becoming Sir Galahad, and Sir Lancelot falling for Herbert (heh), but all the modifications were very funny and I just had to suppress my “but that’s not how it goes” reactions. 🙂

    There were some additions to the plot (such as the Lady of the Lake being present through the story, and including the song Always Look in the Bright Side of Life, originally from Life of Brian) and some scenes from the film that I felt were conspicuously absent, such as the Castle Anthrax (“Oh wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!”) and the Bridge of Death (“Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three”). But in the end, the it was a lot of fun, and those who aren’t as obsessed with Monty Python wouldn’t notice, and just have a good time.

    After the show, we all went over to Moon & Sixpence for a few pints and some snacks before calling it a night. Great time, and thank gang for coming out / hauling us around town.

  • Menomena & Decemberists @ Edgefield

    Menomena at EdgefieldWent to a great show tonight at McMenamins Edgefield, I got to see a great local band who I’ve been wanting to see for a few years called Menomena, and for the third time, The Decemberists. I hadn’t seen a show at Edgefield before, and it was a pretty fun experience, especially with the great weather today. While a bit warm, it was a great place to see a show. Menomena were fantastic, and were as great (or better) live than their records.

    Decemberists at EdgefieldDecemberists also put on a fantastic show, though I was saddened not to see Lisa M. from Talkdemonic on stage with them like their last show. It was still a helluva good time. Decemberists did play Eli, the Barrow Boy and The Mariner’s Revenge Song (neither of which they played at the last show I saw them at) and during Mariner’s, they brought out some people under a giant whale outfit, which was a lot of fun. Was a very fun show, and a fun evening.

  • Brews, Dogs, & Demons

    Yoda at the Portland International BrewfestWhat a day. What a week! Work was crazy busy. On top of many other tasks however, I did get to do things like finalize a logo design, and then use that logo to design a t-shirt and a website… all for a developer community that’s set to launch in a couple weeks. Today however, the team I work with and I all fled the office early to go to the Portland International Brewfest to sample some beers. I was pleasantly surprised with the Sick Duck Imperial Stout, and was quite happy to see Coniston Brewing‘s Bluebird Bitter on tap. I spent most of my two hours there bouncing between those two beers, straying here and there to try out a few things.

    Kelly picked me up just after 6pm, because we were set to meet some friends at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne for dinner before going to a concert. Had a good time hanging out outside chatting, eating, and seeing all the cute dogs running around. Always a fun (though often loud) time at the Lucky Lab.

    Point Juncture, WA at the Aladdin TheaterWe then went on to the Aladdin Theater, which I hadn’t been inside of for over 12 years. The opening band was Point Juncture, WA (yes, that’s the band name, and they’re from Portland), who were entertaining to watch. It was pretty clear while watching them that the quintet was having a good time, pretty much all smiles the whole show. Also, several members rotated instruments during the show. While at times they sounded a bit rough, I definitely enjoyed their show.

    Talkdemonic at the Aladdin TheaterAfter the break, came the band that we were there to see, Talkdemonic. They put on a fantastic show, and introduced a LOT of new material. The crowd who’d all remained seated during Point Juncture, WA, were quickly on their feet, and the floor was filled with people swaying to the sounds that drummer / composer Kevin O’Connor and violist Lisa Molinaro poured into the theater. Fun show and a great way to end a great afternoon / evening.

  • Ford creates man’s dream world

    In a recent commercial from for the Falcon XR8 Ute, Ford has created a manly man’s dream world. The paper delivery isn’t a newspaper, but a burrito, a group of men chase after a beer truck called "Mr. Frothy", most of the stores in the town have large signs that read "Tools". Oh, and the theater is running "BEER: The Musical". I’d watch that. 🙂 Click here to read more and watch the video.

  • Just in time (apparently)

    Today we had some tech (and apparently sales… keep reading) folks come out from Comcast to fix some cable troubles. Our ancient, old-school analog cable has been having troubles with some channels. It’s not a new problem, it just took Kelly and I a long time to finally call Comcast about it. Channels 2 through 13 were having some ghosting issues, and two other higher channels had insanely low audio volumes, to a point where we’d have to crank up the receiver and then remember to turn it down before changing channels again.

    The Comcast techs hooked up this nifty box that both played video / audio from the cable, as well as analyzed the frequency strengths, etc. I heard it for myself, apparently there was nothing wrong with the signal. It could have been the old VCR we had our cable run through to change channels. Dunno. However, the helpful fella started talking to me about digital cable, their PVR units, and even how I could get things working with my MythTV box upstairs (that for years I’d been using to record shows with, later burning them to DVD, sans commercials, for later viewing). After some brief consideration, I decided to go ahead and upgrade… mainly because for a year, we don’t really pay anything different than we have been paying. While I feel it was definately an upsell, I don’t feel cheated. I’ve been wanting digital for a while. I wanted the handy guide for navigating channels. I definately wanted a PVR hooked up to my TV directly for a change. The extra channels are nice and all, though I’m not too concerned about most of them (though now we have BBC America, and for 6 months free, HBO). Neat-o! Guess I’ll see in a year what I want to keep and what I don’t. Chances are I’ll get so used to the extra features that I’ll drop the premium bits (HBO) and keep the PVR & extra digital channels, and just pay the extra $10 a month or whatever it comes down to. Either that, or we’ll get our use out of it and drop it. Time will tell.

    Here’s the part that makes this all kismet-like. I just read that the free channel guide my MythTV computer uses to get it’s channel data, is dropping it’s free service as of September 1st of this year. Apparently there has been some abuse of their free XML data (likely that the data was being stolen and re-sold). This could mean that in three months, unless something else crops up, MythTV boxes will become a lot less useful. This makes me very sad, and perhaps the company (Zap2It Labs) will offer some kind of paid subscription service (like you pay for with any other PVR service anyway), but for now, it makes my cable upgrade a timely one. 

  • BBQ and Arcade Fire

    Yesterday I spent most of the day doing general maintenance: cleaning up the house a bit, returning bottles and cans and doing some grocery shopping, going to Gartner's for some delicious meat products, and doing several hours of yardwork. That meant that I was exhausted and crashed early after watching some TV. That turned out to be a really good thing.

    Awoke at 8am, tried to fall back asleep but couldn't, so I got up and made coffee and some breakfast. I cooked up eggs and some english bacon that I'd picked up the previous day, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but still decent. I spent most of the morning tinkering around on the computer, killing time before going to my friend Sean's Memorial Day BBQ / Birthday / Housewarming in Washington. Had a great time visiting with old friends, meeting new folk, and of course, hanging out with my buddy Sean and his family.

    Just before 9:00pm Kelly and I decided to head back to Portland, wanting to get home somewhat early. About 10 minutes into the 35 minute drive back I get a text message from a coworker asking "Are you here?"… this coworker had picked me up some tickets to the 'upcoming' Arcade Fire concert about two months ago, and given them to me last Friday… and all of a sudden, it occurs to me that the show (which I thought was tomorrow) was tonight! Oh shit! Kelly and I drive as fast as we dare into town, rush to find a parking spot, and run to the venue. Fortunately we arrived shortly after Arcade Fire took the stage (missing only a couple songs). Whew!

    The show was incredible. There were ten people on stage (there are eight core members, the other two were touring members), a few of them changing roles throughout the show (keyboards one song, drums the next, etc). A prime example was founding member Régine Chassagne who played the hurdy-gurdy one song, sang beautifully on In The Backseat the next, and then played the drums for a few songs before going to the keyboards. They sounded fantastic, and it was probably one of the best shows I've seen in a LONG time. Damned near a religous experience, between the sonic power from the band, and the mood of the crowd. Just incredible. If you haven't heard of them (much less seen them live) I highly reccomend you check them out. Hallelujah!

    I'm just glad I'd gotten a full night's sleep before this day & night, since I'd mistakenly thought the Arcade Fire show was tomorrow. This means I can hopefully have a nice, relaxing evening at home before going back to work on Tuesday. Hooray!

  • 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.

  • 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.