Category: Entertainment

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.

Categories
Entertainment Work

Gaming, and the Company Party

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).

Categories
Entertainment Music Work

The week so far, and some Radiohead

First, a quick recap of my week so far: WORK.

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

Categories
Beer Food General Music

Day at home, night at the Moon

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.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Movies Work

Week(end) roundup

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!

Lastly, I leave you with this odd tidbit I read via a Slashdot post regarding some folks wanting to rename 42nd Ave Douglas Adams Blvd, about the worlds smallest park, here in Portland. Odd.