Summer Work

July 23, 2012

Ichiro Traded - Ben Gibbard Sings

It makes sense for everyone involved.

I guess I need to find a new favorite player.

Ecstasy of Order - Tetris Masters

Like "King of Kong", but for Tetris.

AV Club - Gateways to Geekery
Pop culture can be as forbidding as it is inviting, particularly in areas that invite geeky obsession: The more devotion a genre or series or subculture inspires, the easier it is for the uninitiated to feel like they’re on the outside looking in. But geeks aren’t born; they’re made. And sometimes it only takes the right starting point to bring newbies into various intimidatingly vast obsessions. Gateways To Geekeryis our regular attempt to help those who want to be enthralled, but aren’t sure where to start. Want advice? 
Batman Comics

Potential gateway: Batman: Year One (1987)

After introducing the world to a hulking, brutal future Batman in 1986’s The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller teamed with hisDaredevil collaborator David Mazzucchelli to tell the definitive Batman origin story, cultivating the gritty aesthetic that would stick with the character to the present day. Miller is at his best here, delving into the minds of Bruce Wayne and James Gordon to tell an emotionally dense, intensely dramatic story that reads like it could take place in the real world. Batman doesn’t take down any masked supervillains in Year One, but rather the mobsters that destroy Gotham City in less flamboyant ways. Mazzucchelli shows why he’s one of comics’ greatest talents with intensely detailed yet remarkably fluid artwork, and his masterful use of shadows makes him ideally suited to drawing the Dark Knight.Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins is heavily influenced by Year One, and fans of the most recent films will want to seek out this title as an entry point to the Batman comic-book universe. 

Stephen King

Possible gateway: The 1985 short story “Survivor Type,” from the anthology Skeleton Crew

Why: In his heyday, King was known for his uncompromisingly brutal, creepy images and plots, and his talent for propulsive, can’t-put-it-down thriller writing. At his absolute best, though, he also captures a sense of time, place, and character that rivals any popular American writer. The short story “Survivor Type” has all the above in an uncharacteristically tight, lean little package. It starts with a fairly ridiculous premise—a surgeon winds up shipwrecked on a tiny rock of an island with nothing but a supply of fresh water and a load of pure heroin—and takes it to its brutal, logical end as he realizes there’s nothing on the island to eat except himself. The last line of the story is one of King’s most memorable.

Today's Photo:

Back to work.  Filled up two dumpsters while unpacking all the new science gear.

Capitol Hill Block Party 2012 - Day 3 (Whew!)

July 22, 2012

Blouse
Portland driving dream pop

Lumineers
The "Ho Hey" song is heartbreaking, right?

Isn't she with somebody else now, and he's trying to be alone, even though he belongs with her?

Jaill
I only saw them because their biography included bits like "...they're not nearly as good at Excitebike as they said they were..." and "...first to adopt a bold new marketing strategy of giving away a free pair of Nike cross-trainers to anyone who steals it on the internet.  Take that, Radiohead."

Neko Case
It's tough to perform in the middle of a coconut cupcake high, but she's a trooper.  She also lost it in the middle of three songs because of a guy in an eagle costume. To her credit, when she sang, she sounded great.

The Dark Knight Rises

Everything you've heard about it is probably true.

I loved it. And any problems with it, I explained away with a simple "yeah, but that was cool anyway".  

Crossover
A great episode of DS9.

Yes, I'm watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Today's photos:

Hey! That's me on the twitter wall!

I had a spot on the curb for Neko.

Capitol Hill Block Party 2012 - Day 2

July 21, 2012


Lineup:
Nightmare Fortress
Why was this band playing at 2:00pm?


Absolute Monarchs


Pollens
White people performing African music.
Ok.


Nude


Beat Connection


Hot Bodies In Motion


Onuinu


Twin Shadow


Reignwolf
See him live.  
No, like, right now. 
I don't care that he's not performing right now. 
Find him and see him.


Grimes
Mainstage show.  Couldn't see a thing.


Lemolo
Felt like it was the wrong venue to see them.  They sounded good, but are SUPER mellow so it was a tough show to get super into.  The best part was either the drummer's watermelon shirt, or the guy in a rabbit suit.


Today's Photos:
Refuse to Abuse 5k at Safeco

Arthur.

Art instillation by Derek Erdman (a.k.a. Rap Master Maurice)
I wonder what the cops thought of it?

Reignwolf. Yes.

Capitol Hill Block Party 2012 - Day 1

July 20, 2012

Here's the list of who I saw today:

Father John Misty
Video with Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Rec

Spac3man

Seattle Rap. So Legit.

Fly Moon Royalty
Seattle electro-soul duo.

Three Oh Sees

Allen Stone
Totally falls into the Rick Astley Zone, where his voice and his face don't match.

Fitz and the Tantrums

The show sounded just like you'd hope.

Today's Photos:

Field Player

July 19, 2012

Lego Wire

Why Is It Hard To Make Friends Over 30?

ADDING children to the mix muddles things further. Suddenly, you are surrounded by a new circle of parent friends — but the emotional ties can be tenuous at best, as the comedian Louis C. K. related in one stand-up routine: “I spend whole days with people, I’m like, I never would have hung out with you, I didn’t choose you. Our children chose each other. Based on no criteria, by the way. They’re the same size.”

How To Change Your Mind Without Flip-Flopping

Flip-Flopping feels like a very recent construct.

Of course circumstances change over time. 

What was a good idea a decade ago might not be a good idea now.

Today's Photo:

See that keeper?
See how it's not me?

You Wanted A Hit

July 18 

Dark Knight Rises 
with Pee Wee Herman

Proclatimation of Levesque Day
Roger Levesque is my favorite Sounder.
He tries hard, has a fantastic attitude, and by all accounts is a stellar teammate.
Who cares if he's only ok at soccer?

Jazz Night School
Featuring Jazz classes for all ages and abilities.
Fundraising using a Jazz-athon in Columbia City


Ezells Life Changing Chicken
Yes.


SAM GET OUT
Thursday Night lineup
Seattle Art Museum hosts free events at the Sculpture Park.




Today's Photo:
Shut Up and Play The Hits

A concert film about the last performance of LCD Soundsystem.
Chuck Klosterman interviews James Mercer throughout the movie.
Klosterman asks a great, meandering question about how people are remembered for all their successes, but ultimately defined by their greatest failure.  He gives Michael Jordan as an example of someone who is remembered for all of his winning, but defined by his relentless competitive nature, even when that competitiveness worked against him.
Mercer, who had decided to stop LCD Soundsystem because it just felt like it was time to stop, replied that he feared his greatest mistake would be quitting the band, even thought that mistake was entirely his own decision and was influenced by zero outside factors.  Essentially, Mercer is committing his greatest mistake while knowing that he might be doing that anyway.

Like Bumper Bowling For Golf

July 17, 2012

A Possible  NASA Logo Redesign

If anyone should have a super cool, timeless, future-proof, logo, it's NASA.

Golf at Twin Rivers

Very open course.

Most holes are bordered by these thick weeds, perfecting for holding your ball when it goes wildly a little off course.

I can now hit the ball consistently.
It doesn't go anywhere near where I want it to go.
But I can hit the ball.

It's Green and Shiny... What Could It Be?

July 16, 2012

Out to Lunch Concerts

Free concerts downtown from bands like the Dusty 45's, Pokey LaFarge, and Hey Marseillies

What Does Space Smell Like?

Jenny Lewis and the Twins
You Are What You Love

Heard this song is Starbucks today as I was selling our Sounders tickets.  I hear so many horror stories about Craigslist, but this was simple and painless.  The guy met me at Starbucks.  Here's the tickets. Here's the money. Done. 

Today's Photo:

Just for knowing the constitution was written in Philadelphia.
Also, shortening the town name to "Philly" helped me finish first.

Zombies, Run!

July 15, 2012

Light and Dark of Calvin And Hobbes

QWOP
You are trying to run one hundred meters.
There are only four buttons, two quads and two calves.
But it's so hard.


Zombies, Run!

Lebowski-fest tickets - Seattle August 10-11

Musicfest NW tickets - Portland September 5-9

Today's Photos:
I escaped the Zombie Horde...for now...

Every car should come equipped with these in the trunk.

Dragonfest Double Happiness Hour

July 14, 2012

Dragonfest
Ran into two ex-students here. Lauren works at Nico Nico, where she's some kind of Japanese language TV host. And Blake teaches video game design at a summer camp at UW. 

Takoyaki

I Love TV

July 13, 2012


TV is awesome.  
There is so much good stuff to watch.

Louie - Miami Review

Buffy Best Episodes
Star Trek DS9 Best Episodes
Star Trek TNG Best Episodes


When Seattle Invented The Future
Fantastic PBS documentary that highlights the 1962 World's Fair

Review from Seattle Times


Cover Up by Cienna Madrid
Article in The Stranger about a woman with a double mastectomy who was told she couldn't swim in public pools without covering up her non-existant breasts.


Today's Photos:

Batman: The Long Halloween - A new killer, dubbed "Holiday" commits murders only on holidays throughout the year.  
Pride of Baghdad - A group of lions escape the Baghdad zoo during the 2003 U.S. occupation of Iraq.  
Chew - A detective can see the history of an object if he can taste it.  So, working as a homicide cop, he's probably going to taste...things
Ex Machina - The mayor of San Francisco is a robot, or something.  I haven't started this one yet.

This combination of pictures always makes me smile.

Improving at Jackson Park

July 12, 2012


Roger Levesque Retires

He is my favorite Sounder. 
Was.
Was my favorite Sounder.

Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?

Because parents, families and communities spoil them?

AI To Stop Cyberbullying

If we didn't have spoiled kids, we wouldn't need this AI.

Today's Photo:
Golfing Jackson Park

Improving takes practice.  I improved 2 strokes over last week, which would be more impressive if I didn't shoot 125 last week.  I had a nice picture of Hole #3, where I shot a 5 wood from 150 yards, downhill, within 15 feet of the hole.  But my camera screwed up and the picture was lost.  
It's still a nice course.

Origami

July 11, 2012

Star Trek Event
In theaters July 23
Picard, Riker, and Data come to theaters to celebrate TNG's Blu-ray release

"Clay-maish" is difficult.

I have no idea how they made a whole movie about it.

I love that Ben spent three weeks on this.

Joel Mchale - ESPY

An accurate portrayal of sports in Seattle.

Covey Run
5k or 10k in Woodinville on August 18.

Starts and finishes at Redhook.

And yes, there are T-shirts.

Patton Oswalt - Stand Down
on AV Club

Animation about a time Patton Oswalt bombed on stage.

Today's Photo:

"Heavy Rain" is crazy.

The game comes with a small piece of paper.  While the game is loading into your PS3, it walks you through how to make a paper crane, which seems like a fun diversion during a loading screen.

But it turns out the killer leaves origami on each of his victims.

Creepy.

Summer Ramblings

July 10, 2012

Cookie Monster

Star Wars

Jimmy Fallon

This is the song that we will hear all summer.
I don't know why.  There are so many other songs I wish America loved.  
But this seems to be the one that every American has stuck in their head.


I Give Up.  


Fantastic Mr Fox

Am I the last person to see this?
I love the idea of replacing any swear word with "cuss".
Like calling it a "Cluster-cuss".
Or writing "Cuss" in graffiti on a wall.
And for all the crap Sorkin is getting about the Newsroom and his recycling of phrases and plot points, don't all Wes Anderson movies have most of the same elements? And the same actors?


Do Deca Pentathalon

Showing at Siff Uptown.
I thought it would be all silliness and sibling rivalry.
It was surprisingly heavy.


Gumshoe 5k Race
It's a fundraiser for the Greenwood and Phinney Ridge Senior Centers.  You get an entryform, and have 10 days (Aug 3-12) to complete the 30 clues.  Turn in your completed entry form to be entered in a drawing.  Looks like a fun way to get to know that neighborhood.


Beach House - Lazuli

Such a great summer jam.  

Today's Photos:

At Neptune Coffee
Finishing "Wild"

On my way to the comic shop

Learning Cribbage
I was told my hand was a "Mountain Gator", but I'm not sure what that is.  Cribbage was either invented by six year olds ("but... I have the jack of the same suit as that card, so I get a point...What do you mean? It's ALWAYS been a rule!) or it was invented by a schizophrenic casino owner (combining rummy, blackjack, and a new game board).

Livin' Mas!!

July 9, 2012


Kirby Epic Yarn

Instead of playing the serious games I keep meaning to get to, I've been stuck on this ball of cuteness.  Probably a great game for a five year old, because you can't die.  

What Happens After Restaurant Impossible?
by David Segal in New York Times 
Say this for “Restaurant: Impossible,” the hit Food Network show that begins its fourth season Wednesday: It is not afraid to stick to a formula. In every episode, the menu and décor of an ailing restaurant are overhauled in 48 hours on a budget of $10,000.

The project always seems hopeless at first, typically because the food is lousy, the staff inept and the premises a shambles. But salvation arrives in the form of Robert Irvine, a brawny British chef in a snug black polo shirt, who, through a mix of tough love, expertise and shouting (and with an assist from an interior decorator and crew of carpenters), transforms the place.

The last scene of every show is a full house of customers dining happily from a radically altered menu in a bustling and beautified room. Cut to the once-desperate owner, beaming joyously.

Roll credits. Another week, another miracle. But does it stick?

When a business is in such dire shape, can it actually be turned from money pit to thriving enterprise in just two days?

"New Girl"Bus
Seattle Aug 31 - Sept 3
While most TV shows are taking the summer off, New Girl is hitting the road.
Fans who stop by the bus can grab gift bags, watch exclusive videos, play "douchebag jar" pong, eat cupcakes and more.
For the full list of dates/locations, head to facebook.com/newgirlsummertour. 

Men, Women, and Chainsaws
by Carol Clover
(It shouldn't be surprising that this book exists. Someone specializes in everything.)
Before Men, Women, and Chain Saws, most film critics assumed that horror (especially slasher) films entail a male viewer sadistically watching the plight of a female victim. Carol Clover argues convincingly that both male and female viewers not only identify with the victim, but experience, through the actions of the "final girl," a climactic moment of female power. As the Boston Globe writes, Men, Women, and Chain Saws "challenges simplistic assumptions about the relationship between gender and culture... [Clover] suggests that the 'low tradition' in horror movies possesses positive subversive potential, a space to explore gender ambiguity and transgress traditional boundaries of masculinity and femininity." Be forewarned, though: Clover addresses an academic audience, so her language can be heavy going.

Bechdel Test
The Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: 
(1) it has to have at least two women in it, who 
(2) who talk to each other, about 
(3) something besides a man. 
The test was popularized by Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For, in a 1985 strip called The Rule. For a nice video introduction to the subject please check out The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies on feministfrequency.com.

Today's Photos:

Not that I had big plans today, but I was going to do something.

Then again, the point of summer is to relax and do whatever you want to do.

Finally, I tried the Doritos Locos Taco

I know the lighting is weird, but it's really that Doritos nuclear orange.

Fresh Can Sound

July 8, 2012

Newsroom Review
by Alan Sepinwall
Despite the potential warts, I still love Aaron Sorkin shows.
First, it's fascinating how much Good Sorkin and Bad Sorkin are simultaneously on display in Will's speech announcing the new mission for "News Night." The message about how TV news lost its moral compass because Congress let Paley, Sarnoff, et al sell advertising way back when was an interesting one, but also one that wouldn't apply to a non-broadcast outfit like ACN. (Unless Will/Sorkin is suggesting that the FCC would have managed to get sway over cable and... what? Told cable news channel owners that they couldn't sell ads around the clock? In that case, no one would bother starting such an operation. And if it would have just meant one hour per day without ads, well, the other 23 could still be spent on Bubble Boy, Natalee Holloway, etc.) The speech is simultaneously self-effacing (Will admits he screwed up along with everyone else) and self-important (by placing it on a level with the 9/11 Commission), positioning this new direction as both an underdog approach ("I'm going with the guys who are getting creamed") and as the only reasonable position of people who are awesome ("Who are we to make these decisions? We're the media elite."). It's a lot of strong rhetoric (one of Sorkin's specialties) in service of an idea I largely agree with; I'm just not sure it hangs together at all as presented here. 

Ten Best Sorkin Rants
Just in case you have no clue what Sorkin is about.

Today's Photo:

Finally played tennis.  
I could tell it had been a while because all of the balls in the hopper were dead.  We had to crack open some new cans.
So we got to hear the >PFFTT< sound.

Now Other People Serve Us

July 7, 2012

Stranger Suggests Issue
You can't ever say, "There's nothing to do in this city".

Tiny Beautiful Things
By Cheryl Strayed
The same woman that wrote "Wild" penned this collection of her advice column.  
She wrote "Dear Sugar" for The Rumpus. 
Here's a sample:

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Today's Photos:

Enjoying Beerfest

I walked through the heart of the city down to the Sounders game.  

I love Seattle.

Volunteering with Foamy Lambic

July 6, 2012

The Physics of Superheroes
James Kakalios is a physics consultant (he worked on Watchmen) who wrote a book about when comics get the physics correct.

Tina Fay Raps on A Childish Gambino Track
She comes on near the end of the track with this verse:
Yeah we in here, we in this thing
Gambino is forever, royalty is forever
We ballin' till we f--k up the hardwood, homie
This the life we live, son
My president is black and my prius is blue, motherf---r
Royalty all day, we droppin' racks at Nordstrom, son
That's racks on racks, you feel me? You feel me?
This is the part where most people would say something crazy and drop the n-word after it
Not doing that, I'm not doing that, I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE!
I'm out

Today's Photos:

Seattle International Beerfest

At Table 11 pouring Raspberry Lambic

Sometimes Scores Don't Matter

July 5, 2012

Larry Crowne

Tom Hanks got all of this real life friends together to make a fun little movie about a guy at a community college.  It's not The Godfather, but it's still fun.

Today's Photos:

Golf at Snoqualmie Falls

Soccer at Magnuson Park