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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Web Shooters Did you know they can change the show times of movies the morning of the show? I attempted to see Ted, but ended up seeing Spiderman. The whole movie, I just wanted him to shoot webbing. It's the coolest part of Spiderman. The main reason I don't already have these webshooters is that I don't want to keep buying refill webbing canisters. But this one comes with a REFILLABLE water canister. So really, there's no reason not to buy it.
When you take six hours of movie and compress it to six minutes, it looks pretty good. These movies are much better than I remember, and after just a few days of internet research, I think they almost, kind of, make sense. Maybe.
Dragonfest 2012 includes a Chinatown $2 Food Walk July 14-15 Hopefully, this works the way Bite of Seattle used to work. You can actually try the foods for $2 I do not want to eat $10 worth of kimchi. I just want to try it.
Great Urban Race in Seattle August 11 Can't decide if this sounds like a good deal or not. It's $50, but you get a shirt, and you get to do...something. I'm still not really sure what this entails. The pictures show people running on the sun-baked streets (not exciting), but also shows people practicing trapeze and trampolining (both very exciting).
Hole In The Wall BBQ Great pulled pork sandwich. Simple and delicious. Some young professional types walked in and ordered meatloaf, which is totally off menu. Except they didn't have it this week, because the regular guy is out of town. But still, ordering off menu is such a baller move.
Today's Photos:
This is what civic responsibility looks like.
Jury duty King County Instructional Video This must be an old version. Our fake defendant in the video was accused of assault. It was like an episode of Law and Order, or I guess it was just Law because there were no cops involved. Wait, who is the law and who is the order? Anyway, we didn't get to hear the final verdict. The video cut away to the jurors congratulating each other on a fairly rendered decision. I know it was a fake case, but not knowing the outcome makes me feel incomplete. Also, I totally get why they updated the video. The new one was much better. On one of my four breaks, (sorry, we only had three breaks and a 150 minute lunch) a very nice lady in Starbucks noticed my "Juror" badge. She said "that's great you're serving on the jury. That's a big commitment" She said this without a trace of irony.
Also, did you know we had a waterfall park downtown? It's right by Occidental Park and has some relationship with UPS.
The Busy Trap by Tim Kreider in New York Times If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.
Recommended by Aziz Ansari. Aziz loves food. If he recommends something, it's probably worth trying.
Matrix
AMC has been running a Matrix marathon. The first movie is undeniably awesome. Once it became a hit, the Matrix series released two movies in the same year, a video game, and an animated anthology. I have a sneaking suspicion that all of these other things probably help the movies to have a more cohesive mythology. If only someone had enough time to investigate all of these other things. Summer is awesome. Matrix Revolutions has some really great pieces. That freeway chase with the ghosts? That's great. And that's 45 minutes of the movie right there. The fight Neo has with 100 Agent Smiths? That's pretty cool if you remember the movie was made in 2003. The effects don't quite hold up and there are shots where there are no live actors and everything is computer generated. Looking at it now, it looks pretty phony. The scene above is probably one reason why you hated Matrix Revolutions, and it's admittedly pretty sloppy. The line "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of The Matrix" is seventeen different kinds of crazy. But there's something in there about choice, and breaking a cycle, and the imperfections of humanity being our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. That's at least kind of cool, right? But seriously, the freeway chase is dope.
My brother and I debated which was worse, the Matrix trilogy, or the Star Wars prequels. He cited this 70 minute youtube critique as proof that the Star Wars prequels were better. Or at least that the critique of them was more entertaining.
Today's Photo:
Enough time has passed since the end of school, so I started cleaning out my backpack and school boxes. I found these cards from a mother and daughter who said some of the nicest things.
In Praise of Downtime by Ellen Ruppel Shell on The Atlantic And to do so we must push hard against our current practice of celebrating overwork and treat it as the scam it has become. As philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote eighty years ago in the essay, In Praise of Idleness "We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork." As a nation we must fight back against this ugly bit of nastiness. And as individuals we ought to take to heart Russell's incisive observation: "....I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work..."
Today's Photo:
After the Foam Fest 5K
The officials told us several times "DO NOT INHALE THE FOAM!" My inhalation was unintentional. But they were not kidding. It wasn't cotton candy like that man said.
Yes, the fall is remarkable. But she gets up, and seems ok. Her coach has been taking some heat for "not spotting her properly". I'm not sure what anyone was supposed to do once she's already falling.
Moto X Step Up
Mesmerizing. The X-games constantly has events like this, where I didn't even know this competition existed, but I was transfixed for 45 minutes.
Today's Photo: I miss watching "Parks and Recreation" during lunch. Thank goodness there's a whole book about my favorite fictional, Indiana town. Leslie Knope claims it's the greatest town in America.
Spiderman Mega Trailer Sony Pictures' relentless marketing engine for The Amazing Spider-Man was annoying before, but now its zeal is measurable. The studio has released a total of 25 minutes of content (18 percent of the film's 136-minute running time) through trailers, featurettes and the like. I know this because a member of the WorstPreviews.com community has edited all the released footage into a 25-minute, spoileriffic mega trailer that essentially tells the movie's entire story.
Playing Keeper
I didn't volunteer to play goalie. But in that moment after the question is floated "Anyone want to try playing in goal?", and not a single person is raising their hand, what I hear is, "Who is willing to sacrifice to help the team and do a job that none of us want to do?".
And then I raise my hand.
It's like being a kicker in football. The Lonesome Kicker - Adam Sandler
"Another scored goal
And everybody blames me
But it was the left back
Who didn't pick up his man"
Today's Photo:
Golfing at Lynnwood
Sometimes I worry that my enthusiasm to try new things means I don't spend enough time with things where I excel. I'm terrible at golf. Just terrible. And I understand the only way to get better is to practice. So, while I'm hitting another ball directly into the lake, I tell myself that it's ok to stink at this, because I'm learning something new. And learning something new is hard, and will take time.
But I'm already pretty good at tennis. Yet I rarely ever go out and practice that.
Playing this felt like the Venus de Milo grew arms and wanted to cuddle with me.
Today's Photo:
In Journey, there are other characters that pop in and out of your world. The other characters look like you and have only the most basic form of communication. They can "ping" you with a cello sound. This is the characters form of talking.
I played half the game with the same companion, going through thick and thin. It was an experience, and I felt kind of connected to this companion. So after we finished the game, I sent them a quick note.
Here's what I got back:
His/Her english is light years ahead of my Japanese. The game facilitated this kind of bond with someone who barely speaks my language. That's pretty cool.
I can't move anything into the room because the custodial crew (who are phenomenal) clean the floors over the summer. I don't even have keys to the building anymore.
(In Seattle July 28-29) Thirty locations are circled on a map. On foot or bike, how many can you visit in 90 minutes? In 3 hours? Score points by visiting checkpoints in any order, and answer a simple question to prove you were there. Those who visit the most are the winners! Be competitive or casual. Go in a team or solo.Fun for families, runners, cyclists, and anyone who likes to explore. Awards and refreshments at the finish.Want more details? Visit our basic infoand rules pages.
[Jiang] was found dead by his mother after his 11-day football watching marathon, finally expiring after Ireland's 2-0 defeat to Italy on June 18.
"We would rest occasionally but he watched everyday and would not miss a single match," one friend told the Sanxiang Metropolis.
Liu Zhiling, a doctor from the local People's Hospital ER, told the newspaper: "Jiang was in good health. But staying up through the night and not sleeping enough weakened his immune system and he drank and smoked while watching the football, triggering his condition." Dr. Zhiling continued and dropped some serious knowledge that clearly requires a medical license: "If you use beer to replace water that is not good. Alcohol harms [the body]."
