March 28th, 2006

Tuesday March 28th, 2006

Maybe.

So, for now, here’s what’s been going on.

Update: As of 5 PM, World of Warcraft is still not up. They've handed us patch 1.10, and there's been problems with it, alas. Better for those of who want a life. I suppose.

Leilani Lanes
They are tearing down Leilani Lanes. A week ago Monday was my last night there, the after-league ‘party’ where we bowl 9-pin no tap for free and eat pizza. I ate my last cheeseburger there, and those crinkle-cut fries. Where am I going to go for crinkle cut fries now? There’s Sunset Lanes, I guess, over in Ballard, owned by the same people as Leilani. I dunno. I feel like an era is ending, and a new one is beginning. I hope this one gives me a flatter stomach! Probably not. Stomachs are for life!

Kickball
Kickball season is about to start. I was going to be on two teams, with one being on Mondays, thus replacing the heavy black ball for the light red one. But turns out I made a commitment for something else on Mondays, so I’ll just be playing on Sundays. Our team is called Third Grade Bad Asses and I don’t think that refers to inept donkeys. Then again, the way I play, maybe it does. The whole thing is through Seattle Underdogs again, you know, Seattle’s premiere adult intramural sports league. Or singles club. No, actually, many of the people I’ve met through Underdogs where married. Let’s call it a social club and leave it at that.

San Diego
A few weeks ago work sent me to San Diego. It was the occasion of our once-every-two-years annual meeting. I think we ended up in San Diego, of all places, because that was the only place we could find enough hotel rooms for everyone. It wasn’t as dull as previous team meetings. The meetings themselves where not as bad, and the after-hours events where okay. A variety of restaurants: Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Rei do Gado, San Diego Wine & Culinary Center. We stayed at the Wyndham at Emerald Plaza, but my favorite part of the trip was discovering a chocolate shoppe call Chi Chocolat. They sell their chocolates in flights, a word which some restaurant-going wine aficionados might recognize. The other thing I sort of like was a wander through a nearby mall, which had a multi-level outdoor maze-like feel to it. (More on mazes later).

Headphones
In anticipation of the flight to San Diego, and many more flights I expect this year, I picked up a pair of noise-reducing headphones. You know, like Bose advertises in the airports. But mine are by Philips, and I paid about one-sixth the price. All I can say is: WOW. I had no idea these things worked so well. They knock out the lower-frequency noises, while the higher-pitched ones like human voices still get through. So you’re not totally cut off, and folks can still get your attention. But I didn’t have to crank the volume on my portable DVD player and turn on the subtitles just to watch "Millennium", which is all I wanted.

25 for 25
March was another month for Seattle’s dining-out experiment, 25 for 25, and we’ve been hitting it every Thursday thanks to my beloved. I missed one of them (Ponti) thanks to the San Diego trip, but otherwise, I’ve been to Ray’s Boathouse, Sazerac and the Third Floor Fish Café. At Ray’s we saw our favorite barista from Revolutions, acting as hostess. Sazerac had the BEST cornbread I’ve ever eaten in my life. Third Floor Fish Café was allright, though a bit swank for my tastes—- that’s Kirkland for you. (Hey, Kirkland, you’re not Martha’s Vineyard, get over yourself. Okaythanksbye). Next up is Andaluca, and also we may go to Palomino, which has a 25 dollar menu year-round, and is vouched for by one of our regulars.

Update: This Thursday might be cancelled due to lack of participation and the need to do domestic things which, since this is my blog and no someone else's, I am not at liberty to say. I weep.

Mazes
I am fascinated by labyrinths, always have been. A fantasy of mine is to explore one of those huge hedge mazes you only ever see in movies. I mean, the kind that would take days to get into and out of. So, a few weeks ago, I was Wikipedia-ing and ended up reading the entry on Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and got inspired to write some stories about mazes. I am not done with them, but maybe I’ll post them here. You’ll know when you see a link. I guess the news here is that I was writing fiction again for a brief time.

CCNA
Going to go for it, we’ll see how it goes. A CCNA is a Cisco Certified Network Associate. It’s the first step in becoming an uber-networking demi-god, which I shall not become. But the CCNA will look good on the ol’ resume and give me a leg up in my job. I’ve been reading a book called CCNA Jumpstart, and I’ve signed up at the local community college for a series of classes that will guide me towards the exam. The book is just a warm-up; and, it turns out, it was published in 1999. Ye cats, I started working for Cisco in 2001! Lots of changes since then, it goes without saying. Even though I said it.

Update: Walked to campus to find books for the class, and the classroom itself. Came up nil on both points. Bodes not well. Will go to Taco Bell for a 7 layer burrito, and in this way think about the 7 layers of internetworking: application, presentation, session, transport, network, datalink, physical.

The Gap
Yeah, well, so, like, most, if not all, of my clothes, lately, it seems, are from The Gap. Got some shirts and jeans. Also got a shirt at American Apparel, which is owned by hippies. But from The Gap I also own some underwear too, but not socks, yet. Still good ol Target for those. Nor shoes. Speaking of shoes, I saw some shoes that really caught my eye downtown last weekend. The brand was John Fluevog. They where 80 bucks and they didn’t have my size. But they would have gone great with the Gap clothes. Oh My God. I was not wrong. It IS a new era. I am talking about freakin shoes! Lord help me.

Frank Zappa
Met one of the new hires at the San Diego meeting, and he’s a pretty cool dude. He, at one point, being funny, quoted Frank Zappa, and when I missed the reference, he decided to send me a few albums. Last week I received from Amazon: Apostrophe and a compilation album called Have I Offended Someone? Both are pretty good. Yes, I admit it, I should have been listening to Frank Zappa all this time. I heard things that had obviously inspired Weird Al, and They Might Be Giants, for starters. I heard amusing references-cum-parodies of all kinds of music, including a virtuosic performance by a xylophonist and a organist that made fun of Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery. Hilarious. My favorite song so far, though, has to be the title track from Apostrophe, a nearly 6-minute instrumental—y’all know how I like songs without words or melodic lines. So thanks fo sho to the guy who sent me that. I replied in kind with some books. I paid it backward.

The Podcast
For those that didn’t know, way back, I made two podcast, and I have material for another, if I ever get off my butt and actually edit it all together. Otherwise, the only Podcasts I myself listen to are The Ricky Gervais Show, BritPod, and the They Might Be Giants Podcast. RG gave us 12 for free, but now we have to pay for them (via Audible.com) fair play, though, as he IS an international phenomena, the podcasts are very entertaining, and its not a huge fee at all. BritPod is just 3-5 guys scattered around various English speaking countries talking about whatever occurs to them for about 90 minutes every few weeks. This is pure podcasting, in my opinion: you ever get to laughing with your friends, and someone says, damn we should be filming this, we are freakin hilarious! Well, that’s what these guys do. And the TMBG podcast is perfect for John and John—- back in the day, they had an answering machine for a local number in New York which played The Song of the Week, usually a an un-released tune. So Podcasting is the perfect evolution for them.

Netflix
I wrote down in my “list of things to write about on the next Tuesday when the blog is back up” the word "Netflix." I guess I meant to say what I have been Netflixxing lately. "X-Files" season 1, "Millennium" Season 2, a documentary about Bingo called Bingo! Coming up is more of the same: "X-Files" season 1, "Millennium" season 2, a documentary about Scrabble called Word Wars, The American version of "The Office", some more episodes of "Mad TV", a documentary about bowling called League of Ordinary Gentleman, some more seasons of "Law and Order"... you know, brain rot, the vast wasteland turned into a package tour via DVD.

Other Movies
Me and mine rented Final Destination 1 and 2 so we could see 3 in the theaters. Hilarious. No, I am serious, these movies where so bad they where good. I am eager, now to see a scary movie that is actually scary. As I look back on the various horror flicks I’ve watched over the years, not one comes to mind as being actually horrifying. Not since my youth, anyway, when the blood-filled room in The Shining just about gave me a seizure. In that respect I need to rent whatever is parodied in the forthcoming Scary Movie 4. Saw and Saw 2, to be sure, and some others, can’t think of them now. I’ve already seen The Grudge, The Ring, The Village, War of the Worlds... but judging from the other movies in the “Franchise”, there’s probably 30-40 movies they end up alluding to in one way or another. They also put in lots of pop-culture references, such as the pervasiveness of iPods, that film of George Bush being told about the 9-11 attack, and Tom Cruise in general.

Aggh, why does the biggest section of this update have to be about movies. Dagnabbit. Oh well. Also looming this summer Mission Impossible 3 (still need to see 2), X-Men 3 (still need to see 2), The Da Vinci Code... all probably crap, but you know how it is.

Recently I also watched Walk the Line, which was alright I guess, and Just Friends, which was HILARIOUS, and Zathura, which was charming in its own way. There where others—I’ll add them if I think of it.

V For Vendetta
Decided to give V For Vendetta it’s own section. Saw it at the Cinerama, that big one-screen theater downtown. I had no idea what the movie was about before I went in. I thought it was based one of those Sue Grafton novels (you know, like A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, etc). Then I saw the DC/Vertigo label, and I thought, comic book? By the time V himself (played entirely in-mask by Hugo Weaving (Mr. Smith, The Matrix)) appeared and recited his V-alliterative iambic pentametric speech, I was hooked. And as many before me has said, Natalie Portman is still a babe with her head shaved. Of course, intellectually, you must understand, that ‘babe’ means ‘visually compelling,’ which is achieved less by having a particular bone structure, low fat content, and other accoutrements, and more by the way she acts, as she is an actor. The political message of the film, frankly, can be dismissed, since the weight of the movie is on its ‘coolness’ factor. And why not—it’s a Wachowski Bros. film, and they’ve had previous success using a comic-book vision based on a shallow political dystopia to make a very entertaining film. In the end, I have no reservations for recommending this film to absolutely anyone.

Lent
Lent is almost, thank God, pun intended, over. I’m not Catholic, nor even religious, but I decided as an exercise in self-discipline and will to give up sodas. It’s been tough. But I think I can make it. My beloved has given up ice-cream, God help her, pun intended. The lesson learned, so far, is that discipline and will power are all fine and dandy, but let’s face it, it takes two to tango, and resolutions are easier with a buddy. Take that, Camus! (PS Click on the Easter Egg for a larger view. Photoshopped it myself.)

Peppermint Water
In Larry’s Market a while ago, came across a bottle of peppermint water, called Metromint. Decided to give it a try, and lo! It’s not half bad! It’s not sweet at all, but not acrid or bitter, like an unsweetened mint tea can be. It’s not addictive as such, but defiantly conducive to drinking more water, as one is compelled to continue taking little sips. It makes your feel as if you just chewed some minty gum, and the mint aroma wafts through your nose when you breath. Its not cheap, at 2 bucks per half-liter. But I will indulge myself one of these days and buy enough to make some green Kool-Aid with it. Then I will pretend it is a magic elixir, and use it to transform myself into a Jekyll/Hyde thing except instead of becoming a beast it will make me cease to be one. Sweet.

Comedy?
I wrote this down on the list too. I guess it will serve to answer the question I often get: when are doing some more comedy? Someday, is the answer. As I pointed out many blogs ago, now that smoking is banned in bars and such, the Comedy Underground is more palatable, so I should go in. What I should do is go whether I’m going to perform or not. I have ‘material,’ as it where, but jokes are the easy part. [I remember once, in grade school, my teacher handed back our spelling test and she told me “You spelled ‘apathy’ wrong.” And I said “So?”] It’s a matter of motivation. Well, there’s no more bowling on Mondays, and my other commitment won’t take me all night, so maybe I’ll make it a Monday thing. My dad, though, is still going like gangbusters in San Jose—he made it past round 1 in the Rooster T. Feathers's Comedy Contest. How about that? Rock!

Chiro
Stopped going. Was spending this money, and after two years, I still get back aches. I mean, it was only once a month, it was not a lot of money, and the place was relaxing and smelled good. But meh. A few weeks ago I got one of those two-day spasms, the ones that twist my spine into a shallow S… should I have gone back? No, cause two days later I was fine again. I just need to get in shape. No Pun intended. It’ll help if I don’t have a big ol’ belly pulling on my spine from the front. Working on it! Drinkin Slimfast!

Parking Tickets
THREE in the last month. The only consolation is that they are easy to pay, online. And thankfully, soon I won’t have need to park in that part of town anymore, so there you go. One way to think of it is that I probably deserved many many more tickets than I ever got, so this isn’t so bad. Spread out, the fines end up being less than what it would have cost to pay for parking in nearby lots everytime. So I’m a winner.

Future of the Blog
Who knows? It’s 8:30 or so AM right now, having just written the content but not having done the HTML yet. No hyperlinks yet, or other formatting. No images. I’m sure it will look all good by 11 AM, when I MUST log into WoW just to check my rank (see the other page, about WoW, when I write it, to find out what I’m talking about). Work is supposed to be busy today too. We’ll see. Bye for now!

Update Notes
8:55 am-- Added bold headers and the blue outline.
10:15 am-- Added hyperlinks.
12:00 pm-- Added images.
1:05 pm-- Added Blogo, centered the blue frame.
5:30 pm-- Added some updates, noted in red.