existential fashion disaster

I am looking forward to sleeping in more than one day a week… and being able to take some mini-vacations. There’s still all the season wrap stuff to get through, first, though. It seems an impossible task, right now, as I’m feeling completely exhausted. I guess that’s to be expected after an overnight for work, followed immediately by the wedding of our friends Jessica and Jason. This week shouldn’t be too bad. At some point, though, I need to start helping mom with her quilting shop web site.

Right now, sitting at the desk at the Y, all I can really think about is seeing Star Trek. I’ve heard so many good things about it… sure, some classic trek fans have their issues, but it’s trying to reboot the Star Trek world, not continue it. With a bunch of the Fringe team behind the writing and production, it has to be good.
update: Star Trek didn’t happen tonight, but we did a lot of research into how to set up a clothesline for Patti for Mother’s Day. Hopefully we’ll fit Star Trek in, tomorrow.

Good things coming up: more days off, mini-vacations, new Fable II downloadable content, macbook

In the bummer zone: Garmin announced more delays for the Nuvifone. The android phones are looking more and more attractive, even though they don’t have turn-by-turn directions, yet. Unfortunately, the only android phone even rumored for Verizon has a crappy-looking keyboard. If I didn’t think I’d miss the real keyboard, I’d already have broken down and gone with the iPhone. In the meantime, my phone is surviving… only shutting itself off once or twice a day.

Almost everyone has experienced the phenomenon of forgetting everything you wanted to pick up when you actually walk into the store. The easy solution is a shopping list, of course, but shopping is not always a planned event. This happened to me Friday when we went to Half-priced Books. We had a few coupons… I couldn’t think of anything I wanted. Maybe I download too much of my music and books, but I was completely blank. I looked around online today and found some stuff I’d probably enjoy picking up… mostly recommendations by Cory Doctorow and other BoingBoing writers. I’ll have to make a list if I plan to remember them all, I know I’ll blank out again if I don’t… we’re planning a return trip on our way to the movie theater to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3D.

I have a time frame for the macbook upgrade. If I haven’t done it by June 25th, it will happen that day. The fact that it is going to happen makes me hate the loud fans and uncomfortable weight of the Dell even more. I don’t actually hate the Dell, it’s had a bunch of good years, but it is time for the upgrade.

I don’t have a timeframe for the phone upgrade. I was waiting for the nuvifone, but there isn’t a release date for that yet, and the main reason I was leaning towards it was the GPS-centric nature of it. The word on the street is that the new iPhone OS will enable using the Google maps in other applications and allow turn-by-turn directions. I don’t know if I can go Apple in such a big way… but the iPhone does have great customer satisfaction ratings and such. My phone turned itself off three times, completely at random, on Thursday… it is definitely time for that upgrade, but it also might not happen until the summer.

I don’t know if it’s actually going to be an upgrade, but we’re supposed to switch from Dish to U-Verse next month. Our DSL is currently with AT&T, and it can’t even handle streaming Netflix movies… I don’t think we ordered any more speed, so it probably won’t change, but the girl who set up the install sure did try to convince us that it was a newer, better, more exclusive dsl line. As far as I’ve heard, U-Verse is just TV over DSL. It’s pretty likely that we’re actually trying to squeeze TV and the internet over the same pipe and actually downgrading. We shall see.

This site’s wordpress code is due for an upgrade, but I don’t have any desire to do that. All of my little plugins are working fine. Maybe, if I get a little more into tumblr/twitter/etc. after the phone/macbook upgrade, I’ll feel the need to tweak the code here to keep up with more mobile updates.

My car doesn’t need any upgrades… I guess Doug’s van is dead, though. We peeked at some craigslist ads for similar vehicles in our price range, but haven’t started actively looking at anything yet. I’ve been using the Sirius in my car much more often, lately. I got an eMail from Sirius and I was tempted to buy the latest portable radio while I can still “lock in” the current rates. Who knows if Sirius will survive? I’ve done my part to support them. I resisted the urge by telling myself that the radio I had put in my car works fine and I don’t need another portable music player… I like the idea of combining a couple devices, not adding one to carry around.

My camera also doesn’t need to be upgraded, but I haven’t used it much, lately. When I had time to be taking pictures, I was mostly playing video games. I’ll bring it along on the field trips for work and maybe that’ll respark my desire to shoot. Maybe a new toy would help… Or maybe I should get a Diana+ for myself, since it seems to be getting all the cool attachments and add-ons lately.

Upgrade fever is similar to Spring fever. All of our vacation planning is definitely keeping the typical spring fever symptoms at bay… unless vacation planning is a symptom of spring fever. Mom’s coming up during my spring break, we’ve got a family vacation planned for early June and a wedding back east in late June… and we’ve yet to pick out a show, but we plan to hit APT/Theater in the woods again this summer. I guess there are a few weeks between the team-building season and the camp season that I haven’t thought about, yet. There’s always video games…

Reviews:

Watchmen. I read the comic book graphic novel on the Monday before it was released and saw the Movie on the following Sunday. I will say, first and foremost, that the movie captured most of the visual style and the mood and tone extremely well. I liked the realist take on what superheroes might actually be. —– SPOILERS —-> The premise of an alien attack, even a really good-looking faked one, bringing the entire world together is a pretty strong concept. I wasn’t entirely happy with the vilifying of Dr Manhattan and the additional irony/nuclear allegory  thrown into the storyline with the whole “trying to recreate his power and then having it used as a weapon” concept. I think the faked alien attack would have been stronger, it was far more psychological weapon, even with it’s lower death-toll. —– END SPOILERS —– I also think the mid 80s setting has much more meaning with people of my age and older. Without some research into the political climate of the times, a lot of references would go over younger peoples’ heads. Still a strong movie, though, just a little watered down.

I Love You, Man. Got a couple free passes to a “sneak preview” last week. This one comes out in a couple weeks and I recommend you see it… especially if you like a slightly raunchy comedy. We may have to see it again, we were laughing so hard at some of the dialogue that we missed two or three more lines, which were probably just as funny.

The Decemberists - Hazards of Love. I got a chance to hear this one early and was impressed. I’m not a huge Decemberists fanboi or anything, but I have a couple of their older albums on my ipod. Their musicianship and arrangements are always interesting; I’ve never given the lyrics a thorough listen… but that’s just the way I’ve listened to music, since about the time I started playing music myself. The single for this album caught my attention, since it was such a different style for them. It had much more bite, and lyrics that even drew me in. This album really is, as the buzz insinuates, a Rock Opera. After a very slow build-up (the first couple of tracks) it’s got a healthy dose of “Arena Rock” style… which was really unexpected, but fits with the classic rock operas. There’s still plenty of that classic Decemberists vocal interval, but instead of seeming redundant, it just strengthens the rock opera feel. There are plenty of other recurring musical themes. The almost cliche-sounding guitar solos, organ solos and sometimes simply the choice of effects are almost a recurring theme to themselves. Whatever you call it, it sounds like it was fun to play, and from what I’ve heard of the lyrics, it sounds like a strange little story, too.

We had a Transporter movie marathon at the house yesterday (I did end up taking the day off)… and I can review all three of those in about one word: redonkulous. …which is not to say that they aren’t fun to watch… but you can only cram so many over-the-top car stunts, gun stunts and striptease-fights into one sitting before your brain turns into twinkie filling.

• made it through a Friday the 13th without once thinking about it.
• watched my first blu-ray movie.
• used soap that sounds too much like food.
• replaced the battery in my car. Three years isn’t too bad for a battery, right?
• prepped the new staff and ourselves for the next season of work.
• developed a healthy addiction to our new video game systems.
• signed up for a blog that sort of tracks that addiction.
• enjoyed Olive Garden a couple times. There’s something strange about a place that brings you salty breadsticks in a plastic basket, wrapped in a paper towel… but has their own house wine. The food is good, though, so we’ll continue to go back.
• tried to update my wishlist, and failed. If you’re feeling generous, Apple gift cards are still the best bet, for my inevitable macbook purchase.

I upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.6 today. I started the process at work, at the Y, which I was worried about, since the computer there is a little slow and I don’t have any of my backup versions of files there. It went fairly smooth, though… basically only left the custom, random header image thing to do here, and a little debugging. This will serve as my Livejournal crosspost test, since that is a new/old plugin… development on the one I had been using seems to have ceased. I guess this will also test all the other new and old features. There’s a new Flickr plugin, too. It’s been a good n’ geeky day.

We’re going to see Step Brothers tonight with our recently engaged friends Jess and Jason. It looks like a typical Will Ferrel flick, which is usually a good take, and we used our $5 coupons from the opening night of Hancock… so it’s totally worth the price of admission, pretty much, no matter what.

Next weekend is our Theater in the Woods/Troll/etc weekend. I’ve definitely been looking forward to it. That also means that I have a four-day work week for camp… which is awesome. Not that camp’s hard, but it is a little draining. Only three weeks left, now. It also means that I get to do some more driving. Taking the metra/cta into work all summer has been fun, but I miss driving, and this should help make up for it. I guess I have to be more careful, now that I’m on my extended warranty. I didn’t know it was going to cost me a $100 deductible every time I needed something fixed for the next 50,000 miles.

Current Mood:  chipper

Camp is a much easier than adventure ed, but the hours are longer. We (the adventure ed facilitators) complained amongst ourselves about not being paid for all the time between classes, but those hours were nice, relaxing breaks. Breaks just don’t happen in the summer. I don’t have to think nearly as much; I’m barely doing any programming at all, only running or playing games a couple times a week. But all the running around and gathering supplies, moving lunches, taking pictures, etc. keeps me busy all day and makes me exhausted by the time I get home. I should be taking more days off, especially these weekend days doing front desk at the Y. I took next Sunday off, since it’s the day after Can’t Stop the Serenity in Chicago… and I’ve got the the first weekend in August, including the Friday, all blocked out for our theater / trolls / house on the rock weekend. No more 15 days in a row, this summer.

In other news, I’ve found a new feed aggregator that I like: Swurl. It has a much more blog-like design, and the timeline feature is really neat. Here’s my swurl. I also got a new camera bag. The one that came with the Pentax owed me nothing, since it was, essentially, free… it finally got too beat up to be used, so I got a Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home and it fits a lot of stuff.

…must do some planning for the Seattle trip… must resist urge to play Mario Kart Wii until I don’t have time to do anything but finish the Adventure Ed stats before the meeting on Tuesday…

I’m probably forgetting stuff, but already on the list are some gardens in Victoria, the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver and Pike Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium… on the probably/possibly/maybe list is the Space Needle, Experience Music Project, Boeing and the Underground Tour.

Some Yelp searching has turned up these, that I’d like to add to the food possibilities list:

Paseo - the words “food orgasm” come up in their reviews, especially when it comes to something called a midnight cuban.
HoneyHole - sounds dirty, and delicious… “best fries in seattle” in several reviews
Armandino’s Salumi - great reviews… short hours, long lines and sort of expensive, but worth taking a day off of work for!
Cloud City Coffee - need to snub my nose at Starbucks by having good coffee somewhere in Seattle and this place sounds pretty cool
Portage Bay Cafe - good breakfasts, some talk of “unlimited fruit” and such at the “toppings bar.”
Georgetown Truck Stop - affordable, delicious breakfasts

And some other stops/shopping that sounds interesting:

Elliott Bay Book Company - we like books.
Archie McPhee - toys and silliness
Lincoln Square Cinemas - in case we decide not to break our movie night tradition
Nintendo Headquarters - yeah, we love nintendo.

Any other suggestions?

Our trip to St Louis was fantastic. There was almost as much driving time as time spent there, but we threw a great plan together at the last minute, and stuck to it, and it was great. We checked in around 3 and then headed downtown and directly to the yummy place in the riverfront district that we liked so much from our last visit to St Louis, Hannegan’s. It was delicious… again. The toasted raviolis were super yummy, their fries were amazing and the dessert was as great as I remembered.

From there, we headed right over to City Museum and got a parking spot so close that there was an airplane visible through the sunroof. The party was mostly chaos, but it was definitely a good time. The place is really amazing. It was mostly teenagers and older, so we didn’t have to watch little kids crawl through all the tight spots and feel super jealous. There was free Monster energy drinks (which, after two sips, I decided are too gross for consumption) available the whole time that we were there and some other free foods became available later, but we were still pretty full from Hannegan’s. We could’ve used some water or something, but that wasn’t an option. Free admission and free food and free generic sodas is pretty good, though. I did buy a Ball Pit shirt, because mine smelled funny. We took a lot of pictures. I experimented with my new semi fish eye for the first time. I posted a bunch.

After a few hours, we took off and got some much needed rest at our hotel. The bathroom door(s) were like closet doors, with no lock. It was strange, but otherwise, the hotel was ok. We watched the silver surfer movie when it came on HBO and I think it might’ve been worse than the first fantastic 4 movie, which is saying a lot.

In the morning, we headed back downtown to get breakfast at a place called Rooster. We chose it based on Yelp ratings. I should really go review it (and Hannegan’s and City Museum), but I think I’ll save that for the morning. I had a Finnish Pancake and it was really delicious… Sarah got monstrous crepe filled with egg and bacon and Vermont Cheddar cheese. I tried some, it was awesome. She also got a side of Breakfast Potatoes of which I probably ate the most. They had a little hot pepper or something on them and it was really delicious.

We started home from there, stopping at every antique mall that we saw along the way and a restaurant that Sarah’s mom frequented when she was in school called Avanti’s, in Normal, IL. The antiques were fun, the food was decent and we missed all the bad Chicago traffic.

Gotta prepare a little for next week’s trip to Seattle, but it was great to get out of town for a day or two. It really makes me look forward to the longer trip.

And now, the sleep.

This page has some videos of me performing in my high school’s song and dance group (the ones with titles that include years back in the 90s - cause I’m old).  Totally embarrassing. Enjoy.

It’s been a fun week. The weather was fairly nice and we went to the Flea Market, today. We’ve been teased with warm spells and then temperatures dropping back near freezing overnight, so it was nice to walk around in a t-shirt today. The overnight trips for Adventure Ed. are this week, so I hope this warm spell continues. We saw Iron Man on Friday. It was pretty darn good, especially for a comic book movie. We also went yard saling that morning and attended Fly Bird’s 4th birthday bash-thing and picked up some weird stuff. I think we’re doing a double date tonight and seeing another movie, maybe Forgetting Sarah Marshall or maybe Baby Mama… I really liked the intriguing “is that for real?” ad campaign that Forgetting Sarah Marshall did with their billboards and busboards.

I also did something bad to my knee at some point this week. I think I may have injured it on Tuesday night when I was doing a balancing-on-one-foot-and-tying-my-shoe dance. It was kinda sore on Wednesday, worse on Thursday and really really painful on Friday. Yesterday it was much better and today it feels fine… but it really made me feel old. I was all gimpy and hobbling around the yard sales on Friday.

Oh, and while it wasn’t my boss, this time… a director at the YMCA I work at was let go this week. I’m not directly involved and, as I said, it wasn’t my boss, so it has nothing to do with the curse that I bring along to every after-school day care that I’ve ever worked for, but I am curious to see how they fill his position. I haven’t yet worked for a YMCA that filled a vacant position with anyone half-as-good as the person that left/they fired. They usually cut corners and give some of their responsibilities to other directors and maybe hire a new assistant.