Burger Time!

Today we went to McCormick's for their Happy Hour because we heard they had $1.95 burgers. Indeed they did, and the burgers were a good size if a touch overcooked. The drinks were considerably more expensive.

Apparently, McCormick's also boasts a raffle every weekday the Mariners have a home game. Though we had six complimentary raffle tickets between the two of us, the couple at the table next to us were the lucky pair for the night, winning a $50 gift certificate to McCormick's, two tickets to tonight's Mariners game, and a cab ride from McCormick's to Safeco Stadium.

This couple happened to have plans, so they gave the tickets to us! Then McCormick's changed the dessert menu without telling us and they gave us free dessert for the inconvenience!

The Mariners lost in a rather uneventful 2-0 game against the Blue Jays (whose supporters really turned out for them in a way I've never seen before), but for free, it was pretty hard to beat.

So this ends the blog contest. Congratulations to our co-winners, a nod of the head to our conquests, and medium rare to our burger cook, please.

It's been fun,
Dave and Lily

Bad Lily

You know, I think people who order meat well done deserve everything we do to it.

Postcards from Portland

The past few days were so fun that they can only be summed up by the soreness in my arm from so much air hockey and the fullness in my belly from so much pork.

Hooray for Complimentary PC Workstations!

Did you know that a third member of the cast of Predator is seeking political office? He has considerably less chance of winning compared to his co-stars, governors Schwarzenegger and Ventura, but he's running as the Libertarian candidate against the House minority leader, I believe? I'm sorry, I'd research this more, but this complimentary PC workstation won't allow me to open more than one window at a time. Still, what was it about that cast?

Employment

I need some new jobs. The ones I have right now are about to run dry and I'm still going to need to pay rent. But what do I want to do?

"Dick" and "All the President's Men"

I'm impressed by how much the filmmakers of "Dick" made it look like "All the President's Men." I wonder if they used the same sets. It's also interesting to watch those movies now that we know who Deep Throat is.

Speaking of Deep Throat, do you even remember his name? I didn't. I just looked him up again. Man, what if we all forgot who Deep Throat was? It'd be a mystery anew!

Almost There...

"If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year."

-Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad Vol. 1, Ch. 4

What Should I Ice Carve?

I really want to go to Switzerland and Denmark. I also really want an Otter Pop. These aren't really related.

IMDb Top 250

I've seen all of these!*

*It changes somewhat regularly, but as far as today's list is concerned, I've seen it all.

What Commenters on Digg Have Taught Me

Every article that's ever been written is "pointless."

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Can you even imagine a time when this would be breaking news?

Kevin Bacon's on everyone's lips

October 25, 1996
Web posted at: 7:50 a.m. EDT

From Correspondent Paul Vercammen

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Kevin Bacon's name is being thrown around a lot these days in places you wouldn't expect.

"Let's link Paul Newman to Kevin Bacon," begins a conversation you may hear at a cocktail party or on a college campus. "Paul Newman was in the 'Color of Money' with Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was in 'A Few Good Men' with Kevin Bacon."

That's how you play "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," a cultural phenomenon that's taking the nation by storm.

1996: BORING YEAR.

Close One

We're playing with FIRE now.

Speaking of fire, Lily and I had dinner at a Greek restaurant tonight with some friends from Philly and the Greek waiters spontaneously lit a dish on fire (flambee?) right behind me. All I could see were Rachel and Taylor's faces glowing a yellowy light as I felt the heat blasting my neck. Not knowing if this was it, I ducked down near the table and probably looked like a bit of a coward. The good news is that in that (potential) near-death situation I neither shrieked nor soiled myself, and that felt like a good test to know I could pass.

Nappy Boy

Dave is working on another movie tonight which means my sister and I just watch T-Pain videos and eat pizza. It's great but it's been several days since I've really spent much time with Dave. In fact, I'm sure I've spent more time with Susannah this week than Dave. And when you sleep in the same bed that's kind of a feat.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

I need an extended vacation but life doesn't agree with that assessment.

Long Weekend

I worked on a short film from 5pm until 10 on Saturday night, and then from 7am until midnight on Sunday. We shot on the second and fourth floor of a building that's been abandoned for over 80 years. It was a long shoot complicated by cast rescheduling and an uncomfortable (and arguably somewhat unsafe) environment. But it was awesome.

At the end of the day we finished loading the U-Haul and started saying our goodbyes. The last person I got to was the DP, with whom I had worked most extensively. We shook hands and said "Good working with you" and then stopped and looked at each other for a moment. We were both moving our mouths as if we each wanted to have the next word, but were too tired think of it. After about three seconds, he blurted out, "It's like joining the circus!" It's a comparison that's been made before, but it seemed appropriate at the time anyway.

It wasn't necessarily a funny thing to say, but I laughed quite a bit anyway, possibly out of sheer fatigue.

Happy

It's days like this, when I've had a great and simple time all day that I really don't have anything to say here. I don't feel at all connected to the internet or to this blog, just content and happy about intangible moments. Nothing feels urgent or compelling about writing these words, I just want to think about things. I haven't fully realized enough thoughts to post about them, I'm only caught in emotion.



But I really want that hamburger.

Cheap!

We're not sure when time we'll be home from our respective tasks (cooking, filming) tonight so this is a little placeholder.

Low

I've been listening to David Bowie's Low lately and it's fantastic. I don't usually go for electronic, instrumental stuff, and it's clearly not as fun as some of his more radio-friendly albums and songs. But just about every track I find myself thinking, "Wow, that's really beautiful."

"Be My Wife"

I would embed the Songza version, but for some reason it isn't working right now. Here's the music video on Youtube, which I think actually detracts a bit from the song because it's so visually boring. Well, you be the judge.

I Can't Lie

I really don't understand people that don't like mayonnaise. What's that about, mayo-haters?

Reader of the Year

Found this over at the Slog. The picture was taken about half a block away from my building downtown.



http://www.omnivoracious.com/2008/06/reader-of-the-y.html

In the photographer's words:

"This lady has it FIGURED OUT. She likes to read, she likes to smoke, she lives in Seattle (where it's 50 degrees and rainy in June), she works in some hulking office building downtown: what's the solution? You see it before you. (I should note, since it's not quite clear, that she's actually standing in the street, in a quiet little spot between parked cars that puts her out of foot traffic, far away from the smokers-area ennui, and even deeper in her own little umbrella world."

Most Boring Job in the World

I know that's a hefty title to fill, but listen to this internship opening at the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs:

Street Banner Internship

Deadline to Apply: Open until filled

Working as a member of the City's Banner Process Improvement team this position is responsible for locating and identifying street poles eligible for banner placement. This position will conduct a physical inventory of light and other street poles that could be used for hanging banners (including commercial district, event, cultural and art-related banners). The intern will travel Seattle neighborhoods and business districts identify eligible street poles, map their location and enter this information into a computer database. Additionally, the intern may assist the City's Public Art Program in mapping public artwork locations around the City.

The last sentence almost saves it, but WOW. People with histories of depression need not apply.

Choke

I recently saw Clark Gregg's adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel "Choke" at SIFF. In a word: Mess.

In more words: Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston try their damnedest to save it, but just can't. The tone and pace shifts without rhyme or reason (though not in the interesting ways that the book does), Kelly Macdonald is uncharacteristically bad (and she was recently phenomenal in "No Country!"), and the film is even surprisingly ugly from an aesthetic point of view.

The weird part was that as I watched it I thought, "Man, I wish they'd gotten a better cinematographer. Somebody who knows how to make an independent film look like it cost $10 million more to make than it actually did. Somebody like Tim Orr." Much to my surprise, Tim Orr was the cinematographer of this monstrosity. My brain can't compute the fact that the guy who shot "Choke" also shot "George Washington" nearly ten years ago.

The film has some merit here and there (some jokes from the book that translated well to the screen), but overall, not worth anybody's time.

I Might Be Late

But this is really cool. I always need something to help me hear the songs that are stuck in my head.

And this is the song that is in my head recently:

Spike Vs Clint

I'm loving the Clint Eastwood vs Spike Lee argument. Basically, Spike brought up at a press conference at Cannes that Clint had left African-American people out of Flags of Our Fathers, saying that to Clint Eastwood, black men played no part in the battle, when in fact they did.

Clint Eastwood's response was that there was only a small munitions detachment of black soldiers on Iwo Jima and the film was primarily about the three men (two white, one Native American) who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and survived the war. He also said that Spike Lee gave him shit in 1988 when he (as a white man) made a film about jazz legend Charlie Parker (noted black man), and should "shut his face."

Now Spike Lee says, "the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either... I didn't personally attack him, and a comment like `a guy like that should shut his face...' come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man."

To be fair, Clint Eastwood does sound a bit like an angry old man, but for Spike to say that Clint left African-Americans out of Flags, deliberately or through a lack of research, IS a personal attack, and an angry response should be expected.

As much as I enjoy the bickering, I wish these two very talented men would put aside their differences. Surely there must be some way for black people and white people to get along...

Parent Whereabout Roundup

NO TIME, DAVE'S PARENTS LEAVING, MY PARENTS ARE NOT BUT WHATEVER.

LOVE,
L

Vinyl vs Digital

Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in Plato's Cave Allegory. I've been told several times in the past few years that vinyl is widely accepted as the superior medium quality-wise, but it makes me not want to listen to vinyl, lest my CD and MP3 collection be forever tainted by the knowledge that I am listening to mud. I don't want to buy a turntable and LPs, I just want the highest quality recording to also be the most convenient. GET ON IT, SCIENCE.

The Horror: Making a Film in Seattle Can Destroy You

I started reading this article at work and I have every intention of finishing it, but with midnight approaching I figured I'd just link to it without knowing how it turns out.

The Making of Cthulhu

I PAed a bit on a short by this director (Dan that is, not Grant).

Poles Reversed

This is an old article below, but Lily and I only recently heard some guy talking about the potential of Earth flipping its polarity (North becoming South). I guess it can't be too big of a deal or you'd think it would be in the news more.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/04/07/poles.reverse/index.html

Gadzooks! Look at this site. We've only got four more years left to live!

'Swounds! Now watch this! I can't tell if this is serious or just a fine bit of comedy.

Oh What a Feeling!

We found three CDs in my parents' rental car. One was Garth Brooks, and the other two were decorated with maple leaves and the words "Juno 3" and "Juno 4" in tiny letters. We started listening to them, and only after skipping through fifteen or so extremely different tracks did we come upon Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" and realize that it was a compilation of Canadian artists. Check out the track listing (it's the 1996 release).

As you can see, the selection seems to be entirely random, with no regard for tone or flow from one song to the next. As for the individual tracks, well this song, for one, is ridiculous.

Cathy!

Ack!!