Well, I have some pictures for you today, which will be linked below as I discuss the contents. For one thing, I forgot to mention last time that we had a little trip to the Fremont Oktoberfest. There were, of course, many tasty brews, which we got to sample in tiny, tiny little mugs. Check out some of the pictures. Afterward, we went out to Feierabend, where I got involved in a bar fight. Two guys at another table, apparently co-workers, were out together, even though they appeared to have little in common (one was preppy looking, the other bedecked in metal piercings and tattoos). Prep was apparently making disparaging remarks about Punk’s girlfriend, which resulted in a fistfight, and the two of them rolled out the door. Then our waitress (who probably weighed about 120 lbs) went out to try and break them up, and she just kept getting knocked on her ass. I went out (stupidly) to try and help, grabbed one guy and pulled while a cook grabbed the other guy a pulled. Cook gave up quickly, and I was left hugging a stranger who was still quite actively fighting the other guy. E-Dubs recommended I go inside, so I did, where I discovered I was covered in a stranger’s blood. I went to wash up, and shortly after I got back, the cops showed up, so I’m glad I wasn’t still out in the fight. So that was that.
We went to a couple meetings with the house builder people to pick things like colors, doors, windows, carpets, flooring, etc. These people all suck. I don’t like them and they suck at their jobs. I don’t really feel like bitching about them in great detail. The worst part of it was that it took KrisDi two hours to drive the 20 miles to one of these meetings, and then she backed into a retaining wall and made a big scratch on her bumper. But, here’s a bunch more pictures of our house in the building process.
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers came to Jazz Alley, where KrisDi, E-Dubs and I went to see them. It was fun, it was a good show, and the guitarist (Buddy Whittington) was amazingly nimble with his sausage-fingers. Sometime recently we also saw Nels Cline Singers and the Scott Amendola Band at the Triple Door. It was weirder than the type of music I normally listen to (avant garde), but I enjoyed some of it.
Halloween has come and gone, and we didn’t do anything special besides make jack o’ lanterns. Of course, I spent a ridiculous amount of time on mine (at least on the second try). I modeled mine after the Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale label this year. The first attempt was a complete failure, but I had enough room on my pumpkin to try it a second time, which worked much better.
We had some visitors recently: Weesh showed up, and we took her around a little bit. We spent most of our time eating desserts. Jerry came up for work and stopped by the night he arrived and stayed with us the night before he flew out. We didn’t do a great deal besides go out to eat with him and talk about houses, since he just bought one down in California. Most recently we had Chris come up for work and visit us a couple times (once with Art’s girlfriend Sharona). That was fun. Again, we didn’t do much — we took them to see our house, we took them downtown to Pike’s Place, where we ate piroshkies.
Mom got a visit from us. Isn’t she lucky? We went to see the Cody Rivers Show, which was fast paced and occasionally very funny. Some of their bits were very impressive. They had one skit where they were saying all the words in each of their lines in alphabetical order instead of in speaking order, which was terrible to hear, but pretty cool.
Oh, and the Phoenix recommended XKCD to me, and I recommend it to you, as it is now on my daily comics list.
One last thing: I think I’ve had these pictures from Japan up on the website for a couple years, without ever linking to them. So, if you’re interested, check them out. Let me know if you’ve seen them before, because I’m not sure I never linked them, but I couldn’t find them quickly.
———- Books and movies and whatnot ———-
I finally finished the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, The Dark Tower). I have to admit, I started to consider it a chore. I’m glad it’s over. Stephen King writing himself in as a character was just too annoying. I liked the first three. I’d stop there.
Wasp by Eric Frank Russell. A co-worker in his sixties recommended it to me, and I read it on breaks at work. The idea is that a single wasp in a car can kill some humans and destroy a vehicle just by buzzing around and creating a disproportionate panic, why can’t a single human do the same to a whole planet? So, the government recruits likelies, trains them, and drops them off on other planets, where they terrorize the population and cause disproportionate panic, making them more susceptible to attack. It was pretty neat, but nothing too special.
Planet Terror. In KrisDi’s description to her little brother, I think she said something along the lines of, “You might be interested in the first few minutes when Rose McGowan is shimmying about as a go-go dancer.” I was not terribly impressed.
Gone with the Wind. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it. I thought it was pretty good, which surprised me quite a bit. Boy is Scarlett a cold-hearted bitch, though. I liked Mammy.
Barton Fink. Another Coen brothers flick that shares much of its cast with The Big Lebowski. Boy, this was a weird movie, with little to no explanation or resolution. Just a bunch of weird, confusing stuff, with some hilarity thrown in for good measure. Not my favorite Coen brothers exploit, but orders of magnitude better than Planet Terror.
