This weekend was a busy one. Friday Jen accepted a job offer from the place she interviewed at on Thursday; in the space of about two hours she got three calls with three job offers. So now I refer to her as ‘Senior Designer.’ Saturday we did a bunch of house-related stuff and visited the downtown restaurant Sascha’s to sample their menu (purely in the interest of wedding research, we swear) and to celebrate. Sunday was more running, with house stuff in the morning and a fun afternoon with friends.
We saw the Sofia Coppola movie Lost In Translation at the Charles, and we all enjoyed it tremedously. Bill Murray is spectacular. He takes the bored, disconnected dad from Rushmore and expands on it—there’s a brave, funny, young man in his body. Scarlett Johansson is young, but much older than she looks, and the two, who would on the surface not go together, pair off perfectly. Highly recommended.
Attempts to get the iMac running with Rob’s donated 27GB drive failed; the boot ROM doesn’t seem to see the drive even when it’s partitioned below 8GB. I may try again, and I may just buy a huge new IDE drive when I get paid and drop it in there.
Generosity. Phyllis, an old and dear friend of Jen’s, is moving out of the mansion where she and Jen once rented apartments. She was good enough to help us move into the new house, and we tried to lend as much help as possible back to her. She’s getting rid of a lot of her furniture, and out of the blue offered us her beautiful drop-leaf dining room table—and then her desk, which happens to be a 20’s era oak library table. We were overwhelmed, but she insisted, and, well, we couldn’t say no. So besides the dining room table we bought from Todd and Heather (which is about as near to perfect in this room as I could hope for), we have the smaller table from Phyllis, and a new desk for Jen’s office.
Jen sent me a link for this kit; we have a serious insect problem, so bats might be the answer.
Doctors. Today I was lucky enough to see my doctor about the poison ivy issue on my hand; instead of the pills (which apparently are for “serious” cases of p-i, and have side effects like sleep disorders, bone issues, water retention, etc) she prescribed some cortisone cream. I pointed at my hands, and told her that it was spreading—I woke up this morning and the blisters had marched across one knuckle, down into the valley of my finger, and up the other side and there is nothing more irritating than poison ivy in between your fingers—my request was in vain. So I have to travel to the Ride Aid to fill the script this evening.
Lis, I know you’re contesting the Crispin Glover nomination, so I found some evidence in the case to convict.
At the risk of fucking everything all up, I have to say this, because I’m so exited for her: Jen had a kick-ass job interview this morning, and it went really well. Everybody wish her luck!
The West Wing was pretty lackluster. I read online that John Wells himself wrote the episode, and it showed. Is anybody else out there confused/puzzled by the fact that Wells writes episodes for three different TV shows? I mean, isn’t there someone else in Hollywood who can write an engaging script? It’s just kind of funny that the media outlets talk about ‘convergence‘ and there’s one dude writing/exec. producing for two of the most popular shows on TV.
The West Wing season premiere is on tonight, so Jen and I are treating ourselves to some sushi and Martin Sheen. Although it would be completely out of character for the show, I’d love to see Charlie find Zoe and kick the crap out of somebody. We’ve gotten some great response from the invite so far, so it looks like most folks can attend, with some yet to respond. (Can you believe the early version of that pig was wearing a hat? What’s that all about?) And I want the Sundays to come back, because fall always makes me think of this album—or vice versa.
Heather sent me this clarification of Moist, which may clear out some of the current candidates (and suggest others:)
A requirement of moistness is the self-certainty of the validity of the
moist individual’s behavior, beliefs, career, etc…a certain delusional
earnestness. There is no ironic detachment to be found in the moist
individual.Ex:
Neil Diamond is the king of moist while Gary Shandling is merely annoying as
shit and irrelevant(not to mention Warren Beatty’s hanger-on).
Art Speigelman has been an artistic hero of mine from way back, when I read about and then picked up a copy of Maus, his searing illustrated book about his father’s experiences during the Holocaust, his relationship with his father, and his own feelings. He went on to produce the second book in the series, have a one-man show at the MOMA (which I saw back in college and which I thought was a brilliant work of curation) and do selected work for the New Yorker (his cover image for the week after September 11, the twin towers in black on a blacker background, was a powerful statement about how he—and the city—felt the week after.) The Publication Design department at UB is hosting him in a lecture series in October, and Jen just got the invite last night. You better believe we are going to see that. I’m going to dig out my copy of Maus and see if I can have him sign it.
The invitation for the post-moving pig roast went out this morning: Again, to all our peeps who helped us out, thank you, and we’ll see you there.
Thoughts on watching the movie Cold Creek Manor last night:
“He was just trying to scare everybody away!”
“And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!”
Moist: adj.:
- Crispin Glover.
- Deney Terrio.
- The 70’s band Exile, responsible for I Want To Kiss You All Over.
- Rex Smith.
- The eponymous Canadian band Moist.
Got another? We’ll put your suggestion to the judges (Heather, Todd, and Jen) and post it if it’s truly moist.
Verizon called us this morning to let us know we have DSL connectivity. After a not-so-quick online setup process, I was able to set the SMC Barricade and the Airport Base Station up to provide wireless access throughout the house. Thank God.
Jen braved the fumes yesterday and put a coat of Kilz on the Sticky room walls before she was overcome; I followed her up there with a coat on the cieling and then on the walls in the Anxious room. Both rooms look about a million times better with an even coat of paint. Next, we patch and sand up the cracks in the plaster, pull the baseboards to upgrade the electrical wiring, and seal the trim. Boy, it’s going to suck to paint the whole house with that crap.
In sadder news, this past Monday Renie had to put Bear down for his own good. Everybody say a kind word for the god who watches over dogs.
Stuck in my head this morning (after I forcefully kicked “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters to the curb. Don’t ask, because I don’t know how it got in there): “These Are The Reasons”, by Soul Coughing. Not that I even know that’s the name of the song, or what it could be, because the S-C website is offline and the site linked above has no record of this song title.
So sick, it’s wrong. Jen has obviously missed broadband connectivity
badly in the months she’s been out of work. Today I got these
instructions from her: “Do an image
search on Google for Corey Haim and look at the third
picture.” Pardon me now, while I attempt to staunch the
flow of blood from my burning eyesockets.
Seen on the way in to work this morning: A Baltimore cop, waving to a woman on the street from their cruiser. As I got closer, I realized he and his partner were wearing Groucho nose and glasses. Unfortunately I was driving, and I didn’t have time to bring my camera to bear.
Hopefully tonight, Jen and I are gonna go see Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m looking forward to it. Yarrrr!
I may have already linked to this, and I’m too lazy to go searching for it, but I think this will be a Christmas present for Bill this year. The Slim Devices Slimp3 is a networkable MP3 decoder for your stereo—you connect your computer to the SLIMP via Ethernet, and your SLIMP to your stereo through RCA jacks. The SLIMP takes care of the rest. A fine solution to getting all the CD’s I’ve burned back to the stereo, which has more power and sound than my computer’s speakers.
Then again, there’s the 30GB iPod with an FM transceiver to broadcast all those songs-and playlists-to any FM stereo within 30 feet or so. Yeah, I think maybe that’s a better solution. But that SLIMP device is slick.
- No, assholes, games do not sell movies. Your last movie sucked. People don’t want to get burned twice, especially when you charge $9 a ticket for this crap. Make a better movie, and people will come.
- OSX seems to be slowing down every three or four days as I put it to sleep and wake it up each day. Photoshop lags, Eudora takes up cycles to think, and all the apps seem sleepy. Anybody else noticed a problem with X and PowerBooks?
- Buymusic is doomed to fail if their music service is anything like their customer service. Oh, and all those songs might not be legally available anyway.
- Come on, people, vote this guy out of office. What is it going to take (or what are we going to have to lose?)
</grump mode off.>
Hmm. I’m working on modifying a script to automatically update my local log file to my webserver, so I don’t have to manually copy and paste the file each time I update it. There are a few things I’d like to change (this script was initially written as a directory backup too, not a single-file updater) but I need to have more knowledge of AppleScript to do it. I wish the Finder was script-recordable like iTunes or other OSX applications. Oh, and Apple: three of your scripts for iTunes crash the application.
I bought the album Best of Bowie, thinking that I would own this collection of the songs I do like as opposed to purchasing the entire back collection of his work to get the eight songs I want. I put it on this afternoon to groove out to some tracks and while listening to “Under Pressure” I realized that there’s a verse missing at the climax of the chorus. Hunh. So I continued listening to the album, and when “Young Americans” came on, I was shocked to find that they clipped a bunch of stuff out of this song as well. Big deal, you’re saying. So what. Well, that’s what I bought the album for in the first place. I wanted to hear the whole song like it was on the LP I used to own in 1986, not an edited version. I understand that they wanted to jam as many songs on this CD as possible, and while I applaud that effort, couldn’t we have done without “This Is Not America” (arguably one of the weaker songs in his discography) to get the full long-playing version of each song?
Listening, RIAA? This is a great excuse for file-sharing. I feel like I bought a copy of the new Harry Potter and found out that it’s missing the entire middle chapter.
This weekend, I’m driving north to the old homestead, deep in the Land Of Classic Rock, to attend the wedding of my best friend from High School. There’s a reason I live down here in Baltimore, five hours, $6 and three bridges away from the town I graduated High School in; my experience in that town was sort of a grab-bag of good and bad. It wasn’t until I was about 25 that I figured out the art of re-inventing myself, so my entrance into that town at eighth grade was a rocky one. One of the things that got me through was the group of friends I made my sophomore year, including the guy who’s getting married. It should be a bittersweet experience, and one I’m only partially looking forward to—I’m not sure who’s going to be there, how they’re doing, or what they’ll say. I missed my 10-year reunion (no great loss—I doubt I would have gone anyway) so I’m not up to date on what’s been happening, but I’m wondering if some people have grown up. I’m also wondering if I should take Jen up to my old house to take a look; it’s not often you get to see an impound lot in the middle of the woods. (My dad bought a repossession business in 1984, prompting our move to New York. To answer your questions, no, it’s nothing like the movie, yes, I got pretty handy at picking locks, and yes, Harry Dean Stanton is the mack daddy.)
Queer Eye For The Straight Guy could convince me to hook up basic cable again when we move. Todd taped an episode for me, and it is hilarious. And holy Mother of God, did I want to smash this dude’s girlfriend in the head with a brick.
I’ve been working on a project where the issue of readability has come up more than once, especially long lines of text in paragraphs. Searching for some hard data, I came upon the Usability News site, and also the University of Wichita’s psychology department and their studies based on usability testing. I’m impressed by the breadth and depth of the results, as well as its layout online. I’m going to be linking back to this one (and doing a lot of reading) in the next few weeks.
Todd, my cube-neighbor, asked me a few weeks ago if anybody I knew would be interested in a beautiful used dining room table for sale; he and his wife were selling it to make room for their new table. After a brief consultation with Jen, and a visit to look at the table (and a very tasty frittatta which Heather claimed was burnt—it was not), I signed on the dotted line. Tonight it will appear in my dining room, which is little more than a narrow hallway between the living room and kitchen, and hopefully not dwarf the rest of the house.
Outstanding television. The West Wing, over the course of the last couple of episodes (that I’ve seen, at least) has been some of the best television I’ve watched in a long time. This evening’s episode, the season finale, was gripping, intelligent drama—and last week’s leadup was some of the most suspenseful TV I’ve seen in years. And John Frickin’ Goodman as the Speaker of the House!