nanovivid

After hearing great things about it for months, I finally got to see Helvetica last night. It was every bit as good as I had hoped. Informative, insightful, and (somewhat surprisingly) funny, it’s a fascinating look at the visual language that surrounds us every day. I highly recommend adding it to your Netflix queue immediately.

♫ Maps - Make Yourself Exist (Demo)

Who wants to be my friend on Netflix? I only have two friends and I’m feeling lonely! Send an invitation to adam @ this domain and I’ll love you forever. Or at least consider it.

♫ Slow Funeral - The Loss

I’m not going to apologize for not blogging, because I’ve decided to stop feeling guilty about it. Lately it’s felt like a chore to write anything, and I don’t want my site to be something I feel obligated to work on. I think it’s better for my posts to be less frequent if I enjoy them more that way.

Now that my non-apology is out of the way, here are some things I’ve been up to recently:

• Redesigning Bryan’s site. It’s all raspberrylicious now. But you probably already knew that!

• Visiting Bostonia again and had a fabulous time with Jeremiah, Arthur, and RyanHarne.com. Highlight of the trip (apart from finally getting to meet Arthur): the crazy drunk guy that we saw twice on the T who told loud, disjointed stories about whatever crossed his mind, including the price of dry cleaning a shirt in the 1930s.

• Seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (while in Boston). I absolutely loved it and recommend that you stop whatever you’re doing and go see it now. Seriously, put down that highly educational textbook and go rot your brain. It’s worth it.

• Learning Ruby by reading Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. It’s by far the most bizarre, original, and enjoyable programming book I’ve ever read. There are cartoon foxes, aliens, elves, and, yes, chunky bacon. Ruby seems like a pretty cool language, so I’ll probably figure out some sort of project to write just so I can learn it.

• Trying to get over a sinus infection-ish thing. Ugh.

• Not going biking like I wanted to because of said sinus infection-ish thing. Double ugh.

• Being way too entertained by the phrase “chunky bacon.” But really, it’s pretty fun. Try it!

Chunky. Bacon.

♫ Gus Gus - David

As Bryan has mentioned, we have Netflix now, and it’s pretty damn cool. There are several huge advantages over normal movie rental stores.

• The DVDs are mailed right to your door.
• No more going to the store, wondering if they’ll have the movie you want to see, finding out they don’t have it, then spending twenty minutes in consultation trying to determine an alternate movie choice, only to end up with a cheesy 80s film. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
• All the movies you want to see are kept in a queue so you don’t have to keep them in your brain. Which is a very good thing for me.
• Netflix Freak. Fantastic little app with drag and drop queue reordering and a lot more.

So I’m pretty much in love with Netflix. Bryan has been using it to watch the first season of 24 (I’m probably going to do Farscape at some point) and I got Finding Neverland which I definitely recommend. Ed Wood is next, and I’m totally looking forward to it because a) it’s more Johnny Depp and b) it’s Tim Burton and c) I love Ed Wood’s movies and d) it’s Johnny Depp AND Tim Burton. Woo!

If you’re a Netflix user, let me know so I can friend you!

♫ Katoi - Touch You (Andy Manston Mix)

As I write this, we’re sitting in the airport waiting for our flight. Apparently they’ve been circling for the last hour or so due to weather and air traffic. One of the officials at the counter remarked that “they can’t stay up there all night!” and I felt very reassured to know that the laws of physics and gravity still apply!

Our last days in in Boston were of course quite fun-filled, even if we didn’t get to see the butterflies. That was the plan for Sunday but unfortunately after the deliciously sugary breakfast at Stephanie’s on Newberry, all the tickets to butterfly land had been sold. We lost at the butterflies. To make up for the lack of fluttery insects, we flitted around to various shopping establishments. (Gayest. Sentence. Ever.)

Excitement! The plane just landed. And they apologize for the inconvenience. How nice of them.

During shopping, I bored Bryan and Jeremiah to tears by going to CD Spins. If anyone has been music shopping with me, I’m sure you understand. I finally ended up with Odyssey by Fischerspooner and Remedy by Basement Jaxx, both for much less monies than retail.

Later, we attempted to go buy some booze, but the slowest waitress on the face of the Earth or any nearby planet at CPK and the bizarre Massachusetts law forbidding liquor sales after 6:00 pm on Sunday conspired to foil us. It’s just wrong, I tell you. Thus, we were forced to go without for the evening. We’ll plan better in the future, that’s for sure! The pizza was good, though.

People are now deplaning, so we’ll probably be boarding in a few minutes.

One more story before I go. Shortly after we sat down at the gate, a white wooden rocking chair appeared across the room. Neither of us saw it being brought in, but that’s just because it’s a rocking chair from another dimension that fell through a wormhole. Or maybe we were watching Lost on my PowerBook. But regardless of origin, there’s been a lady sitting in a white rocking chair in the airport. Quite the sight.

Everybody is off the plane so I’m going to pack up.

(We got home safely and without further incident. Back to work tomorrow, I guess.)

♫ Múm - We Have A Map Of The Piano

Even though we desperately missed Bryan’s presence this weekend, Ryan, Courtney and I had a pretty good time. I’ll let the pictures tell most of the story for me.

One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing Napoleon Dynamite. It’s a wonderfully simple movie full of quirky, memorable characters. Jon Herder does an amazing job of creating the character of Napoleon. By keeping the story uncomplicated, the film focuses the attention on the day-to-day lives of these very unique people. Definitely a movie to see.

But now you need to go check us out. No, seriously, check us out.

♫ kap10kurt - Die Sleeping (Ulysses EBM Mix)

So it’s really in Cambridge… I just wanted to say Bostonia.

The trip has been quite fun so far. We saw Kill Bill Vol. 2 last night which I rather enjoyed. One of the neat aspects of that movie is how the style of the action changes depending on the location. During Vol. 1 there was a lot of over-the-top blood and gore during the scenes set in Japan, but Vol. 2 had more of a Western style since it was set in the midwest. The cinematography was once again very interesting and enjoyable, as was the music.

Today as we were waiting to get on the subway, I saw someone who works at the same place as me back in VA. How random is that? I come to Boston and can’t get away from Virginia.

More fun will be had today with shopping and a late-night improv crew we’re going to see. Oh, and the weather is heavenly. I’ve decided that I bring good weather to Boston, since last time I was here in early November, it was also in the 70s. I win.

♫ BT - Knowledge of Self

Sorry about the lack of updatage. I had a good weekend hanging out in the Tidewater region with Courtney, Lara, Michael, et. al. There was Friday’s, shopping, MST3k, and tricky, it’s tricky, this trick’s gonna rock gonna rock it’s tricky (please someone get it out of my head). Quite the good time, even without Dan, who for some reason stayed home to, of all things, be with his wife. Where are his priorities?

PS - Be sure to read the quote below… it’s a good one.

♫ Everything But The Girl - Tracey In My Room (Lazy Dog Bootleg Vocal Mix (with Soul Vision))

As before, someone else has already summarized the weekend (part of it, anyway). So instead, I’m going to write about some movies I’ve seen lately.

Last weekend I saw Boondock Saints for the first time. While it’s definitely an enjoyable action flick, the movie also touches on some questions about dealing with criminals who somehow seem to escape the law.

That same night, Donnie Darko was also viewed. To come close to understanding the film, you need to read The Philosophy of Time Travel (but don’t read it unless you’ve seen the film because it is a bit of a spoiler). I really need to watch the movie again, because I’m sure I’ll get more out of it the second time around. I watched the movie on Adam’s recommendation, who described it as the "strangest movie I’ve ever seen." Donnie Darko is strange sort of in the same way that Pi is strange. It’s a definite sci-fi time travel head trip that hides in the guise of a high school teen angst drama. The way everything comes together in the end is beautiful and sad and weird and just… ooooh.

Yesterday, Big Fish was the entertainment of choice. Wow. What a beautiful movie. It’s a wonderful exploration of the relationship between story and truth. The stories that make up the movie are whimsical and fascinating, and the ending is so poignant (it made me tear up :-). Go see it if you haven’t.

As a side note, these chalk drawings blow my mind (via Metafilter). The depth is incredible. My brain is left twisted every time I look.

♫ The Bens - Bruised

So this DC trip, we have ended up at the Apple Store Tysons Corner. And of course I have to make a post while I’m here. We’re having a good time so far, and planning to go see Big Fish tonight. So yeah. Fun fun.

♫ Pink - If God Is A DJ