I’ve been neglecting this site as I’ve been outside enjoying the summer (biking, camping, swimming, etc). And now that I’m back, I’ll probably be pretty busy catching up at work… So no promises on anything new this week either, but when I finally do start it all back up again, I’ll have plenty to spew.
July 2004 Archives
Ok, I’m back. A quick rundown of what I’ve been doing the last three weeks:
Three weekends ago, Dave came up and we rode our bikes from Marymoor Park to Gas Works Park. It’s a 28 mile ride (one way) and we had planned on riding there and back. But as we neared Gas Works, we both agreed that we’d had enough biking (we were more bored than tired) so we called Kara to come “have lunch with us” (aka pick us up). We all ate at McMenamin’s Dad Watsons and put on the cals that we had just burned, HOORAY!
As the new week started, Phil came up and hung out for a few days (his last visitation before he’s shipped off to China). I took a day off from work and we hung out and did random stuff (including Unreal Tournament 2004).
That next weekend (the weekend of the 4th) Kara and I went camping with ‘The Vancouver Crowd’ in LaPine, OR. The weather was really nice, and we swam to prove it. We also tried our hand at some spelunking at the Lava River Cave. We made it all the way to the end (JP made it the furthest with his patented squat walk). Funny thing, I actually saw people that I used to know (Pam & Shannon Bex) while walking through the cave, but I didn’t say anything cuz a cave doesn’t seem like a stop-and-chat kind of place…
Finally, this weekend Billy & Kalin came up and we all went on a nice little bike ride. They’ve got a bike trailer, so Kalin just freeloaded while Billy did all the work! We rode from our house to this huge field where a bazillion kids were playing some soccer tournament. We watched for a while, but we started noticing big black rain clouds zeroing in on our position. We started riding home, but we were unable to outrun the rain (it was only light showers, so no biggie). On the way back, I discovered that the Redmond Library is right off the trail. I’m becoming quite the regular there, so I think I’ll try to bike there next time. We also stopped at the north end of Sammamish Lake and watched the dogs swim around for a while.
And that’s it, that’s what I’ve been doing… Oh there is that one other thing… The fact that I got the beta of a certain game on Friday… But, I don’t think I’ll be saying anything more about that… Y’know, those pesky NDAs.
There’s this guy at my work named Jeff... He’s kinda special. He often raves about the movie Lake Placid (yes, the Lake Placid with the giant crocodile). We all assumed he was just crazy, but I told him I’d watch it if he lent it to me. We were right, he’s crazy. It sucks just about as much as you’d expect it to. In fact, an hour or so into the film, I was hoping that it was almost over… It actually was (total running time: 82 minutes) which made me happy AND disappointed at the same time. The thoughts “thank goodness” and “that was it?!?” merged to create a wholly new (and bewildering) emotion.
Note to self: ignore everything Jeff says from now on.
I finished reading The Color of Magic on Sunday. It’s the first in a series by Terry Pratchett called The Discworld Books. It’s set in a fantasy world (wizards, heroes, & dragons) but it is also pretty funny, lightly poking fun at the genre. Surprisingly, it also does commentary on real world problems by wrapping them up in the fantasy world (ala Star Trek, only more subtle). There wasn’t much of a plot, but it was enjoyable enough following the main characters through their many adventures. One of my coworkers, Nishan, is way into the series and has offered to lend me some of his books. I’ll definitely check them out, and if they get better (as I’ve been assured they do) then I might just get hooked…
Kara and I watched the last rentable Stargate: SG1 DVD (season 6) last week. Unfortunately that left season 7 mostly unwatched as season 8 is just beginning. I once again turned to the underbelly of the net to procure the missing episodes. I found DVD rips of season 7 (separated into two 4Gig bit torrent links) and started downloading. Unlike my previous experience with bit torrent, this time the downloads went BLAZING fast! We watched the season 7 eps as fast as we could (the 2 hr season 8 premiere is just sitting on Tivo WAITING to be watched). But I’ve realized something… Netflix was a good thing because it dispensed eps in healthy doses. With season 7, we had all 22 episodes at our fingertips, so we just about ODed on it. But now that we've nearly caught up (only the season 8 premiere to go) we better get ready for the slow steady IV drip that is ‘one ep a week’ live TV (well, two eps a week if you count Stargate Atlantis).
So, for the record, we went through all 7 seasons (154 episodes, or 102 hours) in 4 months. That’s an average of more than 1 episode per day, for 4 months straight! I suppose I should feel bad about that, but screw it; it was a damn fine ride.
Kara and I started our first major home improvement project on Saturday... sanding and resealing our deck. We spent 7 hours on Saturday, 10 hours on Sunday, and we’re STILL working on it! Sanding the deck floor was simple with the floor sander that I rented. But we also wanted to sand down all of the rails, and here is where the majority of our time has been spent. Fortunately our neighbor, Ed, came up with a good idea for dealing with the little rails. Instead of sanding each one, we took them down and ran them through his planer. We finished up the rest of the rails last night, and now we just need to do some touchup sanding on the floor, sand parts of the stairs, sand the corners of the little rails, replace some rotting floor boards, seal the whole thing, and put the little rails back up. In other words, we’re not even close to being done...
I finished Michael Crichton’s Prey a few nights ago… It follows his standard “when good science goes bad” formula, but with nano-bots in the role previously filled by dinosaurs or gun slinging robots. The nanites run amok, people die, and then the main character saves the day (or does he?) The funny thing about Crichton novels of late is they are all so obviously movie pitches. He has a tendency to include special effects sequences that sound like they’d look cool. You don’t know for sure how it looks though, because he doesn’t describe it in enough detail to picture it in your mind. They are more like FX concepts, things that MUST be included in the movie (and probably the trailer too).
The book was entertaining enough, but there’s no need to recommend it… I’m sure the movie will be better.
My friend Phil has been in China for about a week now and I got to talk to him today on messenger. Besides the fact that it was Wednesday for me and Thursday for him, there were some other odd things to report. As you probably know, bootleg DVDs are HUGE in China... Phil has already bought up a bunch; he says they are roughly one dollar a disc!! He’s currently in Beijing where prices are higher and apparently $1 per DVD is actually considered expensive! The other nice tidbit he had to share was the squat toilets. He described them as porcelain holes in the ground that you must, well, squat over. He reports: quite nice for #1, but undecided for #2 (he’s yet to use one for pooin’, but I think the aiming might take some trial and error to perfect).
As per Billy's request, I have added the ability to leave comments on my 'Currents'... Comment away, Billy Boy!
I also made the media title (Movie, Book, etc) a link to the archive page of that type (for example, if you click down on 'Movie' it'll take you to a page that lists all of the movies I've entered on the site).
