Expanding Platform

Posted on by grahams

Last night, while watching the Red Sox eviscerate the Rockies, I developed a few more pieces of my campaign platform:

  1. The original, Tacos at Fenway;  featuring Tacoby Shellsbury
  2. During the postseason, when the Red Sox are playing away, fans can get into Fenway on the cheap and watch the game on the big screen, surrounded by other fans.
  3. Cleat Babes.  I saw some old dude brushing the dirt out of Beckett’s cleats while he was waiting to pitch again.  Get rid of the old dude, replace him with a hotchick.

Tacoby Shellsbury

Posted on by grahams

I’m planning on running for President of Red Sox Nation next year (Update: Or not.. What is the term of RSN President, anyway?), and my platform is a simple one:  Tacos at Fenway Park.  Think about it, how awesome would it be to yell out "HEY TACO GUY" and have a few hard shells tossed your way?  To me, it sounds like heaven.  It would complete the Fenway experience..    In preparation for my run, I’ve held a few TACOSOX events at my house, where we make lots of tacos and watch the Red Sox.  It has been a major hit!

Further validating my theory that Fenway is severly taco-deprived:  Lowell and Pedroia brought tacos to fans camping out for tickets.

Oh, and my campaign mascot?  An Anthropomorphised taco named "Tacoby Shellsbury".  That is all.

Portal

Posted on by grahams

My life over the past two days has been consumed with Portal and watching baseball.  Portal is the bomb.  I walk to work now and think about how it would be awesome to shoot a portal there and there…  I even had portal dreams last night;  It has reached the Tetris level of puzzle greatness where it consumes most of my thoughts during the day.  I haven’t even played Half-Life: Episode Two yet.

The Sox game last night was awesome, Hopefully they’ll keep up the good work and win through game 7.  Our new couch is apparently being delivered tonight, which will hopefully increase guest comfort.

Let’s Go Maize!

Posted on by grahams

[info]coco_b and I trekked out to Michigan for her brother Paul’s wedding this weekend past.  Due to some airline BS, we ended up having to fly in and out of Providence, and we hit traffic in both directions, but especially on the way down.  Once we got there though, it was a very nice way to fly.  We got to DTW and picked up our rental, we met up with Corinna’s friend Michelle in Ann Arbor and had dinner at Blue Nile.  It was delicious all-around, but their hot tea was out of control.  After dinner we headed to Corinna’s parents’ place and hung out with them for awhile before her brother Fred and 5 of his 6 kids arrived by car from Georgia.   We hung out with everyone for awhile before passing out.

We woke up first thing Saturday morning to head over to Ann Arbor to watch the Michigan Marching Band practice for the big homecoming game that day against Purdue.  Corinna was part of the band, so she was excited to see them perform, even if we were unable to catch the game.  We brought her niece along for the ride, leaving the house at something like 7 in the morning.  The band practice was really interesting, even if there were some eccentricities that took some getting used to..    For instance, to rest their lips, lungs, and cheeks, the horn sections didn’t actually play their parts for several sections of the rehearsal, instead they brought their horns to their lips and sung their parts.  The announcer, who is apparently very loved among the Michigan community sounded like a Yuk-tastic morning DJ to me, but I guess I just can’t appreciate his grandeur.  We cruised around campus for awhile before heading back to the house to get ready for the wedding.  But on the way to the house, Corinna granted me a wish and took me to lunch at DiBella’s, who’s westward expansion has taken it into Ann Arbor.  How about moving eastward, guys?

The wedding was quite a bit of fun, with a short ceremony leading to a very nice reception.  It was great only only getting to hang out with Corinna’s family members I was already acquainted with, but also meeting several more.  It was especially nice to meet

[info]cjmr

and

[info]d_84

who I feel like I’ve known for years now through LiveJournal but had yet to meet.  We stayed until the very end, and other than a somewhat creepy garter/bouquet throw narration by the DJ, it was a great time.  We got back to Chelsea just in time to see the Red Sox get beat by the Indians in the 11th inning.

Sunday we just kind chilled out at the house, and in the evening, lots of people came to Chelsea for dinner.  After a great meal, Corinna and I just chatted it up with her family and their friends, and eventually helped her mother prepare rations for her brother and his kids car ride back to Georgia.  Monday morning we got up bright and early, returned the car, and flew back to Providence.  All-in-all it was a very successful trip.  It will be nice to see everyone again in a few months for the Holidays…   Renting a car was also a genius idea, as now that her parents only have one car, and it gave us some extra mobility without bothering anyone.

Geoffrey Miller and David Byrne

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

,

[info]adamfletcher

, Kelly, and myself headed over to the Institute of Contemporary Art to attend a talk given by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller and David Byrne of Talking Heads as well as his solo work in music, photography, and other art.  The topic was “Connections Between Biology and Culture, Sex and Beauty, Genes and Creativity”.  I am not ashamed to admit that the reason I attended this event was simply to hear Byrne talk, as it is likely the closest I will get to a Talking Heads concert…   But I was pleasantly surprised that both lecturers were very entertaining.

Miller’s talk seemed to be a quick overview of some of his research, not getting to terribly technical, but still conveying the important points.  His main hypothesis centered around creative expression (including traditional forms like music, fine art, etc, but also including things like ornamentation) and how it effects gene selection through mate selection.  Adam was a little annoyed that he did some hand-waving regarding some of the genetics, but it was a 20 minute talk at an art museum, so I gave him some latitude.  He totally inspired me to check out his book, The Mating Mind, to further explore these ideas.

David Byrne was actually kind of surprising…  He began the talk explaining how before he got into a band he was powerfully nervous in public settings and interactions, but he said he had improved over the years.  I’m not sure if this is what cause his very nervous presentation, or if it was just newer material he wasn’t too comfortable yet (or both), but it was a little distracting at first.  Once I got used to his delivery though, I found his talk to be very interesting..  He explored the art world in general, and how the actual art products worth is negligible, and any value we assign to these products are often based on more abstract feelings and ideas.  What was really interesting was when he started to explore ideas of how “art rules” change as technology allows easier reproduction.  How realism was de-emphasized in painting when technologies like the camera allowed us to easier reproduce real-world scenes with the push of a button.  It was more a collection of observations than any kind of scientific hypothesis, but he’s an artist, so I didn’t expect the latter… :)

I bought a copy of Byrne’s new book, Arboretum, which is a collection of pencil sketches of mental maps.  The maps are often digaramming nonsensical connections, and the publishers did an amazing job of reproducing these sketches, they actually look like they were drawn into a blank book in pencil.  I was fortunate enough to be able to personally thank David for the talk and have him autograph (and add a little abstract sketch to) my copy of the book..  All in all it was pretty awesome.

NEGLECTED LJ OMFG

Posted on by grahams

OK, so I’ve completely neglected my journal for a long time.  I’m going to try to fix this starting now.  Here are some updates…

All of our photos are posted now, and I tried to put reasonable descriptions of each one.  If you want the abridged version, [info]coco_b is working on a shorter slideshow.  Our trip was totally awesome..   We flew, with [info]adamfletcher, out to Pamplona, arriving on Friday.  After a long post-travel nap at the hotel, we woke up around 5pm to venture out into the town.  We ended up at a Pintxos (regional name for Tapas) bar and had some snacks and a few plates, but we eventually met up with [info]rioma, his bride to be, and some other friends…  That was a pretty early night, so after dinner and drinks we headed back to the hotel.  Saturday was the big wedding day, so after a late breakfast we took a nap to make sure we’d be able to survive the wedding festivities…   The wedding started at 6pm, and we were told it might keep going until 4 or 5am, so we figured the rest would do us well!  The wedding was beautiful, although I found church far more tolerable when you can’t understand anything the priest is saying.    The reception was completely out-of-hand, with a cocktail and appetizer hour, 7 courses of the main meal, and then, as advertised, dancing and drinking until 4-5pm.  I believe there is even some footage of me dancing like a schmuck while quite intoxicated, but I hope my friends will hold onto that footage until my presidential campaign or something…

Sunday was the beginning of our proper tourism, and we started to explore Pamplona…  This continued Monday, and between these two days most of our friends who had come out for the wedding went their separate ways.  While it was great seeing all these people, it was also nice break away on our own.  We saw all kinds of amazing places in Pamplona, but a common retreat for us was back to the Plaza del Castillo, drinking and chilling.  On Tuesday, we rented a car for the rest of our trip and drove up to San Sebastian for a day..  Then we proceeded to drive up into France overnight, and then down through the Pyrenees..  We eventually ended up back in Pamplona the day before our flight back to the states.  There are obviously lots of details I’ve glossed over, but I think pictures speak louder than words in this situation..  If I talked about every town we visited, it would mostly be “X town was so damn beautiful, I can’t really express it in words”…

Corinna has gone crazy painting our place, and now all but one room is painted.  I picked a pimp-ass color for my office, I’ll try and remember to take a picture of it soon.

MEME ALERT!

Posted on by grahams
[info]kylegirl

tagged me, so you are subjected to: TEN THINGS THAT ARE CURRENTLY MAKING ME HAPPY!!!!!111!1  (in no particular order)

  1. I don’t want to sound like a queer or nuthin’, but i think [info]coco_b is kick-ass.
  2. The Boston Red Sox.  I had managed to avoid the professional sports insanity in Boston for several years, but the past few years I’ve been to Fenway a few times and have been paying more and more attention to baseball..  The 46″ HDTV we bought a few months ago definitely sealed the deal.   But football still sucks.  :)
  3. Our new house kicks ass.  It’s now fun to have people over, and people seem to actually enjoy it, unlike our old place, which was tough to get to, tough to park around, and tiny as hell.
  4. I’m still riding the post-Spain trip wave, and can’t wait for our next trip abroad.
  5. The weather is finally getting comfortable…
  6. Walking two miles each way to a job I actually enjoy every day.
  7. BookMooch – I have had an account here for a long while now, but never really bothered to do anything with it.  In unpacking my books, I found a ton that, aside from nostalgia, just didn’t make any sense to keep anymore (tons of BeOS books, for instance).  I had been bringing these books to the “Send these to China” bin at the supermarket, but then I remembered BookMooch..  I put up 10 books last night and 2 of them were claimed within an hour, and have already been sent out. 
  8. Halloween is approaching, which means the annual Halloween Party in Ithaca is also approaching..  This is the one chance a year I get to see some of these friends, so it’s always a special event for me…
  9. Going to the David Byrne/Geoffrey Miller lecture at the ICA tomorrow.  I mean, it’s nowhere near as awesome as it would be seeing Talking Heads, but it’s likely as close as I’ll ever get.
  10. Dexter.  It’s quickly turning into my second favorite show.

Donde esta la zapateria?

Posted on by grahams

Spain was totally awesome…  We had such a great time, both hanging out with old friends around the wedding and then cruising around Spain, France, and the Pyrenees in our rented Peugeot.  More details to come, but I’ve started putting photos from the trip up on Flickr.  That’s about half the photos right now, and the second half will come soon to that same spot.