Return of the Roommate

Posted on by grahams

was around this weekend, visiting his parents who moved from NJ to NH a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen him since the 30th, but this was the first time we were able to really hang out in years. Friday night Jon got a ride to my work (which is really close to NH) and we drove back to Boston to meet up with to grab some food at Tasca before seeing Peeping Tom and Gnarls Barkley over at Avalon. The tickets said 7pm, but I checked the Avalon website (which is terrible, and took forever to navigate) which said doors were at 6pm and the show started at 7pm. Now, I’ve probably seen 100 shows in my life, and I can’t think of a single time where the show started “on time”. We got there at 7:03pm, and not only was there a 7:05pm game at Fenway (which Avalon is across Lansdowne from), but there was a line of over 100 people outside the venue. As we got on line, it was clear that Peeping Tom (the band I was actually there to see) was already playing.. So I missed about 20 minutes of their set waiting on a line outside, and was pretty pissed. But I calmed down once I got inside… The part of their set I caught was good, they even played a Lovage song (“Anger Management”) sparking an internal debate over whether it’s a cover song if you play the song of another band you are in… Who knows… I’d like to see Peeping Tom as a headliner though.. With only one album under their belt it might be difficult, but Patton isn’t afraid of playing covers, so I think they could put on a good set.

After a quick stage flush, Gnarls Barkley’s 14 piece touring outfit took the stage. Another band with only one (relatively short) album under their belt, but they put on a great show. I was impressed as to how an album recorded by a producer/laptop weenie and a vocalist/lyricist was translated to stage. They did a faithful rendition of most (if not all) of the songs on the album, but with an album that’s only 35 minutes long their set was really short. Whatever, I mean, I’d rather have one tight set than one padded with crap, but a few well-selected covers might have been nice. But whatever, the show as great, even if it ended before 10pm. This is the real reason the show started so promptly, because the bloodless motherfuckers at Avalon didn’t want to interfere with their lame dance club night. Hey, I’d be happy if shows always started on time, but I think a 15 minute delay is appropriate if half the audience is waiting online outside.

Saturday, we had brunch at Moogy’s before heading to Harvard Square and MIT for some tourism. We caught the Fogg Museum at Harvard which was great, as well as the new Stata Center, hideously designed by Frank Gehry. After tourism, we had some delicious Imperial Pizza, and Jon and I headed to NH to have a shower at his parents’ house (our bathroom is still not done) and to meet up with Garrett at “Boston” Billiard Club in Nashua, NH. It was a great time, Jon and I quickly reverting to our old “Garrett Music Quiz” selves… It’s amazing how much he DOESN’T know about music. I mean, even if you can’t remember the title “Penny Lane” you should be able to figure out it’s The Beatles…

Sunday, Corinna and I caught Beowulf & Grendel with the film club. It was a really good adaptation of the poem (as I remember from reading it 15 years ago). It focused on Beowulf hunting Grendel, but none of what came after that. I guess that should have been obvious from the film’s title, but I was oblivious. Anyway, it was really enjoyable (besides Sarah Polley, who’s delivery was dead as a board and who didn’t even try to fake an accent).

Pobox.com Reminder

Posted on by grahams

Just a reminder to anyone interested: My @pobox.com email address, which I have had for the past 10+ years, is going away at the end of this month (August 30th). I pay a few bucks a year to keep this active, but thanks to spam, the S/N ratio has just become unbearable. For the past few years I have been using my @csh.rit.edu address, so most people seem to send mail there, but if you haven’t updated your address books yet, please do.

“CANCEL THIS, DID NOT WANT IT”

Posted on by grahams

Why are people so god-damned stupid? Someone decided they wanted to unsubscribe from the film club weekly newsletter mailing list. This list is opt-in, so this person managed to subscribe themselves, but apparently clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of EVERY LIST MESSAGE was too complicated and they just sent a message to the list (which bounced). Don’t worry, you lazy bastard, I just volunteer my time running this club, but I’ll do your work for you.

SIGGRAPH 2006 Electronic Theater

Posted on by grahams

Last night I attended the premiere of this year’s Electronic Theater at SIGGRAPH 2006. It was an expensive ticket, but it was a great time. My favorite shorts were “Doll Face”, “Carlitopolis”, “A Great Big Robot From Outer Space Ate My Homework”, “Growth by Aggregation 2 (the Utah variation)”, “Noggin”, “One Man Band”, and the Best of Show “One Rat Short” (which really deserved the accolades. I appreciated most of these films on both technical and creative merits… Most everything shown, however, was great, so I felt guilty picking the above as my “favorites”. Before the show they had this rig from Cinematrix that allowed the audience to play games on the big screen by holding up a red/green paddle. It was pretty wild, but the actual games were somewhat gimmicky. The best was a game of pong where the room split down the middle into teams and each side had to coordinate moving the paddle by showing the proper paddle color for up and down.

Another highlight of the show was seeing Sony’s new 4k digital theater projector. It was simply astonishing, no two ways about it. I think once Sony can actually make these projectors in quantity and start shipping them to theatres, there will be little argument left for mainstream theatres sticking to film projection. After the credits they did a little demo, showing two renderings of “Growth by Aggregation 2 (the Utah variation)”, one at 2k resolution and one at 4k, and the difference in detail was night and day. The Electronic Theatre itself was pretty impressive, given that it was just a large “ballroom” at the Boston Convention Center. They had a decent surround rig (although it seemed only a few of the shorts took advantage) and the seats were amazingly comfortable. Way better than I expected.

Yesterday was also my first experience with the new Silver Line subway service. For those not “in the know”, the Silver Line is actually a bus service, but with dedicated, (often) underground roads which avoid traffic. I wonder how the cost/benefit breakdown works for bus vs. train as far as subway goes, but the experience was pleasant. One annoyance is that the MBTA is currently in the midst of transitioning to their new automated fare collection system, CharlieTicket/CharlieCard (similar to the MetroCard in NYC). For instance, I have to use change/tokens to board the Green Line trains when they are above ground (like by our house), but once they go underground I can no longer use change/tokens, but instead have to use the new CharlieTickets (which don’t work above ground). It will be nice when the trains are upgraded to take the new cards so I don’t have to scrounge for change when I want to go down town.

Update: Holy shit, I forgot to give props to the short “Flow”, which was a highlight/demo reel of Scanline’s fluid simulations… It’s the best artificial water I’ve ever seen.