I’ve been trying to be a better user of Quicksilver for quite some time now… Back in January, I downloaded a PDF of a User Guide which I had found, probably via some post on 43 Folders. I opened it up every once in awhile, reading little chunks of it here and there over the year, and have also used it as a reference. I had kinda forgotten about it, but today, I was watching the Google Tech Talk on Quicksilver and remembered the manual, and figured I’d pick it back up where I left off.. Unfortunately, Preview.app decided to forget what page I was on when I last left off, and took me back to the first page. On it I see the name of Howard Melman… After some verification, I am shocked to learn that this valuable resource was written by someone who I’ve broken bread with on several occasions.. I wonder if Howard had already started coming to the film club by the time I had started reading this Manual, or if I have a bit of an excuse for my obliviousness…
snfc
What a Birthday!
On Saturday, I turned 30, and thanks to my lovely girlfriend, my family, and my friends, it was a great weekend! On Friday we hung out out with friends at
![[info]](https://i0.wp.com/stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?resize=17%2C17){kind=small}
‘s place… We played all kinds of board games and snacked on delicious food prepared by Adam.. As board games can be, it was tense at times, but I hope everyone had a good time.. :P
bought me a Cake Batter flavored ice cream cake from J.P. Lick’s which everyone enjoyed, especially me!
Saturday morning, Corinna woke up early and made me brunch! I usually wake up several hours before her on Saturday’s, and I sure as hell don’t usually get treated to awesome bacon and french toast! It was really awesome being able to just kick back and relax while someone else did the cooking for a change! I also opened some gifts and cards I received in the mail.. My parents got me the Talking Heads Brick, which is badass! I also got another season of South Park from
which rules… Then, for dinner, Corinna had another ace up her sleeve, taking me to the wonderful Grill 23 for dinner, which was fantastic… What is better than the gift of meat? Nothing. After we got home we enjoyed the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who, and all was right in the world…
Sunday we just hung out and caught Les Ordres with the film club, which was pretty good… Thanks to everyone for such a great birthday!
Tonight,
and I met up with the film club to see a special preview screening of “Hot Fuzz” at the Brattle. “Hot Fuzz” is the latest film from the guys who created “Shaun of the Dead”. “Fuzz” is officially released here in the states in about a month, but the guys (Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost) are going around the US doing some screenings to build up buzz.
The screening was at 5:30pm, but our passes were first-come, first-served, so I figured we’d get into Harvard Square around 3pm, grab some lunch, and then buzz by the Brattle occasionally until we saw a line starting to form… Well, we stuck to plan until the “buzzing” part; After lunch, we did our first pass by the theatre and there was already a line 100+ people long.. So we got on line a bit after 3pm, and stood there until 5:15ish when the doors opened. The show started about 10 minutes late, but Edgar, Simon, and Nick came out, introduced the movie, and then we were rolling..
Sweet Jesus is this a funny film.. It is every bit as clever as “Shaun of the Dead”, but from filmmakers that show a bit more confidence (and a bit more budget). The film never really felt slow for me, and when I wasn’t laughing hysterically, I had a broad smile on my face… There was a point towards the end where I thought I might be really disappointed by the ending, but then it took a fantastic right turn… In fact, I think the actual ending was funnier in light of where I thought it was going…
I don’t want to spoil it too much, so I’ll just say that this movie is great, and you need to see it.
After the flick, the guys did a lengthy Q&A session, which was quite enjoyable… They mentioned future projects they are all working on together, but didn’t give any details… They mentioned they announced “Hot Fuzz” 9 months before they started writing the script, and wanted to avoid announcing anything too early again… Whatever it ends up being, based on their first two films (and what I’ve seen of the BBC series, “Spaced”), I’ll be at the third on opening weekend!
Strange Week
I’ve felt out of sorts all week, and I’m not sure why… I ended up driving to work most of this week, so perhaps that has something to do with it. I slipped and fell on the way to work on Monday, thanksto some piece of shit who couldn’t be bothered to clear their sidewalk… After I got to work, I hooked up my iPod to the computer and it wasn’t seeing the connection. I thought it got damaged in the fall, but after banging it on the desk a few times and blowing out the dock connector, it finally seemed to work.
Corinna and I continue trying to button up the remainder of the pre-sale house tasks… Last weekend we moved even more stuff into the storage locker.. We have a few final things to put in there, and I will hopefully get them together this weekend and be able to check that box. Last night I took
to Home Depot so she could pick out paint for the bedroom and get some other supplies. I am no fun to shop with, so we have an agreement where I am the chauffeur and then I sit in the car doing whatever.. Last night I spent the time catching up on old issues of Skeptical Inquirer. I have a stack of about 6 issues that I never even opened, and I’d rather not move them if I don’t have to…
Today I walked in… It’s so beautiful outside, it was really invigorating!
This Sunday, the film club is going to a pre-screening of “Hot Fuzz” at the Brattle, and Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright will be there in person… Should be a good time!
Busy Weekend!
This was a pretty crazy weekend! On Friday night I went to Symphony Hall to see Artie Lange, from the Howard Stern Show (and formerly of MadTV). It was a great time, Jim Florentine and Greg Fitzsimmons opened, both of whom I’ve enjoyed for some time, so it was great to see them live. The MC was some local guy, who wasn’t that good and got pretty heavily booed, but he handled it well and probably knew what he was in store for…
Saturday was a hugely busy day for
and I. After grabbing breakfast, we headed over to the newly-rented storage locker to check it out, and then went across the street and rented a van from U-Haul. We only really needed the van to move some of the bigger stuff (closet shelves and one of our dressers), but we ended up taking a bunch of other shit that was ready to go over as well. I think the U-Haul guy was startled when he saw our total mileage was 3 miles in 2 hours, but then again, they are probably used to that in the city. Moving that big stuff into storage sucked, but not as badly as it could have. We spent the rest of the day packing away some unnecessary clothes and items.. The goal of all this is to make the apartment look less cluttered when we start showing it (hopefully in April). This was a good motivator, imho, because the whole house was a mess, so it was hard NOT to be compelled to clean it up. We ended up getting into a fight, which I guess can be expected when doing something so stressful, but we worked it out.. :) We took another carload of stuff over Saturday night, and when we got back from that trip, I turned the car off and realized I could pull up in my spot a bit more. I went to start the car and it wouldn’t even turn over (even all the instrument lights were working fine). I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with it, but I guess I’ll have AAA tow it to my mechanic tonight. Hopefully it’s just a bad battery, but I guess it could be something far more nefarious…
Sunday was spent cleaning and doing laundry.. I was pretty tired by the end of the day, and was nodding off a little bit on the train ride over to the movie theatre. The film club saw 300 last night, which was fun… It was much better than I expected, and while I had some minor criticisms, overall it was a fun flick.
Children of Men
I caught Children of Men last night with the film club… It was really good. Going to make my “Best of 2006” six a bit harder to come up with….
BSG OMFG
Spoiler-free: The past episode of Battlestar Galactica may have been the best of the series. It blew my mind with just how awesome it was… That is all about that subject.
Saturday (after we gave up on the door fiasco) I caught loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies, which was great. It’s strange to see how dysfunctional that band is dysfunctional in a completely unconventional way… Tim came out to watch the flick too, which was good, as I don’t get to see him much anymore. Sunday we caught The Prestige with the film club last night, which was pretty good.
You know you’ve been living in a place for awhile…
…when the number of times you run into people you know begins to skyrocket. The past few weeks, Corinna and I have either separately or together run into people we know either through work or the film club… This past weekend we were at Six Flags New England, which is 80-ish miles away from Boston, and we ran into two film club members who were there on a date. The odds of that are pretty crazy, especially given how packed the park was. I normally reserve trips to amusement parks for mildly overcast or even rainy days, but the season was winding down and we had to use the discount tickets Corinna got from Harvard, so we pulled the trigger and went on a Saturday. The park was so packed. The shortest wait was for the Scrambler, but pretty much everything else was a 45-60 minute wait or more. It’s really an unpleasant experience waiting on line that long. One of the best parts of the trip, though, was waiting on line for Superman for 60 minutes, getting in the first car due to the kindness of strangers (who wanted to ride with their friends), and after our ride, the ride broke and we were stuck waiting for maintenance to get out of the coaster.. They blamed it on the temperature change, and had it going in about 15 minutes, but I was so glad that it waited to act up until AFTER our ride. If not for those strangers, we would have been waiting to go and probably nervous about flying off into the river or something
Rewinding a little, last Friday a bunch of us got together down at Fanueil Hall for
Sunday was delicious brunch at
Even if the terrorists don’t win, we still fuck it up
Last weekend
Saturday, we parked in Hoboken and took the PATH up to 33rd. We grabbed a slice of mediocre pizza (Presto) and split up. I headed over to the Javits Center.. To be honest, NextFest was kind of a bummer.. There were some interesting things, but it really didn’t grab me… After seeing Gib’s panel discussion, I headed over to meet up with Corinna over at Sara & Dave’s place. They live down near Battery Park, so I took the opportunity to head over to the World Trade Center for the first time since 2001. It was really tough for me; I bounced back and forth between sadness and anger. I can’t believe it’s still a fucking hole in the ground. WTC7 has been completely rebuilt, but the crater looks like it hasn’t changed in ages.. I moped my way over to Sara & Dave’s, which gave me time to bounce back, and we hung out with those guys all night, eating some Indian food from Baluchi’s and catching up. We made it back to Hopatcong around 11am, and I passed out pretty quickly.
Sunday we hung out a bit for hitting the road.. Corinna plowed through another 5 episodes… She skipped out on the film club, but I headed over to Harvard Square to catch The Science of Sleep. It was enjoyable, but not great… I think Gael Garcia Bernal is overrated, and kind of annoys me, to be honest..
Return of the Roommate
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).