Distantly related to and largely concurrent with college football season is the slightly more popular but only half as interesting regular football season. I have been expressing my latent code writing tendencies lately to put the family football pool online, letting a database and a little php code take care of things that were formerly done by hand. I spend all day tearing code apart, so it's really nice to put it together every now and again. It makes me want to finish my other website. I'm not going to, you understand, but I sort of want to.

I took a break from Jin Ping Mei and such esoteric subects as the naval war in the pacific and the early history of rome to reread Asimov's robot novels last week. Whatever else can be said about them, he writes a terrible love story. Maybe it wouldn't have seemed terrible in the 1940s, but I don't think anyone wants to read about men who smoke a pipe delicately courting women who wear dresses anymore. Sure, he throws in a line about how the history of gender moves in cycles to explain why the characters are shocked to see, among other things, women in the workplace, but it doesn't really gel with 2006. (Which is why, when people say that science fiction is a device to allow writers to criticize the society around them, they are really admitting that science fiction is bound to look hokey in 50 years. Better to just criticize the society around you openly, so you'll look like a visionary, or at least a crackpot.)

Finally, the Mountain Goats released Get Lonely last week, and it is a thing you should listen to, if you are prepared to take it easy.

And what else? I went to a RISK game and I went to a BBQ. Pretty social for me. I listened to the Psychedelic Furs "Here Come Cowboys" about 30 times. The only thing I didn't do enough was sleep, partly because I was out late and partly because of the intense heat we had this weekend. So between that and my Outlook failing this morning, I am pretty spacey.

Oh, and on Sunday night, I watched Ryan compete in the Karaoke finals at the Brittania Arms in Cupertino. It was entertaining as expected.

Oh, and I picked up Megatokyo Vol. 4, which is the best of the Megatokyo volumes so far.

I think that's basically it for the last couple of weeks. Enjoy Independence Day.

In reading: I read two of those neat little 33 1/3 books, one about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, and one about Doolittle by the Pixies. I thought that the Pixies one was more informative, because it covered the songs in much greater depth. It also demonstrates that you can listen to an album hundreds of times without figuring out some pretty basic stuff, like the fact that "Gouge Away" is about Samson and Delilah. I always kind of figured it was nonsense, like all Pixies songs.

And speaking of the Pixies, Frank Black has released another album, this time a double, called Fast Man Raider Man. It is more of his low-key Nashville work, which will not be for everyone, but I am not everyone, and I like the record. I also got Final Fantasy's He Poos Clouds, which I don't really even know how to describe. Is it really great? Is it just novel? It sort of defies categorization, but I will say that I listened to it a whole bunch of times, which I'm pretty sure means I don't hate it.

Aside from that, I have been pretty active, and not watching/listening/reading much, except for the CDs in my car and a stray inning or two of a baseball game. I assume I will return to normal levels of socialization at some point. I just don't know quite when.

Also: Happy Anniversary!

Aside from which, this has sort of become the spot where I write about movies and television and books and music, which I don't tend to do on my LJ, or other miscellaneous blogs around the internet (hint: I have 5 others not linked to from this site), and I think I want to keep that here. But I have over a month of catching up to do.

So we'll start with Big Bullet, because I just watched it on Sunday. It's a Lau Ching Wan movie, and even more to the point, a Lau Ching Wan police movie, which is really the zone for LCW (as my brother affectionately calls him, L.C. Dub). He plays a serious crimes unit sergeant that gets busted for disciplinary problems and sent to essentially walk a beat, and ends up cracking the case anyway. Running Out of Time it ain't, but it's not a bad little police movie, and the transfer is astoundingly crisp.

Swords of Vengeance is just another look at Chushingura or the 47 Ronin, but has Sonny Chiba as the swordfight choreographer (and a supporting character), and was definitely worth the few dollars it cost me at Rasputin. It's interesting to watch different movie versions of the story, because they're all different, in atmosphere, in the way the characters are portrayed, and so on. Worth seeing other versions even if you've seen one.

I lately read Edwin Hoyt's book on The Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is probably as well organized a retelling as there can be of a chaotic series of engagements involving as many as five Japanese detachments and at least three American naval forces. But the version I read needed maps. Who would leave out maps? Maybe there's a better verion out there.

I have begun a literary deconstruction of A Dream of Red Mansions called Ideal and Actual in the Story of the Stone (or something very similar), and have enjoyed the first few chapters, but I can't recommend it for someone who hasn't read the novel at least once. If I wasn't reading four or five other books, I'd start Red Mansions again, because it's that good, and maybe next time I read that I will use this again as a companion.

I saw An Inconvenient Truth, which I thought was technically well done (it's hard to give an artistic critique of a movie that is a slideshow about the dangers of global warming). I also thought it was interesting that, while Al Gore showed a clip from Futurama which explained global warming in the fashion of a fifties propaganda film, he didn't show the later clip from the same episode where he appears as the first emperor of the moon and proclaims "I have ridden the Mighty Moon Worm!"

To sum up: Hi!

I woke up at 4 in the morning last Thursday, after going to bed at around midnight and thoroughly failing to get restful sleep in between, and I made a cup of tea for the road. I loaded my car with one (1) guitar and one (1) amplifier and a suitcase full of clothes, and then for good measure, I added a bag that contained what I can only assume would have filled up a warehouse in the 50's in terms of electronics. Aside from my pretty new laptop computer, there was a gameboy DS in there, an external hard drive, a digital camera, three guitar effects pedals, a huge snakepit of chargers and usb cables, and a baggy of loose electronic components (capacitors, resistors, diodes, &c.)

The tea lasted me until morning over Lake Shasta, and my gas lasted until Dunsmuir. Then I drove up into Salem, and after a brief detour in Portland, which is like San Francisco, if San Francisco tried a little harder to confuse motorists, up into Olympia.

Rick and Audrey have a new puppy named Lavie, and she was very cute. We spent a fair amount of time playing "Guitar Hero" and "Taiko Drum Master," and I sat in on an actual band practice. On Saturday I went with them down to the Midnight Sun and helped them set up. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at their house.

The first band was called Mechanical Birds, and it was their first show, but they really impressed everyone in attendance. A little three-piece aided by a drum machine and a laptop computer, but they rocked all the way out. Then, because of scheduling issues, Popoko Darling went on second instead of third, and I was pretty impressed with the show. They sounded a whole lot cleaner than they had at the practice I was at, and probably the best I've ever heard them play, although their lineup has changed since I last heard them. The last band was the Bride Wore Red, who played very loudly and--to put it tactfully--really emphasized the guitar over other instruments.

Sunday we had a picnic in Rick's backyard, and played Bocce ball and ate cheese and drank beer and fresh squeezed orange juice. That was pretty entertaining. And throughout the whole weekend we played a lot of Animal Crossing, which I successfully introduced to them on Friday. I imagine they're still all up on it.

Monday at 8:30 I started the drive home, and managed to land in my driveway just before 8PM, in the last of the light of the day. Yesterday I did laundry and went shopping and took care of most of my errands.

Today I'm back at work, alas. Over 200 emails waiting for me when I got in.

So mostly I've been keeping out of the rain, and watching movies and things. I watched a movie called Zu Warriors which didn't make a lick of sense. I watched an old Stephen Chow movie called Love on Delivery that was actually funny. I watched an old Stephen Chow movie called Lung Fung Restaurant that was garbage, too. I likes to mix it up.

Now I'm trying to make it to my weekend, with only two days of work next week before my vacation.

Things I am not looking forward to this week: another whole week of work, with too many projects and too little time, and a brand new manager with new expectations. I also need to have my oil changed/fluids checked/tires rotated before I go up to Olympia next week.

Other plans for the week: continue to watch the early games of the baseball season. Listen to three new records I got. Watch the 6 movies that are waiting for me.

I spent yesterday sick, took a sick day even, and surprisingly got more done than I have most weekend days, even after sleeping until noon. Most of it, sadly, was ephemeral, like clean laundry and a well organized entertainment center and vacuumed floor. I will be doing all of those things again soon enough.

I'm on vacation in two weeks, headed for Olympia. I'll be there through the 23rd, probably. Get in either the evening of the 19th or the evening of the 20th. The 22nd is booked solid, but otherwise I am somewhat available.

So, Saturday I was at Fry's with Rick, and I saw a game called "Super Princess Peach" for the DS, the premise of which is that this time Peach has to save Mario, and I was all over that. It's a 2d platformer, which is just about all you need to say to get me hooked. I'm gainfully employed these days, I play maybe 2 hours of video games total per week, but last night I was up until after 1am playing this thing. That's what we call an endorsement.

In February Frank Black and the Catholics released 2 albums exclusively for iTunes, one of covers, one of unused album cuts and b-sides. My original plan was to hold out until they came out on CD, because iTunes is the great satan, but my resolve was broken last week, and I bought Snake Oil and One More Road For The Hit. Bonus: I finally have a legitimate copy of "Pray For The Girls," which Frank Black recorded for the Powerpuff Girls movie years ago. Of course, he has a double album coming out in the summer, and he is working on another record with Eric Drew Feldman... the man doesn't take a lot of breaks.

So I watched an Andy Lau movie called Casino Raiders last night, and it was pretty awful. For one thing, it was like 2 hours long, though I thought the movie was winding down at 1:17. So that means that for 40 minutes I was basically waiting for the damn thing to end. Plus, Andy Lau dies about half an hour before the end, so the rest of the movie is basically an epilogue for me.

I guess what I'm saying is: "don't watch it."

Is it weird that I'm looking forward to April so that I can collect new fish and insects in Animal Crossing, or is it weird that I refuse to look ahead to see what they are until it becomes April?

I got up a little early this morning, so I got some guitar in before I went to work. It really put me in a good mood for the morning.

When I wasn't watching that sort of thing, I watched a few episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus this weekend. Some very, very odd stuff there.

My calendar is pretty open this week: no concerts, no reason I should have to work a lot of overtime. Nice not to have to go to San Francisco, too.

I got my invitation to Popoko Darling's birthday bash concert in Olympia. Where's yours?

I got Bishop Allen's February EP, and I think it is better than January, but the last song has a kind of English music hall feel that I don't much need. It has made me really start to want a piano again, but that's a terrible idea because I play the piano about as well as Hellen Keller, pre-miracle-worker.

Even I find that a little tasteless.