Author: mike

Movies – August 09

**** The Wire, Seasons 4-5
* Jubilee
*** I’m Alan Partridge, Season 1, ep1-3

I don’t really know what to say about The Wire. It’s as good as everyone says. I was that into the idea of it, but got hooked about ten minutes into the first episode and was hooked all the way through the last episode of the last season. So if you haven’t seen it, I’d say just go watch it.

E got Jubilee because she thought it was a different half-remembered movie she’s always wanted to see. It wasn’t. Instead it was some awful Derek Jarman thing (and all that that implies). We watched a little bit and fast-forwarded a bit and then just gave up.

I like Steve Coogan and I thought Alan Partridge was pretty funny (though it contains a lot of the discomfort humor that I find so discomforting) but after watching about three episodes I felt like I’d gotten my fill.

Movies – July 09

**** The Wire, Season 3
*** Zero Effect
* Bottle Shock
*** Up the Yangtze

The Wire is still great. Season 3 brings in politics more, but also explores Bunny Colvin’s radical solution to the drug problem in the western and features his awesome paper bag speech. As a sometime libertarian, I really got into that storyline, and thought they worked out the implications, good and bad, in a meaningful way.

Zero effect was pretty good. I had no expectations (can’t remember how it got on my queue), and it turned out to be some good entertainment.

We were so thoroughly uninterested in the people we met in the first 20-30 minutes of Bottle Shock that we just ejected it and sent it back to Netflix. Sorry, Alan Rickman, I promise to watch you in something better soon.

We missed Up the Yangtze, a documentary about the effects of China’s three gorges dam on people living in the area, at SIFF last year and were looking forward to renting it. It starts off slowly but gradually picks up and becomes a fascinating and understated story. It follows a girl whose family’s house will be covered (like many’s) by the new lake created by the dam. Her family sends her to do menial work on a riverboat to support herself and her family, instead of going to school as she wants. The contrast between her rural family’s life and that onboard the riverboat (both among the more modernized young people working there and the rich tourists coming through) is staggering, and underlined by the images of the new lake slowly consuming the family house.

Mobile Chowfest

Seattle magazine organized a mobile chowdown for this past Saturday, featuring some of Seattle’s best food trucks. We met up with Cnote for it but it was ridiculously overattended. Long lines for everything, so we said screw this and wandered around magnolia until we ended up at Niko’s Gyros. It was okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. Not sure about Yelp’s 4-star average. Anyway, so mobile chowfest, nice idea but jeez.

Parlance

Robert Vaughn, Bullitt (1968): “In your parlance, you blew it.”
Christopher Lee, The Wicker Man (1973): “He’s dead. Can’t complain, had his chance and, in modern parlance, blew it.”

Juno

“It is necessary for you to understand the functions of the controls and selectors of the Juno-60 perfectly to fully enjoy the advantages of the unit. Some setting examples are shown in this manual to make it easier for you to master how to operate the Juno-60, but you are the one who creates the sounds. Please find out your own setting and new ways of playing.”

Univox SR-95 and Roland TR-55

The Univox is probably my all-time favorite preset drum machine. I had one a long time ago and more or less accidentally produced this track. But in the great “I have a computer now!” purge I foolishly sold it. Well, I managed to find another one in terrific shape from a retired guy who was the original owner and used to play shows with it back in the day. Actually, his machine was the Roland TR-55, and his father used the Univox. Nora and I had to drive out to the hidden enclaves of Bonney Lake in the pouring rain to get them, but they’re both mine now, and they will be handed down to the NLP when I am gone.

Argh

Dear whoever at microsoft1 decided that some recent update to windows XP would henceforth ignore the settings controlling whether and how often to prompt for a reboot after an update and just go back to every ten goddam minutes: fuck you in the eye.

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1 $20 says it’s a marketing plot to hasten people’s transition to vista/win7. and you know what? it’s probably working.

The Recursive Burger

We’ve had the burger with donuts for buns and the burger with grilled-cheese sandwiches for buns and now the sandwich with fried chicken for buns.

But they must all bow before my invention: the recursive burger, the burger that has recursive burgers for buns. That’s right, each bun is replaced by a burger, each of whose buns is replaced by a burger, each of whose buns is replaced…

Luckily the recursive burger is available in two sizes: finite and infinite. In the finite burger, each bun is replaced with a recursive burger that’s been compressed to 1/3 the height. The final burger is therefore three units high (patty and bun are each one unit high). In the infinite burger, each bun is replaced with a full-sized recursive burger (or, really, a recursive burger of any size > 1/3 size) and the thing is unboundedly large. It’d be hard to make a business of selling infinite recursive burgers.

If you think the (finite) recursive burger sounds like an interesting and tasty concoction, consider this: it converges to a big pile of meat. If you’re having trouble visualizing it, consider this diagram:

Make it happen, Carl’s Jr.

My Life in Song

A dumb “meme” that I couldn’t resist doing: using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.

1. Your Artist: new order
2. Are you male or female? the him
3. Describe yourself: someone like you
4. How do you feel about yourself: doubts even here
5. Name one thing you are not: true faith
6. What is the best advice you have to give: every little counts
7. The first thing you think of when you wake up: leave me alone
8. If you could go anywhere, where would you go: all the way
9. Your favorite form of transportation: 60 miles an hour
10. Your best friend is: mr disco
11. Your favorite color is: everything’s gone green
12. What’s the weather like: sunrise
13. If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: blue monday
14. What is life to you: regret
15. Describe where you currently live: rock the shack
16. If you could change your name, what would it be: krafty
17. Your favorite food is: temptation
18. How I would like to die: dream attack
19. My soul’s present condition: in a lonely place
20. How would you describe your love life: world (price of love)