This is Chris dot com

Friday, May 09, 2008

Birfday Funtimes Continue 

Tuesday (my actual birfday) I got a bunch of cupcakes at work, and my boss gave me a gift certificate to NoiseBot. There were several other good ones, but in the end I selected this T-shirt:


Carrie had to work late (until like 6:00 or something), but then after she got off we went down to Gateway to India for my birfday dinner, where we were met by Christine & Lawrence. I had Gosht Korma! Very good!

Later on in the evening Carrie & I went out and saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Another "Blanking Blank" title movie!). It was very funny and incredibly intelligent. Now I have two movie reviews to write.

Wednesday we cleaned the house and then in the evening went downtown to The Harmon restaurant, where we met my whole family, which came to 9 entire people around one table. Carrie & I hadn't been to The Harmon in a few years, and we were pleased to find that it was still very tasty (and they still had their beer ski). I had a steak with a green peppercorn reduction on a bed of crispy onion straws.

Then everybody came back to our house, where we were joined by Neighbor Gary. I then opened presents. I got cool stuff!

Carrie made me some lemon cupcakes with chocolate frosting (my favorite cake combo), and after those I played some Smash Bros with my own Bro and Cassie.

Thursday in the afternoon Lawrence took me out to see Iron Man. I now have three movie reviews to write. When I got home I got a package from Amazon.com, which I thought was odd because I hadn't ordered anything from them. Turns out it was a birthday gift from Taisha, Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series (Limited Edition Cylon Head Packaging)

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday in person, online, over the phone, and/or by giving me a gift!

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 8:06 AM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Jonathan Coulton Has the Coolest Instrument EVAR 

It's called the Tenori-on. It was created by Toshio Iwai, the same guy who created Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS. Here he is using it to perform "My Monkey" at the Triple Door in Seattle this last weekend (I didn't go to the show 'cause of Fools Play):


(By the way, the woman he's singing with is sweetafton23, a very talented and funny singer/ukulele player)

I think it would kick ass to own one of these instruments, if only they didn't cost quite so durned much. Though I imagine it would be better off in the hands of Tangentbot. I bet he could K some serious A with it.

(via Jonathan Coulton)

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 4:40 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Friday, April 25, 2008

Kobe Blue, the Greatest Pilot in the Galaxy 

I thought this was pretty funny (marginally NSFW):


(via Dustin Weaver's Livejournal)

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 2:28 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles 

Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles
It sounds impossible, but just watch the video.

(via Wynn Ryder)

Labels: , , ,


posted by Christopher at 6:12 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Most Unwanted Song 

So apparently these two Russians did extensive polling of Americans to discover our tastes in music. They then compiled the results and created (with the help of musician Dave Soldier) one song that statistically was the song that Americans most wanted to hear... and one that was statistically what Americans least wanted to hear. From the article:
"...over an accompaniment of bagpipe, tuba and accordian (statistically, America's least favorite instruments), an operatic soprano (our least favorite type of singer) raps (ditto) about cowboys (ditto). Their research indicated that the most hated lyrical subject is holidays (disliked by 33%), so the song is suitable not only for Christmas, but Easter, Labor Day, Veterans' Day, and Halloween. These interludes are introduced abruptly by a children's chorus ("Hey everybody, it's Yom Kippur!"), who couple their refrains with cheerful commercial messages. By the end, the subject has shifted to human slavery and genocide. The whole thing, going on for nearly 22 minutes (the least favorite song length), is as impossible to ignore as a car crash."

When I listened to The Most Unwanted Song I nearly wet myself; I was actually crying with laughter. It is truly one of the most spectacular pieces of music I have ever heard. I also thoroughly enjoyed The Most Wanted Song, with its absolute over-the-top blandness and inanity of lyrics (including an over-abundance of "baby"). I thought both were hilarious. Go on. Click those links. Listen for yourself and then decide for... yourself. Here's some more info (and a link to buy a CD of the songs).

(via tangentbot, in a round-about way)

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 6:01 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

オバッチの Jacket Lunch Box 

Whoever runs the オバッチの Jacket Lunch Box has the unusual hobby of re-creating album covers using only ordinary bento lunch box ingredients.



(via Pink Tentacle)

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 3:22 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

The Incredible Upside-Downs 

The incredible upside-downs, created in 1903, are first read right-side up, then finished by reading upside down! Gustave Verbeek accomplished this for 65 installments! Weird but topsy-turvy!


(via Arflovers)

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 3:19 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Fools Play Funtimes 

This Saturday, April 5th 2008, is Fools Play's 15th Anniversary! We're having a big 15th Anniversary Show, and to go with it you can enter our online 15th Anniversary Contest!

Also, have you met this character on Fools Play Island yet?
If not, you should go dig around the Format Forest RIGHT NOW until you do! It's seriously the craziest, coolest, and most fun quest you can undertake on all of Fools Play Island. You think you've seen it all on Fools Play Island? THINK AGAIN!

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 10:56 PM

2 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Fool's Day Round-Up 

Here were a couple of my favorite intarweb pranks from yesterday:

Chemical Periodicity Remains ONLY a Theory
(via jeffthefish)

The Legend of Zelda Film Trailer
(via Whedonesque)

Surprisingly, Maddox's annual April Fool's Day joke wasn't ready yesterday!

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 2:43 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Friday, March 28, 2008

Hard To Drive a Bus in the Snow 

Yesterday (Thursday) we woke up to snow on the ground. This was no big surprise considering that it was snowing Wednesday evening. It was kind of a surprise that it was snowing at all this close to April, though. This never happens 'round these parts. I got Carrie off to work nonetheless, and from there she left for Portland for the weekend (boo).

After work I came home, had a sammitch, fed Suki, took care of a couple of sundries around the house, then I headed up to Seattle. It started to snow again while I was on my way up there!

I hung out with Sandy a bit and then we went and got Mathias and proceeded to have dinner at Taki's Mad Greek. This has got to be one of my favorite Greek restaurants evar. Especially the Oven Baked Feta appetizer. And their pork is cooked just right: not too much, but not too little. And everything just tastes really, really tasty.

I also took a photo of the decorations in the men's room:

On the left there we have a completely nude Poseidon, but on the right we have Theseus covering his privates with a leaf! I wonder why. Does he not measure up to Poseidon? I just thought it was funny.

After dinner we parked near their apartment and then walked through the bitter cold (though it wasn't snowing at that time) to Neumos, where we met up with Jason and his wife Jennifer, as well as Geoff and Lisa!

Why were we there? Why, to see Busdriver, of course! Look:



The man moves as fast as he raps; it's difficult to get a good picture of him. Just look at the blur lines on his left hand in those pictures!

When we got to Neumos we were basically the only people there. Everybody else was in the attached bar. When Busdriver took the stage we were still practically the only people there, but Busdriver plunged ahead anyway. A handful of other people trickled in after he started (30 to 40). Last time I saw him the place was packed so we all thought it was weird, until we figured out that this was a 21-up show, and he usually plays to all-ages at Neumos. I guess only the kids like the Busdriver.

Anyhoo, it was a great set, and he did that cover of Man, It's So Loud in Here by They Might Be Giants that I really like. He played for just under an hour. We all met him over at his merch table, where Sandy bought the last copy of his rarities CD. He told me he'd go to his car and see if he could find another, but I wasn't able to catch him again before we left. I talked to him a bit about that TMBG song he does, and he said it was pretty old and he was thinking of retiring it. He's very shy and awkward off the stage. Hopefully he'll have another copy next time he comes into town.

Sandy kinda creeped him out by showing him a picture of the Busdriver Bot magnet that she made.

An hour after he left the stage the "main attraction," the Gray Boy All-Stars took the stage, and suddenly the theater was swarmed with frat boys, bros, and similar early-to-mid 30s types (and the kind of women who hang out with them). They were a jazzy kind of quintet, with drums, bass, guitar, sax, and keyboards. They were all very skilled musicians, but it was just not what we were in the mood for, and also didn't really sound like what they offer on their MySpace page. They sounded like they were straight out of 1985. Seriously! They even looked it.

At one point Sandy turned to me and said something to the effect that she felt like they were a band that the Huxtables would go and watch on the Cosby show. Mathias summed it up best by saying they were "Sportscoat and Bluejeans" jazz. They didn't go with Busdriver at all, so it wasn't a big surprise that none of their fans came out to see Busdriver go crazy.

We left after four or so songs. Jason gave us a ride back to S&M's apartment, and from there I drove on home.

You can read Mathias's "version" of events over at his website. He's got some really crazy pictures up, too.

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 4:41 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Cutest Remote Control EVAR 

ApriPoko, this unbearably cute remote control from (where else) Japan can tell when you're using another remote control, and actually asks you what you just did. You tell it (for example, "I turned up the volume on the TV"), and it records the infared signal that the other remote sent out. Then if you later tell ApriPoko, "Turn up the volume on the TV," it emits that exact same infrared signal to the TV!

(via Pink Tentacle)

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 10:50 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Monday, March 24, 2008

Heart Felt Robots == Cute! 

Heart Felt Robots makes all kinds of robot-themed cuteness. Check it out! (and not just because she's one of my best friends!)

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 2:56 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Saturday, March 15, 2008

My New Favorite Animal 

The microscopic Water Bear: TARDIGRADE!

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 2:37 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Evolution is Funny! 

My pal Jason over at jeffthefish.com has for a few months been making periodic posts about hilarious Creationist quotes and other inanities. They're very funny in a sad/infuriating way, and Jason has a rather funny, dry writing style. Take a read: Evolution at www.jeffthefish.com

His recent post about letterboard misspellings is also very funny.

Labels:


posted by Christopher at 12:00 AM

1 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Saturday, February 16, 2008

In a Round-About Way 

Earlier this week I was going through all of my They Might Be Giants music to see what I still needed to get in order to have a "complete" collection (knowing full well that some songs are impossible to get right now, like Monsters of Mud) of studio recordings by Them. In researching, I discovered that not only do They have a podcast (which I knew about and enjoy), but they've been doing a video podcast for kids as well!

It's hosted by the Puppet Johns and they play a couple of videos from their two most recent kids' album-slash-DVDs, Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. I'd seen most of the ABCs before, but I'd never seen the 123 videos.

One video in particular, the one for Eight-Hundred-Thirteen Mile Car Trip, struck me as being particularly well designed (and passably well animated for a low-budged flash video). So I went to This Might Be a Wiki and discovered that it was designed & animated by someone named Pascal Campion.

A quick Google search turned up not only a website for Pascal, but a blog as well! I have to say, I really dig his style. It has kind of a Maurice Noble vibe, but is still very individualistic. He's got great lines and a phenomenal sense of color. He's actually done a handful of videos for TMBG, including some on Venue Songs and ABCs.

Art by Pascal CampionIt's safe to say that he's one of my new favorite artists, and I discovered him in a very cool round-about way.

Labels: , , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 2:34 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Monday, February 11, 2008

Robots Would Never Hurt Us 

Robot Guitar!I'm going to say: It's about damned time. Gibson has come out with a Robot Guitar. What makes it a robot? No, it doesn't transform into a bipedal robot and run around. Instead, it tunes itself. It automatically spins its tuning knobs until all the strings are in tune.

I am wondering why it took until now, many years into the 21st century, for someone to actually create something like this.

But that is of little import. It is here now, added to the growing list of useful robots that the general populace can actually own!

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 2:37 PM

1 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Monday, January 21, 2008

Why Does the PSP Get All the Coolest Looking Games? 

First there was LocoRoco.

Now comes Patapon, a rhythm-based, 2-D scrolling war game of sorts. Check out the trailer:


I'm serious: if anybody has a PSP that they don't want anymore, I'll totally take it off your hands. I have a little bit of Christmas money left.

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 2:36 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Katsu Kraziness 

This story kinda starts a while back, quite a ways before Christmas.

I was up in Seattle hanging out with Tangetnbot's wife, waiting for him to get off work. She was prepping a dinner of pork katsu with panko bread crumbs and tonkatsu sauce. It ended up being delicious.

Then in her Christmas stocking(s), Carrie received both a bottle of tonkatsu sauce and a package of panko.

So a while after Christmas Carrie & I made chicken katsu for dinner with equally delicious results. The sauce and the crumbs were both from the inimitable Uwajimaya up in Seattle. I love Uwajimaya, but Seattle is just a bit too far away for a casual jaunt out to get some Japanese foodstuffs. So I started wondering if there were any Asian markets closer by.

A quick search told me that there was a place called East Asia Super Market (note "Super Market," not "Supermarket") just a stone's throw across I-5 from us. Tacoma Mama gives it a sterling review (Tacoma Mama is, by the way, a great resource for things in Tacoma), so I'm curious to go check it out sometime soon. I doubt it can be anywhere near as cool as Uwajimaya, but at least it's something, eh?

By the way, Tangentbot is posting some tasty recipes on his site if you wanna make some good food. He hasn't posted a katsu recipe yet, though, so here's what Carrie & I did!
Chicken Katsu
INGREDIENTS
Chicken cutlets (or chicken breast halves, pounded until they're as thin as cutlets)
All-purpouse flour
1 egg, beaten
Panko bread crumbs
Salt & Pepa to taste
Tonkatsu sauce
DIRECTIONS
  1. Set up three shallow dishes: 1 with flour in it, 1 with a beaten egg in it, and 1 with the panko in it.
  2. Season the chicken to taste.
  3. Dredge the chicken through the flower to coat, then through the egg, and then through the panko until it is thoroughly coated with bread crumbs
  4. Heat about ¼" of oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Fry the chicken in the oil 3-4 minutes per side (until golden brown and cooked through)
  5. Let the chicken rest for several minutes, then slice on a diagonal (like you're julienning a carrot).
  6. Serve on a bed of steamed white rice and drizzle with tonkatsu sauce (you can add purple cabbage to the rice for even more authenticity)

Labels: , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 9:28 PM

1 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Saturday, January 12, 2008

USAVICH 


From Japan comes a very strange CGI-animated series of shorts: Usavich. It's about two rabbits in prison. They're all under two minutes, and most-surprising of all is the fact that they have continuity! Once you get into their rhythm, they're rather hilarious.

[Found via Cartoon Brew]

Labels: , , ,


posted by Christopher at 3:41 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Shameless Self-Promotion & Vacation Dreams 

I just discovered that if you type "Samus Aran" into Google, my site is the 2nd listed! holy crap! Just because I wrote a humorous article about the endings of the various Metroid games... like three years ago! Take a wook:


So, if anybody wants to know anything about Samus Aran, it's either Wikipedia or me!



Anyway, let me tell you about a dream I had a couple of nights ago. It involved Carrie, Me, and my whole family going on vacation together. First off we went to one of the San Juan Islands, which was historically famous for having the first-ever freeway onramp in America. It was also famous for having the first-ever comic strip written about a freeway onramp (my dream people actually showed me a closeup of the comic strip, and it was drawn in a glorious 60s-futurism style. Very cool).

After the excitement of the freeway onramp, which was strangely high-tech, we all headed to the area between Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, which (you might not be aware) is a large desert basin that stretches for miles and miles, ringed with rocky hills.

While we were wandering around the cartoon-style sand dunes in this desert, all of a sudden Mt. Rainier erupted. It wasn't an all-ash eruption like St. Helens in 1980. It was more of a single, quick, but very large explosion. Very fiery and red. It wasn't at all scary. It was just kind of like, hey, look: Rainier finally erupted. huh.

A few moments after rainier erupted we all saw the shockwave from the blast as it caused the desert floor to swell up like a big wave (which we all calmly and un-eventfully rode out). We all stood there and watched as the shockwave traveled south across the desert, until it disappeared in the distance. Then a couple of seconds later we saw Mt. St. Helens erupt in a big cloud of ash. We all kinda nodded knowingly, like, "Yep, the Rainier eruption caused a huge earthquake, and once it reached St. Helens of course it erupted."

Then the aftershocks started hitting, and the whole desert was going up and down in waves. Then one of the waves actually broke like an ocean wave—it broke right over Susan's head, burying her in the sand! She was easy to find, though, because when the wave settled down there was a susan-shaped mound in the sand. She was just a couple of feet down, and it took me only a second of non-worried digging to get her out.

The whole family then decided to head somewhere else, but I woke up before we actually got anywhere.

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 1:06 AM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Year I was Born 

My eyes! My eyes! Aargh!

http://teamsugar.com/group/46813/blog/771943

Labels:


posted by Christopher at 5:43 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy H'ween, Everybody! 

Today (Wednesday) is Halloween! Hooray!

On Friday Carrie got me a Wii because I'm an awexome husband. Take THAT, all you lousy husbands! Har har! Score! She also got me The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess. Boo-yah!

Gina came and stayed with us over Halloween weekend, because Halloween weekend was also the Bead Factory's 15th anniversary weekend. They needed extra help, so they paid for Gina to take the train up from Portland for the weekend. She slept on our couch. I cooked breakfast for us (scrambled eggs & sausage on Saturday, Li'l Smokies and orange rolls (Christmas breakfast) for us on Sunday). We like her. It was nice having her around, even though we really didn't see her that much because everybody was working so mucho.

Saturday evening was Fools Play Trick or Treat, our annual Halloween show. Not as many people came as usual, but here's what us Fools dressed up as:

As Cactus Jack - Jake Ynzunza the Pink Fool:


As the victim of a pillow fight - Taisha McFall the Jade Fool:



As James, ½ of Team Rocket (with the very lovely Tia as Jessie of Team Rocket) - Mike Harris the Blue Fool:


But I know what you're asking: What whas Chris Harris the Purple Fool's costume? And what awexome punkins did he carve this year?

Well, lucky for you all, I wrote a new Article all about that! What was my costume? What were my punkins? What new H'ween craft did I do this year? And what could possibly make The Ocean Shores Pirate cry a single, gigantic tear? You can only find out by reading...

A Halloween Surprise for The Ocean Shores Pirate

Well, my in-laws are coming over soon for our annual H'ween tradition of soup, Reuben sammitches, and handing out full-sized candy bars (not them crappy little dinky things) to everyone who comes to the door!

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 4:45 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, October 07, 2007

It Went "Whoomp" And my Whole House Shook 

Around 3:00 yesterday (Saturday) I was watching John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (horrible movie, but it stars Ice Cube) when there was a big noise like a gigantically close sonic boom. It went "Whoomp!" and my whole house shook. I could see the big bay window actually flex a little bit. It startled Suki quite a bit.

I went outside and looked to make sure a tree didn't fall on my house or something, and noticed that the sky was full of birds—they'd all fled the trees and were screeching around overhead. Then I heard dozens and dozens of sirens way off to the south.

Read this news story.

Watch this movie:



That was almost two full miles away from my house. The explosion created enough of a shock wave that it was felt at least as far away as UPS, which is another half mile further away.

Thankfully Carrie came home via Stadium Way and not Highway 16, because a piece of tanker truck actually flew up in the air and landed on the highway, hundreds of feet away.

And somehow nobody was killed.

Update: 10-16-07

Here are a couple of views of the explosion:



And here's a remarkable video where you can see cars driving on the freeway (highway 16) as they're silhouetted by the explosion behind them.

Unfortunately the driver of the propane truck died Sunday morning: http://www.thenewstribune.com/1001/story/179347.html

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 12:05 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Farewell to Studio 321 



But fear not! Fools Play has a new venue: starting September 29th, Fools Play Improv will be at the Mariah Art School across the street from Garfield Elementary on Olympia's west side.

Mariah Art School
1403 Garfield Ave NW
Olympia, WA 98502

The show will still be every Saturday night at 8:00, and will still be only $5 a person ($4 if you wear your Fools Play T-shirt).

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 11:46 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Hey, I Know That Guy 

Hey, everybody who knows Geoff should go watch this trailer for a movie by clicking the picture below:


Also, click here!

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 12:11 AM

2 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Sugarshock 

Joss Whedon has written a new, entirely un-Jossverse related comic book! It's called Sugarshock and you can read it here.
©Dark Horse Comics.

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 5:35 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Oh Yeah... Time For a Shameless Plug 

I keep on forgetting to mention that the store where I work, Ever After, is having a big ol' sale all this week (ends Friday the 27th). Everything in the store is 20% off, and there's a sidewalk sale where things are even more off than that. I know, sounds impossible, but there it is. Undeniable. So you have two days (today, Thursday, and tomorrow, Friday) to take advantage of it.

Also, the website (which I'm in charge of) has everything 10% off all week. So for those of you out-of-towners who can't make it in to the store and buy something on sale—wrong! You can still buy something on sale! Via teh magic tubez of teh intarwebs.


Come to Ever After's
Big Annual Sale!

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 9:03 AM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cutest Towel EVAR 


Over the weekend I went to Ryan's 30th birthday party up in Bellingham. I snapped this photo of the hand towel in his bathroom.

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 4:42 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

What's Going On!! 

The Puget Sound Bead Festival continued for the duration of the weekend. I actually went and walked around the show on Saturday for a bit, and saw the out-of-town girls (in order I saw them) Nicole, Brandy, and Gretchen.

That evening Fools Play did an ambitious new format called "Learnin' the Ropes" in which we try to get our apprentices ready to perform in the span of five (5) days. It had a really large audience, due mostly to friends of the apprentices wanting to see them perform.

Sunday I left Fools Play practice early so I could help tear down the classrooms at the PSBF. Then I drove up to Issaquah for Mike's birthday diner at XXX Root Beer. Man, that place is so good. I had a bacon burger the size of my plate. Then afterwards I went and ordered onion rings.

Carrie & I both took Monday off so we could recover from the PSBF, but also for another reason: we needed to buy a car. A couple of our bead colleagues had bought a car just last week from Toyota of Puyallup and highly recommended the salesman, so we went down there as well and talked with him. And ended up buying the exact same car that they'd bought. They didn't have our 1st choice color available at all, and our 2nd choice color was down in Portland, so it would have to be driven up and so wouldn't be ready until Tuesday. But we were also satisfied with the salesman (though the paperwork department for some reason took for-freakin'-ever). So if you ever want to get a Toyota, go to Toyota of Puyallup and ask for John Martinez, and tell him that Chris Harris & Carrie Hamm sent you (we'll get some sorta kickback if you do).

Monday evening Carrie & I went out on a date and saw Ratatouille.

That brings us to Today, when, after an afternoon nap, Carrie & I went and picked up our new car from the dealership. And here it is:

It's a brand-spankin'-new Toyota Yaris 4-door sedan. Only 400 miles on it. And it's so freakin' cute! I made Carrie drive the rental home from the dealership just so I could drive the Yaris home [evil laugh].

I bought a new car! In the past 8 months I've bought a house, a MacBook, a new mattress set, and a new car. I'm a grown-up! All I need to do now is get a dog.

Then after I dropped Carrie off at the store to teach her evening class (I dropped her off with my NEW CAR) I headed back home and noticed a car in front of mine had the same Toyota of Puyallup dealer plates that I had. "Hmm," I thought, "they got their car at the same place I got my car. That looks like the same type of... hey, wait a minute!" Indeed, it was Robbie, the friend who bought the same kind of car last week! He pulled over at our house and we talked about how cool the Yaris cars are. What's plural for Yaris? Yarisses? Or Yari? Anyhoo, I also gave him back the couple of Gamecube controllers that we'd borrowed, oh, quite a while ago.

I leave you with a pretty picture of the clouds reflected in my new car's hood:

Labels: , , , , , ,


posted by Christopher at 7:39 PM

1 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Friday, June 15, 2007

Last Hurrah (For Now) 

Yesterday (Thursday) my dad came over to work in the yard while Carrie & I were still at work. Carrie walked home at one point and was rather startled to see his car in the driveway. She forgot that he has a blue car now, so she didn't know who could possibly be parked in our driveway!

Anyhoo, after work I picked up Carrie and we quickly swung by the drugstore and then headed home. I took my dad out to lunch at E-9, where he had an onion/Swiss burger and I had a good ol' club sammitch. I took some of it home for Carrie, then worked in the backyard a bit with my dad, digging up grass in preparation for paving.

Geoff showed up while we were out back. He leaves for China today! So this was our last chance to hang out. We set up our laptops on the dining room table and spent many hours making each other listen to our music collections. "Hey, have you heard this?" "Wow! I really like that! But have you heard this?" That kind of thing. It was really a lot of fun, and a very fitting way to hang out with Geoff before he goes away for six months.

He left around 7:15 to go do capoeira, and I settled down with konpyuta and did what I promised to do: I wrote my review of Spider-Man 3. Take that, procrastination! Pow!

So I really didn't get any work-work done, which is unfortunate because there's quite a bit I need to still do. But hanging out with my best friend since kindergarten seemed more important. Weird, I know. But fear not! Geoff has set himself up with a blog so he can chronicle his adventures in the exotic Orient! It's called More Qi! There's nothing on it right now, but that's okay, he plans to post photos and maybe even other things once we figure out how he can.

Labels: , , ,


posted by Christopher at 2:42 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Hosted by a Puppet of Quetzalcoatl 

Yesterday (Saturday) I had planned on spending the vast majority of the day cleaning and cleaning and mowing the lawn. Well, it rained all day, so mowing the lawn was pretty much out. And when I was hanging out with Geoff on Friday he mentioned that he kinda wanted to host Fools Play as Quetzalcoatl, but he didn't want to have to spend so much time on the ground. He'd do it if he had a puppet, though.

So I spent much of Saturday making a Quetzalcoatl out of felt. I watched the special features of PotC:DMC while I cut and sewed. The puppet came out looking pretty good, but I stupidly forgot to take a picture of it! (Geoff, if you're reading this, is there any way you can take a picture and send it to me?)

I did spend the rest of the day doing dishes and laundry, and I got a substantial amount of cleaning done before I left for Fools Play.

It was Geoff's final Fools Play before leaving for China, so all five of the Fools showed up. We did the Fools Play Tribute format, which consists of doing one scene and one recurring character that showcases each of the Fools (for example, my character scene was The Odd Cuppo, and Taisha's was Cororan & Son). We did a Nanamo in which we used only characters that we'd never gotten to perform before. I played Nanamo's penpal, with whom Nanamo refuses to converse in person.

At the end of the night we did a clip segment wherein we re-created actual things that had happened on stage that prominently featured the Yellow Fool.

The night was a huge success with a very large audience, including Steph & Jamie from the Babe Factory, and Erik Melver—even though his wife is extremely pregnant and due next week!

After the show I went and picked Tia up from her place and took her to Rib Eye with me. It was cool to see her! So many people came out to Rib Eye that we took over every single table in the big half of the place. That's 10 tables! There was a lot of funny that evening, including Geoff wearing Tiare's coat and a pair of Red Robin glasses (see the videos in the previous post). Mike sang Geoff a song in which he apologized for eating his sandwich several years ago. Jason had a four-minute conversation with me, which is going to be used as background noise in a song he's gonna make. I wore Lacey's extremely metrosexual hoodie, which made me look like a complete tool.

I ended up staying until 1:00-ish, which is about an hour-and-a-half later than I usually stay. Then I headed on home.

Labels: , ,


posted by Christopher at 11:10 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Friday, June 08, 2007

In the Driver We Trust 

Yesterday (Thursday) after work I came home and wrote an entry in this here blog. Then I headed up to Seattle and met up with Sandy. I got supremely sleepy on the way up, so when I got there I took a ten minute nap whilst Sandy got herself readied.

Then we got in her rental car and started the long, strange journey to go pick her car up from the dealership where it had been repaired.

First off, it was almost impossible to get to the freeway. For some reason the downtown entrances are all blocked off (like I discovered when I tried to use them on Tuesday). So Sandy planned to go through the international district and onto the onramp by SafeCo Field (like I ended up doing on Tuesday). This proved to be extraordinarily difficult, though, due to the fact that for some reason there was a fire truck parked at almost every intersection in the International District, lights flashing and spinning and all that. We didn't see any smoke anywhere, so who knows what that was about, eh?

Well, finally we got on the freeway, and that wasn't actually too all that bad until we got around Tukwila. But that's always bad. We went over on 405 to 167 and took that down to Auburn. That was wide, wide open all the way through Kent, and then came to a grinding almost-halt. We slogged our way down through to Auburn's Auto Mall, the horrifying string of car dealerships that stretches for miles and miles in the north half of Auburn. There we finally made it to the car dealership after well over an hour of travel.

After Sandy paid for the new radiator, the manager came out and looked over the paperwork and said that he'd go through everything, but he might be able to as much as half the price that Sandy was charged, and if so then he'd cut her a check the next day. I don't know if that was every actually done or not, though.

Anyway, we went and ate at a tiny little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place for an early dinner 'cause we were both starving (this was around 4:30 or so). We were given our place settings by a six-year-old girl! It was kinda adorable. The restaurant was just a mom, a dad, and their daughter running the whole place. The daughter brought out silverware and napkins and stuff like that while the parents waited and cooked and all that stuff.

I had two cheese enchiladas with onion, and they were very tasty. We also each had that drink that's like rice milk with cinnamon. It's called horchata. Get it if you're ever in a restaurant that offers it. Ve'y tasty.

After that Sandy & I had to slog through much traffic to get to Highway 18 so she could go to Mathias's mom's house and pick up two packages that Mathias had had delivered there. Then we went up Weyerheuser to avoid getting back on 18, and finally we got back onto I-5 and took that all the way up to SoDo, where we retrieved Mathias from Cobalt much later than had originally been planned. But we got a meal to go from the Mexican place for him, so it was all good.

We headed back to their apartment, and as we parked and were walking up to the door, long came Jason, with whom Mathias & I were gonna hang out that evening. We dallied in the apartment for a little bit so Mathias could open his packages (he got an animé DVD, some new fancy headphones and a signal scrubber thing so that his audio monitors would stop picking up radio signals).

Then all four of us walked to Neumos, where Sandy split off and continued walking on to the garage bowling alley to have a bowling night with her co-workers at Starbucks. Jason, Mathias, & I stopped at Neumos, because we all had tickets to see Busdriver live on stage there!

While we were waiting in line a redhead girl asked if she could buy a ticket off of us for $40. We declined, and then proceeded to waste her time by talking about exotic fish and animals with her. Later on her boyfriend or somebody arrived and they were offering $100 for a ticket. A little tempting, but I really wanted to see Busdriver and hang out with M&J. So no go.

We got in and staked out a position towards the right of the stage, close up but out of the way of anyone who wanted to get rowdy. This being Seattle, though, of course nobody got too rowdy.

Busdriver was actually opening for a band called CSS, which I learned did not stand for the internet term "Cascading Style Sheets." It stands for "Cansei de Ser Sexy," which is Portuguese for "tired of being sexy." Before the show started I bought Busdriver's new CD, RoadKillOverCoat. I bought it by handing a $10 bill to Busdriver himself, then he handed me the CD! Yes, Busdriver works his own gimmick table. He was on the phone, though, so unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him. Jason did later, though, and Busdriver actually remembered him from an earlier show! Jason made an off-hand mention of Master P, which will be important soon...

Anyhoo, there was a band before Busdriver played. It was called Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, which I assume is a reference to V for Vendetta. They sounded like early 80s energetic electro-pop stuff. Nothing terribly original, but very well done, and I really appreciated the fact that they wore matching costumes and had two backup dancers! They were very much a kitschy nerd band who were kinda parodying the music they were making. Like an electro-pop version of The Darkness.

Busdriver came on after NPSH, and he had a super mixing board thing, a digital turntable, and two mics (one for regular voice and one with a variety of effects). That was it. It was a really, really good set, and he really tried to work the crowd, which is always hard in Seattle. He made some subtle fun of Seattleites, saying how we made depression look so very stylish and stuff like that. Funny stuff.

Between several songs Busdriver would go off on a tangentical freestyle. During one of these freestyles he did a bit about Master P! Jason was proud for having planted that seed in his head.

My favorite moment, though, was when Busdriver performed a brand-new song based on the They Might Be Giants song "Man it's So Loud in Here" !!!!! It was spectacular! One of my favorite musicians doing a song by my all-time-favorite musicians! I turned to Mathias after he finished that song and said, "Well, I liked that a whole lot!"

We didn't stick around to hear CSS because we were all kinda tired and weren't terribly interested. So Jason was picked up by Jennifer, and Mathias & I walked back to his apartment so I could pick up my murse, which I had intelligently left there. I said goodnight to Sandy, who had also a very fun evening of bowling, and then I got in my car and drove back home.

It was after midnight when I got back, but I was hungro so I mixed some sour cream with salt, pepper, onion & garlic powder, bacon bits, and bleu cheese. I used this concoction as a dip for a bunch of carrots, which I ate in bed whilst watching Teen Titans. Then I fell asleep.

Labels: , , ,


posted by Christopher at 5:08 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Monday, June 04, 2007

Nostalgia Detour 

There's something in the air tonight.

I'm in bed now. Teen Titans is playing on the TV. Carrie is soundly asleep beside me. She's been in bed for several hours now; she has to get up by 4:00 in the morning in order to get to the airport to catch her flight.

Most all of the windows in the house are open, and I can hear the window fans drawing the cool air inside. It's air from a day that saw some sporadic rain, and there's something about the cool temperature and a slight whiff of some smell combined with the whirring of the fans that takes me straight back to a time ten or eleven years ago.

I was a college boy, though I was staying at my folks' place during summer break. I didn't have a job. I didn't do anything that required any amount of money, really. So I would stay up late at night. Very late. Everybody else in the house would be in bed by 1:35 at the latest (when Late Night with Conan O'Brien got over), but I would continue on for several more hours.

I liked having the run of the downstairs all to myself in the middle of the summer nights. The sliding glass door to the back would be open, the sliding screen door would be shut, and one of those big, white, square fans would be set up so that it would draw in the air, the air that was cooled by the lake just a few feet from the backdoor. And off to the left I would be able to hear the distinctive sound of the fountain in that lake.

I actually had an excuse for staying up so late, though it was sketchy at best. At 5:00 or 5:30 Transformers would air on the fledgling Sci-Fi Channel, and I would stay up to make sure the VCR recorded it correctly onto a video tape, many long years before it would become easily available on DVD.

These were the days when the Cartoon Network and Sci-Fi Channel were still getting their toes wet in the cable waters, waters which were themselves still a little unsure and sketchy. These were the days when TNT showed The Rudy & Go-Go World Famous Cartoon Show, and the Sci-Fi Channel would show a random assortment of cartoons in the wee hours of the morning. Shows like Bionic 6, Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone, Captain Scarlet, Snorks, and Transformers.

I would stay up all those hours through all those cartoons, enjoying my nocturnality. Often I would make a Monterey Jack cheese quesadilla in a frying pan with butter, and eat it with barbecue sauce. I would play on the brand-newish computer in the corner of the dining room. I would sit on the couch and marvel at the quality of cartoons from the 80s, and wonder why anyone would ever find Gerry Anderson's supermarionation shows to be anything other than interminably dull.

Then, when Transformers came on and I hit record on the VCR, I would climb upstairs and crawl into the top bunk in the room I shared with my brother (yes, we had bunk beds, but only after I started going to college, curl up in my Batman: The Animated Series sheets, and sleep until around 1:00 in the afternoon.

There was nothing to do that summer but hang out, play video games, watch TV, and do Fools Play. And think that that new girl who tried out for Fools Play was awfully cute...

This was also the summer that Susan and I would play Mario Kart 64 for at least one hour every day. But that, as Mako would say, is another story...

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 11:35 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Friday, June 01, 2007

Can't Think of a Good Title 

Yesterday (Thursday) as soon as I got home Carrie left for Sonja's. In the interim I baked and ate an pizza. On her way home she called and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch. I'd just eaten an entire pizza. I wasn't particularly hungry.

I took a nap in the late afternoon and had weird dreams about the Fantastic Four and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. One of my long-ago friends was somehow in them both. She was a replacement for Sue Richards and a love interest for Odo, respectively.

Neither of us ate dinner before Carrie went and taught her evening class. During the evening I worked more on client stuff and confirmed to myself just how very cool Google is with Google Bookmarks.

I also went looking for free fonts, and found several sites. My favorite of them all, though, was one called Fonts for Kids. That's probably not a big surprise. But it has some really, really good ones, and tonnes of fake re-creations of movie/TV title fonts and things like that. Take a gander!

Carrie got home really late from her class—well after 11:00. We made spaghetti and went to bed.

Labels: ,


posted by Christopher at 7:58 AM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

They Still Need to be Taken On 

There's been a re-design of Take On the Toughies! Go and read all of the excerpts, now presented in random order!

TakeOnTheToughies.org

Labels:


posted by Christopher at 7:01 PM

0 comments - Post a Comment
------------------------------------

[top]

Sunday, May 20, 2007

TGI Friday Harbor - Day 1! 

On Friday morning I went in to work a whole two hours early, as I mentioned in my last post. While I was at work Carrie stayed home and packed a couple of overnight bags. Then she swung by the store and picked me up and we drove (she doing the actual driving) up to Anacortes to catch the Anacortes ferry to Friday Harbor!

We got to the ferry terminal plenty early. It had a stand-up of Raiden Fighters that unfortunately was out of order, so I played the other shmup stand-up they had there. We watched an episode of Teen Titans on my MacBook's DVD player, and then we boarded the ferry. It was kind of a gray day, but it was still nice enough. Here's the view out of the ferry window:

We passed a ferry going the opposite direction.

The ferry ride lasts over and hour, and weaves through the San Juan Islands to San Juan Island itself, the site of the hilarious British/American Pig War. We sat in the upper floor for most of the time, but towards the end we grabbed all our bags (since you can't leave them unattended) and wandered around the upper floor deck.


Finally we arrived at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. After disembarking the ferry we turned right as instructed and were picked up by Leah, super-cute haircut and all! Hooray! She drove us to our hotel so we could check in, and then drove us around the island, past the lighthouse to a secluded little beach.

As we were walking across a grassy field towards the beach (actually towards the cliff you have to climb down to get to the beach), Carrie's foot entered a hole in the ground and down she went!

But we made it down the cliff without incident. Then Leah showed us around the beach.

She told us about her school project where she turns over rocks and catches all of the crabs underneath them, then measures them. Needless to say, there were a tonne of crabs at this beach.

Here's a cute picture of Carrie and Leah:

And here's another crab:

Here's a view across the water towards some other islands. I'm not exactly sure which direction this is looking; the overcast sky really wreaked havoc with my direction sense. I think that might be Canada over there, though:

Leah said that this gigantic stump hadn't been on the beach the day before. Tides sure are sumpin', ain't they: