Dear Diary, part deux
1) Kevin took a nasty spill off his bike and fractured the shit out of his pelvis. Luckily he’s doing well and is in good spirits. Apparently he’s back on his feet and can walk around again! Poor guy had just posted about the great Pugsley riding going on earlier in November. I wish him a speedy recovery.
2) Annie was in town and I got to add a couple new places on the ‘places to go when people come into town list’. not in any particular order, ‘kerry park’ in queen anne, ‘some bowling alley’ somewhere in mt. baker, “geraldine’s” in columbia city. It was great to see someone from school, and get to act a little crazy. maybe too crazy? apologies. must remember to update the google map with cool places to show people, as well as a) finally go to ezell’s chicken, b) ride the monorail and c) go back to places like the hideout and cafe presse that I haven’t been to for awhile.
3) Catherine and Chad came over and we made some delicious cookies. I’d forgotten how easy they are to make, and how satisfying baking can be. A couple weeks ago I made tator tot hot dish, last week a cake for my sister, and cookies today. Maybe tomorrow some squash, and Tuesday some bread? I didn’t make it to the Capitol Hill farmers’ market today for beets, but I think I’ll have enough food to get by on.
4) E invited me to (although the invite showed up as if it came from R — whoops Google!) try out google wave. It’s a pretty compelling interface, and the realtime translation I saw demonstrated in their 10 minute demo video online was pretty compelling, as was the ‘playback’ changes support. My only concern about the interface is how successfully people will be able to edit waves over time without having the UI become too cluttered. It seems like the editor is going to be one of the most important things to get right.
5) Went to hear the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra on a google reader-informed whim. Hit the Hideout before, Machiavelli’s after, and even snuck in Mad Men before bed. The PSSO was more or less what I expected; a great oboist, hilarious conductor, but possibly an out of tune string section near the beginning and some problems in the brass section.
6) I plugged in some rear speakers in my living room. I ended up buying them with a receiver from craigslist a month or so ago. I was only only interested in the radio/amplifier for the kitchen and didn’t need additional speakers, but it seemed like a good price, so I bought the whole package. Recently, curiosity killed the cat, and I now have ‘surround sound.’ I can’t say I always notice it, but I’ve just had to listen to 3 Radiohead albums tonight because of how awesome it sounds.
7) I dug up an old print I made in New Zealand of a sailing boat. I think I’m going to bite the bullet and have it framed (it’s large, nice enough, and most importantly, not photography, like practically everything else I have hanging up right now.) Also on my list is to sign up for one or two classes at the community college. Painting? Drawing? Printmaking? I haven’t quite decided yet but I’m looking forward to having a time each week that I have to focus on some form of visual art.
8) Last weekend I went to a Chris Jacobs exhibit. He’s an ex-lawyer turned photographer, now becoming famous for his somewhat literal representations of consumption. These often result in digital art that includes hundreds of thousands or even millions of objects printed on large pieces of paper. I’m not as big a fan of his (digitally augmented) visualizations as some of his earlier (purely photographic) work. Some of the visualizations are arranged haphazardly or regularly (which I like) but others are arranged geometrically or in such a way as to make a larger image appear at a distance (breasts out of barbies, a skeleton out of cigarette cartons, bejamin franklin out of $100 bills) which seems too obvious/contrived/needless to me. I checked out his website tonight and do like his most recent work. Not exactly uplifting, but certainly accessible: pictures of abatros chicks who have died as a result of eating garbage that’s polluting the pacific ocean.
