The weekend before last Sarah and I went down to Gas Works Park in Seattle. Gas Works Park is a former Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant now turned into a
park with the machinery kept intact and found right on the shore of Lake Union. There's a large hill right next to the plant with an embedded art installation from which you get an excellent view
of the park and the lake. Anyway a very cool place. Afer, we ate at Julia's of Wallingford where I stereotypically had the Santa Cruz
omelet. Good food, nice place, nice neighborhood.
This past weekend was Halloween weekend. On Halloween at Microsoft parents bring their kids around the office buildings and collect candy from those who
have candy in their office. See Matt's photo of one such hallway at Microsoft. The next day Sarah and I went to two birthday parties the second of which required costume. I went as House (from the
television show House) by putting on a suit jacket and carrying a cane. Sarah wore scrubs to lend cred. to my lazy costume. Oh yeah and on Sunday Sarah bought a new car.
Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog is an Internet only show you may have already watched and heard everything about. If you missed this somehow, its a musical by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) staring Neil Patrick Harris as an aspiring super villian who can't get up the courage to talk to his laundromat crush. Its very funny, fairly geeky, and on the Internet so of course I've enjoyed it thoroughly and have some links to share. It surprised me how many blogs that I don't usually see posting the same things telling me about it: first on Eric's blog, then The Old New Thing, and even Penny-Arcade.
Dr. Horrible's again available online via Hulu with commercial interruption.
Check out the official fan site. They link to such things as the owner of Dr. Horrible's house. He had appeared on Monster House, a reality show about remaking people's homes like Monster Car or Pimp My Ride is about remaking folk's cars, and had his house turned into a evil scientist's lab. Consequently its a perfect fit for Dr. Horrible and in return the owner appears in one of the final scenes and in the credits as the 'Purple Pimp'. Apparently the purple suit is his. Also on his blog you can find out what's happened on that big chair that appears in the show. All I'll say about that is, good thing Neil Patrick Harris wears a lab coat while sitting on it.
At the recent Comic Con some attendees took video of the Dr. Horrible Comic Con panel (video clips contain spoilers) some of which I've grouped together. Besides the videos containing the creators and stars of the musical who are all hilarious (see Felicia Day's comment on twittering) there's also some excellent bits about a possible second installment and information on the impending DVD. To finish off this series of Dr. Horrible links check out this Venn Diagram of Felicia Day's work.
The weekend before last I saw Dark Knight with some friends from work and then we all ate at Z'Tejas after. Like everyone has said and as the name implies Dark Knight is... dark. Dark Knight was a little over the top at times as compared to Batman Begins but I really enjoyed it. Two times during the movie I thought it had ended but I was wrong. The Joker is both frightening (Cringe inducing line "Wanna know how I got these scars?") and humorous ("Where is Harvey Dent? ... You know where Harvey is? You know who he is?", as well as the pencil magic trick). I can certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Batman Begins. The previews included Burn After Reading a new Coen Brother's comedy that I look forward to, and Quantum of Solace which hopefully does the same thing Dark Knight has, keep up the new direction on the refreshed franchise.
This past
weekend Sarah and I went to a Mariners baseball game. I think this is the first MLB baseball game I've seen in person. Sarah's company gave out tickets for the game and the use of a suite. Its a
room half way up the stadium with comfortable chairs, a mini-fridge built-in to the marble counter-topped center table, and a big flat screen television with the game on it. I suppose that's in
case you don't want to turn to the right and sit at the window, or walk out onto the balcony which features three rows of comfy chairs overlooking the field. Anyway there was free food and drinks
and I met some of the people Sarah works with.
We started at Home Depot because I didn't know better. The screws are all listed in metric sizes which is apparently uncommon and a helpful senior worker forwarded us to McLendons whose stock was better but we were again redirected this time to Tacoma Screw Products.
Tacoma Screw Products is great! See them for your hardware needs first! The store has a back area with every kind of screw ever. I felt a little out of place as as all the customers looked like contractors. The employee who helped me explained the various options I had in screws as the bike instructions weren't as explicit as they could have been. In the end I bought all my screws for only one dollar (much better than $30!) and they all fit correctly.
My manager has come back this week from a 10 week vacation and paternity leave. In response and similar to other office hacks some dedicated coworkers and I decided to do something to my manager's office.
While gone we knew my manager, Venkat, was getting into meditation. My coworker Vishu had the excellent idea of easing Venkat back into work by making his office
better suited for meditation. To start with, we updated his nameplate with an Om.
Next we emptied his office of anything that could distract him from meditation and replaced it with a yoga mat. Of course I left a copy of the specification
for the remodel in his office.
[some college] and I told her where I was from. She then asked me, "You have your
Doctorate in Computer Science?" "No," I said, "My Bachelors... I'm working on my Bachelors." "Oh," she said, "Well you look very mature." I'm fairly certain that's a first for me -- being told I look
"very mature" that is. Unfortunately, at that point my tram showed up and I had to travel to a different building. Now I'm left wondering what made me look mature. It could have been the gel or the
slacks or the tucked in shirt. The day previous while dressed casually, hanging out with my friend Jeannie, some of her friends thought I was her age, about eight years older. The common element
between my two appearances were my new black dressy-ish shoes. Maybe its just that easy.
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