ai page 44 - Dave's Blog

Wedding Ceremony Stage

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Parents of the Bride

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Sarah Prepares

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Gold Ring in Water

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Behind the main building of the Westin Kierland resort is a man made mini-lake with a large statue of someone holding a gold ring in the middle.

Kids in the Hall Live in Seattle

Sarah and I saw the Kids in the Hall "Live As We'll Ever Be" Tour in the WaMu theater in Seattle this past Thursday. I'd only ever seen their television show so it was cool to see them live. I thought that them being in a live format on stage would make the show significantly different, but other than having a bad seat and not being able to see very well, and the Kids sometimes ad-libbing or breaking character, it was like watching their show. It consisted of mostly new material with some returning characters like the Chicken Lady, Buddy Cole, the head crusher, etc. Their Facebook page has two videos that they played during the show.

I've been using the best Kids in the Hall fansite with an archive of searchable transcripts since high school. But now days what with all the new fangled video websites I can link right to some of my favorite sketches from the show. Like the Inexperienced Cannibal.

And the meta-sketch The Raise.

Attended Savor Seattle

This past Saturday Sarah and I took the Savor Seattle Tour of various food shops in Pikes Place. Sarah had suggested it at one point and when Jesse and Nicole brought it up again when they came up to Seattle we decided to go. Surprisingly our tour group consisted of mostly locals. Except for the fish market I hadn't been to see any of the places on the tour. I particularly enjoyed the chocolate cherries and the tea. Our tour guide Tim was funny and overall I enjoyed the tour and would recommend it. I've made a map of our tour including what free trials we got at each location. Yum!

Finished Paper Mario Games

Sarah and I have finished playing through the games "Paper Mario", "Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door", and "Super Paper Mario" last week (including the various Pits of 100 Trials). We played them all on the Wii, because even though Super Paper Mario was the only one released explicitly for that platform, Wii maintains compatibility with Game Cube games such as Thousand-Year Door and Paper Mario although originally released for the Nintendo 64 is now available as a pay for download game on the Wii's Virtual Console. So, yay for Nintendo!

I think my favorite of the three is Thousand-Year Door mostly because of the RPG attack system. In Thousand-Year Door and Paper Mario when you come into contact with an enemy you go into an RPG style attack system where you take turns selecting actions. In Super Paper Mario you still have hit points and such, but you don't go into a turn based RPG style attack system, rather you do the regular Mario jumping on bad guys thing (or hitting them with a mallet etc...). Thousand-Year Door and Paper Mario are very similar in terms of game play but Thousand-Year Door looks very pretty and has made improvements to how your party-mates are handled in battle (they have HP and can fall as you would expect) and there's an audience that cheers you on during your battles.

Even if the gameplay sucked the humor throughout the series might be tempting enough. Mario's clothing and mustache are mocked throughout and standard RPG expectations are subverted. I hate to describe any of these moments for fear of ruining anything but, for instance, an optional and very difficult enemy who may only be killed after hours of work only results in one experience point, or a very intimidating enemy who you imagine you'll have to fight actually challenges you to a quiz.

Despite how I personally rank them, all the games are great and I'd recommend any of them.

Cirque du Soleil in Marymoor Park

Sarah and I went to Cirque du Soleil's Corteo this past Wednesday. Its in Marymoor Park quite near the main Microsoft campus. They setup large circus tents in the park including a gift shop, overpriced concession stands, and long lined porta-potties. Despite all this the show was very entertaining and quite enjoyable. The show is like a circus directed by Terry Gilliam or Tim Schafer and otherwise I'm not sure how to describe it, but I do recommend it.