As a child, I intensely desired the Endless Book. Now that it flows through my computer hourly, I see that I was quite mistaken in my desires, exactly as forewarned.
Glass
Finally getting some semi-normal PNW weather. My glass-room part of the house was in the eighties today; it is time to start sprouting stuff. Nevermind the drought out in the Big Room.
Valentines
Spent today running around with Viv. We ate breakfast at the new-to-us Caprice Kitchen, at 80th and 15th in upper Ballard, and enjoyed it. Looks like it might be worth a trip for dinner. Google Street View shows fewer businesses at that corner than there are now, most of which look newish. However it also looks like there was a bar in the process of opening in mid-December which has stalled out, and as we wandered around Ballard I noticed tons of work-stopped condo development sites. Not necessarily a bad thing considering the general fugliness of the majority of the condo-vomit that got tossed up around town between 2002 and 2008, but clear evidence of the local effects of the sudden change in financing.
As it happened we also walked into three small businesses advertising closing sales and walked by a couple more vacant storefronts on Ballard Avenue. We did our bit, though. We bought a new-construction bedframe, in fact, a not-inexpensive proposition.
However the only place we dropped by that was elbows-to-asses at all was the Ballard Goodwill. The place was packed! It’s at 8th and 60th, and as we left I realized how close it was to the old Ballard Playhouse and the bars up there like Reading Gaol. I actually counted a total of SEVEN bars in that two-block strip, and nominate it for future League consideration.
deja
two dudes one pan
WHO thought naming a COOKBOOK after ‘two girls, one cup’ was a GOOD idea? Bet this made a great gift for grandma last xmas.
Operatic
I’ve been using Opera at work on XP lately, and honestly, I like it the best of all the available browsers at the moment. Opera on OS X feels clunky, for some reason.
hoboclown
I should note this for non-twitter peeps: Manuel and I discovered a twitter feed by someone called hoboclown that has been somewhat amusing.
Enchirito!
Years ago, Viv and I saw, once only, a bizarre ad for Taco Bell’s ‘enchirito,’ featuring the word sung by four guys singing in a circular group as the camera panned around their faces.
We both stopped what we were doing or talking about and yelled ‘what was that?“ but the hilarious strangeness of the ad was never to reappear. Struck by a thought – that YouTube is the Facebook of obscure ad clips – I took a look.
I give you: The Enchirito Boys. Note that they are, in fact, named in the context of the ad. Maybe they went on to become Comcast housemates or something.
UPDATE: MT squashed the hell out of the embed, so I just linked.
Zarek Hatch
Richard Hatch on his just concluded time as Tom Zarek on BSG.
Awesome, so great to see one of the BSG folks using the internet to think out loud about what they have been doing.
I can’t wait until we hear from the others, too. It’s seemed clear to me for some time that Hatch was playing his character against the script, that as written Zarek is a cynical manipulator of discontent, but that Hatch chose to see the role as a committed revolutionary representing what he saw as the inevitable will of the people. By playing it that way, he improved the series against consistently weak writing around labor issues in particular and around weaker political writing in general.
Doing so permitted him, and the series, the luxury to elevate itself to levels of drama generally reserved for the Greeks and Shakespeare. Mr. Moore owes Richard Hatch his most sincere thanks, more more than he knows.
So, Mr. Hatch, I thank you. You transcended yourself and your character’s written role, and in so doing deepened the art of your co-workers. Thanks again for taking the time to write about it afterwards.
