adrian is rad

A thoroughly blog-worthy weekend.

It started out with a pair of movies on Friday.

First, I saw Thank you for Smoking with Andyl. It’s a satire of Big Tobacco and lobbyists. It’s very very funny. I laughed aloud for much of the movie. Some rediculous scenes, but that’s sort of what you’d expect from a satire. I’d recommend it. My one complaint only comes after the fact: satires are supposed to make you think, otherwise it’s just a parody, right? I haven’t been absorbed in thoughts about Big Tobacco or lobbying.

I also saw Out of Africa a classic European-out-of-place-in-Africa story. It’s set in the first half of the century. A Danish barroness moves to Africa with her lover’s brother/ then husband. In the end this is a romance set in Africa, obviously with a lot of other stuff going on as well. I couldn’t help thinking of Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) while I watched this movie. Nirgendwo owes a lot to Out of Africa, but in the end, I think Nirgendwo is a better movie with more substance and it makes you think more.

Al Jazeera TV says to air bin Laden audio tape

Audio tape? Seriously? Come on, Osama, get with the program, this is the 00’s! You should be using a flash-based audio recorder, burning that shit to a CD and then sending it to Al Jazeera. I mean, do you think they’ll keep a cassette player around just for you? They’re not using it for anything else!

I was walking into the radio station tonight and I walked by who else but George Lucas. How about that? He must have been giving a talk at the business school.

As I have done before, I’m going to try to chronicle my last few days in wikipedia reading. from oldest to
latest.

Foil (literature.

The Price is Right
Peet’s Coffee->grocery store->super market-> shopping cart

Coal mining. Anthracite->bituminous coal

Charles Bukowski-> Post Office -> Ham on Rye

Jonathan Richman. The Marvelettes. Talking Heads. Nina Hagen. Nena -> 99 Luftballons.

Deerhoof and the Decemberists

Eddie Vedder->Jill McCormick and songs Pearl Jam has covered

Game 6->1986 World Series

Big->13 Going on 30

If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s a pretty sweet video that a guy made recreating the bottom of the 10th of Game 6 of the World Series using Nintendo’s classic RBI Baseball. He even uses the real play-by-play. Apparently getting certain hits right took him up to 200 tries. My goodness! Also, apparently the maker of this managed to get a job out of it. The resume for the New Era.

Speaking of Game 6, has anyone seen the movie? Apparently it’s good.

the decemberists and deerhoof. The decemberists are the softer, more acoustic and better of the two. I like the decemberists. Deerhoof leaves me wondering why people think they’re great.

I did a night of only music on vinyl (LP’s, 7″s, 10″s, etc) on my radio show tonight. Here’s the playlist. I ended up having way too much stuff, like usual and there was some stuff I wish I had time to play. I think I’ll have to play more vinyl on my show on a regular basis.

My dad’s retiring at the end of May, which is a bit of a shock. Not because he’s not “of retirement age”—I’m sure he doesn’t mind me saying he’s 61, as long as I add that he looks at least 10 years younger. He’s always invested himself in his work, so it seems odd that he’ll be done with that. I’m sure he’ll enjoy relaxing…for a few months. Then he’ll get antsy, I’m sure.

The earlier indicators also seem to say that he’ll be less frugal in his retirement—there’s been talk of a fancy car, which my real dad (before the alien imposter took over his body) would never think of buying. Hard-working and frugal, that’s my dad…for another month or so.

I guess it also seems strange because of the implications, if he’s retiring, if he’s 61, that means, I’m old, at least in my mind. He met my mom when he was about my age; my mom was younger than I am now when they got married. I guess I have no reason to feel or think I’m getting old; afterall, I have plenty of time. But, yes, it is strange; at some point, I became an adult and no one told me. I work and save money (for retirement no less!) and pay bills and pay rent and do my taxes. When’d that happen? It’s all been quite sneaky.

In any case, he’s retiring, and so I ordered him this (don’t click that link, dad, if you’re reading! it’ll ruin the surprise!). It’s pretty appropriate, given that it was his industry for the last 17 years or so. He’ll probably thank me; and then as politely as possible, ask how I thought of getting him such a thing. He won’t like it or put it to much use, I don’t think.

The BBC3 put on the Manchester Passion, a passion play/ musical in which all the music was by Manchester musicians, including New Order and Oasis. Some current local (to Manchester) rockers and actors play key parts in the play. It appears it was performed and broadcast live while roaming through the Manchester streets, ending up at the city hall.

It looks pretty cool. You tube has plenty of video of it, including Jesus singing “Love will tear us apart again” at the Last Supper.

Pretty cool idea, I must say.

Today’s the 100th anniversary of the 1906 SF earthquake. It’s been all over the news here for weeks.

My friend Leo’s been working on a website called Runthere for a while. It’s pretty cool. The function I use most is mapping out a route and finding out how long it is. I’ll also show you the elevation profile for the same route.

He’s recently added a feature where you can save and, optionally, share routes around you. You can also find routes that other people have saved.

It’s a pretty slick site. I’m impressed. He’s a mech e, like me, and didn’t have a whole lot of programming experience before ME218, just like me, but I’m struggling to make a php website for the radio station and he’s made this pretty cool site.

I watched Match Point on Friday. It starts off like any other husband-cheating-on wife indie movie (think Closer) and it’s going along and it’s fairly interesting and then BAM it takes a hard left into more of a thriller territory.

I don’t really like thrillers. I tend to want to leave the room.

I still thought this one ended up being pretty good and it had some nice moments of everything coming full circle.

Not really a must-see, but more of a don’t-mind-if-you-see.