Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.
The storm’s over with, and we’ve got another gorgeous, clear, hot day. Definite kilt weather. :)
I just came across this photograph of last night’s storm, taken by James Gurney in Redmond:
Gorgeous.
Update: One from over Bellevue, though no attribution was given for this one:
iTunes: “Blue Monday (Club 69)” by Orgy from the album Blue Monday (1999, 8:13).
Tonight on my way home from work, I noticed (but, unfortunately, wasn’t able to get a picture of) an absolutely stunningly beautiful sunset. Off to the west, there was an immense cloud bank hanging in the sky, a little puffy on the bottom, but with a huge wall of cloud reaching straight up into the sky catching the light from the setting sun, making the entire cloud glow rosy against the pale blue of the evening sky.
The real significance of that cloud formation didn’t dawn on me until later in the evening, though, after the sun finished setting. I was feeling a little cooped up here at the apartment, so I took a quick run through the shower and headed up the hill to Neighbours to check out their 80’s night, which I hadn’t been to in a good couple of years or so. On the way up I thought I caught some odd flashes of light, but I wasn’t entirely sure, and figured it was just headlights reflecting off of windows.
A few hours later, though, on the way home — no more doubts. While locally the weather is still quite warm and dry, with just a slight breeze to cool things off, flash after flash after flash has been lighting up the night sky as what appears to be a fairly major thunderstorm rumbles along somewhere off to the southwest of Seattle. I counted at least twelve to fifteen flashes bright enough to light up the entire sky, and a few more smaller ones higher in the banks of clouds. I only occasionally caught any thunder rolling past, though, so either the strikes are pretty far away or quite high in the clouds, or both. Still, every so often I’d be treated to that deep bass rumble.
I spent the entire walk home with a huge grin on my face, too. Neither southern Alaska nor western Washington are exactly renowned for their thunderstorms, so when the odd one comes through, I revel in it.
iTunes: “Dreaming (Libra)” by BT from the album Dreaming (2000, 9:18).
Rick came over to hang out for a bit last night, and brought along Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the latest in Robert Rodriguez’ Mariachi series. Very violent and very entertaining, but after a single watching, I’m not entirely sure I’ve really got the faintest clue quite what happened, as much of the movie consists of every character double- and triple-crossing every other character. Rick assures me that it all works out consistently — for now, I’ll just have to take his word for it. Even without total comprehension, though, it was at least good brainless fun to watch Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp wreak havoc for a couple hours.
I’ve got a mouse in my apartment. I’m not really terribly concerned about this, as it’s kind of cute, and not a bother at all, I just occasionally catch it skittering around the corners of my room out of the corner of my eye. As Rick and I were talking last night, though, Rick started to pull a cigarette out of his pack and accidentally dropped one on the floor.
“Have a smoke — or two,” I said.
Rick laughed as he bent down to pick up the one he dropped. “That one was for the mouse.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “Tricky. No need to buy traps or anything inhumane like that. We’ll just give the little shit cancer and wait. We’re patient.”
This mouse has met his match.
iTunes: “Switchblade 327” by Brian Setzer Orchestra, The from the album Dirty Boogie, The (1998, 3:30).
Today marks three years to the day since I escaped the frozen wastelands of Alaska and starting life in Seattle.
Yay me!
iTunes: “Vertical Pig” by Future Sound of London, The from the album Lifeforms (1994, 6:44).
Many thanks to Pops (The Two Hour Lunch) for setting up this Saturday’s Blogger Anon-O-Con down at the waterfront. Got to hang out and chat with Pops, Richard (Tikun Olam), Mike (Dumb Blogs Have More Fun), Anita (Anita’s LOL), Ted (Ted Leung on the Air) and Julie Leung (Seedlings and Sprouts), Chip (The Binary Circumstance), Receptionista (Hammer and Peg), Staci (Daymented), and Myk (Life, it is a travesty), along with Pops’ counterpart Mom, their own Mr. Man, the Leung’s children, and Prairie. All in all, not a bad gathering in the least!
Apparently my Utilikilt was something of a hit, seeing as Mom is now suggesting that Pops should get one of his own — and what do you know, Pops found out that UK is having a Father’s Day Sale.
Utilikilts’ First Annual Father’s Day Extravaganza is open to all Utilikiltarian Fathers, Dads and Papas! Any father who make a purchase of a new Utilikilt between Mon June 14 — Fri June 18th during regular business hours 9:A-6:P PST may deduct your age from the price of any Utilikilt of your choice (limitations and restrictions apply).
Sounds like a good deal to me, though being childless (and in no hurry to change that status), I’ll have to sit this particular sale out…
iTunes: “Mr. Pitiful” by Commitments, The from the album Commitments, The (1991, 2:11).
Following up (in a way) on my printer ink woes, today MetaFilter points out that by volume, printer ink is six times more expensive than Dom Perignon champagne.
I still haven’t bothered to replace my printer, though I need to at some point — I’m just still pissy about spending the money on the ink just to find out that my printer was dead. Still, at the moment, as long as I don’t mind waiting for a bit I can just bring anything I need printed out to work (side benefits of working in a copy shop), so I’m not entirely without options. It’s still a frustrating situation, though.
iTunes: “Get Bizzy Time” by Voight Kampff from the album In to the Mix II: The 2nd Coming (1998, 5:03).
I used to have all of my music stored on my old computer as .mp3 files. When I got the new computer, rather than just copying everything over, I began the process of re-ripping my entire CD collection as AAC, as they sounded a little better and are slightly smaller than the old .mp3s. As I have a lot of music, this project takes quite a while, and I’ll approach it in fits and starts — ripping a ton of CDs over a few weeks, then getting tired of it and taking a break for a few weeks, then getting back into it.
I’ve been back in the “rip like mad” stage for the past week or so.
Progress so far:
Out of the (roughly) 1200 CDs that I own…
I’ve imported probably somewhere around 850 (my album count reads at 879, but that includes any tracks I’ve purchased from the iTunes Music Store).
There are 2,927 separate artists listed (though this is increased a bit by things like “Artist X presents Artist Y”, or “Artist A featuring Artist B”, and so on, not to mention soundtrack cast albums where nearly every song has a different ‘artist’ depending on which characters are performing).
My collection takes up 44.13GB of space.
It would take me 33 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, and 57 seconds to listen to the entire collection from beginning to end.
The entire collection consists of 10,282 individual tracks.
And I’ve still got a few hundred more albums to import. I’m quite curious as to what the final count ends up being.
Now, if only I could afford either a wide enough pipe to start a ‘net radio station, or a low power FM transmitter to run a small local radio station (of course, I have no clue who’d actually tune in, but I still like the idea). I’d just put the entire collection on random, and let it go.
iTunes: “False Documents” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 1:59).
With a lot of very appreciated help from Prairie, my apartment is now cleaner than it has been in…oh, probably in about a year, since the last time I went on a mad spring cleaning rampage.
It’s kind of freaky, actually. :)
Who knows how long I’ll be able to keep it this way, but at least for the moment, I could actually invite someone over for the first time without being embarrassed when I open the door.
iTunes: “Piggy Bank” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Naïve: Hell To Go (1994, 6:36).
On bright, warm, sunny days such as we’re having here at the moment, I’ll usually start the day off wearing my kilt. Work clothes go in my bag, and I make the walk from home to bus stop, the bus ride, and the walk from the bus stop to work as comfortable as possible. Once at work, I duck into the restroom and change.
Yesterday I needed to grab something to drink about an hour after I started my shift, so I ducked over to the Starbucks Coffee next door. The barrista gave me a quick look up and down, then asked, “Hey! Where’s the Utilikilt?”
I laughed. “Not appropriate for work, unfortunately.”
“What? Why not?”
While our company dress code does specify that either slacks or skirts can be worn — and I’m of the opinion that a kilt should be acceptable — regional and district heads can specify their own rules for their area, and our area apparently specified slacks only. Not only does this keep me from wearing the kilt, but one of the ladies I work with is a little miffed that she can’t wear a skirt. I’m not sure why this is the case, but so it is.
Still — it’s rather nice to know that the entire female staff of the Starbucks next door to my job (since the rest of them soon chimed in on this discussion) are of the opinion that I should be allowed to wear my kilt at work.
Now we just need to convince the Powers That Be.
iTunes: “Killing Moon, The” by Echo and the Bunnymen from the album Rock and Wave Vol. 1 (1983, 5:44).
A couple of months ago, I was interviewed by a prominent news/entertainment magazine for an article they were preparing on webloggers who had lost their jobs or faced some other form of catastrophe due to their weblogging. The interview took place over the phone over a period of about two days, and once it was concluded, I was told to expect a call from photographers for the magazine, so that they could get a picture of me at my computer here at home to run alongside my section of the article.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear anything back in the next few days…which eventually stretched on to weeks. Eventually, I assumed that for one reason or another, the story had been scrapped. I recently got this e-mail confirming my suspicion:
Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you. The blogging story has been put on ice, unfortunately, mainly because we couldn’t find enough people who got in trouble with their blogs. Sorry, will let you know if anything changes.
A pity, really. I was looking forward to seeing my face in a national newsmagazine, even if it was more press centered around my making something of a stupid mistake.
I’ve sent the interviewer a link to the list of dangerous bloggers in the hope that there might be one or two names on it that didn’t get tapped in the first round, but at this point, I’m not holding my breath. Looks like I’ll just continue my slide back into obscurity. :)