Sunday, August 19, 2007

Pretty Golfing Skater Boi

Walking around Greenwich Village I saw a preppy guy riding a skateboard, with a bag of golf clubs in one hand, and in the other hand he had a Sephora bag and was talking on a cell phone.

Friday, August 17, 2007

San Diego Comic-Con 2007

I finally finished posting all my photos from this year's comic-con. Click on the photo to see them all.
This year I was only there for 2 and a half days, but still saw and did plenty of interesting things. I have to say, it's getting so crowded, I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to put up the fight to attend the convention!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

William Gibson Book Signing


William Gibson signs books
Originally uploaded by Mirka23

This afternoon I went to a book reading/signing by William Gibson, for his new book Spook Country. Very cool - I didn't even know he did such things! It's hard to imagine the "grandfather of cuberpunk" appearing in public.

He read a chapter from the new book, and then took some questions. The questions seemed kind of uninspired, but it was still pretty fun. William Gibson wasn't really like I expected.

Also, I used a facebook event to invite/remind a few of my pals. By total coincidence, we found ourselves at the reading sitting right behind the guy who had put the event into facebook. We recognized him and said hi. He was kind of surprised that anyone else had actually used it!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

The Police


The Police
Originally uploaded by Mirka23
A couple weeks ago I went to see the Police. Twice. The first show was at Madison Square Garden - relatively intimate, I suppose. I wasn't sure what to expect, because there's been so much hype and everything. But they were actually quite fabulous.

From my perspective, it took a little while for the show to get warmed up. There were some good songs at the beginning, but the show really hit a good stride when they started playing "Wrapped around my finger" about half way in, and then it was really amazing for pretty much the rest of the time.

Some of the updates they've made to the songs were a little disconcerting, I have to admit. "Don't stand so close to me" (traditionally one of my favorites) was a little too... upbeat and poppy. It should be a more angsty and tormented song, I think.

The second show I saw was at Giants Stadium. This was the last show in the first U.S. leg of the world tour. I went a second time so that I could see the show with some friends who weren't able to get tickets to the MSG show, but I'm glad I did. I think the setlist was the same, but the stage was bigger, with more lights and screens and everything. They filled the stadium just as well as they filled the Garden, I think.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Beastie Boys

Tonight I saw the Beastie Boys at Summerstage in Central Park. Totally amazing. It was definitely worth braving the heat to see these guys do such a small, intimate show in their home town.
Last time I saw them was at Madison Square Garden, the show that was made into the movie Awesome... I fuckin' shot that! It was an epic show, of course, with lots of costume changes, smoke machines, and hours of great music. But this was so much better. For one thing, they were right there! I could actually see them without the aide of projections on a screen. They also seemed a lot more relaxed and they were talking, joking, having fun along with the crowd.

And they played a lot of classic stuff. Some newer songs, and some really, really old ones. I love the fact that three white rap stars in their early 40s would be up on stage playing punk songs they wrote when they were kids. How incredible is that? If there are people doing that, it makes me feel alright about getting older.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Opps

I've been totally neglecting this blog. It's not because I have nothing to say, and it's not because I'm too busy to jot down a couple words about the things I've been doing in the past few weeks. It's because I haven't had time to post all my photos from my recent cross-country road trip, and the weekend I spent at the San Diego Comic-con.

So, I was waiting to finish that before I write about the things I've done since. But I decided that's silly, so I'm going to stop doing that. I'll come back to those things when the photos are posted. It's not like I'm going to forget about them!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Top 10 Movies: 2006

Oh, I just noticed that I posted my top 10 (plus) movies from the 5 previous years, but I forgot to post my favorite films from 2006. So, here they are:
  • Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
  • Clean
  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • The Departed
  • Stranger Than Fiction
  • Casino Royale
  • Little Miss Sunshine
  • Marie Antoinette
  • Brick
  • The Queen

Plus a few that deserve honorable mention:

  • Half Nelson
  • Notes on a Scandal
  • Last King of Scotland
  • Children of Men

Man - it seems like I saw those films sooooo long ago!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Accents

I love this site: The Speech Accents Archive

You can listen to people from all over the world read the same paragraph in English, and here what different accents sound like. It's such a simple concept for a site, but so very engaging - it's hard to tear myself away from it!

The Routine

My friend Matt created a video showing his comedy routine. He seamlessly edited together bits of jokes from different performances, and it's kinda hilarious to see how it does or doesn't diverge from one night to the next. Check out Matt Parker's Routine on YouTube.