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627 days ago
Wedding season is upon us! Dana's showers happened last and this weekend, and the Year of the Wedding "officially" commences next week with Justin and Maggie's wedding in Bellevue (warning: turn down your volume if you go there, no one taught Justin that web site music is annoying ;)). 3 weeks later, Dana and I head to PA for Tim and Bridget's wedding. then a month later we get hitched ourselves! After a honeymoon in Tahiti (beaches!), New Zealand (adventure!), and the Cook Islands (beaches!), we cap of our journeys in the best destination yet -- New Jersey (...highways?)! Luckily, it's for yet another wedding -- my brother Shawn and his fiancee Aly. Then we get a "break" until August, when Dana's brother Eric and his fiancee Sarah tie the knot. After that, we have a longer respite until the new year unless someone pulls an impromptu Vegas wedding and for some reason invites people. And the best part is, despite buying a tux a couple of years ago for ...
773 days ago
For anyone who has ever drafted him, you'll know the pain. Michael Clayton is the new George Clooney lawyer "suspense" movie. While it has some interesting dialogue, I thought it was boring and drawn out. My main complaints were: Despite the smattering of interesting lines, even it gets a bit indulgent. The film lingers on the various diatribes of its characters a bit too much, and they bypass clever on their way to being longwinded and repetitive. Where Bourne Ultimatum overused the gimmick of manic camera shakiness (much to Marc's chagrin), Michael Clayton latches on to a more sedate convention that made me roll my eyes at just about every scene. At every scene change, you're subjected to at least 20 seconds of useless "scene setting." I understand the need for this in general, but when you get stuff like a company investor video being repeated at least 5 times, or a phone ringing in the dark for 20 seconds, it just gets annoying. This ...
788 days ago
Dana has been on me for a while to get rid of my old Subaru. Since she recently got a full time job at MS, this is much easier to do financially, so we started looking at a few cars more seriously. It was a close race between the Lexus IS and the Ford Escape Hybrid. The Lexus was fun and comfy (in the front anyway), and spoke to our desire for a "fun" car. Plus, the turning radius made me dizzy (which was good, I guess :)). The Escape was roomy, which was good for me coming from a wagon, and the ride was nice and quiet. In the end, we went for the Escape due to it's utility (it can carry our new bikes), gas mileage (35 mpg right now!) and price (8K less than the Lexus, plus a tax credit this year). The only annoying thing is that the hybrids are in such high demand right now that the dealerships won't do much negotiation (not even negotiating up for my trade in). They offered $800 for my car, and currently we have a good amount of interest in the 3000-4000 price ...
799 days ago
While I'm in blogging mode...I finally installed Viata at home, along with some Live apps (including Windows Live Writer, which I'm using right now to write this entry...it's slightly better than posting in IE). Overall Vista is treating me well. I like the sidebar, app hangs are a little less crippling (or feel less so anyway). I did add some new hardware to my comp, which is causing me to crash every 4 hours or so. I suspect the video card (which is old, but may not be playing well with either the new motherboard or Vista). I also set up a Windows Home Server. It's basically a storage and automatic backup machine with really easy usability, so even intermediate computer people can use it. We used Dana's old PC for it, with some cheap hardware upgrades, so it was a good value too. Finally Dana and I will be able to merge our photos in one place!
799 days ago
At last I break my blogging slumber. I was hibernating for summer (or so it seemed), but Arty called me yesterday with news that shook me to my very core. I had a voicemail from him when I left work saying: "Josh, I was reading MSNBC today when I saw the news. Who knows if they'll finish the series now." What!? What series could you mean? I thought about TV series for a minute, and then it dawned on me that there is one old man holding the key to a series that is near and dear to my heart. I searched frantically on my phone as I drove home for news, and finally happened upon the Wikipedia article for Robert Jordan. "This article is about a recently deceased individual." BLOOD AND BLOODY ASHES! My demeanor is calm, my face practically carved from stone, but inside I struggle with anger as if it's the tainted male half of the Source. I'm sure somewhere there's a woman folding her arms beneath her breasts, and tugging her braid (if she has one). ...
