Made me laugh
I asked Alexander – who actually co-owns the Villa Caffe & Imbibery on Market Street with Robyn Murphy – what the dinner special was for the night. He replied spaghetti, which was thrilling news. After he submitted the order to Murphy in the back kitchen, he reappeared to explain he was in big trouble. Apparently, earlier in the day when Alexander asked her what was for dinner, “spaghetti” was actually THEIR dinner they would eventually enjoy upstairs in their residence. “Oh, I’m in big trouble. She’s quickly making you spaghetti. It will be out a few minutes,” he explained. via Read more…
When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques
via amazon.com The World Trade Center, PLU, and City Club sponsored a lecture by Martin Jacques this morning. We were at the beautiful MOG theater and had a good-size crowd there. And the talk was fascinating. My first instinct when I heard the topic was “Isn’t that what everyone said about Japan 20 years ago?” But Jacques argument was rooted not in economic GDP data but history and other data that was fairly convincing. He touched on many themes including history, ethnicity, belief in the state, and others to suggest that as China modernizes they will not follow our model Read more…
Why call when you can telegraph your love?
via youtube.com I can’t believe this is becoming a trend. But I’m having a great time finding these old videos of pop songs you never hear any more. The songs are great. And the videos crack me up.
“Iron Man 2” was pretty good …
I enjoyed it, generally, but it didn’t have the freshness and greatness of the first Iron Man, I thought. It has triggered a lot of writing on the blogs I read. I thought one of the most interesting was from Ross Douthat at the New York Times, who is… “… wondering why we couldn’t have a movie about a Tony Stark-like figure — say, a screwball comedy about a billionaire’s romance with his omnicompetent assistant, which is basically the best thing about the “Iron Man” franchise anyway — in which he isn’t a superhero at all. And from there, it’s an even shorter leap Read more…
A great weekend in Tacoma!
(Of course, the weekend got started with Friday night's show at the Rialto, which was a pretty good start!) After that, Mary and I got out and enjoyed the sun this weekend. Saturday we walked from our place to UPS to check out the bike swap. We didn't buy but we're still thinking about it. We then went down to Fern Hill Park for the dedication of new playground equipment that the local kids got to pick (tell me that's not a great job if you're a kid). And then to Garfield Street, where we ran into LollaPLUooza and had Read more…
Verizon Asks to End White Pages for All in N.Y. – NYTimes.com
Verizon, the dominant local phone company in the state, asked regulators on Friday to allow it to end the annual delivery of millions of White Pages to all of its customers in New York. The company estimates that it would save nearly 5,000 tons of paper by ending the automatic distribution of the books. Only about one of every nine households uses the hard-copy listings anymore, according to Verizon, which cited a 2008 Gallup survey. Most have switched to looking up numbers online or calling directory assistance. The phone book for many people, it seems, has gone from indispensable tool Read more…
Our film “The Genie of Tacoma” is now live on YouTube …
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upCYs-pnW8?wmode=transparent] We took an honorable mention at the Festival. The requirements for the film include: a map something breaking the line of dialog "Should I know what that means?" and in the first minute, someone has to find a bag that contains something important to the film So much thanks to all the people who made it possible. They're listed at the end, but I especially want to thank Russ Heaton at Doyles, who provided us a key costume, and our awesome guest star, whose identity I won't spoil for you here.
^