dgirl1: i got super sick from fucking Cyclo
optic: how sic
optic: k
dgirl1: like felt totally unwell after eating and got home about an hour plus later, threw up and went to bed from 4:15 until 6:30 and finally got out at about 8
dgirl1: i feel ok now just drank a ton of water and ate an orange
optic: ugh
dgirl1: the basil looked old and the spring rolls were totally dry and kinda gross so i didn't finish
dgirl1: and they brought no water to anyone and the broth was extra salty - all in all - thumbs down
optic: weak
dgirl1: yeah you can quote me
optic: someone said they use a lot of msg
dgirl1: that may be why i felt like i was high in the door store combined with 2 hours at the gym

Synchronizing metronomes (cooler than it sounds)

Another pretty good night of fencing. I tried different shoes for footwork (my old gray new balance gym shoes, which are basically running shoes) and they were awful. I think I'll try some fencing shoes, or something similar like squash shoes. In footwork, we practiced some moves based on taking a half step as a feint, then backing off (or attacking). You do a little head-fake or maybe an extend with the half step forward to make it convincing. I'm trying to use the half-step (in either direction) to mess with distance and open an attack.

I forget who all my bouts were against, but one was against Alec, who killed me last time we fenced. He's a big imposing guy, and he would chase me down the strip, daring me to try and take his blade, then he'd disengage and hit me. This time, I used my newfound lessons (and confidence) and would back up, then at the right moment tap his blade to take right-of-way and attack, or step in and take his blade. a few times I just counterattacked and managed to land. He still got more of those points than I did (and won our bout 5-3), but I forced him to rethink his attack. Then I fenced Laren, who destroyed me, though I had a few good moments.

Planet B-boy was awesome. Maybe not a great film or whatever, but A and I saw it this week and could not stop grinning and toe-tapping the whole way through. I basically cannot think of anyone I know I wouldn't recommend this to, so just go see it -- especially since it might go away soon (it's still playing at the Varsity here in Seattle).

It follows five crews going to the annual breakdancing battle of the year in Germany -- one American, one French, one Japanese, and two Korean (one the defending champs from the previous year). We see each team training, here some about their personal stories, and learn a bit about b-boying like the different national styles. But mostly we just see a lot of really good dancers doing awesome moves. at the battle of the year, each crew (18 from various countries, plus the defending champs) does a six-minute show, where they're judged on things like creativity, skill, and synchronization (and yes, there can be a fine line between b-boying and boy band moves). Then the top four teams are chosen and they battle -- dancers from each team alternating in showing off their moves and responding to each other.

If I have one complaint about the movie it's that they didn't let the dancing speak for itself as much as they could have. Both the shows and the battles were sliced up, edited, when they could have just let us see the entire flow. Like, it was hard sometimes to figure out what a battle was really like, and how the back-and-forth went. That's not to say that the background stories weren't worthwhile too; we really enjoyed seeing some of the parents, especially the skeptical ones who came around to being totally proud of their kids' b-boying.

here's some show videos, from the japanese team, ichigeki, korean team, last for one, and defending champs, gamblers.

So, I haven't really been writing about my new hobby (or old hobby -- I fenced foil and saber for a couple years when I was about 10-12 and took it up again this past october). But I think I'm going to start trying to post about it, mostly so I can track myself a bit.

Tonight was a good night, which was nice because last week was pretty bad; both nights last week my shins hurt too much for me to finish footwork, and I was pretty low-energy for my bouts. Monday I actually think I was dehydrated and had to stop before I passed out. Anyway, tonight we did a little tournament, to rank people for the men's foil team, but all men were invited to join in.
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We're looking for a QA person too. I have a job description if you're interested; it will probably be posted to our site soon, but isn't up yet. We're also looking for a PM and a couple of developers, one in text mining.

I've been collecting old drum machines lately. Like, hammonds, univoxes, and rhythm aces. I also picked up a quadraverb GT, like I used to have back in the day. Rhythm Ace Track.

I am now working at Kiha, as a "senior program manager".

By the way we're small but hiring a lot -- at the moment, two more developers, one PM, and at least one QA. See the site or get in touch if you're interested. I can't say much about what we're doing, but it involves mobile devices. And we're in pioneer square.

Somehow I managed to miss hearing about Renaissance (2006) until I came across it somewhere last week and immediately put it on top of my netflix queue. It's set in the Paris of 50 years in the future, animated, in a beautifully stark black/white (almost no gray) style. The story is the sort of futuristic noir you see in Bladerunner and that sort of thing. It's absolutely beautiful, and the imagined future Paris is terrific. Some of the details of the future are terrific too, though there are clear influences from Bladerunner (large speaking billboards, for example), the Matrix (some of the sound design, and one particular action scene), and other classics.

The story is good enough to carry you along, but not great in itself. I won't bother to tell you too much about it, and it's better if you watch the movie without learning too much more (check out the still images on the IMDB page though).

Oh, and by the way, Daniel Craig does one of the main voices in the english-language version (along with Catherine McCormack, Jonathon Pryce, and Ian Holm).

Now, no one denies that Tamarind Tree is really good, one of Seattle's better restaurants and hugely popular. But the question is: how does it compare to the pho joints? I have to say... not as well as you'd hope. I mean, the pho was fine, pretty good. But Tamarind Tree is something special, and I don't know what I was expecting from their pho, but it wasn't particularly memorable. Certainly, if it's pho I want I'll probably go somewhere else -- and when I'm at Tamarind Tree there's many other things to try.

I'm not sure if Pho Vietnam 2 (the sign has the 2, though citysearch just calls it Pho VIetnam) is related to Vietnam Restaurant, which I reviewed before. The pho tasted similar, if I remember right, the free cream puff was similar, and I think they had the same menu (the menu looked very familiar anyway, and I think it was at Vietnam that I saw it before). Anyway, my review for the other Vietnam applies: pretty good, flavorful broth. Everything else solid, nothing outstanding. I went with Cid, who got the veggie pho, and her broth was pretty tasty too -- flavorful, with a nice oniony flavor. Not that I've sampled much veggie pho.

Anyone know good movers in seattle?

We got the wall oven (a Dacor) as a floor model, and once we started putting it in, I realized we were missing a few screws that we needed for installation. Here is what I had to do to track down the screws, and why it's taken like three weeks (and I don't have them yet -- they still have to be special-ordered and shipped).

1. Call the appliance store. they recommend a couple of local parts stores.
2. Try one, they don't even carry Dacor parts.
3. Call Dacor, who gives me the number of Reliable Parts, who can sell me the parts.
4. Call Reliable, who tell me they have no idea what I'm talking about, but maybe if I could get a parts number from Dacor.
5. Email Dacor asking for the part numbers (and asking, can't you just send me the damn screws?).
6. Get a reply the next day, at 2:00 am (who does customer service at 2:00 am?) giving me numbers for Reliable and other parts suppliers.
7. Send another email explaining that I already tried that and need part numbers.
8. Get a response saying she can't find those parts but will contact the parts department for me.
9. Get another email three days later with the parts numbers.
10. Search for the parts at Reliable's web site; not found.
11. Email Reliable to ask about the parts.
12. Get back an email saying yes they have them, you can buy them on the web site or by phone.
13. Try the web site again for fun; not found.
14. Call Reliable. Wait while they try to figure out why they're not on the web site. Finally get them to take the order by phone.
15. Now, I wait for the delivery and hope it's the right screws.

Multiply this by the million other things you also need for any remodel, and you'll see why the bulk of the remodeling time is spent not doing big important things like putting in floors and cabinets, but looking up things on the internet, calling people, and going to home depot repeatedly.

Mr. Show's pre-taped call-in show is simply the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I've watched it about six times in the last 24 hours and it just seems to get funnier every time. I found it on this so-so list of 50 greatest comedy sketches ever -- an entertaining list to work your way through, but it included way too many things that weren't actually that funny and was missing some obvious choices (perhaps because they weren't on youtube). I did end up watching some more Mr. Show and David Cross stuff on youtube. Here's one sequence especially for E and anyone else with strong feelings about condiments: 1, 2, 3. And here's some random David Cross talking about heaven and breakfast.

I've been meaning to see The Naked City (famous line: "there are eight million stories in the naked city") for a while, but Jules Dassin's recent death inspired me to seek out some of his movies. The great thing about this movie is its realism -- it's all filmed, as they say, on the streets and in the apartments and offices of new york city. And the story itself is fairly realistic, the police investigation of a murder that involves theft, lies, and various petty crimes. The investigation itself ranges from exciting to plodding and repetitive just like, as they say, real police work. And there aren't any crazy explosions or car chases or kung fu fight scenes.

All that was good. What I did not like, at all, was the incredibly superfluous and cheesy voiceover narration (or, in the same vein, the producer's voiceover introduction where he explains that the movie you're about to see is unlike any other! filmed on location!). It was embarassing to listen to, and made a point of spelling out things that were completely obvious from the action. What's more, it was sort of cheesy and jokey and condescending to the characters in a way that completely broke the realist illusion that the movie otherwise works so hard to achieve (and mostly succeeds at). I read somewhere that the narration was their solution to the fact that recording technology still wasn't good enough for a lot of on-site work; that's fine, but really, you could have done it without the narration at all (or with much less anyway, and more to-the-point, less jokey). We can tell what's going on just by watching sometimes.

So, not a bad movie. I feel bad that Jules Dassin is coming off bad this week in my reviews. So I'll just reiterate here what I told E: forget these and just watch Rififi, which is brilliant. At least Dassin had figured out by this time that silence can work: the central heist scene is 30+ minutes long, with zero dialogue and not much noise.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was what I usually call a perfect little movie. It was not (and wasn't meant to be) especially deep or profound, but was a pitch-perfect execution of what it was trying to be: some fun, some romance, and a good time. The sets and clothes (for glamorous nightlife in prewar London) were beautiful, and just about all the performances were great. Frances McDormand was perfect as Miss Pettigrew, and Shirley Henderson was terrific as the manipulative fashion designer Edythe. Ciaran Hinds has been a favorite of mine since Persuasion and here he's another understated but ultimately wonderful male character. The movie had enough touching romantic moments and hints of tragedy (the looming war) to give it some depth, but was overall just a good time in every way.

Hell, let's make it a trilogy: an article on several different approaches to "scientific" matchmaking, which is just sort of interesting to read.

And as long as we're reading dubious articles about love and sex, how about this one claiming that women really just aren't as interested in sex as men. I think it really fundamentally just isn't that true, but I think she does say some true things, for example about the way that we've developed an idea of the "empowered sexual woman" that may have more to do with men's porn than women's reality.

I'm not sure what I think about this column arguing that women should be more willing to settle for pretty-good men, but it was an interesting read.