Just Plain Chips

I’m heading to Austin today to see my wonderful girlfriend. I’ll be there through Monday, so it will be a nice long weekend in the Texas heat.

I went to see Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie last night. I must say that it was a disappointment.

I used to like Garfield the comic strip. Back before I was a teenager. Somehow, somewhere along the line though, it started getting less and less funny. Today I found a link to a Garfield comic strip randomizer. It takes 3 cels from Garfield strips and puts them together as one. I find most of the results funnier than normal Garfield comics and some of them seem to have some sort of zen-like quality. Go have some mindless fun.

I hope to get a couple slightly more detailed posts up about the weekend, it was a fun one. I thought I’d try to get this one up right away. The second party of my Saturday night was Linzy’s graduation party. As are all parties at the Eck house, it was very fun. The main activity of the evening this time didn’t revolved around a drinking game though. It was a video game called Guitar Hero. Basically instead of a normal controller you have a guitar in your hands. You strum in time with the music while pressing the correct button on the fret board. It by no means represents anything close to real guitar playing, but it is the best air guitar simulator ever invented. And if you’re like me, it’s easy to get into it. There were some great songs to play, the controls were intuitive, and you basically transformed into a total rock star.

I took a few pictures from the night. But they were all pretty crappy. And the couple that were passable wouldn’t add anything to the pictures I’m going to send you to. Steve was kind enough to send me a couple pictures of me playing.

The first is of me playing Felicia. Early in the evening I won a battle against her and got a little cocky. And then a little later she rolled off about 7 wins in a row in which I believe I lost twice. It was an impressive streak to be sure.

And now, if you enjoy seeing Brenden embarrassing himself a bit (which people seem to enjoy on a regular basis for some reason) you’ll really like this picture. Remember how I said you can really get into the game. This next picture is proof. I wasn’t Brenden Johnson: mild-mannered cabinet maker anymore. I was Brenden Johnson: Legend of Rock and Roll. As Steve says, you really don’t get the full effect of the insaneness if you can’t see my face. So click on the picture for a closer look.

That picture is the first in a series of 5 taken while Tony and I battled. You should go look at the rest and other pictures from the night at Steve’s post here. The pictures are a bigger size over there as well, so they’ll give you an even better look at the action.

Anyway, it was a really fun night.

I’m not going to give a huge review, as it is late, and I am tired. But Andy, his friend Gina (?), and I saw King Kong tonight. It was extremely fun. The movie clocks in at just over 3 hours (Does Peter Jackson know how to make a short movie?) but doesn’t feel that long. There were a couple slower points that actually felt slow. But overall the pace of the movie was excellent from beginning to end. The acting wasn’t really anything to write home about, but enough for a small mention on a little-read blog. The action was great with tons of different situations. Lots of great fights and surprising tactics used by the big ape himself. I would highly recommend any fan of action movies go see it.

But. And this is a big but. This movie had the single most disturbing scene, which included the single most disturbing action, I’ve ever seen in any movie.

I’ve seen the radioactive waste corroded dude get smashed to bits by the car near the end of Robocop. I’ve seen my share of cheesy sci-fi and even a few horror flicks with exploding bodies and what not. I’ve watched Jackass: The Movie. Though I guess I do tend to stay away from the movies in which the main point is to try and gross out or disturb the audience.

Back to the matter at hand. I have never in my entire life turned away or shielded my eyes from a movie screen. Until tonight. The whole audience was squirming and “eww!”-ing along with me. Let’s just say if you have a problem with creepy crawly things, you’ll go through the same feelings I did. Yeesh!

But even with that I still have to strongly recommend the movie.

Okay, I need to do a little catching up here.

Last Friday night I went out with a few friends to a concert at the Cedar Cultural Center. We saw Andrew Bird play. I was to meet my friend Suzanne, her boyfriend Jim, and her friend Kaari at the Center at about 8:30. Of course, being who I am, I got there a little early. I drove around and found a parking spot and just listened to music in my car for a while. Then I got a call from Suzanne saying that they hadn’t left and asking for directions. So I sat in my car for a little longer listening to music.

Suzanne called back in a while asking for more specific directions and I unfortunately couldn’t help them out much. I waited a bit and then started walking towards the Center to just wait for them. When I got to Cedar Avenue I crossed in front of a car and I looked in and saw a girl and a guy. The guy looked vaguely familiar and for some reason I felt a connection to the car. When I got to the curb the girl driving the car honked at me. I looked over and I heard my name being called. I looked to the back seat window and there was Suzanne’s face leaning out. I walked over and hopped in. I said hi to everyone and we took off looking for a parking spot. After driving around for 10 minutes we ended up parking directly across the street from my car.

We all walked to the Center and picked up our tickets from willcall. Just as we walked back they got done setting up for Andrew Bird, so we timed it perfectly. The place was packed, it was a sold out show, so we hung at one of the back walls for support. Then Andrew came on and I was blown away.

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If you are very observant you may have noticed a couple of changes over in my “Books I’m Reading” and “Books that are Next” lists. Both Ringworld and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have disappeared from the lists. I finished the first and read the other this weekend.

Ringworld came somewhat recommended from Steve, but not what I would say highly recommended. He said it was good, but didn’t seem all that jacked about it. I enjoyed reading the book, and am glad I did, but I can’t say I liked it a ton. I still measure my science fiction by Isaac Asimov’s epic Robot/Empire/Foundation series, which many people don’t like that much, but which I thouroughly enjoyed.

I must say that I really enjoyed the science fiction part of of Ringworld. The concept of the ringworld was very interesting and well thought out. My problem with the book basically lies with the characters. Larry Niven just never seemed to be able to get me to care about the characters that much. I found myself rolling my eyes at their actions and decisions from time to time. They never really seemed to acheive a real depth and seemed a little cardboard to me.

The latest Harry Potter I enjoyed very much. The main thing I feel about the Half-Blood Prince is the main thing I have felt about the rest of the Harry Potter series: very easy to read (I started it Saturday night and finished it Monday night) and yet very entertaining. The plot is thickening, and there were a couple of huge twists and turns in the plot. A couple of things that were very surprising and a couple of things that you always wondered about but weren’t sure until this book. The world gets fleshed out a bit more and more. The characters grow up another year realistically. And much to my relief, Harry was much less whiny and annoying in this book than the last; I enjoyed that quite a bit more.

I’m convinced that there is one main plot device that seems to be used to create the conflict in nearly anything I read or watch. Miscommunication. Either someone lies/streches the truth to someone, or someone misunderstands what someone else is saying, or someone doesn’t tell someone something–usually because of embarrassment, or to not bother the person, or a host of other stupid reasons. But in this series especially, if the good guys would just be open and honest with everyone else, most of the bad things that happen wouldn’t happen. Of course, that wouldn’t make for very interesting reading, but it just seems too obvious some times.

All in all a good weekend for reading. I did start my next book last night. I started Chainfire by Terry Goodkind. It is the 9th book in a fantasy series I’ve been reading since 1994. I reread the last few chapters of the 8th book, Naked Empire before starting to refresh my memory a bit. When books in a series come out years apart, one tends to forget exactly what’s going on.

What a slow weekend. I did way too little. But it was relaxing.

I watched a couple of movies I had already seen on Friday night and enjoyed them again. Then on Saturday I settled in to watch some college football. During the half time of the Bowling Green/Wisconsin game I ran out to do some errands. From the moment I left the driveway it started raining and didn’t stop for most of the rest of the day. I felt that vindicated my desire to watch football.

Then yesterday I did some reading. I finished Ringworld and started the latest Harry Potter. Last night I went to see “The Constant Gardener” with Chey. It was quite good, if slightly depressing. The only problem was that I whined about going all the way across town to the theater she usually goes to. So we met at the Southdale theater, which was completely packed. I got there uncharacteristically late and we sat way in front and to the side. It wasn’t like we couldn’t watch the movie in relative comfort, it just wasn’t idea.

Then today I met my friend Kari and her husband Steve (who were in town from Madison) for lunch. First they were out at the house and showed us pictures from the crazy 6 week trip around the world they took this summer. We went to lunch at Pizzaria Unos. It was quite good. Then after I went swimming over at Matt’s, it was a perfect day for that.

Now I’m just chilling out. Hazzah!

I’ve had a few good days in a row here.

Last night I had two choices as to what I could do. The first choice involved heading to Lakeville with my bike to go on a long ride with Steve and a friend that would have been fun, refreshing, good for my fitness, but left me very sore for my 14 hour drive to Montana tomorrow. My second choice involved going out to dinner with two hot ladies.

Sorry Steve.

So I met my friend Erin at Espresso Royale in Dinkytown on campus at the U. We’ve managed to see each other maybe a couple times a year since we graduated from college. Though it’s been difficult as I’ve been in Bozeman and she’s been all over the place. We chatted for a bit while waiting for Chey to get there from St. Paul. She eventually showed up and we headed over to a Chinese restuarant called Shuang Cheng. I had never been there before. We ordered cream cheese wontons, sesame chicken, and a noodle dish with beef and vegetables and shared them between us. The wontons and chicken were excellent, while the noodles and beef were a little disappointing. But there was plenty of food and we were all full and satisfied after eating.

After dinner we all went on a walk through a bit of campus. We headed to Northrup Mall and then through the recently renovated Coffman Union,down to the Mississippi River, and then back to Dinkytown. A very nice night indeed.

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Chey and I went to see War of the Worlds on Sunday night.

The short review was that I liked it even with it’s shortcomings.

There were a number of funny moments, mostly Dakota Fanning acting wiser than her years let on. In many scenes she was the best actor on the screen. To Chey the funniest moment involved Tom Cruise crying at something horrible that happened to him or his family. (She doesn’t like him all that much.) I’m not the biggest Tom Cruise fan either, but I didn’t laugh at his pain. I did laugh at Chey laughing at his pain though, I can’t lie.

I don’t know, what can I say? I would recommend it as an entertaining and edge-of-your-seat type movie. But it’s not my favorite movie, or even my favorite of this year.

For nitpicky-ness that involves spoilers, please click the following link…
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I went along with Chey to a movie she wanted to see at the Lagoon Cinema. The movie was Yes. It is an independent, artsy type film. It is the story of a woman in a cold marriage having an affair with an exiled Lebanese man in England. Chey was thinking that the movie would be a little steamier than your normal fare and interesting. She was way, way, way off on both accounts.

First, it was pouring out. Luckily I had changed my head light since the last time we had seen a movie on a rainy night and I could see alright. We pulled into the parking lot at pretty much the exact same time, I parked right next to her, and we ran over to the theater. Being the gentleman that I am I had no umbrella for her to use. The partially transparent, white top she was wearing was not what one would normally consider “ideal” for the situation. There was a huge line outside the theater, which we got into. After only a couple of minutes of standing around we figured out that it was a line for another movie. We skipped by it, got our tickets, and headed to the theater. Phew!

And then we sat down to watch. Yikes. Chey will readily admit that she missed the ball on this one. She said that she usually picks out good ones, but not this time. It was pretty painful at times. At the beginning we were trying to figure out what was strange about the way everyone was speaking. It just all seemed so high-brow and unnatural. I started to notice a few rhymes every once in a while and a certain rhythm to the way they were speaking. After a while, it had become clear; they were all speaking in rhyming iambic pentameter.

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If you like Star Wars, and like funny, and have a few spare minutes, you should read this. Someone “re-wrote” the script to Episode III. He puts all of the thoughts that fans have about the plot holes and bad acting into the characters mouths. I enjoyed it.

Two months from today is a special day. My 29th (gasp!) birthday. As such the 4th annual BBBBB will be going on. This will be the first year it will occur in Minnesota and I’m hoping for just as rousing a good time as the craziness in Montana. But it will be hard to live up to.

I’ve found that at my age you pretty much have to make your birthday a big deal if you want to have your birthday be a big deal. So everyone is invited. I know it’s a Sunday night, but that’s what night I’ll be going out on. The details are sketchy at this point but I’m guessing that there will be beer and bowling involved.

You definitely don’t want to go through life having low expectations about everything. That would be a pretty pessimistic way to live. Not to mention a little boring. But sometimes expectations can help you to enjoy life a little more.

I benefitted from low expectations twice this weekend. First, on Saturday night and my reunion. Even though the same thing happened at my 5 year reunion, I was not expecting a great time, but I had one. And then last night Chey and I saw Wedding Crashers.

I have to admit that I went with at least a little bit of trepidation. The trailers, even the ones I starred in just didn’t make me want to rush out and see the movie. But cute girls have a way of getting me to go do stuff I maybe wouldn’t on my own. (For example, in 9th grade, for my first date ever, I was going to go to a movie with Tina. And being the gentleman I was I let her pick out the movie. Well, she picked Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I tried not to let it through the phone, but my disappointment and dread were palpable in the room. But I went–hey, there was going to be a cute girl there who wanted to sit next to me. So I went and I liked the movie and had a great time. And I still enjoy that movie.) Anyway, back to the present. I went in with pretty low expectations and came out thoroughly entertained. The movie was pretty darn hilarious. There were many “wrong” parts, and it’s not necessarily a movie you’d want to take your parents to.

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I started watching Shaun of the Dead this past weekend and got about one hour in before I had to turn it off and go somewhere. I just finished it tonight. I’m not much of a horror fan, and I really haven’t seen any zombie flicks either. But this particular movie had a kind of buzz about it and everyone who had seen it recommended it to me.

Oh, and there was someone at CONvergence in a Shaun costume, cricket bat and all. So that’s gotta be a good sign, right?

I popped it in with really no expectations at all. Within a few seconds I realized that it had been made in the UK. That was a good sign. I’m a big fan of British humor, and what American doesn’t like British accents?

Even though I haven’t seen a lot of the classic zombie movies, like Dawn of the Dead, Army of Darkness (Hail to the king, baby.), or even Dawn of the Dead.

(Actually, I did start watching Army of Darkness once. It was with a girlfriend in high school. But the tape we had rented was bad and we were only able to watch the first little bit. This is the same girlfriend that I started to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas with but never finished because she was in so much discomfort from getting her wisdom teeth out. I still haven’t seen that movie either.)

Anyway, I hadn’t seen any of the classics, but I had read enough to know some of the cliches and such. There were many tributes to the classics in Shaun of the Dead. And I liked all of the characters, even the annoying ones. Shaun was excellent and pretty cool. All of the main characters worked well together, they all seemed to have good chemistry. Even the “bad” relationships were good, they seemed to be genuinely bad instead of just forced acting. (see Star Wars Episodes II and III love interest sub-plot)

So there was a nice, light, British humor through the whole film. Enough tension so that you didn’t know who was going to make it. A disbowlment. And plenty of lumbering zombies lusting for brains. All in all an entertaining movie.

As I walked back into the shop for break today what song should be on the radio? “Boys and Girls” by Blur. I thought that was quite a coincidence.

Chorus:

Girls who are boys
Who like boys to be girls
Who do boys like they’re girls
Who do girls like they’re boys
Always should be someone you really love

Because I copy everything Steve does I had to make my own Wedding Crashers trailer, staring myself and my Hollywood brother Brian.

It’s a pretty ingenious web app if you ask me. And it puts out some entertaining videos.

I did actually see the movie and liked it, read my short review here.

I posted about the Gorillaz single “Feel Good Inc” the other day. I did a little looking into the Gorillaz and found that it is a “virtual band” put together by Jamie Hewlett, the creator of the Tank Girl comic, and Damon Albarn, who was the lead singer of Blur.

Blur was a Britpop band that never really made it big in the US except for two singles that only did okay: “Boys and Girls” and “Song 2″. What is interesting is that they had a big rivalry with Oasis which they had the upper hand on a number of times, but Oasis made it big in the US while Blur never amounted to anything over here. You may remember Oasis’s album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” or the fun arguments between bandmate brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher.

I remember hearing Blur’s “Song 2″ in the computer video game FIFA 98: Road to the World Cup (which also introduced me to The Crystal Method). A buddy of mine at the U, Matt Suchomel, was a big Blur fan and let me listen to one of Blur’s albums, “Parklife”, which had hit #1 in the UK. I thought the album was quite good and ended up buying a copy of my own. I still own it and still enjoy listening to it. It is one of those albums where I like nearly every song.

This was my junior year of school and I lived with a member of the swimming team. This basically meant that I was friends with what seemed like half of the swimming team, both the guys and girls. I know it probably wasn’t that many but Gary and I had his team members over all of the time. For a few of the ladies a popular entertainment was listening to me sing “Boys and Girls” in my best British accent. They’d ask me to sing it all of the time, either I’d be singing it or we’d have the album playing on the stereo. My buddy Matt often wondered aloud “Where were these kinds of fans when the album was released and later when they were crushed by Oasis?”. Alas for fans of Blur.

So that’s one of my random memories from college. Singing Blur songs to a bunch of female collegiate swimmers.

On Friday night Chey and I drove to the Italian Pie Shop in St. Paul. It seemed familiar, but I can’t remember if I had ever been there. There was a dude playing the keyboard all evening, which was nice for the ambiance. The deep dish pizza was excellent, if I do say. Every part was simply wonderful, the meat, the sauce, the cheese, and the crust. Much better than the frozen pizza I had for lunch Saturday afternoon.

We left in a hurry because we had a 9pm showing of Batman Begins to get to at the IMAX theater near the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley. Or so I thought. We bought the tickets in a rush and ran over to the door…where no one was in line and no one was taking tickets. Confused workers walked over and asked “Are you here for the 9:40 show?” I looked down at my ticket to see the awful truth–Time: 21:40. NOOOOO! We had left a piece of pizza at the restaurant for nothing. (these are the kind of crazy food-dominated thoughts that pass through my mind) Not to mention that I was a little embarrassed. Well, there was nothing to do but wander around a bit for the next 20-30 minutes and then we came back for the movie.

I had seen it already but was looking forward to another showing. The IMAX theater boasts a beautiful screen and projector and powerful sound system. All of which brought together a fantastic presentation, except in one key area: fast action. Fast action happens to be one of the cornerstones of the “action film” genre. There were many times where the projection system just couldn’t keep up with the fast paced fighting in the film. I still enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but I have to recommend seeing this film at a normal theater. Maybe the IMAX will be better suited to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when it comes out.

Oh, and another thing. The popcorn was not very good at all. Both of us are big popcorn fans, but even together we didn’t finish a medium size. And don’t think it was because of the 3 pieces of delicious deep dish pizza I had had earlier, I can usually find room for good popcorn. It just so happened that we were snacking on sub-par popcorn.

It was then a short drive back to St. Paul to drop Chey off and I was home not too long after that; it’s about a 45 minute drive after all.

I don’t know how many iPod commercials there are…oops, I didn’t until 5 seconds ago when I found the ad page on apple.com. There are two of them.

The one I liked the most was “Rollerskating”. Until yesterday I had always wondered what song was playing in the commercial as I thought it was cool. (of course had I searched for the Apple page I just came across I could have found out much earlier) The song happens to be Feel Good Inc by the Gorillaz. One of my friends had the album going in his car yesterday and I’ve had the song in my head pretty much ever since. It’s got an awesome bass line and some groovy beats. The video is also quite cool. I can’t vouch for the rest of the album, but that song is awesome.

Steve and a group of his friends have gone to a Science Fiction convention called CONvergence for the last 4 years. Steve has always had great stories about the fun they have but I’ve never gone. Steve’s wife, Linzy, was going to go this weekend but just had back surgery so couldn’t go. Since they had already bought her ticket and couldn’t use it Steve invited me along. The con went all weekend but I just went Saturday.

For those of you not in the know (like me) there’s tons of stuff going on at conventions like this. There are panels where people talk about stuff related to SciFi or Fantasy or Comics or whatever. Movies, both live action and anime, were being shown all weekend. They had a huge costume contest which we didn’t go to because it is always so crowded. But as I understand it the costumes and groups of costumes are quite impressive. After the costume contest, which is called the Masquerade, they had a dance, aptly title the Masquerade Ball.

Every year groups sponsor themed party rooms which people pretty much walk in and out of all night. The top floor of the hotel (the Bloomington Sheraton on 100 and 494) had a bunch of rooms reserved for gaming of different sorts. And tons of people dress up in costumes and are just walking around like everyone else.

I got off of 100 and gave Steve a call letting him know that I’d soon be there. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes later I was finally walking into the lobby just as Steve dialed my number. The Sheraton has a big parking lot and every single spot was taken. I had to park across the street in a restaurant’s big, empty parking lot.
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