If you’re in Seattle in the next week, you really owe it to yourself to see Planey B-Boy, a great documentary about an international breakdancing competition (it’s playing at the Varsity). Not only is the dancing unbelievable, but it’s a very-well put together movie – not too much sappiness, but still retains some humanity, and it has some excellent characters. Keep an eye out for the breakdancing grandma! (And it looks like the film is playing in other cities, too – definitely worth a viewing.)
The breakdancing grandma reminds me of a story from college. I had called my grandmother to say ‘hi’, and we were chatting about what she’d been up to lately. Mind you, at this point she was an eighty-something year-old, 5 foot tall woman living on her own in Manhattan. She said she’d been to the movies, and really like a film with “this man, and his dancing.” She said “it was a little violent for my taste, but really funny.” After a bunch more questions, I finally figured out that she’d gone (all alone) to see Rumble in the Bronx – way to go, grandma!
posted April 26, 2008 – 10:46 am
Well, my email is back up, but my distaste for Cedant’s services remains. Drew suggested I might wait ’til he switched over to a new server/host and then buy some space off him there – I think I can hold out another couple months, and we’ll go from there.
posted April 22, 2008 – 5:07 pm
I just spent 15 minutes on hold trying to reach Cedant, my web & email hosting service, only to find out that indeed, their whole email system has been down for 36 hours and won’t be back up ’til tomorrow. But they couldn’t have been bothered to let people know or put up a notice on their website, nor do they have plans to reimburse any money, in spite of their 99.9% uptime guarantee. And they expect to keep customers? So if you’ve sent me email lately and I haven’t responded, that’s why.
posted April 20, 2008 – 3:58 pm
I had a good enough trip down to San Diego last weekend for One Love, One Beach, but in retrospect, I could’ve used a weekend at home. When I bought tickets, I had no idea when I’d be in China, and having only a week in Seattle before leaving again might not have been the best plan. And the tournament was alright, but it could have been better. I much prefer 5-on-5 beach ultimate to the 4-on-4. And the seeding for OLOB wasn’t done particularly well, so we had a ton of tough games Saturday, then rolled through the C-pool on Sunday. Although I did get some tasty fish tacos and a brief visit to the Salk Institute, I enjoyed my LeiOut experience a lot more, and will probably skip San Diego next year.
I can’t remember which blog I saw this on (Make: Blog? Core77?), but there’s a great (if short) video of a few Arthur Ganson sculptures up at the Nova site – check it out here. Always happy to see more of those amazing machines!
I’ve been postponing putting up photos from China ’til I can address my website image gallery issues (as previously discussed here). I’m getting close to writing my own lightweight PHP image gallery manager, putting up some awesome old “under construction” animated GIF up and revamping things. Keep an eye out.
posted April 14, 2008 – 8:56 pm
I was definitely a little worried when it was announced that someone bought the Odd Fellows Hall on Capitol Hill. Not only does it house the most excellent Century Ballroom, but also a number of excellent small theater & dance companies that might otherwise not exist. Rumor has it their rents will go up, and some of them will probably have to leave (notably, Freehold Theatre), which is definitely sad. But I was interested to read this article about a new restaurant that will live in the first floor of the building. I quite like both the Volunteer Park Cafe and Smith so I’m looking forward to trying the new, unnamed place.
Off to San Diego tomorrow!
posted April 10, 2008 – 7:00 pm
I’ve been back from China for about a week, and though it was a great trip, I’m happy to be home. Of course my first day back, Jean and Jared invited me out to their birthday dinner, to Taiwanese food. I finally did get my American food fix today when I had a great burger from Smith.
Also part of Jared & Jean’s birthday celebration was Whirlyball, a cross between basketball and jai alai, played in bumper cars. What a spectacular invention! Pictures from China & Whirlyball soon.
Watching Helvetica (an excellent film, by the way) tonight has rekindled my interest in the site redesign, and there are a couple other projects (notably the robot arm) waiting in the wings. But, I’m headed down to San Diego this weekend for One Love, One Beach, so they’ll all have to wait.
posted April 8, 2008 – 10:38 pm