that ring of confidence

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Awesome.

Joss Whedon.

Awesome.

Sub Pop 20: Iron and Wine reach such great heights

Over the weekend, well Friday and Saturday, Lydia and I got down to Seattle for a few events that had been organized for Sub Pop's 20th Anniversary.  The record label that really brought grunge and alternative music to the world in the early '90s was having a two day concert festival and a comedy show.  We made the Friday night comedy show, with David Cross and others, and caught some of the first day of music.

One of the acts we did catch was Iron and Wine, who are probably most famous for this cover of "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service.  The song appeared on the Garden State soundtrack and I love both versions.  This is the video I recorded of the song.  You can catch a recording of The Flight of the Chonchords' "The Humans Are Dead" here [yt].

I'm hoping to get some time to blog more in the next day or two.  So take care of yourselves until then.

Michael Bay's Rejected Batman script

Alright, I don't usually just make a short post to highlight something I found on the web, mostly because I'm trying to keep my blog a level above the Facebook news feed, but I thought I'd pass this on because it amused me so much.  Ideally Delme will read this, though maybe I should send it on to him.

The item that has me amused is a fake Michael Bay script for Batman The Dark Knight [ms].  Best line so far in the script, and Darring Fireball also quoted this one is:

We pan to a beautiful woman: platinum blonde with a huge rack.  She is the hottest woman in the world, but she wears glasses because she is also the smartest woman in the world.

The only thing that could make it better if is this was a real Michael Bay script.  Expected the usual conventions of any Bay film in the script, such as the fact that the world's most beautiful and smartest woman is also mechanically inclined thanks to her father.  There's also a lot of meetings between various high level military peoples.

It is gold.

The Completely Useless Guide to Being Poor While Living Rich

Over the last week or so I've been writing a guide to how to like a life of great wealth without spending much money. This guide would have taught you how to do things like go to see touring Broadway musicals without spending a dime. That sounds useful, but sadly the entire 200 page work can be boiled down to "get engaged to a woman whose roommate works at a radio station."

I was going to try selling the guide at local flea markets, but after the dismal sales of my first book [blrb] I decided that a 500 page book whose basic message didn't even take up half of the back of the jacket on the hard cover version was a bit cheeky.  I mean I'm not Deepak Chopra, I don't have the name recognition to pull that shit off.

What prompted my writing of the book was when Lydia's roommate Sarah got us free tickets to the Vancouver opening night of Spamalot [mbv].  It had been a play that I'd been interested in going to, but by the time it was announced that the touring company was coming to Vancouver I'd already moved out of the phase of my life where I could afford to pay for things and into the phase of my life where I eat rice and bulk chicken breasts.  The fact that the United Nations isn't delivering the rice from the back of trucks to my house is a small victory, I mean it's actually store bought.  So that's me for the win.

The other advice I have is know someone who works in the tourism industry.  Through the hostel Lydia got this wicked pass that gets her and a guest, typically me, into all sorts of tourist type spots.  On our weekend, which last week just happened to be Canada Day and the day after, we used the pass to take the False Creek Ferries three times, ride the Vancouver Trolley, go see the newborn baby Beluga at the Vancouver Aquarium and then go to Science World all for about four dollars each.

All of which is handy since I've got about $150 that I'm stretching until the 15th when I'm next paid.  The fact that the part time job is coming out to about one shift a month (June had two shifts and July brings zero), means that stretching a dollar is important.  Even more important now that for the second time in about a year I've had my wages cut at work. 

The summer plans are still being made

So these past few days have even been extremely beautiful. Well at least the weather in Vancouver has been very beautiful. Warm, sunny and with not one drop of rain to be seen darkening the sky it's been very un-Vancouver.

Lydia and I have been trying to figure out what sort of vacation plans we can make. There was some light talk about a trip to Las Vegas with my parents in September, but that seems to have died down. I'm trying to get a camping trip arranged with Nathan and Krista for August but after making bold claims about wanting to camp Lydia is feeling a bit nervous about the bears and the potential lack of washrooms that come with camping.

At some point we will get to Kelowna, both to scout out wedding locations and caterers and to just enjoy the sheer heat. Last year it was a bit cooler while we were there, and I was wanting Lydia to really get the sweltering Kelowna experiance where you'd kill a small child for a cold glass of lemonade. There's also a trip to Tofino at some point, since we really enjoyed out brief time there last year so much that I even claimed to want to move there [jks].

Don't worry, I probably won't. Though that would keep me from worrying about the future of Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv].