Bullitt & The Edge

Went over to my friend Ben's house to hang out after work. We were supposed to ironically watch "A River Runs Through It" with our friend Bill but he couldn't make it and we decided to watch two other movies ironically instead. Before I go on, the reason it was going to be ironic was because three dudes sitting around watching a sweepingly dramatic movie that stars good looking actors is hilarious. The three of us did this once before - actually going to the movie theater to watch Brokeback Mountain together.

Anyway, we watched Steve McQueen in "Bullitt" and then Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins in "The Edge." Both were perfect for the evening. I won't go into what I thought of the movies (you can ask me about it in real life and I'll be sure to bore you with my reviews) but I will say the chase sequence in "Bullitt" is the best car chase sequence ever filmed. I've seen a ton of car chases and this one is by far the best.

Better than "The French Connection?" Oh yeah.
Better than "Ronin?" Yep.
Better than "The Blues Brothers?" Yes. Though "The Blues Brothers" one is much funnier.
Better than "The Bourne Identity?" Sadly, yes.

The car chase in "Bullitt" is pure muscle, pure adrenaline, pure amazingness. There is no underlining soundtrack to make you feel the energy of the chase - just sound effects; the most amazingly real sound effects out there. If this sequence doesn't make you feel the power of those muscle car engines, then I don't know what will short of actually riding in one. You feel the speed too. The cars sometimes wobble a bit due to the high speeds they are going and you can feel the danger. Man it is so good.

Though I'm not sure just watching it on Youtube will help you understand it. You need to see it on a TV with quality speakers. And you need to be primed first - you have to sit through half of the really slow, really odd movie before you get to the chase scene.

Fun Dancing Guy Video

Dancing guy at Sasquatch Music Festival 2009 during "Unstoppable" by Santigold.

It's neat how you can discover a new band in the most odd ways. I saw the above video posted on Facebook. I loved it and watched it over and over again. Then I found other videos from this festival with the same dude dancing like this during other bands. And then I found that the event above was caught from three different angles! Was this planned? My research has made me come to the conclusion that no, this was not planned. The artist he's dancing to in the video is Santigold, who performed on the 3rd day of the festival. Another video he's dancing to NIN who played on the 2nd night. In another video he's dancing to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who played on the 1st night. So this dude had already made a name for himself during the first two days of this festival. By the third day I'm sure many people had become aware of this guy. The Dancing Guy. So I think it was just lucky that three people happened to be videotaping this guy when this event occurred spontaneously. It's pretty cool.

Anyway, I liked the song playing in the background of the video so I bought it off of iTunes. Then I listened to more of her songs online and really dug them. So I bought the whole album. It's become one of my favorite albums that I've discovered this year. [Note: her album came out in 2008] She'll be at Lolla this year and that's good. I'll definitely check her out live at the festival.

Check her out online if you get a chance.

Pre-Wedding Party

My friend Rex is getting married in September. So what better time than late June to have a pre-wedding party, right? Yeah, I don't get why it's months before either, but a party's a party and I like parties.

It was at the Grafton in Lincoln Square and it was quite nice. A lot of friends to talk to and some old friends who I haven't seen in awhile. Levin flew in from LA and it was great to see him. Rex and his bride-to-be, Jen, looked great and it was nice to see so many of their friends gathered to celebrate their upcoming nuptials.

At first I was quickly feeling the affects of my age - getting tired early on in the party, but I stuck it out until the end. And I got a second wind at 1am. From the Grafton it was on to the Tiny Lounge and from there it was the goth dance club Neo. I didn't plan on staying out until 4am but that's what happened. And it's especially noteworthy since I stayed up until 6am the previous night. I haven't done that in years.

Newly Painted Room

Soon-to-be-roomie had her room painted.

Sold!

Finally sold my air conditioning window unit through Craigslist. I'm slowly getting stuff done!

The Dirty Projectors

Went to the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park on Monday night after work with James & Marla. There were two bands there but I only cared about the first band - the Dirty Projectors. They sounded pretty good but the atmosphere on the grass was one of a picnic that happpened to have a live band at it. So not too many people really paid any attention to the stage.

After the Dirty Projectors were done, we went for a walk around downtown and got some ice cream. It was a nice day and the weather was great. All in all, a pretty great day.

Color Test

Soon-to-be-roomie tests out colors.

Protests in Iran

The Iran election protests and riots - this is what I've been fascinated with lately; frequently going to Huffingtonpost's live-blog of the event by Nico Pitney.

Empty Room

Tim's empty room. Sad face.

ComedySportz RACE

Tuesday night instead of a normal CSz rehearsal, we had Comedysportz RACE, which was basically The Amazing RACE but at CSz. And the invitation went out to anyone involved at all with any show currently at CSz (Battleprov, Rec Leagues, reserve players, Black Out, People in your Neighborhood, uniFormless, the ensemble, etc) and the groups would be a mix of people you don't know. So when I showed up I was given my name tag and assigned to group B. Most group were a pretty good mix of people, but my group was made of three ensemble members; Kate, Jess, and me.

Sam Super was the organizer of this event and he created 10 rounds of challenges what we had to get past. The first group to get all 10 would get a nice prize. The challenges were pretty good. When we finally found our first clue, it had a name and a date on it. Kate's smart phone had better reception than mine (sorry AT&T, it's true; you guys suck) and we found that the unknown dude was the inventor of the microwave. To the microwave!

Once there, we found our first round challenge: one of the group had to go to the stairwell and try to remember as much customization info as possible. All around the stairwell were pieces of paper, each with one customization note. The challenge person would then have to run backstage and answer 3 random questions asked by Mike Enriquez. If you got one wrong, you had to go back and try again - but once you came back, you weren't guaranteed to be asked the same questions. Kate got them right on the third try and it was onto the next clue, which was a ticket for a show. To the box office!

At the box office our challenge was again a solo challenge. One of us had to go in the theater area and count how many reserved seats there were for a show. Each table had a number on it - be it 0 or 11. After counting in my head (I decided to do this one) I had to race downstairs and tell Monty the number I thought it was. I was wrong! Back upstairs to recount! I finally got it on the third try.

Other challenges were just like this. One was to find the number of animals on a mosaic on a building 4 blocks over. Another was how many E's are on the Playground Theater's wall next to the bus turn-around. Another was the number of green awning on our block of Belmont Ave. One was to create a show line-up based on certain parameters. One really hard challenge involved a code board that took us and many groups tens of minutes to figure out. The challenge in the bar was to stack up plastic cups into a pyramid with the base level having 11 cups.

It was a lot of fun and exhausting. I did most of the running since I felt like I needed to out of gentlemanly feeling - outside it was pouring rain. By the end of the night I was pretty well soaked. In the end we got 5th place - out of 14 groups. Not bad.

After you were done you could stay and party, which many people did. I stayed for a bit but left well before the party got warmed up. So I missed most of the fun that FB pictures documented, but at least I was home, dry, and in bed early to catch up on some missed sleep.

Ribfest

Went to Ribfest late Sunday night and they were out of ribs... until....

We were walking and talking and either - wait, I need to back up. Sunday night we had another canceled show. So Nathan, Sean, Erin, Tara, and I went to Ribfest up near Lincoln Square. When we got there there was a sign up at the ticket booth saying that most places were sold out of food! Ugh, can you believe that? I decided to take my chances and bought a bunch of tickets. Most places had food, but were sold out of ribs. No ribs at Ribfest, WTF!? So after trying in vain to see if any of the booths had ribs left, I decided to abandon the cause and get myself some food that wasn't ribs.

So, we're walking and talking and either Nathan, Sean, or Tara, I'm not sure which, spots this dude that just walked by carrying a huge Tupperware bin on his shoulder. Through the semi-clear plastic we can see inside - IT'S RIBS!

"Follow that guy!" I yell out.

So we do and wait in line for our turn at some late night ribs. We only had to wait 40 minutes and the ribs were in our hands. Worth the wait? Probably not, but at least I had ribs at Ribfest.

You would think that's where the story ends, right? Right. But no! As I'm throwing away my rib tray and napkins, I see a good friend (identity hidden to protect her) working the beer tent booth. Boom, I get 2 free beers! I tell the gang and they all get free beers too! So we cobble squat at a table and go a ton of bits over free beer. It was a great time and I didn't want it to end.

The Ditty Bops show

I went to the Ditty Bops show at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I had heard that their live shows are awesome and mix in vaudeville and other theater elements into their music presentations. Apparently that's what it was like when they came through Chicago a couple years ago during their bike-across-America-with-all-their-gear-and-their-full-band tour. But the show I saw was just the two girls sitting in chairs and playing their songs. So basically like most music concerts. A little disappointing but what we got was also a delight.

They sounded great live and I really liked some of their new songs. They didn't do too much banter between songs but when they did it was great and super cute. And during one banter moment we the audience got a peek into their private lives - when Amanda (the tall one) mentioned how Abby (the shorter one) almost didn't go out with Amanda on their first date because Amanda picked their first date to be at a Renaissance fair. They also spoke about what the songs were about or what inspired them to write the songs. This, combined with their songs, was quite inspiring and I left the building feeling like I should create my own work of art.

The Ryder/Hanson Wedding

Went to it, it was great.

Roommates Hang Out

Our dear roommate Tim is getting married within a week. Once that happens, he moves in with his wife and we lose a roomie. This called for a final roomie hang out*. We decided on going to see the movie Up together.

It is a great movie. All of us were crying at some point in the first 15 minutes of this movie. It was moving and powerful and funny and just a joy to watch. It just might have been my favorite Pixar** movie, and that's saying something.


* Roomies Win!
** Pixar Win!

PS. Friday night the CSz team I was on won the show. Week of Win!

Grado SR60i**

Me want this**. Me will get this soon*.


* soon=tonight.
** Hi-Fi Win!***
*** Wednesday night was a 4-person Felt show and it rocked! Felt Win!

Week of Win

I'm calling this week the Week of Win.

Monday: saw the White Sox win!
Baseball win!

On Facebook I finally beat the high score of an acquaintance (gf of a friend) on Geo Challenge. I'm now the #1 score among my friends on FB.
Geography win!

Tuesday: my group won first place in the pub quiz!
Pub quiz win!

So no matter what happens the rest of the week, I'm gonna find a way to turn whatever happens into a win. After all, it's the week of win!

Finally the White Sox game

About a month ago people from a message board I'm apart of tried to go to a White Sox game but it got rained out. Last night was the rescheduled night. Once again the weather forecasts did not look good. There was a pretty good chance it was going to get rained out.

After work I trained it to the stadium and met up with the group in the parking lot. We tailgated for a good while. There was no rain thus far although it was rather chilly for a June day. Unfortunately I wasn't quite prepared enough for the chill so I bought myself a discount Sox T-shirt with ex-Sox player Joe Crede's name and number on it. (He was my favorite player on the Sox)

Out seats were in left field but only 13 rows back. The game turned out to be quite a good game and the weather was perfect up to the last batter. The White Sox beat the Oakland A's 6-2. Oakland scored 2 in the first inning before we even sat down. It was tied up late in the game until the 8th inning. We hit a 3-run homer in the 8th and got an extra run later on. While we were cheering the pitcher for his final out, it finally started to lightly sprinkle. When I checked the Weather Channel app on my iPhone, it showed that a massive rainstorm just passed us by to the south of the stadium.