Our neighbor has a pretty old cat. And apparently he had a stroke at some point in the not-so-distant past, so he walks normal in front and like a crab in back – at first glance we thought he had been hit by a car when he was on their lawn, until the neighbor came out and explained his situation – apparently he’s not really supposed to go outside but he manages to sneak out here and there.

Anyway, we got back from a bike ride and he was on their lawn – I checked to see if they were around but they were out, so kept an eye on the kitty for a while – he seemed content to hang in the yard or on the porch, so i let him be, he didn’t seem like he was going anywhere.

Later, we were headed out to go get a late lunch and two of the neighbor girls from around the corner were over there (that rare species of Seattle resident – children!) petting him and talking to him. I explained he was ok, that he lived there – they thought he was a stray. Their dad was coming back around the corner with a plastic cup of water for the kitty – I told him too. Later on, the neighbors were back, hanging on the porch with the kitty and I told them about the girls feeding him water.

Just goes to show you that when you think this country is going down the toilet faster than you can intermediate flush – something really nice happens and you end up smiling.

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It’s always cool when you find a new band you like. It’s VERY cool when you find a band that seems full of promise and you can’t wait for their next disc. But it’s the BEST when you find a band completely out of nowhere that just hits it way, way out of the park on the first try? Saw Manooghi Hi last night at the Crocodile and there’s only one way to sum it up. Wow.

Turns out they have been playing since early 2008 – where have I been? Anyway, GO see this band live when you can and on YouTube in the meantime. looks like the next local date is Neumo’s on Fri Aug 13 in Seattle.

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They are loose in Kirkland, WA and the greater Seattle area! I met their creators last night at the local ASIFA meeting and got to see the pilot DVD while quaffing a few at St. Andrews Pub – (Scottish pub of course, complete with pics of Rod Stewart and Sean Connery (same one twice?) on the wall – but where’s Jackie Stewart for the trifecta)?

Anyway, great stuff – The Ninjas are kind of a mix of Jackie Chan, Samurai Jack and Mike Myers’ dad in So I Married an Axe Murderer – and they fight EEEEEvil villains!

Check out their site and keep an eye out for them at a film festival near you!

Scottish Ninjas website

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Well, it’s over for another year. And it was a big success (again). Not only did we have more games on the video side – we had several more vendors on the pinball side, a great series of seminars, and seemingly lots more word of mouth (definitely more social media and related online promotion/podcasts/etc. too).

Here’s some of the results – take a gander!

Video from the show floor;

Additional video walk-thru’s during the show;

Review from the ‘Seattlest‘ blog;

The Stranger’s SLOG review;

Seattle Weekly slideshow;

Seattle Times article;

Seattle Times show video;

Online photo galleries: here and here;

Dave Okert’s SMAC photo gallery (mostly video side of show);

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The 3rd annual NW Pinball Show is next weekend, June 11-13, in the NW corner of The Seattle Center in Seattle, WA (by Key Arena). All machines and seminars are included with paid daily admission. All-weekend passes are available too.

Schedule and Seminars/Speakers;

Online Ticket sales available through Monday, June 7;

Recent Podcast about the show on The Mixtape;

Bottom Line? Come on out and PLAY.

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Picked up an old arcade game for my buddy – Wizard of Wor. This game dates back from the latter arcade classic era, 1981. It shares the same robotic speech as Gorf from the same era (both of us actually have one of those machines, although mine currently languishes in my dad’s barn in OR). Basically the game consists of either one/two people in what seem like land-going spacesuits in a maze, zapping weird creatures, some of which are invisible at times (you can see them on the radar screen below the maze, though).

Once you clear the maze, other bad guys appear you have to zap of course (e.g. Warlock) – and then the Wizard himself may or may not appear. The game also has organ-style music at the start and end of each maze-zapping session, in addition to the weird voice.

Good stuff. This is also a convenient moment to shamelessly plug the upcoming 3rd annual pinball/arcade show here in Seattle next month, weekend of June 11-13. Come one, come all!

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So finally saw Speed Racer (the 2008 live-action version, not the original 60s anime) tonight. When this movie came out, I was definitely interested in seeing it, but then many reviews were middling to bad, so I didn’t. The Wachowskis are somwhat polarizing filmmakers these days, and have a lot to live up to (and live down) after the Matrix series went from excellent (1st) to good (2nd) to somewhat mediocre (3rd). But V for Vendetta was also excellent (IMHO), so whatevs – most other filmmakers would be completely jealous to have only a *couple* of those movies in their CV, after all.

Anyway, this movie takes in a lot of the original anime’s plot devices (yes, Chim-Chim is here) and I was definitely pleased to see a scene where they go through all the Mach 5’s special devices (but they never used the Ctrl-G ‘Homing Bird’? They used to use that all the time in the anime!). Racer X of course is key to the plot, and he doesn’t disappoint, either. The look of the cars varies from ‘shiny Hot Wheels surrounded by CGI’ to semi-real looking (when the humans are in them or driving them on “normal” streets).

The movie itself owes a LOT to Pixar (Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles most notably for the factory scenes and the Racer family neighboorhood/house/school/etc.). It also definitely takes from at least two PS2 videogames I own – Kinetica (robot battle-racing) and XG3: Extreme-G Racing (hyper-powered motorcycles with weapons) – both games are played on crazy tracks that soar up/down/multiple dimensions/aerial/underwater/you name it. Props must also be given to drift racing/dirt track racing in general (given the way they drive the cars almost horizontally a lot of the time) and the old standby – Initial D, which I’m sure the Wachowskis have watched at least most of. In the big rally race mid-movie, some of those crazy mountain races look a LOT like the way Initial D shows its crazy mountain racing (the latter’s animation being far more primitive, however).

Finally, there is a lot of IGPX here too (a recent anime from 2005) in the look and feel of the racetracks, especially the Fuji race – and the battling between the cars during the race.

As you’d expect, the races themselves are very well done and crazy to watch, and the movie doesn’t try to oversell the characters, either – unlike the mostly cheesy Racer family seen in the anime. I would say the Racers are as appropriate for the story as The Matrix’ characters – without the speechmaking every 15 minutes by Morpheus of course :). What was a bit sad was that actor Emile Hirsch (who plays Speed) was BORN the same year I graduated from high school – DOH! I guess you can’t win them all. The usual anime ‘challenges’ confront Speed and the rest to varying degrees – *almost* insurmountable odds, increasingly maniacal opponents, crisis-whew-bigger-crisis-whew, etc. – But it moves along fairly well and has a bit of fun even with camera asides in a few tiny scenes.

In summary, I was far more entertained by this movie than say, Avatar – even though the latter is of course way more advanced effects-wise. Even having seen some of the SR anime before as a kid (probably 30+ years ago) didn’t really spoil anything. This is a great movie, and i’d definitely see it again on the big screen (Cinerama or midnight movie at The Egyptian, anyone?) I watched it this time at home on my computer……

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Haven’t blabbed about music in some time, so here goes. What are people listening to? Of late, I’ve actually tried some new(er) bands out – since I never listen to the radio, and don’t drive very much – I tend to rely on album reviews from The Stranger, The Weekly, occasionally Willamette Week, or random articles from the ‘Net as they come along. Some good stuff of late includes

People Eating People (seattleite too!);
Fruit Bats
Le Loup
Blue Scholars

and for the old school, have been getting back into Saga (sorry, Kirk :)) and even good ol’ Wall of Voodoo. gotta love Stan Ridgway!

tried (and failed) – Owl City – but this review is way harsher than I would have been – I just thought he was too derivative of the original synth bands first time around.

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OK – so on the way home today I was walking down the street and saw a house that has two large, carved (wood) Rottweilers on either side of the front stoop. I did a double-take, then just laughed to myself and moved on. Wood Rottweilers? I’ve seen stone lions, griffins and dragons, but Rottweilers? I guess it would have been worse had it been Shi Tzu’s, a pair Bichon Frise or Pugs (the latter being the ‘unofficial dog’ of Seattle).

This isn’t the first weird thing that I have seen on our street. Last year (take that time-stamp with a grain of salt) – I was walking to the bus and actually saw A BANANA PEEL on the sidewalk. Having been ‘edumacated’ and ‘moydolized’ in the hallowed halls of Looney Tunes – naturally this was a conundrum: Do I simply savor the (once so far in my life) sight on its own; Do I actually STEP on it and see if it makes me actually slip and fall?; Or finally, Do I simply tell the story ad nauseam at many later dates? I opted for choice #3 – but it was still a cool thing to consider on the way to the bus.

And finally, when we first moved into this house (about 10 years ago this fall), there was a house about 3-4 doors down, white, that had a big 80s poster in the window (facing the street) of what looked like a Lamborghini Countach getting humped by a black panther. Or at minimum, they were in the picture together. Again – no Patrick Nagel painting this – but definitely way 80s. I was sad when (I think) those people must have moved and took the kitty-humping italian supercar poster with them. Sniff!

It’s all good…..

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Love it! Mr. Gyro in greenwood, north Seattle – Love at First Bite, indeed. Mediterranean Kitchen in downtown Bellevue – better bring your appetite (and you’ll still take stuff home!).

And if you are downtown, don’t forget Mr. D’s in the Pike Place Market (actually across the street from the main market building) – excellent Gyros and spanikopita, baklava……[drool]….

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