Where a horde of space aliens, steel balls, and sometimes unshowered nerds descend upon the Seattle Center for gaming craziness….woo hoo!

The 2012 Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show

candybowl

Got to enjoy Anthony Bourdain at The Paramount for the second time last night.  This time he was here with Eric Ripert, another famous chef and friend in the business.  We saw him come to town with Mario Batali a couple years ago in 2009 (brief crowd video from that here), that talk was moderated by Luke Burbank (of Tbtl and NPR fame) and was very entertaining.  This time was just mano-a-mano, just the two of them.

They started by having Bourdain ‘cross-examine’ Ripert on a folding chair at the front about his restaurant, some of his career past, his interactions with other chefs and industry people, and some choice anecdotes obviously meant to skewer him in a friendly way.

Then Ripert becamse the ‘cross-examiner’ and started peppering Bourdain with questions – and here there was much more to skewer, as Mr. Bourdain’s mouth often proceeds him in the public venue.  But to his credit, he’s honest (sometimes brutally so) and isn’t above accepting a few shots based on his past statements where people disagree with him.  But naturally the recent ‘Paula Deen scandal’ was fairly amusing to hear retold – and I have to agree with him – while she seems to have managed the situation pretty well, she’s a pretty big hypocrite when the whole story is told, even if he’s over the top about it.  Ripert pressed his advantage on this one and similar stories, trying to determine if Bourdain was a ‘hater’ or not – fairly entertaining to see the answers here.

There was also a later anecdote where Bourdain told a story of his wife being annoyed with him for maligning Grant Achatz’ Alinea restaurant in Chicago – he said she then bought a plane ticket to Chicago, dined there, loved it and said so publicly – he said to ultimately ‘give him the middle finger’ 🙂

After the sessions with the folding chair – they retired to a couple lounge chairs and debated other topics of note – Sustainability (Bourdain largely played devil’s advocate on this one, especially with his largely hyperbolic Bluefin Tuna example); GMOs (was very glad they brought this up) and the subject of which has the most adverse impact on the food industry – chicken or foie gras.  After some more chat, they opened it up to the floor for questions for about half an hour until they called it a night.

Like before, there’s a definite contrast between Bourdain, who to me is very knowledgable on many levels but also relishes his public role as industry curmudgeon – in some ways he’s a sort of Howard Cosell – just ‘telling it like it is‘.  Ripert by contrast seems to be one of the nicest guys out there – although Bourdain did skewer him on the topic of Gordon Ramsay – and seems more an ambassador of the profession (think Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, etc. – willing to share their knowledge and help nearly anyone).  They took definite pains to show Ripert’s efforts to make the profession ‘nicer’ in the kitchen, believing that the old-school way of chef training via abuse and humiliation has become obsolete and is counter-productive.  It was also interesting to hear how intimidated AB was by Martha Stewart – too funny.

All in all, a great show – as we already get our regular quota of A.B. via his TV shows, it’s nice to see him in a somewhat different situation where he’s not controlling *all* the dialog, and getting to see him debate other equally (if not more) respected industry people like Ripert.

As per usual, a great time and….she made all the food!  Plus thanks to everyone for coming, special shout outs to maria, dawniel for all the kitchen help!

Happy birthday, babe.

candybowl

Just got back from ‘tbtl live’ at The Neptune theater over in the U-District (by UW). VERY fun! Although they made us wait in the cold a wee bit too long before getting in, it was definitely worth the wait.

For those not familiar, TBTL (too beautiful to live) was a radio show on KIRO back in 2008-9, then was cancelled. But the hosts (Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews) + Sean DeTore (engineer and effectively ‘3rd host’) decided to soldier on as a podcast-only show. Through persistence, hard work, home studios and the continued help of KIRO (web hosting and podcast streaming) they have now made it to 1,000 shows – hence this celebration.

Along the way they have had several ‘live’ shows both here (Seattle) and elsewhere (L.A., NYC, Chicago, etc.) – I attended one here in Seattle last year with Kerewin, and she has attended one in NYC as well as several other events in Seattle over the past few years. These are fun events – many smaller in scope than tonight’s, but definitely unique and part of the tbtl ‘tens’ culture (‘tens’ of listeners).

Tonight had some trivia, some long-time tbtl staple bits (tbtl players – where they ‘act’ out movie scenes; Awesome/Not Awesome – passing judgement on news items with sound effects;), a couple interviews and The Dusty 45’s played a few songs. Great band!

If you haven’t checked out tbtl yet – download a podcast or two and join the ‘cool crowd’ – they stream live Mon-Fri at 1pm PST for an hour, or download them anytime from TBTL.net.

candybowl

In the past couple days over our wussy Seattle ‘snowpocalypse’ the backyard birdies are still hanging in there. Today I got pics of a certain fat robin that hangs out by one of our holly trees, and of a swarm of bushtits that periodically visit the suet feeders. I have seen chickadees zipping around too, besides the usual seagulls and crows (there are a pair of crows that usually hang around too, but haven’t seen them in the past week)…

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had a GREAT day skiing at Mt. Baker yesterday. Despite the long drive (it is 145 miles from Seattle) the conditions were excellent: over 100 inches of snow, sunny, and minimal lines. The views of the surrounding ranges were also amazing, with many crazy hikers up on those cornices getting ready for extreme backcountry plunges into likely VERY deep powder.

Since I blew out my right knee ACL last year, I’m on the ‘brace train‘ these days, but I was never into the backcountry hiking anyway. Kerewin is doing great on her 3rd year snowboarding too!

Met friends up there and skied with them some – enjoyed the typical beer, champagne and foodfest in the Syncro midday, then back on to the mountain until close – probably got about 12-15 runs total? Took a while to get outta there – sadly someone had to get medivac’d off the mountain via helicopter – then stopped by some friends’ place on the way down the mountain, which meant not getting back until about 9pm (doh!).

Still….amazing day.

candybowl

So as everyone (who’s seen them) knows, Star Trek movies can be a mixed bag. To date, there now have been 11(!) of them, from Star Trek: The Motion Picture way back in 1979, to the ‘reboot’ of Star Trek in 2009 with an all new cast playing Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc.

Of these movies, the rule of thumb has usually been even-numbered movies good, odd-numbered bad-to-at-best-mediocre. So by that rule, you have the second (Wrath of Kahn), fourth (The Voyage Home) and sixth (The Undiscovered Country) being the good movies with the original cast, and the first, third and fifth (*especially* the fifth) being very lame and/or plodding/boring.

Moving to the TNG cast, we have Generations (great villains but not enough to save the lame plot and they should have killed Kirk at the start of the movie, not wait until the bitter end), First Contact (easily among the best Star Trek movies), Insurrection (more below but plodding and obvious, basically an extended TV episode) and Nemesis (a decent return to form, even if it meant Data pays for bailing out the Enterprise crew this time with his life).

Finally, 2009’s Star Trek – which actually follows a not-dissimilar plot to Nemesis (crazy bad guy with huge-ass ship and a chip on his shoulder bigger than the Gamma Quadrant, bent on making Earth PAY) but with an all new cast excepting Nimoy (much to Shatner’s likely chagrin). While I felt that many of the actors chosen here look a bit too young to be playing those roles, I guess they are in fact largely the same age(s) as the original cast was back in the original series – they just don’t have those bryl-cream 60s ‘dos (sorry Kirk) so don’t look as ‘old’? Dunno. Plus i’m older than all of them (sad) anyway. But a very entertaining movie nonetheless and definitely looking forward to the sequel.

But I digress – this post is about Star Trek:Insurrection (the 9th movie, second-to-last with TNG cast) – and since this is an odd-numbered movie, set phasers to Expecting Disappointment.

Where to begin? So we join our heroes assisting in some sort of surveillance on a remote planet of what appears to be a quiet small town of regular looking, yet alien people with gardens, playing kids, etc. Kind of looks like a Seattle suburb (with the faux-Roman pueblo-like structures and ‘marble columns’ everywhere) without the cars or electricity. There are Federation people plus some stretchy-faced aliens manning the cloaked spy post. Then Data literally goes nuts and blows the ‘cover’, by which the locals find out about the operation and the spy installation on the overlooking hill, etc. It’s at this point the rest (Picard, etc.) all get involved – the Enterprise gets called in, somehow running into Worf along the way (they never explain why he showed up, save to complete the TNG cast for the movie, apparently) and they slowly (not kidding) begin to move the plot along.

So they disable Data’s craziness by singing show tunes from HMS Pinafore to trick him (wtf? Is this the Simpsons?). They have several obligatory ‘deep thought’ scenes where Geordi sees a sunrise with ‘real eyes’ for the first time (oooooo) and Data gets lectured by an otherwise token alien kid about how to have ‘fun’ (somewhere else in the galaxy, Wesley Crusher is laughing maniacally). Picard starts getting getting out the space Cialis for one of the native chicks (far too many of these ‘discussions’ at various points in the movie – should have listened to Elvis instead). And Riker/Troi literally take a bath together as they try to rekindle their romance from TNG? Nothing near as interesting for Dr. Crusher (who just gets to watch Picard try to score with the local more than once and briefly talks about boobs with Troi – I am not making that up). Worf at least gets to beat up some bad guys later and zap things occasionally, and Geordi gets to have some ‘Scotty moments’ later in the Enterprise engine room while people are flying around the room and the computers spray sparks and steam(?) – are the computers on the Enterprise powered by dry ice now? 🙂

Somehow amid all these distractions, the crew find a ‘holodeck ship’ on the planet with a fake version of the Seattle suburb in it – immediately Picard guesses the (other, stretchy-faced) aliens’ plot – they were going to kidnap the suburbanites onto this ship and take them off the planet for some weird reason – which ultimately turns out to be that the planet itself makes you stay young/immortal (another tired Star Trek plot device used since the beginning of time). Picard sticks this factoid back in the Admiral’s face and gets his shiny bald ass handed back to him (well, metaphorically), so he slowly, cut-it-with-a-knife symbolically takes off his command uniform for a Wilson’s Leather jacket, packs up some phaser rifles and tries to sneak down to the planet without apparently telling anyone. The rest of the cast ‘bust’ him as he’s trying to leave, and of course most go with him (that’s where most of the future dialog lines will be spoken, after all) except Riker and Geordi who stay behind on the likely doomed Enterprise.

But of course you know, THIS means war – so the bad aliens start chasing Picard and the suburbanites around on the planet while the aliens in orbit go after the Enterprise. Our proud flagship proceeds to get its ass kicked pretty well (at one point it is headed for some sort of nebula cloud with SMOKE pouring out of the engines) before pulling some nerdy stunt at the last minute to save the day (of course). It’s funny how AFTER they throw away the ship’s warp core (propulsion) and sustain damage from the attacks and are flying through some volatile dangerous space cloud that THEN Riker decides to go on the offensive? Kind of like waiting until all your tires are flat and your car is almost out of gas to drive your pregnant wife to the delivery room? What makes it even worse is that at one point Riker calls up the ‘manual control’ option – and an XBox Joystick rises up dramatically from the console (#$#@%*&!>??) and he proceeds to pilot the entire ship like an arcade game? Again, not making this up.

Meanwhile, back on the planet, Picard still hasn’t gotten laid, and those pesky stretchy aliens figured out a way to beam him and his alien missus up to their ship after some slow-hiking ‘chase’ scenes (unlike the heroes of Lord of the Rings, *these* suburbanites apparently aren’t familiar with the concept of ‘running’ when confronted by alien spaceships flying overhead shooting lasers at them). Now captive himself, Picard then proceeds in the time-honored Star Trek strategy when captured: GUILT the aliens into submission, using shame-filled pontification and lecturing. And (not) surprisingly, it works on the ‘regretful’ key alien baddie. Unfortunately however, the ‘non-regretful’ key alien bad guy only becomes MORE intent on blowing everyone up, of course – like Ricardo Montalban, he is a man of action.

But because apparently the budget wasn’t expensive enough for Paramount’s taste yet, we are treated to some scenes of spaceships flying around getting set up for the big bad-guy system blow-up – which it turns out is a false start, because Picard, Worf and the regretful alien baddie somehow TRANSPORTED the ‘really’ bad alien and his crew to the HOLODECK to trick them. Far be it from me to question, but everytime I’ve seen ANYONE ‘beam’ anywhere on any Star Trek in history – they always somehow knew (or I guess, suspected) they were being ‘beamed’ – except until now. Naturally this drives the key baddie into a REAL killing frenzy, which is resolved by (only) himself getting sent over to the main ship charged with blowing up the system, where Picard follows shortly and they have a crappy shootout/clamber-around chase until Picard saves the day (this mano-a-mano ‘climbing battle’ was done far better, more brutally and believably in Serenity three years later – sorry guys).

So then the day is saved, the suburbanites go back to their car, bar and electricity-free Tuscan Village, and Data plays in the hay with the token kid. Picard (of course) ditches his local honey without actually consumating anything (gag), promising to come back and use up his 300+ days of accrued vacation time when he gets the chance, but of course the Federation needs him the most right now. The rest of the crew smiles on as they beam up and fly away in the Enterprise, which seems all repaired already? Little does the ship know its impending doom in the next movie…muhahahha! It’s almost like they wait to make the next movie by the same amount of years it would take in ‘Star Trek time’ to build a new Enterprise? So that’s good, Picard CAN use that accrued vacation after all – everybody wins!

What more is there to say? Well, there were some elements in this plot that weren’t horrible, but too much cornball or tedious stuff overwhelmed them in the end. It was cool to see Anthony Zerbe (both an Omega Man and Matrix veteran, if you can believe that) again as the naive Starfleet Admiral who ultimately gets his from the key alien baddie (big surprise). The (new) Enterprise looked pretty cool and had a new Captain’s Gig small ship that drops out of the saucer section – although its inability to kick ass was pathetic – isn’t this the *flagship* of the fleet? Finally, I like Patrick Stewart, but does he have to be in almost every scene? It reminded me of the TNG finale (where he *is* in every scene) – why make a big deal about having a bigger cast than the originals (TNG vs. Kirk/Spock/etc.) when you end up largely ignoring them for most of the movie? Data of course (assuming the Spock role) gets a lot of screen time although some of it is fairly lame or tedious – but he gets payback (kills himself) later in Nemesis anyway, so no biggie there. I realize that it’s tough to handle a big cast *and* give them all something to do *and* make it interesting *and* live up to fan expectations *and* do it in only one movie without the extra time and character development that a series can provide, but….

Ultimately, I think where Star Trek succeeds or fails is when the balance of action and plot move along nicely without getting overwhelmed by too much lecturing, Shakespeare quoting (you laugh, but it’s true) and/or techie tangents (the holodeck, time travel, aliens that can completely take over the ship in less than 5 min. of arrival, etc.) that can derail the viewer in short order. Here, the Shakespeare quoting and time travel are nowhere to be found (good), but the pacing and believability of the plot vanished into deep space with them (bad).

I originally set the DVR to record Insurrection this time because I was thinking it was actually Nemesis (brain fart, big time). So i’ll have to roust that one up and report back soon – it’s probably the only one left I haven’t seen more than once or possibly twice?

candybowl

Got back out on the water this am in the kayaks, after a couple-week break. Ever since we got back from BC (see earlier post re Tofino) we have been very interested in kayaking. So we got a couple used ones on CL not long after, and have since gone three times locally. Each day we learn something new – mostly in and around loading/unloading and storage, but eventually we will know how to KAYAK correctly too :).

The first jaunt was on Lake Union several weeks ago – we got in the water at the south end of the lake by the Wooden Boat Center – there is a small park and rocky beach where you can launch. We paddled up the east side of Lake Union almost to where it enters ‘The Cut’ – and then paddled back.

Then, we went to Mercer Slough (barely south of Bellevue) a week or so later. We got in the water literally under I-90 at Entiak Beach, and paddled around the bend into the Slough. We went everywhere arond in there you can go, saw a lot of wildlife – otters, ducks, big turtles, geese and some other unknown birds (I think one was a kingfisher as it kept diving into the water, seeming fishing) – very cool!

Today, we launched at Magnuson Park in NE Seattle. We paddled south from there around to the east side of the cut, right by SR-520 (which was apparently closed today, there were no cars on it) and saw a big rowing crew race going on in Union Bay there, just east of Husky Stadium. We turned back after mucking around a bit there and headed back up to MP.

I think this was the most challenging of the three local paddles we’ve done so far, probably the longest distance. It was about 4 miles each direction. There was a bit more current and breeze to battle out there today vs. in Mercer Slough (very quiet water there) and while Lake Union definitely has some chop, we simply didn’t go that far that first day.

But hoping the weather holds up for at least one more weekend attempt to kayak before starting to get really cold out there – the guide back up in Tofino said winter kayaking is among the best because far less people (we only saw one other today, when we were almost back to MP, she was going south) and more wildlife around. Today’s journey was far less on the wildlife, unless you count rich people’s houses along the shore of Lake Washington (Windemere and Viewridge neighborhoods) as ‘wild’ – they sure were big with obviously expensive boats mostly in drydock – we missed the blow-by-blow from Robin Leach. Hopefully we can include some friends on the next one.

candybowl

Altogether too rare, but definitely fascinating. As linked by Boing Boing….I will have to read this through a couple more times to truly get the gist but again, fascinating…..

The Paris Review – William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211

I especially like the Blade Runner comment….

candybowl

too funny!

candybowl