Filled Weekend

I really didn't expect this weekend to be as full as it was. Immensely enjoyable and productive, but hardly any sitting around.

Friday

Went to Echo Base to screen Primer, which was incredibly confusing but after talking for half an hour or so after the movie with everyone else, most of whom had seen it more than once, things started to become at least a little clearer. Reading the Wiki page on the movie is still on my list of To Do's.

Saturday

Spent the morning catching up on email and writing a bit of the write-up for the A Penny For my Thoughts that I had played on Thursday. Then drove down to Seattle Center where I got signed up for Snow Day, had a bacon cheeseburger with sweet potato fries at Quincy's in the Armory, and then helped out the Emerald City Comic Con with their snow fort for an hour and a half. Snow Day was completely not what I expected. I didn't stay very long at all, about two hours total, including eating, but it was a very satisfying experience. It's been a while since I've been part of an organized work group, and the physical exertion of shoveling snow and working together with strangers made me feel really good. I wore way too much for it though. Even though I wore a fairly light jacket, a thin long sleeve shirt and a thin sweater, I shouldn't have worn my warm waterproof boots, nor the long johns with snowboarding pants. That was overkill. I don't know why I expected to be crawling around on the snow or something. It did make me want to go snowboarding though to actually put the pants to use.

Afterwards, I went to the grocery store to buy supplies to make food for the Important Person Dinner that night at C's house. I made three dishes. The food was good, I had fun chatting about TV shows and movies and games with some of the people there and getting to hang out with C and meeting her brother and sister-in-law. There was also some lovely singing and singalongs and dancing.

Since Z didn't come with me, I had the option of going also to my friend K's place where they had just finished watching Hackers and we ended up watching the pilot episode of Adventure Time and Johnny Mnemonic. Both were entertaining and it was fun seeing K's place and the other three people that were there were very easy to get along with and it was super relaxed. 

Sunday

Went to Toulouse Petit for brunch and it was delicious as usual and it was great to hang out and chat with R, T, and S. Then afterwards, Z and I killed some time by getting his hair cut and then hanging out at Starbucks, where P met us and we went to see Holy Motors, which was a fantastic film. I really enjoyed it. It was fabulously weird and thought-provoking in a "I see what you did there"-type of way. Z did not like it. He thought it was esoteric and that there was a bunch of weird to be weird things. Which is exactly how I feel about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, though maybe I should rewatch it and try not to see it from such a jaded perception since so many people liked it.

When I got home, I put together dinner for myself and lunch for Monday and Tuesday, and did the rest of the dishes from cooking on Saturday. Z, A, and I figured out how I'll be using my 15 days of vacation for the year and solidified some travel/vacation plans:

April 8-12 - Antigua

May 16-17 - St. Louis

Aug 31 - PAX Prime

Dec 26 - Day after Christmas

1 Day for Shi Shi Beach Backpack Camping

5 Days for Japan

I finished the write-up for A Penny for My Thoughts and once I'm done with this blog post, I'm going to play some Walking Dead.

I'm really looking forward to next week. Even though I have something planned every night of the week, I don't feel like I'm overly busy. What I feel is filled and enriched. 

PAX 2011

Another year, another PAX Prime.

This was the most relaxed PAX I've ever had. I've finally boiled down PAX to what really matters: Friends & Indie Games.

We actually all (minus 1) sat down together at the Tap House Grill and had lunch together. Right in the middle of the day, during normal lunch hours, not to mention the exhibition hall being open. And the food was really good. And we had beers. Like adults. It was a real defining moment: we'd all done this song and dance before and there was no reason we needed to run around frantically, subsisting on junk food and being sleep-deprived.

I didn't even put on makeup for two of the days. Previous PAXes were focused on getting free T-shirts, the majority of which I never wear and fit me poorly, silly swag which sits untouched in bags, and playing up my role of being a hot gamer chick.

I'm hoping that this year's epiphany flows over to my IRL existence and that I can try to cut out some of the things that I used to think were important, but that I don't really need. Boil it down to the things that really matter. And what does really matter? Seems like sleep matters less and less because it's the only way I can hang out with more people.

Writing matters to me. I read somewhere that you have to get to a point where you can't NOT write, when not writing is like dying. I've always been focused on writing something amazing, and that's where it ends. But writing is one of the things that I do that I am genuinely proud of. I re-read good pieces and marvel that it was wrought by my hands and despair that I'll never reach that potential again.

I refuse to believe that I reached my creative genius in high school.

Non-Picture Exhibit C, D & E

Ugh, uploading pixs to Blogger is horrendously difficult. These don't really need pictures to be enjoyed anyway...

Exhibit C: Las Vegas
For Rae's 21 Birthday extravaganza, she decided she wanted to go party it up in Vegas. Ironically, very little partying happened, most of it being done by Zach, Andy, and me. I took extremely few pictures during the trip because Zach and I had stayed in Vegas for about a week last year and pretty much saw everything noteworthy then.

Highlights from the trip:

• Getting a bruise the size of a half dollar on my elbow because of getting knocked around so much on the New York New York roller coaster ride. My shoulders were also sore for the rest of the stay.
• Warily watching the Harley Davidson motorcycles sway back and forth as they were lifted up above us while eating at the Harley Davidson Cafe.
• Learning to play Craps! And then promptly losing $40 each that night during our first Craps experience. However, later on Zach and I played again and won $25 each.
  Only losing $5 total on gambling! Comparatively, Pat lost several hundred dollars playing poker.
• Playing an abridged version of pool volleyball where the rules were expanded a bit and the score didn't matter.
• A random convo with some Brits...after some very very cramped clubbing, we were sitting on a bench in one of the malls and this group of British chaps came over and we had a bit of a row about how three of their shoes were piss poor and the bloke at the club wouldn't let them in. Bugger that! It was pretty entertaining.
• Watching Zumanity. They had a couple who had been married for 40 years go up and do a 'romantic slow dance' which they didn't look all that enthralled about and halfway through the dance they up and decided they had done enough dancing and tried to get off stage. Unfortunately, they just stood at the edge and looked down because they didn't go to a spot that had stairs...poor old people, not up to the stage jumping.
• Watching Spamalot. Only Zach, Slava, and I went because everyone else thought it'd be lame. How can getting a grail filled with strawberry daiquiri be lame?! And the Holy Grail store afterwards had the fanged bunny slippers that made Zach almost cum in his pants.

Exhibit D: Housewarming Party

The housewarming party was a long time in coming. I put it off so I would have ample time to finish getting unpacked. Ha, as if. There's still a couple boxes in the living room. It was super fab though, I had yummy spinach dip, fresh veggies (the sugar snap peas went like crazy) with dill dip, chips (the delicious Hawaiian chips that come in a purple bag), and bagel bites. And of course GUITAR HERO!! Though I didn't get to play much it was probably for the best since the whole slowing of the brain signals to the hands makes doing any song on Hard REALLY hard. Again not many pictures though there are a lot that my friend Megan put up that I subsequently stole from her facebook.

Exhibit E: Wild Mushroom Show

Yum! Mushrooms galore! The best part of this show, which was at the UW Horticulture Center (which was also the place for my Tech Comm graduation) was that we were allowed to bring in mushrooms that we found for ID. So that morning, I went to the front yard to dig up some mushrooms that were growing aplenty and after looking closely, noticed that there was another kind too after digging that one up, I noticed yet another kind. Then I turn around and there's this quite large mushroom growing right behind me! So I found FOUR different kinds of mushrooms in my front yard. Later on, Zach and I went into the backyard and found at least two other kinds. The big mushroom turned out to be a shaggy mane, which is apparently quite edible. Unfortunately, there was only one and I haven't seen any others growing yet. It was really great though because at the show, they had a bunch of shaggy manes and I was all like, Lookit here, I have one too! There was also a chef cooking mushrooms and I got to have a little taste. Speaking of mushrooms, the stuffed portabella mushroom food item ( Champignon Gefullt mit Knoblauch und Kase, mit Spätzle und Gemischtem Salat) at Fierabiend is delish.

Cheap Dinner & a Movie

The Dinner Part:
OpenTable.com is a site I just joined this week. I needed to make a reservation to this Afghan restaurant, Kabul, and it allowed me to make reservations on this site. Apparently, for every reservation you make and go to, you get 100 pts. Once you get to 2,000 pts, you get a $20 gift cert! Unfortunately, we never got to go to the restaurant and ended up going to Mala-something the UDistrict instead :P However, I will continue to look for opportunities to use the site and get points.

The Movie Part:
The Warren Report is THE best thing Zach and I have stumbled upon in our time in Seattle. About two years ago, we were at a 1Reel film showing at Bumbershoot when some guy (Warren) gets up on stage and is like, if a couple will get up here on stage and make out, I'll give them a free 1 yr subscription to the Warren Report! And thusly is how we got involved. It turns out, the Warren Report allows you to sign up to watch free movie previews. That's it. You pay a measly $20 per year, and in return, you can watch all the free movie previews you want. Zach and I must have seen close to a dozen or so movies by now. Recently, we saw Why Did I Get Married? and Lars and the Real Girl. Both were very interesting, but I actually really liked Why Did I...I'd definitely watch it again. At the end of this month, Oct. 30th, we're going to go see the Bee Movie :D! So yeah, I can't imagine anyone NOT wanting to join this, if only to watch movies that haven't come out yet.