Category: Kara

Kara’s blog is very good.

I went on a shopping spree for this occasion because it turns out I was down to one pair of pants

October 12, 2009 /

I start a new job today! A real job in an office, where I have to commute, in pants! Well, actually I’m still contracting until the end of the year, but if all goes well I’ll be an employee after that. I understand the pants part stays the same.

I’ll be working in a little development shop with four guys, two blocks from Kara, making web sites work on your cell phone. (Not on my cell phone! My cell phone barely gets texts.) I have ranklements about the necessity of the change that I will not air here, in the interest of respect for metaphorical bridges, but it will be good to stop sitting around clicking the Twitbook and stuffing handfuls of trail mix into my mouth all day.

It’s going to be fun! I’m excited. Remind me that I said this in a month.

Nononymity

October 2, 2009 /

Carrie Fisher blogs, apparently, and the evidence suggests that she’s been doing a bit of back-and-forth with the Internet in her own defense. Basically, people think she doesn’t look like she did in 1983. I will allow you a moment of shock.

On my west’ard migration a year and a half ago, while I was bumming around San Francisco on my own, someone–Sumana?–suggested that I take a night and go see a play. By happy coincidence, I was in town at the same time as Fisher, who was doing her show Wishful Drinking at the Berkeley Rep. So I got a ticket and went.

I learned a great deal about Fisher that evening (I hadn’t even known she was married to Paul Simon), and in the process saw probably the only good one-person show ever. I also laughed a lot. How can you avoid laughing at the image of Cary Grant calling up a teenage girl, at her parent’s slightly deranged request, to lecture her soberly about the dangers of LSD–twice? Or at a still from the bridge of the Death Star about which she noted that “I weighed about ninety pounds here, eighty of which I carried in my face?”

It’s one thing to know somebody is a writer; it’s another to see her perform in a self-written multimedia showcase that includes jokes about her own electroshock therapy. I liked Carrie Fisher before then, almost as much for her guest spot on 30 Rock as for Star Wars (and that was all before I knew she tried out for Han Solo). After that show, like became admiration, and she was elevated to the selective ranks of people who have secured my loyalty pretty much for good. Even if her blog posts are littered with unnecessary punctuation.

(In case you’ve noticed that I started dating a short girl with a screenwriting degree, a taste for wine and a sardonic sense of humor within months of moving to Portland: shhh.)

It’s not as if I think the people reading my blog are among those going “oh no how did princess lea get fat :(.” But I feel the need to state this anyway: Carrie Fisher rolls with my crew. And before you write a word against her, consider the fact that fuck you forever, and die in a hole.

Shitcock.

Puddlejump

September 5, 2009 /

Kara and I are going to Europe! Like, now! We’ll land in London tomorrow morning to visit Kevan and Holly et al, then fly to Denmark on the 9th to see her high-school exchange sister Britta get married, then hop down to France on the 16th for a Romantic Weekend in Paris.

I got to see very little of the continent while I lived over there, so this is very exciting. We are going to be broke kids with backpacks! I can’t wait to get peed on by a French hobo.

See you on the 21st, Internet!

Andrus

August 20, 2009 /

Kara’s Dad, Robert, along with her brother-in-law Ty, made a biographical documentary last year about the late illusionist Jerry Andrus. It’s a really, really good movie, unimpeded by the title Andrus: The Man, the Mind & the Magic. In particular, I found the breakdown of some of his optical illusions fascinating, and the close-up magic he demonstrates is unbelievable; one of the most interesting things about Andrus was that he used both to provoke skepticism and critical thinking from his audience, rather than to cultivate an aura of mystique.

If you’re in Oregon, you can watch an hour-long cut of the movie at 10 pm tonight on OPB’s Oregon Lens. I recommend that you do!

January 18, 2009 /

Got an interesting virus email today, this one claiming to be an invoice from United Airlines for a ticket purchased online. No bad links or anything, and the login it gave was one of my actual addresses; it was only when I saw that the “invoice attachment” was a zip file that I caught on.

Never, ever open zip files that you get in an email. People know that by now, right? It’s 2009.

(And never eat yellow snow. That’s a goodie from 1942. –Kara)

Cancuncated

January 4, 2009 /

I’m flying to Mexico with Kara’s family in about three hours, and as far as I know I will have no phone or Internet access until Tuesday the fourteenth. So long, shivering masses! See you when I’m sunburnt.

September 25, 2008 /

Leonard was here for a week! It was great! I didn’t blog about it because I was too busy hanging out with Leonard. Leonard didn’t blog about it because he apparently spends two weeks out of three on airplanes, to the point that travelblogging has become passé. The world demands Leonard.

Kara and I tried to show him the good side of the city: we ate at a lot of restaurants, played a lot of games, climbed a waterfall and discovered that happiness comes in gourds. Leonard also fixed my stupid hard drive (twice!) and helped me find a new grip on a game design problem that’s been bothering me for months. I can only assume that when Sumana visits in November, she will improve my gas mileage and teach me how to get free money from the government.

By the way! Kara and I are dating, in case you care but are not on Facebook. It is also great! Dating, I mean; Facebook is mostly okay.

FINALLY NAILED IT

May 30, 2008 /

This is mostly for my own records. The correct way to rejuvenate your roommate’s leftover half-steak (kept in a Ziploc container overnight) is as follows: slice thin and put it back in the container, splash a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil on it, seal the lid and shake around to coat. Let marinate for ten minutes. Dump on a piece of foil and broil in the toaster oven for a couple minutes more. Sandwich with farmer’s market lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise between halves of crusty roll from the bakery down the street. Ride the flavor horns.