Posts from 01/2020
tagged as
lists,
day-to-day
|
permalink
| 0 comments
|
There are no major spoilers in these reviews.
Easter is Cancelled by The Darkness:
This is another solid release from The Darkness, which has sailed past its early novelty hype and drug issues to be a consistent hard rock band. There's a good mix of styles here, all unified by the voice of the lead singer.
Final Grade: B+
Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi:
I enjoyed Episode 7 on a popcorn level and finally got around to watching this one. It felt interminable while I watched it, with no real plot line and nothing to recommend it. An entire subplot of this movie involved in a failed mission that has no bearing on the overall plot. There's too much blatantly obvious CGI (which shouldn't even be happening in 2019). It's clear that the writers had no faith in their story because they interject a sly self-aware wisecrack every 5 seconds that's funny at the expense of cheapening the overall narrative. Free on Netflix.
Final Grade: D+
Chicken Sandwich:
I finally got a chance to try this mystical sandwich, at a mall Popeyes with very little through traffic. It's just a sandwich, not significantly better than Chick-fila. The chicken is breaded with the signature Popeyes crispiness, but the unique taste is overwhelmed by mayonnaise. Having two pickles on the sandwich is kind of nice.
Final Grade: C
Billy on the Street:
This bizarre comedy show involves Billy Eichner running through the streets of New York, challenging passerby to quiz games and random challenges. You will like the first episode as much as you like Billy Eichner, and then each one you watch within the same 24 hours slightly less. It's great when you need a show that delivers laughs while requiring zero brain activity at the end of the night, but it quickly overstays its welcome and is definitely not binge material. Free on Netflix.
Final Grade: B-
tagged as
reviews
|
permalink
| 3 comments
|
Maia has made it halfway to 5! She's 25.4 pounds, 33" tall, and speaks in full sentences most of the time. She has mostly reformed since the cataclysm of Daylight Savings Time, but still refuses to nap (opting for 2 hours of "quiet time" instead). Full-fledged tantrums are a rarity now, or maybe we're just much better at redirection.
Maia's favorite toys at the moment are a Vet Clinic she got for Christmas from the grandparents (superceding the Original Vet Clinic from her 2nd birthday), a necklace kit filled with rubber Disney princesses, and a never-ending array of new and hand-me-down 12-piece puzzles which she can do on her own as long as the pieces snap together cleanly. She will offer us things (like bits of food) if she feels like we're being left out. She has a broad selection of sentences to cycle through:
She recently learned how to properly use "so much" (money) vs. "so many" (bunnies), and can count to 12 when not distracted. She burns through "Look and Find" books by memorizing where all of the "Where's Waldo" MacGuffins are and immediately pointing at them as soon as we turn the page. She also demonstrates her mature neurons with interesting observations:
She has recently become aware of our Amazon Echo and spends much of her "nap" trying to get it to play the song we put her to bed with. On December 27, she finally succeeded. Since Alexa keeps a log of the voice commands it recognizes (along with the secret details of our boring life, no doubt), we were able to preserve it for posterity:
She hasn't been able to activate it since, although yesterday I heard, "Alexa, repeat. Repeat. REPEAT. RE-PETE THE CAT!!"
We still don't do much TV watching -- a few nights of Charlie Brown Christmas or Frosty the Snowman when the weather is dreadful and there's nothing else to do. She recently learned to bounce, kick, and sometimes catch balls, and is able to recognize some alphabet letters in isolation. Sometimes, I let her write a story about her friends in Microsoft Word, which consists of the first letters of her friends' names (A, N, and M for Maia) held down for 3-4 pages.
Her dislikes include eating healthy food, washing her hands, and getting in her car seat in less than 10 minutes.
tagged as
offspring,
day-to-day
|
permalink
| 1 comment
|
tagged as
lists
|
permalink
| 1 comment
|
There are no major spoilers in these reviews.
Irishman:
Martin Scorcese's three and a half hour mob movie is a meandering mess that feels like a vanity project through and through. There are parts that show some of the greatness of Goodfellas, but at the end, it's impossible to understand why this story was worth telling. The movie only has energy in the sections with Al Pacino's character -- when he's not there, it drags as much as The Last Jedi. Free on Netflix.
Final Grade: C
Killing Eve, Season Two:
The first season of this show was quirky and fun, but the second is just more of the same. The most interesting aspect (the relationship between the two leads) is not focused on enough, with the writers spending more time in a procedural / cop show vibe instead.
Final Grade: C
Jack Ryan, Season Two:
I thought that Season One of this John Krasinski vehicle was a poor man's Homeland. Season Two is at least 50% worse. There are some really great action scenes in the first episode, but the rest of the show is a dull plod in search of great action scenes. The villains are one-dimensional and any plot twists are obvious and telegraphed from the beginning. Any scene involving "Uber the riverboat pilot" had me tuning out immediately. The most interesting thing about this season is the number of Russian troll farm trolls spamming its review section with diatribes about the evils of socialism -- while socialism may be imperfect in the real world, it really has no correlation to anything that happens in this fictional season. Free on Amazon Prime.
Final Grade: C-
Red Dead Redemption 2 (PC):
In sequence, here are the strikes I recorded against this game, which some have called the greatest open world game ever created:
I stopped playing after 90 minutes (plus 30 minutes of loading screens) and still hadn't finished the tutorial chapters yet. The game is quite pretty, but incredibly slow-paced. In my glory days, I might have liked it. However, I'll never get far enough to appreciate it in modern times when I can only play in 20 minute spurts and there are so many other things vying for my attention.
Final Grade: Not Rated
tagged as
reviews
|
permalink
| 0 comments
|
12 pictures of your day on the 12th of every month
This is the first 12 of 12 where I've only used my phone to take pictures. Honestly, it's not noticeably worse than the stone-aged camera!
tagged as
12 of 12
|
permalink
| 0 comments
|
This picture was taken ten years ago, on January 9, 2010.
We were dressed up for the CustomInk company party, held at the State Theater in Falls Church on the one night of the year when the Legwarmers weren't performing there. The party consisted of good food, free drinks, and a swirling maelstrom of 22-year-olds that were super-hyped to be selling T-shirts over the phone while being assessed on minute-to-minute productivity metrics.
Everyone was very friendly, and we left with many promises to keep hanging out with new friends, most of whom we never saw again. 8 months later, Rebecca left the T-shirt job to officially begin the transition towards Physical Therapy!
tagged as
memories
|
permalink
| 2 comments
|
Safeway | Giant | Wegmans | |
---|---|---|---|
Organization | BEST: A logical progression of goods with cold stuff at the end. | WORST: The same items can be found in multiple locations, some of which you might never discover because the store is too big. | |
Navigation | BEST: Wide aisles with room to maneuver around the distracted and the obese. | WORST: Every aisle has room for 1.5 carts across, and there are 10 carts pushed by soccer moms at all times. | |
Experience | WORST: Dirty aisles with Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts" on repeat over the sound system and no one ever at the customer service desk. | BEST: Friendly cashiers and a pleasant shopping experience. | |
Distance | BEST: 1.1 miles away in the same neighbourhood. | WORST: 3.4 miles into Ashburn and requires a death-defying merge at 28. | |
Selection | WORST: Staples regularly out of stock. | BEST: A wide variety of choices and good inventory control. | |
Produce | WORST: Section often resembles the aftermath of a food fight. | BEST: High ratio of good-looking fruits and vegetables. | |
Meat & Seafood | WORST: I've had to throw out suspect meats several times. Fish is sometimes four days old. | BEST: Huge variety of packaged and fresh choices. | |
Store-Baked Bagels | BEST: They don't understand what a bagel is, so they bake them light and fluffy like a croissant. Delicious! | WORST: You can't even get a sesame bagel here. | |
Hot Foods | WORST: Never gotten a rotisserie chicken here that wasn't a wasted husk of dried splinters. | BEST: Multi-ethnic hot bar, but there are so many great to-cook options that we never eat here. | |
Beer | WORST: Every week, there's one fewer brewery represented. Plenty of Yuengling and 40s. | BEST: Huge selection of Virginia and other craft breweries. | |
Cumulative Scores | +3 -5 = -2 | +3 -2 = 1 | +4 -3 = 1 |
tagged as
reviews
|
permalink
| 3 comments
|
Happy MLK Day!
We had a cold, quiet weekend, starting on Friday with a family dinner of homemade ramen with udon noodles and shaved ribeye.
Saturday kicked off with an impressive inch of snow that decreased in impressiveness throughout the day. We stayed inside doing warm things, like mother-daughter yoga and finishing a 500-piece puzzle involving cats in less than 90 minutes.
In the afternoon, we braved the freezing rain to get some interesting beers from Total Wine (mostly trippels with a few IPAs and scotch ales mixed in) and had a family dinner at Miller's. The manager there now knows Maia and I, and always stops by the table to reminisce about the times his daughter was Maia's age and not a difficult-to-handle 14-year-old.
We closed out the evening with a poker game. From 1st to last: Evil Mike (who is welcome to renegotiate his name anytime), Mike, Kathy, Ghazaley, Rebecca, and BU. I like to think that I went out first to keep the game moving for people with deadlines.
On Sunday morning, Rebecca went to yoga while Maia enjoyed her new gift of a round kids' table from Kathy. She set up all of her bunnies around it and then pretended to call up her best friend, Nolan, so he could come over and sit there with here.
We spent the rest of the day inside to avoid the cold. I reread Illusion of Thieves in anticipation of the 2nd book's release in couple weeks. In the afternoon, Rebecca and Maia went off to Ghazaley's house while I stayed home and played Fallout 4 and ate some wings from Joe's Pizzaria. The weekend ended with the great movie, Parasite.
How was your weekend?
tagged as
day-to-day
|
permalink
| 2 comments
|
tagged as
lists
|
permalink
| 3 comments
|
There are no major spoilers in these reviews.
John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch:
This comedy special functions simultaneously as a parody of, and heartwarming homage to childrens' shows from the 1980s, like Electric Company, Today's Special, Pinwheel, and Sesame Street. It accurately captures the inherent weirdness of the format while being so earnest in its execution that you can't help but to enjoy the ride. The guest stars and musical numbers are equally effective, with the final surprise guest star (as "Mr. Music") clearly giving 110% and having the time of his life. Free on Netflix.
Final Grade: A
Late Night Feelings by Mark Ronson:
I was hugely disappointed when Mark Ronson finally reached mainstream audiences with Uptown Funk, only to put it on an album full of aural boredom (Uptown Special). This new album is even worse -- a dozen identical low-energy songs with depressing lyrics that flow from one to the next with no sharp edges. We listened to it several times in the car and in the kitchen and our most common recurring thought was, "Oh, this CD's still playing?".
Final Grade: F
Ronny Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America!:
Ronny Chieng's newest comedy special feels like it covers a lot of familar ground but it's funny enough to have on in the background while working on a puzzle. I'll admit that I have minimal recollection of any particular joke two weeks after watching it. Free on Netflix.
Final Grade: B-
Parasite:
This movie by the director of Okja, Bong Joon-Ho, features a sly family in poverty that cons its way into jobs working for an upper-class family. The first half is a pleasant, meandering thread that gradually builds up the tension and leads into an unpredictable denouement. The movie didn't quite stick the landing with its extended epilogue, but I still enjoyed it from start to finish.
Final Grade: B+
tagged as
reviews
|
permalink
| 0 comments
|
On Friday evening, I whipped up a batch of boil'n'bake ribs for dinner. paired with a nice Belgian tripel. After Maia's bedtime, we continued the dirge-like progress through the last season of Game of Thrones.
On Saturday morning, Car came over to do yoga with Rebecca in the basement while Maia acted as foreman, ordering me around in the construction of a house for her bunnies. Midday, we drove to the Uri grandparents' house where Maia was excited for an overnight stay. From there, Rebecca and I went to the MGM at National Harbor for the annual company holiday party. While the room was slightly more swank than usual (the shower was central to the layout with frosted glass walls on three sides), it was much less light-proof and noise-proof than a typical Hampton Inn. We waded through the odd ducks that hang out at casinos on Saturday afternoons and watched bad cable TV until it was time to party.
750 people showed up this year. Compared to last year, food was slightly more forgettable, music was a better volume, and every run across the ballroom was a typical gauntlet of people you want to talk to but doing so would increase the amount of time it takes you to get to your original destination. We started a table of people from the original company, FGM, and tried to figure out how many of us were left. After winning nothing in the raffle, we stuck around for tasty desserts at 11 then crashed in our room.
On Sunday, we returned to Alexandria to find that Maia had gotten a fever overnight and was oscillating between feeling miserable and her usual happy self. She was also taken with a new Frozen doll that played "Let It Go" over and over -- I wisely decided to enforce the movie's lore, which states that Princess Elsa lives at grandma's house and doesn't come home with us.
Maia took a long nap (#4 for 2020) in the afternoon and awoke with another fever. 3.75 mL of ibuprofen later, she felt better enough to make some valentines for her friends and watch two episodes of Superwings.
How was your weekend?
tagged as
day-to-day
|
permalink
| 1 comment
|
Twenty years ago today, on January 29, 2000, I was in my fourth year at Virginia Tech. It snowed off and on all day long so I spent most of the day in my room in East Ambler Johnston. I did step out for lunch with Shac, Liz, and Liz's best friend, Kathryn, who was visiting and deciding whether to transfer in as a music education major.
The 29th was also the day I finally finished writing the endgame of Augmented Fourth. I posted endless troubleshooting requests to the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup in the days before Stack Overflow trying to solve my final coding issues:
I ultimately got the help I needed to detonate the bomb successfully (and now I'm probably on some kind of TSA list for this post). The next day, I solicited beta testers for two months of strenuous testing before the game was finally released on April 1.
To bookend this achievement, I'll be releasing a 20th anniversary edition exactly twenty years later, on April 1, 2020. Stay tuned!
tagged as
memories
|
permalink
| 1 comment
|
New photos have been added to the Life, 2020 album.
January's Final Grade: B, Too cold without enough snow, but easy and pleasant.
tagged as
day-to-day
|
permalink
| 0 comments
|
You are currently viewing a monthly archive, so the posts are in chronological order with the oldest at the top. On the front page, the newest post is at the top. The entire URI! Zone is © 1996 - 2023 by Brian Uri!. Please see the About page for further information.