Somewhere Only We Know

Posted by Thomas Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:08:48 +0000

In my head this morning: Keane – Somewhere Only We Know

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Movie Marathon Epilogue

Posted by Thomas Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:38:03 +0000

The weekend was quite nice. Unfortunately Saturday it decided to get hot again, after having several days of 70s and being quite pleasant. I rode Friday evening after some marathon meetings. Getting a work out was good. :)

On Saturday, I multitasked while getting a car wash, scarfing down lunch and hoping my antenna didn’t get torn off or bent. I headed downtown, ignoring the signs that said “avoid 75/85 downtown”. They weren’t lying, and I sat in traffic for a good 30 minutes. I left rather early, so I had time to waste. I did fill this time, though, with some traffic engineering. I made it to this theater (UA Tara), mid-afternoon. It was quite old, only had like 4 screens, and didn’t even have stadium seating, which quite surprised me. It looked like it had a bunch of indie films, and strangely the vast majority of folks watching were older (i.e. retired). Not quite the demographic I’m used to seeing at the theater.

First up was The Hurt Locker. I wasn’t too impressed (aka I didn’t really get it). I’m not really one for this particular genre of war movies.

I had a bit to kill until the next movie, so I ate at The Varsity Jr.. I can now say that I’ve eaten at The Varsity (even if it wasn’t the one on 75/85 :) ). It wasn’t too bad (though I wasn’t terribly hungry to begin with — given me eating only a few hours prior, and I’m not especially one for hot dogs).

Then at the same theater, it was on to Away We Go, with its stellar cast. It’s a Focus film, so you know it’s good. :) It was probably my favorite of the three.

The film let out a little after 9pm, leaving little time to find the next theater to see (500) Days of Summer. It was close by (10 minutes), but I’d never been there before. Along the way I re-found Taco C. I thought I blogged about it being in a shady part of town (but I couldn’t find a post in a cursory search). But, having lived here longer, it still is in a possibly shady part of town, but not in a necessarily unsafe part of town. I’ll probably have to frequent there more often when the urge hits me. I finally found the shopping center containing the theater, but had issues actually finding it. Asking someone for help, I managed to find it, get my tickets, and sit down just as it was starting. The house was packed, but I found a decent seat. Yay for things working out! I will probably leave my full review for another post, but I will say that while I immensely enjoyed the dialog/comedy, thought it was a really good movie, and think people should see it, I really didn’t like it. Like I said, the full review (including spoilers) will have to wait for another rant, er I mean post. :)

After driving back to to the suburbs, I had an Oreo blast from Sonic at midnight, to top off the night. Good times.

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BL: 7/27

Posted by Thomas Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:08:46 +0000

7/27: 6mi @ 17mph — this one just about made me puke :)

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BL: 7/24

Posted by Thomas Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:33:18 +0000

7/24: 6mi @ 16mph; terrain: totally flat

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Movie Marathon

Posted by Thomas Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:02:50 +0000

I guess I’m doing some movie binging (not to be confused with bing-ing) to try to keep from falling further behind on my movie watching (while giving money to those institutions still making great movies).

To see today:

The Hurt Locker + Away We Go + (500) Days of Summer

While utterly ignoring my dire need to do laundry, buy plane tickets back to Canyon, get my oil changed, and clean my bathroom.

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Endless searching

Posted by Thomas Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:55:25 +0000

I just spent 3 hours looking for a video I knew existed. :(

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BL: 7/22

Posted by Thomas Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:37:14 +0000

Yesterday: 3mi
Today: 6mi @ 16mph, totally flat

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Housing Maps + Android

Posted by Thomas Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:46:11 +0000

Would be nice if someone would write an Android app that combines street view and housing rental listings. Sort of like housingmaps.com, but with a real time display of your surroundings, overlaid with the listing. Also like this but showing the real buildings, etc on the screen. That way, I could be standing in a park, and look all around me and see which buildings have rentals available, and would be able to see what the outside looks like without having to actually go to the building.

Posted in Technology | 1 Comment

travel day

Posted by Thomas Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:16:19 +0000

Ug. Flight from atl to dfw good. Have to wait to fix flight door motor from dfw to ama. 30 min late. Got to ama; no luggage :( no refund of my $15, but luggage couriered to canyon at their expense :)

1030a flight from ama to iah on tues cancelled. Weather fail at iah. No text, no call, no nothin’. They automatically rebooked on 430p; good. 2h wait in line to find out what I already knew, not so good. 430p ontime until it wasn’t, at about 345p. Delayed til 530p. Which means ill prolly miss my connection. :( They nicely rebook on 1p flight, which seemed to want to leave at 435p. But then plane requires 10m of maintenance. :( 45m later, we finally start boarding. During this time the 430p flight arrives at ama. Since our jet was empty and still needing maint, they pulled it away from the jet bridge, so we board on the tarmac. Fun. Both the 1p and 430p leave around 530p, which still makes me think I’m gonna miss my connection. Sleep most of the way and get to iah at 7p. 30m to catch connection. Sprint catty-corner thru term b to catch ghetto bus to term a. Make it to conn w/ 10m to spare. Flight to cll uneventful. At cll, no cars to rent and no luggage. Luckily while waiting on ride luggage arrives on next flight.

Not much more luck on the flight from College Station back to ATL. Make it to Houston fine, after waiting a bit on tsa to open shop and babysit us through the process. Get on plane and start taxiing to take off on-time (supposed to leave at 447p). Something like 45 minutes go by, still on tarmac. Eventually they say that there’s a ground lock in Atlanta, more info in 20 min. Eventually they say that they’ll take us back to the gate. Once at the gate, I scarf down Popeye’s because I have no idea when my next meal will be. I also stock up on bottled water, just in case. I think it was like twice that they said “we’ll have more info in one hour”. Lots of reading and lots of people watching. Eventually they set the departure time of like 1020p. We get in at like 2am. Yet again I’m like 6 hours later than I was supposed to be. At least this time I didn’t have to pay for checking my bag, and they didn’t manage to lose the bag, either.

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pbs rocks

Posted by Thomas Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:59:16 +0000

I totally watched all of “Chess in Concert” on pbs the night it originally aired on June 17. To this day I still don’t really understand why. I did somewhat enjoy it, though… Also just caught “Old Crow Medicine Show” on Austin City Limits, which was also very high quality. :)

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2009 Bradley Symposium

Posted by Thomas Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:31:18 +0000

Well, well, well worth the two hours it takes to watch (transcript). It doesn’t completely lack politicking/punditry, but by far has the highest content, least politicking, and most articulate and eloquent commentary on how the Republican party has gotten into its current predicament and many more or less concrete steps to take to gain back market share.

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Capitalism or Socialism

Posted by Thomas Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:20:15 +0000

If you ask Americans, what system do you prefer — capitalism or socialism, only 13 percent of people over 40 say socialism, but 33 percent of Americans under 30 say socialism.1

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US Corporate Tax Rate

Posted by Thomas Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:19:36 +0000

Of the 106 countries surveyed, only the United Arab Emirates (55 percent), Kuwait (55 percent), and Japan (40.69 percent) impose a higher corporate tax rate than the combined rate of 40 percent in the U.S.1

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3 way handshake

Posted by Thomas Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:36:54 +0000

Flipping through the channels and stopping to watch Chelsea Lately, plus reading “3 way handshake episode 15” in my rss feeds, makes me think that a “3 way handshake” has to be a euphemism for something… :)

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