I've been making twice-weekly trips over to Seattle for entirely too long and it's starting to wear on me. Especially now that the weather is getting all nasty and the deer are running. Today's trip found me with such poor visibility that I wasn't able to see the road much of the time. This was made worse when I very nearly plowed into some deer that ran onto the highway in front of me. The drive would have made for some cool photos, but the window-mount I constructed so I can shoot hands-free iPhone photos didn't seem to want to stick to the window, so I didn't get many shots at all. This one was taken at 1:30 in the afternoon before things got really bad...
Seattle was equally miserable, with rain pouring down on me as I attempted to run errands downtown. At one point I was forced to navigate a lake which had formed in the crosswalk, and ended up with soaking wet feet on top of everything else. Fortunately, I had a warm and comfy hotel room waiting for me...
Complete with my new Black Bear Sleepytime Pal...
And a nice view as well. Look at those awesome trees...
I have everything except a glass. Or a cup. Or a mug. Or anything that lets me get a drink of water without sticking my head under the faucet. At least without having to buy a bottle of water for $5.50. Kind of douchey for a hotel that I enjoy quite a lot otherwise.
Now my challenge will be trying to get a few hours of work done before that big comfy bed makes me fall asleep. I fully expect to fail.
But I think I can live with that.
Washington State votes by mail, so I've already taken care of business. But since most everybody else votes tomorrow, I thought I would post this amusing cartoon that's been working its way through the interwebs over the past week. Much of it is rather obtuse in the way it presents Tea Party positions on the issues... but I do like the way it hammers home how most Tea Partiers seem to have no fucking clue what they're talking about. Every single interview I've ever seen with a Tea Partier has been chocked full of such blinding ignorance that I'm left speechless. All these people know how to do is parrot the crap they've been conditioned to believe, and not bother actually thinking or researching anything for themselves. It's all at once mind-bogglingly sad and so fucking typical...
Interestingly enough, some of the Tea Party's core beliefs for accountability in government spending and limitations of government intrusion into our lives actually sound like a good thing to me. The problem is that Tea-Partiers seem to pick-and-choose how these concepts are applied. On one hand they don't want the government telling us how to live our lives, but then turn around and say that the government should pass laws preventing two people of the same sex from getting married. On one hand they don't want the government to be in the health-care business, but then turn around and say that the government should be forbidden from making any changes to Medicare. These seemingly endless contradictions make little or no sense. And when you add in the many lies and distortions that Tea-Partiers seem so fond of propagating, I am left scared as hell as to what might happen if these people actually start getting into office.
Sadly, it looks as though we might be finding out very soon.
VACATION AT LAST!!
Technically, my vacation isn't scheduled to start until tomorrow when I skip the country, but I was able to get a day pass to PAX, the "video gaming festival" going on in Seattle over the weekend. I don't have a lot of time to play video games anymore, but I still love them, and this was a great opportunity to see what's coming up from all the big gaming companies.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My vacation did not get off to the best start. This was made clear to me just as I was heading into Seattle...
Yes. Not so much a good time so far.
But then I made it to PAX, and everything got better again.*
What I was most interested in was seeing the sequel to one of the best games ever. The line was really long to play, but I did get to see... PORTAL 2!!
Uniquely awesome in every way. I cannot WAIT for it to be released! My beloved Weighted Companion Cube lives on!
Surprisingly, many of the other "hot" games at the show all looked like Worlds of Warcraft clones. They all had guys running around with a shield and sword killing monsters... Guild Wars 2, Rift, Alion, Tera, Lord of the Rings, etc. etc. And if it wasn't a "swords and sorcery" Massive Multiplayer Online Game, it was a military shoot 'em up in either a modern, future, space, or post-apocalyptic theme.
FORTUNATELY, there were some properties that takes this kind of gameplay and makes it interesting just because of the property attached. The Disney-themed Epic Mickey was pretty darn cool (even if the controls weren't that tight) but it was Star Wars: The Old Republic that took it to the next level. You haven't lived until you're hacking everything in sight with dual-lightsabers and blowing the crap out of stuff with Force lightning!
The biggest disappointment to me was the Xbox "Kinect" where the games were somewhat boring (the dance game was just plain stupid)... and I didn't really get the sense that the "virtual controller" was being used in any way more revolutionary than just holding onto the Nintendo Wii controllers. Of course I didn't get a chance to play for very long or see all the games, so maybe there's more to it than what I got to see. Otherwise, it was definitely "meh."
The second biggest disappointment was the number of "closed" booths, where you could ONLY see the game if you stood in line to play it behind closed doors. This SUCKS because some of the lines are so long I had -zero- chance of that. I wanted quite badly to see Dragon Age 2, but wasn't able to. BOOOOOO!
Since I only had four hours on the Exhibit Floor, I didn't get a very good PAX experience, but I still had a lot of fun...
Maybe next year!
Apparently, we have more tax dollars than we know what to do with here in Washington State.
Yesterday Seattle pressed the "on button" for their new "Smart Highway" project. In theory, it sounds fantastic. Highways which adapt to traffic conditions and help to regulate congestion by controlling the speed and position of vehicles on the road.
These new "Smart Highways" interact with reconfigurable signs like this...
In the above example, there's been a car collision, and the right two lanes have been closed. In preparation for this, there were instructions to merge earlier up the road...
And even earlier up the road, the traffic was slowed in order to make the merge happen more smoothly... and also to compensate for the loss of two lanes.
See? Fantastic. In theory.
In practice? Not so much.
Because the big glaring flaw in all this is that drivers aren't going to give a shit about any of it. People are going to wait until the last second before they merge (as always). People are going to ignore the reduced speed limits and go as fast as they can (as always). People are going to slow to a crawl as they approach the accident so they can gawk (as always). And it doesn't matter if you tell everybody that police will be enforcing compliance with the signage, because they don't really comply with the signage we have now.
And controlling traffic around an accident is the BEST CASE SCENARIO for making use of the "Smart Highway" signs. It's completely ineffectual for anything else. Case in point? It's ineffectual for managing heavy Seattle traffic, because no sign can change the fact that I-5 Northbound goes from five lanes to two lanes once you hit downtown. What can a sign... even a changeable sign... do with that bottleneck? And every time I saw that the speed had been reduced to "help with the lane flow" it was still posted as faster than what anybody was driving. And, even if somebody could exceed the ever-changing speed-limit, how the hell are the police going to enforce anything? The speed is 50 MPH one second and 40 MPH the next. How do you enforce that?
And, everything else aside, is it even SAFE to take people's eyes off the road for constant changes, updates, warnings, instructions, or what-not?
Millions spent. Nothing's changed. Maybe things are even worse.
So sadly typical.
After a long morning of work... lunch with my sister... then more work... it was time to meet up with Muskrat again for dinner in Seattle.
Being a little selfish, I do what I always do when guests are in town, take them to MY favorite restaurant, Ray's Boathouse (as I've detailed on my Secret Seattle Restaurants Page... shhhhh!). The views and food really can't be beat, and I highly recommend the place to anybody looking for an amazing meal experience in Seattle. Especially at sunset...
After that, we went to West Seattle's Alki Point so Muskrat could take a look at that picture-postcard-perfect Seattle Skyline view. Having photographed it dozens of times, I decided to play around with the "Hipstamatic" app on my iPhone to see what it would pick up. Generally I avoid Hipstamatic because it's so overused anymore, but there's no arguing with the freaky and wonderful results...
Of course, no photo can capture the experience of being there, which is why Alki is one of Seattle's "must-see" travel experiences.
And speaking of travel experiences... can I just say that Steven Slater is totally my hero now?
I am absolutely not kidding. While I am sorry he had to go through a melt-down while on the job, I am so sick and tired of the numerous abusive douchebags on planes anymore that ANYTHING which draws attention to these assholes is a good thing. If you're going to fly, be respectful and considerate and FOLLOW THE FUCKING RULES... OR DON'T FUCKING FLY!
I would never have the patience to deal with plane passenger dickwads for five minutes... let alone 28 years... so congratulations Mr. Slater for lasting this long. And especially for going out in such style when you'd finally had enough.
It's only a matter of time before a flight attendant has taken more than enough of people's shit and the killings begin. I, for one, can't wait. Maybe if being a fucking asshole could get you killed, people wouldn't be fucking assholes anymore.
Sure it's wishful thinking, but dreams can come true!
After flying up from Sacramento this morning, I was in a mad rush to get my work caught up so I could meet up with Muskrat and Whit to goof around in Seattle for a while.
Since Muskrat's time in The Emerald City is short, Whit and I attempted to do a whirlwind tour of the most popular Seattle tourist spots, including wandering the Pike Place Market, going to Ivars for dinner (with some very angry seagulls), getting a coffee at the first Starbucks, riding the monorail to the Pacfic Science Center, and (of course) going up the Space Needle...
The evening ended at Von's... a Seattle classic bar since 1904. We started with beer, but when a $4 Manhattan hit the Big Wheel of Magical Drink Specials, we couldn't resist...
Not a bad way to kill an evening!
This afternoon I hit Hard Rock property number 125 when I visited the new cafe in Seattle.
The best Hard Rocks take a classic older building and transform it into something new. In this respect, Seattle's cafe is beautiful, with warm woods, original brick, and exposed pipes. Unfortunately, it followed in the footsteps of the new cafes in Yankee Stadium, Dallas, and the Las Vegas Strip, in that the memorabilia is pretty scarce. Unlike the older properties where the walls are packed with artifacts from all aspects of music history, the new-style restaurants have much fewer scattered pieces sprinkled amongst a bunch of photos and video screens. The good news is that they do relate to Seattle's unique music history pretty well, featuring items from Hendrix, Heart, Mother Love Bone, Nirvana, and more.
Something new that I haven't seen before at any Hard Rock is their "call-in" number, where you can dial a local phone number, punch in code that's been tagged on a piece of memorabilia, and get more information about it. It's pretty sweet, and something I hope gets rolled out to other properties in the chain.
Despite my misgivings about the new design direction for the Hard Rock chain, the Seattle cafe is actually pretty nice. The location is perfect (just a block from the Pike Place Market), the staff is fantastic (a lot of experienced transfers from other properties), and the building is spacious (two levels with a stage at the upper bar).
Overall I'd say it's worth the two-decade-wait to finally have a "local" cafe in the Emerald City.
Here's hoping it will stick around for a good long while.
Last week I skipped Bullet Sunday because I was traveling but, lucky for me, Hilly-Sue was kind enough to pick up my slack! This week the bullets are back in Seattle, and so am I...
• Finale! Now that it's all over, I have to say that the cruise to Alaska was pretty darn special. Despite some dreary weather in spots, things couldn't have gone better, and the shore excursions were all beyond amazing experiences. If you're looking for a little adventure in your life, you could do a lot worse than exploring the Inside Passage. I booked through Jester's new company, Cruise Avenue, and am grateful for all his advice in getting me the perfect vacation. Might want to see those glaciers now while you still can...
• Pandemonium! Just got back from the Pet Shop Boys' "Pandemonium" tour stop in Seattle. It seems like it was just yesterday I went to their first-ever concert here in the city, and now they're back for round two! As expected, the show was amazing. I really like their new album, Yes, and they did a good job of mixing the new material with their classic hits...
For my fellow Pet Shop fans, the set-list went something like this... Heart, Did You See Me Coming?, Pandemonium/Can You Forgive Her?, Love Etc., Integral/Building a Wall, Go West, Two Divided By Zero/Why Don't We Live Together?, Always On My Mind, New York City Boy, Closer to heaven/Left to my Own Devices, Do I Have To?, King's Cross, The Way It Used To Be, Jealousy, Suburbia, All Over The World, Se A Vida É (That's The Way Life Is), Discoteca/Domino Dancing/Viva La Vida (COLDPLAY?!?), It's A Sin, Being Boring (encore), West End Girls (encore). A pretty sweet set... despite the sound at The Moore Theater being really uneven, and the sound-mix for the show being pretty bad in parts (Neil's vocals during King's Cross were obliterated). Still... well worth attending!
• Pet Shop Pics! I was too busy enjoying the show to be much of a photographer, but still managed to grab a few shots when I thought of it. From the looks of things, Neil and Chris have taken the "Cubism" theme of their previous tour and amped it up to the n-th degree, appearing as cube-heads with cube-head dancers and backup singers. As always, it was a pretty impressive production... even when restrained to the small stage of The Moore...
• Dee-Jay? I have been to clubs where very talented individuals have crafted amazing mixes of a wide variety of music in clever and interesting ways. These DJ's deserve their title, and work hard to craft an exciting experience for their audience. On the OTHER end of the spectrum, you have people who just take a string of dance remixes with the EXACT SAME throbbing disco beat... smash them together one after another... and call themselves a DJ. Now, it's probably me... I'm just somebody who doesn't "get" it... but who the fuck cares? Apparently, the Pet Shop Boys do, because THAT'S who they had as their opening act... a disco DJ with one throbbing beat after another. I honestly couldn't tell where one song starts and the other begins. It's just a blur of bass and synthesizers (but mostly bass). Yeah, I'm sure this "music" is just awesome to somebody who can appreciate it (or is high on crystal meth)... but I thought it sucked copious amounts of ass. After 45 minutes of this redundant shit, I was ready to jump off the balcony. The only thing I can think of to explain it is that the Pet Shop Boys wanted to bore the shit out of people before they take the stage so they appear that much better. Which is crazy. They don't need it. Things don't get much better than the Pet Shop Boys live.
• Progress? They keep plugging away at Seattle's Hard Rock Cafe. Now they've got actual signs up to let people know what's coming (but who knows when?)...
• Blue! Man, what a beautiful day in Seattle I came back to from rainy Alaska!
And thus ends my week of vacation big happy fun time. Back to the daily grind...
Ooh! It's time for vacation!
I'm departing sunny Seattle for the rain-soaked shores of Glacier Bay, Alaska. At least I'm assuming they're rain-soaked shores, because that's what everybody has been telling me. Whenever people hear where I'm going, it seems to be all they can talk about... "Those Alaska cruises are fantastic... if you like rain" or "You'll love it... if you don't mind getting wet" or "Yeah, I did that Alaska cruise... AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH RAIN IN ALL MY LIFE!" Since rain doesn't bother me much, I'm not worried about getting wet. I am, however, a little concerned that it seems to be the most memorable part of the trip for people who have done it before.
Interestingly enough, Seattle had positively flawless weather today...
But the minute we headed out into Puget Sound, the clouds started rolling in...
Which made for a nice sunset...
After the sun had gone, mist drifted in and covered the shoreline...
And now it's getting dark. That must mean it's time for ice cream.
I have a pile of work that won't go away. I have 138 unread messages in my email in-box. I have hundreds of unread blog posts. I even have a box of Junior Mints that is only half-finished... when am I supposed to find time to do all that stuff?
Probably after I drive home on Sunday.
But I'm not counting on it.
Every day when I pull into work, a cat jumps onto the hood of my car and attempts to break in. I like him, and have named him Psycho Cat because he never blinks... he just sits there and stares at you with crazy eyes. This morning he ran all around my car looking for a way inside. Eventually he was smart enough to stand on the door, apparently knowing that I had to open it sometime...
At this point he hopped on my lap and demanded to be petted.
Vicious.
Since I am going to a conference tomorrow morning and a graduation party tomorrow night, I decided to make time for a haircut after work. Fortunately, I'm in Seattle, which has my favorite place to get a haircut ever, Zero Zero...
I don't usually endorse businesses on my blog, but this is the coolest place for hair I've found, and the icing on the cake is that they're pretty darn affordable for a full-service salon (my cut was only $25!). But don't take my word for it, read all the rave reviews on Yelp! If you're in Seattle and looking for a stylist, you might want to give Zero Zero a try.
Since it's almost midnight, I suppose I should try to get some sleep.
Work, email, blogs, and Junior Mints will have to wait until tomorrow.
HA HA HA HA!
I lie. I am so totally going to finish off those Junior Mints now...
I had such a great time watching The Hangover at the movies last night, that I was planning on seeing a different film tonight. All day long I've been looking forward to it. But as the day became night... the exhaustion set in and suddenly none of the movies seemed good enough for me to make the effort. Terminator: Salvation was almost there, but I've read too many shitty reviews to risk it sucking. I guess I could have seen Star Trek for the third time but, given how tired I am, twice was good enough. Instead I walked to Johnny Rockets for yet another amazing vegetarian burger, then headed back to the hotel so I can blog and get ready for work tomorrow. My life is so exciting right now.
Meanwhile...
Work doesn't seem to be moving very quickly on the new Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle. It looks the same as it was months ago. Maybe they're just working on the inside where you can't see it right now...
Given what a colossal Hard Rock whore I am, I'm understandably excited about the new cafe. My biggest worry was that Seattle would get a shitty property, but the artist sketch from the Official Hard Rock Cafe website looks fantastic...
They're taking a classic old building and turning it into something special, which is what the best Hard Rocks do. They've also got a great spot... just one block from the Pike Place Market entrance. Hopefully it will do well so the location can stay open for a while... I'd be heartbroken if the cafe I've been waiting over two decades for shuts down after only a year or two. That would suck worse than never having one at all.
I just hope the guitar is right-side up on the finished building. It looks really funny up-side down in that sketch.
But what I REALLY hope that the baby in the room across the hall will settle down eventually. It's been screaming almost non-stop for THREE HOURS now. I need sleep tonight!
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