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I had a dream a few nights ago where I finally decided to try my hand at stand up comedy.  In the dream, I was rather successful at my first show, which took place at the Bagdad Theatre on Hawthorne.  People laughed, I made mistakes, I recovered, it was very realistic, or so I thought.  Today, though, I posted this to Twitter:

Help!  I’ve got a knot in my shoulder and the only cure (baby!) is more cowbell!

And it has me chuckling for an hour at my cleverness, even though I know it is definitely not that funny.  Hm.

Link. Every single episode viewable for free! ::looks at watch:: I suppose I could wait to do those important errands for a little bit...

Suffering from a case of chronic crankiness, which in turn leads to extreme frustration as crankiness typically prevents me from doing anything really proactive. Been watching a whole lot of DVDs these past few days. Did finish two books and write a few hundred lines of code, so I do not feel like a total mental slacker.

Really, I think it goes back to when I got off the trail on Thursday night. Last week, I backpacked the Washington portion of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from the Bridge of the Gods up to Huckleberry Mountain. Originally, I was planning to continue from that point up into the Indian Heaven Wilderness, but there were two reports of deep snow just another five or six miles after Huckleberry Mountain. By itself that would rarely be a reason to stop from continuing on but coupled with the fact that I was extremely bored hiking eight hours a day by myself did. So, I did an about face and hiked the 8.5 miles back from Huckleberry Mountain to the Wind River Highway, and then was lucky enough to hitch a ride into Carson in the first ten minutes. Then, nothing.

No one gave me a ride after that point. Dozens and dozens of vehicles went by me at the Carson intersection with Highway 14. People saw me or, oh so lovingly, pretended not to, and they kept on going. As Stevenson was only four and a half miles away, I simply gave up after a while and just walked alongside the highway. That was all sorts of unpleasant.

Got to Stevenson and got a rather tasty chocolate milkshake at my favorite ice cream shop on that side of the Columbia Gorge. Strangely, while there, I got hit on by a girl just out of high school working there for the summer. Felt like pulling out my driver's license and indicating that, excuse me, I'm old, please stop. Ah, you see, the crankiness had begun.

Tried to hitch again at the edge of Stevenson without any luck. My faith in humanity sure looked nice swirling down the toilet bowl of broken dreams. Though, I must say, Obama's primary campaign promises sparkled a bit more when they went down.

During my little hike along the highway, I pulled out my iPhone and checked my voicemail and email for the first time in over three days. Amelia had called asking for a housing reference, so I called her back and left a message. Then, about a mile from the car, I pulled out the phone again and discovered that I had cracked the screen, probably by putting my backpack on top of it during my last break. Crappity crap crap. Thankfully, the darn thing still worked even with the cracked screen. Still, not exactly a welcome event after being dirty and exhausted and callously ignored by my fellow man.

You know, this story of crankiness goes on for a while. Let's stay away from the fine details.

Oregon Brewfest was noisy, smelly, and crowded. I went with friends but left after half an hour without having a single beer, and then spent two hours in Powell's being my Reedie self. Tried Kell's later but it had the same problem. On the way there an amazingly drunk guy tried to punch me. His face met a nearby wall with rather little of my assistance. Dan got too tipsy and blurted something out that I really wish he had not. Met someone, again, who reminded me of my complicated Reed life of yore and lore. End Saturday.

Tried to see if my iPhone damage could be fixed under warranty. Nope, $250 to replace entire device and would have to wait about a week. Spent $200 to buy a new iPhone 3G instead, after waiting in line for an hour and a half. Monthly budget? We ain't got no monthly budget! Almost hit a biker on the way home when they ran a stop sign. Traffic laws? Who needs to follow those?

Nothing really eventful after Sunday, but it has just been a gradual build up. Everywhere I bike around PDX there are idiots zooming through stop signs without even pausing to check for cars or other bikes. Coming home three nights ago, a Speedy Gonzales wannabe was passing people recklessly on the Hawthorne Bridge and then through Ladd's Addition thinking he was da shit. Friends, he was not. I passed his overly tattooed ass up a hill without even trying. Let's not even talk about the fact there are likely more people biking without helmets than with them in PDX.

Was reading up on PHP, programming, and EllisLab events yesterday. Been ignoring all three for about a month, but I like to keep informed and up to date. You know, more than half the people out there passing themselves off as PHP experts seem to have no clue how to write a program for any audience greater than themselves. I even read a fascinating article by one fellow on how to make prospective developers cry during their interviews. Disappointing and frustrating all around. And why is Flickr headquartered down in California? They do some really fascinating work and I would really enjoy expanding a service I greatly enjoy, but I do not want to love down there.

My housing situation is displeasing me a bit too. I would love to do a bit of programming at home, but the atmosphere is just killing any groove for it. One neighbor has chickens that cluck all morning and another has a crying baby they keep on taking outside in the afternoon. Natalie is out of town for two weeks, which is actually rather nice (even though she took my nail clippers without asking). Whenever she is here it feels odd for me to do anything in the house. Out of my bedroom, virtually nothing upstairs is mine and the basement is semi-crowded with her stuff. It is not easy to feel at home when the house does not feel even remotely yours. She has has the habit of using the kitchen and not cleaning anything up before leaving, leaving lights on, using her A/C unite to cool her bedroom (and sometimes the entire house when I am gone), and the most annoying habit of leaving the closet door open right in front of my room. We get along, but we do not groove. I have been looking for a new place on Craigslist periodically, but I am torn between wanting both the city life but the country living, all without having to drive anywhere.

And, kind of overhanging this entire crankiness is that Kathryn and I broke up about two weeks ago. Nothing wrong with the 'us' exactly, more the fact that we were both trying to fit our lives into a relationship. instead of having a relationship in our lives. It was not working out, more for me than for her. Inevitable complications, emotions, and conversations are hard to resist and I am not sure it is going well. One of the reasons I jumped into the woods for a few days.

Right, well, I feel a bit better getting a bit of that written down and thrown into the digital sea for all to see. Now for a late lunch and perhaps a nap.

Link. Thanks to the prompting of a friend, I have been investigating the GRE and LSAT tests and what I would need to do to prepare for them. I have been out of school for over seven years now, so I feel certain skills are rusty and a great deal of knowledge might have been lost. Never hurts to prepare. This, though, disturbs me greatly. More and more I realize just how little I trust our government (and, relatedly, our government employees) with any sort of power.

Link. May I call this 'utterly brilliant', please?

Link. So! Go ahead, lick your wounds, people!

Link. A few of these may be Photoshopped, but heck they're still really funny.

Beware: Extremely minor spoilers. Nothing will be ruined by this entry, if you have seen the trailer.

Getting it out of the way, first thing: I was not overly impressed by The Dark Knight. My expectations were high. Extremely so. They looked down and saw the Hubble Telescope below, they were so high. That is not why the movie failed in my eyes.

Spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at clips of the movie that have leaked online. Watching them, I am noticing two problems.

First, the cinematography is failing in many scenes. When a character is being malicious, fearful, twisted, contemplative, et cetera it really helps to not be at the same angle and the same distance for half the scene. I watched the first minute of when the Joker crashes Wayne's party and while the lines are good and the characters great, the camera just swings about a bit and we never get the force of what is happening. The viewing angle is uninteresting. It adds nothing to the film, and by being nothing it detracts.

The cinematography especially fails when we are watching Batman fighting multiple opponents. One on one, Batman is great in Christopher Nolan's two films, you can get the full force of his anger, his desires, his emotions, his physicality. But, when the director is shooting complex fight sequences it falls apart. The final fight scene with the Joker's goons actually bored me because it was difficult to follow and understand. This is Batman! I should not be daydreaming during a climactic fight.

The second problem is that there was too much film. Not saying there was too much script, as it all made sense and the story stuck together, but we just saw too much of it. Too many little bitty flash scenes and extra moments when people were not actively moving the story forward. And, there are small little subplots that probably could have been removed altogether and not even dented the movie a bit. Things just kept on dragging. Probably the best way to describe it is being ready for the next part of the story and the previous part is still going for another few minutes. Tedious.

All that being said, there were some exceptional gems in this film. Heath Ledger as the Joker was great, and there were a few scenes that were exceptional. Funny and thrilling and a bit demented at the same time. The Joker at the hospital was particularly notable. I really wish the cinematography had been better in a few of his scenes as it simply killed his acting for me. When Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face I was thrilled. Honestly, once that transformation happened I more wanted to see Two-Face than The Joker. That was unexpected, which is a treat in of itself.

So, all said and done, it is worth seeing just for the gems and seeing how the story unfolds. However, unlike a couple other films released this last year, I am not eager to see it again in theatres. That, frankly, is sad.

'Twas an exhausting afternoon but with Flogging Molly playing on iTunes the night feels energetic and I think I might watch a movie before passing out.

My original plan for today was to bike out to Sandy and then back again, just like I did last Thursday. With the hard hills on Tuesday and a Reed Sports Center workout yesterday, as well as the brutal weekend in Bend, I was not going to up my mileage yet. Instead, I wanted to do the same mileage again but with no breaks for the entire ride. Of course, then, I woke up this morning with a severe case of the Lazies. Instead of leaving on my ride by 10 a.m. I barely got to breakfast by that point, even after a searing shower to wake me up.

Cue Les Camacho over iChat. Thanks to his prompting, and powerful need to live vicariously through me, I got my non-Irish ass a moving. Pumped up the tires to full pressure. Cleaned the chain and shifters as the last few rides had gotten them fairly dirty and I do love myself a smooth running chain. Of course, about three miles up the Springwater Corridor, I discovered that I had virtually used up one of my back brake pads with all the up and down on Council Crest on Tuesday. Note to self, check all components prior to riding.

Since the Springwater Corridor has very little braking, I just kept on going using the front brakes only. When I got to Sandy, I stopped at a huge bike shop at the East end of town and got some new pads installed. Ah, what a difference. I am a back braker. Just my nature and the way I ride. The lightness of the bike requires it a bit too. While they were being put on for me, I pumped myself full of some energy gel and water. Did not feel too bad, so I decided to keep on going. Maybe go a few more miles and then turn around.

Er, why do I do this to myself? Just a few more miles I tell my body. Pumped full of endorphins and ignoring the few protests from my body, I found myself going and going. And then, around 4:30 p.m. I found myself all the way out at Welches, OR, which is right before Highway 26 begins to climb up Mt. Hood.

Knowing that I was easily over 40 miles from home, I actually considered climbing up Hood and staying the night at Government Camp. Only ten miles more up the road and the elevation would be tiring but not as bad as the mileage home (or so I was trying to convince my body to believe). That argument felt a bit lacking, so I got a Snickers and a bit of pain reliever (oy, my bum!) at Thriftway and turned around. The ride back to Sandy was a slog of mostly uphill into the wind. Nothing really makes you appreciate a bike path until you are biking on a busy highway, with at times only three feet of pavement allocated for you and your bike, where trucks keep on invading your space, all the while you are concentrating on avoiding any glass, rocks, holes, and large sticks in your path.

I started swearing right about when I saw the "Portland - 42 miles" sign.

At Sandy, I got through town and then collapsed in the shade of a Taco Bell, where I swallowed the rest of my gel and took off my shoes to let my feet breathe some fresh air. Gave Les a call on the mobile and promptly told him it was his fault that I was 25 miles from home after already doing 60 miles of biking. I strongly hinted that I wanted him to come pick me up. Is it my fault he lives in Nebraska and not Oregon? I think not...

The break outside Taco Bell made me feel a great deal better. I think giving my bum and feet a serious break relieved a great deal of the exhaustion built up in my system. I am used to hiking or climbing for hours and hours, but my body is not used to being in the saddle for that long. Second wind in hand, I zoomed home in under two hours even with the city traffic and the plethora of pedestrians on the Corridor.

Got home, showered, ate dinner at the Hedge House, and am feeling only a bit tired from my ride. Mapping out the entire route, I did just under 90 miles. Doing the Government Camp and back ride seems tantalizingly close.

Link. And, Edmunds.com tested a few other fuel saving tips as well, including A/C vs. putting the windows down and turning off the car instead of letting it idle.

Finding this information all came about because last month, when Senator John Warner (R - VA) asked that research be done into seeing how lowering the speed limit would effect gasoline usage and engine efficiency. There were quite a number of moronic silly people who saw this as imposing on their 'right' or 'freedom' to drive. I find that so incredibly laughable. Driving is not a right. Nor is driving how fast you want a right or a basic tenet of freedom. I am very much in support of lowering speed limits on many highways and interstates.