trikes!

On my walk to work this morning I passed by a really interesting site. Outside the front of a building in Ballard there was a wall being erected with rocks, and interspersed in the rock wall were small tricycles! It was just too random..had to take a picture and post on this blog.

Happy Mountain Day!

If I was still at Mount Holyoke, I would NOT be in class today. Why? you non-MHCers may be asking? Well, because it's Mountain Day...that one precious day that we all yearned for from the start of classes in the fall, when the abbey church bells would start going off bright and early in the morning to announce that classes for the day were canceled so that we might all go out and climb a mountain. Although, to be perfectly honest I never went and climbed Mt. Holyoke on Mountain Day...I did at another time...but usually I spent Mountain Day relaxing and enjoying that there were no classes. And if I got really lucky and Mountain Day fell on a day when a paper was due then I usually spent the day in a happy haze of euphoria that I had more time to work on and finish said paper :-)

If only we alums could continue the tradition of Mountain Day in our work environments...how great would that be?!?! But instead I'm stuck inside at work on a gorgeous Seattle fall day with temps in the upper 70's, blue skies and bright sunshine. It's just so sad...so very, very sad.

Instead of pictures from a hike today...I've included some pics from a hike I did a week or so ago to Lake Serene (including a tree that was on the trail that I fell in love with).

Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving!!!

This past weekend was Oktoberfest in Fremont...and my favorite part of the Fremont Oktoberfest took place: the Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving contest!!!! Love it! So much fun! And of course I went to both days of the event and took a million pictures (which made choosing a few for this blog kind of difficult).

For those of you who have never heard of Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving, it's basically where you care a pumpkin with a chainsaw. This process creates great entertainment with a combination of factors: lots of loud noise, spraying pumpkin guts and wacky personalities.

Here are some pictures from the carving contest, cause it's hard to describe and much better to see visuals to get the full impact:





The winner from the first day (and my favorite from both days):

It's all about Beckham...

...and soccer, I suppose. Went to the Real Madrid vs. D.C. United game last night, and was one of the 68,000 spectators who were drooling over Beckham. Lisa and I both were insanely jealous of the little girl who got to walk out with Beckham when the players were announced...he held her hand and draped his arms on her shoulders the entire time. *swoon* The above picture is from the warm up before the game. Beckham is the one in front with his back to the camera, wearing those awesome blue shoes (that he wore during the World Cup as well...I love those shoes!). The game itself was pretty awesome as well. It was an interesting experience to be in an almost sold out stadium for a soccer game, and then to have EVERYONE cheering for both teams. The final score was 1-1 and there were some really great shots on goal. I felt really bad for Freddy Adu, the 17 year old on D.C. United, because all the older players were tripping him, hitting him, and the ref was against him the entire time. He seemed to be a bit frustrated about that...not that I blame him.

Anyway, I tried getting some more shots of Beckham, but the only way I could get anything descent was to use my digital zoom...which created some funky pixelized photos...so I decided to have some fun in photoshop:


This one is a fun one with brush strokes over the image.















And then Beckham in color pencil.












And last but not least...Beckham under plastic wrap!

Coup de Boule

So I read an article on the BBC online today that was talking about this song that has been sweeping France. It's called "Coup de Boule" or Headbutt, and it's by La Plage. Apparently the recording company, La Plage, made up this song as a joke right after Zidane headbutted the Italian and then proceeded to help lose the game because he didn't play. This little joke of a song, though, became a huge success and now is played on all the radio stations and all the beaches :-)

After reading this article I, of course, became quite curious to hear the song for myself. I found it online...and I have to say, for any of you who understands French, you must check out the music video at the link below (click on the link for "clip de Coup de Boule)...too funny! And even if you don't understand French I think you'd still find it funny. Enjoy!

La Plage Records

Pirates!

Saturday night was the Seattle Seafair Torchlight parade downtown. It was a lot of fun with tons of wild little kids running around like puppies and clowns and pirates (did I mention pirates...yes, there were pirates). I had a bit too much fun taking funky pictures in between laughing fits. And here are some of my favorites for your viewing pleasure! See if you can tell what the subjects of the photos are!

Relaxing Doe Bay

I love the San Juan Islands! Spent a prolonged weekend at a hippie resort called Doe Bay on Orcas Island and came back feeling totally relaxed and wishing that I could spend the rest of my life up in the islands. It's so great how as soon as you get on the ferry at Anacortes everything else just falls away...the only things that become important are the water, the weather and food. All I did over the weekend was eat yummy food (there's a new cafe at Doe Bay that serves incredibly delicious vegetarian food and really good Kire), sleep and nap in the shade, stare out at the water (the view seen below), read lots and lots (got a great book about soccer called, How Soccer Explains the World, by Franklin Foer), some hiking under really green trees and last but certainly not least: spending lots of time in the hot tub and sauna at Doe Bay...which also has an incredible view of the bay.

The whole weekend reaffirmed my wish to some day run my own bed and breakfast...I think that would be so great! I would love to try and create an environment, like at Doe Bay, where people feel totally pampered and relaxed. I mean, at Doe Bay I was camping, sleeping in a tent, but everything about the place from the nice showers, the hot tub, the great restaurant and the public kitchen made the entire camping experience feel more like some sort of luxury camping resort. Now I want to do that, but in a bed and breakfast environment...and maybe up in the islands. I'll just have to keep dreaming.

Allez les Blues!!!!

I don't believe it!!! France won against Portugal today, which places then in the final World Cup game against Italy! The blue team is playing against the other blue team! I'm soooo excited!!! Party at my house for the final on Sunday!

mutant animals

So I've been trying to get my pictures together from the Fremont Solstice Parade to post them on this blog, but haven't had the time to go through them yet to pick the best ones...in the mean time I do have some other pictures that I can post for y'alls viewing pleasure. These images were not taken by my camera...they were in fact forwarded to me, and I just couldn't resist not sharing them. So enjoy! And if you want to see more, let me know and I can forward them all to you :-)

Parkour

Parkour Craze Reaches New Heights

The above is an article from the BBC about the street art called Parkour that involves jumping from rooftop to rooftop, scaling walls and basically some pretty cool feats of acrobatics. I recently saw a French action movie called District B-13:

District B-13 official website

which features this new street sport, and I totally fell in love with the it. I know that I could never pull off being able to do these stunts myself, but I love watching others do it....the fluidity, grace and seeming ease of it is really awesome. Not to mention that the moves are just plain hot. One of the two guys who started Parkour in the suburbs of Paris will be featured in the new James Bond movie, and there are several documentaries that have been made about the sport. If you'd like to see more, here are some websites that I found with a quick google search:

Parkour::Free Running

le Parkour

Urban Free Flow

Foiled Again

I think that the boulangerie in Wallingford has something against me...over the past year I have been trying to get some of my favorite tasty treats from there, but every single time I manage to get there...THEY'RE CLOSED! One time if was because they were on vacation, one time it was a Monday which is their one day of the week off, but all the other times it has been during their open hours on their open days...but they've been closed! Like this morning for example: I was in desperate need for some comfort food cause I had a lonely night last night without Guinness (my dog sitting duties are on pause because Uncle Richard took him up to the farm for a few days). So I decided that what would make me really happy would be a brioche aux amandes, or really any tasty treat at the boulangerie. So I walk over before having to catch the bus in to work....and they were CLOSED!!! *gasp* I think they knew I was coming and closed up to continue this mean game they have going on here.

*sigh* I have such fond memories of that boulangerie from when I was a kid...my parents and I used to get Sunday breakfast there every week for years. It's actually the best place to get French bread and pastries in town. They're not super sweet like some places, and much more authentic in how they're made.

One of these days I'll trick that boulangerie into being open for me! Maybe I'll just keep going by every day and until they let me in. hmmm, must plot and plan.

How to watch the World Cup

I read TomDispatch from time to time...and today there was an article by Tony Karon entitled "How to Watch the World Cup: Politics and War by Other Means." It's a great article with great stories about the importance of the World Cup to all countries (except the USA). It's a bit long, but I highly recommend reading even just a portion of it, it covers a bit of everything:

TomDispatch: Tony Karon

And here's a great quote from that article:

"From contemporary geopolitical and cultural conflicts (or their historic echoes) to the impact of globalization, the World Cup offers a real-time snapshot of the state of our world."

I then, of course, had to look up Tony Karon's blog, Rootless Cosmopolitan, and here's the link to his World Cup commentary:

What do they of football know who only football know

Happy Art Is Fun

I'm back online after our modem crashed at work...that was difficult. However did we live life before the internet came along? Ditto for cell phones.

Anyway, I had some fun this weekend going through some old art material I had stashed away...and found some pretty funny mementos from my past. But the only person who will understand is Leah...and possibly Beks:

Hidden away between scraps of art paper was an ad for a French movie featuring a guy on a bike...taped over his head was the head of Legolas...and taped over the name of the movie was the slogan "Happy Art Is Fun". And then a few minutes later I found some other treasures...figures from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game, all with talk bubbles wishing me happy birthday in true Buffy fashion. That's right Leah, I still have those little guys...and had a good laugh upon finding them again!

movie update

So far I've seen three movies at SIFF, and for the most part they've all been great. And for now my favorite is Expiration Date, which I saw on Saturday. For anyone who loves quirky comedies and like making fun of death...this is the movie for you. Especially cool (as far as I'm concerned) is the fact that the film was shot entirely in Seattle (cameo appearances for the troll and Waiting for the Interurban...also featured quite a bit is Ballard Ave.)

I also saw Russian Dolls which was pretty good...Xavier super annoying, but he's supposed to be...and I wish that more of the characters from l'Auberge Espagnol had bigger parts in this movie. But overall it was great to finally see something happen between Xavier and Wendy. And it was so obviously a French movie...and no JJ, this does not mean that everybody died at the end...just that there was lots of nudity. There's this one scene where...well, I'll keep that a secret for anyone who wants to see the film :-) Plus, seeing Paris again, even if on film, was awesome.

And the last movie I saw this weekend was Princess Raccoon...I've been finding it a bit hard to describe this film...it's a musical, filmed primarily on stage sets...and it's a sort of fairy tale about a princess of magical woodland creatures and a human prince (whose father wants to kill him off) who fall in love. There were some great dance numbers (and by great I mean incredibly silly), but one of my favorite scenes is when the king is trying to kill Princess Raccoon on a beach (one of the few scenes not on a set)...but all the dialogue was dubbed in and they didn't use any of the sounds from the surf or wind...so you see a beach with waves and obviously lots of wind pulling at clothing, but you don't hear any of it. Very strange...but then the entire movie was strange.

Seattle

Here's a neat website with photographs of Seattle...they're 360 degree images and very fun (but beware, you might get dizzy if you spin the images too fast):

VR Seattle

The present or the past?

From the today's Seattle PI, cartoon by David Horsey.

SIFF

I bought tickets for the Seattle international Film Festival yesterday...in case anyone might be going, here are the movies I'll be seeing:

Expiration Date (already posted about this one...can't wait to see it!)
Russian Dolls (this is a sort of sequel to l'Auberge Espagnol)
Princess Raccoon (Japanese, and I guess it's a musical..we'll see)
Carmen in Khayelitsha (South African and based on an opera)
Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas (this just looks silly)
Vishwa Thulasi (need to get my Indian movie fix)
No. 2 (from New Zealand)
the Valet (and I also need my French movie fix)
What Remains (documentary about the photographer Sally Mann...this one should be excellent)

Can't wait to see these movies :-) I love SIFF, but I wish that it wasn't just once a year...sigh. Or I guess I wish that we got more international movies as general releases instead of having to wait for film festivals to see them.

football! (not american football..the real game)

In a little less than a month the World Cup of soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls it, will begin. Then it will be one solid month of intense competition. I'm already starting to get excited...and at work Richard and I have been checking out the FIFA website for updates and looking at slide shows. I've even already found a local pub in my neighborhood where I will be able to go and watch the games. Here is the website in case any of you want to check out the teams or the game schedules:

FIFA World Cup

And I also have to post two of my favorite pictures that I nabbed from the slide show:



This impressive looking guy is the Czech team's head coach, Karel Bruckner. Doesn't he look like some sort of warrior king getting ready for a major battle?

And to contrast the intense Czech coach, here's another pic that is a bit more in the realm of the silly, gee...I wonder, do you think a lot of guys watch football?

court jester

Yes, that's right...I'm going to take a minute to join all the many others talking about Stephen Colbert's monologue at the White House Correspondents' dinner. If you have been living under a rock over the last week, here's a site that has video of the event:

Thank You Stephen Colbert

I wish I could have been there...I think it would have been vastly amusing to listen to Colbert roast Bush and the media right to their faces. To see the media squirm in their seats and laugh nervously or not at all and the watch Bush try to keep up and understand what's really being said. "Wait, is he making fun of me, or is he really praising me?" But really, what were they expecting when they invited Colbert themselves...have they never watched his show?

Here's another link for y'all. It's to an article in the Seattle PI:

Why Stephen Colbert is my hero

Expiration Day

So I learned about what looks to be a great movie over the weekend that encompasses all the feelings I went through when I turned 25...basically that my life was over cause I'm old now...only I didn't have a milk truck trying to run me over :-)

Anyway, it's an independent film, shot in Seattle and looks perfectly goofy...I can't wait to see it:

Expiration Day