Busy Weekend

Dev and I had a fully packed weekend. We finished converting our chain link fence into a more rustic cedar plank privacy fence. I went to a Ministry concert. We took in X-Men: The Last Stand at our local theater. I finished "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. We finished off the Firefly TV Series DVD set and watched the movie Serenity. I started reading Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. And finally, Devon got whupped by her allergies.

Breaking the Code

Devon and I saw The DaVinci Code today. The movie didn't live up to the negative expectations that I'd formed for it. The pacing moved nicely, the characters developed as much as any cinema figures do and the story had some nice touches (most of which I'd been introduced to in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and Foucault's Pendulum). I did not feel like the movie wasted my time and ultimately that is some of the highest praise for any movie.

New fence on the way

Multnomah county issued our refund for property taxes (apparently our mortgage company pays those for us - who knew!) We can now proceed with the third and final stage of the Neves-Miller Neighbor Exclusion Act of 2006.

We get to build the last and longest section of our fence now.

Hope Springs Eternal

Truthout has some great articles here and here about a supposed serving of indictments on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice to Rove's attorneys. No mention of it in the mainstream media yet.

Hope springs eternal.

I Saw it as in a Dream

For those of you who have not seen it, go to Crooks and Liars and watch Al Gore's intro to Saturday Night Live for May 13th.

Sit back, wait for it to load and enjoy the fantasy.

Long lost friends part duex

Our friend Lawrence Fife (seen here in the blue shirt and next to Dev) just announced his own blog. Dev and I hadn't heard from him in a good long time. Turns out he moved to Montreal. He's been talking about getting up north for a couple of years; I'm glad to see he finally took the dive.

Looking forward

My neighbor Sara encouraged me to go to a Town Hall meeting Saturday before last (that's April 29th for those of you keeping score at home). Envision Oregon organized the meeting as a chance for citizens from everywhere in Oregon to weigh in on the direction for the state. The diversity of the attendants and the unanimity of goals surprised me.
Envision Oregon is hosting a whole series of these meetings; if you live in the state then check out the schedule and register for one of the meetings. Worst case scenario, you lose 3 hours.

Long lost friends

Devon and I got to see Damon this weekend. He came up to Portland to set up a portable dance floor for a breakdance competition sponsored in part by Red Bull. He came over and spent most of the day with us on Saturday. And how did we repay him for coming to see us?

We asked him to help us build a gate.
Aren't we great friends?

Well, after building the gate and then rushing back to the event site (at PSU), Damon joined us for a really good sushi dinner at Mio Sushi off the trendy NW 23rd Street shopping district.

Thanks for coming Damon! We promise not to make you work on structures the next time you visit!

Did I say the Right had no sense of irony?

Stephen Colbert spoke last night at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. I really don't know how a media and PR machine as saavy as the Bushies could have made this kind of error. The only thing I can visualize is a conversation that goes like this:

---
Bushie #1: Who will we get as the last speaker for the Correspondents' Dinner?

Bushie #2: How about Stephen Colbert? He's like Bill O'Reilly except he's funny!

Bushie #1: Done!
---

I mean, did these guys ever watch Colbert's show? Or did they think that Stephen Colbert did silly things like the "Threat Down" that listed "Bears" as one of the top five threats to America every week in order to mock the scare tactics of the Left?

Or maybe when Colbert said "Mr. President, it's time to hire the folks who've never let you down. Limbaugh at Health and Human Services, Hannity at State. Then, give Rummy the Medal of Freedom and install Bill O'Reilly as Secdef. Only problem--you might find yourself invading Vermont." They've had it coming!" they thought he mocked the Left for their accusations of cronyism (quote courtesy of The Colbert Nation).

Seriously.

But the single best thing about Colbert's performance in front of those gathered media representatives, and the high officials of the Bush regime, and the President himself is the fact that he did not flinch. He spoke with the same deep irony fueled by the same heartfelt rage that he displays every night on his television show. He stood six feet from the President and spoke his mind, if not plainly, then without altering his standard tone or curbing the acid burn of his comments. Stephen Colbert will likely never be invited back to another White House function, but at least he walked in and walked out of that hall like a man.

Building fences

Dev and I spent most of Sunday afternoon building our first wood fence ever. We had to dig up a tree stump that's been bugging me since we moved in (but which I had been too lazy to bother with until now). Then I broke a brand new pair of post hole diggers at the end of excavating the second fence post hole (sigh). We learned to mix concrete. After all that, the process of actually hammering the boards to the fence posts and cross members was the easiest part. Finally Dev finished it up with a nice red weather-proofing stain.