Sing me a song

Thank you to everyone who came out to The Alibi tiki lounge and karaoke bar last night for my impromptu bachelor celebration. Special thanks to Jamie who belted out an amazing rendition of "Let's Get It On" when he stepped up to the karaoke mike.

And thanks to everyone for not leaving when I mangled "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" - you guys really should have walked out so you didn't have to be seen with me after that monstrosity. *big grin*

All the Pretty Rocks

I returned from my first real, honest-to-God, genuine rock-climbing trip last night. My good buddy Nate Tack took me out to Smith Rock. We arrived on Sunday afternoon, pitched camp quickly and then hiked over to rock faces to run a route or two prior to sunset. Nate ran up Cinnamon Slab on a lead climb and threw down a top-of-route belay for me. I performed a gully scramble to about the two thirds point of the route and then struggled up the route proper rest of the way.

Nate had been talking to two guys up there who were waiting to rappel down (they had climbed some of the backside routes and then scrambled over Asterisk Pass). We rappelled down and strolled over to Five Gallon Buckets. Nate topped out the route in short order and then daylight started failing quickly. We admired the purple clouds and rock faces to the south of us brightly lit by the setting sun. Then we hightailed it back to camp

Yesterday (Monday 6/19) we headed back out to the wall and started looking for easier routes (Nate was paying deference to my limited climbing skills). We skipped Five Gallon Buckets because a couple of climbers had already staked it out. We ran up a route named Purple Headed Warrior (according to the climbers next to us on "Phone Call from Satan"). Then Nate ran up another route that I don't have the name for (it's the second route to the left of Purple Headed Warrior), and it was "spicy" enough that I took a pass on the climb. He descended and we continued to the left and staked out a route that Nate swore started "kind of hard, but then gets real easy.

Never believe Nate.
He's a liar.

After he top-roped the route for me, I spent a long time struggling with the first twenty feet of the route. "Kind of hard" does not bear any resemblance to that section of rock face; much like "kind of pretty" doesn't descride Angelina Jolie very well. Once past the nasty start, the route did ease up and provide lots of positive holds. I finished the route, rested briefly at the top, dropped down to the ground on rappel and then we started looking for a good lunch spot.

I'll finish the trip report in a little while. Wedding prearations await my non-leisure.

Ask for Advice Ninja-style

Digitalfilmaker over at Youtube has a series titled Ask a Ninja.

Watch them and laugh.

One of the most awesome...

of awesome bad ideas is right here

Seven days of eating nothing but Monkey Chow. Complete with a day by day diary. And video diary. Reading descriptions of how the monkey chow tastes and goes down does absolutely no justice to the reality.

Two of my favorite lines:
My theory is that monkeys are almost people, so monkey food is almost people food
and
No, neither Leno nor Letterman have contacted me. Not sure I would go anyway - I hate that airplane food.

Congratulations to Adam for finishing the project!

Off Leash

Devon and I watched Unleashed last night. I knew I'd enjoy the movie from the outset; it plays to all my biases. I didn't expect how much the movie would draw me in. Jet Li handles his character superbly and really kind of surprised me with the depth that he gave to what could be a pretty thin character premise. The lighting, framing and cinematography becomes its own character through the movie; the camera work sets so much mood and adds so much information to the story that it all but speaks lines of dialogue. While I thought the denoument of the movie let me down, I genuinely liked the movie.

Is that really a sin?

Dev and I watched Derailed last night. The movie served it's purpose well enough but seemed thoroughly uninspired and rote. The good guy everyman was the good guy everyman, the bad guy was the bad guy, the twist came at you straight on. Not bad cinema really, but not a *good* movier either. I understand why the reviewers did not care for it so much.

We know not the havoc we wreak...

One of our family friends gave Devon and I the combination espresso/coffee maker for which we registered. As if I need the capability of creating hyper-caffienated beverages at home. We should have registered for a crowbar too. That way Devon will be able to pry me off of the ceiling.