Lunar Eclipse

1:12am

2:57am


3:15am

4:58am

5:04am
(I like this shot through the leaves.)

Bioshock

Holy batshit, batman! I could not believe that a game might contain so much of teh Awesome that it might actually make someone's computer catch fire, but Bioshock just might be that game. It's a first person shooter where you play a guy whose plane crashes at sea and finds an island sitting on top of an undersea utopian city named Rapture, modeled after some kind of art deco Ayn Rand fantasy. Except that the inhabitants seem largely to have gone crazy on an orgy of biomodifications offered to them. You are in contact with a disembodied friendly voice that helps you find ways to get past the bad people, when you aren't finding your own way (i.e. blowing shit up) to solve your problems. The game play is excellent, allowing you to modify your DNA to be able to shoot bolts of lightning, set things (or people) on fire, use telekinesis, etc. The game also looks great, especially on a high def screen. I've been having entirely too much fun with this toy, which my sweety was nice enough to give me as an early birthday present.

Rock the Bells

Noelle, Wendy, Dan and I went to Rock the Bells this weekend was at the parking lot for Giants stadium in SF. We took the train up from Millbrae because we were ominously warned about the limited traffic. The concert headliners were Rage Against the Machine and about 20 hip hop acts on two stages. We got there just in time to see Public Enemy (Flavor Flav!) leaving the main stage. I was a little sad not to see more of them. We were about sixteen miles from the stage. There was a giant stage like object only a mile in front of us, but that was just the massive projection screens they had. The next act on the main was Cypress Hill. They were pretty entertaining, probably the second best part of the show. After that was Wu Tang Clan, which I thought was ok, but the crowd really seemed to dig. Finally, after it had gotten dark, Rage came on. They were in great form. Tom Morello was excellent as usual. That man does crazy, crazy things on guitar. I got to hear Calm Like A Bomb and Wake Up live, which was really cool. Actually, i think they played every song I would have liked to have heard, except possible The Ghost of Tom Joad. After their set ended, we moseyed over to the Caltrain station where we were packed like sardines into the train with other concertgoers.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers grow pretty quickly and tall. You can see them towering over the fence in the back yard here. They're also almost completely overwhelming the two trees you can't really see in this picture.

The one in the middle is the biggest sunflower I've ever seen. Here are a couple more pictures:

The big one must be about 10 inches or so in diameter.

We had to rip out most of the sunflowers, sadly because they were either falling over orthey were smothering the trees. They don't seem to be good at supporting their weight, it seems. Ah well, nothing gold can last.

Testing Ecto 3

Looks like Ecto has a new (alpha) version. Let's see if this works. Ecto 2.x is not working with Blogger for me currently.

Treasure Island Festival Tix (Saturday only)

Hi there, I got some VIP tickets to the Treasure Island Festival for Saturday 9/15. I still have a couple left. The headlining act is Thievery Corporation who were really outstanding when we saw them in San Diego last year. If anyone is interested in these tickets. Please let me know.

Richard Branson Leaving Virgin America Party

VA Party

So tonight Virgin American threw a party at Ruby Skye and it's sister club, Slide (which amusingly enough has a real slide in its entrance) because their first flights flew today. Since Noelle works there, I got to go. It was an interesting experience, since usually I'm there for some electronic band or a dj and it's a lot dirtier. Tonight all the waitresses and bartenders were dressed like VA flight crew. The food was quite tasty and the open wet bar was great (although I didn't partake much since I figured I'd be driving). I forgot to bring earplugs and was punished for my incompetance. They had an illusionist (not loud) and the band Cold War Kids played (too loud). (Sir) Richard Branson was there to congratulate the troops. Noelle was trying to take a picture from the curb (we stepped out for some air and nicotine, depending on who you were) and got smootched by Sir Richard. I wish I could have gotten a shot of that. Also appearing were a number of Web 2.0 type nerds including Tim O'Reilly. He gave Noelle a moon pie. Weird night, but reasonably entertaining. And good snacks.

Bourne Ultimatum

After escaping the blackout surrounding the Oakridge Mall (where we were originally going to see TBU), we snuck into a slightly later showing to watch the latest Bourne movie. I think I like it best of the three so far. It was like a non-stop adrenaline rush. The fight scenes were very intense, although they did a lot of the shaky-cam stuff, which hides a lot of the detail of the fights (which was something I enjoyed a lot in the first movie). There are some completely insane car chase scenes. Overall, I highly recommend.

Rush, Check

See Rush perform "Tom Sawyer" live.

Check. Pretty good show. They did well for a bunch of old guys. Played over two hours.