Weekend in Brief

Friday night I got home from work a bit early. Since Nik and Kate were out at a school play, I took the opportunity to watch Once Were Warriors (domestic violence amongst the Maori) and Letters from Iwo Jim (the companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers that shows the battle from the Japanese POV). So yeah, a real cheery night of entertainment. I was pleased I finally had a chance to see Letters, as both my attempts to see it in the theater were abortive.

Saturday I played Spirit of the Century in the afternoon. It was largely a bridge session that set up the big climactic fight for next time, when we face off against the evil Russian scientist in a battle above an active volcano. From the game I went right to the Family Fun Center in Renton for Kate’s delayed birthday party. She has some nice friends, but even so keeping track of eight kids in a massively crowded and incredibly loud arcade and mini-amusement park was not exactly relaxing. Kate and the kids had a great time though and I think it was easily her best birthday party to date. I could have gone to bed after that, but at 10 I went down to Studio Seven to catch Iron Cross. They were a DC skinhead band from the early 80s and singer Sab Grey has brought them back in a new incarnation. The band was a bit stiff to start but once they got warmed up they gave a good performance. I expected the show to be packed with every skinhead in a 300 mile radius, but the promotion of the show was shit and there were maybe 120 people there. I only found out about it by accident myself. Ex-WotC staffer John Dunn was in Iron Cross in the early 80s and he was on hand to check them out. Sab brought him up on stage to play Criminal Minds with them, which was cool. I caught up with John in the bar after the show for a bit before finally heading home and falling unconscious.

Sunday I did GR work in the morning and early afternoon. Then it was off with Nik to see Japanese psychological thriller Retribution as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. I gave it a 3 of 5 in the voting. It was interesting but slow-paced and not quite as thrilling as we had hoped. We ran into John, Jenny, and Jim at the movie and had dinner with them at Trader Vic’s, which I doubt I’ll ever go back to. Then it was off to pick up Kate and go see another SIFF film, the anime TEKKONKINKREET. This visually beautiful film was better than Retribution (I gave it 4 of 5) but pretty wacky. It was a little to dark in spots for Miss Kate, who said it wasn’t her kind of anime.

Woke up this morning to read the news about Gleemax. This is pretty much what I expected and is an interesting idea, but the name is godawful. If this site is so important, picking something more accessible than an old inside joke would have been a much better idea in my opinion.

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