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I just got back from a trip to Washington DC to see a long time friend Maura.
* Meeting at the airport… it’s always good to see old friends!
* Waffles (from the super-snazzy Chef’s Choice WafflePro Express waffle maker I got Maura for Christmas)
* Fun
* A fine and fun (and free) tour of historic Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria Virginia, that included seeing people in period dress, gadgetry, and English Country Dancing (which was far more fun than I had originally been led to believe by my previous examinations into the subject)
* got candy at Candy’s Candy
* Saw Jamey Turner the glass harmonica guy in front of the Torpedo Factory
* Grilled cheese at Cheesetique for dinner!
* We sadly had not left room for ice cream, but that’s ok.

Went to the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Center. We spent 2 hours on the most amazing tour of everything! Some highlights: The Enola Gay, Space Shuttle Enterprise, WWII Corsair & Hurricane & Spitfire, Gemini capsules, Joint Strike Fighter Vertical Takeoff engine (I have no idea how they fit that giant thing inside the plane!)

Went to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. I needed to see the giant Calder mobile because I never really liked it. But Maura tells me that he practically invented the art mobile… well not really but it was pretty revolutionary when he did his. I like his work now :-). Upstairs in one of the towers there was this pretty awesome art exhibit by Nam June Paik, a real candle at one end of the room was in front of a camera and it’s live image was projected up on the walls. Definitely cool. On a table, an egg was being videoed. Next to the egg was a small television with the live image of the egg. And next to that there was another small television with the tube removed, replaced with an egg. Totally groovy.

Went to Mitsitam inside the Museum of the American Indian on the mall for lunch. I highly recommend it. It’s cafeteria style and you can walk up to the “Mezoamerica” area to get food from that region, “Northern Woodlands” has crab apples and potatoes, “Great Plains” has other native foods. It was a living, tastable food adventure! Check out their menu!

Went to National Air and Space Museum… saw parts of Goddard’s first rocket, saw 2 ICBMs; Russian and American; now outlawed; ending the Cold War, saw the actual Hubble backup mirror; one of the most carefully shaped objects in the world.

Went to a popup restaurant, America Eats. Actually it is more of a temporary art installation of a restaurant. With things like the world’s first gaspacho soup, Waldorf salad, and “vermiccelli prepared like pudding” which is (probably rightfully) claimed to be macaroni and cheese’s grandfather. The restaurant is a complimentary part of a Library of Congress exhibit.

Went to the National Portrait Gallery… saw a tiny photo of a young Lincoln and then another 4 years later, ouch the presidency made him old quick. Saw the Lansdowne portrait of Washington. We both wondered WTF was up with the crappy rainbow in the upper right corner: the colors are crappy and all in the wrong order and the direction of the sun is wrong. It was such an afterthought!

Saw the Calder wireframes, which were pretty awesome. Saw the originals of the paintings on the $20 and $100 bill. Heard stories about Singer (of sewing machine fame), the founder of the girl scouts (who lost her hearing due to rice in her ear on her wedding day, hurumph!), and Walt Witman, saw a young George Washington portrait. And heard the story of Sequoyah, a Cherokee who invented the Cherokee syllabary in 1819, by 1830 Cherokee literacy had gone from 0% to 90%! Talk about an idea who’s time had come!

No, it won’t be televised. It’ll be live at The Dark Room in September!

local version:

This Greasemonkey script will lift all the Questions you answered on OKCupid so you can take them with you. OKCupid questions downloader. It puts them into JSON format which you should be able to convert into other, more readable formats.

I don’t have any good way of copying the other data, messages and photos and such. But that greasemonkey script is a good start.

I’m mostly giving up on OKCupid. I’ve been at it a while and I keep finding people that say, “You’re really great but I just realized I’m not available.” Some literally already had one-way plane tickets to India or New York before we met, some don’t know if they want to date at all. I’m a bit bitter.

Here is a good sign, XKCD just ran this comic, which, in 4 years will officially be considered “professional humor” to me.

Alt text: “I calculate that the electrons in radiation therapy hit you at 99.8% of the speed of light, and the beam used in a 90-second gamma ray therapy session could, if fired with less precision, kill a horse (they did not let me test this)”

My niece is running a Monster High drawing contest. Monster High are dolls very popular with the under 16 set. If you have friends that are fans of the dolls, watch “Kelsey”‘s video and make your submission!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKK5AHrS8NI

I’ve got 2 tickets to see Bellflower, a new indie movie with love and flamethrowers. I can’t go. But you should. Email me.

BELLFLOWER Screening
Monday, August 15
7:30 PM
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level
San Francisco, CA 94111

See the Trailer

This is a preview screening of the movie… first come first serve.

This from Simone Davalos of Robogames.net

We only have three days!

Hey guys and gals, I am popping up and will offer you labor, time, excitement and beer if you help me spread the word and vote for a grant for RoboGames for the Pepsi Refresh program!

Here’s the link: http://pep.si/nHlOZZ

We’re up for a chunk of change which would enable us to get more kids competing at RoboGames and generally make things more badass than ever! The top 15 finishers get funded, it will be so easy if we mobilize everyone we know!

Please send it to lists, tweet, facebook, whatever. The Robots thank you!

Thank you!

I went out with Rick, Charlotte, her brother Robert, and Laurie last week and saw “Pornography in Denmark”. It was pretty awesome from several angles: historical, sociologically, and hey porn is pretty much always awesome.

Short form: there were laws against hardcore porn for pleasure but an exemption for documentaries. Exploit the loophole. Make money. Change attitudes and laws about porn in America. Win.

Yes, it’s a real documentary. The most striking moment for me was watching a couple going at it and hearing the narrator list off the prices of myriad pornographic literature. The intention was clear from a documentarian’s viewpoint, “See this? This is big business. We should have this in the US.” But I was a bit distracted to listen to the prices. ;-)

Here is the (fascinating) handout we got before the film:

PORNOGRAPHY IN DENMARK
(aka: CENSORSHIP IN DENMARK: A NEW APPROACH) BY ALEX DE RENZY (1969, 90 min, 16mm)
The film you will see tonight completely changed the exhibition of sexually-oriented films in San Francisco. It was the first film containing hardcore sex to be shown publicly here. From this point forward interest dwindled in softcore sexploitation, and dozens of theaters jumped on the hardcore bandwagon (including the Roxie in the Mission).

It’s worth noting that this is an artifact, and not fine art. lt was made by a 34-year-old Alex de Renzy, at the world’s first sex trade show in Copenhagen. Because the film is constructed as a documentary, de Renzy was able to include hardcore material being presented at the convention. He could then argue that the footage was justified within the context of a documentary about censorship and pornography, but was not pornography itself.

He began showing it at his own theater, The Screening Room, at 220 Jones Street, where he had been presenting softcore pictures since 1967 (most of which he made himself). The film cost de Renzy $15,000 to make. It sold $25,000 worth of tickets in its first week, and is said to have gone on to gross over 2 million. The Screening Room was raided dozens of times by the police, but de Renzy was never successfully convicted of anything.

He went on to become a hugely successful pornographer, directing several films which are considered classics of the genre, including Pretty Peaches, Babyface and Femmes de Sade. He introduced at least three actresses who went on to become icons of adult cinema; Desiree Cousteau, Annette Haven and Aunt Peg (Juliet Anderson) – who was a longtime volunteer here at YBCA until her death last year.

After these “golden age” classics, in his later years de Renzy churned out well over one hundred shot-on-video, anal sex oriented quickies under the pseudonym Rex Borsky. He died in June of 2001.

“Smut Capital of America: San Francisco’s Sex Cinema Revolution” film series continues through August 25. Visit www.YBCA.org for film descriptions and program details.
Program notes by Joel Shepard, YBCA Film/Video Curator

You missed this movie in this YBCA series but there are several more to see! The series ends this month so click and see some culturally relevant and historically important smut this month!

There are a few more films coming up as part of the series. Go see them.

If the “Check Engine” light in your car has come on and you find out what the trouble code is, you can use this website to find out what the code means:

http://www.canobd2.com

They also have THE database of car recalls. Check and see if your car has any recalls!

Saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 last night. Completely awesome. See/read what came before or you won’t get it. I think seeing it in “Digital Projection” at the Daly City Century 20 was good, the cinematic effects were just so…. real. 2 weeks after opening, the theater was full, and everyone in the audience was over 30. Curious.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 3 hours of kinda bland character study with 1 neat twist. Meh.

Grandma’s Boy – juvenile, funny male humor. I liked it.

40 Year old Virgin – I was expecting juvenile, funny male humor. There was a bit of that, but it was much better than that. Very enjoyable :-).

UHF – Ouch. Weird Al has learned a LOT about entertaining people after this film

Anvil! The Story of Anvil – Holy crap, these guys love music. An honest documentary about the real life Spinal Tap.

Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus – there are 60 seconds of awesome and 2 hours of them poking you in the eyes with a stick. Watch the awesome here.

Eddie Izzard: Definite Article – stand up show. He completely rocks. You should watch more stand-up. Seriously. Funny.

The Passion of Joan of Arc – I always thought I was missing out on something awesome by not seeing this 1928 “classic”. I watched most of it and completely couldn’t get through it. I totally don’t get why this is a classic.

City of Angels – Started pretty good, went way downhill. :-(

Demetri Martin. Person. – Funny stand up is always funny and puts me in a good mood. I like funny standup.

The Gates – the story of Christo and Jeanne-Claude installing The Gates in New York City. Good stuff. It’s amazing how much perseverance it took them to get this piece to happen. Pretty awesome. But then I like big awesome art.

Iron Man 2 – Wee!

High Fidelity – Certainly classic John Cusack.

Idiocracy – After all the hype some friends gave it, I though it was going to be as awesome as Zoolander (wow, that is an awesome movie… just earlier this week a friend said offhandedly “Oh, the files are in the computer!” and I laughed so hard). It isn’t. It has it’s moments, but only a few.

The Princess Bride – watched again at a house party with friends, brought my holocaust cloak :-). This is still a near perfect movie.

The Sopranos – I’m most of the way though the last season. What a powerful show.