Checksum Arcanius

Because of the great success from last year, Kunlun, a roommate of his, and I hit up Coleman Park just south of I-90 to watch the Blue Angels. Most everyone else was lame and wanted to play frisbee or study or work, but we still had a good time: the roommate and Kunlun brought a grill and meat, I brought the buns and condiments, and we had some good hamburgers while watching the show.

Honestly, the show seemed a little toned down this year — Kunlun suggested that maybe this is because the Angels lost one of their own a few months ago? At any rate, the sky opened up to the sun just in time and it was hard to beat the view. Of course, having the jets roaring overhead always makes for a worthwhile activity.

I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum at Lincoln Square with Amy tonight. It was good to see Amy doing well, and it was also a pretty good movie. It felt longer than it really was — they did a good job of packing a lot of material, and a lot of action, into the film. I’m give it a 3.5/5, only because there was nothing extraordinary about the movie — just a well-done action flick.

Dan invited me to attend the Mariner’s game with him and his dad today. Felix Hernandez was pitching against a division rival, so it seemed like a good bet. Jay was kind enough to buy the ticket for me — a very generous offering, since the tickets were very well situated only twenty rows back along the first base line.

I decided to bike to the game to avoid parking — I took Roosevelt across the bridge then followed Eastlake and kind of winged it after that, heading generally south and west until I made it to Safeco Field. I arrived a few minutes late, but I didn’t miss anything — The M’s picked it up soon after I arrived, however, with a three run second inning. The game continued to go well, with the only scare coming from Hernandez and Brousard colliding on a choper down the first base line. It went fine, that is, until the top of the ninth when the normally solid J.J. Putz showed some cracks and gave up three runs to tie the game at 7 a piece.

The next few innings were gut-wrenching, not only because we all knew that the M’s really should have already won the game, but also because there were many Angel base runners in those innings, including several cases of loaded base-itis. In the end, however, the Mariners got the bases loaded themselves with just one out, forcing the Angel infielders to creep in, making Betancourt’s game-winning single in the bottom of the 12th all-the-more likely.

So, it was a great relief, and a greatly entertaining game. I rode back the same way I came, winging it until I got back to Fairview, which I followed to Eastlake then back acorss the bridge (which was up) before making it back to the U-district. Not a bad way to end the day.

To Greenlake, around Greenlake, back from Greenlake with only a few minor stops for dodging a cop car and trying my hand at some pull-ups. Total time was about 50 minutes. The last mile back I picked up the pace a bit and made it back home in 8 minutes 4 seconds.

I decided to install Ubuntu Linux on my new laptop, which I recently named “Graphitica.” It did not go well.

Apparently, the D630 is not yet well supported. The main install disk failed cryptically. The alternate (text-based) install worked better, but then X failed to work. The wireless card also fails to load some part of the driver properly. Basically, its a big mess. I’m willing to do some work to get a new operating system installed, but right now the task seems a bit too large, so I probably won’t resume this battle until after school is out for the quarter (after August 17th).

Early this morning before sleep, I watched Fight Club. I thought the twist was better than the one in The Usual Suspects, and it was overall more interesting as well. I give it a 4.5/5 (A).

Before that, I caught the Simpsons with Jon and Joe & Company before heading to Applebee’s for happy hour appetizers. It was as advertised, a slightly longer, slightly more involved episode that might as well have been on TV during some special. Still, some laughs, but most of then were given away in the previews. I guess I’d give it a 2.5/5 or a C.

That brings me to today, where after a good ultimate game, we headed to Jamba Juice and then the Apple Store, where we started playing with some iPhones. Somehow, after figuring out that the iPhones were active, the four of us there got the idea to put our numbers into the phones under the name of “Steve Jobs.” We then left the store, waiting for someone else to start looking at the targeted phone, and called. It was much too hilarious to watch as a man and his wife were surprised to see that they were getting a call from Steve Jobs. When the man answered, I identified myself as Steve Jobs and asked if this was the Seattle Apple Store. He seemed surprised, but answered in the affirmative. I then asked if he could get an Apple employee on the line. He paused again, but then said, “Yes” and proceeded to look around the store for the nearest employee. At this point, I was laughing too hard to remain inconspicuous, so I had to hang up and walk away from the store. But oh my, was it fun.

All this was followed by an afternoon chilling with Dan on Alki beach and a dinner which got canceled (tear), but it was a pretty good day overall.

After no work, a Biomedical Research Integrity lecture, Networks, and a stint at Harborview to convert EEG data, I ended up at home and in need of an activity to put off actually using the EEG data for a useful purpose.

Enter Maria, who was also looking for something to do. She came over and after a nice chat we decided to hit up Scarecrow’s 2-for-1 Wednesday special. With the help of IMDB, we picked out the Usual Suspects and Fight Club, both of which we had never seen all the way through.

The movie for tonight was The Usual Suspects. It was fun, entertaining, and well-done, but not quite as completely good as I might have hoped. But then a 4/5 ain’t bad.