had this post all ready to go but then forgot to click publish before we left on our trip. here you go...
i'm going to miss the RUSH mega-mix the dotytron has prepared for the ride down. i gotta say: i'm not really a prog fan. but we did do our homework and we watched the documentary "rush: beyond the lighted stage" on monday night as part of our homework for the show on thursday. we got tickets to see this at this year's hot docs and then gave them to dr. rei as a birthday present. the documentary is pretty good! lots of archival footage and interviews with a wide swathe of musicians who have been influenced by rush like a chubby sebastian bach, jack black, some dudes from tool, kirk hamett, slash, and a VERY chubby trent reznor - seriously guys, i haven't kept up on my trent reznor news since, oh i don't know, grade 11, and when he popped up on screen i turned to the dotytron and said, "dude! some guy ATE trent reznor!" rush come off as very normal, down-to-earth dudes who had a huge impact but were never really granted the mainstream popular recognition for it. like i said, i'm not the hugest fan of their music (i am and always will be, an arena rocker, myself), i find peart's lyrics a little too forced and "literary" and geddy's voice is an acquired taste - but the documentary goes a long way to convey the unassuming, respectability of the band.
before we left we watched "more than a game" a documentary about lebron james and 4 teammates (the "akron 5") from their formation as a ragtag grade 8 basketball team through to their final year of high school. a few things: this documentary seriously kicks ass...i mean, i'm a sucker for sports documentaries, especially ones that follow ragtag groups of kids, but this one is good. the stories are all there - the coach, the sacrifice, the egos, the comeback. lebron was like, A MAN in grade 8. it's crazy. but the rest of the 5 are equally sick. watching them in like, grade 7 at the nationals makes you want to puke. you're just like, how do these kids GET so good? we're talking no-look passes, dunks, alley-oops, and all kinds of fancy ball handling. it's just mind blowing (and i'm speaking as someone who doesn't have the most attenuated appreciation for basketball). i highly recommend it. also: it made the dotytron cry. BEST. as the credits started rolling, i was yelling at the screen: "what, you're not going to give me a 'where are they now?!?" and of course they did, giving you the rundown on where the other players were at in their lives (we all know what happened to lebron). most of them are doing really well, but one of the players received this capsule: "he continues to work towards his college degree" and me and the dotytron immediately gave each other sidelong, *awkward* glances. yikes. as the dotytron said, "why doesn't he have it already?" poor guy.so remember my crazily micro-managed presentation for jerks? my section is on e-readers so i transition into that portion of my presentation with a powerpoint slide with the heading: "the future of reading" and then a picture of (steve) gutenberg's printing press with medieval lettering underneath that spells out: "FAIL?!??!" i ducked out of the teleconference on monday as i was catching up on work stuff after being gone for a week but got an email marked urgent in the inbox asking me to please phone in midway through as they had some questions about my slides. in particular, that one, because they didn't know what i was getting at with the "FAIL?!??!" comment. so then i had to explain the fail phenomena as best i could which is about as awkward as you would expect (ie. as awkward as it being revealed at the end of a documentary that you're still "working towards" your college degree after 5 years). then they asked ME if i was going to do a similar unpacking of the slide during my presentation, and i was trying to make the case that i'm fairly certain that at a tech conference, that people would be up to date on their internet memes, but then i realized that i was talking to a bunch of honky grandmas who be trippin' (tip o' the hat to tracy morgan, à la 30 rock) and i kind of just took the easy way out and said that no, i wouldn't be explaining the slide in detail, that it was just a transition slide meant to inject some levity. OY. i also had to write a bio for inclusion in the program book that ended up being rather cheeky. i kind of don't think that you can write your OWN sincere bio. someone else should do that for you with a list of qualifications. left to my own devices, my default setting is taking-the-piss.
last night for dinner i made us a brown rice andouille sausage and shrimp jambalaya with a side of braised kale with lemon (not pictured):
this was a tasty little number, if i do say so myself. i effin' LOVE andouille sausage AND crunchy shrimp (some would probably say that i overcook the shrimp, but i love the bite of them) and even though i accidentally jacked up the spicing on the jambalaya and made it quite caliente, it was still really tasty. i ate two bowls (but didn't eat dessert!)
tonight for dinner i was inspired by something i saw in a food blog and made a deconstructed spicy salmon sushi bowl. brown rice, mixed with rice vinegar, sugar, and some seasoning is a bed for wild sockeye salmon that i skinned and cut up roughly by hand and then tossed with mayonnaise and sriracha and seasoned it some more. then i piled this in a bowl with some sliced cucumber, some sliced avocado, some sliced green onions, and julienned nori strips and we ate that for a cool, no-cook meal (the rice i cooked the night before). now we hit the road, jack!
enjoy this last long weekend of the summer, everyone, and join me in a lusty welcome to everyone's (read: my) favorite season: FALL!
fin.
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