Keeping busy

Been doing a lot of things these days. November feels like it breezed right past and we're about to trip over the middle of December any day now. Crazy, that...

Been keeping busy lately. More production, less consumption. A couple things in brief about consumption.

• Birdman was great. You should go see it
• True Detective rocked my world. You should watch it.
• Interstellar is lame. You should avoid it.
• Inherent Vice is great. You should go see it when it comes out, but don't expect to understand/catch half the dialog
• Big Hero 6 is incredibly predictable but very lovely and hilarious. I laughted out loud multiple times in the theater. Also seeing animated Japan!SF was fun.
• I think American Horror story this season is good... I bought a season pass but just can't seem to find the time to watch the last...4? episodes. I'll get to 'em... eventually.
• I'm stalled out in the middle of In The Woods and it's blocking me from starting anything new/better. >:-/

In terms of production, I've been drawing a lot. Haven't tackled many backgrounds, like I'd hoped to, but I'm working on some composition/layout stuff and "coloring" in monochrome. My True Detective fan art has been fun and gotten me the most "Likes" of anything I've posted on Tumblr. Been coding a bit in my spare time, which feels nice. I think it's because of all the rain we've been getting here this winter. So easy to stay inside and draw or code when it's so shitty out.

A nice union of drawing and coding not too long ago was a Blogger page with my 4th Terminus character lineup on it. Turns out there's too many dudes to nicely put in one static image... and I've handfuls of more characters that I should sketch! Going for just a basic silhouette and minimal character features is super easy and very fun! Check out my 4th Terminus page in general incase you'd like to know more about that game I keep talking about. And here's a picture of my character around the start of last session. Good times!

Am really looking forward to the long winter break. Adam and I are psyched to be just saying around town doing nothing, no joke.

Two fictional stories about not nice people.

I recently went to go see The Wolf of Wall Street and read American Psycho. The first was about a horrible person doing horrible things and getting away from it. So was the second one. American Psycho's horrible acts were far more horrible, but for some reason I found the story much more worth while.

DiCaprio's Belfort was an obvious asshole that I in no way could relate to. Everyone around him was an asshole. There was no fall from grace, no real victims other then the faceless folks on the other side of all those telephone lines, who we only vaguely understand are being hurt.

Ellis's Bateman is an asshole that is a tangled mess of things at his core. His friends are assholes, but in a way that I can almost draw parallels to myself and people around me. There are victims, some are assholes but none deserve what Bateman does to them, described in horribly clear detail.

It's unfair to compare a book to a film given the difference in length (though the movie is 3 hours long!!) and the fact that we can glimps into Bateman's inner narrative (though Belfort does speak directly to the audience a number of times). I can't really recommend either to anyone... though will probably recommend American Psycho. Just... brace yourself. After I saw Pan's Labyrinth there was a Q&A with Guillermo del Toro. When asked about the degree of violence used in the film and the need for it, del Toro responded with something along the lines of "It's like doing a deep tissue massage to the soul, to try and reach the point where you will react to the violence" (a quote lifted from some other Q&A by him). That's American Psycho.

I'm a fan of zombie films for a number of reasons and I feel like if you disassembled a good zombie film, specifically Dawn of the Dead (1978), riffle shuffled bits of it together like a deck of cards, and dealt a new hand you could end up with something like this book.

Rather then mutter on too abstractly or incoherantly, I'll just add a couple quotes from the book that I liked for some reason or another. Also, I'd like to recomment Clippings Converter as a service to manage any Kindle notes or highlights one might make.

“Hey Price,” Preston says. “Do you have one?”
“Yeah,” Price sighs. “If all of your friends are morons is it a felony, a misdemeanor or an act of God if you blow their fucking heads off with a thirty-eight magnum?”
“Not GQ material,” McDermott says. “Try Soldier of Fortune.”
“Or Vanity Fair.” Van Patten.

I’m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.

For dinner I order the shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as an appetizer and the meat loaf with chèvre and quail-stock sauce for an entrée. She orders the red snapper with violets and pine nuts and for an appetizer a peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash which sounds strange but is actually quite good.

I was both in awe and horrified with the food described in the book. It was detailed just another faucet of the casts' souless consumerism but... but... but... it's exactly how Adam and I have behave :( All the food so carefully catalogued with ridiculous detail sounded so exciting and good....

J&B I am thinking. Glass of J&B in my right hand I am thinking. Hand I am thinking. Charivari. Shirt from Charivari. Fusilli I am thinking. Jami Gertz I am thinking. I would like to fuck Jami Gertz I am thinking. Porsche 911. A sharpei I am thinking. I would like to own a sharpei. I am twenty-six years old I am thinking. I will be twenty-seven next year. A Valium. I would like a Valium. No, two Valium I am thinking. Cellular phone I am thinking.

“The client had the boudin blanc, the roasted chicken and the cheesecake,” he says.
“Cheesecake?” I say, confused by this plain, alien-sounding list. “What sauce or fruits were on the roasted chicken? What shapes was it cut into?”
“None, Patrick,” he says, also confused. “It was … roasted.”
“And the cheesecake, what flavor? Was it heated?” I say. “Ricotta cheesecake? Goat cheese? Were there flowers or cilantro in it?”
“It was just … regular,” he says, and then, “Patrick, you’re sweating.”
“What did she have?” I ask, ignoring him. “The client’s bimbo.”
“Well, she had the country salad, the scallops and the lemon tart,” Luis says.
“The scallops were grilled? Were they sashimi scallops? In a ceviche of sorts?” I’m asking. “Or were they gratinized?”
“No, Patrick,” Luis says. “They were … broiled.”
It’s silent in the boardroom as I contemplate this, thinking it through before asking, finally, “What’s ‘broiled,’ Luis?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I think it involves … a pan.”

and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning

“Doin’ the crossword?” dropping the g in “doing”—a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness.

“It’s okay,” I stress. Something snaps. “You shouldn’t fawn over him.…” I pause before correcting myself. “I mean … me. Okay?”

My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have, countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing.…

The book started off so well and then spiraled so wildly out of control into horror that I'm still left somewhat stunned and confused. Hand waving. I start to ponder whether events were real or all in his head- it's really not conclusive- but then I remind myself that it's all fiction and it doesn't matter. I dwell on Bateman and his self reflection. He loathes those around him but never proves to be anything different then they are. I imagine this inner narrative that is the novel could have been running through all the characters' heads simultaneously.

In conclusion and entirely unrelated, here's some skull sketches I did today during the football game, referenced from my delightful book Skulls .

Time Flies

Wow. It's already mid-July. Crazy. A lot of stuff has happened in the last month (though none of it all that important)

There was a hack-a-thon at work early early June and I got *really* into my project. Picked up my first Arduino and made a Next & Start/Stop external button for Rdio using the Rdio JS API and Chrome's USB API for apps. I had an intense weekend of non-stop coding and yet didn't quite finish the project (input works, but I haven't gotten output yet). I mean to finish it yet! Soon...

Adam's mother visited and we went to see The Tales of Hoffmann (an opera) which was quite fantastic. The Doll Song has always been one of my favorite pieces. Then Andreas visited and then we went way for a much needed vacation. Obnoxious vacation post to follow soon once we get our photos in sorted out.

Tonight was another fantastic Dr. Sketchy's. The dedicated Mercy Beaucoup posed as Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill. I appreciated Mercy's great outfits and ambitions/creative poses. I've sketched her before (as Wonder Woman) but the pictures were lost on my way home! Luckily I managed to hold onto them this time. I'm thankful that I won tonight's context with the below image. The prize was this super awesome book The Art of Sketch Theatre Volume 1 which I look forward to reading after this post is done.

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a lot of that lately as well. Was horribly let down by Robin Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles which I dropped mid-series. Am struggling not to be entirely consumed by the thrilling magic realism World War II series by Ian Tregillis. I accidentally staid up till 3am finishing the second book (on a work night no less! shame on me!) and I'm worried the third book will lead me to a similar fate. Bitter Seeds (Milkweed series) is the first book and I'd probably recommend it to most folks.

In less happy news I installed Minecraft for the first time this weekend and lost several hours of my life. I regret it and wont be doing so again. Sigh. Having re-read World War Z and watched the movie (and surprisingly not hated it) I've a strong hankering to play some Left For Dead again, which I will not regret. But there are better things to be doing with my time. Like sketching. Quilting. Finishing my hack day project. Writing letters. Cleaning.

Pacific Rim was great. Not perfect, but what it delivered it delivered well. You should go see it. Now.

Look. Listen. Watch. Read.

The first Dr. Sketchy's this month featured the delightful Randal and Daisy (a fellow Dr. Sketchy's artist!) with the theme April in Paris. Great costumes and great poses makes makes for happy sketches. Be warned that there's sketches of a lady in mild undress- consider the following mildly NSFW.

Despite my near inappropriate enthusiasm for Randal as a model, I spent a good deal of my time sketching Daisy because she had a superb outfit and figure that I couldn't pass up. Red hair and a corset that fits and is flattering! Yay! Randal's starched collar and swallow-tailed coat were also admirable. Too many pretty things too look at all at once! I wound up not entering the contest this time because I was too happy with my sketches to sully with flair. Almost all the sketches are nicely laid out by them selves on the colored construction paper, making them ideal for future letter sending.

    I also want to mention that a coworker of mine- a one Emily- joined me and it made me incredibly happy. I believe she had a good time and will return again. If there's one problem I've been having at my new job, it's making friends. I think it turns out the music industry attracts a lot of cool people, of which I am soundly not.

Speaking of being horribly uncool, let me take this moment to mention that I've continued to listen to Professor Elemental's new album and it continues to make me happy. Here's another track that's great (that I didn't link to last itme):

Working my way out of the uncool section, but still questionable, is a track from Savant's that I've been enjoying. The lyrics being almost entirely composed of the line "the horrors":

And finally I absolutely must share some new Toxic Avenger that I found. It itself isn't new, just new to me. There's something about how he weaves together tunes that really gets me! Angst Four is the new track (which I find calming), not to be confused with Angst One which I find vaguely stressful (but in a good way!)

In other news the rest of this month will be fleshed out with movies and shows. Room 237, Sigur Ros, Computer Chess, Much Ado About Nothing (new Joss movie!). I'll also hopefully be making it to Mary Robinette Kowal's book signing. I just devoured her latest- Without a Summer (Glamourist Histories). I keep meaning to do a post specifically about her series. In short though, it's awesome. It reads like candy. It makes me happy. The main character is 30 years old and has a healthy romantic relationship, which is the sort of thing I want to read about. The way the author describes the magic makes me think of programming.

In closing, things have been going mostly well. Except my tabletop character spent too much of last session stuck in a chair getting yelled at.

So happy I could cry

In case you hadn't heard, Jurassic Park was released this last Friday in 3D. I went to see it by myself tonight (Saturday April 6th). By the time the credits had finished rolling, tears were streaming down my face. It is hard to express, even to myself, how profound of impact that movie had on my youth.

There were collectable trading cards for the movie and I remember buying pack after pack of them (my sisters did as well to a lesser extent) at the dime store my grandmother worked at in Kiel, Wisconsin. I remember picking out all the cards with the concept art and sketching from it. This photo in particular really had a huge impact on how I drew. I watched and read all that I could about the special effects of that film and then later the field in general- almost the only non-fiction subject I've ever read recreationally.

So rarely does my past and present self so strongly agree on something, but the feeling of "This is awesome" was overwhelming in the theater and exactly as I remembered it from all those years ago. Sure, there were a number of goofs that were shockingly obvious now but they didn't detract from anything. What I never appreciated in my youth but I strongly saw this time was what a fabulous job the movie does at providing positive female role models. And not just female ones- normally I hate on main characters but Dr. Grant is a pretty great dude. And I vividly recalled (and still sympathise with) the sadness of wanting to find Muldoon attractive but being oh so repelled by his shorts and socks.

I came close to crying during the movie several times (that first scene with the brontosaurus!) and I'm not exactly sure what caused the tears during the credits but... there's a good number of happy things in my youth that I can connect to this film.

My beloved aunties, who took my sister Kelly and I to see it. (Lindsey was too little to see it. Ha!)

The fact that it is tied to a great book and reading was one of my few joys in life back then.

New reference material and fresh ideas on how to draw dragons! (another one of my joys in life back then)

This... hope. This idea that when I grew up... there was this job out there that I could see myself doing and being so happy about doing. Happy and proud. Something that could take the mess that was my imagination and maybe find use in it and maybe share it with the world. Maybe if I tried real hard, I could be a special effects artist.

Sadly, I did not go on to become a special effects artist. But I am a computer engineer and it is clear to me how I got here, starting there.
Thanks, Jurassic Park.

The Basement

In October we moved to a lovely little house that we're renting in the Mission. There is a dark, dank, low ceilinged basement which Adam has generously "given" over to me to do with as I wish. Of the two rooms, I originally claimed the larger one till flooding and ants chased me out of it. Now I'm in the smaller section, near the door, with the window. Not bad. The whole "unpacking" thing still hasn't finished and I've not enough carpet to cover the floor... but despite that, I have begun to "move in" and make the space feel more like my own.

I'm quite fond of my growing wall 'o things. Pictures, a skull, some bullet bugs, fabric creatures, things. Since the basement wall is unfinished I feel no qualms about sticking a hundred and one nails into it. The only thing holding me up is my lack of frames (apparently only Ikea has non-tacky yet still cheap frames! Curses! I had hoped not to need to return so soon!) and the knowledge that I want to have some sort of ... useful tool hanging "things" above the desk. I've ideas & supplies, just not the time to pull it together.

Having my sewing machine out is pleasing, along with all my books and thread available. My fabric and yarn collections are still abandoned in the other room, which needs to be corrected. I've been making good use of the desk though, cluttering it up with pins and soldering supplies. My old iMac is practically useless (I can upgrade no further) but it does at least play music and let me search for reference photos. You can't really tell from the top photo, but beyond the ironing board (which I was using to iron plastic, thread, beads, and wire together to make wings!) is my lovely futon bed for those who are bave enough to stay over.

If we owned the place I'd put forward efforts to actually improve the basement (like finishing the fucking walls!) but we don't and so I can only hope to cover and work around its "quirks". One thing that isn't horrible is the metal pipe? that runs over the wall and on the ceiling for the SINGLE outlet in the room. Sticking monsters to it via magnets makes me happy.

So, yeah. Some horrible photos of my "crafting cave".

Other things: I've been playing the Starcraft Campaign! I <3 Abathur! Expect to see related crafts soon. I had my butt handed to me at Dr. Sketchy's last week, could not get in the grove. I appear to be momentarily tapped out on the letter writing front. Need to recharge. Have been crafting a magnetic wall butterfly monster... thing... educational, but it's not quite coming together as I had hoped. I bought the thumb drive of stock poses from Senshi Stock but haven't found the chance to sketch anything from it yet. Am excited to do so at some point. Went to Angel Island for the first time and loved it. Saw the movie Stoker. It was... kind of fun? Watched Strage Days again, it was also rather fun. Both have horrible dark parts to them though so I can't broadly recommend. Also saw Pitch Perfect which was delightfully silly & fun. Have been quite enchanted with one of the songs from it. I was compelled to sketch the scene it's from and you can listen to it below.

Papers! Papers everywhere!

Letter writing continues. Yesterday I received my first response back. There's some people kicking around the concept of some letter RP, which I'm ashamed to admit I have little faith in. It did however motivate me to dig around a horrendous number of boxes (we still haven't really tackled our basement full of boxes problem yet...) to find the results of my long-ago attempted round-robin story telling. Turns out they're still very delightful to read!

I survived Tahoe. Turns out I still remember how to downhill ski and I still don't know how to cross-country ski. It was a fun & educational trip but I don't think I'll be doing it many more times. Four hours in a car seems far more unbearable to me then four hours in a plane.

Scans, scans, scans... Here's some scans from Dr. Sketchy's on the 5th. The mermaid costume was impressive. I appreciate her nods to The Little Mermaid in her poses, despite her lack of red hair.

I did not come near to winning the contest (she was just one of those kinda' judges, you know?) but at least I liked my entries. Contest theme: Mermaid in a Martini Glass. I've since mailed off the 2 entries to miscellaneous folks as part of the letter swap. I've given away all my good tea, clearly I'm hurting for content at this point ;) I keep meaning to pull together a zine about data structures but... not. Been busy, yo!

Saw Hansel & Grettle. Do not recommend. Am hoping to catch Warm Bodies and Beautiful Creatures in theater because I'm pathetic. Warm Bodies I at least enjoyed the book. Beautiful Creatures has great trailer music:
and a fun soundtrack:

Also, I played Lady Blackbird again. That happened. Yeah....

In closing, I am tired. I've been doing a lot and yet still not enough. One thing I know I'm not doing enough of now is exercise. My snazzy new Fitbit tells me so. ;)

Some basic mental warmups

Am back in Munich for another week. Switzerland was exceptionally lovely and fun. More words and photos on that later.

Have finally started spending some quality time with my laptop, trying to kick my brain back into shape. Decided some simple math/graphics projects would be a good warmup. I know that I'll need to tumble into the interview circuit at some point soon and I know I *can* be good at it... but it (at least the white-boarding part) is definitely a skill that I need to retrain up.

On a whim I was interested in animating vines unfurling/growing. Some basic Googling failed to provide me any existing algorithms so I had to figure out what I want. Turns out the Logarithmic spiral [x = ae^btcos(t), y = ae^btsin(t)] is what I wanted (as opposed to the Archimedean spiral) and so I waded into battle against Javascript, logarithms, and trigonometry. As I put it to Adam last night, it felt like I was doing one pound dumbbell curls with my brain. It was hard (despite being simple) but I felt good when things finally fell into place.

Used jsfiddle when working, which was pleasing. Here's the link in case this iframe doesn't work...

If you go to the Result tab you'll see the demo curl I made. Am still struggling to wrap my brain around what all of the parameters do/mean but this widget makes it a little easier. Next step: cleaning up the code and diving into b-splines (which, I will confess, I have already found helpful code/algorithms for here, for the vines)

Interesting (to me?) to look back at the little things I stumbled over:

• Omg- trig! Bane of my high school math experience! The problem I ran into here was that I wanted to rotate the spiral so that I could hold it's "tail" in a fixed position. (left alone it just spirals around the origin). That meant I spent *at least* half an hour trying to solve for θ (x′, x, and y being known) : x′ = xcos(θ)-ysin(θ) I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to isolate that fucking θ... the key to success was realizing I was solving for when x′ was 0 and that sine over cosine is a tangent. Sounds simple, but that took some time...
  
  
• I swear, every time I look at the canvas element and then look away, I forget everything. Another (smaller) stumble I had was keeping everything on the canvas... turns out that when you've got logarithmic stuff, things just fly off the page with astounding speed. Took longer then I'd like to admit to figure out what value I need to scale to and then to remember/realize the scale method call had to happen before the path. (turns out putting the scale right before the .stroke() doesn't get you much). Also had to remember to scale line width. If you check out the equation for the spiral you'll see that the value a is supposed to scale it... which I realized later, but found that the animation was smoother when I let the canvas scale it rather then squishing the equation myself.
  
  
• Pinning x=0 to one location was pretty neat, but wasn't actually the look I wanted (the spiral sat atop the point rather the to the right of it as I hoped) so I had to add in a "tail". The fact that I STILL can't figure out how to just solve the equation for a value when x is, like, -50 or something shames me but... whatever. I just manually added a fixed number of "steps" and computed that end point. Lame, but some times programming is about finding a solution and moving on rather then dwelling on the optimal solution mid-project.
  
  
• As I move out of jsfiddle and try to make this code usable, I'm finding Javascript Function Invocation Patterns to be a fun/helpful read. I feel like I know most of it, but it has helpful points/gotchas.

In other news :

• I am now 29.
  
  
• I saw Skyfall last night. It was pretty sweet. Highly recommended if you're an action/Bond fan. Best Craig!Bond by far, plus evil!Javier Bardem. That man is golden, no matter how bad of hair-cut you put on him! Vague internet rumors of Idris Elba as a potential future Bond make me happy and maintains my interest in the franchise. I loved Noamie Harris in this film as well, she plays kick-ass so well (see: 28 Days Later)
  
  
• I rode a cow this last Sunday.
  
  
• I wish I didn't like Taylor Swift but damnit, I do.
  
  
• The US Presidential elections. Need I say more? Adam and I will be up, watching late tonight, as the polls close in the US. We both voted before we left. GO VOTE. I WILL THINK LESS OF YOU IF I EVER FIND OUT YOU DON'T VOTE (_{of course I'm pro-Obama, but having things/people I don't like pass/win is much easier to swallow if there's high voter turnout. Then that *really* means "the people" want such a (stupid/silly/evil) thing... but when (stupid/silly/evil) things pass/win with low voter turnout it's just... really fucking depressing})

The Aliens Dinner Experience

Usually I'm all talk. Usually.

My epic Aliens themed dinner was finally actualized several weekends ago. It must be said up front that extreme thanks goes to my friends Adam K & Nate F who both played the role of sous chef for the evening and who wound up doing a majority of the work day of. I am also very grateful for the GWS house for letting me hijack their most excellent kitchen and for all my friends who kindly consumed the food, said nice things about it, and were chill enough to sit back and let me freak out in the kitchen (mostly) by myself. Also, thanks to Jon for snapping the crazy awesome photos I include in this post. I have much love for his mad macro photo skills.

Course 1 : The Egg

All good Aliens films start with an egg. It holds the promise of impending doom.
Steamed bun, stuffed with diced vegetables and a single whole cherry tomato.

Course 2 : The Face Hugger

Such an iconic silhouet- the face hugger always immediately follows from an egg. Wicked is their grasp, and wicked is their acid blod.
Followers of the blog will recognize the cracker shape from when I initially made it. It is paired with an asparagus puree.

Course 3 : The Chest Burster

Dramatic, bloody, gory, and violent, the chestburster will eventually "arrive" and make a scene.
Beet leaf salad, roasted beets, vegetables, and egg that has been extruded through a syring into boiling water.

Course 4 : The Adult Alien

Black & chitinous. Slimy & evil. It's the point of it all, and what we love most.
Squid ink pasta and muscles. Diced parsley and a single cherry tomato. Side of freshly made squid ink bread.

Course 5 : Androids

We can't talk about the Aliens francise without acknowledging the androids in that universe. Quirky, diverse, and always filled with a milky goo that will eventually get splattered everywhere before the film is over. Tapioca pudding with a hint of mint, served in a cleaned out eggshell.
Served after the viewing of Aliens


So, that all said, let me back up a bit...

It was some time around the New Years, I think. Maybe. A good while ago, at least. I was probably contemplating Aliens, as I am occasionally want to do, when a vision of an inky black meal just sort of blossomed in my mind's eye. This is after The Silence of the Lambs and lamb burgers dinner & movie pairing, so I on the lookout for another good match....

While the initial idea that struck me was that of the aliens' darkness, the driving concept behind the meal was the multiple stages of a xenomorph's life cycle. At this point I've typed up and deleted five different paragraphs. I have a lot to say about the meal, just ask me about it some time if you want to hear about it.

If you're interested in technical details or having the party yourself (recommended!) you can marvel at all the nerdy prep effort that went into it by checking out my cooking timeline, ingredient list, and recipe collection all bundled together in one helpful Google spreadsheet!

And final notes/comments/thoughts:

• For the love of god, do NOT get 6 pounds of muscles!! We needed HALF of that, perhaps less.
• Crumple tin foil under the face hugger crackers to get the "pounce" look
• Forgot to dye the egg red before boiling it!! Lost some of it's "guts" look... but was still pleasantly gross enough
• The beet leaves were used because the chest burster comes from the human? See? There's symbolism there! Don't you get it?!? ... in other news, apparently everyone but me hates the taste of beet leaves
• Only needed 1.5 packages of pastas (had bought 3)
• Used brown sugar for egg stage buns rather then the called for white. An improvement on the original recipe, some claim (not I)
• There were 6 sit-down-only guests, 2 helpers who ate afterwards, and myself who could barely eat anything. It was a good number, 2 smaller then I originally planned... I think I could have handled the planned 2 more, but that definitely would have been max
• I learned a lot about how much work goes into making a large meal for many people. Educational, fun, but a very stressful experience. Did I mention how grateful I was for my helpers?
• Nerdy prep work is fun! I shopped at the grocery store with my laptop open in the shopping cart. It made me feel good.
• YES, we did watch Aliens after the dinner. We watched the extended directors cut addition thing. Recommended for true/existing fans, but *not* recommended for casual or first-time viewings (there were actually several folks who had not seen this one before!) Bill Paxton is more awesome in it then you probably remember. Also- Ripley is the best role model ever in action films!
• Formal cooking for friends is fun! I definitely hope to try it again some time (NOT any time soon!)