dom.blog

The Second Golden Age of Tech is a really big deal

Sometimes, gifts fall into your lap as if from Lord Xenu heaven. The 7-minute Scientology infomercial DVD on ‘The Golden Age of Tech II’ – accidentally delivered to our flat – falls firmly into this category. Cleverly, they’ve made it parody-proof with a cast so zoned out of their minds, delivering lines so bonkers, that it would defy any attempt at exaggeration. (I can’t find it online, but it’s similar to this example from last year. Enjoy.)

Two weekends ago, Todd convened a salon (I’m writing this in italics to encourage you to read it with a French accent) to watch a film with rather more artistic merit: Wall-E. And then discuss it. And discuss it properly, like my beloved book club days, with starter questions to kick us off and a rewardingly wide-ranging discussion. Many thanks to the winter months for forcing everyone to stay inside and do this sort of thing.

Ticket to Ride is just about building train lines, so you can imagine my joy

Indoor activities this month also included a lot of board game activity with Catherine, Jason and AJ. Board games are funny, because I tend to forget their existence, until every now and then I encounter true aficionados (hat-tip, Oliver, Abi and Kat) which reminds me that the world has moved on from Monopoly. Don’t get me wrong, I have very happy childhood memories of trying to bankrupt my family with a strategically-placed property empire, but I have decided that any future family I have will also get to experience newer, better-designed games like Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride.

Shadowboxing the Ghost

Together we also saw indie-pop band Jukebox the Ghost, who briefly looked like they might be heading for disaster when the keyboard failed to work. But after a few minutes, crisis was averted, and the crowd broke into the spontaneous chants of U-S-A which (it has since been argued) were ironic. I’m not so sure.

Talking of patriotism, I watched Tuesday night’s State of the Union address at Katie’s, while simultaneously inspecting the state of the union between her mac and cheese. Both were strong! Less strong were my bowling skills, as exposed on Friday night after Michele organised a get-together-and-try-to-knock-over-some-pins night. But bowling, much like board games, is (a) only taken seriously if you happen to be winning, and (b) much enhanced by alcohol. So what I lack in “super powers” and “ninja skills” of the Scientologists, I can more than make up for in the “happiness rundown” stakes. WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE.

The Golden Age of Bowling

Yes, I’ve been playing too much Worms

Happy Boxing Day! Usually at this time of year I’m overwhelmed by (a) the coma of Christmas, and (b) the self-imposed chore of writing a year in review, but I couldn’t help notice that I was due my one thousandth post on this blog. And boy, it only took ten years to get here. So look, there’s a little Worm incarnation of me celebrating. (It’s only fair to concede that I spent several hours of Christmas Day losing to Katie at Worms very, very badly.)

Despite this humiliation, it was actually a lovely day, if quieter than the traditional family Christmas to which I was briefly thrust into over Skype. On Christmas Eve I stole one of Cat’s family traditions by settling down to The Muppet Christmas Carol, and then the next morning I unwrapped beautiful care packages from Tash and Katie which had been waiting patiently under the tree:

So much proper chocolate!

I even got to be part of the Hurley family Christmas by playing Pointless together:

Highlights: philosophers and MPs. Lowlights: sport

And, of course, Doctor Who! So yes, I wouldn’t do this every year, but I still captured plenty of the Christmas magic.

Other things of note: enjoying the very last episodes of The Colbert Report, including Obama’s performance on the show, Julie’s birthday party, Grisel’s “I’m moving to San Francisco” farewell gathering (boo) and tagging on to see the final instalment of The Hobbit afterwards at the Navy Pier IMAX.

I seem to be more forgiving of this trilogy than most people. It’s clearly absurd, and no rational world would ever have permitted anyone to stretch out a short children’s adventure tale to the same length as Lord of the Rings. But I find the world spectacular and enjoyable enough to forgive all that. (Maybe it’s the accents?) Less acceptable is all of the LOTR foreshadowing, which rather wrecks the surprise element of that story’s opening, since all of the characters now know what’s coming anyway. So maybe it’s just that going to see The Hobbit reminds me of all those happy Christmases seeing the original films with my family, and for that, I’d probably pay to watch The Shire Parish Council Meetings (Extended Edition)*.

*Best not put that to the test, though, Peter Jackson.

Tis the season for Christmas ‘holiday’ gatherings! Kristina’s Santa & Elves party last weekend demanded some sort of dressing up so in the spirit of lazy recycling I wore my one-of-a-kind SexFest 09 Santa hat, and then spent the evening trying to explain how this legendary brand of New Year parties came about. (Josh would have been proud of me.)

The next evening, Agata hosted a gingerbread baking party, which was as well-organised and delicious as it sounds. In a crude attempt to curry favour with US immigration authorities I produced this patriotic American flag cookie, and it was only afterwards – over a fiercely competitive game of Munchkin at Catherine and Jason’s – that anybody pointed out there were too many stripes. Sigh. That Green Card isn’t getting any easier now.

Tasty America

Tuesday night was the culmination of the SPARK mentoring season. Each week, a group of us at work have mentored a middle-school student and worked on a project together, which we now exhibited to their parents on ‘Discovery Night’ in the style of a science fair. (I got unreasonably excited about the opportunity to set up a tri-board, having never done a science fair before, and only recognising it from old episodes of The Simpsons.) It’s been a really rewarding experience – hopefully not just for us – and I’m looking forward to doing more next year.

Earlier in the month, Randi and I had performed the usual routine of going to Common Room and then deciding which plays to see. This time, a quirky two-hander called Matt and Ben seemed promising – a bromance imagining of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck writing Good Will Hunting together back in the 90s, and played by two women. The only problem was that I’d never seen Good Will Hunting, so we watched this first in preparation. And it was… OK. I mean, I didn’t hate it, and there are good performances, but something about characters rubs me up the wrong way. Especially the confused depiction of intelligence as some sort of all-encompassing magical gift. It felt like, and I realise this is stating the obvious, a film written from an actor’s view of the world.

However, it was absolutely worth watching for the sake of the play the next evening, because Matt and Ben was fantastic. The cast were terrific, the direction was tight and pacey, the set had some great 90s touches – everything about it was just well-honed and fun. By the time anyone reads this, I believe the last performance has already taken place, making this quite useless as a review. But if you were thinking of time-travelling a short hop and looking for somewhere to sit inconspicuously to make sure you didn’t upset casualty too much, go see this.

Friday night was the annual Groupon Holiday Party – my first, or my fourth, depending on how you look at things. Feeling like an old man, I took a nap in advance, and this very much enhanced my enjoyment of the whole thing. And Jill was there!

Reunited at the Groupon Holiday Party

Reasoning that only Sam and Michele would notice, I recycled my one-nice-jacket the next night for Nisreen and Mike’s ‘Glimmer and Glitz Winter Cocktail Hour’ (which proves that the SexFest tradition of branding your own events is alive and well in Chicago). This culminated in a game of Apples to Apples, which I’d never played before, but – despite everyone’s best efforts – was not quite as amenable to cheap innuendo as I’d hoped. (Yes yes, as everyone pointed out, that’s what Cards Against Humanity is for. On my list.) But the company was great, and as I wandered home to my increasingly Christmassy apartment, I felt pretty damn festive indeed.