There is more to Spiegeltent than the lovely outdoor drinking area, there is the spectacular circa 1920s tent itself, in which Marlene Dietrich once performed. The entertainment we partook in was something entirely different than the legendary vamp.

The Found Footage Festival plays all sorts of, well, found footage – from home videos found in the garbage, to cable access, to infomercial out takes. Three dudes run it, Geoff Haas, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher and give commentary as the videos play.

The Festival is similar to our favorite A/V Geeks (which also showed films the night we went, but we missed them due to reasons I will soon explain) and both seem to be part of a movement of appreciation of the spectacularness of the discarded mundane.

Found magazine, The Cringe Reading Series, and sharing websites like YouTube, Found Photographs, and Flickr all make sharing these treasures easier. The Found Footage Festival and A/V Geeks tour often, so check their websites regularly, and try to attend one where dipshit noise maker Dewanatron does not slow the evening down with some of the most aggravating “music” this side of Chumbawamba.

The show opened with this guy for a HALF AN HOUR! I had just forgotten I had endured him after the found footage festival only to be told he was going to begin another set before A/V Geeks began.

Friends, it was more than I could bear and, my apologies to Skip (who runs A/V Geeks) but we had to get the H out of there (along with the equally annoyed ghost of Marlene, I imagine).

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Posted on September 25, 2006

Growing up land-locked you really appreciate the ocean for the first couple years living near it, then like most people you start take it for granted.

As summer closes I wanted to go to the beach, stroll barefoot on the sand, and listen to the waves. It was a day I will dream of when the temperatures drop.

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Posted on September 11, 2006

Oh those Swedes. It's so nice that a company like Ikea exists with such good design and consumer principles. It's hard to imagine the world before Ikea – ugly furniture, tons of money.

Again: Oh those Swedes! How I love them. Even a trip to the store, crowded with the public, only gets to me after a few hours because speculating about the possibilities for your apartment is too much fun to notice the crowds.

We may possibly be using their services for our new kitchen from demolition to installation, talk to me at the end of the process and I will let you know if I still sing their praises.

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Posted on August 28, 2006

We recently saw Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man's Chest and realized it had been entirely too long since we had seen a movie in the theater.

I forgot all the good things about the experience (big screen, shared audience enthusiasm, huge coca colas, fake butter, and good sound quality) and was spared some of the bad things (obnoxious neighbors, stomach ache from said fake butter and huge coca colas, spending money for something terrible) but still had to endure the unending ads (although I love the trailers part).

It would seem I am not the only one that has been staying away from the theaters lately, the whole industry has been in a panic for years, so throw the poor movie industry a bone and see a movie in a theater – maybe someone will join us to see The Descent or Snakes on a Plane?

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Posted on August 14, 2006

Unfortunately, the game we saw (along with Tom Hanks, who we were prompted to applaud over and over throughut the game), was a bad one for the Yanks. Bad as in abismal. The final score was 19 – 5.

But it was a pleasant day in the shaded nose bleed section where I had one of the best tasting hot dogs of my life and sat completely comfotable with roughly 54,000 of the general public generally drunk.

I really think going to a Yankees game is something you have to do at least once if you live here.

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Posted on July 31, 2006