2006-07-29 - 2:48

Sunsets

Things have stayed fairly busy since last I wrote. I think that the engagement news has spread just about everywhere that it needs to; and Laurie is rolling ahead with the plans.

Among the last to hear the news were my parents, who were in town last weekend, staying here from Friday night to Monday morning. We hit Gatineau Park on Sunday for a jaunt around the Mackenzie King Estate, played lots of card games (Rage, No Thanks!, and Double or Nothing), had a good barbecue dinner, and generally took it easy. Good times.

Work got fairly busy this week, partly from trying to help a customer and partly from cranking out some code. The latter was fun, since it was a small, easy project and I hadn't done any real coding in a while. At the end of the week, the boss got very wrapped up in some Linux kernel issues, which is always great. When he has something like that on his mind, he forgets to bug me. Since it was only the two of us in the office this week, it was a timely distraction for him.

On Wednesday, Laurie and I caught The Proposition, which is the movie made from Nick Cave's screenplay. I really enjoyed it. It was about what you might expect from Cave: dark, violent, sparse, and poetic, with flashes of wry humour. The filming was very cool, too. If you're in the market for a movie combining equal parts bloody deaths and beautiful Australian sunsets, The Proposition is your best bet.

After that, we went to Zaphod's to see Sunset Rubdown (featuring Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade) with . . . As the Poets Affirm. I didn't know anything about Sunset Rubdown going in, but I walked out with all of their CDs. The Poets were really good again, too; I hadn't seen those guys in a while. I have the review here.

Speaking of reviews, after a long lag, I almost finished my overdue Bluesfest recaps. As usual, I had them straight in my head but didn't make the time to write them out. If you're interested check out my recaps for Day 7 (Konono N�1), Day 8 (Metric, Fiery Furnaces, Holy Fuck, and Wintersleep), and Day 9 (Wilco and Rosanne Cash).

The Konono write-up is mostly a rehash of what I wrote here before and the Wilco one was an odd review, naturally. I still have to recap the last day of the festival, which featured The New Pornographers and Controller.Controller but that should be easy.

There are a few interesting concerts on the horizon, starting with Wolf Parade on Friday, which leads into the long weekend and Aaron and Loralei's wedding. (What's with these crazy people and weddings, anyway?)

J.