We got it all

Tonight it was mrmorse's birthday and we watched movies. We saw This is Spinal Tap, which is much better than I remember it being from when I last saw it ~15 years ago, and all the better again seeing it with not just friends but musician-friends. It really is a great movie, with perfect comic timing and the "serious" bits blended in expertly. There is no boring part to it.

The second one was UHF, which is not as great, but a good time anyway. At one point I had a real start because of WHAT THE that's derspatchel's LJ icon and I have to say that that's maybe the only unexpected purely visual reference-dereferencing I have ever experienced from watching a movie.

I stopped following Weird Al's exploits after college, so his "new" look, seen while a contemporary Al clowns around during the animated DVD menus, still surprises me. Speaking of DVD, this one had maybe the most entertaining commentary track I've heard, featuring Al and the director with walk-on commentary by Emo Philips and Michael Richards. Matt started the commentary just so we could hear Al sing "Or-i-on is bank-rupt" over the opening studio logo, but naturally we ended up watching the whole thing all over again.

I did see the movie on VHS shortly after it was released, but other than "You so stoopid!" the only thing I remembered was that it contained a joke about funeral homes that my brother Peter found very tasteless since our grandma had just died. He also got really excited at Billy Barty saying "Mac-in-TOSH!" and made me pause it so he could call everyone else into the room to watch him say it again, but I didn't remember this until I saw that bit tonight.

It made me want to work on The Gameshelf again, too...

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We're still making friends, and still having no money. I've been harassing people on schedule, with the exception of phoning vendors from Origins who haven't gotten back to us yet. Phoning people to pitch at them makes my skin crawl, even if it's not exactly a cold-call. Despite this, we've still somehow managed to get two review copies of games, which we haven't played yet... ought to get on the ball about those.

Have to make the big F&F mailing before Monday night or the Andys will beat me up.

Sat down with dictator555 about the business plan. Her critiques were in alignment with other, less line-by-line criticism we've received, which is good. I have some pretty solid ideas about how to improve it. The inspiration to actually sit down and do that hasn't really struck yet; been coding instead. Coding good things, and got into a nice forgetting-to-eat fugue state I haven't seen in a while, though I cynically wonder if it's all an avoidance tactic.

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I talked with daerr about ITA on Saturday. I stand by my earlier posts about not wanting full-time work but I figure it would behoove me to learn more about my options, and ITA may be the easiest of them: this is a company that has been hoovering up techies like it's 1999, and D is willing to repeat his trick from eight years ago of (probably) getting me into a company if I'm willing to join it.

Harvard and MIT are also likely candidates, given my current spread of contacts and experience, so I should look over them this weekend too.

New bird

Locals:

Is it just me or is there a new sort of urban bird hanging around the area? It is a big bird, the size of a pigeon, but it is dusky-colored, and has a more needley beak than pigeons do. I see them slumming around the residential / light-commercial areas around Davis and Porter.

Do any of you know what I'm talking about? I see a lot of these guys lately, and I don't recall seeing them before.