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The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve been wanting to re-read this and the Lord of the Rings for the past few years. I figured this was a good time to do it since the movie is coming out in December.

I’m not sure what to say other than it’s still a great book. I didn’t remember much of what happened. It’s been a while since I’ve been exposed to this story. I watch the movie trilogy every year, but I haven’t read this one in a while.

The only part I don’t really like it the singing. Thankfully, there’s not much in the book.

Not long ago I saw online somewhere that Portlandia was looking for extras for Season 3. I filled out the online form and included the 2 pictures they wanted: a head shot and a body shot. I didn’t think there was any chance of being picked, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. I really enjoy watching the show. Wednesday afternoon I got a call asking if I could come early the next morning to be in a sketch. Of course I said “Yes”. They told me what to wear and later that night they sent an email telling me where to be and when to be there. I got there super early, but it wasn’t long before other extras started to arrive. Everybody was really nice. I had a great time. I signed an NDA that I didn’t read, so I’m going to play it safe and not go into any details now. Maybe more after the episode airs. Their seasons usually start in January, so I assume you’ll see it around that time. Hopefully, I’ll be on screen and won’t look too bad.

Later that night I went to see Fiona Apple in concert. The opening act was pretty lame. He played nothing but slow, mellow songs and even joked about that. I almost fell asleep because I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the previous few days. Once he finished, we had to wait about 45 minutes before Fiona came on stage. I was getting restless and it was getting late. When she came on she explained that she was late because she had just had her period. Anyway, she put on a really great show. There was was only one song that she didn’t play that I wanted to hear. She’s a weird one, but she’s good.

Fiona Setlist
Fast as You Can
On the Bound
Shadowboxer
Paper Bag
Anything We Want
Get Gone
Sleep to Dream
Extraordinary Machine
Werewolf
Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)
Daredevil
I Know
Every Single Night
Criminal
Carrion
Not About Love

Encore:
It’s Only Make Believe

Last night my favorite show, Eureka, aired its final episode. I’ve always said that it’s not the best show, but it’s just plain fun. That’s what made it my favorite. It was nice to have some fun sci-fi to watch along with the gritty, depressing stuff. In the 5 years or so that I’ve owned a DVR, it’s always been prioritized in the #1 position ahead of sci-fi and non-sci-fi shows like LOST, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc.

I started watching Eureka in the summer of 2007 on DVD before the second season started. I knew about it during the first season, but hadn’t seen it except for a few seconds while I was flipping through the channels. I have this memory of Sheriff Carter in the woods. I know that doesn’t really narrow it down. The only time I mentioned it here was not long after I first started watching. I’ve enjoyed watching the show every season. Not every episode was great, but they were all at least pretty good as far as I remember. I even switched to using Degree deodorant was because of the creative tie-in they had in season 3.

I was very satisfied with the finale last night. We had the same familiar crisis-of-the-week story along with references previous seasons and resolution to the various character threads. The sheriff’s trip through memory lane was great. I’m just glad it got a chance to wrap things up considering how it was suddenly canceled.

With Eureka ending, there aren’t any truly sci-fi shows on Syfy. There’s not much sci-fi left on TV in general. I hope something as imaginative and fun as Eureka comes along soon.

I think I’m going to like this game.

Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is cool! It’s a modernized retelling of Batman’s origin. There are a few interesting spins on the Batman mythology. Give it a read if you like Batman.

After many weeks of doing nothing but going to work, watching TV, working out, shopping, and going to see movies, I started to get out and enjoy Portland again this week. A lot of the events that I bought tickets for weeks or months in advance are starting take place now.

On Wednesday I went to a Foster the People concert. FTP is my favorite new band over the past year or so. Their first album is one that I can listen to all the way through without skipping any songs. The concert was outside and the weather was perfect. There was lots of skin on display, and I love seeing lots of skin. A singer named Kimbra opened up. She was good. The next performer was Mayer Hawthorne, who I liked a lot better. He has more of a soul kind of sound. After a while the songs started to sound alike, but I definitely want to give him another listen. FTP was last, of course, and they were SO GOOD!!! They played most, if not all, of their first album and some songs I didn’t recognize. They left the stage without playing “Pumped Up Kicks”, so everybody knew there would be an encore. When they did play “Pumped Up Kicks”, they changed the ending to make it sound like a techno song. Great concert!

On Thursday night I went to see Aziz Ansari perform. He plays Tom on Parks and Recreation. A comedienne name Chelsea Peretti opened up. She was pretty good, but I was eager for Aziz to get on stage. His act was very funny! My favorite part was when he talked about meeting President Obama.

On Friday night, I went to see the 80s Room. I learned about this event from Brian. Basically, a PSU student started collecting 80s TV commercials. He categorized them and showed some of them that night. I actually recognized some and the jingles from a few others. It was a really fun snapshot of the 80s.

On Saturday night, I went to see Patton Oswalt. This was at the same place I saw Marc Meron. I think I went online and bought tickets the moment the show was announced. I was close for the Meron show, but this time I was right in front of the stage. It was great. Both the opening act (I can’t remember his name) and Patton Oswalt spoke to me during the show. I kept noticing them looking at me. Before the show when I had to sign my name saying that I received my tickets, I saw the names Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, and Corin Tucker at the bottom of the list. Google them if you don’t know who they are. I didn’t get to look for them, but I overheard someone say they saw Fred Armisen. Awesome show!

I was so exhausted last night. I must really be getting old. I want to stay home every night for the next week, but I think I have stuff on my calendar.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I decided to read this a few weeks back when the trailer for the movie was released and I saw how excited everyone was about it. I’ve seen it listed on so many Facebook profiles under favorite books, but I had never been tempted to read it.

It’s a good book. It’s presented as a series of letters written by the main character, Charlie, to some unknown person. Charlie is a very introverted and feels lonely after the death of best friend. The letters chronicle Charlie’s first year in high school.

It’s was published by MTV in 1999 and I can see why a lot of young people like it. Give it a try.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a cool, fun, quick book this turned out to be!

I thought it was going to be crazy silliness, but the one is a lot more serious than I was expecting. What if all the tragedies in Lincoln’s life and the Civil War were caused by vampires? Now I want to read more about Lincoln just to see how much of this was real and how much was made up or changed for the book.

I’m excited to see the movie in a a couple of weeks.

Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework by Adam Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a great book for learning ASP MVC. It doesn’t baby you, but it does give many examples and tips.

I did skip over a lot of sections that I didn’t think I would need.

Maybe it would’ve gotten 5 stars if I were more interested in the subject matter.

It’s been over a month, but I got a tattoo! I’ve thought about getting one for a while, I just didn’t know what to get and where to get it. Since I moved I’ve been doing a lot of things that I’ve been putting off, so it was a good time to go ahead and do it. I came up with an idea and went to a tattoo artist to see if it would be possible and to get an estimate of the cost. I made an appointment for the following week. I got a Longclaw tattoo, just without the wolf’s head hilt. He would’ve had to make the tattoo a lot bigger to get the detail in the wolf’s head right, so he designed his own hilt and liked it. Yes, it did hurt, but after the first few minutes I didn’t really notice it anymore. My artist is a fellow fantasy nerd, so we talked about books the whole time.

Now I understand how addictive tattoos are because the next day I was already thinking about my next one.