Huzzah! etch is released! Congratulations to the release managers, Debian-Installer developers, and all the DDs that make Debian a great operating system.
Happy Easter
We had a good Easter morning at our house today. I got up around 5AM and packed plastic Easter eggs with about half candy and half healthy fruit (grapes and kiwis) and hid them around the house. There's still snow on the ground outside, so I decided not to hide any out there.
Amita noticed as soon as she got up ("EGGS!!"), and ran around the house picking up eggs, breaking them in half, and eating the grapes inside. She also got an improvised Easter "basket" -- they didn't have baskets at the store, so I got a little Easter gift-bag instead -- with apples, a chocolate bunny, and a stuffed duck. Pretty good haul.
This afternoon we're going out to a cabane à sucre -- a traditional "sugar shack", where maple syrup is made. We'll have a big dinner, go on a horse ride, and listen to some traditional Québec music. It's my first time going, and I'm pretty excited.
tags: easter cabane à sucre easter egg hunt maj amitajune chocolate bunny maple syrup
Grindhouse
Nicolas Ritoux, his girlfriend Karine, and I went to see Grindhouse on Friday night. It was a pretty fun film -- a double-feature by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, more-or-less modeled after early-'70s C-movie gore-fests.
Rodriguez's half, "Planet Terror", was really good -- a campy gross-out with nods to horror-film clichés and T&A jiggle goofiness. The monsters were gross, the characters were dark, and stars Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez put in great performances. Best of all were the computer-modified soundtrack and photography, which gave a great impression of cheap, skippety, second-run film stock.
I wish I could say the same about Tarantino's half, "Death Proof". After a full-length "Planet Terror", it was too slow and boring -- I almost walked out. Tarantino has always done a great job with the patter between characters in their on-screen "down time": driving in cars, waiting in bars, making plans on the phone. But the first half of "Death Proof" was about watching people you don't like say stupid things to each other while waiting for other people you don't care about.
The second half, on the other hand, was pretty great. But it was almost entirely an extended car chase in beefed-up 70s muscle cars, which, like, how could that not be awesome? A New Zealander beats up Kurt Russell with a 2-meter lead pipe, and Rosario Dawson does a pick-axe kick on his throat. Cool.
All in all, worth the price of admission, but the first half of "Death Proof" dragged down what could have been an excellent film.
tags: grindhouse robert rodriguez quentin tarantino planet terror death proof
St. Laurent
Maj, AJ and I went furniture shopping yesterday afternoon. We need to find a new, big couch for our new house, as well as a few other minor pieces. We're ditching those pieces of cheap disposable Ikea furniture that we built up over the years and trying to put together a house that's built to last.
Shopping for furniture in Montreal is made considerably easier by the fact that maybe 2 dozen furniture stores are crammed between Duluth and Mont Royal on av. St. Laurent. We visited around 10 stores, just walking up and down these few blocks. Amita June loved running around the stores, and we had to keep her from pulling down giant crystal ornaments on her head.
We had lunch at Taqueria Mex (not bad, but not like home) then I went to meet Niko at Laïka while Maj took the baby home for a nap. We hung out at Laïka for most of the day, working and talking, and ended up sitting around with a hungover Boris and Michael for a while. It's Laïka -- if you sit around long enough, everyone in Montreal's Internet scene is going to walk past at some point.
tags: laika laïka stlaurent furniture taqueria mex boris niko michael
Duluth is on fire
So, a friend asked if I meant Duluth, Minnesota in the above entry. And that made me wonder: are rue Duluth in Montreal and Duluth, MI named after the same guy?
Per Wikipedia, the city is named after Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, a French explorer who died in Montreal. Surely it's the same fellow...? Does anyone know who Duluth street is named after?