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Saturday, November 13, 2010

 
7:38 PM: october octane [#] [0]

october is usually our busiest month, and this year doesn't seem much different.

for instance, it always begins with a bang at the hp lovecraft film festival, three days of films inspired by hp lovecraft. this one was bittersweet because, after a run of 15 years, it's the last one in portland.

then we headed to the salem film festival to see the premier of sven’s "mutate" film. it premiered in astoria on the same day, so we had to choose one. we met a young woman from boston who only discovered she had won the day before and scrambled to get here in time for -her- premiere (hi, kassidy!). we also got to hang out with joanna priestly, oregon's queen of indie animation. all that -plus- free concessions for filmmakers! we had a good time.

we had many friends participating in the portland open studios tour this year and we managed to see them all. in addition, we got to see a new artist, thomas hughes, whose "mechanical theatres" are truly delightful. we downloaded the open studios iphone app to navigate between locations: SO much easier than using the calendar map. :)

plus, i attended a reading of sven’s "death of the party" at pdx playwrights, we sat through the final round of the video gong show at the hollywood theatre, watched dinner w/ andre at the 5th avenue cinema, attended the "7-year itch" in st. john's, and ended with the "animation show of shows" at cinema 21 (w/ a gathering afterward at the blue moon).

but i would have done even more if i hadn't gotten sick right after the lovecraft festival. i missed a whitebird performance, the first weekend of open studios, carl & cecilia's birthday at ned ludd, and steve's wedding.

we took the opportunity to finish max headroom (which i found held up even after 20 years) & begin thirtysomething. i read the whole of "night in the lonesome october" to sven, as per tradition. we watched network, clash of the titans, brokeback mountain, and the blob on halloween. i'm not usually a person who games online, nor am i a steampunk aficionado, but i really started getting into fallen london.

when i wasn't sick, watching movies or exploring fallen london, i kept busy working. uws is going well: i got recommended to the "clinic phase labs," which is apparently a distinction of sorts. for me, it means i work with students once or twice a week now, and i leave at an unholy hour to do it. ohsu standardized patient work kept me busy in october, too. and i'm still doing web work for the ebikestore. i also got to participate in a formal iphone usability study, which was a lot of fun: took me back to my HCI days.

my dad's birthday is in october (happy 59th!), and i traded my annual letter to/from roboamn. halloween requires pumpkins and an elaborate shelf sven created above the door to keep the vandals on our street from smashing our pumpkins like they did several years in a row. the "pumpkin faeries" also delivered new pumpkins when sven discovered a group of boys had smashed a neighbor's pumpkins in the street.

finally, svenapalooza began with brunch at old wives’ tales w/ kristen & todd. more about svenapolooza in november!