My last weekend in Minneapolis was good. I got to hang out with several of my coworkers and generally enjoyed the city. The internship program has had its ups and downs, but Minneapolis has been amazing.

On Saturday I spontaneously decided to continue my recent moviegoing streak and took the light rail downtown to see The Chumscrubber. The movie’s a sort of quirky criticism of suburbia told from the perspective of a taciturn high school student. The reviews were pretty bad, but the trailer looked interesting and it was my only chance since it’s not out in Omaha (or Budapest, I’d imagine). I enjoyed it well enough, but it definitely had problems. First of all, the portrayal of suburbia was so over the top that it almost became a parody of itself. Not every family has to be so outwardly cheerful or harbor such dark secrets – we get the picture. The quirks were also a bit weird. The movie’s namesake was some sort of videogame/tv series that didn’t really seem to have much relevance to the plot, and the mayor might have been a bit overdone. Anyway, it was fun, but won’t go on my list of favorite movies.

After that, I headed to a cookout shindig that a grad student I work with was having for the research group and friends. After an amusing (and surprisingly long-lived) attempt at hacky-sack, we began the food-consumption in earnest and chatted for a while. I only stayed for a couple of hours, but I had a lot of fun. It’s nice to work with such a neat group of people.

Sunday greeted me with the dreadful silence of a broken Internet connection. After obsessively clicking on the refresh button for a while, I despaired and went into the office to check my email. I didn’t get very far, however, because Mark and Marie (visitor from Czech Republic) were in the office preparing to venture forth. Mark had a (borrowed) car for the weekend, so he was planning to show Marie around the city, and I decided to tag along. Our first stop was the sculpture garden outside the Walker. I’ve been there a couple of times now, but it’s a nice place to walk, and nobody should visit Minneapolis without seeing Spoonbridge and Cherry.

After that, we headed towards Uptown. I had seen something about an art fair, so we decided to check that out. It turns out that the Uptown Art Fair is actually a really big deal and the place was packed. It was kind of neat to walk around and see all of the art, but since none of us had $3000 to blow on a painting, we gave up rather quickly. We made a quick stop at the excellent Magers and Quinn bookstore and then headed back to campus.

Steadfastly ignoring the little voice in the back of my head telling me to work, I sought entertainment for Sunday night. I ended up renting House of Flying Daggers from McDonalds for $1 (yes, they rent dvds, who knew?). It was visually arresting, but the plot was less interesting than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero. I think the fantasy martial-arts genre is going to have to evolve to remain compelling – someone needs to tell these people that running up a piece of bamboo is kind of a one trick pony.

Anyhoo, that was my weekend. Work today was somewhat less rewarding, due largely to some frustrating Java/OpenGL problems, but such is life. I’ll be back in Omaha on Friday evening.

On Saturday I returned to Uptown for the third time, because its just that cool. Actually it wasn’t cool at all, it was FREAKISHLY HOT. In an attempt to satiate my recent craving for a good hike, I had decided to walk the three mile perimeter of Lake Calhoun. The scenery was nice (see above), but the weather was not, and I was definitely, um, “perspiring” rather profusely by the time I was done.

Following my walk/sauna, I grabbed lunch at Panera and wandered for a while. This eventaully led me to Cheapo Records which was music store bliss to my medium-size-town sensibilities. They had an amazing selection of new and used dvds and cds of all genres. I told myself that I wasn’t going to buy anything, but I broke down when I found a copy of The Tain EP by the Decemberists. It’s based loosely on the Irish myth Táin Bó Cúailnge, which is just cool, and it’s some of their darker and richer work to boot. Admittedly it was a bit pricey at $10 for 18:35 of music, I don’t mind supporting independent musicians or music stores. (Right, so after congratulating myself for a rare find, I discover that the Tain is now on iTunes for $5.99. Must be a new addition, it wasn’t there last time a checked).

So after attaining music store nirvana, I headed over to the Lagoon Theater to catch a movie. The Lagoon is one of Uptown’s two theater devoted to independent films, and I’ve been wanting to see something there for a while. I was debating between The Beat that My Heart Skipped and Me and You and Everyone We Know. I ended up seeing the later because I had heard some good things about it. It was enjoyable, though I can’t say I was blown away. It was sort of in the same vein as Lost in Translation or Garden State in that it was a sort of meloncholy comedy about the nature of relationships, but it avoided the twenty-something angst that permeated those films. Maybe it’s because I’m a twenty-something, but I found it harder to identify with the characters in Me and You and Everyone we Know. It did have some very funny parts, though, and it was a pleasant (and blissfully air-conditioned) way to spend an afternoon.

I spent most of Sunday at the office, but I needed a break in the evening, so I decided to go the Oak Street Cinema down the street from where my dorm. They were showing Jean-Luc Goddard’s Masculin, féminin. I was a bit intimidated at seeing a black-and-white French New Wave film from the 1960s, and I admit I was in a bit over my head. As a series of scenes about life and love in 1960s Paris, I enjoyed it, but I’m sure most of the subtleties were lost on me.

I’ve got a presentation this week on Wednesday and a paper due on Friday. Both are essentially done except for polish and practice, and I think they’ll be fine. I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten much done since the big vlab conference a few weeks ago, but I supose that’s to be expected. A lot of that conference focused on what’s going to happen in the future, and I’m not going to be here for most of it.