Pacific Arts Festival 2

I'm a little worn out. It was great that we actually had things to do on a nightly basis. But, it is just a week and a half of events, so most people felt like we better see as much as we can while it is here, so you end up staying out late (by American Samoa standards) every night.

So, did the miracle weather and overall lack of problems despite the overall lack of planning continue?

Amazingly it did. It had rained so often during the past few months; I can't recall 24 hours without rain since April or so. I think it rained maybe one hour during the entire festival. And not just no rain, it continued on with the best weather since I have been here. About 78-82 every day, low humidity, lots of sun. It has been great. The arts festival participants along with the passengers of a huge cruise ship that was in for a day got the best face of this island. They will surely tell their friends this place is an island paradise.

Here are some pictures from the Arts Festival:











OK, wait, why was I worried about this? Well, you can read back on some other accounts of problems here, but on the lighter side, here are some of the pre (ok, when I say pre, I mean, maybe finished the day before or even the 2nd day of the festival) festival decorations:









OK, back to festival pictures:










When Taiwan got done, their leader yelled: " yay Samoa, go! go! go!" It was hilarious and ridiculous, but she was very enthusiastic and a big hit with the crowd:







Torabind Islanders (between Australia and Papua New Guinea).


"my hat is like a shark's fin"
Torabind Islanders are huge LL fans.


In the middle of the festival was Oscar's birthday party at his house. It was a 70s/toga theme. Doug, Nate, and I tried to do both. It was fun, as are most events at Oscar's.




Doug got tired:


Have you had pulse energy drink/liquor drink? Anyway, I had 2 and by the time I got home, I figured it was around 1am or so. Yeah, it was 6. I was first alerted to this possibility when I noticed it getting light while I was jabbering at Naomi and torturing her by preventing her ability to sleep with said jabbering. So, it was probably reasonable that Doug was tired. Happy Birthday Oscar!

And, some more arts festival:



The festival officially ended yesterday.



It was supposed to end on Saturday, but the Governor had to go to the coronation of the new king of Tonga, so it was cut short. That is just ridiculous. But, with the festival not being a disaster, the gov probably is looking pretty good for re-election (if you believe that very many people vote for who they want---I'll get into this later). Looking good because of the festival working out well in general, but even more for the fireworks. These were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. Imagine having a fireworks display for 4th of July at a medium size American town (maybe somewhere between Longview, WA and Redding, CA). Then put yourself IN the fireworks. This was a decent display for a town that size, but the fireworks only got shot about 50 feet off the ground before they blew up. It was really cool, and a little scary, but mostly just great:


Add to this that a lot of people had never seen fireworks before. It was aweseome! People just screaming because either they had never seen these in person before, or didn't know fireworks like this even existed.

It was too bad that the finale happened on a Wednesday and everyone had to go to work the next day because everyone was really jacked up after the fireworks and possibly could have stayed up all night.


Movie reviews:

The Devil and Daniel Johnston:
(groan) I remember watching Jeepers Creepers with Seigel and both of us were pissed about the time the movie ended. He said something like, "WTF? I guess you can just throw any pile of crap idea for a movie at a studio and get it made". Well, that's kind of how I felt at the end of this one. No, not the end, the whole thing. This movie is really not good. Don't watch it. It isn't entertaining because of it's awfulness. It is just crap. This is a documentary about a crazy guy that some people think is famous and some sort of a music God. There are only two groups of "famous" bands and people that I've ever even heard of however. One of them is Sonic Youth. OK. The other one is Butthole Surfers. I saw Butthole Surfers once in college and that was a pretty decent show. But, Butthole Surfers were playing at a UW Kappa Sigma party. Anyway, that was the best part. Don't watch it! Just because it is so weird, and not horribly done, I give it a 1.

Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay:
Dumb! Really really dumb! Not believable. Totally inappropriate humor. Also, pretty funny: 6.5

Everything is Illuminated:
Not too boring, not too exciting. Kind of weird (in a good way), but not funny enough to be really good. If you run out of movies to watch, this might be tolerable: 3.8

Ms/Trade deadline:
I think the Ms got a fine deal for Rhodes.
I don't know what was really offered for Ibanez. If it was 2 major leaguers, I can only guess they were ones that Toronto wanted to get rid of, so no problem with not taking that deal. I can't believe the Ms weren't approached about making Ibanez part of the Manny deal; maybe they preferred Bay, I don't know. But, if the Ms got the same offer the Pirates got, we should have taken it: again, just speculation.
Washburn: If the Yankees offered Gardner and Igawa for Washburn, I don't know why we didn't take it. Gardner could be good, could be worthless; probably he'll end up like J.Reed, but it is better than nothing. Igawa probably won't be great, but he could be decent and still, he makes about $8M less than Washburn.
WHY ARE CAIRO AND VIDRO STILL ON THE ROSTER????????? Cairo even started today! What is going on!??!! I'd rather see us lose all the rest of our games this year than see Vidro or Cairo start another game. If Riggleman is trying to win games to keep his job, he's losing any chance to keep it, at least in my mind.

It'll be August 1 by the time you read this: my birthday!

Oh, and in honor of my birthday, the Governor gave us a day off Monday. Don't you get Monday off? Really, we need it from all the arts viewing. Now if they could only mix in some things to do and see throughout the year...