Chopstork

A Blue Angels jet crashed. Those guys are so awesome, I didn’t think it was possible.

UVA held a candle light vigil Tuesday night, “to honor the memories and lives of those killed and injured this morning and to express our support for our counterparts at Virginia Tech, for their families, and for their friends.”

The secret societies at UVA have their symbols painted all over Grounds. Yesterday the Z Society had their symbol at the amphitheatre painted orange and maroon—Tech’s colors. It’s pretty neat, since they are our rival school … probably the only time you’ll see Hokie colors painted at UVA.

More pictures here.

[Update 4/20]: The UVA front page used one of my pictures for orange and maroon day today.

DC vs SF UI—Overall, I say SF wins. It’s the original. But I can appreciate the fact that 600 people drinking on the street with shopping carts in tow is not acceptable to the DC police. SF cops are way cool about that stuff. I like that all 600 people stay together in the SF version too.

It was still fun—it’s the Urban Iditarod, how could it not be. I was pretty impressed with some of the costumes. The teams do go all out. I think our collective favorites were PacMan, the Pope and Pope’s secret service, and Double Dare. Except that the themes weren’t dog-related. Hello, Urban Iditarod? Here’s our sorry-ass cart:

The Animal Control idea didn’t pan out so well since no other teams were animals. Except one—there was a Zoo team. We stole their animals. They slimed our cart.

Here’s something cool: sabotage is encouraged. I didn’t like the idea at first, but it adds an interesting element of danger to the whole thing. Water balloons and eggs flying through the sky, people sneaking around with duct tape and cable ties, waterguns, vaseline slime. Fun. Apparently there were things hidden around each bar for bonus points too. We were busy figuring out how to enjoy our own beers between running, so no bonus points for us.

Anyway, here are pictures. Wow, there was a lot of squirt bottling going on after the race.

hint: “Waldo” = Luke
click on the picture if you give up

Remember Upside Down Cubicle, where people (e.g. Wolfson, Courtney, and Luke) turn everything in another person’s (e.g. my) cubicle upside down? Monitors, desks, books, cups full of pens, posters, calendars, etc. Well, DP was visiting D.C. last weekend and stayed at Jay’s place where Laura and I picked him up to go sightseeing. Jay had to meet someone for lunch. We were alone in his house (except for his two roomates who joined in our shenanigans). We played Upside Down Jay’s Room. We had a good laugh. We took some pictures.

Jay’s only response come Monday: “My revenge will be swift and furious.”

I am scared.

In related news, I am pretty excited for the day when DP becomes the first Jewish president and we get to play Upside Down White House (and also change all the switch plates*).

* We used to bring a new switch plate (the kind that go in kids’ rooms) and install it each time we went to his house.

The home of Tom and Jerry, in Noe Valley on 21st Street. I think I heard someone saying they’ve done this for 20 years. People come from all over the City to check it out. If you go on Christmas, rumor is Santa will be there too.

If I may say so myself, I think our costume this year was my personal best. I say “our” because LauraDan, StephanieTim, Old ManDamian, and IAndy formed Ok Go. Yes, we learned the dance. No, not the treadmill one, the other one. I’ve never prepped for halloween two months in advance, but it was worth it. I think most people “got it,” and I hear a few were all about it (we all zone out during the dance so we can’t really see the crowd’s reaction). Here’s our tour schedule…aaaah, I love how stupid we are:

Friday (happy birthday, Keri)

• Sidewalk in front of Medjool’s
• Medjool’s rooftop (Derek asked the DJ to put the song on inside too but he wouldn’t)
• Sidewalk in front of 12 Galaxies, with an encore performance (they still wouldn’t let us and our friends into the private party)

Saturday

• In front of Bar None (after some flippy cup action inside)
• In front of Mauna Loa (Press photographer took some pictures)
• In bus stop in front of City Tavern (Reno 911 cop danced with us instead of keeping us from getting run over)
• In the back yard(!) at a house party in Cole Valley
• Encore performances with anywhere from one to three band members present, and with a flamingo on my head, in the back yard. I got to wear Matt’s (he lives there) N-Judah costume, which was awesome, but I didn’t think to dance in it—what a lost opportunity.
• Almost forgot—our encore on our way out with Eli filling in for Stephanie, the rest of us barking out the moves to him in real time. He did a swell job for his first performance ever.

Tuesday (actual Halloween), tentative

• Some block party for kids near Buena Vista
• Castro Street

I’m kind of sad it’s over now. No more Ok Go dancing. Thanks to our fans who cheered us on out there. Touring is tough, but we do it for the fans.

Us at Bar None in the Marina:

And as is usually the case, I collected bits of other people’s costumes throughout the night:

More pictures from Emily, Courtney, and Luke

Update: No, we didn’t go out Tuesday, and we didn’t get shot in the Castro.
Update: Here’s a video.

Congratulations to Mark and Jess, who got married this past weekend.

And to Ernie for being a good meeter and greeter.

Nah-ah! Once again, Flickr is so cooooooool! Drag and drop pix onto a map in the organizr and voila, they’re geotagged.

You can link photos up to Upcoming.org events too…maybe we should start using Upcoming instead of evite.

Update: I geotagged the BYOBW pix. Now we can keep track of our gallavanting through the city. To quote Mr. Galewekitch (after he’s in the car and playing with the electric windows): This is so cool!