Colleen and I went to the Walker Art Center on Sunday to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary by watching a favorite of ours, the annual British Television Advertising Awards.

The 2008 edition had a number of ads that we liked a lot, but here is my favorite (semi-NSFW):

Many of the ads are funny, but as always, the PSA’s were hard hitting:

The best commercial of the year was a let-down, as we’ve seen it before many times. One other weird thing happened - during the show, the cane of a person sitting behind me slipped and hit me square on the back of my head. It scared me more than anything, but it was one of those canes with a brass duck head, so the impact was more than just a love tap. Ouch!

My wife says she’s never seen so many geeky men so excited about anything before. Yesterday we went to the Science of Minnesota to see the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit.

They had a large selection of props and costumes from the various movies and a number of science-themed kiosks to explain the science behind the fiction. We also waited for the 30-minute presentation on robots that featured that “shiny guy that worries a lot,” but skipped the extra-fee hyperspace simulator.

The selection of Star Wars items in the gift shop was a little disappointing, focusing on a lot of regular junky toys, Halloween costumes and, rather surprisingly, a bunch of Family Guy Blue Harvest items. Not much in the way of exhibit guides or merchandise specific to the Science Museum either. They were selling unwrapped Star Wars trading cards, though, for $8.50 per pack (with a warning to *not* eat the gum).

Worth a visit if your childhood included Luke, Leia, Han and Chewy. Anakin et al. don’t count…

UPDATE: Photo gallery of low-res iPhone shots

Last Friday I picked up a print we finally had framed after about twelve years in storage. We picked up this Frank Kozik print on one of our visits to London (I believe at the no-longer-open Vinyl Experience store off of Oxford Street). It’s a signed, limited edition (28 out of 75) print of the Kansas City band Season to Risk’s 1992 self-titled album cover.

Didn’t know that at the time–just thought it looked sweet…

How cool is this? Purchased on eBay last week and now a part of the office hockey shrine. Now I need to get the McDonald’s Canada mini hockey stick collection for 2007-08…

Viva La Canada!

Colleen and I went to see Warm Beer Cold Women at the Guthrie’s Dowling Theater this weekend. The theater was set up the exact reverse way from when we saw Phil Callen in Pen this fall, which threw me off at first.

I’ve liked Tom Waits for a long time, but realized I’m not much of a Waits expert. This show had lots of songs I’d never heard before, but we still had a good time. Katy Hays was our favorite performer, but Dennis Curley had his moments and Robert Berdahl (who also wrote, directed and produced) did an admirable job with his torn Achilles and crutches.

The musicians were very strong and we really liked Dan Chouinard on keyboards and Mark Stillman on accordion (his entrance at the beginning of Rain Dogs was a highlight of the evening).

Complete list of songs from the program after the jump. (more…)

Yesterday my wife and I went to see the 1pm screening of the 2007 British Television Advertising Awards at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. We’ve seen these a number of times the past few years, but this was only the second time we’ve seen them in the new(er) McGuire Theater, which has a really great interior design.

Before we went in the theater, we checked out the Frida Kahlo exhibit next door, as there was absolutely no line. The exhibit was great and I learned a lot I didn’t know about the artist. We saw all three of the actual paintings shown above, two of which had pretty twisted stories behind them. Ms. Kahlo was one interesting personality, that’s for sure…

Found this during the excavation of my parent’s basement:

Copyright on the bottom reads 1970…