Watching Page Eight, which I received from Netflix this evening. I’ll watch Bill Nighy in just about anything, especially if it has Rachel Weisz co-starring in it. The guy gets the best actresses. Then again, that’s what happens you’re the coolest British actor around. I’ve seen Girl in the Cafe thrice, and there he gets Kelly Macdonald. As for Page Eight, I’m less than 10 minutes in and I’m blown away by the casting. Billy Nighy. Rachel Weisz. Judy Davis. Michael Gambon. Ralph Fiennes. And I’m sure I’m missing a name or two. Yowsa.

Holy Crap, I had no idea that Garbage was back together and that they had a new album–their first in seven years–out this week. I just bought it on iTunes and am listening now, and my first impression is that this feels like a successor to Version 2.0. Version 3.0, so to speak.

I have a very fond place in my heart for Version 2.0. I remember the first time I listened to the album. I had heard a track or two on the radio, but it wasn’t until I got inside the now-defunct Virgin Records on Market Street in San Francisco in the autumn of 1998.

Before there was Napster and MP3s and iPods the only way people bought music was on plastic discs, and that Virgin Store was a happening place, stuffed full of people. And I recall that everyone was in summer wear, as it was sweltering. (Anyone who’s lived in San Fran knows that summer is the cold season. Seriously, I usually had a light sweater and coat on most evenings. It’s the autumns that are hot.)

Virgin had a row of CD players on the wall, each one with a different top-selling album. Version 2.0 was near the very top of the charts. I donned the headphones hanging from a hook and dialed in the first track, and I was hooked. I always felt Version 2.0 was the perfect album for the dot-com era.

Any album that can make me recall those days is special.

I encountered her at Pike Place Market on Sunday.

A truly amazing weekend in Seattle, the first sunny and warm weekend of the year.

Ventured to Vashon Island today, the first time I’ve been back since I was about six or seven years old. Yeah, pretty much a lifetime ago. Vashon is a beautiful, remote place, which is in strange contrast to the fact that it’s literally minutes away from downtown Seattle by ferry. However, unlike the other big islands in Puget Sound, Vashon has no bridge to link it to the mainland. There was talk of building one twenty years ago, with developers rubbing their hands in anticipation at transforming the island into yet another bustling suburb full of subdivisions, apartment complexes and big box retail stores, but the locals overwhelmingly shot it down. They love their island way of life, including how it’s regulated by the ferry schedule.

This has had the effect of keeping Vashon an undeveloped paradise of only 10,000 people on an island that’s larger than Manhattan. It’s an island of big hills and thick forests, family farms and strawberry fields, tiny wineries and tinier art galleries, driftwood beaches and out-of-the-way harbors. It’s closer to downtown Seattle than many of Seattle’s suburbs, yet it feels like a completely different world. In fact, I didn’t see a single stoplight on the entire island.

I did a wine tasting, explored “uptown” Vashon’s main street, saw a bald eagle, gazed at a glorious Mount Rainier, encountered a deer on the side of the road, and more. And when I was done, I dreaded going back to the mainland, with its traffic and crowds and noise.

I need to come back here  much more than every 30 years.

GameStop purchased Impulse less than a year later, and some of the guys I worked with moved to Texas to join the retail giant. They rebranded the Impulse client with the GameStop name, but they still kept the ImpulseTV tab up there for some inexplicable reason. Even a year later, the tab was still there. I’m sure GameStop customers who weren’t familiar with the history were wondering what the hell is ImpulseTV, and who is this Jason Ocampo dude who’s talking?

Well, GameStop finally removed the tab this week. It may have even have happened today. And it feels like closure. A bit weird, too.

Time to move on.