Where Christmas Is Going

Into a hole in the ground. Frickin' pipes have backed up on me for the last time. I saw the roots invading our sewer line on a camera screen. About half the pipe is blocked. The camera actually cleared out the backup, but when I asked the guy if it was ok to use the bathroom, he said yeah, but I might not want to use too much toilet paper. So hopefully in a couple of days I will have a cleanout port in the front yard and the roots under the sidewalk will become the city's problem.

Halloween Weekend

Friday: Went to the city to see Kevin Smith talk. He's a funny, if somewhat random guy. I was impressed to see him spend an hour going afield on a question, only to round back and actually answer said question eventually.

Saturday: Sleeping in, errand running, then hung out with Doug and Catherine for a while at their place. Noelle dressed up as Sexy Maid and I pulled out my Space Ghost costume. Then headed up to Redwood estates, where Bev and Spence and Esther and Kevin live. Hung out at their community's Halloween party for a while. Bev and Spence won best couples costume award for their Where the Wild Things Are costumes (Doug was also dressed as Max at their thing, popular costume this year). Noelle has pictures. Then we headed up to Bev and Spence's place, where I had never been before and socialized some more. Split around 2 or 3. I forget which. Daylight savings time ended. Watched Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Slept.

Sunday: Lazy day with limited objectives. Spent a fair amount of time driving around looking for Halloween paraphernalia that was discounted. Had a delicious dinner at Morton's (too much food!) and then went to see Where the Wild Things Are, which I would probably not recommend for children. Kinda sad. Then went home and watched Halloween movies (Donnie Darko and The Nightmare Before Christmas) before turning in.

This morning: Trying to figure out why Safari has developed Alzheimer's. Eventually ended up upgrading to 3.2.3 from 3.2.1 and the lockups so far <knock on wood> seem to have passed.

Saw VI???

Saw VI? Are you kidding me? Do they make these movies every three months?

Fun Fact

Evidently on Windows, the C fopen function will read a file with the hidden attribute, but not write to it. Yay symmetry!

Bloody Hell

Nothing I like more than getting off of plane after having been traveling for 18 hours than to get a phone call telling me that some douchebag is using my name to post hateful idiocy on some blog I've never been to. Now if you google my name a bunch of stupid shit comes up near the top. Thank you very much cowardly dipshit! The sad thing is that I think I know this guy and he seemed all right when I knew him. I guess someone could have scraped his info off the web like they did mine, but if so, they've been posing as him for a while now.

LAX

Back in the states again. Very tired and kind of grumpy. Especially in light of having to go through security <i>again</i> at LAX and because this stupid terminal seems to only sell water at the kiosks, not coke. Looking forward to being home soon in just a few hours.

Goodbye Queenstown

Finishing up breakfast at our B&B here in Queenstown before we head off to Auckland for our last night in NZ. Feeling a little sad to say goodbye, but it's been a good run.

Yesterday we took a bus tour to Fiordlands National Park at o-dark-early. This was followed by a cruise through the fjord of Milford Sound. Fjords are really cool, as it turns out. The whole area was cut from really hard rock by glaciers, so the resultant walls are tall and steep. On our way back we were supposed to fly a prop plane back, but the clouds prevented that, so we took a helicopter ride instead. That was fabulous fun! I've never ridden a helicopter before, so it was extra cool, especially when the earth just sank away from us. We even got to land on the snow covered peak of a mountain, which was wet, but super fun. Sadly it was extremely crowded, so I don't know if any of my pictures are any good.

The day before yesterday we had a very long drive from Paramata to Queenstown. We saw two glaciers and saw some amazing countryside. Our GPS also guided us through the steepest pass in NZ as a shortcut, so that was exciting. It was raining most of the day which was nice except for the hiking to the glaciers bit, but even then it was refreshing.

Now to finish packing, have a shower, then it's off to Auckland. I must get some sheep pictures before I go. I've seen a thousand fields with cute grazing sheep and not photographed one if them.

Greetings From the 42nd Parallel

So the crossing from Wellington to the South Island went well. After a few hours of driving through hilly, temperate rain forests we finally arrived at the Monaco Resort (which is in Stoke, not Nelson, as we had been led to believe) on the northern coast of the South Island. The resort consists of a number of Olde English buildings containing a bunch of rooms. Ours was a studio. We dined at their French restaurant, the Orangerie, where I got one of the best filets I've had in my life. The food there was seriously good. Sadly I awoke in the middle of the night with horrible stomach pains, so I was unable to enjoy breakfast there.

Today we started with a trip to the wearable art museum which incongruously also holds a car museum. The wearable art part of the museum is cool because it holds the trippiest costumes you've ever seen. Evidently the area has been having a high fashion show for twenty years now. Who knew?

We then drove west to the West Coast region which is wild, empty and beautiful. We went to a park on the coast which has "pancake rocks" which are sedimentary rock formations that are layered like pancake stacks. Whilst in the park we happened upon a family of Keas (or possibly Wekas) on the path in the underbrush, which was very cool. We finally got here at our B&B, where I'm currently chilling. Tomorrow is a trip through the mountains and glaciers of the south. In really stoked because I'm expecting something out of Lord of the Rings. Time for bed now!

So Happy

So happy to be here at the Paramata Lodge just outside of Ross, NZ.

So happy to hear the roar of the ocean through the window.

So happy to see (and photograph) stars I've never seen before.

So happy to hear strange bird cries in the darkness while standing beside my camera and tripod on cold, wet grass.

So happy because I've a nice comfortable bed awaiting me after a long day's drive seeing new and beautiful vistas.

So sad because the time here will not be long enough.

Wellington

Sitting in the nicest Holiday Inn ever in Wellington, about to head out to the ferry to the South Island. Didn't get to see much of Wellington, sadly. Yesterday was mostly driving, viewing the beautifully green countryside of the North. We went to the Kiwi House and saw some kiwis fooled into thinking it's daytime, some Keas, some Kakas, and a bunch of other birds.

Time to go, more soon.

Greetings from The Future

The flight from LAX was not so bad, much better than I had expected really. After a brief perusal of our beef jerky, an examination of my boots and some questions about our plans, we were off and running.

Auckland was pretty cool. We went on the Sky Tower which afforded a fantastic view of the Auckland area.

Today we drove into the countryside to Waitomo Caves, where we went on a couple incredible tours where we saw cool underground features and the beautiful Glow Worms which look like little blue stars in the darkness. After that we had a delicious dinner and a walk through the verdant countryside. Everything is so green here! And there are so many foreign (to me) birdsongs. Tomorrow perhaps some kiwi viewing and then on to Wellington and the South.

Note To Self: Tacos

Note to self: do not have a big taco dinner the night before a long flight. Ok, heading out the door momentarily to The Future!

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

I sit here resting (and by resting I mean vibrating slowly) less than 48 hours before I get on a plane for another hemisphere on a Trip to the Future. I feel strangely calm, considering how nervous I've been of late. Work has been like deep sea diving in the La Brea tar pits lately. No matter how hard I struggle progress has been very slow. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, though. Just in time, too. On top of work I have been wrapping up the trip planning, which I have procrastinating on far too long. Gotta get started with packing and preparing. Anyway, in a few days my cares will be behind me.

Zombieland

Best. Zombie. Movie. Evar.

The role Woody Harrelson was born to play.

Odd Birthday Weekend

Had kind of an odd weekend. Noelle and I flew up to Washington Friday night for Zak and Angie's wedding. Drove an hour late at night to beautiful Poulsbo, WA (which is charming Norwegian fishing village moved to Puget Sound). Got up too early Saturday morning to take a quick cruise around the area in a beautiful yacht that Zak's friend Frank rented for the weekend. Then lunch in Poulsbo (Noelle got a leather aviator hat after lunch she squeed about), then back to the hotel for a power nap, followed by the wedding at the Kiana Lodge which is far, far prettier than the pictures on their website would have you believe. It's surrounded by towering cedars and the lodge itself is right on the water with weeping willows, ferns, and all sorts of plant life around you. They have an explosion of flowers there there too. Words don't really do it justice. After a lovely ceremony, a wonderful dinner in the lodge (where we somehow managed to be seated at the head table), and great reception, Noelle and I headed back to get some rest at our hotel in Poulsbo. The next morning we checked out and paid the newlyweds and their families a brief visit before heading back to SeaTac with Zak's cousin (who had a flight right around the same time as ours). Getting back was a little rushed as we had to stop a few times (did you know that Washington state roads frequently have exits where you can't immediately get back on the highway again and if you do you might be heading in the wrong direction? I did not, but do now.), but we finally got to the airport. Where I discovered I had lost my driver's license. After a moment of panic, we talked to the gate agent and I found out you can board a plane (at least domestic flights on some airlines) without photo ID. Once we got on the plane, I finally relaxed a little bit. We got home in the afternoon and I got to rest a bit before going off to Kyoto Palace where Noelle had arranged for a bunch of friends to meet us for dinner for my birthday. Big fun! Wasn't able to catch the fried rice bits, though. Maybe another time. Anyway, it was kind of a weird weekend with lots of ups and downs, but overall positive.

Holy Surfin' Safari, Batman!

Shot with Canon 5D MkII. Tasty video. Crazy shots of surfing in Norway. That's right. Norway.

Oh Rock Band

I love how I learn the words to Pearl Jam songs by singing them in Rock Band.

OhBoyOhBoyOhBoy

Fringe starts next week!

Beatles Rock Band!

Played this last Friday night (a friend had a pre-release copy) and boy is this game fun! The visuals once you get to the Sgt. Pepper era are distractingly trippy, but super cool! You can also sing in harmony, up to three parts which is also a lot of fun, as it turns out. Finally my obsessive listening to the Beatles in my teens has paid off!

D'oh

Went to Mendocino County for a friend's bachelor party. Took camera with dead battery. D'oh.

Santorini Pictures Posted

(click to view)

Whew, I finally got through the pictures I took on Santorini, if anyone is interested. The above is a church in Oia taken at night with a long exposure.

Now on to Athens!

That's Not Ok 104.9

I was driving to work the other day and turned to 104.9, which is supposed to be an alternative station which occasionally plays 80s songs and I hear Phil Collins and Philip Bailey singing "She's An Easy Lover." Dude, WTF? That's not all right.

District 9

A bunch of us went to see District 9 at the theater the other night. I liked it with some reservations. There were a lot more bodily fluids than I was expecting, and this is compared to Drag Me to Hell. I appreciated the irony of aliens coming to South Africa and being treated as an unwanted people who are treated as subhuman by the locals who herd them into slums where they live separately from the humans. The story centers around a bureaucrat who starts out as the worst kind of bigot who gradually becomes more sympathetic throughout the course of the movie. The start of the movie is a lot more tense than I had expected, almost painfully so. Then it sort of morphs into an action movie, which helped to relieve the tension. Overall, good flick but perhaps too intense for some.

What A Bear Might Look Like

TV station does reenactment of bear visit to a woman's back yard. That's some quality journalism, Lou.

RIP Les Paul

Les Paul, creator of one of the first solid body guitars, a musical innovator who developed multitrack recording and audio effects like reverb, passed away at 94 yesterday. While the signature Gibson guitar named after him has changed the way music sounds, I think his contributions to recording are even more meaningful. I hope he's rocking out, wherever he is.

I've Been Published!

Well, after a fashion, anyway. A guy who writes for an ESL website asked permission to use one of my pictures from the bazaar in Istanbul for an article he was working on. So now it's been published here.

Last of the Comic-Con 2009 Pix Up

(click to see set)

Pushed the last of pictures from Con up tonight. Seems to be a lot of nerd interest out there, as I have never seen so many page views on my flickr stream.

Shatner Reads Palin

Connnnnnnnnnn!

So, back at Comic-Con again. I got really excited when we got here yesterday. The weather has been nice and cool here in San Diego. Lots of cool costumes. Richard Hatch from BSG was in line in front of me at Starbucks this morning. Later I waited in line for about two hours (thanks Twilight fans) to get into Hall H, the largest room at con. Saw Terry Gilliam for the panel for his upcoming film The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus which looks lovely and strange, as a Terry Gilliam movie should. That panel was followed by a brief panel for Pandorum, which looks like Resident Evil In Space, which is probably sufficient to get my ass in a theater. Finally, we saw the panel for Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust)'s new film. That movie looks incredibly cool. It's a really messed up movie about kids who decide for various reasons to become crime fighting superheroes. It features, among other things, McLovin and Nicolas Cage's character shooting his 9 year old daughter in the chest repeatedly to teach her how to take a shot.

After the main con today, Noelle and I walked along with the living dead in a zombie walk through San Diego's beautiful gaslamp district.

For pictures from con, check out my ongoing flickr set:


(click to see pix)

Le Wrath di Khan