Collateral

Saw Collateral with Aki and Rachel and friends. This movie massively exceeded my expectations. Jamie Foxx can act. And not just like an idiot, I mean. Who knew? Tom Cruise was also decent in this film. The story is relatively good and the direction was great. Michael Mann really likes closeups. For that reason, I recommend seeing this on the big screen, because you really don't to get to see the craggy faces on the small screen, I think.

Indian Food and Watercolors

My friend Chie has been studying watercolors and has an entry in the Santa Clara Watercolor Society's annual show at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. We had a nice lunch at this little Indian joint called the Chaat Cafe in SC. Great Lassi and the nonstop Bollywood videos kept me so enthralled I had to keep tearing myself away to talk to my friends at the table. :-) Anyway, after lunch we tooled over to the Museum to check out the show. It's a small show, but they had some awesome paintings. It's really astounding to me, since I tend to think of watercolors as very soft looking paintings, but a lot of these looked like pencil sketches.

Coolest Guitar Ever

Epihone, a subsidiary of Gibson Guitar, now sells a limited edition Emily the Strange guitar, which I saw at Guitar Showcase today. Must resist the urge to spend $300 on another guitar I can't really play...

Sunset On Banner Peak (Another View)

Bloody Print Drivers

Ok, I give up. I have tried and tried and tried to get my Epson Stylus 2200 to work with my G4 tower, but whatever faery dust I sprinkled on my TiBook is evidently not available or does not work on the tower. I cannot print any PSDs from Photoshop. I can print line art from Illustrator, but the system print drivers do not appear to work there either. Printing from the laptop works fine. AFAICT, I have installed the same drivers on both machines. But maybe I've forgotten something that I did back in the mists of time. <shrug>

In better news, I've finally gotten the print heads clean up on the Epson and have gotten back to the point where I can do prints again, like the above shot (click for larger view) of Mount Ritter and Mount Banner in the eastern Sierra, where I went backpacking with David and Nancy and Kiley and a friend of theirs last Labor Day weekend. Need to get back into the woods, if only for some car camping.

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Listening to: THE ROIL, THE CHOKE from the album NERVE NET by Brian Eno

Midnight Movie Fight Club

Huge crowd at Midnight Movie Madness at Camera 12 tonight. They filled all the seats and then some, there were people sitting in the aisles. Highly entertaining as always.

Garden State

Went to see the movie Garden State with Dave and Jenn tonight. I liked it a lot, but it's very hard to describe why. It's not a comedy exactly, though I laughed a lot. It's pretty serious, but again, I laughed a lot. I will say this: I doubt you have ever seen a movie quite like it. It's about a guy who has been on Lithium for years and comes home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral. He gets back and finds that a lot of his old friends and acquaintances are leading the same kind of non-existence he they were when he left for Holywood years ago. While visiting a neurologist, he meets a very quirky girl (Natalie Portman) and develops a relationship with her and tries to figure out what has become of his life. Natalie Portman is, by the way, a really good actress it turns out. I thought she was hot in the Star Wars movies, but not necessarily a great actress and all. I was pretty impressed with this performance. There was one part where she goes into this stream of consciousness ramble for about 45 seconds where I could not stop laughing. Anyway, most of the people in this movie are pretty strange, and coming from me, that means a lot. I think if you like quirkier movies (Napoleon Dynamite, Charlie Kaufman's work, Lost In Translation, The Royal Tenenbaums come to mind) I think there's a good chance you'll like this one.

Ted Kennedy On No Fly List?

Evidently Ted Kennedy, yes that Ted Kennedy somehow got on the Homeland Security no fly list earlier this year. One wonders what they thought he might do? Get drunk and pinch the stewardess' asses? He's a frickin' United States senator, and some monkey at the ticket counter of US Air won't give him a flight. Idiot.

Who Won't They Pimp Out?

Several members of the Iraqi Olympic soccer team have asked George W. Bush's re-election campaign to please stop touting Iraq in one of his new commercials. Dead Presidents and now live athletes. Who's next? [article]

I Want To Breathe Smoke

What a tremendously shitty day. Besides the two and half hours of meetings I had today, starting at 9:30am, I had a virtual cavalcade of people who wanted crawl up my ass like they're fucking Doctor Livingston looking for the Nile. For stuff that is frankly not my fault. So with all that, it took even longer to get the stuff done I needed to get done by, oh, yesterday. Feh. I'm having a beer and going to bed.

David Alan Grier at the Improv 8/19-21

He was on In Living Color and has been in a lot of movies. Anyone want to go?

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

So the FBI wants to make sure that there are no miscreants making trouble at the GOP convention. They are even going so far as to have "scruffy looking" agents show up at activists' meetings in what you might call infiltration. And sending people around to question people whom they do not suspect of criminal activities. Sounds like the good old days. [article]

Speaking of the good old days, Florida state police have going around Orlando interviewing elderly black voters about unspecified criminal activities. The same elderly voters who remember the bad old days and are now reluctant to be active in getting out the vote, as they were before. The playbook changes, but the fucking game remains the same.

Fun Science Fact of the Day

If you take one of those plastic bath mats with the suction cups underneath and you leave it on your tub without moving for a long time (say 3+ years) it will bond to your tub. And when it gets old and brittle and you try to pull it off the tub, it will break apart into little pieces. And if, suppose, you have just sprayed the bath with Scrubbing Bubbles or Tilex or whatnot and your hands are nice and soft, the brittle old plastic bath mat will cut you like a prisoner you owe smokes to. Need to find some enamel friendly scraping device. I'm thinking one of those plastic wallpaper scrapers.

This has been one of a series of things not to do in your home. (I've got plenty more, no fear!)

XIII

So I got this game last week and have spent way too much time playing it. It's based on a comic book from France about a man with no memory who's accused of murdering the President. He has to figure out how he is involved with a mysterious conspiracy of 20 men (he's number XIII, see) who are involved in the plot. And there's lots of shooting and blowing things up. It's a FPS, but it's done in a cel animation style that I find really cool. Plus, words appear, Batman (the TV show) style when active stuff happens. And if you shoot a bad guy who's in a high place, you get this little animation of him falling on part of the screen. It's very much like a cartoon from a comic book brought to life. David Duchovny does the voice of the main character (he sounds weirdly effeminate a lot of the time) and General Carrington is voiced by the as usual over the top Adam West. Oh, and the pumping 70s action movie sound track is pretty cool also. Check out their site for more info. Original game by Ubisoft, Mac port by Feral Interactive.

TMBG 8/14/04 - The Fillmore

Good show overall. Not as much energy as some of the shows I've seen in the past, but maybe it's just me. They did a lot of songs from their latest album The Spine. They also did a lot of older material, like Birdhouse, Mammal, I Palindrome I, Fingertips, and Don't Lets Start. Very chatty this time. Compared their guitarist to Lon Chaney, which was intended as a compliment. :-) High point of the show was when they brought out the radio and started improvising along to whatever caught their interest. At one point they found some Evanescence song and John (Flansburgh) starts wailing "I'm not the one who's singing this song." and something about "Look into my cyborg eyes!" Very funny stuff.

The opening act was a long haired accordion player by the name of Corn Mo. He reminded me of Jack Black, except he had a good singing voice. I liked his work, except that some of the songs were kind of repetitive. He came out to play along with them for Particle Man.

Upstairs, before the show, Jon and I saw this freaky guy called Brian Kenney Fresno who plays this combo guitar/bass thing called a Stick. He had the craziest songs, like the one about how he wants to have sex in the back yard with the FedEx lady. Or his tribute to Yngwie (fucking) Malmsteen Or the little dog he found up in the mountains ("Big Tejunga) near LA Or his bad experiences with Chinese street dentistry. He had a commentary through most of his songs and these funky effects pedals (delay loops, chorus, etc) that really made the songs wacky. And the fact that his stage looked like a small shrine to weirdness. The whole thing reminded me of Frank Zappa sped up a bit. You can find more about him at Bonghit Records If you have an opportunity to check this guy out, he's worth at least one viewing.

Big Tejunga.mp3
That's Who.mp3

AvP

Aliens versus Predator came out on Friday. I saw it. It exceeded my expectations, which were pretty low. It definitely reminded me of the video game franchise of the same name. I enjoyed a lot of the little touches in the beginning, which tied into the continuity from the Alien series. The effects were pretty good, but the movie seemed really fast. I guess that's because they didn't spend a huge amount of time on backstory or character development (and why would you, you pretty much know everything you need to know about the Aliens and Preditators). It was also pretty interesting to see all the movies that I think influenced this movie. Anyway, it was entertaining enough.

Now I need to dig out my copy of AvP and finish that sucker up. :-)

The Cult of Tony Robbins

So when I went to work on Friday, I was somewhat annoyed to find the street entrance to work blocked off. Later I found out that Tony Robbins the motivational speaker is in town, giving a four day seminar. Then I found out that as part of the seminar, attendees are encouraged to walk on coals. Hmm, that doesn't sound like a cult I thought to myself. After work, a number of us were hanging out on the patio when we saw them setting up the bonfires. In the street. In downtown San Jose. WTF, thinks I. This is strange. They had a bonfire about 100 yards long in the street. Some of the video guys went up to grab some cameras in case some of the devotees, er seminar attendees, were to burst into flame. Then the throngs rushed out to hear some more of Tony's wisdom. I couldn't make out much of what he was saying, except for for one part where he exhorting them:
Tony: Say yes!
Crowd: Yes!
Tony: Say yes!
Crowd: Yes!
Tony: Say yes!
Crowd: Yes!
Hmm, methinks, not like a cult at all. Then I went out for a bit to catch a movie. When I came back around midnight, I had to drive around to another entrance because the street was now completely blocked off (not just on one side of the street like before). Somewhat annoyed, I parked up on the top of the parking garage, which afforded a nice view of the proceedings. The bonfires had finally burned down to coals, which had been arrayed into a number of coal beds about 5-10 feet long, not the 100 yards it was before. However, now they had drums beating feverishly. Ok, now this seems like a cult. All we needed was The Virgin Connie Swail.

Tony Robbins, hungry!

Personality Test

I got a 50 on Kevin's Personality test which I got courtesy of Noelle's blog.

Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical and always interesting; someone who’s constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head.

They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who’ll always cheer them up and help them out.

Two Extra TMBG Tix

I have two extra tickets for the They Might Be Giants show in SF on Saturday August 14. They are around $30 a ticket. Let me know if you are interested in going.

Holy Crap: Drake's Cakes Online!

Now you can get your Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, and whatnot by FedEx! This company is selling them. Hmm, they don't seem to have a lot in stock for some reason. Oh well.

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Listening to: Coma Black from the album Holy Wood by Marilyn Manson

Trip Reflections

I'm back now. The trip back was uneventful, other than being way, way early. Fortunately I got a wakeup call from Noelle (it was still a reasonable hour out west) at O' Dark Early and hit the road. Stopped at Beans because

1. I like going there and
2. in my infinite wisdom I packed four shirts for a five day trip and thought a 6+ hour flight would be more enjoyable with a fresh shirt

The drive was actually mostly pretty relaxing. Random notes from my travels:

• I miss Maine. The smells. The rain. The woods. How dark it gets in the country at night. Got some serious homesickness while I was back. No matter where I go, I think Maine will always be The Home Place. Too bad the job market there sucks such major ass. I got thinking that maybe I should dump this Computer Thing and become a lumberjack or something. This comes back to the periodic What Am I Doing With My Life thing that I guess I should revisit when I have a quiet moment.
• If I had to get a minivan, the Mazda MPV wouldn't be such a bad way to go.
• Ring Dings rule!
• The middle seat in Coach Class of a Boeing 757 is this wide: *pulls arms tight in against body* How do I know? Because I've spent 12 hours in the past week in pretty much that exact position. Last minute flights suck.
• New Hampshire changed their toll booths to only take tolls in the northbound lane. And the toll is twice as much.
• I miss thunderstorms and moisture.
• You can get an electric weed whacker at Home Depot, but not an electric brush cutter. Guess the motor's not up to heavy stuff.
• Don't forget to tell your loved ones that you love them. Some day you won't have a chance.

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Listening to: F.N.T from the album Great Divide by Semisonic

China Lake: August 7, 2004

I'm sitting in a camp chair out to my Aunt Glennys' camp (well, one of them, she has two) at China Lake. The sun is glittering off the surface of the lake like million diamonds. Someone is waterskiing on the lake, so waves roll in periodically and I can hear the drone of the engine off in the distance. The lake is a mile wide I'm guessing and several miles long. Not too awfully many people out here. I can see some people in kayaks and a few people in power boats fishing. Other than the waves, the boats, and the distant whir of traffic it's pretty quiet here. It's really peaceful and I have my laptop handy, so I thought I'd stop to blog.

Holy crap! There's a seaplane on the lake. So much for tranquility. Ok. Quieter now.

Uncle Bill's funeral was yesterday. I think it went about as well as one might expect. One of his good friends spoke, as well as the preacher. His immediate family seemed to be in the kind of shock I associate with the sudden death of a close family member. Uncle Bill was a Mason, so some of them showed up at the end to do their Mason thing. Some of those guys I think were older than Uncle Bill (he was /

... Transmission Interrupted...
(August 8 now) It appears that for some reason, I have num lock key on my laptop keyboard. Somehow in my infinite clumsiness, I managed to press it and then get really, really confused as to why I couldn't use most of the keys to type, and those that did type got mapped to other keys. Sigh. Figured it out eventually, at least. I was afraid I was going to have to replace the keyboard ($$$) and explain to the TSA people why I can't type anything sensible in the login screen. Anyway, I'm not really sure where I was. I guess I was going to write something about how old the Masons seemed. I guess people my age don't go in for Masonic stuff.

So, what else did I do today? I found out that the ice cream place on the lake we used to go to now has 24(?) flavors of soft serve, including mango. Not very mango-y. Helped my aunt out with the cookout they had at her place for the Rock & Gem show people. My aunt and uncle have been into geology for a long time. He was a VP for one of the major organizations on the east coast (don't remember name). There was a gem show this weekend in Waterville, so the funeral made things extra complicated for them since Bill was usually involved. Anyway, they had their meeting after the show at Aunt Glennys' house and there was a cookout. We had a beautiful Maine summer evening (i.e. it poured out, off and on) and even a light show (thunder and lightning). It was pretty fun, overall. After most everyone had left and we were done picking things up and putting them someplace dry, I had a chance to sit a spell with Aunt Glennys, Bruce, and a friend of theirs who they took a bunch of geology/mineralogy courses from (name escapes me) before I had to head out. Said bye to various relatives, got packed, and now have a few glorious hours to sleep before the trek to the airport.

Outbound

Back to New England. Sigh. See you next week.

R.I.P. Bill Longley

My mom called last night to let me know that my Uncle Bill died this weekend. He had diabetes and had been in poor health the past few years. Last winter they ended up amputating his foot because it had become necrotic. I guess they don't know exactly he died of, it was very sudden. He had just been in surgery to improve the blood circulation in his remaining foot (bad circulation is a serious problem if you have diabetes, evidently, and was the reason why he lost the other foot). He appeared better, but died suddenly thereafter. Probably a blood clot. Anyway, looks like I'll be heading back to New England this summer after all, although all things being equal, I'd rather not be under the circumstances. Sad.

Cool Images

I found these guys (Emek and Justin Hamilton) at Comic Con. Great looking posters and art! Check it out. Emek is looking for someone reliable to redesign his site, in case anyone is interested.

Yay! Natalie Downs Arrives

My friends Sarah and Joe just had their first child, Natalie while I was away at Comic-Con. Congratulations, guys! They are on the vanguard of the baby detail this year. I personally know five people who are or were expecting. I am way behind on this baby thing. :-)

APOD: Casimir Effect

Today's APOD is cool, very cool. And it has to do with the Casimir Effect, .