Utah Quickie Preview

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A few hastily edited images from Utah. Enjoy.


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New Blade Runner Coming

Yes! Yes! Oh God, yes! Ridley Scott is evidently working on a new Final For Sure We Mean It This Time Director's Cut of Blade Runner for the 25th anniversary of the film, which should have a limited theatrical run next year. Whatever. I am far more excited about the news that I can now at long last see the original theatrical cut on DVD. Voiceovers! Hooray! [article]

X3

Meh. Not as good as the last one and I thought it did not live up to its potential. I did get to see the Juggernaut, though. That was cool.

Utah - wow

OMG, Utah was so cool. I am going to need a while to recover from it, though. I had a great time ramming around the Southwest with Noelle and Carl. Will write more later and maybe have some pictures to share as well. Can't wait to go again. Ok, maybe a few days.

Weary Greetings

Just thought I'd post something while copying some of the many, many pictures I've taken the past couple days traveling between SJ and Moab. Got up at five to go to Arches this morning. Getting up earlier to go back to get to Delicate Arch at Sunrise. About to crash for the few hours until then. Tired, but having an unbelievably great time. I am so glad to finally get to Utah. I think I'll come again. ;-)

Ultra Micro Chicken

(No, iss legend. <chuckle>)

So I opened the back door last night to let in some cool air because the house was hot as fuck and I hear this peeping noise out back. So I waded into the bush in the nature preserve and for a second I thought there was a quail taking up residence there. It was in fact, a very young chicken. I chased it around and thought it slipped back under the fence or however it got into the back yard. But it was still there this morning. So I moseyed up to the fence because I heard the next door neighbor puttering around there and asked, "Hey, are you missing a chicken?" (pause) "Yes." "It's over here. Ok if I throw it over to your side?" "Yes, thanks."

Catch chicken drop it over the side. Strange life in the big city.

MacSaber

So, as mentioned previously, I got a new MacBook Pro (how I hate that name) last weekend. And yesterday I got this super, super geeky toy to run on it. Apple's Pro laptops have accelerometers in them to park the hard drive in case of sudden, accelerations (which usually indicate Bad Craziness) and someone figured out a way to make light saber noises to go with the movement. I think they dropped the ball, though, because you could use the BlueTooth to totally have light saber duels between laptops. :-)

C-c-c-crazy Weekend

<yawn>I feel like I just got off Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
Friday: Leave work at 5 to catch the A's/Giants game in Oakland. Immediately spend 2+ hours in traffic. Rain delay, whew! Start evening off with a double shot of whisky. Yay! The glowing warmth of JD's warming glow. A's win and Barry is denied the tie of Babe Ruth's home run record. Not in my house!

Saturday: Drag my ass out of bed eventually and oh so reluctantly to go to Palo Alto, where Mike and Kris are kind enough to go shopping with me at the Apple Store. Where I got a new MacBook Pro. Had chicken pho at Zao and gelato afterwards. Yum! Went home and started setting up machine. Stopped to go link up with the crew at Esther's place, where we drove in to SF to see The Crystal Method. Started with a few cocktails at the hotel where we stayed before sojourning out. Drank more there and proceeded to dance for five frickin hours. Ruby Skye is a beautiful venue. TCM did not disappoint. Do they ever? We felt really good in there, but we were staggering (not the buzzed kind) out of there after the show, looking for some juice and pizza, which we found happily enough. Crashed, very, very late.

Sunday: Got up far too early to go to the celebration of the bizarre, offensive, and random that is Bay to Breakers. I don't know what I was expecting, but my brain was not prepared for it by any stretch of the imagination. I saw the herd of Elvises and the Katamari Damascy, among many other strange and wondrous things. I was supposed to actually run in it, but being somewhat hung over and exhausted (among other reasons) made that a nonstarter. Well, and waking up an hour after it started, too. Esther, Noelle, Wendy, and I wandered about the party, I mean race, into the afternoon. Wandered some more looking for a cab so we could go over to North Beach to the Stinking Rose, which was a first for me. Garlic in everything! My coworkers are so going to love the fact that I have an office this week. :-)

Anyway, a fantastic weekend, but I am a bit tired now. And I am trying to fight The Fear, since I have a five day trip to Moab, UT planned and I have a few things to take care of here and there before <gulp> Thursday. Oy!

Missing the Stars

I am so looking forward to traveling to Utah next week, if only to see the stars without all the light pollution we have here in the Bay Area.

Craptacular

My Powerbook is sick. Very sick. The hinge in the lid is twisting apart. And the lid basically flops backward without any support (e.g. the couch pillow it's currently leaning against). So now I guess I need to figure out if I can duct tape the hinge or something along those lines or if I need to get a new 'puter. I had hoped to wait until the fall before I got a new one, but I may not have a lot of choice in that regard. Fuck.

Ow

I did a shorter workout than usual last night and the only machine I felt like using was the versaclimber. I think I may pushed things a little. When I was in the locker room, I bent down to get something in the locker and froze as a strange and very unpleasant feeling uncoiled out of my right thigh. The noise that I made (I don't remember exactly what I said, something like "That isn't right.") caught the attention of the other people in the locker room, so I don't think I'm being a sissy mary or anything. :-) I think the machine I was using must exercise some muscle I haven't been exercising in the past and so I overexerted it. Guess I should lay off the exercise for a few days. Sigh.

The Return of the Aquabats

Just got back from seeing The Aquabats at Slim's in the city with Aki and Tim. I love that band. They dress like super heros. Their front man is named MC Bat Commander. They started their show with an homage to Blade Runner. They have ads for their products in mid show. They fight masked enemies in between songs. They have a video screen with a nearly constant stream of clips from random cult/SF movies. They have catchy ska/punk tunes. MC Bat Commander describes their fans as "super rad." Basically they are one of the most entertaining bands I've ever seen. Oh, and they throw small children into the mosh pit to crowd surf. Craziness. But the best kind.

First Double Amputee To Climb Everest

Holy crap, a man who lost both legs in a previous climbing accident became the first man to climb Mt. Everest yesterday. I say again, holy crap! [article]

Men, Women Wired Differently

I saw this article in the Mercury this weekend about how scientists now thing certain hormones released in utero are responsible for a lot of differences in behavior between men and women. There was also some interesting stuff about how men and women use different parts of the brain when they think. [article]

Comets Falling Apart

The comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is breaking apart into multiple pieces and will be visible through telescopes (and I think binoculars) as it becomes the closest approaching comet in many a year. Well, pieces of comet. I hope the comet dust doesn't make everyone go crazy or turn into zombies or something. Meteor showers are also a possibility from May 19 to June 19. Hope to see some in Utah. [article] [another article]

Is It Sticky Out?

Or is it just me?

Low Ego Emissions

Love it.

MI-III

Ugh. Well, this could have been worse. Laurence Fishburne and Ving Rhames had some good lines. But there's so much crap.

1. Preposterous story - gun battles on three continents, poorly defined motivations (WTF was the Rabbit's Foot?) Ok, that's not really that out of line for for a MI.

2. Hideous goddamn love story. Man, this shit is out of control. Why does Cruise need to prove to the world that he's a heterosexual male so badly? We get it Tom. Move on.

3. The shaky cam. When there was "action" the camera started jerking around like crazy. This elicited a visceral response in me. First it was nausea. Then it was anger because it was so hard to follow WTF was going on.

4. There was something really messed up with some of the skin tones in some of the people. Not sure if I should be angry at the makeup person, the colorist, or both.

Basically I hope this movie does for Tom Cruise's career what "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" did for George Lazenby. But I don't hold out a lot of hope in that regard. Not "Jeepers Creepers" bad, but within sight of it.

Ay, Caramba

This weekend has been kinda nuts, although in a very, very pleasant way.
Friday - A bunch of the peeps showed up for game night, including some folks who'd never been before and seemed to have a pretty good time. Played some Carcassone, Apples to Apples, and by popular acclaim, SceneIt ("You are a WINNER!"). Very happy evening.

Saturday - Got up early to get Massive Attack tickets. YAY: I'm going to see a whole show of Massive Attack down south at the Hollywood Bowl in September, YAY!
Went to Hobee's for a birthday brunch for Miss Esther, followed by a crazy afternoon/evening party at Great America, where they had a water park area walled off for 18+. In said water park area they also had a DJ spinning tunes and lots of very expensive alcohol products. We rode a bunch of rides, drank, played in the water, drank, danced on the patio, drank, and danced in the pool (Happiest memory: dancing with the water naiads in the pool at sunset.). Evidently I was a little more buzzed than I thought, because making our way out of the park and into the parking lot was an interesting experience. Esther was nice enough to let some of us hang out at her place. Sat chilling under the stars in the moonlight while I quietly sobered up. Great day, overall. The whole birthday party thing turned out to be much more entertaining than I had expected (didn't really know what to expect, so that helped).

Sunday: Got up early to get Radiohead tickets. YAY: I'm going to see Radiohead, YAY! Went back to bed for a few hours. Mostly chilling today, although I did have a nice, long chat with my mom and gram back home and I (finally) got the oil changed on the car. Little bit of reading, maybe some tidying up and I am going to see how badly MI-III sucks tonight.

My exercise diet regiment has gone to shit this weekend. Sigh. And next weekend promises to be even more frenetic! But with more exercise. ;-) W00t!

Digital Photography School Blog

Thank you, Jon, for pointing out the Digital Photography School blog. It's got a bunch of interesting photography related articles. I now have a new RSS feed in NetNewsWire. :-)

Forget About Slowing Down Light

A physicist at the University of Rochester is making light move backwards. Which makes it... move faster than light? When a pulse of light is sent through a special fiber optic, the pulse appears at the far end, splits in two, with one of the split pulses proceeding out of the fiber and the other moving back into the fiber to cancel out the pulse as it enters the fiber. If this hurts your head, well, you're not alone. [article]

Oxymoron of the Day

Anarchy Steering Committee

You Lot

I was listening to Orbital the other day, trying to place the voice in the spoken parts of the song "You Lot", when suddenly it occurred to me that the guy speaking is Christopher Eccleston! That's right, the latest Doctor (Who), at least in this country, is in an Orbital song. This made me quite pleased for some reason. Probably my intense nerdiness.

Cage Free Eggs At Google

Ah google, you keep finding new ways to make me smile. This morning it was the article in the Merc about how you are changing to cage free eggs in your cafe. That works out to 300,000 eggs a year. Not quite as good as free range eggs, but a step in the right direction. Seems like there are pockets of hippies here and there throughout the valley. :-)
[article]

Was This Why I Left?

Ah, news from the old country. A mother in Anson, Maine helped her daughter and two teenage girls bake ex-lax cookies for her daughter's teacher. These are not usually the kind of family values one thinks of when that phrase comes up . Or should think of. Mom is in court for misdemeanor assault after several seventh and eighth grade students became ill from the cookies. Some things about Maine I don't miss at all. [article]

NIN to Mars!

Someone has set a demo video for the Mars Pathfinder mission to "Sunspots" by Nine Inch Nails. It's way cool. My only nit is the whooshing noises the capsule makes in space. C'mon, it's NASA video for pete's sake. [video]

Quick Bluntman, to the Potcave!

Dun-na-na-na-na-na-na Pot Cave! A Tennessee man pled guilty to a number of charges after drug agents raided an elaborate underground cave converted to a growing facility for the marijuana he was selling. [article]

Air Purifiers Cause Smog

You know that air purifier you bought to "ionize the air to remove pollutants?" It's making smog. Specifically, ozone. That's what happens when you ionize oxygen. I've never trusted those things, although for different reasons. [article]

Mt St Helens Growing

A giant dome is growing inside of Mt St Helens very rapidly at the rate of more than a meter a day. Cool picture from the APOD site.

Oddly Cheerful

Wow, it's been over 24 hours now and I have been cheerful for no reason that I can discern. My stupid brain chemistry is finally working for me!! :-)

SGI Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Sigh. I heard about this the other day and I kind of hoped it wasn't true, but it looks like it is. SGI is in Chapter 11. So sad. I guess they've had a good run, but it looks like they're going the way of the brontosaurus. [article]

Burglar Risks Life Imprisonment to Turn In Child Molester

A burglar with two strikes against him turned in a memory card with images of the person he had robbed molesting a small child. This allowed Los Gatos police to arrest the molester. Now the burglar is in jail. I sort of feel like he deserves a pass. Or at least not a life sentence. [article]

Massive Attack On Sale Saturday

Anyone interested in seeing Massive Attack 9/24 at the Hollywood Bowl (in SoCal) with me and Noelle, let me know before Saturday (when tickets go on sale). Can't actually promise tickets, but I have high hopes.

Ah You Muckrakers, You Bloggers of Maine

So, back in the home place, some dude is unhappy that his tax dollars are being spent paying an out of state ad agency to do a tourism campaign for the state. (Out of staters (aka "people from away") are a source of some consternation to Mainers.) Also, he evidently is none too pleased about the quality of the campaign. So he blogs about it. Ad agency finds out about it when blog shows up on google searches, serves dude with cease and desist order. Dude blogs about that. About a zillion people link to his blog. Traditional media sites start writing about it. Ad agency learns an object lesson about not suing bloggers. Found this story off of Neil Gaiman's journal.

What the... May?

Somehow it's gotten to be May already. And my calendar is horribly scarred by all the stuff I've written onto it for this month. Not as bad as some people I know, but still... Seriously I think I have something going on every weekend this month. And a bunch of stuff in between the weekends. And a bunch of stuff that isn't really on a calendar, per se.

This past weekend was decently busy. Had dinner with a bunch of folks Friday night. Got up early and stood in line waaaay too long Saturday morning, getting some cheap tickets and a nice raccoon burn. Got me some free and less free comics. Finally got a new watch battery (soooo naked without a watch). Hung out with Morgan and company into the wee hours for his birthday. Yesterday did a bunch of cleaning around the house and some yard maintenance, then went with Noelle and Esther to see KT Tunstall at the Fillmore, where I think I was one of six straight men in the audience. Good show. Even the slow songs kept me entertained. As did the completely trashed couple mashing themselves into the beast with two backs directly in front of us. And now my body, in a fit of rare humor, has decided to wake up forty minutes before I set the alarm. Sweet.

Gorillapod

I was leafing through the latest copy of Outdoor Photographer and saw an ad for the Gorillapod, a flexible tripod for your compact digital camera. You can wrap the legs around stuff and bend them for impromptu tripods. Looks cool. Probably worth the $25, anyway.

Electric Car Totally Owns Ferrari, Porche

An electric car that was made with off the shelf parts for about 100 grand mopped the floor with some even pricier gas powered vehicles from Ferrari and Porche. The only car it couldn't beat was the $1.25 Million Bugati Veyron. Now all we need is storage space for the dead batteries and nuclear waste and we'll be ready for large scale fully electric vehicles. [the site]

OMG: Project Mayhem IRL!

1. Round up several dozen random people.
2. Tell them to wear navy blue polo shirts, khaki pants, and belts.
3. Have them all filter into a Best Buy.
4. Secretly film and photograph the perplexed response of BB's management.

This is so cool! Check out the site with pix and stories from the "Agents."

Bear Raids Bakery

A bear with a sweet tooth wandered into an Alberta grocery store and headed to the bakery section where it helped itself to pasteries, etc. This would be just an amusing story to me, except some dumbass decided he needed to get a picture and shoved a camera phone in the bear's face.

"When (the bear) was sitting in the bakery case, this guy came up with a camera phone and he was sticking it right in his face," Allen said.
"The bear ... didn't like that much."

So the bear bit the dude on the hand and as a result will have to be killed when they catch up with it. You know, I'm sure up there in Alberta they're used to bears wandering in off the streets and helping themselves to cakes and whatnot, but it's still technically a wild animal. So, bear, wherever you are, keep on running! Frickin' chimps. [article]

Another Cool Japanese Invention

I don't know what the hell they're saying, but this video appears to show a new kind of door comprised of slats that sense someone approaching and open the slats just enough to let that person through. Not sure if that's practical, but it is cool.

Edit: Replaced link with YouTube link.

I Heart Fark.com

Family Kicked Out of Buffet Restaurant For Leaving Too Much Food
YOU GO NOW!
YOU BEEN HERE FOUR HOUR!
YOU SCARE MY WIFE!

0 Is the New 8
So, basically because Americans keep getting larger, the women's fashion industry has been downgrading sizes over the years. What used to be a size 8 in the 50s is now a size 0. The natural conclusion to this is that now they've had to go to negative numbers, or in industry parlance: size 00 (because Americans aren't ready for negative numbers, I guess). Of course this is on top of the fact that sizes differ between different designers, etc. Why do women put up with this shit??? Jesus, put a fucking inseam/waist/tentacle size in inches or something.

Ninja Themed Restaurant
Details on their website are sparse, but I think they will totally flip out and kill you if you tip poorly. (Private party rooms available.)

Kansas Sets Minimum Marriage Age At 15
Finally stepping into the 19th century, the Kansas legislature decided to set a minimum age at which one can marry at that state. Which is 15 under some conditions.

Pinnacles Pictures

(click thumbnails for larger image)

Some shots from my recent hike to Pinnacles. Weird day. It was fog shrouded in the morning and the sun broke through after around noon.

Then the sun burned off the fog...

More pictures are here at Shutterfly.

Original Star Wars Trilogy to Come Out On DVD

At long last fans can see Han Solo shoot Greedo first on non-bootleg DVD. Or they will be able to in September according to this release from StarWars.com. Lucas has decided to let the fans see the original versions of these movies as they were shown in theaters before he started monkeying with them. The DVD set will only be available from September 12 - December 31. And I imagine it won't include this scene.

Red Dragon

Finished this book (which I grabbed for the plane ride to Vegas on Sunday) last night. It's the story that comes before Silence of the Lambs in the Hannibal Lecter stories. Red Dragon is the alternate personality of a serial killer who is basically a dude who takes self actualization and personal change just a little too far. Pretty good read, especially if you have a few hours to kill in an airport.

South Park Funny

"Nanny 911 has assembled a crack team of Nannies including Nanny Deb, Nanny Fran, and Nanny Skeksis" (cut to shot of Nanny Skeksis). A Dark Crystal reference! Too funny.

CU Boulder Looking For Narcs

So, for some reason the Colorado U police decided to block off a place where the kids were going to celebrate 4/20. The kids went there anyway and surveillance cameras recorded a bunch of them smoking the stinkiest of the icky. Now you too can play narc and collect $50 for correctly identifying these evildoers to 5-0. WTF? Don't they have anything better to worry about?
[CU PD site]

Mexico To Decriminalize Drug Possession?

Legislation about to be signed by Mexican President Vincente Fox essentially decriminalizes possession of small amounts of drugs. The intent is evidently to allow law enforcement to spend more time going after drug dealers.

"Under the law, people could possess 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin, 500 milligrams of cocaine, 100 milligrams of amphetamines, 200 milligrams of methamphetamines, 0.015 milligrams of LSD and 5 grams of marijuana without facing legal sanction." Five grams??? You can have an eight ball and not get busted? This is clearly designed to attract more tourists. :-)

More details in this article.

BFD

Also, tickets for BFD go on sale on Saturday. Hit me up if you are interested in going with me (6/10). Acts include: Echo and the Bunnymen, The Strokes, The Yeah Yeahs, Wolf Mother, Panic! At the Disco, She Wants Revenge, and Franz Ferdinand. More info about the festival is here.

Edit: It looks like these go on presale today (5/4), so I may get tickets today.

Yay! Radiohead!

Radiohead is playing the Greek Theater in Berkeley 6/23-24. Tickets go on sale 5/14 at 10am. Time to cash in a little karma.

Blue

I didn't want to know
I just didn't want to know
Best to keep things in the shallow end
Cause I never quite learned how to swim

I just didn't want to know
Didn't want, didn't want,
Didn't want, didn't want

Close my eyes just to look at you
Taken by the seamless vision
I close my eyes,
Ignore the smoke,
Ignore the smoke
Ignore the smoke

Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
Such a lovely color for you
Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
While I just sit and stare at you

Because I don't want to know

I didn't want to know
I just didn't want to know
I just didn't want

Mistook their nods for an approval
Just ignore the smoke and smile

Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
Such a lovely color for you
Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
Such a perfect color for your eyes
Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
Such a lovely color for you
Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
While I just sit and stare at you

I don't want to know

Crazy Coachella Weekend

(click to see album)

Man, I need to get to bed, but this has been a nutty, nutty weekend. Of my own devising, mostly. So after getting up early Friday and Saturday, I got up early Sunday to fly to Las Vegas where I was met by Carl, Esther, and Noelle who spent the previous day or so tearing up the town. We drove from LV to Indio to see the Coachella festival, or what we could. Got there around six or so. It was an abbreviated festival for us, but I managed to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Massive Attack, and Tool. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were about what I'd expect from a punk band in a concert. Some rough edges, but I enjoyed the energy of the group. Massive Attack was the high point of my evening (and why I decided to go in the first place). They played (among others) Teardrop, Future Proof, Angel, and Inertia Creeps. They also played a few songs I didn't recognize which I assume are from an upcoming album. I really, really loved this set. I would consider traveling to the UK just to see them in concert. Actually, I plan on getting tickets to see them this fall at the Hollywood Bowl, if I can. The last act of the night was Tool. Tool was great. Their fans, on the other hand, made me want to commit murder. Mowing them down with a machine gun came to mind. These people were about as obnoxious as the fans at the Offspring show I saw a few years back. I guess I should have moved even farther back. I got to see Maynard though. That was cool. But the Tool set kind of harshed my mellow. We escape the polo fields around 2am and I managed to get us north of LA county before sunrise. If only just barely before sunrise. Finally got home around 4 today in the afternoon. Finally starting to feel ready to sleep. Packed a lot of living into the weekend.