Hey Boy, Hey Girl

The Chemical Brothers played a gig at the SF Concourse last Friday. I was a bit unsure if it would be worth going to, but it seemed like a halfway decent idea at the time. Well it turned out great for a couple reasons. Number one, the Chemical Bros put on a much better show than I was expecting. Great lightshow and visuals. The other great thing was that Ladytron opened for them, much to my pleasant surprise. I was also a little surprised because the previous times I was there the place was packed, but this time we got right in next to the sound board and there was initially no one around us. I was pretty tired from the previous night out, but it was pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me! A bunch of friends had me out for dinner last Thursday at the Kyoto Palace, where I had way too much sake to drink to celebrate thirty-seven years of me. It's a Japanese steak house type place, like Benihana. We got fried rice shaped like a heart and a fried onion volcano, and our cook tried to bounce fried chicken into our mouths. Our table wasn't very good at catching them. And I got a really, really tasty steak (The Shogun). I was very happy to have so many folks come out and celebrate my birthday. It was a good night out.

The next morning was a bit rough though. Had to get over some stomach crankiness which was probably sake related.

Last Day at 36

Well, my eighth annual 29th birthday is upon me. Getting older. Weird.

Resident Evil: Extinction

A bunch of us went out to see Resident Evil: Extinction last night. On the whole I would say I was quite satisfied with the movie. Mila kicked lots of zombie ass. The pacing seemed about right. There was a boatload of gore. The ending wasn't drawn out. Overall, a solid para-zombie movie. They, um, paid hommage to a lot of movies, though. I spotted: Day of the Dead, The Road Warrior, The Birds(!), and maybe some Lawrence of Arabia here and there. I would like to have heard the pitch for the movie. :-)

Happy Rainy Weekend

This was a pretty good weekend, all things being equal. We got a hint of rain Friday night taking George out to the comedy club in Sunnyvale (Comedian: "If I have an erection that lasts more than four hours, I'm not going to call a doctor. I'm calling a fucking newspaper!" Pure gold.) for her birthday. Saturday morning I woke up to the sound and smell of rain outside the bedroom window. And then went right back to sleep. Got up for some bagels and some Bioshock in the afternoon. We eventually got going in time to get to Fus' going away party in Milpitas at 6. Then back to Kingman where there was more merriment until the wee hours of the morning. Sunday Noelle and I got up at a reasonable 12:30 (no rain this time) and went to Stacks in Campbell for some brekkers. We hunted around fruitlessly for an iPod (how punny!, haha!) and then drove up to Crystal Springs for a nice long walk in the trees. The water level is really, really low at the reservoir! We really must be in a drought. After the walk, there was talk of lemon chicken soup, which pretty much necessitated driving over 92 to Half Moon Bay and down the coast to Santa Cruz for a quick dinner. Then back home, so I could catch part of Sasquatch Night Sunday at Kingman. Meh. Let me just say that Abominable pretty much is self descriptive, although Rear Window meets Sasquatch is a close second. Return to Sasquatch Mountain (or whatever it was called) was hardly any better, although Lance Hendriksen had a lot better dialog in that movie. WTF possessed him to make not one, not two, but three Sasquatch movies??? He must have a lot of ex-wives or something. RtSM(owiwc) had the talkiest dialog I've ever seen in such a shitty movie. It was as if the screenwriter really wanted to talk about what led bankrobbers and lawmen to come together in the woods, but the only way they could get that movie made was to make a Sasquatch flick. Oy vey. Anyway, that was the comedown for the weekend.

Yay! Rainy Season Has Started!

That is all.

Comic-Con 2007 pix

(click to go to image gallery)

So at long last, I finished editing my comic-con pictures. Whew! This is my first go at using Lightroom to process photos. Went pretty well, I think.

Oh, She Didn't, Did She?

So, there's this show, The View, and I guess a lot of people watch it. And Whoopi Goldberg asks one of the hosts, do you think the world is flat and the response is: I don't know. And that is what is wrong with the view. That and the soft focus filter on Baba Wawa.

WTF!?!? Lolrus is dead!

Actually, I guess Minazo (really an elephant seal), aka the Lolrus died in 2005, at age 11. We can only hope he got his bukket in heaven.
[article]
[Lolrus Candle In the Wind]

Treasure Island Festival

On Saturday, Noelle and I went up to Treasure Island to see a festival concert. They had a ferris wheel:


And a nice view of the city:









They had a number of art installations, including solar sunflowers that lit up at night, these sound generating tubes, and a giant flowery thing. There was even a classic arcade game tent so I could get in some Tempest. They had a lot of people hawking various kinds of art, including some people selling their concert posters. I bought... a few.

A lot of people came:





There were of course, a lot of bands playing. We saw the end of MIA, who had that Karangarangarang song. Flosstradamus was a cool DJ duo. I really liked what I heard of Gotan Project while I was waiting in line. They were a sort of dancy Cirque du Soleil sounding group. I also liked Kinky, a Mexican rock band that, well, rocked. Finally, at long last we got to get our groove on with Thievery Corporation.




Before heading out:

Trent to Record Company: Fuck Off

Trent tells fans at a concert to steal his music in order to punish his record company for ripping them off by charging too much money for his albums.

Iron Man Trailer

(Click for ass kicking goodness, requires quicktime)

They kept it! You who were at comic-con know what I mean. See about mid-way through the trailer for what I'm talking about.
[Full Trailer Site]

It's Over: The Fat Man Has Sung

Luciano Pavarotti has passed away at 71. He had pancreatic cancer. Poor bastard, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. He wasn't my favorite tenor, but he was clearly one of the greats. He brought opera to the masses in my lifetime and was generally regarded as a great guy. There will not be another like him. Vaya con dios, Luciano.
[official site]
[news article]

Au Revoir, Summer

Labor Day has passed (I know, it was several days ago. I'm slow.). We went to Wendy's birthday party Friday night. Saturday morning a bunch of us held a shopping spree for Fus, who is moving back to Iceland soon, where they do not have outlet malls. Saturday evening Noelle and I dropped by at the Family Values tour to see Korn and Evanescence. They both did a standup job. I feel like my Korn and Evanescence needs are satisfied for a while. Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed early (i.e. noon) to go to a cookout at Carl and Erin's in Walnut Creek. We passed all the dummies on Hwy 17 heading over the hill to Santa Cruz to get away from the heat. We played the contrarian role and drove into the heat. They had a pool though and the AC worked great. Lots of good booze, as well. Sunday night we went out with Aki, Rachel, and Mike to see Balls of Fury. It was decent, not a gutbuster, but it had some good moments. I did burst out laughing at one point when I realized it was an unabashed, um, homage to Enter the Dragon. I think I was the only one. Monday was spent running errands and fire chasing, with a late night trip to the bookstore for crime novels and magazines.

And that, my friends, is pretty much a capsule version of my summer. Which is now gone. Note the absence of camping and/or trips to national parks. Sigh. Well, gotta plan better next year. On the bright side I did make it to Tahoe a few times (going up for an overnight this weekend!), so there was some fresh air in there.

Lick Fire

So Noelle and I were doing yard work Monday evening and I noticed a large cloud or something in the sky. It turned out to be a plume of smoke.



So we hopped in the car with our somewhat inappropriate yard work clothes on and went fire chasing to see where the cause of the blaze was. I recconned that it was to the south, maybe near Gilroy or Morgan Hill. We went east for a bit, then down 101. Noelle got a little disheartened because the plume disappeared behind the hills. I got a little disheartened because it was getting dark and I had neglected to bring my tripod.

Just as we were coming to the Cochrane Road exit in Morgan Hill, I saw the plume again behind the hills! So we drove up into the hills in Morgan Hill, where all the rich folk live. Finally we found a spot where you could see the smoke (and now fire) in the distance.


These look brighter than they were because the camera was trying to expose for the light parts of the shot.

It got darker.





This fire is being called the Lick Fire. It's out in the middle of nowhere, so they're having a hard time containing it. It's burned about 10,000 acres as of yesterday. They expect it to burn 30,000 acres by the time it's done.