Blogging from the Apple Store (Downtown Palo Alto)

Where I'm waiting for my replacement iPod.

(Third time's a charm? I hope so.)

Update: There have been so many iPods with this problem this week that they're out of replacements. Thus I'll have to wait a few days for mine.

Good news: I managed to get mine working again through percussive maintenance, though I'm sure the fix is only temporary (as it was last time).

Memorial Day

I'd Like Standard Gasoline, Please

I was in San Francisco yesterday to have dinner with a friend, but decided to gas up my car beforehand. I stopped at this Chevron station on Van Ness:

But is it a Chevron station? Or something else?

The answer goes back to the Standard Oil trust that was broken up nearly a hundred years ago. Standard Oil was broken up into a number of different companies, each of which received the right to use the "Standard" name in a select number of states. But when one of these companies expand into a state where it didn't have the rights to the "Standard" name, they had to use a different name. Eventually it would drop the "Standard" name entirely, so that it would have the same name nationwide. This is how Standard Oil of California became Chevron.

Chevron still has the right to the "Standard" name in fourteen states, including California. But in order to keep the trademark rights, they need to actually use the name somewhere in each state where they have the right to. So in each of these fourteen states, there is one station, owned by Chevron, that uses the "Standard" name. In California, this station is at 1501 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. This station uses the "Standard" name on the exterior signs, but there are Chevron signs as well. Apparently ten years ago this station went as far as to use the "Standard" name on receipts, but the receipt I got yesterday used "Chevron".

Gay Day at Great America

Highlights from Gay Day at Great America:

• Roller Coasters.
  
• Hot guys (where the hell are these guys the other 364 days of the year?).
  
• Hanging out with friends.
  

Lowlights:

• Der Coasterführer operating The Grizzly.
  
• Hot guys, all reminding me that I'm now 35.
  
• The temperature (48 degrees when I left at midnight!).
  

Still, a lot of fun, and a great start to summer, as always.

Pictures

A year and a half ago, I bought a Canon Digital Rebel camera, my first digital SLR. For a variety of reasons, it takes much better photographs than a typical pocket digital camera. I figured that one benefit of this camera is that I could take digital pictures from which I could make good-quality enlargements. I've already got a number of pictures of mine from my film days framed and on the walls, but my digital camera didn't put out high enough quality images to make, say, 8x10s.

Fast forward to this past weekend. All of a sudden I realize it's been 18 months, I've taken thousands of pictures, and aside from a few panoramas, I haven't gotten one enlargement. In fact, the most recent pictures of mine that are hanging on my walls are from my trip to Europe. In 1997.

So it's off to ezprints and Shutterfly (date of last order from Shutterfly: 2002; sigh). Because Shutterfly was having a sale, I decided to be bold and order this in 11x14:


I also ordered some 8x12s from ezprints, just in case (Shutterfly does only 8x10s, but the images from my camera have 3/2 ratio, which fits better in 8x12s). ezprints also does panoramic photographs (6 or 12 inches tall, and as wide as you want), so I ordered a 6"x13.5" version of this:


It turns out I need not have bothered with the 8x12 backups; the 11x14 looks wonderful, as does the panorama. The next step was to order the framing supplies from PictureFrames.com. You upload your image, then choose your matte(s) and frame; you can see what the final product will look like every step of the way. It's really cool. I've tended to go for conservative options when I've done my own framing in the past, but they make it so easy to visualize that I felt comfortable creating something a bit more sophisticated.

The frames arrive next week. I'll post pictures once everything's assembled.

Oh no...

Earlier today, the iPod I got as a replacement for my broken unit started doing the same thing the old one did.

I hit it on the desk a couple of times, and it seems better. For now.

(Yes, it's still under warranty. But still...)

Swimming the River

Foothill College will be doing a staged reading of Swimming the River, my second full-length play, on Wednesday, June 14. The playwriting instructor CW has been pushing for a new plays staged reading series for a while, and it's finally happening.

We've done cold readings of Swimming the River in class, but this will be the first staged reading. The difference is that a staged reading is rehearsed before it's performed. It won't be memorized, but the actors will be familiar with the text and will have done a rehearsal or two before the reading itself. There may even be props. In a cold reading, the actors have no preparation

In case you're wondering what it's about, here's a promotional summary of the play that I wrote:

In the back room of a convenience store, a new age in human history is about to begin. A traveler has built a portal through which the human race will make first contact with an alien civilization. Unfortunately, this civilization has sent as their ambassador the universe's most undiplomatic diplomat. After he commits a series of blunders, from giving out enriched uranium as gifts to accidentally attacking the White House, the result is not peaceful relations but a hostage situation, a new religion, and for one man, the biggest decision of his life. In the contemporary comedy "Swimming the River" we find out why pennies are valuable, why pandas are to be feared, and the role Christopher Marlowe plays in the rest of the universe.

Gay Days

The first gay event of the year here in the Bay Area is coming up quickly: Gay Day at Paramount's Great America. Great America is an amusement park in the middle of Silicon Valley, built in 1976 (the year of the bicentennial, hence the name "Great America"), and part of the childhood memories of anyone who grew up here.

Interesting fact: the park was first owned by Marriott corporation and was called "Marriott's Great America" (there is still a Marriott hotel next to the park). But everyone referred to it simply as "Marriott's". Even though Marriott sold the park over twenty years ago, I still occasionally (and unintentionally) refer to the park as "Marriott's". As do friends of mine who also grew up here, much to the confusion of transplants.

Old habits die hard.

Ironically, I haven't been to Great America for anything other than Gay Day for almost ten years. At this point, I've got a pretty strong association between Great America and, well, gay people. It would feel weird if I went there on a typical summer weekend and had to deal with much larger crowds of teenagers and straight families.

Southern Decadence

This weekend I booked my hotel and airplane ticket for my trip to New Orleans for Southern Decadence. I went to New Orleans for the first time for Mardi Gras, 2005, and thought at the time that I would like to go back for S.D. in the fall of 2006. Then Katrina hit and I wasn't sure if there would be a New Orleans to go back to.

But the French Quarter was spared, and S.D. is on. I'm not sure what it will be like this year. I'm not sure how many people will be going; it usually draws between 100,000 and 300,000 (though if, say, only 25,000 show up it will still be a hell of a party).

One thing I will do while I'm there: take a tour of the hurricane damage. Some might call these tours tasteless, but I think it's my duty as an American to see what has happened there.

Trailer for The Valley of Fear

The trailer for The Valley of Fear is now available.

Also, I found out that it's the trailer, not the full movie, that will be shown at BayCon 2006.

Fact of the Day

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

One of the most famous quotes in English literature, this is also one of the most often misunderstood. The problem comes from the word wherefore. Many people assume that it means "where", and that Juliet thus wondering where Romeo is.

In fact, wherefore means "why". What Juliet is doing is crying out in frustration that her beloved is a member of the Montague family and thus her family's enemy. "Romeo, Romeo, why do you have to be a Montague?" would be a reasonable paraphrase.

Shakespeare is full of words that have fallen out of use (or worse, have meanings that have changed subtly) in the past 400 years. This is why any serious actor performing in one of Shakespeare's works will study the text using an annotated version of that play. A good annotated version will define words, idioms, sayings and the background information required to understand the play fully.

[This Fact of the Day has been brought to you by my busy schedule. Big Red Dave's Busy Schedule: sapping time away from blogging since 2005.]

Last Weekend of VOF Filming

I'm up in the Sierra foothills for the last weekend of filming for The Valley of Fear. I had only one scene yesterday, which was good, because I apparently had food poisoning. I spent all of yesterday nauseous and unable to eat.

Ugh.

The good thing about food poisoning is that it ends rather abruptly after about 24 hours. So this morning I'm feeling fine. Hungry, and dehydrated, but fine.

Today I have about half-a-dozen scenes to film. The basis of the film is a "survivalists contest": a number of "survivalists" go off into the woods with just a few supplies, and the best survivalist wins $50,000. Because this is a contest, there are a number of judges that stay at the base camp. My character is one of the judges, and today we're filming a number of scenes at the base camp. I should be done by 5:00 or so.

Also, I've found out that a rough cut of the trailer for the movie will be shown at BayCon 2006, a San Jose science fiction convention.

Volleyball

I planned to write a nice posting about yesterday's start of gay volleyball here in Silicon Valley (organized by the local gay activities club, Rainbow Recreation). I wanted to write about how much I like it, how I look forward to it every year, etc. etc. But ever since volleyball last night, I've been in a funk. Sometimes I go to volleyball, play hard, and enjoy myself. And sometimes I go and just feel...awkward around people. For the entire evening.

Feh.

Fortunately, I rarely get two awkward volleyball nights in a row. So next week should be better.

Day Without a Landscaper

As I was leaving for work this morning, I noticed that the landscapers who work at my condo complex every Monday morning were not there. It took me a moment to figure out why.

Update: it took Blogger several attempts to save this posting. Does Blogger/Google hire illegal immigrants to process blog postings? I think we all deserve to know.