Big Red Dave

What I'm Doing on Sunday

2008-04-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Second International Chocolate Salon

Pictures Up

2008-03-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

I've trimmed my pictures down to a mere 338, organized them, and posted them here.

Enjoy!

Oh, and to answer Jimmi: yes, koalas in nature are rather mean. But the koalas at the Cairns Tropical Zoo are all rather tame. As are the kangaroos:

Organization

2008-03-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

When I went to Europe in 1997 for two weeks, I took my film SLR camera and took about 650 pictures.

I took my digital SLR camera to Australia, of course, and over a similar amount of time took 2,646 pictures.

So it's taking me a little while to organize them.

But here's one to start with, taken at the Cairns Tropical Zoo:

Divas Through the Decades

2008-03-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

I'm Back

2008-03-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

So I figure that now is a good time to mention that I've created that travel blog I talked about.

Well, that didn't turn out too well, did it?

The vacation was great. Pictures, etc. later. But for now, a little video I shot at the Sydney Mardi Gras parade:

Garage Post: 1, BRD's Car: 0

2008-02-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

Everything was going pretty well last night. I saw Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, which was a lot better than I thought it would be. I had a nice dinner with friends. Then I returned to my car and promptly backed it into a concrete pillar in the garage.

Ugh.

Actually, it's was more of a glancing blow, so the damage is relatively contained. I missed the tail light and the wheel, so I think the damage is just to the body panels. I got an estimate this morning, and it was about what I thought it would be. The question is: do I go through insurance or not? The estimate was painful, but manageable. My big fear is that once the body shop gets it taken apart, they may find some more serious damage that is hidden.

But all-in-all, this could have been a lot worse. I didn't hit another car, or a person. Thanks to my vacation, I'm not going to need my car for the next couple of weeks, so I can just drop it off on Friday afternoon and pick it up when I get back.

7 Days

2008-02-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

I leave on my Australian vacation in 7 days. Literally, 7 days from right now (my flight out of San Francisco leaves at 10:30pm next Saturday). So I figure that now is a good time to mention that I've created that travel blog I talked about:

Dave Down Under

At the Obama Rally

2008-02-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

Last night, for the first time in my life, I went to a political rally. Michelle Obama spoke at the student union at San Jose State University.

I'm still processing the event. The general message was that life has been getting progressively more difficult over the decades. Which is something I agree with (that worker salaries have not kept up with improvements in worker productivity galls me in particular). What I did not hear is how, precisely, Obama intends to remedy this. However, merely by acknowledging this as a problem is an important step.

Anyway, I brought my camera, with the zoom lens attached (and was mistaken for a member of the press only once), so here are some pictures.

First, Kamela Harris (District Attorney for San Francisco) spoke:

Then Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (who represents the district I live in):

Then finally Michelle Obama. At one point she got a child who was in the crowd behind her to come up to the podium.

It's the 70s, Man!

2008-02-03T12:43:00.002-08:00

Gus Van Sant is shooting his film about Harvey Milk's life, Milk, in the Castro. As part of the shooting, a number of stores have been dressed up to look like they did in the '70s.

Okay, that's an extreme example. Most of it is more mundane, like the way U.S. Bank has become Eureka Bank:

A lot of the time, it's hard to tell what (if anything) has changed:

This is actually the only change that I makes me nostalgic: this is a Diesel store now, but it was a Bank of America branch when I started coming to the Castro in the mid-90s. And so it is again (at least on the outside):

I've been getting slices at this place since the mid-90s. I had no idea it was 30 years old. The sign parallel to the street (with "Pizza", etc.) is for the film.

I was really worried when I heard that Hot Cookie had become Double Rainbow. Hot Cookie is my favorite cookie shop, and always a good place to go for some sugar before (or after) going out.

Fortunately, once you step inside, it's all cookies.

Here's the site of Milk's camera store. Other than a small mural in a second story window, this site is usually not marked. I only found it a couple of years ago.

Peeking inside and seeing the camera supplies was a real trip:

Oh, and in case one is tempted to try and believe it really is the '70s, reality soon intrudes:

This Would Have Made a Great Blog Post

2008-01-26T00:14:00.000-08:00

So I'm visiting a certain adult website that I haven't been to in a while, and lo and behold, there's someone I know on the splash screen. Or at least I think it's someone I know. Moreover, it was someone who acted in a play I wrote three years ago. At least, I think it's him.

But I'm not sure.

To try to figure this out, I start scanning the "model" page, to see if I can find more pictures of this guy. I finally come across his picture, and much to my surprise, his porn name is the name as as the character he played.

In other words, he took his porn name from something I wrote.

!

!!!

Now I've got a decision to make. I still don't know if it's him. I could shell out $35 on a "one-month membership" to this site and watch something he's in. But am I that curious? Especially since I'm going to Australia in 3 weeks and thus won't get my full month's worth?

(Big Red Dave: always practical).

But then I discover that one can buy 24-hour pay-per-view sessions of this studio's films on xtube.com for much less. So I go that route and discover, upon hearing his voice, that no, it's not who I think it is. Which is too bad, because if it had been my acquaintance, that would have made a great blog post.

What an anticlimax.

Well, not really.

Spooky Netflix

2008-01-23T09:35:00.001-08:00

I got this recommendation when I logged into Netflix this morning:

Because you enjoyed "Grey Gardens", we think you'll enjoy: "The Kids in the Hall: The Pilot Episode."

Netflix is right, and I've added the KITH DVD to my queue.

But it's sort of spooky how they came to this conclusion. What is the connection between Grey Gardens and the KITH?

Snails!

2008-01-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

Something I discovered when I was in Hawaii: they've got some big-ass snails:

(that door key is about credit-card sized).

Fortunately, they've also got beautiful sunrises:

That New Strain of Drug-Resistent Staph

2008-01-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

In case you're worried about that new strain of drug-resistant staph that's going around, KQED's Forum program did a great show on the bug, its origins and what it means for members of the general population. Listen to it here.

So...

2008-01-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed I took a little vacation from blogging. Not for any real reason, such as receiving threatening comments, or even worse, having my parents receive threatening calls (both of which, I've recently discovered, some bloggers have experienced).

I guess I just needed a break. Plus, I find that if I don't write, pretty soon bloggable life events start to pile up. And then I feel like I can't blog unless I cover everything. Which of course becomes more and more difficult. Until, all of a sudden, months have passed.

So, a short recap of some of the highlights from the last three months:

1. I've been writing a Christmas play. City Lights theatre in San Jose has put out a call to student playwrights for Christmas plays, so I'm giving it a go. Act I is pretty good. Act II needs some serious revision, but nothing I can't finish by the deadline (February 15).
2. I went to Hawaii during the last week of November. It was my first time there, and I can see why people like it.
3. I got glasses. For the first time. Ever (I'm 36). I don't really need them (yet); they're more for when I get eyestrain while reading or using a computer. Still...
4. I'm planning a vacation to Australia. In the spirit of Nick Natoma's travel blog, I hope to do some vacation blogging on a separate site. I leave on February 16th and will be there for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (which is on March 1, not on the actual Mardi Gras, which this year is February 5).

Tap tap...

2008-01-17T16:41:00.001-08:00

...is this thing still on?

Preparation

2007-10-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

So last week I bought a brand new plasma HDTV. I also bought some earthquake straps, because it was obvious the TV would not stay in place during a major earthquake. However, I was a little slow in getting them on. What were the odds of an earthquake two weeks after I bought my TV?

Pretty good, actually.

Fortunately, the TV is okay, as am I.

And I just finished putting on the straps.

Snorkling

2007-10-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

So I'm talking with a friend about a trip to Australia that I'm planning, which will include a stop in the Great Barrier Reef city of Cairns. The conversation turns to snorkeling.

F: "Have you ever gone snorkling?"
BRD: "No. Well..."
F: "What?"
BRD: "Well, when I was ten, I once went swimming in Lake Michigan with a snorkel."
(pause)
BRD: "That's not the same thing, is it."
F: "No."

Welcome to The Valley of Fear

2007-09-10T19:38:00.000-07:00

A trailer for a certain movie I've mentioned from time to time.

Party Planning Tip

2007-09-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

If you are throwing a potluck and want people to bring something hot (i.e. something other than a salad or dessert), then don't schedule the potluck at 6:30 on Friday evening.

On a related note, here is a recipe for lasagna.

My brain just exploded

2007-09-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

On the back cover of this week's issue of Time magazine is a Louis Vuitton ad featuring Mikhail Gorbachev.

How the world has changed...

Theatre Stuff Update

2007-08-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

Well, my reading of The Offsite last week went very well. We had about 28 people, nearly all of whom stayed for the post-reading discussion. I got a lot of good comments, and I've got ideas on where to take the play next.

The only issue is the ending. A short summary of the play is: four people going through the world's craziest team-building seminar discover its all a sham, and have to figure out a way to blackmail the seminar leader in order to save their jobs. Ironically, they end up a much better team at the end. The question is: what really should be going on behind the scenes? There are three possibilities:

1. The "sham" business is, itself, just a scheme to build these people into a team (and it works).
2. The workshop really is a sham.
3. It's ambiguous.

I originally went with #1, switched it to #2, but got a number of people who told me they would have preferred #1 (except for my parents, who felt the ending was ambiguous and liked it that way).

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do. Maybe I need to think up a #4.

My other theatre project, the New Works Festival, opened last Friday as well. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Unfortunately, it only runs for two weekends, which means it closes on Sunday.

It's Just a Staged Reading; What Could Go Wrong?

2007-08-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

My staged reading for The Offsite has turned out to be been quite an adventure, with the breakdown of my car only a small part. Here's the full timeline:

Friday, July 27 -- We are fully cast. We have three rehearsals scheduled: July 28, 29 and August 2.
Saturday, July 28, 10:00am -- I get a call from my director, informing me that the actor who was to play Theo had called him to say he would not be able to attend rehearsal that day, due to a family emergency. From the tone of the actor's voice, my director felt that the situation was so serious that the actor would probably drop out of the entire production.
Saturday, July 28, noon -- Rehearsal #1. The director plays Theo.
Saturday, July 28, 7:00pm -- I get an email from the actor playing Kyan saying that he is pulling out of the production because he "felt no connection to the script". We're now down to three actors.
Sunday, July 29, noon -- Rehearsal #2. I play Kyan and my director plays Theo. After we finish and the actors leaves, my director and I decide that, once we recast the two roles, we will need to add an additional rehearsal.
Sunday, July 29, 10:00pm -- My director lets me know that he has recast one of the roles.
Wednesday, August 1, 9:00pm -- After much scrambling, we've recast the other roles. However, the new actor playing Kyan won't be able to attend Thursday's rehearsal because he's had dental work and is on pain meds that don't allow him to drive.
Thursday, August 2, 6:15pm -- Reherasal #3. While driving to the rehearsal, I notice steam coming out from under the hood of my car. I get my car towed to a shop, and my director picks me up. I miss the rehearsal for act I, but I'm there for act II. I play Kyan.
Friday, August 3, 3:00pm -- My director calls me to let me know that the actor playing Kyan is pulling out, because his car blew a head gasket and he has no way to get to the rehearsal or performance spaces. I begin to wonder if I've written a cursed play.
Friday, August 4, 1:00pm -- The shop calls me to let me know my car has a serious radiator leak. I'm out $650.
Friday, August 3, 9:00pm -- My director calls again, to let me know the actor is back in. He has found alternative transportation. I become less concerned about the supernatural powers of my play.
Saturday, August 4, 3:30pm -- The newly-added rehearsal #4. All five of our actors are present, for the first time. The rehearsal goes very well.

The reading is in 48 hours. Here's hoping nothing else happens.

First post from my iPhone!!!

2007-08-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the reason I'm posting from my iPhone is that my car has broken down, and I have nothing else to while I wait for AAA.

Theatre Drama

2007-07-30T12:18:00.001-07:00

This weekend we had the first rehearsals for my staged reading on August 7. We'd cast three men and two women.

On Saturday morning, my director gave me a call to report that one of the men had a family crisis and wouldn't be able to make the rehearsal that day. Moreover, from the tone of the actor's voice, my director guessed that we would need to re-cast.

We had the rehearsal from 12-3. One of the remaining men seemed really grumpy, but since he was playing a grumpy character, we figured he was just acting.

Well, it turns out that he wasn't. A few hours after the rehearsal, he sent an email saying he was backing out of the reading, on the grounds that he "felt no connection with the script".

So by Saturday evening, we were down to one man and two women.

Fortunately, we managed to re-cast one of the roles by Sunday evening, and in the worst case, my director can fill in for the other role.

My Verizon Cell Phone Contract Ends Today

2007-07-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Guess what that means?

(Hint: it starts with an "i").

Big Red Dave in Springfield

2007-07-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

I found this on Jimmi's blog: you can make your own Simpson's avatar on the Simpson's movie web site..

Mahna Mahna

2007-07-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

A little something to help you get through your Monday

And if that's not enough...

Mahna Mahna!

What a Fabulous Weekend!

2007-06-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

And it really was: the best pride weekend I've had in years. It was great meeting a bunch of new people, and seeing old friends that I met last year.

I'd like to give a big thank you to Dan, for organizing the Summit on Friday night. Thank you also Kalvin & JR, for the get-together on Saturday night, and to Nick and Jake for the brunch on Sunday morning.

And now, for a few pictures. First, from Friday night:

And from Sunday:

And last, but certainly not least, is this fellow:

That other picture of him is not going to go on this blog, but if anyone wants it (and I know you all do), just let me know.

It's Here!

2007-06-22T17:30:00.001-07:00

Enough work, time to have fun.

Happy Pride!

Thanks to Kelly Stern for above photograph.

I Lied

2007-06-12T10:26:00.001-07:00

I have a confession to make.

I lied.

I posted this picture of actorschmactor and myself, taken on May 31:

This picture misrepresents Kevin's true height. I'm only 6'5". I'm a little sensitive about appearing next to taller people, so I asked Kevin to scrunch down for the above picture.

Here is a picture that represents our true relative heights.

It's true. Kevin is, indeed, seven feet tall.

My apologies to all my readers for my deception.

San Jose Pride Pics

2007-06-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

(I love my telephone lens)

San Jose Gay Pride

2007-06-10T09:30:00.001-07:00

Today is San Jose Gay Pride. I'm going to leave in a bit to watch the parade, which (unlike San Francisco) will probably last only 20 minutes or so. The post-parade festival lasts all day.

I was talking to my friend JB about this last week. On Thursday, he went to check out the website, and that evening he called and asked "Do you know you're on the San Jose Gay Pride website?"

Rainbow Recreation is a San Jose-area gay men's sports/activities club. I marched with them last year, the first time I'd ever marched in a gay pride parade.

I guess I really am out, aren't I?

Happy Pride!

Back from Orlando

2007-06-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from Orlando. Actually, I got in last night, but not until late, as my plane was delayed for two hours in Dallas.

But aside from that (and tropical storm Barry), the trip went well. The Grosvenor was very nice, very convenient, and though there was a lot of construction going on, none of it impacted me.

I had a really good time going to Pleasure Island, the Disney nightclub "island", virtually every night. The best night was Thursday night, as I got to meet Kevin aka actorschmactor:

Kevin's a great guy, and we had a lot of fun, first hanging out at the Adventurer's Club with the friends I was traveling with. After an hour or so, we finished off the evening with some dancing at the '70s/'80s dance club, 8-Trax.

And now for various other highlights from the trip, starting with a shot of a recreated San Francisco at MGM Studios
What's that on the street sign?

Heh.

Saturday was the big day, where everyone puts on red shirts and goes to the Magic Kingdom.

In general, I preferred the rollercoasters over, say, Ellen DeGeneres's Universe of Energy.
Interesting note: Disney tracks the time it takes guests to traverse the line for a ride by handing these electronic cards to random people as they enter a line, and then taking them as they get on the ride. Guess which computer geek got a card?
Here I am near the end of the day at the Magic Kingdom.

Wait a minute: what's that on my shirt?

Have you got yours yet? GSB2 is only two weeks away!

Ready to Go

2007-05-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

The cats are in the kennel.

The floor has been sanded and finished, and the first coat of polyurethane is drying as I type.

The newspaper and mail has been put on hold.

I've arrived at the La Quinta Inn near the airport.

And I fly out tomorrow morning.

BTW, the La Quinta is quite convenient, as it's very close to the highway:

Someone's Turning 70 Today

2007-05-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday babe! I swear to God you don't look a day over 55.

Well, damn.

2007-05-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

My washing machine just broke. The first appointment the Sears people had to repair it is on the day that I leave.

Great.

Fortunately, my parents's condo is 10 minutes away, and they're out of town.

One Week to Go!

2007-05-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

One week from today, I'll be in Orlando for Gay Days 2007.

(Oh dear God almighty, do I need a vacation)

I've been there before, but not in a while. After going in '01 and '02, I decided I didn't need to go again right away, but "right away" stretched into five years.

(That seems to be happening more and more as I get older)

I'm going to be staying at the Grosvenor Hotel. I haven't been there before; it was a choice of some friends of mine who had already started planning the trip by the time I decided to go. Recently I was looking up some information on the hotel, and came across the reviews. Such as this one:

The room itself was dirty and there was black mold growing on the shower curtain.

Oh. Well, I'm sure that's just one person's bad experience, right?

Everything was going fine till we were awoken at 7:45 AM by the sound of drills and hammers.

Okay, I guess I'll have to bring earplugs. Still, how bad could it really be?

We got our keys, anxiously awaiting to get a look at our rooms, headed for 2 rooms in the 300's, opened the door and....we were met with a horrible stinch and an unclean room. The beds were made and the trash had been taken out, but the bathroom toilet had a ring around it, the stainless steel water spout was filthy, the floors seemed like they had not been mopped. The carpet was teriibly dirty with stains, along with some nasty finger prints on the walls. My husband pulled back the covers on the bed and the velour blanket had a big burn hole in it.

Hmmmm...

Wish me luck.

Remodeling -ling -ling -ling

2007-05-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have a rule on this blog: I don't talk about work.

I really want to break that rule right now.

But I won't.

So instead I'll talk about remodeling. Because I'm a 30-something homeowner, and that's what we talk about.

When my home was built back in the '80s, the original buyers opted for wood floors downstairs. Mostly. They had all of the downstairs done in wood, except for one area of the combination living room/dining room. I guess the theory was that they wanted to have the "living room" portion done in carpet, while the rest was in wood. When I bought this place, the realtor suggested that I could get the carpet replaced with wood.

Eight years later, it was time to do it.

The (hot!) contractors arrived this morning, and spent most of the day installing the wood. Now it needs to sit for two weeks so that the moisture level of the wood reaches equilibrium with the house.

The next step is that they will refinish the entire downstairs. Fortunately, I'm going on vacation in two weeks, so they will be able to refinish the downstairs while I'm gone. If I were not going on vacation, I would probably have to vacate the house for a week.

Before and after pictures will be provided when the "after" stage has been reached.

BTW, once they finished today I immediately noticed one thing:my downstairs now has an enormous echo. If I drop a fork in the kitchen, the noise reverberates throughout the downstairs. That's going to take a little getting used to.

Still Here

2007-05-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

Work.

Ugh.

Yes, I'm still here. My current project at work is a royal pain, however. Not so much because the project is difficult. But rather than I'm having a hard time leaving it at the office. It's distracting me from everything else in my life. The good news is that I should have it done before I go to Orlando in a few weeks. Which will be good, as I really need a vacation where I don't think about work.

How I'm Going to go to Vegas and Blow Four Grand

2007-04-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this article about how Stephen Hawking took a to ride on the zero-gravity simulator commonly known as The Vomit Comet. It was partly a benefit for an ALS charity.

But it's also partly a publicity stunt for the Las Vegas-based company Zero G, which organizes these trips in which passengers get to experience 15 periods of weightlessness.

The price?

For $3,500.

Just $3,500.

Yes, I know $3,500 is a lot of money. Especially for a four-hour vacation. After taxes, air fare to Vegas, and a night or two at a hotel, I would expect the bill to reach $4,000.

But compared to the $200,000 Virgin Galactic is talking about for a sub-orbital flight, it's quite a bargain.

I will do this.

Sooner, rather than later.

Work

2007-04-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging, but work is has suddenly become very busy and stressful. I'm finding it very hard to think about any sort of writing (except after having a couple of glasses of wine (ahem)).

Squirrel Update II

2007-04-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here's an update on the out-of-control squirrels here in Mountain View that I wrote about in October and again in February.

All of the squirrels have now been trapped and euthanized, thanks to the use of, I kid you not, a decoy baby stroller.

However, the parents of the child who was attacked last year are now suing the City. Apparently the child has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They are asking for $150,000 to cover the cost of medical and therapy bills. Just for fun, I googled and discovered that the price of a rabies immunoglobulin series is about $2,500. The remaining $147,500 would cover (at one $200 session per week, every week), over fourteen years of therapy.

As I've said before, we've got some vicious squirrels here in Mountain View.

Validation

2007-04-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

I got a phone call this afternoon from City Lights Theatre Company in downtown San Jose. They want to do a reading of the first full-length play I wrote. Called The Offsite, it's an office comedy: four people are sent to the world's worst team building workshop.

The reading is August 7 in downtown San Jose. And you all are, of course, invited.

What makes this reading really special is that it's the first time a piece of my writing has been accepted for any sort of performance, reading, award, etc. outside of Foothill College, or my circle of friends. This is not to say that the short plays of mine that Foothill has produced, or the reading they did last year were done just because I'm a student there. Plenty of other students have not gotten their works produced. Nevertheless, it really feels good to have had my work judged and found worthy by someone whom I've never met.

Chair

2007-04-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

I had one of my all-too-rare fits of housecleaning recently. To be more specific, it was the eternal mess of my garage that I felt the need to tackle. When I was done, I had ten large garbage bags full of junk, along with other stuff (a broken cooler, a couple of old broken plastic buckets, etc.). This doesn't include the enormous mound of broken-down boxes (damn you, Amazon!) that will go into the recycling next week.

But for the garbage, I had to schedule a special "spring cleaning" garbage pickup, where one can put out much more trash than usual. And in addition to a big pile of garbage bags, I also had the option of putting out some "bulky items".

So it was time for the chair to go.

This chair was one I inherited from one of my favorite aunts when she died back in 1993. It's one of those high-backed single-person chairs, a style that isn't made these days. It served me well when I was in grad school, and when I got my first apartment. But when I bought my house, it didn't really fit in. It had also become faded and worn. Eventually, one of my cats decided to start using it as a scratching post, and before I realized what was happening, it was pretty much torn up.

But, it was my favorite aunt's chair.

Nevertheless, I put it out this morning, and watched as it got tossed in the back of the garbage truck and driven away.

It's good to clear old stuff out of one's life from time to time.

I suppose.

There's Something Rotten in the State of California

2007-04-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I discovered what I thought was a termite nest on the outside of my townhouse. So I called in a termite company to do an inspection. Fortunately, it wasn't a termite nest. But the company did discover quite a bit of dry rot.

One thing that makes it worse is that in several areas of my home, various parts of the siding have been covered by plywood for what appears to be aesthetic reasons. Unfortunately, this also creates a perfect breeding ground for dry rot fungus, like the example above.

Usually dry rot just causes wood to fall apart. I think a lump of fuzzy mold is actually rare. Here's a wider shot of that same area:

I'm glad my homeowners' association is paying for this, because the sprinklers ensure that the rot continues all along the edge of the unit:

Actually, the worst part is the noise. I've been listening to banging for the past couple of days and I'm really ready for it to end.

Grindhouse Mini-Review

2007-04-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

Part 1 (Planet of Terror): If terms of gore and basic biological "squishiness", this rates about a 25 on a scale of 1-10. The gun as artificial leg was cool (though not necessarily worth waiting for.

Part 2 (Death Proof): Boring. Boring! I don't know how a Quentin Tarantino movie can be boring, but he managed it.

My burger at Tied House after the movie: very tasty.

Live Blogging of Gone with the Wind

2007-04-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

Once I finished using Netflix to get caught up on Lost, I started renting regular movies. One category I've been renting is something I can classify as "movies I should have seen, but have never gotten around to", such as Rocky and Jaws.

One movie that falls into this category is Gone with the Wind. I almost watched it on TV a few years ago, but when I discovered it's four hours long, I decided not to. Well, Netflix sent it to me a couple of weeks ago, so I've finally watched it (spread out over two nights). And after I watched the first five minutes, I realized that I had to live-blog my viewing.

So I give you Gone with the Wind:

Disk 1:

0:00 -- Overture (?)
0:01 -- Hit button to skip to next section
0:03 -- Credits!
0:06 -- Credits over. But now an introductory text.
0:07 -- The first spoken line! No wonder this movie is four hours long.
0:13 -- Mammy. Wow. Stereotypicus maximus.
0:17 -- Scarlet definitely needs a bigger hat.
0:22 -- Clark Gable!
0:27 -- Don't any of the Southerners in this movie speak with a Southern accent?
0:30 -- 1/8th of the way through.
0:36 -- The war has started at last!
0:39 -- Dr. Meade looks exactly like Waldorf.
0:48 -- "You should be kissed. And often. And by someone who knows how." You go, Clark!
1:02 -- Only 25% of the way through the movie and Sherman has arrived already. No sign of Peabody.
1:04 -- That's leg's got to go. Ugh.
1:11 -- 35 days of "Siege" and not a single building is damaged.
1:18 -- Prissy. Even worse than Mammy.
1:25 -- Fire!
1:39 -- Don't any of the slaves in this film have the urge to, you know, run away?
1:44 -- They built in an intermission! This is where disk 1 ends.

Disk 2:

0:00 -- "Entr'acte"
0:02 -- Start of disk 2: "And the wind swept through Georgia...Sherman!" Still no sign of Peabody.
0:03 -- White Southerners picking cotton. Heh.
0:06 -- Scarlet 1, North 0
0:10 -- The war is over.
0:11 -- Someone should tell Mammy that slavery has been abolished.
0:20 -- Again with accents: it's hard watching the Ashley/Scarlet scene with Ashley sounding like FDR.
0:26 -- Clark Gable: he's been held barn doubling as a jail for days (weeks?) and he still has perfect hair.
0:38 -- This is the point where I stopped for the night.
0:39 -- "Darkies"?
0:52 -- Men just don't last long married to Scarlet, do they?
1:05 -- Rhett is now married to Scarlet. Uh oh.
1:09 -- They have a baby!
1:12 -- Scarlet has a 20 inch waist? Wow.
1:16 -- That was a nice door. Why did Rhett have to kick in down?
1:22 -- Uh oh.
1:33 -- "A good lashing with a buggy whip"?
1:36 -- A kitten! Yay!
1:38 -- Oops!
1:44 -- Oh crap.
1:48 -- They're dropping like flies!
1:58 -- "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
2:00 -- The end

Whew!

Oops, not quite:
2:01 -- "Exit Music"
2:05 -- And we're done. For real.

Next in my Netflix queue: Poster Boy.

Good News/Bad News

2007-04-02T16:46:00.000-07:00

Good news: I'm going to Gay Day at Disney World in late May/early June.

Bad news: American Airlines rescheduled my return flight. I now will have an extra hour to enjoy the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.

The Valley of Fear Screening

2007-03-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I was in a low-budget indie horror flick called The Valley of Fear that was filmed last year. The premiere was last September up in Oakhurst, CA, but the film has yet to get a screening anywhere else. We had hoped to get it in a Northern California film festival, but that hasn't happened, so we're going to have a Bay Area screening.

Anyone who reads this blog is, of course, invited. The screening will be on Saturday, May 12 at 3:00 at Foothill College in Appreciation Hall (room 1501). If you'd like detailed directions, e-mail me.

Done

2007-03-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Okay. Thanks to an innovative use the vacuum cleaner, I finally got my cats corralled and to the vet for their shots today.

The reason I had to take them in is that I'm going to be boarding them in the near future and they haven't had rabies shots in years. They're indoor cats, and since the rabies shot can cause tumors, vets often recommend an animal not get it unless there is a need. All kennels require rabies vaccination, however, so the time had come.

Ironically, I'm not going to be boarding them because I'll be on vacation (I usually get a pet sitter), but rather because I'm getting some work done on my house and they need to be out of the way. Which means I'm taking the $32 for their shots today out of my house maintenance/upgrade budget ;-).

How Do They Know?

2007-03-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

I came home from work a little early today, as I was planning to take my cats in to get their vaccines up to date. The animal hospital I use has walk-in vaccination from 8-6:30 every day.

Somehow, my male cat figured this out as I was walking in the front door, and is now hiding under the couch. I expect him to come out around 6:25.

Oh well. I guess that means I get up early tomorrow morning.

300

2007-03-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

I just saw 300 tonight.

I'm not sure how 300 guys running around in speedos and capes can be so butch, but they are.

The abs help, of course.

BTW, doing a Google search on "speedos" in order to check the spelling is a very nice way to waste a half-hour ;-).

It's Like Turning 18 Again

2007-03-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday.

I celebrated with various people over the weekend. Today, since the weather was nice, I took the day off of work, put the top down on my car, and drove down to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'm fond of the Aquarium because it opened when I was a kid. And because, of course, it was used in several scenes in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Here are some more pictures.

Play Reading on Friday.

2007-03-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, a friend of mine from my playwrighting class told me she was doing a staged reading of some short plays, and asked if I would like to have my play Full of Grace read as part of the reading? I agreed, and sent her a PDF.

Four weeks ago, she asked me if I had cast it yet. It turns out that it was my responsibility to cast the play, direct it, and arrange a rehearsal. Surprise!

Fortunately, two of the three cast members have agreed to reprise their roles, and I've got another actor friend of mine to play the remaining role, so it looks like it's all coming together. We're rehearsing at my house tomorrow night. The reading is Friday.

Here's the flyer for the reading. That picture is from the 2005 production. The younger priest in the background is the one I had to recast.

Yikes!

2007-03-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

A magnitude 4.2 earthquake just hit the East San Francisco Bay area, about 35 miles from me. We've had a bunch of earthquakes in that area over the last few months, but this is the first one from that area that I've felt.

I've been wondering if these quakes are a portent of a Big One. Clusters of moderate-sized earthquakes in the same area are generally not a good sign. However, this latest quake occurred on a different fault than the others; I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad one.

I'm fine. It was big enough to be startling, but not big enough to do damage. I'm surprised that it's only a 4.2, actually. Given its distance (about 35 miles from my house), I would have guessed that it was larger (maybe a 5.0). I'm watching the TV news, and apparently that's a common feeling.

Cravings

2007-02-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

I have bottles of beer brought by attendees to my 2006 Academy Awards party that are sitting, unconsumed, in my refrigerator. Because I just don't really care about alcohol in general, or beer in particular, enough to drink them.

How I wish I that I reacted the same way to Girl Scout Cookies.

(Munch)

A PSA from George Takei

2007-02-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

Spring is Coming

2007-02-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we had a brief warm spell here in California. Warm enough for me to put the top down on my car as I drove to a superbowl party. And after a couple of weeks of cold and rain, today is another warm day. Again I'm driving around with the top down.

But it feels different.

I don't know exactly why. Something in the air. Maybe a faint odor of pollen or chlorophyll that I can only sense subconsciously. But two weeks ago, what we had was a warm day in winter. Today, what we have feels like the very first sign of spring.

It's a good day.

Brought to you from the Bad Ass Coffee shop, in Santa Cruz, CA, where it's 77 degrees.

Lost Update

2007-02-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I've done it. I've now watched the entire first two seasons of Lost in two months, thanks to Netflix.

Jimmi was right: I love this show. And I really love that I was able to watch it in one big run (I would not have enjoyed waiting for the start of season 2, after seeing the season 1 cliffhanger). I think it will be a little tough for me to transition to seeing one episode at a time, once per week.

It holds together really well, BTW: were it not for Walt's obvious aging, I could believe that they filmed the first two seasons over the course of a few months.

The next step is to watch the first six episodes of this season, downloaded from iTunes. My TiVo is recording the episodes that just started showing last week. By the end of this month, I should be caught up to "real time".

Squirrel Update

2007-02-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

Last October, I wrote about some aggressive squirrels at a local park here in Mountain View. Now, after months of debate, I'm happy to report that the city has settled on a solution. Apparently there are only five of these aggressive squirrels, so the city will trap them, take them away, and euthanize them with chloroform gas (as opposed to killing them with squirrel-crushing traps, which was the original plan).

My favorite part of the article is in the second-to-last paragraph:

No such attacks have been reported anywhere else in the city — or, for that matter, anywhere else in any city.

In other words, Mountain View has the most aggressive squirrels in the known world.

Maybe I should lock myself in my house until these squirrels have been dealt with. Just in case.

Mardi Gras Vient

2007-02-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

Avant...

Après...

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

(Cliquez ici pour la recette (en anglais))

I Don't Care

2007-02-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

Well, despite my time being split between a baking project and a minor work crisis that kept me on my company ~~leash~~laptop until far too late, I did manage to read the first completed draft of Enlightenment (my play). I found a variety of problems, including one really big one:

I didn't care.

The basic story is there. It works. But I finished reading it and realized the play had absolutely no emotional impact on me at all. The most sympathetic character dies at the end, and I was thinking "eh".

What this means is that I need to do more character work. Let me illustrate this. Here are the five characters in the play:

Carter: An alien with amnesia who is disguised as a human and who has founded a cult.
Bobby: Another alien (also disguised as human) who is looking for alien #1.
Charles: A follower of alien #1's cult (this is the guy who dies).
Rose: #3's crazy ex-wife and anti-cult activist.
Tucker: The son of #3 and #4, boyfriend of alien #2.

Tucker is the main character. Note that he also is the least interesting character.

Moreover, he doesn't drive the play: things happen to him, and around him, but he doesn't really initiate much.

So, I think next steps are:

Do some serious character work on Tucker.
Make him more active.
Give him a plan from fairly early in the play that will carry him through to the end (this will help with #2).

If the play doesn't get more interesting after doing that, I'm going to have to seriously consider making Charles the main character.

He's Dead

2007-01-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it.

I killed him.

Actually, it wasn't who I thought it would be. After I wrote the last post, I went through four characters, trying to decide who would be the one to die. In the end, the same character got shot as I was expecting, but a second character gave his life to save the first.

It works. I think. (I've never written a death before)

And this means the first draft of the entire play is finished. But now that I know how it ends, I need to back and fix some things.

I need to rework the character who does the shooting. I need to make her angry enough, and crazy enough, to pull the trigger. This anger/craziness comes through in places, but it's not consistent.
I need to settle on the main character. I think I know who it should be (the one who dies), but it may be the one who is shot but is saved.
I need to fix some problems with another one of the characters; his personality is somewhat inconsistent in Act II.

So, I'm going to let this sit for a couple of days. My playwrighting class is tomorrow, so I won't have a chance to write again until Thursday anyway.

My next step will be to read the whole thing from beginning to end, which will help me decide the "main character" question, as well as identify other problems. Then I'll address the problems I've identified one by one.

At some point in the next few weeks, I'll bring it in to class. I brought the first part of Act II a couple of weeks ago, so I was thinking I would just bring in the rest. But now I suspect I'll want to see the whole thing (both acts).

BTW, Act I is 48 pages, Act II is 44, for a total of 92. That's a good overall length It's also good to have the first act be a little longer than the second: if that's not the case, the play will feel unbalanced.

Staying home tonight

2007-01-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, I was walking home from work, and had reached an intersection about five minutes from home. I was standing there, waiting for the light to change, when I heard a crunch. I turned around and saw that an SUV had hit a bicyclist. She didn't look too badly injured, and fortunately there's a fire station just down the street, so within five minutes there were professionals on the scene looking after her.

Fast forward to Friday night. I'm heading up to San Francisco to have dinner with my friend J.B. I'm at Cesar Chavez, coming up on Folsom, when I hear a "crunch" and see a bicycle spinning through the air, about ten feet off the ground. Yup, it happened again. This time it looked worse, so I drove through quickly without more than a quick glance.

Tonight I'm staying at home.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2007-01-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, my stitches are out: I just got them out this morning. My finger is still somewhat sore, and there's a small numb patch on the outside of the finger (which should recover, mostly, over the course of a few months). But other than that, it's fine.

I had a pretty low-key weekend. Atari_Age was in town for the weekend and on Friday night we got to hang out and bar-hop, which is always fun.

I didn't do much on Saturday and Sunday. Mostly housework, errands, and some writing for my latest play. I also spent time configuring a new Mac Pro I got last week (it's nice to work for a company large enough to hand out year-end bonuses). Getting the contents of my PowerBook to the new computer was easy enough (Apple makes it very easy, of course). But I'm going to use this machine as a replacement for my PC as well as a supplement to my PowerBook, so I was setting things up so that I could run Windows on the Mac (for the few Windows programs I still need to run).

On Sunday I downloaded and watched the first episode of Star Trek New Voyages, a fan-based continuation of the original Star Trek, with a re-cast Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. It's pretty good for a non-professional production.

Finally, I saw Children of Men on Sunday night. It's an excellent film, though depressing and pretty violent. The cinematography is astounding: there were a number of very complicated scenes that were all edited to look like they were done in a single take (and one long scene that was, apparently, done in a single take). I've never before had an opinion on which film should win the Oscar for best cinematography, but now I'm rooting for Children of Men

Friday Night With My Kitchen Knife

2007-01-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose I should expand on my somewhat cryptic Friday night post.

About 7:00 on Friday evening I was cleaning my big, sharp cook's knife, when I slipped and cut my right index finger. I don't want to get too graphic, but let's just say the cut was both big and deep enough so that I knew I had to get it looked at right away.

So I headed off to the urgent care clinic with my finger wrapped in paper towel. By the time I get there, it's 7:30. I'm thinking "7:30 on a Friday night: I should be in and out in no time".

Ha.

The first clue was that the parking lot was so full that I had trouble finding a spot. Finally I found a spot, parked, and went in, where I discovered a waiting room full of people. I signed in, paid my copayment, and sat down.

I ended up waiting for an hour.

Eventually (after I went through every news magazine they had, including a copy of The Economist from October, 2005), they got me in. It took the doctor about 35 minutes to get the wound numbed, cleaned, and stitched up, and then to give me a tetanus shot. But then they asked me to remain for an additional 20 minutes, to ensure that I didn't have a reaction to the shot. So by the time I was done, it was 9:30.

It was pretty sore that night, and on Saturday, but it doesn't really hurt now (as long as I don't try to grip anything). No nerve or tendon damage, as far as I can tell. I get the stitches out a week from today.

How was your weekend?

Well, I was going to go out tonight...

2007-01-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

But one of my kitchen knives had other ideas.

The stitches come out on the 22nd.

The Well

2007-01-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the first draft of the second act of my latest full-length play, tentatively entitled Enlightenment. I wrote about twenty pages and then realized that it was all crap. Or, more precisely, I've got enough material for about 10-15 pages, but I've been trying to stretch it into 40 pages.

So I've been trying to figure out what to do. The basic problem is that there aren't enough problems on stage (character goal + obstacle = problem = drama). Why aren't there enough problems on stage? After some thought, I decided it was because my characters are too nice.

There is this theory of character development, called "Tower/Well", that I've been taught. A good character will have both strengths (tower) and weaknesses (well). For example, you could have a character who is the bravest firefighter in the city, but who is also heroin addict who steals to support his habit.

The characters in Enlightenment are too "tower", so if I create some "well", that will improve things. Actually, there's one character who has a lot of "well" in act I, but it wasn't coming through in act II. She's an anti-cult activist, and at the end of act I she meets the head of the cult she's devoted her life to fighting. At the start of act II, she's just standing around, not doing much, so I start to think: how would she act in this situation?

She'd berate him.

I tell myself to think big.

She'd assault him.

Bigger.

She'd try to kill him.

How?

She'd pull a gun.

Remember an old drama rule: if you show a gun, you have to fire it.

So she'd shoot someone.

She'd aim for the cult leader, but she wouldn't hit him, as that would be too obvious.

Which means...

Someone has to die. And I know who.

Damn.

And to my very great surprise, it hurt to make this realization. That was basically the end of my attempts to write last night, as I was too emotionally stunned to continue.

That's right. "Stunned". Over the "death" of a fictional person.

I guess I am a writer.

I Have Nothing Serious to Blog About Right Now

2007-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

So here's a video of someone keeping their New Year's resolution:

Imported Music

2007-01-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

U.K to California transit time: 3 days.

Damn, I love living in the 21st century.

P.S. Yes, I'm a geek.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I'd like to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007.

(2007? Is it really 2007 already?)

I had a very nice New Year's Eve at Kalvin and J.R.'s party last night, watching KRON and the ARTS channel with a bunch of other folks, some bloggers, some not.

Today I saw Rocky Balboa. Now, I have an admission to make: I saw the original Rocky for the first time earlier this week. I was a little young to see it when it came out originally, and I never got around to renting it before now. But I figured I ought to see it, so I put it at the front my NetFlix queue (in front of Lost season 2, disk 1) and watched it on Friday. Given how much of Rocky Balboa is devoted to nostalgia from the first Rocky, this turned out to be a good choice.

Three Things

2006-12-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

Three things I learned at the Midnight Sun (a Castro-area gay video bar) last night:

1. I don't like gin martinis (I had a gin martini for the first time ever last night. Do you know what it tastes like? A vodka martini that's been left in someone's backyard for a week).

2. If you want to chat me up, a good opening is after a clip from the South Park episode Ginger Kids.

3. It's possible to be 56 and yet look 46 (at least in a bar).

Happy Boxing Day!

2006-12-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

Four

2006-12-24T16:45:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

(The candles from PlaNetweavers on Castro St. in San Francisco. Because the best way to celebrate Advent is with candles from the center of the gay universe.)

Christmas Dinner

2006-12-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm heading over to my parents' place in a bit for Christmas dinner (which we have on Christmas Eve). Here's part of what I'm bringing:

(You didn't think I made just dessert, did you?)

The Dog

2006-12-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

My neighbors are traveling for Christmas. They left their dog at home. I'm assuming that they have a sitter who visits once or twice a day.

However, that's not enough for the dog.

The poor thing has been running around the backyard of their house, crying and scratching at the door to the empty house, begging to be let in.

Crying at all hours of the day. And night.

I hope my neighbors come home soon.

The Christmas Earthquake?

2006-12-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, there was a magnitude 3.7 earthquake just east of Berkeley; Nick Natoma wrote about it.

Last night, there was another 3.7 in the same location.

This morning, there was a third, magnitude 3.5, in the same location.

These are all happening along the northern part of the Hayward fault, one of the faults identified as most likely to cause a destructive earthquake in the next 30 years.

So I'm a little concerned that these are "foreshocks" to a big earthquake that may hit in the near future.

Fortunately (for me), the fault is over 50 miles away from my house. An earthquake there would cause a lot of destruction and damage in the Oakland/Berkeley area, though in San Francisco and the San Jose area, damage would probably be restricted to things falling off of shelves, cracked plaster, etc.

Nevertheless, I think now is a good time to make sure my car has a full tank and my cell phone is charged.

The USGS Bay Area Earthquake Page.

A tool that illustrates the effects of various Bay Area earthquake scenarios.

My Journey Home for Christmas

2006-12-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

Like many people, I'm heading to my parents' place for Christmas. I will be driving, as flying would be an extravagance:

Yup, I live one city over from my parents. Fortunately, I have a really good relationship with them, so it works out well.

Especially when it means that I don't have to think about Denver this week.

Three

2006-12-17T22:15:00.000-08:00

Oh F*ck You

2006-12-16T18:38:00.000-08:00

(Saturday, December 16 @ 2:30pm)

Chunky Chocolate Mousse

2006-12-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

4oz unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup + 1oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1.5 tsp. (1/4 fl. oz.) vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/3 cup + 1 tsp. superfine sugar
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar (or 1/2 cup, for a sweeter mousse; see step 4)

1. Melt the unsweetened chocolate and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.
2. Add vanilla extract to melted chocolate and stir to blend. The vanilla will cause the chocolate to thicken considerably, so it is important to stir the mixture briskly until fully blended, to avoid clumping. Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whip 2 cups of heavy cream until stiff.
4. In another large (and preferably deep) mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff and glossy (they are done when they can form peaks).
5. Add all of the superfine sugar to egg whites (add small amounts at a time, beating continuously). This will cause the egg white mixture to lose some of its stiffness. For a sweeter mousse, add an additional 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar.
6. Carefully fold the whipped cream into the egg white mixture.
7. Blend the cooled chocolate into the cream/egg white mixture.
8. Put remaining chocolate chips (1oz) into a plastic bag and pound with a hammer or mallet until the chocolate has the consistency of coarse sand (note: you may wish to double bag so as to minimize the risk of the bag breaking). Fold pounded chocolate into mousse.
9. Put the mousse into a bowl and chill for 3 to 4 hours.
10. Shortly before serving, whip remaining cup of cream and add confectioner's sugar. Spread on top of mousse.

Serves eight.

Coffee Date

2006-12-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised last night by the movie Coffee Date. It's a new gay romantic comedy; a review and description are here. Some friends of mine and I went to only because Blood Diamond was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "brain-fryingly boring", but we ended up enjoying it a great deal. The acting was a little shaky in places, but the story was solid and the movie as a whole is quite a bit more than "goofy piece of fluff" the Chronicle describes.

Two

2006-12-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

Talk to the Hand

2006-12-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

Recently my neighborhood supermarket moved into a new space. It's twice as big as its old space, and about 100 times as nice. The whole store feels like its taken a couple of steps upscale. There are fancy cheeses that weren't in the old store. There's a real bakery. It's a great improvement.

However, I think this whole upscale thing has started to go their heads. Tonight, for example, I was shopping there and came across this freaky thing:

It turns out that this is a "Buddha's Hand". According to Wikipedia, it is used by people in China and Japan "for perfuming rooms and personal items, such as clothing."

How nice. I can see it now. Green tea. Kimonos. Some Zen meditation. All assisted by a citrus aroma gently flowing from a cut Buddha's Hand.

And then I noticed the price:

I guess that if you can see the price and remain unperturbed, you know you've achieved enlightenment.

One

2006-12-03T23:06:00.000-08:00

Lost

2006-12-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

Okay. I give in. After several years of avoiding the phenomenon that is Lost, I have finally gotten tired of hearing all the "buzz" around the show, so I'm giving in and renting the DVDs so I can see what all the fuss is about.

This also means getting a Netflix account, something I've avoided until now.

So now I'm going to watch Lost. From the beginning. Having never seen so much as a minute of the show.

So here we go.

Hold, on there's a commercial...

...

And another...

They're now advertising the theatrical release of The Chronicles of Narnia, which opened a year ago...

...

[fume] They're now advertising TV shows on DVD. Including Lost. In other words, they're advertising the Lost DVD on the Lost DVD.

...

[FUME] Now they're advertising the second season of Lost on DVD.

...

Damn. Seven minutes of commercials. I'm glad I'm only renting the DVD.

Okay, here we go...

Oh, look! An airplane crashed!

Thanksgiving

2006-11-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back from Nashville.

It turned out to be a great experience. I have very little extended family, and the trip made me (and the rest of my immediate family) realize how much more we should be visiting the family we have. I could see us going back there every other year or so to visit.

Speaking of family, one of the best parts of the trip (for me), was going through the old photographs that my uncle has and hearing various bits of family lore. I came back with a stack of photographs which I'm going to scan. I did the first one tonight:

I have no idea who the guy on the left is. But that's my great-grandfather on the right. Born 1883. Died 1965. I would guess that the picture (a 2.5"x3.5" tintype) was taken sometime around 1900.

Off to the airport

2006-11-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

My parents live ten minutes away, so most years I stay in the area for Thanksgiving. This year, however, we're all visiting relatives in Nashville.

I leave for the airport in three hours.

This will be the first time in twelve years that I'm traveling on the day before Thanksgiving, so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm giving myself lots of extra time, just in case. Fortunately my flight is at 12:45pm, so it's easy to arrive early.

The one bright spot of traveling today is that, while there is no direct flight from San Jose to Nashville, there is one from Los Angeles, where my sister lives. So I'm flying from San Jose to LAX, and from there I'll meet up with my sister and we'll fly together to Nashville.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone (unless you're not American, in which case, have a happy Thursday). I'll see you on Sunday.

Regrets

2006-11-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

"It's really cool. The only problem is that it's hard to find anything on it."

- Adam Katz, from a presentation on the World Wide Web he gave for a class on multimedia we both were taking in graduate school, April, 1994.

Jared Christopher over at Completely Naked has a post on regrets and what he'd do differently.

What do I regret?

I regret not working at an Internet startup in the '90s.

On the other hand, all through the dot-com bust I was employed. I dream that, with a few different choices, I could have been employee #10 at Yahoo. But in reality I could have easily ended up at Webvan. Or Pets.com. Still, I wonder what would have happened if I'd said "what if..." to myself during Adam's talk.

I regret not having lived in San Francisco when I was in my 20s.

On the other hand, had I lived in SF, I probably would not own my own home now (or, if I did, it would be a lot smaller, or I'd have a much bigger mortgage).

For a long time I regretted not coming out earlier than I did (23).

Now, I don't think it would have made any difference.

For a long time, I had a lot of regrets. Now, for most of them, I've come to one of two conclusions. For the first batch, I think I honestly did the best I could, and I've forgiven myself for not doing better. For the rest I've decided that, like coming out, it wouldn't have made any difference had I don't things differently, or things could have turned out much worse.

So I find myself not regretting a lot right now.

But I can also see that if I'm going to maintain this state, there are a few things that I need to address.

Soon.

But then, isn't that always the case?

Wisconsin? How did you know?

2006-11-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

(h/t Darin)

Bay Area Fact of the Day

2006-11-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

The species of bacteria that gives sourdough bread its characteristic taste is called Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.

Arianna Huffington

2006-11-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

I've never had much use for Arianna Huffington. For those of you who don't know, she was the wife of Michael Huffington, who tried to carpetbag his way into the U.S. Senate by running against Dianne Feinstein in 1994. Once his political career was over, they split. Michael retired from politics and came out, and is apparently much happier. Arianna lept into political punditry and made a sudden switch from right-wing Republican to Democrat.

She's always struck me as a shameless opportunist.

So, it is with great pleasure that I present Arianna as you've never seen her before:

Long Shot

2006-11-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it turns out submitting The Offsite to Magic Theatre was indeed a real long shot. I got their rejection letter a couple of days ago.

My response? I sent them a copy of Swimming the River.

I should hear back by May.

Guide to Borat

2006-11-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

Salon has posted a guide to Borat. If you've seen the movie and would like to find out what was staged and what was real, check it out.

On a related note, the frat boys that appeared in the movie have sued 20th Century Fox, claiming they were deceived.

Ahhhh.....

2006-11-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

It's pretty rare that an election goes pretty much like I would hope. But this is one of those elections.

And it's not just the results in the House (or the Senate). Arizona defeated its gay marriage ban. South Dakota defeated its abortion ban. And Missouri has voted in support of stem cell research.

Here in California, Arnold won. While I didn't vote for him, I can live with him (once he stopped thinking of running for President, he stopped being a crazy Republican and returned to being a sane, moderate Republican). Crazy Republican Tom McClintock has lost his race for Lt. Governor, which is the one I care about.

Most of the ballot measures I cared about came out like I wanted. The bonds to pay for maintenance and upgrades on the state's infrastructure all passed. The one to restrict eminent domain and zoning failed.

I haven't felt this good about an election since 1992. I just pray that I won't have to wait until 2020 to feel this good again.

I think...

2006-11-07T07:06:00.000-08:00

...I'm going to fly my flag today.

I usually fly it on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day, but I think, this year, I will fly it today as well.

To all of my American readers: get out and vote!

Borat

2006-11-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

I saw Borat tonight. Wow. I thought I was ready for it, but nothing could have prepared me for the naked wrestling scene. It was strange being horrified but also laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

That was also the point in the movie when the family in front me (Mom, Dad and 13 year-old daughter(!)) decided to leave.

Violent Halloween in the Castro

2006-11-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

Two in custody after 10 people are shot at Castro Halloween bash

Yikes. I hope all the City folk who read this blog are okay.

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T07:40:00.000-08:00

And now for something truly scary: a Bollywood version of Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Let me just say...

2006-10-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

...that I will never again attend a brunch in San Francisco without bringing my camera.

Hopefully others will post pictures soon so that you will understand why.

Update: It was, of course, Crystal McNugget who made an appearance at the brunch.