October 2005 Archives

I know, I know. I am late to the dance. I was bored tonight so I uploaded a set of Gorn photos to Flickr just to play around with it. I am interested in publishing books of my photos and I want to try different services and see what they have to offer. iPhoto has some cool templates, but I am not really in the mood to take all of my digicam pics over to Daniel's house and upload them.

Flickr does have a cool poster option which I might use to make Gorn posters. Also - I like the ability to create postage stamps of some pictures. However, I guess I could use Cafepress to sell stamps of some of my photos.

I really do not see myself porting the Gorn page to Flickr. It does fine just where it is. One thing that I am eyeballing it for is my trip diary photo galleries. This section is eating up a lot of bandwidth and there is no real anchor to the web site. I would like some sort of feed so that I can populate either WAP or HTML sites with photos from Flickr. Also - now I need a better cameraphone to start uploading photos.

I also know it publishes photos to MT (yay!) so maybe I just need to create a blog for the trip diaries? I really have no idea. Any one out there who can help point me in the right direction?

Oh and I know this is posted everywhere else, but you just have to watch the Chinese kids sing BSB (via Leia and WebJunkie and featured on VH1's Best Week Ever)

I was bowled over by the number of calls, letters, emails, and shout outs sent my way for number 33. It was much appreciated and for those of you who sent in your regards I thank you very much and it meant it a lot to me.

The actual day was fairly low key - a very typical Thursday just lounging around with Daniel and some shopping. The rest of the weekend was pretty action packed.

First up on Friday a few people from work along with Tiffany and Tyger came over to the Lost Bar to toast Alisa and my birthdays (hers was Saturday). The Blue Dolphin was the drink o' da night and I would have stayed to get more liquored up, but I had to open the Little Buzz Ride Saturday morning.

After work I took a disco nap and then headed up to Sherman Oaks to visit Cory. He was throwing his annual Halloween party and I hadn't seen him really since around A-V Day in 2003. I met some cool people at the party and of course it was great to see Cory and Peter again.

Again, I didn't get to sleep in since Sunday I got to train my first set of new hires in over 2 years. I was excited because my trainees are great fun people and I look forward to finishing the training next weekend (don't ask for some reason Day 2 is 6 days later!).

In the meantime, the last two days I have had the privilege to help train a group of people from the Disneyland Paris resort at Buzz. Anthony is the other trainer, but we basically are tag-teaming the group. There are some cultural wackiness that occurs when two Americans hang out with three French and one Scot. Tom who is one of the Attraction developers from DLP was only there for one day and then went off to the Studios for meetings. Fred, Sylvain, and Aurélien are with us for the duration and are a great source of fun and reminds me why I love to train.

The best part is that all I need to do is make contacts with someone at Walt Disney World, and I will know people from all of the Disney Resorts Worldwide!

Last night I was on my way home from the annual family birthday gala for me and Amanda. All had a great time though I really should have taken some cheese bread home. Highlight: As we were getting ready to leave, my aunt found a slice of cheese bread in her purse. No one knows how it got there other than some hyena like ravaging of the basket of bread when it was delivered.

So I am driving home in a huge lightning storm over OC. There are bolts everywhere and I distinctly remember as I was getting closer and closer to my apartment that I could feel the static electricity in the atmosphere. It got so bad I could feel the hair on my arms standing up. There were a couple "Holy Crap" moments as I kept eyeballing the lights and trees to make sure I had some cover. As I approached my street I saw the police were out with flares. At first I thought it was just another accident with a lame-o OC driver who doesn't know how to drive when it starts to rain.

It was then I noticed that all the streetlights and stoplights were out. At first I was wondering how I was going to get into the electric gate at home, but it most have a blackout override since it was wide open. Sure enough, my apartment was blacked out. I rummaged around for my mini-Maglite I use for work and then went to get the votive candle lantern I keep in the bathroom for emergencies (usually the olfactory ones, but for blackouts too..honest). It was then I realized that I am woefully unprepared for an extended blackout or loss of service. Sure my laptop had power, but there was no Internet (gasp!) Worse yet, I realized I didn't have any extra batteries. So tomorrow after work I am going to get some batteries for the big Maglite, a large bag of votive candles, and a battery powered travel alarm - just in case I need to get up for work with no power.

Thankfully before looting started, the power came back on after an hour and I went back into normal mode. One thing I like about blackouts - the lack of ambient electronic noise. Ahhh reminds me of Snoqualmie.

****/****
Dir: Akira Kurosawa
1950 Black and White Japanese 88 min
Unrated because they didn't do that back then silly.

Leave it to Akira Kurosawa to break the string of Netflix disappointments. I admit this one has sat on my record player for the last two months waiting for a chance to get watched. It even traveled to Hong Kong since I figured that I would watch it on the plane. Tonight I dove in and I am glad I did.

The story was basic but straightforward. The acting was top notch as usual, but let’s be honest, Kurosawa is an awesome director and editor and his cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa did an amazing job. I think that is why people watch his films really or at least why people in the US do – to marvel at amazing filmmaking. Like Seven Samaurai, and even Amelie, it is a testament to a foregn film that it keeps me interested despite language barriers

**/****
Dir: Spike Jonze
2002 Color English 114 min
Rated R for language, sexuality, some drug use and violent images.

Another Netflix mixed bag. Roger Ebert said this was one of the best movies of the year. I just found it to be boring. AND I had to suffer through not just one Nicholas Cage, but two. (Damn Twins).

I was raring to give Spike Jonze a try and this was my first attempt. I do see some great potential here so I will probably still add Being John Malkovich to the Netflix list. I did like Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of Chuck Barris’ book “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” (though I did point out it was a bit uneven here and there – come to think of it I think that is my biggest gripe against most movies these day – too uneven.) so hopefully this was just a mixed bag movie and not a litmus of things to come.

** ½ /****
Dir: Wolfgang Becker
2003 Color German 121 min
Rated R for brief language and sexuality.

From the Netflix queue, this was one of those movies that you read about and think to yourself that it should be funny and interesting and crazy. The trailers certainly made it feel that way. I should know better than to listen to trailers.

I put this movie in the mixed bag category. One the one hand I liked the whole situation of the movie and the characters that were involved, but I think the movie wasn’t very successful in playing up the comedy when it was there and wrenching the emotions when it was trying to be serious. I think part of the disconnect comes from the fact it was in German, and let’s be honest, I live in the US and have never been personally involved in the sort of trauma and life that these people lived through. I also think part of my blasé feelings regarding this movie was that I felt it just dragged on in spots.

The German thing might be a cop out since I thoroughly enjoy Japanese and French movies that are subtitled…

***/****
Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
2004 Color French 133 min
Rated R for Violence and Sexuality

Ok, I fell for the If you Love Amelie you will love this French movie starring Audrey Tatou line. Damn. Believe me I know Amelie, I Love Ameile, and The Longest Engagement, you are no Amelie.

It is a sweet story about lovers who get separated by war. There is some amazing cinematography in this one as well as some top notch acting (even a surprise visit by Jodie Foster! Acting in French! Who Knew!). I admit I got a bit bleary eyed at certain parts, especially the end. A good date movie if there ever was one despite the occasional blood and violence (It takes place after WWI and flashes back to wartime so duh). Some memorable supporting characters always make for a good time in my book and this movie is chock full of them.

So in the end, I liked the movie, but it just didn’t engross me as that other French movie.

*** 1/2 /****
Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
2004 Color Japanese 119 min.
Rated PG for frightening images and brief mild language.

One thing I enjoy about Miyazaki’s films is that you always hit the ground running. Sometimes it takes you awhile to get your bearings, but when you do, you are usually in for a good solid film. This one is no difference, though skimming through the list of actors who dubbed the movie into English, I am glad I watched the movie in Japanese with subtitles. This movie has something for everyone.

Now let me tell you about my experience seeing this film. Daniel and I raced to the Beverly Center from OC on a Thursday towards the end of the films run. There were very few places playing the film and this was one of the last places to see it. At first I had doubts that it was the right place and from a distance it looked like the theater was abandonded. We got to the ticket counter and thankfully we were able to see the film. The lady behind the counter warned us that the air conditioning had gone out in the theater and it was a tad hot. After some deliberation, we decided to go for it anyways since we were here. The lady rewarded us with a free small soda. When we got into the theater I was amazed. This was by far the smallest theater I had ever been in. The screen was maybe 70” and there was maybe 30 seats in the auditorium. And it was hot.

Thankfully the film was wonderful and the AC was working in the mall when we were done so we were able to survive the rest of the day.

**/****
Dir: Geoffrey Sax
2005 Color English 101min.
Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and language.

This was an interesting film, but not that exciting. Sure there were some good make-ya-jump moments, but you still had to sit there and watch Michael Keaton for 101 minutes try and make sense of what was going on around him.

To be brief: He’s in love with Wife #2 and then she goes missing. Turns out she’s dead and trying to communicate through EVP and the VCR. Think Sci-Fi Channel meets the old Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. Nothing really stands out in this film other than the fact that Keaton’s character has good taste in architecture. His house and the apartment he moves into are amazing.

I think I have finally settled on a new home for Club Josh. I like the fact that the Better Business Bureau keeps tabs on web-hosting companies since there are so many out there that I have never really heard of. Also, it seems to me that any site that "evaluates" web hosting is run by one of the web hosts.

Does anyone know of a good host? I am looking to be able to host multiple domains. I don't really need a Virtual Dedicated Server nor do I want to pony up the cash it will take to run one. I found several sites that allow 5GB of storage and 8 to unlimited domains. I can't believe I am stuck with just 600MB.

At any rate, posting will be down this month as I try and minimize changes on the site so that when I port over to the new one I can use as much of the backup I made last month as possible.

There used to be a day when you type his name into a search engine and there would be a picture of me shaving his head. Now when you search it is all the way on page 3, with the first two pages devoted to his own site and his work.

Why do I bring this up? I dunno really but today as I was loafing around procrastinating (I am starting to move clubjosh to its new home) it struck me that I hadn't emailed him in awhile. We usually go through spurts around our birthdays ruminating greatly on things in our personal lives. Then it occurred to me. I met Kris in the 8th grade which would put it about 20 years ago.. Holy Smokes!

My biggest regret is that we are not closer. He finally moved back to Chicago last month after 4 years in London - so now he is long weekend close (you are on notice, my friend). I wish we were in the same city. Not so I would bug him every day, but on a moments notice we would hang out and do something fun. It is one of those things I really haven't had in awhile. KC is also a great sounding board and whenever I vent or tell him my crazy dreams and wishes, he always would tell me to go for it.

So anyway, Kris I miss you. I can't wait to see you again in the flesh and catch up on all things.

Check out one of his blogs and his flickr site