A little vacation and some “deep” stuff
Me and mine are going out of town for several days to, among other things, celebrate the 40th anniversary of the birth of our friend Anthony. He's a good guy and decided to have a party so we decided to attend. Why not.
So, the posting may be a little lite for the next few days as we are going to be away. Not flying this time because of my last experience waiting at the Burbank airport for four hours. This time, I’m gonna drive. Of course, I fully expect a huge accident will delay me even more and I will wish I had flown,
Oh well, at least it will give me something to complain about. Also, before I forget, I am working on my review of the Canon 20d and some other stuff which I will post as soon as I can. Until then, content yourself with the musings of my friends at LAist or feel free to go back and read some of my archives. They are always good for a laugh or at the very least, a slow shake of the head as if to say “what they hell is he thinking”.
Happy weekend all. Oh, how could I forget this. Deep Throat revealed! He waited a long time and kept his secret. That’s pretty impressive as most people can’t keep a secret at all. This guy is something. 2nd in command of the FBI and chief investigator of the Watergate break in. Now, who will be playing him in the movie? Russell Crowe? Johnny Depp? George Clooney? Me? We’ll see.
Happy weekend again.
putting your best face forward (or at least the one you like the most)
if you live in and go places in Los Angeles it is pretty hard to avoid running into either someone you know, someone you don’t like or who doesn’t like you or some sort of famous person. yesterday was typical of the last one.
some friends and i were out enjoying some psuedo-mexican food at the burbank taco bell and jennifer love hewitt came in, got some food, chatted with some of the staff, then left in her mini cooper. she looked great, btw. taller than i thought, which is a surprise. usually, they are almost always much shorter.
anyway, what struck me as interesting about this encounter was that she came in herself, alone. she didn’t send her assistant or something. she drove herself over from the house or the studio (take your pick), made her own order, took her bag of 99 cent bean burritos or whatever and drove herself away. she did this on her own with no help from anyone. i was impressed by that. from everything i have heard, she is one of the nice ones.
don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying that all famous people are too dumb or too arrogant or too lazy to drag their own asses to taco bell but it might not be too far from the truth in many cases. let’s face it, famous people are not always the most interesting or most pleasant people to be around. in fact, many times they can be downright nasty.
you can’t really blame them, though. if enough people told you your were the greatest thing to come along in years and that yes, your shit doesn’t, in fact, stink, you might start to believe it too. no, what am i saying. that would never happen to you.
another telling example of this was during the oscars. hilary swank won again for her role in “million dollar baby”. during her acceptance speech, who did she thank? she said a big thank you to her “best friend and publicist”. interesting, no? her best friend is someone she pays to say nice things about her. if that isn’t a warped sense of reality i don’t know what one is.
you may get the impression from this entry that i have something against famous people. actually, i don’t. some friends of mine are famous people and i like them just fine. do i think they are stellar human beings not completely full of themselves? some are, some aren’t. oddly enough, that ratio probably holds true for non-famous people like you and me as well.
well, no, not like me. i really am full of myself. oh, and i am also lazy too as i am going to start posting in all lowercase. starting now, as you can probably tell. it’s too much effort to hit the shift key along with all of these other keys.
tu Ciudad
Last night we went to the launch party for a new magazine here in Los Angeles called tu Ciudad or just “City”. I wrote about it for LAist but there are more pictures on my flickr page, in case you are interested. It was a fun party with lots of free-flowing music and booze. Plus, lots of beautiful people having fun. And, the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was the setting. Good times.
Apple to use Intel chips?
This again? Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Really it would not be too hard to get OSX to run on Intel or AMD chip. Well, at least for the smart engineers at Apple. I'm sure that in some vault at Apple it is already doing just that. Humming along nicely, thank you.
Star Wars: E3ROTS is already online
Already? I’m surprised it took this long. Not that I condone this kind of thing (illegal downloads, that is) and I don’t always agree with Cory Doctorow (although, he probably doesn’t know or care). He is pretty much right on the money with his latest post at Boing Boing. I question what good DRM is all the time.
Although, as I probably know one or two of those “shouting, petulant babies” he refers to I must make a hasty disclaimeer: If any of you are reading this, that’s one of the parts I don’t agree with. I’ve never heard you shout, at least at me. There, happy now.
Ok, gotta go see “Star Wars:E3ROTS” in a theater now.
Busy couple of weeks . . .
It’s looking to be a pretty hectic next few weeks for your humble writer (me, in case you can’t figure it). This week I will be all over the City of Angels at various events. Monday night is a screening of a new film at Cinespace, which is a great venue to see films while drinking (not that I condone that). It should be an interesting time.
Also, at the LA convention center is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, aka e3. This event promises to be very interesting as it was in years past. New games, new consoles (like the XBox 360 or the PS3) and all kinds of other cool toys for me to play with. Plus, there are usually one or two attractive booth girls to talk to. Not that i care about that or anything. I’m there to work, dammit.
This time, I will not only be going just for fun I will be covering the event for LAist. So, I will actually have to take a few notes and a few pictures with something other than the Treo. I hope having to do a little work won’t interfere with my fun.
And of course, the other big event this week, at least for many, is Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I will be seeing it on Thursday at high noon at the fantastic Arclight theater. If you have never been to the Arclight, I highly suggest going.
The best part is that you can buy your tickets in advance and get an assigned seat. No waiting in line or getting there an hour early. And, another great feature is that the Arclight doesn’t show those annoying commercials before the movie. Just previews and then the movie. That’s it. It’s the only way to go.
If you are going to E3 or to see Star Wars, be sure to say “hello”. The secret word is “Teraflops.” Why? Why not?
George Lucas is a rich mofo . . .
Forbes has the info. “It all started with a story treatment, handwritten in pencil on a few sheets of lined yellow legal paper.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
They also have a breakdown of the “Star Wars” franchise and how the dollars flow and where they go. Inspiring or depressing? Take your pick. I’ll go with both.
Going down?
Sorry, but I am really busy again and only had time to write for one site at the moment. However, here’s my latest bit for LAist for your reading pleasure.
There is something missing at the movies this year. Butts. No, not on screen, although perhaps you didn’t notice. No, we’re talking about in the theaters. As in, theaters have more empty seats. People are not going to see movies as much as they did last year and the year before that.
Perhaps many people didn’t realize that the summer movie season has started? Or, they are just not very excited about medicore remakes of classic horror films, like House of Wax. Even if they do have Paris Hilton in them. Or, they don’t realy care about big-budget movies with stars that perhaps are not ready to carry a big movie on their slim shoulders, like Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever their motivation, audiences are finding other things to do than go to the movies.
If you look at ticket sales, movie studios threw a party but not very many people decided to attend. Maybe they don’t like who was invited? According to industry watch group Exibitor Relations, which tracks these things, ticket sales declined 22 percent this year versus last year at the same time. That’s a big drop which represents quite a few dollars, and for that matter, butts. And, overall box office is down about 11 percent for the year compared to last year.
Also, movie studios are releasing at least a dozen fewer films this year than last year and the time it takes for a film to hit DVD is getting shorter and shorter. All of these factors contribute to the less than stellar business for the movies and for the people that make the movies.
With so many people in Los Angeles having their livelood tied one way or another to entertainment, how long will it be before this box office slump, if it continues, becomes a problem for them? If the trend continues, many of those people may be forced to look elsewhere to make a buck and that buck may be smaller than they are used to. In that case, they may be forced to spend less and buy less.
That reduction in spending could potentially have a negative effect on the entire economy of Los Angeles. With less money out there, other services and businesses could be effected. So, help save Los Angeles. Go out and see a movie this weekend.
Lightsabers: not just for the movies
In case you were wondering (and who hasn’t?), here’s how Lightsabers work. Cool.
Laying Low and Putting Tiger To the Test
I have been busy for the last week or so. Thanks, in part, to the good folks at Apple Computer putting out a new version of OSX that has, shall we say, a few “issues”. There are many things to like about Mac OSX 10.4 Tiger. Features such as Spotlight, the new iChat AV, new Mail, improved speed and a host of other features make it a great upgrade in most cases. There are some problems and some annoyances that I have been dealing with not only on my own machines, but on machines of people I work with as well.
As always, MacFixit has the scoop on many of the problems as well as some solution that have worked for other users. Macintouch also has a cool matrix of reported software incompatibilities. And, there is, of course, the Apple Tiger Discussion Forums. No matter what, always make a complete backup of anything you care about on your computer before installing a major upgrade like Tiger. Better safe than sorry.
It’s no secret that people are having problems. Take your pic as to where to find a possible solution or work-around for any issues you might be having. There might be one or it might take a little time for one to be available. No matter what third-party software vendors do, i’m sure we’ll be seeing Mac OSX 10.4.1 sooner rather than later.
Tiger arrives
Apple’s latest OS, Mac OSX Tiger has arrived. We went down to the Pasadena Apple Store last night to get our copy. I installed it on my Powerbook and my G5 and all is well. So, go out and get yours right now and enjoy. I have provided a convenient link for you on the right. Isn’t that nice of me?
Happy Tigering (is that a word?) Sure, why not.
Han Solo is art
This is pretty cool. People with talent amaze me. I wish I had some. Is being a pain in the ass a talent? Well, if it isn’t, it should be. Or something like that.
Happy Wednesday everyone.
Amazon makes a little mistake.
From the “oops” department. Amazon.com accidentally leaked the details of the yet to be released update to the Power Mac G5 Tower. Of course, now they have pulled it. And of course, here’s what it looked like:
Click on the image for a larger view. Too bad, doesn’t seem like much of a bump. I do like dual-layer DVD burning though. I bet Steve J. wishes he hadn’t promised the machines would be to 3Ghz by now. That’s kind of an “oops” too, I guess.
Someone at Amazon is so fired.
Meet the new new sponsor
If anyone is offended that i have adds and sponsors just realize that the it costs something to maintain a website, even one as modest as this. So, i am just trying to cover that cost, no more. Believe me, I don’t expect to get rich from this site. Besides, who wants to be rich anyway? All that trouble deciding which high-performance car to drive around LA, where we can usually drive no faster than about 20 mph.
Or, the tedium of having to deal with non-Mercedes drivers on the road who simply can’t understand why they can’t change lanes at the last second, without a signal, while talking on the phone and reading the newspaper. The fact that people get upset and sometimes even make obscene gestures must be so emotionally taxing on the rich that they spend thousands of dollars pouring their hearts out in therapy. I feel bad for them. Really I do. But, its their own fault.
I’m not rich. Probably never will be. So, please don’t give me a hard time about a few adds. Besides, the girl from Busted Tees is cute, right? Anyway, the actual purpose of this post was to introduce you to another sponsor who I personally use and recommend to everyone who uses Photoshop and has a digital camera.
I’m talking about, of course, Mr. Fred Miranda. So, click on the link at the left that says “FM Software” to go to his site for the best Photoshop actions and plugins out there. I use them and recommend them to my clients all the time.
Now to go to the vault and count my money again.
I blog, therefore I’m dumb.
I was wondering what my problem was. (besides the obvious). Apparently, if you check your email too often your IQ begins to drop. More so than if you smoke weed (aka pot, gonja, mary jane . . . you get the idea).
Here’s the info about that. Although, this study was apparently done in England so who knows. Really, what do the English know about good weed? Oh well, I don’t smoke and I have tried to curtail my constant checking of email. I’m trying not to get stupid.
At least I went to an interesting party last night. Some details. The party was at the home of my managers (yes, i have managers. and an agent and a lawyer too. fun.). They invited a bunch of people, mostly actors, to come over and have drinks, snacks and good conversation. I went with Mr. Tony Mark as the wife and his girl were not interested in “networking”. So, we went, had a few drinks, walked around, talked to people, etc.
The interesting thing about the evening to me was how many of the actresses that were there were 19 years old. I spoke to at least four and they were all 19. And, all of them were from somewhere else (Seattle, Oregon, Texas, wherever) and they had all moved to LA in the last few months. Plus, they all seemed really interested in what I had to say. Which is, of course, a good boost to my already healthy ego. You need that now and again, even if deep down you know it can’t be real.
Now, I know I’m interesting and all and what I say is really interesting and important but come on, I’m not that cool. Only 19, just here off the bus (or whatever) and they already know how to play the game. You gotta love LA.
I blog, therefore I'm dumb.
I was wondering what my problem was. (besides the obvious). Apparently, if you check your email too often your IQ begins to drop. More so than if you smoke weed (aka pot, gonja, mary jane . . . you get the idea).
Here’s the info about that. Although, this study was apparently done in England so who knows. Really, what do the English know about good weed? Oh well, I don’t smoke and I have tried to curtail my constant checking of email. I’m trying not to get stupid.
At least I went to an interesting party last night. Some details. The party was at the home of my managers (yes, i have managers. and an agent and a lawyer too. fun.). They invited a bunch of people, mostly actors, to come over and have drinks, snacks and good conversation. I went with Mr. Tony Mark as the wife and his girl were not interested in “networking”. So, we went, had a few drinks, walked around, talked to people, etc.
The interesting thing about the evening to me was how many of the actresses that were there were 19 years old. I spoke to at least four and they were all 19. And, all of them were from somewhere else (Seattle, Oregon, Texas, wherever) and they had all moved to LA in the last few months. Plus, they all seemed really interested in what I had to say. Which is, of course, a good boost to my already healthy ego. You need that now and again, even if deep down you know it can’t be real.
Now, I know I’m interesting and all and what I say is really interesting and important but come on, I’m not that cool. Only 19, just here off the bus (or whatever) and they already know how to play the game. You gotta love LA.
The Canon 20d Digital SLR
In my quest to chase the latest and greatest electronics, I have picked up a new Digital SLR. I have decided to make a giant leap and switch to the Canon 20d (at least until Nikon comes out with something even cooler). Although I have loved my Nikon gear for lo these many years, the Canon 20d offered me features and improvements over the Nikon D100, my usual DSLR, that I really wanted to take advantage of.
I am working on a full-blow review of the 20d and comparison with the D100 which will posted soon. I want to get a feel for the Canon and use it before I talk about it too much. However, I will say that right out of the box, it was a quick trip from pulling off the protective wrapping until I was shooting some, what I consider, pretty decent pictures. Especially when printed on the Epson 2200 using the Imageprint RIP. I will also get more into digital workflow and color correction, photoshop and all that other fun stuff as well. Questions like “what is a RIP and why do I want one?” That kind of thing.
As always, I will make the disclaimer that I am not the typical user for this or any other piece of sophisticated electronics. For me, it was easy to get going. For others, especially if this is your first time with a DSLR, it might take a little longer. However, the manual is pretty good and there is also a “quick start” guide which helps as well so don’t be intimidated.
Obviously, both Nikon and Canon make even more powerful and expensive DSLR cameras. If I had unlimited funds or was a professional photographer, I would most likely have those cameras too. But here, I will not be talking about those. This will strictly be a comparison between what is know as “prosumer” devices. Although, some would argue that while the D100 is definitely “prosumer”, the 20d could be considered more in the “pro” area. For my purposes, they are both “prosumer” cameras and will be taken as such.
Look for the new review soon.
Meet the new sponsor.
I want to extend a laurel and hardy handshake and welcome the good people of Busted Tees. They are graciously putting a link here so that you folks can click through and order some of their cool shirts. So, click away and go get yourself something pretty or funny (or both!) to wear.
The link is right there on the left. Click on the cute girl in the tee shirt just like the one above. That shouldn’t be so hard to see. I wanted to make it easy for you. I’m cool like that.
Are you tired? Too sleepy for sex?
I didn’t think it was possible but I guess it could be. To tired to have sex? What’s the world coming to? How will we keep the population going? Is this the end?