These Things Happen in Threes

July 19th, 2007Blog3 comments

Congratulations to the two couples I happen to know that have just gotten engaged! Who will be the third?.. I’m looking forward to going to some bachelor parties!

The organizer of a bachelor party must be very carefully selected. It is essential that he be a bachelor himself, since a married man’s soul is often crushed to the point of uselessness like a eunuch’s. The organizer must also have excellent planning skill and have a great awareness of what is awesome and what is not.

The very best bachelor party I ever went to was one that took us all to Vegas for a weekend. It was extremely well planned and full of choices and options. We shot guns at a store called “GUNS”. This included machine guns. We did other things. There was a schedule, but you could always say “fuck you” to the schedule and do your own thing. It was awesome. The guys who planned it could seriously do that sort of thing for a living.

There are many different types of grooms, but only one true way to have a bachelor party. It is either correct or incorrect. I can’t wait.

Working on this project is hard. This is a good sign. When something is too easy I get spooked.

This is a good lesson to take away from Top Chef and other cooking competition TV shows: If you’re the one chef that’s finished his/her dish and is sitting around while everyone is still working, then you are probably the one losing the competition. The product, whatever it is, is the sum of the energy, angonizing, and internal arguments that are put into it. A Christmas stocking can look big but still only contain a tiny lump of coal.

You Know, for Kids

July 18th, 2007Blog0 comments

My new favorite TV show:

If it weren’t for Conchords I would probably cancel my HBO. I am looking forward to the big-Texas McMansion comedy-drama with Lily Tomlin they have coming out in a few months, but for now Conchords and Entourage are tiding me over. “John from Cincinatti” is a disappointment for me. Just bring back Deadwood!

Flight of the Conchords: This show is a sitcom with a quirkiness attribute of 18 which has been augmented with a ring of quirk +3. In the middle of the action the two guys will often break into songs. There are two songs per episode, and they are the highlights of the show. Some clips of their songs here — Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros, The Humans are Dead.

Also been watching a lot of the Food Network. My favorites are Dinner Impossible and the Giada shows. Giada has a huge head.

All last week I was in my bunker finishing up a proj.. This will continue for the next couple of weeks. The UCLA Libraries are closed during the hours I like to normally operate in them (read: late) because of summer. I like a cool, quiet space outside my place to work in to fend off cabin fever. I would like to hollow out a glacier and use it as a secret base of mad science.

Notes On The Greatest Movie Ever Made

July 10th, 2007Blog3 comments

The Adventures of Milo and Otis

Made by a Japanese production company (and apparently beyond the restrictions of animal cruelty guidelines!), I missed this most-excellent film when I was a kid. However, in a modern world of LOLcats and Cute Overload, this movie still holds up.

Narrated by the late Dudley Moore, this movie features a kitty and puppy and various other animals doing neat things — as well as often being placed in precarious danger by their wranglers. Examples:

- A kitten smacks a baby bird in the head multiple times

- A puppy and a bear grapple in the water, then smack each other around on the riverbank

- A kitten goes over a small waterfall in a wooden box

And this all happens in the first 20 minutes! I read that the film took four years to make — probably because they kept going through kittens and puppies. For a small taste of this cinematic deliciousness, click here for one of the finest shots in the history of filmmaking.

I Love Food

July 9th, 2007Blog0 comments

Americans have perfected the art of putting food on sticks; the example cited is from the Minnesota State Fair, where 50+ examples of foods on sticks are documented. The most puzzling is “Hot Dish on a Stick”, considering that hot dish is a casserole. How do you put a casserole on a stick? Well, we put a man on the moon so casserole on a stick doesn’t seem too far fetched. Next Up: Soup on a stick.

iPhone Update: One week in and this thing is still awesome. The email is probably the most useful feature for me; also the Google Maps implementation, which showed me the way to Potrero Hill pretty easily.

There’s a great collection of iPhone wallpapers here (via TUAW).

What’s up this week: Workin the current project, getting it tucked in. Looking for a new book to tide me over once I finish reading Perks; suggestions are welcomed. If all else fails I might hit up To Kill a Mockingbird again since it was mentioned in Perks and it’s been a long time since I’ve read it. You know, I’ve never seen the movie either — maybe now is the time to conjoin those two.

In the Shade

July 8th, 2007Blog2 comments

Currently Reading:

I know I’m late to the party with this one. Reading it makes me want to re-read all the other books Charlie mentions. It’s also kind of weird to already be aware of the songs that he references — especially “Asleep”.

Nothin like a nice weekend in the Bay Area with all the cool comforts of home. Some pics here — of special note is that all of these were taken with an iPhone camera. I’ve got to remember that I have a 2 megapixel camera on me and I should use it more often.

I had to do a radio interview over the phone. I had never done one before and it was pretty weird. The tech guy called in first, five-by-fiveing the line. Then they called back and it was like I was listening to the radio through the headset. “And now here’s some music.” Some music played and then a magic voice came up and started asking me questions. This was very strange and also unnerving because I couldn’t use my regular vocabulary of four letter words. I was like a cat w/o claws!

The Cowboy show was pretty good although I’ve seen it so many times that I could recite it in my sleep. I probably already do. The people doing the show are wonderful folks, and I recommend checking it out!

Early Adopter

July 2nd, 2007Blog3 comments

The iPhone. Tons of hype has been bandied about over this little device for the past few months. The reviews have been saying that it (mostly) lives up to the story, and hard core Apple fans and gadget freaks have been vibrating in anticipation for quite a while.

So you know me. My hobby is early adoption. I got the first iPod (5gb, a brick by today’s standards), the first Xbox, the Xbox 360, I stood in line for a Dreamcast, etc., etc.. So when I woke up Saturday morning I pretty much knew I had to get an iPhone. It had to happen.

I got mine at the Apple Store, 3rd Street Promenade. No waiting in line. Just walked in, picked it up. Took it home, activated it.

So what we have here is email in my pocket. icanhazcheezburger in my pocket. I dropped the first four episodes of Heroes on it, as well as 1.3 GB of my music. Convergence is the key word — you’re listening to your music, a call comes in. You pick it up, talk, hang up, and the music fades back in. On one device you can watch a movie, listen to songs, do a phone interview with the Examiner, update your calendar, check your email. And this is just a first generation device.

In five years this thing will be like that 1st generation iPod — a brick. It makes me wonder what the hell the future iPhone (or whatever gadget replaces it) will be like. Half the thickness, five times the capacity, three times faster? Who knows. I think the fun of being an early adopter is that you don’t have to wait for the future.