The Lake Show

If there was a god, do you know how I would know that he hates me? Because every time I leave the fucking country, the Lakers win the NBA Championship. 2000 through 2002? Kobe and Shaq terrorize the NBA for three straight years, have no competition in winning three straight. Where am I, in New Zealand. I'm in Los Angeles for the last five years. I support my team. I bought season tickets one year for crying out loud. Nada, zip, zilch, zero, bupkus. I'm back in New Zealand, the Lakers are back in the NBA finals. Which, they will win, since I can't go to any of the games. If god wanted to really twist the knife the Indians will also win the World Series while I'm here. Actually, he should know better. If the Tribe makes it to the Series. I will see ONE game in person. I'm not sure how. Hopefully instead of having to actually sell one of the children to go, one of them can just not go to college, we'll have to see.

So here's one of my all time favorite NBA memories. 1993. The much hated Bulls had just beaten the Cavs, again, and were playing the Knicks in the conference finals. It was tuesday night so we were at the Euclid Tavern drinking beer and eating wings and rooting for the Knicks, who happened to be Anyone But The Bulls. It was a close game and the Bulls had made a run to pull within three with less than a minute to go. When John Starks, all heart and no size brings the ball up the court ....





and absolutely fucking posterizes Michael Jordan and Horace Grant. Forget The Garden, everyone in the Euc went stnad-up, scream and yell, high fiving apeshit crazy. I mean, Starks is, like, 6'3" on a good day. The Bulls were the powerhouse new kids on the block. That one play was a microcosm, that one moment was epic, it was David beating Goliath kind of stuff. When you have nothing invested, you root for the underdog and Starks was the little guy putting the underdog team on his back and winning.

The Knicks won that game but unfortunately lost the series, but it can't take away from one of the great moments in NBA playoff history.

The Big O

No, not that one, you perverts. I guess it looks like Obama has it all wrapped up. It's a good thing, I think. I think Clinton probably would've beaten the little crazy guy, but not like Obama is going to crush him. I don't think that the RNC can coordinate enough cheating to overcome the ass whooping that Obama is going to lay on McCain. It's kind of a shame, that we won't get to have a woman president. A lot of the other civilized places have already had a woman president, or prime minister. Germany, Israel, The UK, India, New Zealand. But, and it's a big one, just being a woman is not enough reason to vote for someone, especially someone like Clinton who's triangulated herself so far to the right she might as well run as McCain's VP. She represents everything that everyone who's going to vote for Obama is tired of. The same old. Corporate money is just as dirty when it's given to a democrat as it is when it's given to a republican. Hillary Clinton represents politics and that is a dirty word these days boys and girls. Why'd she lose?

This is why

Who knows, maybe Obama is going to be more of the same, but I don't think so. I must admit that since I voted with my passport I haven't paid nearly as much attention to the US political scene as I did when I was living in LA, but it seems like good things are at least trying to happen. Dems that voted for the war better take a lesson from Clinton's loss, they better be watching their backs. I have noticed however that McClellan is looking to roll over on his former employers at the White House and you should be seeing him in front of a Congressional committee before too long. Unless he has an "accident". I might have to keep an eye on that particular story.

Review: Untraceable

This was another one of those "well, everything else that's out looks like it sucks" movie. Not a whole lot to say. Diane Lane is an ass kicking FBI agent who, well, kicks some ass. It's actually pretty gory in a 'Saw' kind of way, although it a lot less 'torture-porn' than Saw, or Hostel or any other movies in that vein. When the best thing you can say about a movie is "it didn't suck" then I guess that there's not much to say. This one scores a bullseye on the fiftieth percentile for




Three Stars

O Rly?

“I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama.

Fucking A.

Review: Indiana Jones

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. It's, like, two o'clock in the morning and I'm writing this while utterly failing to sleep so I'm just going to give you the pros and cons.

Pros: Karen Allen is in it. I'm not sure why this made such a difference to me. Perhaps it brought the whole story around full circle.

Cons: Everything else. The story was awful. The direction was awful. The acting was awful. The visual effects were barely competent. There was too much action for the run time so the pacing was rushed. There was no chemistry between Ford and Allen. The villians were barely one dimensional. Every time they went for campy it came off as just corny. There were at least three, three action sequences that could have been replaced with, oh, I don't know, an actual story. For fuck's sake. Twenty years? Twenty years we waited with these jerkoffs stroking themselves off with "well it has to be the right movie" and "we all have to agree". Are you fucking kidding me? I have never in my life left a movie theatre with a stronger feeling that the people involved really couldn't care less if I was entertained or not, as long as I bought a ticket. Are Lucas and Speilberg really that desperate for cash? Jesus Christ, I would've just sent them twenty bucks and we could've all saved ourselves a lot of trouble.


Two horribly dissapointing stars

Update

My friend S is out of ICU and has been up on his feet walking around the floor at the hospital a couple of times. He's feeling well enough that he wants to know whats happening with the Stanley Cup finals (he's Canadian, eh). Hopefully he'll be home at some point next week. We've lost one of our own though. The motorcycle is getting sold "until the kids are older" he says.

Down

So, SD, DSW and I went for a motorcyle ride on Sunday morning. Up towards The Hutt, out across towards the ocean, brunch and back again. It's a great ride and doesn't take too long. I'm on my 600rr, D is on a 1000rr and S is on a Buell lighting 1200. So we thrash our way out and back and get off the SR1 in Wellington to take Oriental Parade from town to the Eastern Suburbs where we all live. This is usually where D and I leave everyone else behind. I'm used to lane splitting from LA and D is from London. Neither of us are scared by traffic but not everyone is as fearless so we usually end up spread out over the last few minutes. On this particular day, I also had to get home to take the boys back into town to the bolwling lanes for a birthday party. I got home, got my gear off, grabbed the boys and off we went. I had just been out so I knew the traffic was bad so I decided to go back out Oriental Parade to town. It's not nearly as short, but if traffic is backed up through the Mt. Vic tunnel, it can be just as fast. I got about halfway down Oriental Parade and, hey look. there's a crashed motorcycle. I always try to stop to help another motorcyclist out if I can so I started looking for a place to pull over, which is when I noticed the cop, which is right before I thought to my self ... "holy fuck, that's S's motorcycle". Stopped and talked to the cop to find out that he'd been taken to the hospital. Called W who called S's wife with the bad news.

Long story short. He's out of surgery, still in ICU. All the limbs are moving but he's got several impact/deceleration injuries including 7 broken ribs, fractured T5-T7 and a lung contusion. He'll have some titanium rods in his spine for 6-18 months. He doesn't remember what happened. "For fuck's sake, I was taking it easy" he said. He's a competent rider and he really was taking it easier than everyone else. D and I went back later to the crash site after we left the ER, and we couldn't for the life of us figure out what happened. I'm convinced that it was a total freak accident. I don't think that he could've been going more than 30 or 35 kph. I got run over by a car going faster than that and I got up and walked away. We all wear the gear ... just a total freak accident.

So ... you can pray, if that kind of thing does it for you, or at the very least think some good thoughts for S and his family.

Shipment

Many thanks to the HumanTeam, who were kind enough to receive and ship a bunch of stuff to us. Including a blu-ray player, that also just happens to be a PS3 which is still just about the best blu-ray player you can get, a battery charger for our pocket cam that we haven't been able to take pictures with for four months because we lost the battery charger, which, I guarantee, I will find any day now that I actually bought a replacement and a 802.11n PCMCIA card for my powerbook which is letting me post this from in bed, as opposed to the powerbook's built in AirPort that seems to have a range of about five feet if you're lucky enough to have line-of-sight from the laptop to the wireless router and, of all things, some women's deodorant that, from what I understand, you can't get in New Zealand. Yes you can get women's deodorant in New Zealand, you can't get that particular brand in New Zealand. Of course HumanTeam was not satisfied with labeling the PS3 as a "used computer game" to try and deter customs from opening the package and charging me sales tax on the stuff I was importing. They marked the deodorant as "tampons". Brilliant!

Time

I don't know how often people visit this blog, but when I post about stuff, I try to set the post time on the day that it happens, which means that occasionally new posts will pop up between posts that you might have already read. It really does happen only very occasionally, like that Iron Man review right down there under the moron from Texas that can't spell official.

Hair

So, RJ, got a haircut. The only problem was the lady who cut his hair must have been a total moron. He said he wanted to keep it long, below the collar. It's ... uhh ... not. It's really short. Not that it's a bad haircut or anything, he looks pretty good, added a couple years. It's just not the haircut that he wanted. He's pretty gutted. I told him at least he doesn't have to get it cut again for another eighteen months.

It's official

This guy's a dumbass. What do you expect from Texas?





Don't get me wrong, as someone who's been an immigrant elsewhere I'm really for immigration reform in the US. It's completely broken and absurd. I think it's the one 'wedge issue' that is actually a real problem, but most likely not for the same reasons that the mouth-breathing trailer-dwelling proletariat might think. It's a race to the bottom economically. It doesn't get fixed because it's all about cheap labor. Most things are.

Review: Iron Man

I like the comic book movies, even when I don't know, or don't follow the comic. I know that I'm going to get a lot of the things that I like to see in movies. Action, Good vs Evil, action, flawed heroes, action. This movie does not disappoint. Now I never followed the Iron Man comic. Xmen was always more my speed in the Marvel universe so when I first started seeing the trailers for this movie, I must say that I was not impressed. Guy in a suit? Flies around? Hello, that movie was called The Rocketeer and it came out like 46 years ago. I figured that it would get a pass. A funny thing happened. As it got closer and closer to the release date of the movie, the trailers got better and better and better. Before you know it I was pretty interested in at least giving it a shot. So Sunday rolled around and we put it to a vote and everyone seemed interested in seeing it. So off the STFU&GBTW clan goes to the Island Bay Cinema, a nifty little boutique/cafe movie theater in, of all places, Island Bay. The ratings were M (PG-13 for you Yanks) for "mild violence", W and I were hoping that we weren't taking everyone to some blood soaked gore fest masquerading as a friendly comic book movie.

We need not have worried, there's some "horrors of war" in the opening sequence, but it's played pretty subtly. Our hero is also a serial womanizer and that's played very low key as well. None of that, however, really has anything to do with how much ass this movie kicked and I'm here to tell you my friends, it was a considerable amount. "Why?" you ask because you're lame and haven't seen it yet. "Why is it so good?". Well, I will tell you. Was it beacuse of the awesome plot? No. The plot was typical comic book movie good but not great. Was it because of the fantastic visual effects. Yes they were fantastic, but no. Was it Jon Farveau's brilliant direction? NO. I will tell you why. I will tell you in three little words. This movie was awesome because of Robert ... Downey ... Jr. He was just flat out awesome. He made the movie great. If you don't see this movie, then you hate America. The kids all loved it. You must see this movie.

PS. I don't mean to nit pick, but I'm from SoCal so I'm afraid I must. When a billionaire industrialist super-genius gets home from spending three months in a cave in Af-fucking-ghanistan and says that he wants two things, first an American cheeseburger and second, a press conference does he get out of the limo at the press conference with a BK bag in one hand and a Whopper in the other? No! Fucking product placement. Fucking In-And-Out. IN-AND-OUT god damnit. He would go to fucking In-And-Out a get a double double. BK my ass. Minature fusion reactors in his chest, that I can believe, but no In-And-Out? it strains credibility and completely blew my suspension of disbelief, but still, I gotta give it ...



Five Ass Kicking Stars

Single

Things like this are the reason it's probably best that I didn't make any money until after I got married.

DVD projector

Quiz

Can you get 100%? I bet you can't. I missed one. I should be fired.

Fake or Photo

Race

oh, and BTW. If you don't support Obama then you hate America. Why do you hate America?

South: Part III

I know that you all, and by "you all" I mean "Mom", have been patiently waiting to hear more about my motorcycle trip to the South Island, so, here we go.



I'd love to say that we woke up bright and early Saturday morning, but with me getting to the hotel near enough to midnight as to not make any difference, and the glass (OK, glass-es) of Johnnie Walker that I was forced to drink after I got there, it would be stretching the author's credibility, to say the least. We got up around a quarter to whenever, failed to shower, got into gear and scooted down the road at least fifty or sixty yards to a cafe for breakfast.



See? It says right on the roof. "Cafe". I'm going to editorialize for a minute just to say "see that black and silver CBR1000rr in the front of that picture? I neeeeeeed one of those. Except I need the Repsol paint job. Like this one"



need ... NEEEEEEEEED

Sorry, where were we? Yes, breakfast. So after, what else, eggs benedict, you think I'm going to put the traditional British "big brekkie" in me? Please. We hit the road. Next stop? Lunch in Hanmer Springs.



View Larger Map


Only about 130 km, should make it there by lunch time easily.

Now, I'm going to veer of again and say that New Zealand's South Island is god damn motorcycle nirvana. It never really gets that cold so the winters don't eat the roads. It's completely devoid of people and by extension police. It's jam packed full of the most amazing roads to ride on. On top of that, it's gorgeous.



That's about forty five minutes out of Kaikoura. It's beautiful, right? There's only one problem with the South Island ... it rains like a motherfucker. I swear to god it's the rainiest god damn place in the entire universe. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. It had rained early in the morning, so when we left Kaikoura the roads were damp, but not bad at all. Just out of Kaikoura you get up into the hills, and it was fairly wet up there from the lack of sun on the roads, but it wasn't unridable. You just had to be careful. Remember, this was essentially the first time I'd ridden anywhere in about four months so I was already being careful. It was overcast but only spritzing now and then so we thought that we were going to get lucky. Hell, when we turned onto SH7 north, it was downright pleasant. Finally dry enough, and a straight enough, but not too straight, road that the two of us on sportbikes could really stretch them out. Holy moly the last 25 minutes before lunch was just awesome. SH7 was empty so D and I hauled some serious ass up to Hanmer Springs. Twenty miles of wicked fast long sweeping turns, Yee-haw. Which, in retrospect, was a good thing. I'd rather do 180 km/hr on a dry road than 100 km/hr in a fucking downpour, which is exactly what happened the second we pulled in to Hanmer Springs for lunch.

So, that got a lot longer than I expected, and it's late so I'm going to leave it at that, and you all (again "mom") will have to wait for the next episode. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Voice

So AM and RJ both went to tryout for some voiceover work today. There's a local production that's looking for a kid with a "natural American accent" to do some ADR. RJ was nervous and he's very emotional, the subject matter kind of freaked him out and he decided that he didn't want to try. AM, on the other hand, can't get on camera enough as was totally into it. The casting agent said that she had some potential, so we'll see what happens.

Holy Crap

This is pretty amazing

Ghost

I suppose it could be worse. Some nameless VP at Dreamworks could just ring my doorbell, and when I answered, he'd just kick me really hard in the balls. The worst part is that since the release date in 2009, I probably won't get to work on it.


DreamWorks to make 'Ghost' in 3-D


DreamWorks has acquired rights to the Japanese manga "Ghost in the Shell" with plans to adapt the futuristic police thriller as a 3-D live-action feature.

Story follows the exploits of a member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission that specializes in fighting technology-related crime.

Created by Masamune Shirow, "Ghost in the Shell" was first published in 1989. It went on to generate two additional manga editions, three anime film adaptations, an anime TV series and three videogames. The second anime film, "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence," was released in the U.S. by DreamWorks in 2004.

Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul of Seaside Entertainment are attached to produce and brought the project to the studio. Jamie Moss has been tapped to pen the adaptation.

Universal and Sony were also chasing "Ghost in the Shell," but Steven Spielberg took personal interest in the property and made it happen at DreamWorks.

" 'Ghost in the Shell' is one of my favorite stories," Spielberg said. "It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks."

DreamWorks prexy of production Adam Goodman said "Ghost in the Shell" is a property "that epitomizes 3-D live-action motion picture possibilities."

Avi Arad is at the forefront of comicbook-based material, having produced the three "Spider-Man" films, the three "X-Men" movies, the two "Fantastic Four" picss and the upcoming "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk."

Moss' writing credits include "Street Kings," which bowed Friday, and "Last Man Home," in development at Universal.

Atomic

.. and that, made me think of this




I love the part when the guy's got a chopper modeled and the DI yells "Do It Again!" and thows down a slinky. Classic.

"Ring the Fucking Bell"
"I want to be an animator, sir!"
"Get up! You could be a doctor. You could be a lawyer. Ring that bell!"

Domain

Here's a little short that some guys (no one that I know) at Digital Domain put together. Pretty spot on.

Review : Gone Baby Gone

I had heard good things about this movie. Of course I heard great things about "No Country for Old Men" and I fucking hated that movie. So on top of high expectations, you've got a star turned director and difficult subject matter. So I'm a little leery going in to this one. I had nothing to worry about becuase This ... Movie ... Was ... Awesome. It was brilliant. It was well paced. It was thought provoking, engaging, moody and emotionally powerful. I left the theatre thinking "Holy shit, Ben fucking Affleck not only might get nominated for a best director Oscar, he could actually win". The thing is, I thought that because in New Zealand, this movie came out in 2008. In the US, where this kind of thing matters, this movie came out in 2007, which means it was eligible to be nominated for the Academy Awards that just happend a couple of months or so ago. And that, constant reader, means that this brilliant directorial debut not only did not win an Academy Award, it did not get nominated. IT DID NOT GET NOMINATED IN THE YEAR THAT THAT PIECE OF SHIT "NO COUNTRY FOR SHITTY MOVIES" WON THE OSCAR FOR BEST DIRECTION. And THAT is a fucking travesty. A crime of epic proportions. It makes me shake my fist at the sky and cry out at the universe "why do I work in this god forsaken business?"


Five Stars

Review : Shutter

Saw this last weekend (I've gotten a little behind on posting) because it was pretty much our only option when we got to the theatre. I didn't know anything about it other than it was a remake of an Asian horror movie. I have to say, that it wasn't too bad, certainly not as bad as I expected. Yes, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement but with all of the mining of East Asian horror films that Hollywood's been making the last few years, actually not loathing one is saying something. Decent story, genuinely creepy at times. Worth seeing in the theatre if there's nothing else. Definite rental.


Three Stars.

100

Won $100 today at lunch playing the pokies. Usually it's E that wins big, but not today

Park

My old wireless router didn't survive the trip to NZ. Of course I couldn't buy what I wanted here, so I had to buy it from NewEgg and have it shipped to HumanTeam, who, many thanks, shipped it here. Now that it's set up, I can access teh intarweb pipes from my phone again (I don't have a data plan here because it's insanely expensive compared to the US), which I tested by posting the picture of the courtyard of Park Road Post. It's pretty cool, a post production facility so real, you'd think you were in Los Angeles.

Review: 10,000 BC

If you can get past all the historical inaccuracy, and just suspend your disbelief for ninety minutes. Then this is an OK movie. I mean, this is Emmerich we're talking about here. You did see 'Independance Day' and 'Day After Tomorrow' right? We're not talking about the pinnacle of modern filmmaking. Roland Emmerich was Michael Bay before Michael Bay was Michael Bay. This is the "Plot holes? Who cares, let's blow some shit up" method of making movies. If you can accept that Jeff Goldblum can reverse engineer alien WiFi networks in one day, you should have no problem with Egyptians using slave labor (they didn't) and wooly mamoths (what ... the ... fuck?) to build the great pyramid of Khufu.

So, if you've got your belief suspended, you might actually enjoy this movie. It's a garden variety boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy turns into man who saves girl while saving the world movie. Effects range from good to god-awful. So this looks like a rental for sure. Whatever, it was Ms. STFU's turn to pick. I wanted to see Drillbit Taylor

Two Stars

McCrazy

They said "Vote for Us", then they folded on Bush's War. They said "Vote for Us", then they failed to stop the destruction of The Supreme Court. They Said "Vote for Us" and failed to stop the war that they helped start. They said "Vote for Us". Where's the accountability for Valerie Plame, for signing statements, for the budget, for warrentless wiretapping, for immunity for the telcos, for the energy task force, for any-fucking-thing at all?

Fuck the Democrats.

If Obama is somehow not the Democratic candidate for president in 2008 ... if the election is between McCain and Clinton ... you can bet your ass that I will be voting for McCain. He's all kinds of crazy, but at least he's not lying to me.

Easter

UPDATE: It's been, what? Six months since I posted this entry and it's still getting almost ten percent of the traffic on this blog. So, if you're here randomly, leave me a note. I'd love to hear from all you people who come here seemingly at random to look at pictures of my elbow.


While the rest of the gang was at GW&DW's house having brunch and hanging out with the usual suspects. I got to hang out at the local E.R. Why you ask? Well, this

is what a bursa sac infection looks like. I actually was in the ER twice, once on Saturday and once on Easter. On Sunday a nice young doctor who appeared to be about fifteen years old was nice enough to give me IV antibiotics and then stick a large needle in my elbow and suck out three or four cc of icky yellow pus. Saturday night was the worst I've felt in a long, long time. Never fear, I am, so far, on my way to recovery. The pen mark on my arm is where the infection was on Saturday afternoon the first time I went to the ER. The doc Saturday said "come back if it gets bigger", so, there you go.

Hussein

Frank

"'The Long Walk' will come about in the next five years..." - Frank Darabont

My collectors edition of 'The Mist" is pre-ordered on Amazon, since no one could be bothered to release it in New Zealand, I haven't gotten to see it yet. I'm glad that they're finally getting to King's short stories and novellas for movie material. I think it's where you'll find his best work.

Review: Vantage Point

This is a movie about the attempted assassination of the US president. It's told in Rashomon Style, thus the film's title. The problem was, in short, that it was a lame attempt and it was more of a gimmick than a story telling style. In the five or so times you watch the events of the movie occur from the different perspectives, only once did I ever feel like I was shown how something had changed based on my viewpoint. And after all that it just degenerated into a run of the mill action movie punctuated by an overly long and underly inspired chase sequence. Note to Hollywood. Film school gimmicks are not a replacement for story and/or actual character development.

Two Stars.

South: Part II

So, I'm in picton, and it's a quarter to ten and I'm about nine hours behind the rest of the group. Unfortunately, my day is not quite over. I have to get to Kaikoura, which is where we're spending the night and is about 160 km down the coast from Picton.

This

View Larger Map

was the longest ride I've ever taken in my entire life. I have never been so scared on a motorcycle ... ever. I didn't really know where I was going. I mean, I had an idea, but I left Picton on SH1 headed towards Kaikoura, and the next time I would see a sign telling me that I was headed to Kaikoura, I could fucking see Kaikoura. In SoCal, there's a sign every 10 feet telling you what freeway you're on or how far, and what, the next town is. You know what's between Picton and Kaikoura? not a god damn thing, that's what. So not only are there no signs to tell you where you're going, there's no, and I mean no, street lights. Or house lights. There's pretty much no lights at all. It was quite literally pitch black. It was so dark that I kept checking to see why I didn't have my high beams on, only to find that they were already on and they were showing me two things, jack, and shit. So I don't really know where I'm going, there's no signs to tell me where I'm going, it's pitch black and it's late. Which on one hand was nice. Since it was late there weren't a lot of cars on the road. On the other hand, there wouldn't have been a lot of room for the cars anyway ... because of all the tractor trailers going in the opposite direction. They kept on their side of the road, sometimes.

You have to remember here that SH1 is not exactly the South 405 through The Valley, 5 or 6 lanes wide in both directions and built straight enough to land a 747 on. SH1 between Picton and Kaikoura is one lane, each way, and about as straight as a Judy Garland concert. It's twisty, lots of decreasing radius turns and blind corners. All of the turns are marked with what must have been the legal minimum of reflectors. I lost track of the number of times I'd come over a rise and find myself having no clue whatsoever what the road was about to do. It's carved out of mountains that seem to be mostly sandstone so there's really fine loose gravel at the apex of seemingly every turn. It would be a challenging ride during the day. But it's not the day, it's night and I'm tired and in a hurry.

So, I put my head down and dropped the hammer and hoped for the best. It's too bad, it seems like it would be pretty scenic during the day. You spend a fair amount of time riding along the ocean after you come down out of the mountains. At a quarter to midnight I found myself pulling into the hotel.

South: Part I

So, I don't know if it was because it was February 29th, or what, but I had a hell of a day last Friday. Let me preface this little tale by saying that getting my motorcycle into New Zealand has been a nightmare. Customs took possession of the bike around January 10th, if I remember correctly, which I may not BECAUSE IT WAS SO GOD DAMN LONG AGO. Customs had it for weeks and weeks, and every week they would call me and tell me that they needed more paperwork sent in, or a form filled out. I did everything they asked. I mean, you don't really have much of a choice. so after they've had the thing for about 6 weeks, it's finally released to VINZ, which is kind of the equivalent of the part of the DMV that deals with the car, so that it can be inspected and approved for a plate. I get a call from VINZ from a guy who was incensed that I would attempt to bring such a miserable excuse for a motorcycle into his country. He seemed to be taking it pretty personally. At this point, it's already been a huge issue, but now, it's taken so long to go through the process that my trip is coming up fast and I'm now under a time limit, so, off it goes to the bike shop for new front fork seals, a new front tire, disconnection of my headlight and brake light flashers and various and sundry other ticky-tack things. I'm supposed to leave for the South Island in 8 days . I'm told that everything should be done by Monday evening. Tuesday, I call, and get told end of tomorrow. The next day I get told Thursday. Thurs-fucking-day afternoon I get told tomorrow morning again. This is now officially a problem because I'm supposed to meet everyone at a cafe at 9:00 am the next day to get on the ferry. I've already paid for my ticket. Finally, finally, at 11:00 Friday I get a call from the bike shop. Eight fucking days and $750 later, they've sent the bike back to VINZ. I've called the ferry in the mean time to see about catching the 2:15 ferry. What the hell, right? I'll be a few hours behind. Well, I would be, if the 2:15 trip wasn't sold fucking out. The 6:00 ferry is not sold out, however so I make a reservation, not pay mind you, just reserve a spot for me and one motorcycle. Now I cal VINZ and ask how long it will take to do whatever it is they need to do to get me my motorcycle back before 4:00, so that I can be at the wharf by 5:00 to get on the 6:00 ferry. The man who takes vehicle importation into his country so personally informs me "maybe". I don't even know what the fuck it is that they need to do. Not too long after I get off the phone with VINZ, W gets a call and the same angry man informs her that VINZ is going to need the pink slip for the bike and the papers for shipping the bike to NZ from Japan and that there was no way I could get the bike back until I got them that paperwork. Which is interesting since the bike came from Southern California, and we had already couriered them the California title about two weeks before. W makes the call, and I agree, I threw my gear in the back of the Toyota and we drive up to Lower Hutt to see, exactly, what the fuck is going on.

Now I've left out quite a bit already, but to make a long story even shorter, the practical upshot was that they had misplaced the title and literally all that needed to be done was to give them my name and address, fill out one form and pay. That's it. This bureaucratic, dipshit, dumbass, lazy, big turd in a little bowl just couldn't find my title, and didn't want to be bothered to do his fucking job and find it. And that was the reason I was going to miss my trip? Fuck you Mr. VINZ guy. W got all up in some poor girl's grill that VINZ already had the damn title. A few minutes of looking and, imagine that, there it was. Forms filled out, another couple hundred in fees (what the hell, it's only money right? at this point I'm just watching the clock) and it's done. I am in posession of my motorcycle, but, am not out of the woods just yet.

I get gas, get back home, pack the gear, load the bike and head out. I figure it's not too bad, leave at 6:00 get to Picton at 9:00 get to Kaikoura by 10:30, which isn't bad, but isn't really great either, considering that I was suppoed to already be there. And since I only reserved a spot on the 6:00 boat I have to be there by 5:00 to pay, or they'll give my spot away, so if I don't get to the wharf by 5:00, the point, as they say, will be moot.

Phew, that's a hell of a back story, and I really did just hit the high points, and as you can see here ...

... I made it. In fact, I made it just in time to find out that the 6:00 ferry was running about forty five to fifty minutes behind. Are you kidding me? So I took off my motorcycle pants, rolled them up, used them as a pillow and laid down right there, right there on the pavement and took a nap, for about forty five minutes. Eventually we got on, motorcycles first. yay! It was kind of weird, there were bike spots ...

... and each spot had a chock for the front wheel, but you had to tie your bike down yourself ...

... all I could think of for the first hour of the boat ride was "jesus christ I hope I did a good job tying my bike down". All I needed was to come down when we got to Picton to find that my bike had spent the last three hours rolling around the car hold of the ferry. Or that the sheep had crapped all over it ...

... the hold was full of cows, sheep and stink. Yikes.

Well, since the only way the day could get any worse is if the god damn boat just got halfway across the Cook Straight and then up and fucking sank, I'm pretty grateful that finally, finally, I am on my way.

And only nine hours behind.

Home

FYI. Here are some places that I'm guaranteed to be.

SIGGRAPH 2010
July 26-30
Los Angeles, California, USA

SIGGRAPH 2009
August 3 - 7
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

SIGGRAPH 2008
11 - 15 August
Los Angeles, California, USA

Bananas!

I'll never sleep again. **

** The bananas that you buy at the store are a mutant strain of the plantain, first cultivated by Jean Francois Poujot in Jamaica in 1836.

Goddamnit

2008 Coral Reefer Band concert dates

05.03.08 JAZZ FEST, New Orleans


I don't think that I'm going to make it.

Destroy

Hollywood must be done destroying my childhood, because they've moved on to destroying my adolescence. At least Katsuhiro Otomo, the original writer/director, is attached as executive producer.

DiCaprio, Warner Bros. in for live-action 'Akira'

Anime classic "Akira" is getting the live-action big screen treatment courtesy of Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Bros.

Ruairi Robinson has been hired to direct what would ideally be a two-part epic. Gary Whitta is writing the adaptation, which DiCaprio will produce via his Appian Way shingle. Andrew Lazar is also producing via his Mad Chance shingle. Jennifer Davisson, who heads up Appian, will also be involved in some producorial capacity.

"Akira" originated in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story was set in a neon-lit futuristic post-nuclear war "New Tokyo" in 2019 where a teen biker gang member is subjected to a government experiment which unleashes his latent powers. The gang's leader must find a way to stop the ensuing swathe of destruction.

With its mature themes and cutting-edge animation, "Akira" was a milestone movie in anime and even animation circles, and led the way for anime making inroads into Western pop culture in the 1990s.

"Akira" has long been in development at the company, with producers Jon Peters and Basil Iwanyk involved at various times, as well as directors Stephen Norrington and Pitof. The rights lapsed but Warner managed to re-scoop them again for Robinson, who came to the studio with a vision of a two-part adaptation.

The new story moves the action to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by Japanese money.

The studio is eyeing a summer 2009 release for the first movie.

Greg Silverman is overseeing for Warners. Otomo is executive producing. Legendary Pictures is co-financing.

Whitta, repped by UTA and Circle of Confusion, wrote "The Book of Eli," which the Hughes Brothers are directing for Warners and Silver Pictures.

"Akira" would mark the feature directorial debut for Robinson who was nominated for a best animated short Oscar in 2001 for a sci-fi comedy called "Fifty Percent Grey." He also wrote and directed a sci-fi short titled "The Silent City." Robinson is repped by CAA and 3 Arts Entertainment.

Ten

That's how many primaries in a row Obama has won after crushing Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii. She's done, and should have the common sense to drop out of the race. Shrug. Hope springs eternal.

Five

Are you fucking kidding me? These aren't even out of print. The second was published in goddamn 2005! Three years ago. Three! I have to bend over just because I want to buy a hardback? Yeah, I think I'll pass.


















And because those are all links to transient web pages, that's

Only hardback copies available on Amazon/EBay
Dexter 1 and 2 - $499
Count Zero 1st ed, signed - $450
Jumper 1st ed - $650
Not spending $1600 on 3 books - priceless.

Review: No Country for Old Men

I had heard a lot of good things about this movie. I mean, it's the Coen brothers. Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Fucking Lebowski. They've made a lot of really great films. Uh, yeah, not this one. 'Unsatisfying' is the first adjective that springs to mind, with 'Disjointed' to place and 'Preachy' edging out 'Dissapointing' by a nose to show. I was enjoying it for the most part up until the third act, but I left the theater shaking my head and I put it solidly on the direction. The acting was great and the story was compelling enough for the first two acts, but I expect more from the Coen brothers.

Two Stars.

Awesome

Busy

Had quite a busy weekend. Went bowling on Saturday night with a whole slew of people, G&D, D&S, MT, DC. On my first throw something popped in the ankle I sprained camping at Whanganui, and thus, I was rater ineffective bowling. We had a good time, I think the beer won. Had the first, hopefully semi-regular, pancake brunch at our house Sunday morning with all the usual suspects. I cooked three, three, kilos of bacon and it all got eaten, along with quite a few plain/blueberry/banana/chocolate chip pancakes. G&D stayed pretty much all day and W and the gang went to get some Thai food for dinner with them. I already had plans to go lobster diving with E. We were supposed to go earlier, but C got food poisoning, so we ended up going later in the day. It got pretty choppy and we didn't see shit, so we called it and went home early, hoping to score some points with the respective wives for getting home sooner that we were supposed to.

If you're my mom you can stop reading here.

I'm going down to the South Island in a couple of weeks on a little trip. Some people and I are going to load the two wheelers on the ferry and will spend the weekend roosting around hunting for esses and fast sweepers. Mom, since I know you're still reading this even though I warned you not to. That translates as "five or six of us are going to spend the weekend on our sportbikes looking for the curviest roads that we can possibly find on the South Island". Going to travel super light, light as in, I'm only taking spare underwear and a toothbrush, and spend all day riding, or more accurately, spend as long as we can riding until the crappy roads eat our sticky tires. I promise to have as many pictures as possible for that post. No squids allowed. Tanslation? "Yes Mom, of course we'll be safe."

Sevens

Went to the Wellington Sevens rugby tournament on Friday night and Saturday night with ES, ER, SD, D and ND. It's pretty crazy, and instead of trying to describe it, you can just look here

Sevens Costumes

We all dressed up as lifeguards, because we're lazy, and it meant that all we had to do was wear red shirts with a cross, hats and a whistle. Considering the amount of drinking that was going on, simple costumes was probably a good idea. We were there for the 1 pm start on Friday to see the US upset Argentina. We didn't stay the whole day on Friday so that we would be up for day two. There was some fantastic rugby on day two. The US Eagles overcame a 17-0 halftime deficit to stun Kenya for third place on a try as time expired. Then the UK came from behind to beat Wales and NZ also scored a try as time expired to beat reigning chanps Samoa in the final. The crowd was rather appreciative.

Wow

Who knew?


Credit where it's due: this picture is from from a book by David
and Kelly Sopp: Safe-Baby-Handling-Tips

Whanganui

Went camping this weekend with the GW, ES, SD and ER and families in Whanganui, about 3 hours up the East coast of the North Island. It wasn't really camping as we were staying in a little room at a 'campground' but it was fun. Did some cooking out, swimming in the river and checked out a local park and 'gypsy faire' that happened to be in town. E brought his zodiac so all the kids got a quick ride in the boat. A good time was had by all ... well except for GW, who ran into a concrete bench with his BMW ... and ES, who lost his wedding ring, yeah, other than that (and it was all taken in stride) we all had a pretty good time. There are far too many pictures for this blog, so you can see
them here.

Whanganui Pictures

Shot

Finally got around to uploading this.

Review: Cloverfield

So, another movie that I've been looking forward to for a while. The thing is, no one has really known what it's about. The production has kept a pretty tight lid on the whole thing, and the only advertisement has been viral marketing on the internet. I mean, everyone knows it's a monster movie, but, what's the story?

Well, I'm here to tell you is that within the first ten minutes of the movie you realize that it's a love story, set among the total destruction of Manhattan by a giant monster from outer space. Yes, it sounds odd, but it's essentially Titanic in a different setting ... and much, much shorter ... with monsters. But the monster really is secondary to the story. The only problem is, the love stroy has a hard time carrying the movie for ninety minutes. There's just too much with the screaming and the biting and the dying to do any real character developement. They tease us with a couple glimpses on the tape, but I wanted more backstory. Anyway it's an entertaining movie. And I think the studio was right to market it the way they did, I don't think they would've gotten the viewers any other way.

It's a decent story. It's well directed. They didn't go for the cheap scares. I personally don't mind when a film doesn't use any 'stars'. The effects are competent. All in all I'd say it's one of the better monster movies that has come out in a long time.



Four Stars

Marty

Dive

I'm going on my first dive tonight with CB, ES and DC. If I post pictures later, it means I didn't get eaten by sharks, or drown. I'm excited and a bit nervous, although I know how to swim, so it's probably just fear of the unknown. It's a bit choppy from a bit of a breeze blowing offshore but there's zero swell so he water is pretty clear. It's low tide just as we're getting out of work so I couldn't ask for much better conditions for my first time.

Hair

RC got his hair cut today. I don't know how long it's been, but I'm pretty sure that it's been over a year. He wasn't sure, but he went with me becuase I was getting a haircut. I tried to talk him out of it. No hard sell, but I tried just hard enough to make sure that it was what he really wanted to do. There's been a fair amount of complaining about a cold head but after the initial shock I think that he's happy with it. He liked the non-conformity of it being long, but he wasn't fond of how much of a pain in the ass it was. It always grows back.

Boxes

So, our stuff showed up today. They brought the whole 30 foot shipping container. It's a lot of stuff. They even brought my motorcycle, but them customs came and took it away, bastards. Customs comes this morning to look through about 40 boxes that were set aside. They will probably want to fumigate anything made of wood to kill any wayward organisims and I suppose they want to make sure that there isn't 20 kilos of heroin stuffed in the TV. My guess is it's going to take about a month to fully unpack. It's like a bomb went off in the house right now. The beds are put together at least. No more sleeping on the floor.

Review: I Am Legend

What Can I say about this movie. I've been looking forward to seeing it for quite some time now. I even had to wait an extra month, as it didn't release in NZ until this week. This movie is based on what is arguably the best vampire story ever written, "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheston. It's a great, great book, a novella really, that, like the first three quarters of the movie, can not be more highly recommended. I really liked this movie. Had I never read the book, had I never seen what the ending originally was while I worked at the same place the effects were being done, I might even have loved this movie. It pains me to say how disappointed I was at the ending, only because of how good it was up until that point. It was like watching the defensive replacement at second base trying to score an inside tha park, game winning, home run in the bottom of the ninth, only to trip over third base and get tagged out to end the game. They were that close, that close, to making a classic. An epic monster movie. One for the ages. The worst part was how it was just tacked on. They spent so much time setting up the right ending. The book ending. All the little things about how smart the vampires could be, how social, how they were learning, only to end up with a weak, bullshit, feel good, Hollywood ending. Oh the beginning of this movie is so good. Sooooooo good. I love that Neville had decorated his house with Van Goghs. I loved the lack of a score, it made the Bob Marley tunes that much more powerful. You're totally sucked in to the isolation that Neville must have felt. It's very powerful. I mean, this movie got me to cry, and that's crazy. Not that I'm emotionally crippled or anything, I just very, very rarely cry at movies ... even more rarely when I'm actually watching them in the movie theatre. It can scare the crap out of you. When Neville follows his dog that follows a deer into an abandoned building, it doesn't get much better that that, but it's a compelling, emotionally powerful movie for 80 minutes ... and then ... silly zombie attacks, pandering to the religious right and a tacked on, crappy ending. So disappointing.

The effects are competent. I particularly liked a lot of the animation. A lot of the work making Ney York look decrepit was very nice as well. All in all, if you've never read the book, you'll probably like the movie, but I can't get past the ending.

Three stars.

Idiots

Wow, Huckabee? Iowa is full of idiots. It's like their voting for Bush all over again. This is a guy who has publicly, on camera, expressed his belief the there is no such thing as evolution. On the other side. I'm glad Anyone But Hillary won, although I hope Edwards gets into the lead when they swing down the east coast.

Quick

One ... point ... five ... miles ... to ... work.*


* This post is made of %100 Win

Wait, what?

My TV just became obsolete.

Tide

We spent a fair bit of time walking around the rocks in Island Bay at low tide yesterday and today. The tide varies a lot and the rocks are pretty craggy, so there's tons of little tide pools. The kids like to wander about and look for little creatures in the pools. There were tons of fish, mostly little blennies but we also saw a crab

but he was petty shy and hard to get a decent pic of. There were zillions of these little blue starfish.

There were some bigger starfish.

No, bigger.

Unfortunately we forgot the camera today, because we found one little pool with some of the little starfish, some blennies, a shrimp and two sea anemones. Pretty cool.

Tramp

We took a wee tramp up to the Eastern Walk near Mount Vic today. There's a open spot that looks down over the Basin Reserve where someone put up a rope swing. It's pretty cool but you have to get up on the part that says "Don't let go".

If you want to get any real air.

I said real air.

I can't imagine where they get it.

Fantasy III

LT came up short, and I, am $800 richer. I believe I might use some of that to buy boots, gloves, flippers, a knife and a snorkel/mask, since I got a semi-dry wet suit for Christmas. Going to be doing some diving this summer, I might even borrow a gun from ES and do a little spearfishing.

Fantasy II

So I left 40+ points on the bench in fantasy football, like a dumbass. Luckily my opponent played a running back that was on the roster as "probable" and ended up being anthing but, and scored 0 points. I'm ahead 99.44 to 64.14. He's only got one player left. Unfortunately, it's LaDanian Tomlinson. The 'Bolts are playing Monday Night this week, so I have to wait until tomorrow to discover my fate. Dallas has already clinched homefield advantage, so the game means nothing to San Diego, which will hopefully result in LT not getting a lot of carries and Darren Sproles getting a lot of Carries. I've got Sproles on my bench so there should be quite a Karmic tug-of-war going on there. I've got my LT voodoo doll all ready to go. $800 .. $800 .. $800 .. $800 ..

Playing Soon

Read it. It's by the guy that wrote "A Simple Plan". I read it because Stephen King gave it props in a collumn in EW. I can't say that I liked it, but I don't know that I can say that I didn't like it. I think it was just too far fetched. It's certainly a page turner. It should translate pretty well to film, though. I'd say read before you see.

Moving, Again

So we're moving, again. Two weeks in company paid housing, two weeks in a self paid 2+1 apartment downtown. Nice location, but, come on, there's six of us, yikes. Now we're moving yet again. We're going to house sit for our friends CB and CT in Island Bay. It's not too close to work but the view is nice. C and C are out of town for a couple of weeks, so we'll be here until the 2nd at the latest and the 28th at the earliest. I really can not wait to start getting settled. This nomad shit is really starting to strain everyone's nerves.

Review: Enchanted

Took everyone out for ice cream and a movie to get the hell out of our (second) temporary apartment Saturday night. This was the overwhelming favorite over "Mr. Magorium and the Willy Wonka Ripoff", which surprised me. I Really liked this movie. The animation at the beginning was crap, about the quality of a low grade Saturday morning cartoon. Jesus Christ, this is what Disney has been reduced to? At least it was short. Amy Adams was brilliant, she had the Disney Princess thing down cold and was perfectly countered by the continually befuddled McDreamy. I thought Susan Sarandon was under utilized as the evil witch. It was a short movie so perhaps her perfomance was on the editing room floor? James Marsden was a bit over the top as the prince, but it seemed like direction, you can't really fault his performance. The story hit all the right fairy tale marks without beating you over the head with it. The songs were done by Alan Menkin, so of course, brilliant. Throw in good pacing, a plot twist that the younger viewers can grok and you have a rather successful little picture.

Four Stars.

Ukulele

The "Wellington Ukulele Orchestra" Came by work today to hawk their CDs, and to give a bit of an impromptu show. If you look very closely, you might recognize the guy second from the left, at least, you will if you watch "Flight of the Conchords" on HBO.

He's Back

Well, I wasn't sure when I accepted the offer, but it seems that PJ and New Line finally made nice and now PJ will executive produce not one, but two Hobbit movies. To the tune of forty million dollars, no less. The release date is 2010 for the first, so it's going to be pretty busy around here for the next 3 or 4 years. Assuming that we get the work. It should be a slam dunk, but you never know. I would really love to work on Smaug, since I didn't get to work on the Dragon in Beowulf.

Cthulu?

It's supposed to be this big secret, but everyone's pretty sure it's just a take on the H.P. Lovecraft classic "The Call of Cthulu". No, not the Metallica song. The story. Anyway, J.J. Abrams is about a sure bet as you will get in Hollywood, so it should be good.

Fantasy

I won my semi-final round in the fantasy football league that I joined this year. I guess a lot of people take it pretty seriously, because I paid $110 dollars to join. Twelve teams. Eight ... hundred ... dollar ... first ... prize, which, I am now one week away from winning. So cross your fingers that Carson Palmer, Larry Maroney, Reggie Wayne, Ernest Graham, Maurice Jones-Drew, Tony Gonzalez, Bernard Berrian, Kevin Curtis and the Indy Defense have carreer days next week, because I could really use $800.

Review: Hitman

Not a bad, movie. It's not a great movie either, but it's hard to pin down exactly why. I think it could've been a great movie, but it was just a little off the mark. Maybe casting? Olyphant, like most of the cast, was competent but not great. Olgs K. excelled in a role that required little more of her than to be very naked and very hot. The action wasn't too cartoony, which is what usually kills this kind of movie for me. I mean, shit got blown up and all, but they tried to maintain some semblence of reality (Shoot 'em up, I'm looking at you). The story wasn't full of holes, but wasn't great. All the little places where this movie missed just added up.

Three Stars

Blocks

There's a web site here, trademe.co.nz. There's pages and pages and pages of old school Land Rovers for sale on it. Cheap. Flatbed SWB's and soft top Series 2A's. Defender 90's and 110's. Some of them go all the way back to the late 50's. Most of them are farm registered only. No, they don't have "Farm Use" painted on the sides. Anyway, I thnk I see a Land Rover restoration in my future. Don't tell Mrs' STFU that I want to put a farm vehichle up on blocks in the driveway. I hadn't ever really considered a Land Rover before, I was always on the look out for an old ('68-'72 FJ) Land Cruiser, or a Willy's, at home, you just don't see old Rovers. I might have to change my mind. I still want a chopped, flat bed '32 Ford, and this Land Cruiser is about the coolest thing I've ever seen in my whole life.

Come on, you can't go wrong with camo!

$3500!, and only 870,000 klicks. It's a Land Cruiser, it'll run forever. If you can't see the potential there, you shouldn't be allowed to drive a car. OK, I love me some Land Cruisers, but the old ones aren't really available here. Might have to get me an old Rover to drag around the surfboards, dogs, kids, tents, etc.

Review: Bee Movie

I've had mixed feelings about this since Dreamworks started with the early promotions way back last year. I mean, Seinfeld's stand up is pretty good, but a kid's movie? To be fair, it is pretty funny, but it's really not for kids. The majority of the humor is geared towards adults. I mean, Larry King jokes? My kids liked it, but I think that they would've loved it had it been more accesaable. The work was competent, but not fantastic. I liked the story, the message wasn't to heavy handed, but the whole thing got a little bizarre at the end. Hey, I was entertained.

Three Stars.

Movie Reviews

I've realized that I've gotten a bit behind on my movie reviews. With the move I haven't really seen too many movies in the last couple of months. I'm going to try to catch up on the things I've seen recently.

Car

We finally found a car. Sorry M, it's another Toyota. Number five, I think. And Land Cruiser #2.

Garden

Since it's close to where we were staying, we took the cable trolley

up to the

Wellington Botanical Gardens

It was nice to get out of the apartment for a bit. They have the coolest
carved tree that you will see all day.

Iran NIE

UPDATE

   Just a couple quick notes. We've decided on a house, it's not perfect but it's good enough. Hopefully after a year the housing market will be a little more resonable and we can look for something to buy. There's not much of a view, but it's big, and it's very close to work. I'll put up a picture when we move in, which won't be until the 29th. Our free housing runs out on the 11th so you can see that this is a problem.

   It turns out that the vet in Valencia screwed up a bunch of the paperwork, and had we sent the dogs with the paperwork that we had, they could have been sent back, or even destroyed. So the delay is just as well. The new vet knew right away that the current paperwork was FUBAR.

   Almost done with my first week of work, pretty slow so far. I've been looking through lots of documentation and asking a lot of questions, getting up to speed. People keep asking me what I want to do, which is nice. I've got something simple for on the side until I get something to sink my teeth into.

UPDATE

We've moved into temporary housing in Wellington. Internet access is $200/GB. Ouch. Turned off auto-load of images in Firefox. Got an e-mail from NZ biosecurity, and because of what amounts to a technicality, they threw out all the work to import one of my dogs. Everything. I have to start over, completely, from the beginning. Start over. And now I have to do it from eight thousand miles away. And the process takes six months, so instead of them coming in the first week of January they wont be able to come until the first week on July, IF THEY DON'T FUCK ME, AGAIN. Well, one dog could come, but they would probably not do too well if they were separated. I already miss them. I'm alternating between terribly sad and terribly pissed off at the stupidness of it all. Looked at two houses today one decent, one not. Looking at three tomorrow. Stopped by Weta this morning and saw GW, SN, JL, ES and a bunch of old timers. It's pretty weird to be back.

Boarding

Boarding, keep fingers crossed.

Dinner at Tom Bradley

Oh joy, overpriced airport food at the LAX international terminal. What a view.

At LAX

On the ground at LAX.

At Dulles

On the ground at Dulles. Of course our next gate is on the other side of the airport.

First Leg

Just boarded in Huntsville, flight leaves at 8:10.

Long

So, I got my itinerary today. We leave Huntsville, Alabama at about 10am on the 26th and we get into Wellington at about 10 am on the 28th. No, it's not a 48 hour flight but I'll save you the brain cycles, it's about a 30 hour trip. There is a 2 hour layover at Dulles and a 5 hour layover at LAX, but still, it's going to be an unpleasant experience. I got a portable DVD player with a spare external batter, so it should be good for about 4 movies on battery, and I've got my trusty Powerbook (thanks KTH, if you're reading this) but we have sooo much stuff. Camera bags and backpacks and purses and iPods and my laptop and a the DVD player and cell phones and books and pillows and blankets. Oi vey!. I got the import application for the dogs finally sent off today so I can relax a little, but not much. I'll be much happier when the permit
shows up at the transport company. It's terribly frustrating to be off work for 6 weeks and be more stressed out than I ever was at work this year.

Denied!

As I posted previously, I tried to get an environment personalized California license plate for my motorcycle. "IMPCHGW" was what I wanted it to say. As you can see, Mrs. Linda DiBernardo seems to think this is offensive to good taste and decency. I've got a big Fuck You for Linda DiBernardo. You know what's offensive? All the god, jesus and religious license plates that I see.

UPDATE

So I've been a little busy. I've quit my job at Imageworks and taken a job at Weta. Since Weta isn't in Los Angeles, this requires moving to New Zealand. So I'm moving, and selling my house, and selling my cars and applying for visas.

My beloved Indians choked away a Sure World Series win by letting the dreaded BoSox come back from 3-1 to win in 7 games. Why do all my baseball memories have to be painful?

Minority

Suck it New York

CC Sabathia and the tribe put an ass-whooping on the Yankees last night. Oh yeah. CC didn't dominate, but he pitched his way out of a couple big jams, and got the ball to the stellar Indians bullpen.

We Believe.