Hey, Dave, what are you doing?

Oh yeah, we're getting divorced

2009-06-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

I thought putting a funny title on it would make it hurt less. Nope.

After the goddess, not the city

2008-01-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

You've been dying to know, so I will tell you: Juno is just as charming as everyone says it is, so go watch it right now. You will either love it or make an appointment with someone who can find out exactly what the fuck is wrong with you.

Was It Something I Said?

2007-12-28T12:56:00.000-08:00

No, seriously, Universe, why do you not want me to go to Tahoe? Don't make that face, we both know it's true. Our little game is now 20 years old, you're playing dirtier and dirtier, and there's not way I'm ready to give up. No point in denying it. Let's look at the facts:

1987: A weekend at Bernie's place in the Tahoe Keys. What could be better? Oh, I know. Not getting sick and throwing up on their bathroom carpet would be better (incidentally, who the hell has a carpet in the bathroom?). Not spending two days lying on the couch with fever would be better. Not staying home with the 6 year olds and their babysitter, while everyone else went casino hopping would be better. Oh yeah, and being 4 years older and somehow able to take some sort of advantage of the babysitter being a cute 17 year old blond in shorts would have been way better. This, by the way, was also the year I was not taken on the ski trip to Austria because I injured my toe. Nobody bothered to ask me if it still hurt, which it hadn't in months.

1989: A combination of my brother having an accident and a 5.9 earthquake in San Francisco puts my parents off the Tahoe mood, and we fly back to Israel instead.

1990: Daisy goes under. Again, Tahoe is canceled and I get sent back to Israel. A pattern begins to emerge. 1998: Nope, leaving the parents out of the equation does not make a difference. One of the worst rain storms I've ever seen begins as soon as we enter city limits. In the middle of fucking August. We spend the day looking for a place to buy tarp to cover our little tent, but the entire area is sold out. We finally find the last tarp at Meeks and set up camp in the mud. We get the hell out of there the next morning. 2000: I score my first point in the Tahoe game. We actually manage to get to Tahoe and spend a quiet 24 hours in a cabin. Of course, traffic and and snow meant that we spend the other 24 hours of the weekend in the car, but it's progress.

2005: Lack of time, lack of funding, having recently moved from the other side of the planet, and getting some visitors, all spell "No Tahoe this year".

2006: I have my hernia operation right at the beginning of the season, and it puts me out of the game for the entire winter. By some miracle, there's still good skiing on April 30, and we make quick reservations. Screw the awful food-poisoning that Marina got two days before - I'm going to have my day on the slopes if I have to pack her in the trunk. How naive of me. After 7 hours in traffic, they tell us that the roads will stay closed for the night and we have to turn back. We reach Tahoe 22 hours after leaving home, and there's no time for skiing.

2007: We can call this my second point, sort of. Between Marina's school and my work, I get 3 days on the slopes. Am I supposed to be glad because it's better than nothing? I'm not very.

2008: Ski season opens in late December 2007 and we're there immediately. We got a nice hotel, two minutes from the lift, and it's going to be 3 beautiful days on the slopes. I'm so excited! 3 hours after checking in, my temperature is 2.5 degrees (C) too high, and I realize I've just lost another round. $600, hours in the car, a horrible feverish night, and now I have to sit through that ride again with a high fever. We stop in the ER before driving back home, and Marina mentions briefly, while we're waiting, that she thinks we should have a baby. Like I hadn't known for a month now. But she's not pushing or anything, and it doesn't need to be right now. It can wait till next week when I'm feeling better.

Universe, I'm going to get you for this.

Call me Edward Lewis (Livin' Large, Part I)

2007-11-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

Password for concert-ticket pre-sale: $12
Concert tickets with super good seats: $200
Plane ticket to Los Angeles: $120
Overnight airport parking: $30
Telling your grandchildren about the time you flew to LA just to watch a Soda Stereo concert and then flew right back: priceless

Stay tuned for Part II.

Such Foolishness

2007-11-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

What was I thinking? No, seriously. Was I drunk or something?

Under the Milky Way is by The Church, not Echo & The Bunnymen! E & The BMs did Bring on the Dancing horses.

But now I've downloaded them both, and watched most of season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All is well again.

28 days left

2007-11-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

30 minutes into Donnie Darko, and I'm already madly in love. Any movie that features songs by both Tears for Fears and Echo and the Bunnymen is bound for greatness. Also, it's about the end of the world.

Update: Movie's over now. It's what the great poet Eddie Murphy called a "great fucking movie."

Update 2: OK, maybe it's not really great, just really good with a great soundtrack. I dunno. Cuatro estrellas.

Workout

2007-11-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

I got home from work today, and my head felt three sizer bigger than it was in the morning. You know how after a day of chasing stuff around, following up, and collecting statuses, all you have is this loud HUMMMM sound in your brain? Like you're all concentrated out for the day, and you can't bear the idea of a thought going through your head tonight. I hate these days.

So I got home with this awful I'm-so-drained-I-can't-even-watch-TV feeling, and I just had to do something about it, or I would spend the entire night tweaking my automatic backup scripts. Again. Enlightenment struck from the most unexpected direction: I'm going to go down to the gym! Yeah, I'm going to sweat me some relaxation.

Before I could change my mind, I quickly changed clothes, made sure the MP3 thing had some decent music on it, grabbed some water, and went down to the gym. I felt good with myself. I felt in control.

When I got back to the apartment, I was feeling positively fabulous. This was the best idea I ever had. Lucky that all the treadmills were taken, and I walked right back home.

Close call. Now let's see if I can get this backup script to run any faster. Got the whole night ahead of me.

Update 4 hours later: I've had time to both do the backup script thing and watch Grave of the Fireflies. I am now both tired and completely, utterly, entirely, depressed. Isao Takahata, I hope you're proud of yourself.

Let's Hit Opening Time

2007-10-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

I'm in the kind of mood you get from hearing the Shallow Be Thy Game on the way to work. It is the best kind of mood, so let's get some stuff out of the way before reality ruins it.

Between the Outlook Mountains and the QC River lies the Valley of Routine. It is there that I am trapped most of my days, in constant battle with the warrior tribe of Daily Crap. They are big and vicious, but not one of them is so mighty that it will not be completely forgotten by the time I'm 20 seconds into Fascination Street. That's really all I wanted to say on the subject.

In other media news, Dexter is totally rocking my world. I just finished season one, and it rates a solid five stars on the iDoc scale. Please note that if you're the kind of pussy who minds some blood and screaming on TV, you will definitely want to skip this one. The beauty of this show is that, much like Dexter himself, I can never tell you why I love it so. Also, Darla.

Ariel Ambulance Day was a blast!

This is me, piloting in the real Firefly Ariel Ambulance.

View idoc's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

Thad dressed appropriately for the occasion

And then we went to Maize Maze. It was a-maize-ing fun!

Winter is upon us, and I'm shopping for snowboard shoes and ski-passes. Life rocks.

Oh , and did I mention that I stared learning Spanish a few weeks ago? I've picked up a lot of words from my Argentinean half over the years, but I'm only now starting to learn some sentence structure: Si, mi culo es verde, pero mi hermana es una gatita caliente, y tu mama es tan gorda, sus ojos estan azul azul, y el resto es culo.

28 Sequels Later

2007-10-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

I really liked 28 Days Later, and enough people liked 28 Weeks Later for me to give it a shot, so I did. And I just spent an hour and 40 minutes watching Aliens.

I mean, the disc did say 28 Weeks Later, but they just a re-shot the Alien script in London, with the virus playing the alien. The government wants to settle a place that should have been blown up to bits after the event of the first movie, things get out of control again, and the army is sent to do a half-assed job of killing everything that moves.

It suddenly hit me that Sgt. Doyle is, in fact, Cpl. Hicks. Major Scarlet is, of course, Ripley, so determined to save Newt, the scared little blond girl. Scarlet's also a little of a Vasquez, come to think of it. Robert Carlyle plays the queen alien, who now possesses a little intelligence and planning ability, and the little escape capsule ends up carrying an alien. Original.

Not quite worth two hours of my life, and now I have a sudden urge to watch Aliens (the super-awesomelicious director's cut!) again.

Party Animal

2007-10-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, iDoc goes to a comic convention!

Again.

This weekend was Silicon weekend. I've been to 4 large conventions before (Comic-Con and WonderCon, twice each), as well as one tiny convention (APE). Silicon was a whole new experience for me (especially after the overdose that was Comic-Con 2007), because there was so little happening that it was hard to say if the con was on or off.

Except for the dozens of costumed people walking around in the hotel lobby.
And meeting great new Browncoats.
And the night-time parties in the hotel rooms.
And meeting more new Browncoats. Browncoat meetings are always fun, because regardless of differences in age, jobs, talents and background, we are all very passionate about one thing, and in the meetups, we don't really care about anything else.
And learning to waltz.
And dressing up in our finest for an all-geek dance party. And waltzing. And dancing to the Doctor Who theme. And stomping around to the Imperial March with 200 people, including a Sandman, several Kaylees, a Jayne, a french maid, Poison Ivy, and at least two teen-aged zombies.
And yeah, I said I took a waltz lesson. And loved it.

You've never seen a party like the Hallo-Whedon Hootenanny. It started out fun and funny, with some guided waltz, polka, and some guided dancing that I don't even know what to call, with most people in the room not knowing how to dance, but having a great time trying to. Nearly everyone was in costume, or shindig-inspired outfits. About 15 minutes after we arrived, Arielle invited me for a dance, and we pivoted all over the ballroom like was GD Fred Astaire. She's that good a dancer. For a moment it seemed like I could actually dance, and I clung to that illusion for the rest of the night.

Most of the time the music was modern-ish dance music, and people just did their own thing on the dance floor. Somewhere in the middle of all that, they played the Imperial March, and everyone marched around the ballroom, stomping their feet as hard as they could. It was the cleanest joy I can remember. It was all so friendly and open, so pose-less and unjudgemental, so unlike just about any party I've ever been to, that I just wanted to stay there and jump around with those people for hours more.

This is not a feeling I get often. I don't easily meet new people, and I'm terrified of dancing. I don't get to forget this very often, and I am bummed to tears to let this weekend go.

Simply the Best

2007-09-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

We just came back from watching Stardust, which we enjoyed immensely. To commemorate the occasion, I will now dig out two posts that have been stuck in drafts for ages. They are both about an author I am somewhat fond of.

1. Neil and I Exchange Views

I’ve been to three Neil Gaiman events in the last year and a half, and they just strengthened what I already knew since reading Good Omens over 10 years ago: he is a god. Yes, it's the same the same Neil I wrote about a year ago, and this event is basically the exact same thing as the others, and what more could I have to say about him, and really who cares, right? Well, fuck you, it’s my blog, and you can go read Digg or something.

Anyway, Neil did a reading for Cody’s books in Berkeley, to promote Fragile Things, which came out last October (I think I mentioned something about listening to the audio book all over Arizona).

The Shuffle Gods are playing Killing in the Name, and I really need to concentrate to type anything that's not now you’re under CONTROOOOL! This was the first Rage song I ever heard, and you never forget a first love. Hey, I was 18, I didn't know about commercialism, I just knew I loved the intro.

I got there 4 hours in advance, as I usually do, and spent most of the day waiting outside with the other two girls who got there that early. We sat there and chatted in the nice weather for about three hours before anyone else showed up, and it was actually very enjoyable - you meet interesting people while waiting in line for events like this. We were still just sitting on the sidewalk next to the theater, minding our own, talking Firefly and Galactica, when this tallish, black-leather-jacket-wearing dude, walking down the sidewalk, suddenly stops and looks down at us. I look up to him, and say "Hello", trying my best to sound like it totally ain’t no thang, "Hello", says Neil Gaiman back to me.

"Hello". Says Neil. Gaiman. Says. To me. Somewhere, Bowie's As the World Falls Down is playing, and I'm feeling very woozy.

Some other words were exchanged between Neil and the two other girls (who were still the only other people in line), but everything got sort of hazy for me at that point. I didn’t dare say another word - I knew that if I opened my mouth, I would just repeat endlessly "He stopped. He said Hello. To me. Didja see that? He. Talked. To me." Louise the Browncoat (who had an amazing Serenity bag) actually got up, shook His hand, and effortlessly said a complete sentence or two. How do people do that?

And then He apologized that He has to go, and followed His handler into the theater.

It’s odd how no music player on Earth seems to have a decently random shuffle, and each player seems to favor different artists in my collection. MusicCube just played another Rage song – Wake Up. Not just a fun song, but also the closing title theme in the first Matrix. Remember how cool that first one was? How long? Not long. 'Cause what you reap, is what you sow!

The event was a reading + Q&A, with no signing. No signing meant a very long reading, and a pretty long Q&A session. Neil Gaiman was charming, funny, and utterly captivating, and there was no way to leave that event and not be a total Gaiman fan (unless you’re, like, totally dead inside - yes, I'm talking to you).

2. Neil Day at SJSU

A mere two months after the historic reading at Berkley, my favorite SJSU student tells me that He’s coming to campus the following week. Joy!

We made a day of it, and I spent it hanging around the campus, feeling pretty depressed, because it wasn't that all those chicks (I mean, uh, young ladies building their education) were so young, it was that I was so much older. Most graduate students were 10 years younger than me! Now that I think about it, there must have been some male students there, and I bet they were a lot younger than me too. But for some reason, I just don't remember anything about them. Huh.

Neil Day was composed of two parts: a live interview early in the day, and a reading in the evening, and both were lots of fun. The interviewer asked Neil the same questions all the other interviewers ask, and Neil gave him the nice detailed-yet-concise answers that he must have composed years ago for the sake of those less-than-original interviewers. There were some new ones, though, and some fun Gaiman anecdotes. Marina was with me, and she was totally beginning to understand why I'm into Him so much. Neil is a great reader, and in the evening session He read some new stuff that He’d never read in public before, which caused the reading to run longer than planned, because he didn’t realize that the last story would take a whole hour to read. Exhausting for Him, wicked fun for us! He also read a fun story named “Orange”, which is all written as answers to some long questionnaire form, only we never get to see the questions , and we sort of had to guess them from the answers. Cool. After the reading, everyone formed a huge line to buy some Neil stuff (they don’t make you, but you really should buy stuff at a signing, because the organizers pay to have these events) and get it signed. I caved in and bought The Ultimate Sandman (which I promised myself not to buy, but it’s just too damn pretty!), and also asked him to sign a poster-ad for the event, and he wrote “me ->” so it would be clear that the girl (Death) is not, in fact, him.

The best part of a signing is the 30 seconds when you get to tell your idol how much you want to have his babies, and if it’s Neil Gaiman, there's actually a chance of something resembling a conversation (for the complete opposite experience, go to a Frank Miller signing). While He was drawing a little sketch in my book (another Neil-only feature, when there are 200 people in line), I used my time for a conversation that went exactly like this:

Fanboy: So did you end up visiting Israel in October?
Him: Yes, I was guest of honor at iCon.
Fanboy: Did you get to see any of Israel, or was it just the con?
Him: I got a morning in Jerusalem, but other than that is was iCon all the way. But it was very bizarre... I have never signed so many bosoms as in Israel.
Fanboy: Ah... I've never been so proud to be Israeli! <laughing - somebody please shut me up>
Him: It only only started getting worrying when I realized how old some of these bosoms actually were.

In my standards, that actually went pretty well. Thank you Neily! But who was that guy butting in on my Neil time? Get the fuck outta there!

Un extraño destino

2007-08-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

December 22, 2006. Or so.

8:11PM
Just stopped in the office for half an hour to finish some last-minute commitments before we fly to Hawaii. It's Saturday night, and there isn't another soul in the building, so I turn on some music. Loud.

9:36PM
Damn, this is going to take some time.
iTunes shuffle keeps playing Marina's Latin music. I should erase all the Latin stuff from my computer, or replace iTunes with something than can actually shuffle the music.

10:02PM
Hey, this sounds like a good song. I didn't even know I have this. What is it? Oh, it's another Spanish song. Hit Next .

10:23PM
Holy shit! That security guard nearly gave me a hart attack. WTF you doing sneaking up on me like that? Security hint: if the music is so loud that a herd of goats could show up and nobody would hear it, it probably isn't being played by robbers. Maybe I should turn the music lower, or at least stop screaming along with it.

11:43PM
Hey this is another good song I didn't know I have. Ugh, great intro, then he starts singing in Spanish again - some Soda Something band that Marina is really into these days. For the fourth time tonight.

12:36AM
If I live to be a hundred, I will never ask anyone to draw an ERD ever again -this shit is taking forever.
Hey, what's this song, sounds like a good beat - oh, it's those Soda guys again.

2:16AM
I can't believe I'm doing this the night before my vacation. Who the hell picked these Visio stencils? Someone must die for this!
And it's been 3 hours since iTunes picked anything good. Gawd, my music is old. Isn't there something I haven't heard a million times? Where's that Soda Stuff? Soda Stereo, yeah. I'll put some of their stuff on. Not bad at all.

3:15AM
I hate ERDs. I hate Visio. I hate my life. Soda Stereo's fun, though.

3:55AM
Done. Going home now. Good thing I had the right music to keep me awake this long...

3:56AM
Wait. Did I just become a Soda Stereo fan?

Hell yes! I'm a total fan of an Argentinean band, and I'm man enough to say it. And that's really the point of this entry, besides the fact that I spent an entire night drawing two stupid diagrams. When we were talking about going to Argentina (which isn't going to happen this year either), I actually searched the net to see if maybe they're on tour and we can catch them while we're there, but it turns out that they broke up 10 years ago. Bummer.

Yesterday.

Working:hoursPM
Google for stuff.
Google for more stuff.
What's on Digg? Usual crap. Some joke gets 2000 Digg, and I have it in my Netscape 3.0 mail archives from 1996. I feel old.
Google for some hot chicks. Can I take a peek without anyone noticing? I feel pathetic.
Google "soda stereo tour us". Hold on. EXCITEMENT!!! They're playing in LA this November! I am so flying there just for the show.

And maybe that is my point today - I fucking LOVE living here. Oh dear, what will I wear?

More than Meets the Eye

2007-07-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

So what, She's partying with mom in LA, and I'm supposed to stay home and cry myself to sleep in front of Red vs. Blue? Hell no. I went to watch Transoformers.

AND IT KICKED TOTAL ASS!

Not not just partial ass. Total ass. There was no ass left unkicked. None.

I can already tell, this is going to be one of those total adrenaline-rush posts where you can't really follow what I'm saying because I'm so totally EXCITED!

It's, like, everything I could hope this movie would be, and then lots more. It's just, just, perfection. The robot designs are incredible, the noises were just right, the transformation effects are SO much cooler than you think, the "dialog" was a wonderful mix of classic Transformers quotes text that actually served the story, such as it was, and most of the old friends were there (no Soundwave, unfortunately. I'm a big Soundwave fan).

I wish someone had a camera to shoot my face during the first 30 minutes of the film, which were some of the most enjoyable minutes I've had in a movie theater (obviously, I've never dated Alanis), and I would then upload them and you wouldn't believe that weren't Photoshopped, because I'm, like, all wide eyes and open mouth going "wow". Yes, I'm totally channeling Laarni. A bit.

Speaking of Laarni, I really wish I'd listened to her viewing tips more carefully. About half way into my Coke, I remembered that she said NOT to get one, because it's a long ass movie, and you don't want to miss any of it. Too late - I was twisting in my seat the entire second half of the movie.

More wishes. I wish that the same person who had that camera would have then used the camera to smash the face of the guy sitting next to me into a thick dark red cereal. He was the loudest, most obnoxious asshole I've seen since that stupid bleached ho that kept answering her phone during the The Two Towers.

But anyway. Transformers - the most fun a guy can have when his wife is out of town.

Megan Fox (thanks Maxim!), though - dangerously close to crossing that "fun" line.

Trip Photos!

2007-07-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Wife and Her Mother flew to LA this morning, and I had to wake up at 6:30am to drive them to the airport, which turned out to be a good thing – I was home by 8:00, all ready to dive into Bachelor Sunday. And oh, what a Sunday it is turning out to be!

The pants came off before the door was closed behind me, and the music, man music, came on almost as quickly. This whole remote-control-for-the-computer thing is definitely a keeper.

What to do with all this freedom? What to do??? I finally watched Layer Cake , which I found highly enjoyable (notice that the “highly” is in italics, which pushes it up a notch). I’m a total Daniel Craig fan now. Wasn’t Casio Royale great? I’ve practically given up on Bond films, but Daniel Craig is just what the series needed. Of course, Eva Green didn’t hurt either. Not one bit.

The Layer Cake disk had the Kung Fu Husle trailer on it, which reminded me, WHY HAVEN’T YOU SEEN IT YET? Fun kung fu scenes, dancing psychopathic gangsters, a hero that needs to be discover himself, and a cute girl that just may be his. I laughed, I cried, I clapped my hands with joy, and then I laughed more. Whee!

Cleaned up the living room a bit, and made lunch. Trader Joe’s instant couscous, topped with eggs over easy, with Costco sweet rolls on the side. The lunch of kings!

Apres-lunch, I started re-watching Red vs. Blue from the beginning. If you happen to be my downstairs neighbor, I’m sorry I was laughing so hard with the windows open, but it was too nice outside to turn on the AC. If you’re my upstairs neighbors, you should know that having your windows closed didn’t quite keep your private acts private, but it was good to know that I’m not the only one enjoying the weekend. Sounded like your lunch was way, way, better than mine. Thanks for sharing, guys!

Enough with this crap, let’s see some colors! I finally sorted through the 1500 Alaska pictures and the ones worth viewing are up. It will be years before I properly sort all the Hawaii pictures, so just head over to the Picasa page and go through some stuff the what we happened to upload while we were still in Hawaii.

I just looked at some of the pictures again, and I just can't believe we went to such beautiful places. We so rock.

The music shuffle is playing Teenage Dirtbag. Where do I even have that song from?

Obviously no relation to me

2007-06-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

99.1

It's both my anxiety level as The Trip approaches, and The Wife's first year grade average.

Ninety nine. Point one.

Oddly enough, if you apply the Fahrenheit-to-Celsius conversion formula to her average, you get mine.

I'm so proud.

I Think I'll Keep Her

2007-05-21T00:36:00.001-07:00

True life story:

Her: In Charlie's Angels, what do they call the computer?

My: The computer?

Her: Yeah, the box with the speaker that talks to them.

Me: Charlie.

It's at 12:30am, and the last paper of the semester is finally done. Maybe you had to be there.

Check it out - an Iron Man movie!

2007-05-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Not many details anywhere, but the suit looks pretty neat!

2007-03-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

It's WonderCon time again!

Yep, ah shore loves me some Con. I get so excited before the Con, and so bummed and empty when it's over. But by the time I get to a computer and try to blog all I've gone through in the previous days, I can't find the words or even clearly remember my feelings. There was something about a feeling of belonging, and the freedom of being as geeky as I want to be. There was something of the joy of meeting nice people, mixed with the frustration of being too much of a nutless introverted idiot to actually talk to any of them. Ooh, and Ali Larter. Let's not forget Ali Larter.

<save doc, then go away for a week>

Let's get busy already.

Childhood dream come true #17: Making friends with Sergio Aragones. Me and Sergio is real tight.

Q&A with Richard Hatch, Apollo in the original Galactica, Zarek in the new one.

You'll never guess who this is.
Give up? It's Elvira! I know!

Turns out the her real name is Cassandra Peterson, not Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (who would have believed?), and she appears to be a totally respectable person. How can this be? You used to be so, so, so prefect, and now you're telling me it wasn't your real hair? I feel so decieved. Just tell me you really did that thing with the tassels at the end of the movie.

What's hotter than an Elvira? A Linda Tran. Way hotter. I mean, he-llo there.

Not great shots, but I was too weak in the knees to ask her to look up for a photo, so I had to wait for a TV interviewer to stop by.

From the nice-people-who-played-small-parts-in-Star-Wars corner, I bring you:

Ray Park (Darth Maul, and also Toad from X-Men)

And Bonnie Piesse, who played (not yet Aunt) Beru in Attack of the Clones. Did I ever tell you how much the Beru and Owen thing pissed me off when I saw Clones? Well it thoroughly did. She seemed very nice, though.

The main actors from 300. I don't know if I'm really going to like it, but it looks like clean, thought-free fun.

Frank Miller broke his leg (or something) so he wasn't able to attend in person. He sent a video clip saying hello and hoping we'll like 300. So far, I hear everyone has, so maybe there's hope.

Gotta go read Marina's paper. Continue later.

Noriko Nakagawa

2007-02-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

Japanese girls. Pretty, little Japanese schoolgirls. Pretty, little Japanese schoolgirls, butchering the shit out of each other. Japanese schoolgirls are like donuts - all covered in sugar, and they make Homer go "Mmmm..."

Have you seen Battle Royale yet? You should: 20 sugar-coated Japanese school girls, 20 other characters who were not Japanese school girls (who cares, right?), Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi, and more importantly Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence), one island, three days. Last one alive is allowed to go back home.

On second thought, maybe it isn't for everyone.

I watched the movie, and I kept thinking, damn, you Japanese are so messed up. Why do you scream all the time? Why can't your movies have proper endings? For that matter, why can't the stories make any sense? What's with the "explanatory" flashbacks at the end, that only make things weirder? Why do your girls stop wearing those hot school outfits when the finally reach legal age?

Anyway, I give it 4 stars on the iDoc scale. The fourth star is not for strong plot, if you get my meaning, but they earned it. Apparently there's an American remake coming out next year. What are they going to do? Put the Olson twins in it? Ooh, maybe they will bring the original actresses. They should be about 20 years old by now.

Oh, Noriko, I would totally save you for last.

But if that Mitsuko chick shows up, we're history, you know?

I've been postponing the Hawaii pictures for three weeks, but as soon as I see a minor covered in blood, I can't wait to post it. I'm sure this surprises no-one who knows me.

Penn Jillette

2007-02-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

Neil asked, and I must obey:
Penn Jillette

We're going on vacation!

2006-12-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

It's been over four years since we had anything more than a long weekend. Where would we go that would be worth the long wait? I don't know, but I hear that
Hula dancers
Are
Wild
And
Ideally,
In the buff.

Leaving tomorrow morning for two week. Yeah.

Potential

2006-12-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

It will probably be crap. Everything ends up being.
But there's potential here:
http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/transformers/

Sick is me

2006-12-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

Though wool hats make everything better. It's the pompom.

Also of interest are the tea with milk and cookies. Maybe I could get used to this.

I still can't come up with anything funny to say with "balls" in it

2006-12-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

Has it been a year already? I must have, because it's time to post pictures of the last ever Company annual ball.

People didn't feel like tuxedos this year, and Macy's has great deals on suits, which we really should start owning, being grown-ups and all, so we went to buy fancy ball clothes. I actually had to pick a suit for myself, a thoroughly terrifying experience for someone of my taste and experience in such matters. Luckily, the Macy's guy was very helpful and quite used to people whose only instructions are "I don't want to look like my grandfather." I did pick the shirt color by myself.

The result, I think you'll agree, was worth it.
Although the official photographer was right when he said "It's OK if you want to hold her, but if the camera sees your fingers, you're grabbing her." Live and learn.
Marina looks gorgeous in her new dress, but we're here to talk about me, right?

Oh, speaking of "gorgeous". Laarni wanted to know how to say it in Hebrew. But there's no direct translation, right? And the meaning she was looking for was "a very beautiful women", so we taught her to say "kusit". And when she learned to pronounce it, we explained what it means. Ex-Catholic girls are so much fun.

It's freezing out here. When do we see some drinks?

Beyond the switch from tuxedos to suits, it was exactly the same party. Same place, same food, same inspiring speeches, even the same band. None of it was really bad, though

Everybody was so pretty! I don't normally like events where my Joker shirt is inappropriate, but it's worth it once a year.

Right, everybody, look cool! David, can you do drunk?

OK, take two, for everybody who didn't have time to make a cool face. Nobody's blocking Orly now, so can someone raise their arm or something? Thanks, Derek, that's perfect. I can hardly see her. Ready? 3...2...1... LOOK COOL. David, just try not to pass out.

The organizers of the party put canes and beads and various pimpy items on the tables, including this hat, whihc would cover your entire face if you didn't hold it up.

Ziv and Raffi and that other guy.

Ziv and Raffi, sans other guy.

Nothing funny comes to mind. I guess you guys just look cute.

No, David, we can't tell you've been drinking. Not at all.

I know, I know. I made my tie to short and I forgot to buy a black belt to go with the suit. It's my first time in a suit, so give me a fucking break.
Look how well I made the tie knot! Fifth try ever.

Da lay-deez.

Most of the people stayed in The City for the night. We who have to get up early in the morning to study drove back home. Good thing we did, cause the next morning I woke up all sick and feverish. I knew I shouldn't have danced without getting drunk first. It's unnatural.

And the moon rose over an open field (Arizona day liu)

2006-11-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

Short day today, but I have to warn you, there's gonna be a picture or two in this post.

Temperatures dropped to freezing on my last camping night. Maybe even a bit below freezing. I was sleeping in the Jeep again (People have asked, so I'll clarify - there was plenty of room to stretch in there. Next time I'm not even bringing a tent), and at some point I had to start the engine and let the heating work for 15 minutes before I could go back to sleep. That cold.

But nothing a hot cup of tea and waking up to desert views couldn't fix.

One last, very nicely composed, if you don't mind my saying, goodbye to Catalina State Park.

And it's plane time!

I originally left the area in a hurry, so I would have time for Monument Valley, but MV turned out to be way too far, so I suddenly had time to go back to the Pima Air & Space Museum, where they took the best corpses from plane graveyard, added some original Air Force loaners, and let us geeks run around freely.

It starts small, with the tiniest jet in the world. It will be familiar to fans of the movie Octopussy (are there such people anywhere?) and to people who owned the Acroject flight simulator on the Commodore 64 (which would be me).

Ah, 1985 graphics... This is the first time I see this in color, BTW.

My parents actually have slides of this thing flying in their basement. The slides are in their basement, not the flying.

It gets warmer with this B-26.

And moves STRAIGHT to the main attraction! An F-14. Right there. With me. For real. And my pants suddenly feel tight.
This is the first F-14 ever produced, which is very symbolic, with the last F-14 making its last flight a few weeks ago.

Prowler.

The Black Bird of Sexiness.

Classics: Beautifully restored B-24 and B-29, complete with dummies in flight suits manning the guns. Awesome, as in awe-inspiring.

Another meeting that's been a long time coming. With trembling hands, iDoc finally feels up the A-10 Thunderbolt II.

Interestingly I wasn't the only nut in that place. A guy was taking (what appeared to be) his grandson through the museum, explaining how this here A-10 was built around that big in the front. He could have been reading it from the sign next to the plane, but I sensed his insanity from as far as the F-4. He proved me right when he paused in mid-explanation and suddenly asked me "I can't remember. Is that gun 30 or 36 milimeters?" What the hell kind of a question is that? Of course it's 30mm, idiot. 30mm depleted uranium projectiles, specially designed for the Avenger, which you will only find on the A-10. Everybody knows that.

But how did he know I would know the answer? Was it because I was licking the gun at the time?

I never noticed the Starlifter had such an artsy tail.

He hey! Remember watching Bailey's Bird three times a year in the early 80's?
Oh, you missed growing up in Israel in the 80's? You didn't miss much. Anyway, Baily's Bird was a show about this guy (Bailey), living in some shithole in South-East Asia with his plane and his pansy blond son, and every episode he would get into a new adventure with his plane, which was an Albatross, just like this plane. And there were always smugglers of some sort, wanting to smuggle their smuggables on Baily's Bird. But he wouldn't let them. Cause he's Bailey. I also seem to recall a hot blond doctor, but I'm no longer sure. It was that age when planes were more interesting than women. I'll let you know when it ends. Was he Australian?

Update: Got it! After giving up hope of ever finding any real Bailey's Bird material on the net, it turns out that nothing is too old or too obscure for Google. Check it out! Pansy kid and everything. And an episode list!

Update2: Yes its Australian. And the show was known as Flugboot 121 in Germany. Silly Germans. Anyway.

Where did all the cool planes of the 60's go, huh?

Look at this Hustler, with that huge double drop-off fuel tank. That is the most pimped out fighter plane ever.

Crouching under a B-52G. Holly shit.

What are doing tonight, Brain? Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world. Isn't it, like, the spitting image?
A Hercules, converted to carry moon rocket engines.

I got this F-111 aligned so perfectly, you can see right down that tube.

Turns out this isn't a Nord.

But this is, of course, a Harrier.

That's me, setting the tripod up on a bench. Muy artistico.

And that's me, hugging the F-14 goodbye. I can't believe they decommissioned it for that butt-ugly F/A-18. Feh.

After a few intimate minutes with the F-14, I looked up and noticed there was nobody left in the museum - it was closing time. But time for one last shot.
It was supposed to be a tiny me in the middle of the museum, but I couldn't get far enough before the timer took the picture, so here's a cool me with the sun behind me. Just like my hero, Josey Wales.

And that was it. My flight left at 8am, and I couldn't camp and get up early enough to pack my gear and drive to the airport, so I had to spend the night in the airport Best Western. How bourgeoisie. After a tearful 5am goodbye from Pedro, my loayl mule, I headed back to reality.

Reality bites (Arizona day funf)

2006-11-24T18:52:00.000-08:00

What's that you say? You wish I had more panoramas from yesterday? Well. I guess this is your lucky day!
(Click for the seriously large versions)

The sunset that never stops.

Newspaper rock.

The oh-so colored desert.

Having lost some of my celebratory mood, so I decided to skip a few stops, take it easy, and drive back to the Phoenix area a day earlier than planned.

Through that wonderful redness.

Arizona is full places with great Western names. I even drove across a Dead Skunk Creek.

Stopped some Alpine Pizza in Flagstaff. Like the guy said (this works better with a heavy Russian accent): Flagstaff is a premium place to spend the afternoon in. I walked around for an hour or two, bought Marina a pretty wool hat, and, you know, chilled. This was the only city street I saw on this trip

Further down South. When you start getting off the plateau, you go through a brief forest period. Awesome.

30 minutes later, you're back in the Southern desert.

Quick stop at Montezuma Castle. The Spanish Conquistadors used to think the Montezuma, the Aztec king, stayed here for a while. Nowdays, white man say Montezuma never come this North. White man say, this just village of stinking farmers. iDoc say, is impressive anyway.

You can't actually go up there though, so let's head South and get some mileage before our last

SUNSET MADNESS!!!

And then it was three hours of driving back to Catalina State Park, listening to Neil Gaiman reading Fragile Things, his new short story collection. I cannot say enough about how this book is right for me. Let me tell you, reflective mood + driving alone through the night + Neil reading "Other People" = a whole new type of chill down the spine. And The Problem of Susan... Neil calls it "disturbing and annoying", and it is exactly that. If you've read The Last Battle, this story is just for you.

Close to the end now. Can you feel it?

Many a hand has scaled the grand old face of the plateau (Arizona day arba)

2006-11-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

Just enough space between the bags to stretch comfortably, and I slept like a baby. A baby that was freezing his little baby nuts off. The problem was that my my big comfy sleeping bag is so big that it was essentially completely open, no matter how hard I tried to lie on its corners. Brrr.

I drove back into Flagstaff to get some tourist info. It was closed for Thanksgiving, but check out this El Dorado in the parking lot! Then it's out East, towards Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest.

The plateau just drove me wild. So flat. So BIG.

Just driving that perfectly straight road for miles and miles.

This one turned out nice.

Meteor Crater. It isn't a picture, it's a big hole in the wall. You can even see a bit of sky above the wall. Pretty cool, isn't it?

The Crater. 50,000 years ago, a small piece of rock slammed into this place at a rather high velocity. About 150 years ago, some white man passed by and said "mine". As far as I could understand, this place is actually private property. I've wanted to meet The Crater in person for a long time, and it was just as odd as I had hoped.

Not much to do on a cold day at MC (or on most other days), so let's stitch a few panoramas and hit the road. The stitching software the came with my camera is worth exactly what I paid for it, but these still came out nice. When you take these multiple-shot panoramas, you too concentrated on getting good overlap between shots etc. to see what's going on, and you sometimes find interesting stuff in there when you get home. Like this girl, who came out of nowhere and blocked my view of the crater rim. Is it spelled "hoe" or just "ho"? In other news, those pants really should be retired. They used to have a color.

These pictures aren't short, they're just wide as hell. Worth a click?

Time for the "hit the road" bit. The I-40 is officially my favorite road ever.

This was supposed to be a 360 panorama stitched from 15 pictures and show just how big and flat the landscape was, but the damn software, again. Click the left side to get an idea. Anyway: Wheeeee!

You can't take a sharp picture while driving, but you can park on the side and run to the middle for the picture. And nearly get squashed by a drunk tourist.

Petrified forest. It used to be all forest, but now it's all petrified. Get it? The story goes something like this: several millions of years ago, the forest that covering this area
was flattened by a (volcanic?) explosion and soon covered by (volcanic?) ash. A few million years of rain and pressure produced this amazing landscape that looks like wood, but is in fact pure stone.

B-I-Z-A-R-R-E.

It's not that petrified wood is so hard to comprehend, I mean, we've all woken up with - nevermind. But it's so tree-colored that your monkey brain insists on calling it "wood", and is quite surprised when you get closer, and see something like this.

But you know the old saying: He who gets to the big park after noon, has to rush through it.

That perfect blue in the sky. We wants it.

Every dark spot in the distance is a petrified log. It it weirder because they're stone, or because there isn't a live tree in 100 miles?

A crow! One of 6 animals I can recall seeing on this trip.

Fox footprints. Maybe not a fox, but certainly non-feline - see the nail prints?

The painted desert is not the most colorful I've seen, but definitely the most goes-on-forever I've seen.

That's my Jeep.

And that's me.

And that's crow number deux (make that 7 animals).

And maybe it is the prettiest ever.

In ancient times, vandalism was just as serious a problem as it was now. But since this Sinagua graffiti is almost 1,000 year old, it is now considered art. I thoroughly dug this. Click for more detail.

It's 5 o'clock. Do you you where you sunset madness is? I got mine right here.

There's an old car skeleton where Route 66 used to cross the park. Here are but a few of the million pictures I took there.

If you made it this far, you will be rewarded by seeing the best picture of this trip. I'm especially proud of it because I actually took time to compose it and knew exactly how I wanted it to come out.

Elements of a perfect camping night: Gas lantern, tea on the gas stove laptop for documenting the day's experiences, a bag of chocolate chips, and temperatures so low that I just turned everything off and jumped into the relative safety of my sleeping bag.

Long post. Tomorrow will be shorter, promise.

By the time I get to Phoenix (Arizona day tres)

2006-11-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

It seems like I'm the only guy in the world who never recoded a version of this song. And phoenix was only about 70 miles out of the 250 that I drove on day three, I made sure to play the Nick Cave version two-three times before I actually hit Phoenix. And then drove right through it, because I am not a fan of the place.

Look at the birdie! Slow morning, hot shower, tea & cookies, and a beautiful bird. Sets your pulse to "dooode" for the rest of the day.

If you turn left at the Catalina campground exit, you find that your yourself driving straight into these mountains. And your spirits rise.

Today we're driving up to Flagstaff. Got the laptop and my big-ass speakers connected to the 110v converter, and I'm ready to log some mileage.

The South-Arizona desert is mostly flat, but dotted with these sharp hills. Excellent road trip scenery. Look at those skies!
Pretty Jeep too.

Doin' the old Thelma & Louise.

Took this one while driving, actually.

I don't know if this is as funny in reality as it was in my head, because there was a lot of "in my head" in this trip. Anyway, I did the Phoenix-Tucson road four times in a week, and each time I passed about 10 signs that mentioned Casa Grande. It's such a South-West name, it would made me laugh every time. And then I'd say out loud, in my worse cowboy accent "Yeah, that way out. Down by Cah-Sah Grahn-day". And laugh for 3 whole minutes, 'cause ahm this big city smart-ass fo-ray-ner. Better than all y'all/

Yet another great feature of driving America's main roads is the roadside rest areas. A nice clean place every 100 miles or so, to stretch your bones, take a whiz and make even buy a Coke.

And enjoy the view.

Plenty of cactus-on-cactus action all over the South, till about an hour after Phoenix.

Another 50 miles, and as you start to climb, you can feel the scenery slowly get flatter, cooler, and bigger.

Some Indian ruins. Sinagua, not Anasazi.

There's this beautiful little lake in a collapsed cave, named Montezuma Lake. Because it's close to Montezuma Castle, which we'll see later. Look at the duckies. And those reflections!

Almost 1,000 years ago, the Singaua people built their homes in the walls of this lake. The weather got too hot and they left before white man come and kick Indian butt.

It 5:20 again! Time to do that thing I do when the sun sets.

COLORS! This is getting better every evening.

Things you can't do with film. Not easily, anyway.

And then the sun goes down behind the mountain, and it's over.

After the horizon is on fire for 30 minutes.

Camped the night at the Flagstaff KOA, right next to the sign that said "elevation 7,000 feet". I started cooking dinner around 6:00, and was all ready to take my time with it, read a little at my picnic table, maybe do some blogging - reception was pretty good. At about 6:15 it was already too cold to even set up the tent. My main excuse for renting an SUV was that I'd sleep in it if it rains, but it proved itself very useful in the dry-yet-progressively-colder Arizona nights. If I lay diagonally in the back of the Jeep, there was precisely enough room for me to lie straight. Comfy.

We interrupt this broadcast to show you the funniest shit ever

2006-11-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

We now return to our scheduled programming.

Campo di iDoc (Arizona, day deux)

2006-11-20T21:31:00.000-08:00

Morning, sunshine! How was your night?

Temperatures went down below 10C last night, and the sleeping bag mostly did its job. By "mostly" I mean that most of my body was very comfortable, except for my feet, which were mostly numb. By "mostly" I mean that I couldn't move them or feel anything but pain because it they were SO DAMN COLD.

Home sweet home. I ended up spending three nights in this park.

Woke up a little after 8:00, when it started to get hot inside the tent. Oddly enough, it was still cold outside. The desert is funny that way. It's now 9:30, and it's pretty hot in the sun, but nice and chilly in the shade. Took morning shower, made some tea, and set things up in the car so I have a comfortable seating position in the back, where I can type this poetry and people-watch through the open "liftgate" which is what the car's dashboard calls the fifth door. Like this:

Look! It's my toes!

Wildlife was not the highlight of this trip. Besides two rabbits and a snake I ran over when I drove into the park the previous night (sorry about that), I don't remember seeing anything more exciting than a few of these at Catalina, but I was pretty excited to see this guy. Yep, the bird guide I brought with me confirmed it (you're not really surprised I brought a bird guide, right?): it's a real life roadrunner! I took plenty of pictures and chased it all over the place taking videos. It did not go "beep beep". Just my luck - a broken roadrunner.

But enough oddly silent bird. Today is cactus day! And this is just the parking at the park exit. Check out that beautiful Cherokee and that way, way big cacti. I love saying cacti.

The days are short and I wasted a lot of time every morning with my relax-with-some-tea-and-cookies routine, plus my get-lost-in-Tuscon-because-I-don't-have-a-map trick, so I had just enough daylight for a drive through Saguaru National Park. Please hold for lots and lots of cactus pictures.

My God, it's full of cacti!

Artsy.

I'm a cactus too! This would be a good time to tell you that almost every picture of me on this blog was taken with a time and a mini-tripod, so in most of them I'm actually breathing heavily from running back and forth between the camera and my spot. Press the button, listen for the beeping, RUN, hit your mark, turn around, pose, run back to the camera, check the result, mentally mark a spot 2 feet to the left, repeat. 3-4 times.

Where does he get all these wonderful cacti? Don't mind these Batman references, they're for my amusement only.

Wow, Henry. It's just so big!

If there's a huge rock, I must climb it. If there's also a nice easy path going up and shade at the top, that is. My expression is saying "The car thermometer says it's 90 Fahrenheit, and I have no idea why I'm still in these stupid jeans."
They stank so thoroughly at the end of that day. Check out that beautiful silver Jeep by that pansy white truck.

There are about 50 more where these came from. CACTI!

Time to look at the Let's Go and see where I'll go tomorrow. WHAT?! Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is RIGHT HERE IN TUCSON? I gotta go see! The nice park ranger let me know that while the base isn't very accessible, they've opened a museum since my 1998 Let's Go was published. It closed 15 minutes ago, but you can see some of the base through the fence. I'm there!

10 minutes later, a quite literal squeal is heard in our Jeep. Muh-muh-muh my God, it's, it's full of

PLAAANES!!!

Thousands upon bajillions of them! AIYEEEEE!!!!
If airplanes were Indjuns , this place would be the sacred Crow burial grounds, and I would get Jeremiah Johnsoned.
Go on. Click those two pictures and count the tail fins. You know you want to.

Orions!

Crusaders! And that lone Viking! And there in the background, are those...

Yes, rows and rows of Starlifters.

And a broken F-111

And SLUFs

I sneaked (not "snuck" - I looked it up) closer to the active part of the base and found this B-1 waiting for me. Yummy.

But I was running out of daylight, and it was time to drive back to Catalina. And to overdo the sunset pictures again.

Aren't we the coolest?

Back in Catalina. Got me some gas for the lantern, cooked myself a nice warm dinner and hit the sack.

And I wasn't quite as cold as the night before.

Where's winter? (Arizona, day one)

2006-11-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

I bought this killer super-heating sleeping bag, packed every insulating material I own, and where the hell is winter? That's right, it's fully summer here! Or at least what passes for summer in California - I don't think I want to know what real Arizona summer is like.

So. Made Marina wake up early this morning to drive me and three big bags of camping gear to the airport. I still can't believe I actually went here on my own and left her home to study. I'm just so bad.

The Southwest flight was fun, as usual, and then I picked up my Cherokee (woohoo!) and drove off to spend some time in Phoenix traffic.

Monterey Bay from about 10km up

After living in Silicon Valley, Phoenix is a little weird on the eye. The buildings are farther apart, and it gives the city an unfinished feel, like it's just a first sketch. Not much green around the streets, unsurprisingly, and they put these big cacti everywhere. The best description of Phoenix I can come up with is "Try to imagine the I-5 passing through Eilat. And eternally congested." Enough of this chit chat! Let's spend two hours looking for the AAA office (if you find it, please let me know how), another hour in traffic, and hit the road!

Cacti is what I came to see, and I wasn't disappointed! I took this on my first of many many stops on the side of the highway.

You start seeing these 6m-tall suckers all around you once you get out of the city. And they do go well with sunsets, don't they?

I'm writing this in my sleeping bag in Catalina State Park (just north of Tuscon) and temperatures are beginning to drop. I forgot about desert nights. Suddenly I am less concerned about my -5 Fahrenheit sleeping bag being a waste of money, and more worried that it might not be quite as warm as advertised. I'll let you know tomorrow, if I survive.

On the way, Ron called me from Israel to get improvised lecture about AJAX ("Where am I catching you? Arizona? Cool. Listen, I'm giving an AJAX lecture tomorrow. So. What the hell is AJAX?"). I had to stop in mid-lecture to take some pictures of the sunset. For some reason, the colors only came out right if I included a bit of the Jeep's hood in the frame. It's still fuzzy and duller than the real thing, but it's the best I could do, parked on the side of the interstate.

Then, while I was still parked on the roadside "OMG, I gotta put the phone down for a minute. Got two Apaches here!" The camera couldn't focus fast enough in the low light and high zoom, but trust me when I tell that they were close enough to tell that the second Apache had Longbow installed. Taking a picture of Apaches in the sunset, in the Arizona desert, while giving an AJAX lecture to a guy in Israel at his 2am. My kind of evening.

See, Ron? An Apache.

Nighttime. In a camping site. With a broken flashlight (Damn you, airport throwers! ) and no gas for my lantern or for the stove (Damn you, Phoenix traffic and hidden wireless-internet cafes! How am I supposed to find a Target?). There are no lights in this park, to help you better see the stars. Or maybe because the state's cheap. And they are spectacular (the stars). Every time I look up, I stay glued to the view for a few minutes and I think of Dave Bowman (yes, he of "Hey, Dave, what are you doing?" fame) saying "My god, it's full of stars!". Anyway, it's dark, and cold, and I'm bored, so I'm going to upload this (GPRS is da BOMB! IrDA, not quite as explosive, though) and go to sleep.

Good night, honey. I'll see you tomorrow. Taken from instide my tent.

Update: Yeah, I'm home now. I managed to upload this text from the park, but not the pictures. So I switched to saving the text on disk and publishing this from home when I'm back, which is now. I'm still splitting it into separate posts with fake dates, for that authentic feel.

Waiting for Mr. Neil

2006-11-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

who's giving two appearances at SJSU today.
Two Neils in one day. Yay!

So I took a day off work, or course, and I'm here two hours early to catch front row seats. I hope they don't come and tell me that front row is reserved or something. Being a fanboy is so stressful!

Marina left to photocopy some stuff for school, while I'm here guarding my front row seats. Good chance to write about my upcoming midlife-crisis

SOLO ROAD TRIP

I'm so psyched! The office will be closed all of next week, and I just HAVE to do something more fun that wrestle with MythTV for a whole weekend. I need to GO somewhere. Friends suggested Hawaii, but having THAT much fun alone? No loving husband could do that to a wife who isn't getting a week off school and has to stay at home to study for 14 hours a day. And there were no tickets for less than $1000. Not that I tried to find any, right? I need a place that tourists find less desirable this time of year.

It's been a very stressful few months, and I have this vivid fantasy of me sleeping under a tree that's easily accessibly by car, yet somehow not known to anyone else. And it was snowing all around me, and various forms of cuddly wildlife came to lick my angel-like sleeping face. Yellowstone? Yellowstone! But it's so goddamn cold out there! And the roads are under a mile of snow. And I can't (or maybe just won't) afford to sleep in the park. And it's way too winter to camp. And it's COLD. I need some place that isn't so cold, doesn't get too much snow, and isn't overrun with tourists this time of year.
I'm going to Arizonaland! A week alone in the land of the Anasazi, Big G Canyon, the meteor crater, several big ass cacti, Petrified Forest and cheap plane tickets. I got my plane tickets (Southwest, yo!), my new -5 Fahrenheit sleeping bug (50 bucks, yo!), my little blue tent, enough MP3s to play a continuously the whole week, my Neil Gaiman audio book, and reservation for a big SUV (Only $100 extra, yo!) that just might end up being my home if it starts raining or something.

I've been so excited for the last week, from the minute I bought my tickets and my first real vacation in four years suddenly became real.

And Mr. Neil will be here in 30 minutes. What more can a man want?

Happy anniversary

2006-10-04T15:31:00.001-07:00

So it's our anniversary today (4th legally, but really the 12th). And I used my lunch break to run home and leave a beautiful bouquet on the kitchen counter for my beloved wife to find when she gets back from school. And what did she do for me? Nothing. She forgot about it!
What's the compensation a man gets when a woman forgets? Is there even a precedent? Or maybe is this thing actually is my anniversary present?
Because, you know, she's never hearing the end of it. This is going to be so much fun.

And The Winner

2006-10-04T10:18:00.002-07:00

of today's Henry E. Jumpy award for Most Awesomest Song I Haven't Heard in Ages, But iTunes Just Randomly Selected For Me And I'm So Happy is: Orange Crush, but R.E.M.
(Hey, did you know that R.E.M stands for -- oh, you did?)

of this years John M. Theitc Lamest Post Ever award is: that one from May 12. Gawd.

of this Summer's Kal S. Uper Best Comic Convention that I missed is: A tie. They all win. Get it?
of this decade's Jeremy F. Oottapper award for Song That Makes Your Knee Go Up and Down With the Rhythm is: Oasis. Just pick any one of the big 5.
He hey! I hadn't planned on mentioning it, but Animal Nitrate just came on. Winner of the Fredrick F. Stone Lifetime Achievement award for Song That Most Makes Me Feel Like I'm Throwing Stones at my Base. Different Story.
And by the time I finished the Animal Nitrate bit, Nick Cave's By The Time I Get to Phoenix came on. What a downer.

This is so much fun. I wish I could do something else while listening to music.

The Da Vinci Code review - see if you can decypher it

2006-05-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

DbOoNr'iTn BgOsThHiEtR

2006-05-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Between September and Januray, I took pictures of these trees once or twice a week.

Two weeks ago they grew all their leaves back in about 10 days, but I kept forgetting the camera and missed it. So the slideshow shows only half the cycle, but it's pretty neat.

My blog is real!

2006-05-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod! This is so huge. It's bigger than Ron getting a non-secured credit card. It's so big, it's life altering. It's mind numbing. It's practically ing.

This ONLY happens to REAL bloggers. Which now officially includes me. I am now officially part of the blogosphere. I can finally say "Hello, my name is iDoc, and I'm a blogger." This is so unexpected... I just don't know what to say!

I can finally start writing about Ruby on Rails (What do you mean I have to know HTML?), whether Perl is still a valid choice for anything (Hell no! Uh, I mean, of course it is!), Linux as a desktop environment (Ain't gonna happen, honey. And yes, of course my desktop at the office runs Linux - I need it to work), what I miss the most about Israel (Hold on baby, daddy's coming next week) and why I can't stand it when Marina leaves the shampoo bottle open (mostly because it could end the world).

Yes, people. I got linked by another blog. Yay Mandy!

Why this was a great day

2006-05-10T01:11:00.000-07:00

I rode my bicycle to work today. Between my shoulder pain, the hernia, and the unusually long winter, I've been aching for activity. Last weekend we got our first proper sunny day and we went on a short ride in Shoreline. It was fun, but I wanted more. This morning I finally made good on my promise (to myself) to start riding to work and I love it. The morning air is still chilly, but I got warm very quickly (one of the many benefits of being in awful shape). The five mile trip was exactly long enough to get me properly tired, but not so exhausted that I couldn't work. I got to the office feeling like a million dollars and a blowjob, took a shower in the company's quite impressive facilities, and went straight to work with a feeling of utter invincibility.
I had a really productive day at work. I didn't actually get ahead with the goals I had set for this week, but I got rid of a lot of peripheral stuff that was nagging for my attention and will allow me to stay focused on important stuff for the rest of the week. Basically it just felt good to stay focused on my priotities and manage to go through a whole day without getting distracted and Googling for the reason dogs get this itch in their anuses and need to drag it all over your rug to scratch it. I try to use the word "anus" once a day. It's one of my favorites.
A few of the guys from the office went out drinking and pooling (or is it snookering? I never remember which is which). It turned out to be an evening of laughter and merriment with the guys, and there just aren't enough of these. We sort of got hustled by sort of pool sharks who weren't that good at pool or sharking, but when I finally got to play against my friends, I did pretty well. I only wanted to spend time with friends - I didn't care at all if I won or even if I scored. But fuck if it doesn't feel better to win.
In the course of this evening, Ron was telling us about his friend who dropped his contact lens at the beach, found it, cleaned it with what he had available, and put it back in his eye.

Ron: He just put it in his mouth.
Mandy: Was it hard or soft?
iDoc: Before or after he put it in his mouth?

You don't get a setup like this every day. And when one comes, you take it. It just ties the whole day together.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. And Me!

2006-05-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to The City to meet with Chiara and Stefano for some food and sun. It was a beautiful day, and it wasn't too crowded, and life was beautiful.

Is that my favorite bridge behind me? Why yes, it is! Remind me to tell you about Emperor Norton Bridge some time.

Every time we visit The City, we discover something new.

I just love San Francisco.

But that's not the point of today's story. On our way back from Little Italy, we saw the real, the original, the wild, the lovable, the incredible parrots hanging out in a park. You know, The Parrots! You've read the book, you've seen the movie, now check this out!

As I'm sure everyone knows, there's a flock of parrots living in Telegraph Hill (that's in San Francisco). These are wild-born parrots, not escaped pets. It isn't clear how they got to SF and how they all found each other, but who cares? They're here and they're amazing. There were at least 30 parrots there, maybe even all 50 of them.

They were sitting in the trees

on the lamp post

in the other trees

and on me!!!

There was some bird food, probably left there by locals, and we tourists held some of it and tried to get the parrots to eat out of our hands. The parrots already know it's easier to collect food out of people's hands than out of feeders, and they were all over us in a second.

They're amazing. They can hang upside down from a leaf they're holding with only one foot, while picking a single seed out of your hand with their beak. And they manage to look smart doing it.

They will let you come close even if you don't have food, but if all you have to offer is a finger, they will try to eat it. It hurts.

If you do have some tasty seeds in your hand, they will honor you with a personal visit. The underside of their toes is smooth and softish, but they're very strong - my hands we covered with deep claw marks. They're not domesticated - if you try to touch them, you get bitten. Unless you have food, that is. As long as they're chewing food, these flying green sluts will let you pet them gently, or even sneak a belly rub. I expected them to be soft and fluffy, but feathers are very smooth and firm, in a wow soft of way. Makes sense when you think about aerodynamics, I guess. And they're just as light as David Attenborough says. (Oh how I love David. But that's also for another day.)

But as soon as their mouth is empty, play time is over. The speed of their their wings at take off, and force of they wind they generate, are awe-inspiring. Powerful little fuckers.

Grimace: contort the face to indicate a certain mental or emotional state.
In this case, my mental state is "ohmigod ohmigod this is so awesome I can't believe I'm really here, but goddamn that sumbitch is cutting my finger off!"

I like the way we're both cocking our heads in the same direction.

And I loves me a daytime moon.

What a great day to be alive.

Go watch the whole slideshow.

iDoc Beuller's Day Off

2006-04-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

Just some nice pictures to show you.

Back in November, I took a day off work, to sort my thoughts, get connected to my inner beauty, and go up to some place in the hills that I consider "mine". It was a total failure, mainly because it was a very sunny day, but too damn cold to go anywhere interesting.

I ended up wasting some time in Gaudalupe Park, down in San Jose, and reading in the cold at the duck pond we have across the street. I felt completely cheated and was even angrier at the end of the day than I was before.

But I did take 50 pictures of this beautiful great egret in the park, and some nice bright duck pitures at our pond. And a few shots of the weird duck-chicken-moose hybrid we have at the pond. Fascinating, but rather sad guy.

Check it out.

As a teaser, check out these beautiful ducklings, from the pond across the street from out complex.

SHE'S IN!!!

2006-04-10T22:19:00.000-07:00

Marina got accepted into the San Jose Masters in Psychology program!!!!

Rejoice!

Marina Alejandra Cinella-Carmel, future certified Marriage & Family Therapist. I like the sound of it.

Send your congraulations to marinacinella at gmail. And tell her she should start reading this blog herself.

And here's me, on a cold morning. Pretending to be a big white turd.

Operacion Triunfo

2006-04-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

We "invested" the last three hours watching the finals for the Argentinian version of American Idol (that's Kochav Nolad for all you ingnant Israelis)

It was a tense show, but girls vote more than boys, so Benjamin won.

But boys do vote a lot, so Luba did get third place (out of six finalists), and got multiple kisses from every man on stage.

Thought you might like to know.

Tahoe again

2006-04-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

I already spent about 5 hours today working on the blog, so I'm not going to talk about it in the blog. Takes too damn long to tell everything.

I dont' really have that much to say about it actually, except that it was awesome, but we had to spend the night in a motel half-way to Tahoe, because the road was snowed.

Head over to the Flickr set and read my comments.

The Tahoe Adventure(s)

2006-04-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

I've been spending a lot of time on this blogging deal, and actually having some fun with it. I love that you can do all the basic stuff so easily, but it's also easy to start playing aroung. You won't usually notice it, but I'm doing something new every week.
As good as the on line tools are, it's still a lot of work. It's hard enough to write the blog, but when you add the time it takes to get your HTML, CSS, and JS just right, selecting and croppoing pictures, and uploading to Flickr (I insist on not hosting them on Blogger because they compress and reduce quality. You can't notice it, but they do it. And I can't make up my mind on the BEST way to work with Flickr. There are just so many! This condition is commonly called OCD) it's a real weekend killer. As if it wasn't complicated enough already, I just got a Flickr pro account and started organizing everything in sets, and I just started to seriously work on putting some of our videos on the net. It took me weeks of work to decide on Flickr as my image hosting service, and video is SO much more complex. I've spent about two hours today messing with Windows Movie Maker and Vimeo, and I'm nearly shocked at how close they are to doing everything I need. Let's see how good they are at what I want. Speaking of Internet tools, big shoutout to my homies at Writely. Y'all was gonna change the net all over again, and then Google bought you, and they already changed the net, so you sorta lost that. But I still love you and use you all the time.

Anyway.

Between my hernia and Marina's studies, we've had very little time for traveling lately, and work effectively killed what was left. Almost eight months after the last time we spent a night away from home, we finally traveled outside the bay area again. To the same place we went last time - Tahoe.

Our previous trip was a camping trip last August. Lake Tahoe is so high up the mountains that the camping sites are only open three months a year, so you have to reserve months in advance. We did. After the Shasta fiasco (I really should put that stuff on blog. Some day...), we weren't sure what to expect in term of weather and activities. Renting a boat again is a bit boring, jet skis are so expensive that it takes the fun out of it, and the lake water is freezing even in August.

So we just relaxed and took it very very easy for three days, and the weather was just perfect, and even the water was bearable for a few minutes at a time.

We got there around midnight and started setting up our brand new tent. Our little blue $24.99 tent has served long and well, and is a pleasure to set up in total darkness. But this is America, and I'm making all these piles of money*, and everything is so cheap here*, and I figured that I deserve a tent that's actually longer than I am. So we went all out and spend 40 whole bucks on a bigger, fancier, not quite so easy to assemble in darkness, tent.

There was a great meteor shower that night. Here's a picture I took of the sky.

Apparently, I need to improve my equipment a bit.

Morning came, and we started to work on breakfast. Note that every site gets its own picnic table, bear-proof locker, wooden shelves, and camp stove. America.
And the awesome new tent.

The camp chef made some omelets.

And the neighbors came to sample the leftovers.

Later we hung out on the beach below our campground.

Chipmunks were everywhere.

We drove up above Emerald Bay.
Looking at these views, I think this summer I'll post pictures from down below, from the boat I am going to rent after all.

Evening descended...

And the camp chef started to work on dinner.
It took me over an hour to get the fire started, because I forgot you need to wave. I'm an embarrassment to Israelis everywhere.

Day two: More of that hanging out on the beach stuff.

I know, I know. We need to get out in the sun more often. STFU.

OK, enough with the pretty lake. Time to go home.

We've never had really good luck with Tahoe weather, so of course it started raining. In mid-fucking-August! Just like it did in 98!
Apaprently, Writely doesn't let me embed flash in the document. So I'll just put links to Vimeo. Like this.
Like most of our videos, this one ends with Marina asking how to turn the recorder off.

A while later, the rain stopped, and we saw the wind turbines at Altamont Pass for the first time. Thousands of them!
I was quite excited and took a million pictures. Video.

Sunset. Video.

Crossing the the bay on the San Mateo bridge. Look how close we are to the water!

* not really

Con Voyage (WonderCon Finale)

2006-04-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

Last thing to do before we're don't with WonderCon: A special screening of Sin City with Frank Miller, followed by Q&A, followed by a special "mixer" hosted at Berkeley Comic Relief, current holder of the "Best Comic Shop I've Ever Seen" title, dedicated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Whew!

Took this picture on my way out of the parking lot. Karamba!

And took these on my way out of the McDonalds at Berkeley. Where would people defecate if it weren't for McD?

The sky was, in fact, just as red as it seems here, and Berkeley is, in fact, just as nice a place as it seems here.

Frank Miller came in, gave a short introduction, we watched the movie (Yeehaw!), there was some more Q&A and we headed on to the "party" at the comic shop.

It was a nice little party. A "mixer", they called it, because you meet new people and stuff. And some people there really had some mixing skills. Me? I lurked in the corner, awaiting the high point of my life, the moment when I would ask someone to take a picture of me with Frank Miller. Me. With Frank Miller. I kept thinking about all the funny things I would write in the blog when I uploaded the picture at some late hour of the night, when I finally got home, after partying all night with Frank Miller. The man who gave us The Dark Knight. The man who reinvented comics. The man who, about 30 minutes into the party, went out for a cigarette and never came back.

At least I got to drive on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge at night.

If you're ever in the area, visit the Comic Relief shop. The used bookstore (right next door) alone is worth the trip.

The fun Con tinues (WonderCon Day 3)

2006-04-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

OK, let's get going. I still want to write about at least one more thing today.
Some things you never get tired of. Even on day 3, I was still constantly stop people and ask them to pose for me.

Green Lantern

I love Batman's dead-serious expression. I ran into him a few time during the day, and he never lost it. Cool.

YES! All you losers are behind me, because I've been waiting here for, like two hours, and I sat through the whole Spongebob presentation.!
But what could be worth all this excitement?

Frank Miller! So close I had to remove the red-eye caused by my flash.
I didn't think I'd enjoy an interview where the interviewer gets called a dick three time. OK, of course I did, but anyway, Frank became (more) famous recently for writing, drawing and co-directing Sin City, his exciting and realistic account of life in L.A. Awesome stuff. But the reason he is so high on my I'd-give-him-my-sister scale is the Dark Night Returns, the comic book that changed everything - for the industry and for me. After 15 years, it's still better than anything that doesn't have "Allan Moore " written on the cover.
Frank talked about some of the stories behind his stories, about how Batman really is a dick, and uh, I don't remember what else.

Did I mention that I was in the first row, right in front of Frank? Did I?

Eric Powell. Writes The Goon, one of my favorite recent discoveries.
It's about this bug, The Goon, who goes around beating people up and hate vampires. Good, clean FUN.
That's me on the right. The tiny bit of mustard visible under my sweatshirt is my new "Time for some thrilling heroics" T-shirt. I'm just as crazy about Serenity as I ever was.

These two must have some serious dinner table arguments around election time.

The iFilm chick, with someone carefully chosen to represent the average Con atendee.

iFilm is a neat place to waste some time and bandwidth. Check out their WonderCon coverage - girls (obviously), Frank Miller , and everything else. If you watch the girls coverage, and who wouldn't, you will not only see the world renowned and lovely Miss Christy Marie, which you will all remember as the girl who put the "us" in "God damn, that is one seriously hot Leia", but you will also see the guy hiding me from the video camera, while I was taking yet another picture of Lara Croft.

Here's Christy again, because we can, we should, and we want (Thanks, Super Skrull . You've made us all very happy)

And if that wasn't exciting enough, there's Grant Morrison, casually chatting with Karen Berger and a pretty woman I'm not familiar with.
In layman's terms, that like seeing Bruce Springstien, casually chatting with Quincy Jones and a pretty woman I'm not familiar with.

And that was that. Three days of mind-numbing fun were over. But were they?
Next stop - iDoc and Frank Miller go to the movies!

Long Con Silver (WonderCon Day 2 continues)

2006-04-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

Flickr actually has everything I need for these photo stories. I get to put a title about the picture and some comments below, and it's easier than copy-pasting all these links (although I quite proud of the JavaScript I wrote to help simplify that work. Go Greasemonkey!).

So just head over to Flickr and see/read the rest of day 2.

Wrath of Con (WonderCon Day 2)

2006-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

OK, tired of writing, and you're not reading anyway. Pichurs!

The Red vs. Blue guys. They're funny and nice and great guys. RvB is great.
Maybe I'll let you watch the DVDs I bougt from them. My signed DVDs. Or maybe I won't.

Troopers troopers everywhere.

Getting closer to the pretty ladies. This is Terry Moore, write of Strangers in Paradise. SiP precisely the type of comic you'd never expect me to read. I'd never expect me to read something like it. I certainly wouldn't expect to find myself completely hooked on it. It's about two chicks, one of whom is a beautiful lesbian ex-hit-woman and ex-hooker. OK, maybe it is just the sort of thing you'd expect me to read.
Seriously, though. I love it. For the story!
And the lesbian sex. And here's Terry giving me the horns.

This here is not just a toilet paper holder I saw in mid-crap. This here is a Rollmaster 3000, and it amused me to no end.

Our first hotty of the day: Batgirl (from the 60's TV show, not the lame movie)

Richard Mayhew, the guy in the Chewbacca suit. I couldn't get a better picture, because I think he was charging for pictures.

Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in the 1940's Superman TV show. Was that name some agent's smart idea?
The 40's Superman you see in the picture is George Reeves. And if that's not cosmic, I don't know what is (you know what I'm talking about, right? Please tell me you know)

Whoppa! Now we're getting somewhere.
There were eight booths at the rear corner of the convention hall where these, uh, ladies were selling photos, and posing with drooling fans.
You know how they say it's all Photoshop and nobody's that hot in reality? They don't know shit. Them chicks is HOT.
I grabbed these two pictures of Tiffany Taylor (Miss November 98) Justine Joli from a distance, because I was just too embarrassed to come close and ask them to look at me for a sec.

After orbiting them for like 6 hours, I managed to gather the nerve to ask Justine if I could take a picture and she said sorry, it's $20. THEN I was embarrassed.
I moved away and tried to take some more pictures while hidden in the crowd. You know, for journalistic purposes. But I felt like a criminal for trying to get them for free and couldn't take a single shot. I felt like everyone was watching me, which is as funny as it is pathetic - these women around me, and I think people are looking at me.

On the thirtieth time I passed by her booth, Linda Tran started to chat me up. Not that I was able to speak or anything. She seemed very nice for a person who wants to steal my innocence and destroy my immortal soul.
She gave me her card. Maybe I'll call.

Stormtrooper Elvis. Didn't we meet at ComicCom?
I took this picture while waiting in line to get my Dark Knight books signed by Frank Miller.

Yes, that's FRANK MILLER signing MY Dark Night book, and my #1 Adventures of Batman and Robin.
And that's me, getting ready to kiss him on the lips.

Zatana was behind me in line. 'Sup?

Warsies do the best costumes.

I don't need to know what you're dressed as to take your picture. I just need to like you.

Green Lantern and Freakazoid and their stuffed underwear.

Kids are always cool. And beards sticking from under helmets.

Miss Croft. Always welcome where nerds congregate.

And that's just the first half of day 2. More soon.

Son of Con (WonderCon Day 1)

2006-04-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Two months ago (That's February 2006 A.D, for the archaeologists who have just found this in a pre-war data center that survived the 100-year winter that followed The Impact. But I digress) I attended WoderCon in San Francisco. WonderCon is ComicCon's little brother - smaller showroom, only half as many events, fewer visitors (30,000, compared with ComicCon's 100,000), three days instead of four, one hour train ride instead of one hour flight. It's perfect.
The con was in San Francisco. I love San Francisco, except for how cold it is in the summer. The upside of this weather wackiness is that once it starts getting colder everywhere else, SF gets perfect weather. Just look at those skies! In February! And the building is cool too. I love SF architecture.

You know you're home when you are met at the door by an Imperial stormtroopers. They were everywhere. I guess the local garrison volunteered to help at the con. I later went to visit a few of them and they're all seem to be amazingly normal people. God, I wish I were a stormtrooper. Or Wonder Wooman.

The troopers were so great. They even made sure to always use that "move along" gesture with two fingers like real stormtroopers do. Watch Episode IV again and see what I mean.

I was tiny bit smarter about this con than I was at ComicCon. I knew the first day is the slowest day, and thus the best day for shopping and autographs.

So here's me with my friend Mike. Mike. That's Mr. Mignola to you. Prononunced Min-yo-la. Mike writes and draws Hellboy. He seemed so excited to meet me, I couldn't refuse him a picture. This is a great example of how much calmer WonderCon is - in ComicCon, nobody has time to talk with you and certainly not enough time to hold the signing line and take a picture with you. Here, there was only one guy behind me in line. Mike is lucky to have caught me on such a quiet day. I even let him draw a sketch in my sketch book.
And check out the Sin City poster in the background. More Sin City action on the Sunday report.

Oh yeah, new tradition. I bought a sketchbook, and I'm getting all the cool artists I meet to draw sketches for me.

Unloaded some of the cash I brought with me, saw some booths, time to hear important people speak. I'll be quick about it, because nobody cares except me, and I don't remember any more. And I want to get to the hot stuff already.

The lady on the left is Karen Berger, of Vertigo Comics. She makes stuff happen. The guy next to her wrote Crisis on Infinite Earth, I think.
Oh, right. You don't give a shit.

After that, a quick stop at the Mirrormask DVD preview, just to see if Neil Gaiman would make a surprise appearance. He didn't, but we got an amusing clip with Dave McKean saying hello.

Getting hotter. Focus on Mike Mignola. These 1-hour "focus" events are usually all Q&A and pretty fun. The artists try to run through the lame I-always-get-asked-the-same-shit questions quickly and spend more time talking about stuff they haven't talked about in at least a week. Sitting firmly in the first category is the "Hellboy 2" question. The answer: soon. It was cool. I liked Mike.

Now we're talking! WonderCon had about three different events centered around the currently running Infinite Crisis story. It's going to change everything. I've only gotten into superhero comics very recently, and I'm not completely up to date on all the history and how it's being change by Infinite Crisis, but I know I had a ton of laughs with these guys. That's Mark Waid in the middle, and he wrote Crisis on Infinite Earth. So who was the other guy?
These guys are some of the hottest writers in comics today. I love that the next day I ran into a couple of them and just stood in the hallway and chatted with them for a bit. I nearly hosed my shorts, and there was nobody to take my picture with them.

Grant Morrison. Need I say more?
And he's not faking that killer Scotish accent.

Right! People want to see babes, and I've been writing this post for over a month.

No matter what your wife says, this is beautiful

2006-04-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

Igor, you rock. I can't stop looking at this.

P.S.
Photo.net is a wonderful site. If only because of George. George rocks too.

Some seriously funny shit

2006-04-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

Craig's list so rules. Check it out:

Squirrel confessions.
Best m4w ad ever. How can you refuse a deal like this?

The first opinion piece on this blog

2006-04-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

You suck.

Hikonu lebiat!

2006-03-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

Defrost the shishlik, warm up the pitas, and spread that cottage. Tell Yossi to have my table ready.
For it is now official: on May 21, I will be having my first decent plate in a year and a half. And then I will have hundreds more of them. Nay, Thousands.

In other words, we're coming to Israel for two weeks.
My birthday is on May 28. Maybe we can arrange something fun.

Oh, and if you'r not my parents, don't tell them anything. They who do not check their child's blog daily, will get something of a surprise.

I'm so behind on my blogging

2006-03-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

How can I be simultaneously frustrated that I don't have enough fun, and that I don't have time to write all the stuff I do?

I guess it's a fucking mystery of life.

New look

2006-02-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

My blog had that clean-with-room-for-big-pictures going for it, but it was butt ugly.

Figured it's about time I selected a normal template and used my utterly non-existent CSS skillz to shape it to my own tase. So far I managed to add the LibraryThing widget, and even got the separators to look good on it. Quite proud of it.

Down side is I'll have to start publishing tiny images like everyone else.

Jane Fucking Goodall!

2006-02-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

“You like Jane Goodall, right?”

Kind of a weird first thing to hear when I open my eyes in the morning, but that’s how it is when she wakes up two hours before me.

“Because it says here that she’ll be speaking today in some conservation event at De Anza College.” God bless the San Jose Mercury News and it’s advertisement-disguised-as-news stories.

Whee! Get dressed, grab a quick bite, and it’s off to the Wildlife Conservation Expo I go. Jane Goodall!

The event was organized by the Wildlife Conservation Network. All sorts of groups had stands there, with real honest-to-God conservationists who telling stories and giving details about the animal they were dedicated to saving, and in the main hall there were lectures by more or less the same folks. Very interesting stuff, really interesting people. Already worth the visit and the small donation I gave.

If nothing else, ComicCon teaches you to plan ahead for the main event. So I stayed inside almost all the time, and every time we had 10 minutes between speakers and some people left the hall, I moved to a slightly better seat. By the time JG was on, I was in the first row, right in front of the podium. Smooth.

There were some introductions by WCN, people, including the woman who sat three seats from me and turned out to not just look like Isabella Rosellini, but actually be Isabella Rosselini. The one who Rachel said Ross could sleep with, back when Friends was somewhat funny. And then the main attraction came up to the stage. Jane Goodall is inspiring. Her speech was so moving that I nearly got off my ass and decided to do something with my life. She is seventy-something years old and still tours 300 days a year. She has this little stuffed ape toy that she takes everywhere. And she’s so tiny, I could hardly see her behind the podium. Probably would have had a better view from third row, or if I weren’t right in front of the podium. Bummer.

Then I got in line for the book signing outside and listened in on what other people were talking about. The lady behind me was telling another lady how she recently received several wolf cubs, and the other lady was giving her the email address of a group in Minnesota that has experience with wolfs and can help her rise them. Only in fucking America.

Then a completely different lady told yet a fourth lady how a friend of her cousin’s neighbor’s ex-lesbian-lover’s aunt’s proctologist sat next to Ms. Goodall on a plane with her 3-year-old, and JG was all “get that fucking brat off me, you person of questionable hygiene!” If she’s such a cunt, why are you in line to get her to autograph? Everywhere, I’m afraid.

As if to prove she’s down with the rug rats, Goodall saw how long the line was and sent her people to collect all the parents waiting in line with their kids, and to bring them to the front of the line, so she could actually talk with the kids and tell the some stories before she get exhausted (which she certainly was by the time it was my turn).

This is me. With Jane Goodall.

Me. With Jane F. Goodall.
Suh-weet.

Then I went to say hello at a few of the stands, bought Okapi (he of my previous post fame), let a 4-foot snake climb all over me for about 10 minutes (W-O-W, what an amazing creature), and went home a very happy customer.

Neil Gaiman

2006-02-04T23:45:00.000-08:00

Is there anyone who doesn’t know Neil Gaiman is my favorite author? He’d be yours too, if you weren’t such a bonehead. You know who you are, Nadav. Anyway, on September he went on a signing tour to promote his (then) new book Anansi Boys and his (then) new movie Mirrormask he wrote, and around the 30^th he was scheduled to make 3 appearances in Bay Area bookstores. One of them got canceled because the store closed (more on that store later), and another one was no good for some other reason, which left me with Book Passage in Corte Madera.

The event was scheduled for 5:30 and I planned to be there at noon. Geek attractions always mean a huge line. Good thing I got lost and only arrived at the store around 1:00, because

I got to see the area and it was a beautiful day (you haven’t truly lived until you cross the Golden Gate bridge on a one of those perfect California sunny days, which are so rare in he City, in a 1968 convertible Mustang, but doing it in a Camry is pretty cool too), and
Apparently all the geeks went to the Berkeley event two days earlier, because I was all alone there until 4:00, when I was joined by two Philippino girls with a severe case of the cutes. We chatted while we waited in the scorching sun, and I tried not to stare too obviously. Let’s, er, just say that time passed quickly once they got there.

Then they let us in, and Award Winning Author Michael Chabon (seems like a nice guy, but I haven’t read any of his stuff yet) interviewed Neil for about an hour, and then I was almost first in line to have Neil sign my books, and he was so nice, and I got to tell him what I wanted to tell him, and he liked me so much that he shook my hand and drew me a mouse that says “Hi, Ido” in my Coraline book, and then one of the cute girls took a picture of me with him in the background, and told me she also took a picture of both of us talking in her camera, and she’ll email it to me (I’m still waiting!). And then I drove home with tears in my eyes.

He’ll be in Israel in October, and will probably do a signing. But I don’t know if he’ll shake your hand or draw you a mouse, because, you know, you’re not special.

Medical Update

2006-02-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

Medical update

Sore, swollen, still on some mild pain killers, can’t walk very far, beginning to realize there will be no ski this year. And I know everyone’s dying to know, so, no, it hasn’t grown back yet.

On bitching

When they ask me about living here, I usually start by saying it’s all great and wonderful and easy and quiet. Then I go on for an hour about how everything is too complicated, and how the natives are unfriendly and have no soul. I’m assuming that if anyone ever reads this, it’s because they know me well enough to have been subjected to this at some point. I’m bitchy. Sue me.

Sure, tomatoes cost a buck a piece, and I miss real cheese, but who cares? My second car is a Taurus. And I’m writing this on my laptop, in the café in the Borders book store. There are 18 other people here, all doing their stuff, and it’s less noise than staying at home with the TV on. It’s no all bad.

I never get talk about the fun stuff, because I’m always complaining about something stupid and minor. Also because most of you assholes never fucking call. Take a hint.

Ooh, before I forget. Das Boot is still one of the most Goddamn movies ever. Even though there’s only one woman appearing for 3 minutes and she’s dressed the whole time.

How to look a bit more like a porn star in one easy step

2006-01-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

Step 1: Shave your nads.

It works!

Nothing I can do about the size thing, though. Sure it isn't everything.

So I had an open left inguinal hernia repair surgery yesterday. "Inguinal" is Latin for "a bit too close to the nuts", "hernia" has more to do with intestines than with testicles, but guys still don't like to talk about it, "repair" means they patch your insides with a piece of plastic mesh, and "suregery" means you get to wear one of those look-at-my-butthole gowns.

I'm in some pain now, but there are several positive aspects:

Since I decided to take care of this thing, quite a few women have asked to mess with my balls. Not all of them terribly ugly.
A woman I don't even know shaved half my pubes off. I was asleep at the time, so for all I know she was seriously hot.
Now I do nothing but read read read.
I'm missing a whole week of work. That's more than I've missed for over three years. It's coming off my vacation time though.
Did I mention that I get to not read any work-related mail for 10 whole days?
My incredible wife is spoiling me completely rotten. I love you.
Pain killers. Best trip you can take without leaving the room.

That's me below, trying to seem like everything's cool, and a seemingly-friendly woman didn't cut me open an inch from my freshly shaved wang.

With me are my special get-well-quickly friends:

Schnozito the elephant I got for my birthday abut 8 or 9 years ago.
Binky and Binkolito the dolphins, who I promissed myself would be the last stuffed animals I ever bought.
Okapi the okapi, one of the many stuffed animals I bought after the Binkys. I bought him at the WCN expo a few months ago, which is going to get its own post soon. It will include a picture of me with Jane Goodall.
Book 4 of Preacher, the most bad ass comic ever. It's the one where after some serious getting-back-together sex, the preacher says to his girlfriend "Couldn't help notice you went back to eatin' meat." Bad fucking ass.

I had the suregery at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, which I'm told is something of a rich people's hospital. Fuck yeah! Incredibly friendly staff, warm blankets to cover you (warm as in they put them in the oven before putting them on your frightened turtle), nice ladies who want to check your jewels out and high quality drugs. The whole thing was pretty quick - I got there at 9:30, lost conciousness around 11:00, and was out of there at 2:30. The pain isn't too bad if I don't try anything weird like moving, and I have 1st class tickets on Narcotics Airlines.

Like I said, Marina is working constantly on making my flight more pleasant. I get great home-cooked meals, and this afternoon she even transformed this pile of ingredients into that wonderful yeast cake. Yum.

Not much to add, I think. Especially now that the Vicodin is in full effect and I can't get the first chords of Metallica's Orion out of my head. I should be fine for WonderCon, and that's the important thing.

Special shout outs to all mah homies:

My surgeon, Dr. Expect Your Scrotum And The Base Of Your Penis To Turn Purple. Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to hear just before going in.
My anesthesiologist, Dr. You'll Never Know What Hit You.
The friendly Nurse Before We Begin Can You Take This Marker And Mark An X On The Side Of Your Groin We Need To Operate On?. Hope I got it right.
MC Vicodin, a.k.a DJ Rel-AX, baby. You da man.
Miss Jenny McCarthy. 'Cause it's my blog and I can do anything I want. And I'm stoned half out of my mind.

I can't think of a funny title with "ball" in it.

2005-12-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

OK, the title was a lie.

Mercury threw a new year "ball" two weeks ago. You're really supposed to dress up for these occasions. Usually, that's a huge turn-off for me, and this year they made it more complicated by calling it a "masquerade". Suits and tuxedos won't be enough this year - we were required to dress "magically elgenat". Let's skip the part where I'm all "WTF is magically elegant? Can I come wearing nothing but a corsage? Why can't they just have a party?", and go right to the part where I figure out that the coolest costume I could ever wear would to be a tuxedo. And make sure everyone else does the same.

Me? In a tux? Damn straight. And we made a mask (for me - Marina borrowed a Carnaval mask from Carla).

The ball was held at the San Francisco City Hall. Classy.
I could go on and on about how classy it is to hold a ball in the hall, but I won't.

Everyone was so elegant. It was actually great.
Hey, in the background, in the blue dress, isn't that... Oddly enough, I have three accidental pictures of her.

Food!

Friends!

Older friends!

Decadense!

Newer, somewhat fuzzy, friends!
(And yes, I pretty much had that thing on my face the whole evening)

The American dream!
Where did all these wrinkles come from? I look like a Goddamn Ferengi!

I didn't expect any sort of fun, but this 80s cover band kept the floor busy.

Oops, The Chick noticed my flash

Yeah, that's that chick that guy used to... and then he... yeah.

Table for three?

My favorite two pictures from the evening

Like I said earlier, good thing that we take the camera everywhere.

I'm back. I think.

2005-12-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

I spent the last months is a small hole I dug under the world, feeling very sorry for myself for several reasons. I thought I'd feel better about if I wrote about it, but of course I can't. Because this is the Internet. Your boss might be reading. Or worse, your mother.

And because c:\pics is 8 gigs less than 6 months after getting the camera. And because I took this picture from the deck a few minutes ago.

And because yesterday we went to pick up my parent's package from Bernie, up in The Hills. Los Alto Hills. Normally that's not news worthy, but I had to break 30 meters before reaching his house, becuase four deer were crossing the road, to get to the yummy front lawn just across the street. Four deer. Crossing the road. Right fucking there. I'm so glad we take the camera everywhere these days.

Do you realize the horror of these people's lives? Not only are they forced to live in a shack in a remote mountain location, but they also have to deal with deer munching on their front lawn (hey, an unintentional Ali G moment). Looks like this particular slum gets frequest visits - see the wire fence around protecting the bush? This is turning into a very naughty post. Very naughty indeed.

So, if people endure this kind of life, and I meerly watch it happen to others, I guess things aren't that bad. Maybe it's time I stopped whining, grabbed something with Gaiman on the cover, and bought a piece of electronic equipment I really don't need. It adds so much to one's feeling of control.

Without further adieu, in no particular order, I give you: Fun stuff I've done lately.

San Diego Comic Con, Day Four (Part 1): But wait, there is SO much more!

2005-07-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

Another day, another line to stand in. I knew today would be busy, so I woke up extra early, and by 7:30 I was already standing in line with about a million of my fellow nerds. I should have gotten here earlier. I hope I'll get decent seats.

Today is supposed to be the biggest day of the Con, with over 100,000 visitors expected. Everybody's saying it, but nobody remembers where they heard this number.

I'm here for more movie-related presentations in the 6500-seat hall. Yesterday was only a rehearsal for today's madness. One of the lessons they learned was that it takes a LONG time for 6500 people to sit down, so they let us in at 9:00 even though the events won't start till 11:00 (yesterday they let us in at 10:30, but couldn't start till 11:30). It's fucking freezing in this hall, but I came prepared with a jacket, a book, the laptop and Marina dropped by earlier to bring me some food and drink - I'm going to be in this chair all day.

This will be a very long day, so it's going to be a very long report. Today, instead of wasting precious sleeping time on writing the report at night, I will be writing it between events and do a final edit when I get back. I don't have network access here anyway.

The atmosphere here is wonderful. Everybody wants to get a good seat, everybody wants to save seats for their friends, everybody wants to get their shopping done, everybody wants to take shortcuts through places they're not supposed to go through, but nobody's being a dick about it. No one is shouting to their pals on the other side of the room, trying to cut in line, smoking or picking a fight. There's nothing to make you feel you're not with 100,000 of your best friends. When you're in line for something, there's no reason to "stand" in line - just sit in a comfortable corner and relax. Nobody will try to pass you. I'm thinking what it would be like to pack 100,000 Israelis in one building, and it's not a pretty thought.

People around you just start talking with you about how excited they are about what we're about to see, comparing experiences from past Cons and writing down your recommendations for good books or movies. Imagine how many friends I could make if only I were a sociable person! I'm listening to people around me exchange book reviews and discuss how Episode III contradicts (or doesn't contradict, depends on who you ask) Episode IV. I'm a bit bummed about how Star Wars seems to have become synonymous with science fiction, just like Harry Potter took over fantasy. With the new Narnia movie(s), maybe next year will be different.

Right. To business.

Superman Returns
First thing we got was Bryan Singer, director of next year's Superman Returns. I was never a huge Superman fan, more of a Dark Knight person myself, and I've never heard of Bryan Singer before today. But it turns out that I'm a big fan of his, and you probably are too. He directed X-Men and X2 (he passed on X3, though because he was already working on Superman). Not enough? He directed The Usual Suspects. You can't top that.

So yeah, Bryan and I are like this now. He was nice, modest, cooperative with fans and idiots alike, tired from his flight (he came straight from Australia) and funny. A little bit.

Bryan brought a 5 minutes trailer prepared from what they've already filmed of the movie. After he played it, the crowd all stood up and cheered for 3 whole minutes (I timed it), and wouldn't calm down until he played it again. Then there was some more Q&A and we were done.

I originally didn't plan on coming to the Superman event at all, but I'm so glad I did. In stark contrast to V for Vendetta people, Bryan is one of us.

Update: http://bluetights.net is the movie's homepage. There's lots of goodness there, including several "video journals" and one covering Bryan Singer's visit to Comic Con. Check it out.
While you're there, look at some stills.

War of the Worlds
The special effects man from War of the Worlds came and talked about making the movie. Audience asked some questions and he showed us the of "the basement scene". He then talked a bit about making that scene, which took 3 weeks to film, and that was pretty much it.

Short and quite interesting, actually.

Aeon Flux
I was never very into Aeon Flux, because it was on MTV when I was in the army, so I only saw it once or twice (Which reminds me. Did I ever tell you how my parents got cable the exact same day I joined the army? A sadder tale has never been told). But once you see Aeon Flux, you remember it. Turns out that after the MTV show there was another one I wasn't aware of at all.

Anyway, the two main actors, the producer and the original creator came to chat with us. When Charlize Theron walked onto the stage, you could hardly see anything because of 6500 flashes going off. I guess they like her.

What the hell is she wearing? Someone from the audience shouted something unintelligible and she asked "What was that? You want me to take it off?" I guess that was the highlight of the event.

The movie might be worth something or it might be totally lame - it was hard to tell. I can tell you that Charlize's outfits in the movie are more conservative outfits than cartoon-Aeon wore. The audience asked a bunch of questions in various degrees of weirdness and then it was over too.

The event didn't flow very well. The audience didn't know the people on stage and they didn't really know how to talk to this kind of audience. I mean, the producer referred the process of turning the cartoon series into a movie as "developing the property". "The property" ? This is Comic Con, not some Hollywood power lunch! It was also clear that this team does not have the kind of chemistry that other groups I saw (like the BGS gang) have.

Actors looking doped, or maybe just bored - who knows. Who cares.

I almost felt sorry for the lead male actor, who only got asked one stupid question. I guess that's just life when you're not a babe. Still, he probably got to feel Charlize up at some point, so it's not all bad for him.
I think this is the only time he actually got to say something. Look how everyone else is fascinated by what he has to say!

Kevin Smith
Most people either love Kevin Smith or find him completely stupid. Well, actually most poeple never hear of him, but I'm pretending that I'm writing this to people like me. Anyway, I'm in the first group. I'm one of those people who think Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was made especially for them. So is nearly everyone else here, it seems.
Kevin's session is difficult to describe. He wasn't promoting anything in particular - it was sort of an informative stand up comedy session where you also hear something about making movies and Hollywood, but mainly laugh your ass off.

He's really, really funny, and doesn't quite watch his language. When a question from the audience got him started with some Jesus jokes, he got into some trouble with some guy in the audience that started shouting something about JC dying for Kevin's sins. Ugh. Kevin's protests that he "fucking loves Jesus" had no effect, of course - the guy was not in a listening mood.

Muy hilarious.

Watch the bad video I shot.

Slither
This is a horror movie starring Firefly's Nathan Fillion and cutie Elizabeth Banks. It comes out in 2006 and seems to be good fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
It was a short session and I don't remember any of it, except the Fillion was funny, Banks was cute and I was pulling my hair out because I couldn't wait any longer for the Serenity event.

Serenity - The Firefly movie
Wooowee! Wooo - FUCKING - weeee!

You did notice that those were four separate links, right? Watch them all!

OK, so I was curious about V for Vendetta, I was pleasantly surprised with Bryan Singer and I really wanted to see Kevin Smith, but this day is really about this one movie. Serenity, as if you don't already know, if based on the short-lived and much-loved Firefly TV series. Best damn thing on Sci Fi on TV since X-Files season 2. I fucking LOVE Firefly.
The show and the movie were created by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, who was directing the event. Almost the entire cast was here too (All except Alan Tudyk, aka Ash, aka The Pilot, didn't show up).

Everybody wants to see what Fillion is up to, except the Star Whore, who just wants to look hot, hot, HOT.

Gina Torres (did you know that she was in the Matrix II + III and is married to Laurence Fishburne?) takes an insult from Nathan Fillion.

Everyone is having a good time.

The last supper.

The Star Whore, usually referred to as "Stupid" by the other cast members, just said something that sounded really dirty. Everyone started choking, and she was all "That's not what I meant!"

Fillion doing his Wonder Woman impression.

The crowd really, really loves these folks and they love us right back. It's obvious that they really like each other and love working together. I think that's part of the reason people love the show so much.

Ooh, and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) said "in his bunk"! He said it! For me (and 6500 others, but who cares)!

This has been the most exciting event so far and the most fun. Joss showed a great clip from the movie (10!), people asked some fun questions, everybody made jokes and had a great time.

And suddenly in the middle of all the fun and laughter time was up, and they had to leave.

Wow. What a day! I sat in this freezing hall from 9:00 to 16:00 and didn't even feel time pass. But the day is just beginning - there's still the masquerade!

San Diego Comic Con, Day Three: Having fun is exhausting

2005-07-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

I got to the convention center early today to get into the first big movie event of the con. The movie events take place in the huge hall H, which holds 6,500 people. The first event started at 11:00, but you had to be there at 4:00am to get into one of the first rows. I arrived around 10:00 and got decent seats for the first event, but people who arrived half an hour after me couldn’t get in at all.

I took some more shots of costumed visitors while waiting in line.

Rebel scum! They were right in front of me in the line. You can tell they haven’t had their morning coffee yet.

The young Ms. Incredible.

Weird box people. Nobody knew what they were about.

The first event was a promotion for a few new WB movies: V for Vendetta, the new Harry Potter, Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, and The Fountain.

My main reason for coming was V for Vendetta, which is the terrible movie being made by the Fucking Wachowski Brothers, based on my favorite graphic novel (or is Watchmen my favorite? I can never decide) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It stars Natalie Portman, of whom I could get not a single decent picture, and Hugo “Missster Annnderson” Weaving, who wasn't here today.

Check out Natalie Portman’s hair - she shaved it for the movie.

They showed the trailer for the movie (looked OK, I guess, but way too many digital effects – typical Wachowski) and then they brought in the panelists: Star Natalie Portman, producer Joel Silver, who Alan Moore tells us is a stinking liar, I say is a standard Hollywood , and we all know is the guy who completely killed the Batman franchise, David Lloyd, artist and co-creator of the V for Vendetta comic (taller guy in the blurry picture, and you guessed it – a god) and Some Other Dude I Don’t Remember.

Silver talked a bit about how excited he was to in this "project" and how much he loved the book and blah blah Hollywood crap blah blah, and then they opened the panel for questions. Almost all questions were from weirdo fanboys to Natalie Portman, of course. They asked some odd questions like “what’s the different between playing a character inspired by a comic book and a character inspired by a novel?” and “I heard you talk about Israel and Judaism, and that caused me to start researching that subject and now I’m this whole metaphysical journey”. People were groaning in embarrassment, and the metaphysical guy was booed away by the audience. Natalie Portman was very nice to all of them, tried to be sweet to the more nervous ones, and asked people to direct some questions to the other panel members (nobody did anyway). She was even sweet to the guy who confused her with someone else and asked a question about a movie she wasn’t in. We laughed our asses off and he almost cried.

People did ask some interesting questions on how a certain US administration compares with the government in the book, and how come author Alan Moore wants nothing to do with the movie. Too bad the producers couldn’t give them good answers.

A fun time was had.

And I got to see Natalie Fucking Portman!

Next was The Corpse Bride. This is another stop motion animation movie from Burton, a bit like The Nightmare before Christmas, but they promissed there will only be four songs in it. I have very high hopes for this one.

Go watch the trailer.

Tim Burton was “unable” to come, but he sent a short video of himself saying hello and come watch my movie, as well as two nice people from the production team.

Another bad image taken from a great distance. My mini-tripod doesn't work that well when I forget it at home. Have to get in early tomorrow so I can get decent seats!

Then came The Fountain. It’s some sort of epic story about love and eternity, with Hugh Jackman, who sent a "Hi there!" video from Australia, (where he is now filming X-3), and Rachel"God Damn!" Weisz. Writer/director Darren Aronofsky was there with Wiesz to talk about the movie and take some questions. I’ve never heard of the movie, but many people showed up today especially to see Aronofsky.

I don't want to sound too shallow, and I actually have some expectations from this movie, and Rachel, if a Google search for the least-read reference to you lead you here, I want you to know I think you're a fine actress, honest, but really, who cares? Good times!

Mom, you don't have to click any of those links. I'm sorry if you already did, but I have an audience to please, and it turns out they're not into the fine arts. Well, maybe that depends on how you define "fine".

That ended the WB event and I went back to the floor to get some shopping done.

Oh look! It’s Andy Runton, creator of Owly, the most charming comic book in all history. Andy is a grade-A nice guy, and Owly is, is, is… Well it’s the only comic I ever got Marina to like. I think that says a lot.

Damn. Another victim of Stragers Who Can’t Hold A Camera.

Holly shit! This Hellboy was unbelievable. The mask, the glove, the gun, the tail - wow. Chick In Tight Black certainly approves.

I was in the autograph area when this woman started screaming behind me. It was Margot Kidder, Louis Lane from the Superman movies, shrieking with excitement at the sight of Porno Star Superman here. He was kinda cool in a way, and I was pretty excited too, but nobody ran to me and asked for my autograph.

Wilma! I mean, uh, Erin Gray! She’s like 97 years old now, but she’s still OK, in a way.
You need to read this South Park script. Start where is says “[Playground]”. Go on, I’ll wait.

On to the Battlestar Galactica meeting. While I was waiting for it to start, I hung out in a panel on horror movies and censorship. That’s John Landis in the middle, bad mouthing the MPAA and the White House. Pretty much everyone who was talking about movies had something nice to say about them.

Everybody’s excited about one thing. More to say on that tomorrow.

Finally, the Battlestar Galactica cast. Well, most of it.

Sadly, Tricia Helfer wasn’t there, but Grace Park was there to represent the Cylon Empire. When she came in, the event host asked her where the other Sharons were, and she replied that there are another three backstage. Someone from the audience asked if he could have one, and everyone laughed. Yay.

The crowd went pretty wild when Grace Park came out. I think she was OK with that.

On her left, Apollo is telling Baltar he has something on his face.

Writers/creators/gods Ron Moore and David Eick. They made TV watchable again.
And Madam The Gods Talk to Me Cause I'm The Smug Ass President.

Halfway through the event, Katee Sackhoff finally showed up. How Starbuck of her.

The cast all seemed like best buddies and made the event lots of fun for everyone.

They were talking about differences between the classic and the new show, and Jamie Bamber (Apollo) said that the “action” between Apollo and Starbuck isn’t one of the changes in the new series, because it was bound to happen in the original series if they’d only let it run a little longer. Everybody liked that one. Yay.

After the event I saw Richard Hatch, the original Apollo, in the signing area. He’s also doing Tom Zarek in the new season.

An Obi Wan sadwich! I love the beer belly look on the bike trooper.

Funny story about this elf. I was trying to get a picture of all the Jedis and geeks at the Penny Arcade booth, and the elf happened to turn around and see me with the camera in my hand. She thought I wanted to take her pictuer and immediately assumed the position. It just seemed rude not to take the picture. I love Comic Con.

My favorite South Park line.

That’s pretty much it for today. So much to see, so many places to go, so little time to write and select pictures and stuff. I’m completely beat.

San Diego Comic Con, Day Two: Now dass what ahm talkin' about!

2005-07-15T01:43:00.000-07:00

Shit yeah! This is what I came here for. “Here” being America, of course.

Today was more fun than I can describe. I took a shitload of pictures, but they really can’t explain what’s is like to be here. This place is pure magic, but like other important events in human history, it can’t be fully understood unless it is experienced, and it can’t be properly experienced before it’s understood. I don’t really know what I’m saying here, but it has something to do with me having a really time today.

Where do I begin? The colors (many)? The size (5XL)? The variety (whee!)? The people (all sorts)? The costumes (less of them than I expected, actually)? The booths (billions and billions!)? The familiar names and faces (more than I expected)? The Jedi knights and cosplayers (yeah, baby!)? Hot metal-bikini slave Princess Leia hanging out at the DC booth?

I don’t even think she was working there – I don’t think DC has any Star Wars rights any more. Maybe she's just an attendee celebrating her great skin tone. Oh yeah, she can ride my X-wing any time.
(Update: A bit more of her on iFilm (you should watch their Comic Con coverage in any case).

I could fill many pages with useless attempts to describe everything I saw and thought today, but that will take a week to write and I’m getting tired (it’s just after 1am now). I’m just going to dump a whole lot of pictures here and put a little note on each one. If you want to really know what it’s like, join me next year. I’m either going to have a very difficult time deciding what to put here or end up with a really long mail.

First order of business: Batteries and white paper. Had plenty of those with me today. I went back to the Penny Arcade booth, asked Gabe for a sketch of Div (thanks Gabe!), chatted with Tycho, did not appear to be retarded (I think), got a picture with Tycho and Gabe (aren’t they beautiful?) and felt pretty darn good.

See how cool they are? That’s me, hanging out with them. That means I’m cool too! Right next to my shoulder are the “Jesus is F’ing metal” shirts. I’m just PC enough to resist buying one, but I did buy a Fruit Fucker shirt. Star wars is definitely the big thing this year. Jedis and Imperial storm troopers are everywhere. I took some pictures of these booth troopers that were posing in some booth (I don’t even know which one - everybody seems to have Star Wars products now).

The picture on the right is a HUGE (at least 3 meters tall) poster that hung over the Star Wars pavilion. I just think it’s a cool image. The blur is in the original poster, giving a sense of movement, action, and awesomeness.

There are lots and lots of important guests in the con. The list of events and signings is so huge that it’s impossible not to miss a few items, so I didn’t even know that Stan Sakai would be here. I just noticed him accidentally when I passed through the Dark Horse booth. Stan Fucking Sakai!

Stan drew me a cool Usagi sketch and gave me a couple of free issues. Sweet.
One thing I've learned from asking people to take my picture: Strangers, even nice ones, can't hold the damn camera still.

More Star Wars stuff:
Lego Chewbacca, Star Wars helmets (see my hands and camera on D’s helmet?)

The one and only Bobba Fett, mercenary of the stars.

The main floor. Big and busy.

The Napoleon dude from The Corpse Bride. They brought an actual set and showed how stop motion animation is made: Slowly.

Werewolf thing from Underworld. Where’s Kate Beckinsale?

Cthulhu, devourer of worlds, and Dagon, badass extraordinaire.

I really have no idea.

FEZ!
Fez is starring this year in the movie El Muerto, which is Spanish for “The Muerto”, so the first event I checked out today was with the El Meurto crew.

It turns out that Fez is a pretty funny guy and it was a fun event.The big smiling guy on the left is Javier Something, who wrote the El Muerto comic.

Right after that, there was a Ren & Stimpy event. I’m a big R&S fan.

The weirdo in the glasses in John K, creator of Ren & Stimpy and voice of Ren. He is a god.

Right outside the meeting room, I saw two people re-enacting the scene where a big belly hits on Lara Croft. Both costumes were excellent.

Who you gonna call? This is one of the best costumes I saw today, and I saw quite a few. These small pictures are ruining the wonderful details on their gear. Notice the light saber on the first Buster on the right.

The DC booth. Ah yeah!

Michel Gagne is an incredible and sometimes bizarre artist. Bought book, got sketch, got signature, expressed appreciation, wished luck, had fun.

Jedis haven’t completely taken over the con. There was still a strong presence of cute cat girls.

And, uh, some baby kittens?

Later, at the Bruce Campbell appearance… Bruce is the world’s most famous unknown actor and author. I don’t think this email is going to anybody who has heard of him, but let’s just say this event was on my “don’t miss” list. Bruce talked about B-movies, being a B-movie actor, books, Hollywood and whatever people asked him about. Having only seen him in movies, I never knew he was a good speaker and very, very funny.

If you know anything about Bruce Campbell, you know how funny it was to see that chain saw arm in the audience. If you don’t, I guess you don’t.

A huge Joker, hanging above a booth selling the unmistakable art of Alex Ross. All I could afford was a T-shirt with this picture on it.

The Batman Begins exhibit, part of the DC pavilion.

San Diego is a very nice town, and I did have time catch a few glimpses of it. This is the view from the Convention Center 3rd floor.

After the floor closed, I stayed to watch some movies and at midnight I got on the bus back to the hotel (the con has free shuttles to everywhere all day). But first I pulled this elf off his chick’s face (I guess that’s why the Lady in Dark Clothes seems upset) and asked him if I could take a picture of his band. People in costumes love to pose for photographers - as soon as those elves saw my camera, they dropped all their shopping bags on the floor and assumed the elfish position.

A big day indeed. Network access is hard to come by, so who knows when I’ll actually send this…

More updates tomorrow!

San Diego Comic Con, Day One: This isn't what the boy scouts mean by "be prepared"

2005-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my San Diego Comic Con adventure, where I will try to discover if one weekend is enough to make up for 20 years of being a nerd in a country without cartoons and a world that hasn’t invented Amazon.com yet.

I’ll be writing these reports every night when I get back to my motel room. I’ll try to mail them out every day, but I don’t know what network access is going to be like, so I might end up sending them all after I get back.

We flew out to San Diego this morning and immediately joined the hordes running for the gates of the con. We didn’t plan on getting there till later, but the whole city seemed to stampede in that direction. So what if it's 1:00 and the floor doesn't open till 6:00 This is America - you can’t just stand in line, you have to camp out for everything.

See how big the building behind me is? See the line of people outside? They were both the same length when I got there at 1:30pm.

At 3:30 I finally got a glimpse of the Promised Land, but it was a long time before I was allowed to enter. We were let into the convention center, handed the event list, and kindly asked to hang around till 6:00. At least it was air conditioned. The doors were left open (and guarded), so we could catch tantalizing glimpses of what awaited inside, like this huge Predator poster. The con doesn’t officially open till tomorrow, but if you bought a 4-day pass in advance, you could get in today for 3 hours and have a less crowded shopping experience. If what I saw today was “less crowded”, I’m really scared of what tomorrow will look like.

When I left the motel, I tried to carry as little as I could. Why carry a book, I asked myself as I was preparing my backpack, when will I have time to be bored? And if I do, I’ll just buy a book, right? Wrong. I remembered this decision around 4:00: I’ve already been staring at the stupid Predator for 30 minutes, I’ve already spent two and a half hours in the convention center, and I still had two more hours to sit on the floor near the bathroom. Never, ever go anywhere without a book. Dumbass.

Ah. 6:00 at last. I immediately ran in to hug my friends at the Penny Arcade booth, to tell them about the joy they bring into my life, and here, please take some money from me, and hey how ‘bout that thing that just came out and, uh, yeah, let’s hang out together and… Who am I kidding? I didn’t get into computers and comics because of my incredible social skills. The encounter went precisely like this:

“Hi, uh, yeah, uh, could you uh, maybe, uh, sign this for me? I really like the strip, uh, I mean the comic, and uh, I’m not even a gamer or anything. Yeah! I don’t play games at all. Ever!” I swear, this is exactly how I said it.

Gabe seemed concerned. “Are you serious?” he asked. That’s not something you normally say at a Penny Arcade booth. Plus, it’s kind of surprising that I like his comic so much, which I obviously do, because the thing I’m asking him to sign is a limited edition poster that I just paid $80 for.

I just nod as he gives me the signed poster.

“Shit, I forgot,” I tell him. I said this many times today. Gabe looks a bit confused, because after releasing this statement I don’t say anything or move for about 10 seconds. I finally remember what it was that I forgot in the first place, pull out the Penny Arcade book I brought with me and ask him to sign that too.

“Oh, you have the book.” That’s what he said, but I know he meant was “God, this book came out three years ago, you fucking nerd. Please get the fuck away from me and let me meet some real people.”

I go away, feeling oddly unfulfilled. Remembering that Gabe would do a sketch for me if only I remembered to bring some paper, did not improve my feeling at all, and caused me to forget that I also wanted to get a picture with them. Oh well, when the whole world hits the con, tomorrow I can spend the entire day waiting in line to get back to them.

On with the show!

LucasArts brought a Start Wars Lego display, where they sold a bunch of overpriced shit and had a few cool Lego statues on display. Check out radio-controlled moving-and-beeping R2D2 and Darth Lego. Darth looked more impressive in reality.

And dig this destroyer! It was too big to capture in one picture, and anyway, you can’t get the level of detail unless you look at the original 5MP images. It’s fully awesome.

See the open port at the center of the ship? Everybody’s in there, watching LOTR. Cool.

But what’s that flashing on the camera screen? The batteries are dead?

NOOOOOOOOOO!

The last thing I discovered that I forgot today was to buy rechargeable batteries. Son of a F#$%ing NRRRAUURRGGGUHH! No more pictures till tomorrow.

So today wasn’t a huge success, mostly because of my tendency to be an ass. I’ll go over the whole floor again tomorrow and take pictures of everything. Maybe I’ll even catch a storm trooper!