wildyams

Well my music collection is back online. My 200 Gig HD arrived on Friday, and today I took it, my G5 and my old 80 Gig HD from my G3 over to Dave and Jen's place today. First Dave and I got my old 80 Gig put in one of his G4s, then we transferred everything from there to my G5. While we waited for that to finish, Dave, Jen and myself all went to dinner at Mijares. Dinner was good, but it took forever. After being there for probably close to 2 hours, we went to the Paseo to go see The Bourne Supremacy, since our effort last week failed, and because I was eager to see it again. I must say, I really loved it the second time (even though I liked it a lot the first time). I'm even eager to see it again, although I might wait till it comes out on DVD. I'm also planning on buying the soundtrack cause I really dug the music this time around. Anyway, after the movie, we went back to Dave and Jen's place and Dave and I finished configing my G5, and then I came home and here I sit. So now I've got my music back online, if you were wanting to see what stuff I have :grin

I'm sitting here listening to the soundtrack for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which is still my favorite movie of the year) on my now fully loaded G5 (complete with 280 Gigs of storage and 2.25 Gigs of RAM). Let's just say I'm a very happy camper right now :grin

Today was the first time I've been at my job since September 12th, 2001 when I didn't use the phone system to clock in and out, and the reason is because today was my first day there where I was officially not an employee of my former company. Friday was the last day for that. Everything is the same for the time being though, with the exception of clocking in and out like that. The move to the new building doesn't take place till the week of August 23rd-27th (or so they tell me). I would assume at that point I will get a new work phone number and a new work email address and all of that. Anyway, other than that small detail, today was pretty boring: just a lot of work to do. I'll be pretty busy at work for at least the next week or so, and then I don't know if it will scale back at all in anticipation of the move or what. In any event, I'm looking forward to just getting this whole transition over with, cause I'm excited to see what life is gonna be like in the new building.

I regret that I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but I figured I should make an entry of some kind nonetheless just for the hell of it. This week has been really rough, work-wise. I've had a very complicated rush title I've been working on, and it's kept me working at a very intense level all day, through lunch and into overtime for every day this week. It hopefully will be coming to and end soon, because I'm missing out on a few of the things I wanted to do, such as go ride the Mummy Ride (which a bunch of people went to at lunch today), and going to a Dodger game (which was supposed to either be last night, tonight or tomorrow night, but which I'll have to postpone for 2 more weeks). In any event, even though it's draining, it is overall kinda nice to have so much to do as opposed to being without anything to do and just bored all day. Nonetheless, I'd prefer somewhere in the middle, but I try to just go with the flow. And now the flow is calling me to bed, so goodnight :grin

I've been listening to Orbital's newest album, the Blue Album, a lot lately, and one of my favorite songs on it is You Lot, so I've been listening to that song a lot. Anyway, one of the things I really like about it is this speech that is in the middle of the song. The speech I found to be very interesting, and the more I listened to it, the more I thought it sounded like Christopher Eccleston, so I figured it had to be from some movie, only it wasn't a movie I'd ever seen, cause I didn't recognize the speech. So I did a search online for a snippet of what he says in the speech and discovered that it was in fact Christopher Eccleston, and that the speech came from a made-for-British TV movie called The Second Coming, which evidently aired maybe a year ago. After reading the premise of the movie, I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and now I'm interested in seeing it, but I wanted to know if anyone reading this had seen it or knew anything about it. The movie is supposedly about a modern-day guy (Eccleston) who realizes one day that he is in fact the son of god, and that he has to convince humanity that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Anyway, I made a short clip of the speech from the movie (and the song) if you wanted to listen to it, or if you prefer here is the text that I found online:

"You are becoming gods. There is a new master of creation—and it's you. You've unraveled DNA. You're five years away from building your own people, and at the same time you're cultivating bacteria strong enough to kill every living thing. Do you think you're ready for that much power? . . . If you want the position of God then take the responsibility. . ."

I haven't made any entries for a while, and it was mainly because I wasn't in the mood. I've been feeling kinda under the weather, although I think I'm doing a good job of covering that up. Sunday night I had a hell of a time sleeping, and I'm almost sure I had a fever since I had cold sweats and chills, even though it was warm out and I had on a lot of warm stuff to sleep in. Anyway, I had too much work on Monday to call in sick, so I went and did a pretty good job I think. Last night I just came home, made a phone call, and went to bed. I got close to 12 hours of sleep last night, but was still pretty sleepy this morning. I once again had too much important stuff to work on, so I went in again, and I felt better today. Tonight I'm feeling better, but I'm gonna go to bed here in a couple minutes cause my head feels hot and I've got a headache. I'm mainly more just sore and achy than anything though. I don't have a runny nose or a cough or anything, thankfully. Anyway, enough about my ailments. I don't have much to say otherwise though, so I'm off to bed.

Since this pretty much leaves me speechless, I'll just quote parts of this article and let it speak for itself:

the organizers of the Athens games have warned spectators that they could be barred for taking a surreptitious sip of Pepsi or an illicit bite from a Burger King Whopper...

Sweltering sports fans who seek refuge from the soaring temperatures with a soft drink other than one made by Coca-Cola will be told to leave the banned refreshment at the gates or be shut out...

Fans will be allowed into the Olympic complex if they are drinking Avra, a Greek mineral water owned by Coca-Cola, which paid $60 million US for the privilege of being one of the main sponsors. Officials are under orders not to let in rival brands' bottles unless the labels are removed. Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors...

This will also apply to members of a crowd sitting next to each other wearing clothing with letters that spell out a political or religious message...

All American medal winners are required to wear an Adidas outfit on the podium... link to full article

Uhh.... :uhoh

I haven't been blogging lately, but there's a good reason for it. First off, I've been fighting a cold for over a week now, and even though I thought it looked like it was gonna go away late last week, it is back with a vengeance, and I've been pretty miserable the last couple days. As a result, most of my spare time has gone to sleeping. On top of that, I haven't had much spare time because I've been very busy with extra-curricular activities, from seeing Cella's band play, to having lunch with my sister, to going to the movies with Cookie, to playing Halo all day, to working (of course), and in and amongst all that I stayed at my Dad's for a few days. Anyway, I'm off to bed, but I'll blog more when I get a chance.

This is too weird and funny so I have to blog it. On my way to work today, I listened to a few minutes of the Howard Stern show, and when they went to a commercial at about 9:10 am they played this hilarious parody of the song The Saftey Dance which was instead called The Sulu Dance, which is the same song just intercut with clips of George Takei speaking, and with the lyrics being vaguely about Takei and the character he played on Star Trek: Sulu (or "Captain Sulu of the Excelsior" as he prefers, a ha ha ha ha). Anyway, I was laughing my ass off listening to that in the car, so when I got in to work I did a quick search and found the mp3 and was listening to it all day and played it for a number of people at work. In the midst of looking for fun Trek stuff like that, I came across the fact that Leonard Nimoy (who played Spock, in case you were unaware of that) not only recorded five music albums, but he also wrote a number of books. This is not that unusual as almost everyone ever involved in any of the Star Trek shows has tried to branch out into as many things as possible, knowing the rabid Trekkie (or "Trekker" if you prefer :roll) fanbase will gobble up anything produced by anyone even vaguely associated with the shows. Anyway, what was unusual about Nimoy's books, was the names of two of them: I Am Spock and I Am Not Spock. Certainly I must not be the only one confused by this:

Anyway, when I got home I had a weird email waiting for me from my good friend Mr. Nuts (a/k/a "Koga") giving me a link to The Sulu Dance!! Now I dunno about you, but that is a really weird coincidence, I think. Especially since it looks like Mr. Nuts got it from a totally different source than I did, although I'm guessing he was probably prompted to find it today for the same reason I was. Weird huh?

It was almost 3 years ago to the day since the last time I made solid plans to go to a Dodger game (I had hoped to go 2 weeks ago, but was too busy). The last time I was all set to go to the Dodger game I was let go from my last job a few hours before I was set to go, so naturally I didn't end up going and instead spent the evening comiserating with my friends (it turned out in the long run to be a good thing though, as I landed a much better job within a week). In any event, I hadn't tried to go to a Dodger game since then, but lately had been determined to go to one, mainly because I had not been to Dodger Stadium since I quit working there in the summer of 1997, and because I had not been as a fan to Dodger Stadium since I was maybe 14 or 15.

But that streak (like Eric Gagne's) is now over, because tonight I went to the game with a few people from work. It was really great to go back there, since Dodger Stadium really is one of the most beautiful spots in LA when the air is clear (as it was tonight). We sat in the nosebleeds, just like I wanted, and it seemed like everyone else was pretty happy with that (Josh, my company's resident die-hard Dodger fan said he usually sits up there in "the Gods" as he calls it :wink). We got Dodger dogs (even I had one! :lol), and I got a commemorative Dodger cup and peanuts, of course, and we settled in to hang out and watch the game.

It was actually a pretty exciting game, with something like 8 home runs (3 of which were in the top of the first inning, and which we missed :frown). The Dodgers overcame a 5-1 defecit to come back and tie it 5-5, mainly on the strength of two home runs apiece by Shawn Green and Adrian Beltre. Entering the top of the ninth it was tied like that, and in came Eric Gagne (who earlier this year set the all-time MLB record for most consecutive saves with 84, but who had badly blown a save last night after giving up 4 runs in the ninth inning). The strategy was presumably to have Gagne get the Dodgers to the bottom half of the inning still tied, then have Steve Finley, Milton Bradley, Beltre and Green hopefully come up and put at least one run on the board to end the game. Unfortunately what actually happened was that Gagne gave up one run on 3 hits in the ninth inning before getting the third out, and then in the bottom of the inning, the Braves' closer, former Cy Young Award winner John Smoltz, got the Dodgers out 1-2-3 to get the save. It was an exciting game though, and more importantly we all had a lot of fun. It was great to be there again, this time as a fan, and I hope to go back again soon :grin

This weekend was a pretty dull one overall for me, mainly because I am still trying to get over this damn cold, and as such spent most of the weekend in bed. I did get out of the house early on Saturday with Rebecca and we both went to a reptile expo at the LA County Fairgrounds because both of us have been somewhat interested in getting a snake. Neither of us bought anything, but I think Rebecca will try to get a snake soon, while I may wait for a while if I do get myself one. In any event, we had a great time out there, then came back to Pasadena where we had lunch at Rick's (and consequently saw Cookie there as we were leaving), then I dropped Rebecca off at work and I came home, and I basically didn't get out of bed again for the rest of the weekend. Exciting, huh?

Today I was back at work, and man, what a weird time it is right now at work. This is officially the week we are moving to the new building in Burbank, so it is a bit crazy as you might imagine. I am not scheduled to move till Wednesday, which is about the last day that any serious moving is going on, so right now while most of the office looks deserted, my room is still completely untouched. It is a bit disconcerting walking out of my office (which looks the same as it has for the last year or so) to find the hallways filled with various items that are being moved, and walking past offices that are completely empty save for a phone sitting on the floor. By the end of today there were only about 4 or 5 of us in my department that were still there, with some whole departments having been completely moved to the new building. I still have not even driven by the new building, so I don't know what it looks like over there, but I figure I'll get plenty of opportunities to see it in the future, so I'm in no rush to go over there yet. It's pretty crazy to think that I will no longer be on the Universal Studios backlot, having been there for 3 years now. That just tonight began to sink in, seeing how empty the rest of the office is, and it's a little sad. I'm not a big fan of being on the lot, as most of my co-workers are, but seeing some of my co-workers leave today most likely to never return to what has served as our offices for the last 2-3 years, makes me realize that it will be a little weird for me when I leave for the last time in the next day or two. Oh well, hopefully the new building and location will be cool and will be refreshing to everyone and will provide a nice, new start. I'm looking forward to it :grin

I haven't made any entries in a while, and this one will be quick because I'm dead tired. I've been super busy lately, and that's why I haven't been blogging. Last week I (along with all my co-workers) moved from the Universal lot to our new offices in Burbank, and that was quite an undertaking. In fact, it is still somewhat proceeding, considering we still have a ton of crap in the hallways and piled here and there about the new office. It's a lot of work to try to adjust to the new procedures and programs and whatnot at the new office, and there is a lot of work to do since we were only operating at half-speed (if that) last week. On top of that, last Wednesday my Mom came into town, so all the time I spent that wasn't at work was with her and my sister. Today I worked really late and just got home about a half hour ago, and now I'm going to bed. Goodnight :grin