wildyams

We got up at 5:30 am to catch the 6 am ferry so we could catch our 7:15 (or so) Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. Naturally the flight was delayed about an hour or so, but it was going to give us enough time to make our connecting flight in Seattle which was leaving at noon. We got into Seattle and found our flight had been transferred to another gate, and after an hour or so there, they delayed it for 45 minutes. Then when the 45 minutes was up, they delayed it till 4 pm. Then at around 3 pm they said they were bumping it back to 6:45 pm, but they couldn't guarantee it would go out then because they said it was having a mechanical problem. Apparently Alaska Air's problems are a very common thing these days, and it was rumored that our plane actually didn't have a mechanical problem, but that the menchanics for Alaska Air have been upset with management for layoffs or cutbacks of some kind and have been delaying many many flights to send a message to management. Apparently my Dad got it from someone with the airline that this was the case with our flight, and that we passengers were just caught in the middle. If they had delayed it again, they were going to just cancel the flight and put us up for the night at a hotel and fly us out the next morning. My Dad and I would have tried to get another flight back, but we had checked our luggage along with the 100+ lbs of fish on our flight, and we were advised that even if we got there earlier than our flight, we'd still have to come back and pick up our luggage and fish, so we waited it out. At 6:45 they finally started boarding us, although they told us that the computer was having trouble weight balancing the plane or something, and they had to do it manually (? something like that, I dunno what they were talking about). Anyway, it was a pretty uneventful flight until we got to LAX and were about to land. I was reading a book (with all the waiting in airports I finished the two books I took and was now halfway through one of the books my Dad brought that he finished :nono) and wasn't paying much attention to the landing when all of a sudden the pilot hit the throttle and the engines roared. I looked out the window to see the runway as we were maybe 10 feet off the ground, but the pilot was throttling up and we were climbing. Apparently his approach was off so we had to go circle around and try it again, which of course is not very confidence-inspiring. The second time though he landed us ok, and we deplaned (almost 8 hours late) to go to baggage check. Evidently our luggage was there waiting for us as it had turned up on some other flight. Well, not all of our luggage. Some of the luggage from our flight was there waiting, and some was coming into the baggage claim. All of the fish we caught and our luggage was there waiting for us, but my Dad had purchased from our lodge some salmon which had been freshly smoked to bring back, and that box was nowhere to be found. We had the baggage claim tag though, and reported it lost or whatever, and if it comes in on some other flight they'll call my Dad and rush it over I guess. Otherwise they'll presumably reimburse him for it. Anyway, we got back to my Dad's house all worried that the fish had arrived too early and had thawed out or something, but luckily it was all still frozen solid, and went right into his freezer. Then I took some for myself and came home and it went right into my freezer as well and now I'm writing this.

I know pissed and moaned a bunch in these entries, but I had a great time nonetheless and I would love to go back some day soon. It really is a nice reset to go away from work for a week and do something like that, and I feel like I am going to be quite refreshed and ready to get back to it on Tuesday when I go in. Plus I've got some great fish to share and eat and I can't wait to dig in soon! :smile

Pink Floyd happens to be my favorite band (and has been for the last decade or more), so I was rather delighted to hear that not only were they playing again, but that that Roger Waters had re-joined the band (at least for one show). I've never seen Pink Floyd live, because on their last tour in 1994 I was in college in Colorado when they played out here in LA, and I was home in LA for the summer when they played in Colorado (their previous tour before that, in 1987 or something, was before I listened to them, and was before my parents would have ever let me go to a concert anyway). I didn't really discover Pink Floyd till I was 18 in 1993, and then they had their last tour a year later, so it was my misfortune to never have seen them. Nonetheless, I still love the band, and even loved their stuff without Roger Waters. However, to hear that the man who was mainly responsible for writing albums like "Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall" is playing with the band again, is of course exciting news for any Pink Floyd fan. The group recently played together at the Live 8 festival for the first time in over two decades with Roger Waters in the lineup, and surprisingly AOL has made the videos of this performance available for free. Not surprisingly you can't download the videos and must use Internet Explorer to view them, but what the hey, I'll take what I can get :smile

Pop quiz, hotshot:

Which is the least anticipated sequel coming out in the next year:

The Transporter 2

Big Momma's House 2

The Legend of Zorro

The Brazilian Job

Lemme clear out some of the cobwebs that have no doubt been collecting around here lately...

On Friday night I went and saw Wedding Crashers with J. Krue over at the Los Feliz theaters on Vermont. I don't think I'd been to those theaters before, but it was nice to only have to pay $7.50 for a new movie as opposed to the usual $11-$14 that it usually costs to see a movie in Hollywood. Josh and I bumped into Dani outside the theater, but she wasn't going to see anything, we just happened to run into her. Anyway, we watched the movie and we both seemed to have pretty much the same take on it: when it was just trying to be funny, it really worked and was quite humorous; but when it was trying to be a schmaltzy, emotional romance movie it didn't work at all. Actually, it may not have been so much that the romance didn't work, it's just that the romance was in the wrong movie for it to work. Imagine how well a romance that was trying to bring the audience to tears would have worked in a movie like Caddyshack or something: it's just the wrong place for that. It's the same thing they tried in American Wedding, where on one hand you're supposed to laugh at jokes about pubic hair or Stiffler eating a turd, but then a couple scenes later you're supposed to get all introspective and emotional about the fact that the perfect wedding the band dork always wanted may be in jeopardy because Stiffler accidentally let the flowers thaw and Jim has to comfort her with a walk on the beach at sunset with some cheesy romance theme playing. It just doesn't work.

I know it is a "romantic comedy" so it can be both romantic and comedic, but there are only certain kinds of comedy that will work with a movie which is trying to pull at your heartstrings. Movies that are really raunchy, lowbrow comedies just do not mesh well with a lot of romance. Imagine how some Adam Sandler character from like Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison would seem in a movie like Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got Mail or something; or imagine how Meg Ryan's characters from either of those movies would do in Ace Ventura. I mean, yes there are funny aspects to a movie like When Harry Met Sally, but they are definitely not the "gross-out dick & fart jokes" you find in Dumb & Dumber or whatever; and while there is usually some kind of romance in all those "lowbrow" raunchy comedies, it's generally pretty light and usually laced with a lot of silliness. If a movie is going to be one of these kinds of movies, then that's all it needs to be, it should not try to be both because it doesn't work.

The theater Josh & I saw it with was absolutely eating it all up though, they couldn't have been happier from the sounds of it. We were both laughing quite hard at some parts (we both agreed that the funny parts consisted of pretty much every time Vince Vaughn said anything); but I myself was also quite irritated at other parts of the movie. Anyway, I don't have much interest in giving more of a review, but if you want to read a good one, here's a link.

I haven't felt like blogging lately. Maybe it's the heat. For a guy who's already pretty damn lazy, I've got a serious case of the summer lazies. Man, I gotta be up in 6 hours for jury duty :angry

I'm not so bummed about the jury duty part of it as I am the fact that I have to get up so much earlier than usual. After all, I'll probably spend tomorrow just reading a book all day and getting paid for it. Oh well, I guess on the plus side my weekend will get started a little earlier than usual as the courts are done by 4 pm and I wouldn't normally get out of work till after 7. Maybe I'll use those extra hours to take a nap.

So Friday was my first experience ever with jury duty, and I guess luckily for me I didn't get picked for a panel, so at the end of the day, I just got to go home, having fulfilled my service for the next 12 months. My company pays for up to 30 days of jury duty, so I guess I wouldn't have been too upset if I had gotten picked and had to serve for a month and a half or so, because it would have been sort of like a long vacation. But we're pretty busy at work, so I guess it's just as well that I only missed a day. I have to say, seeing how the whole jury duty thing works, that it appears to be one of the biggest wastes of time and least efficiently run activities there is. There were at least a hundred other people in my jury pool (maybe as many as two hundred), and the whole day maybe a total of 15 got called for a panel. The rest of us spent the day trying to stay awake or trying to sleep, or both. I read almost an entire book while waiting, and had brought a backup just in case. I also got to listen to my CD player all day, which was a bonus because it meant I didn't have to listen to all the idiots with cell yell telling everyone they called (or who caleld them) "yeah, I'm on jury duty!" loud enough for the whole building to hear them. I did get an early start on my weekend though, because they dismissed us all at about 2:15 or so, which was great, but it meant I got to walk the few uphill blocks back to my car in close to 100 degree heat (and the Diamante was parked on the roof of the juror lot so it was nice and toasty as well). Nevertheless I was glad to be out of there.

I wish I had some cool stories to tell, but it was a pretty dull day. They did have desktop computers there for people to use, but they charged $10 a day for internet access; and they also had these things that were like documentaries on tape to listen to (one of the topics was the KKK, which I thought was kinda odd for some reason: "I went to jury duty and learned all about the KKK!"). Even though with a juror badge I coulda got in free at MOCA, I instead opted to spend my lunch hour in the cafeteria cause how often do you get to eat in a cafeteria! Ok, I've stretched this entry out about as long as I can...

I had dinner tonight with Dave & Jen (since Cookie will be curious, we went to Crown City where we started with the lavosh, then Dave had asada tacos, I had a chicken sandwich & Jen had the Cobb salad), and we had a lot to talk about. I hadn't talked to Dave & Jen in a while, but in browsing Dave's blog Sunday I came across a couple entries (link, link & link) which had my jaw on the floor. See, Dave, who has been one of my best friends for over 15 years now, was adopted when he was born, and has never had any contact with his biological family and has known absolutely nothing about them; well apparently this weekend his younger brother called him up and said hello. As you can imagine this is a pretty major thing, and I am really happy for Dave. It turns out he's got two younger brothers (who are twins!) and 2 half-brothers and one half-sister, but so far he's only spoken to one of the twins. Anyway, it's not my story, so if you wanna read more about it, go to Dave's site or email him or something, but suffice it to say, he's really happy and excited, and I'm really happy and excited for him :smile

Since I'm getting pressure to blog :wink, here's something of interest that I saw on BoingBoing & Wired: Apparently the movie studios and theater owners have finally agreed on a standard for digital cinema projection. This means that if everything goes as one would assume, soon seeing movies in theaters projected from film reels will soon be a thing of the past (or a rarity, at least). Sure many filmmakers will still continue to shoot on film, but the theaters just won't be projecting the movies on film. The main reason is because it is the studios that own the movies, and it would be hugely cheaper for them to distribute films digitally as opposed to having to pony up all the cash to make all those prints and then cart them around the country. From the Wired article:

Studios spent more than $631 million in 2003 on film prints for the North American market alone, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Subtracting reels from that equation could reduce total distribution costs by as much as 90 percent, according to U.K. digital cinema analyst Patrick von Sychowski. Add in costs for overseas distribution and exhibition, and the move from prints to digital files could mean an eventual annual savings of up to $900 million.

Advocates of the shift to digital exhibition say theater owners also would benefit from new flexibility: If a movie sells out in one theater, an owner can quickly switch other screens to that feature to accommodate the unexpected demand. And if a supposed blockbuster turns out to be a bomb, it can be yanked from screens just as instantly -- no new prints from the studio, no reel swaps.

Proponents say there's something in it for moviegoers, too -- digital in-theater display means no out-of-focus projection, no out-of-order reels, no scratches and pops on film that's been played too many times on old projectors. And digital systems could make other kinds of content possible in theaters, including live, high-definition coverage of sports events, Broadway plays or group games.

Digital projection does seem to be the preferred way to see a movie these days (just from my own observations about how people asked about whether Episode III was being projected digitally), and I am in favor of it, but not so much for the reasons stated above - I would like to see it become more standard so that more independent movies can get wider distribution. I think that if the ability to put movies (even ones shot on film) into the digital cinema standard can be done cheaply, then you may see a new rise of art-house theaters that can have all kinds of stuff running through them; and that maybe the best ones will have a good chance to build good word of mouth and be spread to more and more theaters. For me it's the idea that maybe the good movies that don't get all the huge advertising backing from some studio might still get exposure, and that the talented filmmakers behind movies like that could get notoriety and jumpstart their career without some studio having to give them their seal of approval. If that happens, then it's better movies for everyone :smile