When there's no surf you can always try for lunch.
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Only 4 days to go before the big trip! It seemed like years away and now it's just around the corner. Of course everything at work has to happen right now and I'm in the mad scramble to complete all loose ends before I leave. Of course once I'm on that airplane I won't be thinking about anything but a glass of wine, what movie I'll watch first, and how I'll entertain myself for 13 hours on a plane.
It's forcast to rain while I'm in Auckland and that is a bummer for my plan of walking the city and enjoying the sun. I'll still walk the city, do the harbor tour, and go up in the sky tower but with a few raindrops along the way.
This may well be the second week in a row that I've skipped movie night. I was on such a roll too and this weekend "Thunderbirds" opens. I have some DVD's to get caught up on so this looks to be the night to settle in with vampires and things that come after you in the woods.
Enjoy the weekend e...
While I don't normally follow the primaries, I did have to listen to a live report from the DNC yesterday. The report featured two political bloggers and how they were selected to be among the first ever bloggers to receive press credentials at the DNC. It was fascinating to listen to these guys talk about how their blogs were noticed and recognized by the Democrats as a way to reach out to new groups.
Then I opened USA Today and there was an article about bloggers and the DNC. It's not all smooth sailing during the process and not everyone knew what to make of it all. The was a "breakfast for bloggers" where the group had a Keynote speaker. No word yet on if the bloggers provided details of the meal served along with the words of wisdom. According to the article, Republicans are considering the option of inviting bloggers next month to the Republican convention.
While I'm not going to cover politics (I don't like any candidate right now) it's ...
Comic-Con: Day 4
Before I recap today, let's look back. First, Mondo does not look deformed, just con weary. Second, are we now referring to Sam's Girlfriend's as the Hobbitlust? I thought I'd be kind and not go on about Sam's Girlfriends but as some guy on the trolley mentioned today, "it's okay to make fun of them as long as they don't hear you." Good advice. Hmmm, I didn't even see any Hobbits today. Their secret boyfriends had left the con so that may be why the Hobbitlust have gone back to their holes.
Today was an easy day at the con. I had no tough schedules or meetings to arrange. I walked in andd grabbed the update and right away found someone I knew. XERO was on a mission to get a limited She-Ra action figure and you could only purchase them via the ticket lottery so XERO's friend and myself were both recruited for the mission. We went to the Marvel booth and got the tickets and then went off to our panels since...
Comic-Con was just crazy today! I managed to get myself there nice and early so I could have a decent seat for the Stargate SG1/Atlantis panel. Most of the actors showed up which was great but then the fans started right in with the stupid questions. Usually the questions are "can I have a hug? Or a date?" but the ground rules were set up so that no personal questions should be asked. So then the stalkers start ed in. One fan is totally telling an actor about watching that actor get into a car and then he described the car in detail. The story went off on a tangent but you could tell the actor was freaked.
Stargate panel ended at 12:30 so I headed on over to the Star Wars panel and it was closed! The new Hall H at the convention center that holds over 6000 people was full and I couldn't get in! LJ and I were so lost with that bit of news that we headed over to Blarney Stone to absorb it over a pint or two. Homer joined us the...
Once again I made the late afternoon dash to the Comic-Con after work. Today's fun panel was about the science fiction museum in Seattle and that was followed by the big media panel on the LOTR extended DVD with 50 additional minutes of footage. Some scenes were shown for us and it's exactly what the fans have been waiting for! In addition, we had the actors who played Pippen and Faramir show up and they were quite entertaining. Saturday is going to be a full day and if I manage to get some rest I might even be able to write about the events.
Spock's Brain was so much fun! We arrived early and had front row seats for the show! The cast was really having fun and the audience was mostly Trek people so it was all around a great time. The show is doing so well that they've extended into August and are going to Vegas next week for a convention!
Onward to today's big event, the start of the Comic-Con! I arrived late in the afternoon and had a few minutes to find friends, briefly check out the dealer's room and then get a myself to a panel. I wanted to see "Ringers" about Lord of the Rings fans and what I learned was that I am not a "Ringer" no matter how much I love the movies and books. Basically I am not a hobbit nor am I secretly in love with Samwise Gamgee. Well, enough said about that. I passed on a sneak peak of a zombie movie in favor of Guiness and Irish food at The Field. It was a good choice.
As you can see by the picture, The Improv in Irvine is presenting an entire re-enactment of the classic Trek episode "Spock's Brain!" I'm going tonight and I hope it's as great as it sounds!
Here's the official description from the website:
Spock's Brain is a live presentation of an actual Star Trek episode. The show has a cast, sets, and costumes, and has original music and sound effects of the original Star Trek television series. The show will run about an hour and 15 mins, Spock's Brain is not a spoof, nor a parody of Star Trek. It is the actual episode in it's entirety. It is funny, tickets are $15, Wednesday's nights at 8:30pm. What happens? The Improv stage is transformed into the bridge of the enterprise. A woman beams on board and steals Spock's Brain. The crew of the enterprise goes in search of Spock's Brain, and they have only a short time to restore it....or Spock will Die !!! See the link for more info.
http...
I saw a movie yesterday where this guy wearing hot leather was driving a hot car and being chased by evil machines. Then he was riding a motorcycle and still fighting machines. And only he could save the world....no wait, that's Matrix, wrong movie.
I saw this movie yesterday where this guy with a mechanical hand/arm was jumping around with superhuman strength and then grabbed a weapon and jumped down 30 stories along an energy core to save the world....no wait, that's Star Wars, wrong movie.
I saw this movie yesterday where robots took over the world! That's it! Robots! The movie was "I, Robot." Now I remember, it's the movie that's surprisingly fun once you realize it's something else! This is even one that I'd watch again on DVD.
After an okay dinner but great blueberry cheesecake, we entered the theater. Usually at La Jolla Landmark it's pretty much a scattered "art house" crowd but tonight they were replaced with surfers. The room was abuzz with the talk of the day and of anticipation for " riding GIANTS."
The movie opens with a brief 2 minute history of surfing then goes right into the quest for big waves starting with the early 50's and winds up with today's extreme surfing. I was surprised that there is so much film of the first group of North Shore surfers and what good quality surf shots exist. The flashbacks combined with these guys stories and they reflect back on those days give the movie an unexpected humor and warmth.
The crowd broke out into applause after the movie and most of the people stayed for end credits. "riding GIANTS" is a must for surfers and fans of the beach.
Yes! It was time to play with a new blog template!
I'm back in town and ready for the weekend! Tonight is Laura's birthday so we're taking her out to dinner and then to see the new surf movie "Riding Giants." I checked out the surf today at Carlsbad and as usual, it was 1 - 3 ft swells but the surfers seemed to be having fun. Tomorrow is the I, Robot event with the usual gang and Sunday is up for grabs. Anything can happen! Stay tuned for the reviews!
Since Saturday had been so action packed I decided to go easy on Sunday and take in Anchorman. There wasn't much else going on in mindless movies at the moment so it seemed like an okay choice.
Let's just start off that when Baxter the dog is the most intelligent character, there's a lack of laughter. That's not to say I didn't laugh a little, there is a funny animated sequence and Weatherman Brick made me laugh but that's about it. The endless cameos were pointless and featured the usual Ben Stiller group.
The running time was under 2 hours and I think there was 45 minutes of good material. However there is a sad lack of good comedy this summer so this might be it. Overall Anchorman is harmless but somewhat useless movie.
I'll be out of town until Friday for meetings. Unless something interesting happens (unlikely) I'll catch up with you on Saturday.
We had a fellowship of 9 for the waterpark day. It turns out that Knott's Soak City is smaller and tamer than other parks and for that reason, it was also less crowded. I thought we'd last two hours but we were there for 5! The most fun was just floating on the tube on the lazy river but the slides were fun too. We had passes to get in so it was just $8 for the parking, and another $8 for food, so the cost does add up quickly. Lockers are $5. We had lots of fun, put on plenty of sunscreen but I somehow still mananged to get a sunburn on my face and back. When we left we felt that we had done everything in the park we needed to do and were satisfied with the day. A word of caution, the tidal basin wave maker pool is very hard to do without an inner tube. Several of us swallowed/inhaled too much water and had to choke out way back to the shore. I saw several little children really struggle to stay afloat in the the water.
Afterwards we all cleaned up and met at City ...
Happy birthday to Amoeba! Today a group of us are going to Knott's Soak City and afterwards to City Walk to help Amoeba and other July bithdays celebrate the day!
July is also the month I'm focusing more on my scrapbook business. I'm a consultant for Creative Memories and if you'd like to view my web site go copy and paste the link below into your browser.
http://creativememories.com/karenreel
Sharing the secret theater with the rest of the world is really getting to be a bummer. While I still arrived 5 minutes before King Arthur and paid $5 and got a good seat, I had to contend with at least a 35% full theater. Now normally for most other theaters that is a low turnout but at the secret theater 35% is a crowd. Two people were constantly text messaging, a couple of guys were spitting away tobacco juice (luckily into cups) and hacking away throughout the movie. The girls were trying to flirt with the guys who really wanted to watch the movie. People changed seats and it was almost like having your own unwanted sideshow. On the flip side, at least I have a local theater to go to.
Having said all that I did settle down and not only watch King Arthur but I found myself enjoying it too! It was surprising since the movie started off with some reworking of actual history but whatever. This KA version plays more like a old action serial movie. You could title it "Ki...
Another Petco Park outing! Thanks to friends, I had two tickets to last night's Padres/
Astros match-up. Homer and I went and thought we'd be all on-time and check out the game. We caught a green line trolley at Old Town and zipped right on down to the ballpark. It turns out that we were too early, the gates don't open until 5:30 pm. At least we were first in line.
Since we had so much free time, we explored the stadium with the intent to find good food and beer. Stone Pale Ale - check. Rubios - check. We even had tables to eat at with views of the bridge. Up a level - Gorden Biersch Garlic Fries and Marzen Beer - check. Oggi's microbrew differnt types - check.
The Padres went into the game in first place with the Dodgers trailing by a game. The Pads had also beat the Astros 2 in a row, but the Astros fought back in game 3. In the first inning, the score was 3-0, Astros. It just sort of continued on that way throughout the game with the Padres ma...
I'm home and it's time to get caught up on movies! I don't think I'll ever get caught up, there's just too many releases out there to see. This time I didn't even see something on my list, but instead I chose The Clearing, with Robert Redford.
The Clearing is not for everyone or even most people. It's a very slow paced, in depth look at three people, the kidnapper, the kidnapee, and the worried wife at home. None of the three are what they seem, the good guy (Redford) is flawed and cheats on his wife. The bad guy (Willem Dafoe) loves his wife. The wife dealing with the ransom (Helen Mirrin) goes through all the range of emotions of how she feels about her marriage and the movie is her experience of resolution. The three leads are great and if you see this movie it's because of them. I did find all the close-ups a bit distracting at times. They can only pour their emotions out on screen so much.
The running time is 91 minutes but it does g...
The joys of summer grass sledding.... I didn't know such a thing existed until I arrived in Portland on Friday. It turns out that when you have a good dry grass hill and thick cardboard boxes, you can really get your speed up as you zip down that hill! The fascination is endless (until the bugs come out) and the fun is free. We all had box races and often all 4 of us would pile onto the same box and really sled down that hill.
Repair to the track is needed daily so Grandma H. would bring over a fresh load of hay for us to smooth out over the track. Boxes were tried and discarded but we found the #1 racer and stuck with it.
Pictures were taken and will be added to the blog Tuesday morning.
I'm off to Portland today. I don't know if I'll get a chance to update while I'm there but I return Monday night so I'll have a recap up by Tuesday. I'm spending the weekend with friends and most of our activities will be centered around fun things for the kids to do, so we'll have pool time and fireworks viewing. I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend of just hanging out before I jump right back into the normal pace of my life.
I finally broke down and saw The Terminal. I had misgivings about going since I was pretty sure I was going to nitpick the movie apart. I know that lots of people out there are going to enjoy the movie and haven't seen it yet, so I won't give much away.
What I liked:
The Set - pretty impressive recreating JFK.
Tom Hanks - his acting was enjoyable.
The friendship Tom Hanks' character develops with airport employees.
What I didn't like:
Everything else. 2 hours, 8 minutes. I kept waiting for my phone to buzz so I could leave. I didn't buzz so I sat it out. I think the audience consensus was "bummer, dude, we should have seen Dodgeball."
I just realized that it was Spielberg's latest version of ET and Tom Hanks was the alien just trying to go home. There was even a scene where he couldn't phone home!