Classic cars rule the streets in Escondido.
Posts
I realized that I've just passed my one year anniversary as a blogger. The post count quit working months ago but I must be somewhere around 300 or more by now. I used to worry that I'd run out of things to write about but luckily I live by the beach so there's always the surf report. You'd never guess from these photos but early this morning it was pounding rain, driving was awful, and the freeway was covered with puddles and even a mudslide. Visibility was so bad I couldn't even see the lanes. 8 hours later and it's another perfect So Cal day!
I have bad luck with cars. I've posted about this before and I'm sure I'll post about it in the future. I just got a new car. It's a 2005 Chevy Grand Prix. I've had this car for under 8 weeks and there have been no problems until now. Flat tire? Nope. Engine trouble? Nope. Overheating? Only me! The A/C stopped working in the middle of the desert this morning! Last night as I drove through Arizona, I thought I should have been colder but I figured I was imagining things. But this morning, as I started across the Coachella Valley/Salton Sea area, I was baking! It was colder with the windows rolled down than with the A/C. Now, when I'm in Carlsbad and it's cold and foggy (like it is right now) no one needs A/C. But - I drive through the desert a lot and how typical of this to happen. I'm going to ignore it for a week and see if it goes away. I'm really glad I booked a flight to Arizona next week instead of driving! On a lighter note, we...
After driving 6 hours to Phoenix on Sunday, I decided that there was no way I was going to try that on a Friday afternoon. It was long and boring,and there were trucks and cops everywhere. It's just not worth it to save airfare anymore. The first thing I did when I got to my hotel room was buy round trip tickets for my upcoming Sedona weekend. Driving back today, I had nothing to do but ponder the scenery, or lack of at times.
Kung Fu Hustle
"Gong fu" in Hong Kong, "Kung Fu Hustle" for the rest of us, is the Kung Fu buzz movie of the month. If you've already know about this movie, then it's a given that you'll like it. For everyone else if you choose to be brave, you might enjoy something new. "Kung Fu Hustle" invokes the campy style of the 70's badly dubbed martial arts movies that kept us entertained on Sunday afternoon television. This updated version of the good against bad goes against the artistic slant of Ang Lee's films and play more to the Jay and Silent Bob types. And in my book, there's nothing wrong with that! In this movie our evil villans dance the hustle and throw axes. The good guys are all in hiding and trying to live a normal life. Inbetween are dudes who are just trying to fit in. We get music, fights, comic book style effects, more fights, a vague plot, more fights and finally the grand fight and resolution. I'd guess maybe 85 of the ...
The Interpreter
"The Interpreter" starts off well enough. We are quickly introduced to the main characters, given a quick back story and the provided the set up for the entire movie. The plot is semi-plausible and works throughout most of the movie. Nicole Kidman's character Silvia, an UN interpreter is placed in danger when she overhears a brief comment in another language. Sean Penn comes in as the broken hero who must protect the interpreter and in the process they both find emotional healing. Oh, and it's an action movie too. This probably could have been a better movie because the first half goes by at a quick pace and the story is involving. Anytime Penn and Kidman are on screen together, the movie picks up and their relationship is fascinating to watch. In the second half of the film, the story loses credibility and goes so far off track that by the time the potential target of an assassination arrives, I'd already forgotten that he existed in the first place. The ...
Tonight was time for baseball, so some friends and I headed out to see the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play the Oakland A's. It must be something with the name of the team or it could have been the freak rain but today had a series of mishaps. First up, the easy drive to Anaheim was marred by the sudden stop of the carpool lane and it took 35 minutes to go the last 10 miles. After that, we missed the turn to the stadium and kept going east. Once returning, we had to turn on the emergency lights just to get to the premium parking. All this for a game! When we got inside, the mission was to locate good beer. All I remembered from last season was that the beer choices were limited. We found a stand with Pyramid Ale and decided to settle for that. Before the beer though, we decided to find our seats. We scattered about and went the wrong way to our seats but finally found them. Then we went to go get beer and promptly passed the stand right by the seats and went way to far ...
What can I say? This blog goes from Disney to Drag Queens in a matter of hours! To celebrate LJ's freedom from taxes, she organized a group of us to have dinner at Lips. What makes Lips unique, is that it is a full service restaurant where your waitresses are all drag queens. Yes, there's even a show while you eat. Our friend Spanky was working that night so we knew we'd have fun. At over 6 feet without heels, Spanky can rock! We were in the minority of the restaurant. Most of the people there were bachelorettes or birthday girls. There was a major party of female bodybuilders who could kick our ass, so we steered clear of trouble. The only men were the random gay men who had to support a friend, or the random straight men who were dragged in by their wives. (aka Mr. Kaz) Luckily, no one was picked on unless they went on stage and the show was pretty tame. All ages allowed, although I didn't see anyone under 18 there. It's the Friday show at midnight wh...
On Sunday, Brian organized a fun Disneyland day for us. It started out with a brief notice he found, stating that author David Koenig was going to be signing his book and then doing a short history tour after the signing. All we had to do was show up, buy a book, and pay attention. We could do that. Kelly noted that Disney had been cracking down on "rogue" tours and after additional inquiry, we found out that David had a back-up plan, so we were in. The focus of the tour would be what was still orginal in the park from the day of the July 17, 1955 opening. We started out early and picked up our passes and then headed on over to PCH Grill for breakfast. It turns out that it was hosted by Lilo and Stitch, so we had morning entertainment and were sent packing with souvineer buttons. After that it was on to Compass Books to buy our selection and wait for David. As we waited, we contemplated the usual - Star Wars, baseball, Trek, and remembered to think about Disney once in a whil...
