King Kong

On Thursday night after work, we went to see King Kong at the AMC 16 Theater in Emeryville. We used our re-admit passes from Walk the Line and snuck in our own refreshments so, aside from parking, it was a free night at the movies - and the gift that keeps on giving.

That was our first time seeing a movie at that theater and the place was really nice, aside from the slightly uncomfortale seats (KK is a 3-hour movie BTW) and the very talkative seat neighbors. But I had been waiting for this movie for so long, I was determined not to let anything ruin it for me.

Right off the bat, I have to say that this movie is amazing to watch. It is 3 hours long, so the pacing in certain points (mostly in the build-up to Kong - the first hour) is slow, but as soon as Kong is on screen, the movie just barrels along with a lot of action and, in the hands of Peter Jackson and Weta (the New Zealand equivalents of George Lucas (in his prime) and ILM ) all of the creatures and action are very realistic, at least as much as this kind of movie can be. I should say that within the world created by this movie, the creatures and action are believable. There are a couple of areas where you can see the seams in the animation (at least I did), but it's not enough to drag the rest of the movie down. The only acting complaint that I have about the movie is Jack Black. I'm a big fan of his, but, from time to time, he does slip out of character and moves or says something in a very Jack-Black-ian way, but again, it doesn't take anything away from the rest of the movie. Otherwise, the performances were solid, especially Kong himself, who turns out to be a very emotional and convincing character. On top of all of it, the movie hits all of the necessary moments: Kong at the top of the Empire State Building gave me chills.

If I were to give it a star rating, I would give it 3.5 out of 5. The perfect choice for our last movie of 2005.

This will probably be my last post of '05. So, Happy New Year to everyone.

Bomb Scare

Yesterday, there was a bomb scare in San Francisco just after I got off of work. As I was leaving work and trying to get to Bart, Front street was blocked off between Sacramento and Market. It was a pretty surreal sight as it had been raining all morning and some of the afternoon, then to happen upon the police beginning to rope off the intersection just in front of work and to look down the street to see that everything had been cleared as far down as line of sight would allow.

It all turned out to be a false alarm though. As soon as I circumvented the cordonned off streets, I got a little closer to the action only to overhear some officers stating that the mysterious package was in fact not a bomb.

It was pretty interesting seeing an actual Bomb Squad truck parked half way on the sidewalk and the team working to get their gear stowed and commence to allow people back in the area.

I know these things happen all of the time, but it was a first for me being so close to the action. Just a little excitement in an otherwise uneventful day.

Christmas Tourism...

Last Saturday (X-mas eve), we hosted a couple of our friends (Erin and Robert) from Long Beach for a day of touring in San Francisco. We were originally supposed to go to Erin's family's house for X-mas dinner, but the cost of a hotel and not wanting to wake up anywhere but our apartment on X-mas morning were factors in us deciding on other plans, not to mention the 3 of us beginning to feel under the weather.

The day started off at Fog City Diner. After a great brunch there (including Mimosas and a Scharfenbereger Hot Chocolate for Hylah), we then went on a tour of San Francisco. We started at my favorite spot on Broderick and Broadway then through the Presidio over to Sea Cliff and the Palace of Legion of Honor, then by the Cliff House, then through Golden Gate Park and finally ending up at the newly opened DeYoung Museum. This (abridged version of my) SF tour is one route I take through the city whenever people visit. I shortened it for Robert and Erin due to the amount of time we had - they had to be in Santa Cruz by approx. 6-7pm.

The DeYoung looked great and Robert, who has an interest in architecture and design and had been following the architect on this project (I can't remember his name right now), was very keen to see the completed building. We arrived just before closing. So, we weren't able to go inside, but the architecture and landscaping was very interesting and quite a departure from it's classic old 'spanish-influenced' look. It seems like they are overhauling that whole section of the park and, although currently gutted, there seems to be a lot of potential for that space. I do hope that the museums and attractions that were once there return after the renovation as it was such a fixture of my childhood.

We parted ways with R and E at the park, but we decided to go look at the SF Christmas Tree in Union Square (at Hylah's request) and wound up staying to enjoy the tree, the people gathered around it on X-mas eve and also the Horn (or Wind - however it's called) Quartet that was playing nice seasonal music. All in all, it turned out to be a spontaneously great way to spend X-mas eve.

Final Thought:
I have to give credit to Erin for something. For the second time in as many visits with her, she definitely had some interesting things to share. Last August, when we stayed at their apartment, she had us try some Schezuan Peppercorns which were very interesting. I described their taste as a 9volt lemon, because they tasted citrusy and electric (that's the best I could come up with), but they are strong and could be scary if you don't know what you are trying (especially in quantity).

This time, she gave Hylah snow as a Chrismas present. I know what you are thinking: "How could someone give snow as a gift?" That's what I thought too, but this stuff is synthetic. Now, this stuff looks like detergent when you first look at it, but when you add water, the granules expand and get soft and, if you give them some time they are actually cool to the touch and look like snow. Erin said that after approximately 1 month, it loses it's moisture and returns to it's original form (detergent) and can be re-constituted over and over again. Pretty cool. Needless to say, Hylah's been playing with it every day since then.

So, for the 2nd time in a row, Erin gets the prize for most interesting shared item. She must've rocked at Show and Tell in school.

Hylah's Aikido Project

Alright, this is coming in non-sequential order, but I did want to just post a few comments on Hylah's research project. When Hylah started school this year, we were given an information packet describing some of the work and expectations from her teacher for her 3rd grade year. We were surprised to find that there was a research project due in December. This seemed like a lot of work for a 3rd grade class since it was supposed to show approximately 6-8 weeks worth of work and include some kind of oral presentation, but, apparently this teacher does this every year with her 3rd grade class.

Hylah has been taking Aikido now for a little over 2 years so Jane and I suggested Aikido as one possible topic since Hylah has access to a lot of information on the subject including her sensei and the other instructors and students at her dojo.

There were many obstacles in the way of completing this project, including birthdays (mine and Hylah's) and holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving), not to mention the many lazy weekends in between that kept us from really putting 100% into this project for any focused period of time.

Mainly, we collected information and watched a few shows and read articles online about Aikido, but we hadn't really sat down to craft the presentation and the handout materials until the 4 days prior to the date of her presentation (they were all due on the 12th of December, but the teacher spread the delivery of the oral presentations throughout last week of school before the Christmas break).

Anyway, after a lot of time, effort, frustration, arguing, screaming, time-outs, stops and starts seasoned with a little confusion and doubt, we managed to hammer out a solid piece. Now, it was time to have Hylah rehearse the thing so that she was ready to give the presentation to her class. This proved to be difficult as Hylah was wrestling with a touch of nervousness (which is natural) and also as we didn't have a solid outline for her presentation until almost the last minute. Luckily we were able to enlist Nathanael (one of Hylah's instructors) to come to the presentation and help her with a short Aikido demo. This part proved to be a hit with the kids since Hylah flipped and pinned her instructor with some of her techniques in front of the whole class, teacher, school principal and whoever happened to be in the multi-purpose room at the time.

Aside from Hylah, being a little nervous and mumbling through a lot of the presentation, she did deliver all of the information that she wanted to and managed to get through the whole thing without messing up. For a first timer, she did surprisingly well.

All in all, the presentation was a success and Hylah received the highest marks possible on the piece as well as a lot of praise from her teacher and school principal.

(I think she probably increased enrollment at her dojo as well)

Jane's Birthday and Walk the Line

On Saturday, we celebrated Jane's birthday. We got up early and I cleaned house a bit before getting ready to spend a fun day in San Francisco.

Our first stop was our newly minted favorite eatery in San Francisco, The Fog City Diner. Located on the Embarcdero, The Fog City Diner has been a fixture in SF since I was a kid. I went there a couple of times as a youngster, but only recently rediscovered it when my good friend Brent came into town from Paris, where he is going to school - Thanks Brent for picking that spot. Anyway, we shared a few selections from their 'Little Plates' menu, which is kind of like a tapas menu. Delicious food and a little dessert for the birthday girl at not-too-steep of a pricetag and we were off to our next destination.

We were originally planning to go ice skating after lunch, but it was raining. So, we spontaneously decided to drive up to Coit Tower to hang out for a while before going to the movies. It was foggy and wet, but Hylah had never been up there so we went to check it out. After walking around, I realized that all I had ever done up there in my 25+ years living in the city and the countless times I'd been (or taken someone) up there was hang out in the little parking lot/vista point area. I was surprised that I had never walked around the tower or gone inside to ride the elevator to the top. We decided not to ride up since it was foggy and there would be no view, but we spent time looking at the frescoes painted inside. We also did the tourist thing and walked around the Coit Tower gift shop for a bit.

After that, we went to see Walk the Line. It's a biopic about the life of Johnny Cash, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. I just can't say enough about this movie. The performances were great and the music was done really well. I was also very impressed with the vocal performances of the actors. Joaquin and Reese both recorded and performed all of the songs in the movie that were originally recorded by their real-life counterparts Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash. While it holds to the same story beats as most biopics, my limited exposure to and passing interest in the life of Mr. Cash kept me wanting more through the whole movie. Much like Ray (starring Jaime Foxx, about the life of Ray Charles), the music was great to listen to and the story was very compelling and informative. Ali (starring Will Smith), by comparison, suffered from not providing enough 'new' information about the subject to keep it interesting - at least for me. (Bonus: We used some movie passes that I received last year as a gift from work (Thanks Ginger!). During the movie, there was a constant loud banging coming from outside our theater. After a little investigation, we found out that it was a bathroom door that was slamming because of a broken spring. So we talked to the manager and he gave us some passes to use on our next visit, which means free King Kong before the end of the year!)

Finally, we came back home and trimmed our tree in preparation for Christmas at the end of the week. All in all, it was a great, fun-filled day that we all enjoyed. What a great way to kick off the holidays and celebrate Jane's birthday. Happy Birthday Jane!

From Chewbacca... Merry X-mas!

Chewie sends seasons greetings from his winter home on Hoth.
http://christmaschebacca.ytmnd.com/

Funny...

Have a good weekend everyone.

For more like this:
http://www.bizarro.com/

Cosmic Twins

I've caused quite a stir on my family's group website by wishing my cousin Ria happy birthday on Dec. 1, which also happens to be her Mom's birthday.

Now that's not the whole story. I dubbed them Cosmic Twins and that seemed to catch on with everyone. Now everyone (including myself) is posting messages on the family site saying which celebrities (etc.) were born on their respective birthdays and such.

Well, the first time I heard that phrase coined (credit where credit is due) is when my friend Ron was explaining his relationship with someone who turned out to be one of his best friends in life.

The (broad) story is as follows (I hope that Ron, if he ever reads this, will correct me on the details - it's been a while since I heard this story):
Ron was born in San Diego (I don't remember the hospital) and between then and the time he met his friend (I think) in their teenage years or even into their twenties, he and his friend separately traveled to and made lengthy stops in different places around the world, moving with their families to different places and living on their own in various other and eventually their adopted new and (or) current hometowns. Ron now lives in San Francisco and his friend now lives in New York. As the story goes, upon meeting each other, they soon found out, in fact, that he and his friend were both born in San Diego - in the same hospital, on the same date, at almost the same time of day - and had not met until ~20 years later. Hence the term Cosmic Twins.

Now the term, by the definition (and circumstances outlined above), doesn't exactly fit the members of my family as we are tied by mother-daughter, father-daughter, niece-aunt relationships whereas my friend Ron's situation is true 'Cosmic-Twin-ism'. It still sort of amazes me that we have 3 sets of CTs (one is a miss by 1 day - my daughter and I) in our family in a relatively short span or time in my family's history. I wonder how many more there are in my family, if any.

Do you whisper in front of your cats?...

...Jane did last night. We were sitting in the living room, watching the tube just before going to bed. We were talking about Christmas presents and, all of a sudden she leans in really close, puts her hand up by her mouth and she starts whispering and tells me about these catnip toys she saw in the store the last time she went to buy catfood (or something). Anyway, I'm looking around. Hylah is asleep, practically all of our lights are off and there's no one awake but us. I notice that Kismet (our older cat - pictured) is sitting behind me on the couch. I realize that Jane is actually whispering so that Kismet will not overhear us talking about her potential Christmas present(s). I had to squash the conversation and give Jane a reality check (I almost had to shake her out of it).

Rule of Thumb:
No need to whisper around your cats. It really will not ruin the surprise for them.

Groo the Wanderer

Last night, I read Hylah a bedtime story. She chose to read one of her Groo comics (cover pictured).
Groo (for those not in the know) is a comedy/adventure title created and drawn by Sergio Aragones -- long-time and most famous for being a Mad Magazine contributor/artist.
I have a rather large personal comic book collection (approx. 1,200 individual books), that I've shared with my family and Hylah really took to these books. At first, she just liked the caricature style of SA, but now that she's reading and understanding, she is now enjoying the writing of the book.
Anyway, last night while we were reading, there was a gag in the story that she thought was hilarious.

The gag is as follows:
A corrupt king fearing invasion from enemies hires Groo to protect a bridge. However, he did not tell Groo to keep anyone from crossing the bridge. When an invading army arrives at said bridge, they are surprised that Groo is letting them pass (They are, after all, not attacking the bridge). Needless to say, the invading army attacks the city and the king's men are defeated. Of course, Groo is proud of himself that he made sure that the bridge was safe not realizing that his literal interpretation of the assignment resulted in the defeat of the army he was hired to protect. (It reads better in the book, but that's the gist of it)

Anyway, when Hylah realized what happened in the story, she just busted out laughing and couldn't stop for almost 5 minutes. She really got a case of the 'giggles'. I caught it too and was tearing up, because I couldn't stop either. It was really great to see her enjoy fully this book that I gave to her almost 3 years ago and it was really an awesome experience to share such a big laugh with her in such a spontaneous way. Also, it was a great way to wind down after a long day. We had approx. 3 weeks worth of laundry that we finished, and during the time Jane and I spent doing that, Hylah was hard at work on her research project for school on Aikido. I guess the point of this is to note how proud I am of her work and her effort in school and, most importantly, her development as a person.

Ignorance Is Truly Bliss...

I hate to make my first real post such a negative one, but it just irks me when someone talks out of turn. I mean really, for some people complaining is an art form and, even more so, some have degreed black belts in said art. It's to the point where it's a big dog and pony show carted out for all to see, volunteered or inflicted. It's just pure comedy and all a convenient way to gloss over and transfer all responsibility to an external source lest we find a chink in our rusted armor. I'm sorry, I won't play your game for your benefit. I've done enough over my many moons to help you assuage your guilts and your shames. The smoke and mirrors are enough already. The box office for your show is disappointing anyway, but instead of continously blaming the actors for playing their parts, maybe it's time to fire the director for putting on such a shoddy production. Random thinking and/or excuses is turning out to be a truly vulgar display of feigned power.

Sorry, had to get that one off of my chest...