The 4th of July is right around the corner.  As usual, we'll be in Coronado for the festivities.  Jeff and I are going to run the 5K.  For some of you, taking pics of fireworks is in your near future.  Mark, I'm looking in your direction.  You should check this out.

Coolio was in line one checkout over from me at the grocery store last Taco Tuesday.  Yeah, that's right, Coolio.

I also got my first taste of Guitar Hero on Sunday night.  Then, we played some more tonight at Taco Tues.  I think I'm hooked, and I shall be purchasing it after the 4th of July.  My only fear is that I'm going to waste a lot of time on it.

Be sure to check out the latest additions to ShowTimeMaps as well.

I purchased a 19" Samsung 930B monitor tonight just before leaving for church.  I had just enough time to plug it in.  I tried one setting in the display properties to try to get it to come on, but no luck and I was out of time.  When I got back home, I found that it had sorted itself out, and both monitors were on.  All I had to do was swap the primary and secondary monitors so that the new, bigger monitor would be the primary.  I'm really going to enjoy the additional desktop space, but I think the most useful thing for is going to be the fact that I'll be able to use one screen for RDP (remoting into my work machine) and the other for my local machine.  Pretty exciting stuff.

BTW, I signed the contracts for showtimemaps.com last week, so real-time data should be available within days!

I'm working on my scripts to clean and convert my movie data into what I need for showtimemaps.com.  I cleared a huge hurdle in geocoding today.  Hopefully, I'll have it pretty dang clean by the end of this week.  Then, hopefully, the next week, I'll add some cool stuff to the interface.  Once I start working on that, I'll start posting the link and soliciting more feedback from you guys.

Today, I registered showtimemaps.com, cinemapper.com, and mapthemovie.com.  Hopefully, I'll be getting some sample data from my new data source tomorrow.  If I do, I'll try to get everything adjusted and up at the new domain name(s) within a week.  I'm aiming to have my first set of features ready to go with live data (for the LA market) by June 1st, though I may try to get it done earlier, in time for the Da Vinci Code release.

Thanks everyone for all of the suggestions.  Between those posted in the comments, in emails, and in discussion with friends, I easily had 50 to choose from.

How about cinemapper.com?

I talked with my movie data source, and it looks like it's going to be feasible to build my movie maps deal with some better data.  So, now I need your help deciding on a domain name.  Here are some names that are available:

showtimemaps.com
movietimemaps.com
movietimemap.com
cinemamap.com

Unfortunately, moviemap.com and moviemaps.com are already taken.  Let me know what you think of these, and please suggest new ones!

I've got some more ideas for my movie mapper, but I'm waiting until I have a conversation with a better movie data source, before I put more time into it.

I've started jogging again.  I feel like it's safe to say that now that I've managed to jog three times in one week.  My first goal is to get to where I can make it 3 miles in 30 minutes.  I made it 2.51 miles today in the 30 minutes.  So, it's a pretty realistic, short-term goal.  I'm not sure what I'll shoot for after that.

I've actually had some stuff to blog about lately, but my blog was experiencing some technical difficulties.  I have now fully transferred this site over to ASP.NET 2.0.  Not important to most of you.

Not to be outdone by Mark's latest gadget, I've been working on a "mashup" of my own.  Mine gets theater and movie show time data for your zip code, converts the theater addresses to coordinates, and then maps them all using Virtual Earth.  It's still in its infancy with many more features to come (hopefully).

Here it is:  http://www.flatlandmedia.com/atlas/ShowTimeMaps.aspx  (only works completely in Internet Explorer)

UPDATE:  Everything that works in IE now also works in Firefox (on a PC).  I made the popups work better, and there's a nicer close link on it now, too.  Also, zooming no longer removes the pushpins.

Lately, I've whiled away my sleeplessness playing around on the internet.  I've been playing way too much sudoku at http://www.websudoku.com/. 

I've also been playing with Windows Live at http://www.live.com/.  I wonder how much Microsoft paid for that domain name?  They released their new search tool on live.com today.  It's pretty cool with the way it scrolls instead of displaying on multiple pages, and the way that you can use the slider bar to affect how your results are displayed.  The slider bar is especially cool on the image search.

Yesterday, our neighborhood association arranged for some of us residents to go whale watching on a boat (the Betty-O) that leaves from Marina del Rey, just a few minutes away from our place.  Our concierge had some extra tickets, so Jamie and I decided to go, in spite of my reluctance to get up at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday.  We grabbed some Starbucks, parked in the paid lot right next to the boat, and then waited at least 45 minutes for others to assemble.  In other words, we could have slept 45 more minutes.  Anyhoo, as we waited we watched many different kind of birds scouring for little fish.  We saw a couple of seals frolicking in the harbor.  We watched as crew teams from area colleges went back and forth.  Eventually, our concierge showed up with her nephew (Alex) and his girlfriend (Emma).  Pretty much everyone took some sort of ginger supplement to aid in the fight against sea-sickness, after Mike, our captain, explained that the water was pretty choppy out there.  Finally, some time around 10:00 a.m., we set off.  As soon as we came around the large rock barrier at the end of the harbor, we could see that indeed, the sea was angry that day my friend!  Like an old man sending back soup at the deli!

We headed straight into the swells.  I'm not much of a nautical man, but surely the swells were at least 10 feet high.  Is that high?  I was a little bit worried that I might get sea-sick, but there was a nice cool breeze, the motion wasn't really bothering me, and I had taken that ginger supplement.  So, for the first few minutes, things were great.  I was talking with Sophia and Jamie about Kurt Russell, when I saw Emma run to the trash can behind them and throw up.  Egg salad sandwich.  At first I felt bad for her, and I tried not to draw attention to it.  I put it out of my mind.  Then, Jamie went to throw out her gum in that trash can, and she noticed what else was in there.  Now, it was the topic of discussion.  Emma threw up again, and moved to the rail of the boat.  I couldn't get it out of my head.  So, I trained my gaze on the horizon, and focused on not getting sick.  It wasn't long before another woman started throwing up over the side, directly in my line of sight.  I turned away.  Then, the girl sitting right next to me, turned around where she sat and threw up over the back of the boat.  I was cornered.  The awkward guy sitting across from me, got up and kind of squat ran towards the galley.  He was awkward, and had been doing that squat run any time he had moved on the boat, so I wasn't sure that there was anything wrong.  But then I heard an announcement over the loud speaker that they needed some help in the galley.  I could only get glimpses into the galley from where I was sitting, but I looked just in time to see the awkward guy throwing up all over himself and the floor of the galley.  He didn't even attempt to get to a trash can or to the side of the boat.  But still, I remained steadfast, affixing my eyes beyond the swells.

Jamie realized that I hadn't yet put on sunscreen, a bad idea for someone with such delicate skin.  She got it out and handed it to me, but I explained that as much as I wanted to protect my porcelain finish, I couldn't risk opening that bottle and catching a whiff of the lotion.  It might be enough to send me over.  So, I sat there unprotected with fellow patrons dropping one by one.  The children had started to lay their heads in their parents' laps.  So, Jamie and a few others who were unaffected had a group discussion with our leader about turning the boat around.  Some protested, saying we were only 20 minutes away from our destination.   But, that meant 40 minutes round-trip, and they hadn't even seen whales for 2 weeks, so the decision was made to head for home.  As soon as we turned around, things started to calm down.  Riding with the swells provided a much smoother ride.  The psychological factor of just knowing that we were on our way to land brought hope to the eyes around me.

We made it back safely without further incident.  Once in the calm of the harbor, our Captain pointed out some large birds nesting in some trees and explained a little bit about their habitat.  The boat docked and we watched the awkward guy exit the boat awkwardly.  His legs seemed stuck between land legs and sea legs.  We got off the boat and headed to the parking lot with our voucher for free parking.  Unfortunately, there was a really long line to get out of the parking lot.  This was strange, because it's a pretty small parking lot, and it wasn't even close to full.  Apparently, we were all trying to leave at the same time as the crew teams we had seen competing earlier.  There was something holding everybody up, so we eventually waited an hour just to leave the parking lot.  The perfect end to a perfect day.  Fortunately, we were able to go straight to In-N-Out to make everything better.  And of course, hours later, I turned bright red.

We took some pics that I'll post on flickr.

Here's what you do.  Train for and run a half-marathon.  Then, whenever you start feeling guilty about not exercising or eating like a pregnant lady, just remind yourself of that day you ran 13.1 miles all at once.  Pat yourself on the back (do this figuratively; literally might require exercise) and eat another cookie.  So far, I've ridden this wave of rationalization for 6 1/2 weeks.  One day, I'll get new shoes and get back on the horse.  One day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcoulter/sets/1281190/

I shaved my face on Sunday.  Jamie got a few shots of the progression for your viewing pleasure.

   

Baylor beat Iowa State today 23-13 on the road!  Sic 'em, bears!

I think this is for real, but it's hard to believe:

http://www.chessboxing.com/

The band was in town for a show at the LA Convention Center last weekend.  Jamie and I made our way down there in the early afternoon, and eventually found our way to the bus in the freight area.  We had a good time catching up on the bus, while the band enjoyed Jamie's butterscotch chip oatmeal cookies.  Wow, they're good.  They were only in town for a few hours, so there was no time for the usual trip to Trader Vic's, so Jamie and I picked up some of their bread and peanut butter and brought it back to the bus, where thankfully, they had a toaster.

Around 8:00 p.m., we headed inside for the concert.  The band was great, as per usual.  Dave busted out a keytar; I did not see that coming.  The audience was made up of predominantly of asians.  And why not?  Asians love David Crowder.  The security lining the front of the stage were a real comfort, as they were singing along, instead of keeping the crowd at bay.  If you get a chance to see the band perform, do it.  I enjoy the CD so much more when I've seen it performed in context.  And if you haven't bought the CD yet, don't wait.  They actually made it to #1 on ITunes the week the album came out.

After the show, the band was off to sign autographs for hours.  I spotted Robbie Seay, who had opened the show, and went over to introduce Jamie to him.  As we were talking to him, some young asian girls came over to get Robbie to sign something, so I backed away with Jamie while we talked with some other friends of Robbie's.  But then one of the young asian girls came over and asked if they could get a picture with me and Robbie.  Apparently, since I wasn't asian, I must have been on stage that night.  Before I could make things awkward by trying to explain that I wasn't in any of the bands, Robbie said "Sure he will", and put his arm around me to pose for the photo.  Robbie, you are one class act to your fans, my friend.

We only took a few pics that night, but here they are:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcoulter/sets/1090811/

This is a little belated, but I just got around to uploading the picture to Flickr.  Heath was in town for Microsoft's PDC a couple of weeks ago.  We got to have him over for dinner and catch up on each other's lives.  No visit, however, would be complete without a picture of the two of us and our favorite Ameriprise Financial commercial.  Great to see you, Heath!  (Clicking the image will take you to the Flickr image page.)

Thought those interested in up and coming stuff on the web might find this article interesting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9598708/

UPDATE: Here's the link to Flock.  http://www.flock.com/home/

This article from MSNBC tells us that Matsushita has developed a technology to turn every day electrical outlets into broadband connections.  This sounds like a great idea.  I've thought for a long time that the electrical outlets should send out a standard time beacon-type thing, so that whenever you plug in a clock or computer or oven or anything that plugs in and has a clock can set itself.  I'd be happy never to see a blinking 12:00 again.

As I start to run longer distances, I eventually want to get the Garmin Forerunner 201, which has GPS in it, plus a whole bunch of other neat stuff that you can read about if you follow the link.  Until that purchase is made, I needed some way to measure out some routes, as I start running for distance tomorrow instead of time.  I did a little searching and found this little dandy that somebody did using Google Maps (http://www.sueandpaul.com/gmapPedometer/).  You can even permalink routes that you've built, so tomorrow, I'll be running this route.

UPDATE: The link has changed to http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/.

Jeff Webdell recently proposed to Lindsay Moore at a gazebo in Pismo Beach.  Jamie and I were there to spread rose petals, take photos, and guard the gazebo.  The rose petals look great and nobody went near the gazebo, but the dusk, the reverent distance, and my shaky hands conspired to make some of the pictures blurry.  Fortunately, not all the pictures were blurry, so Lindsay said yes!  Here's the photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcoulter/sets/843092/.  Note: You have to join Flickr (for free) in order to actually save the photos or comment on them, but you can view them without joining.

Big news today!  I got the HD-DVR and component video switcher installed today.  I ended up having to do a fair amount of prep work.  I went ahead and drilled several more holes in the back of the entertainment center.  It made it easier as far as wires coming out the back, but I did it mostly to provide more opportunity for airflow.  Then, when I went to plug in my second power strip, I couldn't get the third prong into the outlet.  Something about it is jacked, so I had to switch it out with another one in the same room, just so I wouldn't have to wait to do all the setup.  Everything is hooked up and works except for the PS2.  I need to get the component cords for that, but that will just take a sec to add to the switcher.  The switcher is nice, too.  I was a little worried about how smoothly the auto-sensing would work, but it works exactly as I would want it to.

I got an unexpected bonus, as well.  As I mentioned before, I had put myself on a waiting list for the dual tuner HD-DVR.  When I picked up the HD-DVR today, I asked the lady behind the counter if she knew when they might be available.  She told me not to hold my breath.  Then she muttered something about Motorola and how she thought they were discontinued because demand was too high.  I pointed out that it would be really odd to discontinue something when more and more people were wanting it, but I let it go.  When I got home and started prepping, I was waiting for the drill to charge, so I read through the guide for the HD-DVR.  It said that the DVR had dual tuners!  And sure enough, when I got everything hooked up, both tuners work!  For once, I'm glad the people at the cable company don't know anything!

Our TiVo has been acting up for the last week or so.  It appears that the video outputs are going out.  It might have something to do with the amount of heat that fills up our entertainment center, and if anyone has any ideas on dissipating that heat feel free to share, but I digress.  This little failing has finally spurred us to move to HD.  I ordered this component A/V switcher, which should arrive tomorrow, so that everything I have can be plugged in at once and can be all component all the time.  I ordered the HD-DVR from Comcast, which I will go pick up on Wednesday.  They currently only have the single tuner DVR available, but my name is on the waiting list, so as soon as the dual tuner DVR is available, they will get in touch with me.  I'm just about 100% positive that I'm not going to like the new DVR interface as much as I like TiVo's, but renting this DVR monthly is just going to tide me over until the time that someone comes out with a standalone HD-DVR that is CableCard ready and supports multiple tuners.

Don had his first art show last night in Fallbrook.  It was a lot of fun.  A lot of friends and family came as well as members of the local art community.  He even sold several of his pieces.  Here's a link to the photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcoulter/sets/566173/.  I apologize for Jamie's artsy photos (read blurry).  I promise I'll teach her how to use the camera.

Hey there, got our July 4th photo set up on flickr, thanks to Mark. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcoulter/sets/547927/)

Last Friday marked a big day for me.  I finally got the 42" Plasma screen that I've been waiting for so long to hit a reasonable price point.  It now sits on our living room floor.  I bought a wall mount for it, and I'm now sitting at home waiting for CompUSA Digital Living people to come give me a tech orientation for my new home.  They'll tell me how much it will cost for them to mount the TV and the speakers.  I'm hoping that it's cheap enough that I don't have to do it myself.  But back to Friday.  The granite guy came and ground out the scratches on one of kitchen counters.  The Best Buy service guy came and fixed our new washer, which had filled with water and then stopped.  The building warranty guy came and fixed the gas connection to the dryer.  And I came home from work looking forward to spending a relaxing weekend in our new place.

On Saturday, we did some unpacking in the morning.  Don & Connie came up in the afternoon to take me out for my birthday dinner to Saddle Peak Lodge, which, having done it two years running, has become a birthday tradition.  It was a nice leisurely drive up the PCH and then back through the Santa Monica Mountains.  Along the PCH, you could see where they had moved a lot of mud and dirt off the road after the recent landslides caused by the unusual amount of rain.  The road was definitely narrower than it used to be.  The dinner was excellent; I had buffalo.  Also, I was sporting one of my spiffy new shirts that Jamie got me for my birthday.  Side note: I love tagless T's.  The Siebers spent the night on our air mattress, and then we headed to the Omelette Parlor or Factory or something like that for breakfast.  I think there was a quirky-commercial-guy convention nearby, because we saw a bunch of random guys that are in a lot of current commercials, like the State Farm commercial where the wife runs over her husband's toe.  After that, Don & Connie headed to San Diego, and Jamie and I did some more work on the house.

Things are coming together slowly.  With Jamie and I both working a lot, it just takes a while.  Hopefully, my desk will be delivered this week, so I can start putting together my office.  I bought a label maker and labeled both ends of all my home entertainment system wires.  There will eventually be some rewiring that I'll have to do on that as I upgrade my components, but I've got the basics set up for now.

Oh, there is one thing that is done.  The kitchen and Jamie's office are all set up and ready to go.  I've run enough water and ice through our refrigerator dispenser so we can start using that.  We sealed our granite counter tops, so we could finally pick things up off the floor and set things on the counter.

Two last things:  I plugged the phone line in my office into my computer modem, and now caller ID shows up on my computer screen.  Thank you Windows Media Center!  Also, Mark hooked me up with a flickr Pro account, which means that I'll be uploading some high res photos of the place very soon as we finish putting stuff together.

Sorry to keep everyone in suspense.  I was without internet for a while during the move.  Here it is in all of its glory.

Brandon Wilson
English 8-1
2-4-91

Falling In Love...

Falling in love can be very easy at times.  I have been in love before, and even as we speak I am.  I have been in love with the same girl for nearly a year now.  People have told me she is interested in me, but when I have asked her she has turned me down, but I know she likes me.  I have been so close, but right when I think I have her she slips out of my hands.  Still, I will keep on trying.  Like John Paul Jones said, "I have not yet begun to fight."

By the way, B-dub, I don't know why I still have it.  I know that I had it in order to read during announcements at UBC a long time ago, but I'm not sure why I kept it.  Maybe I'm holding it ransom for a Billabong hat.

 

We are almost packed up completely.  What's left is the bedroom and our computers.  The plan is to have everything ready to go Monday morning, go for our second walk-through, pick up our rental truck, pack it up, and head over there.  We'll sleep on the floor Monday night, then start the unloading first thing in the morning on Tuesday.  While packing today, Jamie found something that makes me happy.  It's an essay that Brandon Wilson wrote in 8th grade on February 4, 1991.  It's entitled, "Falling In Love".  With B-dub's permission, I'd sure like to reprint it here.  (He got a 100 on it.)

This was cool to wake up to this morning on MSNBC.

We are still on track for moving in on the 12th!  We're just waiting to get some final papers from the bank to the escrow company.  I've been working non-stop for this place down on Wilshire.  I worked longer hours this week, so I can cut out at noon on Friday to head down to the Siebers' for Easter.  What's new?  Too much.  We went to the Damah Film Festival Awards Night and saw some great shorts.  Two couples from NY that we knew from the Haven are moving out here in the next couple of months.  We went and saw a taping of Norm McDonald's sketch show pilot for Comedy Central.  Next week we're going to go to a taping of the new sitcom "Stacked" with Pamela Anderson, because Tony is doing a guest spot, and he got us on some list.  I've priced out all of the components of my new desk that Scott Coones is going to build for me.  I'm getting two pieces of glass for the desktop and having them sandblasted.  In my head, it's a sweet desk; let's hope it turns out that way.  We got a chair at Z Gallerie that matches our couch.  All we have left to buy for our new place is a dryer and a flat-screen TV, if we can afford it.  Jamie did her first official key position for the agency Zenobia.  She was the food stylist on a Johnson's brats shoot.  It was kind of rough, because the people in charge didn't provide near enough brats for Jamie to cook, and only had two tiny prop grills for her to cook on, but it was a great learning experience and very cool that the agency booked her for it.  There should be more than that after a 2 week gap, but stories about me sitting in front of the computer programming aren't too interesting.

Jamie and I have been blessed with a ton of work of late.  When last I blogged, we were just finishing up Jamie's Irvine gig.  That next week, she started on another project that is with the same people and the same client that she did her first project for.  She's almost been doing this for a year!  This time, she's hired buddies Clinton and Scott Coones to work on it, too.  I also started last week on a new on-site contract with a company called Zentropy Partners.  It's a pretty cool company that offices out of a great building on Wilshire.  I'll be going in there until the end of April.  Hopefully, by then, I will have won another contract that Mark and I are going to work together on.  It's hard to tell what the chances are of getting the contract, though.

On the home front, I called Chatelaine a couple days ago, and the rain has not pushed back our move-in date yet.  Fourteen more days until the first people close and then we'll know for sure.  We bought ourselves a washing machine on Sunday.  (It won't be delivered until after we move in.)  We found a great Maytag machine on clearance at Best Buy, so we snapped it up.  I've designed a desk for my office, and the aforementioned Scott Coones is going to build it for me.  We've priced the wood materials, but I've still got to price the glass top I want.  It's going to be LOADS cheaper than the one that inspired it at Alan Desk ($3,400).  Jamie and I were picked to be in our builder's magazine.  Jamie was interviewed on the phone the other day, and they are going to take pictures of us out there next week.  On another home-related issue, though not our home, my brother Paul and his wife Christen finally sold their old home, just in time to avoid the sinister two-house-payment scenario.

I would like to announce for Clinton's sake, since there's something wrong with his blog, that he will be doing stand-up Thursday night at 424 again in Beverly Hills.  Let me know if you need info on how to get there.

We spent all day yesterday (after Chatelaine) at the Arrested Development set with Tony.  We hung out in his trailer, munched on junk food from craft services, and walked around the Fox lot.  Tony received a set of publicity photos while we were hanging out, and he gave us a copy.

I noticed something interesting the other day in my search engine referrals.  If you go to http://video.search.yahoo.com/ and type in segues, you'll see a few of our videos, with still shots displayed.  Pretty cool, and very interesting.  In related news, I burned my first dvd last night on my new computer.  It's only a matter of time before I compile all the Segues stuff I have on to a single DVD, but don't hold your breath, as it will be more than just a few minutes.

Since I'm up late, I'm the first to get to wish Mark a Happy Birthday!  Too late to crop this picture, though.

Ben noted that I didn't mention what kind of computer I got.  I did link to it in my first post, but very subtly.  Here's a link to what I bought, at Best Buy where I bought it.  The reason I'm not mentioning what computer I bought is as a reaction to how horrible their customer service was for Clinton as he attempted to buy his computer.  He eventually went to Best Buy and bought the same one I did.  The computer itself is great, and I'm very excited to make full use of it, including the Windows Media Center, but I'm not going to hook it up until we move into our new place.  New move-in date, by the way, is April 12th!

Jamie and I spent about a week and a half down in Fallbrook over the holidays.  We did Christmas at the Siebers, Grandma Sieber's birthday the next day at the Wonders, and New Year's Eve at Thornton Winery.  I got a mixture of gift certificates and clothes, most of which were specially requested from Banana Republic.  In fact, here's a pic of us at New Year's, with me in some of said clothes.

For those of you who didn't get a Christmas card from us this year, or got one late, that's because Jamie was busy working on American Black Beauty, and I'm a Christmas card slacker.  I did eventually go out and find some that I really liked.  They were my second choice, but my first choice was ridiculously expensive.  Today, Jamie and I were doing some shopping at the Beverly Center, and we came across my first choice with the price slashed 75% off.  So, our Christmas cards are already purchased this year.  Expect to get them early!

These pictures might have been doctored, but this is hilarious.

The models at our new condo, Chatelaine, opened for a special event for owners on Saturday, so Jamie and I headed out to Playa Vista.  The lobby, waiting area, conference room, reception desk, and great room are all completed and furnished.  It looks awesome!  In the great room, there are a couple of couches, some tables and chairs, a fireplace, and a big flat-screen tv.  We didn't have time to go through all of the models, but we went through the Plan B, which is what ours is.  It was great to see it completed.  While the flooring choices for the model weren't our favorite, the appliances were in, and it was helpful to see what the rooms looked like once some stuff was added.  It's starting to become real now.  Our home presentation date is scheduled for March 8th, and we close on March 15th.  In anticipation, I've added a little countdown up in the header, just for funsies.

Oh, and here's Tony doing press at Big in '04.

I forgot that I actually took a picture of the Some'Mores bar that I blogged about earlier.

Clinton called tonight and asked me, “What do people do on a Friday night?”  He vaguely remembered that in his not-too-distant past he would go out and do stuff on weekends.  So, we piled into the car, sans Doug, who doesn't know what he's missing, and headed to the Grove for a little dessert at The Farm.  It...was...awesome.  I started off with a perfectly temperatured hot chocolate with whip cream.  Soon to follow was The Farm Something Or Other Brownie Sundae and an order of S'mores.  They bring a flame out to the table with marshmallows on sticks, a Hershey's bar and some homemade-style graham crackers.  Wow.  Being at the Grove and eating s'mores reminded me of the last time Jamie and I were there at Sur La Table, and they were selling a s'mores candy bar called “some'mores”.  These people either didn't get the etymology of the word s'more, or they have no idea what function an apostrophe performs.  It still tasted good.

Jamie and I got to go with Tony & Martel to VH1's Big In '04 awards show last night at the Shrine Auditorium.  It was quite a production and a lot of fun.  We got to their place about 5:00 pm, which gave Jamie a chance to get her eyes done by Martel.  We were dressed “hiply”, and Tony was sporting a designer sport coat from a designer whose name he could not pronounce.  The limo driver, Milos, came to the door to pick us up about 5:30, and we piled in and headed our way through the traffic to get to USC.  Traffic has never been so nice.  There was a wide array of beverages for our enjoyment, and we got to catch up with the Hale's as we hadn't hung out in awhile.

We arrived at the drop-off point, where we received our credentials: a “Talent Guest” card and a ticket.  Jamie and I got out of the limo first, exiting on the side of the limo furthest from the crowd.  They couldn't tell who we weren't from that distance, and when they saw the back of Jamie's blonde head, I heard someone yell out “Paris, Paris!”  The setup was basically on a street corner which was full of onlookers.  The red carpet, which was actually a yellowy-beige, led us past the onlookers into the press tent.  Jamie, Martel, and I walked behind the press, while Tony and his publicist navigated through the photographs and interviews.  We watched as others showed up, including Joss Stone, Jeffrey Tambor, Alia Shawkat, Black-Eyed Peas, Maroon 5, Ron Jeromy, Joe Rogan, Kathy Griffin, and others that we didn't recognize.

Once Tony was done going through press, we went through security, and then headed on into the green room.  This was a pretty sweet spread.  The bar was open and the food was plentiful...and free.  We hung out mostly with AD cast, including Alia, Tony, and the girl who has played George Michael's girlfriend in the last couple of episodes.  After a little while, we were joined by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler.  This was my biggest got-to-meet-a-celebrity moment of the night.  Will is on AD, and Martel knows Amy from her SNL days.  Martel introduced us, and I admitted that she is my favorite cast member at the moment.  We also talked with Tony's publicist, who has skydove-skydived-skydiveded over 500 times, and does it at the same place where I jumped.  Before the show, in the green room, we saw Nikki Hilton, Chad Muska, Jason Bateman, that's all I can remember.

We stayed in the green room until the show started, and they made us leave.  We weren't sitting with Tony & Martel, so we went to enter by another door.  On our way, we came across the guys from The Lonely Island, of 'Just 2 Guyz' fame, waiting to get in their door.  We struck up a conversation and got along really well.  Jamie hooked them up with her backstage pass for use while we were watching the show.  I talked to them several times as the night progressed, and I'm hoping that I can connect with them again soon to do some video nonsense.

The show itself was pretty pathetic.  I booed Michael Moore when he won some award, but at least his speech didn't mention Bush and didn't sound bitter, so I didn't have to boo his speech, too.  Nick Lachey was the host, and I can only hope that the Segues did a better job of hosting Baylor events than he did.  (Yes, even Diadeloso, though we weren't hosting.)  In his defense, the jokes didn't suit themselves to play to the live audience.  Perhaps it will be better on TV.  The low points were Anna Nicole Smith's acceptance speech, and Brigitte Nielsen & Flavor Flav's award presentation.  The musical performances of note were Maroon 5 and Green Day.

After AD accepted their award for Big Family in '04, we met Tony & Martel back in the green room, where the entire group of Lonely Islanders had all managed to get in.  We enjoyed some more food and beverage, while watching the likes of Ron Jeromy, Brigitte Nielsen, and Flavor Flav mingle with the crowd.  We headed out to go home, and while we were waiting for our driver, Jamie spotted the Hamm brothers and went and introduced herselft.  That was her highlight of the night.  OK, I think that covers just about everything.

UPDATE: Fixed spelling of 'sporting'.

Wow, long vacation.  By the time we got back from vacation, I was pretty sick with a cold and tired from all the traveling.  Plus, I had loads of work stacked up waiting for my upon my return.  So, I didn't really feel like blogging.  It's a shame, because I had a lot of stuff that I wanted to say about the election that is now all moot.

Tonight, we went over to Tony & Martel's for the season premiere of Arrested Development.  It has been blessed with a solid time slot finally, following the Simpsons on Sunday nights.  Hopefully, it will play there consistently and not get pre-empted too often.  Is pre-empted hypenated?  Anyway, it was a great episode; I hope you all got to see it.  Mike and Alia, the actors who play George Michael and Maeby were also there, and it was fun to watch them watch their show.  Terence and Clinton were there as was a new girl from New York named Tanya.  It was a fun group to hang out with, and Clinton brought some sweet root beer.

Speaking of Clinton, he just purchased a Windows Media Center PC from Sony this week.  It's pretty awesome.  It's basically a powerful video editing workstation and a Tivo all rolled into one, plus a lot of other cool stuff.

This weekend, we're heading to San Diego to shoot Jamie and Clinton in a pilot/audition video for the Food Network.  Should be interesting.  Perhaps it will get posted.

And before I go, how about a pic from the va-cay.

I ventured out in the rain tonight to meet with Scott Coones (and supposedly Cameron Coen) about a short Scott wrote and I'm going to help produce.  If there had been thunder and lightning, it could have been a Texas thunderstorm.  We're off to Texas in the morning, and I'm not likely to blog while we're there.  Oh, we did get a portable dvd player for ourselves for an early Christmas present so we'll have something to do on the plane.

Many of you, especially Jeff, will love this.

Here's a cool article about ten cool new inventions.  My favorites are the drive-by-wire, plastic chips, and super-light cars.

By happy accident we had the largest group of our friends at church tonight all at one time.  Me, Jamie, Doug, Clinton, Summer, Clinton's friend from Groundlings, Nick, his girlfriend, and Terence.  The service, unfortunately, was not a standout.  It really went on forever and the fill-in pastor used poor analogies and repetition to drive home a point, maybe.  But I don't know what that point was.  Oh well, just one service.  Afterwards, Terence and Summer joined us four regulars at Chipotle.  Halfway through my burrito, I got this weird vision of me eating a second burrito, something I've never dreamed of doing because of fullness.  I mentioned this vision, and Doug admitted that he was thinking the same thing.  He went and got a second burrito and proceeded to play with it as much as eat it.  By the time I finished my first, I knew I couldn't handle a whole other burrito, so I just went to get chips and guac.  While I was gone, Doug had smeared his messy, messy hands all over his shirt and parts of his burrito had fallen down all over his pants and shoes.  What a character.  Then, we all did some seat-swapping, and I got to chat with Terence for a little while.  We're talking about setting up a trip to the Sundance film festival in January for the group.

The next two days, Jamie works for another Maxim shoot, and then we head to Texas on Wednesday.  Yeehaw! 

The rain is coming down again!

It's raining in California!  I can actually hear it coming down!

UPDATE: Our kitchen ceiling leaked!

I forgot to tell this story last week.  Last week at church I was sitting on the edge of our group, and so to my left was sitting a stranger, a woman probably in her early 30's.  During the meet-n-greet portion of the service, I introduced myself and here's how the conversation went:

Me: Hi, I'm Pete.

Stranger: Heat?

Me: No, no, it's Pete.  But Heat would be such a great “L.A.” name (chuckle).

Stranger: I'm Keetiann (pronounced key-tee-awn).

--awkward silence--

I don't know if that translates in writing, but it was pretty funny to me at the time.  Today at church we ran into Wesley Carlin.  You remember her from UBC, right?  Anyway, we were sneaking out early, when she spotted Jamie.  We exchanged info, and we'll get together some time this week.  Perhaps Taco Tuesday Wednesday?  We were sneaking out, because we had to go pick up Martel and drop her off at Spago for the Fox Emmys party.  While she was in the car, she found out that Arrested Development had just won for best comedy series.  Needless, to say it was pretty exciting.  They also won for writing and directing.

Hey everybody!  I'm alive!  Here's a couple of pics from my jump.  The first one is my favorite.  I also got a DVD of the jump, and I might try ripping it and putting that up here as well, but we'll see.

Don and I arrived at noon for the jump.  We spent the first hour signing a bunch of documents saying that skydiving is dangerous, and it's not their fault that we are stupid enough to try it.  There was also a video explaining the dangers to us, hosted by a guy who looked like ZZ Top but in a suit.  We were then videotaped signing the last line of a document.  My favorite clause in the document was the one that said that we realize that skydiving is of no value to the public.  After all the initialing and signing, we headed out to an area with a bunch of picnic tables and awaited our instructions.  We waited for quite a while.  In the meantime, we watched jumpers coming in for landings every few minutes.  We also watched as some people practiced doing formations on wheeled boards.

We finally met up with our tandem jumpers and videographers.  My jumper was Lou and my videographer were Doug, both were excellent.  We went to a room to get suited up.  We had the option of wearing a jumpsuit over our clothes, but as it was wicked hot, we declined.  We strapped on a harness, a padded helmet, and some goggles.  Then, as we waited for the plane to come get us, we went through the jump procedure with our jumper.  It couldn't have been more simple, and yet, because of the nervousness accompanying this adventure, it was difficult to follow simple instructions.  The plane arrived, and after gassing up, we boarded.  The plane fit maybe around 16 people, and it was a tight fit.  The seating was two bench seats along each side of the plane.  We tandem jumpers were towards the front of the plane and would go after all of the single jumpers.  The roughest part of the whole experience for me was between about 5,000 and 7,000 feet, I started to get a little queasy, because the small plane was experiencing a little turbulence.  After that, everything happened pretty fast.  We got strapped up to our jumpers and headed towards the door at about 12,500 feet, sliding down the bench seat.  We got in position to jump, and I really didn't even have to jump.  I just kind of rolled out with Lou's momentum.  Thus began the freefall. 

It was pretty amazing being out there in the open air with that view.  It's hard to be scared at this point, because there's so much to take in and you've got a cameraman in your face.  While you know that you are falling rather quickly if you think about, you don't really notice it, because the ground isn't getting bigger in any kind of rapid way at this point.  I suppose it would be between 1,000 ft and 0 ft, but not up higher.  Plus, you aren't falling next to something stationary that shows you your relative speed.  One tense moment in the process is pulling the rip cord and waiting for the parachute to unfold and catch you.  Now, I was supposed to be the one pulling the rip cord at 6,000 feet, but before I knew it had been pulled, the parachute jerked us to a much slower pace.  Apparently, we were pretty far away from our drop zone, so Lou pulled a little early to give us plenty of time to make it back.  I was surprised at how uncomfortable the rest of the ride down was.  The harness goes around your legs, and the loops seemed to be cutting off the circulation.  We spun around and such in the air a few times, checking out the awesome view, and then we came in for a landing that was very smooth.

While it was fun, I probably won't be doing much skydiving any time in the near future.  There are other hobbies that I'd rather devote my time and money to, like getting my pilot's license.  But I'm happy to say that I've finally crossed something off of my spy training list.

I finally got to go to my first showing of Channel 101*.  For those who don't follow links, it's basically a night where they screen five-minute episodes of homemade television series.  You make a pilot, send it in, and if it's not too bad, then they'll show it at the screening.  The audience votes, and the top 5 get to make the next episode in their series.  The quality of the videos range from pretty bad to decent, but none are out of the Segues caliber range, in my opinion.  There were nine shows screened tonight, and some were funny, others not so much.  But better than all of the episodes was a music video that started the show.  It's made by a group called The Lonely Island, and the song is Just 2 Guyz*, which you can find under the What's New section on the front page.  These guys collaborate on several of the Channel 101 shows.  After going to the show tonight, I'm confident that we can put something together and compete.

*The language at this site is not exactly children-friendly if you know what I mean.

My skydive is scheduled.  I'm jumping on Saturday, Sept. 4th with Jamie's dad.  I'm looking forward to it.  I've got to pick a song to put on the video of my jump.  Any suggestions?  I wonder if/when I'll get nervous or scared.  It's bound to come, but I can't really imagine feeling it until I'm at the door of the plane. UPDATE:  There was a time when I could add align=left to my img tags and wrap my text around my pictures a little bit.  Now, for some reason, whenever I do that, the image doesn't show up. UPDATE on the first UPDATE:  Mark showed me the extra CSS tag to add to my base.css, and now, as you can see, it works. ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the list of songs that they have available.  I can also bring in my own music.  http://www.skydiveelsinore.com/students/tandemmusic.html

We always have time to blog whenever nothing is going on.  Then, when we have exciting news, we don't have the time.  Ben & Jamie Dudley were supposed to be coming out to visit the 4th-11th.  Jamie was supposed to be working non-stop through the 3rd.  I got a call a couple of weeks ago from Ben who broke the news that they had just bought a house and were going to close on it and move into it instead of coming out to Cali.  What a jerk.  Since Jamie was super-busy, I decided to keep it on the down-low, and plan a little anniversary extravaganza surprise.  We had already gotten the hook up from Toni for tix to the Crowder/Mercy Me/Smitty concert in San Diego.  Jamie already knew that we were going to meet her parents, Marianne, and Jeff at the Prado for our annual dinner there before the show.  She also knew that we would be heading back up to LA on the 4th to get ready for Ben & Jamie's arrival that night.  Instead, we went to dinner and the show, which was a lot of fun.  The adults stayed out front for most of the show, but us kiddos hung back in the bus and Tiki Lounge with the band.  It was a good time of roasting forbidden marshmallows and sausage on a stick while catching up on the stories of Waco and the road.

After the show, instead of heading back to Fallbrook, we went to the W in downtown San Diego.  It was a very relaxing hotel with all the amenities.  Jamie awoke the next morning to huevos rancheros in the room.  We walked down to the GasLamp district and checked out Urban Outfitters and the Z Gallerie.  I was tempted to get a t-shirt at Urban that said, “Everybody loves a Jewish boy”, mostly because I thought it might help me to get ahead in Hollywood.  I resisted.  We grabbed some lunch at Hennessey's, a pub frequented by Jeff, where I got a chili dog and a Guinness.  Mmmm.  We got back to the hotel in time for Jamie's appointment at the spa, which she'll have to blog about.  I headed up to the “Beach”, which is a sandy area on the roof of the hotel where I spent my time reading “The Bourne Identity”.  It's nothing like the movies.  (The same can be said of “Bourne Supremacy”).  That night, we ate at the hotel restaurant Rice, which was nice, though my meal of prosciutto wrapped salmon left something to be desired.  We headed back up to our room, where we had cookies and milk delivered to our room, while we watched The Last Samurai.  We checked out the next morning and headed up to Jamie's folks' house where we have been lounging about until today.  I may fill in some of those days activities, but not now.  Back off.

Back in NYC, I had heard about www.homestarrunner.com through the grapevine.  I checked it out and enjoyed it muchly, especially the Strongbad emails.  Then, I promptly forgot about it.  When my niece and nephew were here, they rekindled an interest, and I've been watching a lot of the email bits that I had missed.  I came across this one that made me laugh non-stop.

Tonight at Taco Tuesday Wednesday, Doug sported this fine shirt.  It blew my mind.  He didn't make it; he bought it.  If it had said 'Taco Tuesday Wednesday' I would have thought that I had passed through the nexus of the universe.  That would have been even crazier than doing the robot in the midst of ancient ruins.

Misquoted lyric: ”Ju-day is the greatest dame I've ever known.”

Anybody know what the correct quote is?