Hey everybody, Tony's show Arrested Development premieres tomorrow night after Malcolm In the Middle on Fox.  Don't miss it!  Yes, I know it goes up against Alias, but we found a way to watch both.  I'm sure you can too.

I went to see Intolerable Cruelty tonight in the rain.  I shall cherish the rain, as I will not see it again for months, I'm sure.  Jamie was working until 10:30, so I got an employee pass from her to go see a movie for cheap ($6 is cheap here) at The Grove's Pacific Theatre.  The word on the street is that this theatre is one of the top 5 grossing movie theatres in the U.S. or maybe even the world.  As a result, I'm guessing that this theatre is somewhat trendsetting.  Perhaps some of you have already seen the innovation that I'm about to tell you about, in which case, I guess it's not such a big deal.  Anyway, they have just installed automated kiosks for concessions.  You walk up to a touch screen, select what you want, insert cash or swipe a credit card, pick up your receipt, and then head to the express pick up stand, where your order is waiting for you.  It was pretty awesome, and tons faster than the lines one usually waits in for concessions, while you are nervous that your movie has already started.  This is bound to mean more money for theatres, which means either they could lower prices (fat chance) or they may take better care of the theatre or they might just pocket it.  Anyway, good idea somebody.

Intolerable Cruelty.  It might surprise some of you that I waited so long to see this movie as it is a Cohen brother movie, and my favorite movie is Raising Arizona.  It might surprise others that I went to see it at all as it didn't exactly gather acclaim or box office dollars.  Well, I went tonight and the verdict is 6034 Conan O'Briens, which is equivalent to pretty darn good.  I liked the movie taken by itself quite a bit, and it definitely had the distinct flavor of a Cohen brother film, in spite of the marketing campaign that did not have that flavor.

Just a quick note to let you all know that we are safe and sound from the fires.  Don't let the name "Firestorm" give you the idea that fire is raining down from the sky.  "Ashstorm" might be more appropriate from that angle.  We have smelled the smoke, and the ash has fallen on us, and we saw some flames north of Los Feliz, but we aren't in harm's way.  Also, Jamie's parents' home is not in danger either, though Don's school at Camp Pendleton was closed at least part of this week.

Today's a big day here in the Coulter household.  Jamie got a new computer, a Sony Vaio W510G.  It's pretty awesome for what she'll be using it for.  It's got a widescreen, and the keyboard flips up to cover half the screen, at which point the display switches to a clock/CD player.  It's also got the capability of recording television and such, but as it's right next to our TV at the moment, and we've got TiVo, there's probably not much point in hooking that up just yet.  We also got a new phone.  It's 5.8 GHz.  I've found that I use my cell phone enough for business, that it's cheaper to start using our land line, but I didn't want to start using it until I got caller ID and a digital answering machine, which this phone has.  So, I'll be sending out a mass email some time soon with that phone number, in case you don't already have it.

Well, I didn't get to make it out to the PDC today, because I was getting pretty far behind on work.  I do plan to make it tomorrow, though.  At the moment, I'm waiting for Mark to get home from work, and so I've been reading other's blogs to pass the time.  I read Ben's blog, and he's talking a lot about skateboarding, so I thought I'd throw my two cents in.  I've gotten pretty good on the long board in the Sieber's driveway.  I have a hard time on narrow sidewalks, because it pulls to the right, so it's hard to get momentum going in the right direction before I get off the sidewalk.  In the virtual world, I'm much better.  I've also been playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, and I just hit 50%.  I'm not sure how much more of it I'll play, as it is not relaxing like Gran Turismo; it's infuriating.  Plus, Jamie just bought me Tony Hawk Underground (T.H.U.G.), so I may have to move on to that.

Again, I've waited too long to blog.  I know I won't remember everything, but I'll do what I can.  Friday, Jamie had the day off, and so did Tony.  So, we met up with them to go out to the Greatland Target in Burbank.  We ended up going to the Olive Garden first, because Tony & Martel hadn't eaten.  I can safely say that this was the nicest Olive Garden I've ever been to.  As Jamie and I had already eaten lunch, we just had a glass of Chiraz and breadsticks.  One thing that wasn't as good about this OG compared to the Waco OG was that neither Andrew nor Jason were there supplying us with beacoup mints on the sly.  Anyway, we hit Target, Michael's, Best Buy, and Aaron Brothers, where Jamie picked up a little something to get started on Jeff's commissioned work for his apartment.  One side note, as we were enjoying a little Starbucks outdoors, we noticed the thin layer of ash that was across our table, a reminder of the many fires blazing in the Southland.

Later that evening, we headed over to their apartment.  We ordered pizza and watched the second episode of Tony's show on DVD.  This time it was a rough cut, without Ron Howard doing the narration.  It was still good, but it was interesting to see a professional show before it's completely polished.  I fixed up Martel's laptop that was suffering from both Klez and Sobig.  I got rid of that stuff, and the computer's running much better.  However, I still can't open Task Manager, which meanse that there's still some kind of problem.  Anyone with ideas on how to fix this, please let me know.

Saturday, Jamie worked, and so did I.  But Saturday night, while Jamie was still at work, I went to meet one of my clients at The Palm for a dinner sponsored by Microsoft.  The group there were mostly deans and professors, as well as Microsoft Academic Development Evangelists.  It looks like Microsoft is finally working on getting involved at the curriculum level in universities, rather than just marketing their products to universities.  My client was in town for some pre-PDC meetings, but she was going to be in Europe during the actual PDC, so she gave me her pass.  I haven't gone to any of the sessions yet, because Jamie and I are about to go meet Tony on set for lunch.  However, I did get the initial bag of goodies last night.  It has some sample software and magazines and blah blah blah.  The crown jewel of the bag, however, is a full-fledged copy of Office 2003 Professional Edition.  Score.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Jamie's parents came into town on Sunday morning.  They went to Pacific Crossroads with us that morning for church.  At church, the pastor spotted somebody sleeping in the congregation, and he basically started yelling at them.  He started talking about how "that's not worship" and that people should be listening to him "as if it were God standing up here."  That pissed me off quite a bit.  I hope he knows that person enough to know how his tirade will affect him.  I hope that wasn't that person's first time to be back in church in years.  To make matters worse, shortly after the pastor continued his sermon, he quoted the passage from Matthew 18 about "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you."  It's one thing for a pastor to struggle with practicing what he preaches as he lives his daily lilfe.  Nobody's perfect.  It's another thing entirely for a pastor to not practice what he preaches while actually preaching it.  The man often preaches about how we should be firmly committed to a local body and submit to its authority.  I agree.  However, after many weeks of hearing him preach, I don't know that I could submit myself to his authority.

Anywho, after church, Clinton, Tony & Martel joined us for lunch at Baja Fresh.  Then, we took Don & Connie to The Grove to show Don where Jamie works.  Then, we introduced them to the ArcLight by seeing Veronica Guerin.  Wow, that movie was intense, but really good.  It's amazing how much one person can affect a country when the country is as small as Ireland.  After the movie, we went to Grace, a trendy restaurant over on Beverly, where Connie saw Jeff Goldblum and some other celebrity whose name no one could remember.  Needless to say, a good time was had by all, and it was nice to have Don & Connie come hang out with us in our element.

Camera phones are the perfect companion to blogs.  One day I will have one.

I really like the idea of learning to read lips.  For the spy factor, but also for the hard-of-hearing factor from spending so much time in Mark and Brandon's cars in high school.  Also, I'm not sure why rappelling would be better than skydiving, but I believe it would just be as useful.  So, that will make the list.  As for driving at high speeds, I like to think I'm learning that with all of the Gran Turismo 3 that I've been playing.  See, the thing is I want to learn the stuff legally, so some of your suggestions are right out.  Like making Jason's blog pretty.

Finally, at long last, I received my California driver's license.  I took the test back in July for crying out loud.  I don't remember if I complained about having to retake my picture.  Well, when we went in the first time (when I took the test), they put Jamie's birthdate down on my application, so I got a letter in the mail saying that I had to make another appointment and show them my birth certificate, because the birthdate on the application didn't match the birthdate on my social security records.  Hey, I've got an idea.  If you are going to look at my social security records anyway, why not just use that birthdate?  So, I had to make another appointment two months later.  I assumed this time that they wouldn't retake my picture, because I figured they'd want the picture of the guy who took the test on the license.  Au contraire.  Normally, it wouldn't matter, because on any average day, I'm looking pretty good, or at least driver's license photo worthy.  However, on this particular day, I was going to get my haircut right after the DMV, so I hadn't bothered to pay any attention to my hair.  Anyway, I don't think the picture turned out bad, but the fact of the matter is, I don't really care.

For those of you that I haven't already mentioned this to, I realized something a couple months ago that I think I need to document.  I'll preface this by saying that I do not want to be a spy.  However, I do want to have a spy's training.  Maybe it's my desire to learn new things.  Or maybe, when put in an extraordinary situation, I want to know how to handle myself.  So, I've started to create a list of things that I should learn.  Here it is so far:

• Skydive (UPDATE: Jumped Sept. 4th, 2004)
• Fire a gun (UPDATE: Went to shooting range July 9th, 2005)
• Scuba dive
• Learn foreign languages
• Some kind of martial art.   I understand Brazilian Jujitsu is good for that sort of thing.
• Picking locks
• Hotwire a car
• Hostile Environment Training

I'm planning on going skydiving with Jeff in December, if he can get up the nerve, and I'll keep you posted on my progress.  Any ideas of other things to add to the list?