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

Anybody know what the correct quote is?

My name is Pete.  Welcome to my blog.  July has been quite busy.  It all started when Jason came out from the east coast back on July 2nd.  He came to visit his girlfriend out here, and Clinton took advantage of his presence to shoot a video.  We all met up at the Siebers (including Doug and Jeff and Lindsay) and started shooting.  Clinton rented a Panasonic DVX-100, which is an awesome camera that Mark can tell you all about.  I called Mark and got a plethora of operational advice.  We shot a few scenes and learned how to use the camera as we went along.  It really is amazing how good this camera makes our production values seem.  Anywho, we shot for awhile then went to a restaurant who tried to overcharge us by $100.  Took several go rounds with the owner to straighten that out.  We shot some more the next day, then on the 4th, most of us went to the Padres game at Petco Park followed by a cookout at the Wonders hosted by Jamie's cousin Aaron.  What a fantastic day!  There was a jerk at the park during fireworks, but we weren't going to let him spoil our day.

The following week, my sister and her family came out to visit for a few days.  They stayed down in Anaheim, which was pretty central to all the activities we had planned.  We met them at Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  The next morning we headed down to Carlsbad to go to Legoland.  We had a good time, in spite of the fact that the rides were definitely aimed at young kids.  Afterwards, we met up with the Siebers at Ruby's on the pier in Oceanside.  That was a very enjoyable experience, and I recommend it to those visiting the area.  On Saturday, the Theodores met us out at the construction site to check out our new digs.  The kids couldn't go inside and for some reason had the hardest time figuring out that we didn't actually live there yet.  The finish date has been pushed to mid-February, but hopefully they'll finish early.  We then introduced the Theodores to In-N-Out, which is really near our new place.  That night we ate at CPK at Hollywood & Highland where I'm sure we saw Robert Downey, Jr.  We just missed Hillary Duff at her premiere of The Cinderella Story.  My niece, Lauren, was anxious to try to catch a glimpse of her.  The kids spent the night with us that night to give Grace and Steve a much-needed break.  The next morning we took the kids down to the La Brea tar pits where you can actually watch them excavating some fossils amidst the tar-y ground.

After the Theodores left, we had a couple of days to catch up on work and housecleaning and such.  But then on Tuesday, we drove back down to Laguna Beach to see the Pageant of the Masters, where they recreate life-size works of art.  It really is amazing how they can make the 3-dimensional live people look like they are a part of the 2-dimensional painting.  We had a couple more days of normalcy before the Siebers came up this weekend for their anniversary.  We saw The Clearing and Napoleon Dynamite with them.  Yes, I did enjoy ND for the 3rd time.

Amongst all of this, I actually did get some work done.  I'm finishing up my first big project with my newest client, and I meet with the producers of CSI this week to discuss my next big project.  Jamie got booked yesterday for a 16-day straight job starting today.  She'll be quite busy, but the pay is good, and she's getting to work for a new stylist, so her experience and connections are growing by leaps and bounds.  OK, exhale.

OK, I think the Atkins diet has gone too far.  I saw a commercial this morning advertising low carb dog food.  In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, good grief!

I saw Napoleon Dynamite again this weekend, as I joined ND virgins, Jamie and Doug.  It was quite as enjoyable the second time around, and I caught a few extra things this time.  I'm hoping they make a sequel.  Maybe I'll start a web site like this one for those hoping for a Back To The Future 4.  I've got a busy week this week, trying to get a bunch of work done before Jason comes into town, and we work on shooting a couple videos that Clinton has written.  Then, we've got the Padres game on the 4th in SD.  Then, my sister and her family are coming out from Texas for a week.  Crazy!

Clinton's mom and several other of his female relatives came through town this week.  We went and met them for dinner on Sunday night down at El Cholo in Santa Monica after church.  The next day, while I worked, Jamie went with Clinton and his mom down to Playa Vista, as part of our plot to get our LA friends all to move to the same community.  She really liked Tapestry, so who knows?

Last night, Jamie and I went to see The Terminal at the ArcLight.  In spite of my initial reservations, I quite enjoyed it.  It was a great mix of humor and story and love and sadness.  Plus, there seemed to be a tribute to Wes Anderson there in the middle, in which I laughed out loud quite a bit.  Thanks, Ben Dudley, for your recommendation.  When I went out to get popcorn and a soda, Harland Williams was in line in front of me.  After he left, the concessionaires and myself tried to recall the stuff he's been in.  My first recollection was from The Whole Nine Yards.

I hate it when I go for more than a week without blogging.  Alas, I've been pretty busy this past week working on a project for a new client out in Santa Clarita.  It's a pretty cool company that provides IT infrastructure to film and television productions.

I'm happy to say that I finally completed Everything Or Nothing, the latest PS2 Bond game.  I raked in my last platinum during my last break.  I don't what I'm going to do on my breaks now.

Last night we had Guacamole Wednesday at Clinton's.  It wasn't the same as Taco Tuesday somehow, but it will have to do.  Clinton has rehearsal on Tuesday nights for a pilot that he's been selected for that shoots in September.  Pretty cool, but it would be cooler if it weren't on Tuesday.

We saw Judge Reinhold at church on Sunday.  He's been in tons of stuff, but I remembered him only as the close talker on Seinfeld.  Coincidentally, that episode was on last night at Guacamole Wednesday.

A week or so ago, Jamie mentioned how awesome the trailer was for Napoleon Dynamite to one of her former co-workers, Joy, at Hawk.  The next day, Joy called Jamie and said that they were doing a sneak preview at The Grove on Tuesday, and she saved us some passes for it.  Now, these 'passes' aren't exactly a guarantee.  You have to show up early and wait in line and hope that you are close enough to the front to actually get in.  And we knew the passes were somewhat widespread, because Clinton's friend, Colin, way out at Chapman had come across some passes as well and was planning to come up for it.  So, I figured we'd need to get there a couple hours early.  Colin, in fact, got in line at 5:00 p.m. for the 7:30 showing.  Fortunately, earlier in the day, Joy had received a call from the movie rep that had given her the passes to give out at Hawk.  The rep asked Joy how many she had passed out.  When Joy told her that she had passed out a significant amount, the rep asked if she could reserve some seats for Joy and her friends.  Joy said yes and promptly called Jamie to let her know.  Jamie called me and let me know that we didn't have to go early after all.  Score.  It turned out that Jamie was stuck at her shoot until late last night, so she couldn't make it, which freed up an extra reserved seat.  We rolled in about 7:00 p.m., got Joy from Hawk, and went into the theater.  She talked to some people at the head table, and got some reserved seat passes for us.  We grabbed Colin out of line, while his friends glared at us, and we all headed in while the line that reached for a city block was still stuck outside.  On our way in, we were given a 'Vote for Pedro' t-shirt, and then were allowed to sit in the roped off center section.  It gets better.  We put our stuff down to save our seats, and then Joy and I headed out next door to the theater to the adjoining restaurant called 'The Farm', where she also works.  She was able to get us free brownies and drinks, which we were allowed to take back into the theater, because, as Joy puts it, they are in cahoots.  So, there we are sitting in the best seats after not waiting, snacking for nothing to our hearts content.  On top of all that, the movie was very funny.  It stayed funny all the way through.  It wasn't thick on story, but it didn't really matter, because of how funny each little scene was.  I don't know if this movie will make it out of its limited release, but at least look for it on DVD when it comes out.

I haven't gone surfing just yet, but I hit the six week mark today of working out every weekday.  I only missed one day during that time, because I was both sick and out of town.  Results?  Well, it kind of seems like there should be some dramatic differences based on that regimen, except for one important detail.  I didn't really change my diet.  The only significant change is that I try to stop eating when I'm full.  Novel, I know.  In spite of that fact, there definitely has been a change.  I've probably lost 5-7 pounds and can actually tighten my belt one more notch.  Not too shabby, but I've still got some work to do.  I really thought that working out would be easier once I got in the habit, and I think doing something every day for six weeks should be habit-forming, but every day there's still that option to sleep in.  The way I see it, though, the first six weeks has really been kind of a primer or a base coat.  Hopefully, the next six weeks will see some accelerated improvement.

We saw Harry Potter today.  It was pretty darn good, I must say.  I can't rate it very objectively having read the book already and the one that follows it, so I'd be interested to hear reviews from some of you who have not read the books but have seen the movies.

Jamie and I (and Clinton) bought tickets for a matinee of Harry Potter tomorrow.  She's “super-excited”, while I am merely “looking forward to it”.  I watched Bjork's Dancer In The Dark today.  It was quite sad, but somehow not depressing.  It was sad enough though that I was still sad an hour after watching it.  Jamie would probably have found it depressing as well, but the enormous personal sacrifice that Bjork's character willingly makes in spite of everything kept it from dipping to depressing for me.  The musical numbers also kept the spirits up.

On another note, Tony & Martel have decided to rent an apartment across the park from us in Playa Vista, so we'll be neighbors.  It's already turning into a little community for us.  Hopefully, we can get Clinton to get a place over there as well.

As I was checking off the categories, I saw 'Celebrity Sightings', and I thought of a couple that I may have forgotten to mention.  You know the dorky looking guy with the spiked red hair in the new Burger King commercials set in an office?  We saw him at Anthropologie.  OK, not really a celebrity, but still.  The other actually happened months ago now.  We were at church at Bel Air Pres, and we were exiting out to the courtyard after the service.  That's when we saw the Hoff.  That's right, David Hasselhoff, in all his Germans-love-him glory.

That's enough categories for one night.