We finally got to go see Garden State last night.  It's an artsy-indie film, written, directed and acted by Zach Braff from Scrubs.  I don't think it's been released beyond NY and LA yet, but will this weekend.  Now, I'm reviewing it, so if you haven't seen it, and don't like to be tainted, skip the rest of this. 

Here's some text to distract you from the real content, in case your eyes skip ahead and you really don't want to be tainted.

I thought it was really good--well-acted, beautifully composed, and emotionally provocative.  It is not a comedy, but there are definitely some funny parts.  The reason it isn't a comedy is probably because there are at least as many sad parts.  I was somewhat surprised that Jamie loved it.  There are a lot of ways that you could say it's depressing, but it's not without hope.  I think all of these things--funny, sad, depressing, hopeful--help to make it seem more real.  For me, it was a reminder of how people misconstrue what a successful life is all about.  It made me sad, because of the people I know that never made it out of that world.  I'll probably see it again.  The soundtrack is excellent.  It came out yesterday, I think, and it's already sold out.

(Fixed spelling of provocative from procative.  Left this note so that Mark's comment would make sense.)

This one's dedicated to Don Kersting!

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.

And with a mighty flourish, Clinton enters the room.

Just finished updating to a new version of dasblog.  I'm not sure if you'll notice any differences on your end.  I am thinking of giving the ol' blog another visual facelift.  Any suggestions?

UPDATE: What's different in the new version.

I came across Zach Braff's Garden State blog tonight.  Pretty cool, methinks.  And boom...it's in the blogroll.  We bought our tickets for The Village today.  Will report.

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.

I just watched Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore debate a few issues.  I found it interesting that Moore only agreed to do the show if O'Reilly agreed not to edit the interview.  Why do you suppose Moore didn't extend the same courtesy to President Bush in his not-a-documentary?  Moore clearly understands how grossly you can take a person's words out of context if you want to make them look bad by doing some clever editing.  In the end, Moore's disdain for Bush, no matter what the rational evidence, came through crystal clear without any editing tricks being pulled on him.  Surprisingly, Ben Affleck had a very reasonable discussion with O'Reilly at the beginning of the show.

Napoleon Dynamite is going into wider release, people!  No excuses!  Go see it!  And yeah, it's got an additional scene in this latest release, so I may have to go see it a fourth time.

Jamie and I went and saw Bourne Supremacy on Friday.  It was pretty intense.  Mark thought there was too much shaky, and I see his point.  I would suggest that the shakiness helped us see things from Bourne's shaky, fragile point-of-view, plus I don't how they would have pulled off some of the stunts and effects if the camera were showing us too much.  Sheesh!  Best car chase scene ever!

Wildfires abound around the town.  We've got a layer of ash on our car, but we're pretty much out of harm's way.

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.