I figured I'd weigh in on the 1st Presidential debate before the 1st VP debate tonight.  On presentation, I give Kerry high marks.  His voice even sounded natural.  I think this format favored Kerry as far as presentation goes.  Specifically, the colored lights indicating time were not helpful to the President.  Bush is a straight-to-the-point kind of guy, and having to give a two minute answer to a question that he would prefer to answer in ten seconds forces him to stretch out what he's going to say, to speak slower, and to be more repetitive.  It was kind of like a football game, where you don't want to give up the time of possession stat.  Had we the public not been made so aware of the time factor, I think we would have preferred shorter answers from Bush and would have seen Kerry has long-winded in comparison.  The other factor in presentation was that some people didn't like the expression on Bush's face when not answering the question.  I'm not saying that for presentation sake, he doesn't need to be careful, but one should note that the rules clearly stated that there not be a camera on the candidate not answering the question.  Of course, as Mark pointed out, had the broadcasters gone along with this rule, they would never have been able to have the camera on Kerry, because he was always the candidate not answering the question.

On substance, I stand by Bush.  Kerry is consistent only in saying that Bush always makes the wrong decisions.  According to Kerry, in Iraq, Bush adopted too much of a go-it-alone policy.  However, in North Korea, Bush needs to go it alone.  The fact is that Bush went to the UN and asked other countries for help.  They didn't help.  That did not deter him.  Kerry complained that we aren't training Iraqi troops fast enough.  However, they are in the midst of training.  Unfortunately, we can't plug them into the Matrix and download military manuals directly into their brains.  I thought one of Bush's best points was to ask how Kerry was going to get other countries to help out in something that he calls a mistake.  And I agree.  I understand that Iraq is a rough situation.  Bush understands that Iraq is a rough situation.  Kerry seems to want us to believe that all of the problems in Iraq will go away if he is elected.  If he really does have solutions, I'd respect him a lot more if he would offer them now.  That's the end of my rant.

In the upcoming debate addressing domestic issues, we will undoubtedly hear from Kerry about jobs lost during Bush's first term.  As Kerry reminded Bush that it was Bin Laden that attacked us on 9/11, I hope that Bush will remind Kerry of the same fact, that it was Bin Laden that attacked us, including our economy.  Bush did not attack us with his policies.  In fact, his policies stemmed the tide of the enormous damage done on 9/11 and have brought us back from that horrible disaster. 

Man, I would hate to have to be President.

Clinton just emailed me this link: http://www.mgm.com/pinkpantherthemovie/home.html.  I had heard rumors that this was in the works, but I didn't realize they had made so much progress on it.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm a big fan of Steve Martin and an even bigger fan of The Pink Panther series.  Inspector Clouseau (er, Chief Inspector) was such a brilliant character created by Peter Sellers.  I'm worried that any attempts to revive the series by any actor, no matter how talented, are doomed to fall short.  They tried reviving the franchise with Roberto Benigni back in 1993, and it didn't work then.  Don't get me wrong; I want it to succeed, but I'm only 28 and I know all of the Pink Panther movies backwards and forwards.  Maybe in another 50 years...

In case you heard about an earthquake here in California today (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133839,00.html), we didn't feel a thing here in Hollywood.  We did have a flat tire though.  Hmm, coincidence?

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.

OK, I'm a little late on this.  I'm going to go ahead and start at the beginning of September, because some of the movies are probably still out.

September 1 - Vanity Fair
I wasn't really planning on seeing this, but we caught it with the Siebers when we were down in Fallbrook.  It was pretty, I suppose, but there was no character that you wanted to win.  So, stuff happened, but I didn't really care about it.

September 3 - Paparazzi
This is another film that I wasn't planning on seeing, but again, in Fallbrook.  This movie was exactly the opposite of Vanity Fair.  Not pretty, but a pretty good story.  Also, it had some funny cameos, especially the one of Mel Gibson.  But, this could easily fall into the category of a renter.  The production values on the film were about what I would expect I could achieve if me and my friends ever got serious about making a movie.

September 10 - Criminal (limited)
Now we're getting into movies I haven't seen.  This may end up just being a renter for me.  It's really just a matter of whether or not Jamie and I want something to do.  The ArcLight is always fun.

September 17 - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
When I first heard about this movie, I was pretty psyched.  However, the trailer that I keep seeing leaves something to be desired.  I'll probably see it at the theater though, because if it does anything, it's going to be in the world of visual effects, which should only be enjoyed on the big screen.  Jamie can't wait for Wimbledon, which also premieres this weekend.  Even though the main character does have an almost completely awesome name (Peter Colt), I think I'll sit that one out.

September 24 - The Forgotten
Now here's the first movie that I'm really pumped about seeing.  Jamie thinks this movie looks super-scary.  I don't think it really looks as scary as it does suspenseful.  I mean, there doesn't seem to be blood or gore involved.  It's just a matter of some people messing with other people's perception of reality, which is just my kind of movie.

October 1 - I Heart Huckabees (limited)/Ladder 49
I don't like watching John Travolta, but Joaquin Phoenix tends to make some good choices as far as roles he takes in movie.  I'm hoping that it will be good enough to get me over the John Travolta thing.  Plus, John Travolta's acting isn't obviously revolting in the trailer, so maybe he won't annoy me at all.  As for I Heart Huckabees, I like the cast.  And the idea of existential detectives is a funny one.  How seriously it's all taken will eventually decide how much I end up liking it.

October 8 - Primer (limited)
This is the film from some Baylor students that went to Sundance.  The trailer seems quite intriguing to me, so I'm there.  It had no trouble beating out Taxi in my book.

October 15 - Shall We Dance?
No, we shall not.  I make it a point to not see movies with question marks in the title.

October 22 - Alfie
I never saw the original with Michael Caine, and I like the Jude Law enough to accompany Jamie to this one.

October 29 - Ray
Every time I see the trailer for this, I get excited.  I don't know the story of Ray Charles' life, and it looks like an interesting one.  Jamie Foxx's performance looks like it is going to be outstanding, and the feel of the movie just really hits the spot for me.

I think I'll stop there and pick up with November movies as they come a little closer.

It's official!  We booked our plane tickets for Texas for Oct. 20-27.  Among the festivities are Baylor Homecoming and my 10 year high school reunion.  For any of you Baylor folks that aren't currently located in Waco, who's going to be in Waco for Homecoming?

Oh yeah, in case I never get my skydive dvd up here, my second song was “Such Great Heights” performed by The Postal Service (the band, not the actual postal service, though what a grand choir of voices that would be).

I'm really hoping to stop being lazy and get a fall movie preview posted up here soon.  Sorry for slacking.

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.