Something Old, Something New

After a year of waiting I finally got to see this movie. Anvil: The Story of Anvil. If you are lucky you will get a chance to see this film. Relying most on buzz and their small scale distrubution this film is killing everywhere. I could keep talking but I think at this point you should probably just watch the trailer.

This trailer is cool but after watching this film I have come to the conclusion anyone who has been or is currently in a band should watch this. Being in a band is bigger than a romantic relationship (as it is so often compared). When you break up with someone you hard hurt (some destroyed) but chances are you'll find someone new. For many people when their band breaks up, that is it. Rockin on stage is a drug that can't be replaced. Sometimes you care if the crowd is into it but mostly you just want to rock. This film embodies that idea. These two guys are so addicted they don't listen to the hoards of people around them who say their dream is dead. The two main guys - Robb and Lips - have never and will never say die. Maybe that makes them sad to some but to people who will never hear the roar of the crowd as they run out on stage... we understand. Great slice of life.

Now the old. I rarely get out to see movies much anymore. Back in college I saw everything that looked cool. Now I wait for about 85% of flicks to come on DVD. Such is the case with Wanted. Can't say I missed much. The film is fun and action packed and I don't even care that the plot is nonexistent and absurb. No, what I care about is the source material. Wanted the comic is about a fraternity of Supervillians who run the world after banding together and killing all the superheros. Wanted  the film... a fraternity of assassins who kill people based off fate. Why do movie studios demand to make films based on source material and then piss all over it. If they wanted to make this movie why didn't they just make it and save the title and characters for an actual Wanted film? Garbage.

One quick house keeping note: the map above all posts is a Google updated Swine Flu map. All the confirmed and suspected cases of swine flu from all around the world will be posted there. Let's watch and see if this is the end of the world. Map this time next week that map will be pin points all over the continental globe and we will see mass rioting and looting. Maybe it's time to start stockpiling molotov cocktails. Personally I agree with CNN... it's all twitters fault.

Little Peeps in Petaluma

This weekend we almost overdosed on cuteness. Our adventure this Saturday was up to Petaluma to check out their yearly Butter & Eggs Day. It was really fun. We got up there just in time to see the "Cutest Little Chick in Town" contest. Cute is the appropriate word. Parents are given the opportunity to dress their 0-4 year old as a baby chick. Besides getting the opportunity to check out Petaluma, that contest was Marieta's only reason for seeing the festival. 

I had to work at 5am Saturday morning so after standing under the hot sunday for a couple hours we split town after the parade. I was starting to fade, hard. We took a trip down the road to check out a cheese company, drove up to Santa Rosa to hit up a couple of wineries that Marieta liked, and then on the way home we stopped back in Petaluma to get a bite to eat. It was a pretty awesome day. Enjoy the video.

Videos Are Fun

In the past two weeks I have posted close to 10 different videos on the web. Most of which no one outside of our families care about but I think it's pretty cool. Heck our Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2009 adventure has been viewed close to 100 times. That's pretty cool. Those random people probably didn't watch it to see Marieta and I do our thing but I don't care. Our videos aren't for them. One day we'll be 90 years old and be able to relive basically our whole lives based off whats posted on our family webpage. Freaking Delicious will even help us relive the places where we've eaten out (there's 10 episodes on there now! Check it out!)

We've been all over the place in the last month. Pescadero, Ano Nuevo, the big wheel dealie, running around the bay with my parents, and most recently we danced around a couple San Francisco parks. I know it's nothing terribly exciting... but there are some beautiful flowers. I'll leave you with that video. Peace out.

James Cameron Can't Direct

That's a little too much... How about he can't direct actors. In case you don't know Mr. Cameron let's run down his keystone films: Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, Titanic. Quite a list of critical & box office success. And outside of True lies, The Abyss and Terminator 2 some seriously sketchy acting.

Why am I bringing this up? One of my favorite websites, Firstshow.net ran down a big ole list of SyFy :P movies that hottly anticpated this year, and they said this about James Cameron

From Terminator to Aliens to The Abyss, he's brought us some of the greatest sci-fi movies of all-time, and he's ready to do it all over again.

The all over again line is talking about his 3D space adventure Avatar set to be released this December. It will most likely kick some serious ass but this garbage about Aliens being one of the greatest SyFy films of all-time needs to stop. When was the last time you watched that movie? There is so much terrible acting in it that it's practically unwatchable.

Try this on for size. Watch the first film Ridley Scott's Alien and then watch Aliens within 24 hours. There is absolutely no comparison. There is not a weak link in the entire production of Alien. Released in 1979 the production quality still holds up, the intense plot and acting have you sitting on the edge of your seat the whole film, and the freaking tag line is In space no one can hear you scream. As far as I'm concerned that is the be all and end all tag line.

Now Aliens doesn't have a bad plot. Returning to that planet makes sense. But the acting and "high octane" action scenes... dreadful. The characters in Alien never talk like anything other than what they are space explorers. Bill Paxton & Michael Biehn in Aliens... they are the epitome of terrible. This space crew feels like a 1980s crew of marines sent up into space to hollar catch phrases and fire off ridiculously huge weapons.

The Alien franchise had the sincere possibility of being something amazing. On par with the greatness of the first Godfather films or the original Star Wars movies but James Cameron Aliens changed the framework of the whole game. It's the reason Aliens 3 was so horrible. Studios are like sharks and when Aliens spilled the tasty drug of franchise blood they meddled with it. Diluting the concept of Aliens 3 so bad it killed the franchise. So bad infact that director David Fincher didn't want anything to do with Aliens 3.

Shoveling more dirt on Michael Biehn would be cruel and I don't think we need to recount the tragedy that is the acting in Titanic, outside of getting actors who can just feel what their characters need... James Cameron cannot direct actors at all.

When You Visit SF

You should check out the Seward Street Slides. Not a tourist hot spot or anything but fun as can be.

The only way these babies could any cooler is if they were twice as long. My parents were up in NorCal for this past Easter weekend and since we had basically no plans I decided to drive us up into the Castro hills and check these babies out. It turned out to be a great decision considering we all had fun and it set up the rest of our Saturday. Want to see for yourself? go check out our website to see the whole thing, video style.

If you're too lazy for that. Let me give you a couple sweet pics from the whole weekend.

BYOBW 2009

Easter in San Francisco, that means Bring Your Own Big Wheel. Last year I made a glorious debut and after a year of toe tapping Marieta finally got her shot. Enjoy the video.

(As of this videos posting it is foolishly 14 minutes long but I have replaced the source video and it should revert its normal length of 5 and a half minutes.)

My 103 Degree Sick Day

Within seconds of landing in San Francisco Sunday I get a call from Marieta telling me she has a messed up foot and we need to go to the E.R. as soon as she lands (we flew separately because we bought our tickets a week apart). So I call in sick because she doesn't land till 10p, my shift would have started at 330a, and there was no way I would have gotten anything resembling a reasonable amount of sleep after visiting the hospital.

The good news was Marieta's foot wasn't broken, just had a fresh bruise that reacted poorly to swelling due to flying, the bad news: we didn't get home till after 2a and I was starting to feel extremely sick. After passing out I wake up at 4a and feel some serious internal pressure building at both ends. Without getting too graphic lets say I fought a nasty war and left the battlefield in tatters at 430a.

We didn't wake up till 130p. I would kept on sleeping but I had some business to take care of. After struggling to stay awake for two hours we succumbed to our urge to sleep and didn't wake up till 6p. so all together that's close to 15 hours of sleep.

I cannot remember feeling as bad as I felt that evening. Marieta started worrying that my burning up was a dangerous fever and so with her one good foot, and me deliriously stumbling around our apartment, we searched in vein for our thermometer. When it was no where to be found we had a dilemma; take some tylenol and hope my fever isn't too bad, or go buy a thermometer. Well I was pretty out of it but I knew that if my fever was like 104 I was in virus country, and would need to see a doctor, so I opted to buy a new thermometer.

So I got dressed and drove to the store feeling like a disgusting bag of sick. Got my goods and put them to good use on the drive home; 102.3 degrees. Not to deathbed bad. Popped a couple Tylenol and waited an hour. 103 degrees... hmm.... that shouldn't happen.

At this point it's 7p and I gotta make a judgement call. Assume I'll be all clear come 230a and go to work on Tuesday or call in sick and give myself another day to fully recouperate. Well Marieta was getting worried so I jumped in the tub and took a 10 minute shower just above chilly to plan out my next move. My fever moved back to 102 but I wasn't feeling much better. Made the call and planned on relaxing my Tuesday away.

From there nothing really happened other than 7up, crackers, and tv but man was that Sunday evening thru Monday evening stretch horrible. I've used sick days in the past for days I didn't feel well but it has been a long, long time since I seriously couldn't eat or even motivate myself to watch tv. That's right, I skipped the NCAA Nat'l Championship game. I just couldn't focus on anything. Doesn't appear I missed much but the idea I couldn't watch basketball should tell you something.

I have something else to reveal (my Monday midday business) but I need to talk with some important people about it first. So stay tuned. It's something you'll want to know.