055 My GDamn Neighbor and Other Things

GodDamnit, my neighbor is at it again. I hate her so much it's difficult to put into words. I just despise everything she is and the fact that she is invading my space with her filth and her smells and her noises.
I have taken some kind of pleasure in tormenting her in the past, although I am not sure she has even been aware of the extend of it. But sometime I can't help it, I have to take action. I used to be able to time a toilet flush here and there while she's in the shower. This would invariably turn her shower super hot. I can't do that anymore because the owner fixed the plumbing. It was good while it lasted I guess. This morning I took a picture of her already rotting pumpkin [It's not even Halloween yet]. The thing is leaking juices right beside an already beer stained deck. Just delightful. The smell is starting to expand and will get to my door soon, I just know it.

 Caprica
I just had to mention this story because I've had to follow it closely. Unfortunately or Finally, Caprica was canceled this week …. Whoever was foolish enough to really get into it, just found out that the rest of the episodes of this season will not air, at least not for a long while and that we will probably never really know where this thing was going. The story line of this series was sooooo slow, so convoluted and so muddy I can’t even imagine anyone really being able to get into it. I tried really hard, I believed in giving it a real shot at convincing me that things would make sense at some point, so I kept watching. I usually tape several episodes (about 4 or 5) and play them in a row, that's the only way I can stand to watch this series. There is so little happening from episodes to episode that by watching a few together, I feel that at least something is happening and the best part is the fast forwarding. On an average 43 minutes episode, I can usually watch it in 30 minutes without loosing any of the main story line. It's pretty amazing. In general, that’s a rather strong indication that a lot of this drivel can be skipped over without losing one ounce of the main story points. And I have to say that watching the previews for season two it seemed like the writers and producers got the message from last year and decided tobring the Cylons back and speed things up a little bit … Unfortunately it hasn't happened so far and most of us probably will never know for sure.

True fans of BG [which I am not] will be able to get their fix in a few months when the next movie comes out on SyFy.

The Bag Class
I addition to Krav Maga, I am now also totally into the boxing class called "The bag class." And once again, I am systematically getting my ass kicked pretty thoroughly each time I dare take the class. This is happening on such an intense level, one I have never seen or experienced in my life. Love the hurt and suffering.


Beach snapshot ...

054 Krav Maga Part II

I though I would never make it. Halfway through the warm up I am thinking [very loudly]
"What the hell did I get myself into ...?"
20 minutes into it I really start to worry. I am out of breath the whole time and each move requires such power and energy, I can't even imagine sustaining such level of power for much longer.
40 minutes into it, I am drenched in sweat and each little 30 second break is just enough for me to wonder if I should just excuse myself and leave for a while. Problem is, I pretty much had a partner and I couldn't just leave like that ... So I stayed hoping that I could make it until the end.
...Which I did. And I also signed up for additional torture. It actually made sense to me, right after the class. A workout like that, can't be found everywhere, I might as well enjoy it as long as it remains intense. This morning, I had changed my mind [a little bit]. My body hurts in many, many, many places, I feel like shit but in a good way.
Last night I kept dreaming about fighting, it was violent. This "sport" requires more than just power. There is a certain rawness about it. It's like survival. Not the white guy going into the desert and eating berries for a week. I am talking about real survival, raw and scary. That animal side, the uncultured, primal being.
It's good.
Tomorrow I am doing the bag class. Just boxing ... for an hour ... intense. I saw part of that class and I got a little scared. Hopefully it's not as intense and insane as Krav Maga. We'll see ... in Part III.

[See Part I for the begining of the Krav story.]

053 Krav Maga

Last Monday:
98degrees in the office, we are all dying of heat exhaustion. what the hell?
This Monday:
Soooo cold in the office, I am wearing a hoodie, a rain jacket, a jean jacket a large scarf and I am still freezing.
Tomorrow:
Going to my first KRAV MAGA class. Saw the gym today and everybody's got muscle-y bodies, tanned and sculpted to perfection. They're all totally into it. I don't know if I can get as dedicated as they are. Can I even muster the minimum amount of "passion" so I don't look like a fool?
I am even worried about being able to survive the warm up! It would look so bad if I couln't even get through the first part of the workout ... We'll see.

I just can't wait until the day I get to train with the "fake" guns, break my opponent's face and then rip off his throat. [Yes, that's what they do in there!]

we'll see ...

052 Dreamin'

Yeah, deadline over. Whatever.
Once again, there was so much stuff to do that I lost track of life. We were so busy,
We can’t even believe September is almost over. It doesn’t help that LA and especially those of us who live at the coast, never really had a summer. Today I am actually [once again] wearing a downed jacket and a sweater AND I still wish I had brought my boots. That’s how bad it is right now.

Bullet points …
Was in Dallas for a couple of day last week. We saw our design and it’s pretty good.

Was in Tucson for a couple of day last week, it was hot as hell.

Went to USC for a day last week, was fun and entertaining, although I was pretty much working the whole time.

Working on a Colin Cunnigham [SG1: Major Davis] interview. I don’t know what happened to Jewel Staite.

Of interest … ARK
A web movie made of 9 short clip (varying from 3 to 9 minutes each). This is season one. Basically a woman falls asleep on her couch and wakes up in a ship, in space.
The woman is played by Renee something aka Gabrielle from Zena warrior princess. She hasn’t changed that much I guess.

The whole thing got ruined for me when I found out that the company that made this one basically went under not long after shooting and so, you know that there is just a very small chance that there will be another season. So, do I spend time and energy getting involved in this, get to know the characters and follow the story up to the “cliffhanger” point? Should I even bother when I know that I probably will never find out how it ends … I am just annoyed with it.

Got Back to LA this week …
just in time to find out that 3 more people have suddenly disappeared. This batch was not as much as a surprise as the last one, but still … Looks like if you don’t play 110% your ass is on the line.

051 Caved In

My office is moving ... inland ... in a temporary warehouse ... no windows ...
We can't make the address public so no one will ever know where we are for the next few months. The temporary space is a real "cave" worst than the old one. There are no windows so we'll never really know if it's day or night and it sure won't be as fun as Las Vegas. The shop is in the same space as all the desk, which means that we'll hear all the machines running all day long, freaking loud. And then there is the nauseous smell from all the chemicals we use for the models. [healthy living I say!]
We are moving away from the ocean. Of course, we still don't plan on having any kind of AC or heater or anything to regulate the temperature so I predict we'll be dying of heatstroke in the next couple of months and then we'll switch to wearing gloves in the winter. We have gone through that before, I remember it clearly.

Last weekend I actually had some time to go outside and "chill." Which I did. I ended up with a sunburn on my left foot, one on the right wrist, one on the left wrist, one on the nose, one on the forehead, one on the neck. When I work so much, I never leave the old "cave" and so I pay for it later ... Yeah.

I am bored. I think that sums up the state of life right now. I think that's what caused me to stop talking about the usual stories that come out of my everyday observation. The old lady with a dead dog on her shoulders, the dude who gets dumped by his girlfriend in the middle of the street. The car right in front of me that contains at least two idiots who have no idea of the size of their vehicle and thus scratch a couple of parked cars, side mirrors flying all over the place.
I guess I could talk about coming home and trying to open the apartment door with my car alarm or showing up at work on sunday when I thought it was monday ...
Anyway, I am hoping I will be able to recount those funny, funny, moments as soon as I get my groove back on.

The Scifi stuff, you know, watching it or reading it or writing it, is by far the most exciting thing in the world to me right now. Forget the insanely complex facade designs, forget about the crazy "space pods" [with cool lights inside]... No, forget about all of that. Boooooring.

I was asked to comment further on a couple of SyFy shows that I mentioned before and so here is the latest thought on what I've seen lately.

Haven
Ok, it's a cute and very SyFy type show, no question about it. BUT and it's a big one, I have to say that I have noticed a slightly disturbing trend in the few episodes we have seen so far and I would be remiss if I didn't point it out right now.
Pilot: Welcome to Haven -
A woman is affecting the weather when she is upset. Cure: Calm her down and isolate her.
Butterfly -
A young kid is traumatized by the loss of his parents and fears loosing those he loves. He unwitignly harms other people who may be threatening him in any way. Cure: Calm this one down too and go away, far away.
Harmony -
Some guy is distressed over his wife's illness and when he plays music she gets better. The problem is that regular people start getting sick [crazy is probably more accurate]. Cure: Put him on a boat with sick wife and other sick people and send them far, far away.
Consumed -
A guy gets angry easily and then we discover that if he happens to eat while angry, the same food consumed by others goes bad instantly [pretty nice special effects and animation in this episode] Cure: Calm him down and stop him from eating food while in a foul mood.
Ball and Chains -
A woman wants a baby so bad she inadvertently releases another one of her persona [apparently that condition is a family thing] who has sex with men [easy] who die of old age the next day as she gives birth to a child [24hr gestation]. Cure: Calm her down and chain her to the lighthouse, away, far away from people [men in particular]

Call me crazy, but it seems that all the scripts written for this series are very, very similar. I know everything as a "formula", but this one is sooooo obvious you'd think there was only one writer with limited imagination on staff. Too bad.

Memphis Beat

I discovered this little gem a couple of weeks ago. Checked out all the episodes online and I really, really liked it. I hear a lot of people are snubbing it because they are looking for an authentic Memphis experience and when the found out that the show is actually shot in New Orleans, well, it cause quite a ruckus. I personally don't really understand what the difference is. I know very little about that culture and since I lived in Europe most of my life, Elvis was not really part of my experience. No one in my family has ever mentioned or played "the music of the south." I can't even talk about it in an intelligent way.

However, I like the tone and the sounds of this show. The set up is a little bit out of the ordinary and I already see how this could become a great cop drama. Hope thei get picked up for another season. There is a background story that has been lingering in the dark for a while, sneaking it's ugly head during the last episode. I saw it coming a mile away, but it was done so well, I didn't mind the fact that I had anticipated it.
Dwight Hendrix [Jason Lee] is a cop, with a heart, an ex-wife he's still in love with and he's such a mama's boy, it's totally endearing. On saturday night, at the bar around the corner he sings whatever that music is they do in Memphis and i love it.
They have the little cop guy who's been on a bunch of other shows, DJ Qualls or something. He has such a great "physique," it's just hilarious. And then there is the cop played by the guy who used to be Jerry on ER. Well, he's still hanging around a desk a lot and taking phone calls all day long, but now he's a cop, he has long braided hair [a la native American] and he gets beat up by his wife on a regular basis. The chief of police is this feisty woman who handles the whole crew with an iron first, and a great sense of style, I've seen her somewhere else, but I can't remember where and I am obviously too lazy to look it up.

Click here to visit the MB site.

Persons Unknown

What the hell is this thing? I stumbled over it completely by accident and I immediately thought I should watch at least one episode, just to see. Well, starting with episode six or whatever was a complete waste of time because I couldn't figure ANYTHING out. so I decided to go to On demand and try to pick an earlier episode. Unfortunately they didn't have the pilot so I started somewhere I don't know where and after watching 4 or 5 episodes I ended up somewhere I don't know where. Ha!
Following some internet research I basically find out that this show was filmed over a year ago and that it was shopped around for a while before NBC purchased it. Once again, sometimes I don't even know why these networks bother. For one, they don't advertise the thing. Two, they bury it outside their regular seasons so it's even harder to find. Three, they play in on Fridays, the day of the week notoriously known in primetime as the place where they stick the shows they [networks] don't know what to do with.

Now the absolutely saving grace of this show is that it's only 13 episodes, and so the persons Unknown and the mysterious plots should all be finely explained and resolved at the end of the run. which should make this sligthly less painful. Finally, we're getting somewhere.

050 War Monkeys

Loved the poster, had to put it up. This movie is in the works, we'll see if it gets done or not. I know we all identify with the War Monkey from time to time, it's ok to admit it.

WOO-OOO-WORK
We are finally done with our deadline, which lasted too long. So far, in 10 days and without a break, we've managed to accumulate more than three weeks worth of work hours.
On top of all that slaving away, people seem to quietly disappear around us. I don’t know how many of us are left but the numbers are dwindling down at an alarming rate. Question: Can things get any worst? Yes, I can imagine about a dozen scenarios where things go horribly wrong.

Exhausted, and burned out, we finally get to go home and rest.

SUMMER SYFY

With all the insanity going around, I am behind on everything "Tele-vision" related. I have managed to squeeze some viewing moments, although the way I have been watching TV lately should be qualified as "drive-by" viewing. And sometimes, it's so bad, I don't even watch the show, I just listen to it while I do other stuff. My wireless headphones work up to about 1 block away from my home, I have tested it on several occasions. I have also tested them in the shower and if I keep my head away from the water, it's all good.
Anyway, the usual SYFY round up is upon us again.
We are always keeping a close eye on all productions that are remotely SciFi related. Right now, Predator ans Inception are on the list of movies to watch in the next 24hrs.
Warehouse13 was also on the TV list and will be removed promptly. It's pretty bad, I don't know what I was thinking last summer when I watched it. I still think that they should take all the bad renderings, animations and visual effects , most look like shit. Sometimes it's so bad, it disrupts the visual flow of the story and I immediately loose interest. I did have to watch the Jewel Staite epsiode, just because I might be working on the interview later this summer. Haven is on the list but on probation. It sounds like the characters are slightly more developed than the W13 idiots and the story is also more intriguing. I really like the sheriff who can't feel any pain and constantly gets hurt [in the premiere anyway]. I wonder where the story is going, I hope they don't string us along forever without real answers.
Then Finally, I have the mention the season premiere of Eureka. I am one week behind, so I am already not completely up to date, BUT the seasons premiere was absolutely genius. Full of potential, it's going the traditional SciFi way with the obligatory solar flare [See Stargate] and the temporal disruption [See Star Trek - JJ Abram way]. The notion of solar flares causing disruptions in the time line and thus creating parallel universes has been done a million times. it's a classic. Even if that's true, I don't really care so much, still had fun watching the thing.

So far this summer -
Best New show:
The Good Guys [FOX]
Best Old timer:
The closer [TNT]
Worst New shows:
Rizzoli & Isles [TNT] and Rookie Blue [ABC]
Most Dramatic:
Deadliest Catch [DSC]
Most addictive:
Eureka [SYFY]
Guilty Pleasure:
SpongeBob SquarePants [NICK]


HORKOS
Here are some excerpts from the story I mentioned last month. It's not giving away too much, but my goal is to try to get the thing done by September.

Earth
The attack was sudden and brief. The Saturn orbital station was the first to disappear from radars. By the time the fleet realized what was happening, dozen of alien ships had appeared in the solar system.
The Mars colony was the second to go. Just as The Earth's Fleet launched its ships out in space, the alien armada had reached Earth’s orbit. The battle was over before it even started. Earth was blasted repeatedly by powerful weapons launched from the alien ships.
--
As the Earth fleet began to engage the enemy’s armada, the alien ships were already leaving Earth’s orbit, doubling back from where they had first appear inside the solar system. Near Saturn and the remnants of the orbital station, a bright scar opens up in space creating was will later be called “The Krylon Rift." The few fleet ships that were fast enough to keep up with the aliens entered the anomaly just as it was closing back up. Those ships disappeared from radar and communications seized instantly.

With nowhere to go and no one to pursue the rest of the fleet returned to Earth.
--
Back on Earth, the situation is critical. The weapons launched from space have destroyed major cities all over the world. Cairo, Paris and New York are gone. Tidal waves have destroyed most of Japan and Thailand. The west coast of the US has completely disappeared. Mega-fires are raging and smoke clouds are covering most of the planet. The devastation is made worst by the fact that no one knows yet what happened. It will takes a week before Demarchy* is able to gain control of the situation.
--
Demarchy: [Coalition of nations that was formed after the great holy war [Harb-u-Muqadasah] of 2052. United, Earth was able to stabilize the government of various nations and create a global, stable economy. It is during the early years of the Demarchy that the first colonies on the Moon and Mars were settled. Later, a space station called “7th Ring” was built in Saturn’s orbit. Iconic symbol, the station was to be the final frontier of humanity's settlement and the location of the first interstellar spaceship factory.
--
The world is in mourning. Amid the chaos, Earth’s Demarchy coalition has reconvened in its new temporary headquarters in Vancouver - The mood is tense –
--
Luck ... One of the alien ships is recovered on the surface of the Moon where it crash landed after attacking the lunar colony.

049 Best RO ever!

This is a very, very cool video of a robot developed by Boston Dynamics for military application. This video has been around for a while, but I just couldn't help myself and include it in here ... For fun.

BigDog

Pretty impressive.

048 Fandemaniacs

I was in Dallas y'all.
Went to Dallas on business last week. In addition to the usual meetings, we had a fund raising Thursday night and a breakfast fundraising on Friday morning. 50 million dollars was the goal. Dallas was hot and humid, but people were just so very nice, as usual.
I started getting nauseous on Thursday only a few hours after getting there. I have a couple of problems with the food. Quantities and Qualities. Too much food and really heavy stuff. By Friday afternoon I was just spending my time trying not to throw up. Difficult to do in the plane, when across the aisle, one kid throws up on take off and another throws up on landing. Just beautiful. It has been said that I am so used to breathing the beachy-smogy LA air, that if I leave it for too long, I start dying little by little ... "That's just crazy talk." My theory makes way more sense: I think I might be allergic to the Lone star state.... Damn.

Back in LA, dude.
After an 11hour sleep night, I felt a little better. Went to work again in the morning and got sick again that night. Just delightful. Trying to book Palm Springs next week for some R&R. I already feel guilty about taking off when we have yet another gigantic deadline.

Fandemonium: "I like it alright!"
Since I had so much time to read [with all the plane rides and all ...] I downloaded a few books on my phone.
A few weeks ago, I discovered Fandemonium. A friend of mine had been talking to me about it, suggesting I read them "For research purposes." So, I obliged and picked up "A Matter Of honor"[Part I} which was quickly followed by "The Cost Of Honor." Great stuff. The self-imposed research became a guilty pleasure and I quickly realized that I liked it ... A lot. I am gong to have to read all the SG1 and SGA books. I did hear that some were not so good and since I started, I have noticed that it is the case, I just don't care. I am, however not such a fan of the ST:E series. The stories and the characters don't always feel right and Trip is taking over most of the stories. And where the hell is Archer? Anyway, I could talk for hours about that. Maybe I'll get into STNG, I wouldn't mind getting some fresh Picard stories.
Anyway, I am glad I started reading the books, the initial skepticism is gone, I am now a true believer. I have however also come to the conclusion that I am not necessarily interested in branching out in that realm. Too many restrictions for my taste.
The soooo so good:
It's actually pretty incredible when you think about it. Usually, when reading a book, everything is visualized entirely from the author's description of things; Context [architecture], people's physical attributes and behavior ... Everything is only as clear as you can imagine it with the help of the one who wrote it in the first place. In the case of Fandemonium, it's completely different. the stories are more vivid, the action feels more complete and there is a certain depth in everything that is happening in the story simply because the reader already has a very good idea of what things actually look and sound like. So the leap of imagination it takes to actualize the story has already partially been made by watching the shows. That's definitely the good part about reading these kinds of books. Of course it's never going to be "High Art" and the quality of the writing and the plots varies tremenduously from author to author. But as pure entertainment, just like the shows are, I think it makes sense and apparently a lot of other people think so too. Is it harder to write? Yes, I think it is.
The not so good:
The biggest problem I have with this type of "novelization" is that since we already know all the characters so well, the moment the author makes a mistake, whenever something is off, it immediately disrupts the whole flow of the story.
I think I've only experience this twice on SG - Once with Daniel and I think once with Rodney. I was so annoyed by it that it took me a while to get back in the story. the good side of this is that we finally get some insight into the mind of characters that are usually not explored as much as they could be. And because we know EVERYONE so well, it's absolutely fun to read while actually seeing it in your mind, I mean, we already know what most of it looks like.

Next time, I think I'll have to post a very raw, very short synopsis of the next story I am working on. I think it's going to be good. Although it the second installment in the series [the main characters are already developed], I think that the Intro. is setup in a way that the reader doesn't need to know who they are. But whatever.
Hopefully, I get some time this summer to finish the story. That would be quite a miracle, wouldn't it?

047 We're coding this week.

I realized this morning that it's been a while since I wrote. Not that I didn't have anything to say in the last couple of weeks [or more] but the content seemed either too strong opinion wise or just too plain/boring to be shared. Although I should feel free to share, whenever I try to put the thoughts down on paper, I just can't find the right kind of inspiration.
The other problem I encounter repeatedly is that time goes by so fast, I never really have the opportunity to look back at "Things" and digest.
So, this week I will just point out two things:
1. Trailers from
Super 8 [JJ and Spielberg]
Iron Sky 
Detective Dee [Tsu Hark]
The Adjustment Bureau 
The Killer Inside Me 
Inception
... and on and on and on.
2. A bunch of new interviews coming out around the web with cast of SGA [mostly.] Since most of them are no really working that hard right now [I say this in a positive way], they all have a lot of time for conventions, so we get the goods.
3. And finally, to end on a nerda-funky-lucious-note ...

046 TNG and those who don't know what that means

A friend of mine is taking tennis lessons. She was paired up with a guy whom she says is really, really cute. She talked about him often, he was just a cool guy.

 The other day he missed one of the classes and when she asked the others where he was, they told her that he was at a Star Trek convention. When he came back she teased him about incessantly about  the whole “Star Trek fan” thing only to be told [by him] that he isn’t going to the conventions as a fan but as a guest. When she questioned him further, he told her that he is an actor and was in several of the series. “Which ones?” she asked. “Oh, I played a character named Worf.” She apologized to him and told him that she has never seen Star Trek and has absolutely no idea who Worf is.

What a waste.

045 Newww Yark

D-day [0]

Arriving at the loft in Manhattan I got stuck at the front door, the key would not go in. That was so damned annoying to me. I called a lot of people in LA and NY to finally find out that I was at the wrong door. What the hell??????
It never occurred to me that there could be another door for the same apartments. Anyway, long story short, after 40 minutes of standing outside in the rain, trying to get this door open, I finally got in.
The irony [and I am not laughing AT ALL] of the whole thing is that there is in fact a problem with the lock on the right door and I ended up getting stuck outside again for 20 minutes the next night.

Day after [1]
Good morning NY. It is pouring outside and I had a long walk ahead of me that morning. It’s 8am in NY but it’s 5am in LA. Needless to say, I am going to need a latte today. I was ready for the rain, I brought a long trench coat and an umbrella with me. The only thing I had not anticipated was the “horizontality” of the rain. Yes, I guess it does happen in NY, when wind is blowing, the rain follows. Wet and tired [I repeat WET and TIRED], I made it to my destination.

One more day [2]
On Wednesday night I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours and hours tossing and turning. The  temperature in the apartment was around 90 [although it was barely 32 outside]. These stupid buildings with that central heating thing. I guess the heat comes into the apartment, we have no control and my weak little hands could not open the windows. I was dying, I just couldn’t breathe. As the night went on, I got angrier and angrier, finally at 3am I finally gave up and turned the AC on.
The AC is another little gem in this apartment. It’s one of those window units that is loud in a very inconsistent way, so I could never get used to the sounds because it changed all the time and in the end, it kept waking me up every 5 minutes. Dilemna: Heat stroke or noise pollution? I am going to need a latte in the morning.

And one more [3]
Today, I am lucid enough during my morning walk. I decide to take some picks I like to call “StreetCap.” Basically I walk around the city holding my phone in my hand, very casually and once in a while, click the camera/capture. Whatever happens, happens, I don’t know what’s been captured in the moment. At the end of the walk, I check the picks and select the ones I like best. Crude but fun.

7th Avenue between 39th street and 27th street in Manhattan.





Ran into Al Pacino. I was surprised how old he looks. Older than I remember for sure. All those guys are often a disappointment. We always hear about the camera adding 10 lbs. but I would use this opportunity to remind people that it also takes 10, sometimes 20 years off your face.
Ran into Anna Paquin also in Los Angeles this weekend right after coming back from NY. She looks exactly like she does on the screen. Except that she kept making faces. Something in between "smile, people are looking at you" and "don't smile, avoid eye contact because people are looking at you." Both faces at the same time does NOT work. She just looked weird.

My last night in NY …

Started at one bar with mojitos and a drink called “The old fashion”.  I was cracking up the whole night with this “Old fashion”. If someone tells me, “K, let’s go get an “Old fashion,” the first thing that goes through my mind is, “what the hell! That’s so dirtyyyyyy.” When in fact, they’re only referring to a drink. Anyway, I could not get over it and as the night went on, as I got more and more impaired by the alcohol, it became funnier and funnier to me.
Three bars later, at 2am, I decided that I had been awake way too long, I was exhausted. I knew I needed to wake up at 4am to get to JFK, so I promptly hailed a cab and went home. I did not sleep that night, not at all. The next morning [or two hours later] the car dropped me off at JFK, I got on the plane where I did not sleep [I know, ridiculous right?] Once in LA, I picked up my car and then ran to the gym, where I had made an appointment the previous week. Now ... We all do stupid things in life, we even manage to repeat those stupid things over and over again, it’s just human nature. So when I made the gym appointment the week before, knowing that I would have to get there straight from the airport, I should have anticipated the repercussions of such a decision. It only makes sense. Was I thinking then? Not necessarily, but it made perfect sense at the time. I stupidly thought that I would be ok and would have no problems working out with my trainer right after the whole NY debacle. I was wrong of course. It was painful and I almost died a couple of time.
After that, the rest of the weekend was a blur, I barely remember what happened, just a lot of “naps” and a lot of catching up on TV. A real blur. Until the earthquake that is. Yes, we do tend to have some of those around here but I was still so drowsy that I actually thought it was me. This was the most gentle, smooth earthquake I’ve ever experienced. In the end, we all made it, the furniture made it, nothing to freak out about. We all know the big one is coming, so in the meantime, let’s just hang out and enjoy our worldly possessions and our health while we still can …. [what a bunch of crap.]

While I was gone, I had the shop guys print a couple of models.

In conclusion, despite what people may think, I did have a great time in NY. Going there for small periods of time is fine with me. I don't think I want to move to Manhattan, but I liked it there.
We should all remember that this site is called "Hollowed Mind: Ramblings on Obsessions and Indifference - Dreams - Movies - Work - Life." So I tend to use this forum for all the things that go through my mind and that are not necessarily politically correct, happy or fun. I don't want to hear myself talk about how cute and how fun life is. I want to hear about what I really think about and what's going through my mind "ON THE SPOT." It's often twisted and maybe a little bit dark sometimes but I like it.

044 April is coming

NY
Well, crap, I’m going next week … for work.

I guess making the best out of this situation would be the mature way to handle it. So, I will try to be mature. What a drag.

CARGO
The Swiss just made their first big Scifi and it’s called Cargo. Apparently the trailer doesn’t do it justice, nor does the synopsis. That’s what people tell me. I think that the trailer makes the movie look and feel exactly like Pandorum. It’s weird. I am curious to see what the Swiss are capable of.

[more TV stuff again. It's the season]

SGU
Yeah, our baby is back! Despite the low ratings and the lack of gossip going around about the show, I know a lot of “normal” people who are not obsessive about Stargate or even Scifi in general … And they like SGU. And guess what? I like it too. I just can’t believe how much money they are getting to produce this series and it makes me think that Atlantis would have been a million times better if they only had been given access to the same budget. The amount of “corner cutting” that was going on with Atlantis was insane. I guess we were always proud of the guys for managing it and finding inventive solutions to compensate for the shortcomings caused by the lack of money. But I personally was starting to get tired of the whole thing.
I was so nervous about SGU that I kept taping the episodes without watching them. Keeping it for later, and later, and later. In the end, the second half of the season is starting soon and I still have to watch Earth, Time, Life and Justice. I am savoring each episode, even if I still have some issues with the endless character development [thank you BG.] But it looks so good, I am willing to let it unfold slowly.

FRINGE
Looking forward to the return of one of the most underrated series this season. It’s good but has a tinge of old school X-File-ish vibe and at the same time, it’s definitely related to Lost in the may that the story is told. Do I care? Just a little bit. As I said before, Lost worked for me during the first season. I taped the whole second season before watching it because I couldn’t stand the wait between episode, thinking the whole time that there were not many answers and too many questions on top of questions. Frustrating as hell. I then taped the third season and watched it all at once but this time I actually did a lot of fast forwarding which didn’t really help. After that, I stopped watching it all together while asking friends and relatives for a synopsis of each week’s episode. I did stop asking after a while. For the final season, I make sure to stay away, just in case I want to get into it again later. What a mess.
Anyway, Fringe is good fun and entertaining. We get to learn more about Bishop and son next week and that’s always a good thing.

FLASHFORWARD
I don’t know, I am not really watching it anymore. What happened?

HOUSEWIVES: NYC
Those chicks are insane. Sometimes I really wonder if we have just lost all perspective on life and humanity in general. Can people be so shallow, annoying, stupid, wasteful and fake? Yes, I guess they can. Over and over again.

AX MEN – DEADLIEST CATCH
None of those shows are chick show and yet, I really enjoy it so much. It’s funny and so very interesting. Anyway, after DC’s Captain Phil died, things were looking pretty bleak. But this week, the crews are coming back strong. Anticipation is high. Great.

24
Blah blah blah … blah. I am so disgusted with this show now, I don’t even know why. While I was watching it, at 4am lat night, I was thinking about it, trying to figure out why this show is no longer something I can stand. I think Keif’ is the problem. There are some obvious physical aspects of the guy that I am having difficulties with. One, it looks like he is getting smaller but his skin is the same. So now he is starting to look like a sharp ei. A man-sharpei is not so attractive. Two, the breathing! OMG the heavy, sniffly breathing is driving me nuts. I can’t take him seriously. Three, he has such a limited range that he is starting to repeat himself. I caught several expressions/sentences he’s already uttered a few million times since 24 started. For example:  Leaning over some guy who is dying, blood all over the place, Keif’ says “Stay with me! Stay with me!”. We, the audience already know the guys is going to die [BTW: this guy is obviously the equivalent of the STAR TREK red shirt dead man walking] So the drama really doesn’t work that much anymore when we already know who’s going to die. And that’s the thing about all those “End of the world” shows, how can you top yourself over and over again? How can you make the situation/peril worst than last season? Pretty tall order I imagine. Bu then again, it just got canceled so they won’t need to come up with the next world annihilation scenario.

043 Catch up

Working Girl

All the drama we thought was behind us is back, bigger than ever. But guess what? I am not annoyed. No, I am actually able to stand back and let the drama unfold.
The Zen way.
They need me in Los Angeles, no question about it. The “unrealistically ginormous” deadline -one of many- is on May 10th. They made the mistake of lending me “and my skills” to another project for a couple of weeks and now that the other project is moving to New York, they want me to go with them for a month. Someone is going to have to either give in completely or compromise [the more reasonable option]. Tough little game here.  Everyone [but me] is frustrated, angry and I noticed there is a lot of posturing back and forth.
The key, I have learned, is that you have to just shut it and observe. Let everyone around you go through the motions, because in the end, they will just end up doing the predictable thing. I know these people, I work with them all the time, I understand the dynamics of the relationships, I can predict "group behavior" most of the time.
We will know soon enough who is going to loose ... My bet? I stay in LA.

We just lost another competition. Our own fault of course. I doesn’t change the fact that it sucks and we’re all pissed off about it. The controversy is all over the papers. Millions of dollars, just out of reach.

Cry Baby
It’s hot as hell in LA right now and I live near the beach, I can’t even imagine what’s going on inland [that's what they call the areas way away from the water]. I rarely complain when it’s cold or when it rains which is a small miracle in itself. But when the temperature starts to rise and won’t go down for weeks at a time, when the sun is shinning and the sky is constantly blue, we all get cranky.

I want it!
I just ordered a netbook even though I already have the top of the line, hardcore laptop with all the fancy programs in it, I feel I need the netbook just for writing. Maybe it’ll help me get stuff done faster and better. I can’t wait, I’m just like a kid in an candy store. I’ll just have to make sure I don’t leave for New York before the thing gets delivered.
I’ve picked up the screenplay and I have started the final rewrite. I am thinking about continuing the story, making this thing more episodic. It might make the next screenplay easier to develop if I already have a solid base/core to work with. I just don’t know if it is going to be enough but with the new netbook and all the fancy hardware and tools I should be able to write a masterpiece [jooooking of course].
I started to model the ship in Maya. It's just not looking like I want it to and the renderings look too plastic-y, this is turning out to be way more complicated than I first thought. No matter, it will get done.


The Light Box
Nothing new or interesting on TV, so I am watching Star Trek: TNG. A friend of mine went to China and bought a box set of all seasons. The whole thing is obviously not “kosher”, so not, that a bunch of the episodes are cut off before the end. But it’s still cool. I am up to season 2 and enjoying every minute of it. What a freaking nerd! Seriously.
I forget to mention that there is still the issue of Caprica that I can’t get away from. I just don’t like it and it is frustrating. That’s another show I won’t be able to add to my entertainment lineup. Although I am still taping and still watching every episode, I just can’t get into it. The season finally is coming up fast and I am bored already. Why can't they just do it right? Like SGU.

Sweet Revenge
My neighbor finally got the message. She stopped blasting her damn music all over the neighborhood. I was going out of my mind. I did manage to exert some revenge on the B. Just flushed the toilet while she was taking a shower. I heard the scream and the expletive, I smiled, it was just soooo good.

042 Ancient Futures

I almost fainted this weekend. I was running on the treadmill, doing very well and thinking the whole time that I should just go ahead and run the whole 5k, when all of a sudden, I had to stop and I tell my trainer “I need to sit down, right now.”
For the next five minutes I kept thinking that I didn’t want to be taken out of there in an ambulance [fool] and just hoped everything would be alright. It took me a few minutes but eventually I felt much better and told the trainer I was ready to start the workout. I knew I wasn’t back to 100% because the whole time I had this ring of fragmented light around my left pupil, following me everywhere. That lasted about another two hours and then it disappeared [and I never heard from it again…] I feel very old.

Pandorum

Last weekend I finally go the opportunity to watch Pandorum. I am annoyed it took me some time especially since I knew about the movie the moment it went into production, so it’s not like I didn’t anticipate the thing. Strangely, I don’t have much to say about it. The first mistake I made was to watch it while I was doing other things and so in the end, I got confused on some of the story premises and missed some key explanations.
Overall:
First, I have to say, they got a sick poster.
Second, the whole premise of a sci-fi horror such as this one, you know, the “OMG I’m stuck on this ship in the middle of nowhere and there is a monster after me,” I think works in this movie. It is entertaining even if the formula is pretty standard.  I do wonder about the end. We find out the ship at reached its destination a very long time ago and that it had been resting at the bottom of the ocean all this time.  So they were not lost in space after all. Although it was pretty creepy when they look out the ship and saw what they thought was space but without stars, just blackness … Really creepy.
We get a Hollywood ending! The last two people to survive being awake on the ship manage to trigger the release of the “life pods” [don’t remember if that’s how they called it] there is nothing ambiguous about the ending, everybody is supposed to wake up floating in this alien ocean, ready to restart the human race, Yeah! After all that stress and darkness, we get all this light and happiness.
Eden [the ship]:
What a lame ass name for a ship. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t heard this one a thousand times …
The only thing I can say about it is that we have a ship that looks and feels old but in the “future" and that's always cool. It feels claustrophobic and [paradoxically] gigantic at the same time.
The characters:
Other than Dennis Quaid, everybody else was pretty much “standard” and expected. Dennis was the creepy one. Although the “mutants” were not bad either, I wasn’t very impressed, just disgusted and when we find out that they are actually reproducing, I almost vomited right then and there.
The existential questions:
The only think that really hooked me up and made me actually have a conversation or two about the subject was the issue of humanity as a concept. What makes us human? Or to be more precise, what gives us our humanity?
Are we born with it? Or what makes us who we are, “human” is our environment and the context that gives us boundaries onto which we develop consciousness. When Dennis Quaid finds himself confronted with a reality where he is alone on a ship, lost in some weird black-space, with no hope, he becomes his own god, boundless and omnipotent. I just found that notion intriguing. Of course, it always ends badly.

Two days after watching this movie, I saw an episode of Star Trek:TNG called "Homeward" (season 1.) Not a very good season, but in this episode, they violated the first directive and revealed themselves to a man who lived on an isolated planet where they didn’t even have electricity. Of course Beverleyyyy cannot erase his memory because of his unique physiology [it always happens like that of course] and Picard cannot send him back without risking even more disruption. Anyway, in the end, the man tells Picard that he has lost everything that defines him. He’s lost all that gave him an identity and the Picard and eventually he kills himself because he can’t adapt.
Weird.

041 Seasonal Intrigues

First there was Battlestar Gallactica ... The most frustrating thing ever.
It’s the perfect story formula for me. It’s a ship based show [beautiful ships and visual effects], it’s in space and to top it all off, there is a flawed human race in jeopardy and a bunch of pretty fancy robots dying to kill them all and love them all at the same time. Perfect.
Question: How is it possible that I and other people I know never managed to get into it?
I tried several times and every time I just kind of dropped off. I will continue to try from time to time, but I just don’t know what else I can do. So I try to stay away, I try to not find out how the series ends, just in case I get into it, I’ll till have something to look forward to.

When I saw The Plan, it took me 2 days to finish it. I couldn’t really get into it either and forced myself to watch because of my personal history behind the scenes, but in the end, I was just confused by the story and realized [while I was watching it] that I was missing all the subtleties of the story. The characters and relationships meant nothing to me. I subsequently heard from many sources that it wasn’t all that in the first place … I tend to believe it.

 Caprica.

The sequel-prequel [or whatever people call it these days] I am taping religiously every week, but haven't really been watching regularly. I didn't really like the first episode. Too many teenagers, bad underworld/party orgy world, slow and segmented story ... I didn’t really understand how they were going to stretch this storyline for the duration of the series. I also noticed, once again, that even though we were told that there was no need to be familiar with Battlestar Gallactica, it was obvious to me that I was missing some key points that re-connected with the events that would unfold in the next 58 years. That's annoying. Anyway, that's all in the past now, we are further in the season and even though I am behind in all my viewings, there is one positive … I liked the second episode a lot better than the first one. I mean, that robot is really something, it can even be hugged.

Ax Men.

Occasional the History Channel takes a break from Hitler, WWI and WWII to bring us some of the best, underrated shows ever. Ax Men is one of those. Greeeaat show [in its own way of course]. I am not sure how I got hooked on it, but it’s really entertaining. It's about a bunch of sweaty men [nothing sexy about it], cutting wood in the forest. This season, they’re all hot [temperature wise] and miserable in the scorching sun of summer in Oregon or somewhere around there. It's very similar to Deadliest Catch [where we just lost Captain Phil Harris - that was shocking to me] and Ice Road Truckers.
The two best parts of Ax Men so far this season:
- They occasionally reenact what could happen in the many dangerous situations. It’s a small animation where several men end up dead every time and it even includes some “death and destruction” sound effect. It’s just precious.
- The father and son team is back in action, in the swamps again. They decided to leave their home and drive their truck to the swamp to work for a water-logger. Here is the series of events that follow [In chronological order]:
-The truck breaks down on the freeway.
-Some guy tows then into town, the breaks fail and they run into the towing truck.
-Twice.
-The towing guy can’t believe they actually drove this piece of sh*t. They are forced to fly to the swamp … Late.
-Their new boss immediately takes them on his boat which later hits a log hidden in the water, almost capsizing the whole crew.
-They finally arrive at the location where the boss has stored the new boat [bought especially for the father and son pair]. Boat collision - first ding.
-The father tells his son to jump on the bank to tie the boat, the son falls in the water. It was a funny and amazingly cartoonish kind of fall.
All of this within the first 10 minutes of their return to the show. Amazing.

Fringe

 I have a lot of friends who used to be fans of the X-files and I can't get then to watch Fringe. I keep saying that it's the same thing, the same tension between the characters and the same story structure. It's fun to watch the 1 hour story on each episode and then get some hints at the bigger picture. It's a show that is just as frustrating as Lost. Which is why I eventually stopped watching Lost after 2 seasons. I just couldn't help it. I actually taped the whole 2nd season and watched all the episodes together and I was still not getting anything out of it. So, I slowly checked out and never went back. I might do it one day, hopefully the final season are going to give all the answers and I can watch the series all at once.
Anyway, Fringe is alright and if you can get past the Dawson's Creek flashback, this series should be a short but fun ride. [ I say short because it's on the verge of getting canceled. I am not even sure it's going to make it for another season. We'll see.]


24 - Blah, blah, blah ... blah.

Alright, alright, I started watching the thing again ... And I can't stand it. I had to include this in the Seasonal Intrigues because I wanted to point out that the way I feel about David Caruso in CSI:Miami is now equal to the way I feel about Kiefer Sutherland. I won't go into detail again, just go click here for previous rants on the matter. The problem on 24 other than the obvious flaws in story line, action sequence and the overall boredom that seems to take over me when I watch an episode this season, yes, other than that, Jack Bower [aka K.S.] is breathing way too loud. And for the breathing to actually come through, I can only imagine how loud it must be on the set, the sound guys must be going nuts with this. It has made it impossible for me to watch the thing without rolling my eyes. I have been on a deadline so I have been listening/watching the show on my computer, in the background. I don't know how many episodes I can continue this for. We'll see.

That's it for the current seasonal intrigues of January and February 2010. The games are going to slow everything down of course but that's only going to make things more interesting when everything comes back to normal.

040 From D. Blue

(cree par Hubert De Latigue)

039 Facts and Fiction

Irony #1
A few days ago there was a whole thing going on “on the other side”, three people were going to have to move to NY (potentially) because their project is moving there. For once I am on the outside looking in. It was a pleasant experience. Talkin’- gossipin’ about what’s going on, who’s doing what and whatever.
My enjoyment of the moment lasted about 2 seconds, when I was somehow sucked into the vortex.
For some obscure and convoluted reason, I am now the one who is going to be told to move there. I went from being an innocent bystander to –well, the star of the show, just like L Gaga.

Irony #2
I don’t really think I know what I want.

Miscellaneous fictitious happenings:
Star Trek Next Generation -- Saw a great Star Trek episode the other night. Data “one of a kind” gets kidnapped by a collector who coerces him into doing a series of things (changing clothes and sit on a chair). The collector is very mean.
Anyway, at the end, Data points a phaser at the collector, there is a whole discussion about taking a life and Data’s programming and as Data presses the trigger, he is transported back on the Enterprise. While in the transporter O’Brian (hate that guy) tells Number one (Riker) that there is a weapon with Data and that the weapon is discharging. They disable it and data appears on the ship. When Riker asks him “What is that all about?” Data says “There must have been a malfunction, sir.”
OMG, not only was Data about to take a life, he also lied to Riker. Jeez.

Facts:
#1 I have been working everyday non stop for 5 weeks. We go to Starbucks everyday.
Is there a reward at the end?
#2 It’s wet in LA (again) and these idiots still haven’t learned how to drive in the rain.
#3 Worked on another interview for a certain SciFi show.
#4 I love my new Dr Dre stylin’ headphones.

#5 My team and I have officially been called "The design Technology Team." What a bunch of nerds we are!

038 Checking in.

Laziest thing this week:
On this post (now getting pretty rare) i have decided to disregard spelling, caps, etc, etc ... it's just easier this way.

Most annoying thing this week:
This guys comes over to me, looks into my eyes and asks me how my saturday is going. i look at him, thinking what the fuck kind of dumb ass question is this? i am sitting at my desk, in front of my computer ... AT WORK!!

idiot.

Funniest tv moment:
Laughed out loud yesterday when i watched Modern Family. Ed O'Neil who plays the father/grandfather figure in the series asks his son how the fortune cookie is doing. He is referring to the asian baby his son has adopted. Damn priceless.

Pathetic tv moment:
I am on a mad rush to watch all the shows i have on my DVR because i am constantly at 98%. Why? Well, that's an excellent question. Last season i taped all the SGU episodes and I haven't watched anything yet. i get into this kind of thing where i keep stuff for later and them i am unable to enjoy it. it either expires (in case of lotions and other similar type of products) or in this case, a DVR malfunction. i could loose the shows before i get the chance to watch any of it. it's pathetic but there is a threshold with me. once i cross the line, i can't do it anymore. I am not a hunter, i am a gatherer.

Flashback moment:
I finally got my "starsky and hutch" pair of glasses. i love it.
I found a great podcast show by Will Wheaton from ST:NG. he's weird and makes me think of the latE 80's early 90's type of personality (the two Coreys come to mind immediately). the perfect slightlty pathetic child start who is trying to get away from what made him famous by writing a book about what made him famous. talk about irony.


(Gladys is coming back soon. got the story, just need to write it. Could be a while.)

037 Millions of years ago

I haven't written in a million years...
First I was busy, then I got sick for a few days,
then i got angry and then I got bored.

 then did this

 and this

 and experimented with that


Life is hard sometimes.

http://morphopedia.com/projects/tangents-and-outtakes/gallery/perot-museum-of-nature-science/1/

036 Gladys' Shadow

Gladys is slowly waking up. The sun shines through the blinds. She looks away, the light is too strong, it hurts her eyes. Bubble the fat and hairy cat jumps on the bed and walks back and forth against her face. Eyes shut, she can feel bubble’s fur rubbing on her skin. With a deep sigh, Gladys sits up, pushing the cat away. Bubble is not happy and with a deep growl, jumps off the bed and walks out of the room without a single glance back.
Gladys stands up, her legs are wobbly and she reaches out to the wall opposite her bed to steady herself. Her head is spinning now and the light is still hurting her eyes.
Dressed in pajama, hair in a tangled mess, Gladys leaves her bedroom and goes down the stairs. She is still struggling with dizziness as she walks down each step holding on to both handrails for support.
As she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she notices a faint aroma in the air … Fresh brewed coffee. The smell is comforting and strangely familiar and yet, Gladys feels a small twinge of worry in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t drink coffee. Never has. Her mother always insisted she drink tea and she has never strayed from it.
As she approaches the kitchen, she hears voices. They seem so distant, she can’t understand what they are saying. Someone is definitely inside her house. The worry she felt a second ago has blossomed and turned into fear and … anger. It is the anger that propels her forward. She turns the corner and stands inside the kitchen threshold. The sunlight coming in through the garden windows is blinding her. The light is strong and Gladys lifts her hand up to protect her eyes.

“You’re awake. I was beginning to worry about you. Coffee?”

A tall dark man is sitting at her kitchen table. His face is shadowed by a large black fedora. He is wearing a long trench coat. The bottom edge is resting on the tiled floor. Across from him is a steaming cup of coffee. Gladys spots a pot filled with coffee on the stove. He must have brought it with him, there are no coffee beans in her house. Low voices are coming out of the old radio she keeps in the kitchen.

“Coffee?”

Her eyes move back towards the stranger.

“What are you doing in my house?”

Instead of answering, the stranger picks up the coffee cup in front of him and slowly lifts it to his mouth. Silently, he takes a sip. She can’t see his eyes, the hat is casting a shadow across his face, but somehow, she knows he is looking at her. She is afraid now, no longer angry. There is something about his stillness that terrifies her.

“Who ... Who are you?”

This time Gladys can hear the fear and uncertainty in her own voice. She can barely get the words out and she isn’t sure she will be able to say anything more.

“Well, I am here to kill you of course.”


[End Part I]

035 ... The most Pathetic Blog entry to date [for real]

Work, work, work.
We work so much, we are actually at the office for a two week period when only one week has passed.
We are so tired, we all do stupid things all the time. It's funnyyy and  pathetic at the same time. A few hours ago I actually tried to open my apartment door with my car alarm. I only realized what I was doing when I heard a loud "horn" sound coming from down the street [i.e. my car]
Another friend at work asked a co-worked what file was he wearing?
The staff at the Starbucks down the street know our names now. I've already used the word pathetic so I really shouldn't use it again, but I can't think of a more appropriate word to describe the situation.
I haven't written on this blog for a very long time because I can barely stay focused for more than a few minutes. Same thing for the TV. No point in watching good stuff, I just won't pay attention and it will all be for nothing. I am loosing it fast ...  got ...to ..go ... to ...bed.
I am posting it without proofreading the thing. it's going to take me a while to complete this entry. I guess we all have our burden to carry.

034 J'espere ...

My best wish of the week:
When we discussed prototyping the other day, Marty asked me what would be the ultimate 3d physical model – prototyping technique we could use in the office. I told him that what I want doesn’t exist yet. If we’re not going to make something with our hands, if we are no longer going to go through the actual process of “making” and instead send a file to the 3d printer and get someone in the shop to do it, well I then think what we need is a 3d physical modeling technique that is as fast and as cheap as a screen refresh. Millisecond refresh rate, millisecond model making … for zero dollar. THAT’s my ultimate. He laughed at that, but I still stand by what I said. Don’t ask these questions if you can’t handle the answer.

The best conversation I’ve had in a while:
In the meantime, Satoru and I have been having an ongoing conversation about what we could hook up to a USB key [laptop is a must] while at work. Here is what we have come up with so far:
- A cup of coffee. Just imagine, you get your coffee cup hooked on your laptop. The cup heats up and keeps track of where you are with the levels and caffeine intake. Always know where you stand … it’s important.
- A cooling plate with a small ventilator or a mini AC machine. It’s hot in our office, we need the air.
- A hologram of my model. Making it easy to work with model stuff and instantly see as it would be, in 3d.
- Speaking of 3d, we need a USB key – milling machine to mill mini version of our models.
… The list is growing …

The best life strategy I came up with recently:
I’m dying for a gigantic earthquake right now. I need a short vacation, just enough so that I can relax and ignore work-architecture-alarm clocks and responsibilities.
This might be quite a drastic measure, just to avoid the things that consume most of my life. What the hell, we don’t get the time off from work, so we can only rely on death and natural disasters.

The most embarrassing thing that happened to me today:
I got voted best person of the week at Mo0rphosis. What the fuck does that mean?

The best lifestyle choices I made today:
Cheetos for breakfast, Coffee for lunch and I think I might even go for some cheese tonight. Live dangerously, that’s how it’s done.

033 Starge Universe [SGU]

We have been waiting for this one for a very, very long time. The buzz was intense, the rumors multiplying ten fold as the months went by and the expectations grew along with it.There is something weird and “special” [as is special olympic special] about that franchise. There is no casual viewer, only those who are devoted to it and those who hate it. I understand both sides although I have been involved peripherally with it in the past few months, I can say that I was waiting this premiere with anticipation. I was never a real fan of SG1. For a very long time I just didn’t get it. And it’s only when it got canceled that I actually started to watch the show and realized that yes, there may be something to it even if I still found myself rolling my eyes once in a while. I never liked Atlantis and only started watching in during its final season. Once again, I missed the boat even if at the time, I really felt that if anything this was a sinking ship to begin with. I mean, none of this stuff should be seen as anything but clear, simple entertainment. The fact that SG1 actually lasted more than 4 seasons [10 total] is in itself a miracle. The miracle is that it happened to be in the right place at the right time and that’s very rare these days.

Universe: So, here I am storing the show on my DVR and thinking that for the first time ever, I am actually going to watch this series from the start. It was difficult, I kept it tucked away for three days before I worked up the courage to watch it. I was working on an interview [The Joel Goldsmith one] and was unfortunately given a lot of information about the season before even watching the first episode. So I knew more than I should have when I finally watched it. "Air" [Title of the episode] is a great departure although it could be said that it is not so different at all. The creative team is exactly the same, those guys are still there working at it. To say they are reinventing the wheel but then use the same team to make it, is in my mind a conflicting statement.
It is trying very hard to be different. To be about the characters and not just an action flick. To be mindful of the viewers who are not so stupid after all. To give us a little bit of the darkness in Battlestar Galactica without loosing the fun-careless action of previous Stargate seems to be a tall order. I guess it works in some ways but right now, it’s borderline too dark. Hopefully things get more varied as the shows go on. I hope they can strike a balance.
I know it is probably unfair to judge the show on the premiere episode, but I would think that they would make those first two hours, the best two hours possible. I don’t think they succeeded in that regard. Even if as a whole, the series is more story and character based, I think that the first two hours need to establish more of a hook, a connection for the viewer to hang on to. I think these first two hours were treated too much like a regular episode, I think it needs to be more flashy. Same thing with the characters, it’s difficult to become part of the story and to care about the people because they are already [for the most part] showing way too many weaknesses and flaws. They should build more on that as things evolve rather than throw it all in our faces right away. It’s the disappointment, the discovery, the reversal that makes things interesting. Being curious about a character only to find out later that there is something wrong about him or her is the best part.
The guests: The cast of SG1 [of course Atlantis always gets left in the dirt with these things] makes a brief appearance and I have to say … They all looked really old except for Michael Shanks. That was just weird. Not enough to be completely distracting, but just plain weird.
The music: I don’t think it worked at all. There was nothing that really made it special. I understand they want to stay away from the aesthetic of previous shows and I think that was a good idea. But they need to establish an identity, something recognizable even if it’s subtle and minimalist. The ship is its own thing, for the first time it’s obvious that the Destiny is going to be a character and not just a set. I love that.

Did I manage to talk about SGU without actually voicing a specific opinion? I think I want to leave it vague because it’s only the first episode and I want to give them the chance to show that they are as awesome as they say they are.

032 OMG, He does care about us.

I must be overreacting again. It happens to me often enough that I am not always sure I actually mean it. [if that makes any sense.]
I just saw a full on, legitimate commercial for a “special” medication. Ah! wait for this one, it’s priceless …
Woman can now grow fuller, longer, darker and better EYELASHES!!! It's a miracle.

No more of that “Oh, Boubou, you look a little tired, have you gained weight?”, “Shenee, is this you? OooMaaaGooosh what happen to your eyes?” Or the Nene [Housewives of Atlanta] type answer “Damn Kim, did you get in a fight with some clippers or something? Looks like you lost you eye hair. Well, at least you look surprised and alert, all the time now.“

Please, kill me now. I can’t believe that pharmaceutical companies spend so much money like this. The research, the marketing and the commercial … it’s beyond ridiculous. There are countless diseases out there that kill millions of people all over the world. And if people of America don’t care about the people of the world, well, let me rephrase: “There are countless diseases that kill thousands of people all over America.” [South America and Canada not included in this statement]
I mean, if they really, really want to waste money on useless shit, I can help. I mean it’s true, I rarely come up with something useful, although I myself never though about the eyelashes situation per se. Sounds pretty serious. And it is a genius idea to drop millions of dollars on eyelash rejuvenation. Thank God they made a commercial explaining the crisis. Hiring Brooke Shields was also another genius idea. They must have a few of them out there or was it just divine intervention? Well, however it happened, we definitely need strong, proud and level headed women who are not be afraid to talk about their own eyelash situation.

Anyway, everyone: Enjoy the eyelash commercial. At the end they recommend you go see a doctor, because of course you need a prescription for this particular “remedy.” So, now the doctors and the insurance companies are also sharing in the bounty of our stupidity. Hey, that’s what they do in China. They spread the wealth all around. And from what I hear, it's a country full of really happy people.

031 The Problem with Lambda

We’re back making architecture this week. The project was introduced to the press, we went public ... Now it’s time to get going [Seriously]. The problem we are facing is that a portion of the design  was represented conceptually. There is a major component that is explicit and readable as architectural form. And then, there is another that is suggested rather than clearly stated [it's complicated].

Obviously, put the two together and you create a certain ambiguity. For people “in the know,” it’s completely fine and may even be playfully stated, but for the common “man” it is somewhat confusing. They default back to trying to connect the forms to something they know, something they are familiar with . And if our model and renderings mix explicit representation with implicit meaning things just get impossible to sort through. The goal was simple, the intent clear but the resolution was ambiguous.

030 Summer Television Fling

My 2009 summer TV adventures:
Summer is ending this weekend and so are all our summer shows. It wasn't a fling, more like research [and I say this with a straight face] I watched a lot of it for fun. Prerequisite is definitely low brain activity.
Mostly, I am looking for help while on a quest for inspiration: Stuff like good scripts, directing, character developments and good plots. I selfishly try to understand how to put a good story together. I got my own thing going.
Some of the shows feel like fill-ins and miss the mark, others are actually worth something.
And then, there are the guilty pleasures. In general, the summer choices are limited -- I deal with it.

THE CLOSER [season 5]
The classic well acted, well written, witty, funny show I will watch until it ends.

Ooh yeah, I really like that show. I fell into it randomly when I was in Europe. I was just looking for anything that wasn’t dubbed. Even though I speak french, I get angry when I have to watch something dubbed in ANY language really. And French television automatically "dubbs" everything [Is that a word?]. That’s just a shame. I keep thinking that they would be better served by limiting the amount of American shows they keep playing thus avoiding the "constant dubbing effect." Luckily the Dutch are still using subtitles [not enough people speaking that language to justify dubbing the shows] and so The Closer was one of the shows I watched. Once I got back in the US, I immediately added it to my DVR and have been taping it ever since.

Every episode this season was good and oh so deliciously classic. The body stuffed inside the cooler episode just says it all. It really looked like they made a real effort. Just like CSI did after loosing William Petersen [Grissom]. The guys on The Closer are pros, they know what they’re doing and it shows. And now Kyra Sedgwick’s got her daughter involved in this. With Kevin directing, this is becoming a real family affair. The only annoying thing about the show is that Kyra Sedgwick has really really ugly hands. I noticed it a couple of seasons ago [Kim Bassinger has the same problem]. I was kind of getting over it when "someone" who was watching it with me made a comment. THAT was funny.

DEFYING GRAVITY [new]
The surprise -- Anonymous show I don’t know what to think of.

This one snuck up on me. ABC never really advertised it and so it came as a surprise when I flipped the channel one day and discovered it. I just don’t understand that. It’s like they want it to fail, just like Virtuosity [this one did fail]. Defying Gravity is one of the new shows FOX studio filmed in Vancouver in order to lower the cost. I have seen all the episodes, thanks to HULU. I have no idea if it will be canceled, although I would not be surprised if it was. [Go there for synopsis]
I hope that this season ends with some kind of answer because I could not handle yet another “Lost Wannabe.” Too many questions and too many unknown can be overwhelming sometimes. I actually stopped watching Lost a few seasons ago for that reason. The last 2 seasons I saw, I actually taped every episode and then watched everything at once because the wait between episodes was just too much. And even then, I was still getting frustrated. Anyway, my hope is that Defying Gravity will have more resolution and answers at the end of the season.

Do I like it? That’s another frustrating thing. Even though I am watching the thing, I still can’t decide. I am currently leaning towards “No.” I do tape every episode or if I miss one, I’ll just watch it on HULU. I skip a lot of parts, as usual to avoid the commercials, but with this series, I have been skipping actual portions of the show. I am not necessarily bored, just ready to move on.

EUREKA [season 3]
The “coup de coeur” -- Better late than never.

This is the revelation of the year for me. I have always avoided it after trying to watch it a couple of times. The problem with SYFY shows, is that they are often a too soft and turn to comedy rather than take itself a little bit more seriously. In this case, it took me a while to get into it and the only reason I started watching it in the first place is because there isn’t much of anything going on during the summer. Most shows are on hiatus and so I find myself “lowering my standards” and exploring the channel lineup a little bit more. That’s how I find little gems here and there … Such as Eureka. The season finale is coming up, too bad. I barely had time to get into it. I have however 2 more seasons of the series to watch and Colin Ferguson, genius that he is, started a Eureka podcast commentary for the show.

WAREHOUSE 13 [new]
The disappointment – that I continue to watch.

Too soft. Way too soft. I mean, I like it but at the same time I feel it’s a little bit of a “quickly put together – summer filler” type of series. The fact that it is doing really well is at least in part due to the fact that people are starving for new material and they [like me] will watch things they would never have considered watching in the Fall or Spring seasons. They are lucky to have come one when they did, because I am not sure how it would have fared against the Fall lineup and Stargate Universe. [Go there for synopsis]
The story itself is not that unique but it definitely allows for a wide range of stories. The problem is that it doesn't know if it wants to be a drama or a comedy which makes everything bland. And yet, I am still watching it.

FLIPPED OUT & HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA
The guilty pleasures someone could watch at night with the shades down.

If someone were to watch any of those shows it would be because they portray people that are so outrageously in denial, completely full of themselves and definitely out of touch with “our” reality, kind of like SciFi. I can’t say too much because I haven’t personally seen it [ah!] but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t get a chuckle out of anyone seeing it for the first time, actually it's much more than that, those shows are hilarious.

The real question is this: If this is so bad, why would anyone waste any time watching this tripe?



Anyway, this is in part what I was doing this summer. Now I wait impatiently for Stargate Universe, Sanctuary, Fringe, House, CSI, NCIS, Dexter, Family Guy, American Dad, Southland, The office and Community. Already annoyed by The mentalist, Parks and Recreation, Dollhouse, The Cleveland Show, Castle, Flashforward, Medium and on and on. Some of these have already started by the way.