señor taco’s travels

I spent all weekend coughing and doing nothing because i was sick. I hate sick. HATE! HATE! HATE! Okay, work to do. Maybe more later.

So, yesterday (Wednesday) I picked up some excellent Thai food and trucked down to dode’s place in Redwood City. The occasion? We had both gotten the One Man Army DVD, The Show Must Go Off! (from Kung-Fu Films) but had yet to watch it (we both wanted to watch it together, but it took longer than we expected to find a time to watch it).

Shot live at the Troubadour in Hollywood this is by far one of the best concert DVD’s I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch. The sound quality is unparalleled anywhere (24-track from the boards it seems) and rivals the best live recordings ever. The band cranks though all the best songs, there’s plenty to watch, and it’s cut well (with 5 cameras at the shoot they had plenty).

If you are a fan of One Man Army go out and buy this right now.

So, I got a call from my friend Doug yesterday. Pixar was having a screening of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and he wanted to know if I would like to see it. Of course, since I liked the other two I wanted to see this one. If it’s for free that’s even better. So, I left work early, got over to Pixar, and got into the theater (great theater that it is). Before the movie started John Lasseter introduced Robert Rodriguez (yeah, he was there to watch it with us!). He gave a little run down, explained the 3-D glasses stuff and then kicked off the movie.

We watched a digital projection of the film and it was very nice. I like the fact that Rodriguez used HD cameras. The plates were clean and still very film like, but being all digital makes for a cleaner process throughout. At the end of the show Mr. Rodriguez gave a little talk about making the film and showed us the first cut of his “10 Minute Film School” for Spy Kids 3-D. He mentioned that they had a very small green screen stage, but you would never have guessed it from the movie (which takes place largely in a video game). His inventive use of camera and green screen really made it so you didn’t pay attention to the effects, you watched the movie. He also said that being able to work with digital technology really helped. Rodriguez works out of his home and, when not shooting, would work on a night schedule so he could get more work done and still have time with his kids during the day. Simply Amazing.

Rodriguez decided to use the anaglyph format (where you have two images that are contrasting colors and the glasses used to view them have filters of left eye red and right eye blue) rather than the more modern polarized filters. His reasoning was that (a) you can get into more theaters because standard projectors can still show the film and (b) as long as you plan for it you can get good colors in the 3-D sections, and darn it if he wasn’t right. I was actually expecting things to be tinted a bit, but they weren’t at all. In fact, Rodriguez did a great job of making a 3-D film that works great, doesn’t hurt the eyes or brain, and is fun. The only odd thing was after the movie was over I had been wearing the glasses long enough that when I closed my right eye I saw out of my left eye with a little blue tint and when I closed my left eye I saw a little red tint from the right eye. It was strange.

Overall I liked the movie a lot. Yes, there was some cheese, but the movie made fun of it appropriately and Robert Rodriguez has done a great job of making a series of family friendly films on his own terms. He did say that this is the last of the Spy Kids films, but he’ll be around for a long time to make quality films. I just have to say that Rober Rodriguez is one person to learn lessons on how to be your own boss from (and I idolize him in that way). If you get a chance you should read Rodriguez’s book “Rebel Without A Crew,” which talks about the making of El Mariachi for a scant $7,000 and he being the entire crew. I read it about two years ago and loved it (of course I don’t have it any longer because I gave it to a friend and told him to pass it on when he was done).

Well, I took Chris and Athena to the airport this morning. I had fun with them…I miss them already. I know it’s going to be a while until I see them again so I’m really glad I got to hang out with them for as many days as I did.

Last night we did another small get together at the Whitney House. More mojitos and dammit if Colin didn’t make some of the best burgers I’ve ever had (and I’m not just saying that, it was so damn tasty).

Hmmm, Chris and I didn’t end up getting ink, there just wasn’t enough time. Well, that means I’ll have to get new stuff and get a good relationship with an artist that I can take Chris and Athena to next time they’re out.

So, Chris, Athena, Dode, Ann, Rob, Rob, and Penny went to see the Swingin’ Utters play at Slim’s in San Francisco last night. We missed the first opening band (Youth Gone Wild I think) but we did see The Forgotten (some good stuff, I’m not a huge fan of theirs, but the stuff I have on comps is all good) and the the Utters. Slim’s is a really good place to go see shows. They have a nice geriatric section where you can see all of the stage. The Utters, while a good show, just didn’t seem to have as much energy as at previous shows. They also did some instrument changes and damn if it didn’t take a while to swap them out (acoustic guitar, accordion). I mean, they could learn something from the Dropkick Murphys in that respect. Anyway, overall I’m glad I got to see them, but I wasn’t impressed with the show that much.

The best part of the evening was when I was in the restroom. After finishing my business I turned around and there was Fat Mike. Crazy, and yet another reason I like living in San Francisco, I get to see my idols at a regular old punk rock show.

I’ve had it three times now. Each time is just as good as the first. Zante’s is excellent. You take the bread that would normally be Nan, make it pizza sized, spread a nice vegetarian mix with some sauce and then cheese and bam. So delicious.

I’m glad we only eat it every so often though, too much would make it not as special.

So, at work there are two ways to get up to the floor I work on: Stairs or Elevator. Generally I just take the stairs. It’s quicker and it’s better for me in the long run. Well, for the last month there has been this stench from the bottom of the stairs. It was thought that something had crawled under the stairs and died. In some genius fashion the space under the stairs was sealed up, no access. Great, so the facilities crew has been leaving the door to the roof open to air out the stairwell. It helps some, but it’s still pretty bad sometimes.

Today at lunch time I found out from another employee that it’s the vent for the buildings sewage system. Generally these things are supposed to be on the roof, and this one was, but no one put the pipe from the first floor to the roof. Now they’re going to fix it, but there’s no telling how long that will take. Until then I’ll just carry a clothes-pin in my pocket. Peee eeeew!

Hmmm, I think I saw this web site a while back (but that was long ago in a place called New York :) but I thank my friend KP for reminding me about the Illegal Art Exhibit.

It’s actually here at the SFMOMA through July 26. I may have to go and check it out.

Wow! Science Magazine is reporting on a crow that made a tool to get to food:

That is just too cool. There’s even a video of the event that is amazing to watch.

[as seen on boingboing and Hivelogic]

I went out to dinner last night with Chris, Athena, and Jan. We met up at Manora’s Thai Cuisine on Folsom @ 12th street. The food and service were great, the company was even better. I know I’m going to be going back to Manora’s again, did I mention the food was great.

After we dined we walked down the street to a bar, one of Jan’s favorites apparently (and on that I’ll have to trust him, he’s got a great taste in bars). Well, okay, it was good. Not too crowded (and on a Monday I should hope not) and it was comfortable enough. I’ll have to head down there some more too. Enough blathering, more work to do.