señor taco’s travels

So, over the last weekend I made a long trip back to NY (fly out Friday, return
Monday sorta thing). My good friends Chris & Athena were throwing a
Halloween party that Saturday and far be it from me to miss it. They hosted
the shindig in their 4,000 sq. ft. space in Peekskill (which by the way is a
great space to throw parties in). So, I helped out on Saturday and got things
ready for the party that night. C&A had already decorated much with the
help of others so it was mostly just putting things in place, getting the
alcohol, and making sure everything was setup.

Then the party started. People filtered in and the music was pumping. The DJs
for the evening played a great mix of music. There were many great costumes
but by far the best part of the night was surprising people that didn’t know I
was going to turn up. My friend title="KP Spek Reall Gud!">KP was the best by far. He fell over with
laughter, literally, right onto the floor, laughing.

There were many good costumes and many great friends that I miss terribly. Big
thanks goes out to C&A for putting me up and getting me from the airport
and for selling me into slavery making cheap lighters where the flame comes
out of a naked woman’s breast.

Driving to work the other day I saw a Mazda minivan with a custom plate. That
in itself wasn’t so odd, it was what the plate said. Since you are allowed
special characters on some plates I can not accurately represent it in text,
you must be shown it:

width="394" height="196" />

That’s the kids plate by the way, the only one with the special characters.
I love it. The driver was a mom from the looks of it, and she looked like she
was rocking out too. Rock on you crazy diamond.

For those of you not familiar with GWAR you can choose to go
here.

After not seeing any movies for a while (no particular reason, mostly
friends had already seen everything I was interested in seeing) I got
around to seeing two movies this last week.

The first was the fantastic Lost In Translation. I don’t know what
to say about this if you haven’t seen it. In fact I don’t really want to
say much because that could be ruining parts of it. I will just say that
Bill Murray gives a fantastic performance, he definitely deserves accolades
and nominations for this (unlike the zilch that he got for his performance
in Rushmore). Scarlet Johansen was much better here than in
Ghost World (I just thought her acting was flat in GW, but
that could have been her character). The direction was right on and the
settings were great in evoking the feeling of alienation one would expect
from being in Japan and not knowing the language or customs. If you like
touching movies and like Bill Murray at all the I suggest you go see
Lost In Translation.

The second movie I saw was Kill Bill, Vol. 1. In his other movies I
would say I was so-so on Tarantino’s other films. Reservoir Dogs
has been my favorite of his thus far. Pulp Fiction was well written
and I enjoyed it, but Jackie Brown while written and shot well, just
didn’t do anything for me. The first thing people say about Kill
Bill is that it’s very bloody or gory. Well, they’re right. At some
points it is a bit comical with the blood spraying around and limbs flying,
but it’s all very well done. I’m actually looking forward to the second
half of the movie so I can see how it all ends. Some of my favorite parts
of Kill Bill are the allusions to cult classic movies and directors.
Following the boots walking on a hardwood floor like Sergio Leone. The
fights that are reminiscent of Chang Cheh and Bruce Lee movies. All well
done and very fitting. Anyway, if you can put up with the blood (which
apparently some people in the theater couldn’t) then Kill Bill might
be okay for you to go see, but it’s really hard to tell because some people
just aren’t going to like the style of the movie at all. For those that
are wondering, there is one fight sequence that is converted to black and
white. Apparently that was to keep the film from getting an NC-17 rating
in the good ole U.S. of A. I expect it will be available in full bloody
color on the DVD, but only time will tell.

Well, I guess I could have gone longer without my first ticket, but it happened
tonight. I apparently didn’t yield to pedestrians correctly. It’s just too
bad that a SFPD officer was there too. I’m not angry about it, I probably did
wrong and now I will have to pay for it. Hopefully it will be able to be kept
off my record with a drivers safety course.

Well, I got up this morning in time to see the title="Chinese Space Program Time-line">first Chinese manned space vehicle
fly overhead. It was hard to spot at first because the moon was so bright,
but seeing it fly overhead made me happy. I’m glad China is able to keep going
like that, however I do wish that all countries interested in space exploration
would put their nationalistic pride to the side and just work together. It
would be cheaper and get the entire planet farther along in the long run.

Speaking of space, do you ever see href="http://www.starwars.com/databank/species/jawa/"
title="Star Wars Databank">Jawas in your neighborhood? I do. I guess it
was the once or twice a year heavy trash day today, so everyone has been
putting piles and piles of stuff out for the last couple of days. In the last
day I’ve seen the same van at several places in my neighborhood. The
passengers going through the piles of heavy trash and taking what treasures
they want. Now, I’m not going to fault people for doing that, in this country
(or what’s left of it) people are free to go through piles of refuse and take
what they want. It’s just that they were overly enthusiastic about it, like
Jawas on a droid.

So, Saturday was a busy day for me. In the afternoon I braved the Bay Bridge
traffic to make my way over to the Potrero Hill area for a house warming
party at Jamie’s new apartment (he moved out here not too long ago). He has
a great apartment and he’s put a lot of himself into it. It was very
comfortable to be in.

After the house warming I went back over to Berkeley to meet several people
from work for dinner at href="http://www.elmwoodshop.com/pages/stores/shenhua.html" title="Shen Hua">
Shen Hua in Berkeley. After dinner and dessert we headed over to the
CalShakes
amphitheater for the one man show, title="MacHomer">MacHomer. Not only was it well done, it was hilarious
and I laughed my butt off. The cast of characters fit perfectly. While there
are far too many to name here some of the best were: The Sea Captain, Moe, and
Principal Skinner as the witches/weird sisters; Homer as MacHomer (rather than
MacBeth); Marge as Lady MacHomer; Barney as MacDuff; Mr. Burns and Smithers
as the king and Malcom respectively; and Flanders as Banquo. At the end of the
show Rick Miller, the one man, performed Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody as 25
different performers. The hi-lights include Mick Jagger, Tom Waits, Meatloaf,
and Ozzy. I forgot some of them because I was laughing so hard.

If you ever get a chance to see this show do it. Pay attention to the puppet
show he does if you see it…well, if you’re not laughing too hard.

Well, I got my desk lowered about two inches today. So far it’s a big
improvement. I was starting to feel strain on my shoulders so hopefully this
will alleviate that.

That is all, I will be returning to work now.

Last night at Slim’s was
yet another in the current series of Excellent Punk Rock
Shows. This time around there were 4 bands (in playing order): Vision,
Strike Anywhere, Tsunami Bomb, and The Bouncing Souls.

Vision kicked off the show. This was my first time to see them and while they
rocked I felt their set was too short for me to really get into them much.
Next Strike Anywhere took the stage. They were loud, full of energy, and on
target through the entire set. They mostly played songs off of Change Is A
Sound with one from earlier demos and a couple off of the new album,
Exit English. I really kind of wish they had gone on after
Tsunami Bomb. While TB was good and ever so poppy and hooky in that TB way,
I just wasn’t into them. I could have used a shorter set from them and a
longer one from Strike Anywhere.

The Bouncing Souls were amazing. I had never seen them either and let me tell
you, they put on an energetic show for sure. They played a good mix of songs
from their albums with a good focus on the current stuff. I will see them
again for sure. Too bad I was so tired by the end of it all.

Woo Hoo! The circus is in town for good! What a load of shit. If anything I
think the California state constitution should be changed so that a recall
effort needs way more people to get it going AND that if a governor is recalled
the Lt. Gov. steps up. I mean, come now, doesn’t that make more sense?

Ahnald things to watch out for:

1. A settlement with the power companies with regards to the over charging
   and fixing they did during the “power crisis”. As it stands they
   owe about $9Billion (yes with a ‘B’) to California. There is a proposed
   settlement (from the Bush Administration no less) for around $0.02 on the
   dollar, cutting the refund to a paltry $180Million. If Arnold is serious
   about fixing this state he’ll force the full refund and close the
   budget deficit for this year. Too bad he’s squarely in the pockets of
   businessmen.
2. He claims he wants to fix California, but when it comes to the hard parts
   what will he cut first? Education? That’ll be a hoot.
3. Skeletor will be named Mistress of the Universe.

The people of this country also need to keep an eye out for href="http://danimal.org/s.j.res.15.html" title="U.S. Senate Resolution 15.IS">
this bill currently in the U.S.
Senate. How dumb is Orin Hatch? Why the hell would he even propose an
amendment to the Constitution to allow those not born here to become
President? Hmm? I have a feeling this one would not fly in many parts of the
country and thankfully amendments have a much larger hurdle to clear (2/3 of
each house and then 3/4 of the States within 7 years). I know I’m writing my
Senators and Congress-people to tell them to vote against this.

My friend Jan has been a director for many years in the animation industry. He
just started at Wild Brain (well, a few weeks back). His inaugural mission
with the company is at least two months in India helping to get production
for a children’s series going (it’s being produced by Wild Brain, just the
animation is going overseas). I had a chance of going, but the fine folks
at the studio in Bangalore have their act together on the technical
side of things (such is life, I would have liked to have gone, but I’m not
going to fret over it).

So, since Jan leaves the Bay Area on Friday a few of us got together and
planned a little party to send him off right. We all met at the Whitney House
(home of Keith and Colin, party masters) and had some drinks, talked, and had
some awesome food. Two kinds of ribs, hot wings, Keith’s amazing broccoli
casserole. It was all so good.

I’m pretty sure Jan had fun. At least we were able to send him off so he knows
that we’ll miss him. Now we just have to plan the party for when he comes back.