Other than that we relaxed and i caught up on work (as usual). Nothing else exciting.

the Bacon Bandage

Can you imagine the situation now? The terrorist attack, the GPS system gets shut off, and then suddenly ALL the sex offenders attack. It could happen. We better prepare.

map.pdf

(sorry, things like this make me want to track down the dipshit who wrote this caption and publicly humiliate them. Talk about newspapers verifying their sources... fuck, how bout they verify that their caption writers know a little about what they're writing about)

Lunch on Cinco de Mayo led us to a Sushi spot on Washington. We sat down next to a guy who told us everything that he loved on the menu and yelled at the sushi chef to get us an order of all his favorite stuff. If we didn't like it, then he'd pay for it. He then told us a few really dirty jokes and had the entire restaurant staring at him (and us). Really funny guy, but he knew exactly what he was talking about as far as the food was concerned. -- BTW.... THANKS JUSTIN for LUNCH!!!

All kidding aside.... the Tuna Taco was really good.

Then driving back to work, we saw this running across the street. She popped out of a movie trailer wrapped in a bathrobe. All we could see was the latex boots with the 6 inch heels and the pink choker around her neck. We all were wondering what the fuck was going on in Marina del Rey.

The dreaded triple flick. (and even the double flick combo from Justin)

Then last night as i was waiting patiently for a site to be pushed live, Ben walks upstairs with this gargantuan fuckin launcher. My first thought is POTATO launcher, but then i realize this thing is legitimate, and Potato launchers are ATF controlled weapons and almost always illegal. So it came as a surprise to me that this was a T-Shirt Launcher. I guess if you ever need to distribute goods to a screaming horde of people, this is the tool for the job. (video to come soon)

Then we fired off a few shots in the parking lot, and pushed the site live.

sorry ben, this was too good to not blog.

For the rest of the weekend, worked my ass off on a little project that i'm doing with Eric. Fun to be doing something other than flash. :)

Then in all the spare time i had over the weekend, i worked on an improved GPS map script. The earlier versions i had made did nothing but plot location data. They ignored the timestamps for each of the plots. This weekend i finally took into consideration time, and more importantly speed. The new system plots the data and colorizes it based on current speed. Suddenly data that was never visible is now completely obvious. With the simple speed color, i can now suddenly see how many traffic lights i had to stop at while driving down a street.

I'm already an addict.

Before i even got to hollywood the problems started. On the way home from work earlier the car gave me a shitload of troble. Spedometer suddenly jumps to ZERO while i'm driving 80MPH. Then the engine light comes on. So all the way home i'm watching for really bad signs of breakdown. At the end of the drive my clutch starts to really slip. Anyway, i finally get home and am going to have to deal with the car at some other time.

I watched LOST and I'll get back to that at some other point.

Then i got back in the car to drive out to see Ringer's first show at the ROXY. Their performance was actually much more agressive than i had expected. Their demo really is well produced and very clean and "pop-like". I guess that's what i had expected them to sound like live. I was very suprised to hear them take their tracks to a whole different place (IMHO). Much harder, and more rock than i had thought possible with the tunes. The only complaint would be that Eric's vocals could have been a little louder, but that's IT. Everything else was great.

So I hung out breifly after the show and went upstairs to the bar. I was really sorry i couldn't hang out longer, but i've been on no sleep recently and i've gotta get to bed.

Andyway, some pictures from tonight. Not great, but consider that i was shooting completely blind with no flash.

Star Wars Episode III is about as much fun as watching a drunk play connect-the-dots.

We can see the previous dot, and we can see the next dot. Nothing left now but to watch the stumbling begin. We have to endure the journey as Lucas takes us down a path with unbearable dialog, no character development or story, and special effects that are nothing more than employment for special effects artists. He teases us with little pieces of the movies we love, but then does not deliever anything new at all. I really don't even want to bother with a rant here. So i won't.

A friend of mine said he almost walked out about 45 minutes into the movie. I looked at my watch last night during the film. I don't understand how he had made it to 45. I was feeling the urge to walk out of the movie a lot sooner.

from FARK today

and a couple of my favorites

http://www.EnterTheCave.com/

I've worked on this project for over 6 months, and its finally up and running. Feel free to complain all you want. Its all my fault.

thanks to boing boing on this one. There are no words to describe this hair.

There was a very clear reference to Star Wars in the last episode of LOST and i missed it completely, even after watching the episode twice. I was talking to Scott just a couple minutes ago, and he mocked me for not spotting it. Anyway, for those of you who watch the show... While Michael and Jin are working on the raft you see both of them arguing a little. Michael screams "no no no, this one goes here, that one goes there. Then Jin responds with a couple lines on unintelligible japanese. For the good Star Wars fan, you'll easily tie this to a line Han Solo screams at chewie while repairing the Millennium Falcon. Chewie responds with his usual unintelligible wookie growls. When Scott told me, i was really surprised i let it slip by without laughing my ass off. Thanks Scott for pointing it out.

Hapland 2

I will not disclose the creative design of the car. That will be revealed on next Friday when it hits the track.

At this point, we figured we were going to go run around town and grab something to eat. Will drove around downtown San Diego, and at one point we were almost going to drive under the Coronado bridge. We turned back north into Town and just fucked around til we found parking, and some place that looked good. We ended up eating at a 50's diner called the Corvette Diner Bar & Grill. Right along with the classic "rude waitress" genre of restaurants, this place was actually really good. i think there were something like 4 birthday parties going on while we were there. You know the type of place.

We headed back to Soma and bumped into German to hand off one of the tickets to him. Will promptly parked the car and we got in line. In about 3 minutes Will had sold his remaining 2 extra tickets, and we settled in for the wait. We started off in the line on the far side of the strip mall, and had to wait as everybody filed in. Security was generally just a bunch of pricks, but then again, we didn't get a whole lot of shit from them. When we finally got inside I realized that the place was an old 80's multiplex. The venue floor was originally a bunch of side-by-side movie theaters that now had no walls between them. The wall on one side of the main room was lined with windows to the old projection booths. So when it all comes down to it, its a really tiny space.

Dresdin Dolls opens just about 30 minutes after they open the doors. They put on a good show, but honestly i really wasn't there to see them. Trent took the stage about 30 minutes after the Dresdin Dolls finish.

The set was a mixture of Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, Downward Spiral and With Teeth. He opened with Pinion as per usual, and then right into Wish. There were a few songs off With Teeth i was unsure how they would sound live, but that changed with the Line Begins to Blur. The song takes a much more guitar driven style and becomes much more powerful live. At the same time songs he's been playing for years still have the ability to drive the crowd fuckin nuts. The backdrop for the show was a lighting rig that i honestly wish i had in my office at home. :) There are 6 pieces directly behind the band. Each piece is made of 6 rows of LEDs and 24 fluorescent tubes. So when the lights fire off, there are huge bright stripes of light aimed directly at the crowd. The LEDs are all computer controlled so that sequences of patterns can be formed. Just think of it as a huge set of letters falling on a screen like the matrix. But a lot less lame. And between each of these pieces there were huge stage spots and strobes. So between LEDs flashing Blue then Red, then Fluorescent tubes lighting everything, then strobes, then spots directly at the crowd, its a wonder that nobody went into a seizure.

"Terrible Lie" was at the top of my list. The old songs off Pretty Hate Machine still have so much life in them. The only thing that i could have wished for was that the set was 2 or 3 hours longer, but nobody can keep that pace up for that long. Trent has obviously been getting in shape for his full tour. The old skinny fishnet-clad frontman has now been replaced by a fuckin ripped body that has no problem powering out a incredible performance.

I'm actually hoping there are couple LA shows when he comes around for another leg of the tour. I'll travel again if i need to, but i'd like to see him again live at a venue closer to home. I just think the 2nd round will probably be at larger arenas. Well Staples would not be a bad spot. Here's hoping that i can get good tickets.

What if this whole crusade's a charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid 
For the blood on which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine.

fuck MTV and W