En Vogue
I just left the Mysticl clothing fashion show where En Vogue performed in a setting so intimate that it felt like it was our only personal concert. These women have amazing voices. Their sound filled the auditorium and was so finely tuned, I had to look closely at their faces to make sure they weren't lip syncing. I can't remember the last time I heard a sound so perfect; far better than CD quality. It wasn't just their sound that made them such great entertainers. They did an excellent job of interacting with the audience, even going as far as to pull audience members up asking the volunteers to romance them. I'd obviously heard of en vogue before but was surprised to learn that they were the originators of songs I'd known for years. They were a wonderful start to my evening.
justin.tv
He's live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It doesn't matter if he's going to the bathroom or on a date. He's Justin and he's been doing it for 11 days so far. As I watch him this moment, he's sitting among friends drinking wine in a park in San Francisco. Watch him online.
For highlights, visit Justin TV Guide
Another hilarious video from the Jib Jab group.
Rumble cancelled
Gah! They canceled the bout!
Just two days prior to the bout, Dry Ice, the primary event venue for the B.A.D. Girls, has been deemed unsafe for events by Oakland's Fire Marshall.
I am a banana
The cartoons by Don Hertzfeldt are just crazy. Below I've included one of his more popular short animated films, Rejected.
In the spring of 1999, the Family Learning Channel commissioned animator Don Hertzfeld to produce promotional segments for their network.
The cartoons were completed in five weeks. The Family Channel rejected all of them upon review, and they were never aired...
Meanwhile, the Johnson & Mills Corporation approached Don to produce a series of advertisements for their assorted home products. Upon Don's submittal of the finished commercials, they too were rejected outright.
Don's clear and steady downhill state continued. Soon he was completing commercial segments entirely with his left hand.
Perhaps it was the animators creative stagnation in the commercial world, or a deeper loss of individuality therein...
Without meaningful input and lacking any remaining reason or coherent narrative structure, the rejected cartoons grew unstable. They began to fall apart.
Mystik clothing
I scored a pair of tickets to the launch of Mystik Clothing. I love this sort of thing. I hope to post pictures soon.
Lookin real good
LookingRealGood.com gets people to post a picture of themselves looking their best. I admit I got sucked in by the picture of the OLPC (dood, providing laptops for third world countries, at a cost of around $99 that's awesome). Anyway it seems like an interesting idea and you can say you saw the site when there were only 11 photos. Seriously though, google that OLPC thing!
Extra Action Spring Trilogy
The Extra Action Marching Band is playing at 12 Galaxies Friday March 30, 2007 at 8 PM. Learn more about the band from my 
Yay, 
This is a cool video of a bird doing his little jig.
Chabot Student Art Exhibit
The 3rd Annual Chabot Student Art Exhibit is tomorrow Thursday, March 29, from 6-9 PM at the Chabot College Art Gallery. You can get more info from their postcard.
An Inconvenient Truth
I finally had a chance to watch
An Inconvenient Truth. What a wake up call that was. The movie seems to convey Al's mood. You can see his exhaustion from having shared the idea with so many people only to have politicians try to defend the other side. Wait a minute, I thought Al WAS a politician? I've seen the future and it's filled with a lot of last minute scrambling to fix something that might be irrevocably lost.
Europe pics
Kate's has the most creative collection of photos. If you see only one set, make it hers.
Shannon's posted her pictures from Europe. She has two sets, set 1 and set 2.
Sophia posted her pictures from Europe.
Valerie has her pictures from Europe online, too.
Yen has her pictures from Europe online.
Brendan has his pictures from Europe online.
Michael and Trinahas posted their pictures from Europe online.
The bay area Top 10 scenes
Personally, I would have taken the scene just before the one presented here from Pulp Fiction but it's an interesting list of the top 10 movie scenes.
This is a Nose cups
PerpetualKid.com sells all kinds of cool, offbeat products, like cups that have noses painted on them. What a cool idea for my next tasting party! If you like that, check out the The Ex or their bellybutton stickers.
Awesome unedited fight sequence
In this action sequence the guy goes through what looks like an entire building kicking butt the whole way. Notice that there are no splices in the film. It appears to have been recorded all in one take. It's from the movie "The Protector featuring Tony Jaa.
A man and his realdolls
Guys and Dolls is a great interview with Gordon Griggs. Director Nick Holt did an excellent job with the the angles and the fact that the interviewer never appears in the video. Even his voice is only there only briefly, I'm not sure why he squeezed that in. It wasn't really critical information. I think they did a very good job of exploring the interviewee perspective.
As for the Real Doll, I think I'll wait for the animatronics version.
UPDATE: The whole documentary is now available.
UPDATE: MoviesFoundOnline seems to have a better quality version.
Hilary 1984 ad
I love the addition of the ipod. That really tripped me out when I saw it. I had to check the to make sure I wasn't crazy and that Steve wasn't some kind of a prophet.
Which Superhero are you?
My results:
You are Spider-Man
|
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Day 14 : A farewell to friends
We said farewell to friends this morning and headed out on our long 10+ hour flight home. It's going to be really strange not having everyone around.
Day 13 : Paris, France
Today was packed with beautiful things. We started off early in the morning towards the Arc de Triumphe. We fallowed it down the Champs-Élysées to the Louvre where we spent a good portion of the morning. I would have spent the whole day with the French Renaissance paintings if I could have but there were things to do and places to see! We set off for the opera house that hosts the chandelier thought to have inspired that of the phantom of the opera; they were closed. We headed over to Notre Dame and took the metro to meet up with our group to have dinner at the moulin rouge. That show is so spectacular that I can't even put it into words.
Day 12 : Paris, France
Did you know that the Eiffel tower has blinky lights? It appears that they fire them up every hour on the hour. There's a search light on the top and the girders have lights just like you'd see on a Christmas tree.
Day 11 : Lucerne, Switzerland
Our group spent the night in jail. Lucerne is a tiny little place. There isn't much to say about it. We looked all over for fondue and only found it at one place. The currency here goes a little farther than the Euro so many of the group ended up buying swiss watches and army knives.
Day 10 : Florence, Italy
Today found us in Florence. We went to see the sarcophagi of several well known figures including Galileo and Michaelangelo. One of the locals gave us a tour of the city. The town is small and filled with tourists. This city is more like Venice in that it doesn't have as much authenticity as Rome but it's certainly prettier. We didn't see the real David, which I regret, but we saw a couple replicas. From what I hear, the real one is even more extraordinary than the reproductions.
Day 9 : Rome, Italy
The group arranged for a guide to show us around Rome. Afterwards we went to the Vatican. I think I've seen the most beautiful and the most horrific sites so far on this trip. The Vatican museum is packed full of art. The picture I've included is of a ceiling packed with paintings. The works are absolutely beautiful. I cant help but think of Pope Pius the
ninth and how he ran around the museum with his hammer and chisel and chopped off all the cocks on the statues. It seems like his name should be synonymous with messing up so bad that generations will cringe when they hear what you've done. "Oh man, you really pulled a PP9 on that one". Sigh. Outside the Vatican there was a woman without a skull. In the place of bone you could see a jelly substance and beneath that her brain.
Day 8 : Rome, Italy
Rome is raw. It has all the nitty-gritty of the old world. While it may not be pretty to people who plan on doing some shopping, it has a wealth of history for even the most casual observer. The excavations they've done near the coliseum expose thousands of years of architecture. From some vantage points you can see the evolution of the architecture all in one glance.
Day 7 : Venice, Italy
We're in Venice today. One of the local shops gave us a demonstration of their glass blowing. They had some amazing pieces. I imagine when you see those piece on Antique Roadshow, that this is where people pick them up.
We took a ride on a gondola and went through the obligatory bottle of Viennese champagne.
It was a big day for shopping. It's a great place to find replica bags apparently. The Italians around us seemed so well dressed. As I looked around at some of the Americans (the ones not on the tour with us) I couldn't help but feel a little saddened by how well dressed the Italians were compared to us. Not only did they wear suits but the suits were obviously tailored. This is a town that cares about how it looks.
Day 6 : Hopfgarten, Austria
We passed through Day 5 : St Goar, Germany
We arrived at St Goar last night, went to a local winery and samples some local wine including "ice wine". This place is home to the largest hanging cuckoo clock. They love coo coo clocks here. There's a huge one in the town square but rumor has it that the show is a dud.
Hotel Montag, where we're staying, is like a rat maze. It was fun just trying to figure out where our room was. Today we explored "downtown" and went to a famous brewery where they served us beers in these huge glasses. Tomorrow is going to be...difficult. I'm starting to realize though that the people I'm with are going to be as memorable as the places I'm going to see. I just can't believe how much beer they're able to keep down.
Day 4 : Amsterdam, Netherlands
This is obviously going to be a very fast paced vacation. We only had a few hours here before we had to take off. We went to the Van Gogh museum and saw some amazing pieces. There was this one piece where Van Gogh painted his shirt collar and you could see that he did it in one brush stroke. After the museum we went to the flower market.
Day 3 : Amsterdam, Netherlands
This is our first night with the Contiki group. Amsterdam is full of canals. There are probably as many canals as there are streets. We went on a tour of some of these canals at night. This is a picture of a ferris wheel at Dam Square. We closed off the night with a local cultural show.
Day 2 : London, England
Today we explored some more of London. The rain didn't start until after Piccadilly Circus which was, really, our last stop for the day anyway.
Day 1 : London, England
Having met our coach driver little Ben, we set out in search of Big Ben. We passed Covent Gardens and some other cool attractions. It was wet and cold.
Here are a couple of cool sites to track flights.
Europe
For the latest photos and videos from Europe, check out my
Photobucket page.
UPDATE: I'm back from the trip, sorry I haven't put any photos on photobucket yet. I'll get on it as soon as I recover from this nasty cold :(
The history of AT&T
This is a nice summary of the history of AT&T. Thank goodness for America's anti-trust efforts.
Bugatti Veyron at top speed
James May from Top Gear tries to max the fastest production car in the world.