Saturday, December 10, 2005

The last of Sledge at St. Cecilia

I am in Slam Diego for a few days. The St. Cecilia building, where I have enjoyed Sledgehammer Theatre for years and years, is being torn down. I came for Sledge's last performances there. As part of the performance, they tore up the stage with jackhammers and sledgehammers.

Tomorrow I go to Disneyland for the first time since high school. Looking forward to that.

Went for a hike and took some video. The 50-year-old hiker.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Ok, now my blog shows the correct number of comments.

Guess it took a day or so to update. But I will leave my previous posting in place to show that I do not believe in hiding my mistakes (even if this was not much of a mistake). Maybe I can find ways to speed that process...

I am writing my endorsements. Propositions are fairly easy. The hard parts are local ballot measures, and local candidates. Time to hit the web.

P.S. Finished deciding on my votes (unless I change my mind), and wrote my first draft. So I will post soon. Found a new local nutcase on the ballot.

A little bug with Blogger.

I nuked another comment off my blog, since it was a comment that had nothing to do with what I said in my blog, and everything to do with trying to get people to look at some site about golf supplies. (Years ago, I kept getting spammed by a guy trying to sell me golf balls in bulk. A change from the usual porn or get-rich-quick spam, but still spam.)

My Sept. 14 post shows that it has one comment. But if you click on it, you'll see that I nuked the comment. As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who was not there. He was not there again today. I wish, I wish, he'd stay away!

How did my blog come to this? First, I deleted the comment, without clicking the "Remove comment forever?" checkbox. Then the post still said I had a comment. Then I went back and clicked that checkbox; comment count still 1. First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is.

I will be paying more attention to who is posting this blog spam in my blog. (I should look up the proper term for blog spam. And I need to set a time limit for when people can post comments.) I expect I will get some real comments when I post my picks for the election.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Nuked first comment, cooler lap, election endorsements soon

Just removed the first comment from my blog because it had a "hey, lookit my porn/gambling/piece-of-garbage link in it. This happened to my old blog also (deleted it from there also). Hey, you jerks trying to climb higher in Google searches. Stay off of my lawn!

I bought a new toy: a Laptop Desk and MouzPad. Bought it online from Staples (along with a USB 2.0 cable to get free shipping). Takes the heat off my lap. Now if I just line it with tinfoil, it will also ensure I can still have babies. (I receive no money from this post. Hmph, I can't give it away forever.)
link to the laptop desk

I wil post my endorsements for the 2005 election soon. Stay tuned: same Dave-Aye blog, same Dave-Aye channel! (Boy, does that ever date me.)

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Random TV notes

I absolutely cannot believe that Ashley Simpson was on Saturday Night Live last night. I TiVoed it; it also had the star/creator of Napoleon Dynamite as the host. And Ashley? Maybe SNL's logic was that I might want to watch a train wreck. Saw most of Ashley's first set; a whiny song about her previous SNL appearance. And what's with the blonde hair (unless that's the original color, and if so, make up yer ditsy mind!)? Ashley, jump back in the oven, you ain't done yet. (The host was funny. He stumbled slightly on a line once, but he recovered immediately. He knew what "live" meant; Ashley doesn't.)

Richard Roeper gave a thumbs down to the new Wallace and Gromit flick. On rottentomatoes.com, 95% of movie critics give it a thumbs up. Cousin Ben never liked this guy. I am beginning to understand why. Siskel and Ebert knew/know that good critics don't hold themselves above the audience.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Dave Aye at the San Diego Film Festival

Brian and I have been going to the San Diego Film Festival this weekend. Best film so far: the short film "West Bank Story," a spoof of West Side Story showing a conflict between a Jewish fast food joint and an Arab one. Lots of dancing, lots of singing, lots of laughs. http://www.westbankstory.com/

Worst one, in my opinion: one with a rape scene where the guy knocks the girl down, gets on top of her, holds her hands down, does it to her, and says he loves her. Yeah, right. I have seen that type of scene a thousand times before, and it gets suckier every time. If you are gonna do a rape scene, bring something new to the table. (I am not bothering to find a URL for this one.)

Same thing if you have long silences in your film. Few directors could do that. Hitchcock was one (and he always was building to something with them). Can you think of any other such director right now? I can't. In this film fest, the best films were from directors who knew that you have only so much time in your film, so they delivered as much content as they could in the precious time they had. Unless you are a Hitchcock, silence is lazy. (Think about it: does a script with "Character stares into space for 3 minutes" sound interesting?)

Another wonderful comedy short: Day of the Grackle (http://www.gracklefilm.com/). A live action cartoon. Check it out. Well, check out the trailer.

I am gonna find out what it takes to enter a film short into such a film fest. I love film fests. I love comedy film shorts. I saw lots of good ones. And I am making my own. Check my video page for my Movie Trailer short (and more to come).

Saw a good film at the fest this evening: Trudell, about a Native American political activist/musician/poet/writer. http://www.trudellthemovie.com/ (Watch out; this web site likes to expand and take over your screen space.) Very good, except for the Q&A session. Some guy started talking about "sacred feminine." Since I have had to study The DaVinci Code for the book I am working on, I have read that phrase way too many times. If I see or hear it one more time, I am gonna puke.

My attempt to boogie-board on Thursday was a bust. Waves were too low. But the ocean is still beautiful.

OK, don't feel like writing anything else. So here it goes to posting.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Now my barber's Mac is the master.

It is now Darth Vader to my iBook's Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He had a wimpy G4 Powermac tower; 450 Mhz G4 CPU, 20 gig HD, 350 MB ram, DVD reader. He wanted to be able to burn DVDs.

We decided between upgrading this Mac or buying a new one. The decision: we took it to We Fix Macs, and did a BIG FAT UPGRADE.

Now my barber's Mac is Darth Vader to my iBook's Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He now has a Muscle Mac: 1.5 GHz G4 CPU, 120 gig HD, 850MB, Superdrive. (Well, a muscle mac compared to most other G4s.) And he took his 17 inch flat panel display from his home and plugged it into this one. Oh yeah, he also has OS 10.4 (Tiger) and iLife 05. This Mac is fast, fast, fast. I cannot believe how FAST it starts up. I know I will help him burn a few DVDs; bet it will be FAST about that also.

That beats my iBook: 800Mhz G4 CPU, 60 gig HD, 1.2 Gig MB ram, Superdrive. Good enough for me now, and for a year or more beyond. But not good enough to keep a twinge of envy out of my head when I see my barber's Mac. The master.

Maybe in a year or more, when I have to replace my iBook with a MacIntel laptop, I might want a Powerbook instead of an iBook. Maybe. I have a year or more to decide.

(My first rather autobiographical blog post. Whee.)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Ann Coulter really is a dumb blonde, after all.

And I have never known one. Really, how dumb do you have to be to put a line like this in your column:

"(T)he savages have declared war, and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York -- where the residents would immediately surrender."

What was she trying to say? "I upside-down-heart NY?"

Coulter canned

However, in the Arizona Daily Star, she is being replaced by Tony Snow. To quote from the TV show "I, Claudius," it is still the Lady Messalina (at that paper). Worse, it's the Lady Messalina with brains!

Sunday, August 21, 2005

My new blog.

That's right, I decided to restart my blog. Nothing special to post right now. I just want a blog that is on a BIG FAT commercial type server, where it won't be attacked by little hacking weenies like the other server my Cousin Ben was running. (Sorry, Ben.) So let's see how this one works.