redeemed

yay. i got my shipping refunded!

so the camera retailing for $599 should come out to be...
$599 (free shipping, no tax)
- $100 msn passport rebate check
- $75 gift card for 800.com (not cash, but credit for a future purchase)
= $424.

then i amex pricematch to the lowest price on the net (currently $465) to give me a rebate check for $134. (i wonder how low it will go. it's been dropping like every other day. the camera is only about 3 weeks old too.)

$424 - $134 = $290. woo hoo! (i hope all goes well.) you can still get the same deal too, if you have amex blue and hurry up and order while it's still in stock with the current promotions. (i actually also got in on an ended electronics sale at 800.com, saving me $30, but it doesn't matter in the end with the amex pricematch.)

i think i'd still be happy even if i didn't get the pricematch. now i just hope that the camera's in perfect condition. i can use the 800.com giftcard towards an extra battery and a case.

my s30 club buds and i are indebted to techbargains.

the s30 club

yay. i finally was able to order the canon s30 from 800.com with the passport deal. dl just received his today. mc, rl, and gl also have standing orders. jw and ml are gonna be ordering theirs soon, i think. man, we better all have names on our cameras! i bet i'll get the most use out of them all.

once i get a digital camera, i plan to take at least one picture a day for the rest of my life. (a few years ago, i remember seeing on tv that that's what one of the founders of excite.com started doing with his new aps elph. take one picture a day for the rest of his life.) i wonder if i wanna post pix with my pic in it tho on my blog. jennycu does it. i could possibly just take pix without me in it...but then i would probably then be taking pix without any people in it. i dunno.

man, o man....now ds is gonna probably order the camera! there's also free shipping on 800.com too! i dunno wassup with that. i didn't get free shipping on my bill. i'm gonna call and complain tomorrow.

shallow hal

after my class last nite, i came home checked the listings and found out that shallow hal starts in 20 minutes at kabuki. so i called up jc and i immediately took off to go to his house then go to the movie. pretty bluestreak of me, huh? (impulsive). i felt like i needed to laugh and relax a little after my last typography class.

along the way, we decided to catch the 10:50 show at meteron instead. bigger screen. it was 3 or 4 times as big as kabuki's would have been (since the movie plays now on one of their small screens). there were only about 12 people in the theater. pretty empty. what else do you expect for the last showing on a monday nite?

the movie was good. i had heard mixed reviews from some people. i thought that it had a positive message about inner beauty, which they pretty much say outright a few times, esp when tony robbins speaks. not too complex of a plot, tho.

every man is a master player. some just more often than others.

i was right nowchecking out the shallow hal site, and found a banner link to a related hype site... masterplayers.com. some parts are funny. the site features marucio, jason alexander's character. some highlights...

how to be a great listener
tell me more.
you're so right.
is that true?
that is true!
wow.
you can say that again!
i feel that way sometimes too.
that's a good idea.
i really understand you.
you really understand me.
i feel a connection here.
it's just not fair.
me too.
uh, huh.

age calculator
this is the funniest thing. you enter a girl's age, it tells you what year she graduated high school, how old you should be, when you were born, what you should talk about. (this reminds me of what i had read before in a magazine. the age equation: 1/2 * guys age + 9. this is how low a guy should date. a guy should date up at most 5 years. it's pretty funny, but it really works out.)

If I was an Autobot, I'd be:


Take the Transformers personality test at android5.com!

this is pretty interesting. bluestreak was my very first transformer ever. i think i received it as a birthday present (right when the first generation transformers came out). it held a special place in my heart. unfortunately, my sister broke it about two years later, while attempting to transform it, she snapped off the part of bluestreak with the windows and the roof (which became his back). it was a very very sad day for me. i discovered it with some messy, glue at the breaking point.

movie fun

caught up on a lot of movie-watching this past week...

from hell

i just got back a bit while ago from watching from hell. it's the jack the ripper story, featuring the abasinthe-addicted inspector (johnny depp), hunting down the famous, historic serial killer. i enjoyed this movie. i've been wanting to see it for a while. (i originally knew about it, b/c it's based on a graphic novel by alan moore.) pretty suspenseful. a tad bloody. interesting plot. it was playing in theater #14 at amc 1000, a small theater, but still good. the movie was sold out (probably b/c of the limited seats.)

shrek

i watched shrek again on dvd. i had rented it from blockbuster, but this dvd is good enough definitely to buy. in addition to the really great movie, there's a karaoke featurette with all of the characters singing snippets of famous songs together in a montage of verses. watching the storyboards of deleted scenes was awesome. (especially since i'm moving more into storyboarding.) i watched the whole movie again with the director's commentary track. really informative and interesting about the behind the scenes process. very cool indeed. i think the only dvd i've watched this way before is crouching tiger. i think i'm going to start doing this on all of my movies. it's a great thing to learn more about filmmaking and narrative storytelling. and it also serves as something good to have in the background while i do computer work, forcing me to look away from the screen periodically.

planet of the apes

i think that this is a good dvd to watch. pretty cool effects. the ending is a little funny, and i think one detail would have made it a little better for me. i rented this from blckbuster too. after we listened to the commentary just for the last scene, we saw it thanksgiving day. i can sorta understand tim burton's motivation for ending it this way.

best in show

a really great, funny movie. best in show is a mockumentary about dog-show dog owneres. really funny stories about the people owners and their different nerosis. go watch it! really, really. (is that line from shrek or this movie, i forgot.) so funny. a lot of deleted scenes on this dvd.

I am 42% ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET.



I could go either way. Deep into the madness of nights filled with blogging, chatting, and e-mail, or else I could become a normal user. Good luck!

Take the INTERNET-ADDICT Test at Fuali.com!

turkeyless thanksgiving

today is the first thanksgiving ever for me with no turkey. how sad. instead my family went to a chinese restaurant. (hk flower lounge in milbrae.)

in spite of that damper on the holiday, i am thankful for everything that god has given me. blessings, health, family, friends, and hope.

turkey run

i went this morning to help save some other people from a turkeyless thanksgiving. i vollunteered with lumps at the early morning salvation army turkey run. lc, lan and i were given the task of distributing 92 hot meals to select addresses on hyde street in the tenderloin. it wasn't too bad. most of the people got 2 meals each, and about 60% of those meals were in one apartment building. we went from floor to floor. we woke some people up. some rooms smelled like beer and gave off other smells.

it was great to give meals to people who seem like they wouldn't have had any thanksgiving meal otherwise. some people in the big apartment (or project) complex demanded the meals (when they weren't on our list). it also turned out that everyone in that building was going to meal anyways, since they were gonna have food catered in. one guy we delivered to was in a wheel chair and had no legs. some folks like him probably rarely leave their room.

i think it was good for me to serve people outside of my normal comfort zone. also get more in touch with the realities of different people out there.

hawaiian drive-in

yesterday i had lunch with dl at hawaiian drive-in in daly city. i had first heard about it from wahine. we both had bento boxes: mahi mahi, teriyaki steak, bbq chicken, ham, macaroni salad, and rice. all for under $6. what a deal. a little greasy tho, but good stuff.

scoping the s30

we went down to circuit city yesterday to check out the canon s30 in person. very nice. it prompted us to get it only last nite. only my order didn't go thru! i'm still waiting for the 800.com guy to call me back! i think it's been 90 min now. i should get on with my day.

i just tried to order the digital camera last nite using the passport and 800.com deal...but during final check-out, i kept getting looped between sign-ins of both sites! for over an hour! over a slow dial-up connection! arrgh. now i'm at dl's plaec to try to place the order on his high-speed conection, only to find the same thing. i talked to the customer service rep, and he's supposed to call me back again at dl's home number. so i'm stuck here waiting. ah wel...i might as well blog and catch up for the past 5 days or so...

opening windows of opportunity

that was my prayer request that i shared with my sg on thursday. new opportunities and contacts to open up for job stuff. well, the very next day (friday) i had a lunch appointment downtown with an old design teacher friend, cj. on the muni ride down, i again reflected and prayed about trusting god to provide windows of opportunity (contacts, job offers, etc). i didn't really have anything specific in mind.

right before i got a call from the film director i've been starting to do some non-paying work with. it turns out that his other agency project was progressing and they needed some storyboards! (window #1) i talked to the creative director at the agency (who happened to go to art center) and he offered to keep me busy the whole day and to work out a day rate for me. that was pretty cool. i went in on monday, worked all day from 9-6:30 putting together three sets of tight storyboards for 3 commerical pitches which my director bud developed. i also drew a couple of other key frames for two other pitched ideas. i think i drew close to 50 frames that whole day. i enjoyed it, but i think the smelly sharpie markers were starting to get to me.

while i was at the agency, i bumped into dp. she's used to work at my old agency a year ago and later turned out to become a family friend. well, she's now the head of hr at this agency. (window #2). she was thrilled to see me and was proud that it looked like i was on my way towards my creative career goals. she offered to help me out in any way that she could, with contacts, forwarding my resume on, etc. very cool. hopefully i could get some more storyboard work thru her somehow...i'll probably be going in to see her today. i didn't get a chance to really work out my final pay rate from the other day and will hopefully do so today.

flash forward the next day to tuesday nite. my branded environments class had moved up a nite due to thanksgiving. i got to talking with jr, who asked if i was currently for hire. he had breakfast the other day with a friend who is a principal at a branding/environmental design agency, which does a lot of showcase and display space work in vegas. jr had told him about my hungry hungry hippos project, and thought that he'd be interested in the types of creative ideas which i've been bringing to it. (window #3) how cool is that? he gave me his friend's card, and i'll give the guy a ring as soon as i get home today.

later on in that nite, another guy, nc, asked me how my vector illustrator work was. (it's pretty good.) turns out he just got a contract job and needs an illustrator. it sounds right up my alley. it's with an interactive agency, where i know of one creative director there. he used to work with me at zp. i hadn't kept in touch the cd after he left, but he had seen some of my work, just as i was starting to head more down towards the creative path. well, nc is working with the creative director! nc told me to forward him some samples of my work to forward on to him. if all goes well, i'll be helping them out on the project. (window #4) awesome, huh? i hope this contact will also be a renewed contact with the cd for even more future work.

i totally praise god for all of these new opportunities opening up around me. one might say that it's coincidence or that it was bound to happen eventually cuz of my talent, but i credit god's hand in it, especially because of the particular timing not just once, but four times. this is definitely an encouragement to me to continue to trust god in providing for me and answering prayers.

locus pocus anniversary

friday nite i hung out with ek to go to the annivesary party of locus, an asian american arts center in j-town. heard some musical perfomances. got a little free food. he participated in a wasabi eating contest, eating wasabi peas coated with more wasabi. the locus space is pretty cool. i think it'd be perfect to use for a cafe nite.

midnight rock hunters

i needed some rocks for my sf essence design project the next day. so after locus, ek and i drove to the base of mt davidson and started searching for rocks in the dark, damp drizzle of night. we didn't find too much there in the dirt, so we drove over to twin peaks where i found a whole bunch of good rocks in the ground. i pryed them out of the ground with my shoes. i was looking for rocks about 1/2 the size of my fist. it was a little surprising to see so many people up at twin peaks, esp when it was so foggy and drizzley that there's absolutely no view at all. the young people there were probably drinking or doing drugs or something like that.

the bashful bull breakfast

sat am i woke up early cuz i had an 8:30am breakfast with as and some old thailand trip alumni. it was great catching up with as while he was in town. he got rs and i confused again. it almost never fails. every single time i see him, he gets our names confused.

design raw workshop

i had to leave a little early from breakfast to head to washington sq park at north beach. i had the second all-day session of the design workshop with design RAW. i luckily found all day street parking about 4 blocks away from the park, where it was zoned differently. thank god! i was afraid i'd have to pay a lot to park there. after wandering around the park a bit, wondering where everyone was and if i was in the right place, i found them in front of st peter and paul. it was a smaller group than last time. we presented our finished comfort/discomfort foods and then got into our sf essence projects.

for my product project, i melted a myriad of crayons overr and around a single rock from twin peaks. (i used jc's hand torch, which was pretty awesome.) to me, it communicates the richness and diversity of ethnic cultures and artistic influences and expressions in san francisco. the melted wax bleeds and fuses together, as culture here in the city does. the rock is symbolic of the geography here. sorta like an island, surrounded by the water of the bay and the ocean. also bumpy and cracked up. also, the product has a function as a unique drawing tool, a multi-faceted crayon. it looked pretty nice and it was a lot of fun making.

the workshop was great. marcus bought us lunch at cafe greco. we talked about design and culture. i don't hang out with european people too much, so it was refreshing. we learned more about creating stories around products. how important that and meaning is to design. we went to ideo at the end of the day to continue working and brainstorming on the presentation of our products together.in a cohesive installation or distribution device. we're calling the conceptual installation machine "synergy." all of our products had something to do with wax, heat, and energy. we decided to meet again in two weeks, to really try to bring this conceptual project to completion, so that it will live on their website. (this is so cool!) we're pretty much getting an extra third session out of the two session class...and we'll have great products, portfolio pieces, and a great story to tell people.

leonid shower spotting

after a potluck, i drove to castro valley to spot some meteors. although the sky wasn't entirely pitch black due to some ambient light from oakland, it was a lot of fun to see so many meteors. reminds me again of our place in the universal creation. i finally got home around 3:30 am or so. i was so pooped.

pier 39 christmas

after morning church service, i hung out with j to get lunch at in-n-out and check out some of the pier 39 tree lighting ceremonies. we didn't see the lighting, but saw a nutcarcker marionette play for kids. that was fun. i don't think i ever knew the full nutcracker story before, altho j says the ending of this one was a little different. there was one chinese puppet named "mr.wong" who had buck teeth folded his hands and bowed when saying hello! wth!?! that's an old stereotypical and inaccurate depiction of chinese. the bowing thing is japanese and not chinese. (disney's mulan also perpetuated the bowing cultural error, too.)

early chinese thanksgiving dinner

i had an early dinner with my family at empress garden on 9th and judah. i wasn't too thrilled eating there.

the chris 26 eating meeting

i had a second dinner a couple of hours later. i had set up a birthday dinner for my bud chris at the elephant bar. we had for quite a while, but when we finally got seated all-together, i think everyone had a pretty good time. some people asked me exactly why i sent out an open evite to our group e-mail list which was blinded (so that you can't see responses or know who's coming). i did it b/c i wanted to have the event open to whoever in lumps who wanted to celebrate for chris. people would decide to come, not really on other people, but based on if they wanna celebrate for chris. i know how super large parties could be unmanageable, and my intent wasn't to create a huge social party (altho it did turn out to be 21 people). i wanted to create something for chris that wasn't exclusive or cliquish, but was open yet based on people's relationships to him.

busy weekend huh? well...it kept on going...after getting home at around 11, i struggled for a few hours to do my assignment for my typography class monday nite. i finally gave up b/c i had to go to sleep to get ready for my big day of storyboarding the next day. b/c i stayed a little late at he agency, i had to take the bus to class, and got there late. (good thing i didn't ditch. there were only two other people there.) i bummed a ride off someone in the class i didn't really know, but they were pretty cool. i think it would have takend me like 60-90 minutes to get home otherwise. it was really interesting talking to her and her husband about design and life on the way home.

finally getting home, i crashed out on the couch. i only averaged out 4-5 hours of sleep for each of the past few nites. i was so tired, it was good to be home.

cool photo site

no time yet for a weekend update. i'm working on my monday nite class homework. here's a cool photo site that i learned about last week in class. looks like a lot of good amateur photography. the great thing is that you can download large sized images for a lot of these pix.

buzzing around town

i'll be super busy this weekend. coming up will be a post catching up on lunch with cj, locus pocus, rock hunting at midnight, a bashful bull breakfast, more design RAW, more hanging out, some 2am leonid shower spotting (hopefully), the chris 26 eating meeting, and on monday...some agency storyboard work! (the work pays! woo hoo!)

i had to wake up super early today, to try to cram in all of my prep for my different stuff. i can very well imagine sleeping 4-5 hours each night for the next three days.

Art Center College of Design film links

wow...a lot of cool links about film here. just stumbled upon it while i was checking my past art center at night grades. there are a bunch of cool ones about storyboarding. also on directors, studios, and visual effects.

the tardy, creative student

that's me. i came late to my night class today. they clapped for me when i came in. :X i was late last week too. not good. i promised that i'll be the first one for the next few times. there's a big importance on punctuality in this class. i got ribbed for it a few times today too. but i know it was in good nature.. the good thing is that the design director teachers really like all of the creativity i showed in my sketches. (this week's project was to do design graphic language for the walls and lighting fixtures. all for the "roshambo" club/restaurant.)

i also went a little beyond the scope of my assignment by concepting and creating what a mr. rock, mr. paper, and mr. scissors would look like. i designed these characters as a mental exercise to really get the feel for the difference in these roles for the roshambo game (aka rock, paper, scissors.) i also tried to stick to the laws of the game, and to design with consequential combinations in mind. i really ought to post these sketches in an online portfolio. soon...soon...

one teacher, jt, said that he was trying to find out where all of my creativity came from. maybe it was from a lot of video games. (i attributed it to comics.) got some really cool compliments...which sorta made all the hassle which made me late for class totally worth it. later on they asked me if i was planning to apply to art center (something i mentioned at the beginning of the class). tonight's experience is another nudge from a new source to push me to go to pasadena. i know i'll get in, i know i'm the quality stuff. but do i wanna go down? do i wanna be in the hole for a design education? am i certain about which creative arena i want to pursue? the teachers asked if i was going to go into environmental design. (the conceptual and interactive narrative aspects do appeal to me.) i dunno.

i'm having lunch on friday with cj, one of my old art center at night teachers, an interactive creative director. i'll see how that experience enlightens me. i guess tomorrow will be better spent here prepping my portfolio and doing more work, as opposed to being in a car for 7 hours. maybe another day soon.

the almost road trip

almost went on a road trip tomorrow to glass beach. it was just now that my cartrip bud realized he had to be back in the city in the afternoon. it woulda made for 1-2 hours of destination time, and about 7 hours of car time. i thin k i'd still do it if i didn't have to go alone. phooey... now i gotta find other materials for my sf essence project.

evite addiction

i check my evite account way too much. i can't stop monitoring my evites. i've been checking almost as many times as i check my e-mail during the day.

glass beach

after a bit of poking around on the web, i finally found the glass beach....holy smokes! it's supposedly 4 hours away. i just checked the map. hmmm...maybe i'll do it. i bet it can be done in three.

about glass beach..."Glass Beach is one of the most unique beaches in the world, not because nature created it that way, but because time and the pounding surf have corrected one of man's mistakes...Years of pounding wave action have deposited tons of polished glass onto the beach. You'll still see the occasional reminder of it earlier life, such as a rusted spark plug, but for the most part what you'll see is millions of pieces of glass sparkling in the sun."

the essence of san francisco

i have the final follow-up part of the design RAW workshop this sat. we have a new product assignment, too. we need to create something that is the essence of san francisco. kind of a tough one, huh? what materials do you think encapsulates san francisco?

just started to think about it yesterday. to me, san francisco is a metropolitan melting pot of cultures. the only place that can really rival it's cultural diverisity and richness is new york. (so i've heard...i've never been to ny.)... sf is home to a vibrant artistic community and has been the start for several cultural revolutions and trends...a lot of natural beauty. baghdad by the bay...it has a unique geographical set-up. it's the california gateway...ground zero for the 1849 gold rush and the recent tech-gold rush. (hmm...fool's gold?)...it's the rock. sorta like alcatraz, like an island, and at times a shaky, quakey rock with some cracks in it.

so how can i sum all of that up in a cohesive concept? and with cheap materials?

my initial thoughts are to create a artistic/cultural melting pot, surrounding a rock. perhaps take crayon fragments and melt them down around rock, along with some glass fragments. i can probably collect rocks and smooth glass pieces along the beach. (i saw a place on evening magazine, where you can find lots of smooth glass on the beach.) i think i could get a bunch of those crayola 8 color crayon packs for under $20. maybe i can splurge and get 16 or 24 colors. i could possibly melt it all down in a bowl, or in part of a bottle of glass or plastic. if it's a plastic bottle, then after i melt the wax together around the rock and glass, then i could probably break and tear off the bottle. i think i'd like my final product to be pretty aesthetically pleasing - colorful and somehow translucent or light-refractive.

i think i may need to buy a lighter. i think i need to be able to assemble all of this in the park this saturday. or else maybe i can do it in the microwave.

this is just my initial idea. got something else to inspire me?

la tomatina

i'm now working on a class assignment, to design a travel/world culture magazine, which i'm calling "roam." i need images for some content...so i'm picking la tomatina, the annual food fight festival in spain. i'd like to do that one of these days. i think it falls around my bday in late august. that'd be a really memorable experience. it's a week long food fight. i don't know of anything else like it on earth.

closet monsters

finally saw monsters, inc this am. this was the first time ever that i saw a theater movie sunday am. usually i'd be in church, but i went with a bunch of people who later went to the scbc late late service. enjoyed the movie a lot. i liked the short in front with the mean pigeons. humor wasn't as sophisticated as shrek or other films, but this was a solid film. pretty funny. again, there was one time that i laughed out loud, when not a single person in the theater laughed. (maybe cuz it was a sunday am croud.) i wish i remembered the scene so that i could justify it. i thought it was pretty funny.

we saw the movie on dlp at amc 1000. some of my friends were equally hyped to see the star wars trailer. i didn't think it was all that tho. pretty short. wasn't all that.

in conversation anticipating the trailer, i recalled back to viewing the star wars re-releases a few years ago. i had heard of a die-hard star wars fan tradition to read out loud the opening scrolling title sequence. i did it with a couple of other friends. that was pretty fun. you read aloud for everyone around you to hear ("a long long time ago..."). i think i may do that for the rest of my life for all star wars flicks. past and present. my friends who don't participate in the cool tradition usually get pretty embarassed. the weenies.

design RAW

sat i had an all day art center at night design workshop, led by design RAW. they're a design collective in san francisco, made up of 8 guys, mostly european. they're a bunch of product designers who work at some of the top product design firms like lunar, where the class was held. learned a lot about the "thearaputic" design that they do, which are usually installations with a strong social narrative or dialogue. they would ask and comment on questions like, what motivates design and if design is science or art?

for our assignment, we had to build a "comfort food" (or discomfort food) product. we had to build a story around an idea about what's comforting or discomforting in a product that we design from things we could find in a supermarket. thinking about comfort and discomfort foods...some of my initial ideas were baby food, cheese and crackers (a popular childhood food), wasabi, and durian. so to create a surprising discomfort food, i put durian inside a baby food container. i also put some of the spikes on the outside too (as a last minute attempt to try to tie in the exterior to the concept). i dunno how strong it is as a concept. durian has a unique position of being an absolute favorite food for some asian people and a horrible food that smells like garbage to many unaccustomed people. my idea was to target those who would find it unpleasurable, so to package it to appear comforting (or at least invoke positive, safe associations), and then surprise people by the smell once they open it. i need to tweak the concept by next sat and redress. we'll see how it goes.

perspectives party/rally

after the class, i went to a party/rally hosted by fw to promote the upcoming san francisco perspectives class. i got caught in the rain looking for the right address. no umbrella or jacket...just my thin wool sweater. got drenced. the party was cool. about half of the people went to my church. met a few new people. i brought the durian i had bought from chinatown to the party. some people liked it. some people didn't dare touch it.

housewarming

stopped by d's housewarming party afterwards. it was pretty chill. i didn't really eat much, since i was stuffed from the party before. gave the clapper as my gift. they at first thought it was a chia pet when looking inside the bag.

s30 comparison gallery

at the top of my want list

it just came out this week. 3.2 megapixels. most of the functionality of the g2, but in a smaller compact body. all the reviews i've seen have been excellent...

steves digicams
imaging resource
digital camera resource page

i think it lists for $599...but someone got it for $399 with some discounts on the dell site. he pricematched $499 and then got another 20% discount! i discovered all of this about just a few hours too late. dang it. if anyone finds a reputable deal like that (probably only on the dell site), lemme know asap! (at least i now know what price i should be looking for.)

watch out for dirty ny internet resellers. only use em to price match. learn about their tactics. i also learned tonite that you should make sure that you're getting the us model, not the import japanese one.

here's one rip-off place that has it for $495.

avenue 9

went on a friday nite date to avenue 9. i tried out this inner sunset place with my mom for dinner. she's been there before, but it was new for me. the food was really good. i had the nimon flatiron steak with buttermilk onion rings and smashed potatoes. she had some vegetables and spaghetti squash. we also shared a starter of garlic fries with bleu cheese (which was extremely potent). we were pretty happy with the meal and would go back.

the interior was kinda cool. i liked the orange lights and the orange painted walls. i'm getting more observant about that stuff, esp since i'm gonna use orange in my HHH restaurant.

this weekend's packed. will have lots to blog about.

clapper hunter

been calling around to walgreen's and rite aids looking for a clapper. on my 4th attempt, i finally found some at a nearby walgreen's. it's a housewarming present for some buds.

i once got one for christmas from a friend. i thought it was a pretty dumb thing at first, but after trying it out, it was pretty cool. i have it hooked up now in my living room.

blinders

my eyes have been really dry recently. lots of computer use doesn't help at all. my optometrist says that i don't blink all the way. instead i do a flutter blink that closes only 3/4 of the way. when i sleep, i think my eyes are often open a crack. when i take naps or wake up in the morning, i can always feel it in my eyes. just last sat i was talking with some folks about the danger of that and how my corneas could dry out.

to help with the situation, i just started wearing a blinder mask to go to sleep. not to keep out the light (like my old roommate did...which i thought was kinda funny), but to try to keep my eyes shut. i think the alternative to that would be to tape them shut. that'd be pretty bad. my eyelashes could get pulled out by tape.

i woke up today with my eyes not as dry, but my vision was funky in my left eye. it worried me for a couple of hours, but then i went to walgreens and got some eyedrops, and things became much better. i had a really tough time to decide which brand eyedrops to get. i noticed that they also have special eye drops for nite time use. maybe i'll give those a shot if the blinders don't work. man, i hope i'm not reliant on eye drops and a blinder mask the rest of my life.

hmm...better do some drops now just in case.

off the net

wow. since early wed am, i stayed offline for probably 36 hours. last time i did that i was camping or flying to another city. i was crunching on getting storyboards together for my HHH restaurant project. that's all i've been doing the last few days pretty much...drawing them, then painting them in photoshop. since i have them all as digital files, i can probably post them. hmm...maybe. perhaps this can be the start of an online portfolio.

got him!

woo hoo! the last burger king kid's meal i'll eat in a *very* long time. tonite's dinner was the hamburger meal right before class, held at borders.

this grandpa figurine is dressed like a vampire. they have most of the figures at the powell st bk. i've noticed that their meals are slightly more expensive tho. grandpa makes #8 for me. i don't care about the rest.

brisbane: city of the stars

during lunch i took a drive to a food plaza a few blocks away, grabbed a super-mexican wrap at this world deli place. (at a real mexican restaurant, i think it'd be called a burrito.) it wasn't too bad tho. afterwards i drove down the road to downtown brisbane. it's three blocks long. it's so not what i'm used to. can't believe a place like this exists this close to sf. san mateo, daly city, south sf, and burlingame are much bigger than this place. it's like what i imagine the simpson town or south park town would be like. one bar. one school. one coffee place. one post office. i think a couple of japanese, chinese, and pizza places.really small town feel, yet around the bend are these technology and media companies (whirch are struggling of course).

this place must be called city of the stars, since there aren't too many big city lights, it's easy to check out the astonomy above.

like a snowball melting

learned more about the net company that i'm doing the temp thing at. the size of the office here is about 90 or so...25% of it's peak a year ago. the whole bottom floor isn't used. at times, i need to go down to open the mailroom door. since they didn't give me a card key to go the normal route, i've been squeezing through a 10" opening between a cube and a wall. good thing i'm slim. i've had to slink past this route about a half dozen times now. (even if i had a card key, i would go this way since it's more direct...so it's ok.)

i feel like a ghost around here. no one knows who i am really. if i had left, no one would miss know, except the reception desk would be empty. the guy who was my contact left already around 2.

they do a lot of creative content reviewing here and also have some designers. much like an ad agency, the cubes and workspaces of those people are a world different than the other depts. toys all around. video game systems (some which probably havn't been released yet). all sorts of cool swag too. seeing all of that...and also having to go thru the mail of the whole place and gettting a sense who gets what really reminds me again of some of my motivation for choosing a creative career, an enjoyable worklife.

surfer

been checking out blogs a generation or two linked from my friends. interesting stuff. i need to update this template and customize it. worked on a gregwong logo also last week. i've also been considering making my own business cards. especially if i may be freelancing doing some creative stuff.

speaking of that, i just called up il, the director of the spec hip hop shoe commercial. growing chance of the project getting pushed back a bit. the real agency projects are still a go still...and things still look good for work for me that way. (altho i havn't shown him any samples yet. still waiting for a script.) the storyboarding book he lent me is awesome. really informative and helpful.

at the net company here, i get a lot of calls asking for people who aren'ton the directory. i wonder if there were layoffs recently. probably.

reception temp

got an early call this am, and now here i am doing a day stint at reception for an internet company in brisbane. i never sat on this side of the desk before. should be pretty easy. this really isn't my thing, but i figured that it'd be easy and let me do my classwork during all of the idle times. pretty much just sitting here at the desk, waiting for calls and transfering them.

one good thing about the place is that the interior space is cool and funky. good inspiration for designing HHH.

so far, one guy took the initiative to introduce himself to the temp. most probably don't care who i am.

fonging!

i was pushing the wire and saw a knight's tale this morning. right before church, b/c the dvds were due back at blockbuster at noon. it was a really good movie. pretty solid storyline and character development. i saw pretty clear examples of plot devices and characterization that i read in my screenwriting book. like all good movies, it ended in the best possible way...no other ending for the characters that could be better. a bit funny. action was good. i liked the old-time quirky made-up slang. didn't care too much for the modern day songs transposed to the time period.

b/c i was rushing to beat the blockbuster deadline, i didn't get a chance to look at the extras on this dvd or the wedding planner. shucks.

infiltrating the ucsf library

after struggling to work at home and taking a nap on the living room floor, i got off my butt and went to the ucsf library to do some work. you don't have to be a student there to be there. it's open to the public. only thing is if you wanna use the computers (for programs and printing) you gotta be a student. it's a pretty nice library. four floors. it reminded me so much of the uc berkeley main stacks. havn't been there for a few years. the cubes are the same. i suddenly remembered what it's like to roam around looking for a good seat. you sorta cruise around, half-enter a room, do the scan, then turn around and go to the next room. also, getting bored and restless and roaming around to see if i knew anyone.

i finally settled in a cube and broke out my markers, look and feel boards for HHH, and sketchbooks. i actually got a lot of work done in the 3 or so hours i was there. it's amazingly quiet there. i guess the ucsf people don't really mess around. one bad thing is that the general public can't really check web e-mail. (or maybe that's a good thing.) you can surf the net on tons of available terminals. there are also lan network jacks for laptops. i wonder if i can access the lan as a non-student. hmmm...

afterwards i went over to crepevine, got a safari cooler (a pretty good deal for $1.50, free refill even) and chicken vegie soup. was thinking about staying there for a few hours, but i ended up just coming home.

a lot of different noteworthy stuff today

un-japanese japanese food in japan town

went with my pop to meet my mum in j-town for lunch. she picked benihana. she and her side of the family always goes to benihana. not for the show, but for the food. why so...it baffles my mind. i would rather go to a real japanese place. especially if i'm going all the way to j-town. i surveyed the place, and i don't think there was a single japanese person in the whole place...staff or customers. i personally wanted to go to one of the other places in j-town. but benihana wasn't too bad. we got the boat lunch special...some tempura, sushi, and teriyaki chicken for just $8. not too bad. comes quickly too.

arch - amusing tools/serious toys

i found the coolest store today. i was on my way to circadia in portereo, when on a spontaneous impulse, i decided to try to find this art store called arch. (99 missouri/17th) i had heard about it thru ccac and it was mentioned this past week in my art center class. since i was in the hood, i tracked down the place and went it. spent at least 30 min browsing around at all of the cool art stuff. they also have a really great novelty gift section. i'd definitely go there if i have to get a last minute bday gift. not as tidy as the art store, but i lot of great stuff. some i havn't seen elsewhere. most prices are supposedly under list. another really cool thing is that students get 25% off of supplies. (up to 3x a semester, so that they won't go broke.) all i ended up getting was a few black pens. (a black gel uniball pen, a black disposable fountain pen, and a black sketch marker). i have two more discounts to use before 12/20, so i'll stock up next time.

good-bye circadia

finally made my way to circadia, but when i got there i noticed a familiar green and white sign on the outside. it read "starbucks." i went inside and a lot of it was the same, except the signage and downsized-menu was now like all of the the corporate baristos across america. the staff wore that loud green apron too. even stuff on the counter and the registers glared the name. now if you didn't know, starbucks had always owned circadia, but it had it's own local feel of a bar/cafe restaurant. i talked to a cashier girl and she said that it was a corporate decision to switch as of 9/17. gone is all of the hot food. gone (for now) are the weekly live musical acts. how very sad. gone is the funky, cool background music, and in its stead is the starbucks music heard at all of the other franchises. very sad. they still have the nice chairs and tables (probably nicer), but it's taken a huge step backwards with its unoriginal corporate identity. i'm not going to go there that often anymore.

i did manage to get some work done there. i got a grande coffee frape and started to learn about the storyboarding and doing film visualization. pretty cool.

time out: an evening with the dave brubeck quartet

tonite i went to hear the dave brubeck quartet at the masonic auditorium. it was such an awesome experience. went with gl and some lumps. brubeck is one of the all-time greats. i think pretty much everyone knows his famous piece, "take five." (once you hear it, you'll recognize it.) i got a crash course in brubeck this week when i borrowed gl's cd. so glad that i did.

i ran into a lot of random people at the show. my uncle f and auntie p. ro from my old work. l from church. this was a big concert and i think the place was definitely packed.

brubeck and the quartet are pretty old. brubeck shared about his wife of 59 years...so i figure he's between 78-85 or so. they look like they're all grandpas, but boy could they jam. i could pick up a lot of similarities to narrative and design listening to the music. a whole lot of balance and alteration of emphases. how in the musical scores, there's somewhat of a tease before the climax. there are repeated motifs and riffs. also, good performance showmanship.

i'm pretty happy that i stayed awake the entier concert. (i think that frappe earlier helped.) listening to the music, my mind wandered a little. going to a jazz concert is a really unique experience for me. there's nothing to really look at but the musicians, and the lighting around them. mind kinda gets into the groove of the music. mind wanders a bit too. i think it's a good change of pace for me mentally to let my neurons explore some new pathways.

i thought some about my HHH project. i noticed how the structure of the auditorium is very very similar to the infrastructure for my HHH space. it was great being there to help spatially visualize my project more. we sat in some of the worst seats in the "extra rear view section." all the way to the far left corner. you can't get any further from the group. but oh well, it was great and hearing is what really mattered.

listening to the brubeck rendition of "somewhere over the rainbow" made me wanna go see the wizard of oz. at times, the music was cool and relaxing (putting a few of my friends to sleep). at times, really upbeat, happy, and exciting.

great experience. definitely worth the $20 for 2 1/2 hours of music. i kinda wanna go get a brubeck cd now and emerse myself in more jazz.

partying at wall street

went to a combo bday party for a few people last nite at wall street, a restaurant/bar/club on geary next to the coronet. it's a cool space. with all the spatial thinking and planning i've been doing in my branded environments class, it was interesting to see how the spaces were separated, the bar area, the seating area, and the dance floor. there were probably 200 people. i knew or sorta recognized maybe 40-50% of them. i just pretty much hung out. didn't dance too much.

afterwards i went to mel's with a few guys. had the cornbeef hash breakfast, it was ok. smaller than some of the other breakfast places that i've been to.

the hokey one

there are some movies that are so good that it's worth going to see opening weekend, waiting in line an hour or more to see during primetime on the best screen. the one sure isn't one of those movies...

(how funny...just as i was blogging this...i get into the following im conversation...)

LSC: hey greg
GW: sup
LSC: i saw The One last nite . it sux
GW: yep
GW: i saw it this morning
GW: it sucked
LSC: u saw it?
GW: at least i saw bargain matinee
LSC: wow nobody likes it!
LSC: yea!
GW: i'm glad i didn't try to see it tonite at the imax screen
LSC: big disappointment
GW: paying more and waiting longer
LSC: exactly

i never had high hopes for this movie. it felt hokey the very first minute into the movie. (not a very good sign.) they pretty much straight out explained the entire premise for the movie. they could have done it in the story somehow, i feel...or delayed the explanation a little bit. sci fi effects were ok, but some of the props and set decoration didn't do that much for me. some of it felt like it was overly trying too hard to be futuristic (like the computer display panels with the funky type fonts.) plot wasn't very sophisticated.

jet li's english has improved and the action is really great. i really liked the scene when he fights cops.

i think this movie was still somewhat enjoyable to watch. definitely a bargain matinee movie. or maybe if it's convenient for you to watch. i wouldn't pay extra to see it on the metreon imax screen. but i wouldnt recommend anyone going to a whole lot of trouble to see the movie opening weekend. (that's what i go thru sometimes...going with a big group, going early for good seats, best theater with stadium seating, tix in advance, etc.)

more burger king

i ordered my regular now, a big kids meal with 6 pc chicken tenders. did it to get the krusty the clown figure. i went with the guys right before the movie, then realized that my figure was missing the gravestone piece! so i had to wait til after the movie to go back to the bk and ask for a replacement. i think it was worth it. the guys thought it was funny. i'm only getting bk one more time if i can get the grampa simpson figure. after that...no more bk for a month!

the wedding planner

how i'm spending my early friday evening...just watched the wedding planner at home on dvd by myself. i used a blockbuster coupon a few days ago and got this movie and a knight's tale. this was a good movie. the plot a little more satisfying than the one, but in a different way i guess. but j-lo as an italian-american? wth? it was nice to see all of the scenic sf locales in the movie. definitely a big plus for the movie. i think i've seen most of the recent sf movies now. for some reason, i think that those movies tend to be chick-flicks. oh well. i enjoy them if they're good movies with a good plot.

gonna be going out soon. i think i'll have to see the deleted scenes a bit later.

DID YOU KNOW?

When you buy Coke at McDonalds you may notice it tastes different from the Coke you buy at the store. This is because it is different! When McDonalds makes their Coke, they do not put in as much syrup as Coke would like them too. I think this is to save money or something.
The Coca-Cola company tried to sue them but, McDonalds said that they would switch to Pepsi products if they did.
So Coca-Cola can't do anything about it.

random fact of the day from ezshopper.com

storyboarding

this morning at fruitful grounds, i met up with il, the director i'm gonna be helping out. breakfast was on him, which was cool, especially since i'll be doing the storyboards without pay. the spot that i'm helping him to do is completely on spec for the purposes of building his reel (to get a job). it sounds pretty good, and should be interesting. i'll also get to learn more about directing and editing.

he does have some a big budgeted project coming up which is pretty exciting. it's to direct a couple of spots for a water company. he really got in on the back door, contacting the company directly with some ideas and his spec reel. they liked it so much, that they're going ahead with it. even the slogan he pitched them. that's really unheard of in the ad world! he's now acting as a freelance creative with their contracted ad agency and will shoot the projects. hopefully, they can use a storyboard guy, or he can provide an introduction.

the guy's young, about my age, and he's shot a lot of stuff connected to the rock music world and a few documentaries. he did his first budgeted documentary when he was only 19. pretty cool. he has a bunch of connections too, of people trying to break in and people who are in with agents already. he's also traveled to europe a whole lot.

i know i can do storyboards, but still don't fully understand all of the film terminology. i'm borrowing his book, film directing shot by shot: visualizing from concept to screen, to help me get going.

anyhoo, should be a cool project. at bare minimum, i'll learn more about storyboarding film, learn more about the film and music industry, and come away with a strong portfolio piece.

arrgh. been trying to mess with my page code in dreamweaver. something as simple as swapping out the pic of my hk clones for a close-up on one of them. ah well...maybe tomorrow. i think i'll make the move off blogspot soon.

studying around town

after hitting the skylight cafe and the grove today to do some work, i went to the marina library and kept plugging away at my HHH layouts for class. yep, i had class on halloween nite. no halloween fun for me.

class

some of the stuff i've learned tonite in my art center at night class...
- dramatic spaces used in branding experiences
- setting up spaces as theatrical stages (the raised bar at mecca, a great example)
- framing perspective of an experience
- storyboard and idea presentation: play around with ideas, thematic interpretation of process
- fleshing out visuals: be messy, get an impression, don't be overly concerned with craft
- lenny refenstal - filmed the nazi propaganda films. music videos for hitler. they were all cathedral, no religion. eye candy. visceral. biological level.
- how architecture facilitates what you're trying to express

see? i'm not just wasting my time taking classes. i think i may start blogging new concepts that i learn. it'll help me to process it and make it part of my own vocabulary.

i'm pretty happy that the teacher (ci) gave us foam core, saving us some money. i'm gonna start building foam models to scale. i'm happy that i finally have a good, dramatic layout. i now have to storyboard the entire restaurant experience in full color, and try to build a scale model by next week. (jy let me borrow his prototyping book, which should be a tad handy.) looks like i'll be pretty busy. good thing i don't have too many parties to go to this weekend. :P

tired of bk

i got a chicken tenders big kids meal and a hamburger kids meal for dinner and to get two more simpson's spooky light-ups. i now have homer and groundskeeper willy, bringing my grand total to 6. i really want grandpa and maybe also krusty. i wonder if bk will still have them tomorrow, even though halloween has now past.