greg3d

kind of like old times

I was going to take Scott up to Sea-Tac so he could catch the link to go stay with friends, so I thought I would look up what movies were playing in the vicinity. I found two rare old movies playing at the Grand Illusion up in Seattle: Lord Love A Duck and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. Duck was just weird, a 1960's black comedy and Dr. Goldfoot was totally silly. Arthur and I used to do this kind of thing all the time. It was fun, but not quite the same without him. Still, I would like to get back into the Seattle film circuit.

SIFF

SIFF - The Seattle International Film Festval. We hadn't been to it for years. For a while there it was almost impossible to get into some of the films because of their ticketing system. It did not favor occasional film goers that didn't have festival passes. Fortunately, that's changed, and we easily got into the two movies we wanted to see.

The first film we saw this afternoon was Derek, a documentary about the late filmmaker Derek Jarman. It was his story, mainly in his own words, and they used heavily an interview he made shorly before his death. It had some great clips from many of his films. I liked it.

The second film was Otto- or Up With Dead People by Bruce LaBruce. The director was there in person to talk about his film, which he described as a melancholy zombie move about a gay teenaged zombie. Best Bruce LaBruce film so far, in my opinion, even if it was a bit derivative of his others. I loved it.

We had a nice luunch at a lovely Greek restaurant on Capitol Hill before the first movie, and a slightly surreal dinner of hamburgers at Dick's, with teenagers in their prom clothes. I didn't know teens went for hamburgers after prom in Seattle. I would have expected most of them to be up in the Space Needle.

Fun day, in any case. We hadn't done anything artsy in Seattle in a long time.

sometimes you find you just don't belong anymore

An old friend invited me to a party yesterday. He and I go back 30 years to the days when I first started busting out of my introverted bookish nice boy image. We have kept in touch and I usually drop in to see him when I'm in town.

It started off fairly well. They were staying in Tampa for the gathering so I met him and his partner at their motel early to catch up on things. The drinks were already going when I got there, so how the evening was going to go was fairly evident. Another old friend from the old days was there, who used to go by the nickname Fish. I don't recall how the nickname came about, but it stuck. She's now a widow, having married someone older then herself. She used to be extremely heavy and it was nice to see she had lost a considerable amount of weight and now was looking quite good. She was much more mature and subdued and we had a really good time catching up on our lives.

My friend was already starting to slur a bit when we left for the restaurant. There were nine of us including my friends two kids who I hadn't seen since they were infants. They've grown up into two very attractive and pleasant people. The son, I noticed, takes after his mother and didn't smoke or drink. We went to the Bonefish Grill which had excellent food and a pleasant staff and an atmosphere amenable to conversation. I was seated across from a young lady who just recently became a police officer. The topic of discussion turned to domestic violence which gave me the opportunity to bring up Al-Anon and do some outreach to a professional.

From here on I was out of my element. We moved on across the street to a bar where I nursed a glass of ginger ale amid clouds of cigarette smoke and the pounding of music videos and watched everyone get progressively drunker. When my friend could hardly stand up anymore and Fish got shrill, I decided to take my leave and go somewhere I could breathe.

I've been in Al-Anon too long to deal with drunks anymore. I do not understand the attraction of a bar as a place of social gathering. I don't drink, I don't cruise, I don't smoke, and I like to have a real conversation. I can visit my friend at his home, where we can converse to a point, but the liquor is always flowing and there comes a time where things just stop making any sense. It's interesting; I'm back at a place I was 30 years ago. It's scary the things I had to go through to get back there.

Today I did things that felt right. I slept late for one thing. I watched a movie with my parents, one of those pleasant '60's romantic comedies that are just charming and fun. I went for a walk with my mother (without the dog, so we could actually set a bit of a pace), I took a long nap and went out for a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel. This is good stuff.

There was good stuff before the party. I did my workout at the local Y and went to an excellent Al-Anon meeting. You would think that would make me run the other way immediately when I first saw the liquor bottles in the motel room, but I guess I'm not ready to graduate from the program yet.

Arthur is rather down back at home. He does not do well by himself, and was rather grouchy on the phone. I wish he would figure out how to have fun when I'm not around, which has been rather frequent of late. But, that's not my problem.

I'll wind down with a bit more of my latest book, "Just a Geek", by Wil Wheaton. I discovered his website www.wilwheaton.net a while ago and find it very entertaining. He has become quite a good writer. His book are derived out of his weblog, with more depth and background, but his blogs are very immediate and honest. I highly recommend it.

Enough for tonight. One more full day. Not quite ready to go home, but I miss my Alateens.

you don't need to leave your house to have fun

I never left the house today. (Taking out the garbage doesn't count.)

My goal was to watch at least three movies, but that didn't happen. I did make it through the second half of LOTR Two Towers Extended version, which was terrific. There is so much detail that was left out of the theatrical versions. It's like a new movie.

I got a chance to talk to my sister, which was a treat. She was over at my parents house when I called, so we had a chance to chat for a bit. We both keep pretty busy, so catching up with each other isn't always easy. Usually we communicate by email. She told me she might bring her family out to San Francisco next year, which would be an easy place for me to meet them. I also know it pretty well, so I can act as tour guide for a weekend.

For a change, I did some fancy cookin' for dinner. I used to do this fairly often, but I wasn't all that occupied with volunteer work then. But since I set that all aside for the weekend, we got some shrimp and I made prawn etoufee, from a recipe by the late Earl Peyroux. I must say it turned out well. I found a recipe online, that is close enough to Earl's as not to matter.

I'm not getting to my camera club meeting these days, but I do still get the newsletter. If anyone is interested in stereophotography the newsletter is here.

It was a nice change for Arthur and I to hang out together. He's usually game, but I'm terrible about over booking myself. Causes tension sometimes. I'll be busy this week, but Friday we fly to SF for the weekend to catch some opera.

Anyway, I guess I'll kill the rest of the night with some LOTR DVD extra features.

later all!

Toys, toys and more toys

I'm in Portland at the National Stereoscopic Association's annual convention.

Today was a veritable orgy of 1980's 3D movies. We started with Friday 13th 3D, which I'd never seen. The scene where Jason squeezes the victims head and his eyeball pops out of the screen has to be one of the highlights of 3D cinema. Next was Spacehunter - Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, campy and over the top. After lunch was a musical from India called the Little Magician. It was cute with some fun 3D effects.This is actually a new film, released just two years ago. We finished up with Sea Dream, which was made for the now defunct Marineland of Florida, which is where I originally saw it.

Already gadget lust is starting to set in. It's not enough that yesterday I joined the rest of the world and bought a cell phone. I have a digital video projector sitting here in my room. I'm working on my laptop and I have three cameras with me. I'm in a hotel full of technofreaks worse than me. One workshop presenter strolled by with twinned high definition video cameras. I helped another presenter into the hotel with for containers of stuff and a drill press. The digital projector is just one of a pair used for slick 3D presentations. All the latest and bestest in 3D photography is here and I want it all.

movie clip

Download waiting_for_arthur.wmv

I've created my first movie clip It's called Waiting for Arthur.

pizza night with friend

Ron came over tonight to watch Pirates of the Caribbean on the big screen. He is busy remodeling his basement and I'll bet my little home theater has got him thinking.

I'm off for three days! Arthur is working, so it's time to myself. Just so i don't overdo the housework, I made a lunch date with a friend I haven't seen in a while.

Life is interesting these days. I am fully engaged and looking forward to all the things that are in the works. These things will be revealed as they happen and not before. Mostly because they might possibly not.

I'm reveling in friends. There has not been a day lately where I am not spending time with or at least talking to someone I like.

I'm rambling. Bed time and much to do tomorrow.

pizza night

It was an impromptu pizza night. I didn't feel like cooking. So we ordered pizza and watched Army of Darkness. After the day I had at work I needed some mayhem. Lot's of action, violence and very very funny.

Off for three days. Yay!

Bugs!

Bugs!

We treated ourselves to a night out. First a little shopping trip to IKEA, a romantic dinner at Burger King (can't have everything) and on up to Seattle to Bugs 3D at the Boeing IMAX Theater. I have seen lots of closeup 3D slides of insects, but never 3D movies of stereo macro work. It's not easy to do. Considering the difficulty, the results were amazing. See it if you get a chance.

It was a welcome diversion after a rather intense day. We were required to take a class on Diversity in the Workforce. Most of it was fascinating. Unfortunately there was a video as part of the course that relied a great deal on shame to get it's point across. It made some valid points but the more I think about it the less well it sits. I might not have had so much of a problem with it if the instructor had not seemed to me to be a very angry person. This was not a neutral teacher but someone with very strong feelings. I guess teh problem is that it's message didn't jive with the objectives of the class. Also unfortunately, an angry outburst from a co-worker put a decidedly uncomfortable spin at the end. I do believe some fur will fly as a result.

Glad I ended the day on a pleasant note.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone.

New Year's Eve was quiet for us. We didn't even stay up till midnight since Arthur had to get up at 5AM to go to work. We spent the evening listening to Die Fledermaus on the radio and I fell asleep somewhere in Act 3. There didn't seem much point in staying up alone so we just called it a night.

This morning I drove up to Seattle to catch the 11AM showing of the Return of the King at the Cinerama, which I believe had the biggest screen and the best sound system in the area. I ordered my ticket online and got there an hour early and got in line with all the other people who had ordered their tickets online and arrived 2 hours early. Still I managed to find a seat dead center... but in the fifth row. On a screen that big, it's an experience. The film didn't disappoint over all. Most of the deviations from the book made cinematic sense, and I realize if everything had been put in I would still be in the theater. Still, couldn't they have just had a bit more of Christopher Lee? Viggo Mortenson was a terrific Ranger, but he didn't quite come off as a King. These are minor quibbles. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I felt sorry for the people waiting in line for the second showing. It had started raining and I came out to a long line of umbrellas.

About halfway home the rain started turning to snow. By the time I got home it was getting thick and the roads were getting slick. My back yard looked like this.

It's still snowing at 9PM. I made our traditional New Year' dinner of oven fried chicken with gravy, black-eyed peas and collard greens. (Cuban Christmas dinner for me, southern New Year dinner for Arthur).

We are pleasantly stuffed and I think I'll go bug him to watch a movie with me. No, LOTR ROTK just wasn't enough.