MOVING DIRECTORIES

Yes, I moved the weblog from [http://weblog.janella.com] to the main site [janella.com]  And the layout has also changed.  The photo header above rotates photos Farrah and I have taken.  Photos included in the header right now are:

A new photo may not load if you’re browser caches the photo, but know that it does work.  I’m not sure how many I’ll put up for the header, but a new image should load here or there.  If you really want to force an image to load, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, then press the Reload button on your web browser.  Your  web browser will do a ‘hard reload’,  asking for new information from the server.

I’ve given up on the whole [geeklog.net] layout.  Just wasn’t happy with the way it was looking and how entries are made into the blog.  I am going forward with using [Gallery] as the photo engine, the same one used on [nothingcouldbefina] .  What I like about Gallery is the way it displays images.  What I like about 4images is the information it can store information in a database.  So right now: style over handling of information.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas to all!!!

NOW IN BETA

[project.janella.com] has now been changed to [beta.janella.com] What exactly does that mean?

Well, I started going back toward a CMS (Content Management System) solution for this website. See the website is basically made of two components: a weblog (or blog) and a photo gallery. Currently if you access [weblog.janella.com] what you see is Wordpress, a great blog program. When you access [photos.janella.com] you see 4images, a photo gallery program. Both are created by different groups of developers and function great. I just don’t have the time to make them look similar, so navigating between the two can be difficult.

I’ve tried a CMS solution before but it was slow. I think the new one I’m trying, called Geeklog, is decent in speed and works fairly well. For the time being I’ll be posting any new pictures in both the [photos.janella.com] section as well as the [beta.janella.com] If all goes well the site will switch from the beta site to the primary site.

SEARCHING FOR...

Bobby Fisher? Mr. Goodbar? Videos with Bjork in it?

There’s a new beta search engine by Yahoo! that allows you to search for video clips. Go to [video.search.yahoo.com] to try it out. You can play with the preferences so you’re searches aren’t restricted.

Also available in beta by Yahoo! is [My Yahoo! Search] This one is a little more personal. Sign in with your Yahoo! name and start searching. You can save results, share results, search within saved pages you searched on, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Remember, both of these are in beta so it’s still growing. Changes are afoot in search-land.

CHRISTMAS IN EGYPT

A Christmastime. Farrah, my mom and I went to see Kayla’s play a Christmas in Egypt. Kayla played the part of Delta, an Egyptian with a southern accent. She was one of three southern belle types. The other two were named Cleopatty and … oh, the name escapes me now. In any event, Kayla’s performance was fantastic.

Afterward we went to the Traber’s residence for birthday cake to celebrate Farrah’s upcoming birthday.

ASIANS AND VOTING

Farrah told me about [this ad] with Asian actors stating the importance of voting. I never saw it on television, but I did vote nonetheless. If you missed the ad, watch it for gee whiz.

YOU TOO CAN HAVE A GREEN THUMB

Disposable cell phones that turn into sunflowers??? With the inventors being from Amsterdam I thought the plant/flower type would be different. Interesting idea nonetheless. [Read the story at CNN.com]

SHORT WEEKEND...FOR ME!

Oh its been a short weekend for me. I had to work yesterday because a co-worker needed to take one of their floating holidays before the end of the year. He has one more to take this year so looks like I’ll be working another Saturday soon.

Last night Farrah and I also went to my company’s year end party (called YEP) in San Francisco. It was held at 7th and Brannen in the City as it has been for the last several years. It was pretty cool: food, drinks, fake gambling, and great music. The main music was provided by [Ozomotli who rocked the house! Too bad they came on later in the evening when our feet were already killing us because of walking!!!

Anyway, there are so many things to write about, especially some things from Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll need to find some time to write about more later. Right now I should get to bed. Work tomorrow, y' know.

SHOPPING LIST FOR TOMORROW

(as dictated by tessie)

• *regular baking potatoes (5 lbs)
• *gravy (e.g. turkey - can or jar)
• *beef gravy (no mad cow in it)
• *stuffy (e.g. stuffing)
• *corn, green giant (either frozen canned; nibblits)
• *green bean, green giants (can; kitchen cut - no french cut)
• *two cans cream of chicken, campbells
• *dried french onion
• *block of velveta cheese
• *roll, e.g. dinner rolls - heat and serve or pilsbury (freezer)
• *cranberries - canned
• *apple and pumpkin
• *vanilla ice cream
• *chocolate whip cream

ANOTHER HAWAII ALBUM POSTED

The last of the Hawaii trip photos are posted.  The photos are located under Trips | Hawaii 2004 Part II for both the [photos] and [project] pages.  Again, there is no difference in the amount of photos displayed on either page.  The photos are just displayed in two different methods.

For this album (Hawaii 2004 Part II) most of the photos were taken with a digital camera.  I have yet to upload the raw photos to a linked [Shutterfly] page, but will do so when I get the chance.  You can then order pictures and/or see what wasn’t posted on the web site.  Any questions?  Let me know.

TIANA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY

New albums posted are:

• Tiana's Birthday 2004 - Tiana's first birthday party celebrated at Ko'olau. Currently only the photos taken with the Nikon cameras are posted. Digital images to follow - when I get a chance.
• Grandma's Birthday 2004 - Grandma's 86th birthday celebration at Auntie's home. Again, only the film images are posted right now.

From the description provided within the album, you can click on a link that will take you to a like album on [Shutterfly], an online photo service. You can access the raw photo album for the specific album you accessed. What is the raw photo album? It is all the pictures I took in the album on Janella.com, plus photos that I did not post. Also some of the photos on Janella.com have been edited (e.g. cropped, resized, etc.) so as to make them more presentable. The photos located on [Shutterly] are the full photo size, sometimes taking up to 3 MB of space. This can take some time to load if presented on a web site, but might be ideal if you want to order photos. If you have any question on this let me know.

SPIDERS, BLAH!

Farrah and I found this huge spider on our wall after coming home from Toys R Us:

We tried to corral the spider but, unfortunately, ended up killing it.  We are still trying to determine what kind of spider it is.  Anyone know?

BACK FROM HAWAII

Yeah, we’re back from Hawaii!!! I’m working on getting the pictures posted. Right now I’m a little tired but managed to get the pictures from Grandma’s 86th birthday posted. It’s available through [http://photos.janella.com/] as well as [http://project.janella.com/]

What is the latter site you ask? Just trying to determine if I want to use the [Gallery] engine to post photos or not. I’m still thinking about it, so not all albums are available on the project subdomain. If you don’t have a username/password to the site, just write to me at my email address.

FIREFOX 1.0 NOW AVAILABLE

The final release version of Firefox is now available at [mozilla.org]. The site is really busy since it is the first day of release, so you may want to try later on in the week.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

We’re getting ready for our trip to Hawaii (yes again). One of the things we wanted to do before going was to get a new phone plan. Our current plan is geared toward local use. If we travel outside of the state we are charge for making calls. I know I didn’t want to stay with our current carrier, AT & T, so we should look elsewhere for a national plan. Since Farrah’s phone contract was up we decided to try Verizon. Verizon has received good ratings nationally and [locally too].

When we walked into the Verizon store we were able to get a new phone within 45 minutes, with the number transferred over and working!!! The salesperson said the secret was in bringing the billing statement as it had all the information needed to easily “port over” the phone number. Well, we’ll let you know how the phone works during the 15 day trial.

MISSING YOU...

Today would have been my father’s 95th birthday. I know if he lived this long it would have been quite a feat. Nonetheless I do miss him still.

NICE HEADLINE

THE FANTASTIC FOUR?

I saw these images below posted on some messageboard regarding the new [Fantastic Four] movie being made.  From the looks of the these images I’m not too impressed.  Then again I wasn’t too impressed with the Thing’s costume or Jessica Alba as Sue Storm.  I’m thinking their going to have to CGI the Thing or he’ll just look like a ‘guy in a costume’.

MORE THOUGHTS ON ELECTION DAY

I’m watching tv right now, seeing how the Presidential race is going. It’s interesting to see the color coded map on the screen, and how divided the country is on who should be PODUS (President of the United States - something I learned from watching [The West Wing]) I’m not sure how the country comes out of being so divided on a leader, especially with a war going on and the economy the way it is. Only time will tell if the Country is going to be moving in the right direction.

GO VOTE!

Yeah, it took me an hour in line to cast my vote, but GO VOTE!

HALLOWEEN DAY & NIGHT

Today we went up to the City to Lotte’s place to (1) celebrate Matthew’s birthday - which was last week, (2) a house-warming for Lotte, and (3) celebrate Halloween.  Now that’s a lot of celebrating!  Photos are posted on the website.  I had to head back early to hand out candy at the house.  Right now I’m typing this weblog entry from the laptop near the front door.  The kid flow is somewhat steady.  I’d say about 40+ kids at this point.  There are still those older kids who don’t dress up and expect candy.  Ugh.

Well, it looks like its dying dying down.  Of course as I wrote that three kids came up to both greet with a “trick or treat” and a “Merry Christmas”.  Nice.  Oh well, closing shop at 8pm no matter what.  Better go man the door.

MY DVD BURNER EXPERIENCE

I get worried about my computer. Actually, the data stored on the computer, such as email and the family digital photos. Computing, as some of you may have experienced, can be frustrating. Errors in Windows seem to happen daily if your system is askew. The Internet is not a safe place as well. Viruses are everywhere, even in images viewed on websites! Also, hard drives can crash - even though only one has crashed on me ever. In an effort to avoid total disaster should my computer go haywire, I decided to back everything up. I was going to back everything up to another internal hard drive - but what if my computer overheated blowing up both hard drives? I needed an external solution. I decided on finally getting a DVD burner.

Why a DVD burner? Well, if I stayed with my trusty old CD burner to back up the information I desired, it would probably take 10-15 discs. If I backed it up to DVD it might only take 2 or 3 disks. This is because CDs hold about 650MB of information. Compare this to 4.3 GB of information a DVD can hold and you see why DVD is the answer for now. Also, the price of DVD media (the blank stuff) is coming down. I think CDs are about .20 to .25 cents per disc while DVDs are about .50 to .80 cents per (at least the stuff I get). Dual-layer DVDs (the ones movies come on) are still a bit pricey, but that doesn’t matter for now.

I did some quick research on [cnet.com], [tom’s hardware guide] and [videohelp.com]. I then chose my burner: the Pioneer DVD A08XL - in black to match my system. I chose this particular burner because (1) it could burn at a high speed, (2) it had a rebate offer, and (3) it was black to match my computer.

Installation of the drive was straightforward. I was able to burn a DVD once I installed the included software. I was also able to burn DVDs using Nero, which I find better than the included software. I like this drive, and burning with DVDs. The only downside I see with this specific drive so far: it seems slower at burning CDs than my old CD burner.

IT'S THE POLITICAL SEASON

Are you registered to vote? Hope so because it’s too late to register for this year’s election - at least in California. For a comedic look (or a comedian’s pov of politics) check out the following:

• [the borowitz report] I heard him on the KGO radio. Pretty funny guy.
• [Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire] steaming video on someone's blog. Enjoyable.

SATURDAY IS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION DAY

Wow, today was a busy day.  I helped celebrate my sister and friend’s birthdays.

First off was Susana’s birthday in Santa Cruz.  My mom and I drove up to Riva’s on the wharf to meet Susana, Kayla and Rex for lunch.  I had my ususal Fisherman’s Platter (calamari, fish, and chips).  There was some slight detour-ing going and leaving the pier as a marching band competition was occurring by the Boardwalk.  Luckily Kayla was able to guide us back to her house for cake.  We even beat Susana and Rex back to the house! (pics posted on the photos page)

Later on that night I was invited to my friend David’s 40th birthday celebration at El Burro’s.  There must have been a lot of people celebrating their 40th birthday there as I almost ended up with the wrong party for dinner!  It was the first time i met most of David’s family (mom, dad, and his sisters).  It was a large celebration that lasted several hours.  Good food, good cake, and good conversation.  Oh, and afterward we went to go catch a showing of [Team America] at Century 21.  My review on that later.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING

"So you wanna breakdance instead?
-- Purported mumbled word by me.

Ok, I know I talk in my sleep. But I can’t imagine any situation where I might mumble the above phrase. Farrah said I did and she’s not one to make this up. I don’t think I can even make this up!

SOARING GAS PRICES

are gas prices going up in your area? according to a [cnn] article regular unleaded is on average $1.99/gallon. wish that were the case here. you can checkout the local gas prices by visiting [sanjosegasprices.com] with the link available on the sidebar also.

REST OF THE HAWAII PHOTOS POSTED

ah, finally got through the rest of the hawaii vacation photos. albums posted are called:

• cruising oahu - hitting chinaman's hat and other points of interest
• luau day - morning began with a hike up [diamond head] then a luau at paradise cove.
• last day on the island - last minute shopping, packing and...saying aloha.

LIKE READING BLOGS?

do you like reading blogs? pop on over to [metblogs] where you can see specific regional/city blogs discussing life in the city and such. there is a blog for [tokyo], [san francisco], [chicago], and other cities. check it out.

ARE YOUR BOOKMARKS SOCIAL?

you’ve heard of [friendster] right? if you haven’t, friendster is considered a social network. we’ll, if you’ve been using the latest version of [firefox] you might consider social bookmarks, at [del.icio.us]

on del.icio.us you can add, share, and find bookmarks. you can categorize your bookmarks, then add them to firefox as an rss feed so they are live bookmarks. the site looks like it is in pre-beta with some features such as alpha sorting not available. but hey why not give it a try or at least a look-see. you can see what bookmarks you have in common with others.

GET LOST

our favorite new television show this season has to be [lost] wednesay @ 8pm on abc.

quick shot: plane crashes on a deserted island.  survivors try to figure out where they are, how to contact someone for help, and who they can trust amongst their group.  it’s a dramatic gilligan’s island!

what we like (so far): the story has many mysterious elements surrounding the island as well as passengers on the plane.  when i say ‘so far’, you just never know if the show’s storyline will tank as it moves forward.  the characters not only ‘purtee’ but have some depth.  the writing is strong (again, so far).  this is a show brought to you by the makers of felicity and alias.

what we didn’t like: that it’s only on once a week.  ugh!

RUSSELL & MARJORIE'S HOME

man, it’s october and i’m still talking about our hawaii trip that took place back in august!?!?!?!  well, my memory on specifics is fading (yeah, it comes with age, huh).  this might be the last time i write about the trip.  most of the pictures are posted.  just a few more from the last days we stayed.  anyway, on with the story….

sandy left oahu on saturday afternoon.  for the rest of that day we relaxed.  we picked up jane, then had a late dim sum lunch with ann, who was working.  we might have went to [ala moana], if not that day i’m sure some other days.  but after lunch we did drive to the north shore from shave ice!  some time later that night we went to circut city - i needed to figure out how to download the photos i had since the ipod wasn’t accepting my camera’s connection.  this is where the photo below was taken:

uncle johnny and auntie linda treated all of us to sunday breakfast at [anna millers] .  in the afternoon we headed to russell and majorie’s house, in mililani for an late lunch/early dinner.

russell tried his best to bbq, taking care of most of the food.  when it came to the beef he delegated that task to sim.

ONTO KAUAI

the following day, after pali lookout, we went to kauai.  our plane left early in the morning.  funny thing going to kauai, and coming back, was being thoroughly searched.  we did the whole nine yards of getting the metal detector ran over our bodies and having our bags searched. heidi’s back had an extra passenger on the outside, which airport security noticed: a cockroach!  we figured one of our names was a trigger for being searched or our group size.  other way it was a hilarious experience.

with jane’s help, we booked four days and three nights, staying in the [kauai sands hotel].  the kauai sands is a nice little hotel, which if i remember reading correctly, is one of the few family owned hotels left.  our rooms (farrah and i in one, yen, heidi and sandy in the other) where above/below each other.

the first day on the island was a little rough for me.  for breakfast (most of the days we were there) we ate a place called [eggberts], which was close to the hotel.  i think the jet lag plus the food was catching up to me because i was getting tired pretty quickly driving.  we made a drive to the poipu area of kauai, where there are more resorts and the ocean is calmer then most of the island.  afterward we ate a [puka dog] with the coconut relish.  they were out of the star fruit relish.  oh well.

for day two on kauai we had nothing special planned, just more sight seeing.  we stopped by the visitor’s center in the hotel and asked about boating tours to the napli coast. we decided to take that trip on thursday (the next day).  next, we  did the eggbert’s deal again in the morning. on the walk back to the room we ran across a gecko:

everyone, including yen, took turns holding the little visitor.  we got in the car and made our way around the eastern part of the island.  the first place we stopped at was the kilauea lighthouse. see all the white dots in the picture below?  those are birds, eh.

we then went to the guava farm about 1/2 a mile away.  boy, can the girls shop! they almost bought one of everything in the store.  guava this, guava that. ugh.  we then made our way up north to the princeville resort. huge, lovely, expensive place.  the last place we hit before heading back was hanalei, where we were able to go to a couple of shops in the local center.

thursday rolled around and the big activity that day was the boat trip up the napali coast.  i was going to go with the girls, but after hearing it was going to be rough out there i backed out, preferring to spend four hours by myself at the local mall.  the boat trip started around 3pm, and planned to end around sunset.  from what they describe the trip going up the coast was rough, as the captain sped up there to spend as much time sight seeing as possible.  the trek back down the coast was at a more leisurely pace.

the last day on kauai was short, with our plane taking off early afternoon.  we made a quick trip to the poipu area to grab our last puka dog (no star fruit relish still). we got to the airport and were promptly search before going to the gate.

ah, back on oahu.  so we waited outside for jane to pick us up from the airport.  as we waited i continued to scratch my peeling back.  heidi had an idea to use her lint brush, wondering how much skin would come off.  well, the results are below:

HELLBOY

rating: ** 1/2 out of 5

quick shot: ron perlman  brings hellboy to life, embodying hellboy both physically and emotionally.

what i liked about the film: the look, the story pace, and the comedic elements.

what i didn’t like:  the ending was slightly disappointing,  when it had every opportunity to be stronger.  perhaps a director’s cut of the dvd - which i think is scheduled later this year - will prove to make a better film than the current version.

GOTTA GET BACK...IN TIME!

every wanted to see how a web site looked, oh say, two years ago? [plug the website address in here] to find out. link courtesy of sa - the slient assassin. (ps. just verified the above lyric/title is correct. can you guess the movie?)

TEMPLATE CHANGES

made a template change to the weblog page as well as the photos@ page. lmk if there are any problems with the template, as some customization had to be done. also lmk what you think of the template. i like it because

• it's dark, which hides the tables the enclose the photos
• it looks cleaner
• the red is a good contrast to a possible all black look

the style change on the weblog page is meant to partially match the dark look on the photos page.

PALI LOOKOUT AND AROUND OAHU

the day after hanauma bay, we went did more driving around oahu, specifically toward pali lookout.  we could have gone the day before, but after six hours in the sun it was difficult to muster any energy.

the drive to pali lookout isn’t that long.  in fact, driving to anywhere on the island doesn’t take too long.  pali lookout overlooks the kloolau mountain range.  it sort of reminds me of twin peaks in city with the wind and view.

after pali lookout we drove further on the highway, stopping for lunch at a local thai restaurant.  we then made our way further around the island, stopping along the coast to see manana island (aka rabbit island) and the blow hole also.  picture are located in the pali lookout album.

WHO'S CADI???

who’s new cadillac is this?

well, let’s ask the car who she belongs to:

yes, farrah’s dad, as of this weekend, is the proud owner of a silver smoke cadillac cts.  sweet huh? it’s a pretty smooth ride. six cylinders, sun/moon roof, leather interior, am/fm/cd/xm satellite radio.  a very nice car to take on a trip.

HANAUMA BAY

well, time to write more about the hawaii trip, since i have some time on my hands.  it’s a hot one here today in sunnyvale.  i’m not sure if it’s hotter than it was at hanauma bay, but it’s pretty close.

on my first full day on oahu we went to hanauma bay.  it was a sunday and the bay was fairly crowded.  some things have chanced at the bay.  it’s five dollars to get in (the same, i think).  before being let loose on the bay you are required to watch a film about the habitat and rules about the reef.  the film is about nine minutes long.

the trek down to the bay wasn’t as long as i remember it when farrah and i went back in ‘97.  you can still snorkel in the bay, but you can’t feed the fishes any longer.  we spent sixhours at the bay.  needless to say most of us paid for it with a nice sunburn, especially me.  my whole backside and most of my frontside was sunburned.  the only one to escape this fate was farrah.  [see hanauma bayphotos]

later that same evening, we had a bbq at auntie’s house.  oysters, korean bbq, and plenty more to be eaten that night.

after the bbq we rested for more site seeing around oahu.

SLOWING GETTING VACATION PICS ONLINE

ugh, getting back from vacation has been rough, especially with work being a drag right now.  i’m slowly getting the vacation pictures up.  log on a take a look when you get a chance.

in order to get it all down, i’ll start writing about our vacation coinciding with each album.  for example, arriving in hawaii:

the trip over

i took off on saturday august 7, 2004 by myself.  farrah had left with yen and heidi on wednesday.  doug took me to the airport (pic above) and i was off.  the flight was straightforward with little turbulence.  i bought the lousy two dollar headphones to watch the movie, then promptly fell asleep after eating dinner and missed most of shrek 2.

the humidity was the first thing to hit me when i stepped off the plane.  i forgot how wet hawaii could be.  luckily i wore shorts on the plane. the first night was spent saying hi to everyone, getting settled, and making plans for the following days of vacation. [see photos in in arriving in hawaii]

WELCOME SETH EMILIO SALVOTTI

congratulations to scott and stefanie on their new baby boy!  seth emilio salvotti was born on august 18, 2004 @ 12:33.  we’ll need to meet seth and skylar soon.

VIDEO SITE

thanks to fina for this link

SPARTAN

rating:  **1/2 of 5

quick shot: val kilmer does his bit for country and mamet.  a good thriller even though the ending is a bit deux machina.

what i liked about the film mamet’s writing.  snappy dialog and interesting plot.

what i didn’t like part of the ending (you’ll know what i mean)

THE NEW BATMOBILE?

[this link] courtesy of sa. here’s hoping th new batman is better than the last two films. check out the trailer also at the [batman begins] website.

GUNS AND POSES

ernie and i went to the shooting range after dinner yesterday. it was ernie’s first time, while i hadn’t been to the range in over three years. we shot a rented 9mm and a .40 smith & wesson. ernie did pretty good being the first time out. i was a little rusty but managed to hit the center of the target a couple of times

NEW HOMES FOR JANELLA SITES

the web hosting of the janella sites has changed. fina’s galleries are now located at

[http://nothingcouldbefina.janella.us/]

and janella.com has moved to a new web hosting provider as well. why the changes?

at work we had test web hosting accounts for an old service we no longer offer. the test account i had the domain name janella.us. unfortunately my account was accidentally canceled. i looked at this as an opportunity to try a new hosting provider. so i signed up for [phpwebhosting.com] and moved the dns over to that service.

for janella.com i decided to go with [hostgator.com] after reading recommendations on a web hosting review site. for a short period of time i tried 1and1.com, but didn’t find the service up to snuff.

all of this means that each site will have enough room to grow as we continue to post photos and other content.

enjoy.

DVDCOMPARE.NET

did you know that dvd movies can be different from country to country? they are not only defined by region (north america is region 1) but specific countries can have cooler versions than others. this is where a region free dvd player comes in handy!

anyway, a cool site to see what is different is dvdcompare.net for example, look at the different versions of kill bill volume 1. cool huh?

WALKING THE LINE

how far can you make this dude walk drunk? use your mouse to control the left-to-right movement.

READING COMIC BOOKS AGAIN

i’ve been reading comic books again.

it has been several years since i picked up comic books on a regular basis. but late last year i was in a mall and stopped by the comic book store. i picked up two hardback compilations:

• [daredevil: yellow]
• [new xmen: volume 1]

both books were excellent in there own way. daredevil was done by the team of loeb and sales. loeb knows how to write a clean story with excellent dialog, while sales can draw in such a minimal but expressive fashion.

by comparison, the morrison written x-men was dark, brooding and sadistic. it was nice to see the x-men go through pain and deliver it back to the enemy at hand. i didn’t feel confused jumping back into the x-men (which was confusing when i left reading the book due to some characters and subplots). morrison did and is continuing to do, an excellent job with the x-men.

after these two books, i’ve been picking up issues here and there. i enjoyed loeb and jim lee’s run on batman, and lee’s current run on superman (more later on this). i’m also enjoying the batman/superman book by loeb and turner.

i’m taking a different approach to my comic book reading now also. i’m more into the hardbound collection as opposed to collecting individual issues. i don’t know, i can’t stand the ‘bagging and boarding’ of comic books any longer. i guess i’m not a collector any longer. i just enjoy good comic art and a good comic story.

ADDING BACK PHOTOS

i’ve been quietly adding back photos to the page. by quitely i mean i forgot to update this page! anwya, here is what’s been done so far:

• most of the birthday photos have been added back
• a couple of sjsu albums have been restored as well
• two out of five wedding albums are posted right now

new albums

• calypte [located under friends] has been added
• yen's graduation photos have veen added [under friends] as well

as always, viewing of these albums requires login right. please [register] in order to be able to sign and view an album. as stated before please use a username i can recognize. i will then approve the registration which will allow you to login.

OH THAT CRAZY JEWEL

original story appears at
[http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/05232004/news/17777.htm]

Fan calls it the worst concert ever

HAMPTON - Gloria Dion wants her money back after being subjected to what she calls the worst Jewel concert ever.

Dion, along with her two daughters Nicole and Kaitlin, went to last Saturday’s 8 p.m. Jewel concert at the Hampton Beach Ballroom Casino. The singer performed two concerts that evening at the Casino. People who saw the first said Jewel was at the top of her game and said it was a “rocking show.”

Those who had tickets to the second show saw something quite different, according to Dion.

“People were literally walking out of the show,” she said. “As soon as she came out, she began to insult us. We thought she was joking at first because it was kind of weird.”

Witnesses said Jewel went on a tirade of insults from poking fun at fat people to others with no teeth. At one point, she asked the audience to yell requests and then told them to “shut the hell up.”

“I saw her live in Boston and it was the greatest show I’ve ever been to,” Dion said. “I don’t know if she was having a nervous breakdown or what. She told everyone to stop looking at her teeth and look at her breasts.”

Jewel was on stage for about an hour and played only four to five songs. Halfway through the show, Dion said Jewel began to talk about Zoloft and Paxil for about 10 minutes.

“I don’t know what that was all about,” said Nicole Dion, who came from Canada to see the show. “I don’t know if she was on it or what. Maybe she didn’t take it.”

Dion said Jewel stopped in the middle of her trademark song, “Who will save your soul,” because everyone was singing along. “She said, I would have never guessed you all know the words. I don’t know if she was kidding or what.”

Nicole Dion said the entire experience made her no longer want to be a Jewel fan.

Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom officials said they have not received negative feedback about the show, but radio station 107.1 WERZ that sponsored the concert did.

WERZ Operations Manager Michael O’Donnell said he heard comments about Jewel’s strange behavior during her second performance.

“I got a lot of negative feedback from people who attended the second show,” O’Donnell said. “They were upset with some of the comments they heard her make.

“She said she saw a better audience at a barroom brawl and that all drinkers and smokers were sinners.”

Dion said she doesn’t blame the Casino, but believes something should be done to make it up to them. She said not only was the show bad, but people were not allowed to buy drinks or smoke a cigarette in the smoking room.

Kristen MacKinnon, a manager at the Casino, said it was Jewel’s request that smoking not be allowed at the show. Alcohol was served, but not in the main stage area because Jewel requested no waitresses in the main ballroom while she was on stage.

Dion said Jewel came out for an encore, but instead of singing one of her hit songs, she yodeled for a minute and then left the stage.

When the crowd left the Casino, several people drove by Jewel’s tour bus and screamed obscenities, Dion said.

MacKinnon said no one has called for a refund or to complain, and said both shows were a success.

“The people who I talked to very much enjoyed the show,” said MacKinnon, who admitted to not seeing the second show. “The only problem we ran into was that a lot of people who had tickets for the first show were in traffic and couldn’t get here on time.”

MacKinnon said they tried to accommodate those who showed up late by allowing them to see the second show even though it was already sold out.

O’Donnell said DJs from WERZ’s morning show, Kevin Matthews, Susanne Lewis and Kid Cruise, were supposed to introduce Jewel and plug their show, but never got the opportunity. Jewel went on without any introduction from the DJs.

O’Donnell said the complaints he received enticed him to call Jewel’s management team.

“They basically told me that sometimes she does a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor during her shows,” O’Donnell said.

Calls to Jewel’s management for comment went unreturned.

O’Donnell said he’s not sure what happened between the first and second show. This is the second time WERZ has sponsored a Jewel concert. The first was in 1997 when she was beginning to hit the top of the charts.

“I feel bad for the fans that paid $40 because they wanted to be entertained. All I can say is that I hoped everyone a good time. And if they didn’t, I want them to remember we can’t predict what happens.

GRADUATION CELEBRATION PICTURES POSTED

pictures from yen’s after graduation celebration are now posted on [photos]. please login to see the photos. yeah, i’m trying to be quicker in posting photos.

GRADUATION DAY

today is a day of graduations: yen is graduating from sjsu and john for sfsu. and here i am stuck working at home, not able to attend either ceremony. hopefully i’ll be able to attend the after parties.

congratulations yen!

congratulations john!

DIDO WAS ROCKING

farrah, madelyn and i went to see dido at the berkeley community theater. it’s been about four years since the last time farrah and i saw her perform at the warfield (see the [concerts] page which is still under construction) dido was really trying to throw a different groove to her songs then what is on her albums. she put faster beats to some songs, danced a lot and gave the crowd energy to dance with her. she also talked to the crowd alot, explaining the inspiration for some songs and interacting with the crowds' hooting and hollering.

we had very good seats in row a, which amounts to about the fifth row. but i need to ask: when did it become ok to bum-rush the stage in a sit down show? there were people standing in the isle way right beside me. didn’t they pay for a seat as well albeit farther back? that was the only annoying part of the concert.

CONCERTS WE'VE ATTENDED

this is a ‘concert’- me list listing all the concerts we’ve been to (so far). updated when another concert comes along.

[Bill Graham Civic Auditorium] 99 Grove Street, San Francisco CA 94102

Who we’ve seen there: Tori Amos (12.21.2002) Oasis (4.13.1996)

[Bimbo’s 365 Club] 1025 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA 94133

Who we’ve seen there: Cardigans (6.19.96)

Berkeley Community Theater 1930 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

Who we’ve seen there: Dido (05.23.04) Cranberries (04.05.95) Jewel Chris Cornell (11.30.99) Ani Di Franco (10.31.97)

[Concord Pavilion] 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, CA 94521

Who we’ve seen there: Tori Amos/Alanis Morrisette (09.19.99)

[The Filmore] 1805 Geary Blvd. S.F. CA 94115

Who we’ve seen there: Fiona Apple (03.18.97) Sundays Lush (04.15.96) Morcheeba (4.11.2008) Lorde (9.27.2013) Greek Theatre-U.C. Berkeley Gayley Road, Berkeley, CA 94720

Who we’ve seen there: Alanis Morrisette Black Eye Peas/Macy Gray

Oakland Arena 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, CA 94621

Who we’ve seen there: Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel w/Sinead O’Conner sing backup(11.22.93) U2 (11.15.01)

Oakland Coliseum 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, CA 94621

Who we’ve seen there: Sugarcubes/Public Enemy/U2 (07.11.92) Oasis/U2 (06.18.97) Oasis/U2 (06.19.97)

Orpheium Theater

Who we’ve seen there: Sarah McLaughlin

Pac Bell Park

Who we’ve seen there: Macy Gray/Dave Matthews Band (5.18.01)

[Paramount Theatre] 2025 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612

Who we’ve seen there: Bjork (10.17.01) Sarah McLachlan (10.30.97) Tori Amos (11.11.01 and some other date)

San Jose Arena

Who we’ve seen there: Garbage/Smashing Pumpkins (08.18.96) INXS (04.08.94) U2 (4.19.01)

San Jose Event Center

Who we’ve seen there: Pearl Jam Soundgarden (06.03.94) Tori Amos (09.19.98) Sarah McLachlan (03.9.98)

Shoreline Amphetheater

Who we’ve seen there: Sting Lilith Fair 97 (07.08.97) (Sarah McLachlan, Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega) Lilith Fair 98 (06.24.98) (Sarah McLachlan, Indigo Girls, Natalie Merchant, Erica Badu, Me’Shell Ndegeocello, Bonnie Raitt) Lilith Fair 98 (07.14.99) Santana Lollapaloza ‘94 (Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & P-Funk Allstars, The Breaders, Green Day…) - [http://www.jamesiha.org/interview/1994lolla.htm] Lollapalooza ‘95 (Hole, Sonic Youth, Beck, Cypress Hill, Elastica,…) REM (05.17.95) Sade (07.18.01) Sting (08.05.00)

Slims

Who we’ve seen there: Julianna Hatfield (http://www.julianasite.com/touragraphy.html#city) LLoyd Cole Garbage Cibo Matto (10.09.99)

[Villa Montalvo] 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, CA 95071

Who we’ve seen there: Diana Krall (7.19.01) Norah Jones

[Warfield] 982 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

Who we’ve seen there: Smashing Pumpkins (10.18 0r 19.93) Bjork (05.21.98) Portishead (05.31.98) Cardigans Crowded House/Sheryl Crow Garbage (05.20.98) Sundays Dido (08.10.00) PJ Harvey (05.19.95) Sonic Youth Sara Bareilles (12.16.2010)

I know I saw them, but where….

Hole (the Edge) Filter (somewhere in San Jose) Lisa Loeb (well, actually didn’t stay for that one) Pearl Jam @ Golden Gate Park (06.24.95) WOMAD (ft. Peter Gabriel) Golden Gate Park Smashing Pumpkins (2. 7.96) Kezar Pavilion

Tori Amos at the CPA TLC and MC Hammer (Hawaii) New Kids/Tiffany at Great America David Spade (05.30.98) Cassandra Wilson @ Nob Hill Masonic Center(10.24.97) Pharoah Sanders Quartet @Yoshi’s (03.17.01)

INTERESTING IMAGE OF BUSH

found this image of bush on a weblog site [american leftist].  the person made it with pictures “of the American service men and women who have died in Iraq. No photograph is used more than three times."  You can see a [medium] and [bigger] image also.

CHECK THE FACTS BEFORE YOU VOTE

trying to get informed before this year’s presidential election? you might want to see [factcheck.org]. the site seem very informative and doesn’t appear to sway left or right.

FINDING A LOOK

well, changed the weblog face again as the style previously used (called zen) seemed too light to read. luckily with [wordpress] i’m able to switch styles rather painlessly. the real dilemma for me is the overall site look.

with tools like wordpress and [4images] a webmaster can easily put up a site in a quick amount of time. but the look and feel when going between both products is harsh. there are all-in-one solutions with something like [postnuke] and [phpnuke] but i find those products either too many features to disable or are slow to load.

at the least i’ll try to get the color scheme to be the same. at the most i’ll try to make the site look like an all-in-one inclusive look and feel. this make take some time but i’m sure it will be worth it in the end.

WORTH A NEW CUT?

dvds are cool aren’t they? it’s almost difficult remember a time without dvds. the things i love about dvds are:

• the crisp picture and sound (compared to vhs)
• the commentary tracks (hopefully insightful)
• the deleted scenes
• the director's cut

but does a director’s cut make a better movie?

can a director’s cut of a bad movie make it better?

these questions have been posed in newsgroups and on websites with vehement responses by purists and idiots alike.

my current rant on this is based on two upcoming dvds/films: [underworld] and [exorcist: the beginning] the latter has yet to be released theatrically ( i’ll get into that in bit).

when i saw underworld i though, eh ok vampire/werewolve movie. but the review on the link provided made it seem like a whole new more full movie experience then the previous version. boy, do i feel ripped off. it’s a different feeling then say the lord of the rings triology where you knew longer versions existed. i just wonder why a movie studio would hesitate to put a better version of a movie out there for public consumption.

as for the exorcist: the beginning [paul schrader] originally directed a version of this movie that might/might not see the light of day. the movie studio (so i hear) thinks schrader’s version is too thriller-type scary. i’m sure renny’s version is more in-your-face-it’s-so-obvious scary. man, what if that is a better movie. i mean, he is a better writer (taxi driver, affliction) and director (affliction, auto focus) than renny harlin (die hard 2, cutthroat island). i’ve heard they might release both versions on dvd. i hope so.

WHO GIVES A HOOTERS?

dave and i had lunch today at the new [hooters] in dublin. dave had never been to hooters before, and i hadn’t been to one in over 15 years. when the one in the city opened up they guys at my last work wanted to organize a trip to go there for our “every-so-often-dinner” get togethers. i don’t know what they heard the place is like but whatever they heard it didn’t meet up to their expectations.

in any event, today’s lunch was ok. i’ve never been to dublin which seems to be similar to any other east bay city. hooters itself hasn’t change from what i remember. girls in skin tight outfits, food that is decent but not outstanding and more guy patrons then women. worth the trip? eh???

WORDPRESS IS IMPRESSIVE

i gotta tell you, i’m really impressed with this wordpress program. i was able to setup this new weblog, import all the data from movabletype, and start posted within half an hour! i was amazing when compared to all the install trouble i went with movabletype. i’m going to test for a few more days, but the way it looks now i just might be a wordpress convert!

TRIALS

last night i went to a rosary for my cousin who passed way last thursday, may 6, 2004. i didn’t know anthony that well. he was always big quiet person, even as a kid. i remember him being very quiet at family parties when i was younger. even when we got older he always seemed quiet, but a happy person when you talked to him. i can say i’ve never seen him sad or even in a bad mood.

about three or four years ago he started having difficulties with his heart. i don’t know all the details. suffice it to say he had difficult times, but from all accounts dealt with them without complaint and smiled to those who had concern for his well being. i guess the last several weeks something came about again. this time he couldn’t overcome the difficulties plaguing his heart.

the rosary and reading last night was a nice tribute to anthony. i found it very hard to hold back the tears especially when my uncle spoke about his son. he spoke about God putting his family through these ‘trials’ and how they would endure. it’s tough when someone passes away, especially someone so young.

i wonder if i should write about such things here on janella.com, but then right now it is my only writing outlet. please excuse any of these writings if they seem to be out of place. i’m just trying to make sense of times like these.

ACCESS TO ARCHIVES

slight change in the sidebar menu, where previous entries can be accessed by categories. so if a ‘cool site’ was listed on [janella.com] but is no longer on the home page, simply click the ‘cool sites’ link to browse and find. cool, eh?

KILL BILL VOLUME 2

rating: **** out of 5

quick shot: continuing the revenge story of the bride from kill bill volume i.

what i liked about the film: slightly different tone from the first movie.  i like the dialog an interaction between bill and the bride towards the end of the movie.

what i didn’t like: the audience members who didn’t realize movie’s contain dialog.  yeah, this volume is more talk-y then the first but give me a break…it’s tarantino!

MEAN GIRLS

rating: ***1/2 out of 5

quick shot: smartly written tina fey comedy.  a cut above your average teenager movie.

what i liked about the movie: the way it treated most kids with some intelligence.  i also liked that the adults weren’t totally oblivious either.  smart script all around.

what i didn’t like: the movie bogged down a third of the way through, though it picked up in the end.

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

rating: *** out of 5

quick shot: men at sea battling a faceless (for most of the movie) enemy, and amongst themselves. you can feel the isolation at sea, and the camaraderie the crew feels. russell crowe leads by example and charisma.

what i liked about the movie: the chemistry between crowe, bettany (who plays the ship’s doctor) and crew was very good. the chase and battle scenes were excellent.

what i didn’t like: the movie felt a little lengthy. i think it could have lost about 15 to 20 minutes and still been effective.

...TO THE BEAT OF JUST ONE DRUM

speakers on! - [cool flash animation find] courtesy of lotte.

SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE

rating: **1/2 out of 5

quick shot: jack and diane try to find love at there age!  overall good story of may-december romance and how it works for both genders.  the writing is good, though gives up in the last ten minutes of the film.

what i liked about the movie: jack and diane have good chemistry in the film.  i like the fact that they bared more than their emotions in the film.

what i didn’t like: keanu is as wooden as ever.  again, the ending is predictable but satisfying i suppose.

BEWARE OF STRANGE ATMS

general warning brought to you by tage down south. [this tricky modified atm] is geared to grab your card info, pin, and later on your money from your account. if the atm you are using doesn’t seem right it probably isn’t. be cautious.

KILL BILL VOLUME 1

rating: **** out of 5

quick shot: a tale of bloody revenge tarantino style.  loved the bloody brutality mixed in with the animation and poppin' tarantino dialog.

what i liked about the movie: the bloody mess.  the fight scene with the cray 88’s was cool.

what i didn’t like: that i didn’t see this movie in the theater.  thank g. for dvd, but still would have been nice to see it on the screen.

LEAPING TO SATELLITE

i’ve been wavering on whether to take the plunge to go to satellite tv. cable has been good to me for so long, having it here in california since 1992. but lately i’ve been looking at the cable bill, which has grown from $43/month to now a whopping $80/month since 1997 with only minor channel upgrades. so when fina and lotte went with satellite and relayed a good experience, plus with farrah’s family being on satellite for about five years, i thought i was time to take the plunge.

the experience started off really well. i called saturday to order this dish, which would be installed a week after the coming monday. i received a call just a couple of hours later saying, “hey we can come out today if you’d like to install it.” fantastic. ninety minutes later the cable boxes were out and satellite was installed.

i must say the picture is clearer and the movement between channels is much quicker than digital cable. i also got the tivo unit for the bedroom (called directivo) since the tivo saori and doug gave us wasn’t ‘as compatible’ with satellite as cable. the cool thing about the directivo is that you either (1) watch one show while taping another or (2) tape two shows at the same time (but having to watch one of them if you want to watch the tele). cool huh?

so the advantages are so far are:

• clear picture
• quicker changing between stations
• more stations
• lower monthly cost
• no monthly equipment fees (e.g. paying for the cable boxes)!
• minimal startup cost (only had to pay for the directivo unit. everything else was free!)
• directivo

downsides

• satellite dish installed on the roof (though it's not noticeable in the backyard)
• no 'college classes' for telecourses
• memorizing the new channel scheme (300, 400, 500, etc.)

so far the good outweighs the bad. talk to me during the raining season to see how the dish fares. in the meantime i think it is a wise investment.

B-DAY PICS - SITE UPDATE

pics posted from my b-day weekend. some are missing (on purposes of course ;) other pics are viewable on fina’s gallery at

[http://nothingcouldbefina.janella.com]

YOSEMITE REDUX

just got back from yosemite, where farrah and i spent about three days. i’ll have a few pictures to post from the digital camera later this week. we only took a few film pictures for some reason.

MOBLOGS?

never heard of it before, but i guess moblogs are the next big thing [cnet article] a moblog is a mobile blog (i guess) in which you can post pictures taken by your mobile phone. then you share the pics and comment as you like in a blog.

might want to check out [textamerica] for an example.

COOL SITE - JERRY AND SUPES

watch [uniform] a short film with jerry seinfeld and superman. the film requires macromedia’s flash.

i’m a batman person myself, but this little bit is slightly funny.

FEELING LIKE CARTMAN?

john or lotte, you gotta translate this!

THANK YOU FOR A GREAT WEEKEND

i want to thank everyone for a great birthday weekend! it will be one i will never forget.

the weekend started early with dinner with doug at our old weekly hangout, satsuma’s. it felt like old times sitting, eating, drinking, and talking about everything and anything.

on friday, lotte, john, fina and farrah took me to king of siam for some great thai food. the atmosphere was pretty lively for downtown san jose, and the food was excellent as always. oh, and the tiramisu they brought for my birthday cake was to die for.

saturday morning, farrah and i drove up to have breakfast with tessie. she was in town on a business trip. it was really good to see her and spend time with her, walking to chinatown and such. i wish we could have spent more than the three hours we had together. it was good to see you tess.

saturday night found farrah’s parents, my mom, farrah and i at the fishmarket in santa clara. again, great food, good beer, and good dessert in chocolate covered strawberries.

sunday night the trabers came over and took farrah and i out to chevy’s. i had a nice mohito margarita, with farrah having a cantaloupe margarita. overstuffed with fajitas, but not before having some chocolate mint (i think it was) cake from gale’s.

last but not least, dave took me out to stacks for breakfast on monday. and get this, we were served by cops at the restaurant who were doing their part for the special olympics [please see the south park episode 803]

COOL SITE - CAN YOU PASS THE THIRD GRADE?

[can you pass the third grade] is a flash drag and drop game. on my first try i got 21/48 so let’s just say i didn’t. what can you get? link provided by sa

BOND, JAMES BOND

just picked up the playstation 2 game [james bond 007: everything or nothing] it’s a pretty nifty third person game that has you shooting, driving, flying and firing at enemies all over the place. it has the voices of heidi klum, mya, shannon elizabeth, and of course pierce brosnan among others, so it feels like being in a bond movie.

yeah, i know, i was supposed to start playing final fantasy x-2. i’ll get around to it.

NEW PHOTOS ADDED

some new photos have been added to the photos pages [of all places]! click the above images for a preview or go straight to the photos page to look at more.

celebrating birthdays for

• kayla
• mom
• rex
• john

please remember, you may have to re-register by clicking the registration link. if you do need to re-register, please use the same login name you used previously so i recognize who you are!

LOST IN TRANSLATION

rating: **** out of five

quick shot: a man lost. a woman ignored. friendship [and more?] follows.

what i liked about the movie: the acting, direction and pacing of the movie was very well done.

what i didn’t like: the movie seemed short.

SMACK THE PINGU

not the most animal friendly game, but try playing [smack the pingu]

MIGHT HAVE NOTICED

just a quick note: you might have noticed that all the postings are now listed by ‘janella’. well, i thought it was a weird thing when doing a search on any search engine (e.g. msn, google, yahoo!, etc.) janella.com would come up somewhere after the top 5! i mean, come on this is janella.com!

anyway, it’s part search engine driven and part whatever.

ESTABLISHED SOME ACCOUNTS

i have established a few accounts for login from memory. if you try to register for the [photos] page and it says your name is already taken (or in there), then please try logging in with your password. if it’s not in there please continue with the registration.

THE LONG WALK BACK II

the [photos page] is starting again, and i emphasis starting. i started a photo renaming project awhile back. i am trying to change photo names from something like

dc0520.jpg to 122503_christmas_02.jpg

to at least track images better on my computer. it helps with searching. anyway, like i previously mentioned all the photo information was wiped out when the database was dumped. so i need to repopulate the photos again. i will do this, trying to get new photos as well as old photos back up.

what can you do?

well, you can register for the [photos page]. only a few albums are public. most albums require a login.

there is a registration link there. fill in a username (one i can recognize), then place in a password you would like to use, then a valid email address. once i receive all the information an email will be sent to me for approval. once i approve your membership you will be able to log into the photos page!

the photo page is meant for family and friends to view, so if i don’t recognize your name or address sorry for the membership rejection.

::NOTHINGCOULDBEFINA:: IS RESTORED

the pages at [::nothingcouldbefina::] have been partially restored. only certain albums made it through the recovery. if you are a frequent visitor you may notice some missing albums. fina is working getting those albums back up. so please visit the page from time to time for updates.

i think that’s all the restoration that will be done tonight. whew!

till later.

THE LONG WALK BACK PART I

well, hosting company has managed to recover backups of most of the flat files, but the database is shot. so they placed all the files back. unfortunately, the files they put back were in the wrong state, so i couldn’t delete the files. plus the files put the site over quota so the home page couldn’t even be updated!!

finally, they were able to give me full access to the files. after downloading all the information (for backup purposes) i was able to delete the files and get under server space quota.

at this time, i’m going to start rebuilding the structure of the pages. again, this will take some time so please visit back in several days for any updates. any updates i have will be placed on the home page.

till later.

IT'S WET OUT THERE

it’s looking pretty ugly outside right now. the winds are supposed to gust up to 40mph down here. in the santa cruz mountains it’s suppose to get as high as 75mph. whew!

so if you’re driving today be careful. if you are not driving, stay home and enjoy a good dvd. (and yes, i’m still trying to get this page back to normal).

PAGE WILL LOOK FUNKY

btw: this page will probably look kinda funky until i make more postings. i’m not going to try and bother to recreate any of the previous postings i had. please bear with me as we rebuild.

WEB SERVER CRASH

janella.com has, not by choice, had to go another change. the webserver crashed some time this weekend. this affected not only janella.com but over 200 other accounts from what i understand. what does this mean? well, it means starting from scratch on some things.

i do have backup of all the photos. what i don’t have is a backup of the database that drove the new portion of the photo site, as well as what drove this weblog. so all my general musings are now lost. just goes to show you that you should backup all the files when you get a chance.

[http://nothingcouldbefina.janella.com] should be up in the next day or two if i can get the backup files from my webhost. the photos page for janella.com will be up as soon as i get this weblog portion of the site squared away.

please check back later for any updates.

alex

TIGGER COMES HOME

my mom heard tigger meowing in a neighbor’s backyard. she rushed over to the next street, knocked on the neighbor’s door and told her our cat was back there. our neighbor wasn’t aware of it and was happy to let my mom back there.

funny thing seeing my mom carry tigger through the front door, seeing how she says he annoys her a lot (all the meowing and need to be petted). but i think she was as happy to see him as i was.

from the looks of tigger, it appears he just wandered off. he might have gotten scared or curious during his travels, which would account for the amount of time he was gone. of course my mom still thinks he was cat-napped by some kids.

TO THE SPCA AGAIN

farrah and i went to the pound this afternoon. still no sign of tigger. it’s been almost a week (on monday). i’m starting to get really worried. usually he finds a way to wander back. maybe my mom is right that some kids grabbed him.

LOOKING FOR TIGGER

went to the local SPCA to see if someone may have found tigger. it was my first time there. i never knew the SPCA had so many animals there. it was both enjoyable and sad to see all those friendly faces, both dog and cat.

i had to fill out a ‘lost/missing’ card for tigger. i then took a tour of three rooms of caged cats to see if tigger was one of them. so many friendly faces. after not finding him there, i had to look in three books:

• a book of found cats that people didn't want to turn in until the owner was found
• a book of newspaper listings in the sj merc
• a bokd of dead cats found on the street

it’s a long process, but i’m sure worth it when we find tigger.

THE LION KING

the lion king was a great show to see (only dampered by tigger going missing yesterday). the costumes, the singing, and the settings were incredible. try to see it in san francisco if you get a chance.

TIGGER HAS GONE WALKABOUT

my mom was doing yard work and left the gate open. tigger must have wandered off. funny thing is he usually comes back, but he hasn’t yet tonight. hopefully he will be back soon.

ONLY IN KENYA

[another loopy flash cartoon]

UNDERWORLD

rating: ** out of five

quick shot: decent run at the vampire mythos. werewolves versus vampire war is somewhat effective, though the story gets bogged down on who did what to whom too much. dave commented that the sequel would probably be better than the original (which i kind of agree with). kate beckinsale makes a kick-ass vampire though.

what i liked about the movie: the movie looked very slick, matrix-like. the fight scenes were interesting enough.

what i didn’t like: that this is clearly setup for a second movie - which may never come. (but i could be wrong)

BETTER LUCK TOMORROW

rating: ***1/2 out of five

quick shot: good small movie. somewhat predictable half way through, but overall an enjoyable film.

what i liked about the movie: fresh faces and good acting. the characters were some people i recognized and could relate to on some level.

what i didn’t like: some of the direction in the latter half of the film was hokey. for most of the film i didn’t know where it was going, but in the last third it seemed to be predictable.

SILLY SITE OF THE DAY

[let this one play] for about a minute to get the full effect. link courtesy of bigfil

BUILDING A BOX PART III

well, the box has been built and ran through the burn-in test without error. so now i’m running a sweet p4 3.0gHz machine. i can only see the difference in running some applications, such as image editing, word, and other applications i run at the same time.

the reason i wanted to build a new box was not just to have a new computer but to get ready to scan a ton of images this year. hopefully i’ll be able to scan some old negatives and some older pictures. the extra power will come in handy when processing this information.

ANOTHER SATURDAY

another saturday at work. not too many things to do in the queue, but getting stuff done. there are some good football games on this weekend. tomorrow the bay area teams go at it, each in their own division. should be a time to sit by the boob tube as the weather isn’t supposed to be too great.

BUILDING A BOX PART II

well, i’ve just slapped all the pieces together. i was a little worried about putting in the cpu as it can be delicate. you have to put this huge fan on top called a heatsink. you need to ‘snap-it’ on top of the processor. let’s hope that went in right.

’m not going to turn it on until tomorrow. there is supposed to be this 72-hour burn-in period where you run the processor for all it’s worth during that timeframe. i guess any problems, such as faulty processor or heat and cooling problems, will show up during that timeframe.

wish me luck.

SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PICTURE

[cool clip of the moment] - it requires flash so you may be prompted to install if you don’t have it already. it’s a play on the current outkast hit ‘hey ya!’. pump up the volume for this version. thanks to bigfil for the link.

BUILDING A BOX PART I

i decided late last year that i was going to get a new computer system this year. my current system is a p3 733 mHz running winxp and win2k (swap drives). i bought it about 2 1/2 to 3 years ago from micronpc. when i bought it i decided not to get ‘top of the line’, which i think was the 900mHz, because i heard the difference wasn’t too much.

since then the 1gHz came out. then the 2gHz. now the 3gHz! in between that time i built my first computer, which was a present for lotte. that system is an amd system, which i think runs at 1gHz. it’s a sweet machine and my first effort at building a system.

well, early this year i got a new work system. i had been running a clunky 400mHz system, while everyone around me was in the 1gHz to 2gHz range. i then got a replacement system: a 2.4gHz system. well, i then saw how much has improved. so it was time to upgrade the home system. now to buy or build?

buying would be easier, but building would be more satisfying - and frustrating. so of course i chose the latter. i set out to do the research, asking knowledgeable friends what they would consider, and then bought the parts that fit my needs. i wanted to be able to surf the web, get email, and the edit photos and video. so i went with the following:

• p4 3.0gHz 800mHz fsb
• asus p4c800 deluxe motherboard
• 512mb ram - setlled for pc2700 for now
• 150gb maxtor sata hard drive
• ati 9600 xt video card
• nd a antec sonata case

you figure i would save some money building a system, but in actuality it?s the slightly more when factoring the cost of software. the difference is you get to choose from a wide variety of parts and build the puppy.

well, i have all those parts. now just need to put it all together.

QUICK RESOLUTIONS

here are my quick new year’s resolutions:

• watch more movies
• read more books
• donate blood - or some deed like that

no health resolutions for now. too many people in the gym! i’ll wait until end of february or march in order to start that resolution ;)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

happy new year to everyone!!!

hope you have a great 2004!!!

COOL SITE - COMMON SENSE MEDIA GUIDE

[common sense media guide] - another site i heard on a radio talk show. i think it was on the ron owens show on kgo radio. ron owens likes to talk about movies, music and such on fridays and this was one of the sites that was mentioned.

the reviews seem to be geared toward those wondering about content of cds, movies, etc. which comes in handy when dealing with what children can see. i use it as a reference when buying stuff for a kid. easy to read ratings chart allows for quick glances of reviews.