./janella.com

For those of you who do not know already, Farrah and I are in the midst of planning a trip to the UK and France. We’ll be going for a total of two weeks in May, hoping to beat the summer vacation rush. Our plans include visiting Bath and London, with a quick day trip to Paris!

It’s All Part of the Process (passports)

We started the passport process in mid-February, renewing our passports at the post office. Currently there is a 10 week waiting period in receiving the passport back. There has been a large rush in obtaining passports due to the new requirements when traveling to Mexico and Canada.

This is causing slight grief and anxiety on our part as the 10 weeks they are estimating to process passports falls only one week prior to our departure date in May! The US Passport web site allows you to check the status of your passport application - but this is not really helping. It shows Farrah’s passport has been accepted, but my passport application has yet to enter the system. Yikes!

From what I’ve read about this subject on the TripAdvisor message boards, passports have been arriving for people, but some have had to call to have their passports expedited (aka “Give us more money to grease the wheels!"). I’m not supposed to call until 14 days before the trip to have the passport expedited. I wonder if they FedEx it when it’s so close?

Oh well, can’t go on the trip without a passport, right?

Farrah took me to watch 300 today at the Sony Metreon’s IMAX theater.  But first she took me to breakfast at Sears Fine Foods in Union Square.  Breakfast was great, and you can read my review on Sears Fine Foods on my Yelp profile.

When we bought the tickets, I asked the ticket agent how was the movie.  His response was “Awesome!"  When I asked how it was in IMAX, his response was once again “Awesome!"  As we walked away from the ticket counter toward the escalator, the ticket agent muttered a line from the movie (that I happened to have said to Farrah on our walk from our fulfilling breakfast):

Spartans! Enjoy your breakfast, for tonight we dine in Hell!

This was our first experience watching a movie in IMAX.  Before the movie begins, there is a small presentation on what IMAX is: blah blah screen size, x amount of cool speakers, etc.  It’s an entertaining presentation that shows off the features of an IMAX theater.

Ok, now to the movie.

It’s a simple story of a small immovable army versus a large unstoppable army.  It’s a bloody and gory movie, but beautifully filmed  containing loudly spoken dialogue  spoken - we’re in battle after all - much like that of the comic book.  There are speeches here and there but they don’t drag on or bring the fill down.  Every character has their role that predictably plays itself out to the end.

What I liked about the movie: The look and sound of the film, especially in IMAX, is difficult to ignore.  It played a major part in making the film enjoyable.  The gore was just enough on the comic book side to not be grossly unappealing.  The actors were given enough dialogue to chew the scenery when given the chance.

What I didn’t like: Um, no real movie trailers before the film started.  Oh, there was a trailer for Spiderman 3, but it was an older trailer.  Guess they don’t make trailers specifically for IMAX.

300 in IMAX: **** (out of 5) ; *** 1/2 (regular theater)>

One of the best things about Wordpress is the ability to change the look of your site pretty quickly.

So how do you like this current theme now? It’s called Digital Photography Blogs - Shiny Theme (more info). Though I modified it, and it looks good, it is a bit difficult to maintain, and I think, read. Here is their warning on their site:

We promise that you don't want to use this theme. It was designed for our first blog network, Digital Photography Blogs, and works great for that one purpose. Other people have tried to use it and have suffered greatly. That said, we still get lots of requests for it, so use the theme if you dare!

Encouraging, huh? Anyway, this theme is the first of four. Each Sunday (if I remember) I will update the theme on ./Janella.com. At the end of the four weeks, please vote with your comments on that blog entry. Your choice will be used on Janella.com - at least for a while :)

Note: I did not create any of the themes to be used. I just modified them slightly, as is allowed, to fit with how I feel it should look for the website.

OK, last I heard, Facebook was the new MySpace. At least that was what I heard.

I then go surfing the other night looking for Wordpress themes for this blog and I stumble upon Virb. I thought, cool looking site and all, but wasn’t sure what it was (plus, I was just looking for Wordpress themes).

I then listen MacBreak Weekly, a podcast I listen to often, and find out it’s the Virb that is the new MySpace. When is Vox getting into this mix? Yeah, I suppose they’re not after the MySpace crowd, but Vox is pretty cool.

So, of course I sign up.

Not much there yet, but it’s pretty cool and customizable as heck. Very clean Web 2.0 look. There’s a strong slant on music, photos and videos there. The basic design is clean, but like I mentioned, you can customize the style through WYSIWYG interface or through stylesheets and more. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Give it a twirl.

I’m working on the website a little, so if you happen to be on it and the page changes suddenly, do not be alarmed.