./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.

I’m posting again directly to Janella.com using the famous Wordpress. Yes, I have left my irregular blogging on my Vox account. Actually, I will continue to do irregular blogging on Vox, but my regular musings will occur here.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Vox a lot. I like it better than MySpace, Friendster, Multiply, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Why?

• Nice templates
• Friendly community
• Easy to use blog posting screen.
• Great privacy controls. You can let everyone, friends, family or neighbors view what you post.
• The ability to upload photos, videos, and sound files.
• The ability to access your accounts like Flickr, Photobucket and such to post.
• Meeting new people.

What ended up NOT working for me was:

• Lack of personal customization. Recently added was an ability to add a banner images which is cool, though. I would like to have had the ability to add links to my other 'Me Sites'.
• Inability to for non-registered users to comment on your blog entries.

While the pros seem to outweigh the cons, the cons felt pretty big as time passed. If I never had a web hosting account or used Wordpress or MovableType, I guess I wouldn’t know what running my own blog/site would feel like. But that last pro, Meeting new people. is a big reason why I keep my Flickr account and will keep my Vox account.

There are so many interesting people out there, posting funny personal musings, intriguing thoughts. and stunning photographs that it’s hard to pry yourself away from a community you’ve joined. So I will be a visitor there from time to time. But for now, and the foreseeable future, I’m right here and will write here.

I’m home.

Tru dat!

This last weekend farrah and I flew down to San Diego to help Heidi and Yen move to their new apartment.  Unfortunately, I was just getting over a cold so I was a bit grumpy at times.

The flight going to San Diego had a slight delay.  The flight there was uneventful, though on landing the air pressure really got to my ears.  It was as if someone was pinching my ear drums.  I could not hear for sometime afterwards.  I guess I wasn’t over my cold after all.

James flew in from Oakland as well, so we all met at the airport.  We grabbed a bit to eat that night at a place called Yard House.  I guess their main claim to serving the world’s largest selection of draft beer.  I tried something called a Delirum Tremens - a bitter Belgium beer.  I didn’t really enjoy it much and downed it quickly ordering a Black & Tan to fill the void.  farrah had the SLO Blueberry Ale and the Lost Coast Apricot Wheat beer.   Even Yen had a SLO Blueberry Ale.

On Saturday, we got up a bit late, but was able to move everything in the afternoon.  The slow part was the loading of the U-Haul that Yen had rented.  Unload went by really quickly.  It probably when by quick because we were all thinking of dinner at Rei do Gado.   Farrah ate there with Yen and Heidi the last time we were in San Diego, and I really wanted to go there.  Even though we had an 8 o’clock reservation we still had to wait.  But I think the wait was worth it.  Honestly, I wish I ate more meat!

On Sunday we took a brief trip across the border into Tijuana, Mexico.  It was my first time there.  We ate at a little taco stand Heidi had eaten at before.  There was also several other places where various snacks were consumed.  We didn’t really buy anything there as the weather was turning cloudy, so we headed back across the border to shop at the Las Americas.  I think we stayed a bit to long there because we needed to rush back for James to catch his flight.  Thanks to Heidi’s mad driving James made his flight with about 15 minutes to spare.

Our plane back home was late in departing and I was feeling run down.   When I got home that night I knew I was sick once again.  I think I caught Heidi’s cold!  Now I’ve been sick most of February.  Hopefully, I will get better in March.

This past three-day weekend could have been more than what it was. Unfortunately, I caught the cold that has been hounding farrah for the past week. Thursday night found me with a scratchy throat. By Friday afternoon I was feeling rundown.

Friday night I resolved to spend most of Saturday in bed, hoping to salvage Sunday and Monday for some fun. But Farrah reminded me that the post office was open for passport renewal on this special Saturday, so morning rest had to wait. We got up early, but not early enough to beat the approximately 100 people in front of us in line. It took us ninety minutes to process through the line, then less then 10 minutes to actually process our paperwork. After eating brunch - since it was about 10:30 am, we headed home and me into bed.

Sunday morning I was still dopey, and Monday didn’t seem much better. But yet, I crawled slowly out of bed each day just to get out and about around the house. The only thing we really accomplished together this weekend, besides the passport renewal, was several levels of Zelda on the Wii.

Perhaps the weekend wasn’t lost after all.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately.  There are several reasons for this, but the task taking up most of my free time has been trying to defeat General RAAM.  He’s the ugly MOFO you see below:

If I haven’t mentioned already, farrah’s Christmas present to me was an XBOX 360.  From previous posts you probably know I gave her a Wii for her birthday.  So now we have games system to the hilt - only lacking a Playstation 3 - which I see plunking down any change for anytime soon.

farrah knows I was debating the merits of an XBOX 360 versus a Playstation 3.  But when I started gushing about how “Gears of War” looked pretty cool on the XBOX 360, she pulled the trigger on it as my present. (Wow, what a wife!)

GOW has been a pretty fun game. A bloody, violent and profanity laced adventure which is all you can ask for in a shoot ‘em up type game.  But killing General RAAM, the last boss in the game, doesn’t take the normal blunt force trauma method.  It required numerous precise shots to his noggin while his shield of flying friends are not surrounding him.  Oh, he’s also armed with a gatlin gun that can cut you in half, so it even makes it more difficult.

It took me the good part of a week to finally kill him.  And now that game part is over and I have more free time to blog…and to play “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” on the Wii.

After having dinner at home, farrah and I were watching TV a commercial for Carl’s Jr. milkshakes came on. Well, not twenty minutes later did I find myself in my truck heading over to get a couple of them for dessert … even though it’s freakin' 30 degrees outside.

Damn advertising.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq25qD44hC0&w=640&h=480]

farrah and I went to see Imogen Heap at the Warfield this past Sunday, December 3rd.  We hadn’t been to a concert in quite sometime.  I think the last concert we saw was Esthero at the Filmore back in July.

We got a late start to the Warfield, not really having a desire to see the only listed opening act who, Kid Beyond.  I had never heard of him, but then again I have never heard of some of the opening acts I had seen at the Warfield before.  I never heard of Cheryl Crow when she opened for Crowded House.  I never heard of Jewel when she opened for Liz Phair.  And I never heard of Tricky when he opened for PJ Harvey.  I’m not saying Kid Beyond is in the same league as these opening acts, but he was very entertaining.

We caught the tail end of Levi Weaver’s performance.  He had the crowd going on and made me interested in hearing how his studio work would be.

Kid Beyond in Toronto

Imogen Heap came briefly on stage to introduce Kid Beyond.  The dude beat boxes and so much more.  He did a little Nine Inch Nails, some Portishead, and some of his own stuff.  You can catch some clips, such as this, on YouTube.  All the performers used a machine that Imogen Heap called a parrot.  I’m not sure if that is the correct reference, but basically the performer records a vocal or sound that they layer upon until they have the affect they are trying to achieve. Anyway, it was a very good performance.

Imogen then came out twenty minutes later. She started by walking through the general admission crowd on the floor.  farrah and I were located in very good seats, first row lodge, so we could see her milling about there in the dark, singing the vocals to her first song.  I had never seen Imogen Heap perform, or never seen a video by her, so I was quite surprised to by her stage presence and performance.

She put on a strong performance considering she had a nasty cold she caught from Levi Weaver.  From her stage look and keyboard talent, all I could think of was that she may be the lost love child of Cyndi Lauper and Thomas Dolby. You can see photos of her on Flickr here.  I didn’t realize she is the girl in the red coat you see on Flickr’s home page from time to time.

She danced around stage with reckless abandon and played her keyboards and other instruments with (mostly) perfect precision. Her parrot failed her on one of her songs, but her cold never slowed her down.  She talks and responds to the crowd in her cute voice.  Very cool interaction.

Hopefully she’ll come around again in a couple of years after working on her next album.