I wanted the website to have a splash page introduction. I was going to code some HTML but then I thought of another way to do it. I’ve used Pixelpost before as a photo blog. Then it dawned on me that I can use it as the site intro as well!

The front page photo will rotate from time to time based on when I post a photo. Please make any comments on the photos if you wish. From the front page, you can access:

• The Blog - where I might write some long winded post.
• My Tumblr - a quick blog that is more up-to-date than the main blog. Here you will find quotes, stories, videos, or photos that I run into during the day. Some links may be Not Safe For Work (NSFW). I will try to point those out.
• My Flickr account - where most of my photos are posted.
• Browse - which allows you to view the photos posted on the main page. The archive will get larger as more photos are posted.

Please comment and enjoy!

I covet both the newly announced iPod Touch and the iPhone. The iPhone price went down $200. It is still pricey, but it does look sweet. If I were lucky enough to get only one which would I choose?

Last week I threw aside my LG VX8500 as it started developing an annoying habit of auto dialing the last call in my call log. I went back to my previous phone which I happened to keep just in case.

My iPod is a third generation model which only lasts 1 1/2 hours on a fully charged battery works if I keep it plugged in. Poor little me, right?

I’m leaning toward wanting an iPod Touch more because I’m not sure I’m still sold on a music player slash phone. But still it would be nice to have an all-in-one device.

[Update: Thanks to Bert for sending me this commentary by Gina Hughs on Yahoo! Tech. More information to consider.]

[Update: Steve Job’s writes an open letter to early iPhone users offering them a $100 credit at an Apple Store. Very classy move to quell the anger of early adopters.]

How do you make a kid’s movie about talking and transforming robots into a live-action summer blockbuster? You get Steven Spielberg to produce and Michael Bay to direct the movie, that’s how you do it.

Transformers is the second movie we watched at the AMC Theaters in Cupertino Square. Does it succeed in starting a new franchise of movies about robots from the planet Cybertron? Or does it sink like a hunk of junk?

The Netflix synopsis:

Based on the popular toys that transform from machines into giant robots, this live-action movie from Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay finds the planet Cybertron inhabitants engaging in a secret war for control of Earth’s natural resources, which they desperately need for fuel. Able to disguise themselves as cars, airplanes, boats, and more, the transformers prove a tough enemy in this film starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Jon Voight.

What I Liked

The movie starts off well. The early action and battle scenes provide plenty of bang for your movie buck. The opening scenes in the desert with American troops fighting a lone Decepticon show just how tough these robots are. The movie moves at a nice pace through the first half of the film, providing a nice mix of action and information without getting too bogged down in either.

The introduction of our hero, the girl/woman he’s destined to be with, and other characters move along at a good clip. Shia LaBeouf isn’t your next action star, but you can see he has skills playing the reluctant hero. I’m sure we’ll see him in similar parts as his career grows. As the humans and the Autobots start interacting more on a personal level, the film starts to slow a bit. It almost comes to a complete halt when the Autobots go to Shia’s home to retrieve an artifact.

What I Didn’t Enjoy

The acting is passable, with the robot voices providing as much emotion as their human counterparts. I’m not a big Jon Voight fan, so his Donald Rumsfeld-type role could have been cut out as far as I’m concerned. Anthony Anderson’s computer geek character seems to be thrown into the mix out of left field. The relationship between Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s character wasn’t believable. Plus, believing Megan Fox was a high school student is a big stretch.

There are almost one too many battles in this movie. When the Decepticon and Autobots finally clash, it is difficult to follow who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. And I still didn’t understand the deal with the Allspark, as explained in the film.

Final Thoughts

This loud live action-packed, CGI-filled, nonsensical plotted movie proved to be slightly successful as a new action film. I guess I could see it become a franchise, though I’m not sure where it can go from here. The crowd we saw it with seemed to love it. And it did succeed in recapturing the feeling of the afternoon cartoon I enjoyed in my youth.

Transformers: 2 (out of 5)

I am playing catch-up on my movie reviews. Knocked Up is the first film Farrah and I watched at the new AMC Theaters in Cupertino Square (formerly Vallco Shopping Center).

Vallco Mall had been dying a slow death. For every open and operating store, there are almost twice as many empty spaces. The theater is meant to breathe new life into the mall, bringing in people and hopefully other businesses. I suppose the name change is meant to remove the old stigma of what was and to mark a new beginning.

The movie box office is on the second floor between Macy’s and Sears. Once you purchase the tickets, either from the ticket booth or using one of the six self-service kiosks, you head up the escalator to the third floor and sixteen new theaters.

The theaters are nice and clean (for now) with the normal big comfy stadium chairs and wide rows. It can get a bit dark in the theaters making walking into the show an adventure. Before the previews, there is a twenty-minute feature / commercial / infomercial. This can be annoying when you are trying to talk to anyone else before the movie.

Well, onto the movie review.

The Netflix summary on Knocked Up:

A one-night stand results in an unexpected pregnancy for entertainment reporter Alison (Katherine Heigl) in Judd Apatow’s romantic comedy. Determined to be a good mom and keep her career on track, Alison decides to try to make things work with the baby’s father, slacker Ben (Seth Rogen). It’s anything but smooth sailing as the odd couple gets acquainted, but Alison finds there’s more to Ben than she originally thought. Paul Rudd also stars.

What I liked:

Going into this movie I had no expectations. I didn’t hear whether it was good or bad, and this was several weeks after it had opened. I found the movie both smart and funny. The dialogue and situations ring true to life, with all the comedic and dramatic twists and turns. I was pleasantly surprised that Seth Rogen could pull off the leading man role. Paul Rudd is golden as ever, especially during the trip to the Las Vegas scene.

Katherine Heigl and Leslie Mann put in strong performances as well. Mann’s acting chops don’t seem to be there for me, bordering on a bit amateurish, but it works for this role.

What I Didn’t Like:

The ending seemed a bit rushed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if the movie was longer just to provide a more satisfying resolution. The juvenile antics of some of the secondary characters wore thin after a while.

Final Thoughts

This is a good comedy with likable characters. Katherine Heigl does well doing light comedy, and Paul Rudd is funny as heck. I wouldn’t mind seeing where these characters end up ten years from now.

Knocked Up: 4 (out of 5)

I’m sure you have noticed another change on ./Janella.com. Yes, I keep fiddling with the look, never been satisfied with one layout for too long. Every time I think I have a look I like, I tend to find an aspect that doesn’t suit my website vision.

What is the main vision?

I would like, and hope, that the website is easy to read and easy to navigate. Some day soon I will probably go back to a splash page for the opening page, similar to Miss Aniela’s home page. (I’m sure I could have picked a different example, but she takes such nice photos. Note: some photos might border NSFW items, so click at your own risk.)

For the blog, I was trying the latest version of Movable Type 4. Remember Movable Type?

Back in the day I used Movable Type to run ./Janella.com. Everything was running nice and smooth, but then Six Apart felt like charging for their product. I could still use it without paying, but it simply seemed wrong. In May of 2004, I switched to a free solution which was WordPress. WordPress has powered the site for the last three years. I heard there was a new open-source version of Movable Type out there and decided to give it a try.

Well, I liked some bits of it and didn’t like others.

Things I Liked

The templates provided with Movable Type are nice. They mirror some of the templates provided at Vox which is not surprising since Six Apart owns Vox as well. I especially like the cityscape templates created by .tiff - one of my Vox neighbors. The layouts are clean and easy on the eyes.

Notice the red “V” icon? Nice touch. Anything that encourages comments and makes it easier is a welcomed feature, especially since BossaNova, Fina, and MJ use either Vox or LiveJournal.

Things I Didn’t Like

The installation is better than before, but it still takes a little tech knowledge to do. It’s not as simple as a WordPress install - which basically requires you to create the database, upload the files to your website, access a URL, and - poof! Instant blog.

Movable Type is still something like Upload file into the cgi-bin. Make sure the *.cgi files have the right permissions. Move the mt-static files to a directory and… Well, it can be a bit to follow. After my fourth install, I have it down pretty well.

The WordPress import of entries into Movable Type wasn’t smooth either. There was a bit of formatting problems here and there. I managed to work it out by first installing an old version of Movable Type (3.3), then installing Movable Type 4. A lot of work. I’m sure the final release of version 4 will be easier on tasks such as this.

I didn’t enjoy that generating your pages produces multiple static HTML files based on categories, years, months, etc. Why have all these files?

Editing templates, styles, and using widgets isn’t as straightforward as it is in WordPress. I had a tough time creating links in the sidebar, as well as incorporating standalone pages. These things should be easy!

My Final Thoughts

Would I use Movable Type again for the blog?

Yes. Overall it is a nice piece of software, but it has room to improve. It does a good job of handling multiple blogs - if you write on a variety of subjects. But knowing there is an alternative that is easy to use and easily has hundreds of different templates, plug-ins and widgets to customize a blog, makes it a difficult proposition to change.

My choice is still WordPress.

Kayla went into the hospital this morning for surgery. The reason: to remove a cyst that had grown on the left side of her neck. The surgery lasted about 3 1/2 hours. Kayla is doing fine and resting in her nice hospital room with her mom this evening.

This is going to be a long post. Forgive me, I’ve been a bit behind on posting this and decided to just lump these all together.

Is a bigger venue better when it comes to a concert? I prefer the small places around here, like the Warfield or the Filmore.

This summer we have managed to see four big concerts: John Mayer, Diana Krall, The Police and The Smashing Pumpkins. Two played in arena settings and the other two in smaller clubs.

Guess which performances I enjoyed the most?

The Smashing Pumpkins @ The Filmore — 07.16.2007

BossaNova and I caught the second Smashing Pumpkins show at the Filmore. He was kind enough to get tickets when Farrah and I were in England. Actually, BossaNova is responsible for my best concert experience: The Smashing Pumpkins at The Warfield in support of the Siamese Dream album. BossaNova sums up the concert experience very well on his blog entry.

Here is the set list from that night courtesy of http://www.blamo.org/sp/:

Main Set:

• The Leaving Lament
• Mama
• Promise Me
• With Every Light
• Blue Skies Bring Tears
• Tonight Tonight
• Tarantula
• Cherub Rock
• Shame
• The Aeroplane Flies High
• Hummer
• Bullet with Butterfly Wings
• United States
• To Sheila
• Death from Above
• Thirty-Three
• Rocket
• Translucent
• Starla
• Doomsday Clock
• 7 Shades of Black
• Today

Encore 1:

• That’s the Way (My Love Is)
• Heavy Metal Machine

Encore 2:

• Zero
• Gossamer

The Smashing Pumpkins came on a little after 10 pm, a late start for what I heard was a 3-hour gig! We only lasted through the main set which took us to about 12:15 am.

As BossaNova pointed out, the show started slow. But when they started kicking into Tonight Tonight the show turned into something more. It was great to see Billy and Jimmy in action again. The new group seems to click especially when Billy went on his little time-of-reflection rants — which he did twice during the show.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

The Police @ The Oakland Coliseum — 06.13.2007

I have seen Sting perform several times, but I never saw The Police play — until now. Seats opened up one week before the show, and Farrah and I were lucky to score some last-minute tickets. The seats were excellent — behind home plate slightly right of the stage.

In such a large venue it’s hard to feel any energy from almost any band, and The Police were no exception. After the initial excitement of the opening songs, the show went into a slight lull, then rebounded back again to finish strong. Sting, Andy, and Stewart seemed to be clicking on mostly all cylinders, enjoying themselves and each other’s company on stage.

Set list courtesy of The Police Tour 2007 blog:

• Message in a Bottle
• Synchronicity II
• Don’t Stand So Close to Me
• Voices in My Head / When the World Is Running Down
• Spirits in the Material World
• Driven to Tears
• Walking on the Moon
• Truth Hits Everybody
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
• Wrapped Around Your Finger
• The Bed’s Too Big Without You
• De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
• Invisible Sun
• Walking in Your Footsteps
• Can’t Stand Losing You
• Roxanne
• King of Pain
• So Lonely

Encore:

• Every Breath You Take

Second Encore:

• Next to You

I’m happy I had the opportunity to see The Police, albeit almost 20 years after their prime.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Diana Krall @ Yoshi’s

I believe the first and last time we saw Diana Krall perform was in the outdoor Mountain Winery venue. She put on a great show under the night sky. So when I saw she was playing at a smaller venue, at Yoshi’s in Oakland, I had to buy tickets.

She had not performed in a while since having her kids. The tickets were for her last set at Yoshi’s. An excellent review of the night’s events can be found here.

What I enjoy most about Diana Krall’s show is that she knows how to interact with an audience. She is constantly aware of what is going on, especially in a small place like Yoshi’s. She can be humorous, both while talking to the crowd and while performing. During “a talk with the crowd” people started shouting out song requests — one of which was Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Farrah and my song. No, I didn’t scream this out.) She quickly responded, “I don’t have the range for that song.” Then during her solo in the following song, she proceeded to play a few measures of, you guessed it, Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Diana Krall at Yoshi’s. What more can you ask?

Rating: ** ****(out of 5)

John Mayer @ The HP Pavilion — 06.05.2007

I have never seen John Mayer perform live. I have often heard he puts on a good show, but I wasn’t trying to set my expectations too high. I’ve seen a few shows at the HP Pavilion. Most of my experiences have been fair at best. The two U2 shows I recall seeing there were great experiences because of the seat location that offered both a great view and great sound. For John Mayer, we were sitting in section 128, which is on the right side of the stage, and had good seats. Though the seats were not bad, they don’t allow you to have the best audio experience.

We arrived at the Pavilion as Ben Folds was performing the opening set. His band’s performance was erratically energetic, trying to keep the crowd interested. He tried unsuccessfully to interact with the crowd through some stories and small talk. This seemed successful on a small level. He did score points with some songs, a cover of a Dr. Dre song and a cover of The Postal Service’s Such Great Heights. Overall, an uneven performance for me.

After a half-hour wait, John Mayer and his band hit the stage. The crowd rose to their feet as the band took the stage.

His set list, according to his web site, was:

• Belief
• No Such Thing
• Good Love is On the Way
• Gravity
• Bigger Than My Body
• Dreaming With A Broken Heart
• Vultures
• I Don’t Need No Doctor
• Wheel
• Why Georgia
• Waiting on the World to Change

– encore –

• Slow Dancing (acoustic)
• 83 (acoustic)
• Who Did You Think I Was (acoustic)
• I’m Gonna Find Another You

John brought energy to the stage which encouraged the crowd to its feet, in particular through his more familiar songs. But the power is hard to sustain throughout the show. He knew most people wanted to hear the hits and tried his best to please the crowd. At times he appeared to be goofing around with his bandmates, then he would turn around to play a deep-from-the-soul guitar solo.

Between songs and small talk he seemed to want to vent, often referring to dreams, anger, and heartache. It seems he still might be recovering from his break-up with Jessica Simpson — Eck, did I just write her name on my blog? — and was channeling that energy into his performance.

Though he provided a good effort, the performance felt as if something was missing. I think the HP Pavilion is too big of a place for John Mayer (most of the 200-section was empty) — at least for now. An indoor venue like the Warfield or even the outdoor Shoreline Amphitheater might be better suited for his talents.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Photos from Kristel’s Surprise Birthday Lunch are now posted on the flickr account. I’m 50/50 on how the photos turned out. I took them with the new Sigma lens I’ve been using. It is a great lens, but I have yet to get accustomed to taking into account the depth of field (DOF) and the aperture I’m using. This causes objects meant to be in-focus out-of-focus. Some of the photos could have turned out better.

You can find all my photos on my flickr account. Below are a few of my favorite photos.

How many email addresses do you have?  What are they for?
Submitted by clippedwings.

I have an old @yahoo.com address that people still write to me at.

I have three domain email address @janella.com.  One is my personal email.  Another is for online purchases. The last one is for registering for web sites.

Just wanted to make this quick post saying that Tiana, Jane, and Ann are visiting from Hawaii this week. This weekend was packed with activities including a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Paramount’s Great America.

I’ll work on the photos when I can and get them posted. Come to think of it did I ever finish all the photos from England slash France trip?

Farrah and I are back from our trip!  We’re pretty exhausted.  Farrah is out like a light and I will be short.  I just wanted to post something really quick.  I have several missing blog entries for our last days in London and our trip to France.  I have them jotted down on the laptop and will post them once I do more proofreading and editing.  They will be backdated in a sense, so you will need to go back to read the posts.

I’ll work on posting the photos and some videos of our trip when I can.  But for now, a nice comfortable bed awaits.

Early this morning we went through a list of sights we still haven’t seen in London. The list was long. We asked ourselves, “Out of the places we still have yet to see, what would be our biggest regret if we didn’t see it?” From there we prioritize our goals. Not making the list of places to see was: Covent Garden, Picadilly Circus, and The National Gallery.

We made our choices and set out for the day.

British Museum

We took the Tube to the Tottenham Court Road station. Shopping, as well as sightseeing, was on the agenda today. Though prices in the UK were high - to the currency conversion - we couldn’t leave London without a few souvenirs. When we popped out of the station, it was near a clothing store Farrah wanted to visit. We made our way in to look around for a bit before going to the museum.

We made our way down the street toward the British Museum. We luckily found a Starbucks, as we were in need of a little pick-me-up. We ducked on in, ordered drinks, and sat down to do some further game planning. We figured we could see most of the tourist spots we wished to see in the morning - finishing around noon time. Then we would head back to the flat for some lunch. After lunch, Farrah would go shopping while I’d stay behind to do some photo stuff on the laptop. Then in the late afternoon or early evening, we’d hit one more tourist attraction.

We finished our coffee and then headed down the street to the British Museum. We were only interested in seeing one exhibit - The Rosetta Stone.

When entering the British Museum, you are greeted with a big entrance way which is topped by an intricate glass ceiling, as you can see in the photo above. The photo doesn’t do the setting justice. We spent several minutes taking it in and taking photographs. I wish I had a super wide lens to capture it all. It is beautifully massive. Awe-inspiring. Breathtaking. I can only imagine how it would look on a clear starry night. I’m sure one day I will see it.

We found the information desk and a map of the museum. We thumbed through the pamphlet. There is so much to see here, but we were focused on our single goal: The Rosetta Stone. The curators must be aware that this is the main attraction, as they put The Rosetta Stone on the first floor and in the first exhibit room you could enter.

We walked in.

The Rosetta Stone is not uniquely large like the stones from Stonehenge or Avebury. But then it’s not the size of the stone but what is written on it that is most important in this case. We spent a good fifteen minutes looking at the stone, and also reading the historical notes accompanying the exhibit. We then had a quick look-see at the gift shop across from the exhibition entrance, then we headed on out to our next destination.

British Library

Our next stop was the British Library. I know what you are asking, “Why a library?” Well, this is a pretty amazing library. This particular library has some amazing works on display. The ones I found most interesting were copies of the Magda Carta. Also, there were:

• Hand written lyrics by the Beatles
• Two Guttenberg Bibles
• Notebooks by da Vinci and Darwin
• Manuscripts by Bach and Mozart
• A letter from Queen Elizabeth I
• A history of Britain written by Jane Austen
• And many other amazing written works

All of these works were only display in a huge room. You can even find some of those items online on the British Library’s web site.

For lunch, we bought sandwiches at the shop in the courtyard called ‘The Last Word". We ate in the courtyard and discussed all the amazing exhibits we saw in the three hours we were out.

Shopping on Oxford Street

We headed back to the flat from the British Library. Farrah did some shopping at the stores on Oxford Street while I hung out at the flat blogging and fixing some photos. The only other plans we had were going to the London Eye, then eating fish and chips as our last dinner in London.

Farrah was tired after walking through the stores. She took a long nap. I bought a ticket to the London Eye for her online, choosing the last time possible which was 8:00 pm. Luckily I bought it at the time because we got a late start to the London Eye.

London Eye

We had seen the London Eye from a distance when we went to Westminster Abbey. It looks ever more impressive as we approached it in the setting sun. Again, it’s difficult to appreciate its size unless you walk up to it.

We rushed into the ticket kiosk to retrieve the ticket and then Farrah rushed into line and onboard her pod. Yes, she was making this trip alone. I wasn’t going to take a chance, especially after the Eurostar debacle. The round trip on the Eye is about 30 minutes. So as Farrah was going around the wheel, I made my way back up to the street to take some photos.

Farrah can only tell you how the London Eye was. I could see on her face she was afraid at first but happy she went on the London Eye. I do think she wishes I was on there with her.

Golden Hind

After leaving the London Eye, we took a slow walk back to the Underground Station to head back to our Bond Street stop. We stopped to take more photos of the London Eye and Big Ben in the setting sun.

We wanted to eat our last London dinner at the Golden Hind, a fish and chips place close to the flat. We ate takeaway from there on our first night in London but decided to eat in the restaurant that evening. We had the Haddock, the mushy peas, and pickled onion. I was going to order the Halibut, which was more expensive, but the owner mentioned it was a frozen fish, unlike the fresh Haddock. It was very sweet of him to mention that, and so I changed my order.

The Haddock is a healthy size. It is deep-fried but not oily one bit. I never had mushy peas before the Golden Hind, but if they taste elsewhere as good as they tasted here, I’ll continue to order them. The mushed peas were the size of garbanzo beans! I had to try the pickled onion. It wasn’t as pickled as I hoped for but it went nicely with the Haddock.

The Golden Hind doesn’t have an alcohol license, but they do allow you to bring your own booze. Several people did as they were celebrating the win by Chelsea over Manchester United in the FA Cup which brought more liveliness into the place.

Packing & Posting

We took a slow walk back to the flat knowing what awaited us - packing for home. We gathered our clothes and few knick-knacks. Farrah did most of the packing, fitting all our belongings into five pieces of luggage. We packed light, coming with only four pieces of luggage:

• My backpack for the camera and laptop
• Our big backpack - the one Farrah used on her first trip abroad
• A small rolling bag
• A small LL Bean backpack

The fifth piece of luggage, a Yahoo! duffel bag was packed into the small rolling bag. We broke that one out to fit a few items in. We really didn’t buy much, just enough to partially fill the Yahoo! duffel.

While Farrah packed, I did the Underground planning on the computer. We noticed the Underground line we needed to take didn’t start running until around 7:00 am. This made getting to Heathrow possibly problematic. This is great news to find out the day before, right?

Our plane leaves at 11:00 am. The Underground, where we are, doesn’t start running until 7:06 am. It takes us to Green Park where we need to catch the Tube to Heathrow. By our estimation, we’ll be at Heathrow by 8:30 am. There isn’t really room for error such as missing the Tube. Stress time! We could take a cab, but it might cost 40 or so pounds versus the 4 or so pounds each to take the Tube. Oh well, wish us luck on the Tube.

Well, we better get our sleep. I’ll probably post this when we get back to the US.