./janella.com

It’s great to hear the Writer’s Strike is over. But according to Kristin at E!online, some of my favorite shows won’t be on until next season!

My favorites:

24 - Looks like Jack won’t be back until next January, since they only finished half of their episodes. A long break may be good for this show, which has had some weak writing as of late.

Battlestar Galactica - For the final season, it looks like they are going to split it just like the 2.0 - 2.5 box set. Razor quenched my thirst for new Galactica, but only for so long.

Big Love - Looking good for this summer!

Brothers & Sisters - Only four new episodes this year?!?!?!

Dirty Sexy Money - One of my favorite new shows. Too bad it won’t be on until next fall.

Gossip Girl - Yeah, really. I always walk in when Farrah’s watching and I know what is happening. A favorite?

Grey’s Anatomy - Some new episodes, according to the article. Frankly, I’ve lost a bit of interest in the characters.

Heroes - No new ones this year. They really need to work on the story lines, and it sounds like they are from the article.

How I Met Your Mother - They might cancel it?!?!? How could they?

Lost - There are new episodes now - if you’ve been watching. I guess they’ll be doing a few more this season.

Pushing Daisies - My favorite show of the new season! It sounds like they might have a few new episodes this season. I really hope they do.

Read the article for more information on your favorite shows. For now, I guess I need to be satisfied with my reality show diet of - Rock of Love 2, Project Runway, American Idol, America’s Next Top Model, and Celebrity Rehab.

Yes, I watch too much tv. Thank goodness for Tivo!

Since I had ordered my Dell over the phone, I tried to seek technical support the same way. The Dell answering menu kept directing me to seek help online. After nearly an hour, I finally contacted a human, but there was an infuriating language barrier. It sounded as if the customer representative was repeatedly asking if I’d pressed the “cat slap button.” Then I realized she was referring to the “caps lock” button. I asked where she was. “In the Philippines,” she replied.  -- Sending an S O S for a PC Exorcist

Ah, you have to love outsourced technical support.  But the main point of the article isn’t support via the Philippines, it’s about PC/Windows support in general.

You know me, I go with what John C. Dvorak says in the article:

“I advise everybody to buy a Macintosh because Apple products are the easiest to use,” he said. “If you own a PC, you have to find a local nerd, a kid, maybe a relative. Every family has one unless they’ve just moved here from a foreign country. That’s the only solution.”

Unfortunately, I happen to be that one Dvorak speaks of.  So please, please, please, if you are buying new computer, please buy a Mac.  It will make your (Internet) life easier.

I’ve been meaning to blog more this year than I have in the past. Unfortunately (or fortunately), it has been busy at work.  Then two weeks ago I had dinner with friends I had not seen in years.  It was great seeing them, but I caught the flu from one of them!  A small price to pay to see friends, but it really through ‘my game’ off for the next couple of weeks.  I still have a lingering cough at this point.  This thing is nasty.

Anyway, I’ll be back to blogging soon. There are several subjects I’ve been itching to write about but I haven’t set aside any time to write.  I will shortly.

…or post private photos online.

A 17-gigabyte file purporting to contain more than half a million images lifted from private MySpace profiles has shown up on BitTorrent, potentially making it the biggest privacy breach yet on the top social networking site.

Sounds like it’s possibly a very bad thing. But I’m wondering who has the bandwidth to download all 17-gigabytes of data. Read the rest of the article here.

I have been to a salon twice before Farrah and I were married. The salon was Atelier Aveda on Santana Row. Aveda is for everyone, both women and men. But it appears to cater to women more. Since I have been growing out my hair again, Farrah thought I would like to visit a salon again. Instead of Aveda, she found the American Male Salon.

The salon is located in San Antonio Shopping Center, an outdoor mall where I spent many days hanging out. It’s tucked in a corner near the 24-hour Fitness. Parking was a bit of an issue on a Saturday afternoon since Trader Joe’s was bustling.

I arrived a bit early for my appointment. I was offered a drink and a chair in front of the television where the Seahawks-Packers game was on full blast. I then met Yessica (I heard Jessica, but her card says Yessica). Farrah signed me up for the Men At Play package. The package was not only for a haircut, but also included a pedicure and a manicure. They call it detailing which is a term I think I prefer.

Yessica suggested starting off with the pedicure, then the manicure, and lastly the haircut. I have never had a pedicure or manicure and found the experience to be extremely relaxing. Yessica was very professional and nice. She talked only when I started a conversation, giving me the option to simply relax and enjoy the service and the football game, which was on another television set in the manicure/pedicure area!

After my nails were done, and before my hair was washed for its cut, I had the opportunity to dip my hands in a paraffin hand dip. I have to say that experience is interesting as well. Layering your hands in wax and having it peeled off later to reveal a softer feel is an experience.

The haircut was standard fare, pretty much secondary to what had previously occurred. Yessica did talk to me about options regarding my hair and how I take care of it. She offered products to consider using for my hair without being pushy about it. Me, I’m used to being fairly bald so any advice is helpful.

I really enjoyed my experience there. Though it cost considerably more, for the package, I think I will find myself going back in six to eight weeks. In fact, I have my next appointment already set.

Rating: **** (out of 5)

Anyone one a invite to Skitch?  I just got invited, and have been playing around with it.  I think the only requirement is Mac 10.4.6 or later.

Leave an email address in the comments if it’s not visible in your profile.

People are crazy interesting, aren’t they? For example, take a look at the below photo.

Yes, what you see is a wedding cake made in the bride’s image. Very disturbing, isn’t it? You can find more photos on CNN through this link.

It has to make you wonder, “How the heck did the groom get talked into this?”

One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged. -- Oscar Wilde

Since the site change in late December, only a week ago, I have been in several online and offline discussion about the older blog entries being gone. Some understood why I wanted to change. Others simply didn’t like it. After all, in life you cannot easily deny what has come before. On the Internet, almost anything you post will always be online. So, like a brow-beaten politician who has stumbled on the campaign trail, I am changing my position. I have relented and am reposting all the old content.

But I am slowly reposting it.

I am also working deliberately on the photo section on Smugmug. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to devote on the photos, but will try to set aside some time in the future. OK, enough talk about updates. I’m going to bed.

Photos no longer available

Interesting building I found on my visit to Digg.com. Imagine being drunk and wandering by this place in Paris. I guess it’s a surrealist building, but I’m not sure if it is built this way or if the building is covered to obtain the look. You can find more information about the building by visiting the following website . This is where I obtained these press photos (more photos after the jump).

The website is in French. I cannot translate the text. If you happen to garner more information on this building I’d like to know.

Photos no longer available

The first movie to be reviewed on the “reloaded” website is Juno. Farrah and I watched Juno about a week ago at the AMC Cupertino Square 16. This theater is becoming our number-one place to watch movies. I suppose because it is new, clean, and doesn’t smell like feet yet.

We had only heard good things about the movie, so expectations were slightly high. The only aspect I wasn’t looking forward to was Jennifer Garner’s acting. We bought our Milk Duds and headed into the theater. We were early enough to have our choice of seats. But the place quickly filled up with eager moviegoers. It had been some time since we watched a movie in a crowded theater.

Here is the brief synopsis provided by Netflix:

Facing an unplanned pregnancy, worldly teen Juno (Ellen Page) devises a plan to locate the proverbial perfect parents to adopt her baby. But the seemingly ideal couple Juno chooses appears to still have some growing up to do. Now, everyone in Juno’s world must do a little soul-searching. Michael Cera (Superbad) co-stars while Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner play the pair of affluent yuppies anxious for a child in this offbeat coming-of-age comedy.

What I Liked

The film is funny and smartly written. Sharing laughter with a large crowd sure makes the movie experience more enjoyable. Juno is one of those movies that has very quotable dialog. You can find yourself quoting lines often throughout the following weeks. The acting is sharp all around, especially from Ellen Page who plays the lead. Yes, I even liked Jennifer Garner.

The film moves at a brisk pace, clocking in at a fast 92 minutes. The seemingly predictable plot points turned out to be refreshingly unpredictable, at least from my standpoint.

What I Did Not Enjoy

I can’t think of anything I didn’t enjoy about Juno. I could say it was short, but it didn’t feel too short. I was awaiting an unsatisfying ending; you know the endings where each viewer needs to determine for themselves if the characters found happiness or not? Luckily this did not come to pass.

Some may think the dialog is trying too hard to be memorable, trying hard to be cute and hip. But it works in this movie for both the characters in high school and the adults.

Final Thoughts

Strong movie. Smart script. Strong acting by likable actors. A good way to spend a few hours in a warm theater.

Rating: ***** out of 5 stars

Happy New Year to All!!!

May your year be a joyous and prosperous!

Now, I need to do that resolution thing, right?

Ok, in particular order, my resolutions are to:

• Use the sleep apnea (CPAP) machine more often, which will give me more energy to...
• Exercise more, which will help me in...
• Losing weight, which will also help with...
• the sleep apnea-thing

For those you of you who don’t know what sleeping with a CPAP machine looks like, see the photo below:

Read the story here for more on sleep apnea.

Not sure what Farrah’s resolutions may be. You’ll need to ask her.

I am starting with a clean slate.

Janella.com is rebuilding from the ground up. I’m starting from zero. This means blog postings previous to this one are no longer available to view. This purging does is not only limited to the blog you are reading now, but also the photos section - which will now hosted on Smugmug. My thoughts on my Flickr account is to post only individual photos there. More on what individual mean in the future.

Why am I doing this?

I have been contemplating this for quite some time. I have been on a creative slump, both in writing and taking photos. It has persisted for awhile now. I have tried dealing with this slump by making manic site design updates to the web site, which regular visitors have seen in the last year.

Part of the problem is with Wordpress, which makes it easy to change your web site’s look by offering plenty of free wonderfully hackable themes. Plug-ins for Wordpress provide additional ways to add features and change the look of the site. Then there are the software updates which can add or change base features. When I started using Wordpress to power the site I started with version 1. As of this posting it is at version 2.3.1.

When I make changes I am satisfied for a short time. Then I start browsing older entries created when using version 1.x or even 2.0, such as the entries of our London trip. I then become unhappy with the way the site looks. The cycle then begins again, changing the site once more. The one constant through these late struggles has been the same - the content.

Yes, the words I have written should stay the same. They should not be edited or reformatted. I should not care that 5 years ago I did not like to capitalize blog entries properly or that post tagging is something I didn’t do last year. I wouldn’t think I would have been the type of person who would care about this, but I do care for some reason I cannot articulate.

What I should be doing is adding new entries when the writing urge hits. I should be taking photos and posting them. But then the above takes a hold of me. It hinders me, stopping me from writing a word or taking a photo. At this point it is something I can’t seem to shut off.

So I have decided to start over.

I tried to think of a graceful way to archive the previous content, other than the archive method offered through Wordpress. At this point I have come up with nothing. What I have written before, and what you have graciously shared your comments on, is not lost. It is simply offline at the moment.

./Janella.com is now ‘red’. “Those of you who know me know that red is my favorite color,” he says sarcastically. I found the Half-Baked via the Weblog Tools Collection site and liked it tremendously.

I hope you are interested in what I write in the future. I hope you comment when you feel the need to do so. I hope to take more photos, interesting photos. I hope to update the site often - in content, not necessarily in design (but perhaps playing a bit with the layout).

From here on we begin anew.