Monday, 18 February 2002 11:59pm
L
ast weekend I went up to LA on a whim... no particular reason. But I'm glad I did. I ended up hanging out with my old roommate Mary. We went with Daniel to a party at Todd's new place, and it was pretty fun, and it was good seeing Mary again... it's probably been over a year since I last saw her. In other news, I've been playing the demo version of the game "Star Trek: Bridge Commander" where you get to be the captain of a galaxy class starship. It's pretty fun, but not addictingly fun the way GTA3 has been. From what I gather from the demo, this game is going to be strictly mission-based, so there won't be much room for cavorting around the galaxy at will. But I guess the full version will have voice activated controls so you can say "red alert! Shields up!" and say things like "engage" to your helm officer. Pretty geeky, but I think it would be fun... but fun enough to buy the game? Hmmm...
In DVD Review page news, I got rid of the old "Ugly Reverse" theme (since I only made that one just as a quick way of testing to make sure my user-selectable theme system actually worked), and I replaced it with "Flower Power". It's rather... uh... fruity, I guess, but I figured I should make another theme that contrasted with the two that already existed, and you know, maybe make something "cute" for the female DVD enthusiasts out there. Or something. Anyway, you can check it out HERE. If it doesn't automatically come up with the flower power theme from that link, just select it from the drop box on the left side. Also, I added a review of Silence of the Lambs tonight. I think the next thing I'll be adding is a number of comments counter for each movie on the index page, but I don't think I'll be doing that tonight. Anyway, I've got nothing else to say so g'nite!

Tuesday, 19 February 2002 11:59pm
F
or dinner tonight, Cami, Leanne, Marissa and I headed down to Hillcrest to Tapas Picasso, for Spanish food. I'd never been to this place before... everyone else ordered various tapas, but having actually been to the region of Valencia and eating paella there, I had to try the "Paella Valenciana". I've been to a few Spanish restaurants since I went to Spain some 8 years ago, but none have been able to make really great paella. I think the main problem is that saffron is very expensive in the states, and well, no one uses enough. But, I have to say that out of all the times I've tried having paella in the US, tonights was the best. But still not as good as being there :)
Afterwards, we watched eXistenZ, a review of which, you will find on the DVD Review page. Speaking of which, today I added little counters on the index so people can see how many user comments each movie has gotten. Now you'll actually be able to see where the comments are before you actually click on it. And that's just about it for tonight.

Wednesday, 20 February 2002 11:59pm
T
he word for today is "fabulous". I'm going to use it all up right now because straight men really shouldn't be using this word. But sometimes, you just need to use it, because well, it's fabulous. Anyway. Tonight Cami and I went over to Leanne's place for dinner... she made this absolutely fabulous dish... pork chops with a fabulous chocolate and cherry sauce. Yes, chocolate, but it was very subtle chocolate, and well, it was fabulous. Afterwards we played some Monopoly: Dot.com edition, which was fabulously outdated. One of the "chance" cards mentioned something about "banner ads" and collecting $100 million from each player. But I ended up winning which was also quite fabulous.
In other fabulous news, I added a new theme to my DVD review page... it's a Vegas theme. I might continue tweaking it over the next few days because I'm not really happy with the colors of the left side navigation, and the footer image is pretty... blah. But whatever, I felt like it was fabulous enough to put up, so there it is. Check it out and lemme know what you think. But as scary as it is... the flower power theme is really growing on me... fabulous.
And now on a decidedly un-fabulous note... the local public jazz station has a horrible show going on right now. They are playing some jazz, and some hop hop type stuff, but one of the DJ's is a woman who talks over the music trying to do some spoken-word type shit to the beat of the music, but frankly, she sucks at it. She also read a shoutout to a listener from USCD. Uh... doesn't she mean UCSD? Hmmm. Not too bright either. I guess I shouldn't expect too much at 1am. Anyway, that's about all I've got to say for today so g'nite.

Friday, 23 February 2002 11:59pm
I
f you live in San Diego, you can't escape her. If you live in LA, you've probably heard of her. Her name is Danielle Van Dam, a 7 year old girl who was kidnapped from her bedroom about three weeks ago. Her picture is plastered all over San Diego, on the streets, in storefronts... and she's the top story on every San Diego news show. The media frenzy is quite amazing (at least here in San Diego). Anyway. I was bored today, and I decided to find the Van Dam house, which I knew was only a few miles away here. What I found there was rather disgusting.

This picture is the front of their next door neighbors house. There is absolutely nothing going on at this time. Nope, they've been there every single day for the last 3 weeks. Every insignificant thing that happens they know. In a normal news story like this, if investigators returned to a scene to collect evidence the newscasters tell you about it. In this case, if investigators returned to the scene, they have video of it. If the guy down the street (the prime suspect, who was arrested earlier today) comes out to check his mail, they have video of it it's damned ridiculous ridiculous.
I saw news vans from every news show in San Diego and LA, plus others I didn't recognize, and more trucks showed up around the time I got up and left. The photo below shows some of the TV news van masts raised, but only about half the vans are in this photo, and of the ones in the photo, only half had their masts raised. I'd hate to see what it looks like when they are all going!!

Now here's the thing. I really hate to pull the race card, but I really have to wonder... would this case be getting this kind of coverage if this girl was not cute, white, and blonde, and from a nice, decent neighborhood? Would the news stations care enough to mention her more than once on one show if she was a hispanic girl from Chula Vista? I mean, is she the only girl to ever disappear since Jon Benet Ramsey (another cute, blonde girl)? Hmmmm...
Of course, the media frenzy is not entirely just their own doing... the parents of the girl have (in a very wise move) done everything they could to keep her in the media spotlight with the hopes that maybe someone will have a lead and find her.
But these photos are the things that the media doesn't want to show you. It makes them look... well, bad. And the really sickening thing is these days every day on the news they talk about how hard their job is asking neighbors and the family how they feel about this tragic event (similar things have been said about the Daniel Pearl case)... but really, how hard can it be if they are willing to camp out like this? Do they really all need to be there all the time?
Anyway... RANT MODE OFF. Today I got a phone call from Helen and we had a really nice conversation. She used to live in my room with Cami and I hadn't talked to her in a long time. But it was really good hearing from her again. Also tonight I headed down to La Jolla Shores beach where I used to surf every day for a bonfire with Andy and Liz and Andy and Erika (Erica?) and company... and it was fun. I brought my guitar down there and we sang old Metallica and Sting/Police songs (what else??). Ahh yeah. Anyway, I guess that's about all I got to say about tonight so I'll go away now. Bye bye. BTW. Kenny and Julie C. are coming down tomorrow to visit me and Cindy so woooha.