My father called me up while I’m trying to make dinner and says “Son, you gotta read this book How We Decide by some guy.  It’s got ice cream on the cover so you know which one it is, I’ll mail you my copy and you can save the ten bucks.  Do you have a bookstore in San Francisco?  You gotta to read it and tell me what you think.” (more…)

So I recently came across this blanket at Z Gallerie and loved it because it’s one of my favorite colors and it’s also so very, very soft.  Eventually I gave into the temptation and bought it after trying not to since it was kind of expensive.  However, now I’m firmly in love with it and couldn’t be happier.  In fact, I redesigned my new bedding and some accessories around this blanket.  It’s 50″x60″ which is the perfect size to curl up and read or watch TV.  The back of the throw is just as soft but not fuzzy, more of a velour-type material.  The best thing about it is that it doesn’t shed!  There have been plenty of fuzzy blankets that have come before that shed and quickly got dumped.  I’ll be hanging on to this one for a long time to come.  This lovely blanket gets a because it’s just that awesome but still a tad on the expensive side.

We are attempting to use AirBnB to get a place for our upcoming trip to Austin, TX. The concept is great. It’s a website where you can list a spare couch that someone can rent for a day or a mansion that someone can rent for extended periods of time.

The actual site works pretty well. (more…)

The Book

I’ve spent a lot of time reading books about the civilian side of life from wars and conflicts over the ages.  Never had I ventured into the military side of it until this past week.  I decided it was high time to get past my issues and try reading something from a new perspective.  I picked up (well, ordered) the book Generation Kill by Evan Wright, an embedded Rolling Stone reporter during the northern Marine lead invasion of Iraq at the very beginning of the war.  The book is just under 400 pages in the edition I bought and has maps of the Marine’s route and pictures of the men in the story.  I picked this book because it has great reviews (4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon), its own mini-series on HBO (which has done some great series on wars) and because while it’s from the soldier’s side, it’s still from a civilian’s point of view.

(more…)

What? Who does this idiot think he is? Does he know what year this is? Reviewing iPod?! Sheesh!

Bear with me.

OK, here’s the deal. Last year, I bought the 120gb classic. It is the 3rdmodel I have owned, and probably the 8th actual iPod. The second one I got was a total lemon model and I had to keep returning them. But I bought the next one…hm.

I am an old man. My first portable music player was a transistor radio which was dropped into my crib when I was a baby. A few years later, I had a portable Mickey Mouse cassette deck (more…)

I like movies about con men.  All the double-crossing and “who’s got the bag of money?” and especially the scene where the mark realized he’s been had and the diamond mine doesn’t exist or the bag is full of old newspapers.  The Big Con is the nonfiction basis for most of those movies I love so much (The Sting, the Spanish Prisoner, Nine Queens, House of Games & Paper Moon) and some of the ones I don’t (Confidence & Criminal).  The book was written in 1940 but the world it describes was mostly gone even by then.  It’s a history and a survey of the ways and methods of American con men.  Maurer interviewed dozens of con men with names like the Honey Grove Kid, Limehouse Chappie & the Jew Kid to write this and he really captures the way they talk. (more…)

This is a 3 season long show that was on Nickelodeon.  It’s tough to describe cause there is very little out there that’s anything like it.  It’s a US-written, Korean produced, animated fantasy-comedy-kid’s cartoon-martial-arts-action-teen-drama epic that can’t really be compared to anything else out there.  I can’t even begin to explain to you what it’s about without confusing you or making it sound dumb.

It’s about duty, loss and making peace with your past.  It takes place in some kind of steampunk fantasy version of Asia full of hybrid animals like turtleducks and turtleseals.  The premise, which they tell you at the beginning of every episode so I can say it from memory, is that Aang, the kid who was being groomed  to save the world from war and is essentially a secular Dalai Lama, disappeared 100 years ago and was frozen in ice.  His people were killed and everything fell apart.  Because it’s a kids cartoon they can’t say the word “kill” though, but it’s pretty clear what happened. (more…)

I got this wonderful book for Christmas from my dear mother. It is Volume 2 of the Mendocino Papers. It is written by Bruce Anderson and Mark Scaramella, the two best writers dealing with the goings-on of Mendocino County for sure. You may have read these news features previously as they ran in the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Truthfully, the ones that I recognized were the ones I am happiest to own in book form. The series of articles regarding the tradition of arson fires in Ft. Bragg definitely needs to be optioned for an amazing screenplay. The characters are unforgettable. The Coen Brothers would have a field day with it. The story is a combination of ‘Blood Simple’ ruthlessness and ‘Raising Arizona’ dunderheadedness.

‘The Great Ft. Bragg Witch Hunt’ is also very enlightening…in a dark ages sort of a way. It is about some women that ran a daycare facility until they were accused of ritual satanic abuse and run the hell out of town. (more…)

I’ve been on a documentary kick lately, thanks to Netflix. Over the weekend I watched Girl 27. It’s about Patricia Douglas, who was a dancer at MGM in the 30’s. She was raped at an MGM stag party by a high power executive who was never even charged for this crime. The documentary gives you a different look at MGM. Usually when I watch anything about those days, actors reminisce happily about their lives on the MGM set. This documentary shows you what it may have been like if you were a chorus girl in one of the many musicals produced in that era.

(more…)

I can’t ever, ever, recall having car sickness and/or the stomach flu until this past weekend.  We were an hour into our trip when I made my friend pull off immediately into a shopping center because staying in the car would have been horrible.  Luckily, LA also goes on for pretty much ever, so our stop included a Target, where I could try to find some medcine to make the next 5 hours go by without further incidences.  Unluckily, none of us had ever really had car sickness/stomach flu so we spent some time in the pharmacy aisle to figure out which sort of pill would make it bearable.  All I could remember while looking at the meds was the Pepto-Bismol song, which covered most of my problems.  However, Pepto is pretty big on being in liquid form, which isn’t great for the car.  There was a new product called Pepto-Bismol InstaCool on the shelf though.  Chewable tablets in a bottle that promised to have the same effect as the liquid, and at that I was sold.

(more…)

Being Vegan, the subject of food is always brought up around me. The vegans I knew who had been to New York or lived there always mentioned Babycakes. Babycakes is a bakery that specializes in not only vegan desserts, but in making them safe to eat for people with a host of allergies. BabyCakes offers all-natural, organic alternatives free from the common allergens: wheat, gluten, dairy, casein and eggs. With a large menu full of things vegans could only dream of, I longed for the day I could enjoy one of their delicious treats. (more…)

Moon

Moon was probably one of the top movies I saw in 2009.  I’d heard a lot about it before I got around to seeing it and the things I heard didn’t disappoint.  Moon, starring Same Rockwell and featuring Kevin Spacey as the voice of GERTY was written in part and directed by Ducan Jones.  Sam Bell has signed up to work on the Moon at a Helium-3 mining operation for Lunar Industries, alone for 3 long years and leaving behind his wife and newborn daughter.  His only companion at the station is the GERTY, the computer assistant that helps run the base and the huge harvesters working the surface of the Moon.   (more…)