LA 2006 Day 3
A very slow start. But that’s ok. We watched my brother’s place while a handyman came over to work on some renovations he’s doing to his place. Afterwards, we rolled over to the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market. It’s pretty big, and is surrounded by other shopping venues and the CBS television studios.
Inside you can find tons of food shops, bakeries and restaurants. We ate at a little place called Singapore Banana Leaf. Awesome food! And best of all, when I asked for spicy…they gave me spicy!
Eventually we made our way south a bit to Torrance. We hung out at the Del Amo Mall for a bit (parts of Quentin Taratino’s “Jackie Brown” was shot there) and eventually made it to Andre & Miriam’s house.
LA 2006 Day 2
After spending a mellow morning at my brother’s condo, we headed across Los Angeles towards the Pacific Ocean. LA’s freeway’s are crazy and infamous for its bad traffic congestion, but at around 1pm it wasn’t that bad. We made it to Malibu in about 30 minutes.
We had a huge lunch at Fiesta Feast. Fantastic Mexican food! Strangely the owner apparently met Ronald Reagan somewhere, and there’s an autographed picture of him with Ronald Reagan.
Anyway, after an excellent lunch, we finally made it to our destination, The Getty Villa.
The Villa is a museum dedicated to ancient Greek and Roman civillizations. It’s more than just a museum in the strictest sense. There is an amphitheatre where ancient Greek and Roman plays are performed. Infact the entire museum area is designed to look like an actual Roman noble’s country house that stood on the foothills near Mt. Vesuvius. Through excavations in the 1700 and 1800s, a detailed map was eventually made of the villa’s landscape. So when Mr. Getty himself commissioned the project they had an excellent source of architectural reference. Now that I’ve visited both the Getty Museums of LA, I think I prefer the Villa!
Afterwards, we decided to kill time at the 3rd Street Promenade in nearby Santa Monica. We’ve been here before, so we’re somewhat familiar with the area now. Still, it’s fun just to walk around the place and watch the tourists, the locals and the street performers!
That evening we returned to my brother’s place briefly before the 3 of us headed out to Palermo’s Italian Restaurant. Excellent place, I highly recommend it. We capped off the evening at The Standard, a swanky jet-set hotel with a glamorous Hollywood bar. We tried to get these stupid arm-bands that apparently allowed you to go up the escalator then on to the top floor to get one of the best views of LA. The admission policy had changed since the last time my brother had been there, and now only hotel guests were being allowed in. Dumb. So we sat and people-watched over cocktails.
Stay tuned for more…
LA 2006 Day 1
We left the Bay Area in Kristen’s car around 11am. It was smooth sailing all the way. We stopped along the way in Gilroy for lunch, San Luis Obispo and Ventura before arriving at my brother’s place in Los Angeles just before 8pm. Sure most people take the I-5 because it is faster, but it is one of the most boring roads ever. Yes we took the winding 101, but it never fails to impress with its lovely views of vineyards and the Pacific Coast.
Anyway, after a tour of my brother’s new place, we left for dinner. We hit Gingergrass a fusion-Vietnamese place. Pretty good. Next we hit a new gelatto joint. I think it was called Panzzo Gelatto. Wow! that was some of the best ice cream ever…and perfect for sitting at their outdoor tables in the LA summer night.
We topped off the evening by hitting a bar called “Ackbar”. A dive bar with its own style. What made this place special was its arts & crafts room. Every night apparently has its own theme. Last night was pasta night. Right, so for a $2 donation (to cover the cost of materials) you get a square of cardboard as your canvas. Tons of different shapes pastas to glue on the board, then your choice of beads, pipe-cleaner, markers, paints, glues, glitter and more. It was like art-activity time in kindergarten except with alcohol. It was a blast!
Stay tuned for more…
A very pleasant Sunday
We had amazing weather here in San Francisco! It was almost a tropical paradise… and weather this good around this time of year is rare!
Kristen and I walked down the street and got ourselves some brunch at Darla’s. We then strolled into Golden Gate Park. Our destination was the Conservatory of Flowers and the Butterfly exhibit therein. Though we’ve lived in the neighborhood for 8 years or so, we’d never gone inside the Conservatory before. I believe it was originally built in 1896 for some kind of fair. Inside there are plants from tropical areas of the world. The butterfly exhibit was neat! there were all sorts of butterflies flying around us going about their business going from flower to flower, plant to plant to drink nectar and polinate.
As we walked back outdoors we heard loud music. It was Gnarls Barkely’s hit “Crazy”. It sounded live. Turned out a local radio station was doing a concert and festival. We rushed over, found ourselves a spot on the hill next to Speedway Meadow and watched the band perform the last 15 minutes of their set. A little while later the B-52’s hit the stage. So we stuck around and watched a good portion of the set. How cool was that? Free concert!
Later that evening we hung out with Kristen’s cousin Curtis, back from a year of studying and adventuring in Beijing. You can check him out at www.djloo.com/blog
Death Angel Returns
Last night I went to Slims to see Death Angel perform with my coworker Greg. We had a few cocktails and enjoyed a fantastic evening of serious heavy metal!
Back in the 80s, San Francisco was the world’s capital for thrash metal. Bay Area bands leading the scene included Testament, Exodus, the world famous Metallica and this band of young guns known as Death Angel. Read more
Steven Seagal kicked my ass
Yeah you read that right. It’s true…except he did it sonically. Let me explain: Steven Seagal, international-martial-arts-action-star (who always looks constipated) is also a musician. The man sings and plays the blues on his Gibson Firebirds and Flying Vs backed by an 8 piece band.
For weeks my coworkers and I joked we were going to see him. Yeah we were all thinking the same thing… get some drinks and heckle the guy Read more
It's my birthday!
at 9:15pm I turned 33. Woo Hoo! Actually, aside from suffering from a bizarre hyper-alergy (probably brought on by my cleaning and dusting of my computer desk coupled with my hell-week of little sleep) has me coughing up junk. Gross I know.
Let’s see, Mom took me and Kris to see the film “Little Miss Sunshine” starring Greg Kinear, Steve Carell, and more. It’s smart, funny and an enjoyable romp with a truly disfunctional family. Then after a short nap and chai, we sat down for my birthday present. Mom cooked typical Bengali food that I grew up eating. Since I moved out I don’t get to eat this stuff often. Here’s what was on the menu:
- steamed rice
- chingri-macher-jhol (shrimp curry – also has zucchini!)
- mangshor-jhol (literally “meat curry” with lamb, potatoes and spices)
- aloo-bhaja ( thin strips of tumeric-spiced potatoes, with chilies. kind of looks like Indian french-fries I suppose)
- a spicy mixed vegetable dish that included eggplant, green beans and potatoes
- and for desert, my fave :
- golab jamun (deep fried balls of cottage cheese, coated in brown sugar and floating in rose water. best served warm! )
The Realities of Making Video Games
What a week. Nonstop excitement. Yeah…so things have been heating up at work. Working for a videogame company sounds cool… I won’t lie it is cool… but it’s also a lot of hard work. Especially when you are approaching a serious deadline. After a beautiful day out with Kristen on Saturday, I had to go into work on Sunday. And I don’t mean like a few hours… I’m talking noon to midnight. It’s just the way things work out.
Anyway the week wasn’t all bad. The highlight was going to the Industrial Light & Magic/LucasArts campus in San Francisco’s Presidio.
What an amazing and creative place. On a side note the cafeteria was awesome with atleast 12 chefs cooking various types of food from: Italian, Mediterranean, burgers to sushi! I got to see a lot of beautiful concept art (so inspiring!) as well as artifacts from several movies from my youth. I stood infront of the life-size prop of Han Solo frozen in carbonite! And across from it was a hilarious lifesize Jar Jar Binks also frozen in carbonite. I’m impressed that George Lucas would let that stay in the lobby! There were various models and props from Ghostbusters, Inner Space as well as the expected hundreds of Star Wars props like original Darth Vader and Boba Fett armors.
Back to reality. Working on our game has been draining lately. But I’m staying ahead of schedule and continuing to crank out some of my best interface and screens yet.
I’m hoping we don’t work more weekends, but I know eventually I will have to again. The schedule is just too busy and we’ll all be making personal sacrifices to ensure deadlines are met. Funny, I didn’t see summer going this way…
Sketch of the Day: Ancient Warrior
It’s been a while since my last last update. Thought I’d start with some art. This guy will end up in one of my secret projects. He would’ve lived in ancient India about 4000 years ago.
Saturday Night Hijinks
Yeah I know, I’m still really slow at this. Anyway, it was Saturday night and the mission was to have fun. The “Action Team” was comprised of Naomi, Alyssa, Alexis and Alex, and of course Kristen and myself.
The plan: action in the Tenderloin district. It’s an interesting neighborhood filled with homeless, drug addicts, pushers, prostitutes, people down on their luck, immigrants, under-40 trendy club-goers and wealthy upwardly mobile and yuppies heading off to events in or around the neighborhood.
As for us, it was dinner in a tiny hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese joint called Tu Lan. It’s cramped, cheap, greasy and wonderful. It’s also one of the first Vietnamese restaurant in The City.
Next we were off to Bindlestiff theater to see an interesting shadowpuppet play (in film format) presented by Anino Shadowplay Collective. The group is based in the Philipines and is currently using a Filipino classic “Florante at Laura”. The group itself is comprised of activist artists, and this particular work focuses on the 1000 year-old conflict between Christians and Muslims. In addition it comments on the joint US and Philipines “training actions” in rural areas of The Philipines in the name of fighting terrorism. Apparently, political killings and other human rights abuses are being perpetrated daily. The film was interesting. However the presentation could’ve used some work. The work was rushed into film format and was lacking in subtitles. For the majority Filipino audience this wasn’t an issue. For some of us it left us in the dark for a bit. As this was a fundraiser event I think it would’ve been in their best interest to add subtitles.
Afterwards we were off to another art event. A photography show at Club 6, complete with 3 bands and several DJs in diferent areas of the club. This was a great venue and we spent a few hours hanging out and drinking cocktails. We wrapped up the night at Mel’s Diner for sandwiches and milkshakes.
Firefly!
Recently Kristen and I have been obsessed with the short-lived science fiction series Firefly. It’s available on DVD and I highly recommend this show. Fox aired some of the episodes back in 2002 and ultimately cancelled it. Idiots.
The show is infact a cross between a Western and Sci-fi (some of my favorite genres). This show, much like the new Battlestar Galactica, is what great science fiction should be: stories about people, real-world issues and ideals – not just escapist, fantasy bullshit. Yes, there are cool special effects, and plenty of action. But you’ll also find stories with heart, well written characters and dialogue. It’s also fantastic to hear space cowboys rattle of Mandarin Chinese when swearing. Random? Yes. But absolutely fantastic. The DVD set has all 13 episodes. Make sure you check out the DVD Serenity after you watch Firefly. It’s the feature film from last year that continues the adventures from Firefly.
Really good stuff!
Browncoats forever!!!
What A Weekend: Monsters and Baseball!
Man, if weren’t aware it has rained almost every day for the last 5 weeks. There have been maybe 6 completely-rain free days. Hell it’s raining now as I type my most eloquent words, LOL. Anyway, this weekend was mostly beautiful.
Saturday there was no rain! In the evening we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Rafael to see a movie. Well actually it was a special restored screening of “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”.
For those who haven’t seen it, you’re going to get 90 minutes of bad acting and hilariously bad dialogue. But you will get the amazing special effects and art direction of Mr. Ray Harryhausen – the man responsible for modern special effects. He’s best known for his amazing stop-motion work. If you need to see anything of his though I recommend “Jason and the Argonauts” especially the sword fight against the skeletons! So the man, the legend spoke about the film and fielded random questions from the audience. The man is in his 80s – yet he was energetic, quite funny and apparently still feels the childlike love for his creations and the fun of making the magic. That was a such a fun movie night.
Here's a bonus pic from my favorite Ray Harryhausen movie: Jason & the Argonauts!
One of the most interesting aspects was the audience itself. THere were artists and other video game industry people like me, film effects people, and children aged 5 to 80!
Sunday afternoon it was baseball at AT & T Park (the SBC Park signs haven’t come down yet) to see the San Francisco Giants take on the Atlanta Braves. Great game, SF won 6-5. In fact the last inning was absolutely thrilling. And I don’t even like baseball! Somehow Kristen turned me into a Giants fan!
Happy Anniversary
Well since my last 1-way communication, life has been pretty good. Just really crazy busy. I must announce with pride that yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 6th/15th anniversary. What? It was our 6th wedding anniversary – but we got married on our 9th anniversary of our first date. 15 years seems like a long time, but it’s funny how it doesn’t feel that way. The Gods have been good to me!
We took the day off from our jobs and spent the day running around like children. Fun all day long!
Ah yes, now where were we?
It’s been a long time hasn’t it? Well a lot has happenned and I want to wish everyone a very belated Happy New Year. So where do I start?
Well the Vice President shot his buddy with a shotgun a few weeks ago. Old news? Yes. Funny? Yes still funny as hell =)
Ok, so I had my old domain name hijacked around the end of December. If you’re reading this now then you’ve probably used one of my new URLs: mrsidslounge.com or mrsid.org. If you’re going to register a domain name just go with godaddy.com – whatever you do steer clear of domainsite.com (the bastards decided to not send any renewal notices and then tried to charge me $75 to get it back.)
After that debaucle I started a new job. I ended 5 years of working at home. Now I commute everyday across the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge north to San Rafael where I’m working as 2D artist and webmaster for Mind Control Software. We make video games! Yeah, this is the first time in my life I’ve said that I LOVE my job. How rare is that? I’m surrounded by talented designers, engineering geniuses and amazing artists who are inspiring me to really sharpen my drawing and painting skills.
As usual I’ve got a bunch of crazy personal projects in the works, but I’ve also found a little time to help out my friend Frances. Her photography is fantastic and she needed a portfolio site. Check out her new site francessonia.com.
Well my supercrazy work schedule has definately cooled down. Stay tuned for some new artwork and new music in a few weeks.
Los Straitjackets Christmas Pageant
I’ll just say it. I hate Christmas and i hate this B.S. holiday season. So why would I even go to a Christmas pageant?
3 reasons:
Rock and Roll, burlesque and booze!
Kristen and I met up with Alan and we hit Slim’s to see the Los Straitjackets Christmas Pageant featuring the World Famous Pontani Sisters and singer/emcee Kaiser George from Scotland.
