Last weekend Margaux and I had a date night! We went out to eat at Aqua Santa in Williamsburg, which was a very pleasant little Italian restaurant. Took our chances sitting outside, despite a little wind. The food was great, I had a Carbonara, and Margaux had the special which I think was Penné a la Vodka. We were in a bit of a rush to catch a movie however, and it took a little too long for us, but on any normal night it wouldn’t have mattered.
We went into the city to see the new flick Flyboys, which I was really quite excited to see since I heard about it over a month ago. The short of it: it’s about the Escadrille in WW1 when American volunteers went to France to fly against the Germans. In the movie, the story follows some of these young soon-to-be pilots throughout, including the typical “woah is me, my father made me do it”, “I lost everything, so I came here”, “I fought the law, and then ran”, etc. etc. The one I thought was quite authentic was the French boxer, who happened to be the only black pilot, which is a little more true to life (there was in fact only one). Anyway, amongst all of this of course there was a love story, blah blah blah.
Really, the movie was about the dogfighting! These scenes kicked some ass! They modeled Neuports and Fokker DR.1s, plus some bombers and Zeppelins! The realism of the planes was well done, though I doubt the Fokkers were all painted red, and I’m sure there were other fighter planes used. For dramatic effect and to make sure those who don’t know much about this war weren’t confused, some of these liberties were taken. I’ll live. What I loved was the angles they could get since most was CG, a lot of these types of filming just wasn’t possible, even in the movie I compare this to: Memphis Belle.
Unlike Memphis Belle, however, this movie overplayed its epic-ness. The music was out of control! A gripe of both M and I. The storyline was just too cliché, and just really not that interesting. I think the writing could have been quite a bit better, which the definitely had Star-Wars-itis… great effects, bad story. Alas. That’s all right though, I still had fun 
September 28th, 2006
Everything everything everything everything everything I’m invisible I’m invisible I’m invisible I’m invisible… Underworld. If you never listened to them, do yourself a favor and check out some of their stuff at underworld. Become a [free] member, and download their live stuff for free (in archive). I’ve been a fan of them since around 97-98, seen em live once in 2000, and have just about everything everything of theirs (including vinyl). They have officially been around since the 80’s, but the sound as I know them started with Dubnobasswithmyheadman in 91. They’re part of the English design collective Tomato, and always have great design.
Their live show consists of full on jams of their songs, basically using large soundboards with all their sounds being pulled in, and can be brought into any song they want, making for an awesome live experience. Furthermore, Karl Hyde sings and woos the crowd with his free-flowing lyrics, generally created for rhythm and can be non-sensical coming from sources such as conversations or observations. In addition to the heart-pounding musical excursions, they also include wonderful motion graphics consisting of typography for us design-junkies, random images from city life around the world, and live shots from the crowd. At leat that’s what it was like 6 years ago, hopefully we’ll see them here in the US once again.
September 14th, 2006
Ah, typography! Such a lovely art, yet so under-appreciated. This page explains some fundamentals of typography, found courtesy of my friend Pablo. If you find the descenders of Gs and Ys to be sexy, or you’re hot for ampersands, you’re not alone (and don’t need therapy), but you should check out some great books such as one of my professor’s, Alex White Type In Use, among many more from him and other great typographers.
September 8th, 2006
I spend my days working, sitting in front of computers, eating lunch, and being distracted by semi-boring things on the internet just because. Ok sometimes I find some cool stuff to talk about or read, but it seems that lately I’ve just fallen in the ‘whatever’ category of life, and just kinda scrape by looking forward to spending time with M or play with the cats or watch a movie. This isn’t such a bad thing, but I also feel like I’m getting a bit stuck in just ‘being.’ M works hard, deals with many stresses of working hard, and has done so for a while. I’ve been doing that as well, but then something interesting happened, all of a sudden I was finally recognized for all the hard work, given a promo, and now work on a channel that well, isn’t all that challenging.
I can’t complain right? When should I come home ‘tired,’ relax in front of the computer or boob-tube, and think to myself “this is great!”? I start to feel guilty in some way. So now it’s September. Perfect time to kick it up. It stopped being hot, I started running with M again, and I’m planning to work on that damned website of mine finally (or M’s site? or both?). I also think I’m gonna take the bull by the proverbial horns and kick it up at work, hopefully I’ll pick up some interesting and challenging work. If not, well, there is that website of mine to change 
Funny how happiness is such a balance. Stress, distance, companionship, work, sleep, love, and stars need to be perfectly aligned in order to really feel the joys of happiness. Like my dad says “without bad luck, there’d be no luck at all.” Same applies with happiness. So I’m about 80% there, hell, how could I have any problems with such a wonderful girlfriend, nice apartment to come home to, etc. etc. Just a few glitches to take care of. Ok, enough gushing my world, go read someone else’s blog now!
September 6th, 2006
