The Den

A few known facts, realizations, admissions, and observations have lately come together and prompted me to make what might to some be an unexpected purchase. Firstly, since moving to the Bay Area, I don't get enough exersize. Over the 5 years I've been here I've put on too many pounds. Well, most of them were put on in the first 2 years - I've been pretty stable since then. But still, I'm heavier now than I've been since I came back from NZ in 1985, and least healthy, and I can feel it, and I don't like it.

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Once again, its been way too long since I've written anything in the ol' blog. Its so much easier to think about writing something here than to actually do it. So, here's a bit of an update with some of whats been going on with me since October, and a little bit into the future.

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Two and a half weeks ago, when Sarah and Bethany were visiting, just moments before we left to go camping at the coast in Half Moon Bay, a floorboard on my back porch broke under me as I was reaching to get something. My left leg instantly went through the new slot in the floor to the ground below (only about a foot and a half down) but unfortunately said slot was about 2 inches narrower than my leg just below the knee

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As usual, its been far too long since I've posted anything. And as more
usual, this will be short.  But, I've got several things to write
about, so I'll post again soon - I just wanted to at least get this
entry on line so people can see the photos from my recent week with my sister Sarah and niece Bethany.

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Here's a list of good movies.  Clicking a title will take you too the IMDB page for that movie.

• 8 Mile
• A Bug's Life
• Adaptation
• Aladdin
• Amelie
• American Beauty
• Amistad
• Angels in America
• Awakenings
• Babette's Feast
• Bad Education
• Batman Begins
• Beaches
• Beautiful Thing
• Big Fish
• Blazing Saddles
• Boogie Nights
• Born into Brothels
• Brazil
• Brokeback Mountain
• Brother Bear
• Bulworth
• Cars
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005 - Tim Burton/Johnny Depp)
• Chicago
• Children of Dune
• Children of Men
• Chocolat
• Chronos
• Cirque du Soleil - Alegria
• Cirque du Soleil - Dralion
• Citizen Kane
• City of God
• Clerks
• Como Agua para Chocolate
• Crash
• Dave
• Dead Poets Society
• Dogma
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Dr. Zhivago
• Dream with the Fishes
• Duel
• Dune (2000 SciFi Channel Miniseries)
• Dune (1984 David Lynch)
• Eat Drink Man Woman
• Edward Scissorhands
• Everest - IMAX
• Evita
• Fargo
• Finding Nemo
• Flushed Away
• Forrest Gump
• Gangs of New York
• Garden State
• Ghost in the Shell
• Ghost in the Shell 2
• Ghost World
• Gummo
• Hannibal
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• Heathers
• Hellboy
• Henry V
• Highlander
• Highlander: Endgame
• History of the World: Part 1
• Hotel Rwanda
• House of Flying Daggers
• I Robot
• Ice Age
• Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
• James and the Giant Peach
• Kill Bill Vol. 1
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• King Kong (2005)
• Kontroll
• La Cité des Enfants Perdus
• La Femme Nikita
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
• Les Triplettes de Belleville
• Life of Brian
• Lost in Translation
• Madagascar
• Magnolia
• Manhunter
• Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World
• Meet the Parents
• Millions
• Monsters, Inc.
• Napoleon Dynamite
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Oceans 11
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Planes, Trains, & Automobiles
• Primer
• Princess Mononoke
• Punch Drunk Love
• Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Raising Arizona
• Red Dragon
• Requiem for a Dream
• Robots
• Seabiscuit
• Seven Years in Tibet
• Shaun of the Dead
• Shortbus
• Sideways
• Sin City
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• Spiderman
• Spiderman 2
• Spirited Away
• Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring
• Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
• Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
• Tampopo
• Team America: World Police (Fuck Yeah!)
• Terms of Endearment
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
• The Animatrix
• The Big Lebowski
• The Bourne Identity
• The Bourne Supremacy
• The Butterfly Effect
• The Cell
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• The Day After Tomorrow
• The Green Mile
• The Hours
• The Incredibles
• The Iron Giant
• The Ladykillers (2004)
• The Last Samurai
• The Last Temptation of Christ
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Director's Cut)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Director's Cut)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Directors Cut)
• The Matrix
• The Matrix Reloaded
• The Matrix Revolutions
• The Mission
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• The Name of the Rose
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• The Princess Bride
• The Producers (1968 - Mel Brooks)
• The Red Violin
• The Royal Tennenbaums
• The Seven Samurai
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Silence of the Lambs
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999 - Pierce Brosnan)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 - Steve McQueen/ Faye Dunaway)
• The Wedding Banquet
• This is Spinal Tap
• Time Bandits
• Touching the Void
• Toy Story
• Toy Story 2
• Trainspotting
• Troy
• Twelve Monkeys
• Waking Life
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 - Gene Wilder)
• Winged Migration
• Young Frankenstein
• Zatoichi

Commuting in and out of the city from the East Bay is going to be even
more heinous than usual for the next few months.  At about 3:40 this
morning, a tanker truck full of gasoline crashed on one of the
overpasses in the 'maze' of freeway interchanges in Emeryville, not far
from Pixar.

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This past Thursday was my birthday.
Rather than having anything big and formal or I invited a bunch of
friends over after work for beer and pizza and whisky.  It worked out
great and a fun time was had by all. Pixar folks and non-pixar folks
alike.  We managed to kick the keg of Sunny Day IPA (it was only 1/2
full to start with) and put a good dent in the other beers.  I recieved
some wonderful gifts, including hand-made cards from the kids next
door, and now my alcohol collection is even larger than before!

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Eventually I plan to put up a page with photos and details of the
process I go through when I brew at home. But for now, since I have two
beers fermenting at the same time, here's how they look:

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URL: http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/

Want to see what the weather's like here in the San Francisco Bay Area?

 
This page shows a nearly-live photo taken from the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

 Located well over 1000 feet up, in the Berkeley hills, the camera faces west across San Francisco Bay towards the Golden Gate and shows all or part of the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, and Albany immediately below, and the skyline of San Francisco in the distance.

 It has links to all sorts of local weather-related info,  and a time-lapse movie  from the day before (one frame taken every minute.)

URL: http://www.couchsurfing.com/

Couchsurfing.com aims to create a better world, one couch at a time.  Meet people from interesting places, meet people IN interesting places!

A 'social networking' site that links travellers with hosts. Sick of being just another tourist? If you're going somewhere and would like to meet a 'local' and get an insiders view of your destination, check out couchsurfing.com.  You can sign up to offer your couch to a passing surfer, or look for available couches in distant lands.   A site with a pretty active community, it offers plenty of wise and useful info about the concept, including issues of safety and trust with regard to opening your home to, or staying in the homes of, strangers. 

 In my many travels I've crashed on plenty of couches offered by total strangers out of pure kindness and hospitality. This is a wondefully karmic way to 'give back to the world'