Contract Work

I got some work for the next few weeks.

A friend of mine works at The Multiverse and they need some art for a client. I'll be helping them out along with Mike Witt.

It's good to feel like I'm contributing to something again. The guys there are nice and the work should prove both interesting and challenging.

Anyways - it's at least a short term solution. Which is better than nothing! :)

South, baby. SOUTH!

Yesterday we went out to Vietnamese with Chu, Grace and Bryan. We thought they were going to take us to a new restaurant, but really, they took us to a mall.

A Vietnamese Mall.

We sat down in the food court and Grace took Alicia to several different shops and ordered different items from each place. Now, I know you're thinking - Mall food sucks. Well, American mall food might suck, but Vietnamese Mall food does NOT. It was amazingly fresh and DAMN GOOD.

We were a little out of our element, but it was somehow oddly familiar to that feeling we had from traveling / living in Asia. How awesome is it that they have such a large community of Vietnamese out here that they made a MALL entirely focused on them! Yeah, cities have "China-town" and "Japan-town", "Little Italy" and the like, but those are really areas or neighborhoods where people of similar ancestry gathered and lived, set up shops and generally communed. This is a MALL built specifically to service the Vietnamese population of the area.

Somehow it struck me as significant because out here in the Bay Area white people are kind of a minority. I mean - not really, but when you've grown up in the mid-west where whites are definitely the majority, it's a nice change to have such a solid mix of the world here. I think people are used to there being a "China Town" in a city simply because 1/6 of the world population is Chinese. There is going to be a Chinese group formed anywhere and everywhere. It's a given. But it's not every place that has a large enough Vietnamese population to warrant a mall devoted to their shopping pleasure.

I like that. There's a Vietnamese MALL here.

Anyways - on the drive back, I needed to get on the highway heading South and somehow we started saying "South, baby. SOUTH!" Over and over with gusto. We were just messing around, but Bryan has turned into a little tape-recorder at the wee age of two and MAN was he funny repeating us. He had so much fun saying "South, baby. SOUTH!" That he just kept saying it over and over all the way home.

We had fun.

Razorba

"We Got Your Back"

That made me laugh. I found a link to this while looking around for video game companies to apply to. It's a big plastic golf club with a slot for your razor so you can shave your back yourself! It looks like such a time saver! I wonder if they have a shaving cream applicator attachment... or if you have to find someone with a strong enough stomach to lather you up.

Go check it out - you know you want one Dad!

LOL

(Going a bit loopy staying indoors in front of the computer - time to get out into the sun.)

Real Ice Cream

Last week we went to Real Ice Cream.

Sometimes we find weird new places to eat online or in the newspaper. Sometimes they are pretty good but we often don't go back just because we would rather try out something new. Real Ice Cream is different. We'll be going back... a lot.

Their website is really bootleg, but their food and ice cream is NOT. They are a chaat house, which is like Indian snack food. It's really good stuff at $3-4 per plate. But the big draw is the ice cream. They have 25 flavors of really interesting flavors. Sure there are some staples, but we want to try the fig, kulfi and masala chai! Last time I had chicoo and gulkand. I have no clue what those are, but they were GOOD.

I think we're going to try to go back today...

Try something different in your neighborhood!

ZeitGeist Movie

In looking for images for this post I came across this - I find it hilarious that someone had the time to spend on this... couldn't they have done something more productive? ANYWAYS...

The latest buzz-word is viral marketing. Well it got me again and it was intriguing. I've received THIS LINK from a couple people now and I'm posting it here for whomever cares. Zeitgeist Movie is a 2 hour long commentary on things our society has accepted as truths. I watched it on my Wii on the TV with AJ. YAY, Nintendo!

The movie goes in three parts.
Part 1 speaks on Christianity and history as we know it.
Part 2 is about 9/11 and the media. (like a certain Michael Moore movie, but less dramatized)
Part 3 is about the Federal Reserve Bank, steering the public and war for profit.

I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I find it interesting to think about. Some things make sense to me - mostly the idea that one should always question rather than simply accept. It's good to think.

So watch and think.
Tell me what you think.
Tell someone else what you think.

Ratatouille

I insist that you go see Ratatouille.

This movie is undeniably one of the funniest, most beautiful movies PIXAR has ever made. The world they created is amazingly complex and deep, yet appropriate for the characters and really pulls the viewer into the reality of the world. It is nigh flawless. The animation is impeccable. It was subtle at times and extravagant at others. I was in awe.

The plot as a whole was slightly predictable, but I didn't mind. The voice acting sometimes left a little to be desired - American actors doing French people speaking English is... a stretch. PIXAR ought to command enough of the world's attention to be able to cast the best English speakers of any country for added immersion in the film.

The last movie I saw was Spider-man 3 and I only saw it because I didn't have to pay. I almost swore off movies altogether based on that movie, but it didn't really seem fair to companies like PIXAR whom although tied to the monstrous hip of Disney, actually care about the story over the buck they will make.

I don't really like going to the movies; people kick your seat, talk through scenes, rustle wrappers and generally make movie-going unpleasant. Top onto that the hefty $10+ cost of the ticket alone and it's really not worth it. The exception is going to see kids movies. I can forgive kids because they aren't supposed to adhere to social mores yet and you get a much better feel for the emotional state of the movie through their unfiltered reactions.

I want to work in games, but after seeing this movie, I almost want to work in film... well, at PIXAR specifically. LOL

Again I reiterate - you must go see this movie. Don't wait for the DVD.