Mada-Cool!

A plaque!

With my name on it!

Spelt correctly!

Ultra-Posting!

Live from the Castro Theatre! Presenting...





















ULTRAMANIA - starring...















ULTRAMAN!!!












With appearences by Romy and Kevin.
















So this weekend was an Ultraman event at the Castro Theater. Dan Ross, an animator at TFB was part of the staff who organized the event so that's how I found out about this event. We started our day looking for parking in the Castro. Not the easiest thing to do on a Saturday of great weather, but me managed to find one. Sweet! Stomachs agrowling, we proceeded to hunt down a local eatery to which to partake in digestive gratification. After much walking, we settled for a Thai restaurant on one of the side streets. Ordered: BBQ Beef, Pork Pad Thai, Fried Chicken Fried Rice. Family style for maximum enjoyment. Stop 2 was at Naia. Apparently one of these Gelato places opened up in the Castro. I singled a Rose / Riso (rice) bowl. The rose was disappointingly weak but the Riso was good. With nothing left to do, we got in line for Ultraman. Romy and I played wireless 2p Advanced Wars DS. Unfortunately he had battery problems so we never got to finish a whole game. One interesting event was there was an Ultraman mannequin on to of the Castro theater and at some point, it was blown off by the wind smashing threw glass and landing on the roof of a truck. No one was hurt. Well, Ultraman did lose an arm. Quite shocking. Finally in, the show eventually starts with a cheesy MC plugging his insomniac television which was not the cool MTV version of the late 90's but a sci-fi and horror B movie channel on at the ass of the night. He introduced some prizes that were to be raffled off later in the night including a 1 or 12 ultraman custom guitars. This first showing was of this Ultraman knockoff called Fireman. He had nothing to do with fire and I'm told he has the same special attack as Ultraman with a slightly different pose. Told because I fell asleep during this. Some more MC BS. Then a stunt show. I met Dan later - he was working the toy booth. He told me that the zipper to the Ultraman costume broke and while they were attempting to fix it, the zipper exploded. No official Ultraman sactioning type person would let some a mockery of Ultraman set foot on the stage but, and this is good, it just so HAPPENS one of the guest speakers had the former job of fixing Ultraman stunt costumes for shows. Honing the spirits of MacGyver, he used some wired and Japanese magic to seal Ultraman in. In for good. "You'll never get out" was reported muttered by the Costume fixer and designer guy. See Ultraman kick away the roadblocks of his life.













Next up was Ultraman: Nexus, a modern day movie featuring Ultraman which was naturally preceed by whiny MC guy. The movie was pretty fun but it was one of those Voltron endings. He just didn't mess around. Once he was powered up, it was strike a pose and goodnight. MC BS, raffle stuff, and then a final showing of the last episode of Ultrman which was probably the coolest thing of the night. Mostly because it was just funny. Saraba Urutoraman!

3.0

Version 3 of my website www.grooveboot.com is up. A more clean cut, less cluttered iteration that says "I have a job! I no longer need to whore myself to get one! Hooray sweet sweet vindication!" Perhaps I should write this somewhere. It would be both classy and show visitors, "he has his stuff together."

Crocky!

While Shaba does this whole Texas Hold'em Poker deal with their fancy chips and all in bets, the Toys For Bob folk take a much more light hearted approach to this whole gambling idea. A game of both chance and skill. Ritual and superstition. It is none other than the crocodile dentist game known and loved by all kids ages 4+. Well it's techincally called "Crocodile Dentist" but we know and love it as Crocky. This game is started with a $1 buy in. Another dollar is left in plain site, either in your hand or protruding from a pocket, sleeve, or other article of clothing. With all the buy in money amassed in a basket before Crocky, all players pick a disc with a number determining their order. Next, start pressing teeth! If he bites your hand, you're out! You can use your in plain site dollar to buy back in one time. If you are biten a second time, you turn in your disc. Nuts for you! Last man takes home a big basket of money. As a once a week event, it's great fun for all.






















Crocky's Pearly Whites.





















(Left to Right) Money offering, Crocky, Moderator Guy (Guy is his name), Cyborg (Cyborg is his name), Disc demarking order of dental inspection.

Broken Flowers. Broken Dreams.

That's a weird title. So I tried yet another social group off of craigslist. This one was a movie discussion group which was really interesting. The vibe wasn't all there but the discussion was very good. It made me digest the movie all the better. The movie being Bill Murray's Broken Flowers. So on a five point rating system:

Story 1/5 (blah)
Acting 3/5 (nothing spectacular but nothing bad)
Character Portraiture 4/5
Cinematography 3/5

Overall 2.75/5

I didn't really like this film and without the discussion we had afterwards, I would have liked it less. The group members were sharp to point out a lot of little things that I didn't quite pick out. In the end, I think the best phrase to discribe this movie would be "Negative Space."

Buzzkill

Aug 20th - 1 AM
And before I knew it, someone had lost a tooth...

Aug 19th - 10AM
Some sort of explosion downtown. The news people don't seem too overly concerned so it's probably not a terrorist attack. But why'd terrorists ever attack San Francisco? The bay area probably has the highest concentration of anti-war activists. Cindy Sheehan?

Aug 19th - 12PM
My last day at Shaba was pretty hectic. There was a lot of loose ends to tie up before heading back to TFB. A lot of little tasks I was to get done for the Shabans. Tom, Sylvain, Brandon, Steve, and myself took the RAV4 ride up to Little Saigon to partake in the Pho. Tom was particularly shocked at my consumption of beef tendon. I can understand that it's this translucent, rubbery, and very odd looking thing that's floating in the Pho and that he doesn't eat red meat, but hey, "It's only tendon!" Every time he saw me taking a bite from it, he'd overreact "How can you eat that?!?" to which I'd reply "It's only tendon! It's full of calcium!" So as were leaving, in a moment of my adolescent goofiness, I had the tendon in my mouth protruding like a tongue. Whilst trying to get Tom's attention, the waitress came by to give me an odd look. Hehehe, all in good fun.

Aug 19th - 4PM
Weekly Shaba company meeting. Company President Chris Scholz announces my departure and sending off. They shower me with gifts. Really. It was quite embarassing. I'm glad they didn't do it in front of everyone. Shaba's been fun and educational but it's time to go home to TFB.

Aug 19th - 7PM
Beers with Shabans at the Courtyard Marriot. Californian Anchor Steam.

Aug 19th - 9PM
40 Year Old Virgin. Sony Metreon. Funny movie but I had my hands over my mouth for half of the movie. Just a lot of "OH! That just ain't right!"

Aug 19th - 11:30PM
We went to Kate O'Brian's Irish pub near the Academy for some drinks. I had a Black and Tan. We talked it up and had a merry ole time. Dan, Kevin, Romy, Mike, Ali, Mark, Nee, Christina2 & Man, Genevieve, Bethany, and myself.

Aug 20th - 12:30AM
Man with posse seen prowling about bar.

Aug 20th - 1AM
There seems to be some yelling at the mouth of the bar. Suddenly there is some pushing and then even more suddenly flying chairs and before I knew it, someone had lost a tooth. One posse member comically stood in the back swinging his crutch in a oh-so-menacing fashion. The one guy who got hit luckily fell into an open closet as many chairs were thrown at him. The doorway saved him from some wooden chaired bludgeoning. Romy played Statue on the side wisely not making any sudden movements. Equally comical to the dangerous crutch man was the main assailant who grabbed a glass candle holder and threw it to the ground as to say "I'm so tough! See this candle doesn't even stand a chance against me!" just as he left. Now Kate O'Brians is pretty well situated near the who downtown Bar and Club scene area. The main San Francisco Police station is only 6 blocks away. On a Friday night, there are many squad cars on patrol so on this night we had a timely response of about 90 seconds. Factor this with a run-away man on crutches and the cops saying that they have already seen the group matching the description and you've got some of societies brightest stars. "What a total buzz-killer" spaketh Dan.

The sucketh run plenty

If the letters DMB (David Matthews Band) are rearranged, you get DBM which is both DB and BM. So transending across several languages, it stands that this guy is just crappy. There's nothing he can do. Doomed from the inception of his band's name. Or simply adding "band" to his name so he can seem less into himself. So I went to this concert at SBC park. The show started with pop singer JEM who failed to be truly truly outrageous. She was just myeh. The real show was with the Black Eyed Peas but for reasons we shall only refer to as "idiocy" the jumbo screens were not deemed worthy for their perusal. The BEPs which does not rearrange into any toilet humor were a great show. Not only were their songs pumping but they really knew how to entertain. It was a big disappointment however. The finished their set with "Let's Get it Started" which seemed quite appropriate but with an hour intermission, it became quite ironic. Enter Sucky Matthews. As if the spawn of satan suckling your dry teet, this man managed to suck all that is good in this earth from my consciousness. I guess my big problem was he is a sucky showman. He didn't pick his list very well and only played for his established fanbase. An outsider like me doesn't stand a chance. I didn't recognize a single song he sang and the songs he did play all sound the same. The same one chord over and over again. The show sucked very much like this picture.















Oh, I'm being harsh. He was worse than this photo.
Note bright lights. The epicenter of ass.

M & M night

Double header birthday night for Miki & Manami at Loft 11.
















Me (slightly sun burnt face + 4 shots/drinks), Aya, Tim
















Robert & Manami





















Miki

ALOHA

Chu-i !!! Chu-i is visiting from Taiwan. Happy day! It's been around 18 months since I last saw her. We went to school together at the Academy. Our first class together was Figure Modeling and the Computer Animation Production the following summer. I think a Games Environment and Texture class and a Special Topics Texture class as well. She's got to have the most frequent flyer miles riding shotgun in classmate airlines. So here we have the Aloha Festival taking place at the Presidio. It took some time for me and Dan to find it but here we are.
















Chu-i and me with... um... Mana Pua? I don't know. Pork & Fish in seaweed.
















Dan and Chu-i with hawaiian chicken teriyaki and poke'. Mac salad and rice. Yum!
















Dan, Chu-i, Me. The line for Malastados was long but they were delicious.
















Dan, Chu-i, Me. So there are palm trees and all, and hawaiian "looking" food but is this really an Aloha festival?
















Hawaiian dancers! Proof enough? Thanks for visiting!

Shaba Poker!

Johny "McCall" Menzies, Tom, Rick, Frenton w/ Sylvain's hand in face because he wouldn't look up for the picture.
















The Hawk has landed at Shaba. Corey, Jimmy!, Romy. The back of Bradley's head on the bottom.





















McCall folds! See the frustration in the motion blur.
















Tom's pocket rockets. Robert totally takes him for a ride turning four 8's.
















Ira (Z-axis), Joe (EA), Me (TFB - pretending to go all-in for the picture), and Bradley (Shaba).

So I went down $40 early on, took a rest, determined to have fun bought back in a third time and came back $25 down for the night.

Return of the Bobbites

Friday was a Toys For Bob company picnic at McNears Beach. I arrived at the office around 10:15 and dropped off some more decor for my desk (including my Unuseless Japanese Inventions book which I picked up at the Museum of Contemporary Art store). I should scan in the winner inventions as deemed by the judgement committee (me and Maria). But I digress. Lunch started with some catered Puerto Rican food.
















Plananas. Or as the common folk call them, Plantanes. or is it spelt Plantines?
















Chicken d'Plenty
















Together with rice and salad.





















Producer Anonymous Ness. aka Kwang
















Chef Ness. aka Kwang





















Lead Designer Toby (cubby) waiting for the grub.




















Jamie in Kayak says "I hear food!"





















Junoir Bobbites along the Beach? Could they have heard food as well?





















Lead Artist Terry - Peter peeking from behind. Is he hearing food or is he contemplating what it might be like to get stuffed and or denied. So following Puerto Rican food, I indulged in lunch #2 of jumbo Ness Burger with grilled corn of the cob. Unbelieveably stuffed, I did what most other would do. Kayaking! Mostly in great fear of my life as I kept imagining a Great White shark capsizing my tiny vessel. Fortunately, I reached shore safely. Having paddled my way against the current, I finally came to land and did what anyone else would do after such an strenuous exercise. Volleyball!





















Huddleston delievers your wish Terry!





















The Hawk Dan. aka Jimmy! (with exclamation mark)





















And sly bastard Sunil contemplating what Nat might feel like if kneed in the groin. Paul Yan contemplates "yeah, that would be humorous. Humorous but unlikely to happen."












Terry is the only parent to successfully pull off this stunt. Several unnamed parents attempted it only to have their names screaming in horror and pain.