Monday, April 30, 2007

Science Fiction, Double Feature, Doctor X will build a creature

See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Wuh uh uh oh o-o-oh
At the TFB, double feature, picture show.

And it was. Some classic goodness I had not seen before. Paul said they were doing a remake? I can definitely see this movie being remade. And sucking. They will for sure make it into a sensationalist action movie with no regard to pacing.





















I love the name Gort!















Oh, and count on the 2008 version of a flying saucer to be all crazy with all sorts of extra moving parts. Exhibit A: Transformers.















And a bit of movie trivia. This movie's main character, space alien Klaatu (pictured above) gives heroine Helen a key phrase that has made several appearances in other movies. The name should be hint enough.





















I guess robots carrying attractive girls was a poster theme back then. Look at who is in this movie. A very young Lt. Frank Drebin.












Dr. Morbius and robot Robby. Both movies rock. Go see them!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Disc Jockey Umbrus

Chris had an extra ticket. I had listened to DJ Shadow when I was in college. I believe it was Emm who introduced this nimble fingered turn tablist. The music was great. My only gripe would be I didn't know what was going on on the turn table. At the Kid Koala show, they had a camera over the tables so you could see what he was doing. Plus, I never saw DJ Shadow change records so I was even more confused. I'm sure it was all live but what was going on up there? Anyways, great music. Cool visuals. Blech, I smell like pot. There were like 20 joints rolling around the front area throughout the night. I smelt about 4-5 different types. Thank goodness I didn't get a head ache. And thank goodness for earplugs!

































Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Sloppy Pasta
















This had potential. My goals for this dish were to enhance the mushroomy flavors of the sauce. Normally I peel my mushrooms when I cook them and while I still did that this time, I didn't throw away the peels which have a lot of the mushroomy aroma. Instead I washed them and boiled them in a little bit of water to extract the mushroom flavor. Also, when I cooked the mushrooms, I added the escaping juices to that concoction. Finally I blended it. With some guyere. Why? I dunno. It seemed like a good idea. Mistake #1. 2 and 3 were I used milk instead of creme for the sauce base. Unless you have powdered dry cheese, I don't think plain milk will hold the cheese too well. Well, maybe if you heat the milk first and then melt the cheese in. Anyways. I didn't do ANY of those things PLUS mistake #4 was I was too eager to use up the remaining milk I had left so not only was there clumpy cheese, but it was too runny. Despite all my extra milk, the mushroomy flavor come through so I'm quite encouraged with that respect. I wonder if the flavor will hold up to a bechemal...

Dreamwork Perks





















When you work for a company that shelled out $120 Million for Dreamworks Animation properties you get to go to special events such as a Shrek 3 premiere screening. They rented out an entire theater and there were... (counting in head) 13 of us there. Why weren't more people invited? Anyways, I had it's moments but the first two movies are pretty hard to live up to. I think there were too many characters...

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Super Star
















I had to go to the dentist today to get a tooth adjustment. It actually freakin' hurt two nights ago. Anyways, since my appointment was around noon, I went to eat on Clement St afterwards. I went to Burma Super Star which is normally crowded as hell during the night time. Unfortunately they have dinner prices during the day as well. Weak sauce! The presentation of the dish was much nicer, but as I was marveling at the sight, my server unceremoniously mixed the whole thing together. You should have seen my smile disappear. A piece of me died that day.

Let's try a quick impromptu new review thing.

Burma Super Star

service: 7/10 quick and to the point. points off for crushing my dreams and not lavishing me with praise.
ambiance: 6/10 um... nice i guess. I really don't pay attention unless I'm on a date? I think at night they are so crowded so they get hissy and it gets loud so probably both service and ambiance suffer at night.
food: 7/10 it was alright. not bad. small-regular portion depending on your appetite. i forget what i ordered. it was in the noodle section. the meat pile on yellow rice thing my neighbours had looked good. Toby says they are freakin' good so maybe there are other items I need to try.
value: 4/10 - mostly because I went during lunch and it just feels shitty paying dinner prices for lunch but I thought I'd try this restaurant out anyways.

6/10 (not an average, or maybe a weighted average). this score is still pending. you really can't get a clear picture of what a restaurant is like without trying it more than once. Some places of course are so bad you can't even justify a second try. thankfully, Burma Super Star will see another night. Calling ahead and placing your cell phone on the wait list is certainly a decent way to go during the night time.
Service was quick.

Monday, April 23, 2007

TFB double feature monday

Co-workers Alex and Jimmy! usually have themselves a movie night on Mondays but lately they've been doing these things at work, what with our big TV and better than normal sounds system. Plus it allows them to invite others to join in their fun. This week it was...





















and

Sunday, April 22, 2007

!EPA !EPA !EPA <----
















APE falls on the same weekend as Japantown's Sakura Blossom street festival. I tried to get there early but I was still lucky to find... PARKING! It was several blocks away on California near Filmore. There is a public lot up there.
















mmm... Riblets...
















mmm... Riblets up close...
















This is the "Takoyaki" stand. But don't be fooled. If you read their sign, they say they use beef. Also the picture of the octopus on their sign is wearing cow mask on his forehead. The explanation I got was that the city wouldn't issue them a permit for serving octopus without proper refrigeration and since it was a street fair, there was a significant lack of refrigeration. These guys were also not like these guys:


















So despite the really freaking long line...
















these were unsurprisingly underwhelming. You're better off just getting them in the Japantown center where there is a dude serving them in the main hallway.
















Curry Fishballs. Is this even Japanese? The vendors were most certainly speaking Cantonese but then again, I'd say about only 20% of the vendors were Japanese to begin with.





















This dog is freakin' cute!
















Throngs await the parade.
















But I don't! I stumbled upon St. Dominics' Cathedral on my way back to my car. It's no Duomo but it's still a pretty fair size for our continent.
















Back to APE. Akiha posing with... is that those same two people from yesterday?!? Can't tell...
















Anyways, I didn't take many pictures at APE this day. So here is a picture of everyone cleaning up.
















On to food. Here is an Inner Sunset picture underlooking (?) Twin Peaks.
































Naan and Curry is probably San Francisco's staple Indian food place since there are multiple locations and just about everyone knows it. Just like King of Thai noodle. One through four.
































This is my body...





































Hanging out at Bongo Ninja Jerome's place. Watching the Golden State Warriors game.

















This game is cool!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

APE! APE! APE!
















Start your day with a healthy breakfast. Unlike this one.
















APE stands for Alternate Press Expo. It is a miniature comic convention specializing in small independent publications and anything non-mainstream. It takes place at the San Francisco Concourse at 7th St and Brannan in the West SOMA area of San Francisco. No one really calls it West SOMA but if they did, it would be SWOMA.





















This guy was pimping the Super Kaiju Big Battle booth. A weird show I've never seen which is like Wrestling, but the guys wear these Japanese monster costumes and have funny special moves. Like one I saw at their booth display had a shelled monster pull out a conch shell and deafen every while simultaneously summoning illegal outside help. Here is an example clip. It's actually a Japanese clip about this American program.























And then there were other costumed freaks. um... I mean custom costume enthusiasts.





















Hey wait a minute! Them again? What's going on? What sort of racket is this? Either they have way too much time on their hands or they were paid to walk around. They did tell me they had more costumes for later.





















Crazy costumes aside, APE was really great. Not only can you buy lots of cool art books, but it was fun knowing a lot of the people behind the booths. Such as Ben Collison.
















or Lark Pien (and here) who looks like she's reaching for a shuriken. As well as husband Thien Pham.
















Here's an old classmate of mine, Lanny Liu
















From Shaba, Vince Riley (no webpage Vince?) and at another table (not pictured) Danny Burbol.





















Sharing a table with the ever impressive David Chong Lee was my first figure drawing teacher Henry Yan who has an INCREDIBLE figure drawing book out now. APE was so very inspirational. Let me make a blog aside for a moment and tell you how cool artists are. Well at least the ones I know. Whenever I go to one of these or an art show/reception I often here (as an easy point of conversation) "Which one is yours?" or "Where's YOUR work?" or "Why don't you have anything?" This is always followed with genuine or goading encouragement. And even though I lament "oh I haven't done that in so long" it really doesn't matter and they know it. So anyways, I'll be going back to my basics and using Henry's book as a guide for the next few months to get things started. Get my value eye working on all gears cause next year, I'm gonna get a table at APE!
















Debbie Huey who writes and illustrates the all-ages book Bumper Boy.
















Anthony Hon (TFB) and Wahab Algarmi as well as Cannon Tissue w/ Sturdy Comics.

others:
Nathan Stapley
Jennifer Chang
Eun Ju who is now married so I'm not sure how to google her.
Another former classmate from my Color & Design class. I forget her name! =(
um... did I miss anyone? Oh well! I mean Sorry!
















There was a panel with the famous Art Spiegelman, writer of MAUS.
















And a Bay Area Indie panel with Debbie et al.
















It was a long day! We headed over to the crepe house on Polk and Washington.
















Belgium Waffle
































and then to the APE "Indie" show at the new art gallery on Sutter (x-st. Polk) called 1988. They had a lot of cool stuff.





















Some of Graham Annable's (who did the funny Space Wolf (below) animation) work.























Camilla Derrico. Preparing these pictures, I noticed that a lot of the works at this show sold (see the red dot on the price/name tag?). Good first show for the gallery!
















Jeremy Tinder. I thought this picture was amusing.





















Scott Campbell (not to be confused with the comic book artist J.Scott Campbell) who works at Double Fine (video game company). The concept artists there (including Nathan Stapley) do comics almost every morning. I bought one of his prints at the show.
















Vera Brosgol





















Kevin Dart - who has a cool book with Chris Turnham called Fleet Street Scandal that I bought.
















This picture had a funny title.
















Nathan Stapley
(different link this time!) again.
















And then we headed over to the 540 Club for the APE edition Robot show. Someone stole the hands off of Nae Nae's figure! Lame!
















And here is Kev filling out Debbie's "Slam book thingee"