Being Lord Voldemort

Here
Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!Voldemort!

The Gallery of Regrettable Food

Gallery of Regrettable Food

How often do you get to eat THESE foods? Man, our grandparents did NOT know how to party!

How Apple wins again

Our TV show is using a Powerbook 15" with an Apple iSight and iChat to videoconference to NYC and direct a voiceover session.

It works.

Cost of iSight $149.
Cost of iChat $Free

nice.

Wookies on Bikes

This is just great!

New Obsession: Backup & Technology

It's classic. I suffer a huge loss and now am obsessed with backing up everything. I'll digress technical, but since I've long abandoned my original format for this blog (day to day film operations), I'll say whatever I want.

Retrospect is a great program. A little pricey, but it does the job.
Right now I have Retrospect Desktop Backup 5.1 running on the Mac. It's set to run nightly at 12am, backing up the entire Users folder, which contains all my documents, as well as my wife's and miscellaneous work thingys. The key is to have another Hard Drive to backup to. I realized my old reluctance to backup was spending 2,3 hours feeding the machine DVD-R discs, essentially keeping me home on my days off (Trust me, when your regular work week is 50+hours staring at two computer screens, you want to unplug on the rare weekends!) I purchased a 250GB EZ Cobra Firewire 800/USB 2.0 portable harddrive from a co-worker for around $250. Now it is our main backup drive. Every 2 weeks the schedule is set to recycle the backup (rewriting it from scratch) and every month I spend the time to backup to DVD-Rs. Hopefully this will be the new pattern and help me in the event of another catastrophic crash.

The neat thing I'm next trying is Client backups. Retrospect ships with two client licenses. What this means is that if it works, The same Macintosh nightly will connect to my server box and laptop - backing up both of them. If all goes well, I'll have a 'backup server strategy' which will be safe, cool and utterly 'King of the Geeks'.

Which makes me realize how much silicon I'm pushing these days. So for my benefit as well as the boredom of others, here's the list of big iron we have in the Loyd household.

1. PowerMacintosh G4 - Dual 1Ghz. This is the editing machine, and is currently being rented to the show I'm working for. It's pretty sweet, though now eclipsed by the new G5's. I hope to have a few more shows with it, then retire it mainly for home use and ProTools audio editing (for which it is more than adequate).

2. PowerMacintosh G4 - 400Mhz. The old editing box, I cut the DVD's of 'Predator', 'The One', 'First Blood' and 'Rambo' on it. I also produced and recorded a 3 song demo for Lila on it. It's the 'Main Mac' now that the Dual 1Gig is working, and it houses all 80GB of music for our iPods (though a lot was lost in the crash). My plan is to migrate this to a backup server only.

3. "Frankenstein PC" - Home built AMD 1.2Ghz beige box. It runs Windows 2000 Server and hosts the Loydwerks domain. Loydwerks is basically a repository for reviews and photos too big to go on my main webpage, Daniel.Loyd.com, which I rent. It also has a FTP server, which is a blast. Being able to access anything you want at any internetconnected computer is great. And it has a Filemaker Pro server, for my tape logs. Problem is the Win2K installation, which 'freezes' every so often. My plan is to migrate it to Red Hat Linux within 2 months.

4. "The Wife's Dell" - Nice Optiplex 800mhz P3. The wife's computer. I am not allowed to touch it. My tales of how the Mac got crashed should be an indicator why.

5. My Laptop - Dell 333Mhz Latitude. A workhorse, an OLD workhorse, but a good laptop for me nonetheless. I'm writing this on it and it's been my mobile office/writing desk/ and email machine for over 2 years now. I'm looking to upgrade to those nice new shiny Powerbooks, but not yet. BTW, the BEST writing /research program I have every used is MyBase from Wjjsoft.com. It's free to try and $50 to buy. Worth every penny. It's a database program that mimics windows heirarchical folder view. I place my headings on the left, and when I click on them, the data shows up in the window on the right. In one file I have story ideas on the left and the various thoughts contextualized underneat. And it stores webpages straight from explorer (but not Mozilla, Wah!). The best thing is with all this info in it, the file is incredibly small and the program incredibly fast. This is the ONE program that has made me hesistate switching over to a Mac laptop (and I'm an avowed Mac-head). I've been lobbying the company to do an OS X port and they've done a linux one that I've been messing with (Mac OS X being a unix variant like Linux.)

6. The Wife's laptop - again, I don't touch. She's got a slambaked brand new Dell latitude P4 2.4 ghz monster laptop. Too frickin heavy, but the best machine in the house probably.

The Rest: Two ipods, two palms (barely used now), 3 monitors and a few old Jaz drives.

There we go. Too much technology. Hopefully I can transisition the server and the backup server to rack-mounts to save space. As we've been wrapping our heads around living in Venice, CA, space is a premium. So....simplify....

Bale as Batman Sighted!

CHUD - Cinematic Happenings Under Development

Until I get my camera pictures on the way, here's some more blogging from the entertainment edge.

First pics of Christian Bale as Batman are up at Chud. Personally I can't wait for John Malkovich to show up and whip Mr. Bale a new one (again), but until then I'll settle for Bruce Wayne.

Things I've learned in Vegas

In response to JDedman's call for advice, after three trips to Sin City, including my Bachelor Party, here are the

Things I've learned in Vegas:

1. Poker is the only game where you lose to another player. Craps pays the best, Blackjack could too. You need to spend money to make money.
2. If a man of indeterminate foreign origin wearing a tux sits at your poker table. LEAVE. Take your money and run or else he will do it for you.
3. Never bet against the streak on Roulette, you will invoke the anger of the Gambling Gods. Also, you need deep pockets to recover if you streak too long.
4. Delmonico's at The Venetian serves a damn fine steak.
5. If you're gambling, drinks are free.
6. You don't have to dress up, but it's cool if you do.
7. It is HOT outside and COLD inside.
8. Casino floors have no perceivable exits, nor can you see a clock. They want you to stay forever.
9. Every casino will have an easy way to get in, but will be murderous to get out. Case in point: Caesar's Palace has a movable 5 stage floor to get in. To leave, you must walk...for 15minutes...until you hit the strip.
10. Take cabs everywhere.
11. If you're walking on the street and a small Hispanic-American thrusts a book of flyers in your hand, they are ALL for hookers.
12. See the groups of women at the casino bar by the floor at 12am circling like vultures? They're hookers too.
13. Yes, prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas the city, but legal in the county. But be smart. Don't.
14. Leave your credit/ATM cards in your room, only take your drivers license and cash to gamble. Remember, you're playing against yourself.
15. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run. You never count your money, when you're sittin' at the table. They'll be time enough for counting, when the dealing's done.


And the final bit of advice?

What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.


Great Restaurants:

Delmonico's : Venetian
Aureole : Mandalay Bay, has the wine tower. They send a waittress to rappel off the tower to get your bottle. The menu's are palm pc's too.
Red Square: Also Mandalay. Great Vodka. Huge statue of Lenin.

Blogthis!

BlogThis!


A very good service!

almost done with resuscitating my drive. Whoo hoo!

Bear with me....

Oh my readership of two. Aw, heck, Bear with me Jim and Molly, as I have much to post, but have undergone some trials these last few days.

The biggest one affecting my blogging is my sudden and so-far unrecoverable crash of my main harddrive thanks to a shareware program named System Optimizer X. Yes, I guess deleting 50 gigabytes of data is one way to optimize your drive, just as fire-bombing Dresden could be seen as a radical new forest fire prevention tactic. Among the lost are all my digital photos, which to my detriement were not backed up (I think). I believe I saved most of the recent blog photos, but some are lost to time (I miss the photos of Isamu Noguchi the most). At least the wedding is backed up, though now low-resolution only....

Just data, it's just data.

The music can be reloaded, and the invoices re-entered. I now know that saying you have a backup strategy is not the same as actually having one. So tomorrow I pickup my big-ass firewire drive and start configuring Retrospect to backup at least 3 of the 5 CPU's I have humming in my house.

Subservient Chicken

GO THERE

Oh No!

http://www.danielloyd.isgay.com/


The friends I have......

Happy Anniversary!

To us! My Wife and I celebrate 2 years today.

yay!

Stills from a Visit

My Faddah came to visit this past week and it was grand. Not only the first time he saw our new place, but time enough to catch-up.

Friday we went to the Santa Ynez Valley, a quick jaunt up the coast, and saw some beautiful scenery and hit some of the Central Coast's best wineries.

Our favorite so far is Mosby Winery. They specialize in Italian wines, and have some winners in the group.



A fun bit was the advice to seek a bathroom "by the barrel"



In case you missed it, the toilet was inside. And it had one of those old school water closets.

Thrift store hunting in Santa Barbara 2...If only it was so Easy

Thrift store hunting in Santa Barbara...

Gotta love the dross of life...

The Wait, Redux

This is what it looks like when you finally get service from the genius bar at a local apple store.

Life lessons from India Sweets & Spices

India Sweets & Spices serves the best cheap indian food in town; while waiting for my Masala Dosa (for an extremely long time!) I saw this by the newspaper section and recognized the truth..

Dedman and the Scotch

A little piece of synchronicity as I read Dedman's script and found myself emulating one of the characters...

Apoligies for the blurriness...

uhhhh, the waaaait

Sitting at the local Apple Store Genius bar. 30 min turned into over an hour. Finally we get some service.... Maybe someone should capitalize on this whole in-person tech support thing. and hire more people....

pics to follow

ThunderCATS!

Yeah!

Worst Hotel Arcade EVER

Just Go there

Weird LA - Part the next

Here it is, Jimi Hendrix Drive, on the Universal Lot...

For Nordstrom

One Day they'll see their name in lights...

Go Go Lake Vida!

This Rocks!


"Explanation: A lake hidden beneath 19 meters of ice and gravel has been found near the bottom of the world that might contain an ecosystem completely separate from our own. In a modern version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic book Lost World, NASA funded scientists are now plotting a mission to drill down into the lake and remove a sample of water from the lake for analysis. Lake Vida, buried under Antarctic ice for over 2,500 years, is liquid only because of a high salt content that results from salt being expelled from water above as it turns to ice. Previously, scientists drilled to within a few meters of the lake and indeed found frozen microbes. Their existence bolsters speculation that similar microorganisms could be found in frozen brine beneath the surface of Mars. If living organisms are found in Lake Vida, they may give an indication that life might even still exist under similar frozen ice-sheets, such as under the larger Lake Vostok, parts of Mars, and even moons of Jupiter such as Europa. Pictured above, a robot meteorological station continues to monitor surface conditions over the ice-sealed lake.

Weird LA - Part Three

The Museum of Television & Radio

"They have EVERYTHING!!" I was told.

Well, they don't.

They do have nearly every episode of "Santa Barbara", but no episodes of "The Voyagers","Otherworld", or "The Highwayman" all bad 80's shows that I wanted to see.

But they did have the pilot episode of the 1972 version of Romper Room, which upon current reflection, was a seriously psychedelic show! A guy in a bee suit named "Doobie", strange cult like music that the children were required to sing along too, and my favorite? The 'motherly' teacher figure was wearing 4 inch stiletto heels!! Yes, a little sass in the frass.

But the day was capped with a journey to this old favorite.

The first person to comment with the name of this show wins free Loydwerks schwag.

Weird LA - Part Two

The Witch's House in Beverly Hills
and here

Made in the 1920's for a silent movie, it's now a private home in Beverly Hills. I'm sure the neighbors loved it when this baby moved in (There goes the neighborhood!). It's now a favorite spot on my 'tour of LA', as nothing shows the strangness of a million-dollar 90210 neighborhood as it.

Across the street is a house that has these on the fences,

Weird LA - Part One

I bought a camera phone last month. Really, the camera came with the phone, as it wasn't really on my "to get" list. But now I have it. Granted, for a digital camera, it kinda sucks, but it has allowed me to document the strange when I see it ( and when I can get a hand free-this is Los Angeles, and everything is arrived at with by car.

So I'll begin with an installment of strangeness as I and my trusty SE T616 see it.

First Installment: Blatant Corporate Thievery.


The Exaco Station

I came across this gas station on Sunset Blvd on the way to the Hollywood Guitar Center. Being a resident and adopted-son of the Great State of Texas, I found this to be both hilarious and, at some level, morally offensive. Texaco is the gas station that put Texas on the map. Homegrown Oil from the state that cornered the market, then famously lost it in the 1980's.

I await Counselor's opinion, as he is knowledgeable of all things pop culture and contract-related..

Happy Birthday Bradley!

Happy days to Brad who turns a happy __ yesterday. He brought us together for the joy of Hellboyand drinks at the amazingly fun Duke's Hideaway at the old Culver Hotel. I tell ya, our grandparents knew how to party...

Springing Forward

Counselor Herr Dedman , the ever prescient counselor, has noted that this
sunday we set our clocks forward an hour. This is fairly regular for us folks,
though my heart goes out to Molly in Japan and
Ryan in Arizona for undergoing the darker effects of the Daylight
Savings movement. A good history can be found here.

and it went well