palsgraf_polka

I wanted to go to Union Station, Olvera Street, Philippe for lunch and then Chinatown, but despite weather.com saying that it would be partly cloudy with a 10% chance of rain, it was raining on and off and I didn't want to get my camera wet, so I didn't make it to Chinatown.

But I did do the others, and here are the pics! Let the mushrooms in my front yard welcome you in:



( clicky for nostalgia and fiesta! )

Was an amazing movie. I loved it so much. Everyone in it was so good, and the movie was directed so intimately - so nakedly - that it just sucked you in for every minute. I highly recommend it to everyone. Oscar material for sure.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums that you've listened to that will always stick with you or influenced you, the ones that touch you and you can listen to again and again from start to finish. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1) Standing on a Beach - The Cure
2) Graceland - Paul Simon
3) She Hangs Brightly - Mazzy Star
4) Tindersticks - Tindersticks
5) The Elephant's Baby - Clare Fader
6) Ella and Louis - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
7) So - Peter Gabriel
8) The Joshua Tree - U2
9) Discography - Pet Shop Boys
10) Breakfast in America - Supertramp
11) Chronicle Vol. 1 - Creedence Clearwater Revival
12) The soundtrack to Dirty Dancing
13) The soundtrack to Magnolia
14) Appetite for Destruction - Guns n' Roses
15) Cosmic Thing - B-52s

This is a 10 minutes very well spent.

The first trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

http://www.mugglenet.com/trailer.php

OMG OMG OMG

I am so excited.

Dad called me last night and wanted to know if I'd go see The A-Team with him and Mom today. I went and it was a really fucking fun movie! It was funny, and if you're an action fan, the action was great. It was silly, yes, but a lot of fun. Very much like a caper movie. Two thumbs up!

Thursday June 3rd:

Arrive at ORD at 16:32. Check in at hotel. Haven't decided what to do with my Thursday night yet.

Friday June 4th:

10:00 Architectural Riverboat Cruise for an hour.
11:00-14:00 TBD
14:00-16:00 Walking Tour - Historic Downtown (north): Treasures of Culture & Commerce
16:00 meet wobblerlorri at the hotel, catch up with her
18:00 dinner with wobblerlorri
20:00-23:00 Two comedy shows with wobblerlorri

Saturday June 5th:

Morning with wobblerlorri at the Planetarium
Lunch with wobblerlorri
Afternoon catching up on internet at hotel while wobblerlorri naps
Evening is dinner with jblaque and company at the Chinese BBQ
Late evening get shitfaced with jblaque and company at the bar

Sunday June 6th:

Morning: send wobblerlorri back to the airport
10:00-12:00: Walking Tour: Historic Downtown (south): Rise of the Skyscraper
Lunch somewhere
Afternoon: DuSable Museum of African American History
Evening: Dinner somewhere nice Rosebud [Thanks jblaque] and then relax at the hotel!

Monday June 7th:

Morning & Early afternoon: The Art Institute!
17:25 my flight home from ORD to LGB

I am so excited!

I love my car!



( clicky for the milestone! )

I figure that by the time I pay it off next year I'll be close to 185,000 miles. I have to say, it's a good car. It just runs and runs, gets about 45 mpg out here (56 in LA) and I haven't been in any recall except the floor mats. Thank you, little Prius, for being a good car to me.

I was waiting for this; the video of convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala on The Dating Game:

Apple co-founder Wozniak shirks off Prius glitch



SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on Friday held firm to his love for Prius cars despite what he suspects is a Toyota software problem behind sudden spikes in acceleration.

"I love my Prius," Wozniak said during on-stage banter with AT&T Tech Channel's Hugh Thompson during a geek talk show at the closing of an RSA computer security conference here.

"It's just like all the other gadgets we have... Everything today has a computer in it, so everything will fail."

Wozniak said he has bought nine Prius cars and even drove one from the Silicon Valley city of San Jose to San Francisco that day.

He said he conducted his own tests of Prius acceleration, taking his car to an open stretch of highway at dusk and then incrementally notching up the speed using the cruise control mechanism.

At "some number over 72" the car accelerated and kept picking up speed, Wozniak said.

"I wanted to see how high it would go," Wozniak said. "It wound up being unlimited so I hit the brake. The problem had to be in the software."

Wozniak advised treating cars like any other computer-based mechanisms by shutting them down at signs of trouble and then restarting them to essentially reboot systems.

"We who work in computers know there are all kinds of little failures," Wozniak said. "I love Toyota; I'm going to buy more of them. I think it is not unsafe."

His remarks came as key US lawmakers looking into Toyota's problems with deadly spikes in speed asked the company for documents backing up its position that electronic defects were not to blame.

Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, top Democrats on a key House committee looking into the Japanese auto giant's woes, made the request in a letter to the embattled company's top US executive.

"We do not understand the basis for Toyota's repeated assertions that it is 'confident' there are no electronic defects contributing to incidents of sudden unintended acceleration," they wrote.

The lawmakers' letter to Toyota Motor Sales USA president James Lentz said the firm has yet to share documents conclusively documenting its position that such flaws are not behind speed surges blamed for some 50 US deaths.

They also sought detailed quarterly reports on claims of sudden unintended acceleration and detailed information on the installation of brake override systems designed to slow vehicles and on so-called 'black-box' data from cars and trucks involved in accidents.

The Japanese giant recalled more than eight million cars worldwide to repair accelerator and brake defects.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100306/tc_afp/usitinternetautosoftwaretoyotawozniak_20100306005830