Year: 2003

Even though I disagree with the current California recall effort, having just received an absentee ballot in the mail I was at least amused by it. Each candidate is listed by name, political party, and profession, and I swear to God I am not making up any of these candidates:

• Ivan A. Hall, Custom Denture Manufacturer
• Kurt E. “Tachikaze” Rightmyer, Middleweight Sumo Wrestler
• Paul “Chip” Mailander, Golf Professional
• Angelyne, Entertainer
• Daniel Watts, College Student
• Mary “Mary Carey” Cook, Adult Film Actress

I was curious if Gary Coleman would list himself as a security guard, but he went with the safe choice of “Actor”. And of course, having read through the list of candidates I now definitely need to find a “Tachikaze for Governor” bumper sticker — how have those not swept across the state already?!?!

This photo is from a collection of photos taken on a previous Cheeseman Antarctica trip. Eighty-four days and counting.

Drove up to San Francisco for the weekend, and went with Aaron and Jen to meet Scott, Nadia, and a bunch of other folks at a bar in the city. Nadia had picked a (straight) bar in a mostly gay neighborhood (imagine that, in San Francisco) and a not-insignificant number of the folks on the street were wearing nothing but leather thongs and chains. Even if you’re not the slightest bit homophobic, when you see a man walking down the street wearing nothing but a leather thong and a couple of chains it’s a freaky, freaky sight.

Aside from scary bondage moments life has been calm lately. The studio lot is back in action with all of the TV shows shooting and several movies apparently getting ready to start production. For whatever reason most of the shooting has been on the indoor soundstages, but I’m hoping to be running amok in an outdoor shoot the next time something interesting goes in front of the cameras on the street sets.

I’ve also been playing around a bit with the site code (I know, ladies, control yourselves) so if you happen to notice anything that seems broken on the site please let me know.

In an attempt to shake what remains of my faith in Snapple true facts, Jason sent me this BBC article. After reading it I was shattered — maybe a duck’s quack does echo. But then I got to thinking — the Brits aren’t really known for their research abilities, so maybe there’s something else going on here. As I thought more, it occurred to me that next to the Spice girls and David Beckham, the thing that the Brits are most passionate about is tea. Yet who won’t readily admit that a bottle of Snapple kicks the crap out of a cup of Earl Grey? So of course the Brits want to do whatever they can to discredit this great American beverage, even if it means publishing bogus research about ducks not quacking. I just don’t understand how I didn’t see this evil conspiracy sooner.

In other news, I passed Jennifer Aniston while driving in to work today, and I can vouch for the fact that even when she isn’t in front of a camera she is really, really cute.

Taking randomness to new levels:

• Make circles in a clockwise direction with your right foot. Now with your right hand draw the number six in the air. Your foot will at least pause, and will probably change direction.
• Courtesy of Snapple, a duck’s quack does not echo, and nobody knows why.
• Courtesy of Groucho Marx, time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like bananas.

Entries like this one drive home the point that life is much, much less exciting since when I’m not off exploring. Luckily it’s only ninety-four more days until things get interesting again.

I got this in my email today, and will be making a call. If this issue matters at all to you, please take a minute and do the same — all that you need to do is say that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be kept wild and free from oil exploration. One person won’t make a difference, but thousands will:

This week, September 22-26, citizens across the country will join together in the fight to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. The goal: to generate hundreds of thousands of calls to members of Congress letting them know that Americans will not stand silent while the nation’s largest and wildest refuge is sacrificed for a mere six months of oil.

As we speak, politicians are holding backroom secret negotiations. They want to add an Arctic drilling scheme to the massive Energy Bill being negotiated by House and Senate conferees. The House version mandates drilling in the Arctic Refuge, doles out billions of dollars in new subsidies and seeks more drilling on public lands across the Rocky Mountain West. To make matters worse, some members of Congress are trying to exploit the recent blackouts in New York, Ohio and elsewhere as another reason to drill for oil in the Arctic – even though almost none of America’s electricity comes from oil!

Please take a moment and call your members of Congress TODAY and tell them to reject any efforts to pass legislation that allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Tell them to oppose any energy conference report that includes Arctic drilling. Simply call the Capitol Switchboard Number at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your senator and/or representative’s office. (To find out who your senator or representative is, check out NWF’s new “Find Your Elected Officials” feature at http://action.nwf.org/nwf/leg-lookup/search.tcl)

The reason that drilling has never been approved is entirely due to the millions of people in every state telling their elected officials that they oppose drilling. Thank you again for your continued support of wildlife and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge!

I thought it would be nearly impossible to come up with an ugly color scheme using grey and blue. Apparently I was wrong.

Unrelated, but one year ago today the weather was cold but clear in Denali National Park and I took off on what turned out to be a twenty mile hike up to Sable Pass. Today the day started with an early conference call with the Europeans to finalize some legal requirements for German site registration. Granted, I actually enjoy the work I’m doing, but there’s a saying about night and day… retirement number two begins in ninety-six days.

My faith in Snapple trivia is shattered. Snapple true fact #121: “The only bird that can swim but not fly is the penguin.”

That is crap.

I was talking to God earlier today (nice fellow) and told him I needed a favor.

“You want me to set you up with a girl who isn’t completely freakish?” asked God. “I told you, it’s impossible until you quit working with computers.”

“No, God,” said I, “I want you to help the Browns win.”

“Oh.” said God. “That could be tougher than getting you a date. You know that they’re gonna have to score a couple touchdowns if they want to win, right? And the offense just hasn’t been doing anything so far this year. It’s asking a lot.”

It took him until the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, but God finally came through, and amongst Browns fans everywhere there was much rejoicing.

Yet another reason to like Kevin Smith. Mom, don’t click on this, he uses a word that starts with “f” and ends with “uck”.

Another Patagonia photograph from Galen Rowell. Warner Brothers isn’t getting their money’s worth from me today, but with the long hours I’ve been working recently I’m not feeling a lot of guilt about it:

So I’m a big fan of Kevin Smith, the guy that wrote and directed Clerks, Chasing Amy, and several other flicks. I started following the guy because of his films, but I’ve become a fan because he’s just a really cool individual. He posts on his web site a lot, and tonight put up this little gem from 1999 when his movie Dogma came out. Kevin is a devout Catholic, but his feeling is that spirituality should be more important than the rules and rituals which have come to surround the church. Dogma uses humor to express this viewpoint, and much like Mel Gibson’s upcoming film people bashed it and protested the film without understanding the filmmaker or even seeing the film. The photo that is linked to above is from a Dogma protest, but the beauty is that Kevin is the guy in it holding the “Dogma is dog shit” poster. He was even interviewed for the nightly news and gave a scathing view of the film, without the reporter recognizing him.

The mighty Mr. Williams was in town for a day to interview for an opening with Warners. With luck things will work out, and the Holliday-Williams team might again soon be fighting the good fight. Or something like that. In addition, along with JB we would have the kamikazee pilot, the wing man, and the wing commander, so the three C’s manifesto could be put into practice. Life could get interesting over the next few months.

Completely unrelated to Jason’s visit, this news actually gives me some hope for the future. I like John Kerry, and Howard Dean has a lot of momentum, but both of them would be fighting a steep uphill battle to become President. Clark, on the other hand, seems to me like a guy who counters all of Bush’s so-called strengths, and in many ways exceeds them. One can hope that in about a year we’ll be seeing the end of threats to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the repeal of some of the tax cuts (and thus a smaller deficit), and the re-establishment of foreign goodwill towards this country.