December 2003 Archives
No, I haven't seen that movie.
It sure was fun digging out the cars and shoveling tons of snow. I know my back sure enjoyed it!
I heard a storm was coming and it was snowing pretty good when I got home on the evening of the 25th, but I really hadn't expected the biggest snow we'd seen in years-- by Friday night we had 30" or more of snow, and it was still coming. It's supposed to storm on and off for the next couple weeks-- I guess we need the moisture. I actually don't mind snow-- it's the pile of gray crap at the bottom of the driveway that I can get stuck in that I dislike, and the slippery sludge all over the place. Oh well-- It's nice to have snow rather than a dull, dead looking winter.
Well, I'm posting this nearly a week late but I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas :) Nothing spectacular under the tree for Sloanie this year-- just some shirts and stuff. That's the problem with buying your own toys-- you outgrow your parents spending limits and it makes Christmas morning less exciting than it used to be. Oh well-- that's what it is to get old, I guess. I didn't really mind not getting any toys for Christmas, I like Christmas more for the fond memories and the warm cheer and fun time spent with the family-- getting presents for other people and enjoying magic of Christmas.
Marianne did get a cool toy for Christmas from Jesse (it's not unlikely that he was more excited about it than her, but she's pretty pumped about it now, hehe). He gave her a new Pocket PC-- they used to seem like the geekiest things, and ultimately they probably do still have a pretty good geekability factor, but they're small and sleek enough now to seem more cool and less nerdy. Needless to say I've been fighting the PDA idea for years and Mar's Pocket PC may have finally convinced me of how handy and cool they can be. We see how long I hold out before buying one...
Anyways, again-- hope everyone had a good one!
It used to be a Christmas Eve tradition in our family to go to Litza's Pizza downtown Salt Lake City to have pizza for dinner and then we'd visit Temple Square to see the lights, maybe drive around afterwards looking at Christmas lights, etc. In recent years we've gone on the 23rd rather than Christmas Eve, just because Litza's and Temple Square close earlier on Christmas Eve, and it's more difficult to pull of. So we went again on the 23rd this year-- man I love that pizza. The shots of Temple Square came out blurry but it had kind of a cool effect with the Christmas lights.
Yeah, both today and Friday people have been brining around little goodies for Christmas that they've made for their co-workers. Happens every year but being in a new department and working with/around a lot more people, there is a lot more of it this year. And hence a lot more guilt that I didn't do squat for anyone, not even a card, hehe. In my own defense I was pretty busy the last few days-- but who am I kidding, I really didn't have intentions of preparing a gift or goody for people at work. So maybe I'm a humbug, hehe. At least I have something to munch on today-- I'm starving!
It is funny to work around all these women. I just overheard 2 that sit right by me talking about eating a lot of one thing at once. Something about eating an entire pizza. One said to the other
"There's just something comforting about eating an entire pizza by yourself."
Hehehe... I will remember that the next time I grab a $5 large pizza from Little Ceasar's and consume it by myself.
The sad thing is that others must have had the same worry, hehe. It seems like a few people patted me on the back and commented that I had done well and hadn't screwed anything up-- I stepped out, had the correct ring in each hand for the corresponding persons, and stepped back into line after they took the rings... didn't offer the wrong rings / mix them up or drop them, hehe.
That's the second civil wedding I've ever seen in person and the first that I've really participated in or even paid close attention to. The ceremony is rather short and sweet. I couldn't see Ty's face but Jen was on the verge of tears, I can tell they are so happy.
Overall it was a good evening, and the wedding/reception went well. There was a guy at the reception with a mad 'stache, but unfortunately we couldn't get a good picture of it. He was with the national yodeling champion-- had I known that earlier I could have pretended that I wanted her picture and got one with him in it, hehe... In any case, imagine a Yosemite Sam mustache only dark gray, hehe... it was awesome.
Anyways-- congratulations Ty and Jen!
Haha, man. Melissa just discovered that the Sloanie Trilogy Tuesday crew is right smack dab in the middle of a picture on KSL.com that's with an article about Trilogy Tuesday (for those of you that noticed Ed Yeates there, hehe).
There you can see Soogs, Shawn, Jake, me, Dan, Drake, and part of Joel. Hehehe...
It was a madhouse last night. All 17 of the megaplex's theaters sold out-- all showing ROTK. DANG.
I just read an article in the local paper about all the LOTR madness that went down yesterday. Though many of the Utah LOTR diehards were at Trilogy Tuesday, some bailed and went over to theonering.net's line party at the Ritz theater in West Valley. Anyways, this article mentions the madness at the Jordan commons, including those who slept out overnight for the best Trilogy Tuesday seats-- Dan and Steve, we salute you!
Also interesting was to note the suggestion that LOTR fans are by far more geeky and fanatic than Star Wars fans. I guess the mania for ROTK was by far greater than any Star Wars or Harry Potter or Matrix opening...
Trilogy Tuesday is underway. People started lining up just barely off of Jordan Commons property yesterday at 11 am. I jumped in line at 6 pm-ish and Dan and Steve took over an hour and a half later for the long haul-- those 2 braved the freezing weather to sleep over night in line (they said they were quite warm until they had to get up at about 5am this morning... I guess they were bundled up well.)
The rest of the crew that waited in line showed up at 5:30 am, including Joel, Drake, and my two youngest siblings Kato and Shawn. It was freezing but in the end it was worth it-- our spot in line was just good enough to land us some pretty good seats (Dan had had nightmares about having to sit on the front row and crane his neck at the screen, hehe). Once again it was a cooperative effort with some people going to get food and others bringing hot chocolate, blankets, gloves, beanies, etc.
Anyways, Fellowship ended about 40 minutes ago and Two Towers is supposed to start at 7-- a freaking 2 hour break. All I can say is there had better not be a 2 hour break between TTT and Return of the King. Joel, Drake, and I only got 2 hours of sleep last night due to some XBox/emulator madness that went down... I'm feeling it now.
Anyways, it still hasn't really hit me that I will be seeing the conclusion of the trilogy tonight... others in our party share similar feelings. Crazy.... anyways, maybe I'll write about ROTK tomorrow, but it's safe to say that I'll love it. Sorry I don't have any pics. A) I forgot my camera (DOH!) and B) I'm on a Mac right now and don't have FTP access to my site. Anyways, Heeble and Joel succeeded where I failed and did bring their cameras, so there's potential for some pics on their sites in the future of Trilogy Tuesday.
Anyways, until next time...
Wow, it's like Christmas-- I'm so excited for Trilogy Tuesday and Return of the King to come out that you could say that I'm giddy even. Turns out that the theater won't allow anyone to camp out for seats to Trilogy Tuesday, and they're even saying they won't let anyone line up till 9am on Tuesday morning. Well, we can be fairly sure that the mob government will return and that there will be a line formed earlier to get in line at 9... so some of us will probably be there around 7am or so to get in the line for the line, hehe.
I've never attempted anything like this before (watching three 3 1/2 hour movies in a row in the theater), so I'm not 100% sure what to expect. I did see Fellowship of the Ring extended cut in the theater a week ago and I do know that we'll need those hour breaks between movies. So... any suggestions for laying provisions for trilogy tuesday as we're down to just over a day left?
Melissa has mentioned that as she wears contacts she's bringing her glasses in case the contacts start to irritate her. Any other thoughts on preparation?
This may be my last post until next Saturday as things should be crazy until then. Trilogy Tuesday awaits-- as Joel puts it, one of the greatest events of our lives, hehe...
Sad days, I logged onto my site today to find a blank box, no entries posted... means it's been over a week since I last posted, doh.
Well, life has been a bit hectic lately. I've be buried in my new job, plenty-o-stress. People keep telling me that I started at the busiest/craziest time possible, and that it can only get less busy after we meet our deadline on the 19th. Fortunately Sean, the guy who I'm replacing, is still in the department and is able to and has been helping me with current projects so that we meet the deadline. I'd be toast without him, so I feel indebted to him. It truly is baptism by fire, and the way I see it, coming in at this crazy time of year really forces me to learn the job more quickly and gives me a lot of experience in a short period of time.
So yeah, work has kept me well occupied the last couple weeks-- working till 5 or 6 each day and even a little on Saturday. I think I have dreams about work because I'm so preoccupied and stressed, but I guess it's a good kind of stress-- I've been enjoying working with all the people in the art department, many of them who were formerly just faces that I saw at company functions. There are a lot of cool people on my team and in my department, and I guess merely the fact that it's the art department means that I have more in common with them. So yes, things are going well and I'm enjoying work.
Today my manager (who is one of the VP's of the company) took our team to Tuscany for lunch as a thank you for all our work-- really nice place. The food was pretty good, not something I'd totally rave about but then, what do I know about Italian food?
The only negative about how busy I am is that I haven't really had the time or energy to just enjoy the Christmas season and its magic. That and Lord of the Rings has been a primary distraction from Christmas outside of work, hehe. I just hope I can get my Christmas shopping done, there seems to be so much going on this month... I'll look forward to taking a breather over Christmas break. Anyways, hopefully it'll be feeling more Christmasy soon.
As for the title of my post... as kids in my family we've developed some traditions that, while cheesy, are really nostalgic and we cling to them for the magic they invoke. This includes watching certain Christmas movies and specials. One of them is Garfield's Christmas. Yeah, cheesy as it is, we love it. Now, in this day of digital technology, we watch pretty much everything on DVD. However, you can't get Garfield on DVD like you can everything else. So I thought hey, I have a MiniDV camcorder, I'll go ahead and just dub the VHS tape to MiniDV and put it on DVD (now that I have the means to make DVDs).
Problem: commercial VHS tapes use some sort of distortion to copy protect copyrighted material. So my camcorder picks this up and tells me it's unable to record because the source is protected. Doh. Well, like the title of my post says, where there's a will, there's a way. I thought I was going to be out of luck, because products that claim to defeat said copy protection were generally $100-$150-- not worth it just to dub a cartoon and maybe a few other odd tapes that aren't available on DVD. Well, I did come across a link to a less expensive Digital Video Stabilizer on a digital video forum... no one had tried it, someone had simply found it on the web available through an electronic and electrical supply company. Only $20 as opposed to $150 so I took the chance, and it came today. To make a long story short (I know, too late) I was able to dub "A Garfield Christmas" to MiniDV today. Sloanie is pleased with himself and the technology available to him via the Internet, hehe... It's worth it.
P.S. Marianne updated today as well :)
Gearin up for Trilogy Tuesday, less than 2 weeks away now....
Hehehe... I've meant to post these for a long time. This scene where Gandalf and co. arrive at the Golden Hall and exorcise Theoden is by far my favorite scene from the Two Towers, and I can't help but laugh every time I see this scene now. I'd buy more DVDs if they just ditched the spanish subtitles and subbed in Engrish subtitles instead. Click the link at the bottom for all the Engrish subtitles. These will be especially funny if you know what is actually said in this scene as opposed to what the subtitles say.
