Today was one of those days...

I woke up early and was showered and out the door by 6:50 a.m. All was fine on the commute...traffic wasn't too bad on I-880. Got into a slowdown just around the bottom of Hayward and the car in front of me stopped suddenly. I braked to a stop. The driver behind me wasn't paying close enough attention and slammed on his brakes late. He came to a stop just short of my car, but POW, another car hit him, and another car hit that. His car lurched forward and tapped my back bumper, but there was no damage. The other three cars were a wreck. Shook me up pretty good.

Then the day was really long. Not only did we have one of those 2+ hour meetings, but I had a zillion things to do, and I had to get a bunch of material ready for meetings with visitors from Japan on Monday. I got to work at 7:45 am, but didn't leave until almost 11pm. Oy!

A few things balanced out there day.

1. Kenji-san had the arcade division bring a mini-cabinet Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine into my work area. Also, I understasnd we're also going to get a full-size Taiko No Tatsujin (Taiko Drum Master) arcade unit soon (it's a video game where you literally beat a Taiko drum as the controller)! Sometimes I love working in the videogame biz!
2. Today was a company BBQ and it was nice to sit outside, chat and stuff my face.
3. By the end of the night it was just Amy, Umesh and myself there, all slogging away, but we took a break for dinner (ordered in a pizza) and had a fun conversation that was part work, part personal, and mostly silly.

Posted by molyneaux at 1:10 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:42 PM PDT

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I've thought this before, but it popped into hy head today while driving up highway 101...

Bumper stickers are the most cowardly form of self expression. You tell people what you think while racing away from them at 60 miles per hour.

Posted by molyneaux at 12:02 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:42 PM PDT

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My life takes some funny turns now and then. Today was the end of my first week at my new job as General Manager of Wireless Products at Namco of America, a place I wouldn't have expected to be only a month ago, when I was seriously considering bailing out of the game biz entirely.

As with most of the work I've had in this industry, I didn't go to it. It came to me. A colleague who knew I was looking for work gave my name to a recruiter. After much phone tag, the recruiter called me about this position at Namco. Two hours later, Namco called me and I did a 1.5 hour phone interview that went really well. They wanted me in for a face to face right away, but the man I needed to meet was in Japan, so, almost two weeks passed before I was able to come in for the interview. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd done well or not when I left, yet less than 24 hours after I'd left for the interview, the Chief Operating Officer called me directly and offered me the job!

Settling into a upper level position like this isn't the easiest thing in the world, as not only are you trying to remember eveyone's name and where the paperclips are, but you have to hit the ground running on a whole bunch of projects in various stages of pre- post and production.

But I can't complain too much, despite the 40 minute commute each way, I'm making over 1.5 times what I was making at Psygnosis 6 years ago, the company bought me a spiffy new camera phone and let me pick out my own computer for work, I get good benefits, work with nice people, I get to have a lot of say in what products we do, I'm going to Japan in Sept., and I get to play a lot of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man as part of my job. Yes, Namco IS the Pac-Man company, and the bread and butter of the Wireless division is getting the two main Pac games out on every handset possible. What a treat, since Ms. Pac-Man remains, to this day, my favorite video game of all time.

Life she is good!

Posted by molyneaux at 10:40 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:43 PM PDT

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Back in the days when I lived in BFE, aka Hawthorne, NV, it wasn't uncommon for me to go see two or three films in a single day when I'd hit what passed for civilization in Nevada. Outside of the occasional Film Festival, it's rare I see more than one film in a 24 hour period. Friday night/Saturday morning was an exception to the rule, as I saw two different films in two different cities only a few hours apart.

First up was a program at the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) at U.C. Berkeley, beginning with a lecture by animation historian John Canemaker on the work on artist Mary Blair, followed by a Disney film that she did conceptual work for: Alice in Wonderland. The presentation on Mrs. Blair was very interesting, and I really liked her work. Her bold, vibrant colors and elegant stylization the Disney artists were sadly never comfortable to truly bring to the screen. He evocative renderings of life in South America were enough for me to forgive her for her work on It's a Small World After All.

The film was less interesting than the lecture. But then I always felt that Alice was one of Disney's worst classic misfires (can you use those two words together?). I found the film teetered between silly and sappily sentimental and I was glad when it was over. The only positive thing I can say is that it was a beautiful 35mm print.

Oh well, at least the lecture was good, and I got John Canemaker to autograph one of his books that I owned.

Not half an hour after returning from that, Marc Finkel and I walked to the Grand Lake Theater to see a special last-minute-added midnight showing of Fahrenheit 9/11"...except it wasn't a midnight show, it was a 12:15 am show...except it wasn't that, either, because the previous show didn't let out until 12:25, and our show didn't start until 12:45. I got home at 3 am on the nose. Hoo boy, was I tired!

Seeing this film in Oakland was a funny experience. As "The Boondocks" points out, African American moviegoers often have little self-consciousness about talking back to the screen. In this instance, when Condoleezza Rice appeared on screen, some black person shouted "Traitor!", and in a shot of Colin Powell being made up for a TV spot, someone else commented, "Make me whiter!"

Some footage of civilian casualties in Iraq, wounded U.S. soldiers, and bodies burned and dragged around by mobs turned my stomach, but watching a Flint, Michigan mother dealing with the loss of her son literally made me ill. It was so terrible, it really got to me.

The film was effective. Sure, director/writer/self-promoter Michael Moore did his usual cheap shots, but they didn't bother me as much as they did in "Bowling for Columbine" because in this case, the people taking those shots so richly deserve them. For a change, Moore got out of the way for most of the film and for the most part let's the words of these public figures themselves condemn them.

Michael Moore's Website


My local theater...

On Sunday, Marc pointed me to the Michael Moore website, where a picture of our local theater made the main page, in part because the owners bucked the MPAA and decided they wouldn't treat the R rated film as an R, but as a PG-13 and let younger people in. Ahhh, activism...

More pictures of my local theater...
LINK: A queue forms...
LINK: Collage of the the scene

U P D A T E ! I forgot to mention that there's a scene in Fahrenheit that was shot right down the street from the theater where I saw it. Very strange to be watching a man on screen and know that the place he was standing is just three blocks to your back! (If you see the film, it's the older gentleman discussing how he got contacted by the FBI after voicing his opinion about Bush at the gym. Most of the shots of him are along the edge of Lake Merritt halfway between my apt. and the theater.)

Posted by molyneaux at 10:43 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:44 PM PDT

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I should be ashamed of myself. But I'm not. Ronald Reagan is dead and I'm glad for it.

Sure, maybe he was a great and personable guy to those who knew him. Sure maybe he was compassionate when he was engaged by real human beings. And yet he's the poster boy for the modern conservative movement that's the worst offender when it comes to dismantling this country and subverting its institutions. This is the guy who helped convince so many middle and lower class Americans that the Republican Party was looking out for them, and that "liberal" was a bad word. Enjoy those tax cuts and think how much better off you are, meanwhile the country's infrastructure starts falling apart and more and more public institutions are handed over to private concerns who are only interested in making a buck.

I hate Bush's policies - both Bushs' - but they could not have existed without Reagan. He was the Charlie McCarthy on the hand of the Edgar Bergan that is the right wing of this county.

That's why I toasted his demise on Sunday, and why all day long I was humming a verse from Elvis Costello:

That's when they fin'ly
Put you in the ground
I'll stand on your grave
And tramp the dirt down

Posted by molyneaux at 11:59 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:45 PM PDT

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Looking over this blog I thought it might be a good idea to make some fast way to find particular subjects. Here's my first stab:

FILMS
"Super Size Me" -- 30 days of Big Mac Attack, 20 May
"Metropolis" 2002, week of 8 April
"Monty Python & the Holy Grail" at the Paramount, 9 April
"Hellboy", 11 April
Sarah Jacobson film retrospective, 30 March
"Plaster Caster", or How Do Rock Stars Measure UP? 24 March
"Kitchen Stories" the Norwegian Entry into the 2003 Academy Awards, 25 February
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, 20 February
"The Triplets of Belleville", seen 8 February
Dali-Disney's "Destino" short subject, seen 8 February
Robert McNamara and "The Fog of War", seen 14 February
"Kurosawa" documentary, 13 February
Kurosawa's "Ikiru", 13 February
Kurosawa's "Sanjuro", 13 February
Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", 13 February

TV
"Cowboy Bebop" series finale, 24 March
"Cowboy Bebop", anime I can live with, 25 February

VIDEO EDITING
"Laser Disc to DVD"

THEATER
Videotaping "The Mouse That Roared", 7 March

PLACES, WALKS & RIDES
Paramount Theater tour, April 14
Ocean Beach, Tulip Garden and Murphey Windmill in S.F., Sat. 27 March
Bike ride east of Lake Merritt in Oakland, Sunday 28 March
Road trip to Pacifica & Half Moon Bay, CA, 21 March
Rockridge in Oakland, CA, 14 March
Trestle Glen and Glen Park walk, 28 February
Moutain Lake Park, S.F. & Fort Baker in Marin, 25 February
Ocean Beach & the Dutch Windmill in S.F., 15 February

FRIENDS & FAMILY
That's My Mama..., 26 May
Christopher Gray visits, week of 29 March

MISCELLANY
Interview with me about my old Atari Cyber Studio Products,23 March
The animated music video "I Love Death, 23 March

Posted by molyneaux at 3:00 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:45 PM PDT

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My sister and I were in the dining room, and mom was telling us something as she walked through the room...and into the hall and vanished into the bathroom, stopping speaking mid-thought as the door closed behind her! My sister and I exchanged a look and burst out laughing. When mom emerged, she didn't recall what she was saying and didn't realize she's stopped midsentence!

That's one of my most vivid memories about my mother, from sometime around my early 20s. And while I haven't thought about it for a long time, the memory strikes home now because mom's in a nursing home and will probably never going back to her own home. A few months shy of 80 she's mentally slipped a rail, and what was a memorable comic moment from 20 years ago is what she lives today.

Memory's a funny thing. These days mom frequently doesn't even recognize her granddaughters, and certainly can't remember when she saw me last. Conversation's almost impossible because she forgets what's she's saying midway through a sentence. It's like she's walking into that bathroom every 30 seconds, but without the comical touch of the door closing and the symbolism one can attach to flushing one's thoughts down the loo.

Mom's a few weeks into a nursing home now. I spent 5 days with her at the beginning of the month and found that the one thing we could converse about were old family photos from Italy that I brought to her. So, while she can't remember my brother's name when she sees his picture, she can recall names and trivia about people seen in sepiaed photographs from before she was born. I treasure these little moments because when I talk to her about these things, those are the only remnants of real conversations I can have with her. One day she told me about the hat shop where her mother worked, and how Mrs. Macola, the owner was called "Americana" because she was born in America. It's humbling that she remembers Mrs. Macola's name but probably not mine.

Admittedly, it can be comical when she insists that "if the air comes from the television, then the fire..." or says that she married my father in 1991 instead of 1961. But it's sad for me look into the eyes of this woman I've known my whole life and realize she's halfway out the door.

Or is it halfway into the bathroom?

Posted by molyneaux at 12:50 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:46 PM PDT

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Super Size Me (CLICK HERE for the film's official website) is the story of Morgan Spurlock's experiment in fast food consumption. What will happen to his health if he eats nothing but food from McDonalds three meals a day for a month, and if he does only the amount if exercise a typical American does each day? Well, just over halfway through Spurlock is a physical mess, and his doctors are amazed that all their predictions about the results were not only wrong, but failed to predict the consequences by orders of magnitude. One doctor says he's got so much fat in his liver it's practically pâté.

All this would be big-screen reality TV if all we did was watch Spurlock pig out for 30 days, but he smartly interviews a lot of talking heads from various industries, government agencies, and watchdog groups to get their spin on the fast food industry. And while I can quibble with the featherweightness of some of the evidence, the weight (pun intended) of circumstantial evidence is pretty convincing, as I see the results everywhere. Hell, it's pretty evident for me living in the relatively health conscious Bay Area. When I go an hour in any almost direction away from it, I notice that the percentage of swollen equators increases alarmingly.

I could have done without seeing the footage of an actual gastric bypass surgery, but it sure slams home the consequences of what an unhealthy lifestyle can do to you, so in that way it's defensible.

It's telling that the only appetizing thing I saw in the entire film were the vegan dishes Spurlock's chef girlfriend prepared before and after the experiment, and some freshly cooked food in one those rare school cafeterias that hasn't outsourced its meals to big business.

I guess I've been "Californicated" after all...

Posted by molyneaux at 10:42 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:48 PM PDT

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I'm really getting behind on this Blog. bad me!


Whatever day it was...
FILM: Metropolis but not by way of Fritz Lang
I rented the 2002 release animé film "Metropolis". The visuals are mesmerizing, but the story was derivative and there were a lot of lapses in logic. Cowboy Bebop aside, I guess I'm still not much of an animé fan.

Friday 9 April
FILM: It IS the rabbit!
Becky left work early and we went to Rockridge and played Scrabble in front of the coffee & tea shop at the Makret Hall there. Boy I love living in a city!

Afterwards we met up with John Kitchener and a friend to go to movie night at the Paramount, which is always a treat. For your $6 you get half an hour of Jim Riggs on the house organ before the show, a newsreel, a cartoon, trailers for coming attractions that aren't coming, Dec-O-Win (where they spin a wheel for prizes based on ticket numbers), and the film!

Jim Riggs included Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" (which appears in a zillion Warner Bros. cartoons, whenever machinery is shown) in his organ set. The newsreel was all about Easter in 1955, and was the cartoon was, appropriately enough, "Easter Yeggs" with Bugs Bunny. The coming attractions included Conan the Barbarian, which got huge laughs seeing our now governor gnashing his teeth and chewing the scenergy. At the end of Dec-O-Win Rigg's played the Python-appropriated "Liberty Bell march", and then the film began; "Monty Python & the Holy Grail". I had not seen it in a theater since I first saw it at a 1981 midnight show in Reno, and it was funny as ever. The only problems were that the sound too loud in a lot of places, and the image seemed a little dim and dark. Still, it was great seeing it with a very enthusiastic audience. It was also oddly appropriate at Easter time as it features the Grail and a bunny (a foul vicious one, tho!).

Sunday 11 April
FILM: Hell is for Boys
I drove to Pleasanton and had a homemade pancake brunch courtesy of Becky. Yummy!

Afterwards, we went to see "Hellboy". It's the kind of film I don't normally attend (as I pretty much boycott big action films), but it was okay for the genre. I liked Ron Perlman's performance. The fish-man "abe sapien" was really well done. John Hurt was there too, nearly unrecognizably under his old man makeup. The climax was, in a word, anticlimactic, but the film had its share of fun moments.

I have to make a small aside here and complain about seeing movies in modern multiplexes. You pay your pricy entry, you pay 3x prices at the concession, and then you're forced to sit through continuous pre-film commercials. This is why I boycott such cinemas in favor of local houses that only show trailers before the show! Thank goodness I have the Grand Lake Theater right up the street!

Let's see, what else...
Oh, I've started archiving my laser discs to DVDs. My new Sony Vaio has what's called a "Giga Pocket Video" system that allows me to plug in regular TV video (cable TV and composite), record it (like a Tivo), and then record it to DVDs. I am anxious to get this process done because when these same films are released on commercial DVD they often alter the extras. For instance, one "Nightmare Before Christmas" documentary was cut nearly in half on the DVD release of the film! That documentary was my first "test" disc. I recently did the first complete disc, the documentary "Theremin: An Electronic Oddysey". It came out pretty well, and the recording process is relatively painless. I started recording Star Wars (not the Special Edition).

Posted by molyneaux at 11:06 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:50 PM PDT

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I joined John Kitchener and Becky in taking the Paramount tour. My 3rd time on the tour, their first. Because there was a show going on that afternoon, we didn't get the tour in the normal order, and they didn't take us backstage. Alas! The great thing I heard after the tour is that there's a fundraiser going on next month to raise funds towards reopening the Fox Oakland, two blocks away. (I checked the Fox Oakland website and am excited by this prospect. I may volunteer some time towards this project.)

After brunch with John K., Becky and I then went to help John Sugden finish clearing out his storage unit, this on the promise of a Tommy's run. I vowed I would not help John move again, but apparently I have no will power where margaritas are concerned!

Posted by molyneaux at 4:00 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:51 PM PDT

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