Maturity

Always do this

One of the many blessings of digital photography, you can do this without feeling bad about wasting film.

Post Christmas Blahs

Don't get me wrong, I love a good week off as much as the next guy, but yesterday I actually found myself bored. I've been off work since the 23rd of December, and after all the Christmasy type things...I'm home with the wifey and we both find ourselves in the 'blah' type mode.

We have tons of things to do, cleanup the new house, unpack items, rearrange things...but we find ourselves either on the computer or in front of the TV. To try to amuse ourselves we played charades, some Gin and Crazy Eights (the card games, not the drinks) and I've even got back to working out..but still it's kinda like we have nothing else to do..

Of course next week I'll be bitching about going back to work..but such is life.

Oh Yeah, The New House

After being here almost 25 days I finally got off my ass and took some photos of the new house for you all to see. These photos are of the main rooms we use, some other rooms are still full of boxes.

Notice the tree eh? She's a nice one no? Yes yes indeedy..his name is Norbert.

I know what you're saying to yourself 'Michael, you have the most amazing sense of style', truth be told, my wife does all the decorating while I nap.

Click on my living room above for more house photos, plus two of me trying to take my picture with the cat..she didn't want to co-operate.

John Spencer - 1946-2005

John Spencer - 1946-2005

From AICN's Hercules, but it reflects my thoughts exactly,

Sad and tragic and shocking news. John Spencer’s “West Wing” character, Leo McGarry, had a major role in the new episode that ran against the “Survivor” finale Sunday night.

I’ve been a fan of Spencer since his Tommy Mullany days on “L.A. Law,” but his Emmy-winning work as Leo during Aaron Sorkin’s run on the series made for some of the best television I’ve ever seen. His jousting with Jed Bartlet and Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn – oh, and British ambassador Sir John Malbury! – made me laugh so much harder than any of the sitcoms airing at the time.

One wonders how Spencer’s passing will affect the show’s scripting. McGarry is currently the running mate of presidential candidate Matt Santos (fellow “L.A. Law” alum Jimmy Smits), and we saw in the season-opening flash-forward – set three years hence – that Leo will be very much alive well after Bartlet exits office.

Farking Snow!!

Snow! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again!

It snowed about 40CMs of snow last night into this morning (that's 1.31 feet for you yankees). Everything is closed down, streets are a nightmare, I cannot even see my pool or deck..forget about work.

Of course now that I own land, and a walkway, and need to keep it clean of snow it all comes down, not too long ago I remember a few years when it didn't even snow before Christmas. I ventured out to shovel while my lovely wife took photos and video..and made sure to laugh at me. Not even hot cocoa...she's shoveling next time. Click on my sorry ass for more pics.

Kong! Kong! Kong!

Click to enlarge

On top of moving to a new home I also had plans to go to New York City to attend the premiere of King Kong. Click on the image above to see more coolness.

FULL REPORT

Our flight to NY was delayed 2 times! Apparently LGA does this often..we finally got into LGA around 10:30PM..what a shitty airport. We got a shuttle to the hotel, was very cool to drive into NYC at night with x-mas music and the Empire State Building all lit up green and red.

Our hotel was amazingly nice, the Westin is very very swanky, our hotel room was on the 38th floor (!!!) and we had a great view of the Hudson. The elevators in the Westin feature CNN and go up and down VERY fast.

Times Square is amazing, last time I was there in the middle of the day (almost 10 years ago), it has changed so much, gone are all the strippers and sex shops...the Toys R Us and Virgin Megastores are amazing. We metup with Chris and Bill (my partners on the site) and our respective wives very briefly before going to bed.

Monday we woke up a little later than we wanted to, but it was still early, Kong fans were gathering at a pub called Stouts near the Empire State Building to have a little 'Kong Fest'...the pub was very cool and we brought a ton of stuff for the fans to giveaway. CNN Showbiz was there to cover the event as well as Japanese TV and a reporter from New Zealand. Michael Pellerin stopped in to say hello and thanks, Michael is the producer of the video segments we feature on kongisking.net, he works very closely with Peter Jackson and the entire crew to feature exclusive behind the scenes stuff about King Kong..I was interviewed for one of these segments, look for it to go online either this week or next.

After the lunchin Kathy and I walked to the Empire State Building and bought some souveniers..that place is amazing. We then walked back to Times Square and took a few photos by the life-sized King Kong they have setup..that thing was AMAZING..it was this 100% life size kong, not a cardboard cutout or an air filled balloon..this thing was REAL...check the photos for more.

We got dressed for the premiere and hooked up with the rest of the crew and made our way to the red carpet. There was a bit of confusion as to where we had to line up to get in, but we eventually made our way into the theatre. There was a TON of security, metal detectors and infra-red goggles to prevent film piracy..there was no photography of any kind allowed.

The film itself was AMAZING, a really great epic film that will take you back to depression era New York and the hell that is Skull Island..watch our for that log! (you'll get it when you see the film).

After the film we hopped on a bus for the invite-only after party. It was being held a place called 'Hudson on the Piers' and it was exactly that, a large warehouse right on the Hudson Pier. The place was decorated with a King Kong theme. The coat check featured a large SS Venture ship bow (along with boat noises), after you walk in the theme changes to 'Skull Island' complete with lagoon and waterfall, hanging vines and creepy animal noises surround you as you munch on triple-bean salad and salmon...it was so cool! The next room was 1933 New York themed, with a shoe shine stand and shop windows..there was even a vaudeville type show with performers doing all types of acts, from dog shows to spinning plates and more.

Kathy and I were separated from the rest of the gang by our theatre tickets, so we also were on different busses to the after party. There was literally thousands of people at this party so it took us a while to find them. But before we did we bumped into Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks son and one of the stars of the film. He was really super nice and even congratulated me on the website..Kathy was super excited to see him. Next we met Adrien Brody, he quickly shook my hand and whizzed past me, same with George Lucas. Andy Serkis (Gollum and King Kong) stopped by and also thanked me for the site..that was cool. We also saw Billy Bush from Access Hollywood, Stone Phillips from Dateline, and others...was a great party.

On a sad note when we finally did catch up with Bill and Chris they were ashamed to admit that their tickets were the ACTUAL tickets to the theatre with all the stars..for some reason Kathy and ours weren't..we were only very pissed off about this..but what can you do?

We got back to the hotel around 2am and crashed. The next morning we woke up at about 7:15 and packed as best we could to catch our shuttle back to the airport at 8:10am..we were lucky enough to get an earlier flight than we had so we were actually home before we were originally scheduled to leave! Another funny note, the rude airline girl who bumped us up was called Dawn King...thought that was funny.