keeping note

A truely sad day today, Estelle Getty has passed away. She was 84.

She is best known for her role as Sophia Petrillo on hit 80’s TV show The Golden Girls. Next to Dorothy, she was my favorite character. Seriously, her stories, her wit and her sarcasm all added to the charm of the show. Without Sophia, the show wouldn’t have been as funny and the only person who could pull off this character was Estelle Getty. She will be missed.

For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of watching The Golden Girls, you can still watch the episodes of Lifetime. They show at 9 - 10am, 4 - 5pm and midnight. (Yes, I watch a lot of TV)

Please enjoy the charm she brought to this clip from The Golden Girls!

To update you folks out there, my Mac is currently in shop. Apparently, my computer was built with a faulty hard drive so it was destined to poop out on me eventually. (Damn!) I guess updating my operating system just pushed it over the edge. (Even hard drives get stressed out)

Thank goodness for Apple Care or I’d seriously be out a pretty penny. (Perhaps this was Apple’s ploy all along!)

I feel incomplete without my computer! It’s bad when you can’t live without it. (But I want to meet the person who can so I can tell them they’re weird!)

For the past couple of Pixar movies I’ve been obsessed with some of the artwork. For The Incredibles, I loved the comic book style promo posters, for Ratatouille there were posters that resembled French Café and now for Wall-e, there are posters that reflect the old 1970’s ride posters Disneyland produced.

After some thorough research, I found out the artist is Eric Tan. According to his blog, he’s a graphic designer/doodler who grew up in San Diego. (And that’s about it) All I really know is I love what’s he’s done and his artwork now graces my computer screen.

P.S. He’s also done some other work and I thought you should check it out. Also, if you want an actual poster, you can go to Acme Archives to purchase one. The problem is they are a bit pricey.

Yes, it’s finally going into effect. As of July 1, 2008,  California is putting into effect those ever-feared laws about driving while using your cell phone.

Let me lay out the facts for you (then offer up my opinion):

• Drivers over 18 can only use a hands-free device when driving in the car
• Drivers under 18 cannot use a hands-free device (which means no cellphone use at all)
• You can only use a phone (sans hands-free) to call an emergency service (i.e. 911, Police, Fire)
• Push-to-Talk doesn’t qualify as “hands-free”, but Speakerphone does
• The law doesn’t prohibit drivers from dialing while driving
• The law doesn’t specifiy about texting while driving, so it’s okay, but not recommended

Don’t be scared by those people telling you it’s a couple hundred for the ticket. The fines are $20 for a first offense and $50 for subsequent offenses. The DMV is reported about the ticket, but you don’t receive a point on your record.

This law is stupid.

Sure, we are removing a distraction from drivers. If it’s the physicality of needing two hands then you can’t eat, change the station, or in anyway occupy one of your hands?  If it’s the mental atmosphere of engaging in conversation, you can’t talk to anyone in your car or listen too intently to your music or talk radio? Well then maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s the combination of those two distractions.

If the intent is to minimize cell phone use in the car, it won’t work. People who talk on their cell phones are going to talk on their cell phones regardless of the law. If they use speakerphone (which still occupies that second hand) or a bluetooth device, it won’t change the concentration they are putting on their phone conversation versus their driving.

For me, the hastle of getting and using  a hands-free device is more distracting than just putting the phone up to my ear.  Some can say that having the phone at your ear blocks your vision, but how deep can we carry that? Having passengers in your car blocks you vision. Not looking blocks your vision, too. I think more people just don’t look.

And why is it okay to text? With texting, you have to take you eyes off the road and look just at  your phone. You have to actively use one hand, typing– and for some people using a second hand. How is that safe? I would fully support a no-texting-while-driving law because that’s just common sense.

There is definitely a safe way and an an unsafe way to use your phone in the car, but ‘hands-free’ laws aren’t the answer. I think the state is going to be a looking at a lot of revenue (in small doses) from this law.  They should have made the fine higher. (Thanks to us, they didn’t.)

Check out this site for a full Q&A.

For quite sometime I’ve watched and read the anime Inuyasha. I mean, I’ve dedicated some serious time to it! (I started when I was a freshman in high school and it’s now my 5th year in college.) However, today, I found out author Rumiko Takahashi has finished it! (At a whopping 56 volumes, meaning 558 chapters!) I nearly cried! I’ve waited years for this moment and it’s finally come.

For those who don’t know, Inuyasha is about a Jr. High School girl (eventually a High School girl) who ends up in feudal Japan and travels with a half-demon named Inuyasha collecting sacred jewel shards. (This is the most basic summary, please check wikipedia.com for a full plot summary)

9 years of waiting, reading and watching has finally come to an end. This is either incredibly amazing or incredibly sad. (I’d like to think it’s amazing.)

Yesterday I saw a commercial for a “hand stirred” fruit milkshake smoothie of some sort new at Wendy’s. As someone who’s worked at Starbucks (albeit happily) for much longer than intended, I’ve seen plenty of the “hand shaken” or “hand stirred” nonsense. Why do advertisers see it as such a great selling point at mass produced locations?

First off, it’s Wendy’s for goodness sake. While the company probably encourages excellence and performance, it’s still fast food. It’s still food that you can drive up to a window and receive in less than three minutes. It’s food that has been demographically selected and manufactured for the entire nation to enjoy at every Wendy’s location on every street corner from the ghetto to the suburbs. You aren’t getting personal or gourmet.

Second off, the people making these things don’t have the expertise and aren’t given enough money to care about shaking, stirring, or whatever is required of them. When it comes down to it, time is everything. The faster you get your food, the happier you are. Managers know it. Employees know it.

Third, and most relevantly, having worked in semi “fast food” and been given instructions on “hand shaken” beverages, I know that it means squat. Starbucks is higher quality than most places out there, but we still take quite a liberty with those personal touches to your drinks. If we ring 30 transactions a half an hour on an average day, that’s at the very least 30 drinks, more realistically beyond double that. Yes, your drink will be made well, I can promise you that, but those fancy personal touches that are advertised aren’t always part of the process.

Now step it down to real fast food like Wendy’s. Don’t even think that they are going to take the time out to do anything personal to your beverage, except spit in it if you piss them off.

Here’s the long and short of it: Unless you are paying top dollar from a restaurant or professional, “hand shaken” means nothing.

You can view Hillary Clinton’s speech and sign up for Barack Obama’s website at: hillaryclinton.com or go directly to Obama’s wesite: barackobama.com

I’m a Hillary Clinton supporter and I was sad to see her end her campaign. (But let’s face it, it was inevitable) She put up a great fight, ( a great Machiavellian fight!) but it saddens me to see what has become of her supporters.

I’ve read many comments left on blogs and news articles that upset me and have enraged others. Why is it that former Hillary supporters are willing to change sides rather quickly, just because the Democratic representative is now Barack Obama? If anything, he is the person CLOSEST to Hillary’s ideals and the Democratic Party’s ideals.

In Hillary Clinton’s speech, she understood the need for a UNITED party, not a broken one.

“The way to continue our fight, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States….Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on a vicotry he has won and the extrordinary race he has run. I ENDORSE HIM AND THROW MY FULL SUPPORT BEHIND HIM.”

All those urging others to switch to independent, to vote Republican, just because you hate Barak Obama for irrelevant reasons, I urge you to reconsider. In our system of government, there is no way a third party can win. It’s not built to support a third party. Majority of the populous will vote either Democrat (Obama) or Republican (McCain) and (in my opinion), a third party vote in this upcoming election, will be a waste. Those votes can go to the party you truly support. Have we forgotten the 2000 election when the Nader votes could have gone else where?

I have also read ridiculous reasons from various blogs and other sources, such as AOL’s straw pole, to not vote for Obama and ways to libel his name. I read a comment that said, “He’s not an American citizen. His father is from Africa. It’s being investigated.” Well, someone has not done their reading. Yes, his father is African, but his mother is an American citizen, which makes him an American citizen.

Another comment was a rant about how he never wore the American flag pin until now and how he’s never saluted when the national anthem was played. Are you serious?! This is your strongest reason not to vote for a leader? There are more important issues to follow when choosing a candidate. Also, a lot of people have been put of by his name, Barack Hussein Obama. Once again, this is the last thing you should focus on. If anything, this is a prejudicial judgement based on his name and not his leadership skills. Let me remind you of another point in Hillary Clinton’s speech,

“There are no acceptable limits, no acceptable prejudices, in the 21st century.”

Instead of spending your energy focusing on trifles, read about him and his ideas. Research what he supports, what he doesn’t support and what he plans for this country and then make your judgements. If you truly do not agree with him and find that you agree with other ideas, then fine. Just don’t take action based on shallow reasoning.

It is my hope that the Democratic party will stand together, rather than divided. In 40 years, there have been 10 presidential elections where only 3 terms were served by a Democrat. ( 2 terms belonged to Bill Clinton.) Let us try to put a Democrat back in office. If you are Hillary Clinton supporter then try to support her wishes and support Barack Obama.

Using Hillary Clinton’s words:

“The Democratic Party is a family and now it is time to restore the ties that bind us together and to come together around the ideals we share, the values we cherish and the country we love. We may have started on separate journeys, but today our paths have merged and we’re all heading towards the same destination, united and more ready than ever to win in November, and two turn our country around because so much is at stake.”

(Not all that write for KN follow the Democratic Party. Although, classified as a Moderate myself, I tend to lean towards the Democratic Party.)

Image: whatisblik.com

I don’t know about you, but I’m a homebody. Why you may ask? Well mostly because 1.) I am poor and 2.) I hate dealing with weird people and I always run into them when I’m out, so I like making the place I live in as cool as possible. I mean if you are going to willingly confine yourself in an apartment, it might as well be nice.

My first thought to savvy up my apartment was furniture, but I remembered that I’m poor. (Poor to the point where I can’t afford IKEA furniture.) Plus, I didn’t want to get a bad piece that would ruin my apartment’s esthetic. Next, I thought I would put up framed pictures or paint, but that’s a lot of work. Also, because I live an an apartment, I’d have to paint the walls back to the original color and cover up all the holes. ( See what I mean, it even sounds like a lot of work!)

But I’ve run across a rather inexpensive, creative way to decorate an apartment- Blik. Blik is a design company that specializes in self adhesive wall decals. ( Stickers for grown-ups as they call it.) They have various styles that will fit several types of tastes and it’s super easy to do! Just peel and stick. You can keep it up for as long as you like and if you grow tired of it, just peel it off. What’s also great is they have a line called “Re-stik” that will allow to reuse them.

Now that you know how to make your apartment cool, go do it! I guarantee you’ll never want to leave!

P.S. For all those threadless.com fans out there, they have created wall decals out of some of the more popular designs. Now you can have your walls match your wardrobe!

Even amidst the trend of remaking classics, no movie has been able to really take me back to the spirit and imagination of cartoons.

Speed Racer did it. Everything about this movie was cartoon. The images, the story, the excitement, the fun. The movie embodied the magical, whimsical, yet fun, thrilling, and simply comical spirit of cartoons. There’s no real way to describe it. It’s cartoon.

Artistically, it’s beautiful. Using every color in the crayon box and some of the coolest computer graphics, every image in the movie is as bold and alive as a kaleidoscope. Electrifying, visually breathtaking, and just plain stylish. It could have easily found success in art house/indie theatres.

As for the plot, it’s got depth to keep an adult entertained, continually throwing them back to the classic good and evil struggles of the cartoon and comic. Speed’s silly younger brother and monkey companion are a hilarious ride for kids. At the same time, the larger than life races with cars that physically shoot daggers and flip over each other keep adults and kids alike thrilled.

I love this movie. The not-so-stellar reviews are really unwarranted and dare I say pretentious views on pure brilliance and cartoon entertainment.

Sure, you won’t ever have to sit on your feet to see over the monster in front of you, the seats sort of recline if you push really hard, and the arm rest can disappear making that moment with your special someone all the more special. That doesn’t equal quality movie experience, though.

When I’m at a movie, I want to feel like the screen is so big that the actors might eat me. I want to feel like I’m looking up at this fantastic screen with larger than life everything. I want to hear that roll and flicker of the film reel in the back. There’s a reason I pay $8+. I want the whole movie theatre experience and stadium seating theatres just don’t cut it.

I’m deeply in love with the little theatre about 15 minutes away because it’s plain old movie theatre seating with stationary arm rests and an inclined floor. The screen takes up the entire wall and when watching a movie, it feels majestic. Okay, cheesy word, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

I wish these theatres could stay open forever, but sadly, the bigger stadium theatres are just crushing them. I would take the flat seats over stadium any day! Go out to a movie at one of theses and tell me you don’t love it.

Support these theatres! Keep them alive! I don’t know if I could continue to see movies if they all disappeared.