Let it Snow!

That's right, first day of December, and we got snow in Seattle. How sweet is that? I mean, as long as you don't live on Queen Anne or Cap Hill, and can stay indoors most of the time...

That's what's nice about living where I do. It's a little slice of West Seattle that backs up to a state building and a green belt, with a large backyard and 1 block walking distance from all my basic necessities. We have a QFC, Rite Aid, Staples, Big 5, 24 Hour Fitness, Bed Bath & Beyond, Marshall's, Radio Shack, Pier 1, Sleep Country, Payless Shoes, Famous Footwear, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble (with a Starbucks), Hollywood Video/Game Crazy, Jamba Juice, Sub Shop, Laundromat (which I don't need), Thai restaurant, Teryaki restaurant, McDonald's, and a post office (among others). The only time I need to leave West Seattle for anything is to go to a first-run movie theater, and most of the time I can just walk down to Westwood shopping center to get what I need. This comes in handy on days like today, when I wanted to go work out. I just head down to the gym, do my thang, and get a nice warm down, walking home up the hill in the snow.

Getting my studio set up and am beginning the tutorials for some of the new software. Found a conflict with Vegas and my previous video capture unit. The Plextor ConvertX is USB. Vegas likes firewire. So firewire Vegas shall have. Better to trade up on a $150 vidcap unit than replace an $800 piece of software.

Watched Down With Love the other day. It was on our Netflix list before Sam died (that's how far behind I am). Loved the production design, the script, performances and direction - it was a nearly perfect homage to the Tony Randall/Rock Hudson/Doris Day wacky sex comedies from the early '60s.

Watched Shaun of the Dead with LA yesterday after a nice lunch at the Celtic Swell on Alki. She's a bit squeamish about the zombie/horror/slasher stuff, so I thought a comedy zombie horror film might be fun. Gawd, I love that film. She liked it too. At least she left with a smile on her face, but that may have been due to... something else entirely. As Stephen Colbert would say, "If you were here right now, I would totally high-five you, while winking."

Just watched Ali today. Very impressed with Will Smith in the title role. There were shots where I really had to do a double-take because he looked and sounded so much like Mohammed Ali. Unfortunately poor John Voight's brilliant performance as Howard Cosell was obscured by an atrocious makeup job. Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith and Mario Van Peebles also stood out in their respective roles. I think the film strayed in a few places, at times becoming more of a civil rights lecture than a biopic of one of the greatest boxers in history. The lengthy Malcolm X assassination sequence is one example. Don't get me wrong - I love Michael Mann as a director, and I can now detect his visual style from a mile off. But sometimes he can meander.

My buddy Conor from the theater group has been writing a ton of music recently, and when he read my last blog entry about going back to Palo Alto and feeling enpty, he started writing a song. While I was writing this, he pinged me in MSN Messenger and sent me some lyrics:

I've seen the sun set on our seasons of love
by returning to the place where our lives begun
face of young, turned worn and old
as the ghosts of our joys haunts my drive down the road

memories of your touch, the sensation of smell
the nights we spent lyin', thinkin' time could stand still
lost in this world, I found a home in your heart
'til reality struck and tore us apart

you fought flesh with faith
gave me strength in your weakend state
then judgement was passed, as the sand fell fast,
your grace remained 'til the air we shared was your last

Conor says he can't take credit for it, as it was my experience that inspired the song. I say that is what a true artist does - he acts as a lens for the rest of society, translating the real into the surreal or the hyperreal or the fictional. Hats off to you, Conor. You took my feelings and wrote the song that was too painful for me to write. You are my champion-by-proxy. Thank you.