Author: Chris Barrus

Things I haven’t done in years part 2: The Drive-In

vineland-driveinSo over the weekend, I did something I haven’t done in years… Went to the drive-in! I don’t know why I thought of it, and I didn’t even know if there was one left in LA/OC, but a short web search turned up the last drive-in movie theater in the Los Angeles area: the Pacific Vineland up in the City of Industry.

Sort of a long drive up from Garden Grove, but totally worth it to escape the unrespectful who chatter away on a cell phone, kids that won’t shut up, and the whole damn rigamarole of going to the suburban theater hive.

It was a total blast.

You can bring as much food and drinks you want. It was cheap ($6 a person). The movies were first run features (the major features at the Vineland were XXX, Signs, Goldmember, and Spy Kids 2) and are double-billed with a second run flick (like Men In Black 2). You can adjust the volume. The seats were a lot more comfortable. In short, pretty much everything I would want out of a regular theater that you can’t get anymore

So there are a couple of drawbacks… The Vineland is right next to the train tracks so there was one brief moment when we couldn’t hear because of a passing train. There’s a neighboring industrial plant that is a little over-eager with there security lighting (but that wasn’t a big deal after the initial shock). And yeah, there’s that whole rain issue, which is negligible in Los Angeles anyway.

I’ve always had a “if I won the lottery” dream of opening up a revival drive-in theater and show nothing but old black and white noir and atomic bug movies (with a gourmet concession stand), but for reality – I’m happy with the Vineland (may it live on)

Look for a drive-in theater near you.

Things I haven’t done in years part 1: Homework!

So it’s been almost ten years since I’ve said the sentence: “I’ve got homework to do”. It feels incredibly weird, even though I work at a university and am constantly surrounded by academia (in all forms).

The class itself is an introduction to Macromedia Flash which is an app I know next to nothing about. Since I’ve been doing network admin/deep-level geek stuff over the recent years I’ve discovered that my design/DTP skills were stuck back somewhere around the Quark 3/Illustrator 5 vintage, with Flash and the entire Axis of Macromedia somewhere around my peripheral vision. I used Dreamweaver a couple of times and after a much confusion, went back to hand-coding my HTML in BBEdit.

Anyway, UCI Extension offers a couple of classes free to UCI staff. Flash was one of them and here I am, thinking about needing to do homework and being incredibly pleased that I got my Asteroids-knockoff spaceship to fly around the Flash stage and fade in and out.

Conspiracies and probability

Good NYT article on probability and is (mis)uses. The focus here is on the mysterious post-9/11 deaths of a dozen or so microbiologists but the concepts here could be applied to any situation where someone is claiming events that are “a million to one odds” or something. Required reading for conspiracy fans after you finish C. Wright Mills.

[via Slashdot]

Cartoon law exam

Great law-school exam drawing all its questions from cartoons:

Hank Hill works as the assistant general manager at Strickland Propane, Inc., a company in the business of selling propane and propane-related accessories. Hill works at one of the company’s 200 retail locations. In the course of his normal duties, Hill supervises employees and waits on customers. Recently, Hill was told that he had been selected to help Strickland market its newest propane-related accessory: the propane-powered lawn mower. The new lawn mower was a secret project at Strickland. The company planned to publicly announce the new lawn mower in a marketing blitz scheduled to occur six weeks later. Hill was given plans for the lawn mower, marketing materials, release dates, prices, and similar information. Strickland executives instructed Hill to keep the project confidential. When Hill was through reading the materials, he tossed them in his garbage.

Hill’s long-time friend and current neighbor is Dale Gribble. Hill and Gribble grew up together, and they often confide in each other. For example, Gribble would often confide with Hill about Gribble’s troubled marital life. This friendship was a strong one, and neither Hill or Gribble ever broke a confidence the other had shared.

Gribble also is a paranoid-type. Unknown to his neighbors, Gribble regularly searches through their garbage. While searching Hill’s garbage one early morning, Gribble took Strickland’s plans for the propane-powered mower. On this basis, Gribble bought Strickland common stock on the New York Stock Exchange. When the mower was a big hit a few weeks later, Strickland stock shot up, and Gribble sold at a hefty profit. Strickland Propane is incorporated in Delaware. Is Gribble guilty of insider trading under section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5?

Despair and depression in Argentina

Note that this is real life and is occurring right now. It is not a dystopic SF movie.

A mob moved out from Las Flores, a shantytown of trash heaps and metal shacks boiling over with refugees from the financial collapse of what was once Latin America’s wealthiest nation. Within minutes, 600 hungry residents arrived on the scene, wielding machetes and carving knives. Suddenly, according to accounts from some of those present on that March day, a cry went up.

“Kill the cows!” someone yelled. “Take what you can!”

Cross-country road tripping in 1937

In 1937, Paul Nagai’s grandmother drove cross-country and kept a detailed photo-journal of the trip. Today, the amazing journal is up on the web.

This reminds me about one long-term project I need to pick back up – a journal that my grandfather put together about his 1921 cross-country drive from California to New York.

[via MetaFilter]

What goes into marketing a new teen queen/rock star/whatever

Why bother with American Idol, when the real thing is even funnier?

Celebrity journalist Lynn Hirschberg profiles former Backstreet girlfriend and would-be-edgy-rock-star Amanda Latona and portrays the breakthrough artist as a malleable, fame-chasing airhead and her handlers as just as cynical and corrupt as any caricature of record execs ever created. (I’m shocked, shocked to find egocentric morons in the music industry)

And if girl empowerment is what people are buying, Latona will gladly sing the part.

Of course, should her album tank, the music industry would never blame themselves or the focus groups that went into the production and marketing – it’s those damn net pirates.

[via MetaFilter]