Keep it up...

Well, today was interesting.

My brother and I had lunch at a place called Govinda's.
It's a vegetarian eatery that's part of the Hare Krishna temple complex on Venice Boulevard.
They have a buffet everyday and it's cheap! Only $6! And they have Caffeine-Free Coke!
Which is hard to find and tastes much sweeter than bog-standard Coke.
But before we could partake of vegatarian goodness, I had to get me bicycle fixed.
I had a flat on the rear tire, so I walked the bike to the big bike shop on Sepulveda.
They were kinda busy, so I left the bike there and the sib and I bussed to Govinda's.
We had a very tasty meal of basmati rice (I love that stuff!), grilled tofu and veggie salad, potato salad,
this weird stuff probably made from lentil and garbanzo beans, more tofu and veggies in different sauce,
and this incerdibly addictive dessert called "Mango Halwa". It's like oatmeal or baby food.
It's served warm, it has cream of wheat and sugar in it plus whatever fruit you wanna toss in.
Today, it was mango, and OMG YUM!!!

After this sumptuous meal, I bussed back to the bike shop to grab my mount.
The sib biked there to meet me.
Aside from having them changed the punctured inner tube, I also bought and had them install some "Mr. Tuffy"
tire armor to hopefully prevent further flats. It's a protective layer of polyurethane that goes inside the tire.
Pascal and I then headed North to go check out West L.A. Music. The sibling needs to get back into music-making
because one of his tracks was picked up for inclusion in a big upcoming movie. I can't really talk about it,
but it's a big production. So we're pricing stuff like Pro-Tools and Cubase and control keyboards.
And my computer will need to be upgraded a bit.
We found something that seems to fit the bill, and the bro will call his musician friend to confirm.
On the way back, we stopped at a Whole Foods store and got ourselves some nicely deserved Jamba Juice smoothies.
Orange-A-Peel for me, Peach Berry Buzz for him. Hmmmmmmmmmm, fruityyyyyyy...

Then we stopped at my bank to make a deposit, then biked home.
And I collapsed as soon as we arrived, 'cause I was tired!!
This biking stuff is still pretty hard.

And tonight, I'm luxuriating in a state of doing nothing!
I finished the website yesterday and it's up and running.
It's my first website for a paying customer. Pretty cool...

Tomorrow, I want to go see "Magnificent Desolation: Walking On The Moon 3D" at the local IMAX.
It looks absolutely killer. And I'm feeling spacey these days...



Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the moon
I hope my legs don't break
Walking on the moon...

Warning: Some Explicit Language

Gee, I completely forgot to mention the Netflixing...



Deadwood: with Keith Carradine, Brad Dourif, William Sanderson, Jeffrey Jones...
My brother and I dig the new-jack westerns, like "Tombstone" and "Open Range", and to a lesser extent "The Missing".
So we heard about this here show on HBO called "Deadwood". Some fella dun tol' me that it was spoken in rhyme-like,
like that Shakespeare fella, but there wuz a whole lotta cursin', especially the word "cocksucker" (Lord forgive me!).
We decided to rent tha darn thing anyways and check it ourselfs. We got Season 1 Disc 1.
And lo and behold, it ain't in rhymes at all, but the word mentioned earlier does crop up a lot.
This here show ain't for lilly-livered weak sisters! There be foul language and violence and nudity of the frontal
kind, both male and female. This here show is for adults! Don' let the young 'uns see it.
Somethin' tells me this is probably closer to what the Real West was like then anythin' else ever put on the screen.
Deadwood is not a town, not yet. It's more like a Gold Rush camp. And it's under the thumb of this fella who looks
like the love child of Edward James Olmos and Tom Selleck. There's somethin' unsettlin' about this here fella.
Why, he dun made poor ol' Calamity Jane cry! And Wild Bill Hickock ain't too fond of him neither.
Hold everythin'! IMDB tells me this fella played Lovejoy in the TV show "Lovejoy"! I'll be hornswaggled!
So anyhoo, we like what we're seein' so far and we're gonna get the rest of them there DVDs.
We've got Disc 2 right here! And we're probably gonna watch it tomorrow.

Gunner Palace: with a bunch of soldiers keepin' it real.
The day-to-day lives of soldiers of the 2/3 Field Artillery Unit ("Gunners") keeping the peace in Baghdad.
This is pretty much what this documentary is about. The soldiers talk about their experience and you see what they do.
It's very interesting and enlightening. Do not rent this if you can't stand rap though, because several of the
soldiers do some freestyle rhyming. And PFC Wilf tries to play the electric guitar like Jimi Hendrix. Wilf is a nut!

Bride And Prejudice: special request by the sibling.
I was not in a Bollywood mood, even if the film is also Hollywood in style. So I did not watch it.
I worked instead on the website, to get it finished. It made Pascal laugh, so it can't be all bad.

Gladiator: Extended Edition: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou
I saw this in the theaters way back in 2000 and I really dug it. Ridley Scott did a great job on this.
At the beginning of this new extended cut of the film, Scott comes on and announces that this is NOT a director's cut.
As far as he is concerned, the Director's Cut is the one we saw in theaters. This is just an extended edition with added
footage to several existing scenes. I watched the whole thing and I was hard-pressed to tell just where the added footage
was placed. But the tone of the film is changed slightly by these additions. The theatrical cut feels like a "Mystic Warrior"
sort of film, whereas the extended edition feels more like a historical epic. It's hard to exactly pin down.
It's just a feeling I have.
So anyway, if you like "Gladiator", you should check out this extended mix.
If you've never seen it, you should. It's really quite good and better than "Troy" or "Alexander", in my opinion.



Coming soon: "Sahara", "Hostage", "The Ring Two", more "Deadwood", "Ghost In The Shell: 2nd Gig".
And "Alexander: Director's Cut" if I haven't reviewed it yet.