Andrew Koenig Missing #HelpChekov

Andrew Koenig, the son of Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, is missing. The last time Andrew Koenig
was seen was on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Andrew
Koenig never boarded his flight back to the US, and he hasn't heard from since then.

He was last seen at a bakery in the Stanley Park area of Vancouver.

Andrew is white, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 135 pounds and has shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes.

Andrew Koenig, 41, was working as the video producer on the show "Never Not Funny" as well as
doing improv in Los Angeles. Best known as "Boner" from "Growing Pains", Andrew also had a role in
"Deep Space Nine", and is a talented actor director, editor and photographer as well as a passionate
activist. In 2008, he was arrested at the Rose Bowl while protesting China's part in the genocide in
the country of Burma.

This is a serious matter that has Koenig's friends and family gravely concerned. If you have seen him,
emailed him or had any contact after the 14th or spent time with him during his stay in Vancouver
please call Detective Raymond Payette of the Vancouver PD at 604-717-2534.

Please share this and send prayers and positive thoughts. If you wish to leave Walter a note, visit his
site at: www.walterkoenigsite.com

This is the canned post from his site. On a personal note, I've met Walter on a few occasions, and I truly believe

That no parent should have to go through this, which is why I'm attempting to get this trending on Twitter.

Do what you can, when you can, I always say.

The USS Constellation Effect...

I've tweeted about this, several times recently, so, I felt it was time to explain. Why haven't I posted this to a different blog? You may ask, and I may answer. Leave a comment. I will respond. Oh, and consider this a nerd alert; Star Trek will be discussed, however, not at length. Really, just the one episode....

The Doomsday Machine, is considered a classic Trek episode by many, myself included. It deals with a giant weapon from another galaxy, wreaking havoc on ours. Of course, our heroes are the only ones that can stop it. Of course, they do, and we get to tune in next week for further adventures of Kirk, Spock and crew. Of course, as a child, recalling this as the first episode of Trek I ever saw, I didn't know that :)

Some classic Kirk lines:

• Scotty, you've just earned your pay for the week!
• Not with my ship you don't!!!
• Spock, you don't know.
• I found one, quite sufficient.

Spock gets his as well:

• No sir. 97.835 Megatons.
• Vulcans never bluff!!!

Commodore Decker, the captain of the aforementioned USS Constellation, replies to that last one, "No, I don't suppose they do..." He's currently in command of the Enterprise at this point, simply because Kirk and Scotty, and the rest of his damage control crew, are aboard the Constellation, attempting to breathe life into Decker's dead ship. They actually manage to do this.

Without giving away the ending, which I'm sure you can find elsewhere, if you don't recall the episode itself, I'll explain The USS Constellation Effect: After Scotty expertly rewires the impulse drive to the warp drive controls so that Kirk can pilot the ship solo from auxiliary engineering, we see the Constellation flying through space. At a reduced speed. It inches across the screen. Slowly. Chugs would be an apt description. How many of you can hear the impulse engines screaming to get up to speed?

Why is this relevant? For those that don't already know, I've been borrowing a PC from a friend, while I decide what to do with my Mac, and it's dead hard drive. Well, I know what to do, it's just going to take time to send the drive back to "failed hard drive company name here" and get back a new drive. My former Mac, and my current borrowed PC, came out at the same time. I could bore you with specs, however, suffice it to say, all computers aren't created equal, and if you thought I was going to espouse the virtues of switching the other way, as Bill Gates would have you believe, you're sadly mistaken. While the CPU speeds are relatively the same, other specs leave the PC sadly lacking. To get it to where the Mac already is, I'd have to spend about another $750, which one, I don't have, and B, it's not mine to alter.

So, when someone tells you PC's are cheaper than Macs, you may either believe them, meaning you've gone to Best Buy and done a price comparison, OR, you can ask those that know. Like me. I mean, I thought 2007 was three years ago....

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

To Tweet, Or Not to Tweet...

Image via Wikipedia

That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune... Oh, wait. Shakespeare said it differently. The result, however, is the same. After going through some outrageous ups and incredible downs this, my first full year of tweeting, I've accomplished some of what I call The Experiment.

I may have posted something similar elsewhere, however, on this the last day of the year 2009, on what many to believe to be the last day of the decade, I figured, why not write something. So, here it is. It might even make sense to those that read it. Or even to those that don't. (Pause for effect.)

Moving on, what will I do in the year to come? I don't know. This has been working moderately well. Write about what I want to write about, which in turn increases my typing speed, if nothing else, although, I have a smattering of followers that may or may not be paying attention, simply because sometimes, the cost it too high.

So, I'm thinking at this point you're saying to yourself, "Self, he's really thinking?" to which I reply, that's for you to decide. Does any of this make sense? If so, you know where the donate button is. If not, there's places to click to actually buy things you might need, as my birthday is coming up shortly. The tenth day of Christmas if you're counting. Or the eleventh if you count differently.

Blogger doesn't give a word count. And Twitter may have destroyed my writing ability. Limiting yourself to 140 characters at a time doesn't seem fair, sometimes. It seems like an arbitrary number, which I've stated in the past. Every once in awhile, I get the feeling that I'm writing the same article over and over, and if I get this feeling, others might too.

I realize now that I don't have a coherent ending to this non story, therefore, I'll leave you with a thought, or three, if you, my three readers have gotten this far....

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. And what's worse, you can't even get out of the game.

Depressing. That's right, life's a game. Play the game.

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

It Seems Like...

I'm behind on this whole Twitter List thing. For those of you just tuning in, I was without a computer for two whole months, until someone from church stepped forward and allowed me to borrow theirs. During the downtime, Twitter came up with Lists.

As such, I'm not quite clear how they work, and although I appear on 42 lists as of this writing, I'm not sure whether or not this is a good thing. Also not sure if I should be creating lists of my followers, either, unless this has some value to them, beyond the whole, "Look at me I'm on a list!!!" factor.

So, maybe someone can explain it to me. Or give me a link to follow that explains them. And whether or not any of this has to do with anything real.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Morning Window Frost (B&W)

Morning Window Frost (B&W)
Originally uploaded by stevegarfield

PULL BACK TO REVEAL:

Two couples, both early 20's, panicked. They breath heavily, and visibly, as the room grows colder. The cute blond screams.

ASHLEY
What are we gonna do!?!?

Thanks for the inspiration, @stevegarfield. Apparently, Blogger doesn't like the spaces that I put in to format this mini screenplay properly. I'd be willing to place a small wager that there's someone out there that's already figured out what I'm thinking. Now, I just have to find them, before I start coding on my own.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

It's not yet 72 and sunny in Redondo Beach, but you should probably retweet anyway....

It's, The Law!!!

What law would that be, you ask? There's the law of gravity, which for all practical purposes is a constant. And the only constant is, change. Fascinating. Already off topic.

Or, am I?

Today's discussion goes to, The Law of Unintended Consequences, or, as I've defined it quite possibly here and elsewhere, The Law!!! For the three of you that read my every word, you already know about this, however, for the rest of you that may or may not be here for the first time, it states that no matter what you do, or plan for, something will happen either directly or indirectly as a result that you couldn't possibly have foreseen.

Or to put simply, when given a choice, no matter which one you make, you're screwed. Or scrod, using the future pluperfect tense. And yes, I've used that line before. Why? Because it's a good one. Or, because I can. Your choice. There may be a third one that I haven't thought of....

Moving on, today's rant is simply to let you know that I know that you know. What do we know? Well, ultimately, nobody knows anything, and I've talked about that elsewhere as well. Random ranting is very freeing, especially since it's quite possible that no one will read this, and if they do, they might not get this far....

Which means I'm typing to myself. Which gets lonely.

To continue, having defined The Law!!! we can now discuss it, and its myriad forms both on and offline. Or, both online and off. If I had an editor, you wouldn't see one of those sentences. It's the whole left brain, right brain thing. You can look that up, however, as I'm left handed, I'm the only one in my right mind.

Have I made my word count yet? How many words in the typical blog entry anyway? Once read a blog entry that stated it had too many words to be a blog entry, but by that time, I had lost count. Twitter, as we all know and love, is actually a micro blog, simply because you only get 140 characters, not words. As the average word has five characters, well, you can do the math, as it's to early to figure out that's 28 words.... Alternatively, I just found out that the theoretical maximum of a blog is 40,000 characters, or 8,000 words, using the above math. Probably not there yet....

Of course, nobody said there'd be any math, or, did they? It's everywhere, you just don't realize it. The aforementioned gravitational constant is actually expressed in terms of velocity. Without getting into a discussion of physics that I may or may not understand according to my college professors, at least, according to the grades I got, the reason gravity works is that your body is accelerating toward the center of the Earth at an equal rate of speed that the earth is pushing you away from the center of itself.

Very dry and boring, but as I said earlier, the only constant, is change, simply because at higher altitudes, the gravitational constant alters slightly, as you're further away from the center of the earth. A way to discover this is to weigh yourself at different altitudes on the same day. I'll leave that demonstration up to you.

Having discovered that the only constant is change, we need to embrace it, and not fear it. So, if you know what it is, you're all set.

However, if you've gotten this far, you've hopefully come to the same conclusion that I have: You can't know what it is.

Why?

It's, The Law!!!

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

I'm One Full Technology Behind

1. Now, this is the story of how I came to be in the industry, and when I say the industry, I'm of course referring to, the business. Which in this case is film. Sentence, or fragment? I'll let the grammar wienies decide, while I move on.

Having successfully buried the lead, here's the thing: Just as I'm about to get to the point where I have a movie that's about to be financed, they changed the game on me. Who are they, you ask? Or, maybe you didn't. I don't really know, ultimately. The 'they' in this case, are them. Who are not us.

According to Guy Kawasaki, I need a list in my blog post for him to read it, so, here it is:

1. Disney
2. Paramount
3. MGM
4. Sony
5. Warner Brothers
6. Universal
7. Twentieth Century Fox

These are the major movie studios, in no particular order of preference or market share. In case anyone was wondering where my loyalties lie. Or lay. They also have the capability of opening a movie on any particular weekend in a significant portion of the currently available 40,000 movies screens available domestically.

At least, that's the way it used to be, until I read this article, summarized thusly; They wish to be able to stream their movie directly to your desktop, phone, wireless device, whatever you mostly use to communicate online.

OK, that article is mostly about one guy stepping down at Disney, however, the new guy states the above, and there's more.... We already have YouTube, right? Read the other day that the average online video is less than ten minutes. I think that's because for the most part, you can't upload a longer video to the aforementioned site, unless you're famous. And as I've stated both here and elsewhere, not too many people know that I'm famous.

Millions of people have YouTube accounts, only about a fraction of those have a large enough following to the point where they get mentioned on G4TV on more than an occasional basis, and that's not to mention other sites like Funny Or Die, or Vimeo for that matter. And The Law!!! being what it is, most aren't site loyal, and post their vids anywhere they can. Which means simply, any selected video you view may be available whole or in part, on another channel or website.

I see a day where we'll have this giant pipe coming into our house, and the big screen, just like in Back to the Future II, wherein people won't be entertained unless they have multiple movies, TV shows (if they still exist), videos etc. all running at the same time.

I'm thinking by then, I'll have at least two or three produced feature films, at which point you may stream them to your desktop big screen viewing device while you're actually paying attention to iJustine getting no Statusfaction.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Oh, please, retweet.

Santa Ana Station

Santa Ana Station
Originally uploaded by LA Wad

I just really liked this photo, and I may even use it as my new desktop background this week.... Let me know what you think.

Lock Me In My Room Tonight...

Moon Goddess by thoughts of Ni
Originally uploaded by Bingeye

How many times have you seen a full moon, and remembered this line from well, really any Wolfman movie? I was again reminded of it when I found this photo. I heard the line for the first time when I saw Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, as a child, with some other buddies on a team sleepover event....

As you know, the word lunatic comes from the Latin luna, or moon.

I'm playing poker tonight at a charity event. It's my understanding that we'll have a full moon this evening. Wish me good variance....

I truly don't know what any of this means, although, when one attempts to look for connections, they'll usually find them.

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

Please, Retweet.

Words Mean Things

Image via CrunchBase

Different words mean different things. Taken out of context, and misunderstood, they can mean something else. I write these in an effort to explain a recent situation that occurred between me and someone else on Twitter, who shall remain nameless, simply because I don't want to have to issue another faux apology.

Most of you reading this know that I hold in contempt those that would call themselves social media experts, or gurus, or 'scientists', however, this specific person did not know that, and when his name came up in a conversation I was having with someone else, he chose to get involved, because he took offense. This was not my intention. It was simply me reiterating what I believe to be true.

Others may find his advice helpful, and on occasion, so have I, however, for the most part, I've rejected it, simply because he doesn't know why I tweet. Do you? You may make a guess, there's a blog entry out there entitled “The seven types of tweeters” or whatever the latest nomenclature is, and I'm sure most of the “social media experts” have written one of there own. In the case of the alleged one I just referred to, I'm #8. Put simply, no one really knows why I'm using Twitter, and sometimes, I don't even know myself.

But I'm not going to let that stop me.

Please, Retweet.

Fiber in your diet...

View Larger Map

What, not that kind of fiber? Then what are you talking about? Oh, wait.

I live in Redondo Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles, so, you'd think that I'd have access to all the latest and greatest technology almost immediately as it becomes available. I thought so too, when I heard Verizon FiOS was available in my area, I went to my local Verizon kiosk in the mall, and signed up right away.

This was in January of '08.

I still don't have it.

Why, you ask? Or, maybe you didn't, I don't know.

What I do know is this: I live in a 24 unit apartment, and Verizon is my phone company. I'm currently a Time Warner Cable subscriber, but not by choice, as when I signed up for cable, I was dealing with a company that no longer exists. Maybe you've heard of Adelphia, but that's not really the point. When TWC took over, the service went significantly downward, to almost unacceptable levels, and the price went up. So when the opportunity to combine all three services, phone, internet, and cable TV into one, with a significant monetary savings as well came up, I jumped at the chance.

I filled out all the forms, and notified the on sight manager of my desire to bring FiOS to the building, in an effort to bring it into the 21st Century. Then I waited. Patiently at first, until such time as I was informed that they couldn't do the install, as it wasn't available in my area. This did not sit well with me, as part of the initial order process conducted a search, and showed that there was a customer 3 buildings away with the service.

About a month later, a saleswoman came to the door of the apartment manager, and didn't take up too much of his time, and offered to install and upgrade the wiring to the building, at a significant expense to the company, for free. Yes, you read that right. Free. At no cost. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Here I am at the beginning of September, almost 2 years later at this point, without FiOS. I can only speculate why the owner of the building doesn't want it here, maybe he's getting kickbacks from TWC, I don't know. What I can tell you is this: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

Please Retweet.

Oh, almost forgot.... This is for the Fiber for All contest that ends this evening.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet.

If you listen closely you hear....nothing..

If you listen closely you hear....nothing..
Originally uploaded by soleá

Something about this photo reflects how I feel. I can't explain that, it's just that this pic inspired me to write. Why, you ask? I don't know, my answer.

Have several things going on all at once, and a need to be everywhere at the same time. Ever get that way? Oh, today is day ten on the set of the movie I'm not in, I was reminded of this when the AD mistakenly sent me a call sheet.

What this tells you is, I'm still amped about this situation, however, out of respect to the person that got me the part, I've promised to keep quiet until principle photography wraps.

Stay tuned.

#BlogPostFriday

Image by Roby&C. "Back" via Flickr

Just as I was going to boycott #FF, Dave Winer comes up with a great idea....

Now, I realize I could fill here, but my point is made....

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

Adjust Your Expectations Accordingly....

I'm Outraged!!!

Image via CrunchBase

Just about the time I was going to transmogrify from Twitter to FriendFeed, stuff like this happens. For those that haven't clicked the link, or came back after you did, here's the thing: This is so terribly a bad idea, and here's why....

It should've happened the other way around.

Read that again, I'll wait.

Now I'm pretty sure that Friendfeed wouldn't have been able to make this purchase anytime soon, however, according to the article linked above:

All of Mountain View-based FriendFeed's 12 employees will join Facebook; FriendFeed's four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook's engineering and product teams, the company said.

That's right, the people that have created the superior technology, now work for the company they were attempting to wipe off the map.

Adjust your expectations accordingly....

But not before you realize this comes on the heels of the news that tr.im has shutdown. I'd call coincidence, but it's more likely a psychic phenomenon, as well as today's new definition of irony....

#NoTwitterThursday

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Yeah, it's a hashtag. Call out the hashtag mafia. Wait, they don't exist :) Ok, here's the deal:

By now I'm sure most of you if not all of you have heard of the DOS attack on Twitter, and other social networks. Apparently, Russia launched the attack, to silence one guy. Impressive, that one country would enlist all its resources to silence one guy, but that's not what this is about. The two hours plus that Twitter was down, was coincidentally, the two hours that I was planning to tweet. Hence, the aforementioned hashtag.

But that's not what this is about either.

No, I'm here to talk about the fact that the supposed fix that the fine folks at Twitter came up with, is to reset our passwords. Ok, that's fine, but as a result of that, combined possibly with the fact that I take my Twitter email through the 3rd party app/site topify.com, I don't get my password reset, as it doesn't recognize that I've performed the necessary steps. So, thinking quickly, I attempt to reset my password manually, however, Twitter has ground to a slow crawl, as a result of the previously mentioned DOS attack.

I love irony, because it's so ironic. And it looks like I can still tweet, just not from the site itself, or MashDeck, as it doesn't recognize my password. Apparently, any app I authorized with oAuth works fine. So, I'm going to be tweeting less for a few days until this situation clears up, from other sites. Because you should receive this in your public timeline. I'm going to use my free time, to reflect on several things....

Haven't Done This Here In Awhile...

Image via Wikipedia

I'll admit, I've been playing poker lately to almost the exclusion of all else. My blogs have suffered as a result. Haven't really felt the need to write, actually. Someone once said, I think it was Sir William of Goldman, that you should write something so that there'll be something to change....

Let me assure you, I won't be doing any of that. I feel my strengths lie in writing something the first time, and if I didn't get it right, clearly, I won't do any better with a rewrite. Mickey Spillane felt the same way. I guess that's part of what being an IDEA MASTER™ is all about. So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, these words as I write them are wholly owned by me, and are appearing courtesy of whatever form they take, the first time, and are unedited and for the most part, unexpurgated.

Having used several two dollar words up to this point, I shall continue. Now, I could've posted this on my poker blog, but this isn't really about that. And lest you think this to be a post about Mickey Spillane because of the chosen photo, it's not really about him, either. Just his philosophy.

Once read somewhere that a blog entry should only contain 250 words or less. To this I say, “Bunk!!” or, another word to that effect. Who decided on this arbitrary limit? There's another site that says web articles should contain 400-800 words. I didn't get this memo either. Therefore, it follows that I should use enough words to get the point across, and decry any artificial word count deemed necessary by those that it would seem have simply pulled a number out of the air, as well as a rabbit out of the hat.

What does this mean to you, one of my three readers? Probably that I'll be writing a lot more, both here and elsewhere. It may even be about poker. Used that last of my bankroll to enter a tournament yesterday, and as I've been card dead for about two weeks now, I didn't do too well. Some would say, “That's Poker!” and maybe I would too, although, I might use Porky Pig's inflection when I did so....

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

National Velvet: The Review!!!!

Cover of National Velvet (Book and Charm)

An ambitious version of National Velvet is currently playing at The Hollywood Improv Lab Theater, conveniently located adjacent to the world famous Improv, on Melrose Blvd. I say ambitious, because the smallish nature of the stage almost got too crowded, as the nine player cast barely fit when they were all in the scene. However, judicious use of the entire auditorium, per Dagwood's direction, allowed for the cast to fully shine.

For the two or three of you that haven't seen the original movie with Elizabeth Taylor, or read the book the movie is based on by Enid Bagnold, National Velvet is the story of a young orphan named Velvet, adopted by the Browns. In turn, she adopts a wild horse nicknamed, 'Pie.' Pie shows such promise, that Velvet wishes to enter the horse in the Grand National in England, and ride her herself.

This version is based more on the book than the movie, and this stage adaptation moves the story into the future, complete with flying cars!!! The year is 2060, and the Browns live in Americus, Georgia. Miss Ada is now the Brown's flying car, as opposed to the donkey of the original version. From the website:

“The story is set in a future where modern marvels, imagination and growing up all join together to form a festive, and sometimes somber look at life's challenges in making big dreams come true!”

A few technical snafus did not mar otherwise fine performances by the entire cast. Athena Velasco as Velvet has the unenviable task of carrying the play, which she pulls off with nary a hitch. Mi is portrayed by Darren Numer, who as the ranch hand of the Browns, and Velvet's unlikely friend and mentor, carries the role with a good English accent, which serves him well in one scene where he narrates Velvet working the horse around the ranch, to the point where I thought he was watching an actual horse in full gallop. Ron Karl, a veteran of stage and screen, plays Mr. Brown, and delivers his performance with that precision. Alexandra Smothers plays his wife, Mrs. Brown, with a Southern accent that constantly reminded me where the play was set, despite my need for them to do a straight adaptation. Wayne Baldwin as Mr. Cellini didn't get enough time on stage for my money, due to the demands of the part he portrayed. I wanted to see more from him. He does play a judge at the end of the play, as most of the rest of the cast doubles up in this capacity. Again, the stage is almost too small. Mary Huse, Natalie Piechowski, and Anthony Chavez don't get enough time on stage as the rest of the adopted Brown children, either. Sydney Hines sings a resounding version of Amazing Grace when the time comes. If you haven't already, I'm sure you'll see more of them on TV and in the movies in the future.

One may ask, why is there still a Grand National Event in England, when flying cars are the norm, and this small oversight wasn't addressed, however, I willingly suspended my disbelieve, and enjoyed the performance, which is excellent entertainment for the whole family. National Velvet, This Time She Flies! Plays this weekend @ 2 and 8 pm both days, with a possible extended run through June. Price, Free!!! You can't pass this up. The Improv Comedy Lab is located at 8162 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA.

Twitter Blog: Whoa, Feedback!

Twitter Blog: Whoa, Feedback!
For those of you that missed this.... Apparently, they need to re-engineer this function, so it works with the increased load. At least, that's how I read it....

Stay tuned....

#TwitterBlackout

Now, maybe it's because I don't have enough followers, or at least, those that care that Twitter will be down @ 2p PDT today, because, I couldn't get the above mentioned hashtag to trend. And in about 3 hours, it will be too late. Does everyone know that Twitter is going down for maintenance, or just me? I know the Twitter guys know. They're the ones that announced it. Of course, on my Twitter home page, which I rarely if ever visit because I use TweetDeck, it states that Twitter is going down tomorrow @ 2p. But if you click the link for status, you're directed to the Twitter blog that says, it's going down today. @ 2p. PDT. So, maybe I'm ahead of the curve, or I've missed the panic entirely. Maybe I need to contact the #hashtagmafia for help, I don't know.

What I do know, and as we have discussed previously, is that it's big.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Why I wish to #SaveChuck

Image via Wikipedia

Well, I already mentioned why in my last post, so, you can simply scroll down, however, it bears repeating. Or, maybe it bares repeating, who knows? Ok, I know I've done that joke in other places, therefore, here's what you need to know, that may or may not be new.

I'm going to boycott NBC if they choose not to pickup Chuck. I'm sure there's another network out there that would love to broadcast a show with this loyal fan support. I've already said everything else that I need to say already, so, no need to repeat.

But NBC to you, you have been warned.