Griffith Observatory, here we come!

Guess, what?! i'm finally going to check-out the NEW Griffith Observatory. SO exciting!!

The glamorous old films of my youth thrown into memory once again... And more, ahem, recent projects such as The Rocketeer... Paula Abdul's video Rush, Rush and even more truly recent debacles such as Transformers, meh.

I've two very fond memories of this special place: One, as a kid we visited & it felt magical. They used to (i hope maybe it is still there?!) have this machine that made a rocket out of molten plastic. I think i may still have it, Mom?

The second memory is already 8-years-old, from the SC days when writing, recruiting, shooting, printing, editing, scoring and everything else that goes into making a short film was a process i endured every three weeks. I tortured my ever-patient roommate in a film I shot at the observatory. We were renegades, as i never got a permit to shoot there... Ohh, what a rebel.

So here's to shooting stars, alabaster columns and peaceful archways, Griffith Observatory, here we come!

The Power of Solitaire

So, I’ve once again fallen into the habit of playing mindless computer card games.

It's not that I don't have things to do, but I do enjoy the zone of 30-60 minutes of doing nothing but listening to itunes & kicking some solitaire booty.

Whoa, I've got problems. What's the deal? And then I realize that I need to schedule-in zone time, literally block it out on the calendar and make sure it is zone time AWAY from the computer.

But I was productive (in a self-reflexive type of way), as I was musing on what to post while sucking at Spider, it came to me: exactly what I was doing, the computer zone.

I don't want to think of the hours I’ve wasted in the last 20 years playing stupid card games on the computer. Let alone add up the hours as a human race, talk about unproductive time we could be investing in a myriad of things, from the banal to the exceptional.

But I get sucked in, man. And I know I am hardly alone. The shock that time has melted away and all these other things I should, could, would have been doing hurtle into the right-side of my brain.

And then I choose "Yes, I'd like to start a new game." Blast!

PS: Here's a scary fact: "Children, ages 8 to 18, spend more time (44.5 hours per week) in front of computer, television, and game screens than they spend on any other activity in their lives except sleeping (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005.)." The links to computer/TV viewing and the fact that one-third of America's youth are overweight (15% of that number in the obese category) is hardly a coincidence. ew. What happened to playing outside & having the refrigerator box being the best toy EVER?!?
More info of this scary vein can be seen at MediaWise.