ROTD!

December 2, 2010: review of the day on Yelp.com!

2010 Nisei Week Festival

18 shots uploaded, see them all on flickr.

Your World w/Cavuto < Rick's List < The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Californigaytion
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Historic Core Valediction

I'll soon be moving out of the historic core/old bank district -- my home for the last four years -- so I took a couple evening walks around the block with camera in hand last week. Each photo is geotagged in Flickr; clicking any one will bring you to that photo's page to view location, specific architectural information, and camera data.

Los Angeles Theater (S. Charles Lee, architect) 1931, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

LA Trust and Savings Bank, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Chimera, L.A. Board of Trade Building, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Pacific Electric Building (1905) downtown L.A., originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Golden Hour, downtown Los Angeles, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Eastern Columbia Building (Claud Beelman, architect) 1930, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Orpheum Theatre sign, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Los Angeles architecture juxtaposition, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Palace Theatre (G. Albert Lansburgh, architect) 1910, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

iPhone 4

View original size for the impressive close-up of the 960x640 Retina display, compared to the 2007 iPhone's inferior graphics.

Returned to Tom's a little while ago, trying out FaceTime now. We arrived at Glendale Galleria at about 06:30, but there were at least 500 people ahead of us in the parking garage reservation queue, which snaked around like those stacked lines you see at amusement park rides. There was a separate line of at least 100 people who hadn't made a reservation at the far end. The Apple employees handled everything quite well -- coming out and distributing water, coffee, danishes and donuts. At 07:00 the first people were let in to the mall, 25 at a time, in pulses about 12-13 minutes apart. For every 50 people in the reservation queue, one person from the non-reservation queue was taken to join that group. The non-reservationist girl who came up to join us had been waiting since 22:00 last night; she was the 7th person in the non-reservation line. Once inside the mall there were several more (shorter) lines to stand in before reaching the store. The Apple Store was processing about 150 people per hour. We were out of the store, activated iP4 in hand with contacts transferred, at 10:45.

Dara O'Briain Talks Funny

Hilarity and skepticism, combined in one spectacular comedy act. Irish comedian Dara O'Briain performs at the Hammersmith Apollo.

On the joys of live comedy:


How to market products for men, and input from the audience:


Part 3, a discourse on homeopathy and psychics:


The wellness industry, rugby, and why comedians hate magicians:


Cobblers, lapdancing clubs and the "turn-down" team:


Hotel underwear sculpting:


Buying a house:


The cobblers chase down a jewelry thief:


The encore, incorporating all the stories he got from the crowd:

Hollywood's VFX Shops: Trouble in Boom Times

Rebecca Keegan has written an interesting article on Time.com describing some of the difficulties facing the Visual effects industry:

"If you want to see the names driving Hollywood's growth, you have to stay for the movie's credits. The very end of the credits. After the actors and electricians — sometimes even after the people who serve the tacos on set — come the visual-effects artists. These are the people who make superheroes fly and cities fall into the ocean, and the effects-reliant films they work on, like Avatar and the Harry Potter franchise, are Hollywood's biggest moneymakers.

Their place in the credits says something about visual effects (VFX) artists' place in the Hollywood pecking order. Ironically, just as they are peaking in creativity and propelling box-office hits, VFX companies are facing a crisis years in the making. Thanks to fierce global competition, the hangover from Hollywood labor unrest and a lack of negotiating power with studios, many VFX firms are closing up shop or outsourcing to stay afloat.

Read more: Hollywood's VFX Shops: Trouble in Boom Times"

Visual effects has now become the most bankable "star" in Hollywood, with FX movies reliably making more money for studios than famous actors. Even so, American artists are being paid less while many jobs are outsourced outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco: ILM has a branch in Singapore; Rhythm & Hues and Sony Pictures Imageworks have both opened their own extensions in India (the latter has also opened a facility in New Mexico where they've transferred a hundred or so jobs, taking advantage of that state's tax incentives); and smaller houses have opened facilities in Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Where do we go from here? Will we follow the paths of manufacturing, the auto industry, and corporate call centers? For now at least, the artists in cities like L.A. and London can produce more convincing effects than their south Asian counterparts, but with training and experience the latter will catch up within a few years.

Hopefully by then I will have made my money and retired -- perhaps to Mexico, India, or the Philippines, where I can make a small income training my replacements.

Everybody Draw Muhammed Day

Cheers to the Mail & Guardian for standing up to bullies.

LudoBites 4.0 @ Gram & Papa's

Raspberry Religieuse, Pistachio


Burgundy Escargots, Garlic Flan, Green Jus, Yellow Flowers


Scallop, Almond Puree, Pickled Grapes, Capers & Cauliflower Ice Cream

New Hong Kong photos up on Flickr

Click to view the entire set. Tim's Kitchen (桃花源小廚) in Sheung Wan, Cheung Hing Coffee Shop (祥兴咖啡室) in Happy Valley, DTF (鼎泰豊) in Tsim Sha Tsui, and a last dinner at Fan Tang (飯堂). And if you're not into food porn, there are pics of some other stuff too.