April 2006 Archives

This coming Monday, May 1, there will be a massive protest in downtown LA and I plan on being there. This feels like a Turning Point.

The LA Independent Media Center has more details. And here's an article from Yahoo/Reuters that predicts there will be 2 - 3 million people hitting the streets.

My mother Ramona Agravante came here in the 1960's from the Phillipines and I couldn't be more supportive of immigrant rights thanks to over ten years in Los Angeles where we couldn't even begin to enjoy the lifestyle we have if it weren't for the Latino men and women who do the dirty work.

Oprah did a story back in September that Crooks & Liars has reposted as a Quicktime movie found here: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Oprah-Winfrey-saved-dog.mov

I haven't posted anything remotely political lately but with the summer heating up with midterm election fever, I offer this little gem. Thanks to Trent Anderson for the pic.

Wha?, originally uploaded by Nigel Stewart.

A neighbor friend of mine had an install disc of XP sp2 HE since she bought a laptop last year. (Thanks Kathleen!)

I think it took me about two hours to get through it all on Monday afternoon. That night I just booted into XP's start up and made some system preference changes. Fell asleep dreaming of the default Windows Desktop Landscape of Eternal Goodness.

The first thing I did on Tuesday morning was load up Firefox to see what the net connection was like. Already I could notice that the MacBook Pro I have (2.0 Core Duo 1GB RAM OS 10.4.6) was much snappier than the four or five year old hp pavilion I've had as my gaming machine (Athlon AMD 1600 512MB RAM XP Home).

Loaded up my bookmarks into Firefox and in the afternoon I wound up buying The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion based on all the rave reviews and sales figures.

The saleskid at EB Games on Lincoln and Pico asked me before I bought the game if I knew if my computer could handle the graphics requirements. I told him yeah it's got ATX 1600 so I'm cool. Told him I'd be running it on a Mac and he was all "You can't run that on a Mac" and I was all "I've got Boot Camp" and his co-worker was all shaking his head like "Yeah, you one bad mutha fucka" and I was all--

Sorry. I loaded up the game and played at 1400 x 900 or so and it was nice but I thought Half Life 2 was better looking. Worked on Wednesday (day playing on Pepper Dennis @ Fox) and on Thursday I loaded up Steam.

Steam games are incredible on the Mac. Quick and crisp. Holy Crap is the MacBook Pro fast. I can now retire my hp and possibly my PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0. It's faster than both. It runs in dual screen mode or lid closed.

I ran Counterstrike 1.6 for 2.5 hours at 1920 x 1200 at 75 fps. I'm getting better scores. My pings are higher.

Windows is smooth and creamy but I will only use it for gaming. All the sweet mac software is just a boot or KVM switch away. Thank you Apple and all the developers out there. The world is a better place.

japan at joe's, originally uploaded by The Cay.

Cay has eight prints showing at Joe's Diner on Main Street here in Santa Monica.

What a cool show. Drop in and check it out.

The Holy Grail is here. Apple has made available a way to boot XP on Mac Intels. This is way way way beyond cool. Now all my friends and family will have no reason to ever buy a PC again. Windows will survive but Dell and Gateway are goners.

Dugg and del.icio'ed.

2nd and Los Angeles, originally uploaded by Nigel Stewart.

Went downtown to visit with my buddy Pete Johnson and his gal Jenni who have moved into a loft in the old Pacific Electric buidling @ 6th and Main.

It's amazing how gentrified the Historic Core has become. The last time I went down there was for a shoot on NYPD Blue and the whole area was a mess.

We'll be visiting our friends down there for many times to come. Little Tokyo is right there. Charlie O's. Pershing Square. Central Library. MOCA. The Gopher. Old bank buildings. Cole's. Grand Central Market. Angel's Flight. The Bradbury. The Biltmore. The Standard. Staples Center. Koreatown. LA River. Not a cornfield. What a great slice of life that is being nurtured by the new city government under Villaraigosa.