TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2004

I went down to the pier tonight to watch The Princess Bride, one of the greatest movies ever. Before the movie, they screened a cool short film called The Vest.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 29, 2004

This weekend I went to see Hero, which turned out to be the #1 movie in the country. It was really good. I enjoyed it much more than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, because it had a much better story. I tried to watch the MTV Video Music Awards tonight, but the music was just really bad this year and I had to change the channel.

Also this week, I upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2. So far it's working great. I've already used three of the new features: the Internet Explorer pop-up blocker, the Windows Firewall, and the Bluetooth support. And my iPod still works!

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2004

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Erin and I went to the Curiosa Festival tonight at the Home Depot Center in Carson. When we got there at 6:45pm, Scarling, Mogwai and Head Automatica had already played and The Rapture were playing on the Main Stage in the soccer stadium. We walked around and got some food and drinks while they were finishing their set, but they sounded great from where we were. We then walked over to the Second Stage in the tennis stadium to see The Cooper Temple Clause. I'd never heard them before, but I was looking forward to seeing them, however their live show didn't impress me that much. Next it was back to the main stage to see Interpol, one of my favorite newer bands, who I'd never seen before. We had pit tickets right in front of the stage, so we got to get up close. Interpol were amazing live. I liked their show a lot. When they fiinished, we went back to the tennis stadium to see Cursive. It's really great how they didn't overlap the bands so we could see them all. I like Cursive's album a lot, but they didn't sound nearly as good live. Finally, the reason why we're all here, The Cure. We went back to the pit and got as close as we could to the stage. They went on around 9:15pm and played 22 songs in a little over two hours. The setlist was good. They played a great mix of songs, old and new. You never know what they're going to play since they have so many albums. They've been around for almost 30 years now. I was happy that I got to hear a bunch of songs live that I didn't get to hear the last time I saw them play in Boston in 1997. They put on a good show. I wish they'd come around more often.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2004

Since I was out late last night partying with Alex & Lisa, I decided to stay in tonight and watch the Women's Gold Medal soccer match. The USA beat Brazil 2-1 in overtime to get the medal. That result will make them #1 when the World Rankings get updated next week. The Curiosa Festival is tomorrow!!!

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2004

Today I saw a great film called Control Room. It's a documentary of how the media (U.S. and Al Jazeera) covered the Iraq war.

Tonight I went to the Sunset Junction Street Fair. I got to see three bands play. First was the '60s psychedelic/folk band Love. They weren't bad, but I was disappointed I didn't get to hear my favorite song by them, "All Alone Again". I got there late so maybe they played it before I got there. Next was Camper Van Beethoven, the quirky '80s college rock band who sang "Take the Skinheads Bowling". They played their song, and a few others including some cool cover songs. Finally, the headliner was X, one of the greatest bands to ever come out of LA. I'd seen them once before and they were amazing. They were great again, except for the couple of times Exene messed up and they had to start the song over. It's always great to hear "Los Angeles" in Los Angeles.

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2004

Friday came fast this week. Tonight I went to a screening of Without A Paddle. Kinda funny, but really dumb. I wouldn't pay to see it. I also watched Outfoxed tonight. Outfoxed is a documentary about the Fox News Channel which promotes itself as being "Fair and Balanced". The film basically shows why the Fox News Channel is probably the most unfair and unbalanced news channel around. It's a really interesting documentary. If you'd like to see it, you can buy the DVD for $9.95 or you can rent it from Netflix. It's also showing in a couple of theatres.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004

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I went down to the Santa Monica Pier tonight for the Twilight Dance Series. On the pier, during the summer, they have concerts every Thursday, and films every Tuesday. The band I saw was called Billy Vera & the Beaters. The website describes them as "the baddest band on any stand", and I'm gonna have to agree. They were pretty bad.

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2004

Went to see a screening of the movie Mean Creek tonight. It's a good movie from Paramount Classics that'll remind you of Stand By Me. It opens in some cities this weekend and it has been getting great reviews.

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2004

Yay! After two and a half weeks, I finally got my iPod to work properly with Windows XP. Apple Support couldn't help me and neither could the iPod Discussion Forums, but I finally found the answer on Experts Exchange. I had to repair Windows. A little scary, but it worked.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 2004

I probably spent too much time indoors this w/e watching TV. Mostly sports: the Olympics, soccer, and auto racing. I did get out a few times. I went rollerblading, went to the beach, went to the pub to watch more soccer, and I also went shopping at Roots in Beverly Hills. Roots is a Canadian company that is the official outfitter of the US and Canadian Olympic Teams. They've got tons of stores in Canada and I just found out today they have one in Beverly Hills. I bought myself a red USA t-shirt.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2004

Day Two of Olympic soccer. I watched a men's match today between Portugal and Iraq. Portugal were heavily favored to win, but Iraq surprised everyone by winning 4-2. I was cheering for Portugal because one of my fav players from Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo, plays for them, but most of the fans were cheering for Iraq. Apparently there are a lot of Iraqis living in Greece. Iraq played very well, and it's always good to see an underdog win, but they had a lot of help from the referees. The officials for the match made many terrible calls, including giving an undeserved red card to a Portugese player forcing the team to play a man down for almost the entire second half. The ref also gave Portugal many yellow cards that were not necessary. He even gave an Iraqi player one for celebrating after getting a goal! Now that is ridiculous. The match was on MSNBC and they showed commercials during the match which is very strange for a soccer game. Normally there are only commercials during halftime.

Today I also went to a screening of Collateral, the new movie starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It's the #1 movie in the country this week and it's really good.

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2004

The 2004 Summer Olympics began today. Opening ceremonies isn't until Friday, but the soccer matches started today. The US Women's National Soccer Team played Greece today. The USA won the match 3-0, but they were expected to win by much more than that. Greece doesn't have a particularly good women's team, and the US is a favorite to win the gold medal. The only reason why Greece is in the Olympics is because they're the host nation. The US team played well. Their problem was finishing. Most of their shots were way off target. They're going to have to do better if they want to make it to final. They've got two more group matches before the finals start: Saturday vs. Brazil and Tuesday vs. Australia.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 09, 2004

Tonight I went to see Open Water. It wasn't really scary, but it's suspenseful. It's also pretty short, only 79 minutes, but how long can you watch people floating in the ocean? It was a good movie, but if you're interested in a story of someone stranded in the middle of the ocean, read Life Of Pi. It's much more entertaining.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 08, 2004

I spent some time at the beach yesterday, but I mostly stayed in today. Today was the start of the soccer season in England. I got up at 6:30am to watch the F.A. Community Shield match between the League Champions (Arsenal) and the F.A. Cup Winners (Manchester United). Man United lost 3-1 but they were missing many of their best players due to injuries, suspensions, and some players being at the Olympics. Next weekend the regular season of the English Premier League begins.

Also today, I tried out the new gelato cafe in Santa Monica called Angelato Cafe. In just the past few months, the shops and restaurants in Santa Monica have gotten a lot better. A lot of the bad ones have gone out of business and being replaced by much better shops.

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 06, 2004

So, I've been using my iPod a lot this week and I love it. Except for one MAJOR problem. It doesn't work with Windows. When I plug my iPod into my computer via Firewire or USB, my computer immediately shuts down and reboots. This happens about 80% of the time. I looked through the Apple Discussion Forums and a lot of people are having the same problem. There were several suggested fixes, I tried them all but they didn't work for me. I called Apple Support and they were useless as well. Unfortunately, if I can't get this resolved in the next week, I think I'm gonna have to return it.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 02, 2004

I got my new iPod from Amazon today. It's pretty cool. My only complaint so far is that it requires the iTunes software which I'm not a big fan of. It would be better if your computer just saw the iPod as an external hard drive that you could drag and drop files to.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 01, 2004

I didn't have such a great week last week, but this weekend was better. On Saturday, I went to Cafe Crepe, a new crepe restaurant on the 3rd Street Promenade. It was really good. I got the Exotique crepe which was stuffed with bananas, coconut and rum. Mmmm. Then I went to Krispy Kreme to try one of their new frozen drinks, but unfortunately they're only available in certain stores right now and Santa Monica wasn't one of them. So I had a donut. After that I went to the movies to see The Corporation, a fascinating 145 minute documentary about "the growing prominence of large global businesses, and the way that their decisions are impacting the world." It also featured some interviews with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Michael Moore. After that, I went over to Beverly Hills to watch movies and drink some wine with Alex & Lisa.

On Sunday morning, Alex, Lisa and I went out for some shopping. One of the places we stopped at was Cost Plus (terrible name). On the way in, we noticed one of those notices on the door saying they were being investigated for overchanging someone. Tower Records in Santa Monica has one of those signs as well. I'm glad people are checking up on these guys because Tower has overcharged me dozens of times. Anyways, I went shopping and got all kinds of yummy international foods that are hard to find. When I got home, I happened to look at my receipt and noticed that they overcharged me! They charged me $6.99 for a $0.99 bag of popcorn! Now, I gotta go back. This afternoon, I put on my inline skates and skated down to Venice Beach. There was a big Hare Krishna Festival going on. It was kinda neat. There were some big chariots and people dressed up singing and dancing. The vegetarian food didn't look too appetizing though. Back to work tomorrow. I need a vacation.

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