Jamie Morris: The Official Site

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006

I tried Orbitz.com a couple months ago for the first time and I really liked how the site worked. It was easy to use and was great for finding flights and hotels. But after using it just once, I found out how much they completely suck. Here's why you should never, ever use them for travel reservations:

1. HOTEL INFO IS WRONG: I booked a hotel that was listed as being 0.4 miles from the city center of Cologne, Germany. There was also a map on the site that showed it very close to the city center. After booking the hotel, I found out that it is really over 50 miles from the city.

2. TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE: It is impossible to get help from these guys. The people who answer the emails are unable to help you with anything and tell you to call the 800 number to get help. If you call the 800 number, you are placed on hold for over an hour only to get connected to someone who needs to transfer you to another department.

3. THEY KEEP POOR RECORDS: The customer service people base all their decisions on the records their systems keep, but the records in their systems are almost always wrong.

4. YOU CAN'T CANCEL A RESERVATION: I attempted to cancel the hotel reservation that I made in Germany but was unable to do it via phone, email, or the web. I had to call my credit card company to dispute the charge. The credit card company investigated the dispute and refunded my money.

5. THEY ARE TRYING TO RIP ME OFF: After getting the refund from my credit card company, Orbitz customer service will now talk to me. Their system won't allow them to cancel my reservation because it would refund my card again. So, they are expecting me to pay the full bill. The hotel info on the webpage has been updated so that it now correctly says the hotel is 50 miles from Cologne, however, Orbitz denies that it ever listed it as being 0.4 miles from the city. Now, they are sending a collection agency after me to pay the full bill!

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TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2006

My friend Kristin has been in town visiting for the past few days. We had a pretty good time despite several bad things that happened while she was here (including... getting kicked off a plane, getting into an accident in a rental car, and having an allergic reaction to something she stepped on at the beach and spending several hours in the emergency room). Other than that, we visited some old friends, saw a couple movies (An Inconvenient Truth, Twelve and Holding), and did some shopping at Amoeba. I also went to see Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the cemetery on Saturday night. And on Monday, I spent most of the day biking at the beach. I'm surprised I don't have a sunburn today. Memorial Day Weekend also marked the start of Summer Fridays. For the second year in a row, Paramount is letting us out early at 1:00pm on Fridays for the entire summer. Woohoo!

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SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2006

This weekend I went up north to Portland, Oregon to visit my friend Quinn. I had never been in Portland other than that one time I stepped off the train to stretch my legs during my 36-hour Coast Starlight ride from Los Angeles to Seattle. Portland's a really nice town. Lot's of good food and beer and good people too. I was expecting good beer because of all the microbrews that come from Oregon, but I didn't realize that they had really good cheese too. Everywhere I went, the cheese was amazing. I think I had a little too much beer and cheese because on the flight back I almost died of dysentery (Oregon Trail joke). The bars and restaurants that I visited were Doug Fur (mmm... burger), Tin Shed (breakfast), Montage (best Mac & Cheese ever - worth the trip just for this), Cricket Cafe (breakfast), Bagdad Cafe (beer), Three Doors Down (dinner). On Friday night we went to Union Jacks, which is kinda like a punk rock strip club. It's like a Suicide Girls burlesque show, but with nudity. On Saturday, we went to a club called Holocene which was a cool place but they were playing crappy house music that night. We also did some shopping at Powell's Books - one of the best bookstores I've ever been in, Adidas Originals - another great store, and the Saturday Market (on Sunday). And we did a couple of touristy things - the Oregon Zoo and the Japanese Garden.

I took some pictures with my new camera.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2006

I got to see a screening of the new DreamWorks Animation movie Over The Hedge today. It's not as great as Shrek or Wallace & Gromit, but it's funny and cute and definitely worth seeing.

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TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2006

Another day, another movie premiere... yep, that's my life here in Hollyweird. Tonight I got to hang out with Al Gore and all the stars at the DGA Theatre for the premiere of Al's new global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The film itself is very interesting although not as action-packed as the trailer. It's basically Al Gore's lecture on global warming. I learned quite a bit from it. If you don't know much about global warming or if you're one of those people who thinks the world is too big for us humans to have an effect on it, you should really see this film - even if you're not a big fan of Al. We're basically all screwed if we don't do something about this soon. The film ended and everyone stayed in the threater to watch the credits which were interspersed with suggestions on what you can do about global warming. The crowd clapped and cheered for every credit and every suggestion until... they dared to suggest that people walk, ride their bike, or take mass transit to work instead of their cars. COMPLETE SILENCE. That's Los Angeles for you. We all want to save the environment, but only if we can drive our big SUVs while we're doing it. How inconvenient. After the film, there was a nice after party and we all got cool gift bags which included a bunch of eco-friendly products and a copy of Al Gore's book (which isn't even in stores yet).

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SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2006

Summer is almost here and that means the cemetery screenings are back! Every Saturday night in the summer, Cinespia shows an old movie at Hollywood Forever cemetery. This week was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This was a fun movie to see outside with a big group of people. I've been going to these screenings for the past four years. It's probably my favorite thing to do in Los Angeles. You should really go to one if you haven't been, but get there early because it's gotten very popular. Bring some food and wine for a picnic. Next week they are screening Detour and the following week is Invasion of the Body Snatchers(!). The gates usually open at 7:00pm and your $10 donation goes to the cemetery. Don't be late! Also, add them to your MySpace Friends List.

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SUNDAY, MAY 07, 2006

Canon finally released the PowerShot SD700 IS Digital Camera that I've been wanting to buy for months. I picked one up at Circuit City in Santa Monica on Friday night. They had only 3 in stock and none on display. So, I forked out $499 for a camera that I didn't even have a chance to try before buying. The reason I wanted this camera was because it is the first small Canon camera that has Image Stabilization (IS). The last Canon that I had (Powershot G3) took great pictures but it was very large and if I didn't hold the camera perfectly still while taking the picture, the photo would come out blurry. This happened quite often. This new camera is very compact - it fits comfortably in my front pocket. It's actually a little smaller than my new phone. It'll be perfect for my trip to Germany. But the real question was... Will the Image Stabilization actually work? Well, so far, so good. I have taken several pictures while shaking the camera and not one has come out blurry.

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SATURDAY, MAY 06, 2006

This afternoon I went to a book signing for The History Of Los Angeles Graffiti Art (Volume 1, 1983-1988) at the New Chinatown Barber Shop. The venue was an old barber shop in Chinatown that's used as an art gallery. I bought myself a copy of the book and got it signed by a bunch of the artists including my pal Miner. The book is $50, and it's HUGE... 450 page hardcover. It contains tons of great art and stories and also a DVD. At the signing I got to meet some of the artists and here some fascinating stories of the stuff they used to do in the '80s. Check out the book's website to order the book or to see when the book signing tour is coming to your neighborhood.

Tonight, I went to the Alex Theatre in Glendale to see a special screening of The Beatles 1964 film "A Hard Day's Night". Before the film, Tim Piper and Working Class Hero played a set of early Beatles' songs live on stage. They were great. The band was followed by a panel discussion featuring Ian Whitcomb, Gordon Waller (of Peter & Gordon), and some woman whose name I do not know. Apparently she had a very small acting part in the film and also kissed Ringo once. They also screened a rare 1964 Technicolor short called "The Beatles Come To Town" which was really funny.

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FRIDAY, MAY 05, 2006

This week was a very exciting one for Dave and I. Opening up the mail for the past two days felt like Christmas. Our World Cup tickets began to arrive. So far we've received tickets to the 4 matches we ordered from FIFA and next week we're expecting tickets for the 3 matches we ordered from US Soccer. The ticket package is really cool. It comes in a box shipped via DHL. The box contains:

• match tickets
• plastic ticket holder and lanyard
• fold out tournament table
• venue guide
• Germany guide booklet
• red / yellow referee card (this should be fun)
• receipt

The teams that we're going to see are Angola, Czech Republic, Ghana, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Ukraine, and United States. Here's our full itinerary.

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THURSDAY, MAY 04, 2006

Tonight was the M:i:III Fan Premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. It was my second time seeing the movie and my second Tom Cruise "fan premiere" - the first was War Of The Worlds last year. I arrived around 6:30pm with Isabel just as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes arrived. We walked the long red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard as they posed for pictures. We picked out some good seats in the middle of the theater. We actually sat four rows in front of Tom & Katie... apparently it was her first night out since having the baby. I don't think they stayed for the whole movie. We also sat near two other stars from the film - Billy Crudup and Maggie Q and also director J.J. Abrams. Will Smith and Cedric The Enterainer walked by us. Tom Cruise actually shook Isabel's hand as he walked by us after introducing the film which was kinda cool. These screenings are fun. I wish they'd do more of them.

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