Jamie Morris: The Official Site

THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007

I saw the Transformers movie today, but I'm not telling you anything about it! You'll have to wait another month to see it for yourself.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2007

I attended the second of the Arcade Fire's two nights at the Greek. Apparently, I picked the right night to go, because the reviews for last night's show were not so great. It was my second time seeing them - the first was two years ago at the Bowl opening up for David Byrne. I'm not a huge fan, but I like them. I'd actually prefer to see them as an opening band, but they do put on a good show and they have some fun onstage. I couldn't tell you the names of any songs they played, but they did play a good mix of old and new.

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TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2007

No, not in drive-by in Hollyweird. It was at Passport Health LA. With my upcoming trip to Venezuela, I decided I should finally get some vaccinations that I've never gotten around to doing. I got shots for Hepatitis A (the first of two shots), Hepatitis B (the first of three shots), Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis), and Yellow Fever (not that kind, I'll never be cured). I also started taking the pill version of the Typhoid Fever vaccine. All of these vaccines have side effects, so I was expecting to feel kinda crappy, but they didn't really bother me. My arms are a little sore, and the yellow fever shot left some redness that is supposed to last a few days, but other than that I'm fine. They also sold me a Diarrhea Kit filled with stomach medicines and a bottle of Cipro (should I save it for the next Anthrax attack?).

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MONDAY, MAY 28, 2007

I went to my first NHL Stanley Cup Final game today... Game 1 between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Since all the Ducks home games are at 5pm on weekdays during the series, this is only game I knew I could make it to. I was lucky to get tickets on Friday for face value by guessing the presale password on ticketbastard.com. I ended up with two single tickets so Dave and I had to sit a few sections apart. It was a great game. The Ducks were outplaying the Senators for the entire game, but couldn't seem to get ahead. Finally, they came back and scored two goals in the final period and won the game 3-2 with the winning goal scored in the last three minutes. It was definitely the loudest hockey game I've ever been to.

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TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007

Yes, for the third time in seven months, I'm heading south of the border. This time I'm going to Venezuela and the inspiration is soccer. While most people think of baseball when they think of Venezuelan sports, Copa América, the main international soccer tournament in South America, will be held in Venezuela this June/July. The tournament is actually the oldest international soccer competition in the world and it usually occurs every 2-4 years. There are 12 teams playing - 10 from South America and 2 from North America. Dave (my world cup tour buddy who's traveling around Honduras and Nicaragua this week) and I purchased tickets to three doubleheaders (which wasn't easy). We're going to get to see each of the 12 teams play once:

DATE	TEAMS	CITY
July 1	Mexico vs. Ecuador	Maturín
July 1	Brazil vs. Chile	Maturín
July 3	Peru vs. Bolivia	Mérida
July 3	Venezuela vs. Uruguay	Mérida
July 5	USA vs. Colombia	Barquisimeto
July 5	Argentina vs. Paraguay	Barquisimeto

Hopefully, we'll also have time to do some exploring. Venezuela borders the Caribbean, so maybe I'll get to check out an island or two while I'm there. Maybe I'll even find a beauty queen.

But don't think I'm neglecting the footballers up north --- I'm also going to see some Gold Cup matches. The Gold Cup is the North American international soccer competition and it's being held in the USA this year. I've got tickets to two doubleheaders:

DATE	TEAMS	CITY
June 9	Guatemala vs. El Salvador	Los Angeles
June 9	Trinidad & Tobago vs. USA	Los Angeles
June 16	Quarterfinal	Boston
June 16	Quarterfinal	Boston

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SATURDAY, MAY 19, 2007

Today I decided to take my scoot for a ride up the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway. I was about 18 miles from home in Malibu when my speed dropped from 50mph to 10mph and wouldn't pick up speed. I had to pull over call the toll-free number in my glovebox for Piaggio Roadside Assistance. They called a tow truck and said it would be there in 45 minutes. It ended up taking almost 90 minutes because I was further away than the two truck driver thought. He loaded up the Vespa and hauled it to Honda of Santa Monica (in Marina Del Rey), my nearest Vespa service center. I showed the mechanic the problem, he lifted up my seat and turned one screw on my motor and the problem was fixed. It turns out that the idle speed needed to be adjusted. Normally this is done at the first service (625 miles), but mine needed to be done a little early (500 miles). Anyways, it was an experience. I'm glad it happened on a Saturday when I wasn't going anywhere in particular, and the whole thing only took up 3 hours of my time and didn't cost me a penny. Also this weekend I noticed my engine oil was getting a little low, so I picked up some Motul 300V 5W40 oil at Hammy Boys Motorsports in Santa Monica. The oil wasn't easy to find... I went to five different stores before I find one bottle there. Looking forward to that first service to get everything tuned up.

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FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007

The past few weeks have been all about my Vespa. I've mostly been riding it around the westside and to work a couple days each week. I've managed to put over 400 miles on it during my first month, which is a lot more than I ever expected. But now I plan on venturing out even further because I know I won't get lost with my new Garmin Zumo 550 motorcycle friendly GPS Navigator. I've got it mounted to my left mirror with the help of a RAM mounting hardware (RAM-B-231ZU, RAP-319, and RAM-KNOB3LU). So far I love it. It's really handy to have a map in front of you at all times. It's also been useful for finding banks, gas stations, and restaurants. It's got a built in battery, so you don't need to wire it and it's very portable. In fact, the first time I used it was in Niki's car on our trip to Palm Springs. It's also got bluetooth capability, so when I get an earpiece, I'll be able to hear the directions in my ear. It'll also stream MP3s if I want to listen to music and it can connect to your cellphone via bluetooth, so you could answer your phone on your bike with the push of a button. There's also an optional XM satellite radio antenna for it which will allow you to listen to the radio and get traffic updates on your map (I don't have this... yet). I also finally successfully installed my chrome front fender guard that I was having problems with. It looks really cool - I'll try to get a before and after pic up. And I installed some highly reflective 3M SOLAS tape under my "reflector" on my top case since the "reflectors" on the Vespa top cases don't actually reflect.

Other than playing with my Vespa, the only other things I did in the past couple of weeks were seeing Spiderman 3 (liked it), Grindhouse (2nd time - liked it even more than the first time), and the Galaxy lose against the New England Revolution.

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SUNDAY, MAY 06, 2007

This weekend, Niki and I went out to the desert for the 2-day Stagecoach Festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio. First of all, we stayed a great hotel in Palm Springs called Hotel Zoso on Friday and Saturday night. The room was amazing and the pool and hottub were open all night. The festival was a lot of fun and very well organized. It also wasn't terribly hot which made it nice. My two experiences at Coachella (the first two) were not very pleasant, but after Stagecoach, I might be willing to go again. I got to see a lot of cool acts including: Willie Nelson, Neko Case, Robert Earl Keen, Nickel Creek, Marty Stuart, and Garrison Keillor. My favorites were 83-year-old bluegrass banjo player Earl Scruggs and singer/guitarist Don Edwards who played old western cowboys songs. Here's a shaky video I recorded with my digital camera of Earl Scruggs performing "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from the Beverly Hillbillies.

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