Not that I’m obsessed over this movie or anything, but the folks over at io9 (via Metblogs) have video of a life-size animatronic of the robot Wall-E in action. He seems to have a wide range of motion and is very expressive, at one point rolling up to the camera, raising up a bit, and waving.
I’ve heard he’ll be making the rounds of the talk show circuit to promote the movie. He should also be making appearances in Disney theme parks no doubt giving Push a run for his money.
By the time I started watching Six Feet Under, it was nearing the end of its run on HBO. In reading up on the show, I found out that house used as the funeral home in the series was not that far from where I lived. In fact, my daily commute brought me relatively close to the neighborhood it was in, so I made a mental note to go find it at some point. Well, I was never a very good note-taker so I soon forgot about it.
Jump ahead about a year-and-a-half. I got a new job closer to home. About 2/3 of the new commute was the same as part of the old commute. Instead of getting on the freeway, I stayed on surface streets, which meant that I now had to drive through the neighborhood the house was in, but I still never took the time to go looking for it.
Over time, I started trying different routes to work and finally settled on one that I have been using for a little over a year. So, not too long a go, I was on my way to work and happened to look to my right as I was passing through a particular intersection, and there it was. I can’t believe I have been driving by it nearly every day for over a year and never noticed it. The Fisher & SonsDiaz sign may be missing, but the house itself is pretty distinctive.
On the left is screen capture from the pilot episode. On the right is a photo I took.
If you’d like to see it for yourself, the house is on the southwest corner of Arlington and 25th St. in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles.
A couple of days ago, the following message showed up in my Twitter stream:
Glendale Pillowfight Sat, March 1 - 5:48pm. Be there by 5:40: Glendale Galleria Mall; in front of Target;1st floor; inside of the Mall.
Since I had actually planned to stop by the Galleria at some point this weekend, I decided to check it out (as an observer, not a participant).
I got there a few minutes before 5:40 and milled around trying to figure out who was going to join in and how they were concealing their pillow. I picked out one guy right away, his large Bed, Bath & Beyond bag seemed to be a dead giveaway. There was also a father with two daughters that I didn’t identify until I moved upstairs and caught a glimpse of the pillows in their bags. It didn’t seem like there would be much of a turnout.
As I was trying to find a good place shoot video (see below), I noticed a few other people who looked like they were waiting for something to happen. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was curious to see what would happen.
The pillows came out at precisely 5:48 and about 8 or nine people joined in. Except for one person who kind of half-heartedly yelled, “Security!” the whole affair didn’t really seem to draw that much attention. A couple of minutes later it was all over and everyone dispersed.
This past week about 800 acres were burned in Griffith Park, very close to where I live. I was in no immediate danger, and fortunately no homes were lost, but it made for a very surreal night once I got home from work. I went out to take some pictures and was a bit surprised to see that hundreds of other people had the same idea. Both sides of Los Feliz Blvd. just east of Riverside Dr. and the bike trail that parallels the northbound side of the I-5 were packed with people when I got out there about 11:00pm. Click the image to see more of the photos that I took that night.
