Why does Tim Allen make movies?

I think I'm going to ask Mick LaSalle. Not because I think he'll know but he might have a funny answer. So I emailed:

"Why does Tim Allen make movies? Out of fairness, I haven't seen any of them. I've only seen about 2 episodes of Home Improvement. He was great as Buzz Lightyear and I hear Galaxy Quest is funny.
But I just don't get why anyone would see, say, Jungle 2 Jungle or The Santa Clause.
If I were to rent one of his movies, what should I start with?"

I can't believe there's a Santa Clause Part 3 movie coming out. I didn't even know there was a Part 2! I just don't get the appeal and the trailers for his movies are just lost on me.

Fall music collection

New (to me) music of the moment - Zero 7 & the vocal stylings of Jose Gonzalez. Zero 7 just played the Fillmore and were also on Jay Leno and I totally shrugged off the performances. I'm not really sure why, but I didn't really pay attention to when they were going to be on because I just started listening to them.

Eric downloaded some songs he thought I might like and well, I do like them! I've also been listening to Keane's new album and after listening to the up-tempo songs over and over again, I've finally found the beauty of the slower songs like "Atlantic" and "A Bad Dream," along with one of their older songs, "Bedshaped."

So, now I'm learning about Zero 7 and that lead to more songs from Jose Gonzalez as well as other vocalists Zero 7 has collaborated with. I'm stuck on Jose. His website has a nice sampling of songs. I thought I could listen to "Today" over and over again, but the flavor of the month just might be "Heartbeats". His voice is dreamy and the music is so clean, not fussy and just easy to enjoy.

This time of year, when school starts, when the days are getting shorter and the weather begins to turn cooler, is when I want to listen to stuff like this. An old staple is Amplified Heart from Everything But the Girl, but this season, I'll be adding Jose Gonzalez, with or without Zero 7, to my 'fall collection'. To keep me from becoming completely pensive and melancholic, I've been interspersing some Gnarls Barkley and Paul Weller/Jam songs to my current playlist. I could have gone in for the overkill by adding some Cristina Branco but I think that would just bring me to tears, partly because of the nature of Fado, but mostly because, I don't understand Portuguese, so it gets frustrating to feel sad about a song and not know why.

Pelicans

Pelicans are neat, especially when they fly in a big group. I'm not sure about this but it seems like they have a 'pattern' of flapping their wings while they're in formation, using a domino effect. The bird in front flaps while the others behind glide, then just as soon as it stops, the next bird flaps and as it's about to stop, the bird behind him begins to flap and so on and so on.

We went out to visit family at my parent's house in Pacifica. Eric usually drives out along the Great Highway and there was a group of pelicans, about 4 or 5, flying along the beach. As it turns out, my nieces and nephew were out eating dinner with my brother and a family friend out in Japantown. So no one was home, but I got to see pelicans! After eating Mexican food in South City, we made our way back towards Hwy 35 and saw a large group of pelicans flying, about 20-25 of them. They looked like a string of black origami birds in the sky. I kept watching until I couldn't see them anymore.

I like watching them fly. I've seen a bunch of them up and down the coast but I haven't been able to get any good photos of them. This past Saturday, we took the kiddies down to Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 and oook! A bunch of pelicans were flying low and near the piers. I finally got a shot, not the best, but at least it was a lot of them and they were flying. The photo is missing about half the group in front. They flew by so fast and I was using the zoom feature, I couldn't quite locate them through the viewfinder fast enough.

Music I like in commercials

Band - Song - Company

Badly Drawn Boy - All Possibilities - Target

I put myself on his record label's email list a while back. Not sure why, since I can't just hop on a bus and take in a show in Manchester at the drop of a hat. But some interesting sounds are coming from other bands under the Twisted Nerve label that are worth a listen.

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights - Kaiser Permanente (and others)

I'm a new Death Cab for Cutie fan so I just had to eat up The Postal Service stuff too. Fun! Helps me pick up the pace when I walk from the bus terminal to my building in the morning.

Someone asked me a few weeks back what kind of music I like and I named these two bands as being in my most recent favorites. I don't listen to the radio much and am not sure if they get a lot of airplay but I can now refer them to some commercials on TV.

What I'm sick of ...

Oasis - All Around the World - AT&T/SBC

Puke - partly because it's just been played out way too much, throughout the Olympics and now as the AT&T brand is being hammered into everyone's heads. Which kinda helps me out with work - I'm tired of saying "formerly known as SBC" to make sure people don't hang up in my face thinking I'm soliciting new business from existing customers. Oasis = Oa-sucks: an old on-line buddy once called them. They were a big fave of mine when they started out but the brotherly hate between the Gallagher brothers was just too much for me and their new solo stuff just didn't hold my interest.