how this is as corny...(puts on sunglasses)...as a farm in nebraska...(cue song by "the who")

here's a series of one-liners horribly delivered by david caruso on "csi: miami" right before the opening credits.

it's terribly cliched and absolutely hilarious.

i'm hoping that's not the miami that i'm going to visit tonight, considering that my hopes are set on experiencing something like this. hell, i'd even take this one.

how i'm really torn on this critical issue

i came across this dilemma, and for once in my life, i cannot come up with an opinion. i really cannot. i am stumped.

this is not funny. i can't figure this out.

at all.

jesus. i really need to think about this.

thoughts?

UPDATE: i'm thinking tops, because there's other ways to achieve what tails would get you. that's not my final answer. that's just me thinking out loud.

how i've reinvented myself

i've decided to completely redo my website. you know, plant a brand new flag in this virtual oblivion we call the internet tubes.

so check out steveohville.com and let me know what you think.

and yes, the trivia game works.

how i have labels

blogger.com has joined forces with google, forcing me to reacitvate my google account and upgrading what can happen with this blog.

that's a good thing. i'm getting not to trust google, but whatevs. they're still cool somewhat.

anyways, i can now put labels on my posts to make your searches for articles on this site much easier. now, if an article is about "corporate incompetence", like the one below, you can search for "monkeycrap" and find that article. or "scrotumless".

see how easy and obvious it is?

we'll see what else this baby can do.

buckle up.

how it's this type of crap that really pisses me off

careerbuilder.com, which has become the world's top job-finding service on the internet due to the work done by their ad agency cramer-kresselt, has decided to start a review of their account because of, and i shit you not, their super bowl ads did not make the usa today top 10.

seriously.

read that again.

careerbuilder.com put their account in review not based on their incredible amount of success, but because of the opinion of a small group of people who may or may not have seen the ad.

by the way, these are the same people that made "two and a half men" the most watched show on television.

yeah, go to them for an opinion on your advertising and brand marketing.

so, what they're saying is that they stand for not what they think is right. rather, they're all about what someone else thinks in an unscientific poll.

welcome to everything that's wrong with businesses.

how we had a state of emergency for about 20 seconds

i left my apartment to go to the bank and then some sushi. it wasn't raining when i left, but was pouring on my walk back. i got soaked. i was wearing a hoodie and shorts. couldn't have been any colder than 45 degrees.

but man, it was pouring.

i dried off in my apartment and awaited my favorite four words in the world: "previously on 24".

all of a sudden, my apartment is under attack, i think.

plat. plat. platplatplatplatplatplatplatplat. thunder. platplatplatplatplatplatplatplat.

i looked outside expecting to see grenades and explosions but instead saw something much weirder.

hail.

wait...hail?!?

seriously. hail. in san francisco.

i went to a big open window in my hallway to look out, and sonuvabitch, not only is it hailing, but it's sticking. and i hear the clickclickclick of shoes walking on hailed concrete outside. i also hear people laughing and others making fun of everyone outside for not having an umbrella.

weird. so weird. hail?

and, as soon as it began, it ended. and it was raining again.

the hail lasted no more than 20 seconds.

it must've just been a freak cold whip in the air in the middle of a rainstorm - one freak occurance after the other (the cloud cover during a rain storm causes a greenhouse effect out here, warming everything up). so there was just a quick burst of cold, dropping the temperature about ten degrees in a moment and just for a moment, and...hail.

huh. weird.

how you would think if they were gonna go through the bother, they would go through the bother

dear junk e-mailers.

can one of you explain to me why every junk e-mail that you send out is criminally misspelled or with horrifying grammatical errors?

is it too hard to spend the extra three seconds to spell check? i mean, you're only sending your crappy e-mail out to millions. the fact that you can't spell what you're selling wouldn't make me want to buy it. that's a simple proposition, don't you think? i mean, especially when you're buying something online, you would think it's all about the details.

that's details. d-e-t-a-i-l-s.

that goes double for you, LuxuryWatche's.

how i'm making some oscar predictions, so live with it

this is the first time that i can remember where the front runners for each performance category are absolute locks. with that being said, i'm gonna regurgitate. ready? here you go.

best actor: forest whitaker, last king of scotland
best actress: helen mirren, the queen
best supporting actor: eddie murphy, dreamgirls
best supporting actress: jennifer hudson, dreamgirls

personally, i have seen most of the candidates, but not all. but i have seen those four, and i'm fairly confident they were the best this year. they each were, in a word, striking.

okay, we got those out of the way. color me 4-0. let's hit the ones that aren't so clear.

usually, best director and best picture are one and the same. there have been exceptions, but it's generally the rule. this year, however, the recent tide has been martin scorcese for best director, and "babel" for best picture.

this year, i don't think the exception is the rule.

i haven't seen "united 93". i've actually netflixed it and i've actually bought it on comcast, but each time, i couldn't watch it. i'm just not ready yet - although i hear the film is wonderful and the directing is outstanding. i'm sorry, paul greengrass. i just haven't seen it.

"little miss sunshine" is a wonderful movie and one of the funniest non-slapstick films in years. the performances were spot-on, the directing excellent (if not nominated) and the script was amazing for a first time writer. but dayton-faris were not nominated for best director. methinks that kills its chances for best film.

that leaves us with four. and all four films and directors have been rumored recently as winners.

"the queen" is a film with a good script about a topic that might not seem as interesting as it turned out to be. the directing by the legendary stephen frears, however, added a layer of regalness and detachment that was just pitch perfect with the oscar-winning performance of helen mirren. it's an amazing movie worth watching.

clint eastwood's directing career has been highlighted by one incredible story told after another. and this year, here came yet another. his "letters from iwo jima" is an incredible masterpiece in that it's a complex story told in japanese but directed by an american director. but this ain't no ordinary american, and his eye for detail and authencity impressed not only here in the states but also in japan. hell, watching this emotional film was stunning for someone who didn't speak the language. imagine what it did to those whose history was interwoven. i can't stress how amazing this achievement was.

it's no understatement to say that a nation is firmly behind marty scorcese to win. "the departed" is his latest attempt to win the golden statute to help validate a career that truly needs no validation. but, unlike the horrid "gangs of new york", this selection stands with any in his canon. in fact, he reinvented a category - mob movies - that he reinvented once before. beyond the stunning script and performances, you really become involved with the intricate and gorgeous storytelling of a master.

"babel" is the newest installent in what seems to be an oscar favorite: multiple stories being told under the umbrella of a human truth. and, it seems to be a staple of alejandro gonzales innaratu, who is without question the best of that kind of storytelling. the movie is dour, but the artistry is without question. there's no question why this has so much buzz behind it.

the selection of any of these movies and directors is a marvelous choice. this is the first year in ages that i can actually say that. usually there's just one or two that i'm pulling for. but this year, we've all been treated.

that being said, i'm ready to choose.

the envelope please:

(dramatic pause)

congrats, marty. you've finally won one.

and stay up here for the next one too.

how you learn some not-so-wonderful things through the magic of television

i have "austin city limits" tivoed as a season pass. i highly recommend that you do so, too. it's a show that telecasts live performances of stars from rock, country, rap, soul and, well, you name it, they've been on this show. and, for the most part, they're great to actually see command a stage.

austin is a music mecca, and rightfully so.

right now, i'm watching etta james. she sounds exactly how i've heard her on my vinyl and my mp3s. i could be listening to that, but this is more fun, if not for one glaring visual obsession:

she has the largest hands i've ever seen.

and i mean it.

i can't take my eyes of her hands. they're very large. it's gotten to the point where i'm looking at the hands of the other musicians on stage to see if theirs are out of proportion too, but they ain't. it's like she has flesh-colored boxing gloves on.

i just looked again. dammit.

how i'm not sure if we've come back around, but we're pretty damn close

at some point, all the lunacy in the anne nicole saga, and that goes back from her marrying that old billionaire to today, all that lunacy is gonna have to be reranked, and what was once insane is gonna look perfectly logical due to relativity.

take this judge who presided over the case of her remains. he's completely batty, and he makes that duke who is married to zsa zsa gabor look like brian williams from nbc news.

and that's the judge! he's supposed to be the voice of reason.

i wonder what's next, and how many midgets it's gonna take.

how that age old question will now be answered

and, of course, the question is "will it blend?" check out the videos under "don't try this @ home". great stuff, especially the ones that are about the super bowl.

thanks for the tip, emily.

how i can clearly state without a show of a doubt

that there's no way in hell that lakisha jones loses "american idol".

there's no reason to watch it anymore. you can take the show off your tivo.

she's gonna win. it couldn't be any clearer.

how it's all matty, all the time

you can't turn on the tv without seeing my friend matty who survived his fall down mount hood. and the more we all learn about it, the more heroic and impressive he becomes. i'm really proud of him.

here he is on "good morning america" - click on "Hikers Talk About Surviving Mt. Hood" (if it is still up)

here, he's on "the today show".

how not even death can stop him, even if laminitis did

barbaro = jesus.

barbaro fans = apostles.

and this is their bible.

i weep for our future.

how sometimes you just know

i'm not one for stuff that doesn't make sense. i usually live firmly in the camp that there's a good reason for everything, even if it isn't obvious. it's not as much of a lack of faith as it is a comfort in facts.

basically, i feel that the unexplainable is easily explainable. it's a twelve years in catholic school thing; you either drink the kool aid or become cynical about anything mystical.

i've always been firmly with the latter. but now, i gotta question that.

probably moreso than any other news article that's been going around (and yes, that includes britney's bald gate), i've been following the story about the three hikers that fell off mount hood and were rescued yesterday. i've been somewhat obsessive about it because, somewhere deep inside me, without having any first hand knowledge about it, i knew that that my friend matty was one of the climbers.

the frustrating part has been that they didn't release any of their names. so i had no way of verifying.

until today.

Climbers Rescued From Mount Hood
By Sarah Skidmore, Associated Press Writer
Monday, February 19, 2007

Three climbers who tumbled off a ledge on Mount Hood were taken away in an ambulance after they hiked down much of the state's highest peak with their rescuers — and a dog who may have saved their lives.

"We're soaking wet and freezing," said one of two rescued women as she walked from a tracked snow vehicle to an ambulance.

One of the women, whose name was not released, was taken to a Portland hospital and being treated for a head injury, said Jim Strovink, spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. "She's going to be fine," he said, noting that she had walked most of the way down the mountain.

Two others, Matty Bryant, 34, a teacher in the Portland suburb of Milwaukie, and Kate Hanlon, 34, a teacher in the suburb of Wilsonville, were taken to Timberline Lodge on the mountain to rejoin five other members of the climbing party, he said.

Rescuers using an electronic locating device found the three climbers and their black Labrador, Velvet, on Monday morning in the White River Canyon, where they had holed up overnight at about 7,400 feet, officials said. The crew hiked with them down the east flank of the 11,239-foot mountain; on the way down, the climbers got into a tracked snow vehicle that took them to the ambulance.

"The dog probably saved their lives" by lying across them during the cold night, said Erik Brom, a member of the Portland Mountain Rescue team. He described the wind in the canyon as "hellacious."

The two women left the snow vehicle first, followed by Bryant and the dog. The three climbers boarded the ambulance, and Velvet leapt in after them.

As he was departing, Bryant said of the rescuers: "I'm glad they were there for us."

In addition to the dog, who provided warmth and comfort, rescuers attributed the happy outcome to the climbers' use of an electronic mountain locator unit that guided searchers to their exact position. "That's why it is a rescue, not a recovery," Sheriff's Lt. Nick Watt said at a news conference at the lodge, a ski resort at 6,000 feet.

The three were in a party of eight that set out Saturday for the summit, camped on the mountain that night and began to come back down on Sunday when they ran into bad weather, officials said. As they were descending at about 8,300 feet, the three slipped off a ledge. They slid about 500 feet down an incline and later moved miles from the site of the fall, descending, rescuers said. "They're lucky to be alive after that," Strovink said. Trevor Liston of Portland, who was among the five who made it off the mountain Sunday, said at a news conference that the three climbers in the lead were holding onto a rope when they slipped over the ledge. The dog was clipped to the rope and was also dragged down, he said.

"The lead climber went," and "two people right behind him didn't have enough time to react," Liston said.

Other climbers used a rope to lower a companion about 60 feet to try to spot the trio, but there was no sign of them, Liston said. The climbers decided to call authorities with a cell phone, rather than attempt a rescue.

"It's a very hard decision to make," but "we didn't want to have eight people fall instead of three," said Liston, who described himself as a veteran Mount Hood climber. Rescue officials maintained regular cell phone contact overnight with the three who had fallen. Battling winds up to 70 mph and blowing snow, rescue teams had worked through the night trying to locate the climbers, said Russell Gubele, coordinating communications for the rescue operation.

Teams made it close to the missing climbers overnight, but decided to wait until daylight Monday because they couldn't see anything, Gubele said. Rescuers moved cautiously during the night because of "very severe avalanche danger," he said.

Gubele described the trio as "experienced rock climbers, but not necessarily experienced in mountain climbing."

In December, three climbers who did not have mountain locator units went missing on the mountain. Authorities searched for days, but were able to recover the body of only one climber, Kelly James of Dallas, who died of hypothermia. The bodies of Brian Hall of Dallas and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke of New York have not been found.

In the past 25 years, more than 35 climbers have died on Mount Hood, one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world.

i'm officially freaked out and unquestionably relieved.

get well, matty.

UPDATE: just got an e-mail from him, and he's doing well. thank god.

how i swear, youtube has everything

like the scene from "children of men" that i was harping about a couple of posts below.

here it is, in russian. there's very little dialogue in it, and to be honest, it's not really needed.

if you're gonna see the movie, well, this is the scene that makes it. since it is in russian, i won't tell you what happens. but you probably should wait to see it in the theater (and try not to walk out before it comes on at the end).

if you're not gonna see the movie, go ahead and watch it. if you select the white space below this paragraph, i'll write a quick synopsis of what you need to know:

clive owen is in charge of the black girl who is carrying the first child born in britain in 18 years. they're in a refugee camp to ship out immigrants for a reason i can't remember. she gets kidnapped, and he's chasing after her so he can deliver them to a boat which will then lead them to the human project, which was not really explained. there's a civil war going on between the government and insurgents. i don't know why they're fighting. and there you go.

technically, it's brilliant. stylistically, it's mindblowing. and cinematically, it's a heart attack.

how in this instance, FW actually meant funny weddings

you know how you get a forwarded e-mail that's obviously a joke, and you know it's not gonna be funny, and then you open it and voila, it ain't funny, and you just lost nine seconds out of your life?

well, this one was funny. sent by my buddy paal, it's actual wedding announcements:

how i was pleasantly surprised and overwhelmingly entertained

the annual nba slam dunk contest is one of those things that i really don't enjoy, watch anyway, reaffirm that i didn't like it, swear that i don't watch it again and then wind up watching it again and cursing myself over it.

so last night, i'm watching the 2007 nba slam dunk contest and, i gotta say, not only was i impressed by the sheer physical acrobatics, but it was as creative and hilarious an athletic feat as you're gonna find.

here's a youtube page of all the videos of the event. the nba keeps on taking them down, even though their own video page doesn't seem to work. maybe it does now. who knows.

still, even if you're not a basketball fan, i bet you're gonna enjoy it, from gerald green's "dee brown" to nate robinson's "statue of liberty" and one handed catch to dwight howard's "sticker" - which absolutely blew me away, and also blew everyone away. it's an instant classic dunk, even if the judges didn't think so.

which, by the way, caused kenny smith to call michael jordan "the russian judge". fantastic.

you'll enjoy it. especially "sticker". it's truly one of the coolest things i've seen on a basketball court in years.

how when words fail, a camera phone succeeds

today was an unsuspecting 70 degree day in the city that demanded you be outside. so i took my screenplay and my basketball and hit the park around the block from my apartment. seemed like the right thing to do, and it would've been a waste to watch some college hoops inside (although it was a helluva debate).

anyways, i had my camera phone with me, and although these photos don't do my day justice, why the hell not.



i kinda just sat there, on a park bench, staring into a duck pond. i tried writing, working on my characters, and i got five pages into my rewrite, but...goddamn, there are quacking ducks about twenty feet from me. i had a tony soprano moment. no, it wasn't my first.


behind me were these amazing trees that are just magnificent. here's a couple of eucalytpus trees. i would like to say they're indiginous to california as passive aggressiveness, but actually they were imported from australia and responsible for the devastating oakland hills fire of 1991. good times.


my buddy marco and his girlfriend sabrina picked me up, and we drove off to the marina to take a nice walk to the wharf. since i live inside a city, i tend to forget how breathtaking a city can be. you know, you lose grasp of a macro view of your life. anyways, this photo was taken from a hill over fort mason. that's golden gate bridge way off in the background. not pictured are all the colorful and arcitectually charismatic victorians within the city. when i see the city from this view, i got that feeling that i had when i first moved here, the same feeling i once had whenever i popped out of the muni tunnel on my way to work, the feeling every resident of this city cherishes: "holy crap, i can't believe that i live in san francisco". i lost that for awhile. welcome back.


while walking around the superficial and shallow marina district, i came upon this ad in a shopping cart. best media placement ever.

how i was able to see a double feature without resorting to theft

the balboa theater is one of the oldest film houses in the city. i don't normally go there. the speakers are terrible, the seats aren't that comfortable, and there's always something up with the projector, like framing the subtitles off-screen. but, on the bright side, forgotten by me and pleasantly surprised when reminded, they give you two movies for the price of one - the good ol' school double feature.

tonight had a spanish directing flavor to it.


"children of men"
starring clive owen, julianne moore, michael caine and claire-hope ashitey
written and directed by alfonso cuaron
viewed at the balboa theater, san francisco, ca

immediately, you're struck with a strange and dramatic conflict: the world has some sort of epidemic in which all women are infertile, and the youngest person on earth dies. civilization is falling apart as the population dwindles, and there seems to be some sort of war going on between the government and insurgents. (trust me, i didn't give any secrets away)

compelling, huh?

well, it should have been. it just sounds engrossing. but, unfortunately, the first half of the movie was spent downplaying that tension. i don't really know why. the script was literal and explanatory and trying to be funny, the characters a little too lackadaisical, the plot not really moving much.

i gotta say, really disappointing.

but then we get to the scene.

i've heard from everyone who's seen this movie about this scene - a nine-minute uncut shot following clive owen through a war zone. i love stuff like that. when you don't cut, the scene takes a air of unmatched reality, as if you're right there, unblinking. and that moment in the story, filmed in that fashion, was just spine tingling. nervous.

it's a simple idea achieved in the most complex fashion.

and that's beyond the whole technical achievement of it. you actually feel exactly what's happening at that moment by putting you right there in the thick of it. it's incredibly choreographed and as visceral as humanly possible, with gunfire, explosions, bombs and about seven different locations with a chaos of people running and fighting in different directions.

you have to see it to believe it because it's brilliantly unbelievable.

unlike the famous uncut shot in orson wells' "touch of evil", which served to introduce the movie, this shot absolutely makes this movie by putting you in the movie.

and you don't need to be a film geek to get that. it's obvious.

it's a mindboggling achievement of the highest artistic caliber.

it makes the movie.

it's a shame the rest of the movie didn't come close to that standard.


"pan's labryinth"
starring ivana baquero, maribel verdu and sergi lópez
written and directed by guillermo del toro
viewed at the balboa theater, san francisco, ca

speaking of the highest artistic caliber, we've got your typical adult fairy tale that takes place during the spanish civil war and includes a faun and a fairy. just typing those words might seem like it sucks the big one.

but, in actuality, it's one of the most visually irresistable films i've seen in a long time.

del toro paints two completely different and beautiful worlds: a lavish spanish military outpost in the middle of nowhere, and a grimy underworld dictated by the strange undercurrents of a child's demented imagination. sounds better when i write it like that, huh?

anyways, it's about innocence and brutailty, a harsh world and a child's imagination, and unrelenting storytelling from beginning to end. the writing is superb, the directing is magical and the acting is top-notch. it won a 22 minute standing ovation at cannes. and it won a standing ovation at the small balboa theater just blocks from the pacific.

a movie blurring the lines between make-believe and reality isn't exactly the most original execution. but they way del toro tells it, on such a gorgeous canvas, is a tremendous achievement.

it's scary, nervous, gripping, interesting, emotional, eloquent, bloody and vengeful. it's not for children. hell, it's probably too much for most adults.

was it one of the top five films i've seen this year? if it wasn't, it's damn near close.