SITREP

I just find it inexcusably lame that my last blog entry dates back to the Bush administration! Some quick updates. Politics free, except to say that, yeah, I'm generally frustrated with the things I expected to be frustrated about, and happy about the things that I expected to be happy about.

I'm really glad the last show turned out well. It was a real crunch -- remember that the original release date was xmas '08, but got bumped to May '09. I'm generally of the understanding that this was because the studio thought it had a real hit on its hands, and indeed it did. Unfortunately *we* still had the deadline set for the xmas release, and that didn't budge. Either way, definitely the absolute best project I've worked on so far in my not-so-short-but-not-exactly-long career in vfx. Get the dvd/blu-ray -- the deleted scenes are pretty great and explain a lot. I kinda think they shoulda stayed in. Current show is looking good, and I'm excited that I'll be seeing a good friend in the credits several rows/sections above me!

Embarked, once again, on the quest to get a house in the East Bay. Sorry to say that it's still a pretty frustrating process. Though prices have dipped, places have been hard to find because sellers have been trying to sit on their properties as long as possible to try to ride out the dip. It seems to be working -- prices have been going back up, spiking around the deadline for the tax credit. Sucks for me. I have one prospect that I'm in contract on, but being a short sale, crap just seems to keep coming up. I'll know for sure pretty soon if this will close or not, otherwise, back to the listings.

Da Bears. Went and splurged on some season tix to Cal Football the last two seasons along with John and Melinda. Because the Bears generally win at home, that's worked out great, though of course there were the two really bad losses to USC and Oregon State this year. While no one in their right mind who remembers the bad old days in the 90s can complain about Tedford's record, it's becoming apparent that there's some final piece to the coaching puzzle that he doesn't seem to have to help the Bears live up to pre/early season expectations.

Speaking strictly from my armchair, it does seem to be that 10% inspiration to go with the 90% perspiration of the old cliche. The sort of meltdowns we've seen against USC/UO just don't make sense when far inferior teams have at least managed a touchdown against those teams. Whatever it is, the team needs to find something in those situations to steel their resolve to go out and play hard and play smart, win or lose. They may have found it in those last two terrific games against ASU and Stanford, but we'll see if the lesson will stick with them past the regular season and the (thankfully inevitable) bowl game into next season. I've got to admit I still see some profound problems in special teams, pass protection, and offensive playcalling. Riley gets more crap than he deserves -- I see an awful lot of dropped passes, and I wonder how many of those overthrows are the receivers not maintaining speed in their routes, assuming the o-line even gives him a chance to squeeze off a decent pass.

Still not watching much TV, but absolutely loving Mad Men and Friday Night Lights. Both are great little snapshots into certain times and places in American culture that have a certain resonance with the current environment.