Phil Frank, Bay Area cartoonist, dies

Farley I was truly saddened when I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that Phil Frank died yesterday. Phil Frank drew the only local comic strip in the country, Farley, which was published in the Chronicle. Indeed he captured the spirit of the Bay Area through his cast of distinctive and wacky characters, and because it was a local strip, Mr. Frank was able to comment on current events in his strip within days. He will be sorely missed.

Apple and Palm

[Palm Foleo] What a study in contrast. Yesterday, Palm announced that it is canceling its widely panned Foleo, a smartphone accessory that is essentially a stripped down laptop, before it was even released. While the idea is not necessarily bad, Palm needs to focus on its core products, the aging Treo smartphone line and the Palm OS, before it can go off and experiment in other markets. (Kinda like how Apple had to kill the Newton to focus on the Mac.) It’s a good, if painful, move by Palm.

[Apple iPod touch]Meanwhile, today Apple triumphantly showed off its new iPod models, adding video capability to every iPod that has a screen, and introducing the long rumored iPod touch (essentially an iPhone without the phone). 

 For my personal tastes, the iPod touch is the most compelling device Apple has released. I’ve never listened to music enough to want a portable music player, and the same with video. The iPhone was just too expensive, both the device itself and the monthly charges. But the iPod touch can do video, audio, and Internet access through Wi-Fi, in a portable form factor that makes sense. The main thing that’s giving me pause: still no word on native application development. I’ll wait it out some more.

It wasn’t all rosy for Apple though. Apple spooked investors by cutting the price of the 8GB iPhone by a third, only two months after introducing it. The investors are afraid Apple is doing this because sales aren’t meeting (high) expectations.

Avenue Q

[Avenue Q marquee at the Orpheum Theatre] Last Wednesday, I joined Jon and friends to go see Avenue Q at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco. In case you haven’t heard of it, think Sesame Street meets South Park. A case of humans and Muppet-style puppets work through their 20- and 30-something angst, and sing about love, purpose, and Internet porn. (These videos of the original Broadway cast and the London cast are good introductions.) It was absolutely hilarious, and I thank Jon for noticing it was coming to town and grabbing the tickets.

Unfortunately, Avenue Q has already played its last date in San Francisco, but if you’re happen to coincide with the rest of their national tour — or you live in New York or London — go see it!

For me, the fun didn’t end on Wednesday. Last year, Avenue Q put out a book that looks to be as irreverent as the musical. I got it from HamiltonBook.com for 73% off (woohoo). I’ll probably also buy the soundtrack. And there are a ton of Avenue Q videos on YouTube. My favorites include the cast in a presidential debate (part 1, part 2, part 3) and exploring London (part 1, part 2 — not safe for work!). Also, Avenue Q meets Wicked, Fiddler on the Roof, and the boy band Take That. Remember “Back for Good”? I prefer the puppet version.

Media appearances

I’m in the newspaper! Of course, it has nothing to do with my day-to-day job. Instead, I was photographed talking to the photographer of the new Lincoln Highway book:

This complements my appearance in Bay Area Backroads on KRON 4 about road rallyes:

A Month of Movies

From July 4 to August 4, I watched four movies in the theater, which is probably more than the previous two years.

autobot

Transformers. Better than I expected — the action and graphics were quite good (of course), and the acting wasn’t bad (maybe because my expectations were low). It’s done amazingly well at the box office, so you can be sure a sequel is in the works.

ratatouille7

Ratatouille. The best of the first three movies I saw. The storyline was well conceived and beautifully executed; it felt genuine, never hokey. I’m surprised it hasn’t as well at the box office as, say, Cars. And you can’t draw a rat cuter than Rémy.

SimpsonsMoviePoster_000

The Simpsons Movie. A must for Simpsons fans. The plot didn’t exactly have any surprises, but the Simpsons has always been about the small moments, and this movie delivered. I wished I hadn’t seen the trailers though: that took away jokes like President Schwarzenegger (“I was elected to lead, not read.”) Of course, I also went to the Kwik-E-Mart in Mountain View and took loads of photos.

The Bourne Ultimatum. I hadn’t seen the first two Bourne movies, so I got an assignment. The night before I watched it with two friends from high school, we watched The Bourne Identity. Then I borrowed The Bourne Supremacy and watched it the next morning, before finally seeing The Bourne Ultimatum that afternoon. 24 hours of Bourne! I enjoyed all three of the movies — very well crafted action thrillers. There are some great scenes, such as when Jason Bourne is trying to choreograph a journalist’s safe passage through a London train station.

But I must admit that I am an action movie wimp: I totally get sucked into movies; the deaths of characters, among other things, really affect me. So before seeing any of the movies, I read the plot summaries in Wikipedia. Therefore, I already knew which characters would die. But that allowed me to enjoy the movies more, because even though I knew roughly what would happen, I still had to watch the movie to find out how they happened.

In between, there was also a little bit of high culture: Shakespeare in the Park in Cupertino. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival put on an excellent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I particularly liked the modernistic staging — the angels were punks, and Lysander wore a Public Enemy T-shirt.

Lincoln Highway Book Tour — San Francisco style

[Cover of Lincoln Highway Book] After work today, I made my way up to Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building to catch the endpoint of the tour for the new book, The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate, by Michael Wallis and Michael Williamson. The Lincoln Highway was the first road across America, yet lately it has languished while Route 66 gets the glory.

However, just as Mr. Wallis’ 1992 book, Route 66: The Mother Road, helped revive national interest in that historic highway, I’m hopeful that the Michaels’ new book will spark new life in the “Father Road.” Already, it’s gotten huge press, from the New York Times to KCBS AM. They’re even going to be on The Colbert Report, and Bill O’Reilly has also expressed interest in interviewing them.

[LHA Logo]I asked the authors why they decided to write a book on the Lincoln Highway — hadn’t Wallis already covered similar ground with Route 66? Mr. Wallis said he was “tired of the Lincoln Highway being referred to in the past tense.” Mr. Williamson said that lots of people have traveled Route 66, and now they want something different. The Lincoln Highway provides that opportunity.

Being the webmaster of the Lincoln Highway Association gave me huge street cred: as I was getting my book signed, Michael Williamson turned to Michael Wallis and said, “He’s the real deal.”

[Lincoln Highway Book Tour] I’ve posted my photos of the book tour in my Flickr account, including my photo with the authors, when Michael Wallis told me I was “the safest man in San Francisco” at that time.

By the way, for dinner I went to Mistral Rotisserie Provençale in the Ferry Building and got a ¼ roast chicken with broccoli and potatoes for $7.75. Not super cheap, but well worth it.

The joy of Wikipedia

As a kid I used to read the encyclopedia (yes, my nerdiness goes way back), so Wikipedia is truly a joy. Not only can I read it, I can also improve it. Most of my edits have been in subjects I initially know little about but have some strange interest in.

I have an unusual capacity to remember the twists and turns of corporate history, such as the whole Citigroup/Travelers saga. So when I saw the skimpy history section that the Travelers article had, I had to jump in and help out. I also created the article for Capgemini, one of the world’s largest consulting companies, after seeing a sign for “Cap Gemini Ernst & Young” in Cupertino and trying to figure out what the heck that was. In this case, I just created a stub, and thankfully the rest of the Wikipedia community filled it in.

I’ll also do articles of local interest. For example, I heavily rewrote the article on Vallco Fashion Park, now Cupertino Square. Just today, I was reading about Mineta San Jose International Airport, and I knew something was wrong when its history section started in the early 1980s. So I couldn’t resist doing a little research and adding a paragraph about how the airport really started, in 1939.