This N' That:

I Fandangoed some tickets for last nights 10:20p showing of Batman at Universal Studios. That was the earliest showing available that was not sold out! The Dark Knight has received crazy good reviews-- even Best Picture talk on Ebert and Roper-- so we were pretty excited to see it. We thought we should arrive an hour before showtime to get in line for a good seat. Turns out, half the theatre thought they should arrive more than an hour before showtime to get good seats! The line was sooo long! We still managed to get center seats-- just pretty close to the front. It's so much fun seeing a movie like this with die hard fans who cheer throughout the film. So what did I think of Batman?.....

I don't know......

I haven't seen it yet.......

'Huh?' You ask? Let me explain: About 3/4 though the film-- the movie stops-- the lights come on-- and the fire alarm goes off. Keep in mind this is Universal Studios. Massive fire happened here a couple of months ago, remember? With this in mind, all of us in the theatre looked around and sniffed for smoke---- we smelled nothing and demanded the return of Batman! :) After a few minutes, admitting defeat, people started standing up and filing out. A worker came in stopping them telling everybody it was a false alarm. So we waited. And waited. And Booed. And waited. I decided now was a good time to visit the ladies room. When I returned, the lights were on, the movie was playing sans sound. There were shouts of "Rewind it!", "Turn the sound on!" and "Booo!". I believe The Joker had something to do with this!

Soon the sound came on. The movie was far enough ahead that nobody understood what was going on. People started filing out of the theatre in protest. We could hear fan rumblings outside demanding their money back. We had already invested 2 hours in the movie plus the hour in line... so we stayed in the well lit theatre and tried to continue watching Batman. A few minutes later-- the movie shut off again as the fire alarm went off. Now we all filed out of the theatre and was greated by a customer service line of Indy Mac proportions!

We now have 4 free movie tickets and will have to give Batman another try sometime during the week!

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I covered the big 4th of July celebration here on the Lot where our station is located. The lot was packed with people!
I had one very bizarre experience... I was shooting live shots in the middle of the crowd... My equipment was cordoned off by a series of orange cones with yellow tape wrapped around forming what looked like a mini crime scene. I finally had 20 minutes free to sit down by my camera inside my little space and eat a piece of chicken Dave brought me. I sat there with my headphones on listening to the show in case they needed something.... Then it became clear... I had become part of the attraction on the lot. As I took a bite of chicken I looked up and saw a crowd of people watching me. They were pointing. They were taking pictures. It was really weird. And it did not stop. Every last bite of chicken was documented. I'm sure there are pictures somewhere on the internets of me sitting on the ground eating chicken. I now know what it is like to be a zoo animal.
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Hartman has finally taken to the kitty condo I bought (and spent an entire evening putting together) for her! For the first couple of weeks she turned her nose up at it and much enjoyed the box it came in!


I'm glad it finally received the Hartman seal of approval. In fact, she's sleeping in it as I write this!

I'm 2 for 2 now. Here's a little video of Hartman enjoying her new Catnip toy! She used to be apathetic to the nip. Welllll, she's Hartman!