Warner Brother's Studio Visit

How many Warner Brothers were there? That was a question I was unaware that I didn't know the answer to. On a recent trip to the studio grounds---for a tourist-style trip, even---I eventually learned the answer.

Early on, in the waiting zone before getting on the tram for the guided tour, there are plenty of things to look at, plenty of chest-puffing, imagination-hold flexing images, and I snapped a pic of one of the kinkiest, weirdest superhero movie ever made, Batman Returns:

The floor was a Google Map style picture, with the occasional table or water tower were scaled up buildings or, eh, the following sculpture:

The drive around was heavy with, "Remember in (insert television show I never watched) when (some action that I had no connection to)? Thatw as right there!" The people in my tram occasionally 'ooohed', but other times, they were not scared to say, "I never saw that." I smirked.

There were many "Little Midwest" and "Little New York" style streets, which were, eh, quaint. I thought it was cool, or noticeable anyway, that nowhere were doorknobs. The tram driving tour guide explained that the doorknobs get put on once the time era that'll be filmed get's set.

One show that was shot entirely on the grounds was NBC's Friends. We saw the plaque on the wall of the soundstage where the main scenes were filmed, but we also saw the stairs where Ross played his electronic keyboard before going toi get dressed for Rachel for the prom in the VHS flashback video they watch when Ross and Rachel finally get together:

Those building are always so funny. They look normal, but they never have electricity or working water, and once you get above the normal human line of sight, the upper parts of theses "houses" are just a series of catwalks for grips to set lighting and hold boom mikes:

Here's the house from A Christmas Story:

Here's the shop, where they make all the gear they use on the sets where they film:

They filmed plenty of movies in this space also, back in the 1940s.

The large sound stage below with the WB on it is the largest sound stage ion America, nearly 100 feet tall:

They filmed really big set pieces there. Think the final scene in the Goonies with the ship. It turns out, at one point, they realized they just needed more space. So, instead of adding thirty feet to the top---which would be very time consuming and expensive---they grabbed fifty guys and bunch of cranks and hand-cranked the entire structure up thirty feet, adding these buttresses to the bottom of the hastily created walls:

Later on, during a walking tour, I snaped a pic of some cartoon things I liked. Also, some stuff for the kids:

They put two of the best Batmobiles next to each other, 1989 and 2022:

The whole DC comics area was pretty cool, while the Harry Potter zone was lost on me.

We'll end with a Wonder Woman statue:

Four. Originally there were four brothers: Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack.

Camping at Pinnacles

We did another camping trip, the first since 2022. This time we went to Pinnacles National Park. Pinnacles is buried along CA RT 25, a north-south highway between US Hwy 101 and I-5, about the same position as Fresno.

It's a beautiful park, and, while we didn't really get to any of the awesome hikes, we did get the kids lots of unsupervised play time.

We met some friends from San Luis, and they had invited/arranged for many parties to be in our group on this trip. There was Sam and Aurie, our good friends, and Ken and Christine (we go way back), Meg and Paul (we just met them), and the Bulgarians, as Sam and Aurie called them (Stan and Nelly).

And, as it happened, there were many kids. Ken and Christine have two kids, aged 15 and 14; Meg and Paul have two kids, aged 9 and 4; and the Stan and Nelly have two kids, aged 5 and 3. So, Cass had a running mate (Liam), Camille had a couple of pals (Radha and Zephyr) and enjoyed keeping an eye on the youngest boy, Dian.

Watching them traipse all over the campsite was freaking great. They'd disappear for an hour, maybe more, and nobody ever got nervous or bent out of shape.

Cass and Liam would go exploring the creek in the vicinity, and came back with an elaborate story about Danger Creek, as they called it. They sat and wrote down the adventure, complete with a rather extensive map of the area.

Pinnacles is known for their California condors, and we mave spotted them soaring overhead on occasion:

The tiny hike we did go on was easy going and showcased the hills and live oak in the zone:

We did miss the caves, that looked spectacular from the photos of those who went. It was tough, since they'd closed the road and were using a shuttle bus to get there. The wait for the bus was long and crowded, and we decided to let the kids just run rampant instead of waiting and hiking more.

Below is a picture of a stairwell built into the dirt that heads down the Danger Creek. The boys would head left up the creek on their adventures, after exploring all the campsites across the river and up the other side of this tiny gorge:

The trip was very nice, if nearly six hours away, and we'd love to return and see the caves. Really, though, getting the kids some unsupervised play time was amazing enough, and making new friends along the way was equally great.

Singularities Up Close

A singularity, in mostly common parlance, refers to a part of a black hole, the center point of infinite density. But singularities exist in another place in mathematics, and that's where a function is no longer defined at a given point.

Now, sometimes the result of when functions don't exist at given points are asymptotes, dotted vertical lines where the curves shoot off, either up or down, towards infinity and hugging those dotted lines, never to cross.

Other times, mathematical functions will have undefined points, but these will result in holes instead of those pesky asymptotes. These are easy for Algebra students to identify and draw into their sketches, but calculator devices will never show them, because the hole will be too small considering how the calculator's numbering works.

Recently I was examining two functions, trying to estimate what the output of the function would be where the hole would exist. Here're the functions:

Now, I put these here with their colors, red and green, as in a moment I'll display what the graphs look like---the red will be the red graph and the green, the green. So, for a a quick math moment: the problem with the red graph is at the point x=1. For that equation, at x=1, we can finagle the graph to be 0/0, which is a problem, but a problem where we should be able to estimate the output. For the green equation, the problem is at x=0. When x=0 there, again we get 0/0 (big problem), which, again, while problematic, should give us a hole and allow us to estimate the output.

So, stay with me. Here's the graph, with circles around where the holes would be:

So, on the green graph, x=0 is a hole (or would be on an algebra student's graph), and on the red graph, x=1 is a hole. Neither look like holes, because of he graphical nature of our graphing device, here it being Desmos, a wonderful free online graphing calculator.

How far can we zoom in? Well...let's see...let's take a closer look at the green graph, where the hole should be. Let's zoom in...

Not much happening...

Still not much, but...uh oh, there's some jazz happenings here:

Whoa! This is super close up, and this is the chaos arriving as we approach the singularity. This is the singularity, this is the function breaking down the closer and closer we get to the singularity, the point at which the function ceases to exist:

Let's take a look at the red graph:

Not much happening...let's keep zooming in...

Still need some zooming...

Whoa, there's some jazz, and as we keep zooming, we see the singularity again:

This is where the the function breaks down, as it oscillates back and forth uncontrollably.

The difference between how these singularities look within the confines of Desmos is fascinating. 

I've never looked so closely at singularities before. And really, how many of us have?

How many of us have gotten so close to singularities before!

Northwest League is Winning

I was doing some research on sports teams that use Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, as a mascot or logo. More logo, I suppose, because Squatch was the name of the Supersonics mascot back before they were stolen away from Seattle:

I was really interested in Bigfoot/Sasquatch logos, and, of course, Minor League Baseball didn't disappoint:

I love this. Eugene, Oregon, has a minor league team named after the historic cannabis growing region, the "Emerald Triangle", and uses Bigfoot prominently in its logo. Seeing this, I ventured over to the other teams in this league, and was reminded of one of my earlier favorite, something I've written about before:

The red-eyed frog dosing itself with a baseball! I also love the "E" for Everett being the same trident-M the Mariners used for many years as their primary logo, letting me know that this is a Mariners affiliate.

But two awesome logos weren't enough for this small class-A league. They also sport the beer additive logo, the Hillsboro Hops:

Good show, minor league, good show. There'll always be a crazy "Iron Ducks" or "Fire Ants," but a nice trio of Bigfoot, tab-dropping-frog, and hop cone flower, all in the same league? Kick ass.

But perusing the teams more led me to the next team:

Now, the Spokane Indians aren't some new fangled team set up recently to help the Colorado Rockies get their young hitters some more plate appearances or pitchers some more batters to face---even if that's kinda what it's used for now. The Spokane Indians are a historic, old-timey minor league team, and maybe that should be Minor League team, with the capitals.

This team was founded in 1890 and played for many years in the Pacific Coast League, the best minor league for many years, so good in fact, that it was about to be named a third Major League right before the Giants and Dodgers left New York City, and Brooklyn, and moved to California.

I like the understated logo look, and when I mentioned the team name and showed the logo to Corrie, she gave it a sideways look. "Spokane Indians?" she said. So I looked it up...

Back when the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) and Washington Redskins (now Commanders) were continuously coming under obvious and deserved scrutiny, the Spokane Indians---the Salish people living ion the area for whom the team is named---reached out to the team. They said they didn't necessarily want to fight against the team, but, if the team was interested, wanted to work with them. The team said, "100%, we'd love to." The Spokane gave some notes on respectful logo looks, some possible alternates (all adopted, and, sidenote: love the red-band trout alternates!), and even suggested they occasionally use the Salish spelling of "Spokane" on the jersey:

Now the team and the Spokane work together on promotions for the team and fundraisers for the rez. Some signage in the park even is presented in both Salish and English. It seems to have worked out okay for both of them.

Rounding out the logos from this league, we have this awesome weirdo:

A freaking Volcano:

And some classically understated-Canadian roundel:

This team is the remnants of the late-70s era Pacific Coast Team of the same name and logo. Remember, some places, you just field a team and name them what it's supposed to be.

Now, just for reference, here's a map with these cities shown, as I didn't know what the three cities were for the Tri-Cities Dust Devils, nor did I realize that Everett was a Seattle satellite, and, for some reason, the Volcanoes of Salem aren't shown?

The Pacific Northwest, man. It's a different kind of place.

St. Patrick's Day, 2025

Bought a corned beef from our farmer people, and it was good. It was a little fancier than we otherwise like, which is that it was heavy with the other spices---mustard seed and cinnamon---whereas we're a little basic: we like just the all spice berries and crushed bay leaf. Those were present in this as well, but the other profiles were heavy.

Having kids during this holiday shenanigans is different: no more strolling to wait in loine at the bar at 3 am. Just work, make dinner, have just a little whiskey. All good. 

I did find a picture from St. Patrick's 2009, from hanging out with Marc at their place in Hell's Kitchen, and made a collage with a picture from myself from this year. So, 16 years apart to the day, wearing the same shirt...

And I look mostly the same.

After making a purchase (yay sale prices), I may be adding a new wrinkle to my St. Patrick's Day dinner plans:

These pineberries (white strawberries) were awesome and we ate the entire clamshell in about six minutes. I'm looking to get these often.

Happy Springtime (tomorrow)! Happy St. Paddy's, or, as my kids call it, St. Daddy's Day!

The Interview Will Continue Verbally

I came home after a baseball game with Cass and saw the remnants of an "interview" Camille had with Corrie:

I tried to imagine the conversation as I enjoyed Camille's scrawling handwriting, as she learns her letters and improves her reading. Plus, how many times have 5 years olds written out the names of such cool bands before?

Go Surf!

Youth sports is fun. At least, it's more fun to watch that I would have guessed. But it does get a little pricey. To combat this, Corrie signed me up to be an assistant coach. At least that's what she thought. But, signing up as a coach erases the price to that family, so that's more than enough motivation.

When I went to one of the "assistant coach" meetings, they said: Be sure to be here for the tryouts, so you can keep track of players for the draft a few days later, and then don'tmiss the draft, and soon we'll get your team name and cap designs.

My raised eyebrows said, Umm, what? Running a practice in the first few weeks was more stressful than coaching the games; I can say that with experiences as the head-coach, draft-maven, and team-namer.

Originally I went with the name Tyrants. I was going togo with a t-rex theme, and it sounded like it fit the times, anyway. I was going to go with a a black and white, cursive, uplifting script team name across the chest, white letters on black shirt, so we could have black pants (score one for non-white pants). But this was nixed on account of having to steal the images and jersey designs from established teams, and beyond a novel I'm writing, there are no major league, minor league, or college team sporting that name.

After a long discussion with Cass, and going back and forth a few times between a few other names, I made the executive decision and chose the Surf, as in: the Long Beach Surf. I went with an LA soccer team from the late 70s for the cresting wave logo, but really, I was interested in a cyan (sky blue) cap with the neon green interlocking LB cap. I thought the cap would stand out.

The jersey folks told me they changed the hat plan, but thought it would work. They settled on:

Navy crown, cyan button, vents, and bill, and the neon green LB, reminiscent of both the Seahawks and the TB Rays (Corrie had suggested all navy with the green LB, so as to read it better from a distance).

It's turned out to be the runaway star of the season, with everyone complimenting it and asking if there are more, here in the Southland as well as my people from across the country.

Here's Cass's #3 kit:

My jersey is numbered 99 (All rise!) and so far we're 1-0 on the season.

It wasn't that hot, but I was sweating nonetheless...

This coaching deal has been something new. I got used to different titles: chef, mister...and now I'm called "coach" pretty regularly by a certain tiny group of parents and kids. 

Go Surf!

Bad Idea Saturday

I've written about Bad Idea a few times before, and by "Bad Idea" I mean the comic book company. I wrote about them in 2021, 2023, and last year, 2024.

Apparently, I haven't unsubscribed from different Bad Idea email alerts, and one of them from a few weeks ago was about a get together in Eagle Rock at a comic shop called Revenge Of. This was a post convention party and you had to RSVP, but it was free. I was not going to whatever convention it was associated with, but I'd thought I'd RSVP anyway. Maybe they wouldn't care. Maybe I could spend a Saturday evening out of the house like a normal adult.

I was on the list, but they never checked. I got my freebie comic, and had it autographed. They had fre pizza and free beer, which was nice. They had many pinball machines and handed out five dollars in tokens to anybody who wanted. They had an event space behind their shop where they had a DJ, a table covered with meat and cheese and fruit, more drinks, the pizza station, and a photo-op mock up of the mech suit one of their characters wears.

On the patio of the actual grounds, they had a themed corn-hole setup as well as wall mounted signage:

I bought two comics from the shop, one for each of my kids. Outside they had a coin-operated claw machine full of stuffed animals, teddy bears and panda bears, both sporting Bad Idea shirts. I was there earlier than the madness of the later times, and I approached the machine. I didn't really have quarters to pump inside, but when I got there, I moved the joystick and the claw jumped to life. A digital readout started counting down from 19. I moved the claw to a nearby pink bear on top of a pile, pressed the button, and caught the bear. It was the easiest claw maneuver I ever had. I moved the claw over the hole, and proceeded to carry the bear for the remainder of the night:

"Ooh! You got a bear!" people would gasp. "Yeah, it's for my daughter..." I would answer. I soon realized that I needed to get another comic for my son, just to even the gift caper out.

Mike, the erstwhile comic shop owner from our building, was there with his cool wife, and we chatted for a bit. It was nice to talk with other adults. It was nice to be out and about on a Saturday, but I would have liked Corrie to have been there. The free beer was nice, but since Long Beach and Eagle Rock are 40 minutes apart in no traffic, "free beer" is more of a concept than a real thing to fully enjoy.

Bad Idea strikes again! Thanks for the fun!

The Robots are Crossing Linden

The supermarket that I and my family visit is about one-thousand feet from our home. We walk unless we're on the way home from points further away and already in the car. Since you can count on two hands the days when the rain has been rough in the last, er, decade, inclement weather generally has no bearing on our grocery store decisions.

So, as was the case, I was making an evening trip to the grocery store. I walk south to Broadway, and then east along Broadway two blocks to Atlantic, where the Vons is. The block between my street, Elm, and Atlantic is Linden. (On a side note, the intersection of Broadway and Linden in downtown Long Beach is my favorite intersection...like maybe anywhere, which is a weird thing to say.)

As I waited to cross Linden at a red light along Broadway, on the opposite sidewalk was what looked like a big rectangular cooler on with serious off-roading wheels. Nice, I remember thinking, have a wheeled cooler would make parts of camping easier. I glanced around on that side of the street for someone getting ready to push it across one the light changed. But then I noticed that it had headlights. Once the light changed, we both started going, me to my coming side, east towards Atlantic and Vons, and it heading west.

What I had originally thought was some kind of pushing handle, was a lit-up touch screen, with four large letters centered on the screen. As we got closer and about to pass each other, I could read these four letters as "Alan."

Alan didn't have any kind of delivery-service company markings anywhere on, eh, it...him? As we passed, I smiled and wanted to say, "Hey Alan, how're you doin?" But I didn't. Would it have been confused? Probably not, but it was doing something, toiling across the street late at night.

As I grabbed the things I needed from the store, I was deep in thought about Alan. Was this Alan a programmable tool? Was it something you said, "Okay, Alan, I need you to go to Vons...get milk and eggs," or "Alan...go to Vons and pick up order #XX-XXXX?" Was it coming from Vons? Was it just a helper machine, and if so, isn't that how all origin stories about AI and the robot-apocalypse start out?

Where was it heading to? Did it have a nice spot to charge it's power core in the apartment of its owner? Could it ever be its own owner? Should it be its own owner? How long before those conversations are had?

I laughed it off---the coming existential crisis about AI and robotics---and marveled at my own lifespan: I'm of that weird in-between generation: too young for Gen-X proper and too old for Millenial...you know, first email account was basically in college, voted in 2000 for Nader, was a twenty-something during the post-9-11 world, now a forty-something parent watching cartoon supervillains taking over the country, AI is a homework cheating app on phones, and robots running errands at all hours of the night.

I mentioned it to Corrie, and she told me about the robot she saw, a taller, trapezoid-looking deal, passing her as she walked home from Vons. Whatta woild, we laughed.

The other night, as we checked out the neighborhood from our balcony, I saw Alan again. At least, I think it's Alan. This time Alan was again crossing Linden, only they were heading east, and was on 3rd, the block up from Broadway in our fair neck of the woods:

I'm not even sure which I want it to be more: is Alan out on a different errand? Maybe mapping out different streets of our shared neighborhood? Or, wait for it, is this a different robot of Alan's type? Are there just a whole slew of robots coming through downtown Long Beach?

Not a terrible decision, by any stretch, except for the feces and urine all over the place and the crowds of unhoused taking up more and more bare sleeping nooks and the occasional unhoused with severe social issues who ends up screaming into the night very loudly and for hours on end, our zone is very cool.

And I doubt Alan would be too bothered by the occasional hours-long scream fest, in any case.

By Its Cover, I Guess

So, what happened was...

I found a new author, or, rather, I finally followed up with some authorial snooping, in the sense that one of my favorite author's (Pynchon) favorite author, Peter Matthiessen, has found his way into my possession. With a Decemberween gift-card I made the purchase of an early favorite of fans of Matthiessen, Far Tortuga:

While I waited for the book to arrive, I learned about "Shadow Country, another Matthiessen novel, and a winner of the 2008 National Book Award. I picked it up too, and it arrived and I'm 200 pages into it. It's a masterpiece.

Matthiessen is a rather badass writer, and the only person to win the National Book Award in both fiction (Shadow Country), and non-fiction, for "The Snow Leopard." Matthiessen was a travel writer, adventurer, philosopher, and Leonard Peltier supporter---he was the white writer that first brought Peltier's plight (getting hosed by the feds) to (white) society at large.

Back to Far Tortuga...why start a 900 page book (Shadow Country) when this book's right here? Well, while Far Tortuga was the first thing I ordered, it was the last thing to arrive. 

That may have been because of how I ordered it. I found a copy that was within a price range that was acceptable. But the cover wasn't necessarily doing it for me (which is silly and weird), so I kept scrolling down the choices on Amazon and found something that suited my feelings a little more. Hence the cover above.

When it got here, I tore open the package and glanced at the back:

Wait...what?

I started thumbing through it...

I did not order the French version! Dammit Amazon!

I went back to check in to my Amazon account and see what I could do...about...wait, what?

So, it turns out I never actually clicked on the cover above's actual sale-page: it was entirely in French. Apparently, I just clicked on the cover, and put that order through without ever examining it closer.

Oops. But now i have a book for Delphine, so that's cool.

Plus, look how cool it looks inside:

I can't wait to get the English version, which I did order and have it coming.

Until then, there's this:

This is actually a reworking of three novels that Matthiessen wrote and published earlier. His original idea was for a single, mysterious, 1500 page book, but the publishers had him break it up. Later in life he put it all back together after editing it and reworking the middle section.

It follows the framework of Edgar J. Watson's murder at the hands of his neighbors. Well, that's the opening scene, anyway. The first section follows that initial gun-down in the street with personal statements and recollections from all the people who either participated or witnessed the events, or were close in some way with Watson. Each person has their own voice and personal schema, and Matthiessen gives each their own distinct life.

The middle section has, apparently since I've yet to get that far, at its center one of Watson's sons as a forty-year-ish-old trying to figure out why his father was killed. The last section is, I hear, Watson retelling his own life story, from start to finish, so the book starts and ends with the same scene, just from different perspectives.

Homey could write, yo.