Ride along with Henny

Thanks to rider Peter Atkins and his helmet cam, we can all experience high-level equestrian competition:

"HENNY!!!"

Atkins donned the helmet cam as he guided HJ Hampton ("Henny" for short) through the cross country course at the recent World Equestrian Games.  While I'd never want to face jumps that size (those are some big, scary obstacles) and I have no idea how they memorize that course, it's still fun to do it virtually.  The enthusiasm that Atkins and Henny have for it is infectious.  What really blew me away was that Henny's ears are pricked for almost all of the run.  Horses usually have their ears back when they are galloping.

Henny (or Henry, as his name is frequently misspelled) even has his own website.  And yes, I broke down and ordered a DVD.

Television stuff

TNT orders a 1950's Hollywood-based noir pilot: Hollywood & Vine.  I'll watch that.  Hopefully it will fare better than Marlowe, which I was eagerly anticipating back in the day.

L.A. Times Magazine interviewed Dexter hisself, Michael C. Hall.  Personal favorite quote from the article:

Q: As an Angeleno now, is there a piece of Tinseltown iconography you love seeing?
A: Every time I take Fountain, I think of Bette Davis.

In case you don't know what he's talking about, he's referring to a quote from the legendary actress, who when asked if she had any advice for aspiring actors newly arrived in Hollywood, responded, "Take Fountain".  Fountain is a relatively small street in Hollywood that parallels (and serves as an alternate to) major streets like Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica, Melrose and Wilshire.  She was asked for advice for actors and came back with advice on how to skirt the bigger, more traffic-laden streets.  Best part: It's true.  I take Fountain all the time.

Speaking of Dexter, check out these awesome Dexter-inspired posters, which according to the post are going to be available for purchase on Showtime's site.  Tempting...

Introducing the most hated band in Los Angeles

A local band decided to bring attention to themselves this morning, not through their music, but with an outrageous stunt: They blocked three of the southbound Hollywood Freeway's four lanes with a huge truck and then climbed on top of the truck and launched into a performance.  When police arrived, one of the band members took off with the keys.  Since the truck was too big to be pushed out of lanes with police cruisers, cops had to summon a heavy duty tow truck to the scene, which took some time to happen.  All of this created a monster traffic jam on both sides of the freeway.  The southbound for obvious reasons, and the northbound due to lookie-loos.

Here's footage of the "band" being removed from the truck by LAFD and arrested by LAPD, because you know, LAFD and LAPD have nothing better to do than screw around with this crap:

And no, flying the flag or (claiming that you are) giving all proceeds from the sale of your song to charity doesn't exempt you from asshole status when you pull a stupid stunt like this.  Contrary to Hollywood lore, there is such a thing as bad publicity.  It's hard to find, but congratulations dumbasses, you found it!

Imperial Stars, you suck.  Way to instantly not endear yourself to Southern Californians?  Eff up their rush hour commute.  Also, if your music was any good, it would stand on its own and you wouldn't have to resort to a gimmick to get attention.  Go back to the OC and stay off our freeways, you idiots.

Back to the Kingdom

In honor of the Kings opening their 2010-2011 season, please enjoy this recent article on future Norris Trophy winner Drew Doughty:

Doughty and Simmonds are slobs.

Off to The Bro's favorite sports bar to take in all the Kingly action tonight!

For your reading pleasure: A completely unhinged review of "Secretariat" in which the story of a racehorse is compared to Leni Riefenstahl-style master race propaganda

Seriously, I think this guy needs help.  Or maybe medication.  Possibly both: Andrew O'Hehir "reviews" Secretariat for Salon.  This is just from the first paragraph:

But the welcoming glow that imbues every corner of this nostalgic horse-racing yarn with rich, lambent color comes from within, as if the movie itself is ablaze with its own crazy sense of purpose. (Or as if someone just off-screen were burning a cross on the lawn.)

...in its totality "Secretariat" is a work of creepy, half-hilarious master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, and all the more effective because it presents as a family-friendly yarn about a nice lady and her horse.

Read the whole thing.  It's like getting a peek into the disturbed mind of someone who so despises anyone who doesn't march in lockstep (see what I did there!!!) with his way of thinking that he will take any opportunity to lash out, no matter how misplaced his anger is and no matter how inappropriate or unwarranted the venue.  Notice he couldn't even get through the article's subtitle without invoking the Tea Party, which has nothing to do with racism or the 1973 Triple Crown.  Trust me, I'm familiar with at least two of the three.

I'm surprised he didn't complain about Secretariat having so many white socks.

Secretariat in his deceptive blue & white Meadow Stable colors, rushing to his next Klan meeting.  I wasn't able to find a picture of him in his usual white sheets.

I so want to call this and announce, "RANGERS SUCK!!!"

Via Slublog on Twitter, it's the Urban Speaker in NYC!  Call up and give New Yorkers a piece of your mind!  From the link:

This is the Urban Speaker: a smartphone attached to a loud speaker attached to a traffic sign. Tomorrow, when it goes live in NYC, you'll be able to call it up and announce whatever's on your mind. I smell mischief!

This can only end in tears.  Tears of joy, that is!

That number again? (979) 997-3041.

So tempting, especially with the season just starting.

GO KINGS!!!

Kings hockey is almost upon us!

The 2010-2011 NHL season begins Thursday, with the Kings debuting Saturday night at Vancouver.

The Kings opening night roster has been set.  The full roster is here.

Jonathan Bernier will remain in L.A. as Jonathan Quick's backup.  It's going to be a hell of a battle between those two for the starting job in goal long-term.  This means last year's backup, Erik Ersberg, is odd man out.  Ersberg has been assigned to Manchester but per Hammond, he may look into playing in Europe.

Yahoo Sports put the Kings on their list of 10 Stanley Cup contenders.  ESPN goes one up on them and puts the Kings in their top 5:

I caught two playoff games at Staples Center this past spring and thought the roof was going to collapse. It's amazing to see hockey back in L.A., and this team shouldn't disappoint. Drew Doughty, Willie Mitchell, Rob Scuderi and Jack Johnson as your top four on D? Hello!

The Quacks are at #24 out of 30 teams.  Heh.

The Bleacher Report breaks down the Kings:

With a year more of maturity for the baby Kings, another playoff berth seems like a lock. Watching such a fast, scrappy team each night could prove to be the most entertaining thing in the long run.

Drew Doughty, Superstar.  Scroll down to #8:

...Drew Doughty is the consensus favorite to be that next best defenseman in the league. A finalist for the Norris in June, Doughty will be able to build off of a breakout year that saw him score 13 times and log 25 minutes a night for the Kings. Factor in the two weeks he spent surrounded by experienced, veteran makeup of Team Canada during their gold medal run and Doughty, still just 20 years old, is poised to become the second youngest Norris winner behind Bobby Orr.

Some observations on the Kings upcoming season:

• Number of players on the Kings roster age 30 and over: 5 (Michal Handzus, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ryan Smyth, Willie Mitchell and Rob Scuderi).  Smyth is the senior King at 34.
• Number of players on the Kings roster who need fake IDs to buy brewskis: 6 (Drew Doughty, Brayden Schenn, Colton Teubert, Kyle Clifford, Andrei Loktionov and Viatcheslav Voynov).  Schenn, born 8/22/91, is the baby King.
• First game: Saturday, October 9 at Vancouver Canuckleheads.
• First home game: Tuesday, October 12 vs Atlanta Thrashers.
• Final game of season: Saturday, April 9 vs the Mighty Quacks.
• Longest homestand: 8 games, December 30 through January 15 (vs Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Preddies, Columbus BJ's, Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues and Edmonton Oilers).
• Longest road trip: 10 games, February 1 through February 23 (at Minnesota Wild, Edmonton, Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, Philly, BJ's again, NY Rangers, NY Islanders, Anaheim Duckies).
• Defending Stanley Cup champs at the Staples Center: Saturday, November 27 and Monday, January 3.
• Sid the Kid and Malkin at Staples Center: Zip, zilch, nada.
• Game at which Ilya Kovalchuk will be booed every second he's on the Staples Center ice: Saturday, October 30.
• Game at which I will be in the 6th row, dead center: Sunday, December 26 vs the Quacks.
• All-Star Game: Sunday, January 30 in Raleigh, NC (home of the Whalercanes).

I am so excited about this season.  GO KINGS GO!!!

Expo a no-go

I've decided to pass on the Screenwriting Expo this year.  It just doesn't seem like there are as many classes and speakers as previous years.  I found several classes I wanted to take, but not enough to fill three days.  Also, they had previously announced David Milch as a guest, which for me would have been reason enough to attend, but he never came up on the schedule.  There were no must-sees for me this year (unlike last year when guests included John Cleese and William Goldman, CSI creator Anthony Zuiker, and James Manos, Jr., who adapted Dexter for television).  I'm not sure if it's just me or if the Expo is just having a weak year.  Either way, it's kind of a shame, because when I enjoy the Expo I really, really enjoy the Expo and I've been looking forward to it all year.

An additional bummer in all this is that because I planned on attending the Expo, I passed up on attending SledgeFest 2010, which is now sold out.  A celebration of the hysterically funny 1980's TV series Sledge Hammer, it's taking place this weekend at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax.  Although the website says it's the first and last fest, I'm hoping that since they sold out, they'll think about having another one in the future.

In writing competition news, the Scriptapalooza TV deadline (extended to October 4) has come and gone without me finishing my White Collar spec.  I'm making progress that I'm happy with, but haven't come up with the big "gotcha" moment to resolve it.  It'll come.  Next deadline is December 31 for the Script Pipeline (formerly Script P.I.M.P.) competition.

Star Wars gets the silent treatment

The "Luke, I am your father" scene re-imagined as a silent film.  This is brilliant and hilarious:

 

H/T to AoSHQ.

Another beautiful day in L.A.

After a brutal, record-breaking Monday, the past few days have been absolutely gorgeous.

This is the view from my sliding glass door this morning:

Yep.  Beeeeoooootiful!!!

Update:

Secretariat World Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre

Obviously, my invitation was lost in the mail.


The real star is apparently putting in an appearance tonight.  That's a horse trailer and you can't really see it in the picture, but there are shavings under that tent.  For you non-horsey types, shavings are used as bedding in box stalls.



Dang, what a beautiful animal.



I really hope they did Big Red justice.  He should have had a film years ago.

Kings 8, Ducks 3 (It's only preseason, but if they both want to keep playing like this...)

I don't normally pay much attention to preseason hockey.  Not sure why, I just don't get interested until opening night, when the games start to actually count.  But this headline got my hockey-loving attention:

Kings should be good . . . but THIS good?  Yes, it's only an exhibition, but L.A.'s 8-3 victory over the defense-challenged Ducks could be an indication of what the regular season might hold in store for the Southland teams.

Besides the fact that it's so loooong (because we need another reason to bag on the L.A. Times) if this is in fact what's in store for both teams this season, then I am going to be one really happy and smug Kings fan.  It's enough for me for the Kings to be successful, but if the Quacks want to epic fail at the same time that works too.

Regular season starts October 8 (aka my Dad's birthday) at Detroit for the Ducks and October 9 at Vancouver for my wicked-awesome Kings.  Wow.  Opening against the Red Wings.  In Detroit.  Just get out the roasting pans now.

You...yes you...are toast!