Monthly Archives: August 2007
Lunar Eclipse
| August 28, 2007 | Posted by Angela under Random |
We woke up at about 4:30am this morning to check out the lunar eclipse. It was bit cloudy so it was very hard to see anything. I got a snapshot of it, a bit blurry though. You can read more about this lunar eclipse at their dedicated page on the NASA site.
Child abuse has to stop
| August 27, 2007 | Posted by Angela under Random |
I am watching the news and it seems like everyday there is a case of child abuse. Tonight, I heard the worst.
This really makes me so sick to my stomach. I don’t understand how anyone can hurt a child. I mean this girl was chained up, abused and suffered from malnutrition. Apparently, Child Protective Services had visited the house back in 2004 but the other children in the house denied any allegations of child abuse and they couldn’t prove any signs of child abuse.
I hate to write about anything negative but I feel so strongly about this issue and it is becoming more and more common that something really needs to be done. I know that there are ways to help in a reactive manner through organizations such as CASA. You can donate money, become an advocate, volunteer and I plan to help in these ways. My main concern though is prevention. How can we help prevent child abuse from happening in the first place? Why does it happen? It could be parents with drug abuse, families in poverty, highly stressed parents, or people that are just messed up in the head and have no business having children. The cycle will never end either.
I truly believe that people should have a license to have a child. I know that this might sound crazy but I can’t think of any way around it. If you don’t have a license and you have a child, you should go to jail. I mean those that have children and care for them properly, would you mind getting a license knowing that this could help prevent child abuse?
Margaritas gone bad
| August 19, 2007 | Posted by Angela under Local Places & Events |
We checked out the Margarita Pour Off this past weekend. Margarita Pour Off is an event held in Sunken Gardens where various vendors showcase their margaritas for taste testing. It is sponsored by a local radio station, 99.5 Kiss and this year was the 25th anniversary. This was my first time attending and it will be my last time attending. This event was so ridiculously terrible that I would be embarrassed if any tourists were there.
We get there around 3pm and it is burning hot outside. Tickets were $20 to get in. Luckily, this guy was trying to get rid of some extra tickets he had and we got our tickets for $10. Before you enter the gate, you are given 10 tickets. Each ticket is used for a margarita test. Right when you walk in, you see a cover band playing on the right side where the outdoor auditorium is set up. I really don’t know who was playing and really didn’t care to know.
Behind the auditorium was where the line of booths were set up. I wasn’t aware that I was suppose to wear a string bikini top but apparently that was the dress code. So we walked down the row of booths and started tasting margaritas. First, the size of the taste was half the size of a bathroom cup. It was so small that the vendors could barely pour margarita in it without spilling it on the sides. Some of them were so warm because they had been sitting out in heat. All you hear are people yelling at you to come try their margarita. I started looking at which bars and restaurants were showcasing and it was mostly dance clubs and strip clubs. It felt more like they were trying to get you to go to their club. It was seriously annoying.
You could buy more tickets to get drinks and food. You weren’t able to buy margaritas from the vendors though. I mean if I liked the taste of one margarita, I wanted the option to buy a glass.
The only good thing about the whole event was that I discovered the avocado margarita from Aldaco’s. I know it does not sound appetizing, but oh my goodness, it was so good! It has a creamier texture somewhat like a smoothie. It was not too sweet and you serve it with a chili lime rim. I liked it so much, that I got 6 samples. It is better to taste it before you know what it is because you might not want to try it after knowing it has an avocado base.
So we stayed for less than an hour and walked to down to a local bar, the Bombay Bicycle Club, where there was air conditioning and had a few cold ones.
Margarita Pour Off was so awful and I would tell anyone not to go.
Viewing of the 48 hour films at the Alamo Drafthouse
| August 15, 2007 | Posted by Angela under The Arts, Film, Music, Fashion |
So I went to check out the final films of the San Antonio 48 ho
ur film project at the Alamo Drafthouse. The Alamo Drafthouse is a cool place to watch movies because it has a bar and you can order food and drinks during the movie. They also show old school movies such as the first Ghost Busters movie which they are currently showing now.
There were 2 groups, A and B. Travis Thomsen (co-worker) of Dark Design Productions was part of Group A which consisted of 13 films. Travis ended up choosing Horror for the genre giving him a huge amount of relief that it wasn’t Romance or Western. Travis’s film was about 2 tech guys working the weekend shift at a computer company. The movie was filmed at the ServerBeach office in San Antonio, Texas. If you are in the technology industry, you probably generally know what it is like to be a tech guy on the night shift or weekend shift where you are the only one in the office. It can be so dead quiet that you might start going a bit crazy. So crazy that you start seeing vampires. This is what Travis’ movie is about: tech guys seeing vampires. There is more to it but you have to see it, you will be cracking up! Well done, Travis! The San Antonio Express News (primary SA paper) followed Travis during the 48 hours of filming and he will be in a write up in the upcoming paper. All the films were entertaining. You have to check out Captain Awesome…if you can handle seeing grown men in tight leggings.
I was impressed with the 48 hour film project. VISA is a sponsor of the project and before the screening, they had a few commercials from some of the sponsors. VISA’s ad was great and pertained to the whole film making scene. I think the hosting industry should pay more attention to the under ground film making scene. A lot of these film directors need a place to upload their movies. YouTube’s time limit on videos is 10 minutes so they need another solution such as a server with lots of bandwidth. Film making is a niche market, a growing market and it is a great opportunity for hosting providers to tap into.
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