Favorite gift so far

Now I still have friends to see and mail to go through when I get home (and P.S. it's not a contest guys) but so far my favorite gift of the season is this:

It's a book my sister gave me, about the size of a children's book, full of pictures of my dog. 

It's really nice and glossy, professionally printed and bound  by the people at Snapfish. I recommend this if you can get your hands on some jpgs ahead of time. 

In fact get the pics now while there is time for them to forget that they caught you on their computer going through their files. 

More on the gingerbread

It looks like I may be doing Xmas blogs into January.

But I wanted to show some of the more successful gingerbread houses that my friends did at our party.

We also decorated gingerbread people. This one appears to be on rollerblades. 

This one is mine. Someone said he looked like Captain America (R.I.P.)

And here he is with no pants.

But no matter how good they were, they all ended up in the same place. 

Sorry folks, you should have taken them home.

Oh that explains it

I'm not making this up. This was my horoscope in the Kauai newspaper last time I was there. 

Man it's cold

I'm not having a contest here with the people back east, but for California it is freaking freezing at my parent's house.

Nobody Warned Me

I'm at my parent's house, watching movies on cable. It's good. I'm clearing stuff out of my netflix cue here. So far I've enjoyed both Fracture and The Negotiator. 

But nobody warned me about Eastern Promises. Nobody told that Viggo would be showing full area. I mean it was a naked beat down complete with high kicks and somersaults. I for one, was caught off guard. 

So in case you haven't seen it. Be advised, you WILL see under carriage. 

Exterior decorators

So in theme with out project based parties we hosted a build and decorate Gingerbread House Party.

We invited our friends and filled the table with all kinds of icing, candy, and sprinkles.

Little did I know the recommendation is to space the process of baking, building and decorating over three days. 

On top of that we were aiming for an ambitious castle design including round towers. 

Then there was the issue of the royal icing, the stuff just wasn't drying for me. 

So I started just decorating the gingerbread men and random pieces on the table. 

Eventually all I had was the tower, which we couldn't help but notice it looked like the torch on the Statue of Liberty. 

But it was a nice crowd and we had Christmas Crackers (that's where the paper hats came from). 

And Now Ladies And Gentlemen...

I give you Nunu's latest trick.

Holy Crap!

I thought the storm was bad the last time.

But Wednesday night was a doozy.

At first the wind was kind of funny.

Then it started to get scary later that night...

 

and into the morning.

 

It blew out the screens in the cottage.

Then the rain came.

And the flooding.

You said it.

For Safe Travels

I recommend packing your valuables in foam.

or...

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!!!

Oh Hawaii why can't you grow citrus?

I don't get it. It's tropical here. Hawaii has the ugliest citrus I've ever seen. 

And this is one of the good ones. 

It wouldn't be so bad, if it actually tasted good, but I have yet to find a sweet one. 

I'm all about buying local,  but if I want decent citrus punch in the morning. 

I gotta go with California Valencia. 

All of my Pants have Holes in the Pockets

Well my wardrobe pants do anyway.

See it's all for sound.

I usually wear a microphone when I'm shooting a scene. The wire for this microphone is run under my clothes. 

Here let me show you with this diagram of what it looks like under my shirt. 

Okay now sometimes they tape the mic to my chest. 

This is never a good idea in my opinion. See, I'm a sweater. As in, I sweat. And whether you work indoors (where you can't have the air conditioning on because of the noise) or in the jungle (where the humidity never stops) sweat will pour. I've said it before, but I often start shooting a scene with fake sweat sprayed on my forehead but by the end of it, it's all real. So if you stick a piece of tape on my chest, it will come off. However the tape down by my belly button will not. In fact I'll be scrubbing the sticky goop stuck to my gut for days.

Another option is to "put a bug in my hair" which takes a team to do. 

First the hair department will clip it into the hair over my ear with wig clips. Then wardrobe will help me anchor the wire with some slack to the top of my shirt so the wire doesn't pull my hair when I turn my head in the scene. Finally sound will run the wire down my back and around to the pocket. 

Oh yes the pocket. (This blog IS about my pockets.)

So you can't just run the wire under your shirt and stick it in your pocket because the wire will tend to poke out the bottom. So instead you shove the wire down your pants and then run it into your pocket from the inside. Thanks to a little hole cut in the pocket by sound. 

So all of my pants have holes in the pockets.