OK just finished the IllNatural video shoot. That is the last uncatered shoot I do. Comon folks if you're going to make people sit around and listen to the same song over and over and over the least you could do is feed em and give them something to drink. Organization is a good thing too. The next time I show up on time and there is no one in charge to meet me I'm outta there. The band and film crew didn't show up until 30 minutes after I did. Not sure why I hung out. Fortunately the tune is pretty nice an R&B/Rap fusion that works very nicely.

Afterwards the Meniscus Show was upstairs. I don't know why I bother to go to scm's parties. They are always poorly planned and I still couldn't get a beer. The art was quite nice. But once again the highlight of the night was when I left. NPR was doing a show on Pat Methany.

I realized today that my problem is not with authority but with poorly executed authority. Sadly most, but certainly not all, authority that I come across is poorly executed.

Friday in Portland, ME

Hung out with Tom and Jen last night. Met some friends from work at the Top of the East. Great view, very comfy chairs, lousy service and expensive drinks that were not full enough. Then went to the Free Street Taverna for some eats and were totally dissed by the nonexistant wait staff. Don't know what the deal is with them but it is rare that I enjoy my time there. It has happened but it is rare. Which is too bad because I really like the location.

The highlight of the night was the Fairfield Porter exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art and a quick gyro at the kitchen.

The PMA is free on Friday evenings something which I really appreciate. We went because Tom is an Amherst graduate and Porter was the artist in residence there for a while. It was time well spent. The paintings were colorful and pleasing. Porter has a very painterly style which still manages to convey a feeling of lightness. He is summer vacation. The Porter exhibit is up for another couple of weeks so get there soon.

After being totally ignored by the waitstaff at fst, we left free street and crossed congress to the Kitchen. Look for their site, thekitch.com coming soon. We got there just as they were closing. I asked if they were still serving and even though they had shut everything down the owner looked up and said "we'll serve you."

Talk about customer service! Tom and I had a Gyro. Jen had the Jamaican Jerk Chicken wrap. She and Tom ended up switching. I had the dregs of the wrap and while quite spicy, duh, it was most tasty. The gyro was good but next time I will order the JJC wrap.

We ended the night at Three Dollar Deweys. Another disapointing wait for the waitress but at least she showed up. A sign of the autumn to come, Sam Adams Octoberfest was on tap.

Overall it was a night of extremes in customer service. But we had fun and that's what counts.

PMA Film Festival

Friday night at Congress Square there was proof that film making is alive and well in Maine. After a good time in the Eastland hotel lobby bar meeting the various film folk and sitting out the rain, the movies started. This was my first time at the festival so I don't know how previous years went but the SRO crowd braved the threat of rain and wet seats to view 90 minutes of some quality short films.

The PMAFF is put on by Humongous Productions and Portland Media Artists. It was sponsored this year by Coffee by Design. Although in the past the city has chipped in some cash for a summer full of events at Congress Square, this summer's events have been done totally with private funds.

See Pictures at http://franklinmcmahon.com/

The Ratings

the films are listed in the order they were shown.

Male Tale It turns out that women have adventures, too. A light film about the sexual adventures of three barmaids. It was a good start to fine evening. Filmmaker-Lew-Ann Leen. I give it a 2.7 out of 5.


Sidesitters Do you uh y'know sidesit?

Ok in the interests of full disclosure, I had a part in this flick, but my views were backed up by other folk. That said, this was the best film of the evening. Some of the others came close but this film really showed that with a talented, dedicated cast and crew quality filmmaking can be done without even a small budget.

Everybody has some faults. How you react to them is up to you. Started the crowd laughing. Filmmaker-Chris Watkins I give it a 4.2 of 5

Cowboys and Indians Indians are born not made or not. A telling tale about how a casino makes money for no one but the casino. Filmmaker-Luigi Scarcelli. I give it a 3.9 of 5

Beneath the Frost line Sometimes old secrets are best left untold. OK I kinda saw where this wanted to go but I'm not sure it got there. Still, it had some good make up. Filmmaker-Andy Davis. I give it a 2.6 of 5

Zev on Humans Zev explains what he knows about humans. And A pig auditions for the circus in the Circus Audition. Outstanding animation with a fast pleasent punch. Filmmaker-Dave Poole. I give it 4.1 of 5

Split Second Humans really are frail creatures. And they need attention. Filmmaker- Kevin DiBacco I give it 3.5 of 5.

Overall I give it 4.2. It was an outstanding evening. The people I met were very nice and they had cheese at the party. The venue was great. The folk were interesting. It was obvious that alot of work had gone on behind the scenes. The rain even stopped for the show.

Don't go nil with four spades

Ok so I play a fair amount of spades on the net. It comes with XP I like it as it's always available for a couple of quick hands. There are people speaking all sorts of languages playing it. It's a fine example of Microsoft's ability at localization. But the people playing expert level aren't always the best.

What's the point of going nil with 4 spades. There are only 13 of them in a deck and if things balance out then on average if you have four spades even four lousy spades you're gonna take a trick. I mean sure it's been done and it's not like someone's life depends on it... as far as you know. But if someone's gonna play expert level they could at least play as though they understood the odds.

Or maybe they just lost focus.

When playing backgammon if you're way behind and someone doubles take the chance to resign rather than playing on and losing twice what you would have lost if you didn't accept the double.

California Recall Dreaming

So over one hundred people filed to run for governor of the state of California. $3500 or 10,000 signatures and you're in the race. WooHoo. In order to win all that is needed is to get a majority of the votes. Some actor could win with 15% of the vote. That's the way to choose a cheif executive.

Gray Davis can't be on the ballot of people to win the recall. He has to win by a full 50% of the vote in order to keep his job.

It turns out though that if a person votes no do not recall, that she can still vote for someone to replace Davis should he lose. So all you Californians out there don't forget to fill out your ballots completely in October.

Found this pdf from Mercury News They paid someone to put their recall guide link at the top of my search engine. SEO rules.