Monk Seals in Action!

Not that kind of action!

As I mentioned in a post waaaay back when we were in Kauai, Josh got some great footage of 2 monk seals as they approached the shore from the water and made their way up on to the beach. I finally edited out most of the excess junk; i.e. dumb lady within 3 feet of the seals and Josh's extreme zoom shots.

Have a look!

Martha Stewart as a Model?

Yes! I had never heard that Martha Stewart had once been a model until today. As I was checking out Annie Kevans paintings online, I came across a gallery of "Beauty Queens" and saw this:



The caption read: Martha Stewart modeling as Veronica Lake

Surely this isn't the Martha Stewart...

But it was! As a teenager, Martha had modeled for several publications and department stores, and had even starred in a television commercial for Life Buoy Soap.



What else has Martha done that I am not aware of??? I discovered that she had won a partial scholarship to study art and architectural history at Barnard College in New York City; that she began her career as a stockbroker; and in 1961 Glamour Magazine named her as one of America's "Best Dressed College Girls".

Slowly, I am finding Martha to be more and more badass. You may disagree with me if you want, but she's hardcore, knows how to cook, and has 2 French Bulldogs.

Kitay and Turtles...

...what more could you ask for?

I quickly threw together a little footage from our snorkeling adventures in Kauai. I've dropped some David Kitay in for audio relief but otherwise I've let the turtles command the stage.



A tidbit on Kitay. Josh and I fell in love with his score for "Art School Confidential". In fact we loved it so much that when we discovered there would not be a soundtrack for the film, we wrote David personally expressing to him how amazing his work was. We told him how we wished we could have used one of the pieces for our wedding but without the soundtrack, we were going to be Kitayless on our special day. Months later, we got a burned cd in the mail from David's manager with a thank you note for the inspiring words.

I walked down the aisle to one of the tracks and shortly thereafter, we received another letter in the mail thanking us; this time from David Kitay himself.

palm prē

I was at the Hart's First Annual Trivia Night this past Saturday when I first learned of the new Palm Pre due out soon! One of my table-mates was talking about how much he loves his iPhone when I felt obliged to stand up for my Windows-based HTC Touch. I love my phone. Don't get me wrong, the iPhones are pretty flippin' killer, but I'm get annoyed with all the pompous antics from the iPhone cult.

Jeff mentioned that Palm was getting ready to launch their new internet-connected multimedia smartphone which uses the proprietary palm web0S Linus -based operating system and has a physical qwerty keyboard that discreetly slides open.

I guess it was Sunday night when I remembered to research this new phone, and as quick as the browser opened palm's homepage I was in love with the palm prē. Luckily for me, Sprint will be carrying this phone and I have an inside source at the company who is going to notify me as soon as they hit the shelves. I don't usually dork out on new technologies or cd's releases, but I really want this phone!

La Moustache

Released in 2005, this film by French director, Emmanuel Carrère, is quite the mind-boggler. On the surface, we see Marc (Vincent Lindon) fall victim to what he thinks is a practical joke being played by his wife, friends and co-workers. After Marc shaved off his mustache, none of them noticed and led him to believe he hadn't ever worn one.

But upon digging deeper, we find that the story has more to do with perception and normalcy than it does the mustache.



I found the film to be thought evoking and extremely well produced. The piece by Philip Glass (Violin Concerto) perfectly complimented every scene and the acting performances by Lindon and Emmanuelle Devos are convincing as a tightly wound, passionate couple.

Millions

Tonight Josh and I finally got around to watching "Millions" which came in from Netflix almost two weeks ago. This film is a must see directed by Danny Boyle. For those of you living under a rock, Boyle was the recipient of oh...let's just say a couple-few Oscars for his amazingly beautiful film "Slumdog Millionaire".

Millions. Slumdog Millionaire. What's next? The Millionth Hour?

Anyways, "Millions" was shot well and had a great message concerning ethics. In a nutshell, the film is about a widowed father and his two young sons who (literally) have a duffel bag full of money land in their laps. The boys decide to keep this a secret from the father and ultimately have different ideas for how the money should be spent.

I feel I could watch it again and again and get more out of it each time.

Onesto - I Almost Forgot!

I fancy myself a pretty big pizza snob. And whether you agree or not, St. Louis has a fabulous selection of good pizza. Not just good pizza, great pizza! This is something I feel passionate about and will argue anyday!

Tonight I helped a friend of mine, Rosey, with her wedding invitations. We decided to order pizza for dinner to help "motivate" us before starting, but when she mentioned Bellacino's I about crapped my pants (pardon the dirty word). That is certainly not one of the finer choices in pies around here, but I'll admit it's a step above Pizza Hut (granted a small step). I quickly begged her to reconsider and so she looked online for a pizza place near her house; something more like a mom and pop shop.

Well, she found just that: Onesto Pizza & Trattoria

It may be owned by the Racanelli's, but it's a far cry from that lazy New York pizza you get slapped onto a paper plate for you in the Loop. This little place had charm out the wazoo and the pie itself was pretty decent. If you're in South City and need a bite to eat, definitely cruise over to Princeton Heights and get you some family style food at Onesto!