Le Blog Exuberance //

There Will Be Blood: scenes from early California

Opening in theaters today is Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, “There Will Be Blood,” based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel “Oil.”   I'm a sucker for the wide-open landscapes of the western U.S. captured on film, and, from what I saw on the trailer, “There Will Be Blood” promises to be a visual treat on par with other favorites like Terrence Malick's first two films, “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven,” and the latest Coen brother's film, “No Country for Old Men.”

“There Will Be Blood” is set in the barrens of central California's Kern County (to be confirmed after I see the movie…), still the site of huge oil fields. In Anderson's movie, New Mexico and Marfa, Texas stand in for the younger California landscape. California still has vast tracts of open space, but they are ever-encroached upon by our burgeoning population — as well as countless oil derricks which still spot California, particularly along Highway 33 in Kern County.

Below: some scenes from “There Will Be Blood,” captured from the online promo trailer.

The reviews are mostly positive, with the notable exception coming from Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek, who found it “tempered and wrought, to the point of dullness.”

More on “There Will Be Blood:”

» Rotten Tomatoes (aggregated reviews)
» New York Times review
» Salon.com review
» “There Will Be Blood” film trailer at Apple.com

Below: my photos of the California and the west:

Technorati Tags: California, cinematography, globalwarming, landscapes, movies, oil, OilAddiction, PaulThomasAnderson, PTAnderson, SouthernCalifornia, ThereWillBeBlood, UptonSinclair

Thick fog on Nov. 7, the day the Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge

Below: 8:23 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2007. The fog is thick on San Francisco Bay. In 7 minutes, a giant ship, the Cosco Busan, will collide with the Bay Bridge, spilling 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the Bay.

Below: 8:56 a.m. and the fog is thick on San Francisco Bay. Little did I know that some 25 minutes before I made this photo, the Cosco Busan ship had hit the Bay Bridge.

What happened to WebIntellects!? Web sites are down for over an hour (so far)

For years I've been hosting various websites through WebIntellects.com. Service has been mostly good, with occasional minor hiccups. Today, Dec. 17, 2007, though, things are really bad. All my hosted sites are offline, and have been since around 12:30pm (California time). I can't send or receive e-mail, I can't access the online tech support, and they're not answering their toll-free number, (800) 994-6364.

So, if you're in the market for web hosting, I can now say with conviction: don't choose WebIntellects.

UPDATE, July 8, 2008: After WebIntellects' outages of December 2007, I moved my hosting to MediaTemple. So far, I have been more satisfied with them that I was with WebIntellects. I especially like MediaTemple for:

+ 24/7 phone tech support
+ better help documents
+ better admin software (Plesk 8, as opposed to Ensim 4 on WI) {UPDATED: WebIntellects new accounts have Plesk}

If you sign up for MediaTemple's hosting service, please tell them that you were referred by Matt Jalbert / Sparklejet Web Design. Thanks!

UPDATE July 30, 2008: Closing comments on this one, partly because of a bug in the comment system which I don't have time to track down.

New tune: Cold To The Touch

I finally got around to laying down a favorite new track of mine, Cold To The Touch… listen to the MP3 at Junkalow.com.