Visit to The O.C. Day 1

Whoa this week has been nuts. But I figured I should get bloggin' some of these photos from the trip that Alex and I took down to "The O.C." aka Orange County in Southern California last weekend.

My buddy Taylor is working down there at Blizzard which is a super popular video game company. It was great to see Taylor and his girlfriend Katelyn, they are really awesome and were very welcoming and amazing as always.

The first day we went to a fancy outdoor mall in Irvine and then took off on a drive through Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, haha man it was so nuts there. The mall in Irvine had valet service and stuff too, totally crazy. We saw like 6 Porsches and 1 Lamborghini and an entire Saleen dealership. Totally nuts, it's like a different world down there. :)

Anyhow it was totally fun and very interesting to see how different Southern California is from San Francisco. Fun times!!


Arriving in Orange County

Sweeet weather!!

Taylor!!

Cool mall in Irvine where Taylor lives

Walking to the mall

Awesome

Possibly the awesomest sign ever (and most descriptive of Mike Jutan) :)

Chillin' at the mall

Awesome sunset

At the mall at night

Cheers!!

Largest Beers ever made

Yes, Orange County has "Breath Strips" for dogs. Insane.

Outdoor mall

Sweet

Nice pic of Taylor and Katelyn

Me and Alex

Oh man, probably not the nicest tagline for a car company

Sweet car

Palm trees

Valet Parking at the Mall... haha, only in Southern California...

The mall at night

Hugest beer ever

And now for a tower of onion rings

Drive along the coast

Another cool pic of the mall

Sweet mall we drove by

Katelyn hangin' out

Alex is here!!

My buddy Alex from Canada is here to visit! He arrived tonight and Bill and Sarah and I went to hang out for a while in South San Francisco and then went to pick up Alex. Good times!! Alex got an insanely awesome MacBook Pro and opened it tonight and we have been checking out all the cool stuff on it for the past 2 hours. Awesome!!!

Alex is nuts, he was at an Autodesk Training day all day today and then flew here and now it's 2:20am my time, so it's like it's 5:20am his time and he's still going strong on the MacBook!! Haha man I would be totally psyched if I just got a new MacBook Pro too... that thing is SWEET!! The remote is awesome and it's very clearly a Steve Jobs-influenced design. Everything is perfect and meticulous detail is given to make everything juuussst right. It's really quite an impressive laptop. Awesome.


Alex and I at the airport

Me and Sarah, chillin'

Alex freakin' out about his sweet new MacBook Pro

Sweeeeet

Cool, it has a remote!!

Designed by Apple in California... awesome.

Alex excited to play with the new computer

Boot it up folks!!

Simpsons DVD, The O.C. and going to the O.C.

So it's 3:45am and I'm still up. No particular reason, just too excited to sleep and too much going on and too many cool shows to watch. I bought Simpsons Season 4 today and it rocks. I watched a good 3 or 4 episodes and then watched Season 4 Episode 2 of The O.C. and it was sweeet. Still not sure if I am going to stick with the show but it's still pretty rockin' at the moment.

We watched Cars last night and it was just awesome. The short film "Mater and the Ghostlight" was really funny too.

Alex is coming here tomorrow so that is going to be sweet and then we are headed off to Los Angeles for a few days and I am taking some time off work and we are going to hang out with some of my friends in the LA area. Definitely looking forward to it and I'll post lots of pics when we get back.

How come now that Alex got a MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo chip, I want one too?!! :) Hehe I bet it is going to be cool, I am looking forward to seeing it once he has opened it.

Hehe ok now it's 4am. Good times at Jupiter in Berkeley tonight and getting Gelato with some of the homeys from work. Happy times. Also we met with Ed Catmull today and that was really awesome and he gave a very interesting talk. Looks like there might be something cool to check out on the Apple Campus next week and we might go see that.

Some more Halloween Pictures

Here's a few more awesome Halloween pictures from last week and a few more of me and John Lasseter. These ones are good too. I've got to figure out which one I like the best and then frame it. :)


Edgar, Paul, Me, Jake and Sarah

And for the crazy pic

Kurt with the hilarious Oscar The Grouch costume he made

Me and John Lasseter

Haha awesome

The pensive look

Haha John telling me a joke

The best photo ever

Guitar Hero 2 and Cars DVD

Well a couple of super awesome things came out today. Guitar Hero 2, the long awaited sequel to the Guitar Hero video game. Legendary, awesome, totally sweet are adjectives that start to describe how fantastic it is. Sweet. We hooked it up and played on a big screen for like 2 hours after watching a crazy movie called Blue Velvet. It is 89% on Rottentomatoes.com and the reviews for it are pretty good but it was definitely one of those movies that you know is a good film but is still kindof hard to watch. The tension and style of filmmaking in Blue Velvet was very interesting, the lighting and camera movements especially added a lot of tension to the film and really added to the story. The topic was kinda gross and not really all that fun to watch, and I didn't really feel like any issues were really tackled and discussed - it was more of a "what you see is what you get" kind of deal and I found myself trying to find more meaning in it (a la Borat) than what was just presented on the surface. It didn't seem like there was a lot more to the story that what was shown on the screen and explained, and with an issue like domestic violence I would have thought there would be more open-ended questions and the film would leave you with more to talk about at the end of the film. The filmmaking style though was very good and the visual tension brought on by the camera movements and lighting especially as I mentioned were really one of the best parts I think.

After watching the movie we played Guitar Hero for a bit and now I am back at my apartment and just watched a whole bunch of the Cars DVD that I got today. It is SO awesome. I finally saw Mater and the Ghostlight which is the short film on the Cars DVD. I watched and re-watched the raytraced neon-light scene in Radiator Springs a few times, maaaaaaaaan that just looks amazing. That is one of the most impressive parts of the whole movie I think. It sure is exciting and inspiring to see what has been done in Computer Graphics over the past 10 or 20 years and wow the raytracing in Cars is just beautiful. Now after having written my first Raytracer it's cool to see Cars again and just sit back and be amazed by how much it rocks. I went to a talk with a few of the people who worked on this stuff in Cars and that was a very interesting discussion and wow it sure makes me even more pumped about how much Cars and Graphics in general just totally rock the house. :)

Other good news!! Alex's laptop came today but as I expected he wants to open it when he arrives so I just set it away and we'll let Alex have the glory of opening it (since it IS his laptop!!!) haha awesome. From the box it looks pretty amazing. First time Core 2 Duo processors have been in Mac Laptops so that is cool. This whole multi-proc and 64-bit wave that is coming now for the public is going to be the next big wave in Computer technology I think. This is going to change a lot for the common user and make much more complex computing possible. Exciting stuff. Hehe sure makes me want to get another computer. :)

Let's see what else is up. Alex and I are getting our plans together for his trip out here and that should be awesome. Looks like some friends of mine are going to hook us up and show us around their workplaces so we should get to see a few really cool companies in the area and when we are in LA as well, so that's always fun. Also I like free food so wahhoo!!!!!!!! :)

US Midterm elections were today and looks like the Democratic party has taken the majority of the House and have gained some Senate seats at the moment too. I am not sure what effect this has on governing but in my moderate Canadian political attitude, I am always a fan of balance in government. If one party is the majority of every political area, they can make decisions that may not take into consideration the opposition. When doing something as important as running a country, especially one of the world's leading countries, I feel like it's pretty important for the leaders to have a balanced approach to decision making. The opposite, where the leader says, "I want to do this, and I can because we are the majority of everything" is never good. While the balanced system is much slower and people may argue that nothing will ever get done, the alternative where one set of people on one political extreme are in charge of making decisions for everyone is not ideal.

In Canada recently the Liberal government was beat by the Conservative government. Since all the parties in Canada generally are much more moderate than they are here in the United States, plus it is still a minority government in Canada, these balances are in place which force the leaders to consider the opposition rather than just running them over by outvoting them on every decision. That's always good I think!

Lunch with Pete Docter and Cars DVD

Last week was so overly exciting with my on stage skit with John Lasseter and meeting Darren Aronofsky that I thought I'd leave this other exciting story for now. At the end of last week we (the Interns) had lunch with Pete Docter, the director of Monsters, Inc!!!!!!!!!!!

This is awesome for at least 30-40 reasons, but the best is that Monsters, Inc is, in my opinion, the awesomest Pixar movie, therefore making it the awesomest movie of all time. :) Pete sat down at lunch, looked over at me and said, "Hey Mike! How's it goin'?!" and yes I almost fell out of my chair. What a week it was last week!!!!!!!!! :) We learned lots about early versions of Monsters, Inc and so on and it was really very interesting and amazing. Pete Docter is definitely a genius (and a legend) :) It is actually pretty freakin' unbelievable that we got to have lunch with him and like just "hang out" with a filmmaker who we all greatly respect and whose work we all admire. Amazing!!

In other news, my buddy Alex Finlayson from Canada is coming up here soon and that is going to rock the house. We have like a bazillion things planned, we are going to see some friends and hang out around here and go to a few different companies and tours that Alex wanted to go on. Should be fantastic.

Oh yeah other cool news is that the Cars DVD comes out tomorrow!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to watch it again like 1000 times. Ohhhhh man that part in Radiator Springs at night with the neon light shaders and the insanely sweet Raytracing, mannnnnn it looks sooooooooo aweessoome!!! :) I really liked that part and the waterfall was just fantastic too. That movie is sweet.

I ordered a whole bunch of copies so hopefully that will cover most of my friends who wanted a copy of it. :)

In other news I just watched a couple scenes from Curb Your Enthusiasm last night on YouTube. Man that is hilarious, I think the Interns might rent it and watch it, it looks totally nuts. I haven't really seen Curb Your Enthusiasm before since it's on HBO and we don't get that here, but it seemed like it was pretty super insanely funny. Good times!!

Alex ordered a really awesome new MacBook Pro, it'll probably be delivered soon so I am pretty excited to see it.

The Simpsons get political

I watched The Simpsons Halloween episode tonight on TV and the last story of the episode had a very interesting and fiercely political statement at the end... check this out.



This is for those who say The Simpsons is no longer a good medium for political satire!! :) Another interesting point is that The Simpsons aired this episode 2 days before the USA Midterm Elections, where potentially the Republican party could lose control of the House and the Senate, both of which they now lead. There have been many political statements in the past on The Simpsons, but it's pretty crazy to see one that is this obvious and placed at a particularly important time just before people vote this week.

I wrote an essay last term for my History and Film class about how comedy is a very strong method for satire and for provoking discussion and change. It's interesting to see how clear of a statement the writers of The Simpsons are making here.

Me on stage with John Lasseter

Wondering why I am wearing a ridiculous onesie one-piece pyjama suit? How in the world did I end up on stage with John Lasseter, the director of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Cars? Hehe well please read my previous post for the long and awesome story. :)

Here are some of the great pics!!


Chillin' in my Halloween Costume

Haha nervously walking onto stage (in character) :)

Pretending to be a small kid while talking with John Lasseter on stage!!

Haha awesome

Great photo, gotta love the shark and the yellow blanket, eh?!

Pixar's Halloween 2006

Note to the reader: below is a very long and complicated (and legendary) story. But don't worry, it's worth your time I promise. It culminates in me acting out a little kid character on stage with John Lasseter, the director of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Cars. This is on stage, in front of every Pixar employee, for like 5 minutes. Yes, insane. I still can't believe it.

Still interested? Read on... but first some photos.


Kurt as the guy who carries around Oscar the Grouch

Nick as Waldo from "Where's Waldo?"

Curt and Edgar

Me in my onesie and twirly hat with a pacifier, yellow blanket and a shark

Jake dressed up as me!!!!!!!

Jake dressed up as me, and Me!!

Haha Jake with the Monsters Inc hat, Pixar jacket with the words "#1 Intern" on the back, Hawaiian shorts and an Alias shoulder bag!!

Haha Jake in his fine "Mike Jutan" costume and Bill getting his costume on

OH MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today is going up and up on the list of best days ever. Today was Pixar's Halloween Party. Since I have recently purchased a onesie one-piece pyjama suit, I figured I needed to make a ridiculous costume out of it. Over the weekend I got together a coloured baseball hat with a propeller on top, a squeaky pacifier, a yellow "blankie" blanket and a big plush shark toy. Now the story just gets better and better and better.

Today I showed up at work and one of my best friends out here Jake Brooks was dressed up as ME for Halloween!! Haha it was fantastic. He had my shirt on that said "I'm really excited to be here" and a Pixar jacket and a Mike Wazowski hat angled slightly to the side with the brim not really curved enough, he had the word "#1 Intern" on the back on his jacket and was wearing hilariously loud Hawaiian shorts. He was also wearing the same Sketchers fancy shoes that I have, but with this whole t-shirt/Hawaiian short getup!! Haha that is especially funny because Jake always makes fun of me for wearing my fancy shoes with my Hawaiian surf shorts. :) AWESOME!!!!!!!!

So the excitement was only beginning then. We had a free breakfast this morning and all talked about our costumes and the ladies from HR thought Jake's costume (dressed us as Me) was hilarious. Everyone had really amazing costumes and put a lot of work into it all.

Then we had free lunch!!!!!!!!! Man it keeps getting better. Then we had the costume contest... wait for it... wait for it... John Lasseter was the MC and Ed Catmull was one of the judges!!!!! So after a little bit of encouragement from my other intern friends going up on stage, I took one deep breath and joined the line. I walked up with my yellow blanket in tow, wearing my onesie and sucking my thumb and looking out at the crowd and looking a bit scared and nervous. "Come on... come on up... don't be scared!" said John Lasseter as the crowd laughed. I slowly walked onto stage and John said, "What's your name?" "Mikey" I said still acting a bit nervous and looking out upon the big crowd in the Pixar atrium, "There are a lot of people here." John laughed and then I pretended to get more comfortable and I rattled off a big run-on sentence into the microphone, "You wanna know something that's cool? Last night, my Mom put on a DVD and it was my favourite movie, maybe you've heard of it, it's called Toy Story" (John Lasseter is the director of Toy Story by the way), "And it's my favourite movie and then you were on my TV and you said 'I like toys' and I like toys too, so I figured we should be friends!" Hehe to this John laughed and said, "Do you like it here? Do you want a job here when you're older?!" I said, "Yeeeah! This place is really cool!" Haha all the while I had been speaking in a sort of young kid voice, haha this was just awesome. We carried on the act a bit longer on stage and then everyone cheered and I walked off the stage and the next few people and their costume entries went up onto the stage.

At the end of the costume contest, the judges deliberated for a few minutes and then they came out and were giving out prizes for the pumpkin carving contest and also the costume contest. They were giving out cool prizes for most original costume, best group costume etc. Then it came time for the "Most Bizarre" costume, and Ed Catmull was reading out the winners... "The third place winner is... Mikey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Haha I couldn't believe it and it took me a few seconds to realize it was me and I ran up onto stage and people cheered and John Lasseter gave me my prize and then shook my hand and everyone said congratulations and then I shook Ed Catmull's hand and he laughed and said Congratulations too and I was like.... whaaaaaaaa?!?! Someone pinch me, this must be a dream!!!!!!!! :) Amazing. So that was just like the most exciting thing ever. THEN John Lasseter came up to all of the interns afterwards and comes at me, I am ready to shake his hand and he comes up and gives me a big hug and says, "Well done, that was great!" It was amazing. As I was walking back to my desk, there was a professional photographer here taking photos of everyone and John Lasster was taking photos with the HR ladies. After this his assistant told me to wait there and I should get a photo with John!!! Oh man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So yes after all these awesome things that already happened, I then got a hilarious photo of me and John Lasseter with me wearing my crazy Halloween costume. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah, this day is pretty awesome.

Following this, I met legendary directory Darren Aronofsky!! He directed Pi and Requiem for a Dream and he came to screen a film for us and hang out and chat. It was AWESOME. After the movie he came up to us, and I was smiling and he shook my hand and said, "Hi! What's your name?!" I said Mike and he said "So what do you do here, Mike?!" I told him I am a TD and I do modeling and shading for the 2008 Movie. He was super cool and I told him his movies are awesome.

Hangin' out with friends, free food, acting out something silly on stage with John Lasseter, a professional photo with John Lasseter, shaking Ed Catmull's hand, and talking with Darren Aronofsky. Insane. I'd like to make a joke here and say, "Ahh yeah, just another day at the office" but I don't think anyone would believe me. It was exceptionally cool and what an amazing day. Rock ON!!!!!!!!!! :)