Posts Tagged ‘oakland’

Links for 2007-08-03

Friday, August 3rd, 2007
  • Black Muslim bakery raided News this time from the north of me, in Oakland. Name of bakery: Your Black Muslim Bakery. Someone pointed out: calling a bakery Your White Christian Bakery just won’t fly anywhere.
  • Terror charges for man - brother at large in Philippines Malaysian man from San Jose is indicted along with his brother on charges of taking part in bombings that have killed hundreds in the Philippines.

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Oakland Observatory

Wednesday, June 9th, 2004

Snapshots from our excursion to the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA over the weekend:

Ask Jeeves Planetarium observatories
Chabot Space & Science Center turtles the boys 
solar clock solar clock 
surrounding trees astronaut

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At-At Oakland

Thursday, December 11th, 2003

at-at walkers in oakland

Here’s a pic I took of Lucas’s inspiration for the AT-AT walkers in Empire Strikes Back. They’re just a few of the many container-loading structures found in the Port of Oakland. Lucasfilm is just 20 miles north of Oakland.

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A’s Game

Wednesday, August 27th, 2003

It was Church Night at the Oakland Coliseum (Network Associates) last night. Church Night is when the A’s organization invites churches to a game and reserves for them a section of the stadium with seats at a discounted price. The invited churches also get their names flashed on the scoreboard. A bunch of us showed up to watch the Oakland A’s play against the Baltimore Orioles. The A’s won.

3 flags Oakland Raiders A's Banner

cornick don and dan
I brought cornick to the game.

play ball! batter

outside the stadium tunnel

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Matrix Reloaded

Thursday, May 15th, 2003

Saw the eagerly-awaited Matrix sequel today on opening day. Surprisingly, lines weren’t long at all. Well I suppose it helped that we watched the 12:35 p.m. matinee show. Yes, I took the day off. I’ll have to make my hours up on Saturday.

[next: spoilers, possibly]

I’m not going to do a full movie review but I’ll just say that I wholeheartedly agree with this one here. The reviewer’s observation that some scenes look like a computer game is one I share (see also my Hulk post). The freeway scene was amazing, however, and was shot in nearby Alameda/Oakland. The concept of “programs” as figures in the Matrix intrigued me but I soon realized that Tron already made use of this concept a couple of decades ago. Isn’t underground Zion something we’ve seen before? Doesn’t it remind you of the mutant underground society in Beneath the Planet of the Apes? Or was it the regressed society in The Time Machine? Anyway, the Zion council meeting looked like a Haight-Ashbury neighborhood meeting, didn’t it? Multi-cultural Zion is refreshing although the “rave” scene has got to go. Seemed pointless. In the first movie the allegorical rise of a messianic figure had clear biblical reference. Eastern philosophy, also present in the first movie, is given more consideration in the sequel and indeed, pagan imagery, more prominence. Which is okay, for this shift serves to distance Neo’s reluctant messiah role from any true biblical analogy. All in all, an enjoyable movie.

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