Does Not Compute

Extended warranties are a crock of shit.

Sure, short-term warranties make sense, protecting you from manufacturing defects that appear only after a few weeks of use.

But any product used longer before needing an initial repair is invariably just hitting the first of many stops along the slow and painful road to total malfunction and breakdown.

I say this based not just on past experience, but on current. Because, in the last six months, my MacBook Pro had had its logic board, video RAM, left fan, right fan, hard drive, and display replaced. Essentially, the only thing I have left of the original computer is the chassis and keyboard. And, still, the damn thing crashes every ten minutes.

By now, the time wasted waiting for each of those restarts has added up to hours of lost work worth many times over the cost of a new computer. But with AppleCare extended warranty in hand, I’ve been loath to give up completely.

As my computer has frozen twice while drafting even this short posting, however, I think I’m finally biting the bullet and upgrading. Or, rather, cross-grading, as I’ll be replacing the MacBook Pro with an essentially identical (albeit 0.2GHZ faster) MacBook Pro. Some of us never learn.

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Los Angeles: Day 6

Despite a lovely stretch in LA (marred substantially by only an unexpected car-towing at the very end), I’m more than glad to be writing this from a New York-bound airplane. (Even despite the scent coming off the old codger next to me who drank seven – yes, seven – small airline bottles of cheap red wine.)

A few things I learned on the LA part of the trip:

1. No wifi = no productivity.

2. Jess and I are waaaay to old to do multiple ‘pre-game’ tequila shots before a night of back-to-back business drinks.

3. Los Angelinos can’t drive worth shit.

4. Especially when it rains.

5. I no longer get even vaguely star-struck.

6. While you can’t make good sushi from bad fish, you apparently can make bad sushi from good fish.

7. Despite the national infrastructure efforts of Whole Foods, California produce still wins.

8. Though, conversely, while LA may have more Kosher delis than New York, they all make crap pastramis on rye.
And, resolved: Still seems like a nice place to visit, but I still wouldn’t want to live there.

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Los Angeles: Day 3

Yes, I lived all the way through Sundance, and even managed to detour briefly further west, all without blogging about any of it. Shame, shame.

But, really, it wasn’t my fault. I had no wifi in Park City, and the supposed wifi here at the brand new Thompson Beverly Hills is dodgy at best. (Though, on the upside, the rooms are $150 a pop while the place is still working out the kinks, and the hotel is clearly the new hotness: Marky Mark was at the hotel restaurant [the West Coast incarnation of my long-loved Bond St.] on Tuesday evening, and last night celebrity stylist / drug dealer Rachel Zoe was smoking out front.)

How’s the trip been? In short, excellent. After a 2007 of not enough forward motion for Cyan, we’re jumping into 2008 with terrifying velocity. And after a 2007 of (unwisely) fading from the film-word schmooze-circuit, I (and the rest of the company) have already glad-handed everyone from directors, producers and actors, to bankers, hedge fund types, and the heads of the DGA and the MPAA.

Back to it.

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Sundance: Day 1

Newark Liberty International Airport : What a way to start a trip!

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Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport: A step down from even Newark!

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Our flight to Salt Lake City is delayed, so I stop in for a burger and chicken fingers at Dairy Queen. Probably not a wise choice.

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Seated next to a woman named Tiffany from Mississippi who’s meeting her mother and sister up in Park City for a ‘girl’s weekend’ at Sundance. Strange that the festival is equal parts industry conference and tourist destination.

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Salt Lake City International Airport: We’ve got mormons!

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Taxi up to Park City to join the rest of the Cyan delegation, at the house we’ve rented just off Main St. By the time we all head off to grab dinner at 10:45, nearly everything is closed, and we end up at Butchers’, a less than mediocre steakhouse that still charges $45 a filet.

“Let’s get some business done this week,” says my CFO, “so I can amortize these steaks.”

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Sundance: Day -1

I haven’t owned long underwear since I was about six, the point when I concluded that, while it was warm outdoors, back inside it was itchy and uncomfortably hot.

By now, I’m not sure if I feel any different. But I’m nonetheless headed off this afternoon to Paragon to pick up a pair. The temperature in Park City, Utah, is currently one degree, even without considering the windchill, and I’d ideally like to return to New York still able to have kids.

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The Blues

Since Jess moved in a year or so back, ‘my’ apartment has slowly evolved into ‘our’ apartment. Furniture has moved around, been replaced. New art has appeared, along with more blankets, pillows and trays than I can count. And, as of this weekend, the bedroom has changed colors.

Yes, after much deliberation over the differences between Polar Sky and Polar Ice, Seaside Blue and Ocean Blue, we finally bit the bullet and purchased several buckets of one of those, though I’m no longer sure exactly which.

Painting the bedroom of a small one-bedroom apartment is a great way to make yourself glad that you at least don’t live in an even smaller studio, because emptying the contents of said bedroom into the living room makes for a very, very tight fit.

We did that moving, and then the painting itself, on Saturday, in a single stretch that extended from afternoon into evening. Then, on Sunday, we went back and filled in the patches we’d inadvertently left completely white in the later, sunlight-less stretches of the day before.

The end result? Surprisingly good. The coat of light grey-tinted blue makes the room feel a bit more a real home, less an impersonal, temporary rental. And while we’re still reeling from the cleanup efforts (the brunt of which has been handled by Jess, who spent today at home repairing the wreckage), it looks good enough that, in another couple of weeks, we just might forget what a pain in the ass the whole process is, and take on the rest of the apartment.

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Get Fit: Introduction

It’s a new year, and you’re still fat.

Fret not, though; by popular request, I’m pulling together this ongoing, intermittent series to help you get in shape.

Like fitness itself, the series breaks down into two interlocking halves – exercise and nutrition. Getting fit requires both working in your favor.
Nutrition primarily determines body weight. Exercise primarily determines body composition. If you’re pear shaped, eating less can make you a smaller pear, whereas only exercise can redistribute things around.

Both parts, though, aren’t short-term commitments. How long do you have to keep exercising and eating healthfully? Well, how long do you have to keep brushing your teeth? So this series focuses on sustainable solutions, the kinds of things you can start now and still be doing happily at the end of the year – or the end of next decade.

Coming up, we kick things off on the nutrition side, with some general principles: the three golden rules of eating.

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Sundance: Day -9

Caucuses? Primaries? No, no. In the film business, January means something far more ‘important’: Sundance.

Yes, in just a week and change, the Cyan team and I (and Jess, who’s bravely jumping into the fray) head off to Park City, Utah. The countdown begins.

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