BLOG

If you haven't seen the new X-Men movie, do so and enjoy. It's a good film. Not as good as the first two (of which I thought the second was the best) but still an enjoyable film to watch. You will be joining the hordes of folks who are watching that and not The Break-Up. It seems that Aniston is a curse for any film, since Vince Vaughn can save just about anything except the remake of Psycho.       But, as far as X-Men goes, stay around through the parade of credits at the end including (and I'm not effin' kidding) 60+ stunt people. There is a surprise scene tucked away at the end. For it to make the most amount of sense, pay close attention to a lecture that Xavier is giving to some students earlier on in the film.       Yes, I'm drifting further to my point which takes on its next tangent with Famke Janssen, who I didn't realize was 40 now and have been madly in love with ever since she was on TNG. I love the tall ladies. I love the European ladies. I love the brunette ladies. Famke is all of those and Dutch as well, not that that has really made any difference. It is kind of funny to think that her and Patrick Stewart have a long past together. I'm sure the irony was not lost on them. And as I was rolling through her film credits where she plays any number of kick ass women, I noticed GoldenEye where she plays Xenia Onatopp. This is a Russian killer woman assasin chick. She did well in the part, but it got me thinking...       Why are all the Russian women in the James Bond films not played by Russian women? If your idea of the Russian ladies is still buff washer women out in the fields, then you're an idiot and you should refer to my Babushka bit. But really, there are countless very talented Russian girls out there who can act their asses off and I'm sure they won't cost as much as the bigger Hollywood names. Maybe they think they need a big woman's name in the credits, but really, you don't. It's Bond. People watch it just for that. Maybe if you did cast some Ruskaya, the films might get better again. Did you think of that?!! No, of course not, you were too busy figuring out where you went wrong remaking Casino Royale. And yes, it is a good try casting Ivana Milicević in what appears to be a Russian role, and she's hot, but she still isn't Russian.

As you are reading this I am either preparing for going/on my way/returned to San Francisco. Hey, I don't know your time zone. I'm just not that good. I had to make a trip back to the homestead and clear out of the City for a few days. This is kind of sad when you realize that I've only been back from Europe for about a month. Oh well, such things happen.       It's been a good trip and I have a few photos for the Oroville Gallery to upload when I'm actually back in front of Mission Control at my apartment, so keep an eye out. It was really nice to see the town in non-100 degree circumstances. Summers are pretty brutal and I usually avoid the town for that reason. Luckily, they're having a late Spring up there and the weather has been quite nice. So nice that we did a load of yard work on the encroaching wilderness that is trying to make its way in to the living space of the yards. Having this much land is a problem unless you A) have all the time in the world to deal with it, B) all the money in the world to deal with it, C) or all the goats in the world to deal with it. Damn you John Bidwell! You and the climbing blackberry vines you brought in are the work of Satan. Satan and Satan alone!       I would also like to add that I have been checking my site logs a bit and it appears that Google has gotten around to indexing my site because holy mama; there are a ton of you coming in for my Bay to Breakers 2006 Gallery! I thought I had a decent set of shots, but somehow I've ended up at the 26th result on Google when you search for 'Bay to Breakers 2006'. That may not seem impressive until you realize that this is out of 3.1 million results returned! I'm not sure how that happened, but yes, the content is very relative. I have a lot of shots and I'm tempted to add a few more that I have sitting around just for kicks.       Hope your Tuesday is good and not filled with shooting down I-5, across I-80, and through the sprawling suburbs that were once a hushed blanket of nothingness in the Sacramento Valley. Oh grandma's house, where did you go? Ah, you sold out your place to a Starbucks. Good call.

Some mornings I wake up and I have to cry a little. No, I'm not that sensitive or depressed or easily stubbing my toe. I'm pained by the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen is the most incredible genius in the universe and I'm not, yet... Capital B. Right parenthesis.       Oh, wait wait wait, where is your proof Senor Hudin? Proof? You want proof? Okay, fine, here's a bit of Borat at Cannes. If you don't twist your intestines laughing at that, then don't ever talk to me. You aren't cool enough for me, my site, or the world. Enjoy your Creed with a Whopper and a Chevy.

It's pretty cool that they found a new dinosaur and named it Dracorex hogwartsia after J.K. Rowling's whole "Harry Potter" line of books an subsequent films.       Beyond the simplicity of this act, I was looking around a bit and was reminded of the fact that J.K. is a damn sexy woman. Yeah, she's 11 1/2 years my senior, but so what? She's hot, intelligent (in interviews anyways), and quite, quite, quite rich. Wealth aside, I'll just tip my hat on the looks and brains. Too bad she's a married woman. A young lad in the States can dream though, can't he? He can't? Dreams are for little girls with pigtails and unicorn dolls? Oh, right, I forgot about that.

Now that I have had this camera for a couple of months and shot a couple thousand pictures with it, I feel somewhat qualified to write my opinions of it. This is of course a bit behind the curve, since there are a lot of reviews out there already, but one more can never hurt.       In a word, this camera is fantastic. Toss in the fact you can get them for $600 these days and it's a deal that is not to be missed. The quality is great. The speed it turns on is super fast. The capture time is so quick, I notice no problems in delay or having to wait to take multiple shots. It is a really cool balance of power an ease for those who are like me, stepping from the point and shoot world in to the full on digital SLR world. This is quite a shift and this camera makes it very easy.       While I've had to re-learn everything I used to know about real photography (f-stop, aperture, shutterspeed, etc.) this camera has made that an easy transition because I can try certain aspects out and see if they work. If they don't I can keep tinkering with them until I get a feel for what this or that does and how it affects the shot. Some people bitch about the automatic settings, but on some level, I found them to be a big help because they allowed me to dumb down and see what the camera does in certain situations (by looking at the settings on the shot or the EXIF info later) so that I can see why my shot didn't turn out amazing.       The only thing I've bought for the camera was another lens; a 100-300mm telephoto. That was a big help, since there's only so much you can do with the 18-55mm wide angle that comes with it. I felt this frustration when traveling. On the subject of lenses, the one recommendation I'd make is to just get the camera body and buy whatever lens you think you'll need (probably a telephoto and a wide angle in zoom variations) since the kit lens is crap. That was my one big disappointment out of the box. It's action is terrible and it just feels super cheap. Scrap that and get a proper 18-55mm lens, preferrably with Image Stabilization if you can afford it. Or get it without so you can get the telephoto as well.       So, the only bad thing about the camera is that I really wish I had gotten the 20D (30D as it is now) because it is pretty much the same camera, but in a bigger size with a metal body. After shooting for a few hours, my hands are killing me holding this thing. It's pretty small and I have really big hands. It would be incredible for someone with small or medium hands though. My neighbor who is quite diminuitive loved this camera immediately. That being my only real gripe, that says a lot. If you're thinking about making the switch to SLR, give this camera a go.

A funny thing happens here in San Francisco, but I'm sure it's the case in any city with a lot of cafes. You see, you can go to a cafe any time in the earlier morning from say, their opening times of 6 or 7AM up until about 9:30AM and there won't be too many people there. Most folks just pop in for a dash of caffeine on their way to the office. Sure, there are some regulars who are up early and reading their papers, but really, the cafes just aren't that full.       Then the magical hour of 10:00 hits and sudddenly the places are packed. Everyone has suddenly gotten their act together, woken up and is kicking it java style down at their local shake shop.       So, where do all these people come from? Don't they have jobs to get to? Maybe. Maybe not. This is one of the big questions about SF in that, how are there always people in the cafes? If you've been to Europe, you see the same thing and the answer is clear that while people do work, they just don't work as much. They still get stuff done though. Did you see the Airbus 350? That was done in Europe somehow.       Visitors comment on this way of life in San Francisco. Michael Moore made a bit of thing about it in Roger and Me. It's true that it must be mystifying to most Americans how San Francisco pulls it off. It is for me and I've lived here for some time. There are a lot of freelancers and there are a lot of night time workers for bars and restaurants, so I guess that's part of it. I think that there is also just a generally kicked back attitude on things, which is why the whole dot-com era was such a strange time here. It really went against the grain for what I have come to know as San Francisco - The City that Gets Eight Hours of Sleep.              As a side note, when at the cafes, watch out for falling windows. At Cup-A-Joe near me, people were outside minding their own business when a window from a fifth floor apartment overhead came off its hinges and plummeted to the ground. Luckily no one was hurt, but it was a dangerous situation where someone could have been killed. See, there's excitement in the cafes afterall!

Wikipedia. It's pretty useful in general. I think I've gotten over my feeling slighted for being de-listed from there for "hudin" since really it was a vanity article and we all come from/still are farmers. No one special in the family except for one guy who was an ambassador for the Former Yugoslavia, but his last name wasn't Hudin, since he took his mother's last name. And so on and so forth.       Anyways, I was pretty stoked that Belden Place now has its own Wikipedia entry. Pretty much duplicates everything on the main site, but that's okay. If it brings more people in, groovy.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, I've started putting up an image in an article when there are associated pictures for it. No, I'm not going to go back and do this for everything leading up to this point because I'm simply too lazy. But, from this point forward, images will rock the house.       I also mucked about with the layouts in Photos for some clarity in browsing images and for the Galleries. Just trying to make your Hudin Experience a good one.

Over the weekend, I met up with some friends at Boulangerie de Cole for a nice late morning eat and chat. I usually head to the Boulangerie de Polk seeing as how it is much closer to me, but as with all of these spots, I was not disappointed. They've got great selections of everything, especially French sweets. I mean, really, how can you beat that? Don't try to answer because you can't.       After a couple hours there which fondly reminded me of my Europe trip last month, I went back to the Muni to catch my "beloved" and usually late N Judah line. I didn't take it all the way back to Powell though. I hopped off at Duboce Park.       For those who don't know it, this is a lovely little spot. It's really convenient to downtown, but at the same time very residential and due to that, untouristed. If you want to see SF locals, this is the spot to go. More importantly though, if you want to see the dogs of SF, this is the spot you have to be. Sure, you might get lucky at any number of the other parks we have, but I don't know of anywhere else that there is such a concentration of doggies in such a nice space. I don't even know if it officially a "dog park", but it has certainly become that.       It gave me a chance to put my new 100-300mm Canon lens to the test and that it did. I got back a lot of photos that I've always wanted to be able to take because of this lens. People were probably starting to wonder if I had some kind of dog fetish, but really it's just that I'm lacking a good dog in my life due to my apartment's no-dog rule. Bummer, but it means I'm a regular at Duboce. I'm sure there must be other losers out there like me, it's just that no one wants to admit it.       On another note, my Dog Gallery has gotten a bit larger and the Euro mutts in there have some purebred USA company now.

I found that I have suddenly become a person of appointments. How did this happen? Got me. I suppose it has to do with living in San Francisco and our busy, busy lives here. Growing up in Oroville, this wasn't always the case. Of course, I was younger, but I really think things are/were slower there.       Seeing as how my head only has finite space for remembering dates and times, I've taken using the calendar on my RAZR a lot. It's pretty good. It keeps track of things and it reminds me when I forget. Of course, it's limited in what it can do and it's a real pain to type in everything on a 10 key pad.       So, this brings me to something I have been using a lot now which is the Google Calendar. At first I thought, ah, come on, how useful is this? I'm not some high-powered jerkass who has all these things going on. But, then again, I do have stuff that happens and I forget to record it in to my phone. Seeing as how I'm always at my computer (really, I am. I'm probably at it while you're reading this) the interface for the calendar Google put together has turned out to be really nice. Naturally, it's based in AJAX, so you have the ease of use that you get with Gmail. And overall, it's well thought out. This is not the thing I really like about it though.       In the usual style of Google to complete world domination while not being evil (ha... ha...) there are two great features with this calendar that I have found incredibly useful. The first one is that I can have it send me a text message for appointments when they come up. That's handy and it renders my phone's calendar pretty uneeded. The second thing I love is the ability to share your calendar and be invited to others'. Of course, you need to have a Google Account to pull this off, but who doesn't have one of these? If you don't, I'll send you an invite. Really, it's no problem. Be part of the "Google Family". But this sharing ability, is in a word, "awesome". People that I know who can see my calendar don't ask me to do things when I go in for my waxes or hat fittings and likewise.       Just an honest plug from a user who has no interest in Google other than for it to stay usable.