Note: For some reason, ecto lost my previous entry, so some of this may seem out of context – sorry!
Today has been a pretty relaxing day. The clouds disappeared shortly after noon, leaving us with clear skies and warm temperatures. I stopped by the Ron Jon Surf Shop before dropping off the rental car and picked up a few things. I got a give for Casey, a more comfortable pair of sandals for myself, and a new cap to help keep my head from burning up this week. It was a pretty cool store – huge too. I would have liked to spend a bit more time exploring, but I had to have the car back to the drop-off location by 2:30 p.m. After that was done, I spent a while reading down by the pool. It was very nice to be out in the sun!
I decided to order dinner into my room tonight, and went with a chicken teriyaki sandwich. They actually used real teriyaki sauce, which was a nice suprise. While eating, I caught about the first hour of the Oscar awards. I’m not usually impressed by the intro parodies they do, but I laughed several times at this year’s. The segment started off with a camera panning a crowded movie theater until they stopped on Billy Crystal. He was stuffing his face with popcorn and then took a second to turn on the camcorder he had with him, an obvious (and funny) reference to the piracy concerns of the MPAA. The other really funny moment was in a spoof of a scene from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. They had Billy’s face placed on the body of the Elf character (can’t remember his name at the moment) and was swinging his way on top of one of the elephant-like creatures in the battle with the Orcks. The camera switches to Michael Moore holding a movie camera and screaming “This is a fictional war! This is a fictional war!”. Two seconds later, he is squashed beneath the foot of one of the giant elephants. That scene along was worth watching that hour of the Oscars! On a related note, I’m really pulling for Bill Murray to win the best actor award for Lost in Traslation. That was a great performance from him, and was very “un-Bill Murray”. I can’t remember who he’s up against, but I can’t think of someone more deserving this year than him.
At the moment, I’m actually writing this down from the pool chairs. The wind is low, the moon is out, and temperatures are still in the 60’s – you can’t ask for much more! Tonight is our last night here at the hotel. We are taking a shuttle to our ship at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow, where we will spend the rest of our trip. From what I remember, there isn’t much conference stuff going on tomorrow, except for an opening keynote address and a welcome social. It will be interesting to meet some of the key players in the PHP community from around the world. Although I’m a relative PHP newbie, I’m looking forward to learning all I can about the newest developments and programming techniques. This is going to be good!
Update: No luck for Bill Murray. He actually looked a little mad when they called Sean Penn’s name. On the plus side, Sophia Coppola won an Oscar for best original screenplay with Lost in Translation.