Hanging @ The O.C.

Randomly On Webcam

Tern At Sunset

Hello Jim & Kim fanatics...and welcome to JimmyPowell.com!
A fun & entertaining site where you can get a glimpse into our little world!

Thanks to some of my "connections" I found out when and where The O.C. would be filming this weekend so me and Kim went down to check it out. They were filming this beach scene Friday night in which Ryan gets in a fight with some new guy we've never seen on the show before. These pictures aren't all that great cause security was cracking down on anyone taking pictures so I was being very discrete after several of them converged on me from all directions and "asked" me not to photograph anymore. They were actually super nice about it but I got the impression that they wouldn't be if they had to ask again...but I did anyway!

It was fun watching how "TV" gets made and how many people it takes to film what looked like a ten second scene. I can't wait till it comes on so we can be like "hey...we were there for that!" :^)

Q: What's President Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?

A: He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

This is by far one of the best internet vids I've seen in awhile...not counting adult videos of course, ha-ha! It's a group of fifth graders performing Devo's Whip It complete with energy dome hats just like the classic video. These kids already have more talent than Kanye West! Ha!

• http://www.hawley.k12.mn.us/elem/gallery/hawleywood/web movies/devo.mov

Being the webmaster for the Redondo Beach Pier, I'm usually photographing sunsets there, but I decided to stroll up to Manhattan Beach tonight to diversify my photo collection a little bit. Kim rode with me and hung out on the pier as I roamed around taking various shots including some of the gems below. The tern (bird) is by far my favorite shot of the evening. (If it is a tern - I'm no bird expert.)

Sometimes I think we all forget what a beautiful planet we live on and take it for granted all too often. With today being September 11th, I think it's important we never forget about what happened that day, but at the same time, not forget to admire the beauty that's all around us because we will never be here again. Enjoy life!

We didn't do too much this weekend since we both worked so hard last weekend. We just stayed in and bummed around the house watching movies and having a few cold ones every now and again. We did go the book store Saturday night. Torrance has one of the best Barnes & Nobles I've ever been in complete with giant palm trees and Jurassic plants at the main entrance and cushioned sofas and chairs in which to sit while reading their books. We bought several books and at the rate we're going, we're going to have our own library before it's over.

Sunday we ordered pizza, watched some TV, and talked to my bro Barry & his wife before going to Manhattan Beach to watch the sunset...see above post. After that, we came home, crashed on the sofa, and watched Taxi with Jimmy Fallon & Queen Latifah which was very funny.

Football season officially got underway today much to my surprise. I've been so consumed with work that I totally forgot about it...not that I'm a big sports fanatic anyway. I'm usually only interested in three things when it comes to football, (1) seeing the Cowboys win, (2) seeing the Redskins lose and (3) seeing the Cowboys beat the Redskins even if they are losing to every other team in the league! Ha! At least they won today!

Here's some of the things that had me laughing this weekend...

• Fireworks & Hot Dogs - Hysterical clip of a dog stealing a lit roman candle.

• Exploding Microwave - These guys are like the grown up versions of all us Seven Oaks kids who used to blow things up and have the same general reaction. Sometimes I miss living in the country where you can get away with blowing things up.

• Energizer Bunny - Watch this bunny hump a balloon until it pops!

• Freudian Slip - Female news anchor talks about the price of heating oil being jacked up but must have something else on her mind.

• Unphased - Dick Cheney is so cool...during a press conference somebody tells him to go "F" himself and he just laughs and keeps right on going. I expect if the cameras weren't on him, he'd probably tell the guy to "F" his own self. Why can't Dick Cheney be President instead of the loser we have now?

Remember the James Bond movie "Octopussy"?? Well, here's a real one! HA!

Just plain funny...

Al Gore and Bill & Hillary Clinton go to Heaven.

(NO, NO, this is just the FIRST part of the joke----keep reading.)

God addresses Al first. "Al, what do you believe in?" Al replies, "Well, I believe I won that election, but that it was your will that I did not serve. And I've come to understand that now." God thinks for a second and says, "Okay, very good. Come and sit at my left."

God then addresses Bill. "Bill, what do you believe in?" Bill replies, "I believe in forgiveness. I've sinned, but I've never held a grudge against my fellow man, and I hope no grudges are held against me." God thinks for a second and says, "You are forgiven, my son. Come and sit at my right."

Then God addresses Hillary. "Hillary, what do you believe in?"

"I believe you're in my chair."

Courtesy of Shannon Powell

Okay...I'm sooooooo over the whole Kanye thing AND all the bickering on the guestbook. GET OVER IT PEOPLE!

Kim

Apple is about to cement their place as the undisputed kings of the portable music player with their new iPod nano which can hold up to 1000 songs. They unveiled it at one of their special events this past week along with several other awesome products including a iPod cell phone which holds 100 songs. How smart is Apple? Now that soooo many people have bought the big iPods they're releasing the iPod nano just in time for everyone to get one for Christmas. Now would be a good time to buy some Apple stock.

• http://stream.apple.akadns.net/

The video link above shows the whole event and all the products they're unveiling but also features something bizarre. After unveiling all these wonderful gadgets of human ingenuity, they parade out Kanye West to give a show in human ignorance. Watching Kanye West perform to a room filled with intelligent and affluent tech people was like watching something out of the cultural twilight zone. During his performance, Kanye dropped a wide variety of profanities including one segment where all the music stopped and he said "Fuck The Police...that's how I treat em" and then made the incredibly ignorant assertion that George Bush gets a cut of all illegal drug sales including crack. What a complete moron!

(He starts performing around the 50 minute mark if you want to fast forward)

Then it only got worse. He goes on to perform his new "song" Gold Digga and I actually enjoyed watching it because it was so horribly bad. It literally looked like one of those bad auditions you see on American Idol each year and if you didn't know who Kanye West was (and I imagine many in the audience didn't) you would have thought this was a joke. His little dance moves had me cracking up especially when he says "broke, broke"...you'll see. One of my friends IM'd me and told me that you can see a woman in the crowd mouthing the words "I hate rap" but I haven't spotted that yet.

I've heard so many things about Kanye West and his music but now that I've heard a few of his songs, it's painfully clear that he's just another ignorant rapper spouting off a bunch nonsense that has much to do about nothing. Rap music is a bunch of garbage and Americans really need a lesson in music appreciation. While I also believe that everyone has the right to listen to whatever they want, I think anyone that considers this music is seriously lacking in taste.

Kanye West Sucks!

Happy Birthday Wishes going out to my good friend (and Kim's bro) Chris Wilborn today. He's 32 today! Getting old aren't we?!?

Me and Chris grew up together in Seven Oaks and had many "adventures" that still make me laugh today. While I everyone always thought I was the mischievous one I seem to remember Chris blowing up a few things back in the day and helping put about 30 "For Sale" signs in Frank Howerton's yard late one night. Ahhh, those were the days!

(^:     (Hope these pics don't embarrass you too much! Ha!)     :^)

Alright everyone...I'm over this whole New Orleans thing. While everyone may not agree about everything that's happened in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina the facts remain...

• The city of New Orleans was in no way prepared for a direct hit from a category 4 hurricane. The levees and flood walls were engineered to withstand a category 3 hurricane and the city as a whole rolled the dice for far too long. Fate stepped in and the city and all it's citizens paid a terrible price.

• The city of New Orleans didn't provide adequate evacuation transportation for the poor and lower class citizens and as a result, they were unable to evacuate and now thousands are dead and virtually every resident of New Orleans has lost everything.

• The people who remained or were trapped in New Orleans didn't have many options available to them but that's no excuse for rampant looting, assault, and rape. We are supposed to be a civilized nation but some (not all) of the people remaining in New Orleans displayed inexcusable behavior in the days following Katrina. Taking food, water, medicine, and any other necessities is totally acceptable but where the hell are you going to plug up the new TV or PlayStation you looted from Wal-Mart when your home is under 20 feet of water? That's just stupid.

• As of today, some relief workers were still under sniper fire from the roaming packs of uncivilized monsters who only furthered the level of human misery in New Orleans after the hurricane.

• There's an old saying that goes "don't kill the messenger." You may not like what I or many of the news networks are reporting but you can't get mad at us for simply stating the truth. Anyone, regardless of race, nationality, gender or religion who is convicted or looting, assault, murder, rape or shooting at rescue/supply helicopters and rescue personal in the days following Katrina should be executed on site.

I feel really bad for so many of the people in New Orleans and I am glad to see that they are getting the help and support they need and that our nation finally rallied behind New Orleans and it's people. It just really saddens (and outrages) me that we live in a country with so many ignorant, uncivilized monsters who are just waiting for the right opportunity to show their true colors.

Humans are a such a bizarre species. We're capable of marvelous dreams and expectations and at the same time, prone to such terrible nightmares and shortcomings. Edmund Burke once said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” We have become such a politically correct society that that is exactly what we do. We allow so many people to live and exist in our society that only undermine our country and our civilization.

Having said all that, I have no further plans to comment on Katrina. Whatever will play out will play out. I hope that they citizens who deserve to get help get it and I hope that those who deserve to be brought to justice are found and executed for their crimes. The truth hurts and if you're unable to handle the truth, then don't visit my site anymore.

Here's a few fun links that I found amusing this week...enjoy! :^)

• The Farting Preacher - 4th installment, this never gets old.

• Flash Earth - This is wicked cool, I've learned how to navigate to my house from space in less than 2 minutes, I'd give you the coordinates but somebody might try and bomb me, LOL!

• Horrible Sportscaster - How this guy ever got on the air is beyond me and why they didn't just cut to commercial is even more of a mystery. The funniest part is after watching him struggle for 3 or 4 minutes he gets to the basketball highlights and says "boom goes the dynamite"...you'll understand once you watch.

• Human Stealth Trick - I don't think this would work for long but it's still kinda funny

• Krista Allen Workout Video - I actually saw this infomercial on TV last week but I couldn't really tell what they were selling...whatever it is, I wanna buy some! Ha-ha! Seriously though, I don't think any guy could actually work out to this...well, maybe a one armed workout. LOL.

• Kermit Gets High - This must be from his photo blog

I had to photograph some more of these little things this weekend. The company that's developing these things just came out with a Bill & Ted version and dropped them by the office for me to photo last week. I'm hoping they'll let me keep these prototypes. (These are low res versions by the way, the high res versions look much better.)

They don't call it Labor Day for nothing. We spent nearly the entire day Saturday washing clothes which we hadn't done in a month and then I had to photograph a street festival on Sunday which pretty much wiped out that day. We did manage to cook hot dogs and steaks on the grill and chill on the sofa and watch a movie so it wasn't a total loss. Kim is working Monday and I have plan to have a lite day of work myself. We'll probably doing something fun next weekend or at the very least...take it easy and lay out by the pool or go to the beach. :^)

Happy Anniversary wishes going out to my brother and his wife (Barry & Shannon) today. They're celebrating their first anniversary so I guess that means they're not newlyweds anymore huh? Hope you guys had a great year with many more to come and may all your ups and downs be in the bedroom.

Happy Birthday wishes going out to my little sister today. Hope you had a great day and got some good gifts. Sorry I didn't get a chance to call but I was actually working today...photographing a street fair in Hermosa Beach. So anyway, hope you enjoyed your special day and maybe we'll get to celebrate your birthday with you next year. :^)

And I thought his "music" was bad. Kanye West appeared on NBC Friday alongside Mike Myers to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Mike Myers read from the prepared script on the teleprompter while Kanye gave a rambling diatribe about his views on the situation which was practically incoherent. He sounded like he was about to cry like a little girl the whole time and I guess his ability to speak articulately (if in fact he actually posses that skill) was impaired by the fact that there was no hip-hop beat playing in the background. What a loser!

After Mike Myers (sporting the worst haircut I've seen in years) spoke a little more from the prepared script, Kanye goes on to say that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and then just stares at the screen like he's run out of things to babble about at which point the camera cuts to a shocked and dumbfounded Chris Tucker.

I saw video footage of George Bush kissing and hugging some black people in Louisiana or Mississippi the other day but I haven't seen any of Kanye doing the same. Kanye even admits in his diatribe that he hadn't made a donation yet because he had been shopping but was planning to call his accountant after the show to ask "what is the biggest amount I can give?" I'm no financial expert but wouldn't the biggest amount you could give be all that you have? 

• http://www.big-boys.com/articles/kanye.html

Here's the exact transcript of what Kanye said...

So I've finally heard two songs by Kanye West and as I imagined, I wasn't impressed in the least. I heard "Gold Digga" a few days ago and anyone who considers that music is a moron. I'm not saying that to intentionally insult anyone (so don't take it personally) but that song just sucks! I think I said this somewhere else on my site but it's worth repeating...the whole thing just sounded like a collection of random sounds (sirens, jets, breaking glass, etc) with someone adding to the cacophony by talking over top of it all. That's not music, it's noise!

You know, maybe I should release an album. My first song will me discussing my trip to Burger King on Friday to try the Mushroom Swiss Burger (which was AWESOME) and in the background will be the sounds of a baby crying, someone breaking concrete with a sledge hammer, a leaf blower, and a bookcase falling over. It can't be too far from what "Gold Digga" sounds like.

I was also watching a Chapelle Show marathon tonite and he performed at the end of one of them. I don't know what the name of the song was but it was exactly what I expected...nothing that I would call music. 

It's sad that there are so many talented musicians in this country who will never make it while this kind of garbage is "what's in."