UP

I went with Scott, who's renting a studio-loft some floors up from RAID and is working as a 3D-animator to a lecture of the supervisor of the Effects department of the Pixar Studios at a place that's part of a school for 3D-students up in Hollywood. He explained a lot of technical stuff of how the balloons for instance were developed for the movie 'UP'. It was very interesting. It was lucky I knew exactly what he was talking about, it would have been really boring if I didn't. It was funny when he showed a test that was made in a special program, the first test that made the bunch of balloons behave like real balloons. The whole crowd was like 'wow!' and applauding. I have to admit, I also got excited.

Scott drives a Delorean. It was an experience to be driving around in that car (well, being driven actually). Scott has a metal leg, he lost his right leg in a train accident three years ago. He didn't experience phantome-pains.





People shout at the car all the time. Scott told me people sometimes almost drive him off the road when they're trying to take pictures on the highway. He got pulled over once by cops just because they wanted to ask him where he got the car from. Right after we parked the car at the Pixar lecture, there was a guy on his knees in front of the car, bowing to it - worshipping it, so to speak. Strange things. Luckily I'd already seen two Deloreans in Asten, where my parents live, parked in a garage. And the car is in front of RAID all the time, so I've gotten quite used to the sight. Still, it's a nice car.

Like a lot of other activities, venues, bars and clubs, the entrance to this lecture was in an alley that looked like nothing. There were many people attending the lecture. We were sitting in a good spot, the photo was taken during the question-round.





It wasn't allowed to take photos during the lecture.

I wasn't allowed to take photos at the sleazy stripclub I went to afterwards with Scott. We drove by it and he suggested we went inside, he was there once when he scouted for filmlocations, he said. I'd never been into a stripclub before so I said, well, why not.

It was quite horrible. The place was painted black and there was a golden curtain of some sort to bright the space up a bit but that didn't help much. It was small and almost empty. This girl went dancing - she kept her bikini on by the way - and I gave her a dollar after she was hanging upside down on the pole. She landed on her back, which got really dirty because of that. The music was horrible. So after ten minutes we left (I couldn't really watch the dancing anyway, it was too ucky for a straight girl like me). But well, that was that.