Matthew k

Something by Dom Luca. I think it was Desert Dropping, but it might have been The Ordinary Us.

Do you mean at a theater or to rent (is Netflix in the Netherlands?) I would go through the AFI (American Film Institute) 100 Years of Film list or maybe their 10 Top 10 list. Or you could watch a bunch of movies in one movie, That's Entertainment! 50 years of MGM's best movies.

Not on the 15 between L.A. and Las Vegas, it is mostly desert. The freeway is fairly straight and mostly flat. Driving 90MPH is the norm and you really only get pulled over if you are weaving in and out or are over 100. It is also a major headache for a CHP officer to write someone up at that speed since they have to arrest them and not just give them a ticket. A major paperwork headache. He also knows a tourist will just blow it off.

This is so the 15 Freeway between LA and Las Vegas.......

Well a state that would be ranked 23rd in size geographically if it were a county in CA and 13th in population is probably too small for a CA boy. NYU is perfectly acceptable to Malibu people, everyone knows a director or actor who went there and Boston/Cambridge is perfectly acceptable, Boston is a real city. New Jersey probably wouldn't work since black & orange is such a garish combination, despite some fine Hollywood types who've come from there. Of course Georgetown is acceptable, but who wants to live in DC?

And small compared to Mammoth, Squaw and the rest of the resorts in Central Cal, but the point is they are from 45 minutes (Mt. Baldy) to 1 1/2 hours (Bear Mtn) from downtown L.A., which most people don't realize. Southern Cal is one of the few places you can legitimately surf in the morning and snow ski at a resort in the afternoon.

Are you as totally hot as the Rory in my mind??

When you are a world class athlete you push through the pain or even a little dizziness because you have experienced before and been okay. The course probably required several laps so there may have been a place where he could more easily talk to his coach and get some Goo because you need nutrition in a race like that, but given he won the last race and was second overall in the world cup, when he didn't finish in the top 5 that should have set off alarm bells. When you stroke out in the water or lose consciousness, you just slip under quietly, it isn't like you even know you are in trouble to ask for help. If you've ever seen an open water race, you can barely see the competitors over the swells in the ocean sometimes. Tragedy for the kid in Ventura too and another thing that happens before you know you are in trouble.

Damn.... did you miss the picture of Los Angeles??? Or these? All maybe an hour maybe 1 1/2hours from downtown. Where is this Dell Aware you speak of???

I would think it highly unlikely for a Malibu High student to go to college in the south absent some family connection. The Malibu kids who go back east tend to go to the northeast to the Ivy League or the liberal arts colleges or the Catholic universities. If he is a committed surfer he is REALLY unlikely to go back east, Cal Poly SLO to UC San Diego (I mean that whole geographic swath that takes in those schools plus USC, UCLA, UCI, Pepperdine, LMU, Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech, etc.) would probably be the schools on his radar unless he was a solid Harvard, Yale, Princeton type and had enough foresight to know you don't skip Harvard for San Luis Obispo just 'cuz the break is rad.

In a sense I think Mark does need to finish the story; to bring closure to it. He never needed to start it and he never needed to post it online, but once he did I think there is an obligation to see it through and I feel that away about any author who starts a story. Lots of people have gone through pain in recalling and writing stories. I know James Savick did and there are many professional writers who have had to dredge up painful memories, but they did so because they were stories that needed to be told and maybe partly because they were catharsis.

You have to remember CA is not a "beach state", it is like several different states or even countries. Along the coast are most of the major cities, but inland is totally different and then you have the mountain areas and the wooded areas. CA is mostly an agricultural and cow state. In Bakersfield you'd swear you are in Oklahoma and you wouldn't be too far wrong since lots of Okies moved there in the Dust Bowl days to work in the oil fields. In Tahoe, you'd think you were in CO or UT and even Los Angeles has 6 or seven major ski areas with in an hour and half from downtown. You'd more likely find Northface in northern Cal, than southern, although some people do wear it. Uggs used to be a big thing in the surfing/swimming/water polo crowd, but i think a bit less now. Northern Cal isn't even really San Francisco, that is actually the middle of the state, northern Cal is more like Chico, Arcata, Yreka, Redding and those cities and as different from rest of the populous coastal part of the state as Bakersfield is. Those areas are more like Oregon than what people think of CA being. You would for sure see Northface gear at Humboldt & Chico State. Fall at So Cal colleges you'd still see shorts and sandals, they won't wear a jacket until winter starts to show up in Nov. I know that is fall still technically, but feels like the start of winter.

I am not into myth, sci-fi or fantasy, but there is no one better at historical fiction than Mark Arbour. And the best author on GA, hands down, any genre is Dom Luka.

Arbour doesn't need to finish "On The Mark" per se, he just needs to do an epilogue on what happened to "Mark", how and why he left CA and what happened to the other characters. And I haven't abandoned any stories (I just take long breaks), but as anyone who writes can tell you, your "muse" sometimes leaves. Sometimes real life intervenes when the writing is a hobby. And when you start out writing well, it is very hard to keep up the quality. As much as I love John Grisham, nothing he has written since his first book, A Time to Kill, has been as good as that first book, except maybe Playing For Pizza. That is one reason I admired Tony Hillerman so much, his quality never wavered.

Actually volleyball and I have a good number of USC friends who would punch you in the nose for the football vs basketball comment and UCLA friends who would kiss you. Water polo is of course the other big west coast sport. No university team outside of California has ever won a men's or women's NCAA Championship.

I think more to the point, they might know someone who is in the military, but not necessarily a friend and remember not all kids in Malibu go to Malibu High, a good number go to Harvard-Westlake, Crossroads, Brentwood School, St. Monica's and Loyola. A few, especially colony and Hollywood types, are at Choate, Phillips Exeter and maybe one or two in prep schools in Switzerland. As to UCSB and UC Santa Cruz being party and surfer schools, it is all relative. Being UC schools they are still tough academically and are on the quarter system so it means no screwing around, or at least not too much. I suppose as much surfing happens at UC San Diego, they do have Black's Beach right below the campus as well as Scripps Pier, where the school started, but a good bit less partying I would think since it seems everyone there is pre-med and ultra competitive. And who knows what is in the mind of an 18 year old and what is important. I know I changed my mind a bunch of times in school about which way to go and even agonized over where to go, prestige vs close, being able to start my freshman year vs. riding the bench for two years, important stuff like that

Ah yes, but as a newbie you get to enjoy the pleasure of so many finished Dom stories, I am jealous. I love falling in love with his characters for the first time.

Here is my Milo, he just needs a little darker hair, but the features are right.

Meh, too old and not cute enough. I imagine Milo a bit softer and more soulful.

What else are you going to do when you are over 70??? Sure beats golf!!

Last time I landed at the Vancouver airport and got off the plane, I seriously wondered if I had gotten on the wrong plane since it seemed everyone was Chinese. I was trying to figure out how I wound up in Hong Kong, not BC.

Googlge makes movie quote games no fun, it is too easy. 28 Days Later was the movie.

There ain't nothing dumber than a lobster, nor yummier.

Yum, In n Out.