unoriginal: erin's blog

Inspiration Arrives In the Oddest Forms

2009-06-05T09:47:00.011-04:00

My boy Conan O'brien began his Tonight Show run this week, and his new set is amazing. It's neo-modern with a touch of 20's glam. Well, some peeps over at SeriousLunch took a look and made an interesting connection:

Seems the ambient Tonight Show backdrop for the show open & monolouge was inspired by Nintendo's Mario series, circa 1992. Of course, it's entirely possible it's a simple coincidence, but it's more fun to think it's not.

Tech blog Gizmodo was able to get a comment from Nintendo of America's Pres. He thinks "That's Great!"

The Big Red Machine

2009-04-06T20:37:00.005-04:00

Ever wonder how those red envelopes make their way into your mail box? Well, yeah it's the postal carriers. But I mean what journey does that envelope take once at the mysterious Netflix labs? Boston.com has a peek inside a Netflix shipping HQ, located in Northborough, MA.

Best. T-Shirt. Ever.

2009-04-01T20:34:00.002-04:00

This T-shirt is fantastic. It's so simple, yet complex. My mind hurts looking at it. Buy one at Red Bubble.

Where My Peeps At?

2009-03-31T06:29:00.002-04:00

The Chicago Tribune has a neat little photo essay on how Peeps are born. Pretty darn neat! [Chicago Tribune]

Why You Should Read What You Type

2009-02-03T10:49:00.001-05:00

Russ, I hope you weren't the font assist...

Live TV Rocks

2009-02-01T20:11:00.002-05:00

Live TV at it's best: Springsteen smashing into the handheld camera guy during halftime. Poor dude prob has a black eye!

Wow. WOW!

2008-11-05T06:35:00.008-05:00

What an amazing night last night! Barack Obama CRUSHED John McCain nearly 2 to 1. I called it: over 3 years ago, I attended a painful family event where 12 of us sat around a table and wrote down who we would vote for for president. Many wrote Kerry, Clinton & Liberman. My brother's idiot girlfriend wrote Harry Potter. But I wrote Barack Obama. I butchered his name at the time, but my Uncle was able to decipher and state, "Ah, junior Senator from Illinois Obama!". Brilliant.

Much will be said about this win, so I will let others more poignant with their words do so for me. I'm going to talk about what I know, and that's damn cool effects.

Remember the holograms in Star Wars? They were used in all six films, ma. Probably the most memorable, because it was the first, is below.

Last night CNN use the damn same things! I nearly fell out of my chair. I wanted to call Tom K & rave about them, but Tom gets passionate about elections and I didn't want to hear a diatribe about Democrats.

Holographic images have come a LONG way and last night it was just damn cool. Anderson Cooper spoke to Will.i.am via hologram, and it was amazing. He appeared in color and had depth to his body. There were no scan lines, nor rolling waves. Nearly 35 HD cameras were used to shoot the interviewee. Something like 20 computers crunch the data and render the image in real time- it's cool, but it's gotta be expensive.

Happy Sad.. more stunned than anything

2008-09-15T14:14:00.003-04:00

I'm happy that I'm 30, but I am very saddened to hear that Pink Floyd's Richard Wright has passed away after a very brief stint with cancer!

2008-03-26T14:50:00.001-04:00

The Winner Is...

2008-02-24T22:40:00.001-05:00

How do you spend Oscar night?
Tonight, I made cupcakes & waxed my eyebrows. Seems like the logical thing to do.

Grandpa has Passed...

2007-05-04T21:11:00.001-04:00

Grandpa Trudeau (Hankie) has passed away... details to follow.. :(

UPDATE: The wake will be Monday, May 7, 4pm, Grise Funeral Home, 280 Springfield St, Chicopee, MA ; the funeral service on Tuesday morning at Sacred Heart Church on Chestnut St.

Too Many Things

2007-01-09T15:14:00.000-05:00

I am going out of my mind- too much.
OK. Apple announced today they are introducing the iPhone. Apple stock (AAPL) is up +6.3 as of this writing, for a total of 91.83. Back in 2001, when I was broke- DIRT broke, Apple stock was atound $25-$27, and the first iPods had just arrived, and I wanted to buy stock but couldn't. Yeah. Great.

SO ANYWAY, despite it's terrible name, the iPhone is really quite awesome. It's an iPod, which plays music and movies, a phone and an internet device. It's basically a computer in your pocket. No stylus, all touch screens. The device "knows" when you hold it horizontally, and adjusts the picture. I can't do it justice- go to apple.com to see the specs. They ship in June.

MY CATS are freaking pissing me off. After MONTHS of being good, Snickers pee'd on my bed last night. Right on my silk duvet, and straight through to my new mattreess. Fucking lovely. Then this morning, Peaches went nuts, and pooped on my new couch! Exasparated.

I SAW "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer". Visually very good. Despite Jon Hurt's narrating, the point of it all will no doubt be lost on U.S. audiences.

'Tis a New Year

2006-12-31T20:30:00.000-05:00

I'm finally settled in to my condo!
It's been quite a year. Went to Italy, went to UK, saw David Gilmour 9 times, saw Roger Waters 4 times, got a new job, bought a condo... very busy.
Hope everyone is well & see you around!

Big Changes

2006-10-22T13:53:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that I've bought my first condo, and I'll be closing this week! This is huge. I have been driving from Springfield to Bristol round trip, every day for almost 3 years. Every month, i spend another 40 hours in my car just getting to work, so moving 15 minutes away from work is amazing.

It's a townhouse style condo, 3 bedrooms & 1.5 baths. Myself, my cats and my wireless network will do quite well there.

BTW- "Poltergeist III" is on AMC. Quite possibly the worst movie ever. I'm surprised AMC hasn't been hit with a class action suit for false advertising: many of the movies they show are NOT American Movie Classics. I mean, they show "Jaws 4: the Revenge" on a regular basis.

Madonna
Does anyone else find it odd that the kid Madonna wants to adopt was in an orphanage, but his dad has been talking to the press? Doesn't one become an orphan when your parents have passed away or disappeared? Now the father says he doesn't want Madonna adopting the son; he thought Madonna was just going to raise him & return him. So, he wants to be his dad, but doesn't want to raise him. Yeah. That makes sense.

Roger Waters Wraps Up his Tour on the West Coast
Ol' Rog brought a few new tricks to the shows at the Hollywood bowl. A large prism outlined in white trim was centered on top of the staging. During the second set, it lit up to re-create the Dark Side of the Moon album cover. That's pretty neat. It's a shame these shows weren't shot for DVD. Don't worry if you missed him: Roger is already planning on returning to the states AND filimg a DVD next year.

Happy Birthday Ol' Rog!

2006-09-06T14:24:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Roger Waters. He kicks off the US leg of his tour tonigh in NJ. Dude turns 63 today.

Sorry about the Spam

2006-08-05T14:55:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the Spam everyone.

Spam-bots leech of the Blogger system & clone email address to make it look like they came from a domain. I recieved an email this week from MY email address, and it was total junk!!!

So, if you receive an email from @erinhagopian.com, I'm really sorry. I'm looking into solutions. Sorry!!

Princess of Power

2006-08-03T20:56:00.000-04:00

Hi All
The She-Ra Princess of Power DVD set was released in July, and it's a big deal. When I was little, I was all about He-Man, She-Ra, and the Thundercats, so it's very nice to have She-Ra finally on DVD, as it's the one show I never taped on VHS. I have the Thundercats Movie, I have "the Making of Captain EO" for goodness sake, but no She-Ra. The first 2 Disc set is one 2-hr movie, and 5 "best" episodes that were voted on by the fans. Can't help but notice that every episode also stars He-Man. I had a few more observations.

When He-Man was his weenie alter ego Adam, he really was quite fruity. His voice was high and squeaky and his cat Cringer was worse. Prancing around in voilet tights. Yep.

I also couldn't believe how similar the He-man/She-Ra story was to another I grew up with. Couldn't help but notice that the landscape of He-man's home planet of Etheria bears a striking resemblance to Mos Eisley of Star Wars.

You will never find a more wreched
hive of scum and villanry

Also, He-Man and She-Ra are powerful twins separated at birth; they can "feel" their messages to one another... much like...

The entire series will be hitting DVD in 3 sets.

In a similar vein, the Oxygen Network announced the resuts of their survey: Women prefer tech gadgets to jewelry or shoes. I could have told you that!

Ooh La La

2006-07-20T12:12:00.000-04:00

When you step outside in your nightgown, you're fair game!! Mom popped outside to take a pic of Jon & Hallie with her camera phone. :) My camera phone stinks, but I snapped one anyway. Heh Heh...

Anyway, sorry about the lack of updates. I plan on archiving all of my concert info and keeping posts up to date. The latest:

Mom & Dad have their 35th wedding anniversary on Aug 7.

The Central High School Class of 1996 have announced their 10 year reunion; I'm probably not going to go. I barely liked the kids in high school then, I doubt I'd like them now.

Syd Barrett died, Roger Waters is coming to the states in the fall.

What's new with you peeps?

What the Hell

2006-06-14T20:57:00.000-04:00

If you were born in Springfield, MA or the immediate vicinity between 1977-1979, read on.

I have an autoimmune disease. Actually I have 2 now. I was diagnosed with rhumatoid arthritis when I was 6. Within the last year, I developed a skin condition called vitiliago, where large patches of my skin are losing their pigment. Here's where it gets weird.

Matthew, born 1977, developed Crohn's disease, a painful inflammatory bowel symdrome in his teen years.

Adrienne, born 1979, developed alopecia, a disease resulting in total hair loss, when she was an adolecent.

Cora, born 1978, has just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disease where brain and spinal cord tissues are damaged resulting in loss of muscle control, vision, balance, sensation (such as numbness) or thinking ability. I just saw Cora a month ago; she worked weekends at the neighborhood Vet clinic. My mother saw a flyer for a benefit for her and that's how we found out.

We all grew up within 1 block of eachother.

All are Autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases are those whereby the body's immune system, which normally targets and destroys substances foreign to the body such as bacteria, mistakenly attacks normal tissues. All of us were born within years of each other. All of us were born in Springfield, MA (I think). I am going to look into this. Were our mothers seen by the same doctor? Did they take any prenatal weird drugs? Was there something in the water back in the late 70s?

If you were born in Springfield between 1977-1979, and have developed an autoimmune disease, please email me at erin@erinhagopian.com

Roger Waters in Verona

2006-06-06T21:22:00.001-04:00

At last here are the pictures from both nights in Verona:

Roger Waters 6/4/06

Roger Waters 6/5/06

The pictures of Verona itself is in the post below. If the links do not work, check back in 5 minutes as I'm publishing as fast as I can!

On my way home...

2006-06-06T05:20:00.001-04:00

Writing from the Frankfurt airport, where no doubt the government is monitoring this T Moblie Hot Spot.

I'm uploading pictures, and if they finish before my time is up, you can see them here:

Verona pictures

I will have been in 3 countries today before most of you wake up!

Caio!

Roger Waters in Verona

2006-06-05T06:47:00.000-04:00

Oh My God.
David Gilmour should be embarassed. I don't care about artsy & all that- the Waters show rocked. the set list (from what I can remember) is:

In the Flesh
Mother
Shine on
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Have A Cigar (!!!!)
Wish You Were Here
The Gunners Dream
Southampton Dock
Fletcher Memorial Home
Leaving Beruit
Sheep
(I think I'm missing 1 or 2)

Second set was Dark Side of the Moon

Encore:
Happiest Days of our Lives
Another Brick pt 2
Vera
Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb

Unreal. If this is the show he is bringing to the US in the fall, then it will do monster business. The new guitar player is phenominal- he's the closest thing to Gilmour as you can get; and he plays the way Gilmour should play. The venue was unreal, the crowd was awesome, our seats were in the 3rd row... just AMAZING!!!!

I can't wait to post the pictures from this leg of the trip!!!

"the horse was good... but it wasn't horsey enough!"

2006-06-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Things are very good in Italy.

We are spending most of our time in the Piazza Bra, where there is an endless supply of pizza, pasta & ice cream!!! Oh and wine. :) Simon drank a whole bottle by himself yesterday before we found him & he was quite pleased with the world.

Unfortunately, the hotel lied about it's internet access, so I may not be able to post any pictures until I get to the airport or something. :( But I can tell you, itàs absolutely worth it!!! Get yer ass to Italy!

On our way...

2006-06-01T10:07:00.000-04:00

I'm posting this wirelessly at the Gatwick Airport. We arrived early as we wern't sure what delights awaited us in traffic and in customs. I got felt up by an old lady going through security. I kinda feel violated.

The concert last night was really great- especially with Nick Mason joining in on Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb. It is going to make for a great DVD. Word has it that it's being mixed this weekend for a winter release. One would think that it would be out in time for Christmas, but all things Floyd are always delayed, so I'm guessing February.

Get this- we found out hours before about Nick Mason... well it turns out David called Roger and invited him as well! Roger said "no thanks, i'm kinda tired" as he was rehearsing for his own tour!! Can you believe it! He was tired!!! Our friend Hank from the Netherlands said "if he said that, he shouldn't be playing rock n roll!" and I pointed out "well, actually, have you heard the last few things Roger's done??" :)

Hope everyone is well!!

Royal Albert Hall Night 3

2006-05-31T19:56:00.002-04:00

Nick Mason joined in on the encores...

I am very tired so I will just post the pics

RAH GIG 3

RAH GIG 3 page 2

Tomorrow we're getting brunch & flying out of Gatwick airport to Verona!!!