Zen Crib Notes

Santa Barbara is important enough to have a film festival, and along with awesome independent films and documentaries in its repertoire there are also awards given to movie stars for their roles in the previous year. For the SBIFF 2010 lineup, James Franco, Christopher Nolan, Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush and Annette Bening has received achievement awards given by the moderators of the Film Festival.

Now, as much as I wished I had the time to watch all the movies I wanted and to see all the award ceremonies given to these celebrities and all the industry panels with producers and the screenwriter, I am unfortunately a college student with only pocket change and am not rich to buy all those tickets.

I did, however, saw Geoffrey Rush's ceremony, and it was AWESOME!!!!!!

There was a red carpet thing that famous people walk on and be flashed by the camera flashbulbs and interviewed by local news channels. Since Santa Barbara has a rich town as part of its district like a conjoined twin, we have some celebrities living in town. Of the locals I've seen, there was Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame (he walked down the carpet with crutches), Rob Lowe, and William Baldwin. Now, I brought a camera with me and was lucky enough to get a photo of an unflattering me and Billy Baldwin, I stood away from the crowd with the rest of the other women who wanted to see either/both Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth and get a picture or an autograph.

Now these Brits were LATE, so they couldn't really stand around appeasing their fans, so I with my camera tried to get a good shot of bald Geoffrey Rush like I was part of the crew of National Geographic and shooting wild animals with my camera. But! But, Colin Firth did came by and said in that smooth British voice of his "Sorry, everybody but we were so frightfully late and I can't take pictures now."

HE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME AND I WAS LIKE "EEEEEEEEE!"

But I, the FOOL, chose out of automatic charity to help one girl get a picture of her and him (she had her camera set on extreme close-up so I had to lean back to fit them in the screen). When I realized the folly of my generosity, it was after he had to go through the doors of the Arlington theater, and I fumed quite loudly at my lost chance of a picture with him.

And that was my small stint at hobnobbing with celebrities. I'll most likely pictures and videos up here soon, as soon I stopped being lazy, but next time I WILL volunteer for the film festival if I am to gain the glimpse of seeing famous people. NEXT YEAR!

So, I was in the bus going back home when we were on the overpass and I looked out of the window to see a strip of blazing red and orange in the deep darkness.

I was like, "Holy crap!" and was supplied with information by the other passengers that there had been a fire going on in Montecito that happened right after 6 pm.

The fires I'm usually associated with are usually the ones over the hills and mountains behind my fair city, but I've never seen such a serious blaze this close.

Hopefully I won't have to evacuate XP