Cifrancis.com

Star Wars turns 30

George — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:58:53 +0000

Hard to believe that 30 years have passed since Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977. During that time my family and I were in Florida for a month long vacation. When I was in Florida I do remember picking up a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine that had Star Wars on the cover of that issue. As I recall, Star Wars had opened while we were in Florida and so I didn’t see it until we got back to Steubenville, OH. I don’t remember the exact date we saw it but I would have turned 11 on June 22nd of that year which was the perfect age for that sort of movie. I remember when we got to the theater that they let us in before the movie ended (just before the Rebel attack on the Death Star) so I actually saw the end of the movie first. My dad and I then stayed in the theater and watched the movie from the beginning. I remember when the movie got to the attack on the Death Star my dad kidded me and said something like “ok we saw this part already, lets go.” Of course I said “no!” to that and he laughed (and of course we stayed until the end). After that I went to see Star Wars at the theater quite a number of weekends in a row (back when matinee’s were $1.50). In all I must have seen Star Wars over 40 times in a theater during its first run and subsequent re-releases. It had quite an impact on me back then and if I ever think about the year 1977 Star Wars always comes to mind first (then that Florida vacation we took). I remember spending lots of (my parents) money on Star Wars toys, books, magazines and other merchandise. I remember when the first Star Wars action figures appeared in stores. The success of the movie had caught people off guard and so there wasn’t much if anything in the way of merchandizing until some time after the movie came out. I distinctly remember the Kenner Toys Early Bird Certificate Package when my mother and I were at a store in the Fort Steuben Mall. The idea is that you would buy the certificate package (which was available during Christmas 1977) and you would be the first to receive the 4 action figures by February 15, 1978. How times have changed. Now merchandise for a movie is usually on the shelf before the movie is even in theaters.
More later…

Pearl Jam in Cincinnati!

George — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 02:17:39 +0000

Went down to Cincinnati, Ohio to see Pearl Jam on June 24, 2006 with my friend (and fellow PJ fan) Bob. I am a member of the Pearl Jam Fan Club (Ten Club) and so I was able to secure floor seats in the center section 3rd row center. Awesome seats! The opening act was Robert Pollard who was the leader and creative force behind the indie band Guided by Voices and is now going solo. Pollard and his band were excellent and it made me sad that I never got a chance to see GbV when they were still together. This is especially a bummer since GbV was based in Dayton, Ohio and I am sure there were many missed opportunities to see them. I do intend to see Robert Pollard when I can (he starts a new tour for his new album in October 2006). Unfortunately we didn’t got there late and missed Eddie Vedder’s solo performance of The Kids Are Alright before Pollard’s performance. What was funny that during Pearl Jam’s performance someone yelled out “The Kids Are Alright!!!” (as a request) and Eddie responded laughing saying something like “I already played that one tonight asshole!” Pearl Jam was great and really kicked the audiences asses. It was really an awesome performance (set list). During the show Eddie brought up the fact that in 1979 in this very arena (then called the Riverfront Coliseum) the tragic incident that happened where 11 people were trampled just before a concert with The Who. Robert Pollard (who is from nearby Dayton, Ohio) was at that concert. Pollard joined Pearl Jam in a cover of The Who song Baba O’Riley. It was a great show and I was glad I was able to go since I missed the Cleveland, Ohio show back on May 20th.

I just turned 40.

George — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 05:00:53 +0000

So I am sitting at my computer and just noticed it is midnight and officially June 22, 2006. I just turned 40……

My Cousin’s Team Wins World Bowl XIV!!

George — Tue, 30 May 2006 00:11:41 +0000

My cousin, J.R. Niklos’ team, The Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe won World Bowl XIV this past weekend, by defeating the Amsterdam Admirals 22-7! Even cooler is that J.R. (who is #33) scored the last touchdown of the game! The World Bowl, as you might guess, is to NFL Europe what the Super Bowl is to the NFL. Congrats to JR and the Frankfurt Galaxy team! Click on the link below to see a picture of JR scoring the touchdown!

Photo: JR Scores a TD

Pearl Jam’s 8th Studio Album is Here!

George — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 04:01:47 +0000

At last! Pearl Jam’s 8th self-titled studio album is here! I pre-ordered it via the fan club and just received it today (the album hits stores officially on May 2nd.) Although I love all sorts of types of music and artists, Pearl Jam is my #1 favorite band. I have been following them since their first album “Ten” came out in 1991 and have been a PJ fan club member since the mid 90’s (and so I usually get excellent floor seats at their concerts). I have seen PJ in concert a total of 8 times with my 9th concert coming up on June 24th in Cincinnati, Ohio at the US Bank Arena. The last 3 shows I saw PJ were in Sept. 2005 in Ontario, Canada during their Canadian tour. A friend and I drove up to Hamilton, ON from Columbus, Ohio and stayed at a hotel there. We then went to the Kitchener, ON show on Sept 11th (4th Row Floor Dead Center!!), then we went to the London, ON show on Sept 12th (5th Row Floor Right Side of Stage) and finally the Hamilton, ON show on Sept 13th (3rd Row Floor Right Side of Stage). We had a really great time. I can’t wait for the Cincinnati show in June!
Anyway back to PJ’s latest album… I have to say that I am really enjoying the new album quite a bit, there are a number of really excellent songs on it. Rolling Stone’s review called it their best album in 10 years. Although I have enjoyed all their albums, this is probably one of their strongest albums in a while. Highly recommended!

My New Sony DSC-N1 Digital Camera

George — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 01:31:00 +0000

I bought a new digital camera a few weeks ago (my third digicam). The relatively new Sony DSC-N1. It is a pretty nice camera that is very small (3 13/16” x 2 3/8” x 7/8”), is 8.1 Megapixel using a 1/1.8″ 8.1MP Super HAD CCD. One of the really big features is the beautiful 3″ LCD screen on the back of this camera. The LCD is also a touch screen, and in fact most of the adjustments to the cameras functions are done via the touch screen. The picture quality seems to be really good and it also takes really decent 640×480 movies with sound as well. I bought a Sandisk UltraII 1GB Memory Stick Duo Pro for it as well as an extra battery (the camera uses Sony’s proprietary Type G Lithium Ion battery). A number of digicam review sites such as Steve’s Digicams, and DC Resource have pretty detailed reviews of this camera. This makes my third digicam with my Nikon Coolpix 990 being my first and the other being a Nikon D70 DSLR. I bought the Sony DSC-N1 to have as a take anywhere camera. I posted some sample photos in the photo gallery.

And so it begins…

George — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 04:35:29 +0000

You would think that someone who has been using the Internet for as long as I have would have a blog by now. For various reasons I have kept putting off both updating my site and starting a blog. One of the reasons for not creating a blog sooner was that I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say. However, when I took a look at the features of weblog software such as Wordpress (which, as of this post, is what I am currently using), I found that I could use the software not only to maintain a blog, but a homepage with the other content as well. I also thought it would be a good way to revive what was my ancient circa 1995 homepage with some new technology. I think using a package like Wordpress will make it easier to maintain my homepage, plus I don’t have to fret over the design and layout of the site (another reason for blowing off redesigning my old home page). I have also added the WPG2 plugin for Wordpress that allows one to incorporate Gallery2 (a nice PHP and MySQL based photo gallery) somewhat seemlessly into my site, thus allowing me to share my photos with friends/family and any stranger that wanders onto my site.

I will be moving over all the content from my old home page to this new site shortly, (anything that is worth moving anyway) so check back later for updates. The photo gallery just has a test photo album currently and I plan to add many more photos in the near future. Speaking of photos, the pictures that you see at the top of the page (in the the header) are pictures that I have taken over the years. When you reload the page (or go to a different page) a random picture will appear.

Anyway, I want to thank all the hard working people that have contributed to Wordpress and Gallery as well as Rui Pereira who created the vSlider theme that I am currently using on the site. Rui was kind enough to answer a few questions I had as well.

On with the show…