THE VIEW FROM MY OFFICE—Surprisingly, it doesn’t stink in my building.
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THE VIEW FROM MY OFFICE—Surprisingly, it doesn’t stink in my building.
THE BIG FIRE—So I woke up this morning to a phone call and 3 text messages saying Universal Studios was ablaze. Most of the fire is contained now, though the highly-flammable (now with toxic fumes!) videotape archive is still burning. No worries, though, about anything being permanently gone—everything in the video archive is copies, originals are stored in an abandoned underground salt mine somewhere in Kansas. So those vintage “Complete Savages” masters are safe!
Anyway, looks like New York Street was the source of the fire. Just the other day, I saw they were filming down there, with 20-foot tall rubber ducks mysteriously appearing on the street. Most of the street looks burned from the photos, I’ll have to see what it looks like when I go back to work tomorrow. Also gone is the Courthouse Square, famously used as the Hill Valley set in “Back to the Future”. This same area was also destroyed by fire in 1990. Word is there is also nothing remaining inside the famous King Kong showroom on the Universal Tour, either.
So where is the fire? Try clicking here for a map of Universal Studios. In the search box, type ‘6153’ and hit enter. In the next box that appears, select ‘Brownstone Street’ and the map should zoom in on the affected area. The big fire is now in building 6197, the video archive. The firefighters are on top of #6217 with their hoses. The octagon east of 6197 is the water tank used as Kramer’s swimming spot in the East River on Seinfeld.
If you click and drag west, you’ll see building 5225, where I work. Although it looks close on the map, there’s a lot of sheet metal buildngs, asphalt, and other sundry non-flammable items between there and the main fire. The more at-risk area is south, around the ‘Tour Bridge’ marker, that large unmarked section is all dry hillside, except for my parking lot (where I saw a coyote the other day, and a family of deer live just above). As long as the hillside doesn’t catch fire, everything should remain fine in my area of the lot.
The sets of “Life” are further west of the 5225 building, in the green buildings marked 43 & 44, on the other side of the gigantic Bud Westmore building.
We’ll have to see how it all looks tomorrow.
via foxtracker.files.wordpress.com (Click for a bigger version)
GREAT PICTURE!—That’s the Phoenix Mars lander, as seen by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. A manmade camera in orbit of Mars captured a shot of a separate manmade object sent to the surface.
(via Bad Astronomy Blog)
BACK TO WORK—Halfway through my first week back on the job. It’s been kind of quiet, it’s nice to ease into work instead of having everything just thrown at me willy-nilly. An easy first few days also allows time to explore what’s new at Universal Studios, got a chance to take a spin on the new “Simpsons” themed ride. It’s fun, but I don’t know if it’ll replace “The Mummy” as my favorite lunchtime diversion.
IT’S HERE—The midnight pre-order pickup line at GameStop was 200 people deep, but it took only 20 minutes to collect my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. So, for the next few days I’d expect to be knee deep in Liberty City.
Well, OK, not really that busy with anything serious. Just finishing up my rounds on this:
While I wait until April 29th for this:
…My first day of work has been pushed back to May 19th due to script issues, so, I’ll have plenty of time to drive around Liberty City until then.
WOW—Trying not to turn into a gushing fanboy here with all the Batman and Indiana Jones news, but, my God, the cast photos are out from the new Watchmen film and I can’t help but just stare in shock at how truly awesome they are. Zach Snyder (director of “300”) obviously knows what he’s doing with this property. For all the pics, click here.
L.A. wants to build a bike path along the Los Angeles river, from Downtown to Canoga Park. What’s stopping them? NBC/Universal studios. Why?
Universal fears “that people would use the path to lob unsolicited screenplays onto the studio’s nearby production lot — something that apparently happens at other spots when a Universal film scores big at the box office.”
Only in L.A. Another interesting thing in the article is this note: “At the same time, the media and entertainment giant is trying to gather public and political support to build 2,937 residential units on the Universal Studios back lot. The company also wants to be a major tenant in a project next to the Red Line subway stop on nearby Lankershim Boulevard. That proposal includes a television production facility, an office tower of up to 24 stories and another building that could be up to 34 stories.”
Interesting….
