The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I watched the film yesterday after working a press screening of the new Will Ferrell movie Kicking & Screaming at the Universal Citywalk in Hollywood. If you enjoy British humor in films like the old Monty Python movies, then you'll like Hitchhikers. I only saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I really enjoyed that film...so therefore, I should've liked Hitchhikers, which I did. Do you like my generalization? I didn't think so. I'd give a more thorough review on the movie, but I won't. Except to say it's both cheesy and adventurous in a wacky, Spaceballs sort-of-way.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESSICA ALBA!!! Not that she'd visit this site in a billion years. Or maybe she already has... I'd get one of those large birthday cakes where some hot girl (hey, this is MY idea... I ain't getting some dude to pop out of the frosting. Unless it was me, heh-heh-heh) pops out of it singing the birthday song, but you know, the girl I want to hide in the pastry happens to be the girl this entry is devoted to. Ms. Alba turned 24 today.

PARNO'S PAGE... MAJOR UPDATES: Over the past few weeks or so, I’ve been making subtle chances to my main website. In terms of the web design itself, nothing has really changed...since I still plan on being the only webmaster on the ‘Net to have the same HTML layout till 2010—which means this webpage will have the same look for a total of 10 years (I began this site in 2000)! Why am I doing this? I don’t know. Anyways, in terms of the changes, I re-edited almost all of the photos on this website...which is NO easy task! I have at least 700 files worth of images saved on Crosswinds.net (my webhost), and I used Photoshop 7.0 to re-crop them and adjust their color and brightness through the use of Auto Contrast. As I said, this was no easy task...as all the files were saved on at least 35 floppy disks stacked on my table! I’d transfer all of my files to a blank CD or a USB flash drive, but I’m too lazy to (I know, I know... How ironic). If you’ve been visiting my site since 2000 (not freakin’ bloody likely), you’d notice that the images are crisper in color and/or brightness—or at least better cropped. Now, to list all the sections with the major changes: FRIEND'S Gallery... I’ve added Pages 2 through 6 to this section, and have uploaded new images...including a group photo from my graduation out of Cal State Long Beach in May of 2004. Oh yea, I've also displayed an old picture of me and Desiree P., who I had a huge, huge crush on in high school. Ignore the dorky smile I have on my face in that photo, haha. SPORTS & LADIES Gallery... I re-sorted the images on this page, with all the Lakers, Dodgers and Angels pics on the bottom and the import model photos at the top (starting with the lovely Jasmine Mai). Why did I switch around the order of the images, you ask? Simple... To have visitors stay on this page a lot longer once they click on it, of course! Thanks to Statcounter.com, I found out that this is the most popular page on my website (GEE, I wonder why?), and that most people visiting this section are looking for photos of import models. Sorry Rick Fox and Vladimir Guerrero...but if the Keyword Analysis function on Statcounter is any indication, most people visiting this site want pics of Jasmine Mai or Francine Dee, not retired NBA or MLB players. I also posted up new pics of Lisa Kaye, Natasha Yi, Aubreylyn Laserna and Rowena Galam on this page. A new section devoted to the 2004 Battle of the Imports car show at Fontana's California Speedway has also been added. ASK PARMAN!... I re-edited the caption under that photo of me pretending to be meditating (or looking like a dumbass. It depends on your point of view), and added new animated GIF files under two questions (one of them pertaining to Jessica Alba). Those GIFs are pretty cool! FAVORITES Section... I updated this section since it said I was still a college student and that I’m 24 years old. I wish. I’m now 25, haha. Favorite Films and Favorite TV Shows are the categories most-revised. ARTWORK Section... I re-edited the text, and placed that crappy Photoshop image of those two X-Wings at the bottom of the page. And obviously, I added a ton of new artwork in this section! Check ‘em out! FICTION Section... The page with the most changes is my Hunters of the Dark Side section. Other than the modified images, I’ve added a new pic under the Concept Artwork category. LINKS Section... Added a couple of new links to other sites, including the homepages of models Cordelia and Jasmin Alejandrino. I also deleted the links to sites that no longer exist, as well as revised the URL addresses to those with different domain names. AUTOGRAPHS Section... The Reena Vasquez and Lori Malay autographs are the only ones newly-added, but the thumbnail images to the previous ones have been changed and look much better. Well, that’s all. I’ll still be making new changes to my site over the next few days, but I’ll be too lazy to report them here. All right then, click on those links above and enjoy PARNO’S PAGE! Or PARMAN'S PAGE... Whatever. EDIT: As of right now, my website has gathered 45,505 hits since I installed the Statcounter hit counter to a few of the sections (listed above) last year. The count would obviously be higher if I had these counters in place since 2000, and they were installed in ALL of my sections at the same time (there are still a few sections on my site that don't have a hit counter yet). Oh well.

MR. & MRS. SMITH: For those of you who live near the City of Industry in California, the scenes that were filmed in the old IKEA store along Gale Avenue (the IKEA store is now located near Eastland Mall in Covina, but why the hell am I bringing this up when more than half of you who visit this journal page don’t even live in the United States? Haha) takes place at the end of the film. It’s an action scene, where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie—who is friggin' sexy with those pouty lips and yellow sunglasses she has on (see the image above right)—engage in a fierce gunfight with a group of commandos inside a furniture warehouse, called KOSTMART. Don’t know what the story to the film is (actually I do, somewhat, but I probably shouldn’t mention it since I can get in trouble for talking about the ending ‘cause I worked on two of the test screenings for this film), but it seems like it will have lots of action, as shown with the final action sequence, and with all the car chases, gunfire and explosions that I heard from out in the theater hallway before my co-workers and I entered the auditorium to prepare distributing surveys. Will I watch this movie when it comes out in theaters? Maybe. There was a set piece resembling a rock formation built on the parking lot outside of IKEA last year, and I’d like to see the action sequence (presumably a rock-climbing scene) that takes place at this locale. Anyways, that’s all for now. Late.

RANDOM POST OF THE DAY... I found this hilarious montage (well, hilarious if you're a leftist bastard) on a message board:

KUNG FU HUSTLE! I watched the movie on um, DVD last night...and I thought it was pretty good. As usual, the action scenes were cool, and the climax reminded me of something straight from DragonballZ, haha. Did they have to have those gratuitous butt shots of that one FOB dude though (in case you haven't checked my main website out yet, I'm Asian...so I can use that acronym, lol), especially since none of the female characters show T & A? Oh well. I like how the 'chosen one' theme was played out in this film. And yes, it had several funny moments (like the Axe Gang breaking out into a dance number after slaughtering another gang outside a police house. Actually, that's pretty sadistic...which makes it funnier). Quite entertaining... Then again, I'm a lousy film critic. (Just read my previous entry: "I’m 9 days late, but on April 3rd I watched Sin City. So what did I think? It was good.")

I’m 9 days late, but on April 3rd I watched Sin City. So what did I think? It was good. In the words of one of my female co-workers who also saw the film, it was a 2-hour "wet dream" for guys, hahaha. And that’s not far from the truth... On one hand, you have extremely-gory violence—with Nick Stahl’s character (the Yellow Bastard) getting an arm and ear blown off and his crotch shot in the beginning of the film (by Bruce Willis), and him getting his tallywacker literally ripped off and his head pummeled into mushy goo by someone’s fist (again, Bruce Willis) at the end—and on the other, gratuitious nudity. And not only do you have the Kill Bill/Monty Python and the Holy Grail-like violence (there are moments when Marv, played by Mickey Rourke, is slashed by someone’s clawed fingers, gets shot numerous times, and even gets run down repeatedly by a car, and yet all he does in response is put some bandages on or gets sent to an emergency room, only to leave the emergency room and continue his quest for revenge. Borrowing a line from Monty Python...it’s "just a flesh wound"), but you have hot chicks like Jaime King and that one actress from Spy Kids (Carla Gugino) walking around topless as if that was as common as wearing pajamas when you sleep. Oh—and to add more to Sin City’s family-friendly atmosphere, you have a cannibal (played by Frodo, err Elijah Wood) who proudly hangs the heads of his previous meals (a bunch of prostitutes) along a wall. And this cannibal meets his nice little fate by getting eaten alive by a dog. Ahh, poetic justice. And the nicest girl in the film (Jessica "I look good in brown or blonde hair with blue polk-a-dots sprinkled on" Alba) is a stripper. Go figure.

Aside from the awesome violence and girls walking around topless and in a thong, Sin City also has some nice cinematography. I heard Director Robert Rodriguez did his own DP (director of photography) work... All he needed to do was make a small cameo in Sin City and he’d be a triple threat. But he didn’t, so oh well. Anyways, that’s all. I feel like watching Spy Kids now.

Kingdom of Heaven. I watched the new Ridley Scott film at a press screening in Pasadena yesterday... It was good, and you can obviously say that it's an unofficial sequel to Gladiator, haha. But I still like Gladiator over this one, since that film was more original (to me, at least. I still haven't seen Braveheart), and Hans Zimmer's music on the 2000 Oscar winner was definitely a lot more memorable (no offense to the dude who did KoH's score). Also, Kingdom of Heaven would've seemed a lot better had it not been the umpteenth sword-and-sandal epic to come out over the past 5 years...behind Gladiator, Lord of the Rings (specifically The Two Towers and Return of the King), Arthur or King Arthur or whatever and Troy. But still, the film was a'ight.

DON'T get me started on Orlando Bloom and him being the Typecast King, though. Why is he the Typecast King, you ask? Well let's put it this way: He wields a sword in almost every film he's been in over the past half-decade or so (with the exception of 2001's Black Hawk Down), and he played a blacksmith in both 2003's Pirates of the Carribbean and Kingdom of Heaven. 'Nuff said.

As a big space aficionado waiting for America's manned space program to get moving again, this is a great sight to see:









If you don't know what I'm talking about, then where the hell were you on February 1st, 2003?? Go here for more details.

Pope John Paul II... I would have an in-depth entry honoring the late Pontiff, but considering that the previous post was on Sin City (not exactly a movie to show during a benefit at a Catholic church reception hall), I'll just say, R.I.P. Karol Wojtyla (1920-2005).