china!

had to get in my official last blog of may :-) ... and greets from beijing! landed here yesterday for work. we're still reeling from our big false positive detection a couple weeks ago where we crashed a few hundred thousand PCs (a few of which were actually licensed!) due to an update quality issue when we detected core windows files as malware. between issuing apologies for our incompetence and generally looking contrite, beijing is fine, thank you.

a few observations on beijing so far:
the air pollution is astonishingly bad. it's worse than mexico city. the sky is grey and i'm told it's a rare day when you see blue sky. it reminds me of the animatrix where they talk about how the "burnt the sky" in desperation. if you think seattle is grey and dingy...

on a more positive note, you can see new buildings and construction everywhere. china is marching along to becoming the next superpower and it's painted across the landscape in so many fancy sky scrapers. the hotel i'm at (grand hyatt) is fantastic and my pal alex and i ate at a superb restaurant called "LAN Club" which was designed by Phillip Starck and achingly cool. everything seems to really be gearing up for the 2008 olympics here in beijing.

pedestrians do not have the right of way, they have to get the hell out of the way! cars follow their own rules and since you're walking on foot, you lose. the rationale seems to be as old as the schoolyard rules: they're bigger and faster.

now it's time for a little tour led by visiting guide alex chou...

i have no clue what this street is called by it's got all the standard tacky tourist stuff along with wacky street food

... and onto the wacky street food. here's live scorpions skewered and ready to be stir-fried.

ah yes, and if scorpions aren't yer flavor, how about some cicada larvae at various stages of growth? science project or snack? you decide!

and now for something a little tamer: a couple of guys playing chinese chess on the side of the street where alex and i had classic beijing style noodles with a tsing tao.

may music & pics

got my hands on the forthcoming groove armada "soundboy rock". overall i like it and think it's about the equivalent of "lovebox", but more discohouse+ragga than a mix of rock and dub. i'm still forming my opinions but the tracks that seem to stand out are "song 4 mutya", "lightsonic" and "what's your version".

of the stuff i picked up previously, i'd say the best albums by far are bassnectar's underground communication, mark ronson's version, miles davis sketches of spain and feist's "the reminder". i wouldn't plunk any cash down for the terminally boring "good, bad and the queen". it sounds like the gorillas without any of the fun hiphop or good collabs. i have to say i don't get blonde redhead either beyond the track "23".

i'll have more to write next month, way too much stuff happening behind the curtain this month that i'm not comfortable blogging about (yet). all should shake out in the next 3-4 weeks.

this is a shot from our master bedroom. i have no clue what this tree is, but every spring it explodes into this amazing purple color, limbs filled with fragrant flowers. when i get the chance i watch it from the window or the roof as it's little hummingbird attendants flit in and out of the branches. we're pretty lucky...
this is a shot of jane at the getty villa. we arrived just in time for the "human sacrifice seminar"! yeah!!! beats the heck outta "personal realization" or "maximizing your weath through real estate investments". nonetheless, by the time we arrived it had already been cancelled on account of the primal gods switching demands from hard-to-find LA virgins to full tanks of 4.50/gallon premium gasoline.
pretty cool shot from the not-so-mighty Q of the columns in the courtyard of the villa. it's a stunning place. not particularly large, but nicely done.
The looks on the faces of some of the greek statues were priceless. This guy looks like he was just informed of an illegitimate child he fathered during a wild night in Cyprus.

killer centipedes & what bots say when they talk amongst themselves

ugh, dealing with a late night quality issue in china and need a break so thought i'd hammer out a quick blog i've been meaning to post for a while about couple interesting things i've bumped into lately online.

first off, the zoologix blog has become worthy of regular visits for its oddball animal stories and snarky humor. i think i first saw it via digg, which has become my news source of choice lately. (i have it as one of my main content areas on my igoogle homepage) anyways, a couple of my faves are the creepy giant centipede huntings and the jogging flower.

next up is an interesting dialogue between 2 chat bots, alice and jabberwocky. these are programs built to dialogue with people and modeled in artificial intelligence principles. instead of having them chat with people, the authors of the article seeded them with a question and let them chat with one another from there unattended to see what would happen. if you even have a little geekbone in yer body, i think you'll appreciate what follows. one of best lines of the sparring b/w alice and jabberwocky:

A: : -) I don’t have any reason to deceive you.
J: Yes, you do, you’re a woman.

keane, amoeba & denver

so the keane show was moved over to the gibson amphitheatre in choloville, er universal citywalk, since the greek is firefighter's headquarters while they battle the blazes in griffith park and environs. a pretty poor substitute but i wouldn't have wanted to be in their shoes scrambling to find a suitable replacement to the greek at the last minute. can you imagine the poor suckers who didn't get the memo and showed up to a smoke filled greek? "that keane was a little hard to hear but has one helluva pyrotechnics show, larry!"

anyways, the concert was good but not great. fresh outta rehab, the lead singer (tom chapin) sounds great. he's got some serious pipes and sounds equally good live as he does recorded, which is pretty impressive. the visuals around the show were cool, nothing remarkable but a combination of military themes and sorta groovy pac northwest native art-toons. the biggest downside was that they program their electric guitar rather than play it live. why? it's not like electric guitar players are hard to find or that they're crowded on the stage (it's just 3 dudes). hrm. the best songs were "a bad dream" and "atlantic". i was left with the impression that they were a good band, but need to show a little more range and get a little braver with their performance. how about something as simple as a cover song guys?

moving on, i dropped a little coin at amoeba last weekend and picked up some good deals. their used music selection can't be beat, i found most of the stuff i wanted for under 10 bucks. big win. early faves are bassnectar's new release "undrground communications", the latest feist "the reminder" and mark ronson's first artist album "version" (really nothing more than collected production work but good nonetheless). miguel mig's newest is solid houseparty fare, but adding vocalists beyond lisa shaw doesn't make you eclectic or varied if everything as a decidedly similar 4x4 beat behind it. overall, a good haul and i'm still making my way thru it all.

this week started out in LA on monday but i flew off to denver in the evening for a speaking gig at a golf course. yes, some people speak at fancy halls, some at hotel auditoriums, and others in front of press corps scrambling to get their question answered by the speaker of obvious prestige. i speak at golf courses where i'm basically the toll they need to pay before they can get to tee time. nice. what was cool about this one was after i fought my way out to the location past cows and horses, i was rewarded with some simply amazing views of the area. my Q can't do 'em justice, but here's some of the pics from the trip.

this is a shot from the "minitorium" where i sang, danced, and otherwise spewed forth infosec nonsense for 60 minutes. freakin' beautiful rocks! when i first saw them i immediately thought "how did they make those?" man have i been living in LA too long... :-)

following my speech, we made time for a mad dash around the course in golf carts. woohoo!! below are my partners in golf cart cruisin' christine and hope.

the course was stunning. damn shame they wasted a perfectly good hiking trail on golf! ;-)

among the geese and other wildlife around, you should be able to make out the 4 deer that passed right in front of us. pretty cool!

current playlist (& a little more)

sleeping lessons - the shins - wincing the night away
innocence - bjork - volta
gone forever - ulrich schnauss - a strangely isolated place
os novo yorkinos - bebel gilberto - momento
voce - wax poetic feat. bebel gilberto - brasil
little ones - fat freddy's drop - live at the matterhorn
laid - james - laid
base 6 - chemical brothers - star guitar e.p.
david - gug gus - attention
23 - blonde redhead - 23
rubidoux - cold war kids - robbers & cowards

headed off to the keane concert at the greek this friday so i'll post a review of that over the weekend. they should be great live and the greek is a nice venue, very much looking forward to it.

i'm also going to try and sneak in a trip to amoeba this weekend, i've got a gift certificate jane gave me for xmas that's scorching a hole in my pocket. time to do so music shopping! here's what's on the "to buy" list:
Ulrich Schnauss – Goodbye
Kraak & Smaak – Remix sessions
Feist – Reminder
Wax Poetic – Brasil
Underworld & Gabriel Yared – Breaking & Entering
Dub side of the moon - Easy Dub All-Stars
Miguel Migs – Those Things

and i'm hoping to score one of these forthcoming as imports:
Chemical Bros. - We Are The Night
Groove Armada - Soundby Rock

the bay in 07 & bebel

it's been a while since i actually "lived" in the bay area. about 8 years to be exact (yikes!) from the time i had a corp apt in fremont and was doing double duty as hardcore security consultant manager / full-time partier. as i was walking around today in mountain i reflected on a few of the differences...

- it's not hard to get a hotel any more. i used to have to fight to get into a crappy howard johnson where you paid 230 bucks (gladly) for a last minute visit. traffic has lightened up too, which is good.

- the same crappy hotels i used to crash at are now "boutique" hotels which are nothing more than the same edifice which have collided with a west elm catalogue with somewhat predictible results: they're stuffy, cramped, and still smell faintly of their ignominious past but they have nice modern furnishings, gratis wine happy hours, and aveda supplies in the bathrooms. progress?

- everyone is indian. i walked thru our mtn view office and there was a sandeep or sourabh every 5 steps. sign o' the times. when i witnessed a splash of multi-ethnicity, it was for a "john lee" and in the rare case it was a white dude (almost no women) the name ended in a "...vic". my my my... have times changed.

- the food is good! castro street in mtn view used to be the dominion of about 7 different pho and low-end chinese restaurants. now it has any of a number of tapas and (suprise!) indian and chinese fusion restaurants. my pal uy and i scored a few nice cigars and drinks at the local joints while watching the indian people pass by :-)

onto bebel's latest, memento. all together, a solid album deserving of an accomplished artist. the best tracks in my estimation are the slow-building title song "momento", fiesta track "os novo yorkinos", blissed-out "um segundo", and the minimalistic "words" where she showcases her breathy vocals. even on the less impressive contributions to the album, such as the forgettable house track "bring back the love", her voice is still able to make the song unoffensive, if not exciting. i think she's better off letting other lay down the party beats to compliment her pipes as she did with both of her last 2 albums. i'd *love* to see her do an album with miguel migs though, who has far too long focused on lisa shaw and has branched out somewhat with his latest production album "those things".

a million thanks to dawn for sending me the CD! (gleefully ripped and added to both my lappie and groovy new red ipod nano i got for my bday from jane)

may already?

oh how time flies... meant to get 10 posts in april but ah well. i've been busy the last couple weeks with my little occupational crossroads. it's been interesting and fun but it's not over yet, probably another 4-6 weeks of twisting turns and tough decisions. we will see!

on the music front, i'm enjoying the shins stuff more than i care to admit. i'm taking a shine to 'phantom limb', 'know your onion', 'so says i', 'sleeping lessons' and other stuff. on the other hand, i wish i could say that i like the new air album, which is offensively boring, and that i really enjoy the rest of bjork's album "volta". i'm going to listen to it a couple times more but i found myself a little disappointed after being blown away by 'earth intruders' and 'innocence'. i'm interested in checking out the new feist, which should be good. capitol A has some new stuff out too; he's been doing a bunch of good collabs lately so i'm betting it will be more of the same speedy, catchy rhyme-slinging.

below is a shot from a mexican magazine article from an interview i did while there a while back. for those who have access, i'm doing a bit for bloomberg tv tomorrow morning.


jane and i went hiking 2nite and i snapped the following fotos of topanga park from my groovy new motorola Q, black edition. i love it! far better than my clunky old treo 650.

for those who think LA is all strip malls, meth labs and concrete jungle, the santa monica mtns which are within minutes of santa monica proper offer some great hiking. check out eagle rock below.
we caught a great sunset on the way back (below) and doe sneaking into the generous brush for the evening. beautiful stuff.

current playlist

robbers - cold war kids - robbers and cowards
finer - nightmares on wax - carboot soul
dogs - damien rice - 9 crimes
wishing well - terrence trent d'arby - greatest hits
earth intruders (extended, stent mix) - bjork - earth intruders EP
get it on - makossa & megablast feat. kool keith - kuanaka
colossus - wolfmother - wolfmother
lullaby - morgan geist - super EP
vinheta quebrante - ceu - ceu
fisherman's grotto - justin warfield - fisherman's grotto
visions of you - jah wobble's invaders of the heart feat sinead o'connor - collaborations

midwest tour: dublin OH->detroit MI

greets from a crappy hotel room next to the detroit metro airport, which has a certain apocalyptic charm to it. want a little slice of post-industrial ukraine right here in the US? look no further than detroit. yecch.

so with my ongoing belief that cabbies have the clearest view of a region, my trip started with an ethiopian cab driver who picked me up in columbus. very pleasant guy who explained to me that he had a funny accent b/c he moved to america from nairobi to pursue his dreams. i told him i had a funny accent and not nearly as good a reason as nairobi. i didn't tell him that he might have been the first person to dream about coming ohio.

he took care to inform me that dublin was the proud headquarters of wendy's hamburgers and that jack niklaus lives in dublin. sure enough, when i stumbled my way into the briefing i was speaking at the next morning, saint jack was enshrined at the venue. the jack shrine foto is courtesy of my crappy treocam, as usual. i'm not sure what kind of plans he's holding in the painting, but if he's as smart as the dubliners think he is, it's escape plans to a city where you can find a decent burrito.


the next 4 hours were spent en route to detroit, passing thru most of ohio including my birthplace of sylvania, ohio. the trek included passing the "olentangy indian caverns", which i'm sure is a big money winner for new scamparama, ohio or wherever the hell we were. reminded of all the places with funny and sorta cool sounding indian names we had as kids in michigan, and caused me to think how we have none of them in socal. we've swapped them all out for southwest latino names, which might even be cooler. i can't tell you why, but saying "rancho cucamonga" makes me happier than "mackinac". score one for socal.

off to milwaukee and then chi-town tomorrow for 2 more events. g'nite!

kcrw evening becomes eclectic (and my bday)

many thanks to everyone who came out for my bday bash this past weekend. and of course a million thanks to my wife who planned it all and then snapped no less than 50 or so shots which are now available here.

after a fantastic evening of far too many margaritas (see picture to the right and the looks of concern on my pals at me doing yet another tequila shot), my big bday celebration moved onto kcrw's annual superconcert: sounds eclectic evening. the last one that we went to introduced us to an early damien rice, who was easily the most memorable act though jurassic 5 and beck turned in great performances as well. we showed up on time to make sure not to miss an act.

bitter:sweet

bummer that they opened the evening to 1/2 empty seats since they put on a great performance. 4-person string section with a harpist, alongside an accomplished dj and the rest of the band. and then there's vocalist shana halligan, supervixen. their stuff is sort of sexy/goofy, like an austin powers movie but with less fake chesthair. if you haven't checked out their album "the mating game" from last year, it's not to be missed. you won't be blown away i'd wager, but it's solid across the board and perfect as sonic wallpaper for a coctail party.

breakestra

these guys are an LA institution just waiting to break out into something bigger. they kicked off their funk-filled session with a "f*ck bush" chant which was only matched in its subtlety by the "impeach the president" song which followed. i get it, but we can do better. and they did. they threw some james brown out there, which killed it, and then some johnny cash (ring of fire) which sorta worked. they kept things hot for about 20 minutes and finished with "cramp your style" (fantastic tune!) and a series of instrumental solos. i've never heard a flute solo sound so cool. i gave their latest album to my pal danny 2 xmas ago and was wondering if it was polite to ask to rip it before he left it was so good :-)

cold war kids
they were easily the best and biggest surprise of the evening. i'll admit that i got their album from kcrw's cd club and then gave it to my cousin after ripping it and giving it a once over early this year. boy was i wrong. they brought a manic intensity to their performance that i can now hear after listening to the album several times over. they served up some seriously pissed-off bluesy rock and roll with dark but powerful lyrics. the highlight for me was "saint john" which is stripped down to nearly accapela and accented by sparse piano and simple guitar/drums. "hang me out to dry" was great too and about the only song they do that isn't depressing in some way. how can you not like a group that sings about laundry that's upset about too many spins in the dryer?

rodrigo y gabriela
if cold war kids were the biggest surprise, r&g were the best performance. nothing else came within a whisker. who would've thought that flamenco guitars and metal could combine to make something so lovely? the 2 mexicanos (tamaleros as jonathan calls them) sit down across from one another with solely their guitars in hand and play beautiful, forceful music that commands your attention. they got a standing ovation after nearly every song. gabriela is unbelieveable, she plays her guitar masterfully but interweaves percussion beats into her chords by thumping the guitar with her hand, knuckles, etc. I can't do it justice with words, if you get the chance, see them. their finale of "stairway to heaven" even managed to make the wonderful but long played-out track fresh again.

ok, it's getting late here in dublin (ohio) so i'm going to turbo thru the others:

travis - unoffensive and charming. i will not remember their performance in 2 weeks. they should have brought the rest of their band perhaps.

lily allen - her voice was stronger than i though it would be. and that's where the good stuff ends. she looked like she was going thru the motions at the end of a long tour. she was missing most of her band and they kept inserting these silly laptop-produced noises into the show which i think were supposed to be kitschy but ended up sounding dumb. not bad, but i had high hopes that were not met.

the shins - i had little hope for a good finale and they met my low expectation. better than travis, but i will not be able to place which body part closed out the show 2 weeks from now. forgive me if i accidentally call them "the toes" or "the kneecaps" or something.