life angeles

coffee & work email; shouldn't i just be reading the paper?

how did i spend 45 minutes and get nothing on my tasklist crossed off?

out the door. late again to pick up jonathan. 

the sun has broken through and i can see the mountains.

it's a good day.

gallinas vivas, beckons the sign on hoover. i'll pass.

spirited discussion about pricing and branding with jonathan.

glad to hear accounting is going well for him.

and that his spirit remains strong in spite of recent deaths around him.

sometimes i remember what he was like 5 years ago when we first met.

and i'm proud of him.

where does his hope, his relentless optimism stem from?

off to newsong. late again.

a reminder to love, a moment to reflect.

a few friendly faces.

off to alvarado. 

gallinas vivas.

mom made chicken with the man doo guk, but far from viva.

the tv is playing sunday morning hoops & we're talking in spurts between bites.

"how's your foot??

"how's english class going? what are you learning?"

mom chuckles a little when she explains they are learning family member names.

way too easy for her, jane admonishes her to move up to the higher level class.

the pan chan is good, fresh and crunches when you take a bite.

jonathan is going to get his hair braided, it's pretty long and edging towards a mini-fro.

mom makes us coffee afterwards as the lakers and spurs pre-game starts.

out the door. jane with a bag of pan chan. 

mom now focused on andrew bynum vs. tim duncan.

a discussion of aesop rock's mix in the car.

branding swapped for bpms and bassline.

berendo, marked by the salvi bakery and futbol gear shop.

study hard, stay safe, see you next week.

vermont is waking up and wearing its sunday colors, blaring its sunday bachata & ranchero music.

i'm keeping an eye out for pedestrians and swerving cars while chatting with dorian.

another billboard for the afro ninja anime.

we stumble upon an irony.

youth today like jonathan have more ability to advance than ever before, but

their environment is more dangerous than previous generations.

if you can survive, you can go far.

high stakes for young people that should be worried more about scoring a date than steering clear of the neighborhood thugs.

i'm glad my youth was spent in relative innocence.

i recall catching lightning bugs & playing freeze tag.

steering through the swamp on a dingy during a rainy season.

drawing fantasy battle scenes on paper with my best friend sam.

going to the gym at the Y-center downtown with my dad.

our mara salvatrucha were the older kids.

the only pain was related to embarrassment, nothing more.

off to see slumdog at the laemmle near our place. 

jane arrived before me and grabbed our seats.

when she sees me, she hands the ticket to the attendant and whispers:

"see mike tyson over there?"

sure enough, there he is.

fat, tattoo-faced in khakis and a green-striped shirt buying a bag of popcorn.

jane's grabbed a seat for us near the back.

the movie is spectacular.

we wonder if mike tyson liked it.

jane and i joked that we would ask him, but it's not like he's jah rule or something.

old dave chappelle jokes age well, apparently.

off to the gym.

sub-7 minute miles are feeling good. 

let's see what i can do in the next race.

jane cranks out nearly 5 miles.

this is from the girl who could not run a mile without stopping when we met.

i can claim no credit, her determination is her own.

we're out at 5pm when the gym is closing;

odd since it's called 24-hour fitness.

i roll up to the parking attendant to pay for my stay.

she's speaking with her friend in the booth.

and ignoring my while she speaks

"bitch was calling..."

really. this is why shopping online is so popular. service is so often abysmal.

i just want to leave the lot, why do i have to feel like i'm interrupting someone's conversation?

finally home and time to make dinner.

spinach salad, stir-fried veggies & blackened shrimp.

frozen yogurt with berries.

and the SAG awards.

red wine (should have bought the better stuff, ah well)

i'm watching tv with jane and plowing through email.

deleting digital clutter, looking up actor facts for jane & editing slides.

the dishes are done and jane is tucked in.

my quiet time with sandalwood incense is waiting.

and a glass of whiskey with rocks.

i check the lakers score, finish my work, collect my thoughts.

and place them where they won't be lost.

'nite.

best of '08

constant rotation
elbow, "the seldom seen kid"
while people fawn over crappy indie music like the weepies and los campesinos, elbow quietly (at least in the US) delivered one of the most beautiful, compelling albums of the year. while vampire weekend is fun, elbow is fun, poignant, and lush. imo, the most complete works of the year from first to last track; there's only 2 songs on the album skip past in my ipod.

vampire weekend, "vampire weekend"
i found myself going back to this album again and again. there's something undeniably catchy about the brainy fluff punk of vw, the album expertly captured how i felt on my best days at university of michigan. it can be a little over the top and cheesy at times but it's fun enough to where you hardly notice. best tracks: m79, a-punk, oxford comma, blake's got a new face, mansard roof, bryn.

yoav, "charmed and strange"
never left my 4GB ipod through the year after receiving it from kcrw's cd club in the spring. big hit for everyone i gifted it to, and for good reason: the songs are passionate, unique with sparing production focused on masterfully employed guitar and percussion. if only he was touring in the US... best tracks: club thing, beautiful lie, there is nobody, live.

emilianna torrini, "me & armini"
i wish this had only been an EP: 1/2 of the songs are superb and the other 1/2 sound like she swallowed a handful of oxycotin and then alternated picking her her guitar and her teeth. this is why album sales can suffer but online music sales can soar. nonetheless, try listening to jungle drum and not singing along, or feeling a little boost afer big jumps. she's clearly having a good time. best tracks: me & armini, birds, big jumps, jungle drum.

jack johnson, "sleep through the static"
while i originally dismissed jack johnson as surf-folk music for hip department stores, '08 was the year i gave in and became a full-fledged fan. sleep through the static cemented this for me,a very nice album that is the natural continuation of his previous albums. best tracks: enemy, hope, if i had eyes, what you thought you need, adrift.

coldplay, "viva la vida" + "prospekt's march"
after a miserable 3rd album (xy), coldplay returns with a diverse, striking 4th album. the only real shame is that they clearly kowtowed to the label by not including the "bonus" EP of prospekt's march in the original album (artists typically only get paid for the 1st 12 tracks, guess how many viva la vida has?). anyways, the album feels cohesive yet manages to cover a lot of ground from anthems like viva la vida to the sharp opening instrumental (life in technicolor) and the bluegrass tinged strawberry swing (this track was my favorite and became the ringtone on my old nokia).

heavy playcount
- adele, 19
- gnarls barkely, the odd couple
- santogold, santogold
- rodrigo + gabriela, live in tokyo
- top ranking, santogold + diplo (compilation)
- tricky, knowle west boy
- juana molina, un dia
- thievery corporation, radio retaliation
- pacifika, asuncion

hmmmm... not quite but...
- ac/dc, black ice
- evil nine, they live!
- q-tip, the renaissance
- j-boogie's dubtronic science, soul vibrations
- aterciopelados, rio
- beck, whatever the hell his album with danger mouse was called
- monkey by damon albarn & some other guy

disappointing
- MIA, kala (middle eastern techno & grade school aussie rappers? really?)
- cold war kids, against privacy (title track is great, what happened to the rest?)
- lyrics born, everywhere at once (nowhere i wanted it to be)

thailand pics, part 1

here's jane and i doing a cooking class with the chefs at the alila cha'am. we had a blast and the food (steamed butterfish, deep-fried sea bass and red curry prawn) all turned out fantastic. hats off to chef joel whittaker.

"attention in the produce aisle, someone left a basket of cockroaches next to the rutabagas..."

my triumphant, long-awaited ride on a horse. i had been bitten (fiercely) on the back by a sick horse when i was a "junior zookeeper" at the binder park zoo as a kid in battle creek. it was time for my vengeance on the species as a loaded my carcass onto a horse that was used to small thai-person frames. feel the fury!

chou hanging out in the under arm of an enormous lime-green buddha statue at a little modern art exhibit we visited while in bangkok.

i think this is from the ramayana. either way, it was part of a big old mural on the walls of the grand palace and appears to feature a panty raid conducted be a nasty looking group of monkies. and why shouldn't it?!

alila cha'am

just a few quick notes as i take a break from my reading this evening here in thailand. i've lots of photos to share but nothing to upload the little buggers with. later eh?

been meaning to post my reading list, which i s'pose will replace my normal playlist this month. here's my holiday reading:

neverwhere by neil gaiman (already finished, well enjoyed)

the hobbitt by j.r.r. tolkein (can't wait for the movie!)

siddartha by herman hesse (profound, brief & beautiful)

life of pi by yann martel (spectacular vacation book)

and to be read still...

sons of haurrin (sp?), j.r.r. tolkein 

anansi boys, neil gaiman

(i figured i would feed my inner fantasy dork after my religious ponderings)

the hotel here was designed by one of s.e. asia's top architects and is striking. i don't think my written description will do it justice so i'll just wait until i can post some pics. i'm not much for sleepy vacations of lazing about but for a first attempt, it seems to be working out fine :-) today we learned how to cook thai food at the hotel and are still digesting the resultant feast of fish, prawn curry, vegetables and various forms of rice both sticky and sweet. 

alright, so i can't resist a short playlist:

the stops, mexican stand off and forget myself from elbow's leaders of the free world album

un dia, the new album by juana molina (dreamy folktech from argentina)

the renaissance, new album by q-tip (not bad, sponsored a strange dream i had last nite)

rodrigo and gabriela, live from tokyo (complete with chopped up nihongican!)

alright, back to the room. by this time jane must be wondering why it took me so long to to confirm tomorrow's trip to the cave & temple. shhhhh...

remembering the 4th of november, 2008

jane and i got up at 5:45am, wanting to beat the lines at the local polling station. from early voting areas we'd heard of massive lines and wanting to avoid this we figured we would show up before the station opened at 7, aiming to arrive at 6:40. we walked across lincoln and down marine to the small park building, coffee mugs in hand, and were greeted by the prop 8 people, urging others to vote no on the ban on gay marriage. the line was not bad at all-- we were voters number 23 and 24. people quickly piled in behind us, including marcus wyatt, LA's native son, uber-house DJ.

i don't think i would say that the air was electric, but there was a definite sense of excitement running through the crowd and a nice feeling of community. venice isn't really a battleground community, even for prop 8. when we lean, we go wayyyyyy left until our feet are wet in the beach sand. anyways, we cast our vote after being registered by our neighbor, irene, and set about on our separate ways to work: jane to rosemead and me to culver city.

on the way in, i had a call with our localization team in dublin, ireland about quality concerns (we had issues with finnish translation in the main UI, embarrassing for the locals when showing the product to the finn media). while i'm sure this doesn't matter to anyone, the point of mentioning this is that the call was preceded by 10 minutes of discussion with the irish team about the elections. the 2 women from dublin mentioned that they were going to stay up to see the election results and were thinking it was going to be an obama blow-out win. i hedged: "i think it's going to be very close, down to the wire..."

this got me to thinking about all of my travels this year and the ppl i had spoken to about the elections along the way. the japanese media consultant, german cab driver, norwegian journalist and many, many others. they were all very clear about who they thought we should elect. i remember explaining this to jonathan once, how sometimes people transcend what they are and become symbols-- such that their individual capabilities are ultimately somewhat less important than what they represent: hope, change. this is of course a slippery position, as it can easily turn against you, but with enough substance behind the icon i cannot imagine a more potent leader.

once at work, just like any other day, i kept on eye on my igoogle home page, full of market updates, my gmail inbox, tech news & the latest featured youtube videos. i also popped up the CNN page to keep an eye on the latest happenings. i was expecting exit polls, but quickly remembered (with some prompting) the inaccuracies and woes of the primary season which condemned them to the sidelines. so while i refreshed the page frequently and anxiously waited along with the rest of the world, the day slipped by.

a couple states came in while i was still at work, attending a last meeting. it was split so far, but none of the battleground state results were in yet. i entered the meeting room late and quipped that chuck norris had just pulled ahead of ron paul. i checked out of the meeting a little early as it was trailing off into minutiae and headed home to meet up with jane. we'd decided that neither of us felt like cooking and wanted to be out in the community when the results came in. we walked down to one of our local hangouts in venice, hal's bar and grill, which is a little over a mile away. by the time we had left, it was starting to look good for obama-- they'd predicted that he would take pennsylvania and he had sealed up some important eastern seabord states while mccain racked up a number of wins in the south, such as kentucky.

hal's was packed with people gathered around the 2 tvs behind the bar. we eventually found a corner table in the small bar area where we could barely see the TV. if the sense of excitement was tangible at the polling station, it coursed through hal's in loud conversations & cheers every time a new state was announced for obama. of course there were boos for the states that slipped to mccain. again, venice is not what you would call a "swing" city :-) the man with the loud voice started calculating the possibilities, exclaiming how close obama was to victory. our african american waitress seemed unflappable, keeping a cool demeanor & focused on her job.

while we were wrapping up our wine and burgers, the election was called for obama. jubilant cheers erupted from across the bar and outside the restaurant. an african american woman in the bar, tears in her eyes, hugged our waitress and anyone else who seemed equally moved. jane and i exchanged broad smiles, put on our coats and headed home.

while on the way home, cars honked and cheered, independent of the ethnicity of the passengers. people walking by smiled knowingly, we did the same. when we passed the firehouse sushi restaurant, we caught mccain's concesssion speech. moments later, dorian called. we'd discussed the election for many months and he, as his facebook profile called out, was speechless.

at home we watched obama's acceptance speech-- flawless in words and delivery. he and his family looked every bit the part, their joy and confidence spilling over to the viewers and certainly the people assembled in grant park in chicago. i remember seeing oprah straining to get a view of the stage and thinking that our lakers tickets this coming weekend aren't so bad afterall if that's the best seat oprah can muster :-)

i wound down the evening by working on my concept checkpoint deck for the friday's presentation while listening to CNN and watching people's election commentary on facebook. the next day, the moment arrived when it all sunk in the most deeply for me. i was glancing through igoogle when i spotted this article from the LA times. as i read it, i remembered every person i met throughout the past 12 months across the globe who pinned their hopes on the americans electing obama. i think their hopes were never so much about obama the person, but about the ability of the people to have a voice against the establishment-- to affect real change when things were wrong, broken by greed and abuse of power. it was also about breaking with a past pock-marked with racism, an emphatic statement that everyone is equal and anything is possible.

what this means for me is that the next time i step onto foreign soil, i can do so with a little more confidence, knowing that we've done the best we can to begin to right the course of our country. i also hope it means that when we have children, i can point back to a historic moment i was a part of, and explain what happeneed when a new day broke for our country.

current playlist

Baligaga - Tricky - Knowle West Boy

Far Away - Tricky - Knowle West Boy

Numbers Game - Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation

195lbs - Nightmares on Wax - Thought so...

I Want You To... - Jem - Down to Earth

Ruthless City - Morgan Geist - Double Night Time

M79 - Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Out To The Bay feat. Capitol A & Aima The Dreamer - J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science - Soul Vibrations

Against Privacy - Cold War Kids - Loyalty to Loyalty

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Beatles - Anthology

Move Your Think - Lotek Hi-Fi feat. Roots Manuva & Sandra Melody - Move Your Thing E.P.

Losing Keys (Katalyst Remix) - Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static: Remixed - EP

wreckarama

jane's big car accident. amazing she is ok when you see the pics.

current playlist

chemtrails - beck - modern guilt
i don't know - lily allen - i don't know single
hott 2 deff - lyrics born - everywhere at once
jesus and mary - martha wainwright - i know you're married but i have feelings too
indago (jez collin mix) - carmen rizzo feat. ladybug mecca - the lost art of the idle moment
think back - galatic feat. chali2na - from the corner to the block
hustle up - galatic - from the corner to the block
big jumps - emiliana torrini - me and armini
jungle drum - emiliana torrini - me and armini
thanks to you (dj cakeface remix) - copeland - dressed up and in line
so many ways - gelka - so many ways single
arcadia - apparat - walls
so special - bomb the bass - so special single

only in la

rec'd this when i checked my email this evening:

From: Culver City Site Events
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 6:51 PM
Subject: From Facilities - Film Shoot- 22 Sept

Sony Pictures will be doing a location shoot in the warehouse lot across Slauson Ave (5933 Slauson Avenue) north of the 800-900 Buildings. Filming will commence on Monday Sept 22nd 7am-8pm. Filming will involve pyrotechnic work- shooting and explosive devices but in a contained area within the lot so it should not disturb occupants. Sony has permits in place and a fire safety officer will oversee the pyrotechnic work.

Thank you.

somehow i don't think this sort of thing happens in our springfield, oregon or orem, utah offices...

consecutive interpretation

i thought i'd give a little insight into what really goes on in a speaker's mind while consecutive translation is underway and you're standing in front of the audience waiting for your next chance to speak.

"... and the streamlined UI provides the industry's best customer experience when combined with smart scheduling and silent mode."

(interpreter begins)

"kyoo wa, norton 2009..."

what's on the next slide anyways?
i see, more stuff on usability.
that's really sort of out of order, was that me or can i blame it on pr?
dammit, that's my slide. ah well...
time for a drink of water.
is that guy in the 3rd row asleep or just tired?
his neck just bounced off his chest, definitely sleeping.
i wonder if i could get away with checking my email on my phone...
... nope. turned it off and way too conspicuous.

(big pause by interpreter)

ok, here we go...

(interpreter starts back in)

phew. how did those 5 sentences turn into a full state of the union address in japanese?
is she getting it right? i think i just heard something about an eggplant.
maybe she said the UI is the color of an eggplant.
i hate eggplant, but it's not nearly as bad in japan as it is in the US.
it's smaller and less smushy.
maybe i could try some for dinner, tempura style.
what are we having for dinner anyways?
i need some sake.
that way, if the eggplant is bad, i can just kill it with a swig.

(small pause)

ok, that has to be it.

(restarts again)

unreal. she's definitely making stuff up.
time for another drink of water.
i'm 2/3 of the way done with my water. shoot.
let the race b/w my dry throat and my bladder begin!
check out that guy in the 5th row towards the back.
he's sort of like mr. fuji with donald trump's comb over. yikes.
how can his friends not tell him how bad his hair is?
it's sort of like have toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
speaking of toilet paper, is anyone really going to think that manga toilet paper roll souvenirs are as clever as you think they are?

(dead silence)

ahem.

"now every year we conduct usability testing but this year..."

drought

it's not that i've run out of things to say. far from it.only that the weight of responsibilities and concerns sometimes inhibit the words.the products have launched and i am on a plane back from tokyo.

more on this later.i could not force my fingers to do more work with a gun to my head. burnt 100% toasty right now.time for a break.

so here come all the suppressed syllables of recent weeks.

i finally remembered to get my haircut before doing media in japan. why? nearly every journalist totes around a camera and takes fotos of you to accompany their story. it's interesting doing media in japan; one of the better aspects is that the japanese are genuinely interested in talking about products and want to know about the people behind them. US tech media have to take their product news with a spoonful of sugar (usually fodder on the latest trends or something), otherwise they feel like they are being sold. anyways, i was asked if i ever had a security problem myself, how old i was/where i was born, what my favorite anime was and what omiyage i was bringing back. the journo was stoked when i proudly reported that i had 3 rolls of authentic manga toilet paper i was hustling back into the country for gifts :-)

so lilo is a lesbian. think disney is lining up a "herbie 2" for her? ahem. at least she chose mark ronson's sister. i wouldn't bet sarah palin's lipstick on the longevity of this relationship. now that's a debate i'd like to see; can we get lilo on the camera with sarah palin to discuss foreign policy, stem cell research and immigration? it's be more entertaining and as insightful as the rubbish we hear from the election coverage thus far. how can i have watched politics since the beginning of the year and still be so clueless on where the 2 candidates stand on critical issues? instead we get mccain in faux outrage over an analogy obama used which thousands of other people use every day. does he think just b/c it was part of the punchline of a palin's "tougher than nails" hockey mom joke that every mention of cosmetics is now somehow tied to his campaign?

i saw another black widow the other day in the garage. i decided to test the theory that they were far too fast to be simply stomped out of existence. squish. myth busted. turns out all of that flourocarbon induced torching was lots of fun, but unnecessary. i can't tell you how disappointing this was.

my laptop died. well, at least nearly. i was lucky enough to score an x300. having used a macbook air, i can tell you the x300 not nearly as sexy. it's a helluva a lot more biz ready though and i am now addicted to logging in with my finger via biometrics. after 1 week, logging in with a user/pass seems crude and clumsy. it's funny how unexpected conveniences can become compelling, necessary. good food for thought as we plan next year's releases.

after far too long an absence emiliana torrini is finally set to release a new album. the single she released, "me and armini", is a winner. jaunty reggae flavored beat with a few nice effects punctuated by her breathy vocals. just downloaded the full length from amazon, the rest of the camel from fat freddy's drop is hopefully next. until then, vampire weekend, yoav, pacifika, and apparat remain in heavy rotation.

someone tell me why we never hear people talking about keeping insanely smart people in the country when immigration control is brought up. andy grove i believe once said we should staple a green card to every diploma we hand out for an advanced degree. bravo. i've played hockey with a bunch of guys who were masters and phd students at UCLA for the better part of 9 years now. i've watched a few of them come and go due to the difficulty of getting through the convoluted, restrictive employment process we have established for non-citizens. one of them was an exceptionally good winger, so double bummer when he left :-) i shudder to think of how many brilliant ppl we have educated only to send them back home or someone else due to our inability to get out of our own way.

whole foods opened last week about a 5 minute walk from our place. we've already had breakfast, lunch, dinner and jane did a wine-tasting there this past week while i was in tokyo. the first time we walked in it was like the clouds parted, the sky rent open and god smiled upon us. we had always joked about the 5 dollar bananas they sell and all the other overpriced products but i'll be damned if we have not swallowed the lure hook, line and sinker. the placement of the store is interesting-- it's right b/w a 99 cent store and laundrymat! 2 weeks before it opened jane and i saw a homeless guy walking down the street while peeing himself. if he did that now, the whole foods security guards would take him down faster than valencia foreclosure, lest his presence soil the organic figs by mere proximity 40 feet from the produce aisle. if i have to choose b/w the homeless guy urinating on the sidewalk and overpriced fruit, ring me up another 5 dollar banana, carlos.

current playlist

armini & me - emiliana torrini - armini & me
get it up (radioclit remix) - santogold feat. MIA & gorilla zoe - top ranking
l.e.s. artistes (XXXchange remix) - santogold - top ranking
office boy (architecture in helsinki mix) - bondo do role - marina gasolina
marina gasolina - bondo do role - marina gasolina
replica - beck - modern guilt
dusty boots - bookashade - the sun and the neon lights
holdon - apparat -walls
over and over - apparat -walls
club thing (RAC remix) - yoav - club thing e.p.
worthless - dido - cafe del mar volumen ocho
no memory of time - eva be feat. joe dukie - no memory of time e.p.
cool me down - black seeds - enter the dojo
bob marley sublime medley - jack johnson - bootleg
spanish harlem - aretha franklin - 30 greatest hits

{splat}

this past tuesday morning while i was hopping on my bike to go to the gym, i noticed something in the corner of the garage by the door. it looked like a big black dot suspended b/w the floor and a box. strolling over i saw the image to the right: a huge spider had taken up residence in the garage. looking a little closer, it had an ominous red splotch on its belly. summoning all my discovery channel wisdom i quickly surmised this was the dreaded black widow i had always heard was pretty common here in socal.

i hate spiders. yes, i realize they play an essential role in the circle of life and all that crap, but they're hideous, they make a mess, and they bite. so when i saw my new little renter here to the right, the "live and let live" approach was simply not going to cut it. i went off to the gym and began formulating my plan to evict my new tenant, senorita arana mas fea.

i didn't have time tuesday morning to do anything, but i cast a nervous glance over to her web and saw that she was absent. i then noticed i'd left my car windows open. i looked around the car (paranoia, i know) and then nervously hopped in, vowing that something had to be done quickly.

tuesday evening was shot so wednesday morning i snapped the foto. after 2 snaps she was on to me and snuck into the box. game on, sister. i hatched my first plan at this point, which was to drop the phone book on her. a vestige of the pre-internet days, i figured it was as good a use as any for the tome and heavy enough to squish her nicely. i left for jury duty and work.

now that evening i was to catch up with my longtime pal chuck who lived in bursely hall with me my freshman year. he is a man of obscure knowledge and considerable skill-- everything from piloting a helicopter and building small aircraft to scuba and sky diving. while chuck and i were figuring out where to go for drinks and dinner, i asked him if he wanted to see a freakin' huge black widow. he immediately replied that he has a bunch of them at his place too, but complied and check it out with me.

chuck: "yeah, she's pretty big"
me: "sorta freaky huh?"
chuck: "want to get rid of her?"
me: "yes! what are you thinking?"
(at this point, i realized how silly my phone book plan sounded)
chuck: "do you have some WD-40 and a lighter?"
(cue the a-team music)
me: "i think so, let's check"
(grabbing lighter, looking for wd-40 can...)
me: "will this work? it says 'highly flammable'"?
(chuck tested it and it produced an impressive burst of flames)
chuck: "here we go..."

chuck dispensed a stream of industrial lubricant sponsored hell-fire at the super spider and she instinctively did the arachnid equivalent of a stop, drop and roll. he promptly stomped her with his boot and left a long squishy mark of spider guts on the garage floor. done deal.

maybe some day when global warming has claimed the polar bears and penguins which are somehow tied to black widow spiders in an intricate butterfly effect that would make national geographic proud i will mourn the loss of these poisonous little beasts. until then, i'm going to keep my car windows closed in the garage and a can of spray lubricant in the garage.

current playlist

the camel - fat freddy's drop - the camel
strawberry swing - coldplay - viva la vida
lovers in tokyo - coldplay - viva la vida
libertad - pacifika - asuncion
starfish and coffee - prince - sign o' the times
charlotte - booka shade - the sun and the neon light
restless (fake blood remix) - UNKLE - restless E.P.
ocean - pearl jam - ten
mother nature - the orb - the dream
bryn - vampire weekend - vampire weekend
a punk - vampire weekend - vampire weekend
love revolution - bitter:sweet - drama
pro nails (bag raider's mix) - kid sister - pro nails remixes

happy things

my new jawbone 2 headset. so loud that i have to turn the volume down to 50%-- this is fantastic. sleek black design and pretty darn comfy on my noggin. good bye logitech.

firefox 3. gmail is now so fast its scary. the ie8 beta does not impress, but it is beta after all.

legoland in carlsbad. first classy amusement park i've been too in a long time. not for anyone over 5-6 really, but well done.

yo venice. every neighborhood should have this, expertly done. informative and has the flavor of the community.

off to see shipwrecked at the geffen on friday and thievery+bebel on sunday at the bowl. is it friday yet? :)

taipei

I’m on my way back from Taipei today and have wrapped up my adventure in Asia that started 10 short days ago with an afternoon flight from LAX and a chance encounter with a dear friend at the airport. Before the events slip from my memory amongst the hurry of life at home, here’s a few snapshots from my time in Taiwan.

The trip began with soup dumplings at a nearby restaurant with Alex, his girlfriend and family. It’s a telling fact of our global community that I can have one of my best friends for 16 years and never have met his parents! This was resolved over traditional Taiwanese pork dumplings whose soupy interior was piping hot and really tasty. Dinner that night was also local fare—I got to try the hot pot Alex had told me about for so long. It’s a sort of bouillabaisse served in a steel pot that was split to allow for 2 flavors of broth. One of the broths was fairly mellow but nice, the other was one of the most unique flavors I’ve tasted in a long time. It was spicy, but in a very herbal way that was both odd and yummy. If you ate too much of it without using the nearby vinegar and ginger dip, it actually numbed your tongue like an anesthetic. Into the broth we threw in a variety of vegetables, tofu, and meat.


Taipei 101 is really an impressive engineering feat—but not that interesting beyond the technical marvel of having such an enormously tall edifice on a volcanic island buffeted by strong winds and rocked by the occasional earthquake. The top level observation deck that was outdoors tested my fear of heights. Once again, I failed the test and exited after circling it nervously one time around. The “super big wind damper” was a highlight, it’s basically a giant steel ball hooked up to hydraulics used to keep the building from swaying too much.





The photo here is of a painting posted in a very visible location when you enter the hotel. Alex told me that it was placed there to ward off evil spirits. Specifically, he stated “they must have trouble with ghosts.” Hrm. I got more of an explanation when one of my colleagues informed me that the locals avoid the Grand Hyatt as it is believed to be haunted by the spirits of those that were killed in a prisoner of war camp that was previously at the same location. I’m open to the idea of ghosts and had a curious incident in my room where a light came on unexpectedly while I was in bed watching TV. I may very well have accidentally turned it on by bumping one of the controls I later found near the bed, but this would have been tricky to do. Interesting!


Here’s me riding the giant cat statue in conference room we used for the workshop we were hosting. Yeehawwwwwwwww super kitty! We took a team photo with all of us mounted on the feline after sneaking in around midnight and passing a very nervous looking hotel employee.

Earlier in the evening I had arranged with the help of a local to take the entire workshop team out for massages. After 9 days on the road and far too many evenings spent sitting in the bar, we needed something different and relaxing before the big event the next day. It ended up being a pretty unique experience, as all 6 of us (all men but 1) were ushered into the same room for our massages. Comedy ensued as the little old men pounded our buttocks throughout the session, even going so far as to rhythmically pound out a bongo beat on our collective behinds at one point.

The sun is coming up outside the window in my economy class seat now and I’m about to embark on one those strange time zone twisted days that last far too long. I’ve got a little more work to do before landing in San Francisco for a brief layover en route to LAX so I’ll hang up my blogger hat for now.

current playlist

club thing - yoav - charmed and strange
beautiful lie - yoav - charmed and strange
prana - tom middleton - lifetracks
best for last - adele -19
the zone - j-live feat. chali 2na - then what happened
deep water - portishead - third
garoto (steve cobby solid doc rerub) - cusmos - g-stone online selection
sol - pacifika - asuncion
mercy - duffy - rockferry
you are not through - evil nine - you can be special too
viva la vida - coldplay - viva la vida
going strong - makeba mooncycle - nightmares on wax presents wax on records
il serpente - kraak and smaak - plastic people
shakatakadoodub - kruder and dorfmeister - shakatakadoodub single

asia + nostalgia

mittedly, i've not been very pensive of late. work has kept me rushing from place to place and from one task to another. i wake up most days between 5 and 6, log into email and begin hammering away at a task list which obstinately stays at the same length. mind you this does not mean that i'm rejecting family or social obligations, only that the combined effort of keeping all the balls in the air means that my moments of clear, uinterrupted thought are scarce.

somewhat humorously, as i was writing this we hit some turbulence on the plane (tokyo->taipei) and the 40ish looking japanese woman to my right grabbed my arm in fright and held it. like i was saying, this isn't bad, just a little distracting to say the least. truth be told after all this time flying i still get freaked out by turbulence. this might be due to losing my old pal mark stoehl on flight back from china when i was 20. i could also just be a big sissy :-)

coming to asia for me means visiting dear, old friends and revisting a time in my life when i had just graduated from university. in spring of 96, i had locked up a job at deloitte & touche in los angeles and had nearly limitless excitement for what lied ahead: an unwritten future full of palm trees, beautiful west coast women & a career in high-tech at a time when the internet boom was just beginning to blossom. looking back, i can't imagine a time in my life of more optimism and enthusiasm.

with all of this ahead of me, i focused at the time on wrapping up a couple jobs to fill my college student coffers before taking off for a summer of travel to singapore, indonesia, malaysia, and japan. i was working as a freelance web developer for a shady cat out of chicago my sister had introduced me to as well as a programmer for a professor at umich who wanted to analyze search engine results. way before google become a titan, i wrote a delphi application that parsed search engine results from hotbot, alta vista, yahoo, etc. in order to analyze their relative effectiveness. i was also polishing a web server log analysis tool i'd originally started in borland paradox for producing usage metrics for the biz school. we were actually using this to justify why we needed a website and procure add'l investment for developing the site. oh man, have times changed...

while i'm tempted to write a chronology of my summer travels, i don't remember my time so much as an itinerary as a collection of vivid snapshots in my memory. more of a series of loose photos than a video, so to speak. i recall my first taste of durian at jeffrey's parents' apartment in singapore, walking through crowded markets and garishly colored indian temples next to high tech shopping malls filled with chinese and malay singaporeans. along with jeff and his friends, arthur, wee teck and his eventual wife yen wuah, we traveled to bintan to spend a sun burnt weekend playing on the beach in bintan, indonesia.

i spent the lion's share of my travel that summer in japan, traveling from tokyo to fukuoka and back. sitting at the train station at some remote japanese city, traveling down to fukuoka to see my pal victor, a shinkansen shot through like a rocket, blowing back even my short-cropped hair. going through japan on my own was a rush, not only was the freedom intoxicating but i had spent 2 years of intensive japanese lessons and it felt great to finally use some of what i'd learned. there are those that accuse me of being an asia-phile b/c of this and my marriage to a korean, but i undertook japanese purely as an intellectual challenge having already excelled in all the romance languages and feeling like this would be the ultimate linguistic mountain to climb. to be honest, while i have very fond memories of asia i will likely always consider latino culture closer to my heart.

i remember going to see fuji-san with alex roberts, his mother and a shinto priestess who was her neighbor who had befriended me. her driving was so terrible that we all arrived at the base of the mountain nauseous and simply glad that we were no longer in the car, jerking along to the palsy of her seemingly spastic foot on the brake. i still have the ceramic & stone tea glasses she gave me before i left japan and i hope i always do. they serve as a beautiful, occasional reminder for me of this time in my life when we bring them out for a picnic or special occasion.

i will never forget going to a festival around a lake in fukuoka with victor and his then girlfriend. we ate fried tako (can never remember the name!), watched fireworks and drank entirely too much beer en route to closing out the evening with the best late night ramen noodles i've ever eaten. victor drove a cheap scooter that somewhat impossibly bore both of our weight down narrow streets and tight corners. i haven't a clue what ever happened to victor; unlike jeffrey, alex roberts and chou, he has faded out of my life with no clear means of retrieving his acquaintance. i admit this with no sorrow, it's inevitable and has happened with even closer friends. the tides of time seem to polish certain friendships into further relief and beauty while it carries others away with the retreating water.

there is a small garden somewhere in kyoto that has left a mark on me i hope to carry to the end of my days. i don't think it is a major landmark and may not live on a tourist map at all, but i recall walking up a narrow, stone street with alex roberts and finding a small entry way into a pristine buddhist garden. it was experty manicured and verdant green, the result of meticulous care and thoughtful design. as we sat and meditated, the occasional "clop" of the wooden mechanism for scaring off the deer broke the silence. the japanese name for this completely escapes me, but it fills with water from a source above it and only when weighted down with sufficient water does it drop to another wooden stick whose sloped angle encourages the water to drop from the tube that had just been filled by falling, gurgling water. it's an oddly musical, beautiful sound set against a backdrop of almost uninterrupted silence.

i just looked up and realized i've killed an hour or so writing this and have filled a couple pages already :-) time to wrap it up. off to taipei to make some new memories with alex chou.

mid week funnies

hysterical: gary kasparavo attacked by a flying RC phallus:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/politicians/184076.html

rec'd this in my inbox (junk) this morning:

Dear Sir,

I allow myself to get in touch with you regarding the MOHO project set up by students and professors from Stanford and two among the best universities in France (Centrale Paris Engineering School and ESSEC Business School).

the moho project? really?

director: sumthin' ain't workin' in this video dawg...
rap artist: we need moho up in here!

something clearly got lost in the translation. don't the students at the finest french universities keep up with pop culture? those french dubbed versions of 'boyz in the hood" aren't selling themselves...

lastly, haiku humor
****************************************************************
In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku Poetry messages. Haiku Poetry has strict construction rules: Each poem has only 17 Syllables - 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the Third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning, and powerful insight through extreme brevity.

Here are some actual error messages from Japan. Aren't these better than "your computer has performed an illegal operation?"
-----------------------------------------
The web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
-----------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
--------------------------------------------
Program aborting
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
--------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
--------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
--------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
--------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------
Three things are certain
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
--------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
--------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
--------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
--------------------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
--------------------------------------------

a day in la

so many times the days sneak by and i wonder what i will think looking back many years from now. or, i ponder how wacky life in LA truly is and think i should write it down. so w/o further ado, here is my sunday in LA.

last nite ended at a restaurant called "nak won" on vermont in k-town. i didn't want to go really but jane wanted to and far be it from me to deny the soon-to-be bday girl from some late nite korean food. hodori was the goal, but nak won is next door and not a bad second place when you just want to eat and go. hodori's main attraction is the fact that they are open 24x7 and that the food is unoffensive & cheap. contrasted with nak won which is only cheap and open 24x7.

kimchee kal guk soo at 2am turns into a late morning so i piled out of bed late while jane slumbered off her hang-over (sort of). i was designated driver last nite and angling for a morning run. i cranked out a 6.5 miler including a few rounds of stairs and a fast mile on the samohi track. wrapped it up with some stretching and few rounds of wii boxing.

i made us lunch of bbq kabobs, corn and spinach salad. the multi-colored little potatoes from yesterdays farmer's mkt worked out in place of chicken. while kabobing, chatted with my old pal chuck who is a stunt man/actor who told me about his role in a forthcoming gi joe blockbuster. as interesting as it seems, i would not trade my predictable income for his occasional last minute stint on "lost" in hawaii yet not knowing when the mortgage money is going to run out.

we ate lunch while listening to the new tom middleton cd "lifetracks" i downloaded from emusic, quite legally i might add. this served as a break from the excellent yoav cd "charmed and strange" i've been binging on all weekend after getting it in the mail from kcrw on friday. check out "club thing" and "beautiful lie" from yoaz's new cd, if nothing else.

the afternoon was reading and resting on the deck upstairs along with some work. really hot today, something like 90s and hotter inland. we then headed off to "celebrity bingo" at my hair stylist's salon. he dresses in drag for these and goes by the name of "geneva deveraux", see the pic below. it started well beyond fashionably late (like an hour late) and we didn't win squat but we did hang out with faith evan's husband while faith belted out numbers and letters with richard... er, geneva. if you win, you shout out "bingo, bitch!" and then ppl throw their wadded up bingo cards at you.

i then dropped a tired jane off at home and headed over to "tengu" in sta monica for a quick drink with my longtime pal dimitry. him and his little group "zona" have a couple house singles out that are reasonably successful abroad and after an hour at his friend's bday party, we left and he played me their new tracks. it's well produced, catchy house stuff. not bad at all. i dropped him off so he could get back to his little model friend "antonio" (all looks, no brains) and i could get home to wind down.

back to school tomorrow. this is not a normal weekend, but not that unusual either. the oddball mix of people, culture and the arts in LA makes it one of my favorite places on the planet. i wouldn't trade life in lala land for any place else :-)