current playlist

m.i.a. - boyz - kala
how we operate - gomez - live session, kcrw
don dinero - aterciopelados - oye
una hoja una raiz - aterciopelados - red hot and latin redux
a million babies - owusu & hannibal - living with...
medusa - ulirch schnauss - goodbye
young pilgrams - the shins - chutes too narrow
das spiegel - chemical brothers - we are the night
que bom - mocean worker - cinco de mowo
peacock tail - boards of canada - campfire headphase
twilight - UNKLE feat. 3d - war stories

jacked bank account, illustrated

i've worked in security for a very longggggggggg time. it's often hard to explain to people the impact of online threats. i've found that statistics don't mean much to people in this area other than biznesses trying to justify corp expenditures. the only things that have really driven consumer purchases in info security have been massive worms which crippled computers and then spyware & adware which also had a direct, visible impact. well, both of those have gone away to be replaced by silent crimeware which steals data. so what happens when your bank account gets jacked by the baddies in belarus? the photo here was taken from our online fraud community monitoring tool and is still available online from a photo sharing site. the thief was either bragging or showing off the wares for purchase.
my basic advice? keep your system & apps (esp. internet explorer) up-to-date, use security s/w, and anything that looks to good to be true most certainly is trying to pull one over on you. if you need sec s/w, ping me.

socal livin' snippets

i felt my first real earthquake last week here in socal. it was a 4.6 shaker centered out of chatsworth. of all irony, my earthquake policy on our condo had just run out a couple days beforehand. while it messed with my head a little (i was doing some late evening work when it hit) and woke jane up out of bed, nothing seemed to be much affected. after a few days of mulling it over, i'm thinking of cancelling the policy on the new place :-) tectonic plates, is that all you got baby?!

this shot is from the window looking out the back of our new place. you'd think we were moving to backwoods alabama, eh? instead, this is lovely santa monica. 2 houses down is a beautiful new 2 unit condo with modern stylings and the like. right behind us? sanford and sons. on the left of the new casa? pit bull in the all-dirt backyard with an F150. choloville, amigo. all of this for the price of stifling mortgage that would make my midwestern family blush, if not faint. i'm not one to keep up with the joneses, but i don't necessarily want to raise kids in front of a methlab either. if anyone knows the patron saint of gentrification, let me know and i'll offer up an old testament style burnt sacrifice in hopes of neighbor displacement.

on a lighter note, jane and i went to see reggae night VI at the bowl this past sunday. wailing souls were playing along with sly and robbie as well as burning spear. wailing souls were boring and burning spear was unimpressive. sly and robbie didn't disappoint, especially their numbers with cherine anderson (taxi gang). where the hell was horace andy though?

ah well, the event of the evening were the colorful characters sitting in front of us. the lady in yellow highlighted an, uh, interesting new trend: bluetooth headset as fashion piece. while she didn't get a call during the show (how could you with the noise and bad reception?) the little red motorola headset was in her ear the whole time. i looked around the bowl and sure enough, saw a handful of other people doing the same. am i missing something here? bluetooth headset = fannypack. even if it matches your shirt and finger nail polish.

uneasy street

well, i've been pretty lame about blogging lately but i have really good excuses. first off, i'm in the midst of taking on a new job. won't be in it officially until mid-sept but i'm starting to ramp up now. big learnings ahead! should be fun. next up is our new house which closed a couple of weeks ago. while this would normally be really exciting, we've been on the market for about 2 months now with our condo with no offers. yikes!

anyways, enough with the excuses. i thought i'd share a view of what i see when i drive into the rampart district of LA (west of downtown) to pick up my pal jonathan on sundays. most ppl don't know this but the rampart district has the 2nd highest population density in the US, next to manhattan. and it isn't due to the high rises, it's largely attributable to the masses of latino immigrants crowding their familes into tiny apartments.

elcome to uneasy street. this is a shot looking down the alleyway into a nearby park that is infamous for aggressive street people and thugs. tagging and gang violence is normal here. since i've known jonathan, 3 of his acquaintances and pals have been shot and killed. for someone under 18, that's insane.
this was laying on the side of the street in front of me while i waited for jonathan. anyone else find dolls a little creepy? especially when their heads are poking out of abandoned suitcases? they were gone from the suitcase when i returned that evening. apparently someone found them more interesting than disturbing.
iraq or LA? this is the entrance to the apt bldg next door.
i hope our politicians, mission workers and other global do-gooders realize that we have serious needs here at home. time to focus on cleaning our own house for a change?

"they tried to make me go to rehab..."

it must have been about 6am today when i was awoke out of my early morning slumber to a sound that reminded me of flying lawnmowers. needless to say i did what any sensible person would do: i rolled over and dreamed about the winged gardeners and airplane-like leaf blowers that would obviously accompany the airborne lawnmowers. judging from jane's tossing back and forth, she was doing the same.

after fully waking up and taking a look out the window, there were 4 helicopters hovering over santa monica near the police station. jane's reasonable explanation was a search and rescue at the nearby beach. closer inspection though showed that the helicopters belonged to the news stations rather than the police or coast guard. so what was going down near the civic center?

turns out it was lindsay lohan, fresh outta 45 day rehab, chasing her personal assistant in her car. apparently, her assistant had quit and was running away from her. lindsay was so distraught by this she decided to give chase and convince her assistant to stay in his/her post. this is the type of thinking that only makes sense when you're high:

ok, my assistant just left me. not good. this would mean i'm picking up my own starbucks for at least a few days while i replace her. i can deal with this, dammit, i'm lindsay lohan. what will really convince my assistant they should stay with me is if i chase her across town in my car. let's see... car keys? check. handbag? check. gram of coke? hmmmm... i really shouldn't but it *is* easier than getting my own coffee for a little pick-me-up. check!

so here's our lovely starlet following her little chase through town. not a bad shot considering some of the mugshots i've seen of other handcuffed stars (remember mel gibson's?) unless there is some grave travesty of justice, lindsay will end up in jail somewhere in LA for at least a short period of time, a la paris hilton. should be good celeb gossip and stupid news fodder for months to come. since i don't watch tv, i'm really fine with this if people find this interesting. the only thing i ask is just keep the helicopters somewhere else so that i can go back to dreaming about extinguishing california wildfires with vats of tapioca pudding and an army of horse-sized gophers.

getty & the bowl

summer in los angeles bring back with it some of the finest things in life. namely...

- green corn tamales at el cholo
- evening bike rides on the sta monica strand
- strawberries and (later) persimmons at the farmer's mkt on main street (sun) and 3rd street (sat)
- free summer concerts at the getty
- free summer concerts in marina del rey, overlooking the harbor
- and lastly, the always fantastic world music series at the hollywood bowl (not even close to free, but completely worth it)

the shot above is of the getty, all lit up, while los amigos invisibles tear it down during their evening performance on opening nite. not bad at all.


nonetheless, the shot to the upper left was of the far better performance by brazil's dj dolores who killed it on the lower stage with his band 'alparelgahem". if you look closely, you can see him playing on the decks while smoking a cigarette out of the corner of his mouth. maybe a smattering of unnecessary cool, but forgiveable given how great their performance was. all the better, they played during sunset, so you could see the sun descend over the ocean while taking in the brazilectro.

the other shots here were from the equally memorable opening of the series we subscribed to this year at the 'bowl. the show featured cafe tacuba with groove armada as the opener. i'd bet this is one of the few times GA has opened for anyone, but given the latino population in LA it makes sense.

GA put on a great show, trotting out a fairly full band and several vocalists including MAD (SuperStylin', Lightsonic) and Skush. there was another performer as well but that was after 2 bottles of vino and i'll be damned if i can remember who it was. they balanced between old faves like "chicago" and "my friend" as well as some of the better stuff from soundboy rock. they didn't play "out of control (song for mutya)" which is arguably the best track from their latest album.

to the right is long lost pal danny, who out of some stroke of luck sat down across from us. great seeing you my man.

current playlist

burst generator - chemical brothers - we are the night
carbon kid - alpinestars (feat brian molko) - white noise
rick rubin - spank rock - yoyoyoyoyo
cold brains - beck - mutations
keep the car running - arcade fire - neon bible
back to black - amy winehouse - back to black
don't hide it - alexkid - mint
big wednesday - adam freeland - free*land
may day - UNKLE - nights temper
a portrait of autumn - jon kennedy - take my drum to england
supermoves (animatrix edit) - overseer - the animatrix o.s.t.

true colors concert

last weekend my pal te'o offered me up a ticket to the last leg of the true colors concert, an 80s gig that benefits the "erase hate" (read: gay rights) cause. the headliner and brains behind it all was cyndi lauper, now 54 and with something like 9 albums under her belt. there she is to the right, as rendered by the Q on the video screen at the greek theatre, which survived the recent fires without so much a scratch.

we showed up in time to catch debby harry's set (former blondie front woman), which was about 5 songs too long (probably 10 total). debby, you're in your 60s now sweetheart. your voice isn't bad, but pseudo punk just doesn't sound the same from a paunchy lady whose face is criss-crossed with more lines than an indiana jones travel map. "french kissin' in the usa" was the highlight, and she unfortunately steered clear of a bunch of blondie faves like "heart of glass".

cyndi may have scored the headline position since she had organized the tour but the legions of gay boys at the event were there to see one act: erasure. i remember buying their top hits album about 15 years ago and listening to it almost nonstop for a couple months. yes, it follows a steady formula but it's really well-done and andy bell still sounds great. the only time they missed during their 10 song set was with one of their new tracks which sounded a little bit like synthed-up polka. for the rest of the songs the entire crowd was on their feet singing: savannah song, sometimes, chains of love, oh l'amour, etc.

we had pretty low expectations for cyndi lauper but i'll have to admit she was nearly as good as erasure. she's got a great stage presence (very relaxed, fun) and her quirky voice is surprisingly strong. i don't know whether they blessed her with a little extra volume in her mic but cyndi belted out tracks like "i drove all night", "good enough", "she bop" and of course "girls just wanna have fun". in contrast to debby harry, she looks pretty damn good for her age too, in spite of her purple hair. they wrapped it all up with "true colors" and with everyone on the stage for "a little respect" and all the colored balls you see in the shot above being pumped out into the crowd.

we win! ... er wait a minute...

yep, we won the nation's worth traffic contest! hah. now i can scoff at all those east coast pals who complain about their measly traffic. we're the kings baby!

one interesting tidbit:
because our traffic sucks, we have less fatalities.
makes perfect sense: how do you have a fatal collision at 5mph? how do you run over a pedestrian when no one walks in LA? all the stories of senior citizens decimating farmer's markets and drivers shooting other people with guns they carry in the glove boxes are clearly overdone. the reality is we're polite enough to get out of the car *before* we shoot each other.
start taking notes, montana!

California has worst U.S. traffic: study
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Californians idle in the nation's worst traffic jams on interstates surrounding major metropolitan areas but they are far from alone -- 52 percent of these urban stretches of highways are congested, according to a new study released on Thursday.

Drivers in four lucky states enjoyed zero congestion: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

But one Midwestern state, Minnesota, and two East Coast states nearly matched California's sorry showing.

Some 83.33 percent of California's urban interstates are overcrowded, followed by Minnesota at 77.78 percent and New Jersey at 73.35 percent, according to the 16th annual survey by The Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonpartisan group.

Manhattan popularized the term "gridlock" but traffic jams on New York's urban interstates were only mediocre, ranking 37th at 53.39 percent, according to the libertarian-idea promoting group that compared volume-to-capacity ratios.

Drivers in some states whose booming economies are magnets for new residents spent much more time car-sitting without moving than New Yorkers. Florida ranked 40th at 59.44 percent. And Texas, whose $50 billion road privatization dwarfs all of its peers, was 41st at 59.67 percent, the study said.

And for the eighth year in a row, New Jersey had the nation's worst overall road system, according to the group.

"Gridlock isn't going away," said David Hartgen, the lead author and a professor at the University of North Carolina.

To reverse this trend, the 50 states -- which spent almost $99 billion on roads in 2005 -- must prioritize their dollars on traffic-busting projects, added the Charlotte-based expert.

That might be a bit of a challenge for New Jersey, whose Democratic Gov. John Corzine might partly privatize its toll roads. New Jersey's administrative costs were the nation's highest at $68,352 per state-controlled mile, the study said.

Massachusetts was 49th at $60,807; next was California, whose overhead ate up $50,614. New York ranked 43rd -- but its $18,687 tab was less than one-third of neighboring New Jersey.
Florida ranked 42nd at $16,109; Texas was much leaner, spending just $3,147 which put it in 9th place.

North Dakota had the least expensive bureaucrats, spending only $1,786, followed closely by Arkansas, which ranked second at $1,805, and Missouri which was third at $1,989.

New Jersey's total road budget -- $2.36 million per state-controlled mile -- was also more than double that of the next biggest spender, which was Massachusetts at $893,236.

Florida was 48th at $570,191, just above New York, which ranked 47th with a budget of $552,807.

California was 43rd in total spending at $336,954. Texas spent just less than third of that, ranking 26th at $106,221.

South Carolina spent the least -- $31,262. West Virginia was second at $41,839; next came North Carolina at $44,654.

Though states got 13 percent more federal transportation aid in 2005 than in 2004, they may have focused on potholes.

"They put the money right to work on the road surface," Hartgen said by telephone, noting the "pavement condition" of urban and rural roads improved. But fatalities rose a bit and little headway was made in speeding urban interstate trips.

"They put a lot more money into the system but haven't really turned the corner on congestion," Hartgen said.

Though often driver-maddening, traffic jams can actually cut deaths by slowing speeds. "Most of the states with very low accident rates also have very high congestion," said Hartgen.

Massachusetts did best on the death scale, with only 0.797 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles. Connecticut came second at 0.865, followed by Vermont at 0.946.

New Jersey was 5th with 1.013, followed by New York at 1.039. California took 19th place with 1.315 fatalities.

Montana was the deadliest, with 2.256 fatalities. South Dakota was 49th at 2.215; South Carolina was 48th at 2.211.

the "executive" view

it's often said that big companies have lotsa resources, with fancy desks and executive offices with cherrywood desks and views gazing out over the landscape. i'm here to expose this lie.

here's the view from the back of my little office. aeron chair? check. neglected biz mgmt books?check. picture of wife? check. nothing unusual here, save perhaps my electric green buddha coin bank. let's take a look out that window...
ah yes! my little office has a choice view of the loading bay, whose dumpsters send out a siren call to all of the homeless in ppl in the nearby park. and today look who i spied digging in the dumpster: the big lebowski's twin brother. the loading bay has been far better than any mountain or ocean view as i get to the play the game of "guess what's in the dumpster?"
he shoots, he scores! leaping off his feet, lebowski goes deep in the BFI bin. today was a light day for dumpster treasures, he was solely was able to uncover a handful of recyclabes for redemption. better luck tomorrow my man, i'll be cheering for you.