Energy Displacement

In the incredibly unlikely chance that anyone still hits this blog to see if it was updated, you should know that I am expending all my writing energies on this stupid blog. Apparently I'm some kind of sucker.

Why? I have no fucking clue. I get ignored just as thorough there as I do here, so it's a mystery of subconscious proportions. I probably just feel sorry for President and his lack of internet. I mean, not having Internet would probably kill me, so I may have to invest in a home generator for when the killer solar flare hits us in 2012. Ok, I realize that will not, by itself, sustain the life-giving Internet, but if I start backing up the Internet now I may have enough to keep me busy for a while. I probably won't back up President's web site though.

Ok, so going with my usual zig-zaggy stream of consciousness, here is the trailer for Sucker Punch which is a totally awesome movie with hot girls that know how to kick some ass! I'm really looking forward to it. I could stand to have my ass worked over by a sexy ninja gal.

After you watch this, go watch in it in HD on a big screen. You'll thank me.

Blogurgitations: The Things Nightmares Are Made Of

Before I start, don't get me wrong, I have a lot of good Japanese friends*, some of whom are a bit quirky at times (I'm talkin' bout you Akira). President Wishnack claims to be part Japanese, and he IS quirky, but I don't think he counts as a friend, especially after he posted this.

I do admire the Japanese for a lot of things, but sometimes they do shit that...well...makes you wonder what fucking planet they are really from. I seriously doubt I will ever eat at this restaurant. The one benefit would be that I could throw up into my chair.

The video below is all in Japanese, including the text on the YouTube page, but the title roughly translates as:

Long Distance Service 1 Terenoido

"Terenoido" is kind of like saying "telephone droid", the idea being that this thing would be live in your home replicating the movements, expressions, and sounds someone else makes from their phone/computer, in order to create a more interactive experience. Here, have a look...




If you are not totally freaked out by this paraplegic, albino slug hanging out in your living room, you have some serious issues. I would probably never sleep again, fearing that I would wake up with this thing already gnawing up to my knee.

Yeah, no thank you Japan.

On the other side of the coin, Japanese engineers have also developed a "supermodel" robot. At least that one has boobs.




*yes, believe it or not, I am friends with Miho and she is one of the top actresses in Japan. She is super awesome! We also have the same birthday. I wish she would move to the US.


---
UPDATE: Ok, ok...amidst a veritable uproar, I went looking for a more reliable source of information, and in my defense, many blogs about the restaurant make the Japanese connection. I finally went to an article at Time online and there was no mention of Japan.

But seriously, have you watched animé? I still say the Japanese have some scary shit going on in their heads.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

I was recently asked to expand on a comment I made about reinventing myself when I came to San Francisco. This post is practically the entire response and required some concentrated musings of the past, so I figured I'd get the most out of it and make it a post.

Trashcan-butt-pig-bank-thing approves this reused text!

This [reinvention] is a tricky one to explain, in part because it was almost 13 years ago, and frankly I didn't have a particular plan. At the time I made the decision to move to SF, I was living in El Paso. I had moved out there to, of all things, start an internet based business. An amateur photographer friend who was working at Ft. Bliss had just had a gallery show of his work and had started networking in the art scene in El Paso. Long story short, we decided to start a business creating custom designed web "galleries" for artists and set up online stores so people could buy their art online. I think it was a great idea that was ahead of its time, but two of the partners in the venture dropped out to go to graduate school (including my friend) and I was left holding the bag. I had been the web guru and site designer and had no interest in the other management aspects at the time, so abandoned the project. We did manage to sell off the files for the web sites that were built for the current clients, so it wasn't a complete financial disaster. I then started looking for regular work in El Paso and the surrounding area, and quickly realized it was not the place for a technology geek. I decided I had two choices, go back to Chicago where I had some tech contacts and look for a job there, or throw caution to the wind and go to SF and try to find a job to establish myself. I was highly motivated to choose SF due to the proximity to Lucasfilm [where I ended up working for 4 years much later], so that is what I did. I gave myself two weeks to find a job and booked a bunk at a youth hostel downtown [ironically I now work just a couple blocks from the hostel]. In less than a week I had a job and the rest is history.

What you need to know to understand the 'reinvention' aspect is that this was perhaps the biggest risk I had ever taken. Outside of the El Paso gig I had stayed pretty close to home and friends and had a safety net. I didn't consider El Paso much of a risk, as much as an extended vacation of about a year. I had just recovered from a car accident and was still on crutches when I went to El Paso. If anything, I went there because I was stir-crazy, but I also thought it might be fun to go somewhere new for a while and see what happened with a startup done on the cheap. So with very little money, my Powerbook 180c, a suit, and no idea what I was going to do when I got there, I booked a flight to SF. Other than Chicago, SF was the only other big city I had lived or worked in. Anyway, somewhere along the way I decided that I had to approach living in SF differently. I didn't have any safety net other than just bailing and going back to Chicago, and I knew I'd have to be more aggressive in my job searching then I had been before. I guess you could say I was somewhat unhappy with my life, but more because it seemed kind of aimless. I didn't have a plan for anything. I felt a little like Michael J. Fox in The Secret of My Success, but without the rich Uncle giving me a job. So, I felt I needed to present myself more professionally and assertively. The idea is that I thought I could better reinforce this behavior by changing little things like which version of my name I used, the clothes I wore, etc. I think overall the process was useful, but it turned out that SF in general is pretty relaxed, and my first co-workers were very casual and didn't act very "professional", so I eventually relaxed as well. In the end, I'm not sure much changed as a result of my attempt to change myself outwardly, but I think I have changed considerably as a result of living and working in SF. I still occasionally like to step back and look for things to change in my life, to make sure I'm not getting too complacent or dull.

Does this count as complacent?

My recent move to the new apartment was probably the current extension of the reinvent procedure, including getting in better shape, riding my bike more, and exploring more of the city. I think something has to happen with work soon too, but right now I'm focused on the personal stuff.

The Push

So this month has been a blog record breaker for me thanks to President Wishnack and his pedophilia accusations. Silver linings and all that. Frankly, I was hoping for the whiskey. I had a record breaking day, week, and month which until recently didn't matter much to me. I was hoping to break 100 visits to the blog for this month, but then I got lazy about posting, so I may just have to offer up another challenge and see where that gets me...or maybe blog more...Hahahahaha, yeah right.

Why are hits important? It's not like I have sponsors or ads from which to make money. That's not why I write, at least not currently. Really, I only started this blog to keep practicing my writing skills, the idea being I could write anything I wanted here. I also wanted a venue in which I could rant whenever I wanted. The funny thing I discovered about writing is that it is not nearly as satisfying if nobody is reading it. I also find myself writing to an audience instead of to myself because I know other people 'might' read it, so it almost demands a response.

Pretty much any time I hang out with President Wishnack, I have to listen to him obsess about his hit count for the day until a smoke break or alcohol distracts him. I'm not even sure why he cares, come to think of it, but it has apparently infected me as well, although not as severely. What irks me most is that out of 70+ visitors to the blog this month, there were maybe two people responding if that. Now maybe I should be satisfied that someone came to the blog, but how do I know they read it? How do I know it impacted or inspired them? Why does it even matter to me?

I guess it is about receiving some kind of validation. Knowing I'm not crazy or that my random thoughts made someone else think, would at least indicate that I wouldn't be just as well off in a coma. What is it that makes some people want to make people think in order to reach out to them? I have no idea but I bet I will have no more than two people offering their opinions about it.

"I'm thinking of something beginning with the letter 'P'."

A Tale of Perversion

Well, I have to say, I am very disappointed in all of you. There is a very good chance that you have arrived here after reading this post. And you probably are thinking one of two things:

1. Those bail bondsmen work quick.

2. America has loose morals and will let anyone walk the streets.

I is innocents I tells ya!

A couple things you should know about me is that I would never defile a vintage Star Wars figure, and, while I have dated someone 15 years younger than myself, they were legal and were not male. They also broke my heart guaranteeing I would never date under the age of 30 again. And honestly, I'm not a big fan of naked children...hell, even cherubs make me feel queasy.

Frankly, the response to this story has only proven that you, not I, are the horrible, depraved individual. Sensationalism is the killer arrow in the tabloid journalists quiver of bait...and you people fall for it every time. Your morbid curiosity and eagerness to swim in the filth of exaggerated storytelling is the hallmark of our society and the reason we still don't have flying cars. Seriously, more money goes into porn and video games than any other industry. I'd show you the studies, but you just think I fabricated them to support my convictions.

And to what do we owe this piranha-like frothing of internet traffic...or to WHOM rather?! It's this man...

Seriously, all he thinks about is McDonald's french fries, when he isn't maligning characters.
(even his clothes are McDonaldsish)

And yet YOU, the gullible public, are willing to eat up any grandiose story he is willing to throw out at you, like chum in shark infested waters. Ok, seriously, I've got some kind of seafood action going on...which only goes to prove I like women!!!

Note to self: Don't blog while drunk after soul-crushing defamation of character.

The REAL truth of this whole story is that it is an elaborate cover-up to mask the horrible guilt that the President is trying to deal with for STANDING ME UP TO GO JOIN A CULT! Oh sure, we were going to have a couple of beers...maybe some pizza...enjoy some traditional Hawaiian music...BUT NO! This guy was off fraternizing with his new spaceship-worshipping puppets...probably dancing around in robes all commando-style and having orgies and Kool-aid.

Ok, I have to admit the orgy part doesn't sound bad. But I'd be very careful of ANYTHING you read on this guy's blog. Seriously...he has issues.

One Step Closer To Homeyness

I'm still digging my way through possessions after my move two months ago. Anyone who has moved recently, unless you are this guy, knows that moving means having a trickle of boxes all over the place for several months...unless you have a basement where you can dump it all for the next 10 years. Seriously, nothing helps you reduce clutter and figure out what is really important like moving to a smaller space.

Within the last week or so, I have made some major strides in getting the living area presentable. Most of the boxes are gone and I can freely move furniture around. The "entertainment center" has been up and running almost since day one. I'm really digging the TV stand I got which raises the LCD TV up and allows me to tilt and rotate it. Also, there is more room for my gaming consoles and chotchkies.

The Great and Powerful LCD!
(too lazy to Photoshop Oz into the screen)

So, order is slowing coming to the apartment, but like the Dude's rug, I needed something to pull the room together. Really, in my case, it was more about making a creative, symbolic gesture that this was "home". I had already known what it was going to be for some time, but it took several years of it resting in storage and the impulse to dig it out and unpack it for it to become a reality. Unlike most of my previous dwellings, I wanted this new one to say a little more than "I like Apple and movies" with my various framed posters. I wanted the expressions to be a little more subtle, a little more varied, and a bit more...three dimensional.

Voila! My first 3D wall sculpture, AND the first thing I put on my new walls.

What makes this sculpture even more significant, beyond the catharsis of designing a new home, is that this sculpture used to hang in my grandparents home. I remember it very clearly as a child being fascinated by it and the fact that it was more than a picture. I was always careful, but it was fun to touch. It is basically all sculpted brass, copper, and wire. The picture doesn't have the best lighting but shows off the color tones the best. It has a very warm tone with it's golds, oranges, and browns. It very much reminds me of my favorite season, Fall, which I essentially gave up by moving to California. I had found out, in my childlike curiosity, that it would make sounds if you touched it. The tiny echos of metal and vibrations. It also seems strong and fragile at the same time. And it was this attachment that prompted me to acquire it when my Grandmother passed away, as it had also hung up in her newer home for many years before she passed. So like the illusionary raindrops that hit the brass umbrellas, memories and feelings drip off this sculpture creating ripples in my mind and heart. It's the first thing I have hung up that makes me think...."home".

Where Trivia Comes From

I'm sure some of you think that Trivia comes from Trivialvania. You are obviously stupid and I don't want you reading my blog. On second thought, I think I only have two readers in spite of having three subscribers, so go ahead and read it, but as soon as I have thousands of readers, please go away. Seriously.

Where was I...oh yes, trivia. According to most dictionaries, trivia is defined as...

pieces of information of little importance or value

It is arguable that any piece of information that exists has, or has had, some significance at some point in time, otherwise why would it even exist?! Trivia, whatever it's original purpose now finds it's primary purpose is to drive millions of alcoholics, or would-be alcoholics, to bars and pubs across the nation in a socially acceptable manner. It is for that very reason that I tend to latch onto odd bits of trivia I stumble upon. I'm not officially an alcoholic yet, but I have lofty goals of achieving it.

Here is the place in the post where I bring "trivia" and "stupid" together in a way that looks like I planned the whole thing from the beginning. Many years ago, before everything was in Wikipedia, people would actually discover new things that people had never seen or heard about before. These people were probably rich, or stupid, or...well, I already said "rich" didn't I. Rich people probably discovered a lot because one, they had the money to do it, and two, they were the only ones who could take four month vacations without their family starving to death. Anyway, these people were probably "on safari" complaining about the heat when they saw an odd thing standing next to a tree, that had a very long neck, and was yellowish with brown spotty patches. Being not particularly clever people, they saw SPOTS and LONG LEGS as the dominant characteristics. The one thing they knew had spots was a leopard. Disney had not yet released 101 Dalmatians apparently. Also, the one thing they knew had knobby, long legs was...a camel. So being the amazing, creativity-barren people that they were, they called this creature a camelopard. Brilliant.

Have you guessed what it is yet? (What blows me away is that my spell-checker actually knew how to spell camelopard)

Anyway, this is the odd video that turned me onto this bit of trivia along with an alternative to my stupidity theory.




Heh...the new, compact, selfish dog.

What's even more interesting is that I was led from the previous video to THIS one..





Seriously, nothing could be cooler that having trivia eventually lead to a hot woman with a sexy foreign accent. Probably what is even sexier is that she actually knows the history of the camelopard, rather than a far-fetched theory, which puts her one up on the rich, stupid people....I mean Greeks. See I learned more trivia. I also learned that David Mitchell has some other funny stuff and even better, he has an iPad/iPhone app for his rants. See, now I even squeezed some tech in there.

So, if you bothered to read this all the way through, you are probably not as dumb as when you came and if you keep it up I won't have to kick you off after those 1000 readers pile up.

There is also a good chance you are watching those other Hot For Words videos and have a woody.

The Gifts That Keep On Taking

Gift-giving originally started out, I'm assuming (what, I'm a researcher?), not as show of warmth, but as a bribe to the gods for better crops, health, or to win the lottery. I mean, what was around to give as gifts? Rocks?

Ogg: Here, I got you rock.

Moog: I got rock.

Ogg: Now you got spare rock.

Moog: I have pile of rocks in back.

Ogg: Oh.

Leaving cartoon caveman behind and looking at recent history, people find a lot of excuses to give people gifts. Anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas are examples of just a few of the "frivolous" class of gift-giving. In the case of baby showers, weddings, and house-warmings; the object is to get some free stuff because something had just cost you a shitload of money and you can't afford diapers, food, or really ugly pottery.

Now most of these occasions are genuinely altruistic, but I have noticed a growing trend that I find unsettling. People now give gifts, but rather than just giving you the item for your own pleasure, they attach some kind of requirement or prerequisite that you must agree to before getting your gift.

Recently, I was given a gift by President Wishnack, which I thought he had done out of the goodness of his heart...I should have known better. He gave me iPhone shaped notebooks.

At least it wasn't ticking....THIS time!

Now at first glance this seemed to be a thoughtful gift, recognizing my love of Apple's "i"Products, but looking deeper into the subtext it became obvious that this was a gift born of MALICE and GREED. First, he is aware that I had suffered my second iPhone robbery very recently, so he gives me three iPhone-shaped notebooks to mock my misfortune. Then there is the PS: which clearly implies that the gift was given with the express purpose that I post more blog posts for his enjoyment. Not to help me, but to take his mind off his dreary, mind-numbing phone job. This is but one example of a gift given with a condition attached, thus revealing himself as my arch-nemesis, which I had always suspected.

Next, I was recently given a pre-housewarming present by a couple of friends who had been teasing me for weeks that they had gotten me the "perfect gift", raising my expectations to a crescendo. What they got was indeed very cool...but it had a price!

For the foodie geek in your life.

Knowing I was a Star Wars fan, I was presented with Star Wars themed cookie cutters and pancake molds, but with the stipulation that I had to make cookies and pancakes for the gift-givers. Wait, whose gift is this anyway‽ By the way, as much as I like the villains in Star Wars, why is Yoda the only good guy included? R2-D2 or C-3PO would make fine cookies, and I'd personally think a Han Solo frozen in carbonite pancake would be delicious with some carbonite colored syrup. So one of these weekends I have to go get pancake and cookie mix to appease my "benefactors", who will probably insist upon having bacon or sausage as well. Suddenly I am burdened with cooking a meal and dessert. It seems people are so desperate to get something themselves, they have to attach an automatic return gift with their show of good will.

It is not as though this is anything new, really. Many people who run in much more influential social circles than I will play the game of 'I'll get you something, but you have to get me something too'. This also generally involves out-gifting other present buyers to gain higher favor or recognition. At that level, giving gifts is more of a competition. I also once had a girlfriend who appeared to be of a generous nature, willing to spend quite a lot of money on presents for me...only to turn around and insist that I spend an equal or greater amount on presents for her. Nevermind that she made 3 times my measly income at the time. I didn't mind buying gifts, but it was the standard I was expected to live up to that bothered me. It wouldn't matter what the effort or originality of the gift was, it was the the net worth she was concerned with. Oh, and generally I had to pick from a pre-made list. Needless to say, it took the fun out of making lists for Christmas, as well as shopping and getting presents. I'd have preferred she just spent her money on herself and save me the trauma of shopping at Christmas.

I wonder sometimes if the spirit of gift-giving is completely lost, or if I have just become jaded. I think once it becomes something expected or required, due to a holiday for example, the act looses its luster. Of late I have taken the opinion that gifts should not be churned out, but spontaneous. If I happen to see something I think someone will like, why should I have to store it in my closet and take up space until Christmas comes up. Why should I be forced to find a lame gift for someone because it is their birthday? It just ends up that I can't think of anything appropriate, so I just get a funny book or t-shirt. I think we should ban predetermined gift-buying holidays and just be spontaneous about it. We may get less stuff, but I think we'd actually find out who really cared enough to pay attention and get more meaningful items.

And then I also wouldn't have to cook.

Pizza Cheese

Has it ever occurred to anyone that pizza cheese is one of the few things that can look all stringy and gooey, and still look appetizing?

I was pretty shocked that pizza cheese has its own Wikipedia page, but even more so to find it said this...

"Pizza cheese may also be a snack cheese of dubious quality..."

This slice is just waiting to burn the roof of your mouth.

Yeah, sorry, that all I could come up with on "pizza cheese".

Sober Poop Moment - Number 1

Alternate title: When did it get so complicated‽

I know what most of you are thinking. I have the word "poop" and "number 1" in the title, and someone will invariably make a comment about which is it, number 1 or number 2? And it will happen on the second post as well for obvious reasons. Hopefully most of you will be mature enough not to go there, but then who am I kidding.

Know your audience.

Normally I would leave the feces-related reporting to more experienced individuals, but this is all-out war!

So, if you happen to follow my blog, you'll know that I moved recently. Until now, I have not yet had a chance to exploit this for the blog. I've never lived in a particularly fancy place. I have my standards, but as long as I have a frig, stove, working toilet and shower I'm pretty much set. My new place, in contrast, is in a fairly new building and one of the reasons I moved was to gain some "luxury" amenities. Definitely one deciding factor was the dishwasher. This is not only an awesome timesaver, but probably will help me prevent health-code violations. Also, there is no door on my new kitchen to hide the stacks of dirty dishes.

There have been many wonders in my new apartment, but none more confusing than what I found in the bathroom. Now, I've been to many bathrooms, so it's not like I'm a water-closet newbie or anything. I've even used a urinal in the Vatican.

I guess you're expected to kneel when you use it.

However, when I got to my new toilet, I was greeted by what was to me, an unusual sight. Rather than the typical flush handle that one would expect, there were instead two buttons! Now at this point I was feeling a bit like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man when he is in the future trying to figure out how the three seashells work.

I would have gotten a better picture, but the buttons are right under a shelf. Brilliant planning.

Apparently, the buttons are supposed to help you conserve water. The button on the left with the half-filled circle is supposed to flush half as much water as the button on the right. Nevermind that I have to memorize which button is which because I have to stick my hand underneath a shelf to press them. Now if it's one thing I appreciate about going to the bathroom is that it is relatively simple. Your body pretty much knows what to do and does it. The disposal of those bodily functions should be equally simple. Now, with this system, each time I go to the bathroom I need to stop and make a decision...do I need a half flush or a full flush for this particular visit? I have to make decisions and struggle with issues all day, now you are going to complicate my bathroom experiences? My solution, and the irony, is that I pretty much pick the buttons at random and probably use the same amount of water either way. Seems like if I push the 'half' button, I have to press it a second time anyway, so why complicate my life with flush choices‽ Now if one button flushed with red water and the other blue, THEN they might have something. Make flushing fun and colorful. I could choose my flush based on my mood. Was it a good bowel movement? Ok, blue then. For those constipated visits, red....although that could have repercussions I won't go into here.

So in the end (heh, had to GO there) lets keep the bathroom simple eh? Although a butt-massage option might be nice.

Experiments In Duplication

(In some circles, this might be referred to as plagiarism, but those circles are jerks)


to the fella' in india who found this blog by googling "synonym and palindrome for ship detection device," i'm sorry to have let you down with my whiskey-infused poop lectures and complaints about financial corporations and umbrellas.

i'm sure that's not what you were looking for.

but if you're still reading, the answer is RADAR.

you're welcome.

for everyone else, check out the billboard liberation front's improved version of the mcdonald's advertisement.

i'm sick of it. as seen at cala foods on california and hyde.

wellp, with that said, it's time to drink whiskey and poop. (poop is a verb in this sentence, not a noun.)

kbye.


If it helps justify any of this, I DID see the sign first-hand WITH the guy who took the picture and wrote about it, AND we discussed it (sortof). Also, he bought me at least two of the beers I drank last night which I think contributed to me forgetting two other great blog post ideas that I had on the way home from bar-hopping. So there!

Raiders of the Lost Boba Fett

I have finally completed the move into the new apartment, and the horrifying experience has left me with many tales to tell...mostly ones where I am ready to strangle someone. Here, on the other hand, is a tale of rediscovery!

The one thing I can say about moving is that it gives you the opportunity to look through boxes and closets that had been undisturbed for months, if not years. As a result, it gives you a chance to play archaeologist with your belongings. I was fine without Nazis storming my bedroom to stop me from finding that t-shirt I thought I'd lost, but I wouldn't have minded finding an attractive, young woman tied up in my closet....ahem, but we'll get my fetishes at another time. The process of finding a long-lost tchotchke, or even something you had forgotten you even had, can make moving a little more bearable...until until you have to figure out where you are going to put it.

(how many of you knew "tchotchke" began with a "t"? Come-on, be honest.)

Almost everyone has too much of something. For some it's little, ceramic Scotty dogs; or books by French poets that they can't even read; or hatred of the Proletariat...but for me, it tends to be Star Wars figures, robots, and stuff made by Apple. I probably have more Star Wars toys than most kids, but then I HAVE been collecting since 1977. Most are in storage, but a number of favorites grace my desk and shelves at home. One of my favorites has always been Boba Fett. I mean, who doesn't love a mysterious guy in full body armor who doesn't take shit from Darth Vader. In fact, Boba Fett originally had a smaller part as a generic bounty hunter, but he was so popular, the character was given a bigger role. One day, while playing...I mean, adjusting my Jango Fett figure, it dawned on me that the Boba Fett figure that usually had a prominent place on my desk was GONE!!! -GASP!- -HORRORS!- I spent quite a bit of time looking for him with no luck. I was convinced Jango had dispatched him to gain the #1 spot on my desk...which he did. As a result, the search for Boba was made a top priority!

Yes, my priorities are a bit messed up.

Months went by, and I finally began to let go and assumed Boba had been carried away by a ninja pigeon or something. Life went on and I cluttered my desk with other items like bills and stuff I would "look at later".

Flash forward to this weekend as I stacked the last of the boxes from my old apartment into my new one, approximating the home of one of those people from that Hoarders tv show. Like most people, I expected to pack neatly and orderly, with proper labels on the boxes indicating contents. That probably happened for the first box but the rest involved shoveling items into boxes, bags, or suitcases. At the end, I was left with an apartment of boxes with unidentifiable contents, and the search began for those vital items that I need from day to day...like my PS3 controller, a bottle opener, and my iPhone charge cable. This scattershot search technique led me to many remarkable discoveries, but none so profound as the revelation that Boba Fett WAS NOT LOST!

"What?! I went out for some chicken & waffles. How long do you THINK that takes when you are 3 inches tall?!"

I also discovered that I had a Mace Windu figure I forgot I even had. Sorry SLJ! I expect to have many other fanciful discoveries in the next few weeks, some of which will be ushered by "top men" to a warehouse referred to as "Goodwill" or eBay, so I won't break my toe when walking from my bedroom to my living room. (picture withheld because, trust me, it looked bad and nobody wants to see my feet)

Dear John Letter

Dear Richmond District,

What can I say, it's been great. We've had an amazing 12 year relationship, but I just feel I'm in a different place now and need a change. It's not you, it's me.

When I first came to San Francisco, you were there with your cheap rent, larger apartments, and close proximity to the beach and the park. That is what allowed me to stay in this fantastic city, but it also made me complacent and reluctant to try new things. You made it all possible, but now you are holding me back. It has taken me a while to realize that.

Close enough.

Also, some of your friends are just plain annoying with their loud music upstairs, yelling, honking, and stumbling home drunk and waking the entire neighborhood.

I still remember the good times eating at Bill's Place, Tommy's, Drunken Sushi, movies at The Four Star, the great produce at 25th and Clement, the friendly guys at Tiger Liquors (whom I may have gotten too acquainted with in the last couple of years), and walking into Royal Ground where everyone greets you with a smile, and they always know what I want and how to make it. I think they order Amaretto syrup just for me.

There were also some odd times, like when I locked myself out of my apartment, and in broad daylight got a ladder out of the garage and climbed into my second story apartment through the kitchen window...without anyone blinking an eye! And then there was the time nearly every pair of pants I owned was stolen from the laundromat across the street. Awkward.

And then there were the bad times. The closing of the Alexandria theater and the Coronet (ok not in the Richmond but I went there a a lot) cars flipping over and plowing into one another at the intersection below my window at 2 am, the 3 year old kid who knocked on my door asking me dial 911 because of the fight his Mom was in and having to explain it to the cops before they led the boyfriend off in handcuffs. Also unpleasant was the time immediately after that when I wondered if the guy would come back and beat the crap out of me.

-sniff-

This move was a long time coming. I will be closer to work and downtown, and best of all I will be able to almost completely eliminate MUNI from my life! Long have I suffered the evil, sweaty, stinky, slow, unpredictable grip of San Francisco's mismanaged public bus system. There will be new sights, new sounds (hopefully quieter ones), new stores, new people, and new experiences. I'm hoping friends may even want to come over to my place to hang out. I'm sorry Richmond, but you were isolating me from the world.

I'll miss you and won't forget you. I hope someday you'll be able to forgive me.

No, I don't understand why it says "goodbye" on his stomach either.

My Job, Apparently

Ironically, in spite of my handle TechBoy that I use here, I seem to rarely talk about tech. I suppose that is because I talk tech just about everywhere else. I started this blog to sort of balance that out and give the other half of my brain some exercise. According to this blog posting, however, that isn't good enough, so I feel inclined to inject a little tech related musings today. Maybe I'll throw in a little more tech once in while, just to keep some people from nagging me.

I would imagine that the biggest and most prevalent tech news is the release of the iPad last Saturday. However, rather than talk about how awesome it is and go on about all the apps, I thought I'd set the Wayback Machine and take the iPad back to some of my early techie days and speculate what reactions I'd have.

"But Mr. Peabody, this isn't the Wayback Machine!"

"Shut up Sherman or I'll make you pick up my poo again."

The year is about 1995. I've had a Macintosh IIci for about 3 years and traded it in for a refurbished PowerBook 180c color laptop which had a screen an inch or two smaller in each dimension than the iPad. The World Wide Web was pretty new and you could only make your own website by learning how to hand-code HTML. The first WYSIWYG editor for HTML was coming out, called Adobe PageMill. It seemed nice, but really mangled the code so that going back in and customizing by hand usually took longer than if you had just built it that way in the first place.

The laptops of the time really give you a good comparison...

PowerBook 180c: 7.1 lbs

iPad: 1.5 lbs

PowerBook 180c: 2.25" thick

iPad: 13.4 mm thick

PowerBook 180c: 8.4" diagonal screen

iPad: 9.7 inch diagonal screen

PowerBook 180c: $4,110 (new)

iPad: $499 (new)

So there are a few figures to give you an idea of how far we've come. No wireless or broadband internet yet either. 300 baud (yeah, I know you have no idea what that means) telephone modem.

My friends and I were geeky enough, but if you had arrived from the future and handed us the iPad, with a transdimensional link to the current day internet....I don't think we would have bothered leaving for college. I think the only reason we spent any time away from our Commodore 64s and TRS-80s was because you couldn't do a lot with them, and the games sucked. However, we managed to loose a lot of time to them anyway. Does anyone remember "light pens"?! Now we just have fingers, but we thought it was way cool to be able to draw on a television screen. Yes, television screen. You would hook up your computer to your television. Ok, I reset the Wayback for high school...that wasn't 1995.

To be honest, I'm not sure how things would have been different with the iPad. My friends and I generally just were excited to play with new technology. I'm not sure we would have seen it as life changing, although seeing what technology could do, we might have been more inspired to invent things that would use it. That, and we would have bought a shit-load of Apple stock and be billionaires!

The iPad is really a device for today, with it's social networks and need for immediacy. We gobble content as fast as we can download or browse to it, although there is a lot more garbage content now with an emphasis on entertainment and time-killing rather than education.

"The new Apple Store is great isn't it?!"

"Yeah, but it sucks that they make you buy the spacesuit just to see the new iMonolith."

PS: Here's some crappy Atari games from the time too.

A Magic Trick Gone Wrong

This is not the first time I have written about the difficulties and process of writing a blog post, and I suspect not the last. As was illustrated by a previous post, the process between initialization and conclusion of a point, thought, or concept can be a rocky one. This is definitely something I've been working hard at to improve. I'm sure there are some kind of mental devices for planning out what you want to say so that it either fits in a given space, or takes a particular time to write, but I've always been a free-flowing kind of writer. I start with an idea, roll it around in some flour, bake it for a while, and then sit down and just start writing what comes to mind. Yeah, I know, I completely mangled that metaphor, but you get the idea.

The trouble is that free-flowing mode I'm so fond of tends to not have any boundaries. I write until I can reach a concluding point, or can't think of anything more to say about the subject; assuming I haven't changed the subject several times. Welcome to Tangentville! What tends to be the worst case scenario is when I'm interrupted (like I just was with a phone call) and it becomes difficult to rediscover the stream of consciousness I had been traveling along.

I have likened this writing process with the age old magic trick of pulling a streamer from your mouth. The "device" that allows you to do this is called a "mouth coil", but that as far as I'll get into the mechanics of the trick. The magician seems to pull an endless, colorful streamer from his mouth.

"I don't remember eating anything that color."

Now imagine that you are the magician, ready to wrap up this little trick and anticipating the end of the streamer, but it just keep coming out. In fact, you realize that it is no longer a trick and you seem to have no control over it anymore. Yes, I do have a lot of nightmares, why?

Anyway, it gets out of control, and so you snip off the streamer, swallow, and move onto the next trick. The only difference is, with my writing, you don't see that first part of the trick where it all went wrong. It's more like if the trick went haywire during practice and it was just eliminated from the show. So what is the point in writing about it? Well, I sometimes think better when I write it out, and maybe someone will read this and offer some suggestions for working out my writing obstacles. In the meantime, I'll keep drafting up things to say, and maybe one day someone will put all those unfinished thoughts into a book and it'll make millions! Hey, it worked for the son of J. R. R. Tolkien.

I think I'd much rather do this trick, but maybe with Jessica Alba.

Why Can't Women Be More Like Sandwiches?

Updated…for your reading pleasure. Two reads for one post…whatta deal!

--

You know, I can't for the life of me remember what prompted this title, but I felt it was too good to not use, if only for its controversial overtones.

Sexual references aside, let's examine why one might want a woman to be like a sandwich. It might trigger something. It should be said that it is perfectly resonable, as a woman, to wish men were more like sandwiches, but you'll have to write about it on your own blog because I'm not going to go there.
Ok, so a good sandwich has lots of toppings, but that doesn't translate well since I'm not a fan of a lot of makeup, but an attractively dressed woman is always nice, as is an attractively dressed sandwich.

I guess I could be snarky and say things like, sandwiches don't argue with you, you can just make a sandwich and go because sandwiches don't keep trying on different meats and veggies...you know, the usual stereotypes. I think the original idea was simpler than that. The sandwich represents something simpler, and relationships can be difficult.

The effort you put into making a sandwich is almost always rewarded with the eating of the sandwich. It's usually a 1:1 relationship. Hopefully the energy you put into a relationship is returned in an equally rewarding result, but sometimes that may not be the case. People are generally more complicated than sandwiches, let's face it. I think it goes without saying that the company of a woman (for myself anyway) is probably preferred over that of a sandwich, but some days….you just need a sandwich.


Trust me, you do not want to do a Google image search for "sandwich girl" without SafeSearch on!

This One Is For Kate

More details as they bake...I mean develop.

For The Ladies

Hello Ladies...look at your man, now back at this blog...now back at your man, now back at this blog. Sadly, your man is not, nor could he write, this blog. However, if he had a better education, used longer words and less grunting, and could think beyond the batting average of his favorite baseball player, he might sound like this blog.

Now look down, now up...where are you? Same place you were, but still reading this blog because it's interesting, probably because your man is not.

What's in your hand, now look at this blog. It's here, a URL for that thing you love...

http://bit.ly/aFsKC8

Look again...the URL is now a URL for diamonds!

http://bit.ly/bzZHa1

Anything is possible when you have the internet and stimulating, thought provoking reading material.

As far as you know, I might be on a horse...with wifi.

"Hi-oooo iPad...AWAY!

Blogurgitations - No. 1

RE: Beer Tic Tac Toe

With apologies to President Wishnack and his sister, I have to say that this game has the lowest replay value of any game ever devised.

He had the chance to go into more detail about the game himself, but no doubt did not want to offend the gift-giver, or perhaps he simply couldn't think of anything to say about it. I however was moved by the nanoscopic of descriptive forces to write about this wholly unentertaining game.

Here are the rules:

1. Fill mini-steins with beer
2. Play Tic-Tac-Toe
3. Get bored and just drink the rest of the beer

As anyone who has ever played tic-tac-toe, statistically the person who goes first will win the game. So really, all this game does is slow down your intake of beer, and who wants that? The game would probably be vastly improved by switching out the mini-steins with real ones, then blindfolding the players who have to drink the stein's contents, spin around, and then try to place an X or an O correctly on the board. The person who most closely resembles a line of 3 in a row gets to use the bathroom first.

Marketing 101

For a while now I've been trying to think of something catchy to use for the name of my less "intensive" posts about casual observations and notes. These posts are what I have been calling "Thought Of The Day", with the added "beta #" in the title reflecting that the whole thing would probably change into something else. First of all, the name seems ingenuous since they are as sporadic as my regular posts. It just sounds to me like it is setting up some kind of expectation and I don't need any more of that right now. And who wants to disappoint their audience, am I right?

So, I have finally settled on my thematic name for these posts...they will henceforth be called......

BLOGURGITATIONS

Well, I like it. It perfectly describes the intent of the posts' contents. Basically any kind of mind dump that can act as filler while I procrastinate on my multi-paragraphical concepts. You know, the truly mind-blowing stuff (that you will never see because I never finish them).

I hope you enjoy the new title, and if you don't, well, what do you know.

Honestly, I just put this here because it had the word "regurgitate" and because I am posting this on St. Patrick's Day. Seems fitting since I expect a lot of people will be regurgitating green beer most of the day.

Why I Love Google

Some people think Google is just going to gooble gobble everything up, information-wise. It is sometimes a bit disconcerting that Google's online apps have so much of our critical information, so much so that it can target ads to us and even mistakenly make our entire contact list open to the public. But the other day, Google's voracious information gathering came to my rescue...or least prevented a panic attack.

See, I sometimes compose blog posts on my iPhone when I'm riding the bus, or in a waiting room, and I have a number of tools to do this. One iPhone app I have, called iBlogger, can post directly to Blogger, and also allow me to make changes to other posts on the site. I had started one of my Thought of The Day posts in iBlogger, but finished it online, so there were only a couple of lines of text in the iPhone app. Lately the app has been crashing whenever I try to sync posts with Blogger and I thought it might be because I had two different versions of the ToTD post, so I deleted it from the iBlogger app. Weeeelllll, that was a mistake. Apparently the app can still sync some things, and since the posts were named the same, yep you guessed it, it deleted the entire post from the site with no way to get it back! Or so I thought!

I remembered that if Google has recorded a web page in it's search results, it will generally keep a cached version of the page from a few days previous. Since Google owns Blogger, I thought I had a pretty good chance of it being stored. Huzzah! It was, and I was able to copy the text and repost the article.

Whew!

Safe to say I may stop using iBlogger for my posts, especially since it hasn't been updated in about a year now. I'll stick to Writeroom which syncs to a web database from which I can just copy text into my blog editor and post. Not quite as convenient, but also not heart attack inducing. So, it is safe to say that for at least some instances, having someone that records all your information is a pretty helpful thing.

As a side note, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm an Apple fan-boy. I could create a fairly lengthy post just listing all the Macs and Apple products I own, and have owned (actually I still own almost all of them). I may have drank plenty of the Apple Kool-aid, and been wooed by Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field, but I will take them to task when they mess up.

There has been a lot of Apple and Google fighting in the tech news, since they are now competing for some of the same market-share, and this makes me somewhat sad. It's kind of like being a kid in a family where the parents argue all the time and you are afraid they will get divorced, and then it will get all awkward because they don't speak to each other and you don't want to play favorites, you just want them back together. So, I just want Apple to know, I love you both equally! I hope you and Google can make up and at least be friends.

Well, it is harder to lick Google products. I need to excuse myself now.

Olivia Munn...mmmmmmm!

Thought Of The Day beta 0.5

This is what happens when you have a blog, think too much, and get easily distracted.

Excuses...excuses.

Thought Of The Day beta 0.4

Are the Olympics important anymore? Seriously, I can't tell. I see it on TVs everywhere, and people talk about it...but is it important?
When I was younger it seemed like the Olympics were a big deal, like it was the only time all the counties in the world would come together. It was as if even if we didn't agree on politics, religion, or philosophy, we would put that aside for a greater tradition. It seemed like an effort then.
Now, whether it's because of the Internet or maybe just because I have my own issues to focus on, the Olympics seem more trivial. The bringing together of countries seems contrite and insincere. It's just another sporting event that fucks with my regularly scheduled program.
Ok, I generally use Hulu so that claim is kind of hollow, but you know what I mean. Has the world become too small to acknowledge the Olympics as something special? Do the Olympics even make sense, or has it simply become yet another huge commercial opportunity for sponsors and the local community to cash in on?
I think there is some kind of pride lost here. I don't even understand how the host city is picked. When there was a chance it was Chicago, all I could think was, "well, I guess I won't be visiting friends and family that year". O'hare is bad enough thank-you-very-much. Of course I have to wonder if it is just me, but I really don't think there is the same reverance as there once was.
I think the Olympics should be held on some island somewhere, or maybe one location for summer and one for winter. The same place everytime. No sponsors, no commercialism. Each country pools in money; not Nike and Coca-Cola. No interference with other communities' lives. No financial benefit to any one establishment. The countries pay for their athletes so they are invested. As it is, it might as well be a Monster Truck Rally.

Skiing...Sunday. SunDAY. SUNDAY!!!

Prove me wrong.

The Obligatory Frank Chu Post

If you live in San Francisco and you don't know who Frank Chu is…you're doing something wrong. Even if there is a slight chance you don't know his name, you've probably seen him walking around the downtown area carrying his sign which states his protests of a number of subjects. Frank even has his own Wikipedia entry.

-Sigh-  Go ahead…I'll wait…..

I happened to be unintentionally following Frank one day when I looked up and noticed him, and it occurred to me that as a blogger in San Francisco it was practically an obligation to write something about him. I mean, Frank is all about media coverage, although I doubt he will get much from my blog. Also, I felt I could bang out a short post about it that wouldn't hang in limbo like many of my other posts. Besides, I'd rather get random site hits from a Google search of "Frank Chu" or "crazy sign guy" than resort to cheap tricks like link-bait posts about Lindsay Lohan sex tapes.

I am a little disappointed that Frank rents out the back of his sign to advertisers (for $100 a week). I feel it sort of dilutes his message, whatever it is, but I guess a guy has to eat and buy day-glow lettering somehow. I guess I shouldn't project my idea of "protesting" upon him.

I considered taking a picture of him with my iPhone for this post since I was so close, but I decided Frank would be my debut sketch art piece for the blog.

Yeah, I have a long way to go to get something in MOMA, but you can at least tell who it is…I think.

Creative Impotence

Other than the title, we're just going to skip past further sexual metaphors and references that may be hanging there ready to drop. Anyone who follows this blog knows it doesn't get updated all that often, much to my own dismay. In my defense, I'm also trying to write for four other blogs, some which may actually produce revenue at some point. Currently I have four drafted posts for this blog that are about half finished, and a few waiting in the back of my addled brain ready to disgorge themselves.

I said no sexual references, so stop thinking what you are thinking now.

So as far as writing goes, it is less impotence and more impetus (you're on the web, go look it up). However, I decided that getting these things posted wasn't difficult enough so I decided to add another level of complexity. Since I like to add a photo with each post, whether relevant or not, I thought I would mix it up by drawing the images myself in order to stimulate my visual creativity (and save time flipping through Google images). My inspiration comes from the blog CHAOS, NONSENSE & TOURISTS whose author frequently features some of his own drawings. Ignoring that fact that his drawings make feel completely incompetent, I figured it might at least encourage me to draw more since I haven't done any significant drawing since college.

"Well, at least I know I can draw boxes."

Here is where we get into a real problem. I suffer from "white page syndrome". I'm sure many people know what I'm talking about, but an interesting note…there is no official definition of it; none that I've found anyway. For me, the problem is much more prevalent in drawing than writing. Making those first lines on the paper can be an arduous process. Add to that the fact that I'm generally never happy with the results even after I get started. I had a discussion with President Wishnack about this and he claims few people ever end up drawing exactly what is in their head, so I guess my problem is that I'm too OCD not to care. I'd be more than happy to take part in an experiment to hook up a human brain to a photocopier or laser printer.

So what I guess I'm saying is, be prepared to see some really crappy art on the blog. Or a lot of LOLCATS.

IZ GOTS NO KAPSHUN!

Dangers of Modern Household Cleaning Products (or Why I'm Going to Sue Febreze)

According to data reported in 2002, accidental injuries, many at home or the workplace, were the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S.

"[...] causing as many as 20,000 deaths, 7 million disabling injuries, and 20 million hospital trips in the U.S. each year."

And this was in 2002! While we may all take this for granted, how many of us just attribute this to "people being stupid"? Yes, I'm sure some of these accidents are candidates for the Darwin Awards, but the truth is that some of these accidents are the result of gross neglect by household product manufacturers.

Yeah, I'm talkin' to you Proctor and Gamble!

So here is my story of victimization:

I had a guest coming to stay for the weekend and you know what that means for the typical single guy, that's right, binge cleaning. I had spent the week previous to the visit putting away various piles of papers and books, or finding creative places to hide them. The last obstacle to tackle...the kitchen. Literally an hour before rushing off to pick up the visitor from the airport, I was taking out garbage, washing dishes, and generally tidying up. The pièce de résistance was to give everything a quick spritz of Febreze to deodorize everything. At this point I should have stopped and headed off to the airport, but being Mr. OCD, I did another quick sweep of the apartment and dashed into the kitchen to throw away some paper.

Once you know that my kitchen has a ceramic tile floor, you can pretty much guess what happened next. I don't know what the hell is in Febreze, but I do know that a small amount covering a tile floor makes that floor more slippery than black ice on a highway. Before my brain had a chance to grasp the situation, my body was playing out a move generally only seen in cartoons. My body's natural reaction to finding that my feet are no longer connected to the ground is to do that cat thing to try to twist and land safely, but since I'm not a cat it typically works out as trying not to land on my head or crush my iPhone. Unfortunately, my elbows and ribs took the brunt of the damage this time and hitting tile didn't help.

That dark spot is a huge, painful bruise that actually wraps around to my elbow.

The twisting action pulls several muscles in my ribs causing periodic jabs of pain. None of this really started to surface until almost a week later after which time I had also attempted bowling which aggravated the rib muscle strain. All of this came as the result of wanting my kitchen to smell nice. This is my punishment for cleaning.

My dilemma now is whether to prosecute the makers of Febreze for not mentioning this on the label in really big letters. In reality, I'm probably to lazy to do this, plus I generally have a low opinion of people who sue large companies for things they have no control over. Somehow I feel this is a little more legitimate than the case where someone dries their cat in the microwave, but do I want to be that person...or retire early before they cut off Social Security?

Regardless, don't expect me to clean up my place if you come to visit.

Thought Of The Day beta 0.3

Who hasn't heard a variation of the saying;

"It takes more energy to frown than it does to smile!"

I suppose it's cute, but somehow also really annoying. Probably because it's the type of thing said by morning people to try and and drag you into their sunshiny view of the world. Personally I can't remember ever looking forward to a morning unless it's one I can sleep through. I'm not saying frowning is better than smiling, but it just seems like a ridiculous thing to say, especially since there is no factual evidence backing it up, according to Snopes.


The fact is, for some people, frowning may actually be easier; especially if they have been doing it for a long time. I don't really think energy conservation is adequate motivation for not smiling. In fact, grumpy people may even be more evolved.


If you really want me to smile, do something funny, like...trip and fall into a ditch. Be creative.

You can bet this guy had NO trouble frowning.