be consistent, yahoo

a while back i contacted yahoo about the possibility of using their ad service for a gaming (the kind involving money, not mages). they flatly rejected the proposition.

understandable, everyone understands it's a shady business -- just not to the extent that it really is. so if a company wants to take a ethical position and say we're not going to help spread the scourge that is gambling, i have no issue with it -- even if i know this righteousness is misplaced.

on the other hand, if you're going to say no to online wagering on moral grounds, perhaps it makes sense to avoid advertising for hgh too. apparently though, yahoo finds nothing objectionable about that product, a fact evinced by a banner for it residing in their im client.

and that strikes me as doubling their sin. after all, im is a youngster's app. while old people like me generally use email, kids don't bother with that whole time lag thing and go straight to messaging. an ad for hgh on yahoo im means lots of teenagers eyeballs will fix on it.

good for hgh retailers, sure, but good for society, i think not.

if only i lived in helsinki

i've drank way too much over the past couple months, including far too many shots of tequila.

with that in mind, i pine for the legal system they employ in one of the trio of always-sophisticated scandanavian countries -- finland. (according to wikipedia)

In Finland, the maximum amount of strong alcohol restaurants are allowed to serve at a time is regulated by the law to one portion of 40 ml per customer.

Doubles cannot be legally served.

yes! my mornings would be much improved by such a statute. as well as my behavior the night before.

sleep v. substance

from friday to sunday, i slept more than i have in any three-day block for at least a year, if not significantly longer. six hours, nine hours, and eight hours. considering that i've averaged about four-and-a-half over the last month, you could argue it was just what i needed to pay off my sleep debt.

nope.

as i sat in front of the computer today trying to finish some important updates to our website, i found my eyelids closing despite my stern desire for them to stay open. it was the kind of inadvertent dozing-off that ends with a violent bounce of the chin off of the chest, only to be greeted by a string of 127 f's strewn across the document you were editing.

so what was it that caused my narcolepsy despite my wealth of rest over the weekend? perhaps the lack of coffee.

on my sunday trip to andronico's i picked a nice medium blend coffee that i could take to work and enjoy while checking the emails that had accrued over the weekend (i was a bad worker). but because my mind was focused on other things, the coffee was left behind. now many a day, i've come to work after too much drinking and not enough sleep. a cup of coffee -- occasionally two -- fixes that. but the parallel doesn't hold up nearly as well -- plenty of sleep and not an ounce of liquor (on sunday). i might as well have been a wino who'd found $20 on the sidewalk. that's how productive i am o'natural.

they better not have paid for this

this appeared in the sponsored link section while checking my email today. are there really that many homeless folks who read gmail?



perhaps they could've found a slightly more targeted audience through another means.

bull headed?

while searching out bar #3 on friday evening, i started a conversation with a female friend of mine that was interrupted in order to make a final decision on our destination. we chose somewhere non-descript and two of our group headed to the bar to order drinks for us, and i settled in an empty booth. the female friend, who had trailed me in, elected for an open bar stool adjacent to the table.

she initiated said conversation, subject irrelevant. transcript below of what ensued.

me: "i'm not going to have a conversation at this distance. why don't you sit over here?"
her: "i don't feel like sitting in a booth."
me: "uh, okay"
her: "so why don't you sit at the bar?"
me: "hmm, i don't think so."
her: "well i guess we're not going to have this conversation."
me: "i guess not."
her: "fine."
me: "fine."
(backs turn)

at the time, i concluded she was being a bitch. and as a gift to everyone else she'd be around the rest of the evening, i accepted the role of martyr by putting an end to her ridiculousness.

upon reflection, however, perhaps something else was involved -- like i can't stand not getting my way.

countless times i've spoken the words "i just like things the way i like them" only to have someone counter with a "you-don't-say" chuckle and a show of feigned disbelief. the quality's charming to acquaintances (i think) but occasionally infuriating to everyone closer than that.

so i wonder, should we share the blame for this infantile altercation?

i still don't think so but might entertain arguments contrary.

backwards to thursday night

1100 a.m. - upon checking my yahoo mail this morning, i received porno spam that used the word libidinous in the subject line. so whoever composed the message definitely studied sat vocab lists. interesting.

230 a.m. to 330 a.m. (?) - friend of mine took a lady home from the club and without letting his austin visitor staying with him and friend of ten years at the club by herself. unclassy behavior from a usually very stand-up guy. after she finally got him on the line, i ended up walking her back to his place and he swore that he told her before leaving. i'm certain he didn't, but he was shitfaced and i'm equally certain he thought he did.

1100 p.m. to 330 a.m. - one member of our fivesome acted like a complete tool the whole evening. i had met him briefly a while back, and though he never struck me as a superstar, i wouldn't have described him as a total bottom-feeder either. perhaps he was just shitcanned and having a day. sure hope so. as i walked the girl from austin home, he continually repeated that my friend had "gone to the bone yard". earlier, he mentioned getting shit streaks on your shirt while getting a lap dance at the market street cinema.

245 a.m. - programmed my number into a young lady's phone. then forgot to call myself. oops.

145 a.m. - finished the drinking portion of the night with a shot of well tequila -- after 10 drinks, it still tastes like shit and burns like a miami sunburn on a red-headed irish lass.

1130 p.m. - as a small measure of redemption, said tool did have this line: a marine without a gun is like a fat girl without titties. of course, he delivered that line during some pre-fight shit-talking at someone's engagement party. like i said, complete tool.

1030 p.m. - wrote some legalese for a company that i consult for and care nothing for at this point. so i guess i shouldn't care that i'm completely unqualified for the task.

wake-up call

i've always thought my happiness with having a lack of career direction to be endearing.

until this email.


shit.

beautiful things

curiously, the last movie i watched from my netflix queue before canceling my membership was a quiet and dignified movie called venus. the film, which portrays the oft-excruciating pursuit of a very young lady by an old man, also includes one of the best lines to ever show up on screen:

for many men, a woman's body is the most beautiful thing a man will ever see.

i've wondered about this little perception a lot recently as i've spent a lot of time shopping over the past couple weeks. normally, when i go into retail-therapy mode, i look at what i need -- new jeans, a pair of brown shoes. and so i bought those. but more recently, i've just wanted things i thought beautiful. so that includes a crystal glass pitcher, a set of votives, and, shortly in the future, candlesticks and various stemware (perhaps some nambe flatware too).

among people i know, i have a reputation for being, well, sort of femme. and i wonder silently if it's not this attachment to other beautiful things that makes people wonder about my orientation; why it is that this sharing of the space normally occupied by beautiful women with other objects is so foreign to men. to that question, i have no answer.

it's difficult to derive the actual value i net from these things. but they bring a smile to my face, albeit an expensive one, and all smiles have some worth.

61% left

it appears that i have approximately 48 years left on this planet before i suffer a lethal heart attack. that according to okcupid's interesting -- though of unknown reliability -- death test.

according to the intro, it's based on harvard researchers' work that parsed one's life span into a slew of activities and characteristics. so perhaps it does have some merit.

after much deliberation

today is september 10. that means roughly 100 days have transpired since the last time scissors were taken to my locks. it also means my hair is long -- despite some curling, it stretches to the nape of my neck in back and to the jawline on the side -- as long as it's been since my 25th year.

unlike the last time, however, my intention is not to grow my hair. instead, i've spent this time deliberating what to do. and it's become unruly, to the point, where i feel compelled to wear a hat to hide most of it, and conceal that it has grown out of the comely shape it originally possessed.

but long hair provides options. and as i'm nearing the end of my youth (some might argue, it's already gone) i took this to be my last chance to do something wild. likely that would entail color, and an unnatural one at that. i've considered the gamut -- red, green, blue -- and have finally decided that i like black best.

a lot of people have black hair, but not many like mine. where no color rests further along the dark pole of the color spectrum. with life, such that it can reflect like the surface of polished obsidian.

so i figure, i'll likely not have this natural color for much longer either. which means i'll just enjoy my fleeting time with what i was born with for the short time that still remains.

almost-awesome link of the day

http://www.hotmomsclub.com/

and i found at work. doing something work related.

sadly's its content is far more classy than i figured it to be.

wow fact for the day

courtesy of the latest addition to my legible list, which i'm proud to say comes from somewhere other than the new york times or the new yorker. (okay, it's from the boston globe, which is owned by the nyt, but still counts -- separate editorial staffs). a really nice read that talks about the gaping holes in the logic behind the current eat-local craze (one which i definitely jumped on the bandwagon for prematurely).

And for cattle, the greatest climate impact comes not from hauling cows and milk and steaks around the country, but from cow burps. Cows are impressive emitters of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (contrary to popular belief, most of it comes out the front of the cow, not the rear). A cow with a bit of indigestion can contribute as much to global warming in a day as the average SUV.

hopefully, this means i can start ordering wine from around the world again (just for variety sake).

get sent to this

back in the day when i plyed my trade as a programmer, i got sent to these tech conferences to see which technologies deserved the buzz they were receiving. and i had no qualms about attending because circa-2000, the parties always outnumbered the information sessions and everyone got wet before happy hour arrived.

of course, if i had one ticket to use for a tech conference this year, i select the office 2.0 conference. not because i'm enthralled by the "collective experiment organized every year in San Francisco, CA and aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration" (whatever the fuck that means) but because i want the free iphone or playstation 3 -- straight to ebay for both, so whichever would fetch more ducats -- they give to all registrants.

damn, i wish i had an educational budget.

the strangest compliment i've ever received

a friend and former classmate of mine confided (which is why i'm blogging about it now) in me that a mutual friend of ours repeatedly impressed upon him how cute she thought my dimples were.

great. dimples are cute and a welcome addition to nearly any face.

only problem, i don't have dimples. i'm quite sure, as i spent a good 15 minutes (additional to normal grooming time) contorting my face in various ways as to try and manipulate my skin such that a cavity in my cheek would appear. minimal success.

it's like a girl telling a bald man how much she loves his long flowing locks.

should he feel good about it? is a compliment even a compliment if it's plainly untrue to all?

if someone insults you but doesn't remember, does it still sting?

not that laying eyes on me conjures images of beckham or brad pitt from fight club, but when looking in the mirror i've never understood how someone could find me physically unappealing. perhaps, that's why i'm having a little trouble shaking this zinger a close female friend dropped on me near the end of a bright red evening.

"if we ever went out, you'd have to work out way more."

from a stranger, i'd simply realize that she was a feminista of poor taste. or visually impaired. or the wrong sexual orientation. or in an abusive relationship. or all of the above. but from someone who sees me regularly -- and who's bluntness grows in direct proportion to increased blood alcohol content -- none of those explanations make a whole lot of sense. which only leaves the truth. ugh.

a friend from college briefly dated a woman who incessantly abused him verbally, repeating as if an incantation "how skinny his arms were" and how most guys she dated had way more muscle. i loved when he told that story, because a) he told the story well b) it could never apply to me because i was just too damn attractive. as they say, ignorance is bliss.

fuck you, rupert

like a shakespearean tragedy without the moral force and literary beauty.

Mr. Murdoch mused aloud about The Journal, saying, for instance, that he did not have time to read longer stories during the week and might like to swap out the paper’s Pursuits section on Saturdays with a glossy magazine.

how about just pictures? or a comic strip! just put sources' quotes in big bubbles above the pen sketches of main characters that the WSJ is famous for.

More recently, he told Time magazine that he was not sure about the offbeat front-page stories known internally as “A-Heds” that are a plum for reporters to write.

you obviously have zero sense of humor. these are endearing, interesting, and flat out exemplify what's great about journalism. which actually explains exactly why you'll kill it.

Reorienting the newspaper further for consumers would fit with two other aspirations Mr. Murdoch has. One is to build his nascent Fox Business News Channel.

great. as if business coverage didn't slant far enough toward the wealthy already. this might as well be a billionaires' circle jerk club.

lucky soul, how do i love thee?

for me, this borders on treachery, but lucky soul's masterful debut album, the great unwanted, outshines feist's stellar sophomore effort, the reminder. which is not to say that every man, woman, and cerebral creature who doesn't own both shouldn't be placed in pillory indefinitely.

now let me count the ways. i watch everything posted on youtube, from the home-video clips of your concert in some sweaty, little uk club to the nearly-as-budget videos cobbled together for your initial releases. i check the calendars to see when you might be swinging through my hometown, and hang my head in sorrow each time after seeing it is no time in the near future. i order a $30 t-shirt bearing your words and restlessly await its arrival. but most of all, i prohibit myself from looping your album in an effort to stave off listening fatigue, knowing that i could never forgive myself for letting such a thing pass.

only as good as my company

a close friend from my berkeley days just hooked up a spine surgery fellowship at ucla. another will be starting a clerkship in los angeles this coming month. and did i mention two of my friends are heading to thailand this month to try and help the phillipines women's soccer team qualify for the '08 summer olympics in beijing?

i must rule.

that's why i use visa

okay, i'm sure visa's every bit as evil, but this is seriously bush league by mastercard (original post on m. ward's blog)

as an aside, i wonder why m. ward denied use of the song in the first place. indie music has become ubiquitous in tv commercials these days, so i assume it's a good source of money. wonder if it's some specific practice or just that he thinks something like credit cards are generally predatory in their ways...

blogs aren't perfect, but they sure have their place

for all haters (and i would consider myself a reformed hater) of blogs, please read this post. it comes from the true hoops blog which now is linked from espn's site. great little nugget about agent zero's summer training regimen and a hilarious update.

overmatched

life supplies you with funny moment after funny moment if you're not too depressed or self-absorbed to notice them. like the artist m.i.a. showing up to a nyc show 3 1/2 hours late (okay only funny because i wasn't there).

or this. looking to get fit in a manner slightly more mindless than picking up large hunks of metal and then moving them until pain ensues, my brother put together a co-ed soccer team for a 7x7 league in la. friends from work etc., all of whom had played either varsity soccer in high school or some form of college ball. apparently, they joined the wrong league, something that became crystal clear after losing 11-1 against a team comprised entirely of former division 1 soccer players from loyola marymount. and the kicker, they played in the league last year and only had a .500 record.

and to make this even better, eric wynalda -- the U.S. national team's all-time leading scorer -- had his team playing just a couple of fields away. apparently, former u.s. national lori fair also participates.

sure it's just for fun, but losing sucks, even when does it mean anything. hehe.

the new red lobster

these days, my work focuses more and more on solving this difficult challenge: how to attract customers despite an inferior product. and every time i sit down and think about it, i'm reminded of one of my favorite moments from the greatest television show ever made, the wire, where baltimore drug cartel leader stringer bell asks his business professor how to gain market share with an inferior product. (answer: change the name. won't work for my biz, unfortunately)

so stuck for answers, i find myself increasingly drawn toward articles about branding and market positioning, hoping i serendipitously discover a pearl of wisdom that will help me lead my company out of the jungle.

today i ran across a piece in the nyt about red lobster's effort to revamp their image, just the type of article i thought could be helpful. plus, as a child, red lobster represented fine dining for my family and really lent credence to that belief that seafood -- especially shellfish -- was an expensive, culinary treat. (multiple trips to cheap las vegas buffets have cured me of that belief)

apparently, the restaurant chain realized that their image has deteriorated to the point where descriptors such as "frumpy" or "downscale" are now the most common associations. no argument here. i'd skip my mom's 70th birthday party if she told me it was time to rediscover the "seafood lover in you" (note: no longer their slogan). in fact -- and this is and is going to sound ridiculously racist -- the only people i find who still possess that esteemed view of the restaurant that i once did are ghetto black people for whom shrimpfest still represents the "can't miss event" of the year.

but red lobster's new image has nothing to do with all-you-can-eat popcorn shrimp and now is trying to capture what they feel is their rightful part of the slow-food part of the seafood restaurant market. still i don't think they quite grasp what it's all about. case and point:

Asked to define what Red Lobster means by fresh, Ms. Setta responded, “It’s as fresh as anything you’d find in a top-tier seafood restaurant.” The chain delivers fish to its restaurants six days a week.

uh, isn't there seven days in a week? i'd sure like to know which day they don't deliver and miss the day-old flounder.

this is so web 1.0

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

dashed dreams

and on a seemingly innocuous monday, my hopes of riding diet coke to a slimmed-down waistline and unlocking my remaining physical potential vanquished by a b.u. medical prof's long-term study. apparently, diet soda, just like the regular sugary version, ups the ante when it comes to metabolic syndrome, an oft-precursor to heart disease development.

looks like it's back to water for me. maybe i'll start infusing water with fruit so it actually, tastes like something.

yippee, really can't wait to get home and start that.

these bodies of ours, a wonder they work at all.

what?????

i clicked through to an article about india electing its first female president, only to find bewilderment. and not because i had run across another country, this one with among the most distinguished pasts in gender discrimination, to elect a woman to the top political position before the united states.

While India has had several women in positions of power — most notably Gandhi and her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who was elected to the more powerful position of prime minister in 1966 — women still face rampant discrimination.

uhh, in my recollection gandhi was male. did gavin rabinowitz not know ben kingsley played him in the film?

now i am no expert in the history of india, so i remain open to the notion that there could have been a prominent women -- not named indira -- who shared mahatma gandhi's namesake. but if this is the case, the writer absolutely needs to identify who that is. for regardless of her accomplishments and accolades, "she" does not rank as top dog among those sharing her surname. not within india, the world, and likely her immediate family.

granted, this is likely a typo that was intended to say gandhi's mother-in-law indira gandhi. but damn that is a poor job of editing.

hong kong suffers along with sf

according to the nyt, gough street has transformed itself from a place of retail decrepitude to hipster prestige. it's pulled ahead of the sf version, which claims only old-money pacific heights palaces, a few struggling kitsch shops, and jade (beautiful place, but a steamroom on weekends)

but how exactly do you pronounce that particular street name?

gough, as in rhymes with rough and tough?

or does it follow the pattern of trough and cough?

perhaps neither. maybe it rhymes with bough (as in a branch of a tree)? or through? or though?

this could be a real problem for cool people in hk sometime soon...what if they start calling it goo street? they could tumble quickly from their perch.

documentation of a bold prediction

a frequent topic of discussion amongst my two closest friends and i has always been the golden state warriors. and while discussing this year's draft crop, i've realized that there is a chasm between how i feel (correctly) and how they feel (erroneously).

first, i'm not a brandan wright guy. he struck me as soft when watching him play at unc. not particularly replete with the good ol' "basketball iq" either. plus, he's currently so scrawny (6'10 200) that i'd give myself a realistic chance of taking him down in arm wrestling. but he's got potential and they picked up a $10 million trade exception, which seems to be the underrated part of the deal. all in all, i like this move.

their other pickup, marco belinelli, i'm not sold on -- at all. he's white shooting guard, slightly undersized for the position, who has made less than 1/3 of his triples over the past two years. oh, and that was playing in europe. sweeeet.

however, my impetus for writing this entry comes from my friend's contention that i am a recent addition -- more like founding member -- to the andris biedrins' bandwagon. of course, i have no way to substantiate this one way or the other. but i'll say this, if i were the warriors, i'd be willing to trade anyone else on the roster before biedrins -- including baron davis.

so now i must document another prediction: kevin durant will be a bust. not of sam bowie proportions, but a disappointment. he'll make a few all-star teams but never be a legit mvp candidate.

this goes against virtually everything i've heard or read about kd, but ultimately i see a lack of explosiveness that will prevent him from being the superstar that everybody imagines. the combine confirmed that feeling, when he rated as the worst athlete of all those tested. yes, i know he'd been on the banquet circuit, but worst athelete? i say red flag.

beijing 2008

i really hope this guy wins gold in the quarter mile at next year's olympics.

if such a thing as "olympic spirit" exists, this exemplifies it.

after many setbacks

i will finally see feist in concert. over the past couple years, she's passed through sf several times and each time something prevented me from attending. once, i was traveling for work, another, i was moving back to sf. there was one other time too, though i can't recall the reason i missed out then.

however, i have a ticket for the sold out tuesday show and nothing, short of familial tragedy, could cause me to miss out.

which got me to thinking, how much would someone have to pay me to take my ticket (provided selling meant i would miss her performance)?

face value was $30. not a chance. double would be $60, and you'd still have to cause severe physical damage before prying them away for that price. $100, still wouldn't get it done. at $200, i'd feel like an idiot for not taking the money, but would walk into the fillmore with a clear conscience.

so i guess the number stands at about $250, maybe $300. but despite being somewhat richer for making the deal, i'm certain i'd spend the rest of that night, and likely the next two or three as well, sitting in the dark, berating myself for opting for the cash.

btw, on craigslist you could definitely pick up a pair for < $100.

cutting back on drinking days, not drinks

turning 30 -- as i'm about to do -- is the crossroads age for young people and thus a good time for some self-reflection. and so i'm happy to report that i have discovered something about myself that will drive up my productivity.

though other people my age have probably reduced their alcohol consumption in favor of more socially-acceptable pursuits -- like getting married and raising a family -- i've gone the opposite direction. the past month has been among the wettest of my 359, including a three-day stint in montreal that involved roughly 50 libations.

obviously, after drink number 14, it's not as if i rushed home, flipped open my laptop and devised a proof for a formerly intractable math problem or found the cure for a rampant flesh-eating disease in africa. no, i was lucky to spend those evenings in a bed as opposed to slumped over a toilet bowl in a public restroom. but those nights are the ones where adventure happens, friends are made, or converted into more valuable friends, strangers are consummated with etc...who in their right mind would want to excise those from their lives?

no, it's those other days that i must cut back on. those days where i have one glass of wine at happy hour. or two amstels at a pub and call it. those are the real bane. for it's those nights where i've added nothing historical to my life, yet i know that i'll be about as productive as a seal sunning itself on a clear day.

perhaps, there are those individuals who can do the one-drink and then be productive, whether that be study, work, etc. that's just not me. that one might well have been a dozen, because though sober, i'm unmotivated. a real success at that point would constitute checking my email or reading the nyt. shit, watching a movie might be the midpoint of productivity.

so my new motto for a new decade: one and done, no more.

that needs a little work. lucky i still have 29 days.

keep three strikes in baseball

it's hard to muster much sympathy for a dude who makes a habit of getting off (pun intended)on masturbating in public. but on the other hand, does it really warrant a life sentence? according to the letter of the law, that's exactly the punishment called for -- thanks to the brilliant lawmakers who pushed through the three-strikes policy.

look, i imagine it's off-putting for a woman (or man) to be casually driving around only to lock eyes with someone with his pants draped around his ankles whacking off (when, not consensual). but as creepy as it must be, a million dudes lined up side-by-side on the sidewalk jacking off, isn't half as bad as one rape -- where the sentence would be far less severe -- or murder.

i wonder if this incident would even get any notice if it wasn't a former-nba player. but regardless of his past, he'd probably get a lot more out of therapy than a cell. and it's not as if we don't have enough people in jail already.

this caption sucks

Stephen Coburn, right, and Lise Gagné, left, take photographs in their studios
that they will try to sell on the Web.

i'm nitpicking but what logical reason is there for not rewording the subject of the caption so that it reads "Lise Gagne, left, and Stephen Coburn, right,..."? (note: rhetorical question) after all this is english, we read left to right. why not capitalize on this time-tested tradition?

the office, season 3

after finishing viewing the dvds for the second season of the office, i did a quick search for the release date of the third season. the first search result -- TV.com's forum -- provided a quick answer.

but it was the second posting that actually caught my eye.

great I can't wait, I have all the episodes on VHS but I love the commentary so yay for September 11, 2007

it's a harmless comment but the words "yay for September 11" are just plain wrong.

why doesn't a strong bullpen translate to a good record in close games?

statistical analysis in baseball has cast doubt on many of baseball's longstanding truisms, clutch hitting being a prime example.

but, perhaps there is no idea that is more sacred than the notion that good bullpens are the key to winning those pressure-filled, one-run games. baseball traditionalists say point to a team with a bad-record in one-run games, and they'll point to a bullpen who can't finish games.

on its face, this makes complete sense. it makes so much sense, in fact, that despite reams of statistical research that show otherwise, its hard to convince yourself there's any other explanation.

even casual fans can recall games where a reliever is brought in to protect a one-run lead only to give up a two-run homer and lose the game. and there you have it -- empirical evidence that bad bullpens lead to bad records in one-run games. had the team possessed a stronger relief corps, the opposing batters would have been set down in orderly fashion, preserving the one-run win.

this reasoning seems perfectly logical, and i suspect it largely accounts for why the idea persists that bad bullpens lead to poor records in one-run games.

however, other scenarios, and are often overlooked, lead to one-run games as well. say a team with a bad bullpen removes their starting pitcher with a three run lead. the relievers, not suprisingly, struggle and surrender two runs before finishing the game. here, the team with the bad bullpen picks up a win in a one-run game that a team with a good bullpen -- whose relievers would normally give up no runs -- would not.

then look at the corollary to the situation. say a team with a good bullpen removes their starter in a game where they trail by one run. the pen does their job and holds the other team scoreless. unfortunately, the team's offense puts up zeroes the rest of the way too and they lose the game by one run. now, having a good bullpen has actually hurt their record in one-run games by doing their job. conversely, a bad bullpen would be much more likely to turn that one-run deficit into a blowout, thereby avoiding the loss in the one-run game.

essentially, scenarios exist where having a bad bullpen has a negative effect on a team's win-loss record in one-run games. but scenarios also exist where having a bad bullpen has a positive effect on a team's win-loss record in one-run games. the same can be true for good bullpens. and eventually the law of large numbers says these even out.

blogger is buggy

somehow, blogger has decided that the month names should be presented in either castillan or valenciano. not quite sure, so i guess it could be italian or portuguese as well...of course now that i've saved this entry it's reverted back to english names. i swear it was doing it though, otherwise how else as a monoglot would i know that gener = january and maig = may.

nothing against female singers

but they sure have a tendency to suck -- at least in those groups where they share lead vocals with a male counterpart. now based on previous posts, one might assume i think women suck at everything (such as humor) and that i am simply disguising my chauvinism as a critique.

but that would be erroneous. in fact, my favorite rock group of the moment, the long blondes, features a female lead singer. and though i wouldn't quite call her a rocker, feist -- very much a female -- possesses my favorite voice in all of music. and there are others too; i enjoy magneta lane, though they fall short of greatness. and though i'm not a die-hard of the yeah, yeah, yeahs, karen o posseses a terrific voice/scream.

but as i enjoy the arcade fire's latest cd, i'm reminded that shared singing duties between a man and a woman seem to be cursed for failure. when the arcade fire falters, it always seems to coincide with regine chassagne taking the mic. same with the white stripes and meg white. and doubly so with the von bondies.

even when i took in the autolux show at coachella a few years back, the one song where they brought their female drummer up to sing was a disaster. perhaps they were doing it for novelty's sake, becuase it sure wasn't for quality's.

other than the new pornographers -- which is sort of cheating since they're more of an indie supergroup -- does this male/female arrangement ever work?

oscar v. spirit

with each year that passes, i lose more and more faith in the oscars. while the public cares about the academy awards 10x more than all the other awards shows combined, i'm of the opinion that the academy membership has shown a penchant for doing is choosing the wrong movie. i suspect their track record with actors is probably better, but let's not exaggerate their competence in this regard either. julia roberts, best actress for erin brockovich. unbelievably, that is no joke.

so with that in mind, i've decided to test whether the oscars even deserve the label best movie award, let alone best award overall (not that there's much competition outside of film, the grammys, are you fucking with me?). i'd say the last 11 years of best pictures should provide a rough indicator of recent performance.

Year	Oscars	ISPs	Winner
2007	The Departed	Little Miss Sunshine	Oscars
2006	Crash	Brokeback Mountain	Spirits
2005	Million Dollar Baby	Sideways	Spirits
2004	LOTR: The Return of the King	Lost in Translation	Spirits
2003	Chicago	Far from Heaven	TBD
2002	A Beautiful Mind	Memento	Spirits
2001	Gladiator	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Spirits
2000	American Beauty	Election	Oscars
1999	Shakespeare in Love	Gods and Monsters	TBD
1998	Titanic	The Apostle	TBD
1997	The English Patient	Fargo	TBD

by my count, that makes the score 5-2, spirits. i suppose the oscars could sweep the four undecided and earn the narrow victory, but the academy needs to be worried. after all, titanic would have been an all-time flub as a nominee, let alone a winner, and chicago wasn't exactly an inspired selection either. losing either of those matchups clinches the academy's loss.

the projected tally looks to end up 7-4 spirits. ouch, that's a drubbing.

on sequels

that sequels suck is one of those immutable rules of thumb for film, and though music doesn't adhere to the tenet quite as closely, it is by no means exempt.

just this year, a couple cases illustrate this point nicely:

bloc party: silent alarm (excellent), a weekend in the city (basura)
clap your hands, self-titled debut (among the best albums of the year), some loud thunder (three listens and i have no use for it now or anytime in the future).

on the other hand, the most worshipped indie band of its time -- the arcade fire -- has escpaed the sophomore jinx. in fact, i would venture, though many fans would likely find the statement sacreligious, that neon bible outshines their much glorified debut lp, funeral.

i'll admit i didn't love their first album, at least not the way everybody else did. but i do agree wholeheartedly that the uniqueness of its sound clearly distinguished it from its brethren. i don't think this album matches its predecessor in that way. what neon bible does have going for it is that it's infinitely more listen-able. it's bigger, brighter, and while not bolder, it is more energetic.

when and if arcade fire takes their place in the annals of music, i think funeral will be what they are exemplified by. but my concern is not their place in history, it's simply what i like. and i prefer the immediacy of neon bible to their harder-shelled debut.

my new yorker "subscription"

upon my return to sf, i took over the apartment of friends who upgraded in space to accommodate them living together as a couple. i wouldn't call my place luxurious, and certainly not commodius, but it's cute, and i have no real complaints (except the bathroom sucks -- i can barely sit straight on the toilet without my knees hitting the bathtub. and it holds moisture like a ziploc bag, meaning i have to keep the window propped open, which makes for naked, chilly moments each morning as i wait for shower steam to fill the room).

but the best thing about my place has nothing to do with the structure itself. the day i took the keys, a copy of the new yorker awaited me. i confess i let a month go by before telling my friend that her subscription was still being delivered to her old address, but when i finally came clean, i discovered she was receiving copies too.

after a couple months though, the honeymoon ended. i approached the front door each evening imagining that the mailman had slipped the newest edition through the mail slot, but as i opened the door all i found were catalogs and credit card offers. each morning as i rode the streetcar to work and each evening as i rode it home, i scanned the car with green eyes looking for fellow passengers enjoying the magazine by which all magazines are measured.

misery ensued over those next weeks so with my mental health in mind, i decided to purchase my own subscription. but as fate would have it, an issue showed up the next morning. and the following week, the next issue appeared as well. i spoke to my friend and she confirmed all was still well with her subscription.

elation returned. the commute emerged as the highlight of my day. 30 minutes to and for where i could stand, read, learn, and listen to music.

but on a return ride one evening, something happened. i stood without reading material as i'd finished every article of the current issue on the trip to work. so without occupation, my eyes wandered coming to a pause at a young lady's magazine: the new yorker, one with a cover i'd not yet seen. i stealthily checked the date and indeed it was the next issue.

i scurried home from the train stop eager to pick up the newest issue only to be confronted by coupon books and paper copies of bank statements. sure i was dismayed, but i could wait one more day for it to arrive. but one more day turned into a week and still no magazine showed up. and the same the following week. and such has been the pattern since. a new yorker arrives, then a hiatus where nothing shows up for the next week or two.

and so i'm stuck. missing issues of what i love to read more than anything else, yet feeling like the freeness of my partial subscription is just enough to justify me assuming the full yearly cost.

oh, what to do?

out of red ribbons

some strange things happen when you work in the world of online gaming (the kind that involves money, not mages). especially with proprietors who partake in their product (apparently they haven't listened to big's ten crack commandments "never get high on your own supply").

in my experience of the normal corporate world, when things go pear-shaped, they examine how their business operates (good) and look down for peons they can point to as not pulling their weight (not necessarily good). but with gambling types, their thought processes don't quite meet the smell test when it comes to rationality. instead of delving into their books or their processes, they look to karma, luck, energy, and whatever else a gambler might depend on to beat the house at their own game.

in our case, they looked to feng shui. and when that didn't work, the answer was once again, feng shui. after all, if business is slow, what better way to attract more customers than rearranging the desks and throwing a bonzai tree on a few desks.

so one monday, i arrived in the office to find cream-colored gourds hanging from the water pipes running along the celings. apparently business remained sour though, because a few weeks later, we had another feng shui expert do the walk-through.

no, no, no. gourds were all wrong for this place. we need to hang red ribbons. oh, and here's the check for $3600. i'll send over that crimson tape as soon as i get that payment.

but this past evening, as the last to leave for the day from my floor, while walking around shutting off the lights, i noticed something pecuilar. we still had gourds, while all the offices had ribbons.

where's my positive energy? don't we get some too?

i've seen god...he's called adam gopnik

in the world of magazine journalism, there's the new yorker and everything else. simply to appear in the magazine indicates a mastery of the writing craft. but even among this distinguished company, adam gopnik emerges as special. everything you wish you could have observed, he observes for you. no point goes unaddressed, no angle unexplored and the eloquence with which he spells these ideas out, unmatched.

there's an old story which gets repeated at the beginning of every journalism class across the country. during an interview for a lofty editorial position, the managing editor of a revered journalism organziation asks the interviewee about his qualifications. the interviewee boasts that he can walk into the newsroom and without exchanging a single word with the writers pick out the finest of the bunch.

sure enough, the two of them step out of the office, the writer takes a sweeping glance of the room, and picks out the star wordsmiths. dumbfounded, the ME asks how he did it. simple, the writer says, just look for those whose lips move as they write.

great writing engages your senses. though letters are just curved marks on paper (or computer screen) they somehow become much more in the hands of a skilled practitioner. entire scenes are painted in one's mind, each sentence another brush stroke bringing the picture one step closer to completion. yet simultaneously, each word seems whispered in your ear, as intimate as that first great conversation with a future partner.

it's the rhythm of the words that really captivates me. the picture is great, but without the audio seeems hollow. and here adam gopnik excels. for anyone who doubts that, they simply need to read the opening paragraph of his latest contribution, shootings. the topic is familar: the virginia tech massacre. but to not hear, or more accurately, be haunted by his words, you'd need to be dead yourself.

if i could do it again

every vacation i've ever taken out of the country (my last trip to puerto rico counts) has left me with at least one memory i'll take with me forever. which is not to say every trip's been perfect.

but unlike most places i've visited, i could get puerto rico dead right the next time around.

arrive in san juan on friday night and blast off that jet lag with a long night of drinking and carousing with the locals. get a decent night's rest (4-5 hours), recharge with a cafe con leche, and wander around old san juan for the day. clean up, watch the cockfights, clean up, and use your winnings from picking the winning chicken to have a nice dinner on calle fortaleza. then repeat friday night with one difference: don't stop till the sun's fuly risen, head straight to the airport and catch a puddle jumper to one of the islands (vieques or culebra).

wash off in the salty ocean and pass out on the beach. alternate the following for the next three days: swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, sunbathing, drinking, eating, kayaking, the biobay, sport fishing, and sleeping (preferably outdoors, after applying strong bug repellant). mix activities when possible. catch the charter plane back to san juan and for tuesday night's galleria.

if you have another day or two go walk through the rain forest.

if not, go home and revel in a great trip.

congratulations leslie

sure, other distinctions exist, but do any really outweigh being the first artist listed on my audible list twice? i reckon nay.

last night as i surfed the internet, i decided to steal her new album (temporarily, i'll buy it when it comes out). technically, it's not even released and won't be until may 1 stateside. but that has no bearing on it being available on various p2p sites, my preferred one being soulseek. and just as i suspected, a slew of individuals had already posted it on the network.

so this morning as i sauntered down to the muni station, i took a listen. my first thought was negative: god damn it, these stupid white earbuds that come with ipods suck. they perfectly reproduce what the music would sound like if your studio were a tunnel on a winter day in chicago.

but as soon as i got over that fact, her songs absorbed me. unlike her previous (and also great) album let it die, these songs all come from feist herself -- with the exception of one nina simone cover. and she displays true variety, varying the pace from the bright and danceable i feel it all to the sultry and bass-laden my moon my man all the way down to the melancholy and contemplative the water. mix this with the sexiest voice in the biz and, well, there's not much else to say except that feist has about three weeks left before achieving international pop stardom.

oh, and that first listen has turned into half a dozen going on seven.

you're short? better work hard

i don't think it's much of a secret that women prefer taller men. but now it's been quantified just how much they prefer them. and the news isn't so good for me.

apparently, the average annual income for a man in the united states is $62,500. i make more than that, but not $150,000 more, which is what i'd have to do to offset my disadvantage versus an identically-qualified six-foot version of myself according to a study done on the preferences of men and women using matchmaking services. read about it in john tierney's article in the nyt.

fortunately, i have my sterling good looks, incisive wit, and impeccable taste to fall back on. that's got to be worth, oh let's say two inches. now where am i going to find the other $50,000? hehe.

my three month checkup

here's what i pledged to do for 2007. let's see how i'm doing.

* stop biting my nails
a rousing success, though one slightly marred by the replacement of one bad habit with another questionable one. kind of like people who quit smoking and get fat, i've quit biting my nails and have started filing them with a four-surface emory board (though i only use two, no buffing for me!)

* dinner party once a month (starting february)
only failure to report. i began the year at zero, and remain there.

* cook one real meal per week (multiple pots and courses)
a mixed bag. i've cooked several real meals, but nothing that i would consider impressive. i continue to disappoint myself by the way i cook. still, my goal here was partly economic, and i've probably saved something.

* one month cycle
failure!

* stay with the gym (add ten pounds of muscle and lose five pounds of fat)
i'm pretty sure i've added ten pounds. unfortunately, it's not all muscle. just reupped at the gym though. of course paying's the easy part, now i have to start going.

* 20k invested
i've modified this goal to having 50k across all my investment vehicles. that includes two 401k accounts from old jobs, a brokerage account, and an online savings account. with the $4000 of excelsior funds i just purchased, that brings me to ~ $30k. since i started the year with around 20k, that puts me roughly on schedule.

* 2 international trips
well i'm still at zero, but i think there's a reasonable chance i could get to four if i include work trips. ireland for my birthday, southern europe for new year's, and then montreal and manila for work.

* remember how much i like my friends (keeping in touch, visiting, gifts)
i've found it offputting to give gifts to friends. so far i've purchased two of them, and delivered one after a long deliberation. this may just be me being me, but there's always something to feel weird about. if she is single -- or even worse if she's not -- will she misinterpret it as a play? if the friend is a he, well, guys exchanging gifts is just weird, right? i have a gift sitting at my house and am actually waiting for a reason to give it. of course, this kinda defeats the purpose of random gift-giving, which is what i set out to do.

* keep chin high (six days so far)
haven't been able to sustain this, and have tried to replace it by keeping myself busy. i've taken freelance assignments so that i wouldn't have to sit and think about things i shouldn't be thinking about. and when there have been other free moments, i'll play cards. hell, if you're not going to be happy now, at least set aside something for the future when you might. well at least that's my thought process.

honestly, it's been a tough year, and nothing close to what i had envisioned at the beginning. i feel like i've done some good things, but it still feels like i'm coming up short. i guess the silver lining's that i still have nine months to correct that.

illegible

a couple weeks ago, i added a sidebar to my blog called legible, where i could list all the things i read that truly moved, relaxed, fascinated, uplifted, or inspired me. i am a bit afraid everything is going to come from the new yorker and ny times -- more or less the required reading for anyone who considers themselves informed -- but hopefully that will motivate me to broaden my reading habits.

normally, they make terrific diversions, enriching my time on a crowded streetcar or breaking up a monotonous work day of writing sop documents for our customer support team. but today, the times failed. failed miserably.

starting as i often do in the most emailed box, i clicked on the most written about story, For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too.

it's long, especially for a newspaper article. it requires you to click six times to reach the end, and the only thing that got me through it was the knowledge that i was going to rail about it on my blog.

basically, it's a woe is me piece about rich girls, who have to balance being rich and the rigors of making sure that they're going to stay that way. yes, the horror of having to take honors and ap classes so they can go to the ivy league school that their parents are alma maters of, all while trying to be pretty.

yes, i understand college is competitive these days. but my sympathy doesn't extend to crying adolescents who didn't make the grade for williams and will have to settle for smith. and call me a snob, but when i read about the huge sigh of relief that came when one student received her acceptance letter from usc (who knew the university of spoiled children had those? i always assumed parents just sent in the first semester's tuition with the "application".), what little credibility that had survived for the first five pages of the story instantly vanished.

so to the "amazing girls" of newton high, i say good luck.

not that you'll need it, since you're rich already.

everybody loves (long) blondes

normally when i travel, i travel to eat. but with a tentative plan to head over to the uk at the beginning of july, i decided to see if my current favorite band happened to be playing somewhere on the island. as it turns out they're on the summer festival circuit with stops at oxegen and t in the park. too bad they're sold out (three months in advance?), which means the only times they'll be within a 5000 mile radius of my location in the foreseeable future will pass me by.

i love the long blondes album, somewhere to drive you home, and basically loop it on my ipod. and to the detriment of my connectedness to the world, their cd has replaced npr as my automobile listening. in fact, i'm so enamored with their music, that i've developed a crush on lead singer kate jackson, despite not finding her remotely attractive physically. kinda like feist (though she's still #1).

and the axe fell

today reminded me of those gloomy days at the tail end of the dot-com era, morale dropping to a seemingly impossible low after a few more people said their goodbyes. these days played a significant role in why i left the uncorporate corporate world of the startup.

so it saddened me, though i knew it was happening, that a couple people were asked to stop showing up. one person, i consider a friend, albeit not a close one. not much of a worker, but a pleasant fellow. the office will be a bit more somber in his absence. the other, i have little fondness for. he hasn't taken particularly well to my delegations of responsibility and a sense of resentment emanated from him constantly. still, i don't wish joblessness on him either, especially after hearing that he splits time between his sister's and a friend's couch already.

all that said, the layoffs were deserved, and for that matter, tardy. i'll be taking over their duties, which look to be minimal. and i guess i should feel good that i negotiated them a modest severance package, two weeks paid notice and delayed their dismissal for a week. from what i've heard about the man above, none of those things would have happened normally.

but it still doesn't make me all that much happier. those looks of resignation on their faces as they were called into the one-on-ones, understanding their inevitable fate -- they're difficult to forget.

time to drink it off.

feng shui me

i spent a day out of the office this week in order to interview some people for a piece i'm writing on a peer coaching program they've launched at the haas business school. and upon my return the next day, i discovered several bulbous objects hanging from the exposed piping that runs along the ceiling. intrigued, i crept up close to inspect these hanging oddities which resemble a headless snowman.

i flicked one with my finger and it reacted much like a ping-pong ball might, flying away quickly and emitting an unsatisfying and hollow tapping sound. "we had a feng shui guy come in yesterday," my coworker said.

"you're full of shit," i replied instinctively, thinking that a company this far in the red could not afford to spend money on such new age gobbledygook.

but indeed, my coworker told the truth. the hanging objects were gourds and had been strategically placed around the office in order to improve the energy, or flow, or some other descriptor normally associated with yoga. apparently, a red welcome mat has been placed at the door as well. obviously, another key component of achieving whatever it is that feng shui sets out to achieve.

i'm no expert on feng shui, so i do have one question about it: how much did it cost us?

a strange thing about ms word

as a sometimes freelancer, i've become accustomed to using the word count feature of ms word. since i'm always writing on word count, it's the last thing i do before saving the file and submitting it to my editor.

here's what i've noticed though. there's (at least) two ways to do a word count in ms word, and they consistently give you different results. using the word count feature in the tools menu on the profile i'm writing about the founders of a nice little company called revolution foods, i get a count of 418 words. on the other hand, according to the readability statistics feature (which i use to make sure i'm not using the passive voice excessively, 10% is the acceptable limit in my book) the count is 415 words.

in the whole scheme of things, this clearly doesn't mean shit, but as a former computer scientist this bothers me. why would you use two different routines to accomplish the same task? after all, even if you chose the one that calculated the result wrong, i wouldn't have noticed.

by the way, i have to get down to 400. i'm close, but finding words to excise has become real difficult. not surprising considering i started at 625 (or was it 628?).

absence makes the heart grow fond

correction: chef paul bertolli is no longer affiliated with oliveto. bad (i should say no) fact checking on my part. he is the founder and curemaster for a company called fra' mani salami, whose products i shall be trying with all due expedience. paul canales, previously the chef de cuisine for oliveto, has taken over as oliveto's chef.

i considered the idea as i sat down in the cafe area of oliveto, rockridge's renowned italian restaurant.

nearly ten years ago, as a starving college student, i had dined in the restaurant, sitting just two tables away from where i sat now. i can't recall the faces who crowded around the small square table that evening, but i do remember the incessant complaining. their main gripe, and a common one for people that age, accustomed to the mammoth portions at culinary meccas such as tgi fridays and bennigan's, was that serving sizes were too small.

now let me be clear. the portions were small, primarily because the pasta dishes we ordered weren't intended as entrees. the meal had been set up in the traditional, and frankly, far superior (i understand that now), manner, where pasta is but a small dish bookended by the antipasti and main.

but the portions weren't just small, they were heavenly. as i consumed the last bite, i was awestruck: pasta never tasted like this before. and to be honest, it never has since. chef paul bertolli makes all his pasta on the premises and does it better than anyone else. it's a bold statement and one that i stand by.

oliveto was my first great meal, the one that i look back upon as the turning point in how i viewed eating. it was no longer just an activity, it was an experience, and a visceral and sensual one at that.

as the years passed though, i wondered. was oliveto's greatness a product of the dismal food i had experienced up to that point? would it still tantalize me, after a decade of dining at some of the world's finest restaurants?

yes.

for starters, my two dining companions and i split the salami plate. like the pasta, all the salami served at the restaurant are created by the chef. once again, it shows. all five varieties shine, with the soppressata particularly memorable.

the real test was yet to arrive though. the pasta had its previous greatness, as well as ten years of absence, to live up to, but sailed well beyond my expectations. the tagliatelle, a wide flat noodle, was served in a light sauce, with the flavor supplied by shaved fish eggs. the dish captured the best qualities of food, even ones that would seem to contradict. subtle, yet somehow rich. simple, yet unlike any other pasta i had come across.

in fact, all that held the meal short of greatness was the lack of a dessert to cap the meal. not the restaurant's fault, of course, but simply because my dining companion (and ride back to sf) needed to depart.

in hindsight, however, should i have just taken bart?

the shins must read my blog

since they heeded my call for a trip to the bay area. they'll be stopping at the warfield on the 16th and 17th of the coming month.

i won't be going though. not because i hold a grudge, but becuase i don't think much of their latest album, wincing the night away. song two, australia, however may be their single-best song yet. that's saying something.

performance update

a bit of time has passed and my little sony vaio has been chugging away over the past couple of weeks datamining hands from full tilt. since my first update, the number of hands in my db has more than tripled and now numbers more than three-quarters of a million hands.

from an absolute standpoint, i haven't had a lot of luck recently and my actual win rate per hand has dropped more than 10%. but with this more statistically relevant sample of data, let's see how i fare relatively to my competition.

> 100 hands played: 1814 0f 5377, 66th percentile
> 1000 hands played: 263 of 736, 64th percentile
> 2500 hands played: 80 of 266, 70th percentile
> 5000 hands played: 29 of 114, 74th percentile
> 10,000 hands played: 8 of 30, 73rd percentile

what i find interesting about these numbers is that my relative rank rises as the minimum-hand requirement increases even though the percentage of winning players in the group grows as well -- at 100 hands played 59% of the players are losers; at 10,000 hands played 83% are winners.

$200 and a sprained wrist

for two years, i avoided the slopes. after a six months in lake tahoe, my daily routine consisiting of strapping into a snowboard and riding the chairlift, the snow-capped mountains lost some of their allure.

at least that was my story when people asked.

it was only partly true.

yes, i no longer possessed the motivation of a few years back, when i would wake at 4:30 a.m. call in sick from my car on interstate 80 as i sped towards the hill. but equally responsible for my absence, i didn't relish the idea of sucking. not compared to the average winter warrior, but relative to myself. and with each passing day, i knew i'd drifted a step further from my prime.

it started the following year. i met a bunch of friends i'd worked with at the resort for a week of boarding. they had spent the past season in telluride. i recovered from a car accident then wrote film reviews for a website in san francisco. and it was pretty obvious.

by the end of the first day, they ahd showed off numerous aerial maneuvers and hazardous rail slides. all i had to show were a pair of tired legs that could barely keep myself upright during a high-speed heel side turn. my friends, who i had matched spin for spin less than a year ago, were now a completely different class of rider.

so i stayed away.

but i did miss it sometimes -- the liberation that comes from floating two stories above the ground as you clear a 40-foot tabletop jump and the coarse swoosh that accompanies a carved toe-side turn. so after some prodding from a friend, i relented, and accepted an invitation for some president's day boarding.

the evening before, as i dusted off my snowboarding bag and unzipped it to make sure all my equipment still resided inside, my mood suddenly elevated. perhaps, all the skill would rush back, i thought to myself. buoyed by this unexpected elation, i began imagining, then acting out, the impressive spins i would toss as i sped down the hill. the glory days of my 24th year, when i cruised into the terrain park and threw a switch five and built a ramp taller than myself on the hill in back of my house to huck inverted spins, would all be revisited tomorrow. sure there would be signs of rust. i wouldn't be quite the same caliber rider -- it would be foolish to expect that after so long away -- but the magic would start to show a bit more with each passing run.

the day's beginning seemed auspcious. the first run was shaky, but each moment on my board increased my comfort level, and after 90 minutes i felt poised to make the previous night's visualizations reality.

half an hour later, i didn't hit the wall, i hit a building. the legs turned to jello and my only motivation for turning was to balance the pain between two different muscle groups. a lunch break didn't help. neither did taking a run off. and finally, as if there hadn't been sufficient disappointment already, i took a nasty tumble on a large patch of ice on the day's last run, -- literally five feet from the parking lot -- and sprained my wrist.

so that's what i have to show for my glorous return to winter sports. $56 for a lift ticket , $35 for gas and rental car, and $15 for a dessicated slab of tri-tip and two bottles of water. quite the aching muscles today as well, for which i'll be spending $90 for a massage on thursday to try and alleviate.

sure was fun though. no joke.

and the grammy goes to...nobody gives a shit

to my surprise this morning while reading the ny times, the grammys took place yesterday. now i talk a lot of shit about the oscars, but at least they have some credibility. the grammys, well they rank somewhere behind the academy, golden globes, independent spirit awards, top ten lists from notable critics, tonys, emmys...well, you get the idea.

ah, but you say, what evidence do you have to substantiate your view? and i say, the winner of the pop performance by a duo or group with a vocal, my humps by the black eyed peas.

ironically, despite being one of the ten worst songs ever forced upon human ears (hopefully dogs with their higher listening frequencies are spared), a cogent argument could be made that it is only the third worst song fergie has been involved with (fergielicious and london bridge were inexplicably shut out).

My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
In the back and in the front (lumps)
My lovin' got you

without context, i might confuse this for the work of a retard with a serious stutter. but hey, i guess that's why i'm not a judge.

finally, some housekeeping. is this not the worst fucking name for an award ever concocted. i lose interest in hearing the winner before the announcer gets through the title. should any award really include two prepositional phrases? would the grammy nominating board be unsure if they could nominate a duo if the award were renamed best vocal performance by a pop group (maybe since the nominees were obviously chosen by those with sparse brain activity)?

perhaps, the people who named the award also chose the winner of it.

fuck the shins

living in palo for a year, i missed the easy access to shows in san francisco more than just about anything else.

well at least i thought.

turns out, san francisco gets skipped over more often than it should. now, the shins have blown up, despite their most recent album being their weakest by many orders of magnitude (song 2, australia, however, is one of their five best songs). yet in their previous pass through the bay area, the closest they came to san francisco was santa cruz. and now, they're shunning the bay area enitrely, opting for stops in seattle (twice), portland and los angeles as their big west coast stops.

what the fuck?

man rule

never go to a strip club without lining something up for after

frankly, i've never understood the appeal. they're expensive, and worse, provide little hope of an interesting end to the evening.

yet, i seem to be the minority in this position. a group ventures out for a big night, and when some start to lag, a suggestion is made for a trip to the titty bar, generally to the ovation of others. as if this somehow turns to the night into a rousing success.

i found myself at a bar. saturday night, so no surprise. but the group was not a regular one. obligation lead me, as this was a sendoff of sorts to an old friend moving out of the bay area. revelry was to ensue.

but to my chagrin, only two shots were purchased (one fernet for me, one fernet for him). and without the contribution of others the night spiraled downward, first to mediocrity, then twenty minutes later, to abject boredom (* i was having an on night, hence i entertained, but reciprocation, absent).

i prodded the guest of honor, putting him in postion for a free drink from our six-foot blonde bartender recently transported from seattle. he declined. she offered water instead. he accepted.

"i'm such a bad bartender," she said. "i'm supposed to be selling drinks."

uh, yeah. dance on the bar. get us drunk. something to make my trek through the sheets of rain falling on san francisco worthwhile.

and then the inevitable. one person called it a night. like dominoes in a row, others announced their fall. i resisted, saying no going away party should be ending at 12:30 a.m. the word club was tossed out. my heart sank. then the words gold club. my heart sank a bit further.

so there i was, sitting three rows back from the stage, debating whether i needed a seven dollar pint of bud light to make this bearable. i handed a stack of ones to my friend and he moved toward the stage area. a few mediocre talents took their turns on stage, shed their tops, scaled the silver pole in the center of the stage, then rotated their bodies around the pole till gravity returned them to the floor. (side note, do strip clubs have poles for phallic reasons or just to show off the artistic ability of their employees?)

for their efforts, a gaggle of onlookers stuffed their g-strings with dollar bills.

but really, where does the enjoyment coming from? i've never used the services of a professional woman, but at least i understand the draw. strippers, that's like paying thomas keller to cook a meal, then leaving before your first bite. at least, no one's stupid enough to do that.

now you know

few things in life can really be measured.

that's probably a good thing. for chances are, there would be a lot of damaged egos if the truth came out. everyone secretly thinks they're a top dog. and the ones that don't you never see anyways. they're depressed, holed up in their parent's basement with the light switch down.

but there are exceptions. one of the world's leading researchers in video game culture once told me world of warcraft -- just look at the level of your character -- and a big reason why people loved the game so much. poker's another.

using a piece of software called poker tracker you can record nearly fifty thousand hands a day. it's remarkable, really. run a few simple arithmetic calculations and there you have it, the wheat separated from the chaff -- and which one you are.

so here it is, my rank after almost 200,000 (35,000 of which i played) hands of $200 buyin no limit.

all players: 2295 out of 6927, 66th percentile
players with at least 100 hands: 621 out of 1854, 66th percentile
players with at least 500 hands: 121 out of 395, 69th percentile
players with at least 1000 hands: 58 out of 186, 68th percentile
players with at least 2000 hands: 14 out of 58, 76th percentile

since i'm a statistics retard, i don't know which is the most meaningful sample. but the results look pretty conclusive to me.

apparently, i'm signficantly better than average, but well within one standard deviation of the mean. if this were an iq test, an equivalent score would be about 110.

ouch.

buy my friendship, it's cheap

i describe myself as selective about the people i keep company with, so i was shocked to find this to be true. once could be luck, twice could be coincidence, but three times? that's a pattern.

case 1: i strolled down to haight street to meet a friend at a local bookstore. for me, it was a pause before the bar. for her, she needed a book, not to read, but to give. she was headed to a birthday party at a bar. someone she knew, but not a resident of the inner circle.

like any normal person, i've been to many birthday parties for acquaintances where a group of friends meet at a bar. and in all those times, i've always given the honored guest the same gift: liquor. usually in a shot glass.

so i wondered silently. how would i feel if a young lady i didn't expect a gift from came bearing one? i'd think of her much more highly, that's for certain. even if i didn't like the gift.

cost -- $12.95(?) for a compilation of essays and critiques on music.

case 2: while washing my hands at a friend's house, i suddenly found myself rapt by a romantic scent that filled the air. it was soft and sweet and recalled those moments when a waft of air escaped from a bakery while you passed by.

i sniffed the air several times, pausing briefly in between each inhalation to shift my head toward where the fragrance was strongest. it was my hands. or rather the soap i had used to wash them. mango and white sugar.

as i exited the bathroom, i simply commented "i love the soap in your bathroom". the next time i ventured to the apartment, i had a gift waiting for me. and i think ever more highly of that person with each wash of my hands (at least until the bottle runs out).

cost -- $10 (?) for a bottle of archipelago sugar hand wash.

case 3: in the cooking class i'm taking at city college, a classmate said he'd be missing class the coming week and asked if i could pick up an extra copy of the handouts. the following friday he emailed me asking when would be a convenient time to swing by and pick them up. and since i would be waiting for the cable guy to show from 6-8, i told him to just come by after work.

he did. and brought a creme puff to show his thanks. now ignoring the inherent awkwardness that ensues when one straight man brings another straight man a pastry, i was taken aback by the thoughtfulness of this person i barely knew. especially since my favor was no more than common courtesy.

cost -- $1.95 for a beard papa caramel creme puff.

in conclusion (i haven't used that prepositional phrase to start a paragraph since english class, sophmore year in high school), all it takes to win me over is a gift, small or big, as long as it's unannounced and unexpected.

it's the chocolate stupid

i had mixed feelings as a child when my mother used to return from the chinese grocery store. she always returned with goodies: pickled cucumbers, fried gluten, sticky rice, pork buns, egg custards, and sweet rice cakes.

but soy milk too.

invariably, when i saw her unload groceries, she'd pull a half gallon of soy milk out of those pink plastic bags and place it in the refrigerator. once in a while she'd tell me to drink some or without asking just bring me a glass of it. i'd anticipate a glass of fresh squeezed oj (out of the carton, but still good) then look down and find the translucent white liquid and realize how wrong i had been.

the dreaded beverage even made an appearance in a recurring nightmare of mine. now it wasn't on the level of my earthquake nightmare -- at least until high school, but probably till i moved to california, i thought people died in earthquakes by a crevasse opening up in the earth and them falling into the bottomless hole (i was never sure whether they plummeted all the way to the magma) . hey, that's how it happened in my dreams (i woke up before reaching the magma). no, the soymilk dream was more of a mild night terror. my mom would tell me to drink the soymilk and i'd refuse. she'd insist politely and i'd start pouting. then she'd get angry and start yelling. to my credit, i don't recall ever criying despite the verbal abuse. yes, i remained strong until waking in a cold sweat.

but this past week, having fallen sick and with my car in the shop, my only access to non-delivery food came from one of the local markets. and because i'd always thought it looked charming from the outside, i elected to try the natural food store, aptly named the natural food store. as i wandered through its narrow isles, i came upon the shelf displaying all varieties of soymilk. and as fate would have it, the vitasoy brand was discounted to just $1.99 for a quart.

the idea of giving soymilk another try began to rattle around inside my skull. well, i did like tofu quite a bit now, which i wasn't fond of as a child. and like soymilk, tofu also comes from the soybean. perhaps my soy tastebuds had changed from a hatred to a love during my transition from child to adult. so i pulled one of the rectangular cartons off the shelf and placed it in my blue shopping basket.

when i returned home, i was excited by my purchase. i let it chill in the refrigerator, then popped the plastic tab and poured myself half a mug. i took a sip and was shocked, not because it tasted terrible, not becuase it tasted good: because it tasted great. as i swished the liquid around my mouth and then swallowed, the beverage leaving behind a smooth memory of sweet cream, i wondered, could this really be the same thing that had disturbed my nights as a child?

but of course it wasn't the same. the box i had pulled off the shelf was chocolate soymilk. and when i returned the next evening to purchase another basketfull of groceries, the carton i pulled off was vanilla soymilk.

three days later, i ventured out again to fetch a carton of the delicous and healthy treat known as soymilk. but this time i elected for another market, one that did not carry the vitasoy brand. so instead i took home a carton of silk vanilla soymilk, this time in the half-gallon variety. as soon as i reached my home i pulled off the plastic tab and poured myself a hearty glass. i raised the cup to my lips, my mind already anticpating its delicious reward. with my mouth wrapped around the brim of the glass, i took a full gulp and then another. come sugary richness.

but it never arrived. i looked down into the glass for answers. i couldn't understand what had happened. i turned to the counter where the carton rested. i reread the copy on the box. it still said vanila. then i turned to the nutritional ingredients. there the answer lied. only 3.5g of sugar per serving in silk instead of the 7g in vitasoy. i could barely taste the vanilla and i didn't like it. and if i couldn't taste the chocolate i wouldn't like that either.

oh soymilk, i thought you a friend for life. but no, my old friends, chocolate, vanilla and sugar simply made you beautiful for those two blissful nights. at least i'll have them forever.

my car's hobson choice

i've always loved this term. apparently it refers to a stable owner thomas hobson who lived in the 16th century that made the following offer to his patrons. take the horse in the stall closest to the door or take no horse at all.

it's all about the illusion of free choice. technically, hobson gave his customers a choice. but if you're in a rush to deliver fresh ahi tuna to the trendy, new sushi joint and 100 miles from the closest town, not taking a horse isn't much of an option. over time, the meaning has expanded somewhat and now often refers to the choice of two bad options.

which brings us to my car, or as i like to call it, my retarded stepson (not related, but only a father could still love it). those who call themselves friends of mine know the laundry list of problems that i've had over our seven years together, the most notable being the subframe of the car detaching.

now i have a different problem: the headlights blink, but stop when the turn signal's on. so should i be an asshole and annoy the hell out of anyone with the misfortune of driving in front of me by continuing to flash them with my xenons or have them think i'm an idiot who always thinks his turn is coming up?

well it sounded cool at first

once in a while, i'll let someone in on my pseudo-secret. i've played cards as my job. then i show'em my rolex. that gets the maximum reaction. shows how baller i am.

just kidding of course -- not about playing cards for a living or having the rolex, just showing it off.

on those occasions i do tell, i always get a favorable reaction. simply put, playing cards seems cooler than what most people do. you can only have the following conversation so many times (1) before it grows tiresome:

me: what do you do?
boring person: i'm a lawyer/banker/trader/equity analyst.
me: you like it?
boring person: not really.
me: cool.

you don't meet a poker player every day and their interest becomes obvious when they say "really?", showing their shock that someone uncorporate might still cavort with the yuppies. this interest is a manifestation of their optimism: they might actually have a conversation that interests them.

i need 10 seconds to kill it.

invariably the second or third question in their line of inquiry goes "what makes you so good?". and if i had even a little stomach for pretentiousness, i'd say something like "i don't know. i guess i can just look into people's souls and find their fear." that would probably go over really well -- if i could keep from puking on myself after expelling that load of shit.

i've actually spent time trying to figure a good answer. i came up with this:

"you know, cards is no different than any other battle between two men. and no matter how strong someone is, if you keep pounding them over and over, sooner or later they break. they see you coming and they wince. (pause for effect) then they're yours."

now unless the woman (you know it's a woman becuase you wouldn't spend this much time chatting with someone of the same sex) is hiding a membership to gamblers anonymous, she'll have no idea what you are talking about. but who cares, that sounds hot and alpha. but again, puke. or at least some uncontrolled laughing about how ridiculous i sound.

so instead i say the truth. i'm not actually great. i have no special skill. unless you count not having an emotional breakdown at the table after taking a bad beat a special skill. it is unbelievable often people will give away their next three months of rent money while trying go kill bill on someone who caught a lucky card on them.

that's it. i've never been great at cards, and never will be. but i never suck either. and my good is usually just good enough.

farmer brown

it's 3 a.m. and i feel like writing a blog entry. what i don't feel like is trying to come up with a catchy title for the entry to describe my visit to farmer brown.

i heard about the restaurant a few months ago, but it never made it close to the top of my restaurant list. it's a nice concept though. they buy all their produce from local black farmers. that sounds socially responsible, but when i mull over the concept, it leaves me with a couple of questions. do other restaurants discrminate against black farmers? because if they're not, i'm not sure this policy accomplishes anything. and secondly, is there any sacrfice in quality by only buying from black farmers. i'm sure there are black farmers who are doing great things, but what happens if there are no black farmers who specialize in certain strains of mushrooms? do they use inferior mushrooms, or not use mushrooms at all?

i don't have any answers and these thoughts would never have arisen if everything had been perfect. alas, it was not. we started with the handcut kennebeck fries and oysters fried in cornbread. the cornbread crust gave the oysters a hearty crunch, and its slight sweetness played well with the brininess of the mollusk. on the other hand, the fries disappointed. the dish had two varieties -- regular and sweet -- and about half of each were served lukewarm, as if they'd been sitting out for a few minutes.

overall, the entrees were a step up. the catfish and shrimp jambalaya had a nice spice to it, but was a bit of a one-note song. once the spiciness subsided, there weren't any other flavors to savor. on the other hand, the crisp, light batter of the fried chicken kept the meat moist while infusing it with a rich flavor. served with a side of dirty rice, the dish probably could have benefited from a slight reduction of sodium, but was strong overall. we only sampled one dessert -- lemon layer cake -- which should be avoided unless one finds dryness and density desirable in their final course. prices for all dishes are reasonable -- starters under $10, mains generally under $20.

what i was happy to see was a mixed crowd. this probably sounds racist, but it's pretty rare in san francisco to see a high percentage of black and filipino diners. but that certainly makes up a large part of the clientele at farmer brown. i hope that trend spreads to other restaurants, including those that don't have a soul food bent to them.

try, try again

just about one year ago, i posted the following as my new year's resolutions:

i will update this daily.
i will update this daily.
i will update this daily.

oh yeah, and i'm going back to the gym.

well that failed miserably.

thanks to the handy counter on the side of my blog, i see that i posted a grand total of 38 entries in 2006. that falls a bit short of my goal of 365. i did go back to the gym but then i went back to not going to the gym for most of the year.

but what would life be if one gave up every time they failed (answer: short). so for 2007, here goes.

• stop biting my nails (several weeks of success to report already)
• dinner party once a month (starting february)
• cook one real meal per week (multiple pots and courses)
• one month cycle
  
• stay with the gym (add ten pounds of muscle and lose five pounds of fat)
• 20k invested
  
• 2 trips
  
• remember how much i like my friends (keeping in touch, visiting, gifts)
  
• keep chin high (six days so far)

that's all for now -- or should i say all for 2007

a slight modification to the theory of humor

as proponents of democracy know, ideas great in theory can turn to disaster when confronted by the test that is the real world. so as thomas jefferson asserted in the federalist papers, i could not say with certainty that my theory on women not being funny held up until subjected to the rigor of outside examination by women.

and after some drunken debate over new year's dinner, i am happy to report that my theory held up beautifully to its first test. however, the contribution of others' ideas has showed me that even the finest theories can use several iterations of revisionism, the way of reasonable men. so without further due, i unveil the new, improved version of my theory.

men can make men laugh and women can make women laugh -- but men alone make both sexes laugh.

and to be honest, i'm not sure the things that women say to make other women laugh really qualifies as humor. rather it may just be idle chatter, which because of some unexplainable natural phenomenon causes giggling to ensue in half the world's inhabitants.