Temporal displacement in a multi-verse complicates quantum theory

I was trying to figure what I'd blog about this go around, but I couldn't think of anything (I could rant, but even I get tired of complaining all the time). So this will be more of a photo blog, since I've been dyin' to post some older photos and I've got some fun recent ones to share.

The first two photos are from Harsha's 30th birthday celebration at Luka's Taproom. Cool place (Asian girl fight!), strong drinks, and crowded with people out to have a good time. There was also a photo of Cindy, me, and Haydee, but the lighting was a bit unflattering, so I decided against posting it since I value my life. I rather like the one of Cathryn and Amanda though - from their vantage point, they could see me and Cindy playing Super Pacman below while Haydee watched on. This was a total geek moment, because Super Pacman was a favorite tabletop arcade game for me way back in the day and I think it's exceedingly rare. The rest of the night was spent hanging out, chatting, playing some pool, drinking, doing "laps" around the bar (not me, though), and was topped off by walking in lots and lots of rain to the car.

The photo of the water bottle on the table isn't exactly the best photo ever, but I think it's pretty interesting nonetheless. In the background are folks milling about having some food to eat.

Cathryn enjoys her yams, and this is what they look like when they're done. If you asked me, they look like Fear Factor slugs that you'd have to put in a blender and eat. Look out! They're slowly crawling away! The top one's name is Ted, and below him is Larry.

The last pic is from the SF Independent Movie Festival at the Castro. The movie we saw was "The Proposition" with Guy Pierce of Memento fame. The theatre was incredibly beautiful and they had an organist playing beforehand. Before the awful movie started, there was a big ovation for the music as the organ and organist slowly descended below the stage - very old school and very cool!

After the fest, Cindy and I motored on over to the after party thanks to Erica and Arthur (who I keep calling Paul for some unknown reason) and we bumped into Subir as well as Micah. We all had a tasty meat appetizer thing and fun drinking from the open bar. All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Well, I hope you enjoyed a random walk down my memory lane. Next time I promise to write about riveting things such as: cell phone plans, gutter replacement, radiant barrier foil, what's at Costco, and hats.

Look out for the moops

I felt my last blog was so serious and dramatic, but I really did want people to take from it good stuff and not worry too much about me, 'cause I'm tough and getting better! (famous last words I'm sure). Speaking of which, please check out my comment on Shelley's blog entry about a rare form of breast cancer. There's lots to be aware of out there!

So my adventure on the road to health continues. Ah, there's nothing like riding on BART which is a veritable germ factory. There are people sneezing, coughing, and blowing their nose on every train. This one poor fellow got to sit next to this woman who was totally sick. The aforementioned sneezing, coughing, and blowing noses was her trifecta and he got a front row seat! I SO woulda moved!!!

On the music front, I purchased my first CD in a very long time. I highly recommend Goldfrapp's new release, Supernature. It has the glory of 70's electronica mixed with today's electronica and it's all held together by the sexy overtures of Alison Goldfrapp (I still can't believe that's her name). The songs are all kinda similar, but I love the sound, so it's all good to my ears.

Oh, I almost forgot to talk about the pictures... you can see my dorky head to the left of Mark's behind (thanks, Julienne) and one of George's cats is relaxing on a kitchen chair. Thanks for the fried food, George!! I ate: 1 drumstick, 1 wing, 1 thigh, 1 breast, 1/2 porkchop, 2 cups total of potato and macaroni salad, and 2 scoops of cookies and cream ice cream. Yeah, I've been eating like there was no fucking tomorrow since I've been better. Sooner or later, my bloated form will float away into the sky before bursting into flames.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!

p.s. I love this quote that my Google homepage delivered to me...
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit;
Genius hits a target no one else can see."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Feeling like dying is overrated

Ah... so much to say, so little time and energy. So as most of you may or may not know, I've been ill, very ill many would say. Long story short, I caught the nasty flu that was going around which caused me to develop bronchitis. Because of Kaiser's stellar care and my own reluctance to throw in the face of every health care worker my complete medical history, the bronchitis irritated my asthma (which I thought I no longer had), and I ended up in the emergency room to get respiratory treatment after 12 merciless days of fever, aches, no appetite, no sleep, and constant coughing. The coughing was so severe at one point that I now have a chipped molar from passing out onto the bathroom wall/floor.

Why would I ever share the ugly and personal details of what happened to me? So I can say for certain to everyone who reads this, don't be like me and be reluctant about your medical history! Know it backwards and forwards and really push it on to medical personnel so that you might even sound worse off than you are, because they would rather not treat you if they don't have to! I'm sure some (maybe all?) of you already know this, but I had to learn it the hard way and wouldn't wish my experience upon anyone. The upside is that I'm now finally on the mend (it's going ever so slowly, but at least it's going) and hopefully now I have some antibodies to use against future flus (H5N1 anyone?).

As always, I am ever thankful for my family and friends who helped me out in one way or another and I'm better for it. The most interesting part of this whole experience was the psychological impact this had on me. It's quite a thing to not feel like you're ever going to get better and be basically shut in for two weeks (the chicken pox wasn't nearly as bad for me). I have no clue how people who are sicker than I was deal with such feelings of isolation and despair. Of course, now I'm highly motivated to get physically healthier and get mentally tougher.

I'll leave you with one of many of my favorite lines from The Princess Bride that I feel is particularly apropos... "Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

Someone please turn this blog up to 11

Merima was right, even I couldn't stand to see the blog about vomit anymore. I'll be keeping this shortish, 'cause I've been so sick (and still am very much so) this past week it made me miss having the chicken pox. I did manage to have some fun before I got ill on Sunday though (oh yes, a Beastie Boys shout out).

The top image is from the RJD2 concert Cathryn and I attended. He was absolutely amazing and so was the opening DJ - Wax Tailor. However, if you see the "MCs" Aceyalone or especially some wife beater wearing doofus named Bus Driver, hopefully you'll be in a car and you can run them over for me. They tortured us with their horrible style and weak rhyming (seriously, repeating "Check 1, 2"and "throw ya hands up" barely qualified for music when it was first done and definitely doesn't now).

The second photo is of the ottoman! Hmmm.... definitely more fun live than pictured. But there you have it. I'm sure now all of your lives' are now complete.

I'll leave y'all with one last thought - actually a dieting tip! Drink 20-30 glasses of water a day and you won't feel like eating ANYTHING. Bleh. Even hot dogs taste too salty for me. O what has the world come to :(

Finally, SOME EFFEN SUN!!!!

I'm not sure if I have SAD (seasonal affective disorder), but I sure am finally feeling more productive and motivated to do things lately. So have you ever wondered about the constant under construction portions of my place? This situation was so laughable, that I finally recorded it. To get 3 IKEA lights under the cabinets (picture 1), it took 6 hours (8 if you're obsessive like me), plus all the tools in picture 2, and two unpictured ladders and two helpers. The ridiculous part? It's still not done. I have yet to do the dark cabinets on the far end of the room. I learned a lot as always, and was very satisfied and happy with the results - not to mention that no one got electrocuted - hooray!

For the Target faithful, I totally scored an unbelieveable deal! For everyone else, please skip to the next paragraph because my detailed account of my purchase will be boring as hell, and the next paragraph will cover vomiting : O **...**:: . . # (the color of the vomit has been approximated).

So every now and again Target will ship in all this cool stuff that looks like Pier 1 or Cost Plus furniture and call it the Global Bazaar. The really nice stuff is still too expensive for me, but every now and again they'll have a clearance sale to sell of the display stuff. This beautiful leather ottoman/bench thing which I coveted was originally priced at $350. It was on clearance last week for $250, but it still seemed pricey for what it was. On a whim (or desperate grasp at straws - you can be the judge), I dragged Cathryn with me to see if it was still there. Inside the store, it sat there, patiently waiting for me in all its leather glory. But it had no tags on it, so we got a Target dude to help us. We got the right guy, 'cause when I asked him if he could give me an additional discount for some sticker residue on the sides, he called it in and got me an extra 20% off!! I was completely buzzing on a shopper high after we stuffed the thing in the car and drove off. Thanks Target dude!

As promised, I will now write about vomit. Yep, it's what happens when you eat something bad, have a flu, or if you're like me, drink WAY too much all at once. The culprit this go around was two glasses of wine and about a third or half a bottle of Bacardi (like I would remember) spread over three giant rum and cokes. Vomitting is such a dichotomy; it feels so great to relieve the nausea, but at the same time it's an experience that most would put at or near the top of their "sucks to be you" list. I'm just glad I didn't get it everywhere and I wasn't too inebriated to clean up what little missed. The best, absolute BEST part about the evening's vomit filled episode? After it was done, I was greeted with jubilant hallos and immediately fed a Jumbo Jack and fries. Still drunk, I consumed the food of the Gods in their fast food form and thankfully enjoyed every slow, focused, bite. I love my friends!!!!

RECENTLY BOUGHT AT TARGET®
1 Indian Style Leather Ottoman ~ $195 on clearance!

Nice try, said the spider to the fly

I got these fun images from a restaurant called Cafe Sport on Green St. in the city. After a tough day of on site pretending to work, I got to go on a little adventure with Cathryn and Ann. Rather than bore you with pertinent play by play action, I'll tell the story as if I were pitching a movie. It's a story about friendship, serendipity, food and has a happy ending. Ann and Walt have happy hour drinks, meet Cathryn after a truncated shoe shopping attempt, then take a wild cab ride through the city and end up at a fabulous Italian restaurant in North Beach at the cabbie's recommendation. Fun, banter-y converstation ensues, most delicious sea food, wine, and dessert is consumed, all served by an amazing and friendly staff, and we leave the place as Mormons. The end! Sure there are other fun details, but you can replace those details with the words, yada, yada, and yada.

Now on to other things. Important things. Urine things. I had this dream the other night about walking around in some house that I lived in. Standing in the room, the urge to pee came upon me. But for whatever reason, I was feeling lazy and decided that it would be okay to pee in the middle of the room as long as I didn't hit any furniture. So I start peeing on the floor and form a neat little puddle. I think, "Great! No one will notice this!" and continue to pee (dream logic). But then the neat little puddle quickly starts to grow and then goes all over the place! I stop peeing, but for some reason now the entire floor is an inch deep with pee. Everything is getting soaked, but I can't smell any pee and think it's really odd. Then it starts to rain outside and the rain washes into the room as well. Then I wake up and realize that nature has been calling while I was asleep and it was on the 15th ring. I'm just glad my sheets were dry when I realized it was time to use the facilities!

I have another story about a hat lady, guns, knives, and a giant ball of meat, but that will have to wait for another day. Can't wait for Supabowl Sunday!!!!

Feed the read

So another rip roaring week has come to pass and with it a whole new world of experiences and a bevy of insights and revelations. Okay... that's not entirely the case, but you could always purchase this porcelain figurine of one boy playfully jumping over another boy that is bent over. My only regret is that I failed to record the asking price of this fine piece of Americana crap occupying shelf space at the local Walgreens.

So for the blog faithful that remembers my happiness thing from the last entry, I am with cautious optimism learning to embrace this so called "happiness" thing. I know many could say that I was off my rocker and I'm full of shit, and to that I'd say, "I'm not off my rocker!!!" I guess you'd have to understand that I've lived a life full of angst, anxiety, and anger - which is actually par for the course for lots of folks I would say. I think that after you live with such things for a while, you not only become accustomed to them, but you don't really feel comfortable unless they're around.

I guess speaking completely philosophically, as I think it's the only way I can explain it, is that maybe I am finally ready to let the various eddies and currents of life fill my sails to take me to new destinations, rather than building as big and strong of a wall as possible to stay exactly where I am. Which I think can be rather scary to be sure, but I'm almost positive it's the best way to find my way through. That was pretty hokey, wasn't it? Just call me Deepak.

But enough of the heavy water, can I talk about Popeye's chicken? And how oily and delicious it is? And how it's much better if you have Popeye's cajun french fries and Popeye's buttery biscuits with it as well as an ice cold Pepsi to qench your enevitable thirst from the various spicy fried goodness you ingest? Yes, O yes, Popeye's rocks the house! (or as Little Nicky would say, "I like how it feels when I tilt my head back and let the meat slide down my throat hole.")

RECENTLY BOUGHT AT TARGET®
1 Motorola 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Telephone System ~ $88 on sale!

Finally breathing the air in the blogosphere

So after an extended stay from blogging, I'm finally back! What was I doing you may wonder? (I'm sure everyone lay awake at night pondering my absence from publishing) For those of you who may recall, I was suffering from ennui. Or an extended flu. Or something. Maybe it was the hives. Maybe it was mysterious gases coming from the crawlspace below my floors. But I figured it out!!! I'm suffering from... happiness.

That's right, you read it! As absurd as it sounds, I've spent a great deal of my life suffering. Not REAL suffering mind you. But the kind that's in your brain. The kind that can best be described as small demons running amok in your innermost being, poking at all the really sensitive areas all day long and then laughing about it over scones and earl grey. So now that I'm experiencing a long stretch of happiness, well, I'm not really sure what to do! I guess the first thing I would do is jinx it by writing about it in some fucking stoopid blog. The next thing I will do is figure out how to "enjoy" life I guess, now that I've reconciled the fact that happiness is indeed possible and some how I've managed to blunder into a big heaping pile of it.

Some other fallout from being trapped in the house left to think is that I've been addicted to shopping on eBay. Holy shit it's bad! Bad bad bad bad!!! Then there's iTunes. Damn it!! So much good music, so little time, cash, and taste. So as many of you may or may not know by now, I got an InFocus projector off of eBay (Harsha the social engineer figured that one out early). I've been dying, just dying to write about how much it kicks ass!!! Sure I'm a little late to school on the whole big screen thing, but I'm glad I'm finally here. And the best part, the VERY best part, is that I get to share the experience with my friends for movie nights! Following a close second is playing video games on the big screen and of course, watching porn on the big screen.

A friend of mine recently remarked how shocked she was to read that I used the word "crotch". To that I say, "Crotch crotch my crotchity crotch crotch."

I win because I cheat

Ahhh... another year has cometh and goneth. I find the passage of time such a strange concept, especially when coupled with photos. Like individual frames of a movie, everything I've known and ever will know is made of countless small moments all strung together. I then think about how in so many ways small things matter and how they amount to much larger things, and then when those larger things interact, how they lead to larger things still. It's all so very mind boggling! Of course, then Fear Factor comes on and I get distracted by all the scantly clad women jumping around.

The above photos kinda got mixed up, and I'm too lazy to fix 'em, but I can say that two are from Rajan's reception and two are from a sushi night out. I usually refrain from putting photos of people or myself on the blog (why, I'm not quite sure just yet), but I thought these images of me were amusing and interesting. There's nothing like the ol' orange peel in the mouth gag or the my face is smashed up against an invisible pane of glass gag.

The reception hall we were at for the reception was lit with all sorts of lights and had chandeliers hung way up high. As many of you know, I love blurry photos and this is no exception. If anything, the image definitely captures the energy of the evening.

Xmas and New Year's kicked much ass this year. And while I enjoyed the holidays immensely, I was dogged the whole time by this wicked ass flu. Thankfully, it wasn't the avian flu (we're still waiting for a more virulent human to human strain to develop, in case you were keeping score), but it was a fucking nasty ass flu nonetheless. Something tough was definitely making the rounds this year, as many people I spoke to, both familiar and stranger, told tales of high temperatures and unpleasant discharges.

As a parting shot, I'll tell you about a new song that I like a great deal. That fact isn't so special, but the fact that it's from the Rolling Stones I find rather unusual for my tastes! Find it on iTunes or Amazon.com.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

Last weekend I went to the coast and stayed an the Marina Dunes Resort. It was completely and utterly a fantastic trip! The entire time the weather was kind of stormy, so we got to feel the energy pouring off the crashing waves in the surf nearby. The on site resataurant had lots of dead things up for decoration, and the first pic shows the funniest one. As I snapped that image, the hostess was walking by and proudly said, "I decorated that one the best I think. It's my favorite!" Ha ha... if she only knew that I was taking the picture to document the sheer gall and irony of killing something, then using it as decoration, then putting a hat and ornaments on it to make it all cheery. Nice specimen of a gazelle though. He looks like he was contemplating what grass to eat next when they got him.

If you click on the middle picture, you'll be treated to a very large blow up of the beach that day. The wind was blowing so fiercely, that if you look closely, you can see misting blowing in the opposite direction off shore back out to the ocean.

The last pic is the wonderful view from our room. I took the image from in between some blinds, so that's what the interesting framing is about. It would have been nice to have a completely unobstructed view of the ocean, but as we walked along the beach, we could look into all the rooms with unobstructed views. Woohoo! I see you there on your bed watching TV and eating from the snack basket! (sigh... no naked folks).

After getting back, I got a wonderful case of the flu and am finally getting back to my old self today. I'm still all sniffly and coughy though. The good news is that I had plenty of time to take care of my ebay stuff and pretty much unloaded everything I wanted to. I am now an eBay expert and can teach classes to rubes on late night TV.

It's time to start hoarding Pepsi

Okay, so I know that the image doesn't look like much. But I love the warmth of the hardwood floors contrasted with the bubbly blue lights. For those who don't already know, this is a great billiards bar in Berkeley. Thalassa has been host to many fun events and gatherings, both long ago and recent. One of my fondest memories of this establishment took place almost exactly one year ago on Xmas eve. We didn't have anything to do and our families had gone to bed so we decide to see what was open. Lo and behold there was Thalassa. With it's low lights and aqautic themed decor, it was jumpin'! Granted it was mostly dudes who were there (or maybe all, I can't exactly recall), everyone was in a great mood and it was the perfect relaxing ending to a long day of holiday festivities.

In other news, my old computer has finally sold! Hooray! Sad how computers lose their value so quickly, but I got a decent price and I'll be completely relieved when the payment is sent, the computer is shipped off, and the auction winner sends me happy regards for her purchase. Only one more day left to go, and the remainder of my items will have closed. Whew! I don't think selling things on eBay is a good idea for someone as obsessive compulsive as I am (did anyone bid yet? nope. did anyone bid yet? nope. did anyone bid yet? nope. did anyone bid yet? one dollar! hooray!! did anyone bid two dollars yet? repeat and escalate...)

Finally, peruse my money making scheme on the right. If you're bored and would like to help an Asian brother out, click on the Google links and click around on the resultant site, or use the Google search bar to do searches for your holiday shopping (or porn surfing). I think I get a tenth of a hundreth percent of any money Google makes off of your clicking around. Sooner or later I'll be able to buy some gum! Don't kill my dream of minty fresh breath! Please click thoroughly and click often! Thank you for your support.

Hmmm... I just realized that 2/3 of this blog is about money. DAMN I'm greedy!!! I need to get hair like Donald Trump to complete my transformation.

RECENTLY BOUGHT AT TARGET®
2 Scrabble Board Games ~ 8.44 on sale!
1 Jenga ~ 8.44 on sale!
1 Monopoly ~ 8.44 on sale!
3 Twelve Packs o' Pepsi ~ 2.50 on sale!

All geek all the time

This post is more of a geeky afterthought. Included below is something poached from Overheard in the Office and a link to new Star Trek episodes based upon the orignal series.

Inside Wholesaler #1:
We could cast a fourth Lord of the Rings with some of the people that work on this sales desk.

Inside Wholesaler #2:
I know! [Janet] looks like a stump with eyes and a mouth.

God how I love unnecessarily harsh insults.

Star Trek: New Voyages
I just downloaded the second episode. For amateurs, this stuff is amazing. What's more amazing is that this schlock was more engaging than Aeon Flux. Bad acting and cheesy special effects, bring it on!!!

To add more randomness to this blog, ever since I misspelled results, I'm paranoid I'm going to write an email to a client promising great resluts. Every time I use that word I have to read it fucking five times before my dyslexic brain figures it out. Fcuk!

My life is a dramatization

When I saw this snowman night-light, I laughed and I laughed. It was the kind of laugh that can only come from someone with a naughty juvenille mind apparently, because no one else got it. C'mon folks! I'm not the only one that sees the humor in this, am I??? Look at how happy the snow man is holding onto his big red pole :) The best part about this night-light is that the red liquid inside the tube starts to bubble after it gets heated up! Sigh. I guess you had to be there. And yes, we all know that I am going to hell. But now we know I'll be going there without gifts, too.

Last night I was at Target and everyone including me was walking around in a zombie like fashion, fondling holiday gift potentials, but having a far away look in their eyes as they did so. Tis the season to be overloaded by options. I bumped into this one woman in the toy section and her cart was FULL of stuff. I kid you not. I've never seen a cart that full unless it was filled with go-backs and being hauled by a disgruntled low on the totem pole employee. She must live in a giant shoe or something.

So what have I been up to? Unloading all my junk upon the world through eBay!!! Muhahahahahaha!! Check it out here. Okay, not all of it's junk. I mean, a VHS tape of Flash Gordon. How could anyone resist I tell you? If any of you are game, please bid up my stuff and I will consider giving you "minion" status when I become evil overlord of the world (after Bush's term is over, of course).

Sleep, eat. Repeat.

I should be working now, but I've just been dying to update my blog (priorities, you know). Update it with you ask? NOTHING!! Ha ha. This will be just like an episode of Seinfield (except it will not be funny nor will it deliver me untold riches in royalty fees).

I went to my bank the other day and noticed that they still have the security camera pointed at the line and at the tellers. So while I'm standing around in line while the friendly tellers make chit chat, I can see that the guy at the counter in front of me and to my left just made a large cash withdrawl in several sets of twenties. Christmas could come early if I decided to follow him into the parking lot and pick pocket him - ho ho ho!

Of course, that would be naughty, and I probably wouldn't get the flamethrower that I desperately want :'( Speaking of which, to get something else I want, I decide to attempt to hock my Rotozip on Craigslist. I put a posting that said Rotozip for sale $59. Apparently, that was a very confusing thing to do. Because everyone who contacted me wanted to barter or get a lower price after I offered to demonstrate the usuage of the tool as well as fucking deliver it to their door! Augghh!! You can have the Rotozip for free if you'll let me use it on your skull to see if there's anything inside!!!

Actually, I don't hate the people who responded. They were all very nice, and one dude was pretty old and most likely a veteran (we had a genial half hour conversation). I guess I'm just a little frustrated at the whole process. I'm still emailing with someone who apparently works at Best Buy and wants to try to work a deal to get a deal. Can't anyone just buy my stuff with cash at a reasonable price without life stories???

As a fun random aside, if you like popping bubble wrap, you can do so virtually here (be sure to use manic mode). It's not as fun as real bubble wrap of course, but I enjoyed the novelty of doing it online for about 30 seconds.

I guess that's all I got. Everyone have a great weekend and drive safely! There are lots of out of towners driving about and they're all reading roadsigns while being frightend by rain instead of safely operating their vehicles :P

A life less ordinary

It would have been fun to spill the beans on my fancy new haircut on the blog before most people saw me, but I got too busy, yada yada yada. I gotta say, it has been more fun with the new 'do. People seem to be friendlier and I certainly get more attention from random folks on the street than normal (translate: from zero attention to slightly more than zero).

The two top questions I get are how and why (or in some cases, why????). The how is easy. Two mirrors, one on the wall and one in my hand, and the electric clipper in the other hand. Throw in some mirror dexterity and hand-eye coordination and I'm done. The why is more complicated. For fun is the easy answer. But I think it goes deeper than that (as most things do). I've been definitely wanting more something lately. What it is, I do not know. But I do know that I am not satisfied with myself and long for personal growth of some sort. Maybe I'll join a Kool-Aid lovin' commune or something. Who knows. I usually get out of these doldrums of sorts by days of heavy introspection. A sort of settling accounts with myself. What have I done? What have I been doing? What should I be doing? How can I improve? What should I keep the same? Many questions. Then answers that usually lead to more questions. I wish I could get paid to be a philospher. I could hold up a sign that says, "Will philosophise for food".

Then there's the picture of me with a bird on my shoulder. I'll keep the story behind that a mystery and instead tell you about the shot. I wanted to juxtapose a sullen expression with dramatic lighting against the little white bird. I could have had a goofy smile on my face as one might expect, but I think the image is far more interesting this way.

Big turkey yum!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! May your food be bountiful, your company remind you of why you should be thankful, and your life all the sweeter for reaffirming it.

I'm feeling fecund today

Unless you're really intersted in architecture, I'm sure these photos are probably pretty boring to you (and I wish they were better photos, but all I had on me was my phone… sorry!). I've actually been meaning to post them forever. They're photos of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles that I took while visiting my cousin. It totally looks like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, so I feel less bummed that I wont make it there any time soon (although I'd still love to make there some day). Almost everything about this structure is amazing in form and function. It makes me really wish that more thought was put into every building. And while I don't expect super fancy like this example, it would be nice if most structures simply worked and looked a little better than they do now (hence my constant fussing over the house).

As I sit and write this post during the wee hours of the night (well… it's 5am right now), I'm reflecting on a very busy, mostly crappy work week. I can't wait to have fun this weekend. I just want to relax and put work out of my mind! Lately I've been pondering if I should be doing something else with my “career.” Should I move to try to be a better designer? Should I try a new vocation entirely? I dunno. Oddly enough, as much as I have disdain for children in general, I take a great deal of satisfaction and pride in teaching them new things. I seem to connect to them easily (I think it's mostly because we're at the same maturity level) and I enjoy seeing the feelings that come with discovery and understanding. But as much as I'd want to be a teacher, I just know that I'm too moody to take kids day in and day out (little buggers!). Hmm… maybe I'm having a middle age thing going on. I wonder if I should just buy a Porcsche instead.

Dishes my blog

So there you have it. Some of my new plates set on top of the aforementioned bamboo charger. Pretty nice lookin', isn't it? It looks even better because the new plate is poplulated by some delicious pitas lovingly made by Cathryn. The photoshoot was set up by me. Yes, it took me a whole 5 minutes to arrange the plates and put in the empty dipping bowl for show (I hope you guys appreciate all my hard work!)

Speaking of hard work, I actually made it all the way to the gym today! Huzzah!! Huzzah!! Huzzah!!!! I was tired, but I really am happy I went. I can feel blood pumping through my veins again and I'll probably rest better tonight as well. Ah elusive motivation, I have found you at last today. I'm sure tomorrow and the next day will be a different story, but I'm working on it!

Here's a funny story for you… at work we have this ridiculous elevator where the buttons don't always register. I swear I pressed the button for floor 3, but when the doors opened, I was on floor 5. I took one step out, and went "What the hell???" and then wandered back in. Of course doing so right in front of the FedEx dude who was waiting to get in the elevator (the whole time blocking him from getting in). Aside from looking like a complete doofus who doesn't understand how elevators work, I felt all discombobulated from the feeling of being magically transported to a different building. Too bad I wasn't high with a bunch of other people who were also high. It would have been a much funnier experience!

Told ya. This blog was complete fluff. More fluff than in San Fernando Valley.

ps. I ate the pita. Yes I did. And it was fucking GOOD. Especially after I put some poppy seed dressing on it (it's better than crack!).

I should be sleeping now

But instead I'm still blogging! (I have a secret mission to push the video that keeps loading off of the bottom so that it's archived and can stop loading everytime I visit my fucking blog). There's something about old pictures that I've always loved. Is it the sepia tone? The non Kodak moment expressions? I dunno. But there's a warmth in the imagery that's not so common these days (I love, LOVE, daguerreotypes).

The images you see above are of my great grandparents on my father's side. If you ever wondered why folks don't smile in old photos, it's because in all likelyhood they were suffering a great deal. Seriously, times were tough back then. My dad was telling me of how they had to hide in a backyard for months while the communists were "pacifying" the countryside. They survived only because a neighbor noticed them there and nonchalantly tossed food over the fence when no one was looking. On my mom's side, they have similar stories because of WWII.

I'll have to remember not to complain so much when I decide to notice that no one is trying to kill me while I'm slowly starving to death.

Hmm… that's weird. I went from normal to serious again. Sorry about that. I promise the next post will be all fluff. You'll feel good about it and forget all about these not so fluffy ones.

Stompin' in my Air Force Ones

Ah, it's that time again. When bright lights are hung from the rafters, mistle toe hung over doors, green and red themed everything, and the holiday push to consume. I'm not talking about Decmeber though. All the xmas crap was in the stores before the Halloween candy sold out. I remember when consumerism was the big rallying point against all that's evil with our society. Interesting how times change, isn't it? Now we have honest to goodness evil incarnate as elected leader of our nation. Oh how I long for the days of SDI, Iran Contra, and weapons for hostages! Them were the good ol' days indeed.

Ha ha, sorry. I don't know where that came from. I guess I'm feeling all political again (although I promise to remain apathetic – sorry). In the meantime, enjoy this phallic image of a really cool building in SF. I took this image while drunk out of my mind from drinking an entire crystal geyser bottle of Vodka flavored with something sweet tasting (I think). Ah, good times!