This is most odd, but I found an email that I wrote eight years ago on the web. I actually found it a few months ago but then I lost it, so I had to re-find it. I couldn’t find it with a search engine, so I called up the guy who posted it and said, “Hey! Where’s your blog.” That’s so much easier than using a search engine. I’m going to have to do that more often.
I rather enjoyed rereading my email. Nothing satisfies quite so well as one’s own old writing. Except for poetry, of course. But I have written 0 poems, so I don’t have to worry about that. There are many more emails like that one. They start out as rants, then I go back and meticulously edit it and remove as many obvious influences as possible.
I remember the mood I was in when I wrote it: more amped up than mad but still mad. By 1998 I had acquired the decadent European habit of drinking coffee after lunch and tea in the afternoon, which probably made me easier to set off.
But oh how shitty product managers and product marketers have dogged me throughout my entire career. The worst part is that it’s impossible to tell great marketing people from shitty ones until it’s too late. The only signal with a reasonably high correlation that a marketing person being shitty is an MBA. People with other majors from Stanford seem okay. I don’t know what it is about their MBA program. The signal with the highest correlation of a marketing person being competent is an MBA from Harvard, unless they mention the word “facebook” not referring to facebook.com.
Some good radio stuff — A DJ in Mobile, Alabama quit on the air with the immortal line, “I quit this bitch.” which is the best way to quit a gig. Her name is Inetta the Mood Setta. Listen to the air check, read the transcript, and then listen to the thoughtful interview. Then buy a T-shirt?!?
G.G. the Cat brought yet another rat into the house yesterday. I was happily reading the New York Times on the computer when D. ran in completely freaked out. From her worried look I thought maybe she cut herself with a knife or one of the kids was on the roof and fell off, but it was far worse than that. It was a Rat In The House. It’s weird how rats just sit there when a cat is near them. The other live rat that G.G. the Cat brought in our house (at 1:00am or so) was the same way. They seemed almost bored. I think the strategy here is to not move in hopes that the cat will get bored and walk away. This is good strategy because most cats are dumb. But there’s a big flaw: cats can smell a bleeding rat that is five feet away. So even if G.G. the Cat forgets what’s going on — which is entirely possible — she’ll eventually smell the rat and think, “What’s that smell? So bewitching… Oh yeah, I was goring a rat to death. I almost forgot.”
This strategy is somewhat effective this time. But it was a Pyrrhic victory because by the time G.G. the Cat walked away to get some water the rat was too damaged to move. It was clearly breathing, though. I wanted to toss a brick on it through an open window from the safety our kitchen. This was quickly vetoed. D. finished the job by putting on rubber kitchen gloves, filling a bucket with water, setting it down near the rat, and using barbeque tongs from our grill to pick it up and hold it under water. Then she got freaked out and made me hold the tongs. Once I was satisfied that it was dead, I put it in a bag along with the gloves and threw it away. Then I threw away the barbeque tongs and dumped the bucket and filled it with soapy water. Man, I hate rats. It was very traumatic. I’m sure that the kids are emotionally scared from seeing their parents become complete ninnies.
Epilogue: Later that day D. was driving to the store. When the air conditioner came on and blew on her legs she screamed.
Just finished watching the Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story talking and moving picture show. Steve Coogan is so great, kind of mumbling and angry and baldly trying to pass off sullenness as modesty. It’s like a British form of martial arts. He was equally great in 24 Hour Party People and in the otherwise detestable Coffee and Cigarettes. If I were younger I would probably go through a phase of trying to imitate him. Quite possibly I already did without realizing it.
I cleaned up the previous post, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought (from a grammar and organizational point of view), though it was boring as hell. Japanned in Japan sent me the videos that I posted, and I forgot to mention it.
Why are recently spotted rats always suspected to be pregnant? After the discovery of rat turds early Sunday evening and the washing of the entire family in bleach, D. called the Vector Control (or Animal Control or maybe they are the same thing). They spotted a rat in our garage attic, and it might be pregnant. As if D. wasn’t freaked out enough. In sales we call something like the imminent appearance of a litter of rats a compelling event. We hope to have a rat update soon. Apparently pregnant rats have cravings for peanut butter, and we are using this fact against her.
It is hot out, so watch this video of Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. The last three minutes are the best in my music listening opinion.
Stephanie watched it with me, so that she could see that shows for kids were a damn sight cooler than Dragon Tales.
Last Sunday I installed Ubuntu Desktop 6.06 (Dapper Drake) on my old Dell Dimension. It was time to wipe off Fedora Core 3, which was getting a bit crufty as I modified a setting here and a setting there over the past year or so. Entropy eventually creeps into an operating system, and there is nothing you can do but nuke it and start over.
Ubuntu was a very easy install (once I got my stupid old computer with a pre-2000 BIOS to boot from CD). I’m going to use this as my main desktop computer since D. took over Firefox on the Windows XP computer.
Running Linux is always vaguely frustrating, even though so far this is the smoothest it has been. I’ve never worked with Debian, only RedHat and spinoffs, and I am really impressed with the package management. I tried to install Flash8 by myself, and gave up in frustration. Then I just used sudo apt-get and it was done in one command line.
Of course I installed MAME on it, and this is what I mean by Linux being always vaguely frustrating: I installed kxmame (forgot that Ubuntu uses Gnome — duh) and it wasn’t running very well and looking for ROMs in the wrong place. Eventually I uninstalled kxmame and installed gxmame, which ran fine. But when I went to start Pacman in full screen mode. The right side of the screen was on the left and the left side was on the right. And the sound was extremely distorted.
I figured that the sound distortion was just a problem with the PCM input being turned all the way up in the sound mixer. But it took me 15 minutes to figure out to run alsamixer to adjust this.
As for the video problem, I wasn’t even sure what to type into a Google(TM) brand web search to investigate the problem. I tried [split screen xmame], [pacman split xmame] (which brought up a Wikipedia article about the fabled 256th screen), [xmame ubuntu fullscreen problem], and so on.
Eventually I started investigating the video driver. Through some very helpful forum postings, I was able to get off of the nv open source driver and onto the nvidia driver. This shifted the display on my computer to the right for about 1/2 inch. (This led to a tangential investigation: tried to run xvidtune, but got some confusing error; disabled glx, but every test I tried with xvidtune complained that it wasn’t a possible configuration for my monitor; tried hacking Modelines in xorg.conf, and eventually X wouldn’t start; gave up.)
Then I ran Pacman in fullscreen mode, and this time the background was completely transparent. So I read through the xmame command line arguments and found a -notransulcency option that didn’t do anything. Then I tried to run a DVD with the new video driver and it was very jerky. So I went back to the nv video driver, which is a shame because I can’t run gnome-window-decorator and compiz, which were very cool.
I was resigned to having to play Pacman in a window instead of full screen mode when I read the xmame arguments yet again and noticed the -effect argument. For some reason adding -ef 1 worked, and I could get Pacman to work in fullscreen mode. The cool raster lines that make it look like a real video game were gone, but it worked.
Then I sat back and wallowed in my vaguely annoyed state. Then I thought hard about being 39 years old and wanting to play Pacman so badly and what that might tell me about myself. Then I called the kids into the room and introduced them to the glory of Pacman.
(By the way, I had my PowerBook on the couch later that day and wanted some Pacman. So I downloaded MacMAME, scped over the ROM, and I was up and running in about 15 minutes. Not to knock on Linux, but I’m just saying.)
Sunday was spent re-organizing the garage so that the kids can have a play area out there. Not that it wouldn’t be fatal right now in this heat to play in the garage, let alone re-organize it. We lost a lot of momentum when D. and I found a whole bunch of rat turds on a shelf behind some Christmas wrapping paper. D. came inside to search the Internet for rat turds to verify our find.
More operating system news in our house: I spent several hours trying to speed up our Windows XP machine. It just gets slower and slower. So I went through and (1) uninstalled every program that we didn’t use, (2) cleaned the local disks, (3) deleted old TV shows we recorded and didn’t watch, (4) ran scan disk on the local disks, (5) deleted all favorite network places or whatever they are called — basically some links to a webdav folder I was dinking around with, (6) ran Autoruns (funny name if you are in 7th grade) and turned off or deleted most of the start up programs that have installed themselves, (7) turned off all services that looked suspicious or unnecessary, and (8) ran AdAware. Then I rebooted. It rebooted several times and scanned the disks each time. It seems to be running much faster now, but I haven’t run anything besides Firefox and iTunes on it so far.
It will be nice to go to work tomorrow and spend some time with my computers there for a change.
Hats off to The Economist for putting Syd Barrett as the obituary. They even dropped some lyrics from Astronomy Domine that I forgot about. I used to play stuff from Ummagumma when I would do the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. shift.
Then in their lead editorial, the first paragraph says that the current war in the Middle East must be stopped immediately. Fair enough. But the last paragraph says that the kidnapped soldiers must be returned. Fair enough, too. But isn’t that the whole point? Is The Economist working on a secret plan to get them back? If so, then they are allowed to run around saying “must” in their WWIII editorials. And how can Lexington go on vacation? He’s a pen name.
Here is the way that I read The Economist, which I am recording for both posterity and common sense: First I read the obituary. Well, actually first I read the two summary emails that come on Thursday when The Economist is printed. But when I get my physical copy, I read the obituary first. Then I read the articles in the arts section backwards. Then the science section. Then if the academic economics article isn’t too hard for me, I’ll read it. Then I read the United States articles and Lexington. Then I flip through the Americas section, mainly to read the captions and to read about scandals. Then I read the intersting war articles in the Middle East/Africa section. Then I thumb through the Britain and Europe sections. I almost never read these articles, especially the zillion articles about Turkey joining the EU. Then I read the business articles, especially if they are about (1) unions, (2) high tech, or (3) scandals. By this time the next Economist has arrived, so I quit reading it.
This weekend The Economist (or is it the The Economist) didn’t come until Saturday. So Saturday morning, I had some reading time and nothing to read. This meant that I had to select a book, bring it to the couch, open it at the beginning (no sections in most books), and read. These were the books that I thumbed, but eventually didn’t start reading:
The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade by Cecil Woodham-Smith (gift from Sparkles that I am always meaning to read)
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer (leant to my by a friend who is a professor of philosophy — seemed timely to read, current events and all, y’know. Also, a time management book I read once had a quote from Hoffer, which struck me as odd.)
Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt (work stuff, I was interested in the SEO chapter especially to see what a “textbook” would say about it versus what I’ve picked up on the mean streets.)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition (I visited my alma mater, Purdue, a few weeks ago, and I remembered that I never really learned anything about Thermodynamics and that I forgot everything I learned about semiconductors. I thumbed through the chapters but realized that I wasn’t going to absorb anything with the kids blasting their music.)
American Mavericks: Musical Visionaries, Pioneers, Iconoclasts by Susan Key and Larry Rothe (gift from D. that I am always meaning to read. We just unpacked it, and it reminds me of our life pre-kids when we had tickets to the SF Symphony.)
I read through a few pages of each, but I felt like I couldn’t really commit to any of these books. So I put them down. One day I will retire, and it will be a big reading festival in my house or at the cafe that I will need to go to for enough quiet that I can concentrate.
If you read this far then you need a break. Watch this video of Tom Waits on Fernwood Tonight. The interview is a bit scripted, but who cares — everyone’s high and having fun.
Cripes! It’s midnight, and I need to wash the sweat and spider webs off of me and go to bed. I’ll proofread this and make it organized tomorrow. Until then, sorry.
I found the opening credits for Ark II on YouTube. Watch with me.
Sounds sort of like Google doesn’t it? Anyway, I’m glad that I didn’t dream this show. It really exists. What’s with all the Old Testament names, esp. Adam? That went over my head when I was a kid. And dig those rotating pieces of plastic, I mean computers.
And this movie never gets old, just the people in it! LADY PUNCH:
1. Took the kids to Elysium Fry’s a few weeks ago. Matt wanted a car from the funky little toy aisle there. I got him a little remote control car, which of course was destroyed within 24 hours because he left it in the “yarden.” It still looks car-like, so it is satisfactory for Matt even though it no longer remote controlled but rather very locally controlled. So then Stephanie had to get something, and with some gentle nudging I bought her a microscope science kit.
We got home and looked at the locust bits that came with the set. Then we went out to the “yarden” to kill bugs and look at them. First was a hapless ant. Then Steph found a lady bug, but I hesitated because it seemed kind of harsh to kill a bug. I somehow forgot that they can fly, so it got away easily. Steph yelled at me for letting it go because kids are ice cold about bugs. The snail Steph caught was too icky for me for kill, dissect, and slice for a slide. This is why I tend more toward the electronic/computer side of scientific inquiry.
So we went inside for a change of stuff to look at. We looked at some turtle water and saw some tiny round bugs with a little tail looking thingie sticking out. I wish I could take a picture of it because I have no idea what it was. Anyway, a whole bunch of them live in Emma Turtle’s water so think about that the next time you stick your hand in turtle water. Then we looked at salt (giant cubes, explained about crystals to Steph), bread, human hair, and cat hair.
Diana is so nice that when our cat threw up in our bedroom she asked us if we wanted to look at it before she cleaned it up. Very considerate, but we passed.
2. Matt has lots of funny sayings that are fascinating because (1) he’s going through a particular fascinating period so everything he does is fascinating and (2) it gives glimpses into his little three-year-old language processing brain. Of course, Diana and I have picked these sayings from him. We did this with Stephanie’s little sayings (like “I awake!”), and eventually she would just correct us until we felt stupid for still using them. Here are the best ones:
-Yarden — this is a combination of “yard” and “garden.” Now we call the backyard “the yarden”
-Parking lock — instead of “parking lot.” Steph did this one too. Maybe that’s where he got it.
-I not will — This is an old one that mean “I won’t.” Like this: “Don’t do that again.” “I not will.” “Oh, he’s so cute! Let’s never scold him again.”
-Mines — This is the first-person version of “yours.” It kind of makes sense. Like this: “Not yours!” “No!!!!! Mines!!!!!”
-It spells XXX — Any time Matt sees numbers or letters on something, he assumes that it spells whatever the thing is. So he’ll find writing on the side of a truck and say, “It spells ‘bus,’” and then be all proud of himself. This one is suprisingly fun to say.
3. The family is away on vacation. I stayed behind to work. It’s strange to have all this time to myself, but it affords a look into what my life might be like if I had never married and had kids. Here it is: Watching Netflix movies until 2:00am; getting into work around 9:30; working really late; dicking around on the Internet; buying comic books and CDs; spending Friday night eating at a cafe, reading, and people watching; having extensive interior monologues; not eating; thinking about going to Berkeley and hanging out. So basically it’s the life I had when I was single before, except with Internet in it. (Sorry ladies, I’m taken.)
I’m serious about the not eating part. When left alone I forget to eat. It’s 4:10pm, and all I’ve had today is coffee, toast, and jelly beans. I remembered this because I was curious why I was having trouble remembering how to spell certain words. Then I remembered that I forgot to eat lunch. This is why I weighed ~175 lbs. when I met Diana and weigh 210 lbs now.
Conversely, when I’m at work I forget to pee. I will be walking between meetings some time in the afternoon and suddenly feel a pain in my abdomen. Then I’ll remember that I haven’t peed since mid-morning.
4. I woke up with a headache yesterday morning. Though I foolishly tried to power through it, by the late morning it was strong enough that I went back home. Not even Excedrin Migraine and Advil could get through it. It didn’t seem like a migraine because there was no aura part. Maybe that part happened while I was sleeping, though that doesn’t seem likely. Would I have blind spots in my dreams like I do in real life?
I’m pretty sure that it was a headache related to this stupid sore throat that I’ve been fighting all week. I’ve been spending the first few minutes of every day this week bent over the sink coughing stuff up like a grey-headed Charles Highway.
Yesterday was the second Friday in a row that I was home because of being sick. And it was also the second Friday in a row that we had perfect weather. (And I mean Elysium perfect weather, which is ten times better than whatever you consider perfect weather where you live, unless maybe you live in Berkeley.) So in the middle of my headache were anxious thoughts that people think that I’m out having fun instead of lying in bed having fitful dreams about drilling holes in my skull. Though anyone who really knew me would know that I don’t actually do fun things.
5. We are almost done having our office remodeled. Blank shelves feel so luxurious to look at and contemplate. And they are luxurious to put things on, too. For example: my genealogy folders, binders, and periodicals are right next to each other on a shelf and not five feet away from my head. And: our Smith Barney statements from 1996 to 2006 are sitting beautifully, collated in the correct order in their labelled binders. I swear on all that is sacred that the only entropy this office will know is the heat coming from of the computer fans.
My stereo system is reinstalled as of this afternoon. I can play LPs again, so I am. I can play mp3s of my computer, so I am. I can watch the backlog of Cheaters shows that I recorded, so I am. I am a being of pure will and organization.
6. The reasons I’m thinking about going into Berkeley are (1) Ameoba’s LP digging to celebrate being able to play LPs again, (2) get some Top Dog because I feel weak, though I’ll probably stop in San Mateo for a burrito, (3) Go to Moe’s, (4) walk around Telegraph and north campus because it this week marks 17 years ago since I arrived in California. I tend to do (4) every year. I go look at places that seemed so strange and powerful when I was 22 and then filter my memories through the 17 years since I arrived. Last year was interesting in that I felt absolutely nothing at the usual landmarks, so I bought some soul compliations and went home. The Tower Records on Durant is gone now, so I will go look at the empty storefront. I don’t know what it means, but I know I’m compelled to do it each year.
Too lazy to write. Here are random pictures from my phone. Also too lazy to figure out how to use this photo blogging software.
Fig. 1: From a 1940’s Palo Alto phone book that I found at the library
Fig. 2: S. at my work. Note the station T-shirt.
Fig. 3: M. making funny face, which he does constantly
Fig. 4: S. and robot dinosaur in Florida
Fig. 5: Cousin Blake and S. in Florida
Fig. 6: Cousin Ryann and M. in Florida
Fig. 7: Crown on the towncar that took us from SFO to our home
Fig. 8: S. helping me pick out new glasses
Fig. 9: M., dad, and Saab — schematic drawing
Fig. 10: D.’s kindergarten volunteer card
Fig. 11: Essay by S.
Fig. 12: M. and S. last night at the W hotel begging to be able to sleep with their swimming goggles on. (I said no. Wouldn’t that make their eyes pop out or something?)
I love You Tube a whole bunch. I was reading the WFMU blog as is my wont, and it made mention of an Aldo Nova video. (The blog, not my wont.) Watch along with me!!!!!!!!11oneone.
First I watched Fantasy by Aldo Nova. I remember watching this on MTV on the summer between my sophomore and junior year. Canadians dressed like leopards! Les Pauls with lasers! And the song hasn’t even started yet, as the WFMU blog pointed out.
Then I wondered what other music videos are available. I couldn’t find the Neil Young/Devo version of Hey Hey My My, though I have the mp3.
I found a ton of Blankey Jet City videos. I watched this one:
I have to remember to show this to Stephanie. Ever since I took the guitars out of the office and put them in my closet, she has been bugging me to teach her how to play guitar. She wants to learn “Row row row your boat” she says. It didn’t help matters when I took her to a music store in San Mateo and found a 1/2 size pink Strat copy. She held it, and it was the cutest damn thing I ever saw. I would have bought it on the spot but I know that she is far too young to know the psychic weight of having an unplayed guitar in the house. But even if she just Elvised it around the house for a while, it would have been cool.
I picture her playing surf instrumentals or some kind of surf-punk, so obviously she would need a guitar with a tremolo bar. Either way I have to show this video to Steph.
Then I looked for Ajico. This has the singer named UA and the guitarist from Blankey Jet City and a drummer and bassist I don’t recognize. (Japanned in Japan turned me on to both these bands by the way. And maybe Aldo Nova, too. I can’t remember that far back.) Three things I love about this video: (1) It’s all dramatic but I have no idea what they are on about, (2) the green lasers in the background, (3) UA is wearing what looks like an Ajico tour t-shirt.
I went for broke and looked for Asa Chang and Jun Ray’s Hana. I reviewed the album for the station, and this song just blew my mind because it was so great. I watched the video on a little, tiny embedded window on a web page back then. But now it is the future and I can watch it full screen. And watch it again.
Here’s another Asa Chang and Jun Ray video. It’s the Japanese Hey Mickey:
By the way if you look for Hey Mickey you will find some strange videos. The Disney ones were baffling until I realized it was about Mickey Mouse.
