A fool and his money

I bought a poem from a guy on the street for two dollars.

INTO THE FOUR WORLDS
A Part of the Tears, by Ricky Teague

To return to the harmonious in me
from the desert
from the sea
the harmonious comes from me
with the wisdom of the world
the knowledge of night and day
in understanding within the water of the sea
in the love
in the spirit of me.

Goose and Maverick on the town

Amanda came down from Vacaville to join me for the Flaming Lips and Ween at the Greek Theater last night. We didn't actually buy tickets, so we opted to kick it cheapskate-style on the hill behind the stadium. We sat on the ground, Trader Joe's snacks in hand, and relaxed to the quirky sounds of the two bands.

As she's demonstrated before, Amanda is not afraid to strike up conversation with random strangers. This makes her the perfect wingman — when she's around, I'm guaranteed to meet somebody. She's very proud of this.

True to form, she engaged a group of four 20-somethings in discussion during the show. One of them, a charming girl named Sarah who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Cal, captured my interest immediately. She and I talked about bands, traffic, the Midwest, college, and Pandora. (I had wisely chosen to wear my new Pandora shirt, but unwisely chosen to spill red wine on it twice during the course of the night.)

After the show, the group invited Amanda and I to join them at a pizza place in Berkeley. The conversation continued, and eventually turned to my drumming hobby. Sarah was very enthusiastic about this, as she is a bit of a guitar player and singer/songwriter. We joked about forming a band called Arodnap (Pandora backwards, of course), and email addresses were exchanged.

Amanda is convinced this is a momentous step for me, being more or less MIA in the dating scene for the past year. However, there is also the small detail of Sarah having a boyfriend, who is also a drummer apparently. This puts a damper on things. (Then again, disputes between drummers are easily solved.)

The whole gang was really fun to hang out with, and as we left the pizza place at 1:30 in the morning everybody shared hugs, promised to hang out again sometime, and headed home.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an email to over-think...

Catching up

It's been a while. Lots has happened. Here's the abridged version.

MacBook

I'm now the proud quasi-owner of a new white MacBook. It's neat. I thought the glossy screen would bug me, but it doesn't. In fact, none of the things I mentioned on my previous review are really driving me crazy at this point. It does get warm, but I rarely use it on my lap.

The most surprising thing about having a MacBook is how mellow I am about the whole thing. Sure, it's great, fast, cutting edge hardware, and it works great. But the fact is, my iBook is still working great too, and even though the screen isn't as bright and apps take a few more bounces to open, it still feels peppy.

Heat wave

I hear it's pretty hot around the US. Ya'll need to visit the Bay Area. Sometimes it hits 80, but otherwise very comfortable lately.

Pandorific

I went to a Pandora meet-up in SF on Wednesday and listened to a surprisingly interesting history of the company from the founder, Tim Westergren. No, I'm not getting anything for mentioning them. I'm just a Pandora-branded-t-shirt-and-hat-wearing fan who happens to have a blog.

The Afterparty

I had invited a couple fellow Pandora enthusiasts I knew through work to the talk, and we decided to go out to a nearby bar afterwards. It was a great time. We had a couple brews each, talked about the next great web app (Bartendora, of course), and generally had a great time.

One of them (who is a particularly choice piece of man-meat, it seems) even attracted a girl sitting at a nearby table to come over and fawn over him for a while. It was greatly entertaining. Seeing my chance to impress the remaining females, I immediately tripped over my bag while getting up and fell on my face. Instant cool. Oh yeah.

Despite how much fun these guys are, we kind of work for the same entity, so outings like this aren't likely to be a habit. (Regardless, you can bet I won't be blogging about it.)

Un Año Mas

My landlord renewed my lease for another year, so I'm no longer a Bay Area freshman. I'm stoked that I don't have to cram everything into my car and go apartment hunting again. I like this one.

The boom is back

Rocketboom resumed broadcasting this week with a new interim host, Joanne Colan. Judging from her first few shots at hosting, I'm giving her a big thumbs up. She's comfortable in front of the camera, not above poking a little fun at the whole Amanda leaving mess, and she's got a lovely British accent (gets me every time). And any time you add Tiki Bar TV to anything, you have pure gold. I hope Joanne stays for a while.

Meanwhile, Amanda's blog says she's "working on an interim project with a certain insanely awesome videoblogger." This basically boils down to Ze Frank or Richard. (Please be Ze. Please be Ze.)

"Do not use the elevators"

This is what the intercom screamed at me last Sunday night as I was typing my previous entry. The dismembered voice did not immediately give a reason why we shouldn't use the elevators, nor did I necessarily feel the need to elevate myself at that particular moment. I continued typing, startled but undeterred.

The reason for the interruption became clear when a deafening buzzer went off a minute later. It seemed my building was on fire. Still wearing shorts from my 90-degree day in Napa Valley, I shuffled into some slippers and headed outside into the cold with my neighbors.

A few minutes later, not one, not two, but three full firetrucks rolled into the parking lot. While the guys in the hats and big coats scrambled up to save lives, I chatted with some neighbors. Two guys in their early 20s with scruffy hair were smoking cigarettes and laughing. I introduced myself, so did they, and we discovered we lived next door to each other. After talking about music, Macs, and the proper way to diagnose a failing hard drive, a firefighter came out with some bad news. They tried, but they couldn't revive the bag of popcorn on the fourth floor. We stumbled back inside.

Spam as folk art

Here are two spam messages I got this week. The first:

From: OrvalHanson@0451.com
Subject: MA1
Date: July 11, 2006 2:40:40 AM PDT

up and then straight down, and we're right by the garage. Huh?"
The gulls were flocked into the Council Gathering when he landed, and
"All right, let's heave-ho."
A moment later Jonathan's body wavered in the air, shimmering, and

Followed by...

From: LonnieCantu@0451.com
Subject: 3Y8
Date: July 11, 2003 2:52:41 AM PDT

doesn't depend on the person at all--it just flows and flows. And what
Jonathan sighed. The price of being misunderstood, he thought. They
You bet I did! Of course, he was just trying to humor me. The third
Jonathan Seagull was born to be an instructor, and his own way of

Each of these are excerpts from the short story "Jonathan Seagull" by Richard Bach. How did these end up as spam? What possible way could spammers benefit from its spread? Many have speculated over the meaning of similar cryptic junk mail (and some have obsessed). We may never know.

Women, wine, and song

Thus ends a weekend filled with cultural exploration.

On Saturday night, a friend and I attended Tosca in Walnut Creek. It was fantastic — the music, singing, orchestra, everything. My friend is an opera singer herself and thus had plenty of great gossip about the performers to pass the time during intermission, so it was an especially educational experience for me.

Today was a cultural experience of a different sort. My recently-reunited concert buddy Amanda and I took a trip to Napa Valley, where her brother is a beverage coordinator for a fancy culinary institute restaurant.

The weather in Napa was beautiful: highs in the 90s, and nothing but blue skies and grape vines as far as the eye can see. Traveling east in California always makes me realize how varied the microclimates around the Bay Area are. A one hour drive took me from 60 degree fog into a 90 degree heat wave. I'm very glad I checked out the weather before departing.

After walking around downtown Napa and stopping at some interesting stores, we ventured north along the Silverado Trail. We had an urge to take a winery tour and do some tasting, Sideways-style, but the ones we visited required appointments or were already closed for the day.

After some aimless driving through the vineyard-covered hills, we ended up sitting at the bar in her brother's restaurant. We soon found a wealth of samples in front of us: two kinds of beer, three kinds of wine, garlic soup, salmon tartar, grilled shrimp, and pate on a cracker. Add in plenty of warm bread and follow the whole thing with some kind of heavenly whiskey chocolate orange raspberry pie and you've got yourself a classy meal.

The best part, of course, was that the meal was offered to us at the inconceivably low staff price. I felt like I should be doing undercover research for a tacky book. We left a substantial tip in the hopes that karmic equilibrium may be restored. (And because of Jenny, our bartender. What is it with me and girls with that name?)

Let's get meta

I have frequent moments of insecurity about the state of my blog. It was started as simply a vehicle to tell stories of a college graduate in an unfamiliar place. I didn't tell anybody about it — my goal was to generate a readership based solely upon random search terms and word of mouth.

But as my stories got more interesting and emailing my friends and family became less and less appealing, I started to hand out the blog address to a few close friends. I shot myself in the foot somewhat, because I'm unable to blog as freely about certain people because some of them are also regular readers. But more critically, I'm constantly racing against my own perception of what is interesting and likely to hold my audience's attention. Is it concert reviews and mix tapes? Or geeky tech comparisons and local traffic tips?

Eventually I'll realize that the Nirvana of blogdom comes when you satisfy your own needs, not the needs of your audience. I'm much too green to admit that quite yet. But here are some blogs that are guiding me in the right direction:

Peace, Love, and Lutefisk

I lived with or near Scott throughout college, and he always seemed like the kind of guy who would go places. Now he's proving me right, literally. In the last year, he's been to Norway, most of Europe, and Nicaragua, not to mention the exotic fields of South Dakota. His writing shows a mature world view that has no business being in somebody so young. The stories aren't always uplifting (two separate muggings would convince me to stay inside with my doors locked, thank you), but they are always interesting.

Scourist

Along those same lines, there's a video blog called Scourist which I recently discovered when they successfully accomplished Ze Frank's challenge of creating an Earth Sandwich. After watching a few episodes, I was hooked. I have no idea how these two guys are able to afford the time and money required to travel the planet and produce an awesome video diary of their adventures, but they pull it off with panache.

Ze Frank

The Man himself. Ze puts out a new video each day, and whether he's dissecting the political news of the day, complaining about his local Starbucks, or singing jingles about spanking a giant baby, it's guaranteed to be side-splitting hilarious.

Rocketboom

I don't always like Rocketboom. Amanda is little bit too blue state for me at times, and she's frequently a little over-dramatic. But the quality of the material her and Andrew put out has been consistently better than most video blogs. They have a vision, and they stick to it, and the Internet community loves them for it.

Or did, rather. Amanda recently announced that she has parted ways with Rocketboom. Things are still up in the air about whether Amanda was fired or left for other reasons, but I'm confident we haven't heard the last from RB.

Daring Fireball

John Gruber writes about Mac Geekery for a living on this site. The jury is still out on whether he can actually scrape together enough ad revenue and membership dues to keep himself fed and housed, but the quality of his writing is of a caliber you don't typically find in tech journals. He picks apart current issues with such a methodical logic that one can't help but be compelled to read more. Perhaps his subject matter doesn't spark everybody's interest the way it does mine, but I hope I can soak up a fraction of his writing skills through my oft-clicked bookmark of his site.

We have sound

I'm not sure where I was in October of 2005 (it was before this blog, so I probably didn't exist yet), but I missed a great album release. Luckily, I've recently discovered We Have Sound, the danceable electro-rock album by Tom Vek, and it's climbing up my playcount chart at an alarming rate.

Although it's classified as indie rock, the album falls closer to the world of electronica at times, with Vek building lush landscapes of guitar, synth, and drums. The big difference between Vek and other artists within the genre is the severe lack of lead guitar. Each song is distinctively driven by the bass and drums, with occasional rhythm or environmental guitars in the background, and either falsetto melodic vocals or a droll Cake-like chant.

This technique is apparent in the first track, the radio-friendly "C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)." Franz Ferdinand seems to take over during the next song, the even-more-radio-friendly "I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes." "If You Want" keeps the album going, leading with an irresistable bass line that could be mistaken for Jamiroquai or Phoenix upon first listen. While the drums in most of his songs are repetitive and uninteresting, "Cover" is a notable exception with its syncopated beat that almost sounds like a real person played it (almost). Taking the drums, bass, and vocals together, the song is a dead ringer for Soul Coughing. (Which is a good thing by me.) "Nothing But Green Lights" starts with a garbled version of The Who's opening keyboard riff from Baba O'Riley and turns into a loopy dual between LCD Soundsystem and Talking Heads style vocals. Winding down, the album comes to "On the Road," which briefly channels Calexico with rich instrumentation, a dusty southwest beat, and a bit of a psychedelic atmosphere.

RIYL any of the artists mentioned above. Good stuff.

Controlled explosion as a metaphor for freedom

Happy Independence Day to all, and careful with those fireworks! Here's a 4th of July mix picked from the songs in my collection with "America" in their titles.

1. "American Idiot" by Green Day from American Idiot
2. "Surf Wax America" by Weezer from Weezer
3. "American Dream" by Better Than Ezra from Before The Robots
4. "American Way" by The Crystal Method from Legion Of Boom
5. "I'm Afraid Of Americans (feat. Nine Inch Nails)" by David Bowie
6. "This Is Not America (feat. The Pat Metheny Group)" by David Bowie
7. "Young Americans" by David Bowie, all from Best Of Bowie
8. "American Woman" by Lenny Kravitz from Greatest Hits
9. "Bleed American" by Jimmy Eat World from Bleed American
10. "Amerika" by Jaco Pastorius and Friends from The Birthday Concert

And the winner is: David Bowie.

Twenty-one hours

I've just returned from an extended weekend at friend's wedding in Florida. I won't share all the details, but it was a good time. The wedding itself was at a postcard-perfect location on a beach deck, the bride was absolutely stunning, and the reception was a lot of fun.

However, I am now somewhat less enamored of airports than I was a week ago. Here is a play-by-play of my day yesterday:

4:45 AM (Eastern) - Wake up at the hotel in Florida and prepare to leave for the airport. A friend has an 8:30 flight, and I'm the designated rental car driver, so it's my job to see she gets there.

7:00 AM - Arrive at the airport and return the rental car. They process payment without any additional hassle and even let us know they'll clean out the trash for us, no problem. So far so good.

8:30 AM - My friend gets to her flight and is on her way. I settle down in a quiet corner of the terminal and curl up on the floor hoping to catch a quick nap. I wake up every 15 minutes when the intercom reminds us all that Florida is a non-smoking state and that we shouldn't leave our baggage unattended and would Vincent Carter please get on his damn plane.

10:40 AM - My flight to Atlanta is scheduled to leave at 11:20, so I head over to the gate hoping to board shortly. Upon arrival, I discover that the gate has changed. No problem. I walk to the other side and wait with a crowd of people.

11:00 AM - Without warning, a Delta representative announces that our flight has been cancelled, but we might be able to catch another at 6:00 PM. Many people's heads explode with frustration, and a large industrial vacuum is brought in to clean up the mess. The anxious travelers form a line at the Delta counter that stretches halfway around the terminal. I find a seat by an electrical outlet, turn on my iBook, and start watching Star Trek movies. I knew I'd certainly miss my connecting flight to San Francisco, but I remained calm. I paid Delta quite a bit of money for these tickets, so I was confident that they'd either find me an alternative or give me freebies.

11:20 AM - The Delta rep gets on the intercom again with some good news. They've found an empty 767 and they're flying it in now specifically to take us to Atlanta. (Was this plane empty for a reason? Perhaps we should make sure it has all of its parts first...)

11:40 AM - Back to the other gate. Every single person who was formerly in line at the gate counter sprinted across the terminal, lining up in nearly reverse order at the new counter. I sat down and continued watching my movie.

12:00 PM - The rep announced that the flight number for this new plane was changing, and therefore everybody would have to be processed and issued new boarding passes. The heads of people who had just finished standing in line exploded. Departure time for this flight was set to 12:45.

12:15 PM - Boarding time had arrived, and there was one key piece missing — no plane was present at the gate. The line still stretched for about 50 yards, and I had no intention of standing in it. I went to get lunch.

12:45 PM - When I came back from lunch, the plane's departure time had mysteriously changed to 1:40 PM. I got in the now-shorter line, holding a pizza in one hand and my useless boarding pass in the other.

1:15 PM - Upon reaching the front of the line, the agent gave me new boarding passes not only for this flight, but also a connecting flight to San Francisco out of Atlanta. See? I knew they'd take care of it.

2:30 PM - After an hour-long boarding process, the half-full plane finally leaves for Atlanta.

4:30 PM - My connecting flight to San Francisco is significantly more full, and I have the worst seat ever — row 47, all the way in the back, right in the middle. I spot an open window seat just before departure and sneak my way into it.

6:30 PM - It was definitely the bumpiest flight I've been on. I've got no problem with turbulence — I love to fly, and I think the bumps make it a little more real. But the heavy thunderstorms in the Midwest and over the Rockies made us go quite a bit farther south than our original course, adding more than an hour to our flight time. My iPod had inconveniently been packed into my checked luggage, so there was nothing to do but look at the giant clouds below, watch the in-flight movie without sound, or try to sleep. Neither was successful for more than 10 minutes at a time.

6:35 PM Pacific (9:35 PM Eastern) - Three hours later, we finally touch down in San Francisco. I rush to the baggage claim area and herd around the carousel with the rest of the passengers.

7:00 PM - My bag is nowhere to be seen, and as the carousel finally stops turning, I head to the baggage claim office. They don't know where my bag is either, but they suggest waiting until the next flight from Atlanta comes in at 8:00. I find a seat and watch yet another Star Trek movie.

8:15 PM - The carousel starts up again, and my bag eventually rolls out. I take the AirTrain to BART and get the heck out of there before something else is delayed.

9:00 PM - I had forgotten that BART trains south of Daly City are a rarity in the evenings. One finally arrived, and I continued watching movies on my iBook. (Watching the warp rocket launch scene in Star Trek First Contact while tunnel lights fly by at 70 miles per hour and the tracks rattle below you is a neat experience, and I highly recommend you try it.)

10:30 PM - A train transfer later, I arrived at the nearest BART station. The bus which would normally take me home had stopped running, so I grabbed a cab.

10:40 PM - Realizing I had no cash, I have the cabbie make a stop at the nearest ATM.

10:45 PM Pacific (1:45 AM Eastern) - Finally home, 21 hours after waking up.