Update

After a few days, I can safely say I didn't catch any diseases from the woman who sat next to me on the airplane, coughing violently the entire 13 hours from Los Angeles to Auckland. That was lovely. Thankfully, there is very little time zone adjustment in flying from the West Coast to New Zealand. I recommend flying out at night. I hopped on the plane at 8:30pm in Los Angeles, fell asleep, woke up in the morning one day ahead in New Zealand. Imagine staying up slightly past your bedtime. That's what it takes to adjust to New Zealand time. I hit the ground running.

Auckland is like Seattle. Both are coastal towns. Both have high rates of boats per capita, though the boats in Auckland are nicer. There's an entire harbor full of super yachts (this is an official term referring to yachts over some obscene length, I think it's 92 meters or something like that). Larry Ellison's super yacht Katana was docked there, with his minions scrambling around all day to keep it polished and gleaming. Auckland has a tall, artificial structure called the Sky Tower. It's slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower. Seattle has the Space Needle. They look alike and have circular restaurants about 2/3's of the way up.

Auckland has the Victoria Park Market, which is like Seattle's Pike Place Market, except without the good restaurants and fresh fruit, vegetables, and seafood. In other words, a junk bazaar. The people in both cities are extremely laid back. Both have plots of land across the water. Seattle has West Seattle and Bainbridge Island. Auckland has Devonport and Rangitoto (sp?) Island.

The weather has been perfect. 70's, sunny, very mild humidity. The sun will cook you to a crisp--one bus driver said it was because the many cows on the island produced enough methane to punch a hole in the ozone layer. I can't say I mind and hope the weather holds.

A few things I can't get used to yet. This whole "driving on the other side of the road, steering wheel on the other side of the car" deal has me befuddled. Have I gotten so old that I can't learn new tricks? I stand at roads, looking both ways, afraid to cross for fear some car will appear from some unanticipated direction to run me over. On a related note, the sequence of the Walk/No-Walk signs is difficult to figure out. Crossing-the-street has proved to be the most challenging extreme sport I've done yet.

That Sky Tower? I jumped off of it. 192 meters. They put you in a jumpsuit and attach you to two cables, then they toss you off of a platform that's outside the observation deck. It's a controlled descent, but still, I found it terrifying. My legs were jelly out there on the platform. I'm not sure why. I think it was because it was like jumping off of a building and committing suicide, with all the city buildings around me to measure my descent. Much more frightening than bungy jumping in Africa, at least until I had fallen half way. For those of you in Seattle who wish to imagine what it's like, go up to the top of the Space Needle, climb up about halfway up the needle, walk out to the edge of a plank, and throw yourself off.

Everyone has a cute Kiwi or Australian accent. Occasionally I have no idea what they're saying to me, and after asking them to repeat themselves I'll just nod and smile. I've met very few Americans thus far, which might be a good thing. Every newspaper's headlines sport a large portrait of Dubya with headlines like "Bush Pushes for War" and "Prime Minister Urges Kiwis to Leave Iraq".

I saw the movie Whale Rider on opening night with a theater full of Kiwis. It's about a Maori tribe looking for a leader in modern times. Very fun to see it with the Kiwis, most of whom were teary-eyed by movie's end. I highly recommend the movie which focuses on the usual challenges in retaining cultural identity in the modern age (hint: eliminating some of the patriarchal and sexist attitudes towards women are a good start). The lead, 12 year old Keisha Castle-Hughes, is adorable.

The languorous pace of life takes some getting used to. At times I'm at a loss as to what to do next. For now, I'm headed out to the beach here in Paihia to soak in some rays by the warm, blue-green waters of the Bay of Islands. The beautiful sun makes even lazing around on the beach an acceptable activity. I hope to achieve the preternatural calm and zen of the models in flight safety movies as they illustrate how to inflate their life vests as their planes plummet into the ocean.

G'day mates, as my new Aussie friends would say.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:20 PM | link

A few parting thoughts

Activity here on my site will be light for a while. In a few hours I'm off to Auckland, New Zealand on a Qantas flight. If you need to reach me, drop me a line at my personal e-mail address. From time to time I'm sure to cross an Internet terminal. Send me your physical address if you'd like a postcard.

I'm here in L.A. and the weather is insanely beautiful. I've forgotten what it's like, the smell of a dry summer day, 80 degree weather. It's really the smell that I miss the most, the fresh spring air. I can't remember the last time my nose was this tickled, though I suspect there will be more of that in New Zealand. I'll miss friends and family on my travels, but I won't miss the rain in Seattle, the biting cold in Chicago and Boston and NYC. This time of year I'm all about the Southern hemisphere, and it's amazing how much the warm weather has elevated my spirits and relaxed me body and soul. In fact, I awoke with a head full of ideas today. A small business idea came to mind this morning and I jotted some notes on it this afternoon. Maybe a business plan will accompany me on my flight back.

I'm beginning to acclimate to life outside the office. I've had a form of post-work anxiety this past week, and being in a warm weather climate, away from everything, is helping to ease me into my vacation. The first few days I slept so much I thought I was sick. Maybe my body just needed re-charging. I suspect my mind gave my body leeway to sleep in. When I'm working my body clock just wakes me up at a certain point each day, and that imperative has disappeared. I wonder if people have done studies on this.

I was flipping through my travel books this morning and started getting really excited about all the things to do once I'm there. Everyone I run into is surprised I'm traveling by myself, but really, everyone else is working or in school so it wasn't much of a choice. Once you try it, you realize it's not all that intimidating. And at the end of this trip is another one to Rio with Phil who was a trooper and secured us a great hotel on the beach.

While I was here in L.A., Howie took me to try Fatburger, reputed to be better than In-N-Out, one of my past favorite burger joints. You know what? Fatburger is really good.

Missed most of the Superbowl (it's a really good time to fly, by the way) but I was really surprised at the line (Raiders favored by 4) because their coach of the past several years was on the opposite sideline. Gruden helped engineer and run his opponents and knew them inside out, their tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. Know thine enemy.

I wish I had more time to get a few photos from Xmas 2002 posted before leaving, but packing and preparing for a trip of this length took a lot more time than I thought it would. Bills to pre-pay, all sorts of services to cancel. Managed to get a few up, though. I also grabbed a book for the road, West With the Night. Rave review from Hemingway. Can't wait to read it.

What a wide world! See you all in a month.
posted by Eugene Wei at 4:15 PM | link

Imitation

I was looking at applying for a passport renewal (all my Visa pages are filled) and found this site. Hmm, the design looks familiar, huh?
posted by Eugene Wei at 4:39 PM | link

And so it begins...

On my 29th birthday, I gave myself...a 3 month leave of absence from work. Mostly what I feel is overwhelmed by all the possibilities. I'm ready to just start diving into everything, but first I need to slow down and get a plan in place. My appetite for life is bigger than my stomach for it all.

Mom and Dad sent me a book from my wishlist called Setting Up Your Shots: Great Camera Moves Every Filmmaker Should Know. I think I'll stay up late glancing through that, all while blasting my favorite version of La Boheme, my favorite opera. Everytime I listen to it I feel like I'm waltzing through some crowded, festive European street, falling in love with the world. What I most treasure having again is the time to stay up late reading. So many books, so much time. Who would've thought.

Regret minimization--that's the framework for living life which Jeff always talks about. I don't regret this one bit.

Irony

George Bush passed a bill through Congress yesterday that replaced all affirmative action programs in education, business, and government with pure meritocratic systems. Today he was replaced as the President of the United States.

Condi, Colin, and George and affirmative action

The whole Michigan affirmative action flap is intriguing for having revealed a spectrum of opinions among the Republican party. George is against the affirmative action system at Michigan, while Colin Powell is for it. Condoleeza Rice? Stands behind George Bush, though no one knows what she herself thinks.

Condi is a tough lady. When she was the Stanford Provost I heard her address an entire room of angry students who were protesting something having to do with treatment of minority students. She held her ground and shot down a few students with some sharp words. She's an imposing and impressive speaker in person. Still, I get the sneaking suspicion she's always serving, never acting on her own or willing to stand on her own merits.

Affirmative action and issues of race are the most intriguing of America's issues because people on each side of the debate either view it as the most American or most un-American of policies. American because it encourages diversity and creates opportunity for those who might not otherwise receive such opportunity, or un-American because it judges people by more than just pure merit and diminishes opportunity for some. When I debate the issue with my friends, most of whom are very tolerant and accepting people, it's easy to see where both sides come from.

I myself am in favor of affirmative action, for many reasons. First of all, I'm really shocked that more people aren't outraged that Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond, overtly racist senators, held their posts until just recently with little or no press coverage. For years they were among the most influential leaders of this country. I'll admit I didn't know much about Lott, though I knew Thurmond because he was such a fossil. We are naive to think that racial discrimination doesn't pervade the most hallowed corridors of this country. That Bush would actually curry votes by speaking at a school that bans inter-racial dating and get away with it indicates perhaps that we've become too complacent about racism.

Trent Lott's speech at Thurmond's birthday didn't draw a lot of coverage by the mainstream press in the days after. A bunch of bloggers were the first to jump on it and draw attention to his incendiary quips. Maybe the nation thinks that listening to rap music and seeing folks like Eminem adopt black culture indicates that we've achieved some racially integrated nirvana.

Secondly, the most common argument against affirmative action is that it allows students with lower SAT scores to take positions from students with higher SAT scores. I've yet to meet one intelligent person who considers the SAT an accurate gauge of their intelligence, let alone the worthiness of others to attend a school or bring something of value to that community. Strangely enough, we find it's absolutely okay to allow someone in with an absurdly low SAT score if he/she can throw a football accurately or play basketball really well. Because of course they contribute so much to the campus before they take off after two years without a degree to make their millions in the pros. Everyone always seems to think affirmative action means hiring a bunch of uneducated, incompetent minorities into positions which they're unsuited for. In fact, studies have been done on college admissions which show that being it's often the environment which foster students' performance more than their own individual talents. In a groundbreaking study which researchers have been unable to replicate (for obvious reasons), a statistically significant percentage of the entering class at a college in Texas were chosen specifically from the bottom 10% of that year's applicants. Researchers followed their performance over the next four years and compared it with that of their classmates, who were hand selected by the admissions committee and deemed to the most promising of that year's applicant pool. It turned out that the students from the bottom 10% of the applicant pool were, by any conventional set of measures, much more successful than their other classmates.

Third, everyone argues that affirmative action is not perfect, that occasionally some white, American male will be shafted, and that therefore it needs to be abolished. To argue this point assumes that all admission programs, interview processes, and all such programs are perfect. If anyone knows of such a perfect hiring program, please let me know. I'll pass it along to Amazon, they'll hire nothing but the exact best people for the rest of this century and the worth of my stock options will rise a hundred fold and I'll retire to some foreign country with the title of Sultan.

I do think some instances of affirmative action are too severe. But to accuse affirmative action of being as bad as the problem it attempts to cure is intellectually lazy. Affirmative action achieves more good than bad. To compare it to racism, with the trail of tears and tragedy and bloodshed it has left behind our country's footsteps, is some type of math in which someone missed a few decimal points.

Projection keyboards

One of the latest cutting-edge technologies is the projection keyboard, for use with PDAs. Red lasers project an image of a keyboard on any flat surface, and you can type on it. Personally, I think these will be less than ideal because typing depends so much on tactile feedback to know where to place your fingers, when you've made a mistake. But for big buttons and switches it would be convenient. For example, if I could just project some volume controls on my desk for my stereo at home, or light switches for all the lights in my room, I wouldn't need to wander around my room while working.

More man vs. machine

Garry Kasparov is challenging Deep Junior to a chess match this Sunday. Amazingly, you can buy Deep Junior for home use and stage your own epic battle of man versus machine. You can even buy a copy of Deep Fritz, which battled world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik to a draw in October.

Sometime if you're really feeling lousy, something you can do to cheer yourself up is to go into an online chess site and challenge someone to a match. Then turn on Deep Junior or Deep Fritz in the background and have the program play your opponent while you use all of Deep Junior and Deep Fritz's moves. After you've kicked some uppity chess nerd's ass, you'll feel a strange sensation come across your face. A smile.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:42 PM | link

Writing reviews

One of the last things I have to do at work is complete a lot of employee reviews. I've been writing them for days now. I spent pretty much all day today working on them.

I take writing reviews seriously, and perhaps it's no surprise that I get writer's block while writing them just as I do when writing fiction. I also get the same pleasure from producing an insightful turn of words, or an appropriate metaphor or descriptive phrase. Writers take pride in everything they write, from e-mails to reviews to postcards and letters.

All this typing this past week is killing my fingers, though. My wrists are really sore.

Nephew

My new nephew Ryan...

Comedy

I caught bits and pieces of my first real episode of Joe Millionaire today. Unintentional comedy cubed. I'm not sure if Fox can keep this going because future contestants will know the premise, but this is reality TV executed at a very high level (some people will see that as taking us one step closer to the end of humanity).

So many things on this show crack me up. First of all, Joe is clearly no millionaire. I'm not sure what type of training they put him through, but it's hilarious to hear him butchering French words, gagging over fancy foods like foie gras, and saying things in his soliloquys like "And watching two women doing the tango, that lifted my spirits." I think he was supposed to have come into the money late in life, which is supposed to explain his lack of suavity and savoir-faire. By letting the audience in on the secret, a Hitchcockian device, we can laugh at his inability to hold his wealth.

Secondly, what's up with that goofy butler? His random and occasional unsolicited commentary is unseemly for a butler (hasn't he read the stories about Princess Di's tight-lipped butler?), and there's something salacious about him.

Thirdly...I can't remember what else I thought was funny. Maybe it's not that funny a show after all. Joe (whatever his name is) does seem like a pretty down-to-earth, nice guy. His commentary seems pretty heartfelt. To see him exploited in this way on the show does leave the viewer feeling guilty, and the catty, gold-digging female contestants won't inspire much faith in humanity.

Still, I have to laugh at the people who fret over reality TV and its influence over society. People have loved to revel in the faults of others since they could communicate. This can't compare to the conversation in an old Victorian salon.

Down with Love

Trailer for a new romance starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. Period design (I'm thinking Catch Me If You Can, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) seem to be in. Zellweger seems to be hanging out, knocking on the door of the elite tier of money-making actresses. The romantic comedy route seems to be her best bet, as opposed to the gravitas of, say, Nicole Kidman or Julianne Moore.

Spam

A whole bunch of brainy geeks met at MIT recently to discuss solutions to spam. As long as smart people are peeved enough about receiving spam to work on the problem. there's hope that one day our inboxes will be free. To date I've been too lazy to try whitelisting, so I'm hoping filters will continue to improve. I used Cloudmark's SpamNet plugin for MS Outlook and it works fairly well.

Still, it's not perfect, and some of the material from the conference sounds very promising. Paul Graham gave a follow up to his fascinating article "A Plan for Spam" which proposed using Bayesian filtering on the likelihood that single words appear in spam mails versus regular mails. If you know the word viagra is appears in spam mail 99.9% of the time and in a regular e-mail only .1% of the time, finding it in a message is very damning. His follow-up, Better Bayesian Filtering, has some thoughts on how to improve his filters. Very interesting, readable articles since Bayes' law is understandable to even those who only took intro to probability. Clever.

Even more promising is Bill Yerazunis' CRM114. With some training, it has achieved accuracies of 99.9%. It's available for free for those reading e-mail on Linux or BSD. If you use Outlook on Windows, Network Associates recently bought Deersoft and plans to merge SpamAssassin Pro with their own McAfee SpamKiller. CRM114 can be used with SpamAssassin.

I still think strong legislation against spammers is needed. It's not as if the spam I receive is useful advertising. Usually it's so evidently disguised to try and get me to visit a porn site (spammers now disguise their e-mail as personal messages, using language like, "Hey, I finished that web page you asked about. Check it out: [insert porn URL]") that it clealry crosses some ethical line. And when you just receive overt pornography in spam it's just plain offensive. Either way, I'd love to see spammers nailed with big lawsuits and jail time.

Of course, the ugly truth is also that enough people click on these sex ads and marketing offers that spamming remains profitable, and perhaps that's the saddest truth in all of this.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:15 PM | link

Pot roast

I received a slo-cooker (aka crock pot) recently and put it to use yesterday. I made a pot roast.

Turned out okay though the flavor needs more salt and is too tomato-ey. Also, I was impatient so I cooked it on high and the meat is on the tough side for a roast. I'll adjust the recipe next time, but the thing with a slo-cooker is you have to spend about ten days finishing each dish.

You gotta pay to play

Bummer. Baseball Prospectus is going to start charging for most of its content. $39.95 for a year's worth.

Web subscriptions are pricey (Salon charges $30 per year for an ad-free subscription). Compare that with $24.95 for a year's subscription to a print magazine like The New Yorker and it seems expensive. Compare it to the cost of 2 or 3 CDs in which only 33% of the songs are memorable and it doesn't seem so bad.

Groovy

Groove Armada has a new CD out--Lovebox. Releases on my birthday. As if I needed an excuse to buy it for myself. Right.

Can I get any more real?

Thank goodness I'm leaving this country for a month. Otherwise I'd be overdosing on reality. Joe Millionaire on Monday. American Idol and The Real World on Tuesday. The Bachelorette on Wednesday. Without reality TV, how often would be able to feel superior to our petty, conniving, fellow men and women?
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:35 PM | link

Piano Teacher

Finished watching The Piano Teacher, a Netflix rental, on DVD. It's a movie that you can only imagine the French making. Or perhaps the Japanese. No one in America would. And I could only imagine Isabelle Huppert playing the lead. To take a role like this ensures you'll never get a shot at a romantic comedy, and she's okay with that.

The movie won all the major awards at Cannes in 2001--best movie, best actress, best actor. Plays like modern or contemporary art: serious, intellectual, unflinching, pedantic. In other words, even though I think it's a really good movie, I'd only recommend it to one or two of my friends, and they're the ones that none of my other friends like.

Huppert's cold, precise disciplinarian of a piano teacher reminded me of every frightening music teacher I've ever had. You wonder how great musicians like Itzhak Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma endure years of harsh competition and training to emerge with such cheerful personalities. I, for one, would crack like a glass going from hot to cold.

I, Robot

Crippled by the upgrade to Windows XP, my computer can no longer play any sounds. It can only beep. It takes me back to the days when the only sound a computer would make was a beep, when it encountered an error, for example. Windows XP is Tereus, and it cut the tongue out of my computer, Philomena. Now all my computer can do is grunt at me like an idiot.

Giant squid

These people don't know how lucky they are. To be attacked by a giant squid? That's straight out of Jules Verne. Someday I'd like to see one alive, in person. Do they hang out in the Great Barrier Reef?

Not bad

Yao vs. Shaq, round one. Yao acquitted himself alright. The first few minutes of the game were awesome. First series. Shaq wins the tip, then immediately posts Yao up and calls for the ball. Shaq spins baseline to throw up a shot, and Yao stuffs him. At the other end, they immediately go to Yao on the left block. Jump hook is good, and the crowd at Compaq center goes crazy. Two more Yao blocks of Shaq shots and a Yao layup in transition and I'm waving a towel in the air.

Settled down from there. Yao has handled his public persona (or is that really his personality?) beautifully. He graciously sought the high ground and brushed off Shaq's silly comments, and in doing so he came out looking like a dignified veteran forgiving the silliness of a brash young kid when Shaq is actually his senior by many years.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:09 PM | link

Peace out

Not officially my last day at work today, but next Monday and Tuesday are just wrap up. Most e-mails I received at the office today were ones I could just delete without reading. It was a fairly uneventful day, really. Just like any other.

They do a couple things well to encourage you to return to work. They leave your office up, let you keep your e-mail address and phone number. It's very smart, actually, because the act of packing things up gives the whole event a finality, creating a psychological barrier.

I feel like I'm letting out for summer break.

The man formerly known as Rich

Went to a drink night at Brasa to toast Rich and Christina on their engagement. As more and more of the boys get engaged or become fathers, I realize the meaning and importance of the term "boys night out." You really have to grab those moments when you get them. Maybe it's because I'm following along the whole way there, but I really have no idea when they flip. They still seem the same, but suddenly there's this whole other side to their personality, the sensitive side they keep hidden away while in the company of men.

Those rings must be like the ring in Lord of the Rings. Everyone claims to want to go toss it into the cracks of Mt. Doom to destroy it, but then it seizes hold of their minds and drives them crazy so they put it on and get married.

Please, please, people. I'm just joking. On the positive side, I look forward to several kickin' bachelor parties this year.

Cast Away

Went out with Scott and the boys to dinner last night. He was back from his cross-country bike ride and had a beard that he'd grown during the trip. He looked like this.

Drob-nee-yax

Peja Drobnjak of the Seattle Supersonics has his own web page. The NBA must be getting desperate. Who will they market next?

Top 10 lists

Everyone's publishing their top 10 movie lists. I would, too, except I still haven't seen a lot of movies that qualify as 2002 releases. Harry Knowles' list ranks Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance at the top. Interesting. I passed on seeing it at the Seattle International Film Festival. Too bad. Film fests are all a crapshoot. I wish they'd let you watch trailers for all the movies before you fill out your film festival ticket requests.

Ebert's top 10 list puts Minority Report at the top. Good movie, but best of the year? Ebert's getting soft.

A.O. Scott, Stephen Holden, Elvis Mitchell, and Dave Kehr of the NYTimes all published their lists a short while ago. The only movie in common among all four of them? Talk to Her.

Has anyone seen it yet? I've spoken to lots of women who didn't enjoy it, which is really surprising for a Pedro movie.

Hi-def miniDV camcorder

Supposedly, JVC is coming out with a hi-def mini DVD camcorder! No model # listed, though. I'm itching to get myself a Panasonic DVX1000, but if the rumors are true, and if the camera shot in true 16 x 9, then I'd be tempted to wait.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:26 PM | link

Talk show hierarchy

The best talk show hosts, in order:

1. Jon Stewart


2. Conan O'Brien


3. David Letterman


4. Jay Leno

Of course, if Larry Sanders qualified (Bravo is airing two reruns a day, bless its heart), he'd be near the top.

The quest ends

I finally finished re-reading The Lord of the Rings. Imaginative, yes, though not the most well-written story ever. Not one of my favorites, but after having read over a thousand fine print pages you do feel a certain sadness when it ends, the same type of nostalgia you feel at your high school graduation, the same type of accomplishment you feel having finished a long bike ride through the rain.

And then you move on and wait for the The Return of the King to come out. In this case, I prefer the movies to the books.

Locker 114

Last night, I finally had a dream that I wasn't sure I'd ever have. It's the opposite of the dream in which you're rushing to a class you haven't studied for all quarter, the one in which you don't even know your locker # or, even if you could find your locker, what the combination is.

I'm at a school. The hallways are empty. All the other students are already in class, but that's okay. I'm not late for a class--I'm on a different schedule (could the other students be my coworkers, who aren't on leaves of absence?). I've got a black sports bag slung over my shoulder, and it's filled with books. Everything is quiet.

I go to a locker I think is mine, and then I remember that it's not mine. No, my locker has changed. My locker number is 114. When I realize this, I'm filled with happiness and start sprinting down the hall, watching the numbers count down from the 140's to the 130's to the 120's all the way down to 114. It's the last locker before the row of lockers ends and stands next to a classroom door.

What's more, I know the combination the padlock. Instead of just numbers, this padlock has a series of words and numbers and symbols on it. The combination is a short and cryptic phrase, and when I dial it on the padlock the entire lock not only opens but cracks in half. I open the locker door and push my bag inside. There is a small upper shelf which holds some notebooks and file folders filled with papers, and I begin rifling through those to pull the materials relevant to my next class which I think is a history class. I'm not entirely sure what we're studying today but I don't feel the desperation I feel when I know a final exam awaits. I'll be ready.

And then I woke up. 114 has to stand for January 14th, which is both Hanh and Lynna's birthday, a date which just passed. Subconsciously, I must have realized I missed their birthdays.

This is a real breakthrough.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:40 AM | link

Xmas 2002

I've been meaning to collect and edit my notes from my Christmas break this past year. It was a blast. But until then, you can take a look at a short music video I made from some footage all of us shot on my camcorder over break. Editing on the Mac is fun!

Digging for gold

The product selection in Amazon's Gold Box is getting better and better. If you haven't logged into Amazon to check it recently, you should check once a day (you only see it if you have a customer account at Amazon and are logged in with your cookies enabled so that our site can recognize you). In recent days I've received a ton of tempting offers. $600 off a Canon XL1S camcorder, $60 of a 5GB Mac iPod, $30 off some Motorola Talkabouts (which I redeemed), and 36% discounts off of a whole bunch of DVDs (unfortunately I've owned all of them already). Since I used to get the vibrating mole chaser about once every other day in my Gold Box, this is a huge step.

They keep pullin' me back in

This week has been insane, as is to be expected. So many things to wrap up at work, a hundred peer reviews and employee evaluations to write, not the least of which would be my own. Maybe that will be something I do while I'm on vacation.

I'm still nervous about starting my leave. Part of it may be that it's been so long since I didn't have a job or student ID to identify myself by, and maybe part of me feels guilty for taking a break. Most people my age don't just up and travel around the world, and my personality struggles with idle time.

Every week I feel calmer, though. The keys will be to stay extremely busy, never feel entitled to anything (other than the usual life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness stuff), and to be as brave as possible.

Life is too short not to surround ourselves with the most courageous people and to seek to match their courage. I need to not be afraid to be jobless and to have free time, and the easiest way to cure that is to define my life's job differently and to fill my free time with personal projects. Fortunately, a growing part of me finds the whole prospect exhilarating.

I may have to extend my last day of work out to next Tuesday. Whether that's my last day of work at Amazon ever or just for a few months is up in the year, but tonight as I left the office late, walking by the cleaning man as he vacuumed the hallways, I thought, "Ah, this is the way I'd like to leave Amazon someday." Stay late to wrap things up, until no one is left in the office but me. Take a few pictures down from the wall, pack up my last few personal items into a box, take one last glance around before turning off the lights in my office, and walk out into the night by myself.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:39 PM | link

Carnival: the dream is alive!

Phil called late tonight (really late for him, considering he was on the East Coast). My boy came through. Tickets to Rio for Carnival for himself and a friend. The game is afoot. Or, as they say in some parts, it is on. Now we just have to find a place to stay.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:58 PM | link

The burning flames

Every year in the NFL playoffs, especially when a game is held in Green Bay, a commentator will allude to the "frozen tundra". From dictionary.com:
tundra: A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation such as lichens, mosses, and stunted shrubs.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:09 AM | link

Carnival: the dream that was

My dream of visiting Rio for Carnival is disintegrating. All my wing men are dropping like flies, to marriage, kids, the types of things I don't really think about. I'm starting to realize what it means to only get to see the guys on the occasional guys night out because that's about how often I see them now. Well, it is what it is. No use raging against this machine. There's always next year.

The chase dream

This is my last week of work before I begin my personal leave (I've been told not to use the word sabbatical, though I'm not certain why). I feel calmer than about this than I did a few weeks ago, yet last night I had another pseudo-nightmare. I think it's related to my impending leave, but who knows? All I know is I've had lots of anxious dreams in recent weeks.

Last night's was a scene out of some bad movie, or maybe it was peeled off of an impression of Some Like It Hot, left over from Xmas break. I was standing on the ledge of some building (no idea why, as is typical in dreams) and looked down to witness a violent gunfight in the street. A whole bunch of men, standing around cars, shooting each other with machine guns. One group seemed to win out, led by a guy who looked like Peter Stormare (the guy who offs Steve Buscemi in Fargo). Then the Stormare character spots me on the roof and starts shooting bazookas at me. Debris is flying everywhere. I jump onto the roof of the building and head to the back of the building where I run down a fire escape into the courtyard and take off for cover. I spot two other guys, doing the same thing. Apparently they witnessed the gangland execution as well, and now we're all marked men.

I hope a few fences, run between a few buildings, and suddenly I'm out on the sidewalk by a beach. A few folks rollerblade or walk by. The ocean glimmers at the edge of the beach, reflecting the light of a high noontime sun. I start walking as casually as possible, trying not to draw attention to myself.

Suddenly I spot a suspicious looking character. He looks like a Tibetan monk. He's staring at me intently. I get this feeling that he's probably working for the Stormare character, and he's got his suspicions. He asks me what I'm doing out here. I say I'm just catching some afternoon sun. I ask him what business it is of his. He just smiles and turns to walk away. Then he turns to look over his shoulder and sees the look on my face. All at once we both realize we've got the goods on each other. We take off sprinting in opposite directions. I'm not sure who he's going to alert, but I'm not sticking around to find out.

I feel the heat coming over my shoulder. Then I'm awake.

Fresh-thinking baseball GMs

There's a small but influential contingent of so called sabermetric general managers in baseball now. Theo Epstein, 28 year old whiz kid and new GM of the Boston Red Sox. J. J. Ricciardi, GM of the Blue Jays, and one-time disciple of the most renowned of the group, Oakland GM Billy Beane. You have to be psyched if you're a Red Sox fan because of the brains in the front office, from owner John Henry to president Larry Lucchino to Epstein to Bill James, and the deep pockets which someone like Billy Beane will never have access to in Oakland. Let's hope these guys are successful, because they may just overturn some conventional thinking and herd behavior in baseball.

For example, sabermetricians have long wondered why all teams insist on finding one pitcher to serve as a closer when so few pitchers have the skills to justify that kind of responsibility. The Red Sox will take that heart this year as they plan to go with closer by committee. Hopefully the Cubs will have the sense to do the same, though I doubt Dusty Baker, spoiled by years of signaling for Rob Nenn, will have such wisdom.

The Big Anti-Aristotle

John Hollinger writes in his weekly CNNSI column:
"Tell Yao Ming, 'ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" That's what Shaquille O'Neal said six months ago, but this week it ignited a firestorm after a columnist for AsianWeek complained about it. Shaq insisted the comments weren't racist, saying, "At times I try to be a comedian." At times Shaq tries to be a rapper too, and it works out about as well.

Shaq: great player, lousy interview, lousy actor, lousy rapper, terrible dresser, and let's add ignorant to that list now. It's unlikely to happen, but let's hope Yao takes him to school (and teaches Shaq some Chinese) this Friday.

Kids, don't feed the fat man

One thing about heading off for a leave of absence: it's tough to manage your diet, because everyone takes you out to eat to all your favorite restaurants. Dinner Friday was at Malay Satay Hut (a fascinating blend of Asian cuisines), Sunday was Le Pichet courtesy of Eric and Christina (the roast chicken entree and chicken terrine appetizer are to die for, and the wine menu is first class), and tonight my team took me to Tango (a rotating menu of tapas, always tasty, and half price bottles of wine on Monday nights). I'm supposed to do attend another dinner Tuesday night but I think I'll have to beg off one night to get an angioplasty.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:39 PM | link

3,764 miles

Scott called on Saturday. He finished his bike ride from Florida to San Diego. 3,764 miles! What a stud. That's more miles than I drove in my car last year. Scott should swing by our place soon, and when he does I'll be tempted to ask him if he wants to go for a bike ride, and I can't tell if that will be funny or not.

Speaking of which I finally saw one of those anti-SUV ads which blame SUVs for funding terrorists. Yes, there are lots of reasons why we'd all be better off with fewer SUVs on the roads. SUVs have proven to cause more auto fatalities (studies have shown that SUVs don't make you any safe, and at the same time people who aren't in SUVs are more likely to die when you hit them with your massive vehicle), they do get much worse gas mileage, and that does contribute in part to America sending money to Iraq and Saudi Arabia which are terrorist friendly nations. Still, the reactions of most people who've seen the ads lead me to believe that the shock value may turn off too many people to be effective in motivating action.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:30 AM | link

Best Seattle restaurants

Andaluca
Le Pichet
Cedars
Salumi's
Red Mill
Cafe Juanita
Harvest Vine

Next tier:
Eva Wine and Restaurant Bar
Saito's
Flying Fish
Palace Kitchen
Shanghai Garden
Malay Satay
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:04 AM | link

Antwone Fisher

"Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own?
Who will cry for the little boy? He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy? He never had for keeps.
Who will cry for the little boy? He walked the burning sand.
Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man.
Who will cry for the little boy? Who knows well hurt and pain.
Who will cry for the little boy? He died and died again.
Who will cry for the little boy? A good boy he tried to be.
Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me?"
- Antwone Fisher

Hi-def TIVO

Hi-def TIVO would be sweet, though I'll believe it once I see it. My first PVR was a ReplayTV which didn't work quite right. It was a free sample, though, so I can't complain. Then I bought a modified TIVO (didn't want to pay TIVO's monthly subscription so I bought one with a paid lifetime subscription) and modified it by adding a huge hard drive to give myself more recording space.

I hear people say that the reason PVR's don't sell well is that they're hard to explain to people. Well, those people aren't very bright.

Jim Ford's listening room

Thursday evening I got a treat. Jim Ford invited me to his house in Bellevue to test out his new listening room. I first met Jim on a project a few years back. He's a search software engineer, and we worked together on Amazon.com's movie showtimes site. Working with him was something I'll always remember because he was the consummate professional. Just did his job and did it well. Amazon's such a young company, and sometimes over the past five and a half years I've just taken for granted that co-workers may be occasionally moody, political, lazy, or high maintenance. Then I'll work with someone like Jim and remember the type of person we should all aspire to surround ourselves with.

Before Jim earned his Master's in computer science at the University of Illinois in Urbana, he was a music teacher. Now he's a successful software engineer, but he hasn't lost his love for music. He plays the upright bass, and over the past two years he's designed and built a music listening room as an addition to his house. It's the most impressive music room in someone's house that I've ever been to, and it rivals the best studio demo rooms I've been in. He worked with acousting engineers to design every last bit of it.

The room has all the essential qualities of an ideal listening room. It's dimensions are 15 x 20 feet, approximately, which is a good ratio. Of course the room is perfectly rectangular. He has sliding sound panels at the front and sides of the room, and they can be positioned to cancel standing waves and to optimize for different types of listening or playing. The ceiling is sloped so as not to reflect music back down on the listener. Hardwood floors all around. The back wall is the most interesting thing. It was custom designed using a series of cedar wood boards turned sideways and jutting out at different lengths. Each set of sixteen boards, each about an inch thick from the side, jut out in a varied series of lenghts which scatter the sound waves which hit the back wall. The door to the room is double hinged and is as thick as a bank vault door. When closed, a switch on the side drops a rubber lining to the bottom of the floor to prevent sound from escaping through the space beneath the door.

The entire back wall is a series of five doors. The first leads to a side entrance where musician friends can enter and exit the listening room. The next two doors open to the room which holds some storage space and his musical components, all of which are made by Musical Fidelity. The next door reveals a series of Boltz USA CD racks which are mounted on sliding rails. The last door leads to the rest of the house.

And then there are the speakers. B&W 802s (same as mine! great minds hear alike), a pair of them, at the front of the room, toed in to face the two sofa chairs seated side by side about two-thirds of the way back in the room. The entire feel of the room is spare and clean.

What was left but to pour ourselves a glass of Pinot Noir from the vineyards of New Zealand (where I'll be in about two weeks) and sit ourselves down for some listening. I brought some of my favorite CDs, and Jim had compiled a selection of recordings which would show off his system properly. I let Jim do the honors, as you never touch another man's home theater components (it's like driving another man's car without asking permission), and he started us off by loading Diana Krall's Love Scenes. I knew it would be a good night. Not only does Krall have a great voice, but she knows how to use it and her CD's are always impeccably engineered. She's a darling among audiophiles.

If you've never tested someone's listening room, all you really do is bring your favorite CDs and take turns suggesting tracks to listen to. Then you just sit back in the chair and close your eyes and listen to music. Afterwards you chat about the quality of the recording and the qualities of the sound in the performance. It sounds goofy, but if the listening room is engineered well, it's heaven.

Closing your eyes allows you to focus all your senses on the sound, and if everything comes together, then suddenly Diana Krall is standing on a stage about 10 feet away, singing tunes just for you. And there she was. The sound came through as transparent as can be, and that's the highest compliment you can pay an audio system.

Next came the grand daddy of classical showpieces, a track which has been copied in just about every sci-fi space movie soundtrack ever: Mars from Gustav Holtz's The Planets. The most acclaimed recording, and the one we used, is the recording by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. You know that Memorex print ad where the guy sitting in the sofa is being literally blown away by music from the stereo in front of him? That was me.

Jim and his wife Kathy enjoy classical and jazz, so that's where we focused our evening's lineup. We moved next to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites, as played by Yo Yo Ma. This time we chose his earlier recording from 1983. It's been a long time since I've heard this piece, and the recording I own is the one by Janos Starker. Ma's interpretation is quite good, and the rich sound of his cello expanded to fill the room. I have to make a note to myself to get a copy of this recording.

And so it went. Jim and Kathy and I, just sitting in this soundproof (to the outside world) vault, with our eyes closed, just listening to one CD after another. Time started to slide away as my consciousness narrowed to just listen. It has been many months since I can remember feeling so relaxed, so at peace. I definitely think I've had too many demands and stimuli in my life this past year, and it has made me anxious, jittery, and impatient. In Jim's listening room, every CD sounded like a live performance, and I was content to reduce myself to a pair of appreciative ears. My pulse must have dropped below 40.

Among other fantastic recordings we sampled from, all of which I highly recommend for the audiophiles among you or those just looking to add a few great jazz and classical CDs to your collection:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack by Tan Dun and featuring Yo-Yo Ma
'58 Sessions by the Miles Davis Sextet with Bill Evans
Waltz for Debby by the Bill Evans Trio
From the Age of Swing by Dick Hyman
Lush Life by John Coltrane
Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus

I left Jim's place with a sudden desire to buy my own house and build my own listening room the very next day. You can't buy a house and hope to find a room ready made like this. My home theater is nice, but the odd shape of my room, the carpet, and the dimensions mean that it is pretty challenging acoustically. I don't find myself listening to CDs as much as I would in the past and had forgotten how transporting that can be, how amazing the B&W 802s can sound.

Three hours went by just like that. Jim finally opened the front door to his house and released me back into society. I stood in his driveway, slightly dazed.

Post-modern spam

I got a spam e-mail today with the subject line, "Tired of deleting spam e-mail?"
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:19 AM | link

My Christmas gift to all of you: $5 to $20

CD price fixing has been alleged for many years now, and I remember reading about a class action lawsuit against the RIAA long ago. Well, it looks like that case is finally bearing fruit. You are a member of the settlement group if you bought a CD, cassette tape, or vinyl record from January 1, 1995, through December 22, 2000. I figure that means pretty much all of you.

Go here to read about your rights and to fill out a claim form, then sit back and wait for a check. It's said that the amount sent to you will depend on how many people fill out the claim form and is estimated to be between $5 and $20.

$5 to $20 is a disappointing sum, to be sure, but times are tough and the RIAA deserves to bleed, so do file your claim. If you're concerened about providing that information required, you can check out the thread here. Sounds legit to me so I went ahead and filled out the form.

Elvis in the house!

A footnote to yesterday's exciting addition to the family: Ryan was born on Elvis' birthday. Given how much Alan loves Elvis, this has his fingerprints all over. Then I remember Sharon's the one who gave birth and realize that he had nothing to do with it.

It certainly makes it easy to remember his birthday.

Ryno robbed

Not that Hall of Fame voting (like Oscar voting) is anywhere near an objective and fair evaluation of skill and worth, but Ryne Sandberg was robbed, and the bleeding-heart Cubs fan in me grieves. I buy into the theory that players who were the best at their position in the 80's will suffer in Hall-of-Fame voting because their stats will suffer in comparison to the jacked-up offensive #'s in the late 90's and early 21st century.

Rob Neyer posted his picks for the top 10 players not in the Hall of Fame:

1. Ryne Sandberg
2. Ron Santo
3. Bert Blyleven
4. Goose Gossage
5. Minnie Minoso
6. Ted Simmons
7. Alan Trammell
8. Dale Murphy
9. Darrell Evans
10. Bobby Grich

Ron Santo's omission is even more surprising, in a way. The man's lost both of his legs to diabetes, and of course he's more than deserving. He's a terrible announcer, but can someone give the man a break?

Emotionally susceptible

Speaking of baseball, the overwhelming public sentiment for electing Pete Rose to the Hall of Fame speaks to how emotionally susceptible and logically suspect public opinion can be. We're a very forgiving nation when it comes to our prominent fallen angels.

There's a great FAQ about the Pete Rose case by Sean Lahman. Rose always had one thing going for him. He was scrappy and he hustled, and fans love that. They love to see millionaires working as hard as they do, and it upholds the integrity of the game which is why we watch, even when our home team is clearly outmatched by the opponent. Ironically, Rose's gambling on baseball undermined that very competitive integrity.

Among other problems I have with Rose (outside of the gamlbing): personally I think he's somewhat of an ass, his skills are overrated due to longevity, and he hurt his own team by writing himself into the lineup to pursue the hit record when the Reds clearly had better options for their lineup. Back in the early 80's, the heyday of my Cubs fandom, I remember watching Rose writing himself into the lineup when he should have sat on the bench, moved Nick Esasky to 1b, and called up Eric Davis and Kal Daniels from the minors to play LF. Eric Davis was among the top players in baseball from 86-90, and you could argue those should have come earlier.

Of course, lawyers and business people and Satanic figures like Martha Stewart seem to be exempt from American's sentimentality. Or perhaps they just have lousy PR reps.

Palm D'or

Spotted this letter to Charley Rosen in an ESPN column and thought it was worth reprinting here:
Though Kobe's physical talents are enormous and the comparisons to MJ warranted, I've never heard anybody mention the one physical trait in which Kobe will always fall short -- hand size. Kobe's hands are much smaller than MJ's and prevent him from easily palming the ball the way Jordan can. This is most noticeable when Kobe tries to finish a drive to the hoop. Because he can't match MJ's gripping power, he often has to release the ball too early. The result is more missed shots in the lane and less creative range. Are you aware of anyone calling this disparity in hand size to attention? -- Carl Peay, Chapel Hill, NC

Yep, the writer is from Chapel Hill, but still, his observation is accurate.

Footnote: in NBA Live 2003 every player can palm the ball behind himself with ease. It was James' Xmas present, and we got some good play time in during break. The freestyle joystick control? Good stuff.

CES/Apple watch

One of these years I really should attend CES. It's the Victoria's Secret fashion show for gadget freaks. I've heard bits and pieces of news on the web about product announcements.

Motorola looks to have some cool wireless phones on the way this year. Motorola has made a valiant comeback in cell phone market share. Nokia had a huge lead, but their cell phone design has remained stale and dull. Nokia phones just aren't that sexy even though their interfaces are great. In fact, cell phones in general haven't made much progress these past several years which is why I'm using the same phone I've had for two years.

If I were to design the ideal cell phone, it would have a small form factor but large color screen, global coverage (some sort of GSM multi-band capability), a WAP browser with GPRS, an integrated digital camcorder/camera, and it would be Bluetooth compatible so I could sync its address book wirelessly with my computers and so that I could use a wireless headset. Some of these Motorola phones may just hit the spot.

As I noted recently, Microsoft is not an innovative company. Bill Gates is no technology visionary. Their CES announcements did nothing to change my mind on that topic. Gates talked about smart devices including some Dick Tracy like watch. It was all terribly dull.

Apple stole lots of thunder from CES by making their usual slew of announcements at Macworld SF. Personally, I'm most excited by the upcoming free update for iMovie 2. iMovie 3 looks awesome, as does Final Cut Express, a cheaper version of Final Cut Pro.

iMovie is the most impressive Mac i-application as it does for free what you once had to do with thousands of dollars of hardware and software, and it does so with as intuitive and simple an interface as can be applied to something as complex as video editing. I've been using it over the past several days to edit some DV footage I shot over Xmas break, and even without a manual I figured out how to use it in a matter of minutes. I'll post my handiwork soon.

iTunes 3 is solid, and while I haven't used iPhoto it looks to be a very competent photo manager. Safari looks sleek and runs fast but is the least exciting of Apple's announcements as it doesn't offer a huge upgrade over other browsers on the market, and why doesn't it import bookmarks? I'm glad to see integrated Google search since Google's toolbar only worked for IE for Windows, but the world really doesn't need more browsers. Keynote, on the other hand, is intriguing simply because any alternative to Powerpoint is a good thing. Given that I'm going on a personal leave, I'm not sure I'll cough up $90 for presentation software, but I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for reviews and comparisons to Powerpoint. If any of you get a copy to play with, let me know what you think.

Speaking of i-applications, I recently realized that iPod software doesn't allow you to move songs from the iPod to the Apple if you select manual synchronization. It's probably because of piracy concerns, but it's annoying. For someone who just wants to save hard-disk space for editing movies, it's a real hassle when you suddenly realize there's a tune on your iPod you'd love to use in a movie and you have to go find the CD again because the song is stranded on your iPod. Plus, if you decide to go back to auto synchronization, all the songs on your iPod are deleted and replaced with what's left on your computer. Just a heads up for all you future iPod owners.

The new Powerbooks, small (12") and ridiculously huge (17") extend the lineup of the world's sexiest laptop, though these new ones are aluminum instead of titanium. I would have liked to seen a bigger keyboard on the 17" Powerbook--typing on laptops is really hard on my wrists and I think they wasted the extra space they created there. The 17" Powerbook with Superdrive is an incredibly tempting tool for video editing because you need all the screen space to accomodate all the windows non-linear editing applications require. Or to accomodate all the windows you might spawn with the new X11, another welcome addition to the Mac OS X universe.

Having been a Mac user for over a year now, I can say that for creative professionals, especially those working with video, the Mac platform is the most user-friendly out there. With a Mac, a DV camcorder, and iMovie, you can make a short movie in a day without a manual. Try to build a DV editing platform on a Windows PC is fraught with compatibility issues and instability. Now, with Final Cut Express bringing the cost of heavy-duty DV editing down to the $300 price point, it's a no brainer to use the Mac as a DV editing platform. Furthermore, design-wise, Macs still beat the pants off of PCs. Finally, the fact that Apple creates many of its own applications means compatibility issues are minimal, whereas on the Windows platform you're always at the mercy of Microsoft or the third-party vendor to create Windows-compatible drivers.

The biggest flaw of the Mac platform is processing speed. For the money, I can get an awesomely fast dual-processor P4 Windows PC with a top-line graphics editing card whereas Macs are still stuck with G4 processors. I get faster Photoshop and video rendering speed with my Windows PC by a large margin.

Still, I enjoy fiddling on my Mac much more than working on my PC. It's true, what they say. Mac users have more fun.

What will I do with my life?

Po Bronson writes an interesting article on the age old question, "What Should I Do With My Life?" Given that I am asking myself the question a lot these days, it was particularly timely, but everyone can benefit from some of the wisdom he gained while interviewing 100's of people for his latest book. The article is much less cliched than you'd expect from an article on this topic, published in a magazine like Fast Company and written by Po Bronson. A couple points from his article jumped out at me.

His concept of the Phi Beta Slacker rings true to me. It's a person who has the talent to do many things in life but always optimizes for perception, always seeks the next thing that will look good on a resume. They lack the courage to fall on their faces. Part of me falls into this camp, and I hate that side of me. It reminds me of the accursed conservative oldest child syndrome which I first read about in the fascinating book Born to Rebel.

He also notes that if you don't like being asked inevitable cocktail question "What do you do?" it's probably because you don't like the answer. Fortunately I haven't had this problem in a long time and hope I never do.

Bronson points out that most of us will never get epiphanies that suddenly indicate exactly what our calling is. Sitting around waiting for destiny to call, for that perfect job, is folly. You have to go out there and try lots of things, fail a lot, before you stumble upon your passion. It's important advice for me to keep in my mind as I move into a "blank spot" in my resume. If I'm not careful, a few months could turn into a year of nothing, a year of fruitless waiting and questioning, and being on the recruiting side of the table I know that people have shelf lives. The question is particularly difficult to answer in this more secular age because one's calling doesn't come from a voice on high. Infinite degrees of freedom leads to paralysis--it's why I think some of the most successful and famous people in the world didn't see a hundred paths open to them. They acted out of desperation or necessity.

The funny thing about trying to figure out what to do with one's life is that I think everyone knows the right approach. In the end, all the cliches ring true--you have to be brave and just step into the void and begin exploring while following your instincts. I have one more week at work before my own such quest begins.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:39 PM | link

Me an uncle!

Yeah! As of today, I have a nephew. Ryan Samuel Ho. Congrats to Alan and Sharon on their beautiful new baby boy! Can't wait to meet the heir to the throne.

Hmm, I wonder if this means I have to be responsible now. Or maybe I can be the uncle that takes Ryan out for his first drink and his first cigar, and teaches him to drive stick when he isn't of age yet. It's not a glamorous role, but there's a black sheep uncle in every family.

Ben looks like he'll be a father any hour now, also. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be an expectant father on the brink, but I really can't.

Hero

Audrey was in Hong Kong over holiday break and got to see Hero. No words in the English language, but perhaps one or two in Mandarin, can express my jealousy. I am tempted to move up my Hong Kong trip so I can catch it in theaters over there.

She was sweet enough to bring me back the Making of Hero VCD, and I'm debating whether I should watch it. The risk of getting spoiled seems too great.

Gravity moves at the speed of light

Interesting--I hadn't realized that gravity moved at the speed of light, but a recent experiment confirms what Einstein had long suspected.

The implication is that gravity between bodies does not work instantaneously. For example, it takes gravitational waves 8.3 minutes to make it from the Sun to the Earth, so if the Sun suddenly disappeared, we'd have an 8.3 minute grace period before Earth shot off into space.

Of course, larger bodies exert stronger gravitational pull because of their mass, and I'm so massive right now I see people swerve towards me as I pass them in the halls.
posted by Eugene Wei at 7:40 PM | link

Big butt, big gut, c'est moi

I got fat over the holidays. Too much sitting around, hiding inside from the Midwest winters, and too many good meals.

My greatest fear in life is having to move up in waist size from my current 31. That would send me into alcoholism, no doubt. Of course, there's a financial incentive in place--pants are expensive. This is why everyone resolves to lose weight at the start of the year--we all get fat at home.

And now, a word from our sponsor

You may wonder why I'm always plugging various products in my blog. It's because my information processing neurocircuits have been hopefully hijacked by television. Those product plugs are actually advertisements that subsidize my regular, more personal posts. In fact, just as television ads are louder than actual programs, I should put those product plugs in a huge, bold font.

This post brought to you by BMW, the ultimate driving machine.

Or perhaps I should move to a subscription-based model, like HBO, with commercial free posts.

Follow the link

I saw a link in Slashdot today to this thread on Straight Dope which imagines what The Lord of the Rings would've been like had it been written by other literary luminaries.

Cutest was this excerpt from The Fellowship of the Ring as written by Dr. Seuss:

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Take the ring!
I am too small to carry this thing!"

"I can not, will not hold the One.
You have a slim chance, but I have none.
I will not take it on a boat,
I will not take it across a moat.
I cannot take it under Moria,
that's one thing I can't do for ya.
I would not bring it into Mordor,
I would not make it to the border."

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Louis Menand (who won the Pulitzer Prize for history last year for his book The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America) wrote an article on Dr. Seuss and his Cat in the Hat stories. I never realized there were such depths in those children's stories. One of my favorite SNL skits had Jesse Jackson actually appear on Weekend Update to read Green Eggs and Ham.

Speaking of Louis Menand, there's a review of his recent essay collection American Studies in this week's The New Republic. That book's on my wishlist.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:52 PM | link

Maybe they're undercover cops

I was standing in line for a screening of Narc tonight with Peter, and I couldn't help but be reminded that people who attend movie screenings are frightening. Who are these people? Do they have jobs? Why have they not showered in several days? Do they have any friends? Movie geeks are a frightening lot. The Stranger, or maybe it was the Seattle Weekly, had a term for these movie buffs: passholes (because they always buy the full-series passes for the Seattle Film Festival).

Of course, my snobbery doesn't hide the fact that I'm often among them. I like to think I raise the curve with my sharp dress, razor wit, and roguish charm.

XP = Xtremely Painful

I recently upgraded my desktop PC to Windows XP from Windows 2000 Pro so that I could use remote desktop access with my Mac laptop. I downloaded Dell's upgrade advisor to analyze whether or not my PC and its software were XP upgradeable. After making a few corrections, it seemed I was ready for a step up in the world.

Wrong.

I've got serious problems. First, turns out my soundcard drivers are not XP compatible, and it doesn't look like Cirrus Semiconductor plans to release any such drivers. All I hear out of my computer's speakers are high-pitched screeches. Second, my CD-RW drive? Not Easy CD Creator 5 compatible, but unfortunately Easy CD Creator 4 is not Windows XP compatible. Greeeeaaat. Thanks Dell. Thanks Microsoft. Thanks Roxio. Looks like I may have to buy a new CD-RW drive and a new soundcard, and even then I'm not sure it will help.

Furthermore, it turns out you can't roll back Windows XP upgrades from Windows 2000 Pro. I'm really peeved. There's nothing more lacking in the world than PC support. Software is so damn complicated--if you have a computer problem and no computer genius for a friend, you're really SOL. I am none too pleased with my tech brethren across Lake Washington.

It's not just the problems I have with their software. For all the money they spend on research, and for all their market share and brilliant employees, they are amazingly uninventive.

In hindsight, I should have let the sleeping dog lie. If you can get a Windows PC to a point where it doesn't crash every other day, don't mess with it. The grass on the other side is yellow, wilted, and plagued with weeds.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:16 AM | link

Whatchoo talkin' bout fool?

King Kaufmann of Salon writes that Serena Williams, not Lance Armstrong, should be Sportsman of the Year. He makes a couple of points:

1. Cycling is all just about pedaling fast.
2. Americans don't care about cycling.
3. Cycling is popular in Europe, and Europeans don't know squat.
4. Serena Williams is a cultural phenomenon. She transcends her sport.
5. Americans pay attention to tennis.
6. Serena won the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, dominating her sport.
7. Maybe racial discrimination is to blame.

He's right on one point, and that's #6, that she dominated her sport this year. On points #1-5 he proves himself to be the ignorant, ugly American. And point #7, which he tosses out there without committing to it, is just cowardly and irresponsible. If you're going to accuse your sportswriting peers at SI of racism, come out and say it. Don't cast aspersions if you're not willing to stand behind them. He writes:

I don't know why Williams doesn't get the respect she deserves. I'd hate to think there's a racial element at play in Sports Illustrated's choice of Armstrong over her, but this is America, and if we're honest we dismiss the issue of race at our peril. Fashion magazines reportedly don't sell as well when they have black women on the cover as when they have whites. Could S.I. have been thinking along those lines? I hope not, and I seriously doubt it -- neither Williams sister is a stranger to the magazine's cover -- but I can't imagine what criteria there might be under which Williams wouldn't win. (Willingham, the Sporting News' winner, is black.)

Weak weak weak.

To address his other points:
1. Cycling is not about pedaling fast. The same way running is not just about being the fastest runner, or auto racing is not just about flooring it the whole way around the track. Even Lance acknowledges that he's not the world's most talented cyclist. To win the world's toughest endurance event four years in a row requires talent, courage, skill, brains, and a tremendous capacity for suffering. That King does not bother doing any homework on cycling despite being a supposed sportswriter just indicates his ignorance or laziness, or both.
2. Americans do care about cycling now, and Lance is in great part responsible for that. San Francisco now holds an annual Grand Prix bike race, and New York City shut down to host the first annual NY Grand Prix this past fall, and neither would have happened without Lance's success in the Tour.
3. Jingoistic crap.
4. Serena Williams is an interesting person, but wearing some provocative outfits does not a cultural phenomenon make. I don't see anyone dressing like her. I've never once had a conversation with anyone about her. One successful year does not a tennis career make. Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong's autobiography is the bestselling sports biography of all time, and cancer patients everywhere look to him as a savior. I was in France for the Tour and saw thousands of Americans running up the mountains alongside Lance, with Texas horns on their heads and American flags painted on their chests.
5. America does not care about tennis. It's a sport in serious decline and needs help. Too bad, because it's a lot of fun.

Fortunately, readers of Salon called Mr. Kaufman out on his poorly researched attempt at playing provocateur.

Australian Visa

I've been trying all morning to apply for a darn Visa for Australia using this online site. Three times now I've gone through all the steps, filled in all my info, only to get to the last step and receive the message "The credit card processing system is down. Please try again shortly."

Gee, thanks. That's great. Why don't you give me that message ahead of time, so I don't have to waste 10 minutes of my life?
posted by Eugene Wei at 7:54 AM | link

Chicken fighting with a girl

Seeing Jordan drop 41 on a Pacers team coached by the whiny Isaiah Thomas and led by the whining Reggie Miller still gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure. Jordan once compared playing against Reggie Miller with "chicken fighting with a girl" because of the way Miller grabs and tugs with his arms and hands or flops at the slightest contact on defense and the way he pushes off with his arms to get open on offense.

Everyone knows Miller pushed off of Jordan to get open for the game winning 3 in the 98 playoffs to force a game 7. Ridiculous no-call, almost as bad as the foul call on Pippen against Hubert Davis to allow the Knicks to get past the Bulls in the 95 playoffs.

Isaiah? Great player, but forever an ass in my mind for first leading the Jordan freeze-out in the All-Star game when Jordan was a rookie, and also for walking off of the court before the end of the game when the Bulls finally swept the Pistons in the playoffs. What a chump.

Peter and Sarah Clarke, sitting in a tree

Peter dated Sarah Clarke while he lived in NYC! Holy #$%!

Of course, he's over watching football today and just drops it on me casually.

"Hey, do you watch 24?" he asks me.

"Sure, why?" I ask.

"I saw this girl I used to date, she was on the front page of USA Today, face to face with Kiefer Sutherland. She's in the show," he says.

"Really!? Holy shit. What's her name?" I say. And almost immediately, I'm thinking, oh my god, he dated Nina Myers.

"Sarah Clarke," he says, not even looking at me.

At this point I proceed to scream a couple of expletives and wave my hands wildly while Peter sits on the sofa stares at me with a look both bored and scronful, a look that says, oh you poor, pitiful man, have you not dated any celebrities?

I am still somewhat devastated. Of course, the real loser here is Sarah, who ended up marrying Xander Berkeley, the guy who plays George Mason. Peter is much cooler.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:10 PM | link

Best Buy PCs

I love my Mac Powerbook, but if I were to buy a Windows laptop I'd seriously consider the vpr Matrix 200A5 from Best Buy. Yeah, that's right, Best Buy! Who knew. Two Firewire ports? Sweet sweet.

Dwindling iPod batteries

Anytime a device has a rechargeable battery that can't be replaced, you worry about diminishing battery life. Looks like the iPod, great as it is, may suffer from the same problem. Bummer.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:14 PM | link

Tip for you TIVO users

BigMarv posts a TIVO easter egg that allows you to get 30 second commercial skip, like on the now defunct ReplayTV. God bless America.

Jets-Eagles

I predict a Jets-Eagles Superbowl this year.
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:09 PM | link

Kill Bill

Trailer for the new Tarantino movie Kill Bill is up.

Oh yeah.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:28 PM | link

Back

Back in Seattle after a long and treacherous flight into windy Seattle. More than a few times, all of us on the plane contemplated death in a fiery crash as the plane pitched in heavy winds. A stewardess went flying at one point, and one passenger who had been in the bathroom sprinted down the aisle back to her seat with a look of terror on her face. I can't recall exactly, but I think she had her pants on backwards.

I must confess to having been as Internet and cell-phone free as I've been in years for the past two weeks. I'm sure it will take me through the weekend to catch up on everything. I look forward to it.

Happy new year to all!


posted by Eugene Wei at 1:52 AM | link