Rode 48 miles today, swinging

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Rode 48 miles today, swinging around the upper half of Lake Washington with Todd and Jesse. Still feel heavy going up hills, and my calves cramped up at the end of the ride. Still, feels good to experience pain and soreness in my legs. It's the kind of soreness that only a long ride can generate.
Stanford finished its season with a win over Arizona State and should get the #1 seed in the West region. If ever they were to win the national championship, this is the year to do it. It's hard to imagine them being any better or more balanced than they are this year.
Watched Pollock and Finding Forrester and felt creative. So I wrote for a while. Neither was a great film, but in their own ways, they got it right about the creative process.
After the charlatans, the clowns, the whores, and the weak, who is left? Bring me your brave.

Sore

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Just came back from a basketball rec league playoff game. It was the first round, and we got knocked out. I'm so bitter right now it's driving me crazy. It can't be healthy to hate losing so much. It was a team we've beaten twice before, without much difficulty, but suddenly tonight they bring out all these ringers we've never even seen before. We were up for a long time, then they ran away at the end. Up by a lot at the end, they kept running up the score, which poured a little salt in the wound. This, on top of the general frustrations of work and life, lit me up. One of the opponents drew a foul for throwing an elbow into my neck and knocking me on my hip, and I started jawing at him. My hip is still sore right now, and I'm having a hard time ignoring it.
I need yoga, or something like that, to cool me off. Some way to channel this random energy, or to accept my fate with equanimity, without becoming a passive lunk.
You know, I should just give up on basketball. I don't think I'll ever be good enough so that it's anything but frustrating to play. Maybe one day when I'm old and mellow I can pick it up again for fun. I need to just do things for fun. Everything is a job to me these days.
My dad finished cleaning our home in Naperville and is going to put it on the market. Strange, to think of selling off the house where I spent so much of my life, where so many memories still fill the rooms, soaked into the walls and the carpet. Does a house ever forget? I feel old.
Scott's birthday was Monday. I'm taking him to a birthday dinner on Friday. Folks, wish the man a happy birthday. Somehow he manages to tackle life with a smile. An example to follow.
Mark and Marie might come up for Marie's spring break. Would be good to show them around Seattle a bit. Haven't had too many of the old crew swinging through town here.
Check out the website for the upcoming Baz L. film Moulin Rouge. Can't wait to see it. Among many things, the music should be great, with tracks by Beck, Fatboy Slim...
This news clip from IMDb news. It's one thing Russell Crowe and I have in common. I bet if I dig deeper, it would be just one of many. I got John's (Sun Tzu) wedding invitation today. Yikes!
Russell Crowe: I'm Not Ready For Marriage Yet
Russell Crowe refuses to get married - because he's not in the right frame of mind to settle down. Russell, who recently ended a romance with actress Meg Ryan, insists he's happier rushing from country to country than trying to start a family. He says, "I can't see myself putting on slippers and puffing on a pipe by the fireside just. I think it is safe to say that I am still very much a wanderer at heart. I've got my farm back in Australia but I'm probably at my happiest on the road. I'm rather a spontaneous creature. I like to be able to just grab a bag and run for the airport. That doesn't fit in with too many women's plans." He adds, "Marriage? I think I'd be a disaster."

Michelle Pfeiffer most beautiful woman in the world?

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This from IMDb news today (no comment from yours truly):
Michelle Pfeiffer Is The Most Beautiful Woman In The World
Hollywood star Michelle Pfeiffer is officially the most beautiful woman in the world. Her facial features exactly match a complex 'beauty formula' drawn up by California plastic surgeon Dr. Stephen Marquardt. The doctor has worked out that the secret of true beauty is 1.618 - an equation which scientists have dubbed the PHI ratio. He's worked out the ideal width of a mouth is 1.618 times the width of the nose. And every human facial feature can be matched to the same ratio. Using these calculations the doctor has drawn up a 'perfect beauty' diagram and discovered that Michelle, 43, is the most beautiful. Dr Marquardt says, "Think about it. If you were looking at a picture of Michelle next to a picture of, say, Julia Roberts, which would you prefer? Just from their faces, you'd be most likely to be attracted to Michelle."

Dead letters

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Just came back from the gym. I can't move my arms, and my butt still hurts from the weekend of boarding.
What to do when you come home and some random person has left a message on my answering machine for someone else. It happens to me all the time, and people never leave a number to call back. I guess I should say my name in the answering machine greeting, but I always worry that solicitors will use it against me. And how come I keep receiving messages for new people? You'd think after a few of these, somehow folks would figure it out. I guess it's not quite as sad as misaddressed letters, which never reach their destination.There's a bad Hollywood movie in there, somewhere.

360 stale fish

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Spent the weekend at Whistler with Betina, Joe, Christina, Pete, Margo, and a whole crew of German Amazonians. The weather was pretty nice, and I decided to try and do a few more jumps in the terrain park in the spirit of pushing myself to improve at risk to life and limb. I flailed through the half pipe and landed in a heap off several big ramps, but I managed to catch big air once while Pete and Bettina (there were two Betina's in the house, one with two T's) were watching. That makes my bruised rear end more tolerable now. I also cracked my cell phone when I smacked my chest into the icy bottom of the half pipe. It still works, fortunately.
I also lost a heated Scrabble match to Pete. It was fun to play. I haven't played since I was still living at home and in high school. Unfortunately, I didn't draw any of the power letters (Z, Q, X, or the blanks) so I couldn't get any big points. I want a rematch, Pete!
Review of the two hour season premiere of The Sopranos: the first hour was well choreographed, with a groovy mix of The Police's Every Breath You Take and that spy music ditty whose name eludes me, but the episode lacked emotional power. The second hour was a bit clumsy in timing and dialogue (they used computers to digitally splice in Livia (Nancy Marchand) but it looked fake and was completely unnecessary) but captured the awkward nature of funerals perfectly.
Tivo listened. I just saw a Tivo ad that showed customers talking about how easy to use and amazing the device is. Still, it's hard to communicate what that device is about in a 20 second spot. They need 30 minute infomercials.

Earthquake

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It will take more than that to knock off this Bay Area earthquake veteran. Just a tickle. But still, I'd rather not have to deal with any more of these in the near future. It's bad for property value.
I was in a meeting with Rob, Kristian, and Katie, and the building started shaking, and then it started really shaking, and we were under the table. After it stopped, everyone headed for the stairwell and the exits. Eventually they let us back in just to get our things and head home. In my office, the bookshelf and file cabinet had fallen over, and papers and things were scattered everywhere. My computer was still logged in though, and somehow Susannah had already sent me a message asking if I was okay. She sent that at 10:58AM, which is about when the earthquake occurred. She must have ESP.
I drove some Pike folks back to the office, and traffic was a nightmare so it took me a long time to get home.
Power was out at home, but no real damage. For a brief moment, I had visions of my bookshelf on top of my coffee table, books and glass everywhere, my home theater giving off smoke. The statue I bought in Africa, the one of the man holding his arms in the air in triumph, was still standing.
All day, I've gotten so many phone calls. News travels fast. I think the pictures they've been showing all around the
country, like the one of the car crushed by bricks outside Fenix Underground, exagerrate the severity of the situation.
Most of the city is intact. The damage is primarily cosmetic, and mostly confined to internal property damage. Costly,
but few injuries. WTO, Mardi Gras, and now the earthquake. Seattle's going to get a bad rep.
Family called, old friends, folks I haven't heard from in years. Turned out to be a good way to get back in touch with folks.
Our website's still running. Thankfully.
I ended up going for a bike ride around Mercer as the weather was so nice. Must have touched 60 today. Mother Nature giving off heat after her late morning workout. I rode pretty hard today, my heart was up at 150+ the whole time.
6.8 on the Richter scale. Big, but not earth-shattering. What if an earthquake did destroy civilization? Planet of the Apes.

Biorhythms

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When I was young, I found this old calculator my mom or dad must have used way back in the day. This must have been one of the first fancy calculators to hit the market. Inside the sleeve, there was a laminated cardboard card that discussed the idea of biorhythms, that our bodies have natural emotional, intellectual, and physical cycles. The calculator even contained special functions that would calculate your biorhythms based on your birthdate.
I note all of this just to note that I think I just recently passed a trough in my emotional biorhythm. Funny, this memory came back to me over the weekend, when I felt just completely burned out on work and life, and today I thought of looking up "biorhythm" in Google, and I found a gazillion links to sites that do this for you. Try charting your biorhythm. According to this, I'm actually about to enter an emotional and physical trough, but an intellectual upswing. That's depressing. I was planning on going to Whistler this weekend, too. I wonder if I should reconsider that plan. Maybe some unknown traps await me there.
Side note: If you use IE 5 or higher as your browser and are on Windows 95 or higher, add a Google toolbar to your browser! It's one of the few browser add-ons I've found useful. You'll never have to actually click over to a search engine again.
Sunday, N Sync guest starred on The Simpsons. That was one
of the funniest episodes I've seen in a long time. Bart, Milhaus, and the "ha ha" boy and some other kid form a boy band. In the age of irony, this is what we've come to. Success is not to be lampooned on Saturday Night Live, it's to lampoon yourself on The Simpsons. One must truly entered the bloodstream of pop culture to earn a guest starring spot on The Simpsons. Look at the list: Ernest Borgnine, Cypress Hill, Adam West, The Ramones, Mulder and Scully...
On a positive note, the third season of The Sopranos, the best show on television, kicks off Sunday with a special two hour premiere. Worth the price of an HBO subscription, trust me. Hotter than the smoking barrel of your daddy's gun.
Sunday I rode the Chilly Hilly, the first real organized bike ride of the season, one loop around Bainbridge Island. It lived up to its name--I froze my ass off at parts, and nearly died of exhaustion at others, usually near the top of some steep, long hills. I'm clearly not in prime cycling shape yet. I felt like I was about to just slow to a stop on a few hills, and people passed me on those left and right. It just ended up frustrating me more than anything. I rode with Rachael, Todd, Tim, and Jessie. In fact, Jessie ended up finishing third out of the hundreds of riders there! Lordy. I think I'll be his domestique on RAMROD.
Somehow, though, in my current "funk," let's call it, I enjoyed suffering out on those hills. They say pain is weakness leaving the body. Cycling is so simple. You're either faster than the next rider, or you're not. Who is stronger, and who is willing to suffer more. I may not be the strongest guy around, but I'm willing to suffer more than the next guy. Chilly Hilly
woke me up. Time to toughen up, suck it up, take my medicine.
Joannie doesn't think I can, but I can.

Cold

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Struck today by a strong desire to move to New York and be a starving artist. Actually, given the cost of living in New York, I'd be starving regardless of what I did.
James is moving there in August though, so I'll have a place to stay.
Chatted with Howie for a while today. If he gets into business school, I'm going to try and convince him to take the summer off and head to South America with me.
I can't shoot a basketball anymore. It's ridiculous.
I chatted with Howie a while ago, and he told me he was shopping for a car. I asked him what kind he was going to buy, and he knew only one thing: it wouldn't be an Accord. He has driven an Accord all his life, since he learned to drive. Even girls he's dated have driven Accords.
Today, he told me he bought a car. Yep, he bought an Accord.
Read this in the NYT book review:
The universe as information. Fascinating idea. Idea is that science continually evolves paradigms for the universe based on the dominant machines of its era. First idea was universe as a clock, with Newtonian physics at its center. Force and energy were the key concepts, and both were conserved. Then came the steam engine, and thermodynamics. Energy is conserved, but entropy increases over time. Finally, we have the computer, and the idea of the universe as composed of information. The book, which sounds completely fascinating, is titled The Bit and the Pendulum, a reference to Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum.

Day two of the header drought

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People act surprised to discover that online advertising banners don't work. Duh. That was the crudest attempt at using the Internet for marketing. The next wave will be much more interesting, even more so than Napster.
My blood was racing today. I've been biting heads off all day. I need someone to talk me down. I can literally hear the blood rushing through my veins. I'm aggravated, frustrated, perturbed, amplified. It's a warning sign. I need a vacation. I can't redline like this.
I'm going to ride the Chilly Hilly bike ride Sunday. In my shape, something may burst.
Looks like you can buy playstation 2's at the playstation site. At least for
a short while. Should I order one? I think I'd be disappointed.
DVD-audio will disappoint everyone and take forever to penetrate the market.
Slow burn. Sloooooooooow burn. Why can't I just accept things the way they are?

Headless blog

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X-files could end this season. That's the rumor. Feels right to me. I'm a big fan of the show, but it's time.
Computer crashed. Sat at my desk with nothing to do. Odd to think many business execs are still dictating e-mails to their secretaries. Think the Internet isn't so hot anymore? Ask people if they'd rather have you take away their computers of their TVs.
Flying again. Got to get up at 4AM. I hate that.
Feeling really beat up. Not enough sleep. Too much work.
Better hit IPing and set myself a wakeup call.

Holidays we don't celebrate

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Today is another one of those holidays that some companies don't consider to be a holiday. I didn't get President's Day off in consulting, and I don't now. It just means I get a good parking spot in the morning, there's less traffic to fight, the mail doesn't show up, and the markets are closed. I can't remember the last holiday where I was in the holiday spirit.
Former Amazon employee Mike Daisey has a one man show spoofing his days with the company, and at his website he's posted a short film he shot in our headquarters after sneaking back in with his old badge. It's titled Rear Entry. Personally, I have no problem with folks poking fun at our company, but I've seen Mike Daisey perform in Seattle before, and this short film is far from his best work. It's not that funny at all.
The latest installment of the honorable J. William Gurley's column "Above the Crowd" names WIP as the next big thing. Do you agree? Whether you do or don't, read his column, subscribe to his newsletter. He was the first analyst to cover Amazon.com, back when he was at DMG, and he's still one of the sharpest technology analysts around.
Stanford's #1 in college hoops again, because North Carolina lost to Clemson. Hah hah. Had lots of fun rubbing it into Jason at work. I owe Rich, proud Clemson supporter, a beer.

The New Yorker

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Just got my anniversary issue of The New Yorker. Coincidentally, it looks like they're up on the web now, as well. Their website has some of the articles from the magazine as well as some exclusive online content. I don't mind having them on the web, though I'm not sure they gain much from being online either. I've always thought of The New Yorker as old school, as something you curl up with to read. I can't imagine trying to read those long articles online.
Feed magazine had a humorous feature called After the Fall. It imagines how a few of today's leading websites look in year 2004, after the Internet economy has imploded. One of the sites pilloried is our very own Amazon.com. Check it out. Reminded me of the Onion piece Who Wants to Eat a Meal.
Jumping back to The New Yorker, they have an online interview with Alice Munro, and here's an excerpt I liked:
"You have a splendid description of your way of reading the stories of others: entering them as if they were houses, not reading from start to finish but wandering around in them, from room to room.
That's right. And that's why I read stories I love over and over again. I just finished reading a Lorrie Moore story--you know, the one about the baby with cancer ["People Like That Are the Only People Here," The New Yorker, 1/27/97]--that I must have read twenty times. And it isn't, obviously, that I'm reading it to find out what happens. I just want to be there with her. Any story that I really love can make me feel like that."
And another excerpt, and more support for the idea that writing is a job, like any other:
"QUINN: You've spoken of how you had to struggle to find time to write--maybe working until one o'clock in the morning and then getting up at six and feeling, This is just terrible.
MUNRO: Oh, but I was much younger. I was in my late thirties, or around forty, when I was doing that. In those days, I would be thinking about the stories a lot, getting into them in my mind. Even if I just had half an hour when the kids were napping, that's what I would do. There were months when I'd be thinking. I didn't try to write--I just tried to get into something and get the feel of it. My life was so crowded with essential chores that use the opposite part of your mind, and that I wasn't very good at, that I had to work really hard to be a good mother and housewife, and to keep things in order. And, since that wasn't easy for me, I could have completely gotten into that way of using my mind, so that when I had a spare half hour I would only think of something else I had to do. That's why I think I knew, somehow instinctively, that I had to take a little bit of time to get into this other world. And it was very discouraging, really, because then, when I sat down to write, I often had thought too much about the story, and the way I was getting it down was terribly disappointing. And now I'm sort of used to that.
Now you have a dedicated schedule, don't you?
When I'm doing the first draft, I have a so-much-a-day schedule. But when I start putting it on the computer I can get carried away, and I try to go as far as I can every day, as if I were going to die in the night or something."
You know what? Just go read the whole interview. It's fabulous. Lots of great insights about writing, from a great writer. Hurry, though. This link looks like it will change everytime The New Yorker posts a new online only interview. Yet another thing The New Yorker needs to learn, how to post persistent links. Or maybe they intend for their stuff to be fleeting, which makes sense to me if they want to preserve
the value of their content. They should create a searchable archive you have to pay to access. I'd subscribe just to read some of the old fiction.
BTW, Alice Munro's latest short story, the featured Fiction piece in the anniversary issue, is also online.
A Quicktime clip on the upcoming new Baz film, Moulin Rouge.

In the Mood for Love

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Pics of the new Windows operating system, XP. This and those stories about new tastes and smells are from Ars Technica, by the way. A weblog for geeks. Cool stuff.
Valentine's Day. Humbug. Valentine's Day was great in elementary school, when you received Valentine's cards from all of your classmates. Maybe even a few of those tart pastel candies shaped like hearts and marked with Hallmark messages like "Will you be mine?" I remember carefully selecting more romantic messages to include with cards for cuter girls.
Super slammed at work. I wonder...am I drinking the Kool Aid? For some reason, everyone around me is using that phrase today. So I started wondering, and now I'm hesitating...probably just a phase.

Spring is in the air!

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Pitchers and catchers report today. Yeah!
Krispy Kreme donuts is valued at nearly $900 million dollars!
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is now the highest grossing foreign film in U.S. history, having passed the $60 million mark. Previous record holder was Miramax's Life is Beautiful. That, along with CTHD's 10 Oscar nominations (second to Gladiator)...who would have thought a Chinese wu xia film would achieve that?

Random news

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A court in San Francisco ruled against Napster yesterday. RIAA lawyers and record label reps are all excited, but it's a hollow victory. The days of song swapping over the Internet are not over. Lawyers don't have that kind of power over the Internet, no matter how much they get paid.
Scientists may have discovered a tetrachromat, a person with four cone photopigments instead of three. The first mutants are among us, and their secret power is to have a richer visual experience than the rest of us. Unfortunately, tetrachromats seem to be only women.
Also in the Red Herring, supposedly they've discovered a fifth taste, called
umami, distinct from sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It has its own receptors on the tongue. Supposedly if you block all the other taste receptors and eat MSG, you'll taste a strong umami flavor. Foods that have an element of umami include miso soup, green tea, dried shitake mushrooms, and Havarti cheeses.
Odd, this proliferation of the senses. I imagine myself talking to my grandkids one day, "Sonny, when I was growing up there were just five senses..."
Oscar nominations announced:

Best picture


  • "Traffic"

  • "Chocolat"

  • "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"

  • "Erin Brockovich"

  • "Gladiator"

    • Best actor


  • Javier Bardem ("Before Night Falls")

  • Russell Crowe ("Gladiator")

  • Tom Hanks ("Cast Away")

  • Ed Harris ("Pollack")

  • Geoffrey Rush ("Quills")

    • Best actress


  • Joan Allen ("The Contender")

  • Juliette Binoche ("Chocolat")

  • Ellen Burstyn ("Requiem for a Dream")

  • Laura Linney ("You Can Count on Me")

  • Julia Roberts ("Erin Brockovich")

    • Best supporting actor


  • Jeff Bridges ("The Contender")

  • Willem Dafoe ("Shadow of the Vampire")

  • Benicio Del Toro ("Traffic")

  • Albert Finney ("Erin Brockovich")

  • Joaquin Phoenix "Gladiator")

    • Best supporting actress


  • Judi Dench ("Chocolat")

  • Marcia Gay Harden ("Pollack")

  • Kate Hudson ("Almost Famous")

  • Frances McDormand ("Almost Famous")

  • Julie Walters ("Billy Elliot")

    • Best director


  • Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot")

  • Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon")

  • Steven Soderbergh ("Erin Brockovich")

  • Ridley Scott ("Gladiator")

  • Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic")

    • Best screenplay (original)


  • Cameron Crowe ("Almost Famous")

  • Lee Hall ("Billy Elliot")

  • Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich")

  • David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson ("Gladiator")

  • Kenneth Lonergan ("You Can Count on Me")

    • Best screenplay (adaptation)


  • "Chocolat"

  • "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"

  • "O Brother, Where Art Thou"

  • "Traffic"

  • "Wonder Boys"

    • Non-English language film


  • "Amores Perros" (Mexico)

  • "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Taiwan)

  • "Divided We Fall" (Czech Republic)

  • "Everybody Famous" (Belgium)

  • "The Taste of Others" (France)