The kid can play

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Caught some Lebron James action from his high school hoops game, televised on ESPN2 tonight. Let's run down the resume.
He's got Jordan's cell phone number, and Jordan invited him to scrimmage over the summer. He's 17 years old, 6 foot 8, 240 lbs. What do they eat there in Akron Ohio? He's the consensus number one pick in the NBA next year (has his voice cracked yet?). He's on the cover of ESPN magazine, and he's been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. NBA professionals fly out to Ohio to watch him play. His high school sells tickets to his games for $35 each. He led his team to an upset of the number one team in the country tonight, beating them by twenty.
Watching him play tonight, I think it's safe to say, the kid can play. I saw Shaq play in college in the NCAA's when he was at LSU, and I saw Kevin Garnett play in the Illinois High School Association playoffs when he was at Farragut. Lebron's better than they were at that age. That behind the back pass in transition between two defenders tonight? Insane. His signature move is skying high to grab the board over everybody, turning and starting the break, and before he crosses half court, threading a long bounce pass between a few defenders and hitting a breaking guard in full stride for the layup. Pretty, pretty.
He's a bit of a showboat on defense, always going for the steal, so let's see if he can stay hungry. I always think one of the reasons Jordan was so great was that he just had this huge competitive chip on his shoulder and constantly improved fundamentally with the sole goal of dominating his competition. Maybe it was because he was cut in high school. Who knows? Lebron has so much at this age...it's easy to lose your edge when the world opens its vaults to you.
I keep in my head a set of four or five memories. Slights against myself. Losses. Times when I was passed over for this or that. Mistakes I've made. It's the easiest way to motivate myself, to live in this angry place where the sun doesn't shine and my blood races.
I should spend my leave seeing if I can be Lebron James' agent. It could be a variation on the Jerry Maguire story. I help Lebron harness his talent, steer him clear of trouble. He teaches me a thing or two about, mmm, I'm not sure. Something.

Sam Seaborn leaves The West Wing

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Today I announced my upcoming leave of absence from Amazon.com. You tell everyone you're taking a leave, and they hear "I'm leaving." Maybe I should use the term sabbatical instead.
I haven't decided what to do when my leave ends. I'll come back to Amazon, see if there's a place for me, see if I can find something that interests me and adds some value to the company. It's easier to decide to take a break than to start it. The closer I got to pulling the trigger, the harder it was to actually follow through. And it's not just walking away from a steady paycheck in a lousy economy. I've worked here for five and a half years. That's the longest I've done anything in my life besides serving as a die hard Cubs fan. You don't work that long some place and not grow attached. I've met some amazing people in that time, made some great friends, and been part of something bigger than I could have ever imagined. I'll always remember my mother asking me when I told her of my plans to move away to this strange city where I knew one person: "You're taking a pay cut to go work for who? What do they do? What's the Internet?" God bless her, she had long since set me free and trusted me to do the right thing.
I haven't quite nailed what I'm going to do during my leave, either, but I've got a few ideas. Some of those things on my 30 things to do before I'm 30 list which some of you may have heard of. Places to see on my own. Friends to visit. Just pack a bag, grab a walking stick, and hike the world. There are certain things I believe about myself, and I've got to see if I'm right. And there are probably quite a few things I still have to learn about myself, and the only way to do that is to change the test conditions, blow my world. Amazon is the control, the shoes that fit me so well that I'd repair them a thousand times over before buying a new pair.
I've always loved learning new things, embracing new challenges. This will give me the chance to learn a few new tricks. I didn't realize it until just now, when I checked, but today (Dec. 11th) was the 2 year anniversary of my weblog. Is it a coincidence? The word itself denies its own meaning; the human mind does not believe in such a thing.
For all of you readers, my sabbatical changes nothing. I'll still be here, as always.

They came bearing gifts

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There are people who claim to not like receiving presents. When their birthdays come around, they ask you not to bring gifts to parties they host. If you ask them what they want for their birthday, or for Xmas, they say that your company is present enough.
What's wrong with these people?
I love getting presents. Things wrapped in colored paper. Cards, hand-written notes. Sometime later, after reading this, you may suddenly feel, "Gosh, that Eugene, he's a swell guy. When's the last time I showed him how much I love him? I need to get him something."
You'll want to act on this impulse. Trust your heart.
But instead of getting me something, what would really make me happy is if you'd make a donation to the American Cancer Society. Everytime someone I know loses someone to cancer, or someone I know passes away after a long battle from cancer, I think to myself that cancer is the most cruel teachers of the randomness of tragedy and suffering in this mortal sphere. Not as sudden as a heart attack or a fatal car accident, but longer, slower acting, more painful to the ones you love. it's not a sudden shock to your system. It begins as a shock to the system, then it's followed up by a series of emotional setbacks, then one final loss that you're almost numb to but aren't because you've convinced yourself that anyone that hangs on that long will pull through somehow. Physical and emotional attrition. All the time, you can hear the question being asked: do you still believe?

Music from a dream

The music in the new Two Towers trailer is from Requiem for a Dream. Good soundtrack, that was. You hear the music in this context and think it was from an action or adventure movie, but no, it's from an ensemble epiphany (think Magnolia) where a whole bunch of drug addicts are suffering from all sorts of horrific trauma.

Google Viewer

Can anyone get this Google Viewer to work? I just get a whole bunch of Javascript errors.
Google Labs are constantly cranking out wacky new services, like Google Webquotes. Must be a fun group to work in.

Hasselblad H1

So yes, I've slowly lost patience over the past few years. So the part of me that used to relish scanning negatives and slides and editing the images in Photoshop and then posting the images to web pages? It's dying. For a gadget freak, I've been very patient in holding out on the whole digital camera craze. The quality just hasn't been what I'd want yet. But cameras like the new Hasselblad H1 are oh so tempting. Fortunately this one would cost eighteen grand with a Kodak digital back so it's not as tempting as it could be.

Motorcycle wearable airbag

Saw this in slashdot today: a wearable motorcycle airbag vest. I've got to get one of these to wear during snowboarding! If I had one of these, who knows what sort of crazy things I'd be launching myself off of in the mountains.
As a motorcycle safety device? Well, I'm not sure how much good it would do. You'd bounce into the street and lay there like a giant bubble before a semi truck would run you over.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

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That cliche about being a child of the MTV generation and having a short attention span, being used to rapid video cuts and the instant gratification of the Internet over a broadband connection? I think it applies to me. I border on attention deficit disorder these days. I can't finish any books but have started eighty, I can't wait for anything without losing all patience. I was watching some guy make my sandwich at Subway a few days ago and nearly jumped over the counter to make it myself. Can you call to pre-order your sandwich there? I don't think the guy was working all that slowly, either. I hate driving places--I wish I could just teleport over. And when I do drive, it's a race to the catch every green light, to rocket through every yellow light, find every possible shortcut which will prevent me from having to sit at a red light, drumming on my steering wheel in frustration.
My laptop at work was ancient, four years old. It was an dinosaur, and booting up into Windows 2000 was ridiculously slow. I'd boot up my laptop, wait five minutes for the login screen, type in my password, then go away for breakfast. About fifteen minutes later my laptop would be ready for use. So every morning begain with frustration. Finally I got a new laptop with Windows XP and now it's booted up and ready for login in about a tenth of the time. Much better. Then I upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP on my home computer (to enable Remote Desktop Connection from my Mac) and now it takes forever to boot up. You just can't win.
I need to take a long road trip where I see nothing for miles on end, just to force myself to slow down.

Jen saves Ben

A new video game, Jen Saves Ben, features Ms. Lopez rescuing Mr. Affleck from kidnappers. Is anyone more overexposed right now than J. Lo? Did Ben agree to the premise of this videogame? I thought it was Posh Spice, or was it David Beckham, that was the one who was a victim of a kidnap plot.

Intervention

Caught myself up on The Sopranos this season. If you haven't watched it yet, you might not want to read ahead.
I almost snorted up my lunch watching Christopher's intervention scene. That was one of the funniest five minutes of television I've ever watched.
The Sopranos has a distinctive way of ending its episodes. The camera frames a shot and holds it for a few seconds, then the music comes on. It's not the type of neat ending you see on television normally, or some sort of suspenseful cliffhanger. Usually some emotional realization, often unpleasant, has descended on one of the characters and the music and visual still-shot combine to make a wry comment about the travails of mob (read: modern) life. Creative stuff.

SI's 2002 Sportsman of the Year

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Ah, finally some American appreciation for cycling. Lance is SI's 2002 Sportsman of the Year. I can appreciate it even more, having been there to witness him putting the hammer down on his opponents in the Pyrenees and the Alps this summer.
It recalls that scene from Zoolander. "For the past four years, the world of male cycling has been dominated by 3 syllables: Lance Arm-Strong."
Kelli Anderson, whoever he or she is, writes a memorable metaphor of the first mountain stage in the Pyrenees, which I watched tonight as I rode for an hour on my bike on the trainer: "One by one the Posties burned themselves out and fell away like booster stages on a rocket launch as they led Armstrong on a chase of 33-year-old Laurent Jalabert of France on the final climb to La Mongie." And that's how it was on seemingly every mountain stage. Hincapie would be out front at the base of the mountain, then someone else like Floyd Landis would pull for a short bit. Then the daily Spanish special, Chechu Rubiera would lead out and lift the pace to shatter the chasers, leaving only Beloki. Finally Heras would come up front and lift the pace yet again, pushing Beloki to the redline and allowing Armstrong to attack and separate to the finish.
I've decided I must return to France next summer to see Lance chase five in a row. It will just happen to be the 100th anniversary of the Tour, and the French need few excuses to party.
Matchpedia.com

As I book flights for holidays, I think to myself, how nice would it be to be able to select what stranger you sit next to on a flight. Aaron agrees, having recently been seated next to an old man with what Aaron diagnosed as tuberculosis for a long flight. My last flight to San Francisco I was seated in the same set of 3 seats as an androgynous 15 year old (okay, turns out he's a boy) who couldn't stop dancing to the Japanese techno pop on his walkman and who confessed to everyone in his general area that he was bisexual and on medication. Thankfully some United pilot bumming a ride on the flight was seated between us.

Word Smith

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Words are like viruses, and certain phrases catch on quickly at Amazon. The word of this month is "deprecated," as in retired or eliminated. I think it's just a fancy way to say that we're removing some feature from the site.
By the way, I'm still curious as to why and when everyone started saying "he is wanting to" instead of "he wants to". Somewhere, Hemingway moans at this flaccid English.

See what?

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I'm always intrigued by movies that draw a sharply polarized critical response. Solaris and Femme Fatale are two notable examples.
Bill gave me a copy of the DVD of Tarkovsky's version of Solaris--any movie that spans two DVDs is intimidating to even contemplate. I definitely think I'll need to be in a meditative mood to absorb it, and right now is not that time. But it's a movie about loss, and how we know if other people are real, and those are interesting questions.
Meanwhile, I don't think I'll make it out to see Femme Fatale because anyone you ask to go see that movie thinks it's some soft porn film. The fact that it stars Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in a variety of skimp outfits doesn't help. Man, doesn't anyone in this generation know who Brian de Palma is? Oh well, I guess it's a rental.

Ready, AIM,...

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I signed up for all those instant messaging services a long time ago and never used any of them. It didn't seem to offer that much more than e-mail, and it all felt a bit of a waste of time, especially since most people I'd IM were in the same office as me.
But now that the holidays are approaching and more people are on vacation, and as I realize that I've lost touch with some of my college buds, I'm going to get back in the game. Don't call it a comeback.
My AOL IM username is eugenewei. Ping me late evenings and you have a good chance of catching me during these dreary winter months.

Yoshimi does battle

One of the cool things about Seattle's symphony hall, Benaroya, is that they occasionally allow rock acts to perform there. Such was the case tonight as Beck and The Flaming Lips paid a visit.
I'm a big fan of both, but I didn't have tickets to this concert which sold out long ago. But how often do you get to hear two groups you love in an acoustically pristine symphony hall? I headed out to scalp myself a pass. I don't know any Flaming Lips fans so I decided to play lone fun-man for a night.
Seattle has been coated with a Hound-of-the-Baskervilles-worthy fog for several days now. Outside Benaroya, a group of scruffy, malnourished Seattle alterna-folks created their own fog of cigarette smoke, standing around looking as if they were hoping someone would hand them a ticket, a veggie burger, or sandwich bag full of weed. I weaved in and out of this group, looking to make that special kind of furtive eye contact that you make when you're meeting someone for the first time in a strange bar and you don't know what they actually look like and you're working off a description ("I'm blond, about five foot four, and I'll be wearing a red sweater"). It's the same kind of eye contact you make when you're looking to scalp tickets.
Tickets were $35 face value, and my first offer was from a particularly malodorous heroin addict in a blue Adidas jumpsuit with a seat in row W, orchestra level. He asked $125. I offered $40. He asked for $100. I offered $40. $80? $40. $75? $40. $80? Uh, you're going the wrong direction bud. $60? I'll think about it.
Some other guy came along, asking if I'd pay $80. Where are the seats, I asked. He pointed at the guy in blue Adidas jumpsuit.
That guy has the seat.
Gee, thanks, who are you, the Ticketmaster of the sidewalk, a NASDAQ market maker?
Another guy came along, asking $85 for a seat in the third tier, nearly the back row. Just about the farthest seat in the auditorium. Man, I thought, there's some irrational exuberance in the scalper's market today. I assessed my competition for these two tickets I'd been offered and realized that these slackers were probably unemployed and wouldn't be able to pay top dollar. If I wanted these seats would be here when the concert started and I could name my price.
By now I had been standing outside in 45 degree weather for about 20 minutes, and in my light jacket I was getting cold. I went inside to stand by the Will Call window, looking to pick off on a more affluent breed of alternative music goer, the kind that thinks, "Wow, Beck is playing at the symphony hall, that should be a nice safe way to sport my alternative stripes." Often these are the folks who buy one too many tickets and who are novices at scalping so they'll take whatever they can get because they're desperate to sell.
Bingo, some guy had an extra. I picked it up for face value. Box seats on the second level, stage right.
The only bummer about scalping tickets at the last minute for this concert is that I didn't have time to get there early to try and volunteer to be one of the stage animals for the Flaming Lips set. I've never seen the Flaming Lips, but I've heard about their stage menagerie. They grab people out of line or out of the crowd before the concert, and those folks dress up in these furry animal suits and dance around during the performance.
This time was no different. The Lips started their set by tossing about 25 beach-ball-sized balloons colored lime green and light pink into the crowd who responded by batting them around. The animals showed up on stage, Wayne Cory and the gang showed up and started cranking away, creating the overwhelming sonic landscapes which make their albums such great demo CDs.
The band members played and danced gamely while balloons from the audience flew on stage and bounced off their heads and equipment. They must be used to it. Their set bordered on performance art given all the colors and eye candy. All the band members, with the exception of Wayne, were dressed up as pink rabbits or some other types of animals. When they played one track from their latest masterpiece Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots a scene from the Japanese movie Battle Royale projected in the background (it's the scene where the girls are in the lighthouse and gun each other to death). Wayne picked out two audience members who were celebrating birthdays that night, covered his face with fake blood, and led the audience in a round of Happy Birthday for the two lucky fans. For another song, Wayne sang while wearing a fog machine around his neck so that he was basically hidden from view. You get the picture--it was wacky stuff.
Wayne is half front man for the Lips (who are from Oklahoma City!?) and half cheerleader. Everytime he felt the crowd settling down he'd hold out his arms in front of him and to the sides and wave them up and down, palms up, as if trying to get us all to stand up. The orchestra crowd would respond with a loud cheer every time.
Beck came on for his solo set after a long stage overhaul and started with a few tracks from Sea Change before cranking up the action with the Lips joining as backup band. He did a healthy mix of old classics (Devil's Haircut, Loser), funky Midnite Vultures tracks, and the new and mellow from Sea Change. He did a Flaming Lips cover, a Velvet Underground cover duet with Wayne, and yes, he did all that weird robotic dancing everyone was waiting for. It was all quite a contrast from Sigur Ros who I saw earlier in the week. They didn't speak a single word to the audience that night.
Beck is proof that anyone can be cool if they're good enough at what they do. If you saw him just out somewhere, from a distance, you'd think he was, well, a loser, and he plays off of that in his lyrics.
There's something really satisfying about spending your evening at an event that you had to scalp tickets for on the day of. It's even better than buying tickets far in advance. It feels like a stolen moment, one with the cachet of spontaneity.

My Xmas gift to you, part II: Thwart telemarketers

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Along the lines of my Google toolbar reco, here's another free gift to my loyal readers.
You can buy one of these devices to deter telemarketers or you can emulate it the low-tech way. Record the three tones you get when you dial a number that's out of service, add it to the front of your answering machine message. Computer assisted dialers will assume the number is dead and drop it off of their lists, while regular friends and family will hear your message afterwards and see how clever you are. I get a ton of telemarketing calls during the day and so my answering machine gets most of them. I plan on doing this over the holiday season. You can download the ring tones here.

My friend Oprah

Having the TV on is like having someone who really wants you to like him or her sitting in the room with you. When you're lonely, he or she will chat with you (the sex of the TV depends on the channel--Oprah is your emotionally honest aunt, ESPN your consummate sports buddy), and when you need some alone time he just sits in the corner, mumbling quietly to himself. I don't understand people who don't own TVs. They must not be as socially maladjusted as I am.

Joshua Malina and Danny Wuerffel

Finally caught up with all the West Wing episodes on the Tivo (sweeps month on the networks is a busy time for TV junkies). Looks like Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is on the way out for sure now, and he's being replaced by Aaron Sorkin favorite Joshua Malina as Will Bailey. Malina has been in lots of other Sorkin productions (Sports Night, The American President). Sorkin likes to use the same people over and over again--hell, half of the West Wing seems to have stayed in the White House after The American President, with Martin Sheen moving from chief of staff up to president. I think it's because Sorkin prefers a certain snappy delivery of his dialogue and veterans of his shows have got it down pat. It's like David Mamet and his repeated use of people like Ricky Jay and his wife Rebecca Pidgeon, or Steve Spurrier and his loyalty towards lackeys like QBs Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews, the only ones who can tolerate his incessant criticism.

Netflix stays nimble

Okay, Netflix has responded to some gripes I've aired in the past (well, they didn't respond directly to me, but when you write something and then something happens shortly thereafter, you intuit causality, and given my vanity I attribute all positive changes to my inestimable influence). Almost all the DVDs in my rental queue are available immediately whereas many used to be listed with "long wait". Looks like they bought up. Secondly, they built a couple more shipping centers around the country so I can now mail a DVD back and receive the next one in my queue in about 4 days. It's noticeably faster.
Good thing, because they're getting some competition. There are a whole bunch of new online DVD rental services, and two big players, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, have begun offering services of their own. Blockbuster's service is lousy--you still have to go pick up the movies and return them to a store--but in the end it's not a difficult business model to emulate. You don't have to buy lots of inventory, and the software is pretty straightforward. The types of changes Netflix is making are the ones they have to make, the no-brainers. The switching costs are very low.
The positive which should come out of all of this is lowered monthly rental subscription fees.

The good, the bad, the ugly

Good: TV shows which are letterboxed or widescreen.
Bad: My computer fan suddenly started whirring in a loud pulsing pattern, like it has a throbbing headache. Shut up!
Ugly: David Eckstein's throwing motion from shortstop.

The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition

Watched the new extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD for Thanksgiving. Most extended editions or deleted scenes are, as DVD aficionados know, simply like high school yearbook photos of supermodels, or actors before makeup. They're the before pictures of movies before an editing room diet. Unattractive, unnecessary. We pay good money for the editing, supermodels pay good money for boob jobs, for a reason.
But the extended version of LOTR: FOTR is excellent. The 30 minutes or so of additional footage add to the depth of the story and the characters, enhancing your understanding of the regular edition of the movie. It's the best "director's cut" I've seen.

Yao Ming

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For Christina's birthday I took her to see Yao Ming and the rest of the Houston Rockets play the Sonics tonight. Here's my advanced scouting report.
Yao was in the starting lineup for the Rockets. Yes, he's tall, but not all that strong yet. His frame looks like it could support another 30 to 40 pounds of muscle, easily, and he'll need it to be more effective. At 240 he's light for a 7' 6" guy. Not Shawn Bradley light, but at 270 to 280 he should be able to move some people around.
Foot speed isn't his forte, and he couldn't jump onto a pancake if his life depended on it, but he's got some solid post moves and a soft shooting touch. He was playing Drobnjak, another perimeter type of center, so Yao didn't actually get a lot of jumpers off like he could against a defender who stays closer to the basket. In the first half Yao looked confused and out of synch with the offense. Yao will be a solid shot-blocker, not a great one. He should be a better rebounder than he is given his height. Part of that is because he's not strong and quick enough to get solid post position against stronger opponents, and he's not a natural rebounder like a Dennis Rodman who instinctively knows where to be and when to grab the board.
He's a very good passer. The Rockets were down at halftime, and to start the second half they began running their offense through Yao down on the left baseline. Francis would give him the entry pass, and when Payton dropped down to double Yao would turn and use his height to find the open man and pass over his defenders. Lots of open shots for his teammates.
Not a huge game statistically for Yao, but I stand by my assessment. He'll be a very good center in the NBA when he gets more experience and some more bulk. He's very young, in his first year in the NBA, and living in a foreign country where he doesn't speak the language. All in all he's doing okay.
Some other observations. The Sonics really need a big rebounder to round out their team. They're a team of perimeter players, jump shooters, and when they can't shoot, like tonight (Payton was 3 for 16) they'll struggle big time because they won't win the rebound battle too many nights. Desmond Mason is exciting, Lewis is very highly paid for what he is (a finesse jump shooter), Glen Rice is useless when he's not hitting from outside because he's a big defensive sloth, Stevie Franchise is impossible to keep away from the basket, and why can't anyone in the NBA shoot anymore? NBA basketball is just not that exciting a product these days, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that scoring is down. Low scores are not inherently bad, but when it's the result of offensive incompetency instead of defensive excellence it makes for long, dull stretches of boring spectacle. The championship Bulls of Jordan's day knew it was important to surround Jordan and company with a ton of accurate jump shooters (John Paxson, Craig Hodges, Steve Kerr, Bobby Hansen, Ron Harper) because Jordan would draw double teams and you have to score to win. These days it seems like if you break 80 you'll win. Many teams are taking advantage of the new rules to play zone defenses, and they can get away with it because opponents can't shoot which is the easiest way to beat the zone.
To distract from the dull game, the NBA blasts you with loud music, dancing, mascots doing ridiculous stunts, and little kids paraded around the court in series of silly games. By the way, during one break they introduced the Sonics dance team and half of them were still in college at UW. I guess that's one thing the pros have in common with college basketball. The dance squad captain's name was Misty, which is worth a chuckle.
At least in college basketball you get to see star players going off and dominating their competiton. I'd rather see a few standouts surrounded by mediocre players, as you get in college, than seeing a whole group of middling players competing to a standstill as many NBA games seem to offer. Considering the cost and length and quality of an typical game, the NBA is not a great entertainment value unless you're watching the Lakers at an NBA game and can gape at the celebrities seated courtside.

Cure for hiccups

Walking from the parking lot to Key Arena for the Sonics-Rockets game tonight, I got a serious case of the hiccups. That's when I turned to the only foolproof cure for hiccups I've ever encountered. Colin taught me this, and now, little man, I pass it on to you. Here's how it goes.
You'll need someone to help you out unless you have really long fingers. Cover both your ears tightly, pinch your nose shut, and swallow. That's it. Forget about drinking water or frightening yourself. I have no idea what causes hiccups and no idea why this cure works, but it does.
Speaking of strange mysteries, it turns out that scientists don't really know why you can't tickle yourself. The common belief is that it's because you know it's coming and that the element of surprise is the root of tickling, but no one's ever proved it.

Iron Chef

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I'm seeing double. Thanks to my poor coordination, Christina and Sang are each baking a turkey, making stuffing and cranberry sauce, baking pies, roasting vegetables...the three of us are going to basically have two of everything. Hey, I'm not complaining. My plate runneth over, and over, and over. The sun is shining, I couldn't miss the basket at morning hoops where I earned my dinner, I have two master chefs working hard in the kitchen (where I'm just a hindrance today), and it's a day off. Truly, much to give thanks for.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Sigur Ros, and a reunion

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I went to the Sigur Ros concert with Aaron and his wife Roswitha and Rachael. I haven't seen Aaron in years. He was one of my first good friends in Seattle, a fellow Amazonian, and now that he's back in Seattle it's as if things have come full circle. Aaron left the US a while ago, and now he has returned, married, no less. He spent six months with Roswitha traveling around Latin America and South America. It's the type of worldly adventure which makes working stiffs like myself cringe with a bit of shame, a lot of jealousy.
Maybe life has been reversed for me. Most people come to Amazon after having gotten the craziness out of their system. I feel like I've done nothing but bust my butt for most of my twenties, and now it's time to have some fun. Maybe I should do an international stint. It seems to have served Dan and Aaron well. I think I grew up too early, and thus I haven't grown up at all.
The Sigur Ros concert was interesting. An older (that's what I consider people my age now) alternative crowd attended, and the music was beautiful, moving, and entrancing. They played about an hour and a half, and that was the right length. Any longer and I would have started hallucinating.
Things that annoy me today, because isn't 90% of blogging useless ranting and raving?

  • Why do I still have to go to the postal office at all? I should be able to use my debit card and purchase printable stamps over the Internet with no penalty on price.

  • People who whisper in a movie theater, telling you that they've guessed who the killer is, or some other plot secret. First of all, thanks for ruining the movie. Secondly, there's a good chance I figured it out about 20 minutes before you did, so keep it to yourself and pass the popcorn.

  • Gossips. Can't anyone keep a secret these days? I'm tempted to tell a different crazy rumor to all those close to me, to trace the leak, like they do in the movies. Psst, please don't tell anyone, but I have a tattoo of Yoda on my left butt cheek.

  • My mouse buttons reset everytime I reboot Windows 2000. I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, and for some reason everytime I reboot I have to go into the control panel and set the buttons. I've tried downloading the latest drivers, everything. Can't Microsoft get their products to play nice with each other?

  • There's no pop-up killer for the Mac. Well, there is one, but it costs $20. I wonder if Mozilla has an option to turn off pop-ups. I'll have to try it.

Holiday gift giving part II

A few other ideas.
One, for your friend with carpal tunnel syndrome, a new keyboard from Kinesis. I've tried many cures, and this is the only one that really helped. The model I use is the Kinesis Professional Contoured Keyboard. Sure, they're pricy, but what's the cost of not being able to brush your teeth when you're forty? Carpal tunnel is to the modern white collar worker what scurvy was to sailors back in the 1800's.
The Google toolbar. Free of charge, and a huge service to your friends who work on a PC and use IE. It's the first thing I install everytime I get a new computer or a new installation of IE. Basically adds a Google searchbox to your browser window frame, since IE won't let you change its default search engine from the junky default search engine it uses.
A black and white print from a celebrity photographer. I suggest a William Klein.

Gollum's Song

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Geeks everywhere are counting down the days, not to Christmas, but to Dec. 18, when Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers opens in thousands of theaters across the country. The soundtrack will go on sale 12/10; there's an exclusive limited edition version of the soundtrack only available over the Internet now for $30. At the soundtrack site you can also download one of the tracks, Gollum's Song, in Windows Media Format. The orchestral portions of the track sound very promising, though Emiliana Torrini's vocals are grating. What, was Enya booked, or did they want someone that sounded like a female Gollum to do the title justice?
BTW, tickets are on sale for opening night of The Two Towers already at Movietickets.com. The fabulous Cinerama posted their showtimes yesterday or today. The midnight showing opening day is sold out, so I grabbed a whole bunch of tickets for my team and coworkers for the 7:45am showing. I think I may also attend the Northwest premier charity screening on Dec. 16, though, as a Christmas gift to myself. Have I been naughty or nice this year? It's hard to tell. But it is for charity--I think it's for the Cascades Conservation. Hell, I like trees, and it's tax deductible.

Vice

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I was getting my hair cut tonight and picked up a copy of Vice magazine (I didn't feel like chatting with the lady cutting my hair; I always feel pressure to be social with the person cutting my hair, I don't know why). Funny stuff, this Vice magazine. First encountered it in NYC at an urban clothing store. It was free and lying in a stack by the front door.
There's an article in this month's issue evaluating 13 methods of "finding yourself." They're ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most effective.
Backpacking in Europe? Rates merely a 4.
Getting slutty with it? Rates the top score of 10. This one applies only to girls. It means sleeping around with men for the hell of it, and bossing them around. Hmm.
Then there's "the magic four." This is a method for guys only to find themselves and become a man. The magic four are: "1) break someone's heart; 2) have your heart broken; 3) get the shit beaten out of you; and 4) beat the shit out of someone. That means: 1) she has to be so f###ed up she almost kills herself. Like, doesn't eat for three days and falls down the stairs drunk; 2) you are so f***ed up you have to punch yourself in the head to stop thinking about her; 3) you end up in the hospital with a severaly broken nose and some sort of permanent facial scar; and 4) he's not really moving at the end. You're kind of kicking a blob." This rates a 9 on the finding yourself scale.
This one in particular caused my ears to perk up (well, not really, since my ears can't perk) because one of them is on my 30 before 30 list and I've accomplished 3 of the 4 already. I'm not telling you which is on my 30 before 30 list, or whether I accomplished it yet, or which 3 of the 4 I've checked off yet. If all of you got together, maybe you could piece it together. Wouldn't that be fun.
Cocaine rated a 3.5. Acid and mushrooms rated a 3. Ecstasy rated a 7.5. Maybe I should take some tonight before the Sigur Ros concert. They sing in a language they invented. It's called Hopelandic. I guess it's some derivative of Icelandic, though really I have no idea, like whether or not Julia Stiles is attractive.
Speaking of Vice, Grand Theft Auto III, the prequel to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, grossed $350 million. That's more than movies like The Matrix and Gladiator, and if it were a movie it would rank 7th all time domestically, behind Jurassic Park and ahead of Forrest Gump. Amazing. Geeks may not be filthy rich as in the late 90's, but the ones at Rockstar are still lording it over Hollywood. The interactivity of video games make them superior diversionary entertainment to all but the most engrossing of movies. Watching a bad movie is like being strapped to a dolly and wheeled around like Hannibal Lecter. Just got Splinter Cell tonight. Can't wait to try it out.
Speaking of being trapped, I was walking up to the front door of the gym tonight, and passing by the window I couldn't but think, as I stared at row after row of people dripping with sweat, working their arms and legs around spastically on elliptical cycles, stairmasters, and treadmills, all under the artificial blue glow of fluorescent lamps, that if you brought someone from 100 years ago here into the present and allowed them to look into this health club facility and observe the people in there, they'd think it was some form of slavery or imprisonment. If I were to make a movie like Baraka, I'd juxtapose this shot of people working out at the gym with a shot of Charlton Heston and his slave buddies rowing in the stomach of a Roman galley in Ben Hur. Seriously, going to the gym is torture, the supreme manifestation of our society's vanity. If I didn't have to rehab my shoulder after my bike accident I'd cancel my membership.
While watching Die Another Day this weekend, I saw the trailer for the new J. Lo movie Maid in Manhattan. Yep, J. Lo plays a hotel maid who gets discovered by some rich dude played by Ralph Fiennes. It's a variant of the Pretty Woman hooker with a heart of gold story, only with a maid instead of a hooker because J. Lo ain't no trashy ho, despite being ready to move onto husband number 82, the bland Ben Affleck. I could barely contain an evil cackle as I saw faces of boyfriends and husbands throughout the theater blanche at the thought of having to attend this movie with their girlfriends or spouses. Has a British accent done more for anyone than it has for Ralph Fiennes? On that alone, some people consider him some gifted thespian. Give me a break. He's not that much better than that guy who plays Furio on The Sopranos this season (that guy, whoever he is, is one reason the show is a bit flat this season).
On the way back from a play at the Seattle Rep this weekend, I looked down at my radio and instead of a station number the display flashed a series of words. It was an ad for an upcoming concert, listing some of the artists and a phone number to call for tickets. Strange. Then, when a song came on, the radio displayed the title and artist. I didn't realize radio stations could broadcast that info now. Of course, sometime soon I'll probably be looking down for the title of some catchy tune and drive into the trunk of the guy in front of me.
I didn't join Rachael in an effort to scalp tickets to "Legends of Hip Hop" last night. My mistake. Turns out she got a seat from someone whose friend failed to show. Damn.
I really hate it when other people have power over me. My mood. My state of mind.
What am I ranting about?

Marge's boob job

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The Simpsons were in rare form tonight. Marge got an inadvertent boob job and everyone started treating her extra special. She's driving back from the plastic surgery clinic with Maggie in the passenger seat, and Who Let the Dogs Out is playing on the radio. And next week, the Simpsons spoof The Osbournes and reality TV.
BTW, the best new TV title sequence music is from Michael Mann's Robbery Homicide Division.
I've been exhausted all weekend. It doesn't take much to throw off my sleep cycle anymore, and it takes a lot to get it back. Still, I did manage to catch up with lots of people this weekend as I slowly crawl out of hermit status.

Holiday shopper's guide Part 1

Some ideas for things to get those special people in your life this holiday season, because being a classy gift-giver requires simply some sage guidance and a Visa. Some of this I've read about, some is just personal opinion. I think all this stuff is available online--I refuse to fight for holiday parking anymore and neither should you. Spend that time with those special people instead.
What do you all suggest as good gifts for this holiday season? Help educate so that we all end up with stuff that doesn't need to be returned, which means driving to a store, depleting fossil fuels and polluting the environment.
Ah, I can't wait for the holidays, when the mouths of my friends and family are filled with pretty lies and their arms bear gifts.

What's better

That's a question, not a statement. I was glad to see Large Marge (scary trucker lady face from Pee Wee's Big Adventure) kicking Kroger's butt.

Sniff, sniff--"Hey, do you smell something burning?"

What does it say about bloggers and their sense of humor that 3 of the top 10 most linked to stories in weblogs today were about this guy who burned his, umm, member with a laptop. Let me note that I write this on my laptop which is resting on my lap, but with a protective piece of cardboard to separate titanium from skin.

The lucky as hell generation

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The lucky as hell generation

I was out at dinner with Jodie the other night (by the way, rabbit tastes like chicken; if we all ate rabbits all the time, would we say that chickens taste like rabbit?) and realized that I know more young people who will never have to work again than any other previous generation my age. I know dozens from Amazon alone. That brief Internet bubble created this entire group of insanely wealthy 30 somethings who can do whatever they want for the rest of their lives with no fear of material deprivation.
When I interviewed with Amazon, I just wanted to go work there because I thought it was cool to sell books over the Internet. Jodie was one of my original interviewers, and because someone got stuck in a meeting I had to interview with her twice. Thank god she passed me! In fact, the only person left from my original interview loop at Amazon now is Jeff himself. How time flies.
Anyway, back to the topic of the young and wealthy. It seems like there are three common routes for folks in this group. One is that they're A-personalities who have to invest it all in one business venture after another, working themselves to death over and over in the pursuit of the next big thing. A second path is that they decide to use their freedom and wealth to try and change the world (see Ted Turner and his $1 billion dollar donation to the United Nations). Three is they do nothing except work out, travel around, and live in their big houses, fat and happy.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, no such difficult choices face me.
Kelly, Justin, and the gang

I cannot tell a lie. I went to the American Idol concert tonight with five other folks (who will remain anonymous as I must protect their identities). It was the last stop on their 30 city tour. You know what? It was a blast.
Of course, the average age of the people there was probably about 14, and the majority of them were female. That's the loudest concert I've been to in Seattle. Unbelievable. Little girls will shriek at anything, all of them cluthing their posters of Kelly, Justin, Tamyra, R.J., or holding up signs that read: "Seattle loves U Kelly! American Idol rules!"
The 10 of them came out in the same order they were eliminated in the contest. I only watched the last four episodes after I returned from France, so I didn't know most of them, but the crowd lost it everytime one of the singers introduced the next one. The crowd had the type of energy that only pre-pubescent little girls can provide, shrieking like it was the Beatles. The whole thing was unreal, and I couldn't help but smile at the spectacle of it all. Flames and fireworks and lights and smoke...here's Justin rising out of the stage, A.J. throwing his jacket off to reveal a wife-beater undershirt to the 10 decibel adulation of his fans from Tacoma, and Liv Tyler look-alike Ryan dancing out on stage in one revealing outfit after another. What a hoot.
What I took away from it all is that a show like American Idol is a deconstruction of the music business. If these 10 people who were waiting tables just a year ago can in one year's time be selling out every one of their 30 stops, what does that say about all the bands that come and go in the music business all the time? Mass entertainment can be manufactured with relative ease, famous pop stars brewed like the latest flavor of soda. Reality TV is the pure distillation of the great American dream, Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. The truth is, most of the contestants are hardly passable vocalists at all and will soon be as dropped off at the next station by the American cultural caboose (I had to laugh at the end when Ryan started sobbing and hugging everyone in sight. She had to be thinking, "Oh God, my 15 minutes are up! Damn it!" She'll get a boob job and be starring in some soft-core Cinemax movie in about 10 years). Still, they did some crowd-pleasing group numbers, especially their Motown ensemble, and I had to shake my head at the power of America's entertainment industry.
The only bummer of the night--Kelly didn't sing A Moment Like This. I think that's the only song I know the words to.
Hoax or real

This is a pretty fun test. That Michael Jackson image? One of the most horrifying things I've seen. The guy is losing his mind.
Bite guard

I spent nearly three hours in the dentist's chair this morning, getting fitted for my bite guard. It comes back from some factory on the East Coast, a piece of plastic that fits over your lower teeth. The dentist keeps having you bite down on a piece of film that leaves black marks where the bite guard contacts your top teeth, and then he spends time grinding portions of the guard down until you bite down on it and get even four-point contact so that you don't stress any particular tooth.
When they examined my bite in a hundred different ways, they noted that I put enormous stress on my front teeth when I grind them. It's likely why I've been feeling such extreme soreness in those teeth these past few weeks. Now I have to wear this at night. I'm wearing it now, and for some reason it causes one to salivate like a dog. The dentist's assistant told me not to be surprised if I wake up tomorrow with the bite guard on my pillow in a big pool of drool. Yum.
The sexual dynamics of the dentist's office have always intrigued me. My dentist is an older gentleman, and every single one of his 8 or 9 dental assistants is a young woman. My childhood dentist was also a male whose assistants were all female. I know there are female dentists out there--are there assistants all young men?
Communications overload

I'm drowning in a pool of e-mail and voicemail. I've stopped replying to all but the most urgent and important communications until further notice. Last week, in one week, I received over 2,000 e-mails at work last week. Assuming a 5 day work week, 12 hours a day, if I did nothing but reply to e-mail I'd need to respond to an e-mail once every 1 minute and 48 seconds in order to keep up.
I used to try to respond to every e-mail and voicemail within 24 hours. Then I realized it's a highly unproductive way to run your day. After being assaulted from all sides all day at the office, I get home and just retreat to my room for some privacy. I don't think I could be a celebrity--I'd go Sean Penn and punch out some reporter.
The most exciting player

The most exciting player to watch in all of sports right now is Michael Vick (apologies to Barry Bonds who comes in a close second). The ex-Hokie is a physical freak of nature--it's not often that the best athlete on the field is the QB, but in the new NFL it's a distinct advantage (see Donovan McNabb). Vick is the fastest player on the field, has the strongest arm, and has a sixth sense that makes him a terror for defenses to bring down. Do they still do that annual quarterback skills challenge? Vick would dominate.
On another sport, I've seen bits and piece of Yao Ming playing in the NBA. That guy's for real--he's no tall oaf like Shawn Bradley or Manute Bol. When he gains some weight and strength to go along with his shooting touch, he'll be a force. Go China!
Of course, the Sonics are doing well, as they always seem to do at the start of the season. I heard Sonics fans around the water cooler at work, talking playoff tickets already. It's laughable. During the regular season, the Sonics benefit from the new defensive rules that allow zone defenses. Instead of relying on a dominant big guy, they spread the floor and fire jump shots. They don't really have any guy who can play with his back to the basket. A team that's an even more extreme example is the Mavericks, with Nowitzki, Nash, and Finley chucking balls up from all over the place. Come playoff time, when defense become tighter and more physical and the officiating loosens, the big men like Duncan and O'Neal will go back to dominating and the Sonics and Mavs will be going home again. Nowitzki is so much fun to watch on offense, and a joke on defense.
Hope springs eternal

Being a Cubs fan, one develops natural pessimism about any and every development, but still, the offseason rumor mill is always such a tease. The mere possibility of signing a star player raises every fan's hopes. Rumors like this one leave me thinking that perhaps this is the year the Cubs become the Anaheim Angels of 2003: "According to the Montreal Gazette, the Cubs and Expos have discussed a Javier Vazquez and Jose Vidro for Carlos Zambrano, Bobby Hill and another player trade." Two All-Stars like Vazquez and Vidro for two unproven rookies? Yee-ha! Or rumors the Cubs will bring in Jeff Kent, or Ivan Rodriguez, or Tom Glavine, or Mike Remlinger. It all sounds highly unlikely, but who knows? The Angels finished 41 games out of first in 2001.

Blown away

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I've had issues to work out this week. The easiest way to do so is by working out. Saturday I hoped for a break in the weather so I could get out on my bike. Since my accident, I haven't been outdoors on my bike, and among other things, I wanted to overcome a calcifying mental block about riding around Mercer Island.
All day, the rain came down in patches while the wind was strong enough to rattle my windows. Not a good sign. I waited, cleaning my room, watching TV, reading, doing my laundry. I called Rachael to see if she'd be crazy enough to meet me out. A companion would mitigate the pain of being outside in lousy weather. Nope, she was too sane for that.
Finally, at 4:00pm, I glimpsed a brief patch of blue sky way out over the Olympics. Close enough. I quickly donned every warm-weather cycling item I owned, which took a while. Bundled up like a scuba diver in layers of high tech synthetics, I emerged into the darkening grey afternoon.
About 40 feet out of the driveway, I knew it was a bad idea. The wind was howling, and I had to grip the handlebars as tightly as possible to keep my bike from twisting in the wind. On the I-90 bridge, it was worse. The ice-cold wind seemed to be blowing in all directions. It was in my face, and it attacked me from both sides. I've never felt my bike pitching and bucking underneath me with such violence. By the time I summited the hill on the other side my hands and forearms were sore from gripping the bars so tightly.
On Mercer Ave., the mental challenges continued. The rain and wet leaves on the pavement formed a slick surface, and I couldn't shake the image of a wipeout every time I turned. Drivers on Mercer Island have no patience for cyclists and so they buzzed by me to the left, even in sharp turns where they had no way to see if a car was coming in the other direction. If a car did emerge in the other lane and the car in my lane swerved to the right to avoid a collision, my bike and I would be swept off the road off the edge of the hill inter the trees. Meanwhile, the wind continued to gust in rage, and all the trees on Mercer shrieked as the leaves were ripped from their branches.
Halfway around the island, with little light left in the day, I stopped and turned around. The sun was setting earlier than I had anticipated. If I continued on around the island, I'd be finishing in blackness. That would be idiocy. As it was, when I reached I-90 again it was too dark to pick out the terrain of the road anymore. If I haven't exhausted my reservoir of hyperbole, the wind was worse on the return trip across the bridge. It always is.
I finally pulled into the driveway, having seen not a single other cyclist or jogger out on the road. That was definitely the worst weather I've biked in. In retrospect, not the smartest decision.
Still, it's a start on my comeback. It's not quite Maverick in Top Gun, unable to engage in a dogfight after losing Goose in that freak accident, but something like that.
The Two Towers

I finally finished rereading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Reading that tome is an epic quest in itself, one that parallels that of Frodo himself. Not always the fastest read, especially with all those declarative sentences.
Nevertheless, there's enough there that I can't wait to see the movie hit the big screen. How will they depict the Ents, the massive battle scene, and finally Shelob? The heart of a film geek sings.

Scott is on his way

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Spoke to Scott earlier today. He just completed his first 50 miles today, having left Key West in the morning. It's funny--his bike computer wasn't working, and I think, though it's hard to tell from so far away, but I think it's because he mistook the setting for circumference of his bike wheel for accumulated mileage and lowered it to 10. That means he basically reduced his speed by 200 times on a regular 700 x 23 road wheel. Take his 50 miles of riding today and it's no wonder it looked as if he was going zero miles per hour the whole way.
Or it's possible his bike computer just crapped out, which is entirely possible, because of all the advances in bike technology, almost all bike computers are still junk.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll all be able to read about it from him shortly, but in the meantime he asked me to pass along a big hello to everyone, and I know no other way to reach as many people as by typing and uploading. Scott is sore, for sure, and is planning to ramp up his mileage by about 25 miles a day for the next few days. Crazy stuff.
More power to him. I've only met a handful of people who've pulled off the Ride Across America, fewer people than have completed marathons, or climbed mountains, and other extreme things of that ilk. That's because riding your bike across this vast country is extremely long, hard, and occasionally, I'd imagine, boring and lonely.

Flavors of pain

I got a note from my pen pal bike coach from CTS (I'm giving this remote coaching a trial run for a short while) with some suggested off season lifting regimens to begin now that the weather in Seattle has gone to hell again. The spreadsheet contained different sessions and lifting exercises and suggested set and rep counts, but I couldn't tell if I was supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise in each session, or if each session counted as one of the sets. Anyway, to be conservative, yesterday I did the full 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise in each of the 3 sessions. It all added up to some 60 odd sets of 10 reps, and it took forever.
I haven't lifted at the gym in a long time, but even when I was lifting, I never did that many sets in one workout. That's the territory of full-time bodybuilding beefcake meatheads who spend hours at the gym each day, lifting as an occupation. Well, turns out I did too many sets, according to an e-mail I received today from another coach on the staff.
That was the answer I was looking for, because I couldn't pull my socks on today or stand up out of my chair, simple things like that. Some 9 sets of squats will do that to you. If someone is reading this, please come to my room and lift me out of my bed.

Don't like that? Too bad, so not sad

One of the things I've learned this year is that I can't make everyone happy, and I'm fine with that. I didn't used to be, but I can only do what I can do, and sometimes it's not what others want, or it's not enough, or whatever. In fact, I've probably made more people unhappy this year than ever before, and I think it's a healthy sign because it's a terrible burden, the desire to please everyone. Part of it probably stems from the fact that I'm usually right, too. Wow, have I reached that inflection point where I've become a crusty, bitter, stubborn old codger who's seen and heard it all before?
Besides, I miss having a few well-cultivated enemies.

Basketball Prospectus

Faithful readers know I'm a huge fan of the guys over at Baseball Prospectus (not being sexist here; they really are all guys). Well, I picked up the Football Prospectus and was fairly disappointed. Where was the wit and insight that the baseball guys had established for the Prospectus brand? I finally got my copy of Basketball Prospectus and highly recommend it for any major NBA fan. It's the best objective analysis about the NBA and its players ever published.
I've only just started to delve into the brilliance of author John Hollinger's debut book and already it's revealed all sorts of interesting things, some of which I suspected, others which surprised me:
1. Michael Jordan was the best ever and still is. Most people know this, but recently everyone has been ready to anoint Kobe Bryant the new Michael Jordan. Kobe's a very good player, but he's not even close to Jordan in his prime, especially on defense. He's not even the best player on his own team. That would be...
2. Shaquille O'Neal. It's popular among basketball fans to deride Shaq because his free throw shooting is poor, or he just runs people over, or whatever. I've always disliked him because he's such a terrible interview. The fact is, though, that he's been the best player in the league ever since Jordan left, and he's one of the most dominant players of all time. Underrated defensively, a physical freak of nature, he's unstoppable when healthy. Free throws aren't everything, he has a variety of moves now which are amazingly effective, and complaining that he's bigger and stronger than all the other centers is like complaining that Yao Ming is too tall. Frankly, people push each other around in the post all the time. It just happens that Shaq is so much stronger and bigger than most his defenders that it magnifies the difference. In other players such physical prowess is called toughness. I still think Shaq is a terrible interview, but the Lakers struggles this season are just the latest evidence that he's the main reason the Lakers have won 3 titles in a row.
3. Tracy McGrady is better than Kobe Bryant. Younger, too.
4. Dennis Rodman is the best rebounder of all time, and it's not even close. I got to watch him play a ton his last couple years, when he was on the Bulls, and he just clearly had a sixth sense about how the ball would come off the rim and how to get his hands on it before anyone else did.
5. Allen Iverson is incredibly valuable for his team, despite his low scoring percentage, primarily because he can get off shots for himself that most other players could not.