week 36, 2005 archives
“it is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt” is a quote i’ve seen attributed to both mark twain and abraham lincoln. it would be interesting to know who actually said it. i suspect it was neither of them.
i need a t-shirt that says “yes, i am usually this quiet.”
i spent my day hammering kittens porting mysql to sco openserver 6 today, a subject of some controversy.
i would not have mentioned it, except that it gave me another excuse to link to that page from everything can be beaten by chancre scolex (jhonen vasquez) and crab scrambly (brad canby). i’d buy a print of that page in a heartbeat.
the red-cross-in-the-corner thing was taken from the brian alvey weblog. (with a few tweaks. i’m not using javascript to add it to the page, and i fixed it to the corner of the window instead of the page.)
the volunteering at dodger stadium on labor day was pretty uneventful. three of us volunteers and someone from the community relations department of the dodgers organization basically just sat around out in the pavilion (under the cheap seats) and shot the breeze while watching over a water bottle that people dropped money into. everything from change to twenty dollar bills — and most of the latter came from the maintenance and vending staff.
the dodgers lost, but we couldn’t see the game from where we were. leaving the stadium, i made the mistake of going out the wrong entrance and ended up with quite a hike back to where i needed to catch my bus. other than that, catching the bus to the stadium was very convenient.
here’s another way to help: buy this $10 shirt from threadless and they’ll donate $20 for hurricane relief.
who says los angeles has no seasons? it is apparently allergy season again, at least for me. ugh. hopefully i don’t have too many antihistamine-daze days in my immediate future.
tyler cowen questions the economics of seduction, continuing the publicity snowball for the game: penetrating the secret society of pickup artists by neil strauss.
from an interview with neil strauss: “i learned that the more unavailable you make yourself, the more people would want you.” either there’s a point where that trend reverses, or there’s a whole lot of people out there who want me.
i’ll pretend it is the latter.
busy night
tonight there is a discussion with william mcdonough about “the ‘cradle to cradle’ design protocol” at the central library, a party to celebrate lavoice.org’s 1000th post at cole’s, and it’s the monthly downtown art walk.
right now, i’ll count myself lucky if i make it to the talk at the library instead of being knocked out by allergy medication again.
jay mohr on why fantasy football is good for the nfl: “due to the intense study and preparation for a fantasy draft, i can meet anyone from anywhere in the country and talk knowledgeable, intelligent football with them. unless they’re from cleveland.”
you can vote for what nfc games you want to see on the los angeles fox affiliate this sunday. i’m not holding out much hope that the vikings v. bucs will be one of them. i suspect the first game i’ll get to see will be their home game against the saints, because i will be in minnesota that weekend.
kevin roderick reports that calvin and hobbes is reappearing in papers as a promotion for the new collection of all of the strips: the complete calvin and hobbes by bill watterson. awesome.
happy day — vikes v. bucs was selected for broadcast this sunday. it’s the early game, at the unholy time of 10am. there’s not much risk i won’t be awake by then, but watching football before noon still feels wrong to me.
businessweek’s blogspotting noticed in a wall street journal article that technorati is making deals to get ping data first, or at least that’s the claim in the article. it would be interesting to know who those deals are with. i can’t imagine it’s with either blogger (google) or six apart.
of course, i’m not sure it helps for technorati to have the data first if nobody can ever actually get at it because of their persistent inability to handle their search load.
hurt
i hurt myself today— “hurt,” by nine inch nails, from downward spiral
to see if i still feel
i focus on the pain
the only thing that’s real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
i will let you down
i will make you hurt
i wear this crown of shit
upon my liar’s chair
full of broken thoughts
i cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feeling disappear
you are someone else
i am still right here
what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
i will let you down
i will make you hurt
if i could start again
a million miles away
i would keep myself
i would find a way
but the definitive version of this song is by johnny cash, from american iv: the man comes around. it’s right up there in contention for my favorite song ever.
not exactly a mood-lifter, though.
michelle gubay of the los angeles downtown news writes about various fountains downtown. i guess it’s kind of a companion piece to my photos of various fountains in downtown. the photo here is of the bank of america garden pool area she writes about.
looking back at my photo set, the place i wish i spent more time is by the reflecting pools and fountain near moca.
say it isn’t so isn’t as terrible as i thought it would be. it’s not great, but it is pretty competently put together. there was at least one shot where i thought “that looks too good to be in this movie.”
and let’s face it, i’d watch rollergirl read the phone book. and that’s a good thing, because chris klein basically has the acting range of a phone book.
okay, that’s probably too harsh. but i thought it was funny.
i was going to post my basic pancake recipe, but it turns out that i already have. looking forward to making pancakes on the weekend is one of the things that gets me through the rest of the week.
recently i’ve cut down the amount of flour (to ¾ cup) and milk (who knows by how much — it’s an add-until-enough ingredient).
speaking of slogans i should have on a t-shirt, i think i need to add “i don’t hate you” to the list.
i certainly don’t mean to lay down a heavy fuck-off vibe (usually), but sometimes i think that i must. some of those sometimes have been triggered by someone asking “why do you hate me?” even if they’re kidding, i know there is truth in humor. i guess it is the always quiet thing that sends the wrong message.
and after kicking around this idea for a couple of days, i think the slogan would be more precise, if not more concise, expanded to “i don’t hate you, i hate myself.”
crimen ferpecto is a black comedy from spain about a department store salesman, his rivalry with another salesman to become the floor manager, and his relationships with the women he works with. it is pretty funny, but it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. it has a bit of that classic romantic comedy feel, but it doesn’t keep topping itself like down with love did.
because it is always a good idea to have one that is up-to-date, here’s my unabridged résumé.
if i were sending this out, the abridged (one-page) version would cut out the work experience prior to knowledge adventure, the whole honors and awards section, and all of the published works and presentations before 2003, if not that whole section. but that does remind me, i could probably add some of the articles i wrote for mysql’s developer zone to the unabridged version.
i can’t believe the experience at homepage.com only lasted fifteen months. and in not too long, my job with mysql will be the one i’ve stuck with the longest.
if you were me, you might find the one liter bottle of blackthorn cider to be the perfect amount to get a good buzz going. and at $3/bottle at trader joe‘s, it’s a pretty good deal.
blackthorn isn’t my favorite cider, but there appears to have been a decline in the number of hard ciders you can get around here. i remember there being one bar i went to a few times that actually had a cider on tap, and spaceland used to have it in bottles. the last time i remember a bar having anything close was when they had pear cider, which just isn’t the same.
anyway, it was a good complement to the not-so-good second half of the game today.
