General

Lawyers again...and Adam Smith

Lawyers are now ethically allowed to turn in clients that are stealing from the company or cooking the books. It’s funny to think of the health of a corporation as being tantamount to the health of another person who might fall victim to harm by misdeeds of a client. I suppose this goes to show that the much hated “joint stock company” of Adam Smith is, in fact, as important as a human life in this hyper-capitalist society of ours. I think I’m done writing about lawyers for the moment. On that much hated: Smith warned against the joint-stock company as it had the following properties that made it dangerous to the stability of the Wealth of Nations:

The weekend...

I’ve been catching up on movies this weekend including Minority Report and Barfly. I really liked MP and thought that, while there was the Spielberg tacked-on ending at the end, it did not detract from the quality of the film. Today I hung out, yet again, at Farley’s in the afternoon and made my traditional one and a half chapters of progress in After Virtue. Ethics is not really my bag (much more interested in Metaphysics) but it’s a challenge and that’s why I’m doing it.

Sunday: Mediterranean a-cookin’...

It’s been about six weeks since my last “I will not eat out at every meal” fit which translates into a big day at Trader Joe’s. I bought a bunch of stuff (celery and PB sticks, Salt and Vinegar chips) but while there I had the kah-razy (thank you Strong Bad) idea that I should try to make “Zatar.” Zatar is a middle eastern sauce that goes over flatbread as a dipping souce. It’s very tasty and can be had in Sunnyvale, CA for dinner at “Dish Dash”, a Mediterranean place on Sunnyvale Ave. I highly recommend the dish, “Mo, King of Kebab.

Saturday

So this morning I got up early to pass out Arianna flyers at the newly refurbished San Francisco Ferry Buliding. It was a lot of fun to stand out there and try to sped the message to as many people as would hear it. I always try to be nice to campaigners when I see them handing out leaflets and I discovered that most people are pretty nice about declining politely. It was a bit hard because I’m not really that extroverted a person by nature, so this is a bit of a thing that’s outside of my comfort zone. I felt pretty good about this as one lady said that I was a good salesman, guess I emoted correctly.

It’s the Sneak!

I love the character The Cheat, but I find his ancestor, The Sneak to be even better! The Sneak and Cheat are part of the roll call of the Homestar Runner site. I have to be honest, i thought that the site was majorly stupid when i first started checking it out. Oddly, the more you get “in” on the self-referential in-jokes on the site the funnier it gets. That and the dialog in my little corner of the cube farm frequently includes H*R-isms, Strong Bad one liners, and songlets. Check it out if you want to get lost in another geeky morass.

Letter to the Editor in The Alcalde and other news...

I recently wrote into the University of Texas alumni magazine, The Alcalde about their interview with Prof. Philip Bobbit. Bobbit explained the mechanics of Fascism and some of its hallmarks, and then asserted that “I think it’s [fascism] is gone.” This struck me as incredibly naive. We live in an area where his described mechanics of fascism are on the rise – right here in the USA! I think the interviewer missed an opportunity to press the issue and force a Bush Doctrine / neo-Empire apologist to tackle a hard question. Continue reading to see my letter.

I am within 25 pages of finishing After Virtue. While this may sound like something you can hash through in the course of an afternoon, my history with AV would seem to predict that this is yet another 3 hours of work. I’ve been taking good notes and definitely have been enjoying the work. I was really missing the mental engagement that dense philosophy (sick, I know) requires. I’m of the opinion though that a method for engaging with philosophical text ought be written. It’s been a pet project of mine. Fortunately I’m now good enough with Perl to make an application that nets tools for such engagement. I need to get better with XML viz. learning to define DTDs though…

I also wrote some eLisp extension this weekend to help me write Perl code in the fashion in which I write Perl code (i.e. my sense of code aesthetics). eLisp has an elegance about it that I enjoyed getting back into. I suspect that there may have been a simpler way to have done this, but the challenge was fun and I’m sure this will grow to meet my Perl-style sense of aesthetics - which were heavily influenced by Hall’s Effective Perl Programming.

Friday night in SF...

So Friday night I went down to enjoy the second day of ’litquake’ at The Make Out Room. It’s part of a 4-day festival celebrating local-ish authors. There were 4 presenters and I really enjoyed all of their presentations (a breakdown follows) and saw the famous Craig Newmark.

I hadn’t been planning on coming, but my father changed his flight from Friday night to Saturday morning.

So there I was, plowing my way through the tail end of happy hour, $3 Gin and T’s with cheap Anchor Steam, fun.

So here’s a recap of the literary reading.

Saturday

Saturday my father came to town. I got up and washed my car, cleaned up things a bit and then drove out to Oakland to pick him up. After that we both headed down to Broadway in Oakland and went by the Porsche dealership. Nothing was bought :) After that we headed down the east bay towards Fremont because I wanted to see what the BMW dealership there (Claridge) had in stock. Turns out not too much is left except Z4s. I’m not surprised the Z4 sucks. It’s an expensive and zippy car that has an interior fitting to a Neon.

Run OJ run, #oj, IRC

Back in the day when there were few to no ISPs in Houston (where I grew up), I used to have an account on cypher.com. Cypher ran a Santa Cruz Operation System V machine, and it was there I cut my Unix teeth. I would run - inside of GNU screen, of course to account for dropped connections - tin (Usenet News), elm (email), and keep a Terminal open for screwing around in Unix. It was there that I learned some of the applications that I use in my occupation to this very day. This was the afternoon preluding the twilight of the Internet’s golden age.

What’s new in the world..

Well everyone I know is asking me what I think about my new Governor-elect, Schwarzenegger. Here are my thoughts:

  • Too many characters to type to bitch about easily. Contrast: “That doofus Bush!” versus “That doofus Schwarzenegger”
  • Another CEO president. Ugh.
  • As I said on friendster: California uber alles

Seriously though, as I know pretty much nothing about what the guy stands for, I can’t really say. It’s just wait and see.

In other news:

  • I got my car maintained today…
  • I tried a McGriddle for the first time (more in the read more section)
  • I also have some great new music picks!

Moving Woes...

So with the month of November pretty much filled up with activities, stress, and departure, I worked all weekend to get as much stuff moved into storage as possible. Step 1 was to get storage at CityStorage which, fortunately enough, has a storage center literally 3 blocks from my house. I knew living in a quasi-industrial zone would have its advantages at some point. Step 2 was to empty all my big furniture, deks, TV stand, bookshelves. Step 3 I posted an ad on CraigsList to get some help, a great guy named Jon volunteered to help for a reasonable rate.

Do video games affect kids’ behavior?

Every time some kid shoots up a school or steals a car there are always three convenient scapegoats: video games, that music they listen to, and those movies they watch. Recently here in the Bay Area there has been an upswing of service vehicles being stolen: ambulances, police cars, etc. Now normally I’m of the school of thought that says parents who parent well are to blame for kids stealing cars or being miscreants, not RockStar Games, Eminem, or Quentin Tarantino. Nonetheless, stealing service vehicles is a core part of the Grand Theft Auto series (III and Vice City in particular).

I got a minus in art...

Back in elementary school, most of your classes on your report card were graded on the traditional A-F scale (but where was “E,” “E"xactly?). There were some other classes that were merely graded as Check or Check Minus or Minus. These were the non-core classes of Music, Art, and P.E. Well, in Art I got a minus. I guess even then I was too postmodern or something like it to really be able to do art, but I was even then, and still am, excellent at dissecting Art’s meaning. That’s probably part of the reason I live in SF. But I’ve been wanting to have a proper notebook cover.

Completed my Craft Project

I finished off my notebook cover. It came out pretty well (i think). I now notice that Levenger is selling a solution that looks slicker than mine (for 80 dollars, genuine leather). Nonetheless my solution cost half as much, literally. Exterior Interior My Mac still hasn’t shipped yet. This MiMail virus outbreak is occurring during my oncall period and is making it very hard for me to work. About every time I get working on something I get distracted. The weather has definitely turned cold here in SF. It was windy and dark and cold when I got home today - just how I like it!

Leaving Potrero Hill

Today is the last full day that I well spend in my apartment here on Mariposa street in the lovely Potrero Hill district of San Francisco. I may come back to the City again - I may not. I do love it here, but nonetheless I have the feeling that it’s not /quite/ the where where I’m supposed to be. It’s certainly the closest - but I keep thinking that there is a somewhere else that I am meant to be. But P-hill has a wonderful aura about it (if only the rent didn’t suck so bad!) and I’ll miss Farley’s coffee (where I’m typing this), Nadja my laundry lady, the staff at Chez Maman bistro.

Farewell America...

I’m sitting here in SFO in one of the little phone cubicles. I have the iPod of doom charging and the PowerBook of Glory is open. I must cut quite the figure of .com trendiness here. The last several hours have been fast paced and pretty hectic. Friday morning I took my last load of stuff to CityStorage and then headed down to San Jose and met up with the guys at work and we went to lunch. After lunch at Bennigan’s we headed back to the office and I worked on arranging some of the final details of my travel.

Spent the weekend in Sydney Dowtown...

Note: The ‘blog will be turning into a bit of a travel journal until further notice:

Just how PHAT is Sydney

A lot of people I have been talking to here have been asking me what I think of Sydney. Similarly, a lot of people back home have been asking me how Sydney compares to other cities in the States. Well, I would say it this way. It seems that a great many cities within the States have a lot going for them. It would also seem that some of these cities excel in areas where Sydney is deficient. But the delta in Sydney’s deficiency to a city in the states its superior is never very large. Case in point. Sydney is humid Mountain view is rarely humid Advantage: Mountain View

Lunch should be this...and 03 music thoughts

Lunch at the Hotel Yum Cha (Chinese Dumplings) Red Wine Brie-ish or Camembert-ish cheese Coffee with sugar and cream. Chocolate The effects of the drugs against each other is sublime. Now why am I familiar with this meal for lunch today, a work day as you say? Well your friend Steven was very stupid yesterday and has 4 GIGANTIC blisters on his feet. They are of the scope that I cannot even hobble about well. It sucks. See, I had the bright idea of running from Bondi Junction to Bondi Beach. It’s not far, it was a great sunny day, I was feeling good.

Thinking about Lebanon still has me thinking about my homeland

I’ve seen many of these fulfilled… Christian Maronite from Lebanon, Kahlil Gibran: Pity The Nation Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Prana

Last night I went to yoga. It was a very fun experience and really showed me how incredibly un-limber I already knew I was. About 45 minutes in, the power to the block went out and we proceeded to practice in the ambient light coming from the Sears sign across the way. It was actually a really interesting experience because my instructor was silhouetted against the window - it was a really beautiful display because she had such a very sculpted physique (a dancer). When she finished her stretches or positions they were really effective demonstrations of the balance and harmony of the body human.

Movie evening

Last night I returned home very drained and I decided I needed some light-hearted comedy, so I watched Big Fat Greek Wedding, and then Barcelona (because I’m going there), and then Y Tu Mama Tambien because I like road trip movies with a lot of graphic content. BFGW was what I expected and I was rather put off by Barcelona. I think I was supposed to think that the lively banter between the two main characters was witty and hipster and cool in that yuppie ex-pat sort of way. It wasn’t. It was basically some writer who is probably quite clever, impressing himself about how clever he is.

An Apology

I would like to apologize to the steak I cooked tonight. After a good yoga workout I was hoping to leech every ounce of protien out of a steak that I had bought at Whole Foods (this is no run-of-the-mill cut mind you). I prepared onions and peppers and Tabasco. I put the steak in the Foreman Grill o’ Doom and 8 minutes later I had gray steak. Ugh. The flavour was – disappointing. It would have been OK for a Dave and Buster’s Philly Cheese Sandwich – but it was an insult to all that sirloin could have been. Dear meat, I apologize and tell you that as i drowned you in Tabasco, I made a promise to never overcook a steak like that again.

Europe...

I will be heading back to the place where my genetic data spent some time as of Wednesday of this week. I’m trying hard not to mentally check out at work. Don’t worry I can hack it, I worked support for years. That means that I can stay Buddhically disengaged while being engaged.

Going on vacation tomorrow

Well, it’s official, the day of my vacation’s commencement is tomorrow. Tomorrow I hop a flight to JFK at noon and, thanks to living on the left coast, I will land there at 8:15 and then catch my Koniklijkeluchtvaartmaatschappij flight to the city on the dam on the Amstel. I didn’t have that great of an impression of A’dam last time I was there. Was it the aura of my study abroad had worn off? Had the UK exodus as per the Maastrict treaty worn away the Dutch-ness? Can’t say. Up side is i get to see soopah-sistah, Mr. Cave Cheese himself, and perhaps Big Al (who is now looking to return to the Continent).

The spiritual center of the South Bay: Mountain View

What’s strange about Mountain View, CA is that on its main downtown street (i.e. the simulation of Main Street, USA, replete with cute antique shops and Starbucks) is that within one block on Castro street there are three “spiritual / new age / world traveler” type shops. What’s even more strange about this is that none of them seem to be in competition with each other. One is more scents based, the other is more beads and textiles based, and the other is more literature based. They, as a triumvirate, basically offer anything you and your patchouli-oil-drenched girlfriend could want.

Massage day

Today is massage day. I have a great masseuse named Sarah in Sunnyvale (if you live in the area and would like a recommendation, send me a mail). I was a bit surprised the first time because she has a room of operations in this house in the middle of a neighborhood. There’s not much on the exterior to hint that this is a place to receive massages. Over the last two weeks Sarah has made great progress in loosening up the balled up muscles in my upper left shoulder. I really hope that this helps me address my consistent irritation.

Loot a-purchasin’

iSight. If you use a visually friendly AOL client now, assuming i have the thing plugged in, you can see my mug. I have to figure out all the uses for it – so far it’s a glorified mirror. Books Hillegass: Cocoa Programming for Mac OSX (great book so far!) Caldwell & Thomason: The Rule of Four (looks like da Vinci Code knock off, but I don’t care, I loved dVC). Pagels: The Gnostic Gospels (heh, a bit of dVC philosophy) I drove up today to SF for a bit of a lunch with Patrick at Chez Maman. It’s a good place to get a meal before heading off far, away.

The True Reason the Young look Young

Today at Dana street there was a young boy of about 4 years old with his parents of indeterminate middle-eastern / Mediterranean extraction. She surely was French-Algerian, or Lebanese and he was surely Persian or Greek. In any case the boy, obviously worn out and of no age to be overcoming his fatigue with the choice beverages for sale at this establishment collapsed in a big teary-eyed cataplexy for no apparent reason. His mother put him in her lap and he leaned against her shoulder, heavy lids growing heavier by the moment (no help that the only thing of interest in his line of sight was my grizzled mug).

How long are the days....

…without Ol Monkeyface around to harass. Right now is about the time I would stand up, walk into his cube, and do a strange dance. …or peer over his cube … or pretend to be a giraffe He merely appears to be sleeping, it’s a frustrating call. Yawn.

Cead Mille Failte

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Dust devils on Mars

Wow. I love space stuff. The Spirit rover, atop a mountain, caught sight of several dust devils crossing the Martian surface.

Steven is going back to Austin

Today I spoke with my boss and she, very graciously, consented to allow me to work remotely from our Austin, Texas office. Actually in a bit of a sign of the times moment, working remotely means working 2 time zones closer to her. Isn’t that the internet age? I love Austin and I can’t wait to get back. LL Cool J can go back to Cali, but my ears long for KGSR, my mouth for Tex-Mex and Mexican Martinis, and my eyes for SXSW. I’m going back to where I’m from and I’m taking my lady with me. I’ll miss the South Bay and its mild climate, its dispassionate precipitation.

Vatican astronomer calls creationism a version of paganism

Some quasi-revolutionary thinking in a place where revolutionary thinking is rarely found: He [Brother Consolmagno] described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events. Brother Consolmagno is entirely correct. The human mind has sought to apply reason and narrative to the disorder of our world of experience since the very first humans. First we attributed the creation myths and the “why does X happen” myths to mysterious forces. We then structure those forces to have relationships to one another (The goddess of wisdom erupted whole and unborn outside of the ruler-god, etc.

I am a resident of Austin, Texas now ( again )

Dear Readers, I must apologize for not having put together any real entries before this date. I would have liked to - I really would have - but things have just been so busy what with moving in, getting settled, and living that strange sort of “tourist / resident” life you live when you first get somewhere. When I first got to Holland, I admit. I went to Amsterdam often and just hung around: went to musea, had many drinks. When I first got to Silicon Valley…uh, well there’s nothing to do there. When I first got to San Francisco: dinners, bars, taxis, etc.

SIMPLIFY

I saw a bumper sticker driving around town that had this simple verb as the content: simplify. Wow. So much of my life in the Bay Area, I was carrying around too much stuff. Too much mental baggage, too much physical stuff in disarray. I was so consumed with the stuff pursuit that, well, I allowed myself to start believing one of the great myths of the Silicon Valley: Working that hard for what you get here is worth it. And I’ve still got that toxin in my blood, it’s still German autos I think about, it’s still hand-crafted asian furniture I dream of resting my 30" Apple Cinema display upon while sitting in a Herman Miller chair.

Monday Morning Referees

It drives me nuts when sports fans talk about what they would have done had they been coaching. “Well, if you’d called a time out at 48 seconds you could have run the clock etc.” “Well, if you’d told your defense to step up their offense wouldn’t have had a chance to score.” Most of these observations are absolutely vacuous. I’m pretty sure that the quarterback who just took cleet to the guts probably thought “Hm, perhaps I wouldn’t be in this position if my offensive line hadn’t crumbled. When I stand up again, I shall have to confer with these chaps about Bill Swarkowski’s keen observation that they should ‘Grow A Pair and Stop Defending Like a bunch of little girls’.

Sally Fourth

Hello, thanks for stopping in yet again for the life and times of Steven and his, quite often, wunder-fraulein, Lauren. The Fourth saw me get up early to make 9 o’clock ( - 40 (+11 5)) yoga class. Afterwards I got some Fourth of July gas when it struck me that no fourth of july is a Fourth of July without Bar-B-Q (to say nothing of being components in two Robert Earl Keen songs). I headed home and the lady and I headed over to Rudy’s for some lean brisket on whitebread with gallons of iced tea. Rudy’s is so fine, and I do mean so fine.

Howdy readers

Ho ho howdy. I saw a horrible movie from the 80’s. “Slam Dance”. Terrible. I saw a very good, albeit intense movie from a few years back, “Mean Creek”. It was a bit like “Stand By Me” but with a body count. I have to give incredibly praise to the adolescent and teen actors in this movie. They all showed skill beyond their years. Particularly impressive was Josh Peck playing a bully with more complexity and depth than such a character is usually given when Our Hero is the smaller picked-on kid. A lot of great and heavy questions were asked: who has the right to judge, if you could kill your tormentors would you, the bond between brothers…it was all there and very, very real.

The Ice Storm ( no not a crappy ennui-drama about growing up in the 70’s )

Hello there readers, this is just to let you know that my baby and I are making it through these wintry days in central Texas just fine. Saturday night we were over chez League having a charming evening and there was some discussion about sleet, ice, and snow. With the 4x4 in place, we made it back home, feeling rather ho-hum about the affair. We re-rendezvous’d with The League and Mrs. League at Alamo Drafthouse South to catch the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth. As we exited from the 4:30 showing close to 7:00 the winds were strong, the rains icy, and it was generally not fun to be outside.

Update: Shibboleth

I shibboleths with Lauren and Kerbey Lane ( Eggs, Biscuits & Gravy, you know it’s good for the soul ) yesterday. I think this phrase, quite like no other, is a shibboleth of “I went to a university and got a degree of consequence” . Ironically, it is usually the people who adopted the shibboleth for exactly that reason, who most misuse it, leaving your fry cook’s teeth it ill-repair owing to the induced gnashing. The discussion went something like this: Lauren: So you wrote that people use “beg the question” as a shibbloleth of having had “higher education”. Me: Yes.

On the impending subprime lending crisis

What? How am I now paying 17% more on my monthly note? Surely those dancing cowboy ad people wouldn’t have oversold me on my dreams by making cheap money possible today all the while plotting that I would have to owe dramatically but years later? I mean, all reputable lenders use cheap gimmicky ads to draw you to a responsible lending institution that will help you chart a financially prudent course to home-ownership. In the meantime I pay rent, until…

The religiosity of being insufficiently cute

We live in a woodsy part of Texas which means that the out-of-doors is warm, humid, grassy, with thick shaded forests where flora can decay and be consumed by insects and whatnot. This creates near legendary swarms of mosquitoes in the summer, and provides a home to a great many arthropods that break down dead organic matter and help the cycle of life continue. As such, it’s not entirely unusual for one of these creatures to permeate the illusion of the hermetically-sealed home and lo, there is a bug. When encountering such a bug a human can ask, “Shall I dispatch this small, yet alive bit of matter, animated by forces unknown or shall I do something else with it like dress it like Carmen Miranda and play showtunes or, perhaps, return it to the great out-of doors.

C’est le finis

I take my final in Trigonometry this afternoon.

Frankenscience or Fad or Delicious?

During SXSW my house-guest, wired up on too much of the highest points of the Web 2.0 society and jet-lag, graciously headed over to Wal-Mart to buy some basics as his luggage had gotten misplaced by American Airlines; one’s pickings are slim, mind you, at 3 in the morning. Part of the booty that was left behind by said guest was an exemplar of the all in one coffee-making cup. Being a daring sort, I drank it upon his departure. The first element to note is that this thing is heavy: comaprable to a Slim Fast can in density. You might be needing a trip to the ER were this thing to fall an your foot.

The SoCo draw and la gasolina

Friday afternoon I made a visit to my alma mater to participate in a symposium in concert with the School of Business on the status of their MIS curriculum. First, let me say that I was very impressed with my graduating program’s status. While most MIS programs in this nation are flat to down, UT’s is sharply up. It’s definitely thanks to some hard work by the faculty and administration there. It’s also an effect of the hard work of research staff who now are gladly working with incoming business school students to establish the passion for seeing IT as a business value proposition, versus a mere cost center.

Wednesday

Items of Interest: I. This weekend I finished the hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I bought it a CostCo for eight dollars. It’s a cartoon + diary written by an average Junior High kid who manages to capture the humiliating, elating, confusing, and baffling experience that society inflicts upon youth: Jr. High. Much like “Freaks and Geeks”, “Diary” hits a little too close to home a little too often to have left me without a few “squirmy” moments, but it was tender, never-patronizing, and rather funny. I mean seriously, I have never met anyone who said of Junior High, “Wow, those were the greatest days ever”.

Coils: Tango and Golf

I’m learning golf. I’m also learning tango. It’s fascinating that both of them have, at heart, the creation of a coil via twisting. Lindy Hop is much more focused on creating springy compression, but coil isn’t something I often did (was I doing it wrong?). Golf’s coil is the famous backswing. You guide that left arm backward and around as your torso coils above your waist. Then the release: the torso swings forward, the arms follow, the wrists propel and the follow through digs the ball up and into the air (when you do it right). Tango coils in its most basic pattern.

I, too, am glad I did not come of age in the age of the internets

I think Ryan and I must be on a similar wavelength lately as I too was thinking the exact same thing as him: I am thankful to not have come of age in an era where the internet’s depthless hard drives could store my equally depthless teenage narcissism or youthful folly for-ever. As an early (may I say that?) adopter in the general populace (1994, dial up Unix shell on a SCO-V UNIX) of the Internet, I didn’t get off scot-free. Thanks to BBS’ and Usenet, I managed to write some pretty inane things (e.g. “Are you excited about Mike Modano and the Dallas Stars?