A New Dawn for the Von Adamses

It is undeniable: we are living in the future.

2010-01-30T16:11:00.000-08:00

When I came back to the US in 2008 (the year 2008 is IN THE PAST), I got a phone with a new-to-me phone number. The previous owner of that number is some Spanish-speaking dude who owes a lot of businesses a lot of money, so occasionally, I get calls that are related to that. I wanted to block the number of one that did robo-calls (PHONE CALLS, MADE BY ROBOTS), so I initiated a real-time chat session with a support human who could have been in India. Here is a partial transcript of that session:

~William D: May we please know why you would like to block calls?

Joe Ardent: Because once upon a time, my phone number belonged
to someone else who, as it turns out, is a very, very bad credit
risk, and since I've had the phone, his creditors have called
me. Also, he seemed to only speak Spanish.

~William D: We do apologize for that. It must be frustrating
when your handset has calls coming in that are not welcome.

Joe Ardent: You correctly infer how that must feel.

I know Christopher appreciates the irony that sending text with a phone is considered high-tech, since the bandwidth required for voice is so much higher than for text. And yet, it really is super high-tech, since it requires so much base tech to support, such as good batteries and very cheap, very low-power electronic memory (not to mention the enormous radio-tower and fiber-optic underground cable infrastructure to handle the traffic). It's completely insane.

Originally, I just wanted to show off my dry wit with a tech support person, but the very fact that I was able to preserve a perfect record of the transaction made me think of all the other crap.

The fact that I'm still so awed by all this is the strongest indicator that I am old :)

Because I can

2008-05-06T22:00:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you just want to.

Update from America; shit I won't be patenting

2008-04-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

So, we've been in San Francisco for a little over three weeks. It feels like we've been here for much longer, but really, three weeks is not that long a period of time. As expected, we miss our Wellington friends terribly, but we've been muddling through.

We've been looking for a place to live, and it's been really difficult. There were a couple places we really wanted, but one fell through not unexpectedly, and the other was a total blue-balling con job. That is, we were told the place was ours to refuse, we said we wanted it almost immediately, and then we were rejected with no explanation.

The job front has also been frustrating. Kris thought there was a job waiting for her, but it turns out that it's not happening for a few months. I've interviewed at a couple places, one of which does not have a good position for me (this was expected), and the other of which would be perfect, but they have institutional issues which are preventing them from making an offer at the moment; I've been told to "sit tight". This is mildly irritating, but not overwhelmingly so. It's also possible that our employment status is a turn-off for prospective landlords, though we are flush with cash. We have rental packets that include a bank statement to show that we can pay their dang rent.

WARNING: extreme geekery follows.

OK! Enough of the bitching. I've been meaning to post something about some ideas I have for human-computer interfaces for a while, but since I'm looking for work, the issue has gotten a little pressing: I want to get this out, so that the ideas are not appropriated by any future employers. This also stands as a public record of the ideas, in case there are patent issues; I want this stuff in the public domain.

First, some background. There are a couple of consumer-class EEG machines due to be hitting the market soon. There's NeuroSky and Emotiv Systems. EEGs read brainwaves, and are not exactly new technology. What makes these devices special is their price, which should eventually be less than $200, and the fact that you don't need to carefully place the electrodes on your skull using conductive gel. You just put on a headband or helmet or something like that, and you're good to go. This lowers the barrier to use significantly.

The second bit of background has to do with how I believe the mind works, and especially with how it interfaces with our senses. You may have read about people that developed a magnetic sense by implanting small magnets in their fingers. There was a guy that wore a belt that imparted an absolute directional sense, and let's not forget the phenomenon of seeing with your tongue, where a grid of mechanical or electrical pixels is placed on the tongue and driven by a camera. As you use it, after about half an hour, your brain just starts interpretting that input as visual data, and you can actually navigate around and recognize objects while blindfolded.

All these things point to a cognitive theory popularized by a guy named Jeff Hawkins, who wrote a book called On Intelligence. In it, he articulates and defends a theory of cognition, that the cortex (the wrinkly part of the brain, the part that makes mammmals so smart) operates with one fundamental algorithm: it recognizes temporal patterns of pulses from the sensory system and itself. So, as long as a certain stimulus produces a characteristic and repeated pattern, the brain will learn to interpret that pattern as a true sense. There's no difference between a pattern of pulses coming from the tongue and the pattern of pulses coming from your eyes; as long as they are consistent and driven by photon-sensing instruments, your brain can use them to see. (This is a pretty drastic simplification of Hawkins' thesis: I'm omitting all the hierarchical nature to the patterns, but it's good enough to have context for what follows.)

OK, so, what does this have to do with using a computer? Plenty. By having a computer reading your brainstate as it interacts with you, it can learn to respond to your intentions without you having to prompt it to. Imagine the following scenario:

You are using a text-to-speech program to write a letter (or some software, or anything). The program transcribes the wrong homophone (say, "your" instead of "you're"). You see this happen, and as you do, your brainstate indicates that you're displeased/irritated/distracted. The computer then automatically erases the wrong homophone and switches to correction mode. You select the right word, and it automatically switches back to transcription mode. The key idea here is that the computer can use your brainstate to automatically switch modes in the tool that is currently being used, eg, from transcription mode to command mode, and back. This is a very powerful notion, and in a sense, is a true "computer implant"; the loop between intention and action is very tight, and since all your brain knows is pulses of data, there's no qualitative difference between that and the intention/action sequence that goes with, say, recalling an incident from episodic memory.

You can close the loop tighter, though, if you enlist more senses into the interface. Imagine that you have a system that uses your eyes to control a mouse pointer. When you want to "click" on something, the desire alone causes the action to occur. I have a dream of a software development environment like that, where it actually recognizes your brainstate to do things like bring up a definition of a variable or function, in conjunction with cursor position. Kind of like the Emacs Code Browser, but again, with modality and other actions controlled via the brain interface, always modulated by the current context. There's no reason to not combine the speech recognition with the code browser; the more of these capabilities utilized together, the more profound the immersion and the more powerful the cybernetic system that is the human/computer partnership. Eventually, the computer will act as a true enhanced memory and cognition aid, all by using non-invasive feedback.

OK, last usage scenario for this tech. There's a scene from Neal Stephenson's book, The Diamond Age, which concerns society with a crude type of advanced nanotechnology (that's not really a contradiction; non-crude advanced nano leads to the end of material scarcity, and it's hard to write a story that people can relate to in that universe, though it's not impossible). Anyway, at one point, one of the main characters is fitted with some augmented reality goggles, and he can't take them off. The goggles read his brainstate and subtly change the image of what he's seeing based on that. What happens is that as he is talking to a woman, the goggles make small random changes to the visual representation of her, and keeping the ones that result in him feeling better/attracted. What he feels is that this woman just keeps looking hotter and hotter, until he eventually realizes what's going on. Just FYI, nothing bad happens.

With that in mind, imagine that you have a computer display that is driven by a program that generates random shapes/colors/etc. By measuring your pleasure or displeasure, as well as knowing where you're looking on the screen, the computer would be able to keep the random fluctuations that please you, and get of the ones that displease. It would be like finding faces in clouds, but clouds that sensed what you were looking for and kept the patterns that fit that.

OK, still with me? I apologize for the long ramble about non-personal stuff. I wanted to get these ideas out in the open, as I said. I actually registered a domain for this stuff, which I'll eventually use to share my implementations of them: bionicmind.org. But I've not set up a server to actually serve any content, or even configured the DNS for it. Maybe with all this freetime I have, I will do that soon!

Home Again

2008-04-12T09:27:00.005-07:00

So, we are back in America. And it hasn't disappointed at all. After spending 18 days in Thailand (amazing) and a week in Chicago (aah, so relaxing), we're back in San Francisco for good. And it's so good to be here. We're spending our time working on the details: car, housing, jobs and seeing a lot of old friends.

The weather has been lovely here. A little colder than I expected at first, but yesterday and today are perfection. Warm, sunny, a little breezy. Just heading into another summer after a lovely one in New Zealand. We did it right this time, after learning from our mistake when we moved there. Two winters is no way to go. Take my word for it. Endless summer! That is the way!

Aimee and I are catching up, watching American Idol and the terrible The Bachelor. It's so good to be here and do stupid things, like shop at Whole Foods and Berkeley Bowl and in Chinatown. The first week here, we bought a half duck and used our newly acquired Thai cooking skills to make Red Curry with Roasted Duck and Som Tam (Spicy Green Papaya Salad) for Nikhila and Jeff, who are graciously caring for The Cheat and The Sneak while they recover from their travels.

We bought a car. It's a 2006 Scion xB. It's tiny and full of pep, and it gets great gas mileage. And we can park it on a postage stamp, it's so small and nimble. It's the nicest car either one of us had ever owned, and we're really enjoying zipping around the city. The only downside is that it has zero moon roofs (and you know how I loves me some moon roofs).

The job front is looking good. I already have a lead on a personal chef client, and an interview set up on Monday for a part-time administrative job with a company that works with nonprofits and philanthropic organizations to conduct needs assessment and evaluate their impact. It's feel-good work, good pay, and flexible hours from home, and the job description reads like it was written for me. So I'm excited, putting all my eggs in one basket, waiting to see if that basket blows up. Cross your fingers.

I start working for the San Francisco Food Bank on Thursday, and I'm most excited about this position. I'm going to start out as a teller, and work my way up to Vice President of New Accounts. Get it? Food bank teller? That part is a joke, although I secretly wish that could be my title. Maybe I'll get a nametag made for myself, to wear as I stack cans and assemble bags, to further enjoy my joke.

We're looking at a couple apartments today, trying to find the perfect place to settle down for at least a year. It's so hard though! There seem to be a lot of options, but each one is just shy of perfect. Staying in such a lovely temporary place isn't helping either. If we were sleeping in the car, it might be easier to settle on a rental. But Cary's place is a delightful mansion, with a motley crew of lovely people. O life, why must you be so difficult?!

We've got a lot of plans in the coming weeks, aside from job and house hunting. Tonight is Yuri's Night, celebrating Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space. There's a big party, with exhibits, lectures, art installations and music late into the night. Then it's up at 9 tomorrow for a trip to Napa with Aimee and her sister. We're going to visit Copia, The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts. How could that not be cool?! I've never been, but I have high hopes.

Next weekend, we see Point Break Live!, which is a stage adaptation of the 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze "classic" in which Reeves plays an undercover FBI agent (FBI Special Agent John 'Johnny' Utah) charged with busting a gang of pseudo-Buddhist bank-robbing surfers. Yes, that's right. And each night, a different audience member is selected (after an extensive audition process) to play the role of Johnny, reading all his lines from cue cards, just as Keanu did in the original film. I can't fucking wait.

I love you, San Francisco. You rule.

Ze plane! Ze plane!

2008-02-12T23:39:00.004-08:00

Why, you might wonder, am I referencing Tattoo? For a very good reason! Look at what I got last night:

Yeah, I got that as a real tattoo. It comes from the last panel of this Dinosaur Comic. Our friend Kevin gave me the tattoo; he used to own a shop, and as you can see, he's incredibly good. Francisco and me were the first tattoos he's made in three years. Not too bad, Kevin! Anyway, I got the tattoo so that I'd have a little guardian T-Rex on my shoulder, encouraging me to follow through on my wacky schemes. I can always get a Utahraptor on my other shoulder saying, "Don't do it!" But I'll wait for that.

Anyway, other than that, we're just preparing to return to the US (we get back to San Francisco on March 29th, after six days in Chicago), and preparing to spend eighteen days in Thailand before that. OK, plus four days in and around Auckland before Thailand. We got some travelling to do in the nearish future.

We're both looking forward to getting back to the US. I'm even allowing myself to feel hope that the US is not marching inexorably off a fascist cliff, now that Obama is kicking so much ass. But at the same time, it's going to suck to leave our friends back here in New Zealand. I know we'll see them again, but we've got a really nice, tight crew here. Damn this globe-trotting: you leave a trail of blood and broken hearts in your wake, yours included.

We got plans!

2008-02-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

Hello People of the World.

After 2 years in this southern hemisphere wilderness, we are planning to make our way slowly back to San Francisco. Yay!

Here is the plan:

On February 25th, globe-trotting sensations Mr. Cheat "The Cheat" Cheaterson and his sidekick Squeaky "The Sneak" Scaredypants pack their bags and head to San Francsico to live with Aunty Nikhila and Uncle Jeff until we return and find them a suitable permanent home with us. I'm hoping the pilot of their mad-cap adventure gets picked up.

On March 1st, we move out of Marine Manor and fly to Auckland for a few days of exploring the north of the north island, Bay of Islands and whatever else looks pretty.

March 5th we fly to Thailand (!) with Francisco, where there will be tigers, elephants, monkeys, cooking classes, night markets and massages. We'll be in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui on the beach, and then at The Sanctuary for a raw retreat and some full moon rave party action.

From March 23rd through March 29th, we'll be in Chicago. Can we come visit you? After we take a nap, of course. Maybe we need to have a birthday party for Joe on the 27th? He's been very good this year. I think he deserves a party. Maybe even a pony.

On March 29th, we return to San Francisco for good. For real. We're never leaving there again, even to go camping. If you want to see the Ardents, you'll know where to find us.

Happy earthquake news, a long-belated video, and travel news

2007-12-20T13:14:00.000-08:00

There was an earthquake last night, a 6.8, relatively close to Wellington (within 200 miles). So, we felt it here, but there was no damage. The town that was closest, Gisborne, had some buildings collapse, but no one was hurt. I wanted to point this out because apparently there's some international media covering it, and I don't want anyone freaking out. Everything is bon, people!

In non-earthquake news, about a month ago, we had people over for Thanksgiving dinner. Well, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, as we all had to work on Thursday. But it was great. There were sixteen people at our house, which we accomodated by renting tables and chairs and dishes and silverware. We had a 23-pound turkey, which was awesome. In fact, all the food was amazing (it was kind of a pot-luck). Everyone agreed, it was the best Thanksgiving ever. But don't take my word for it; see the video!

It was also our friend Brenda's surprise baby shower (she's since given birth), hence the baby pinatas. The one that Kris and I made is the one that doesn't look quite so fetal. Oh, and also, you'll note the killer whales in the video. They happened to be swimming past our house after we ate, but before we had the pregnant woman smashing the baby pinatas. As I said, it was the best Thanksgiving ever.

In travel news, we'll be coming to California for ten days, arriving on December 23rd, and leaving on January 4th. After that, it's back to New Zealand until March, then a triumphant return to San Francisco. It will have been almost exactly two years since we left. I'll have more to say about the whole experience later, I'm sure, but Kris and I are both looking forward to coming home very much (even though we'll be sorely missing our friends here). That's the trouble with traveling: you are always going to miss someone when you leave.

Mystifying

2007-11-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.

Something just isn't quite right here.

Your Score: Sad Cookie Cat

2007-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Your Score: Sad Cookie Cat

55% Affectionate, 40% Excitable, 75% Hungry

You are the classic Shakespearian tragedy of the lolcat universe. The sad story of a baking a cookie, succumbing to gluttony, and in turn consuming the very cookie that was to be offered. Bad grammar ensues.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

People Make Cool Stuff With Ones and Zeroes

2007-09-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

Spell With Flickr is kinda cool. If you ever need to make words out of images of letters, that is. This would come in handy for kidnapping, or other ransom-type capers.

And Jentacular Means "Pertaining to breakfast".

2007-09-11T05:08:00.000-07:00

the worthless word for the day is: bricoleur

[F, handy-man] someone who continually invents his
own strategies for comprehending reality

"Joe had that authentic air of the solitary bricoleur,
the potterer of genius, like the Facteur Cheval..."
 - Michael Chabon, Kavalier & Clay

Found here.

What Weight Watchers recipe card from 1974 are you?

2007-09-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

You are Fish 'Tacos.' You might think you're exotic and worldly-wise, but in reality you're just a bunch of crap on toast. Repeat after me: 'just because you put something in quotation marks doesn't make it so.' And 'taco' isn't Spanish for 'toast.'
Take this quiz!

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Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

So Was It Really Popular, Or Just Regional?

2007-09-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

Take the soda vs. pop etc. challenge.

I chose the most popular answer in every category, except drinking fountain vs. water fountain. It's totally drinking fountain. Duh.

(100th post! What a freakin' miracle!)

Cool Burning Man Art - Big Rig Jig

2007-09-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

Guess what this piece of Burning Man art is made of?

That's right. Big rigs.

Only 358 days until Burning Man 2008.

Photo by spiffydamnpoodle from Flickr.com

My Blood Pressure is 120/84

2007-08-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

This means I get to eat more salt, right? Don't you get some kind of bonus for having such stellar blood pressure? Maybe a gold star.

I signed up for a Kilbirnie Pool membership, because the classes are $8 each, and the monthly membership is only $67.50. Plus you get spas, sauna, all water and fitness classes at both Kilbirnie and Freyberg, AND 5 sessions with a personal trainer. I really only wanted cheap swim classes (deep water aerobics, underwater kickboxing), but when they throw in all that extra stuff it's hard to resist having your biceps measured and all your other stats taken.

Despite my efforts to avoid any actual time in the gym part of the facility (obviously some magical mind control process was involved), I ended up with a weight training plan. I went through the plan for the first time yesterday, a day in which I could almost not get out of bed because my abs were so sore from scuba this weekend.

Joe and I are now certified PADI Open Water Divers! I won't go into the details, suffice to say it was one of the more difficult things I've ever done. If I'd known how hard it was, I never would have done it. But I'm glad we did, and I'm looking forward to trying it out in WARM water, with more than 1 meter visibility. Seems if you learn to dive in the winter in New Zealand (like all geniuses do), you're ready to dive anywhere in the world.

So, here's the poll:

Where should we vacation in March?

Possible contenders:

Thailand
Cook Islands
Vanuatu
Great Barrier Reef
Egypt
Bali

Your Score: the Wit

2007-08-26T15:19:00.001-07:00

Your Score: the Wit

(71% dark, 30% spontaneous, 10% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm
talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test:
The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

50 Things I Love About America

2007-08-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

1. Wide Freeways
2. Going 140 km/h Without Fear of Losing My License
3. Hots Summers
4. My People
5. Seeing My Old House in Mar Vista
6. Ame Restaurant in San Francisco
7. Hotels
8. Nieces
9. Swimming in Outdoor Pools in the Evening
10. Lightning Bugs
11. The Parkway Speakeasy Theater
12. Spelling "Theater", "Center", and "Color" the Right Way
13. Raver Camping
14. Redwood Forest Smell of Northern California
15. Bourbon
16. Pedicures
17. Zao Noodle Bar's Vietnamese Rice Noodles Seared Prawns and Mushrooms
18. Becky Hemberger
19. Falling asleep to TV
20. Bridges
21. Camp & Sons
22. Really Big Caves
23. Tipping Well for Good Service
24. Raw Vegan Restaurants
25. Old Navy
26. BBQ'd Ribs
27. Cooking Breakfast For 400
28. Chez Panisse
29. People Knowing What to Do at 4-way Stop Sign Intersections
30. Big Macs
31. Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Resort
32. 7&7s
33. Vegetables on Every Menu
34. Buying Cheap Books
35. Sushi
36. Burritos
37. Frank Lloyd Wright
38. The Grand Ole Opry
39. Affordable T-Shirts
40. Laundromats
41. Bass Pro Shop
42. Giant Aquariums
43. Southern Accents
44. Third Street in Santa Monica
45. Really Tall Buildings
46. My Grandparents' Old House in Pasadena
47. The Asparagus at Ton Kiang
48. Ethnic Diversity
49. Tractors
50. Being Warm

We like to make fun of cricket

2007-03-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

It's the sport with the most wickets!(tm)

Food is Interesting

2007-03-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

A chef in Chicago wants to blow your mind.

Please, if you ever happen to be in Chicago, visit Alinea for the most interesting meal.

Fancy Meeting You Here!

2007-02-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? Where have I been? Mostly all around New Zealand with Joe and Nikhila, waiting for summer to start, working on the business, watching Top Chef 2.

So summer is HERE. It's beautiful. Sunny, mild, crowded on our street like it's never been before. I enjoy sitting out on the deck with The Cheat, watching the peoples go by.

Brenda and I are hard at work on Vida Foods. This week we upgraded the website to make it extra pretty. Check it out, and tell me what you think.! www.vidafoods.co.nz We've sold and delivered our first Excalibur dehydrator, and now we're working on adding more content to the website (I'm particularly interested in the Recipes page). We're in talks with the local organic market in Wellington about carrying our products. They like our stuff and have agreed to sell it there, but we're still wrangling about price. In the meantime, we're looking for other businesses to sell to. So far there's been a lot of interest and things are looking good! I've gone back to eating non-raw foods (and it's awesome), but have noticed a significant increase in my raw food consumption. I feel great!

Nikhila came to visit for a few weeks and we had a great time touristing around. We spent Christmas on the south island with some lovely friends. It was rainy and dreary and there were lots of sandflies, but the food was lovely and the company was spectacular. Then we went white water rafting and jumped in the river and had to be saved by our guide. Fun! The weather was too rainy for our glacier helicopter tour, but Joe and I did manage to see some dolphins again in Kaikoura. Can't recommend this tour more highly. If you're ever in New Zealand...

For her last week here, she and I drove leisurely up to Auckland via Rotorua and Taupo. I love Auckland! I think I actually got a city high just from being there. We did all kinds of touristy things, including a bungy rocket in the middle of downtown. It was at least 4.3 times as terrifying as the Wellington bungy! I was really impressed by Nikhila's bravery. Had I known how scary it was going to be, I don't think I would have had the balls to do it. Never again. I think I prefer scary water adventures to scary heights adventures.

Saturday will be the Ardents' fourth wedding anniversary (also the fifth anniversary of our first date). What should we do to celebrate? We've tried to make a tradition of travelling, but since we seem to be already travelling, maybe the only logical choice is to stay in. We're thinking about going here for dinner.

for every rulage, there is a suckage

2007-01-19T15:53:00.000-08:00

so, new zealand is pretty awesome. the people are friendly, it's a beautiful country, and the whole place is run with common fucking sense, which is more than we can say for most other countries in the world.

except sometimes the common sense kind of flies out the window. consider this: open roads have a 100kph speed limit (~65mph). when they pass through a town, the limit drops to 50kph, which makes sense. think of the children! as you leave the town, the limit jumps up to 100km/h again. so, in once such place, as i exited town i sped back up to 100. unfortunately, it turns out the 100kpmh zone was still some yards ahead, and i thought i'd entered it already. i was clocked at 88kph in a 50 zone, which carries a $400 fine. ouch!

so, as is the case with any ticket, you go through maybe an hour or so of righteous anger, then you get over it, pay up, and chalk it up to the general, harmless grievances people simply go through. i walked in to the bank, plunked down the cash, shared some exasperated jokes with the teller, and that was the end of it. right?

no! new zealand takes this particular issue very seriously. so they decided to send me a letter, which i just got today. it was partially a threat: do that again, and we'll suspend your license. but mostly it was a letter telling me what an asshole i am. i submit to you the exact contents of this letter (with interpretation in square braces):

[on the left, a photograph. a woman sits in the center of frame, staring disapprovingly at me, holding a picture of her dead sister. hate fills her eyes, because apparently i killed her.]

"Dear Francisco,
Just like you, the driver of the car that killed the young woman in the photograph was speeding. [...you asshole]

Her name was Tanya.

She was training to be a nurse - to save lives. [...you murdering asshole]

She never made it.

It's changed her family's life forever.

At her funeral service in the chapel, to remember her 23 years, there were 20 candles burning. Her sister, mother, and father lit the final three.

Think about it. Your points go in a couple of year's time, her family will never get her back.

If you're prepared to speed, be prepared to kill. [...you asshole]"

what the fuck is that about? i apologized to the officer for the misunderstanding, and i paid my ticket. why is this necessary? this is some serious "if you smoke pot you may as well be financing terrorism" crap.

shit like this really makes me miss san francisco even more. at least they're condescending dicks to your face when you get a ticket, and then they're done with it.

oh hell that reminds me, i have 2 SF parking tickets to pay.

I forgot some things!

2006-12-21T00:56:00.000-08:00

So, some time ago, like a month ago, I happened to have dinner with a small hero of mine, author Rudy Rucker. He had said on his blog that he'd be in New Zealand, and to drop a line if anyone reading was there. So that was neat. He and his wife Sylvia were incredibly nice, and it's humbling to think that at his age (60!) he's thinking the things he's comfortable thinking about. Ain't that a mouthful. But really, he's way way out there, in a completely coherent, rigorous way. Kind of like Philip K. Dick, but happy. He wrote about our dinner, too.

About the whales, I still don't have the photos, but I'll try to get those up before we leave for the South Island tomorrow night. We'll be taking the ferry over with our car. Down there we'll be hanging out with some friends of ours at a beach cottage in a town called Punakaiki ("poon-uh-kye-kee") for a few days, then going down to hike on a glacier. Also, once we get to Punakaiki we'll re-connect with Nikhila and her friend Saman, before parting after the glaciers, until Nikhila comes back to Wellington on the 31st. I'll try to get some pictures of the glacier, especially if we wind up doing a helicopter tour of it.

Finally, someone on a list at work posted a photo of one of these:

.

I thought it was pretty awesome.

I'm a dork

2006-12-12T02:29:00.000-08:00

First, dang. Dang, man, I been a hermit the past two months. Really withdrawn, but not really in a bad way. At least for me. For anyone who's wanted to get in touch with me, probably not so much. So, if you've written email to me, or called me, I'm really sorry for not writing or calling back.

So, like I said, I've been really withdrawn. Partly due to spending all day every day since early September by myself in an office in the forsaken wing of the building where I work (the hallway where my office is is known as "The Chicken Wing"). It's clearly not part of the original structure, and it's cold, and the bathroom is smelly and has no hot water or mirror. So I haven't had the daily routine of interacting with people, and not having that interaction tends to make me withdrawn. Then, come the weekend, all I've wanted to do is lay around and not have to do anything. Since Nikhila will be here in a few days, it's a good thing I'm starting to come out of my shell a bit. Not that I'll be able to keep up with her, but at least I won't be such a neck-albatross.

On the other hand, starting last week, my job changed, I got an officemate, and I've been working on some really interesting stuff. I'm working on a framework for doing particle effects that Chris Horvath originally wrote, and really getting into the details of how all the stuff used to make special effects works, in addition to some serious leveling-up as a programmer. Plus, because I'm a math and physics geek, it pleases me to no end to be able to send mail like this, AS PART OF MY JOB:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are two pictures. In the first one, the "velGain" attribute of the
instancer is set to 1.0 (that is, the velocity multiplier is 1.0), and in the
second, the velGain is 1.1. Notice the streaks in the second. The reason
they're there is that the entire emitter-particle-camera system is moving very,
very fast from the lower left to the upper right. The particles were cached
out with their velocity in world space, and so when the motionblock is
constructed in the instancer, the second position was been calculated thus:

P1 = P0 + (dt * velGain * velocity);

where dt is our deltaTime in seconds from Solid, and velocity is the
per-particle attribute in world-space. Because the emitter-particle-camera
system's velocity, which the particles inherited, is so high, the effect of the
velGain multiplication is dominated by it, and the naively-desired normal
velocity (with respect to the emitter) is completely overwhelmed. In effect,
the second image shows what would happen if velGain were 1.0, and dt were too
high (as was the case in Allen's original issue). We've still got enough rope
here to hang ourselves with, and this shows that for all the good work we've
just done, it could amount to nothing if the instancer writer does the wrong
thing (in this case, set velGain to anything but 1.0).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Super dorky, eh? Here are the two pictures:

The first is how it should look, and the second is how it looked to cause us to spend the last week changing the architecture of the system to behave "correctly". Clearly, we didn't fix it enough, eh? (OK, not really; the system in question is capable of universal computation (that's its biggest feature, in fact!), so it's basically impossible to predict all the ways it will be misused.)

But the email goes on to suggest a way to get people to do the right thing, and to do some fancy math to create a unit vector (or rather, one for each particle, or little blue dot) that points out from the center of the sphere and goes through the particle, then use that to get a new vector to act as a direction for a new velocity, then multiply "velGain" by that new velocity. There would be some linear algebra (hello, cross-product AND dot-product!), which for an irrational reason pleases me greatly. Probably because there's no way I'd have ever needed to use linear algebra in my former career as a sysadmin, and I was ready to shoot myself if I had to keep doing that.

And then around 5:00 today, Kris called me to say that there were killer whales swimming near the shore in the bay that my office is near to. So I rallied some of my coworkers, and we went out there, and followed the whales as they swam along the beach. It was awesome. At least four orcas, swimming along, doing that orca thing where every thirty seconds or so they come up for air as they swim. Everyone kept parking their cars, getting out to look at them, then getting back in and driving another quarter mile up so they could get out and watch the whales swim past, then getting into their car to repeat the process. I took some crappy pictures with my cellphone, but Francisco got some better ones with a borrowed camera. I'll wait to post my pictures for him to get me copies of the ones he took. Then you can see how crappy mine are.

Why I've Been So Busy Lately

2006-12-08T18:38:00.000-08:00

Last night, Brenda and I catered our first raw foods event for Bikram Yoga Wellington. We've been working our asses off for weeks, figuring out the menu, testing recipes, printing our own business cards (hand cut, for that "rustic" look we're going for) and working on the website so it would be ready for all the new customers we would get from this party.

Check out the two pages we've managed to cobble together, but no making fun of my sad little html skills:

Vidafoods.co.nz

As part of our business, we've teamed up with Excalibur Dehydrators to be their New Zealand distributor. When I got home last night, there was an email from an appliance company requesting our price list and delivery schedule, so they can place an order! Wha?! Seems Excalibur already has us listed on their distributors list! Crazy. This morning, I had a food order on my cell phone. Seems there may be something to this raw food.

We made 8 dishes for the party, but each one had multiple recipes comprising the whole dish. Holler if you want any recipes.

Almond-Tahini Hummus with Sliced Veggies and Sun-dried Tomato Crackers

Lasagna Roll - Zucchini "Noodle" Marinated in Lemon Juice and Olive Oil, Rolled with Sweet Sun-dried Tomato-Spinach Marinara Sauce and Pinenut Ricotta Cheese

Nachos - Flax Corn Chip Topped with Spicy Un-bean Dip, Guacamole and Cashew Sour Cream

Marinated Mushrooms Stuffed with Mushroom Walnut Pate & Pistachio Basil Pesto

"Salmon" Pate Made From Walnuts, Red Pepper and Celery Served on Cucumber Rounds, Topped with Dill

Thai Wraps filled with Mango, Carrots, Red Cabbage, Bean Sprouts, Basil, Cilantro, Mint and Almond-Ginger Dressing

Fruit Skewers are pretty sprinkled with fresh mint.

And finally, Coconut Cashew Divines - Dates, Cashews, Coconut, Vanilla and Agave Syrup

Now, the big sleep.

Eating raw is hell!

2006-11-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

Nice title, eh? It's not really true. Here's a picture of what I had for "second lunch":

It's a salad I made at work with the produce that they bring in every morning, a really nice perk. It has an avocado, two tomatoes, a zuchini, some red onion, and a couple mini sweet-peppers. It's dressed with salt, pepper, a little olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar, and some hot sauce (kind of like Luisianna Hot Sauce). See??? It's HELL!

Actually, one thing that's not so great is that the venues for dining out are limited. In fact, the only reason I made this second lunch is that first lunch was so pathetic. We decided to try eating out at Wellington's only salad bar, a place called Kapai. It wasn't bad, but it was $9 for a pretty small salad. Verdict, don't go to Kapai again! ("Kapai" seems to be Maori for "sweet-as", which is Kiwi for "good".) In most respects, Wellington lacks for nothing in the restaurant scene (Mexican cuisine being the most glaring exception). So much, then, for its one shot at a decent salad place.

Anyway, on most days, around 4:00, I'll try to eat a little snack, like an apple or an avocado, to give me the food-strength to make it through the yoga class at 8:00. Don't want to eat too close to the class, otherwise I'll want to puke while doing standing-seperate-head-to-knee pose. So my original intent when I went into the kitchen was pretty modest, but then because Kapai's offering wasn't nearly enough to satisfy my hunger, one thing lead to another, and pretty soon, I had that salad. It was tasty.

The moral is: avoid Kapai if you care about a good value for your money! Also, salads don't need to have lettuce in them, even though lettuce is tasty!

Holy crap! (politics)

2006-11-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

One of the nice things about living in New Zealand is that the pervasive anxiety about the US turning into Germany-circa-1935 is at a slight remove. Not completely gone, and more than once a week, the fury would rise up in my gut as I read about some other hitherto unknown atrocity committed by the current administration. But still, I was glad for the distance.

But today, I was surprised. I mean, I was expecting the Dems to take the House. Although that would not be enough to do anything to fix all that has been broken these past six years, it would be enough to prevent further grievous damage. But, they're currently one tied election away from real majority of the Senate, too. And good-bye, Rummy. Real control of the Legislative branch means:

- investigations into cooked intelligence (impeachable offenses)
- investigations into illegal wiretapping (impeachable offense)
- investigations into crony spending in Iraq (people would go to jail)
- no more lies about "cutting taxes" (to spend is to tax, and Bush has spent more than anyone, driving up the deficit, fucking the economy and everyone whose net worth is less than several million dollars)
- Maybe, just maybe, this will give some balls to the Washington (and especially White House) press corps, so that when Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. blatantly lies, their bullshit is called to their face. I'm not exactly holding my breath there, though.

My favorite uncle once said that he wanted to be immortalized in statue form, portrayed in the act of jumping up to grab and hang onto the kicking legs of George W. Bush when he's hung for treason. We're one tiny step closer to that shining, beautiful dream. (cue music) Don't stop believin'. Hold onto that feeeeeeleeeee-innnnnn'...

EXTREME

2006-11-08T03:31:00.000-08:00

I think breatharianism is next for me. It's the only thing more RADICAL than not eating cooked food. Every day I seem to need less food. Either I'm developing an awesome eating disorder, or the food I'm eating is so energy and nutrient rich, that I just don't need as much. We're making a lot of delicious things to eat around Marine Manor, and Brenda feeds just about every time I see her. I'm afraid for Thanksgiving, when we take a break to eat dead food again. Wish me luck!

Finally, A Difinitive Answer on the Asparagus Pee Issue

2006-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

So everyone's pee smells funny after eating asparagus, but only some people have the ability to smell it. Epicurious entry here.

The more you know...

4.5 Hours at the Bikram Studio

2006-11-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Vanessa and I went to the 6:00 AND the 8:00 classes. It wasn't so bad, until this morning. Ouchy. I am old.

Christopher is OLD.

2006-11-05T21:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Christopher! Tonight, we celebrate by bowling at the fancy new bowling club/swank bar that just opened up in Wellington. It's called The Lanes. Oooh. (Aaaah.) I too will wear my stiletto boots to bowl in. That is smart.

Vanessa and I tried to go to the 6:00 yoga class today, so we could make it to the birthday party, but it was too full when we got there! O great tragedy. While it's nice to have a break, it also means we'll have to double up on a day soon to make up for missing today. I'm curious to see what back-to-back yoga will be like, particularly considering the condition of my back. Not as bad as a couple weeks ago, but definitly still getting stiff after yoga. The bed problem is fixed, so now it's just a matter of healing the strained muscles and tendons in my lower back before trying to build them up again. But otherwise, I'm totally healthy! No whining here! Raw food and everything!

An ultimately unsatisfying post!

2006-11-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

I warn you in advance: this is going to be very fast and light. I'll post more in a few days, maybe.

Many things have happened since last I updated. We went to Burningman, and along that way, were in San Francisco for a few days. It was so great to see everybody, and to be in San Francisco. The smell of the place was awesome, and I'm not being sarcastic. Being there made us miss it very much.

Then, we came home, and Kris' parents stayed with us for ten days. We went to Christchurch, and other stuff. Then they sent me and Kris some books from our Amazon wishlist, which were greatly appreciated. Thank you, Caldwells!

We've also formed a film club, and have started making a movie. There are about ten of us involved. We identified roles, such as "writer", "director", "director of photography", etc., wrote them on paper scraps, then drew out of a hat to determine who would do what. I drew "producer". We did essentially the same thing to determine what movie we would make. The one that go chosen was called "Produce Passion", and the original description was something like, "Follows the life of a vegetable from farm to toilet." Our writer wanted to make a horror movie, though, so this is what he made: Produce Passion, a movie treatment. What we've shot has mostly stayed true to that. And though the original idea was to take no more than one month to make a movie, and have it be 30-180 seconds long, we're well into month two now, and it's looking like it will be at least 5-7 minutes long. Ah, well. I think we're learning quite a bit, and the next one will probably go faster. And on the upside, "making a good movie" was not one of the original goals, but I think we might actually wind up doing that here. The next movie we make, everyone will rotate jobs, so everyone gets a turn (eventually) at each role needed to make a movie.

In other news, as Kris has mentioned, November saw us starting two challenges: 1) to go to 24 yoga classes in 28 days, and 2) to only eat raw veggie food. Both are going pretty well so far, after five days. Our house, I think, has it pretty easy. There are three of us (out of four; Francisco is not participating in either challenge) eating raw. Hence, there are three people preparing different yummy raw things to eat, so there's never the "what can I eat here" dilemma. So far, so great. I'll post later about the nutritional benefits, but for now, the short version is: you get more than enough protein, calcium, vitamins, calories, and whatever else you need from food if you eat raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts only. You don't need to eat animal-based food, and in fact, you will be healthier if you don't. Plus, just about everything we've eaten in the last five days has been fucking delicious.

That's it for now. I hope everyone reading this has a great day.

The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY FOUR

2006-11-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

For those of you who may just be joining us, this is the tale of a trip taken last June. That's right. And I'm still posting the play-by-play. Clodagh and I went to the south island, and here's more about what we did:

We started out day four with a dip in the pools-of-a-variety-of-temperatures at Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa. While Clodogh was having her first of two spa treatments, I amused myself by hopping from pool to pool with my book, trying out each degree of hotness. Turns out, I like them hot. This place was lovely, with plenty of vegetation and little footpaths between a variety of pools of different size and shape. I wouldn't mind doing that again.

The spa treatments were pretty sub-par, but how can I complain? This is how: massages should be done in rooms, not in curtained off areas where you can hear people gabbing on at the reception desk. In all fairness, they were starting to remodel to make individual treatment rooms, but it's still pretty screwed up to not at least have a quiet space for a massage. Rant over.

We went to lunch at this fantastic place with great pasta and the first and only 10 out of 10 hot chocolate, as rated by Clodagh. Apparently, they put a lot of LOWV in this here hot chocolate. Maybe she can help me out with the name of this place. Oddly enough, I no longer remember where I had lunch somewhere around the 8th of June. We sat in the sun for a long time, pondering whether to go quad biking or hit the road, drinking warm beverages, and then headed over to a gift shop to buy wrapping paper for the birthday present I bought in Christchurch for one of my nieces. We decided to skip the quad biking in favor of getting a head start on Kaikoura.

So we drove to Kaikoura! I think this was my favorite drive of the trip. We raced a train, and stopped to make movies of sheep, and hit the east coast for a drive along the water (which feels a lot like driving down the 1 in California) before arriving at our palacial temporary home at The Dusky Lodge. We checked in and I started looking for a place to get some of this crayfish that the east coast is so famous before. We ended up a lovely place called Sonic on the Rocks, right across from the beach. The crayfish was tough and chewy, and for the first time in my life, I had to send a dish back. The kumara pizza which replaced it was absolutely amazing. I am enjoying the memory right now, back when cooked food was a thing people ate. Oh, and the only photo I took on day four was of a painting in the restaurant which contains a recipe for preparing duck. Someone please prepare this and tell me how it turns out:
On our walk back to the hostel, Clodagh and I stopped at a gas station to pick up some provisions. Against all logic, we attempted to make our own hot chocolate in one of the TWO hostel kitchens. Bad idea. It seems you can't really make hot chocolate with Cadbury bars and skim milk. WHO KNEW?!

Next time: Day Five, the day of the DOLPHINS. Aw, you thought THIS was going to be dolphin day, didn't you? SUCKER.

Guy Fawkes Day

2006-11-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Guy Fawkes Day, but there will be fireworks tonight! We're making up some raw snacks and heading over to Clodapher's place to watch and say OOOOOH, AAAAAH, etc.

Say it with me: "Oooooooh....Aaaaaaah...."

More about Sydney and film making and TV tomorrow or something.

Oh, It's ON!

2006-11-03T01:58:00.000-08:00

"ok then, i challege you to blog everyday! mwahahahahaha."
--
Posted by Taisuke to Ardents (and Friends) En Zed at 11/03/2006 08:54:35 PM

This counts as a post, right?

Challenge Me!

2006-11-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

To anything, really. I'm totally ready for it. Gimme what you got. So far, here are my current challenges. See if you can come up with anything else I should be doing in November:

1. 30-day raw food challenge: started yesterday. We've got nuts and seeds and avocados and fresh produce and a recipe book (Living On Live Food by Alyssa Cohen). My biggest fear is that I'll do just fine for a few days, and then SNAP. There's a drive-thru McDonald's in Newtown, and I'm pretty sure that's were my breakdown will occur. Joe and I have a blood oath not to eat any fast food while we're in New Zealand, and so far I think we're doing pretty well. This might just be my downfall. But for now, it's mock salmon pate and avocado salad, banana coconut cream pie, flax crackers and dried pineapple. It's actually been pretty tasty, and I feel like what I imagine crack to be like, in the best way.

2. Start a small business: Brenda and I are signing a lease on Monday for a commercial kitchen space. We're going to ramp up production on her current raw food product line (crackers, truffles, other dried raw things), invent new things people MUST have in their bellies, and we've already got our first raw food catering gig lined up for December 8th. Can you say CHALLENGE?! How about abject TERROR?

3. 30-day yoga challenge: Now, this is the one that's doomed to fail. My chiropractor gave me a "look" today and tried to talk me out of it. But if she saw how pathetically I earned credit for my first day of the challenge yesterday, she would not fear. Any ounce of pain in my back, or general discomfort of any sort, and I stop, and just stand there. They say you get credit just for showing up, so I'm holding them to that. (They being The Yoga People, who are in charge of defining these sorts of things.)

So what else is there? Bring it on.

To Tide Me Over

2006-10-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

I was going through Sydney photos today, thinking about posting here. It's going to take me forever to get through South Island, and then Sydney. So here's the best picture from Sydney:

Joe was really hungry, so he ate the whole thing. Now Australia is MAD. We won't be invited back.

P.S.

2006-10-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

I like to watch the big boat go by the window. So does The Cheat.

Whine, moan, complain

2006-10-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's nice to have a blog that you can refer to every time you think you're sick ALL THE TIME. Looks like I haven't been sick since May! Pretty good, eh?

I few days ago, just sitting around watching movies, I FELL ILL. More acutely than I can remember. One moment I was fine, and the next I was passed out on the couch wanting to die, or just be more passed out. When I moved to the bed I took my temperature, with an actual thermometer. It was amazing! Chills and everything!

Today I emerged from my bed cocoon and my back hurts so much I can barely move. I'm seeing a chiropractor for the back, and we're trying to figure out if my lower back problems are the bed or the yoga, or my suspicion: a combination of the two. My homework is to go through each of the Bikram poses and figure out which ones are safe to do with no pain, and which ones I need to lay off of until the swelling goes down. And I need to convince the furniture rental company to trade me my crappy bed for a fancy firm bed.

In other, non-whine related news, I'm going to start WORKING. That's right. Texture painting is looking further and further away, so I'm going to help Brenda produce her raw snacks, and maybe open a raw foods cafe in Wellington! So exciting!

I'm a little disappointed about the texture painting, because I REALLY wanted to work on a certain video game movie that will be coming out in 2008. But, despite my pattern over the last six months, I can't be out of work forever, and I can't rely on the potential for a job that just may never materialize. It's sad, but the opportunity to work with Brenda on something I find so compelling helps ease the pain. Hey look! More whining!

Now, to answer reader questions: Grey's Anatomy is really good. I'm watching it with other people now, and I can't tell whether it's their presense which is preventing me from sobbing as usual, or if the episodes are just cheerier this season. No matter, it's still good. I'll just have to sob through Weeds. NZ TV mostly sucks because it's either trashy soaps (REALLY trashy) or U.S. shows which are a couple seasons behind. So I like downloading the shows I like from iTunes or Bittorrent and watching them ALL AT ONCE. Have I mentioned how great The Bachelor: Rome is shaping up to be?!

Nekeela asks: "I want to know how free you'll be at the end of December--or will there be much texture to paint?" Well Nekeela, whoever you are, as I mentioned about, there is to be no texture painting in my future. I think I'll be just as free as I wanna be at the end of December, and hereby offer to bring anyone who has gathered the poop from my cat, to visit me then! Of course, there will be no Francisco or Vanessa (they are going to the US for Christmas and New Years), but I will be here! Aren't I enough?! Hopefully, I'll have some work to do by then, but I should be able to take off enough time to show you a good time.

Alana, I like dolphins too. And bands. And next post, I will tell you all about my dolphin adventure. I like yoga too, but it does not like me. Yoga and the bed have it in for me. They're aligning against me. Boo hoo. Poor me.

The Last Five Weeks

2006-10-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since my last entry. A lot!

First, we went to San Francisco. Then Burning Man. Then French Laundry. Then my parents came to visit us in Wellington. And we flew to Christchurch to look around. Then THE CATS came out of quarantine! Two days later, they escaped. They're back now and it's awesome. Then we threw a giant Heist party at a nightclub downtown. Now, I rest.

Texture painter training won't start until November, so I'm trying to figure out how to fill my days. Vanessa and I are taking a short trip to wine country next week. After that, who knows?

So what do you want to hear about? Should I finish the South Island retrospective? Did we ever talk about Sydney? How about TV? It's rockin' pretty hard, what with Survivor, Studio 60 and Weeds. I'm good at completing missions, so tell me what my missions should be.

Coming to America...TODAY!

2006-08-26T03:04:00.000-07:00

We arrived in San Francisco. It is amazingly beautiful here. The weather is perfect here, and I am drawing in life force just from being in the area. I forgot how much better this place is than any other place in the world, right up until the point that we drove out of the airport with the windows down, make hand-birds flying along the freeway. Good day.

We dropped our stuff off at Jonathan's, where he was make last minute preparations for Burning Man. THANK YOU FOR HOSTING US!!! Then we drove around, ran errands, had some Ghiradelli chocolate and then had dinner at Steps of Rome in North Beach. I am bone tired. Slept for a good chunk on the plane, which was most unusual. I was trying to watch "She's the Man," a movie about a girl who tries to pass as a teenage boy so she can play soccer. Even this was too awful for me. I woke myself up more than once from my own plane-snoring. Yes, I was that woman.

Tomorrow, we're shopping for Burning Man supplies, having dinner with Nikhila and Jeff (just the first taste of the many gratitudinal gestures we must bestow upon them over the next couple of years) and then a party at JP and Rene's so we can see a collection of SF friends. Nice! So much to do here! Probably won't be hearing from me for a while, unless I find some blogging station at Burning Man and can't resist. We'll be back in the "real" world on Monday the 4th, in Napa Monday and Tuesday nights (dinner at French Laundry on Tuesday!!!!), and then we'll be staying with Aimee and Tony for our last two nights in town. Busy busy busy! Hope to see EVERYONE possible in the short time we're here. Rest assured, we'll be back here eventually, probably to live here forever, because it's RAD.

How come no one comments on the blog anymore? I feel like I'm typing into the abyss!
I'm available by cell phone if anyone feels like calling long distance: 011 64 27 286-6333. Joe's is 011 64 27 335-1410. See you soon!

the house that someone else built (but we moved into)

2006-08-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

we have a house! we keep talking about it but never back it up with anything! like my girlfriend from canada!

well to prove that marine manor (that's its name) is not like eustacia (that's my canadian girlfriend's name), here are some pictures!

this is the front of the house. this is what you would see if your back was to the beach, because our house is in front of the beach.

what you don't believe me about the beach thing? well check out the view from our dining room. wicked!

here is the view from our office. i put the computer there so i wouldn't have to look at that ugly view all the time.

we have TWO decks, because one isn't enough. this is the stairway from the front driveway to the deck.

yesterday vanessa and i walked to brunch at this awesome cafe with a bunch of tables in front of the water. basically every house between our house and the cafe is ridiculously lavish and beautiful, and they ALL LOOK DIFFERENT. one looks like a hobbit house. one is uber-modern, with porthole windows and jutting angles. one looks like it was picked up out of savannah, with its long white porch, shingled cupola, and wicker deck furniture. on the walk back we saw a big swing hanging from a very tall tree, so vanessa of course had to ride it.

as you can see, it is a pretty fantastic place, in a great neighborhood, and as a funny side note, joe letteri (basically the godfather of weta other than peter jackson, and the dude who accepted weta's oscars) is our next door neighbor. maybe we should bring him a pie?

-f

The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY THREE

2006-08-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

Day Three was mostly about driving, so I should be able to knock off this post in a couple minutes. We begin the day in Akaroa, population 576, after a night's stay at Chez La Mer:

We started out with a walk around the pretty harbor.

Clodagh met a fisherman and talked to him about rugby while a tiny shark struggled in his boat. What would we do without sports? How would we ever be able to talk to strangers?

Here's where we had delicious breakfast. I think there was french toast involved, but it was a long time ago so I'm not sure. Maybe Clodagh can fill in the fuzzy details.

All I know is that breakfast was amazingly delicious, and we had our own cat.

Walked back through "town," stopping to buy more fudge and some wool garments. Akaroa is hella cute. Here's the harbor from above, during the drive out of town:
Jolly Holly Bear is an excellent driver. Now we will never get lost again:
We christened this geographical feature "NippleRock," for Joe.
Sheep! A lot of them! On the move!
And the countryside.
We ended up in Hanmer Springs, up in the mountains, at a hostel called Le Gite. So many French places today! We got some take-out from a crappy Indian restaurant and ate it back at the hostel. Then we watched an Edward Norton movie that I'd never heard of before: 25th Hour (directed by Spike Lee). Then we went to bed in the room we shared with some random guy. Day three: in the can!

And Back In Present Times...

2006-08-19T03:35:00.000-07:00

THE CATS ARE HERE.

We drove to Levin today (about an hour north of Wellington) to a place called Shado-lans Quarantine Facility to see The Cheat and The Sneak. Joe, Vanessa and I spent about 3 hours scratching the cats, trying to get them to purr, and reading books. It was really great. Joe and I hadn't seen them since the end of March, and while they didn't run over to great us (or probably even recognize us), we do know their favorite places to be scratched and I think we made them both very happy. Also, we brought sour cream. I can't believe they actually made it to New Zealand. Our cats are officially Word Travellers. Here they are in their shared meditation chamber:
By the time we got home, Francisco had acquired a 40" LCD flat screen TV. I'll let him share more about that. Now, we are watching Lord of the Rings on it. Wowwy.

The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY TWO

2006-08-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

Last time, on "The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY ONE", our intrepid adventurers were in a hellish Christchurch hostel, drunk. Now we join them on day two for Hangover: The Reckoning. This is what happened on Wednesday, June 7th.

I don't recommend drinking a bottle of wine by yourself. It hurts. We checked out of Stonehurst and walked to "town" a few blocks away and begin our tourism extravaganza in Christchurch.

I like to front-load a vacation or trip by seeing a lot of sights and tourist attractions. That way if I get lazy as the trip progresses, I feel like I've already accomplished enough to justify completely slacking.
We had breakfast on this lovely mostly-pedestrian street, which was quite regularly disturbed by the passing of the historic trolley car. I become irrationally excited by a variety of modes of transportation, so breakfast was THRILLING. And when we were done (veggie eggs benny and a mocha), we hopped on this trolley for a twirl around the town. Here's our driver, Mo.
We took a ride around town (okay, one and a half times around town) on this thing, and stopped at the Christchurch Cathedral for a look around. Beautiful! And they wanted to charge $2.50 to take pictures inside! Whatever. There it is from the outside, and you can go to their website to see some good shots of the inside.
Here are people playing giant chess in front of the cathedral!
We walked through the charming open-air tourist market, and then down to the river. The river is pretty, as you can see.
And here is a wheely-thing. Actually, it's a waterwheel that was built in 1997 to commemorate the water-powered mill that used to operate on this tiny little river island in the late 1800s. But according to the sign, it's not a replica. Just a tribute I guess.
Now, anyone who knows Joe, knows he likes boobies. Clodagh and I made a special effort to photograph every boob-related thing we could find on our journey. Here in Christchurch, we found many such things:
Then on to the FUDGE COTTAGE for a tour! Look what they're featuring on today's tour...
And an assortment of fudges:
And the fresh hot Bailey's fudge being poured out into the mold:
After having our fill of fudge samples, and shopping in the Arts Centre (Nikhila: remind me I bought you something and failed to send it to you), we wandered back to the hostel to pick up the car. On the way, we saw this:
It's hard to tell, but it has two front ends. Cool.

This is the best parking lot decoration I've ever seen. I wish this had been my handwork.

So far, a lot has happened on day two! And the sun hasn't even set yet! For sunset, we drove with great haste to the gondola. On the way, a peacock ran out into the road. Go figure.
My pictures of from the top of the gondola were kinda crappy, so I found someone else's to use. Cool, eh?
We spent the next couple of hours trying to drive to Akaroa on the Banks Penninsula, after dark, without a map. Eventually, we found a gas station, got directions and a map, and turned around. When we got to Akaroa, we dumped our stuff in the hostel and headed over the pub for the worst dinner of all time, followed by the best sleep of all time.

Day two was a big day.

Cats on a Plane

2006-08-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

They're on a plane right now! Headed HERE! After many trials and tribulations, they finally have all their paper work and they'll be here at 8:30 tomorrow morning. Then they go jail for 30 days while New Zealand waits to see if they have diseases, which they DON'T. We're going to visit them on Sunday. Yay!

We moved into the new place on Monday. It is great. So pretty, the ocean, from my window in the morning. Yes! Morning! I saw it yesterday! I got up and faced the day and everything. Our new address, should you want to write a letter or some other such quaintness:

187 Marine Parade
Seatoun, Wellington 6022
New Zealand

Looks like we're going to go with "Marine Manor" for a house name, unless we come up something more compelling. So far, I've just been calling the place "Marine Parade" cuz having parade in the name is nice. Anyway, the guest room is ready to receive! We're going to Burning Man on 8/25, and then my parents will be here from 9/15-9/25, but the schedule is clear after that if anyone wants to make a booking! Living on the beach is lovely.

Today I slept 'til 11, before getting back to the work of stocking the house, setting up utilities and unpacking boxes. Then I went to stupid yoga, which is only stupid because after not doing it for a week, it was hard to do. I fell asleep in the final laying-down part. Sad.

I missed yoga for a week because we went to Wanaka (South Island) to go snow boarding. I lasted about 20 minutes before deciding that, yes, snowboarding still really hurts my back and my feet and I'm not going to do it any more. I spend the rest of the day reading, watching the iPod and drinking mochas with Amarulla in the lodge. Not a bad way to spend a day on a mountain. Next time I will ski.

Everything is Falling Into Place (Which Means It'll Probably All Fall Apart Soon)

2006-08-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

So we have a new home we can start moving into on Monday. Vanessa arrives in Wellington tomorrow morning! We all go snowboarding in Wanaka next weekend. The cat paperwork is almost done and the cats should be able to fly out here on August 13th. (For the full story on The Cheat's capture and updated photos showing off his girth, click here. Thanks Nikhila!) Joe and I are going to San Francisco on August 25th for Burning Man. We leave SF on September 8th, arriving back in Wellington on the 10th. The cats should get out of quarantine on the 15th, the same day my parents arrive to visit from Carlsbad, CA. Hi parents! Then sometime around the end of September/beginning of October, I get to start training as a texture painter for Weta.

And to top it off, we bought a car today. I love it. It's a Holden Astra, whatever that is. You can probably still the pictures here. It's pretty. It's fast. It's got stereo controls on the steering wheel, although I haven't figured out how to use them yet. We're selling our 2-door Honda, if anyone is interested.

Yay! Must enjoy this day when everything is going my way! :D

A Word About Stupidity, And Palaces

2006-08-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

It seems there's more to moderating comments than just turning on the "moderate comments" feature. Apparently, you have to log in, check to see if there are comments, and then approve the ones that aren't spam. Hmm. Go figure. I'm pretty sure I'm not ready for this kind of responsibility, as evidenced by my failure to even know about this requirement, let alone complete it.

So, comments are moderated! To avoid spam! Now that I know y'all are reading AND commenting, I will resume posting, and try to keep up on my new moderating duties.

The news: we finally found a new house for the four of us to live in (not that Fort Ebor isn't bad, it's just tiny, and we hate our landlord). For the past month, we've been looking for a 3-4 bedroom (so we can have guests) near town that will also allow cats. The place we found is on the beach (across the street from the water) in Seatoun, which is about a 4 minute drive to Weta, and 10-15 minutes to "town." I guess being so Welly-far from town just means a lifestyle change: more convincing people to come over and drink, and less stumbling down the street to drink. Maybe we should drink less? Surf more? I'm thinking it might be time to buy a wetsuit.

Not sure how long the ad will stay up, but here it is: TradeMe Ad

We start moving in on Monday the 7th and we'll do that gradually until we're done. We don't have to be out of Fort Ebor until the 15th, but we're headed to Wanaka (South Island) on Friday the 11th for snowboarding until the 14th.

So, what do we call the new place? Please offer your suggestions. I like the "Fort" convention, but since this is on the beach, maybe it's time for change? "Shack" doesn't sound very pleasant (also, the place isn't very shack-like), but it is beachy. The street is called Marine Parade, so maybe "Fort Marine"? We were going to go with "Park Palace" if we got that place (the palace) in Thorndon (on Park Street), so maybe "Marine Palace"? Coming up with a name is really the hardest part of moving. Maybe we should just move back to the Duxton.

Learning to skateboard

2006-07-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to learn to skateboard. When I was little, I must have been too uncoordinated to learn, because I never advanced past the technique where you kneel on the board, like so:

As a child, I could get away with such retardation, but as a grownup, such indulgences are inappropriate. Also, my knees would start to hurt pretty quickly.

As it so happens, Wellington has a really nice and new skatepark, here captured in prententious black and white glory by Francisco:

Fortunately, I was not alone in my desire to learn to skateboard. Allen has also recently been bitten by the bug. However, he had had some informal lessons the weekend before, so here he is working on some sort of "stand-on-the-board-and-jump-and-make-the-board-flip-then-land-on-it" trick:

In another stroke of fortune, some of our friends who already know how to skate came out to give encouragement and tips, provide social company, and in Ken and Brenda's case, to take photos. Here's Ken, photo by Allen with Ken's camera:

Brenda also had a camera, though it was the barbaric, non-digital variety, so nothing from her here. But here's a photo of Brenda and me, being blown by the wind on our boards:

For completeness, since Brenda and Taisuke are an item, here's Taisuke talking with Oberon (Oberon is Kevin's three or four-year-old; we'll come to them momentarily):

As just mentioned, Oberon is our friend Kevin's little boy. He and his wife Lesleigh are expecting a little girl in about a month. Kevin used to own a tattoo shop; that's how he met Lesleigh. Lesleigh likes to paint Oberon's face:

And here's an unflattering picture of Oberon's dad (click here for a nicer picture of Kevin, who in reality is actually quite handsome):

And that was basically our skating posse this past weekend. Here's a couple more shots of me skating, photos by Ken:

and more wind-skating:

Oh, and I didn't fall at all at the skate park. My goal had been to learn to stand on the board and kick, which I achieved. Of course, when I was skating home, I did fall on my ass while trying to stop by kicking the front of the board up and dragging the tail. An older couple witnessed this, but somehow, they could tell I was fine. Probably because I got right up and bowed.

the universal appeal of flea and gnarls

2006-07-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

wellington fun fact!

boy do new zealanders love the red hot chili peppers.

there is some pretty fantastic radio to be had here actually. well mostly it takes the form of one station: radio active. and part of what makes it all so good is that they actually recognize the value in musical variety. "theme" stations aren't as prevalent here, but even those are pretty good when it comes to deviation from the standard.

that said, basically every station i have listened to has played the red hot chili peppers more than once. in fact, for the first few weeks i was here, i never once heard a song repeated except for a handful of red hot chili peppers songs, which i heard over and over again, in venues of all sorts.

and, of course, "crazy" by gnarls barkley.

-f

The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY ONE

2006-07-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

Last month, I went to the South Island. Here begins the tale of my journey. I hope it's not too late.

The flight to Christchurch was silly. I've never seen flight attendants move SO FAST. They were like doctors. They had to be, because the flight was the most diagonal I have ever been on. Up up up, level for about 30 seconds, and then down down down.

Clodagh picked me up from the airport in Christchurch and we headed off into town. She'd been on the South Island for two weeks already (mostly in NELSON). Clodagh was driving our Honda, because the South Island is no place for Vanessa Speed (Christopher's BMW). We've recently named our Honda "Francisco" or "Cisco" for short, cuz why not. I hope someday to have a car named after me. It's the ultimate honor.

Before leaving Wellington, I had emptied our first aid kit (to thwart potential thieves) and filled it with electronic gadgets like my NEW VIDEO IPOD (thanks Mimi!), chargers for the phone, iPod and camera, an iPod adapter for the tape deck and other sundry items. I used these devices during the trip, to maximize torture of Clodagh, mostly with Neil Diamond songs. Te he.

I had recently heard about the HELLHOLE I had booked us into in Christchurch, and I was worried. Here is said HELLHOLE:
Nightmarish, isn't it? I liked it. It was cheap, warm and clean, and they sold bottles of wine in the lobby and you could order food for delivery from the local Italian place. So the first night of our adventure, we stayed in, drank a lot of wine, and plotted our course for the next week. Here's a still life of our planning tools. Notice that "vacuum" was left undone on my to do list. Also, drinking wine from mugs is rad. Thanks for the notepad, Pillsbury.
After two bottles of wine and some pappardelle with roasted peppers, Clodagh put a bra on her head. I bet she's happy she did that now, and even happier that I thought to record the moment for posterity.
Soon after (okay, more like 3 hours later, and after being told to move to the backyard with our wine so as to avoid violating their liquor license), we passed out. Day 1 complete! Such an adventure!

wellington art, part 2

2006-07-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

this week's installation: the tripod monster of courtenay place! built by weta workshop last year! wooo! it's lit up in the middle! it's like 20 feet tall! or whatever that is in "fake" units! (i.e. meters) it has little gameboys sculpted into the legs! ha ha!

the beginning of a slow recap

2006-07-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

let's start a month ago, shall we?
o the halcyon days of the duxton, all pillow nests and living rooms and shit.

i mean, check it. A PILLOW. NEST.

A Burger King By Any Other Name Would Still Be Nasty

2006-07-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Fun Sydney Fact!

Burger King is called Hungry Jack in Australia (or at least as much of Australia as we saw). Same font, same bun-around-words logo. Can't vouch for the flavor, but they seem to be doing a brisk business, and they're EVERYWHERE in Sydney. Constant Hungry Jacks jokes during $1300 LUNCH at Tetsuya's. More later, after the long sleep.

it's like american graffiti only cheaper

2006-07-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

wellington fun fact!

burger kings in wellington are decorated all 50s americana. including sparkly red vinyl booths, pictures of james dean and marilyn monroe, and an old style jukebox.

behold our legacy, people!

okay the joke is over now.

2006-07-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

As promised, many shots of the breakfast buffet i enjoy daily (or rather, DID enjoy daily, until i had to move out). Check out those pastries! Good thing yoga is the mortal enemy of pastries!

Sydney, Here We Come

2006-06-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

We're leaving for Sydney this afternoon, and I still haven't posted the pictures of my last trip! I'm a terrible blogger. They should take away my license.

I got my underwater dolphin pictures developed, and loaded all my digital photos to my laptop, so what's stopping me? I totally should have blogged as I went, per Clodagh's instructions, but I'm so rebellious! And such a great procrastinator.

Joe and I will be gone until late Monday night, so I will leave you with one dolphin photo to tide you over. We're going to be doing the Master Cleanse fast starting next Friday, so I should have plenty of time to catch up on my South Island posts.

Going to Sydney

2006-06-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Hola, amigos, it's been a while since I rapped atcha. Things have been very quiet down in the En Zed ("zed" is the crazy moon-language term used in New Zealand for the letter 'z'; this leads to things such as a video rental chain being called "Video Ezy", which, if you're not a barbaric savage, is pronounced "vid-ee-oh ehzz-ee", but here it's how it's spelled to pronounce as "vid-ee-oh ee-zee"). Or, if not quiet, at least uneventful. Sure, Kris had a birthday, and Francisco arrived, and Christopher got back from yoga-camp, and the weather has begun to truly reflect the season in this nightmare mirror-world of Winter-in-June, and our cat is still at-large. But little in the way of actual excitement has transpired.

That is, until now. Or at least, a few hours from now and continuing through to next Monday: Kris and I are going to Sydney, Australia for a long weekend. I'm not sure exactly what all we'll be doing, though Kris has a detailed itinerary laid out that includes attending the gala opening of a skate park, and something involving water (she wants me to pack a swimsuit, but the forecasted highs are in the mid-50s; that's about 13 degrees celcius for those more comfortable reckoning in crazy moon-measurements). We'll also be having lunch on Saturday at Tetsuya's with our friend Mel from Weta and her brother and his wife. Tetsuya's was ranked last year as the fourth best restaurant in the world, [20060705: corrected rank of Tetsuya's from 'fifth' to 'fourth' -- Joe]so HUGE thanks to Mel for letting us share her booking, which Kris and I were too retarded to make in time to get an actual reservation. We'll report on that when we get back. Aside from Tetsuya's, the only thing I really want to do is see the new Superman movie, which is why I'm not in charge of figuring out what to do on vacations.

Everyone keeps telling me what a great time we'll have there, and how envious they are of us taking this trip. I was pretty excited anyway, as I've wanted to go to Australia ever since I was a kid, and my dad talked about how great it was, based on the time he was there during his tour in Vietnam. So all this encouragement from folks that have been there has only stoked the fire of anticipation. But really, the reason we're going at all at this time is that it's so easy to get there. I think it's less than a four-hour flight, and the tickets were pretty cheap. It would have been criminal to NOT pop on over to Australia while we're in New Zealand.

Oooop!

2006-06-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

I accidentally celebrated my birthday a day early. You see, technically it was the 21st in New Zealand yesterday. But, as Aimee pointed out in a Happy Birthday Voicemail, I was born in AMERICA. I don't actually become a year older in chronological time until today. So now I'm left with the awesome responsibility of celebration it all over again! Drat!

The first celebration: grilled cheese, tomato soup, and The Jazz Singer. Last night we all went out to Eric and Lucas's house in Breaker Bay. They're both out of town, but they have the most incredible movie watching set up, and were kind enough to let us make use of it while they're away (in exchange for 1 chicken burrito and some cheddar cheese - a fair trade).

Christopher brought back two blocks of authentic Tillamook cheddar (sharp and mild) and two giant cans of condensed Campbell's Tomato Soup, from a U.S. Ralph's, in his suitcase last week. These were prepared side-by-side with the New Zealand versions, for science. I'm not exactly sure what's "wrong" with the New Zealand versions, but something is. Totally wrong flavor. And the cheddar cheese here isn't even colored orange, as it should be. So sad.

Also, there was sparkling wine from our South Island trip (more on that later), and The Jazz Singer on the largest screen I've ever seen it on. As always, Neil was amazing. I made lyric sheets for those new to Mr. Diamond's finest piece of theatrical work, so everyone could sing along. As usual, Francisco and I sang at the top of our lungs, while the rest laughed at us. Tony! I missed you! We'll have to have a special screening next time you're around this neck of the woods.

Thanks to everyone who made my fake-birthday so great. Joe was especially fantastic, bravely weathering the dishes while missing out on singing with Neil. What a trooper. So brave. So giving. :D

Okay, now what should I do celebrate my birthday TODAY?!

so far, it is all about the duxton.

2006-06-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

it's my happy place. especially the bath.

and i dig this mirror in the hotel lobby. tomorrow: the breakfast buffet!

-f

meep.

2006-06-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

Coming to you from the Duxton, which faces north, where the sun is. The photo was taken from my 7th floor suite. Mmmm.

-f

South Island Journey Completed! A Triumphant Success!

2006-06-15T06:54:00.000-07:00

We got back on Monday, but I've been clutching the bed and trying to get back into my hermitic routine since then. Tomorrow I'll go get the UNDERWATER PHOTOS OF DOLPHINS developed (disposable waterproof camera) and see if I can get them into a digital format.

Here's a short recap which I'll follow up with detailed accounts and pictures over the next couple days:

Tuesday: Made and sold 40 burritos, got on a plane to Christchurch, met up with Clodagh and drank a lot of wine.
Wednesday: Rode the hangover trolley around the charming town of Christchurch, took a tour of the charming Fudge Cottage, took a ride up the charming gondola to view charming Christchurch at sunset, got lost driving to charming Akaroa.
Thursday: Brunch by the sea in Akaroa, drove to Hanmer Springs, had bad Indian food made by non-Indian Asian people, watched bad Edward Norton movie with foreign strangers. Was so much fun despite all this badness!
Friday: Had bad massages and facials at the hot springs, but good dip in the mineral pools, followed by the best hot chocolate in all the land, drove to Kaikoura, had fancy restaurant dinner, tried to eat bad lobster/crayfish, but had to send it back.
Saturday: DOLPHINS. 500 OF THEM. LIKE RATS WITH FINS. COOLEST THING EVER. Raced the train on the way to Blenheim to watch Ireland vs. NZ rugby game...ZzzzZZzzzzz...wha? Um, what? Drove to Picton, watched Robocop with strangers (this time American and English).
Sunday: Private tour of Marlborough region wineries, capped off with short run around a small chocolate factory and then a 12 hour nap.
Monday: Choppy, southerly wind-fueled ferry trip back to Wellington, by way of Ice Age 2.

Hey Clodagh! Did I forget anything in the outline? You were right. I really should have been blogging from the road: but I'm so LAZY!

Now you know. Other things happening: Francisco arrived last Monday (just in time for me to abandon him). But you knew that. He'll be moving in after his stay at the lovely Duxton. Christopher gets back in 6 hours, and I hear he may have real cheddar cheese and Campbell's Tomato Soup with him. Allen returned yesterday from the U.S. WITH PRESENTS. Saturday, we have a party for them all.

And lastly, I've applied for a trainee position at Weta doing texture painting (whatever that is). I have no qualifications, aside from my affinity for mastering obscure computer applications, and my great enthusiasm for working in general. So we'll see if that's enough. If not, I'll go back to doing what I do best: reading the internet.

an impostor arrives.

2006-06-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

when i described the duxton to my friend luke, and pointed out that when i ordered room service i had to specify whether i would take it in the living room or the bedroom, he said simply:

"wow. you have arrived."

yes, yes i have.

-f

A The Cheat update (drugs!)

2006-06-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

I called the woman who's been feeding him, to see if she would be in a position to nab him. As it turns out, she had a "measure of last resort": kitty valium! She had some because her own cat had been prescribed it recently, so it's appropriately dosed for cats. I told her that that sounded awesome, so she's going to use it as more a "first resort" tool. She says that she wants a little more time to build a trusting relationship with him, so that she can abuse it to grab him after drugging him. So, hopefully he'll be in custody within a couple weeks. Huzzah!

The question is, who WOULDN'T want to do this?

2006-05-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this linked on BoingBoing today: Tribewanted. For a fairly nominal fee, you get membership in the tribe that will run an island in Fiji, which entitles you to stay 7, 14, or 21 days on the island, all local expenses paid (you'll have to pay to get to the main island of Fiji, but then the commuter flight to Adventure Island is covered). The draw is that you'll be, essentially, constructing the resort for yourself and other tribe members to come. Basically, this is tropical, permanent Burningman. As soon as I get home, I'll be forwarding this on to the FnF Burningman list. As Matt Madden, one of our campmates said last year as we were constructing our camp on the playa, responded when I asked how he was doing, "I'm having the best time doing the dumbest shit!" Now imagine doing the dumbest shit, IN FIJI!

An Interesting Idea

2006-05-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

And I'll blame Joe for this one. He thinks I should fly out to SF on Tuesday 5/30, nab The Cheat, hop a plane back to NZ on Saturday 6/3, which arrives Monday, so I can make burritos on Tuesday and then fly to Christchurch to meet up with Clodagh that afternoon.

Aside from the fact that this in an insane plan, Air NZ has appropriate flights available for about $1400 and I really don't have any appointments I couldn't reschedule (although there is that massage on Friday...). But what if I couldn't catch him? And if I did, what if he escaped again? WHAT IF?

I could also wait until I return from the South Island on 6/12 to go. It's more expensive, but then again The Cheat may have been captured by then and I wouldn't have to buy the ticket. WHAT TO DO?

I Was Well For Almost 2 Months!

2006-05-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Tuesday after finishing my burrito duties, I collapsed in a heap of sinus pain, sore throat, fever etc. and slept for 18 hours. Then I spent the rest of the week holed up in the apartment feeling sorry for myself because I'm ALWAYS SICK. Then I realized that I haven't been sick since the Mold Incident in March, and that was almost 2 months ago! Way to go, staying healthy for so very long! Today (our Friday, USA's Thursday) I left the house for the first time, to buy some salmon and veggies in an attempt to bring myself back from the dead. I feel a little better, but my head is still all stuffed up, I'm sneezy, and I feel like I need numerous naps before I'll be ready for the world again.

Just in time, Aimee sent me a care package! So great! She sent me a copy of Bring It On on DVD (the best!), many ladybug-shapes chocolates, 3 single miss-matched socks (!), a pair of matched rainbow hospital-type socks with lady bugs on the toes (I'm sensing a lady-bug/sock theme to this box), a stick of Sure solid deodorant (they only have roll-on here: UCK), a whole bunch of Alba tropical skin and hair products and 3 US MAGAZINES. I'm so caught up on celebrity gossip it's not even funny. It was so nice to have everything I needed to really do this being sick correctly. Thanks Aimee! You rule!

Everyone is abandoning us, and Joe and I are clinging to each in trembling fear of loneliness. Trina left for London via the U.S. on Monday, after a kick-ass dancerific going away party on Saturday. Clodagh left for the South Island on Wednesday. She'll be gone for three weeks, but I'll be flying down to Christchurch on June 6th to join her for a week. Allen left for the U.S. today, where he'll be visiting Alinea in Chicago for one of their very last tastings containing foie gras. So tragic. Luckily, Francisco will be arriving in a few weeks, followed shortly by Christopher's return from yoga camp. So much movement in the world!

Joe and I have just made reservations to fly to Sydney for my birthday at the end of June. So exciting! A new whole new country, only a few hours away! If anyone has ever been to Sydney, I'd love to hear about the places we should visit. We'll be staying downtown (see directions to our hotel in the previous post) and will be doing a lot of wandering around on foot. I hear there's some kind of opera house there?

As for the cats, The Cheat is STILL on the loose and proving impossible to capture. We know he's safe, and being well fed, but everyone who manages to grab him gets rewarded with delightful cat scratches, which are well known to be sterile and never get infected. :D There's been talk of hiring a professional cat catcher, and I'm all for it, I'm just not sure such a thing exists. If anyone knows any tips for catching cats, please pipe up. He's even eluded the cat trap: walked right in, ate some food, and walked right out. That cat is MAGIC. I hear The Sneak is lonely and needy without him, but at least she's still in captivity.

Good Driving Directions

2006-05-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

We're going to Sydney for a few days at the end of June. Here are the driving directions provided by the booking website, Hotels.com. Nothing could go wrong here:

From Sydney Airport:
Look for sign to the city.
Continue towards Pitt Street.
Turn on to Pitt Street.

Inventioning!

2006-05-19T20:20:00.000-07:00

I freely give this idea to the public domain, with the wish that if you ever create it and make money off it, you'll give one to me. Maybe I'll get around to making one, though.

Yesterday, Kris bought a lava lamp; I'll leave it to her to post a picture of it. It's very nice-looking, all filled with purple fluid and having bright yellow lava that darkens to orange as it floats to the top of the lamp. We were so taken with it that after gazing at it for about ten minutes in the living room, we decided to move it upstairs into the second bedroom (so it could sit on top of a dresser), and we slept in that room so that we could watch it late into the night. And we weren't even high!

So, anyway, that was the lead-in to my invention, whose actual date of origin is a few years ago. My idea is this: make a transparent, fluid-tight tank, say three feet wide, two feet tall, and a half-inch thick (I'm pretty sure that determining the exact thickness would be a matter of experimentation). The exact size and shape would be a matter of taste and asthetics, as you will see. On one side of the tank, mount a grid of LEDs such that it can make any color, like the LED wall at Burningman (but only as large as one side of the tank):

*Photo used with permission by Benjamin Feen*

Note that my panel would probably not have a naked girl in front of it. The LED panel would have the LEDs pressing on the outside of the tank, shining through it. The back of the LED panel would be flush against a wall. You might also want to interpose a sheet of something translucent between the LEDs and the fluid tank; this will diffuse the LEDs and disguise their discreet nature.

By itself, such an LED display thingy would make a perfectly awesome lighting fixture. But here's where it goes to 11. The tank is filled with two (or more?!?) immiscible fluids with similar or identical specific gravities, but different (as different as possible) indices of refraction. Along the bottom of the tank is some mild heating element, so that the fluids will get all convecty and move around a lot. As the light passes through it, you'd get lava-esque effects. You'd also want the LED panel to have moving blobs of color being displayed.

So, anyway, that's it! The original idea was a sort of 2-D planar lava lamp, but I think the LEDs being refracted through a couple different fluids would look better, and probably use less electricity. I was thinking last night that a circular thing would be cool, and maybe there could even be tiny and subtle pumps to agitate the fluids. Maybe LEDs mounted on the perimeter and shining in would look awesome. The variations are limitless!

Maybe also the LEDs could sense what the fluids were doing and act in some way based on that. There could be a thermometer that ensures that the heating elements are doing the right thing based on the ambient temperature (lava lamps are finnicky about what temp the room is). So much science that can be done! I found a source of really cheap LEDs, and there is no shortage of tutorials on the Internet for making bunches of them do interesting things. I'm feeling upbeat about this.

That's right, I'm blogging my lunch. It's come to that.

2006-05-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

We had a lot of leftover ingredients from sushi last night. I took them home, and today I made the best sushi bowl in all of history. Judge for yourself:

10-12:00 is edamame, 12-2:00 you can see a little bit of surimi crab (reconsituted white fish all dolled up to look like crab meat), 2:30-4 is avocado slices, 5-7:00 is inari (sweetened fried tofu stuffed with sushi rice), then some pea shoots and sliced mushrooms from 7-9:00. The center is blanched carrots, chives, red pepper, scallions and cucumber, all on a bed of sushi rice mixed with shredded nori (seaweed).

And see how I placed the chopsticks JUST SO for the photograph of my lunch?! See what I'm getting at, people?! I really need to just GET A JOB. It's 3:30 am and I'm watching Gray's Anatomy and BLOGGING MY LUNCH. Tomorrow, maybe we should talk a little about my current midlife crisis. But not until after my 90 minute massage in the afternoon. Oh, and I really should work on other strategies for selling Trina's car. And pick up some jalapeños for burrito day. And think some more about heading to the South Island for a few weeks. And I've also gotta pay some bills with Joe's money. Big day. I should probably rest up for it.

Sooshee!!!

2006-05-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

Megan the Miraculous Massage Therapist demanded homemade sushi, so we made an appointment with Allen for last night. This was my first sushi-making experience, but Allen totally knew what he was doing. I spent the afternoon shopping Asian and un-Asian markets in search of the proper ingredients: sashimi-grade tuna, salmon & tarahiki, avocados, veggies, fried tofu pouches for inari, surimi crab (fake crab for California roll type stuff) and sake.

After months (maybe even years?) of gathering dust on my bookshelf, Aimee and Tony's "Sushi Master: International Sushi Maker Plus" finally got hauled out for the first time. It's mostly a collection of molds for making square or heartshaped sushi, along with some funny plastic chopstick/spoons and a roll cutting knife with little holes punched in it so the sushi will slide right off, in theory.

Chopping vegetables is fun! Especially with a pretty and sharp santoku knife. Those cucumbers became sunomono salad, lemon slices were eaten whole with salmon sashimi, and the mushrooms were shortly deep fried in tempura batter, cuz hey, why not deep fry stuff?

Speaking of deep frying, here are mushrooms getting a spa treatment in Allen's deep fryer, which, despite the rumors, did NOT come with the apartment.

Here's Clodagh making Jazz Hands over her sushi creation, which contains salmon, cucumber, avocado, red pepper and pickled ginger. MMMMM!!! What you don't see is Clodagh shaking her left leg in the air as I instructed her to do, just for my own amusement. Te he...

Allen made a dish from his Nobu cookbook (which is now in my possession: bwahahaha...). Tuna with chives, coriander and jalapeño pepper:

Here's the bounty of our labor. It only took about 3 hours. It's hard to tell, but those inside-out rolls are HEART SHAPES. Yeah. Unh. Take it.

Here's the table 5 mintues before we devoured everthing:
Here's us 20 seconds before we devour everything. Look how happy I am!

And just for the record, here's Clodagh hitting the sauce:

Science, and making discoveries.

2006-05-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

We must do this.

More earthquake impressions!

2006-05-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

7.6 Richter, about 1600 km north-north-east of Wellington. It occured at 10:39, which means that it took about six minutes to reach here, which means it travelled around 16,000 kph. That's in-line with a quick internet search on the speed of sound in rock and propagation speeds of earthquakes (between 3 and 8 km/second). Woo, science!

As Kris mentioned, it was a long quake. This was actually the second most-powerful quake I've ever felt, though due to its drawn-out length, it was the scariest. It was so smooth and on-going that I felt as though it could be the prelude to something truly destructive, like it was the beginning of a long, smooth ramp-up to a real shaker.

I called Clodagh right after it happened, just to ensure that it was not a truck passing near our apartment or something. She answered the phone with, "Didja feel that?!?" It was her first quake, and she was well-pleased upon being informed that it was an unusually large and long quake (just like my... nevermind). She also apologized for it occuring, since she had wished for an earthquake about an hour before. I knew she was a witch. Real Irish people fear the water, but she is comfortable near it. She knows it would reject her body.

Eeeaarrrtthhhquaaaaake!

2006-05-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

This was my favorite lifetime earthquake so far. Just a gentle swaying that seemed to go on FOREVER. I felt like I was having some kind of inner ear problem, or a bad Flying Burrito Brothers Margarita Experience, but really it was just the earth shaking, gently. I had time to holler downstairs to Joe, "earthquake?" then wait a few seconds and say "earthquake!" again, followed by some discussion about whether or not it was an earthquake, while it continued to quake. Awesome.

No word on magnitude or anything, but I reported it to the New Zealand Geonet, like a good earthquake citizen. Hope no one died while I was celebrating how fun geology can be.

Our VOIP line is mighty!

2006-05-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

You want to talk to the Ardents, you say? Well, all you need to do now is call my old cell-phone number, WHICH YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE!

That's right. To call us, just dial 1-650-224-3165. Harnessing the awesome power of the Internet, your call will be recorded by the NSA, converted to digital audio, encoded into IP packets, recorded by the NSA yet again, then delivered to our home in Wellington, with none but the NSA the wiser! It's like we never left the country, and are being illegally wiretapped at home! Remember, kids, the President took an Oath to uphold the Constitution. Failure to do so is treason, and the penalty for treason is death!

(As you can tell, I'm extra-tasty pissed about the current US administration these days.)

More South Park Character Fun

2006-05-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

What Joe thinks he looks like:

What Joe actually looks like (in reality, which has a liberal bias):

To make your own character, go here. Please send me a copy of your work.

You Complain, We Respond

2006-05-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Due to overwhelming concern about the photo taken at the Xmen bowling party (it makes me look psychotically retarded), I have changed my profile photo to something that more accurately depicts my true self.

The Latest on The Cheat, as Told by Email from Francisco

2006-05-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

"i got really close again!

i picked him up by the scruff of the neck, but i think i lifted him up
too high; he was sedate for a couple of steps, then hissed and
scratched and escaped again. (by the way, my arm is starting to look
AWESOME!)

so once i get a more all-body grip on him, should i maintain the
pressure on the scruff with my first hand? i don't really know much
about actual cat entrapment. in fact, i am starting to wonder if
maybe a tranquilizer gun would be overkill :D

-f"

Coming soon: a photo of those AWESOME arms.

"Everywhere you look, everywhere you look..."

2006-05-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

We found out tonight from a totally wasted local girl that the Kiwi conception of San Francisco is the informed most strongly by the show "Full House". Turns out, while we were learning important lessons about screwing that chick from the movie Rad, and doing Kermit the Frog impersonations, the rest of the English-speaking world was learning right along with us. It touched our hearts to know that at some fundamental level, we could relate to everyone: through the magic of shared televisionary heritage. Thank you, shitty-TV-makers!

No, there was no tsunami here

2006-05-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

Clodagh called this morning at 5:30 AM to say that there had been an earthquake in Tonga, and there was a tsunami warning for New Zealand (which she learned via a phone call from her mother in Ireland).

"What parts of New Zealand?" I asked.

"I think all of it," she answered.

This seemed improbable. For one, Tonga is well north of New Zealand. If anyone was going to get washed away in a tidal wave, it would be those folks living on the north-facing east coast. Second, where we live in Wellington, we have no direct contact with the ocean-at-large. It's a very well-sheltered harbor. I asked what time it was supposed to hit, and she said sometime around 7:00. I thanked her and tried to go back to sleep. Around 6:30, I thought I heard more sea-bird sounds than what I thought was normal, but after not dying for several more minutes, I finally fell back to sleep.

However, this is one big example of "it's the thought that counts!" Thank you, Clodagh, for thinking to save our lives. Our friend Kevin, upon learning that we and some other friends had gotten phone-calls, said, "Oh, and I was just to drown, I guess!" Nah. I just gambled that I was correct about us being spared... gambled WITH OUR LIVES!

Long Live May

2006-05-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

Last month, after a couple weeks of moving-shopping-dining-spending frenzy, Joe and I agreed to avoid eating out until May 1st. Well, it's May 3rd, and we got pizza last night, but I think it's time to head back out into the world of Wellington fine dining.

Insurance paid for the car window, but they won't cover the contents: a cell phone car charger, iPod, charger and tape adapter, and a pair of binoculars. Joe tells me there's a neighborhood kid who's a suspect, but there's nothing to be done about him. I wonder why they don't have juve down here. Or do they? Something to look into. Thieves suck.

In happier news, I found my organizer today, while looking for stamps. Inside my organizer I found $800 NZD, that I guess I was socking away for a rainy day, or hoarding in case there was a cash scarcity, or just trying not to spend after doing currency exchange at the airport. Who can understand my mysterious ways? Not even I.

These 3 seemingly disparate events bring us to a couple monumental decisions at hand, the first being where should we have dinner? We're trying to get as much as we can out of the Entertainment Book, so it's gonna be one of these (click on Fine Dining, then Search). We've been to 88, Boulcott Street, Boulot, Duxton, Il Casino, Logan Brown's, and Zibbibo. Where to next?

The second question is: what kind of iPod to get? Aimee is going to hook me up, but I just don't know what to get. Of course, video is rad. But then again, nano is so very small! And do I really need video? Don't I need something so very tiny, just a little more that I need video? I could watch Top Chef on my iPod, and that would be awesome, but I could also just watch it on my laptop and slip the nano in the coin pocket of my jeans. What do you think?

Clodagh and I made burritos Monday and Tuesday: 80 of them. It was a heck of a lot of work, but also great fun. The saddest part was not selling 25 of them. What to do with 25 burritos? Eat some! Give away the rest! But to whom? We went on a mission to find out just who might want a free burrito on a Tuesday afternoon.

60 of 80 burritos, all screaming "why don't you love us?!"

The Compassion Center is a soup kitchen located across the street from yoga, and it just happens to have a very compassionate parking lot that's come in handy in recent times. Joe and the almighty internet couldn't tell us where to find hungry people, so we went to the nuns (who were on a break between serving meals). They sent us to the "Tin Palace" in Newtown, which is not what is sounds like, whatever that is. We gave warm burritos to crazy people, and that made all the very low paid work totally worth it.

Oh yeah! And the wierdest thing I've seen since moving to New Zealand...here.

Damn you, homesickness!

2006-05-01T00:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first party of the summer at Stafford Lake in Marin County for this group of people that throw weekly sunset parties there. From the pictures, it looks like all our peeps were in full effect.

Benjy's pictures of the Sunset Party.

Two pictures from the X-Men3 wrap party

2006-04-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Allen took many fine photos that night. Here are two of them.

It's Important to Reverse the English

2006-04-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday night was the wrap party for Weta's work on X-Men 3. We took shuttles from downtown Wellington a couple miles to a bowling alley in Petone (always pronounced with thick Italian accent, as "p'tony!"). It was like Rock N Bowl in Goleta (some of you may be familiar with that phenomenon), or any number of "It's very cool to rock out and bowl on a Saturday night, young hip dudes and ladies"-type places across the land. Except there was better music, and free drinks, and cheeses and fruit trays at the lanes, and a buffet. And the bowling balls naturally spin the opposite direction, because of the Coriolis Effect.

And prize contests! For costumes! MUTANT costumes, because X-Men is about mutants! It was actually kinda cool. I'll see if I can find someone else's pictures to post, because I saw many being taken. There were a lot of action-neon-bowling shots. One guy was halfway down the lane trying to get the perfect shot of me and my patented "sometimes breaks 70" bowling technique. It's patented! Why even bother trying to capture my moves? You can't use them!

It takes a long time for 7 people to bowl 10 frames. I came in 2nd of our krew, at least 10 pins behind the craftiest bowling hustler I've ever had the pleasure of meeting (and you'd be surprised): Clodagh. That bitch. If she thinks she can get away with humiliating me in front of my esteemed peers, well, she's got another thing coming. Nobody beats me at a game at which I suck and lives long to tell the tale. Not even my NEW BUSINESS PARTNER.

Tomorrow, Clodagh joins the mighty force that is our burrito crew. We will begin shopping and prepping in an attempt to produce an astounding 80 BURRITOS for delivery to Weta on Tuesday. Pray for us, and anyone foolish enough to pay us $10 for the opportunity to be our guinea pig. Here are some glamour shots from last week's production:

Here's a lot of salsa. About a 40s worth.

Avocados are pretty and delicious.

I wonder if this looks appetizing to meat-eaters. I marinated the chicken overnight in lime juice, chili powder, cumin, garlic, s & p and a litte olive oil. In the morning, I tried out the "grill/fan" feature on our fancy foreign oven, laying the chicken out on one of the racks, with a broiler pan below it to catch the drippings. It ends up being a smokey procedure, but it only takes 8 to 10 minutes and the chicken ends up all grilled-looking and juicy inside. Oh, and don't forget to beat the chicken senseless with the side of a wine bottle before marinating. Worth it.

The assembly line.

Ready for the most complex procedure: rolling it all up. I can't show that here because, like my bowling moves, it's patented. Not really. It's just hard to take pictures of yourself while rolling burritos. This one is vegetarian.

The Cheat's Great Half Mile Journey

2006-04-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

The Cheat: Officially NOT DEAD

2006-04-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

Breaking news: Aimee just called from The Cheat Vigil Central. She has had her hands on the elusive The Cheat! Just moments ago! She now only has the collar of the elusive The Cheat (as mentioned, he is elusive) in her hands, which is even more fanastic than it sounds. It is The Cheat!

He is alive and appears very healthy, and he's living near a vacant house where he is fed every day and hangs out with other feral cats. Catching him is all that remains, but he's used to being outdoors so he'll be fine until someone gets a good grip on him and throws him in a cat carrier.

Thank you Aimee! You rock!

"A Very The Cheat-like Cat" Spotted at 842 Moultrie St. In Bernal Heights

2006-04-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Matt filed a report from the field this morning. A woman responded to one of Vanessa's posters saying that she had been feeding a stray orange cat for the last few days. They sent a party to the scene and witnessed a The Cheat-like creature running away. Vigils are happening! The Cheat could be in our clutches soon!

Feel free to join the hunt for The Cheat! That address is a vacant house owned by the woman who reported the sighting, and y'all are free to let yourselves in through the gate. The best way to get The Cheat to come around is to make the "food-into bowl sound" by pouring food back and forth between bowls. If you can't catch him, see if you can snap a picture of him for better identification.

Thank you to Matt, Cary, Colleen, Aimee, Tony, Nikhila, Vanessa, Francisco, Jonathan and anyone else who is out there searching or praying or sending psychic messages in hopes of his triumphant return!

Matt advised not getting our hopes up, but we're ignoring him. For now, I'm going with "The Cheat is not dead! So glad!" If it turns out not to be The Cheat, maybe we should just take in the new orange cat and start calling him The Cheat. We shall create our own cat reality!

Please help!

2006-04-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

If anyone can help look for The Cheat this weekend, please let us know. We have a pet detective, but she won't bring her cat-sniffing dog around until we have put up signs, checked shelters, and talked to the neighbors about letting the pet detective check out their yards.

He could be hurt and hiding somewhere, and I would really hate to wait until Tuesday (when Vanessa gets back into town) before the hound could start looking. But we're on the other side of world, so we're really pretty helpless in this situation.

I think the most important thing is for someone to talk to Vanessa's neighbors 2 or 3 doors on either side, ask them if they've seen The Cheat, and if they'd be willing to let a pet detective and dog sniff around for him in their back yards. Vanessa's apartment is at 144 Highland Avenue, 94110 (south of the mission), between Mission and Holly Park (I think he's in the park: that's where I'd be).

Here's our Craigslist ad for more information:
http://www.craigslist.org/sfc/laf/153752654.html

And tips from the Missing Pet Partnership:
http://www.lostapet.org/indoorCat.html

And pictures, because The Cheat is handsome:

Rear view of The Cheat

His size relative to a 1 pound lobster

The Cheat from the belly-side

His size relative to a dining table (he looks HUGE!)

The Cheat filling out his Companion Animal Recovery
forms to put his microchip number in the database.

But maybe some pictures of my nose will make everybody feel better?

2006-04-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

First The Cheat, and now this?!?

2006-04-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

Our car was just broken into, which entailed the breaking of the passenger window. They stole Kris's iPod, along with the power cables and tape adapter. Apparently, there is a kid around here with a reputation for crimes of this nature. I'll go to the police station tonight or tomorrow to fill out a report.

(Ironically, shortly before this happened, my officemate was poo-poohing my desire to live in a big city, such as San Francisco. "Crime!" he argued. "Crime's not that big a deal!" I countered. So, thank you, Universe, for giving me such a poignant chance to prove how zen I am! I am the zenest! Even if I slammed my fist on the roof of the car and screamed "FUCK!" loud enough to summon Allen from his office when I realized that Kris's iPod had been ganked.) (update: apparently, Allen was on his way out the door as soon as he saw the email sent company-wide that a car had been broken-into, and my scream did not summon him in fact. But it was loud enough to, thus I have not made a liar of myself.)

Breaking News!

2006-04-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

I bought two new nose rings: a red stone and a silver star. Just thought you should know.

Good idea!

2006-04-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Maybe we should buy this:

www.aorata.com/10277.htm

Look who thinks she's all productive now?

2006-04-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

My, my! Changing the look again, eh? Damn you, Nesting Instincts!

Speaking of non sequitars, Kris did indeed do an awesome job with the burritos yesterday. According to one Weta veteran, never before had such a thundering herd of hungry people gathered so quickly and in such numbers for food from a lunch-vendor. Many email were sent to me afterward saying how delicious the burritos had been. Huzzah!

Also, the sad news of The Cheat is also true. I've been looking at it in terms of an adventure, though. For something to be a proper adventure, I've maintained, it cannot be easy. There must be hardship, and adversity, difficult choices and painful sacrifices. Otherwise, it's not adventure, it's tourism. We had thought that the pain we went through in the month or so leading up to our leaving the US was all the dues we would pay. We didn't anticipate losing a member of our party, but clearly Fate had other plans. Not that I've given up hope that we'll be reunited with The Cheat, or that I'm not sad and anxious about it, but things like that are part of the nature of adventure.

But turning now to positive things, Allen gave me a present today: a tobacco pipe! We had been over at his house a couple weeks ago, and he had busted out his pipe collection and tobacco. After a brief tutorial, I was soon puffing away like a champ. OK, maybe a "champ" in the Special Olympics sense, but sometimes, we're all winners. It came in a little case with a tamper, some filters, and an ounce or so of flavored tobacco. Needless to say, this is quite awesome, and I'm quite humbled. Now, of course, I have another reason to need a workshop, so I can craft my own pipes. It's added to the growing list of things to do or make, such as root beer brewing, jalepeno pepper growing, tobacco growing, motorcycle building, VTOL aircraft making, and other such crafting and inventioning.

Another shining beacon of awesome is the 48Hours Film Fest, which is a competition in New Zealand to make a short film in 48 hours. It happens in about a month, and we had a meeting last night to discuss ideas, roles, budget, and to watch the DVD of last year's movies. Some were really great, while others were painfully bad. I think we can definitely avoid painful badness. There is a little doubt that we can be as good as last year's winner. But it can't hurt to try, and it's bound to be fun.

The time for hibernation is over! So begins the time for Getting Things Done!

2006-04-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

So I’m having a little trouble with iTunes. Not the music part, but the TV shows. I’m like a crack addict waiting for my next fix…of Top Chef. That’s right. I moved to the other side of the world in order to free up some time to watch more American TV. Were you expecting something different?

I've been having some culture shock mixed with a mild confused depression cocktail, which has rendered me incapable of writing email or blog posting or going out much. Mostly, I've been watching a lot of movies and TV, getting massages (I've had 2 in the last 3 weeks...aaah) and doing a lot nesting (read: gadget buying), reading, cooking and menu planning. It’s a strange mix of fevered activity, in which I stay up till all hours of the night (like now), making strange dishes (pureed celeriac with orange-infused oil) and planning what Christopher is going to be eating for the next 9 weeks, alternated with 4 hours of Scrubs and capped off with reading every blog on the internet. Yes! I’ve read the whole internet, which leaves me with nothing to do now but write on it.

I also experimented with my sleep cycle and found that in an ideal world, I would stay up until 10 am and then sleep until 6:30 pm. I did that for 2 days and it pretty much kicked me out of hibernation mode. I’ve always known that if I want to be a part of the rest of the world, that sleep schedule isn’t going to get me very far, but I really wanted to give it a shot. And when else would I get the chance to conduct such a bold and daring experiment?! I’m like a scientist.

The apartment is great now. The first week was a nightmare of filth (the didn't have it cleaned before we moved in, as they promised), unreturned calls by the property manager, no hot water, no keys to the windows, etc. But all that's worked out now and the place is lovely. We're just waiting for the carpet cleaning to be done and then we should never have to talk to the managers again. This weekend we finished our household list by switching the hinges on the refrigerator (so it opens away from the wall, as it should), and added shelves to both closets. Now all our extraneous crap is neatly stored out of sight and I feel much better. Funny how tidiness can be so soothing. Now if I could just find a coat/tree/stand, everything would be perfect.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Cheat has been missing since last Monday. As you can guess, we are very very sad. He escaped from the apartment he’s crashing at and just never came back, which is weird. He either got lost, or hurt, or most likely STOLEN, because he's so great. He's microchipped and has tags, so you'd think someone would call if they found him. The microchip company has stories on their website describing reunions with pets taking place months or years later, so I haven't lost hope, but I'm pretty bummed out. They're supposed to join us in August, followed by 30 days in quarantine, but it may just be The Sneak now. Bummer. I'm going through cat-withdrawal. If anyone wants to organize a search party, or pretend that you did and tell me about it, I’d be grateful.

In other news, I've been doing a lot of cooking, and thinking a lot about what I want to do. Our cost of living is so low now, and Joe is making enough money that I can avoid work and we can still afford to save a bunch of money. But I feel pretty useless when I'm not working, and the housewife role doesn't really suit me. I like the cooking part, but the cleaning part I'm not so keen on. We bought a food dehydrator and we've been making all kinds of delicious flax crackers, which is more fun than it sounds. We also got a juicer and a super food processor with ninety billion attachments. I know! That's a lot of attachments! But there is pico de gallo to be made, and vegetables to be sliced, so we really had no choice. I returned the pizza oven, cuz let’s not get crazy.

Today was a big day. I took my first crack at being The Burrito Lady at Weta. I spent a couple days last week going to all the grocery stores and pricing ingredients for all the components, which mostly turned into a hunt for jalapenos. They have them here, because you see them in New Zealand recipes, and on Pizza Hut pizzas, but they're rare and difficult to find. Allen came over on Saturday for burrito testing, and pronounced them acceptable, so yesterday I bought everything and prepped as much as I could. I got up at 8:30 (which is as unto the middle of the night for me) and grilled chicken and assembled burritos for 3 hours. When I got to Weta, I barely had time to open the cooler/warmer before they were all snatched away. 40 burritos in 4 minutes, and I got a job offer. Next week I’m going to see how fast I can get rid of 80 burritos.

So that's the news! Sorry I've been so quiet on the blog. I've just not been feeling very wordy-y, and I really need to get out of the house to take some pictures. Also, I’m not so sure if anyone out there is reading. Is anyone there? Feel free to comment if you are! I’m not good at writing often, but I can always read. Also, if you could make me a funny movie of yourself, I’d be into watching that. Or send me your favorite TV show. Or just tell me TV stories. I’m really missing America’s Next Top Model.

Shameless shill

2006-04-20T00:06:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I feel compelled to post the URL to my Amazon Wishlist. Not because I expect anything (and really, after the order I executed today, I really don't deserve anything more from Amazon). But still, no-one ever gets me anything from it! So here it is!

My Amazon Wishlist!

"Should I Stay or Should I Go"

2006-04-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

I actually decided today to not stay in New Zealand, beyond the 12-18 months I had been planning on being here. The issue of staying for longer, possibly emmigrating here, had been on my mind almost from the beginning. I even looked into what it would take to begin the process of becoming a permanent resident (more or less the same as getting a New Zealand "green card"). And while I think of it now, I realize it may be nice to have a place where you can run when the shit hits the fan, but at the moment I'm not planning on pursuing it.

How come? Well, for one, there's y'all. I said before that I missed my friends, though that is not what decided it for me. I miss California. I miss Berkeley, I miss San Francisco, I miss Mendicino, I miss the overbearing presence of the ocean, and the mountains, and the dry evergreen forests, and the hippies, and the psychedelic-inspired art and technology and music and parties, the impractical idealism, the snooty superiority, the desperate feel of holding the line before the onslaught of Texan fascists. I love and miss it all. It's cleaner in California -- New Zealand is green in spite of the humans here, not because of some ecologically aware national ethos, and unless they get their shit together soon, their shit will overwhelm them. There's a lot more going on in the Bay area, and already, I can feel the walls closing in here in this tiny-but-cosmopolitan burgh.

And I don't want to give the impression that I don't like it here. It certainly has its charms, and any place can be a heaven or hell, depending on what you make of it. In general, I'm enjoying myself. Just today, a bunch of us went go-karting at lunch: PURE FUN! On the other hand, I could see the day where I say, "Man, I'm sick of going to that crappy go-kart place." Plus, as I said, I'm making good friends here. That helps make the place fun to be in. But it's one of those "neccessary but not sufficient" things. Some of them may stay here permenantly, which means that I'll always have a reason to come back and visit. Right now, that sounds just fine. In the meantime, I'll enjoy myself as best I can (which is pretty well, really), and patiently dream of California.

An issue of great importance

2006-04-18T04:14:00.000-07:00

In New Zealand (and in the Southern Hemisphere generally), the toilets do not "drain in the opposite direction". Mostly they drain straight down, because the Coriolis Effect does not prevail at the scales associated with toilets, and because of the design of the toilets here. From the Wikipedia article on the Coriolis Effect:

The time, space and velocity scales are important in determining the importance of the Coriolis effect. Whether rotation is important in a system can be determined by its Rossby number, which is the ratio of the velocity of a system to the product of the Coriolis parameter, and the lengthscale of the motion:

Ro = {U}/{fL}.

A small Rossby number signifies a system which is strongly affected by rotation, and a large Rossby number signifies a system in which rotation is unimportant. An atmospheric system moving at U = 10m/s occupying a spatial distance of L=1000km, has a Rossby number

Ro = {10}/{10^{-4} * 1000 * 10^3} = 0.1

A man playing catch may throw the ball at U=30m/s in a garden of length L=50m. The Rossby number in this case would be

Ro = {30}/{10^{-4} * 50} = 6000.

Needless to say, one does not worry about which hemisphere one is in when playing catch in the garden. However, an unguided missile obeys exactly the same physics as a baseball, but may travel far enough and be in the air long enough to notice the effect of Coriolis. Long range shells landed close to, but to the right of where they were aimed until this was noted (or left if they were fired in the southern hemisphere, though most were not).

The Rossby number can also tell us about the bathtub. If the lengthscale of the tub is about L=1m, and the water moves towards the drain at about 60cm/s, then the Rossby number is

Ro = {0.6}/{10^{-4} * 1} = 6000.

Thus, the bathtub is, in terms of scales, much like a game of catch, and rotation is likely to be unimportant.

It does mention that if you are very, very careful about your setup, and make sure that there is no latent vorticity in the water, and your water bin is totally flat, and you contrive a plug-and-drain system that can be opened without introducing any new disturbance to the water, then you can fairly reliably get it to drain counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere vs. clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. But toilets? The effect is overwhelmed by the stink-nuggets that gave you the impetus to use the toilet in the first place, among other factors.

The other thing about toilets here is that most of them offer you two options for flushing. There are two buttons on top of the tank, and some sort of mark or shape on or of them to indicate that one is bigger than the other. Allegedly, they correspond to a greater or lesser flush, which you should choose appropriately depending on what you just put into it. However, my direct experince with this system is that each button initiates a flush of more or less equal volume and force. In the toilets at work, the buttons seem to be physically linked, so that pressing one or the other causes both to depress. At home, the story seems to be the same, but you can pretty easily moderate the flush by holding the button for more or less time.

Still, the toilets here provide plenty of opportunity for Demolition Man-inspired three seashell jokes, further buttressing my belief that that movie is the most terrifying and prophetic vision of the future that Hollywood has yet produced. Two words, bitches: President Schwarzenegger. Those two words should give you ample reason to test out whatever flushing mechanism you may have on your nearest toilet.

Reach Out and Touch an Ardent (Good Touch Only)

2006-04-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

VOIP (internet phone): 650-204-9897 (soon this will change to Joe's old cell phone number, 650-224-3165)
Joe Cell: 011-64-27-335-1410
Kris Cell: 011-64-27-286-6333
Home: 011-64-4-384-4998

We're one day ahead and 5 hours behind Pacific Standard Time, 7 behind for Central Time. So if it's 10:00 am in California on Tuesday, and noon in Chicago, it's 5:00 am on Wednesday here, (and we are sleeping..shhh!).

Mailing address:
9 Ebor Street, Apt. 12
Te Aro, Wellington
New Zealand 6001

p.s. we can both receive text and photos on our cell phones, so feel free to send those poor quality pictures you know you love to take.

Sunormous!

2006-04-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Clodagh gave us a gift. An Easter gift, perfectly fit for a bunch of hedonistic pagans such as us. A gift that could only have come from Japan. A... a SUNORMOUS hollow chocolate egg.

It came in this box:

Yes, you see that correctly: it's ONE KILOGRAM of chocolate. For those of you in the metric dark ages, one kg is about 2.2 pounds. To give you a further sense of scale, here is the Sunormous egg, situated with some objects for comparison:

*Clodagh shows off her motherly instincts as she cradles the egg*

*Tunormous Sitties*

*The Sunormous egg has many safety-related applications*

That last picture features a dripping-with-sweat me, since I had just gotten out of a hot shower after a session of Bikram yoga (which means 90 minutes of yoga in a room heated to over 100 degrees F.).

The four of us (Allen, Clodagh, Kris, and me) managed to polish off about half of the egg last night, which is pretty damned impressive. I'm still feeling a little ill about it. The chocolate, at least, was not totally shitty; I'd put it on par with Nestle or Herschey, which is not saying all that much, but it's pretty good for a piece of giant novelty candy. It's still sitting on our coffee table, all half-there and filled with broken bits of itself. The right thing to do would be to throw it away, but I fear I'm not that disciplined.

Wellington "art", part 1

2006-04-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

As promised, I took some photos of some of the things less than two blocks from our apartment. Here they are!

First up, Moore Wilsons! This is an upscale household goods and grocery store less than half a block from our apartment. I think it took Kris pointing out for me that the facade that faces the main street looks like it's in the process of being split with a wedge. I had, of coures, walked or driven past this many times.

I had even thought to myself, "Gee, I wonder how that giant crack formed in that wall. And further, why did they put a vent in it? That seems like a recipe for an expensive repair later!" Sometimes, I am a total retard. But sometimes I'm not!

Next, a simple mural. Again, this is about a block from our apartment, on the side of an upscale Italian resturant called Il Casino. I was particulary pleased with the way the sky in the mural almost blends in with the sky in the sky here (today was exceptionally beautiful). Although this is a pretty standard mural-type thing, I still like it, even if I hate the architecture depicted within.

Finally, the coup de gras: some vulgar graphitti! I have no idea why there is a piece of plywood over the bagpiper's midsection, or who might have put it there. Was it the tagger? You'd think in that case, the owner would have taken it down. Was it the owner? Well, given what has been painted on it, you'd think it would be taken down... I can only speculate that whatever is being hidden by the plywood is infinitely more horrific than what is currently on display. At any rate, I first saw this last year, and every time I see it, I can't help but emit a Kumar-esque HA! and point at it. Even when I'm alone.

Missin' ...

2006-04-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

I miss my friends. Not so much that I'm crying myself to sleep, not as much as last time I was here and Kris was still in California, but still, our crew is tight. A bunch of our peeps are having a slumber party this weekend, and are going to call us (fortunately, they can dial a local US-domestic number, and it will ring on our VOIP line at our house), which I'm sure will engender much longing and sighing after the phone call ends. We have friends here, now, too. New friends! Friends I made last year during Kong, and new friends that we didn't have until this year. Thank the gods that Christopher is good at making friends, because it was really easy to fall in with his New Zealand crew. (Yeah, UH, our CREW, bitches, 'cause we're from the STREET! Like, Sesame Street, maybe.) But in spite of our new friends, who are all pretty great, I still miss my older friends back in the States. I'm glad we're going back for Burningman. I'm glad our new friends are going, too, so that they can meet our old friends, and vice versa. I think everyone will like each other a lot.

I miss our animal friends, our cats. Not that I'm a cat-person, all having dozens of cats and thinking that they are capable of abstract reasoning and contemplating hypotheticals and having such a thing as "dignity" or "pride" -- I know that such qualities are not in the realm of actual cats. And while in some ways, I miss them less than our non-animal friends, in another way, I miss them more. They were part of our household. They were manifestly fond of our company. They were free to come and go as they pleased, and it was their pleasure to spend most of their time with us. They were warm and soft. It was nice to be with them as they dug on each other. They are really great cats, and together, they are more than the sum of them individually. They'll be in New Zealand in August, after having completely forgotten us and having only memories of Vanessa, who's hosting them until they come over here. That's OK, though; it won't take them long to forget her and only remember us. That tiny brain of theirs is a double-edged sword.