It's Rainin' Gold

While putting in my time at the gym last night, I was forced to call an intermission and use the restroom. Unbeknownst to me, you're supposed to moderate water intake during the course of a workout, rather than gulp down half a liter after every set. The bladder becomes very touchy when the body it resides in is splayed out in all sorts of unnatural positions, and the call of the wild sneaks up on you faster than usual.

Rather than ignore the angry stabbing pains in my abdomen, I made a beeline to the men's locker room and into the back restroom. My gym has all the fixin's: a large pool, hot tub, sauna and those thigh machines that offer creepy middle-aged men the opportunity to get as close to an intimate encounter with an underage female as the law will allow. All of these amenities and then some, but when it comes to a decent bathroom, even by third world standards, it just cannot provide.

I don't want to sound like an old crank, so I'll refrain from unloading my mental checklist I've kept stored and updated these past few weeks. I will say, however, that I do not like stepping in murky puddles of unknown content, and I have a big problem with lingering odors that make my eyesight go fuzzy. To cap it off, there are only three urinals, all of which are tightly packed into a small corner, which I can only assume was designed to give meatheads more room to stroke their oversized arms and chests in the large mirror that takes up the rest of the wall space.

Oh, but it gets better. One of the urinals -- the far right -- is out of order. That means there are two in very close proximity to one another with no plastic barriers in between. All that separates you from the sweaty guy with his hands on his genitals is about 12 inches of open air. I'm not sure if females are familiar with the dynamics of the men's restroom, but what I just described above is basically a worst case scenario. A nightmare, if you will.

Case in point. During last night's quick mid-workout bathroom break, I went over to the far left urinal, thankful that the middle one was vacant. Just as I'm uh...finishing, a large, middle-aged man decked out in some tight-fitting lycra gear sprints in and takes up residence at the only other vacant urinal, which of course was inches away from me. This guy must have been about to explode, because as soon as he was lined up, it sounded like Niagara Falls was unleashed from his shiny, tight shorts. To make the situation even more unnerving for me, he began groaning these low, primal sounds of utter relief.

At this point, I'm working at maximum efficiency to clear the area before my psyche is permanently scarred and I develop an unshakable phobia of peeing in public. Just as I have my pants retied and I'm about to step away, the worst possible thing in the world happens -- he splashes me. The guy was letting loose with such conviction and force, he backsplashed on the porcelain wall and a single drop escaped from the side and found its way onto my bare leg.

Suppressing the urge to scream, I bolted out into the locker room area and applied what must have been an entire roll of wet paper towels to my contaminated skin. Fortunately enough, there were no sharp objects in the immediate area that could be used to scrape off the entire right side of my calf.

Public bathrooms are vile, disgusting places, and episodes like this only reinforce the skin-crawling feeling I get every time I walk into one. From now on, the plants on the side of my gym are going to be very overwatered.

4:54 PM - 39 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

Two Wheel Mania

Do I risk life and limb for the sake of looking cool? Is the pure joy of 80mph on two rubber tires with nothing more than a helmet and padded jacket to protect me worth the obvious danger? Can I use the excuse that getting flung 200 yards away from an accident is actually a safety feature? These are questions I've been struggling to answer for quite a while now.

I want a motorcycle, in case the rhetorical questions were too vague to explain that desire. I've wanted to get my own shiny, pretty bike for a few years now, but the horror stories from friends and family continue to hold me back. Getting hit by semi-trucks, riding around the block and getting killed, bones protruding through the skin of arms and legs, paralysis, etc. All of these reasons are such wet blankets for what could surely be one of the most enjoyable cures for my quarter-life crisis.

In all seriousness, I really am having a tough time with this decision. On one hand, there's the retardness of driving around on a two wheel machine in a sea of hulking, steel behemoths with oblivious soccer moms multitasking at their helms. I don't want to die on the highway, and one of my worst honest-to-god fears is losing the ability to use my legs -- they are my absolute favorite appendages, which I know in saying that betrays the male code of honor.

On the other hand, they just seem like so much...well, fun. I have these daydreams of doing weekend rides down the PCH and up through Ojai, and being able to split lanes of traffic on my way to work, flipping people off as I pass by them in their fat, ugly cars. The flipping off motorists thing probably wouldn't actually happen, but that's what daydreams are for.

I don't know. There are obviously more pressing issues to deal with than the trivial pursuit of collecting expensive toys. But still, don't you just want to take it home with you?

1:51 AM - 30 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Celebrating in Widescreen

In keeping with birthday tradition, I've gone and purchased my present to myself. I love the gifts that family and friends are thoughtful enough to bestow upon me, but it's just not proper celebrating unless I splurge on myself. Plus, the day of my coming into this world just offers another excuse to make a big purchase without all that unwelcome guilt.

This year's present-to-self boasted a steeper price tag than last year's pair of running shoes, but I figure with all the freelance work I've been pulling down these last couple months, I could justify taking the hit.



I am now the proud owner of a Dell 24" widescreen flat panel monitor, which will just look oh so lovely in my home workstation. I've been drooling over this fat bastard for the better part of a year now, and with the combination of the sale price and special occasion, I thought what the hell.

There is no better experience than nerding out in a wide aspect format.

4:44 PM - 14 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Downstairs Observer

Living on the bottom floor of an old apartment building gives me a bottom-side glimpse into the lives of my upstairs neighbors. I know when they're late for work in the morning by the rushed and heavy thumping of feet that bounds from room to room. I know when they're going out for the evening when the trademark clacking of high heels makes tracks across the wooden floor above my living room.

I also get a pretty good cross section of their musical taste. The tenant who lived upstairs before the current couple moved in had the most wretched taste in music and she made sure to blast it at all the inopportune moments. Thudding R&B, shrill Blink 182 and occasionally some Latin disco when she was feeling frisky. I of course muttered and shook my angry fist at the ceiling every time I had to endure these spontaneous solitary dance-offs.

As a divine act of sympathy, she eventually moved out and took her filthy music collection with her. When the younger couple took her place, I wasn't sure what to expect. Thus far, things have been fairly quiet, aside from an occasional get-together on weekends. Surprisingly -- and perhaps a bit disturbing -- I have not yet been forced to slap on the headphones in order to drown out a squeaking bed in the middle of the night. I'm almost tempted to knock on their door and ask if they want to discuss any intimacy issues they may be keeping buried.

Back on track. Tonight, on my very exciting evening of sitting in front of the TV watching the Dodger game and browsing Myspace, I heard the stereo come on upstairs and listened as a very muffled yet familiar sound began drifting through the ceiling. It drives me utterly insane to know a song but be unable to identify it, so with the Dodger game muted and my ear positioned towards the ceiling, I listened closely and ran through the catalog of music in my head.

Boards of Canada! They were playing the Campfire Headphase album! My favorite song no less, Dayvan Cowboy. At that instant, I decided these people were going to my new best friends, regardless of whether they agreed to the arrangement or not. I'm not sure how to explain to them how appreciative I am for their decent taste in music without coming off like a psychotic asshole, but I guess I'll figure that one out the next time I run into one or both of them in the hall.

9:19 PM - 12 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Internet Meets the Mainstream

A couple of friends and I watched the latest X-Men installment last night. As far as brainless action/adventure movies go, the supposed final mutant saga passes muster, but placed next to its two cinematic ancestors, this one trips all over itself . I'm not here to get into some sort of fanboy comic book cross-checking analysis (my memory gets hazy when I try to reach back into my comic-collecting junior high years), but rather share something I found funny in the film, if not a little perplexing.

The internet is a place where memes can spread like wildfire. Some of the stupidest, most ridiculous clips and phrases (Badger Mushroom Snake, anyone?) pick up steam with the help of thousands of people passing it around via email, IM and websites. Some even break out of the internet caste and make it into the mainstream media, such as this Buffy clip which cites Trogdor the Burninator.

The internet effect also works in reverse. Snakes on a Plane, the B-level horror movie starring Samuel L Jackson, has the internet to thank for the vast majority of hype it has received. The film looks and sounds ridiculous, but its already spawned comic strips, t-shirts and fan sites across the net. Last night before X-Men, there was a preview for Snakes on a Plane, and my two friends and I actually cheered when we saw it. If it weren't for the cult-like fan base built around this horrible film, we would have hissed and groaned with impatience all the way through the preview.

Back to the original point. As the clumsy, meandering plot for X-Men chugged along to the climactic battle at Alcatraz, there was a scene that almost made me jump out of my seat. When Kitty Pryde pulls Juggernaut halfway into the ground, unsuccessfully stopping him on his rampage, he yells out to her, "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

The line out of context seems forced and cheesy. If you happened to be an obsessive internet nerd with too much time on your hands, however, you'd have laughed out loud (LOL'd I believe is the term), knowing the line came from a dubbed-over X-Men cartoon episode a few college students put together and uploaded to YouTube back in February.

What confused me about hearing the motion picture version of Juggernaut utter this line was how it was able to make it in so late in the filming process. The cartoon was uploaded in February of this year, and you'd expect the meme to take at least a week to pick up steam. Did some hipster intern who frequents You Tube beg and plead to get this line inserted into the movie at the last minute? Are movie producers that aware of what trends are currently hot on the internet? Either way, I was amazed at how a crappy quality homegrown video clip had the power to make its way off the internet and into a major Hollywood film.

9:30 AM - 10 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Bay to Breakers '06

I ran my first Bay to Breakers this past weekend. Now that it's over and done with, I can say this was by far the strangest, largest and most lively running event I've ever taken part of. Elaborate costumes, mobile alcohol contraptions, naked, wrinkly old men (not someone you want to pace) and an enthusiastic crowd lining the streets throughout the 7 mile course.

I feel I did a pretty decent job, keeping in mind the obstacle course of slower runners and walkers you're forced to dodge and/or bump into while making your way up and down the hills. Unless you're slotted in the elite chute at the start, there's really no way you're going to snag a decent time for this race; mine was a little over an hour, not including the 17 minutes it took to cross the starting line.

Pictures from the photo checkpoints made their way online this morning. The shitty proofs are available for viewing, and although it'd be nice to have a high quality version for the memories, I'm not sure I can justify blowing 40 bucks for a small print. Haven't these people heard of hi-res digital copies? If I could buy a cheapo digital for 10 bucks or so and have it emailed to me, I wouldn't hesitate.

Here's a preview of one of my prints:



Yes, I'm well aware that it probably wasn't the greatest pose.

4:54 PM - 11 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

The Latest Familial Addition

Things they are a' changin' in my personal world of computing. With the news of Windows XP successfully dual-booting on the new Intel-powered iMacs, I bit the bullet and decided to purchase a shiny metal Apple machine of my own.

I haven't had much time to get to know her (and I still don't have a name), but so far it's been an enjoyable experience. I'm sure I'll have plenty of items to nitpick and gush over soon enough, but for now, I'm still getting my toes wet.

4:02 PM - 22 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Let's Chat! Add Me!

I was just thinking. If the spambot infestation on Myspace gets bad enough and their numbers continue to increase at the rapid pace they seem to appear currently, do you think the spambots would soon start bumping into each other on this convoluted social network and mistakenly add one other, not realizing the member they're attempting to spam is nothing but a piece of code and an empty shell at the other end?

I think it would be interesting to see bots creating these vapid comment/message loops that continue on into infinity, crushing one another's profiles with links to respective camwhore sites and solicitations for teen pornography. It would almost be an offshoot community incidentally created by completely automated systems.

It's just a random thought spurred by the strange messages I've been recieving from empty user husks, telling me I should rush over to their webcam sites and partake of a little "chatting". This chatting would of course only cost me $4.95 a month, Visa and AMEX happily accepted.

As it is though, I don't think the bots need to do much work to make this social metropolis any more robotic than it already is. When I'm actually brave enough to venture outside my own Myspace borough, I'm horrified at the things I see.

"Hey cutie thx 4 the add! ttyl."

"Just showin sum luv XO"

"Hey wazzup?? Newayz hit me up sumtime cya"

(I'm pulling these verbatim. I don't think I'm creative enough to mimic this kind of language accurately.)

With that kind of rote communication going back and forth endlessly between honest-to-god real people, it's almost impossible to differentiate the humans from the automated scripts.

11:23 PM - 10 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Salary: The Double-Edged Sword

Or why grappling with the reality of working a sixteen hour day and only getting paid for eight is such a shitty career decision.

Roughly once a month, our company is faced with some sort of technical crisis that requires our IT department to drop all other projects and put forth every ounce of their attention and energy towards the immediate emergency, usually committing time after normal working hours.

By "IT department" I mean me and my coworker. By "after normal working hours" I mean working until 1.30 in the godamn morning.

Last night's episode involved our design center's domain and email server keeling over and joining that big server farm in the sky, complete with a humorous, wheezing death rattle any time you attempted to boot it up. Well, it may have been humorous when viewed from a detached role, but for those forced to repair the issue, it was a violent heart attack waiting to happen.

Skipping over the mundane details, my coworker and I spent the evening in his home garage, doing our best to recover lost data and whip up a workable solution for the design center network.





There's nothing more fulfilling than sitting in a metal fold-up chair for hours on end, pulling faulty hard drives and watching endless streams of data roll down the glowing screen of a cancer-inducing monitor.

I'm leaving work early today to go running and purge this evil from my body.

2:04 PM - 11 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I'm In Love

The Keynote from Macworld took place this last Tuesday, and Jobs dropped the bomb many of us were waiting to hear for so long. Since Apple refuses to offer live streams of the renowned 2 hour speech, those of us unworthy of watching the show in person from behind the closed doors of the Moscone Center were forced to huddle around glowing computer monitors at home or work and constantly refresh our browsers as text updates tricked in from audience members armed with laptops and a Wi-Fi connection.

With each poorly spelled sentence that appeared on the screen, I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be the triumphant announcement for Apple's new Intel based hardware. On and on Steve rambled: Apple retail outlets kicking ass, the iPod zombifing a consumer nation, new software updates not quite as buggy, etc. etc. And with all of that, it was supposedly over. My nerdy wet dreams of miraculous new hardware came crashing to the floor, shattering into a million tiny, sharp fragments.

"Oh, and one more thing..."

That bastard Jobs and his dirty tricks! Every year he pulls the same stunt of claiming to have finished his keynote, saving the most important and buzzworthy announcements until the very end, usually with a "oh yeah, and one more thing..." This was how new iPod models were released many years ago, and those ubiquitous little gadgets ended up changing the company from an eccentric, tiny-sliver-of-marketshare computer manufacturer to a cultural powerhouse. This year's announcement may not hold the same weight as the original iPod's, but personally, I think it could start something massive for Apple.

After a little song and dance with a clean-room Intel monkey, Jobs finally unveiled what many computer nerds have wanted to hear since the rumors first started swirling early last year:





The Intel-based Powerbook is now a reality. Sorry, MacBook Pro. If I may be so bold for a moment, I think that name is pure shit. Say it out loud with me: Powerbook. Powerbook. See how it just rolls off the tongue like brushed metal butter? Now try the new name: MacBook Pro. Yuck. It feels like someone just spit bloody mucus into your mouth and forced you to swirl it around for a few minutes.

Aside from that minor gripe, this machine is a beautiful piece of work. It's insanely fast (the $2499 model anyway), it's physical design is gorgeous and if all goes as planned, I should be able to run Windows on it as well as the default Tiger.

Not to get into specifics on the subject, but the internet is swinging back and forth on whether these new Intel-based Apples will be able to natively install and run an operating system like Windows. Since the new Macs take advantage of EFI as the interface between the OS loader and the system hardware, BIOS based systems -- such as Windows -- may be left out in the cold. Some people point to EFI's ability to emulate a BIOS environment, making a native Windows install possible, but others are skeptical. At this point, no one knows until some lucky bastard gets his hands on one of these new computers and gives it a try, and until that time comes, I'll be sitting here with my eyes tightly shut and my hands in permanent praying position.

This is going to be a long, grueling month of waiting and obsessively scouring the internet for any new scraps of information about the MacBook I can get my hands on. If anyone is interested in accompanying me to the Apple Store once these things hit the shelves in February, you're more than welcome to. Though I would ask you to please not be alarmed by the high-pitched screams and sudden outbursts of happy dances once I actually step foot in the store.

5:17 PM - 12 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment