Saturday, June 30, 2007

Summer Vaca, Day 1

Today is/was my first full day of vacation. I am far from "Mr. Great Vacation Planner", but there are other factors (i.e. money, home improvement projects) that keep me from doing the whole "get out of town" thing. Besides, everyone and their brother is travelling this weekend in anticipation of July 4th-- so traveling would just be stressful and annoying right now.

So, here's what I did on my first day of vacation:

1) read another chapter in "Stumbling on Happiness."

2) solved the DC Examiner's five star (i.e. hardest level) Sudoku puzzle . . . in 22 minutes! Booyah! :D

3) got my haircut.

4) watched four episodes of Joss Whedon's "Firefly." (Thank you, Netflix! They are on their way back home.)

5) tried Caribou Coffee's new Açaí smoothie (too expensive, mediocre taste, and where the heck was the energy kick?)

6) took a nap in the afternoon. :)

7) picked up Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" from my local library, read the first two chapters.

8) bought a safety goggles, breathing mask, ear protection kit at Home Depot. (Yeah, it's more than I will probably ever need, but the price was $7, so I figured why not?)

9) met my new neighbor and introduced myself.

10) Bought the second season DVD for Doctor Who . . . at a 20% discount.

There's probably more trivial stuff, but those are the highlights from which I got the most enjoyment.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Why I have so much trouble decorating . . .

So, here we are, eight months since I took my new job and I still haven't really decorated/customized/personalized my desk cubicle. Don't get me wrong, I've got the usual office desk accessories, name plate, etc. but there's nothing that reflects my unique style or flair, per se.

Why not? Um, well, truth be told, I'm still trying to figure out what my style or flair is! LOL

I know, that's pathetic, isn't it? I've been me for 37 years now, so you'd think I'd have some idea of who I am and what I'm all about. In all fairness, I do have some idea of who I am and what kind of person I want to be in the future-- but it's difficult to translate that into purchases at your local Ikea, you know?

No, the unique form of expression I'm looking for and talking about isn't likely to be found in a store. My predecessor, for instance, had these fantastic masks hanging on her wall-- almost like some of the pieces you might have seen in "Phantom of the Opera" or "The Masque of the Red Death." These are the sort of pieces that someone spent hours agonizing over. I've never seen anything elsewhere that quite compares. Very unique-- like her own artistic signature. That's the effect I want.

And, I think I may have just figured out how to achieve it!

I decided to try my hand at red wine this year. So, you buy a bottle of wine . . . and what do you do with it when you are done?

You could recycle it.

Or put water and two flowers in it, use it as a table centerpiece.

Or, you could turn it into an impossible, thought provoking piece of art.

Hell, yes! The whole impossible object in a bottle is so symbolic and representative of who I am and what I do. Especially if I can figure out how to get some tech gadget or piece of computer equipment in there!

(Why do I have the strangest feeling that I'm going to be obsessed about this and spend my whole vacation on it?) ;)

Sunday, June 24, 2007

All about memes

Although I find the overall phenomenon of World Wide Web memes interesting, I find the actual content of most memes to be . . . well, vapid. Take the whole Mad Libs-esque "I'm in your [noun], [verb]ing your [noun]!" meme, for instance. Apparently that was started from an episode of video game trash talk, namely "I'm in your base, killin' your doodz!" Somebody must have thought it was clever and funny enough to genericize it for a meme framework. So, now I can look forward to podcast titles and blog entries all over the World Wide Web with sentences such as:

  • "I'm in your fridge, drinkin' your beerz!"

  • "I'm on your Wifi, downloading your pron!"

  • "I'm in your Netflix queue, laughin' at your movie recommendationz!"



Maybe I'm just too old or cultural illiterate to appreciate the mass appeal of this particular meme. The best instance of a variation I can come up with is: "I'm in your HTML template, fixin' your validation errorz!" (I know, you don't get it-- welcome to my world, because that's how *I* feel when I read most other people's memes.) Asking someone to explain the appeal of a meme is like asking someone to explain why the joke they just told you is funny.

Plus, I don't really care about comprehension . I'm interested in manufacturing.

Can a meme be engineered and manufactured? If so, what makes a good/popular/effective meme?

Friday, June 22, 2007

Novel Idea

. . . or short story idea. ;)

Who am I kidding? I haven't written fiction in ages, so I have no delusions that this will go anywhere. Maybe some famous SF author will stumble across this blog entry and turn it into a fantastic story.

Title: Retcon

Think about time travel. Think about all the hackneyed cliches about "the dangers of time travel into your past." You know, like the temporal paradox of travelling back in time and killing your own grandfather by mistake . . . and yet, if your grandfather perished, you'd never have been born, so you couldn't have travelled back in time and killed him, infinite loop.

Now, think of every tv show or comic graphic novel series where the writers have gone back and changed retroactive continuity to make a current story line work properly. Characters who previously had no external indications of military experience suddenly turn out to be bomb defusing experts because they were part of a delta force team, etc.

Now, what if . . . we created temporal paradoxes all the time, and reality (which is 50%+ subjective re-interpretation anyway according to the likes of Kant) is retconning/being retconned by us? There is no past, there is no future-- there is only now, and the imaginary chain of cause and effect that our brains strings together to link together an infinite series of "nows."

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full"

Although I grew up on the Beatles, I don't consider myself a Paul McCartney fan.

However, when I saw/heard the Apple advertisement featuring "Dance Tonight", I decided to check out the album and see if there was anything else worthwhile I was missing. So far, "Dance Tonight" sounds like the most simple/appealing of the songs. "Only Mama Knows" sounded somewhat reminiscent of the old David Byrne/Talking Heads sound. Most of the other songs sound like typical post-wings McCartney style, with the possible exception of "Nod Your Head" (which has enough dissonance and screaming that it makes me think Sir Paul is trying to show he still has what it takes to keep up with Mick Jagger).

Friday, June 15, 2007

Don't Omit Info, Bro!

So, the other day, I'm reading this book review about "The War of Art." No, that's not a typo/transpo of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", it is really called "The War of Art." It's about creative people and the battle(s) they deal with in order to keep from procrastinating in their creative expression. It sounded like a really intriguing book, and since I had my Border's 20% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket, I decided I should pick it up and add it to my collection.

Come to find out, the book was printed in 2002 and is out of print! Too bad that little factoid never got mentioned in the book review; I was under the impression this was a brand new release. I'll have to find a used copy online somewhere, which is fine and I don't mind because I bought "The Visual Dictionary of Graphic Design" instead so I wouldn't waste the coupon.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Recipe Hack: Avocado Ice Cream?

There was this recipe in the DC Examiner a few days ago for Avocado Ice Cream. The avocado is one of those "power foods" with somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 vitamins, nutrients and phytonutrients-- but sadly, it's not a regular part of my diet. The whole idea of Avocado ice cream was such a novelty, that it appealed to me, but when I added up all the calories and carbs in the original version, I realized it wasn't exactly great for me.

So, I've decided to try to hack the recipe and improve it nutritionally.

AVOCADO ICE CREAM 2.0 ;)

Time: ~1 hour
Result: 1 quart (8 servings, ~200 calories per serving)

3 medium ripe Haas avocados (about 1.5 lbs. and ~750 calories)

3/4 cup Splenda (was sugar in previous version)

1 cup sour cream (this is about 480 calories, so I'm still looking for an alternative)

1/2 cup heavy cream (this is about 400 calories, so I need a better option)

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

a big pinch of salt

Slice the avocados in half, removing the pits. Scoop out the flesh, and cut into chunks. Combine all the ingredients in blender, puree until smooth and the sugar (Splenda) has dissolved. Freeze immediately, using your ice cream maker per the manufacturer's directions.