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From the pokéblog

July 14, 2004 /

We watched out the balcony window last night as a huge storm thrashed by, and today there are a lot of downed trees along my bus route. This is remarkable mostly because it’s not a particularly arboreal area–I just got on the bus, and I live downtown.

Update 0810 hrs: Actually, our bus has had to take a detour because of one road-blocking tree, after the world’s most laborious three-point turn. The tree didn’t look all that big, really. My GTA experience suggests that we totally could have taken it.

Update 0825 hrs: Almost had to detour twice more, for trees blocking like a lane and a half. Both of them had pulled down power lines; we just managed to squeeze around. The way it looks up here in the Highlands makes me grateful that our building didn’t blow down last night. There really is a lot of damage.

July 11, 2004 /

On Friday I left work early and went to the lab where Maria is working for the summer, in order to get my brain mapped. Brain mapping means they put a lot of very wet sponges all over your head with rubber bands, so they can go in the room behind you (with a one-way mirror window) and laugh at you until they pee themselves.

It’s a pretty neat process, if not very comfortable. They do some really interesting work there, although Maria apparently disagrees with me on that. I got to be one of the first participants in a new experiment one of Maria’s coworkers has designed. I can’t tell you what it was about, but I might be able to get a printout of my session; apparently my data was “very clean.” That’s nice to know. I should be out of Re-Education And Happiness Camp any day now!

Short things are better than long things

July 11, 2004 /

Okay, saying “it’s one big movie! It’s just cut in half!” is stupid whether applied to Kill Bill or Matrix or, I don’t know, American Pie, whatever. It’s a bad idea to make a six-hour movie. Have you ever seen a six-hour movie? There’s a reason for that. It’s a worse idea to cut it in half. It’s bad enough mentally breaking out of the film long enough to take a five-minute bathroom break; I don’t see why a six-month bathroom break would be better.

If you want to make a long movie, make a three-hour movie and end it. If you want to make several movies, make them short. It’s not hard. Just don’t let any action sequence last longer than five minutes, and kill the freaking monologues.

July 10, 2004 /

Holy crap! Anacrusis got Metafiltered! It wasn’t like some server-breaking flood of hits, but it was certainly a big spike. I guess we’ll see how many come back on Monday (or hit the RSS feed).

As soon as a kind gentleman named Andy pointed it out in an email, I was like “Yikes! I’m not ready for this!” Except actually I am, as far as plenty of bandwidth and a solid buffer so I don’t start missing days. I just didn’t expect it. I don’t feel like I’m good at it yet.

July 8, 2004 /

David Gallagher’s lightningfield.com is the only photography blog I’ve found consistently interesting, and it’s one of my favorite RSS feeds. Update: right on cue, today’s entry is just about my favorite yet. Hooray for telephoto lenses!

So. How ’bout those Maple Leafs?

July 5, 2004 /

Happy Independence Day. You know, it’s only a matter of time until we can get our teeth laminated. My mistake. We already can.

July 4, 2004 /

Hey guys? Yeah, you know who you are. My… clientele.

I know you’ve been waiting. And I gotta tell you, it’s worth it.

That’s right. I got a little something for you.

Oh, sure, you can read it. As long as it doesn’t leave this apartment.

Possibly the only entry that falls under “Food” and “Landmarks”

July 3, 2004 /

There’s a scene in The Matrix where Cypher discusses the price of his betrayal with Agent Smith in a fancy restaurant, over some steak. That steak is presumably the ideal steak, the most perfect combination of taste and texture that a neural implant can render. It certainly looks (and sounds) like it onscreen. Whenever I think about that scene or watch the movie, I usually get a craving for dead cow, to which even the finest Applebee’s cut inevitably fails to live up.

Last night, Maria took me to the Mayan Gypsy on Market Street. I ordered the Tierra y Mar, medium rare. And it was that steak.

I don’t think I can ever go to another restaurant again.