| The Kindness of Strangers | 1:11 AM |
I've had the nicest (and funniest) experience with strangers the last two days. Last night when I got to the 24th and Mission Bart station from SFO, I stopped at my favorite burrito place to eat and went outside to stand near the bus stop to have a cigarette before I hailed a cab home. As soon as I had my cigarette lit, someone came up to me and offered me a ride home. I saw him before I went in to eat, and he looked and seemed friendly and I didn't get any creepy vibes at all, so I said yes. He ended up being as friendly as I suspected he might be -- we talked about work and where we lived and riding motorcycles on Skyline. As we got closer to home, I was worried he'd ask for my number, but he didn't -- just gave me the name of the place he worked at in case I ever wanted to stop by.
This morning, I was sitting on the bench in front of Hahn's Hibachi on Castro (around the corner from my shuttle stop because I didn't want to be smoking in front of my colleagues), and I had a bunk book of matches from the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas and couldn't get the damn thing lit. Every time I'd strike a match, it'd flare up, then immediately die. As I'm struggling with the matches, this guy comes up to me and offers to help light it and takes the book of matches from me. I told him thanks, but the matches were bunk, so he takes four at a time, fails in lighting them, then acquiesces that I was right. I ask if he's got a lighter by chance and he says no, but wait -- I'm going to get that lit for you (though you shouldn't be smoking those anyway) and takes off. I thought he'd gone away so I snuck into the doorway of Hahn's Hibachi and again, try the matches, but then he returns with a lighter and lights my smoke. I think he went to Walgreens two doors down to buy a lighter to light my cigarette. So I thank him profusely and he walks away again. Then I'm sitting on the bench, holding a bunch of used matches in my fingers (cause god forbid I litter), reading my book, enjoying my smoke, and he walks by again and grabs the burnt out matches out of my hand as he passes to toss them out! I thanked him again.
I love that movie, Pay It Forward because it's touching and beautiful and because I think it would actually work. Because random acts of kindness engender other random acts of kindness. After that guy lit my cigarette this morning, I picked up some trash lying in a flower pot I was sitting next to. Perhaps it doesn't seem kind, but I don't know if I would've noticed the paper sack wrapped beer can or would have thought to throw it away if it hadn't been for that stranger. And I've been thinking about these two things that happened to me recently because I consider myself a kind person, but how often do I go out of my way to do something nice for someone I don't know -- not often at all. But I'm rethinking that.
Since we're on the topic of strangers...I had funny thing happen to me tonight as I was leaving my gym. It was just about 11pm and I saw this attractive couple out in front of the Four Seasons Hotel next to the gym and there's a guy walking down the sidewalk asking the man if the woman is with him. He responds, yes, and the guy says, You guys are an attractive couple -- you look good together, and as I reach him on the sidewalk he turns to me and says, Do you know where you'd look good? No, where? In my bed. And I start laughing! Not in a cruel, mocking kind of way (cause that's mean), but in a genuinely amused kind of way (because I am). And he says, in the lingerie I'd have picked out for you, you'd look scrumptious, man! Scrumptious! Fresh peals of laughter, and a thank you. That made my night -- who uses scrumptious anymore?! :)
| cooler than me | 11:44 PM |
i did all my christmas shopping this weekend. a couple hours yesterday, a few more hours today. lightning fast. loads of dollars poorer. i have a ritual of dining alone in the nordstrom cafe, reading (and i've been reading feverishly again since i've moved out!) whenever i can -- coffee, tomato basil soup and the salmon nicoise salad. and while i was enjoying my fine coffee, an older woman sat a couple of seats away from me and i heard her on the phone talking about gifts and how she got someone this "very blingy bling" piece of clothing. i'd guess she was in her 50s. i gathered she was a grandmother from her conversation. a well kept, up to date grandmother. i thought to myself, wow, i wouldn't even utter the phrase "blingy bling". how much cooler is she than me?
| Skin Deep | 7:49 PM |
Saturday I went shopping with the girls -- something I haven't done since high school. Didn't buy anything, but spent 5 hours at the mall. And it doesn't matter how beautiful you are, girls still end up feeling self conscious about something, and usually several things. We talked about ballet classes -- how one of us went to a ballet school that didn't take girls with fat mothers, another one got told she needed to see an orthopedic surgeon when she was six. I took ballet off and on just for fun and I remember being in high school and my ballet teacher told me my legs were crooked and to quit riding bicycles cause it was deforming my legs. Every time I'm in front of a mirror standing up straight, I look at the back of my knees where she said I was crooked and can't help but think of her.
And the four of us -- each of us is young, attractive, healthfully thin (I was the heaviest girl there and I can hardly be called fat) and successful to boot, and I don't think there was any one of us that didn't feel somehow inadequate, or had some memory of feeling inadequate at some time in our lives.
| dead racoons | 12:05 AM |
i rode past two dead racoons on sand hill today. they must've been hit while crossing the road together not too long before i passed them -- they clean up roadkill pretty quickly around these parts. one was on the side of the road and the other was in the middle of the lane. the boyfriend was riding his motorcycle home for the first time and i was afraid he was going to hit the one on the road. i could see the rings on their tails and it made me feel worse. it's easier to see a dead animal that you can't identify, or is smashed so bad you can barely make it out, or so destroyed and damaged it no longer looks real. it's the roadkill that doesn't look like roadkill that makes me want to cry. because they still look so alive, and you know they're not, but so recently were.
| Theater and Art | 11:35 PM |
We went and saw Ben Franklin: Unplugged by Josh Kornbluth. And it was great. I thought at first that I might not enjoy it, but once he got going, I loved it.
On Saturday night, we went and saw a Dance Visions performance. A gal from work was performing (and I love dance) and that was awesome, too. There's another performance on January 21st and 22nd that we will be attending featuring three of the choreographers from Saturday night's show, including Natasha Carlitz.
It's always a fascinating thing to see people out of the context you know them in. We ran into Josh Kornbluth after his show and took a photo -- and I saw him briefly, but to see and hear him out of character made him a slightly different person than the one I'd created for him. And finding out Natasha was a dancer and choreographer gave her a depth that she didn't have before in our limited work related interactions. I think everyone is fascinating in some way.
| More misc crap... | 1:03 AM |
Shaun of the Dead = Funny. They did an excellent job building up anticipation.
I had an excellent day -- had a really good lunch with a good friend -- he and I are very in sync in the way we think about things. I love talking to him because of that -- because he gets everything. He made a comment that's been stuck with me all day -- that I'm coming full circle. It's funny and sort of true. I'm jazzed about work again and got to work on something fun for me all day. I found my motivation again -- real motivation. It's different than the motivation that I started the job with, but it's working.
New search engine. It's got a lot of stuff on the page. I'm not a big fan of that. How often are you going to need to sort search results by domain? Why so many different types of ratings? I do like the related keywords though. That's pretty cool.
| Random Thoughts | 12:54 AM |
I've been thinking lately about gender differences in intelligence. Wondering about the differences in the way men and women think and analyze data. Wondering if I'm really as much of an idiot as I sometimes feel like I am, or if I'm overly sensitive. Most women don't want to be fat. I don't want to be considered fat either, but I'd a thousand times rather be fat than stupid.
The way that dynamics between people change depending on group size is interesting, too. They way I interact with friend A is slightly different when it's just me and A vs. when it's me, A, and B. And because A and B are often both male, I tend to listen a lot more than I talk. I have a tendency to defer to people who a) like to talk, b) I think are smart, and/or c) vociferous. I don't like to compete in conversation; if I have to work too hard, I won't do it. Most of the time I'd rather be listening anyway.
There was more...but I can't possibly keep my eyes open any longer........
| Me And My Monkey | 11:13 PM |
Oh my god...this is such a funny song. I'm not sure yet if I like Robbie Williams because I've only heard a little bit of him. Apparently he's a megastar everywhere but in the U.S. This song (lyrics) was perfect for our Vegas trip:
In walked this big, bad-ass baboon into my bedroom
with 3 monkey whores
"Hi, my name is Sunshine. These are my girls.
Lace my palm with silver baby oh yeah
and they'll rock your world"
(Though none of us ordered any monkey whores.)
| Dreaming On The Patch | 8:21 PM |
Oh, god, this morning I had just gotten out of the bathroom after my morning pee and was standing in the kitchen doorway scratching my ass and staring dreamily at the cat food at my feet trying to decide whether or not to feed Bo-Kitty and I look up and realize someone's staring right at me. There's a large window by our oven that we never close the blinds on and the next door neighbors' back door looks right into the kitchen and they smoke there. It was 8 o'clock in the morning -- who would've guessed anyone would be up at 8am on a Saturday.
Before getting out of bed, I was drifting slowly out of sleep and remember rubbing my index finger across my thumb -- I dreamt that I had cactus needles in my fingers, and then fully awake was surprised there was nothing there -- I distinctly remember being awake and rubbing my finger across my thumb and feeling that needle. And it got me to thinking about how detailed dreams are sometimes and how in that hazy moment between wakefullness and sleep your conscious mind is still your dream mind -- the neurons are firing off in our brains like these made up things are real.
And they still don't really know why. Our brains are just as active in REM sleep as they are in real life. Except that there's a REM sleep region that's active that's not active when we're awake that prevents certain neurotransmitters from being triggered -- that's why most people don't get up and walk around as though they're awake no matter what they're dreaming. But our eyes and our brains go at full speed.
And since I'm a lifelong nicotine patch addict now, I've recently started wearing it again and the last few nights have been full of intensely vivid and weird dreams. Dreams involving a lot of people I know including my roommates, my sister, my good friends, co-workers. Dreams involving giant sea creatures in shallow bodies of water eating puppies, naked co-workers sprawled across toilet seats, Kevin Klein pinching my ass, me wandering around in my pjs (my boxer shorts and tank top) in a palace (which is also where Kevin Klein pinched my ass), my sister a vampire...I could go on, but out of context, they don't seem nearly as weird as they do when I wake up and remember them. Imagine all those things connected and interwoven in one night of dreaming. Now you understand why I can't manage to get myself off the patch :)
| Oh How I Love The TV | 2:41 AM |
Reno 911 is the funniest fucking TV show on the air right now. I think they're entering their second season -- new season starts on Wednesday at 10:30PST. The cast is so hilarious. Each and every single one of them makes me laugh my ass off. And I love white trash humor.
And black humor, too. I caught a bit of the Dave Chappelle show last week and heard the funniest expression that I'll never be able to use: mad niggerish. Charlie Murphy walking into Studio 54 and seeing Rick James acting all mad niggerish slapping bitches and shit.
We went TV shopping this past weekend, and I'm thinking about spending over a thousand dollars on a TV set. I don't get to watch it a lot, but when I do, I love television -- commercials and all. And I want quality TV (and a TV I can actually see from the couch) -- a 30" high definition flat screen TV. Though hopefully I'll come to my senses and make a more reasonable first TV purchase.
It's funny how long I went without a TV and that I didn't really miss it -- especially given how much I love it. I only wish we had HBO.
| Nothing to blog about | 12:02 AM |
The blog entries have been dull lately, I know. I feel like I'm rushing through them sometimes. I haven't been reading the news much; I feel out of touch and it's hard to write when you're taking less in. But, today -- I'm sure you saw it -- the BBC is going to license some of their audio and video media using a Creative Commons like license. Lawrence Lessig is, of course, thrilled, and rightfully so. The BBC is awesome -- for doing this and taking a progressive step in copyright, for promoting and encouraging creativity by allowing us to use their media, and also for providing excellent news coverage.
In science news, I've been reading a fair bit on the nanobacteria controversy -- are they a new life form or just interesting crystals? It's odd to see that a group of scientists are already marketing and selling products based on the belief that there are such things as nanobacteria before the proof has been conclusively decided. I find that extremely unscientific, but they seem to be getting away with it.
On the privacy front, some Republicans want to make the provisions that were supposed to sunset at the end of 2005, a permanent fixture of the USA PATRIOT Act -- basically they expanded government rights to access and tap into personal and private information in the name of national security. Donna Wentworth has written an awesome primer on these provisions at the EFF.
On the filesharing front, there's the wonderful PIRATE Act that turns criminal copyright infringement lawsuits into civil lawsuits so that the taxpayers foot the bill for the legal costs that the recording industry currently pays, and allows the government to wiretap to verify copyright infringement claims. Copyfight article here.
And for fun, here are some of my favorite search queries to hit this site:
- fertility tips on how to get pregnant with an introverted uterus (google)
- Hells Angels Cisco (msn)
- plastic surgery giveaway (msn)
- vignette (google)
- download video plastic surgery reality shows (msn)
- blog heartbroken over love hurts quote (yahoo)
- two girls touching each other (msn)
- download gladiator pepsi commercial (yahoo)
- pics of normal size penises (msn)
- different of bird-eating spiders and beautiful girls pics (msn)
MSN users are really special.
| Evil Women | 10:47 AM |
Men love to call women evil. Treacherous vipers; evil snakes in the grass. And it used to really bother me; I dated a couple of guys in succession that used to say such things and I used to take it personally. A few years older, and I'm less sensitive about it. Why do they do it? From my own personal experience I can only conclude that deep seeded misogyny grows from betrayal, from having your heart maliciously torn apart, and your faith and trust in someone irrevocably and unequivocably destroyed. So much of ourselves are determined by the results of our relationships. How our parents treated us, how our boyfriends treated us, how strangers treat us. And how we interpret all those events.
I think misogyny grows from lack of good relationships with women even if your heart hasn't been torn asunder. Me? I used to think I had misogynistic tendencies. I thought women were vapid and shallow, concerned only with superficial things -- the status of the men they dated, clothes, shoes, makeup, perfect nails, perfect hair. Spending too much money and not thinking enough. I overheard a conversation in the bathroom today:
I just bought these pants a little while ago, but I already feel like they're going out of style!.
Oh no, I think those pants look great!
I used to despise it, but I never had a great relationship with my mother, wasn't close to my sister when I was younger, didn't ever really have many girlfriends -- all my friends were guys. And it wasn't until college that I started to meet women that I could even begin to respect. But they were very different from me, so it wasn't really until I moved to San Francisco four years ago that I began to make meaningful connections with women who were more like me, and to meet so many more women who I respect and admire greatly.
And it hasn't been until the last couple of years that I've gotten really comfortable about having feminine traits. Know what? I care about my clothes sometimes. I buy nice things, and sometimes spend too much money. I get my haircut with a stylist, I get pms and am cranky and emotional when I have my period. I wear high heels sometimes. All the girly things I used to hate being associated with, but now am mature enough to accept. I know the power of being a reasonably attractive woman, and I like it.
But I never use it to my advantage. I think little of women that do. And women can be vapid and shallow. Men can be, too. I've been listening to D12 lately, and I love it and I've been wondering why -- I should hate this shit. They called women bitches, they treat them like dirt, act like they're all stupid sluts. But I love it. And I think it's because I agree with them. There are women like that. But you can say the same about men. Women tend to sing about them differently -- aren't usually so crass and blatant about it.
I'm realizing that I'm not a misogynist and never was; I just really dislike certain types of people: closed and narrow minded, materialistic, selfish and superficial people who care about their own good and never mind anyone else's. The type of person that'll fuck you and leave you as soon as someone better comes along no matter how many times she said she loved you, would backstab you in a heartbeat to get what she wanted, sell her friends bad shit for profit, and use you for money, drugs, or prestige. Men or women; it's not the gender that matters.
| Plastic Surgery Giveaway | 10:52 PM |
As I was driving into work this morning, one of the radio stations I toggle back and forth through was announcing a $10,000 plastic surgery giveaway. Plastic surgery. As a prize.
| Shot in the Bum | 11:47 PM |
I had the funniest thing happen to me at work today -- the toilet quite unexpectedly squirted water at me while I was urinating. Hit me right in the bum at full pressure -- I was stunned, then immediately thought of a story I'd heard about a woman who got stuck on the toilet because the bum rinsing function wouldn't turn off and she sat there and sat there and finally just got up and out as fast as she could but still managed to get her clothes soaked. It doesn't really seem right that these toilets have the power to squirt back at you. Luckily, mine shut off when I hit the "off" button. I managed to get out dry :)
| Today | 9:24 AM |
Is middle name pride day! And the birthday of both the Girl Scouts and the Hells Angels. I love the daily almanac on NPR in the mornings.
| The Onset of Roaches | 11:30 PM |
I've discovered roaches in my apartment. I've never lived anywhere that had roaches before. I'm not quite sure where they came from -- but my landlord did just move out and no one else lives here -- maybe he roach bombed, or maybe the roaches just don't want to live alone. There aren't tons of them -- I've seen four in total in the last couple of weeks, but two of them were in the last two days. One was in the fridge tonight when I got home from the gym. The other one was in my backpack on Wednesday morning. I've killed every single one.
I'm trying to be calm and collected about it -- I think I have been. But the one in my backpack and the one in the fridge -- I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable. And each one I see is bigger -- the first couple were small -- baby roaches, and I guess they're growing up -- do they grow that fast? They're almost twice as big.
I have one friend telling me that they aren't really roaches -- they're so little! And I have another friend telling me, "gross!". And all I can think about is having one of those little ones crawl into my ear while I'm sleeping. Or somehow getting inside of me and laying eggs (can you see which direction my neuroses tend towards?). A girlfriend of mine told me a horror story once about a friend of hers (they were both avid travelers) being in Africa in some body of water, and a bug pierced the skin on his hip and laid some eggs. And over the course of the next month, he watched an abscess develop on his hip -- the eggs were maturing under his skin, but he was told not to squeeze it (by doctors? villagers?) and he had to just wait and watch the little maggots crawl out of that abscess til they were all gone.
When I was in Costa Rica, a German girl told me a story about being in Canada, and a fellow female student got bit by a spider and similarly had eggs laid under her skin and then literally went insane when the baby spiders started crawling out of her arm. Ugh, I get the chills just thinking about it!
Roaches are just little bugs. Roaches are just little bugs. They aren't any worse than any others...that's my little mantra this evening...and perhaps for the next month until I can get out of here.
| Going To Google | 11:32 PM |
I got offered a temporary job at Google last week and deliberated for three days then decided to go with it. I won't go into all the factors that concerned me in my mental mastications, but it wasn't an easy decision. I'm almost as emotionally attached to Google as I am to EFF, but in the end I couldn't turn away the challenge of the work I'd be doing at Google.
What I found interesting in all of this -- in dicussions about the possibility of working there -- is the peripheral excitement that I felt around me as I had conversations with various people -- my close friends, a couple of work buddies, some other Googlers. Everyone was excited for me. Everyone, of course, would support me in whatever decision I made, but gosh, they were excited about Google.
And I thought about how emotional attachments can skew your perspective, alter your decisions, make subtle changes in the way you analyze the cost-benefit of a particular situation. Places like EFF, Google, Friendster, and countless others -- like Apache, Amazon, Powells, Netscape (still!)...they all have a special place in my heart. Why did I take a webmaster job at EFF when I knew I'd be bored out of my mind? Because it was EFF. And I didn't really want to leave EFF, but I couldn't turn away the offer of an interview at Google. And when Friendster emailed me, I entertained them, too. Not because I wanted to leave, but because it was Friendster. And why would I leave the security and comfort of not so challenging, but incredibly emotionally fulfilling full-time job for a temporary gig? Because it's Google. And I can't pass up that opportunity. Now that I am leaving, I'm sad to be going. But I'm also excited about the new things I'll be developing at Google, too.
| Today's Events | 11:09 AM |
SFGate has an article about how the SF Public library wants to put RFIDs in all its books (complete with quote and picture of Lee Tien :). There's an RFID forum tonight at the library from 6-8 that I'll probably attend (though the last time I said I'd be somewhere -- Tuesday's SFOBUG -- I didn't end up going).
Also -- the Asian film festival starts tonight! You can finally see the Hero (Flash site) on the big screen!! It's the opening film tonight. It's an amazingly beautiful and tuoching film. There's also a wonderful Korean film I think I'm going to recommend my mother see about a woman who doesn't let her husband suck the life out of her.
| Misc Super Tuesday Notes... | 2:25 PM |
Rosetta finally successfully launched today!
And on slashdot this morning, there is an interesting story about exploding twenties. I'm not quite sure what to think of it because from what I understand, U.S. currency does not contain RFIDs. Though supposedly if you microwave the tags, they are expected to explode. And currently RFID signals are weak enough to be possibly shielded by aluminum foil. However, I think I'll need to do more research in order to figure out the veracity of the claims.
Also, don't forget to vote if you are so inclined. I will be stepping out sometime today to cast my ballot, too.
And Seth Schoen's speaking at SFOBUG this evening. I will be in attendence. He'll be speaking on trusted computing.
| The Blog | 11:41 AM |
I've finally gotten around to using the Creative Commons license on the site. It's the Atribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. For those of you unfamiliar with cc licenses, this simply means you can use any of the content on this site that I've created (including photos and text) by copying or displaying it or making derivative works of it, but you have to give me credit for it, can't use it for commercial purposes, and if you change the original work or build on it, you have to distribute the new work under this same license.
I'm also working on the blog in general in bits and pieces, fits and spurts. I'm not completely satisfied with the software I'm using, but haven't decided on how to remedy that.
| Ohio Joins the Union Today | 10:36 AM |
Ohio became the 17th state to be admitted into the Union today in 1803. Some useless, but fun Ohio facts:
- Birthplace of aviation
- Famous Ohioans: Neil Armstrong, Ambrose Bierce, Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson's voice), Doris Day, Thomas Edison, Clark Gable, John Glenn, Ulysses S Grant, Toni Morrison, Annie Oakley, Steven Spielberg, Gloria Steinem, Ted Turner, Orville Wright
- Capital City is Columbus
- State bird is the Cardinal
- Nicknamed the Buckeye State
- And our wonderful state motto is "With God all things are possible"
