Less Than Zero

I must have gotten on a list somewhere, because I've now been part of two telephonic polls in the span of a week. The first one was survey on radio listening habits. The other one was a political survey of some sort, possibly related to MoveOn. In both polls I got to hand out zeroes - a zero for a certain new-country selection that made me want to rip my ears out, and a zero for one Mr. Bush that makes me want to rip out every other part of my body.

Speaking of opinion polls. It seems that these have effectively replaced the actual electoral process when big decisions get made by big people in between elections i.e. the other 363 days of the year. This makes its one's duty to take as many surveys and opinion polls as possible, since opinion polls seem to carry just as much weight as actual elections these days. Gotta represent!

got_it

must. eat. camera.
Originally uploaded by shreddd

Kiddoes are unpredictable. One week it seems like they just fit into everything that you want to do ... you're eating out, seeing the occasional show, going to parties, yadda yadda yadda (My first yadda yadda yadda in writing btw). And then suddenly they are fussy and needy and catch colds, and even watching an hour of TV becomes impossible (or something you have to break down into 10 minute increments). Such is the life. She is pretty damn cute though.

twittering

I am playing with Twitter in an attempt to completely sell out to the Web 2.0 revolution. You can now follow my every single mundane micro moment (now conveniently located right *here*) as I twitter my way towards post-humanism. Once the web becomes sentient, my persona will exist into eternity. Whoa!

ugh

yesterday was a really crap morning. we were already spooked about having to take the babezorz in for a kidney test and didn't sleep much the previous night. then, on our way out the door to the hospital, i tripped over the stairs - HARD. as in badly twisted my ankle, rolled over twice and bumped my head hard. as in, passed out in pain while trying to get back in the house (and bumping my head again) hard.

which meant that poor e had to take the baby in by herself for the test. which meant that she had to try and console a 5 month old as they poked at her with an iv for half an hour. watching a strapped down, screaming infant will pretty much break your heart. e - i am so incredibly sorry that you had to go through that, and that i wasn't able to make it.

and now we have to deal with the very real possibility of surgery in the coming months. like i said - not a good morning.

os x-pert

so i'm getting a little better at moving around and manipulating things on the new macbook. adding a three button mouse was a life saver - i can right click again!

seriously though - i'm still looking for tips to create a more zen like state of flow in my computering. any specific tools / applications / hints are very welcome ...

nostalgia

I'm writing this from my brand new MacBook Pro. It is very very sexy. Everything seems prettier on a Mac. Things just work. Magic seems to happen every time I push a button. Ah - the allure of design ...

And yet - I know, this will sound absurd but - I miss Linux.

As nice as the new BSD based Apples are, something feels a little odd and klunky when you try to operate from the command line. Aqua is totally awesome, but it was never meant to (with good reason) interface with the shell. I guess Linux makes me feel more godlike, while the Apple makes me feel more like a spectator. Still enjoying though ...

jens + left banke

jens lekman does this great song called "black cab", where he samples the left banke's "i've got something on my mind" - also a brilliant number. both artistes are definitely worth checking out. the left banke is probably one of the most underrated bands from the 60s, and jens lekman is basically e's new swedish husband, in a manner of speaking. i had to share.

daydream nation

wow - somehow, surreptitiously, mysteriously my social life has crept up on me. as in, i suddenly have one. in the course of the past 10 days, we've ended up going to a movie, hanging out and drinking with peeps in cafe/bar like situations (twice), doing trivia night and finally going to a sonic youth show.

s.y. show was our first non-baby social experience ever, which was both terrifying and liberating.

speaking of trivia - did you realize that hyphy doesn't have any of the standard vowels (a-e-i-o-u)? weird!

diesel sweeties vs. the riaa

we were so hype. or was it fly??!!!

• slightly askance trucker hat - check
  
• fanny pack - check
  
• wispy stache - check
• moppy hair - check
  
• disaffected stare - check

not sure if this was five years behind the times, or fifteen years ahead.
if only i hadn't tucked that shirt in ...

yes - that is indeed me!
"back in the days when i was a teenager /
before i had status and before i had a pager"

Trying Not to Sweat the Details

Since when did I become such a pedant? Why, not so long ago, I was talking about wanting to lead a less regimented, more organic existence [see old slackers site, 2003.03.19 entry ... hmm - i guess that was a while ago]. These days I seem obsessed with internal consistency, to the point of, well, pedantry. I almost sound like the spelling bee kid sometimes:



Mmm ... my first YouTube link. I am now officially entrenched in Blogosphere 2.0.

Can I just say this again?

I really don't like The White Stripes.

Bike2Work

Well - after years of agonizing, I finally rode my bike to work.

While I'm super excited about the personal and environmental benefits of this choice, it brought to light some interesting societal divisions among bicyclists. On the one hand you have your gear heads (we'll just call them hedz, shamelessly borrowing from RPM culture). The hedz are your hardcore bike nuts - they will often own several bikes (where several can span double digits), will pretty much *only* ride in spandex, and have several miscellaneous bike parts just floating around their garage to fuel what is now an obsession that easily costs them a few thousand dollars a year. Oh - and they're predominantly male. To these people I say, more power to you. Why, some of my best friends are ... ok - forget it. I will almost certainly never be one of them. There are things I get obsessive about - bike gear is just not one of them.

Which places me in the other camp. Utilitarian commuters that understand the ecological and economic benefits of riding, along with the loads of sexy indie cred it carries. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I've always found hipsters on bicycles terribly attractive. So yes - I'm riding to boost my cred. This is actually not dissimilar to vegetarianism - it just felt like a good idea on a number of different levels, even if there was a girl involved in the initiation.

Gossip

So apparently, The Arcade Fire stole this guy's basketball.

No wait ... they didn't.

Such is the blogosphere.

kiddie cred

you know the hipsters are breeding when rough trade puts out a kid's record.

and yes - satya has a copy (thanks shal) - duh!

Managed to get out to Club 6 last night to check out Badawi. Dark freaked-out dubby stuff - quite nice. This was my second show post-Satya. Caught up with some folks at the show, showed sissy around the "scene" (whatever that even means these days), lost my voice trying to talk over the music, and heard an Egyptified version of Walk Like an Egyptian. Overall - a good time.

We are overflowing with stuff in the house. If there is anything that you want to take off my hands, let me know. It doesn't even matter what that something is. We desperately need to purge - At this point I'm perfectly happy giving away stuff we may not even possess.

Satya owns two monkeys now - We've named them Fibonacci and Roadkill. She appears to like teh monkey brainzzz.

Oaklandish

Baron Davis is a G.O.D.! Did anyone see the Warriors last night? Ohmigod they pummeled the Jazz. Firebombed them, even. And that dunk ... mmm mmm ... that DUNK!

I have never seen a team having this much fun playing ball. They had no business even being here. These are the Golden State Warriors, fer chrissakes. They haven't been to the playoffs in 12 years. Eliz didn't realize that Oaktown even had an NBA team until now. But yes - these same Warriors are playing with a fuck-you attitude and swagger. Don Nelson doing interviews with a can of beer. B. Davis and Stephen Jax acting like the baddest mo fos in the world. And the beard! This is how we do it, Oakland style.

funny thing - this has never happened to me

Why is it that I have never woken up in the morning thinking, "I am a shadow dancer"?

Here's the Question ...

would you rather be an uncle-chod or a potato-fucker?