demographics

In about 4 hours, I will be 30 years old. Approximately 68 hours ago, I became a dadzorz. Somehow I don't feel old or anything. The hype around 30 is overrated. In my mind, 34 is a far more significant milestone. That is when I will no longer be a part of that crucial 18-34 demographic, that the media and marketing folks adore. Four years from now is when I'm going to be truly freaking out.

satya marjane

we'll be uploading more pics on flickr

thanks to everyone for the wishes. we're all doing fantastic!

-satya, elizabeth and shreyas

2cm and counting

2cm this past Thursday. Contractions started coming and going this weekend. And still we wait. I realize that this part is slow, and could last for days. I want to meet our baby, but it is probably best to wait. Allow it to get a little bigger. I promise there will be pictures when the time comes.

now reading

Not that you really wanted to know, but I like keeping these little notes, so that I can look back and nostalgificate.

• The Schematics of Computation - Vincent Manis, James Little. Oddly enough, this seems to be fulfilling my light, recreational reading quota. I'm trying to rediscover Scheme and functional programming, from a more advanced and mature, post-CS degree perspective.
  
• The Shuttered Room - H.P.Lovecraft. This is currently my bathroom reading. It is kinda fun to get all turn of the century spooky, while in the loo.
  
• The Birth Partner - Penny Simpkin. This is what I spend every free moment absorbing, in, what is bound to be, a valiant but essentially impossible attempt to be "prepared" for childbirth.
  

hrrrrrr

Seriously, how has Tuvan throat singing not become the rage among all the indie kids. This stuff is fantastic, bizarre and just plain brilliant. Check out Huun Huur Tu or Chrigilchin if you get a chance [Link]

Eanie Meany

This song has been stuck in my head for over SIX months now. Literally!

Jim Noir - Eanie Meany [Video links at the bottom]

Yes, this is the song from that Adidas World Cup commercial: Jose 10+ ... remember?

Best Records of 2006

I've posted my list on the KALX website. After the jump, we replicate the list here, for your convenience.

1. The Knife - Silent Shout (Rabid/Mute)
2. Boat - Songs That You Might Not Like (Magic Marker)
3. Jose Gonzales - Veneer (Hidden Agenda)
4. Islands - Return to Sea (Equator)
5. Motohiro Nakashima - I Dreamt Constellations Sang (LOAF)
6. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette (Tomlab)
7. Juana Molina - Son (Domino)
8. Two Gallants - What the Toll Tells (Saddle Creek)
9. Daniel Johnston - Welcome to my World (High Wire Music)
10. Barbara Morgenstern - The Grass is Always Greener (Monika)
11. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (XL)
12. Various Artists - CD86: 48 TRACKS FROM THE BIRTH OF INDIE POP (Castle)
13. Herbert - Scale (K7)
14. The Trucks - The Trucks (Clickpop)
15. Dirty on Purpose - Hallelujah Sirens (North Street)
16. DJ Shadow - The Outsider (Universal Motown)
17. Chin Up Chin Up - This Harness Can't Ride Anything (Suicide Squeeze)
18. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (4AD/Interscope)
19. Chirgilchin - Will Teach (Pure Nature Music)
20. soundtrack - STRANGER THAN FICTION (Columbia/Sony Music)

And I'm doing a "Best of 2006" show, which will feature selections from the above list and more. Tune in tonight 9pm pacific. We even have a live mp3 stream these days.

The sum of the internal energy of the system plus the product of its volume multiplied by the pressure exerted on it by its surroundings

We even fight dorky, as is apparent from this recent interchange:

S: Hey Elizabeth, what is the exact definition of the term enthalpy?
E: I really don't want to have this conversation right now, Shreyas.

:)

This Blog is a Mess

The New York Times did a piece on this a couple of weeks ago, but you need to have a paid subscription to view this. Instead, listen to this wonderful segment on NPR, extolling the virtues of clutter and mess. Mess creates a kind of randomness that may lead to forming unexpected connections ... intuitive leaps ... fresh perspectives ... new discoveries ... apophenia ... pattern recognition ... William Gibson ... cyberpunk ... umm, wait, how did I get here anyway?

Anyway, this is your new year's resolution. Embrace your mess. Let it guide you. Do you really want to argue with Einstein? (“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”)

twosies

Bloggers are compulsive list makers. Why, some would say, the world wide blogosphere is built on the idea of lists. While there are no definite rules governing the semantic or syntactic structure of lists (other than ye olde <li> tag), a good list generally has at least five elements. This has me in a bit of a tizzy (or perhaps, the kids call it "thizzy" these days, with all the hyphy hype). I'll often think of two or three fabulous list items, but then I'm left scrounging for filler to reach that magic number five. Well, no more! I'm going back to first principles - coredumpin' is all about regurgitating the raw data sitting around in your brain. If the stack trace only has two elements, so be it.

Here we go:

Halloween costume ideas that only Don and Shrey would find funny

• Pliny the Younger (or Don talks in a faux Cockney accent as "Pliny the Younger" - inspired by, but completely unrelated to Greek philosopher, Pliny the Elder. No really! Don thought Pliny was this dead British guy, which makes this whole thing even funnier).
  
• Raider Nation (or Shrey ironically dresses up as Raider fan, complete with psycho regalia)
  

Why 2006 was the year of the d**k meme (NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

• Dick in a Box
• Yo Dick
• Let's Sexy Engrish
  

damn irritating yaar

an all new things that hella bug me ...

• using hecka instead of hella - this is California people, not PsychoChristianLand.
  
• talking on the telephone. This is an odd one, but weirdly true. Telephonic interchanges don't allow for natural lulls in conversation. Half the time, I feel pressured to fill in the void, with awkward, meaningless comments. The other half, I am trying to make a graceful exit (which never happens). The only conversations that I seem to enjoy are with folks that allow me to abruptly cut things off with a "Bye Dude - Gotta Go" mid-sentence. No hard feelings.
  
• the term "winningest", often used in sports writing or commentary. Winningest is NOT a word, people - it sounds completely retarded. The only thing that bugs me more is that Bobby Knight is about to become the winningest coach in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball. Which is a perfectly appropriate place to use the word, since it allows me to disacknowledge (also not a word) the record by describing it with words that don't exist.
  

breech

the widget is upside down. i mean it is right side up. which is really upside down. for a fetus.

so it looks kinda like this:

 ___
/ O \
|-| |
| / |
\___/

as opposed to:

 ___
/ \ \
|-| |
| O |
\___/

confused?

me too!

all i know is that it complicates a few things. poor eliz. we're in the last few weeks though.

soon, my dear. soon.

Actual Content

Clearly, four day weekends are an excuse to pontificate. So the Yakov Smirnoff question of the day is "does you create your politics, or do your politics create you?" (and let's just ignore the Soviet Russia angle for now).

I was in the shower, wondering about my pacifist ideals (don't ask), and I began thinking - is pacifism merely a convenient veil for someone that has basically always been smaller and wimpier than the other guy? I probably couldn't win an honest to god fist fight, so is pacifism merely my cop out? The easy way to avoid dealing with violent situations?

Along similar lines, am I attracted to feministy women because they are most likely to be attracted to wimpster boys like me? Am I a leftist because I am a minority? Did I become a vegetarian to merely "fit-in" with the cool kids? Ok - scratch that last one. That was mostly because of a girl I liked.

Anyway, in some sense, the answer doesn't matter anymore because I've drunk the proverbial kool-aid, and I pretty much solidly believe in everything that I believe in. How I got there may be up for questioning, but I'm here and I'm, well ... here!

Also - I know the answer to the question - probably a bit of both. Personal predilection combined with environmental influences. Think feedback cycles and chaos. Yeah - lame, I know. But true.

buy nothing day

Also, today is Buy Nothing Day. This means you.

why thanksgiving is a rubbish holiday

this is beautiful. i've always wanted to expose the cloying blandness that is thanksgiving comfort food.

r

the pirate thing is officially over.

House Music

Whoa!!! The previous post, written several weeks ago, WORKED! We won!

Current list of changes in my life, in order of importance:

• new baby (forthcoming)
  
• New House (as in congress)
  
• new house (as in home)
  
• new job (as in work)
  
• new hair (as in hair)
  
• new radio gig (hair before radio - hmm ...)
  

So, I'm not convinced that the new Congress (or anything, really) can solve the mess we've created in Iraq, but I have slightly more faith in The People now, and the fact that they voted for change. If nothing else we got Rummy to step down, which is huge, even if we're looking at two lame duck years.

insomniac

i was reading this little bit about the decline of rough trade records in the late eighties, as it related to the general political climate. the thatcher tories appeared to be undefeatable and completely entrenched. the socialist ideals embodied by rough trade, nme et al seemed to be nothing more than fruitless idealism, which ultimately led to the rise of acid house and electronic dance music as the dominant music of the kids. hedonism as a reaction to the bullshit capitalist/rascist machine, since attempts at social justice didn't seem to be working. and then the nineties happened!

somehow this gives me hope. maybe, it is time to just say fuckit, and to just create as much ... stuff ... as possible. indulge. maybe, we just need to wait this thing out. and while we're waiting, we might as well have fun.

elsewhere

i have this nice little idea that should bear fruition in a few days. art. an idea. content transposed to "non-traditional" media, then reinterpreted and retransmitted through the "lens" of the original. oh dear. too many quotation marks. trouble!

in the meantime, i've been munching on this delicious little novel. have a little taste ...

Propositions: Meaning must be arrived at obliquely, through hints and feints. It must be suggested through the figurative rather than explicitly stated through the literal. Any attempt to capture meaning by direct approach will result in its death, and - like certain shellfish - meaning must not be killed prior to ingestion lest it be rendered poisonous or, at the least, unpalatable. Meanings that can be contained in words are not worth discussing. Nothing need be passed over in silence, yet some things may be merely implied through circumlocution. Absence as a defining characteristic. Subjects defined by negative space.

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