scrobbin away
Ahhh.... I took Thursday and Friday off from work, which, coupled with the Monday holiday, made this weekend seem blissfully long. With family (sister- and brother-in-law) in town, we had a busy time trudging from coast to mountains. And now, although it's Monday, and I have the day off, and I have a myriad of things I could be doing, I'm sitting here doing nothing. It's been a good do-nothing day though, since we got up at 6am to take our visiting family to the airport - making it feel like I've already slacked for a full day when it's not even noon yet. Of course, I have the appropriate guilt that's associated with this level of laziness. I just don't care. I'm not motivated to do anything... how crappy is that? Ugh...
Let me tell you what's been keeping me up at nights lately. I have a pretty big-scale conference mid-month at which I'm a presenter. This is a pretty big deal for two reasons. First, the topic of my material will be a very high-interest one, and in fact the two times I teach the class are already booked to capacity. Second, I am woefully behind schedule in regards to developing my content. Normally, I wouldn't be too worried - I am, by nature, a procrastinator, but I also work well under pressure, so it's normally not that bad. The difference here is, I am teaching a class about a subject I'm really unfamiliar with. So, in addition to the normal task of developing the material, I also have to educate myself on everything. I have roughly two weeks to do this. However, per the development schedule for the conference, my material should be at 95% this week. People, my material is at roughly... 5%. For the first time in a while, I'm worried about pulling something off. Not that I won't have the material ready in time - that's just not an option, my real worry is making a fool of myself.
I've given bad presentations before, and I know from experience that it is a low, low feeling to not know your subject matter - and to have that fact be painfully obvious to your audience. Oh, I can still remember the searing embarrassment and desire to run and hide under a rock for the rest of the day. I do not want to experience that again... I'll do anything. So, I've set myself a strict regimen this week. I'll not only work during the days, but also log hours at night doing as much time-clearing work for the following day as I can. I'm dedicated to reading several pages an evening on the material I'll be talking to - to get myself properly educated for any probative questions from the peanut gallery. From now until I leave this next-next Monday, I'm going to try and be the world's most effective worker, cranking out not only my daily requirements but producing a top-notch presentation, as well as a sponge for information that may help me pull off the required feat. I realize that, in doing this, the blog may suffer. But hey, this seems to be the month of the suffering blog... so I might as well roll with it.
Sunday my truck broke. Yeah... just wouldn't turn over. It's not the battery, and I only know that because the extent of my car-problem knowledge is what happens when you try to start a car with a bad battery - and this wasn't it. The thing would sputter and sputter like it was trying to come to life on a winter day, and when the engine finally bit and started to turn over it'd run for all of two seconds before just shutting back off. Perhaps the cracks in my exhaust manifolds that have gone long-unrepaired spontaneously turned into full-on ruptures and I have no back pressure. But honestly, I have no idea what that last sentence even means and the only reason I said it is because I know there's some key relationship between exhaust pressure and the whole engine bit. So, painfully ignorant to the inner workings of my prime method of conveyance, I left that thing in the parking lot. And that's where it sits today... waiting for me to play my AAA card and have it towed to some shop so I can be taken advantage of. Stupid truck... what did I ever do to it? Why can't all machines be like refrigerators? Seriously, when's the last time your fridge just up and broke down? I don't care how exponentially more complex a machine an automobile is - that's no excuse.
Tonight, taking a cue from the only blog that I regularly read, I checked into audioscrobbler.com and setup an account for myself. Audioscrobbler is like a natural extension of what I was trying to do with my "currently hearing" section on the sidebar. Except, audioscrobbler is much better. It gives you infinite history as opposed to my sidebar's puny "last 7" or whatever, and it also assembles your listening habits into meaningful (at least to music buffs) data that can show trends and favorites. For someone like me, that's a pretty intriguing idea. Not only does audioscrobbler scrobble together your personal listening habits, it offers aggregate stats for all the users of its service. So, you can track trends, and even get suggestions from other peoples' playlists for things you might like based on what you tend to listen to. It will take a while to build up any meaningful data, but I think as a long-term thing I'll replace my simplistic "currently hearing" output with some more interesting statistics.
And, once again, rather than wracking the old brain for more stuff to write - I'm calling it a night. Oh, and before I go - some pictures from our weekend hiking-season break-in hike up Pyramid Peak. We didn't make it to the top, lost the trail in the snow, but it was a great day outside and a good way for me to remember how horridly out of shape I am.
Goodnight friends... goodnight.
not old enough
Even though work is, for me, probably more busy now than it's been in... well... in forever, I'm taking today and Friday off. My sister-in-law and her husband are in town and we'll be doing the standard Northern California tourist jaunt. Today is San Francisco, this weekend is Tahoe. Tromping around the state is a sure-fire way to not get my work done... and although I have some level of guilt, I'm gonna do it anyway. But before that, I wanted to try and at least get an entry done.
There's a certain CD that plays every single night in Henry's Bar, Taipei. It's a solo piano album; nice, quiet, uppity-sounding background music for an up-scale bar. I know this CD by heart. I can whistle every refrain of every track. I've heard the songs so many times, drinking Taiwan Beer while talking to the staff, drinking Taiwan Beer while talking to friends, and sometimes just drinking Taiwan Beer. Today, I was making travel reservations for my upcoming trip to Denver, and a very similar sounding piano number came on as the on-hold music. My brain was immediately taken back to Henry's Bar. I got that familiar lonely-cold feeling in my gut, knowing I'm a world away from home but somewhat comfortable in a place I'm very familiar with. I could almost feel the just-a-little-too-cold air conditioning on my skin, and here the glasses clinking over shouts of "Hello! Good evening!" in stilted English. I even missed my wife and felt a little homesick. It's amazing what music can conjure up in terms of vivid memories. I've heard that smell is the number one memory-associated sense, but hearing must be a close second.
When my family first moved to Florida, I was in the 6th grade and my brother was in the 3rd. During that first summer vacation, I guess our folks didn't feel we were quite old enough to fend for ourselves all day while they were at work. So, we had a babysitter. Every day, we had a babysitter. Over the summer I think we went through two: both in their 20s. The first one was short with red hair cropped to her head like a boy's, and I can't remember exactly what the other on looked like, other than she very much not boyish. Me being in the 6th grade, it wasn't very long before I had developed a crush on the second. She would lay out in the backyard in a tiny swimsuit, and I would sit safely behind our tinted sliding-glass doors and watch. She used to tote along her stuff in a largish beach-bag, and she'd leave her changed-out-of clothes in it when she went outside. I can remember ever so carefully peeling apart the top of that bag to glimpse the stringy white underwear inside.
Over her time babysitting us (which was considerably less than the time the redhead did), she began to talk to me more and more. Alas, when summer ended, she was gone. Then, one evening, maybe a week after I'd last seen her - the phone rang and I answered it. It was the babysitter, calling to talk to me. She wanted to tell me that she'd been in Miami the night before, and caught a 2 Live Crew concert (a band we'd talked about together before). I remember her calling me by my name: "David, blah blah 2 Live Crew blah blah..." How odd... a 20-something babysitter calling a 12-something kid to talk about 2 Live Crew. The conversation lasted less than a minute, but at the time, was a huge deal to me. All that, and I don't even remember her name.
Not much, but I think what there is is OK.
walking over graves
I don't know what's with me lately. Sunday night I passed out not long after 9pm. Just passed dead-out on the couch. I was so firmly asleep, I woke to my alarm Monday morning not knowing what day it was. After shaking out the cobwebs, I had dim memories of brushing my teeth and getting into bed - but man, I was seriously out. And tonight, I feel tired again. I think I could sleep right now in fact, just curl up in bed and be out. I mean, it is 11pm - so I guess it's not that odd. I wonder, could my body still be protesting the time change a little? I mean, I've got the awake-in-the-day part covered, but maybe the night-owl in me will come a little less easily. Either way, I'm trying to shake the fatigue... so bear with me.
While listening to some music at work today, I got a really cool idea for a mixtape. It's a shame really, that there aren't really mixtapes anymore... "compilation CD" sounds so much less cool than "mixtape." Anyway, I was listening to the song "Ain't Gwine Whistle Dixie (Any Mo')" by Taj Mahal and, as always, the song gave me chills. See the idea? Yeah, that's right; a mixtape made up of songs that give me chills. When I say "give me chills," I really mean that shiver thing that goes on when you hear a particularly awesome part in a song. I can think of several songs off the top of my head that would go on the tape, and I think overall it would be a totally bitchin' comp. Anyway, I've got a running list in my head - maybe one day I'll actually put a playlist together one day or something. But for now... let's just start a running list... because... well, why not?
Ain't Gwine Whistle Dixie (Any Mo') - Taj Mahal
Over the Hills and Far Away - Led Zeppelin
The Concept - Teenage Fanclub
Summertime in England (live) - Van Morrison
Friday on My Mind - The Easybeats
Lucky Man - ELP
Wave of Mutilation (U.K. Surf) - The Pixies
Thorn Tree in the Garden - Derek & the Dominos
She Sends Kisses - The Wrens
Please Be With Me - Cowboy
AT&T - Pavement
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Bob Dylan
Woyaya - Osibisa
To Forgive - Smashing Pumpkins
New Life - Depeche Mode
Samba Pa Ti - Santana
Julia - The Beatles
New Year's Day - U2
Pearly Queen - Traffic
Everything In Its Right Place - Radiohead
I could go on, but you get the idea. It'd be interesting to me to loan this mixtape out and see if any of the tunes have similar effects on other people. Hmmm....
See, things like that may make for extremely boring and poor blogging - but they are fun to write, and I'm all about doing what's enjoyable. That's when the writing's good for me, y'know? As much as I write in hopes of an eventual audience, the main motivation is still some small enjoyment gained in doing so.
Hey, that's all I'm going to write. Rather than tax myself and not have anything else, I'm calling it a night. Maybe later this week I'll be over my writer's block and actually be able to come up with something interesting. Ahh... who am I kidding? Sharaun's sister and her husband are coming into town on Wednesday night and, if I had to guess, I bet I don't write from then until the weekend...
'Night.
what brings you here?
I'm just gonna get right down to it and say I'm not happy with this entry. I had all weekend to write it, and I ultimately came up with nothing. But I'm under pressure y'all. Last week's blog performance was hampered by travel and catch-up sleep, and the weeks prior weren't much better while I was in Taiwan. I guess I wasn't motivated to write this weekend either though. Hopefully this week will change that. But for now, try to enjoy this crappy entry...
It's the weekend and I'm writing as a procrastination tactic. I woke up early to maximize the day, and then spent two hours watching family guy and eating breakfast. Stupid traveling. I'm behind in everything that matters to me. Mowing the lawn, keeping the house clean, finishing the backyard, everything. Plants are dying and shower doors are becoming obscured with soapfilm. It's really frustrating to me, mostly because of my compulsive nature. I start to freak out if things aren't right, and I think I have my dad to thank for it. I try. I try and tell myself that stupid things don't matter, but it's ineffective if those stupid things really do matter.
Anyway, it's a gorgeous warm weekend. In the mid 80s with sunny blue skies. And I'm writing about the weather... which is about as good as admitting ya got nuthin'...
Saturday I got the urge to do some web tinkering... the end result being a redesign of my index page. I'm pretty happy with the result, which uses an original image I took for the purpose, and an imagemap/rollover effect I pieced together from some tutorials online. Anyway, I'm happy with it. It's much more stylized than my old design.
My TiVo got the 6.2 software update while I was away this week, which is awesome. The menus are 100% faster, and I can group shows into folders - making organization much easier. My one complaint though, you can't delete a group. Now, why would you group shows if you can't bulk-delete an entire group? What idiot at the TiVo company thought, "Lets give users this awesome feature where they can sort their shows into folders. It'll simplify and speed up the interface, and make things much more intuitive. Oh, and if they want to delete an entire program group, let's make them have to go into the folder and delete each one individually. Y'know, temper the rad with the suck, so they don't get too much user-friendliness all at once." Stupids. I hate them.
Also, on the upgrade theme, I successfully upped "sounds familiar" to WordPress 1.5.1.1 this weekend. Muddled through some bonehead "oops!" style accidental deletions and some CSS issues, but with a little work and the help of my pre-upgrade backups I was up and running shortly. You won't see much of a change from the front page, but the backend has some small updates for me - namely a faster loading dashboard when I first enter the behind-the-scenes area. Nothing major seems to be broken, but lemme know if you see something not working right or looking funny.
I know I told you how much I love this Architecture in Helsinki album, but my affair with it has become even more heated in the last week. I daresay it's my favorite album in a while. And do you think I care that I'm still dirty and sweaty from mowing the lawn? No! I sure don't! I still sit here listening to this album at deafening levels, windows open so the sun can stream in and I get a nice breeze. I mean guys, I know, as albums go, this one is young... but, man, I love it. I don't care what you say, we are in love - I know it's 20 some-odd years younger than me, but we are in love I tell you! We could get married. We could! Age ain't nothing but a number, and we're in love... with each other! No, I dunno, I mean, it makes me feel good about myself - is that so wrong? Why are you so prejudiced? You can't fight the feeling. You keep stifling us like this and I swear I steal away with it and elope. Don't test my feelings, this is real.
For grins, some of the best search queries from my referral statistics. I've done this before, and the explanation is the same - these are words/phrases that people typed into search engines for which my blog was returned. They are naturally funny, so I don't feel the need to dress them up with additional commentary. Enjoy.
www. ass massage
bathtub meth recipes
alaskan whore house
depressed lonely college blog
bipolar husband and infidelity
monkey riding an ostrich
self hogtie story
dudes saggin balls
swallowing my hot pants
ass wiping techniques
Molly Hatchet naked
"I know you have to pee" dick boy
Molly Hatchet is a band. People want to see anything naked I guess. If they were clued in, they'd really be looking for that homemade porno Molly Hatchet shot on her honeymoon with Jethro Tull. You get my joke? You get it?
Dave out.
USA! USA! USA!
Hey hey hey, we're back.
Excuse my two-day absence, it's been a busy transition back to US time and goings-on. Not to mention that by the time this posts I'll be sleeping in anticipation of another trip. So, I'm not sure what the rest of the week will look like, entry-wise... since I think most of my days will be consumed with this seminar thing. Made it back today to a constipated TiVo, overflowing catbox, two-week un-mowed lawn, and the prospect of a day's rest in my own bed before hitting the friendly skies once again. Despite being bummed about the short-livedness of it, it really feels good to be back.
Right before I left Taiwan, I downloaded the new Architecture in Helsinki album. PF raved it up, but I had my doubts since downloading their last effort on recommendation, and feeling it was only so-so. Sitting in the terminal in Tokyo, I updated my cellphone with the latest tunes, including the new Arch album. The first real time I listened to it was speeding through the sky somewhere off the coast of Japan, and even though the whir of jet engines obscured the minutae a bit - I could tell this was different than the last LP. The band must have gone to a week-long "Making Your Music More Awesome" seminar or something - too bad Weezer couldn't scrape enough cash together to attend, damn shame that one. If you're in the mood for some random, hectic, and at times circus-ish whimsy tunes sung in classic indie-male falsetto - you gotta pick up this album. You can preview a track here, courtesy of me.
Wednesday at work was rough. Tuesday's sleep was fitful and superficially restful at best, as I sort of had to force myself down. The morning started off OK, I seemed rested enough, but after lunch my body fought hard for sleep. Work was busy though, and kept me paced well enough to keep my eyes open for the afternoon. Work has been... different... of late. I've somehow stumbled into both increased responsibility coupled with increased autonomy. I guess the two do logically go somewhat hand-in-hand, but the sudden increase of both caught me a bit unprepared. It's not that I've failed, or am failing, it's just that I've been having to adapt faster than normal to change, since the change is happening faster than usual. So, I find I'm having to keep a tighter reign on myself than I previously had - laying out more structured groundwork and setting and keeping better goals. I've always been an adherent to the "just do it" mentality when it comes to work, and tend to not formalize things too much into processes and milestones. But, as things pile up, processes and milestones are becoming less and less avoidable, and are, in fact, becoming almost requisite for success. Less because I need the process and mechanics of goals as formal guidelines, but more so because I just freakin' let things fall off the plate if I don't have some organizational way to categorize and approach them.
Dude, this is bringing back more 6th grade memories than I can even describe.
I'm going to bed.
butterflies
Say, can I have some of your Taiwanese food?
Yes I've been eating it, two or three weeks now, haven't got sick once,
That should keep us both alive.
This green island has become a fantasy-world to me, my life here being decidedly surreal.
So tomorrow morning it is. Packing the bags tonight for the journey home. Sharaun really digs Taipei, and I couldn't be happier. I was a little worried that maybe she wouldn't like the food, but she jumped right in and ate duck stomach and sea snail right along with me. We had a great time doing some sightseeing and hanging out with the bar staff. She experienced nearly all my usual Taiwan experiences: KTV, binge-eating, betel nut trying, Taipei 101, life at the bar, royal hotel treatment, and hot-as-balls sauna weather. She took to the city instantly, and is in fact right now out with a new friend of hers getting a manicure. Incredible. I guess the only thing she didn't really get to experience was the multiple-hooker trapeze orgies... but then again I don't think that's really her cup of tea. But hey, she did surprise me with the betel nut and duck stomach...
Travel travel travel. It's all I do. I will step off a plane, enter the vagina that is your country or state as a proud, erect, conquering penis. I will repeatedly pound you for all you're worth, and then limp flaccidly back to my plane where I will get just enough rejuvenating rest before being whisked off to my next distant triumph. I may notch my bedpost for you if you are memorable enough, but I wouldn't get too excited if I were you. Now get out of my bed, and leave your number on the table... I might want to call you in a couple hours if I'm bored. Beat it. Oh, and Shanghai, Denver, Austin, and Taipei - you're in the queue that way, so hop to them Kegels and be good and limber upon my touchdown. Ahh... that felt good to get out of my system.
If you know me, you know my penchant for "non-commercial" music. I'm not one for the latest Top 40 and often couldn't ID a chartopper if they shared a cab with me. But, I like to think I'm not entirely closed-minded, and I do indulge in the occasional prefab pop nugget. Usually, I end up liking these songs because I hear them at a key moment - and in the moment they sound perfect. That's the case with this radio-tune I really enjoy right now, "One Thing," by some chick called Amerie. Sharaun tells me that the super-slick production is the work of some hotshot guy right now, makes sense... programming managers must have been tripping over themselves to get this into rotation. No telling if this link will still work even tomorrow, but you can listen to the entire track here. It's just so summery-fun sounding to me, it kicks the music snob in the ass and makes him listen. The stuttery pounding background instrumentation and cloppy beat remind me of vintage Utah Saints or Dewdrops era Deee-Lite.
Well folks. I think that's it. I'm giving myself a day off from posting tomorrow, unless I come up with something on the plane. But... even then we'll be in the air for close to 24hrs, so there may not be an opportune time to publish. I think I'll join the regular crew down in Henly's Ball for one more night of Taiwan.
Radio silence, 24hrs.
colloquially confusing
Sharaun made it safe to Taiwan... and she seems to have adjusted to the time zone with no effort at all. Slept through her fist night fine and was up and out last night after a small nap. We tackled one of the local pubs near the hotel with a couple buddies of mine who work at the hotel bar (somehow, my life in Taiwan revolves around being at bars, people who work at bars, just... bars...). We had some drinks, some food, and some good broken-English talking. I took her out to a semi-touristy dumpling place for lunch, and she seemed to dig on the grub... although she is sorely lacking in the chopstick kung-fu department. Her first dumpling slipped from her weak grip at about six inches off the table - splashing down into a plateful of vinegar and soy sauce, the impact sending liquid to all four corners of the table and her shirt. But you gotta admire the effort.
Some of what I like being over here so much for is the fact that there are so many people interested in just talking to you to improve their English. I love being the "tutor" in a situation where someone is honestly asking a question about your native language. Lately, I've been chatting via MSN with a girl I know who lives outside Taipei - and she IM'd me an English question that I thought was kinda cool. Seems her English teacher and her were making plans over IM to go get some dinner and see a movie, and at one point she asked him if he would "buy dinner." He replied that, yes, he would "buy dinner" if she would "get it." The confusion came from the usage of "buy" and "get" when combined with dinner. She assumed he meant he'd pick up dinner and he assumed she'd do the same, and no one ended up bringing the cheeseburgers. So, she asked me - where did she go wrong? The intent was for her to actually bring the dinner, and that he would pay her back when she got there - but the sentence "I will buy it if you get it," messed it all up. Really, that sentence is kinda confusing, and IMO could've been better worded as, "I will pay for the dinner if you bring it."
Anyway, as I was trying to explain this to her, I was running through the scenario in my head with me in her place and another native-English speaker in his. That's when I realized that this could potentially be a confusing situation to even a native speaker - and, when I also saw the chance to teach her a little unconventional English that I could see myself using in the same situation. If someone told me, "I will get dinner," a possible response from me might be, "Pay-get or get-get?" Now, to someone learning English that may make no sense whatsoever, but I think most native speakers would get the idea that I'm trying to clarify the intended usage of the word "get." I thought it was an interesting situational example of some unconventional phraseology. And while perhaps a bit unrefined or improper, I think the "pay-get or get-get" question is definitely valid English for today's generation. And that's the kind of English they seem to be most interested in, young-peoples' speaking-English.
Written for yesterday, never posted:
I am a walking zombie. I'm beginning to think it's not the timezone thing that beats me down, it's my Taiwan sleep patterns. Back to the hotel for three of four hours sleep, up again for a meeting scheduled on US time, into the office, nap when you can. It's less of a sleeping-waking pattern and more of a deprivation experiment, which I suppose could also account for my susceptibility to this bug that I've caught. That, and the fact that my swearing-off cigarettes lasted a whole two days before I was kidnapped, tied up, and forced to smoke a couple while drinking beer with the guys the other night. But I maintain folks, I maintain and I will continue to maintain.
Two weeks in Taiwan will do wonders for your Chinese. I daresay I can understand every 10th word spoken in about 80% of the sentences I hear (I'm pretty sure that having to qualify "every 10th word" with "about 80%" of the time means I actually understand less than every 10th word, but it's the only way I could get at what I mean). In some instances, I can follow a conversation surprisingly well. The problem is, my ear can't tell the difference between true Mandarin and the local Taiwanese dialect - so I'm sure there are times where I'm populating my mental cross-reference database with a mixture of words. If I were to speculate, I think living in Taiwan for 6mos might be enough to me to have a passing hold on the language. I really wish I could learn it, I think it would be so cool to say I speak Chinese. It would be even cooler if, when I say I can speak Chinese, I really can speak Chinese.
Although I disagree with it, Tiny Minx Tapes' review of the new Nine Inch Nails album is flippin' hilarious - check it out.
Peace out.
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