Personal Dork Assistant

Virtual Reality on Bay Street

Damn it, this is exactly what I've been saying all along. The new development in Emeryville is nothing more than your typical yuppie mall placed in a pseudo-urban environment, created out of whole cloth since there wasn't a real urban corridor to rehabilitate like Old Town Pasadena or 3rd Street Promenade. It doesn't help the illusion when the construction is still going on and you can see behind the facade and see the cinder blocks and the big box stores. The mixed-use smart-growth hype is bogus anyway, since the Bay St. dwellers will have to hop in a car to do mundane things like buy groceries. With the narrow streets and the jammed freeway maze all around, however, that could be a tricky proposition. A man can't live by Godiva and Pottery Barn alone. Although I might do okay with Trader Joe's, Barnes & Noble, Ikea, Best Buy, the Apple Store, and the Home Depot also being in the area. Of course, it would be a materialistic, spiritually bankrupt existence in a corporation-dominated world. Maybe some nice restaurants would make it better.

So we spent the

So we spent the money (well, I spent the parents' money, so it's "we" in that sense) for a nice stereo/home theater system (hey, it was less than what mom spent on the drapes). Then when I turn on the CD, the world's loudest furnace blower, the washing machine, and the leaf blower all kick in, so the music ends up with a worse signal-to-noise ratio than my astronomical data taken from a galaxy 250 million light years away. Fuck.

NFL Tiebreakers

What's Hot: Record vs. common conference opponents
What's Not: Strength of victories

No Two Towers Review Here

Because everyone and their mother's dog is reviewing the movie. Read their reviews.

Six Degrees

The Pacific East Mall and the 99 Ranch Market has become a significant hub of Asian-American social activity. Went with mom and dad for lunch and groceries. Was eating at the VH Noodle House when we ran into Lawrence and his brother Alex. Lawrence just got back from Maine(!). Looked for mom inside 99 Ranch Market and found her talking to Nancy Lin's aunt in front of the seafood aisle, there with Nancy's mom. I didn't even know that mom and Nancy's aunt knew each other. Apparently Nancy's in Boston for school and is coming back on the 22nd. And as we were picking a few pastries from Sheng Kee when we ran into the aunt, who was there to pick up some takeout for a quick meal before she flies back to Taiwan. All in all, that was way too much polite conversation for one afternoon.

Ugly

Jesus, Sharks give up nine goals, the Lakers score 71 points, and whiny Flo won The Amazing Race. Hey, at least the Stanford ladies advanced to the volleyball finals. They're tall.

Long Way Home

Perversely ended up heading out right into the teeth of the afternoon commute. Crawled along with all the worker ants for an hour before getting out of San Diego. Stopped by at the La Mirada In-n-Out for a quick bite. First time I ever saw someone order a burger Protein Style, but she also had a double-order of fries, so I don't know what the hell her deal was.

I always forget how big LA is until I hit San Clemente and keep going until Castaic 2.5 hours later and it's totally urbanized all the way. Even after waiting a day, it was snowing at the peak of the Grapevine and we had to crawl slowly over the pass around the stuck tractor-trailers. It was kinda funny watching the BMW in front of me spin his wheels as he tried to accelerate as my Accord crept up behind him. Tried to go around him, but once my tires left the clear strip of asphalt I could feel my tires slip, so I had to wait until the beamer got a grip.

Once I got down into the Central Valley it was smooth sailing, as there wasn't as much traffic at night, so I could set the cruise control and concentrate on staying awake. Got brave and stuck the Etys in my ear after I got out of the Grapevine. It was nice to not have to deal with wind noise. I think it actually made it easier to concentrate on the road. I wouldn't do it in dense traffic, though.

Funniest thing I heard on KNBR while driving: an ad for a charity which starts out, "Hi, this is Rich Gannon, and between throwing Hail Mary passes for the Oakland Raiders..." The humor is left as an exercise for the reader.

Got in at 2:30am. A hot shower and a warm bed made things all better. Just in time, too. It's suppose to get ugly again tomorrow.

Traffic Report

I5

[SOUTH CENTRAL CALIFORNIA]

THE SOUTHBOUND CONNECTOR TO EASTBOUND & WESTBOUND SR 58 (KERN CO) IS CLOSED FROM 0600 HRS TO 1800 HRS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 12/20/02 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION - A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE

THE NORTHBOUND CONNECTOR TO EASTBOUND & WESTBOUND SR 46 (KERN CO) IS CLOSED FROM 0600 HRS TO 1800 HRS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 12/20/02 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION - A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE

A HIGH WIND ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FROM THE LOS ANGELES/KERN CO LINE TO 2 MI SOUTH OF WHEELER RIDGE (KERN CO) /GRAPEVINE/ - TRAVEL IS PROHIBITED FOR CAMPERS, TRAILERS OR PERMIT LOADS

THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PARTROL IS ESCORTING TRAFFIC FROM THE LOS ANGELES/KERN CO LINE TO 2 MI SOUTH OF WHEELER RIDGE (KERN CO) /GRAPEVINE/ - DUE TO HIGH WINDS

So I'm stuck in SD for another day.

ROFL

A wisely anonymous reader writes:

Following my company's Christmas party on Friday, I found myself the proud recipient of... a bobble head doll of the company CEO! Needless to say I was PISSED. They didn't even comp. parking at the site of the party, let alone a bonus. yeah, yeah, times are tough. I should be happy just to have a job. but getting a damn doll of the guy who made 65 million last year just makes me angry. So... What did you get from your Company for Christmas?

Apparently, Oracle is the company in question. And I thought it was impossible to overestimate Larry's ego. Of course, if the spud who submitted this to Slashdot was worth $65 million a year, he would be paid that much. The free market says this guy is worth exactly his salary plus one bobblehead doll. So there. Meanwhile, Larry's yacht is off to the semi-final repechage round after being swept by Alinghi in the semifinals.

The Amazing Race was

The Amazing Race was being Tivo-ed, so I could branch out in my reality-television viewing. Yes, I watched Extreme Makeover. I guess the special fit nicely into The Bachelor's former time slot, in terms of appealing to the fantasy-fulfillment audience. The "winners" were demographically and geographically Middle America, folks who are impressed by the SoCal glamour. The whole show was filled with declarations of, "This is like a dream come true," and, "This is going to change my life so much for the better." Frankly, the plastic surgery scenes were icky (bone file up the nose?), and the post-surgery recovery period looked gruesome, posh Beverly Hills locale aside. The cheesy infomercial-style voiceover didn't help. About the best we can hope for is for them to stick with the exercise program designed for them. Hell, for the car-wreck factor, a six-month-after followup show would be great. I have a feeling that there will be more of the same, though.

Bummer about the twins on TAR. Although a third pair of pretty-boys winning the race would've been disappointing.

United Airlines finally filed for

United Airlines finally filed for bankruptcy, after the government denied United a $1.9 billion loan package. I suppose it's good to avoid corporate welfare, protests of the (Republican) House Speaker aside. On the other hand, the loan application was rejected mostly because the machinists union wouldn't accept wage cuts. So the government wouldn't bail out the airline because the union wouldn't bend over, and now the company is bankrupt, possibly wiping out the stockholders, the largest of which happens to be the employees of the company. Oh, there will probably be job cuts, too. So the workers get screwed both coming and going. They better not fuck with my frequent-flier miles, though.

I like to get

I like to get a bottle of apple juice when I'm sick. It's a source of fluids, and it's sweet, so it's easier to drink than the more acidic OJ, and helps to make those cold pills go down easy. Was at Whole Foods Market and was too tired to lug glass jars home (damn them and their fancy non-corporate, high-end, environmentally-friendly juice aisle) so I said to heck with it and grabbed a quart of the Evolution fresh-pressed organic apple juice because it was in a plastic bottle. Sure, it was ridiculously expensive ($5.50 for a quart of apple juice?!), but damn, it sure is tasty. I don't think I'll make a habit out of it, though. Spending money on not-from-concentrate orange juice is about as far I'll go. Although even the expensive organic produce isn't that much money compared to takeout.

Sports Update

Ugh, the Giants gave 2 years, $4.5 million to Maquis Grissom, and worse, promised to play him every day. Not that promises of playing time means anything, but Grissom was actually useful against lefty pitchers, and turns back into a pumpkin against right-handers. On the other hand, Ray Durham is a solid sign, and it'll be nice to have a legit leadoff guy in the lineup. They also offered arbitration to Jeff Kent, which is a little curious in light of the Durham signing, but if you can squeeze them both in the lineup, you do it and worry about the field later.

Billy Beane is back in the saddle and already wheeling and dealing. Being smart enough to dump replaceable talent and their irreplaceable salaries is what makes him The man. Of course, it helps that there are other teams out there who buy into in the mystique of The Closer, instead of looking at the stats that actually matter.

The semi-final round of the Louis Vuitton Cup is just about to start, and the Outdoor Life Network is being added to my cable line-up just in time, too. No real surprises in the results so far, as the four teams with the biggest budgets have came through the early rounds, but not unscathed. After a rough start, Oracle BMW ripped off a 4-0 series win over One World in the quarterfinals to send them into the repechage rounds. Alinghi is ostensibly a Swiss team, but they b(r)ought over Russel Coutts and Brad Butterworth, the rearguard that led the Team New Zealand to the last America's Cup. I don't think that's very cool, but then poaching sailors from other countries has been a long tradition, and it's not as if Team NZ doesn't have enough sailors. It would be cool to have the next America's Cup on the San Francisco Bay. Too bad Larry Ellison would be involved.

Death, destruction, and despair.
People dying everywhere.

Scary article about rising rates of diabetes in Asia. More incentive to lay off the fast food? Genetics probably isn't on my side, either. There's a good chance that a good fraction of relatives will die from diabetes-related complications. Well, that or heart attacks.

Of more immediate concern, stayed home all day because of a cold. Nothing like a crowded airport during flu season for spreading those viruses. The throat got sore yesterday, ache-y and tired today, and I'm using up the box of tissues now. So hopefully it's only a 48-hour thing. I should be finishing off that bottle of vitamin C pills anyway.

There's nothing wrong with

There's nothing wrong with being a little selfish once in a while, especially with the increasing income inequality (note the rising Gini coefficient in the big table of numbers), and the stagnant income of your average (in the median sense) full-time, hard-workin' folks. So it's a little surprising to see people arguing against self-interest.

Of course, you have your Slashdot Libertarians railing against techie unions. Don't these guys realize that the degree-less digital-plumbing jobs are going to be outsourced/commoditized into oblivion? You won't need the arrogant, anti-social geeks anymore, anyway, just your typical single guy willing to work extra hours for the nice car (I hear the BMW M3 is popular) and a home theater system (plasma screens are getting to be almost affordable these days). The real jobs will still be there, but then the people with real jobs wouldn't be dicking around on Slashdot, would they?

I suppose a Tivo owner is going to be at least middle-class with some disposable income, but considering that you need to have well over one million dollars in assets before worrying, why get a hard-on for repealing the estate tax? As long as they're at it, get rid of the income tax, too, or at least make it a non-progressive flat tax. Make up the difference with a national sales tax. All the ideological posturing aside, I don't think they'll be as supportive when they end up on the bent side of the regressive raping. Oh, and there are adverse capital gains implications when you get rid of the estate tax. Oh yeah, we're suppose to repeal the capital-gains tax, too. Well, that'd be another good way to prop up the housing prices, considering that there isn't much headroom left to cut on interest rates.

More technological progress at Southwest:

More technological progress at Southwest: They have computer screens at the Oakland Airport terminal entrance where you can check in by swiping your Rapid Reward card. The computer will spit out your boarding pass right then and there, no need to get in line with the herd at the gate. Sweet.

Walked by some guy in a suit with his Wall Street Journal, wearing a set of Bose noise-cancelling headphones and a Panasonic Shockwave CD player. I had my Etymotic headphones and the iPod, and I was tempted to tell him (loudly), "Hey motherfucker, I have cooler toys than you." On the other hand, he probably gets laid on a regular basis.

Thanksgiving has never seemed like

Thanksgiving has never seemed like a very Asian or Asian-American holiday. But it's a chance to sell things, so the 99 Ranch Market will sell roasted turkeys instead of the usual ducks and chickens, and they'll throw in a big tray of chow mein. In case that wasn't enough, mom fired up the hot pot with all the fixings, too. Aunt brought over a nice bottle of 1986 Lafite Rothschild, which is definitely smoother than my usual $5 Trader Joe's special, but I can't really say that I appreciated the difference.

Thanksgiving football games would be more fun if the Cowboys and Lions didn't stink so bad. It was fun to see USC hammer Notre Dame, though. The difference in skill level between Carson Palmer and Carlyle Holiday was ridiculous. Don't try to run the West Coast Offense with an option quarterback. That is all.