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Java Jive

I guess Bay Area housing isn't the only thing that refuses to obey the laws of economics. Apparently coffeehouses can increase without bound, too. What doesn't make sense is that crowding is actually good for business, the same idea that creates clusters of fast-food restaurants and gas stations, even though I always wonder how a McDonalds can survive when In-n-Out is next door.

In fact, it does, sort of. After hearing the dynamics of the industry explained by a few experts, I understand that one way of looking at gourmet coffee is the way traffic planners see a crowded highway: If you build a fourth lane, it may ease the congestion briefly, but in the long term it will just attract more cars to the road. The trend in the specialty coffee industry remains more, more, more — and somehow it keeps on working.

"It doesn't make sense to us either sometimes," said Mike Ferguson, a spokesman for the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Always good to see some honesty out of a PR Spokesman. It's not even the only article questioning whether Starbucks is really that bad. Do we have a backlash against the anti-Starbucks backlash? Or is it a carefully planned media conspiracy?

And while it's tempting to dismiss Starbucks-bashing by pointing out that all chains receive an icy reception from some, when was the last time you heard of a Bed, Bath & Beyond getting firebombed?

One local business owner who grudgingly gives Starbucks credit for helping spark a neighborhood renaissance is Leather Storrs of the restaurant Noble Rot, located on Southeast Ankeny Street near 28th Avenue. The area, now packed with successful, trendy local businesses, was home to a Starbucks long before any of them arrived.

The one crime where Starbucks was guilty as charged was its homogenization effect. The mass-produced middling-culture atmosphere is replicated to perfection everywhere it goes. Although I do have to admit that a soothingly pastel room filled with decent furniture, soft jazz, and lots of air-conditioning makes for a welcome change of pace in Taiwan. The Starbucks across the street also happens to be the only coffeeshop around that's opening on weekend mornings. The other coffee places (some of which are even decent) cater to the office workers so they don't open early on weekends. And during the week I don't have time to run out and wait around for a latte. Although as long as I'm in Taiwan I might as well as drink tea anyway. Stick to the local specialty.

Fifth Dawn Prerelease, Afternoon Session

Thanks to a quick final round in the first tournament, I had time to go off and find the convenience store (heck you wander around with your eyes closed and you'll bump into a convenience store in no time) for some badly needed refreshments. A bottle of watermelon juice for sugar, a couple of curry puffs for salt, and a big bottle of green tea (which seemed to be popular with the crowd) for the long battle ahead. There was one white guy (almost as many as there were girls) there, and I got to chat with him in English. Turned out he was from the Czech Republic here with his girlfriend while she studied traditional Chinese medicine. He was surprisingly un-bitter considering his circumstances, although he couldn't wait to be outta here by the end of the summer.

Opened up another amazing pack, featuring a Platinum Angel and Mindslaver in Mirrodin, and another Mastermind, Thought Courier, and multiple Advanced Hoverguards in Fifth Dawn. Was hopeful when the judge came by, but it turned out that it was the other pair at the table that got to keep their registered decks. I had to trade off with the guy opposite. Had a bitch of a time building as White was the only color that wasn't viable. Red was the backbone with my removal, Green had the creatures and a Tel-Jilad Justice, and Blue had the fliers, with a couple of Hoverguards and a Cobalt Golem. Wanted to splash Black for Terror and Irradiate, and throw in some of the spiffy new Sunburst cards, but I couldn't trim enough to incorporate the fourth color, the mana fixer cards, and the Sunburst stuff. I was a little light on creatures (although I got out a 3rd-turn, 3/3 Suntouched Myr a couple of times), but I had a ton of removal, with the T-J Justice and a foil Creeping Mold in green, a foil Beacon of Destruction, Pyrite Spellbomb, and Grab+the+Reins in Red. I actually left out a Rain of Rust which might be the first time I've ever left out a playable artifact-kill card in Mirrodin sealed.

The judges announced that there will be a T-shirt awarded for anyone who wins six matches combined from the morning and afternoon flights. That made me feel a little better when I found out I had the first-round bye due to odd numbers. I came all the way out here to play, not to sit around for another hour, but right now I don't mind a cheap "win." Got a chance to test-draw my deck a bit, since I wasn't really sure if I had the right build. Chatted with the local crack... I mean card, dealer, who came back to Taiwan from the US and managed to catch up enough Chinese to test into National Taiwan University, so mad props to him. Finally picked up a set of Skullclamps, a mandatory card in Type 2 right now.

So I finally get to play and I find myself faced with a sealed-deck player's worst nightmare, facing an opponent with a flat-out superior deck. I know that you gotta believe you always have a chance to win and keep a positive attitude, but this was ridiculous. He mulliganed the opening hand in game one, but he recovered quickly thanks to multiple Scrying cards digging through his deck. He also built up his mana using Wayfarer's Bauble and Solemn Simulacrum. I dinked him a little bit early with some weenies and a Viridian Longbow, but once he ramped up he started dropping bombs like Clockwork Vorrac, Quicksilver Elemental (which stole my Longbow ability to ping my own guys), Qumulox (so much for the flying plan), and Looming Hoverguard (the one turn delay was killer).

That was a bit of a bummer, but I figured that maybe I could take him if I get a fast start and he had a bad land draw. Well, I had to mulligan to start the second, so much for starting fast. He went Thought Courier, Scryed with Serum Visions, then did it again when he played an Eternal Witness, a.k.a. Regrowth Girl. He got out a Goblin War Wagon for offense, the Solemn Simulacrum for a land and a card, then a Myr Retriever to bring the Simulacrum back. A Tornado Elemental was just too massive for me to stop. The Thought Courier was just filling his hand with gas, so much so that he actually discarded an Icy Manipulator to the Courier because that was the worst card in his hand. Now that was deflating. The Crystal Shard (with the Simulacrum, or how about the Witness?) was just the icing on the cake, or the dagger in the heart, depending on how you look at it.

Well, that sucked, but that wasn't really a fair test since I was up against a very unfair deck. Third round was more like it, as I used my removal to maintain control of the game. First game, an Entwined Grab the Reins took his Fangren+Hunter to shoot down his Skyhunter+Patrol. That opened up the skies for my Hoverguards and the ground for my Tyrranax. Second game, he got out two 5/5 Skyreach Mantas (i.e. cast it with five different colored mana), thanks to the Wayfarer Bauble and Pentad Prism. Okay, so I guess Sunburst does work. Unfortunately for him, I had the Tel-Jilad Justice for one and the Beacon of Destruction for the other. Had answers for just about everything else, too, as I consciously slow-rolled him by staying in stand-off mode and maintaining parity with my kill cards. Won the war of attrition when I finally got better creatures (Tel-Jilad Archers and Somber Hoverguard) and steamrolled him.

Okay, now this is for all the marbles, or the T-shirt. Was up against red-green that seemed light on artifacts. Found out why when he dropped the Molder Slug. This was after he Shattered my Icy and regrew the Shatter with Eternal Witness. A Tel-Jilad Lifebreather meant that I wasn't going to be able to easily kill the Slug with damage. Had to chump block for a while (wasn't as if I was going to do anything else with my Myr) and ate some damage, but I finally got up to six land so I could play my Duplicant, which was my one trump card vs. the Slug. The Goblin Brawler held back his weenies, even though he had numerical superiority. But once the Slug was gone I had damage superiority through the air and easily outraced him. It wasn't looking too good in the second. I managed to kill the Slug, but he followed up with a Tyrranax and a Fangren Pathcutter. He'd also hurt me by Detonating both my Icy and my Goblin War Wagon. So I was going to start to have to start chump blocking soon unless I found an answer. Got the clutch pull with Grab the Reins off the top with exactly seven land to pay for the Entwine. The GtR combined with a double-blocking combo of Elf Replicant and Tel-Jilad Archer made sure that I took out both of his big guys despite Tyrranax toughness-boosting ability. Sure, it was two cards for two (I lost the Replicant on the block), but seeing his two big guns go down in an instant was killer. I plinked away with the Archers for a while, but he was starting to stabilize with more creatures. I found the Goblin+Cannon, but held off with it when I got the Beacon of Destruction, too. Did the math, blew the cannon to take out a blocker and him down to five life, then finished him off with the Beacon after I untapped.

Yay, got my T-shirt, so I didn't have to come back to play in the third flight on Sunday. Not that I could go anyway because we were going out to lunch at 吉園, and it wouldn't do to blow off family, especially when it's also your boss. They even had multiple sizes, not like that fatass-sizes-only policy in America. One final picture in front of the pre-release banner, and I was out the door by 8pm. Hey, it really is like work.

Fifth Dawn Prerelease, Morning Session

I was out the door by 8am, caught the Blue Line train, exit #2 at 西門站, straight down the street for a block. Hey, it's almost like going to work, give or take an hour. Four rounds of swiss for about 70 people. The prize structure was wide but shallow. You got a pack even if you didn't win any rounds. Two packs for two wins, four for three, and six plus a Fifth Dawn T-shirt if you sweep four rounds. Alright, it's gonna be all about the T-shirt today.

I couldn't believe they were making us register and swap decks at a chicken-shit four-round prerelease tournament. Damn Chinese all cheat too damn much, I guess. Of course, the deck I opened was vastly superior to the deck I got, but it could've been worse. Mirrodin was in Chinese, while the Fifth Dawn cards were in English, as WotC stopped printing Traditional Chinese cards after Mirrodin due to the small market, which is a bummer, but it worked out great for me since I was already familiar with Mirrodin cards' art so I didn't have to read the text. The folks I talked to all preferred English cards to Simplified Chinese, as do I actually, other than the exoticism factor. All the paperwork dragged things out for another hour, so it was almost 10:30 by the time we played the first round. I haven't played in forever, and I never did feel comfortable with my shuffling. Mostly psychological, but in a game with as much luck as Magic psych and karma certainly can't hurt. I probably should've played more land, too, with only 16 (give or take a Myr or two) land and not many mana-fixing tricks, which is quite a strong theme in Fifth Dawn. Didn't start well, as I had mulligan my very first hand, but things went surprisingly smoothly after that, as I put the new cards to work with an early Vedalken Mastermind, followed up by a Flameborn Whelp. The firebreathing dragon, backed up by lots of mountains, took him out in three attacks. The Mastermind allowed me to bounce the dragon back to my hand after damage is on the stack, so it could kill "chump" blockers like the 5/6 Qumulox and live, even though it was only X/2. I was in control, but I was playing carefully, so we didn't have much time left for the second game. He got out an early Banshee's Blade, but I was careful to play around it with my array of blockers. I even got out an Vedalken Archmage and drew quite a few cards off of it, but I had to sack most of those artifacts away to the Atog to beat back his attackers. So even though I was killing off his attackers, he was still taking out my cards and building up counters on the Blade. The Blade on an Auriok Bladewarden made it quite a nuisance. The nuisance turned to menace when he dropped Qumulox and Clockwork Condor, as all of a sudden I had 15 points of flying damage incoming. We ran out of time, but I couldn't find enough flying chumps to stop three turns' worth of beating from the flying monstrosities in the extra turns. I could've won if I'd stalled for another five minutes. As it was, a tie was good as a loss, since only W's counted for prizes. So much for T-shirts.

Round 2 didn't start out any better, as I got mana-screwed and didn't put up much of a fight in game one. I stalled on three lands for a long time in game two, too, but an early Bonesplitter-equipped Atog allowed me to get damage through. He built up his lands and laid down a Plasma Elemental and it was kicking my unblockable ass. But I was getting back in the game with fliers, as my gang of Hoverguards (Advanced and Somber) did him in just in time, as the Vulshok Gauntlet on the Elemental made the race real close. We were short on time for Game 3, and we shuffled up and dealt, and he dealt some more, as he had to mulligan down to four cards before he could play. I had the ramp-up in my hand, so I went into turbo-mode to try to finish him off ASAP. Myr to Flameborn Whelp plus Somber Hoverguard finished him off just in time.

Always good to get that first win under your belt. The 1-1 bracket is always a little iffy. Sometimes you run into good players with bad decks, bad players with good decks, or good players with good decks but bad luck. Well, bad deck certainly wasn't the problem with this guy. I was pretty happy with myself with the early Vedalken Mastermind, then resigned myself to a long game when he matched me with his own, and started to worry when he laid down a second Mastermind (in foil, oooh shiny). He also got a mana jump on me with the Pentad Prism, which he could bounce back to his hand with the spare Mastermind. Thankfully I had a Goblin Brawler to hold the ground, as the First Strike ability negated most of the stupid-Vedalken-tricks. I was thinking I may be able to get him through the air when he laid down the Loxodon Warhammer, possibly the most powerful non-rare card in Mirrodin sealed. I had a Rain of Rust in my hand, but aiming it at the Warhammer was futile with the Masterminds in play. I could block-and-bounce with my own weenie + Mastermind, but Warhammer grants Trample, too, so I took my lumps, while he gained life in the process. I got out a bigger blocker which did enough damage to his attacker to force him to bounce it back, too. That only slowed the bleeding though, as the Warhammer was still dominating the board. So one Mastermind was tapped bringing the attacker back, then at the end of my turn, he decided to tap the second Mastermind to bring back his Pentad Prism when he had 130278415 land on the board already. I thanked my lucky stars, then smoked the Warhammer in response. I thought I was in the clear, but then he laid down the Sword of Khaldra, which is one of the most powerful rares in the format. Then even before he could equip the Sword, he tapped out his mana for some trivial reason, so he couldn't activate his Mastermind. I couldn't believe my luck as I Shattered the Sword in response. I wasn't being smashed in the face, but I was getting plinked to death by a Vulshok Sorceress, and an Auriok+Transfixer held off my Hematite Golem. I did have the Lightning Greaves, but I had to keep it on my Somber Hoverguard to prevent him from pinging with Sorceress, bouncing it with the Mastermind, then recasting and ping again (Sorceress has Haste).

I needed something to break the stalemate fast, as my life total was steadily declining and time was running out in the round (again). Turned out it wasn't the expensive bombs that saved my ass, but my smallest guy. Drew the Krark-Clan Grunt and realized that it was the answer to my prayers. Played it, sacked two artifacts to it, and wiped the board of his weenies. He did save one Mastermind, but the Sorceress, Transfixer, and the non-foil Mastermind were all swept away. I lost my own Mastermind, but that was well worth as the way is now clear for my Hoverguards and Golem to smash face and finish him off before he pulled any more unfairness. We started a second game, but we ran out of time soon after and there was no way we could finish in the five extra turns, so I won the round 1-0-1.

Okay, let's finish this off. With all the long rounds, I haven't even had a drink of water since the morning. Was hoping for a fast round and got my wish in the best way in game one, as I dropped equipment the first few turns with artifact lands, so by the third turn I dropped down the Somber Hoverguard for one blue mana, dressed it up with three pieces of equipment (including Greaves), and smacked him for five hasty points of damage. The Whelp joined the party soon after and he couldn't keep up. As well as things went the first game, it was the polar opposite in the second. I mulliganed the opening, then kept a hand that had land but no gas, and he beat me down with beefy green dudes. Whelp and Hoverguards came to play for me again in game three and I killed him before he could ramp up. All done in 30 minutes, thank god.

All that work for four measly packs. Blah. I want a T-shirt.

Bubblicious

Holy fuckin' mother-of-god, the median price for a house in the Bay Area just broke the $500,000 mark. Personally I would've guessed high 300s, but I guess there were enough high-end sales to drag even the median up into the stratosphere. We're not talking about small-number statistics, either, as "more homes changed hands in the county last month -- 2,248 -- than during any month since DataQuick began keeping records in 1988. That figure was up nearly 44 percent from April 2003 and nearly 18 percent from March 2004."

Why the burst of home buying this spring? "Most of the people believe that chances for houses going any lower are slim and probably none,'' said Thao Dang of Century 21 Alpha, who specializes in listing homes priced higher than $1 million.

An investment with no chance of going lower? Haven't we heard this before?

Meanwhile, it's finally happening. LA is running out of land to build.

Arid high desert north of the San Gabriel Mountains is the county's last big chunk of developable open land after decades of relentless growth beyond the coastal core. In rush hour, the commute downtown is a minimum 90 minutes.

I mean, they are talking about places north of Santa Clarita, like Newhall Ranch, Castaic, and Tejon Ranch. Usually when I see those road signs I consider myself halfway gone on my way back to the Bay Area. Driving to LA every freakin' day from there would drive my absolutely insane. Another 300,000 houses there is going to turn I-5 into a congealed mess, like a fat man's aorta.

Will subdivisions keep spreading into the desert? Could Southern California become one long urban traffic jam stretching more than 200 miles from San Diego to Bakersfield?

Isn't it like that already? It would only surprise me if the scenario doesn't come to pass. The article makes token mention of infilling, etc., and it sure surprised the heck out of me when I saw light rail lines along the 210, linking Pasadena to downtown LA, but that's all going to be gentrified yuppie-villes, and they certainly won't be affordable by any stretch of the imagination. LA always seem like it's on the verge of Armageddon anyway, which is probably why it seems so attractive to so many. Death by traffic asphyxiation is a lousy way to go, though.

Life as a Stiff

It's a little embarrassing to be coming in when everyone's already here, and leave when everyone is still there. I think 8:00-5:30 is doing my part, though, especially considering that my part right now consists of reading lots of email between KB-TW and KB-US. In theory, I'm not drawing a salary so I wouldn't have to punch the clock. On the other hand, I can't exactly be slacking very much (yet), either. I'm getting screwed at both ends here.

Not that there's been much for me to do other than plowing through the piles of email that's generated by communication between KB-TW and KB-US. It's interesting to see the US salespeople get steamed when there's a problem, as they have to ask Taiwan to relay their concerns to China. Three emails and two languages later, what was a 10-item list only four or five would be resolved, necessitating another trip around the merry-go-round. Also interesting to see the US salesforce wins the design from big-name US tech companies, but the factory ends up shipping the parts to outsourced manufacturers all around Asia. At least business seems to be good, factory seems to be barely keeping up with the demand. I'm having trouble keeping up with the avalanche of product numbers, though. For such a standard little component, there sure's a lot of ways to make it. Now I see why they wanted to implement an ERP system ASAP.

So there's suppose to be this little training course for new hires that I am to attend, which I thought would be a nice intro to things. Turns out that the sessions were about the technical aspects of the LED. Now, I admit that I never did get much use out of my copy of The Art of Electronics, but a refresher on the electromagnetic spectrum and P-N junctions is just about the last thing I need right now. At least I'm meeting some people instead of just hangin' in da cube. Remembering names is probably my biggest problem so far, mostly because names tend to use more obscure characters, and there's no context, so I can't associate the sounds with characters in my head. Although the Taiwan workforce is small enough that I can probalby brute-force memorize the employee list if I had to.

Chug

Instead of the usual bottle of 養樂多 that comes with the bento lunch, they threw in a bottle of apple-flavored milk instead. I haven't had that artificially-flavored pseudo-dairy since I was eight. Yummy (in small quantities). I'll have to hit the 7-11 more often to explore their range of thirst-quenching products.

I wonder how much of a kickback the receptionist gets from the lunch places. She has a collection of lunch menus, and she picks one for us proles to order from every day. A couple dozen bentos is good business if you can get it.

Realidad Política

Nasty stuff going on in Colombia, as outlined in this LA Times article. Of course, nasty stuff has been going on in Colombia for a long time, ever since folks down south figured out that the Gringos love the crack, and idealistic insurgents became heavily armed narco-trafficantes. But now throw oil on the fire, and you have a political Bingo (drugs, terrorists, oil, and corporate interests) making the case for US intervention.

U.S.-trained Colombian troops, backed by U.S. intelligence and private contractors, unleashed the offensive to stop rebel attacks on a pipeline that Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. depends on to transport oil. They also had another goal, company officials said: secure an area deep in the heart of rebel territory so Occidental could explore a new field believed to hold 20 million barrels of oil.

Of course, there's no good guys in this fight, which is what makes it so messy.

"We have to coexist in the middle of four different groups, the ELN, the FARC, the paramilitaries and now the government," said Arianis Barrera, whose husband was arrested while he was running for mayor. "It is totally traumatic."

I guess in the end, if it's only Colombians killing each other, it's not a big deal so long as oil stays cheap.

First Day On The Job (whatever it may be)

Got up early enough to hitch a ride with uncle to the office. It's a 30-minute ride from home to an anonymous building in the anonymously bustling streets just outside Taipei City. The outside isn't all that imposing, but inside is nicely decorated. There was a spare cube (sure, they're made of low-slung, blonde wood instead of high-walled particle board, but they're still cubes) upstairs with the IT and accounting folks. I was next to Mr. Ho, the local geek, (you could tell, with the stacks of Oracle and LInux manuals three-deep on his desk) and he got me up and running in no time on the PowerBook once I figured out that he was telling me that I needed to enter some HTTP proxy settings. Had a little chat with the IT manager about the Oracle ERP installation, and collected a bunch of business cards from relevant people (thank God, otherwise I'd never be able to remember their names), but other than that it's a matter of hurry up and wait. Supposedly there's a batch of new recruits coming in, and I can sit in on the indoctrination sessions, but that schedule is yet to be determined. Uncle dropped off some industry news for reading material, but other than that it was just killing time until the bento boxes came. 50 bucks for a box with rice, cabbage, chives, soy-marinated tofu skin, a pan-fried piece of fish, a couple pieces of char-siu pork, julienned pork strips stir-fried with preserved pickle, and a partridge in a pear tree (actually it's half a 滷蛋). They threw in a bottle of Yakult-style yogurt drink, extra white rice for those so inclined, and for good measure. Can't beat Chinese cheap eats when it comes to fill factor.

Gaffe of the Day: Mr. Ho asked for my Chinese name to set up the email account and I blanked on the last character. That was damn embarrassing.

Hung around until 5:30pm, although there wasn't much for me to do after I got the PowerBook's Airport MAC address added to the wireless station's allow list. I'm getting CC'ed on all the US-Taiwan intranet emails, which right now seems like a blur of product codes and shipping invoices. The trip home wasn't terribly difficult, once I figured out which side of the street is the right direction to catch the bus. Three bus stops to the subway station, and then one transfer at Taipei Main Station to the Blue Line heading home. It's good that I get on at the next-to-last station on the line, so there's plenty of good seats available even during rush hour. On the other hand, it's not so good that the trip took almost an hour. Probably won't be moving any closer, either, as we just closed on a third-floor apartment in the same building. We move into the rank of capitalist oppressors, as we bought the unit on auction from the bank, who's in the process of evicting the folks currently living there. Apparently they'd inherited the apartment and the mortgage, but they fell behind on the mortgage and after four years of wrangling the bank finally decided to foreclose. Might be a while before we can move in.

Twisty Maze of Passages

Went mom to the local neighborhood city office to get a Taiwanese ID card. Like most of the buildings nearby, the city office is mostly new, situated in a plaza across the street from Taipei 101. Had a bit of a shock when we arrived (love how the cabs are cheap enough to ride for half a mile just to avoid the mid-day heat), as the outside of the building was surrounded by massive razor wire barriers, gun-toting policemen, and TV trucks. Turned out that they were recounting votes inside. Had to take the stairs since the elevator was blocked off by all the media people. Getting a new ID card was surprisingly painless. They found my record from umpteen years ago, and mom managed to talk the lady into processing the application with only two photos, even as the next booth over was telling the guy that he had to have three photos for a new ID card.

That was only the first step, of course. Went up to the sixth floor to try to get a National Health Insurance card. No such luck, as one has to reside in-country for four months before one can enroll. They did direct us over to the proper bureaucrat for the military service paperwork. The stuttering salaryman in the desk in the corner informed us that I don't in fact have foreign-resident status, and was still due to be drafted unless we provide the proper reams of paperwork. Thankfully mom knows someone who used to work at the Immigration Office so that shouldn't be too much trouble, I don't think. A couple of years in the army can't be that bad, can it?

Not Just Carnations

It's good to have good help. Sure's nice to have a Taiwanese ah-yi who can cook all the familiar dishes, instead having to teach an Indonesian or Filipina maid. Must take quite some skill to make daikon-and-beef-liver soup taste good. And it's just been ages since I've had some good cow tongue. Taiwanese specialties aren't just about offal, though. It's bluefin tuna season, and the restaurants are taking full advantage. Went to the Japanese restaurant for Mother's Day, and they worked up a full-tuna meal. Thick slabs of sashimi to start, of course. Mom might be the only person on Earth who complain about toro on the plate (she thinks it's too fatty, as if there's such a thing). Then there was the fish-cheek and baby ginger stew, a perfectly grilled piece of white fish, right near the jawbone where it's tender, with just some salt and a squeeze of lime. Finished off with a bowl of clear fish-head broth. Yum.

And you know that nothing says Happy Mother's Day more than orchids. Large pots of orchids.

News from the Southland

With mom and I going away, dad almost cancelled the newspaper subscriptioni but changed his mind at the last minute. I didn't care either way since I could always look it up online, and I mainly read it for the sports pages anyway. They don't even have Frys ads, which was the main reason I got the paper in San Diego. I needed some reading material for the long flight, and I wanted to see the local reaction to the Lakers' gag job in San Antonio, so I picked up a copy of the LA Times (along with Guns, Germs, and Steel, but that'll probably have to wait until the return flight). Boy it's nice to see some real journalism in action, without the whiff of East Coast pretention that comes with the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, and minus the Beltway navel-gazing of the Washington Post.

Starting on the front page, I love Column One's series of feature articles. Cool to see some investigative writing on original topics featured at the top. Makes the paper stand out as something more than barely-modified AP stories on spoon-fed talking points. Today's article wasn't one of the best, though. Just another beautiful natural spot being choked to death by nearby suburban development. The twist is that the oxygen-sucking plankton blooms and the resulting fish kills are mostly invisible from the shore. The home-owners still have their breath-taking views even as their leaking septic tanks feed the deadly plankton. They have to do something before it's too late, but there have to be studies, and the counties are broke, blah blah blah. Booooring. Lots of coverage on the Iraqi prisoner-abuse. "In effect, we produced a commercial against ourselves." That about sums it up.

A cool little piece about E-Loan's offer to loan applicants: Have their home-equity loan processed in the US in 12 days, or have it done in India in 10? So far, 85.6% of 14,329 applicants want the paperwork done two days faster. No cost difference, just a shorter path to hocking their houses for some quick cash. BTW, the reason why outsourced applications go faster is because the Indian and US workers can work around the clock, thanks to the time difference. The sad story is at the bottom, about a middle-class African-American family who stuck it out in South Central for twenty years in the face of a deteriorating neighborhood. They'd finally given up and had decided to move out after their daughter graduated from high school, only to have their innocent son killed in some random gang-banging crossfire.

"African Americans in my opinion are going to be marginalized, and that will be a horrible thing," Rodney Murray said. "They will be pushed further and further out, pushed into the margins, pushed into prisons and all the places people don't want to see."

He said he still believes in the same ideals, but "you get tired of being the only ones to fight."

"It is over," he said. "We have lost."

Entertainment news dominate the Business section. An article about the end of Friends and its effect on movie advertising, Sony-MGM buyout speculations, and coverage of the Studios-versus-Writers' Guild negotiations. My favorite bit is the story about Toyota outselling long-time leaders Ford and Chevy among Latinos in the first quarter. In fact, its 15.5% share among Latinos exceeded its overall market share. Not surprising that Toyota does the best out of the foreign brands, since it has the best truck lineup, which is a huge-seller to Latinos. Good to see them achieving the American Dream. Save money to buy a house, and ditching American cars.

Plenty of ink spilled excoriating the Lakers for their lackluster play vs. the Spurs. From the opening paragraph you could tell it's not some cub reporter phoning it in.

After 12 months spent untangling their profound heartache from their boundless hope, the Lakers trudged from the same locker room, in the same playoff series, lugging the same deficit.

Nearing the end of a year in which they clung to Kobe Bryant and propped him up, in which they turned to Karl Malone and Gary Payton and now have half turned away, the Lakers changed everything, and then nothing.

That's was even before the columnists got started. Yikes. The baseball beat writers were not so poetic. Hey, you gotta pace yourself over a long season. Sucks that Weaver pitched seven strong innings and didn't get a W, but he's helping to dig us out of the ERA/WHIP hole, which is just as valuable in the standings. And it just wouldn't be summer without a Dave Roberts hamstring injury, and just as we were about to break away into the stolen base lead, too.

The Weekend Calendar section really shows off the manic and diverse energy that makes LA actually seem attractive once in a while. There's lots of cool-sounding rock acts, nutty gay theater ("So is Varla's phenomenal vocal endowment, which merges Dame Joan Sutherland, Jayne Mansfield, Jo Stafford, and a demented oboe."), and a photo exhibition featuring middle-aged men who live with their mothers. A short little interview itht he Dodger Stadium organist ("Ever get sick of Take Me Out To The Ballgame?" "You'd think I would. But actually I don't"), and the cover story is about the rise of video game music, highlighted by the LA Philharmonic concert featuring the music of Nobuo Uematsu, i.e. music from the Final Fantasy series. The show sold out Disney Hall in a day (2256 seats), and damn it if I wouldn't have minded checking it out, even though I never got into Final Fantasy (never had the patience). Maybe I'll pick up cheap but legally questionable soundtrack CDs while in Taiwan.

Census Tidbit

Wasn't what I expected, considering the distance involved, both physical and cultural, but Asians are expected to be the fastest-growing minority group in the US, growing by one-third by 2014, and possibly tripling by 2050. That's still only 33 million, which will be less than 10% of the total population by then. I guess Hispanics are running into the problem of large numbers, as they creep toward plurality, if not majority, status in many states.

More businesses and strip malls like Eden Center are sprouting across the country, as more Asian families settle outside of cities. One such mall in Las Vegas, called Chinatown Plaza, bills itself as the "largest master-planned Chinatown in America."

Master-planned Chinatowns. Boy that's just what the doctor ordered. Doctor Strangelove, maybe. Or maybe I'm just annoyed after trying to find a parking space at Pacific East mall on a Saturday night.