the violence inherent in the system.

so i'm awakened at 7:50am saturday by a phone call. when i say to the person, "i'm sorry, you have the wrong number," they responded, "i don't have the wrong number." i was sort of taken aback by this insistence, and said, "i'm sorry, you do, because i have no idea who you are or who you're trying to call." so they said, "well, fuck you, then."

*blink* i mean, is it just me, or wtf? since when did telling someone they have a wrong number become an act of escalating aggression? i can understand being out of sorts at 7:50 on a saturday morning, but...wtf? we've all heard about the escalating rudeness in our society, but i think this is a new low.

(er. high? can you escalate to a low?)

i hung up, you know. which i suppose was rude of me, but after that, i was hardly expecting either an apology or an explanation.

at least they didn't call back.

whoops.

haha so here i am worrying about our phones and...they don't run symbian after all. good news, no viruses. bad news, can't sync with his mac (me, i'm just not that technically advanced yet).

of course, he can't find the bluetooth dongle for the computers, so at this point, syncing pretty moot anyway.

celebrity.

maybe i've got cellphones on my mind, especially since my new one has bluetooth and the symbian os, which is a nicely hackable combination, but i've been pondering the phenomenon of ms. paris hilton.

so her cellphone got hacked. and the addressbook was posted on the intarweb. and she says,

"I feel horrible that, once again, someone has invaded my privacy. I want to apologize to all my friends and family. I don't know why this stuff always happens to me, but I wish it wouldn't anymore."

i related this to a friend who responded, "because you're a celebrity, honey!"

the funny thing is, when did she become a celebrity? i mean, yes, we know now that she was always part of the high-end new york party scene, but where was that news when she was a teenager? did the media have some kind of agreement with her father the way they did for charles and di's sons?

or is paris hilton the first democratic celebrity? she didn't come from hollywood, she was practically nowhere in pop culture until a homemade tape of her having sex with her boyfriend was leaked to the 'net (which he has since released, to his great profit, commercially under the title 1 Night In Paris, ha ha so clever). then all of a sudden, bang! a tv show, awards shows, a designer line of jewelry, a cd, a hacked cellphone. i half think that in the world of manufactured celebrities today (for instance, oh, britney spears), we're fascinated by what appears to be "the real thing." she's rich, she's an heiress, and she didn't have a marketing campaign.

i guess any publicity is good publicity.

i wonder who was in her addressbook 5 years ago.

phones.

i have a new cellphone! *gasp* it is not boring!

in fact, it's way more cellphone than i need. but it has bluetooth, and it will work in europe, which is sort of what pushed me over to getting it. not that i'll ever use either of those features, mind you, but i figured what the hell. they're there if i want them.

now i have to change my profile. hmm...

guh.

it's being One Of Those Days.

1. the car is fucked up. one of the pulleys for the timing belt lost its ball bearings. what the fucking fuck? the service manager is telling us it will probably be covered by the warranty. we all know what that means.

2. i am expecting a package from fedex. unfortunately, the person from the company shipping it to me didn't bother to say, "oh, by the way, you have to be there to sign for your package." so fedex has taken it to my home, while i am at work. i called them and managed to convince them to go back and just leave it there. we shall see what happens.

3. i just tried to encrypt one variable with another when i meant to concatenate them >_<

4. i have no tea.

5. blogger just ate this post. this time, i'm saving the text to notepad.

personal achievement.

i've been made the recipient of my mother's disturbances recently. for the last year, she's been going to a gym (for the first time in her life) and dieting very carefully, and she has lost almost fifty pounds. her health has improved dramatically, as has, i think, her self esteem, because she can now wear not only clothing that she hasn't worn for 20 years, but she looks like she did when she was my age. she weighs less than me now >_<

however, a close friend of hers recently had gastric bypass surgery. she was very overweight. but before she had surgery, she first interrogated my mom about it, apparently unwilling to believe that mom had dropped all that weight through simply "diet and exercise." and right before she went into her surgery, she said to my mom, "now i'll look just like you!" my mom is understandably very proud of her accomplishment: she had to sacrifice a lot, not just the pleasure of food, but also a fair amount of physical comfort as her body and joints accustomed themselves to this more strenuous lifestyle. when a close friend of yours refuses to accept your accomplishment that you made through sacrifices and self-control, it's naturally somewhat upsetting.

is it jealousy? is it the refusal to accept that someone else can do what you can't? weight is, of course, both a very personal and a very public thing. maybe it's just that in this age of self-esteem-boosting, it's harder and harder to accept a personal weakness in the face of accomplishment.

still winter.

new week. blah. hate monday. especially snowy, foggy monday. after being in the 50sF last week, i guess the atmosphere decided to remind us that it's still winter, dammit. oh well, 2 years ago, we got 24" of snow for president's day, so i guess i can't complain about 3 inches. although it means i have to work today, and i got the day off in 2003 *grin*

and i hate to make one of those i'm-sorry-for-not-posting posts, but i barely posted at all last week, and i wish i had posted more, but i was sick and exhausted and ended up fairly depressed by friday, which wasn't real inducive to posting interesting things. but hopefully, i will only feel better, and so i will be back to posting thing that make this blog worth reading.

also, i have temple oranges. mmm...

and i have to say that blogging is 15,487 times easier with tabs

hmm.

my poor little neglected blog. i am so tired. so, so tired. zzz. stupid flu.

also, i'm sorry to say i've been writing again. this is getting to be a habit. now if only i could finish something...

which, of course, wouldn't do me any good anyway, because then i'd have to take the time to find some way to publish it or something, which means i'd just spend time throwing my hands in the air and being despondent. bah. being an artist is too much work ;)

coughcoughhackcough.

after 4 days in bed, i am back at work. not that this is doing me any good, really, but i might as well be sleepy and cough-y here and be making money than be sleepy and cough-y at home and not be making any money.

we did end up going out for my dad's birthday friday night, but given that my temperature was at 100.3F when we left, i'm not even going to bother to review the restaurant. except to say that raspberry sorbet is a good idea when you have the flu.

unclean!

boy, does having the flu suck. for the last 2 days, i've been running an off-and-on fever of 100F+. my throat is killing me, and so is the rest of my body for that matter. the only comfortable place to lie down is on our new leather couch, which is in the living room and it's cold in there. not so great if you have a fever. i'm living on tea, chicken broth, and cough drops impregnated with vitamin C. and lots and lots of sleep.

what really sucks is that we're supposed to go out tonight for my dad's birthday, and it's to a restaurant i've been wanting to go to since i read about it opening a little over a year ago. i just went downstairs to see if i'm hungry enough to eat more broth or maybe a little toast. i'm not. bah suck.

encryption.

after an hour and a half of fucking with various applications, a fair amount of cursing at mozilla, and a painful bout of flu, i have S/MIME certificates working in thunderbird. i feel very accomplished.

now if only the cat would get off the bed so i can go back there.

celebrations.

so yesterday was mardi gras/carnivale/shrove tuesday/fastnacht day. did everyone have suitably debauched fun? i didn't think so. although, considering i don't think anyone who reads this blog actualy observes lent (i know i don't), it seems sort of silly to begin with. i did give in and go buy fastnachts, though.

today is the beginning of the chinese lunar year of the rooster. it is also my father's birthday. according to chinese astrology, he's a rabbit, which means this year is supposed to be particularily unlucky for him. i haven't told him yet ;) they have bagels and donuts for him today at work. which is probably why we didn't have donuts yesterday. which disappointed everyone, nevertheless.

i think today is also the tet, which is the vietnamese name for the beginning of their lunar year. however, my vietnamese father-in-law doesn't seem to worry about things like that anymore, so i don't think we have to make a round of family visits this evening. i might make spring rolls for dinner, though. mmm...fat. i surprise myself by actually making good spring rolls. woo, and stuff.

ever notice how it always comes back to food? every culture celebrates with food. probably it goes back to times when people didn't have enough food and so the celebration was for the food, rather than the other way around.

on the other hand, maybe i just like food a lot *grin*

good timing for once.

ah, the superbowl. time for all the greatest ads to be shown. and for companies to spend a hell of a lot of money on some pretty shitty ads too. also recently, it's been where companies spend half their operating costs for the year on lawyers. cnn has a nice discussion of the ads this year, including a gallery of stills, and this little comment:

Eli Lilly and Co. and ICOS took some heat last year when it aired a spot for its Cialis impotency drug that included a warning about
four-hour erections.

all i can say is, eli lilly is damn lucky they got cialis developed so quickly. can you imagine the scene 4 years from now?

scientist: our impotence drug works! here are the results from the studies.
marketing exec: mmhmm...mmhmm...wait a minute. this drug is useless.
scientist: what do you mean, it's useless? it works great! it's the viagra-killer we've been looking for.
marketing exec: your report lists "4-hour erections" as a potential side effect. the FDA requires us to list all side effect in our ads. but the FCC will fine us if we mention erections. this drug is unmarketable. you're fired.

now it's just getting ridiculous.

gwen stefani has ripped off "if i was a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof. how creatively bankrupt do you have to be to do that?

on the other hand, she could have ripped off something her audience would recognize.

slow saturday nights.

last night, we went out to dinner again with some friends to the washington house (beware, garish website). i've always had good experiences there; they have a fairly consitent and creative kitchen and a very nice wine list. they also run deals with the theatre next door which usually has folk or celtic-style music shows (also zydeco and so forth), so they're usually pretty busy.

however apparently there wasn't a show last night, because no sooner had i requested the wine list than the owner/sommelier came out and offered his services. at that time, we were unsure of what everyone was going to eat, so although we made noises in the red direction, some of us were still considering seafood. the gentleman went away, and came back with an open bottle of wine. he commented that it was a slow night, and he didn't like to see people without a glass of wine in their hand, and did we mind if he gave us some free wine? so he poured us all a flight.

it was a fairly interesting red from northern italy, light-bodied, not too dry, but neither did it have the fruitiness of an american wine. pleasant, and not too big. while we were considering that, noises were being made in the direction of steak, so he went away and returned with a second bottle, this one a california syrah. this was a much more oaky wine, more full-bodied and structured, and drier.

by this time, someone had decided on chicken, and so we went back to the first wine, and ordered a bottle of it. we let it open during the appetizers, and it probably would have overpowered the shrimp spring rolls anyway. but ooo, they were yum.

i had the "Bistro Stuffed Steak" for dinner, which went nicely with the wine, but surprised me by having unannounced caraway seeds in the, er, "stuffing." also, i suppose, when i read "applewood smoked bacon and onions," i expected them to be fried, which they were not. it appeared they had been more or less steamed as the steak cooked. it was definitely an interesting dish. the mashed potatoes were phenomenal. mmm...mashed potatoes.

dessert was a linzer torte with hazelnut crust and vanilla ice cream. and unfortunately weak coffee. but 2 flights of free wine, just because they're having a slow night, can make you overlook weak coffee.

restaurant week.

last week happened to be the first restaurant week of 2005. i'm not sure how they get planned, but there's usually about 2 a year. anyway, since our british friend was here, we thought we'd take him down to philly for a $30-for-3-courses night at one of the 82 center city restaurants participating.

he chose Lolita. another friend had been going into raptures over a review in the philadelphia inquirer of the restaurant in early december, so we thought we'd try it out. it sounded interesting, and because of the, er, creative liquor licensing laws in pa was a BYO instead. BYOT, to be specific, aka Bring Your Own Tequila. luckily, we had been given a bottle as a housewarming gift, so we brought our own tequila and sampled their blood orange margarita mix, which wasn't too bad.

we started with chips and salsa, red and green. these were "on the house" and didn't count as one of the three courses. for my appetizer, i had a very interesting smoked salmon with sour cream, jicama, and baby greens on mini tortillas. i thought it was very good, but then i like smoked salmon.

the main course was another story. i had had fish for my appetizer, so i ordered the enchiladas verdes, which were supposed to be filled with shiitake, rice, and beans. shrimp were included, but i figured i could always not eat them, and the enchiladas were really the only choice, because i didn't want fish again, i don't eat veal, and the concept of plantain curry disturbed me. in retrospect, i should have tried it anyway. the enchiladas were made verdes by the generous ladling of salsa verde over top. the problem was, that was all you tasted. tortilla? nope. cheese? nope? rice, beans, mushrooms? nope. nothing but spicy, spicy stewed tomatillos. and since the rice and tortillas were literally soaked in the salsa verde, there was no respite from the relentless spice-and-acid assault. needless to say, i didn't finish it. we ordered our second pitcher of margarita mix and got through that one too.

for dessert, i had coffee and what was supposedly a chocolate tres leches cake. that wasn't much to write home about either. not really much chocolate flavour at all. we were hoping that the cheesecake with the ancho-dusted-chocolate-crumb crust would be on the menu, but i guess they decided for whatever reason that that wasn't suitable for their restaurant week menu. not cost-effective, possibly. the bread pudding that most everyone else ordered was better. oh well.

and we still have 2/3 of a bottle of tequila. guess i better learn to make margaritas.

friends, stress, sleep, and dreams.

so we had a friend visiting from england all last week. he got back to the airport yesterday and is safe and sound in the UK with his new (undeclared) ipod mini and nearly $400 worth of books. the amazing thing is, of course, that he actually saved money buying all that stuff, because the dollar is so fucking weak right now. *sigh* no european vacation for me this year.

however, having a friend stay for a week-and-a-half does tend to mess up one's schedule somewhat. to say nothing of what it does to your diet. something must have put some amount of stress on me, because i had 2 nightmares last night. i regularily have nightmares when something stressful is happening. it's like my mind says, "hey! i'm all fucked up! so i'm going to get more fucked up!" finals at university used to do that to me. hmm. and yet, before i blame my own hospitality, i ought to take into consideration that i watched 2 terry gilliam movies in one week, which are always good for fucking with your head.

i don't remember one of them, but the other is riding my back today, freaking me out and raising my heartrate. probably because it's on a recurring theme. i love recurring nightmares. the type where, for instance, you go into the bathroom to make yourself look presentable, and you look away for something (toothbrush, whatever) and when you look back, there's someone else in the mirror with you. and then you spin around and there's no one there. but they're in the mirror behind you making faces and grinning with too-white teeth.

whee, shit. mmm...adrenaline, i love you.

current reading.

The Silmarillion

by JRR Tolkein
(and/or Christopher Tolkein)

so, about ten years later, i'm trying it again. i figure this time around, i've actually studied linguistics and philology so maybe it won't be so utterly boring.

and i've read the lord of the rings trilogy several more times because i'm such a geek and i read it every fall, starting on september 22nd and attempting to follow the dates through until he wakes up in rivendell on october 24th. so now i have a better idea of who beren and luthien are, and hurin and turin, and gil-galad, and celebrimbor, and earendil. so maybe i'll make it all the way through the book this time. but it's going to take me a while. oh lord, is it going to take me a while.