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July 15 Chilly, chilly watersI bought a wetsuit at Sports Basement today, so I can go swimming at Aquatic Park. What the hell am I thinking? Aren't I having my masochistic midlife crisis a bit early? July 09 Quick UpdatesMy my, this blog is just dying on the vine, isn't it? Here's a quick update: - I got a new job at EA. Can't say what it is yet, just that it's good. - I got a new second job on Saturday nights at Vintage Wine Merchants in San Jose's Santana Row. It's for fun, and I make peanuts. But I'm tasting wines for free and getting a pretty cool second education in vino and human nature. It's interesting. - I'm going to take the GMAT in late October. For reals. - Jinny and I got back from Costa Rica a couple weeks ago. Highly, HIGHLY recommended. It's a beautiful place, with lots to see and do. Hopefully I get back before rampant tourism overtakes the poor Ticos and makes them jaded assholes. They're really nice right now; I'd like them to stay that way. - I'm 27! April 30 Chinese "shortcuts"I saw it in games development, and now we're seeing it in pet food. What's next?
Two quick thoughts:
- Melamine kind of rhymes with Soylent Green
- "No law or regulation says ‘don’t do it,’ so everyone’s doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren’t they? If there’s no accident, there won’t be any regulation."
So a little bit of cheating won't hurt pets, right? What about when the Chinese start mass-producing cars, or exporting planes? The margin for error is lower, but is it really lower to the Chinese? The shortcoming of their shortcuts get magnified by virtue of the sheer inertia of their society.
April 24 EndWarI hope Michael and co. can pull this off, though I bet they'll have to import talent like they did for SCDA. Plus, I'll believe a March ship date when I see it on the shelf.
Make it fun and accessible! April 19 Don't careYesterday I did it to myself. We were in a large all-hands meeting at work, and the big bosses were presenting. There was the head of my division - the commander of several hundred people - and another responsible for another division - the commander of several thousand. They were lining up the plans for the coming year. Exciting times are ahead. Blabityblahblahblah. I seized upon something in the second presentation; it was fascinating to me, but in retrospect, of marginal interest to the other four hundred people in the audience. I genuinely wanted to know more, so I asked my question in the Q&A. He gave a great answer, and was respectful about it. But afterward I felt strange - guilty for my inquisitiveness. I think it's because my question wasn't rote - it was random and politically unmotivated, unlike the rest that came first, or followed. I have a feeling that it pays off, politically, to ask the "right" questions sometimes, and save your curiosity for when you have access. The difference in this particular case is, I will probably never have access to that particular guy again. So I took the (un?)calculated risk and barreled ahead anyway. My thinking tells me that to play it safe is forgettable, though politically-motivated action is necessary to thrive on a long-term basis here. I don't know where I'll be in a few years, though. So perhaps that's why the cautious part of me is a bit stunted. April 02 YelpingI just joined Yelp.com. It's fun because I get to bag on places that I hate, and catch criticism for places that I love. Find me here! March 22 Best kept to oneselfLast week I took my sister out to a Bloc Party concert. I had been anticipating the show for weeks, since I hadn't been to a concert in a long time. A decent one anyway. The last concert I had seen was the Black Eyed Peas in Shanghai Stadium - a concert so pathetic that the Mexican rapper in the group mocked the subdued crowd by feigning a deep sleep while Fergie and the Filipino guy tried their darndest not to look embarrassed. Tammy and I got to the concert late enough to miss the lame opening bands, but early enough to wedge ourselves in behind the tallest beanpole bastard in the whole, gigantic warehouse-sized space. We couldn't see a thing of the stage. So we talked and we checked out our fellow concertgoers - essentially the biggest nerd parade our proud Bay Area could field on a Saturday night. There were goths. And geeks. And tiny, acne-riddled junior high schoolers standing on their tiptoes, craning to see past grown versions of them - eyes bulging past their unchecked, wild bangs. The fools in front of us kept bouncing around to the piped-in music; they stepped on my feet but didn't say sorry - they were too busy furtively choking down lungfuls of weed in a venue where the least bit of smoke is verboten. I felt sorry for them. Then they banged my toe again, and I got annoyed. And all around us, the most abhorrent nerdly archetypes: guy nerds and girl nerds, cheek to jowl, gazing deeply in each others' eyes, PDA-ing like their beloved Palm Treos. It seemed that these once-drifting souls needed to cling desperately to each others' moors as though the sea would swallow them up if they let go even for a nanosecond. Their tight embraces were punctuated by mutually stabbing tongues and wistful, tear-filled dialogues of mutual love. I wanted to throw up, throttle them, and tell them to quit it already! Your nerd love is gross, goddammit! Then I recalled that I was a romantic like that once. I grew out of it, didn't I? What was in the subsequent years of drink and play that made me forget what it was like to desire someone so much that if we weren't one all the time, it would feel worse than falling on a sword? The show was OK. Nothing great. Once Tammy mentioned it, the songs somehow did all sound the same. March 14 GamesJust downloaded through Xbox Live a hit of nostalgia in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the arcade game from 1989. Man. That game is NOT good. I fondly remember plunking quarter after miserable quarter into the game's monstrous cabinet at Tilt, the now-defunct arcade from my youth. Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Raphael, you guys are stuck in the 80's.
Today, after messing with the shitty controls, and shoddy framerate and collision detection, I decided that we have come a long, long way since then.
Better, but still a bit lacking, is Crackdown. I finished the game in about 15 hours. Parts of it are way addicting, but it doesn't feel like a complete package. But every time I get a new agility orb, I can almost feel the endorphins shooting up. Digital bits of green crack! March 01 Like SETI, but maybe notI wonder what kind of algorithm the folks at Microsoft are using to calculate out how much they're going to have to donate from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund this: http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/
Picked out global warming as my initiative to support... Would hate to see San Francisco under water. Tuvalu too. I mean, where are they going to film Survivor if there aren't any desolate tropical islands anymore? If this "i'm" thing works, it'll be quite an innovative little charity campaign. February 14 The Ballsiest Marketing I Saw This WeekYeah, I know I'm behind the curve, if you saw this already. If you haven't, well, you can thank me. LATER.
8===D  February 06 Colossi of SearchI had lunch at Google today, as a guest. Just want to say that those cats, they live LARGE.
It was, in retrospect, a pig out session - salmon, pork, chicken, seaweed salad, kimchi, buckwheat noodles, oyster soup, a couple of buns, and a cheese course. They have potato chips and all the fancy bottled iced teas that you could ever dream of. Stacks of Clif bars, and a wreath of candy for each of these young captains of online advertising & search. The best part? It was all grab & go. It was all FREE(!)(!).
My famous "Fruit Frenzy" Chinese friends would have gone slack-jawed and ape shit. Then the rush would commence and, my friends, they would FEED.
In the course of the conversation (in between large bites), I got the feeling that Google is really growing quickly. Whether they are growing just to grow large is anyone's guess, but the stories I was hearing make me think that Google is getting less than the optimum amount of work from the more recent incremental hires. I'm not going to get into the fleshy specifics, but I will say talk of the company-wide 2-day ski trip was a central theme.
I wonder about Google's vaunted hiring policies & processes; I'm sure that they do indeed get some pretty great talent. I just wonder if that talent does more than 1 amazing thing a day, given all the distracting amenities and lax workday policies. Then I wonder how I would ever approach the company for a permanent invite into their coccoon of luxury benefits. February 01 Rules & TruismsRule #65: Never buy citrus in Chinatown.
Truism #23: There is always someone on the shitter when you walk into the men's room at EA.
***
Updated on Friday at 11:15 a.m.
I have gone to the bathroom 5 times since I wrote the above, and lo and behold, a shitter every time. January 31 PastafaceAfter I had finished college, I started working at Ubisoft in the South of Market district in San Francisco. After a month of weary Caltrain commuting, I was fed up with living at home and gradually grated at my mom's haranguing.
I was headed to the city, no matter what.
My first place wasn't my place at all, but a room that I sublet from a coworker and her writer roommate for a couple of months. The writer was off on vacation somewhere, and my coworker was busy most nights screwing another coworker and hiding the relationship. Most nights, I had the place to myself, except for the womens' cats who were separated by virtue of their hatred for each other.
When I moved in, it was at the tail end of San Francisco's famous Indian Summer. The warm, buttery days gave way to fog and drizzle. As I stepped out of the N-Judah muni train every evening, I stepped in huge puddles and felt grateful to be finally making it on my own. But I was still hungry.
I wasn't making much money, true to Ubisoft's reputation for keeping operations lean. My salary didn't allow me to eat out, though I did try the local Burgermeister in Cole Valley a couple of times. Most nights, I stopped by the Cala supermarket next to the apartment at Stanyan and Haight, with all of its overpriced groceries in full mockery of my meager wages.
I bought pasta. Lots of it. There wasn't enough money to get much else, and it was quick and easy to cook. I bought cheap wine too, and I had this combo nearly every night; this was the period perhaps just before the Atkins and South Beach diets had swept the country and taught us that simple carbohydrates were stealthy ninjas who would cut us down by fattening us up. Stealthily, slowly. Or in my case, not so slowly.
My body took on a softness that it didn't have before, and I swept up to 200 pounds. My already fleshy cheeks swelled, and I felt more fatigued than normal. I frequently came home late and went to bed right after eating, which accelerated the process even further. When I visited, my parents, always brutal, piped up. "You're getting fat," they told me. "What are you eating??"
I told them that I didn't want their money, that I could handle buying groceries on my own. Healthy, nourishing fare. They told me I was full of shit, and they called me "Pastaface" on account of my pie-shaped features. I swore I'd cut down, and I moved swiftly - Out of that flea-infested apartment and into a healthier spot from where I could walk to work. It was a good groove; I settled down into a regular, consistent 190.
When I went to China, long story short, I started eating Chinese food, got the runs, and I promptly lost another 10 pounds.
Now that I'm back, I'm having a hard time keeping the weight down. EA has this awesome cafeteria, with rich sauces made with cheese, and subsidized bacon. There's always the temptation of the candy plate sitting right outside my cube, and there's always another birthday to be celebrated with moist cake that is mostly thick frosting.
Damn you America. Damn you and your carnivorous ways. I swear I will elude you and ride my way to a slimmer ass.
January 24 Can't Sleep is backI woke up at 2:30 this morning, and it wasn't due to construction or firecrackers, horns or the roar of millions. It was quiet in my apartment, and I could see my breath as proof of the cold.
The highway was empty on the way to work, as well it should be at this morning hour. I like the half hour drive. Didn't touch the brakes once.
I wonder if anything's bothering me, but I can't think of anything.
January 22 PRON quote of the day“I’m having my breasts redone because of HD.” - Jessie Jane, pornstar.
I want an HDTV so bad. But not because of that.  December 30 Closing timeMan, with James Brown, President Ford, and now Saddam, there's a whole lot of high-profile dyin' this end of the year.
Off to Nevada for some wintry New Year's festivities with the Ratcliffs. Peace in 07. December 27 Ambitious ChristmasGetting up every day is taxing. Man, I don't know why people do it. Sure, I get that we can't be seen as lazy - that we have jobs and lives and people that we want to go have brunch with (maybe that's lazy) and errands to run - my sweaters are pilling and need to be picked.
But. . . <sigh>
It's so easy to fall back into the sheets. Warm and soft, and still smelling like messy hair and my pillow slathered in sour spittle. Tossing and dreaming of nude, playful women, strange universes, and the inner meaning of comic inking technique.
7 a.m. rapidly dominoes to noon, and then it's time for breakfast, which is liberating. I have to point out that it's great because it opens up so many avenues of culinary possibility. Breakfast at noon that is. It's really refreshing to not be forced into meal options. After all, nobody can fault you for eating an omlette at noon, even oatmeal. But then again, they can't really fault you if you prefer a prime rib with a side of miso soup and guacamole. A glass of spicy Zinfandel, why not? 12 is lunchtime. So what if it's the first meal of your day? You'll be the only one that knows...
I awake to reality, and the realization that no, you just can't do that. You start telegraphing that, and people start thinking you're wierd. But I don't think they really think you're strange; it's just that they're jealous of the sumptuous life of the bedridden. Their resentment is gnawingly directed inward, even as their rough insults pass unheard through sleepy ears better attuned to the melodies of dryads living in crevices of the unconscious.
In the jetmiles, home decorating ideas, and emails of our lives, I know that more and more have become hostile to lack of constant stimulation. Somehow, falling behind started to mean falling asleep.
More cable! More internet! The death of print! The fear of ennui has wired us, pun intended, and conditioned us to boast about how much we work, and how effective we are at keeping rest at bay. The fuel of our dreams burns brightly away, and bleeds off at a rate faster than page refreshes. Faster than keystrokes. Faster than the next film cut. If this chain reaction stopped, I think a lot of people wouldn't know what to do. They'd think themselves all the more vulnerable and weaker than the next guy, because in some peoples' minds, nobody else ever stops.
This feeling has accelerated in me during the last few years, even though I stayed in bed and slowed my life down in the last couple of days. I find it completely ironic that I type this and watch youtube at the same time. I'm thinking about folding my laundry and washing my car. About my rent check and my 401k. Maybe how I'll cope with the first week of work in this year that's coming so fast and ever faster. When my life is brimming over with things competing for my limited attention - the world conspiring to deliver me product at every cycle in my day, I feel less like me. Less special, less caring. More artificial, more numb.
Sleep is a tonic, and I like to think I think better when I have it. I hated it when I was in China and couldn't sleep like I needed to. Now that I have it back for real, I don't want to give it up. December 18 The first ride in a long long timeI slipped two weeks ago. My apartment is on a pretty steep incline, and being so close to the water, the coastal fog makes the road slick in the mornings. My bike is fine for the most part - just a couple of scratches. I healed up pretty good too - the road rash is now just pink and the scabs have fallen away.
Today I got up early and tried to ride to work again for the first time since the fall. In the early morning light, I could see my breath puffing out because of the frigid air.
As I passed the ferry building on the Embarcadero, the sun burst out from behind the Bay Bridge and a new set of statues. They are rust colored latticework forming a mother and child. I hadn't noticed it before, because it's not lit up at night. I thought it a little poetic, and very charming, so I took a photo.
And I haven't fallen again, so that's good.
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