The Old Year

It's been a great crazy year. Jen and I got married in February. We ran a marathon in May. I found out that we are having a baby and found out that I'm losing my job on the same day in December.

Next year is going to be just as eventful. I can't wait. Happy New Year everyone.

Chicago Pizza

Chicago Pizza, originally uploaded by nervda.

Yesterday, we had lunch at Gino's in Chicago. It's one of those dark funky old places where the walls have been written on in Sharpie and the pizza's deep and filling. It's strange, we grew up in a city that my brother calls a suburb without the city. Everything's prefab and franchised. I never realized that Pizza Hut was copying something from somewhere. I just assumed the Pepsi corporation invented the red checked tablecloth, I suppose. Silly me. You can't get pizza like this in Boston.

Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

Our friend Joe took Jen and I to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday. Joe and Jen both grew up in the area, so they knew that place from a thousand field trips as children. With some of the exhibits, very little has changed. In the physics section, the displays were powered by twenty five year old TI 44/9As.

These things were so old that Joe and had forgotten how to hack in to the BASIC programs that were teaching us about the laws of conservation of mass and energy. I wonder if they were loading the programs from cassette tape.

The computer imaging exhibit has a glassed in server room, and Joe and I were noticing the age of the machines. Most of them were old 1994 era Macintoshes. It kind of makes me wish I had the money and time to build modernized exhibits. It was a nostalgia museum for us, but science museums should be for kids. It should inspire them to become scientists. It's sort of sad, really.

The Windy City

Jen and I are staying with her mom in Chicago for a couple of days. It's a great city. We've been thinking about moving to a cheaper city long term. Boston is so expensive. I can't imagine the amount of money that we'd need to make in order to raise a family in Boston. I love Boston, aside from the expense, it's nearly a perfect city.

Chicago is a much cheaper city and it's got a great vibe. Minneapolis is also on the list. I don't think we could handle living in a red state, and I want to stay in a city. I want our child to grow up in a diverse environment.

Anyhow, we're gonna do some sightseeing today. It's too cold even for New Englanders to see anything outside today, so it's gonna be a museum day, I think.

I always forget that my great grandfather actually lived in Chicago in the late 1800's. He was working on the railroad (yes, all the livelong day.) I'd like to see something about that part of history here at the museum.

Happy Christmas.

We're having a baby! Read all about it on our new blogs: Eating for Two and The First Born.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve yo. Sorry for getting a little fake street sound there. You get like that when you hang out long enough with the Jess. It doesn't really feel like Christmas to me yet, but then again, I have spent the last 28 Christmas Days in Florida. White Christmas? You mean beach sand, right?

Jen and I are having our first Christmas as a married couple here in Boston. We've put up the traditional Christmas rosemary bush, as you can see on the right. It's gonna take us all morning to open the presents. Then we're going to have some friends over for dinner and wassail and have figgy pudding, or whatever it is they do in those songs.

Despite being a lame duck at work, I'm actually working right now in case some nutjob decides that they need technical support at 3 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. They can terminate me, but they can never say that I didn't step up and take on the crap tasks.

For your holiday enjoyment, here are some links to seasonal tunes:

Tijuana Xmas
This is awesome peppy early 60's Mexican horns arrangments of Christmas tunes. You MUST check out "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

"Fairytale of New York" by Pilate
This is a cover of one of my favorite Pogues songs ever. "You're bum. You're a punk." "You're an old slut on junk." "Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it's our last."

But it turns around. "You took my dreams from me, when I first found you." "I took them with, babe. I kept them with my own. Can't make it all alone. I've built my dreams around you."

Glengarry Glen Nervda

In the movie Glengarry Glenross, Alec Baldwin is sent down from corporate headquarters to a local real estate office to motivate the salesman with a contest. First prize is a Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives, and "third prize is you're fired."

I just got third prize at work. (Actually, I'm still working until January 7th, and then they're giving me six additional weeks worth of pay.) It's been a crazy 5 year ride at the large unnamed software company where I work. We I started there were 35 people in the department. There are 6 left. I suspect that somewhere there's a corporate mandate to turn over the bottom 10% every year. (They teach you that at some whacked business school, right?) The first two years we were hammered by layoffs that turned over the bottom 75%. Then one guy was let go in 2002. We thought it was an anomaly. Then another guy got let go late 2003, but he was clearly becoming belligerent with customers. But it's the third one that makes a pattern clear.

When you cut and the department is fat, the weak members of the herd are easy to clear away. When you are so lean and keep cutting, you start to lose meat and bone.

But I don't have any hard feelings. If I had to pick one of the staff to cut, it would have been me too. The guys left on staff are passionate about their work. They're willing to crank out the overtime hours and study on their own. Me? I'm punching the clock. When 5PM rolls around, I'm finished. I have a life outside of work, thank you very much.

So it's time to start looking for new work. I think I'd like to get out of the software industry. It's hard to advance when everyone has the same skills. There are only so many middle management openings that they can create to promote people to. I'd like to work in a business as their web/database admin. I'd like to be on the dialing end of a tech support call for a change.

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire is one of my favorite films of all time. I love the poetry of it. The first half has no plot really, it's a mediation of the internal lives of the everyday people in 1980's Berlin. It's told from the point of view of angels, who can watch and hear everything. They are in this world, but not of it. They can't feel warm nor cold, pain nor joy. The second half starts when an angel decides he wants to know what it is to be human, to be in love.

What I find interesting is how much of what we as a society believe about angels is not from the Bible. Nowhere does it says that when we die that we will become angels. Those who have accepted Christ will be granted eternal life, but not as angels. I'm not Bible scholar. I'm not even practicing, but as I recall, the angels were a separate race from man, employed by God as messengers and soldiers. This link provides an interesting overview of what the Bible says about angels.

What I'd like to know is where DO we get these ideas about angels? Is it Highway to Heaven, or Touched By an Angel, and why don't superliteralist Bible groups take us to task on this?

International House of Flying Daggers

We saw The House of Flying Daggers last night. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful looking films ever made. Every single frame is art gallery quality photography. The action is over the top. Besides the amazing martial arts that you would expect from Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, director Zhang Yimou uses digital effects to show arrows in flight and the flying daggers in the title.

Where the movie breaks down a little bit, is the story. It's over the top in an operatic sort of way. There are double and triple crosses. Deceptions on top of deceptions. The love triangle that brings the film to its bloody climax seems hard to believe. The movie has spent its resources on the lush visuals, and not on the narrative that explains the dynamic of love. Why is Jin in love with Mei, besides the fact that she's hot and knows kung fu? I don't know. As far as I can tell that's why Leo loves her too. Even so, this film is much more coherent than Zhang Yimou's last film, Hero.

Halfway through the film, I realized that this was a movie adaptation of the Chinese martial arts novelettes that my father constantly read when I was a kid. I couldn't read a single word of them, but I remember the cover paintings. I kept wishing that just once, I'd flip open the book and it'd be a comic book that I could make sense of. There always seemed to be a man in flowing robes riding on a swift horse while brandishing a broadsword. Looking up on that screen last night, those covers had come to life.

It also occurred to me why all the old kung fu movie dialogue is composed of the fighters naming their moves. Before there were kung fu movies, there were kung fu novels. You had to have that play by play in the text. Finally when the movies were made, people could see these moves that they'd read about for all these years. That's why my father (who knows no kung fu) was able to name all of my moves when I performed some routines for him.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion!

The New Yorker Online has two pieces on Monty Python this week. They're making a Broadway musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, called "Spamalot"

Hank Azaria, who's in "Spamalot," put it well. He went to a prep school in New York somewhere. He said something to the effect that Monty Python sort of made it O.K. to be smart. They rewarded you, I guess, for having studied in history class. To be able to take that kind of material and completely make it ridiculous was something that nobody else did, or does, really.

That was definately me and my friends. We were in Math Club for God's sake. Our sponsor really sort of wished we were a cool club like the Exchangettes or something, so she had us build a float for the Homecoming Parade every year. We were playing the Orlando Evans Trojans. Dave Latz, John Sage and I somehow talked the others into building a Python inspired 8 foot tall Trojan Rabbit for our float.

It was completely bizarre. We built the rabbit out of stolen forklift palettes and cable spools. Actually, the palettes were borrowed. We returned them to the place we stole them from (a bit worse for wear, I'm sure). I really wish we had a picture of the thing. It was splendily absurd, and I've never talked about it before. Ah, the shame of being a geek. All hail Python!

If I were only driving through Hong Kong in a red convertible

I love the old John Woo movies from Hong Kong. My brother and I watch Hard Boiled damn near everytime we're home for Christmas. One of our favorite moments is singing the instrumental soundtrack for a scene where Tony the undercover cop working as a hit man is driving to a hit in his red convertible. This is the song we sing. It's not even really that good a song, but damn do we love it.

First lines pt. 2

So what if it's been three months since the first opening line. Here's another one:

Despite her best efforts, Virginia had fallen in love with her demons.

Happy Holidays, lardbuckets

This year, the large unnamed software company that I work for gave us all very lovely winter jackets by Marmot. They have the company name embroidered on the front and they cost a pretty penny. The cheapest price I found for this thing on the web is $249. Usually, I don't wear company freebies, as they're usually crappy t-shirts or what not, but these bad boys are nice.

Here's the thing, a good number of people went home empty handed. We had plenty of jackets, but not the right sizes. We'd run out of XXL. We're a rapidly growing country if you know what I mean, and we're not really doing anything about it. We pay it lip service, talk about going on Atkins or Weight Watchers, but the ones who follow through are few and far between. It's especially evident in this industry where we work long hours sitting on our butts in front of a computer screen.

All the new hobbies are sedentary ones. Gaming? Yup. Tivo? Yup. Knitting? Yup. I remember being a kid and watching wrestling with my grandmother and thinking that these men were giants at 200 lbs. Now, that's a reasonably normal sized guy. Scary. How much will the next generation weigh?

Keep this all in mind when it's time to make resolutions, ok?

Fear does not exist on this blog, does it?

The world never ceases to amaze me. They're making a musical from the Karate Kid. I strongly recommend that you download the song "Wax On/Wax Off". It's a prime slice of funk. You think I'm kidding? It's headed straight for my iPod, baby.

Spongebob

My wife's family has a long standing tradition of going to the movies over holidays. We're already trying to plan our Christmas weekend around Meet the Fokkers and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. But this weekend, our choices were much more limited. You can't pay me enough money to see Alexander, and Nic Cage has been letting me down for years now, so National Treasure was out. Who was there to save us? Let's just say he lives in a pineapple under the sea. Yellow and porous, is he.

Years from now, they'll have midnight double features of Pink Floyd: The Wall and the Spongebob Squarepants Movie. It's trippy, funny and completely absurd. It has the greatest David Hasselhoff performance of all time. Yes, that includes that episode of Knight Rider where he plays Michael's evil twin. Yes, that includes that appearance on Circus of the Stars on the trapeeze. It really is that good.

Plus the end credits feature new songs by Wilco and the Flaming Lips. Seven dollars well spent.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. It's the best holiday of the year, food and gratitude. What more can you ask for? There's no worrying about gifts, or Jessica and Nick TV variety specials. Life is good. Pass the stuffing.

I Will Follow

Bono and the lads were on Saturday Night Live this weekend, and they delivered. I'm struck by how U2 can still play "I Will Follow" and it doesn't sound like an oldie. This is the first track from their first album. 1980! I was 7 years old!

Aside. Edge, baby, we all know you have male pattern baldness. Nobody's seen you without at hat since 1984. Please, just buzz the thing and learn to love it. It's liberating. Seriously.

New Music: U2

There was a time when I would wait in a cold rain all night to buy the new Achtung Baby. There was a time when I aspired to have a mullet as cool as Bono's Live at Red Rocks model. Now, I'm listening to the new U2 record streaming on the internet. I'm on track 2 and it's sounding a bit like All That You Can't Leave Behind so far. That's a good thing.

So many of my old favorites are busted up (the Replacements, Husker Du) or pale shadows of themselves (R.E.M.) It's good to hear new U2 again. I feel like I'm 14, except I have a better haircut.

Please Do Not Go To Hell

Please Do Not Go To Hell, originally uploaded by nervda.

I knew I should have posted this before the election.

Boston Moon

Boston Moon
Originally uploaded by nervda.

Sometimes, the view out of your own window is more beautiful than you remember. I hadn't downloaded the pictures from my camera in a while. Mostly, it's been pictures of the Red Sox parade and the surrounding mania, but somewhere in the middle of that was this moment that I probably glimpsed while walking from the kitchen to the couch and was inspired to stick my head out the window and capture. I'm glad I did.

Training logs

So you wanna know how much I work out in order to look like an insane reject from the Shaolin Temple? Click here and find out. I'm an obsessive compulsive kind of guy. I love to keep track of all this stuff. I've run over 400 miles this year so far! I'm hoping to get over 500 for the year.

If you're training, I highly recommend using Cool Running to track your workouts. It's free and it's very useful.

Clinton's analysis

Say what you will about Bill Clinton, but I contend that he's probably the smartest man that the U.S. has had for a long time. I agree 100 percent with his assessment of the recent election and what the Democrats should and shouldn't do.

"If we let people believe that our party doesn't believe in faith and family, doesn't believe in work and freedom, that's our fault" he said.

Democrats "need a clear national message and they have to do this without one big advantage the Republicans have, which is they won't have a theological message that basically paints the other guy as evil"

Poetry 365: Untitled

We'd like your name for our files,
for our children to mouth slowly
with the same fear reserved for the bogeyman,
for the crowd to chant in rhythm
when you stand at the gallows,
for distraught grandmothers
to spit out like a rotten bite
of a red red apple.

Four more years. (Sigh.)

Kerry has conceded the election to Bush. Let the deconstruction of the Democratic strategy begin. I've got some ideas myself, but I need to work on them before I post. Let's just say the key word in my analysis is "South"

Stalemate?

We're watching the election returns here at Pussycat Assassins HQ. Nobody knows anything, but they'll all talk like they do. It feels like we're watching a sporting event and rooting for our team, but we don't know exactly how to keep score. My gut tells me that we won't know who won this election for a couple more days. And even then, we're probably in for legal proceedings and lots of rancor. Hold on tight, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Election Day

First, an aside to Tex: She's not gone. She's inside you now.

Now on with the post. I voted this morning steps from the stage where Kerry will make a speech tonight. Whether it is coronation stage, or a gallows, I do not know. Jen and I got there at 6:40AM. I was the twenty second person to vote in Boston's Precinct 9 Ward 5. By the time I left the polling place, there was a line around the block. I'd estimate at least 200 people by 7:15. I have a feeling that turnout is going to be very high this year.

My friend Joe thinks that high turnout will mean defeat for Bush, as all these people who are coming to the polls who didn't before are all there to register their displeasure. I'm very nervous, aren't you?

The above picture is actually of our precinct. If you could zoom out, the Mrs. and I would be on the far left. I remember the guy in the yellow coat with the video camera. Jen was complaining, as the photographer should not have been in the mezzanine area, she could zoom in and see who you voted for.

I'm Nervda, and I approve this message

Twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go. I wanna be sedated.

Tomorrow is Election Day here in the U.S. I can't say it strong enough. Please go out and vote if you are eligible to. There are very few responsibilties as a citizen and this is one that we should not shirk. We've all made up our minds by now, so I won't try to convince anyone of anything except that we all must cast our ballots.

Tomorrow will be a momentous day in the history of our country. We just won't be able to figure out what it means until years down the line.

2004 World Series Champions: Boston Red Sox!

No more chants of "1918". No more falling to the floor when I see the Buckner replay. No more people talking about some silly curse. The Red Sox have beaten the Cardinals for the World Series title.

Here's my proposal for the victory parade. Let's have a float with Johnny Pesky, Carleton Fisk, Yaz, Tony C., Spaceman Bill Lee, Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, Dom DiMaggio, the spirit of Ted Williams and Bill Buckner on it.

This was the craziest rollercoaster ride I've ever been on. I haven't slept normally in two weeks. Our street is erupting in car horns and yelling and screaming. The comeback against the Yankees was a once in a lifetime event. But then they came out and dominated a very good Cardinals team. The party in Boston might not end until sometime in January.

So now Boston has the reigning Super Bowl champion, and the World Series champion. Can we pull of the trifecta and have a John Kerry presidency? God, I hope so.

Battening down

So the Red Sox are threatening to win the series tonight. I'm barricading us into the apartment. I'm treating this like blizzard or hurricane preparedness. I've got bottled water, flashlights and batteries the shortwave radio. Boston will be going insane win or lose by the end of this week.

We're all stunned and have no idea how to behave or what to expect. We want them to win so this rollercoaster ride can be over. We're all exhausted. After all the years of learned helplessness though, we're all waiting for the giant shoe to drop and for them to break our hearts again. Personally, I think they'll win the whole thing. I hope tonight, but if not, then by Saturday and in horribly dramatic fashion.

Mosh

Sorry for turning this blog into Red Sox Central the past week or so, but it's been that kind of time around here. Believe it not, there's something much more important than the World Series looming. The elections are coming up and I wanted to mention a few links.

I'm never sure what to think about Eminem. He's clever, mysogynistic, and right now, angry as hell. Here's his take on the election. And it's pretty damn close to mine too. Show it to as many undecided people as you can.

It's one week away. It's time to stop talking and talking and talking and talking. It's time to exercise our rights as citizens and vote.

The World Series View from a Townie Bar

Last night, the Red Sox had one hell of crazy adventure in game one of the World Series. Jen and I were at the Abbey Lounge on the Somerville/Cambridge line to see our friends in Benny Sizzler.

The Abbey is a dark, tiny two room club. The bar is in one room and the stage is in the other. As far as I can tell, the rock room is in Somerville and the bar is in Cambridge. It's a townie bar that's in two towns. It's the kind of place where the only mixed drink that you should order is scotch and soda.

We got to the bar around the 4th inning and the Sox were up 7-2. We caught up with the Benny crew and by the time they hit the stage it was 7-7. The band kept asking for score updates between songs. Benny kept blasting through song after song. Those guys are merciless, I tell you.

After their set, we all crowd back into the bar side of the club, to watch the 7-7 tie in the 8th. We all see Manny's rollercoaster ride of a play to allow the Cards to tie it up 9-9. Chil, the singer/bassist in Benny literally collapses in front of the TV. His knees buckled. Some how the Sox get out of the inning with a tie.

In the bottom of the 8th, Mark Bellhorn hits a home run that clangs off of Pesky's Pole in right field, putting the Sox up 11-9. The bar goes wild, and then panics when Fox cuts to possibly the dorkiest fan in Red Sox Nation celebrating Bellhorn's heroics. It's a guy in a replica jersey doing the white guy dance. The guy behind me screams, "Dammit, now the whole country thinks we all dance like that f*cker!"

Sox win!

It's very late, and I would love to sleep, but I can't. The streets are exploding with car horns and happy screams. You see, the Red Sox have managed to win 4 straight games to beat the hated Yankees in the ALCS.

Jen and I are very happy for her baseball boyfriend, Johnny Damon, who snapped out of a horrific slump by hitting two home runs and driving in six runs.

I'm beginning to wonder if they'll still be outside screaming tomorrow morning when I leave for work. We live about a mile down the street from Fenway Park. This is much louder and wilder than either time the Patriots won the Super Bowl. I wonder if it will be like this if John Kerry wins in a few weeks. I'd like to think so.

I've been a Sox fan since birth. I'm happy, but there's still another series to win. At least I hope so. The audio clip below is a recording of some of the chaos.

Oh my God! That's Curt Schilling's music!

The Sox did it again. Tightrope game all the way. Hm. What did this one have in it? Curt Schilling with sutures in his ankle pitching on guts. (You can see the blood on his sock in the pic if you look closely.) A disputed home run. An bit of cheating from Alex Rodriguez. It felt like I was watching wrestling at that moment. You know, when the ref has his back turned and somebody gets hit by a chair, except in wrestling, nobody ever clears up the call and gets it right.

One more night. One more game. One more miracle? We shall see. Go Sox.

Red Sox stay alive and give the city heart attacks

What the hell did I just see? It looked like a 6 hour long, 14 inning baseball game where the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Holy crap, it was.

I had so much nervous energy that I started doing sets of pushups after the 11th. Needless to say, I'm pretty sore. I can't even imagine how sore and emotionally spent the players must be.

Huge props to David Ortiz, who is becoming an icon around Boston now. A Carlton Fisk for the 21st Century. Also, a clap on the back to Jen's baseball boyfriend, Johnny Damon, who had a very rough day with a wasted bunt attempt and a caught stealing, yet he turned it around by scoring the winning run.

The rollercoaster continues. They're back in NY tomorrow, with the duct taped Curt Schilling pitching for the Sox tomorrow. OK, I must sleep sometime. How about now?

Autumn in Boston

It must be autumn here, as the leaves are changing, my coats come out of storage and the Red Sox are breaking our hearts.

After falling behind 2-0 in the ALCS against the hated Yankees, the Red Sox returned to Fenway on Saturday night. Jen and I had a party with a bunch of friends to watch. It was our first time hosting as a married couple. Well, Jen did most of the hosting. She's the best.

As for the Sox pitching on Saturday, they were the worst. They managed to give up 19 runs and fall behind 3-0. Fortunately, nobody at the party was an angry drunk. Oh well, there goes the season, we said. I hope the Astros or Cards whoop them, we said.

Jen and I didn't watch much of the game on Sunday. I couldn't take the disappointment. I went to bed early, hoping for the best. And at 1:33 this morning, I heard it. The people on my street started screaming and yelling happily. We must have won in extra innings, I thought to myself. I dragged myself into the other room and found that it was true. I fell back asleep and hoped it wasn't a dream.

So the Sox live on to torture us another day. I hope they get to torture all the way until Halloween. Go Sox.

Poetry 365: Krypton Is Just Days Away

Superman lies in state
we shuffle through the rotunda
as quiet as he is.
Security arrives and
"Hail to the Chief"
I am close enough to hear him ask
to nobody in particular,
"Red, yellow and blue?
Are you sure he was a patriot?"

Photographic evidence

Here's a picture from Ted Tyler of jimrhoades.com of the half marathon. Note the new aerodynamic haircut. Joe says he's never seen the "C'mon, you wanna throw down?" look from anyone running a race before. I figure it's the head tilt and the Shaolin haircut. Actually, I think it's the "Put that camera down and get yo' ass out here" look.

Boston Half Marathon

Jen and I ran the Boston Half Marathon with our friends from New York: Irena and Priscilla. We had an awesome day for a race with temperatures in the 60's. We all set personal records. Jen and Priscilla ran together for most of the race until Jen's patented finishing kick appeared in the last 0.1 of a mile. Jen finished at 2:21:56 and Priscilla at 2:21:59.

Irena and I ran the first 9 miles together. She set the pace early but ran out of gas around mile 9 and gave me the green light to run at my pace. I ran an insane last four miles. My last 5K of the race was 24:54, which is my second fastest 5K ever, and somehow I ran it at the end of a half marathon! Irena finished with 2:09:52 and I crossed the line at 2:03:28.

I reached my personal goal of finishing in less than double the time of the winner. I almost reached the 2:00 mark, that was my secondary goal. The next half marathon will be in Houston with my old pal Willis D. After that, it'll be the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C. next fall. I can't wait.

A Call to Arms

So I want to start a new project that combines two of my passions: music and group blogs. The idea is to have people write stories about their life based around songs. I'm trying to figure out how to host the music so that readers like you can hear the song for yourself.

Stumbling around the web this morning I found www.radioblogclub.com, but I can't figure out exactly what the hell it does or how it does it. Anybody got a clue about this? It looks like it's in a "coming back soon" mode. (Much like my old group blog: Thunk. For anyone wondering, I don't think Thunk is coming back. I could change my mind, though.) Does anyone know any other good ways to point to music, I really don't feel like ripping and hosting the music on my own servers.

For those of you with a need for a music fix, without some boring story about me walking around on a brisk autumn day in the parking lot of the Best Buy that's built in an abandoned Sears with my iPod and random play, jumping three feet in the air when a creepy carousel song from this year's Mermaid Parade comes on and then being brought back to a happy happy earth when a lovely Bishop Allen song comes on, here's a lovely Bishop Allen song called "Things Are What You Make of Them". Go buy their records. They'd buy yours.

Poetry 365: Mixing the Sand

Turn the shovel over
until there is nothing left
but what we dreamt of as infants
and what we will become after old men.

5k

Tuning up for the Boston Half Marathon next week, Jen, Jess and I ran in the Somerville 5K yesterday. I pulled off a 24:47. That's my first offically measured 5K at an 8:00 minute mile pace. I'm very pleased. I ran into a few people I know during the run and was even able to chat a little bit. I noticed we stopped talking when we hit a hill though.

Next stop: half marathon.

Spaceship One pt. 2

Spaceship One took passed the first part of the X-Prize challenge today. Now they have to repeat the feat within two weeks.

The pilot, Mike Melvill, probably has fights crime at night under an alias or something. The ship did 40 barrel rolls during the burn phase! I'm guessing the intended leisure cruises on Spaceship One are probably a few years away, huh?

It's exciting to see real developments in space technology. NASA was one an amazing place, churning out new technologies at a fantastic pace. Now, they've been stuck with the Space Shuttle for over twenty years. It took less than 10 years to go from Mercury to the moon. I'm hoping the X-Prize gives them a real kick in the ass.

Another Day, Another Hurricane

Hurricane Jeanne blew through my hometown last weekend, knocking out the pussycatassassins.com server again. It's been a bad year for storms. Mom and Dad are ok. Lots of flooding, but no damage to the house. They lost a palm tree, but they were really lucky compared to others in town. I'm thanking our lucky stars again.

Equinox

I should start carrying my digital camera around with me again. I've been spotting some really weird things on the street in the last few days. Maybe it's the change in seasons. After all, today is the first day of autumn.

Yesterday, I saw some guys dressed as Star Wars characters in front of the Virgin Megastore, promoting the new DVD box set. It's disturbing to see Boba Fett and a Jawa on Newbury Street.

Today at the same corner, someone had locked up their Segway with a simple bike lock. It looked like it was a Kryptonite lock like the ones that can be picked with a Bic pen. Personally, I think Segway owners are spectacular fools. Why pay thousands of dollars for a such a silly thing. Save your money and buy 4 Vespas, dude.

Son, your single sucks...

OK, how many of you knew that Jackie Chan has a son? How many of you knew that he looks exactly like his dad? Certainly not me. It turns out that Jackie's son, Jaycee is riding some coattails to a movie and music career, and the guy wearing the coat doesn't much care for Junior's music. Wow, my dad never rags on my work via the media!

Damn Buick Ad

Our friend Rita was up for the weekend. Last night we were watching the end of the Emmys. (Hey, we all enjoy making catty comments about Botox suspects and bad fashion choices.) Approximately every 11.3 seconds, they showed an ad for the new Buick G6 with a cover of the Beatles' "Paperback Writer". I thought it was either Johnny Rotten singing, or a guy who sounded a hell of a lot like Johnny. Jen figured, "He's big enough of a sellout to do this." But alas, Rita wins the gold star, because it turns out that it's the B-52s and Fred Schneider covering it.

Poetry 365: Work of Body

Tearing down the day
into one thousand
shreads of night
is harder work
than you think.

First Lines

My buddy Will and I decided it might be fun to start writing first lines for short stories. I'll post my attempts on this site from time to time. So here's my first entry:

There might be something uglier than a turnpike Stuckey's in a 3AM storm, but I wouldn't know.

Poetry 365: Memoir

I was a lion painter
I was an equitable spy
I was the fire escape
I was the teenaged FBI

NFL Opening Night

I went to the opening game of the NFL season last night. I watched the Patriots hang on to beat the Colts.

Before the game, there was lots of crazy hoopla. Elton John was there! Beyonce was there! Lenny Kravitz jumped out of a huge inflatible replica of the Super Bowl trophy. Seriously. Very weird.

The game was hard fought and very close. I'm told it was one of the loudest crowds in New England history. I suppose I'm jaded. I went to 4 years worth of Florida Gators' home games. It wasn't nearly as loud as Florida Field. At no point did my ears shut down as a defense mechanism. At no point did I feel the sound of the crowd vibrating in my breastbone. But it was loud enough to confuse the Colts' offense.

Strangest moment of the night was riding home on the commuter rail.

-Hey, is that Michael Dukakis?

-Nah, it must be a celebrity impersonator.

-I'm guessing you might starve trying to make a living as a Dukakis impersonator, dude.

-Good point.

It turns out that it really was Dukakis. He's a big fan of public transportation and he puts his money where his mouth is. Good work, Duke.

Back from the storm

So, this site went down for a few days. The pussycatassassins.com server is in Florida, so all the outages were hurricane related. We're back to normal now.

My parents are ok, or so it seems. Power and electric are still out, and I have a few voice mails from my dad's cell phone. He has an uncanny ability to call when I'm not around. That, and an uncanny ability to not have his phone on either, but I'm guessing he doesn't have much juice in that phone at this point.

I wonder if they have any leftover ham?

Frances

The current forecast states that Hurricane Frances has slowed to 110MPH. Still very powerful and very large.

I spent about an hour on the phone with my parents last night trying to convince them to evacuate. They're planning to stay in an interior room with no windows. (According to my sister, their preparations include dragging a mattress into the bathroom, filling the bathtub with water and baking a ham. A ham?) I keep telling them that this won't matter when the roof goes. I was horribly frustrated. Mom kept saying that she was practical and they'd be ok. I haven't the slightest idea what the hell practicality will do against a tree flying over 100 miles per hour.

I kept asking why they couldn't go to a shelter. "I don't feel comfortable there." There you have it. Personally, I can't imagine you'd be more comfortable huddled in a bathroom closet for 4 days, but obviously I'm not convincing anyone of anything.

After all these years, I'm still metaphorically at the kids' table.

I wonder if it's an attachment for the house that keeps them there. They've lived there longer than any other place in the world. This is the house they raised their children in. This is the house that means nothing to me if they are not safe.

Is it faith that keeps them there. Faith in the sturdiness of the house? Faith in God? Faith in the crazy luck that seems to run in the family? (There needs to be a post about this, but this is not the time.) As for me, I have faith in my martial arts training: "The best way to avoid a hit is to not be there."

At this point, there is nothing to do but hope for the best.

Hurricane Watch

I am a native Floridian, and it looks like Hurricane Frances is headed directly for my hometown. I still haven't gotten hold of my parents to see what they're planning to do. There's really no place to evacuate to. I'm going to try to talk them into going to one of the local shelters. If anything happens to the house so be it. That's what insurance is for.

Poetry 365: The Coalition Against Demons

We're resolved to drive them out
of the throats of sparrows,
the desks of Mrs. Haupmann's third grade class,
the empty nighttime offices
and the rotundas full of echoes.

My Evil Twin

I've always known that I'm somebody's evil twin. My friend Adrienne has found him. His name is Jake Shimabukuro, and he's a ukulele virtuoso. Seriously.

I'm a fan of the term "evil twin". Adrienne likes "stunt double". I'm probably his stunt double, as a uke player probably doesn't do a lot of wu shu/kung fu. But then again, I'd watch a movie about a ukulele player who has to avenge his master in some exotic martial arts tournement. Wouldn't you?

Hell, looking at this picture I'm thinking I should buy that shirt.

Poetry 365: Set You So Free

They'll close the walls of Manhattan tonight,
build an iron gate across the Brooklyn Bridge.
The hell if you can.
The hell if you can.

They'll dig a moat around the Empire State,
fill it full of ammonia.
The hell if you can.
We won't take it.

I'm going to set you so free
that you might just fly.

The Olympics from Mars

There are people in this country who have opinions of foreign countries based entirely on what they've seen on the Olympics. Does the guy on the street know anything about Kenya except that they seem to really good a long distance running?

Imagine the crazy things you could learn about America from watching the Olympics if you were an anthropologist from Mars watching on tape delay:

There are two Americas (John Edwards is right!): White America where people swim, do gymnastics and play volleyball. And there's Black America where they run track and play basketball. Except that white guy who won the 400. I think he's an exchange student. There's rumored to be a Hispanic America and an Asian America, but they must be studying or working or something.

It is a traditional beach volleyball form of congratulation to touch your partner on her bikini clad butt.

Americans have awful fashion sense. The beret is still in style here. Tell me, doesn't the outfit look like it was designed by Donald Duck?

No running around the pool!

Jen and I were down in New York today for the Central Park Triathlon to support our friend Xine in her first tri. She did great, finishing a 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile bike and a 5 mile run in under 2 hours. As you can see, the finish line for the run is on the pool deck, blatantly disregarding rule #2 of Mom's pool ettiquette: No running on the pool deck. I think some of the athletes ate 30 minutes prior to swimming too. It's like the "Break all of mom's rules triathlon." I wonder if anyone was annoying their sister in the warmups...

Trampoline?!

Olympic trampoline? MF trampoline? This is the dumbest sport ever. I'll bet this is where they send gymnasts who couldn't cut it. Worst of all, somebody at NBC thought that we'd really dig this and put it on in prime time on a Friday night.

Sick Day

I'm running a fever of 101.3. This is my first sick day as a married man. Jen is so great. She ran down to the market and made my favorite sick day comfort meal: tomato soup and grilled cheese.

How big a geek am I? I blogged my last sick day over three years ago.

Poetry 365: The Panic Boys

Are huddled in the corner
hiding from something bigger
than invisible.
Bigger than the neon lights
and the humming
that sounds like it will break
the tubes into one hundred
thousand pieces.

The Power of Positive Thinking

I've been dreaming about kung fu training for the past 5 days. I've been daydreaming about making my jump kicks better, and suddenly they ARE better. How does that work? I had better height and a better landing than I've ever had. If I have a year's worth of training like tonight, I'm gonna be a happy camper.

Kung Fu Road Trip

We're back from the US National Chinese Martial Arts Championships in Pittsburgh. Our friends at the Boston Kung Fu Tai Chi Institute did very well:

Randy Brown:
Gold - Traditional Long Weapon: Spear
Gold - Traditional Bare Hand: Eagle Claw
Silver - Internal: Xing Yi Chuan
Bronze - Open Other Weapon: Monkey Staff

Will Preap:
Silver - Contemporary Straight Sword
4th Place - Open Barehand: Mantis

I'm very proud to train with these guys. Will's an enthusiastic guy and I think he's talked me into trying to compete in this tournament next year. It will be a lot of work, but I know how it works for me. I'll train so much harder with a goal in front of me. After training for a marathon, nothing seems particularly daunting anymore.

After seeing so many great competitors, I'm ready to train like a madman. The group of us were practically doing jump kicks in the parking lot outside the venue.

Lots of pictures and video to come when I get some time blocked off to transfer all the files.

Driving all night

We arrived in Pittsburgh at 7AM today, after leaving Boston at 8PM last night. I got to drive the 10:30 to 2:30 shift mostly through towns I never heard of in New Jersey. It was raining very hard in spots, but we're here safe and sound.

I pulled over at a Stuckey's somewhere in Pennsylvania to switch drivers. As a child travelling with my family, I'd always beg and plead for someone to buy me a pecan log at the Stuckey's. They still have pecan logs there: likely the exact same ones from 1978. Will pointed out to me that they looked like antique food. Antique, probably; food, hardly. It felt like we had travelled through time back to 1988 anyhow, as they still sold Steve Guttenberg movies on VHS there.

Anyhow, it's about time to wake up and get some lunch and get Will registered for tomorrow's competition.

Wu Shu Nationals Countdown

This weekend, Jen and I are headed to Pittsburgh with some friends from the kung fu school to see the US National Chinese Martial Arts Championships. Two of our friends from the school are competing. I'd drive that far to see my favorite baseball team or football team in a big game, so why shouldn't I go see two guys I train with go for the gold?

As much as I love the Olympic sports, I can't bring myself to watch them on tv. The human interest stories are just too annoying for me. Just show me the sport will you? So instead of hearing about how so and so's mom drove her 45 minutes every morning a 5AM to train in a pool in a distant town before school, I'll be cheering on my friends, live. (And trying to steal a few moves for myself...)

Why am I talking like I'm talking to an answering machine?

Audioblogger is a handy tool that allows me to post audio to this blog from any phone. This will be useful for hearing poems instead of just reading them. And it'll allow me post when I'm away from the Internet entirely.

As much as I love the sound of my own voice, I hate the sound of it on a recording, so I suspect you'll only see this feature used sporadically.

The Patron Saint of Nervda

I missed the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pablo Neruda last month. Pablo is one of my primary inspirations as a writer. I can remember reading his work in a Spanish III class when I was 17 and being amazed by the power of his words even as I was reading them in a language I had no real mastery of.

This blog is sort of named after him. Years ago, back in the stone ages of the Internet, I went to sign up for an account on the University of Florida's VAX system. I couldn't get my first initial and last name as my user name, so I submitted "neruda" instead. But this being the stone ages, I had to submit my request on a slip of paper and my crappy handwriting was interpreted as "nervda" and I have been Nervda ever since.

Poetry 365: Gesture Sketch

Send me more drawings,
and I'll write you a sonnet,
or maybe a pantoum
if that's what you wanted.

Poetry 365: Untitled

Dead of night,
in an old Volvo 850
the color of a twenty
that's been through the wash

and between talk radio stations
from Toledo and Scranton
we find an old Kinks tune
that I've forgotten the title of

but the guitars
sound like they're picked with razor blades
and the notes sting
me awake long enough

to see that we are still six hours
from our warm bed.

Glens Falls Arcade

Channel Surfing

Jen and I are feeling a bit like lazy slugs tonight. We were gonna watch some DVDs, but I don't really have the attention span right now to watch anything long term, so we've been flipping through cable instead.

We just came across Miss Teen USA. It's really Miss Underage America, isn't it? The swimsuit competition is on now, the girls are in bikinis at the waterpark, splashing, frolicking, and otherwise creeping me out. How do the networks sell ads for this thing? "Guys LOVE jail bait girls! It's that perfect male demo that you've been shooting for Chas! Underage cleavage sells deodorant like HOTCAKES!"

They're talking to the the judges now. How can you be a judge on this show and not come off as a dirty old man? Oh, I see how they solve that problem, they've assigned a flaming stereotype gay man as a judge. The shirt is shiny like a new dime, and the lisp is FABULOUS!

Poetry 365: Lullaby

Two hours and twenty six minutes
of sleep.
Waking: it comes on
like a disease.

The floorboards are dreaming,
softly breathing and sighing.
Dim lamplight shadows
pollute the white/blue bedclothes.

Count. Count. Count. Sheep. Sheep. Sheep.
Leaping over split rail fences.
Count. Count. Count.
I must conduct this census.

Count. Count. Count.
Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

Mystery of Life

One of the things I learned from watching my dad around the house when I was a kid, is that if something is broken, simply disassemble it, look around the inside of the thing the close it all back up and it will miraclously work again. I've seen him do this will radios, lawn mowers, carberators... Yet when I try to do this, it's just as broken as it was when I started. Is there some sort of special "Dad School" where you learn this stuff? It's not just my dad, right?

Poetry 365: Questions

Who chants your name on the Casbah?
Who carries you home and bites your shoulder,
and somehow forgets which street to turn down?
Who sings just the chorus of "Desperado"?
Who stole your kitchen table
and put it out on the street
among the trash day treasures?
Is it Hortense Howell?
Mr. Mustafa?
Tony Pentangeli?
Vaclav Havel?
That girl in your first grade class
who pushed you down and laughed
until you threatened
to have your big brother beat her up
after school let out?

Will Ferrell as GWB

OK, so Anchorman wasn't as a great as I'd expected. There, I said it. But Ferrell is still the man. Check out this faux campaign ad as GWB. I wonder if they'll get in trouble for saying "I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message. In fact, I think it is awesome!" I'll bet Ashcroft is looking up the owners of whitehousewest.com as we speak, looking for a way to bring legal action.

Trade Deadline

On Saturday night, my favorite baseball team the Boston Red Sox, traded Nomar Garciaparra to the Chicago Cubs. I didn't realized this happened until I was sitting at dinner with Jen and caught a glimpse of some very unfamiliar faces playing for the Sox on the muted TV's above the bar.

Walking home after dinner, I saw some Garciaparra jerseys in shop windows and noted that they'd be going on clearance very soon. Note to all sports fans, don't buy replica jerseys of your favorite players while they're still active. You could be made to look like an idiot at the trading deadline. Stick to retired players, they can't change teams on you anymore.

Poetry 365: When You Were Born

How were you to know
that some Sunday morning,
you'd be sitting across from me
in a shiny red vinyl booth
in a hipster dinner, laughing
so hard that you'd have to lay your head
down on the table, dangerously
close to some spilled maple syrup,
and that this would be love?

New Music: September Twilight

Woo hoo, we got our city back from the convention! No more security fences! No more closed T stations. Wheee!

We celebrated last night by going out to see our friend Neil's band
September Twilight play at the Middle East. They are a tight musical unit and they look like having a great time up there. You can download one of their MP3s here.

I'm definately smarter than than I used to be, I wore earplugs. No more tinitus, no more hearing damage. I felt so unhip with these bright blue earplugs in with all the kids rocking out around me, but hey I will be able to speak at normal volume today.

J-Pop

Last Friday, I went to pick up my brother at the airport wearing the ridiculous wig you see here. I haven't seen him since Christmas time, so it's completely plausible that I could have reverted to my natural mullet state since then.

Finally, in the car driving out of the airport, I remove the wig. Little Brother finally remarks, "I was wondering about the J-Pop hairstyle there. I was going to say something along the lines of 'Don't you ever wash your hair?', but figured I'd be polite.

I sort of like the wig. I may start wearing it in public more. But probably not the airport. Security guys don't find silly wigs very funny for some reason.

Out to Dinner

The whole Lee/Kwong clan was in town last weekend. Here's some of us out to dinner last Friday. That's my Mom and Dad in the back row. Across the front, that's my brother, his wife, me and Jen.

I noticed a couple of things looking at this picture. 1) My brother and and I look more and more alike as we get older. 2) All the kids love the hip glasses. Dad in comparision hates to be photographed with his on. You can see that he's holding them. 3) Damn, I have a farmer's tan! Look at how white my chest is!

Movie: Ong Bak

Being part of a kung fu school, I find out about crazy martial arts movies before most of the Western world. The movie of the moment is Ong Bak, or Mach, depending where in the world you live. You can see the trailer for the Japanese release here.

Here's the deal, it's a Thai film about a monk trainee who must recover a stolen Buddha head in order to keep his village safe. He chases the thieves to Bangkok and has to participate in illegal fight clubs, run through the streets like Mario in Super Mario World (he leaps over moving cars and at one point slides under a Range Rover in a full split). No wires, no CGI, no way! Run to your local Chinatown and get it now.

Wandering through the DNC

I'm back from the grocery store. I tried to talk to some delegates at the convention, but they're not having any of it. The streets are filled with people trying to get the delegates attention, falun gong activists, anti-abortion protestors and volunteer Scientologist ministers. The delegates treat anyone approaching them to talk like leper Amway salesmen.

Hm. We'll try again later.

Security at the DNC

So what's it like in a convention city post 9/11? Helicopters and sirens and security fences. It's not a good day for the paranoid of Boston. I suppose they won't take anything lightly and will respond seriously to any percieved threat. I would take pictures for you to see, but I have a feeling that the security teams get a bit itchy when they get their photo taken. I'm off to get groceries, if that haven't roped off the block where our supermarket is. Hopefully, I'll talk with some delegates and get some stories.

Family Invasion

The whole gang is in town for my cousin Henry's wedding. We thought about buying a domain name for him: www.ourlittlehenrysgettingmarried.com, but we thought better of it. Henry's the youngest of the Kwong cousins and we consider him the baby despite the fact that he's 6"1' 250 lbs.

Mom and Dad got here last night, my brother Willy and his wife Kacia arrived today around 11 and my Uncle George around 5. We've basically been running a non stop shuttle service between our apartment, the airport and Chinatown.

On top of all of this the Democratic National Convention starts on Monday and all sorts of road closures and security checks are beginning today as well. Sheesh. I think we'll get our town back by next Friday. We'll meet you at the bar.

New Music: Bishop Allen

I found the lovely song "Little Black Ache" on the web a few weeks ago and I've added it to my regular playlist for riding back and forth to work. The band, Bishop Allen, is based in Brooklyn, but originally from the fine city of Cambridge, MA. I love Boston, but sometimes I find that I have Cambridge envy. It's less corporate and has the Middle East and the hipness that is Central Sq. Then again, I live less than 400 smoots from Cambridge.
 
My favorite part of the song are the dry Kim Dealesque background vocals on the chorus.  Anything that evokes the Pixies is a good thing. I think I need to pick up this band's CD. That's why record labels shouldn't fight the proliferation of MP3 files: hearing a cool song by a band makes you want to buy music. Now, in a perfect world, I'd send my money directly to the good people of Bishop Allen and they'd send me some songs and take that money and make more cool songs. Ah, the dream!

Back in Boston

After a few days in the woods of New Hampshire, we're back in Boston. Hopefully, we'll have some pictures posted tonight.

I had a strange dream last night. I invented the sandy turkwich. It was a layer of stuffing between a couple of slices of deli turkey and you ate it like a sandwich. I have no idea how you were supposed to keep your hands clean.

Gone Fishin', sort of

I could go fishing, but I'd rather learn some kung fu. We'll be away until Monday, so keep yourselves entertained while we're away.

Movie: Spiderman 2

This is the rare summer action movie where the story is better than the special effects. Spiderman swinging through the streets looks like something out of an xBox game. And since when is there an elevated train in downtown Manhattan? As a plus, Doc Ock's special effects looked great. Alfred Molina with this shirt off, not so great. I believe he'll only do topless scenes if they're not gratuitous.

Short week ahead

Only two days at work this week. Yay! Then it's time for one of my favorite getaways: kung fu camp in the mountains of New Hampshire. It's not as hardcore as it sounds. We're not off sleeping on dirt floors at the top of a mountain breaking boards or anything like that. We're actually at a ski resort during the off season and working out about 4 hours a day, with hikes and swimming during the in between. It never looks like that in the movies, does it?

Movie dilemma

Man, I love superhero movies. So which one should I go see this weekend? Spiderman 2 or Anchorman. I liked the first Spiderman and I've read a lot of his comics. Who is this Anchorman? Does he do what an anchor can? What? He's not a superhero at all? Oh, my bad.

Poetry 365: Drum Machine Solo

sixteen bars
of bossa nova
blue sky

Technology leaving culture behind

I'm still listening to the new Wilco album on the way to work. Today, I was getting fruit for my breakfast when the song "Hummingbirds" came on. It occured to me how much Jeff Tweedy's delivery sounds like Paul Westerberg around the time of "Answering Machine". Then Tweedy pops off with this line, "I'm assuming you got my message/On your machine"

Ah, love in the time of the answering machine. It's a bygone era and we hardly noticed. Everyone has voice mail now, right? Are there kids growing up wondering what Westerberg is talking about when he says, "How do you say I miss you, to an answering machine?" The song may as well be called "Mimeograph"

"Singles" was on TV last night and I saw a corded phone with the curly handset wire and all. This movie was made in 1992. How can it seem out dated technologically? I guess we're moving forward pretty damn quickly.

How many zany movie scene would be lost if the two parties searching frantically for each other could just pick up the cell phone. Do kids even know what's going on in a movie when a phone actually rings with a bell, instead of with some electronic tones?

Man, I sound crotchety early in the morning.