She’s three miles of bad road

Christmas was good. Also, life is getting complicated. (Maybe "Life's like this, Uh huh, uh huh, that's the way it is" would have been a better title for this entry? Maybe not.)

Oh hey, I forgot to mention that we saw a coyote (or two?) in Yosemite, up real close. It was just standing there right by the road, and it trotted around and posed for our pictures, and then we wisely rolled up the windows when it came within a yard or two of the van.

I notice that I've been ordering a lot more raspberry-flavored things lately. I don't think I enjoy them any more than I used to, but still, when I see something, I think "ooh raspberry" and then eat it and thereby derive about the same number of raspberry hedons as ever.
I guess what I am getting at is that I'm worried that I may be developing a raspberry addiction.

Okay. Here is a big thing for me. It was kind of a life's goal of mine to never link to ytmnd, but I just can't stop laughing at this. (Oh and among many other very nice things, I got "We <3 Katamari" for Christmas.)

New car caviar four star

Yosemite was nice. We got cabins on account of the weather (it was raining when we got in; not cold enough for snow at our elevation). We stayed mostly in the valley, but took in a bunch of the sights and generally had a lot of fun and ate and hiked ourselves silly. The waterfalls are no less lovely in the winter, and everything looks cooler and more picturesque with a nice little bit of snow on it. You may think I'm exaggerating, but it's true. Everything looks cooler. Go on, find me a counterexample. I dare you.

So, this afternoon I was introduced to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. If you have never been, go. It is this weird sort of dimly lit, labyrinthine museum of quasihistorical curiosities accompanied by eerie music and gratuitous german voiceovers. There are all sorts of things that are cool to look at, like collections of microscopic butterfly scale mosaics, ruined celluloid dice, and 3-D floral radiographs. There are quaint and apocryphal scientific ideas, like a "Model of Obliscence" and the story of a bat that can fly through matter using x-rays. And then there are dioramas of trailer parks, which uh
yeah I don't know what that was about

Afterwards I finally finished my shopping. I have a confession to make: I kind of enjoy last-minute holiday shopping. The stress I can do without, but I love that thrill of efficient accomplishment that one gets from hunting down one gift after another. Also people tend to be unexpectedly nice, and when I'm worn out, I can treat myself to a gelato and some tea or a little window shopping. Basically I am just a huge consumer tool, is the thing.

You look happy to meet me

The Sound of Music is on. Damn that's a good movie. I mean, usually when I think of it, it's as some kind of light, dopey thing with the Do Re Mi song and such, but then it comes on TV and I watch it and remember that it is an unexpectedly good goddamn movie.

Oh, I've been meaning to update my links list; there are some additions I've thought of, and also certain um...unadditions. I still love you all and everything, but I've noticed that some of your weblogs are a little less, uh, "active" than others. So consider this a (not at all passive-aggressive) chance to stay among my links, which I'm sure is personally very important to all of you. Man why did I even write this paragraph.

Tomorrow morning the family and I are heading up to Yosemite. First time I've been during the winter; I hear it's good. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing for the rest of break, but it will undoubtedly be a time of diligence and measured recreation.

Various other things are happening, few of which come to mind right now. I got that legislative liaison job with gsa, which means a modest supplement to my income, a whole bunch of trips up north (hopefully with additional chances to visit people), and just enough stress to distract me from other stressful things.

Plastic tubes and pots and pans

Running music update: The Flaming Lips fared surprisingly well, and my theory and I exchanged enthusiastic high fives. Mine is a progressive research program! Next I will investigate the effect of F location and density within a band name. Does the Arcade Fire perform at chance, or as well as "genuine" F bands, or somewhere in between? Have I finally found some use for the Fiery Furnaces? Only science will tell!

Speaking of, what the hell. What. The. Hell.
(thanks to Jann for bringing this particular horror to my attention)

Hey, does anyone here know of a good rum? I recently acquired a bottle of this stuff, much to my delight, but not being much of a rum person, my knowledge of what to mix it with (as in the appetizingly-named "Corn 'n Oil") is somewhat limited. I don't even know what kind of rum is appropriate, though I am guessing dark (how does that rule go? dark rum with light mixers, and vice versa?).
Oh and in case y'all were looking for the only nonterrible acrylic cocktail shaker ever made (and I can't imagine why you wouldn't be), I have found it. The only thing cooler would be cocktail shakers made out of this stuff. It could do the same job, but be only one inch thick...I'm afraid we're a number of years too early for that, it'd take years to figure out the dynamics of this matrix, nuclear wessels, etc.

C'mon Wendy, tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Short post tonight. I'm tired, busy, confused, and chock full of processed fats.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to confess that I often come up with partial blog ideas a few days in advance and then compile and post them at regular intervals so as to create the illusion of consistent content. hah.

This is why the follwing observation might seem oddly timed, being related to my assertion a couple posts ago about driving music: I've been exercising a little bit lately, and it seems to me that bands whose names begin with F make really good running music. So far I've had good luck with Franz Ferdinand, the Futureheads, and Fugazi. Next up in my queue is the Flaming Lips, who I suspect may be the counterexample that topples what is otherwise a totally robust and well-motivated scientific theory.

Lucy provided this link to recipes involving beer. Something tells me that there are those of you out there who might be interested in such things.

Nissan has apparently developed industrial-grade nano paste (from we make money not art). Keep an eye out for their 2006 T1000s.

The things that pass for knowledge I can't understand

I'd like to open with this little gem from the fictional Téodor Orezscu:

"Lately, I've been trying to pin down what makes an 'Asian' flavored coleslaw tick (don't you just love how since the Blog Quality Bar has been set so low, I can mention this entirely without a segue, and it will seem like high literature simply because there are no misspellings and you can't tell which band I'm listening to?). "

In that spirit, here's a series of totally unrelated things:

Continuing with the obligatory blog navel-gazing (although this time I guess I have someone else to look at my navel for me (uh...)), here's a list of blog mistakes (linked to in Adam's comments by John-Carlos). It is now my mission to violate as many of these strictures as possible.

Deflexion is the board game that last night apparently made me exclaim "Ooh! The one with lasers??!" I think it's been mentioned in Wired or something.

Oh, and lastly, Google Hacks are pretty old news, but are worth mentioning nonetheless. My favorite is the Word Color one, which searches Google Images for a given word, and uses the results to determine "what color that word is." Unsurprisingly, "sea" is blue, "pain" is kind of reddish, and "fuchsia" is basically fuchsia, but you can get weird results too, like "white," which, at present, is a dull yellow (nearly the same color as "sadness," actually) and "perceptual content," which is emerald green.
This here is like the Internet's ultimate consummation. Here you have the largest stockpile of useless information that has ever existed, and now there are ways of systematizing the data, analyzing it, and extracting new useless facts about the information. It's pretty awe-inspiring, in a way.

We'll search for tomorrow on every shore

Uh, I might have new readers. Hello Googlers! Welcome.



Quick update, all I got for you today are some random musical musings:

-Went to go see the Laurie Morvan Band; enjoyed quite a bit more than I expected. They and the Delta 88s were opening for The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who also put on a pretty formidable show.

-Any of the San Diego people been to the Belly Up? Why do I not know about this place; apparently they get all sorts of people who don't often play such venues (not that I expect many of you to be interested in seeing Judy Collins; I'm just thinking out loud here)

-Massive Attack is possibly the best driving music ever. It makes me want to not punch things, which is really all one can ask for.

Live your life filled with joy and thunder

I just realized that in my last entry I used the phrase "pretty sweet" not once, but twice. This seems like the sort of thing that demands an apology. Sorry, readers. That was pretty unsweet of me.

I said a lot in that post, so now I don't have much today. Need to pace myself better. So, what've I got for you? This thing here might prove very modestly diverting. How many band name puns can you find? Hm. Okay, that wasn't so great, unless maybe you are a recovering Highlights addict or something. Uh, I guess I could say something about these new games I mentioned?

Mystery in the Abbey is this cool Faidutti game that is like what Clue would have been if it were designed by God himself. Or maybe not; I don't know how God feels about the premise of monks killing each other. But you play a monk detective, and ask people questions, and it is kind of what that TV show "Monk" would be like if it were about actual monks, and not just some guy named Monk. Come to think of it, maybe it is more like Brother Cadfael. I don't know. Stop looking at me.

Betrayal at Some House Or Another Whose Exact Name Escapes Me At The Moment is this campy horror movie cliche game with roleplaying elements.

Ideology is not unlike a cross between Diplomacy and Illuminati. I like the idea, but don't know how it works out in practice.

etc.

I hear that Monk show is pretty good, actually. Should probably check it out.

Oh wait, I just remembered: here is some stuff that is good. Jann showed me this orchid painting exhibit. Pretty dang impressive. These two are probably my favorites. Oh and talk of flower pictures reminds me that I probably haven't linked to Gabe's site yet. So there you go.