the life and times of endenizen » Thoughts

I realized something today about blogging. Titles are evil. When I come up with a title. It sets the direction of the entire post. I always have trouble veering from that direction to write anything else that’s on my mind. Well, I shouldn’t say “always”… sometimes I write things that are quite random indeed. Anyway, I think without titles blogging becomes easier. If I just wrote short posts perhaps I could stay on topic, hit the post button, then move on. If I have more to say there’s no problem with starting an entirely *new* post. However, there’s a point at which one can post too many things. Perhaps an appropriate balance is the holy grail of blogging. Or, perhaps it’s all relative and I can post as much as I want without anyone even reading it in the first place.

I’ve been watching the olympics. Table tennis mostly. I don’t really participate in any of the other sports so I just kind of stare in awe when i watch things like swimming or gymnastics. Table tennis, on the other hand, is something I play quite a bit at work. So much, in fact, that maybe it should be on my business card. Perhaps the job title of “Software Engineer” underneath the text “imeem.com” presumes a certain level of table tennis skill and I should just leave it at that. Perhaps…

This weekend was quite a weekend in San Francisco. At least from where I was standing. Saturday the city performed a simulated terrorist attack in which many local and federal agencies participated. They even got some students to come out and pretend to be dead or dying from the adverse effects of said attack. Cool huh? I got pictures: simulated terrorist attack on San Francisco

After that, zombies started to take over the city. Starting at 2pm, zombies (and a few people wearing masks and fake blood) met at SFMOMA to begin terrorizing helpless citizens. At the rallying cry of BRAAAAIIIINNNSSSS, the zombies began following a predetermined path through downtown up to the Transamerica Building. At this point, the zombies saw a large group of scientology protesters and attacked mercilessly. I’ll leave out the gory details suffice it to say, there was a zombie/protester dance-off. Then the police showed up and the zombies quickly shuffled off to Chinatown.

Ah Chinatown. A few blocks of which are year-round tourist central. Turns out it’s actually a lot like China because actual Chinese people live here. But don’t mind that, there are plenty of trinkets and dim sum. I always wonder how much tourists have heard about San Francisco. Sure they’ve heard it’s a beautiful place and there’s a lot to do and so many cool things to see and the weather is always pretty good. Do they know about all the protests? The crazy homeless people? The Castro? I’d bet very few of them have heard of the flash mobs. They’re such a local thing and by their very nature, don’t exist for long enough for any big news crews to show up. Anyway, getting back to the point, a flash mob through Chinatown is hilarious. All the tourists, of course, have cameras so you’ll see them clicking away happily without a care in the world. Maybe they think something unusual is happening and it’ll be on the news later and they’ll be able to say “oh I was there, I have pictures!” Maybe they’re just confused and they need to take pictures so they can go back to their hotel and digest what has just transpired. They’re certainly not afraid that zombies are taking over the city. That’s rather unfortunate…

After Chinatown, the rallying cry came again and the mob continued through Union square, interrupting a Korean Day festival that was taking place and causing quite a stir among the attendees. For the final stop, the zombies proceeded to the cable-car turnaround at the end of Powell St where some performers were playing drums. Everyone got into the zombie spirit of things and… just stood there waiting in line for the next cable car. Oh well, at least we tried. Pictures are here: zombie mob

On Sunday, Barack Obama came to San Francisco and made a record $7.8 million. I didn’t make it out to that event (the $2,300 entrance fee was a bit high for me) but I did take pictures of the Gumball 3000 start just one week earlier at the same location: Gumball 3000 Pictures. Of course, the entrance fee to that event was $100,000 but they let people hang out and stare at the cars for free. I’m all about the free.

In other news, I’ve fallen somewhat in love. It’s going well. I was getting so sick of caring about myself all the time it’s nice to have someone else to care about. Perhaps there will be more on that later. Perhaps…

In even other news, they’re now selling absinthe at Safeway. It’s the good kind too: Lucid Absinthe Superieure from France. And the not-quite-so-good-but-still-absinthe-kind from Alameda (just across the bay): St George Absinthe Verte. I’m excited that people are catching on and actually stocking this stuff instead of being afraid that it’s still illegal or something. It’s good stuff, and quite a bit different than any other kind of alcohol.

In even other news, I’m reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. It’s pretty classic (seeing as it’s 30 years old and #1 in the Genetics and Zoology categories on Amazon). I like it a lot.

In even other (looks like I’m running out of text-alterations) news, I’ve been working on a fancy perl script lately that makes Meevoos. You can see my most recent example here: Aphex Twin – Come to Daddy (Meevoo). The process involves extracting each frame from a video, then recreating each frame using tile-size versions of other frames. It makes more sense if you look at it. So, just do that.

[Embedded video removed - imeem is gone *sad face*]

Since I’m running out of text-alterations, I’ll just treat this “other” news as a new paragraph. Hey, look at that, more news! I’ve been meeting with a local group of hackers called NoiseBridge. We’re trying to pull together enough money and people to create a sustainable “hackerspace” where people can go to be creative and make things using computers, or microcontrollers, or lasers, or anything really. The group will incorporate as a non-profit once we get the paperwork finished up and we already have a promising location to begin operations in the office upstairs from the EFF.

Well that’s probably enough news to keep you busy for a while. It’s certainly keeping me busy.

I’ll leave you with a cut off of Sting’s new album:

[Removed - imeem is gone *sad face*]

Yeah, like underwear.

t’has been a while. Wow that contraction didn’t work at all. For more examples of strange contractions, see urban dictionary’s entry on “t’would”:

James: Wanna go hang out at the mall next week?
Jill: T’would be cool.

But I digress, it is my pledge to make a post with more substance than content. Or vice versa, whichever sounds better. Underwear aside… eh, let’s try again.

Hi, I’m Brian. This is my blog and it hasn’t seen the light of my thoughts (I’m conceited that way) in about… let’s see here… just shy of five months, all told. No doubt when I started I didn’t imagine I would suffer quite a dry spell all at once, but there you have it. I’ve gone quite inward about the whole thing. What is a blog? Why do I need to use it? Is it possible to swallow one’s pride, as it were, and still commit one’s thoughts to paper for everyone else to see? Maybe not, but I guess I don’t care anymore for I’ve given up seeking the answers to such questions.

I work for a company that recently bought another company and you can read all about that over here. I neglect the mention of specific names because that would mean SEO which gets on my nerves. I’ve been doing all sorts of neat work on new features, new designs, fixing old things, and staring out the window in anticipation of the massive crowds set to arrive on April 9th. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about, let’s torch this joint!

“Olympic Torch” this joint, that is! That’s right, the torch is coming to San Francisco and I’m gonna be at ground zero when stuff happens. I’m not sure exactly what will happen, but if you’ve been watching the news recently, you know it will be worth a few photos.

Security heightened at Golden Gate Bridge
Olympic Torch Relay Descends Into Chaos
Olympic torch relay should be confined to host country says IOC official

Officials in Paris were today forced to extinguish the Olympic flame and carry it by bus when protesters against Chinese policy in Tibet tried to seize it.

Can a protest ever ‘win’? Perhaps in time, a ‘win’ can be felt. In Paris, a more immediate win was experienced when the Olympic flame, nay, spirit which travels the world for everyone to see, amidst thousands of security personnel had to be put out and confined to a bus. My friends in Paris, I say to you, “good show”. We Americans now have a protest to out-protest.

But I digress, (yes I did that twice. Don’t tempt me should you not wish a third.) there are other things on my mind as well. Doctor Who, for instance. It was recently revealed that Richard Dawkins would appear in an upcoming episode, as himself!

“People were falling at his feet,” says Davies, creator of the BBC’s flagship show. “We’ve had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.”

I guess I can’t imagine how Dawkins fits in to all of this but I hope it at least involves a turtle that can fly.

And on that note, Battlestar Galactica was good, if not a bit uneventful in light of all the promises made. I suppose that’s how they get you hooked for the entire season. Maybe I should just wait till the season is over. It’s much more fulfilling to watch a whole season over a few days than feel cheated at the end of each 40-minute segment. Though I suppose to make it a social occasion would be a good excuse to have “Friday night plans”. Oh who am I kidding, I don’t know anyone else who watches this show.

Well, back to my life, which, at this moment, includes me going to bed.

I flipped on the TV while cleaning my apartment to see if there were any good football games. Then I remembered I don’t really like football and settled for Tom and Jerry. When you think about it, the cartoon is rather profound. Both for its interesting take on the physical world, and the creative situations made up by frequent writer/producer Chuck Jones (who did the cartoon I am currently watching so my points may need to be adjusted to cover the whole of Tom and Jerry cartoons).

First and foremost, no story is necessary (as is especially apparent during the Chuck Jones era). The substance of almost every episode relies on the bitter rivalry between that darned cat Tom and his would-be lunch Jerry. While this provides quite a bit of conflict to an otherwise straightforward drama, it is presented in much the same way as comical theatre: should the villain ever catch the hero… well we don’t even want to think about that. In fact, many episodes end with Jerry coming to Tom’s rescue and asserting that he is the “better mouse”… or animal, or whatever.

A few recurring themes tend to appear:

• Any romance must be portrayed by a French-speaking animal
• Any dog which appears in the show must be angry, or stupid, or both
• When an animal moving at significant speed runs into a stationary object, it must be smashed like a pancake, an accordion-like pancake, or severed into multiple pieces (none of these will cause permanent damage)
• When high above the ground, an animal won’t fall unless it looks down, and/or is not Jerry
• Cats are hollow – an object (such as a mouse) moving fast enough can potentially enter through a cat’s mouth and proceed straight through to the tail and out (note: to prevent further injury, tying the tail below the exit point is recommended)
• Inflating something with air will result in that object becoming lighter than air
• Slowing down is not an option – when moving around a corner, the turn will be taken too quickly resulting in a skidding sound and a hopping motion (this is required, therefore, no animal can gain an advantage by attempting to circumvent this process)

And finally…

• When a foe (typically a dog) presents a threat to the well-being of either party, all inter-species conflict may be temporarily set aside until such time that said foe is “removed from the picture” either by pancaking, accordion-pancaking, or being severed into multiple pieces. At this point, chasing may resume (occasionally preceded by a handshake)

Tom and Jerry cartoons are some of the most well-known in history. They have won seven academy awards and solidly established themselves as the Saturday-morning cartoons. So the next time you feel like flipping on the game, watch Tom and Jerry instead. I did!

(and by now, unfortunately, it’s over and some “modern” cartoon is on – with more story, more characters, more colors, and much more confusion. imagine the attention span you’d need to have to watch a cartoon with so much going on… it’s more than I can handle)

I had the privilege of attending the first screening of Eli Roth’s Hostel 2 this evening so I thought I’d give something back by writing a quick review. I’ll start by laying out my lack of experience in all things Hostel: I have not seen the first film. Before you say “this can’t be an informed review”, let me tell you that I liked this film, and so might others who’s only excuse to skip this sequel is “I didn’t see the first one”. If you like horror films with more substance than slaughter, whether or not you’ve seen the first Hostel, give this one a try.

The movie picks up where the first one leaves off (I know this much because Eli Roth said so). Then the tone changes. It’s like you’re brought back out from the horror of the first one and into a new story with an unsettling knowledge of what is to come. From here on in, there’s plenty of things to make you squirm without shedding a single drop of blood.

You see, this time around, we follow not only the victims but also the killers. Seeing things from the killer’s point of view creates the same kind of character building that makes all these recent superhero movies so great: seeing the (somewhat) normal person behind the mask; learning what makes them tick; feeling (a little) bad for them when they get into trouble. Eli Roth does this brilliantly, giving you a look behind the scenes at this gruesome slaughterhouse and the disturbed people that keep it in business.

Of course, what would character building be without great acting. As Roth put it, the ratings board felt some of the scenes were too scary because the actors and actresses made them too real. He politely asked the board not to punish him for making such a good movie. What we get from this is a horror film with great acting, which is almost an oxymoron. We also get a movie which pushes the limits of the R rating with some pretty gruesome scenes.

While all horror films need a certain amount of gore to draw fans of the genre, many directors will stop there and call it good. I like films with a little more meat on their bones. I like to be truly scared. I wish more people made horror films like this.

I’m staying at the “San Franciscan San Francisco” aka “The Olympic.” I can’t tell what this place is supposed to be called because the outside says “The Olympic” and some places on the internet call it “The San Franciscan” but at least I managed to find it with “It’s uh… on Mason St.” Among some of it’s key features:

• $60/night
• Private bathroom
• TV (no cable, only antenna)
• Free breakfast
• Free wireless internet

*AND* there’s a bonus feature I didn’t see in any reviews: I can hear the war protest right from my room!

I didn’t expect much from this hotel. I mean, it only has 1 star, so how good could it be? I’m fairly impressed with the place though. It’s on the edge of the Tenderloin (bad neighborhood), but it’s only a block from Market (main area of downtown), so there’s no shortage of common folk to stave off the drug dealers and deranged wanderers. If you can’t afford anything else… well I guess you wouldn’t have a choice in that case. Let’s try again: if you’re trying to save money, I can see no reason not to pick this place. It’s got a great location, a great price, and the rooms aren’t half bad.

http://www.olympichotelsf.com/ – Hotel website.