Four Things 2006

Four jobs I've had:
1. Babe In The Box (ticket taker at a nightclub)
2. Bookstore Owner
3. The Person Who Transcribes Your Tax Form Into The Computer
4. Customer Service Representative

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. The American Astronaut
2. Kind Hearts & Coronets
3. Seven Samurai
4. Pi
(all black & white, oddly)

The three places I've lived:
1. Northern California
2. Honolulu, Hawaii
3. Lampeter, Wales
and one place I'd like to live, at least for a while, someday:
1. London

Four TV shows I love:
1. The Daily Show (except I rarely see it)
2. Monty Python*
3. Kids in the Hall*
4. Cosmos*
(*This being an indicator of when I actually used to watch much tv. Now I just catch the good stuff on DVD. Thank you, Netflix!)

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Scotland
2. Norway
3. Yugoslavia
4. Kenya

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Negihama (hamachi (yellowtail) and green onion sushi)
2. Saag Paneer (Indian spinach stew with cheese)
3. A big platter of Ethiopian stews & injera bread
4. something I cooked myself that came out tasting good

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Flickr contacts page
2. LiveJournal friends page
3. Daily Oliver (& Hugo)
4. Achewood

Four places I would rather be right now:
(this is really tough; I'm in my wonderful bed in my delightful apartment in San Francisco)
1. London (2nd favorite city)
2. New Zealand (never been)
3. my parents' place in Mendocino county (always relaxing)
4. laughing over dessert at the end of a great date

And then I'm supposed to tag someone else to write theirs but since no one tagged me, just do it if ya wanna.

Tea Time 2006

Someone (Megan from notmartha maybe? Hmm, no, maybe it was in Selva's flickrstream) mentioned liking Adagio Teas and enjoying their link rewards program. I'm don't know yet what the tea tastes like, but it sure sounds good and if it's even half as tasty as their website design, I'm sure it's worth checking out.

First on my list to try would be Cha Cha:

Much like the Cuban dance for which it is named, famous for its three quick steps ("cha-cha-cha"), Cha Cha deliciously mingles soothing Chamomile, refreshing Peppermint and zesty Lemongrass into a wonderful herbal concoction sure to send your taste buds dancing with delight.

I bet Silver Needle is good too. I've had white teas that were stunning; a zen garden on your tongue.

And in the category of "household items to covet" I give you the Wagenfeld teapot. Ooo, sexy.

32 stories above San Antonio 2006

I'm in a hotel recovering from another day of conference and my feet, now that I've been sitting awhile, are no longer going *throb* *throb* *throb*. My tray from room service is helping too - enchiladas & a margarita.

Also helping:
They Might Be Giants
- podcast 2A ("Why Did You Grow A Beard? What the Christ?")
- venue songs (video for Vancouver especially*)

Not helping:
- no wifi so I can't be online and on the bed. Boo, Marriott.

*G, check out the mod girl hugging her Huggy Bear album.

What a day, what a day... 2006

My shoulders are a wreck from being really tense at work the past several days. Beta test starting next week which coincides annoyingly with a conference I have to finish preparing for and the systems hardware was conspiring against us all the way. Disk failure! Swell.

Bleah. Good riddance to that hard week.

I am starting my weekend out right:

- My new and beautiful wool rug arrived. I will take pictures tomorrow when it is sunny (ahem, do you hear me, weather?). I expect to be very happy with this rug for decades.

- I have a Pimm's Cup to sooth my nerves.

- I have a big glass of water because it's always good to have a glass of water.

- I have Annie's mac & "cheese" with some Carrot-Ginger soup to fill my belly.

- I have some really good expensive cheese - Neal's Yard Berkswell - to please my tongue (see illustration of said tongue in Flickrstream).

- I have French cafe music playing.

- I have no intention of doing anything stressful all weekend.

News commentary 2006

Forget talk radio, I'm all about my family's nightly email. From yesterday:

The news seems to imply that Alito has said something significant in saying that he believes a judge should enforce the law.  The question, of course, is just what he believes the law to be.

Another interesting puzzle in the headlines is the claim that Iran has broken the UN seals on its nuclear research facilities.  If you read far down in the story, you find that the IAEA inspectors were there.  A couple of days ago, there was a story that Iran was expecting IAEA approval for resuming research aimed at power reactors rather than weapons, and intended to have the inspectors remove the seals as soon as they received that approval, which was expected within a day or two.  But not explained in the current stories is whether the UN inspectors did approve resuming the research - all the stories say is that the US and Britain are upset about it.

Just a reminder that we get about the worst healthcare among industrialized nations, while paying at least 50% more for it:

And another reminder about the air war in Iraq, with an explanation of why so many civilians are being killed:

You know those "interesting times" in the old curse? Yeah, we're still living in 'em.

Good Show Alert 2006

February 11th there's an amazing show at The Fillmore:

The Mutaytor
Kid Beyond
That One Guy

Woohoo! Get yerself some tickets!

Buying a new phone and/or camera 2006

I'm frustrated by the picture quality of the camera in my Treo 600. I also find it kind of large and heavy and am no longer really using the PDA features that often since 9 times out of 10 I have my laptop with me.

I have two choices:
- buy a tiny little phone and a separate tiny little camera
- buy something like a Samsung MM-A940

I'm tending toward the latter because I'm not that fussy a photographer and mostly want decent snapshots easily sent to my Flickr account. I'm probably not going to do any cropping or other processing so taking the photos from the camera to the laptop is an extra and unneeded step for me.

Anyone got any thoughts on a good camera phone?

I've got Sprint now and can get a rebate for being a long-time customer, so I'm sticking with their San Francisco phon selection (though I could also go to anything Nextel now that they've merged). Only feature I care about beside the camera is that it might be keen to have Bluetooth, but it's not necessary. Don't want tv on my phone or fancy-ass ringtones or any of that cruft.

A Few Tips for People With Vaginas 2006

- Keep your mini-pads/panty liners in your underwear drawer instead of the bathroom. Duh. Why didn't I think of this a decade ago?

- (this one works for people without vaginas too) Maybe you like the messy sex but not the mess afterwards, maybe you or your playmate have rough callused fingers (or tender parts). Enjoy life more with a silky sexy sheet to lay on the bed under you to catch stray spills and a supply of medical examination gloves. (Before you buy gloves, figure out if you're sensitive to them. There are quite a few varieties. You will probably not want the kind with powder inside.)

- One of the best cures for cramps is an orgasm. Also may cure hiccups and relieve depression.

- Another great cure for cramps is a heating pad. These patches from Thermacare are great. I wear them all day and don't have to miss any work or spend 2 hours in misery during the really bad spell. Also: nice warm tummy.

More tips anyone would care to share? If you want to post anonymously, just make up some clever name and put "example@example.org" for the mail.

(If you've been shocked or offended by this post, I think you are being a dork. Women bleed. Sex is fun. Get over it or go read some other site.)

Blustery Day 2006

Until I put on Mike Doughty's lovely album Rockity Roll, the song stuck in my head today was

The rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down
      In rushing, rising, rivlets
      'Til the river crept out of it's bed
      And crept right into Piglet's

      Poor Piglet he was frightened
      With quite a rightful fright

Good luck out there, everybody! Drive safe and stay home if you can.

Belated recommendation: City Museum of St. Louis 2006

It appears that I somehow never went back and recommended City Museum. I went there in October 2004 and it kicks ass. You can crawl around in tunnels, slide down weird slides, and enjoy peculiar exhibits.

I'd consider a trip to St. Louis just to visit it again.

I took a bunch of photos with my phone. They aren't great, but there's some good gargoyles in there.