SimpleWeblog

A beautiful day for soccer

It was just pick-up games this week, but it was a fantastically nice day for them. It could be officially summer now since we had to break out the sunscreen for the first time. I played stopper and sweeper, and I did an OK job. I think I really need to work on talking more as sweeper, and not being pulled up too far. Oh well. Mark played goalie for a while and did a pretty decent job. The hardest part of learning a position is learning to always be reading the field so you know when to come up, when to hold the line, who to pass to. And it is really hard to learn these things in practice, so you need to get game time, and you need to have people who can help tell you when you did something wrong. At some point I think it might be fun to try coaching a kids team, and have to think about the game from that perspective.

Movie Review: SLC Punk (Merendino)

I knew I could identify with the writer of SLC Punk when they had the scene of the 13 year old kids playing D&D in a basement. Sure, I was never a punk, my school didn't have the rigid segmentation of the different "tribes" and I haven't yet gone through a year of anarchy, but I think the movie touches on a lot of the ideas and questions of people growing up in high school and college. Watching it now is a little strange, because I feel reasonably confident in how I have answered a lot of those unanswerable questions, so seeing the characters struggle with them could have been difficult to watch as they do all sorts of dumb things, but there was enough to the characters (and the narrative style) that it felt like they would have the necessary revelations and find their own reasonable answers by the end of this. And the tone made me think they'd find answers that wouldn't upset me. Which is nice once in a while. Matthew Lillard did a surprisingly good job of making all the speeches without getting on my nerves too much, and was able to effectively convey the transition from unquestioning faith in an ideal to eventually realizing the impracticality of ideals. The end of the movie seemed a little too melodramatic, with a major event happening to speed up the end of the journey, which was a definite change in tone from the rest of the movie but good enough to do what it had to do. I especially liked the scene of running into a friend who was now a beggar, and the sense of awkwardness Stevo felt after turning his back, realizing he couldn't live up to his ideal but still not knowing how to deal with that. I was also surprised that his character gave up so thoroughly at the end, making a few cliched comments about fighting the system from within, but almost said in the knowing way of people who understand that they won't really do it - that goal isn't the top priority anymore. And I can understand that feeling a little too well, even if I didn't go through that much of a rebellion phase. So, don't expect anything too profound from this movie, but it was a nice reflection of a lot of the issues that most "teen movies" don't get at in any meaningful way.

If someone can explain to me how a Van Halen song got a place on the soundtrack, though, I'd like to know. That's a little over the top even for a "it's not punk, which makes it even more punk" statement.

Oh right

It's gonna be all right

'Cause I'm gonna be right here

Whiny bitch

I'm too lazy to put up the next cooking show, and I don't actually feel like bitching about the music industry, silly government regulations on technology they don't understand, politics, or whatever. So we're left with an unfocused meta-entry of things that, with more effort, could have been turned into real entries. But if I was willing to put in that effort, I wouldn't be writing in a weblog, would I?

• Two of my favorites, together at last - TWAS reviews the Mountain Goats and the Extra Glenns, and captures some of the feelings I have about the EG album.
• More "band" practice today, and I think we are making progress, or at least still having fun.
• Work is going fine, but I don't have enough time to do everything I should do, and I am no longer willing to put in crazy hours to get it done anyways.
• Having just been part of another "they're both gay? we should introduce them" conversation, The Straight Person's Guide to Gay Etiquette slightly more entertaining. As for the setting up thing - I feel uncomfortable about it, but I think the desirable outcome would be for people to do it more often for straight people. Not sure why the entrance criteria are different there.
• I'm amused that Jennifer Connelly, fresh from winning a Best Supporting Actress is going to go star in The Hulk. Sure, it is an Ang Lee Hulk movie, but it is still a Hulk movie. And while I hope it is fantastic, I have visions of the made for TV hulk movie guest starring Thor. Yeah, my brain is full of useless information.
• Which reminds me, I have done a pathetic job putting up comic reviews lately. Haven't really read anything worth commenting on, I guess.
• All of the attention bloggers have been giving their mainstream press attention and the "internet is boring" meme seems a little too attention-hungry for me. I think, after my recent thinking about what I'm putting up here, contributing new thoughts and ideas should be a much nicer goal than whoring for links and just putting up other links to things. A site that sucks me in, like Justin's time in Japan works well because of the personality and the ability for me to learn new things. People checking daypop's top 40 make me wonder.
• My week's schedule somehow got thrown off, and now I don't have the right groceries in the apartment. No cookies left for breakfast tomorrow, even!
• A google search for "whiney" returns the category Arts > Music > Bands and Artists > H > Houston, Whitney, which should be even funnier than it is.

Well, at least I warned you I was going to be whiny.

Writing is rewriting?

I have respect for traditions that are able to look at themselves and re-examine their beliefs. And when the re-examination comes from old, well-established religions (in the Etz Hayim), I am somewhat surprised. Being able to accept new evidence that contradicts your beliefs is difficult, but necessary if you want to improve your understanding of the universe. Accepting arguments from authority, especially undeserved authorities, leads to trouble.

Anti-CBDTPA

How stupid is this law? Very stupid. And it is probably unenforcable, but it would be better to just stop it from becoming law.

I know you are all too lazy to write letters to your congresspeople, but maybe you can take 30 seconds and sign the online petition. Then spend a few minutes and write a polite letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that is asking for comments about these proposed laws.

Otherwise, we are all going to have to move to some warm island nation that doesn't have crazy anti-technology laws. Hey, maybe that doesn't sound so bad.

Concert Report: No Doubt, The Faint, and Kenna

I won't go into my reasons for going to the show, but I can't say I was extremely excited about it. Sure, I like some No Doubt songs, but only the ones from Tragic Kingdom really. But it seemed like it might be a nice change of pace from the small-venue indie shows. My expectations were that it wouldn't be a great show, but I'd have a good time with the whole experience.

The show was at the San Jose Event Center on the SJSU campus. We knew there was a parking structure nearby, but the traffic getting there sucked once we got off the freeway, so we found some street parking a few blocks away, which seemed to be a great decision. There was a huge line to get in, since it was a general admission show, I guess, but eventually we were able to get in. I couldn't bring my swiss army knife in, and they didn't have a checkroom, so I wound up losing it. Low point of the evening! Oh well. Should have snuck it in, but didn't like the potential for hassle. The Fillmore has a checking system that worked great - why can't this place?

Kenna tried to take that low point of the evening spot, though. I was surprised to hear someone playing when we finally got in, since it wasn't even 8 yet, but whatever points they get for punctuality were taken away because of their bland angry-but-wussy contemporary radio rock. I don't know if they actually have a radio song, but they might as well, it sounded a lot like what makes me glad to not listen to much commercial radio.

I didn't know who the support band was going to be, but when the guy came out and said they were The Faint, a name I recognized from Noise Pop, I became a little excited. I had heard good things about them. And they were good, but not what I expected. They played a very 80's pop sound, like earlier Depeche Mode, or whatever those other bands whose names I can't remember are. The dancy, electronic kind of 80's pop. The songs would not sound out of place on an 80's greatest hits CD, but they weren't too retro or kitschy, they were good. And dancable, although the lead singer couldn't get too much out of the crowd even though he knew "you'll dance when No Doubt comes out! I've done this before!" I kind of wish they had gone a little bit beyond that sound, because it isn't my favorite thing and they really did seem capable of doing other things, but they didn't dtray too far from that sound during this set. They may be worth checking out again - and they might be even better at a smaller venue or with a more receptive crowd.

And then it was time for No Doubt. The crowd was definitely ready, and we learned the crowd was full of many screaming girls. Wow. I think that was worse for my ears than the volume of the music. They definitely had the stage presence one would expect from a band this popular, but I think they relied on a few too many mentions of "san jose" and other cheesy crowd tricks. Gwen Stefani was not as charismatic as I had anticipated on stage, although I may have been biased by all the songs I didn't really like. They played a good mix of songs from several different albums, playing all the big hits, but the Tragic Kingdom album songs were the only ones I really liked. They were also the ones the crowd seemed to be the most into. And the band definitely recognized this - "Just a Girl" was the last song before the encore, which brought the crowd to a wonderful jumping, singing along, arm waving peak. And we knew we needed to stay for the encore since they hadn't played "Spiderwebs" yet, and it was definitely worth the wait as the crowd got completely into it again. The crowd was fantastic in its level of enthusiasm - it seemed like everyone was moving, even the people up in the balcony seats. The crowd also went along with the synchronized clapping and the arm swaying and all the other tricks that seem silly unless you have thousands of people doing it together. Which was a lot of fun! As for the music, I think all the musicians are really talented, and I am a sucker for a brass section in a band, so the music was well-played. But not all the songs were catchy, and the ones that weren't catchy were a little boring - the crowd really stopped moving during some of the songs. I also started to question the song lyrics - some songs seemed too trite, too many seemed to drop into Gwen doing a speaking/rapping kind of complaining about things. Hard to tell without being able to understand more of the words. (Their website actually has lyrics for all their albums except their newest one, and even some tabs. Very nice! I'm too tired to go investigate this now, though.)

So, overall, a very fun show, excluding Kenna, which just wasn't my thing. The Faint were entertaining, and so was No Doubt. If I had to choose, I may have given some of No Doubt's time to The Faint to make things even better, but that's all right. It was fun seeing a crowd get that into a show. Even at the cost of a cool swiss army knife that had a little pen in it.

Soccer: Loss (4-2)

This one was closer than the score seemed (although I'm not entirely sure that was the score). We had some good chances, they had some good chances, but they were able to convert some shots that rebounded off our goalie. He did much better the second half, but it is a little frustrating to see a goalie contribute to making goals easier for the other team. Oh well, I am not a goalie so maybe I don't understand what is involved. I had an OK game, no real good plays, got burned on some stuff when I was on the left side playing against one of those people who can really control the ball well. That would have been a very useful skill for me to learn at some point. Some of the other people on our team had good games - Thuy played his usual great game, Roger had an amazing run back to stop them, Dave scored a goal, Alan had some good stops. I really like our team - the people are nice, no one gets too upset about other people's play or ref calls, but they all put a lot of effort into the game. And Mark was even able to get some time in at keeper for the next game, so hopefully it was an enjoyable soccer day for everyone, even if we didn't win. It was nice enjoying that winning record while we had it!

Weekend Theory

Ideally, a weekend leaves you well-rested and energetic to begin the next week. Sometimes this does not happen, especially if your weekend is full of all sorts of crazy activities, many of which may include cheese. Striking the right balance between relaxation and activity is something I still have not figured out.

Movie Review: Nadja (Almereyda)

I watched Nadja because it had a lot of actors from Hal Hartley films in it, and because Blade 2 was coming out so my friends had been talking about vampire movies lately. This is certainly different than most vampire movies - it has a hint of the Hal Hartley-ish dialog, the indie film production values, the pixelvision camera. But it also walked a line between comedy and horror, and it was hard to tell what was intentionally funny and what was just poor production values or unintentionally funny. And the use of the pixelvision was weird, because it was used for the vampire sequences, but the vampires were supposed to have heightened senses, yet we always saw their view through this much less vivid imagery. And the movie did have that feel of a student film at times, trying out these different things in different scenes, without having that overall sense of style and tone that professional movies usually have. All of these things aren't terrible things, but I think they did add up to me not enjoying the movie that much - it fell flat for me. But the real question will be, is it better than Blade 2, which I may not be able to answer for a while.

Movie Review: Erin Brockovich (Soderbergh)

Erin Brockovich was based on a true story, which puts it in that dangerous tv-movie-of-the-week category. But, it turnsout, if you put Julia Roberts in it and get Steven Soderbergh to direct it, you can get a decent movie out of it. It definitely leads you along emotionally, but it is an easy ride with a big company doing evil and lots of hard-working people as victims. It managed to avoid too many speeches ("I know the difference between right and wrong"), although the point was pretty obvious throughout. I wonder if the focus on Erin's money trouble at the beginning allowed the movie to be too money focused, although they had the speech at the end to say that wasn't really the point, it would have been nice if they hadn't had to tell us that. Show more of the reaction of the victims. Although, really, we never got to know the victims throughout the film. I guess it was a good movie that effectively made its point, which is nice since it was a true story, although it didn't quite reach the level where it made me think more deeply about the issues involved. Which is a lot to ask, I guess, but wasn't this movie all about exceeding what people think you are capable of?

Local History

It used to be that if you wanted to know about local history you had to walk around, or visit your local library, or talk to people who had lived there a long time. Luckily, this is no longer true! At least, not if your local area is Mountain View. This site is really neat, although it makes you wonder about how much time must have gone in to it. I especially liked the pictures of the crazy old malls on San Antonio. Indoor streams are always cool.

I will have to look for a site like this about Sunnyvale - after all, it has a historic downtown district of exactly 1 block. Heh! Mountain View was definitely a more interesting walking neighborhood than the part of Sunnyvale I am currently in.

(I will continue to steal links from girlhacker until they stop being interesting to me)

Go

I tried learning Go by myself when I was little - if only the internet had existed then so I could look at sites like this. I especially like that atari means a set of stones with only one space keeping it alive. I'm definitely not starting a new hobby at this point, but I'll put the link here in case I need a new indoor hobby someday. And yes, it is a Wiki site. Always fun when two disparate interests begin to intersect.

SCOTUS

I always thought that acronym sounded dirty. But in general, I think I have a healthy respect for the Supreme Court. When the U.S. was just getting started the Supreme Court was able to establish itself as a crucial balance to congress and the president. Of course, they have made quite a few terrible decisions over the years, but they have also gotten it right a few times, too. Overall, though, I have not felt too good about what has been going on there, especially after the 2000 election nonsense. And when you hear about how arguments like these are going, I really start to wonder. Don't they realize that extracurriculars are essentially mandatory for any college-bound students? Oh right, I forget, children shouldn't have rights, even though it is OK to punish them as an adult. Obviously that is the best way to learn about responsibility.

Lots of thoughts...

...but nothing I really want to share right now.

This week isn't a fun one, and I need to make sure I spend enough time curled up in bed. I'm sure you understand.

Go read something else instead.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Weblog

I have now been doing this weblog thing for over a year. Yikes. I'm not ready to put links to "a year ago today" stories, since it would be too embarrassing (I know you think, "and the new entries aren't?" but I'll ignore you). But it might be worth thinking about what I've learned from this whole thing.

Not much, probably. I don't write enough personal stuff in here to really be able to analyze any personality changes in here. You might be able to infer things from topics I cover, but it is all pretty superficial.

It does make an excellent log of things occupying my time and thoughts. Looking back, it turns out I forget about a lot of movies I see or things I do if I am just idly thinking back about "what did I do the last 9 months?". So that is nice to have. And it is nice to be able to point people to my opinions on things, although sometimes I wish I went back and updated the entries after I had a little more time to process things.

This isn't really improving my writing skills, I think, since there is virtually no editing involved. The closest I get is going back to put in links to things. I also think my style has changed based on what is happening with other weblogs I read. Sometimes I feel guilty for not including enough links, so I try to be better about posting interesting stuff I find. Sometimes I feel guilty for not putting up enough personal stories, so I try to post more things like that. Sometimes I feel guilty for not putting up original content, so I try to do something a little more creative and put it up. All of this creates a really inconsistent weblog that I have a hard time believing anyone would enjoy reading regularly unless they know me.

Somehow, though, there do seem to be people who read this. Not a lot, but there are consistent hits, and not just when I mention geisha pictures or nude David Chokachi. Ugh. Gotta love the server logs. I haven't had any real reader interaction with people I didn't know except for the greymatter hacks, but I think that has a lot to do with my lack of focus. Maybe the theme song has it right!

Overall, though, I really enjoy having this habit. It is that part of me that would make a good archivist someday - wanting to keep a record of what is going on, record my thoughts in a semi-public place. I'm sure I could put more effort into making it be a more interesting and beneficial experience for myself and for anyone who reads it, but effort is something that is hard to find time for these days. The CSS layout is almost all figured out, though, I just need to do some cross-browser testing. And I may stall even longer to include some PHP sidebar generation so I don't need to sit through multiple agonizingly slow site rebuilds. I don't think I'm anywhere close to being motivated enough to switch software, although I am definitely overdue on paying for this one.

So, thanks for listening to me ramble, and lets all have a little toast for the not-quite-a-toddler weblog. Yay, simpleweblog! You made it a year. Let's hope the next one is even better for you.

(Nope, referring to the weblog as a person doesn't work. Interesting.)

Tenses

As I try to tell better stories on here, I am not going to worry about going back to fix weird tense changes in the middle of stories - as you may have noticed. But I am aware of the issue, and will try to do a better job in the future. Consider this a general disclaimer for the whole site.

Helpful criticisms are always welcomed, of course.

Thanks for your support.

Soccer in the Mud

It hadn't really seemed to have rained last night when I went to bed, so I had to get up for the 8:30AM soccer game. I somehow managed to get up and get to the machine to see if the game is still on. It is, even though it sounds like it is raining outside. Maybe it is nicer up in Palo Alto, I think, as I get my uniform on.

I step outside and it is really raining, and cold. I go back inside to get a long sleeve shirt to put on under the jersey - won't help against the rain, but should help against the cold. And I call the rain-out phone number to double check. It still says the fields are open. All right, I'll go.

During the drive the rain just gets worse as I head north. Not better in Palo Alto, I guess. If I wasn't the coordinator for the week I probably would have just turned around, but I thought I should show up just in case. I pull into the nearly empty lot and see people setting up the nets. It seems crazy, but I guess the game is on. Or at least a pick-up, since there are definitely not enough people for 3 games.

I put the extra shirt on and head out, and it is ugly. Cold, wet, the fields getting muddier and muddier. We decide to consolidate into one game, A's and B's, and get started. I play sweeper the whole time, and for the first time ever I wish for more play on the defensive end of the field so I can keep moving to stay warmer. My glasses continually get so wet I can't see much, but I ran out of dry areas to wipe them off with. My side actually does quite well - it is nice to have those A level forwards to put the ball in, I guess.

I only have one really good play on defense, where the keeper came out to grab the ball but it slipped or bounced away and the other side tapped it in towards the goal. I manage to get a left foot on it, but don't quite get it angled away from the goal so it looks like it is still going in. I slide, and my right foot knocks it away for the corner kick. So close! I then got to spend the rest of the game half-covered in mud, which did not do much to keep me any warmer.

I subbed out with about 7 minutes left, and left with about a minute left. Standing still on the sideline was terribly cold, and I was soaked completely through.

And on the way back home I got to see a huge pickup do a 360 degree spin across 3 lanes of traffic right in front of me on the freeway. Yikes. Go little Honda with your antilock brakes and low center of gravity. I thought the pickup was going to tip, but it kept spinning until they brought it under control on the shoulder. Scary, although I think I may have been too cold to get the adrenaline surge, which is strange.

It was very nice to get home and take a long, hot shower and curl up in bed again.

Movie Review: Raging Bull (Scorsese)

Raging Bull is one of those movies that is always on lists of great movies, so I had tivo get it for me, and it sat unwatched for months. I finally watched it, and after all of the things I had read about it, I wound up disappointed. The closing titles seem to indicate it was supposed to be a story of redemption in some way, but I didn't get that out of it. Trying to compress so many years of LaMotta's life into the movie made me have a hard time really feeling for the characters - it seemed so constructed. And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. Movies don't need to have sympathetic characters to be good by any means, but they need to have emotionally engaging characters. And that didn't happen for me. I feel like I should put some more disclaimers on this, since it is supposed to be such a good movie - maybe I was too much under the influence of the margarita, or Dogme95, or something. But this didn't live up to the expectations. Maybe I know nothing about film. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for watching someone self-destruct in so many different ways. Maybe I wanted to understand why these people were doing what they were doing. It wasn't that I disliked it - it was well-constructed, seemed well-acted, definitely had some good scenes - but the whole thing together wasn't as good as I had seen it made out to be.

Movie Review: Italian for Beginners (Scherfig)

I knew almost nothing about Italian for Beginners before I went to see it, other than a few people who said it was very good. When the movie started with the Dogme 95 certificate, I thought I was going to be in for something pretty good. And it was very enjoyable! I wouldn't want to only see Dogme95 films, but it really is a great change of pace after watching big-budget action movies to see stories about people. When done right, it is almost like listening to your friend that is a good storyteller telling one of their classsic stories. This time it was a story of a group of lonely people in a Danish town whose lives intersect through an Italian language class. I could relate to certain aspects of this situation! A lot of the characters are likable in quirky ways, but nothing is really overdone after the coincidences that bring them all together. The movie definitely ends on a happy note for the main characters, which may have been a little bit of a stretch, but it was nice to leave the movie feeling happy. This definitely wasn't as intense as The Celebration but I really did enjoy it.

Movie Review: Resident Evil

Resident Evil was one of the few videogames I was actually able to play all the way through, and I enjoyed it enough to also get my way through a couple of the sequels. So when friends were going to see the movie, I thought it would be worth a student ticket to try it out. Having Milla Jovovich in it didn't hurt, either. I didn't really expect much out of it, but it was decent enough, having some fun action scenes, some good tense build-up, and zombies. Who doesn't love zombies? They used some of the game aspects in nice ways - computer read-outs, fixed-position cameras, and the sounds of approaching monsters. The scene on the train recalls one of the games (the third one?) although the monster FX are pretty terrible there. The movie could have been a lot better, though - the build-up was a little slow, the memory loss was used as an excuse to have a character narrate what was going on, and after the initial zombie scenes things started to move a little too slowly. A few action scenes were poorly directed, where it was hard to follow what exactly went on while they were running from zombies in some tunnels. And the climax was followed by a few too many scenes building up to the ending that seemed to disappoint the audience I was with. I kind of liked it - a definite nod to the video game, but also a cheesy set-up of a sequel. I also would have liked a little more problem solving to get out of some of the scenes they were in, and I would have loved to see more zombie fighting, especially if they had gone and gotten more weapons. Maybe that would have been too video-game-y! Milla did a reasonable job, although there wasn't a whole lot of dialog in this, but she was lucky that many of the cheesy lines went to other people.

Overall, if you want a good zombie shoot-em-up, you could do worse than this. If you liked the videogames, you'll probably get a kick out of it. If you want to see anything you haven't seen before, you should probably skip it.

Those crazy Tenenbaum paintings

For all you googlers that were looking for it, memepool just taught me that the crazy paintings in The Royal Tenenbaums were created by Miguel Calderon. Of course, he didn't paint them himself, but had them painted. Weird. Hope you are now able to sleep at night. I'll try to sleep despite knowing people come read my site when searching for such bizarre things.

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi is having its north american premiere at The Castro Theater in SF as part of the SF International Film Festival. Not sure if it is worth the hassle of going up there, but it would be cool to see subtitles anime on the big screen.

Good Tech Support

I'd just like to publicly thank my web hosting service for the extremely quick response time for support questions I send via email. 7 minutes to respond while they are already in the middle of fixing it? That is phenomenal. And really, in almost a year of using them, this is the first time I've even noticed a problem that caused me to send them a question about what was going on. Yay.

Dave's Online Cooking Show - The Banana Bread Incident

So you have some old bananas sitting around because you kept forgetting to eat them for breakfast this week.

What do you do?

Make banana bread, of course. It's easy, and soooo yummy.

But what if you are too lazy to go to the grocery store to buy those couple of missing ingredients?

Go online and look for recipes that do not include those ingredients, and bake a mutant combination of those recipes. Guaranteed to be tasty, right?

Like all tasty baked goods, the basis for this is sugar and butter. So mix those together first. And preheat that oven to 350F or thereabouts.

Then mix in your more liquid ingredients, like eggs and vanilla.

Then mush up those bananas (it is extra fun if you squoosh them with your hands, but don't tell anyone if you do that) and mix them in. After that, mix in your drier ingredients, like flour and baking soda.

That's it! Pour into loaf-shaped container and bake it.

It needs to bake for a while, maybe about 40-50 minutes. Do the toothpick test to see if it is done.

Really, it looked better in person. And it smells so good! They say you need to let it cool first, but who is really going to stop you when it smells that good?

My favorite way to eat banana bread is to make some real whipped cream and cut two thinner pieces, put whipped cream between them, and eat it like a sandwich. Mmmmmm, excessive!

Ingredients:

So here's the part I messed up. In combining the different recipes, I didn't quite get the right proportions. While it tastes fine (lots of margin of error on this recipe, thank goodness) I got too much for one loaf and not enough for two. So I got one funny looking short loaf and one regular one. Here's a guess at some proportions, but really, put a little more of what you like and add some more of things if it turns out to be not enough. No one wants to eat a funny looking loaf of banana bread.

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1 1/4 cup sugar

• at least 4 squishy bananas

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• at least 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 2 cups flour

• 2 eggs

Lots of recipes also have things like nuts, orange rinds, buttermilk, lemon juice - so you can go crazy if you want. But don't blame me for what happens.

Bang the Machine

If someone can tell me when Bang the Machine is playing in the bay area, that would be great. I once had a roommate that loved playing Virtua Fighter (although back then, VF2 was the latest and greatest) so much that he and another friend went to Canada to see the world's fourth best player play. Crossing an international border to watch someone play a video game is quite the obsession, which I didn't quite understand. I mean, I have my own weird obsessions (I'll forego those gratuitious links, thanks), but this seemed to contain an intensity mine didn't have. I'd love to see if the movie captures any of that kind of enthusiasm. If only my old roommate could have seen this movie, although he would probably have been pissed they didn't make it about VF, which was such a better game in so many different ways. Which was a sentiment I could understand, having played both games.

Don't be scared, it's just food

This article about trans fat is kind of scary, but I wish I had more information about relative risks. Like peanut butter. Should I buy the "low-fat" kind that is full of partially hydrogenated oils, or the "natural" kind that has twice as much fat, but no trans fats (I guess I chose right according to the FDA- pick the lowest total trans + saturated fat)? The comparisons in the article (saturated fat intake down, obesity up) don't really tell you anything, since it seems like you would need to look at the saturated fat intake of the obese people to see if trans fats are contributing to obesity. I guess we'll see how my cholesterol levels turn out after this last blood donation! Last time it was "desirable" (if only there were even better categories!), so maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much.

(thanks to girlhacker for keeping me up to date on food news!)

Kanji

I recognized my first kanji in the "real world" today. The beat happening album I have has pictures of their tour in Japan, and clear as can be behind Calvin is a character for "iku". Heh! Now I just need to learn a few thousand more and I'll be all set to read Japanese.

Giving Blood

It was time to donate blood again, so this is a friendly reminder that you should go make an appointment to do that right now.

If you are lucky, you will get to hear songs which sound strangely inappropriate while you are in the waiting room, like Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye. Ummmm, ok. There was also a musak-instrumental version of Lowrider which was funny. Next time I'm bringing something to read just in case they have another time mix-up.

Music

There has been another batch of articles online about the music industry, broadcasting on the web, and all that good stuff. Yes, commercial radio sucks. Yes, the major record labels suck. Is the answer to stop buying music? No - the answer is to support independent labels, buy from stores that support indie music.

And as for the crappiness of commercial radio, you can always listen to the non-profit and college stations in your area, and give them a few bucks if they ask for it.

Superhero List

I still don't have a list of things I need to learn before I can be a superhero (can't find the archive, but that's a reference to one of these fine radio shows), but on the list of things I would put a little effort into to become better at is playing pool. But it is still fun.

Someday I will have interesting things to post here again, I hope.

Oh, I tried a new veggie restaurant - Great Veggie Land. Not nearly as good as Garden Fresh. There's some useful info for all you south bay veggie eaters.

What I Learned at NoisePop 2002

This list is not intended to be complete, and is in no particular order:

• Going to see shows every day for a week can begin to seem like a job, especially if you also have to go to a job. I began to have more sympathy for heavy drinking and/or drug use for musicians that tour a lot.
• It is much less fun to go to a show alone.
• Crowds in SF don't seem to like to dance.
• Buying the all-show badge is a bad idea.
• Modest Mouse plays a much better show at a smaller venue.
• Lots of indie rock bands start to sound the same by day 3. Try to go see some different stuff.
• The Fillmore is merely an OK place to see a show.
• Keyboards can add a lot to the sound of a band.
• Bimbo's 365 is a great place to see a show, especially if you want to sit for some of it.
• The hotdogs at Bimbo's are not made out of lips and assholes.
• Driving up to SF every day might make me go crazy.
• Bimbo's has the worst beer selection of all the clubs.
• Lots of bands give out free stickers and buttons.
• The lead singer of Rilo Kiley is an actress that has been in a bunch of movies.
• Isaac Brock liked Sir-Mix-A-Lot when he was younger.
• Franklin Bruno once requested a song that had already been played at a Dinosaur, Jr. concert.
• Watching shows in the afternoon is not very fun.
• Lots of apparently high-school age people attend all-ages shows.
• There is good parking near Bimbo's, you just need to go further down Columbus.
• Taking sidestreets in SF is incredibly faster than dealing with the freeway to get to the "right" exit.

Movie Review: Bob Roberts (Robbins)

Bob Roberts is a fictional documentary about the 1990 election of a Pennsylvania senator. It started off interesting as you learn about the history of the title character - a rich stockbroker turned folksinger who has now turned to politics. But it starts setting him up as a really evil character, which becomes clumsier and clumsier as the movie continues. If it was trying to make a political point about the forces influencing government it lost its impact by having those forces be represented by such a thoroughly evil person. I doubt that is why people become involved in those things, and it trivializes the problem by saying "don't elect evil people". Some of the folk songs that he sings were quite funny, though, and there are some good scenes, especially earlier on in the movie. Overall, though, I would be hard pressed to recommend this.

Soccer: Loss (4-2)

With all the stuff going on today, I'm not really going to say anything besides the score, and that I was exhausted, but I want this entry so that I can keep track of how we do this season. It was a beautiful day outside, though.

Concert Report: Guided By Voices, Preston School of Industry, Dealership, Visqueen (noisepop!)

Ahhh, the final show of Noise Pop 2002. At Bimbo's again. Our waitress remembered us, or at least our drinks, but tonight was a special night so I switched to the mixed drinks. And then it was time for the show!

First up was Visqueen, most notable for being the band that Kim Warnick left the Fastbacks for. Well, I don't really know that is why she left or anything, but she is no longer in the Fastbacks and is still in Visqueen. Anyways, they were a good guitar/bass/drums punk-pop band, with both females doing vocals. It was really entertaining, and they knew how to talk to the crowd, and it was definitely a good start to the evening. They played on the corner stage, which was a little weird, but nice because of the reduced setup time. I think they'd be worth a CD purchase, but they didn't have any out at the merchandise tables. And, for the record, "visqueen" appears to be a type of plastic.

Next up was Dealership, which was definitely a mellower sound than Visqueen, but still enjoyable. They had a few songs I really enjoyed, although they played a few too many slower ones for my tastes, especially after that opening act. Both vocalists were good, but I don't think the music quite pulled far enough away from the indie rock genericness that I have gotten to know over this festival - of course, I am pretty worn out at this point. Maybe if they had gotten the crowd going a little more, things would have seemed more exciting. I decided to check out some of their recorded stuff before deciding on an album or not - they definitely have potential and at least a few good live songs. And, I also need to note, they have one of the best band websites I have ever seen. And the drummer has a weblog, as does the singer/guitar/keyboard player, although that one doesn't look updated recently. Of course, now I see that my blog is linked here, so I am going to be worried about sounding like a musically illiterate (is there a better phrase for that?) jackass. I'll agree to the musically illiterate part, anyways.

Anyways, then it was time for Preston School of Industry, known for containing a former member of Pavement. Wow, how this made me wish I could have seen Pavement play, since PSOI was incredible. They rocked, had the guts to try to get the audience to chant along (from where I was it didn't seem like it worked well, but I appreciate the effort), and kept the energy level up their whole set. At the Modest Mouse show, someone had told me they thought PSOI's vocals were too screechy, but I don't see how they'd think that. This was straight-up hard indie rock, with appropriate amounts of yelling vocals. No shame in that if you can get it to sound like this. I would have bought the CD then, except they had sold out already. I guess I wasn't the only one impressed.

Finally, it was time for Guided By Voices. I had heard one GBV album before this, and thought some of it was interesting, but overall wasn't impressed. If you play that many songs, some are bound to be crap, right? So my expectations weren't very high going in, and they had a tough act to follow, especially after 3 bands I had enjoyed. Things started off all right - Bob seemed to have an appropriate rock-n-roll swagger, never too far from his beer, doing shticky moves with the mic and some kung-fu kicks and everything. The songs were OK, too. But then things kept going, and the shtick kept repeating, and it became harder and harder for me to tell which song was which. Was I too tired - was getting up for the 8:30 soccer game a mistake? It just started to blur together for me, and I decided it would probably be better to get home a little earlier rather than stay for more of essentially the same stuff. There were definitely some interesting songs in there, but besides me thinking about how Bob seemed like a drunken ass, I had essentially the same reaction I had had to the CD - cut this down in length by a significant factor, and it could be pretty entertaining. As it is, though, it starts to seem a little too much like some kind of music production algorithm without enough variables.

Overall, though, tonight's show was pretty awesome. Unusual when the headliner is the least enjoyable part of the show for me, but even they were entertaining for a while.

And so ended Noisepop 2002 for me. Hopefully I will post what I learned from Noisepop later, but I think I may need some time to get back into a normal schedule. Oh boy is work going to be fun tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this thing happen, especially the bands that played, even the ones I said mean things about. I'm still jealous!

Update (7/1/2002): I got an email pointing me to the Visqueen website. An album should be out later this year. Whoo.

Concert Report: Big Star, Imperial Teen, Moore Brothers (noisepop!)

After an enjoyable (we got to sit!) Ethiopian dinner, it was time for the show at The Fillmore. I'd never been there, so it was interesting to try it out. Lots of neat posters all over the walls from some of the great concerts they have had there - old and new. And they give away free apples. Weird. It has a second floor balcony, kind of like Great American Music Hall, except only on one side and much larger. There is also a back room that feels like a little coffee shop where they had a smaller band playing in between sets. The one tonight was pretty good - and included a cello player. Heh!

Anyways, the "real" show started with the Moore Brothers, which is 2 brothers singing, one playing acoustic guitar. Their first song sounded terrible - the harmonies seemed off. They settled in, though, and the harmonies got pretty nice, but the songs didn't really grab me lyrically or musically. They got a woman to sing with them at the end, which made things sound a little nicer, but the song was still kind of a dud. Oh well.

Next up was Imperial Teen. I totally got in to this! All four people (2 women, 2 men) sang, and sang well, and they swapped around the guitars and bass and drums a little bit. A very poppy, listenable sound, but with enough going on to keep it musically interesting. I probably would have tried a CD if I could have asked them which one to get - but you can't do that at big clubs like this.

Then it was time for Big Star. This was kind of a strange experience - they had a familiar sound, like you knew they fit somewhere into the history of classic rock and what came later, but it wasn't music I recognized since I had never heard it. It was kind of confusing. They did a fine job, though, and the crowd seemed to be very happy with everything and getting excited when they recognized certain songs, but I would have probably enjoyed it if I had been more familiar with it. They played a few too many ballad-like songs for my taste, but they certainly rocked out on the faster ones. So, it was enjoyable, but I couldn't really see why they have been the cult sensation that they seem to be.

Concert Report: Versus, +/-, Fiver, The Rum Diary (noisepop!)

An afternoon show at Bottom of the Hill. I wanted to see Versus after seeing Whysall Lane play a while ago, since it seemed some of his best songs were Versus songs. An afternoon show is really strange, though, and not really as good as the traditional evening show. It also seemed really early after getting back late from Friday's show. Luckily, BOTH is an easy club to get to, since we wound up getting there a little late.

We got there in the middle of the set by The Rum Diary, but at first it didn't seem like we were missing much. It was reasonable - I decided keyboards can add a lot to a band's sound - but not very engaging. Each song they played, though, was a little better than the last one. Maybe they were growing on me? For the finale they all switched to play drums, which was kind of neat, although they all had to face away from the crowd which was a little weird. So, I wasn't totally won over, but I think they have some potential.

Next up was Fiver (note that that link should work, but they cruelly redirect you to the homepage and you have to click on "Bands" then "Fiver" for it to work. What the hell?) which, don't be fooled, actually contains six people. It took me a little while to get used to the singer's voice, which seemed a little different from what I would have expected from the instrumentals, which were a lot harder. They had a reasonable sound, although a lot of their songs turned into very intense noises at the end, which made my friend go find the earplugs at the bar a couple of songs in.

Next up was +/-, one of the bands that formed out of Versus. At this point I wondered if I was really just getting cranky from lack of sleep, because I didn't really get in to them. I think I may have enjoyed them more if I had known the music already, since the vocals were very hard to understand. They had a few songs that seemed OK, but nothing really that interesting.

Finally it was time for Versus, for which my expectations had dropped considerably after not getting in to +/-. They turned out to be all right, though, although I still would have probably done better if I had known the songs going in. I think I liked the Whysall Lane show more because it was just one person and I could hear the vocals much better. Am I getting old or something? Here, with the full band, the sound was a little overwhelming at times. I probably would have enjoyed hearing more songs with the female singer, too, since she had a pretty good voice.

Overall, not the greatest show I have seen this week, but I think it suffered from extremely sub-optimal conditions. After this we decided to not go to Sunday's early show so we could catch up on some sleep - which should improve our enjoyment of the evening show.

Concert Report: Modest Mouse, Beachwood Sparks (Noisepop!)

More shows! Whooo. Back at Bimbo's tonight, but this time we find even better parking. Yay. Then when we get to the club we find out that The Aislers Set cancelled due to illness. Argh! Oh well, on with the show.

The opening replacement band was a pretty reasonable southern-rock group that the audience didn't seem to get very in to. It was really nice to hear a change of pace from the generic indie rock, though. I wish I remembered their name, but I don't.

Next up was Beachwood Sparks, who I really didn't get into. I wound up talking to the people that sat at our table most of the time instead, so maybe I didn't give them a fair chance. They did have a harmonica, I think, which was neat, but the whole thing was a little mellow and not what I was in the mood for.

And then it was finally time for Modest Mouse! And it was awesome! So much better than last time I can't believe it. They actually had 6 people on stage playing, so the sound was much fuller than last time. And Isaac actually talked a lot, which was great fun. "I have to listen to your inane shit, so you will have to listen to mine" and "If you fuck with me, this is just going to take longer, so stop fucking with me!" probably being the best lines, although learning that he really liked Sir-Mix-A-Lot as a kid was also interesting. They played a good mix of older and newer things, only a couple songs I didn't recognize (one that even the person next to me that had scheduled a trip to SF around this show didn't recognize, so maybe it was new?), but most importantly they played "Neverending Math Equation" which was great. The crowd was really into it, so we decided to try to move up closer for the encore, but they didn't play a really good closer, so it was a little disappointing. Oh well. Their show overall was really great, and made the night worthwhile.

The score so far: 2 really good nights, 1 pretty good night, and 1 mediocre night. Not bad - we'll see how the last two days treat us. Next up is the Versus show, but I am still not sure for the evening. And Sunday is a decision between the Chantigs and the BBQ - we'll see how it goes. If I don't just wind up sleeping all day...

Google and Scientology?

After reading this article about how Scientology is using a lot of different domains to try to enhance their page rankings, it seems like the best way to counteract that is to get more people to link to the sites that are critical of Scientology. Need to update the sidebar again!

Concert Report: Pedro the Lion, Stratford 4, Seldom, Sarah Shannon (Noisepop!)

This show was at Slim's, which is an OK place to see a show. I decided on this show because I wanted something a little mellow and because I wanted easy parking. Not very high expectations, but since my trusty fellow-badge-holder wasn't going with tonight I had to go out alone. Didn't need high expectations to add any pressure to that.

First up was Sarah Shannon (note: that is the worst musician web site ever currently), the former lead singer of Velocity Girl. I liked VG well enough, despite whatever weird emotional associations I have with it, so I wanted to see how her solo stuff was. It was OK, she has a good voice, but she seemed a little nervous. Not having heard any of her solo stuff before I couldn't get into it too much. I think if I were a real VG fan, though, I would be very excited about it.

Seldom (I think that is the right site!) was up next, and they turned out to be the people who had been backing up Sarah, plus a person, I think. It was adequate, but nothing that jumped out at me. Of course, by this point I was really missing having someone with to compare notes to and fill the time between sets. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood.

The Stratford 4 were good enough to get me out of that funk, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed their set. The lead singer guy totally went rock star at the end with his guitar, and had some reasonable crowd interaction throughout. Yeah!

By the time Pedro the Lion finally started playing, though, I found myself surrounded by a few couples that were getting snuggly. Umm, not what I needed at that point. I gave Pedro a few songs, but was unimpressed. I think if I had known the songs I could have gotten into it more, especially since the lyrics were really hard to make out, but he was playing everything from his next album, so there was no was I could have done that. He tried to do some crowd interaction, including taking questions, but it was just kind of uncomfortable to watch. Later, I wondered if that is how non-Mountain Goats fans feel at Mountain Goats concerts. The songs were much more intense than I expected, though, so I decided I had no good reason to try to wait it out.

Overall, not a great night, but that was in large part due to circumstances. It makes me think being a music critic that goes to see lots of shows would not be that fun all the time. But I did go to the show, so I can still aim for going every day of the festival. Whooo!

And I need to remember to include a rant about the lameness of the all-show badges at some point.