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Yellow card!

For the final CyberRays home game, we made big yellow and red cards out of posterboard so we could hold them up as we yelled at the ref to give the other team a card. It was fun, but if you think about doing this my suggestions are: don't waste your time with the red cards, you probably won't need them, figure out a way to keep them from getting stepped on, and don't be surprised if you start wishing for a much rougher game.

But the Rays did win 2-0, so we're definitely doing it again if we go back for more games next season.

waiting room

i am a patient boy i wait, i wait, i wait my time is like water down a drain everybody's moving, everything is moving please don't leave me to remain in the waiting room i don't want the news i'm not a part of it i don't want the news i have no use for it sitting outside of town everybody's always down because... they can't get up but i don't sit idly by i'm planning a big surprise i'm gonna fight for what i want to be i won't make the same mistakes because i know how much time that wastes function is the key in the waiting room

- fugazi

Elvis? No way!

I have finally remembered to put the link to this explanation of the music in the Nike world cup commercials (if you wade your way through the flash, they do have all the commercials in there). It turns out that it is an Elvis song. Or, more accurately, Elvis singing the song. I knew the voice was familiar, but it would have taken me a very long time to guess that.

Why I want to be a scientist

Who wouldn't want to study the secret of cuddles? Although this falls into the category of things I thought they would have already figured out, it is still pretty neat.

My thoughts on work

Work interferes with non-work stuff entirely too much.

Concert Report: Smokey and Miho, 20 Minute Loop, I am the World Trade Center

I am the World Trade Center (and if you have issues with that site saying you don't have the needed version of flash, try here, although I don't know why they felt the need to make their site be so flash-heavy) certainly has a distinctive name these days - people remember seeing it. They probably do not expect the energetic, playful electronic dance music with lots of prerecorded sounds and female vocals. They also do some voice manipulation stuff and have some crazy theremin-like interface to play samples on, which looked incredibly fun. They also looked like they were having a great time performing, which made things seem a lot better. The crowd seemed into it and was bopping up and down about as much as indie kids seem to do. A nice way to start things off!

20 Minute Loop came next, although I knew what to expect after already seeing them a couple of times. Apparently both singers had a bit of a cold, but they still put on a pretty good show, although I may be influenced by actually knowing some of their songs at this point. I'm not sure about their song ordering, though, since their biggest responses from the crowd came on songs they played in the middle. I also sometimes wish they would shorten their songs a little, but maybe I just have a short attention span.

Smokey and Miho came next, and I hadn't done any digging so I had no idea what to expect. I never would have guessed 1960's style Brazlilian music! I'm not knowledgable enough to tell my bossa nova from my samba or whatever else there is, but it was a really neat show to watch and listen and wiggle around to. They had a trumpet player, a sax/flute player, a percussionist, a stand-up bass player, and another singer in addition to Smokey, who played guitar and sang, and Miho, who sang. I don't think the crowd quite understood the etiquette for solos in mid-song (clap right away!) but Smokey helped everyone figure it out with some well-timed "give it up for..." lines. Of course, as a band they didn't have a jazz-level of improvisation since they weren't looking at each other enough. Even I could tell this since Smokey walked across the stage to whisper in some of the people's ears during the middle of one of the songs. Heh. So, I don't know that it is music I feel the need to listen to more often, but they had a good energy and seemed excited to be sharing this music with the audience.

Soccer: Win (6-5)

Check that out, a win! We went out to an early lead, like 3-0 or 4-0, although none of our finishes were very pretty, we dominated possession and the defense was solid. They started making runs, though, and my got got the ball, made a break, I caught up and had good position on him and he got a shot off and it was beautiful, hooking in right under the crossbar. Oh well - not much more I could have done, although I still felt bad about it. They had another really nice shot to make it close, and then we got called for a penalty. Mark actually saved the kick, but the ref called one of our people for moving inside the box too early and let them retake it. Later they said they were actually pushed, and there was no line there, so the call was pretty bogus. We didn't get any good calls all day. So they took the shot again and got it. Mark had a really solid game in goal, though, which was nice. In the second half they only scored twice, and one Mark almost stopped, getting it right behind the line.

My excitement, though, was receiving my first ever yellow card. They got a pass through, I was catching up and trying to get position when our feet tangled up and he went down, just outside the box. Since I was the last defender on the play I got the card, which the ref said was a gift because it is supposed to be red if the last defender fouls someone on a breakaway, but since he saw no intent he made it be yellow. Well, I guess it could have been reckless, but it certainly was not intentional. And the guy later on apologized for his yelling after going down, which was very nice. But they didn't get the goal on the free kick, so I guess it worked out ok in the end. I am not used to actually knocking other people down, since usually I am the one that gets pushed out of the way.

I finally subbed back in as a midfielder, but didn't see much of the ball until I went for a loose ball in their penalty box and got hammered by a defender who was also charging in. I managed to stay up but he went down. Maybe if I had gone down we would have gotten a call, but I usually try to stay on my feet as much as possible. I'm not sure how he got banged up more than me, though, since he was much bigger than me, and I felt it all through my chest and my left knee hit something hard.

But we won! Which felt nice. We just need to keep this up, and maybe try to allow even fewer goals to make it a little easier.

Secret Police?

And since I am on the civil liberty posting idea already -

The ACLU has a page about the TIPS program which would have people whose jobs give them access to your home report "suspicious" behavior to the government. Yeah, the postal carrier or the cable guy or the maintenance people in your apartment complex could decide to turn you in because you don't seem to meet their criteria of suspicious. I can't think of many things creepier than that. It doesn't seem like this should even be possible in our country in this day and age, so click that link and send a free fax to your congresspeople telling them not to go along with this. We've already let our freedoms slip lately, and we need to draw the line somewhere or we won't have any freedoms left. So really, go click the link now and maybe kids in 50 years won't look back on this time as being quite as full of stupidity as the communist witch-hunts in the 1950s. Security is a good thing, but we need to remember what it is we are trying to protect or the security will be meaningless.

Not all lawyers are evil

I will, of course, need to re-evaluate my sister when she graduates law school, but right now Larry Lessig's speech about the current state of intellectual property law makes me continue to think he is not just not evil, but actually a force for good in the world. So go make out an extra check to the EFF, since I know you are already a member, right, since I have that sidebar link to them? I think I will also try to remember to pick up his new book next time I am at the bookstore.

Comic Review: Palestine (Sacco)

Since I really enjoyed Safe Area Gorazde, I decided to get Joe Sacco's earlier work, Palestine. This covers his time in Palestine and Israel in the early 90's, as the first intifada was fading and the peace process was beginning. It is especially interesting to read now, as the peace process has stalled and violence has begun again. The book consists almost entirely of stories from the Palestinians - time spent in prison camps, difficulties trying to find a job, the frustrations of daily life in a place occupied by an army. It does not shy away from some of the self-inflicted problems the Palestinians face - violence against collaborators, rival political factions, a culture where children easily fall into violent behavior. But it is hard to read this and not think that the Israelis brought a lot of these problems upon themselves because of the lack of compassion they showed to the Palestinians. In any conflict where people have historical grievances there is no way to solve the "who did bad things first" question, but if it is ever going to end someone needs to make the first steps towards reconciliation with acts of kindness and understanding. And there is very little of that to be seen in these stories. It is also eerie to see the images of the Palestinians in the camps, placed there with no charges, being tortured to try to confess some crime, or to see the small indignities like identification cards colored differently to indicate if they have spent time in prison or not, or the different license plates for Israeli settlers, indicating they do not have to stop at the checkpoint. It all reminds me of early stories about Nazi germany, with the segregation of people and the different priviledges based on these classes. I worry that that is overstating the comparison, but the echo of that kind of dehumanization seems to be there. After reading this book I began to lose hope that I would live to see the situation resolved peacefully. The book also did a good job showing the different factions of Palestinian politics, and the conflicts people faced as a result of these divisions. It helped me to view them more as a vibrant, dynamic people, rather than just refugees or terrorists or extremists, but individual people who may get upset if they think people don't understnad how much they value education, or try to start a school for deaf children, or who try to convince the prison guards that they are humans each time a new set of guards shows up every fifteen days.

Compared to Safe Area Gorazde, it is easy to see that Joe Sacco's abilities as a cartoonist and storyteller have improved over time. Here, he spends too much time on his own story, or perhaps he seems like a less thoughtful and more naive person, and it distracts from some of the people's stories that he tells. While he does capture some spectacular moments of quiet thought, these moments are not as plentiful as they were in SAG, where I think he has a more refined skill at depicting these moments and knowing when to let the picture tell the story instead of the words.

And again, after reading one of his works, I feel like I should spend more time learning about the situation beyond the anecdotal level depicted here. But I eagerly await his next work, wherever it has taken him.

Joining the Dark Side

Well, at work today I finally gave in and installed Outlook on my machine. I had been using Pine for email (and probably still will!) and the Outlook web interface for scheduling meetings. This past week I have been scheduling meetings for our next development cycle, and have needed to try to get some people to give up some of the good conference rooms - and the web interface can't tell you who owns a meeting if you haven't been invited to it. So I needed the actual application.

It is a little scary how slippery of a slope those msft applications are...

Chocolate vs. Niceness

Maybe they don't cause that different of a response in the brain. So, go out and be selfish by being nice to people.

(and that article did not do a good enough job for me explaining the details of the experiment. unfortunately, I am too lazy to look for the actual journal article online)

Neuroscience and Buddhism

Wired has an interesting article on neuroscience and buddhism. I have to say that a religion that says you "can abandon scripture that has been reliably disproved by science" is more appealing to me than certain other religions. But I'm not exactly looking to give up my "radical materialist" outlook on things.

Shopping List

If I had a lot of extra money to waste, here are things I could spend it on:

• Super-fancy cell phone
• Slick little laptop that I would try to convince myself would lead to more productivity on web projects
• Real stereo for my apartment that even included a turntable
• New car stereo since the tape-adapter CD player is acting up again
• A digital camera that didn't suck which I would try to convince myself would lead to more interesting pictures on my web site
• Video games that I know I won't play but think sound cool anyways
• An apartment in the city I could stay at on weekends and after concerts when I don't want to drive back

I'd better stop before this gets out of hand and I start listing all the places I'd have additional homes, and the elaborate transportation system so I could spend each weekend wherever I wanted...

Soccer: Loss (5-2)

Just when you think things are getting better, you give up 5 goals and realize they really aren't.

We did OK the first half, keeping control of the ball, moving it around nicely, and getting some shots off. Most of those shots sailed over the crossbar, but we did get a couple of follow-ups that Dave converted into 2 goals, which was pretty good. Of course, we gave up 3 goals, all of which seemed to end in 1-on-1 situations with our keeper. One of them was my fault, as I got a pass as left back that I didn't turn up the field well and lost it to the other team, which they took in and scored. But we should have changed up our defensive strategy earlier, since they were beating our offsides trap pretty easily. Mark did a good job as keeper, though, breaking up some of the 1-on-1s and forcing them into bad shots. It seemed like we might be able to come back in the second half.

Of course, we didn't. I watched from the side as we gave up 2 quick goals. One Mark had called for, but one of our defenders headed it anyways, right to the other team, allowing them an easy score. Frustrating! We weren't controlling anything in the midfield and just seemed really sluggish. I subbed back in and played stopper and ran as much as I could to try to add more presence to the midfield, but there was no attack to try to support. But we held them for the rest of the game, despite not having much of an attack ourselves. So it wasn't a total loss, but I don't think it went as well as last week. Although I think Dave scores more goals when he has been out drinking the night before, so we'll see what we can do to him next saturday...

Thanks

Sometimes I don't think it is ever possible to thank people for the little things properly... like a little conversation that brightens an otherwise lazy, blah-filled day, and makes me think happy thoughts. How can you effectively thank someone for providing you with happy thoughts? That is a crazy thing to be able to do, getting into someone's thoughts like that. And I can try to do nice things back or cheer them up when they feel blah, but I don't know if that ever really conveys the way I really feel.

So, until I figure out a real way to do it, I'll just say it here: Thanks!

Web Project

I know I won't have time for this, either, but here's my idea for a new web project: a site that lets people post recipes for each other, add comments, and search for other people's favorites. Maybe when I get that elusive free time... although this seems more useful than the music review site, so maybe it can inspire more motivation.

(I'm keeping the other web project idea, that a friend and I came up with over dinner, a secret because it could actually be a business idea. It seems like such an obvious extension of an existing web service that I can't believe no one does it yet, although I haven't really looked for it so maybe it does already exist.)

The Date Project

The Date Project is a fantastic idea for a blog. Although, if you don't want the ending spoiled you should start here. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but it somehow seems like cheating to get set up with someone.

Ewww! Gross

Well, my toenail that got smashed during a soccer game finally decided to reveal the crazy new toenail underneath today, thanks to a little extra volleyball sand getting wedged in there. And while it is kind of yucky (I will spare you the pictures, although I did think about it), it is pretty darn neat that it can repair itself like that.

Take that, robots!

Flirting and Small Talk

I am certainly no expert in either of these areas, but I was out with some people and someone made a comment to me that made me think about this more than usual. We had been seated at separate tables and later the friend said to me "I saw you flirting with that girl over there," and I thought "Flirting? I didn't think I was flirting." So when does small talk become flirting? Is there some set of conditions that need to be met for it to be considered flirting?

I used to think that intent was the factor. If you were trying to start something, like a relationship or a sexual encounter or something, it would be flirting. But if you were just trying to enjoy the conversation and get to know the person, it is just small talk. I'm not really sure about this so much anymore, though. If you are leaving yourself open to the possibility, is it still intent? If you want to be "just friends" is it intent, because you are in it for something more? What about when you really have no idea what your intent is?

So maybe you have to look at other factors. What is being talked about, how much eye contact is being made, body language, all that good social skills stuff that those of us who went to engineering and computer science schools didn't really learn. Which makes me curious about whether or not I give off those signs, becuase it is definitely not something I am consciously controlling. Which makes me a little scared to talk to new people sometimes, for fear I will give off some kind of inappropriate signal, one way or another.

Some people I have talked to definitely know how the game is played, though, and respond in such a way that their intentions are clear and that helps me express mine. Talking to a woman and she drops a mention of her boyfriend? Probably not flirting. Talking to a woman and she mentions not being able to meet good men? Still extremely confusing to me.

I have been accused of being good at flirting at least once, but I think that is just a lucky thing that happens when I am motivated, and probably only is noticed by certain kinds of people. I don't think I could just do it anytime.

And maybe that is OK, although it would be really good for me to improve on my "small talk" skills, especially with this late summer party season approaching. We'll see how motivated I am to try and practice, I guess.

Who fired the web designers?

For no reason in particular, I was looking at cell phone company websites. They all really suck.

Disclaimers

I have a rather consistent habit of giving out disclaimers before I say things. Sometimes I just want wiggle room later in case I change my mind. Sometimes I am unsure and want to express that doubt. Most of the time, though, I am just trying to explain my thought process - including all of the doubts and concerns and contingencies that what I am saying depends on. But sometimes I need to share some more general disclaimers:

• I understand I don't know anything about music. I put up the concert reviews because I couldn't find many sources for reviews of these kinds of shows online already. So if you disagree with me, don't be mean about it, just try to explain what I am missing and point me to some examples that might change my mind. If I thought I knew anything about music, I'd be putting up music reviews. (and don't think I haven't thought about this a lot - what a fantastic way to have something to write about here instead of writing lame entries like this)

• I also don't really know anything about relationships, so any advice I give about these sorts of things is really biased towards how I think I work, and what my current ideas about my goals are. I'm not trying to mislead anyone, but it is really stuff you need to figure out for yourself ultimately.

• I am not always good at expressing enthusiasm, so my reviews or descriptions may sometimes sound more negative than how I actually feel about the item in question. If I say something is good, I really do think that, despite all of the things I point out that could be better. Sometimes I can't think of good ways to say "it's good" over and over, so it just gets said once and that is it.

• I don't like having the responsibility where my decisions have a substantial impact to other people's careers. Maybe someday I will get used to this, but it really conflicts with my internal desires to be nice to people. And maybe I can rationalize this away in some weird market-optimization fantasy, but how can you really judge a person's entire skillset so quickly? I think I have a reasonable idea, but you can't really tell how these things could have worked out. So all these doubts will be disclaimed in a completely useless fashion here.

Time check

I think my times have all been 3 hours off since the big server switch. Which has led to incorrect dates in my prime midnight to 3am weblogging time. Let's see if I fixed it.

Concert Report: Ugly Casanova, The Sunshine Fix

After a little mix-up regarding the dates (and for as good as tonight's show was, I can't help but wonder if tomorrow's BOTH show will be better) I found a nice person to go with me to the show. I had already bought the album so I could be at least a little familiar with the songs, which I think was a good idea for this.

The opening band The Sunshine Fix turned in a very good, energetic, set. They had a little bit of a southern rock style, perhaps because they are from Athens, Georgia, but the most impressive thing was their smooth transitions from one song to the next. No time wasting from these boys! We definitely got our money's worth for an opening act. They had some crazy box that looked like an old printer or piece of scientific equipment from the 60s that may or may not have had a keyboard for producing some weird sounds, which was also intriguing. Besides the guy playing whatever that was, they had a bass/guitar/drums/singer with guitar setup. They also had a cool banner they hung behind them which featured some crazy robot-like character clawing at the sun. Neat. The music itself was energetic, usually with a pretty strong rhythm (which could be described as "danceable" if it were not an indie rock show) (I actually overheard a guy lean over to the woman he was with and say "they're not very indie, are they?" but couldn't tell if it was a joke or he was being serious) that may not have been the most musically creative thing in the world but was certainly listenable and enjoyable.

We were supposed to get another band but apparently they showed up late or didn't show or something, so Ugly Casanova went on next. It took them a little while to find their stage presence I think, and the audience banter wasn't very exciting (telling us to buy more drinks?) but the music was pretty entertaining. My quick background listens to the album definitely didn't give me a clue about the complexity going on behind the songs. They kept changing up instruments, having different people contribute to the vocals, and occasionally using a megaphone thing to scream stuff through. They must have played all or almost all of the songs from the album, because I recongized a bunch of the songs and couldn't remember anything they didn't play. The crowd got into it pretty well (with one screamy girl that was into it too much) but I don't think most people were familiar enough with the songs yet for it to be like the modest mouse show where everyone was singing along at times. They definitely have a different, but related, sound from modest mouse. More rich vocals, due to the other band members, and a more interesting instrumentation (banjo!) that mm usually has. And they go for more of a country sound, which showed me that it really amuses me to see indie rock kids jumping around to a banjo solo. Heh! The encore was a not-as-energetic version of "barnacles" followed by a banjo-heavy countrified version of "styrofoam boots" which was pretty awesome, although the end kind of petered out into a final looping bit of sound as they left the stage. I'm a believer in the big rocking finish, but I'll accept this change from the usual version of a song I knew and liked. I definitely enjoyed the show, although there were some feedback issues at times and the vocals, as usual, were impossible to understand a lot of the time. The friend I was with thought it was much better than the album, though, although I am going to have to listen to the album again to make my decision on that.

A nice show, though - but I wonder if it would be even more intense at BOTH. Oh well.

Cardiomyopathy

I think my first roommate in college is one of the people who died from this. It seems like a terrible thing for the parents to go through - young people that just never wake up one day. And 1 in 500 seems like a very high rate of incidence, enough that a better form of screening should be found. It seems like there are organizations devoted to reducing the effects of the disease, and, of course, information about cardiomyopethy from the good people at the NIH. At least some of your tax dollars are going to help people.

Soccer: Tie (2-2)

The first half was our best half yet, and we ended it up 2-0. We've been using a 4-4-2 formation that is working much better when we put the right people in the right places, and had good movement of the ball through the midfield. It felt good. The second half didn't work out so well, though - we didn't have as much possession of the ball, and they were able to score on a fast break with one of their really fast forwards. I was playing sweeper at the time, and just couldn't make up the step. I felt really slow all day - that is what happens when I don't play for a week, or do any serious running. Oh well. It was kind of disappointing to end up with a tie since we had a 2 goal lead for a while, but I guess in the scheme of things it was a pretty good game - and only giving up 2 goals is a lot better than we have been doing.

Concert Report: Hank Jones Trio, Taylor Eigsti Trio

I got invited to go with some work friends to this show, which is part of this year's Stanford Jazz Festival. I haven't been doing a good job incorporating much jazz into my life lately, so I thought it would be a good thing for me. And it was! The opening trio, led by Taylor Eigsti, who is only 17 years old, only played a few numbers but I enjoyed it. The piano was obviously the star, though, so there wasn't much interesting back-and-forth energy in their performance. Seeing someone so young that is so good at something doesn't always make me feel good about what I have done with my life, though. But I could still appreciate his talent.

The real star, though, was Hank Jones, who is now 84 years old. 84 is old. But this guy was still really, really good. Not good for his age, even - he'd be good for any age. And his bass player and drummer were also really good, and I got to see a little of the cool group improvisational style that is so different than what I do in my job. It is wonderful to watch people that in sync and that talented working together to make something so wonderful. They played songs from a lot of different composers, and it seemed like mostly a more classic, lyrical style of jazz and blues. They still kept to a pretty structured main theme - piano solo - bass solo - drum solo - everyone back to the main theme format for each song, which was a little disappointing to me because they could have mixed it up a little more based on the songs. But they all seemed to be having a really good time, which lends a good energy to the performance. And they played for almost 3 hours, which seemed really long for a jazz concert to me, at least compared to other shows I have seen. Not bad for an 84 year old at all. Wow.

The show was held at Dinkelspiel Auditorium at Stanford, which seemed like a nice auditorium but not a great place to see jazz. Of course, the crowd was very old and white, and a lot of them seemed to sneak out a little early as the show went late, so maybe it was the right atmosphere for them. But I should really find someone to go try out Yoshi's or Jazz at Pearl's or something and see if that has a better atmosphere. Which I guess is a good sign about this concert - it reminded me I shouldn't get too caught up in one kind of music.

Web Log Time

How much time needs to pass before I can complain again about something I already complained about on the weblog?

At least this time I will be going somewhere to have fun!

Falafel

Falafel is really tasty. Who would think that it could cause conflict between Israelis and Palestinians? Around here, my favorite falafel is still the Falafel Drive-In (an official "Bargain Bite", even), although it isn't too hard to make yourself if you cheat and use the mix.

Right now, though, I just wish there was an all-night falafel place I could go to get some dinner.

Pictorial Evidence

I'm not sure, but I think a fantastic way to embarrass a friend for their birthday is to get a birthday package to your local women's soccer team game, take their picture hugging the creepy mascot, then get them drunk at the bar the team goes to after the game to see if you can try to get them to talk with people from the team.

Of course, it is no good if you don't get pictures of all these things - which I will try to get posted up here soon.

For now, I just need to recover for the interviews I need to do tomorrow morning... yikes...

Capoeira

On Saturday I got to see a batizado put on by the Capoeira Arts group in Berkeley. If you have never seen people playing capoeira, you should make an effort to go see it at least once. It is a form of Brazilian martial arts that was originated when the African slaves were not allowed to practice martial arts, so they practiced under the guise of dancing. This not only led to a really interesting style to watch, full of spins and interesting acrobatics all performed with a sense of rhythm, but also a culture of music and singing and a performance aspect to it that is really neat to see. The energy at a batizado, which is the celebration where the students get their new belts, which I think is usually only done once a year at a school, is incredible, though. Mestres from other schools and other parts of the world come to participate, students from around the area come to see, and lots of spectators show up. It is really infectious, and makes me think about trying it out for a while (although preferable somewhere closer to home).

And in something unrelated but discovered while looking for these links, the Capoeira Arts Cafe may have art done by someone I knew in middle school. Weird.

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

For better or worse, the sleep schedule should be getting back to normal tonight and I'll be able to start catching up on things here.

Because everyone likes lists, here are things I should try to catch up on:

• Batizado
• Weddings
• Strangehaven
• Amazing Screw-On Head
• Japanese Noise Rock 2, Computer Projects 0
• Dumb and Dumber
• The unending struggle to find the definition of "flirting" vs. "small talk"

But first, sleep...

sad

somehow you make even the sadness seem good

because it means there was something substantial

and it means i can still have hope

haiku?

simple late night hug

provides energy enough

for entire drive home

Late at Night Part 2

and sometimes i can say things (even if it is in a very indirect, roundabout way)

and the responses and questions and answers (with a little prodding)

make things seem better (even if the confusion is still there)

(i think things will be good, however it turns out)

Late at night

sometimes i worry that if i try to say something it won't come out right at all

so maybe i should not try to say anything at all right now

and just enjoy a little confusion

Book Review: Coraline (Gaiman)

I had one of those moments where I realized the ridiculousness of keeping this weblog.

I was sitting, listening to Neil Gaiman read his new book Coraline, wondering "When I write this up for my weblog, should I label it as a Book Review or an Event Report or make two separate entries or what?"

In the effort to make the review more interesting, it is all going in here.

I enjoyed the book. It is a fairly typical fairy tale, although it is set in a contemporary environment and it features a really strong female protagonist. I think Coraline's character effectively captured the personality of a smart child, which is a not insignificant task. It was unfortuante the plot itself was a little dull, but the execution was really nice, with lots of clever and entertaining twists throughout. The buildup to the first climax was a little predictable, but I don't think it can be a real fairy tale if it doesn't have some predictability. I'm not sure the second climax was really needed, but I'll have to try reading it myself to see if I change my mind. The beginning half had a couple of slow spots, although again, I can't tell what was due to the reading environment and what was actually the book, although I suspect this may have been the book since the second half kept me entertained throughout. There were only two spots where I was distracted by the writing - a reference to Coraline's mom as "Mrs. Jones" seemed out of lace coming for the first and only time at the end, and the narrator explaining things about the relative speed of rats and girls to the reader. The explanation was very humorous, but it seemed a change in narration style which was a little strange for me. Otherwise, I liked it, and I think the Coraline character was someone I would love for more children to identify with.

Mr. Gaiman's reading was also very entertaining. He opened with a little update that Henry Selick would direct the movie version of Coraline and it would cast Michelle Pfeiffer as the Mom. Then he read the first half of the novel, we took a break for cookies and water, and then he finished reading the novel. All told, it took about 4 hours to read the book, which is a lot to sit through, but the audience stayed with it the whole time, I think. Some of us had to fight the sleep urge that has been conditioned in to us from bedtime stories in our youth (and the occasional lucky nights as adults) but the story was exciting enough that it wasn't much of a problem once things got going.

So, it was very entertaining, both performance-wise and book-wise. I think it was more entertaining than the usual brief reading/Q&A session/signing evening, so I am glad he chose this arrangement and that Cody's Books did a fine job arranging it. And I was happy to have someone to go with that also enjoyed it.

Visqueen

I just got an email pointing me to the actual Visqueen website. I wouldn't mind seeing them again if they make it back down to SF, since I enjoyed the show they played at noisepop.

And it is still weird to me to get email about my website from people I don't know. But it is a good weird.