Eddie's dead. Like his namesake, Eddie could not hack it in the big leagues, and did not make it to the summer of Galt's revolution. For those of you who don't know, Eddie was my 200 kilomile, overachieving, underprivilleged gimp of a car. And now I am, once again, free from the burden and the convenience of driving. I hope all my friends rejoice, as I will make sure to impose on all of you equally while my search for a car commences.

A brief telling of Eddie's death. It was my fault. I ignored the light that has told me for the last 2 years that something is wrong with my engine, because the mechanics always said the light was broken. as it turns out oil was leaking out. it also turns out without oil, the engine does not show that it is overheating. it just makes noise. and if it is 2 am, and you are tired and trying to get home, and you ignore the noise, it keeps going until it dies, and the whole engine freezes up. a lesson learned.

i had the car towed in the middle of the night to a mechanic i had used about 6 months previously (who obviously was not around at 2am). the tow truck driver was gracious enough to drive me the extra 5 blocks to my house for a mere $20, so that i could go to sleep and wake up in 3 hours for a client meeting. After calling the alleged mechanic 8 times in the morning, i went to stop by and check on my car. The Arab, non english-speaking gentleman working the gas pump informed me that the mechanic went out of business 4 months ago, and that i had to get the car out. this was surprising to me, given that the signs offering me a $79.99 tuneup were still hanging with no sign of an "out of business sign". while i was waiting for the tow truck to take eddie to a better place (a real mechanic), the gas pump gentleman insisted i pay him $50 for leaving the car there overnight, because his boss said so. Once I established that there was no explosives belt around his waist, I politely informed him that he has the option to tow me according to the law if he feels i am tresspassing, but i will not pay him. after throwing a tantrum he offered me a special $30 rate instead. such a deal. i told him to go fuck himself, got my car towed to a mechanic, and learned that it's time has run out. a sad end, but at least he reached 200K.

Today I had yet another confirmation that progress rules. I (like a dumbass that I am), left my EZpass in the car when I got it towed. So I had to get the thingy replaced. I called 3 different easy pass numbers, which all failed to look me up (failed to even try), and just kept forwarding me on to other people. I spent over a half hour on the phone, while getting to work. When I got to the office, I went online and did it myself in about 5 minutes. Is it a wonder that we seek to automate these things and remove the blatant incompetence from our day to day lives? How do you feel about yourself when a machine can do your job better than you? I guess I will find out in about 20 years when we don't need software developers anymore.

This weekend I got to dance with the tallest girl ever. She was a full head taller than me, and also taller than every single boy at the bar. Since we were obviously mismatched, she at one point took my hand and twirled me over to her friend. I never been twirled before - it made me feel small and safe. My favorite was when this funny boy aggressively tried to dance with the amazon, but she didn't like him that much so she picked him up with one hand and tied his legs into a knot with the other. he was no longer dancing, but was still quite funny.

addictive personality = 0 will power = me half the time = bad news. anyone wanna be my sponsor?

Happy New Year! Such a trivial transition, and yet such a convenient point at which to erase the follies of 2003, and look ahead with hope and sparkly eyes (ok, that's prolly just glitter).

I celebrated the coming of the year of the monkey at Anon Salon in san francisco. After a slow start to the night, as my friends readied themselves for the festivities, we stopped by a party hosted by Nick, where I got to see a bunch of AEPi kids whom I haven't seen in years. It was fun, and rereminded me how weird my fraternity really was. And then, glitter on, we headed out to the party.

Being the space cadet that I am, I had left my ticket to the party in Boston. Thanks to "technology", I had it transferred to will call. Apparently there are a lot of us cadets out there though, cause the line was really long. We got to the place at 11:20, and I got in at 11:55, just in time to count down with my dear friends and toast the coming of the new year. As Sound Tribe Sector Nine took the stage, and the alcohol made its way towards my brain, I started dancing, and kept going all night.

STS9 is really fucking good, especially for this type of party. The surreal masquerade, the other world where music is a benevolent dictator, and everyone gladly forsakes control of their bodies for the exaltation of their minds. It was the kind of experience that I want every time I go dancing to be. People offering their smiles and eyes, tuning into the music and letting everyone enjoy their sight. Little sleaziness to speak of.

We checked out the upstairs room, with a metal band, cabaret girls, and dancers on stills. the downstairs room with a heavy, pulsating beat, and a lot of jumping. and finally the "chill" room with a nice slow rhythm, and lots of kids on e. I got to talk to one a little bit and rub her head, and dance with her. on the whole the people were really sweet and open, and just enjoying themselves. the alcohol stopped at 1:30, but the party kept going till we left at almost 4.

We then headed to a after party at the most beautiful home space I have ever seen. 15,000 sq feet of loft space, DJ's, sails, couches, projected visualizations, and pretty girls. I have rediscovered the ability to dance all night, and was ready to go for another 4 or 5 hours, but my friends were tired. we fell just short of the 6am party, which was supposed to have breakfast too.

oh, and i figured out what kind of band i need to have. Lead guitar, turntable/puter (me), and a keyboard. There was a band like that at anon salon - it was clear they did not really know how to play their instruments, and yet the music they made was really engrossing and fun.

I had the joy of reenacting a scene from Office Space last week. I went to a party and met a girl who worked for Forrester Research, a company that does analysis on industries, particularly in technology. We started talking and she explained to me what she does for work. I summed up my job quite quickly in saying "i work wit puters", but she persisted to get details. Inspired by her technical background, I decided to give a brief synopsis of why what i do is more important than a monkey playing with a box of rusty nails. even as i got into my first sentence, i saw her eyes starting to jump and shift, even as she kept saying "oh, that sounds really interesting." quite aware of the impending result, i masochistically pressed on, illuminating the virtues of being able to talk to your puter or your cellaphone. as the eyes glazed over, the breaking moment came where she could no longer live without "getting a drink" from the kitchen, at which point the conversation ended. The worst part is that she does research on RF IDs, which are reasonably cool, but she doesn't even make them - she just talks to people who do, and she talked about them the whole time! My software developer roommate yelled at me for precipitating an all too familiar scene. it was at that moment i realized that I am actually proud of my work, and though it is narrow and specialized, I still do rule. And then they took my stapler, and that was the last straw. I left, and set the building on fire.

I had the best dream last night. I actually learned how to be enlightened. I basically just figured out how to slip into a state where i could be fully aware of events and emotions, yet simultaneously reflecting on them, and it is an ability that i could just turn on at will. Though the method did not remain, I woke up with a feeling of serenity and awareness, as well as a sharpness that i don't usually get at 6 am without the requisite morning coffee. As I bathed in my morning mood swings (that's right, I AM menopausal), I was actually able to understand the underlying causes, and that made life seem better.

on the train a guy was sitting and reading the newspaper, trying to spread it out in a way that the two seats next to him would not be taken, and giving me a dirty look when i took one of them. in a less enlightened mood i might have hated him for the rest of the train ride, but i forgot he existed five seconds later. then as i exited the train, i quickly blew a poison-tipped dart through my teeth, hitting him right at the intersection of his turkey neck and jawbone. he was so surprised! it worked out well, cause no one really wants to sit next to a stiff reading a newspaper anyway.

NYTimes:
"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, still has more Internet addresses than all of China,"

God, we rule

just to set the record straight. i know nothing of poetry. i don't even read it. the reason i have been driven to it lately is that it allows me to articulate feelings more accurately than i could with detailed explanations. somehow simply presenting things in association seems more accurate. perhaps it is just a good way to convey things to an audience without being too specific. like if you don't really know me well, which is true of almost everyone, this is a way to communicate without requiring the context.

if i ever learn to play music, i am excited to try lyrics and music together. it is great to be able to express yourself so clearly, and yet allow people listening to partake in the creative experience, adding the prism of their interpretation to the final result. having no talents, i think that is why i really like dancing. it adds a tiny bit of interpretation to an experience driven by other people. concerts are awesome that way, cause sure you are there to see the band, and they are great, but it is also so neat to see how individual people tune in to the music, and also the voluntary submission to the collective musical experience. yeah, phish does rule.

it is depressing to find yourself with a vocabulary of a 16-year old stoner, where "awesome" and "experience" come up every third word.

I've recently discovered snooze dreams. I can't believe it's taken me 24 years, but i guess i have not been much of a snoozer before. Lately however, I find myself snoozing for 3 hours in a row, and the dreams are just spectacular. usually the first time the alarm rings at 5am, i'll be at the beginning of a developing dream. when i wake up, the story comes into focus, maybe integrating some early morning radio. i snooze, fall back asleep, and watch the story unfold, with focusing breaks every 10-20 minutes. it started out with me just not wanting to get up. but now i stay in bed solely because of the promise of good dreams. My record this weekend is something like 5 hours of snoozolific fun. The dream merges with reality, and ends up being much more appealing than the prospect of work.

Now some might accuse me of lameness for preferring dreams to reality. But that is not entirely accurate. It turns out I just prefer dreams to no dreams. And it seems the more I snooze, the more well rested I am in the morning. My current plan is to sleep for 5 hours a night, in 15 minute increments. And then maybe my dreams will start being real anyway.

Oh, and the best part is being able to write the dream like a story, with yourself as a character in it, and yet experience it as reality at the same time. just sort of guide yourself to new and better peaks.

sloth consumes, easy path, mind is off
dreams come soon, maybe mine, maybe yours
i sit and stare
time streaming by
can't find a place to jump on

feeling old, feeling empty, ways to die
flash back on in between laughing grunts
life is better
nothing to wait for
worry and doubt are for suckers

will and self, waking up, feeling free
thinking was inside out this whole time
memory comes
it still burns
it doesn't rule me anymore

pain swirls, drills through the skin
the mind stays clear, assimilates the gravel
nothing denied
a few things lost
back on the train, not waiting

Yesterday I went on my first "date" since freshman year in college. She messaged me on Friendster, we talked on the phone, and then met face to face. Classically speaking, it was bad - we did not really have much in common, and our personalities noticeably did not click. However, it was such a fascinating experience, that I couldn't really consider it negative. Perhaps it was just the novelty of the encounter, or maybe it was my complete forecertainty that there was little in the way of friendship or learning to be gained, but I discovered an opportunity to shamelessly question the personal life and psychology of another human being, and one unlike most people i know.

So first the weaknesses (finishing with the strengths ought to convey the positiveness of the experience). She does not have (nor seems to ever have had) any real friends other than her parents. At the age of 24, she, a pretty attractive girl, has never had a relationship that lasted longer than a week. She was decidedly negative in her outlook toward life, and though would not admit it, seemed to believe that that is simply what life was - that it offered no superior experiences. It appears her history justified it, at least in part, but it's tough to find the fault in the finer interplay between her personality and the evolution of her life and her relationships with other people. she had recently been laid off, and that was clearly dominating her outlook on life, she could not figure out what to do with her time, she felt useless and uninterested in anything life had to offer. the nature of her relationships is summarized as "i see someone for 2 or 3 days, then they want to sleep with me, and i don't want to, and they break it off". she just had a month's vacation of travelling by herself in europe and hated it.

she is a makeup artist, and a self-described workaholic. in addition to working at a spa (until the recent layoff), she has her own makeup line, and also has clients that just come to her house. her devotion to work is pretty intense, and tough not to respect. she likes it, and sees it as a way of ensuring her own independence and security, which she prizes above all else. she doesn't really like people in boston because they don't care enough to make themselves look good, something she enjoys doing for herself and for other people. And though the dissatisfaction with the course of life peeked around her words every few sentences, she said she was content to simply not have to depend on anyone, and to live in comfort.

despite this narrowly focused perception of life, it was clear she has other things that she enjoys, but just doesn't seem to place much value on them, or much value on her enjoyment of them. she gardens. plays classical piano. likes listening to chopin, jazz, etc. paints landscapes. she is fascinated by the beauty of space (and even models her makeup line around it). she seems almost ashamed of these things, "a 50 year old in the wrong body", or a nova-watching dork. to her, they are certainly trivial compared to work and usefullness to other people.

her goal is not just to support herself, but to help her parents live comfortably in their older years. she helps her sister, whom she doesn't like, cause she "has to". but her parents are the people she loves and wants happiness for. and if she found the boy she wants (whom she does not think exists, and the only quality of whom she can articulate is that he would be a "metrosexual"), she wants love, in a way where she and the boy are the center of each other's world's. it seems she tries to stifle hope to avoid even greater disappointment, and is content to live alone, work, and be comfortable, and perhaps finally quiet the little voice that keeps whispering "there is more".

and as i picked up a novel to reread today, where the somewhat unusual name of my date refers to a significant character, i relished the little coincidence, and the unexpected learning experience of a futureless encounter. the substitution of questioning and understanding for judgement and dismissal is undoubtedly a positive step in my impending transfiguration.

and now back to work - i hope i can carry the inspiration of listening to myself write (and subjecting ahren to it), into producing some great java.

Today rules - Ahren finally admitted that I am "so damn special", and seconded the motion by commenting on a 2-day old post (again). I am now officially wedded to the blogging world. I bet Herman Hesse would be the greatest blogger friend to have ever. He validates a life of seeking and breaking from "the herd" (in pretty much any way), without offering delusions of fulfillment. And people still choose him over promises of god and faith and science. Everything he's ever written is one big blog. Just different perspectives, and a bunch of selves to toy around with. Can you all please read everything he's written. I only get so much out of talking to myself.

Like no one else, I love the cycle of personal death and rebirth. A true child of the markets (though born in communist USSR), i seek constant growth, and when that is absent, i feel the recessions and depressions like no other. Right now I am in the last throws of death, but even so I feel a new cycle of rebirth coming, probably some time in January. That's going to rule.

Oh so there is this new show on FX where a guy is offering to give control of his life over to the tv audience, cause he's made so much of a mess of it, that he thinks they can't do any worse. as if society doesn't control enough of his life as it is. I feel like joining a religion might be more fruitful. but at least this way he prolly gets paid a bunch.

TV is stupid. I am officially done with it so I can jump start my guitar career and make my audition for ahren's band. i think i might have to learn to play the drums though, cause that is the big gap in the band right now. if you haven't heard ahren singing, i highly recommend it.

wow, amy read my blog today, so now ahren is not my only audience. i have to come up with something quirkily funny and smart sounding to say so that i am not rejected by my new found peers. i propose a trip around the world for whomever is into it. basically we take a year where we get rid of our apartments here, and go travelling. we go together some of the time, separately for some, and the only requirement is that we are all creating stuff, again together or separately - writing fiction, creating music, painting, photographing, solving interesting problems, etc. and we meet up like once a month to share stuff and discuss and share in transcendental experiences. for funding, we can work part time along the way. hostels are pretty cheap. i would say on the whole we can do it with like a $5000 initial investment, and whatever we make on the way.

Other ideas for funding the trip would be to make it a reality show of sorts (may be a little boring), or to develop the concept further and sell it to a travel magazine or guide, where we would deliver regular installments on our progress, and come up with some ostensible goal.

i would bet that for most people reading this, this would be more fun than what you are doing now. moreover, the older you get the less likely such an adventure becomes (though i don't subscribe to that view, i can see how it would be true for a lot of people).

oh, and we should plan it so that we only have summer (with a little fall) for our seasons. who's with me?

Childhood comes through big green eyes
Light in circles on the wall
My old home, same white skies
Coffee, earl grey, and the mall

Flying through the thick of night
Jump head-first for winter’s breath
What connects is soft and light
Birth is far away from death

Barely a common thread
Bonds me stronger than my chains
Little left of my old self
Only cobblestones and rains

An adventure for the day
And a ticket to the past
Two steps out of the fray
Peace returns, though doesn’t last

Faces merging into one
Mobius takes charge of time
Childhood comes through big green eyes
Slight and subtle in a rhyme

Circles shatter, moments pass.
I just smile and clink my glass

This is a test of the emergency blogcast system.