Continued Musings

Fadó: the Irish, American Football Pub

2011-09-11T11:45:00.003-06:00

This is a rant: you have been warned.

I have been a regular at Fadó since I arrived in Seattle, having introduced the pub to my coworkers. We frequent the place for dinner often enough that many of the staff recognize us.

Of course one of the best aspects of Fadó is that they claim to be a soccer pub. They show Premier League games on Saturday and Sunday mornings as well as broadcasting all of the local Sounders games. I had not been down to Fadó for breakfast (complete with an Irish coffee) and a weekend EPL game, but this morning seemed to be the perfect opportunity. I showed up at 9:00 am hoping to catch the second half of the Fulham Blackburn game and all of the Norwich West Brom game, starting at 10:00 am. When I arrived at the bar, I walked into the main TV room and all of the TVs were off. I was the only one sitting in the room.

I ordered an Irish coffee and asked the bartender if she could put on the soccer game. She said she didn't know how to work the TVs, but assured me that someone named "Peter" would be around shortly and would be able to help. I sat and sipped my Irish coffee and waited for another bartender to come around. After five or ten minutes no one else had come around, so I asked my bartender again if there was someone who could put on the soccer game. Someone had actually turned on the TVs in the room by now, but one screen was on the NFL pregame show, and another seemed to be playing nothing but commercials without sound. Two of the screens were on but playing nothing. The bartender assured me that Peter would be around any minute and could help me.

A few more minutes go by and a male bartender walks by. I asked him politely if he would put a soccer game on one of the unused screens for me. I was still the only customer in the room, but he said "I don't think I can do that today: it's NFL opening week, man." I started to try to reason with him, but he was already walking away.

I closed out my tab and headed back to my apartment.

Now I recognize that the first NFL Sunday is a big deal. I still would have thought they would be willing to change one screen in the room where the only customer wanted to watch soccer, but maybe he was anticipating the crowds pouring in for the kickoffs at 10:00 am. But wait...

This is the broadcast schedule posted for the Seattle Fadó for today. If you want to play nothing but the NFL on the first NFL Sunday, that's fine. Just don't advertise that you're going to show EPL games when you have no intention of doing so.

End rant.

The Tour, Pt II

2011-08-11T06:17:00.000-06:00

After the chocolate shop it was back to the wine tastings. The second round consisted of a pair of smaller wineries. This was the part of the tour that I had been anticipating. It's all well and good to experience tastings at large, well-known wineries, but my experience has been that tastings at smaller vineyards tend to be much more fun.

The first winery was Fermoy. The vineyard was named for a town in County Cork, Ireland: the original owners were Irish and named the winery after their hometown. I ended up buying two bottles from Fermoy because it was my favorite winery overall. I picked up their Geographe Chardonnay which was a clean, chardonnay that had spent no time aging in oak barrels. It was clean, crisp, and generally delicious for a white wine: I'm not usually a white wine drinker, but this one hit the spot. I also came away with their 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. It didn't quite measure up to the $100 bottle at Watershed, but it was a solid Cab Sauv and much more reasonably priced. I was not a fan of their sweet wine, the 2010 Verdelho, but I'm very picky when it comes to sweet wines. I was a bit disappointed at how many of the other people on the tour tasted and bought nothing but sweet wines: they're missing out on some fantastic dry wines, and so many sweet wines are way too sugary (Fermoy's was no exception).

The final winery we visited was called Lenton Brae. It was also a smaller production, and their tasting room was right above their production room. The woman there said that when they make the wines, the whole place smells wonderful. I'm not sure I'd want to try to taste at that time of year (I feel like the smell would be overpowering), but it would be pretty cool to hear hundreds of gallons of wine bubbling in those giant tanks. Lenton Brae is famous for their Semillon Sauvignon Blanc blend. They were the first West Australian winery to produce the blend and this year they released their 25th Anniversary bottle. An anniversary is cool on its own, but I really liked this particular wine. It's a bit of a unique blend apparently, but it's very drinkable and may even improve after a few years. I was not much a fan of their other wines, but I picked up a bottle of the blend and I may pick up a second bottle if I can find it in a liquor store before I head home.

Finally we stopped at a venison farm. At this point John quipped that the people who live in Margaret River feel that if the rest of the world ever became too much, they would just wall themselves off and subsist on the fine things the town has to offer for the rest of their days. We tried four different kinds of venison sausage which were all quite tasty. At this point I said goodbye to John and my friends Nathan and Jocelyn, and was driven back to The Noble Grape (the bed and breakfast where I stayed for the weekend).

Speaking of which, if you ever head down to Margaret River for a vacation, I highly recommend staying at The Noble Grape. It's a lovely little bed and breakfast about 12 km North of the town of Margaret River. The owners, Donna and Rod, prepare a simple but delicious breakfast every morning consisting of homemade muffins, fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, and toast. Donna puts out pieces of bread in the courtyard, and Lincoln Port parrots come and feed right in front of the dining area windows. The rooms are nicely furnished, and I had a great view of the stars from my porch on Friday night. Donna also gave me some great advice about where to go, including which wine tour to book. On top of all of that my two nights were very reasonably priced: I didn't find any cheaper accommodations that looked nearly as good. I was the first person from Utah to stay at The Noble Grape, so if you happen to go be sure to mention that Nick from Utah sent you!

I think that's enough for now: I need to pack up and get ready to head back to the states! I do have two more Australia posts to type up though, so look forward to a couple more entries about my adventures down under...

The Tour, Pt I

2011-08-09T05:43:00.003-06:00

So I drove down to Margaret River, "the Premier wine region of Southwest Australia", this weekend. I booked a Neil McLeod bus tour for Saturday so I could enjoy wine tastings without having to worry about driving.

The company picked me up at my hotel and I was introduced to Sarah and David from Scotland as I climbed into the van. They drove us into the town of Margaret river and the three of us piled into a bus with about 15 other people. 9:45 am and we were on our way. Our tour guide, John, informed us that we would be visiting an art gallery on our first stop: no wine yet. He drove us to the house of the late Paul Rigby, a famous cartoonist. I don't know if I've seen Rigby cartoons in newspapers in the past or if the style just seemed familiar to me, but the whole gallery was pretty cool. There were a bunch of oil paintings he had done as well as larger pieces, like a poster explaining various Australian slang and idioms to Americans.

After the gallery we headed to Leeuwin Winery for our first tasting (10:30 am). Leeuwin is probably one of the more well-known wineries in the region. They tend to make wines in the traditional French style, and to great effect. Their Cabernet Sauvignon regularly wins awards locally and around the world. They also made a pretty tasty Chardonnay. Their wines were good, but their pours were not generous, and I found there bottles to be mostly overpriced. I guessed that I would find better bottles at lower prices in the wineries to come and did not buy anything here (I also suspect you can find Leeuwin wines in the US).

I'm not surprised they're under lock and key, given the price

The next stop was right across the street from Leeuwin: a winery called Watershed. Watershed was easily the most picturesque of the wineries I visited. The estate was large and looked out over rows and rows of grapevines, and behind the house was a little blue lake. By this point in the tour, I had introduced myself to a young couple from Saskatchewan, Nathan and Jocelyn. Nathan is a geologist studying the rocks in West Australia for the winter. Jocelyn is a high school home economics teacher. I convinced them to take a picture of me in front of the lake in return for taking a picture of them.

The Watershed wines in the tasting were markedly different from the Leeuwin wines. The winery uses untraditional blends of grapes to create interesting flavor profiles. Maybe I'm square, but I wasn't a huge fan of most of their wines. Their Zinfandel was described as tasting like "Christmas Cake." I agreed, but I did not enjoy the flavor. I did pick up a bottle of their Shiraz, which was my favorite of the tasting. I also paid an extra $2 to taste their $100 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. It wasn't blended with any other grapes, which is a bit uncommon for Cab Sauvs, but it was amazing. I think it was the best wine I tried all day.

Next up we had lunch at the Cowaramup Brewery (the B & B where I stayed is in Cowaramup). I had grilled fish and chips and a lager. Good stuff, but I won't dwell here. After lunch we headed to the Margaret River Cheese Company and then the Margaret River Chocolate Shop. The cheese samples were delicious, and I'm still kicking myself for not buying some cheese from them. They had a soft, sweet chili cheddar which was delicious. Here is a dialogue I had with John, the tour guide, on the way to the chocolate shop:

Me, hesitantly: "So they grow the cocoa beans for this chocolate near here?"
John: *sighs* "No..."
Me: "I thought cocoa beans grow in more tropical climates."
John: "Yeah, they just order the beans and make their own blend here..."
Me: "Ah"

So the chocolate shop was a chocolate shop. In retrospect, it's a little like visiting the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop up in Park City. This post has gotten long, so I'm going to split it up and make it a two parter. Check back tomorrow to hear about the last two wineries.

Sunset on the Beach

2011-08-04T08:37:00.001-06:00

I left work early today (well, earlier than I have been leaving: I've been working hard) to try and catch the sunset on a clear evening. I got back to the hotel and rushed across the street to the beach, but I missed seeing the last of the sun, which was my goal. Oh well: the shot I got was still pretty good...

In other news, I'm bridging the Seattle-Australia divide to get things done on this project. I'm finding that it helps quite a bit to meet the people on the other side of the world face to face and spend some time with them. Working with the team in Perth has been great exposure, not only to how the system in Seattle works but also to how the team functions and views the project. It's a great team (no surprise here: just validation), and I'm instilled with a bit more confidence in our ability to collectively meet our December deadline.

On the food front, I drove to Northbridge on Tuesday night for the Four Seasons Roasting Duck Restaurant. Of course I ordered the Chef's Special: duck three ways. The first course was traditional Peking duck. I haven't had the dish in a while, and they served the duck pieces on shrimp chips (for presentation: it came with the wraps and the sauce too). The duck was awesome, and I had forgotten how much I like shrimp chips. My parents used to make them for us: that was a bit of a blast from the past for me. The second course was duck soup. It reminded me a bit of hot and sour soup without the sour aspect. With slivers of ginger flavoring, the soup was also quite delicious. The final dish was duck with fried noodles. I was full at that point, but I wrapped it up and had duck with fried noodles last night for dinner. Two nights' dinner featuring my favorite poultry: it's been a good week for food.

I also checked out a familiar food spot for lunch today (I was in a hurry). The combo meal was a bit smaller, as I expected, but the taste was spot on. If not for the smaller size of the fries and drink and the subtle differences in packaging, I might have thought I was back in the States...

Tomorrow I'm leaving work early to make the three hour drive down to Margaret River for the weekend. I found a bed and breakfast to stay at called The Noble Grape, which sounds pretty nice. I booked a winery tour for Saturday which really involves touring four wineries, two breweries, a cheese shop, a chocolate shop, etc, etc. With free tastings at every stop, it sounds like my kind of tour. Sunday I plan to go check out one of the local caves: they're supposed to be pretty amazing. I might also find another winery to check out on my own. After that it will be back to Sorrento Beach for my last week in Perth!

"Watch Out For Roo Poo"

2011-07-27T05:55:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, was my first weekend in Perth. OK, that's not technically true, but I was not good for much sightseeing the weekend before last. Something about the 14 hour time difference, I'm sure.

Anyway, my coworker offered to show me around Perth a bit on Saturday afternoon, and I was glad to take him up on the offer. He brought his wife and three kids along, which was great. We first stopped at a local graveyard, which is a common hangout for wild kangaroos. They warned me that kangaroos are generally nocturnal and might not be out and about late morning, but there were dozens of kangaroos basking in the sun when we arrived. I had never seen a kangaroo in the wild before (and it's been years since I've seen one in the zoo). The ones in this part of Australia tend to be much smaller than I imagined: I'd say most were larger than the average dog, but not by much. I learned that kangaroos have strong tails which they use for balance, and they stand on their tails and kick with their powerful hind legs when they fight. The ones at the graveyard did not seem intimidated by our approach: I was able to get within ten feet of one before it hopped away. We did also see a few with joeys in their pouches, which is exactly as cute as I imagined. It was my coworker's daughter who gave me the warning that had to be this post's title.

From the graveyard, we drove to Kings Park which sits on a hill above the city proper. The park has a memorial to the Australian veterans of the two World Wars and is also a botanical garden which showcases the flora that the region has to offer. We sat out on the grass and enjoyed a picnic lunch with a great view of the bay and city below.

Finally, we drove down into the city so the kids could have ice cream. Ice cream improves everything, and it was the perfect end to an already enjoyable afternoon. I must say that I much prefer to have someone show me what a place has to offer than to have to figure out where to go on my own.

That said, my next plan is to take a weekend trip down to Margaret River. It is about a three hour drive south of where I am staying, but it is home to a number of wineries as well as some underground caves which sound pretty cool. All in all, I am quite impressed with Perth. It's certainly a place that I would return to for a vacation sometime. If not for the fact that it's extremely expensive to live here, it would be a pretty fun place to settle down.

King For A Night

2011-07-18T05:03:00.001-06:00

So I'm in Australia now, but I have one post that I haven't posted yet from my time in Seattle. I'll have something about Australia soon, but this story is too good not to tell.

During my recent three week stint in Seattle, I got kicked out of the Courtyard Marriott that I'd been staying at for two and a half weeks. To make a long story short, I kept extending my hotel reservation because I wasn't sure when my company would find an apartment for me, and one week I was unable to reserve the hotel for the whole week. I only needed to find accommodations for one Thursday night, but it turned out there was a reason why I'd been booted out of the Courtyard. There were no hotel rooms available in the area. I guess it was Pride week in Seattle and there was a big marathon happening in the city that weekend, so all of the local hotels were booked on that Thursday night. Well, almost all of the hotels.

After work, my boss dropped me off at my accommodations for the night: the King's Inn.

inside the elevator...

the view from my room

I had just been grateful to be able to book a room, so I didn't think much of the fact that the rates for this hotel were less than half what I'd been paying at the Courtyard. The local Best Western was slightly more expensive (and happened to be completely booked on that night). The man behind the check-in counter had greasy, slicked back hair. He swiped my credit card and handed me a room key. "Have a good time," he told me. Maybe he thought I wasn't there to stay the night?

I left to find food and ended up at a high-end pizza joint called Serious Pie. I had a pizza with italian sausage, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and some goat cheese. The pizza and a glass of wine set me back $40 with tip, but it was a delicious meal. I would definitely go there again, although the restaurant's seating was at large tables with other parties, cafeteria style. Not ideal if you want a little privacy.

From the pizza place I wandered to a bar and spent an hour watching the Sounders crush the NY Red Bulls. When they turned off the game for a local artist who start playing bad renditions of Bob Dylan songs, I decided to call it a night.

I spent a fairly restless night, which is pretty uncommon for me. I didn't have any reason to believe the bed was dirty but I kept waking up and having trouble getting back to sleep. The shower was one of the worst I've experienced in a facility designed to have running water (i.e. not a campground). All in all, it was a huge relief to check back into the simple but undeniably cleaner-feeling Marriott the next night. One night at the King's Inn was more than enough to satisfy my desire to feel like royalty.

Sunny Seattle

2011-06-16T21:25:00.000-06:00

Well for those of you who are out of the loop, I am officially a resident of Seattle for at least the next 45 days (I bought a one-way ticket here and flew out on Monday morning). I was hoping to sign a short term lease and be living in a beautiful furnished apartment next week, but now it appears I will be living out of a Courtyard Marriott until July 1st. Sigh.

Other than that things are good. It's a little weird to be living alone for the first time in 5 years, but I like my alone time more than most anyway. That said, my goal this weekend is to get out and explore Seattle a bit. While I was in Utah, I was watching the BBC Life series (narrated by Sir David Attenborough: accept no substitutes). I've been enjoying that quite a bit, so I think I may try to check out the Seattle Aquarium this weekend. It's walking distance from my hotel, and we're on the coast: how could it not be good?

I also finally bought an ORCA card (ORCA is my company's fare collection system), so I think I will probably take a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island this weekend. I have family friends there, and I've heard it's quite nice this time of year. As a side note, although Seattle residents complain endlessly about the weather, I've experienced nothing but temperate weather and the occasional drizzle. Sure it's the nicest time of year here, but it can't be that bad at other times can it?

The final decision I've made is to use some of my copious spare time and try to get back into shape. The hotel has a 24 hour fitness room, so there's no reason not to take full advantage. Right now I'm thinking of doing regular cardio and either the hundred pushups program or the ab workout from P90X. God I hate ab workouts though: we'll see.

A mundane life update is all I've got for now. I read a book and might have thoughts about it worth documenting, but the ideas are still bouncing around in my head at the moment. I just started The Brothers Karamazov, which I can already tell I'm going to like: it turns out I have a thing for classic Russian novels.

On Empathy

2011-06-08T22:19:00.001-06:00

Imagine a world in which a mysterious dust starts killing off the earth's fauna. Humans begin a mass migration to Mars, but some choose to stay behind. To aid in and incentivize the migration, corporations on Earth begin developing intelligent androids which are issued to each human who decides to leave Earth. However, the androids become smarter and less distinguishable from humans, and every once in a while one decides to kill its human owner and flees to Earth to seek a better fortune. The humans on earth respond by training bounty hunters to track down and kill these murderous androids, but the only distinguishable difference between humans and androids is that androids cannot experience empathy for any other being. Where animals become prized to every human, such that owning an animal as a pet becomes a status symbol and source of happiness for its human owner, the android does not experience any emotional attachment to any being other than itself.

This is the setting for what is still my favorite Sci Fi novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. What is a bounty hunter to do when he begins to empathize with the androids he's hunting: beings who only care about self-preservation at all costs? The book casts into stark light the importance of human emotion and our ability to empathize with and care for one another. Certainly for me life has much less significance in those moments when I feel alone. I know Sci Fi is typically light fare, but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? shows real depth in a genre that sometimes lacks it. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Expectations

2011-05-17T20:09:00.001-06:00

One of the most disappointing things about not already being on the go and travelling abroad is the constant upsetting of my expectations that comes with not travelling. Originally I was supposed to be out of the country on April 1st. Then my expectations were reset to May 1st, a date that they were "confident could be met without problems". I've come to find out today that not only has my itinerary changed to splitting my time between Cambridge and Australia with a few brief trips to Stockholm while I'm in the UK to get a bit of exposure to the operations there, but my travel dates have again been pushed.

The new date estimate is late July to early August. This would all be well and good if my company hadn't promised me certain things that it is now unable to deliver. At this point I just feel dicked around. What's more, with the hints of disorganization I've experienced within the company, I'm beginning to worry what my experience is going to be like when I arrive in each office. Will they be prepared for me with things to learn and work to do? Or are they going to be every bit as unprepared as HR has been in sending me abroad in the first place? In this case I've resolved to find ways to benefit the Americas team even if the respective offices don't have a good experience ready for me. If I'm completely bored, I will take long weekend trips and make sure my experience is worthwhile from that perspective.

Ha. Talk about White People Problems, right? I can't help but think "I should have signed up for kickball this season after all!"

The Transformation Pt. II

2011-04-17T21:17:00.001-06:00

Before:

After:

The years just melt away. Which one of these four statements have I not heard so far?

a. "You look ten years younger"

b. "I didn't even notice"

c. "Your de-jesus-ification is complete"

d. "You do have a face under all that hair!"

The Transformation Pt. I (or Chad Kroeger Has Left the Building)

2011-04-12T23:44:00.004-06:00

Before:

After:

Stay tuned for Part II...

Quote of the Day

2011-03-09T17:39:00.001-07:00

"Relevance and importance are not necessarily correlated."

Recipe For A Saturday

2011-03-05T15:02:00.006-07:00

Eight hours sleep

Two bowls oatmeal

One cup Chai

One hour reading The Name of the Wind

Two hours racquetball with friends

Thirty minutes ball with Ginger

One cup Tea of Good Tidings

One hour reading The Name of the Wind

One hour racquetball with dad

One hot shower

One bowl pasta with sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and onions

One plate salad

One glass Cono Sur Pinot Noir 2009

One hour and thirty minutes watching Well (a play) downtown

Two hours overseeing a Production deployment for UTA

Two hours watching Arsenal vs. Sunderland

Sneak peak for Sunday:

15th ski day of the season...

A Book Recommendation

2011-02-27T21:36:00.003-07:00

I read The Name of The Wind about a year ago, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I've had an ongoing project to read more (novels) in the past couple of years and have only been partially successful; I'm still a bit too much of a slave to video media, but it's a work in progress. Anyway, I heard about NotW on Penny Arcade, and picked it up after reading a bunch of very positive Amazon reviews.

Simply put, it's a great fantasy book. The characters are real with real emotions, and Rothfuss has a mastery of language that makes the book engaging and very readable.

I hesitate to tell you much about the story, but I will say that after reading the first book, I was dismayed to find out that the second book in the trilogy would not be out for at least a year. Fast forward, and The Wise Man's Fear is coming out this Tuesday. I've started rereading the first book and am enjoying it every bit as much as the first time I read it. From what I've heard of the second book we can expect more of the same quality. I haven't been this excited about a book release since Harry Potter. Check it out.

SCOBY Bryant and the Lakers

2011-02-19T23:08:00.016-07:00

yes, I really did name my pancake SCOBY Bryant... he's that good.

OK, I've talked up Kombucha for some time now. It's the delicious fermented, probiotic tea with mystical health benefits and real good flavor. How do I make it? I brew 1.5 gallons of tea: this must be real tea (white, green, or black, but not herbal: that doesn't work), sweeten with 1.5 cups of sweetener, and pitch a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). Then I let the little lakers work for 9-12 days and filter and bottle the resulting drink. It is delicious: sweet, tangy, delightfully fizzy, and unlike any other drink I've tasted. I made my first two batches from Republic of Tea's Ginger Peach tea and table sugar. My third batch utilized a different tea from the same company, sweetened with honey. I was finally pushed to blog about this after just tasting my third batch and deciding that it is perhaps even better than the ginger peach variety. With a sour blackberry flavor and a hint of herbal sage, this drink simply cannot be beat. I was excited about kombucha before, but this has sealed the deal: I will definitely continue making this stuff (despite having to move my operation into my bedroom so as not to offend my roommate's nostrils).

Now you may be thinking to yourself, "This stuff sounds easy to make: how can I get in on this crazy fad?" The answer is one of two options:

1. Go to your local organic grocery store and look for GT Dave's Kombucha. You can pitch an entire bottle of this into your sweetened tea (let it cool first), and the little guys will do the rest for you. Be sure to start tasting your tea about a week in, so you can choose how sour you make it before drinking.

2. Hit me up for an extra SCOBY. That's right, SCOBYs multiply and I am more than happy to share the love. If you'll notice in my photo, I've got a smaller jar with tea in it. That jar's sole purpose is growing more SCOBYs. I've already got a couple of people I've promised them to, but every batch I make produces another SCOBY which I am more than happy to give away. Just let me know.

Like any endeavor with probiotics, cleanliness of containers is key to ensuring that your batch does not get contaminated with bad stuff. I clean the vessel well between batches and clean (scrub with soapy water) and sterilize (run through a pots and pans cycle in the dishwasher with no detergent) the bottles. Seriously though, this stuff is great and it's much cheaper to make at home than to buy at the store (I think that first commercial bottle cost me $3.00 or something crazy: to be honest, my stuff tastes much better). I've heard great things about kombucha made with all kinds of different teas: innovate and be rewarded!

...and an unrelated bonus picture to prove a point: Ginger, like many dogs, is cuter upside down.

Sundance 2011 Impressions Part II

2011-02-11T20:33:00.011-07:00

5. The Troll Hunter

The Troll Hunter follows a group of students documenting their investigation of bear killings in Norway. They meet a man whom they discover is a Troll Hunter for the government, and join him on his adventures. The coolest thing about this movie was the variety in design of the trolls and the movie's many references to popular troll mythology. A niche film, definitely, but pretty entertaining overall.

6. Salvation Boulevard

An evangelical preacher, on the verge of breaking ground on a conservative Christian housing development accidentally shoots a man and endeavors to pin the shooting on one of his parishioners. Salvation Boulevard is in the vein of Saved! and other comedies/satires about conservative Christians (it seems like there is one of these a year at Sundance nowadays). Unfortunately, I thought it paled in comparison to Saved!. It had a few good gags and a bit of sharp-witted satire, but it was not a stand-out film in any respect. For a much better Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear film watch The Matador, a 2005 Sundance film.

7. The Interrupters

The Interrupters is a documentary about a Chicago group called CeaseFire whose primary focus is on reducing gang-related violence in the inner city. The group is made up of "interrupters" who essentially act as mediators and peacekeepers every day. The film follows some pretty amazing individuals who grew up with gang culture and are now fighting for the good. The only downside of this film was that it was three hours: documentaries have no place being three hours long, although a testament to the engaging nature of the film was that I went tired to a 10:00 pm showing and did not sleep through any part of the movie. Seriously though: this movie needs an editor.

8. Win Win

Win Win is a Paul Giamatti film, so I liked it. It is not Cold Souls (a must-watch from a couple of years ago), but it was entertaining, touching, and quirky enough to make for a most enjoyable film. A high school wrestling coach takes on the Guardianship of an old man only to find out the man's grandson has just arrived in town after running away from his mother's house. The coach (Giamatti) welcomes the boy into his home and convinces him to join the wrestling team. Win Win was easily the most mainstream film I saw (I could see this film having a good theater run a la Little Miss Sunshine), but that did not take away from the movie. It was definitely better than your average mainstream drama.

All in all it was a very successful Sundance year. I experienced no bombs like Splice, which is a definite plus. Until next time...

Sundance 2011 Impressions Part I

2011-01-30T11:46:00.009-07:00

It's been eight months since my last post, but I have a short list of posts which I intend to write up in the next few weeks. This is no New Year's resolution, but I should have things to talk about in the coming weeks.

For a week or two each year, I devote my time to the Sundance Film Festival. It's become a tradition for me, and every year I'm surprised at how fresh Sundance film are in comparison to the usual fare found in theaters during the rest of the year. You need only look to films like Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right, Sundance 2010 films which are making a splash with award nominations this Spring, to see that I am not alone in my sentiment that independent films are what it's all about right now.

Anyway, this year I saw eight films. Here are my thoughts on the first four:

1. The Devil's Double

The Devil's Double tells the story of a young man who is recruited/blackmailed to be Saddam Hussein's son Uday's body double. Uday is a sadistic playboy who drinks, rapes, and kills without remorse. As Latif (the body double) witnesses the true nature of the Hussein regime, he becomes more and more desperate to escape. The film is based on Latif's account of his time as Uday's double, and it is a gripping story. The best part of the film, however, is Dominic Cooper who play's both the psychotic son and the reserved double. His switch between these very different characters made this one of my favorite films this year.

2. Circumstance

Circumstance tells the story of two Iranian teenage girls who fall in love but must reconcile their love with the reality of Iranian culture. The situation is complicated by one of the girls' older brother, a recovered drug addict who returns home and promptly joins the "Morality Police". This is exactly the kind of film I have come to expect to see at Sundance: it's a great story, a biting commentary on Iranian culture/law, and the kind of film that big movie studios just won't buy unless it makes a splash at an independent festival. I'm happy to say this film has been picked up for a wider distribution and won the Audience Dramatic Competition to boot. It's another one to look for in the coming months.

3. Take Shelter

A man starts to have nightmares about a storm coming and becomes obsessed with and overcome by the resulting stress. He channels his emotions into building a storm shelter to prepare for the times ahead. This movie had a lot of promise for me as the study of a man consumed by stress and paranoia. Unfortunately the ending of the film took it in a direction which I did not like at all. Ultimately, it was an interesting character piece, but not a film I can recommend on the merit of its story.

4. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times

As the title suggests, Page One follows a New York Times editor's staff for a year. Since I am a New York Times devotee, I found the film to be a fascinating look into a famous American institution. As is so often the case with documentaries, this film really stands out as a character exposition of David Carr (pictured). A recovered crack addict who served time in prison, Carr cleaned up his act and became a no-nonsense New York Times reporter. He steals every scene he's in and even if you don't care much about the Times and what it represents, the film is worth seeing just for the exposure to Carr.

Four down, four to go.

In other news, I'm bottling my second batch of cider today! It's been in secondary fermentation/aging for almost ten months, so I'm hoping it will be pretty tasty right away; if it's not, I might not have time to drink my share before I leave the country. I may put up a short post later after the bottling is done, but I will say now that by far the worst part of bottling is having to clean out two cases worth of beer bottles. I've probably spent three hours on that task alone this weekend, and I still haven't gotten to the actual bottling step. I may have to invest in a kegging setup down the road: apparently it takes all of the pain out of this final step of the process. On the other hand, there's something immensely satisfying about giving out a six pack of my very own brew.

The Fruits Of My Labor

2010-05-12T08:49:00.010-06:00

I failed to post my thoughts after seeing a sneak preview of Iron Man 2 last week. This was not due to peer pressure regarding the value of movie reviews (when has criticism stopped me from making my thoughts public?) but may have been due to the fact that I stayed up playing Dr. Mario late into the evening instead of writing the review.

By now many of you have seen the movie, so I won't write too much (this is really not the subject of this post). I enjoyed the movie well enough as a summer blockbuster. It had a much better final battle than the first movie, and there was nothing obviously wrong with the plot. Still, I left the theater feeling less than thrilled about the experience. Some have said that the film tries to do too much: at the end of the day, I just don't think it's a fantastic movie. Even with a better villain to defeat and a little help from his friends (The Avengers, War Machine), Iron Man doesn't have the spark that made the first film such an enjoyable watch. Is this second-film syndrome? Does the origin story for any super hero have a certain amount of inherent intrigue which gets lost in sequels? Maybe sometimes, but I'd say X2 is living proof that it doesn't have to happen that way.

On to the cider update! I bottled my first batch of hard cider last night with my housemate's assistance. We got it done in about an hour, and I have to say that the experience was quite gratifying (even if I wasn't the one capping the bottles). There's something immensely satisfying about a cabinet full of homebrewed cider.

I did taste the cider again last night, and there's still not much depth of flavor. The cider consisted of strong alcohol flavor and the tartness of the apples without more complex apple characteristics. I'm hopeful that in a few months time, however, the overall flavor will balance out and create something truly delicious. I'll definitely crack a few bottles from this batch in about a month both to celebrate a successful venture with friends and to check the carbonation level. After that I plan to let the cider sit for at least another couple of months before drinking in earnest. It should be interesting to see the evolution of the flavor profile.

I also started my second batch of cider the weekend before last. In my forum-crawling for cider recipes, I was surprised to find that people did not recommend sweetening cider with molasses. I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea, and I certainly don't think the current flavor of my first batch reflects poorly on using molasses. For my second recipe, however, I decided to go with honey, which is a much more traditional cider sweetener. Here's the recipe so far:

5 gallons apple cider
32 oz honey
1 packet Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

I'm currently in the primary fermentation stage. I'm considering adding some fresh ginger to the secondary stage for a bit of spice in the palate. Apple-Ginger Cider... sounds tasty, right? I also checked my starting specific gravity for this cider and it should finish out at about 8% ABV. A bit stronger than your average beer but well short of the alcohol content of wine. A nice middle ground, I think.

An Old Hobby Replaced

2010-04-27T18:54:00.005-06:00

Some of you may remember my Miracle Fruit plant from a number of months back. Well it was actually growing quite nicely at my mom's house (her filtered sunlight sources were much better than mine). A few months ago, the plant's leaves even started secreting a sticky clear liquid. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's leaves were looking quite healthy and I was pretty confident that if it made it through the remainder of the winter it would do well this summer and perhaps even yield its first crop of taste-altering fruit. Unfortunately just after the plant started secreting the sticky liquid, Ginger (our golden retriever) ate all of the leaves off of the plant. Apparently the meal made Ginger sick, but it definitely killed the plant. I was pretty disappointed. I decided, however, that growing a tropical plant may have been a bit ambitious of me in this climate. I resolved to find a more climate-appropriate and hopefully equally neat plant to cultivate in the near future. More on that when/if it happens. I hope also to plant a blackberry vine in our backyard this summer. Picking fresh blackberries is something I already miss about our old house.

Anyway I recently picked up a new hobby: homebrewing! I stumbled across a hard cider recipe online and reasoned that it might be a good entry point into the whole homebrewing game. I went to my local homebrew supply store and picked up a basic kit containing everything I would need to brew my own beer and an extra glass carboy. Two weekends ago I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up 5 gallons of organic apple cider. Here's the recipe I used for my cider:

5 gallons organic apple cider

32 oz dark molasses

1 packet Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

That's it! After sterilizing all of my equipment in cold bleach water, and rinsing clean, I heated the Molasses in the microwave until it was easily pourable, and added it to a gallon of apple cider. I let the liquid cool to 105°F and then pitched the yeast into the cider and molasses mix. I transferred this to a one gallon glass carboy and attached an airlock and let the yeast activate for two hours. Then I combined the yeast starter in a 6 gallon fermentation pail along with the remaining four gallons of cider. I sealed the bucket, attached an airlock, and set the bucket in a dark closet. The next day the airlock was bubbling like crazy indicating that fermentation was progressing.

On Sunday, two weeks had gone by and the airlock had stopped bubbling, so I siphoned my cider into the glass carboy, leaving an impressive buildup of yeast in the bottom of my primary fermentation bucket. I learned today that I could have harvested that yeast and used it for future projects, but I didn't know that at the time so I washed it down the drain. Live and learn. Now I will let my cider age in the glass carboy for another two weeks.

The cider looks quite dark in the picture, but that's just because I didn't have a decent source of light for the shot. It is a bit darker than your average cider because of the molasses. Anyway my plan is to bottle it with a small amount of sugar so that the cider will become carbonated in the bottles. From what I've read hard cider is best drunk after several months of aging, so my plan is to taste a bit after a few weeks in the bottle and then leave the rest for a few months down the road. In the meantime, I hope to start my second batch this weekend (the benefits of having two fermentation containers). I'm still trying to decide what I want to do: I'd like to alter the recipe a bit but keep most aspects the same for better comparison. I'm thinking I will either try a different sweetener or a different strain of yeast. Let me know if you have a vote.

I did taste a bit of the cider during the siphon process: it tastes quite alcoholic which is no surprise given the amount of sugar I added to a naturally sweet cider. It didn't have much depth of flavor, but that is what I'm told will improve with time. We shall see!

I'm also beginning to look into beer brewing. My kitchen capabilities are limited, but I would still like to try a batch of beer in the coming months. I'll keep updating with my progress and future experiments.

A Film To Watch - Baraka

2010-03-28T19:28:00.006-06:00

I got a blu-ray player for Christmas, and I've spent the last month or so accumulating movies that I think would be worth watching on blu-ray. I also upgraded my NetFlix account to be able to rent blu-ray discs (only $1.99 and most movies I want to watch are available on blu-ray now).

I'd been impressed with the image quality on the few blu-rays I'd watched, but I hadn't been blown away. Then I stumbled upon Baraka. It's a documentary filmed all over the world and set to music (without narration). It is a film about humanity and our impact on and interaction with nature. The movie captures spiritual practices, city life, tribal rituals and the full beauty nature. If that doesn't pique your interest, don't bother with this film. It's not the next Avatar (or even the next Wall-E), but if you want to feel a sense of connection with the world and see things no other movie I've seen has captured, Baraka is well worth your time.

Oh, and watch this movie on blu-ray. The movie was filmed on 65 mm film (as opposed to the usual 35 mm) and from that negative they created an 8000-pixel width digital copy of the movie. From there they created their full HD copy of the film for blu-ray. I can tell you that I've never seen such incredible picture quality on any film. I recently ordered Planet Earth on blu-ray, and I'm looking forward to comparing the picture quality of that to this film. What I can tell you right now is this: if you watch this movie on DVD, you're missing out on the stunning level of detail captured by the filmmakers.

In other news, I'm about halfway through listening to the new Gorillaz album. It's interesting so far, and I've found a number of tracks that I enjoy. That being said, I don't know that I'll often be in the mood to listen to the album. It's synth-pop hip hop (say that five times fast) and almost feels cartoony at times (if that's possible for music). I certainly can't call it formulaic...

It's Not Easy Being Green

2009-12-12T01:17:00.006-07:00

Every night before I go to bed, I look out my window across the street and see the following scene:

Our neighborhood has a lamp post in front of every house, and for some inexplicable reason our crazy neighbors have decided that living here should feel more like living in the Twilight Zone. It's even more surreal when their Christmas decorations are on and the plastic Santa is bathed in that neon green light. I showed my roommate this picture and he said, "Be careful not to cross the beams!" Seems like good advice.

Is Blogging Like Happiness?

2009-12-08T21:23:00.007-07:00

My best laid plans tonight were to work a couple of hours of overtime so I can go skiing on Friday. It's finally started to snow in earnest this week and I am getting pretty excited about the whole affair. Taking an hour to get to work due to road conditions is a small price to pay for some fresh powder later this week. Anyway the long and short of it is I needed my laptop and my notebook to work tonight, and I failed to bring my notebook home. Figures. On the plus side, this is an update that would not have happened tonight if I'd been more "responsible".

First thing's first -- required reading (OK, there's no test but this article is incredible: is that incentive enough?).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

Now I have to admit that I've always liked the concept of a public consciousness. There's an uplifting quality to the idea that we are connected to our fellow human beings, whether or not that is actually the case. I guess it's no surprise then that I latched onto this article when I first read it. Specifically, this is amazing:

Fowler told me their work had inspired him to lose five pounds and to listen to upbeat music before he arrives home from work so he will be in a good mood when he greets his family. “I try to get myself in a mental space where I’ll be happy,” he says. “Because I know that I’m not just having an impact on my son, I’m potentially having an impact on my son’s best friend’s mother.”

I actually made a conscious effort a couple years ago to improve the mood of the music I listen to on a regular basis. I'll still listen to Bittersweet Symphony every once in a while (perhaps only when I'm watching the England National Team play...), but I figured I'd be a happier person to be around if I wasn't constantly subjecting myself to depressing music.

On top of that it is incredible to me that my mood might affect a friend of a friend (and vice versa) while skipping my friend altogether. The implications for creative but pointed marketing are pretty ridiculous; actually this marketing scheme seems like it will be quite hard to implement on the face of it, but leave it to some creative genius to figure it out and have us all buying those Magic Bullet blenders. All of sudden, the fact that I abhor watching ads and avoid it at all cost, makes no difference since others around me are watching ads for me and influencing my behavior as a result.

Finally the idea that our place in this vast, interconnected network might be determined by our genes strikes me as another argument for nature over nurture. Does it all come back to genetics in the end? How should I feel about that? Overall I think I was dealt a pretty good hand, and I do feel lucky in many aspects of my life. I'd be interested to find out where I landed on the grand social network though.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Until next time, stay positive! My happiness may depend on it.

What's New and What's Not

2009-09-28T20:43:00.006-06:00

This is going to be a brief life update, I think.

What's new:

I no longer live with my parents. I'm cooking for myself (although I still get plenty of dinner invitations from the family, so it has not been a huge burden or anything) and am still committed to cooking real food. So far I've cooked some delicious grilled pizzas, fajitas, and pasta with homemade sauce and italian sausage. Things I plan to make soon include pork loin, Costco rotisserie chicken (I definitely have a handle on this one), soup, and Tandoori chicken (on the grill before it gets too cold). I also made dried cherry and chocolate oatmeal cookies yesterday which were awesome. Kudos to my sister for the idea of substituting cherries in place of raisins.

I went backpacking for the first time in ten years or so this past weekend. I headed up to Zion National Park with a good friend of mine on Thursday and we embarked on an epic journey hiking The Narrows. The Narrows basically consists of a 16 mile-long canyon. The canyon has been carved out by a river, which is also an abundant source of life within the canyon. The result is that what would otherwise be a desert is a lush, green canyon. The place has a real utopian feel to it and it didn't hurt that the weather was perfect and the leaves were starting to turn. Good hike, good company, good times. It's definitely an experience I'd recommend.

What's Not:

Work. I'm still working and still enjoying my work, which is nice. The routine is nothing if not repetitive, but it gives me an excuse to try and form some good habits in my life. Going to bed at a reasonable hour so that I can wake up and enjoy the day to the fullest extent is one of those habits that I'm working on right now. Anyway we just had a cubicle reorganization at work which meant I had to sacrifice my large, comfortable window cube for a small non-window cube with much less privacy. That was unfortunate, but I did manage to get a slightly better-positioned cube than the one which the PM originally assigned me. These things seem mundane, but I guess that's office life for you.

Kickball! I just finished up my third season of kickball with the same team. I've begun to meet new people through the bar scene at my typically slow pace. I took on the role of designing my team's roster every week, including deciding our kicking order and what positions everyone is playing in each inning. Our team philosophy is all about every getting equal playing time which I think contributes to our team spirit. We don't win many games, but the wins we get are real accomplishments. We started practicing on Sunday afternoons which has been a lot of fun. There is something so satisfying about kicking that red rubber ball. Finally this season saw me achieve one of my personal goals of kicking a home run in a game. It was the bottom of the fifth (last) inning, and our team was down 18-2. The game had turned into a real drubbing in the fourth inning after our defense fell apart. I was up first in the kicking order, and I noticed that the outfielders were playing pretty close in. I let the first pitch go by and the catcher jokingly chided me for letting such a nice pitch go. I smiled and booted the next one into left field over the head of the outfielder. As I touched first and headed to second, I heard the first base coach say, "That's a solid double" and I decided at that moment that I was going to get better than a double. I dove into third and touched the base just before a girl on the other team threw the ball at me. Her throw missed and was not caught by the third baseman, so I hopped up and ran home. As I came into home, the catcher deliberately stuck his leg in the way and tripped me as I was trying to touch home plate, but the umpire saw the play and awarded me the run. We went on to score two more runs in that inning to make the final score a slightly respectable 18-5, so I guess I headed a pretty decent rally in the end.

So that's what's been going on in my life. I read a bit on the internet recently about not setting goals like "I will post to my blog more often" but instead setting more specific expectations like "I will post to my blog x times this week". I'm going to try that approach and see if I can't more satisfactorily meet a realistic goal for this space.

UP 2009

2009-06-25T23:33:00.003-06:00

The third Halden child began his Ulster Project experience today. I just got back from picking up our host teen from the airport with my mom and brother. Derek understands on some level that this experience is not one to miss, but you can't really know what you're in for until after you've done the project. He's got a great month in store for him, and as usual I'm envious. I'm happy for him though, and I hope it has as much of a positive effect on him as it did on me.

Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King (2009)

2009-06-07T14:28:00.007-06:00

This is the Dave Matthews Band album I've been waiting for since Everyday in 2001. Busted Stuff (2003) had a few great tracks, but was disappointing to me as a complete listening experience. Stand Up (2005) was an average jam session without much replay value, but the band has finally rediscovered that spark with this, their seventh studio album.

The album title refers to the band's late saxophonist Leroi Moore, who's nickname was "The GrooGrux King", and I suspect that a lot of this album's greatness can be attributed to the effect on the band of losing a long-time friend and bandmate. Gone is the fairly shallow fare we heard in Stand Up. This time aroud Dave's lyrics are passionate and relevant, covering everything from animalistic, passionate summer love in "Shake Me Like A Monkey", to heaven and hell and introspection in "Why I Am" and the first single "Funny The Way It Is." There are hints of anger and bitterness in "Squirm" and "Time Bomb" which make them difficult listens, but their honesty and relevance refuse to be ignored.

The best thing about this album? The band has rediscovered the unique and irresistable instrumentation that made them popular in the first place. Carter Beauford's drum beats are top-notch, and for the first time since Before These Crowded Streets Tim Reynolds contributes his masterful electric guitar skills to the album. He's also touring with the band this summer which was all the convincing I needed to decide that I need to see them again when they come to Utah in September.

My prediction for the album's second single (and my pick for best track) is "Spaceman." Listen to that and tell me it's not a great, soon-to-be classic DMB song. Anyway if you like Dave at all, give this album a listen. I haven't listened to anything else since I first heard it a few days ago.

Standout Tracks
"Spaceman" and "Why I Am"

My New Plant

2009-06-03T21:43:00.006-06:00

A year ago I decided I would buy some Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) seeds and try to grow my own plant. If you haven't heard about it, Miracle Fruit is a berry which when eaten rewires your taste buds to make sour things taste sweet for an hour or two. After eating one of these berries, you can bite into a wedge of lemon, and it tastes like candy. Not only did this plant seem like a more advanced growing experiment than my trusty jade plant from college (which was kind to me, surviving negligence on my part and still managing to grow enough to warrant a repotting), but with any luck I might actually have a plant that produces a really cool fruit. To make a long story short, even though I decided this would be my next plant a year ago, I was unmotivated and didn't actually bite the bullet until last week.

I went with a small plant purchase rather than a seed purchase because the cost was the same for ten seeds or a small plant, but the seed germination rate is only about 20%. That means that the chances of getting ten seeds and not seeing any of them sprout were non-trivial, especially since I'm not very experienced with this sort of thing. I went with the plant (since the germination rate is 100%...) and it arrived today. Behold my flashy, tropical Miracle Fruit plant!

I know, I was smitten too.

Anyway I thought it would be fun to document my plant's progress here (and it will force me to update periodically if things go well). The first order of business was to familiarize myself with the plant and what it needs to flourish. It turns out that this particular species thrives in acidic soil and can die if you plant it in alkaline soil. I bought peat moss and perlite at the recommendation of a number of websites detailing care for the plant and repotted it in a 50-50 mix of both. Since it's a tropical rainforest plant, it prefers indirect sunlight and a humid climate. Because Utah is so dry, I set up the pot in a tray with an absorbant material soaked in water. The water should evaporate over the course of the day and serve to create a more tolerable humidity level for the plant. If this doesn't work I may look into some sort of small greenhouse which I can keep more humid than if the plant is simply sitting outside, exposed to the desert climate. Here's my repotted plant.

To give it the appropriate amount and kind of light, I've decided to keep the plant on my back porch where it should get indirect, filtered sunlight through the foliage and hanging plants on our deck but not too much direct sun (which can burn the plant).

Once the plant adjusts to it's new pot and shows visible signs of growth, I'll repot the plant once more in a larger, permanent pot to allow it to develop a complete root system. I'm told a 12-15 inch plant will fruit a few times a year. Right now it measures in at about 7 inches, so with any luck I'll have a flowering plant in 6-8 months (perhaps a year at most). When that happens, everyone's invited to come experience the fruits of my labor... literally. Until then, stay tuned for exciting new developments.

Misnomer

2009-04-27T18:04:00.003-06:00

I started off the month of April with two solid blog posts back to back and immediately began collecting articles and ideas for things to write about, hoping April would be the month where I make this process habitual. As you can see, that didn't really happen. Regardless, I have things to muse about and today I feel like writing.

I read this article a week ago and was intrigued. After all I've spent years making fun of the scientists who thought they had discovered cold fusion (that's the misnomer by the way: it's not cold as the whole point is to produce energy a.k.a. heat and it may not even be fusion). Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if they were on to something and it had been right under our noses for twenty years before we realized the discovery's true potential? This has happened before in science - Mendel's work cross-breeding pea plants was famously forgotten and rediscovered years later to form the basis of modern genetics - but something like cold fusion, which has the potential to safely produce vast amounts of energy without generating any hazardous byproducts, has been a holy grail for the field since the invention of the hydrogen bomb.

The thing that is most stunning to me about this article is how even scientists, the most successful of whom seem to have the ability to think outside of the box and try to make the impossible happen, can sometimes be so closed-minded. What's that you say? The experiment doesn't always work, so they must be measuring energy wrong during the "successful" runs? We've known how to measure energy for years, so if our process has somehow been inaccurate all along, the doubts about this phenomenon should be the least of our concerns. If this is the case there must be a bevy of scientists out there who have been producing bad data for years that have been contributing to our (mis)understanding of the universe.

Anyway I am an eternal optimist when it comes to the potential of science to change our lives in ways beyond my imagination. I wrote off cold fusion when I learned its story in high school, but these guys may well be onto something. If they are you can forget all about this talk of the coming energy crisis. We're probably talking about an energy source better than solar power and assuming no road blocks, maybe we'll see it in the next ten years.

The Value of Ritual

2009-04-26T20:43:00.003-06:00

I don't know what to believe, but I can see the value of routine. I think it helps even when it just feels like going through the motions.

Röyksopp - Junior (2009)

2009-04-08T22:41:00.007-06:00

What have I been listening to lately (you might ask if you've recently ditched last.fm)? I've been listening to the first part of a two-part album series from the Norwegian synth-duo Röyksopp. I'm told this album will be followed later this year by a more somber sounding Senior (alliteration: check). For now, however, we have the rollicking, catchy stylings of Junior.

I'll make this a quick review since I'm tired and unmotivated, but the news is good on this one. If you liked Melody A.M. and The Understanding a bit more, as I did, then I think you stand to enjoy Junior. The album has plenty of upbeat instrumentation and starts off right with the band doing their best impression of a Daft Punk song, "Happy Up Here". Like Daft Punk, they even throw in a sample. Also of interest: it's the only track where the pair perform vocals. The rest of the album's voices are from contemporary European female artists. I had mixed feelings about this initially, but the sound of the album has grown on me quite a bit after only a few listens.

The only track I strongly dislike is "Tricky Tricky", and this is mostly because I don't like the singer. The best tracks for me are the instrumental "Röyksopp Forever" - I think I'll always be a sucker for well-placed orchestration (in this case it's another sample) - and "It's What I Want" with the infectious and oh-so true phrasing: "It's what I want, that's easy; it's getting it, that's complicated."

The bottom line? It's Röyksopp doing their thing and doing it well: give it a listen if you haven't already.

Standout Tracks
"Röyksopp Forever" and "It's What I Want"

Performance Enhanced

2009-04-04T13:53:00.006-06:00

It's amazing that my good friend Olin (olinbg.com) and I seem to constantly be on the same blogging (blagging?) wavelength. I was gearing up to write a post about an article I read recently about a much-maligned but completely legal performance booster when I happened to read "Blame the Juice." Great post Olin. My stance on the controversial topic is that steroids should be legal for anyone. There are risks associated with their use, but the bottom line is that if some people will use them despite the illegality, they may as well be made officially available to everyone. Will games change? Of course they will, but what games haven't changed drastically in the last eighty years? Is Barry Bonds really better than Hank Aaron? Claiming he is would be like saying that Mendel wasn't the greatest geneticist of all time because more significant/important advances in genetics have been made by others since his death. But we wouldn't have genetics at all without Mendel. Bonds and Aaron weren't playing the same game, and to try to compare them is anachronistic.

Luckily my post idea was not made redundant by "Blame the Juice" so here goes.

I read an article last week about the effects of caffeine on athletic performance that compelled me to share and discuss my thoughts on the subject.

I don't know what others' experiences with caffeine have been like, but I have a strong recollection of a huge stigma associated with drinking caffeine before soccer games in high school. Now perhaps this is because I attended high school in Utah, where there's a stigma associated with caffeine consumption in general, but I don't think that's the whole story. Look at classic sport drinks like gatorade and powerade: no caffeine. In fact, there are "energy drinks" with high amounts of caffeine and other related stimulants, but they are not marketed toward athletes at all. Apparently they should be. The article suggests that the amount of research out there which suggests that caffeine is a perfectly good athletic performance booster means we're either oblivious to the data out there or there's something else going on.

I think it's probably some of both, but I'd like to address the idea that there's real resistance to people consuming caffeine in our society. The most common argument I hear which suggests that one should not take caffeine before working out is that caffeine is a diuretic. Many people will tell you that caffeinated drinks are dehydrating, and that idea has bothered me for a long time. Yes caffeine is a mild diuretic (it will tend to cause you to urinate more often than if you were just drinking water). However, saying that coffee is dehydrating implies that you are somehow decreasing your hydration state by drinking it. That is ridiculous: you're still consuming liquid and thereby hydrating yourself.

The next reason for this stigma against caffeine consumption is probably its addictive properties. It's true: if you drink a cup of coffee every day, you will develop a tolerance to the effects of caffeine, and you may experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if you end your intake abruptly. Interestingly though, consumers of caffeine and non-consumers alike experience this athletic performance boost. So maybe you don't drink coffee every morning -- I don't mostly because I don't care much for the taste -- but you still stand to gain a lot in your ability to sustain a high level of physical exertion from a Dr. Pepper an hour before you work out. No real risk of addiction there unless you happen to be a compulsive exerciser (I wish).

The final argument I've heard which strikes me as somewhat compelling is that the effects of caffeine are downright unpleasant for some people. This is not surprising (everything from alcohol to green beans is like that), but it hardly justifies the negative reactions that caffeine intake apparently invokes in our society. You need only reference the wikipedia article on caffeine to see that there is an intense stigma associated with its use. Look at the article's reference to a picture from a study on the effects of caffeine in spiders' abilities to make their webs. If caffeine intake wreaked that kind of havoc on our ability to function, it would be a controlled substance up there with the likes of heroine. The bottom line is that it doesn't and it's not. So why else would you include the picture but for its shock value and to evoke a negative reaction to the substance in readers? There is a single paragraph in the Pharmacology section of the article about caffeine's ability to act as a performance booster. Most of the rest of the section is devoted to documenting the myriad of detrimental effects that caffeine intake has on us (yet 90% of American adults consume caffeine in one form or another daily: so are we holding ourselves back?).

So why don't most people use it as a performance enhancer? Maybe they take the "all-natural" approach to athleticism: what you see is what I can do on my own training and natural ability. Sort of. After all isn't drinking gatorade prior to a race a little like short-term (and extremely low-risk) doping? Gatorade is made to be full sugars which can be easily broken down and converted to energy and salts to replenish your body's loss of salt through sweat. What about athletes who take advil for pain relief after competing? Would they push themselves as hard during competition if they were worried about the kind of pain they might have to endure later? As Olin put it, we do everything we can to get ahead in competition (this has a genetic basis by the way: evolution favors cheaters), and why shouldn't we?

Well you're in luck: there's a new sports drink in town. It makes you feel more alert, more energized, and it allows you longer periods of sustained exertion. It is not a substitute for proper exercise preparation in terms of eating and hydration, but you stand to run your race about 5% faster than you would without it. Coffee's the new Gatorade. You heard it here first.

Who's Watching Zack Snyder?

2009-03-19T18:44:00.004-06:00

Well I should have known that it would take me getting riled up about something to post here again. Today, the brunt of my aggression will be directed toward a film which I did not enjoy: Watchmen.

First, let me be clear about where I'm coming from. I have now read the comic book on which the movie was based three times. Do I like it? Absolutely. It does things which no comic had done before it, and on top of that it is a compelling story with depth and relevance. Each time I've read the book I have found something new to enjoy about it.

So what is the movie like? Well in many ways it's a lot like the comic book. Much like 300, most of the scenes and dialog are lifted pretty much directly from the source. And I actually liked 300. It was purely eye-candy in terms of content, and quality film-making it is not. However, I liked the soundtrack and as a realization of a Frank Miller comic I have a lot of respect for, the movie worked for me.

But I said before that Watchmen was true to its source. So why didn't I like it? The film simply doesn't work on any of the levels that a movie needs to work on in order to be good. First of all, the pacing of the film is terrible. It's almost three hours and you feel the time as you watch. The first two hours of the movie is all setup. In the book the suspense of what is going on in the present is balanced with exposition about who the characters are and what has happened to them in the past to bring them together. In the film, the first two hours of the movie focus on the exposition, and the suspense - which really comes from what is happening to these characters in the present day - takes a backseat to the history. The movie starts out seeming disconnected and without driving force, and by the time you understand that it's not, you're ready for the movie to be over.

Second, the soundtrack is just bad. Rather than use a mostly orchestrated score from Tyler Bates as he did in 300, Snyder chose the most overused, universally recognizable songs to fill his soundtrack. Bates does get credit for the score, but in three hours I never noticed it. Instead I got a sex scene played to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Song after song in this movie made me think "Really? You couldn't come up with a more original choice than that?" If Snyder was going for nostalgia, the effect was completely lost on me. I don't think I actually dislike a single song from the soundtrack, but each one detracted from my experience of the film.

Speaking of experience, Zack Snyder clearly needs a little more. In light of all of the good individual performances by the actors (with the possible exception of Ozymandias where the casting simply doesn't work for me), it was pretty clear that they had no help from their director. As such, the film is a little more disjointed than it probably should be.

My final complaint has nothing to do with the way the film was carried out. It comes down to the fact that even with a better director, I don't believe a film adaptation of Watchmen can be a truly satisfying movie-going experience. Basically the ending does not work as a movie ending, and that is all I will say in the interest of a spoiler-free review. I feared this would be the case leading up to the release of the movie, and my suspicions were verified after talking to my friend who saw the film without having read the book. This is a film without a good target audience. Fans will not like it because it's not a good movie, and the general public will not like it because at its most basic level, it doesn't work well as a movie: it's not a satisfying experience.

So there you have it. Have you seen the film? If so I'd like to hear your reaction regardless of what it was. I cannot in good conscience genuinely recommend the movie but if you decide to see it anyway (or already saw it), let me know what you think.

The Important Things In Life

2009-02-09T23:59:00.005-07:00

Four managers have been sacked this season in the Premier League and they saved the best for the latest. You'd think the decisions of these powerful men were responsible for something truly appalling -- like leaving the economy in shambles -- rather than for losing a few football matches. It's a strange world in which we live.

Also, must all of my great point-scoring players injure themselves in the span of three weeks? It would appear so.

Contributing To My Field: Part I

2009-01-26T19:44:00.004-07:00

Before I get into the real subject of this post, I wanted to mention that I just finished reading this article about female sexual desire in the New York Times. You might find it depressing, fascinating, or enlightening, but it's the Times' most emailed article right now. Regardless of your views, and because I personally recommend it, you should read it if you haven't already:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?em

To recap, I am a scientist. What I wanted to end up saying in my last post was that I think a scientist should contribute to his/her field. It is not enough for me to stand by, playing on the computer all day every day, and simply to read about the advances in the field. I have taken care to learn the fundamentals of scientific theory, and if for no other reason than that I may better myself through the experience, I feel that I should apply what I have come to know.

I have had conversations before with close friends regarding the kind of experiments one could design in the realm of dating. Since I was thirteen or so, I've always desired the connections and experiences of dating and relationships. I might tell you that there were lulls in my desire when the girls/young women I was attracted to rebuffed my advances, but it would be deception for me to say that I haven't always been motivated to some extent by this attraction.

The problem is, and I have realized this later in my life than I would have liked, that the "normal" circumstances under which the game of attraction between two people is played are not at all to my liking. In fact, I'm not only uncomfortable walking up to some person I've never met and striking up a conversation: it's downright scary for me and in general I don't do it at all.

Of course, there's an inherent problem here. If I never approach and meet new people, the number of available women that I will have the chance to date plummets. The fact that there is a higher population of women my age who are already married in Utah lowers the odds further. What to do? I've thought a lot more about this question than I care to try and convey here, but here are two ideas for real-life "experiments" that I've devised to help force myself off the sideline and into the fray.

Experiment I - The Honest Approach. As I mentioned above, when I go out to a social gathering I hole up and allow my worst fears to govern my actions. I would tell you now that I'm not afraid of rejection, but the fact that I don't even attempt to meet women under these circumstances probably speaks louder than my words. This idea came out of something I read recently which said that while shallow conversation is cheap, the truth can actually be disarming: if you are willing to talk about who you really are and the way you actually feel, it is much easier to form an emotional connection. To that end, the idea behind this experiment is to go to a party, approach lots of women (a large sample size is necessary for a good assessment of the effectiveness of the experiment: this fear is something I'm simply going to have to get over) and tell them exactly how I feel about my current situation. That is to say if I walk up to a young woman and ask her how she's doing, if she's not already interested in me, she's likely going to give a canned response like "I'm fine", "I'm drunk", "I love dancing!", etc. If she's not totally disinterested, she follows her response with "How about you?" My guess is that this follow-up is almost a natural reflex. If she does ask the question, I respond with something like "Well although I wouldn't really consider myself an introvert under every circumstance, I tend to get inside my own head more than I'd like when I'm surrounded by people I don't know." Now if I decide to go this route that may not be the exact answer I use, but the goal would be the same regardless. Say something real, not self-deprecating, and provoke a response that gives us a chance to have a good conversation. This might work on a couple of levels. First, I'm guessing if I talk to enough women I'll eventually here the sentiment echoed or I'll get a real response back. That's best-case scenario. If the feeling is not mutual, I still think there's a lot of potential for meaningful discussion, and not necessarily on that topic. I'm confident that I can spin a conversation off of pretty much any answer. Worst-case scenario is she is uninterested or ends the conversation abruptly and I shake it off and move on. I'm sure I'll have plenty of practice to get better at this.

So that's the idea. It's true that talking about the mundane is not good conversation material when talking to someone you don't already know. Even if the weather weren't a cliché, it's only worth about two sentences. Being disarmingly candid is the goal. Anyway, because I ramble, the second experiment can wait for another night. For now I'd love to hear thoughts/reflections and perhaps other ideas for the kinds of real emotions I might convey without being awkward or self-deprecating if the sentiment is not adamantly opposed or concerned that this might constitute some dangerous form of social suicide...but seriously, what do you think?

The Scientist

2009-01-23T23:53:00.002-07:00

If only to try and hold myself accountable, next week I plan to write a brief review of each film I saw at Sundance.

It should come as no surprise that I consider myself to be a scientist. This has little to do with my academic focus in college. Rather, it concerns the the way I have come to view the world. For a long time now I have wanted things to be exact. The best example that comes to mind is my cooking. I treat baking a pie a lot like a science experiment. I follow the protocol, measure the ingredients precisely, bake them for the right amount of time at the right temperature, and the result is a delicious pie. It may not be true that if I didn't follow each step of the recipe precisely I wouldn't end up with a good pie, and the same came be said for a science experiment. I always just figured that someone out there went to the trouble of coming up with a recipe, so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time I get hungry.

I recently finished a book called Sway: The Irresistable Pull of Irrational Behavior, which was fascinating to me because it is chock-full of experiments that demonstrate all of the ways in which humans tend to act irrationally. Because I love this stuff, I'd like to relate one example of this irrational behavior before moving on.

In the French version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a contestant was asked "What celestial body revolves around the earth?" as one of his easy questions. Maybe he blanked or succumbed to the pressure of the situation, but for whatever reason he could not come up with the answer. He used his ask the audience lifeline. Stunningly, 56% of the audience voted that the sun revolves around the earth while only 42% voted for the correct answer. It turns out that the French are pretty unforgiving if they think you should know the answer to the question. In Russia the audience is even more unreliable than in France. This is in contrast to American audiences which respond with the right answer 9 out of 10 times.

Now the book doesn't say this explicitly, but the fact of the matter is that every case of irrational behavior described is the result of an emotional response to the situation winning out over a rational one. Of course we all need emotional connections in our lives, but feelings can be a dangerous thing, especially when they distort our view of reality to destructive ends (read the book to see what I mean).

So I'm back to science. Experiments, logic, rationality: these things give me a sense of control over my life and make me feel like less of a slave to my emotions. Of course there is another side to this coin. Without going into too much detail, in a number of situations over the past few years I've made choices which were quite rational in the moment. Looking back on these decisions now, however, I've concluded that I would have been better off allowing my emotions to guide me.

Still I can't help but feel that I'm slightly better off relying on my rational mind in most situations. After all, the ability to be logical is a big part of what separates us from other organisms on this earth. My dog Ginger has learned some good behaviors from us with training, but she remains to this day a confused slave to her emotions. I say she is neurotic, but I know that really she just can't put two and two together to come up with what's really best for her in light of what she wants in life. Plus my strongest emotional hijackings tend to take me on roller coaster rides that end with me puking my guts out (sometimes figuratively, others literally), and that's something I really think I could live without.

This post did not flow well into the subject which I initially had in mind for it, so stay tuned for a somewhat related follow-up. You won't have to wait long: the idea has been stewing in my head for a while now. Mmm, stew...

I'm An Ego-Driven Space-Time Meat Vehicle

2009-01-17T16:46:00.004-07:00

More later, but I'm a man of my word if nothing else.

Fireside Records

2008-12-14T14:42:00.007-07:00

The return! I know this is long overdue, but you're getting a two-for-one. Enjoy!

AC/DC
Black Ice 2008

Now I'll admit I've never been a die-hard fan of AC/DC. I have their three most well-known songs in my library, but beyond that I am not at all familiar with their music.

What I can say is that if you enjoy AC/DC's hits, you'll probably like Black Ice. "Rock 'N Roll Train", the opening track and first single have all the things that make up a great AC/DC track: a driving rock beat, a catchy guitar riff, and Brian Johnson's inimitable vocal style: it would be unacceptable for almost any other band but seems to work here.

What else can I say about the album? It's very consistent. When AC/DC sticks to their formula, they produce enjoyable rock 'n roll. If you like the sound as I do, you'll enjoy the majority of the tracks on Black Ice. Out of fifteen tracks (this is the band's longest album to date), I didn't care for four. The problem, however, is that the eleven tracks I did like are virtually indistinguishable in my mind. I might give the slight edge to "Rock 'N Roll Train" and "Anything Goes", but those stick out for me just a bit more than the other nine tracks I liked. Anyway give it a listen if you haven't already. I had few complaints.

Standout Tracks
"Rock 'N Roll Train" and "Anything Goes"

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As a side note, over the last couple of weeks I've decided that the old Fireside Records format of restricting myself to reviews of Classic Rock albums is, well, restrictive. With the move of the column to my blog, I will no longer exclusively review albums and bands who have been around for 20+ years. I find that I'm more likely to write reviews when I feel like it, and if I limited myself to classic albums which I felt like writing about, you would see many fewer reviews in general. Enough said.

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My Morning Jacket
Evil Urges 2008

I'll be honest, it only took me one and a half tracks to decide to review Evil Urges. We'll call this an album review in real time. I've just finished listening to "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1", and it is a mixture of a quality Flaming Lips track with some Southern Rock vibe thrown in for good measure. It's a solid song. "Evil Urges", the all-important first and title track, reminded me of ELO's "Evil Woman" with its falsetto-heavy vocals. The song benefits from the comparison.

"Highly Suspicious" is a complete miss. It's probably meant to be a dance track, but the raspy chanting just isn't good. "I'm Amazed" is the first single from the album. It's got a nice guitar intro and Vertical Horizon-sounding vocal harmonies. The instrumentation reminds me of The Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I think you know how I feel about that. "Thank You Too!" is cheesy lyrically, and the violins in the background don't help with that. It's got a nice guitar solo toward the end but that does not save it.

"Sec Walkin" is too twangy to enjoy. There's a fine line between Southern Rock and Country and this song crosses that line. "Two Halves" picks up the pace of the album again, which is nice. Again I'm reminded of ELO with the falsetto harmonies echoing front man Jim James's vocal stylings. "Librarian" makes for another somber, meandering track, but it's the first good slow track on the album. It also gets bonus points for a reference to the interwebs. "Look At You" is another slow song, and it is beginning to sound like they've used up most of their creative juices in the album's first tracks. They could not play this album from start to finish in a live concert.

"Aluminum Park" and "Remnants" are good rock tracks all around. The lyrics in "Aluminum Park" are a little silly, but at least it has a driving beat and memorable guitar riff. "Smokin' From Shootin'" features shamelessly southern lyrics, but that actually lends to the song's charm. The track builds momentum by starting softly and growing into the chorus and beyond: a nice effect.

In keeping with the feel of the first part, "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2" has a synth-heavy backdrop and lots of "Oohs", "Aahs", and echoes/reverb in the vocals. The lyrics here and in the first part are some of the best on the album. It's eight minutes and loses a bit of steam at the end, but it's still a good upbeat chill-out track. "Good Intentions" is five seconds of garbage, and they wasted an otherwise good ending to the album by tacking it on after "Touch Me Pt. 2".

Final verdict? Overall the album is enjoyable, but I couldn't shake the feeling that My Morning Jacket had a couple of mediocre slow tracks which they decided to throw into the middle of the album with the hope that no one would notice. I noticed.

Standout Tracks
"Evil Urges" and "I'm Amazed"

Visual Over Audio

2008-11-28T16:50:00.003-07:00

Not in general, mind you, but it seems that I've watched more films/tv lately. I finished Get Smart last night (the recent movie) and enjoyed it immensely, but I think my experience was improved greatly by having seen episodes from the original TV series. I'm not sure I would have had as much fun if I hadn't been in on the jokes. I really liked the way they updated the series though.

Agent 99 was a funny character in the old show, but she was clearly bound by the rules of the male-dominated society of the time, and most jokes involving her played off of that theme. In the movie, Agent 99 has the field experience while Max, although clumsy and ineffectual at times, has the people skills and insight to see things as they really are. This allows for some great interactions between the two leads (the dance comes to mind). Plot-wise, it's a fun story with a great cameo honoring the hidden CONTROL agents of the old show. Also Anne Hathaway is pretty sexy, which is always nice.

I also recently watched the first half of City of God. I'm looking forward to finishing it and will probably write more when I do. Other movies on my short-list include In Bruges and Talk to Me.

Also, watch this trailer. I haven't seen Order of the Phoenix yet, but this new movie looks like it may just be dark enough to suit my tastes. These last two books are serious and two of my favorites in the series, and I'd like to see them given the proper treatment. I won't say I'm sold after seeing clips from two minutes of the film, but I am definitely hopeful.

The best TV series I'm watching right now is Dexter (Heroes is all but derailed at this point). Season Three picks up right where season two left off, but with a very interesting premise involving the fun-to-watch Jimmy Smits. Thankfully it does not have nearly as much of the second season's soap opera feel, with the exception of some cheesy full-blown hallucinations involving Dexter's father. I'm currently an episode behind, but I can't wait to see how this season concludes. It's been quite a ride so far.

Time-Wasters and Bond

2008-11-16T16:14:00.007-07:00

Do you need a good procrastination tool for your life? I found one that has been a huge time sink for me over the last week or so. It's a facebook app game called Mob World. You're a mob boss in the game trying to gain control over an infinitely large city by buying up land, and then defending it with weapons and vehicles. You gain money by performing jobs and from the income generated by the property you buy. You can also earn money by winning fights against other mobsters in the game. I don't blame you at all if you're not interested, but if you care to help me out you could join my mob as a symbolic gesture. Even if you don't play, if I have more mobsters at my disposal I can do bigger jobs and move up the ranks. For my part, the game is interesting because I've spent a bit of time creating a spreadsheet to track my stats and determine which properties, weapons, and vehicles are most cost-efficient at each level. No obligations as I know some people object to facebook apps on principle, but here's the link just in case:

Mob World

In other news, I watched A Quantum Of Solace last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was not a typical James Bond movie by any means, but if anything it served as another breath of fresh air (the first being Casino Royale) into a franchise which had gotten a bit stale in my opinion. Don't get me wrong: I know the fans out there are devoted to certain trends in James Bond movies after watching the first twenty, but I really like the direction they're taking with the latest films. The only other thing I'll say about the movie (for fear of spoiling the experience for others) is that in retrospect, I found the title to be meaningful in more ways than one. It certainly seemed cryptic when the trailers hit, but now I find it completely appropriate. Let me know if you agree.

Sorry there's been no movement on the album reviews thus far. I may have time to do one early this week, but otherwise it will have to wait: I've got an awesome party to plan for next weekend...

Go Ask Alice

2008-10-26T23:12:00.005-06:00

First, an informative message I found on a Southwest Snack (click on the image to enlarge it). I know I was relieved...

Forward ho! I'd like to start the real discussion for this post with a quote that many (if not all) of my readers have heard me repeat a number of times, but before I do that I wanted to plug the upcoming return of Fireside Records. For those of you who don't know, this was my weekly album review column that lasted for about eight reviews during my Senior Year. I'm not going to promise a regular update, but Fireside Records will make a return as a column in this blog. Stay tuned: I'm going to start with a new record from a well-respected classic rock group (it's probably what you think it is).

On to the good stuff. The quote is actually an excerpt and is from Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The scene is The Mad Tea-Party:

`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.
`Exactly so,' said Alice.
`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'
`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'
`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
`It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.

Now I apologize if my harping on this particular passage has become tiresome, but the scene has special significance for me, and I felt this would be a good place to talk about why that is. Maybe then I'll let it go -- more on that later.

Here it is: it frustrates me to no end when people do not say what they mean. Partly this is just a wish that people could be more communicative about their feelings. That is to say that if something really bothers you, I would have you bring that frustration/anger/whatever to the table in an honest discussion rather than let the moment pass without mentioning the effect it has on you. I'll be the first to admit that I am not perfect at expressing my feelings to those around me, but I see this as a real short-coming and I'm working hard to correct it.

Beyond communicating well with the people you care about, to me saying what you mean is about not forcing people to guess what you mean based on your actions and even more importantly, not leading people to think you mean one thing when actually you mean something else. Without getting into too much of a rant here, I feel that I have been mislead in this way on more than one occasion, and the results have never been positive.

Now I had a conversation about this very subject this weekend, and the objection was raised that to come forward and say what you mean is a potentially embarrassing endeavor. I can sympathize with that. There are few things that are scarier than making your emotions known and having to hope that you will still be accepted after doing so. However, the problem with not making those feelings known up front is that one or both parties must operate in the dark. I would like to argue that the results of acting upon an incomplete set of information is ultimately much more embarrassing and hurtful than the act of putting your feelings out there in the first place and being rejected on the basis of those feelings. At least if you find out early that you're not operating under the same assumptions you can adapt to the reality of the situation.

My own personal problem, and the reason people not saying what they mean has such a negative effect on me, is that if I don't know what others are feeling I tend to operate under the assumption that everything is good. If it later turns out that my assumption was wrong, I feel cheated. Of course this might well be a problem with how I interpret the way other people act: if I'm a bad judge of the way people are feeling, then I am at least partly to blame for making bad assumptions. On the other hand, I try to be upfront about my feelings and if others would do the same then I wouldn't have to guess.

So what's the right answer? My guess is that I need to meet people halfway on this one. I need to be careful about how I draw conclusions about the way people are feeling based solely on their actions. I can hope that people will be communicative, but it's probably safer to assume the worst and just be pleasantly surprised if someone does say what they mean.

After rereading this post I find that it's a little bit more vague than I would have liked, but I wrote it this way for the sake of the anonymity of others. I have no regrets about that.

As a post-script, I am a supporter of saying what you mean as well as meaning what you say. I also love the fact that the Dormouse's analogy really doesn't work in the context of the conversation. So I guess this is just to say that it's a great book in general.

More Football

2008-10-20T22:47:00.007-06:00

This is not a full update, but a bit of a continuation of last night's post. I just watched the Barcelona Atlético Madrid game from this past weekend, and I just had to comment. After a truly poor performance at the end of last season for Barcelona, I must admit I had lost track of the team a bit. Perhaps it was that there were simply too many star strikers that just had to have the glory for themselves, but week after week they failed to gel as a team and suffered in the rankings, and I watched most of those disappointing games.

Of course the exodus of players that everyone feared at the season's end was not nearly as bad as was forecasted. Many saw Ronaldinho's exit from the team as the end of an era, but as I only saw him play in one game for Barca while my interest in the team developed, his loss was not all that momentous for me as a fan. They also lost the young striker Giovani Dos Santos to the EPL, but at least he bolstered my fantasy team there for a while. In the end they kept Samuel Eto'o, not the best striker in the world and a little big for his britches at times, but someone whom I enjoy watching and pulling for. Also Carles Puyol, the indefatigable rock of a defender and team captain, has become a personal hero of mine since I've always been a defender at heart.

Anyway, Barcelona have had mixed results so far this season, but they were in true form the other night against a formidable opponent in Atlético. Eto'o scored a sublime individual goal that revealed a nice glimpse of that poise under pressure required to be a truly great striker. In contrast Thierry Henry set up and eventually scored one of the best team goals I have seen recently. As a real fan of the midfielders who so brilliantly set up their strikers to steal the glory, I must also mention Xavi. He made a huge difference for the Spanish National team in the Euro this past summer, and his touch on the ball is something which needs to be seen to be believed. He really is at the top of his game right now and worth watching out for.

So much for a short post about the sport I love, but if you enjoy great football check out this match: it's well worth it.

Also if you like colorful commentary, there's nothing like the two commentators who cover the GolTV Barcelona games week after week (these are the English commentary games posted on btjunkie). I'm not generally a supporter of commentators in general, but these guys are a riot.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors

2008-10-19T21:30:00.006-06:00

Well it's been a while now, but first I'd like to say thank you for all of the support surrounding the creation of this blog. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm glad that it's garnering a response. I'll do my best to keep up with it and actually post some thoughts every now and again (even if they only come on a Sunday after I've had the weekend to recover from life as usual). I find that regardless of what I do, the musings do indeed continue, so I may as well set them down here and keep everyone else posted.

The chosen subject of the day is football! Those who know me know that football here will always refer to what some Americans call soccer, a name which simply doesn't capture the essence of the game like its given name. Thank goodness the Spanish didn't decide to take our lead on this one and call it sócar or something equally ridiculous. I'll stick with fútbol thank you very much.

Football is the topic of tonight's conversation because I had the opportunity to go to the Real Salt Lake game last night with a couple of my good friends. This is only the second game that the team has played in its brand new, 26000 seat stadium. Not only that, but this game against FC Dallas (note that even though the league is Major League Soccer, team names with FC give a nod to the game's true name) was to be a crucial playoff spot decider. If Real Salt Lake could pull out a win, they would keep their hopes of a spot in the playoffs alive.

The game was great fun for many reasons. First after Real Salt Lake threw their game due to an amateur error and inability to finish two weeks ago against Chivas USA, the team put up a great effort and hopefully will advance to the playoffs with their 3-1 win last night. Second, the old stadium where Real played was the American football stadium at the University of Utah. This might have been ok, except that the U happens to be a dry campus and as a result could not serve beer at games. This problem is solved at the new stadium as long as you are willing to pay $8.50/16 oz of beer. It was expensive, but it added to the experience for me. Third: brand new grass field. Man I was jealous of the little league girls teams that got to play small-sided games on that grass at half-time. That field is pristine.

On to the game analysis. Real played a great game. Unfortunately, the game became rather one-sided when an FC Dallas player received a red card for elbowing a Real player in the face after 30 minutes. From that point on, it was really Real's game to lose. Needless to say, they came through. FC Dallas drew first blood to make it 0-1 in the first twenty minutes, but Real responded fairly quickly with an equalizer which came from a fortunate deflection off of a Dallas defender. The next goal scored early in the second half, however, was all skill. Will Johnson received the ball on the ground at the top of the box, about even with the right goal post. He casually flicked the ball a couple feet into the air and then volleyed it past the Dallas keeper into the upper-right corner of the net. It was picture-perfect. The third Real goal was another nice shot into upper-right, this time off the ground by Robbie Findley.

Good soccer equals good times for me, but it was also interesting to observe the Real fans who came out in support of the team. Maybe it is because hockey is not in season, but I was surprised at the passionate anger of Real fans around us. It seemed that in general these people knew very little about the game, but that did not stop them from getting entirely too enraged at any call that happened to go against their team. I guess this is a similar kind of emotion as that which gives the Jazz such a great advantage at home (one which generally translates into one of the best home records in the NBA). Maybe it's just that Utahns are generally so even-tempered in almost every other situation, that they have chosen to vent all of their anger and frustration at various professional sporting events. The fact of the matter was, that there was no reasonable way that our fans could have argued that the refs were calling a one-sided game after two red cards had been awarded to Dallas players (the second on a slide-tackle which probably merited only a yellow) as compared to no ejections on the Salt Lake side. People didn't seem to realize that when a team is down two men, they are going to tend to get a break from the referees on the less significant calls.

I guess part of this comes down back to the question "What makes a truly passionate team fan?" Real Salt Lake is one of only two major sports teams in the state, so that may also contribute. However, I just cannot see myself going to a sports game to get so riled up. Don't get me wrong: I'm all about supporting the team, but if the way I feel at the end of the night is in the hands (or feet as the case may be) of a fairly average MLS team, I'd probably leave frustrated at least as often as I came away feeling good about myself. Those odds just aren't worth risking my happiness, and if that says something about my fanhood (or lack thereof) then I guess I just have to live with that.

I Don't Like Having to Title my Blog Entries

2008-09-29T23:09:00.008-06:00

First, a quote from the weekend:

"Eminem is more culturally black than this black LDS woman I know."

The first time the guy said this, I was convinced I had misheard him. I was so floored that I asked, "Just to be clear, did you really just say that Eminem, a white rapper, is more culturally black than a black woman?" He went on to justifty his statement by saying that an LDS black woman couldn't be very black because the LDS church did not allow allow black people to be bishops until the 1970s. Let's set aside the obviously problematic nature of this young man's implied ideas about what it means to be "culturally black" -- I can only address so many ridiculous ideas per blog post. His justification for his argument is better in a way because it logically implies that an LDS woman is not really a woman: after all, women still cannot be bishops in the LDS church. I just wish for his sake that I could tell you that this young man was not stone sober at the time. People are strange. Or maybe they just don't think when they speak. Repeatedly. It's too bad I don't carry a shovel around to give to people. Maybe a garden spade would get the message across.

In other news, I might be slowly losing my mind. It's always only been a matter of time. Whatever happens, I feel I've certainly made a pretty good run of it over these past twenty two years.

Did you watch The Office last week? I thought it was pretty great, and my faith was restored after what was -- for me -- a pretty disappointing season finale. "I ate a tapeworm."

I bought Megaman 9 the other day because I just could not resist the urge to return to the splendor that is 8-bit gaming. It's pretty fun, but after about an hour of playing, I have not been able to successfully beat a single stage. I've reached three bosses and one of them is definitely beatable with the standard weapon, but they were not kidding when they said this game was hard. I guess my side-scrolling skills are a little rusty...

...And Now For Something Completely Different

2008-09-23T20:32:00.005-06:00

What have I been up to lately? Well today I was flown to Concord, CA for an expenses paid business trip. It turns out I've done pretty good work at ERG in Utah, and I was the most qualified team member to come out to California to help ERG set up the production environment for their new Electronic Fare Collection System (EFCS).

I got done with my first day here a couple of hours ago -- all in all it went quite well -- and checked into my huge suite complete with a king-size bed and a flat-screen TV. The Lobby Manager informed me that Happy Hour was about to start and that I could get free beer, wine, and appetizers in the dining room from 5:30-7:00 every evening. Honestly, I can't remember when the last time I've heard the words "free" and "beer" together. I had three beers in a sitting, mostly to see if the woman behind the bar would card me or cut me off (she didn't).

Currently I'm trying to decide where to go for dinner (courtesy of ERG) and whether or not I should go for a swim in the pool before bed (I'm leaning toward yes on that one). All I can say is: I had no idea what corporate life was like. My only regret is that there is no one here to enjoy these amenities with me.

Anyway this is just a short entry to say that life is good. More to come as my adventures continue...

LOST (and found?)

2008-09-23T19:19:00.006-06:00

Well aren't you lucky (and you probably didn't even know it)! I'm about to kick off my new blog with not one but two new posts! Of course, this would not be the case if I had not put off writing my first post which has been forming in my mind since Sunday. It can't be helped.

This first post is not about my life but instead about one of the few TV shows that I actually watch as it airs -- in other words, this show is valuable enough to me that I am willing to subject myself to twenty minutes of commercials, so that I can see new episodes right away. The show, if you haven't already guessed from the title of the post, is LOST.

Now when I started watching the first season of LOST, I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for. In fact, the conflict which I now believe to be at the heart of the show was really nowhere to be seen in the early episodes. The conflict I refer to is that of faith vs. reason, and the more twists and turns the show adds to its already convoluted story line, the more I am convinced that it is about this simple, black and white question.

Take the two male protagonists in the story: Jack and John (don't try to tell me Sawyer is a protagonist: he's just there for the love-triangle which seems to be a necessity in television drama today). Jack is a scientist through and through. He devoted his life whole-heartedly to science and needs no faith to save the lives of his many patients. Now look at John. John may not always have had faith, but when he is healed by the island upon arrival, he never looks back. His decisions are no longer ruled by reason or logic but by a higher purpose that only he seems to be able to see. John knows that the survivors of the crash are supposed to be on the island, and he will stop at nothing to keep things in the current state of balance.

So who is right? I believe that by the end of the series we will know -- although I think there is already a pretty good indication of which side the writers will choose based on the events so far. I feel that before I begin my own analysis; however, I should make a short disclaimer. I think that this question is inherently flawed. TV has a way of taking subtleties out of an issue that frustrates me, and in this case LOST is no exception. Since I can remember, I have taken comfort in the fact that science gives me a foundation on which I can build a coherent understanding of reality. On the other hand, I was raised from a very early age to believe in a Christian God, and indeed I see evidence of a higher power almost everywhere I look. This is not to say that I am a Presbyterian (or even necessarily a Christian) -- on the contrary I find little value in the qualities of Christianity which have led this nation to re-elect a President who had utterly failed at his duties by 2000. But call me crazy or indoctrinated or brainwashed: I have a nagging suspicion that I am not alone in my life and whatever is nagging me is not easily explained away. This gets to the crux of my objection to the question as LOST states it: I don't feel any need to exclusively pick a side.

But what if I had no choice? That is the way the writers of LOST pose the question, so that is how I will address it. As important as spiritual well-being may be to some people, I think that looking at the world rationally sustains me more on a daily basis than faith does. Perhaps that is blasphemy to some, but if I pray and subsequently decide to follow the orders of the voices in my head (the secret is out), who is to say that those voices come from a higher power? This is what scares me about the faith of Americans today: can we really say that the religious right followed God's will in its decision to re-elect Bush? Would that make the Iraq war a righteous one, and this economic disaster all part of God's plan? Maybe. If this is not all a part of God's plan for the world, then a life based on rationality is the clear winner in this debate. If it is all a part of God's plan -- and realize that this is all predicated on my conviction that this nation and perhaps the world is in a very bad place right now -- is that a God I can realistically worship? Again my answer is maybe, but only because I cannot see how this whole situation is going to play out over the rest of my life.

Of course I'm being selfish in this entry: I want the best for myself. That's the way it is. But the real problem as I see it, is that faith seems like it always will come down to a gamble. The game is so compelling because the stakes are so high: if I don't have faith and it turns out God is not benevolent, I could be in for an eternity of pain. On the other hand, blind faith might have serious negative consequences for my life here on earth: indeed I can see the negative effects of the faiths of others, and it is faith in beings so far from a God that I could believe in, that it sickens me (I'm not just talking about Christians here, by the way).

Whew, long entry. I'm glad I got it all down for what it's worth (posterity? interesting discussion?). What follows is my guess as to where LOST is heading with regards to this question.

*Spoiler Alert*
I think LOST will explicitly back the side of faith, if it hasn't already. Jack got off the island and it has eaten him up inside. He now knows that he must do whatever it takes to get back to the island and set things (what these things are, I do not know) right. John's resurrection when they finally make it back to the island -- this is my bold prediction -- will reveal the writers' stance once and for all.