tu n'es pas sérieux ...

Another half-assed thought on the subject, courtesy of mon ami Bayjamean:

quotable

"Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway."
-Unknown

getting my learn on

After two trips to the airport (courtesy of Aloha airlines and Hotwire.com) and breakfast at Ortega's this morning ...

Ophy: "So what are you up to today?"
H: "I have an insane amount of reading and homework to do this weekend."
Ophy: "Home-what? I'm so glad I'm done with grad school."
Diana: "Me too."
H: "Thanks."

paris daily photo

The antidote to my previous post? ParisDailyPhoto.



Also available:

• Bristol (England)
• Buenos Aires (Argentina)
• Cedar Key, FL (USA)
• Dijon (France)
• London (England)
• Manila (Philippines)
• Rome (Italy)
• San Francisco, CA (USA)
• Toulouse (France)
• Trier (Germany)
• Trondheim (Norway)

when work is a four-letter word

Check out Low morale ::: presents Radiohead.

bite me

After eating dinner with my dad at Rancho's, I headed to Shooters to support my friend Edgar, who was DJing there for the first time. Remembering how good it felt when my friends showed up back in my dj esoterica days, I got there early and pretty much stayed on the dance floor. By 11:30, the place was packed and I had decided that it was time to call it a night. Ten minutes later, I was still dancing to a set that included "Panic," "It's a Sin," and "Let's Dance."

That's when I turned around and was nearly face to face with a goth boy. He was smiling, holding a beer, and not a bad dancer. He said "hello" and I didn't move away. He seemed friendly, but not smarmy. He told me his name, asked mine, and made smalltalk. That's when things got weird.

He said "I like your neck."

Thinking I must have misunderstood him, I said "I'm sorry?" and leaned my ear closer to him.
Instead of repeating himself, he bit me.
That's right. He bit my neck. WTF?!

I backed away, more amused than angry, and asked him how old he was.
He tried to be coy and said "how old do you think I am?"

I responded with "I asked you a question: how old are you?"
He said "26."
I then said "but obviously not old enough to know better than to do that to a complete stranger."

I walked away, said "goodnight" to Edgar, and then made a clean getaway.

I've been going to clubs like these for nearly a decade and have never met a goth quite so bold. I'm also fairly certain that I don't put out a vibe that says "bite me." (At least not in the literal sense.)

Thankfully, he left no marks. Freak.

the daily cass

Cass is keeping a photo diary for each day of 2006.

This photo was taken on Jan. 14, before we headed to the SuperDiamond show. I have no idea why Nolan, Cass, and Diana chose the props they did -- I was just finishing my drink. But I suspect that Nolan's monkeyriffic prop may explain why he was so popular later in the evening.

monkfish, vol. 5 in a series

This fun article triggered the latest dispatch in my series of run-ins with monkfish. It brings me to five references in four months (two in January alone):
My Week as a Waiter
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: January 25, 2006
IT'S 7:45 p.m., the East Coast Grill is going full tilt and I'm ready to throttle one of the six diners at Table M-8.

He wants me to describe the monkfish special. For the fourth time. I hoarsely oblige, but when I return yet again to my riff on the apricot lager mustard, which comes right before my oratorical ode to the maple pecan mashed sweet potatoes, his attention flags and he starts to talk to a friend.

Does he mistake me for a recorded message, paused and played with the push of a button? Doesn't he know I have other tables to serve?

stripping over my words

Diana's post on butchered idioms (courtesy of her former boss Renaud, a Frenchman) is hilarious.

Read the Renaudisms and learn what "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the foot?" and "You can't teach a monkey a new face" mean.

Topic	Renaudism
Finality of numbers	"It's not that those numbers have to be set in marble."
Phone Tag	"I'm sorry that we keep playing tag phone."
Kissing up	"I don't need you to lick ass."
Getting to the point	"We need to cut to the chest."
Bad mornings	"Did you wake up on the wrong side of the foot?"
Non disclosures	"You can't look at that because you haven't signed the DNA yet."
Unappealing jobs	"What would repeal you from this job?"
Renaud's brightness	"I'm not the sharpest tool on the shelf."
Training	"You can't teach a monkey a new face."
Leaving for the day	"I'm about to quit the building."
Talking about others	"I wouldn't talk in your back."
Sucky jobs	"My friends have dead hand jobs."
Picking your battles	"Don't kill the hand that feeds you."
Go ahead, make my day	"Be my guess."
Tripping over my words	"Stripping over my words."
It strikes me that...	"It strikes my mind that..."
Probability	"Shoot fish in a pond."
That's a relief	"That's a large weight off your stomach."

working up the nerve

Decisions, decisions: do I share this factoid at tomorrow's Toastmasters meeting or not?

Sex helps calm nerves before public speaking
Full sexual intercourse offers the best results, psychologist says
Updated: 2:53 p.m. ET Jan. 25, 2006
LONDON - Forget pretending you are talking to one person or concentrating on a single point in the audience — having sex is good way to calm nerves before giving a speech or presentation.

But Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley in Scotland, said it has to be full sexual intercourse to get the best results.

He studied nearly 50 men and women who recorded their sexual activities for two weeks and analyzed its impact on their blood pressure levels when under acute stress, such as when giving a speech.

Brody discovered that the volunteers who had sexual intercourse were the least stressed and had blood pressure levels that returned to normal more quickly than people who engaged in other types of sex.

But people who had abstained from sex had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Even after taking into account stress due to work or other factors, the range of responses to stress were best explained by sexual behavior.

“The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm but rather, endure for at least a week,” Brody told New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.

He believes that the release of the so-called “pair bonding” hormone oxytocin might explain the calming effect.

quotable

"Sometimes the majority is right ... though never for the right reasons."
-My friend Leo

quotable

"Open minds are a beautiful thing."
-Susan Guerra

zanzibar chicken

I usually serve this with couscous, carrots, and a blood orange salad.

Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes
Serves: 4

3 lbs chicken thighs and/ or drumsticks (chicken breasts also work well)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 TBSP olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
3/4 cup orange juice
3 TBSP sultanas

1. Season chicken with cinnamon, cloves, salt, and pepper. In a large frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken, in batches if necessary, and cook, turning until browned, about 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
2. Add onion to pan. Cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer.
3. Return chicken to pan. Add orange juice and raisins. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10-15 minutes, until chicken is tender.

'cause there's something in a sunday ...

As I was getting ready for work today, I searched my iTunes library for songs with "Sunday" in them.

Here's what I got:
Sunday Morning - Ani diFranco
Hated Sunday - Black Box Recorder
Sunday Girl - Blondie
Sunday Rider - David Gates
Sunday Papers - Joe Jackson
Sunday Morning Come Down - Johnny Cash
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning - Madness
Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday) - Moby
Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
Everyday is Like Sunday - Morrissey
Here's Where the Story Ends - The Sundays
Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2
Sunday Morning - Velvet Underground

weakness

I was sitting in a Long Island Starbucks on new year's day, sipping peppermint tea, and sharing the Times with Ben when I first read this article. Both of us laughed. It was my Sunday ritual, except for the company, time, and place. (Blast the non-quantum nature of these particular dimensions.)

Anyhow, I remembered that I still hadn't posted the article when a straight male said this to me yesterday: "i passed up kate beckinsale last minute for some ledger-gyllenhall man-love. aren't you proud? wait, don't answer that." (I should mention that Kate's currently starring in a vampire flick in leather pants.)

Meanwhile: Cowboys are my weakness
By Larry David (Originally published in The New York Times)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2006
Somebody had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain," nor do I have any intention of seeing it.

In fact, cowboys would have to lasso me, drag me into the theater and tie me to the seat, and even then I would make every effort to close my eyes and cover my ears.

And I love gay people. Hey, I've got gay acquaintances. Good acquaintances, who know they can call me anytime if they had my phone number.

I'm for gay marriage, gay divorce, gay this and gay that. I just don't want to watch two straight men, alone on the prairie, fall in love and kiss and hug and hold hands and whatnot. That's all.

Is that so terrible? Does that mean I'm homophobic? And if I am, well, then that's too bad. Because you can call me any name you want, but I'm still not going to that movie.

To my surprise, I have some straight friends who've not only seen the movie but liked it.

"One of the best love stories ever," one gushed. Another went on, "Oh, my God, you completely forget that it's two men. You in particular will love it."

"Why me?"

"You just will, trust me."

But I don't trust him. If two cowboys, male icons who are 100 percent all-man, can succumb, what chance to do I have, half- to a quarter of a man, depending on whom I'm with at the time?

I'm a very susceptible person, easily influenced, a natural-born follower with no sales-resistance. When I walk into a store, clerks wrestle one another trying to get to me first. My wife won't let me watch infomercials because of all the junk I've ordered that's now piled up in the garage. My medicine cabinet is filled with vitamins and bald cures.

So who's to say I won't become enamored with the whole gay business? Let's face it, there is some appeal there. I know I've always gotten along great with men. I never once paced in my room rehearsing what to say before asking a guy if he wanted to go to the movies.

And I generally don't pay for men, which of course is their most appealing attribute.

And gay guys always seem like they're having a great time. At the Christmas party I went to, they were the only ones who sang. Boy that looked like fun. I would love to sing, but this weighty, self-conscious heterosexuality I'm saddled with won't permit it.

I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. "You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're gay! You're gay!"

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

(Larry David appears in the HBO series ''Curb Your Enthusiasm.'')

mixing bagged colloquialisms

Our new statistics professor had a previous life as an English major and a psychologist, which probably explains why our course syllabus is 20 pages of 10-point Times New Roman text. (No joke.)

Allison, Justin, and I were reading the fine print last night at Urban Grind when I stumbled on the section about our written proposal. It was four pages on what not to do writing-wise, including a warning about avoiding colloquialisms and mixed metaphors.

In a completely serious tone, Allison chimed in saying "I definitely agree with not using colloquialisms, especially in California, because California is such a mixed bag ..."

That was the point at which I arched my eyebrow and shot her a look. Then, both of us exploded into laughter that lasted several minutes.

Her new nickname: "mb" for mixed bag.

scenes of chaos and joy

The people who brought you the mp3 experiment 2.0 are at it again. Sunday was Improv Everywhere's 5th Annual No Pants Subway Ride in New York City. More than 160 riders participated in the ride before police halted their No. 6 train at about 5 p.m. Eight were arrested and cited.

See some images.

The irony here:
Agent Siegel was taken to the precinct wearing no pants (he was separated from them and they're currently in my apartment.) After he was released, he asked a cop if it would be ok for him to ride the subway home. The cop hesitated and then said, "Yeah". So he was given permission to immediately return to the subway and break the same law he had just been taken in for.

Police halt annual ‘No Pants Subway Ride’ Eight pranksters cited for disorderly conduct
Updated: 11:32 p.m. ET Jan. 22, 2006
NEW YORK - From the waist up, they looked like perfectly normal commuters. That wasn’t good enough for police.

Eight pranksters who dropped their pants and showed their underwear on the subway on Sunday were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. All were ultimately released, said Improv Everywhere, the group that organized the stunt.

The group said more than 160 riders participated in the fifth annual No Pants Subway Ride before police halted their No. 6 train about 5 p.m.

Charlie Todd, who founded Improv Everywhere in 2001, said it’s not his group’s intent to offend. He said he wants to create scenes of chaos and joy in public places around New York.

“It was our intent to make people laugh,” he said. “We try to give people a great story to tell.”

Todd, a teacher and performer, said the police overreacted when they turned a harmless event into something that inconvenienced lots of subway riders. A judge will determine whether those issued summonses will be punished.

engine 22

Who knew?

On Engine 22, It's Women Who Answer the Bell
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 17 - When the crew from Fire Engine Company 22 raced off at 7:50 a.m. the other day for the first call of their 24-hour shift, a woman reporting chest pains, their big red rig was primed for action but missing a typical feature: a man.

The four members of Engine 22, Division A, a captain, an engineer, a firefighter-paramedic and a firefighter, protect the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego, an affluent peninsula on the Pacific Ocean. They are one of the few crews in the nation made up entirely of women, winding up together last October, as the captain, Joi Evans, said, because of "the way the cards fell."

Together they work, cook, shop, train and sleep in small dorm rooms in the station house, around the clock for 10 days a month, at a time when women are making some inroads into the fire service nationwide but are still only a sliver of the front line in one of the most physically grueling and male-dominated professions. With women accounting for about 8 percent of the 880 uniformed firefighters assigned to its station houses, compared with the national average of 2.5 percent, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, which has a female assistant chief, is considered one of the best departments for women to work, according to Women in the Fire Service, an advocacy group based in Madison, Wisconsin ...

postsecret (number 3 in a series)

The PostSecret Project is now a book. It was actually Ben's Christmas gift to me. (Thanks again, B.)

The book includes many of my favorites and was a hit with Cass, Diana, and Nolan when they were over for dinner last week. It's now on my coffee table and has been picked up by pretty much everyone who's walked through my front door.

Newsweek has an article about the project right now: You’ve Got Confessions.

Here's a new sampling of some of my favorites, swiped over the past three months. (Each image links to a full-size version.) You can also see earlier faves: 1, 2 .

loose lips sink relationships

My friend Bill gave a great speech at last week's Toastmasters meeting. It was on kissing and had the entire room in stitches; two-thirds of the room was actually crying by the end of the speech.

He was kind enough to send me the outline yesterday, so here's the essence of what he (a forty-something single guy) had to say ...

The facts: Most men are afraid of marriage, bad cooks, and bad kissers. Most men are aware of the first two facts, but completely in the dark on the last. According to the group of women Bill surveyed, only 20% of men are good kissers, which means that 4 out of 5 are doing things the wrong way. All of this becomes even more important when you consider the group's other observation -- if the first kiss sucks, you might not get a second chance.

Some things to keep in mind: For women, kissing is often an end unto itself. But for men, kissing is often the means to an end.

Ways men go wrong / problematic kissing styles:
- The Dead Cod (not enough pressure / traction)
- The Slobberer (too much lubrication)
- The Washing Machine (too much 360 movement)
- The Dentist (too much floss action)
- The Engulfer (stick to her lips, and don't include everything from her nose to her chin)
- The Reptile (too much tongue flicking)

Other things to keep in mind:
- No hair pulling
- No vacuum
- No biting

Finally, these are Bill's tips for success:
- moisturize
- relax
- watch body language

not enough biscuits in the world

I've often been amazed at how careful Casey was with me during my recovery from various surgeries. The first: a tonsillectomy in 1999. The second: foot surgery in 2002. The third: a nephrectomy in 2003. He was also very attentive as my marriage unravelled.

He instantly went from a playful and exuberant puppy who would forget himself and gladly jump on me (down, boy!) when I came home from work to a cautious, reserved (one might even say careful) dog who would sniff me gingerly and wag his tail eagerly.

The scientific explanation, that I was emitting stress hormones or some other measurable, tangible (albeit outside our senses) pheromone makes the most sense. But I often wish that Casey could speak, even if he'd be saying "greenie, greenie, greenie" two thirds of the time.

What the Nose Knows
How well do you know your dog? The answer is, not nearly as well as your dog knows you. Given the right incentives, humans can certainly be perceptive enough. But most dog lovers discover, sooner or later, that dogs have an alertness to the behavioral signs of their owners that humans rarely equal. And that's nothing. Scientists have recently discovered that dogs can distinguish, with almost unerring accuracy, between breath samples from people with lung cancer and from people without. The dogs have to be trained to do it, of course. But the fact that they can do it at all is remarkable. There aren't enough biscuits in the world to teach a human to smell at such an extraordinary level of subtlety.

This news will give pause to almost anyone who lives with a dog. Just what a dog "knows" is hard to say, because the human idea of "knowing" is so closely related to the ability to express what you know. Even trained cancer-sniffing dogs express their knowledge - their distinction between samples - only by sitting or not sitting. But this is what always happens. We tend to forget the extraordinary powers of the animals we live with simply because we live with them. We tend to humanize them, which means, if nothing else, that we tend to reduce them - in terms of their sensory powers - to our muddling level. We can barely take in the fact that when a dog comes up and sniffs us, it is really giving us a nasal M.R.I.

Not that this will change the dynamic of our relations with man's best friend. For a while - remembering the cancer-sniffing dogs - some of us will wonder when we see our pets cock their heads, "What are you looking at?" But time will pass, and humans will be humans, and we will forget, at our end of the leash, that the beast we are walking with may already know things about us that we will discover only too late.

nutcases s'abstenir, s'il vous plaît

Online dating dispatch, volume two in a series ...

The most outrageous person who has contacted me thus far has to be Retired_Spy, who complimented me on my good French grammar: "(de points de bonus supplementaires pour ta bonne grammaire en francais)."

My first thought was that it was my buddy Nathan having some fun with me.
But now I'm kinda hoping he's legit, because he's just so ridiculous.

Either way, he's really not my demographic, but at least he's honest about what he's looking for and pretty witty in how he's asking for it:

I'm a well-educated, charming, witty dirty old man in my 40's living near Geneva, Switzerland.

I'm English mother-tongue, but speak French, German, and have forgotten almost all the Russian I knew.

I'm involved in international relations on a global level. In my career I've worked in over 60 countries on all continents (except Antarctica for you purists).

I'm not looking for a soul-mate; rather, I'm looking for someone (2 'X' chromosomes obligatory) who enjoys taking a few mild risks, delights in long boozy lunches, and would be interested in foregoing same for hot, sweaty, and fulfilling, purely superficial, utterly meaningless encounters.

Oh: nutcases, s'abstenir (don't bother replying).

You're either young (18-28), inexperienced, enthusiastic, and very pliant; or still young (29+), experienced, enthusiastic, and very pliant. In either case, you should be a risk-taker (that's a risk with a small 'r', by the way).

You shouldn't be a flake. I don't like flakes. Or teases. Or girls who haven't quite grown up.

It would be great if we spoke a couple of languages in common, and you've seen the world a bit, although that's not strictly necessary.

And you should be interested in getting together for a nice lunchtime dalliance or two. Or three. Or more.

Nutcases, s'abstenir svp.

transported

Tonight, Cass and I hit Apertivo for a drink. I wanted some port, and Cass chose the chocolate port.

It was wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that we made a deal to meet at Aperitivo for the monthly port faceoff for the rest of 2006.

It goes something like this ... we order two glasses and pick a winner. The winner gets carried forward and a new contender goes head-to-head for the title the next month.

January's champion: Sonoma Valley Portworks' Deco Chocolate Port.

Meanwhile, I think I'll make the Port-Poached Pears with Port Chocolate Sauce. Failing that, I'll manufacture an excuse to make the Port Chocolate Sauce.

asim, this one's for you ...

So I'm minding my own business, reading the Times when I stumble on this story about how to spend a great 36 hours in San Diego ...

It lists several of my regular (food and art) haunts:
Cafe Chloe
The Mission
The Hash House A Go Go
The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art
Kettner Nights

Who knew that we were so effing trendy?

don't be evil

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: I want to have Google's baby.

Their corporate motto is "Don't be evil." Apparently, that includes taking a principled stand against the Bush Administration, like they did this week.

Google rebuffs feds over access to search data
Bush administration wants details of what users look for
Updated: 8:24 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration’s demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet’s leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google’s search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

The search engine giant said Thursday it had refused a subpoena issued by the Justice Department to provide a factual basis for justifying an online pornography law that was struck down by the Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

By the way, Microsoft, Yahoo, and America Online complied with the request but say they did not reveal any personally identifiable information about their users.

Yeah, right.

talking 'bout my demographic

Wickedly good. Artfully scientific. Intensely playful.
Deliberately random. Selfishly giving. Successfully unsatisfied.
Constantly spontaneous. Seriously wacky. Normally quirky.
Conservatively liberal. Rarely typical. Simply complex. Esoterically focused.
Relaxedly driven. Promptly late. Competitively compassionate.
Agreeably contrarian. Traditionally hip. Conventionally progressive.
Unapologetically contrite. Revolutionarily stable.
Locally worldly. Internationally domestic.
Formally casual. Masculinely feminist. Firmly gentle. Easily difficult.
Intellectually athletic. Rurally cosmopolitan. Urbanly off-the-beaten-path.
Realistically romantic. Imaginatively grounded. Cooly doting.
Confidently modest. Quietly engaging. Independently social. Calmly edgy.
Gainfully unmaterialistic. Willfully yielding. Deliciously unsavory.

scintillating

"Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

Last night, I dreamt about Starry Night.

That's really odd for me, as I rarely remember my dreams. It could've been the quote. Or seeing the real thing last month at New York's MOMA. Or talking about Don McLean with Cass, Diana, and Nolan Saturday.

Perhaps it's the new experience of giving off rapid-fire sparks whilst peacefully outside myself.

Update: The fact that I have it set as my wallpaper on my cell phone, and see it twenty times a day is probably why. When I consider that it is the last visual I see each night (my cell phone is my alarm clock), it all makes sense.

quotable

¡maravilloso!

Spain has a new law that bans smoking in the workplace and requires large restaurants to be mostly non-smoking. The sight of office workers forced to light up on the sidewalk is a shock in a country where many people used to scoff at the anti-smoking crusade in America.

Spain Gets Tough on Smoking

Ireland banned smoking in the workplace and restaurants two years ago. Italy banned it in all public places last year. Now, if only the French could get behind this ...

al's speech

I heart Al. And I wonder where our country would be today if he were at the helm instead of the idiot cowboy.

Al Gore: America's Constitution is in Grave Danger