Top 10 Radiohead Songs (Before King of Limbs)

Radiohead's 8th album, The King of Limbs, will be released this Saturday on 2/19/2011. The band announced it only five days before the release date, to the surprise of everyone, and on Valentine's Day, no less! Next to nothing is known about this album -- no one knows what it might sound like, what songs are on there, or even how many songs are on the album. And the release is all the more exciting because of it.

I finally decided to take the time to pick my top-10 Radiohead songs so far. This is mostly because this task will only get harder from now on, but also because I'm waiting for some results to be generated and have some time to kill. Oh, and also because I'm out-of-my-mind excited about Saturday :-)

I've chosen not to rank them (picking them was hard enough!), but to instead present them here in "chronological" order. Enjoy!

Street Spirit [Fade Out]

All these things into position / All these things we'll one day swallow whole

The Bends is a pessimistic album. It makes its way through songs about disappointment, human fragility, and losing touch with reality. Street Spirit, the last song of the album, starts much the same way. Against painfully beautiful arpeggio, it paints scenes of alienation, frustration and finally, death -- a fitting if depressing way to close out the album. Until, of course, the very end, when suddenly, the chords change, and Thom Yorke blurts out, surprisingly and uncharacteristically, "Immerse your soul in love". The song then switches back, and ends on a lingering and uncertain note, leaving the listener stunned. Did they just sneak in a prescription for the long list of illnesses that they've painstakingly documented for an entire album? Did they really? The tiny, brief glimpse of the maybe, possibly hopeful, brings the album to a nuanced, and almost bizarrely cheerful, close.

Paranoid Android

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly / Kicking squealing gucci little piggy

Paranoid Android is the Bohemian Rhapsody of Radiohead, a three-part opus packed with crunching guitars and a somber death march. The narrator of the song is an archetypal Radiohead character -- angry, threatening, but in fact powerless and ultimately pathetic. He rains insults and disdain on all walks of life, and though he allows for a moment of grief as he finds himself alienated, the moment is brief, and the song unforgivingly kicks back into screaming high gears. The song's personality is as schizophrenic as the central character, and it's at turns crazy and beautiful.

Subterranean Homesick Alien

They'd shut me away / But I'd be all right

Radiohead takes the most beautiful theme of the alien abduction mythology -- the yearning for escape, for something better, for anything -- and makes this beautiful song. I doubt this song will show up on anyone else's top-10 list, but it is firmly on mine. It starts out quietly, with the narrator lamenting the small town where he is stuck, and wishing to be taken away. He speaks in a cautious tone, slowly and unsure of himself. But after dreaming about being taken onboard and seeing the truth, his tone suddenly turns frantic and desperate -- "I'd tell all my friends but they'll never believe me / They'd think that I've finally lost it completely / I'll show them the stars and the meaning of life" -- and then he abruptly stops, and eventually, whispers, sadly, "But they'd shut me away". And he pauses again, and then, smilingly, coyly, reassures himself -- "But I'd be all right". Breathtaking.

Exit Music (for a film)

You can laugh a spineless laugh / We hope your rules and wisdom choke you

Exit Music tells the story of a quiet personal revolution and escape. The opening scenes are tender, set in a misty dawn, when one person wakes another as they prepare for their journey ahead. The words are spoken in whispers, between the two people. But half way through the song, the music suddenly and inexplicably turns loud and oppressive, and the characters turn outwards, almost towards the listeners, accusing them, daring them. "You can laugh", they sneer; "We hope your rules and wisdom choke you". It's a chilling, powerful climax that then fades away, repeating "We hope that you choke" as they disappear into the night.

Everything in Its Right Place

Everything / In Its Right Place

OK Computer was released in 1997, and it shot Radiohead into superstardom. The band played to sold-out rock arenas everywhere. Music critics lavished praise on the album and the band, and titled Radiohead with nothing less than the savior of rock. The band couldn't handle all this pressure, and went into a meltdown (which is well-documented by the excellent film Meeting People Is Easy). They shut themselves off from the outside world. They went back to the recording studio, with the heavy burdens of impossible expectations, and began the famously torturous recording sessions post-OK Computer (documented by Ed's diary). Nobody knew what the new album would sounds like. They probably didn't know themselves. Years later, Radiohead came out of the cave with two albums worth of songs, broken up into Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001).

Everything in Its Right Place is the first song of Kid A, and it is how Radiohead chose to greet the world again. Few people were prepared for the cold, electronic pulses and tone that met them, the sampled voices, nonsensical lyrics, and electric piano chopped up and mixed up, sounding like everything is decidedly not in its right place. Where are the guitars? Listeners may press on, but the other songs in the album did not offer any comfort. This weird, electro-techno-whatever album sounds nothing like OK Computer. This is Radiohead, reborn.

Everything in Its Right Place is a great song in its own right -- its electronic notes are cold yet comforting, a little sad but also very beautiful. By adding a stronger, pulsating beat to it, the band has made this song its favorite way to wrap up a live performance. But it's all the more significant because of the context mentioned above -- after this song, Radiohead is never the same again.

How to Disappear Completely

I'm not here / This isn't happening

This is probably my favorite Radiohead song, and according to Thom Yorke, it documents how he felt through the OK Computer fiasco. This is the fourth song on Kid A, and the song starts, for the first time in the album, with the strumming sound of an acoustic guitar, before quickly being accompanied and nearly overwhelmed by the ondes martenot. As more instruments join in, the songs becomes incredibly lush and beautiful, shining and shimmering all over. But just as you think the song is about to end, something goes terribly wrong. Suddenly, the notes are bent out of shape, the chords collapse into dissonance, and you look around in panic, as if this beautiful veneer you've built is suddenly melting away, revealing the ugly monster underneath, struggling to get out... But no worries. Quickly, you regain control, you pave over the monster again, and you're back to your shining, beautiful self. Nope, this isn't happening at all.



Idioteque

We're not scaremongering / This is really happening

Idioteque is the thematic counterpoint to "How to Disappear Completely" on Kid A. Unlike that earlier song, Idioteque is fast, harsh, urgent, nearly soulless and completely devoid of any comfort. It is percussion-driven by a drum machine, has very little melody, and sketches out the apocalypse that all songs from Kid A up to this point have been very vaguely referencing. And bizarrely, this concoction of difficult, strange beats and lyrics is also a fan-favorite as the danciest Radiohead song.



Pyramid Song

And we all went to heaven in a little row boat / There was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt

One of a handful of songs that Thom performs in front of a piano, Pyramid Song is an other-worldly ballad that sounds incredibly lush. The imagery is beautiful -- unbelievably golden rays of light shining down as the narrator paddles towards the skies. Just sit down and listen to this.



Life in a Glass House

Of course I'd like to sit around and chat / But someone's listening in

Life in a Glass House stands out from the Radiohead canon as the jazziest song; they've never done anything like this before or since. It features jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton, and the bronze punctuates the song at every turn, commentating and arguing with Thom Yorke. The end result is a groovy, fascinating song that builds to a beautiful climax.

A Wolf at the Door

I keep the wolf from the door / But he calls me up

Hail to the Thief, the highly anticipated follow-up album to the one-two-punch of Kid A and Amnesiac, feels different. The guitars are back (kind of), and the band suddenly seems much more energetic, and increasingly at ease in blending together the two worlds of rock and electronica. The songs on the album show a new kind of confidence, and my favorite is this album closer. Unique in the Radiohead canon, it features Thom Yorke ranting and rambling fast into the microphone, moving from one platitude to the next in a stream of consciousness, and listing the various neuroses that make up modern life. The narrator becomes increasingly frustrated and desperate throughout the song at the thought of the proverbial wolf at the door, that finally, he gives up: "So I just go, ahh----", a useless, non-solution proposed in face of useless, abstract worries.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Wish away the nightmare / You've got a light you can feel it on your back

Okay if you've been counting, this is the eleventh song. That means technically, In Rainbows did not make it into the top-10, but I really must mention it anyway. If Hail to the Thief is Radiohead coming across a burst of new-found energy, In Rainbows is Radiohead calming down and maturing. The songs here are quieter, slower, and more restrained, but still, ethereal and beautiful. Jigsaw Falling Into Place, though, is the danciest song on the album, and my favorite. At first glance, the song seems... almost normal. It's about two people meeting each other... in a club? The date went... well? Things are... working out? "Regard each other as you pass / She looks back, you look back / Not just once / Not just twice" This is almost fun! The song eschews the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, but instead always drives forward, jumping through clever transitions from one stanza to the next. It's energetic, catchy, and yes, damned fun.

Avatar was a disappointment

I did not like Avatar. This is hardly surprising; I do not like most movies. Still, I watch in horror as Avatar starts gaining some serious Oscars momentum, and I feel like I need to vent a bit. I sat down to watch I thought would be a fairly formulaic action movie that is at least expertly and entertainingly executed. But instead, I sat through a series of thwarted expectations.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Here, for example, are some basic expectations for a movie in this genre:

• Bonding with nature -- Usually in these movies, the hero goes through some profound experience in which he gains appreciation for nature. But all Jake did was learn how to run around in the jungle and, indeed, overcome nature by learning how to ride and control two creatures. These are feats that could be accomplished by anyone with good hand-eye coordination, but don't really require much wisdom beyond that. Just to move the plot along though, Jake randomly (and conveniently) confessed in his video blog that he has learned to respect the planet after three months. I didn't know that; good thing he told me.
• Clever underdog strategy -- Typically, in the pivotal final battle, the underdogs are out-gunned, but they come up with some clever strategy to overcome their disadvantages. As Jake said, they have the home field advantage! And apparently, the best plan they could come up with was "CHARGE!!!" And so they sent the bird warriors to attack the airships, and the riders to attack the foot soldiers, head-on, with zero strategy. In the middle of the battle, the natives retreated; Norm: "We're being gunned down!" No shit. Seriously. Even the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi took the time to make some traps!
• Some cool thing at the end -- The most disappointing thing about the final battle is that it introduced absolutely nothing we hadn't seen before. No new creatures. No new weapons. When Jake gathered all the clans on the planet together, none of the clans contributed anything that was new (why bother even telling us about this?). When Eywa decided to heed Jake's call for help, she sent in the exact four creatures that we'd seen before -- more birds, more rhinos, more hounds, and that big black thing. Pandora feels unsatisfyingly tiny -- like I'd already seen everything it has to offer in the first half of the film. There's nothing here approaching the awe of, say, the forest spirit in Princess Mononoke. Avatar blew its load early, and then just kept going.

These are just some of the most basic genre pleasures that I expected to enjoy. I'm not saying that Cameron should stick more closely to formulaic elements; but in their place, he has substituted nothing. It's a movie that follows the formula, but takes away the rewards.

I don't even want to go into the smaller faults of the film -- the quickly abandoned conflict between Jake's loyalty to the military and the natives, the extremely uninspired design of the mechs and airships that are straight out of any other sci-fi movie, the always-annoying way in which Jake's betrayal was needlessly revealed, the mildly insulting way in which Jake waltzed in and became a better native than other natives (though still way less insulting than Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai), the lazy use of narration that tells but does not show, and the overall lack of subtlety in everything.

But now I sound like I'm nitpicking. The movie is beautiful to look at, and the CGI is very impressive. But it never awes, it never inspires, and ultimately, it's just not very satisfying.

Conan vs Colbert vs Stewart on Huckabee

The writers' strike has produced some amazing time-wasters in light-night television. Among the best -- the multi-episode, multi-show "tiff" between Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart on who made Huckabee. Here's the series of videos for the whole thing:

Stephen Colbert, 1/16:


Conan, 1/17:



Colbert, 1/29:


Conan, 2/1:


Stewart, 2/4:



Colbert, 2/4:



Conan, 2/4


Stewart, 2/5:

Google Maps for iPod Touch!

When I got Mel an iPod Touch for her birthday, I knew that the awesome Google Maps app for the iPhone wouldn't be on there. But I didn't know how poorly the Google Maps website would work on the iPod Touch -- dragging the map doesn't work, and all the navigation controls were too small and hard to hit with my finger. It also didn't redirect me to a more appropriate mobile version, and after hunting around for the super-stripped down version, I found it was, err, not "cool" enough for the friggin' iPod Touch! Google Maps Mobile also unfortunately doesn't work on the iPod (no Java :'( ). So I set about writing my own Google Maps interface for iPod Touch with the Google Maps API and the Google AJAX Search API.

I really wanted to be able to drag the map around on the iPod Touch; otherwise, it seems like such a waste of the touch screen! Unfortunately, as I understood it, the webpage doesn't get the normal drag events at all. After hunting around for a while, I found Mihai's attempt at writing a scrolling game for the iPhone and learned that though you don't get the single-finger drag events, you do get two-finger drag gestures, intended to scroll scrollable divs within a page, as scroll events. I placed the Google Maps container inside a scrolling div half its size, so you can "kind of" drag the map around by actually scrolling the containing div. When you scroll to the edge of the div, it resets the scroll position and recenters the map (almost seamless with a fast wifi connection). That works pretty well. (I've also tried translating all scroll events to map.panTo, but it was way too jerky on the iPod to be useful)

I store recent geocodable addresses in a cookie. When you want to go somewhere, you can either type it out or pick it from a drop-down box -- the iPod Touch Safari browser has a pretty nice interface for picking an item from a <select>.

Anyways, here it is! Check it out at www.grapier.com/maps.html. Here's how to use it:

• Drag the map around using two fingers
• Zoom in and out using the buttons on the upper left
• Switch map type, or toggle traffic overlay using the menu on the upper right
• Go somewhere, get driving directions, or search for businesses using the menu on the lower left
• Paginate through local search or driving direction results using the left and right arrows on the bottom right. Hit the "X" button to get out of the search.
• Set a business result as current location by using the pin button on the lower right after you've done a local search. You can then get driving directions to there as usual.
• Open a more detailed page on a business by using the pop-out button on the lowe right after you've done a local search.
• See all directions or local search results at once by scrolling down below the map after you've done a search.

Radiohead releases new album!

Titled "In Rainbows", it will be available for download on October 10th, 2007. The track listing is amazing. Radiohead play-tested many of them on the road in a global tour last year; here are their videos.

CD 1

15 Step -- extremely groovy


Bodysnatchers


Nude, aka Big Ideas (don't get any) -- an old, cult-favorite that was first played live, twice, in 1998, and then never again. One of my favorite Radiohead songs!


Weird Fishes/Arpeggi -- the first song of this album that Radiohead started playing live


All I Need


Faust Arp -- no one has any idea what this is

Reckoner


House of Cards


Jigsaw Falling Into Place, aka Open Pick


Videotape -- super beautiful


CD2 (only available in the Discbox set)

Down is the New Up


Go Slowly


Last Flowers


Up on the Ladder


Bangers and Mash -- not such a big fan of this one


4 Minute Warning -- amazing

I'm search-engine optimized!

Wow. Try a Google search for "existential blogs". Scroll down the page. ZOMG I'M THE TENTH RESULT!!1

Now, try a Google search for "funny existential blogs". Chances are, this blog will come up as either the first or second result!

Amazingly, this blog is already search-optimized for the keyword "existential"! Holy shit. Incredible, considering how commercial a keyword "existential" is. You'd think all the merchants would be jumping on that.

In fact, this awesome placement on Google is so effective that, just LAST MONTH, the phrase search for "existential blogs" got me TWO referrals from Google! It's a wonder I'm not already a millionaire off of this extremely well-run and interesting blog.

The Road to Cup-a-mochi-no

A few weekends back, a few of my Google friends held a dessert-making contest. I used to bake a little bit (way back in high school), and decided to take a shot. Armed with what little baking knowledge was left in me, and a manic devotion to all things mochi, I created the Cup-a-mochi-no. It is -- yes -- a normal cupcake wrapped around mochi wrapped around red bean paste. It is topped off with coconut frosting and another dollop of red bean paste. And it's delicious!



The idea came easily enough -- mixing mochi with other kinds of pastry has, in the past few years, been on the forefront of Chinese-American pastry in bakeries all over southern California. In certain bakeries, you can find bread with mochi and cream, red beans or taro paste in it. And some places even sell birthday cakes that have a layer of mushi mochi in the middle of soft pound cake. It was easy to imagine such a creation, but shrunk down to cupcake-scale (though it was difficult to persuade Mel that this was a good idea!)

The whole thing is pretty straightforward to make, though very time-consuming. First, you make the red bean mochis.



The easiest recipe that I found online for mochi dough -- using sweet rice flour and a microwave and taking little more than four minutes -- worked out pretty well. Instead of using 1 cup of water, I used 3/4 cup of coconut milk and 1/4 cup of water. I bought some red beans paste from 99 Ranch instead of making my own -- the dessert is already too experimental without that! I tried to fine one with as little sugar as possible, but it was still too sweet to my taste. Next time, I'll probably make the red beans paste myself to have more control over the sweetness.

Fresh out of the microwave, the dough will be very hot and very sticky. Cover your hands, a flat board and a round roller with corn starch. Take little balls of mochi dough, flatten into wraps, insert a dollop of red bean paste, and pinch the wrap together. The wrap can hold more red bean paste than you might think -- the mochi is very flexible, so just stretch it a bit when you're pinching it close.



Next, I made the cupcake. I took this reference recipe, but cut the sugar in half (out of necessity -- I was out of sugar at that point!). I also substituted coconut milk for milk (probably not all that wise, but it turned out okay). Lacking any electrical beaters, I had to cream the butter by hand, which was hard work.


I put a spoonful of cupcake batter into the cupcake holder, plopped a piece of red bean mochi into it, and covered the mochi with more batter. Be sure not to fill it up too high, or it will overflow!



While the cupcakes are baking, I made coconut-cream frosting from this recipe. I used only 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, which was plenty. Put the frosting on the cupcakes once they're nicely baked and cooled.



Finally, decorate the cupcake with some toasted sesame seeds and almond slices, garnish with more red bean paste and some hint, and you're good to go!



We didn't win the dessert contest, but it was very yummy nonetheless :-) Here's the full slide show of pictures I took in the process. Enjoy!

FUTURAMA IS BACK

One of the most brilliant shows ever created, and then brutally canceled by FOX, may have life left in it after all!

Travel photos!

Randomly! Some travel photos of my recent travels... EXCITING!

First, a trip to Hawaii's Big Island with Mel at the end of April:



and a cool My Maps to go with it!

Next, a trip to China with my family at the end of May:



Pretty cool! But mostly, I wrote this blog post to test embedding Picasa web albums :-)

while (true) break;

This is the saddest and, therefore, the most beautiful of code fragments:

while (true) {
  break;
}

First it starts with the promise of forever, an infinite loop with no end in sight. And then, abruptly, rudely, and immediately, all hopes are dashed and the loop is no more. You are transported suddenly from nothing, to everything, and to nothing again.

Radiohead captured the same beauty eloquently in Nude:

Now that you found it, it's gone
Now that you feel it, you don't

It's beautiful not just because it's ephemeral (what isn't?). Rather, it's beautiful because it's destroyed just as elegantly -- in a single word, in a single line of code -- as it was created.

Sausalito & Muir Woods trip with Parents

We took our parents to Sausalito and Muir Woods when they came up in October. Some highlights:








OMFG THE PIRATES ARE ATTACKING0RZ!!!!11






At Muir Woods, there's this awesome plank of wood that a lot of ladybugs are inexplicably attracted to...


Yum!

Rest of the album here:

Sausalito & Muir Woods with Parents

new blogger... and now in colors!

Blogger is out of beta! All sorts of cool features are included, like post labeling and an awesome new widget/template system that gives you drag-and-drop layout editing for the layman, and pretty fine-grained control (by editing an xhtml document) for those who want it.

In the process, they invented their own widget language for defining how widgets work. I don't know how wise that is, but it works reasonably well (if rather difficult to edit in the tiny provided textarea). I was easily able to show a clip of my Google Reader shared items thus: first, add an HTML/Javascript page element. Go to Google Reader, click on "Shared Items", click on "Put a clip on your website", customize your look and feel (I took away all styles), and copy-paste that HTML snippet into your Blogger HTML page element content. There's actually also a Blogger Feed page element for displaying feeds, but it can only show at most five items at a time from the feed (what's up with that?!).

I'm a bit saddened that there's no page element for showing recent posts like you could before. And the Post a Comment page is still, inexplicably, in a pop-up that totally doesn't follow the blog's styles. And I still hate writing blogs in these tiny textareas, though maybe I should start publishing from writely instead...

In any case, after some obvious amount of sweat and labor, I was finally able to gut one of the new Blogger templates and strip it down to the bare essentials with the beautiful Courier New font we all love and enjoy! And, for a bit of holiday fun, I went all crazy and added red to all the headings. It's mad, I know, I know. But I can indulge once in a while. It is the holidays after all!

patrons

wrote this silliness in an hour on the flight to Taiwan... In the manner of Socrates (maybe) etc. Yuck.

Man: Look at this glass of water. Are you looking at this glass of water?

Woman: Yes, yes. It's a glass of water.

Man: Precisely. Now imagine, for a bit. Just for a while, stay with me here.

Woman: I'm with you.

Man: Pay attention now.

Woman: I'm paying attention!

Man: Imagine that everything, everything is contained in this cup of water. This house. That tree. Three branches of our government. Mount Everest. The sun. The moon. You, me. The universe. Everything.

Woman: Everything.

Man: What did I say?

Woman: Everything.

Man: That's right, everything.

Woman: In that glass of water.

Man: That's right. So then, suppose I turn this glass of water upside down. What do you suppose will happen?

Woman: The water will pour onto the kitchen floor.

Man: Will it? But...

Woman: Don't do it!

Man: I won't do it.

Woman: I just cleaned the kitchen floor.

Man: It's just water, what do you care.

Woman: Don't do it.

Man: I won't do it.

Woman: I'm warning you.

Man: I said I won't do it.

Woman: Okay then.

Man: Well, as we were, suppose I pour this water onto the kitchen floor.

Woman: Don't do it!

Man: I won't do it!

Woman: You always say you won't, but you do, you will.

Man: No I don't. I won't!

Woman: It's hard to believe you. You have a... a history.

Man: We all have history.

Woman: But it's yours I'm talking about.

Man: What's so special about my history?

Woman: You have one... Not a particularly good one. A history of going back on your words, of not doing what you promised.

Man: Please list your examples clearly and succinctly.

Woman: Last night you said you'd be back at 10, but you weren't back till midnight.

Man: I couldn't.

Woman: You said you would.

Man: But I couldn't.

Woman: Then why did you say you would?

Man: When I said I would I didn't know I couldn't.

Woman: Then why say it if you didn't know if you wouldn't know you couldn't?

Man: Uh, what?

Woman: I'm just saying, don't lie to me. Don't say anything you don't know is true.

Man: Okay okay. I won't promise anything anymore.

Woman: Nothing?

Man: Not anything. I promise.

Woman: [content] Okay.

Man: Great! Now where were we?

Woman: You were promising not to pour the water onto the kitchen floor.

Man: Ah yes, and I won't. Why would I, in any case?

Woman: Who knows why you do anything. Sometimes you really puzzle me.

Man: Well there are many reasons why I would, in fact. It's fun. It's fun to see water flow, to see it crash against the hardwood floor, to see it splash. It's dramatic. It'd make quite a show, quite a show! Much more of a show than what we have now.

Woman: But you won't do it.

Man: [signaling audience] I'm sure these good folks would appreciate a good show.

Woman: But you won't give it to them.

Man: Indeed I won't.

Woman: Because you promised.

Man: That's right, I promised.

Woman: Well, good.

Man: Funny thing, this glass of water.

Woman: Why's that?

Man: So oblivious to its own fate. Does it have any idea that it is being suspended five feet off the ground, by me and my will alone, and that with a flick of my wrist it could lose everything it had?

Woman: It doesn't have anything. It's water.

Man: Yes, yes I know it's water. But suppose it's something else. Suppose it's not just water, that it's everything. Your dog, my cat, everything in the universe. Then what?

Woman: Then the universe shatters into a million pieces as it hits our kitchen floor.

Man: Yes, well, but... But there is no kitchen floor. The kitchen floor is in the water too.

Woman: Ah, ah, I see. And the glass container as well?

Man: The glass container holding the water is also part of the universe, and as such, is in the water.

Woman: Then as it falls... but gravity, and earth, all are in the water already.

Man: That's right.

Woman: As are you, the person flipping the glass.

Man: Correct.

Woman: Then who will flip the glass?

Man: Ah, ah. Do you see?

Woman: No.

Man: It doesn't really make sense, does it?

Woman: Not really.

Man: The problem setup really defeats itself.

Woman: Yeah... So... What's your point?

Man: No point, no point. It just makes for a good show. [pours glass of water onto the floor. Blackout.]

Yosemite Trip

Peter, Julie, Mel and I went to Yosemite two weekends ago... Here's the damage.

A rock with some fancy name I don't remember

An expensive-looking vista with a middle-class view I can't afford

Landmark Half Dome in the sunset...

Cross-country skiing was gorgeous on snow-covered trails

Rare picture of Julie not falling

Yosemite Falls

Humans covering up pretty scenary

More mortals obscuring the immortal

Google Reader's fairly cool sharing

Google Reader now lets you share your RSS feeds. It's pretty cool; basically, you can label your feed items, and people can subscribe to your labels. So for example, if you have a friend who shares your interests and is an RSS hound, he can go through many feeds and mark only certain ones as "interesting". You, who are much busier and have, say, a job to do, can subscribe to his "interesting" label (itself a feed) to read all feed items that are interesting to him and, by extension, to you. It doesn't quite replace news aggregator blogs (no comments/discussion), but it's a lot more convenient.

Furthermore, you can have a "clip" of your label feed. I've put up a section on the sidebar with some feed items that I've found interesting. The clip comes with a few (fairly ugly) pre-determined themes, but the best part is that you can style yourself with CSS (though this is undocumented). The relevant class names used are:

• The entire webclip box: div.reader-publisher-module
  
• The header: h3
  
• The bullets: ul/li
  
• The source: div.s
  
• The "Read in Google Reader" line: div.f; set display:none; if you don't want it to appear :-)

Enjoy!

Sarah Beth's awesome birthday card

Sarah Beth has created this very awesome birthday card for me... I have no idea where she got the pictures, because they're definitely not my pictures.

The Bookers

Not very happy with it yet, but here it is.

for Melanie, who demands that this be posted.

(A COFFEE SHOP. A WOMAN SITS AT A TABLE, STUDYING. A MAN ENTERS, AND APPROACHES THE TABLE.)

Man: Hi there.

Woman (not paying attention): Hey.

Man: Would you mind if I sit with you?

Woman: Are they out of tables again?

Man: No -- yes. Yes.

Woman: Well, okay.

(THE WOMAN REMOVES HER BOOKS FROM THE OPPOSITE CHAIR, AND THE MAN SITS. THE MAN OCCASIONALLY LOOKS UP AT THE WOMAN NERVOUSLY, AND LOOKS DOWN AGAIN WHEN THE WOMAN NOTICES. AFTER A WHILE, DETERMINED, THE MAN LOOKS UP AGAIN, READY TO SPEAK)

Man: Hey, so...

(THEY FREEZE SUDDENLY)

Announcer's Voice: "The Wise Pages of the Bookers", Chapter 3, Section 5. Unnecessary interruptions of social intent during the course of studies result in an inevitable decline into decadence.

(THEY UNFREEZE)

Woman: Mmm?

Man: What are you studying?

Woman: Stats. You?

Man: English. You look a little tired.

Woman: I am. A little.

Man: Take a break, then. It always helps to take a break.

Woman: I've been on breaks.

Man: Take another one.

Woman: Are you taking a break?

Man: I'm always taking breaks.

Woman: But you only just sat down.

Man: Sitting down is hard work.

Woman: Well, you don't have a midterm on sitting down tomorrow.

Man: No, but I do have midterms on other things.

Woman: Then why aren't you studying?

Man: I'm taking a break!

Woman: Well I don't have time for breaks.

Man: Take time. You never have time unless you reach out and take it.

Woman: I'm all out of time.

Man: Take my time! I'll give you some time.

Woman: That doesn't help; it takes my time to use your time.

Man: Well, that's the best I can do.

Woman: That's not good enough.

Man: What would be good enough?

Woman: Not taking a break.

Man: But I'm already on break.

Woman: I'm not on break.

Man: You've been on break all this time.

Woman: Because you've been wasting my time.

Man: So you might as well take a proper break.

Woman: No, now I have to...

Man: Ten minutes. Come on.

Woman (pause): Well, okay.

Man: Good. Doesn't that feel better?

Woman: It doesn't matter how I feel now. Only how I feel after I take my test.

Man: You're too fixated on the future. Just imagine all that the present has to offer. Just think of all the things you're missing when you're looking over there instead of (POINTING TO SELF) looking over here.

Woman (pause): I'm not missing much.

Man: Ouch.

Woman: Too easy.

Man: Had to be said.

Woman: Sorry.

Man: So how is stats coming along.

Woman: It's barely coming at all.

Man: No?

Woman: I just hope I don't fail the test tomorrow.

Man: Are you going to fail the test tomorrow?

Woman: Yes -- no. No, I don't think so.

Man: Then why are you worried?

Woman: I'm not -- well, I am. But I'm not -- not that worried.

Man: Well good.

Woman: I just don't want to disappear.

Man: You won't disappear.

Woman: Be one of those people in my class who fail one of the midterms, and then are never heard from again, disappear from the class, drop off the face of the earth, the chairs they used to sit in now empty, stamped by their own inadequacy, signed by the passing murmurs of those barely scraping by.

Man: You won't disappear.

Woman: I want to do the murmuring. Not the disappearing. I want to be here to murmur.

Man: You won't disappear.

Woman: How do you know that?

Man: Because I'm here.

Woman: So?

Man: You won't disappear from me.

Woman (pause): I'm afraid I have a slightly different definition for...

Man: So what are you up to, now that you're done studying?

Woman: What? I'm not done studying.

Man: You just told me you're not worried.

Woman: Yeah, if I keep on studying...

Man (overlapping): So I'm thinking, a movie.

Woman: What?

Man: Let's go catch a movie.

Woman: I -- no, no I can't. I have to study. I'm already taking a break!

Man: Take a longer break.

Woman: No. No, no, no. I have to study. Now. And the break's over.

Man: Fine.

(THEY RESUME STUDYING FOR A WHILE)

Woman (carefully): So, what movie?

(THEY FREEZE)

Announcer's Voice: And so they went off to watch a movie, in direct opposition to the gentle yet stern teachings of the Bookers. On the way to the theater, they ran five red lights and bought alcohol for fourteen-year-olds. They snuck into the movie theater without paying for tickets, but the man was caught and thrown in jail, where he was gang-raped by six large men. The woman took the test the following day, failed, and disappeared off the face of the earth. Her classmates murmur to this day, referring to her as She Who Disobeyed the Bookers. Yet it needs not be like this, according to various clauses from "The Wise Pages of the Bookers", Chapter 3, Section 6. First, the early disengagement. Rewind, correct.

(THEY UNFREEZE)

Man: Hi there.

Woman (not paying attention): Hey.

Man: Would you mind if I sit with you?

Woman: Are they out of tables again?

Man: No -- yes. Yes.

Woman: Well, okay.

Man: Hey, so...

Woman: Mmm?

Man: What are you studying?

Woman: Stats. You?

Man: English. You look a little tired.

Woman: Why, not at all! I feel knowledge running through my veins, its gentle rhythms bringing me closer and closer to ecstasy itself, its harmony filling my very being with beauty and truth.

Man: You are absolutely right! I now see the errors of my comment and hang my head in shame in front of the glorious Bookers!

Woman: Bookers fill us!

Man: Bookers light us!

Woman: Praise be the Bookers!

Man and Woman (together): PRAISE BE THE BOOKERS!

(THEY FREEZE)

Announcer's Voice: Praise be the Bookers indeed! Their hands fill us with knowledge, their will lights us with joy. Their gentle hearts guide us to the Proper Path, their kind souls forgive our procrastination. They...

(THE ANNOUNCER IS SUDDENLY SILENT. LIGHTS DIM SLIGHTLY. MAN AND WOMAN UNFREEZE.)

Man: I walked into the cafe, and the first person I saw was you. There's something about you, something around you. I couldn't look away. It was impossible to look away. There were other seats around, but I had to sit with you.

Woman: I noticed you the moment you walked into this place, introduced by the metal bells swung lightly around the door knob. You looked at me, and looked away, and looked at me again. There were other seats around, but I wished you would sit with me.

Man: I approached you, trembling, a little. Would you mind if I sit with you?

Woman: I sounded reasonable. I had to sound reasonable. Is it because they're out of tables?

Man: Of course it is. Why else -- why else would I want to sit next to you, to you, to you?

(THEY FREEZE. LIGHTS ON FULL. THE ANNOUNCER CONTINUES)

Announcer's Voice: They protect us from earth's sorrows, they shield us from devil's ignorance. Praise be the Bookers!

Man and Woman (without moving): Praise be the Bookers!

Announcer's Voice: Chapter 3, Section 7. Harsh words cross points. Rewind, correct.

(THEY UNFREEZE)

Man: Take time. You never have time unless you reach out and take it.

Woman: I'm all out of time.

Man: Take my time! I'll give you some time.

Woman: That doesn't help; it takes my time to use your time.

Man: Well, that's the best I can do.

Woman: That's not good enough.

Man: What would be good enough?

Woman: Not taking a break.

Man: But I'm already on break.

Woman: I'm not on break.

Man: You've been on break all this time.

Woman: Because you've been wasting my time.

Man: So you might as well take a proper break.

Woman: No, now I have to...

Man: Ten minutes. Come on.

Woman: Look, just because you don't mind failing your midterms and dropping out of college and ending up sleeping in a dirty ditch where you'll lose one arm to gangrene until one day when a wild dog decides you smell like bacon and starts chewing your leg off and you try to fight it off except you can't because you only have one arm and all you could do with your arm is to pet it encouragingly as it bites into your leg like a breakfast burrito with too much beans and too much sauce and so you try to cry for help except all the words coming out of your mouth make no sense because you did not study for your English midterm -- just because of that -- doesn't mean I don't either.

Man: You're absolutely right! Such a quoting of "The Wise Pages of the Bookers"! Such beautiful prose! Such true words! I had indeed gone astray!

Woman: Then worry not, astray-goer! For the Bookers will lead you back into the light!

Man: Bookers save us!

Woman: Bookers guide us!

Man: Praise be the Bookers!

Man and Woman (together): PRAISE BE THE BOOKERS!

(THEY FREEZE)

Announcer's Voice: Praise be the Bookers, indeed! They show us our naked ignorant selves and transform us into shining beings. They make us stronger. They make us wiser. They...

(ANNOUNCER IS SUDDENLY SILENT AGAIN. LIGHTS DIM. THEY UNFREEZE)

Woman: How I longed to keep talking to you.

Man: What is there to talk about?

Woman: But it doesn't matter. How I longed to keep talking to you.

Man: I finally got you to talk to me.

Woman: But how I longed to keep talking!

Man: Take time. You never have time unless you reach out and take it.

Woman: I would -- I want to -- but I'm all out of time.

Man: Take my time! Take anything. Take everything.

Woman: That doesn't help.

Man: That's the best I can do.

Woman: It does help. A little.

Man: Good, because that's the best I can do.

Woman: The best you can is good enough.


(THEY FREEZE AGAIN; LIGHTS ON FULL)

Announcer's Voice: Let their brilliant light show us the path to eternal glory! Let their ringing truth bridge us to everlasting peace! Bask in their magnificent manificence! Praise be the Bookers!

Man and Woman: Praise be the Bookers!

Announcer's Voice: Again, from Chapter 3, Section 8. The incessant rejection. Repeat, correct.

(THEY UNFREEZE)

Man: So what are you up to, now that you're done studying?

Woman: What? I'm not done studying.

Man: You just told me you're not worried.

Woman: Yeah, if I keep on studying...

Man (overlapping): So I'm thinking, a movie.

Woman: What?

Man: Let's go catch a movie.

Woman: No.

Man: A show?

Woman: No.

Man: Let's go sing karaoke.

Woman: No.

Man: Dinner?

Woman: No.

Man: Let's go smoke out.

Woman: No.

Man: Have you tried shooting heroine?

Woman: No.

Man: So I hear there's an orgy going on tonight...

Woman: No.

Man: You wanna set the school on fire?

Woman: No.

Man: A few friends of mine, we're going to sneak into a hospital, steal some babies and skull-fuck them. Wanna come?

Woman: No.

Man: Let's go register to be Republicans.

Woman: Fuck you.

(THEY FREEZE)

Announcer's Voice: Excellent! Well done, all around. The incessant rejection of all things that do not flow naturally from the Bookers' tongue is the essential protection against decadence and failure. There are three kinds of incessance and three kinds of rejection...

(LIGHTS DIM)

Man: But I'll go anywhere with you.

Woman: I'll do anything with you.

Man: What about a movie?

Woman: But I need to study.

Man: Do you need to study?

Woman: I don't want to disappear.

Man: You're not going to disappear.

Woman: How do you know that?

Announcer's Voice (in the background): BOOKERS FILL US!

Man: Because I'm here.

Woman: So?

Man: So I'm here.

Woman: So?

Man: So I'm here.

Woman: That's good.

Man: It's the best I can do.

Woman: That's good enough.

Announcer's Voice (in the background): BOOKERS LIGHT US!

Man: Or we can stay here and study.

Woman: I'll go anywhere.

Man: I'll do anything.

Woman: What does the present have to offer?

Man: You're not missing much.

Announcer's Voice (in the background): BOOKERS SAVE US!

Woman: I don't know what I'm missing.

Man: You won't know until you miss it.

Woman: There's too many things to miss.

Man: Too little time to miss them all.

Woman: I don't have enough time.

Man: You can have mine. You can have me.

Announcer's Voice (in the background): BOOKERS GUIDE US!

Woman: Is that the best you can do?

Man: It'll have to be good enough.

Woman (pause): It's good enough.

(LIGHTS FADE)

middle class guilt

Well, I guess things have happened to me recently.

I just got my Prius 2006. Google sponsors $5000 for the purchase of a Prius, and with a tax credit of $3000 given out for those purchased in the early part of 2006, it's really a pretty good deal. It's a bit too trendy, I concur -- it did take me a year before I reluctantly started using the iPod that Google gave me -- but for once, partaking in a trend actually benefits the environment. How convenient.

On the morning after I picked up my Prius, I was rear-ended.

I hate driving new cars, for all the obvious reasons. I'm happy whipping my '97 Corola around, but whenever I'm driving my Prius, I can't stop picturing a wayward car ramming directly into my side, killing me instantly and worse, cracking the paint and requiring thousands to repair. Sadness falls upon the earth. At my funeral, people gather and whisper softly to each other, "that car only had 300 miles on it, tops. Imagine how much it'll cost to repaint." For me, it seems that middle class guilt will not only be repaid with an ironic loss of things I've purchased to secure my middle class status. On top of that, there must always be certain, horrible death.

These are the thoughts that occupied me as I pulled up to the intersection, stopping at the red light. A few moments, a jerk and a bump later, I was outside of my car investigating the dent.

It happened in East Palo Alto, the slums of the Bay Area. Accordingly, as I got out of my car to face the perpetrator of our little accident, I was met with the most polite resident of EPA, incredibly worried and profusely apologetic. I was dazed and confused, trying to calm him down while jotting down his phone and license plate numbers. There was only the smallest of dents on my rear bumper, and I said my good-bye quickly, with a promise to call him later today. I drove away with a smirk. Middle class guilt. Ha! I only got a little dent!

I got a quote from a local auto body shop for repairing the bumper. It was a breath-taking six hundred bucks. Jorge had braked at the light, but with the ground being wet -- and Californians being unaccustomed to rain -- his car slid forward regardless, and gently bumped into mine. The damage was small enough that he really didn't want the insurance companies to be involved. But six hundred bucks? I didn't think he could pay six hundred bucks. And I know this because he lives in EPA, drives a beat-up mustang, and can't-afford-six-hundred-bucks was the best stereotype I could come up with.

I called him with a cringe. "Six hundred dollars." Silence followed. Inevitably he spoke up. "I, it was, it was such a small dent. I don't think it's worth six hundred dollars."

Of course it wasn't. Middle class guilt is now dancing in the room, flashing stereotypes before my eyes. A decent, poor but hard-working man with a bit of bad luck, running into a new, yuppie car of middle class me, who demands unreasonable repair costs to keep his precious car spanking new, and the man spanking poor. The six hundred bucks will take him months to accumulate, and will be used in service of keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. It's like forcing someone who lost both legs as a child to lick your toe.

"I think it's too expensive too", I followed quickly. "Tell you what, I'll try going to a few different auto body shops and see if I can't find a better price."

Anything to make the toe more palatable, I guess.

A few days and many moments later, we stood at another auto body shop. The repairman offered to pop out the dent for sixty bucks, and we quickly agreed to the attempt. He tried, and he failed. The dent is less obvious, but still very much in existence.

"I could also sand it down and repaint it, which will make it look brand new", the repairman offered. "That'll take $350."

All eyes were on me. Am I going to leave it be, accept the existing but hard-to-spot dent and cost Jorge only $60, or be an asshole and demand the full $350?

"It's really pretty hard to spot", Jorge noted. "But I understand it's brand new, and I understand if you want to sand it down. I just want to do the right thing here."

I can see him lifting his head off the floor, pulling his body forward with his arms, his only means of transport. The right thing for him to do would be to pay the costs necessary to restore my car to the same condition as before the accident. But what's the right thing for me to do?

I hesitated. I didn't care about the dent, really -- God knows many of them are on the way. But it felt like he should pay the $350. It felt like that's how responsibilities fall. That's how the world works. I took off my socks and lifted up my foot.

"I think...", I cringed, and kept cringing as I said it. "I think I'd like to sand it down." The foot is right before his face, his neck strained to meet it in the air.

"Okay", he muttered. He took out his wallet, and counted his money. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred.

One lick, two licks, three.

Yes, I'm a terrible person. I promised to get him a Google shirt, to decorate him with the emblem of my success, a mockery of a sympathetic gesture. The shirt should say, "I licked a middle-class man's toe, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." On the back of the shirt will be a sticker, secretly and jokingly applied by me, that says "This man is poor. Kick him."

And so the affair ends. Middle class guilt sits across from me in the room, smirking. "You'll never be rid of me", it mouths, completely satisfied with the loud, droning noise as the system churns forward. Before disappearing into thin air for a while, it blinked, its eyes shining with the promise of my demise, an ironic, justifying collapse of my economic status.

Oh, and certain, horrible death.

me talk one day

Yeah, it's been a while.

I am currently a victim of a series of impeccably timed mistakes, all small but fatal. I had decided that today -- yes, today! -- would be the day when I finally work on my personal statement. I had been asking around for a nice cafe for this purpose, and was recommended this one. Unfortunately, I had been running my laptop without recharging it for a while -- my first mistake. I didn't realize that there are no power outlets in this cafe for my laptop -- my second mistake. I ordered a hot cup of coffee -- my third mistake. And I didn't bring anything but my laptop with me -- my forth mistake.

And so here I am, sitting at my table, with my laptop about to run out of power in 30 minutes, a cup of coffee too hot for me to gulp down, and nothing else for me to do. At last, the only productive thing to work on is writing a draft for this blog entry. And so here it is.

And yes, it's been a while.

Clearly, I'm terrible at this blogging thing -- only in the most unfortunate of circumstances do I grudgingly write up an entry. Yet there is little for me to write about, my daily details too mundane, creative writing too time-consuming (and its stench too relentless). Nowadays, I can barely formulate a proper sentence without giving myself a hernia, my thoughts too jumbled and abstract to be tied down in words (at least, by a writer as terrible and lazy as myself). I have thought much, but mostly of tree structures in javascript, of things I should be doing but aren't, of the never-ending backlog of things I need to get to but won't. It's been exhausting.

And it's been like that for a while.

In situations like this, you wonder why you're so much more stressed out than you really need to be. But when all the answers you can find are unsatisfactory, behind them lurking the promise of this lasting into eternity, you get more stressed out. You tell yourself that it'll be better after the next milestone, and it does, but only until another milestone looms on the horizon. The milestones make for neat paper weights, paper or otherwise, and you watch, without much pride, as they build slowly into a very tall tombstone.

I just realized that a blank piece of paper invites me to think somber thoughts. It's the middle-class my-life-is-so-tragic symdrome. Also, I didn't even bring a power cable with me, so scratch the no-power-outlet mistake, and substitute in this one.

Perhaps that's why it's been such a while.

Missed Connections

because I have nothing better to do, I wrote this:

(BUS STATION. A MAN AND A WOMAN, WAITING. THEY ALTERNATE BETWEEN NERVOUS GLANCES AT THE GROUND AND AT EACH OTHER.)

Man (finally with some nerve): Hey.

Woman (relieved): Hello.

Man: Slow bus.

Woman: Slow.

Man: Slow in coming.

Woman: Yeah.

Man: Not necessarily slow.

Woman: I know.

Man: Because, you know. It's only slow in coming, because it's not coming, or hasn't been coming, or rather, it's going to come, but it hasn't because it's slow, but not because it's physically slow because who knows how physically slow it is, but it's just slow relative to when it's supposed to be... coming.

Woman (already regretting this): Yeah okay.

Man (realizes his mistake): But, you know, not that it matters.

Woman: It doesn't matter.

Man: No, it really doesn't matter.

Woman: What you said.

Man: Yeah.

Woman: I meant, what you meant doesn't matter.

Man: I know.

Woman: Because, you know, it really doesn't matter what you meant when you said that the bus is slow, but it does matter that the bus is indeed slow, or slow in coming, or whichever, because we are standing here waiting for the slow, slow-in-coming bus, and that matters, not what you said.

Man (also regretting this): Uh, yeah.

Woman (realizes her mistake): Oh, sorry.

Man: What for?

Woman: Oh, nothing.

Man: I'm sorry too. Also for nothing.

Woman: Then you shouldn't need to be sorry.

Man: I just like the feeling.

Woman: Of being sorry?

Man: Of standing here. Next to you.

Woman (pause): Excuse me?

Man: I'm sorry.

Woman: What for?

Man: Oh, nothing.

Woman: I'm sorry too.

(LONG PAUSE.)

Man: So where are you going?

Woman: On the bus.

Man: Where on the bus?

Woman: Probably the back.

Man: I mean where, umm, where do you get off?

Woman: Probably the front.

Man: Me too.

Woman: It's the best way.

Man: Sometimes, it's the only way.

Woman: Not often though.

Man: Not ever, really.

Woman: Not really.

Man: Are you hungry?

Woman: Not really.

Man: Me neither.

Woman: But I love you.

Man: Then why did you leave me?

Woman (suddenly hysterical): I didn't mean to! I was going to find you! I was going to meet you exactly where we were supposed to meet! But I couldn't! I couldn't get there on time! The bus -- the bus was slow. It was slow in coming, and when I finally got on the back and got off the front, you were gone, you were gone, no where to be seen. The air was filled with your cruelty. Or mine. I couldn't tell, but you were gone. But I loved you.

Man: I wish my girlfriend didn't leave me.

Woman (normal): Your girlfriend left you?

Man: She will.

Woman: Is it a surprise?

Man: Not much of one.

Woman: What happened?

Man: Missed connections.

Woman: Isn't it always.

Man: It is.

Woman: Shit. The bus is really late. I'm going to be really late.

Man: Where are you going?

Woman: Down the line. I'm meeting my boyfriend.

Man: Really.

Woman: Or, I was supposed to. About thirty minutes ago. But the bus -- it -- I need it. I need to get on the bus to find him.

Man: It's coming.

Woman: It's going to be too late.

Man: It's coming.

Woman: It's going to be too late!

Man: It's coming!

(THE BUS COMES)

Woman (jumping onto the bus): Thank GOD! Aren't you getting on?

Man: No. I'm waiting for someone, actually.

Woman: Who is it?

Man: My girlfriend. She was supposed to get here thirty minutes ago.

Woman: Well, the bus is running late.

Man: Yeah I guess so. I hope she's coming.

Woman: Are there reasons she wouldn't?

Man: Yes.

Woman: Well, good luck. I hope she comes.

Man: She won't. I hope you find your boyfriend in time.

Woman: I won't.

Man: Well, blame it on the bus.

Woman: Fucking bus.

Man: Missed connections.

Woman: Isn't it always.

Man: It is this time.

(THE BUS DOOR SHUTS. LIGHTS DIM.)