WAS THERE A PROBLEM?

Observed today on the way to work from about .75 blocks' distance:

A man in what appeared to be a FedEx or Kinko's uniform (do they have uniforms?) yelling in what sounded like Vietnamese into a cellphone in a completely frantic, unhinged way that I'm finding truly difficult to describe, yet whose body language seemed to convey almost no urgency or panic. None of us walking past Sacramento and Davis this morning will ever know what that was about.

RAINBLOG

This will be fast.

I just wanted to note that even though it's raining pretty briskly outside, it's not really all that cold, which is nice, because it's been damn chilly* the past few days.

* My East Coast brethren will scoff at this (with good reason), but a couple of days in the high 40s make a man appreciate his scarf.

I FINALLY SAW CLOVERFIELD

Don't read this if you want to avoid spoilers.



I guess now I know what it would be like if a bunch of stereotypical Marina douchebags found themselves in a city being attacked by a giant monster. A giant, indestructible monster, which only makes sense until you realize his little mini-monster pals were totally vulnerable to getting hit with fire axes. I'm not saying that a giant monster movie needs to have ironclad logic in the first place, it just seemed weird is all. Also, you've probably guessed that I didn't care about any of the characters in this movie, and you'd be right, except for the one who arguably got the most hideous death (hint: not Hud). I guess if this had been from the POV of a bunch of blogging hipster nerds, I'd've been more riveted. This is not to say that I didn't like it! It was very well done! I just don't need to see it again. The camerawork -- which I was of course expecting -- made me nauseous.

THIS WILL MAKE SENSE BY THE END

Imagine a planet populated by six-inch-tall robots whose bodies are made of single musical instruments: A robot with a keyboard in its torso, another one with a turntable for a head, maybe a coalescent drum-machine robot that forms, Voltron- or Constructicon-style, from a collection of smaller robots whose individual bodies each make a single sound, etc. Imagine that a ship from Earth crashed on their planet, and the only surviving materials were an essay about spring break and a painting of a Mexican beach.

Now imagine that these robots chose to make an album of music based on their findings. That album is called Kiwi and it is by Dim Dim. You would probably do well to seek it out.

COLD RECOVERY

Bouncing back from a cold that laid me relatively low yesterday, I have some observations in no particular order:

- Damn, but Half Life 2 is some bleak-ass shit. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, it's just that if I had to actually live there, you can bet I'd probably be running for the Aperture Science building. That this place counts as "a relatively safe spot in that world" in my mind probably tells you something.

- I realize this would be a completely hideous invention in practice (either from a using or witnessing standpoint), but every once in a while I kind of want a small, hand-held vacuum with a flexible straw that I can just shove up my nose and remove all the snot with, as opposed to having to blow it out into tissues.

- I guess I just had the two observations, then

AMATEUR PSYCH EXPERIMENT IDEA

Both of the bathrooms here at work have this setup:

- 2 urinals next to each other (no partition between)
- 2 stalls next to each other (standard high walls, doors)

I've witnessed the following behavior countless times:

- Somebody's at the urinal making a transaction
- Somebody else walks into the bathroom, sees what's happening, and goes into a stall to do his urinary business (instead of using the adjacent urinal)

If I'm ever at the office late in the evening with nothing really pressing to do, I may build a makeshift urinal partition out of computer boxes and see what happens.

TOO OBVIOUS?

You know what I find annoying are those stickers you see on the backs of minivans that depict stick-figure representations of everyone in the driver's family standing next to each other. "Oh, it looks like you have a wife, and three kids -- two girls, one boy, how cute -- and a dog. How about that. Great."

I kind of want a sticker along the same lines that shows me standing next to

- Batman
- A lady in a spacesuit
- The Robot Devil
- Both members of Daft Punk
- Nikola Tesla
- The Baroness
- A jack-o-lantern with tiny legs, holding a knife

Too easy? I am undecided.

HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

I've increased the frequency of my morning run to M-W-F, and also the distance it takes me. Something I'm noticing is that my legs are pretty sore. This will go away; it just means my cells are being transformed from frail proteins into lean nanobatteries that crackle with unseen energies.

DON'T ASK ME WHY, 'CAUSE I DON'T KNOW EITHER

This occurred to me this morning over breakfast: Do you suppose that somewhere out there on the internet, there exists fanfiction of the American Office whose total focus is simply making Michael Scott into a competent human being? Or Dwight? Although (weirdly) Dwight seems to have his shit way more together than Michael.

(NB: I haven't actually watched many episodes of this show -- more than ten, fewer than fifteen, most of which were concentrated in Season 3)

SOMETIMES PREDICTION IS CORRECT

Well, that didn't take long. The rain's coming down in sheets, nearly horizontally, and I decided that paying $14 to park in a garage 1.5 blocks from my office was worth it rather than walking 14 blocks to/from public transpo. The streets of the Presidio were more littered with small tree-type debris than I've ever seen. What is it about eucalyptus that makes it shed so much bark, or twigs, or whatever that is I saw? I feel sorry for all the people I saw walking around with umbrellas made broken and useless by the wind.

A NEW YEAR BEGINS

The city is much as I left it, though I havent been back for long. The buildings squat grey under a ceaselessly grumpy sky, waiting for a rumored storm. The air uneasy, freighted with the potential of moisture. We will wait.

(TRANSLATION: I got back last night and we're waiting for some kind of thunderstorm to descend upon the city. Also, I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy in one sitting.)