Most of you already follow me elsewhere--directly or indirectly. But in case you're curious, I'm most active in these locations:
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mobilhomme
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mobilhomme
- Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilhomme
- Tumblr: http://mobilhomme.tumblr.com
If you're also interested in moving off LiveJournal, I highly recommend Tumblr: it's dead simple, free, attractive, has lots of options, lots of subscribers, and has none of the kludginess of LiveJournal. Those of you who like posting to different groups of people will find Tumblr an inadequate substitute--but I do very little of that here or elsewhere.
I've been feeling political today, which is unusual for me. Last week's ridiculous "bail out" followed by this week's stock market melt down coupled with the contentless debates and magical duck speak of the candidates brought me inspiration.
I guess I needed some catharsis.
- Mood:
cynical
- Mood:durrrrrrr
Fantastic Contraption is a game in which you are given a set of simple parts and must build a contraption to perform a task. In all cases, there is an Object and a Target Area with some obstacles between. The objective is to build a machine from the available parts to get the Object to the Target.
On the one hand, you can almost always build a Baroque contraption to achieve the goal by brute force, but I personally like the contraptions that minimize their design and achieve a result through elegance.
Here's one of mine:
You're welcome.\
Last Saturday (March 30) I flew to Shanghai to do some consulting work on Intel's Developer Forum. I returned this Saturday. Here's a recap in no particular order:
We were booked at the Oriental Riverside Hotel--a big government-run hotel attached to the Convention Center. It sucks. So, on the second day I...
( more after the cut )
Dog bless us, everyone!
Not long after I officially moved in with Shana, we decided that we HAD to remodel the spare bedroom to accommodate my office, her office, all our clothes and shoes, sewing space for her, and a guest bedroom. We just have too much stuff together and needed to add a bunch of storage to hold everything. That's a lot for 120 square feet.
After much discussion and negotiation, we hit upon a solution:
- Mood:industryish
Did I Mention We're in Dwell?
Departing TPE was easy, stress-free, even peaceful. I didn't even have to take my laptop out of my briefcase, let alone perform all the other rituals involved in U.S. flying, and the other passengers were well-behaved and polite. The airport was clean, comfortable, and quiet.
Arriving at SFO is jarring. It's noisy, smelly, and disorganized. People who left Taipei without any fuss become idiots upon stepping onto U.S. soil--they start elbowing, nervously craning their necks, and running into eachother with luggage carts. Customs is frantic and confusing. The agents are surly and stupid. Everything feels slap-dash--like no one has ever thought about how an airport might function.
We have the worst customs and airport security I've experienced--perhaps with the exception of Estonia.
I'm adamantly not a self-loathing American, but I don't understand the disaster that is the experience of entering the U.S. My suspicion is that it's such a mess because everyone knows, deep down, that x-raying everyone's shoes just isn't a viable security policy. Make enough people go through the motions of a pro-forma ritual enough times, and you end up with a lot of bad-tempered zombies.
- Mood: frustrated
- Mood:
shanasick
After a very long day of travel, I arrived in Taipei late this past Saturday.
On Sunday, we went for a 20 mile ride around Taipei with a couple guys from Dahon. So much fun. The traffic in Taipei is controlled chaos, and you ride in close proximity to cars, truck, and the gazillion scooters--but at no time did I feel threatened by traffic.
We rode south west of Taipei 101 to Bitan lake were we ate really excellent pizza and and drank Stellas. The pineapple here is like no other I've tasted.
On the way back, we climbed a nice little hill and had an exhilarating descent back into downtown Taipei. On the way, we partook of Betel nut--a working-class stimulant--for which we received some guff.
Monday was consumed largely with Intel. Afterward, however, we went to Dahon HQ to look at bikes and speak with their leadership. The bikes are bitching and the Dahon people really have fun playing with their concepts. Hopefully we will do more with them.
Then it was off to explore more of Taipei with Thomas, Matt, and Ingrid from Dahon. We went to a Buddhist temple, wandered around some night markets, and finally ended up in a Chinese medicinal restaurant.
My pineapple and bitter melon broth with black chicken is in the foreground. I can't really recommend it, but everyone else enjoyed their meals.
Tuesday was again an Intel day and afterward we had a celebratory dinner for IDF participants. We received the sign of approval of our work: an invitation next April to Shanghai. So apparently we were considered valuable to the event and we'll be pitching some new ideas to our customers.
As the party was in taipei 101--the tallest building in the world--Byron and I went to the top (in the fastest elevator in the world). Both are very impressive. I could have stood around taking pictures all night.
Yesterday I spent mostly working and moving from one hotel to a new one. The new one is in a much older, gritter part of town and at half the price of the Grand Hyatt, is has about twice the character.
Then I met with some people--Aron and Scalley--who I met on the internet through Flickr. Aron has some great Taipei food photos and after talking back-and-forth, he agreed to take me eating. We went to the Shilin night market and ate Shanghai style dumplings (Yum!)
Spicy fried chicken breast (Yum!)
Pork buns (yum!)
Stinky tofu (yum!)
Noodles with tripe (eh)
And finished off with odd ice cream prepared using a repurposed drill press contraption to spin a frozen block of the ice cream against a blade, creating paper-thin ice cream shavings.
We had some kind of citrus, sweet flavor and peanut butter. Both amazing.
Busy so far. Much more to do.
On Thursday we flew to LA for Baljam. Shana got herself booked to DJ at Lindygroove and arranged to stay the weekend with Lance and Vicky. The plan was to shop, eat, DJ, and dance Balboa. All four were accomplished.
( more after the cut, including photos )- Mood: satisfactioned
[For the curious, I will simply note that one need not be a Democrat to hate Republicans. One can hate them both simultaneously and with equal fervency.]
- Mood: misanthropical
This labor day, Shana and I decided to celebrate the true spirit of the holiday. Instead of buying into all the Labor Day hype and commercialism, we didn't go camping, boating, barbecuing, or road tripping. Rather, we expressed our solidarity with all the laborers of the world, and worked.
It was the Great Stuff Merger: On Saturday I performed radical surgery on Shana's garage, installing shelves and removing lots of stuff from both garage and house. Sunday was spent removing more stuff and organizing as well as delivering Shana's old couch to Pete and Marybeth and picking up my couch and other large items. Then today, we emptied my apartment of remaining stuff and filled Shana's garage back up again.
Hooray for stuff!
Next weekend we go to LA for Baljam. Shana DJs at LindyGroove on Thursday and her birthday is on Saturday, so it will be a weekend of dancing, food, and shopping. Maybe somewhere in there we'll find time to relax, too.
- Mood:laborious
( more after the cut, including photos )
- Mood: yay!
SxSW Interactive is one of the more important Online-media related conferences of the year (nope, it's not just for music). It used to be that if you knew someone on the panel selection committee, you could probably get yourself a speaking gig there. Not anymore. Last year they put it to popular vote. Now you have to submit your panel idea and let the unwashed masses vote for (or against) you. No doubt, the organizers turned it into a popularity contest because of accusations that it was just a popularity contest.
So, here's where you come in: Vote for Me! (And my colleague, Jay, too.) Anyone can vote, you'll have to create an account, etc. But it only takes a few minutes and it will be a big help. If you're feeling REALLY helpful, vote against some other panels too, since the SxSW organizers have turned this into a zero-sum game.
If you're interested, here's where I posted on it at our agency blog.
- Mood:
self promotional
The expletives uttered when you get that friendly email informing you that your next three DVDs will be unwatchable vintage art house cinema that you put in your queue three years because they were recommended on a "movies anyone who aspires to the label 'pretentious' must see" list published by the Grandious Movie Critic's Guild.
- Mood: fuxed
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