knowitallgirl

I'm not sure that this

I'm not sure that this should be a crime in this country. What about the old wild west and all that? Jesus, this is ARKANSAS after all! Best quote: "We shouldn't have been uptown." Woah. What's downtown El Dorado, AR like then? Kudos to mdc for slacking off at work and sending me the link.

There's nothing like operating without

There's nothing like operating without spell check to make you realize either a) what a bad speller or b) what a bad typist you are. Thanks to the ever-loyal mdc for not only being both my analog spelling and grammar checker, but also singlehandedly dispelling the myth of computer programmers who can't write, spell poorly, and read nothing but sci-fi. Love it.

Today is the 10th anniversary of the L.A. riots. I recall being a second year student at UCI when they happened, and joining my fellow spoiled Orange County surburban peers in marches around the campus. "No justice, no peace!" Ah, that bright eyed college optimism. So easy to maintain when So.Central is 50 miles away. And then there was Frank, who took the opportunity to rush straight into the maelstrom and photograph everything he could. I'm glad I didn't take Frank to the Big Island when Mauna Kea was erupting.

The Chronicle had a story quoting Daryl Gates about the corruption in the LAPD. Far too involved a topic to get into here, but I figured I'd throw in a photo of my favorite Daryl Gates poster by Robbie Conal. I remember seeing these posted around LA and thinking "this is so damned subversive!" I love the concept of art attacks.



Just in case you can't read/see this well, it's a poster of Gates in uniform with a shooting target superimposed over his photo. The text reads: "Casual drug users ought to be taken out and shot" (with shot crossed out and "beaten" written over it). Funny side note: Gates' son was apparently a chronic drug user (guess that's why he didn't get shot or beaten -- gotta be CASUAL) if I recall correctly from some past articles I've read.

I played hooky on Friday

I played hooky on Friday afternoon and it was great. I told my boss I was leaving work at lunchtime as I was completely fed up (reasons not exciting enough to explain here, but suffice to say my boss agreed. He rocks!). My first stop was the Farmer's Market in Oakland's Chinatown, where I sampled some great homemade Indian food and bought some yummy cheese bread from Great Harvest (their bakery is across from Zachary's, in case you're ever in Rockridge). Then, around the corner to Ratto's, a fab Italian deli and grocery where I had an amazing Caprese sandwich. Mmmmm.

Then back to the city, which was sunny but cold and windy. I stopped in downtown to run an errand and then have dessert at Specialty's, which has the BEST chocolate chip cookies on the planet. Seriously. Next, I jaunted over to Flax to ooh and ahh over art supplies and buy a new pen. Then, off to Dolores Park (and later Dolores Park Cafe when it got too cold) to lay in the sun and repeat to myself, "I could be at work but instead I'm lying in a beautiful park in the sunshine." T o o m u c h f o o d. But it was so good, and so fun just to be wandering about when I was *supposed* to be at work.

Oh! Ms. Milway tells me she was at a party last night and a cute boy approached her and actually asked if she was Crazyknee! As in, she is such a web celeb now that people recognize her and her site. So cool! ;)

I don't think there's anything

I don't think there's anything else in the world that tastes like a BBQ potato chip.

That's all. Not profound, I realize, but I just had to share.

So, I witnessed something amazing

So, I witnessed something amazing yesterday in the Mission. I went to an interview appointment at 826 Valencia, the new storefront/writing lab on Valencia that is, as the website puts it, "a target="_blank" convenient and clean place where customers can buy pirate supplies at reasonable prices." This project, if not completely the brainchild of Dave Eggers (I didn't ask), appears to be very close to his heart -- the McSweeney's west coast offices are being housed in the back of the building. In fact, on the volunteer info sheet they gave me I had the option of noting if I wanted to be a McSweeney's manuscript reader or copy editor.

So, the pirate store. It rocks! It's like a drug-induced interpretation of Disney's Pirates o' da Caribbean, but far more clever (no groping animated pirates, but I find Karl the Pufferfish, the store's showcased aquatic inhabitant, much cuter). There weren't any kids hanging around when I was there yesterday, but there were plenty of adults (half of which had wandered in off the street, the other half were obviously McSweeney's/AHWOSG whores) exploring the place with childlike awe. The walls are lined with these great huge drawers of all sizes containing pirate gear for sale -- the labels are as much fun as the contents of each drawer. I'm only wondering how much pirate flotsam will be purchased (skeins of rope, maps, and such) but I can tell you they're selling back issues of Might (the price varies based on who's behind the counter) and I think I'll be availing myself to some of those) and all the McSweeney's books.

Dave was fascinating -- we sat with him for about 40 mins, getting his overview of the vision of the project, which was self-admittedly rambling but definitely interesting. Frankly, I was impressed. Here's a guy who has achieved some level of notoriety and most likely (if the sale of the movie rights for AHWOSG ever occured) some amount of cash to at least keep him from having to work a day job. Meaning, he could just hide away and write his next book, or dump it all into McSweeney's, whatever. He doesn't have to be doing this. And yet, here's this impossible little dream, which from a purely businesslike standpoint is probably *not* feasible, but he's made it happen in its own beautiful and quirky way. And it's purely altruistic. It was one of those moments where I left and kept thinking, wow, there are people in the world who just do GOOD. And have fun doing it. It energized me to see these people all brought together by a shared vision of not only the vibe that Dave's work strikes in people, but also by the good that it could do for the kids that come there. At a time when fucking test skills are being overempasized in the classroom and art has all but disappeared, here's a place where kids can come to work on their yearbooks, make books, write poetry, learn tools like Quark -- you name it.

Anyway, it made me a believer once again in the power of ideas. AND made me wonder once again how come when people are given the opportunity in their lives where they don't have to hold stupid day jobs (like so many of the dot-com millionaires we've known) why they don't do something like this. Frankly, just writing checks is NOT enough. Whatever faults Mr. Eggers may have as a human being, I respect the fact he didn't go blow any cash he might have earned (again, I'm speculating here) on a new Ferrari, cosmetic surgery or any other crap (and I can attest to the fact that he certainly didn't spend it on new clothes).

Here is a very interesting

Here is a very interesting job. It's exactly the type of technology R&D in which I'd like to ensconce myself. The intersection of tech and society, baby. Someone's gotta be taking an active interest in whether or not implanting hardware in our bodies is a good idea (as Adamism always advocated. I say, let you be the first in line, boy.) or if it's certifiably nutso. I'm a little biased towards the latter at the moment -- guess I watched Terminator at a formative age. However, parts of this story gave me the impression that they were trying too hard to productize everything in sight (not so sure about the tablet idea), while others sounded quite useful (the boat dude who wanted a waterproof laptop). Eeeeeenteresting.

Is this truly the only

Is this truly the only Earth I can live on? Surely there's some parallel universes out there I could hang at instead.

Perhaps I'm a bit too

Perhaps I'm a bit too stuck on the word "this" lately?

Also, mdc rocks the missed connections today. Except I thought Skadden Arps was a Swedish clothing line at first. Who knew?

Thank you to mdc for

Thank you to mdc for getting me completely hooked on this. I can't stop listening. And I'm now giving the McSweeney's 6 CD another spin. And this is cool enough to make me retract my statements about the web becoming too boring. It looks to me like Jib-jab did this site, what with babbling presidents and whatnot.

This should screw with your

This should screw with your brain quite nicely this morning.

Ok. So, I'm enough of

Ok. So, I'm enough of a vegetarian sucker to believe most of what i read in this article about eating raw foods. I have no doubt that if you are plucking nature's bounty from pristine organic fields and trees and popping it into your mouth within hours that not only will you feel great and energetic and at one with nature and the like, it's probably quite good for your body, your digestion, etc. BUT. What really strikes me is how the balance of eating is shifting in this world where eating high quality raw and natural foods is becoming a LUXURY while the rest of the saps in the world who once had nothing but this stuff and yearned for the delightful processed foods of the wealthy (or at least middle class) are now consuming cheaper processed crap (being poor in this nation is now far more highly associated with being overweight than starving) and the rich are once again co-opting and productizing health. Sigh. Unless, of course, you're suckered into going to places like Butter, where you can slum by snacking on Swanson's and Twinkies.

This world is nuts. Of course, if you doubt me, just read the article the whole way through. Talk about former Marin millionaire Deadheads. Wow. You can be rich and environmentally conscious all at the same time. (Who am I kidding? If I had the dough, I'd be going to eco-spas in Kauai and Thailand as well. Oh, and hanging with my bud Woody Harrelson, of course.)

Interesting story from the LA

Interesting story from the LA Times, sent to me via mdc, about the death of a "women's dialect" in China. It always fascinates me how women are marginalized from the mainstream in so many ways. I'm not sure I should be saddened by the death of this dialect other than by its extinction we lose access to the society it documented. Frankly, I'm thrilled we no longer live in a world where women have to create their own language because they're excluded from the world of men.

On a similar note, I'm wondering if there's a connection between Sylvia Ann Hewlett's recent research regarding women trying to balance both kids and careers (and the conclusion that if women want to have kids, then bye-bye high-powered career ambitions) and this research about the disparity between the number of young girls identified as "gifted" (equal between boys and girls at early ages) and the number of eminent women. As in, if we smart women are equivalent in number to smart boys as kids, why aren't we out in the world achieving greatness in equal numbers? What happens to us in midstream? Where do we go?

Such fun in the park

Such fun in the park today! Here are a few shots:








And here's Allie with her niece-to-be, Alyssa, who was convinced that her visor magically transformed her into a cow:





Oh! And some hiking and BBQ pics from the last couple of weeks!

Ah, Friday. A warmish, spring

Ah, Friday. A warmish, spring day. I think I need to play hooky soon, it's been so long since I have (in fact, I can't recall the last time I took a "personal day," as we call them in the corporate world). What would my day of hooky involve? Definitely being outside on a warm day, soaking in the sunshine, going someplace that's normally too crowded to go on the weekends. A trip to Stinson Beach? Half Moon Bay? Santa Cruz? Then a long, leisurely lunch, maybe Mexican chased by a margarita or two. Then a nap. Yum. Watching the sunset would be nice, but I also wouldn't mind seeing a movie, something I somehow almost never manage to do. Ok, I'm sold. Who's gonna play hooky with me? Maybe next week? :)

Gross! Note to Dad -

Gross!

Note to Dad - time to sell those damn Kinkades!

A sad, sad story about

A sad, sad story about the state of overfishing in Mexico in the New York Times. The most poignant image about harvesting shrimp: "imagine hunting for wild mushrooms with a bulldozer" (I'm quoting loosely). Humans are so stupid. Just because we can't see the bottom of the sea we don't think twice about essentially clear-cutting it. Probably not surprising you don't see hippie kids chaining themselves to fishing boats.

This relates to my personal theory about overdevelopment in Southern California, which is this: most people look at the brown scrub that makes up most of SoCal's vegetation (and the surrounding desert) and think it's ugly. And since it's not teeming with greenery and picturesque wildlife (tho k-rats are kinda cute), most people don't think twice about turning it all into a giant parking lot. It's sad. Especially right now, when the desert wildflowers are in bloom. It's spectacular.

That's my rant for the day. Don't eat shrimp!

This article and this one

This article and this one have been driving me mad this week. There's been a lively discussion on SF Women on the Web about professional women, kids, and careers, much of it bucking the naysaying going on in these articles. I've got to say I'm shocked at how each day that I get closer to 30 (only about 7 months now) I hear that damn clock ticking just a wee bit louder. Damn hormones. I'm absolutely convinced that we women can "have it all," as long as we're partnered with someone who doesn't think he/she (I'm making allowances for chauvinist dykes) is doing us a *favor* when they do the laundry, vacuum, cook or take care of kidlets. Screw that. Adult kids have to be worse than the real thing.

And while we're talking about women who will have it all, congrats to Allie and Lester for buying a house in the lovely hamlet of Ruxton, MD! Woo-hoo! Lester knows where it's at -- no *favors* in this marriage! :)

So, I'm reading this divorce

So, I'm reading this divorce book and basically I appear to have a textbook case of breakup related symptoms. Seeing as I've never had to experience the death of someone very close to me (with the exception of my grandmother when I was 7, and I was too young to really understand), I gotta say that this has got to be close. I think I feel better knowing that other people go through this, that these feelings are all normal, blah blah, but, at the end of the day, they're still there. Sigh. One of the things the book did point out was this is commonly a point at which people begin to question their existence and really try to figure out Why They Are Here. I've got that in spades. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know. Being intrinsically lazy, of course, I always focus my negativity on work -- as in, "why am I not out doing X, Y or Z? Why am I sitting at this desk, propagating the misguided test preparation industry? Why am I not out climbing mountains?"

I feel like it's time to take a RISK. Of course, my idea of risk is going to grad school. Ah well. Maybe I should go climb a mountain the summer before I go? Hang glide nude? Something, anything?

Somehow I lost sight of

Somehow I lost sight of this fact in my rush to get this site up and functioning but not many of YOU - yes you, my dear friends, have little homes on the net. As I excitedly sat down to enter links to all of my friends' sites I realized suddenly that few, in fact, have any. It's lonely out here in cyberspace! Come back! *wails*

I just had lunch with

I just had lunch with Juan and now I want to learn Afro-Cuban drumming, which is something his Horizons kids are doing. I think I need to start a list of all the things I want to do in life so I can refer to it the next time I complain about being bored. As of today, that list would include: drumming, knitting, Aikido, teaching yoga, surfing, learning to fight (boxing or martial arts style), learning to dance (salsa?), and writing a book. And there's much more, except I hafta go to a meeting now. How am I supposed to get all of this done if I have to work?

Sylvia taught me how to

Sylvia taught me how to knit last night! The perfect craft for the girl who can't sit still. (If any of you have tried to sit and watch a movie with me, you know what this means.) I wonder if there's a market for knitted lingerie?

Quote of the day (so

Quote of the day (so far, it's only 11:22) - mysteriousbox: uh oh cat is barfing in other room

mdc and I had a

mdc and I had a cosmic moment on Sunday sitting in the park with a big beautiful golden retriever named Niña. She let us pet her for a good ten minutes, while a little kid with a cast on his leg ("he walks like a sailor," his dad(?) said) crawled all over her. It was blissful. But sometime during that cosmic period mdc's glasses escaped from his pants pocket, and we left, ignorant of this fact until a few hours later back at my cave. We returned to Dolores Park in vain -- glasses were gone. mdc had the saddest look on his face as I dropped him off at his place -- the glasses were new, he's mostly blind without them (though he does look cute wearing his prescription sunglasses indoors), and, well, it just sucked. "Think positive thoughts!," I told him, trying to think them as well. "Check Craigslist!"

Thanks to Craig, this saga ends happily. The Schmuck found them and posted a missed connection. And who was The Schmuck? Why, Niña's owner of course. And mdc got to pet her again.

I'm beginning to belive the

I'm beginning to belive the NYT story I read last week about the web becoming dull. (Note: that link will probably expire in a few more days, since the Times is very possessive regarding how long their stories live for free online.) Now that I'm so excited to finally get this page updated in some semi-regular fashion I'm finding few things that I really feel like linking to. Sigh.

As I MUNI'd, BARTed and walked to work this morning I fantasized about living in so many other places. But with the exception of something truly different and exotic (like Hawaii or perhaps parts of Asia) I was left feeling as if nothing would really change, except maybe the weather would get worse. Meaning I could move many places in the US and nothing would be substantially different, and in fact would probably get worse according to my own personal barometer (as in more conservative, less culture, fewer interesting people, poorer weather). I loved, loved, loved Hawaii, but at the same time mentally I felt stagnant. Not much intellectual challenge. And I often feel too tame for staying in the state of my birth, but I'm not convinced that Seattle, Austin, Chapel Hill, D.C., NYC (ok, NYC would be exciting, I grant that), Portland or Minneapolis would really be an improvement on anything except cheaper housing. SF has the best food, best yoga, craziest culture . . . it rocks. Maybe it's just time to do some travel. After all, I spent my week last August (and again in December) in NYC, Maryland/D.C. and Boston wondering why I'd ever live anywhere but California. Europe tempts me, but not quite enough. I guess I'm just feeling restless. Nothing like a trip to convice me there's no place like home, even if it's an overpriced cubby hole in cold and foggy SF.

What a perfect weekend! First,

What a perfect weekend!
First, my dad and stepmom came up and brought with them tons of "wild" meat (meaning meat my dad nailed either on the hoof or in the ocean) for mdc's BBQ on Saturday, which was fabulouso. Bright sunshine, "warm" weather (at least until 5pm, at which time the sun calls it quits in SF and the temperature drops 25 degrees), good food (yes, I ate some of the wild pig, elk and tuna, all good, if not interesting), awesome friends and good music, of course (this was a mdc BBQ after all). Then Sunday, more good food (brunch), saw the 'rents off and then more sunshine at Dolores Park as the Sisters celebrated Easter in true SF fashion. This city rocks. If only I could afford to buy more than a hovel here.

Alas, my spring break is now over and I'm back to grinding away at school. Let's see how bad I get at posting.