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Lag

The following is an account of my first day of vacation in California as written two weeks ago, which was about 2 weeks after I actually returned from California:

It was awesome that “L.A. Woman” was blasting in the car when Marco picked me up from the McClellan-Palomar airport in Carlsbad even though Carlsbad is nowhere near L.A. It was awesome even after Marco told me he had planned for that song to be playing right as he picked me up. We hopped on Highway 1 and made our way to the hotel in Solana Beach, aided on this short journey by a healthy dose of the Beach Boys. We were unabashedly living our clichéd California Dream. All I thought about on the drive was how awesome California was and asked myself why everyone wouldn’t want to live there. Maybe it was the rolling blackouts, the potential of a doomsday scenario earthquake, hippies, and the fact that the guy who played Mr. Kimble in “Kindergarten Cop” is governor of the state. But fuck that, if you saw what I saw as we were driving along the Pacific, those issues would become moot. But maybe it’s just a well-kept secret that if let out of the bag would cause a massive influx of epicures who in their blind pursuit of beauty would ironically transform the state into a dystopia where every man must fend for himself. The state is only so big. After about 25 minutes of driving and turning to each other to collectively yell “this is so awesome!” we finally reached the hotel where I promptly somersaulted onto my bed and napped.

laptop woes, Dvd decoding and one horrendous metaphor

When I got my new laptop, one of the last IBM G41s to ever be manufactured (and possibly refurbished) I was somewhat disappointed by the care extended to me by Lenovo, which has been handling IBM's hardware sales for awhile now and in the last few years took it over entirely. The delivery time was listed as 2-4 weeks. Having dealt exclusively with Dell before I expected this really meant somewhere between 3 days and a week. Lenovo took the full 4 weeks before they even bothered to tell me that my computer was not coming at all, they had sold me a computer which did not exist. Their representative offered me a comparable computer that was slightly better in some regards. I readily accepted because it had been hell dealing with them and I just wanted my computer because I needed it for work (I was working on my boss's computer in the meantime). So the new computer was on its way in 2 weeks.
It actually did come in 2 weeks this time but the additional RAM I had paid to have installed came in a separate package which is incomprehensible. It still makes absolutely no sense to me but normally I wouldn't have really minded - it turns out that installing RAM in a laptop is even easier than it is for a desktop - but I had to walk back to the UPS after I realized this to get the second package.
Anyway, now I had the computer and all seemed to be well, I was pretty ticked about all the unnecessary programs installed on there but Tommy tells me this is pretty typical so I just set about deleting the ones I didn't need - I would have like to reinstall the OS and format the drive but Lenovo does not give you an OS install disc with the purchase of your license. Steve just bought a new Dell and they didn't give him one either so maybe this is par for the course now - I dont know about Dell but Lenovo will magnanimously sell me the 5 cents worth of plastic for $50 plus S/H. Another reason I really should format the drive and start over is because Lenovo sends their computers out with part of the drive partitioned as a recovery space with all the start state programs and such. This is ridiculous - I can't understand why they would want to waste precious gigabytes on install files for programs I didn't even ask for in the first place when they could just send the installer discs along with the computer. Am I wrong? and to make matters worse I can't even see the partitioned drive from windows - is there some kind of hidden feature for a drive that could be concealing this? I am piss-poor when it comes to hardware so I have no idea, but like I said, I just needed this thing to work so I could stop inconveniencing my boss.

is anyone still reading this?

Things have been going pretty well since then, I got a bitchin Digital Blasphemy background and that little pop-up video "bloop" noise when i get new messages. A few days ago I wanted to watch a DVD, so I used their crappy included dvd playing program InterVido WinDVD or something like that. It came with my computer but normally it costs somewhere between 20 and 60 bucks. InterVideo WinDVD is about as pleasant to use as a vagina filled with centipedes. That fucker is way too glossy, the most ostentatious program I have on my computer is winamp and I am still using the classic skin. So i started just using Windows Media Player to view DVDs and deleted the 60-some megabytes that InterVideo was splayed out on like a Roman emperor - don't get me started on Windows Media Player but at least its (immutably) integrated with the operating system.
Oops, InterVideo took with it my DVD Decoder drivers. Now I can't even watch DVDs on WM. I fixed this by installing the very awesome, spare VideoLan VLC Media Player. I think the total download was 7 megabytes. I was initially turned off by an unfortunate website but it plays everything perfectly in a tiny and conservative window with all the features I ever wanted. It even plays the really obscure pornogo...er...stately european documentaries that wouldn't play in winamp or Media Player. So that's just a heads up if anybody ever makes the same mistake I did or they put their computer together themselves. What I would really like is to be able to install a DVD player plugin for winamp but the only thing close to that I could find is PowerPlayer2 and it just threw a bunch of access violations. I don't mind configuring something but if it greets me with a bunch of hex strings and exclamation points the odds of me embracing it are poor. I'm not even sure if it was ever intended to play actual .VOB files.
So the end result is that now I can watch the last 20 minutes of Last of the Mohicans every night before bed again.
Adios suckers.

p.s. the horrendously awesome metaphor comes from the tragic geniuses of Old Man Murray

learning new things

Since moving across the country I've learned a lot of new things. Coming from DC where the skins games are sold out for the next decade I had never even heard of football games being blacked out because of poor ticket sales. It is also funny to see people actually line up in cordial rows at the marked spots on the subway platform to board the BART. The trains usually stop so the doors are always at the same spots.

One thing I did expect was to see a whole different class of homeless person, and I have not been disappointed there.

Bush Man is a San Francisco legend, he hides behind a set of fake bushes and when people walk by he jumps out and tries to scare them. I dont think he's even panhandling, I think that's just where he gets his kicks.

Then there's this guy:

I had to be sneaky about taking the picture, in case you can't read the sign he is holding, it says "deport all evil-face chinese, only communist in SF". And look at all the extra signs he has tucked away in that folder! I wonder what they all say.

Max Barry

Max Barry is an author who has written three books. First was a novel titled Syrup, which I have yet to read, followed by Jennifer Government and then Company, which was just published last month. If you've heard of any of these books, it was most likely Jennifer Government. It has developed a bit of a cult following and the movie rights for it have been optioned by George Cloony and Steve Soderbergh. Anyway, in support of the new novel, Company, Max went on a five city book tour of the US (he himself is Australian). He was in New York last night, so a friend of mine and I went to check it out. The beginning of Company, which he chose to read for his readings on this tour, is set deep within a corporations cubicle filled fourteenth floor. It's first thing in the morning and the daily morning snacks that catering delivers to this particular department today are doughnuts. There is one too few doughnuts, however, and the character who goes hungry sets out to find out who took two doughnuts. He goes to great lengths to find this out and through this we begin to see how this company actually operates. No doubt that its not too dissimlar from large corporations many of us work at (I'm looking at you, Marco). Anyway, someone who this character suspects of taking his doughnut ends up getting fired over the fiasco, but he's still not satisfied. And it goes on and on from there. (I didn't ruin anything for you, all of this happens within the first 15 pages or so of the book.)

So the bar where this reading took place last night was pretty packed, though it was a small bar. Recognizing Max from the book jacket picture, I see him walking amongst the crowd handing out doughnuts. When he makes his way to Don and myself, we strike up a quick conversation with him. He asks if we've read the new book yet and although I'm only about a third of the way through it, I tell him I have. Don has not and tells him so, but says that he looks forward to reading it. Max quips, "Yeah, you'll enjoy it. It's one of my three favorite books."

Shortly after that, Max begins the reading and I find it strange to hear the characters talk with an Australian accent. Max actually comments on this shortly after I think about this, which is weird, but I'm sure he's become used to it with the previous readings he's done. He suggest that we all imagine this story takes place in Melbourne instead of Seattle. So after the reading, he answers questions for about a half hour and some of these questions are so ridiculous I was actually surprised that people in real life ask such questions. Questions like, "In Jennifer Government where everybody takes the surname of the company they work for, you made it a point to say that children who were still in school take the surname of the corporation which owns that particular school. But I wonder, what name would an infant who is not yet in school take? You never made that clear in the book." These kinds of questions make me want to slap my forehead with my palm, however, Max had an answer ready for every insane question like this, making me think he gets questions like this often. I find this unfortunate.

So then after the Q&A, I wait in line for about 45 minutes to have my first editions of both Jennifer Government and Company signed. I finally get up to him and he looks at me in way such as to say, "What do you want to talk about?" I didn't really have anything in particular to bring up, so I asked him how long he was going to be in New York and things to this effect. He actually turned that into an interesting conversation about what he's been doing here, and how he enjoys his time here because he has so many friends here. Then he asked me how I came to know about Jennifer Government. I had to think about that for a moment before I remembered that I had read a review of it in Time and then bought it based on that. He was surprised by this and told me that I was the first person he had ever met who found him via a book review. "That's surprising, isn't it? Thats why I never put any stock into what is said about my books in reviews, but I guess that they actually do serve a purpose." Then he started signing JG. He wrote, "Proving that reviews actually are good for something! Max Barry" While he was writing that, I started explaining how I came to know about Company. I was browsing the Chuck Palahniuk website and I saw an ad for the new Max Barry book. He told me about how much that website has helped his career and he is thankful for Chuck being so supportive of him. "I don't really understand how we have the same reader base, but I guess we both are kind of satirical, irreverent writers, but I think he is alot darker than I am." (I don't remember exaclty what he said. Though it was something to that effect, it was much more articulate.) He also made it clear how big a fan of Chucks he was, although they had never met which surprised me. I told him how I could see how people could be fans of both of them, but maybe thats just because I personally am a fan of both. I pointed out, however, that I had been to a Palahniuk reading and Max had many more women at his. Many very cute women, at that. "I know! But this is unusual. This is the first stop on the tour where this many beautiful women have shown up. Cheers to New York City!" We both laughed, but then we realized that we were within earshot of the very girls we were speaking of, so we both felt a little scummy. That was about it. He signed Company, I said it was nice to meet him, which it was, shook his hand and then left.

Like I said, I didn't really have any intentions of speaking to him about anything in particular, but I think we ended up having a pretty decent conversation. Maybe thats the way to go: no intentions or motives. It worked out well. Anyway... Add Max Barry to the small but growing list of awesome authors I've met.