Today for the first time ever I went to yoga, with my friend Amanda. I learned some things.
There are a lot of sweaty hippies in the world;
Apparently, if it’s from the Mysterious Orient, it’s all the same thing;
I can sweat like a goddamn hog.
There was more “Sanskrit” chanting than I would think I have appetite for; the (honky) instructor made reference to the Dao and Buddha, neither of which (to the best of my knowledge) have fuck-all to do with yoga; and it became clear that Amanda brought me along to deflect the attention of fey beardies distributing hugs. Whilst this worked great for her, let us just say that I received many lifetime’s worth of direct, skin-to-skin contact with hippies.
The workout itself I very very much enjoyed. Where I failed I largely experienced muscle failure and not flexibility failure; this surprised me, as I am not a flexible person (… hello, Captain Obvious!). The room was warm to start and with 45 or so people working out for ninety minutes it got quite swampy; but this wasn’t “hot” yoga, which concept seems like the height of silliness to me.
I also had a Chicago moment at the end of the practice during eyes closed relaxation time when the instructor mentioned something hippieish about “representation” and I started wondering what Arthur Schopenhauer would have thought about yoga. Thinking about Schopenhauer is not conducive to the abnegation of the self, I can tell you what.
Final verdict? I am sore but would definitely do this again. I will shop around for a studio that has less pseudo-religious syncretic foofaraw, but I can see why people are so crazy about it. It was exhausting and relaxing the way the best workouts with my trainer are.
I took some rock pics this afternoon. One of the biggest improvements in my life, and that of my roommates, neighbors, and local old Greek ladies is a Weber attenuator, which makes the Boogie a little less of an offensive weapon (particularly when I’m trying to play some complex finger-picking filigree bits).
Playing the guitar badly is a hobby of mine, but I think I might try and get some lessons, because when I do manage to strike a good flow and actually play well, it make me feel like a million bucks.
I broke down and bought a pair of Original 1460s. Man, I forgot how much I like these shoes. And they’re made by hard working lower-upper-lower-middle-lower class Englishmen in Old Blighty! Push back against globalization, you rich white yuppies (who’s lives are only made possible by the international movement of capital).
You can also tell that I got a 35/1.8 lens for my camera and have been playing around with “zooming with one’s feet”, too, can’t ya?
☆Nope, Still Can't Stand The Android — &mdash nerdism, phones
I upgraded my Nexus One to Android 2.2 (“Froyo”) and gave it another go. I figured the following: I no longer have a Google Apps for Domains account, so Google’s inept distinctions between account types is no longer an issue, meaning I could consolidate into a fresh Google account and use Reader and Google Checkout.
Also, I figured that Google might fix some of the more egregiously stupid bugs and misfeatures.
On the first case, well, it worked sure enough. I no longer receive mail through Google, so I don’t need their apps for my homonculus.net domain, so I could close that account — actually, that’s a lie, as there’s no way to close an Apps for Domain account you’ve paid for, but with Google’s software, you take what you can get. So I moved my Reader subscriptions over to a new account that doesn’t have mail, added Checkout, and was relatively good to go.
I added a few “widgets” and found them helpful. I was able to buy the MLB app and thus listen to TWINT. I installed a mediocre RSS reader (NewsRob). I even uninstalled some other piece of crap software (and was refunded!) Not terrible. The little Nexus One dock put the phone into a useful alarm clockish mode. It only crashed about three times a day. I switched to the “DoubleTwist” application on the phone to listen to music, which was better than the default.
Thinking that Google would fix the software on the phone though … that was the very definition of a fool’s errand. Oh, but they’ve implemented a JIT compiler for their Dalvik virtual machine! The advanced settings tabs have more switches! Their browser is 8% faster than Safari on synthetic Javascript benchmarks!
But when you move an app on the screen, do the other apps politely move out of the way? Can I sync my “Chrome” bookmarks through my Google account to the browser on the phone? Can the IMAP client move messages from the Inbox? Could I please get through a day without the phone crashing? Can I sort my contacts by orthographic order? And perhaps most trenchantly, now that Google’s stopped manufacturing phones, where can I buy a phone that supports Android 2.2 and the Real Web Flash?
Sorry, Google. This thing is better than the 1G iPhone, sure, although the calender is an abomination and it’s still got that fucking idiot trackball. I don’t know if I’m going to spend the ducats to update to the iPhone 4, because my needs are largely met by my current 3Gs. But until someone other than a carrier designs an Android phone, I don’t see the point of switching.
(Ironically, Microsoft might be a reasonable contender if they ever decide to ship a phone.)
An enjoyable surprise; remakes of Wes Craven’s movies tend to be real turkeys, overloading the gruey shock value crap in favor of the truly creepy and intellectual content of the master’s originals.
I am happy to report that The Crazies was very nicely done. It was well acted (I confess to liking Timothy Olyphant very much), tensely and well directed, and has a satisfying apocalyptic finish, without being too over the top.
I have a few things to write about, but I’m just going to do a post-and-run, with possibly expanded posts to follow.
First, Christy and I went to my friend Sam’s wedding in Portland. Portland was unseasonably hot, but the wedding went really well, although I had too many pints of local ale and made the disastrous decision to take a sleeping pill before passing out on the floor. It made the next day much more brutal than it should’ve been. Then again, being headachy and dehydrated made watching the Dutch shit the bed against Spain a lot less jarring, albeit no less unpleasant.
It was good — nay, it was great — to see Ted, Dave, Brett and Sam. I have discovered that I miss my friends a great deal. It’s not that I don’t have good friends here in California, or that I’ve completely lost touch with my Minneapolis/Chicago peeps, but rather, that I was able to slide right back into the comfortable and familiar patterns of conversation and behavior with my friends, as if I’d never moved away. I guess that’s why they’re my friends, really, because of those relationships. Maybe for a less emotionally stunted person, this wouldn’t be such a revelation, but for me it was a great aspect of the trip.
Portland seems like a nice town, although it reminded me (and my Minneapolis contingent) of downtown St. Paul — largely deserted. Between Powell’s Books and Ground Kontrol, however, I could see going back. At the former, I resolved just to browse, but the dyke was broken when I decided to put a copy of a book about Spartak Moscow in the ’70s in my basket; from that point forward, things got a little ugly. At the second, I heard something that I had never thought I would hear: the gender breakdown was about 70/30 male to female. And some white t-shirt PBR drinking hipster had the brazen temerity to complain about the lack of chicks. Motherfucker, when I was your age (I dressed better, and listened to better music, and didn’t have an embarrassing neck tattoo) there were no chicks in video arcades. It was in fact partly a defining aspect of a video arcade. SO SHUT YOUR GODDAMN PIE HOLE AND GET BACK TO GALAGA, DOUCHEBAG.
We hit Voodoo Donuts and I had a donut with bacon on it, and for the first time in my life, I think it’s safe for me to say that the bacon was superfluous. It was a fine donut, but the maple frosting and crispy bacon sort of kicked it over into farcically sybaritic territory.
Secondly, I have inexplicably developed what feels like mononucleosis prodrome (swollen lymph glands, trouble swallowing, extreme lassitude), but no fever. Too, I had a full on mono when I was 18, and I was under the impression that a fully symptomatic mononucleosis infection was a one-shot deal. Perhaps I have simply come down with trypanosomiasis. I slept 22 hours today, which is just bonkers.
Finally, I am trying once again to live with Android as my day to day phone. What brought me back for this experience was a) removing my Google Apps for Domains account; and b) the WiFi hotspot functionality that Froyo brings, even to the godforsaken AT&T network. Further updates will doubtless follow. Still hate that fucking trackball, though.
Christy and I went to see The A-Team on Friday. It was pretty pants; far too long, totally incoherent, with set-pieces that were clearly designed in a concept meeting. I thought the following things were notably good about it: the casting; the passport gag; the CIA guy. The rest was replacement level, at best. Jessica Biel is a nice looking lady but hopelessly outclassed by Bradley Cooper as an actor.
Not much here to recommend, although I do like that the dude from District 9 got work in a shit-ass big-budget American action comedy. Hopefully, the money he made will last him through District 10.
You may have noticed some changes. It’s been a forever since I’ve done anything here; we’ve been crazy busy at work, and maintaining this place hasn’t been my 100% most important task. But I hope to get a bunch of stuff up over the next couple of days. Too, you may notice that links are broken. That’s going to take a while longer for me to get it sorted.
Technically, I’m now using Hakyll instead of my home-grown site generator, and I hope that the HTML is all HTML5ish and shit.
“To realize the relative validity of one’s convictions,” said an admirable writer of our time [Joseph Schumpeter], “and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.” To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need; but to allow [such a need] to determine one’s practice is a symptom of an equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity.
It is what it says on the tin. I’m glad that the essential shittiness of the main characters isn’t glossed over, and the whole enterprise of the picture felt very 1986 (“I want my two dollars!”). It was entertainingly crude and, hey, I’m glad Crispin Hellion Glover is getting work. As usual, Craig Robinson steals the show. Worth a rental, or, like me, sneak in after a “weightier” picture. There are enough quotes of John Cusack’s ’80s ouvre to chuckle over, although music is deployed much less effectively than might’ve been. The ’Mats make a brief appearance in the background, and The English Beat, when John Cusack is talking to the cool chick, but many of the choices were too obvious for me.
There’s just not a lot to say about it, I guess, that you wouldn’t know going in.