December 2008 Archives

I just learned that my buddy's stepmom has created a successful eBay business selling holiday sweaters - for women who are plus size.

It's amazing - and inspiring - to me how people can figure out, occupy, and dominate a market niche like this. In the age of the Internet, it seems that there are more and more hyper-niche opportunities like this. That's pretty awesome.

Andrew shared a YouTube link with me last night. It's the video from Herbie Hancock's Rockit. I'm sure you've heard the music; but have you seen the video?

Awesome. Somebody commented this was very similar to the music/performance art of Meiwa Denki:

Got to Andrew and Momo's place tonight. Sometime around 7:00 PM, I think. And now it's 12:21 already. How time flies with them.

After dinner, we watched a couple of episodes of Three Sheets on Hulu. This is a TV show that chronicles drinking culture across the globe - we watched Bankgok and Tokyo - and, in addition, the show is itself a drinking game. A pretty innovative concept. We participated with gusto.

Yesterday Heather and I hung out with my sister, her husband, and their family. Lots of fun. We went to a cave (Lost River Caverns in Pennsylvania). It was OK. Our tour guide was extremely (and perhaps artificially) ebullient. It annoyed everyone.  But it was cool to hang out with my family.

We had some dinner at New Hope, which is a nearby art colony-type town. That was fun.

But the coolest part was a suggestion by my sister - Ringing Rock Park in Bucks County. This is a park with thousands of boulders that make ringing sounds if you hit them with a hammer. Really - it's very cool. I wished that I could have recorded it, but my camera battery died. Fortunately, someone else has done so and posted it on Youtube - and they have added an artistic dimension:

It was easy to find the rocks that sounded the coolest, because they were the ones that had the whitest tops from people banging hammers and chipping off the top of them so many times.

Ringing Rocks was awesome. Thanks, K and fam!

On my way to my sister's outside of Philadelphia, we rest stopped on route 275. It was the second rest stop we had considered - the first was so packed that people were parked on the grass. This second one, though, was pretty packed too. But it had a Burger King.

Of course, this is the time of the year where everyone is making their way back home from visiting whomever it was they were visiting, and it manifests itself in highway traffic.

Before getting in line at the Burger King, I stopped off at the restroom. There was a lot of traffic in the restroom, too. I navigated my way to the sole empty urinal. Apparently, the dude on my right was friends with the dude on my left, as he turned his head towards me (and him) and said something to him. The other dude responded. The crosstalk immediately made me pee-shy.

Anyway, those guys came and went, and then another guy came up to the urinal on the right. I felt awkward there, and I grunted and wheezed in a feigned urinary tract infection, or perhaps weak stream. Anything but pee-shy. After about a minute, I finally was able to piss.

Got back out (after washing hands, or course), and Heather and I ate our sandwiches and were on our way shortly afterwards.

It was a warm day. Almost 60. Loads better than the negative temps in Ann Arbor.

Oh man, this made me laugh:

If you can't read it, it says ACCOMPLISHED LIST. Much more gratifying than a to-do list, don't you think?

I'm quite a GTD junkee, so I got a kick out of this. Amusing - but it doesn't really promote a culture of actually getting things done, does it? More of a culture of "look how great I am." Which actually probably fits into the marketing message Courtyard Marriott wants their residents to ingest - "I am important, and I accomplish a lot. I deserve a good hotel experience like Courtyard Marriott."

On a related note, one of my sisters got my dad - both of whom are as neurotic as me about todo lists - if not more so - a "To Don't" pad. Awesome.

Merry three days after Christmas. I have had a good one.

I had a dream the other night. It was my Christmas Eve dream.

I was in a warm, dark place. It was indoors, but my surroundings felt expansive. There was a lottery ticket in my hand. You know, one of those lottery tickets that has the scratch-off bubbles. It was three-by-three, and it was unscratched. I think that Heather had bought it.

Satan was there. I never actually saw or heard him, but I felt his presence anyway, and he knew I knew he was there. His invisible hand and fingernail scratched away at the ticket while I held it, paralyzed in fear. The ticket was a winner. Something like $500.

In the background, there was a television showing this weird, scarring montage of images. No sound. It reminded me of that video montage in The Ring.

But it wasn't quite that. It was terrifying though. I knew that Satan somehow had something to do with the video, and at a glance I instantly understood that it revealed truths about the universe that I didn't want to know. I looked away.

And that, I guess, is how I conceive Satan, in my heart of hearts. It's probably a very mythic, non-biblically-accurate conception, but I guess that's how I imagine him - as a kind of vaguely malevolent Prometheus, sharing Secrets Mankind was Not Meant to Know at strategic points in time and space. Or maybe not. Maybe there was no strategic purpose to Satan's actions, and he was toying with me.

I woke up in a sweat, unsure for a few seconds as to whether Satan continued his dark observation.

Hopefully this entry has not been too melodramatic. Too goth. I thought it was kind of interesting, though, so I thought I'd share.

Wow, there's a lot of snow in Ann Arbor right now. And it isn't even technically winter yet. Ugh.

The other day I went to the gym. I actually went.

On my way in, this dude - probably in his forties or thereabouts - caught my eye. He was about ten meters or so in front of me, walking into the gym. What caught my eye were his jeans. They were so blue. Strikingly blue.

"Clown blue," I mouthed. Except, perhaps I whispered it a little. Because the guy turned a little bit, and seemed to glance back. But he kept walking.

He probably didn't hear me. But he may have.

"Watch it, Umbaugh," the game show announcer in my head advised me.

I had a dream the other day, where I was in a kitchen I had never seen before, with an old man I had never met, but who seemed to know me. An old man, of Asian decent. And, as it turns out, a chef.

The man was grilling up some butter and garlic in a frying pan on his burner, which was in the kitchen's expansive island. I was watching him. The garlic smelled good.

"Now," he said, "we're going to add the flowers." He put three objects into the frying pan, but they were not flowers. They looked like oversized pillbugs.

These things were huge - three nearly filled the frying pan. And they did not seem to like the heat, as they were crawling around. But not so fast.

Suddenly the man made a slow, deliberate fist - a ritualistic fist - and brought it down - swiftly - upon one of the pillbugs. Thud. The sound of rattling dishware. The bug's exoskeleton plates buckled beneath the blow, but it still walked around. Thud. This time, some white bug juice squirted out between the plates and onto the pan. But the bug still walked. Thud. By now, the bug had stopped moving.

Three more thuds for each of the two remaining bugs.

I was horrified, but I didn't say anything. Nor did I want to correct him - that these were not flowers. These were bugs. This was a confident man, who seemed to know what he was doing. And anyway, he had obviously gone to a whole lot of trouble to prepare this meal. Better not say anything.

Around that time, my ears noticed some group chanting. It was outside, a couple dozen meters away. I got up and walked toward the window. Evidently the old man and I were in some sort of apartment building, on what looked to be the fourth floor.

I looked down at a crowd, and saw about thirty or forty people outside a hospital. They were carrying signs and marching in a disorganized but spirited circle. It was a protest.

And they were chanting something. Over and over and over.

What do we want?

    Patients!

When do we want it?

    Now!

I couldn't figure out exactly what they were protesting. And I couldn't make out whether they were saying patients or patience.

About that time, I smelled something incredibly delicious. It was the aroma of smashed pillbugs, sauteed in butter and garlic.

And then I woke up.

Image stolen from this blog post, which is actually a real recipe containing pillbugs. My favorite part: "Check for crispness."

Isn't it disconcerting when the host of a talk show, for example, or a game show, banters playfully with the announcer? I mean, I guess I don't conjure up announcer, exactly, when I hear his dulcet, enthusiastic voice - a strangely soothing voice - introducing the host, or describing the valuable prize. I think more disembodied voice than announcer. A neutral, robotic, inhuman, and yet somehow distantly friendly disembodied voice.

The voice sounds more like it's coming from inside my head. Or maybe it's God.

And so when the host occasionally breaks and addresses the announcer directly - and when he responds - it's as if it's my own self that's responding, and that somehow I've lost agency over my own actions. It's a weird feeling. A kind of bad feeling. For me, anyway.

And yet, it's as if the host has made a personal connection with me. Such a strong connection, in fact, that I have found that I have responded to him involuntarily (through the announcer), and the host responds to me. Which, I'm sure, is the whole reason that television shows employ announcers: to stake their own claim onto our egos.

I have had some problems with my blog recently. Somehow, the permissions for my comment form were changed so that users could not execute on it. In other words, commenting somehow got disabled. I fixed it just now though.

Nothing else too exciting to do on this dreary day, so I decided to get off my ass and go to the gym. It's been since Wednesday. I don't even want to say how long it had been before Wednesday.

One of my rituals before going to the gym is to make and drink a smoothie. I like to mix it up occasionally. Today's ingredients were:

• 12 baby carrots
• 100 leaves of spinach
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1/2 can of mandarian oranges, and juice
• 2 over-ripe bananas
• 1 tbsp. organic flaxseed oil
• 1/2 capful of Liquid Life vitamin drink

I had never done the pepper before. It definitely lent a hint of spiciness and acidity. Not unpleasant, though. Mandarin oranges were new, too - though I knew they would be a safe bet.

I knew it was 100 leaves of spinach because I measured one-by-one, because some of the [rejected] spinach looked like it had gone bad. I often get over-ambitious in my planned spinach consumption and buy the big package, which is too much. Most of the time, actually, I buy this over the small one. I argued with Heather that this, in fact, is the more cost-effective solution - since the bigger package of spinach is significantly cheaper by volume. I don't actually know if I believe that it's more cost-effective, though.