Homeland Security...

Fighting Terrorism since 1492.

Yes, I agree with the sentiment of the T-Shirt. Or do I? What is the meaning behind the shirt? Maybe I do not fully understand it. The only people I see wearing this shirt have been Caucasians, white folks. So are they saying that they support the Native American Homeland Security that encountered Columbus in 1492? If so, what are these white people still doing in the USA? Go back to Europe then. Are these white people saying that they want to be kicked out of the United States? Or are they saying that Homeland Security is a joke, cuz look how successful Native Americans were at keeping out the white man, so we should not bother with Homeland Security now?
Seems like knee jerk liberalism to me. It contains pictures of Native Americans, has words associated with GWB & Co, must be a good thing. Funny to see mself write that-knee jerk liberal, being a liberal and all. Also could be that I am missing the point. If so, please tell me.

There Where She Loved

Anyone who makes a piece with that title needs to be smacked.

O.K., maybe I am just jealous of his reach/fame/budget.

3 More Reasons to not drink

You might eat a duck.
You might cut off someone's pinky.
You might lose your job.

Population Density vs. Time

As I am in NYC now, I have been riding the subway a lot, which has made me think about something I used to think about a lot when I lived here. Last night we saw a show at the Ohio Theater in Soho. After the show, we walked to Prince St. to hop on the NRW line to 42nd St. There we transferred to the 1 line. Exiting at 157 St. we walked to 161st. The trip took one hour, give or take. At most the trip was 12 miles in distance. So our average speed was 12 m.p.h. Kinda slow. If I traveled that slowly getting around the Bay Area, I would never get anywhere.

What I used to think about was population density and how that governs travel time, not necessarily distance governing travel time. The population density of Manhattan is 66,940.1/mi². The population density of Oakland is 7,126.6/mi². San Francisco's population density is nearly 16,000 people per square mile. Not nearly as high as Manhattan.
Could there be a way to measure how quickly one moves through a certain number of people? Could a baseline or a constant for that be determined to then determine how effectively different urban populations move around? Each city or suburb for that matter could then compare their "commute times" to this constant.

If on our commute back home last night, we traveled 12 miles, we traveled through 12 x 258.7 = 3104.4. 258.7 came from taking the square root of Manhattan's population density. This is assuming that all 66,940.1 people are evenly arranged in a grid pattern and taking the square root determines how many people are in one straight mile of the side. So let's say that going through Manhattan for those 12 miles we traveled through 3104.4 people miles.

If we were to go through Oakland for twelve miles, we would travel (12 x 84.42) 1013.04 people miles. Through San Fran - roughly 1505 people miles. How long this would take in SF or Oakland? Not sure. Depends on traffic, earthquakes, freeways melting etc. And in Manhattan the time depends on flooding of subways, trains derailing etc.

If we traveled 3104.4 people miles in Manhattan in one hour, that is 3104.4 people miles/hour, or 3104.4 pmph. If in Oakland, we took 60 minutes to go those 1013.4 people miles that would be 1013.4 pmph or about 1/3 as slowly as in Manhattan. When I get home I must measure how long it takes to travel 12 miles.

It would be nice to be able to collect data on this-different cities, times of day, population densities. I am sure that someone is already doing this.
Number aside, the pros of the subways here outweigh the cons. No money spent on gas, car insurance, parking, maintenance, tires. No looking for parking, worrying about getting your car scratched. Yes, you gotta walk more and sometimes the subway is hot, but think of the reading you get done.

I want bigger boobs

Now why I didn't think of this? The guy who runs this is making $1000/day. The sad thing is that he picked not a very nice name. And the site is not very attractive. I think someone should start another one. I mean, the first version of most things does not do very well. Remember the Newton? How much longer before another site comes along and out does this one?

Virtual Friends

"People see face-to-face contact as being absolutely imperative in forming close friendships."

Duh!

"But new research suggests that anyone looking to form new and genuinely close friendships via online social networks is going to be disappointed. An ongoing UK study, conducted by Dr. Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University, suggests that real life meetings are still needed to foster genuine "real" relationships which are based on trust."

"According to a new report by the UK Employment law firm Peninsula, employees are costing companies over $260 million a day. Based on responses from 3,500 companies, Peninsula estimate that 233 million hours are lost every month by employees "wasting time" on the Internet."

"Loss of productivity through social networks such as Facebook is proving to be a major headache and my advice would be for companies to block access."

A Gnew Car

"pre-owned" is the new "used." Well, not new as pre-owned has been around for a few years. What I wonder is how long will it be before "pre-owned" loses its shine and is replaced with something else. What will that phrase be? What will the pre-pre-owned (new) term for "used" be?

A gnew car?
A post purchase vehicle?
A pre-stressed car? (like all the furniture at Restoration hardware)

Tangent -
This makes me think of clothes. Saw a hat today at J. Crew. $24 for silly hat that had spots sewn on it to make it look old and worn. I think they sell pants in a similar vein. As a matter of fact I think I have some. Similarly saw a pair of jeans today on a woman. She was pretty but her jeans were atrocious but they probably cost $$$. Large patches on her rear, knees and other places that do not get worn out on real jeans were frayed. But the fraying was not the normal color of frayed jeans- that whitish grey color, but golden. And the fraying did not go through. Looked like patches of frayed material were sewn on.

Are we as Americans so hungry for history, for a past that we must manufacture it?
If pre-stressing has reached clothes and furniture, when will it reach everything else? When will we be selling new cars that look pre-owned? When will we be selling computers that look like they have been dinged up, maybe already have a few viruses? What determines what people will buy new that looks new; what people will buy that looks used but is new; what people will buy that is used and looks used; and finally what looks new but is used?

1. CDs,
   
2. LPs
3. cars
4. clothes
5. houses
6. lovers
7. pets
8. furniture
9. plants
10. sunglasses
11. shoes, etc.
    

What do/would you buy used/not used/pre-stressed?

Faux history is an aesthetic choice.

Skating with Low Pants

Today K and I were hanging out at Columbus Circle watching some high school kids hanging out skating around the statue of Columbus. Kids were primarily black and white, or African- American and European-American, if you will. What I noticed was the union of two cultural phenomena. Skating came from, I am guessing, suburban white kids. And the low pants fashion, I think, came from urban black culture. And at Columbus Circle, and elsewhere, the two phenomena have mixed. There is hope for the world.

How many racist white men now wear their pants low because that is the fashion?

Meter Maids

Is that the correct term? Or should it be meter persons? Ticket distribution engineers? Anyways, saw one of them the other day, Tuesday I think, giving a ticket to a parked car in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood street sweeping occurs with annoying frequency- every 2md amd 4th Monday and Tuesday, alternating sides. If you happen to forget and park on the wrong side, you get a ticket between the hours of 9am - 12pm. So the other day I saw a T.D.E. at work giving a car a ticket. The timing was perfect, as right at that moment the streetsweeper was sweeping by and had to make an even bigger circle around the parked car and the T.D.E.'s car, bigger than if the T.D.E. had not been there. Thus the T.D.E. had caused the street sweeper to miss an even greater portion of the street. Which is exactly what the street sweeper is trying to prevent.

When you see that due to the street sweeper you got a ticket, you become the street's weeper.

Just this morning I saw another T.D.E. in front of the local liquor store. On the back window of his vehicle was a sign that read something to the effect - "It is illegal to physically assault Transit Safety Officers under Oakland Penal Code blah blah blah..."

Has society deteriorated to such a level that such a sign is necessary? Are meter maids regularly assaulted? Do you think that someone who is beating up a meter maid with see that sign and stop?

word verification word: zpnhap
Something that happens quite quickly.

Done

Finished transferring all my posts from my Yahoo! blog to this one. Took a while. Guess I have written a few posts in the past 1.5 years. Good bye Yahoo and your lack of functions. Now I just gotta move my website also. Someday. Time now to pack and return the Spring/Fall key. Going to NYC for some rehearsals, food, museums, people watching...

Now that this blog is set up, I'll probably lose all desire to write.

edbty is the word for word verification.

The Wheel of Time has ended

Robert Jordan died.

Which really sucks. Not only for his family. But also for the fans of his "Wheel of Time" series. Good stuff it was. Well the first 8 books or so. The later ones got kinda bogged down in minutia, not much happened in them. I kept reading them because I so enjoyed the earlier ones and was hoping the series would end. Another reason the later books weren't as good, maybe, is because a good amount of time would pass between each successive book I would read and so forget who are the different characters were.

Jordan had been working on the 12th book in the series. Who knows how it ends? Maybe the series is not supposed to end, as time does not end...

hmmm...

embarking on this. Not sure if I already signed up as wasswasswass and forgot the password.

Cliché vs. Classic

Is a classic a cliché that you like?


Is a cliché a classic that you do not like?

I think Muni is

retarded. Well, for that matter, BART, too. Today, or I guess technically, yesterday I walked to the Embarcadero stop to board Muni to ride the N-Judah to the Church/Duboce stop. To board Muni, I need to pay $1.50. Fine, but not enough quarters. The change machine for Muni was out of coins. So I go to a BART ticket machine that changes $20 bills to 4 $5s or $10 bills to 2 $5s. Fine, but there still is no way to get quarters because to get quarters from the BART machines you have to use $1 bills. So I ended up buying a postcard from the information kiosk just so that I could get a $1 bill to get quarters from the BART machine to board Muni.

Talk about lack of synergy - transfers from BART to Muni are not free. In terms of usage they are basically the same transit system, yet different tickets and costs. Why not streamline the whole system for the Bay Area? Allow people who are BARTing into SF to use the same cards on Muni. Why are there no monthly passes available? I am sure that they could make some money from monthly passes. I bet enough people would buy them and not use them enough/lose them.

The transit system here in Cali is terrible. Wonder why that is? Ford? GM? Chevy?

tired...Zodiac was too long and not as interesting as had hoped

Jumping

So I am tooling around YouTube and came across this style of dancing called "Jumping". Far as I can tell, it looks like skankin' to techno. Seems to be mostly done in the Netherlands or Belgium. But then again looks like an evolution of that one move Kid & PLay would do, whacking their ankles together. Guess it is called jumpstyle. Interesting how these things evolve. Duojump, what most people would call a unison duet. Interesting how specialized dance can become. Jumpstyle to me looks like a version of line dancing, just to different music and more time spent in the air. Wonder how those kids knees are going to hold out. Interesting, too, how most of the people in the videos on YouTube are male. Seems like everyone wants to dance. But why does art dance ( for lack of a better term) have such a stigma for men attached to it? I would postulate that dance for many people means graceful, light, and pretty, not hopping and stomping. Well, there was Stomp and that was hugely popular, and stepping certainly is not light and pretty but pretty damn cool. Well, this is turning out to be a half formed idea at 12:45 am. But art dance I think suffers from having an unbalance in the ratio of females to males. "Oh, their dancing like guys." I remeber hearing that in college. So then is everything else, "the correct way", dancing like women? Or should men just be marginalized in appropriate male dance forms - jumpstyle and steppin'? Or should men not be afraid to be beautiful, graceful, and pretty. Ha! Too many classes, trying to dance like women. Hmmm...

Condiments

If your were going to be stuck on a desert island, what condiment would you take with you?



I'd take ketchup.

Fruit, Fat, and Protein

We had some friends, J + S, over this evening. Drinking wine, talk about art, eating cheese. Good times, but now that I write that it sounds like a Starbucks commercial or something. At least there was no soundtrack from Starbucks playing. If you are buying your CDs from Starbucks, something is wrong with your life. Talked a lot about an article in In Dance the monthly newsletter from Dancers' Group- How Freedom is Killing My Creativity. More about that later, hoping to get off my duff and write a response to that article.

But to return to the title of this posting - Fruit, Fat and Protein. Or Sugar, Fat, and Protein, the three simplest building blocks of food. There is so much more to food as we, as an obese malnurished species, are learning. (Read Omnivore's Dilemma for more about that and NPK and micronutrients). The culinary highlight of the evening was figs, prosciutto, and chevre. Cut the figs in half, broil them. Top with chevre and prosciutto. Also did the same with dates, medjool dates of course. Noor dates are no good. The bellam pepato cheese(I think that was the name) was pretty good, too.

*do not look at post modernism through a modern/classical lens. Well, if you do, be aware of the lens. See attached photo

lost in translation?

Cheeseburger CO2 output

Was talking to a friend yesterday about SUV vs. dryer CO2 footprint. Came upon this-

" the greenhouse gas emissions arising every year from the production and consumption of cheeseburgers is roughly the amount emitted by 6.5 million to 19.6 million SUVs."

from here

President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Is this guy really still president? -

"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."

for article click here

Somehow this is related, this being Bush's lack of geographic knowledge, to Miss South Carolina. Similar symptom of American ignorance. Or maybe Bush really thought he was in Austria, who knows? He certainly doesn't seem to.

Dance helps tame the savage beast

'Prison boss says violence has ceased ever since dancing started. Accused mass-murderer inmate says dancing has taught him "love"'

from Cnn.com

CNN video

YouTube video

Mother Teresa

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3

Saw this photo on BBC

Contradiction? But then again most Christians ignore Exodus 20:4 also - You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Hmm...but if anyone had ever followed that commandment, Rome and everwhere else filled with religious icons would be empty of art.

ADHD +ADD

From Yahoo News

"Nearly 9 percent of American children have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but only 32 percent of them are getting the medication they need."

"Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday..."Those who watched more than two hours, and particularly those who watched more than three hours, of television per day during childhood had above-average symptoms of attention problems in adolescence..."

I'll bet the two are related. Sure, not every kid who watched TV when younger ends up with ADHD or ADD, but probably the more suseptible kids did end up with attention disorders. But prevention is not the American Way. There is no money in prevention. Eli Lily and Pfizer make too much money from these meds to want to prevent more kids from watching too much TV. Big Pharma has a vested interest in creating more hyperactive kids.