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I'm about to get in the car and be gone for the week. I probably won't be able to blog while I'm in LA but we'll see about that. Lucky circumstances might arise. Or I, ever the newly compulsive blogger, might just have to hit up an Internet cafe somewhere.
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.: posted by Vera 
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Tomorrow my boyfriend and I leave to spend a week in Southern California. I am going to be on vacation, and my boyfriend is going to be in hell, uh, I mean, taking the bar exam. His agony is finally going to be over! We fully intend on attending this event to celebrate. I bought tickets yesterday.
While I'm in the Los Angeles area I also plan to see several friends that I haven't seen in a while, including my roommate from 1999 to 2000 Jessica and my college buddy Colin. I can't wait.
In the meantime I am busy doing my part to get my boyfriend ready for the exam. For the past couple of days I have been driving all over town to get him the supplies he needs. [See, he doesn't have time to waste on shopping right now because every waking second is dedicated to his books. He hardly allows himself time to eat: He just inhales something in one fell swoop once in a while and immediately cracks his books back open.] Some items on my shopping lists have been
Vivarin
razors (to shave his head)
a cooler
a stopwatch
a huge bucket of water
a huge bucket of coffee
a huge bucket of apples
You'd think he is getting ready for Burning Man or something but you couldn't be more wrong.
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.: posted by Vera
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Inspired by Cindy and Mena, now I am going to tell my childhood bad seed story. Except in my story, the roles are reversed, i.e. I am the bad seed.
In 7th grade I had a friend whom I loved dearly. Her name was Maxi. She was tall and blond and in love with Mickey Mouse. She lived in a palatial white house. She had an expensive exotic bird named Charlie. Her father was a doctor and liked to paint in his spare time. At first her parents I don't think minded too much that the wild-haired daughter of a bank employee without a college degree frequented their kingdom to hang out with the offspring. But when I, during the course of 7th grade, started carrying around a skateboard and wearing jeans with felt-pen scribbles all over them and huge sweatshirts that said Vision Street Wear and bandanas everywhere, they began to tell Maxi that they didn't like me and that I was a bad influence. Maxi told me this and broke my heart.
What I still think is funny about this episode is that I ALWAYS had better grades than Maxi. I bet that fact was a hair on her father's tongue. I'm not ashamed to gloat about this because her family made me feel like scum more than once. My parents never tried to tell me who I should or should not befriend even though it meant that sometimes they had to bite their tongues really hard. I give them a lot of credit for that.
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.: posted by Vera
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I did something today that I should have done a long time ago: I went to a Sunset Party in Golden Gate Park. I had heard them announced on the radio before, and since then I have wanted to check out what a Sunset Party is all about. So today I did. It was fantabulous! There were palm trees. There was house music. There was a DJ. There were people dancing. There were smiles. I couldn't wipe mine off my face either.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just saw two girls driving down Haight Street in a BMW with the top down. Go back to LA, I thought. Huh. Did I just say that?
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.: posted by Vera
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I am such a genius! Really, sometimes lately I'm surprised by the sheer audacity with which I face my computer's idiosyncrasies. I tried to open Microsoft Access today. I got this ugly little error message that said something like "MSACCESS.EXE - application could not start because it cannot find msjet35.dll" and nothing else happened. Ugh. Two years ago I would have totally panicked and probably bought a new copy of Access or something. But the new and improved, technologically inclined Vera took the following astute steps:
1. I did a file search on my machine for msjet35.dll. I found one under C:\I386. Note that I have no idea whatsoever what msjet35.dll and C:\I386 do or mean.
2. I did a Yahoo search for any clues on where msjet35.dll might need to live in order for Access to work. I found the following in a web page match summary:
C:\Windows\System, Windows system, 3.2.200. Msjet35.dll, 09/28 ...
3. I didn't even click on the link but immediately copied msjet35.dll from C:\I386 to C:\Windows\System. I didn't want to just move it; C:\I386 might still need it for... whatever.
4. I tried to open Access again, and it magically started up! Woohoo!
I still don't know why or how the mysterious msjet35.dll file got misplaced/moved/deleted/whatever. All I know is that I.made.the.evil.error.message.go.away.
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.: posted by Vera
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When I'm driving, I often listen to 92.7, the Bay Area's Pure Dance Channel, which has only been around since May. Instead of commercials, 92.7 airs several listener testimonials each hour that say how great the new station is. One of the congratulatory segments is from a guy who says something like this:
Hi, I'm from El Lay, and I just drove up from El Lay, and we don't have a station like this in El Lay, and I've always wanted something like this in El Lay, and I'm ecstatic because maybe now we'll get a station like this in El Lay!"
Thanks to this guy, I'm slowly starting to feel the LA prejudice take shape in my own body. Just a little bit.
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.: posted by Vera
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So I finally got my birth control pills. Since I'm such a normal, average, and common person, I'm on the most common pill there is: Ortho Tri-cyclen. This is my first American pill stash ever. Its circular arrangement is already making me dizzy. I also couldn't resist the glowing brightness of the Fuchsia Daisy pill dispenser and ordered it. I think the generic pill dispenser comes in the sickliest shade of pink so that you'll be forced to buy their Ortho Personal Pak which, thanks to Nicole Miller, is more stylish AND discreet. Or so they tell me.
Also, I was surprised to learn that my health insurance paid half. I always thought that birth control pills are considered sort of a luxury item that insurance companies don't tend to cover. Can anybody back me on this?
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.: posted by Vera
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I just saw a license plate that read SOYBOCA. Okay, we get it, dude: You're vegan, maybe vegetarian. But why didn't you get one that said VEGGIES or VEGAN4U or ILUVSOY? Maybe they were already taken, which is why now he is not only making a statement about his eating habits, but also advertising a product. Or! Maybe she is a Boca rep and didn't even pay for the vanity?
Speaking of Boca: One product I think they really need to add to their line is meatless Salami. I would be all over that. Salami is the only meat I kind of miss.
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.: posted by Vera
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My friend Starrie said the girl with the pink hair from SugarSonic reminds her of me. Yey! To me, that's one of the best compliments ever.
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.: posted by Vera
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You know I'm bummed about something when I seek out soothing music. Chill Factor 100 from Live365 does the trick every time. It must be the book I'm reading. Today the 26-year-old heroine's 24-year-old sister died. I'm 26 and have a 24-year-old sister who I never see. Not a pretty thing to read and think about. And now Malte just keeps staring at me down there. His cuteness makes me want to cry, too.
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.: posted by Vera
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Hello world! This is Malte. He's one of my best friends' brandnew baby! I haven't met him in person yet because he lives in Germany, but Al was nice enough to send me some pictures. Isn't he cuuuuute? And no, she is not married. But who needs a wedding anyway?
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.: posted by Vera
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I just got my first issue of XLR8R Magazine. For the past year or so I subscribed to BPM Magazine, but I thought that now that I live in San Francisco, I'd give San Francisco based XLR8R a try. So far I'm not that impressed. The first thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was the response from the Editor in Chief to a nasty letter-to-the-editor. The Editor in Chief concluded his reaction with the words "you stupid shithead." I don't care how inappropriately (?) provocative Kevin's letter was, I as a bystander should not become witness to these kinds of politics that have so obviously coagulated way before Kevin sent his letter.
Then, the issue came with a CD, which is a gesture I normally really appreciate. The CD cover pictures a scary-looking dude with blood and other organic pulp covering his teeth and hands - not the type of imagery I'm into. I don't care if the dude's from Norway and goes by the cute Scandinavian name of Kjetil, that's a bad look to be sporting. But I thought that if at least the music on the CD is good, I can forgive. Unfortunately, when I inserted the CD into my computer, I was immediately taken to a web page intended to persuade me to download the Sound Forge 6.0 Demo. That's great and all, but can I please just listen to the tracks that are listed on the back of the CD? I couldn't. Maybe I'm too stupid or something, but I couldn't find any music anywhere on that CD. It's really a bummer.
I also didn't like the article on electroclash aka tech-pop aka neu-electro. The author mentions phrases like "market push", "genre-bandwagon-jumping", "insincere and cynical cash-in", and "MTV-backed electronica." Whatever. I'm so sick of "Another attempt at reaching the masses with electronic music, compromising all integrity and dignity" articles. Yawn. To top it off, the magazine a few pages later advertises the very album Brion Paul was bashing in his article. How hypocritical. Right: We're not trying to make money off of this insincere wave.
Finally, almost every artist whose picture is featured in this issue looks like a gangster. Whu? What happened? If that's really the trend that producers and DJ's are following these days, so be it. It just confused me.
The one thing I did like about this issue is the blurb about They Rule, "an interactive statement on corporate incest," quoting XLR8R. Go see for yourself.
Of course I'm going to give XLR8R the benefit of the doubt, especially since I have only seen one issue so far. But I might just have to switch back to BPM sooner than I expected.
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.: posted by Vera
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I was seemingly unduteous today. After a blood test at St. Mary's hospital, I probably should have gone straight back home and to work. But see, St. Mary's is on Stanyan Street, which runs along the east side of the Park. I could practically hear the flowers blooming and the birds chirping as I stepped out of the hospital, and I had never been to that part of the Park before. I had to sneak in and take a peek around. It sure made my day, and I probably ended up doing a better job today because of the brief session of forestial seduction.
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.: posted by Vera
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When I read, I highlight parts that I like or that I feel are significant. I’m not talking about college textbooks. I’m saying that when I read literature for personal enjoyment, I always keep a highlighter within reach so that I can mark the things that really speak to me.
There are three categories of things I highlight; let’s collectively call them POD:
1. Personal: A statement that I can really relate to and/or that could have come out of my head or my mouth.
2. Observant: A social, socioeconomic, historical, psychological, or physiological analysis that makes me think “So true. I had never thought of it that way before.”
3. Descriptive: A syntactical arrangement that I really like the sound and flow of, where I feel like the author did a great job at canvassing with words.
Ready for some examples? Okay.
Category 1:
The [Nirvana] T-shirt made him cool by an association. He liked something outside himself – some hero. That’s why rock and roll is so over.
---From Ecstasy Club, Douglas Rushkoff
Personally, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live past twenty-one.
---From Normal Girl, Molly Jong-Fast
And maybe I was sad about nothing, full of that slow, subtle sadness that is nothing more than a voluptuous form of boredom […].
---From Snow, David Rappaport
More like this...
Category 2:
I wondered if TV shows got their dialogue from cops or if the real cops were just copying what they saw on TV.
---From Ecstasy Club, Douglas Rushkoff
They had the names John and Paul, like disciples.
---From Morvern Callar, Alan Warner (see, when I hear John and Paul, I think of the Beatles – VF)
I hated children. They reminded me too much of men with their violence and materialism.
---From Snow, David Rappaport
More like this...
Category 3:
I watched as her body exposed itself to me by using its limbs to remove the fabrics that covered it.
---From Ecstasy Club, Douglas Rushkoff
Each tear held light, I swear it. They glistened like little stars as they rolled down her face.
---From Ecstasy Club, Douglas Rushkoff
The apartment had stayed while I was gone.
---From Snow, David Rappaport
More like this...
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.: posted by Vera
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Where have all the gyno's gone?
How hard is it to get a gynecologist appointment in this town? Very, I tell you. Since Monday, one of my daily objectives has been to schedule such appointment because I'm on my last month of birth control supplies. Each day, I dutifully called at least five doctor's offices before I said to myself "Screw this. I'm going to try again tomorrow." Today is Friday and I'm still appointmentless.
Here are excerpts from some of the lovely phone conversations I've had with various receptionists at gynecologist's offices:
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: Have you seen Dr. Gynecologist before?
Me: No.
Them: No dice then.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: Are you pregnant?
Me: No.
Them: No dice then.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: What kind of health plan do you have?
Me: [insert name of my health plan]
Them: What network are they with?
Me: I don't know.
Them: I need to know the network.
Me: What if they don't belong to a network?
Them: Then no dice.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: This is the emergency line.
Me: Oh. What number should I have called then?
Them: xxx-xxxx, but they're closed today. So no dice.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: I can't help you with that. But you can leave a message, and somebody will call you back, or you can call back later.
Me: Okay. I can call back after what time?
Them: You can call back any time you want.
Me (calling back 1 minute later): I'd like to make an appointment please.
Them: No dice.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: Okay, let's see. Dr. Gynecologist has an opening on February 11, 2004. Would you like to take that one?
Me: Uh, I need birthday control pills by August 17, 2002. So no dice.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them: With who?
Me: With Dr. Gynecologist A.
Them: They are completely booked until the end of the world.
Me: What about Dr. Gynecologist B?
Them: They are also completely booked until the end of the world.
Me: Okay. What about Dr. Gynecologist C?
Them: They are completely booked until the end of the world as well.
Me: Are there any doctors in this office that aren't booked until the end of the world?
Them: No dice.
Me: I'd like to make an appointment, please.
Them (at Front Desk): Let me put you through to Appointments.
Me: Okay, thanks.
Them (at Appointments): How can I help you?
Me: I'd like to make an appointment for sometime within the next three weeks, please.
Them: The doctor's office is closed until September 5th. No dice.
What the funk is going on with gynecology in San Francisco?
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.: posted by Vera
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Last night was the Blog Meetup. We met at Rockin Java Coffee House on Haight Street. There were about 15 of us. I'm still stunned by the caliber of geek celebrity I got to meet there. There were three people there who cocreated and helped develop Blogger. The same three people coauthored the book We Blog which comes out next month. One of them is also the owner of MetaFilter. Whow. As if that's not enough, the two people who created Movabletype also attended the meetup. As you can tell, I was in very good company.
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.: posted by Vera
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My boyfriend got the cutest postcard from Barbri today. (I'm not sure if "cute" is the right word to describe something coming from an entity that is holding my boyfriend hostage all summer and is turning him into a mumbling auto-conversationalist; nevertheless, it's the word I choose.) Katie, if you're reading, you might get a kick out of this, too. On the front of the postcard are three cartoonish depictions of an anthropomorphed being: before, during, and after the bar exam, and the back features these Words of Wisdom and Benevolence:
Dear BAR/BRI Enrollee:
You've heard it before and you'll hear it again: the bar exam is an endurance test. It's designed to shake you up, to gauge how you react under the gun.
There's no way you or anyone else can know everything. The key is to learn as much as possible and do your best.
So relax and give it the old law school try. Remember, you don't need the highest grade. You merely want to pass.
On behalf of everyone at BAR/BRI, I'd like to wish you the best of luck on the exam.
Sincerely,
[some squiggly signature]
Nice metaphor there, "under the gun." Very nice.
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.: posted by Vera
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Did you know how to say "Click here" in Swedish? I do, I do! Klicka här and find out.
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.: posted by Vera
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I have a cardigan that is rusting. Yup, the one I'm wearing here. It was pretty damn expensive because I bought it here, and shortly after I got it, these brownish orange spots took shape all over it. It started out with just one on the collar, but after a while the spots colonized other parts of it, too. I don't have any explanation for this, other than that my metal-free cardigan is rusting.
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.: posted by Vera
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I hung out with my friend Kitty last night. I hadn't seen her in almost two years. It was great. Nothing had changed between us, except that we were both two years older.
Kitty and I met during my junior year of college about three and a half years ago. We were both econ majors. She came to class in sweatpants and with a jaded look on her face. I noticed this. One night, she came over to my place to pick up some notes for an econ class. We started talking right there at my front door. I couldn't believe how fun it was to talk to her. And I still can't. There is something magical about her.
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.: posted by Vera
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A beautiful scene unfolded this morning.
Girl stares at the monitor that displays a software interface wrapped around something resembling this.
Boy walks by and stops in his path: "You're doing microchondia now?"
Girl: "No, it's a cell attacked by a virus."
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.: posted by Vera
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Cross-continentalism
Have you ever driven cross-country? I'm proud to say that I have. Twice. Once from California to Virginia and once from Virginia to California. I'd do it again anytime. And I'd love to drive from Florida to Washington or from Maine to California one day. When I was recently getting ready for my move to San Francisco, I was more excited about the drive than the arrival.
You get to see so many different things (duh). The landscape changes color: From East to West, it starts out green, then becomes red, then yellow. You see interesting wheather patterns, like a mass of billowing gray clouds in Iowa or pink skies and lightning in Colorado or little fluffy clouds in Arizona, just like the song by the Orb says. You see big skies and big fields and big rivers. You might see big cities that you've never considered moving to. You might see college towns with schools that you've never thought of attending, but you can't help wondering what life is like for the students there, and you might even see some of them, working in coffee shops or just strolling around. You might call up a friend you left behind in Virginia or your boss or your mom, and it might be really fun telling them "Hi, I'm in Colorado" or "I'm driving along the Ohio River" or "We're just outside Kansas City." You might talk to very friendly people in gas stations, or skeptical ones who look at you funny because you're from the city. You might find a magazine whose name you've never heard of in a coffee shop somewhere and read about the creator of the Power Puff Girls. You might spend the night in Vegas and not go back to LA, but drive in the other direction the next day. You might spend the night in a cute log cabin with two log beds in it and a view of Bryce Canyonesque rocks and eat pizza with cheese and jalapenos and watch the episode of Friends where Rachel has the baby. And you will definitely have some drawn-out and mind-bending conversations with whoever sits next to you in the driver's or in the passenger's seat. These conversations will get to the bottom of certain things and back.
It's so fun not knowing where you're going to spend the night each day. You could end up in a well-known city or in a backwards little town or in a quaint piece of paradise. Of course you can always ballpark how far you will make it that day, but you will never know exactly when you will be physiologically ready to stop driving, and where you will be geographically at that moment. Since I love making lists, here are the places where I slept each night during my two trips:
California to Virginia August 2000
1. Las Vegas, Nevada
2. Durango, Colorado
3. Denver, Colorado
4. Independence, Missouri
5. Lexington, Kentucky
Virginia to California May 2002
1. Cincinnati, Ohio
2. Des Moines, Iowa
3. Boulder, Colorado
4. Denver, Colorado (can you tell we like Colorado?)
5. Tropic, Utah
6. Los Angeles, California
7. Los Angeles, California
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.: posted by Vera
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The other day I went to Schauplatz and came home with a dress wrapped in a paper bag with no handles. While I was paying for the dress, I talked to the clerk there who was very nice, from a French-speaking part of Switzerland, and thinking about moving to Palm Springs, and I found out that one of the owners of Schauplatz is German. A-ha! That's where that name came from.
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.: posted by Vera
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Madusalon update. Sure enough, the insides were decorated with several paintings of Medusa. My hair looks nice and bright red. Kristie, the girl that dyed my hair, turned me on to a leave-in conditioner that smells fabulous. It's anti-snap by Redken and comes in a shiny blue bottle. It smells like candy! In fact, it reminds me of my favorite body spray of all times: Bonbon cosmique aka cosmic candy from the Body Shop. I bought it about 2 1/2 hears ago, and Body Shop hasn't carried it since. Those fuckers! The first time I took a sniff of it, it reminded me of a rave. I'm not sure why a scent would remind me of a rave. Sounds, sights - sure, but scents? But it did, and that's why I'm addicted to it. And now I can continue reveling in that olfactory wonderland, even after bonbon cosmique runs out! I have bonbon anti-snap now. Best of all, Kristie didn't make any attempts to sell it to me. I love that I had to remind her to add some of that candy conditioner to my tab.
The only weird thing about Madusalon I'm going to put this way: I left with the impression that whoever spelled the name, did so intentionally but unaware that the mythic girl's name was spelled with an "e".
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.: posted by Vera
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Oooooh, the Love Parade is going on in Berlin right now. Seeing the headline on cnn.com sent feelings of a dagger through my heart because I'm not there. And it's especially painful to admit that, although I lived in Germany for 19 years, I have never attended the Love Parade. But in my defense I will have to add that by the time my love for techno and dancing had fully erupted, I was already living in the United States.
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.: posted by Vera
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If you know anything about the relationship between a year and the days of the week, you'll know that one year ago today was Friday the thirteenth. In some circles, Friday the thirteenth is foreseen to be a day of bad luck and doom. This is why my then-employer decided to lay off a third of its staff the day before Friday the thirteenth, on Thursday, July 12th. Fun! That day was actually pretty fun. The entire office, laid off or not, spent the whole day in one of the downtown mall's outside sections beneath the trees, gabbing about and drinking. We were all producing massive amounts of adrenaline, and we felt like we were on mind-altering substances because being laid off felt so surreal. As the afternoon progressed, we in fact were on mind-altering substances, namely Tequila.
The month following this event was pretty fun, too. I enjoyed my time off. I went back to New York City for the second time that summer to hang out with my boyfriend who was working there at the time. But about two or three months into the unemployment compensation, I started to feel really bad about myself. This is probably pretty obvious, and I don't even know why I'm mentioning it. But sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out.
In the end it all turned out okay, like it usually does. I have a much better job now. The working environment hasn't been quite as social and stimulating, but it's hard to beat being on a team of a dozen people who are all about your age, one of them being into electronic music even more than you are! But the job itself I like better now. I get more responsiblity, more respect, and more money. And I get to learn all kinds of exciting new things, like PHP and mySQL, XML, 3D Studio Max, VRML, etc.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my brush with layoffs on this anniversary.
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.: posted by Vera
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I have the sweetest message on my answering machine right now. Here it goes:
Hi, thiss message is for Vera. This is Jusstin from Madussalon. I'm calling to confirm your 2 o'clock for hair color touch up with Kristie on Sunday the 14th. We're at 300 Divisadero on the Corner of Page, which is one block North of Haight, and our phone number is xxx-xxxx, should you ever need it. Well, I hope you're having a beautiful Ssaturday, and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thanks, Vera. Bye now.
I love living in San Francisco! People are so nice here! I'm looking forward to meeting you too, Justin!
Anyway, yeah, so I have decided to give Madusalon a try. It's a new salon and not even listed anywhere yet, but I always notice it on my way to the gym. It intrigued me. I like the name, first of all, and it also looks pretty cool from the outside. These might not be the best criteria for choosing to give somebody money, but this is how I work sometimes. I can't wait to ask them these questions:
Why Madusalon?
Why spelled with "a" and not "e"?
Weren't you trying to do a pun on Medusa?
Does the person who made the spelling blunder still have a job?
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.: posted by Vera
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Two different ways people have pronounced the title of my blog before:
1. Substrappel
2. Subapple
In spite of having posted a word plus definition yesterday, I'm going to do it again today. I need to heal the ignorance surrounding my blog title! From dictionary.com:
- subastral \sub-AS-tral\, a.
- Beneath the stars or heavens; terrestrial.
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.: posted by Vera
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Great word of the day today: monomania.
- monomania \mon-uh-MAY-nee-uh; -nyuh\, noun:
- 1. Pathological obsession with a single subject or idea.
2. Excessive concentration of interest upon one particular subject or idea.
What would be my monomania? Hm. Can you have automonomania? Don't take me seriously.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just made a new outfit for my main page. Whaddayathink? It's not THAT much different, but a little bit. I know, I know, it's probably over-the-top colorful, but colors are my life!
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.: posted by Vera
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 This graphic catches my eye every time I go to Yahoo! now. It's part of an advertisement for SBC Yahoo! Dial Internet Access or something. Frankly, I don't really care what the ad is for. The picture is nice. Love the molecule.
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.: posted by Vera
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GREAT news. One week from today is the International Blog Meetup Day. I just signed up for the San Francisco Meetup. The reason I'm so embarrassinlgy excited about this is that I hardly know anybody in San Francisco. I've lived here since May, and since I work from home, I had no idea how I would ever meet new people. But thank God I have a blog! Now I get to go to the Meetup. Where I can talk to real people. Sit next to people in flesh and blood. Shake warm hands. Yey!
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.: posted by Vera
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I became a blogsnob today. See that link followed by some random babble near the top of my page? That's what I get to have on my site for being a blogsnob. It's a link to another random blogsnob's blog.
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.: posted by Vera
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Another one of my favorite songs of all times is Sad But New by Orbital. Don't confuse it with Sad But True which is on Orbital's Snivilisation album. Sad But New was on an earlier version of In-Sides that isn't sold in stores anymore. Now you get a couple of versions each of Satan and The Saint instead. Sad But True is also very nice and similar to Sad But New - I think they are actually two different remixes of the same song skeleton. But Sad But New is nicer. I always have to listen to it at least twice in a row. It's so beautifully composed, it's like an electronic symphony.
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.: posted by Vera
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The Flash Forward 2002 Conference is going on in New York City right now. Boy, I sure wish I was there. Since I don't do airplanes, I decided not to go. Two friends of mine who used to work with me at this company and now both work for the University of Virginia like me, are sitting in seminars as we speak. It sure would be nice to listen to some of the renowned Flashers I mentioned in this post, and maybe even meet them! If the next Flash Forward is anywhere in driving distance, I'm SO going.
Editor's Note: Oo, I just noticed that Mike Chambers of Macromedia is posting live updates and notes from Flash Forward on his website. Now I get to learn about all the new and exciting things people are discussing there. This is awesome. Thanks, Mike! But no thanks for not getting back to me about that informal interview I emailed you about, a month ago.
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.: posted by Vera
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One of the books I bought used online in my most recent bout of reading material drought is Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. I haven't read it yet. Supposedly the plot takes place in the 80's and is about a male college student in Santa Barbara who comes home to LA for the summer. It's about drugs, sex, apathy, and overprivileged kids with too much money. It sounded interesting to me. I'm a big fan of LA, too, and I love reading books that take place there so I can hear the author drop in names like La Brea Avenue or Pico Boulevard or Culver City. If you look up this book on one of the major online book retailers, you'll see a nice and smoggy, semi-aerial shot of an LA neighborhood depicted as the book cover.
The book I got in the mail looks ever so slightly different. It has Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr., and Jami Gertz on the cover and the subtle subtitle "Now a Major Motion Picture." God, what a turn-off. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to read it now. I didn't know the book was moonlighting as one of those 80's movies, and I liked it that way. Granted I haven't seen the movie and perhaps shouldn't judge it prematurely, but I don't care about the movie! I care about the book. The naked and unadulterated book by Bret Easton Ellis, free of producers, casting calls, and Andrew McCarthy. The one with the smoggy cover! Now every time I pick up the book to read another chapter, I will be reminded of all those awful Molly Ringwald movies. Thank goodness she's not on the cover.
Editor's Note: I have nothing personal against Molly Ringwald or Andrew McCarthy. It's the movies they starred in I don't like.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just got shampoo in my eye. Ouuu! What a bitch. Consumer analysts weren't kidding when they gave birth to Tear Free and No Tears shampoos. When is the adult line coming out?
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.: posted by Vera
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Where did the phrase "It's the economy, stupid!" come from, and what exactly is it trying to say? I thought that I should know since I majored in economics, but I don't.
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.: posted by Vera
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It sure is a beautiful and sunny day out in San Francisco. The smell of warmth embalms you even before you step outside. I really should be working on more Biochemistry animations but feel tempted to duck out and frolick through the Park. Inspired by that thought, here are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs (and videos - have you seen it?) in the world (ca. 1994):
Walk with me until we find the right spot
Our little excursion picnic in the park
feet in the grass until it gets dark
That's when I saw the fire flies spark
The pop sickle stick is finally smooth
Hop on a lilly pad for the summer groove
Walking arm in arm
so glad you came along
Check out the curly vine
The blanket was too small
but you called me baby doll
I could kiss you all the time
* Watchin' people have a good time
In the summertime
flying picnic blanket in the summer groove *
No interruptions we're all alone
Cause I don't have a cellular phone
Sweatin' your pose wiggling your toes
Come at me like a panther
cause you know yes is my answer
My mind is in the dirt making mud pies
The heavy heat stretch openend my eyes
You don't need a subway token
nature's fee remains unspoken
The sun is shinin' thru the leaves
and the wild flowers in the weeds
* Watchin' people have a good time
In the summertime
flying picnic blanket in the summer groove *
Note the almost historical reference to the now omnipresent cell phone. Also, as you can probably tell ("fire flies", "subway token", "heavy heat stretch"), this song is really about Central Park, not the park whose leaves I see tinkling from my window, but we don't mind, do we?
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.: posted by Vera
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There once was a broke girl named Angela. She was a student at Penn and had to live on, oh, about $5 a week. She decided to start writing about being broke online. People loved it. So her online diary is now available in book format. From the Introduction:
Maybe your broke diary is no memory, 'cause you're broke as hell right now and sitting in that bookstore chair planning on reading my whole book over a latte and a scone instead of buying it. The saddest, or funniest if you will, part was when Angela lost close to $300 in bank fees by making about 18 calls at a payphone for a quarter each that overdrew her account 18 times and resulted in 18 OVERDRAFT CHARGES! What's even sadder and funnier is that I worked at a bank for a while when I was in college, and I often had to discuss similar trainwrecks with customers. Fun! My former bank gig also helps me appreciate the following excerpt from the Broke Diaries:
I've decided I don't want an office job where my entire salary goes towards navy blue pant suits, pantyhose, and "must have" pearls anyway. Do you know of any other online diaries or blogs that became books when they grew up? If so, clue me in.
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.: posted by Vera
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Guess what is the first thing somebody other than myself searched for in the Lilipad? It's "boobs". O-o-o-o-o-kayyyy. To clear this up once and for all, I will say this: They are real. There. Better? I knew I should have put this in my bio, man. But I didn't want to flaunt.
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.: posted by Vera
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Yesterday I went to Haight Street intent on buying some shoes and a cardigan for my boyfriend. He, for legal reasons, just can't get to it right now. What? Oh, no, he doesn't have a restraining order, he's just studying for the California bar, which is all-consuming.
So I found a cool pair of shoes for him that looked a little like this, but of course they didn't have his size. Also, none of the vintage stores had a men's cardigan section! What's up with that? So, did I come home empty-handed? No. Unfortunately it didn't fit him. But it fit me just perfectly!
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.: posted by Vera
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Ever since I wrote a tutorial for Flash Kit I have been getting quite a few emails from people who read my tutorial and have questions. Some of the questions don't even have anything to do with the topic of my tutorial, but they are just random Flash questions. Like "Can you tell me how to make a preloader?" or "How can you use HTML within Flash?"
So far I haven't left any of the emails unanswered, whether they were directly related to my scroll bar tutorial or not. I have been trying my best to help these questionists out on their journey to the Flash of Wisdom. Now, does this count as volunteer work that I can put on my resume?
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.: posted by Vera
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Is there anybody out there who doesn't like the song Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode? I don't think I have ever met anyone who claimed that. Now, if you also like techno, you're in luck because an absolutely gorgeous trancey remix of Enjoy the Silence exists. And it is mesmerizing and hypnotic (can something non-visual be these things? You get what I mean anyway). Every time I hear it I have to stop whatever I'm doing and just stare. It's by Sasha and Digweed. Go check it out if you don't already know it and tell me if the "Enjoyenjoyenjoy" voice doesn't send delightful shivers down your spine.
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.: posted by Vera
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You want me to come up with a theme for my blog? Okay, how about this: San Francisco, mediocrity, and a healthy dose of me-me-me? Sure, that's more elusive than the themes of The Date Project or Going Bridal, two current Blogger favorites, but that's just how multifaceted I am! I kid. It is true that sites with well-defined themes are the only ones that really strike it rich anymore in the cutthroat world of blogging. So I don't think mine will, unless I make up my mind and start focusing more on one topic, like, hm, maybe Big Brother 3 when it starts airing this Wednesday? Or my daily domestic struggles as a telecommuter? I could even rename my blog page to something like "The telecommuting blog - life between pyjamas, unwashed hair and motivational drain." I'll think about it. Or not.
Oh, and no, nobody really requested a theme for my blog. I'm just talking to my hypothetical, so far only imaginary, readers. But that's how every famed blogger has to start, isn't it?
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.: posted by Vera
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Okay, now that it's almost 3pm on a Saturday, and four posts, some thrift store shopping and a veggie burrito are already behind me, what am I going to do for the next hour? Dance! Yeah! I often do this for exercise. Yes, of course right here in my living-room. I just put on one of my currently favorite DJ mixes and start freaking out. It's better than any treadmill, I tell you.
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.: posted by Vera
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Here in San Francisco, the left turn seems to have its own etiquette. Yes. This is on top of the regular traffic laws and rules you'll find in any other city. If you have ever driven a car in San Francisco, you know that the city is littered with No Left Turn signs. To get around this, I often take three rights starting at the next turn instead, and it'll get me where I want to be. Go ahead and compute this in your alert little head - it works nicely. But the left turn is undoubtedly the crux of San Francisco's traffic problems. If you need one, they won't be allowed, and if you don't need one, they will be allowed and you'll keep getting stuck behind other cars trying to make unprotected left turns. The getting stuck part is, I think, what necessitated the left turn etiquette. People don't like getting stuck behind you. So you are expected to make your left turn as quickly as humanly possible. This means that if the oncoming traffic doesn't allow for a left turn before the light turns red, you are to either keep going straight and try again, or to squeeze your turn into a gap in the oncoming traffic that is so small you're lucky you don't cause an accident. I have gotten the finger before for making a left turn. In turn, in a surge of impatience, I once honked at a person making a left in front of me, and sure enough they tried harder and squeezed into one of those minute gaps, causing the oncoming traffic a slight inconvenience. Yup, driving in San Francisco is fun. It beats parking, but that's a whole 'nother post!
Editor's Note (one day later): Oo, I just saw somebody do something smart: On an unprotected green light, they snuck in their left turn before any of the oncoming traffic moved. Good one. Am going to try that one soon.
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.: posted by Vera
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These days everybody likes to refer to themselves as geeky or dorky. Am I right? Are you a geek? I certainly am. Would we have admitted this 5 years ago? Doubtful. I know I wouldn't have. But today it's cute to be a geek or a dork. But if I think about it, I'm really not that dorky. Take my clothes and accessories for example. I carry around a pink shoulder strap Puma purse - that's actually quite trendy. I wear a lot of hoodies and tech-inspired skirts. Okay, so maybe my fashion sense is still lingering in the year 2000 and thus two years behind, but wouldn't a real dork be more, like, ten years behind? This is exactly who I want to talk about: the real dork. Not the contemporary I-wear-glasses-and-know-Javascript kind of dork but the real, authentic, old-skool dork who was already a dork when you and I were still cool. I saw one of those today. She was about my age and wearing a church lady haircut, a shirt tucked into greenish pleated shorts that went down to her knees, and brown Birkenstock-type shoes with socks. Can you picture her? The sighting prompted me to question my own dorkdom. She really puts all of us neo-dork wannabe's to shame.
Editor's note: A few hours later I had a discussion with somebody about this very topic. He suggested that the geek/dork/nerd trend is perhaps a generational and temporal thing: We try very hard to avoid dorkdom as teens, but in our twenties and on, we embrace it because we feel more comfortable with ourselves. Good point. But I have seen way too many non-traditionally dorky teenagers proclaim that they are dorks and proud of it to accept this argument. My conclusion: The dork wannabe is not the figment of a generational phenomenon. It's that of a generation-spanning cultural phenomenon.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just treated myself to a pair of Levi's Engineered Jeans - at Nu2u2 for $26.99, thank you very much. I could have also gone to Nu2u on Valencia Street, but I opted for Nu2u2 because it rhymes even more cleverly. As I was shopping, I was amazed by how swift and efficient thrift store employees can be. The jeans I wanted were actually sitting on a feetless mannequin. After a staff member plucked them off the mannequin for me, I started inspecting them and holding them up to my body, like any normal person would do. When I glanced over at the mannequin after a few SECONDS or so, somebody had already put a brandnew pair of pants on her! I couldn't believe that kind of thorough merchandising goes on in thrift stores too.
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.: posted by Vera
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You know what a lot of blogs remind me of? Those unwanted mass emails I get from certain friends once in a while that say something like "Check this out," or "This is funny," or "Look at this cute baby walrus," followed by a link. Maybe I should lobby for said friends to start their own blogs so I won't have to get those link-studded emails anymore.
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.: posted by Vera
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What I don't understand is going to a restaurant with a bunch of people and ordering a bunch of stuff to share. I want my own dish, and you can't have any of it! But no, as soon as one person cheers "Why don't we order this and this and that and share everything?", the fun is over. Because if you argue with that, everyone will think you're selfish and antisocial. The thing is that as soon as all the community food arrives, everyone starts eyeing the same plate. There is always one plate that gets polished off before any of the others. So why doesn't everybody just order that particular dish for themselves? I would if they let me! The favored dish tends to be of the appetizer species. This makes sense to me because in my long-standing experience as a restaurant-goer, I have come to realize that appetizers are the most, well, appetizing. That's why I have made it a habit to just order two appetizers for myself and no entree. It may not add up to the most nutritious meal but certainly the tastiest. If I want insipid and nutritious food, I can make it at home!
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.: posted by Vera
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Every time I pop in a Crest Whitestrip now, I'm reminded of a tip I read on a pro-ana website. Here is the exact quote:
Use Crest Whitestrips when you want to binge! It takes 30 minutes for each strip to work and you have to do each side separately, so it's one hour where you can't put ANYTHING in your mouth and you don't want to b/c of the taste of the gel, AND you get white teeth in the process! You have to do it 2 times a day so you might as well when you get hungry! That's 2 hours w/o food.
I also found an interesting thread titled "Help! I just swallowed!" on a pro-ana messageboard recently. Yes, it's about sperm, and the poster desperately needed to know how many calories are in a serving. It turned out that the post was intended as a joke. That surprised me. It sounded like a legitimate concern that might come up in an anorexic mind.
Me? No, I'm not anorexic, nor was I ever. (Several times between 1986 and 1994 I really wanted to starve myself, but I always failed miserably. Finally, I had to admit to myself that I just wasn't disturbed enough to become a full-fledged anoretic. Well, and that I loved eating!) But anorexia is a cultural curse that really fascinates me and always has ever since I first heard of it at 10. These are the books I have read on the subject since 2000:
I liked all of them, except for Stick Figure. I couldn't really get into that one. It was trying to hard too be a tragicomedy. Wasted I liked the best. If you want to really get into a highly intelligent, driven, and utterly obsessive girl's head, read that one. It's excruciatingly honest and as raw as the carrot sticks with mustard Marya - sometimes - allows herself to eat. I can't wait for this author to publish another book.
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.: posted by Vera
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I hate getting couple greeting cards. Who is with me? The ones that say "To Vera and Aaron" and "from Hobie and Winkie." Just because you have a significant other doesn't mean you always have to emphasize that you're part of a two-headed beast. It's so irritating. Especially if I know only one member of the two-headed beast really well. AND especially if the sender of the greeting has never even met my significant other. Hold on to your individuality, people, I implore you. Sign all greetings with your name only, if you're the one sitting at the computer clicking away. And don't even get me started on those Christmas cards featuring a photo of the dear couple. That is just tacky. I wouldn't be caught dead beaming in unison at the annual Santa camera like Christmas ornaments on crack.
Now, if you're reading this and you have sent me a couple greeting before, please don't hate me. I'm just ranting about a silly social phenomenon, and I know that you meant well. So does Aaron. But he also thinks it's weird to get half of a greeting from two people he has never met.
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.: posted by Vera
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You know what I think whenever I see a really cute young girl? No, it's not "She should become a model." What I think is "She should get all candied out and become a raver." Then I could dance around her and flap my wings appreciatively.
I still seem to think that becoming a raver is the best personal development anyone could undergo. It's a bit odd that, at 26, I still say "When I grow up, I want to be a raver." That's somehow how I feel. Just what is wrong with me? Am I terminally immature? Am I stuck in a prepubescent fantasy? And more importantly: Will I ever grow out of it?
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.: posted by Vera
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I'm excited. Why? Because a new Fox series called Girls Club is coming out this fall. Why does yet another Fox series which will probably be taken off the air after its first season excite me? Because Kathleen Robertson stars in it. And I like her. AND the setting is San Francisco where I moved recently.
If you didn't like Kathleen Robertson in 90210, perhaps you'd like to give her another chance by watching Splendor? It's a visually stimulating movie, and she was cute in it, for the most part. Except for the confessional scenes.
Seeing Kathleen Robertson at a Crystal Method concert in LA in 1998 sprinkled my feelings about her with strawberry sugar. If she went to events like that, she had to at least be allright. When I spotted her, she was very short, wearing blond braids and holding the hand of a surprisingly tall Asian guy. I almost ran up to her and said "Hey, what's your name again? We've met before." but then I realized that I knew her from TV. Shit. Can't say anything to her now. Nooo, don't want to do that.
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.: posted by Vera
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Decaf'ed
Okay, this is it. I'm finally decaffeinated. I know I said that I wasn't going try another brutal caffeine withdrawal, but the acidic vapors rising from my coffee mug prior to creamer influx convinced me otherwise. I started substituting decaffeinated green tea for coffee on Saturday, and the withdrawal symptons were benign to say the least. I don't even know if there were any. Maybe I wasn't that physically addicted after all. Or maybe I was just finally ready for a caffeine free existence. Let's face it: The only things I really liked about drinking coffee were smelling the sweetness of my Vanilla Hazelnut Creamer and nursing a container of warm liquid. As long as my body no longer craves that oh-so-poisonous caffeine, I can achieve the same by drinking herbal tea! Let's reiterate all the evils I'm helping my precious body reduce by depriving it from caffeine:
Increased heart rate -- not healthy, especially if you go to the gym right afterwards Dehydration -- requires extra water intake and I'm already lugging huge cases of water up the stairs each week Acid wastes that are stored in my body -- yuck! Yellowing of my teeth -- really don't need that
Yes, I'm proud of myself. This is going to be a good thing.
Side note: Want to see what the chemical structure of caffeine looks like in 3D? Here ya go. (You will need the Flash 6 player)
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.: posted by Vera
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I got my eyes dilated two hours ago because I had been experiencing some rather tenacious floaters for the last few months. (Un?)fortunately, the doctor didn't notice anything unusual while perusing the depths of my eye balls. So the floaters will continue to catch my eyes. I am also still practically blind. But oh, how pretty my eyes look right now! My pupils are covering almost the entirety of my irises. Can you please make it so that my eyes will stay that way permanently, Doctor of Optometry, please? I don't even understand why this counts as a medical procedure. Did the doctor diagnose anything? No. Did he heal any ailment? No. Did he make me pretty? Yes! Sounds more like a cosmetic procedure to me. Maybe eventually Permanent Pupil Dilation will be inducted into the category of cosmetic procedures. Sure, people who choose to undergo PPD will have extremely poor vision, and the sunlight will make them squeal and squirm, and some of them might even get arrested once in a while for being "under the influence", but in return they will get magnetic eyes and convey sympathy anywhere they go! Beauty is pain, you know.
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.: posted by Vera
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