A Day in the Life...

And what did you do today?

Noonish:
Woke up. Put on some pants. Grabbed a cup of coffee. Smoked a cigarette.

20 Minutes Later...
Called Ad. Figured out what we were going to do today. Got invited to dinner.

5 minutes after that.
Called Super S. Told her I couldn't make it out tonight because of dinner. Felt guilty for flaking for the 3rd time.

12:30p
Took a shower.

15 minutes later...
Called Ad. Told him I was on my way.

5 minutes after that:
Found out I needed to put gas in the truck. Called Ad back. Told him I was going to be late. Luckily so was he.

About 1:15p
Met Ad at Pasta Pomodoro. Ordered Verdure vegetable something or other. It was brussel sprouts, asparagus, spinach and broccoli tossed with olive oil and garlic. Added whole wheat penne to it. Found chicken in it. Got grossed out. Ate it anyway.

An hour later...
Went to Crown Billiards in San Ramon. Played 8 ball and 9 ball. Sucked at both. Saw a cute girl. She put "Ex-Girlfriend" by No Doubt on the jukebox. I lost interest. We left.

4'ish
Went to Barnes and Noble in Pleasanton. I bought Mind Hacks.

Around 4:30
We went to PW market and picked up Portobello mushrooms and Pine Mountain fireplace logs.

5 O'Clock PM
Went to Ad's house. Drank some beer and ate some kettle corn. Met a friend of Ad's.

6 or so...
The making of crepe's for dinner began.

7:20 PM
Found a football game on TV. Atlas vs. Guadalajara. 2-1. I wasn't very interested. Atlas plays a boring game. Feeds the ball out to the wings for crosses way way to frequently.

10 minutes later,
Found out Ad's friend wants me to meet her niece. If you know what I mean. Become curious if the niece is cute. Somehow manage to not only agree to being set up but also to taking salsa lessons at some point.

8'ish.
Soup's on.

On or about 9 and half PM
Put on a movie. Say Anything.

Midnight
Movie's over. Time to go home.

12:30 AM
Finally leave.

1 in the AM
Get home. Watch the end of Rocky 2 with my parents. Contemplate sleep. Download the most recent episodes of Numb3rs and Johnny Zero instead.

Now.
Post to my weblog. Listen to Bonobo. Read about what happend to MIA, thats why you gotta clear samples. Always clear your samples.

So what did you do tonight?

Postscript
As some of you might know, the power steering pump on the Ranchero recently went out. Distraught, I locked my keys in the truck--the only set. Luckily my dad is a smoove criminal and managed to get them out in less than 30 seconds. I had to stop him before he hot wired the Ranchero too. Apparently old habits die hard.

God I love that guy.

Bonobo

Two albums's which go on my list of "music I can't live without," "Dial M for Monkey" and "Animal Magic" from Simon Green's Bonobo project are luscious trip-hop soundscapes that blend the soulful drumline's of a slightly more conservative DJ Shadow (think The Preemptive Strike) and the artistic melodies of The Gotan Project. If you were to record the music that runs through my head when I'm not listening to anything at the moment this would be it.

I can't recommend these two albums highly enough. They are sodding fantastic.

If you like instrumental hip-hop at all, and I mean even a little bit, pick these up.

Animal Magic
Dial M for Monkey

Whoa! That's a big fella!

Whoa! That's a big fella!
Originally uploaded by droo5ki.

Oh my god. I just got my replacement xbox power adapter in the mail this afternoon. I opened the box only to find this enormous fucking freak of Microsoft engineering.

Where the fuck am I supposed to plug that into!? And why didn't they think of this whole GFI thing in the first place?

Something new I learned today.

When you see something, each of the axons that make up your optic nerve carry a portion of the image into your visual cortex. This much you know. However, scientists have done studies in which they inserted a probe into the subjects visual cortex and mapped which cells activated when a particular image was seen.

The interesting thing is that in the lower levels of the visual cortex hierarchy, V1 for those of you keeping score at home, a bunch of cells each corresponding to each individual axon in the optic nerve fire off briefly. And these cells change according to the image. Which indicates that each cell in this lower portion of the hierarchy is only concerned with a tiny, little, itty-bitty portion of what you see (sorta like a single pixel on your monitor). As opposed to objects that you might see in your field of vision. Neat.

In other news, I'm currently watching last nights episode of Desperate Housewives and I am still trying to quit smoking. Oh yeah, and Mario, I'm really sorry for being a flake this weekend.

Out.

Blue.

So I changed the template used for this site. What? You gotta problem with that?

Fuck you, I was bored.

Leave me alone.

Debate.

I'm still not sure whether or not to post this. Since I have no idea who actually reads this.

I am going to quit smoking tomorrow. Today is my last day.

Be nice to me.

- curmudgeon d

The Good Old Days, or Were They?

I'm reading an excellent book titled On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. I had just finished the third chapter earlier this evening and decided to go to the local starbucks and grab some coffee, natch.

While there I ran into a girl I know. We chatted for awhile and she informed me that a mutual acquaintance was going to be joining us soon. I can't remember whether or not I've ever told her that this acquaintance and I were a couple back in the day. Not that it matters fuckle.

And by couple I mean retarded young teenagers discovering our sexuality and expressing it all over each other. And by expressing I don't mean we slept together. We were only together for about 5 days. We were young. It was fun. I guess.

She was the first girl I ever got teary over. The first and the last. Well, second to last. In any event I ended up stepping aside since she had better chemistry and stronger feelings for who I considered at the time to be my best friend.

Which, in hindsight, seems to be a poor decision on my part. Though it is pretty gang-star. Anyway, to get to my friggin point, the three of us hung out for about an hour tonight at that starbucks. She has come along way. She looks terrific (lost a bunch of weight), is single (I'm guessing), and is pursuing a degree. She's very cute now. Bordering on hot. And I like making her laugh. She's cute when she laughs.

It made me think, or wonder, or fucking something.

Here's the link I promised:
Update: I completely fucked the link up. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

Music

So I took the time tonight to finally roll a bunch of mp3's I had lying about into my main collection, fix up their ID3 tags and rebuild my iTunes library. The result?

8354 songs, 22.8 days, 40.39 GB


I'll post a link to the track list tomorrow.

meme creep

What else am I going to do at 3:50 in the morning? By the way, what the fuck is taking Las Vegas so long to download!?

A la .:Stone Grody:.:
1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? Andrew Patrick Loihikakali Hersh

2. WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING? Mostly blue. They're torn up jeans.

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? "Muthafuck," by Dillinja off "My Sound."

4. DO YOU WISH ON STARS? No.

5. WHAT IS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Spiniach, mushroom and mozarella stuffed foccacia.

6. IF YOU COULD BE ANY COLOR, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Grey.

7. HOW IS THE WEATHER RIGHT NOW? Fucking ugly.

8. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Moms.

9. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS? No. I stole it.

10. HOW OLD ARE YOU TODAY? 24

11. FAVORITE DRINK? Guinness.

12. FAVORITE SPORT? Football. Well, soccer as you yanks call it.

13. HAIR COLOR? Black.

14. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Nein.

15. SIBLINGS? Non.

16. FAVORITE FOOD? My friends wife recently made some spinach and cheese quiche. It was fucking amazing. So I'll pick that.

18. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Pollock.

19. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? Any day ending with sex.

20. WHAT DO YOU DO TO VENT ANGER? Nothing specific. In fact, I was in anger management therapy for far too long to have an answer to that. If you've ever been you know what I mean.

21. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? Legos.

22. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer. Fucking twice.

23. HUGS OR KISSES? Well hard kisses mate.

24. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? What are we talking about here? I don't really eat sweets.

25. DO YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS TO WRITE/ E-MAIL BACK? Fuck yes. Irresponsive bitches.

26. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? God. Honestly, if there was such a thing then he'd respond faster than any one I know.

27. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? See previous response.

28. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? Insufferable.

29. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? 30 minutes ago. Randomly flipping the channels on the TV I ran across a concert by John Tesh. What I wouldn't give for 10 minutes alone with that fag.

30. WHO IS THE FRIEND YOU HAVE HAD THE LONGEST? Salim. 10 years.

31. WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT? Watched Desperate Housewives, Johnny Zero and Numb3rs.

33. FAVORITE SMELLS? Her skin. Just out of the shower.

34. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? Beauty.

35. WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? Mediocrity.

36. PLAIN, BUTTERED OR SALTED POPCORN? Buttered.

37. FAVORITE CAR? Audi RS6.

38. FAVORITE FLOWER? The Black Rook Phalaenopsis or the Ghost orchid.

39. NUMBER OF KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? Four.

41. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK? Monday.

42. WHAT DID YOU DO ON YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY? Blackout.

43. HOW MANY STATES HAVE YOU LIVED IN? Two, California and Hawaii.

44. HOW MANY CITIES HAVE YOU LIVED IN? I don't know.

45. HOW MANY CARS HAVE YOU HAD & WHAT WAS THE FIRST CAR? 4. The first was a 1965 Ford Mustang GT. Then a 1966 Mustang fastback, 64 Ford Fairlane, and 1970 Ford Ranchero.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Berkeley, CA.

47. DO YOU LIKE YOUR JOB? Taking over the world? Yeah sure but it can be frustrating.

48. IF YOU HAD A CHANCE TO DO ANY JOB IN THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Hacking. Like that Kevin Rose guy on TechTV.

49. WOULD YOU GO SKY DIVING? Fuck yeah.

50. HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR MOM TODAY? Yes.

51. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? Pineapple Coconut.

MarsEdit

Test.

Strangely enough, MarsEdit doesn't yet have a way to edit Blogger post titles. Apparently its a high priority feature requested by lots of users which they are currently working on.

I think MarsEdit is pretty slick and I'll be keeping a lookout for the inclusion of this feature. For now I guess I'll stick to the web posting interface and use ME just for editing posts.

Exhaust

My dad and I have been working on my 65 GT Ford Mustang. The interior is cherry and the most recent thing worked on has been the engine since the winter weather hasn't been conducive to working on the body.

We pulled the motor and sent it to a shop. We had them bore out the cylinders (.0040 over), replace the valves with custom stainless steel jobbies, install new pistons (Keith Black), and port and polish the exhaust ports on the heads. We have replaced the distributor (Motorcraft) and upgraded the coil (Tiptronic Flamethrower), upgraded to an inline large resevoir fuel filter (Motorcraft) and replaced the wires and plugs. The engine already had good (TRW) valve guides, (CompCam) roller rockers, and a sweet (Steve Jackson) gear drive. We had already installed a larger 8-quart oil pan and 3 chamber flowmasters.

To get to the point, my dad tried to fire it today and apparently the timing is off. It backfired so hard, and I mean so fucking hard, that it blew one of the exhaust tips clean off.

We still haven't found it.

Fallen

I think there is a mexican family living across the street from me. In and of itself this is nothing noteworthy however, recently there have been alot of young gang-bangers hanging out at the house screaming and yelling and carrying on, standing outside drinking beers and listening to gangster rap until 2 in the morning. like its fucking lord of the flies.

It has been insufferable.

But about ten minutes ago the best thing in the whole world happened. I went outside to smoke and I saw a whole group of them, something like 10 or 15, standing in front of the house drinking and talking and making a shitload of noise. (I think they're having some kind of party.) In the midst of all of this carousing though, they were listening to some kind of music, but it wasn't clear at first. Then it hit me--they weren't listening to Easy E.

They were listening to "My Immortal" by Evanescence.

It is moments like these for which I live.

diametric

I am too easily swayed by my emotions when writing. I start off focused and on topic and before you know it I'm standing on my soapbox screaming at the top of my lungs that:

(In reference to the FDA and USDA)

It doesn’t seem to be an over abundance of pressure upon the individual to influence their eating habits but the diametric opposite. More often than not “…they are…not nearly as effective as we think they are or wish they were” (Boston et al., 67). But that they are nothing more than figurehead puppet-agencies, there but for the grace of all that is unholy and wrong about the food industry as “[t]he food industry influences how these agencies are run…” (67). Further, in their infinite wisdom, “[c]ongress does not allot enough money in the federal budget for the FDA and USDA to allow them to do much independent testing and to enforce their own regulations very efficiently” (67). Preeminent congressional work, without doubt, and it stands to reason that these agencies should just be dismantled, as they are hamstrung and impotent at the behest of food industry lobbyists, perhaps that paltry funding would be better used to expedite the return of troops from…but we digress.

Arrgg.

HOW TO STUDY

School is killing me, but only because I'm getting lazy. I'm not sure what the fcuk is with me lately but I'm becoming apathetic about this whole school thing. Something must be done.

Next quarter is my last and I have to take 4 classes.

Work is fine, more of the same. I'm still having communications difficulties with technical support and the PM's.

And my del.icio.us bookmarks are a mess.

d