Has anyone out there seen Before Sunset with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy? I picked it up today at the Oakland Public Library and it srtuck a chord with me. It's about two young people who meet traveling in Europe when they are 23, arrange a rendevous that never happens and lose track of each other for 9 years because in their young, idealistic minds, there was no need to exhange contact infomation. They meet up again in Paris when Celine (Delpy) finds out that Jesse (Hawke) is on a book tour selling his semi-autobigraphical work about their brief fling. This movie is basically a naturalistic conversation about love and what could have been with Paris as a backdrop. Only when I was watching the featurette did I find out that it was a sequel to an earlier film, Before Sunrise, shot 9 years ago, with the same cast about how they met on a train in Austria and fall towards love. I queue'd it up my Netflix and I am so interested to see it.

Posted by andrew at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It has to be quite the thrill ride to be a Republican these days. I'm not talking fun-filled, exciting, blow your top, throw your hands in the air amusement park coaster. I'm talking, nauseating, I'm going to throw up, Jane, get me off this crazy thing treadmill. The scandals are mounting. Every day it seems a new story comes out about some sort of malfeasance or other involving top level officials, congressmen and lobbyists. Libby, Abramoff, Scanlon, Rove, Frist, DeLay. And it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Today Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who represents my buddy Peter in Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, plead guilty to among other things accepting 2.4 million dollars in bribes. 2,400,000 dollars. Get your head around that figure. That's just what the Feds found out about and he admitted to. For those playing at home, here's the plea agreement, here are the charges against the congressman, here's his statement on resigning, and you can see video of him here. Here's his official website. No mention of any wrong doing or resignation. It won't be long for this world, at least outside of Google Archives and the Way Back Machine, so check it out while you can.

Here's what the Dukster has to say for himself:

When I announced several months ago that I would not seek re-election, I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth. So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public -- even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry.

The truth is -- I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.

I suspect this will become a common refrain (can't blame a partisan prosecutor because he was being investigated by Bush's Justice Department) as investigations into the wrongdoings of other reps and senators, such as Bob Ney of Ohio and Conrad Burns of Montana, not to mention Katherine Harris of Florida and god knows who else will get caught up in the dragnet, have to face the music and admit guilt in the most humiliatingly public way. And then serve time.

Hopefully all the guilty parties, even Democrats, especially Democrats (are you listening William Jefferson?) will be brought to justice. Not that I think it's going to do much to stop the corruption that is our national government, but at least it might out the breaks on it for while as heretofore untouchable legislators watch their colleagues being marched off to the federal pen.

Posted by andrew at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You have to read this Rolling Stone article about John Renden, America's Propogandist Laureate. If half of what it reports is true, it's the scariest fucking thing I've read in a long, long time.

Never before in history had such an extensive secret network been established to shape the entire world's perception of a war. "It was not just bad intelligence -- it was an orchestrated effort," says Sam Gardner, a retired Air Force colonel who has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College. "It began before the war, was a major effort during the war and continues as post-conflict distortions."

...

As the war in Iraq has spiraled out of control, the Bush administration's covert propaganda campaign has intensified. According to a secret Pentagon report personally approved by Rumsfeld in October 2003 and obtained by Rolling Stone, the Strategic Command is authorized to engage in "military deception" -- defined as "presenting false information, images or statements." The seventy-four-page document, titled "Information Operations Roadmap," also calls for psychological operations to be launched over radio, television, cell phones and "emerging technologies" such as the Internet. In addition to being classified secret, the road map is also stamped noforn, meaning it cannot be shared even with our allies.

As the acknowledged general of such propaganda warfare, Rendon insists that the work he does is for the good of all Americans. "For us, it's a question of patriotism," he says. "It's not a question of politics, and that's an important distinction. I feel very strongly about that personally. If brave men and women are going to be put in harm's way, they deserve support." But in Iraq, American troops and Iraqi civilians were put in harm's way, in large part, by the false information spread by Rendon and the men he trained in information warfare. And given the rapid growth of what is known as the "security-intelligence complex" in Washington, covert perception managers are likely to play an increasingly influential role in the wars of the future.

Indeed, Rendon is already thinking ahead. Last year, he attended a conference on information operations in London, where he offered an assessment on the Pentagon's efforts to manipulate the media. According to those present, Rendon applauded the practice of embedding journalists with American forces. "He said the embedded idea was great," says an Air Force colonel who attended the talk. "It worked as they had found in the test. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part they did not lose control of the story." But Rendon also cautioned that individual news organizations were often able to "take control of the story," shaping the news before the Pentagon asserted its spin on the day's events.

"We lost control of the context," Rendon warned. "That has to be fixed for the next war."

Posted by andrew at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our Costa Rica itinerary is basically set. We're leaving Sunday, landing in San Jose and avoiding the city, heading directly for a Heredia, a town in the midst of the coffee plantations. Then we head for three nights in La Fortuna at the foot of the Volcan Arenal. Then two nights in the cloud forest area around Monteverde. And we're going to wind up the trip with a few days on the beach in Montezuma from where we fly back (fa'afetai le Atua) to the capital and fly home.

It's a shart trip, only 10 days, so we can't do everything, but I think we're making the most of the time and it should be a great (and well needed) holiday.

Posted by andrew at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You can't take this without a grain of salt because it comes from Durex, but the 2005 Global Sex Survey results are online. Here are some of the more interesting facts:

More than 317,000 people from 41 countries took part in the world's largest ever survey on sexual attitudes and behaviour. The research confirmed that Greece is officially the sexiest country with the Greeks having sex 138 times a year - well above the global average of 103. Croatia (134) and Serbia and Montenegro (128) come a close second and third.

There's all sorts of interesting info in the report, so I'm not going to spoil it, but here's some of the more intriguing stuff: Japan was dead last with the average person having sex only 45 times, but that only counts sex with another person. Around the globe, people are losing their virginity on average at a little more than 17 years old, but in Iceland the average age (average?) is a mere 15.6. Not surprisingly, the most common place for adults to have sex outside their bedroom is in the car. More than 80% pf Italians have had sex in a car. While more than half of Australians (54%) have had a sex in a park, something I can personally atest to.

Posted by andrew at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I let the cats out unsupervised for the first time since I left Vail, CO yesterday. They've managed to escape before and been out on the leash a few times. But I haven't let them out and let them wander on their own since Colorado, where I didn't have to worry about dogs or traffic or the cats not coming back since they would never venture too far in the snow.

But Oakland is a different story. The lots in my neighborhood are close together which means that it doesn't take much effort for them to get into the neighbors yard and then the next yard and the next and then get lost.

Then there are dogs. Lots of them. And this is a tough neighborhood, so we're not talking Shi Tzu's here. I've seen Pit Bulls, Dobermans, German Shepards, basically all the breeds that can tear a little cat to shreds. But my cats are wily, have dealt with dogs, so I wasn't that concerned.

I was really concerned about them just getting lost and not being able to find their way home. Which is why I waited almost a month to let them out. I wanted to make sure they knew where home was.

Still I was nervous. Actually, I was fine until they discovered a seam in the fence behind the storage room in the backyard and disappeared in the neighbor's place. Then I started to panic. I thought, what if something happens to them? What if I never see them again? Totally irrational, I know, but I felt it nonetheless. After about 5 minutes it was time to shepherd them back into the house.

Mak was easy. He's not so bright. All I needed to do was grab a treat container, shake it a few times and he came running in. Fil would never be tricked by something so pedestrian. I started whistling for her. I could hear her rummaging around the neighbors (she has a bell on her new collar). I had to come out a few times and whistle for her, but finally she got on the roof of the shed and I could grab her from my deck. I scruffed her and brought her inside.

I felt so much better. I can't believe how much anxiety I get when I think about not having the cats. I don't know if I'm going to be able to let them out again without having a fucking coronary.

Posted by andrew at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last year it was sleeping cars, this year, Macy's and the SFSPCA has put cats up in a luxury hotel suite in their window display right off Union Square. Lots of people checking out the cats (and a few dogs) over the weekend.

My pictures . Not the best shots, shooting through crowds and the glass, but you'll get the idea.

The real story here.

Posted by andrew at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks like I left Alameda in the nick of time. When I came home yesterday there was a jury summons in my mail box.

Posted by andrew at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After years of suffering with my Peace Corps replacement glasses (even with a missing nose piece for the last two weeks), I've finally got new frames courtesy of my health insurance and few hundred bucks.

I'm now the proud owner of a sleek pair of Oakley Thread 6.0 Rx specs. Picked them up last night and I love them. They are light. They fit perfectly. And, best of all, they don't make feel like a completely useless dork.

I had wanted to get a pair of Lunor frames. I found one that I loved, the Lunor XX, sleek, modern, ultralightweight. Tried it on and they were perfect. But the $625 price tag convinced me to go with the Oakley's.

Before and after pictures to come...

Posted by andrew at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel

EXCLUSIVE: Bush Plot to Bomb His Arab Ally

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency." [more]

Posted by andrew at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I wanted to make something more like real chocolate ice cream, so I used a recipe that called for baking chocolate and eggs. Melting the chocolate is a piece of cake. Just drop 6 squares with 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The eggs. Not so easy. I've seen enough Food Network TV to know that can't beat eggs and add them to hot liquid, like molten chocolate. You'll end up with scrambled eggs. You have to temper the eggs by scrambling them, then adding a little of the liquid or the sauce to the eggs slowly to bring the temperature up gradually. I did that. No problem. Added 2 cups of chocolate sauce to the eggs. Combined them together. Everything was working beautifully. But then when I added the new choco-egg mixture back into the saucepan, I clearly screwed up, the sauce was too hot or the eggs not tempered enough because I quickly ended up with tons of little lumps in my previously silky smooth chocolate sauce. I went ahead and make the ice cream anyway. What the hell, I had already sunk money into the mixture. Might as well see it through and see what happens. The concoction solidified nicely into something resembling chocolate ice cream. And when I took out the blade, it was covered in chocolate egg pieces that were easy to spatula off into the garbage disposal. I capped off the creamer and stuck it in the freezer to harden. How much egg is left in the ice cream? I have no idea. Haven't tried it yet. Who knows? It might even be good.

Posted by andrew at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How are Mexican chocolate ice cream and the ghetto market connected? Let me tell you.

Last night I decided I was going to give the ice cream maker another shot after making a mess of the first batch. Now there are a few markets around my place. There's Trader Joe's, but that's really a specialty market. There's a Whole Foods, expensive and hard to park. Berkeley Bowl which has an incredible selection and is reasonable, but the parking is even worse. Then there is the Pack 'n Save.

Now the Pack 'n Save is a creature that I haven't encountered until moving into Oakland. The deal is, ostensibly, you pack your own groceries, you save money. However, the real deal is we're going to charge the same prices as Safeway because we really are a Safeway in disguise, but we're are not going to hire union grocery clerks so you have to bag your own groceries and we're only going to have 2 cashiers on staff during the busiest hours, so you're going to have stand on line like your were voting in Ohio to buy your whipping cream and other assorted bourgeoisie treats.

So after standing in line for a few minutes and seeing it go nowhere, I ditched the stuff IBut on the way back to the cottage, I passed a Long's Drugs and decided to go in a see if they might have whipping cream. I doubted it, but I was wrong. There was one lonely pint left in the fridge. I grabbed it.

On the way out I was looking at the instant coffee because I was thinking of making coffee ice cream when I spotted a hexagonal box of Mexican chocolate, and instantly I thought, fuck, I'm making Mexican chocolate ice cream.

So I was going to put my theory to the test that last time the ice cream came out too soft because I didn't use either enough ice or salt. I went to the liquor store and bought a bag of ice and was far more liberal with the rock salt this time. I ground the chocolate into a fine powder in my new Cuisinart. Blended the ingredients, placed them in the creamer, and voila, in about 30 minutes, I had perfect ice cream.

Now, some who, well, don't appreciate cinnamon might not enjoy the subtleties of something like Mexican chocolate ice cream, but those of who are more open minded to our finer spices, I think, you'd really love this stuff. It's damn tasty.

Posted by andrew at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shots from around the last weekend. All taken in the early morning around 8am before the sun rose and the light became too harsh to shoot.

Posted by andrew at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congrats to the Socceroos who have finally made it to the World Cup after all these years. They beat Uruguay on penalty kicks after the home and home series was tied 1-1.

Uruguay, you say? Why is Australia playing Uruguay, a team from South America? Good question. Australia has long been the class of the Oceania group. It's hard not to be when you face the likes of the Solomon islands and Tahiti in group play. However FIFA has not seen clear to grant the Oceania champions an automatic bid to the World Cup. So Australia, who always win, have to face another opponent in a grueling home and home series just to qualify and until today, had never managed it. Sort of unfair, but that's the deal.

So a brief bit of history. Back when I was living in Oz in 1993, Australia were the Oceania champions but lost out to, you guessed it, Uruguay, in the home and home, by one goal if memory serves. It was devastating since, at least at the time, I was planning on returning to the US to watch the World Cup on home soil and wanted to see my Aussied there. Instead, as it turned it out, I got "stuck" in South East Asia for nine months and ended watching the matches in random places across the Indonesia archipelago from the first game (Germany v. Bolivia?) on a small black and white hooked up to a car battery in Java all the way to the finals in Labuhanbajo, Flores. But I digress.

Australia were all set to make the last World Cup in Japan/South Kores. Again, the were the victors in the Oceania group. Again, they had to face an opponent in a home and home. This time, they didn't have to overcome a South American powerhouse. This time they only had to beat Iran. Well, they couldn't do it. The home and home was tied. I could look up the details, but it's late and I want to go home. I beleive that the first leg was in Tehran and was tied either 0-0 or 1-1. The return leg was in my beloved Melbourne and again was tied, but this time the score was either 1-1 or 2-2. Devastatingly, Iran went through to the World Cup on away goals (Khodad Azzizi, you brilliant bastard) and Australia were once again sent home packing.

But this year, it's a different story. The Aussies are in and will bring their excting brand of football to the pitches of Germany. It's about time.

Posted by andrew at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For years now I've admired the photographs that are on display at my gym - Ironworks - in Berkeley. The artists rotate every month and there has been some great work from natural landscapes, to action climbing (it's an indoor climbing gym), to photos from every country you can imagine, the latest installation of underwater photos of fish, sharks, coral, etc just came down today with shots of Ireland going up shortly.

As great as some of this work was, I always thought that I could place some of my better stuff there. The only thing stopping me was that I didn't have any pieces printed, matted and framed. But now I do and went to talk to the manager today about showing my stuff. He took a look. It took him about 5 seconds. He said they were perfect. Just the sort of work to get people inspired. How does January 15th sound?

So, I have a show in two months for two months. For two whole months, my Cambodia shots will be on display to hundreds if not thousands of eyeballs at my gym. Pretty fucking exciting.

Now I just have to decide if I want to reprint some of the shots I developed and printed myself (probably) and create some larger prints (16 x 20) of some of the best stuff (probably). What the fuck. It's only money, right?

Posted by andrew at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I made Francophile toast for breakfast. What's the big deal? Nothing except that I made it with bread I made myself with my new (well, new to me) breadmaker. The thing is great. Put in the ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, butter, yeast, and water), set the timer and in the morning you have perfectly baked fresh bread. I added about 1/4 cup of dried rosemary and it was really, really good.

I sliced it nice and thick, mixed up 2 eggs, about a 1/4 cup of half and half, freshly ground cinnamon and a splash of vanilla, soaked the bread until almost all the egg batter was absorbed in two slices, fried it up and scarfed it down with a little maple syrup from Vermont.

Fantastiqué!

Posted by andrew at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This country needs more Republican leaders like Chuck Hegel and fewer politicans like the ones currently in power who are running a perpetual campaign.

The Iraq war should not be debated in the United States on a partisan political platform. This debases our country, trivializes the seriousness of war and cheapens the service and sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. War is not a Republican or Democrat issue. The casualties of war are from both parties. The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge or criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democracy nor what this country has stood for, for over 200 years. The Democrats have an obligation to challenge in a serious and responsible manner, offering solutions and alternatives to the Administration's policies.

Vietnam was a national tragedy partly because Members of Congress failed their country, remained silent and lacked the courage to challenge the Administrations in power until it was too late. Some of us who went through that nightmare have an obligation to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam to not let that happen again. To question your government is not unpatriotic - to not question your government is unpatriotic. America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices.

You can read the whole speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations here.

Posted by andrew at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I moved to my new place about 2 weeks and I have almost everything set up, unpacked and in the right place. All except cable and Internet service. I can't decide what to do. Honesty I think I can live without TV. I've been doing it for 2 weeks now. I have done it for much longer in the past. Always when I didn't have a TV to distract me I have been more productive. Sure I'll miss a few things like sports and The Daily Show and the Food Network, PBS and the news. But do I really need this stuff? Not really. I still have my TV in my living room--couldn't live without movies, could I? And I can always pick up an antenna if I'm desparate for football. Then again I could always just get cable and be done it with it. It certainly would help with the whole Internet question. I don't have a phone line, just use my cell, which makes DSL out of the question. The only other options are cable and satelite. I haven't even gone so far to research whether I can get cable from the usual providers (Comcast or DirectTV in my case) without also getting TV service. I probably can, but I'm not certain. I think I'm going to go another week and see how I feel. In the meantime, if you've noticed that there are no posts at night, know you know why.

Posted by andrew at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ok, so my cat has a bit of a . What of it?

Posted by andrew at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

are some shots of the interior of the Ghetto Cottage right before I moved all my shit in and despoiled the place.

Posted by andrew at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by andrew at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This pretty much sums up what I feel about pharma advertising.

SIDE EFFECTS

Most patients (2%) tolerate treatment with PANEXA well, especially when compared with prisoners of war of comparable size and weight. However, like all drugs, PANEXA can produce some notable side effects, all of which are probably really, really terrific and nothing that anyone should be concerned about, let alone notify any medical regulatory commission about. Most side effects of PANEXA, or their sufferers, are usually short-lived, and are rarely so fatal that the remains can no longer be identified, provided good dental records are available. Some known side effects are:

Respiratory system: Shortness of breath, longness of breath, kinetic balloon-like lung expansion, really geeky laughs

Digestive system: explosive diaherrea, upset stomach; bitter, withdrawn stomach, prehensile colon, achy butt; shiny, valuable feces composed of aluminum and studded with diamonds and sapphire

Eyes/senses: everything you think you see becomes a Tootsie Roll to you, night vision, taste hallucinations (where everything tastes 'gamey' or 'oakey'), inability to distinguish the colors 'taupe' and 'putty'; sudden enjoyment of really bad music, like Kenny G or some crap; thinking everything is so damn funny all the time

Muscular/Skeletal: PANEXAcan cause a real live skeleton to be walking around inside you, buttock muscles to mirror the actions of the jaw muscles, magnetization of the ribcage, and musical spine disorder (MSD) Skin: Might turn blue, wither, and fall off. Or just get really thick and spongy (muppet-like)

Other: Loss of sexual desire and/or desirability; rising of the lights, the vapors, the willies; susceptibility to wedgies, no rhythm, dresses for shit, and can't hold a job to save your life; blue sweats; symptoms that look like scurvy, but louder; and the compulsion to address everyone nearby as "Cap'n."

Posted by andrew at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you realy want to understand why Iraq is such a fucking mess, read this article in Harper's about how the neconservative wet dream visions of a free market utopia in Iraq led directly to the trouble the country is experiencing now.

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological advances, even George Bush’s Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.

Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a flexible workforce, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership restrictions. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete. But to the authors of this plan, these would be small prices to pay for the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild itself.

The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based.

Sometimes you stick your head too far into the honey pot and it gets stuck. If you don't believe me, just ask Pooh.

Posted by andrew at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday night, I had to try out the Ice Cream maker that I bought at a yard sale in Albany. It's been a long time since I've made ice cream. We might have done it once or twice when I was growing up. We used one of those old fashioned hand cranked wooden bucket jobbies. is a little more high tech, but the idea is the same. You mix the ingredients together in the "creamer", surround it with alternating layers of ice and salt and turn it on. Pretty basic stuff. The devil, however, is in the details, specifically here in 1) the recipe for the ice cream, 2) the ratio of salt to ice in the machine and 3) having enough ice on hand to keep the cream cold enough to freeze. I'll get back to all three of these.

I decided for the first time out I would go rather simple, to make the "easy chocolate ice cream" recipe that came in the instruction manual (with the minor addition of Trader Joe's Peanut Butter cups). The recipe calls for 2 cups of half and half, a half cup of cocoa powder (Ghirardelli), a cup and a half of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and two cups of whipping cream. Simple enough. I gathered the ingredients, mixed them together in the blender, poured it into the creamer, put the creamer in the machine, placed the blade inside the creamer, capped on the top, layered the ice and salt and ice around the outside and flipped the switch. According to the instructions, in 18-25 minutes I would have ice cream. 90 minutes later the blade was swirling around in a soupy chocolate like mixture.

Was it cold? Yes. Did it taste alright? More or less. Was it ice cream? Not so much.

I added some more ice around the outside. Added more salt and let it go a for little while longer, up to the point that I ran out of ice, which didn't take very long. I gave up, stopped the machine and put the creamer in the freezer hoping it would harden to the right consistency overnight. It did not. What I had was soft freeze peanut butter cup chocolate ice cream. Good, but not what I was looking for.

I have an idea of what went wrong, but I'm not sure. I go back to the 3 details that I mentioned earlier. I think the recipe was ok, although I won't add as much sugar next time because the mixture was slightly too sweet for my taste and I might cut back on the vanilla, just a smidgen. The ratio of salt to ice is still something of a mystery me. I was lit major, but I do understand something about heat (or in this case cold) exchange from my Introduction to Phsycial Science class in 8th grade (thank you Dr. Cook). I know that the salt is there essentially as a catalyst for this reaction. Unless I'm completely off-base (and I'm not discounting the possibility) the salt melts the ice and forces a heat exchange between the ice and the creamer. The ice melts (gets warmer) while the creamer freezes (gets colder). The more salt, the faster the reaction and the exchange of heat. It's possible that I didn't have enough salt. Probably really. Then there's the last point, not having enough ice on hand. The recipe said you'd need 6 trays of ice and they weren't kidding. I had about 4. If my theory is right and I had used enough salt, the ice would have melted faster, the mixture in the creamer would have frozen, but only if I had replaced the melting ice with fresh layers of ice and salt. Any scientists out there want to comment on this theory?

I'm probably going to try to perfect the chocolate ice cream before I branch out to other flavors (cookie dough). It's easy enough to find recipes on the internet, but if anyone has any experience with this and wants to share, I'm all ears.

Posted by andrew at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I went yard/estate sale shopping around Berkeley and to a flea market in Concord to pick up a few things for the house. I haven't done anything like this in years. It was really fun and I scored some great stuf. Here's a sampling:

Classic Cuisnart (new) - 25 bucks
Panasonic Bread Maker - 5 bucks
Oster Ice Cream Maker - 4 bucks
Stoneware Bundt Cake Mold (new) - 2 bucks
Martini Shaker - 2 bucks
Large Whisk - 2 bucks
(2) Huge Pieces of Tupperware - 2 bucks
DVDs (The Contender, A Beautiful Mind, Keeping the Faith. F9/11) - 11 and a half bucks
All the President's Men - Woodward & Bernstein (hardback) - 1 buck
Innocents Abroad - Twain (hardback) - 1 buck
Blind Ambition - John Dean (hardback) -1 buck
Set of mid-20th Century Travel Books (hardback) - 5 bucks
(3) Vintage Cameras (Kodak Brownie, Hawkeye etc) - 17 bucks

Posted by andrew at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going through some of my old photos and I came across this shot taken of me by my friend Peter Townshend on the Metro in Paris in 1989. 19 years old. First time in Paris--First time in Europe. First time overseas. First time anywhere--Just having been dumped by my girlfriend Alison Alsup.

It really was the best of times and the worst of times. Depsite being dropped like yesterday's news by the person who in my innocent 19 year old eyes was the love of my life (fuck, what an idiot I was), I made the most of the trip, hanging with Peter who had come to Paris to stay with his dad who was a visiting physics prof at some local university. I made my way to London to see another high school friend, Jason, who was doing a year abroad at Kings College London. And when he finished his finals, we traveled together through Paris to Rome to see my first girlfriend Gloria Piccioni who was working at the Canadian embassy in the Italian capital.

It was a crazy trip and the fact that some of my closest friends in the world happened to be in Europe at the time helped cushion what otherwise could have devastating blow.

Posted by andrew at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn't win the Oscar for Best Actor for his tour de force performance as Truman Capote something is wrong with this world. Hoffman is one of world's greatest actors and it's time his incredible body of work is recognized by the Academy. If you want to se his amazing range, go see Capote and then rent The Talented Mr. Ripley where he plays the incomprable snob Freddie Miles. The guys is simply the best.

Posted by andrew at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ok. I've been putting this off long enough. I've been putting it off because I think it's going to be a long post and I haven't had much patience with writing lately, but it's time to get the story online before it fades too far in the distance.

On November 2nd I moved from my shitty corporate apartment complex in Alameda to a little cottage about 10 minutes walk from work on the Emeryville/Oakland border.

I want to start with something positive, so there are certain things I will miss about Alameda and my apartment. I will miss walking the cats down the end of the street and watching the Sunset over San Francisco. I will miss my closet space - I had three rather large closets. I will miss the onsite gym and the pool although they stopped heating it when utility prices started to skyrocket. The thing I think I will miss the most is being able to pay my rent with WorldPerks credit card. That's about it.

Here's what I won't miss:

• The water would never drain in the tub no matter how much Liquid Plummer I would pour down there
• The electric stove
• The dishwasher that can't wash dust off a dish
• The pathetic management
• The driers on the second floor which would randomly decide not to dry your clothes
• The office which would close inexplicable when I would come home to pay the rent or pick up a package
• My house key which would not work on the front door
• Having my parking space given away to a new tenant
• Being addressed as Andrew Heche
• Being isolated in Alameda
• A zillion more things that I can't think of now that were making me miserable

For those of you who haven't been following or forgot the deal, I'll recap the basics of the story for you.

I moved into the Ballena Village Apartments in December of last year. Within a week I received a letter from management saying that as part of their ongoing efforts to improve the plumbing, contractors would need access to my apartment for 10 days (it turned out to be more like 14) at the end of January, which was odd since I asked about the plumbing before I moved in and was told it was fine. How much can you learn by turning on the taps? They worked when I was there. The water pressure was fine. I was deliberately deceived by the staffer who showed me around, Don Dunbar. After I signed my lease and moved in, the same Don Dunbar explained to me that he made a mistake when he told me that the cat deposit was for all pets. It was per pet. He was shaking me down for double deposit. I never paid it. In January when the contractors came into my place, they managed to seal one of my cats behind the drywall and moved a huge bookcase to get at the pipes in the kitchen sink and never moved it back. I complained to the corporate office. Heartless bastards offered me no compensation. Even the contractors felt some contrition and offered me a small check in compensation. The only thing Ballena would agree to was to terminate my lease and return my deposit in full (I doubt they will live up to the full deposit, but we'll see). I would have moved out sooner, but it's tough to find a good place and I didn't want to make the same mistake again. One day I came home from work, about 2 months ago, and there was a car parked in my spot. I went upstairs to call the office, but I realized I left my keys in the office. It's about a 30 minutes round trip from Alameda to my office, so I figured the car would be gone when I got back. It wasn't. I was standing behind it getting ready to call the office when I see these two women approaching. The older one looks at me and says, are the one who parked in my spot last night? I said if by your spot you mean my spot, then yes. This is my spot. She said it was her spot. I said it was my spot and rather than go on like that, I said, when did you move in. She says, two days ago. I say, that's interesting, because I moved here in December and have been parking in the same spot ever since. Can you move your car please. No. I was so fucking upset. I called the office. No one answered and I left a message. I called the late night security to have her towed, but all they would do is come down and put a note on her car. I saw the two of them getting into a Miata in the outside lot. I went up to them and asked again if she would move her car, just as a matter of courtesy since there was a mistake and it was my spot. She said. And then her younger friend with an annoying New York accident started tearing into me saying it wasn't her (meaning her friend's) problem. It was the complex's problem. She wasn't going to move. So much for civility. She was forced to move the next day when she was reassigned. I should have slashed her tires.

Anyway, for these reasons and many more, I wanted/needed to get the hell out of there. The problem is that there is a shortage of quality housing in the Bay Area. I could have moved immediately to some shitty place or an expensive place or even worse a shitty expensive place, but I have a lot of stuff and I didn't want to move and then have to move again. I wanted to find the right place and move once. I looked all over. In the city. In all the desirable parts of the East Bay and some of the not so desirable parts of the East Bay. I even upped the amount I was willing to pay to $1500 but I still didn't find anything worthwhile. Even worse, I would show up at these places that I thought were crap and there would be heaps of people looking it over and filling out applications. It was totally discouraging.

I didn't find anything until October 30 when I answered an ad for a detached cottage in Emeryville (It's really in Oakland, but it doesn't really matter). I didn't have high hopes. I didn't really want to live in Emeryville (or Oakland for that matter). I would have preferred North Berkeley or Rockridge, but at that point it was really time to extend my options. And I'm so glad I did.

I walked into this place I knew immediately that I could live here. I would say wanted to live there, but there was another cottage listed on Craigslist (with no contact number??) that I wanted to check out but never did get to see. The house in front is a Craftsman’s style and the cottage is to the to side, not in the back like most of them, so it has the sense of being a house on its own. Adding to this sense is the fact that it comes with a garage, which right now is full of my stuff but will soon house my Subaru. Next to the garage is a wood fence which leads to a set of stairs. The left is my wooden deck and to the right is the pistachio (not my favorite color, but what the hell) door. Inside, the house is long and narrow, maybe 18 feet wide and 50 feet deep. Off to the right, there's a working fireplace flanked by built in bookcases. If you hook a right u-turn you go up the stairs to the bedroom which is above the garage. You go straight through the living room to the kitchen and the bathroom. The whole place is floored with bamboo. There's central heat. A stacked washer/dryer in bathroom. The kitchen looks brand new like it came right out of a modern living brochure. It's all white, rimmed in cabinets with copper handles. The gas stove has a built in microwave. New fridge with the freezer on the bottom (keeps the cats from
sticking their nose inside and inventorying my fridge every time I open it). Pur water filter on the tap. A dishwasher that actually washes dishes. 15 minutes walk to the Ashby BART. 10 minute walk to work. It's my new oasis. I walk around it and I can't believe it's mine.

Moving there turned out to be a huge headache. I was going to call movers to do it for me, but one of my coworkers said, hey forget that, get a U-haul and I'll help you move. 11 hours or completer struggle later we managed to move all the heavy stuff from my third floor apartment to the cottage. We started at 5 right after work didn't finish unloading everything into the garage until after 4am. I knew I had a lot of stuff, but I didn't realize I could fill a 17' truck. I couldn't even get everything in there. I had to go back for some small stuff, the dishes, all the food in the fridge and the cats the next day. It was about 15 trips up and down the stairs because as a last Fuck You from Ballena to Andrew, the ancient elevator was busted on my last day in the apartment. Fucking shithole.

Anyway, that's done and I've been spending my time organizing my things, putting books in the cases, getting comfortable, waking up late, going home for lunch. It's great. Somehow I feel like it was meant to be and after almost a year of suffering I deserve to have a great place to come home to.

On top of all this, I can let the cats come and go from the cottage. I've kept them in the house so far, although they managed to sneak out the front door once or twice, because I want to make sure they know where home is. But I put their collars back on last night and made them new tags and will soon send them out to roam around the neighborhood, maybe as soon as this weekend, so expect some little cat lost stories coming shortly.

Posted by andrew at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Prez hit the stump again today to lash out at war critics in a vain attempt to regain some credibility and pull up his poll ratings which have sunk below 40%. Here's the kernel of his speech:

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

Here's the problem: While Bush claims that a "bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure" the truth that so-called bipartisan investigation run by Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas has yet to even investigate the motivation that might or might not have lead to faulty intelligence. This is the so-called Phase II of the investigation which, until recently, Mr. Roberts was stonewalling saying there wasn't really anything to investigate. That was until Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to compel discussion of Phase II.

So either the President is less aware of events in Congress than I (hard to believe) or he's lying again to cover more lies. It's sad and pathetic and I'd be laughing at him if I didn't feel that this president is responsible for irreparable harm to the country.

Here's the always interesting take of the Rude Pundit:

If this is the opening salvo in a fight to regain the credibility Bush has lost, it was limp, like when you've had too much cocaine and you've told the hooker you paid good money for that you're gonna fuck her so hard she'll forget every other john she's ever fucked, but after you drop your pants you realize you can't get it up any more and you just end up flaccidly slapping the hooker in her face with your dangling dick until she just gets tired and leaves. What's more pathetic? That you couldn't get it up? That you had to hire the hooker? Or that the hooker got bored with your limp prick?

The best Bush could offer was the same shit he's been flingin' since the campaign: "Hey, Democrats said I could go to war." In other words, Congress gave him the cocked gun; blame them if he shoots it. He pronounced that "Congress approved with strong bipartisan support" the authority for Bush to wage war, and that now it's "irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began." Which is odd, since Senator Jay Rockefeller and now John Edwards are saying not that their votes for the war didn't happen, but that they were wrong. That ain't revisionism. It's an apology for a grave error, a way of saying let's find out why we made such a stupid decision. Bush continued the lie that Congress saw the "same intelligence" that he saw, even quoting John Kerry (who he would not name) about the vote for the war. It's his last fig leaf before his tiny, raisinette balls are revealed.

Posted by andrew at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found a centipede in my shower yesterday morning. I couldn't believe it. At first I didn't know what it was. I just saw this brownish/black thing against the stark white floor of my shower. Was it a clump of hair? Was it a pile of lint? I had no idea. But as I got closer, I could see the legs, I could see the segmented body. It was a fucking centipede.

I grabbed the squeegee and lift it up and out of the shower. It was small, maybe an inch an half long, not one of the long monsters that would frequently invade my apartment in Samoa (and once bit me). But it's the little ones you have to watch out for. They are quiet and their bites, so I hear, hurt a hell of lot more than the larger ones.

I thought I left the damn centipedes behind in the islands, but I guess not. Hopefully that's the first and last centipede to invade my Oakland oasis.

Posted by andrew at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You have to love those online sign generators. (Thanks to my sister for this shot).

Posted by andrew at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A friend forwarded me this story this morning about Moustapha Akkad's death in the hotel bombings in Jordan. What's the big deal, you say? Well, his daughter Rima was also killed in the bombings. Rima Akkad was a member of my tiny 60+ person graduating class at Brentwood School in 1988.

Were Rima and I close? Not really. I don't even think I ever had a class with her, which is hard to believe. We'd probably fall somewhere between friends and casual acquantainces. I haven't talked to her or seen her since graduation and all the news that she was living in Beirut married with 2 sons is all literally news to me.

However when you have a high school class that is as small as mine, whenever something like this happens, it can't help but touch you.

There's a quote in the article from her mom Patricia:

"Rima is a totally American girl. Here's an American who was over there and innocently killed for no reason."

Here's a story about Rima that I remember which belies the quote. When she was 16 and got her driver's license, her parents bought her a new white Audi Quattro. She then proceeded to rack up so many speeding tickets that the car was yanked from her. Did she then have nothing to drive? Of course not. This is Los Angeles we're talking about here. Her parents gave her a black Jeep Wrangler as a replacement. Someone asked her about it and she said that the Quattro was just too fast, taking absolutely no responsbility for the fact that it was her foot on the gas that made the car go. How more American can you get?

Rima was a nice girl. She could have been a horrible stuck snobbish bitch like a lot of my classmates, but she wasn't. She was down to earth and sweet and an asset to our class.

Resquiet in pace, Rima.

Here's the whole story from the :

By SHAFIKA MATTAR, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 6 minutes ago

Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian-born filmmaker and producer of the "Halloween" horror movie franchise, died Friday from wounds sustained in the triple hotel bombings in Jordan. He was 75. His daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, 34, also was killed.

Akkad, who lived in Los Angeles, was in Jordan with his daughter to attend a wedding. He died in the Jordanian hospital where he was being treated.

The two were at the wedding celebration at the Radisson SAS Wednesday night when suicide bombers struck it, the Grand Hyatt and the Days Inn in downtown Amman, killing at least 59 people including the three attackers. Rima Akkad Monla, who lives in Beirut, Lebanon, was killed immediately.

Born in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in July 1930, the eldest of eight siblings, Akkad gained fame as a director and producer in the Arab world and West. After finishing his secondary studies in Syria, he left for America in 1950 to study film making, according to his sister.

He was best known for producing all eight "Halloween" films, starting with the 1979 "Halloween" directed by John Carpenter and starring then-unknown Jamie Lee Curtis. That movie — and the ones that followed — sparked the teen-slasher-horror genre that led to franchises including "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street."

Akkad also produced and directed "The Message" (1976), a film about Islam's prophet, Mohammed, and "Lion of the Desert" (1981), which tells the story of a Muslim rebel who fought against the Italy's World War II conquest of Libya. Both starred Anthony Quinn.

"The Message" was declared sacrilegious by a group of black American Muslims, who took hostages in three Washington, D.C. locations when the movie opened in the United States in March 1977, demanding it not be shown in America.

Akkad said he was baffled by the reaction to the movie, which he said cost $17 million to make. It also was nominated for an Academy Award for best original score.

"I did the film because it is a personal thing for me. ... Being a Muslim myself who lived in the West, I felt that it was my obligation, my duty to tell the truth about Islam.

"It (Islam) is a religion that has a 700 million following, yet it's so little known about, which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will bring this (history) to the West," he added.

Akkad said he turned to the horror genre because it was hard to raise money for religious-themed movies, according to a 1998 New York Times report.

A woman who answered the telephone at Akkad's Los Angeles home early Friday said she was too upset to talk. A telephone message left at the Los Angeles-area home of Akkad's ex-wife, Patricia, was not immediately returned. She left for Lebanon late Thursday.

The couple's daughter, Rima, grew up in Los Angeles an avid polo player who graduated from the University of Southern California in 1995 with a degree in international relations.

She pursued a master's degree in Middle East studies at the American University in Beirut, where she met her husband Ziad Monla, 35. Her husband's family owns the Monla Hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon. The couple, married for six years, has two sons, ages 2 and 4.

"Rima is a totally American girl," Patricia Akkad, 64, said Thursday in a phone interview from Los Angeles. "Here's an American who was over there and innocently killed for no reason."

She said her daughter loved living in Beirut.

"We all know the problems in the Middle East, and you never think it's going to touch you," she said.

Akkad's sister called for an end to terrorist attacks on civilians.

"I feel sad and the world feels sorrow with us. This kind of incident rarely happens, but it has happened with Moustapha Akkad," Leila Akkad told AP in a telephone interview. "These attacks are chaotic and do not differentiate an enemy from a friend. A solution must be found to this problem."

With the death of his daughter, Rima, Akkad is survived by three sons, Tarek, Malek and Zeido.

Funeral services for Rima Akkad Monla were scheduled for Friday in Tripoli. Services for Akkad were scheduled Sunday in his hometown of Aleppo, his sister.

___

Associated Press writers Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan, and Ian Gregor in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Posted by andrew at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

... in March, 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and did not threaten us-to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have.

Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world have been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of Al Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up.

True to the neoconservative creed, Bush launched a global crusade for democracy that is now bringing ever closer to power Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, and Shia fundamentalists in Baghdad and Basra.

Democratic imperialism is still imperialism. To Arab and Islamic peoples, whether the Crusaders come in the name of God or in the name of democracy, they are still Crusaders.

A dose of straight talking from the isolationalist conservative. It's strange when I find myself nodding my head in agreement to Pat Buchanan, but man, is it fun to watch the GOP implode and start eating its young.

Posted by andrew at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm starting to think about letting the cats out to run around in the yard and the neighborhood. I'm not worried that Mak will travel too far, but I think I might need one of these for Fil. I love this part:

If your pet wanders outside the boundary you have determined, you will be alerted immediately and sent the continuously updated location of your pet, to the 2-way wireless device of your choice; cell phone, pda, computer ,etc.

Too bad it doesn't work for cats yet.

Posted by andrew at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been working here more than a year, but since a good chunk of that, 10 months or so, was as a contractor and I didn't accrue PTO or vacation time, I didn't take any vacations. NO VACATION FOR MORE THAN A YEAR!!!

I haven't had any time off other than regular US holidays since I started. I've been to Philadelphia and Seattle for work, but nothing really for pleasure except a weekend in DC on the way back from Philly.

That's a lot of time for anyone with no vacation, but for someone like me, it's a fucking eternity. I need to recharge and decompress, go out and see the world again.

So I'm off to Costa Rica with Jennifer for 10 days at the beginning of December. I've never been there. Hadn't really ever thought of going to be honest. But since I'm already going to Ft. Lauderdale the weekend before for a Christmas party, it's only a short hop, less than 3 hours to San Jose.

Everyone I've talked to who's been there has nothing but good things to say. Beaches. Waves. Volcanoes. Cloud Forest. What's not to like? I think the reason I never thought of going is that is such a popular destination for Americans and I prefer to travel off the beaten path a little.

At this point, anywhere that takes me away from work for 10 days would be a blessing.

Next decision: Film? Digital? Both?

Posted by andrew at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My brother Brian has been going down to Tampa to cover the al-Arian trial for the Investigative Project.

If you want to see his write ups on the closing arguments in the case, they're here:

Monday: Day 1

Tuesday: Day 2:

Per Brian:

They're long - and maybe boring if you're not into this kind of thing - it's mostly for our donors, who love this stuff...

Personally I don't think these sort of stories get enough coverage in the mainstream media. Hardly any in this case. Definitely worth skimming over if you're not familiar with Sami al-Arian, former University of South Florida Professor who was (allegedly) leading a dual life as the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in America. Frightening if true (and it is).

Posted by andrew at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you only take one piece of advice from me, it should be this: If someone, anyone says to to something like, hey, I've got an extra ticket to U2, would you like to come? Say, yes. Do yourself a favor and say yes.

Let me start this by saying that while I'm a huge music fan, I'm not a huge live music fan, especially of live rock music. Why?

Well, I think sometimes it goes on too long and I get bored. But most of the time, I just can't deal with the crowd who think they are show and their singing is more important for people around them to hear than the artist. That said, there are a few notable exceptions (and here you'll see my extensive Aussie bias).

When I lived in Melbourne, I was lucky enough to see a number of great acts including the incomparable INXS while http://www.michaelhutchence.org/seven.shtml">Michael Hutchence was still alive and singing (twice actually, once at Festival Hall and once with about 1000 people and the University of Melbourne Student Center) and before they lapsed in the absurd world of reality TV and have become (at least in my eyes) a global joke. Granted, I have limited experience compared to many of my peers, but no one I have ever seen compares to INXS. The only thing that comes close is erstwhile front man for Midnight Oil and now Federal Member of Parliament for the seat of Kingsford Smith, Peter Garrett, perhaps the most energetic performer ever.

But last night's concert has made me rethink everything. While INXS pre 1997 might have been the best in an intimate setting, it's hard to imagine them putting on a show and holding an audience in a massive arena like U2 can. U2 just has so many songs, so many great songs, anthems really, that everyone, even casual fans like me, knows. Many of these songs are so powerful when you hear them in combination with the light show, which I will describe later, it's awesome.

Plus Bono is an icon in a way the few performers, Michael Hutchence included, are. He stands for something greater than himself and his songs, for human rights, for abolishing poverty, for forgiving third world debt. Bono has become so entwined with his political activities that it's impossible to separate them from his music, which is fine, because they are all the more powerful along with such a tangible message.

Case in point, before U2 played "Running to Stand Still", Bono gave a preamble where he described something that happened during the Zoo TV tour when they set up a TV station and were broadcasting from Sarajevo in the middle of the siege. During one show, he was interviewing this beautiful woman who was taking part in the Miss Sarajevo contest, a beauty contest in the midst of the snipers and the shelling, an act of defiance and then we he launched into the song, an image of a woman (the woman?, I don't know) was projected on a massive strand of clear beads hanging from the ceiling and she was reciting the first seven articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Let me describe the stage. Imagine an catwalk in the shape of an oval about 100 feet long by 50 feet wide (roughly the size of a basketball court, if that helps). In the top half of the oval, there was a circular stage where the instruments were set up. The bottom half of the oval, shaped like a finger nail, was filled with fans. There was system built into the stage so that it could be ringed with color, on the inside, the outside and in concentric circles in the stage. The color could be solid, any color or it be pulsed or sent flying around the perimeter. Every song was different. Then there were lights. A bank of 18 white light around the top part of the stage would come top life during the climax of a song. Other banks of lights hung behind the stage and could be raised and lowered as needed. Then there was this string of clear beads, or so it looked to me, hanging behind the stage on which all sorts of images were projected from the woman I mentioned above to a series of Kanji characters to animation of a man walking to random colors. Banks of massive flat screen TV monitors were in the rafters above the stage trained on the band members of sometimes just showing Bono from 4 different angles. It was amazing.

They come on after the opening reggae act (mediocre) around 8:15 and played until after 11 including 2 encores. The only real dissappointment was that they didn't play my favorite U2 song, Lemon.

I'm tired of writing about this, but the last thing I want to say is that going to see U2 reminded me, inevitably, of a scene from Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho:

But when I sit down something strange on the stage catches my eye. Bono has now moved across the stage, following me to my seat, and he's staring into my eyes, kneeling at the edge of the stage, wearing black jeans (maybe Gitano), sandals, a leather vest with no shirt beneath it. His body is white, covered with sweat, and it's not worked out enough, there's no muscle tone and what definition there might be is covered beneath a paltry amount of chest hair. He has a cowboy hat on and his hair is pulled back into a ponytail and he's moaning some dirge--I catch the lyric "A hero is an insect in this world"--and he has a faint, barely noticeable, but nonetheless intense smirk on his face and it grows, spreading across it confidently, and while his eyes blaze, the backdrop of the stage turns red and suddenly I get this tremendous surge of feeling, this rush of knowledge, and I can see into Bono's heart and my own beats faster because of this and I realize that I'm receiving a message of some kind from the singer. It hits me that we have something in common, that we share a bond, and it's not impossible to believe that an invisible cord attached to Bono has now encircled me and now the audience disappears and the music slows down, gets softer, and it's just Bono onstage--the stadium's deserted, the band fades away--and the message, his message, once vague, now gets more powerful and he's nodding at me and I'm nodding back, everything getting clearer, my body alive and burning, on fire, and from nowhere a flash of white and blinding light envelopes me and I hear it, can actually feel, can even make out the letters of the message hovering above Bono's head in orange wavy letters: "I . . . am . . . the . . . devil . . . and I am . . . just . . . like . . . you . . ."

The story devolves typically into trim-coordination and other absurdities.

-----------------

Amazingly, (actually, not really since I predicted it), the guy sitting in front of me who was taking pictures with his compact digital all night . These are not the best shots in the world. The resolution is weak and he was holding the camera in one so there is considerable camera shake, but it will give you a good sense of our seats (bad) and the stage lighting (outstanding).

Posted by andrew at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My company is hosting and Arts & Crafts Fair today and I'm showing some of my portraits from Cambodia. It's no big deal other than it marks a milestone for me in getting off my ass, spending some cash and getting some of my prints framed.

I'm showing 20 8x10s, about half black & white and color. I hadn't looked at most of these pictures, especially the color shots, in years. But when I heard about this show, I dusted off my photo boxes, pulled out the notebooks and had a look at some of my handiwork.

I had completely forgotten that I had taken slides in Cambodia. I don't even remember looking at them. I probably had them developed, took a cursory look, stuffed them in sheets and locked them in notebook.

Some of them are remarkable. I even surprised myself. It's one thing to hold the slide up to the light and have a look. It's an entirely different feeling to print your photos and look at them professionally framed. I'm anxious to see how people react to them. I doubt I'll sell any, but we'll see. I kind of don't want to because now that I have all these prints framed, I can ask around at my gym and local coffee houses and various other places that hang photos and to try to get a show. That would be something for me. It's one thing to show your photos at a company event where all you have to do is fill out a form and you're in. It would be sweet affirmation however to have someone responsible for booking artists look at my work and decide to give me space.

Posted by andrew at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

How Cool!

My first cousin (by marriage) is now the Mayor of San Diego. Congratulations to Jerry and Rana and best luck fixing that fiscal mess. If anyone can do it, Jerry can.

GOP's Sanders Elected Mayor The ex-chief of police edges out beach-area Councilwoman Donna Frye in her second try. By Tony Perry Times Staff Writer

November 9, 2005

SAN DIEGO — Jerry Sanders, a former police chief and favorite of this city's business establishment, was elected the city's next mayor, defeating Donna Frye, the self-described "surfer chick" who almost won the office last year.

With nearly complete returns, Sanders had just over 54% of the vote, while Frye had roughly 45%.

Sanders, 55, was a San Diego police officer for 20 years and police chief for six before retiring in 1999. He left to become president of the local United Way and later joined the board of the American Red Cross.

Frye, 53, is in her second term representing a beach district. She is often the lone dissenting vote on the council on environmental issues and was the first City Council member to warn that the city's pension system was in trouble.

In a primary last summer, Frye placed first, ahead of Sanders and Republican business leader Steve Francis. But Francis immediately endorsed Sanders, his fellow Republican, who never thereafter relinquished his lead in the race.

Last year, Frye was nearly elected mayor as a write-in against then-Mayor Dick Murphy and county Supervisor Ron Roberts.

She outpolled the two Republicans, but a judge ruled that thousands of her votes were invalid, giving Murphy the victory. Murphy resigned seven months later.

This year's campaign was dominated by discussion of the city's unprecedented fiscal, political and legal problems. For a city dubbed America's Finest City, San Diego has fallen on hard times and become the butt of jokes by late-night comedians.

The city's pension plan has a deficit of more than $2 billion, the result of a risky plan to pay for increased benefits with stock market investments. When the market fell after the dot-com stock bubble burst, the deficit ballooned.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the city's failure to disclose the deficit to bond investors. The district attorney has charged six pension board members with having conflicts of interest, and a federal grand jury is also considering charges.

Posted by andrew at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Moving back to the mainland. Details to come.

Posted by andrew at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)