getting along like a house on fire

mom's speech re; yoga and meditation at the commonwealth club last week went over wonderfully. L, B, S, J, P, and R (from texas) were sweet enough to come along as well. It was great being happy and a little emabarrassed at the same time that my friends were there. I think they enjoyed mom's personality about as much as her talk, but if she had brought some food with her it would have handily trumped both. I think I was going on for too long last night to R about her latest delicious creations. augh, so delicious. We went to eat at Herbivore after the lecture and my parents actually liked the food. Usually they're quite picky when we eat out. especially dad, who has an aversion to noodles that he won't talk to me about.

The next day S and I took a long (read: executive) lunch to go back to the commonwealth club to see Stephen Levitt speak about Freakanomics. It was a pretty good talk, but I wish they would have spent more time talking about things that weren't in the book. That's the same issue I sometimes have with speakers at the Longnow lectures who spend a lot of time essentially promoting their book. The ones who really shine, like Stuart Brand (How cities learn) and Phillip Longman (Depopulation problem) are the ones where the speaker not only informs but also spends time to enlighten and envision the dear listeners. It's palpable when it occurs. As for Freakanomics, I think the most delightful takeaway was that if you teach monkeys how to use currency they soon teach themselves prostitution.

Alright, so it wasn't the matrix, but, damn, we had a great virginal time at ruby skye on saturday. I helped J move in the afternoon so unfortuntaely I missed out on the croquet in the park for L's bday (I don't think, amongst that group, that I was missed), but B and V and I first met up at comedy college to see L's third-ever standup routine and he basically killed. some of the other students had their moments, but they weren't meant to be up there like I think L is. The girl who used to be on the Real World Seattle (apparantly the one who got bitch-slapped whilst vamoosing in a cab though I stopped watching after San Francisco) is pretty good, but I think it's mainly because she's comfortable on stage and has decent patter talking about herself. The bad ones are too numerous. I'm glad J didn't come along, as two weeks ago he was far too critical of these students who are learning comedy. most of whom don't even want to be comedians, but are taking these classes as sort of a raunchier toastmasters (though i could be wrong, maybe in toastmasters they routinely discuss eight guys blowing nine guys). it was pretty nice, though, that same night when the three of us stayed up late talking about the finer points of the comedic craft. but yeah, L's got real talent, and it's awesome to see him deservedly on cloud nine after a great gig. Naturally, then, we headed to Ruby Skye afterwards. The only time I ever want to go to Ruby Skye from now on is if it's free, we're on the VIP list and we get to make our own vodka drinks the entire night. I really hope N will put us on the list for more of the events she promotes 'cause I def. need more light-up Vox necklaces. For being a cheap chotchkey, the light-up LED with magnetic closure/switch was quite well designed. Sadly, my copy of Everything is Illuminated was left in L's bag at Ruby Skye and they have not been gracious in returning his calls. My hope is that somone who was meant to read it will read it and they will also 'get' the bookmark I keep in it and then use that bookmark in all their books and stop using using expired bus passes. I think that's why I came upon the copy of Brave New World I found on a shit corner in the TL once. I also think that's why I came upon a broken HP LaserJet IIIP once as well.

We saw Batman Begins at the Parkway this week. I was so, so happy with how good this movie is. It's the Batman I grew up reading and watching. Unfortunately, the sound there sucks so I'll have to see it again soon. The 70mm release of Vertigo at the Castro was sadly cancelled... unlikely that it'll be back. I'd love to see the 70mm print of Lawrence of Arabia tonight, but it remains to be seen if anyone else will wanna commit to that kind of time tonight. The only commitment so far is going back to the opto after work to check the fitting of my contacts and then to buy some eye cream because, sans specs, my eyes feel like naked and resemble like dark.

Work has been extremely boring lately since my stage is over and both apps are currently being coded. I'm thinking of asking S for some side project so I can network with more people than just the teams on the two products I'm designing for and also to get my name out there a little more. I'd really be interested in developing some patterns and best practices on data visualization and reporting since both are quite disarrayed at the moment. The products I'm working on are going into production soon and we'll get to see how well this stuff actually works with customers and scales in production. This suite of apps is actually pretty cool... big changes are coming into the world of checking. Check electronification rolls off the tongue like fine whiskey. And it's not even a word!