ack, monday, halloween, uh?

i woke up a little late, due to my smart clock setting itself an hour behind due to no actual arizona time-zone programming...
and, it's halloween! yay! a day to dress up and show a little personal expression in the workplace, right? wrong again!

so, conforming to the memo that went out with guidelines last week, i jump into a nice pair of cargo shorts, throw a cool hawaiian shirt on, flip-flops and a baseball cap to complete my ensemble (ahnZahm - hehe)... i'm a dotcom programmer, wootwootwoot! (although, i didn't have any eff-you money to drape outta my pockets)

got to work a few minutes early, a little bounce in my step, a little jive in my mind, and WHAM: reality bites me in the ash... in the form of a supervisor, wearing a frown for her costume.

apparently, my costume comes close to violating her idea of what the aforementioned memo actually meant. she informs me she is sending an email to HR, to find out if there is any problem, while i backpeddle and grab my backpack, and apologize and let her know i can run right home and change... she says "no, we can wait to see what they say".

eventually, i receive an email, saying my shorts are fine, and thank you for participating in the celebration. but, all day, i feel like a marked-man, target on my back, hurrying from cover, running for cover, dodging looks and bullets.

finally, eight hours ends, and i slink out the door...
mondays suck.
:(

slashdot

slashdot has an interesting article and link about plague survivors and immunity: here.

lost again

we lost again today, not so badly, with more grace.

gotta love the smiles from those kids, when they come running off the field. just doesn't seem like losing, when i'm telling them good game, everyone! and they are laughing and smiling and grabbing for snacks and a gatorade...

;)

dna synchronicity

well, i finally read the az outlook article darrin sent me about his company: dna-artistry. and, it's a pretty good feature piece. although i question the 2nd opening statement: "Globalization is eroding the social awareness of fine art and the availability of original work". (i suppose it's an opinion the author is fond of, i dunno, seems a bit off to me, but hey, who am i to criticize?). but, not to distract myself, the article states some good info on what darrin is doing, how he and his lab do it, and the charity aspect he is promoting.

i love this quote: “Please don’t send me any other fluids or parts of deceased relatives. Fortunately! unfortunately(me), our process (only) requires a warm mouth to swab.” - lol.

the synchronicity part comes in from google, where earlier today i found an article off reuters, talking about DNA, genetics, hapmap, haplotypes, gattaca, and the human genome project...

now, if i could just find those little 3D acrylic blocks, with the protein folding cut into them, again...

8)

dna artistry article

oops! darrin from dna artistry sent me an article, which i haven't had a chance to review yet, sorry darrin! i'll get to it this week, i promise!

virus stuff

i'm reading fiction about viruses, and it has some interesting virus stuff as informational content in the book, and i'm gonna have to start googling it, and searching for wikipedia definitions, etc.

just a warning, of possible, impending, tangent(s)...

:o)

fifth week - fifth loss

a streak. a bad streak. a losing streak.
and it's my fault, as i take the blame for all things.
blame? yes! give it to me baybee!!! uh huh, uh huh, uh huh!

well, it was the best team in our flight/division, which is some consolation, and the kids played great. which is wonderful to see. you just can't take anything away from the other team, they were amazing. we had 3 subs, they had 0. 4 players on their team actually played 2 other games that morning, on other teams for their club. wow!

so, i felt okay.
kinda.

virus vs. meme

okay, i'm confused. (which is easy, er, or, i'm easy, i forget), someone please edumacate me on this whole virus vs. meme thing? i love wikipedia, but jumping back and forth, reading the def-pages has confused me more... how the hell do you relate a virus (replicating biological parasite, questionably non-living) to a meme (a unit of social/cultural transmission or imitation)??? and comparing a meme to a gene? c'mon?!
and shouldn't it be meem?

so, if you have some insight into this, please inform me, cuz i'm thinking that the whole "copy my list, call it a meme, it's a quiz, yadayada" has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever that memetics author had in mind... and the other guy, who came up with the term meme, was being speculative, wth does that mean?

maybe it's that ayn rand, atlas shrugged, who is john galt? thing?

ahh, all-your-base-belong-to-us is a right proper meem, no? like fire or a-stick-to-eat-bugs-with; now those are meems!!!
;)

maybe i got up too early this morning?
(4:30am - put new egyptian white cotton sheets, 375 threadcount, on my bed)
:O

DNA Artistry

okay, check this out: http://www.dnaartistry.com/
darrin is someone who hangs out at my fav coffeeshop, and he does some really cool stuff...

needed a smile, got one

okay, whenever i need a smile, i go take a look at the header pic at Bitch.Ph.D. even makes me laugh, sometimes... (is that pic from a movie?)

(i don't actually read her blog, i just look at the pictures)

:D

scifi meme

hrm, i'm doing this, for my own pleasure...
(yes, crowd, part of, am i)

idea from arethusa, list from the little professor (professora?):

films I've seen are in bold. (John Scalzi via Pharyngula.)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)

interesting list...
:|

dog flu?

yep, there is a dog flu. i was looking for more stuff on avian flu (unrelated), and just happened upon several links to dog flu in the news. it looks very dangerous, for dogs. and, i wish the cute veterinarian and i were speaking to each other, cuz i'd like to learn more from her perspective...

(she was very informed on cushings disease, and a pleasure to watch & listen to)

;)

loss number 3

yes, again.
i remain optimistic.

5-0 is bad, but statistically, we are improving! lol.
at the coffeeshop this morning, i ran into a friend who's 2 boys play in our same club, in different age groups, etc. they've both won all their games so far this season, and i laughingly related out 3 game scores: 13-1, 7-0, 5-0, and then i raised my arms in victory and said "my team rocks!". the youngest boy looked at me very seriously, and said "no it doesn't, your team sucks.", immediately i came back "but we're improving!". and he gave me a funny look... ;)

obviously, we aren't doing so hot. i know it. my kids know it. our challenge of course is to improve. most of my kids have the basics down, they can dribble, they can pass, they can shoot, they look up and check the field around them, etc. but, i do have one or two, this being their first season, who don't have those basic skills. working with them during practice seems to go okay, they listen, and they work hard. but, at gametime...

so, back to basics.
;)

oh yeah, it's my fault. it is.
the suck stops here...
:D

bird flu

fascinating stuff, this bird flu...

some interesting links:
CDC
WHO
Resistance
1918 Pandemic
H5N1
Map

a quote from the wikipedia page:
"However the potential of these drugs was considerably lessened when it was discovered that the People's Republic of China has been administering amantadine to poultry with government encouragement and support since the early 1990s, against international livestock regulations; the result has been that the strain of the virus now circulating in South East Asia is largely immune to the medication and hence significantly more dangerous to humans." (emphasis mine).

- the rampant usage of antibiotics in food animals is worldwide, not just china, and we all bear this guilt, cuz we keep eating them in mass quantities. we've created our own problems, very obviously. resistant strains, etc. so, don't point fingers...

get ready, it's coming...

finished baroque cycle

neil stephensons baroque cycle... not sure how i feel about it. ambivalent? somehow the enoch root thread left hanging bugs me. leaving too much to my imagination... grrr.

i suppose that leaves him open to write an "enoch the red" book, right? that would be good.

third soccer game today. practice has been going very well, this week.

girls, women, ladies - none to speak of... my cup is dry.


:|

news from phoenix

not much to blog, but phoenix is supposedly on the shortlist for google, and t/space, and for an extremely nice winter... which means: crap, i won't get a decent price on a house anytime soon, with all the cali speculators driving up the prices.

antenna

can't remember, just now, if i had posted anything about my cellphone antenna. i'd lost it, or maybe someone had nik'd it when i'd left it laying around someplace, but i had tried to order one from cingular.com, and from several other places, to no avail.

it was funny that i found one, at this tiny little cellular go store, you know the ones; run by a couple of enterprising young immigrants, possibly armenian or bosnian or russian. very nice young men, knowledgable.

they had one. it was 25 bucks. i was glad to pay it.

none of the other places even knew how to get them, and online sites (price = $9.99 plus s&h) were out-of-stock for the past 2 weeks, even the cingular store couldn't get them...
(although i could've nik'd one off their display i suppose, but guilt i already have).


so, twenty-five bucks plus tax, seemed very reasonable to me, to get 3 bars on my phone at this coffeeshop again. (and one bar at my apt). stupid? yeah, so what?

:)

lost again

not as badly as the first game, but still...

i think i'm teaching all the right skills, doing all the right drills, running them both for endurance and speed... but it isn't working, not as quickly as i'd like anyway.

at least i saw some very brief moments of brilliance, a series of passes nicely executed, a ball cleared to the side from in front of the goal, a feint followed by a breakaway. beautiful things to see. just not often enough.

also gonna have to have a talk with one of the parents, who is enthusiastic, but also somewhat working against the direction i'm trying to set.

oh yesh, soccer moms are the hottest of the hot, appreciate it...
;)

lost

we lost. our first game. of the season. again.

and i'm not complaining, i'm not! i hardly even yelled at all.
(although i am a little hoarse today, cuz when i did yell, it was loud, lol)

we didn't play very well, as a team, or as individuals. and my son, our goalie, caught a knee in the cheekbone, that swelled up, and is gonna end up a really beautiful black eye.

well, losing is learning, right?
but i tend to think if the team loses, it's the coaches fault, and that's me.
:(

i suck.
lmao.
;)