Current Events

In all the coverage of Tiger Woods, everyone seems to have forgotten it's the Year of the Tiger. Thais don't formally celebrate Chinese New Year, but I'm sure he's as aware as I am what Chinese year this is.  Born December 30, 1975, he missed being a Tiger by a year - he's a rabbit.

I watched his apology in full, I'll take it at face value. He isn't a public speaker, he never says a word in any of his endorsement ads, so it wasn't surprising that he had rehearsed the speech to the point where it was very wooden. Kind of reminds me of Obama - no changes of pitch, just a little bit louder when he wants to emphasize something. I don't read anything into the fact that his wife wasn't there, or that none of his mistresses were there. The whole point of the press conference was to say "leave Elin out of this". I take this as a normal event in the course of therapy, and wish him luck.

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After beating my head against a wall most of the week, I finally got my server running. The server software is a work in progress, and while there is some good documentation, it is 2 years old and some of the configurations have changed since then. Mostly they have changed because the application has gotten smarter, needing less parameters in config files, and placement of the files has become more intelligent. It took a lot of help from my team-mates. Bottom line is I can now play movies from my server into whatever movie-enabled device they put on my desk.

Which reminds me, I need to update my web page with my new company.

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Word from Seattle is Mom is doing better than when I was there, but may be over-doing it a bit. They moved Dad to a room upstairs, which was not supposed to happen until Mom was ready to move. But it doesn't really matter since they were a few doors apart anyway, and Dad is still ambulatory. I guess I ought to plan a weekend up there sometime next month.

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Got the schedule for this year's Los Altos Ye Olde Community Band rehearsals and concerts. The first rehearsal is a special "new music review" in March, then nothing till May.

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In case anyone was planning on making a special trip to see me, I won't be at Baycon this year. Nothing to do with the current flap being discussed in baycon_talk. Barely got to go in 2008, was busy in a musical which ran that weekend, and last year's turnout was light as far as people I usually go to cons to see is concerned, and the programming schedule and panel room sizes were a major FAIL. Got some good responses to my art show display, but spent far more than I made from the meager sales.

I will be at Consonance, though. Commuting, though it's a bit farther from home this time. I wish I could have put together a concert, but what with the parental situation and job foo I've not been able to focus. Speaking of focus, haven't  picked up my camera in months.

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Went to a fun/informal entertainment tonight, Lyric Theatre did about 90 minutes of concert at a cafe in SJ, and while it was billed as a chance to hear excerpts from their upcoming show Kismet, there were not as many of those as I expected, and lots of songs from other shows, including a couple Lyric has not done and is not planning to do. There was a very pretty petite redhead in my general age range who performed Honey Bun from South Pathetic. First she blinded me with her sparkling energy, then with her sparkling eyes, and finally with her sparkling wedding ring finger. Sigh. She's definitely in the "mommy, I want one" category. Maybe she has a sister...

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Finished a book: The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison. Loaned to me by my best buddy at my last job, it won an Edgar Award. It takes place in modern Tibet, the main character is a Chinese investigator who is sent to a Tibetan forced labor camp as a political prisoner, and is assigned to solve a murder. Pattison knows how to string words together for a compelling read, but like far too many mystery novels, he doesn't give nearly enough clues to even guess whodunnit, and in the last couple of pages he pulls the solution right out of his ass. He also overloads the book with Tibetan religious jargon, in a way which leaves the reader uncertain about what most of those terms mean. which sucks because they are key if you want to understand the story. It also badly needs a map - he obviously has a map of the area in his head, but he doesn't describe directions or distances in a way which gives the reader a mind map. Also, he steals a scene directly from The Bridge on the River Kwai so blatantly it made me want to throw the book across the room. Come to think of it, the whole book parallel's Pierre Boulle's classic. And I'm not sure who to blame, but the title doesn't really match the content. I'm not a big fan of mystery novels, but if you are it's worth checking out.

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Plans for Saturday:
ATM machine
Decision: Do I go to the store for chocolate chips, or do I make cookies with the green M&Ms I have left over from Joni's birthday present?