Hard and brittle plastic

The American Automobile Association is evil.

An alternative:
http://www.betterworldclub.com/

I loved Batman Begins. It was almost perfect, and everything a Batman movie should be.

So, I was a little scared at how The Dark Knight would turn out. But, the reviews were good.

Then again, I really hated Wall-e. Insipid drivel, and, it was really bad. And it got even better reviews than Dark Knight.

But, I decided to see it. I went to the Arclight, supposedly, THE movie theatre in Hollywood. Which is saying something.

They had two of the six Batcycles on display. They had some of the original costumes on display. On opening weekend, i.e., four days ago, they had Christopher Nolan introduce the film. The whole she-bang.

( Anyway, for a review of the movie. )

Well, now I know why my foot hurts.

Saturday, I went to the Getty with Liz and Chris, who came up from San Diego. It's the first time I've seen them since moving to CA. It was great to see them, and the Getty is pretty amazing. (I love the architecture. It's collection is ok, but I think I'm a little spoiled by East Coast museums - Boston, NY, Philly and DC.)

We went to the vegan Ethiopian place for dinner, which was really amazing. (I had gone there before with ruthling and grr_plus1 when they visited, but we got a different set of dishes this time, and I was very impressed.) I was quite overly full at the end of dinner. I like Ethiopian food. (And the language is fun to listen to, as well. It sounds like Japanese.)

Sunday, I finally went to one of the vegan cooking classes at Spork Foods, which is essentially the apartment of two sisters. The food was very good, and the cooking lessons were interesting. I didn't really go for the cooking lessons - I didn't learn anything except for some specific recipes. I did meet a few nice people, one of whom I gave my card with my home e-mail address added. We'll see if anything comes of that.

My foot hurts, and it's causing me to limp. And my limping is causing shooting pains up my leg. I have a doctor appointment for tomorrow.

On a completely separate vein, I've given up on Twine for now. Twine is the first semantic web app, but it doesn't really work. Maybe in a year or so. (Though, if anyone wants an invite to the beta, just ask. I don't want to discourage other people from trying it and maybe even discovering the use of it.)

(Subject line is from a spam that I got today. Probably the best spam subject line I've seen in a while.)

when The Onion isn't accurate.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

EDIT: from Jan 17, 2001.

What's the most interesting anagram of "Banach-Tarski Paradox"?

( You may not like the answer )

(The equivalence of the Banach-Tarski Paradox and the Axiom of Choice makes a lot of sense to me nowadays.)

I got up around 7am Eastern Time yesterday and went to bed around 2am California time.
I'm too old for this.

We had an all library staff meeting this morning, and it scared me silly about earthquakes. We have an outside speaker at each meeting and this time, it was someone, who's name I should know, from the USGS telling us about the The Great Southern California ShakeOut.

I am so not prepared.

Things I remembered to pack:
Laptop
& Laptop power cord.
iPod
& headphones
& iPod charger
Kindle (borrowed from work)
& Kindle power cord
& Kindle connector for laptop
& ~ 1gb of readable materiel, on various media (and a normal book, lent to me last night by yhlee)
Camera
& extra card

& phone power cord (which is 75% likely to break because of this trip, since it is very fragile.)

Note the blank. I forgot my phone. It's sitting on my desk at home, on. It'll probably run out of power before I get back home. (Since it's set to go off for an alarm at 6:45AM everyday.)

is insane. confusion reigns.

I've just played with the library's Kindle for about ten minutes. (We bought it as an experiment. We know that we aren't allowed to lend it to people.)

I'm not so sure about the user interface. There is nowhere to put your hands that doesn't contain a button. The USB connector doesn't charge the device, which is kind of pitiful. Some of the commands in the menus are non-intuitive. (Close is the default, and it doesn't mean close the book, or whatever. It means close the menu you are on. So if you double click, you get the menu briefly, and then it disappears.)

First thought: Wait for the 2.0 or even 3.0, if you are interested.

More later, after I play with it on a plane flight.

Ever wonder why glass is neither a liquid or solid? (I know you have - admitting it is the first step to getting help.)

It's all the fault of icosahedrons. (Though, I don't know why they don't call them dodecahedrons. They both have 5-fold symmetry, right?) Neither can tessellate 3-space. (Which makes sense, since they are pretty much the same thing, IMHO.)

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat2219.html
( Title, Abstract (not very explanatory) )

I saw a handicapped license plate on a sport motorcyle.

huh?

Can you tell that I'm catching up on my blogs?

If you can't afford to buy organic all the time, here's a list of what to buy organic, and what's not a big deal, pesticide-wise.

Yesterday, they forecast 103°F, but it only hit 101°F. I didn't really go outside yesterday.

I have to go outside today. In fact, I have to walk two miles to a doctor's appointment. I think I'll stick to the shade.

Maybe I should buy a hat. I'm thinking about this one.

Americans Drove 1.4 Billion Fewer Highway Miles in April of 2008 than in April 2007 While Fuel Prices and Transit Ridership Are Both on the Rise

Source: U.S. DOT

Ok. I've discovered that being at a conference is incredibly draining.

I have SO much work to do. I feel like I've been goofing off, even though I've been "working" at the conference all this time. (What is the protocol for putting things in quotes? I've read Eats, shoots and leaves, but sometimes I do want to use quotes. But, then again, I was actually working - and more than I do on normal days, since I was talking to people from 8AM until 10PM.)

I've started drinking coffee. I went to a talk by Prof. Joe Vinson at the conference, and even though he is not a very good speaker, the subject was fascinating. He talked about the positives and negatives of drinking coffee, and I decided, after some further research, to try it. (Yes, it has to do with a certain mental state of mine.)

Not much else new. I'm still lonely and trying to meet people. I don't really have a crush on the girl I had a crush on a couple of weeks ago anymore.

I'm thinking about getting an iPhone, but I'm not sure. My contract is up in August, and I'll be thinking about it until then, at the very least.

It's really hard for me to talk to people. I don't know why.

Hmph.

Maybe I should start using twitter, since my blog entries tend to be so short.

... or Mexico really sucks.

I just found out that the janitor for the library has a PhD. (Mexican History.)

I went to the movies and dinner with my roommate yesterday. We went to The Fall, which one of her moviemaker friends recommended.

I'm not sure I liked it. I didn't dislike it. At times, it had a Miyazaki feel, which is high praise from me. It's has some incredible visuals - some of the most beautiful places on the planet are filmed, and filmed well. That makes it worth seeing (on a large screen) all by itself.

The story is a little predictable, and the inner story (it's a story in a story) is overacted, but it's supposed to be.

Anyway, I recommend that people see it, though I won't guarantee that they'll like it. If you get easily bored by visuals and want the story to happen, don't see it. It's a movie you have to soak in, not zip through.

Ok. I've promised photos and I've started to use my camera. So - here's the first bunch.

( So as not to bug people by filling up their LJ page. )