Posted by Joel
Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:21:25 GMT
I voted this morning. A few things changed since my last post. Ryan helped convince me to vote no on the parental notification for abortions. I did end up voting no on Prop 87 as well. Sorry, Bill, your ad with crying asthmatic babies didn't convince me to raise oil prices.
You should really vote, and I encourage you to vote for Democrats in the US House and Senate. I also want to express what an honor it is to be the nephew of Dr. Tom Hayhurst, running to be a Democratic representative for the 3rd district of Indiana. His race should be a close one and could help the Democrats take back the majority. I can't think of a more upstanding person for our government than Tom. Good luck.
We'll see how things turn out.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:12:10 GMT
I like Halloween, really, it's one of my favorites. It's almost better than Christmas because it doesn't make me feel guilty about not buying presents. However it does make me feel guilty for not taking the time to put effort into having a costume.
Honestly I like Thanksgiving a lot. It's a holiday I can get behind. Stay in, eat a lot, and just relax. I really would like to visit Chicago this winter, preferably for Christmas, so I should buy the tickets now. I haven't visited Chicago since I've moved here about a year and a half ago.
A lot of the reason I don't put effort into these things is because I view them as kind of "extra" pleasantries. I can't even really get my life on the level, let alone have time to focus on things which are positives. I always seem to have plenty of negatives which need cleaning up first, so that I can reach some kind of zero point, where my things are clean, and my legal stuff is in order, and my car functions properly. One day I will reach this point maybe, but I am a pretty bad procrastinator.
For Halloween I celebrated by getting to bed fairly early for once and getting a lot of sleep. My life is terminally boring right now and it looks to be that way for probably a while now, but that's ok. I just need to harness that boredom by using it to get myself on the level, and continue to try to cultivate my work, fitness, and hobbies. You don't need to live in the city for those, and internal satisfaction should come as prerequisite to seeking out the external.
When I move, I'm going to look forward to getting up later, staying later at work, and hopefully working out in the mornings before work. And, like, a 20 minute commute. And no parking issues. Plus we'll have lots of video games. I just need to use the extra comfort as a bed for self-cultivation and avoid growing complacent.
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:22:16 GMT
Last weekend Paul's dad Jim came to down. We all met up in Russian Hill along with his cousin David and I got solidly drunk for the first time in a while. The night was really a blast and we had some great discussions.
This week I worked a lot and was pretty stressed out trying to meet a deadline. There was some tension for a while but things seem OK now. LuckyO continues to grow and I'm happy with this new feature I made.
Besides that nothing much has happened. I told Marc I would move in with him in Sunnyvale in three weeks, so it looks like I'm giving up on the city life. I love it but it's just too far away from my job, and the only reason I decided to stay here originally was because I thought I had friends here.
I've largely given up on my self-improvement quest again due to the stress of last week and filled my idle time with WoW to actually relax and have fun. You know, most of the genuinely cool people I've met in my life are people I only know from online. You can't be nearly as discriminating when it comes to people who happen to be in your proximity, and meeting them is so much harder.
I did a lot of research on how I would vote. This will be my first time voting. I'm voting for the Democratic senators, representative, and governor, I'm voting yes on the Prop 89 campaign finance reform bill, and voting no on all of the spending props except the strictly regulated education spending one (not the property values one). This is because I know how much the California schools suck but I also know how badly they spend money generally attributed to education here. I believe in private schooling but I'm also a pragmatist.
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Posted by Joel
Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:55:45 GMT
There were supposed to be some shows this week. Tuesday was Califone, but I didn't go because I was tired and wanted to do some work. Wednesday was Sufjan, but I'm all Sufjan-ed out, and wasn't all that impressed with his last show, so again I didn't go. Thursday was Vitalic but I guess it was cancelled which is a real bummer because I wanted to see them.
So I'm giving another shot at the whole self-improvement thing, since over the last couple of months I've fallen into a slump. I've been working on getting eight hours of sleep, which in practice is about seven or seven and a half, but whatever. I paid off some parking tickets. I have a list of things that hopefully I will do this weekend.
Parking has been easy this week, I got insta-spots every time, partially because I've maintained discipline about leaving work on time. I found a new area which has good parking but only two days during the week.
I neglected to mention last week that I saw Marc in Sunnyvale. He's got lots of amenities and comforts, but it reminded me again why I don't want to be down there. For now things seem ok.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 07 Oct 2006 23:25:00 GMT
This week I had two exciting misadventures. In one, I thought my car was towed, and went to the auto return, and waited around for a while until realizing I had parked one block away. In the second, I spaced out and overshot the exit to get to work, getting all the way to San Jose, and had to wait in the terrible northbound 280 traffic, adding considerable time and frustration to my commute.
Things were not all bad, though. Thursday I saw Billy Bragg with Jeremy at the Great American. It was a great show, the man has a lot of charisma and is very captivating.
There are jets flying overhead today due to this jet racing thing I just found out about and probably missed. There's also the Bluegrass Festival which is going on today and tomorrow but I missed today because I got up too late. I don't feel too bad about missing Billy Bragg's performance since I just saw him, though.
Work has been reasonably productive, with the main feature I'm working on taking a touch longer than I expected, but a lot of that is due to the little things which tend to pop up every day; so really we did clean up a lot of smaller problems on the site this week.
I haven't played WoW all week but last night I played all of my characters and had a good time on each. Will and I played our horde characters first. We're in our early 30s which means we're in Stranglethorn Vale, the most notoriously PvP-focused zone in the game, and we just wipe the floor with all sorts of alliance questing there without mercy.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 30 Sep 2006 21:47:00 GMT
This was a good week for work and pretty enjoyable. Last night DJ Krush played and I was going to go but I ended up staying in. This is mainly because despite leaving work at 6:30, and the show starting at 9 and being within reasonable walking distance from my apartment, a combination of the hour commute, getting gas, buying a new tape adapter from Fry's because my old one died for no reason (this is my fourth), and spending 45 minutes parking brought me home around 9:10, so I decided to say fuck it. Anyway I just watched some TV (Frasier, Law & Order, Poltergeist III), and then played WoW for a few hours and that was fun.
My roommate is having his 70s party bus thing tonight which I guess I'm obligated to go to. But I want to use my Saturday for good and not evil today... I might walk down to the Embarcadero which somehow I've never really visited. I really need to start my working out again, although I've been eating marginally better this last week.
So things seem OK lately, no real crises of mind. I came across a new philosophical impasse in the car. For a while, I've found myself to be generally accepting of determinism, and utilitarianism. I'd say I'm a nihilist, but I do believe in objective truth and secular ethics. But I want to reconcile this lack of choice and therefore responsibility through what I see as inevitable actions with my flirtation with libertarianism (if not ethical egoism), which I'm not sure is possible, and I might have to reject it. Still, I think I've found a way, and just need to explore it more. I'd like nothing more to logically justify egoism at this point because I find it empowering. Still, I will always side with the truth, no matter how much it might suck. The commute gives me lots of time to think on matters such as this which is why I don't mind it at all -- it's the parking, which takes over your mind, that bothers me.
We all had sushi yesterday at work which was a fun experience. We've also hired two new coworkers since I've last made mention of it, Hunter and Nicole, since Zurb is doing so well. Our team is just so awesome and I can't express enough how much I find work both productive and fun.
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 26 Sep 2006 01:12:43 GMT
Saturday I went to see Rob DJ a show at Club 222. I'd never been to Club 222 before but it is a bar in the Tenderloin at Hyde and Turk. Their shady location is kind of their gimmick. They sell pizza, the flavors named "Hyde" and "Turk."
It's a great place though. Very hip crowd. Rob was DJing so I went up and shook his hand. I knew I'd be by myself anyway. So I went to the bar and drank some PBRs and ordered their Hyde pizza, which has goat cheese. It was really good!
I mainly just sat there and drank and listened and ate. Occasionally someone would chat with me a short bit. Eventually I went down to the dance area and stood and watched.
Rob finished DJing and then a band played called Uphonic. It was two guys singing over electronic music. I thought Rob would be done then but he was doing technical stuff for them for their show. However I'd had a few drinks and I enjoyed their music. It reminded me of Vitalic somewhat.
Afterwards I bought their CD and introduced myself to them. I spent some time with Rob and his friends before deciding to leave, since it had been a couple hours.
I ended up walking home because I couldn't catch a taxi on the way but it was a nice walk. I had a euphoric buzz of sorts going and felt genuinely happy.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 23 Sep 2006 21:59:00 GMT
So I decided to go to the show even though I was going by myself. Unfortunately I let myself get held back a bit at work and didn't leave until 6. Got to the city around 7:10, spent a half hour looking for parking before giving up and calling Paul and Michael and asking if I could stay at their place. Eventually got ahold of them and they agreed, so I drove over the bridge and hit east bay traffic. The show started at 8:00 and DJ Shadow was the opening act and the only one I cared about, really. But the time I found a place to park (the first few pay lots I tried were full), got my ticket and walked inside, it was 9 o'clock and they were taking down all of DJ Shadow's stuff. I didn't even get to see him.
I watched Massive Attack, just standing there by myself. Everyone else was with friends, drinking beers, getting high. I just stood there, arms folded because it was kind of chilly. About 45 minutes in I left because I was bored of it. I drove away and felt a chilling loneliness, driving through the Berkeley streets at night, and felt I was trapped and could never get out of this state I'm in. I attempted to analyze again if this was an intrinsic personality flaw that made me unattractive to people, or just that I had bad luck in the people I meet. And if it's the latter, what percentage of people are actually worth a damn, and how can I help determine which ones which seem good will end up stabbing me in the back. Regardless, I can't say I'm unwilling to try with people, because I still do, and I will probably continue to be betrayed. For a while I felt nearly suicidal.
Went to Paul's and hung out with them and immediately felt better. We watched American History X, which we'd all already seen, and they mocked my choice of "fufu" beers (IPAs) while they drank Coronas and Bud Lite, ever populist.
Woke up in the morning and dragged Paul out to get some breakfast, we just went to a bakery nearby and he didn't even eat anything. He and his housemates talked some politics which I mainly observed while I fidgeted with various things around their house. Spent about an hour in traffic on the way back to SF, managed to find a spot, KALX was playing boring sports talk the whole time because a Cal game is on, so it was an intolerable wait in a hot car. Now I'm here, and for once I actually have plans of some sort, which I may or may not do.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:50:00 GMT
I just missed Ratatat! Coming soon: I miss Massive Attack & DJ Shadow, despite having planned to go far in advance!
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:28:00 GMT
Ok new record for not posting. I just don't like posting as much when things aren't kind of active and interesting. You can probably assume that if I'm not posting, it's because I'm living the regular boring routine and doing nothing worthwhile.
This weekend was basically just playing WoW on my warlock, doing level 29 pvp, which was a lot of fun. It's fun to play a class that just kicks ass. Don't worry about my WoW playing though because really I only play it on the weekends to help curb how lonely I can get.
I wasn't as neurotic about wasting my weekend sitting at a computer this weekend. I mean, I spend nearly all my time at a computer besides the time I'm sleeping. And even then it's usually right next to me. Using the computer right after waking up helps me to avoid going back to sleep in the morning.
Saturday I called Paul but he was seeing a friend in the city I don't really like so I decided not to call back. Sunday though I just mellowed out and felt at peace for a while. People seemed nice and my life seemed content. At first I was looking at myself (for some reason my room has a big mirror which I hate) and around my room and feeling depressed at what I was. But I just went and showered and shaved and put on some of my favorite clothes and told myself none of it is really that important. It's ok to be alone. Somehow things seemed ok after that. I got a few small groceries from the corner store, just some more cereal and some soup. I should note the nearest "corner store" is about five blocks away up and down a hill. I sat on the couch and watched TV and didn't use the computer for a few hours and just relaxed. Eventually I got bored and went back on the internet.
I haven't gone to work out in over a week now. I'm going to try to do it tonight, we'll see.
My roommate wants me to go on a "70s party bus" for his birthday. It's not really my style but he's pressuring me into it. I might move in either with Marc or some coworkers because the city means nothing to me anymore besides a commute, higher rent, and parking issues, as I doubt I'll speak to David ever again, so I basically have no friends here.
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