Lotusblog

They certainly got the knack

I was at Black Panther tonight and as always the drinks, the music and the people were up to the high BP standards. Bunshiro played the “Get The Knack” album (both sides) and it was great. “My Sharona” needs no further explanation, but the rest on the stuff on the album was also pretty good. Bunshiro took a picture of the album for me, but I have a feeling this is different from the regular cover.

Just can’t pin it down…

There are so many inevitable things in life. Somehow, we deal with the majority of them without any fuss.

Given that I ride (my bicycle) everyday; to work, to play, everywhere, I guess I have to face the fact that my having a crash from time to time is going to be inevitable. So far I have had several- none terrible, but all quite annoying and unnecessary. Slipping on a road wet from heavy rain. Sliding out on a corner due to excessive speed. HItting a pedestrian who jumped out of a bus without looking.
But last week (on Thursday morning) was the worst. A fool (although at the time I had a much more vivid term at hand to describe him) on a bike thought that since there was no possibility that another bicycle could ever be behind him, rationalised the fact that spontaneously turning right and going onto a pedestrian crossing would be a wise thing to do.

Anyway, you don’t need to know the details- I did the slow-motion “fuck, I have come off my bike and I am upside down” thing, landed on my backpack (containing my iBook) and rolled. My bike was OK. My iBook was OK. My knee was not- but since I was wearing tights it ended up just being a graze that looked worse than it was. It is however still bruised, and I am still out of the saddle- and if anything, that hurts the most. He seemed to be OK. I have a feeling his bike may have been slightly damaged- he deserved a hell of a lot more than that though.

But I guess he didn’t deliberately do it. I suppose we can cut him some slack for that. I just hope we don’t cross paths again.

It’s a cold, windy day today. The afternoon was lovely- well, as lovely as a sunny, cold and windy winter’s afternoon can be, I guess. The geek in me decided about an hour ago to put my Casio Pro-Trek outside to measure the temperature. I can say with confidence that the air temperature on my balcony is now 3.4 degrees Celsius. The temperature inside my apartment is 25 degrees.

I saw a great movie last night thanks to Simon’s recommendation. It was Gattaca. Over at the IMDB website , I found this very interesting trivia:

Trivia for Gattaca
• The name “Gattaca” is composed entirely of the letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA. The four nucleotode bases of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.
• Public address announcements in the Gattaca Corporation headquarters building are in Esperanto, an artifical language invented in the 19th century.
• The winding stairs in Jerome’s apartment have a helical structure, like DNA.
• Uma Thurman’s character is named Irene Cassini. Cassini is the surname of the 17th century French-Italian astronomer, Jean Dominique Cassini, who discovered the prominent gap in Saturn’s main rings, as well as the icy moons, Iapetus, Dione, Rhea, and Tethys. The space mission in Gattaca is destined for Saturn.
• Jude Law’s character asks to be called by his middle name, Eugene. “Eugene” comes from the Greek for “well born,” which Jerome is. “Eugenics” (the science of improving the hereditary qualities of a race or breed) is the central theme of the film.
• The Gattaca building (interiors and exteriors) is, in reality, the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, CA. It was designed by American star architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957. The largest Wright design ever constructed, it was largely built after his death in 1959. The central dome (prominent in the roof-cleaning scene) contains the county library.
• The Marin County Civic Center, filming location of the Gattaca Corporation, was also used in George Lucas’s THX 1138 (1971).
• The FBI agents are called “Hoovers,” a reference to legendary top-G-man J. Edgar Hoover, but also a clever reference to a vacuum cleaner brand. There are numerous shots of vacuums being used to gather DNA evidence.
• When Gattaca was first released, as part of a marketing campaign there were adverts for people to call up and have their children genetically engineered. Thousands of people called, wanting to have their offspring genetically engineered
• The film’s working title was “The Eighth Day”, a reference to the Biblical creation story, which states that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God rested. The original title implies the tampering of man with what God has already made, and “The Eighth Day” is still the name of the center in the movie where the children are engineered, as noted on the DVD deleted scenes.
• The piece played by the six-fingered pianist is based on Impromptu in G Flat Major, Op. 90, No. 3. by Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828). However, the creators did a beautiful job embellishing the piece with additional notes/harmonies so that it “can only be played with twelve[fingers],” as the Uma Thurman character notes.
• Vincent’s car is a 1963 Studebaker Avanti.
• The exterior shots of Ethan Hawke and Jude Law’s apartment is actually the CLA (Classrooms, Laboratories, and Administration) Building of Cal Poly Pomona by architect Antoine Predock.
• The cars driven by the “Hoovers” are Rover P6’s (sometimes called the Rover 2000) built in Britain from 1963 until 1976. They were extremely popular with the police force in Britain where the 3.5 litre V8 engined model was used as a high speed interceptor.

It’s so quiet. Sunday night (well, Monday morning if you’re being pedantic about it) and it’s just before three am. I am winding down for the night. I have been sitting in front of this computer since I woke up at eleven thirty-four this morning. I have eaten four mandarins, taken two showers, one bath (with ten drops of tea tree essential oil) eaten two hot meals (one with pasta, one with brown rice) and spoken on the ‘phone to three people, text chatted to two people, and had a voice chat (via iChat) with one person. I created two spreadsheets, sent more than a dozen emails and coordinated three of my jobs. Part of it involved my overseas schedule for the rest of the year, and I realised I am probably going to be away for about a fifth of the year.

And now I am really hungry again. I think it’s time for bed.

Another Saturday night, but this time I am at home working. Pretty dull really, when you think about it. It’s another icy night (no surprise, it is winter after all) and I was just day- dreaming whilst listening to the Buena Vista Social Club Soundtrack about where I would like to be right now.

The beach

I think the answer is here, on this beach near my house in Perth. With my family and my dog. Oh, I can just feel the momentary shock as you dive through the waves, the salt water stings your eyes, and the feeling of the sun piercing your skin. This is a picture from my last trip home in 2002. If any Perth people are reading this, then “hello! I’ll be back soon”.

I think I might go and put some sunscreen on just to get in the mood.

A very small bicycle

I just got back from Tokyo.

It’s Wednesday morning, 2:30am. Actually, this is what happened. I went to Tokyo on Sunday. Checked into my apartment, did some work, saw satellite TV for the first time in years and became entranced by BBC World. For about an hour. Met Sally and Taka for dinner. Went back to my apartment (Taka had parked his car in the underground garage) and before he left, produced an incredibly small bicycle. We rode it around the car park. Had a laugh, and he went home.
Monday morning I went to the office of one of my clients in Roppongi and exchanged New Year’s greetings. Then I headed to our (graf’s) new office. Had lunch with our new partners. Had a meeting with a client. Got ready for the party. Mingled with 400 people. Exchanged dozens of business cards. Got the night bus back to Osaka. Arrived at 8:00am on Tuesday morning. Had breakfast. Went to work. Finished work at 10:00pm. Met some friends for drinks. And I just got home. Checked my email, and found that Taka had sent me the picture posted above (taken with his FOMA ‘phone).
And now I need a bath.

So on that note.

Good-bye.

Another night, another 2am sitting in front of my mac.

But it is made all the more sweeter by Nick Cave. I suddenly remembered the song “Foi Na Cruz” from the “Good Son” album and I just had to hear it. Since then, I have been on a bit of a Cave-a-thon. This chap rocks.

So yesterday I got home at 4am. The night before I was working (right here) until 4am. The night before I was working until 5am. The night before I got home at 5:30am. Since I met N my life has become a bizarre collage of colour, faces, cocktails, music and people mixed with cold winter air- I am in the midst of a whirlwind and I don’t know where it’s taking me. Well, on Sunday it’s going to take me to Tokyo, that as much, I know. I met another 9 people today. 9 more names to remember. I am going to have to get my Buzan book back from Simon so that I can re-read the chapter on how to remember people.

This is getting too much.

It’s Wednesday afternoon. I am at home, working. Actually, I am about to make lunch. And then I’ll start working. But looking out the window, I see something I don’t think I have seen before. The sky is a light, bright grey. I can’t see Mt Rokko, the ferris wheel has stopped. An impending snowstorm? We’ll have to wait and see.

In a previous post , I wrote about “devolution”, and how cell phones seem to be getting bigger and bigger every year. However, it seems that in the world of tech, not all species are necessarily “devolving”. Case in point; Apple’s new hardware. There’s a MacMini, a smart reinterpretation of the Cube at a sensible price, there’s a portable music player which is small and light enough for people like me who are sick of carrying devices, and it’s cheap.

Now, how can I raise the cash to buy some of these toys?