A New Job

It has been quite awhile since I've written in this thing. A lot has changed-it looks like the Gulf might be able to begin healing. Or maybe not. Actually, have you heard about BP being caught with Photoshopped images of its crisis response center? I guess none of this is helping to promote action on climate change which would presumably also mean action on drilling for oil.

The past few weeks have been somewhat interesting at work in that I am progressing beyond spreadsheet review and management to (well alright the information I'm collecting still goes into spreadsheets but...) research into topics like new remediation technologies and policies that are related to the promotion of such technologies. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to divulge any more than that, so I'll leave it there. But one of the benefits (I guess it's a benefit) is that I'll be able to work in a new office on the other side of the bay in Emeryville starting Thursday, and I'll be there usually a day or two each week. Other days I'll be working remotely in our San Francisco office to save time and cost. There is the potential for working part-time remotely in the fall back at MIT to continue the research. What are your opinions on that?

In other news, we're making progress on the Career Fair, and I've been looking into greener printing services. We're going for somewhat greener themes this year than in the past, and really want to help this fair to have a positive impact.

Question of the day: is there a difference between being happy and believing one is happy?

I Just Want to Set You on Fire So I Won't Have to Burn Alone

This past weekend I daringly hitch-hiked my way out of San Francisco down to the rough area home to Google and other providers of illicit substances known as Mountainview in …Silicon Valley. Ok, well in reality I took a pretty nice train and a couple of taxis (although the Commuter Rail in Boston at least has wifi, or it did). What was the reason for my escape from the city? A cyber attack? A drought? Fog so dense one might drown in it? Nope. A Good Girl Gone Bad.

I’ve been a fan of Rihanna since high school, and her music has evolved over the years-as have I (but I’d like to think I’ve evolved more, as much as her music may have matured). Her first album I found awful, but her second time around was a whole round of fun, and by her third album I was actually hoping she would leave me alone (I found myself in the gym once with the radio alternating something like Disturbia-other artist-SOS-other artist-Take a Bow-other artist-Please Don’t Stop the Music-other artist…and so on).

Fast forward a year later, and everyone knows that Chris Brown abused her. Her style has changed drastically in both sound and appearance. Both have matured, and gone is the trite pop that once made her bouncy fun-it’s as though she actually has something to say.

Her concert was a dark, violent affair, opening with a montage of 1984-esque “This is a dream. When Rihanna dreams it becomes reality” that would later be followed up with messages flashing across the scream with her face plastered across dollar bills, calling the audience “consumers” and Rihanna our “sole option for consumption.” Her setlist segued between songs of similar themes, from “Rehab” to “Stupid in Love” and “Shut Up and Drive” to “Firebomb.” She included quick samples of some recent songs such as her collaboration with Eminem, and suitably sang a bit of “Airplanes,” giving a nod to the similarity of their sound. And then she did a quick cover of that song from the 80s, something like “She doesn’t need a man’s touch, it ain’t much, it ain’t much.” She did exclude a few of the more meaningful songs on her most recent album, Rated R, such as “Cold Case Love” and “The Last Song,” however. Her audience interaction was minimal-in this day and age of YouTube, facebook, and Twitter, I would expect artists by now to at least have a pre-recorded track for when they disappear off stage that might pretend to be them communicating with the audience while changing (“Guys I’m putting on a new outfit right now just give me one second”) or possibly to describe some of the reasoning behind the set design. Oh well, maybe next time around. I didn’t realize that this was actually Rihanna’s first time headlining a tour on her own.

On that note, too bad she didn’t have a better opening act. Not that Ke$ha’s music is too different in category from Rihanna’s, and I supposed her producers realized she would need a more upbeat opening to prevent the audience from becoming too depressed by all her damaged-heart songs. But Ke$ha is just trashy (but she definitely wasn’t lip-synching and sounded not too bad, but it was probably good auto-tuning) with very few redeeming qualities, not the least of which is just her fun voice (when speaking).

Overall, the concert was very well done. The crowd was clearly into the music, and the show had plenty of energy along with the quieter moments. I probably would have enjoyed the concert regardless of how it went, but it actually was good. On the way down, I met a nice group of people going to the concert from San Francisco as well, and promised them I’d mention them in my blog. We would’ve sat together, but they had lawn seats. Oh well.

Fashion, fitness, and Debating with Myself

I was on my way back from the gym this afternoon, and I was thinking about how much money some people spend on clothing, while here I was wearing nothing but a light tank top on shorts and running shoes. I don't think the shorts were very appealing, but-at the risk of sounding vain-I do think that I look better in fitted tank tops than almost anything else. Fitted t-shirts too, but I mean I look much better in jeans and a casual shirts than I do in suits. For awhile now I've had the philosophy that fashion comes and fashion goes, but a good...birthday suit...is always in style. Anyone can buy things to look nice, but at the end of the day how you yourself in your body look is how you look just after a shower. And then I thought to myself, why would people waste so much time and effort working to afford such expensive clothes to cover themselves up when they could work less and spend more time working on their bodies so they could just look good in anything (or rather, not even have to cover up in clothes much at all)?

And on another note, fitness is a meritocratic system-yea you can be more or less born with it, but it's something for which anyone can work. You know all the arguments already: discipline, effort, etc.

But then I began to debate with myself, and thought about the friends I have and how their style of dress reflects their characters. And I started to go over the merits of fashion-creativity, coordination, art, inventiveness, self-expression. Fashion can be about looking good, yes, but it can also be so much more. Fashion can be about rebellion. Fashion can be about anger, self-defense. Fashion represents emotions. Fashion distinguishes people in ways that simple fitness cannot. It is more individualistic and independent.

Just a thought.

A Hair Grows in San Francisco

Another haircut so soon? Man-Yan says it's the good weather in San Francisco.

As I find myself thinking more and more about certain things, I've started to transition back into writing more very personal, introspective thoughts in my journal, and less in the public domain. Regardless, there are some things that I wanted to share, including my disinterest in Tortilla Flats, the current Steinbeck book I am reading. It chronicles the lives of a motley crew near Monterey in a district known as Tortilla Flats. Populated by paisanos, "a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and assorted Caucasian bloods" (I'm assuming he means American Indian), Tortilla Flats is a modest area that, thus far in the novel, has very little going on. This is a novel about the characters, not their environment, and the focus is on their internal conflicts, with the usual Steinbeck motifs of good versus evil, economic and social status, and a now annoying male-centric voice. Once my favourite author, Steinbeck is beginning to irritate me for his lack of attempts at even interpreting the views of the gender that is not his own. It intrigues me when women write from the male perspective and vice versa because, whether the final product is salient or ignorant, it offers insight into how the gender is perceived by its opposite, for better or for worse. Granted this blog is written from my perspective alone, so some might say I am not in a position to say that Steinbeck should do otherwise, but his role as an author of fiction is to write characters both female and male that are believable and insightful.

Anyway, back to life as I know it. Over this past weekend, I got to visit my cousin in Fairfield, California, which is quite a hike from the city. It's the first time I've seen him in some time span that can be measured in years, and it was pretty fun to be able to catch up. Thanks to him (him being my cousin Leo), I ate at in-n-out for the first time. I was quite impressed at the difference in quality compared with McDonald's and the way they had a man walking around with a device to take orders at the drive-through when the line backed up too much.

What a crazy fourth it was. Driving on the highway, we witnessed some guy hanging on the roof-rack of an suv and then dancing hanging onto the roofrack before finally crawling through the window into the car. Walking to a spot to watch the fireworks later, someone set off fireworks in their backyard that...exploded about 100 feet above our heads in a deafening crackle. Terrifying. And it happened again about an hour later near where we were watching the show. And again (but less violently) as some crazed maniac lit of firecrackers in the parking lot of in-n-out. Those firecrackers at in-n-out went up and down, and just had to go off at the wrong time on the right day. I'm still impressed by how hot it can get in the day, yet cold it gets at night.

Song of the moment: Remedy by Little Boots