/travel/usa/Cycling to San Francisco
I biked to San Francisco this weekend. I went on Saturday with my friend Paul. We went to a hostel to find me a room, then for Italian food and to the Apple store, then he caught the CalTrain back to Mountain View. The ride was just over 50 miles.
The people
at the hostel were great. There were probably 10 or 12 people that I met.
Two of them were there for a while, looking for a flat in SF. They just
hung around the common room a lot and played card, which people gravitated
towards. We played a bunch of Cheat/Bullshit and Shithead (not to be
confused with Asshole. One gets the impression 16 year olds name these
games. ;-) ). As I was leaving, they were being hearts, so I asked to be
dealt in for one last round, and proceeded to Shoot the Moon/Take Control,
which was an amusing exit.
Phil (Montreal, in the sunglasses) and I ended up challenged to name all the states. I'm not quite sure how that happened. I think we got 46...not bad.
I also went
to the Conservatory of Flowers, in the Golden Gate park. The world's
biggest flower (Actually many flowers, according to the pamphlet) was about
to bloom, causing big lineups. Apparently it's quite stinky when it blooms.
The Conservatory was neat, and certainly better than the one in Edmonton,
but it had nothing on the Eden
Project.
The whole weekend was really 'positive' or something. I couldn't believe the support for cycling here, in terms of signage and shoulders and lanes, nor could I believe the number of cyclists out on Saturday and today. It was more than anywhere I've ever seen, which was a nice counterbalance against the raging car culture here. I had good food, good games, beautiful cycling, and met some great people. San Francisco really grew on me, too. It's such a wacky place, with so many things that don't make sense, and some aspects which are nearly chaotic, but it's all pretty cool. It bucks some sort of homogeneity trend. They had these cool "zero emission" buses that used the electricity wires like trams, but were on tires like busses, so they could weave in traffic. I got caught behind one and not blasted with hot diesel exhaust...delightful.
Put up a bunch of photos. I still have a backlog, but I may just give up on that for a while and keep things up to date with a gap.
Heading back to Dublin on Thursday, which is exciting. I'll be back just in time for Friday night outings. yay!
/travel/usa/Nine Powerbars™ and a Camelback™
It's a long weekend here ("Memorial day"), so I'm heading out cycling. I'm going with my friend Paul from Waterloo.
I've had a littlel flurry of spending here -- clipless (SPD) pedals (no platforms, unlike my other ones), a 3L Camelback backpack/bladder deal (with a hose that comes over your shoulder so you can drink without much effort, an iPod Shuffle (1GB), and a 60GB external Firewire harddrive (which turns out to be a bad drive, apparently.) The iPod replaces my iRiver, since iRiver failed twice to answer my warranty emails. Bastards.
So Monday's a holiday, then I work Tuesday and Wednesday, and fly out Thursday, arriving Friday back in Dublin. It's gone pretty quickly this time, what with having a more proper place to stay, and an imported social life -- I've been hanging out a lot with the others from the Dublin office, plus Seth who came to visit Dublin.
Looking forward to the cycling...Weather looks okay. I have no particular plans -- to San Francisco today, but then no idea. No accomodations books; hopefully I'll be able to find a hostel. We'll see if my experience arriving randomly in European cities transfers well to SF. I have in my head to go north along the coast from there, but beyond that I don't really know.
/travel/usa/The Dark Side
So work rented out a bunch of screenings of Star Wars. I ended up with 9pm tickets, no one to go with and no ride. Seth was going to the 8:30 show, and had to come into work, so I figured I'd catch a ride with him and sort it out from there. He and his girlfriend and I went out for dinner, then went to the cinema. Just as we were going in, I must admit, I turned to the dark side...I decided to try to sneak in to the wrong showing. Daring, I know. Shocked, you must be. We stacked our tickets in a pile, and handed them to the ticket ripper. She didn't notice, and we were in! Easy, this dark side stuff is.
But then, an unexpected problem! There was another ticket checker, just for that cinema. His job was to block people who were doing exactly what I was doing. I considered waving my hands and saying "These are not the tickets you are checking for," but instead I just held my ticket from afar and didn't give him a hook to stop me. Plus Seth had to fumble around for his ticket. It was genius.
The movie was quite good. I found it intellectually and ethically engaging. I had read some of Lucas's discussion about how he had studied the failure of democracies in making the film, and I think that showed. The political storyline seemed authentic, and only incidentally topical. The prescient (presumable) coincidence with assassination attempts leaving people deformed was striking. The plot holes weren't gaping, and the writing was only occasionally weak.
The problem with the dark side is that it fails to account for a wide swath of externalities. It's pretty clear that under true cost accounting, embracing the Dark Side just doesn't make economic sense.
Comments
Albert wrote
The writing was "a little weak"? Did we watch the same movie?
The story line is interesting, and potientially powerful, but Lucas lacked a sense of subtly to pull it of in a striking manner *IMHO*. The IV-VI movies were easier to write as good and evil, the discovery and adventure didn't require such subtly. But I was even listening to the beginning of a terrible Star Wars techno mix, and there was James Earl Jones saying "There will be no one to stop us this time!", and it was just so much better.
But with the dark side you can unaturally keep your computer alive...
Rob wrote
*spoilers*
I only found a few lines of dialogue leapt out at me as intolerably trashy. I don't have high standards of excellence for writing, and I have some sympathy for having to make sure everything was left just right for those rabid SW fans. I did occasionally find myself sitting wondering "how will Vader get his mask?" which was a bit annoying. But that's not episode 3's fault, it's the fact that it's a prequel.
And..didn't you see how well that "unnaturally keep alive"-fu worked? She didn't exactly avoid the fate foreseen. I wouldn't take the emporer's word on that "keep-alive" shit..(There's an HTTP keepalive joke in there somewhere.)
Albert wrote
*spoilers!!*
I think my standards maybe have increased too much... but I am not convinced.
The story events weren't too bad, beside having a bit of odd pacing, and the destruction of Vaders body I think was well done. The construction of Vader new body was good too. But then he had to say "Noooooooo!" in an entirely uninspiring way. Am I being to harsh there? Did you buy it?
Now the "love" story is what is paramount as it explains Anakin/Vaders motivation, but it was never believable, in II or III. Almost every line they shared even in III gave me to willys. That takes a lot of the centeral plot. I shuttered more than I was impressed. Yoda v Sidious was pretty good, as was Sidious V Windu. But Grevious felt contrived.
It is important to note that the writing in the "Original Three" wasn't amazing, it wasn't even very good, but it wasn't gut rendingly bad.
Rob wrote
*spoilers*
The "no!" was pretty weak. It's also pretty hard to do, since I don't think it's all that realistic of a thing to scream. Personally, under the circumstances, I'd swear. :-)
The pacing was odd. I spent the first hour or so slightly bored, wondering how it was all going to tie-in to the "next" episode. I think this put a lot of strain on the movie, since many things had to line up just right for rabid star wars fans to be pleased. Including the obscenely 70s control panel on the front of vader's suit.
Grievous didn't seem contrived to me, except his apparent "coughing" without apparent lungs. Could have been a software bug, I guess. :-)
As for the love story, I didn't think their lines felt as cheesy as in I or II, though still a little simplistic. I did find his descent to the dark side to be ... improbable. I don't think that's how good people turn bad, though I don't think it's too far off. I feel like if he had that kind of "badness" in him, he would have killed the emperor when he had the chance, and if he was strong enough then, he would have been strong enough later.
jim wrote
Great fun movie. Satisfied me completely on the star wars front. One can make the argument that the first two prequels were designed to incubate my lower expectations for this one.
Lucas's writing is almost autistic when is comes to love story parts. I now have a repeating loop of "Anakin! You're braking my heart!" making me giggle at inoportune moments -- thanks, George.
Grievous was .. weird and pointless? As a character, ok, he's just another sith general. But why is he a cyborg? Any reason? It seemed forced, and they they concentrated on it for the gee-whiz factor.
There's a reason why ticket-takers are easy to dupe: WE DON'T CARE :)
Albert wrote
The coughing was the source of the problem, his voice was also too grizzled... Now the thing is he was a lifeform with mostly a robotic body (sound like anyone we make in the movie?). But it wasn't apparent until near his death (yeah he had eyes, but it wasn't clear enough). But the coughing didn't feel like suffering, it felt like there was a note in the script, an they did it not being sure why.
Rob wrote
Yeah, but he was *cool*.
I actually got the sense he was partly there for exactly that reason -- he was the most child-friendly character. Certainly not as light as Jar-Jar, but someone that had a lot of imitable traits and surreality.
jim: Well, please, keep not caring. ;-)
Kim wrote
It's interesting that you mention Lucas' studying of "the failure of democracies." Star Wars seems to remind me of an over-hyped special effects (which actually didn't look like a cartoon!), modified PG13 version of Orwell's 1984. More elitist propoganda? Hmmm, no wonder the Liberal intend to find it quite good. :p
***SPOILER ALERT***
IMHO -- The dialogues between Padme and Anakin were painstakingly retarded. And as fast as I could say "Look, it's Jar-Jar!" he just seemed to disappear, for the ENTIRE movie... Chewbacca didn't really do much either except look pretty? Also, wasn't Grievous a human before?? Like Vader(/Anakin). I think that's why he (could) coughs.
Episodes IV-VI still remain the best. But I did enjoy Revenge of the Sith. Plus Yoda is like soo cute! I just wanna hug him, and love him, and take him home, and....
/travel/usa/Lost Phone
Grr. I lost my phone. Which sucks. A lot. And the SIM in it was a work SIM, which also sucks. I have a month-old backup of the data, but I won't be able to put that on 'til I get home and get a new phone.
My Irish phone number won't change, since I still have that SIM (AFAIK), but my number while I'm in MV will probably change.
It was clipped to the top of my shorts in its holster, and fell off while I was cycling.
Comments
Tony wrote
If you had your own number in it and it wasn't locked, then the finder may contact you to return it.
Rob wrote
Yeah, or they might find it and start exploiting it. Anyway, the number stayed active for about 24 hours, and it's not hard to contact me from the phone, and nobody did, and now the phone is not answering, so I think I'm SOL on that front. We'll see if it manages to trickle into the Google Lost and Found, but I doubt it will.
/travel/usa/California Summer
Owie! So I needed my
computer this weekend to a bit of work, but when I got home I realized I
didn't have the power adaptor. I called Seth, a co-worker who was in Dublin
a while ago and lives near here, and asked if he had a spare one I could
borrow. Indeed he did, so I threw on some sandals, my helmet, and some
lights, and hopped on my bike. I got through the little busy bit near where
I'm staying, and then on a quiet street, started fiddling with my lights to
try to make them visible -- they're just little clip-on lights that I
borrowed from my boss.
Then, suddenly, there was a car right in front of me, parked against the curb. I noticed it rather too late, and we had a little run-in. I don't think I did any damage to the car, but I skinned my hand and shin a little, and twisted the handle bars of the bike. They were fixed easily, and off I went.
Conclusion: safety lights are dangerous! :-)
I've been busy working and going out occasionally. There's only two pubs in Mountain View, and they're about 10 minutes from here on foot. People seem to head there on Thursdays, and this week I had a rousing political debate with a couple of co-workers, one of whom was more like my brother-in-law than anyone I've met before.
I've got a nice running route here -- it's not far to a lovely path that twins the highway -- but I've only done it once, which is pretty weak.
Not too much going on. Going to San Francisco tonight to sample a crêum;pe restaurant. Next weekend I'm not sure what I'm doing, but the one after that is a 3-day weekend, and I'll be going cycling, with any luck. Not in the dark, though.
Comments
Kim wrote
If that picture is any indication of the injury (and expenses?) which you sustained in the accident, then I'd say you sure as hell were damn lucky! Seriously, my insurance is just rediculous (considering the amount of things that have hit my car). It's funny how people intend to notice things rather too late, and then we have these "little" run-ins. :(
Rob wrote
I don't think I did any damage to the vehicle. Hope not anyway, since I sorta took off. ;-)
