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Monday, June 02, 2003

This is the funniest article, U.S. Troops Seek Women's, Baby Products.

Especially the part about what the soldiers do with women's pantyliners. It's funny and at the same time, it's kind of gross.
I saw "The Three Sisters", a play by Anton Chekhov on Thursday at ACT. I so forgot how depressing Chekhov can be. I left the theatre in a daze.

On Saturday and Sunday, I was a good girl and worked out both days and then ran errands. I bought a new toilet seat cover, a new rug for the bathroom and new robe, which I found in the men's section on sales for $22. I also had to pick up gas at Costco, $1.65 a gallon, and then do some grocery shopping. When I grocery shop I always go to two or three different stores, so I grocery shopped on Saturday and Sunday.

I put my laundry in the car, thinking I would either do it Saturday or Sunday. I ended up going to a laundrymat on Saturday night, and listened to a couple of left wing freaks discuss the Iraq war. The two left wing freaks were talking about how igorant everyone else is, but these freaks were just as ignorant. One of the freaks was a woman who told the other freak, a guy, to check out the ANSWER website.

I wanted to interrupt and tell her that the only reason ANSWER sponsored the anti-war rallies is because they support Saddam Hussein, and want to overthrow the USA. ANSWER didn't sponsor the anti-war rallies because they were peace loving activists. DUH!!! They sponsored the antiwar rallies because they love Saddam Hussein, and all the other mass murdering dictators of the world.

The freak woman's car had stickers saying she worked for Department of Social Services for the city and county of San Francisco. She's a government worker, need I say more?

I could tell freak woman wanted to talk to me, but I avoided making eye contact. Honestly, I have no interest in engaging in conversation with ignorant people just to have a conversation. Call me snobby, call me antisocial, but what is the point of speaking to people who you know you'll get into an argument with. Life is stressful enough for me, without getting into an political argument with someone I don't know, and probably wouldn't want as a friend anyway.

The whole late on a Saturday night laundry scene freaked me out anyway. I wonder if I'll end up like the two left wing freaks talking politics. I kind of got the feeling that these people don't talk to very many people anyway, and they were desperate to engage someone, anyone in conversation. That is so depressing. I think I'd rather not talk to anyone than to engage in mindless idiot conversations.

The two left wing freaks both reminded me of that older woman in Jane Austen's story "Emma", you know the older single one who just babbles incessantly. From what I could gather both left wing freaks were over 48 and single. It's like I was staring at my future, and I didn't like what I see.

I definitely need to get married again, or I'll end up like the two left freaks in a laundrymat late on a Saturday night. Heck, I'm not even their age and already I'm doing my laundry late on a Saturday night.

MEMO TO SELF: Do not do your laundry on Saturday night ever again! It's way to depressing!

Saturday, May 31, 2003

Wow! I just saw "The Matrix Reloaded". I totally loved it, and although I dearly loved the first one, this one was just as good if not better. So many unanswered questions, so many things and situations that make you think.

I saw my chiropractor before I saw the movie, and he told me there was no plot. He was so wrong! There is an amazing plot, and I'm definitely going to have to see it a bunch of times to take it all in.

I went with a friend who I used to work with at a job where we both did a little programming, and she thinks we love the Matrix series because of well 1) Keanu Reeves and 2) we both did enough programming where we kind of get all the references.

Like a back door. I'm a firm believer that there is a back door into any program, heck, a back door into and out of any situation. It's just a matter of wanting to find it badly enough. I loved the key maker too. Once you have the keys to any situation, it opens all the doors.

The whole theory of anomalies is fascinating, and that it's true when the old guy says even the best designed program have inherent flaws. The whole thing in the movie about choice is a like a computer decision tree and the possibilities there are so endless because choose one way and a whole sub routine starts. This makes me wonder if like decision trees, all decisions lead eventually to sometimes the same outcome, but just in a different way.

I love the whole thing about programs that can't be killed, and that each program has a function, but once that function ends, the program goes away. I like the whole theory of a program routinely looping and doing the same thing over and over again. The only way to get out of the loop is to choose something that the programmer hasn't thought of, and end the subroutine.

And what was that with the silver bullit killing old programs? Is that another programming reference? I'm sure the silver bullit thing was introduced for a reason.

I definitely have to go and see "The Matrix Reloaded" a bunch more times.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

I just signed up for a writing class. I'm hoping it will get me in gear to write again. Now that my job and home life are somewhat settled, or as settled as they can be in these economically troubled times of ours, I want to start writing again.

I was going to start writing on Tuesday, but decided I needed to read a book for inspiration. I had a few books that I borrowed from a friend years ago, but never read and I'd like to return them to her, so I picked a book from that pile.

I'm reading "Liar's Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street" by Michael Lewis. It's a story about a bond trader from Salomon Brothers in the 80's. The book is written in the first person, which is the point of view for my first novel, so I'm trying to see how this author does this. Okay, I know I'm procrastinating from writing but reading is research for me.

In the last two years people have been bemoaning all the excesses of the dot com culture and all the money that was spent and lost, but in the 80's the same kind of thing happened in New York with bond trading. And like the dot com bust, the roof fell in on bond trading as well. Perhaps not quite so fast, but lots of money was lost and spent in 80's as well on a small number of very young bond traders right of business schools.

The parallels are amazing actually, but this is a good thing I think because it means that in another 10 years, some other new thing, some new industry will emerge in business and generate a ton of revenue. To make money from this new, new thing, you just have to spot the emerging business. Like who knew 10-12 years ago that the internet for at least a couple of years would be such a great investment.

If you could spot the new emerging business and get in first, when the new, new business explodes you could sell your investment and make your millions that way. Maybe it's nanotechnology or probably defense related industries. Don't you know that this war on terrorism is just going to keep on going which is bad for the public, but great for industries in the defense sector.

I would also look at commodities trading, specifically food. With all the weather changes in the world, I would think there would be huge fluctuations in food prices. And if the mad cow scare in Canada pans out and spreads to the US, I would expect to see huge fluctuations in beef and cattle prices as well.

Not quite sure how if you can make money with SARS other than by investing in biotech companies, which will probably be looking for a vaccine if SARS develops any further. Someone has to benefit economically from the world's disasters.
I watched "Maid in Manhattan" last night. Parts of that movie made me cringe it was so predictable, but of course at the end I was sucked in.

Jennifer Lopez is so cute, and there were all those shots of that butt of hers, plus shots of Ralph Fiennes lusting over her butt, and jokes about her "assets". She does have quite a backside, I guess. That gown JayLo wore to the Met was like so "Brooklyn". What's up with that? Natasha Richardson was funny as the ditzy society girl, and to round out the english cast there was Bob Hoskins as the butler.

The ending was really cute, but the story line was so very weak. I think the saddest part of the movie is when JayLo's mother tells her that she'll never be anything more than a cleaning person, and JayLo agrees with her. That was really sad. There's alot of mothers out there who give their daughters advice like that to this day.

The one interesting thing in the movie I thought was when Bob Hoskins tells JayLo that when she's in management she can do anything. That's such misperception about management that people have who aren't in management. It's so not true. When you're in management, you're even more constrained I think.

You always have to be the corporate cheerleader no matter what's going on with the company. You can't really be social with people who work for you or who are below you. You have to act professional at all times, and you can't really confide in anyone either if you're having problems. Then there's the whole social constraint of not being able to look like you're out of control at any time, or showing up with acceptable looking escorts or at some conservative companies, dating and marrying well.

I think this all stems from management having to even reflect the company more than the worker, and the pressure of reflecting well.

But if you're non-management, you don't see any of this and fantasize about how much freedom you'll have as a manager, which is such a lie.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

This is from Starf@#*&s, the coffee place everyone in San Francisco totally hates, but it's an interesting concept, Artist's Choice cds.

Your favorite artists picked 16 songs, artists that influenced them early on and songs they can't stop listening to, personal choices, and it's on one CD.

Artists include YoYo Ma, Sheryl Crow, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles and Lucinda Williams for now. I think there are more artist compilations on the way.

I was trying to think of 16 songs myself, but I think it would depend on my mood as to which 16 songs I would choose.

Here's a list I put together very quickly, but like I said the list will change depending on my mood.

1. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
2. Stevie Wonder - You and I
3. Prince - Head
4. The Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack Flash
5. John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
6. Jesus Christ Superstar - I don't know how to love him
7. Foo Fighters - Times Like These
8. Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto # 2
9. Alice in the Chains - Man in the Box
10. Depeche Mode - The Love Thieves
11. Al Green - Let's Stay Together
12. Madonna - Crazy for You
13. Velvet Underground - Candy Says
14. Miles Davis - Blue In Green
15. The Beach Boys - Wouldn't it be Nice
16. The Grateful Dead - Fire on the Mountain

Wow, this was hard. I wanted to make sure I had some classical, some jazz, some current stuff, and some all time favourites, you know representative of my all over musical taste. I wanted to put in The Beatles, but aren't they on everyone list somewhere? And no country too, which is too bad because I love country music especially the really old stuff. I'm still trying to find this song which had the lyric, "whiskey, whiskey I love you". Now that's old time country music.

No music from my youth either when I heard really old stuff like Petula Clark and ABBA, and my mom's favorites Englebert Humperdink, Don Ho, Jack Jones and Tom Jones. But she also really liked Al Green and The Doors, especially Jim Morrison, The Police, and yes she totally adored Barry Manilow too. Maybe Al Green is the song from childhood.

It would be interesting to do this list every day for a month to see which 16 songs you have over and over again, and then make the list from the top 16 song that keep coming up over and over again.

Oh well, it's meant to be representative not a definitive list. How can you make a definitive list out of just 16 songs?
"The moment has arrived to divide this tract of land between us and the Palestinians."
- ARIEL SHARON, Israeli Prime Minister.

The problem I fear with creating a separate Palestinian state is where will the Palestinians go for work. Right now, they all head into Israel. Once you separate the two, will there be any companies willing to invest in industries, business or open branch offices in Palestine? I highly doubt a multinational company would be willing to put its workers at risk, when it's clear that the Palestinian government cannot control Hamas or any of their other radical islamist groups in their country.

What I think will happen is Israel will create a wall, echoes of communist Berlin and the Warsaw ghetto cannot help but flit through my mind, around themselves to separate themselves from the Palestinians. Some strategists have called the separation of Israel and Palestine, the makings for an apartheid state in Israel. Separate but equal has never worked in the past, unless both sides have equal economic resources.

Will a separate Palestinian state stop the terrorism against the Israelis? For awhile, I believe the answer is yes, but unless there is a long term plan to make the state of Palestine economically viable then the terrorism will start again.

The next question is, in what state will the Holy Sites be located? My uncle used to always tell me that the war in the middle east was always about who controlled the Holy Sites. The Holy Sites generate a ton of revenue for whoever has them.