The evening of Wednesday last i Caltrain'ed it to the city to meet up with Veronica. We then Mini'ed over to Potrero Hill and the Brava Theater for Women, where Mexican alternative diva Ely Guerra was playing a special acoustic set. Upon entering the very attractive theater, we saw the playbill at left. Score one for the Brava.

Having never heard Guerra's music and being impressed but not particularly wowed by other rock en español artists, i had no idea how the show would play out. However, considering that after the show rock en español became my third most listened genre of the week, i guess you could say i was pleased. Guerra's voice rails between mousy, Cranes-like tones and overwhelming, almost operatic levels of passion and strength. As put somewhat cornily by the producer that introduced her, "Ely has the voice of an angel, and the heart and lungs of a lion". The acoustic setting suited her quite well, allowing her voice to soar over fundamental guitar pieces. Upon listening to her most recent album Sweet & Sour, Hot Y Spicy the next day, i was surprised to find some of her songs bearing an electronic slant, which coupled with her voice reminded me quite strikingly of Morcheeba. Finally, to throw my inevitable dash of sexism into the review, she's also really freakin' hot. My ultimate indoctrination into Spanish language music then led me to finally rip Veronica's Cafe Tacuba cds, and to get my hands on some interesting music i'd heard on MTV2 by Kinky.

Car troubles put a damper on an otherwise pleasant weekend. I had a molecular imaging seminar and dinner on Thursday night, and expected to miss Veronica completely as she was planning on seeing the new Coachella documentary followed by an evening at the 'Scene. I wrapped up the post-seminar dinner at the wonderful Fuki Sushi in Palo Alto around 10pm and headed home, retrieving my jacket from the coat check. Forgetful old me had unfortunately left my cell phone in said jacket, and when i got in my car and had a look at it, i found i had a staggering 20 missed calls. Something's amiss. Turns out Veronica had come home to change before the movie, and while heading back up to SF her car had lurched violently on the 280 on-ramp, after which an array of warning lights came on on the dash and the car lost most of its power. She succeeded in getting it back home and sadly had to forgo her evening plans. I had a look at it when i got home and thought i heard something funky when revving the engine.

The next morning we arose early to take it to the service guy at Mini of Mountain View. By this time even the "service engine soon" light had gone off, and the car seemed to be back to normal. The service rep couldn't find anything awry with a quick visual inspection of the engine (a little too quick, we thought), and said that it seemed fine and to bring it back if the problem recurred. Famous last words. That night on her way home Veronica experienced a more forceful version the same problem, this time on the 280 entrance at Brannan and 6th in San Francisco (the Mini appears to dislike 280 on-ramps). She called Mini roadside assistance and, after convincing the dense dispatch person that there was indeed a 280 on-ramp at Brannan and 6th, got the car towed to the nearest Mini service location, which happened to be the Mini of San Francisco dealer. Being Friday night, all the on duty guy could do was put the car in their lot to await the reopening of the service department Monday morning. It's a bit unbelievable that a brand new car with only 1500 miles on it would be experiencing these kind of problems, but a quick web search reveals that this isn't an isolated problem. It was amusing checking the car into the service lot, with the rep asking Veronica what the license plate number was, and her replying that it didn't have one yet. I drove up to the city to fetch her and we had a late Chinese dinner at Yeah! in San Carlos before turning in early.

Naomi and the freshly back from the UK Geoff swung by Saturday afternoon to take our minds off the car. Geoff tried in vain to find a copy of Moto GP 3 to satisfy his motorcycle racing urges, while i picked up a used copy of the renowned PS2 adventure game Shadow of the Colossus. We then had dinner at BJ's in San Mateo before letting N+G pass out at our place while V and i hit Jenz's "uniform party" in San Francisco and moved on to check out the last hour of Leisure. We returned home to Tara and our slumbering guests at 3am, finding that in our absence the dog had happily made herself a nice bed on the pullout couch next to Geoff and Naomi.

Despite having two talks and a portion of a grant to write from scratch by the following day, i succumbed to the temptation of a Lighthouse Cafe breakfast and joined V, N, and G to head to Sausalito. The primary reason for the trip was so Geoff could stop by the Yamaha dealer in San Rafael to pick up his shiny new Yamaha R6 motorcycle, or as he dubbed it, Black Betty. Quite a pretty bike. After briefly admiring it, i coerced Veronica into returning home so i could get a move on on my work affairs. I sat down in front of my laptop at 5pm, and wrote the last words of the grant section around 1am.

Monday was destined to be hectic. In addition to having an 8am meeting to finalize the aforementioned grant application with my coinvestigators, our new division director had organized an afternoon retreat at which i was moderating a session and giving two 20 minute talks. And to throw more fuel on the fire, V and i were both eagerly awaiting word from the Mini dealer regarding the problem with her Cooper S. Unfortunately, due to the chaos of the dealer's phone system and their inability to return messages, we didn't find out until the afternoon that they weren't going to get to V's car until the next day. Veronica actually had to go down to the dealer to gain this information, getting in a heated exchange with the service rep who tried to give her the runaround regarding the car's problem and giving her a loaner. On the up-side, both the grant meeting and the retreat went swimmingly, the latter concluding with a division dinner at Buca di Beppo.

This morning we're still trying to extract service and information from the San Francisco Mini dealer. Posts in various Mini enthusiast web logs have taught us that this problem is not an uncommon one. The cause is a bit difficult to glean from these internet reports, but the most popular explanation seems to be improper functioning of the electronic throttle control in the engine. However, i just talked to the Mini service rep and he told me the fault codes they got from the car's computer has suggested there may be a leak somewhere (although i wasn't quite clear in what line), so they're trying a smoke test. He said this diagnosis is consistent with Veronica's description of the problem, which they can't really duplicate because it's an intermittent thing. We'll see what clues this test gives us. I mentioned the throttle control thing to them but they're going based on the fault codes in the car's computer at this point.

So V's got my Jetta and i took Caltrain this morning. I don't mind ... i got to listen to my iPod for a half hour while on the train and then the Stanford Marguerite shuttle. If i didn't know any better, i'd swear i sat behind a young José Mourinho on the Marguerite.

For no logical reason, the theme to I'm Alan Partridge makes me want to live in England.

All the buzz is about the forthcoming announcement of the lineup for this year's Coachella festival. I'm trying to stick to my guns regarding my no-festival policy, but V is pushing hard for me to join her there. The preliminary lineups i've seen haven't wowed me at all ... except the rumor regarding a possibly reunited My Bloody Valentine, which seems to have died down. Frankly i'm amazed that the Coachella ticket pre-sale happened before the confirmed lineup was released ... but then i guess the pre-sale caters to people who aren't as discerning as myself. Discerning ... yes ... that's a good word.

To be honest, i'm not nearly as interested in music that makes me feel warm and fuzzy as in music that makes me wish a giant gaping chasm would open in the earth below me and swallow me whole.

on a thousand islands in the sea i see a thousand people just like me a hundred unions in the snow i watch them walking, falling in a row we live always underground it's gonna be so quiet in here tonight a thousand islands in the sea, it's a shame and a hundred years ago a sailor trod this ground i stood upon take me away, everyone, when it hurts now from my head to my toes from the words in the book i see a vision that would bring me luck from my head to my toes through my teeth through my nose you get these words wrong you get these words wrong, every time you get these words wrong, i just smile but from my head to my toes from my knees to my eyes every time i watch the sky for these last few days, leave me alone but for these last few days, leave me alone leave me alone