Who knew that the 1996 Beck song "Jack-Ass" ("when i wake up, someone will sweep up my lazy bones") from Odelay sampled/stole its central riff from the Chocolate Watch Band's 1968 song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", which in turn is a cover of a Bob Dylan song from 1965's Bringing It All Back Home? I didn't.

destroy everything you touch, today destroy me, this way anything that may desert you so it cannot hurt you you only have to look behind you at who's undermined you destroy everything you touch, today destroy me, this way everything you touch, you don't feel do not know what you steal shakes your head, takes your gun wants you out of the sun destroy everything you touch, today please destroy me, this way

You didn't think this whole login transition would be seamless, did you? Anyone who might've wandered by yesterday afternoon would've been greeted with the "white screen of death" (internal server error). I intentionally removed my index file because a seemingly simple switch towards using the CGI::Session perl module to keep track of visits turned ugly. I've now implemented it to my satisfaction ... i think ... so everything should be back to normal. This strategy removes the errors inherent in my previous setup, whereby visitors were tracked by their ip address. This failed in the case of multiple connections from a single computer, or users sharing an internet connection through a router. Unfortunately, as a side effect any users that had previously selected the "log me in automatically at this computer" option will have to do so again. Sowwy.

Weekend was goooood, alternating between lazy and industrious. It started off quite busy for me as i had two meetings Friday morning, both to prepare upcoming grant submissions. After a good lunch/meeting/but really lunch with my friend Jianghong, i drove off to Berkeley for a 3pm meeting of the bioengineering alumni committee at a café on northside. It was good to see my old labmate Sue again (now faculty at UCSF), as well as the next generation of bioengineers ... a really good group. The program has evolved so much in the five short years since i graduated, and it's good to play witness to it. I then braved the 5pm traffic into the city (although to be honest, i was going opposite to the commute so it was a non-issue) to meet V at work. The two of us skipped over to Room and Board and ordered our new entertainment center, a very pretty craftsman-style piece with Asian overtones, with beautiful sliding lattice doors covering the bottom storage area. That'll be arriving next week. We had organized a dinner at the ever-scrumptious Betelnut on Union with G and N, but at 7pm we were quoted an hour and a half wait, so we absconded to the equally delicious (if more familiar) Chai Yo, accompanied by G and N's friend Vivian. She may also shortly be their neighbor, as the SF/LA expatriates may be bidding farewell to Sacramento and returning to the city. I look forward to an increase in Geoff and my gaming frequency.

The social event for the evening took place at the Hemlock Tavern on Polk, a show by French Canadians Kiss Me Deadly and We Are Wolves and Texan indie popsters Voxtrot. A great time, particularly the tear it up "shout punk" of WaW, despite the proximity of a collection of extremely inebriated and vocal "guys on the town".

G and N followed us back to Redwood City, where we gave Tara a very overdue dinner. She'd been very good during our extended absence so i gave her a bit extra. We resolved to get breakfast at the Lighthouse Café in Sausalito on Saturday morning. Due to our lethargic readying process, morning turned into afternoon, and at 2:10pm we were driving up a congested 19th Ave. in San Francisco wondering if we would make it before their 3pm closing. We switched to our backup plan of breakfast at the Irving Street Café. We had planned an afternoon of electronics shopping (new entertainment center means new flat panel TV, right? Well, maybe not, but it's certainly an entertaining diversion), but before we arrived at the restaurant Geoff received a fairly shocking phone call that scrapped those plans. No deaths in the family or anything, but the developments forced Geoff and Naomi to head back to Sac after breakfast/lunch. V and i took a late afternoon nap and flirted with the idea of heading to the city again for the evening's Popscene featuring a performance by Canadian (lots of Canadians in town last weekend) post-punk outfit Controller.Controller. A lack of enthusiasm resulted in the two of us simply having dinner at B.J.'s and watching the fairly awful SNL with Matt Dillon and soon-to-be-yesterday's-news Arctic Monkeys.

I regained my diligence Sunday morning and succeeded in cleaning the kitchen, fixing the vent to our crawl space i had removed during our plumbing issues, cleaning up a plethora of Tara poop, and pulling a bunch of weeds out of our front planters. I also retrieved a Stacks breakfast/lunch for Veronica and i, and made a rosemary and rock salt pork chop dinner for the two of us. And as if that's not enough, i wrote a draft of a four page grant application that my friend and former Berkeley bioengineering colleague Bill and i are submitting this week.

I've got two grants going out this week, so i'm fairly swamped at work. And having a simple change to my website cause it to crap out didn't help. Yesterday was also our monthly MIPS seminar. I had requested dinner afterward to be at Tamarine, a Vietnamese place on University in Palo Alto that had wowed me previously. And the second time was even more wonderful. It is now my favorite restaurant in Palo Alto ... the hoisin lamb chops are unbelievable, as are the papaya and beef salad, the salt and pepper calamari with cilantro sauce, and the unbelievably tender shaking beef.

I came home after the seminar and finished the last 70 pages of the Dark Night Returns. I found it a fascinating speculation of the vigilante nature of Batman, particularly his ideological differences to Superman and his underlying vindictive and ultimately violent nature. I'm curious to further explore the sides of Batman i missed as a casual comics enthusiast in my younger years, particularly his interactions with Ra's Al Ghul. I see more graphic novels in my future. Geoff has also recommended the Preacher, which i'll have to investigate. I think the original Sin City novels might also be worthwhile, given my pleasure with Frank Miller's twisted imaginings of Batman.

Geoff and i are also quite pleased with the "shoot everything that moves" Xbox experience of Black. We finished another couple of levels in tandem (taking turns playing, not playing cooperatively as unfortunately this mode is not available in the game) on Friday. The visuals are wonderful, with each of the thousands of bullets you expend having some noticeable effect on the environment. I'm now on the Gulag mission, and have found i need to modify my usual "rush in and go full automatic on everyone's ass" strategy in order to survive. My only complaint is that you can only save at the end of each level, and intra-level checkpoints are few and far between, causing you to replay a lot of the longer episodes which culminate in difficult challenges. When that got to me on Saturday, i switched back to Winning Eleven 9. Apparently through my lull in play over the last few weeks, my skills have improved rather than deteriorated. I seem to have found a workable offensive strategy, one which relies on Frank Lampard in the attacking midfielder spot and the wing play of Arjen Robben and especially Damien Duff.

Speaking of Chelsea, they triumphed over Tottenham in the match i would've gotten to attend had i won the Fox Sports World sweepstakes. In most breathtaking manner possible, through an injury time 25 yard screamer by defender (?!) William Gallas. I'm sure Catherine of Collyerville, Tennessee enjoyed it ... grrr. A positive note on which the club ended a not-so-positive week. The arrival of German midfield kingpin Michael Ballack from Bayern Munich seems to be in full swing, as Mourinho has announced he wants him and Ballack and his agent have stated they are negotiating with Chelsea and no one else. Again, i'm not quite sure how he will coexist with Frank Lampard ... it's not like the Gerrard/Lampard combination in the England midfield has produced awe-inspiring results. To state the obvious, the club has a serious image problem, and continued overspending is not going to fix it. Nor is lip service about cleaning up our act by club executives. It definitely does take a bit of the shine off the trophies our superb squad is winning, and that's a total disservice to stand-up guys like Lampard and John Terry.

I'm juiced to see V for Vendetta this weekend, perhaps with N and G as i know he's equally stoked. The weekend after i'm off to Orlando for my second visit to the Gaylord Palms Resort and the annual meeting of the Academy of Molecular Imaging. That may or may not include a visit to Disneyworld, depending on whether i skip the few meager Saturday conference sessions and whether i'm feeling energetic enough to explore the Magic Kingdom.