Let's recount the past week in terms of new electronic goodies.

Sunday: Replaced my quickly deteriorating two year-old Razr with a new Blackberry Pearl from T-Mobile. My first Blackberry, i decided to go with it because it was more cell phone-sized than PDA-sized (unlike the regular Blackberry and the Treo), and because the data plans on T-Mobile were $30/month cheaper than those for the Treo on Cingular. I'm in love. I'm not quite sure i knew exactly what a Blackberry did before getting one. Now i'm constantly playing with it to see if it's downloaded any new email. The web browser is passable, and i'm intrigued by the built-in Google maps.

Thursday: Our new Samsung 46" 1080p LCD HDTV arrived on our doorstep. And a heavenly chorus was heard by all. After realizing i had to configure my Xbox 360 to give HD output signals, i fired up Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer and was dumbstruck. Again, a chorus chimed from the heavens.

Friday: The DirecTV man is outside installing our new HD dish, after which we'll plug in the new HD DVR.

And there was much rejoicing.

I went in Starbucks the other day to grab a pre-work grande white mocha and was a bit amused to hear the tender croon of Bauhaus's "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" coming across the speakers. I whiled away the time while the barista prepared my coffee trying to figure out which employee was the goth.

I could write a whole post on the retarded majesty of All My Children. I can't stand this show, yet when V puts it on while we're falling asleep i can't nod off. I find myself cursing the stupidity of the idiotic Carey family, or the new-agey philosophical rantings of the transgender Zoe/Zarf. Ditto Dirt.

New 46" LCD HDTV is on the way. Maybe even arriving on my doorstep tomorrow. That'd be a nice way to begin the weekend.

I've been getting the dreaded "disc unreadable" message on my Xbox 360 with increasing frequency lately. It hasn't prevented the system from booting up or loading games, but recently i've been unwilling to begin games of Winning Eleven for fear that, as previously, once i score a couple of crackers and build up a lead the game will crash. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough that it's freakin' annoying. It's happened with Rainbow Six Vegas too, which has me worried it's a console issue. Luckily the system is still under warranty, but i'm not all that enthused to deal with Microsoft customer support.

Trying to do sit-ups every day to begin the lengthy process of losing my gut. Tomorrow will make day number 3. Gotta start somewhere.

I've been programming a lot lately. Fixed a bunch of faulty display features in my 3D image analysis program, so i can make pretty color volume renderings of medical image datasets. My iTunes Log program has reached a sort of steady state, although it was thrown a curve by the recent iTunes update. I've just started coding something i call "Portable Backup" that creates indices of directories for use in syncing folders across machines. The nice thing about it is that by keeping indices, you can compare and sync directories without having complete copies of source and target at hand. It's not ready for prime time yet, but it's showing promise.

Downtown RC has surprisingly become one happening place. Either that or my definition of happening has gone downhill. All kidding aside, the downtown promenade has got a handful of great restaurants, a brand new movie theater, and a beautifully renovated city hall and square. And somehow the vanilla custard cream puffs at the local Beard Papa franchise are the best anywhere around the bay.

Man, they just keep on showing the special editions of the first three Star Wars movies on HBO. It's the 30th anniversary of the original this year, i guess that explains it.

I don't go to too many shows anymore, but my apathy is being challenged by the visit of the Arcade Fire in June. V has bought us tix to both the Nor- and So-Cal appearances of faceless French electronica gurus Daft Punk in a few months. Hopefully that will live up to their climactic performance at Coachella last year.

Earlier this evening V momentarily convinced me that Hüsker Dü had reunited and were touring. That would be a shock. Of course, if Kim Deal and Frank Black could agree that they love money more than they hate each other, then perhaps Bob Mould and Grant Hart could as well. Then we can see if the festival of loathing among the former Smiths can be quelled in the interest of greed. Although to be honest, there's little that interest me less these days than Morrissey and his neverending mining of teenage angst.

I maintain that Princess Leia was one sweet hottie (particularly in Empire), but man ... those were some crazy white boots she was sporting in 1977.

I spent another morning at the Starbucks in Newark last Thursday as i waited for my Jetta to be serviced down the street. In addition to the routine maintenance, the mechanics

There's that scene again where one of the stormtroopers bringing up the rear of a procession smacks his helmet on a low door. Always good for a giggle. I'm amazed that Lucas didn't edit that out in his craptacular special edition.

We're looking at refrigerators tomorrow. Does it mean i'm old if that thought gets me just a little excited?

Can Chelsea win the league? Or the FA Cup? Or god forbid the Champions League? Who knows. They could bow out of all three by the middle of April and i would not be surprised in the least. Or we could suddenly find that invulnerability and resilience of the past two years and win the quadruple. I have no idea how to read this team anymore. One thing i do know is that i can't stand Cristiano Ronaldo. The notorious diver recently commented on the controversy that continually follows him by saying "Maybe some people don't like me. Maybe i'm too good". Ho ho. Oh yeah, that's it. Pretty lousy schoolyard taunts coming from someone who worked the word "polemic" into the same interview.

The usual excuses. I'm just not finding the time to post these days. Somehow work always seems more pressing. What a sorry state of affairs. On the flip side, i'm getting a lot done at Stanford. Give and take, i suppose.

V and i discovered a great new dinner spot in downtown Redwood City, New Kapodokia, with my Stanford chums Frank and Jennifer a few weeks ago. We had a lovely Turkish meal boasting some fantastic spanakopita-esque appetizers, then walked down the lovely new RC downtown promenade to the theater for a Sunday night movie. Turns out the only thing starting within the next 90 minutes was Reno 911!: Miami, so we bought our tickets and headed in. Egad. Veronica summed up the flick in three little words on our way out: "that was rough". One of Phil and Naomi's friends provided the equally apt summation that the show is funny for a few minutes ... even watching a full half hour episode gets old. A movie? No freakin' way. It was fun to hang with Frank and Jennifer some more, at any rate.

Our house refi ended pleasantly earlier this week with the close of our new loan. The Thursday prior V and i had gone to the title company to sign the papers. When we bought the house, it seemed every time we talked to our realtor, lender, or title agent they would spring a new wrinkle or expense on us. The refi was the opposite ... each contact with an official sweetened the deal for us. First we got a great quote on a 30 year fixed loan, then our house appraised for the amount we needed, then i found out we get a $500 refund on our closing costs because i'm a Stanford employee. At the title company the signing went smoothly, and we got another bit of good news: while our old loans were paid off earlier this week, our new loan payments don't begin until May 1, meaning we have a month and a half vacation from our mortgage. Booya! We did have to pay the next installment of our property taxes on closing, but were reassured that the contents of our current loan's escrow account, used for paying out the property taxes twice a year, would be refunded to us. I called our old lender last week to confirm everything had gone smoothly, and inquired as to the balance of escrow that would be sent back to us. Turns out it's almost double what i thought it was. Booya²!

With our newfound mortgage stability, we've been continuing our home improvement. This morning i rose early to install an art deco ceiling light that V bought on eBay. That was significantly easier than the last ceiling light i fought with. Now we're looking for a shallow or recessed ceiling light to replace the other fixture in our kitchen, which currently limits the opening of two cabinet doors in our kitchen. Also on the agenda is the long-overdue de-carpeting of our bedroom and refinishing of the underlying hardwood floor, selection and application of a new color to said bedroom, and decoration of the laundry room. Then we'll begin looking at more substantial projects, including renovating our backyard and the possibility of adding another bedroom and/or bathroom.

This weekend i've spent way too much time in my Jetta. Saturday morning we headed out early to Palo Alto to select a new set of eyeglass frames for me. I'd had an exam earlier in the week, which took all of five minutes as my prescription hasn't changed a bit. V helped me settle on a swanky pair of Alain Mikli's (to compete with Veronica's pair from the Champs-Elysées, which constantly elicit praise from random strangers), then we hopped on the 101 and drove to SF for V's noon hair appointment. Cruising up 6th St., i began to wonder why traffic was backing up approaching Mission St. Then i began to wonder why there were barricades and traffic cops at the intersection. I failed to integrate the multitude of green-clad pedestrians into my consideration, which prolonged the time needed for me to determine that we were stuck below Market and the St. Patrick's Day parade. With only ten minutes until V's appointment and no easy way across Market to Union Square, i convinced V to hop out of the car and walk the five blocks to the salon. After she departed, i was stuck in traffic for another twenty minutes in a car running on fumes. Thankfully i was able to extricate myself from the masses and take a few side streets down to Harrison St., relative smooth sailing, and a gas station. I then found an open post office on Potrero Hill and mailed Ana's guitar back to Iowa, only three short months after she received it at our house as a Christmas gift. I made it to Union Square via the Castro (winding around the parade route), and parked the car in the Stockton-Sutter garage before rendez-vousing with V and checking out Niketown. Nothing great there, so back in the car and over to the Sunset for lunch at old haunt Irving Street Café. Then it was a bit of shopping down the peninsula at another old haunt, the Hillsdale Mall, before fetching the dog from home for some fun at the dog park. She almost played with another dog this time. We'll teach her to have fun yet. According to my car's trip computer, by the end of the day i'd spent 6.5 hours cruising up and down the peninsula.

Today after my morning handyman duties, we picked up Naomi in the city and had brunch in Sausalito at the Lighthouse. Then back to Hillsdale for some continued shopping, with Naomi beating out V for the title of most successful shopper. More driving to return to SF, where we had a quick look at furniture at Room and Board before cruising around the Richmond for a half hour to find parking. Then on to dinner with Phil and assorted other scooter friends at Kitaro. Back home to an impatient Tara at 9:15pm, and i had logged another four hours of driving time.

Our time at Room and Board was fruitful for me in that V and i agreed to stick with our current entertainment center, meaning i could order our new flat panel HDTV. Before placing my Amazon order however, i found my plan to upgrade our DirecTV to an HD tuner and combine it with a Series 3 HD Tivo was flawed. Turns out Tivo has split with satellite providers, meaning the new units are fundamentally incompatible with satellite HD. Hrm. So we either go with a DirecTV HD non-Tivo DVR, which has decidedly mixed reviews, or switch to digital cable. After a bit more research and some logical analysis, we decided that trying out the DirecTV HD DVR was the least expensive and complicated solution, so i'll be moving forward with that plan presently. There's a couple of other variables to sort out regarding our new entertainment mecca, such as how to wire multiple HD sources (game consoles, DVD, satellite, etc) into the TV, but i've already got designs on how to solve those issues.

I watched a match and half of soccer this weekend, probably the most i've seen all season. Today's Arsenal/Everton encounter was entertaining, won surprisingly on a stoppage time Andy Johnson goal at the death. I only caught highlights of Chelsea's 3-nil win over struggling Sheffield United, but was quite pleased with Andriy Shevchenko's looping strike to open the scoring, a hopefully increasingly less unusual return to form for the Ukrainian. However, as much as it pains me i have to admit that Manchester United looks fully capable of duplicating the treble-winning exploits of the 1999 squad. Cristiano Ronaldo, while certainly not immune to random acts of showboating, is proving more and more difficult for opposing defense's to contain, and may walk away with the league's MVP. I can easily see United knocking off every remaining team in Europe, and am having increasingly more trouble imagining them slumping enough to let Chelsea back in the title race. As i was discussing with Matthew recently, it's becoming harder for me to blindly support my club. It's clear that Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon are out to build a marketing juggernaut, a fact that's causing José Mourinho stress as his requests to fill out his squad with role players are ignored by executives keen on acquiring big name but ill-fitting stars. My current worry is that the club will botch contract renewal negotiations with cornerstones John Terry and Frank Lampard, hastening their exit from Stamford Bridge. If that happens, i'm questioning whether i'll be supporting the club at all.

V and i signed the plethora of loan refinancing documents this morning, meaning we're in the home stretch of the process. We're due to close next Wednesday. I'm very relieved at the conclusion of this whole process. In our previous arrangement i felt like any number of situations could put us in financial turmoil. Having now halved our number of mortgages and entered into a long term fixed-rate agreement, i'm feeling much more stable. Oh man, i sound old. Next thing you know i'll be railing against those damn kids and their Myspace. Well, i am no fan of Myspace. In fact ... <self edit>

get dressed at 7, be up by 9
i'm up all night with these friends of mine
the needle drops, the stereo gives
it's never too late to learn how to live

In slightly more exciting financial news, we've already received our tax refund from the state and should be getting our more significant federal refund shortly. That's already earmarked for a nice 46" Samsung LCD HDTV. I can hardly wait to put the Xbox 360 through its paces in 1080i, let alone trying out gaming in 1080p when i finally break down and get a PS3. I've got to sort out how we'll connect all of our peripherals to our new entertainment centerpiece, but those are the kind of problems i revel in. We're also looking to replacing our refrigerator with a new one that doesn't emit loud buzzing noises constantly, but that's not so thrilling.

True to my word, i've written a couple of new album reviews covering the sophomore effort by London's Bloc Party as well as the sophomoric debut by gothabilly punks and fellow English capital residents the Horrors. I'm currently revisiting the second record by Canadian indie darling the Arcade Fire, which gets better with each listen. I wasn't blown away by their debut but this new one has layers upon layers of great songwriting, hooks, and nuance. "No Cars Go" is a brilliant realization of everything the band promised on their first album with songs like "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)".

I've continued to reverse engineer the iTunes interface in the form of my iTunes log program. I've now included a bare-bones set of controls to the iTunes player, including pause/play, fast forward, rewind, shuffle, repeat, and volume. Because i'm a stickler for detail, i also grabbed the button images from iTunes and worked them into my application. The volume control bar was a bit of a challenge but a good learning experience for me as i continue to delve into Visual Basic. I also duplicated the characteristic iTunes scrolling labels when a piece of text is bigger than the display array allotted to it. V has got me started on the slightly more useful project of rewriting my perl Excel scripts using automation in VB.

I'm currently polishing off a solicited review article at work, which (assuming its accepted, a reasonable assumption) will be the fifth paper i've published this year. With another one written and waiting to be sent off, and another two due out before summer. As Veronica delights in pointing out, that would represent a 400-700% improvement on my output from all of last year. Now to get those grants rolling in ...

Chelsea won their Champions League two-leg encounter with FC Porto and head into the quarterfinals. Yay.

Barcelona won their match but lost the war against Liverpool based on the away goals rule. Boo.

The quarterfinal draw should take place later this week, and based on these results i'm already dreading the inevitable Chelsea-Liverpool showdown. Like i need the stress of playing those gits in Europe another year.

In those days there was a kind of feeling of pushing out of the front door, into the pale exhaust fumed park by Broadwater Pond or the grubby road that eventually leads to Enfield. Turkish supermarkets after chicken restaurant after spare parts shop. Everything in my life felt like it was coming to a mysterious close. I could hardly walk to the end of the street without feeling there was no way to go except back. The dates i'd had that summer had come to nothing, my job was a dead end, and the rent check was killing me a little more each month. It seemed unlikely that anything could hold much longer. The only question left to ask was what would happen after everything familiar collapsed. But for now the sun was stretched between me and that moment.

It was ferociously hot and the air quality became so bad that by the evening the noise of nearby trains stuttered in and fits and starts, distorted through the shifting air. As i lay in my room i could hear my neighbors discussing the World Cup and opening beers in their gardens. On the other side someone was singing an Arabic prayer through the thin wall. I had no money for the pub so i decided to go for a walk. I found myself wandering aimlessly to the west, past the terrace of chip and kebab shops and long dreads near the tube station. I crossed the street and headed into virgin territory. I'd never been this way before. Gravel dashed houses alternated with square 60's offices, and the white pavements undulated with cracks and litter. I walked and walked because there was nothing else for me to do, and by the breeze the light began to fade. The mouth of an avenue led me to the verge of a long greasy A road that rose up in the far distance, with symmetrical terraces falling steeply down and up again from a distant railway station. There were four benches to my right interspersed with those strange bushes that grow in the area. These blossoms are so pale yellow they seem translucent almost spectral. And suddenly tired, i sat down.

I held my head in my hands, feeling like shit but a sudden breeze escaped from the terraces and for a moment i lost my thoughts and its unexpected glooms. I looked up and i realized I was sitting in a photograph. I remember clearly, this photograph was taken by my mother in 1982 outside our front garden in Hampshire. It was slightly underexposed. I was still sitting on the bench but the colors and the planes of the road and the horizon had become the photo. If I looked hard i could see the lines of the window ledge in the original photograph were now composed by a tree branch and the silhouetted edge of a grass verge. The sheen of the flash on the window was replicated by bonfire smoke drifting infinitesimally slowly from behind the fence. My sister's face had been dimly visible behind the window, and yes there were pale stars far off to the west that traced out the lines of a toddler's eyes and mouth.

When i look back at this there's nothing to grasp, no starting point. I was inside an underexposed photo from 1982, but I was also sitting on a bench in Haringey. Strongest of all was the feeling of 1982-ness. Dizzy, illogical, as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet. I felt guilty and inconsolably sad. I felt the instinctive tug back, to school, the memory of shopping malls, cooking, driving in my mother's car. All gone, gone forever. I just sat there for awhile. I was so tired that i didn't bother trying to work out what was going on. I was happy just to sit in the photo while it was lasted, which wasn't for long anyway. The light faded, the wind caught the smoke, the stars dimmed under the glare of the street lamps. I got up and walked away from the squat little benches and an oncoming gang of kids. A bus was rumbling to my rescue down the hill, with a great big "Via Alexandra Palace" on its front. And i realized i did want a drink after all.

I got a call from our loan officer yesterday with the results of our appraisal. He sounded particularly chipper in his greetings, and i soon heard the good news that the inspector had appraised our house at the value needed to keep our loan refinance moving forward. Booya! I've been very worried about this whole process, as evidenced by my nonstop toils of the weekend. The house has appreciated a fair chunk since we bought it 2.5 years ago, and we're now almost done combining our mortgages into a single 30 year fixed loan. What a load off the worrywart's mind.