The grant resubmission is basically done, simply awaiting Becky to make copies and send it off. I'm pretty happy with it ... i think we addressed the reviewers' problems effectively and made it into a more cohesive and persuasive proposal.

Our living room is now a nice deep green color, with white trim around the windows, mantle, and doorways. It works very well, makes the whole room look more ... collected. Now V and her mom are turning their sights onto the dining room.

At a cost of only 29 MB and a bit of PerlMagick programming headache, i've increased the quality of the jpg cover images in my music page. Purty.

Let's get the contradiction right out in the open:

I love Chelsea the football team. Winning the Premiership title last season was a thrill i'll never forget. Watching a live match and seeing Lamps, JT, and the boys work their magic never fails to get my adrenaline flowing.

I hate Chelsea the business. With each much-publicized foible, i loathe having to make attempts to defend my affection for the team. Illegal approaches to players and executives, slanderous claims about cheating opponents, the perception that the team plays by no one's rules but its own ... it's exhausting. And indefensible.

Am i happy that Roman Abramovich has pumped his millions into the club, transforming them into one of the elite of the footballing world? Of course. Would our renaissance have happened without him? Who knows? We were moving in the right direction, and let's not forget that our gritty fourth place Premiership finish and ensuing Champions League qualification in 2003 was what attracted Abramovich in the first place. Of course we were also horribly in debt and in danger of being forced into a fire sale to avoid bankruptcy.

There is plenty in the new regime to like. Of course no one can complain about success. The new leadership has placed a focus on youth, and it has paid off considerably with the emergence of players like Arjen Robben and Joe Cole. We are a young team with a great future, and no longer dote on older (and invariably fading) superstars in the transfer market. What i hate is that the success on the field should in no way be coupled to the arrogant antics off it. Abramovich and Peter Kenyon don't need to conduct these Get Smart-esque maneuvers to attract the best players, coaches, and executives. And José Mourinho the pressure-diverting attention grabber is one thing, while José Mourinho the plain old jackass is quite another. I don't think anything's broken yet, but the ship needs to be righted soon or it's going to flip right over.

Chelsea's off-season dealings have been slow so far, especially when compared to those of the past two summers. Scott Parker and Mikael Forssell have left for Newcastle and Birmingham City respectively, while Italian loaners Juan Veron and Hernan Crespo look set to remain on the continent for at least another year. We managed to sign primary left-back target Asier Del Horno from Atletico Bilbao, but as yet have no other players coming in. We STILL need a killer striker, although we've already been rebuffed by Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o (not surprising) and warned by AC Milan that any approach for Andriy Shevchenko will be futile. Lyon seem to think Chelsea are still in a giving mood, as they've set a £25 million price tag on earlier Blues target Michael Essien. Unlike seasons past, it seems the clubs of the world are no longer willing to let Chelsea buy everyone they please. And maybe this will be a good thing ... we already have strength in depth, and with the squad having been together for over a year we may be even more solid next season.

I'll never abandon Chelsea Football Club, but that benevolence definitely does not extend to the execs at Stamford Bridge.

Hey man ... are you gonna find these guys or, you know, i mean, you got any promising ... uh ... leads?

Leads? Yeah, sure. I'll just check with the boys down at the crime lab. They uh, got four more detectives working on the case. They got us working in shifts! Ha ha ha ha ha! Leads! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh that's right, outlet. You are my bitch. You put up a pretty good fight ... your junction box wouldn't fit, your phone splitter was broken, your right socket had to be seriously coerced into going into its proper place. But i own you. You will now put forth electricity of all shapes and sizes ... high voltage power, coaxial signals from the satellite dish, and phone signals from the voice-over-IP modem. And you will do it when and where i want. My wiring was better than the crap i bought at Home Depot, and you aren't breaking anytime soon. Or ever. Bow before me, now and forevermore.

There's a certain sense of inadequacy in being a male, standing in Home Depot staring at rows upon rows of junction boxes (or pipe fittings, or any other obtuse piece of hardware), and having no idea how any of these things are chosen, let alone installed. Ask for help? Blasphemy! Am i the only one who thinks some of these things should have a little installation guide tucked inside them? I was in this predicament yesterday afternoon, and after 15 minutes of pondering i settled on a blue plastic one that could hold three outlets (a "three gang", as i've learned). I also picked up some phone connectors, a wire stripping tool, and a hand saw, and headed home. After wiring our dual phone jack later that evening, i set about dismantling the existing junction box that my uncle Bud had installed when building our new kitchen/living room wall. After isolating and switching off the circuit that powered that outlet, i removed all the electrical, cable, and phone wiring and unscrewed the junction box. Turns out Bud used a couple of wood blocks to build up a mount for the junction box. The blocks were screwed into the plywood wall frame. I measured that the deeper new blue junction box would fit if i removed the blocks, figuring i could just screw it into the plywood. So i removed the screws from the blocks, but found that Bud wasn't kidding around ... he'd glued the blocks onto the plywood as well. Those suckers weren't coming off, despite my best efforts. So today i'm heading back to Home Depot to get a shallower junction box, akin to the previous one. I may just gang a single outlet box onto the current double outlet box. See, i'm getting the lingo already. On the up side, all the wiring issues are fairly straightforward.

I had planned on going to the hardware store after getting my hair cut at 1:30pm. This morning i called the salon the verify my appointment, as oddly i hadn't gotten a confirmation call yesterday. Probably because they still had my old cell phone number. Upon talking to the receptionist, i was told that my appointment had been at 9:30am this morning. Doh. Now i've got to wait another two weeks ... shazbot. I ran out of sumotech over the weekend and am once again reduced to combing my long(er) hair in a standard part.

My birthday presents from my parents arrived yesterday. And apparently Pepe was so unimpressed with the delivery man, he peed on one of the boxes while Arlene was signing for them. Silly dog. I got a fancy new black Cuisinart food processor, which will be great for making Rachael Ray's pork and shrimp balls (and other things too, i'm sure). They also bought me a Henckels santoku knife for assorted slicing and chopping. Now just to learn how to use it so i'm not slicing off my fingernails (which, yes, has happened before).

I got a letter from Bob Lewis Volkswagen yesterday claiming that they're looking to fill holes in their used vehicle inventory, and offering to buy my Jetta and give me a deal on a 2005 VW of my choice. I made an appointment to see them this Saturday afternoon, although my best instincts tell me this is a bunch of bulls@$t designed to get me to the dealer. We'll see what they can offer me. V is becoming increasingly interested in getting a new Beetle, while i'd like to upgrade the Jetta to a Passat for the rear legroom ... i'm tired of sliding my chair forward whenever i've got passengers in the back. Since V is the one driving the VW to work these days while i suffer with the increasingly ghetto Tercel, buying the Beetle may make more sense. Then i can buy myself something else (a Honda Accord, perhaps?) later this summer when my bonus comes through. And go all Office Space fax machine on the Tercel. Perhaps i should also get my bike back in working order and try out riding to work. It'd probably take about a half hour each way and would give me a daily chance for much needed exercise.

First lesson learned from my listening statistics interface: my genres are absolute crap. Grouping east bay Spacemen 3/Jesus and Mary Chain wannabes B.R.M.C. in with shoegazing is only slightly less insulting than calling Joy Division "modern rock". Never mind the debate i go through every time i'm facing with calling a band "alternative", "indie pop", "indie rock", or "modern rock". Is labeling each band with their first entry in the Allmusic style list a workable approach?

My pre-birthday trip to the city to see the Go-Betweens perform at Slim's was no less godlike than expected. After a relaxing train ride working on revising my NIH grant, i met up with V and subsequently Naomi in the city. We attempted to try something new and have dinner at Citizen Cake, and were even successful in getting a table as walk-ins. However, shortly after sitting down we realized 1) this was no cheap dining, and 2) there was only one vegetarian dish on the menu, of questionable appeal. So we absconded to old faithful Chai Yo, after which V and i dropped Naomi off at home and headed to Soma and Slim's. We caught about half of openers The Court And Spark's set, featuring an interesting countryfied cover of Depeche Mode's "Policy of Truth". The venue wasn't too crowded, but for some reason everyone was standing five feet from the stage during the openers. We made our way to the front, stage left by the end of their set, and sure enough as soon as tCaS said good night, everyone took four steps forward. Don't let the opening band think you're interested, people. We were able to get a spot right against the stage, and as such were able to the read the set list. It looked fantastic ... lots of highlights from their latest album Oceans Apart, and plenty of older favorites. The band entered shortly thereafter, Robert Forster decked out in a black and white herringbone suit while Grant McLennan opted for the more casual jeans and t-shirt. They were joined by new Go-Betweens in the drummer and bassist, who brought a playful mood to the evening. Diving straight into "Magic in Here" from their reunion album The Friends of Rachel Worth, i was enthralled. Highlights included "Boundary Rider" and "Darlinghurst Nights" from Oceans Apart, and classics "Was There Anything I Could Do?", "Streets of Your Town", and "Spring Rain". The band reemerged for no less than four encores, hitting more highs in personal favorite "Head Full of Steam" as well as "Dive for Your Memory", "Too Much of One Thing", and "Cattle and Cane". Wow. I can't even begin to convey how great this show was.

The dogs were thrilled to have us home when we returned from our late night, and we slumbered in anticipation of a day of cleaning. Have to get the house ready for Ana and Arlene! We did our best before picking them up in San Jose at 7:45pm. Ana was raring to go after being cooped up in a plane all day. We tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to feed her dinner at Red Robin, before hitting the market and heading home. I passed out somewhere around 11:30pm while Ana was still a Tazmanian devil-esque whirlwind.

And then i turned 31.

Sunday we met up with my parents and Hilary and Jeff for a father's day/birthday brunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Palo Alto. That was nice and relaxing, and got us energized for an afternoon of paint shopping. We settled on a scheme for our bathroom, and i began to ponder modifications in the living room. I've come to the realization that the phone/cable wall jack we had Bud install is not sufficient for our new DirecTV/VoIP setup. This afternoon i'll be installing a new 3 panel jack, with 2 electrical sockets, 2 coaxial cable attachments, and 2 phone jacks. That will necessitate cutting the wall to place a larger junction box, and shutting off the electricity so i don't fry myself.

As you may have guessed from my listening habits over the last couple of days, the latest Go-Betweens album Oceans Apart has been very much on my mind. Part of this is in anticipation of their show tonight at Slim's, a chance for me to see a band i've been interested in for two or three years now. Cued by an article on Allmusic, i checked out their reunion album The Friends of Rachel Worth in 2002 and was wowed. Digging back further i found they had an extensive catalog of wonderful albums, including gems like 1986's Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express and 1987's Tallulah. Recently they'd slipped into my slightly forgotten category, but V was astute enough to notice they were coming to the bay area and bought us tickets. I'd had Oceans Apart for a while, but only yesterday did i revisit it as part of my pre-show preparation. Wow. This may be their most complete record yet. The epic build of "Darlinghurst Nights", the rolling riff of "Boundary Rider" ... it's there punch for punch with Liberty Belle. The show tonight should be fantastic.

'cause to chase her, a fool's dream
i'm a hundred and four degrees, with a head full of steam

By the way, i didn't make it to the Orange Peels record release party last night. But being a bay area local again i'm sure i'll have many more chances to see them play their wonderful new album Circling the Sun live.

a new decade, the radio plays the sounds we made and everything seems to feel just right, coming through your lonely mind well i’ve seen things that scarred and bruised and left me blind so come on, listen along with me i think you need a little company and how long will i run for? who am i running from? and it makes sense, the youth coming up and making you dance 'cause i’ve got some living inside of me so come on i could use the company and how long will i run for? who am i running from? but now i’ve seen my face in a cardboard wall nobody comes, nobody calls teenage tears sting my eyeballs in a town where i wasn’t born and i will never suffer so come on, come on, come on but now i see my face in a cardboard wall nobody comes, nobody calls if you’re looking for me i’m there and it’s you if you’re looking for me out there, it’s true if you’re looking for me i’ll be looking for you

After our late night/early morning escapades on Friday and Saturday, all i wanted Sunday morning was to sleep in for a good long while. We had an appointment to have DirecTV installed between 8am and 12pm, but how often do they show up on time? Famous last words ... the installer was ringing our doorbell at 7:50am. It took him two hours to install two new receivers in the house (one bearing Tivo) and hook them up to the existing dish on the roof, then to place a new dish on the garage and wire a receiver in our rumpus room. So far DirecTV looks sweet, especially the local channels that were previously received in analog on our cable hookup. We ordered the HBOs and the sports pack, among which i've discovered Gol TV. I spent my lunchtime yesterday watching the first leg of the relegation battle between Serie A rivals Parma and Bologna. We moved our existing Tivo to the bedroom and put the DirecTV Tivo receiver in the living room, so we're now a multi-Tivo household. The DirecTV Tivo is nice as it uses two connections to the satellite dish, allowing you to record on one channel and watch another.

waking up and getting up has never been easy

I picked up the long-awaited new album Circling the Sun by the Orange Peels today. I love all things Allen Clapp, although his last solo album Available Light, while certainly worthwhile, was a bit too AM radio for my tastes. I had fears about the band's latest effort given that founding member and former Mummy Larry Winthers had left the fold. I was way off ... the Peels are highly addictive once again, even after one listen to the album. Allen has worked more magic in his Redwood City studio, this time giving fantastic atmosphere to drum and guitar sounds in songs like opener "Something In You". More sweet pop sounds, just in time for summer. The band is playing a record release party at Bottom of the Hill tomorrow, i'm toying with the idea of popping by. Especially now that i've caught the Orange Peels bug again.

After getting only four hours sleep on Thursday night (more on that in a bit ... it contrasts with my craptacular theme), i made it to work at 8:30am Friday morning and spent a solid 1.5 hours polishing off my 10am journal club presentation. The meeting came off quite well, sparking a very interesting discussion in our intimate little group. I spent the rest of the day preparing to revise my NIH grant for resubmission by July 1, and installing Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 from the confusing 10 cd collection that was delivered to me by Stanford purchasing. Maybe someday soon i'll be coding applications for work and fun in C++ and/or C#. Calling it an early day around 3pm, i headed home and took a long nap with the dogs, arising when V returned home late from work to grab a quick dinner at Max's before nodding off around 1am. We were both looking forward to meeting up with east coast chum Bill Saturday morning, in SF for the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, and playing tour guides.

Around 4:30am however we were awakened to the sound of breaking glass and car alarms. My Jetta? Oh crap! The dogs were now freaked, and V and i opened our front door and peered out. More sounds of windows being smashed, to which i shouted "What the hell are you doing?!?!" (real macho, yes, i know). By the time we got outside the vandal had apparently hopped in a waiting pickup truck and sped onto Woodside Ave. But before his getaway, he had smashed the rear windows on 6 cars on one side of the street, including both our Tercel and Jetta. In addition, he really went to town on the first car on the block, knocking out the driver side window and windshield in addition to the rear window. Luckily my Jetta was the second car on the block. Yes ... wonderful. We gave a report to the cops, who in return gave us a fairly good indication of the chances of actually catching anyone (or of them compensating us for our financial loss). We returned inside, me significantly shaken. Things like this just don't put you in a good frame of mind about the neighborhood in which you live. And that doesn't make you comfortable at home, and what is home if not comfortable? After calling about five auto glass shops at 5am and leaving a multitude of messages, we faded into sleep. I was awoken at 8am by my phone's new "She Blinded Me With Science" ringtone, and spoke with a guy who could come to our house and replace both cars' windows that day. One snag, he didn't accept credit cards or personal checks. So i had to get out my pathetically rusted and flat-tired bike, perform some quick maintenance, and ride a few miles up Woodside to the bank. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing for me ... got my heart pumping, got me out of the house, and got a lot of stress out of my body. The window guy and his partner arrived around 12:30pm and took about two hours to finish the job, the majority of which was spent removing shards of glass from every nook and cranny in both cars. V talked to some of our neighbors who had a theory about the identity of the culprit, but in the end we spent $627 to learn that we need to stop being lazy and start parking the cars around the back of our house.

Our plans to take Bill to brunch favorite the Lighthouse Café in Sausalito were scrapped as it closed at 3pm, so instead we picked him up at his hotel in Fisherman's Wharf and did a driving tour of Sausalito. Because my Jetta's rear window is adhesively fixed to the frame, the installer advised us not to drive it for a few days until the glue had dried. That meant we had to drive the rickety old Tercel, with its bad alignment, broken tail light, and rubber-sealed new rear window. The left tail light was recently broken by a rock or something, and now sports a nice round four inch hole. I've been lackadaisical about fixing it since the car is dying and i'm reluctant to pump money into it. I've been worried about getting a fix-it ticket, so usually when i spot a patrolling policeman i try to hide the car's rear end from him. However, jaunting around Sausalito i glanced in my rear view mirror and saw that the car immediately behind me was a police cruiser. Sure enough, a block later his lights were on and he pulled me over. Thankfully, he let me off without a formal write-up, instead encouraging me to go get it fixed. Whew. After that we headed over the Richmond Bridge (and the island i will someday convert into my Man with the Golden Gun-style fortress) to Berkeley for dinner with Bill's friend Troy at the yummy Chaat Café on University Ave. Unfortunately with Bill's flight leaving at 9:30pm from SFO, we had to cut out any trips to Amoeba or Rasputin's in order to send him off on time.

While those events certainly put a damper on the weekend, things started off brightly on Thursday night at the Popscene appreciation party, a free show by UK buzz band Kasabian. V had swung guest list passes for the two of us as well as Naomi, Geoff, and Gary, so we bypassed the enormous line that had been forming since the night before. We were among the first ones inside 330 Ritch, and set up camp a few feet from the stage. Before long the smallish club was sweltering, packed with indie kids awaiting the boys from Leicester. Openers Mad Action did well to take my mind off the oppressive heat, dishing out some ear-splitting rock in the style of the Warlocks and Low Flying Owls. I liked them so much i bought a cd on the way out, telling the drummer i thought they kicked ass. Between sets the heat really began to take its toll, with Geoff heading for the back and the possibility of a cool breeze from the door. An Irish girl behind me decided to rest her head and arms on my back for five minutes or so, prompting Jenz to ask if i knew her. At last the house lights dimmed and Kasabian took the stage to the opening synths of "ID" and proceeded to get the crowd shaking for 75 minutes. Jenz, Gary, V, and i somehow found the mental toughness (or stubborness) to hang on to our spots at the front through to the end of the epic closer "Club Foot". In my assessment the band eclipsed their wonderful show at Slim's from a few months back. The singer commented that this was the best show they'd played yet in America, with fantastic energy and enthusiasm in the crowd. My feelings exactly. Definitely worth way more than a little lost sleep.

some might say that sunshine follows thunder go and tell it to the man who cannot shine some might say that we should never ponder on our thoughts today 'cause they will sway over time some might say we will find a brighter day 'cause i've been standing at the station, in need of education in the rain you made no preparation for my reputation once again the sink is full of fishes, she's got dirty dishes on the brain it was overflowing gently, but it's all elementary my friend some might say they don't believe in heaven go and tell it to the man who lives in hell some mighty say you get what you been given if you don't get yours i won't get mine as well some might say we will find a brighter day 'cause i've been standing at the station, in need of education in the rain you made no preparation for my reputation once again the sink is full of fishes, she's got dirty dishes on the brain and my dog's been itchin', itchin' in the kitchen once again you know what some might say

Only twelve days until my 31st birthday. That would be eleven shopping days, wink wink nudge nudge. How did i get to my thirties? Where did my twenties go? Well, i can't say it wasn't a fun ride, i just wish it lasted a little longer. But i'm nothing if not comfortable with my current situation.

It was another weekend of chores ... taking the Jetta to Fremont at 7:30am Saturday morning for a couple of recall repairs, coercing the dogs into going to the vet for a checkup, bathroom fixture shopping with Veronica, ordering voice-over-IP internet phone service to replace our current land line, ordering DirecTV to replace our current digital cable, and getting rid of the last of the yard waste from my previous weekend of lawn, hedge, and tree trimming. I also squeezed in a shitload of video game playing (mostly Lumines and Winning Eleven 8 International), breakfast with dad at Stacks after dropping off my car, and dinner with my parents and Hilary, Jeff, and Veronica at one of the last Emil Villa's BBQ Pits, in Hayward.

Hrm ... maybe i passed judgement on the Mars Volta too soon. Being in a less proactive mood with regards to my iTunes random music selections, i let "Cassandra Gemini" from their latest sprawling album Frances the Mute play. And play. And play. And play some more. The 31 minute epic succeeds in capturing the energy that was so effectively channeled by the late, great At the Drive-In.

V loves to remind me of my hater-ish tendencies, but c'mon ... i don't sound like this, do i? I guess if you're a math major in Utah you've got a lot to be pissed off about. I wax on about things i like as much as those i don't like, don't i?

The evolution of the music page on this site continues ... hopefully nearing some kind of semi-permanent state. I've now joined the reviews and listening statistics, so albums on which i've pontificated bear a link in the listening rankings. I'm half serious when i say i should convert this code into a distributable package and sell it, or in the spirit of open-source make it available and see what the community at large thinks of it. I also fixed an issue with the search utility in my journal, which turned into a convoluted exercise in Perl regular expressions. "Zero width look ahead assertion" ... clear as mud. I'm also toying with the idea of bringing back some of the original backgrounds for this site, like the photo of Baker beach in the Presidio. That was actually the original backdrop for my site, when it was the journal and the journal alone. Ah, memories.

V took me to see Bloc Party at Slim's on Tuesday. As usual i caltrained my way to the city after giving the dogs dinner. This time i tried to catch the 6:17pm baby bullet in San Mateo so as to get to the city by 6:45pm, but was denied when the train doors shut while i was frantically buying my ticket. Dammit. I waited impatiently for the 6:32pm train and took my customary upstairs seat, although i had to relocate shortly thereafter as i'd chosen the car with the broken air conditioner. No über-competitive yahoos behind me this time, so i whiled away the trip reading discarded newspapers. We had dinner at 21st Amendment with Gary, then headed over to the 11th St. Our old friend Alex Restrepo (he of the "bum-rushing the Lollapalooza stage to dance with Elastica for 30 seconds before being thrown out by security" fame) was performing as part of openers Death of a Party but we didn't consolidate our show-going party with Jenz outside until they had finished. BP were fantastic. The interplay between singer/guitarist Kele and lead guitarist Russell is incredible, leading to great syncopated harmonies like the one at the heart of their current single "Banquet". At last, one of the latest crop of Brit bands knows how to use a guitar wall and bass rhythm to maximum emotive effect. We returned home at 12:45am, cleaned up after our lonely doggies, put the trash and recycling out, and collapsed. V went to see them again at the Fillmore yesterday, while i stayed home with T+P and tried to find an obscure Killing Joke single i'd seen on VH1's the Alternative (1984's A New Day, presaging their subsequent 1985 masterwork Night Time). Denied online, i was forced to transfer the show from the Tivo to my computer using the new Tivo-on-the-go functionality, and rip the audio stream using Total Recorder. Mission accomplished.

This weekend V and i are off to shop for home improvements, to be installed when her mom and Ana come out June 18 (one day before someone's 31st birthday). On the list are a new countertop and sink, toilet, and floor tiles for the bathroom, and paint for the all the assorted rooms of our house. Man, Arlene is going to be busy busy while V and i are at work (wink wink, nudge nudge)! Not to mention attending to Ana as well as Tara and Pepe.

I've figured out what it is about indie radio darlings Muse that puts me off. Instrumentally, there's no doubt about it: the band seriously rips it up. The problem is that over this sonic destruction, you've got a Thom Yorke wannabe belting out these ridiculous arching melodies, falsetto oohs and ahhs wandering through the noise like a lost opera singer.