Monday, while the rest of Xanga wrote blog posts about Drakonskyr's departure, I grabbed a drink with him. If you know DMV at all, then you'll be just as surprised and laugh just as hard as I did when I found out he got a bike. His response when asked about his feelings toward the bike, "I hate to admit it, but the thing is convenient." This is entertaining because the last word association you'd ever make about DMV is "bike".

You're more likely to hear an interesting rant on some esoteric piece of underground popculture than to hear "bicycle". He is a man whose usage of the word "tits" grows exponentially the longer you hang out with him. He also reported that he has yet to take the bike off any sweet jumps. Another great quote from night came as I watched the Auburn vs Oregon game on the bar's TV:

Me: "They just scored a touchdown!"
DMV: "That means nothing to me."
Me: "The unicorns are winning."

Last Saturday I skied at Northstar in Tahoe with Viktor and Jay. Though the snow could have been much better, it was an exhausting but good day on the mountain. The next 4 weekends are going to be exciting. This weekend will be low key, but the following weekends are: Tahoe, Puerto Vallarta, and Tahoe again. Followed by a bunch more Tahoe.

I made this quick sketch of Tank Girl in a few short minutes. There are a number of inaccuracies, but I sketch in pen because it means I can't fuss over perfecting it. Also, sketching with a pen forces you to make each line count and to be more confident in each line. That said, Tank Girl is one of the weirder comics I have read. The artistic style is enjoyable and a lot of fun to mimic.

We found this spilled across the sidewalk outside the apartment earlier in the week. I wondered if the cigarette and puzzle belonged to the same person.

Chris and I stumbled across this Banksy on our way to the Institute of Contemporary art when I visited Boston in December.

I found this gem of a potential souvenir in the gift shop of the Institute of Contemporary Art. I'm not sure what I find best about this:

1. The unlikelihood that a cat would ever be selfless enough to rescue someone
2. That someone in the world makes a profit off this
3. Or that someone looked at his cat and thought "Eureka, my cat is missing a firetruck!"

A few months ago the Borders located across the street from work closed down. The store had a terrible location, and its closing did not come as a surprise. Though I miss browsing the books on my lunch hour, the upside to the store's closing is that I did take full advantage of the closing sales, and I snagged a massive stack of graphic novels for about 50% off. Thanks to that sale, my literary diet now consists of Neruda in the evenings and Batman graphic novels on my morning commute.

I don't think you can find a better superhero than Batman, for the simple fact that the attributes that make Batman heroic are not things that can be removed. His heroism comes from determination, willpower, constitution, and resolve. Sure, being a millionaire does make his job a bit easier, but even without his gadgets, he'd still be fighting. Contrast Batman to Superman. The only reason Superman has powers is because he came from another planet. But if Krypton had never exploded, Kal-El (Superman's real name) wouldn't be a hero. He'd be another average Kryptonian citizen with an average job. He'd have a minimum wage job, an STD, and he'd spend his time trolling YouTube videos and Reddit posts.

A few weeks ago at work I browsed through the book collection that a coworker keeps in the window ledge beside his desk. One of the books had an amazing set of poems by Neruda. I have no conscious memories of knowing Neruda's name or poems prior to finding the book. And I find that strange, because surely I must have stumbled across his name or glanced at his poetry in an anthology or a creative writing class at some point. It seems equivalent to being in mathematics or science and not knowing the name Richard Feynman.

I can't explain the significance, but one phrase in one of the poems has been at the front of my thoughts: "Be here now." And now when I go back to find that particular poem in that particular book, I find nothing. I can't find the book. I thumbed through some of the other books on the ledge, but they're not related to poetry at all. It is as though the entire book slipped away with the same ease as I serendipitously came across it the first time. And the internet has been no help in finding either the book or the poem. I just keep giving up and finding porn instead.

It is amazing how once you've discovered a new bit of knowledge that it somehow seems to appear everywhere, as though it is some keystone of culture or thought that you've unwittingly been blind to for years. Now Neruda's name is appearing everywhere. For example, last week I picked up "Clandestine in Chile" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (117 pages, non-fiction, excellent, read it) only to discover that Neruda is one of Chile's two greatest native sons (the other being Allende). I wouldn't be surprised to find his name on the back of a Campbell's soup can or as a tertiary ingredient in Oreos.

The chance encounters with Neruda inspired me to read more about him, and at this point I'm hooked. I've been reading his poetry online, and I borrowed Neruda's memoirs from the ledge of books at work. What an interesting little man and what a quaint little window ledge. And people with the name Pablo either have an affinity for art or I have an affinity for artists with that name. As of this moment forward, if you're an artist with the name Pablo, there is no longer room for you at the inn. Blame Picasso and Neruda, because they have filled all the vacancies. I suggest you change your name to something less prolific or more coined, such as Michelangelo, Crichton, or Bleezinglywebdom.

Among other things, in 2010 I...

• Said goodbye to my old job and hello to a new one
• Traveled Italy for 10 days with Laura
• Went indoor skydiving for the first time
• Followed by real skydiving (15,000 ft) for the first time
• Skied a ton
• Tried snowboarding for the first time
• Saw countless movies and quite a few concerts (Ben Fold, Kate Heidke-Miller, Flaming Lips, Sufjan Stevens, Pearl Jam, Modest Mouse, etc)
• Invented the Donut Holder
• And started serious work on a board game of my own design

For me, 2011 starts with jury duty on the Monday the 3rd. It will probably go something like this...

Prosecutor: "And Mr. Smith, you were there on the night of 15th and you hadn't incentive, didn't you?"
Me: "You should object to that."
Defense: "What?"
Me: "Look, I'm just saying that if I were you, I'd object to that."
Judge: "Juror #8, I have told you before. Refrain from badgering the counsel. But I have to agree. Objection sustained. Any further comments from you, juror #8, I will hold you in contempt of court."
Me: "I held your mom in contempt."
Judge: "That doesn't even make sense."
Me: "Neither does the defense."
Bailiff: "OH, BURN!"

Aside from contempt of court, the only things I've planned are lots of skiing and 6 weeks worth of language lesson. I'm probably going with Arabic.

I spent the majority of yesterday wandering around Boston. And I made the obligatory stop to my old stomping ground of Harvard square. I didn't go to Harvard, but I did work in the Harvard square area, and I lived a short distance away.

There are always a few bums begging for money at the square. Back when I lived in Boston, one time, as I walked through the square with my friend Chris, I decided to give money to a bum I'd seen often. He always treated people nicely, and he himself seemed cordial and of sound mind. Well, I'd just rearranged the contents of my wallet, and instead of giving the guy a few dollars, I accidentally gave him a $20.00 or something (I don't remember the exact denomination, but it was quite a bit more than I had intended to give). I would never have noticed, but the bum made a big hullabaloo about it.

Charity is charity, so I didn't worry about it very much.

After that, I never saw the man again. Months went by and he never appeared again, not even during the summer. Chris pointed out that the man may have died. A sad but valid point. Being a bum in a city that has freezing winters must be difficult.

Yesterday as I walked through Harvard Square, there was the bum. Alive and well, begging for money still.

Today I wandered around the house with my smart phone in hand and submitted random pictures to the Google Goggles application. The application analyzes an image, searches Google's image database, and then Google's servers return a list of images that it determines match your original submission.

When you submit images that are very unique, such as a brand's logo (I used Heineken and Coca-Cola as tests), the results are pretty stunning. However, if you move in to the recognition of every day objects, the computer fails in some very abstract ways, and it is easy to see that image recognition in this context is still at in its infancy.

I use "fail" in the sense that the search results don't seem to be accurate at initial glance. Since I've always been interested in object recognition, I decided to use the "failed" search results to determine how the application "sees". Basically, when an image is reduced to about 150 by 150 pixels, Google Goggle's has the same eye sight as I do without my glasses (-4.25). I tested this in a couple of ways, and in the end I found it was very easy to recreate the effect in Photoshop.

Below are several sets of images. The first column of each image is the exact picture I submitted. The additional columns are samples from the returned search results (note that the search results never returned an image anywhere close to the original object I photographed). Next I duplicated each row. Then I blurred the second row until it looked the same to me with my glasses on as the first row looked with my glasses off.

Though the results seem abstract, you can quickly see how Goggle's computers determined a potential match. The computer has blurry vision and doesn't even begin to attempt object recognition.

(These images have all been reduced to fit on the page)

Truck, Star (with astronomical information), Solo dancer on stage (yes, that is one person)

Salt shaker, Child in a dress, Firetruck!

Toy crane, People climbing over a fence, Long jumper, Abstract painting

Bananas, Dog, Portrait of a nude. On an interesting note, this also returned an image of a naked stripper. However, the image was not available online, but when blurry she seriously looked exactly like the blurry bananas.

Apples on a tray, Samurai painting, Crappy Sega character (?)

Down the street from my apartment is an awesome store called Double Punch. It is a toy store for adults, but it is not an adult toy store. Double Punch carries collectible toys (robots, dragons, monsters, custom vinyl toys, etc), and on the second floor the proprietors always have different gallery showings by local artists.

The other day while browsing around Double Punch, I found stickers for internet memes. One of the stickers was this one:

If you're not familiar with this meme, it is pedobear -- a meme that there is a bear, who is a pedophile, on the internet. It is meant as a completely lighthearted dark humor meme. This sticker was too funny to not purchase (Come on, a pedobear sticker in a toystore. Pure comedy). I took it up to the counter to purchase, and the owner was working the register. I go in the store a lot, so we usually banter back and forth for a minute or two...

Her: "You're buying this?"
Me: "Yea, because it is hysterical. Also, why in the world would you sell it and then ask why people are buying it."
Her: "Haha. Good point."

Then I go to pay for it, so I hand her my debit card, and…

Her: "So. More bears…"

I didn't understand what she meant, until she handed my debit card back. See, I have Bank of the West, and there is only one card design available for debit cards:

This is not an actual picture of my debit card. I am not that dumb.

Then I had to spent the next 30 seconds laughing and explaining that I have Bank of the West and  that there is only one card design available for debit cards and that bears are not any part of my style or life. She found it pretty funny.

And on that note, I leave you with Double Bear Double Rainbow

I used to think that Frida Kahlo was massively narcissistic. During her career, she made 143 paintings, of which 55 are self portraits. That means when her friends asked "What are you doing?", 38% of the time she replied "Painting a picture of myself." However, I'd like to adjust that number. Let's take a look at a typical Frida Kahlo self portrait:

Now, let's enhance it:

Now, let's enhance it once more:

She wasn't painting a self portrait of herself 38% of the time. Rather, 38% of the time she was warning us about the danger of unibrows.

How are unibrows dangerous? Well, her husband Diego Rivera had an affair with Frida's sister Cristina. And he did it for one specific reason: Cristina didn't have a unibrow. Even more specifically, Frida was trying to warn us about the sentient life form that, disguised as a unibrow, had grafted itself on to her face.

We all know that if you have a unibrow that dominant, your foremost duty to society is to wrangle it in to something more manageable and less threatening to the retinas of mankind. Even Frida would have known this. If she had been able to destroy the unibrow, she would have. But she didn't, which leaves only one logical conclusion: the alien unibrow was the source of her painting talent. If she destroyed the UALF (unibrow alien life form), then she'd also be destroying her ability to paint and in turn her ability to warn us about the invading UALF forces.

She was caught in a tragic symbiotic paradox in which she was both Samson and Delilah.

I am terrible at getting up in the morning. In an effort to be better at waking up, I am using the iPhone app "Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock". You place the phone on your bed (I set the phone to airplane mode to avoid radiating my head). Then the application uses the iPhone's accelerometers to measure your movement in order to tell which stage of sleep you're in. It uses that information to wake you up at an optimal place in your sleep cycle. It is by far the best application I have on my phone, and I'd almost swear by it. 

Perhaps the best part of the application is the graphs it makes of your sleep cycle. Here is the first sleep graph it made for me:

Went to bed / woke up: 11:50 / 7:27. Total time: 7h 36m

Around 4am, I was really good at sleeping.

The other morning I woke up to Sleep Cycle and had one of the strangest mornings. Not a bad morning by any means, just a strange one.

On the second day of using Sleep Cycle, I woke up and decided to look at my sleep graph. But I fell asleep while looking at it. Thirty minutes later I woke up to realize what had happened. I sprang from bed and dashed to get ready on time. After I put in my contacts, I looked up to see that a blood vessel had burst in my left eye leaving a bright red spot on the white of my eye (this is called a subconjunctival hemorrhage, and I'd never had one before. They're no big deal).

I also realized I had no clean socks, except ski socks.

Then I hoped on the bus to head for work. The bus goes through Chinatown, which is fine if you catch the bus before Chinatown springs to life. But after 8:45am strange things happen on those buses. I sat at the back of the bus and noticed that the woman sitting across the aisle had a strange bag. A brown paper bag inside of a large plastic bag, and about once a minute the bag would move. It didn't just move. It leaped four or five inches this or that direction. She probably had a live bird in the bag (either a pheasant or a quail). But seeing a bag jump and seeing something inside it struggle is unnerving, even if you know what is in the bag.

It is very entertaining though to watch how other people react to such a sight. The more high maintenance the person is, the funnier his or her reaction. Even more entertaining though is to see how the same people react when a guy on the back of the bus pees his pants, which is what happened next. He peed his pants and then ran off the bus at the next bus stop. Making way for a man who just peed his pants is the fastest you will ever see people on the bus move.

After all of that, I needed to unwind. I plunked down at my desk, put in my head phones, and Pandora.com proceeded to stream the most incredible playlist ever crafted in the history of time. So after a strange morning, I relaxed while Pandora made crazy sex to my eardrums.

Side story:

The other day I got off the bus and an old black woman asked me for a smoke...

Her: "Oh, Honey. Can you spare a smoke?"
Me: "I don't smoke."
Her: "Can you give a dollar to help a woman get some smokes?"
Me: "Sorry."
Her: "You know what. I HATE BLACK PEOPLE!"

Then she started flipping off any black people nearby and yelling at them.

There is no point to this post. It is simply a post for me to test out Metaweblog API features. I'm working on some Android and iPhone things for Xanga (not "Xanga hired me" but rather "I am making something so I can blog from my phone, because Xanga has the world's longest development cycle".

These projects will probably not be released publicly for several reasons, unless I just can't resist. So just ignore this post. There is nothing to see here. I will post real content later though. In fact, I'll probably post real content later on this evening.