Cancellara is the MAN

Here’s a video to keep you occupied while I’m cycling in Scotland! Time to go make sure I’ve packed everything...rain gear being the top priority, of course.

Fuzzy yellow balls

I’ve been trying to figure out the most opportune moment to post to the blog, but you see what happens when I do that. Yeah, how did it get to be mid-July?? Anyway, here’s what’s been going on.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, tennis, lots of tennis. So far I’ve been making quite the impact on the USTA team. Won the first match as part of a doubles pair, then got switched to singles and won the next two matches too. Those were both hard fought, and I learned that I (often) possess that ineffable quality necessary for sport known as mental toughness—which I suppose I knew already, but it was confirmed as I made it through those two matches with victory definitely not assured. That being said, my fourth match was a real rout, and not in the good way. I got totally pwned by this woman such that I was actually quite relaxed the whole time, in a “well there’s certainly no reason I should feel bad about getting beaten by someone so clearly better than I” kind of way. The funny thing there is that about four days later, she was disqualified by the USTA from 3.0-level play, and all her matches from this season awarded to her opponents. (I should add that she kicked everybody’s asses up and down, not just mine!) So I guess that match is now in my win column too, although only on a technicality. And finally, to catch you up, I won last week at singles too, even though I dropped the first set. In fact, I had a long moment where I thought about how much I actually was starting to hate competitive tennis, but fortunately that passed and I got back to the business of figuring out how to beat my opponent. Which I did!

So there’s one week left, and two matches, before the season ends. It’s been a lot of fun to get to know all the people on my team, and to play so much goddamn tennis. But it will be nice to have a break from it and get back to other things. The cycling is getting a bit neglected, for example. And it’s getting very close to vacation time for me and the Swami, which is a cycling tour in Scotland starting on the 23rd. There will be lots to report from that, so I’m assuming that August will be a better month for the blog than June and July. Also, I imagine that you intrepid readers might want a break from my incessant blathering about tennis. Did I mention that the Swami and I have been playing doubles too? Ah well, never mind that!

I'm a winner

Unlike LeBron James, I won something last weekend: a USTA tennis tournament! Okay, it wasn’t exactly the French Open, but it was pretty tough. I prevailed in fairly straightforward fashion on Saturday (6-3, 6-2), then managed to win a real battle on Sunday against a very tough opponent (7-6, 2-6, 6-3). It took about 2.5 hours and man, did I suck in the second set, as you can see by the score. The prize was this exceedingly cheesy trophy, you’ve got to love it. Boo yah!

Hello Cleveland

This post is dedicated to cheering up LeBron James now that his Cavaliers have been eliminated in the Eastern Conference Finals by Orlando. I figure these two videos will do the trick. Better luck next year! And p.s., LeBron, stop being such a crappy loser.

Car pr0n

As promised, some lovely photos of the new ride and one of the old one. Note that it took less than 24 hours for the new car to get covered in tree schmutz. I think I need to fire the chauffeur, he is a slacker!

Next, here’s a closeup of the cute little decklid spoiler and one of those rad alloy wheels.


And the interior, where you can see the heads-up display above the very sportay steering wheel and the gearshift (MANUAL TRANSMISSION BAYBEE):


Finally, the beloved old Civic, still cranking at 184K miles!

Review: Star Trek

Battle stations, everybody! Since I saw Star Trek on Sunday I’ve been thinking about how I might go about reviewing it. It’s not easy to sift through everything I think about it, and moreover there’s already a huge amount of discussion about the movie on the net, so it’s hard to be original. Hence I’m going to approach this as a meta-review.

First, as a longtime and fairly dedicated ST fan, it’s expected that I wouldn’t like the movie. And indeed I didn’t like it. Although while I was actually sitting in the theater, dazzled by all its prettiness and enjoying the often humorous dialogue and all the biiig explosions and the rest of the usual summer movie jazz, I did have a good time.

Then the lights came up, and the thinking started. Bad move. This is definitely not a movie to think about, under any circumstances. Don’t try to sift through any of the completely incoherent plot. Don’t try to figure out how the characters are motivated to do what they do. Don’t expect consistency from recurring plot devices. None of it will do anything for you but turn you into what is apparently the worst possible thing: the Cranky Fan.

One thing that keeps cropping up in online discussions of this movie is a neverending scorn for people who are Trek fans. Yeah, a few loonies out there actually dress as Klingons or commit other Trek-related weirdness. But never mind them, they’re a tiny cohort and outliers on the chart. Meanwhile, us sane people who have enjoyed a lot of Trekness over the last few decades, are we really to be ridiculed for thinking this movie sucked? If you’ve got a counterargument that it didn’t suck, then please lay it out. Forget the ad hominem crap and come up with some substantive reasons why it’s good. (Please try to move beyond the following: miniskirts, explosions, lensflare.)

Another thing I’m hearing is the idea that Trek fans can’t complain about the nonsensical supernova behavior or the other head-scratching plot elements in the movie because we’re willing to buy into impossibilities like faster-than-light travel or antimatter explosions or whatever. Hey folks, I don’t have a problem with science fiction. I do have a problem when a movie plot can’t scrape together the tiniest bit of internal consistency, or make any damn sense. Who cares if the concept of warp travel is crappy science? If a person or thing acts one way in one situation, and a different way when the plot requires it, that’s crappy storytelling. All stories deserve to be told well, whether it’s Trek or L.A. Confidential or Shakespeare. This one is told incredibly poorly.

Eh. I sound defensive through this whole post, but I don’t think I should have to defend myself. I’m bummed that this newest Trek incarnation is so lousy, and I don’t have to apologize for that. (Be glad I never even tried to watch Enterprise, heh! That looked like all kinds of suck.) In the meantime, maybe I’ll see the Wolverine movie again, that turned out to be better than this one. And maybe with the scads of money this movie will make, they’ll be able to make a better film next time.

Hot news in several flavors

It hardly seems possible, but there’s been too much going on recently and it’s been keeping me from updating the blog. So here is a summary:

New wheels: Finally, after many, many false starts (going back a ways!) we bought a new car last weekend. The hard part is over now—the price research, figuring out which dealer might be less sleazy than the others, the horror of haggling, the feeling that, despite everyone saying that this is the bestest time to get a fab deal on a car, we paid too much. Now all that’s left is to pick it up later this week (after checking to make sure the VIN is correct and all that paranoid jazz). Once the new toy gets driven home, I’ll post a pic and give more details. Woo, first car bought in twelve years, how crazy is that!

New TV: It seems silly to have a whole paragraph about this, but it’s pretty momentous in Casa Snorklewacker to upgrade the TV. After all, it was only back in 2000 that I replaced the 13-inch TV with a very modest—nay, un-American—20-inch one. Now we’ve got a 32-inch HD display with all the widescreen goodness. And, I must say, Halo 3 looks goddamn good on it. Standard-def cable, not so much. Guess I gotta upgrade that too, hmph.

There is no “I” in team: Last Tuesday, I overheard the pro who runs my tennis clinic telling someone about the local women’s USTA team. It’s something I’ve been curious about, so I wandered over and inserted myself into the conversation. Turns out that the last day of tryouts was the next day, so I figured that I was too late to get in on it. But the pro called the guy who runs the team and basically browbeat him into letting me come in and do some hitting. Mostly this consisted of the pro telling me to just show up, never mind that the coach was saying that there were no slots, etc. So on Wednesday I did just show up, and they did let me hit. The good news: they let me on the team! The bad news: despite how that sounds, it’s pretty much noncompetitive to get on the team, and it doesn’t at all mean that they send you to actual matches. There are far more people on the team than they need, so at a minimum it just means you can come to practices and get a little coaching and drilling. Well, I’m happy with that. What’s kind of schmacky is that after five minutes of hitting the ball around, the coach put me into the 3.0 level, which I doubt I am. I went to the first practice last night and out-hit a lot of the supposed 3.0s—heck, there is one girl there who can’t consistently hit the ball with her racket, which seems pretty crazy to me. Surely I am at a higher NTRP ranking than her?? But anyway. The important thing is that my foot’s in the door, something which wasn’t even on my radar a week ago. And maybe I’ll meet some people. Everybody seems nice, and I did get some good coaching advice last night. And after playing tennis last night for three-odd hours (there was the usual clinic, too!) I can proudly say that I am still able to climb stairs today. I wasn’t sure whether that would be the case!

So there’s the update for now. Hopefully more updates more often from here. I also need to see the Star Trek movie, surely that’ll inspire a post. Stay tuned.

Peep watch

My homie Beerad, living a newly itinerant life, has set up a blog to document his travels. Go check it out! It’s guaranteed to be interesting or he owes you a deep-fried chili dog or something.

In other peep news, we saw the ever-elusive Sashe this past weekend! How funny to have a friend from freaking Malaysia be the first person to see the new crib. I subjected him to some Halo 3 playing, and he subjected us to this incredibly addictive (as in, danger of losing your job addictive) online game. I am warning you, don’t click on the link. Or if you can’t resist, kiss your spouse farewell—and mute your speakers.

Whew

Well, I spent a day off of work today doing two very important things: mailing my damn tax returns, and clearing crap out of the old condo. Success on both fronts!

It is pretty sad to see the condo all empty. Funny, it looks much more worn around the edges than it did when it was full of our stuff. I wonder if this is why brokers don’t like to sell vacant properties: because every scuff mark and dull spot just sticks out. It makes me realize that the place was nice in large part because it was home. And now home is somewhere else, and that’s the nice place now. (Although complete, box-filled chaos.)

At this point there are just a few last things to get, and a final round of vacuuming, and then that tragic chapter in life will be closed. How weird, how awful. Thank heavens it’s almost entirely in the rear-view mirror. These last couple of weeks have just been a full-on sprint.

Closing time

Another step toward sanity and happiness was taken today as we closed on the sale of the condo. I am now free of debt, free of a crazy neighbor, free of thinking about repairs and termites and crabgrass. Right now I feel totally miserable about the whole thing. I think about all the money that was made off of my unhappy circumstance by the real estate brokers and the lawyers, the town, as they charged me to have my smoke detectors inspected, and the state, who made sales tax on the transaction. The idea of home ownership is, in my opinion, far shinier and more attractive than the reality. From big things, like having a neighbor move in who is totally insane and incapable of conducting her own affairs, to little things, like hearing a drip of water and wondering what you need to fix. Economic downturn and five-figure losses, and having to recaulk the bathtub. It all kind of sucks, really.

I don't even have to stay in the sphere of the personal or emotional when it comes to this topic. In a March 2009 Atlantic article, Richard Florida touched on the mythical nature of home ownership as a desirable goal. Here’s a lengthy, but relevant, quote:

The housing bubble was the ultimate expression, and perhaps the last gasp, of an economic system some 80 years in the making, and now well past its “sell-by” date. The bubble encouraged massive, unsustainable growth in places where land was cheap and the real-estate economy dominant. It encouraged low-density sprawl, which is ill-fitted to a creative, postindustrial economy. And not least, it created a workforce too often stuck in place, anchored by houses that cannot be profitably sold, at a time when flexibility and mobility are of great importance.

So how do we move past the bubble, the crash, and an aging, obsolescent model of economic life? What’s the right spatial fix for the economy today, and how do we achieve it?

The solution begins with the removal of homeownership from its long-privileged place at the center of the U.S. economy. Substantial incentives for homeownership (from tax breaks to artificially low mortgage-interest rates) distort demand, encouraging people to buy bigger houses than they otherwise would. That means less spending on medical technology, or software, or alternative energy—the sectors and products that could drive U.S. growth and exports in the coming years. Artificial demand for bigger houses also skews residential patterns, leading to excessive low-density suburban growth. The measures that prop up this demand should be eliminated.

If anything, our government policies should encourage renting, not buying. Homeownership occupies a central place in the American Dream primarily because decades of policy have put it there. A recent study by Grace Wong, an economist at the Wharton School of Business, shows that, controlling for income and demographics, homeowners are no happier than renters, nor do they report lower levels of stress or higher levels of self-esteem.

And while homeownership has some social benefits—a higher level of civic engagement is one—it is costly to the economy. The economist Andrew Oswald has demonstrated that in both the United States and Europe, those places with higher homeownership rates also suffer from higher unemployment. Homeownership, Oswald found, is a more important predictor of unemployment than rates of unionization or the generosity of welfare benefits. Too often, it ties people to declining or blighted locations, and forces them into work—if they can find it—that is a poor match for their interests and abilities.

In other words, owning a home, despite the encouragement of REALTORS(tm), your parents, the federal government, and just about anybody who is not actually on the hook for your housing problems, is not a one-way ticket to happiness and prosperity. If I had been renting this place, it would have been a hell of a lot easier and cheaper for me to leave when the situation got so unpleasant so fast. And I have a feeling that part of the neighbor’s stubborn refusal to compromise with us, or even understand her own situation, stems from the fact that she’s just as tied to her place by a mortgage as we are. Once it became clear that cooperative living was impossible, one of us had to take a huge hit to extricate ourselves from the situation. And that, my friends, sucks. That minor tax deduction for mortgage interest does not soften the blow, believe me.

Anyway, once we move this weekend, this whole debacle will start receding into the rear-view mirror. Then I can get back to posting Halo 3 screenshots and talking about tennis and cycling. I do want to thank you loyal peeps who have given me much sympathy through this whole thing. It is much appreciated.

In memoriam

Today’s the memorial service for the mother of my close friend Erin. You can view the obituary here. She was an amazing woman; I’m very grateful that I had the chance to meet her.

Everybody hug their loved ones today, extra tight.

New kidlets

I am totally remiss is not publicly congratulating Frantix and kaskasero on their new(ish) arrivals, Mihir and Olivia! Thank goodness there will be a new generation around to show us how to use our electronic devices as we get old and dotty. By then everything will all be controlled by our thoughts, and as one whose thoughts are particularly undisciplined, I will need all the help I can get.

Truman show

A lighthearted moment in the middle of all the angsty darkness: an octopus at the Aquarium jammed itself into a small box to try and liberate its lunch. The picture alone is worth visiting the link, I promise.

I am torn between wanting some sushi and feeling bad about having eaten octopus in the past. Although at least I didn’t have to unlock a box to get to it.

Rant of the month

I’ve been holding back from blogging this month due to being overwhelmed with house-selling trials and tribulations. To get the facts out of the way early, there was an offer, there was counteroffering, there was an agreement accepted, there was a home inspection, there was negotiation over the Purchase and Sale Agreement, there was signing of P&S. So that’s where we are now. “Pretty awesome!” you’re thinking. Well, in the sense that there is calm after the category 5 hurricane. Okay, I’m being overly dramatic. But dammit, this is my blog. In fact, one of the things holding me back from writing about recent events was that I’ve been feeling like a major league whiner throughout this whole process, and I was hesitant to inflict that on anyone else. But then I realized, hey, that’s the whole point of posting random shit on the Internet, right? So here’s the ranty stuff.

Jesus holy fuckos this has been such a nightmare. The buyers have been high maintenance lowballing foot-dragging dipshits throughout the process. Yeah, I too was a first-time buyer once, and was all of those things. But it is still not pleasant to be on the selling end of such a transaction. They’re getting a gorgeous condo in excellent condition* and they should get the fuck over their petty issues. In other words, it’s retarded to try to write into P&S that I need to put up all the window screens in the back porch. Uh, yeah? They’re in the basement, which you saw. I highly recommend you learn how to install a window screen. It takes about thirty seconds. One of the onerous responsibilities of home ownership.

(*note: Yes, they are actually entering into a world of misery when they discover the neighbor they have acquired. I recognize this evens things out a little in the long run.)

Meanwhile, the apartment search has commenced. Swami and I hoofed through six units this last weekend, some of which were pretty nice, and some of which were atrocious. Nothing as spectacular as cheetah wallpaper, but definitely some head-scratching moments. Like, why does this attic bedroom have a sink in it? Just parked against a wall, minding its own business? Very weird.

But never mind the informative details, I’m in rant mode here. As I look over potential places to live, and fight with these buyers over astonishingly small amounts of money, I am struck over and over again how this whole damn situation was shoved up my ass without warning. Two years ago, as you read on this very blog, I spent quite a bit of time and thought choosing the place we bought to live. Checked out the neighbors, sucked up to a seller who was a total douchebag, made a full-price offer. And I got a place that was great. And then I lived as if I cared about the people around me, because dammit I actually do. And also because I do expect that kindness in return. Meanwhile, Fate took a huge crap on my head and I get the following: metric assloads of batshit craziness from my new neighbor, leading to me getting a sinking feeling in my stomach every time I turn onto the street on my way home from somewhere; a huge financial hit from selling a house that’s lost about 15% of its value since we bought; prospective apartments that are farther from work, farther from various conveniences, in poorer condition, lacking some of the amenities I have now, or some combination of all of that. It sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

For a while I tried not to let it bother me, tried to be fatalistic. But I’m just overwhelmed with a bitter combination of outrage and self-pity. And my neighbor has the gall to whine to me in voice mails about how miserable she is because of what this has all been like for her. Oh, fuck that. I feel no pity for someone who isn’t even aware of the misery she causes others, even those who have tried to do right by her. And maybe in some other life she will come to learn of her responsibility for her own unhappiness. I sincerely hope so. And once I manage to pry the black claws of her fucked-up-ness from around my life, I might even be able to forgive her for what’s happened, since she’s obviously a person too damaged or stupid or senile to grasp the reality she’s made. But fuck, I am not feeling particularly charitable right now.

Well, that does it for now. It did take a little weight off me, so perhaps there is some catharsis to be had in shouting out to the faceless void. And some day this will all be a bizarre chapter in my past that I can joke about. When will that be, exactly?

Recipe: Linguine with broccoli and sausage

In the midst of my very dire winter doldrums comes this dish that Swami and I make all the time. It’s relatively fast and relatively healthy, and might briefly make you forget your troubles. Especially if you drink some of the wine while you’re cooking!

- 6 oz. uncooked pasta (linguine works best)
- 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 or 3 dashes crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp. minced fresh garlic (4-5 cloves)
- 2 c. broccolini or broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 plum tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced (optional)
- approx. 8 oz., or half a package, of fully-cooked chicken sausage or chorizo, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch slices (I’ve been using these)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- dry white wine, such as Pinot Grigio, Albariño, or Orvieto
- good-quality Parmesan cheese (for pity’s sake, don’t use the crap in the green can!)

Timing: Start boiling the water for the pasta before you begin prep. If you use linguine, the pasta takes about the same amount of time to cook as the sauce, so once you throw the pasta into the boiling water, you should start cooking.

Heat olive oil and red pepper flakes in a large, deep-sided pan over medium heat 1 minute. Reduce heat slightly and add garlic; stir 1 minute. Add broccoli(ni) and saute 4 min. (I usually add the salt and black pepper at this point.) Add tomatoes and saute 1 min. Add sausage and saute everything 3 more min. Deglaze pan with 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the white wine. You don’t want much sauce for this; add just enough wine to cover the bottom of the pan. Increase heat and simmer everything 2 min. Check seasoning and add more salt and pepper as needed. Sometime during this phase the pasta should be done; drain well and dump pasta into sauce. Toss to coat, then serve with lots of Parmesan.

Serves 2.

By the way, there’s no need to stint on the quality of your Parmesan. Just buy a big wedge, cut off what you need for the night, and throw the rest into a freezer bag and keep frozen. When you know you’re going to use it, put it in the fridge in the morning. It lasts forever this way.

Enjoy!

Inauguration Day

What a pleasure it was to watch Dubya’s helicopter flying away from Washington. It’s time to scrub off the grime of the last eight years and get to work finding what has been lost, rebuilding what has been destroyed, righting what has been upset, and healing what has been harmed.

Ah, damn

Last night we were stymied in our attempt to see Slumdog Millionaire—the lines for tickets were waaay too long, I guess because of Notorious or somesuch, so we decided to hit dinner instead at the most delectable Rod Dee 2. Well, imagine the shock when we came upon its location on Peterborough St. The whole row of buildings that had once been a bunch of cool restaurants had burned down! Here’s the Globe story; here’s the Herald; here’s a blog post where in the comments many people mourn the loss of all those joints.

It’s really a drag, not even so much for us, since we went there maybe a few times a year, but for the neighborhood, which was made special by all that life packed into the narrow streets of the Fenway. But I really, really hope that I find Pad Ka Na somewhere that was as good as Rod Dee’s. Salty, spicy, with lots of Chinese broccoli…mmm. I did just learn that a third Rod Dee location appeared recently near Washington Square in Brookline, so now it’s imperative to check it out.

Once again life reminds us that things never freaking stay the same.

Batting practice

Well, during this long week off (not long enough, actually!), there’s been just a little bit of time spent playing Halo 3 online. Just a little bit. I figured out how to take screenshots, so here are a couple. You can either shake your head and wonder what the heck this silliness is all about, or if you’re kaskasero you can feel incredibly jealous!

In the first one, I am actually missing the target of my gravity hammer strike, but the ensuing effect was cool so I took a pic of it.


In the second one, well, this is what happens when you actually make contact. Whammmm!

Recap 2008

It’s getting down to the wire here in 2008, isn’t it? Somehow a final taking of stock seems appropriate.

Miles bicycled: 915.98

Minutes of tennis played: 6,949

Appallingly short list of movies seen in the theater:
There Will Be Blood
Iron Man
W.
Valkyrie

2009 movies that hopefully won’t suck:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Watchmen
Star Trek

Presidential elections pwned: 1

Purchases reflecting my deeply conflicted nature:
New MacBook laptop
Xbox 360

Other things I want to see in 2009:
My house sell
Gilbert Arenas playing basketball
Another Crowded House album
Continued improvement in my Halo 3 multiplayer kill/death ratio

And of course:
World peace.

Hello

Whoops, I promised myself I would keep up the blog, yet here I’ve been lax for all of December. Here’s a photograph of a chandelier made of shattered plates that I saw at MOMA in New York over Thanksgiving, as a gesture of apology.


Tomorrow we head to the family holiday festivities. Wish me luck. Otherwise, no news to report: no offers on the house, no more crazy neighbor encounters, no decent weather for cycling, nothing going on but the daily slog. I promise the next post will be more interesting. :)