Go forward in time to July 2001.
Productive hacking day. Fixed some bugs in the views; worked on the alarm notification daemon. It is so nice ot be able to debug things on a separate console.
OH MY GOD. Philip Glass's concerto for cymbals and orchestra on the radio, as part of the live broadcast from the Sala Ollin Yoliztli. We will attend tomorrow's concert; this wonder has to be seen live.
Switched once again to using Evolution as my main mailer. It is *much* more usable these days. I think I can finally ditch Gnus. Some annoying bugs still have to be fixed, but I can live with them for now.
Cool things that happened over the week: Finally found a hand-strap for my Rollei 35. Met Ricardo who is on vacation and back from Ensenada; he'll be one of the witnesses at the wedding. Got a free ticket for last Saturday's OFUNAM concert from a very kind man, and Javier played English horn in Stravinski's Rite of Spring. Took a roll of long exposures at night with the aid of my new Manfrotto tripod. Listened to a lot of Rush courtesy of Oralia. Engaged in discussions about old and cranky people and how they are unchangeable. There was only one short blackout during the whole week even though it has rained every day.
Last night's movie: Pearl Harbor. The battle kicks as but is very clichéd, the love story is lame.
Worked from home. Waiting for Chema to send the invoice of the gateway machine so that I can get it fixed.
Friday: The gateway machine at the office burnt its power supply or motherboard or something. This really sucks.
Went with Oralia to see Rembrandt in the evening. Amazing as a period piece, but with a lame story. But the actors *do* look like the people in the paintings, which is great.
Saturday: Picture-taking action in Chapultepec park. Oralia was not feeling very well at all, though, so we left early-ish. Plenty of hacking in the afternoon.
Sunday: Father's day. Quick breakfast at the Chupacabras. Then we went for some CD-shopping action; we got one Oscar Peterson CD for my dad and one of Enrico Caruso for Oralia's. For us, Jean Michel Jarre's Metamorphoses and John Adams's violin concerto. Took Oralia to her parents' house afterwards.
Excellent lunch with my dad; had some cochinita pibil from the Turix restaurant. Went back home, talked to my brother for a bit and we burned a couple of CDs. Plenty of work afterwards until I finally fell asleep.
Had a hard time trying to wake up.
Finally submitted my paper for OLS before AJH sent the late-submissions death squad my way. And damn, Ettore beat me to it. Orph did not beat me to it, so I don't suck as much now.
Ettore called; had a nice talk about dates and milestones and features and stuff. It is good to hear the crazy Italian.
Last night's movie: Y tu Mamá También. Excellent.
GNOME Board conference call; stayed at home to work afterwards. Finally got wvdial to be useful; it certainly beats manual dialing with minicom. It is sad that you only get a sketchy man page.
Tonight's movie: Sweet November. Not bad. I wonder how it compares to the original 1968 version.
Friday: Big dinner at Paco's house to celebrate his birthday. Lots of nerdy musical discussion revolving around xenharmonic scales and non-Western instruments. Alex is feeling better from his appendectomy. Oralia was not feeling well, unfortunately, so we left earlier than the rest.
Saturday: Lunch at my grandmother's. OFUNAM concert in the evening; they played Dvorak's 9th symphony. Had a wonderful time. Took Oralia to her parents' house in the evening. Went to Javier G.'s house afterwards; Paco and Javier O. were already there. We played Cuban dominoes, which is like normal dominoes but the pieces go up to nine dots and there is no pile from which you can take pieces other than the ones you already have; this makes the game quite different. Luis arrived later with some pretty good hamburgers and we played some more. Fell asleep on the couch, got woken up when everyone was leaving. Crashed hard upon getting home.
Sunday: Slept until late. Woke up, had a glass of water and some leftover spaghetti, slept some more. Woke up again even later, showered. Burned a CD that I had promised to give to some street musicians that hang around the park. Went out, found them at their usual spot, gave them the CD (Steve Tibbetts / Exploded View). Went for lunch, had some really good pozole and flautas. Went for a coffee. Sat down in the park, watched the human race go by, took a few pictures. The light started to suck so stopped taking pictures. Went for some CD purchasing action. The loot: Oscar Peterson, John Coltrane with Duke Ellington, Philip Glass with Ravi Shankar, Louis Armstrong, and the Delerium CD that I was missing, Semantic Spaces. This last one turns out to be very good hacking music, just like Karma. Fell asleep on the couch once again while listening to the jazz CDs; finally woke up, gave up trying to do anything productive, and went to bed for good.
A small gem from the Nikon-MF mailing list:
--- Clit Licker <cunnilingusforever@yahoo.com> wrote:
About to get back into photography after a long
absence. Planning to buy either a FM-2 or the new
FM-3. Querstions about lens compatibility. My
interests include general and macro
photography.
Hello Clit,
Either camera will suit you well. Consider a
motordrive also if you shoot moving subjects such as
domestic pussy cats or beavers in the wild. The
newest model will support TTL flash which comes in
handy when shooting in dark locations where the sun
does not shine.
An F2 would also be an excellent choice. They are
more ruggedly built and would better take a licking
than the FM series whether you are shooting on a busy
street corner or out in the bush. Keep an eye on Ebay
and sooner or later you'll find one that's so clean
you could eat off it.
However if you plan to shoot in damp conditions none
of these are a good choice. A waterproof Nikonos is
the better tool if you expect to get it wet. If you
have the cash you could get one of each and have your
cake and eat it too. So to speak.
Keep those questions coming!
Of course some people whined and complained. Naysayers, bah.
QOTD: Hey, don't look at me, I'm just a clone. It was her idea.
Wheeee: Oralia stayed over last night. This made me extremely happy. And it rained last night, so sleep was good.
Melancholy: is what I feel when I listen to Albéniz's Jerez after not having played the piano for so long. I must move it soon. Now that there is money in the bank, it can be done.
Today: too surreal.
Note to self: Pay the fucking rent. Pay the fucking electricity. Pay the fucking gas. Pay the fucking phone. Pay pay pay pay for your life.
Got off my ass and built db3 by hand; built Evolution against it. It does build but my contacts have disappeared yet again. Started with a fresh addressbook, and they do not appear either. Sigh.
Finishing off my paper for OLS which is fantastically overdue now.
Nice lunch with Luis at the Tizoncito. We went for a coffee afterwards, and around the coffee shop there were a bunch of cute girls giving out samples of Axe deodorant. So we took some pictures. And then Luis's car almost got towed but we were able to "rescue" it before they took it away...
Unproductive day. Woke up really late. Had almost nothing left in the fridge. Got creative and cooked potatoes and tomato sauce seasoned with anise seeds, rosemary, cumin, curry, and some pepper. They turned out surprisingly tasty. Also made a simple cucumber salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little sesame seed oil. The meal was more filling than I thought it would be, which was good because I was pretty much starving.
Fell asleep on the couch reading John Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, a truly fantastic book.
My brother and my mom helped to hang my big bookshelf on the wall. Now the living room is full of drilled-out brick dust, but I have a bookcase.
Good lunch at my grandmother's as usual.
In the afternoon, went to the park for a coffee. Took a few pictures, listened to some pretty good street musicians and talked to them afterwards; I need to burn a copy of Steve Tibbetts's Exploded View for them.
Sleep: Wow, managed to wake up before 9:00 AM. Wasted time by reading some Golding and doing house-stuff.
Shower: Is fixed now. Woohoo, I can shower with hot water again.
Parabellum: Brought in all the photo gear in preparation for Friday's party-across-the-street.
Outcome: Of course there was no party today, so I took zero pictures. Sigh.
What made my day today: Pornolize this page.
Evolution did not build during the whole day due to db3 issues. Why can't the Sleepycat people just get it right?
Saw The Mummy Returns with Oralia. Pretty amusing, but there is such a thing as "too much". Of course, the chick fight scenes kick ass. I mean, no movie can go wrong with scantily-clad women performing martial arts.
Go backward in time to May 2001.
Federico Mena-Quintero <federico@gnome.org> Tue 2001/Aug/07 09:23:08 CDT