here we are in valparaíso! this is our second and last day here...tomorrow, we make the trek south, to patagonia. how exciting!!

after hanging out at the san salvador airport, my next layover was in lima. the airport there was very pretty and modern, but it was still just an airport, so i was happy when the plane finally landed in santiago. i arrived at 2:30am, chile time, so the airport was pretty dead. it was so dead that i couldn't find anyone to pay my reciprocity tax to (which, by the way, was US$100!!! apparently, because the US charges chileans the same amount to go into the US, chile decided to 'return the favor'). finally, after talking to two different immigration officers, i found out that the only person who works at the tax counter sleeps on the floor, so all i had to do was to knock on all the windows until i found her to wake her up. good times. n had taken a taxi from our hotel to pick me up, so the trip into downtown santiago was not too bad and i didn't have to deal with the 20 or so taxi drivers at the airport trying to get my business (yes, at 3am in the morning).

the next day, there was a final event for the conference n was at and he said it was ok for me to come along. a big tour bus drove the entire conference group from the US to the house of the guy who heads up the science institute that UCSF is associated with. damn, this guy is R.I.C.H. when we arrived at what could only be described as his estate, there were 4 llamas and multiple peacocks roaming the grounds. around the bend, there were all these waiters handing out pisco sours (national drink), wine, beer, juices while others walked around with baskets of warm empanadas. after some mingling, we were led to this big tent with tables all set up for a lunch of grilled meats and lots of wine. let's just say that's not a bad way to start one's vacation in chile! ;)

we spent the next few days in santiago just wandering, eating, and drinking. there's a neighborhood called bellavista that's super funky, with graffiti and murals on nearly every building and bars serving liter-size bottles of beers for about US$3. woo! we ate at a sushi place that was way too hip for us, ie techno blasting and lots of beautiful people but only 4 kinds of fish available. checked out some eateries in the central market and got a mound of uni (sea urchin). mmmm. also wandered in patronato, which is the 'immigrant neighborhood' where we saw korean markets and restaurants. didn't get to try them though, although we did debate whether to buy some korean ramen for our patagonia trip.

yesterday, we took the bus here to valparaíso and checked into our bed and breakfast, which is this really cute old yellow house on the hill. the view in our room is AMAZING!! this is seriously the best room i've ever stayed at for $50. a chilean woman and her aussie husband owns it and it's been a b&b for about a year. from our b&b, we can walk or take the funicular down to the 'plan', the flat area of town nearer the water. from there, we can take more funiculars (there are like 14 total in the city) up to other hill neighborhoods. there was a random marching band event at the main square, with lots of drum lines performing. after watching that for a while, we wandered up to another hill neighborhood and had the best meal so far in chile at this trendy italian place called pasta e vino (scallop ravioli in roquefort sauce and spaghetti with octopus, shrimps, and cilantro). one thing we kept noticing is that a lot of chilean restaurants' kitchens are run by women, which is completely different from the states. after dinner, we checked out another part of town with supposedly lots of fun bars and picked a divey, student-filled one where we spent $5 on 4 half-liters of beer. mwahaha. today, we did more wandering around and also briefly dropped into viña del mar, the resort town for rich people next to valparaíso. casinos, high-rise hotels, beaches...meh.

tomorrow is a whole day of travel, then we begin the 'REI' portion of our chilean adventure. wish us luck!!

hola from san salvador, where palm trees are abundant and airports have free internet stations! landed here about 3 hours ago and still have two more hours to go on this interminable layover...but there are pupusas for $1! maybe i shouldn´t complain...

current music playing is none other than`"total eclipse of the heart".

i wish i could go out and check out el salvador but for fear of missing my connection to lima and due to general laziness of going thru unnecessary immigration steps, i hang out here.

did you know there´s a spanish version of lj? thats what this computer defaults to...

this weekend, n and i joined some friends who live monterey for a day hike as training for the backpacking trip we're taking with jcruelty and az in a few weeks. the hike nearly killed me ... but in a good way. n promised me that the hike in august will be much easier, except for the fact that we have to carry a bunch of gear. :P

thanks to google, i finally figured out that the hike we did this weekend was the rocky ridge & sobreanes canyon loop at garrapata state park. elevation change was about 1800 feet, which was pretty intense for someone like me who hasn't hiked in a long time. my legs are still sore! also, we didn't get to eat lunch until we've climbed up most of the peak. note to self: eat first next time.

i'll post some pics soon when i get them off my camera. the trail had everything you would want - views of the cove/ocean/waves crashing, a bench near the top with amazing views, climbing up higher than the fog, walking through a lush canyon w/ redwoods everywhere on the way down. there was even a weirdo patch with lots of cacti everywhere.

tuscan peasant bread
Originally uploaded by little blue dots

some new foodie things i've done lately:

• baked a loaf of bread involving yeast!
  
• baked a three-layer, lemon chiffon cake for brad's birthday
  
• ate tofu that was made right in front of me at eiji
  
• made 'pre-hispanic' black bean tamales, mint chutney, melon agua frescas
  
• made a mexican 'caprese' salad - instead of basil, cilantro. instead of fresh mozzarella, queso fresco. instead of balsamic vinegar, fresh lime juice.
  
• yelping a lot
  

i really meant to take a picture of dinner tonight but apparently, i forgot to charge my camera. blah!

on this beautiful sunday, i went over to the sunset after POH to return two chinese dvds (triad election and election 2 - both really good) and got my hair cut. once i got back home, instead of working then yoga as i originally planned, i slacked off and started trying to figure out how to use up all the mint in our fridge instead. so that got me started on a mojito granita.

but mojito granita won't use up all the mint, so then came a mint/cilantro chutney. but a chutney needs to go on something, and after skimming through n's indian cookbook, i called n up and told him i'm making him dinner tonight. on the menu: lamb kebabs with indian spices, mint and cilantro chutney, and raita (since our veggie box gave us one cucumber this week).

the whole thing got kind of elaborate in the end because it was hard tracking down ground lamb and then trying to defrost 3 lbs of ground lamb was not small feat. once defrosted, i realized i should have halved the recipe because now we have literally a mountain of leftover meatballs. but dinner turned out pretty awesome, especially eaten with warm naan bread. yummm.

n and i both woke up monday morning at 6am, sick to our stomachs. at first, we thought it was food poisoning from the takeout we got the night before, since we both got sick at the same time. but as the day went on and we heard news of other people being sick through email and IMs, we realized that it was stomach flu. our boss and his family have been sick the past week with said flu (which, did you know, is apparently not actually related to actual flu?) but had promised to host a party at the house on saturday night. as far as we know, six people who attended the party including us came down with stomach flus 2 days after. pretty awful.

the worst part about stomach flu, aside from the obvious unpleasantness of spending lots of time in the bathroom, is the complete loss of appetite. the entire monday, i ate nothing and drank only water and gatorade but did not feel hungry once. when i weighed myself on my bathroom scale, i had lost 5 lbs! and i'm not even exaggerating!! pretty ridiculous. yesterday consisted of tentative forays into the world of semi-solid foods, so we drove to chinatown for some congee/jook. since we got there before 6pm, we got in before the "early bird special"of $2.50 per bowl ended. our whole dinner costed $5.50. mwaha...we're senior citizens.

i still feel woozy but finally made it into work today. but just walking down the hall leaves me completely wiped out. good thing i don't need to do much else the rest of the day except sitting at my desk and reading. hopefully, i'll be fully recovered tomorrow. i'm going to a dinner at b's house for a gluttony-induced menu of brine'd and bacon'd turkey, sausage stuffing, duo of green beans, butternut squash soup, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes, pumpkin profiteroles, and a bunch of other things i don't remember right now.

apparently, the ps3 is going on sale tonight at midnight. also apparently, 5 ucsf grad students (one from my lab) are currently hanging out in line, hoping for a chance to buy them. they've been there since last night. just a little while ago, someone posted a flyer in the 4th floor hallway with a picture of the 5 of them, playing cards on a giant cooler, with the text "do you know where your grad students are?" all five of them work on the 4th floor ... i wonder if any of their bosses will actually notice the poster...

in other news, i'm in the depths of orals preparation, trying to read a stack of papers before dec 15th. i finally finished a draft of my proposal earlier this week and sent it out to my committee for comments. everyone keeps telling me i shouldn't worry about it and maybe they're right, but i also don't want to be one of the only students to not pass my orals! i wonder if i'll get all the learning i need to do done in 4 weeks...

it's been a busy busy month. after the scavenger hunt at the end of september, i haven't spent a weekend at home until this past one.

infrared tahoe
Originally uploaded by little blue dots.

there was the bioengineering retreat in tahoe the first weekend of october. the drive up on friday was long because the van i was riding in, dubbed the "party van" and filled with my fellow 3rd years, kept stopping along the way for various things: in-n-out, bevmo, etc. some of the guys insisted on mixing drinks in the van during the ride, so by the time we got up to the retreat, dinner was ending (although they were nice enough to still let us eat) and most of us were quite tipsy. that night, there was a party at the cabin next to mine, but i didn't stay long because i had to give the first talk on saturday morning. after the talk, which went pretty well, i skipped out on most of the science the rest of the day and took naps, played volleyball, and messed around with the IR filter i had just gotten. saturday night was a blur of wine, many rounds of flip cup (two faculty members had bought kegs for us), people yelling lyrics to 'livin' on a prayer" acapella, etc. the drive back sunday morning was a bit rough, to say the least.

sunset near big sur
Originally uploaded by little blue dots.

the weekend after that, n took me on my first camping trip ever (!) near big sur. we ducked out of work early friday afternoon and drove on highway 1 to get to this campsite by the ocean. we made grilled jerk fish and portabello mushrooms the first night and drank wine by the fire under the stars til dark. after a bacon-n-eggs breakfast the next morning, we hiked down to the beach by the campsite and then drove to big sur to do some hiking there. dinner the second night was grilled sausages, red bell peppers and zucchini. more sitting by the campfire with wine and beer and playing guitar (not me) before bedtime. drove out sunday morning to hit major traffic near half-moon bay (stupid craft fair thing) but still got back in time to interview a high school kid for rice admissions.

the weekend after *that* was the aaap wedding in bodega bay. but first was the decemberists show on thursday night which was a.w.e.s.o.m.e. they were so so good live. then friday, picked up cosmo from the airport and our car started the drive up to the rental houses. arrived at the beautiful houses, made dinner, and chilled til everyone else arrived. the whole weekend was magical and amazing - lots of jokey jokes and group meals - and made me miss the time when party inna box all lived in the bay area. the wedding on sunday at the sonoma coast villa was beautiful, including an impromptu 'careless whisper' karaoke performance by brad and the boys. i'll always remember: waking up to deers, carpool lane dvd screening, 'ohs'-ing the hot tub, shooting stars, jewish robot at chucky cheese, david's talking mime, azai, sd's pancakes, walking in the fog to the oyster catcher, return of the subhead dance and the windmill, walk-in showers, jacuzzi in the bathroom, fresh baked bread loaves, wine tasting, c's surprise cakes+ice cream, etc etc.

after the awesome weekend, n and i went straight to napa for our lab's retreat, which turned out rather well and definitely much better than i expected. the whole lab stayed in this other prof's vacation house in the midst of a vineyard and talked science for two days, interspersed with some running around on the grass and jumping into the pool. good dinner at tra vigne and some hanging out post-dinner.

now that it's all over, it's time to buckle down and prepare for orals in december. wish me luck!

the sfmoma scavenger hunt was a-ma-zing. it's going to be hard to describe it in words, especially because my team and i had to split up in order to get a lot of the stuff so i missed out on 3/4 of the action, but i'll try to jot down some notes about the whole day. some pics by other participants here and here.

before i go into the day of the hunt, some highlights from the week before (aka, the week of my birthday): meeting n's parents down at s.cruz, playing with their doggie bosely, n's parents' faces when they found out i have the same birthday as n's mom, best mac and cheese ever, watching the chronicles of narnia, listening to the shins and flaming lips at dinner (they also like yo la tengo), tartine breakfast tues morning, people running by me in lab to give me bday hugs, rue st jacques for dinner (next to a cable car line ... ding ding!) where we had veal, rack of lamb, beet salad w/ fresh anchovies, and creme brulee, orbit room for drinks after where alberta made me a tamarindy drink with pimms and made n a whiskey-based drink w/ apples, chicken deli on thursday with lab peeps, 8-min presentation on friday for a fellowship that they gave me a day to prepare for, gavin newsome in spectacles visiting ucsf causing much free food and wines, making pizza and watching 'primer' which is this awesome but super-confusing movie, going to bed early to prepare for the hunt.

saturday, we wake up at 7:30 to have enough time to get ready, grab some coffee+breakfast and run a couple of errands before heading to the museum. when we get there, there's already a mass of people waiting to get inside, so we line up with them while waiting for our other two team members c & d. near us in line is the infamous team of bike messengers who have been interviewed by various local newspapers. other teams actually printed up matching shirts or various matching costumes. as the door to the museum opens, we see c&d on c's motorbike at a stoplight down the street. when we get to the front of the line, the two guys strolled up purposefully with their helmets and we enter the museum. team 'amplified to rock' is indeed, ready to rock.

once inside, more waiting in line because every team has to register and sign various release forms. finally, at about 10am, every team has gone through the process and we all sit patiently in the auditorium for our instructions. at one end of the stage, there's a lady dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses, lit from above by a single spotlight, holding a black briefcase. the artist steps on the stage and proceeds to welcome us and give us instructions. when he gets to the part about the winning prize ($4000), the lady in black opens the briefcase and shows all of us the $4000 in cash. so her entire job for the whole day is to keep the briefcase safe and to show us the money every so often.

the energy in the room is high and people keep clapping and cheering for random things that the artist would say. finally, he's done talking and the clues are handed out - 100 of them in a sealed white envelope. we're told that upon receiving the clues, we have to immediately exit the museum (because it's not open to the public until 11am on saturdays) and we cannot return with our items until 6pm, although we can stop in during the day if we find the need to for certain clues. our team walks quickly out of the museum and agree to meet back in lab, which is to be our HQ. on the way to n's car, d sees someone wearing a jacket of his that he had lost at a show at bottom of the hill. after he chats with the guy for a while (all with me and n wondering why the hell he's wasting time talking with the dude), he actually gets his jacket back!! with that done, we start figuring out some obvious clues on the ride over to HQ (e.g. 'king arthur had one'=round table, 'two people laying next to each other. bash one flat'=flattened spoon, 'utensils you hold in one hand. usually comes in paper envelope'=chopsticks).

once in lab, we start interwebbing and trying to figure out clues like mad. c decides to take most of the timed and location-specific clues since he can get to places faster on motobike. he takes off around 11am to get to the first timed clue (lafayette tennis courts) by 11:30am. the rest of us stays behind to try to figure out more clues (e.g. 'excusado senor weston'=toilet, 'what does femme au chapeau have in her hand'=fan). around noon, r runs over from the other building with the message that c has been trying to call us but none of us are answering our phones. i call c back and he's having problems with a clue ('make an addition with the greatest of ease') - we can't figure it out so he takes a couple of pictures with the sculpture (a mobile of trapeze artists) and heads off to the next clue.

meanwhile, the three of us left at lab are preparing to head out ourselves. we decide to drop me off at my house, where i can look for some of the items (e.g. airmail stamp from a foreign country - thanks laura! your letter from singapore surely came in handy, a fish carved out of soap, mascara so i can 'flash my lashes on the paper side of a chewing gum wrapper', used toothbrush). on the way, i spot a garage sale but we don't have time to stop. i go to my house and n and d head off to the mission to start gathering more items. i munch on a slice of cold pizza while looking up a couple more clues at home. there's a treasure island elementary school in the city?! so when c calls asking me to grab a pill bottle (a clue he got from a fake doctor), i ask him to check out the school in the tenderloin. he calls back and says the school isn't there anymore and nothing matches anything on the clue. ok, so that's a dead end. he heads off to the next timed clue (bercut equitation field) and i look up directions to the actual elementary school on treasure island.

i rush out of my house and make my way to treasure island, which i have never been to before. after a bit of navigating (thank goodness all their streets are numbers and letters), i find the elementary school with the mural described in the clue. 'what is the bird on the t-shirt of the boy in the chest got in his mouth? get one.' i go up to the mural and take a phone picture of it - it's some kind of branch? a security guard comes out and yells at me about not posting signs on the wall. i tell him i'm just taking a picture and he relaxes and says 'oh ok ok...go right ahead!' and walks away. i get back in the car and starts driving off, but then look down at the clue sheet again and see an additional sentence in the clue. '(you only need to turn the corner)' crap. i drive back to the school and walk around the corner from the mural. can't find anything that looks like what the bird has in its mouth!! i pace around a couple of times and decide to just grab a branch off a little weedy plant. (this is a stupid move as i find out later that the bird is carrying an olive branch - apparently, once i showed my team the picture, they all knew what exactly kind of branch it is - and there must have been an olive tree RIGHT THERE next to where i was standing). off i go back into the city.

on my way back, i call up a guy i know at school who had done a skit with a toilet a year ago. the toilet is still sitting in the lab! and we can have it!!! i call n and d to deliver the good news and to exchange updates. they've been busy since i've been away at treasure island. they ask me to take over the timed clue at 3:30pm at the cca because c can't make it over there in time and i tell them something i found for another clue: 'the secret agent is having her hair done' - there's a secret agent salon in nob hill. they look it up, call the salon, and confirm that something for the hunt is there. so they take that clue over and i get ready to go to cca. i still have 40 min, so i head to union sq to get perfume strips from a dept store for another clue. on the way, i pop into payless shoes to see if they would give me 4 empty shoeboxes. the guy at the register says if i come back in 15 min, he can give me some. perfect! two more items down!

done with the shoeboxes and perfume strips, i head over to the cca to make sure i'm not late. the clue says 'go to art class. cca hooper courtyard. arrive promptly at 3:30pm'. i get there and other teams are gathered in front. while waiting, i overhear a girl telling someone on the phone that one of the clues 'strip with andy. ask in koret' is actually in the moma. i call n and d to send them over and luckily, they're just at the zeum by yerba buena to get a clue from a sad clown so d just runs over from the zeum and grabs that clue. the gates to the courtyard open and we enter the classroom. we're told to grab a block of clay, one per team, and sit down. i'm amazed that some teams actually have all four members show up - how can they get anything done by staying together?! the crazy instructors tell us we have to sculpt some hot shit today. everyone waits. one guy gets it and starts sculpting a pile of poo and pretty soon, everyone's getting it. i get my sculpture approved and dash out of the school.

i head back home to start work on some of the craft clues and to grab the sewing kit that d had asked me for. along the way, i stop by the garage sale and there's a round table! i ask the lady how much for the round table: '$10'. 'ohh...i actually just need it for a scavenger hunt....' she thinks for a second and tells me that i'm the second person to tell her that today. then she offers me the round table for free because she's about to send it off to goodwill anyway. yes!!! one round table now in my car - check!! back at home: 'pencil drawing of the queen of hearts. no playing cards.' i take this to mean a pencil drawing of princess diana, so i get to work on it. also carve a fish out of soap and borrow some mascara from my roommate to flash my lashes. the boys call up around 4:30pm and we agree to meet back at the lab.

we're frantic back at lab as it is time to tackle most of the craft projects. i sew 'desire' (the destination of the train at the little hollywood launderette) onto a pair of men's underwear. i make a horse out of carrots (the clue from the equitation field). we fry up an egg ('an egg. sunny side up or easy over') on the lab griddle, cut corn kernels from the cob ('cob off the corn'), smear glue on n's hand and peel it off when it dries ('glue peeling of a hand'), trample on some eyeglasses, make a grenade out of a potato (the clue from the secret agent salon), etc etc. i hear bits and pieces of how the boys got various items like a wheel and a red shoe from the dolores park giveaway fair. 'what's not allowed in the sf zoo other than rollerblades, etc etc?': a balloon. 'but she felt the pea under them all': a mattress d paid $5 to some guy for over by the bar stud's. we do an amazing amount of last minute crafting and figuring out a few more clues.

we find someone in the lab who might have an expired green card and at 6pm, i go with him to his house to look for it while also making some mud in his yard ('slough' - turns out to be wrong. they wanted snake skin.) he can't find his green card, so i take him back to lab and i run to my house and grab my expired international student ID card, which is green. 6:30pm. i NEED to get over to the museum now to unload my stuff. no submissions accepted after 7pm.

6:45pm, i pull up to the loading dock of the museum and call d to grab the stuff from my car since i can't leave my car unattended there. officials are screaming '15 MINUTES!' and blowing whistles left and right. camera people are running everywhere to catch footage of the last-minute frenzy. once d grabs everything from my car, i find parking and run back to the museum. i find our table #27 in the room of madness and the boys are frantically labeling every item with their corresponding clue number. they announce that only one person can remain by the table, so we leave n by himself while we get herded out of the judging room.

standing around outside and peering into the room, we see the panel of judges descend upon the tables and scoring everything. they have a dj spinning in the lobby, a little too loudly. the museum cafe is bustling with people grabbing dinner but our food coupons are with n, so we wait. finally, he's done presenting our finds and he goes to the back of the room to get our total score. he comes out and we all settle down to the cafe for some snacks (not actual dinner b/c the cafe is mucho expensive).

at 9:30pm, they herd all of us inside the auditorium again. there's the lady in black with the briefcase on stage again. when everyone has settled down, the artist comes out in a tuxedo accompanied by one of the actors of the day, this eccentric lady dressed in a horrible green prom dress. they thank the crowd and then start arguing with each other. music starts and they sing and do choreographed dancing to 'endless love'. during the song, they get more and more mad at each other and start ripping pieces of clothing off each other. in the end they're 'naked', but they're really wearing bodysuits painted with hair and body parts. song ends and the artist yells into the microphone: 'with an incredible 37xx points, ...' i can't hear the rest because the bike messengers in the back row have started screaming and cheering. one of them is yelling 'you have got to be kidding me'. the girl with the dreadlock ('a dreadlock' was one of the clues) looks shocked and is hugging her teammates. abba starts playing, all the characters from the day are on stage, the fake doctor is opening a bottle of champagne, the bike messengers are herded to the stage where they grab the briefcase of money and glasses of champagne. one of the guys grabs the bottle of champagne and sprays the crowd with it. the back of the stage opens up and there's a black limosine there, with a chauffeur holding a door open for the winning team. the team is herded into the limo and the artist plus his crew of actors waves goodbye to the rest of us. the curtain closes and we're told to leave the museum. the end.

from there, i was supposed to meet people for bday drinks at 26 mix, but it turned out that 26 mix has changed. it was a 'rough latino crowd', as one of my friends who actually tried to enter was patted down for weapons. n and i picked up two of the guys who went to 26 mix and were now standing outside wondering what to do and the 4 of us sat in the car and called everyone to change plans to go to hush hush. we then drove over to hush hush and it was CLOSED. what the hell kind of club closes on a saturday night?!?! so now, a big party had formed outside of the black hush hush and we walked over to zeitgeist, where we spent the rest of the night. once we settled down at zeitgeist and people started showing up, it was lots of fun, regaling stories from the hunt and catching up with people i hadn't seen in a while. f bought me a long island iced team 'for old time's sake' since he can't drink anymore due to the surgery. went home from the bar at 2am and collapsed in bed next to the cutest boy ever. :)

yesterday, n and i, along with two of our work peeps, went to the moma for their 'college night,' where college students with IDs can get in for free. it was an event co-sponsored by noisepop, so it was quite indie rocky. however, and i know this will surprise many of you, i was not there for the indie rock. i swear! the 4 of us were there on a scouting mission. you see, we had applied to be in this scavenger hunt hosted by the moma and n had read somewhere that some of the clues we'll get will be related to pieces in the museum, so on the off-chance that we get accepted, we want to be ready. and i mean, ready w/o having to pay for real museum admission. haha.

around 8:30pm, n gets a call from someone from the moma IN THE MOMA. it was very meta. in any case, we're officially in the scavenger hunt!! wish us luck!

after the museum, we went to bottom of the hill for some rawk. we caught 3 of the 4 bands scheduled for that night. wovenhand was one dude with a guitar and some sort of guitar-like instrument - n thought it looked like a 'baxuki' (sp?), this greek instrument that someone in the lab used to play. the one word i can think of to describe him is 'earnest.' all his songs were these intense, almost-emo pieces.

next up was midnight movies, which i really liked - the drummer was an asian girl! i know i shouldn't make it all about race but i still get a surge of pride when i see young asian artists and musicians. anyway, she was really good and in one of the last songs, gave the drumsticks to the lead singer and played the flute. the flute! who knew the flute can be indie rock?!

the headliner was serena maneesh, this shoegazery band from norway(?) whose show completely went against my expectations. for start, the stage was way too small for them. not only did they have 6 members plus one dedicated guitar tuner on stage, but they flailed and jumped around a la sonic youth. at one point, one of the guitar players actually knocked over the bassist, who's an amazonian plantinum-blond woman. they also tied scarves around the microphones like aerosmith and the lead singer guy would whip the mic stand around by grabbing onto the scarf. for safefy purposes, i was very glad i wasn't in the front row. the last song ended with a mega-feedback and distortion fest, with the lead singer literally stumbling off the stage. it was interesting to say the least.

i turn 29 in a few days and i'm starting off my approach to 30 with a french dinner (not sure where n's taking me yet but he did tell me it's a french place) and a scavenger hunt. what more can i really ask for??

here's a crazy article in this week's nature:

Induction of an illusory shadow person
Stimulation of a site on the brain's left hemisphere prompts the creepy feeling that somebody is close by.

The strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is actually present has been described by psychiatric and neurological patients, as well as by healthy subjects, but it is not understood how the illusion is triggered by the brain1, 2. Here we describe the repeated induction of this sensation in a patient who was undergoing presurgical evaluation for epilepsy treatment, as a result of focal electrical stimulation of the left temporoparietal junction: the illusory person closely 'shadowed' changes in the patient's body position and posture. These perceptions may have been due to a disturbance in the multisensory processing of body and self at the temporoparietal junction.

bah!

lately, every time i do laundry, i wind up with bleach spots on various items. today, i discovered that one of my favorite shirts (my mango shirt) now has bleach spots across the chest. i can't figure out if someone's using bleach in the washing machine and not washing it out enough, or if something's up with my detergent.

i know this is not an interesting journal entry but i just have to complain.

bah!

a friend just alerted me to this new flickr-like service called zooomr, where you can currently get a free pro account by using it to host a pic on your blog. i want one! so here's my pic. this was from my lab's 4th of july beer can chicken cookoff challenge. suffice it to say, it was chicken overload central.

an almost-three-year-long drought of live music is officially over. now i'm swimming in a flood of shows and actually owns a pair of earplugs again. since april, i've seen

• loquat, +/-, & her space holiday at BOTH: loquat was good. +/- was awesome and i'm planning on going to their show when they come through again in november (i think). her space holiday was slightly yawn because of the heavy reliance on the laptop.
  
  
• mono, pelican, tarentel at GAMH: i went to the show for mono and was only slightly familiar with tarentel. tarentel had video projections (i heart video
  projections!). pelican was ok but i wasn't familiar enough with them to get super-psyched. mono was great.
  
  
• the futureheards, the french kicks at the fillmore: this was the ridiculously cheap show that my labmates got tix to. it was a pretty rocking show, although not being at all familiar with these guys made it slightly below average.
  
  
• sonic youth at the fillmore: rawk! this was the first time i saw sonic youth live and they rocked out! thurston moore at one point climbed up a bunch of speaks/amps, stuck his guitar on top, climbed back down, and then marched slowly toward the tower of rawk with both arms raised. perhaps a bit excessive but still highly memorable.
  
  
• the velvet teen, the evening episode at GAMH: this was the velvet teen's cd release show for 'cum laude' and it was a really really good show. they've changed their sound to be much more noisy and distorted and it works really well.
  
  
• death cab for cutie, spoon, mates of state at the greek: a-ma-zing show. this was probably the 2nd time i've been to a show at a large venue and it freaked me out at first b/c we were sitting way up high and i couldn't see the band's faces. then we moved down to the pit when spoon came on and it was much better. mates of state did a cover of 'crazy' and they were still cute as ever. spoon was fun and very efficient with their set (no stage banter whatsoever). many of us thought the lead singer must have been pretty trashed b/c he kept downing beers. death cab was incredible -- it was a bit weird to see them play on this huge stage with so many lights since the last time i saw them was at slim's, but they still rocked the house. despite the fact that we were standing in the midst of a bunch of screaming 15-yr-olds singing along with every song from 'plans', this show now has a spot on my 'top shows' list.
  

btw, if anyone cares, the 24th-st-and-vicinity-taqueria-showdown is now here.

the mexican cookbook by rick bayless that n ordered from amazon finally arrived, so last night, we put it to the test. we ran out of lab around 7pm, took the shuttle, and rushed to 24th street to buy ingredients from the latino markets. did you know you can buy pre-chopped nopales (cactus)? or that they have an entire cake of queso fresco by the cash register and can slice you as big/small a piece as you like? or that chicken thighs are called muslos de pollo (and not piernas de pollo)? i feel like i've lived in sf for a long time but yet, stupidly never really explored the grocery stores in the mission.

we picked recipes for chicken tinga (chicken simmered in roasted tomate-chipotle salsa with onions and potatoes) and nopales salad. although dinner prep went pretty late (we didn't end up eating til ~10:30), it wasn't a big deal due to the phenomenon known as friday beer hour at school, where seven-layer dips and chips abound. in the end, everything turned out delicious, especially when wrapped in freshly made corn tortillas from la palma mexicatessen and paired with magaritas with fresh lime juice and good tequila.

after dinner, we re-watched mulholland drive (me for the 2nd time, n for the more-than-2nd time). inside the dvd case, there's actually a list of 10 hints to pay attention to in order to figure out the movie. the first is that you *have* to pay attention during the opening credits, which i did and i still didn't get The Clue until n told me. once you realize what that's all about, though, the movie actually does make sense and is really very interesting. i'm glad i got to watch it again.

tonight is the velvet teen cd release show at gamh. i'm streaming their latest album on altpress now and they've changed their sound again since the last album. awesome!

n and i are going to try to do a systematic taste-off between all the taquerias on 24th st, so we can figure out once and for all which taqueria is best. we're going to order one control item at every place (e.g. something like a carnitas taco) but we'll also sample other items such as any house specialties.

first up was taqueria vallarta, which we visited this past wednesday night after yoga. i like this place b/c it's absolutely unpretentious and it seems like a local, more-authentic-y type of spot. there's a little stand out front selling soups and corn on the cob to passerbys, but you can also go inside and order from their menu, then sit down and eat w/ telemundo novellas on the tv. i ordered a torta with chorizo, which was pretty good but overall, nothing spectacular (i think i've decided i generally prefer tortillas over regular bread). n ordered two tacos that looked quite good (i didn't taste it because we came up with this showdown idea during the meal). we shared a tostada de ceviche which was excellent - super fresh and limey and delicious. agua frescas selection (very important to me) was decent (sandia, melon, horchata) but nowhere near the array of choices at pancho villa.

since this is the first taqueria in the showdown, we can't make any comparisons just yet. but in general, vallarta is recommended.