“You are the grammar Fuhrer. All bow to your authority. You will crush all the inferior people under the soles of your jackboots, and any who question your motives will be eliminated. Your punishment is being the bane of every other person’s existence, because you’re constantly contradicting stupidity. Everyone will be gunning for you. Your dreams of a master race of spellers and grammarians frighten the masses. You must always watch your back. If only your power could be used for good instead of evil.” - [Grammar Quiz]

UPDATE There was some confusion because I linked to the wrong quiz. Here is the one that was linked before — the one that gives you a “God” status, instead of a being labeled a “Fuhrer”: [How grammatically sound are you?]

If I had written the test, I would have include choices containing the following “words”: [r, u, ur, OMG, LOL, ROFL, ROFLMAO, etc.]. Anyone who happened to choose one of those as valid for use would be first flagellated mercilessly with their keyboards and then banned from all further electronic communication.

Vienna pointed out last night that all of my past relationships started out with chamber music. I opened my mouth — probably in an attempt to refute her statement — but nothing came out, because she was basically right! (it’s not 100% accurate, but it might as well be)

Weird. But I can understand why that might be the case. There’s so much shared emotion when playing music with someone: I love the forced inhalation and exhalation that comes from specific cued entrances (and, involuntary breathing in general, during certain passages), and the overpowering, mind-scrunching tension just before a slightly delayed resolution of a suspension. Vienna described jam sessions in her line of work to be similar to what we do when we meet to read, with the addition of scantily clad women, alcohol, and other goodies. Perhaps we should bring those elements to chamber music “jam sessions” as well. Uh… yeah.

Hmmm. So… anyone want to play chamber music? ;)

quartet music

Even though I can feel that I miss playing chamber music, it really doesn’t become visceral until I actually have a chance to sit down and play some. Isaac Krauss, Keith Chapin and I (that’s 3/4 of an old quartet I used to play in!) met up tonight to play string quartets with Caroline, a local violinist that Isaac knows. Vienna Teng is here in-between Boston, Philly, and… Boston (she drives a lot), and was happily dragged along to listen to us play through Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Before we started to read, Isaac took us to Grand Sichuan Eastern, whose food Nick, a China scholar, claims is the best he’s had outside of China. It certainly tasted authentic, and they even had a second menu/pamphlet which compares “American” Chinese food with authentic Chinese food (e.g. “Americans cannot eat all parts of the cow.”). Isaac told us a story about some visitors they had from somewhere in the middle of America where there are no minorities. Naturally, he took them to this restaurant. The kids were utterly unable to eat anything except for steamed rice (read more »)

A message from Enza Sebastiani, the director of the video:

“Enza’s new “Green Island” music video for singer Vienna Teng will air this coming Monday (April 5) on KTSF (cable 8 in the Bay Area and cable 17 in Vacaville). The “China Crosstalk” interview program with Vienna will begin at 11:00PM. Vienna has also been on David Letterman (our show includes clips from Letterman and CNN). Enza’s music video closes the program at around 11:25PM.

“The show can also be seen Nationwide on IC (International Channel) – most cable systems include IC as well – check your local listing for your local channel position.

“The show will be repeated in the Bay Area on Tuesday (April 6) at 12PM.”

Neat-o. I wish I could see it. Someone record, digitize, and send it to me! My house is in it. :) UPDATE — Turns out we get the International Channel here on Time Warner. It’s channel 500. We’re going to record it.

The recent announcement of GMail has sparked for me an investigation into indexed e-mail solutions. I will probably never use GMail because I sometimes value privacy, and because I’m married to the use of native applications.

Although I’m a big fan of my hundreds-of-folders mail-sorting routine, I do periodically lose specific pieces of mail due to misfiling. I hate sorting e-mail. If Outlook supported Eudora’s wonderful Command/Control-J manual filtering feature, I’d be very happy. :)

Particularly intriguing is Zoe, a neat little app that serves up indexed mail through a web or POP interface. Although I like native apps much more than I like web interfaces, ZOE looks pretty damn cool. If I weren’t so tied to Outlook, I might consider giving it a try.

Two Windows-based indexing apps I’ll probably try out are X1 and Nelson Organizer. I just want something simple, elegant, and fast. Oh, and it has to be reliable and configurable enough to be acceptable for use by a gearhead. There’s nothing worse than unreliable e-mail/PIM software. I’m still using FuseMail, but I’ve stopped using the Outlook plug-in because it doesn’t (yet) let me reliably get to my PIM information.

Anyone out there have any suggestions for e-mail indexing solutions that work well with Outlook?

mimi in nyc

If Shaolin Soccer is playing at a theater near you, you absolutely must go see it. I was introduced to the movie a year ago (thank you!), but was only able to watch it — between compression artifacts — on my computer. It’s playing here in New York at the AMC 25 in Times Square. I suspect that the majority of the audience had never seen anything like it; there was nearly non-stop laughter and cheering. :) Anyway, it’s brilliant, and it totally made my weekend. I also saw that there is an American copy being made of the Japanese movie, “Shall We Dance” (great movie — worth seeing!), which will star Richard Gere. Yuck.

Speaking of the weekend, I spent most of it hanging out with Mimi and Tony, which was a lot of fun. Although… Mimi did make me feel old, especially when she said things like, “you’re old.” Funny. Some of the kids I watched grow up are starting to be like real people.

It’s ok, though. As soon as my travels begin in May, I’ll feel like the baby again (most underwater photographers are old men). [see some photos]

32°F
Feels Like 22°F
Rain / Snow / Wind
80% Precip.

UV Index: 0 Minimal
Dew Point: 14°F
Humidity: 48%
Visibility: 10.0 miles
Pressure: 29.54 inches and rising
Wind: From the West Northwest at 14 gusting to 23 mph

I miss California.

flamenco

Well, 6:00pm came, and my spirits were lifted as I walked out of the building. I had dinner with Peter and Karine last night at Republic, which I had been to with Victor the last time I was here in New York. I need to spend more time with Peter and Karine. I’ve been working with Peter since first quarter of freshman year at Stanford. We have history. :)

And tonight, I had dinner at Xunta with Rebecca, whom I had not seen in … 8 years or so? It had been such a long time, and it was really nice to see her. I’m glad to see that she is doing so well.

I think I might actually get eight hours of sleep tonight. I can’t wait. :) [see some photos]