Lots of birthday festivities! Strange, considering that I didn’t want to make it a big deal. The past two years have had me in Indonesia, and I had sort of gotten used to having the excuse of being away to avoid birthday festivities. ;)

Here are some photos of my little New York City birthday party at Al’s place, a dinner at Patsy’s, and a dinner at Mas (farmhouse).

Oh — and thanks to everyone who called/emailed/commented with birthday wishes!

On December 10, Jeremy and Hilary hosted a holiday party featuring a dozen or more home-made desserts painstakingly prepared by Hilary (it was really impressive). Of the many guests, I only knew Victor Wishna, Carrie Casselman, Erika Mikkelsen, and Lori Elder, but everyone was really friendly.

Jeremy had recently returned from a production of The Girl in the Frame, and at the party were a couple of the lead actors in the show. Actor Ed Watts had a nice surprise when he arrived, as many of us had already gotten a glimpse of the huge poster featuring him as a shirtless fireman.

I’m no longer young.

They keep me happy here in the cold, except when they do stuff like this. How ’bout a simple bounds check, guys? (screenshot from Yahoo! Weather)

It is possible for a wireless communications company to not suck?

I’m switching my Blackberry to Cingular so I can be international with it, but will remain with Verizon for voice. This involves getting new phones, and both Verizon and Cingular have totally botched the orders, requiring me to spend frustrating amounts of time talking with service reps. Some of them are nice, but all of them are telling me totally different things.

Cingular screwed up my shipping address not once, but twice. (read more »)

I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha tonight with Peter, Karine, Christine, Olivia, and a bunch of Olivia’s friends. (no spoilers ahead. don’t worry.) (read more »)

A little snippet of conversation from work, today. Red is me, blue is Peter.

I woke up this morning and saw from the weather report that it was 34 degrees outside, raining, and snowing. I thought, “hey — that’s not so bad.”

I’m adapting. (read more »)

I just stapled a stack of paper in the upper, right-hand corner.

I hope it’s just a symptom of sleep deprivation, and not a sign of things to come… ;)

Microsoft has gone beta with Windows Live Local, which has detailed satellite imagery (much more detailed than Google Maps) and a “bird’s eye view” of select areas, which presents a 45-degree angled view from above.

The interface isn’t as responsive as Google’s is, but you can zoom in so close that you can very clearly see cars.

st. lawrence quartet

My good friends the St. Lawrence String Quartet were in town on Monday to perform in a new series called the Movado Hour, which is curated by Pedja Muzijevic at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC). Because of its sponsorship, the program was entirely free, but there was a strange sign-up process that resulted in all of my friends not showing up (no confirmation calls = relative confusion). Julia and I did get to go, however, and the show was amazing. (read more »)

orange squid

Over the weekend, I headed back to San Francisco and Oakland for a series of food-gorging sessions, which doubled as opportunities to hang out with Bay Area friends.

Managed to pack in lunch at Sushi Maru (Sunnyvale), geek-out time with Adam and his new 30″ Cinema Display, dinner at Ramblas (Mission District), brunch at Restaurant Peony (Oakland’s Chinatown), a small show featuring Redstart’s jewelry, prints by Rigel Stuhmiller (a very old friend of my sister’s), and pastries by Karen Jao (who used to be my CS106a sectionee back at Stanfurd), a quick birthday celebration (with Beverly) at a bar in the Mission, and sub-par tapas at restaurant nearby.

I got to see something like 15 friends, and arrived back in New York after a red-eye on Monday morning feeling tired, but happy.

san diego

For some reason, we always seem to end up at the outlet mall on Black Fridays. Aside from refusing to pay $3 for valet parking (which ended up costing us something like 20 minutes), the mall wasn’t so bad. And because I’m a working stiff these days, it was a good opportunity to purchase attire suitable for work at a good discount. I’m extremely two-faced: half of my friends know me as a guy who is always in the water (they actually laugh when I tell them that I sometimes work at a desk), and the other half has never seen me in a swimsuit. (read more »)

Well, I finally seem to have solved the the problem I was having with my Thinkpad(s). (Summary: BSODs, intermittent freezing, strange start-up problems — with both a Thinkpad T41p and a brand-new Thinkpad T42). (read more »)

A reminder for all you SF Bay Area folk out there: Vienna Teng is performing at Montgomery Theater and at the Independent on Dec 13/14/15. Be sure to check them out! (you can buy tickets on her website)

I wish I could go. I will be out of town, and in fact have been out of town for every one of her local shows since the one at my place.

Sucks.

I think I’m confusing my friends back in California.

I guess the idea of coming home for 2 days just to spend time with friends is not normal, but I have become so accustomed to being home for such short periods of time that a quick trip across the country isn’t that big of a deal.

But it is harder for me these days to feel like a real person after a domestic red-eye — especially when a full work day followed by a concert and then an evening out on the town is planned… but I am going to continue like this while it is still at all possible. :)

Geoff and the quartet are coming into town tonight to play for a cool new series funded by Movado, which I am looking forward to seeing. Livia told me that she cooked up an amazing lasagna the other day, and after taking the first few bites, Geoff said, “we have to make this for Eric!”

I miss evenings over there.

Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend with friends in the Bay Area. I’ll post photos, soon.

Everyone has to report some sort of celebrity sighting while in New York. I sat next to Mariska Hargitay tonight at Land Thai (was there with Al and Peter), and during my first extended stay here a few years ago, I saw Conan O’Brien, Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman at Craft. Yay.

I’ll be back in the Bay Area this weekend, and am looking forward to seeing friends.

*UPDATE – Met Baryshnikov, and saw Jessica Lange (same event)