Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Last night I dreamt that I was driving on the freeway where a marathon was also taking place. The runners knew that they had to share the road with the cars and the drivers knew they had to share the road with the runners. It was difficult to negotiate without hitting anyone, but everyone managed to succeed at that without outbursts of anger. Making the situation worse, the road was strewn with pieces of computer parts, as though they had just come out of a crushing machine. Humans dodged adroitly, cars with slightly less care. After a while, the dream changed—I was standing and fire ants the color of bright mustard were crawling up my legs. That's when I awoke, startled, and accidentally kicking Patrick in the process. Fortunately, he sleeps through just about anything. Put up a message on the current students page about the importance of checking e-mail frequently. Lunch with Joel at Burgermeister: we both got cheeseburgers, Swiss for him, cheddar for me. He told me about his recent Muni experience watching a woman on 6 Parnassus who sneezed violently, covering the entire window next to her with a fine mixture of saliva and snot. I told him my idea of demolition car law enforcement. Set up Joel's new monitor: a Samsung SyncMaster 170T—just like I got James a few months ago. This time, however, it was US$450 instead of $820. Continued work on the About Accessibility section. I thought of an idea the other night while waking up to pee: wouldn't it be cool to have LEDs on the back of a computer that light up for 60 seconds or so when you press a button? I can't tell you how many times I've needed a light source in exactly that location for only a short amount of time just so I can figure out if I have a cable connector oriented the right way. Also: wouldn't it be cool if all cable connectors were as obviously shaped as the fit-the-shape-in-the-hole toys with which young children play? They don't need to be as big—just as obvious-to-fit: a half-circle, an isosceles triangle, a scalene triange. Dinner party at Jamie's place with: Jamie, Aaron, Tom, Sue, Kai, Fiji, Nicole, Alina, Brock, Joanne. Jamie made lasagne with ricotta, turkey, and chicken. There was also a dish of some eggplant rolls. Patrick brought a shrimp Caesar salad. I don't know who brought what else, but we also had: olive bread and sourdough bread and a cheese plate with an assortment of cheeses. For dessert, Aaron and Jamie baked a heart-shaped, double-layer, batter-dyed-red, exterior-frosted-white cake. (Jamie pointed out that it was not a velvet cake.) Chocolate ice cream and berries were served alongside the cake. Patrick has been having allergy problems all day, so we left early (right after dessert), but all the food was delicious and we had a great time.