Who doesn't smile at baby ducks?

My curiosity kept me up late on Monday night as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was playing on cable until 1:10am. I rate the first film as one of the best sci-fi flicks of all time, and despite the occasional inconsistency the second was right up there too. And not just because part of it was filmed in Fremont. I feel the story is particularly rich, and allows reflection on a number of topics beyond the usual "ooh, killer robots!" variety. However, to put it bluntly, the third installment is a festering pile of dog poop. This movie doesn't just fail to offer any insightful additions to the Terminator legacy, it is screaming to be removed from the canon completely. Whereas in Terminator 2: Judgement Day Schwarzenegger slowly picked up slang after being taught by a young John Connor, here he's a wise-cracking cyborg for no apparent reason. "Talk to the hand"?!?! The ridiculous lines come from all sides though, from the general responsible for Skynet: "It's our only chance!" (do people actually say that, or is it solely a movie expression?) to John Connor: "There's enough C4 to blow up 10 supercomputers!" (because we all know that supercomputers can withstand a hell of a blast). But wait, this suckfest touches on many other film clichés, such as standing around gawking at your temporarily incapacitated foe, as if waiting for it to get up so the chase maintains its suspense. The latest, greatest Terminator is a Robert Patrick-esque liquid metal girl that can control other machines ... even drive cars remotely despite the cars not having any machinery that might allow them to be controlled by anything other than someone in the driver's seat.

I want that extra hour of sleep back.

last night i woke up last night a good dream woke me up i was entertained and smiled jumped straight out of my bed humming this and that while i got myself a glass of water sat down in my favorite chair and kept smiling, but not for long because i realized that all my dreams are nothing but the repetition of last week's television i was no longer amused by my dream like a lame turtle i paced the room i was disturbed by this newfound knowledge i could only blame myself and no one else tried to sleep again again, again, no not a dream, not again no all my dreams are nothing but the same old repetition of last week's television jumped straight out of my bed and into the t.v. room and in my anger threw the t.v. set out the window regretted instantly, because this was a brand new 26 inch t.v. set in my bed, try to sleep but i can't because all my life, all my dreams are out the window with this new t.v. set

i'm a t.v. transforming t.v. i'm a t.v. transforming t.v. i'm on my knees down on all fours antennae thrust out through my forehead i'm a t.v. transforming t.v. i've turned into a t.v. my screen is smiling to get your attention i want you i'm a t.v. transforming t.v.

I spent the majority of the weekend with the family, celebrating Emily and Jared's Friday evening wedding at the Palmdale Estates where last summer my friend Joe was married. The ceremony itself was pretty brisk, and was done within 15 minutes. My dad needed a bit more practice as he went back to his seat after walking Emily down the aisle without acknowledging to the officiant that he was presenting her for marriage. Oops. All's well that ends well though, and the ceremony was heartfelt and genuine, and that's all it needs to be.

At the reception i got a chance to talk a bit with my cousin Joanna as well as with my aunt Nancy, and chatted a bit with my groomsman Chris about our upcoming ceremony. I volunteered for all the excursions back to the house to get forgotten items (such as the all-important marriage license), so i did a fair bit of running around in between mingling. Luckily the Palmdale Estates is only a 5 minute drive from my parents' house. Later in the evening, i got to see what a year or so of dancing lessons have done for my parents ... looks like they're ready to put me to shame at my reception.

The following day i spent at Stanford playing with cells and acquiring the first of what i hope will be piles upon piles of data. Good data, moreover. I then got my car washed and went home to take a long overdue nap. When V returned from work, she rattled me back into coherence after which we again headed to Fremont to have pizza and wedding/rehearsal dinner leftovers with Emily and Jared. I got to see some very nice photos of great grandparents that were a wedding gift to Emily from our auntie Cathy. Emily and Jared then headed back to their hotel to rest before Emily flew back to Chicago Sunday morning. Meanwhile, Hilary, V, and i found that Kill Bill, Volume 2 was playing at the second-run theater in Milpitas, so we drove down for the 10:15 show. Where the first film revolved more around the beautiful action sequences, the second focused more on character development and interaction. Tarantino creates fantastic amounts of tension in several scenes, particularly the opening during the Bride's wedding, and also during the trailer showdown between the Bride and Elle. Collectively, one of the best films i've seen in a while.

Sunday was a no-shower, work-on-wedding-stuff, and generally-be-lazy kind of day. Got the rehearsal invites done, and finished reading Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. As far as Robbins books go, this one was probably one of the more subtle variety, relying on symbols to make the point rather than explicit philosophical discourse as in Jitterbug Perfume. I still have to give Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates the nod as my favorite of his works, but Frog Pajamas is now lodged in the back of my brain as i keep returning to query it for more meaning.

As part of my sister Emily's pre-wedding festivities, V and i met up with my family at SBC Park (formerly Pac Bell ... these stadium names are changing so fast it's getting ridiculous) to see the Giants take on arch-rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers. We missed the Dodgers go ahead in the top of the first, but were there in the bottom of the second when a bases loaded triple put the Giants up 3-2. And thus ended the scoring. Not that there wasn't drama in the later innings, but nobody managed to score again. I should note that the dugouts cleared in the middle of the game when Michael Tucker stiff-armed Dodgers pitcher Jeff Weaver as Weaver tried to run him out at first base. Weaver shouldn't have stepped into the base path, but then the near-tackle was a little much. No huge brawls though. Poo. Anyhow, as the game was progressing scoreless, i had a little fun with my new Nikon Coolpix 3200 and tried some panoramic shots of the park from the upper deck.

Another source of amusement was the collection of drunken hecklers behind us (a relatively unavoidable side effect of a trip to the ballpark). Despite the fact that we were in the upper deck and nobody on the field could possibly hear us, they screamed at the Dodgers for the entire game. My personal favorite was when Dodgers third baseman Adrian Beltre was batting, one of the hooligans offered some advice to the Giants pitcher: "He's got bone spurs! Hit him in the ankle! That s@$# hurts!".

Up tonight is Emily and Jared's rehearsal dinner at my parents' house, and then the big event is tomorrow at the Palmdale Estates in Fremont. Then we've got a month more to plan our wedding, which will be interspersed with me heading to Seattle to see Chelsea play Celtic as part of their US tour, immediately after which i jet to Pittsburgh for a meeting. this boy is exhausted ...

What a weekend ... Danny deserves mad props for putting on a bachelor party par excellence in Vegas. He and i flew in at 10pm on Friday night, and met up with early arrival Gary and socal auto travellers Matthew and Kevin at the Hôtel San Rémo across from the MGM Grand on the strip. The weekend naturally contained the usual ... umm ... debauchery, but we also got in some less racy activities like some Euro 2004 viewing at a local English pub. Danny informed us that he had a "mystery activity" planned for Saturday afternoon, which had the rest of us fearing jumping out of planes or taming lions. Instead, we stopped by the Gun Store and shot up Osama bin Laden targets with fully automatic M-16s and AK-47s. I woke up Sunday with a huge bruise on my shoulder from the nasty M-16 recoil ... now i know why i didn't join the Army. On the bright side, i was impressed with my accuracy ... although i was carefully squeezing off rounds at a slow pace compared to Matthew and Gary, who were going through clips in 10-15 seconds. After his turn on the range, Gary was informed by the instructor that he'd shot up the ceiling. We all agreed the AK was the superior weapon in terms of recoil.

I have to give it up to Danny again, he richly deserves the title "best man" after organizing such a crazy weekend. Now back to the mundane wedding planning and research ...

In other birthday news, i got an Xbox Live starter kit from Arlene, Alan, and Ana, so now i've got to get busy perfecting my online Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six 3 skills. DJ Jeremy also recently gave me his extra copy of Topspin for the Xbox, which as it turns out is also online compatible, so i'll get in some sports action as well. Vegas attendee Matthew also gave me the Simpsons Season 4 DVD collection and a very tasty hazelnut chocolate bar from Germany. V is buying me my present today, a new digital camera so that i can start expanding the shamefully stagnant photos section of this site. All this, and the madness of sin city, very nearly made me forget that i am now 30.

I was contemplating the task before new Chelsea manager José Mourinho, who has already stated his intention to whittle the squad down to 21 players, plus goalkeepers. That's easier said than done considering the current volume of the team, not to mention the expected summer signings (Porto's Paulo Ferreira and Deco claim their deals to move to Stamford Bridge are mostly finalized, while PSV Eindhoven's Arjen Robben booked his ticket last winter). So who will stick around, and who will leave? Thankfully we've already sent Veron to Italy to play for Inter Milan on loan for a year, most likely to boost his stock before selling him outright.

Here's my projected squad, with my favored starters underlined:

Goalkeepers
Carlo Cudicini
Petr Cech
Marco Ambrosio

Defenders
1. John Terry
2. William Gallas
3. Wayne Bridge
4. Paulo Ferreira
5. Glen Johnson
6. Marcel Desailly
7. Robert Huth
8. Celestine Babayaro

Midfielders
9. Claude Makelele
10. Frank Lampard
11. Damien Duff
12. Arjen Robben
13. Deco
14. Scott Parker
15. Joe Cole
16. Geremi

Strikers
17. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
18. Hernan Crespo
19. Adrian Mutu
20. Eidur Gudjohnsen
21. Carlton Cole

Some of this is speculation, some is wishful thinking. For example, a goal-scoring machine in the model of Ruud van Nistelrooy or Thierry Henry must top Chelsea's shopping list, so i wouldn't be surprised to see JFH or Eidur end up getting bumped and eventually sold. Also, a midfield with two left wings in Duff and Robben is unlikely, but i'm very much hoping that Duff once again proves his value to the side. Notable departures from the current squad, according to this list, would be Jesper Gronkjaer (a great player on his day, but too bloody inconsistent), Emmanuel Petit (getting old), Alexei Smertin (now what was the point of that buy?), Mario Stanic (just can't find any playing time), and Mario Melchiot (at best, a second choice these days). Also, i don't know how Scott Parker and Glen Johnson will like being pushed to fringe, especially if more new signings arrive.

Forgot to mention my satisfaction with the way the NBA Finals played out. That the Lakers' season ended in a soap opera-esque tirade of finger pointing, whining, and bickering is all too fitting. Gary Payton wanted a ring but couldn't get with the program. Shaq and Kobe are two spoiled children fighting over the front seat in the car. Karl Malone ... well, he did his best but couldn't bring sanity to this nightmare. It's poetic justice that the Pistons, a bunch that actually deserve the title "team", were the ones to expose the inherent weaknesses of the petulant Lakers.

Ding dong, the witch(es) are dead!

I decided this morning on the way to work that there are no teams in the NBA that i actually "like" anymore, i just have varying degrees of hatred for all of them. On the more vehement end of the spectrum there's the Lakers and the Knicks, but more or less all of them are chock full of rich undeserving jerks.

As my birthday is fast approaching, i thought i'd drop a link in case anyone out there needs a page on the web to surf ... hrm? ... no particular reason ... just trying to enrich everyone's internet experience, okay?

SWEET JUMPING JESUS, THIS BATS RECORD IS GOOD!

Why didn't any of you losers tell me about this?

Had a very nice if not so relaxing weekend. It began Friday night when V picked me up at work and we headed down to San Jose to talk to potential wedding photographer Dave Lepori. He shot my old friends Clement and Julie's wedding last summer, and we were impressed by his ability to get great shots without calling tons of attention to his presence. We had an enthusiastic hour-long conversation, and hired him on the spot. As Veronica put it, usually when you look at a photographer's work you notice a few shots that stand out, but with Dave each photo is masterfully composed. We then had a late Spaghetti Factory dinner in downtown SJ before coming home and hibernating.

Not for long though, as we arose at 9am Saturday to get ready to head over to Fremont for Veronica's bridal shower at my parents' house. My dad and i stuck around for lunch before leaving the ladies to their affairs. We then hopped over to Orchard Supply Hardware to have a look at birthday presents for me, namely a shiny new barbecue. I've been bemoaning our lack of a bbq ever since we moved into our house, and was determined not to go through this summer grill-less. My parents ended up buying me a Weber Genesis Silver A gas grill ... very noice. I set it up yesterday and am going to get the propane tank filled on my way home tonight, then let the grilling begin!

The next morning i again got up early (i.e., before 11am) so that i could do a bit of cleaning before Jeremy and Gary came over to watch the much-anticipated England-France Euro 2004 match, which i purchased on pay-per-view. The match began well, with both sides trading attacks but with England having a slightly more defensive mindset. However, in the 38th minute a well-placed David Beckham free kick picked out Frank Lampard (go Chelsea!), who headed past a helpless Fabien Barthez to put England up 1-nil. The second half proceeded along with England very much focusing on defense, and for the most part containing the French attack. A counterattack gave Wayne Rooney and Darius Vassell a 2-on-1, and instead of slotting the ball to the wide-open Vassell, Rooney chose to attempt a shot himself. He was fouled in the box by Mikael Silvestre, but Beckham sent the penalty into the hands of a diving Barthez to keep the score 1-nil. At this point Jeremy commented that England were on course for a late heartbreaker, and he couldn't have been more right. In the 88th minute Emile Heskey gave away a silly foul on the edge of the England box, and Zinedine Zidane curled a fantastic shot past a helpless David James to equalize the scores. The situation went from disappointing to horrific when Steven Gerrard played an ill-advised back pass directly to Thierry Henry, who was fouled by keeper James resulting in a penalty. Zidane gave James no chance and France the win.

Almost unbelievable ... 1-nil up at 89 minutes and 2-1 losers four minutes later. As Jeremy put it, now we know how Bayern Munich felt after losing the Champions League final to Manchester United in 1999. Such a shame because England did play fairly well, with the exceptions of Michael Owen (heard his name maybe twice all match), Steven Gerrard (not very influential in midfield, and culpable for the awful winning goal), and Emile Heskey (pointless sub ... not his fault ... gave away the foul that led to Zidane's equalizer when he had two defenders there to help ... all his fault). I also don't understand why, if England were resolved to play defense with the occasional counter in the second half, Sven-Goran Eriksson put in two new strikers rather than more defense-minded subs. At least i can take solace in the fact that my boy Lampard was arguably the best England performer on the day.

After that debacle, Jeremy, V, and i grabbed lunch at the Crepevine in Burlingame before checking out the deals at Costco thanks to Jez's membership. I was amazed to find the complete Monty Python's Flying Circus dvd collection for $90, about $70 cheaper than i'd seen it on Amazon or at Best Buy. So i bought myself a little birthday gift, and got V Mario Vs. Donkey Kong for her GameBoy.

Speaking of video games, i am completely flabbergasted by Ninja Gaiden. Once i got over my pronunciation curiosities, i found the game to be absolutely stunning. The visuals are silky smooth, but the gameplay is where NG really makes a name for itself. No doubt about it, the game is hard. As one review said, even the most common enemies can take you apart if you're not on your game. Block-counter, attack-block-counter, you'd better come in with a strategy otherwise you're going to get whittled down to size. It's not impossible, it just takes practice to perfect your technique, which is what differentiates frustrating from rewarding. I'm only on the fourth level, which from what i hear is where the game really takes off.

This weekend is the big bachelor party in sin city, Las Vegas. Dunno what surprises Danny has up his sleeve but i do know my presentation at radiobiology faculty meeting the following Monday may suffer for it.

Hopefully everyone can tell that Stormy Clouds is in proper working order now. I even discovered that Mozilla/Netscape and Safari do indeed have their own transparency filters, so the site is gradually converging on all browsers and platforms.

If you can read this without performing some image enhancement or squinting a lot , then you're probably not using Mac OS X or Safari. As usual, making changes to a web page usually means creating new headaches for browsers and platforms other than the one you're using to make the upgrade. I just found that my seemingly minor changes to the site have wreaked havoc on the page in Safari. I'll try to fix that asap.

sometimes this life gives you a sign but you're stuck temporarily blind what kind of man have i become? have i given up and lost my mind? well you know me, i aint going nowhere unless life is a pretty cool trip well you know me, i aint been going nowhere so don't give me no lip when it slips slips slips right away and soon you don't rate me but i won't hate you i'll just remember how i used to make you laugh

One more pic i forgot to post yesterday in my tribute to our dear departed doggie.

I also forgot to mention several interesting cameos in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The first was a turn by The Vicar of Dibley Dawn French as the fat lady in the painting guarding the entrance to the Gryffindor common rooms. The second, and far more unexpected, was former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown as a patron of the Leaky Cauldron, sitting in the foreground reading a newspaper and nonchalantly stirring his drink by magically twirling a spoon. I had to do a web search when i got home to make sure i wasn't losing my mind. No doubt, it's him. Apparently he may have a speaking role in the next Harry Potter flick. Bizarre.

I also didn't mention that i recently saw what may be the worst film i've ever had the displeasure to witness: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. It's no secret that i didn't care for the first episode, but this one plumbed new depths of the cinematic cesspool.

I took Caltrain to work this morning, since V came down to Palo Alto yesterday to do some afterwork shopping and we ended up leaving my car at Stanford. As desperate as i was to get my own car and start driving to work after leaving Boston, there is something to be said for the half hour or so of me time you get in the morning and the evening while taking public transit. Caltrain is particularly nice: the trains are clean, there's plenty of seats, and you can sit on the upper level of the train and catch a nice view. However, I found out today that you don't walk down the stairs while the train is decelerating. I did manage to finish the posthumous Douglas Adams collection The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time while travelling this morning. It's a compilation of interviews, essays, scraps of writing, and about half of the unfinished next Dirk Gently novel. As expected, it has its ups and downs, but on the whole it was nice to learn a bit more about a great humorist, scientist, and sociologist who tragically died before his time. Next on the reading list: another Tom Robbins, this time Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.

And finally, as part of our shopping stint yesterday V took me to Best Buy so i could pick up my next video diversion, Ninja Gaiden. Haven't had a chance to pop it in the Xbox yet, but all the reviews i've seen say it's spectacular, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Although i've heard inklings that the difficulty level can be daunting. I'm still debating the exact pronunciation of the title, as i've heard people refer to it both as "Ninja Gay'-den" and "Ninja Guy-dan'". I used the latter around Veronica, now she thinks the game is about some ninja guy named Dan.

In response to Veronica's innocent query "What the heck is this album of the week thing, anyway?", i've added another mini-review to the list. Have a look. I'm trying, honest.

You can't get away from it, that's just the way life works. A little bad, a little good. A bit of sadness, a bit of happiness.

The weekend before last we came to the realization that Cobi's cancer was beginning to really get her down. She was obviously now feeling pain from it, and it was moreover affecting her eating and demeanor. We made the tough decision to put her to sleep on Memorial Day, and made an appointment for 4 o'clock that Tuesday. It's a choice that you can easily second guess over and over again. If she's happy when we walk her or give her a treat, is that enough to stave off putting her down? What about the rest of the time? Is she constantly in pain? It can eat you up inside. We took her across the bay to the vet in Fremont. They put a catheter in her arm, and let us hold her as she went. We took a good twenty minutes afterwards to cry over our poor little doggie. However she looked more peaceful then than she had in a long time, and it helped to know she was no longer in pain. She's up in heaven now playing with Peanut and lounging next to Veronica's grandfather. It's still hard when i drive up to the house and Cobi's not doing her twirl in the window.

We had our carpet cleaned the day after, to try to remove some of Cobi's pee and blood stains. The stains are miraculously gone now, but there's still a bit of urine odor. We're hoping that it will fade over time, now that the carpet is no longer being watered by Cobi. V and i also met up with Marcus and headed to Michael at Tin's Tea House in Walnut Creek to sample some candidate wines for the wedding. He served us a very nice Sauvignon Blanc and a good Cabernet and Merlot, so we were able to fill in another piece of the wedding puzzle. On Sunday we met our baker and got a sample cake. Next up: photographer.

My physically and emotionally draining work week concluded with a jaunt to the city on Friday night to see Franz Ferdinand at the Regency with Veronica and Gary. Unfortunately our new favorite Thai place Chai Yo was being used for a private party, so we had to settle for burgers at Sliders before the show. Arriving at the venue at 10:30pm, we realized that the location was formerly the Regency movie theater on Van Ness, where V and i had seen The Truman Show years ago. I was a bit awed at the turnout and enthusiasm for FF ... i know they get airplay on Live 105, but the place (roughly Great American Music Hall size) was sold out and ticket hunters outside were at near-Modest Mouse levels. For a band with one album? Anyway, they were pretty good, although the acoustics in the venue are crap. FF played for maybe 45 minutes, after which we zoomed down the peninsula to get some shuteye.

On Saturday V finished off her work week while i relaxed at home. In no particular order, i finished I-Ninja for the GameCube (not bad, fun gameplay if a bit repetitive), did some wedding-related work, brought V breakfast at work, and took a nap. That evening we tried in vain to go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but thwarted in that effort we instead had some Japanese food, played Scrabble, and watched X2: X-Men United on cable.

On Sunday we got our act in gear and did manage to see a matinee of the new Harry Potter movie. You would predict a more engaging experience when ditching the director of Home Alone for the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien, and that expectation is fulfilled. Despite my penchant for the Willie Wonka parallels of the first book, i think the third Harry Potter novel was my favorite, and Alfonso Cuaron transforms it very well to the screen. He adds a lot of symbolism, particularly an emphasis on the passage of time (fly-through shots of the clocktower at Hogwarts, scenes of the Whomping Willow as seasons change). As Roger Ebert put it, Harry is no longer someone you can push around, and this makes for a darker and more emotionally realistic film. Altogether more satisfying than the "prepubescent suspense thriller" that the second film was.

The weekend wrapped up with a Scrabble rematch, at which Veronica corrected her defeat the previous evening by wiping the floor with me.

I've done some redesigning to the site, making the whole layout more amenable to resizing and playing with the margins a bit. I also got rid of the tired "ted v1.0" label and instead took a line from the Verve as the new name for the site. Hope you like.

(P.S. The whole thing looks better in IE for Windows, taking advantage of the built-in Microsoft filters)