I’ve been getting around 8 or 9 hours of sleep lately. You’d think I would be wide awake at the crack of dawn. But no, I wake up groggy. I’ve always been a believer that your grogginess doesn’t depend on how long you’ve slept, but rather when you get up. At least this is true until you’ve gotten up at a specific time for months and months.. AT LEAST.

So it appears Kevin Smith is making a sequel to Clerks. It takes place 10 years after the original. In my opinion this is really just another cash generating scheme. In retort to that, Smith says that he will be shooting the movie very cheaply: going back to his original lo-fi independent style (after the crash and burn of Jersey Girl). I’m a bit puzzled, since that statement seems to bolster the claim that he’s doing it for the money. Lower production costs = more $$$ in his pocket. Go figure.

I went to Toyota’s Put It In Play event in Alameda, CA yesterday. It was a good idea:let people drive around some of Toyota’s newest cars in road course games. Favorite childhood games were transformed into adult car games for our enjoyment. Some included red-light green-light, capture the “checker” flag, and dodgeball (yes, you have to dodge the balls with the car). Best of all, it’s free.

To say the least, I had fun with the cars. What dealer would let you get in a car and push the machine to the limits on a road course? My fiancee and I happily hopped into a few Matrixes (or is it Matrices?) and Corollas and drived like maniacs through coned courses on an army base. Points were given out for winning different contests (only one play per game though…) And of course, the usual prizes are given out (shirts, movies, and iPods for highest score, an insane 98 that day)

However, the turn out was much smaller than expected. The little amount of people there was depressing. One could tell from all the turnstyles and staff present that Toyota must have expected thousands to come through. I could see it being much more fun with big crowds, people cheering, and a plethora of competition during the games. But, there was no line, no crowds, and barely any competitors. So Toyota, good job on a marketing scheme well thought out and implemented. Too bad no one came…

A ghost tree at the 17 mile drive in Monterey, CA. Almost blinded myself trying to get this shot, but it was worth it.

So I’m deciding what courses to take for my Masters… too many permutations, too little time…

I got FP at kuro5hin.org with my piece about Michel Gondry. Take a gander.

Finally, a blatant retort to the low carb revolution. Time to carb up!

I drove up to San Francisco from Palo Alto yesterday. It was a sunny day: the forecast held only unabraised sun icons. I felt good.

To my horror, while passing Redwood City, I saw a wall of foreboding gray clouds converge in front of me. The change was so distinct: I could probably map out exactly where this wall was. No gradient, no smooth transition. Just instant grayness.

The temperature must have lowered a good 10 to 15 degrees. It must be the effect of being a peninsula out in the bay (even though Palo Alto is on a peninsula, the body of water to the east is small). How can anybody stand all this grayness on most days.. even in the dead of summer?

Why is that most people on the net seem very down about the world? Ultra-pessimism and hyperironic come to mind. All the comments I receive on other sites point to three alternatives:

• People are mostly pessimistic.
• The optimistic and cheery don’t discuss on online forums.
• I’m not surfing in the right places.

I think that the latter is most likely true. But really, at sites like slashdot and kuro5hin, people are really about tearing other people down for hyperironical reasons. It’s like we all live in a Simpsoniac online universe.

Work is going well, I’m definitely doing a lot more Perl than I expected. It’s such a wonderful language to code in. Some languages are torture to code in, like VB and Java. Perl is built for the hacker.

I’ve been doing numerous test recordings to test some of the algorithms used at my company. Really, it’s been a big administrative task just to get everything organized for the recordings (file naming, etc.) But I do get to work with some neat audio devices, and develop useful software. This is the first time I’ve ever coded for anyone besides myself (or an assignment). It’s really very satisfying.

Also check out an intern who got to go to Bill Gate’s house for dinner. Very nicely written.

And some awesome BMX biking with Gabe Weed. I think I’m definitely going to look into that.. it’s a bit like breaking on a bike..