Cosmopolitan Life

Expanding Into Emerging Markets

2010-02-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

From this morning's WSJ - here's a news item I loved - "Coca-Cola reported a 55% gain in profit amid strong soda sales in developing economies...". Reminds me of cigarette companies expanding their sales in the same way - at the expense of the health of the rest of the world. Mark my words, these markets will become more and more important as, with the help of Michelle's new anti-obesity campaign, sweetened sodas will go the way of cigarettes in the U.S.

I Told You So!

2009-12-28T13:41:00.001-08:00

I've believed from the outset that anti-microbial hand creams are a bad idea - just as overuse of antibiotics is a bad idea. I even blogged about it. But I didn't have any hard facts. Until now. Have a look at this article. I read it with a certain amount of glee...

Pop Up Stores

2009-10-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

If you live in L.A., you may have noticed new activity in the many "For Lease" stores dotting chichi shopping streets. For a week or two these stores are transformed with big discount signs (e.g., 75% Off Designer Clothing"), and industrial style racks of clothing. I've had some good luck shopping at these stores. Truly cool clothes at great prices. Now I can finally name the phenomena. This weekend, when I truly stunning Mad Men style skirt, I asked the saleswoman whether the store was permanent.

"Oh no" she said. "We're just a pop up store. It's a great way to move merchandise. No lease."

Another sign of the times.

Manohla Dargis

2009-10-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Before she became a movie critic for The NYTimes, Manohla wrote for our own local LAWeekly. She had the distinction of being the wittiest movie critic I'd ever read (not an easy feat), but unfortunately also the least predictable. Meaning that I could never tell, by reading her review, whether I'd like the film or not.

When Pulp Fiction came out, Manohla promptly panned it. Her comment was that it "has too much dialogue", and (I'm paraphrasing) that moviegoers these days don't like that much dialogue. Well, so much for that insight. At the time the LAWeekly had a policy of running an excerpt of the original review for as long as the movie was in theatres, so it was stuck with running the same tin eared review for the 4+ months of Pulp Fiction's stunning theatrical run.

But this posting is actually intended as an ode to her wit. I just read her review of Amelia. I haven't seen the film, so I have no knowledge of its merits, but kudos to Manohla on the way she expresses her opinion that the movie is all smiles and no substance. A direct quote: "The movie is a more effective testament to the triumphs of American dentistry than to Earhart or aviation".

Which reminded me of what she said about Pierce Brosnan when his first James Bond movie came out: "The future of a franchise is resting on his slender shoulders, and the strain shows". Does it get any wittier, or more vicious, than that?

Dear Mr. Geithner

2009-01-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

So Geithner was confirmed today. And unfortunately I think it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, because I'm completely miffed about his tax thing. Whatever he may say, it's pretty clear to me that he intentionally decided not to pay that employer portion of his social security taxes, and the reason he did it was that he figured in all likelihood he would get away with it. And in the worst case he would pay it. And in fact it kinda worked out that way. He didn't pay it for 4 years, but by the time he was audited, the statute of limitations had run out on the first two years. So he paid the second two years, and congratulated himself on managing to evade half of his due. Note that at the time of the audit he was head of the New York Fed. And then he was nominated secretary of the treasury, and the transition committee figured this out and said "Hey!!!". So he paid. Poor dear.

So what does this say about Geithner? And what's bugging me about this? Is it the moral issue? Or is it that I feel that I'm too much of a wimp to do the same, and I envy him his daring? Or actually, maybe it's that I envy his knowledge of what he can get away with? I which I were as competent? I think that's what it is. Because frankly, if I knew I could get away with it, wouldn't I do it? Maybe I would. Or maybe I'd feel it's sleazy. Which it definitely is. Tough to say.

Hmmmm.

Pregnancy Does NOT Cloud the Brain!

2008-10-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

This just in: Pregnancy does not cloud the brain, says Australian study. No kidding. The idea that pregnancy adversely affects mental function is just like the story that menopause clouds the brain: An urban myth, partially propagated by women (I think we're sometimes our own worst enemies), and with no basis in reality IMHO.

On the other hand, lack of sleep due to an infant in the house does kinda cloud your brain...

The Elephant in the Room

2008-10-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

What I can't understand about the Biden-Palin debate - help me here - is why "Gwen" never asked Mr. Grey and Ms. Cheerful about their opinions on abortion. Isn't that a swing issue? It is for me. I want to hear...

Crystal Meth Capital of Alaska...

2008-09-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

You've probably already seen the Tina Fey imitation of Sarah Palin on SNL. Although just in case, I'd wanted to include the YouTube link here. Unfortunately when I click on it now all I get is an error message saying "this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC". Such a pity. But you can still get some tidbits if you go to YouTube and enter "Sarah Palin Tina Fey"

What you won't see in those abbreviated verions is the description of Palin as mayor of the crystal meth capital of Alaska. It reminded me so much of my Montana impressions. Which is what made the comment ring true.

Catch and Release

2008-09-20T10:13:00.001-07:00

All the talk of Sarah Palin's hunting has made me reflect yet again on my week in Montana, and particularly on the day I went fly-fishing with my host and friend.

We actually went twice. He took me once in the morning so I could get the hang of casting the fly, and then once again in the evening when the fish would be biting.

The results weren't spectacular, but I did catch one small fish. And we released it. Because actually, my friend's mother had a lot more meat in the fridge than she could possibly use, and clearly we weren't going to eat this little guy.

Which got me to thinking about what I had just done. See I'm omnivorous. I do eat meat, and I do eat fish. So I don't have true moral qualms about catching a fish and eating it. If I weren't eating that fish, I'd be eating another one, maybe farm raised, but still a fish.

But catch and release is a different thing. It means the whole fishing exercise was just a sport, and the poor victim was the fish. The fish who was strung up with a hook in his throat, and then thrown back into the water to perhaps be caught again. Just as sport. And that I can't justify. In fact I can't figure out what the pleasure can possibly be.

So. I caught one fish. I released it. And for the future - I'll either go fishing to catch my supper, or I won't go at all.

And that's the way I view hunting too. If you want to hunt an animal and then eat it, I guess that's ok. We're animals, we are (mostly) carnivorous, and that's one of the ways we feed ourselves. But catch and release; there's something fundamentally wrong about that.

Sarah Palin

2008-09-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty appalled at the way the Obama campaign is handling (or ignoring) the issue of Sarah Palin. And how the liberal parts of the media are handling it.

How can they knock her on experience when the counter is Obama? What's the big deal if she was once Miss Congeniality.

Let's give credit where credit is due. She came from nowhere, no family backing, no Ivy League school, no powerful husband, and by age 44 has five kids and is governor of Alaska, and an apparently very successful governor. What's not to admire here?

Problem is, for me, of course, her politics. For anyone who cares about "progressive" ideas - individual freedom (as in, yes, right to abortion), war in Iraq, and what another Republican presidency would do to the supreme court, the idea of another Republican victory is scary.

But if the Democrats don't get off their butts and figure out how to make these items the central ones of the campaign, it's not looking good...

Levi

2008-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, when I heard the father of Bristol Palin's child was named Levi I kept wondering - could he be Jewish???? It seemed unlikely, a football star can't be Jewish. And I think that last name, Johnston, kinda seals it. He's not. No, no no.

Bristol Palin and the Baby

2008-09-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

So what are my thoughts on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter? Well, multiple.

On the one hand, I think it cements Palin's credibility with the "social conservatives". After all, it's proof positive of her anti-abortion stance.

But was that cementing (cementation?, cementiment?) really necessary? I don't know. Seems to me that her Down's Syndrome baby was enough for that.

One the other hand, I believe there's a certain McCain swing vote that will be dissuaded by it. Why? Because it brings to light everything that's problematic in the "social conservative" stance. First of all - why did her daughter get pregnant in the first place? Did the governor neglect to tell her daughter about The Pill? Was she preaching abstinence and now finding out that it doesn't always work?

But more than that - what really happens to a girl who has a child at 17? Well, I recently met a 25 year old guy with two kids. He met the girl when they were both 19. After four months together they found out she was two months pregnant. Did he ever consider an abortion, I asked him. "Never" he said. So they ended up getting married, had two kids. Now, six years later, they're divorced. He's trying to achieve his dream of becoming a successful actor in L.A. She's still living in Ohio. He's got a girlfriend who's a "hip hop model" (in case you're not familiar, the look is pretty but slutty, basically shots from the back in a g-string). When's the last time he saw his kids? It's been a few months.

The guy is great looking, charismatic, smart. I'll bet his ex-wife is too. But the difference is that she, at 25, is saddled with two kids as a single mom. He's relaxing in between rehearsals. And I'd say this is the most likely outcome for Palin's daughter as well. By age 25 (actually I'd guess 22) she'll be a divorced single mom. Yes, she may get some child support, but not much. Will she be able to go to college? Well, in this special circumstance - big name Mommy - maybe yes. But normally, no. Just another kid stuck in a low paying job struggling to raise her kids.

So Governor Palin chose to keep her Down's Syndrome baby? Truth is, even though I wouldn't do it, I have a certain degree of respect for that decision. This thing with her 17 year old daughter - that I have absolutely no respect for.

Bottom line, even I, who am normally a bit blase about politics, suddenly feel a need to make absolutely sure Sarah Palin doesn't show up at the White House.

Yoga Styles

2008-08-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

My move to Santa Monica has both expanded and limited my yoga world. Expanded it, because now, in addition to going to the various Yogaworks locations, I'm also going regularly to Sacred Movement - a pretty spectacular studio. Limited it, because now that I can ride my bike to yoga classes I'm reluctant to ever drive to one. So I've pretty much given up on the Westwood, Montana, and Larchmont Yogaworks locations. I limit myself to Yogaworks on Main St, and Sacred Movement (... on Main St).

Which brings me to my main point, which is the comparison of the two. And here's the bottom line:

Yogaworks is for highly driven professionals - lawyers, executives, developers, doctors - those type A personalities that need to be sure they get a real workout when doing their yoga, always advancing, always pushing to the limits.

Sacred Movement is for the artsy types. Those that search for experiences, that want to explore their inner and outer selves, that value creativity above the push push push of gymnastics. Some of them may be great athletes, but they're looking for the zen of yoga, not that I'm-more-flexible-than you variety.

And what am I? I guess I'm more Yogaworks than I am Sacred Movement. Or maybe I'm 50/50. One day of Yogaworks and one of Sacred Movement is about right for me. But if I had to give one up, I'd have to admit that would be Sacred Movement. Gotta keeps those abs in shape...

Oh, and one point of advice. If you go to Sacred Movement, definitely try a class with Eric Schifmann. Unparalleled.

What Sells in Montana

2008-08-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

More of my impressions from Montana:

One of my host's many friends, a builder with a wife and four kids was telling us about his wife's souvenir shop. He considers it her hobby. She doesn't really make any money on it. The only thing that consistently makes money in that shop is the tanning bed that be bought second hand a few years ago. The postmaster in particular is a regular.

See, vanity is not confined to L.A.

Men, Men, Everywhere

2008-08-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

Blogging and filmmaking have not (for me) turned into ways of making a living. At least not yet. So for income generation, to maintain the lifestyle that I love, and to feel useful and appreciated, I turn to consulting (otherwise known as part-time or interim, or project work, and which I'll refer to as gigs).

So one of my new gigs involves work with a venture capital firm, doing some due diligence for them, and in the process of working it out, while in a car, I called my daughter and asked her to look up the bio of one of the firm's partners. She discovered, to her shock, that all 16 partners, associates and managing partners (meaning everyone that was listed as part of the "team", was male.

She was shocked, but I wasn't. Not because I don't find it shocking, but just because I know that that's the way it is. Now why is that so? Well, a friend that was over for dinner last night posited his opinion. Women just are not entrepreneurial. And being a VC, while not entrepreneurial per se, requires an understanding of entrepreneurs, and that, women just don't have.

Hmmmm. I don't know about that. Yes, women seem to be much less inclined to start tech companies. And in the few exceptions I know of, there's often a male partner involved, often a husband or boyfriend. Or maybe not less inclined, but less successful at it. Now why would that be? Is it because they're less entrepreneurial, or is it that the entrepreneurs they need for collaboration in an engineering environment are mostly male. Tough one to answer. Are there less female VC's because it's such a male dominated world, and men (like women, and like most ethnic groups) feel more comfortable partnering with one of their own? Is it because male entrepreneurs starting new companies feel more comfortable having a male VC on their board than a female VC? Is it because pension funds, even through run by women, are more likely to give their money to male-run VC firms.

I have to think about this some more, and will post a follow-on. Your comments are welcome.

Favored in Montana

2008-08-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

I just spent a week at a friend's house in Montana, and had the opportunity to sample the local flavors. One of the dominant ones being, of course, beer. We went down to the local drinking hole one evening, my partner drank a few beers, I tried, unsuccessfully, to down one, and then moved on to the "hot apple pie" (a drink, for the ladies...).

And then in came a couple of super-cute 20ish guys with a few girls hanging on, got their drinks (not beers, some sort of menth something...) and thanks to my gregarious partner, the more rambunctious one started talking with us.

He's studying to be a pharmacist, because his father owns a pharmacy in town. He thinks there's so much to do around here. You can go off fishing, hunting, he has 6 guns in his truck, can't understand why most of the locals do nothing, just get hooked on crystal meth. He sees a lot of this. He's not a socialist, definitely not, but he's got to admit that he makes 70% of his income off Medicare and Medicaid. Those guys have it figured out he says. They get their prescriptions for Oxycontin. Buy them from him at $1 a pill, sell it for $40 a pill, make their $2400 a month, live well... Yeah, chrystal meth is big around here. It's what the local high-schoolers do. Whereas he, he's got his truck, got his guns, got his chicks. It was great to meet you. And off they go. In his HUGE big black Chevy truck, all decked out with guns and chicks.

It's the local flavor.

Facebook

2008-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's the deal. I went on a camping trip this weekend, and as a result, received a slew of Facebook friend requests. Which got me to comparison Facebooking. i.e., how many friends do I have, versus how many friends to they have. And guess what - the grass is greener. They have more friends. Or at least more Facebook friends. So I decide I have to up my Facebook quotient. I poke around for friends. "Search" to be more specific. Not terribly productive. I maybe added five people. But here's the deal: Is it that I don't have that many friends, or that my friends are not on Facebook? And for that matter, why would I, an adult, want to be on Facebook in the first place? Well, I can tell you what initiated it. My Israeli journalist cousin told me (around January of this year) that whenever he needs someone's contact info, he looks the person up on Facebook. If you're not on Facebook, so he claims, you do not exist. But guess what. I know a lot of people that don't exist according to that definition. The question is just why so many people know other people who do exist per that definition, and I don't... (do you follow my thread???).

Not sure.

Seize the Day

2008-07-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

I loved this article. And most of all the title ("Seizing the Day in Tel Aviv") and the cover picture. I was in that same place - Neve Tsedek - in January, went to the beach, rode a Vespa, had a wonderful time. Yes, there's something more vibrant and fun in Israel perhaps because of that feeling that tomorrow is not a certainty. Sometimes that's worth remembering.

Prescient

2008-07-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about giving my cat Clomicalm, a drug prescribed for OCD in cats and separation anxiety in dogs. Well, turns out I was just ahead of the NYTimes Magazine article titled Pill Popping Pets about marketing of behavior modification and "lifestyle" drugs for pets.

The article claims, and I agree - that part of the problem is that pets have to adjust to our hectic, urban, work-centered lifestyles. And often, the only way to make that work in pets (and in humans) is to give them psychoactive drugs.

In the specific case of my cat, however, this was not the case. She was living in a beautiful house near the beach, could go in and out as she pleased, and had humans (and another cat) around most of the time. Still, something snapped in her, and unfortunately Clomicalm didn't do the trick. My cat didn't make it. Surprisingly, since I didn't feel particularly attached to her (I was much more attached to her spunky partner) the thought still brings tears to my eyes.

But there you go...

Something that Really Aggravates me

2008-07-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

In fact, it aggravates me so much that I've probably already written about it.

The house and senate have come to terms on a bill that mandates that mental health coverage will be given reimbursed in the same way that other medical care is reimbursed. Meaning, for example, that if you go to a psychologist, and your insurance has a co-pay, you will have the same co-pay for a psychologist.

So does this aggravate me? No! What has me seeing red is the fine print on this newly enlightened clause. The coverage will only be for employers with 50 employees or more. Meaning it doesn't apply to independent contractors or people will individual insurance policies?

It's one of the great ironies of the American healthcare system. You're less of a person if you don't work for a large corporation. The U.S. is the land of entrepreneurship and independent businesses, yet the benefits, the government sponsored benefits, the government mandated protections, go only to the corporate guys.

Google Daycare

2008-07-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since my kids were in daycare, and I guess I didn't realize that the price of daycare has been going up at least as fast (and probably faster) than the price of a college education. At Google, company sponsored (and subsidized) daycare is soon going up to about $27,000 per year. See here. It's a good story all around.

The Wonders of Santa Monica

2008-07-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

Most of you may already know this, but for me it was new. The city of Santa Monica offers free valet parking for your bicycles at major events such as the Sunday Ocean Park farmer's market, and the Thursday evening free concerts at the pier. I'm loving Santa Monica.

Salmonella in Tomatoes!!!!????!!!!

2008-07-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

Finally today - an article in the WSJ titled Anger Rises Over Salmonella Probe". It's about time.

It's been at least weeks (maybe months) that I've been wondering how the FDA gets away with saying that tomatoes from 36 states are suspected with being contaminated with the Salmonella virus.

How can they cast such a broad suspicion? Tomatoes, unlike humans, do not travel from state to state, sneezing on airplanes to distribute their bacterial load. If there's salmonella poisoning of a batch of tomatoes in Utah, it does not travel off to Arizona. That's just not the way it works. They way it does work is that (maybe) someone in Utah (or somewhere else) watered their tomatoes with salmonella-infested liquid. So those tomatoes got dirty with salmonella bacteria, and whoever ate those tomatoes risked having a bad case of upset stomach.

Apparently about 850 people got ill, which is the equivalent of about one field of tomatoes. In one state. Not in 36.

But the FDA, in its great sagacity, and in its understandable inability to figure out what field those tomatoes came from, decided to write off the tomato harvests of 36 states in the union. Which the WSJ claims will translate to about $100M in lost revenues for tomato growers, and tomatoes left rotting on the vines.

So you'll ask, what do I suggest the FDA do?

Well, you know, some things just cannot be solved aposteriori. It happened. Some tomatoes were contaminated. FYI, if you travel to India, virtually all the tomatoes will be contaminated. Not great, but mostly people survive. So 850 people in the vast U.S. got the stomach flu from eating contaminated tomatoes. It shouldn't have happened, and the industry should police its hygiene practices. But mass hysteria over tomatoes doesn't help. My sympathies go to the tomato growers whose tomatoes are rotting on the vines, and to tomato lovers who were conned by the FDA into forgoing their daily tomato fix in favor of some obscure idea that great danger is lurking in those luscious red things. Things of danger. Pomme d'amour. Pomodoro.

Another Comment About My OCD Cat

2008-07-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

Just an FYI - she drinks water with her paw. Meaning that she doesn't stick her head down and lap up the water. No, no, no. She dips her paw in the water like a true lady, and licks the water off her paw.

OCD or not OCD?

Where the Money is in Exercise

2008-06-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

I guess any reader of this blog is aware of my fascination with yoga. True, it's regarded as an expensive sport - but I would say is that it's worth every penny and every minute.

Still, I thought a touch point on what "expensive" really means would be worthwhile:

At upscale but mainstream yoga studios - Sacred Movement, Yogaworks - a single class (usually an hour and a half, with between 10 and 60 people in the class - kinda depends on the teacher and the time of day) costs $20. But a monthly unlimited class membership (which for me means about 20 classes per month) is about $125 per month, or for me, about $6.50 per class. Couple that with beautiful wood floored yoga rooms, nice amenities, but most important of all, truly world class teachers (I'm talking here in L.A.), and it doesn't seem that bad.

Now a friend recently told me about the new fad up in Brentwood. Burn 60. 60 minutes of interval training - meaning 15 minutes on a treadmill, alternating with 15 minutes of core, strength, and stretching exercises.

Number of students in the class - 30, and you need to reserve in advance because they're so full.

Cost per class - $26 for a single one hour class, down to $19 if you buy a package of 30 classes ($570 for the package). Yikes. And however extensive the expertise of their teachers, I'm pretty sure it doesn't compare to the experience and expertise of good yoga instructors.

Well, I'm not surprised. Yoga is time consuming and the reality is that people with money often have less time. If you want to make money as a sports enterprise, shorter, more intense, boot camp type classes (Curves and Burn 60) are definitely the way to go. Of course you'll counter with the example of gym membership at $40 a month. True, but most people need a good class to get a truly thorough workout, and that human touch (preferably a quick, 45 to 60 minute human touch) may ultimately be what you're paying for.

Where to Get a Mac

2008-06-28T08:16:00.001-07:00

I finally succumbed and ordered a MacBook Air - but the important thing about this post is a suggestion on where to buy it.

You can buy it online at apple.com (save yourself leaving the house), or in person at the Apple store. In both cases you don't have to pay shipping costs.

But better yet - go onto Amazon: No shipping costs, no sales tax, and... a $70 dollar discount plus a $50 rebate. Total savings of about $250.

Just a tip.

It's still pricey. Hopefully I'll enjoy it.

My Dear Cat

2008-06-27T21:04:00.001-07:00

I have two cats. Which qualifies me, in the view of many, as the eternal spinster. Cats doom women to singlehood, just as dogs guarantee them an abundance of suitors. Or so I'm told.

But in my defense, the only reason I got the cats in the first place was as an (albeit poor) alternative for my kids to having a dog. A dog was more than I could handle. A creature that needed babysitting while I was away. A creature almost as needy as a human baby, but with one difference - that the dog would remain that baby forever, never grow up.

So, I "adopted" two cats. I put that with quotation marks, because the cost of the adoption was $75 per cat, supposedly to cover their immunization expenses, but one of the two cats - the pretty black one - actually cost $25 more, because of her Asian Short Hair look. Is that an adoption or a purchase?

But back to the point. These two cute, female cats have lived a nice life in the eight years since their adoption. They're indoor/outdoor cats, free to roam around to their heart's content, but always assured of a warm dry place, and plentiful (although not gourmet) food.

And then something happened. The black cat. The premium one. The one, by the way, who had always acted neurotic, started peeing in the house. I'm almost afraid to tell you this because those of you who visit my place may find yourself forever sniffing around to find a small gift. Don't worry, you don't need to do that, I do it for you.

Only then did I realize what a well established issue "feline inappropriate urination" is. It is probably the single most common reason for "feline euthanasia". Which is starting to sound like a real option here.

So I've done everything I found reasonable to do. Bought four, organic-catnip infused cat scratchers, and scattered them around the house, given the black madam a round of antibiotics (just in case this is a "feline urinary tract infection"), sprayed feliway (a feline pheromone) around the house - it's supposed to have a calming influence - , and now, just to make sure I've tried everything, I've gotten Cloricalm - used for the treatment of separation anxiety and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder, I kid you not) in cats.

My dear cat refuses to take her Clomicalm. I have a feeling this is not going to end well.

The Secret to Writing is?

2008-06-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

I just saw a t-shirt with the tagline - "The Secret to Writing is Writing". Of course it's tempting to immediately agree with such a tagline, but contemplating on how little I've been blogging lately, I thought a modification was in order. So here's my version: "The Secret to Writing is Having (or at least thinking that you have) an Audience.

I think the real dip in my blogging activities happened when my dear but elusive blogger friend, Luke Ford, decided he was no longer putting "Favorite Blog" links on his web site. For my anonymous blog, his endorsement was (or at least I thought it was) my main source of traffic, and the main incentive to try and write at least one entry per day. When that disappeared, I suddenly felt as thought I was writing to myself, and I'm not a Dear Journal type of person.

So what I'm trying to do right now is to visualize you, my dear reader, and make myself believe that you're reading this post.

If I can do this every day for the next month or so, then I may just send out a mass e-mail to all my friends and acquaintances saying something like - Hey - check this out, I've actually been blogging, please read and comment.

We shall now see if I can stick to that illusion of readership for the coming month. Or 30 days to be more preceise.

Meshaneh Makom, Meshaneh Mazal

2008-04-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

That's a Hebrew saying meaning, literally, one who changes his place, changes his luck. It's used when people move (change houses, cities, countries), or even when they make a change in their house, move furniture around, paint a wall, etc...

There's a lot of wisdom in Hebrew sayings. To me this one is evocative of the wandering Jew. I think its meaning is intuitively clear, although it's one of these pieces of "common wisdom" that is perhaps not all that common.

Meshaneh Makom Meshaneh Mazal is used very often in Hebrew, but the first time I really reflected on it was when I moved into my current house. The previous owner was an orthodox Jew with a goose bump-inducing way of making Jewish aphorisms come to life. We were talking about my recent and very difficult separation from my husband, and that's when she brought out this phrase. Suddenly its meaning became very clear to me.

It came back into my thoughts these past few weeks, when I finally made good on my promise to myself when I moved into this house: That this was an eight year deal, it was the place I would live while my kids were still at home and attending the local schools. Once they were grown, I was going to be moving to Santa Monica, to a smaller place, closer to the beach.

But as the time for the move came near, I started questioning myself. Do I really want to move? I have such a beautiful house. Can I really swing this financially? Is it necessary?...

What it took was my son, my little one, actually leaving for college. The day I returned from driving him up to Berkeley, I knew this was it. Time to move. Time to shake off a certain period of my life, and to move on to the next one. To move out of my suburban-looking neighbourhood to something more urban, more single, more alive.

The first few weeks of house hunting were a gradual adjustment of the way I viewed myself. Did I really need a house? Would an apartment do? Did I need three bedrooms? Would two be enough? Did I need two baths? Would one be enough?

And then, just as I was starting to adjust myself to the thought of a small apartment, a place where my kids would have to camp out in my office when they came to visit, I went to a friend's brunch and found out she was renting out her place. Not an apartment, not exactly a house either, but the first floor of a charming, somewhat run down 1904 home, just three blocks from the beach, right next to Ocean Park blvd, my favorite part of Santa Monica. Luck had fallen into my lap, just as I had felt it had when I found the beautiful house I'm living in today.

But back to that old Jewish saying: The day after I found my new place, I had a big passover dinner at my house, and we talked about the meaning of freedom. And one of the guests said that freedom was the ability to move. To move physically, to move out of bad relations, to move in our work, in our personal lives. His words resonated with me. And to me they also echoed that old Jewish saying - change your location, change your luck. That's how I feel about my move. A feeling of freedom, a feeling of new horizons, of new luck.

Not With Food Stamps

2008-04-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

I was in Utah this weekend and late at night stopped in at a convenience store to get some yogurt, or some relatively lowfat alternative to that carrot cake I'd be craving... Next to the stale donuts was a basket of fruit with a sign - "Food stamps cannot be used for the fruit".

At the counter I mentioned this to the cashier. "No problem, you can use them for chips, cookies, candy". My first thought, reflecting my disdain of the natives, was: "Well, another hick." But then I realized I was completely underestimating her. She was being cynical.

Death and Taxes...

2008-04-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

I've avoided death so far. But taxes, unfortunately not.

Something I Resent

2008-03-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

About Hillary Clinton is that she's taken away from me the option of wearing headbands. I love headbands, they're interesting and cute and... they remind me of Hillary. So I just can't wear them. What a waste.

Dear Eliot

2008-03-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that the reason men like Spitzer go to prostitutes is not because they need the sex, it's because they want a woman who will leave after the sex.

How Convenient!

2008-01-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

I'm going out of town and have a long list of to-do's to be completed today, which means I have this semi choking feeling of I'll-never-get-all-this-done. Although I know that in the end I probably will.

But anyway, to my point: One of the items was to go to the post office and ask them to hold my mail while I'm away. I was concerned because I know a mail hold takes a few days to take effect, and I'm leaving tomorrow, so I'd need to ask one of my neighbors to pick up the mail for a couple of days. Yet one more thing to do.

And then I started wondering if possibly there could be an online way of doing this. "No", I thought. "The post office couldn't possibly be so efficient". But on a whim I typed "hold mail postal services" into Google, and lo and behold, the first hit is the USPS page that lets me enter, online, my hold mail request, no special questions or passwords needed, and active by tomorrow (in fact, as long as you enter the request by 2am, it can take effect the same day).

How cool is that?

Scam

2008-01-09T22:06:00.001-08:00

As you may know, there's a small toll road on the way from San Diego to Los Angeles. A private toll road, owned by Toll Roads... How exactly a toll road was constructed by a private company I don't know, but that's not the point of this post.

The point is the following: A few weeks ago I drove up from San Diego to L.A. using, for the first time on this route, my beloved Garmin GPS. And Jill (the lady talking out of the little GPS box) told me to go onto route 73, which as it turns out was the toll road. Except I was talking with my trip companion, and didn't notice it until I was almost past the sign that indicated right if you were paying cash, and left if you had a FastPass. Well, I was on the left lane and there was no way I could make it all the way to the right to get into the cash lanes.

Just to clarify, the FastTrack lanes don't really look like lanes, they're just the highway itself, as you drive by, some antenna picks up your FastPass signal. The cash lanes are actually an exit to the right, that takes you through standard toll booth lanes were you can pay the lady (or the gentleman) their due.

Well, I figured this is not a problem, because I already knew that they have cameras on this toll road capturing the license plate of all passers. So I figured one of two things would happen: 1) there would be some way for me to pay the toll at the end of the road, or 2) I'd be billed for the toll.

What really happened was a modified #2. I got a bill, except instead of a bill for $4.25, the standard toll, it was for $52.75 (the toll plus a $48.50 fine).

So I called the Toll Roads company. I explained that by the time I had seen the sign, I couldn't make it all the way to the right hand lane for the toll booth. They told me that I should have seen it. Not only that, they told me that they have police patrols on the tollway, and if a police patrol would have picked me up, the fine would have been $200(!).

In other words, state sanctioned highway robbery. The state and the state police ensuring some extra revenue for Toll Roads in picking up newbie toll road travelers...

The Writer's Guild Strikes!

2007-12-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

I saw this sign in a store window in Venice (the one in California, not in Italy), and for the first time (I kid you not), I realized the dual meaning of the word strike.

In Hebrew, the word for strike (of the WGA variety) is Lishbot, which literally means to take a sabbath, or in other words to stop working. Strike means something different. First you threaten, then you strike. First strike. Strike'em dead. Lightening strikes... It's aggressive stuff...

Third World Design

2007-12-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some corporate work lately, and promised to help the company find a designer to revamp their slide presentations and their website. Using my standard MO, I placed an ad on Craigslist. I was looking for someone local, someone I could talk with face to face, and on the same timezone, with some corporate experience. But unlike previous times, this time I was overwhelmed by the number of responses and their poor quality.

Until I came upon a response from a guy with an Indian sounding name and an astoundingly beautiful website. He's in Jaipur India, he said, and is available for any corporate design job. He's got a degree in computer science and one in design, and his portfolio looked great. I e-mailed him with my Skype name, and within 30 seconds got a call on Skype. "What time is it for you?" I asked? "3am..."

We chatted a bit, texted a bit, and concluded that he'd do the first job I needed (a presentation template), for $50, with 25% down, paid through Paypal, with 30 hour turnaround for the first design pass. The web site will be $30 a page. A new logo? $100...

Scary stuff.

Observations from Tijuana

2007-12-02T10:11:00.001-08:00

I had a short but truly fun trip to Tijuana (TJ) this weekend. I accompanied an Israeli photographer who had been doing a residency in L.A. for the past 3 months, and who wanted a chance to observe a border town. Tijuana is just south of the Mexican border with the U.S., just south of San Diego, and the closest Mexican border to Los Angeles. A border, as a friend of mine observed, between first world and third world.

Our guide for the first day was a friend of my daughter's, a young third generation TJ'er named (a pseudonym) Carlo.

Even though Carlo, his father, and his grandfather all grew up in Tijuana, all of them, and all the other children in the family, were born in San Diego. For the cost of a U.S. hospital delivery, he explained, you can get U.S. citizenship. Not a bad deal if you're an upper class resident of TJ like Carlo and his family. Carlo himself went to college at UCSD (University of California, San Diego), and is now starting graduate school in business there.

To give you an idea of what this town is like here's an interesting factoid: In 1920 TJ's population was less than 2,000. Today, its population is estimated at 2.5 million (!). Which is why, as my Carlo explains, TJ offered a lot of opportunity for enterprising young men (and women) from Sonora who arrived in the early and mid 20th century. His own father owns a large building supplies company, and the family lives in the hills overlooking TJ, that host a combination of affluent business owners, and successful drug dealers.

But Carlo claims the easy times in TJ are over, growth has slowed, and Carlo's father wants to make sure he completes his education at UCSD and prepares for a career in the U.S.

We got to see and experience some of the best of TJ. The best hotel (not the priciest) is the Marriott. One of the best restaurants (if you're willing to go for Argentinian food) is Cheripan. And if you go to Cheripan, you should definitely sample the tamarind Martini. Last but not least, go chill out on the beach just south of the border fence, then walk down about 500 feet to the unnamed, but truly fab café for a great espresso.

Then of course there are the shantytowns were many of the longtime residents live, and where immigrants anxious to cross the border huddle waiting for an opportunity to make a run for it. We only saw those from afar. A longer visit would have brought us there as well.

My biggest surprise was that although everyone was nice and extremely helpful, virtually none of the people we ran into, in the restaurants, the hotels, the shops, by the schools, could carry on any kind of conversation in English. Strange for a border town, and maybe reflective of the fact that even after they immigrate to L.A., many of these extremely hardworking and driven Mexicans continue speaking Spanish and don't seem to have the ambition that so many previous generations of immigrants had, to learn English and forget the language of their native country.

There's plenty more to explore in TJ. We had to reserve that for a future trip.

Burlesque in Santa Monica

2007-11-21T12:55:00.000-08:00

A late night decision yesterday to hear some live music at a Jazz Club brought us to one of my old stapes, Harvelle's in Santa Monica, on 4th street near the Promenade. It was Tuesday night, and it turns out that Tuesday is burlesque night at Harvelle's.

Both my friend and I were were astounded. It wasn't quite striptease, but it was girls with G-strings doing splits, walking on the bar, hanging upside down over the young patrons who stiffened in their seats, not knowing where to look and what to do...

We felt like we had an out of world (or at least out of Santa Monica) experience. And you can have it too. Every Tuesday evenings, from 10pm, at Harvelle's.

Anti-Bacterial Everything

2007-11-18T15:19:00.000-08:00

A recent NYTimes article spoke to something I've believed for a long time - that the proliferation of anti-bacterial products - hand-creams, cleansers, fabrics, etc... is not good for us.

For two reasons:

The first and obvious one is that just as the proliferation of antibiotics use has created strains of drug resistant bacteria, so the proliferation of these anti-bacerials is creating anti-bacterial resistant bacteria.

The second - that we probably need a bit of dirt in our environment to properly develop our immune defenses. Children who are raised in too sterile an environment may develop immune deficiencies including a difficulty in fighting disease, but also a proliferation of auto-immune diseases, such as allergies.

I'd say that the empirical evidence may even back up these ideas. We don't seem to be any healthier (measured by days of being under the weather) than we've been before, and we certainly seem to be developing more allergies.

Anecdotally, I remember once being told that Polio was a disease that was almost unheard of before the 20th century. The reason being that Polio is a disease that doesn't cause any harm if it's acquired in the first three months of life. And before the 20th century, the general level of filth ensured that almost all babies did acquire it in those first three months. It was only with increased sanitation that many children were not exposed to Polio early enough, and when they did encounter it at a later age, it caused paralisis, and was sometimes even lethal. No, I'm not recommending that we go back to 19th century sanitation levels, but we may be going too far in the other direction.

Angelina

2007-11-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

I've been watching Angelina Jolie's weight loss with somewhat horrified fascination. I equate her weight loss with something that happens to me. It's not anorexia. But I get stressed, and then food becomes anxiety provoking. In my normal mode I wake up hungry every morning, but in my anxious state, coffee with a lot of sugar is the most I can take, and I start losing weight.

I have never gotten anywhere near as skinny as Angelina Jolie. And I'm not comparing here... But I'm fascinated by how someone who seems to have it all and do it all - great career, great guy, great kids, lots of money, a real impact on the world (consider how many additional children have been adopted thanks to her example), can get so anxious that she loses all sense of proportion, and seems to start literally starving herself to death.

I know there's a lot of Angelina Jolie hatred out there, and maybe
that's part of the story that she's facing, but when you consider that what
she's doing to herself indicates (at least to me) tremendous personal pain,
you've got to have sympathy, and also wonder what it all means.

Synergy...

2007-11-13T16:49:00.001-08:00

I spent the evening last night with a friend in Santa Monica. We walked around the 3rd street promenade around 8:30pm looking for a place to have a light dinner. But every place we looked was either too formal or depressingly empty. Until we finally had the brilliant idea of going to that old hippie dippie yogi movie star hangout - Real Food Daily near 5th on Santa Monica Blvd.

Good choice. It was packed - with only one empty table - great vibe, and comforting food. It was only an hour later, when the diners started leaving that we realized that almost all, without exception, were carrying their yoga mats with them.

Which, for those of you unfamiliar, means that they had just come from Bryan Kest's donation-only yoga class on Arizona and 5th. Pretty clever of Real Food Daily to setup shop just a block away from Bryan Kest. And it kind of explains why the Beverly Hills branch of the restaurant had to close down. No yoga to speak of in Beverly Hills.

Bait and Switch

2007-11-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

I got an e-mail from Gap this morning. It's their birthday, so they're giving online customers 10% off and free shipping, today only.

So I logged onto their web site and it was down for maintenance and upgrades...

A Half Car

2007-11-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, the Smart Car - that's been around in Europe for at least 5 years, is finally coming to the U.S., but only in early 2008.

Some vital statistics - it's a two seater (spacious seats), and the fairly loaded model (A/C, AT, front and side airbags) lists for about $13,500. Which is not bad compared to the Mini Cooper (about $30,000). Fuel economy similar to the Prius.

It's just what someone like me needs. I have one car, but need another half car for when my kids are home, when I have guests, or when I just want to save some gas and find easier parking while tooling around town.

Plus, with its low introductory price, (compare to about $20,000 in Europe) I bet the Smart car will maintain its value for the next few years.

The only fly in the ointment is that it's made by a German manufacturer (Mercedes Benz together in a consortium with Swatch). That's unfortunate. But I guess I'll choose to ignore that fact.

When I saw and heard and test drived I was ready to buy one immediately, but to my chagrin it will only be available in early 2008. So I reserved one. You can do the same my sweet and faithful reader, at www.smart.com. Then we can all compare and decide who chose the best color combo.

Figs for Fruit Salad

2007-10-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

I had an unexpected discovery a few days ago when I added a pint of figs (sliced into halves) into a fruit salad that was a combination of pears and peaches. After a few hours in the fridge, the flavor of the figs had permeated the other fruits, giving them a rich, alcohol-like flavor that was to my palate and mind, intoxicating. I'd never come across something like it and it's exquisite. Highly recommended.

List vs. Contracted Price

2007-10-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've ranted here several times about the difference between the list price that doctors charge uninsured patients, and the negotiated rate that they charge patients with insurance.

Here's a recent example - my yearly mammogram: List price, $440, negotiated rate: $84. Meaning more than 5X difference, or a 400% markup for the uninsured. I think I'll take this up with my doctor...

The End of Skype as We Know It

2007-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Skype was great, while it lasted. Oh, it's still around, but in the last few months, those of you that use it have probably noticed that it's just not working properly. Calls keep getting dropped, if they're not dropped the sound quality is just poor, and this applies even to the paid calls, when you call from your computer to a land line or cell phone.

Special K

2007-10-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a book about Krishnamacharya, the person often referred to (and rightfully so) as the father of Modern Yoga. Born in 1888, he gained renown as the yoga teacher for Maharaja of Mysore, but for us L.A. yogis, probably what is most astonishing is that he was the first teacher of the three greatest popularizers of yoga in the west - BKS Iyengar, Sri Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi. The book itself seems to be out of print, and has the distinction of selling on Amazon at higher than its original list price. For a brief bio of Special K, this Yoga Journal article is great.

Bottom line though, I was completely inspired. This was a a person who took such an incredibly creative approach to yoga. Who invented much of what we consider today to be the basics of physical (a.k.a. hatha) yoga, who was an extraordinary intellect, an extraordinarily gifted philosopher and healer, and who should be ranked as one of the most important figures of the 20th century. IMHO.

Taxation Without Representation

2007-09-17T00:05:00.001-07:00

I was just in Washington D.C., and that's the tag line on Washington D.C. license plates. Not news, I know, but still clever. Much better than New Hampshire's Live Free or Die.

Racy Stuff

2007-09-15T09:29:00.001-07:00

Last night I watched a video of the performance of Vivaldi's Hercole Sul Termadonte at the 2006 Spoleto music festival.

The story is of the Amazons being attacked by the fiercest enemies of their sex - men - (Hercules included), and both sides finally succumbing to that "strange feeling in their heart" - love. Or is it actually sexual famine?

Either way... The most striking part of the performance was not the really
great voices, but Hercule's outfit. Naked except for a lion's skin cape worn around his back and tied in front with two paws dangling above and to the right of his male member. You couldn't help but laugh as he would burst out in song, hands held up wide, balls dangling, circumcised penis bouncing. The claws swaying just above, looking like outsized versions of his own jewels, gave an added element of ridiculous titillation.

In a tit for tat, the Amazon warrioresses went around with one breast
exposed, while the queens wore pushup corsets with transparent gauze over their breasts that made every detail visible.

Yes, this was Spoleto Italy, 2006. Thumbing their nose at the Catholic
church in the name of art. Or as a friend of mine commented - actors will
do to anything to appear on stage

Certain Circumstances

2007-09-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend and I broke up about a month ago; sad, but it had to be. A couple of weeks later, I got a save-the-date e-mail for a baby shower for the wife of his best friend.

I thought that was cool, that she would still invite me to the shower, and since I liked her and am always thrilled when new babies are on the way, I thought (without actually making a final decision), that I'd go.

Today I get an e-mail directly from her, saying that she was not aware of "certain circumstances" until recently, and neglected to remove my email from the baby shower list. So, please, she says, ignore the invitation.

Is it just me, or is there something a bit obnoxious here?

The Logic of the Markets

2007-09-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

A quote from today's AP report on the markets:

"Stocks lifted Tuesday, after dips in manufacturing growth and construction spending rasied investor's hopes for an interest rate cut that would bring more money back into Wall Street."

For the past few weeks, every hint of bad news brought a market drop. Today, the market is rising on bad news, because it may bring good news. No why is today's bad news any different from last week's bad news? It isn't. All I can say is that the long weekend revived the optimism of the traders, or else some charismatic guy or lady out on the trading floor convinced them all that this time, bad news is good news.

I don't object, I'm heavily invested in having the market go up, I just find the "logic" that these supposedly brilliant guys and gals apply to it to be, dare I say?, laughable.

What Independent Filmmakers Need

2007-08-29T17:08:00.001-07:00

This story happened awhile ago, but it was only today that the full
implication sank in.

I went to the Sundance Film Festival this year, and had the very exciting
experience of watching the premieres of films of two friends of mine - La
Misma Luna, and The Pool. Both of them truly great films.

The Pool was shown in competition, and after the first screening, I was
invited to the filmmaker's dinner, sponsored by Sundance at a very chichi
local restaurant.

At the table (that seated about 40), on each plate, was a little gift bag
that contained several items, two of which I remember. One was a lighter
shaped like a stack of poker chips. A pretty cool idea I thought, since you
could probably get it through airport security without having it
confiscated.

The second was a $100 prepaid Visa cash card (a Visa "ePassporte").
Basically a $100 gift. Even cooler. Thing is that I didn't actually try to
use it till today.

Well, I haven't been successful yet, because it requires some activation,
but along the way I gained a better understanding of what this thing was.
It's basically a rechargeable piece of plastic. You can deposit money into
your account, and the money is then available by sticking the card into an
ATM machine and entering your PIN.

Who would want to use something like this? Well, probably a person without
a bank account, or someone who is occasionally (or usually) paid in case,
and a person with poor credit, and therefore no credit card.

And who could someone like that be? Well yes. An independent filmmaker
would be a plausible target. I guess.

A Top Ten Book

2007-08-27T18:31:00.001-07:00

I meant to write about Joan Didion's A Book of Common Prayer a few months ago, when I had just finished reading it. That didn't happen, but now that my daughter read it too, I revisited my original thoughts, and agreed with them completely. I rank it among the ten best books I've ever read. It's the first Joan Didion fiction book I'd ever read, and I was blown away. Incredibly interesting and yet authentic characters, extraordinarily real depictions of what a central american country can be like. You have to read it to understand.

Of course I wanted to check what other reviewers had said. Well, the original New York Times review of 1977, written by Christopher Lehman-Haupt when the book came out, was titled No Second Coming. Joan Didion's third novel, it said, was "powerful but flawed", and the main character is "a being out of focus, and ultimately out of empathy".

Which reminds me of Manola Dargis' review of the film Pulp Fiction in the L.A. Weekly many years ago. She hated it. It had "too much dialogue". That review, along with its "Don't Go" recommendation, ran in the L.A. Weekly for months - all through the extended theatrical engagement of the groundbreaking film. And where is Manola Dargis today? You got it. She now reviews films for the New York Times.

This Time it's For Real

2007-08-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

My faithful readers will know that my cell phone has been an ongoing source of frustration for me for several years now. I did have a golden era of over four years, starting in early 2000, when I got my first miniature Nokia phone. This was the phone that made cell phones worthwhile for me. Less than 4 ounces, excellent reception, excellent sound quality, and it lasted for more than 4 years. The part that finally died was the battery, and at that point this model had been out of print for so long that no replacement parts were available.

But by then the world had evolved, and I decided to take the leap and combine my phone with my PDA (which at that point was a Handspring Treo), and get the Treo phone. Now that was about 8 ounces, but combining the PDA function with the phone seemed worth it.

Only problem was that voice quality wasn't great, it was heavy, the software would occasionally hang the system forcing me to turn it off and back on, and in the two years that I owned it, I had to have it replaced four times (always because of problems with the audio connection to the ear-bud headset that I use religiously).

The frustration of those two years convinced me that I want a Nokia phone, no matter what it costs. So I went ahead and ordered the top of the line - the E71. But that love affair, as my faithful readers know, was shortlived, as explained here. So I moved on to the Samsung BlackJack, and fell in love. Unfortunately that love affair had the characteristics of sophomoric infatuation. The BlackJack is undeniably beautiful. But it's a first generation device. The software just isn't that great. Not to mention the fact that it's got a Microsoft operating system (read; sloooooow).

You may ask why I didn't get the Blackberry. Mainly, because the Blackberry was known to have poor voice reception quality, the monthly fee was high, and it was fairly bulky and pretty ugly. Of course you'll say I could have bought the Blackberry Pearl, but that one doesn't have a full QWERTY keyboard for typing.

And then, Tadam, out comes the Blackberry 8300 (Curve). Still pretty ugly. But only 4 ounces. Great sound quality. Voice recognition (missing on the Samsung), a built-in camera (missing on previous Blackberries), and absolutely impecable operation of the mail, contacts and address functions. So I replaced my short-lived BlackJack with the Blackberry Curve.

No, I'm not in love, at least not yet. But I am quite happy, and in my experience, this level of happiness, if maintained over time, leads to love.

Fannie Mae Steps In

2007-08-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

A young friend, let's call him Raul, started working at a large sub-prime mortgage lender as a loan officer exactly six weeks ago. Interesting timing, he finished his three week training exactly as the bottom started falling out of the sub-prime market.

In his first week on the job, he was about to close a 7% fixed rate mortgage (a refinance for someone that had gotten a variable rate loan that had recently ballooned). The house appraisal had been done, credit reports and all information were in. Then, at the last minute, the rate was raised to 11%(!). Raul called the customer to ask if they'd accept the 11% rate. They didn't, and the deal fell through. The customer didn't get his $350 appraisal fee back...

But then, two days ago, a miracle happened. Fannie Mae decided to step in. They would fund the sub-prime loans at a fixed rate of 6.2%. And get this - the debt to equity ratio (the ratio of the customer's monthly debt payment to income) could be as high as 66%(!). In my experience, relevant up to 3 years ago, that ratio could not exceed 33%. And the loan to house value could be up to 90%. Meaning only 10% down is required. The two limitations are that the loan can only be up to $417K (which in California is truly a limitation), and the customer has to provide full income verification, which essentially means having a job. The self-employed need not apply.

But bottom line, Fannie Mae is stepping in try to save the sub-prime loan market, or at least to save the sub-prime lenders, from foreclosure. Raul thinks he'll close three loans this week.

Truck Bomb Kills 250 Yazidi's in Iraq

2007-08-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

The news article continues to say that the Yazid's, a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect believe that the Muslims want to kill them all.

But get this - the bombing, so it is reported, was in retaliation for the stoning of a Yazidi girl who had fallen in love with a Sunni guy and converted to Islam.

I'm not trying to justify anything, but they're not exactly paragons of virtue these Yazidis, are they?

"I Saw It On Amp'd Mobile"

2007-08-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I noticed for the first time an Amp'd Mobile billboard. This was right after I had read an article about the X games - Extreme skateboarder Jake Brown had been in the lead, until he missed a jump, and fell more than 45 feet onto a wood floor. Amazingly, he was not badly hurt.

But the same article mentioned that a few weeks earlier, an extreme biker missed a double somersault in the air, lost grip of his bike, and fell 10 feet directly onto his head, and became a quadriplegic.

So what was in this Amp'd Mobile billboard that I noticed? By the way, in case you're not aware - Amp'd Mobile provides video clips to cell phones, a sort of YouTube for mobile phones. This billboard sported a picture of a biker losing his bike and starting a plunge towards the ground below. I'm sure you get where I'm going. The billboard was advertising that on Amp'd Mobile you could see the clip of this pretty horrific accident. Perhaps it's the most downloaded of the Amp'd Mobile videos? I wouldn't be shocked or even surprised to hear that, but I am shocked that Amp'd Mobile would choose to put it on their billboard. Or maybe I'm not...

Signs

2007-08-03T08:01:00.000-07:00

You know your relationship is headed for a breakup when your boyfriend starts describing you with the same (albeit positive) descriptives he uses for his ex-wife...

Tongue in Cheek

2007-07-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

A BBC report on a Norwegian princess, the fourth in line to the Norwegian throne, talking with angels, and helping you do the same for a mere $4,150 per year

Bikram

2007-07-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

I've always referred to Bikram as "The McDonald's of Yoga", but that was my own assumption without actually ever having taken a class. So yesterday, in the interest of being able to back myself up with some facts (or refuting my basic assumptions) I took one.

This took some courage on my part. For those of you that don't know, Bikram is done in a hot room - 105 degrees celsius and 40% humidity to be precise. One of the reasons given for this on the Bikram web site is the heat increases the heart rate, turning this into an aerobic exercise... Just a few more points for background: 1) it consists of a fixed, "scientifically" developed sequence of 26 poses, developed by the eponymous Mr. Bikram Chadhoury, 2) it's probably the only branch of yoga, with the possible exception of yoga clothing, that's making real money for its developers - in this case Bikram himself, who is well known for his collection of Rolls Royces (remember the Rajneesh...?), and 3) Bikram has patented(!) his sequence of poses and has legally pursued those who try to teach his sequence or variants of it without paying him royalties.

BTW, as a side comment, my anecdotal impression had been that Bikram's the branch of yoga that appeals most to men.

So, I checked out the Bikram web site and off I went. I decided to wear my absolute lightest yoga pants (black ones), along with my one and only sports bra (a white one, you'll find out why this is important very soon...).

Bikram has over 600 studios in the U.S. and hundreds more worldwide, but the highest concentration is in San Francisco. A friend of mine has speculated that's because Bikram actually appeals to gay guys, but I wasn't sure. An alternative explanation was offered by a female friend from San Francisco, who claimed that her girlfriends like to take a Bikram class before dates, because the water they lose during the class allows them to fit into their tighter jeans... That may have become a fad in San Fran... But more importantly, the international headquarters of Bikram is in L.A., less then three miles from my house on La Cienega Blvd. I was going to the holy of the holies itself.

If you've ever been to a regular yoga studio in L.A., you'll know that they're normally pretty upscale in an organic foods type of way. Hardwood floors, soft colors, entry hall full of books and clothes meant to empty your pocket book and fill your soul with the right Zenish New Agey feel. The world headquarters of Bikram is very different. Situated in a fairly run down part of La Cienega Blvd, it's housed in a large commercial building that was probably once a warehouse of the type that doesn't have loft potential...

The pricing, as I'd already found out on the web site, was high. $20 for asingle class, $150 for a 10 class pack, and $250 for unlimited monthly.Compare this to $17 a single class and $120 a month for unlimited monthly at most L.A. yoga studios.

What did the Bikram devotees look like? Well, quite normal. About 40% male (vs 20-30% at regular yoga classes). Not particularly fit, but reasonably so. Reasonably affluent (judging by their cars), and fairly young - mostly in their 20's and early 30's, with a few teenagers in the mix.

But of course what you really want to know is what the class was like. Well, here's a brief summary. Even though the room was overwhelmingly hot, things didn't really get out of hand because the scientific sequence was not particularly strenuous. It had virtually none of the yoga staples - I mean no down dog, up dog, chataranga, trikonasana (triangle pose), warrior I or warrior II, no half moon pose. Most striking - there were absolutely no poses that put any weight on the arms. The Bikram sequence does absolutely zero for arm strength.

And how is it run? Well, at the front of the room is a mirrored wall, and at its corner is a stage with a big white couch. On the stage (sitting on it's floor next to the couch...) is Juan, the instructor. He's wearing a black speedo bathing suit, a gold chain, and a head mike like singers or like aerobics instructors. He talks in rapid fire English with a strange Indian twist to it - "Breath in, look forward, hands under your chin, fingers interlaced, eyes open, look into your eyes in the mirror, lift your elbows up, stretch them even higher. Now breath out, push your hands up, neck back, look to the back of the room, feet press down hard, stomach in. Now breath in, head down, ..." etc.

From time to time the instructor would interject something like - "Don't tell me you're going to throw up, just go out and do it". All in a Marine boot camp kind of way. To give a more personalized effect he'd refer to some of the students by name, to some in their native language (Hebrew, Russian...), and to some of the women, by the color of their outfits - Miss Purple, Little Miss Yellow, or yours truly, Miss Black and White.

So what were my conclusions? Well, first of all, that physically this wasn't much of a workout - that's perhaps natural considering that it's donein a 105 degree room. In fact, despite the heat, the truth is that I wasn't particularly tired after the class, not as tired as I get even after arelatively mild standard yoga class. Second, that this was not really yoga,in some ways it had more in common with a Jane Fonda workout class than with yoga. The instructor in front with the microphone, the devotees watching themselves in the mirror, the sense that pain (or in this case dizziness) is gain. Third, that the attraction, particularly for men, is in the feeling of having been through some sort of boot camp class, being admonished, yelled at and mocked, and feeling that you were on the edge of throwing up, or at least that others are. And fourth, and most important, that Bikram may be a commercial genius, but that going to a Bikram class added nothing to my depth of knowledge about yoga, it was just a sad statement about the things that will really attract the masses...

HIPAA!!!

2007-07-12T18:07:00.001-07:00

You probably know that if you lose or leave your job, separate from a spouse, etc... Federal law provides for COBRA, which mandates your insurance company to continue offering you the insurance you had while employed for up to 18 months.

You may or may not know (I didn't), that in California, you can get an additional 18 month extension of your COBRA (called CalCOBRA) for a total of 36 months.

But what happens after those 36 months expire? Well, you can buy insurance on the open market. Which, if you have no pre-existing conditions is, as I've found, fairly straightforward, and not exceptionally expensive. But what if you do have a pre-existing condition? Not necessarily a debilitating one, or one that requires constant medical attention, just one that increases your risk. As in my case, having had stage I breast cancer 3.5 years ago.

Well, it turns out that most of the insurance companies will sell you, under some conditions, more expensive policies to compensate for risk. So for example, if you are somewhat overweight, you can get a policy for 25% above the normal fee. If you're a little more overweight (i.e., 192-228lbs for a 5'.5" woman), you can get it for over 50% over the normal fee. But if you had stage I breast cancer, like I had, you need to wait 7(!) years before you're eligible for insurance, even at double the price. Meaning that today I'm completely ineligible to buy insurance, no matter the price.

But this story (surprisingly) has a happy ending. Because in 1996 congress passed something called HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Which says, among other things, that if you've exhausted your COBRA possibilities, insurance companies are obliged to offer you at least a couple of their standard insurance plans, at a somewhat (but not terribly) increased rate. For me my choice will be a Blue Cross Share 1500 plan, which is a PPO with a $30 office visit co-pay, a $1500 yearly deductible (not applied to office visits), maximum yearly out of pocket payment of $5,000, and maximum lifetime benefit of $5,000,000,000. Not too shabby.

And how much will it cost? $535 a month, vs. $383 for the same policy if I had no pre-existing conditions and could have purchased it on the open market. Meaning it will cost me 40% more than my no-risk counterpart. Not ideal, but not bad. This (along with COBRA) is an example of Congress doing something right. Consider that without HIPAA I would have had NO option of buying health insurance (with the possible exception of insurance through California's high risk pool, with its yearly, or lifetime, maximum payout of $75,000...).

Here's my question though - have you ever heard of HIPAA? Did you know you could get post-COBRA insurance through HIPAA? Isn't it the best kept secret ever?

Well, I'd hadn't heard of it until I found a health insurance broker and consulted her. Here's her name, click for her web site: Maryann Zukin. If you ever need to buy health insurance on your own, I highly recommend her.

Yoga and Longevity

2007-07-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

One of the more farfetched claims about yoga is that it's a fountain of
youth, a way to live not only better, but also longer. Sounds good, yet even though I'm an almost fanatic devotee of yoga, I have never subscribed to the longer life claim.

But I may change my mind. Here's the story: I've been reading about the origins of modern yoga, and there seems to be agreement that it can attributed to four people - the father of it all - Tirumalai Kirshnamacharya - and three of his pupils - Indra Devi (the woman credited with bringing yoga to the U.S., to women, and to Hollywood in particular...), BKS Iyengar (of Iyengar yoga), and Sri Pattabhi Jois - inventor, grand master of Ashtanga yoga.

For the past 40-50 years or longer, these four people have been the seminal figures of the modern, more physical type of yoga practiced in the west.

Which brings me to my point: Of these four people, Krishnamacharya
lived to age 100, Indra Devi to 102, and Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois are still
going strong at 89 and 91 respectively.

Of course it may not be the yoga. It may just be the joy of having thousands of adoring disciples, of having loads of self confidence, or just sheer luck. In any case, it's probably not replicable within the general population. Very few of us are going to spend 4-8 hours a day wrapped up in our yoga poses.

But still, it's pretty interesting...

The London/Glasgow Doctor Terrorists

2007-07-09T11:36:00.001-07:00

It's been pointed out to me that, based on the skill level they showed in setting up those car bombs in London and Glasgow, one would never want to be treated by those doctors...

The Bare Essentials

2007-06-26T20:54:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine is moving out of town, and tomorrow the movers are coming to pack everything. The following day they'll come to load the truck and start their trek to her new home.

"So where will you sleep tomorrow night?" I asked her.

Oh, no problem she explained. The movers had told her that they would leave the essentials unpacked - the beds and... the television. Yes, a night without television could be overly traumatic.

Watch Out Trader Joe's

2007-06-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after a couple of weeks of one of Trader Joe's frequent and at this point inexplicable (to me) frozen mango shortages, I went to Whole Foods to fulfill my frozen-mango-for-smoothie craving. And lo and behold. Not only did Whole Foods have frozen mangoes, the ones that they had were much better (sweeter and better flavor) and about the same price as Trader Joe's.

As my friends and readers know, I'm a huge TJ's fan. But I've gotta warn them, Whole Foods is coming up from behind. If they don't watch out, WF may leave them in the dust...

???!!!

2007-06-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

I want to point out a piece of news I just read on the AP - you may have heard about this a long time ago, but I heard it only now that a judge (after two years) commuted the sentence:

A black teenager (Genarlow Wilson) from Georgia was sentenced to 10 years in prison without possibility of parole for having consensual oral sex in 2003 with a 15 year old girl when he was 17 years old...

Is this possible? It took two years of him being in prison to have it commuted? It was commuted to one year in prison...(!). How does this whole story relate to him being a black (as opposed to white) kid in Georgia? The U.S. can be stunningly primitive.

So Good

2007-06-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

The Onion is on a roll. I'd like to know the back story, but lacking that, the main point is that the weekly print edition is now available for free at most newstands, the online edition is rocking, and they've recently introduced podcasts, and now also short "news" videos - check it out.

My absolute favorite Onion line - at least for the moment - came out a few weeks ago in their The Onion for Women print edition. In a collection of news briefs it said: "Scientists announce they are 10 years away from developing an effective speculum warmer". It still brings tears (of laughter) to my eyes. But you may have to be a woman who's visited an Ob-Gyn at least a few times to fully appreciate it.

Shun Them

2007-06-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

A good commentary in Haaretz on the motion at the annual conference of the British University and College Union to boycott Israeli academic institutions. It's titled Boycotting Israel as Moral Masturbation by Bradley Burston, and here are a few of the first paragraphs:

Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that you're a British academic. You believe strongly that the occupation must end, that the Palestinians should have an independent state, that Israel's military and diplomatic policies are wrongheaded to the point of immorality.

What to do? Simple. Find the one group within Israeli society which has consistently, vigorously and courageously campaigned against the occupation since its inception.

Then attack them.

Single them out for professional ruin. Do your best to get as many of their colleagues around the world to shun them. Yes, just as if you were in seventh grade and had decided to alleviate your own feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, panic and lack of requisite cool by cutting another victim from the middle school herd and lobbying your equally insecure colleagues to abuse the chosen victim.

Etc...

What a Strange Story

2007-06-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

I have a special interest in Tuberculosis because my father fell ill with it in the late 40's, was hospitalized for almost 4 years, left the hospital after he was told he had an exacerbation and would probably die if he left, and ultimately survived, married, and had me and my brother. The remaining relic is that I test strongly positive to exposure to TB, which actually means (so I'm told) that there is a colonization of TB bacteria in my lungs, however, as in at least 90% of infectees, it has never manifested itself as active illness.

I've been warned that in a situation where I'm immuno-compromised - such as when I'm very old, or ill for other reasons, I could become ill with that TB. Which has a quaint aspect to it, because I would become ill with a bacteria that has lain dormant in my body for at least 40 years, and that harkens back at least to the late 40's...

I'm saying this to also explain that whatever I would get, if that ever happened, would not be drug resistant TB, because those strains did not exist at that time. So I would actually be readily treatable - I think.

All this has been a long way of saying that I'm quite fascinated by the story of Andrew Speaker, the 31 year old guy who was diagnosed with highly drug resistant TB, and then proceeded to fly to Europe and back for his marriage and honeymoon, on the way, at least in theory, exposing his fellow passengers to a potentially lethal disease (lethal because it's drug resistant).

The story has several oddities for me. One is that, although Speaker was diagnosed with TB back in February, it was only recently that it was found that this is drug resistant TB. Slow moving medical establishment...

Second, that Speaker's father-in-law is a specialist in TB epidemiology at the CDC.

Third, that only 56 people in the U.S. Have been diagnosed with this form of drug resistant TB.

Fourth, that the father in law and the CDC adamantly claim that they have not done any experimentation on this specific strain of TB, and therefore that Speaker could not have gotten it through a contamination from his father in law's lab. Really?

Fifth, the strange mechanism by which various national health organizations tried to chase down Speaker as he made his way through Europe and back into the U.S.

And sixth - just my thought - what do you do if you're a 31 year old, apparently healthy guy, who's been diagnosed with drug resistant TB. Do you spend the rest of your life wearing a face mask? In a negatively pressurized

This I Believe

2007-05-25T22:43:00.001-07:00

I was a great fan of Hillary Clinton until she started her health care reform initiatives, back in the days when she was a junior first lady. Seeing her talk at her town hall meetings in her condescending, patronizing tone appalled me, and since then I've loathed her intensely. So I'm inclined to believe a quote from Bob Boorstein in one of the new books on Hillary: "I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known".

Sounds right.

I have no idea what I'll do if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president. I don't think I could bring myself to vote for her.

Prama...

2007-05-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

As my son, who is graduating high school in a few weeks, tells me, prama is the drama that happens around the Prom. As in Prama Queen. Too much prama. I can't take all the prama...

Astonishing Statistic

2007-05-02T00:22:00.000-07:00

Among people in their early 20's, there are four times more male suicides than female. For the over-40 set, the ratio goes up to seven - seven times more male suicides than female. We women seem to be the ones that get depressed (or so I thought), but men are the ones that actually do something about it...

Seasonale

2007-04-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

That's apparently the name of a birth control pill that causes a period every 90 days, instead of every 28 days - making it a once a season as opposed to a once a month event...

The context is that now a new pill is about to be approved that eliminates periods altogether...

I'm one of those enlightened believers in the power of western medicine, but the truth is that I'm bothered by the idea of stopping your menstrual cycle for long periods of time.

Of course, the counter to this feeling is that the 28 day period induced by traditional birth control pills is artificial, and has nothing to do with ovulation.

True, but isn't it nice to know that we still bleed? Isn't there a warm fuzziness of femininity associated with the menstrual cycle? For me there is, and always has been, bloody accidents and ruined panties notwithstanding. Sure, I understand taking a few months off for a trip through some third world country, but in the natural course of events, I'd choose to have a period, that's for sure...

Of course, I have an additional question - if the periods induced by the birth control pill are not "real", how come women still have PMS????

Cat and Mouse Game

2007-04-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

That's what my two cats are playing in the kitchen with a poor, very much alive, mouse. I want to rescue it from the torture, but what would I do? Kill it faster? Let it free to be caught again by my two predators? So I'm escaping to my room to let them finish the job. Such is life in nature. Nasty, brutish and short...

Silicon Wadi

2007-03-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

I had dinner this week with a good friend from Israel's tech industry. We were reminiscing about the history of tech in Israel. How in the 80's there was nothing. In the 90's people would say, "Israel has great technology, but they have no idea how to market it". And suddenly overnight, in our new as as yet unnamed Millenium, American companies are buying more Israeli companies than they're buying from any other foreign country. Israel has become a high tech powerhouse. Intel's most important new processors, the ones that run laptops, are developed in Israel. Qualcomm's most important technologies, Cisco's newest stuff, all this is developed in Israel. Israel has more companies on the NASDAQ than any foreign country with the possible exception of Canada. And Israeli companies are now perceived as having BETTER marketing savvy than their American counterparts, especially when selling in Asia. Amazing stuff. When did all this happen???

So just like the Bay Area has its Silicon Valley, and NY has its highly over-hyped Silicon Alley, Israel has its much under-hyped Silicon Wadi. It kinda makes me proud.

Daylight Savings Time Bug...

2007-03-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

The famous Y2K bug never materialized, but on the other hand, the Daylight Savings Time (DST?) bug is still with us.

A few days before this year's premature Spring Forward Sunday (SFS), Cingular actually called my cell phone an left and automated message telling me that I will need to manually adjust my time to accommodate the modified timing of time change. That surprised me because I know that phones get their local time data from the cell phone signal.

Still, against my best judgment, I complied. Albeit a bit late, because on Sunday morning I still managed to forget it was SFS.

Here's the thing. Within a few hours my phone reverted to the old, pre-SFS time. So I changed it again. It quickly changed back. And again. And again. This has been going on for a week and a half.

I have two theories about this bug. The first is that it's Cingular's fault. Whenever my phone polls Cingular, it gets an incorrect time reading, and that's what it shows.

The second is that the bug derives from an assumption that congress would never interfere with the timing of SFS. So the phone polls Cingular, gets a response that indicates some universal constant like Greenwich Mean Time, and calculates the local time based on location and its internal database on the timing of SFS. Which as we all know, was set forward by one month this year by special decree of congress to increase golf course revenues...

Lost and Found

2007-03-16T20:26:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago I rushed over to Target at lunchtime to buy a yoga outfit. I needed one because I had forgotten to take one with me, and I wanted to stop at a yoga class on my way home that evening.

I came back to the office reasonably happy with my purchase, until I realized I had left my favorite black cardigan in the Target dressing room. It was a long shot, but today, on my way home, I stopped at Target and asked if they had it in their Lost and Found.

They didn't, but they suggested that I go back to the dressing room where I had left it, and lo and behold, the woman working there (different than the one who had been there when I bought my outfit), pulled it up from behind her counter.

Truly nice.

Which brings me to my point - I seem to forget things everywhere all the time. It's not senility, I've always had this problem. But on the positive side, virtually every time it happens, I can retrace my steps in my mind and figure out where I left the item.

And once I figure that out, I will virtually always find it when I come back. There are only two significant exceptions: 1) Planes. I've left jackets on planes several times, and it's consistent, the "cleaning crew" picks it up, and I never get it back again. 2) My yoga studio, YogaWorks. Twice I forgot expensive black Manduka mats there. In both cases I remembered and went back to pick them up within 24 hours. In both cases they were gone.

I don't have a full explanation...

Muffin Tops

2007-03-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

I'm told the term for young women squeezed into the oh so fashionable new low cut slim fitting jeans that make their bellies and hips bulge out ever so slightly is Muffin Tops on a good day, and Sausages on a bad one.

I'm feeling like a Muffin Top today.

300

2007-03-11T12:06:00.001-07:00

I joined a couple of friends yesterday to see the film 300, not knowing in advance what it was or would be about - just trusting them that this appeared to be the best option out there for the evening...and I loved it. Here are the thoughts that ran through my mind as I was watching it. 1) This is a real art house movie, I'm surprised it got wide distribution. 2) this is by far the best historical epic film I've ever seen, 3) it's truly artistically brave, and 4) it feels more like a play than a film, very stylized, both in look and in words. I only found out after seeing it that 300 is based on a comic book series. This morning I read that it grossed $70M at the box office this weekend, the third highest performance on record.

So I was surprised to find on its Rotten Tomatoes page that half of the "cream of the crop", i.e., the nation's top reviewers, didn't like it. Here are a few choice quotes from these crème de la crème:

A.O. Scott of the NY Times (someone I usually do agree with): "300 is about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid." Kyle Smith of the NY Post: "Keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule -- never compare anything to Hitler -- it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a 300 screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com: "300, even with its impressive vistas of computer-generated soldiers, is just a throwaway epic." The Newark Star Ledger: "History is inconveniently complex. And so we get Frank Miller's version, in which everything is simplified to the point of porridge."

These reviewers need to get a life. Or maybe smoke a joint or two (although for the record I didn't have anything in me when I saw it). They seem to be hung up on historical inaccuracies. They seem to judge this film by the standards of cinema verite. This movie doesn't pretend to be historically accurate. It doesn't pretend to be accurate or real. Even without knowing a priori what it was about, it clearly felt to me like a fable or a Greek myth. And a great one at that. Highly recommended by yours truly.

Would I Eat Cloned Beef?

2007-03-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, at a fancy corporate staff meeting, this question came up. It's what the VP of M&A asked the other VP's while we were waiting for the CEO.

I'd meant to write about this question a couple of months ago, but let it go since I didn't feel I had a very well founded answer. But since it's obviously fallen under the official mission of this site - staff meeting talk and cocktail party talk are almost interchangeable - I've decided to weigh in.

No, I'd prefer not to eat cloned beef. And it's not because I'm that squeemish, and it's not because I don't understand that I'm already eating cloned veggies and that cloning is not the equivalent of synthetic. I do understand all that.

But here's the thing. I went to India a few years ago, and the lemons there had an indescribably wonderful aroma that I've never encountered anywhere else. Ditto for the cucumbers. Ditto for the tomatoes. I suspect that 100 years ago, vegetables and fruit in the west had similarly wonderful aromas - that is before we started breeding them.

Sure, you'll say that Indians may have wonderful vegetables, but they don't have enough of them, because they don't use the more efficient bred varieties. That may be true, but at the moment we in the West don't seem to be suffering from a shortage of beef.

So what do I think of breeding of cows? Well, I acknowledge that it's made milk and meat that much more available. I just don't think we need to add that extra element of efficiency that cloning will bring to the process. And I sometimes wish I could taste what milk and meat would be like coming from one of those unbred cows of 200 years ago, tremendously better I would bet.

And then there's that small matter of biodiversity. We think we're so smart with our cloning abilities, but I'm not convinced we really know what we'll be getting ourselves into with cloning of animals. No, I'm not afraid these animals will be dangerous to my health, it's just that I prefer to have Betty the Cow retain her odd colored coat, while Fred the bull have an unusual black spot on his nose, and I'm willing to pay extra for it.

Should We Be Worried?

2007-03-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

That's what I heard a news announcer ask today, when interviewing a christian theologian about the new documentary purporting to show evidence that Jesus was married and had kids.

Here's my take: Maybe he was married, and maybe he had kids, but no, we shouldn't be worried.

Have a Safety Trip

2007-03-03T00:02:00.001-08:00

That’s a line from an e-mail I just got from a Japanese customer. Which reminds of another e-mail I got many years ago from a different, moderately irate Japanese customer. He wasn’t happy with the performance of an imaging system we had sold him, and asked me to please send our lead engineer over “in scrambled form”…

Auspicious

2007-02-28T21:54:00.000-08:00

A Indian colleague of mine had his first baby born yesterday. He e-mailed today to thank me for my congratulations, and said something I found very poetic: "Having a baby makes me feel incredibly complete".

He also sent out an "It's a Boy" mailing explaining how the baby will be named. Here it is:

Namkaran is the traditional Hindu Indian practice of naming the baby child. Nama literally means 'name' and karana means 'to make, to effect'.

The Namkaran is held at home or in a temple where the father of the child whispers the name in the child's right ear. The ceremony usually takes place on the twelfth day after birth. Choosing a Hindu name is a difficult process.
According to the Grihyasutras, there are 5 requisites to selecting a name for the baby. This is the name that the child is will be called. It depends on the culture, religion & education of the family, and should be auspicious.
1. The name of the baby should be easy to pronounce and sound pleasant.
2. The baby name should contain a specified number of syllables and vowels. (We’re waiting on the family priest for this)
3. The name should indicate the sex of the baby.
4. The baby's name should signify wealth, fame or power.
5. The name should be suggestive of the caste of the family.

Too Much Masstige

2007-02-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

As my British cousin told me, products like the iPod have "masstige", meaning a combination of mass availability, and prestige. But this kind of stuff can't last forever. My daughter who is in college needs a new laptop, and she was adamant that she didn't want a MacBook. Its price is right, but apparently "everyone" on campus has a MacBook...

Basically, the MacBook is just so cool that it's not. Soon I expect she'll be on the market for a Sanyo MP3 player...

Oscar for Best Foreign Film...

2007-02-25T20:01:00.000-08:00

Here's the theory that I formulated this evening and then tried to prove. That the Oscar for best foreign film is highly indicative of the quality of the film. That films selected as best foreign film are truly worth watching, whereas, as we all know, films selected for best film often are not.

The idea started from the fact that The Lives of Others won this year, surpassing Pan's Labyrinth. Good choice. Then the other victor that I remember, going back to 2001 - No Man's Land won over Amelie. Both are good films, but No Man's Land was truly great. And then I remembered that The Garden of the Finzi Continis was a winner, and I thought my point was made.

Unfortunately, I felt a need to check my facts, and then found out that Tsotsi won last year. So much for this theory...

Shortest Mango Shortage Ever

2007-02-25T19:58:00.000-08:00

The Mangoes are back at Trader Joe's. Just a few days after they disappeared from the warehouses, they magically reappeared. TJ's inventory management has obviously improved. I bought 8 packs. Just in case this is just short term relief...

Physics for Future Presidents

2007-02-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

... that's the name of a course my daughter is taking this semester at Berkeley to fulfull her science requirements. She feels they aren't learning anything of substance. They sit around and discuss how the internal combustion engine works - she was surprised to realize that air is mixed in there to create explosions... - how a nuclear bomb works, that in Hiroshima about 100,000 people were incinerated immediately by the bomb, only about 2,000 died from the after-effects of radiation. That it's almost impossible to assess the health effects of the radiation from the Chernobyl reactor on its neighbouring population, because the effect is so small relative to the normal incidence of cancers. Useful stuff. I'm serious.

Confusing

2007-02-23T00:32:00.000-08:00

Today the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains were running late, and I missed my flight back to L.A. Aren't late trains a classic precursor to fascist regimes? I think so. But that's not my point. Here's my point:

When I was 16, I spent a summer month at my grandfather's home in Paris, and came to know the Paris Metro pretty well. Yet even before I knew it well, in my first few trips around La Belle Ville, I found very easy to navigate.

Fast forward to 2007, and a day spent traveling around the Bay Area on the BART. I was stunned by the number of mistakes I made getting around. Getting onto the wrong platform (4 times), getting to the right platform but the wrong train (once), getting onto the right train but staying on it too long (twice), almost staying on too long (once), almost getting onto the wrong train (once). All this within seven BART rides.

By the end of the day I, a self-identified smart, analytical, technically astute individual, who has ridden the BART on at least 10 separate ocassions, was straining all my mental faculties to make sure I arrive at Oakland airport before they shut it down for the night.

Did something happen to my aforesaid mental faculties? I don't think so. With my oh-so fashionable disdain of the French I really hate to say it, but I just wish our BART designers would go to Paris to check out the Metro and learn a few things. But in case they won't, here are a few recommendations to get them going:

1. Put signs in plain view at the entrance to each platform, indicating which trains stop at that platform.

2. Put BIG signs along the walls of each platform indicating the name of the station. Signs big enough and illuminated well enough so that they can be seen within the train, so that passengers will know when to get off.

3. Have a nice male, female, or electronic voice, announce the name of the station EVERY time the train stops at a station (not just occasionally, and not too faintly).

4. Consider running more trains even in low traffic times. There's nothing wrong with a few trains running half empty, and on the other hand, waiting half an hour for a train, and then realizing that the line doesn't even run after 7pm, is not very cool.

Luckily I had had reserved a seat on the penultimate flight to L.A. (which I have come to know means the before-last flight), the 9:30 flight. I didn't make it, but I did make the ultimate one, the 10pm, with almost 10 minutes to spare...

In Favor of Organic, Free Range Brown Eggs

2007-02-19T22:06:00.000-08:00

I've been surprised to find, while making chocolate mousse, that organic, free range brown eggs whip much faster, and maintain their froth much better than normal eggs. There's a difference of at least a factor of two in the speed in which they achieve full white peaks, and they have dramatically better holding power.

I saw this for the first time a couple of months ago, and chalked it up to chance, but this second time around I could no longer ignore the evidence.

The only thing I don't know is whether this superior performance is due to the eggs being organic, free range, brown, or all of the above. But stay tuned, I may try to test for each variable independently (although not double blindly...).

Frozen Mango Shortage Again

2007-02-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

Trader Joe's is out, and they tell me the warehouses are empty and they're waiting for a new crop. Just like last year, and last year it took 6 weeks for the frozen mangoes to reappear. No fresh ones around either (obviously I guess...).

What Could be Worse?

2007-02-14T08:41:00.000-08:00

The wife of a colleague of mine went in for surgery last week to remove a benign tumor on her liver. Her husband heads IT for a large company, and is almost a charicature of a computer geek - wears shorts all year round, and obsesses about the function of his computer network. She's a very nice, petit blond woman, and they have two super cute little blond girls, 3 and 5 years old. I met them all when they came to visit our sales conference. Their older girl said she wanted to grow up to be me... They're such a sweet family, and their father so obviously thinks he's the luckiest man in the world to have them.

Anyway, surgery went well, Linda was in the ICU for one day, and then last Thursday they moved her to the regular post-op ward. That evening she was able to get up and walk around with her husband's help. Then he went home to tend to the girls. At 1am he was called from the hospital. Linda had vomited during the night and aspirated her vomit. The monitors attached to her had sounded alarms, but there was no one at the nurses' station to hear them. By the time they got to her she was brain dead.

On Monday at 2pm they took her off life support. An hour later her husband sent out a companywide e-mail saying - Today I Lost the Love of My Life...

It's tough to express how shocked I was. On the one hand, Linda had obviously brought her husband so much joy. And on the other hand, her death was somehow worse than a random death in a traffic accident, or aslow death from cancer. It was sheer and utter and criminal negligence. Unspeakable negligence. At Los Robles hospital, in case you're wondering.

Attention

2007-02-10T07:32:00.000-08:00

I just read about an experiment that was done a few years ago: A group of monkeys was attached, for 100 minutes a day, to a device that tapped on their fingers according to a certain pattern. At the same time, they had on earphones on playing music.

The monkeys were divided into two groups, one half was rewarded with a sip of orange juice every time they detected a certain pattern in the tapping, the other was rewarded when they detected a certain musical sequence. Basically, one group was encouraged to pay attention to the tapping, and the other to the music.

After six weeks, the monkeys paying attention to the tapping showed growth in the area of their brain dedicated to sensory awareness in the fingers, with no change in the area related to auditory processing, while those paying attention to the music showed growth in the area of the brain related to auditory processing, but not in the part related to sensory awareness in the fingers.

The point the authors were making was that it was not the tapping or the music that caused the brain to increase its capacity, it was the attention to these items that caused the change.

Which is a fascinating way to put it. I've thought for a long time that part of what we refer to as "talent", or "ability", is really a reflection of a person's fascination with a subject. People who are history buffs develop an ability to remember historical facts and dates with great facility. People interested in sciences or math develop those capabilities. Kids that have a fascination with soccer tend to develop a skill in that area.

Of course you could say that the fascination with a subject is in itself a talent. And I'd agree with that statement. Which really says that the ability to develop a fascination with a subject is one of the most important, and perhaps the essential precursor of what we perceive as talent, ability, and genius.

Down on the ACLU

2007-02-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

I instinctively support the ACLU, but an NPR program yesterday put that support in doubt. In Warren Olney's To the Point, an ACLU representative talked against mandatory DNA testing for people indicted by the police. Imagine the level of private information the government will have, she said, they will now know your genetic profile, the diseases you had or may have, your mental health record... Private information...

Then along came a forensic expert, and explained that DNA testing doesn't do any of that. It comes up with a unique 26 digit number that characterizes your genetic markers just like a fingerprint can uniquely identify you. The number doesn't say anything about diseases, hair color, personality, etc. It's just a uniquely identifying number.

And here was the rub. The ACLU representative essentially acknowledged that she knew that. Of course she did. Anyone looking into the subject for more than 15 minutes would know that. She was just hyperbolizing. Or on another work, using demagogy to scare people.

I have no problem with someone objecting to DNA testing. I personally think it should be done, it's the 21st century equivalent of fingerprinting, and I don't object to fingerprinting, but I can accept a difference of opinion. What really irked me is the outright lying. No further ACLU donations from me...

The Hazards of Being a Racehorse

2007-02-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

This factoid in from the NYTimes: Apparently, in U.S. thoroughbred horse racing, 1.5 out of 1,000 starts result in a fatality, meaning that the horse injures himself or herself so badly that they need to be euthanized. Last year in Arlington Park, over a 3.5 month period, 21 horses died. 16 died in Del Mar.

It's a pretty stunning number, and per the same article, is three times higher (in fatalities per 1,000 starts) than in Europe. Supposedly this discrepency is because in the U.S. the emphasis is so heavily on speed in short races, as opposed to the European emphasis on stamina over longer distances and more varied terrain.

Bad Engineering

2007-02-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine, a former computer geek turned attorney, goes around with the following bumper sticker on his truck (he didn't want to mess up his
Lamborghini): Friends Don't Let Friends do Windows. He's referring to
Windows of the Microsoft variety...

Most computer geeks have a visceral disdain for Windows, and for good reason (IMHO). But the issue is defining what exactly gets them all riled up.
Well, I now have a great example. It all revolves around my beloved new
Samsung phone. I call it Beloved, but what I love is the phone itself, the
fly in the ointment is the software that it runs - Windows Mobile. When I
got the phone I decided to overlook that flaw. Because along with the flaw comes the fact that there's a lot of software out there for Windows Mobile
phones. So, I thought, maybe I can overlook the flaw...

Ok, but here's what's happening. I got Missing Sync for my Mac, which
enabled my Mac to sync my Microsoft Entourage (Apple name for Office)
contacts with my cell phone.

I should say that I have a lot of contacts. Business, pleasure, U.S.,
international, etc., etc... Several thousand contacts. Ok. But of all
these contacts, only one is named Errol.

So I try looking up Errol's phone number. Well, I get back Carol, Carol,
Carol, Harold, Carol, Barolli, Carol....Errol, Harold... About 50 responses
to my simple request for Errol.

I spent days, many internet searches, and many engineering man hours trying
to figure out what this Windows Mobile Contacts program was doing. I
enlisted some very senior engineers to look into it. I was sure there was
some option that allowed me to set this Contacts program to work the way I
wanted it to work; to only come up with the name Errol.

Finally I gave in and called Samsung customer support. I was pleasantly
surprised to actually get a live voice on the other side, and (after a
consultion with the "supervisor") to actually get the correct response.

In case you want the full details, you can find them here. But the short of
it is that some clever Microsoft engineer decided that when you key in an E
or an R in your Contact search, it will treat is as a "wildcard". Meaning
that it will assume that it can substitute E or R for ANY letter in the
alphabet. So the Err in Errol, could be anything (!!!). BTW, this makes
searching for much more common names, like Peter, quite a challenge too.

Who was this genius? And how did Microsoft let him/her get away with it?
It's this kind of jaw dropping stupidity that makes people like me and my
truck driving, Lamborghini owning friend despise Windows...

Mind Boggling

2007-02-01T09:28:00.000-08:00

Google's revenue for the recent quarter (the past three months) was $3.21 billion, and its net income was $1.03 billion. In that period it spent $367 million on computer hardware to run its computing operations... Google was founded less then 10 years ago.

Email Portability

2007-01-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

I was there at the revolution. Actually at several revolutions - the invention of the PC, of the world wide web, of the cell phone - but the one I'm referring to here is the invention of telephone number portability. We used to be confined by our physical address or by our cell phone provider to a certain set of phone numbers - a certain area code, and a certain first three digits of our phone number. But that's no longer the case. Change location, change carrier, move from landline to cellular, and your phone number can remain the same. By law. It's part of the Telecom Act of 19??. But it's not only law, it's a law that was made feasible by new technology that can look each number up in a database and route it accordingly.

The only exception is if you leave the U.S. In Europe and Asia each cellular provider has their own "area code", and when you call a cell phone, you know you're calling a cell phone, and you know the carrier. Why? Well, a couple of reasons that I can surmise. One is of course the lack of the Telecom Act, but the second is that in Europe and Asia it costs more to call a cell phone then it costs to call a landline. So if I call my mother in Israel on her cell phone it costs me nine cents a minute, versus about two cents a minute on her landline. And it's important to let the caller know that their phone call will cost more, and the only way to do that is to have a separate set of area codes for cell phone numbers. Which still doesn't explain why each cell phone provider has a different area code... Of course the bottom line of all this is that in the U.S. you can choose your phone carrier based on cost and performance, without worrying about having to change your phone number. They don't have that lock on you.

Which brings me to my real frustration, which is the lack of e-mail portability. I've kept it as an article of faith that I don't want to change my e-mail address, because I want to make sure I get all the mail intended for me (junk mail excluded). Well, I'm locked to Earthlink. Now, with my new phone, I'd like to get e-mail on my phone. Well, that doesn't work with Earthlink. They don't provide that service. So my options are all about workarounds. Get a Gmail account, have my e-mail forwarded to Gmail, send my Gmail to my Blackjack, synchronize the two (Gmail and Earthlink) manually... a PAIN... Unfortunately I don't see e-mail portability on the horizon. But if you see differently, please let me know.

Redefining Happiness

2007-01-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

Actually, I wrote prematurely. Now I've returned my Nokia E70 and gotten the new Samsung BlackJack. Why? First and foremost because I found the maximum volume on the E70 to be too low. Second, because the gullwing keyboard design which seemed so cool actually ended up being a pain to use. It only works in two handed mode, you can't type with one hand. Third, it's a bit heavy, and fourth, there's no element of cool in its design. Which brings me to the sad conclusion that Nokia (that still holds about 30% of the cell phone market) is on the decline. The Asian manufacturers are winning...

BTW, I have yet to understand the Motorola RAZR phenomena. Never liked that phone...

That Guitar Shaped Body

2007-01-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine once told me that Italians and Africans are ass men, not tit men like the Americans. That's how he explained to me why Italian women don't show cleavage, and seem to be oblivious to the possibility of boob jobs.

My male companions have almost always encouraged me to gain some weight with the hope that my breasts will benefit, so I've always assumed that big breasts are something that men desire, but the American obsession with size EE breasts carries the whole thing a bit too far. The dressing room of my upscale gym is a great place to observe the fruit of L.A. plastic surgeons' labors, I'd say at least 50% of the women there have had some augmentation done, and the results are starting to feel creepy to me. That stretched out look is starting to make my skin crawl.

Now along comes the NYTimes to tell us about another country where the guys are ass men, not tit men. Brazil, where apparently the ideal body type (at least traditionally) is the "guitar shape". You get it. Curvy butt, generous thighs, smaller torso and breasts. This ideal of beauty has been coming under attack from U.S. cultural imperialism. Big boobs and skinny body have become the order of the day...

What can I say...?