Twelve Black Code Monkeys

My caffein-addled brain is on a tear. I often get this way, even when I’m just drinking decaf. Something about coffee sets my mind in motion. Caffeine just adds some speed. I have been out all morning (and part of the afternoon) wondering my neighborhood of Adams Morgan in DC as well as a bit south into the Dupont Circle neighborhood. It is the perfect day to do this. There is no humidity, it is warm, but with a nice breeze. Perfectly blue sky and sunny. It’s also a Sunday morning where lots of other folks like me are out just enjoying a lazy Sunday before the workweek starts again tomorrow. If only life were a perpetual series of Sundays like this. I could get used to it. Then again, experience seems to show that days like this have such value because they are not so ordinary. If every day were like this, perhaps it would just be boring. Or at least we’d take it for granted much more. I remember a year or two ago there were big swaths of time during the spring and/or summer where the weather was just as perfect as today. I would take every opportunity to be outside. I’m sure there were days where I stayed inside despite not having to, but I do remember always thinking, “Take advantage of it!”

Anyway, I’m reading a book on espresso which is quite good, but which I’ll post a review when I’m done (hopefully within a couple of weeks). The ability to sit at a sidewalk cafe, people watch, read, surf the Internet, and even make a little small talk with strangers next to you, is something that is so nice. I’m a fairly shy person and so have spent a lot of my weekends going to public places like these because it feels like although I may not be a part of some social event, I am at least part of the world at large if even as an observer. At least I’m not shut up in some small apartment watching the NOT Real World on TV. Even now that I am getting married, I still enjoy the opportunity to get out on my own (my fiancée is away this weekend) and soak in the sensations of neighborhood life without any time constraints, or need to focus all one’s attention on one thing.

Speaking of caffein, I have the odd site of a giant automated convenience store or vending machine right near where I live in Adams Morgan. Up until today I had only used it once – to rent a dvd just for the heck of it. But they have all kinds of items from eggs and milk to contraceptives and more. Walking by it today I decided to take a quick look since I haven’t really looked at it carefully since they redesigned and restocked it several months ago. I happened upon a product that I’d never seen before which I felt I had to try. It was sugar-free Red Bull. Red Bull is one of these so-called “energy drinks” which mixes caffein, sugar and perhaps other stimulants, and give one a “jolt of energy” – since our lives aren’t already fast-paced enough, huh? But being a low-carber, I don’t beverages with sugar. Actually I swore off even diet sodas a couple of years ago because the carbonation and other chemicals they put in them are not very good for you and besides probably hinder weight loss. But sugar free Red Bull I just had to try. I’ve heard Red Bull is horrible tasting. I doubt I will ever drink this stuff again, but I thought I could at least try it. I’ll wait till tomorrow morning though, as I’m already sufficiently caffeinated for the next 16 hours!

I mentioned surfing the Internet, so I thought I’d elaborate a little on this. I have a phone that lets me browse the web, send and receive email, and send and receive instant messages as long as I can receive a signal (which is often very easy in the middle of DC, but sometimes surprisingly fickle). Although the screen is small, black and white, and won’t let me visit just any page, it will do in a snap. I eagerly await the day when I upgrade to a device that has a slightly larger color screen that has fewer limitations in what pages it can load, has a faster speed, and can even do wifi. Wifi, for those not familiar, is another word for wireless networking. You see this mostly in laptops, but an increasing number of smaller devices like Palmpilots, PocketPC’s, etc. are starting to incorporate the capability with varying degrees of success. Of course you can also put a wireless network card in a full-blown desktop PC and thus avoid having to deal with all the ugly wires.

Anyway, I do have a laptop and will take this out to do some work (I do freelance web development in addition to my fulltime job as a web developer) since it’s often more fun – although usually also more distracting – than sitting at home. There are a bunch of different wifi networks out there that provide services at various locations. I have a subscription with one of the largest of these, the so-called Hotspot service from Tmobile. Since my phone is through them, I pay a discounted rate of $20/month. I haven’t tried to break this down to a per-minute or per-hour cost yet. My guess is that since I’ve had my laptop, I’ve spent an average of maybe 15 hours per month give or take, which would mean this costs about $1.33/hour. This compares favorably to all the other networks out there, except ones that are free of course! There are free access points around, but I’ve heard about more in New York (Bryant Park and Union Square) than I have in DC.

I wonder if eventually we will see public wifi access points in every city (and perhaps even small towns) that are sponsored by taxpayer money? Probably the user base of such services is not quite there yet, although given a few years we may see every phone, laptop, pda, and even desktop computer that is manufactured have a built in wifi card. Also, most wifi networks are still using the older protocol of 802.11b, which has a range of around 150 ft and a speed of 11mbps (really 4mps in the real world). 802.11g, a newer standard introduced last year as a stopgap before a real next-generation standard is agreed to, has not quite taken off, despite being backward compatible with 802.11b. This newer standard offers 55mbps (around 20mbps in the real world) and longer ranges. By the way, MBPS stands for Mega (million) Bits Per Second. Modems currently top out around 56K, or 56 Kilo (thousand) bits per second, so 4mps is still about 70 times faster than a 56K modem! But speed in and of itself, while nice, is not the be all and end all, at least for me right now. When people start using their devices to hold impromptu video teleconferences, or just phone conversations, or to download and watch live HDTV or dvd-quality movies or tv shows, etc., then speed will definitely become a factor. But for now speed FOR ME is secondary to range. With the next generation standards, we could see ranges of 1/4 of a mile or more for a single access point. What this means is that a city could buy 100 or 200 access points (perhaps a little more for really large cities), or smaller towns could buy a half dozen and voilà, instant access for everyone! So, how would this work? It could be done on a federal basis that would ensure access everywhere (even along lonely highways in very sparsely populated areas of Nevada or Wyoming), or it would all be on a local or state basis. States could pay for it via taxes, and perhaps could charge non-residents extra and make some additional money. In addition to tourism dollars, why not make some cybertourism dollars? I don’t know, maybe that type of system would be too complex. But would letting the federal gov’t institute it make for very slow progress as new technologies develop? Or would it simply be an area that people don’t want the feds involved in now that they are already taking away more of our privacy? Private industry will make things happen much faster, we will just have to pay more. Maybe the state/local plan would be a good compromise, but then again more rural/poorer areas would not be served as well..

If you would like to look at what kind of establishments around you offer wifi, here are just a few of the many sites to check out:

• http://www.hotspot-locations.com/
• http://www.hotspotlist.com/
• http://www.makewirelesswork.com/directory.htm (no longer available)
• http://www.wifinder.com/

Here are a few wifi commercial (read not free) networks aside from Tmobile’s mentioned above:

• Wise Technologies
• PassYm
• Wayport
• Surf and Sip Network

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I was trying to find an interesting place to have dinner the other night in Silver Spring, MD. I ended up deciding on a Salvadoran/Mexican Restaurant on Flowers Avenue called El Gavilan, even though I’m not a big fan of Mexican – at least not the Americanized stuff like tacos, burritos, etc. Not that I don’t like it, but since I don’t eat non-veggie carbs anymore, it’s sometimes difficult to find something to eat at a Mexican restaurant that’s not of the more “authentic” type.

However, one of the reasons I picked El Gavilan was because of a review I read in the Washingtonian. That was the only review I could find so it was basically ignored by both Zagats and The Washington Post. There are truly a vast number of restaurants in the DC area and I’m sure ones are closing and popping up continuously. And what is around here I’m sure is dwarfed by New York City. It seems that to have a adequate chance of actually having reviews of every restaurant in the area you would need a team of 50 full-time critics eating out every meal of the day at least Monday through Friday! I’d of course be happy to be act as one of those critics…

In any case, one of the dishes the Reviewer from the Washingtonian like a lot was the ribs, which is also a favorite of mine. That’s what I ended up getting. They were some of the best ribs I’ve had in a long time. They are basically spare ribs marinated in something sweet, but not cloyingly sweet. I didn’t get to sample the dishes of the other people I was with, but they all said theirs were good as well. We did have some guacamole that I was not too thrilled with. Then again, I’ve been somewhat spoiled by good guacamole, the archetype of which I first had at a restaurant in NYC called Rosa Mexicana, where they make it right in front of you with large chunks of avocado, tomato, onion, and lots of cilantro.

The other nice thing about El Gavilan is that on the weekends after 8, they have live (Latin) music, and it’s free of charge, so if you like this type of music, it’s an extra treat. Prices are very reasonable as well!

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It seems appropriate that the first movie I’ve seen in about three months was a movie about cinephiles, or cinepheliacs, or cinamaniacs. People who are obsessive-compulsive about seeing movies to the extent that it becomes their life!

Cinemania is actually a documentary. It centers on five individuals in New York City who travel from cinema house to cinema house in order to catch the as many of the best movies (in terms of the actual print, rarity, and artistic quality) as possible. And it is a challenge in such a place as New York, with its many museums, retrospective film houses, art houses, etc. The movie is really a fascinating look at a subculture that most of us never see at least from the inside. We get to look at the odd lifestyles and filthy apartments of these folks, watch their extremely eccentric behavior but also their encyclopedic knowledge about film. And really their passion (obsession) for the cinema shines through. At the same time you want to take these people away to a tropical island where there are no theaters and hope that they can resurrect lives in our reality, you also can’t help admire the amount of experience they’ve acquired at something they love, despite their odd quirks.

I think part of what was so intriguing to me personally about this movie was that I could definitely see a hint of myself in some of the qualities of these guys. Not that I have anywhere near their knowledge of film, or that I would watch movies all day every day if given a chance. But I often lament the fact that I don’t have time (or honestly motivation sometimes) to see even a tiny fraction of the movies I know are out there that I’m really interested in seeing. But this goes for books and restaurants as well. It’s like I’m an experience junky, but only in certain areas, and one that doesn’t really endulge his habit very often. As many people are apt to do, I sometimes daydream about what I might do if I suddenly had a million dollars. Aside from traveling, going back to school, paying off debts and the usual stuff like this, one thing that has always come to mind is simply not working and having loads of free time to do what I want and one of those things being just going to see movies, museum exhibits, etc. I think one of the things that appeals to people about Netflix is how you get to create lists of movies you want to see and then check them off your list as you go through them. I think this gives one a sense of accomplishment, but of course for some it’s much more important than others. Just heard a word for it that I’d never heard before – a “completist.”

We saw this movie (which is a very limited release) at the new AFI Silverdocs Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. This is a great place for any movie buff. They have film festivals there (currently there’s an anime one), they play lots of great older movies as well, and a lot that are just not wide release. The theaters themselves are not huge (or at least the one we saw Cinemania wasn’t), but they are not tiny either. Stadium seating and beautiful, huge chairs make for a very comfortable viewing experience. They have a cafe in the theater, although it’s probably not as nice as the one in your local art house, if they have one. The other great thing about this place is that they often have the directors or others involved in a given film give a talk at the end. This often happens in film festivals, but Cinemania was not part of one. The director, or rather one of the co-directors, Stephen Kijak, just happened to be nice enough to come give a talk at the end. This is in many ways better even than a commentary track on a dvd because you actually get to ask the director your own burning questions, or even argue with him, or give him insight into an interpretation that he might not have thought of before! We got to find out more up-to-date news about what was going on in the lives of the different cinephiles he profiled – since the movie was shot over a three-year period ending at least a year ago, maybe more.

Because this is such a limited release, the chance that you will get to see it any time soon would not be that great, except that we heard from Stephen Kijak that a DVD will be coming out in October with an additional 45 minutes of footage! The movie was 80 minutes but apparently they shot over 80 hours of video for it – yes, video, not film, sorry all you cinephiles out there who refuse to see anything shot with video!

It seems appropriate that the first movie I’ve seen in about three months was a movie about cinephiles, or cinepheliacs, or cinamaniacs. People who are obsessive-compulsive about seeing movies to the extent that it becomes their life!

Cinemania is actually a documentary. It centers on five individuals in New York City who travel from cinema house to cinema house in order to catch the as many of the best movies (in terms of the actual print, rarity, and artistic quality) as possible. And it is a challenge in such a place as New York, with its many museums, retrospective film houses, art houses, etc. The movie is really a fascinating look at a subculture that most of us never see at least from the inside. We get to look at the odd lifestyles and filthy apartments of these folks, watch their extremely accentric behavior but also their encyclopedic knowledge about film. And really their passion (obsession) for the cinema shines through. At the same time you want to take these people away to a tropical island where there are no theaters and hope that they can resurrect lives in our reality, you also can’t help admire the amount of experience they’ve acquired at something they love, despite their odd quirks.

I think part of what was so entriguing to me personally about this movie was that I could definitely see a hint of myself in some of the qualities of these guys. Not that I have anywhere near their knowledge of film, or that I would watch movies all day every day if given a chance. But I often lament the fact that I don’t have time (or honestly motivation sometimes) to see even a tiny fraction of the movies I know are out there that I’m really interested in seeing. But this goes for books and restaurants as well. It’s like I’m an experience junky, but only in certain areas, and one that doesn’t really endulge his habit very often. As many people are apt to do, I sometimes daydream about what I might do if I suddenly had a million dollars. Aside from travelling, going back to school, paying off debts and the usual stuff like this, one thing that has always come to mind is simply not working and having loads of free time to do what I want and one of those things being just going to see movies, museum exhibits, etc. I think one of the things that appeals to people about Netflix is how you get to create lists of movies you want to see and then check them off your list as you go through them. I think this gives one a sense of accomplishment, but of course for some it’s much more important than others. Just heard a word for it that I’d never heard before – a “completist.”

We saw this movie (which is a very limited release) at the new AFI Silverdocs Theather in Silver Spring, Maryand. This is a great place for any movie buff. They have film festivals there (currently there’s an anime one), they play lots of great older movies as well, and a lot that are just not wide release. The theaters themselves are not huge (or at least the one we saw Cinemania wasn’t), but they are not tiny either. Stadium seeting and beautiful, huge chairs make for a very comfortable viewing experience. They have a cafe in the theater, although it’s probably not as nice as the one in your local art house, if they have one. The other great thing about this place is that they often have the directors or others involved in a given film give a talk at the end. This often happens in film festivals, but Cinemania was not part of one. The director, or rather one of the co-directors, Stephen Kijak, just happened to be nice enough to come give a talk at the end. This is in many ways better even than a commentary track on a dvd because you actually get to ask the director your own burninig questions, or even argue with him, or give him insight into an interpretation that he might not have thought of before! We got to find out more up-to-date news about what was going on in the lives of the different cinephiles he profiled – since the movie was shot over a three-year period ending at least a year ago, maybe more.

Because this is such a limited release, the chance that you will get to see it any time soon would not be that great, except that we heard from Stephen Kijak that a DVD will be coming out in October with an additional 45 minutes of footage! The movie was 80 minutes but apparently they shot over 80 hours of video for it – yes, video, not film, sorry all you cinephiles out there who refuse to see anything shot with video!

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It was way back in the Spring of 1992. I was working for CIEE (Counsel for International Educational Exchange) at the time, as the Program Assistant or East European and Russian Programs. CIEE was kind enough to send me to visit their programs in Budapest and Prague as I was going to visit my sister who was studying in Scotland at the time anyway. I took the train from Budapest to Prague and decided to buy some snack in case I got hungry during the trip. I didn’t know Hungarian and I guess I just picked something in a can that looked like it might be meat or fish. At some point I got really hungry and opened the can. I think it was fairly dark, but I just remember what I at was white-ish and tasted kind of like fishy pate. I had no clue what it was, but it tasted really good to me.

Since then I remembered this once in a great while and wondered what the hell I ate. I hoped it wasn’t something really horrible! I would always peruse the isles of international food stores or gourmet food stores looking for something canned and unrecognizable that I could try. This went on for over ten years.

Today, my search ended! I happened across this international food store/restaurant/bakery in Alexandria very close to where I work. I would never have known this place existed if not for the post office right next to it being the closest to my office. I went in and was overcome by the amazing selections of products. The store is simply called “Mediterranean Bakery” but they have a website that’s called EastWestMart.com. I have not really looked at this site, but they take online orders. The prices in the store, in any case, were very reasonable, especially for international stuff, which is often priced in the stratosphere!

I came across this container among the scores of different ones they had there labeled simply Roland Smoked Cod Liver. This looked very promising! I mean, there was no picture, but this sounded like it was the closest to whatever I thought I had eaten back then. When I got home, I popped it open. It was indeed kind of white-ish non-descript blobs of stuff. Well, of liver, I guess! I crossed my fingers, got ready to spit it out if it was too vile, and took a piece. Yes! I had found it!

For those who haven’t tried this and aren’t squeamish about trying new things, or have a dislike for fish or things with unusual textures, I do highly recommend you give this stuff a shot. It kind of has the smokey taste of a sardine, but it is actually less “fishy” then that. It is more mild somehow. The consistency is very smooth, kind of like pate, but even more so. Like it is almost in a state between solid and liquid.

There’s been a lot of new attention put on cod liver oil in the last 5-10 years due to it’s Omega-3 content and the health benefits linked to that. So I am assuming a similar benefit from eating the liver itself! Unfortunately the can doesn’t have any nutritional information, only ingredients (cold liver, salt). I am assuming it is mostly fat (lots of Omega-3), some carbs since it’s an organ “meat” and some protein. But I have no clue how much of each. All I know is that it was a great treat that took me back down memory lane in a direction I thought I might never have found again!

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