electric relaxation

Ride: Chevrolet Chevelle SS (’72?)
Where: Oakland, smokin’

Fareed’s neighbor has been stealth pimping this thing – he pulled it out of the garage about a month ago and woke up the block when he started the engine. I wish I got a picture of the interior – not only is it beautifully restored, but he’s rocking a 3-speed slam shifter, handlebar grip and all.

He is THE LAZIEST GUY on earth and his wealth creation system is STUPIDLY simple. Moreover, his intoxicating combination of all caps and yellow highlight has left me in a state of semi-hypnosis. A LAZY LOADED state of hypnosis, that is…

http://thelazyloadedguy.com/

I touched upon this in my previous post, but I realized it’s amusing enough to merit an independent entry. I think there’s a famous quote about the difference between real debate and mere argument being that in one you attempt to actually prove your point and the other you just look for more people who already agree with you.

Well, I’m totally butchering the proverb but it doesn’t matter; anyway the point is whenever I’m pissed off about something one of my favorite ways to vent my frustration is to punch my vitriol into Google and find people who agree with me. There’s something very satisfying, and perhaps even cathartic, about finding people who share your insane rage and hatred.

I was going to try to find some examples of this but I actually came up empty on the first two that I tried: Coldplay and Princeton. Oh well, at least I scored big with Podcasts.

I think I knew and subsequently forgot about this site: Freedom To Tinker, a blog run by Professor Ed Felten and (PhD? PostDoc? who knows) Alex Halderman from Princeton. Anyway, I recently discovered that my company will no longer be doing campus recruiting at Princeton due to an abysmal turnout and interest level at the career fair, info sessions and so on. I can personally attest to what a waste of time it was, having made the campus recruiting trip three times myself.

So the real reason I’m mentioning this blog is not to make fun of them for using a stock WordPress Kubrick theme – though it is pathetic that Lawrence Lessig’s site is a hundred times better looking and he isn’t even a CS guy. I actually stumbled upon it again when, in a fit of depression after learning of the aforementioned shedding of Princeton from the campus recruiting list, I started searching for “Princeton CS sucks”. Actually, the specific variant that unearthed the link I’m about to highlight was “Princeton CS department terrible”.

Ok enough rambling, here it is: “U.S. Computer Science Malaise”.

Someone posted this link in a comment on jwz’s blog. My favorite is definitely the squatting kid, though the two old ladies and the big bullish old dude are pretty sweet too.

That shit was so 2005. Lame.

Fairly self-explanatory. Spotted in the Stanford Shopping Center.

I wish I had kept watching long enough to see if he actually rode that thing down that hallway but I was too busy trying not to laugh out loud.

Update:
You may have noticed that he’s really not all that fat – at least not enough to show from the back. But the title has a much nicer ring to it this way, so it stands.

Lisa and I had dinner at the Palo Alto Creamery in the Stanford Shopping Center today, and we got to talking about how we both really like diners. We both share the same appreciation for rustic authenticity, but Lisa hit the nail on the head when she pointed out the real killer feature of diners: booths! It wasn’t until she pointed it out that I realized how much I like booths; they yield an extremely rewarding sense of comfort for some reason.

Ride: Model T
Where: Treat and Precita St., San Francisco

Rob’s next door neighbor had this thing parked in their driveway. I was sure it wasn’t street legal, but Rob pointed out that it actually has a license plate. nevertheless, he says he’s never seen it actually move anywhere other than in and out of the garage.

Ride: A Datsun 2000 (I think)
Where: Also at Z Car Garage

Another pretty sweet ride at the Z Car Garage. Based on a visual inspection and comparison with this compilation of Datsun roadsters, I figure it was a Datsun 2000, but maybe it’s a 1600?