SaraInSanFran: October 2007

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Earthquake!

The room just shook, and one might speculate that I would used to this by now. But still, every time it happens I wonder if the shaking is going to stop or if my house is going to fall down around my ears. My heart is still pounding.

Labels: San Francisco

Monday, October 29, 2007

FEMA and the SoCal Wildfires

I want to start this post by stating how sorry I feel for the individuals who lost their homes in the recent wildfires that swept through Southern California. I can't even imagine what it must be like to lose everything, including a home.

However, I have a problem with the way the news media has been portraying the incident. One of the many NY Times articles that I have read on the subject centers on how Bush is reacting to this natural disaster in contrast to how he acted during Hurricane Katrina. Of course he is acting faster to provide federal aid during this disaster! He can't stand the fallout of another mis-step when it comes to helping the victims.

All opinions of the President's politics aside, there is something inherently wrong with comparing San Diego to New Orleans. The NY Times article linked to above states some of them, such as the number of homes destroyed in each national disaster (many, many more in New Orleans), and response of local governments. Ok, that is true, but why is nobody mentioning the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the areas affected? Check out the two photos that appeared at the top of the article, one of victims of the fires and one of victims of Katrina.

Notice that the white couple on the left have multiple suitcases, and what appears to be a shopping bag, whereas the only some of the people in the group of African Americans have even a backpack. SoCal residents had time to gather their belongings and leave, and apparently enough time to do a little shopping during their stay at Qualcomm stadium. Katrina victims didn't have food or water.

The NY Times also included an interesting sidebar to one of their articles, although the article it accompanied never even referenced the statistics offered.

As you can see, the areas affected by the fires are richer neighborhoods (over 25% earn more than 100K a year, and only 9% are below the poverty line) with more white people, and far less African Americans. If Kanye were to comment on this disaster, he might be inclined to say, "George Bush loves white people." And he would be right. It is easy to see that the racial makeup of the areas affected is vastly different, and that the homes affected in Southern California belong to people who probably have enough insurance to fix their homes or enough money to pay for new ones. Of course, there are poor people who were affected in SoCal, but the fires broke out in Malibu and Beverly Hills, people! Why is nobody mentioning that one of the main differences between the fires and the hurricane is that George Bush is being called on to help rich white folks instead of poor black folks?

Additionally, why is the NY Times not covering the particular hardships that undocumented immigrants are going to face after the fires? FEMA will not release aid to anybody unless a social security number is provided, and they are not releasing aid to anybody until a given social security number is verified. Even if undocumented workers weren't already leery of applying for social services, the announcement of FEMA's new regulations ensure that very little, if any, of the undocumented population is going to receive aid. In a town so close to the border, this is an issue that is going to have an impact on rebuilding of homes in lower income neighborhoods (I don't know how many were affected).

The news media needs to stop praising Bush for being quick to respond to a mostly white population, and acknowledge that even his quick release of aid is not necessarily going to help all of the people of color in the area. He hasn't changed since Katrina, the situation has.

Labels: class, Media, race

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Scrabble

Christina is in town from Texas this weekend! And what do cool kids do on a Friday night? They play scrabble.

Final Scores:
Zeph - 112
Sara - 127
Christina - 185

The challenge for you:
Find out what letters the blank tiles represent.

Labels: games, Scrabble

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Boys vs Girls

I would like to start this entry by re-affirming that I think virtual worlds are fascinating. Second Life is only to grow in popularity, and Club Penguin (for kids) is probably the cutest virtual world. If the players of Club Penguin weren't all under 18 (which makes it harder for them to be research subjects), and if asking for their email addresses was even possible (Club Penguin only allows chat using phrases coded into the game), I would be tempted to study that virtual world instead of World of Warcraft.

Tangent aside, I start slogging through the news that has piled up in Google reader over the week, and I find this article. It's a short one, so you should all read it, but I know you probably won't, so here's the important sentence:

"On Tuesday, the company said it launched two online worlds--one for boys and one for girls--under the brand GoLive2.com Kraze."

Yes, you read that correctly, not one virtual world, but two. "One for boys and one for girls." The times are few and far between when I wish that slapping my computer in my office would cause my somebody's head to sting somewhere else in the world, but this is definitely one of those times. Why do girls have to have a separate virtual world than boys? Why can't we foster platonic cooperation between the sexes? Are the worlds designed differently, one with trucks and one with dollies? What if a girl wants to play with the trucks? What if a boy wants to play with a doll? Does the game require children to play in the world of their own gender? What about children who do not have a gender (intersexed children)? What about children who are biologically female or male, but present as the opposite gender (trans children)? Why does this company feel the need to reinforce the gender binary? In the words of my friend Will, who greenlighted this project?! (It took all my effort not to swear just then; my grandma reads this blog.)

My Thursday was going so well. Damn you, Playhut!

Edit: Apparently I need to catch up on all of my new items in Google reader before blogging. Virtual World News also covered the story, and they offered a link to the website for both the boys' world and the girls' world. And I thought the story couldn't get any worse. Even the music for the sites has been designed with gender in mind. I'm going to go cry now.

Labels: gender, video games

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Led Zep Midterm

To all the scoffers:

Here is a copy of the questions I had to answer (in 200 words or less per question) for my Led Zeppelin midterm. This is to prove, once and for all, that this class is not the musical equivalent of underwater basketweaving. It's frickin' hard!

Note: My prof sent the questions out in all caps, or at least that's how my email server interpreted them. I apologize for all of the "yelling", but I am too lazy to retype all of the questions.

1. HOW WOULD LISTENING TO LED ZEPPELIN IN SURROUNDSOUND WITH FOUR SPEAKERS, TWO RIGHT AND LEFT, TWO FRONT AND BACK, ENHANCE THE DRAMATIC NARRATIVE QUALITIES OF 'WHOLE LOTTA LOVE'?

2. GO TO ERIK DAVIS'S WEBSITE (www.techgnosis.com) AND READ ABOUT HIS IDEAS. THEN RELATE THE CONCEPT OF 'TECHGNOSIS' TO THE LED ZEPPELIN TEXT.

3. HOW DOES THE SOUND OF THE GUITAR DURING THE SOLOS ON 'CELEBRATION DAY' AND 'TANGERINE' ILLUSTRATE DAVIS'S THESIS CONCERNING TIMBRE AND TRANCE, AS EXEMPLIFIED ON 'NO QUARTER'?

4. HOW DID JIMMY PAGE'S WORK AS A SESSION MUSICIAN AND WITH THE YARDBIRDS LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR THE ORCHESTRATION OF GUITARS UTILIZED ON LED ZEPPELIN'S ALBUMS?

5. WHAT IS IT THAT LIES ON THE WHISPERING WIND? (He later stressed that he wanted an answer that included an interpretation of the song, not just "your stairway.")

6. FROM WHOM DID LED ZEPPELIN TAKE THE FOLLOWING SONGS – A) BLACK MOUNTAIN SIDE; B) DAZED AND CONFUSED; C) WHOLE LOTTA LOVE; D) STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

7. DESCRIBE MICROPHONE PLACEMENT DURING THE RECORDING OF THE GUITAR BREAK ON 'HEARTBREAKER' AND EXPLAIN ITS INTENTION AND ITS EFFECT.

8. WHAT IS THE CONGRUENCE BETWEEN DRONES IN MUSIC AND ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND HOW CAN THIS INSIGHT BE USED TO UNDERSTAND THE MEDITATIVE ASPECT OF LED ZEPPELIN'S MUSIC?

9. WHAT IS THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN GOODWIN'S TIMING AND ZEPPELIN'S AND HOW DO BOTH DIFFER IN NATURE FROM BONHAM'S?

10. USE THE JIMMY PAGE QUOTE ON THE FIRST PAGE OF OUR SYLLABUS AS THE BASIS FOR A CRITIQUE OF THIS EXAM.

You can find my answers here.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Feminism is Awesome

In case you needed proof for the above statement, I recently received some from my writing-group-mate Jamila.

Feminists Have More Fun

I knew that the crazy notion of gender equality practiced in my own romantic relationship had something to do with its success. Now I have the science to prove it!

Of course, science can't seem to get with the times, and the study is only of heterosexual couples. I want to know how feminism affects couples of other sexual orientations! Someday I hope science gets to the point where it doesn't privilege hetero couples over gay, lesbian, queer, or poly romances.

Labels: gender, Media

Monday, October 22, 2007

This blog is supposed to be about my scholarship, too, right? Here's my midterm on Mulan.

In the End, They're All the Same:
Gender and Sexuality in Disney's Mulan

Animated films are often discounted for not having any substance, and therefore are sometimes deemed unworthy of in-depth academic study. What this generalization neglects is the profound impact animated films can have on children, especially in terms of how youngsters are socialized into societal norms. Furthermore, animation is not just for children. In 1989, with the release of The Little Mermaid, Disney made a concerted effort to try and draw more adults to their films, going as far as to create separate marketing campaigns aimed at adults<1>.

Nine years later, Disney released Mulan, an animated film in which a Chinese girl takes her father's place in a war against the Huns<2>. Compared to the princesses who came before her, Mulan seems to send a message that Disney finally learned the term feminism and tried to make a film with a more independent female protagonist. Critics immediately saw the differences between this Disney films and those that came before, describing it as “a tale of a young woman's struggle to overcome societal stereotypes.”<3> But is Mulan truly transgressive? Disney does allow for the challenging of the essentialism of gender, but only if the end is the same as all previous Disney movies: a heterosexual, monogamous relationship.

Mulan starts out as a movie that challenges gender essentialism. As Mimi Nguyen posits, “the sly acknowledgment that gender norms are socially constructed is amazing - both masculinity and femininity are exposed as elaborate performances.”<4> Both instances that drive home Nguyen's statement regarding the construction of gender occur during song. The first mockery of gender essentialism is the song entitled, “Honor to Us All”, which follows Mulan through the process of preparing for the matchmaker. What is most striking about the scene is the elaborate work that goes into making Mulan a perfect woman; her face is painted, her waist is cinched, and her hair is elaborately coiffed. That Mulan is so uncomfortable being forced into the role of woman is further proof that femininity is not something that comes naturally. Mulan has notes written on her arm in case she “forgets something.” If gender was something a person knew how to do instinctively, would it be something that one could forget? The song shows the way in which gender is a performance, and, furthermore, a performance that Mulan would rather not take part in.

Masculinity proved to be a learned attribute during the song entitled, “I'll Make a Man Out of You.” This piece is sung by the military captain, Shang, and follows the men (and Mulan) through their training. During the chorus of the song, Shang outlines that men must be “Swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon.” His lyrics are interspersed with the background singers (in a deep, booming voice) reciting “Be a man!” At first, Mulan appears to fail at being a man just as much as she failed at being a girl; she can't shoot an arrow, aim a cannon, or carry a heavy load. But, by the end of the tune, she has succeeded to the point of being better than the men. Similar to the musical number discussed previously, the fact that the men had to be taught how to be manly proves that gender is not innate, and Mulan's ability to learn how to be masculine when she is biologically female is further proof for the point.

Although these two songs are a major departure from the typical Disney production, the end of the film returns to a socially normative presentation of gender. After saving China (twice), Mulan is offered a position in the Emperor's council. However, she declines the position of power so she can return to her family's home. Had the protagonist been male, I doubt he would have refused such an honor to return home to the family. Rather than let Mulan continue her gender transgression, Disney puts her back where she belongs: the home.

Upon her return home, Mulan presents her father with a sword to prove that she saved China. Her grandmother's response is, “She brings home a sword? If you ask me, she should have brought home a man.” Apparently saving China (twice) is not enough to gain the respect of her family's matriarch; even though she has succeeded in winning a war, the accomplishment is empty if she did not succeed at securing a husband. Luckily for her, Shang enters immediately after the grandmother's comment and asks to speak with Mulan. Grandma rejoices and exclaims, “Sign me up for the next war!”

The song that begins as the film fades to the credits is entitled, “True to Your Heart.” It is a song in which a man is telling his (presumably female) subject that she must be “true to her heart.” Unsurprisingly, the man informs the woman that if she listens to her heart, “it's gonna lead you straight to me.” Although most of this song occurs as the credits roll, it is the capstone of the movie, and thus can be seen as the film's overall message. Throughout the movie, Mulan is on a gender journey, during which she experiences being both female and male in an attempt to learn her true identity. She is on a search to be “true to her heart,” and at the end of the movie she finds what it is she supposedly desired the entire time: a stable man and a content life at home.

Although Mulan does allow for the expression of radical views regarding gender, these viewpoints are allowed to be expressed only if the female protagonist ends the film subscribing to traditional feminine ideals. Mulan is praised for portraying an independent female character, but in the end she still finds herself in a relationship with a man. In addition, the man that she becomes attached to is her military captain, a man who by default has more authority than she does. This causes her romantic relationship to have an inherent imbalance of power, even though she has succeeded in becoming a powerful woman. Therefore, although Disney appears to be breaking out of the mold when it comes to Mulan, the film is only one more in a series of heteronormative, sexist productions.

------------------------------------------
<1> Magiera, Marcy. “'Mermaid' Aims to Reel in Adults.” Advertising Age. October 16, 1989.
<2> Mulan. 1998. Directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation.
<3> Wong, Stephen. “History? Close Enough.” Entertainment Insiders. Available: http://www.einsiders.com/reviews/archives/mulan.php
<4> Nguyen, Mimi. “My Mulan.” [Personal Website]. Available: http://www.worsethanqueer.com/slander/mulan.html

Labels: gender, USF

Friday, October 19, 2007

A Week of Google Reader

Thursday: Discover that Google Reader exists. Add some blogs to the reader, find new blogs on the blogrolls of those blogs, add more blogs to the reader. Read interesting articles on "wiki the vote" and portable VW avatars

Friday: This reader thing is pretty cool! Find that BBC has a news headlines feed, and add it to the reader. Also add the tech headlines from BBC news. Feel well informed about global news. Find that even if Microsoft is evil it isn't hurting Linux box sales. Get sent updates from my new favorite diabetes blog. Read "lol cat bible" and die laughing.

Saturday: Feel not so informed about national news. Add the SF Chronicle to my subscription list. Feel well-informed about national and local news. Read about human and robot love.

Sunday: Realize that the chronicle's RSS feed has more local than national news. Subscribe to the NY Times' RSS feed, making it the third news site I have in the reader. Also add the NY Times Washinton RSS feed, to keep up with the dealings of all the dirty politicians. Read another article on the Turkey debacle and learn about the Google gPhone. Really falling in love with this new well-informed me.

Monday: Wake up, go to gym, come home, check email, and then check the reader. 100+ news articles and recent blog posts for me to skim through. Read the headlines from the Chronicle, the NY Times, and BBC News. Read the latest tech news from CNet and Slash Dot. Feel like a good citizen. Go to work. Come home. 100+ more articles for me to read. Get the latest on what happened during the day. Give Bush a chance to explain why he vetoed the health care bill, laugh at AOL's demise (though not at the poor employees), and cringe at the Discovery Channel taking over HowStuffWorks.com.

Tuesday: Wake up at the crack of dawn. Go to gym. Go to class. Go to other class. Get a lunch break. Check email, check reader. 200+ news articles and blog posts to read? This is getting out of control! Scroll through news headlines just to get the number of new items in the reader down to 0. Read about a few interesting things, including a great response to an attack on Halo 3, an East-Coaster's take on Los Angeles, and the fact that the BBC is finally offering mac and linux-friendly video formats (finally!).

Wednesday: Same routine as Monday: Gym, Home, reader. Still way too many news articles for me to read! Starting to feel discouraged about news media and the state of the world. Realize that the Chronicle and the Times keep sending me doubles of stories. Feel overwhelmed by the amount of data available for those who care. Wonder if I care any more. Hope that our President doesn't insult the Dalai Lama, catch up on my mom's travels in South East Asia, and read about the move toward digital. Go to bed feeling informed to the point of exhaustion.

Thursday: Wake up and have, again, way too many new articles to read. Decide that it's time to give the news sites the axe. Cancel the subscription to BBC News, cancel the subscription to SF Chronicle, cancel the subscription to NY Times. Keep the NY Times Washington feed (you can never let down your guard when it comes to the sneaky politicians!). Begin to enjoy google reader again. Read about fun stuff like The Daily Show episodes being posted online, the release of Ubuntu 7.1, and Europe exploring cell phone use on flights. Wonder if I want to be on a transatlantic flight where cell phone conversations are allowed.

Friday: Wake up, read the manageable 50 or so new articles and blog posts, and go to work feeling like Google reader and I are BFFs once again. Read articles on Halloween costumes for geeks, the all-important children's cough medicine debate, and find out what my mommy has been up to in SE Asia over the past few days.

Moral of the story: Don't get so caught up in news stories that you miss what really interests you. Stay informed, but realize that nobody can be an expert on all current events. Oh, and if your mom has a blog, read it!

Labels: Google, Media, RSS

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Honors Thesis Colloquium

Blogs posts have been a little sparse over the past few days (I even missed Blog Action Day), but that is mostly because school has taken over my life. I had a midterm due this morning (a film analysis of Mulan), I have another due this coming Tuesday (my Led Zep midterm), and then there is that little, teeny project I'm working on this semester: my thesis.

Luckily, the interviews for my thesis are moving right along. I have three done already, one scheduled for later in the week, and one more that is in the works. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a few well-placed Facebook posts!

I know all of you are dying to hear my Sociological discussion of video games, so here is the info on my class's colloquium. It's taking place on Friday, November 2, from 10am to 12:30pm. There are eleven students presenting their work, and all of them are really interesting. My favorites are the projects focusing on pro-anorexia message boards, representations of women in bridal magazines, and an exploration of sneaker collector culture.

So come, eat some free food, learn a little more about sociology, and see some great students who are sure to become big names in academia.

Here's the flyer for the event.

Labels: USF

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Saturday Morning Rant

Normally I try and discuss my dislike of companies/groups/news stories in a more thorough manner, acknowledging the pros and cons of all sides to the story. But this week has been a killer one for tech news, and thus I am beyond all logical discussion of the 2 most outrageous stories of the week. Maybe once I get this out I will be capable of taking a step back and viewing the situation more objectively (not that I believe anything can be looked at objectively), but until then passion will prevail.

1. The MPAA is trying to prosecute TorrentSpy for not complying with a court order. As a little bit of background, TorrentSpy is a site that allows users to search for torrent files, or files that allow users to download movies and music. I don't know in detail how torrent files work, but I do know that sites such as TorrentSpy don't provide the files, just a path on how/where to find them. The IP addresses of all visitors to the site are stored in their server's RAM (for a short period of time), and the MPAA decided that it should have access to a log file of those IP addresses. Unfortunately, a court agreed with the MPAA, and ordered TorrentSpy to hand over all data on individuals who use the site. While the order was being challenged in court, TorrentSpy did something genius: it shut down access to the site from all IP addresses in the United States, thereby agreeing to give the MPAA a log while at the same time ensuring that the log would not contain any data on people in the U.S. Brilliant idea, right? Well, the MPAA doesn't think so. They are now trying to go after TorrentSpy for defying the court order to hand over the data.

There are so many problems with this that I don't even know where to begin! One, the judge must not know what RAM is. RAM is not a log file, and it only holds data for so long before new data bumps out the old. As Zeph puts it, asking somebody to turn over RAM logs is like asking somebody to write down every single thought he/she has and turn them in.

Two, TorrentSpy didn't previously (before it was asked to) have a log file that contained the IP addresses of everybody who visited the site. Isn't there a law that protects people from having to start collecting data that wasn't previously collected just because somebody now wants access to the data?

Three, the court order was a way to scare TorrentSpy and similar sites into shutting down. So what did TorrentSpy do? It basically shut itself down in the United States. But with the new case filed, the MPAA is saying, "We want you to start offering your services again so we can catch people doing what you won't allow them to do anymore." If RAM can be likened to thoughts, then I think the MPAA can be likened to three-year-old children who first ask for food and then throw a tantrum when you feed them. Give it a rest already! As Zonk kindly points out, go after the people who are making money off of selling illegal DVDs, not people who provide free file-sharing services.

The MPAA needs to realize that the War on Piracy is going to go just as well as the War on Drugs, or the War on Terror. No matter how often they tell people to "just say no," no matter how many times they supposedly find the location of the caves where the pirates are hiding out, the public is going to continue to download movies. Either find a way to allow the public to do it legally, or be prepared to fight a never-ending battle.

2. Microsoft is charging Linux, Open Office, and other open source software providers with patent infringement. Are patents being violated? I have no idea. If patent infringement is occurring, is Microsoft just as guilty as anybody else? Probably. As with the last issue, there are so many problems with this lawsuit that I don't know where to begin.

One, Microsoft needs to stop bullying the smart kids in school. Open source is an amazing approach to software. It tries to allow everybody to download quality software free of charge, while at the same time giving anybody who is smart enough to code the chance to make great programs. It's like a great art cooperative; the creativity fostered in such an environment produces better products that the public can benefit from (I have to say it again) for FREE. But no, Microsoft wants to make sure that everybody has to pay for its expensive, sometimes inferior products.

Two, it is true that Linux use has doubled in the home in the last year. That's right, Linux users (the sum of all Linux distributions) account for 0.81% of the market share. Vista, the new Microsoft operating system, is more popular than all of the flavors of Linux combined. So why does Microsoft bother to go after less than 1% of users? Probably because more businesses are realizing that Linux is a better system to use on servers, and Dell now sells PCs that come with Unbuntu, not Windows.

Which leads me to issue three: For the first time Microsoft is faced with some competition, and what do they do? They file a lawsuit to stop their competitor! Rather than try to improve their operating system, their software, their customer support, or anything other products they manufacture, they try and eliminate the competition outright. If for no other reason, these charges should be dropped to ensure better market competition, which would lead to better software for all. As my friend Will Faught said in regards to making software more secure, keep the government out of it! The real suit should be The People vs. Microsoft. The crime: holding a monopoly in the computer industry for so long that it has stifled the advances that could have been made. Viva la Open Source!

Labels: Corporate Evil, Microsoft, MPAA, Rants

Friday, October 12, 2007

"Eighty million years without sex"

With a headline like that, how can you resist reading a science and nature article on the BBC News website?

The question that accompanies this article: Would eighty million years of no sex be a life worth living?

Of course it probably doesn't matter for the creature being studied, since said creature doesn't have the biological makeup necessary to engage in sexual activity, and therefore doesn't know what it's missing. But, forget that for right now, and imagine that somebody (a trustworthy somebody) shows up on your front door and offers you almost eternal life, but the catch is that you can never have sex again.

For those of you who don't feel the need to broadcast your answer on my blog, I think it's still a question worth pondering internally or with a partner.

My answer? I would slam the door in the guy's face!

Labels: Media, Sex

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Open Source Wednesday

This is first in a new series of weekly posts on open source alternatives to corporate software (mostly Microsoft). Through these posts I hope to show die-hard microsoft users that there is better software out there, and it's all free!

This week: Firefox
What it replaces: Microsoft's Internet Explorer

Why it's better: That whole tabbed-browsing thing that IE7 has? Isn't that great? Well Firefox started it! Tabbed browsing changes the way you view the internet, and makes is easier to manage all of the website you have open. But there's more...

Have you ever been doing research on the web, and you finally find the perfect website, and as you are reading the page your browser crashes (Unexpected Error? Of course you didn't expect it!)? Well, if you are using IE you better have a good memory in order to be able to find that page again. But with Firefox, when you reopen the program (this is assuming Firefox ever crashes, which is does rarely) it offers to restore all of the web pages you were viewing when it crashed. No memory of a ten-year-old child needed!

Firefox checks spelling as you type in web forms (like blog post entry boxes). 'Nough said.

Best of all, Firefox allows for the creation of live bookmarks. Now you can just click the bookmark to see what has been updated on your favorite blog or news site, even if you don't subscribe to an RSS reader.

And, the number one reason you should switch to Firefox...

Who would want to use a boring 'e' when you could use a world-savvy fluffy fox?

Compatibility Issues: None! Enough people use it now that web developers ensure their pages can be viewed in Firefox. The little guy can make its way in the big, bad Microsoft world.

Labels: Open Source

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Nature Rocks

Today was the Leap Sandcastle Classic, a kids' competition to see who can build the best thing out of sand. I say thing as oppose to castle because very few of the structures I saw looked remotely like a castle. The theme of the competition was "Nature Rocks," so most of the structures were animals and musical instruments. My favorite was two crocodiles laying in the sun, one on its back and one on its belly. I got there too late to see the construction process (I heard the signal to stop building as I was walking up the beach), but the finished products were mind-boggling nonetheless.

The beach was crowded with kids, their parents, and tons of photographers. Maybe I haven't been getting out much lately, but all of the events I have been to in the city recently (Love Fest, Folsom Street Fair, etc.) have been inundated by photographers. I love that people are out documenting great moments, but what bugs me is that nobody seems to ask permission to take pictures of people anymore. This doesn't apply to structures made of sand as much as it does to actual people, but have photographers gotten so wrapped up in getting a great shot that they forget about the privacy concerns of their subjects? That having been said, please check out my pics from the event on Flickr (click the "Nature Rocks" photo in this post for a quick link). I apologize to any event-goers caught in the background.

Oh! How can I write about this event and neglect the best part of the day! The weather was amazing, especially for Ocean Beach. I think I may have even toasted my face a little.

After the event Mom, Zeph, and I had linner (dunch?) at the Beach Chalet, and Mom was even nice enough to drive us home. I love being able to spend time with my mom, although I wish she and Zeph wouldn't pick on me so much when we get together. Isn't she supposed to take the biological child's side? On the other hand, I guess I shouldn't complain that my mom and my partner get along so well that they gang up on me; It's better than having them gang up on each other.

And now I am off to play Halo 3 with my honey. The end to a perfect Saturday...

Labels: San Francisco, Sandcastle Classic

Friday, October 05, 2007

Human Tetris

Do you think this show would last on television in the US?

Labels: Media, Random TV

Rules for Success

I promise this won't be another "10 rules for how to succeed in life" thing. Rather, I am sharing with you how I get anything done that I would rather not do.

The key is to make rules for yourself. For example, I had many books to read over the summer in preparation for writing my senior thesis. I also had the complete works of J.K. Rowling to read. Guess which group of books I spent more time on? Eventually, in order to get any real work done, I created a new rule. For every chapter of Harry Potter I read, I had to read a chapter out of a scholarly book. Suddenly, I was actually getting somewhere on my thesis project.

The current rule is that I can only buy a pair of awesome new gym pants if I go the gym 5 days a week for 2 weeks (for my detail-oriented family, that is 2 weeks total, not 2 consecutive weeks). This has proven to be harder than I thought, as things keep popping up that diminish the amount of time I have to go to the gym. Plus, Friday just isn't working out as one of the days I get my butt up and go. It's Friday morning, and what am I doing right now? Blogging. What should I be doing? Elliptical-ing my heart out.

4 days down this week, one more to go. I can almost feel the moisture-wicking fabric...

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Haight and my Intro Class

Before this rant (or, as I like to think of it, scholarly musing) begins, let me give some background information. Last week the assignment in my intro to media studies class was to collect artifacts that represented the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and post it on our class message board. Then, the class took a field trip to the Haight (which is about 6 blocks from USF) and collected artifacts from today's Haight, which included interviews, photos, and video. These artifacts were also posted to the message board, and old Haight and new Haight were compared.

A surprising number of students wrote about the commercialization of Haight and about the neighborhood today the neighborhood being a symbol of materialism and capitalism. While the Haight is probably more commercial than it was in the '60s, it is problematic, and even somewhat untrue, to make such a blanket, black-and-white statement.

Let me explain further...

It is true during the '60s there were programs dedicated to free everything, including housing, food, and medical care. But some of the hippies did buy stuff, if only food, drugs, or the latest LP. I agree that they probably didn't buy 15 pairs of shoes (which, unfortunately is soooo easy to do in the Haight), but some of them had at least one pair. Therefore, while not overly materialistic, the hippies did buy things, and thus there have always been stores in the Haight.

Furthermore, to chastise the Haight for becoming overly commercialized is to ignore all of the counter-capitalist businesses that exist there. My favorite example of such a business is Coffee to the People, a cafe that only sells organic, fair trade coffee and tea. Although a coffee shop, it is far from Starbucks, and the fact that it is still in business (I am unsure when it opened) is a testament to the fact that businesses that treat their workers, the environment, their suppliers, and their customers with respect can still be profitable.

Even though there exist many other stores which probably don't dig as deeply into the origins of their products as Coffee to the People does, most of the businesses are small rather than corporate. In fact, San Francisco Law requires that any "formula retail" establishment apply for a special permit before setting up shop in the Haight. The only large corporations that come to mind when I think of the Haight are McDonalds, Ben & Jerry's and Wells Fargo (the Gap recently closed its Haight & Ashbury location), and of those three I know that at least one (Wells Fargo) is so environmentally friendly that it was awarded a "Green Business" status by San Francisco Green Business.

The other aspect of Haight that makes it anti-capitalist is the wide array of second-hand stores. While I can't find any good evidence to support the claim that second-hand stores are anti-capitalist (at least in the 5 minutes of googling I did), it seems intuitive to me that by buying something used the corporation that manufactured the good doesn't get any more money for the item, and instead a local business profits. Furthermore, something new didn't have to be created, packaged, and shipped, so the impact on the environment is less for second-hand goods (if even No Impact Man will buy second-hand goods, then they must have less environmental impact).

In short (if only brevity were my strong point...) there are stores in the Haight that sell things, but a closer look at the structure, type, and products of the stores receals that the neighborhood is far from an all-consuming, materialist, capitalist beast (or at least as far from it as the Haight is from Union Square).

I promise that not all of my future blog posts will be this academic, nor this long (well, I kinda promise that), so please stay tuned for more!

Labels: San Francisco, USF

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