Steve's Place

Viva La?

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:34:58 -0700

So, I’ve been listening to Coldplay’s new album Viva La Vida, and it's ok. To me, it sounds good, but the lyrics banal at best. I think what gets me is that Coldplay sounds like they’re trying to be really deep – and they’re just not. There was a piece in Time a few weeks ago, where it said that the band was the biggest thing going and that they were the rock/pop heir to U2. It also offered sort of the backhand compliment that while many people liked Coldplay, few people loved them.

And so I ask you to weigh in:

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Vox Hunt: Oh Canada!

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:20:42 -0700

In honor of Canada Day, show us your favorite Canadian.

How can you choose just one? I've enjoyed the NFL and a lot more because of these guys...

Jace

Skins ...

Skins

and of course Tight-Rope Willy (who for all you ladies bears a certain resemblance to Jason Bourne... if you know what I mean....)

TRW

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Go See WALL-E

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:20:41 -0700

I had a whole idea for Me & My Monday, but of course I forgot my camera today. So, instead of that, I offer a rare movie review. The Beloved and I realized the other day that we don’t go out to see movies all that often. Apparently, we prefer staying in our own backyard and having happy hour to the maddening crowds.

This weekend though, we were both interested and excited to see the latest release from Pixar, WALL-E. This movie is remarkable. Of course it is replete with the mind boggling animation (can we call it animation anymore?) that looks more real than most over-FX’d movies that include actual people that we expect from Pixar, but its so much more than eye-candy. To me, this one is near that "Finding Nemo" pinnacle.

WALL-E

WALL-E tells the story of an industrious trash-picking-up robot (who's developed a few idiosyncrasies) that works ~~in New Jersey~~ on an apocalyptic future Earth that humans have fled because of trash and pollution (but it was probably based on the stretch of the NJ Turnpike from say, exits 9 through 16). Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the movie is that essentially has no dialog. The robot stars are anthropomorphized for sure, but this is the best example of visual story telling I’ve seen since Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s episode “Hush” – without the creepy evil or sexual innuendo.

I won’t give away the plot or resolution (they pulled one punch that would have really made this movie transcend all family fare, but I can’t nit-pick their choices…), but as with Pixar stories they wrap the Big Themes around very small personal stories, and this is no different. There are also enough inside jokes to keep adults happy.

This one sure was.

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QotD: Favorite Time of Day -- Easiest. Answer. Ever.

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:17:52 -0700

What's your favorite time of day and why?

Well, that’s such an easy question, it hardly bears answering. My favorite time of the day is: Happy Hour!!

Tonight, the Beloved is enjoying a zanahorita, and I’m prepared to enjoy a tall, cool tequila sunrise, which I think is an incredibly under-rated drink. It’s also a great, easy drink to make and perfect for summer:

Sunrise at Sunset

Tequila Sunrise

Fill tall glass with ice:
Add tequila to there (first row of blue dots)
Add orange juice to there (second row of blue dots)
Top with club soda

Mix with spoon, and drizzle in grenadine (or maraschino cherry juice). They heavier syrup will collect at the bottom producing the “sunrise” effect.

Happy Friday!

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Book 'em

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:16:38 -0700

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

1) Bold: I have read.
2) Italics: Those I intend to read. Actually, it would seem that there aren’t any…
3) Underline: Books I love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated. Given #2 above, I think that we can assume that if I haven’t read it by now, I’m not going to read it.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (Note: one benefit of 12 years of catholic education, though EVERY WORD might be a stretch)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Note: I’m saying that having read several, doesn’t count)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (Note: I know its sort of sacrilege for nerds to say this, but I really didn’t find this book very funny at all…)
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Note: shoot me)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I own)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (please…)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (How many of them? ½ point to me for a lot)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Note: At least I get one out of not reading “The Complete Works”
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

So, 33 of 99 (because there is no 58), a count that I’m okay with given the quantity of Jane Austen (and Austen-like books on this list…), though clearly I will get schooled in the Brown Trivial Pursuit questions by Cori, Noelle and Ancora Impara.

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They don't call it The Golden State for nothing...

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:53:36 -0700

Nice way to end the weekend...

Happy Summer

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Poll question: whippersnappers? -- Updated

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:09:23 -0700

Because she loves me, the Beloved got us concert tickets to tonight's Death Cab For Cutie concert being held at SDSU. So, my question is: that at the ripe, young age of 42:

Poll

So, the answer is: No -- not by a long-shot! There seemed to be a reasonable number of men in their 50s, and they weren't lost or with the security team...

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Vox Hunt: Photo Thursday

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:49:16 -0700

Show us the very last picture you took. No cheating!

Sitting out back this weekend, I tried to capture some hummingbirds that were flitting around that giant flax plant I hate.

Hummer_Sunday

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From Iceland, With Joy

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:44:17 -0700

Cruising Wikipedia, I noticed that yesterday was Icelandic National Day, which celebrates their independence (in 1944) from Denmark.

Iceland-flag

To celebrate that (and because this song played on my iPod on the way into work this morning), I thought I’d share a little of my favorite Icelandic export – the band Flis.

Kveðjukossinn

Flís

And no, I can’t pronounce the name of the song, but I sure would love to play the piano like that someday.

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Tuesday Meme

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:02:24 -0700

Nothing cures a blogging slump like a good meme....

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Wow 10 years ago I was living in Northern Illinois and working in drug discovery for Abbott Laboratories. I had just finished my first NMR structure of a protein that was pretty important at the time. Important enough that the group that beat us to the structure by a few months published their structure in Nature, and so I had to settle for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* -- but that’s cool.

I was also about the mid-span of my time with She Who Must Not Be Named, though at that point I think she was more like She Who Is Causing You To Second Guess This Whole Thing – but that would still take a couple of years to play itself out.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

Prepare for upcoming prioritization meeting with direct reports
Write up latest results
Meet a friend I haven’t seen in a year for lunch
Prepare slides for upcoming presentation
Practice piano

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Cheese and crackers (I’ve been really digging the big block of manchego cheese from Costco – though I will consistently mispronounce it as ma-cheng-o for reasons that I can’t quite identify), nuts (almonds and crunchy peanuts), gin.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

The self-indulgent things I would do would be to have a house on the shore, in the mountains and in a big city, and travel travel travel. Once I scratched that itch enough I’d donate a lot of my time (and that extra dough) to literacy programs, food programs for the poor and natural-space conservation efforts.

5) Places I have lived:

Camden NJ, Newark DE, Chapel Hill NC, Wilmington DE, Gurnee IL, San Diego CA.

6) Jobs I have had:

Janitor, paperboy, car buyer for leasing agency, college cafeteria worker, mass spec technician, organic chemist, biochemist-biophysicist, research program team leader

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

I thought I'd tag a few of the newer folks in my Neighborhood....SinCity Blonde; Jack Yan; Kellysouth; and Eli's Dad

*which has the unfortunate (and snicker-inducing) acronym: PNAS

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