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When walking back from the Whole Foods the other night, I saw a pretty amazing site, like some kinetic sculpture from Burning Man or something. There was this shopping cart being pushed along by a rather shabby-looking, homeless guy. This really isn't news to anyone living in this fair city, but what was news was the fact that he had all this junk piled up about 12-15 feet high and precariously strapped down to the cart. Obviously the slightest tremor in The Force (i.e. San Andreas Fault) and this was going to topple and kill multiple people.       As I watched it shimmy by on wheels that were never designed for this purpose, I realize that in a nutshell, this guy was broadcasting his problem for all of us to see in that, he couldn't live within his means. He has just a shopping cart, thus he can only have what the shopping cart can carry. But no, he has to push the boundaries of that, which is more than likely the reason he ended up homeless in the first place. So many people in this country are unable to really manage their lives and know what they have to work with. This is why my father would always wonder why anyone on welfare was ever given cash, being that the reason they were on welfare in the first place is because they didn't know how to manage their cash.       But this really isn't just about being poor. Close family members have trouble paying their cellphone bills; regularly. People that I know who don't need cars will buy cars. I buy too much cheese (of course, I look upon that more as an addiction than a management issue.) We all seem to have some dysfunction when it comes to our lives. I suppose that it's just a matter as to the extent of this as to whether you're be pushing around a shopping cart that's as high as a small house.

My friend, Zagreb Dinko wrote on his blog recently about his frustrations with American toilets. I have to say that while I've not written about this here, he is right on all points. We have a real sense of denial about bodily things here. That's not a water fountain in your bathroom, Kohler. Build it accordingly.       On a similar note, I'm sorta happy to say that they've installed automatic flushers on the toilets at the office I sometimes work at. At first I was thrilled, since anything that brings a toilet to the level of airport toilet (simply the best on the planet and a bar by which to measure all others), but I have to say that these kinda disappoint. They're too fast, made of plastic, and robbed me of a great deal of control I once enjoyed. But more importantly, is nobody freakin' potty trained anymore?!! You know, the only reason they install these is because people don't flush anymore. It's not for cleanliness, oh no. I remember another office that I worked at sometimes where people would just run out like these naughty little children when they were done in there, a grin on their face as they, "got away with it". And I'm not talking about Jackass-esque guys being idiots. I'm talking about 55 year old sales women.       I guess that people in the US always think that there is someone from Mexico or the Phillipines, or Eastern Europe who will literally deal with their poo. Wake up folks because I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I think all our problems in this country today are starting in the bathroom. Ergh. Peace out and remember to flush... if you are still allowed control of that action.

I love articles like this. You see, it's really awesome when someone is in a courtroom because of a crime that they proceed to commit again while in the courtroom.       While not as tragically Darwinian as the woman in Sacramento who died from water intoxication while trying to win a video game console from a radio station, this one really takes the cake this year for just abject stupidity. A friend of my family calls this being, "actively stupid" in that you make a truly concerted effort to be dumb. It's fine not to be smart. It's not fine to work at this art.

I'm going to go on the record right now and say what some others are finally starting to say in that, Apple has hit a point where it has stopped innovating and is attempting to take over the markets that others have firmly established. This may sound slightly familiar because of a company you may have heard of that does just this tactic called, Microsoft.       I believe that the pinnacle for Apple really was the iPod. All of the success to date is stemming from this one little consumer device. This device I might add really hasn't changed all that much from from the days it was first introduced. Yes, it's gotten bigger in storage, smaller in size, longer in battery life, able to work on a Windows machine, and able to play video, but really, these were not innovations. All of the things that have happened since the introduction of this little device and have helped to increase market share, but let's be honest, they were all inevitable if Apple wanted to stay in the market. So, to call the new features in the iPod innovative or far-thinking is ridiculous. What's happened to the iPod is that it's become the Microsoft Windows of the digital music player world. There are other music players out there that are just as good with the same feature set, but iPod stays on top just because it gained the most market share first, much like Windows, which isn't necessarily the best, just the most dispersed.       Now we see the Apple TV coming out. Innovative? No, not really. They've just copied the features of other devices that are similar and as many pundits have pointed out, this is a very, very crowded market that Apple is entering against folks with much deeper pockets. So, why is Apple going there? Simple. Much like Cringley pointed out with the Microsoft Zune, Apple really can't afford not to. There is already a competitor in the field that's using Apple's iTunes to do what the Apple TV will do. So, Apple simple has to make a device or they're going to get crowded out of this field and someone else might create a proper competitor to the iPod (Microsoft? Sony?) that will gain entry in their market through a set top box. But will the Apple TV do what it does better than the others? Eh, maybe. From what I've heard from friends, things like the Tivo are pretty damned fantastic and it's going to take a lot to get them to change to the Apple TV.       Then we have the Apple iPhone. I will lovingly admit that there are a great many features on this device that will warrant attention. But, are there really enough to bat it out of the park like the iPod did so many years ago? No. And when you toss in the price tag, doubly no. Folks everywhere are already starting to debate the rather large cons of this device and rightly so. It's overpriced. It's too limited and it's something that most of us simply don't need. A little one gig MP3 player for $80? Sure, I'll buy that, but a $600 phone that I can only use with Cingular (whom I truly despise) no way, I don't need that. Most folks don't. That $30 or even free phone you can get is more than adequate for the general public. I also don't see this phone working perfectly out of the box. It's going to take at least another iteration for this thing to work and by then, the Sony Ericssons, Motorolas, or the Nokias of the world will have longer out-thought it, since this is their market. They've dealt with challengers left and right, yet remained on top.       I think that the iPhone is just a luxury item to round out the iPod lineup. In August or September when Apple do their big iPod holiday push, we'll see that video iPod we've all been longing for. The one that would make me actually start to think about updating from my two year old iPod Mini. So, then you'll have the range from sub-$100 iPod to $600 top of the line iPhone. It all brings me back to my original point in that this is not innovation, just tacking on new features to an old product to push it along more. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with this, it's just ludicrous to call a company 'genius' for doing it because all companies do it. No one makes a big deal with Dell offers a laptop with a bigger harddrive or a faster processor, but when Apple does it, it's this huge thing. I suppose it's just part of the Cult of Mac.       One last note and I purely blame Jobs for this, what's up with the names these days? Talk about lame. It started with the renaming of the PowerBook to the MacBook which was lame. Apple TV and what will inevitably be just the Apple Phone are pretty lazy names. Get with it. iPod was a great name. iMac was a great name. PowerBook was a fantastic name. Did these days die once Jobs had a life-threatening illness or something? I don't get it, but the marketing people at Apple are vastly overpaid.

As I've had a guest at my place from Hospitality Club for the last week or so who speaks French as her native language, I'm reminded of how difficult it is to learn another language. She came here specifically to spend a semester abroad and learn English, while I've been spending the last semester attempting to learn Croatian. I suppose that the good thing for her is that I can understand the building blocks that one is trying to formulate when going from English to any other language and (I hope) I've been able to explain things better because of it.       At this point, I think the for both of us, we understand the mechanics and now, it's merely the chore of learning all these new verbs and nouns of the new language, which takes forever. Luckily for her, as she is moving in to her permanent home for the semester, she'll be surrounded by people speaking English and that will have a very positive effect on her skill set. For me, I'm still going to be trying to remember which damned case I have to decline in to in order to match whatever reflexive future tense I'm trying to create. In other words, at the end of four months, Astrid will be able to say, "What's up?" with the rest of us, while I'll still be saying things like, "I wish to be spending money with great force when traveling immediately." No, that's not how it translates in to English, that's how Borat-esque my Croatian still is at this point. Perhaps that trip I hope to take to the Balkans this summer will happen and fix these things...

This is the bigger (and much more expensive) brother of Zlatan Plavac barrique. Then of course, there is the straight Zlatan Plavac which is just a basic table wine. Still tasty, but definitely not the barrique and not the Grand Cru. So, what makes the difference between the Grand Cru and barrique worth $17? I'll get to that.       For a little back story, 'plavac' is a grape varietal grown in Croatia that this is grape very, very closely related to California Zinfandel and they share the same root grape. This being the case, you definitely taste a lot of Zin in any Plavac Mali that you drink. Of course, you taste a lot of other things as well. In this case, the wine is quite dry. I would say that the Grand Cru is even a bit more dry than the barrique. There are the slight berry hints in the nose and an overall smoothness to the wine when drinking. As with any Old World wine, you've really, really gotta let this puppy decant before drinking. A half hour is mandatory. An hour is even better. Straight out of the bottle, the tannins are really strong, but given time to adjust to its short life in the air outside its homeland, the wine develops all kinds of subtleties. So many that I really don't have a sophisticated enough nose or palate to understand all of them. Also, because there is a relatively high alcohol content in this wine compared to many European wines, your mouth is lose many of the swirling hints of various flavors as you you make your way down the bottle.       One flavor is particularly striking in the wine and I would say is the biggest difference between it and the barrique. It's this flavor that I can only sum up as 'dandelion'. That's completely the wrong word, but to me, it's a slightly acrid, dry flavor that you taste the longer the wine has been let to breath. I can't say it was a flavor that I warmed towards, but it was definitely interesting and gave a great deal of texture to the taste. Of course, this is in addition to the other flavors that I'm most likely missing.       So, is this wine worth the price? If you have the tongue and nose for it, then yes, you'll definitely find it a worthy wine. For me, I am a simple man and I find the barrique to be absolutely wonderful for my tastes. Both are deep, rich, and wonderful wines that when I serve them to friends, get the reaction, "This is from Croatia? I had no idea they made good wine." Obviously, I want to keep the secret mine as I'm sure these will go up in price in time, but then again, I love to share wine that I love.

As I proved yet again last weekend, going out and having a little drinkie drink can be a good time. It's not really a big deal. You drink. You have fun. You spend a bit of the next day recovering and that's that.       For some reason, this is not okay in Hollywood and I don't get it. To keep up that lifestyle, I would think that drinking would just be a natural. But here's Paula Abdul still swearing up and down that she wasn't drunk in her interview a couple weeks ago. I mean, seriously, yeah, it's in the morning and everything, but she was having a good time. Why can't she just admit it? Danny DeVito had no problem with his sloppiness on The View. Vince Vaughn has no problem showing up everywhere like he's just put put through a lawnmower. So all I gotta say, is get over it. Have fun. Admit when you're out of control and things will be a bit better. If Paula thinks that admitting to the drink will cost viewers on American Idol, she's wrong. Simon Cowell could punch an orphan on a crutch and the people who watch that show would just say, "Oh Simon, he's so mean." and then tune in the next night.

A rather unfortunate thing happened the other day at an office I work at some of the time. You see, they built the bathrooms in the stairwell of the building which means that you you have to go up or down a flight of stairs to get to a mens' or womens' bathroom. Naturally this would be impossible with a wheelchair, so they build handicap accessible bathrooms on the actual floor, but only one for men and one for women. Seeing as how these are right outside the door, everything in the office just tends to use this just for the sake of alacrity.       One day, the receptionist looks up from her desk to see this large... well, let's just be frank, fat women in front of her. The woman starts yelling at the poor receptionist about the fact that she is handicap and that someone was using the handicap bathroom when she wanted to be using it. This was simply not allowed according to the fat woman because she was of the belief that handicap bathrooms were just for people who were handicap.       Obviously this woman was wrong on several fronts. A) Those bathrooms aren't just for the handicap. B) This woman was very large and overweight and I don't see how that makes her handicap. C) Yelling at the receptionist will never get you anywhere.       I was telling this story to a guest from Paris that's staying with me at the moment. Her first question was, "But this fat woman could walk, yes?" Yes, she could walk. "Then she is not handicap, no?" That kinda of all put it in to perspective and made me feel like emphasizing that being fat and getting a handicap placard for your car to park closer to places isn't doing anyone any good. Those damned fatcarts that I see incredibly large people riding are another example of the abject stupidity that surrounds the premise of what constitutes being disabled in this country. My guest also told me a story of riding the bus when she first got to San Francisco and seeing this large fat woman on a fatcart who had food with her. She said, "The woman was not really eating the food. She was just pushing it down her throat." Of course as soon as she talked on the phone with her parents, it was one of the first things she told them about. Yay, go American stereotypes! And this is n SF where people are generally more fit. Just imagine if she were in the Midwest or even the interior of California!

As I was working on some code the other night, I started to wonder, "Who owns www.test.com and what on earth do they do with it?" You see, for myself and a great many others I know, when you need to test out something on a website, you'll often do things like enter an email of test@test.com. You don't do this to get a result, but more to test a mechanism. We all kind of do it without thinking and it's never for data that we really want to keep.       So, when you actually visit their site, you'll see that there is some kind of business running there. There must be no way that they are able to use their email though, since their server must be constantly inundated with all kinds of spam due to the age of the domain name and miscreants like myself and others who just toss addresses at their space without really giving a rip.       I sorta almost feel bad and might make something of an effort to stop this practice and use something non-existent like flark@flark.flark which simply can't be an address. But, as I look at it, it appears that the test.com people have only had their name for the last three years. I wonder who much they paid for it and if they realized what they'd be in for once they bought it. Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe they came by it through inappropriate means. I don't know. What I do know is that their website kinda sucks and that test@test.com is such an easy email to remember that maybe in the end, I'm musing about nuthin'.

Yeah, things kinda look a little different right now. No, it's not goofed up, I'm just trying to accommodate having photos that are 600 pixels wide instead of 400. If you haven't ventured there yet, take a look, they's a bigger and I have to say, definitely better.       So, what's a web geek to do when you want a bigger image? Shift the whole site around of course. It's a bit of a work in progress and I might change things here and there because I'm not quite sold on it just yet. This would be about version 5.2 or something of the site which is now prominently displayed there now because you gotta know if I've effed something up and when it was better. The real deal will be when I get version six up and running and someday I really need to work more on that design. It will work a lot better with the bigger photos format which is admittedly shoehorned in there at present time. Still mighty big though!       Unfortunately because I don't really have time to deal with properly reformatting all the pictures that came before, I've done a very hacky, very Old Web thing and re-rendered photos that had already been rendered. So, anything that's a bit older does not look as good as it could. Someday or perhaps just as I find time, I'll work backwards and fix up all of the old stuff. It is pretty funny to look through it as I go back and see some of my old photos. Nice to see that at least one art form in my life is still making some progress.