Selfish Crab

Oh, yeah, because I am a giant nerd, I must take time to gush about Suba’s website (flash needed). As you may know, I read and use a lot of websites. I have also made a decent number of webpages myself. And as a result, I have developed fairly strong opinions about what is good and what is bad for a webpage.

Flash is a fairly hot button topic because it is so prone to abuse from the “ooh, shiny object” crowd. I’ve seen people clog up their flash sites with every known 3D glyph and effect and it makes me want to throw up. Listen, I’m impressed by the rotating sphere at every bullet point and how the cursor tells the date and time and the rotating strobe light in the background, but it’s made your site completely unusable.

But the Suba’s website is exceptional. Navigation is clean and obvious. It shows every bit of information you could want from a restaurant’s website. Address, map, full menu (with prices), online reservation. You even get photos of each room, with a neat little “vantage point switcher”. Even the background music is bumping.

Nothing is more satisfying than webpages that don’t frustrate, annoy, or get in the way of your intentions.

# 2003 Feb 19    {nerd, opine, rompin' years}    #

There’s a trendy little restaurant downtown named Suba whose cuisine is best described as “pan-latino”. They have a room there that they call the Grotto, which is a brick-layed sub-basement surrounded on all sides by a moat. Light reflects off the water lapping around the edges and shimmering rays of romance twinkle on the brick. Oh, and the food costs a lot.

To spare you or to tease you, a summary: flowers that matched her skirt, a windy walk, a trendy entrance, our own little corner, delicious bits of food on plates that are too big, “here, try mine”, gentle conversation, homemade ice cream, a kiss on the check, big smile, fade to black.

# 2003 Feb 19    {rompin' years}    #

The other day I found myself in the local discount pharmacy/cosmetics store Harmon. There I was, next to a shelf full of toothbrushes, when I noticed this year’s cutting-edge breakthroughs in toothbrush technology.

See, one of the hallmarks of our massive-trade society is the high degree of specialization that every worker faces. There is someone out there whose entire productive lifespan is spent analyzing the best curvature for a bar of soap. Or spent coming up with idiotic “upgrades” for a really basic product, the toothbrush.

I can just hear their yearly company meetings. “This year, we’ll make the brustles different lengths! Next year, we’ll make the brustles slanty! After that, we’ll make the handle huge and curvey (and in the process, miffing every toothbrush holder manufacturer in the world)! Then, we’ll add rubber thingies to the edges for ‘gum massaging’!” Ooh, aren’t we an advanced civilization?

See this is one of my major concerns for the future. I very much do not want to become a toothbrush engineer of sorts, a person who spends their productive years worrying about and working on really inconsequential sh*t that gives no real benefit to humanity other than more greenery in some suit’s backpocket.

# 2003 Feb 8    {nerd, rompin' years}    #

Suppository is a awfully long word for a “butt pill”.

# 2003 Feb 8    {rompin' years}    #

When Maggie told me her grandfather was going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records, I was not very enthused. I mean, that book is full of freaks and morons who do things like, having done the most consecutive hand claps while standing on one leg.

But no. To my surprise, Maggie’s grandfather has earned the only world record worth mentioning. Mr. Daniel O’ Donnell has earned the world record for donating blood the most times (over 300 times). That’s beautiful. It’s not the Largest Mullet or Most Hot Dogs Consumed in a Single Sitting. Rather, it is the Most Lives Saved Through Sheer Kindness.

I salute you sir.

# 2003 Feb 3    {rompin' years}    #

Happy chinese new year. For all you readers who are not familiar with the traditions of the Chinese culture, I am about to give a crash course right now.

First, traditional Chinese culture is fiercely superstitious. This is a culture that embraces certain words and objects just because they are homophones with words like “fortune” or “money”. We like numeral 8 (sounds like “luck”) and shun the numeral 4 (“death”).

For New Year’s, the central idea is to not f*ck up anything or do anything that would spell out a bad coming year. You clean your house, you buy new clothes, you get ready for a sparkling new start. You avoid violence and foods of violence (aka meat) the first day or so. Steer clear of horror stories, movies involving demons and other icky things, and bad language. It’s all about a good, fresh start.

Right, I am by no means an expert in Chinese astrology. But I’m pretty sure that having 7 people burn up in the atmosphere and then broadcasting continous news coverage on this horrendous event, exactly on New Year’s First Day is a really really bad omen. And then you can add in the coming war with Iraq, the sagging American economy, and well, I am not getting the vibes of a pleasant year.

# 2003 Feb 3    {rompin' years}    #