i pity the fool (fantasy fest pics, part 1)

heard from Mr. T lately? turns out he's hanging out in key west and i ran into him at fantasy fest this weekend.

harry potter + mr. T

turns out he's also quite popular with asians.

live from ho chi minh city

ok, i'm not live from from hcmc, but one of my best friends, the fonzette, is. she works for an NGO and is over there for about a month. it's interesting to contrast our connectivity today with the last time i was out of the country for an extended period of time. back in 2001, email was what you had. it still seemed like a leap forward that around the (modern) world (i was in italy), i could pop into an internet cafe and be in touch with folks at home regularly (about every few days; nothing was stopping me from more frequent emailing other than the commitment to waiting in line for a computer).

fast forward to 2006. within 12 of hours of landing in veitnam, the fonzette and i are chatting in real time on google talk. we've chatted 2-3 more times since then. i've also received a photo set of 159 greats pics on flickr.

it's only time before we're able to send email and pics real time from a wireless-internet-enabled digital camera. snap the pic and then hit send--and it posts to your flickr/photobug/snapshot site or emails your friends.

anyway, she's got some great pics. check out her set here.

she writes:

Hey Everyone,

So I haven't had much time to draft up a long email detailing my activities here in HCMC, but I have been able to post some photos. It's a really neat place as you should be able to tell from the photos.

So far there is:

1. Flight over the arctic circle

2. Some street scenes in Saigon

3. Lunch with coworkers

4. The War Museum

5. Reunification Palace

6. The Cathedral of Notre Dame

7. The Opera House

8. The Post Office

9. My hotel room

Hope you enjoy!

back from fantasy fest

a great 36 hours. fantasy fest is a not-to-be-missed-but-perhaps-not needed-to-be-repeated experience.

not quite as crazy as i thought it would be. much more civilized and laid back, compared say to mardi gras. also, not quite as outlandishly gay as i thought it would be. lots of families and straight people. not to worry, got some good pics of dudes in g-strings, too.

feasts for the eyeballs soon.

next stop: fantasy fest

never let it be said that we are not committed to halloween. after 4 hours of delays, got into ft. lauderdale last night. got up early this AM to call places. we found one in the heart of key west. the car is packed. next stop: fantasy fest.

the ultimate bachannall.

plenty of pics soon!

next stop: fantasy fest

never let it be said that we are not committed to halloween. after 4 hours of delays, got into ft. lauderdale last night. got up early this AM to call places. we found one in the heart of key west. the car is packed. next stop: fantasy fest.

the ultimate bachannall.

plenty of pics soon!

01238

halloween is approaching. for the first time in five years, mrs. wintermute won't be hosting a halloween party (i've co-hosted for 3 or 4 of those years, depending on how you count it). between not really having a lot of friends in soflo and mrs. w's room mates working ridiculous hours at the hospital, we couldn't make it happen.

furthermore, we're not really sure what our plans are this weekend. no big parties in the hopper. we're trying to make it to key west for its annual week of hedonism, but to our dismay, this is not something to be planned on the spur of the moment. hotels booked up months in advance. the days inn is going for 3 night minimums at $299 a night.

this has not prevented us from getting flipping sweet costumes. in reprising our amusing but off-kilter couples theme (carrie and prom date, trinity and neo, leia and han, kip and lafawnduh), we've snagged hogwarts costumes: naughty hermione and harry potter. pretty sweet. good article in the nytimes (find it yourself) about the upsurge in naughty costumes for chicks, especially in the 25-35 year old set. i remember even as recently as college (which is rapidly becoming not that recent) that h'ween was simply a night to dress up. now it's largely become an excuse to wear lingerie. around the wintermute household, we like to call that saturdays.

on h'ween eve, we'll be in miami with the general lee and his parents. the next morning, jetting on a 6 am flight to atlanta for last minute acquisition meetings and then on to boston, where i'm hoping to still be able to get dinner w/ slim shady, nobf, and mr. nobf. there for the h alumni healthcare conference for a few days, then staying to see mpg, ms. mpg, and the fam. old stomping grounds. will be good to be in good old 02138 and 02163. friday night will hit the 02138 bars with attilla. charlie's kitchen for sure. a round of bodington's at shay's for sure. maybe even the kong. haven't been there since king friday's last gig.

speaking of 02138, it brings into focus my new life ambition: being on 02138 magazine's list of the 100 most influential harvard alumni. now, i've met the first (and arguably toughest criteria): going to the big h. from here, i figure it's all in my influence.

admittedly, the competition is steep. the drop out who started the most dominant and least innovative software company in the world. some asshole who's fucking our country. the former vice president who lost to that asshole. matt damon. princess leia's mom. the dem's best hope for the white house (sorry, hillary). the chief justice. that tall red head on late night tv. the only cello player you've ever heard of. the chick running ebay. the architect who makes everything curvy. the taxachusettes governor. his son / my section mate. the singer of weezer. the democrat who pretended to be a republican so he could be mayor of new york. tim zagat. the current poet laureate of the country that the asshole pretends to run.

and so on. see the whole list here.

the point is, this magazine is like cosmo for nerds. the list is like people magzine's 50 most beautiful people for geeks.

and i'm obsessed with getting on it. i just ordered my first issue of 02138 (the big h's zip code, by the way).

will keep you posted on my progress.

airport hotel food

well, i'm back in portland, just for the night so i can catch a 7 am flight back to atlanta and then on to soflo. 7 hours of flight time, plus security, plus boarding...adds up to a long freaking day.

rusty caught a flight home to spokane, so i'm flying solo and stay at the hotel marriot. it's a long hike (15 miles) into portland. so i'm faced with four dining options:

1. shiloh's
   
2. shari's sports bar
3. mcdonald's
4. the world famous courtyard cafe

given these delectable choices, i have to wonder why there are not better restaurants near hotel airports. the customer economics seems to support it:

• every night there is a captive audience, since the area is typically far from the city
  
• this audience is made of business travelers who can spend money since they on expense accounts
• they are probably fairly dissatisfied with existing options (e.g. the courtyard cafe)

take for example, where i am tonight. my hotel has 6 floors and probably 50 rooms on each floor, which means 300 rooms. at 70% full, that is at least 210 travelers. i think that about 90% of them are business travelers (judging by the attire of the folks in the lobby, and the fact that it is the airport hotel), that = 180 business travelers.

and there are 7 hotels in sight, of similar size. so 7 x 180 = 1260 people every night. i think that would support at least 1-2 restaurants in the area. lets say 50% want something better than the usual stuff, so 50% x 1260 = 630 dinners.

take an average bill of $40 x 630 dinners = roughly $2600.

while this will not support high end dining, it would mean better than the existing options. and this crowd is there almost every night of the week.

birth ritual

bend, or (courtesy zivney on flicker)

man, i love the northwest. greetings from bend, oregon. have already started trying to talk mrs. wintermute into making it our next vacation getaway. maybe even getting the beav and mr. beav to join us (they don't know that yet).

i'm in sunriver for a few days for a hospital conference. pretty sweet. i'm humming the singles soundtrack to myself. birth ritual really is one of soundgarden's finest.

when i got off the plane, 11,000 foot snowcaps greeted me. pine needles infuse the everything here.

sockeyed has a great photoset on flickr here.

state of love and trust

greetings from portland, oregon.

on the plane (surely one of the longest non-stops in the lower 48, clocking in at 5 hours from atl), i envisioned portland looking mainly like the movie 'singles,' a mid 90's fav that featured a bunch of seattle rockers making cameos around bridget fonda and matt dillon and friends wandering around wondering why their life wasn't going anywhere and why the move title still applied to them. at the time, i didn't really like the movie, but loved the sound track. this includes a forgotten soundgarden gem, 'birth ritual' and my all-time favorite pearl jam song, 'state of love and trust.' my band in high school opened a few shows with it and it was always one of our favorite rockers.

back to the movie, i could have done with a dose of my own medicine (whenever someone dislikes a movie i like, my first response is, "well, did you understand it?" mature, yeah, i know). but in this case, that really was the truth. i didn't really get the premise. now that i'm about the same age as the characters in the movie, i relate to it a lot more (although i'm hyper-structured and type A in my career and life direction and could probably be more spantaneous and free-flowing, so i'm not particularly like them). ok, anyway, i like the movie, now, right?

met up with rusty at the airport (we're here for a week of customer visits) and he showed me around a bit this afternoon.

portland actually looks just like seattle. reminds me a bit of parts of beacon hill in boston. lots of cool funky shops. young people walking around. some of the grunge ethos is still apparent. nice turning of the leaves--soft oranges and faded greens. downtown in my hotel, there's a few skyscrapers, but not many. not sure how to describe the architecture, but wikipedia says:

The Architecture in Portland, Oregon includes a wide range of styles and a few notable pioneering buildings in Portland, Oregon. Notable architect Pietro Belluschi began his career in Portland with the prolific firm of A.E. Doyle, leaving his imprint upon the city until the 1980's. Other notable architects and firms that have worked in Portland are Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) and Michael Graves.

The scale of many projects are small, due to the small size of downtown Portland blocks (200 feet by 200 feet) plus strict height restrictions enacted in order to protect views of Mount Hood from the West Hills. Although these restrictions limit project size, they contribute to Portland's reputation for exceptional urban planning and livability.

Many historic buildings, ranging from cast iron construction to glazed terra-cotta buildings, have been preserved and re-used.

Portland is a leader in sustainable architecture with one of the largest collections of LEED-rated Green buildings, though the city is best known for its emphasis on urban design and new urbanist-style development.

should be a good week.

bo-etic justice

just got back from dropping mrs. wintermute off at the airport. she's headed back to soflo; tomorrow morning i'm headed to portland, OR for the week for work. will head to soflo friday night. we had a great weekend. hit a cool restaurant in our hood friday night with my work team. since the boss & cfo were rolling, we lived large.

saturday afternoon, strolled through taste of atlanta at atlantic station. 10 tickets for $15 seemed like a rip-off at first, but i was full by the end. hyderbad cafe, which bills itself as authentic indian food, was worth the wait in line. i think it's a new place--will check it out (it's on little mumbai, aka lawrenceville highway in decatur).

saturday night, we met up with canadachick and breaking h. mrs wintermute hadn't see her girls since they left for their post-docs in new haven and bloomington, respectively (they were back in atl for a conference). neither town sounds that great. in a good case of silver lining, canadachick's lab is moving to new mexico, and it seems to be a good move for her and her dude. breaking h has had enough of the midwest i thinnk. it sounds an awful lot like the nati, but perhaps even more provincial. i think her exact words were "black hole of existence." or something like that.

after some food and frosty beverages in midtown, we hit a kind of random party--friend of jwatt and breaking h was hosting at his bachelor pad just off-bucktown.

walking through the parking deck, the aroma of raw sewage wafts and swirls around us. not something vaguely like it. i mean like a vat of shit, vacum sealed for 20 years, and then unleashed.

walking through the apt building, there's no question where the party is. as if we needed any help, there's a trail of vomit leading away from the door.

yup, this is it.

roll into a total sausage fest. just as i walk into the sweet sight of three frat dudes bouncing to justin timberlake, i'm assaulted by the sound of a girl retching in the bathroom. she's so wasted that she's rest her neck on the rim of the toliet. her friend is trying to hold her head up.

oh man, can i hold off on taking a leak for the duration of what will undoubtedbly be a sweet party?

the fridge features several cases of warm miller lite to entertain us. nice.

turns out a couple of the dudes are from ohio, so we talk bengals. who dey. then one of them mentions off-handedly that miami of ohio (his alma mater) is probably 'a lot like' emory (mine). i'm not drunk enough to to just nod this one off. emory is nothing like miami. it's nothing like it. it's the anti-miami. i tell him this. i insist on it. the conversation doesn't go much further.

so then i'm kind of skulking around the kitchen, catching up with canadachick. every so often during the night, i keep running into this one chick is who is just UNfriendly. like she sucks all of the fun out of any room. not sure what her deal is. or maybe dirty looks are just her normal facial expression. maybe that's just how she says hi. maybe she's pissed that seven random people showed up and are drinking all of her beer. totally fair point. but we were invited. kind of. well, jwatt and breaking h were. anyway, no reason to be a total bitch. the dirty looks are immature and uncalled for. have i mentioned that she's a total bitch?

anyway, while i'm skulking in the corner, this dude bo tries to convince that i'm not having enough fun. i hate when people tell me that i don't looking like i'm having fun. if that's the case, there's probably a reason.

he announces that the best bet is to throw me over his shoulder and carry me to the family room to drink more beer. i assure him that this would be the opposite of a good idea. i tell him he should pick up the other dude (miami guy). he nods, "oh yeah?"

so he flips miamidude on his shoulder, catching him by surprise. unfortunately, bo is drunker than he realizes and loses his grip. miamidude slips off his shoulder and lands on his head on the kitchen linoleum. thud. beer is everywhere. it looks pretty bad, but he seems to be ok.

bo staggers over. "man, you are smart. i'm glad i didn't try to pick you up." he grabs a bag of peas from the freezer and tosses them to miamidude for his head. then bo opens the fridge and swigs from a jug of V8. yeah, that V8. red vegetable juice. he mostly misses his mouth and gets it on his face and sweater. he blinks in disgust as he realizes what he's done.

"is this your purse?" he asks canadachick, pointing to a random purse on the counter.

"no, it's not."

"ok." bo picks it up and uses it to wipe bright red vegetable juice. it smears all over the purse. he staggers away.

canadachick and i laugh.

then the bitch walks up and grabs her purse.

that's what i call bo-etic justice.

sawyer just got cooler

man, did breaking rocks ever look like so much fine?

while i've hated sawyer all along, his move was pretty ballsy. i'm starting to like him more.

somehow he and kate look pretty good for all they've been through. katie's teeth look remarkably white for having not (presumably) brushed her teeth in a while.

funny comment on sawyer tasting like 'fish biscuit.'

so, ben has lived on the island all of his life. some of the fan boards ask why there are not more kids around, if the others (presumably) have been living there for awhile.

does jin know about sun? how much english does he really know?

apparently, the dharma shark made a repeat appearance, but i didn't see it.

kentucky jelly

man, plenty to blog. meant to throw out a shout from lexington, ky. got to see the rents for dinner, as it's not far from the hometown. also home of ky jelly, a poor-man's cousin to oh jelly.

"hello, johnson & johnson customer service. how may i help you?"

oh, hi, i was just calling to tell you how much i like one of your products.

"well sir, we always like to hear that."

yup, the kentucky jelly yall make is wonderful. it just tastes so fine on my toast every morning.

"uhh, sir, you mean ky jelly?"

sure do. it is great stuff.

"sir, i'm not sure you realize what it is for."

sure do. it tastes great. the thing is, my cousin who lives up north in ohio, he's practically a yankee, i bet he would like some. do you have any plans to make any ohio jelly?

click.

welcome to the club

trevsie, one of the world's best bachelor's, has joined the club. here is a man with unparalleled adventures and one of my closest friends at the big h.

the wedding will be in ny this spring. no dilly-dallying around. engagement and then the wedding six months later. i like it.

i was actually kind of rooting for the wedding to be in london (his hometown and where he and his chickie live). would have been a good reason for me to make my visit visit to the land of bad teeth and good curry.

it could promise to be a rather ridiculous bachelor party.

congrats, little fella.

big up for the emory english department

big up to emory for luring salman rushdie to its english dept.

confirmed here in the emory wheel and here in wikipedia.

wear this

so, when kate's taking a shower, were yall as disappointed as i was that we didn't even a little bit of naughty footage?

then she steps out and her clothing is gone. there's a sign on another locker saying "wear this."

what is in store is not quite a little number from frederick's of hollywood. but not bad.

ok, down to business...

so, ben (not-henry gale) is behind everything.

what the hell happened to kate between breakfast on the beach and being brought to the cage. what's in store for the two "very unpleasant" couple of weeks that ben promises her?

how do the others (namely, juliette) have extensive dossiers on everyone (or at least on jack)? how the hell do they know how is ex-wife is doing, much less who she is?

what's the deal with carl? is he one of them? is having him in the cage across from sawyer just a set-up?

what on earth was on the other side of the door that was storing all of the water that jack unleashed?

finally, i think we have a sense for how big the island is. just after the plane comes apart overhead, ben dispatches ethan to mix in with the survivors. he tells ethan that if he hurries, he can get there in an hour. assuming ethan goes on foot (a big assumption--we know they have at least one boat, but it seemed to imply that we would be on foot):

• he can go somewhere between 8 and 10 minutes per mile (a good jogger on flat ground can do about 7 minute per mile). given the terrain, let's say 10 minutes. so in an hour he would cover at least 6 miles.
  
• and when the camera pans away, it seems that their village is on the far side of the island. let's say it's 70% of the way from the beach where the front-plane survivors land.
  
• so the diameter of the island is roughly 8.5 miles.
  
• so let's call the radius 4.5-5.0 miles.
  
• so the circumference would be about 15 miles (pi X diameter)
• and the area is about 78 square miels (pi x radius squared)

this seems to make sense intuitively. the characters take about two days to cross the island when the sawyer, jin, and echo met up with the ana lucia and trekked back to the beach.

let's hear it for geometry. mr. mueller would be proud.

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42

those are the magic numbers. i've been in withdrawal for months.

tonight, lost returns.

kate and sawyer? bad boys make geeks like me feel bad about ourselves. i liked kate. then she started to like sawyer. so i resented her for it. then she gave up on him. so i liked her again. word has it that she is destined to be with sawyer. so i don't like her anymore.

who is sun's baby daddy? i thought jin was infertile. same healing powers that cured the black lady (god, can't remember her name) of her cancer and locke of his paraparalysis?

where the hell did walt and michael go?

did desmond's failure to press the button really cause the plane crash?

and where the hell are the two dudes in the ice shelter? and what is desmond's ex-girlfriend doing?

undoubtedly, NONE of these will be answered tonight. that's what i love about the show.

868 minutes later, i'm done proofreading. a hell of weekend. spread out of my desk at home, the altlanta airport, my flight to soflo, and the airport in soflo.

but it's done.

pasting a powerpoint graphic into blogger doesn't work too well (saving it as a jpeg is the only way i know how). after the first few, i got a pretty good rhythm, but couldn't consistently break the 35 minute mark. ended up averaging 43 minutes per packet. my best was towards the end. all time fastest was packet # 20--got it done in 28 minutes. fairly decent amount of variance (standard deviation of 8.9 minutes).

by comparison, mrs. wintermute averaged 35 minutes (probably less--she was not keeping time as precisely as i was).

black pepper

we have five different containers of black pepper in the pantry. it's out of control.