On Coolness

berlin is cool. paris is not.
coolness is not something that one needs to experience first hand, in order for one to know it's cool, right?
like: the jocks in high school. they were "cool." but i didn't know any right?
the iphone. cool but i'd never actually owned nor touched one before i realized it was cool.
paris hilton. cool. no doubt.
paris the city. uncool. so, do i really have to visit to know it's cool?
and berlin. totally cool, even though i've never actually been.
state college, pa? uncool. been there. wouldn't want to go there if i hadn't.
new york? cool. even though i live here, i'm not so sure it diminishes my ability to objectively judge whether it's cool. because i don't feel bad about being from new york. but i do feel bad about being american.
being american. uncool.
so you see, coolness has more to do with group think and what not. it's zeitgeist. it's not reflexive.
paris is so... hm. i dunno. like it was cool when hemingway and picasso lived there. but not so much anymore. it's kind of irrelevant now.
and besides. they're mean. maybe that's really what it's about.
nah. paris hilton is mean.... and she's still cool!

anyways. i want to see jeff koons very much at versailles. i hear many see it as sacrilege. i think it'll be funny as heck!
don't worry. i want to go to france. it'll be like an archeological dig where we excavate coolness, fossilized in crusty museums.

yikes

What is it like to find out what you are doing now will have no impact on the future?
No - not referring to Doing Good. Being Good. Social Responsibility. The Afterlife.
I just found out from a little Birdie that the Application that I've been working on will probably go away next year, based on new compensation structures, policies, and procedures.
So for the next few months until December, while I work on functionality and upgrades that I know will not be needed next year, how am I supposed to feel?
I could continue working to produce a flawless and flexible system. I can make a crap system. I can not do anything at all. Or I could spend six months looking for a new job. If they cancel this project, I'll probably be forced to go back to working on backwards 1980's based technology. C Fortran. Proprietary VSAM databases. Maybe C++. But definitely served to the user with Ugly bichromatic orange and black in-house UI packages. Eitherway, I think I'll have to look for a new job because there's no way that I'm going back to crappy proprietary technology that doesn't add anything to my resume.
ugh. stupid job. stupid degree. stupid choices.

euro trip

update. added bruges belgium.

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Scallops for dinner

Dinner tonight was Scallops and Asparagus.
Scallops were seared for 2 minutes on each side (I like them raw in the center).
Sauce was garlic, onion, shitake in white wine.
I speak for Jake when I say, "Jake is glad Eugene converted him from a vegetarian to a pescatarian" ...Because Jake speaks in third person all the time.