Another SoCal milestone reached

I received my first telephone marketing survey call today that was entirely conducted in Spanish until I pointed out that I didn't understand a word.

I Married a Beer Nerd

Jen made the mistake of pointing out her new blog before linking it elsewhere herself, so I'm debuting it here. It will be fun to watch the point/counterpoint from our beer making adventures together, especially when we make that requisite first big mess in the kitchen.

RIAA To Announce Amino Acid Royalty System

It's a good thing that I got back into doing the science thing, since finding news like the link below still makes my brain do a little dance. Some UC cousins a few hours drive away announced a new way to detector the presence of a chemical sample using household machinery. Beethoven as diagnostic tool? Sweet!

UCSD Scientists Develop Novel Way to Screen Molecules Using Conventional CDs and Compact Disk Players

Tabitha the Seismograph

I noticed this morning that there was a small (3.8) quake in Southern California last night. According to a site I found elsewhere this morning, Recent Earthquakes in California, there have been 275 in California and Nevada in the past week. All were below 4.0 on the Richter scale, and I certainly haven't noticed.

However, my cat Tabitha was a particular shade of cranky last night, and has been that bad only a few times since we moved here. She's a cranky loner animal to begin with, and displayed similar behavior in Boston on countless occasions.

Now she just has a convenient excuse to be a brat.

The Demise of Western Civilization, Part 89

The Vitaball.

Of course, I saw the commercial for this on the Game Show Network, so I can't really talk.

Fun and weirdness

Thursday brought Jen and I to an outstanding free concert in Santa Monica. Santa Monica Pier has hosted live music every Thursday night this summer. This week's three bands: AciDa from Argentina, providing trip-hop in a good Massive Attack type of way, Sidestepper, contributing drum 'n' bass to the night, and Los Amigos Invisibles. I remember my invisible funky friends from a tour in, like, 1998 when they opened for Soul Coughing (RIP). A few years later, Los Amigos are just as good as the not-so-subtly lewd funk as they were back then, but now sing in English a little too. I'm still scared of what some of the Spanish lyrics on their first album might be going on about.

Now, contrast that fun with the segment this morning on the local ABC morning show. A cosmetic surgeon debuted a new chemical that works like collagen but doesn't need replacement injections as often by injecting two happy female volunteers in the face on live television.

LA still makes my brain hurt, but at least there's some good with the bad.

Gotta Start Somewhere

Dear Diary,

Well, not quite. But I could resist the temptation to publish myself no longer. See, in case someone who doesn't know me personally is actually reading this, my wife Jen and I moved from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA in June 2003. As if that situation wasn't a great source for blogging material already, I am also enrolled full-time in a Ph.D. program at UCLA.

Consider this a test post, so I have some content on the screen to better fiddle with the web interface design, but it's a start. More meaningful (?) posts to follow...