By interacting with people who have a limited knowledge of American pop culture, I've realized that a good part of my identity is defined by it. Pop-culture is often derided, but I think it is the dominant modern culture. Most (but not all) people that I like and find entertaining have a good knowledge of pop-culture. My ability to relate and understand people is at it's strongest when there is some common knowledge and experience between us. The implication here is not that everyone needs to know the lyrics to Britney's "Not Yet a Woman", but having exposure to movies, music, and the various toys that have come over the years provides for a common bond between people and myself. If I find that someone had a large M.U.S.C.L.E collection, played the original "Legend of Zelda", watched all of Schwarzenegger's movies in the 80's, and still watches T.R.L. on MTV, chances are I'll like that person, or at least have something to talk about with them. That doesn't mean the person should be ignornant (I'm not into the whole anti-intellectual thing); knowledge and pop are not exclusive. I just heard on the radio that Tabitha Stevens wants to have a boxing match with Jenna Jameson. How appropriate, pop-culture is further evolving!

This moral quandary is killing me. Should I give in to my base desire and see one of my favorite movies, E.T., or should I take the high moral ground and boycott it? This is the only movie that I've really cried at (bawling is more appropriate and on two separate viewings), and it's arguably Spielberg's best work. The thing that drives me crazy is this re-release has been edited. I don't mind the addition of extra footage or some special effect touch ups, but the FBI agents no longer carry guns. They carry walkie talkies! Arghhhhhh! Political correctness will kill us all. Soon, Tom & Jerry will be banned, and the Three Stooges won't hit each other. It's another reason not to have children. Apparently something causes parents to become retarded and chant "We have to save the children" ad nauseam.

It's amazing how fond I am of certain things, and at the same time I don't even realize it. Yesterday, my first official "nostalgia" purchase from ebay arrived. Yes, it's the Atari 2600 circa 1979. I received one for my eighth birthday and it remains to this day my most memorable birthday gift. I remember saving money from my paper route for months to get the next new game and begging my Dad to drive me to Toys 'R Us so I could buy one. At one point I had over eighty games, but years of childhood 2 for 1 swaps and yard sales when I was away at college decimated the collection. It was with great anticipation that I unpacked the console and plugged it into the television. First game of choice: Space Invaders. This game is hard! I think I was better at it twenty years ago. Next I played Defender, Beserk, and Combat. It's amazing the I still find the sound effects in Beserk unsettling. Now I need to purchase my all-time favorites: Pitfall, Indiana Jones, and Circus. I find these games so amazing, perhaps because I now understand how they were made and programmed. Modern 3-D games are beyond my current comprehension, although I could provide a laymen's explanation of how they work. I understand the Atari well enough that I could program the games myself, and that's part of the reason I find it so intriguing.

Stream of Consciousness There is a man at the local Quizno's who looks like my father, except my father is Caucasian and this man is Indian. I enjoy watching the Spanish speaking version of Sesame Street and yelling "pescadadita" over and over. Using an eighty pound jack hammer is fun for the first hour, work for the second hour, and "How in God's name does anyone do this for a living?" for the remaining hours. I recently learned that I unintentionally scare and intimidate people at work. I'm becoming obsessed with growing the best lawn on my street, and I'm not proud of it. I'm deeply conflicted on the issue of poisoning the slugs and snails that are eating my garden. I purchased a container of "Sluggo" but I haven't used it yet. I was particularly horrified when I read "After snails and slugs consume Sluggo, they will stop eating and die 3 to 6 days later in a secluded place. You may not see the dead bodies." My wife does funny imitations, but I think she saves the best ones for me. I like the smell of oak as it gets cut. Apparently it is a unique odor. I want my parents to call me sometime, instead of me calling them all the time. I think I'm a mutant spawn. I will reach the top of Mount Shasta.

Using a jackhammer is hard work. Tempest and I rented one at "The Home Depot" and went to town on the patio in our backyard. Turns out that this "breaking concrete" thing requires some effort. We want to put a series of rough, 3" cracks throughout the concrete and plant some flowering ground cover in them. It took us 3 hours to do about a quarter of the patio. Thankfully, my brother is coming tomorrow and he can supply some manpower. I wonder if people get obsessed about things like we do. After all, we did nothing in the backyard for about five months and now we're professional landscapers. I stopped by a co-worker's new house -- he moved in a few blocks from where I live. Tempest and I met his family and they are really nice. His daughter surprised me by being quite confident and funny, impressive considering she's in the fourth grade. For some reason, I found it entertaining that we were served mango slices as snack. Do get me wrong, I liked them, but it's a reminder that I don't live in New Jersey anymore, but that's not bad either.

You have to admire a person that decides they need a personal rollercoaster and then build one in their backyard. I wonder what the first "live" ride was like as the car approached the corkscrew?

I had the best snowboarding of my life yesterday. My first day of true powder boarding, on the backside of Northstar, gliding between so many trees that the trail was out of view. The clouds broke over me and the sky was that deep, mountain blue that you never see living in the bay. The lodgepoles were vividly green against that blue backdrop and the snow was smooth and seemingly endless underneath. It felt like a preordained moment, as earlier my computer became misconfigured so I couldn't work over the weekend. With a sign like that, and snow falling like crazy in the Sierras, there was no doubt. Some mildly illicit behaviour (for which I was later scolded) added to experience, but it would have been awesome either way.

Current CDs on my cubicle desk:

• Cake - Prolonging the Magic
• Jimi Hendrix - The Ultimate Experience
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand the Weather
• Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Greatest Hits (empty jewel case only)
• Beck! - Odelay
• Bluegrass Super Hits
• Tantric
• vienna teng - waking hour
• Rusted Root - When I Woke
• Sum 41 - All Killer No Filler

Trail of Dead is cool.

Tonight's wood shop was surreal. Tempest and I arrived and hauled all of the white oak I had purchased from Northern Hardwoods into the shop. We matched each of the boards to the pieces they would become. Then we started enlarging a pattern of the rear leg into a full size template on a piece of pattern paper. Since the planer was running most of the time, we had ear plugs in and couldn't hear the people around us very well. Our concentration was interrupted when we realized that everyone had moved away from us. I turned around and saw some guy sitting and the floor, clutching his hand. I pulled out the ear plugs and heard "Can you find it on the floor?" Apparently he had been using the jointer (improperly we later learned) and his hand slipped off the board and into the blade. The shop teacher dumped all the sawdust out of jointer but could only find some small chunks of bone mixed in. He looks at me and nonchalantly said "Looks like he got a hamburger finger." The memory I'll carry with me for a long time is when an EMT looked at the sawdust/bone particles and said to his partner in a deadpan "There's nothing recoverable here John."

Every week I have a "one on one" with my manager where, I imagine, we are fostering "personal and career growth". However, I think I slightly intimidate him, not in a bad way, but were still in a peer to peer relation that prevents him from giving me the criticism I would like. A typical meeting begins with him asking me how my weekend was spent. We'll have a few minutes of banter and then he asks me "How are things?" This is my cue to tell him about how the people in my project are doing (I "mentor and motivate" the team as well as do the scheduling) so I tell him what the progress is and what the current problems are and I how I'm dealing with them. I mention that all the code I have is a pain in the ass to which he always nods in a noncommittal fashion. Then he tells me about the meetings he has gone to and any information he thinks I would be interested in. It's all very mechanical and there's rarely a reference to how I'm performing. Today I asked him to tell me how I could improve. He basically said I was doing everything right and should "be patient", whatever that means. Oh well, he's better then most of the bosses I've had.

I decided to use pseudonyms so I can be more honest.

Last night, in a quest to improve my poor understanding of grammar, I leaned the difference between i.e. and e.g. I typically use i.e. for everything, but now I know it should only be used when providing an explanation. If a list of examples is needed, e.g. is the correct choice. I've now moved up 0.001% on the dumbass scale (i.e. I'm slightly more knowledgeable (e.g. greater understanding, improved grammar)).