Free as in association

So, I lost my voice on Friday, which is one of those things that always sounds fun in that girls-will-find-me-pathetic-andor-sexy-and-swoon-before-me kind of way. And it was sort of entertaining for the first few hours, but on day 3 it's just getting to plain annoying. It especially sucks because I'm going to be out of town a bunch soon and was going to meet up with people I haven't seen in a while, but since meeting up with such people involves obligatory catching-up conversations, we decided that it was best to not meet at all. Which is weird, and yet somehow sensible.

In any case, canceling those plans and my need for warm beverages and entertainment did free me up to explore my neighborhood a bit more. I'm really starting to enjoy it now that I have a favorite coffee shop (Full City, which always has good music and where I randomly ran into someone from work yesterday). I tried out the exotic indie donut shop I always walk past but for some reason decided to play it safe and get a cinnamon bun. I also tried out this new Flicker's Coffee Shop, which didn't have seating, making me skeptical about their prospects. I also went to the library across the street, where I picked up Autograph Man and Human Stain*, but not Interpreter of Maladies. I was very excited that they had a reasonable selection of books in English despite its Chinatownness. At this point, I'm just concerned my rent will go up a bunch and I'll have to leave. Word is that Spike Jonze is moving into a building down the street and there's some organic wine bar opening up near by. Hello gentrification!

Later in the evening, after dinner at Mercadito (awesome drinks and guac, okay taco things), we tried out High Chai, which looked neat when I walked past it. As it turned out, the service was not great and the tea was frustratingly lukewarm, although at least there were live music and tasty scones. I guess trying out new places is a classic high-risk/high-reward activity.

Speaking of high-risk, high-reward, I think this quote from the author of Black Swans in Wired was right on: "All of technology, really, is about maximizing free options. It's like venture capital: Most of the money you make is from things you weren't looking for. But you can find them only if you search."

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*About some guy's life being ruined by a misinterpreted racial slur - surprisingly contemporary given the whole Imus thing.

...a virile, youthful middle-aged president and a brash, smitten twenty-one-year-old employee carrying on in the Oval Office like two teenage kids in a parking lot revived America's oldest communal passion, historically perhaps its most treacherous and subversive pleasure: the ecstasy of sanctimony....I myself dreamed of a mammoth banner, draped dadaistically like a Christo wrapping form one end of the White House to the other and bearing a legend A HUMAN BEING LIVES HERE.

Are you kidding me?

I think I'm in the wrong line of work for my height.

...in a study of more than 20,000 online daters...They found that a 5-foot-8 man was just as successful in getting dates as a 6-footer if he made more money — precisely $146,000 a year more. For a 5-foot-2 man, the number was $277,000.

Also (and be sure to read comment 84)

on average, a woman got a “yes” from about half the men she met (meaning that the guy would like to go out with her). But a man, on average, got the thumbs-up from only a third of the women

and

the more attractive women set a higher bar for their partners than less attractive women did. But the German men set about the same bar for their partners no matter what they looked like themselves or how successful they were professionally