30 July 2005

Doddering Shuffle.

Driving home from work last night I was listening to my iPod shuffle. Jake was sleeping; despite all his attributes he's rather indifferent to music it seems.

The shuffle is currently holding 280 ska songs. I leave it set on shuffle mode and let it wander through the range of first-, second-, and third-wave ska on-board. Sometimes it plays successive songs from the same artist or group, but last night it did something odd: it played the same song twice in a row.

First it played "Meat Dance" by Slow Gherkin off the split CD Invisible Tank. This caught my attention because it's a more up-tempo cut of the song, released in 1998, that I hadn't heard recently.

That was immediately followed by the original cut of "Meat Dance" off the 1995 comp This is Raj...and This is Ska. Weird. Out of 280 songs, what are the odds the shuffle would play two version of the same song, one right after the other.

Even stranger is that I randomly Autofill my shuffle from my ska library, currently holding 681 songs. (Raise your hand if you didn't thing there were that many ska tracks in the world. Now put your hand down; you look like a fool sitting in front of a computer with your hand raised.)

So out of the random Autofill where only a third of the songs will be selected, these two tracks made it into the shuffle, then while being played randomly, they end up back-to-back. (Well, technically back-to-front, but that's not the expression.)

If I didn't know better, I'd say the Universe is trying to tell me something.

28 July 2005

Smoked Spicy Fruit.

If you're at Trader Joe's or New Leaf and you see the Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard's 2000 Syrah, get a bottle. You won't regret it.

Made from Livermore Valley grapes, this isn't one of the more popular or well-known products of SCMV. They seem to prefer promoting their wines made from grapes grown within our Santa Cruz Mountains appellation, and I can't blame them, but the 2000 Livermore Valley Syrah is a fantastic wine nonetheless.

There's smoke and spice — pepper, anise — followed by jam-like blackberry and raspberry flavors.

And I'm certainly no expert, but it seems to me this wine could cellar for at least five more years and just keep getting better and better.

Warning: this wine throws sediment.

26 July 2005

A Fine Summertime Snack.

So, I arrive home from work feeling a bit peckish. The house is hot and stuffy from being closed up all day in the Summer heat.

First, open up the windows to let in the breeze; the fog will roll in shortly and cool down the place. Next, pour a nice cold glass of Big House Pink. Finally, tuck into my newest favorite snack: organic baby carrots generously slathered in Miya's Green Goddess tofu spread and dip.

This sumptuous spread is loaded with fresh herbs and the tang of lemon; it's low in fat and low in carbs, but loaded with flavor. I get it at New Leaf Community Market, in the deli section next to the hummus and salsas. Unless you have the taste buds of a cat, you will love it, too.

25 July 2005

Made in China.

The house rebelled recently.

I came home after a not-so-great day at work, and while I was changing I noticed the sound of running water in the bathroom, which was odd as I don't normally just leave water running all day. Investigating revealed the toilet was no longer shutting off when the tank filled, and the excess water was pouring out the overflow valve. The shut-off mechanism appeared to have simply failed at some point while I was at work.

Wanting more light to inspect the innards of the toilet tank, I pulled (in retrospect perhaps a bit too vigorously) on the chain of the ancient wall-mounted light fixture in the bathroom. The light snapped on with a fascinating new sound which, it turns out, indicated it will never turn off again. So now my bathroom featured never-ending water and light. Great.

I cut the water to the toilet and, with the aid of a potholder, removed the light bulb from the fixture. At least things were stable until I could get parts. I went into the kitchen to make dinner and enjoy some Big House Pink. It was a complex recipe: open can, pour soup into Pirex, cover with cling wrap, poke holes in wrap, put in microwave. The oven light came on, but that was the only normal thing it did. The soup wasn't rotating in the chamber, and the oven made an ominous low rumble and grind. I quickly pressed Stop, then tried again. Same ominous low rumble, and by now I could feel the radiation pouring out of the appliance and metastasizing every abnormality in my body.

That was it. Clearly I needed to wander the house, shouting obscenities at everything that wasn't working. Oddly enough, that didn't fix anything, but it did convince Jake to go hide on the bed until I was done.

Thus it was I headed to Crapitola the following weekend to get what I needed to put the household back in reasonable working order. First stop was OSH, where I learned the part I needed for the toilet has the rather improbable name of "ballcock." (I assume it was an old plumber's joke gone wrong.) Then I searched for new bathroom wall fixtures, but couldn't find any suitable. So I tracked down a pull chain switch so I could attempt to fix the existing fixture. It was about then I noticed that both the ballcock and pull chain switch, along with every light fixture I'd looked at, were made in China. Curious, I wandered OSH and found a surprising number of items for sale were also made in China.

Then it was across the street to Sears for a microwave oven. They had a nice, basic, little oven on sale for $49. Sure enough, made in China. As was every other microwave oven they offered.

My friend Mark had tried, several years ago, to avoid buying anything made in China based on his concern over their apparent disregard for human rights. But he'd eventually given up because, it seemed, some things were just no longer made outside of China. Judging from my experience shopping the other weekend, nowadays most things aren't made outside of China.

Now I've never been a protectionist, but I'm starting to wonder about just what, in fact, America does for a living. And I'm not the only one. Even globalization fanboy Thomas Friedman is noticing a disturbing imbalance in U.S.-China trade, as he said in his column of 20 July:
"So many U.S. dollars and jobs are flowing to China, it is becoming politically and economically unsustainable for the Bush team."

For a man who thinks unfettered global trade is the bee's knees, he's certainly worried about one specific trade deficit. Beyond the sheer financial implications, Mr. Friedman acknowledges a point that many have been making lately, and that I tried to make to my friend Todd just last week:
"While we have been focused on 9/11 and Iraq, China and America have become, in economic terms, Siamese twins."

But why would this be an issue? Why would the current regime be waiving their Iraq hand in our faces while their China hand is up a sleeve, out of sight? The August issue of The Progressive postulates an answer in their editorial 'The Bush Plunge:'
"[Bush] and Cheney and Rumsfeld understand that the world economy runs on oil, that Saudi Arabia's supplies are peaking, that the House of Saud is unstable, and so Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves in the world, is 'vital.' By controlling Iraq's oil, the United States also can have more leverage over the Pentagon's enemy on the horizon, China, which now desperately needs to import oil to keep its economy chugging."

While it's tempting to dismiss this idea as liberal folderol, do note how similar it is to the "Tiananmen-Texas Bargain" Mr. Friedman attributes to Steven Weber of the Institute of International Studies in Berkeley, to wit: China offered their middle class steady economic growth in exchange for voting rights, growth fueled by the U.S. trade imbalance that allows China to underwrite vast amounts of our debt.

So, what can save the United States, besides a dubious and costly war in the Middle East? Lately many talking heads, including Mr. Friedman, have opined that China needs to revalue their currency, the yuan. And that's exactly what they did last Thursday. No longer pegged at a fixed rate against the U.S. dollar, the yuan will now "float against a basket of currencies," as the BBC said in their indubitably British way.

So now it's all good? Everything's going to be OK? Well let's not forget the concerns about human rights that had my buddy Mark checking labels a few years back. And the fears of environmental damage spurred by China's breakneck industrial growth. However, recent events in China suggest the very large and ever-more-informed populace is deciding they won't be sacrificed to their government's economic dreams. Riots are said to be sweeping the nation as the Chinese seem to be less willing to tolerate government indifference and corruption.

But where are we on buying Chinese goods? Listen, if I had all the answers, I wouldn't be penning a blog, Lone Gunmen-style, at almost Midnight on a work night. Besides, I need to fix my toilet.

18 July 2005

No Wonder the Market's Irrationally Exuberant!

Listening to Bloomberg TV this morning, I heard some talking head say Treasury yields are at four-twenty. And that he expected them to be higher. No doubt. Sounds like a classic case of Chronic Underachievement to me.

17 July 2005

In Praise of Warm Vans.

Watered the plants this morning. The tomato plants need daily watering; I guess I used too small a pot. I pulled on the pair of worn, black, classic Vans that were sitting on the back step so I could traverse the patch of overgrown grass and dog poop to get to the spigot.

The insteps of the shoes had long ago conformed to my feet, the foam rubber compressed by pressure at ball and heel, the canvas atop the foam scrunched forward by my unique gait. The hard rubber half-moon that holds the shape of the back of the shoe has long since broken down, as happens with old Vans. You learn to turn the shoe upside-down and shake to dislodge the latest bits of rubber that have come loose, as well as any creepy crawlers who've decided my Vans are an available backyard condo.

The shoes were lying in the morning light, the black canvas body absorbing the heat, so when I pulled them on they were the perfect warmth for my bare feet. Supple from the sun, the Vans settled right on me as if they were an extension of my own body, delighted to be back in their proper place. As I tied each one the canvas top embraced my foot, my pinkie toe coming to rest in the crook that forms where the shoe front flexes. (I've never been able to decide if the hole that invariably forms in the canvas at that point is caused by the flexing or the toe.)

At that moment, there was no more perfect feeling than the warm Vans on my feet.

The shoes are at the peak of comfort; as time goes on the instep covers will become too loose and bunch in the arch, the back heels will degrade and spew ever larger chunks of rubber, and the holes at the front will grow so large my pinkie toe will pop out when walking.

But right now those Vans have the perfect level of decay, or experience if you prefer. And they wait patiently on the back step for my half-hearted yard maintenance. As I thought about the delight they brought me this morning, I realized I should hold onto that happiness and carry it as far forward into the day as I can.