— tapioca world tour

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January, 2010 Monthly archive

Here I am in Germany. Berlin is pretty rad. Much huger than I expected. Lots of friendly foreigners (3 out of 4 people I’ve met so far, on average, are not German), a good transport system, cheap apartments with high ceilings, lovely tall windows. My technology/society conference is neat and I’ve met some really cool people. There’s even a baby there, and we have of course totally bonded. She grabs my nose. I let her.

I’m really tired, so I’ll write more later. But yes, I have confirmed that I could live here, that the plan is still to move to Europe. Somewhere warmer than Berlin would be preferable, but it’s cool here. Slowly, my German is coming back. I ordered breakfast today and asked for directions and not once did people switch to English to answer me. Woohoo! Incognito, por fin.

Still wonder why I chose Berlin in January rather than say, oh, Lima. But we do what we can. The world continually shrinks, or at least it feels that way to me. I really love it.

Dear Peter Høeg,

I love you and I love all your novels. I know we don’t know each other personally, but it’d be great to have tea with you and talk about your philanthropic foundation helping women and children in developing countries, and how you should expand it to include Burmese refugees. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

I just reread The Quiet Girl. I read it as soon as it was published, waited a while, and read it again over the past three days. As usual, it was amazing and inspiring and gripping. But I still have no idea what happened in the end. And that really frustrates me.

[spoiler] If Kain was in good with Mother Maria and the Institute all along, why did his people shoot the African and try to kill Kasper? Why the heck was Maria in a relationship with Kain? Isn’t that weird? If the kids weren’t kidnapped, and they planned to meet with Kain all along, why did KM tell Kasper she was kidnapped, and why did her system sound so distressed to him? Or did Kain’s reconciliation with the church and the kids and Stina all happen in the brief interim between the take-down scene with the helicopter and the point at which Kasper was put in an insane asylum? These are basic questions that I’d hoped another reader could answer. But so far I’ve found no comprehensive explanations online.

But let’s not talk about the anticlimactic conclusions of your books, which is the only problem I have with them. I love your writing, I really do. I am coming to Berlin in a few days. I think you should meet me there, seeing as it’s not so far from Copenhagen. We could eat waffles and discuss snow and Chopin. Or have a haiku competition. I’ll start:

Rotting in Denmark,
the ghost of your potential
writes poems instead.

Sincerely,
AMD

I still love Gael Garcia Bernal. With the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. Skip to 00:34 and watch it for one minute. The video doesn’t embed, so use the link (seriously, the best thing ever): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FitGnR11BZs&feature=fvw

…All hype and a pretty face, but not as faithful as Brian Krakow.

It’s tempting, because I don’t want to switch from T-Mobile. But I can’t handle even a one-year contract renewal, let alone two. Also there’s no multitouch. Also iPhone apps are more comprehensive. But I wouldn’t need to get the Nexus One jailbroken before moving abroad. Also the camera + video quality is way higher on the Nexus, and seeing as that’s my thesis topic, it might be smart to use it. The total cost of a new Nexus + early contract cancellation after six months = $380, with an ~$80/mo. phone plan. The iPhone 3gs 16GB would total $340 after a six-month cancellation, and about the same cost per month for AT&T’s plan. But the coverage is much spottier, the network gets held up and ATT customer service is booty.

A post I found on a Gizmodo comment string sums up my feelings, and totally makes me laugh. We are all so spoiled, after all:

I still don’t know if I want one. This has been the most frustrating gadget decision time in my life.

I just know that if I get one in the spring on Verizon, Apple will immediately release a new and fantastic iPhone on Verizon which I will want even more.

The Android apps are severely lacking in interface/functionality compared to iPhone apps. So frustrating.

Furthermore I bet Apple will refuse to improve the new iPhone’s screen resolution/quality since they don’t want to make compatibility issues with apps.

Why is this so hard?

The cat has buried her nose in my fleece bathrobe. Breathing is difficult, but she doesn’t remove her face and we stay like that, and the room is silent.

Outside, a truck pushes through the snow. I wonder if it’s UPS, suddenly remember I’m expecting two packages. Face lotion, discounted. A travel towel.

This is the last night with the cat. The house gets emptier every day. Why don’t we watch a Japanese film? I suggest. Her face is near my elbow. People are out on the street, closing doors, shoveling, yelling at dogs.

There’s also an airplane passing over the neighborhood. No, two. One of them might be going to France by way of Canada, in which case you might be on it, eating grapes.

The cat’s right ear is cold and she’s kind of wheezing. She hates being alone. I understand. The silence becomes a swimming pool and we’re floating in the sitting position. Soon, broccoli.

Maybe we’ll find a mouse tonight. Maybe Paris will be unseasonably warm and when you get there you can throw out your hat and when you order espresso, they’ll serve it with a lemon rind. Good things repeat. Some children are squealing upstairs, and the Christmas tree is still alive.