This cracks me up

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500 million

Just woke up to hear the words '500,000,000 rural chinese have never brushed their teeth' on NPR.
Believe it? or not?

Finally

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A vietnamese banh mi shop in the mission! This one is between 17th and 18th on mission. They also serve yucatecan food!

Saw lady

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Went to the alemany market for some veggies for the adobothon. The saw lady was killin it once again. She always brings the biggest smiles out of everyone around. Had an interesting exchange with a fig farmer. As I told him about my dessert plans with the figs that involved roasting etc, he replied, "my wife n me don't do nuthin fancy withem like u city folk do.. We're farm-folk, we just eat em plain".

microsoft gamefest

flew from la to seattle on sunday to attend microsofts annual gamefest event. picked up some inside information on the windows vista release and support of 'live anywhere' -- microsofts attempt to extend the xbox live community features to the pc and mobile market. they had a few different content tracks during the conference. I attended the production and xbox live tracks that were more relevant to online.
got some insight into the xbox live guide interface and microsofts plans to alllow developers to customize it to their own needs. they will start to offer consumable digital goods and are building more support for ingame marketplace transactions. they're still ultimately owning the business relationship with the user however. i'm thinking that sony will adopt the same strategy as it just makes sense to do so.
i think the more compelling area of investment for developers will be in creating the in-game relevant shopping experiences. figuring out how to create a sense of value of purchasable objects within a game that will push the customer to purchase micro pieces of content within the game. this is where i plan to focus my energy and attention.
microcontent business transactions will ultimately be controlled by the services/platforms, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for the software companies to step in and establish their own business relationships with customers. MS policy is to not allow developers to gather user billing info through the xbox live service, however, there is nothing that i'm aware of that is stopping EA from creating business relationships with the customer through other mechanisms (web or pc). the question is, will xbox live support the distribution of content to the xbox when ownership is tracked through other means? will the xlsp allow distribution of content to hard drives or not?

Hello stranger at safari sams

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Hit a club in hollywood. These guys used to be called 'Vagenius'. I like the old name better.

Farmers market

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hit farmers market in santa monica with tina. Got ingredients for a 5 course all veggie dinner party.

1. yellow watermelon salad with feta, olives, onion, mint in lime n olive oil dressing

2. Chilled squash soup with nutmeg, creme fraiche, walnuts.

3. Heirloom tomatoes with basil n smoked mozzarrela, with olive loaf.

4. roasted fingerlings with garlic aioli.

5. Roasted figs with mascarpone, mint, balsamic redux.

Alan Helen and Yvonne came over and we all stuffed ourselves silly.

French lunch

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Ricotta roasted figs and honey on whole wheat.

Footcare

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Mani-pedis with cousin tina in santa monica. Walked into what I thought would be a deal at 18$ but they kept getting me on the upsell. Got my feet scrubbed and massaged for an extra 10.

tasty two

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the 2nd installment of our summer parties went off like gangbusters yesterday.
people really enjoyed the food, the music, the people. oh, and there was dancing! and lots of it! i think b was happy about that, although next time he deserves the prime sunset slot so he can get in on some.
the cotija corn was a hit... and people were just dying for the burgers. a few people got to sample the micheladas too, but after i moved onto the grill/corn station, i didn't have time to set those up. next time, i think we'll print out instructions to drink recipes at the juicer station.
i met a lot of really nice folks, and thoroughly enjoyed hosting them. everyone was grateful for the time and energy we spent in cooking for them.
here's a roster of some of the new friends that i met throughout the day.
misha edward eugene monica walter natalie micole sarah stephanie jeannie christa rafael (dude with the subwoofers that he said he'd let me borrow for our next event) jane alicia bill emily alan jennifer chris nadine desiree johnny (he was a great help with shucking and cutting the corn) ... all in all, i'd say there were close to 100 people there throughout the day.
good times all around

Hot chip at the independent

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The dodgettes

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the volunteer pep squad at my work league dodgeball championships. check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44RZ891wpx4