Personal

The Good: I took the casual carpool to work this morning. This brings my BART fare down to $60, and with a $45 commuter check from work, down to $15/month! The Bad: While trying to cut through some tape on a package, the tip of my car key snapped off.

After spending some time online and talking with a few people, I’ve settled on this new car stereo. I just ordered it, along with a harness and crimping tool, for just under $100. I plan on installing it myself as soon as it comes. The Crutchfield website has a video and Circuit City has written instructions on how to install it myself. It seems easy enough, and if successful, I’ll have a new stereo with an aux input (for the…

Dear Car Theives, Sometime last night or this morning, you smashed one of the small back windows of my car, (which was parked in my driveway) and stole my car stereo. Firstly, let me just tell you a resounding “fuck you.” I also wanted to thank you for not taking my Fastrak, nor my rock climbing gear which was in the trunk. Sincerely, -Cyrus PS: I still can’t get through to Oakland Police. I’ve been on hold for 20 minutes.…

Last night, after going through a debriefing of my first day, Becky pointed out an inconsistency with two of the fringe benefits that I get as an employee of Macworld (parent company IDG). On the one hand, they subsidize gym membership (sweet!), to encourage their employees to stay healthy and work out, etc. Now in addition to that, there’s a shuttle bus that takes employees from the Montgomery BART station (2nd and Market St.) to the office (2nd and Bryant…

I spent most of last night camped out in Dulles airport. Managed to get a standby to Chicago and then to Oakland this morning. Not fun. However you should go buy your tickets to the Senegalese rap group Daara J (along with Lateef the Truthspeaker) show at 12 Galaxies at 9 pm on Saturday August 6. $13/advance. $15/door. Get them now. Daara J is awesome.

So when I’m not a journalist, I occasionally moonlight as a web designer. This started way back in 1997, when I worked on the Ch‰teau de Bossey webpage when I was 15 and living in Switzerland. (My Aunt Heidi was the director of Bossey at the time.) My design for that page was so good that they haven’t changed it in eight years — ok, either that, or they’re lazy. My latest web design gig is for Mark Kohut, a…

So it’s official now. As of July 18, I will begin my new job as the Assistant Editor at Macworld magazine. Huzzah! Freelancing will take a backseat to Macworld, but all those pubs that I’ve been writing for (and some that I’m still working on) haven’t heard the last of me yet!

Here’s a few snapshots, as promised. And btw, Flickr is cool. I now have a photo stream on my blog site.

So I responded to an ad on craigslist yesterday. Tomorrow I’m going to pick up a cute, playful, eight week old black kitten from Pacifica. You, dear reader, have until 2 pm Pacific tomorrow to submit possible names that I’ll consider. Leave ’em in LJ comments or by email. The nominations are that I’ve found : Atoosah – ˆ-too-SAH (Daughter of Cyrus the Great) – آتوسا Baran – BAA-raan (Rain) – باران

خیام، اگر ز باده مستی، خوش باش با لاله رخی اگر نشتی، خوش باش چون عاقبت کار جهان نیستی است انکار گه نیستی ، چوهستی خوش باش – خیام Khayyam, if you are drunk on wine, be happy If you smell the face of a tulip, be happy For the end of the world’s work is non-existence Imagine you were not, but you are — be happy – Khayyam