Woohoo! I've moved offices - now I get to look across the courtyard to my old office. It's a whole new perspective.

- US within 10 miles of Baghdad
- F-18 may have been shot down by Patriot missile

- info minister promises "untraditional" "martyrdom" strikes
- Baghdad airport secured by coalition forces

Saddam walkabout
- shown walking among cheering crowds, oil fire smoke visible
- speech broadcasted (no video?) mentioning downing of Apache helicopter by farmer

I was chilling with Al at Jill's photoalbum party and he gave me some back and bike pointers. Pricepoint seems to have really good prices on parts. He also showed me the thudbuster line of suspension seat posts, which seem like a good replacement for my busted mountain bike seat post.

Fantasy Hockey league finished up today. Managed to scrape into second place. First place was never any question (know one even knows the guy).

Final Standings

- US forces in central Baghdad
- Body of 'Chemical Ali' found
- US performs another "decapitation attack" on possible Saddam location. Bombs location within 12 minutes of go order.

Iraq updates
- Baghdad quiet, majority of Iraqi troops may have deserted
- Looting in Baghdad

New Bin Laden tape
- calls for suicide attacks on US, British interests

Much to the despair of my soft feet, the clocks have shifted and we can play weekday ultimate once more.

This is the "big day" for our hawks. There's looting, celebration, and fighting in the streets of Baghdad. Images of Iraqis beating up toppled Hussein statues are everywhere, and the journalists's minders have disappeared.

The official Tahoe Injury Count is now up to three. My roommate Will did a mighty job of shattering both bones in his right leg at Heavenly (the death trap). I don't have that many details yet as this was one ski trip I managed to not be on.

- 7 US POWs released

Today, for the first time ever in my life, I did my own taxes. I used TaxCut instead of TurboTax, and while I appreciate the lack of DRM, I wasn't impressed with it's import capabilities or usability (especially for state). And after all my hard work, I end up owning less than I paid for the software, so I can't complain, though I would have appreciated simulated fireworks or something of the sort to congratulate me (as I am so proud of myself).

I believe this article was linked off slashdot. My main reason for bothering to post it here is that it has this amazing quote:

We also observed one case in which we believe cross activation enables a colorblind synesthete to see numbers tinged with hues he otherwise cannot perceive; charmingly, he refers to these as "Martian colors." Although his retinal color receptors cannot process certain wavelengths, we suggest that his brain color area is working just fine and being cross-activated when he sees numbers.

full article

US, Korea finally beginning talks

Debates over Palestinian terrorist detained in Iraq
- Oslo Peace accord appears to have given him amnesty
- Italy wants him to serve life in prison sentence
- Responsible for hijacking of cruise liner

I saw The Legend of Suriyothai at the Castro theater with Amanda, Adam, Josh, and Gesara. Among the notable attendees were the director/prince, Peter Coyote (identified by Gesara, the rest of us had no idea who he was), and Danny Glover (only seen by Adam). The movie seemed good, but it was clear that it was hastily cut to shorten it (though it was still a very long movie). There are many, many scenes and many characters that have to be followed over a long time frame, and to add even more confusion to situation, the actress that plays the young Suryiothai also plays Suryiothai's daughter later in the film.

After the movie we visited the Odeon Bar where we got to experience "It's Christian Karaoke night here at the Odeon." We didn't stay for the whole show.

As the movie was very hard to follow, I've tried to transcribe an outline below that will (hopefully) remember what happened.

Calle Johannson, a great long-time Cap, is leaving the team. He's angry at benching in final OT, relationship with Coach Cassidy. He was the all-time Caps leader in games and a respected leader. I believe he even took a paycut in previous negotiations in order to stay with the team.

Opteron released, benchmarks galore
- summary: Opteron spanks Xeon in some cases, hurt by lower Mhz
- most benchmarks don't take advantage of x86-64 with more architectural registers
- Opteron lags in SSE2 applications, excels in Java Web apps
- i.e. workstation apps (audio/video) in Intel's court, server apps in AMD's court.
- Itanium 2 looks threatening

Portability, Extensibility, and Robustness Lessons From iROS
Armando Fox
Interactive Workspaces Project, Stanford

SARS travel advisory for Toronto

North Korea admits it has nukes in talks with US

I saw the movie Holes today. I actually thought we were going to go see Bend it Like Beckham so I pleasanty surprised to see a well constructed movie that I had absolutely no preconceived notions about. In fact, if you do get the urge to see the movie, I suggest not reading anything about it as it will probably make the movie more enjoyable. I will say that it's a Disney movie based on a Newbury award-winning book.

Amanda and Bryan start building iStuff. It's some interesting stuff, and you can even build some stuff on your own. (Stuff on iStuff).

Vietnam reins in SARS

Article by Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Edge: WHY DO SOME SOCIETIES MAKE DISASTROUS DECISIONS?

I saw Bend it Like Beckham today. I enjoyed it much more than I thought it would given the type of movie that it is. I'm partially biased perhaps because I find humor about conservative Asian families especially humorous. The mentioning of Santa Clara was also fun for the audience cheers.

My favorite line of the movie was probably "Jess: She called me a Paki, but I guess that's something you wouldn't understand. Joe: I'm Irish."

My only disappointment with the movie is that I thought that the tension meter between Jess and Jules felt swung back and forth without feeling very realistic. It seems like the writer thought that it was necessary to create the appropriate transitions in the story, but didn't render them fully.