* cababarant *

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Agassi through the years

In honor of Andre Agassi's impending retirement from tennis (and the frenzied coverage of America's 'living tennis legend') I thought it would be fitting to take a look at Agassi over the years.

Agassi gives the visual checklist to all his young fans for looking totally 80s:
1. Giant hair-sprayed mullet: check
2. BluBlocker sunglasses: check
3. Too-short acid wash jeans shorts: check
4. Spandex bright-colored bicycle shorts (worn under acid wash, of course): check

I think maybe the only thing missing are a layer of Jams bermuda shorts. Yeah, those were HOT.

I can't really say anything about this picture except for TRASHTASTIC!

Agassi's mullet gave Billy Ray's a run for its money.

Holy receding hairline! But at least he finally chopped off the "party in the back"...

....Andre then finally realized the "inconvenient truth" of his receding hairline and made the wise decision to go full-force baldy. With the mullet went the brash attitude, and Agassi finally became the 'zen' player he is today.

With wife Steffi (who, in contrast, has not changed at all over the years). We'll miss you Agassi, even if you did rock that mullet til it was good and dead. Don't worry though, we have fantastic Eurotrashy players like Rafael Nadal to take Andre's place in tennis' Bad Fashion Hall of Fame.

Links:
MSN Sports: Agassi Through The Years

posted by sheryl | 10:58 AM | comments (0)

Monday, August 21, 2006

Searching for answers

By way of the New York Times and Slate, I have discovered the search query list of AOL users. For those unfamiliar with the story, AOL published the list of 20 million search queries on their research website, with the intent that it could be used for academic research. Bloggers complained that this was a violation of privacy, and that many search queries are enough to identify user's identities (the NY Times proved it by figuring out one user's actual identity just by way of her search terms), so AOL removed the data last week.

I'm trying to redesign a search-oriented user interface for the company I'm working for, so Search has been on my mind a lot lately these past couple of weeks. This AOL story piqued my interest. Sounds kinda boring, but once I went into the database, I found it to be one of the most fascinating timesucks I've discovered in a long time. You can search by term and phrase, so I tried some that I thought might have interesting results. Keep in mind though; one has to put their squeamishness aside when looking through the database because believe me, you will run into some freaky shtuff. (and it also makes you realize that for a lot of people, "porn" and "internet" might as well be the same word. Pornonet?) And Slate writer Paul Boutin is correct in noting that no one seems to know how to spell "bestiality". (Just to give you an idea of what many users' searches involve!)

Some of the search strings are really fascinating. They are literally windows into people's lives. Because you can search by user number, you can see a single user's history. I actually started feeling sad and hoping that some of these people had other outlets than just the search box.
User 711391, for example, at some point started the query, "had an affair with a man and he thinks i need him now" followed by "how do you break off an affair" to "cheating on your mate is a waste of time" to "how to move on after a break up". I found another user who suddenly started a search string for "navy getting land duty in iraq" and "whidbey island sailors being sent to iraq " followed by "how to quit the military", "leaving the military while enlisted", "legal ways to quit military", then once again, "sending sailors to iraq". User 1932438, I feel for you. I hope you figure out what you need to do.

Most of all, I realized that many people need life's answers from the Internet. The Internet is like the Kwik E Mart Guru on the Simpsons: no real answers, just "Thank You, Come Again!" But I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, a lot of these searching souls' needs are at least a little fulfilled by simply being able to type their questions into that little existence-affirming box.

So here are some of my favorite queries:

The Practical-Minded:
what do wild ducks eat
how do I keep my slingback shoes on
what happens if you eat syrup everyday
preparing earthworms to eat
how do I prevent someone from parking way to close to my private driveway

The Crisis-Afflicted:
how do I live
don't know how I do it
why do I feel like I am going crazy
how do the kids and I cope after he has left us again
when a exboyfriend is still angry at you after you and him is broken up for years and i have 3 kids by him
i cheated on my wife and feel so guilty
why don't people like me how to make friends
my iguana has quit using her front legs

The Curious:
how do I look
why do cats throw up
does superman need to eat
why is pork shoulder also called pork butt

The Commanding:
Go eat breakfast

The Existential:
Why am I here

Links:
NY Times: AOL Removes Search Data On Vast Group of Web Users
NY Times: A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749
Slate: You Are What You Search

posted by sheryl | 11:02 AM | comments (0)

Friday, August 18, 2006

Brussels flower carpet

We went last Saturday to see the famous flower carpet in Brussels. Every two years, designers create a gigantic "carpet" made out of begonias in Brussels' Grand Place. It is on display in August for only four days, so we felt like this is something we should go check out. The funniest thing is that when I told our friend Sonja (who was staying at our house that weekend) that we were going to go see the Flower Carpet, she didn't look that impressed until I showed her pictures in a guidebook. She was like "Ohhhh, it's made out of flowers!" Apparently she thought it was like a giant rug with a flower pattern that they roll out every few years, and was like, "what's so special about that?!" I explained to her that, uh no, it's not just a huge Persian rug.

Well it was even more impressive than I thought it was going to be, even though pictures don't really capture it. Nor do the pictures capture the crowds! Jeez, you had to stand in line for waffles, even!

The 'Tapis de fleur' from the ground
Here's a panoramic shot I patched together from a balconey view

We went up to the balcony in the Hotel d'Ville to get a better view.

And of course, no trip to Brussels would be complete without a trip to Pierre Marcolini for bonbons.

But the most interesting part of our trip was getting stuck in Dordrecht, Netherlands. We were taking the train back, and apparently, a boat took out a bridge between the towns of Dordrecht and Zwijndrecht, so no trains were going anywhere. We got off the stuck train and asked what we were to do next. The NS train employees weren't much help: buses "might be coming" to take us (and everyone else) across the river to Zwijndrecht so everyone can catch trains to their destinations. Not very reassuring. Then we saw the crowd waiting for the so-called buses:

After about an hour, ONE bus showed up and half the people rushed it. We were like, "no way" which turned out to be a good decision because within a half hour, there was another half-assed announcement by the train people that the train to Rotterdam/Den Haag/Amsterdam would be running again. So the dash to the platform started:

We managed to squeeze ourselves onto the next train (which was not easy!)...

And at least we got a seat in the train vestibule -- and believe me, in situations like this, people don't have any sympathy for a pregnant lady with two kids. Kyle and I were joking that maybe I should start "experiencing labor" and see if that makes a difference!

We were home in 45 minutes after that, but not before some jackass squeezed himself into the vestibule with a giant bike, poking a little kid with an umbrella while he was maneuvering his big stupid bike. (What an idiot-- there is a bike parking car on Dutch trains.) Then the mom of the little kid started changing the kid's diaper in the crowded standing-room-only vestibule. Ugh. The only thing missing was a bunch of livestock to really turn it into a third-world situation. Where were the chickens?

I think we learned our lesson. Next time we're driving.

posted by sheryl | 11:04 AM | comments (0)

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Belated vacation pics

Wall design in the unfinished chapel of the Batalha Sanctuary, Batalha, Portugal

Now that I've finally recovered from vacation, here are a few pics from our hot-weather trip to Portugal and Spain.

We started our trip in Batalha, Portugal which is about 20 minutes away from Fatima. Not only is it 20 minutes away from Fatima, it is 15 minutes from the freeway via a winding, carsick-inducing, hair-raising 2-lane road. The funny thing is that after the third time driving it, I was used to it -- but I still wasn't used to the way Portuguese drivers ride your tail the whole way up and down the roads. This is a view of the huge gothic Batalha Sanctuary, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site (and rightly so). It is literally the center of the town of Batalha.

Monks in the hedge garden inside the Batalha Sanctuary.

There were lots of visiting monks and nuns on tour in Batalha. In fact, the little guy was at one point acting like a real little brat at the sanctuary, crying, whining and acting up. Some visiting nuns ahead of us turned around and gave him a little medallion of Mary with a card attached (a very different reaction than laypeople usually have to the little guy's tantrums!). It so happened that they were a visiting group from a convent in Quezon City, Philippines of all places!

A nun doing the stations of the cross in the Fatima Sanctuary

Next up was Fatima, where we were in the region to see the holy sanctuary where three children met the apparition of the Virgin Mary in the early 1900s. A lucky coincidence is that we happened to be there on the 13th of the month: on the 13th of the months between May and October, there is a mass and procession at Fatima to celebrate the Virgin Mary sightings (which took place during those months in 1917. It was really incredible to see the crowds waving their hankerchiefs at the statue of Mary as it went around the sanctuary and back into the chapel, many of whom were weeping and weeping. It was something to behold.

Statue of the Virgin Mary during the procession on the 13th.

Wax limbs for burning at at the Fatima Chapel.
Outside of the sanctuary, there were lots of religious tchotchkes for sale, including giant candles and wax limbs for bringing into the sanctuary to burn in prayer. I guess the limbs are for praying for a specific body ailment. (It's things like this that make people think of Catholicism as freaky, I'm sure!)

After our pilgrimage in the northern part of the country, we headed south to the beaches in the Algarve. We were staying in the tiny town of Moncarapacho, which is less than 100 kilometers from the Spanish border. It was hot down there.

A road sign in Setubol.
The funny thing about this sign is that five minutes earlier, we were driving around Setubol (trying to find a way out) and we saw a little old man on the side of a very busy street pushing a wheelbarrow, slow as a snail. I guess it's enough of a problem for them to require a sign for it-- and you'd better not be caught pushing a wheelbarrow while walking your cow!

In the eastern part of the Algarve, many of the nice beaches are on sandbars. This is the beach at Santa Luzia, where you need to take a little 'Noddy' train to the beach. I haven't been much impressed with European beaches in the past, but the beaches we went to in the Algarve were excellent, with actual turquoise water, even. It made me forget that they are actually on the Atlantic ocean.

We went to Lagos, where the beaches sit between tons of rock formations. It was especially cool because you can take a boat ride with a salty old Portuguese guy who will drive in and out of the caves and point out how the rock formations look like Elvis and King Kong (I didn't agree, but hey, you just have to nod like, "Ah, yes, King Kong..."

On the little motor boat with the crusty old tour guide.

Eating biscuits after a morning spent swimming.

Next up was Madrid. We took, first, a long bus ride from Faro, Portugal, to Seville, Spain, followed by a trip on the AVE high-speed train from Seville to Madrid. Exhausting.

Garden at the Museo Sorolla

Most of my photos from Madrid are of our eating adventures (which I've posted over at Crispy Waffle) but we did hit some favorite spots, including the little Museo Sorolla which is a few blocks from where I once lived. It is the artist Joaquin Sorolla's house, transformed into a museum after his death, and is one of my favorite museums ever. It has many of the same qualities as the Mauritshuis (which is my all-time favorite): a relatively small space, both are old houses with intimate spaces for viewing large works. In addition, the Sorolla museum has a beautiful little Moorish garden, originally designed by the artist himself.

Of course, we had to go to the Prado and visit Las Meninas. There was also a great Picasso exhibit going on, which featured his series of Las Meninas variations, as well as other works inspired by Prado masterpieces. This, Los tres Musicos, was the little guy's favorite. He called it Robot Parade, after his favorite song from They Might Be Giants No! album. Clever, little guy!

One of the places we went was a convent where they sold various types of pastries. I had read about it somewhere-- one of our guidebooks maybe-- so we headed over there because it was close to Plaza Mayor, where we were getting some bocadillos calamares (Plaza Mayor is famed for its squid sandwiches). The convent is a "closed" convent, which means you can't see the nuns who reside there, so the purchase window was a weird spinning lazy susan, from which a disembodied voice took your orders. So bizarre! The pastries weren't that great, but the whole thing was crazy and weird, so it was well worth it. Unfortunately, I was laughing too hard to take a good photo of the lazy susan thing (I was struggling with my Spanish and the disembodied voice seemed to be losing patience with me), thankfully, my sister was able to snap a picture. The convent courtyard was surprisingly quiet-- a haven of silence in the middle of the bustling city.

The purchase window at the convent

A classically español tiled plaque in the convent courtyard

posted by sheryl | 12:02 PM | comments (0)