Spanish Lesson 2, or Leccion de Español Dos

Thanks to a friendly USPS female employee who works at my local post office, I found out that locos gatos potones means crazy big-footed cat:


sick fearless bastard
Originally uploaded by Crazy Ivory

Rails3: Migrating from MySQL to PostgreSQL

I encountered an error even though I had successfully run:

gem install pg

I googled:

install postgresql rails windows "no such file to load -- pg"

and Peter Mac helped me out. In your Rails 3 Gemfile, make the following change:

#  gem 'mysql'
  gem 'pg', :require => 'pg'

California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Yesterday, I finally had the chance to visit the California Academy of Sciences, motivated by my desire to see the Living Roof. They say if you live near a landmark, you tend to not make an effort to see it, and I believe that's what happened with me. Luckily, a friend from Belgium was in town, and I had the idea to show him and his wife the facility; unfortunately, plans fell through, but I decided to go alone. Every third Wednesday is Free Day. My advice: get in line as early as you can. I got in line at 8:40am, and the line was already fairly long. Doors open at 9:30am, and close at 5pm. By the time I left, at 2:45pm. the line was still extremely long, and people at the front had been waiting for 50 minutes.

http://www.calacademy.org/visit/

Photos are courtesy of SharpShooters.

Outside the entrance, doing my best scuba diver impression


Outside the "Extreme Mammals" exhibit, doing my best wooly mammoth impression (we're all showing our teeth)

Are you a sociopath, or just an extreme narcissist ?

Jenna meets a paramedic. He thinks she's incredible, and they seem perfect for each other. He leaves before they can plan to meet later, and now, at her wit's end, Jenna tells her coworker Pete the story. This reminds Pete of a book he once read, a question psychiatrists ask in order to ascertain whether a person is a sociopath:



Recently, a friend recommended a book, The Sociopath Next Door, which he says will keep you up at night, thinking how 1 out of every 25 people you meet would just as soon kill you as tell you to get out of the way. A fellow 30 Rock fan said on his blog:

...the basic principle of sociopaths viewing others as tools instead of people is entirely correct. Sociopathy is more than just a lack of emotion, they literally don’t connect to people the way human beings are supposed to.

Reference: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=179

All this talk of sociopathy (psychopathy is the outdated term) makes me wonder whether sociopath is the latest incarnation of witch, Communist, racist, or even terrorist. Who in their right mind, when accused of such a despicable thing, even labeled as such by an expert or authority, can figure out what to do or say to disprove it ?

Neon Signs on Korean Storefront from Nabbeun namja (2001)

After the Bad Guy gets beat up by the soldiers, he sees the girl's boyfriend meet up with the girl, and the Bad Guy covertly follows them around on their date. Towards the end of the evening, the boyfriend tries to lead the girl to a Korean storefront, but she hesitates, then refuses, and kicks her boyfriend in the leg before running off. The Korean storefront had neon signs in front. What do the neon signs say ?



**UPDATE**
This question has been answered by sonofberzerk on imdb:

It says "motel."
It's a love motel.
They're all over Seoul for couples who want to have sex, but can't get privacy at home because of living with parents or they're having affairs or something like that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307213/board/nest/164747758

In Memoriam: Alicia Scott Lee, 17, of Mill Valley, California

My heart goes out to Alicia's family. The photograph being referred to in the last sentence of the article is here:

[Alicia] was the subject of a published photograph herself recently, when a Chronicle photographer captured her examining a puddle at Crissy Field after a rainstorm in January.

The photo, which she adopted as her Facebook profile picture, shows her traipsing ankle-deep through the water, studying the ripples, camera around her neck.

Reference:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/MNB41CJAEO.DTL&tsp=1