Aviator

'Aviator' is the kind of spectacle that hasn't been seen much since the golden days of Hollywood. The movie plays like a sense memory with Technicolor skies, ravishing and silver planes and celebrated nightspots like the Coconut Grove with big-bands and showgirls.

But it is, first and foremost, the story of Howard Hughes (DiCaprio)...aviator, filmmaker, industrial pioneer and a man with many beautiful women in his life. He was the richest man in America in his day, but he took outrageous risks with his money, pushing his fortunes to the breaking point and beyond. As his fame and reputation grew, his personal demons did, too. He suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, was phobic about germs, and as his success grew, so did his paranoia.

Last night, another couple came over to my girl-friend's house for some wine and cheese. The guy had a really bad cold but after I mentioned that once in a while my girl-friend would get upset with something I say, he shook my hand to congratulate me with the fact that 'once in a while' was much better than he had to deal with with his girl-friend. After they left, the door hadn't closed yet, or my girl-friend was instructing me to wash my hands and take some flu medicine, assuming that I surely would get sick after touching his hands.

According to some sources, germs phobia can be triggered by myriad benign events like movies, TV, or perhaps seeing someone else experience trauma. So I maybe should refrain from showing the Aviator DVD to my girl-friend..

Dogma

Kevin Smith, a churchgoing Catholic, uses Dogma to explore a wide range of church-related issues. The film comes to a head at a church rededication in Red Hook, N.J., conducted by a cardinal who is interested in updating the way Catholicism markets itself in the modern world.

This Christmas Eve I attended a service in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. And allthough the 'Our Father' prayer that we recited is still applicable today, I suggest that the Catholic church considers using these modernized guidelines for its followers to read and reflect upon:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R's:
- Respect for Self
- Respect for other's
- Responsibility for all your actions
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Don't' let a little dispute injure a great relationship
6. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
7. Spend some time alone every day.
8. Open arms to change but don't let go of your values.
9. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
10. Live a good honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
11. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
12. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
13. Be gentle with the earth.
14. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
15. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds the need for each other.
16. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
17. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Beautiful Girls

In this entertaining drama, bar pianist Willie leaves New York City for Knight's Ridge, Massachusetts, to attend a high school reunion. He's unsure about his job and whether or not to commit to Tracy and finds his working-class buddies in a similar funk. Tommy plows snow for a living and is caught in the crossfire between his lover and a passionate affair with his married ex-girlfriend. Paul has just been ditched by Nan for a butcher and is mad that the women in town don't match the pin-ups on his wall. It takes three women to get these confused men straight about love relationships.

Natalie Portman steals the movie as a wise-beyond-her-years 13 year old. Uma Thurman lets the boys know what women really want. And Rosie O'Donnell demolishes the unreality of the typical male view of female beauty. Populated with colorful characters, this comedy hits the spot with its wry observations on sexual politics.

So what comes it all down to? Women seek love, men seek respect. Women want relationships, men want sex and love, women want commitment, men freedom. So men are sometimes reticent about getting into a relationship. Eventually though, most guys want to settle down. I think I'm ready to settle down..

Divorce Italian Style

Other than an amusing comedy, Divorce Italian Style is one part decadent nobility and two parts Bluebeard the ladykiller. Marcello Mastroianni proves he's a master of clever characters in the role of a self-style smoothie who intends to get rid of his pest of a signora and live to romance the girl next door. Divorce is unthinkable in Catholic Italy, but for this hot-blooded Romeo, where there's a will there's a way.

In the movie, our Romero is parading his wife around town in her most sexy outfit. He is hoping that this will induce the interest of other men resulting in one of them having an affair with her.

Over the last couple of weekends, I attended some holiday parties with my girl-friend. She dressed up as well and received a lot of attention. This weekend we're planning to go to a Christmas service in a Catholic church in San Francisco. This time, I'll ask her to not dress up..

Winged Migration

Do those who consider themselves free, think much about birds? It may only be after time stuck in a classroom, an office, or a prison, that someone watches them seriously.

The documentary "Winged Migration" follows five years' worth of bird migrations around the world. European turtledoves, jungle macaws, booming sage grouses in Idaho, Vietnamese black-headed ibexes: these and several dozen other species are observed, following the curve of the globe in the search of food and warmth.

The last 2 weeks of November, my parents were visiting me here in the US. As my mom really likes birds, I started to watch them more consciously when we were visiting places such as Año Nuevo State Park and the Pinnacles National Monument.

As birds are the ultimate representation of freedom, does the fact that I'm noticing birds mean that my relationship is showing long-term potential?

The Motorcycle diaries

Before he became the Marxist revolutionary icon known as "El Che," Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was an Argentine medical student tired of school and itching to see the world.
So on January 4, 1952, the 23-year-old Guevara and his friend Alberto Granada jumped on an old motorcycle and embarked on an eight-month journey across South America.
The trek is chronicled in the movie The Motorcycle Diaries.

Traveling splits many moments in two: melancholy for what is left behind and excitement of entering a new space.

Similar moments occur in relationships and currently I'm in a new space. But as I'm so excited about this new place, melancholy is not part of the equation.

Pillow Book

This weekend I saw the Peter Greenaway movie "The Pillow Book". The film is about a successful model who revives memories of her calligrapher father by having her lovers give her pleasure by writing on her body. An affair with an Englishman leads her to start writing herself, using others as her paper.

This weekend was my girl-friend's birthday and I wanted to surprise her with a trip to Mendocino. As a friend also invited me to a Halloween party this weekend, I had to decline the invitation. My friend answered "wow! Already spending bday together! congrats. You have such good karma or something you did in a past life (or this life!!) is bringing you great luck w/ girl-friends". I was so proud of my good Karma, that I forwarded the message to my girl-friend.

I missed one minor detail though - the email also contained my original message saying that I wasn't able to make it because I was going to Mendocino. So by forwarding the email, my girl-friend knew all along where we were going. Even some of her friends that I met before the trip were in on it.

We still had a fantastic weekend. But in order to not give away any suprises in the future, maybe writing on bodies instead of email isn't such a bad idea after all

In the mood for Love

This weekend I watched "In the Mood for Love", a romance melodrama which tells the story of a married man (played by Tony Leung) and a married woman (played by Maggie Cheung), living in rented rooms of neighboring apartments. They fall in love with each other while grappling with the infidelities of their respective spouses whom they discover are involved with each other. It’s a beautiful movie by any standard: the colors, the mood, the story, the acting, the soundtrack.

This weekend, I was also staying at my girl-friend's house. We were ready to go to bed and when I came out of the bathroom, the lights in the house were already out except for one candle in the bedroom. I considered it very thoughtful of her that she lighted a candle so I could find my way to the bed and I blew it out after I got there.

Wrong move... the candle wasn't intended to help me find my way. My baby was in the mood for love and my little blow did turn off more than just the light..

Meet the parents

'Meeting the parents' has gotten a whole different meaning over the last 3 weeks. My new sweetheart has never introduced any boy-friend to her parents because if she would, they would expect her to marry the guy.

Yesterday, we went out bowling with some friends. Arnie, a family therapist was there as well. Other than 'the parents', the number '6' is weighting heavily on our new relationship as well (see previous posting). So my sweetheart suggested that we should talk to Arnie about this number six and how every time I would mention it, she would gets hip cramps.

The only professional advice that he could give me was short and sobering: "Take a second job; do you know what college education is costing nowadays?"

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Set in the '50s, 'The Prize Winner of Defiance' is the true story of one woman's effort to keep her family of 10 afloat under difficult circumstances with winnings from jingle contests. Applying her remarkable resourcefulness and an uncommon wit, she finds her own way in the profitable jingle contests popular in the 1950s and '60s. The result is a bittersweet comedy-drama.

One of the perks that comes with working at the SF Film festival is a free membership of the SF Film Society. This enabled me to see a prescreening of the movie in San Francisco. Following the 'contest' theme of the movie, there was a free raffle before the screening.

I couldn't believe my luck. Not because I won anything in the raffle because I didn’t. I felt lucky because my date for the movie is turning out to be a winner in every way imaginable.

Update: my beautiful date read my palm this weekend and concluded that we would have 6 kids. Guess I should get into the contest business as well.

Lost in Translation - II

Sunday morning I picked up a free magazine called ‘Possibilities’. It contained a section called 'Translating Girl Speak':

You’re sweet = You’re boring
Sweet is a bland term about as exciting as a plain white T-shirt. It’s a filler adjective, like nice. It’s a pleasant word to use when she’s trying to spare your ego a little pain and can’t think of something better to say. She enjoys you as a friend, but there’s no special magic there to propel you to boy-friend material.

What are you thinking right now? = I’m interested in you, and I hope you’re thinking about me
This is the classic. Where you’re thinking of something mundane or work-related, while she’s looking at you and thinking of you in a special way. Now you have three seconds to come up with something profound. As a standby try “I was just thinking of how pretty your hair looks when we’re outside in the sun”.

I had a really time with you = Please ask me out again
Commonly women don’t pursue; they drop hints, and the rest is up to you. Women give signals of encouragement: laughing at your lame jokes, twisting hair around their fingers, or dangling a shoe off the end of their feet. So go ahead, and make the next move.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I had a date Saturday night. And I like her. At the wine bar, she asked me a couple of times what I was thinking. When we left the bar, she almost lost her shoe while standing up. And she called me while I was still on my way home to tell me that she really had a great time. At last, I’m not clueless anymore.

About Schmidt

About Schmidt is a funny and dark comedy in which Warren Schmidt retires from his 20+ year career at an insurance company. This event is causing him to reflect on his life and along the road of self-discovery, he finds something new and meaningful in his thoroughly unimpressive life: preventing his daughter from getting married to a underachieving waterbed salesman.

The days before the wedding, Warren is staying with the free-spirited family of his soon-to-be in-laws. While he is sitting in the Jacuzzi by himself, his son-in-Law’s mother comes out of the house naked and joins him in the tub, making Warren feel very uncomfortable.

This scene in the movie reminded me of a third date I had late last year. After getting back from dinner, me and my date were sitting on the couch and sipping some wine. All of a sudden my date got up and said ‘Hey, let’s get in the hot tub!’ As it was supposed to be a dinner date, a bathing suit was not on my list of 'items to bring' for this particular date but soon it became clear that wearing bathing suits was not required.

Needless to say that on that night I got to know my date much better than I could have hoped for.. :)

Vertigo

me: 6th row from the back (or is it top?)

Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" starts with a scene where Scottie, a detective, slips down a steep roof and ends up dangling from a flimsy rain gutter.

While I was dangling upside down in the "Vertigo" rollercoaster at Six-Flags Marine World during our team offsite, it felt like I would have been better off hanging on to a rain gutter and that I'd taken a wrong turn in life. The fries in my stomach made it clear that they only wanted to go in one direction: up.

Before riding Vertigo, I made sure that I didn’t have any loose items in my pockets. When I was about to remove my Google badge, one of my peers told me not remove it. “If you want to pick-up women, wear your badge. It’s a statement that you have a job and they love that!”

The subtleties of dating are all in the details: rings, badges…

Sideways

With my dating life fading, letting go leaves me with a problem: how am I going to maintain this page and create new content that still relates to the title of this blog?

Introducing: Nick and the Celine. They flew in from Las Vegas for a long weekend in Napa. Both divorced, their kids with their exes and judging by the way how they looked at one another, it was clear that wine was not the main objective for their trip. Their brand new Mustang convertible stopped next to my Miata on the empty parking lot just when my friend and I were about to leave my car to check if the tasting room was still open. And as the winery wasn’t closed just yet, my friend went back outside to let Nick and his lovely companion know that they should come in as well. While they entered the tasting room, my friend jokingly told the woman behind the counter that the guy who came in just after us would pay for our tasting.

Nick didn’t blink an eye, pulled a stack of twenty dollar bills out of his pocket and put two of them down on the counter to pay for our tasting. Despite our objections, he insisted on paying and with the conversation flowing as easily as the wine, we convinced our new found friends to join us for one final stop at Vander Heyden. Different tasting room, familiar scenario. Before we were able to close the door behind us, Nick put his twenty dollar bills on the counter and minutes later we were sipping a late harvest cabernet...

Three weeks have passed since then and it appears that Celine travelled back to France. It's unclear if this is a permanent move. But if a sequel for Sideways hasn't been planned for yet, I think I can provide some plot ideas... :)

Fight Club

First rule of Fight Club: do not talk about Fight Club

I would argue that the movie Fight Club is avante garde sublime art. The film seduces and indoctrinates, urging the viewer to confront his or her own emotion. Despite the destruction in the movie, the visual image is beautiful.

Edward Norton plays Jack, the main character in the movie. In today’s western culture that's been robbed of its masculine principle, Jack finds himself only accepting his masculinity through tears and the estrogen-enriched breasts of another man. Jack represents today’s males - they're lovely, valuable people, not interested in harming the earth, or starting wars. But there's not much energy in them. They are life-preserving and not exactly life-giving.

And then, something happened to Jack. He let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. He found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

Lately I'm starting to think that I should let go as well with regards to my dating efforts. Freedom.

Kinsey

Science versus Emotion

One of the best films of 2004, Kinsey pays tribute to the man who revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality. Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey was so consumed by statistical measurements of human sexual activity that he almost completely overlooked the substantial role of emotions and their effect on human behavior.

The film has some funny moments; when conducting sex interviews to make a census of American sexual behavior, an immigrant in broken english reveals he had, "sex with horse", to which the interviewer tries to retain composure and interrogate him further, and the immigrant replies, "No, I had sex with Horace. Horace!"

Last week I ran into my ex girl-friend. The one with the pearl necklace. Amazingly, the scientific side of my brain was telling me 'What did you ever see in her anyway' but at the same time my emotion was going the complete opposite way...

Big Fish

Daffodils in Big Fish..

Tim Burton's "Big Fish" and the book "Life of Pi" are very similar in that they both are a manifestation of people telling their life stories, leaving it up to their audience to determine whether those stories are based on true facts, just imagination, or both.

Telling stories is a big part of dating as well. It's the initial process of getting to know somebody as it provides information on who we are and the choices we make in life. And as it's only natural that when you like somebody, you want to make a good first impression, there's the potential that the real story gets a little decoration to make it look better. That's not necessarily a bad thing; don’t we all want to be entertained? I therefore think that the final question in "Life of Pi" with regards to which version of the story is the better one is a rhetorical question.

My stories from last week include meetings with women I don't get, I can't get or I couldn't retain. Even decoration wouldn't make any of those stories entertaining.

For the record, I just want to state that all the entries in this blog are based on real stories... :)

Seinfeld

Jerry and co

How do you determine if somebody you're dating isn't a date anymore but has become a girl-friend... Are these the correct criteria to check for:

• How long have you been seeing her?
• Phone call frequency - are you on a daily?
• Do you have to ask her out on Saturday night or is a date implied?
• Does she have anything in your medicine cabinet?
• All of the above?

So if somebody you're seeing wants to spend her birthday with you, does this supersede any of the criteria as mentioned above?

I-Robot

I-Robot

Jeffrey Rayport, a Harvard professor, visited Google this week to talk about his book "Best Face Forward”. Jeffrey argued that new technology is changing the way how businesses are building relationships with consumers and gave examples of how people are currently interfacing with technology and robotic devices.

Apparently, users of the iPod in the Mid-West have come to believe that their iPod knows what is going on in their life and selects appropriate music for the moment. At the end of a 10k run they get exhausted and all of a sudden iPod switches to the theme of "Rocky" and they see Stallone working out in a gym, making them realize that they can make it to the finish as well. The iPod as an intelligent device that is interactive, wearable and knows who you are.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a device with extra sensory perception that could be used for dating? The iDate would be able to take the guessing part out of the process. No more 2nd or 3rd dates that won't be going anywhere; no more wasted time or emotional energy because of a misinterpretation of the word 'maybe'.. I see a big market potential!

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Zhang Zi-Yi as Jen

(Updated) Over the last couple of months, I've met a lot of interesting women and learned a lot. Mostly about myself. One of the things I came to realize was that despite the fact that from a character perspective Asian women might be more closely aligned with my personality than American women, I always found myself more attracted to white women. That was, until 2 weeks ago when I met somebody from China. She’s attractive, a lot of fun and has a great sense of humor. A combination I find hard to resist.

So what did I really learn about myself? That I’m contradicting myself a lot. How’s that for useful knowledge!

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has no shortage of beautiful Asian women and breathtaking battles. It also has the dramatic soul of a Greek tragedy.
In some Asian cultures, it’s considered impolite to ask for something. You are supposed to wait until something is offered to you. So how to determine the right moment for a first kiss - or the suggestion for a more ‘adventurous’ next date? At times, women are already hard to understand as it is and adding a cultural component to it might be the ouverture for another Greek tragedy.

Casablanca

Rick and Sam..

With the temperature climbing to the 90's today, I had a craving to see Casablanca on this hot summer day.

Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

Casablanca transports you to another era and is a classic tale of lost love found again and then put at risk of being lost once and for all. Rick is our hero, and his lost love is the stunningly beautiful Ilsa. He has been wounded, and has built a life to avoid repeated injury. After some of my dating adventures over the past year, it's a life that starts to look more and more appealing.

Ilsa: Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.
Sam: [lying] I don't know what you mean, Miss Elsa.
Ilsa: Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By."

Sam isn’t playing anymore but Ladysmith Black Mambazo is. Tomorrow in San Francisco. And although Ilsa won't be joining me, I'm excited because another lady will.

Gone with the Wind

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh

"Gone with the wind" - Last night I finally watched this Epic movie for the first time ever. It is the story of the beautiful and willful Scarlett O'Hara and her rapacious drive to insulate herself from the hardships of war. The film romanticizes the vision of the South as it never really was and that disappeared after the civil war. Gone with the wind... and so is my Kaboom girl.

After deciding that we were not 'getting anywhere', I felt kind of sad. Not because of what really was, but more about missing on what could have been. Anticipation creates a perfect world, a happy place to wander around. Until the wind blows it away..

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

Although she is preparing for her bar exam, my date still was able to take a break from studying and we were planning to see "My summer of Love". It turned out that the schedule on the Internet was outdated so we ended up seeing "War of the Worlds" instead.

My date used to be a teacher and is still tutoring English language for Asian companies. Before the movie, we had a quick dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant. After I ordered a beef curry, the Asian waiter asked me if I wanted the beef with 'brick'. I didn't have any clue what he was talking about. After he had repeated the question twice, I still didn't understand him and just confirmed that 'brick' would be ok.

My date smiled and asked me 'You don't know what you just ordered, do you?' I answered 'No, I don't..'

A couple of minutes later, the waiter came back to apologize; they were out of 'brick' and he wanted to know if rice was ok as well.

Foxy Lady

Robben Ford

Robben Ford is one of the great guitarists of our time. Wednesday evening I found myself sitting in the Kuumbwa jazz club in Santa Cruz, less than 6 feet away from the stage where Robben Ford and his band were playing. An intimate club setting, a bottle of wine on the table and great music.

Sometimes, I have those flashes of really feeling good about life in general and about myself in particular. I had one of those on Wednesday evening. It wasn't just the show; I was sitting next to the co-founder of RockShox, a major brand name for Mountain bike and Motorbike suspension systems. A successful women who was able to retire in her thirties and had made an excellent choice by picking me to join her. I'm sure the Gods were smiling on me. At least for one evening.

Mad Hot Ballroom

From clumsy to graceful

Where I'd be hoping for a long weekend with my Kaboom girl, we ended up seeing a movie and spending some quality time on the couch.

The movie we watched, "Mad Hot Ballroom", explores teams of young dancers in four New York City elementary schools. Many of the youngsters live in poverty, come from broken homes and live in neighborhoods of despair. The children have 10 weeks to prepare for a city ballroom dancing competition, with categories that include the meringue, tango and swing.

It's a really sweet movie although it didn't show any details about the challenging home situation of the children. One girl describes her ideal future husband as someone who has an education and doesn't deal drugs. Another talks about her mother's friends being drunk at parties, and one suggests that her mother dump her father because he cheats on her.

Despite their young age, some of the children showed an incredible sense of style and rhytm, and it was amazing to watch the kids evolve from clumsy to close-to-graceful and from hesitant to confident. Is that something that only can be learned at a younger age? Maybe I should run an experiment and take some Salsa lessons. As with most women nowadays, my Kaboom girl has a full life; but as dancing is one of her passions, this would most likely enable me to spend more time with her. And if things wouldn't work out, my new found grace would surely attract other women.. :)

Psycho

Lurid Love Letters

Last night, I saw an outdoor screening of "Psycho" with some friends in San Jose. As I only remembered the shower scene, I'd forgotten about the opening scene where the camera pans across skyscrapers, pauses at a half-open window - takes a moment to adjust to the black interior - and then pans to the right where a semi-nude couple just completed an intimate lunch-time encounter:

Sam: You never did eat your lunch, did you?
Marion: I'd better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.
Sam: Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? It's Friday anyway - and hot.
Marion: What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?
Sam: Well, you could laze around here a while longer.
Marion (foreshadowing a future hotel visit): Hmm. Checking out time is 3 pm. Hotels of this sort are interested in you when you come in, but when your time is up. Oh Sam, I hate having to be with you in a place like this.
Sam: Married couples deliberately spend an occasional night in a cheap hotel.
Marion: I know marriage can do a lot of things deliberately.
Sam: You sure talk like a girl who's been married.
Marion: Sam, this is the last time.
Sam: For what?
Marion: For this, meeting you in secret so we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips. We steal lunch hours. I wish you wouldn't even come.
Sam: All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters?

It's a fitting scene for a hot summer evening in downtown San Jose. The warm weather always brings out my desire for a summer fling. For now, I'll have to settle for lurid love emails though as everybody seems to be out of town.

Das Boot

Fresh Air

"Das Boot" is one of the most convincing war movies ever made. The film is authentic, captivating and features great acting and character development. When the crew finally gets a breath of fresh air after being stuck on the bottom of the sea, I literally could feel their relief. As a viewer you emerge from the experience drained, blinking in the light, but oddly triumphant.

It's the same feeling I'm currently experiencing while looking back at my affair with the girl with the pearl necklace; I'm able to look at red Corolla's now without my heartbeat going up. I can listen to music that I bought her without actually starting to think about her. There are still things that I miss - doing groceries together, lying in the grass on a Sunday afternoon, impromptu meetings at a restaurant, cooking diner at home. But I've been meeting some interesting women and I'm convinced that pretty soon I will find somebody else to do those things with. And more. A breath of fresh air..

No contact

Pim's Angels..

The job of a track Marshal is to ensure that drivers are obeying the track rules. I'm not sure though why during our team offsite at Gokartracing, every Marshall appeared to hold up the sign 'No Contact' every time I passed them. Traffic lights that are signaling me, Marshall's spelling it out - although women seem to enjoy talking and emailing with me, maybe I fail to really get through to them: 'No Contact'.

Race result: I finished on second place.. :)

Resevoir Dogs

Ms. Blonde & Mr. Blue, Brown, Orange,White, Pink..

Quentin Tarantino came out of nowhere and turned Hollywood on its ear in 1992 with his explosive first feature, Reservoir Dogs. In the special feature section of the DVD, Eddie Bunker, one of the actors in the movie, is interviewed while driving around in a convertible. At some point he states "Perseverance overcomes everything; luck, intelligence.. everything".

I had to think about this statement during a management offsite in Napa where I found myself sitting in a stretched limo, surrounded by Harvard MBAs, former CEOs, Novelists, and people who lived in hostile parts of Russia and Africa. For a moment I felt out of place - an ordinary guy from a small village in Europe. How did I end up sitting in this limo? I realized that it wasn't just luck and that it had something to do with perseverance. And at least some intelligence.. ;-)

The Oscars

Fooooooooosball

My dormant competitive nature reared its ugly head again this week during an innocent foosball tournament. We played against one of the favorites and after we took the lead, things were getting down and dirty. Our opponent Ra was getting irritated with his partner Pa for not blocking my shots and then Pa took it out on me, saying that the Dutch were despicable because they came out in their boats to destroy villages and rape the women. OK, the Vikings weren't actually Dutch but still, the tone was set. It was hilarious and despite her verbal tactics and battle cries which could be heard througout the whole office, we won and I could feel the adrenaline flowing through my veins. I couldn't believe how caught up I was in the game.

Competitivenes not only plays at an individual level; because my team did a great job on hitting their numbers last week, we received a standing ovation in our departmental meeting. For a moment I thought I was attending the Oscar ceremony. Sometimes it feels like I'm living my life here on one big Hollywood set; in Holland people are less abundant in celebrating their achievements so I’m not really used to it. Still, doing better than the other teams felt good.

Maybe that's why I'll never be comfortable with this whole dating ritual; I hate coming in second..

LA Story

Signs

The movie "LA Story" with Steve Martin is a reflection of life in Los Angeles from the perspective of an intellectual weather man looking for love and guidance from a highway traffic sign.

Something weird happened tonight when I was doing my late night run. The first time it happened, I didn’t really pay attention to it. But when it happened a second and third time within 10 minutes, it began to feel spooky: when I came close to a road light, it either started to blink or went out completely.

Are the road lights giving me signals, just like the traffic sign in "LA Story"? If so, what are they telling me? Just like my dating instincts, at times I'm kind of clueless but maybe they are saying "This blogging is taking way too much time. Stop toying around and get a steady girl-friend". :) Easier said than done though.

Garden State

Sleepwalking

This weekend I picked up the DVD "Garden State". The film features pleasant quirky characters, has a real sense of humor, affection for its title location and a romance that feels sweet and comfortable.

During the four days that occur in the film, Andrew, the main character, is being thrown out of his complacent medicated state, literally and metaphorically - his dead end job at a Restaurant and his futile pursuit of a real acting job. At the end of the movie, he's only just beginning to deal with how to live his life and create his own destiny.

The movie has a true message for anyone who feels like they've been sleepwalking through life. I might have been in a similar state in my late twenties and early thirties so maybe that's why I can identify with this feel good movie. That and the great soundtrack.

Shrek

Oulala!!; my French Fiona

Movies can provide valuable guidance in today's dating jungle. Unfortunately Shrek wasn't one of the movies I was hoping for to be part of my guidebook. That my ad resulted in mistaken identity was pretty funny. Looking back, I'm still not sure if the following exchange was even funnier or just plain sad. It started of with this reply to my ad:

Reply #1: A pic is attached...you can guess which one I am and send one to me...maybe you in the middle of your 100 co-workers at the last Christmas party ??!!

Reply #2: Anyway, I just hope you are not the guy almost seated on the right. And If I am wrong you owe me anyway another chance...as I am your third choice on my pic!!

(ouch - she was my third choice out of 3 women on the picture)

Reply #3: So I was more than wrong???? Oulala, what a poor beginning!!! Maybe we should meet, just to laugh about that and see if you and I are finally looking better than Shrek!

(ouch - I was the person seated on the right)

Date Identity Theft

If love isn’t coming to me, then I'll have to find it myself. That's what I decided a while ago. But maybe I've overdone it a little. This became even more apparent when I noticed that the contextual Google ads on my blog are all related to 'dating' which means that Google's technology considers that to be the main topic of my blog.

Maybe I should check out some of those dating ads for advice. Why? I'm not even getting the opportunity to be rejected anymore because other guys are stealing my dating identity! This is a note I received from somebody I emailed with quite a while ago. At the time she stopped replying to my messages and we certainly never spoke on the phone:

I was so taken by your emails that I wrote a bunch of responses, and you responded and I responded again and then it turned into a picture and then phone conversations and then we made a date. I have to say, I noticed the emails started to get less and less interesting, and on the phone you actually sounded like a dork. I asked you something about your marketing job and you responded, "What? I do computer consulting." I realized that somewhere along the line I mixed up your email address with someone else's. What I want to know is if YOU have a picture you'd like to share, maybe seeing a face along with a screen name will save me (and some other unlucky guy) some grief!!!

So this dork got to meet the woman that enjoyed talking to *me*. How pathetic is that. So where can I learn how to become a dork..? :)

Impuls buys

X&Y

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and i will try to fix you

Until recently I always made sure that I would get the best deal when shopping around for something. Lately I've been relying much more on impulses. Like yesterday when I picked up the lastest ColdPlay CD. It has some amazingly beautiful songs on it that go straight to the heart.

Small Talk

Wine and dine

A common thread with regards to most women I'm dating is that I'm ending up in this situation dreaded by all men: just being friends. Which brings me to friends of friends.

This weekend I spent the Saturday with my date from Sweden, exploring the best that the wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains have to offer. It's June, clear blue skies, temperatures in the high seventies, the top of the car is down and sunscreen covers our arms and faces. In a restaurant we run into a friend of my Nordic companion to open the conversation, her friend's boy-friend asks me this first priceless question:

Do you snowboard?

How can you not love friends of friends.

Unlisted blogdress

Note from a friend: "Curse you and your blog!!!!!! Now that I've discovered it, I keep going back and discovering more things. How will I ever get any work done now??"

Quote from a chat with another friend: "If I were dating you, I wouldn't like finding information about other dates on your blog; it might actually drive women away because of perceived competition".

Starting a blog seemed to be a good idea at the time - keeping family and friends informed and offering an avenue to reflect on things that go on in your life. But maybe the benefits of my life adventures being an open book are outweighed by less desirable consequences. Or is there something like an unlisted blogdress?

Crash

Crash revisited

My personal ad implied that it would be ok for respondents to overhaul my wardrobe and crash my car. However, after seeing the movie 'crash' I am starting to wonder if crashing my car first might actually be a better way to 'connect' with somebody instead of having it crashed later.

'Crash' begins with a monologue by a police officer in the aftermath of a fender-bender. "We're always behind this metal and glass," he murmurs. "And we miss the sense of touch so much that we crash into each other." In the movie some people are literally coming together as the result of various crashes although the title of the film also applies to the interactions of the city's various ethnic groups, encounters that can range from a gentle bump to a head-on collision.

But how would I know if somebody really is my soul-crash-mate? I only have one car so I'd need to get it right the first time around...

Starter Marriage

The Detonator Plus

This weekend I was introduced to the concept of 'Starter marriage'. Even Arnie, an accomplished family therapist who most gracefully let me use his green bowling ball in exchange for mentioning his name on this blog, wasn't familiar with this phenomena.

'Starter marriage' : noun. A first marriage that lasts only a short time and that ends in a clean (i.e., no kids, no property, no acrimony) divorce.
'Starter marriage' plays on the term 'starter house', a the nice little place you move into because you're ready to buy a house, you can afford it, and it seems right for you, at least at the time. And whether or not you admit it to yourself, it's a place in which you don't intend to stay very long.

So why do people 'buy'? People have stated different reasons such as "I bought because it was time to buy, and I thought if I didn't, I would miss my chance". Other people have mentioned "I bought because there were other potential buyers, and I thought I was going to be priced out of the market".

My backdoor neighbors are definitely preparing for their 'starter marriage'. Their lovemaking was so loud this evening that I had to turn up the volume of my new stereo to levels I didn't know it was capable of to suppress their moaning and my envy. I hope they are not going to make a daily routine out of this because I'm sure Arnie would tell me that suppressing is not a good thing to do and a sure cause for future mental problems.

Note

Thanks, Pim. :) It's been great being able to work with you - the Tier 0 team is very lucky.

Received this note today from somebody who is leaving my team.

It's amazing how tiny notes or emails can lighten up your week. Disastrous dates, flat tires, speeding tickets, rainy weekends, missed appointments, dents in your car.. it doesn't matter. I have a smile on my face.

Brilliant Minds

Recruiter at Bay to Breakers

Google only hires the brightest minds. PhDs, Stanford Graduates, Harvard...you get the picture. And they hired me. But did they make a mistake? Did they do a poor job in checking my references?

Sometimes I do dumb things. Like this week.

When I'm seeing somebody who could potentially be a romantic partner, I don't want to visualize this person with somebody else. At least not when you're just starting to get to know this person. I'm sure this is probably true the other way around as well. So what do I do? Telling somebody I'm seeing that I have a blog. And of course she finds my blog and reads all about other dates I've had recently. Not that I have anything to hide or done something indecent but can you spell the word 'stupid' :)

Maybe I should stick to areas where I'm more competent: home and lifestyle! Last week I ordered a Niro surround system that uses a very interesting concept. It only has 2 speakers so no messy wires in your living room. I never cared to buy a stereo since I moved to the US but now that my stay in California seems to become more permanent, it would be nice to have the ability to play music at home when entertaining guests. Also, I want to play some new CDs I bought with cues from the rooftop bar that recently opened at the Standard Hotel in downtown LA. The Standard Hotel is a very very cool place. My next girl-friend doesn’t know this yet but for sure we're going to spend a weekend there. Less risky than resorts in Tahoe.

Can't wait to get my new system installed. In a future post I'll let you know if DJ Nasir's drum-and-bass can transform my apartment in a 'Standard' lounge as well.

Dirty Martini

4oz. Gin

1/2 oz. Dry Vermouth

1 tsp. Olive Juice

Shake with ice and strain into

martini glass and serve with olives.

Kaboom

KFOG Kaboom..

Saturday May 22nd - hands down the best Firework show in San Francisco: Kaboom. First I had a diner date at Delancy. Because of the big crowd at the BART station, I offered her a ride to a more quiet station. Kaboom: Did she just kiss me before she left the car?

Star Wars III

Love me if you dare..

Love me if you dare – I saw this French movie last year at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose. It’s a story of two people so obviously in love with each other yet so wrong for each other. It explores the 'Love At First Sight' soul mate concept in a way that defies stereotypes. It is a compelling picture of the true destructive force that such an life long intense attraction can have. But it also explores the concept of the intense pain and sensitivity that comes from 'true love', and what that pain causes people to do. In addition, unlike many other movies, it shows the casualties of the soul mate concept - the other people hurt or left by the wayside.

So what has 'Love me if you dare' to do with 'Stars Wars III'?

Last night was the opening of 'Star Wars III'. I'd gone out already twice with my date for this screening and I like her a lot. She's attractive, down to earth and non-pretentious. She didn't crash my car although she beat me at a game of pool :)
She found her soul mate a long time ago and had a passionate, intense on/off relationship. Their last break-up appears to be final. But some of her feelings might never go away and she might never be willing to settle for less. Do I dare to love her? What if I am left by the wayside. Could my heart recuperate another time?

Just be Happy

Everybody happy?

Dates can be stressful, exhilarating and nerve wrecking. But they can also be very educational. Such as my lunch with my Swedish date this weekend.

She told me that pharmaceuticals are now being found in drinking water, according to a study conducted in England. The study found traces of painkillers, antibiotics, and antidepressants in both sewage waters and drinking water.

In another words, if you're drinking tap water you're getting a little bit of Prozac whether you like it or not. And since we now know that antidepressant drugs promote violent behavior, including suicides and homicides, there's justified alarm at the idea that we're going to medicate an entire country with trace amounts of antidepressant drugs in one grand experiment.

Short moments of Glory

The "OOOOOOOGL" team (the other "G" had a jump start)

My moment of Glory: Bay to Breakers 2005 – more than 70.000 participants and according to the official results, I had finished on place 172 with a time of 1:05:38 for the 12K (7.46 miles) race.

However, my moment of Glory was short lived; other team members had classifications that seemed unrealistically high as well so the realization settled in that the results were probably applicable to team runners only. And honestly, there were at least more than 1000 people in front of me when I crossed the finish line.

I still consider this result a victory though. A victory of mind over body. The last 2 miles my body was begging me to stop running and just walk the last 2 miles - my stomach felt weird, I was out of breath and my legs were hurting. Before starting the race, my head might have thought that I was still 18 but my body obviously didn't agree. And who was I doing this for anyway? But my mind ignored the alarm signals and I completed the race running. I made a statement: I don’t give up when things get tough. Which brings me back to the main thread of this blog, my dating adventures. But more about that another time.

Update: the initial results were off by a factor 10; I finished as number 1722.. :)

Offspring gender

Motorola MPX220

Humans have been doing crazy things to determine offspring gender for centuries. For example, in Austria, midwives buried the placenta under a nut tree - to 'ensure' that the next child would be male.

To see if running mileage might have a stronger effect than placental burial, Eddie Crawford of the University of Glasgow took a careful look at the effects of weekly mileage, training intensity, paternal age, occupation, and competitive performance on offspring gender in 139 male runners. The result: for runners who ran between 30 and 50 weekly miles, only 40 per cent of the offspring were gentlemen! According to Crawford, high-volume running tends to produce dips in testosterone, which in turn produces a decline in the output of boys.

So……I’m puzzled.

In preparation for Bay to Breakers I’ve been running quite a few miles which should have produced a testosterone dip. I have my talents but going through life as a Don Juan isn't one of them. However, recently so many women are interested in meeting me, that just using the first letter of their name on this blog would produce many duplicates. A tribute to my marketing skills? Future will tell if anything will come out of it but here's a sample of the candidates:

# 1: Classical musician. Just bought a condo.
# 2: She thinks I’m very charming.
# 3: Finished filming an indie movie called Valley Fog.
# 4: Looking for a date at the Rolling Stones concert in Boston.
# 5: Business woman. Only wants a physical relationship.
# 6: Goddess in Santa Cruz looking for a younger man; writes mysteries.
# 7: Met somebody from Amsterdam before; the way he deboned her fish made her raunchy.
# 8: From Sweden; likes strenuous exercises.
# 9: Almost divorced; not looking for a shack up right away.

Taking the best traits from all of them surely would result in the perfect woman. I'm still feeling lucky but it starts to become a little bit overwhelming. Maybe I should refocus my blog on the latest tech gadgets instead of my futile attempts to find dates; Motorola introduced a new smart phone with many new interesting features.

Personal ads for dummies

Baby, you can crash my car..

Lately, my life has been fairly full; I just got promoted to a management position, I'm running 4 miles every evening and to top it off, the municipal court in San Mateo even wants me to show up for jury duty. As all this leaves ample time to meet women, modern technology comes to the rescue: the online personal ad.

But in this engineer saturated part of California, for every woman looking for a partner there are at least 10 guys looking for the same. So what's the best strategy? Which ad gets you a decent response rate? My findings might shock you...

Ads talking to the fact how funny you are, financially stable, charming, foreign born and your willingness to make romantic walks on the beach on a second's notice, aren't really effective. Surprisingly, this is the ad that makes you feel happy that your gmail account has a 2 GB storage capacity:

Do you want to marry an easy going smart man, buy a house together in this ridiculous market and make or adopt a kid or two?

Before then you could make love to me every night, share hundreds of meals, walk miles and miles of trail, whine about your job, meet my family, be my date to a company Christmas party or two, overhaul my wardrobe, crash my car, and other things like that.

I'm charming and will accept your quirks, as you're mostly lovely. I think I can convince you of that in one date. Two, tops. Life's good now. It would be better with you.

And the scary part is that if one of the respondents really might become my sweetheart, I -really- would not even care that she'd wreck my car... But at least the response rate shows me that there's still hope for humanity: there are still women out there that have a good sense of humor.

3-iron

We are all empty houses. Waiting for somebody to open the lock and set us free..

The beloved one... that she may be, but not for our hero. Not anymore. After the closing night movie at the Castro theater in SF, our hero was all dressed up and ready to party. The beloved one had other plans though and wanted to go home as it was getting too late for her. No dictionary needed here. Four first dates in the last seven days but the woman I liked the most, is the only one who doesn't want to see me again. Why do we always want to have the things in life that we can't get..

3-Iron reminded me again why I love movies so much. Film is not the mother of all arts; it's the love baby from all the arts together - music, dance, poetry, photography, painting, literature.

I had a movie date with somebody from the East coast and we met on Friday to see 3-Iron. The movie lived up to my expectations although those were mainly based on the intriguing image on the film poster. My date had some interesting views on the lack of deep relationships in California. Although I always thought that this was something typical American, my date pointed out that flakiness is primarily a West-coast phenomena. Her take on this: because it's so much colder on the East-coast, people are spending more time inside which brings them closer together, literally and spiritually; life on the West-coast is easy and laid back which does not foster commitment. So what does this tell me about myself - why did I chose to live here in California?

So should our hero consider moving to Antarctica?

Film Fest 2005 - the beloved one

Night Club Suede - San Francisco

Her name means:

Joy (Greek)
Of dark complexion (Armenian)
A friend (Irish Gaelic)
Love (Cornish)
The beloved one (Italian)

It's amazing that working 8am until midnight for 5 consecutive days, hasn't worn me down yet. Maybe it's because of ..her..

I found a date for the closing night party of the Film Festival in San Francisco!! She's cute, smart, successful, drives a convertible, wants to buy a Ducati and would love to go to Amsterdam and Venice. She thinks that I'm an attractive, foreign and mysterious looking man.

Am I going to fall for the wrong woman again? It doesn't matter - how can I deny my heart. Here we go again :)

Film Fest 2005 - encore

She is beautiful. She wants to know if I started a line yet for the next movie which doesn't start until 90 minutes from now. She's back!!!

Everything falls into place as all of a sudden I know what to do - an offer that she won't be able to refuse: I have a pair of tickets for the Zoom film makers party and when she'll come out of the theater, I'll ask her to join me and she will gladly accept. The show is over and I'm ready to make my move when I realize that people are already leaving the theater through another door and she is running down the stairs in front of me. She is rushing out to her car, maybe to the restroom; it doesn't matter. I'm never going to see her again.

Ten minutes later I'm wandering on the first floor and.... there she is: first in line for the midnight movie. She still looks lovely. We finally exchange introductions. She's excited about the Zoom party but her sister is in town so she won't be able to make it. Dan calls me on the radio and my assistance is needed to handle a situation in theater 1.

I still don't have her phone number. So close and yet so far. Miyako is her name. And I will never see her again. Again.

Tomorrow I'll be working at the Aquarius theater in Palo Alto. The first screening starts at noon and the program guide describes the movie as a fascinating speculation on history, wish fulfilment and the eternal question "What if?".....

Priceless

2 Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lenses or
5 Pearl Necklaces or
25 iPod Shuffles or
5 Roundtrips to Amsterdam or
1 Trip to the Kilimanjaro or
2 Months of Rent or
8 Wisdom teeth removals......

A tax refund from Arnold -- Priceless

I'm Feeling Lucky..

Bay to Breakers 2004

Bay to Breakers is the oldest consecutively run footrace in the world. The 12K race was established in 1912 as a way to boost the spirit of San Francisco after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake. Last year I attended the race as a spectator with the SF Bay Area Photogroup and had a great time. But the runners seemed to have so much fun that it made me think about participating myself.

It's one year later and I feel a sudden urge to force myself into exercising more. So I bought myself some new running shoes, got myself an iPod shuffle and... I signed up for Bay to Breakers as a member of the Google team. After long deliberations the team was called "I'm Feeling Lucky" . I never considered running a fun activity but with increasing stress levels in my job and ongoing efforts to mend a broken heart, I actually enjoy my daily run in the hills of Palo Alto late at night. The crispy air, speed metal on my iPod and my body grasping for oxygen are making it a transcendental experience.

Is it because of the original intention of the race to boost people's spirit? Is it because of our team name? All of a sudden this Saturday I have both a breakfast date and a lunch date. I'm feeling lucky!!

Ex Etiquette..

Last Sunday, I had lunch with my ex girl-friend from Pacifica. Never gave it much thought but is there something like an ex etiquette?

When a break-up is not mutually agreed, I think it's a good idea to put as much distance as possible between you and your ex. The feelings you have for a person might never totally go away and believing you can be friends with somebody when you really can't, may stir up a bunch of feelings you thought were laid to rest.

But what if the separation was more friendly. How do you greet one another? A tender kiss on the cheek? A hug? A kiss on the lips? Sure, doing what your heart tells you to do should be the way to go. But what if your body is giving different signals than your mind?

Sometimes I still feel like a puppy.

Film Fest 2005

Film Fest San Francisco 2005

I love my job at Google. I work with a lot of really smart and young people and it's energizing me in many ways. It feels great to work for a winning company. It feels even better to work for a company that is able to execute on a vision that is changing the way how people live their life. When people find out that I'm working for Google, they get a twinkle in their eyes. Some of them maybe because they think that I'm rich now so I'll pay their next round of beers. But most of them because they love Google's products.

So why do I have a second job and am I working late hours at the SF film festival?

She is beautiful. She wants to know if I started a line yet for the next movie which doesn't start until 90 minutes from now. I smile at her. I tell her that she's the first person in line and shouldn’t be worried about not getting a seat. She looks me in the eyes and smiles back. Her smile is talking to me and tells me that she trusts me.
One hour later, the one person line has evolved in a line with more than 250 people. We're running out of space in the lobby on the second floor. According to the schedule, we should have started seating people in the theater by now but it appears that there are some issues and we can’t let people in yet. I can see the stress on the faces of the volunteers who are trying to condense the line as much as possible. 90 minutes have passed. The lobby is full and buzzing. People are standing on the stairs now and we're running out of space there as well. Some patrons are starting to lose their patience and want to know what's going on.

She is still the first person in line. She looks at me but there is some doubt on her face now. I smile at her but don't look her in the eyes as I'm starting to get worried as well. Dan calls me on the radio. The final call that we're ready to go? Not exactly. The theater is ready and 400+ people are more than ready to take their seat. One small item is missing though: the 35mm film never made it to the theater and nobody knows where it is. Dan's voice comes through calm and clear. "Prepare for disaster".

Twenty minutes later, the lobby on the second floor is empty. It's quiet. My heartbeat is back to normal. Somehow we pulled of a miracle. The film never showed up but we managed to come up with a solution. The perfect storm. If we can deal with this, we can deal with anything. Proud, exhausted but satisfied. My beer never tasted better.

This is why I’m working at the film festival.

If only I'd asked her for her phone number...

Singapore

Cutie from Singapore: Spidergal..

Did you know the water shed of Lake Tahoe is 519 square miles. And that Singapore has a total area of 253 square miles with a total population of 3.87 million?

Rebound

Snow in April..

Your girl-friend has just put you aside so what's a guy to do? Nothing better to fight stress and depression than a long weekend of snowboarding!! And who knew it would be snowing in April.

What I didn't tell my friends is that my track record of trips to Tahoe is pretty poor, especially when it involves girl-friends. Two years ago, I booked a suite in the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort and I was looking forward to a great romantic getaway with my Paficia Girl; the plan: rejuvenate ourselves at Tahoe's largest and most comprehensive spa and spending the night in a room featuring sweeping views of the lake and mountains, enjoying a decorating ambiance in warm, earth-toned themes and natural elements... It would have been so nice if it wasn't for my Pacifica Girl's unfortunate ski incident resulting in a light concussion. 'Sleep' was the doctor's advice, and with sleep this romantic weekend faded away.

No better luck last year. New girl-friend, different injury. First lift of the day, First turn of the day, First person to visit the First aid station. Diagnosed with potential damage to the knee ligaments, my girl with the pearl necklace was in a lot of pain. My pain was mainly mentally: am I casting a bad spell on any girl-friend that joins me for a skiing or snowboarding trip? I now suspect that some of them just agreed to join me because they knew how much I enjoyed snowboarding and not necessarily because they thought speeding in the snow was fun or their athletic abilities.

No girl-friends on this trip. No accidents. Just a great time..