* late evening. from soon to be not-my-home.
I have now come to understand the urge some people have (academia folk especially suffer from this malediction) to use their blog to share their recipes. We made Fried Plantains!
Hi. I am Tal and I am addicted to Fried Plantains. I feel a person who is a Fried Plantain addict, especially an Israeli who spent her entire morning slaving over Chinese grammar, can officially call herself a cosmopolite. (By the way, the word cosmopolite comes from French)
* started working on this in a place called Cuve'e in Denver. Nice wine bar. Had wine. Watched fortunates gulping down cheese from their cheese plate. Yes.... There's always somebody extracting more intestinal pleasure than me. A poster of my life's story.
Have you ever noticed somebody who was too keen to end stuff on time?
Today I realized how it is when you have a wont that cannot be carried out everywhere and all of the time. I am talking about cases where one is too attached to a certain praxis which is looked down on by society, even if not in the severest way as some types of substance abuses – like drugs, but enough so he can’t carry it out freely. Examples are nose picking, masturbating, smoking and the like.
Today I’d like to talk about smoking.
Smoking is not as directly harmful as what society made it out to be. The harms of smoking are now much worse than those to the lungs of the smoker, the lungs of the smokee (i.e. passive smoker) or the pocket of the smoker and his dependents. Indirectly smoking has become as indirectly detrimental as to recast all of the latter, indirect results of smoking, objectively substantial, into marginal abrasions, not even worthy of the name injuries. The vast damage from smoking is now the constant itch. The itch which made my soon to be ex-brother-in-law incapable of watching a film outside of his own home, the itch which made Prof. R.S. incapable of sitting out his own panel, even though the reason it was prolonged for a couple of minutes was in order to celebrate his own ingenuity. He wanted the fumes so bad that he was uninterested in the exaltation of extoltion.
Unless we decide that this is too costly for society to handle and quit this oppression of compulsives of all shapes and sorts, or rather unless we become more selective in our decisions which are directly detrimental as to merit such suppression, I’d say that this is the cost that should be underlined in no-to-X public service broadcasts – the cost of the itch. Just so we know what is truly at stake.
Velo Rouge Café. Memorial Day weekend. Summer. Cold weather.
I am sorry but the answer is not to wipe one’s hands on one’s pants. Nor is curtailing shower time by a collective minute or flushing every other time.
This nitpickiness is just another name for the defragmentation of means. On my end I am making the radical suggestion that it would do the world much good if each of us took another minute in the shower to think how to reach a decisive solution for this water shortage. Also, each of us would smell much nicer, ergo, it would be much more pleasant to sit together and work out a solution.
1PM. It’s a Grind. San José. Waiting for Y who is on a 4-hour interview(!) again I am undergoing the highly enjoyable experience of being abstained from going to pee due to uncanny apprehensions about leaving my computer and bag behind. I’m too lazy as well as too embarrassed to pack up just so I can go to the bathroom. Obviously, that would be major hassle and it would be ridiculous, who among the zillion other coffee-drinking, computer-gazing people around here exactly do I suspect of grabbing my computer? Well, I’m just being nitpicky about this. After all, I still have one kidney to spare; I’ll just wait until it bursts. Then I’ll go to the toilet.
I am working on refashioning my paper for the LSA Meeting in Denver, but I’m afraid I am not be in the best positions for doing that at the moment – I just corrected the first sentence in which I originally explained that at the moment I am weighting for Y. Well… I blame the cookies on the counter in front of me. I hope I’m not transforming my paper into a chocolate manifesto.
It’s high time I got back to posting stuff. If I don’t, pretty soon I’d be losing my entire readership for lack of a reliable & contiguous news stream (can you use the term “readership” for an expected audience of one? I wonder).
Yesterday Y refused to take charge of the money collection when it came time to pay the bill. Megan eyed him for a moment, obviously in order to assess the nature of his refusal. Finally she offered her diagnosis. “How unjewish of you”, she told Y. To show that I am a good sport, as well as to take the sting out of it, I instantaneously retorted that “sure, a classic Jew would not only take charge of the money, but would happily expropriate both the fund and a fee for his trouble.
As we usually do, on our way home we discussed the notable aspects of the rendezvous. This was probably right around the 10th incident which we brought up. We began by calling Megan a self-hating Jewess. Then we noted that she didn’t think of herself a Jew, unlike other people we met here whose father is Jewish whereas their mother is not. Then we clammed up. Thinking that worse than a self-hating jew is an anti-Semite, self-hating, half-jew, or simply, non-jew under the Halakha.
A few days later I come to the conclusion that some people here still have a sense of humor while we are starting to get accustomed to the Berkeleien, or rather the American brand of tight-ass tolerance. The one that only proves that the group is still weak or that it is becoming weak.
Obviously, Jews have been stung by a century long reputation of fiscal mania, and one can try and make fun of it, though hopefully, with better taste. This is not alarming. Alarming is calling a Jewish family in the film Two Lovers by the name of Creditor. Papa-Creditor was an illegal immigrant from Israel. Dark haired Creditor-cub has his heart set on a gentile blond-haired maiden. He is planning to make her a Creditor. Luckily, she sets him straight and he turns his affection where it rightly belongs – the family business. There I go again – losing my Jewish sense of humor.
I finish writing this at the Velo Rouge Cafe' in Inner Richmond. Funny, again I need to pee.
This has been posted by one of my professors, anybody interested?
Dear all,
We're going to be away between June 10 and July 26th this summer,
and need to find someone to take care of our pets: two cats and
(possibly) two leopard gecko lizards.
Ordinarily we'd find a house sitter, but it is likely we will need
to have the pets out of the house for this
period as well, so we're looking for someone who can provide a
temporary home for the animals.
The cats are very sweet and generally low maintenance except for
one thing: one of them needs, every three days, a "subcutaneous injection" --
basically 150cc of iv drip. It's very easy to do, painless for him,
and takes about 5 minutes.
The lizards (quite cute also, in their own way) are also pretty
easy. They basically need to get fed some live crickets every other
day. The slightly
more complicated thing is that one has to go to the East Bay Vivarium
on 5th Street
every other week or so to buy 100 new crickets.
We were thinking that $300 would be an appropriate and attractive
amount for the cat care, with an upward adjustment for the lizards,
plus expenses/supplies provided, etc. If you were uncomfortable with
the iv procedure, we could have someone come in to do that, but would
adjust downward.
Please let me know if you are interested in this - and feel free to
pass this on to someone who might be. Thanks!
Late start. Had to go to school first. Y prepared everything, even bread and wine to take with us and we were off.
First we stopped at Carmel by the sea and went by the sea. It was beautiful. Later in the voyage Carmel featured in the tale about Clint Eastwood and his helicopter bound journeys to WB when he used to mayor.
We continued to make the Big Sur drive. It was uncannily beautiful. Especially remarkable was to drive through those spectacular beaches with our top off, following those James Bond style winding roads following the curve of the mountains. There we stopped and had our lunch accompanied by wine while staring at the ocean-filled valley.
Later we got to SLO, AKA San Luis Obispo. A charming university city. Nothing like my university city but very nice. First we tried to find a pleasant place to spend the night in. We came by an amazing inn, the Garden Inn, which is located on - lo and behold! - Garden street. There were two downers which made us morosely decline their offer: the price and the sign which said something along the lines: “this place presents a health hazard. It contains carcinogenic substances.” We asked the proprietress, she said not to worry. She said it was a law, she said an absurd one. We did not worry while running back to our car and driving away at the speed of light.
Instead we went to work at a bar which had live music and wifi! Then we walked through town and made ice-cream parlor window shopping. This is a routine we have where we enter an ice-cream place and while the person at the counter stares at us intently we debate which flavors we would choose were we to buy ice cream. Then we leave the place while offering our best wishes to the perplexed salesperson.
After that we found a horrendous but adequate place to sleep at. It actually worked fantastically because it helped us manage a very early start the next day.
thursday -
Well, that day we made our way through the central coast’s wine country. We even had a glass of wine at the bar/restaurant where they shot Crossroads. Y picked a conversation with the barman and now we know all there is to know, and even more than there is to know, about that area’s wines. That was fun. I pretended quite convincingly I thought to be a sophisticado.
We left there slightly intoxicated and very happy only to pass through a town called Solvang that seems to be a wholesale importation of a Danish town. Y started chatting with a guy who was preparing taffy (something like that). While they were talking shop, I finally had sufficient time to inspect all of the chocolates that were on sale. Then we found a place to pee, mounted on Moise and cruised all the way to Santa Barbara.
Next was LA – a completely different story. I am tired and ought to go to bed. Tomorrow is one of three hurdles I have to overcome before our home-coming.
Y has created a complete photo-tale of our trip which makes my writing superfluous. It is on Picasa.
I am sitting in a classroom at the law school where the Supreme Court discussion in regard to Prop 8 is being screened. I think it is flabbergasting that a law school administration would invest resources in making sure that its students have access to this particular debate. To my eyes, it cannot be understood in any way other than the law school making a clear and poignant political stance. It is truly dumbfounding that an academic institution would do that. Yet another reason to be proud to be here.
At any rate, to the discussion itself - I think it isn’t very interesting. The sides are merely voicing what I would think would be the same traditional arguments. Nothing new under the justices’ gavel. They all seem quite conservative, even the two justices whom I think the decision hinges upon, those that instituted the right to gay marriages that got overturned by prop 8. The latter seem to be concerned only with the validity of the marriages instituted between their decision and the prop 8 catastrophe. I take that to mean that they will uphold the wretched measure.
What’s more, I think that the legal tools actually work against us. The legal key is supposedly that prop 8 defines a revision in the state constitution rather than an amendment. And as a revision, that it was unconstitutional to put it on the ballot in the procedure that was followed. This tiny legal detail simply does not hold water, since it is hard to ascertain that gay rights are the type of rights that merit revision when the court denied this idea time and again for other types of rights. In other words, precedent works against it, and attorney general office were thus extremely tenuous as the justices made clear. Our side could only repeat the same tired arguments in regard to the importance of the institution of marriage (this, I think was the most convincing part of the discussion) but of course, that is to no avail if rights as such do not mandate a revision instead of an amendment to the constitution.
And I get to my argument now: we need some counter-majoritarian institution in our governance structure. We being every true-to-the-term democracy. The court can’t be that. The court is constrained by political rope. This is just an example were the court can’t really make a determination that will void the (atroucious) popular vote. The public has had its fulsome say, but it is its fulsome say. No way the judicial arm of government can go beyond that. This doesn’t mean that it is not imperative that we go beyond it. The question remains – how?
• Jovino, Union St., SF. Great great place. I would write a YELP review, but I am too agitated. The reason for my agitation follows.
Well, she somehow got into my head that my perception of utmost privacy which leads me to expose my life in this blog is false, so I will try to tone down my exposure level after this last post. (I might not as usually I am strongly preoccupied with me, myself, and my own).
It’s funny – I feel like she is a child I need to worry about; I’m actually anxious that she will miss her flight from Heathrow, or that she somehow neglected to catch the plane at SFO – although I did see her off until the security point. Anyhow, I can’t concentrate. I hope I don’t spend the next 20 hours (that’s how long her voyage is if she doesn’t take any wrong turns…) feeling this way.
I pledge my next post will be actually worth reading.
Anti-Semitism is the rage. Ya, Yo and I just came back from the film The Reader and I am positively shocked. How could everybody sit there nodding while this piece of blatant anti-Semitism is displayed in front of their eyes?
At first I wasn’t at all certain of my interpretation. It is possible, I thought, that the mishap at Fertile Grounds and my own insecurities about the latest war made me see hatred where there is none. But then came the last minutes of the film and now the feeling of nausea is pushing me to draft this explanation in writing. I’ll begin with this last impression;
A poor, beautiful and humane guard, who merely followed orders commits suicide in a prison, ending her life lonely and destitute. Her dying wish as expressed to her warden is that all her savings be given to the daughter of a woman who survived the camps and implicated her in the trial. The next take brings us to Manhattan, to a lavish apartment, where the obviously rich Jewish daughter lives. Both her affluence and her jewishness are exemplified by the golden Menorah placed on the mantelpiece. The Jewess refuses to absolve the poor woman of her sins, but ultimately agrees that the money which was bequeathed to her and placed in her carefully manicured hand in the tin can in which the poor German saved it would be transferred to a literacy charity, although, as the heiress explains, there are many illiterate among the privileged minority.
Anyhow, this was enough to convince me that other instances of blatant anti-Semitism in the film weren’t just my imagination. I’ll be concise – do you remember the scene at the trial where the jewess pointed out the guards? Notice how aggressive she was? Notice she picked six of them? Notice that moments earlier we were told that at the selection process each guard was responsible of selecting 10 jews to be sent to the gas chambers? If you noted all the prior facts, the reference to the “selection” the Jewish survivor made became obvious as – how do they say here? – as apples and pears? Something like that… the fact that the selection of the blameworthy is recognized by a law student as the crime of the German nation doesn’t do anything to attenuate the seriousness of the implicit comparison.
There’s more and more and more and it is done so meticulously that it can’t be unintended. Please do not go to see this film, and if you do, please try and use your voice to attest it, before it becomes part of the truth.
It’s valentines’ day. Ya, Yo and I are in San Jose. To my aggravation, Ya insists on pronouncing the name San Jose while accentuating the first syllable in Jose. We are here to watch a tennis game at HP Pavilion which Ya is completely psyched about, it’s Roddick (or in Ya's exasperating lingo: Rudik) that is about to play and we are holding our breaths to see if he will wear his cap while playing or not (seriously – Ya is extremely preoccupied with that).
I am trying to be excited about the game too. The only problem is that I have a lecture to prepare for and it is sucking all jolliness out of me. Tuesday is going to be such a climax for me and I feel like I am not applying myself as I should.
My comment is about pleasing others. Ya doesn’t know how to react in a way that makes you feel that she is excited or happy and that you had something to do with it. She just isn’t a people pleaser. In a sense, I feel like I was more excited about making this thing happen for her than she was about it materializing.
Ok. I stand corrected. Ya was excited! Heck, I was excited! I nearly hit the guy who sat behind me that chanted “Go Andy!” all the time, no matter win or lose. (superfluous to say, my guy – the awesome Stepanek won!) At one point I even mimicked him and his girlfriend in a way that wasn’t too flattering and was accused by my companions for being un-American (I think they were just afraid that a fight will ensue. coming to think of it, I should have told them Ya calls the guy Rudik. That would have sent sparks through the stadium). I didn’t even give terrifying next Tuesday a single thought.
I come home from school. It’s 18:30. I run to pee as I’ve been holding it for the last 5 hours. I hurriedly open the door to discover Levinas in my toilet. He lies there calmly, face down on the side of the bathtub, waiting to philosophize to the ruminative, albeit seated interlocutor. How is that for the house of an intellectual?
(naturally the intellectual isn’t me but Ya. It's just that I believe that a lavatory should be reserved strictly for Heidegger and never overcrowded)
What a mélange – first the three of us, Ya, Yo and I went to a bluegrass show with friends from JSP. Then we went to see Gran Torino. The first place was a typical Berkeley place all cozy with weirdoes galore and the second, a typical AmericA cinema house, gilded with butterscotch, or rather, to be more exact in my description of this American experience, it was smeared with butterscotch, coca-cola, popcorn, reeses and the like with giant people putting their legs on the top of the seat before them, laughing away in places where I thought it more fit to cry.
Anyhow, I had fun.
Written partly from home, partly from crixa, partly from the library, partly from room 014
I am going to have a tough day: three classes and a meeting I am anxious about. I had a bad dream. I woke up fat (has to do with Katie’s birthday dinner at Café Raj yesterday night) and tomorrow isn’t going to be any less stressful. Still, I am happy. I’ve rationalized myself into being aware of my good fortune immediately after the regular morning נאחס (what’s wrong with this language! No word for Nachs! English – such a poor destitute, paupery language… something has to be done about that – I am contributing “paupery”. But this is just a meager beginning – this language doesn’t have די, נאחס, or נודניק one invented word isn’t going to save it). Anyhow, I hope this mood is a keeper. So far I’ve been stupidly happy, enough so that Jamie whom I met at the JSP building near my office nook told me that I looked cheery.
But that’s it! Tomorrow I’m writing about politics even if I have to make something up (btw, did you know that Iceland elected the first lesbian ever prime-minister? Had I been less self absorbed I might have written about that).
Written from Village Grounds. This coffee shop is actually across the street from us and it's our first time here! I can't imagine why. We should have immediately crossed over here when confronted with that offensive at the coffeehouse across the street - Fertile Grounds. Anyway, coffee is excellent and it is extremely comfortable to sit here. The only part I detest is having to ask for the key to go to the bathroom and drinking coffee while wanting to do some work, you really can't escape it.
This girl I know has a strong propensity to be envious. She is well accustomed to having this acidic feeling expanding in the pit of her stomach when confronted with an accomplishment of another. It matters not if that achievement is in a field which she should no longer have any expectation, chance or particular desire to succeed in, like for example Volleyball or Quantum Physics. Always she would green eye the team’s captain, who is her age, or the young Professor, trying to pacify herself by realizing that the achievement is not all that venerable, because, for example, that other girl was born to a pair of athletes or because the young intellectual is not tenured in an important university and because, even given the opportunity, she would never wish to spend hours in a lab or looking at equations, or spend hours in the mindless pastime of running around in laps and jumping up and down. In fact, had she had any urge to, of course she would have been able to do extremely well in any of those fields, It’s just that she didn’t want to. That’s right. And in fact, she knows from several trusted sources that the two are borderline buffoons (yes! The physics prodigy too!) And that they really wanted to get accepted to another program but couldn’t. Of course, she could have easily gotten in to that program, had she wanted to, had she had the lineage that would enable it. There’s no question about that.
I never said it was her most beautiful of traits, but at least she is very good at it. Not like other people.
I’d just like to add that I am just sick from the fact that Yael is not going to vote and because of me (!) There go 3 people that were within my circle of influence whose (smart) opinions are not going to be heard. This is awful! The dark forces are going to gain the upper hand and simply because we are here engaging in our own obtuse intellectuality. That is shameful! I was thinking I should sell my furniture just so that the three of us will go to Israel just for fulfilling this task. I’m just not sure Yael will be willing to take a (civic) vacation from her vacation. I’ll ask.
• Written from Jupiter. Stuff I have to do instead of writing posts: read a hundred pages for tomorrow morning at 8:45…, concentrate on Y’s impossible user case questions which I hardly understand at all, work on both my thesis papers, answer emails from my dearly beloved, obsess about emails which I have sent to my dearly beloved that were left unanswered, figure out where we are going to work tomorrow (we are thinking Marine county, but where? The weather is going to be fantastic)
The events that have come to pass have rendered me moot. Our BLOG has become much too popular in the last few days. I am thinking that those are people that are interested in Y’s project, and have therefore lost possession of the feeling that used to accompany my posting, which was the feeling of privacy. Yes I was aware that the people that are closest to me were always keeping with me, even when I was blabbering my head off, yet that was just like writing for my own sake – I’ve never been one to keep things to her own person – or rather, my person always included those that I truly love.
Problem is that I am not certain that (A) VCs and angels are all that interested in the fact that I feel tiny (see my previous post), or that (B) I want to tell VCs and angels that I feel tiny and inconsequential. Damn right I am consequential! In fact, I am Prof. consequential to you!
Anyhow, I have many things to tell. I started writing a post of how proud I was of Y, of how it is possible that was as lucky as all that. This was following Friday’s meeting. I wanted to write about stuff that bothered me, about tiny successes (yes! Today I managed to ask a stupid question in class. This is a real achievement. I can either shut up (99.99999999999999% of the time) or utter a comment which is worthy of a Nobel Prize (the rest of the time – i.e. negligible), and thus, stupid question is a very important step for me). Also, I’ve managed to meet a guy Jesse wanted me to meet, without making that big a deal out of it. What’s more, I hardly ever think of the Israeli professor that ditched me on Friday and is now failing to answer my emails. Nor am I fussing about the people who are not answering my highly personal email to them. In short, I think I might be healing from my neuroticism, or damn nearly.
So, I am going to stop right now. Got to do other things and this was just intended to start me off again.
• Boalt hall’s hall – in front of room 110 in the south addition. I’m there simply because I am too early as usual to my class that starts at 3:20 and the previous class is still going on.
I feel tiny and inconsequential today. And although it is the truth, it is not a pleasant feeling. A person needs an illusion of grandeur in order to subsist. This is my insubstantial opinion.
This understanding could produce great things – this sense of proportion could be highly advantageous. The recognition that no one cares about what I do or what I say or what I think, and that nobody notices or clears mind space in order to remember anything that I do, is a realization that can be empowering; proving that essentially I can do what I like without scrutiny.
It is incredibly idiotic that I inspect my own behavior in order to understand things about myself. For example, I deduce from the fact that I do not act in a way that is not self aware that I don’t really believe that people don’t think about me at all. In other words, I believe that I myself believe that I do possess some public importance.
Well, I quit writing it in the middle and hence this post belongs to yesterday’s mood. I’m better now and so I can’t continue with the writing of this post without digressing into fiction. The miserable episode is over now luckily - I'm done with the sad spell. Guess you can't avoid those even when things are going spectacularly well. (Note that today we found out that Moise was violated and all our car music was stolen, the one we carried with the sweat of our brow from the middle east and that I fell off my bike today at school in the most embarrassing of circumstances. Still, today I'm happy. Go figure... )
• Written from Nabolom Bakery – in between classes.
Each time I am struck by the role of god in American politics. During the inauguration there were three different speakers, the new president, Senator Diane Feinstein and God, or rather Rev. Rick Warren. Of course President Obama nodded to non-believers in his speech, but after numerous nods to Jesus and religion and the concluding “God bless America”, the secular nod was reduced into a neck tick.
I must say that I find it verging on the barbarian. How is it that in this day and age, after so many technological revolutions and the advent of science, the president of the US is still “anointed” in God’s oil? I don’t accept that this act of faith should be viewed as a purely political move – a way to appeal to the hordes of god-abiding citizens. Obama is just too consistent doing it for me to believe that it is a mere ploy. And of course, this guy is so much America’s dearest (and the world’s) that he could have fessed up to anything right now, even, god forbid, to being enlightened. I do think that a leader should lead. I don’t believe in neutrality not when it comes to the comportment of the leader. Of course his policy shouldn’t be affected, to the level possible, by his own views and opinions. Also, he should be tolerant of every mode of life – and naturally, a president’s tolerance is immediately translated to a supportive policy. But, isn’t it the leader’s role to lead the people into the light? I think it is. At the very least the quiet message of highlighting choice and not providence could have been transferred, instead of having the entire world view all Americans, including the president elect bow their heads before the spirit of God.
written from L's Cafe' in San Francisco. Fantastic Tuna Sandwich just like one I used to adore those beautiful times in Hard Rock Cafe' on Dizengoff st., eating away the money intended for our musical education (Yael). This Sandwich, like the token of the past sandwich has no onion...
They are opening a Philz Coffee in Berkeley! At the corner of Cedar and Shattuck! Life keeps getting better and better - this is a mere symbol for this fact. Yesterday was my first time at Philz's - it was right before the Berlin and Beyond festival at the Castro which featured an excellent Swiss film. Anyhow, I spent half the movie ruminating the coffee I had there (no pun intended) and today I discover it is going to open right under my nose. This sort of thing is starting to appear to be my life's principle.. Somthing to rely on.
Being destitute does not fit with the American way of life. What I have in mind is the following; I need 6 text books for school and each book costs 137$ in its Used version!
At any rate, I myself, in my more opulent state of aggregation, would not even give it a second thought. I’m ashamed to say that last semester I simply whisked off the necessary text books off of the shelves and took them to the register, without affording the price a mere glance. Anyhow, these days, the prodigal daughter is wanting for cash and therefore decided to either steal or to rely on her self-proclaimed intelligence. In other words, I decided to do without. That’s it. Simple enough.
Well, after the first class actually took place, I revisited my vanity and decided to see whether the library carried the books. Well, it does – all bar one. So, I looked into the web to see my options. This deserves an interlude:
My aside: We should do something, in Israel, about our meager access to the web. In essence, I feel that I’ve become a true Internet operator only since moving here. First of all: Pandora. How can you live without Pandora? Secondly? Amazon used books. Don’t you think it is high time we get a chance to grab some of that secondary market? It is absurd that we can’t. Thirdly: Ebay! Common. We need eBay. It makes the markets work well… it is obvious, us in the Levant are just not getting enough virtual juice.
Markets working well – this is what my example is all about. I got the book on eBay for 13.99 + tax + delivery. I’m withholding my enthusiasm until the day that I actually receive it (expected delivery date: tomorrow morning). But listen, if it actually works, it is almost embarrassing to be rich and unsavvy – not having the incentive to look for better deals just makes you incredibly stupid, or at the very least, an inexorable Fraier!
To continue my tale about poverty – come Y’s birthday last month I figured that we should assign ourselves to the endearing idea of preparing our own gifts. Of course, this is a concept that in more abundant years used to seem to me to be kind of bogus. But, due to financial hardships, I’ve grown more fond of the idea…
So, of course, I never gave him a present and this fact came back to haunt me recently as I am feeling my own birthday becoming more imminent by the day.
Now my idea of the day was to meticulously and lovingly prepare Y a patent. I mean, what better says “I love you” than a patent application? I can’t think of anything. So, today, I started at the task. I sat through an Intellectual Property class and figured that it oughtn't be all that difficult. The current legal state of the art is in Re Bilski. No problem. This should be really easy, shouldn’t it? Of course, glancing through the text book rendered me somewhat impuissant. Hence came the thought that I should write about it quickly so as to nail down some points for thoughtfulness at least.
