A lot of random personal musings go through my head every day. A small sampling:

My philosophy of life comes from a small whiteboard, hung in the window of the Shanghai Pine Garden on Balboa Island. For a few months, it read, simply: "Have a good day. Enjoy your life." I make it a personal goal to do both of these things as often as possible.

Speaking of the Shanghai Pine Garden, it is, in my esteem, the best Chinese restaurant, well, anywhere. Take Bison away from campus, past MacArthur, and make a left on Jamboree. Go down past PCH and across the bridge onto Balboa island. It's two blocks down on your left. Can't miss it. I recommend the Chicken Lo Mein. You can find me there with some old and dear friends most Fridays for lunch. Tip well, please.

Orange County has some wonderful executive golf courses you can play for almost nothing, and you don't have to be good. All of the following courses cost less than $20 for a round and you can generally get a tee time with very little advance notice.

Ridgeline Country Club, Orange, CA: By far my favorite course. It's in the hills of Orange, surrounded by horse properties. Very nice changes in elevation, a good balance of Par 3's and 4's. One water hazard, almost no natural hazards. You can use every club on this course - from the sand wedge to the driver. Any report that a stray ball of mine has actually HIT a horse living near the course is untrue. Well, I think it is. I don't think anybody's ever SEEN me hit a horse before. I have since made adjustments to my swing to prevent this, and I now lay up on #3. Have played this course in horizontal rain and beat my previous score by 14 strokes. Go figure.

Newport Beach Country Club, Newport Beach, CA: This is also an 18-hole course; you can sign up to play 9 at a time. Lighted at night. You can usually find our group playing the front nine on Friday nights, although if there's enough light left, sometimes Keith the starter will let us play the back for a change. One of my favorite courses.

The Hyatt Newporter Golf Course, Newport Beach, CA: Golf course located at the Hyatt Newporter on Jamboree. No dress code. Good elevation changes. A very short course - all Par 3's, no hole longer than 150. Great course for practicing your short game. Can play a round with a foursome in less than 90 minutes. Have played three holes of this course in total darkness.

Lake Forest Golf & Practice Range, Lake Forest, CA: A great course, a good mix of par 3's and 4's. Mostly flat. Has a creek running through it, inducing strategy. Actual fruit-bearing orange trees line the holes in homage to the fact that the area was once an orange grove.

Aliso Creek (Ben Brown's), Dana Point?, CA: A very nice course, a bit upscale for our group. Par 3's and 4's. There may be a 5 in there. The creek eats balls. A lot of them. Be sure to play the "drop on the other side" rule on the rule card. Runs through a canyon with high sloping canyon walls on either side. No driving range. Mostly flat.

David L. Baker, Costa Mesa, CA: This is an 18-hole course. It's fairly standard, mostly Par 3's and 4's. Pretty flat, moderate amount of hazards. Take a cart.

The Greens, Irvine, CA: A regulation 18-hole golf course for putting only. Tiny, little, minature holes. It's like upscale miniature golf. It's hard, too. Really hard. Great for practicing your putting.

Islands, Anaheim, CA: Many people don't know that Orange County is home to the country's 3^rd best driving range. It's the Islands Practice Center in Anaheim. It's basically a reservoir with islands floating in it. You hit floating golf balls and aim for the islands. Our scoring system: 1 point for the close island, 2 points for the middle islands, 3 points for the back island, and 4 points for the little lillypad islands. A great place to practice accuracy and your short game.

Rancho San Joaquin, Irvine, CA: There's a golf course there, too, but this range is on my way home. It's astroturf--really! If you stop by on a weekday around 6-7PM, you might catch me there.

The title of my book, if I ever write one, will be "Golf Carts Go Last." It doesn't matter what the topic of the book is. It will be called "Golf Carts Go Last." I will call it this because, about six months after I got my drivers license, I was late getting to school. Rather than speeding at 100 miles an hour like everybody else, I just wished for green lights. I hit one red light, which I couldn't believe, because I couldn't see any cars waiting. As the light turned red, a golf cart drove across the street. My thought: "Golf carts go LAST."

I made it on time; barely.

The best bakery in Orange County is Herb's Black Forest Bakery in Fountain Valley. Bar none. It's a little shop; I'm sure it's been there since the beginning of time. They make fantastic gourmet cakes for about $15. Neat little touches like a thin layer of cherry sauce mixed with the chocolate. Herb is a certified Master Baker from Germany--the real thing. He and his wife Elsbeth run the place. Take the 405 North from Irvine, get off at Brookhurst South. Go about 2 blocks; it's on the right. While you're there, don't forget to get a black and white cookie for each of your friends, and one for you. They're a New York delicacy that's very hard to find outside NYC.

I read movie credits. I don't MEMORIZE them, but I do read them. You can find out a lot of stuff when you read movie credits. Sometimes you'll see a movie you like, so you catch the director's name. Then, when he or she directs another movie, you'll know that you should check it out. A lot of directors and producers put their kids in movies as extras. Did you know that Ivan Reitman's kids can be seen in Dave? I did. You can also find out who did the special effects. That's always interesting. So, read the credits sometimes.

L.A. Story with Steve Martin is my favorite movie, and it probably always will be. It stars him opposite his (then) real-life wife, Victoria Tennant. He plays Harris K. Telemacher, a weatherman searching for meaning in L.A. She plays a Sarah McDowel, a British journalist, doing a story on L.A., trying to find out if there IS any meaning there. Their relationship is facilitated by a magical freeway sign and SanDeE*, Harris' "much younger woman" girlfriend for the first and second acts. The last scene of this movie is the best scene in any movie that has ever been filmed. If you don't want to find out how it ends, skip the rest of this section, eh?

--SPOILERS BELOW--

Anyway, Sarah and Harris are breaking up. She asks him what he would do if she really DID decide to return to London rather than stay with him. He responds:

All I know is, on the day your plane was to leave, if I had the power, I would turn the winds around, I would roll in the fog, I would bring in storms, I would change the polarity of the earth so compasses couldn't work, so your plane couldn't take off.

And he does.

At the moment her plane is to take off, the camera switches to a shot of the magical freeway sign. If you've ever seen The Empire Strikes Back, you'll remember the scene when Luke Skywalker is unable to lift his X-Wing from the Dagobah swamp and claims that it's not possible to do so. Yoda simply sighs, closes his eyes, and then raises his hand. The X-Wing is lifted out of the swamp and removed. Yoda's actions express, without words, disappointment, sadness, and disbelief all at once. The magical freeway sign, in its blank stare, expresses exactly these emotions. As if it were impossible for something so simple, so possible, to fail to come to pass. And as the freeway sign lights up, the winds blow, the fog rolls in, thunder, rain, and lightning fall from the sky, and the Earth suspends its magnetic poles for just a moment to set things right with the world.

This is why L.A. Story is such a great movie.

Does your monitor look blurry? It could be that your convergence is off. In your monitor, the electron gun scans red, green, and blue slightly differently to make up the various colors you see. If the red dots don't line up with the green dots and the blue dots, brighter colors will tend to look blurry, especially when adjacent to a dark color.

I'm surprised more people don't know how to do this, but here's a simple convergence test for your monitor:

If your convergence is set right, the red, green, and blue lines should line up (almost) perfectly. It turns out even the best monitors won't allow them to line up exactly, but the closer the better. By the way, you'll notice that if you move this window around your screen, the lines will move with respect to one another. They should be at their closest in the CENTER of your screen. If you see any offset between the colors, play with the little buttons on the front of your monitor and see if you can change the convergence settings. If you can't, well, your monitor sucks. Go buy yourself a better monitor.

A lot of people walk up to me and go, "Eric, what album should I buy?" because they know I have impeccable musical taste. Okay, so they don't actually do that. However, if they WERE to do that, I would list the following albums as should-buys, in no particular order:

Important side-note: If you don't like my taste in music, you're probably one of these random German guys who work down the hall from me that go around singing "My love for you is like a truck BERSERKER! Would you like some making fuck BERSERKER!" (video)

• The Eagles: Are the coolest band ever.
  • Selected Works 1972-1999 (Boxed Set) : This has all their good stuff on there, plus a great live album of mostly rare songs from their Millennium concert on December 31, 1999 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Incidentally, I was at that concert, so I have a soft spot in my heart for this particular set.
  • Desperado : Even if you have the boxed set, this album is a must-own. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. This is the Eagles' "concept album." The "concept" isn't explicitly stated, but it goes something like this: if a country singer is the modern-day equivalent of a cowboy, then what is a country-rock singer? An outlaw, of course. You have to listen to this album from beginning to end for the story. Doolin-Dalton sets the stage--the formation of an outlaw gang. A young singer-come-outlaw, only Twenty-One sets out on an Out of Control night of drinking and partying before officially joining up. The aftermath of this wild night is chronicled in the contemplative Tequila Sunrise and Desperado. Finally a full-fledged Outlaw Man, the singer pines away for old, simpler times, asking "Whatever happened to Saturday Night?" But, his transition to life as an outlaw is complete, and he looks solemnly to the future on the other side of the Bitter Creek.
  • Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 : If you're a cheap bastard financially not prepared to drop $42 on the boxed set, at least get this album.
• Don Henley: Drummer and singer for the Eagles, is equally cool.
  • Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits : Has all his good stuff, so much so you probably don't need to buy the other studio albums.
  • Inside Job : Henley's latest studio album and one of the best albums of all-new material ever made. Not a loser track on here.
• The Dave Matthews Band: DMB is the coolest band that was formed after 1980. I own every DMB album, and am not sorry about any of them.
  • Busted Stuff : In 2000, the Dave Matthews Band had written a whole album's worth of songs, and was road-testing them by playing them on tour. Fans of the band were very pleased with the songs, and live bootlegs emerged quickly. The new album was supposed to have been released in late 2000, but it wasn't. The songs were even recorded and improved upon in the studio. Then, with tensions among band members rising, they fired longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and took a short break. During the break, Dave Matthews and producer Glen Ballard got together to collaborate on "a couple" new songs, which would be included on an album with new recordings of the Lillywhite material. Instead, in a burst of creativity, Dave Matthews ended up writing a full album's worth of new songs in the space of a couple weeks. These songs were brought to the band whole, with parts for the other band members already written in sheet music. The other band members were used to jamming out in the studio on their own, and were now being treated as session players. The resulting album, Everyday was electric, somewhat overproduced, and radio friendly, but left the band's core fanbase wanting. Rumors of an imminent breakup flourished. After Everyday's release, the tracks recorded with Lillywhite re-emerged from an anonymous source and quickly circulated the Internet as The Lillywhite Sessions, a bootleg album to beat all. Rolling Stone Magazine gave Sessions a better review than Everyday, to the fans' delight and the band's chagrin. However, the band persevered and accomplished their original goal of tighter, better versions of the Lillywhite material with a few new songs. Coming out stronger than ever, the band released Busted Stuff in 2002, and returned to its roots, putting out an album with a quality not seen since Under the Table and Dreaming. Get it.
  • Under the Table and Dreaming : DMB's best studio album; every track is solid and it plays like a greatest hits album. A must-own.
  • Dave & Tim Live at Luther College : Dave takes to the road with longtime touring companion and virtuoso guitarist Tim Reynolds to produce this unbelievable all acoustic album. It's just Dave, Tim, and two acoustic guitars. Tim's flawless performance is humbilng, considering he fills in the part of every other instrument in these energetic tracks with just his six-string.
• James Taylor: Look up "Singer-Songwriter" in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of good'ol JT there.
  • October Road [Ltd. Ed.] : JT's latest album, released in late 2002. An absolutely amazing studio effort, heavy on the acoustic guitar (which keeps a spot in my heart soft for this album). Make sure to get the limited edition, which has an extra CD with three extra tracks on there, including a spectactular duet with Mark Knopfler, Sailing to Philadelphia.
  • Greatest Hits : Folk rock music at its best, with a little blues thrown in. A must-own.
  • Greatest Hits Vol. 2 : Can you believe this was released in November of 2000? Anyway, it's a fantastic complement to the first album, and is a little lighter. Covers his work all the way up through Hourglass, which is nice.
  • Live : It's James Taylor live. There's a more honest quality to his live perfomance. After listening to this double-album extensively, the studio cuts can sound a little dry and rushed. The pacing and emotion are much better here. Also includes a live version of my favorite JT song, Millworker from his unappreciated Flag album.
• Blues Traveler: John Popper inspired me to learn to play harmonica. It's hard to classify their music--it's somewhere between rock & roll and blues, but I can't figure out where.
  • Four : Not surprisingly, BT's fourth album. Contains their most well-known songs, Run Around and Hook but also features an impressive range of ballads and heavy stuff. A must-have.
  • Straight on Till Morning : BT's fifth studio album, another wonderful exposition of the talent here. Canadian Rose is the best song on here, but it's another unbelievable mix of ballads and heavy tunes. Also features immense musical uniqueness with Felicia.
  • Save His Soul : BT's third studio album, quite a bit more edgy and unrefined than the later efforts, which is good. Unappreciated tracks on this album include Trina Magna, Conquer Me, Fledgling, Whoops, and Love of My Life. Additional coolness points for the best album title and album cover of any album ever, and the awesome opening riff of Defense and Desire.
• Nick Drake: Is dead. Sang "Pink Moon" in the Volkswagen Cabrio Commercial which did not suck, and was art in its own right.
  • Fruit Tree (Boxed Set) : The problem with Nick Drake is that pretty much all of his music is as good as "Pink Moon." So, you might as well get all of it. This boxed set includes all of Nick's recorded works, including his three studio albums and one disc of unreleased efforts.
  • I was going to list just the Pink Moon disc here for people who don't want to buy the whole boxed set, but after you get Pink Moon, you're going to want the whole set, and then you'd be buying the album twice. So I'm going to save you the trouble and just tell you to buy the boxed set.
• Jackson Browne: Contemporary of the Eagles, but a different sort of artist. Has been producing a steady stream of albums since the early 1970's. In my opinion, his early, darker, brooding stuff is his best work. He is a highly under-appreciated artist.
  • Late for the Sky : Several songs on here reflecting his views on his wife's suicide, environmental stance, etc. Seven of the eight tracks are absolute classics, a good number for a studio album.
  • Jackson Browne (Saturate Before Using) : Somewhat less depressing than Late for the Sky. This spends a lot of time in my CD player.
• Simon and Garfunkel:
  • Greatest Hits : I would describe this album, but everybody in the world already owns it, so why bother? If you don't have a copy, get one.
• Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (or any combination thereof):
  • Looking Forward : A 1999 studio release shows that, while aging, these guys have still got it. Soft stuff, three-part harmonies, and social conscience. What more can you ask for?
  • So Far : Classic CSNY. All the big hits, from Graham Nash's delicate "Our House" and "Teach Your Children" to Stephen Stills' classic rock staple "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" to the enigmatic but highly cool "Wooden Ships."
• Billy Joel: The Piano Man. 'Nuff said.
  • The Complete Hits Collection (Boxed Set) : Yeah, another boxed set. This one includes his three (3!) greatest hits albums plus an "additional material" disc. You should probably just get the boxed set because every one of the greatest hits albums is a keeper, and you should have all of them.
• Sting (and the Police): A consistently great performer over the years, with a wide range of musical output. Also a pretty nice guy, playing every benefit concert, well...ever.
  • The Very Best of Sting and the Police : I'm not too fond of Sting's B-Sides, so you might as well just get the Greatest Hits disc. The only loser on this one is the Puff Daddy remix of Roxanne, which probably seemed like a good idea to open-minded Sting until Puff Daddy started carrying deadly weapons around with him.
  • Brand New Day : I was debating whether to put this on here, but it's a solid studio album and has a wide variety of good songs.
• Sheryl Crow: Coming out as a strong female presence in a world populated by male singer/songwriters, Sheryl Crow has established herself as a force to be reckoned with. Her music does a good job of bridging the gap between real rock and roll and late-20th century pop, without turning into bubblegum music.
  • Tuesday Night Music Club : Sheryl Crow's 'breakout' album, includes most of her early hits and characterizes her music as a whole well. The sleeper track on here is We Do What We Can, a Jazz-style number with a back-beat that sounds like it's coming from a drum machine (it probably is). Her father, Wendell Crow, guests on trumpet, on a track that rivals the best stuff from jazz artists without getting stupid and artsy.
• Tom Waits: His name is a sentence. Known affectionately as "the skid-row Sinatra," Waits' voice degenerated long ago, to the point where Bob Dylan sounds like Luciano Pavarotti. Lyrically, Waits is the best imagistic lyricist that I have ever heard, and likely the best alive. Once you get used to the growling-dog voice and the offbeat Jazz rhythms and blues lyrics, you will be converted.
  • Closing Time : Some of Waits' earliest work, before his voice went to pot entirely (and possibly deliberately). This is one of the most important albums ever recorded. The two starter tracks, Ol'55 and Hope that I Don't Fall In Love With You are amazing in themselves, and have been covered extensively. However, the later tracks are, I feel, far more representative of the genius here. Personal favorites include Grapefruit Moon and Martha, but special recognition goes to Lonely, which is minimalist work at its finest (as it should be). The form and message of that song are in perfect sync.
  • Small Change : If you bought this album, and it was damaged, and only Tom Traubert's Blues would still play, it would still be worth it.

Anyway...I'll update this list as I think of new albums to put on here.

One of my all time favorite foods in the world is Hot Buttered Cheerios, aka Fried Cheerios. A recent Google search revealed that very few people seem to still know how to make them, or understand their wholesome goodness. The idea isn't mine; in fact, the recipe used to be published on some Cheerios boxes about 20 years ago. The fact remains that they are an amazing snack. The experience is something like eating popcorn, but better, since there are no kernels stuck in your teeth, and Cheerios are more substantial, providing a much more satisfying snack. Over the last several decades, I believe I may have perfected the original recipe. I offer it here, with my fullest recommendations:

Ingredients:

1-2 Cups Cheerios
2-3 Tbsp butter or margarine (I use Imperial myself)
Lawry's Seasoned Salt (With the red cap; no substitutions here!)

Directions:

In a SMALL saucepan, melt butter/margarine, on high heat,
careful not to lose too much to evaporation.  Remove saucepan
from heat as soon as all butter has melted.  Add 1-2 cups
Cheerios, to taste.  Toss Cheerios until most of the butter
has been distributed among Cheerios (although coating on
individual Cheerios will vary.)  Sprinkle with Lawry's
Seasoned Salt, also to taste (1-3 tsp, usually).  Toss
again, distributing salt.

Return Cheerios to heat, tossing with a fork.  Cheerios
will cook and begin to turn a delicious golden brown.
Toss vigorously for about one minute, until 95% of the butter
at the bottom of the pan has been absorbed or until Cheerios
are no longer "shiny."  Take care not to burn the Cheerios,
as burnt Cheerios are nasty, and they burn quickly!  Remove
immediately from heat and transfer to a bowl.

The following is optional, but I believe it improves the Cheerio experience by at least an order of magnitude.

Immediately transfer bowl of hot Cheerios to your freezer.
Let chill for 15-20 minutes.  Remove and enjoy!

Trust me on this one, really.

September 2002: So I'm browsing around my favorite meta-news site, Fark, and I see an article about Frito-Lay reducing the fat in Doritos and Cheerios. Of course, it was a typographical error, the author meant to say Cheetos, not Cheerios. Nevertheless, I get about halfway down through the comment posts and some idiot has plagiarized my Hot Buttered Cheerios recipe without proper attribution. Seriously, click on that link and do a find for "hot buttered"! Well, Ididntdoit, you obviously DID do it. Credit your sources, people!

There's a bar/restaurant/dive joint in Newport Beach called Sid's. It's sort of a real-life urban legend. The legend is that the guy who owns it (Sid) somehow angered a local politician or judge or somesuch and has been banished from the state of California. He now runs the place by remote from Nevada. They have all sorts of crazy rules, like "no condiments on the tables" and "chairs at 45 degree angles" (to keep aisleways at maximum width) and "no going to the bar while waiting for food." There is no sign on the place, and they don't take phone calls. It's all word-of-mouth. Their slogan is "Sid's - Don't Tell Anybody." They're supposed to have spectactular steak at insanely cheap prices.

Anyway, here's what you need to know about Sid's:

1. The service is extremely crappy.
2. Four times an hour, while you're waiting for your food (this takes like two hours) they will come refill your drinks.
3. Cokes come in a glass about twice the size of a shot glass.
4. Each Coke costs a dollar.
5. Each refill costs a dollar. You don't find this out until you get the bill.
6. They sell dishes with steak in them at insanely cheap prices. The steak is mediocre at best, and the accompanying food is not great.
7. Dinner for 3: $60. $15 for food and $45 for Coke.

Do you have any idea how much Coke you can get for $45? Do you? You can get 90 liters of Coke for $45. More if it's on sale.

After an experience at Sid's, I believe that the slogan is somewhat abbreviated. The real slogan should be "Sid's - Don't Tell Anybody How Much We Suck"

Please avoid Sid's.

September, 2000: I recently heard that Sid's has been closed down due to rat problems. I don't know if this is true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me.