Michael J. Radwin's blog

JPod by Douglas Coupland

Last night I finished reading JPod, Douglas Coupland's "sequel" to Microserfs. Very entertaining and a quick read. I haven't laughed out loud reading a book in months.

JPod has been described as "Microserfs for the Google generation", but perhaps "Microserfs for the EA generation" would be more appropriate, given the setting of a bunch of coders working for a videogame company. I had assumed that jPod had something to do with Apple's iPod (perhaps a "jPod = ++iPod;" joke of sorts), but you know what happens when you make an assumption. (You make an ass out of u and mption.) As we find out on page 47, the book is called jPod because the characters work in a part of the cubicle farm where each employee's last name begins with the letter J.

The book was a little darker than Microserfs (murder, people smuggling, forced heroin addiction and slavery) but par for the course for Coupland. Still not as good as my favorite Coupland novel (the underappreciated Miss Wyoming) but it's among his top best work.

Books I should read

Here are a handful of books hanging out in my Amazon shopping cart waiting to be purchased:

• Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain
• The Open Society Paradox: Why The 21st Century Calls For More Openness--Not Less - Dennis Bailey
• The Know-It-All : One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World - A. J. Jacobs
• On Food and Cooking : The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - Harold McGee
• How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built - Stewart Brand

Chanukah starts tomorrow. Maybe I'll get one of them. :-)

Bollywood entertainment

Last night I went out with Badi and Swaroop to see Yuva. The movie was in Hindi so naturally I couldn't understand a word, but during the intermission I got a recap of the first couple of hours. Turns out I followed about 30% of what was going on. I guess the language of love (and violence) is universal.

The music was good and the action scenes (especially the big fistfight that takes place in the middle of traffic) were quite entertaining. I bought a copy of the soundtrack at the music store for 125 rupees. It included two CDs: 6 songs from the Yuva movie and a bonus disc with 10 of A.R. Rahman's hits.

According to the critics, the movie was a bit of a disappointment. Apparently director Mani Ratnam is capable of much better work. But hey, what do I know about Indian movies?

Love is Stronger Than Thunder

Too bad they don't carry Milli Vanilli on the iTunes Music store. I've got $3.96 burning a hole in my pocket and just thought of what I'd most like to spend it on.

• Girl You Know It's True
• Baby Don't Forget My Number
• Blame It On The Rain
• I'm Gonna Miss You

Current Reading List

I've been in more of a reading mood than a writing one recently.

Just finished reading

• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
• Apache Cookbook by Ken Coar and Rich Bowen

In the middle of reading

• The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond

Just starting to read

• Refactoring by Martin Fowler (of the original Gang of Four)
• Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert L. Glass
• The Caffeine Advantage by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer

Hope to get around to reading

• Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Amazon is finally making a profit on me.

Introducing Chomsky

Stuck in bed this weekend with a cold, Ariella bought me a copy of Introducing Chomsky, 2nd Edition. Between naps and feeling sorry for myself, I managed to read the entire book.

Since I've already read a few of Steven Pinker's books, the first half of this book (Chomsky's theories on linguistics) seemed a little redundant to me. However, since I had never before studied Chomsky the political/social theorist, the second half of the book was definitely enlightening.

Compared to my experience with other books in this series (Introducing Semiotics and Introducing Postmodernism in particular), I was a little disappointed with Introducing Chomsky. This one was not nearly as clear or entertaining as the others.

Still, I haven't given up on Icon Books. I'm ordering a used copy of Introducing Einstein so it can sit on my shelf next to A Brief History of Time and the dozens of other books I'll get around to reading "someday."

I want Fetch Art for Windows iTunes

I want the equivalent of Fetch Art for iTunes for Windows.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to write my own. Apple seems to provide a iTunes Visual Plug-ins SDK for Windows but it's not clear if there is a generic plug-in architecture for things other than visualizations (i.e. audio formats or generic hooks).

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

I recently "read" Steve Martin's most recent novel The Pleasure of My Company. It's an excellent book.

I use "read" in quotes, because I purchased the audio book instead of the written book. I've listened to only one audio book before (the first Harry Potter book which I snagged from KaZaA before the RIAA flooded the network a bunch of crap). This one was way better. Why? Because Steve Martin reads it!

Like his previous novella, The Pleasure of My Company is a story about a lonely man living in LA who seeks companionship. To say that the main character in is neurotic is an understatement. Asperger's or OCD is more like it.

But Daniel Pecan Cambridge isn't all crazy; he's a true romantic at heart. Throughout much of the story he is admiring Zandy, Clarissa, and Elizabeth from afar, hoping that one day one of them will love him back.

The book is light and and charming. Unlike the Diamond Age, which I read last month, I didn't need a dictionary to decode the language. Steve Martin reading it makes the book all the more enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Trip to Amoeba Music

Avital is visiting from Boston this weekend. We went to Amoeba Music in Hollywood and got a handful of used CDs.

Here's what I got:

• Loveboat - Erasure
• Other People's Songs - Erasure
• Acoustic - Everything But The Girl
• Sleepyhead - The Brothers Creegan
• Stop All The World Now - Howie Day

I looked for a used copy of the new BNL album but they only had it new and I didn't want to for over $18.

Avital recommended the Howie Day album and Ariella and I both really liked it. Cheezy acoustic pop.

Ariella got some classical CDs. Avital got Homogenic by Björk and I ripped a copy of it to my iPod. Compared to the crap you can download from the Internet, you get way better quality if you borrow a copy of a CD from your friends & family. Hurrah for fair use.

New BNL album: Everything to Everyone

The new Barenaked Ladies album Everything to Everyone came out today.

It would be nice to have the CD for my collection, but that requires a trip to the store or a 2-day wait while Amazon ships it to me. Maybe I'll just buy it on iTunes. Instant gratification!

Friday afternoon music

They Might Be Giants released 3 new free MP3s today for download.

They sound even better when you play them in iTunes for Windows.

Oh, how I love iTunes. It's da bibbidy bomb.

Updated reading list

Looking back at the 17 books I planned to read this year, it looks like I haven't made much progress. I've finished four of them (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!; Crossing the Chasm; The Cathedral and the Bazaar; and most recently The Diamond Age).

The Diamond Age was good, but not as enjoyable as Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon. It looks like Stephenson just came out with a new tome. Maybe I'll find time to read that in 2004.

I've been reading bits and pieces of The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick and Effective C++ by Scott Meyers, but neither of those books is compelling enough to sit down and read straight through.

Ariella just bought me a used copy of Meyer Levin's Classic Hassidic Tales. I was reading a bit of it over Yom Kippur and it's great. I like short stories.

This week at LAX I picked an audio CD of Steve Martin reading his new book The Pleasure of My Company. I read Shopgirl right when it came out almost 3 years ago and found it surprisingly good, so I'm hoping for another winner. I ripped all of the tracks to my iPod today so I'll be able to listen to it on the plane. If I listen every week on the plane, I'll finish it by mid-November.

Bubba Ho-tep

Ariella and I saw Bubba Ho-tep at the Nuart last night. Bruce Campbell is incredible. Don Coscarelli is a genius.

Basically, the plot involves Elvis Presley, JFK, and an undead Egyptian mummy. Brilliant.

Campbell appeared in person to introduce the Friday night show. Too bad he didn't make it last night. I would've liked to shake his hand and asked him to autograph my collection of Jack of all Trades episodes on VHS tapes.

The Goal by Eli Goldratt

I finished reading The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt back at the end of July, but only now (at 30,000 feet on my way back to LAX) have I finally found a free moment to sit down and write about it.

Although the book was originally written almost 20 years ago, it does a great job at making the subject of process improvement engaging. Goldratt very cleverly disguises a "business book" in the form of a fiction novel.

It seems that I always enjoy books more if I can relate to one of the characters. Although I don't run a factory like Alex Rogo does, I am a pretty busy person who struggles to balance personal and professional demands.

Perhaps the most compelling theme in the book is the concept that the journey is more important than the destination. Every time Alex Rogo thinks he has improved how his factory operates, a whole new crop of issues arises, and Alex needs to re-investigate what's really going on the factory floor so he can find and eliminate the new bottleneck. Goldratt summarizes Alex's task as a process of ongoing improvement. Bottlenecks can appear anywhere, even where you least expect them. The real challenge in being a manager, Alex discovers, is being able to work through the improvement process no matter what form it may take.

If you'll allow me to drash it a little bit (perhaps I'm in the mood because we're right in the middle of the Yamim Noraim), what Goldratt is really getting at is that the process is more important than the outcome. In other words, the journey is its own reward. The struggle is what makes us stronger. That's not to say that the end isn't important; Goldratt entitled the book The Goal for a reason. Businesspeople (Goldratt's audience) know that they need to be profitable or they'll go out of business (or get replaced by someone who can make a profit).

The truly rewarding part of work (and by extension life in general) isn't at the moment that you reach the goal. In fact, once I've finished a project and declared success there is often a little hint of disappointment that it's over. Instead, it's the process itself that is rewarding. It's through the process that we grow into better people.

Happy 41st, Wesley!

Wesley Snipes is 41 years old today.

Dude, when are you gonna make a good movie again? I'm still worried about you.

Field Day by Shere

I was browsing through my CD collection this morning to find a few more albums to rip to my iPod and I came across Field Day, a funky acoustic pop album I hadn't listened to in a while.

It's good. And now that it's on my iPod, I'll probably listen to it more. I really like After the Rain and Watching Amy. If there's interest, I'll see if I can get permission from the artist to put a full-length sample MP3 up on my site.

Aside from being a talented singer/songwriter, Los Angeles local Daniel Shere is also a screenwriter. His claim to fame is co-writing an amusing short film called George Lucas in Love, a comedy that pays homage to both Star Wars and Shakespeare In Love. You may have seen it floating around the Internet back in '99 when high-bandwidth content was all the rage.

The sheremusic.com website is a little goofy, but don't let that prevent you from buying a copy of their album. At a total cost of $13.40 ($10.99 plus shipping & tax) it's a pretty good price for a great album.

The Cathedral, The Bazaar, and Apache

A couple of weeks ago I read Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and The Bazaar, a collection of essays about Open Source software. Raymond writes quite well for a techie (either that or he has a superb editor), and the book is coherent. I didn't agree with most of the book, but I think it's important to keep abreast of what other folks are writing about the space.

Despite my general disappointment in the book, Homesteading the Noosphere was quite good. In an essay describing how "ownership" of Open Source projects works, Raymond accurately states the previously unwritten code of behavior. Projects have owners. Contributions are welcome, especially when they're written well. Project ownership can be transferred. Forking is strongly discouraged, although sometimes necessary as a last resort when the owner won't accept changes and refuses to relinquish control of the project.

The Homesteading the Noosphere essay has actually prompted me to think a little bit about what's going to happen with the Apache HTTP Server. The Apache Software Foundation is currently maintaining two separate versions of this product, 1.3.x and 2.0.x (and is also is working on 2.1.x). Although the 2.0 server has been stable and "recommended" for over a year now, there are lots of organizations that are still using the 1.3 platform. The ASF would like folks to move to 2.0, but the fact that they're still making 1.3.x releases indicates that they recognize that migrating to 2.0 is no small undertaking. When there are security problems (and sometimes features) these changes are always made in 2.0 first, but need to get "backported" to 1.3.

But what if maintaining two separate products became too cumbersome and the ASF decided to stop making 1.3.x releases? I've wondered privately if any of the organizations that have a substantial investment in Apache/1.3 would want to take over the codebase (i.e. fork it). What would happen to the Apache community if someone decided to make an Apache/1.4 release? If the development was split across two projects, would both lose momentum (and therefore market share)? Would the vast majority of folks stand by the ASF and swallow the complexity of the 2.x server, while a "rogue" bunch of hackers simply caused social turmoil with 1.4 but never really made it successfully as a project? Or vice-versa?

Regardless of technical or social reasons, something called "Apache/1.4" couldn't really happen without the ASF's blessing. Although the code is Open Source so you could re-use it for another project, the Apache License is written in such a way that derivative products aren't allowed to use the name "Apache". But maybe there could be a Hopi/1.4 or a Mohican/1.4 HTTP server...

As Raymond writes in Homesteading the Noosphere, the natural motivation is to avoid forking unless absolutely necessary. In the case of Apache HTTP Server, there are decent technical and social alternatives to this last resort. So I'd hazard to guess that we'll never see Apache/1.4.

Instead, we'll probably see at most two more Apache/1.3 releases before the code is officially declared deprecated (which will probably happen right around the time that Apache/2.1 is released). Folks who have put off the 1.3-to-2.0 migration effort will take a serious look at a 1.3-to-2.1 jump, and the vast majority of them will make the move over the next two years. Sure, there will always be some laggards who are stuck using Apache/1.3.31, but by the end of 2005 their numbers will be so small that they're not worth mentioning.

Guster

I was just introduced to Guster, a 3-piece band from Boston. I like their sound.

Ariella's family came to visit this past weekend. On Sunday after brunch we gathered around my laptop to watch streaming videos from Yahoo! Launch. At 300Kbps, it's an on-demand (albeit lower-quality) MTV experience.

Avital, an undergrad at BU said, "Hey, that's a Guster video I've never seen before," so we clicked and watched. Not bad. "Who's Guster?" I asked. "They're from Boston," she replied.

I later logged onto KaZaaLite and grabbed 6 tracks and synced them to my iPod (the Apple Music Store isn't available for PCs yet). My favorite so far is Two Points for Honesty. That song reminds me a little bit of The Waltons, a Canadian band I saw at the Filmore in 1998.

Making Love Out of Nothing At All

We went to see Air Supply last night with Rachel and Dan.

What a trip!

Thumbs down for "I Spy"

After dinner with my folks last night, we rented I Spy.

It was a real disappointment; we should've rented My Big Fat Greek Wedding instead. My dad called it quits after 20 minutes. My mom stuck with it until the bitter end, but we both considered it a waste of 90 minutes.

You can't win 'em all.

Standing on both sides of the Chasm

I started reading Crossing the Chasm last night, and 30 pages into the book, I'm wondering where I fit along the Technology Adoption Life Cycle bell curve. Until now, I've always thought of myself as an innovator or early adopter. After all, I'm a computer guy, and I spend a lot of time thinking about technology. But after reading a bit and thinking about my own consumer behavior, I'm surprised to discover that I'm moving to the right of the curve, more towards the early majority category. Perhaps I'm becoming more risk-averse?

Here's a sampling of when I adopted various consumer technologies (and my best guess as to where it was on the bell curve when I adopted it):

• email - 1992 (innovator)
• web browsing - 1994 (innovator)
• Linux - 1994 (innovator)
• web publishing - 1995 (early adopter)
• e-commerce - 1996 (early adopter)
• PDA - 1997 (early adopter)
• vanity email address - 1998 (early adopter)
• cell phone - 1998 (early majority)
• snowboarding - 1998 (early majority)
• MP3 ripping - 1999 (early adopter)
• electric toothbrush - 2002 (late majority)
• broadband Internet - 2000 (early majority)
• P2P file sharing - 2000 (early majority)
• TiVo - 1999 (early adopter)
• LCD projector TV - 2001 (early adopter)
• DVD player - 2001 (early majority)
• 802.11b wireless network - 2002 (early majority)
• CD burner - 2002 (late majority)
• blog - 2002 (early adopter)
• antilock brakes - 2002 (late majority)
• digital camera - maybe this year (early majority?)
• hybrid or electric car - 2005? (early majority?)
• Lasik eye surgery - never (laggard)
• digital watch - never (laggard)

I think the key has to do with technology for technology's sake versus pragmatism. To quote Moore:

The early majority share some of the early adopter's ability to relate to technology, but ultimately they are driven by a strong sense of practicality. They know that many of these newfangled inventions end up as passing fads, so they are content to wait and see how other people are making out before they buy in themselves.

At this point in my life, I see myself as more of a pragmatist. Six years ago, I bought an Apple Newton PDA because I thought the technology was cool and I couldn't stand the idea of having to contort my handwriting to the machine. I wanted the machine to recognize my handwriting! After all, the machines are supposed to be working for us, not the other way around.

These days, I've settled for a Palm Zire. Why? It's more practical. It's way smaller than the Newton, so it fits in my blue jeans pocket. And it gets the job done. Sure, it doesn't have whiz-bang artificial intelligence handwriting recognition software. But it's good enough.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Richard Feynman's memory is a blessing to us all.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a delightful collection of short stories about Richard Feynman's life. It's yet another one of the books on my reading list for 2003.

I've been reading this book in small sittings over the past year -- on the bus to and from UCLA, on the plane to and from SJC, and sometimes on a Sunday afternoon. Feynman embodies the perfect combination of wit, intellect, and chutzpah.

One of my favorite stories had to do with Feynman's experiments with ants. On many occasions he would observe (and sometimes interfere with) a line of ants that was crawling through his lab or house. In messing around with the ants, Feynman wasn't trying to play God; he was trying to study ant behavior and learn what motivated them.

Although I finished the book almost a month ago, I've been thinking about it again over the past week. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster brought back many memories of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster some 17 years earlier. Feynman was a member of NASA's Rogers Commission and discovered the problem with O-rings that caused the explosion. It was his characteristic curiosity that led him to experiment with rubber O-rings and ice water, solving the mystery of the disaster.

I'm worried about Wesley

I'm worried about Wesley Snipes. I think he's lost his touch.

I recently rented Undisputed, a movie about a prison boxing match. Terrible. In brief, the heavyweight champion (Ving Rhames) ends up in jail, convicted of rape. A typical alpha male, he fights anyone who gets in his way. He learns that another inmate (Wesley Snipes) is a good boxer and vows to fight him. Several training scenes and conversations with bookies later, the two get it on in the right. No surprise, Snipes wins the fight. Hurrah for the underdog, I guess? Uninspired plot, poor acting, and very little action. Not your typical Wesley.

Thinking this was just a fluke, I decided to get another Wesley film: Liberty Stands Still. Even worse. In this film, Wesley plays a psychopath who decides to shoot a lot of people because his daughter was killed at school by some kid with a gun. Equipped with his own sniper rifle, he holds a woman and her lover hostage with a couple of bombs, and shoots at anyone he feels like. The camera occasionally drops into slow-motion shots of Wesley staring blankly at a barrette clipped to his gun. He's angry. We get it. But are we supposed to believe that he's righteous for killing the gun company's executives and random other people? Director Kari Skogland doesn't give us any reason to care about any of the characters.

What happened to the Wesley that we all know and love? What happened to the man who gave us such classics as New Jack City (the film that invented the concept of the bling bling gangster) and Passenger 57 (about a badass airline security wonk who happens to be on the wrong plane at the right time)?

Where is the actor who gave us mindless but entertaining action hits like Demolition Man (find an excuse to demolish anything you can find), Drop Zone (find an excuse to parachute out of a lot of planes and land on anything you can find) or Blade (find an excuse to kill a lot of vampires and any other beasties you can find)?

I miss you, Wesley. I'm going to cross my fingers when I rent Blade II. I hope I re-discover the real you.

Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software

I finished reading Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software a couple of weeks ago (it's on my reading list for 2003). Sam Williams spins a compelling story about a man who is so passionate about a single idea that he ends up alienating most people he meets.

On the whole, the book is well-written and insightful. I found chapters 10 and 11 ("GNU/Linux" and "Open Source") the most interesting. These chapters are less autobiographical and more historical. They do a good job of explaining why the Open Source movement is important (the Free Software Foundation is a bunch of religious zealots that don't care to understand or work with the business world).

When I heard RMS interrupt and insult a speaker at the 2002 O'Reilly Open Source Convention because the speaker used the term "Free Software" to refer to "Open Source" software, I didn't really understand why he would be so rude. The other chapters in the book, as a whole, tell us why he's such a jerk. They don't condone his behavior, but they do offer an explanation of how he came to be the person he is today.

The whole St. Ignucius shtick makes me embarassed to be an Emacs user. I can't code without it, but I hate the pseudo-religion that RMS attaches to its use.

Lastly, a comment about e-books: Although I could've read the book for free online, I ended up getting a print edition. It's so much easier to read in print that I think it's worth spending the money on the actual book.

(I downloaded Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom to my Palm Zire last week because I'm tickled by the Creative Commons licenses, but I'm having a hard time with the poor contast delivered by an LCD. There ain't nothing as easy to read as black ink on white paper.)

Reading List for 2003

I finally finished reading Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month this past week as I was recovering from a nasty chest cold. Even though the book is now 25 years old, it's still got some fantastic insight on why software projects are perennially late, over budget, and full of bugs.

Still on my software engineering kick, I picked up my copy of Free as in Freedom (which was included in my registration tote bag at the July 2002 O'Reilly Open Source Convention). I'm about halfway through it, and I'm even more convinced than before that RMS is considered harmful. (Apologies to Edsger Dijkstra.) I'm enjoying the book nonetheless; Sam Williams writes well, and the story is fascinating nonetheless.

So since it's a New Year, I may as well publish my (optimistic) reading list for the upcoming twelve months:

• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman


• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser


• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville


• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson


• The Celebration Chronicles by Andrew Ross


• The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick


• Effective C++ by Scott Meyers


• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards


• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore


• Chomsky for Beginners by David Cogswell


• Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey Friedl


• The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond


• A Living Tree by Rabbi Elliot Dorff and Arthur Rosett


• Generation X by Douglas Coupland


• Matters of Life and Death by Rabbi Elliot Dorff


• Broken Tablets edited by Rabbi Rachel Mikva


• The Death of Death by Rabbi Neil Gillman

Looking at that list, it seems to be mostly comprised of Computer Science, Judaism, and science fiction. Ariella says that compared to most people, I read way more non-fiction than fiction. I guess she's right. I wonder what that says about me?

It's a Wonderful Life

Every year around X-mas time I'm sure to mention the story about how It's a Wonderful Life became a holiday classic due to a snafu with copyright law. Earlier this week, NPR reported on this very story:

NPR's Rick Karr reports on how a 1946 box office flop became so ubiquitous on television this time of year. It's a Wonderful Life is a sentimental favorite... in part because of Jimmy Stewart, but also because no one ever bothered to file the papers to extend the copyright on the movie. [NPR Morning Edition]

NPR also aired a Motley Fool Radio Show about the movie.

Cooking Latkes and Listening to Falco

I'm in the kitchen cooking some Latkes for the first night of Chanukah. I think we should rename it the "Festival of Grease."

While I'm cooking, I'm listening to Falco: the Remix Hit Collection. It's not his best album, but it's got an awesome beat (maybe I've still got Blue Man Group on the brain).

Falco rocks.

We like cars, the cars that go boom

My parents bought me an external Firewire CD burner for a birthday present (back in June) but the thing didn't work. When I met them for dinner last night, they gave me a new one which although is a wimpy USB 1.1 model, at least it's a name brand (Iomega Zip CD650). Turns out that it actually works. I guess there's something to be said for buying name brands.

So this morning I finally made the "Car Songs" CD that I've been thinking about since this summer! Here's what's on the CD:

• Barenaked Ladies - In the Car


• Beach Boys - Fun, Fun, Fun


• Beatles - Drive My Car


• Billy Ocean - Get Out of My Dreams Get into My Car


• Don McLean - American Pie


• Geggy Tah - Whoever You Are


• L'Trimm - Cars that go boom


• Prince - Little Red Corvette


• Roger Miller - King of the Road


• Rose Royce - Car Wash


• Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55


• Tracy Chapman - Fast Car


• Trio - Da Da Da


• Willie Nelson - On The Road Again

Yes, I know that "Da Da Da" isn't actually a song about cars or driving, but those Volkswagen commercials have infused the song with a whole new set of car imagery. Kinda like I always think of United Airlines when I hear Rhapsody in Blue.

Secret lyrics to the Ashim Theme

I recently got a cell phone that allows you to program custom ring tones.

So I programmed in the first 8 bars of the Ashim Theme that Mike Cafarella and I composed (with apologies to the Norwegian Folk Song) back in 1996.

I can't reveal the whole set of lyrics to the Ashim Theme due to the blood oath that I swore to Caf back on that overcast day in Providence. But here's an excerpt:

As I walk through the dark forest,
Swimming through waves of terror.
Oh my goodness, there he is now.
It's the spirit of Roberto.
I must run, I must flee,
He will kill me (holy cow)!
Have I escaped? Am I free now?
Is this heaven, not hell?
I must try to find Nirvana: Taco Bell.

Now, every time my phone rings I think fondly of Ashim.