mahiwaga

1. The Lakers fought a pitched battle against the Jazz, despite their captain and MVP being injured early in the game. Twice they closed a ≥10 pt gap, only to fall behind again due to some bad breaks and insanely lucky shots on the part of the Jazz, and the fact that Kobe’s game was totally whack because of that back injury. I think it would’ve been less disappointing if they had gotten blown out instead. Then I would’ve just turned it off in the second quarter

2. My iPod died a horrible death. Just after I’ve gotten done extolling its virtues, too.

So I should’ve known badness would soon make its visit upon my 5G iPod.

When I was driving up to Harrah’s Rincon a couple of weeks ago, it was already hiccuping and locking up every two or three songs, and giving me the sad Mac iPod icon every once in a while.

I had initially blamed it on the latest iPod software upgrade, since this seems to be when my woes started. But I should’ve known better. It seems like the hard drive eventually breathed its last. Crunching noises and hard drives are not a good mix.

In despair, I took a nail cutter and filleted the dead iPod open. This particular thread seems to implicate something screwy with the actual hard drive itself, or one of the connecting ribbons. However, on inspection, it looked like everything was where it was supposed to be. It’s just that the hard drive sounded like there was something loose inside it. Probably the read/write head. And when I tried to close it all up again, the ribbon connecting to the battery got dislodged.

Even after putting it back where it should be, the thing refused to light up even once. It was over. Done for. And only after 14 months. Bah.

Technically my 2G iPod from 2003 still works, it’s just that the Firewire connector is completely destroyed, and there’s no way to put new songs on it, nor anyway to charge it.

So I end up going to Target at 8:30 pm and making a beeline for the electronics section. While the loss of my iPod was distressing, particularly since I had to drive 2 hours to S.D. still, I couldn’t find it in my heart to throw down $499 for a new iPod Touch. As for the iPhone, I’m still waiting for the release of the 2G version before buying in.

While the $249 for the iPod Classic (essentially identical to the 5G iPod) was more in my price range, I figured I’d done enough stimulation of the economy as it was. Besides, who really needs to listen to more than 5,000 songs in a row? I mean, I don’t think I’m ever going to drive for more than 12 hours a day, ever, much less 12 days in a row. It’s not like I shouldn’t be able to re-sync with my iTunes Library every so often. And if I do decide to go on a sojourn to a foreign country one of these days where carrying around a notebook and an external hard drive would be a liability, I’m just going to have to deal.

I finally settled on a 8GB 3G blue iPod Nano. I figure I’ll do better with something that doesn’t have any moving parts.

So I just got back to S.D. from Harbor City, where my uncle and my godmother live. The quickest way back would involve backtracking to the 405, and then heading south directly to the 5, or via the 73 toll road:

But I really like taking the coastal route, even though it adds about an extra 45 minutes to the trip

While I think I’ve taken this way more recently, the last time I really remember was around the time when my cousin Rnl. got married. I still remember that particularly hopeful summer, when I was listening to Koop and Sy Smith, and I kept waiting for something good to happen. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I was waiting for, but I remember that feeling of electric anticipation. Things were gonna change. I could feel it.

But no. Oh, there are things that have transpired in the intervening two years. Some things have been quite awful, but a few things have actually been surprisingly joyful (so long as I don’t try to think too far ahead and dissect things until there’s nothing left but a bloody, unrecognizable mess. But I digress….) But the Life-Changing Event™ I’m waiting for seems to continue to evade me. One wonders if I would recognize it if it punched me in the face.

Nonetheless, there is some cosmic symmetry in that my cousin and his wife Jnl. are expecting, with a due date sometime in October.

I love driving down to the harbor. Palos Verdes looms to the right, and you can see the lights of the Vincent Thomas Bridge on the left.

The Vincent Thomas Bridge is the only suspension bridge in Southern California, connecting San Pedro with Terminal Island, which is part of the sprawling, gigantic San Pedro-Long Beach port complex.

The massive scale of the San Pedro-Long Beach port complex is nearly incomprehensible. This is the machinery of capitalism laid bare. Cubic miles of stuff is sitting waiting to be shipped off by land or by sea to points all over the world.

California 47 is a weird highway. It’s not quite a freeway, and a good portion of its alignment actually goes east-west, even though it’s signed north-south. The route then exits off of this quasi-freeway and then heads north as the Terminal Island Fwy, then exits off this freeway too, and follows Alameda St. north to downtown L.A. (although it isn’t really signed, as far as I know.) The freight lines go along this corridor to Union Station, where they then get routed along transcontinental railways.

I think the portion of Ocean Blvd east of the California 47/California 103 exit is technically part of the Long Beach Fwy (I-710). Eventually, you get to a ramp that takes you to the freeway proper. The mainline of this route drops you into a 35 mph zone that runs through downtown Long Beach. It flows into Livingston Dr, then to 2nd Street, where you can catch the PCH.

Southbound on the PCH, you’re soon in Orange County (shudder!), right up against the sea. There is something dramatic about watching the waves at night crash up on the shore, the foam glowing magically as you race past at 60 mph. Until you get to Newport Beach, California 1 feels almost like a freeway.

But it’s a Sunday night, so there aren’t really that many people around. Newport Beach and Balboa Island would otherwise probably be raging clusterfucks, and I recall many times being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic here.

Between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, and between Laguna Beach and Dana Point, PCH reminds me a lot of California 1 in Northern Cali, especially between Santa Cruz and S.F. It’s pretty fun to take the curves without braking.

I coast by Laguna Beach, which is pretty much deserted at this hour, and I remember that summer when me, Bn., and his friend Gln. hung out here for a little while. Laguna Beach would actually be pretty cool if only it weren’t in the OC.

In time, you’ll get to the end-of-the-line. While the Coast Hwy actually exits off of California 1 and heads into San Clemente, California 1 itself leads you to I-5. If only old US-101 between San Onofre and Oceanside were actually traversable, you could theoretically stay on the coast the whole way down to S.D. I wonder why they didn’t just run California 1 down the old US-101 alignment? (Other than the fact that it would cut through Camp Pendleton, that is.)

Even still, you can get a pretty good look of the ocean from I-5.

I keep thinking that someone will save me from myself, but I guess deep down inside, I know I’ll have to do it myself. I won’t be any good for anyone until I get my shit together, and every time I make an effort to do so, it seems like everything just falls apart under my ham-handed attempts.

I guess I really have to take this Taoist principles to heart: to hold on to something, let it go.

This is from Brooklyn…

Man, I dig post-modernism.

So Mos takes the refrain from an old school freestyle track by Nocera and throws it into the mix. The lyrics “take me to the water” recalls old gospel spirituals about baptism, and summer time brings to mind Gershwin’s lullaby, too. For good measure, Mos adds some Bob Marley and William DeVaughn in.

Whenever I hear this song, I can still feel those cold autumn early mornings after pulling an all-nighter, writing an English paper or a History paper, fully saturated with caffeine (a total of 230 mg would usually tide me over), with no one but Sluggo on KROQ to keep me company.