new mo' better life?

November 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Via a comment on my buzznet site I just got what could be wonderful news if it pans out. User golden (who hasn't posted any pictures as of yet, but I'll link you just in case she does in the future) had this to say in response to an image of the closed Mo' Better Meaty Meat Burgers location:

Actually, to prevent you from going into withdrawal I would like to pass on some info about the late Mo Better Meaty Meat Burgers. To make a long story short, the original owners of the stand decided to take a break from Mo Better for a while, because of being a bit over worked w/out reliable help. So they sold it back in late 1998, to someone who actually ran the business into the ground. Fortunately, the original owners are looking for a new location to open back up sometime soon...

I have indeed been in withdrawl, and would love to be able to get out of it.

Better get in line now...

November 08, 2004 by Eric Richardson

This Daily News article talks about a shared-cost plan for sidewalk repair. The "WHA?!?" moment is at the end, when we get this gem:

This year, the City Council set aside enough money to replace 52 miles of sidewalks, but with a 4,600-mile backlog of damaged sidewalks, the average wait is about 80 years, Robertson said.

See, here's the thing: apparently the city doesn't technically own the sidewalks, so for a long time they just didn't do anything about them. They left it up to the property owners to take care of. Well, that didn't work out so well and now there's a lot to catch up on.

I've always wondered about the trees planted alongside streets. You always see the sidewalks where they've been there too long and the roots have pushed the sidewalk into all sorts of not flat shapes, but then you see streets that have been freshly landscaped with smaller trees. Do they have new ways to do it now where that same thing isn't going to happen in a couple decades?

computers; they hate me, but i love them

November 07, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I've been doing some eThreads2 coding this afternoon. I had to set up an Apache2/modperl setup on my laptop to do development now that the real installation's running live on this site. You would think there would be a way to partition namespaces in modperl to have live and devel versions of the same libs in memory, but I can't seem to come up with a way. Is it weird that I'm coding on my laptop just because I really like how the transparent terminals look on top of a background I'm using? Take a look at that shot, though... Isn't that just amazing? The background's from deviantart; I don't have a more specific URL handy at the moment.

My roommate Chris and I were counting up the other day and totalled up that we've got ten computers in the apartment -- and 9 of them are mine. To be fair, though, two of those are the XBox and the Tivo. Both are in reality PC's, but you can count or not count them as you wish. The list aside from those two:

I should be getting my former server back this weekend. At that point I'll retire the homebrew, though, so the numbers will stay the same.

ah, that 710 gap

November 05, 2004 by Eric Richardson

The Pasadena Star News today has an article about the MTA studying the possibility of a tunnel to complete the 710. When I first started working up here at JPL two years ago I was confused by the short little dead-end spur of the 210 that I would get onto off of California. I later read that this spur had been intended to connect to the 710 (and occasionally the 110), but that connector had been blocked by the fact that it went through South Pasadena. From the article:

MTA officials came to West Covina City Hall to brief the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments' transportation committee on the tunneling proposal. SGVCOG, a 30-city organization, almost unanimously supports closing the 710 gap.

The city of South Pasadena, however, has battled the freeway project since 1964. The 710 Freeway goes as far north as Valley Boulevard, on the Alhambra-El Sereno border.

I know I've written before about the fuss South Pasadena people have made over the Gold Line, but I can't seem to find where at the moment (perhaps it's in my soon to be resolved June - October blackhole). A website called 710gap.com is a little less diplomatic on its "Truth" page.

This Website is intended to address the war of misinformation, distortion and outright false claims made by a small but intensely committed group of 710 Freeway opponents. This group composed primarily of South Pasadena residents, operates from the premise that their South Pasadena's interests outweigh staggering impacts, traffic congestion and pollution that their City forces upon residents of other Southern California cities. In essence, their message is that it is OK to subject others to vehicles and air pollution because "our community" is a "more special place" than all others.

My basic take is that something has to be done, and South Pasadena needs to get with the program and work on an amenable solution instead of taking a complete blocking stance. Just understand that this project at some point is going to happen, and it's a lot more likely to be pallatable to you if you're a part of the solution rather than continuing to be the problem.

Music: "Artistry" at the Conga Room

November 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I haven't been out for music in a couple weeks, but tonight I'm going to wander west on Wilshire (like that?) to check out "Artistry" at the Conga Room. I got emails about the event from Yardley, and I definitely am excited about getting out to see them again (it's been far too long), but I'm also really looking forward to Joe Purdy and Quincy.

My musical attention of late has been focused on some cool stuff downtown, but I don't want to count any chickens before they hatch, so I'm not going to talk about that yet.