So I tried to configure the xorg (wth?) wacom drivers using a text editor called gedit (wth?). When I opened it this bit of gibberish was waiting for me:

WALTOP needs a patched kernel driver, that isn't in mainline lk yet, so for now just let it fall through and be picked up by evdev instead.

Seriously? Am I supposed to nod in agreement or throw rocks at the screen?

This is why regular folks might not really want to go anywhere near any kind of linux. I have seen linux distributions with holier-that-thou taglines such as "software for humans". Does their definition of "humans" comes from a dictionary buried under Martian craters?!

At the Texas Salsa Congress!!



Too bad I can't be there to drool over their performance...

I was reminded recently why I don't eat out anymore. Vegetarian fare, even in prominently vegetarian restaurants such as Merge is so disappointing. I had their "smothered sweet potato fries" with some dairy-substitute called "daiya" last week. It was a hastily put-together mish-mash of soggy fried sweet potato fingers, a cheesy semi-solid bland-tasting thing that I can't describe very well, a smattering of bland french-lentils and wilted bland spinach - all put together in an environmentally unfriendly styrofoam box.

Call me a snob if you want, but I am very sure that I could take each one of these simple components and cook them so that I would want to eat the resulting meal for an entire week without getting bored. I couldn't even get through that one meal from Merge. It was just too bland and too uninteresting. I can see why people turn up their noses at the mention of "vegetarian". Self-proclaimed vegetarian-specialty restaurants such a Merge tarnish what it means to be vegetarian.

Why should I eat bland uninteresting things and pay for it too when I know that I can do a million times better at home?! It's so ridiculous that I forget this fact every now and then. This entry should serve as a reminder. The only thing worth eating out is butter on hot fresh-toasted bread - because really, no one could possibly mess that up however hard they tried.

After an insane amount of clapping-along to a zillion songs, I think I finally have it.


So in this video the rhythm is a 3-2, Pa Pa Pa Pa-Pa clave.

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 &.
Pa & 2 Pa 3 & Pa & 5 & Pa & Pa & 8 &

Most of the times, the clave itself is just not discernible. I was trying very hard to listen for individual instruments and their phrasing to discern the clave. I think, in the process, I just stopped hearing the music.

The easiest way is to close your eyes and feel where the music undulates and then snaps back and then repeats this cycle over and over again. The undulation is the three slower-paced beats (Pa Pa Pa) and the snapping back is the quick two beats Pa-Pa. I wonder if Sarah and Sean are listening for this pattern when they dance. It is still hard for me to tell what techniques people are using to decide when to take that first step in any style.

Get real. When you are the ONLY one flopped in a totally unseemly heap on your mat, while a class of accomplished gymnasts is gracefully twisting into the epic urdhva dhanurasana (or the upright bow) all around you...

(including 1st-time-yogis-by-self-admission such as (e:Paul) and (e:Terry)), you have to admit, it starts to feel like someone gave you the ticket to the Olympics but you accidentally ended up in the competition ring instead of chilling out as a spectator on the stands with buttered and oh-so-salty popcorn. That was, in a nutshell, yoga class today.

But like any regulated sports event, you get detected as a fake very soon and ejected from the ring. Thankfully, I didn't get thrown out of class for ungracefulness but instead, took a massive skid on ice and lacerated my right knee (on the top of a bruise from smashing into a wall on Monday) as I walked back from Pricerite. On the bright side of this minor discomfort, all desire to master the dhanurasana TODAY has been bled out very effectively. I am back to eating massive amounts of chocolate hazelnut butter from my second 1lb bottle - this time blended with yogurt and mixed with frozen blueberries.

It could have been worse though. I could have slipped on ice and impaled my head on a cast-iron fence on the corner of Oakland and Bryant if (e:Paul) and (e:Terry) had not stabilized me in time.

The moral of this tale is almost every second person you see on the street or anywhere really, has had a secret gymnastic past and if you stalked them enough you might also find that they dance the salsa infinitely better than you ever can or will. The trick is to find opportune times to take mighty spills on the pavement and split your knee wide open so that you couldn't care less about your complete lack of skills at transforming yourself into an inverted ancient weapon or doing superawesomecrazy shines at salsa congresses.