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small red square Last night I went to the local salad bar-buffet place. For whatever reason these joints have become very popular with families; it's not the salads so much as the all-u-can-eat pizza and desserts that pacify the children, and in the evenings there's quite a few: their piping voices combine to form a cacophonous din. Zero older teenagers present, but I spotted a few barely pubescent girls, mildly chubby, wearing the brand-new "Spice Girls" T-shirts they bought at their concert the night before at the nearby Shoreline amphitheater.

small orange square Phone call to U this morning, to talk about Gary. Up there in Michigan he says "metal" is the music of common choice - described a local radio station's daily solid hour of "Stairway To Heaven", called "Club Led".

small purple square Drove way down to Los Gatos after working out to see a new independent feature called "Frog and Wombat". It was filmed over in Santa Cruz, and although there were some continuity and clarity problems, I liked the movie (especially an overhead shot of them walking around talking). Take along a sixth-grader, if you know one. Afterwards I explored downtown Los Gatos - I'd never been there before - a main street of century-old buildings, all renovated and populated with boutiques and new-ish restaurants. On the way back I paused briefly at the 21st Annual Daruma Festival, which was like an O-Bon but without the dancing. I nearly succeeded, but failed three times at a chopstick game, where prizes were issued to those who could transfer ten marbles and a shooter from one bowl to another within thirty seconds.

small violet square Email today from the Swiss Miss - she closes with a tschüss! I'm trying to explain HTML auf deutsch - a real inter-language challenge. Also, later, email from U, on his wife's account, who says:
You have the distinction of being the recipient of my first E-mail.
Yet another novice is sucked into the vortex of cyberspace!

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small yellow square The jukebox of my mind is playing "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks, "Mr. Chow" by Acoustic Alchemy, and "(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear" by Bryan Adams in extended rotation. Heard Little Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips Part 2" in the "Rockin' Taco" today, and wondered why that was ever a hit.

 
Glossary:
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language
daruma - the Japanese equivalent of Bodhidarma <1>, the Indian Buddhist saint of the 6th century, who... found[ed] the Zen sect of Buddhism. The name is usually given to those red papier-mâché dolls, representing the saint in meditation and weighted at the bottoms so that they always bob up again whenever they are knocked over. Merchants and even politicians in hopes of success often use "daruma" as a sort of goodluck mascot, since it suggests a spirit that will not be defeated but will keep bobbing up again despite repeated failures. They customarily buy one-eyed "daruma" and paint in the blind eye when success has been achieved. (From A Bird's Eye View Of Japan, 1976)
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<1>"It is believed that in the sixth century a Buddhist saint known as Bodhidarma sat in meditation for nine years, losing the use of his legs in the process." - from the festival program
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