Orientally hip

I'm not sure when it was that Asian chicken salad, sushi, and Zen first came into vogue, but the trend appears to have struck a new low. Case in point: Hollywood's "Geisha House," a pricy restaurant and nightclub that has vastly increased Hollywood Boulevard's hip factor.

Living in the neighborhood I wondered what went on behind those windowless neon-pink walls. Coming back from the parking garage one night, I slipped past the red curtain covering the doorway. The website told me that my experience would be "Sensuous... Ethereal... Mysterious."

Here is the full description: "A combination of five star sushi restaurant set in the atmosphere of a surreal high class brothel, the goal of Geisha House is to make the client climax. Geisha House provides the vibe, the music, and the intoxicating tones necessary to create sensuality through taste, touch, smell, and complete stimulation." It continues: "Geisha girls, seared albacore, Sake-Infused Martinis, Kamasutra...all lead to one thing...a happy ending. This is sex...This is Geisha House."

Sex sells, but a Japanese restaurant that blatantly advertises sex with geishas? A shameful case of lost-in-translation. It's not so out of place next to retailers with thigh-high plastic boots and other downright tawdry garments on Hollywood Blvd., but Geisha House represents the height of absurd consumption. The image above is from a box of matches I picked up. A girl's red lips market her vulnerable, exotic beauty.

In this twisted world she's just a thing. You light her like a match and toss her away.

Tunneling in MPLS

interface retention management methods
label control
stream merging
aggregation of flows multiple streams binding
traffic pools discovery protocol

independent ordered signaling mechanisms
operation binding to peers for neighboring messages
forward data travel
map input output dashed blue lines
packet
stream

stack failure recovery
dynamic routing protocols which converge rapidly to non-looping paths
buffer allocation
peer mitigation
hop count information and architecture datagram
minimal latency table

Gone in Memphis

With the long run of murders and chaotic state of life in New Orleans, it's sorely evident that Dr. Martin Luther King's struggle lives on. Many in this country have abandoned an invaluable site of cultural heritage.

My grandmother hailed from Henning, Tennessee (just outside of Memphis) and when I was eight I went on a trip there with her and my mom for Easter. Recently, I had a sudden memory that we'd gone to the motel in Memphis where MLK Jr. was shot in 1968. My clearest image is of a wreath on the door of the second-story room where he had been standing, and I remember my mother's stony face. How impossible it seemed.

Show me the angels

There is no such thing as Los Angeles.

At least 4 million different versions of this place are seething, bumping, and chattering through the streets -- how should we pick one? We might see L.A. if we could zip out of our skin and into ten thousand others' pulsing bodies. What would it feel like to duck in slowly, reaching up through the arms?

The divides are saw-toothed and the shallowness tastes like fat from all the liposuctions performed since 1993.