Слушайте, а может это загадочное место - Таллинн? Я никогда не была в Эстонии, но летом в Латвии и Литве мне в детстве понравилось!

Вот я живу в Сан Франциско. Мне здесь очень нравится, потому что:

Это город. Я не могу жить вне города, у меня очень плохая реакция на самые лучшие, ближние и культурные пригороды и деревни.
Это берег, западный. В основном либеральная публика.
Здесь редко жарко, и почти никогда - очень жарко; здесь нормальная для меня влажность и я люблю облака и туман. Мужу нравится что здесь не очень холодно и нет снега, но не нравится отсутствие гроз.
У нас маленький ребенок, так что нужен комфорт в его времяпровождении и образовании.
Мы оба имеем возможность работать удаленно, то есть муж уже на 100%, а я на 90%.
По крайней мере в нашем уголке, здесь очень мало насекомых и грызунов, особенно таких которые меня кусают.

Мы не планируем переезжать, но мне интересно было бы посетить подобные города. Такой город должен быть:

Относительно легко досягаемым с обоих побережьев США (допустим, полет с одной пересадкой в нормальном аэропорту).
Дружелюбным к либеральным американцем с нестандартным гардеробом и наличием дополнительных дырок.
С возможностью относительно легко передвигаться и на общественном транспорте, и на машине.

Судя по моему опыту, сюда подходят Лондон, Амстердам, может Берлин. Но мне кажется что в Австралии или Новой Зеландии город тоже есть такие места, да? Или где-нибудь еще? Пожалуй, погода - один из важнейших факторов.

When we drove a lot the weekend before last, we started listening to an audiobook, William Gibson's Zero History. We got more than halfway, but Andy decided that he doesn't care enough about it and I finished it on my own, in 20 minute bursts. I was getting a bit tired of NPR and my seldom-updated music collection, so I've decided to switch to audiobooks altogether. Even my retrograde technology has gotten far enough to make it easy to do in or out of the car - I've been using an older Androidphone. I really could have put it on my current phone, but marusja, you're right, its battery does suck.

Back to the pertinent subject: I am finally starting to read non-internets again! I liked Zero History, I just started Neal Stephenson's Anathem and I liked his The Diamond Age and Snow Crash.

What else should I read?
I like cyberpunk, space, aliens, near-future, apocalyptic and hard sci-fi.
I don't like supernatural, steampunk, horror, fantasy or romance.

In the tradition of Judge John Hodgman, whoever gets the first two references in this post (without significant googling) gets a summary judgement in their favor.

Of the people that are either from San Francisco or live there, give me the Good-Bad-Ugly.

And also, the Marry-Fuck-Kill.

А есть ли язык, на котором слово "да" - более чем один слог? А "нет"?

So, my body has been going through cycles of weird pains. There were the arm pains and the nausea, and now I also got these all-body tension pains. I think it's from repetitive motion or bad positioning, so I've been finally thinking about giving up computing in bed. I'm doing it now, except I'm seated totally differently. But I think a better solution might be to get a reading chair. What do you recommend, how do you like to read or compute? I was thinking something like this or like this from Ikea, but I'm not sure if that's a comfortable material to sit on or if the cats will eat it. I think I need something that allows me to not put too much stress on my tailbone, raises my knees because my small laptop sits on them, and isn't too big.

I got this idea from a community not to be named.

What are your special skills/abilities/habits/actions/talents?

I've got:
- The ability to fairly accurately gauge a good container for a given contents. Like, finding just the right size and shape of container for leftover rice, or luggage appropriate for the trip. On the other hand, I am completely unable to estimate time elapsed, or bring the right shoes to a vacation!

- I am unable to form habits. That can be good or bad - on one hand, quitting smoking and drinking was no problem, I just stopped one day and didn't want any more. On the other, I constantly forget to take daily pills, or take them at the right time. Joining anything is just not an option, guarantees that I will not complete a series.

- I have also recently rediscovered my talent to purchase and sell cars. Even the one time I thought I didn't get as good a deal as I could have, the friend that I helped still has this car, it's not in great condition but he loves it and won't get rid of it!

Звонят и предлогают короткий опрос про наш отечественный финансовый кризис, а за участие сулят беплатный круиз на двоих на Багамы. Мол, нажми 9 и твой телефон будет убран из наших списков. Небось второй вопрос в опросе "какой твой номер социального страхования?"

Ну конечно, оказывается нужен номер моей кредитной карты что бы оплатить портовые сборы.

Я думаю что если я вообще не буду поднимать трубку то важные звонки будут пропускаться от сила раз в неделю. Моя жизнь все больше в Скайпе, Гуглтоке и Мордокниге, даже учитываю что я ненавижу общение по СМС.

I'm pretty sure I've brought this up for discussion earlier, but for those of you that have met me in person, I wonder how I differ from my LJ persona. I've heard that it's common to be more brash and opinionated in LJ, but as belochka can easily attest, I'm quite the asshole in person, too.

I also wonder how much being Facebook friends is closer to reality than LJ, where people tend to be a little more anonymous (at least in my experience).

I was driving to Kaiser (of all places) the other day and was stopped at a red light for a little while. In the car next to me, I saw a man behind the wheel and a woman with a baby in the back. The kid looked to be 8-12 months old. She had him or her out of the car seat and trying to stand up, holding him by the armpits.

I seriously considered calling 911 and reporting their plates to the police so that they can get pulled over for not having the kid strapped in. I don't even know what the punishment for something like that would be - a stern warning? A ticket? They'd probably pop him back in as soon as they saw the cops. Honestly, I think the only thing that stopped me from calling was that I would have been using the phone illegally, and then I went into an underground lot with no reception.

I really feel very strongly about this and it bothers me immensely every time I read about Russian moms not using car seats. These people are convinced that infant spines are unbendable, or that nothing bad can happen to them, or other stupid reasons. If I post this to a Russian community I'm sure it'll bring a rain of shit upon me (with calls of стукачество, too).

This may be another instance where you could call me anti-Russian. But really, in most such cases, I'm anti-stupid.

What would you have done?