As usual, our luncheon will be at Sinbad's just south of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero near the foot of Mission St. We meet at 11:30 and are seated at 12:30.

SBE found out about the high price of hotels and meeting rooms in the Bay Area. But Berkeley is free compared to San Jose. Priced a motel room lately?

I got to musing about Poe living in an urban stucco apartment building (The kind with Bermuda lights.) while working on his classic poem, The Raven. He hits bottom while dealing with contemporary horrors and is rescued by this marvelous pill. Suggested for mature audiences only.

Recently, Vela received the prestigious Emmy award from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The award highlights Vela's pioneering development of full motion broadcast quality PC video and compression plug-in cards utilized in the manufacture of non-linear editing systems or video servers.

Vela's newest "first" - the Argus Dual-Stream encoder - lets users encode both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video streams simultaneously and frame accurately, greatly reducing production time for applications requiring both formats. Leading broadcasters and OEMs around the world uses Vela encoders and decoders, and Vela's board-level products are employed in some of the most advanced video products available. Vela also employs its core technologies in state-of-the-art end-user products - like the RapidAccess video server and IDS intelligent signal processing equipment.

From board level and sub-system MPEG solutions to complete end-user system, Vela is leading in technology development, supporting the television industry's transition to digital and high definition.

Editors Note: Why is it that when I watch an MPEG program that I have this overwhelming desire to play checkers?

Once upon a midday cheery
Barry Manilow spun songs clearly
Over ribbon speakers from the Good Guys Store

While I bubbled, solo chatting - suddenly there came a tapping
As if some dude were gently rapping, with his boom box by the door
Tis just some rapper , I uttered, rapper rhyming verbal clutter
a word or two from out the gutter, only this and nothing more

Oh fabled joy do I remember, it was in that fab September
The Macy's ad showed hooter splendor, enough to charm a sport's bar bore
The blue/white cap had vanished sorrow - one today and two tomorrow
When they're gone then I must borrow - borrow life's control freak lore
Glazed amazed and nothing more

And the squeak of sweaty spandex on some imagined Nautilus
Thrilled me - filled me with obscene elastic dreaming never dreamt before
So to cool my psych from overheating, there stood I repeating
It's prescribed and I'm not freaking as I did in days of yore
Glazed amazed and nothing more

Presently my vibes grew stronger; hesitating then no longer Yo I said, then Yo much stronger; Yo, your moma's in hardcore!
Lighten up your boom box snapping and all the synthesizer scrapping
Your rhyme in time just plain ain't hapnin, hapnin at my condo door
Glazed amazed and nothing more

Deep into the tiny viewer, atop treble deadbolts, I did attempt to skewer
a vision of the rapper's score
Perhaps a clouded fleeting image self engaged in verbal scrimmage
Scrimmage at my condo door
Glazed amazed and nothing more

Felt I contempt now, over creeping, from many nights of not much sleeping
Both wide awake and sex drive poor
Yet the rapper's overt thumping of sex complex, of sex life humming Oh, it made me very sore
Glazed amazed and nothing more

And the moonscape crust of dried old pizza
Moved me, thrilled me, with the scent of anchovies
From beyond death's door and I stood.....
What was I just doing? I don't seem to remember.
But damn, I sure feel great.