Wisconsin + Christmas = Three Thoughts

There was no great adventure when I visited my immediate family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, Earth, last week. I did not get snowed in while in a layover in Kansas City. I did not meet any women from other countries. I did not nearly get into any fistfights.

There is no, therefore, opportunity to merely relate one story and hammer out a blog. Instead, I am gonna cobble three things together.

Agua

My brother has a son. (That makes me an uncle, for those scoring at home.) He's about 15 months old, and he's cute.

He walks nearly as quickly as I do (although I think I can take stairs faster (at least going up... he might be able to fall more quickly down them than I could because of his lower center of gravity)) and he's got a burgeoning vocabulary (I'm not going to bore you by saying he's about the cutest and smartest kid in the world; even though I think that, you don't want to hear it).

As part of his day care, he goes to a multi-lingual environment. I don't know specifics, but I believe it's to increase his chances to meet women from other countries later in life. In any case, he knows a smattering of French and Chinese and Spanish. And a smattering of English, of course.

I relate all of this because he has one other ability in addition to those two: the ability to grab things. If he were an action figure, it might be spring-loaded and called a "Lightning Strike Kung-fu Grip". He loves taking things off of tables and shelves and Christmas trees.

I saw all three of these wonderful skills come together in one moment when I was standing with him in the kitchen in my sister's home. I was getting myself water from the fridge and he was standing there, sort of wobbling but relatively stable, watching me. I looked at him and said, "Agua."

He did a sharp 360 and then pivoted to his left, where a short shelf had a cup sitting on it. He reached for it and said, as he pulled the cupful of water onto the floor:

"Agua."

Oops.

Who?

I have a fair number of phone numbers in my phone, but sometimes when I meet someone it doesn't "stick". Sometimes people change their number without telling me. Sometimes people who know I don't have their number txt me just to mess with me, it seems.

And sometimes something else happens.

Because of my night owled-ness and my Pacific Time Zone-osity, I was up considerably later than all of my family members. I was lying on the pull-out couch mattress with a laptop, cable television, and a book until the wee hours of the morning... chatting and reading and watching. And, occasionally, txting.

It was about 2:00 on Christmas morning when I got a txt that read, "merrry christmas!"

"Hmm," I thought to myself, "I do not know that person's number. I will have to investigate."

It was a 541 area code, which meant Oregon, USA, Earth. OK. Seems reasonable. Non-Portlanders use that area code. I know some non-Portlanders. But who was it?

I couldn't just txt back, "Who the f is this?" both because it would be rude and it would be surrendering. I wanted to be able to figure out who it was. I doubted it was a friend, because most of my friends use proper punctuation and only use two r's in "merry".

I scanned my memory banks for friends of friends that might have my number. I thought of women that I'd met and given my number to but not bothered to put theirs into my phone (does that make me evil? I prefer the term "inebriatedly selective"). I had a few potential answers, but they seemed remote possibilities.

So the next morning I txted back, "Merry Christmas. Sorry, but who is this?"

The response, within about 10 minutes, was a single word: "chancery".

Chancery? Huh? Is that a name? Is it a woman? Do I know a Chancery? Had I met a Chancery?

"Yes", "you heard me", "yes", "I think so", "no", and "not that I remember" were the answers to those questions that I was working from.

I went to Facebook. There can't be that many Chanceryses can there be?

Yes. Yes there can be. Over 500, none of whom are friends of my friends. Most of whom seemed to be non-local and dudes, to boot.

So I considered and decided to be ambiguous, hoping to learn more without asking for more. I txted back, "How have you been? You have a good holiday?"

"good yours?"

Nothing. So I decided to end this by txting, "Good. It's been a while. Hey, do you have Facebook?"

I hoped by getting Facebook access I would remember who the f this was. Shortly thereafter, he/she/it txted back, "no because i txted the wrong number. this isn't david"

Oh, Chancery. I never knew ye!


Emotional Equilibrium

I currently have two positions about the human condition. The first is the tension we all have between being a part of the group and being apart from the group.

The second one has to do with our ability to normalize. Flowers and TM2000 and I have discussed this at length (actually, over email, as is our INTJ wont) and I really think it's true: people get used to things.

Lose your arm? That sucks, it really does, but eventually you'll get over it and be pretty much where you were emotionally before the accident/donation.

Win the lottery? Badass, but with enough time you can be less happy than before (see: Hurley on Lost, because I'm pretty sure that it's based on a true story (except the sharks with the logos on them... give me a break!)

So I believe that the human brain has evolved to being SLIGHTLY dissatisfied. The people who got fat and happy tended to achieve less because of their happiness (including, but not limited to, achieving fewer babies and/or weapons to kill other peoples' babies). The people who gave up when the going got rough tended to be unproductive and their genes died.

Whatever. I think we all have the capacity to overcome bad things in our life... but also have the capacity (and tendency) to cause ourselves grief. We cause drama or second-guess or become bored by things.

I thought of this during my visit. It was so good, objectively. Fantastic food, lovely people that I care for deeply all around me. A night of karaoke and some interesting conversations with people who weren't even in Wisconsin spiced things up.

And yet I had feelings of stress. Of boredom. Of restlessness.

Hopefully these feelings weren't altogether obvious to my family; I really enjoyed my time with them and was sad to go, and I miss them tremendously already. But I'll probably get over it soon enough, right? Damn you, blessed human condition!

The Eyelash and the Cuticle

The other night I was lying in bed, thinking about stuff. About work and life and my cats and Planet of the Apes.

And about my finger and something that had happened to it earlier that day.

In order to understand why I would be thinking about my finger, it's necessary to take a step back in time. Back to the time when I was in my mother's womb and the Flying Spaghetti Monster was handing out attributes. For whatever reason, I was cursed with a horrible innate sense of direction, but I was given extremely healthy cuticles.

My cuticles have served me well: I've never had ingrown finger- or toe-nails and when I got my pedicure in Las Vegas my feet were deemed "flawless". (I actually blogged about this, but it's among the "Temporarily Lost Blog Entries" of 2007 that are awaiting migration from MySpace.)

So I've gone through my whole life not having to worry about my fingernails and cuticles too much... until about two months ago.

Two months ago, inexplicably, my right index finger became inflamed, right along the middle-finger side of the cuticle. It hurt and eventually it popped and pus came out. It was sick. But the swelling went down and I thought it was over.

It wasn't over.

About three weeks later, it came back with a vengeance. Again the finger swelled and it hurt and it popped along the fingernail and again the off-white nastiness seeped out.

I had no idea why. I thought, originally, it was a cat scratch that got me, but two in the same place? That seemed doubtful. So I ascribed it to finger-HIV and vowed not to shake hands without a condom.

Not really.

I didn't know what it was, and I still don't... or do I?

The other day, I looked at my finger. It was no longer swollen, but the right side of the fingernail had sort of lifted away from the finger underneath (like the "crescent" at the end of nails, but this was along my cuticle).

It would have been wise, perhaps, to leave it alone. To shrug and say, "*shrug*" to myself and to get back to work.

Instead, I poked at it, and I saw a black line. I saw a black line underneath my nail, where the nail was lifted away from the skin.

At that point, I couldn't let it be. I poked and prodded and eventually got the black line out. It was nicely and snugly wedged in place, and took some doing getting out. The "black line" was... an eyelash.

You see, gentle reader, that in addition to magnificent cuticles, I have been blessed by the FSM with rather luscious eyelashes.

(Yes, I know. "Vanity at its finest.")

The reason I was pondering this, when I had important things like Planet of the Apes to go over mentally, is because I wondered which came first.

Did the eyelash settle in the space between my fingernail and skin? It's definitely possible, and it's perhaps probable, that I had rubbed my eye and it somehow lodged itself there.

Perhaps, though, the eyelash caused the infections. Perhaps it penetrated my hitherto pristinely healthy cuticles and caused the pain and the pus and the pondering.

I pondered about the relationship of cause and effect... how we can have things happen to us and notice something unexpected in our lives and not be sure whether it caused, was caused, or was unrelated to those things.

I pondered about the unknowability of some things... how we can have as much data about something as anyone in the history of the world and just not know--and be pretty confident we will never know--the answer to something.


I pondered about all of this, and I wondered whether any of it (eyelash, cuticle, cause and effect, unknowability) is relevant.

Then I went to sleep.

Planet of the Apes Paradigm

Humans want to see patterns. We want to connect the dots whether it's part of a coloring book or in life. We solve problems because of this and we see gods because of this (sometimes both at once).

Paradigms are ways that we categorize and frame things, communally. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. The idea of paradigm shifts in hard science has been around since Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and has been applied to life more generally since then.

OK. Big deal. (I mean it is a big deal, but I rarely write about actual big deals. Hmm... I wanna have an adventure with someone that I give the codename Big Deal to. Or maybe I will make up adventures. He/she sounds pretty awesome.)

The reason I bring all of this up is because I was lying in bed the other night, thinking about stuff. Work stuff and life stuff and infected cuticle stuff (wait until you read the blog on that last one... it's gonna be almost as brilliant as this one (you think I kid; just you wait)) and then I thought about my cats. And then I thought about the Planet of the Apes.

Planet of the Apes is not the greatest film ever. Yes, it was nominated for two Academy Awards. Yes, it spawned four sequels and a remake and a TV series. Yes, it had a great ending one of the greatest Hestonisms ever (this is a spoiler, in case you've managed never to see the movie and ever plan to):

It may not be the greatest film, but it made a huge impact on me as a kid and I still think about it occasionally... the social message and the intra-species kissing and the mute chicks.

Anyway. I was lying in bed thinking about stuff and it occurred to me that my cats parallel the Planet of the Apes! There were three classes (species?) of apes in the movie (not including humans, I suppose), each of whom had a particular role in society. Compare and contrast to my cats, please.

Potter = Gorilla

Gorillas are the militant arm in Planet of the Apes. They are short-tempered and have bad posture, but they have the guns so can take power when needed.

Potter's all black. He's the most physical and outgoing and not the smartest. He often takes charge in spite of being least qualified.

Truman = Orangutan

Orangutans are the priest-politicians of the Ape-dominated future. They are orange and sort of fluffy.

Truman is orange and fluffy and not built for any sort of physical exertion. He is a ponderous thinker and probably would be willing to suppress evidence that humans used dolls before early Ape civilization emerged.

Houdini = Chimpanzee

Chimps are the scientists and appear to be the quick-thinkers. They were the first type of ape to evolve above their station as servants of humans (thanks to a speaking, time-traveling Chimp). In spite of their intellectual capacity, they are bullied by Gorillas and seem to be the lowest rung in Planet of the Apes society (other than humans).

Houdini is the eldest of the cats and appears to be the most intelligent. He had his teeth removed several years ago and, as a result, is unable to resist Potter's bullying tactics.

Geeky? Yes. (Terrible Photoshop? Absolutely. But, really, would you want to spend more than 10 minutes on those pics?) But since I've made the connection between Planet of the Apes and my cats--the Planet of the Apes Paradigm, if you will--I have been reinvigorated. My energy level is higher and my rash has cleared up and I've gone back to feeding the cats.

Sometimes it's all in the way we look at things, right?

For Want of Four Bits

I took the bus a lot last calendar year. I had an all-access card from work and I would take it to work and wherever else the fates may have taken me... of course, I think the fates knew I didn't love riding the bus, so they didn't take me many places via mass transit.

As 2009 arrived, though, my card expired and I consequently rarely ride the bus. I drive to work (free parking!) and I would say that I've maybe ridden the bus a dozen times in the last ten months.

Seemingly irrelevantly (stick with me...) I am required, as a member of the Washington State Bar, to take a certain number of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits every three years. My reporting period is ending on December 31, so I am trying to get in the last bunch of credit hours before the end of the year.

I signed up for a big chunk of those credits in a two day conference today and tomorrow. It's about Technology Law, and I was lucky enough to have my employer pay for it as part of the education allocation I get each year. The content of the first day was a good mix of, "Yeah, I knew that" and "That's very interesting". But the CLE is secondary to the return home.

Remember a few sentences ago when I said I don't take the bus much? Well, I knew the bus charged money. I even knew that there was a "peak hours" cost. I rarely carry much cash (since losing my wallet in April after my return from Vegas) so I grabbed $3.50 before catching a bus to the downtown CLE location this morning. Fine, right?

Well, it's $2.00 peak. Not $1.75. So... I paid $2.00 for the ride there and figured I'd worry about the fifty cent shortfall later.

Later came and went, and I still was fifty cents short after the CLE finished for the day.

I knew I had some options. There is a "free ride zone" that would get me part of the way home. I believe that bus drivers can't resist if you just don't pay (although I know there are cameras to watch, and I'd hate to be disbarred over fifty cents). Jaywalking is always an option. In spite of the cold (about 30/-1 degrees F/C) I decided to walk the two miles or so home.

A few things occurred to me on the way home:

I should have charged my cell phone. While it might seem like eight hours of attorneys talking would be enough to keep anyone excited, but I relied heavily on my phone to take mini-breaks throughout the day. I failed to charge it the previous night, however, so by about 2:00 in the afternoon it was down to 1% power. I muted it and decided to keep that 1% around just in case.

But that meant no txting on the walk home. No call to my sister to see how her newborn son is. No technological aid to my trek.

I was left with the cold and the weirdos.

I don't often quote from movies, but this evening I made an exception. As I walked home, passing through parts of the city that I rarely walk through at that time of night (it was only about 6:00, but it seemed later because it was so dark) I thought of this line from Taxi Driver:

"Some day a real rain will come and wash all of this scum off the streets."

Yes, that character was in a taxi, and yes, goes kinda crazy. I was on foot and have (to this point) retained my sanity. But I saw so many shady characters it surprised me.

I don't like to judge people, and I was a bit embarrassed when I saw one fellow who looked very suspicious, walking with his buddy. "Why would you judge him based on how he dresses," I asked myself, "Who are you to judge?" Then the guy pulled a syringe out and showed it to the other guy.

Maybe he was a diabetic and it was insulin, but I doubt it.

I am not used to the cold. In college in Evanston, IL, I would wear a heavy winter coat and shorts and walk around the snowy campus. I would look forward to my hair freezing into ropes after bounding from a building following a recent shower. It was exhilarating and I liked it. Now? It's barely below freezing and I was feeling pain in my fingers and discomfort in my toes.

I encountered reason #423 life is not fair. OK, yes. I am a white male with all of my limbs and much of my hair and reasonably straight teeth. I can't complain about TOO much. But life still sucks sometimes.

Case in point: I like dogs. I like to pet dogs and while I'm not terribly eager to own one again, I enjoy giving dogs--especially little ones--attention when I meet them.

I was walking home and saw a young woman walking two little dogs. They had sweaters on and one of them was doing his/her business, so the three of them were stationary. A perfect opportunity to say "hello" to the dog who was not engaged in vacating itself. BUT...

But I couldn't. It would have looked like I was stopping to hit on the chick, and it would have been weird for her and I didn't want to make it weird for her. Not that I'm above talking to a woman on the street, but (a) it was too cold, and (b) she wasn't cute enough. It's not whether I wanted to or not, it was that I didn't want her to think I was. Which I wouldn't blame her for thinking.

Because of this, the dogs went un-petted and I went without expressing my admiration for the little pooches.

Forget human trafficking and other unfair stuff... I didn't get to pet those dogs. That is injustice.

##

Eventually I arrived home. I plugged my phone in, heated up some food and jumped into bed for a short nap.

The walk was good for me, probably. I saved $1.50 and got this magnificent blog out of it. I still plan on bringing $4.00 when I go to the CLE tomorrow.

I Do Not Have an Accent

I do not have an accent.

Or, rather, I prefer to think that I do not have an accent while speaking English. When I speak Spanish? Sure, I have an accent (maybe "yanqui"). When I speak in Georgia? Sure, I have an accent (maybe "smart"). When I speak about cars? Sure, I have an accent (probably "ignorant lady-boy").

I'm no linguist (cunning or otherwise) but I think that most people who grow up speaking one way and are surrounded by folks that speak that way tend to think of themselves as accent-free at some level. There are always outsiders who talk funny, don't drink tea, and/or don't find impregnation of first cousins acceptable.

In my defense, though, the U.S. is the dominant English-speaking country in the world (with apologies to India, which has far more English speakers but are more likely to be mocked than emulated)... and I speak the way people on TV speak. Newscasters sound like I do, non-regional or -ethnical characters sound like I do. Heck, going back to India, call centers train people to sound like I do.

Not exactly like me, of course. But close enough.

Over time I've noticed some weird subtleties in the way I speak.

"Merry Christmas, Mary! When are you getting married?"

I say "merry," "Mary," and "married" pretty much the same way. I say "ferry" and "fairy" the same way. My vowels tend to be flat and, if they are nuanced, I am pretty unaware of them.

Compare that, though, to some of the people I've experienced in my life. My neighbor's mother when I was growing up would pronounce an invisible "r":

"It's time to warsh the car before I drive up to Seattle, Warshington."

My ex (I still only have one "ex," which is weird, but that observation is too tangential even for me to tackle in this blog entry) dropped an "l" inexplicably:

"Did you see that woof? It howled and then ran off."

I thought maybe it was a Michigan accent thing, but... no. She was (or is, presumably, although I'm not sure) just weird like that.

A year or two ago, I was having a drink with Jelly and we were talking (and I was listening; I know it's a miraculous thing for a guy to do when an attractive single woman is getting intoxicated in front of his very eyes) and I picked up on a similar idiosyncrasy: she changes an "a" to an "e" in many words:

"I pledge allegiance to the fleg."
"It's in the beg."
"You are such a feg."
"Teg, you're it!"

Why? Why does she do that? And how had no one EVER noticed (or at least commented on it) before? She denied it, at first, but she eventually (over the course of me pestering her for 20+ minutes) relented that, yes, she does it but that it's correct. She now treasures her minor speech impediment as a badge of courage. You go, Jelly.

Of course when you venture outside of the region, things get more weird. Texans and Cajuns and New Yorkers and New Englanders and robots... things get weird.

They get crazy, though, when you consider the British Commonwealth. Canada is "soh-ry" that it only speaks English "ah-boot" right... they live too close to me to speak so oddly.

Recently Canberry explained some differences between how Aussies (her people) and Kiwis (think: Flight of the Conchords) pronounce things. (It's all about vowel confusion; Kiwis seem to read a vowel and then substitute another one for it.) I'm still working on understanding Aussies v. Brits; I think that the British are more lyrical with their pronunciation, but... I'm working on it, OK?

Don't even get me started on South Africa. They Afrikaan't speak English very well, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure how this blog degenerated into me jingoistically making puns about a people on the other side of the world, but I'm sure they deserved it.

dee - ZERVED it.

The Unexpected Burden of Extraordinary Charm

In life it's often easier simply not to talk to people. Not in a rude way, and not to irritate, but simply because most of the time people are doing their thing and I am doing my thing (even if "my thing" is to get kitty litter and a frozen pizza in the next 20 minutes so I can make it back from the gym to watch a Blazers' game I've got time shifted from their east coast roadtrip (parentheticals that are longer than the primary sentence are the bomb, yo, especially if they have sub-parentheticals (like these))).

As part of my self-awareness campaign this millenium, though, I have made efforts to (*gasp*) communicate with other human beings in non-critical situations. I say "hi" to people much more often on the street (ok, 99% of the time they are women, but still...) and I try to be more than just quietly polite to people who work at stores I shop at.

Unfortunately, being friendly sometimes has unexpected costs.

Yesterday I was shopping in downtown Seattle with Canberry, checking out the Black Friday (no racist) sales and maybe getting some clothes that I can wear for two days before they are infused with three colors of cat hair.

The third or fourth store was actually one that I was confident I was going to buy some stuff, so we split up; her shopping through the upstairs for women's clothes and me headed downstairs for the guys'. After some time, I had selected my five items and was waiting in line.

Once I got to the front of the line, in keeping with my attempts at being friendly, I started talking with the chick ringing me up (hehe) and in the time that it took for the items to be rung up, folded, and paid for, we had shared three mini-stories (and, shockingly, only two of them came from me). I'm sure she had spoken to about a thousand people and she was just being nice (although I'm not sure that she tells a story about her friend's big boobs to everyone she helps) but I walked away thinking, "Yep, I sure am I nice fellow. And I still got it!"

Ridiculous how one's mind works.

Fast forward a couple of hours. Canberry and I are getting dressed for a night in Ballard and I decided to wear the blazer that I had purchased. It fits great and looks fine and whatever and we mosey on down to catch taxicab. The two of us approach a street corner where two women were waiting, and I utter under my breath, "Taxi!" to the cab that is speeding away... and this little exchange occurs:

Me: How dare he not stop? Certainly he heard me! [Note: I doubt those were my exact words, but maybe...]
Chick at Street Corner: What did you say?
Me: I said, "Hey, ladies ... !"
Chicks at Street Corner: *giggle* *giggle*
Me: (Internally) Yep, I sure am I nice fellow. And I still got it!

So Canberry and I went to cross the street, with the chicks lagging behind us. Then one reengaged with me:

Chick at Street Corner: So you know you have a tag on your jacket?
Me: (Reaching around, expecting a paper tag) Oh, yeah? Thanks!
Chick at Street Corner: Yeah, it's one of those security tags. You shouldn't steal your clothes!Me: (Feeling the device, which was at the very bottom of the back of my jacket, by my butt) Oh, drat!
Chick at Street Corner: You can thank me now for saving your night!
Me: (Internally) Being friendly clearly leads to mockery.

I was a bit miffed at the store for not removing it and I was a bit embarrassed that I didn't notice that I had set off security sensors at several subsequent stores we'd visited. I also felt the unexpected burden of being nice to someone unnecessarily; if I had not been quite as charming, maybe the young woman at the store would have been less distracted and have done her job!

We wandered back to my place and I changed jackets and we were back out on the town. I need to go back to the store to get the stupid tag off, but at least Canberry was able to stroke my ego a bit by pointing out that the woman had to be checking out my butt to see the tag.

I still got it!

Ten Foods not to feed me

It's Thanksgiving week here in the USA, and we inevitably ignore the real meaning of the holiday (which I think involves a turkey and the Alamo) and focus on food. In that spirit (the food, not the Alamo), here are random things that I simply do not care for.

1. Meat on the bone. I know that any time meat is processed, there's the chance that there are going to be horrific elements (fingers, hooves, cell phone batteries) but I simply don't care... I will choose chicken strips over a chicken drumstick any time. There's something about gnawing on a bone that repulses me (no homophobe) and the effort:payoff ratio is way out of whack.

1a. Buffalo wings. This is a special case of dislike. I don't like the taste of most of the buffalo wings I've eaten and they are particularly messy... and I have odd memories of college involving dorm-mates sweating profusely while wolfing innumerable buffalo wings down. *shiver*

2. Meatloaf. This is an oddity insofar as it seems like I should like the whole dish based on the parts that construct it. Meatloaf, though, is one of the few foods that I actively despised as a child (my mom's cooking was otherwise more than acceptable; I actually had one encounter with cottage cheese where I informed my mother I would throw up if I had to eat it, she made me eat it, and I puked on the kitchen table... which is an awesome story and a case of a child training a parent through the use of projective vomiting) and I have no interest in trying loafs of meat until I find one I can stomach.

3. Corn on the cob. I consider this the closest thing to "vegetable on the bone" and as such I avoid it. I also hate when it gets stuck in my teeth and, again, it's much easier to let someone else remove the edible parts from the stupid cob.

4. Grapefruit. I like oranges and most citrus fruits I have tried. Grapefruit is a definite exception. I know that it's good for me, and I try it occasionally, but... yuck. It's like someone took orange juice and took out all the good stuff and added 151 and then removed the alcohol. And then that someone came and kicked me in the stomach. Gross.

5. Coffee. Crazy, given where I live, I know. But the smell of coffee is gross to me. The taste of coffee ice cream disgusts me. Kahlúa is more of the same, although if I drank enough of it in one sitting I might get over it at some point.

6. Scrambled Eggs/Fried Eggs. I love omelettes, and I can live with "scrambles"... but having unadulterated scrambled eggs to have to choke down grosses me out. Fried egg--whether with a hard yolk or not--grosses me out. Just grossness all around.

7. French toast. I love pancakes. I love crepes. I can handle waffles (although I don't like it when they scrape the roof of my mouth). French toast is close to these things, but just close enough to piss me off that I'm not eating one of the things I actually like. Internecine breakfast conflict is often the most traumatic, as we all know.

8. Sweet pickles. Seriously, how can there be both a God and sweet pickles? I'm pretty sure that that questions was at the heart of the Reformation.

9. Crabcakes. I'm not a fan of seafood generally, and crabcakes are actually something that I like the taste of... but I've had them two or three times and become remarkably sick. I have a working theory that I can keep them down unless I eat them during times of stress (e.g., finishing the bar exam or celebrating a career change). In any case, it's usually better safe than sorry... unlike most things on this list, though, I will eat crabcakes if they are the lesser of available evils (such as when I am actually confronted with that classic moral dilemma of sacrificing a thousand people on the other side of the world or eating well-prepared crabcakes from a nice restaurant).


10. Sauerkraut. I don't think I've ever even tried this. I also firmly believe that it smells like rancid housecleaning products.

So... there you go. Please don't offer me these things... or, if you must, please expect to enrage me and/or trigger my gag reflex. I don't like my gag reflex being triggered (no homophobe).

Gym Defrag

Everyone knows what disk defragmentation is, right? It's the process of optimizing how information is written on a disk drive (disc drive? Why do we have words the spelling of which is in such a gray (grey) zone)?) to allow it to be read more quickly.

Sometimes we need life defragmentation, right? Here's an example.

When I was funemployed (which happens to be a word recently included in the New Oxford American dictionary...) I would go to the gym to sort of punish myself. I couldn't sit around looking for jobs ALL day (you can see what I tended to do here, although I did end up hitting the gym more often towards the end) so I went to the gym and got the most out of the membership I'd pre-paid for three years' worth.

Needless to say, when one is working one (at least this one) really doesn't have extra energy for the gym after one works. And (this) one no longer can punish oneself for being funemployed, either.

And yet, I have to go to the gym or stop eating... or chub up. So I try to go to the gym occasionally.

I always have a small thrill of turning left (towards the gym) rather than right (towards my apartment), and I tell myself it's only about an hour. And it's good for me not to be obese.

The thing is that (unfortunately for me) other people have the same idea, and the gym near my place is small and crowded when I tend to go after work. So my ideal pattern for my gym time is not quite met.

Ideally, it would be:

1. Wait a short time for a changing room
2. Do some stretching
3. Lift some weights
4. Do some cardio
5. Lift some more weights
6. Stretch

Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way. I'll represent something approximating reality here:

I wait way longer than expected for a changing room. Then I stretch much more because I am antsy to just DO something. Then I wait for a machine. Lift, wait (or, rather, lift weights, wait). Etc. Even in those cases when I stay as long as I plan on, I get less done.

This is where defragmentation comes in. I want to take ALL of the waiting time and push it to the end. I could do the waiting on the drive back to my place.

I'm not sure exactly how to make this happen, though. I'm open to suggestions...

When 6 + 6 = 10, Ed O = Pissed Off

Arithmetic is pretty straightforward most of the time. If you have six of something and add six more (without subtracting any and assuming base ten system), you have twelve of those things.

Let me demonstrate:

Easy, right?

Of course, a lot of life seems easy. Then weird paradigm shifts occur--like string theory and complex adaptive systems and online porn--and our world is turned upside down.

But a change in the status quo is often difficult and frustrating. Today I learned that six plus six does not always equal twelve. This revelation occurred at a pizza place near my office.

I stopped in for a sub sandwich. I enjoy sandwiches and I was hungry, so it seemed like a natural fit. Subway was a bit far away and I eat there a lot, so a local place sounded delicious.

After eying the menu, I decided on a "Classic," with various meats and some tomatoes and onions. I didn't get the large, which was 12 inches... I got a half-sub, which was six inches. Seemed reasonable.

But. Examine this graph with the sub-verted (get it?) math:

That's right. The sandwich seemed small, so after unwrapping it at my desk I grabbed a ruler and measured. The long edge of the diagonally-cut sandwich was right at six inches, but the short edge was just under four.

Six inch sub my ass.

The sandwich was delicious, but there wasn't enough of it and it had the special sauce of injustice. At least I didn't order the footlong.

Greek Myth or Just a Dead Deer?

I sort of have a love affair with Greek myths. I read a (simplified) version of the Iliad when I was a wee lad and, although I am still not sure I understand why dactylic pentameter is, I enjoy reading about the trials and tribulations of Greek heroes that can be so remarkable and yet still not measure up to Greek gods.

Earlier today I read this story, about a Wisconsin male deer that met with an untimely demise. From the story:

A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua.

Archangel, who had sent me the link, agreed with me that it was sad. Because I have a love affair with Greek myths, I framed the death of the deer in similar terms.

The deer was a mortal, proud of its capabilities and motivated to challenge and dominate its peers. It saw something that was other and similar but... different. The concrete statue was the equivalent of a god--heavier and, in key ways, stronger than the deer. The deer butted and felt pain and butted again... and after a heroic effort, managed to topple its opponent.

But it had mortally wounded itself and it staggered away from its final victor before toppling over, dead.

The statue? A little damaged but it will be fixed and set back up, eternal on its own version of Mt Olympus.

Two Unrelated Things

A couple of funny (strange, with a hint of haha) things from my life the last couple of days:

Adam Lambert Once Removed

I arrived at work one morning this week and I was greeted by a coworker who told me to hold on and called another coworker out to tell me "the story".

This second coworker came out and told me the following story:

I have a friend named Thomas [name changed]. Thomas is from San Diego and he knows Adam Lambert and was at a party with him last night.

("Cool," I'm thinking, "Maybe he showed him a picture of my Halloween costume.")

So I was thinking, Thomas has hooked up with Adam, so if you hooked up with Thomas it would be like you hooked up with Adam.

I appreciate his creativity, and it's a small world, but I don't think I'm going to be making that a top priority.

Sad Songs Say So Much

For many years now, I have played guitar. I don't play it that well, but I can strum chords and whatever. A couple of years ago I wrote some music and challenged myself to write, record and edit a song within three hours. It was a good limitation because it challeneged me and it forced me to accept imperfections in what I produced (rather than having nothing finished because it didn't sound quite right).

I have almost twenty songs that I've written and enjoy listening to because they bring back memories--good and bad--and because I have some level of pride in them, for all their faults.

The other night I had my Windows Media Player just going through songs in order and my songs came up and I noticed that the songs that I wrote specifically for other people (and by "people" I mean, as I so often do, "women") rarely elicited a positive response from the inspiration. Like, maybe two out of five... which is lower than I would have expected if I had never written songs for a chick.

Women that I do not write the songs for seem to like them, but ... yeah. It's sort of depressingly predictable that I would wait until something took a bad turn and then a silly song wouldn't sway them.

Phone Contacts and Miscommunications

The other night I was wrapping things up at Hula Hula and a friend txted me. She's a friend of Heels and has been going to school somewhere in eastern Washington, so she's been AWOL for a while. AWOL has made a few trips back to Seattle, and the previous time she'd been here she'd criticized my karaoke singing and chastised me for not writing enough blog entries.

In spite of this, I wanted to see AWOL and say hello to Heels and her. So we txted back and forth a few times and she let me know where they were gonna be, and I said I'd txt her back.

So fast forward 20 minutes or so, and I started a new txt and sent it off. But not to AWOL. I sent it to Salsa, who I had not seen nor spoken to in about 30 months but had a first name quite similar to AWOL.

The following txt exchange happened as I was walking to meet Heels and AWOL:

Salsa Txt: Who is this?

My Brain: Oh, damn. Wrong friend.

My Txt: Oh, no! I'm sorry! This is Ed. We went out a couple times like two years ago. I'm sorry for waking you up!
Salsa Txt: What's your last name?
My Brain: What? She was dating so many Eds two+ years ago that she can't keep us straight?
My Txt: [Last name]. We met at salsa on Capitol Hill. We went out, like, four times. I have lots of cats and I wear Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

Fortunately that triggered her memory (probably the underwear part). She seemed unperturbed that I was txting at 2:30. I still hope I didn't wake her up.

This paled, though, in comparison to a similar mix-up that a waitress I met yesterday at lunch experienced over the weekend. Here's (a paraphrased version) of her story:

"I am, like, so hung over right now. I am not even trying to think about it. But last night (and I have to tell you what I drank, because it was such a copious amount) I had two [some random cocktail] and a chocolate sea salt martini (I didn't really need it, but it sounded so good, you know?) and, like, three glasses of wine and I was all, like, [staggered around to demonstrate].

I've recently been dating David, I call him big David because he's got a capital "D" in his name in my phone. I dated another David before him, and I call him little david because he's a lower-case "d" in my phone.

I txted little david late last night and asked him to come over and he, was, like, "Are you sure?" and I was, like, "Sure!" but I'd intended txt big David... so when little david showed up, I opened the door and asked him what he was doing there, and then I told him to go home."

That's cold. First he's known as "little david" and then that. She is one loquacious food server, though...

Halloween

(This will be the fourth Halloween I've been on my own. I'm gonna ramble on its importance to me a little bit.)

Halloween is a holiday that gets slighted by many people. Most holidays seem to involve purchasing lots of gifts and/or a mish-mash of Christian concepts and pagan rituals, but Halloween is pretty simple: dress up and eat candy. I don't know how people can fail to see the elegance and, after recognizing it fail to participate.

Now that I think about it, most people do participate, but it's like a karaoke bar.

When I started going out and singing karaoke, I assumed that people went there to sing. It seemed reasonable, right? As it turns out, while there are plenty of singers, most people go there to listen to others (friends/family/strangers) sing. (Actually... most people go there to drink, but that's beside the point.) Halloween then, at first glance, seems to be an opportunity to dress up and get candy. The thing is, though, that (like the karaoke listeners) there is an opportunity for people to participate by giving candy.

I remember as a kid dressing up in various costumes with plastic masks that never quite fit right--you know, the kind with the rubber band that fastens the plastic to the front of one's face? I also remember going to my grandparents' store and seeing, every Halloween, the display of the masks he sold. It's possible that there were displays for other holidays, but nothing sticks in my memory like the few dozen masks elevated, attached to a string near the ceiling, colorful and full of possibility.

For some reason, my Halloween ardor faded for more than a decade. I rarely dressed up, and when I did it was half-hearted and lacking in focus.

Halloween four years ago I had the least-pleasant conversation of my life and everything changed. The next year I was on my own for the first time in a LONG time and I got a costume and went out... I was a vampire and it was fun, although I couldn't get the stupid fangs to stick to my teeth for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

In 2007, I took it up a notch. I bought a Musketeer costume and I bought a wig and I applied guyliner. I went out in the same costume three nights in a row, and I was ... popular with women. It was awesome. Here are some sample statements I heard from chicks:

Woman One: I am so attracted to you right now.
Woman Two: Leave the wig on.
Woman Three: Where's your sword? Oh, there it is!

OK... so only two of those are actual quotes. But, still... two of those are actual quotes! Current Ed O is a little jealous of Past Ed O right now.

Last year, 2008 of the Common Era, I went in a different direction. Force of Nature and I dressed up in an undead motif the first night: he was magnificent as a zombie, and I leveraged 2006's costume, added some white face makeup and going as a vampire (the teeth still didn't stay in!) Unfortunately for us, we were two of the about five people who had dressed up on a weeknight, and it was sort of lame and I looked sort of like a crappy Joker from the Dark Knight.

The second night, though, was when I was breaking out the big guns: I was going to be a creepy jester. I bought a colorful jester outfit (with hat and shoe-covers with bells attached!) and I bought black and white makeup... you know, to be creepy.

Force of Nature helped apply the makeup, and we succeeded. We succeeded as I'd hoped.

But... you know that saying, "Be careful of what you wish for... you just might get it"? Well... I got it, and I did not get it. If you know what I mean.

Women did NOT want to talk to me. By that I don't mean that they were not falling over themselves to complement me (as in 2007)... I mean they wanted nothing to do with me. They wanted at least a meter of personal space. They wanted to remove me from the premises and/or punch me right in my creepy jester face.

At least that's what I intuited. They really weren't telling me what they were thinking. I don't have two "top quotes" to intermingle with a fake one because, well, I don't think I had two sentences said to me by women all night.

This year? My current plan is to be a celebrity that's a little bit famous and a little bit gay. OK. A lot gay. But he's a little bit famous.

Someone tell me: why am I going to be Adam Lambert again? I guess we'll wait and see if it's more "Fourth Musketeer" or "Creepy Jester".

Ed (O) Hardy Party I Recap...

They said it couldn't be done. Who is "they"? StuffWhitePeopleLike, for one. Actually that's pretty much it. And I'm not sure they were serious.

As I detailed some weeks ago, I planned an Ed Hardy Party. Well, I threw one.

The party was pretty straightforward, as far as an event goes. When it comes to me and my odd form of social retardation, of course it had its ups and downs.

First off, I wasn't sure who I should invite. I have a rather small apartment, and my cats take up about 3/7 of the livable space, so I couldn't invite everyone that might, possibly, enjoy it. My first step was to email some of my buddies to see if there was any interest. F-Bomb, to his credit, was in from the get-go. Flowers and TM-2000 gave some lukewarm interest, and I figured that was good enough for me to proceed.

I chatted with Fleahops about it, and he was extremely excited, and I hadn't seen his wife in a while (that reads weird; even making some statement about platonicism might not salvage it, so I won't make one) so she was invited.. A2 and I discussed it, and she was in. She wanted to bring The Roomie, so she was in. Dos Claves enthusiastically declared her disdain for the brand and said she'd be there, too. Big Red was in.

So, adding in Ice and F-Bomb's and TM-2000's significant others, that's an even dozen guests. Plus me and three ferocious felines. My apartment was gonna be stuffed to the gills, I thought. So I privatized the Facebook event ("The Reagan Solution", I like to call it (as of right now, when I just made that term up)) and thought that 13 was plenty to hang out at my place, drink drinks, and go sing karaoke.

I'm not experienced in organizing parties, but I was angst-ridden that I didn't invite some people and I was worried that there wouldn't be enough space in my place. And I was worried about what I was going to wear.

Because, after all, what I was gonna wear was the key. How outrageous could I look?

As someone who has been known to wear white jeans (after Labor Day!) and/or patent leather high tops, I am not always dressed understatedly. I'm not exactly Oscar Wilde, but I am willing to take risks.

There's taking risks, though (going on a new roller coaster/wearing white jeans), and there's taking risks (skydiving/wearing multiple Ed Hardy items). This party was, for me, about taking risks.

I only had two items, but what items they were...

• a black t-shirt with 
• art of a great cat with a band-aide and a crown
• "Ed Hardy" in bright red, shiny font (front and back)
• an attached "undershirt" that was long-sleeved featuring
• a roaring tiger on each arm
• a purple skull with red eyes
• lots of flames and plants and weird stuff taking up space 
• blue jeans that
• were really REALLY baggy
• had the biggest front pockets ever
• had pretty intricate stitching on the backside, with
• a roaring tiger
• a Japanese woman
• a dragon
• "Japan" in some sort of rope font that is nearly illegible
• lots of flowers and other bright, aesthetic effluence

If you think reading that list is exhausting, that's nothing compared to typing it up... which is, in turn, nothing compared to seeing it.

I was, of course, delighted by my acquisitions (thank you, Internet!)

Back to my party-goers. The Roomie was the first to bail... she had to work Saturday nights. Dos Claves begged, off, too (something about a family dinner). Fleahops was going to have to work for part of the night, at least, so his little lady decided not to attend. A2 was sick, and was out.

So down from 13 to nine, and perhaps eight--if Fleahops didn't get out of work. Further, F-Bomb and his little lady were gonna be late because of a wedding. I was staring at a healthy half-dozen people at the party, assuming everyone else showed up.

Big Red never did. He didn't cancel, he didn't say anything. Two negative kudos to him.

Fortunately, everyone else did. In fact, Raftmate showed up with Ice and Flowers (making me feel terrible for not inviting her, especially since my primary concern--no space in my apartment--looked pathetic with the thinned-out participation) and a couple of other people, too. Raftmate wore an Ed Hardy bandana (for at least a bit; I've seen a pic of her at Ozzies with it removed, for some reason!). Ed Hardy hats and shirts and a purse were in attendance.

TM-2000 had also purchased a set of four Ed Hardy Highball glasses. It was ridiculous and it was great. And we were thirsty/slightly alcoholic, so we planned on using them before karaoke. After adding the ice and the various liquids, TM-2000 placed his glass on my end table. He noticed, before he even took a sip, that some had leaked onto the end table... and when he picked it up it broke. Cracked in half, horizontally. We gathered the two pieces and put them in my kitchen (where they've continued to fracture occasionally; there are now about six pieces) so he could return them to the place of purchase at a later time (oh, how I love my TM-2000!)

The outfits were great. We looked marvelously ironic, especially since we knew (as we'd hear repeatedly) "Ed Hardy is going out."

I heard that I was "very colorful" from one chick. I had another take a picture of me with her (actually several pics, I guess) as her girl friends all snickered. If they got the joke: great. If they didn't get that I got the joke, then the joke was on them. Or there was no joke.

I hope those who attended had fun. I hope that those who did not are either regretful or sympathetic (depending on whether they were invited or not, respectively). Overall? Good time for me. There was angst and there was uncertainty and there was mockery, but there was also vodka and Jager and a lot of bright colors.

It Was a House Party, Y'all!

I am, lest ye forget (or lest ye never knew), new to drinking. I have only been consuming alcohol for two years, and it's been fewer than four years that I've been going out and, as we kids say, "Kicking it." My previous life was not without its benefits, but partying was definitely not on the agenda.

This goes back to high school and even college. I did a lot of weird things (some of it recorded for posterity on video) but I didn't go to a lot of parties. In my new life, even as I've spent an inordinate amount of time in bars (karaoke and otherwise) I still have precious little experience in one of the staples of kicking it: house parties.

Music. Alcohol. Party. House. You get the picture.

Not that my lack of house partying experience is necessarily a negative. I don't feel like I could be either Kid nor Play if I only had more House Party experience. I wonder, though, if I've missed something. I also wouldn't mind getting a few under my belt so I can be just a little less uncomfortable the next time I go to one. Lest ye forget, I get uncomfortable with things that I don't do often (e.g., spelling mistakes, laughing at funerals, double dutch).

I got a chance to take the edge off that discomfort on Saturday night. A2 invited me to a housewarming party for her and her three roommates. I'd met one of her roomies (The Roomie) and I learned that Dos Claves might be in attendance, so I decided to attend in spite of a lingering sore throat and the inevitable HPD (House Party Discomfort; look it up on WebMD). These are a few of my misadventures from that night.

Fuck You Douchebag

The misadventures actually started before the party did. I had chatted with A2 late Thursday night after spending some quality time around my neighborhood. No big deal. I was waiting out my semi-drunkeness and practicing my typing skillz. She clearly had a fully charged iPhone and time to kill.

We were chatting about something or other when this (slightly edited transcript) occurred:

2:12am Ed I look forward to hanging out again.

2:12am A2 fuck you douchebag

2:12am Ed not to be all weird

2:12am A2 ok not me

2:12am Ed haha

wait

I dunno if the "fuck you douchebag" was like 95% joke

or 95% serious

can you let me know?

it will dramatically influence how I

as my currently drunk self

and future sober self

will interact with you

[A2 is offline]

Uhh... yeah.

As it turns out, A2's story is that she was hanging with buddies and one of the buddies got all protective (protective of ME? Does he know who I am?). Also, I learned that he was gonna be at the house party.

Beautiful.

As it turned out, things were fine. He seemed like a nice enough guy. And I am kind of a douchebag.

Hidden Tequila

Part of the reason, perhaps, that he seemed like a nice guy was because of the amount of the amount of alcohol that I consumed (this also had a downside; see the section below). The party's event description mentioned that there would be tequila tasting, so house partiers were encouraged to bring some to share.

I, of course, obliged. I enjoy demonstrating my weak sense of taste in front of other people, and tequila's a great opportunity to do so. I actually brought two bottles of the stuff... partly because I was feeling generous, but also because I didn't want to drink more than I brought. It was less to feel uncomfortable about.

When I arrived, there were about three bottles of half-consumed tequila, and my bottles were placed on the table along with the chips I brought. The half-open bottles went pretty quickly, and at some point A2 and I put our heads together and decided to stash one of the two bottles I'd brought for later in the night; The Roomie was working late and we'd consumed the bottle of champagne she'd had in the fridge (that's right! Champagne and tequila... what are you gonna do about it?) so we wanted to make sure she had something to drink when she got back.

A2 was in charge of hiding the bottle of booze and decided to place it on the couch by the dart board (that's right! Champagne and tequila and darts... what are you gonna do about it?) underneath the center cushion. I protested at first, thinking it might be sat upon and broken.

Fast forward an hour or so. I decided to take a bit of a walkabout, so I went from the kitchen where most people were hanging out to the couch with the stashed tequila hidden in it. The Roomie is still not back, but all of the tequila had been consumed. Somehow, some of the (thirstier) party-goers had noticed that "my" second bottle of tequila had gone missing, and somehow they had been informed that it was under a cushion on the couch.

The timing of the thing was beautiful. I had just sat down about a minute before they came out from the kitchen. I could feel the bottle on my lower back. They literally turned over each of the other two cushions, and I initiated this conversation:

Me: What are you guys doing?

Dude 1: Looking for tequila.

Me: What?

Dude 2: Yeah, we heard there was some stashed out here.

Me: What? In the couch?

Dude 2 (hesitatingly): Could you, uh...

Me: What?

Dude 2: Uh.... maybe under you ... ?

Me: Huh? What?

Dude 2: ...

Me: ...

He didn't know me and I played on that lack of familiarity to protect the precious, precious hard A. He eventually gave up looking. A2 joined me on the couch and we smuggled it about eight feet away, hidden in a place they had already looked. The tequila was safe and sound and, after The Roomie arrived a VIP crew sequestered ourselves in a bedroom and took pulls.

House party, indeed!

Definition of Insanity

Benjamin Franklin once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." As often as I clash with his alleged wisdom (don't even get me started on the American Philisophical Society!) I tend to agree with him here. At least intellectually.

Of course, after a combination of tequila and champagne, intellectualism sometimes takes a back seat.

(And, yes, before I go on: I understand that Rita Mae Brown might have actually come up with that quote; I wanted to make some Franklin comments, instead. Don't even get me started on the turkey as our national bird!)

As you may recall, when I was back in college I liked to kick ceilings and top of door jams and whatnot. As you may also recall, I tried to relive that back in August to impress Dos Claves, but only succeeded in turning my left ankle and bruising my left buttock.

This was the first time I'd seen Dos Claves since that fateful (or at least bruise-ful) night, and I suppose after some champagne and some tequila, I became insane. I tried, again, to kick the top of the door frame.

Normally--even in the midst of heavy drinking--when someone asks me, "What were you thinking?" I have an answer. It might not be one I share out loud or on a blog or with anyone, but I know the answer. When it comes to door frame-kicking, though? I honestly don't know. I think about it now and I remember I put my champagne glass on the counter, kicked up and... fell right on my butt.

That's right. Fail. Again.

I learned something, though: not to jump. I failed and avoided turning either ankle and was able to distribute the bruising equally between both butt cheeks.

The party was fun. The people were fun. I had a relatively painless failed door frame kicking attempt. I'm not quite a house party pro, but I'm getting there.

My Favorite App

I do not own an iPhone, and I might never (I really enjoy having a qwerty keyboard (by the way, is there a more fun word to type than "qwerty"? I defy you to find a more fun word to type than qwerty... qwerty)) but I understand one of the reasons the kids love the iPhone is because of the ability to have applications on it.

"Apps" can be a compass or a game or any number of things. Apps are available at Apple.com and they allow an iPhone user to customize their phone. The user can then give feedback on the app to other users and so the community helps determine which the "best" ones are.

As an owner of a Sidekick (which has had tremendous technical issues in the last week or so) I should not really talk smack about other phones, but... I just don't buy into the app hype. I might change my tune when I get a smart phone, but I've never really seen someone using an iPhone or seen an app and thought, "Damn, son, I gots to get me one of them." Nor did I think something more grammatically correct and/or consistent with how I actually speak (even internally).

But this morning I read about an app that I consider to be awesome. Not because it would change my life. Not because I ever even see myself using it (if I had an iPhone) but because it's a pretty funny idea and I like how the app is willing to step on the toes of those who don't get the joke (and/or think it's funny).

What is this app? Pepsi makes AMP, evidently. And AMP is, evidently, an energy drink ... ? I have never consumed it nor ever really spent much time thinking about it. Until now.

Check out the "AMP UP Before You Score" iPhone app:



That just strikes me as funny. Women are, of course, much like snowflakes (unique, cold, etc., etc.) but they also can be loosely categorized. It doesn't diminish the singularity of the individual, and if a person (be he a man or a woman) relies purely on archetype to make decisions about the woman then he/she might be making a mistake... but some women DO dress alike. Some women DO have similar interests. And these similarities, when taken to extremes, are funny. This app will be an ongoing source of (branded) entertainment, poking fun at perceptions of groups of single women.

Some people/party poopers are evidently upset about the "poor taste" of the app. Fuck that. It's not about being cruel to women--it's about being cruel to PEOPLE (and it's only light cruelty... not fingernails have been harmed in the making of this app). A male version of this would be just as funny (types of guys that will hit on you, how to understand and stave them off, etc.) but it wouldn't be as applicable to the target audience. Because the target audience is extreme. And male.

If it's not a popular app: that's fine. Vote with your... hmm... vote. I don't see how outrage should have any place in this analysis and I don't even need to make any hormone jokes to support my position.

So I say, as a relatively non-extreme non-AMP drinking non-iPhone user: never apologize for being awesome, Pepsi. You're lucky that MTV didn't think of it first.

Advice

For whatever reason, I enjoy giving advice. I think it's based on three things:

• A genuine concern for my friends and people in general,
• My fascination with drama, and
• My know-it-all nature.

Hopefully it's primarily the first bullet, rather than the first bullet being a rationalization rooted in the other two.

Irrespective of that, I have a penchant for building relationships with great people. Maybe not Great, but smart and good people. Giving advice to smart and good people is pretty easy, because things tend to work out for those kinds of people, whether the advice is full of pith and Truth or not.

A case in point is two of my friends who got job offers this week. I was funemployed/funderemployed for some time and still am savoring the feeling of being gainfully employed and working it. I mean, I work it, but working it for money. Gainfully working it. In any event, I'm jazzed for Big Apple and Big Red (is that his codename? I need that stinking Ed O Blog Guide that my fan club claims to be working on!). I am also relieved that my advice did not render them entirely unemployable forevermore.

I ask for advice sometimes, too. Not very often, and it's even loss common that I plan on doing whatever the advice-giver recommends, but I figure since I have surrounded myself with smart and good people I might as well ask for their input occasionally.

The funny thing about that is when I ask a question and I get an opinion that has great merit, but is not the question I asked. By outlining the rest of this blog, it's not my intention to discredit the advice of these two guys, and I definitely appreciate their insights.

Flowers and TravelMate2000 are, like me, INTJ. We tend to be analytical and have "an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake." We also can understand why other INTJs think like they do, for the most part, and so we can discuss things without (permanently) pissing each other off.

I've had two things where I've asked rather specific questions and wanted their advice over email. Let's look at them quickly (paraphrasing):

Question: My car died this morning. It's gonna be expensive to get everything fixed, but I've already started repairs. It's going to be $[really expensive] to get it up and running, and the car isn't worth that. I've never bought a car on my own, and I'm thinking about buying a replacement in a month or two. How should I finance it, do you think? What kind of car should I look at buying?

Flowers' Answer:

1. Don't get it fixed! Or get it fixed elsewhere. Call and have them stop fixing it.
2. If you let it stay dead, get a ZipCar for a few months since you don't drive much.
3. You can probably get along without a car. You can take the bus and save on car insurance, gas, etc.

My (internal) response: Great points (and they are). But I asked specific questions, dammit. Answer them!

TM2000's Answer:

1. Fix your car now to get it running.
2. Get the rest of it fixed later elsewhere (somewhere cheaper).
3. Don't buy a new car. Drive this one into the ground.

My (internal) response: Great points (and they are). But I asked specific questions, dammit. Answer the--oh, wait! That's a great idea. I don't need another car just yet.

They didn't answer my question, but they helped out. Let's see how they did with a question I asked them the other night.

Question: I am going to be dressing up as a celebrity for Halloween. The celebrity is [deleted to retain surprise for blog readers]. You guys know him quite well, and I want to buy a leather jacket for the costume. Do I buy this one, which is black, or this one, which is white? [underlines were links to eBay auctions]

Flowers' Answer:

1. Wow. That much for a jacket you will wear once?
2. I don't even own a raincoat. I'm too cheap to help.
   

My (internal) response: Cheapy McCheaperson is supposed to be the subject matter expert here! Boo!

TM2000's Answer:

1. Go big or go home. Get them both!
   

My (internal) response: I rarely need encouragement to buy more useless crap from eBay, but ...

In the end, I decided to get the cheaper jacket and see how it fits before springing for both.

I love these guys, and I can't wait until I someday ask them this question:

Question: So, as you know, [wife's name] and I have been trying to conceive for some time. We are finally going to have a son! What should we name him? We are considering [Name #1] and [Name #2]. I'd love to get your preferences...

Flowers' Answer:

1. A kid? That's a mistake.
2. Didn't you already name that Guatemalan bastard [Name #2]?
3. It it too late to abort?
   

My (internal) response: He knows about [Name #2]? Damn TM2000 and his gossiping ways!

TM2000's Answer:

1. Agreed with Flowers. Abort. Too many kids and not enough oil in the world.
   
2. Name him both [Name #1] and [Name #2]. Or combine them into [Le#2Name#1Name].
   
3. Consider not naming the child and letting him choose his own name when he turns seven.
   

My (internal) response: Haha. Those answers are hilarious. I'd never be able to think them up on my own.

Maybe I should have asked if they'd mind me writing about their advice in this space. It might have a chilling effect or feel like I'm picking on them. I'm not... I'm much more explicit when I mock people.

Law School Reunions?

So it turns out that my ten year law school graduation anniversary is coming up. (Is it an "anniversary"? Whatever...)

I know this not only because of my wizard-like arithmetical skillz (2009-1999 = 10 ... give me a cookie!) but because efforts have been made by the law school to organize a pair of reunions. The first one is odd for a pair of reasons:

• It was meta-invited, and
• It is a virtual reunion.

I know that being meta-invited to a virtual reunion is pretty standard, but let me explain. The "virtual" part is evidently an effort to reach more people by placing the reunion (which I keep typing "reuinion", for some reason; I'm not going to fix it the rest of this blog, just FYI) on Facebook. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but it sounds virtual. I suppose we could post pictures of ourselves now and make wall comments about how little law we've practiced and embarrassing drinking and dating (and drinking while dating) stories. That's what it'd be, right?

The "meta-invitation" part is that I learned of this virtual reuinion (see? dammit) via an email. The email said that I had just been invited to the Facebook group. But I hadn't been. It was an email about how I was invited.

It's conceivable that I will meta-virtually attend.

The second reuinion (I wonder if I keep typing that because it's more like "ruin") is one that will be in person, and I actually received an e-vite to it! Unfortunately--at least for me--it is rather specific about what the reuinion will entail:

LET'S GET TOGETHER FOR AN EVENING OF FUN-
LOOK BACK AND LAUGH AT THOSE END OF SEMESTER MARATHON STUDY SESSIONS, SHOW OFF PICTURES OF YOUR FAMILY OR JUST RECONNECT WITH OLD FRIENDS.

At first glance, that it a solid call-to-action, with a reasonable plan based on nostalgia and shared experiences.

The reason that it is unfortunate for me is because I never had end-of-semester marathon study sessions, I don't have pictures of my family to show off (my cat pics need to be updated), and I didn't make any friends in law school.

I didn't make any enemies, either, and I'm not trying to be a prick (for once). I just rarely studied with anyone else (I think I might have, once, in the second semester for a single session for Crim) and I almost never lost any sleep due to academic demands of law school.

I'm not really bragging--my GPA wasn't anything fantastic, and I didn't end up practicing--but I just didn't have many shared experiences with my fellow graduates. My law school experience was doing the reading (most of the time), showing up for class (some of the time) and seeing how much I could understand when I was there.

So will I make the drive down to Portland later this month to attend the reuinion (dammit!) that I was actually invited to? Probably not. If I can ever procure an actual invitation to the other reuinion? I'm so virtually there.

Props to Propaganda

I am not really a TV snob. First of all, the snobbiest of all TV snobs are those that don't own television... that might be like calling an atheist the most godly of all men, but I prefer to think that TV people would watch television if there were enough value there for them (they'd be able to squeeze in reading and hiking and masturbating into their routine around TV if there were). Very few atheists would believe in a god if only there were better options.

Anyway.

I used to really dislike shows like Cops and shows dedicated to high speed car chases. And when I say "used to", I mean until about an hour ago.

An hour ago I was at the gymnasium (I'm gonna call it that for a while, rather than the gym, just so you know) and I was on the elliptical machine and I was straining my neck to see the end of a Mariners'-Blue Jays game that I didn't really care about (although if I had picked up Aardsma early this year, I might be winning my fantasy league). It went to commercial, and I saw the TV in front of me for the first time this evening. And I liked what I saw.

I usually ignore TVs without sports on them in the gymnasium, because I have seen too many "Animal Rescue" shows and I hate having to hold back tears as I try to sweat. Except in bed, but I don't want to talk about it.

If it's not Animal Planet, it's the Food Network, which is boring. Unless it makes me hungry. Either way, it sucks.

Tonight, though? Some sort of high speed chase show, where cops chase ne'er-do-wells. It was exciting, it was easy to watch. And I loved it.

One of the reasons I liked it so much is because of the overwhelming sense of... law and order. I dunno how else to describe it. It shows people acting poorly, and it showed incidents that explain why so many cops are on edge (one guy got out of his car and charged a cop car and his mom got out of the car and yelled at the officer; he had to wait for backup before he even wanted to talk to the guy because he didn't want it to get out of hand; another involved a chase that ended with an officer getting shot three times and left for dead on the freeway after he went to write the guy a ticket).

I'm generally very supportive of law enforcement. Sure, there are bad cops, just like there are bad teachers and bad musicians. But most have our best interests at heart, I feel, and I can understand that their training makes them appear to be assholes. It's just the way it is.

The show, though, sort of reminds me of elements of Starship Troopers (a GREAT dark comedy, in my opinion). Here's a portion of the movie where the media is rallying the public to support the war against the aliens:

Classic.

Even as I support the cops, and even as I enjoyed the show, I couldn't help but savor the whiff of propaganda. It was an opportunity for people to think, "Hell, yeah! Those guys are heroes!" Which they may be, but... I dunno. It just is so one-sided that I find it hard to take seriously.

Which is perfect as I huff and puff and try not to count down the remaining minutes during cardio.

Ironic Dressup Parties

On Saturday evening I went out with Clever Dunne's (the person, not the bar) near the University District and we wanted to get a drink and play some pool. We wandered around a bit and saw a bar named after a primate. I can't recall the name of the bar, but I believe it had "monkey" in it.

We weren't feeling too picky, so we went in and after showing our ID we took a hard right into the pool table/primary bar space and our senses were assaulted. And by "senses" I mean:

• hearing
• sight
• dignity

It was more crowded than it had appeared at first, and Hava Nagila was playing loudly on the sound system.

OK. Fine. I'm not Jewish (as far as I know; my mom was adopted, so who knows?) but I'm down with the Tribe. If there was some sort of celebration of Semitism or Zionist hoe-down, that's fine. Rum still will be rum, irrespective of all of that.

My sense of dignity, then, was not that we were (at first glance) the only gentiles in the room... no. It was that, upon further (like, two seconds worth of) inspection, I began to suspect that none of the party participants were actually Jews.

How did I come to that conclusion? Why would I reach such a belief?

Maybe it was the coffee filter yarmulke (by the way: I had a devil of a time finding out how to spell that correctly; normally I'm a master Googler, and therefore seem omniscient, but "Jarmulka", my first guess, wasn't helping me out... so I had to Google for "Jew cap" to get that spelling). Maybe it was the construction paper sidecurls. Maybe it was the couple of asian chicks wearing the coffee filter yarmulkes (and, yes, I know that there are Asian Jews; I think they're called Micronesian).

So after I had convinced myself that they were not actual sons of David, celebrating their culture in a dive bar with macaroni salad and cake, I became a bit indignant... were they having a Jewish-themed party? Again: I'm not Jewish (probably) and I'm certainly not the most politically correct person in the world, but... that just seemed wrong.

But whatever. We played pool (I won... she really wasn't kidding when she said she was no good, because I'm pretty terrible) and had a drink and went on our way.

I think that my subconscious was able to set aside the negatives of the idea and it went to work with coming up with a theme party of my own. Later that night, after substantially more drinking, it came to me: Ed Hardy Party.

Ed Hardy is a design line (primarily of clothes, but also things like bed covers and steering wheel covers... it seems that if anything needs covering, Ed Hardy branded goods will be available) inspired by Don Ed Hardy, who is considered the father of modern tattoo.

Of course, I knew none of this until the last few days (when I felt some odd compulsion to research for my theme party). What I did know was that Ed Hardy clothing is (in the words of some random blog that I can't currently locate the URL for) "the magic cape for douchebags". It's expensive, it's brightly colored, and it's got some combination of skulls, great cats, dragons, birds of prey, and "Ed Hardy" in large text all over it. To wit:

Some of the shirts are black. Some are brown. All are douchie.

In fact, as part of my research, I turned up an entry in the Stuff White People Like blog entitled "Hating People Who Wear Ed Hardy", which included the following commentary:

To put this in proper perspective, Ed Hardy is so hated by white people that it cannot be worn ironically. This is no small feat. As it stands, the only other entries in this category are Nazi Uniforms, Ku Klux Klan Robes, and self-tanner.

Since you cannot in good conscience have an Ed Hardy themed party, the best way to make use of this white hatred is to give your stories a little more appeal to white people.

As bold as I am, I'm not going to consider either of the other options (after all, I am down with the Tribe) but I'm going to risk the wrath of my people by not only wearing Ed Hardy but encouraging some of my friends to do so, too... at least for one night.