# 01 Oct 2002, 02:22PM GMT+5:30:
You might have writer's block if you consider plagiarizing for something to show your writer's group.
I took about three days to devour the first three books of Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series. I'll start Lady Knight, the last, sometime after the writing group tonight. Of course, reading hundreds of pages of magic-medieval fantasy influenced all my attempts to concoct a premise for a short story. "People donate blood...and the transfusions change the patients' personalities!" "Someone comes into a bookstore looking for...a book of magic!" Wait, I don't want magical realism, just regular realism, are you out?
# 01 Oct 2002, 02:35PM:
A sketchy guy asked me out while I was at work yesterday. He must
have been twice my age, and I don't even remember conversing with him
before he came to the Info Desk and asked me to coffee.
A coworker and I joshed that I might agree to go out with customers
who buy at least $100 in merchandise, and perhaps broadcast the whole
thing on a webcam or reality TV. Watch Sumana Go On Dates With Sketchy
Guys Who Ask Her Out at Her Workplace! Ah, but it'd have to have a
competitive element. Maybe a Supermarket Sweep-style contest where
the suitors look for particular titles. Oh, and there's only one copy
of each book and it's cross-listed in four sections. In the children's
room.
(Maybe each of us has a little Connie Willis inside...)
# 02 Oct 2002, 01:13AM:
Hurray for the writing group, which met and actually got some work done. Good luck to the perpetually stressed Shweta! I also met her friend Adam (argh, that makes, like, three now to distinguish) and hung out with him and his cool housemates, including a sweet and vulnerable kitten who had gotten spayed earlier in the day. I wanted to protect her, like in the Everclear song "I Will Buy You a New Life." Lack of kittens -- that's what's ruined Sumana-cat relations.
As long as I'm doing creative work, I should whip up some stand-up and see if the Heuristic Squelch will let me do the open-mic at their October 15th show.
# 02 Oct 2002, 03:54PM:
Even Roger Ebert has a little bit of Leonard inside, as he reveals in his review of The Tuxedo.
I finished Lady Knight today. Influenced by the terrorist attacks, Pierce writes in her afterword. I certainly wasn't expecting the phrase "refugee camp," I'll tell you that.
# 03 Oct 2002, 11:33PM GMT+5:30:
On Wednesday evening, I planned on writing a bit while enjoying the sunset
and warm air on the lovely UC Berkeley campus. But I chose to sit by a
busy corridor, and ran into two acquaintances, both of whom asked why I
was on campus, since I'd already graduated.
Today, after I explained this to Devin, he and I walked on Bowditch and
saw a mutual acquaintance. "Hi, Karthik," I said. "Hi," he replied. "Didn't you
graduate?"
Devin guffawed.
I introduced the Salon.com authors and editors at tonight's talk about
Afterwords, a collection of essays about the aftermath of last
year's terrorist attacks. Man. Tiny audience, members who started
talking to the authors before I could even say "Welcome to Cody's" -- I
just couldn't get out of there fast enough. I hope my next stand-up gig
is better.
Currently reading: Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin.
I thought it would be like one long Bob Herbert column, but it's more
insightful than that. I should read some more work by Griffin; he also
wrote some novels, I think.
Embarrassing Moments in Customer Service: "That's $20.82, sir."
Name on credit card: Tiffany.
# 04 Oct 2002, 08:38AM:
Muchos props to Brendan for linking to CNN News Gettin' Jiggy With da Jive Talkin'. I like it better than he does, and would especially enjoy it as a radio skit. Not SNL; SNL would just mess it up.
# 05 Oct 2002, 08:47PM:
Leonard and I thought up some funnies recently. Example, from me: "Oh, Robert,
it would never work. You'd be jealous of my money. And I'd be jealous
of your money."
I got to see Frances for dinner and breakfast. And I got to show her
Cody's, including my recommendation tags.
I visited a book trade show. The floor wasn't very pleasant, except for
the chance at free stuff, incl. advance copies of books. It's really
more oriented towards buyers, which makes sense, but the lowly staffer
who's just trying to familiarize herself with upcoming books either feels
ignored or hard-selled.
I wore a Cody's Books t-shirt and a name badge that also identified my
employer. "Can you guess where I'm from?" I joked with a booth attendant. "India?" she guessed. Er.
I did attend a useful session wherein publishers' sales representatives talked to staffers
about their favorite offerings. The guy from Harcourt talked for seven minutes about The Life of Pi. He spoke longer about his initial prejudices than about the book itself.
Strike two: the author is Canadian. Now, I have nothing against
Canada or Canadians, but in the last year we've seen a hundred books by
Canadian authors. It's like publishers have decided that Canada is the new literary hotspot, which makes me suspicious. It's very similar to what we've seen with the previous hotspot, which was, of course, India for about five years.
So this is a book by a Canadian author about an Indian boy. I mean, just throw a few Afghans in there...
# 05 Oct 2002, 08:50PM:
Oh, and I saw Dave Barry. I just passed him on the street right outside
the convention center. I said, "Good day," but refrained from chasing
him down and gabbing, "Oh, Mr. Barry, sir, I just wanted to say, you've really
been an inspiration, your books have just completely changed my life,"
and so on.
# 07 Oct 2002, 02:02AM:
A terrific day, despite early-morning cold symptoms. I got a new place
to live come November, remet Sabrina and hung out with her and Adam, saw
Seth and Michelle and Zed, got to the two-thirds mark in Neil Gaiman's American
Gods, and got fantastic compliments from a customer with whom I
conversed during a giftwrap.
My supervisor, a sci-fi buff, tells me that the latest Locus
mentions a bank robbery earlier this year that follows the gimmick
of one described in American Gods. I personally think that
any competent social engineer, incl. me, could have come up with
that, and as such it's more probable that thieves independently generated the plan
than that they read American Gods. But maybe.
Hey Andy,
isn't the song "Can't Help Falling in Love With You"? I remember
that some band, UB40, did a version a few years back. Of course, this
might be some hilarious mistranslation.
# 07 Oct 2002, 11:07AM:
I see "Conservatives With an Attitude" and I think "fellas who are in the mood," because of that Madonna song.
A Slate writer and his cronies recommend books for aspiring reporters and essayists, in the context of the question: Journalism School -- What Is It Good For? "People like my colleague -- oh, let's call him Tim Noah -- find it easy to dismiss credentialism when they already possess the ultimate door-opening credential of a Harvard degree or an interchangable one from Yale, Stanford, or Princeton."
# 07 Oct 2002, 11:54PM:
Most Disturbing Search Request Ever: photos of every phone in camden house on 7th heaven
Today a guy came in wearing a Bill Simon for Governor shirt. (Simon
is the Republican candidate for California governor.) He asked for
a particular book about Osama bin Laden, and also for Peggy Noonan's
biography of Reagan. I also saw him carrying Carnegie's How to Make Friends
And Influence People.
Then there was the woman who seemed to be seeking a Tom Lehrer
book about the CIA's actions in Tibet. (Actual desideratum:
Into Tibet by Tom Laird.)
Good lunch with Zack. I found
myself considering how many people I knew before and after marriages
and/or kids. Each individual instance, when I discovered it, discomfited
me, but in the aggregate I don't mind at all, and just consider it
a passing like seasons and tides.
I worked the register today, where a guy bought five photography magazines. I said,
with a slight English accent, "Are you interested in...photography?"
He said, "Yes, I am. I really like it."
Later, in discussion, this somehow stimulated Eric to say: "If we had only known,
years ago, that 'phat' would become a compliment rather than an insult,
we could have made a killing on the insults futures market."
# 09 Oct 2002, 08:58AM:
I guess Brewster has already made his choice and I won't be the one driving the bookmobile. Mumble grumble Project Gutenberg founder grumble.
# 09 Oct 2002, 09:14AM:
Mike Popovic posted a yummy-looking recipe for spaghetti with Sicilian green tomato sauce. Maybe I'll make that in early November to celebrate my move -- I'll be living in a new place nearer work, with a couple of acquaintances.
# 09 Oct 2002, 09:32AM:
What a month! Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, J. Richard Gott, Sandra Cisneros, Jonathan Schorr, Jamie "Naked Chef" Oliver, and my old Russian History prof Reginald Zelnik are all doing events sponsored by Cody's Books this month. Caution: some of these events are at other venues or at Cody's on 4th St., but most are at Cody's on Telegraph Avenue.
In early November, Tuesday the 5th to be exact (Election Day!), Garrison Keillor appears in a Cody's-sponsored event at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley (Dana between Channing and Durant). Our events coordinator surprised me by agreeing to let me do the introduction! Tickets will go on sale soon.
# 09 Oct 2002, 10:00AM:
From last night's tasty dinner at Dragonfly with Leonard (the fries and chocolate mousse were excellent, and the beef skewers "very good", but the tomato rigatoni too oily), on the hypothetical Osama bin Laden LiveJournal (which for all I know may actually exist, but I'm not going to risk the depths of LiveJournal to find out):
"Special Forces is after me. Mood: depressed."
"Music I'm listening to: none."
"I saw that Flash game where you blow me up. It hurts."
Actually, I did make a weak attempt to find a bin Laden LiveJournal -- there's gotta be one, right? There's a Blogspot, after all -- and did find this snippet: "Who Would Make a Better Emo Kid:....Verdict: Osama, because his LiveJournal is more interesting (with a longer friends list), and his girlfriend wears a sweater-vest."
Heard at the Old Store:
- A woman held up the line at the register for a few seconds
exclaiming about the heat. "My dog won't eat at all in this heat, but
he drinks so much water! I'm not kidding you, 18 bowls of water a
day. I won't let him pee downhill for fear he'll flood the town."
- A man bought our last copy of a book; I took off the "Display
Copy" sticker and stuck it on my own chest. A subsequent customer
asked, "Do you have yourself in paperback?"
Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback moved from Slate to the ESPN/MSNBC/Go edifice, which, since Slate is also owned by Microsoft, is not that big a change. As Leonard and I discussed, now he's revealing various political and economic arcana to ESPN fans in his football analysis, rather than making football palatable to Slatesters by dressing it up with his wonky Brookings Institution self. Running features include Star Trek nitpicks and sketches of obscure colleges.
While searching Leonard's site for the TMQ link, I found two photos worthy of silly captions which, astonishingly, don't already have silly filenames! Perhaps Seth and I parody experimental theatre, and I can't think of anything for this one. Suggestions?
# 09 Oct 2002, 03:59PM GMT+5:30:
Six or seven years ago, I wanted to impress an interesting fella that
I met at alt.fan.dave_barry, so I went to the local public library and
I read up on golf. (He also played lacrosse.) I read John Feinstein's
A Good Walk Spoiled, partly since I'd liked his appearances on NPR, and loved it. I read a few more of his books
and liked them too. I'm no sports fan, yet I enjoyed Feinstein's narratives and his statistics-quoting didn't bother me. After I got to Cody's,
I put up a tag in the sports section recommending any and all of his
work.
I think I have to take that down tomorrow, because I just finished
an advance copy of Feinstein's The Punch. It's about some
basketball player who accidentally punched another out in the 1970s.
Feinstein also tries to impress us with their backgrounds, and how
the punch changed their lives and basketball, but he goes overboard
repeating background and trite conclusions, and doesn't give us enough sketches of secondary characters. Don't read it.
# 09 Oct 2002, 03:59PM:
Headline from some leftish paper: "Tide Turns for Uncle $cam."
# 11 Oct 2002, 12:37AM GMT+5:30:
Met Dave Eggers. Seems generous and friendly to his public. He packed
the house (the relevant house being Cody's Books) and gave each
attendee personal attention.
Did I mention that I finished American Gods? I finished it and
don't mind that I spent the time on it, even enjoyed several turns of
phrase, but couldn't follow its sweeping pseudo-epicity. I got lots of
the mythological references, so it's not an Eco-style problem; rather, the
narrative failed to sweep me up in its many epiphanic moments.
I liked Pratchett's Small Gods (on the same topic) better.
Note to self: the outfit that I think is "too Gappy" is the one that three
coworkers will compliment.
Read UC Press's Hey, Waitress!, which didn't knock my socks off.
You'd think that a book compiling experiences in the service industry
would automatically interest me, but somehow the lengthy interviews go for
Turkelian and don't make it -- too much boring detail, not enough insight
and anecdotal nuggets.
# 13 Oct 2002, 11:25PM GMT+5:30:
Andy implicitly and Leonard explicitly urge me to upgrade my weblog software,
so I will, soon. Format changes and service disruptions may occur.
Today's realization: I no longer feel that moment of disorientation where
I arrive at work and have to switch from "customer" perspective to
"employee" perspective. I'm already in worker mode when I get there.
Now about to read Dave Barry's new novel, Tricky Business, and
Michel Faber's well-reviewed The Crimson Petal and the White (I hear
it's akin to Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, which I liked).
# 14 Oct 2002, 11:09AM GMT+5:30:
I ripped through Dave Barry's second novel, Tricky Business, in about two hours. It's faster-paced than Big Trouble, taking place entirely in one day, but the general theme stays the same (ordinary people stumble upon organized crime shenanigans in south Florida). I liked Big Trouble better, especially since Big Trouble focused more on likable characters and less on convoluted scheming by mobsters, but I did enjoy Tricky Business. The obstacles that sympathetic characters face in Tricky Business seem real, as opposed to the over-the-top ridiculous obstacles (cough *Connie Willis* cough) in Big Trouble.
People who actually thought about seeing me do some stand-up tomorrow: sorry to cancel on you. I realized that I have to be out of town Tuesday night.
To liven up your day, a bunch of quotes that, for the most part, I've never seen in an email signature.
Filed under:
Comedy Reading
# 15 Oct 2002, 12:28AM GMT+5:30:
Pirate homeboys, Leonard.
I love Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. His intro plays with the metaphors of reader/writer and john/prostitute interaction. The first fifty pages have been wonderful.
# 15 Oct 2002, 12:40AM:
Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors, is
still on the remaindered table at Cody's. Only $3.98. I'm thinking of
getting it myself.
The other day a fella asked, "Where do you keep your conspiracy theory?"
-- in a non-ironic way. Now, most people go looking for texts on some
particular conspiracy, say, the Freemasons or the Zionists, but this
guy was really open-minded, and perhaps I should admire that.
Among other things, I showed him David Icke's The Biggest Secret. David Icke has written several conspiracy theory books, but
only The Biggest Secret features a montage on the cover that includes
the globe, several politicos, and many government and royal insignia.
Also, the lower right-hand corner of the cover informs the reader that
this edition of the book includes new details on the death of Princess Diana.
The back cover gives one a picture of friendly-looking Icke, and snippets from the book. The very first one is almost exactly like this:
As a kid I always wondered how a few islands which you can hardly see on the globe could have an Empire that spanned the world.
Now the reason is clear. It was not the British Empire at all. It was the Empire of the Babylonian Brotherhood.
I really enjoy how reasonable Icke sounds until the last sentence. Like Captain Archer on Enterprise.
Another of Icke's books, Children of the Matrix, uses a cover graphic suspiciously similar to graphics from the 1999 movie The Matrix, and posits that the premise of that movie was true. However, the blurb never explicitly mentions the film; I would be curious to see an interview with Icke in which the interviewer brings up this point.
David Icke's new book is Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center.
I won't be recommending that we order it.
# 18 Oct 2002, 12:06AM:
My parents are moving back to India. I wish them well, and have actually
helped them do moving-related things over these past few days, such as
putting lots of their belongings into a shipping container (Leonard: "Yay!
Shipping
containers!") and moving lots of stuff from my parents' house to my
and Nandini's places. No longer will we have a far-off Storagistan where
our parents live, as most of our contemporaries have. All of a sudden,
wherever I am is where all my stuff will be, a situation I find
disorientingly coherent.
I'm listening to Lucky Diaz and the High Rollers, an eponymous
ska CD that I got because the drummer, Ben Kolber, was a guy in my high
school. The opening blares youthful vitality, and I didn't even know I
felt old.
I learned about my parents when I shredded bags and bags of old papers --
six copies of each, my father being the duplication freak that he is.
(We once invited the Office Depot copy clerk to have dinner with
the fam.) Example: my mother's impassioned plea to a
landlord to make the upstairs tenants turn down their music. "They can
have music in their house, they need not distribute to us." I found more
stuff of interest, but you'll have to ask me in person.
Kind neighbors lent their truck and moving services to take furniture and
miscellany to Berkeley. They met working security for a Target or a
WalMart, and later married. They arrested a murderer together! A good
story.
Upon mention of polygamy in Saudi Arabia, the husband cracked, "I thought
I was gonna get 16 wives! Y'know, 4 richer, 4 poorer, 4 better, 4 worse."
Also, when we spun the dial on the radio, and came across some rap (which
I found myself tentatively liking), he punned, "You hear about that new
music that's a cross between country and rap? It's called crap."
The other nice turn of phrase Rudy made referred to his evangelical
Christian sister. "She's in one of those homemade churches, you know?
New Harvest or something."
After two exhausting days of moving, I got to relax with Leonard over some
salad and Zatarain's Garlic Butter Rice. Some rice dish and a salad
comprise our usual Wednesday night fare, and we eat it while watching
The West Wing (i.e. "Touched by a Liberal") and
Enterprise (i.e. "We Write the Slash So You Don't Have To").
I get fiendishly content during such rituals. Wow, maturity might be nice.
But Wednesday night I experienced worse-than-usual delays BARTing to San
Francisco. Only midway through my trip did I find out that someone had died on the tracks at West Oakland station. (The Thursday SF Chronicle paper
edition implies that she was trying to cross from the eastbound to the westbound platform at the time of the accident.) On my way back, I transferred at West Oakland. She died right there, on some spot on the tracks that I have passed a hundred times. It's sacred ground, and our
machines have to keep grinding over it, the grit in their backwash
sandblasting the blood away, so that I can get to my sweetie and hold him
tight, as often as I can. I'm sorry.
# 18 Oct 2002, 12:14AM:
Someone's Got to Mind the Store:
-
Zed recently bought our last
marked-down copy of the Neil Gaiman collection Smoke and Mirrors,
and thanked me for the pointer. First documented instance of someone
actually using my Cody's Deals highlights!
-
I now have evidence (a Cody's inventory entry) that John McWhorter's new
book, "Authentically Black," will go on sale in January of 2003.
-
A man bought a book on how to perform a particular sexual act upon a
woman. I mentioned that we provide a free gift-wrapping service. He
smiled and said, "No, this is homework." I wish his partner well.
BART and the Greedy Algorithm: Recent experience with lengthy BART delays teaches me: When you are on BART, and you get a chance to get closer to your destination, take it. Take your first chance to get across the bay and then transfer at West Oakland. That sort of thing. Even if it means you'll have to stand most of the way. It's only worse with the new reduced schedule. Man, I wish more public transit ran 24 hours.
Today I found myself near Berkeley TRIP and nervously made outlays for discounted public transit fare aggregations. I'm trying out a 10-trip AC Transit pass (a $15 value for $13) and a high-value BART ticket ($48 worth for $45) and feeling anxious about the expense and ease of loss. Other customers came in and out while I agonized and casually bought BART and AC Transit passes, which reassured me. Once I integrate these expenses and protocols into my life I won't feel so weird.
# 18 Oct 2002, 12:30AM:
I only realized recently that the abbreviation for "Disturbing Search Request"
competes with my ex for the initials "DSR." Hmmm.
# 19 Oct 2002, 11:31PM:
Recently I have come across a few titles that remind me of song titles. I
find
myself singing The Autograph Man (Zadie Smith) to the tune of "The Candyman [Can]" from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Zadie Smith has written
This new hardcover book
Not as good as "White Teeth" but I hear it's pretty good
The Autograph Man
It's The Autograph Man
And Six Days of War (in our Mideast Studies section) reminds me of the Beatles' Eight Days a Week.
Six Days of War
Is not enough to lo-ove you
Six Days of War
Is not enough to kill you all
or possibly "not enough to show I care" or "not enough for the West
Bank."
# 20 Oct 2002, 12:01AM:
The New Yorker article about Condi Rice makes her sound like T'Pol from Enterprise, only not as sexy. (Nicholas Lemann discusses his article in an interview.) My "Certainty! Righteousness!" sirens go off when I hear Lemann describing Rice.
# 20 Oct 2002, 12:06AM:
Last night I dreamt that His Fraudulency was consulting with Leo from
The West Wing. (Leonard's comment, in Leo's voice: "What is this, a
satire? This guy is just a thinly disguised Ritchie!") I worry that
West Wing reality has affected me more than is healthy.
For a moment the other day I thought, "Who's running against Bush
this November?" and couldn't remember. Then I remembered that in
this universe we have off-year elections this year.
Coming soon: I jabber on about halal.
# 20 Oct 2002, 11:24PM:
Annoying customer habit: approaching a staff member with a request
phrased as a single word. "Chess." "Gardening." (At least one staffer regularly
replies to such unmannerly requests in kind, with arbitrary words, e.g., "bingo.") Leonard theorizes that these people have been overly conditioned by search engines.
Today a man approached the register and asked, "Where's Hawaii?"
Inevitably, I replied, "It's west of here." And then I showed him to
the Hawaii section of Travel, which indicates to me that I'm not a
complete smartass.
# 20 Oct 2002, 11:39PM:
Best way to learn what we stock: standing at the checkout and watching
what people buy. Every day I sell things that I had no idea we stocked.
The other day I sold an amazing magazine that guided
Muslims through the marketplace and coached them on where and how to
obtain halal (pure) products. It may have been
HalalPAK. I staggered at the
implications of this magazine's existence. Perhaps someday many products
will feature a small "H" on their packagings, just as today they display
"K"s to signify kosherness (since kosher is not
halal).
My discovery led me to HalalPAK's website, which catered to my minor
obsession with the obscurities of other people's religious practices.
Speaking of Abrahamic religions and food purity, somehow Leonard got
talking recently about the issue of kosherness and genetic engineering.
"If you genetically engineer a pig so that it doesn't have cloven hooves,
does that make it kosher?" he wondered. I propounded a mad Jewish
scientist, or possibly just one hankering after ham. Leonard, googling
the topic, noted that Jews seem to take great relish in pursuing the
questions that little Christian kids get slapped down for asking in Sunday
School.
# 20 Oct 2002, 11:48PM:
Terrific Cody's Deal: Our Bodies, Ourselves for $7.98.
This is the anniversary edition, updated for the nineties, a
terrific resource on women's health. Hundreds of pages of useful and entertaining information. The stack on the Bargain Books
table near the Info Desk won't last long, I'm sure.
# 22 Oct 2002, 01:01AM:
I was looking up my old acquaintance Mike Carns
to tell him about Garrison Keillor's upcoming appearance in Berkeley.
And what did I find but his wedding plans!
This sort of openness just begs sitcommy drama where an
old flame screeches into the parking lot at the last minute and pants
down the aisle in protest. Or maybe she just IMs everyone's Blackberries
and Hiptops in the middle of the service. Because she lives the Digital
Lifestyle, and We Are All Made of Stars, and so on.
Anyway, I wish Mike and Laura well, and Mike provides useful advice
in the shared
proposal narration: "Note to
anyone who's reading this who hasn't ever proposed: Make sure the ring
box is EASY to get in and out of your pocket. I spent a good 5 seconds
digging the darn thing out."
# 22 Oct 2002, 01:09AM:
Zed mentions
a spooky experiment. Milgram and and Zimbardo[0] showed us how
rough, easy-to-discern external conditions stimulated submission and
violence. But here, the subject is hardly aware of the stimulus.
And, in the spookiest aspect of the experiment, the subjects still
felt as if they were choosing freely.
"What is clear is that our brain has the interpretive capacity to
call free will things that weren't," he said.
[0] If Zimbardo had that late-night show, Zimbarded!, Milgram would
make a great sidekick.
# 22 Oct 2002, 11:31PM:
I'm listening to Ben Folds, "Fred Jones Part II". My parents are in an airport,
waiting for their plane. They're leaving for India in a few hours. Only now
am I beginning to feel sad.
# 23 Oct 2002, 12:54PM:
Cody's got a phone call from Antarctica a few days ago. How cool! A worker at Antarctica Station called us up, looking for a particular blank book. Evidently Antarctica personnel get free phone calls (I'd hope!), but they have to wait something like 45 minutes after placing the call to get a free line (they're last priority to the military switchboard).
What time zone do they use? No easy answer. Wait, there is.
# 23 Oct 2002, 03:55PM:
I don't know why I started talking with Leonard about a universe in
which people can turn into frogs and back whenever they like. But
the scenario envisioned (which I hereby invite anyone to use as the
framework for a cute fantasy story) concerned the parish priest, who
feels sad because every Sunday all his parishoners turn into frogs and
go to the swamp to have fun and avoid having to go to church. Eventually
the priest decides to turn into a frog himself and minister to his
flock out in the swamp weekly.
Funniest detail: if a human is wearing a hat when he transforms, then
the resulting frog wears a tiny facsimile of that same hat. I love
envisioning that.
Also, one might make mention of a frog in a well, who every day can
go up two bricks but slides back down one, and who meets a frog who lives
in a huge lake much wider than the first frog's well. This is unbelievable
to the first frog, but that doesn't much matter, as the
well water seems to be heating up....
# 24 Oct 2002, 12:17PM:
Two analogies.
First, Leonard pointed me to a weblog whose author (allegedly) lives
in Baghdad and criticizes the regime. I find that implausible and
fascinating. I don't want to link to it for fear that the regime will
see that this dissident is getting lots of attention from abroad and
therefore goes after him. This reminds me of refraining from linking
to people's weblogs with their full names because parents and employers
might see sensitive material.
Second, I really hope that the D.C.-area sniper is the guy that police
have in custody. I've heard that he sympathized with Al-Qaida but did not actually join the organization; if so, the motivations behind his awful, evil actions remind me of soft money that buys third-party ads in local elections.
Cam implores us to vote: "Regime
Change Begins at Home."
# 25 Oct 2002, 09:08AM:
Jon Carroll refused to speak to me in my dream. Why, Jon? Why?
# 26 Oct 2002, 09:59AM GMT+5:30:
Bill Maher, in his great new book When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden, makes several good points and clever turns of phrase. Example: he refers to "The Axis -- the original, not the lame cover band".
# 26 Oct 2002, 03:18PM:
A new staffer's name is Gideon. I keep thinking of him as "Gideon Wainwright," because of the Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright. He's okay with that.
# 27 Oct 2002, 08:24PM:
From Cam:Blogger Hacked! If you use Blogger, you need to change your server
password RIGHT NOW! Whoever has hacked into Blogger has changed most
of Blogger account passwords, so you are unable to get into their
database to change your data. If FTP passwords and server info are
available to the hacker, then your site and web server are vulnerable.
Change your FTP/server password now!
These Blogger-related weblog notes remind me of tiresome virus warnings.
I find myself surprised that Blogger isn't a Microsoft product.
# 27 Oct 2002, 08:42PM:
These last few nights I've been dreaming West Wing characters. Yet consultation between G.W. Bush and Leo McGarrity is less plausible than last night's invention, a marriage between Britney Spears and Sam Seaborn. You see, McGarrity and Bush simply do not exist in each other's universes, whereas Spears probably does exist in the West Wing universe. After all, Barenaked Ladies does, as we saw a few weeks back.
I told Michelle about these dreams. She suggested I might be watching too much West Wing. I only watch it once a week! More plausible: my subconscious adores the liberal wish-fulfillment fantasy, and won't let go.
# 27 Oct 2002, 08:49PM:
I'm moving soon. Argh, I feel burned out already. I have to be out of my current place by Thursday night. I'm borrowing my sister's sedan Tuesday and Wednesday, and hope to be all but done on Wednesday afternoon.
I have exactly one large piece of furniture to move: a bookcase that's at least six feet high. If anyone out there can suggest a free or near-free way to move this thing about seven blocks, or will lend his or her services in carrying it by hand, I'd love to hear from you.
# 28 Oct 2002, 09:40PM GMT+5:30:
I read Midnight's Children. I read Cryptonomicon. And now I've read Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. And now I say to you that a modern author who dazzles you with his witty, ultra-literate prose in a novel of over 500 pages will, without fail, cop out with a wholly inadequate ending. Argh! Such promising introductions and such jaw-droppingly disappointing conclusions, or absences thereof. It's like they're all Kevin Smith.
# 30 Oct 2002, 09:23AM:
I'd advise you to avoid catching a cold just before Moving Day. It's just so darned inconvenient.
Yesterday I started moving stuff in earnest to my new place. I stopped by beforehand and ended up learning how to make an Ethernet cable with a huge spool of Unshielded Twisted Pair cable, connectors, and a crimper. (Start with the spool of cable. Cut off the length you need. Remove about an inch of insulation from one end of the length. Splay apart the four twisted pairs of wire. Untwist the wires a little bit and insert them in the correct order (white-orange, orange, white-green, blue, white-blue, green, white-brown, brown[0]) in the connector. Use the crimper to force the copper in the connector all the way through all the wires. Repeat for other end.)
I went in to that apartment a political science major and I came out an amateur engineer. What'll happen to me once I move in proper?
Well, time to continue packing and moving. Keith Knight is harsh and slightly funny, and someday this might be me.
[0] I think. (The order applies to viewing the connector "upside down," with the plastic tail towards you.) And evidently that's only for one type of cable, "transmit," I think; for a crossover cable one of the ends has the green and orange switched or something. As Michael explained it, there are three types of Ethernet cable, and one can tell them all by looking at both ends. If all the wires are in the same, correct order in both, then it's a transmit. If one end has that configuration and the other has the correct wires switched, then it's a crossover cable. Anything else, and it's broken.
# 30 Oct 2002, 09:34AM:
A recent New Yorker "Talk of the Town" item: Some earnest artists made a snowglobe that contains a tiny John Ashcroft and plays "White Christmas." It passed through many hands, and now it belongs to the Attorney General himself, who loves it. He thinks it's hilarious, and it is. Another thing that's funny: the artists are upset that he obviously, to them, doesn't get the political message of the piece.
I really wish John Ashcroft had different politics, because I'd love to hang out with him.
# 30 Oct 2002, 11:23PM:
Thanks to Adam, Leonard, Nandini, Yasmine, Michael, Devin, and luck, I am now moved in. Modern plumbing, a larger room, a better location, broadband internet access, and no cats! Whooeee! I celebrated by eating pizza and watching highly satisfactory TV with my sister and with Leonard. Enterprise pleased me (empowerment!), and I enjoyed most of West Wing. We all hated this "game on" business (Aaron Sorkin just has to have a trope), but at least now we know how Rob Lowe will make his exit from the show. I'd never seen that look on Leonard's face before; I guess it's the "I just realized how they're gracefully removing this character from the show" face.
In other pleasant news, my cold is subsiding, and we abided not a single ad where a kid whispers "zoom zoom" at the camera. As previously stipulated, whoooeeee!
# 31 Oct 2002, 09:59AM:
I tore through almost all my packed-up clothes looking for the ingredients for a costume, any sort of costume. Failed dot-commer? Too hard; I'd have to hold a cell phone to my ear all the time; I can't shelve in that pose. Indian? Not really a costume, and most of my ethnic garb has no pockets, argh. I ended up in a generic orange-and-black outfit. Maybe I'll jump out and scare people from behind bookcases to make up for it.
Durn goths don't have to do anything. Of course, being a goth has its own occupational hazards; one of ours recently protested, "People always assume that I'm a vegetarian and a Wiccan, and I've never been either."
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