# 01 Aug 2002, 11:40PM:
Today at work I conducted a transaction with some tourists
entirely in Russian! It was great! I'm still basking.
I'm listening to some World Music on KALW right now. I can't tell whether
it's in Russian or French or something else. I can sort of understand it,
but I don't know why.
Okay, it's French with an African accent.
A few days ago, in a group discussion, the question "why do people
sexually harass others?" came up. I ventured, "Well, the pope has
recently spoken of the mystery of evil..." and got a good laugh.
Leonard kindly made me a tape of most of the 2000 Prairie Home Companion
joke show, which reran a few days ago. I've been listening to it while
driving. Yo mama's so fat, she walks into the Gap and she fills
it!
Ah, Salon. "John
Ashcroft's jihad against attorney-client privilege"? His submission
to the will of God regarding attorney-client privilege? Oh, wait, not the
Qu'ranic meaning.
Update: My joke was amiss; I had forgotten that "Islam," not "jihad," means "submission to the will of God." "Jihad" means "struggle" or "striving".
Thanks to Leonard for catching that.
# 01 Aug 2002, 11:44PM:
Calev Ben-David, managing editor of the Jerusalem Post:
"We're looking for any sign of solidarity and acceptance we
can get. We really need a boost. We'd give the Palestinians a state if
Bruce Springsteen would come."
-- Classical, pop musicians declining to perform in Israel
# 02 Aug 2002, 09:18AM:
This American Life, 1 pm today, on KALW 91.7 FM, They Might Be Giants!
# 02 Aug 2002, 02:45PM:
Today I happen to be wearing my hair down. A fella who patronized
my register at Cody's today asked me, "Are you Shweta's sister?"
# 04 Aug 2002, 12:05AM:
Cody's Books Deal of the Week (by my estimation): Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox for $3.98.
# 04 Aug 2002, 11:19PM:
The horrible reply-all "I don't want to be on this list!" cycle of
nondeliberate spam just occurred again, with a UCLink list that got hit by
a virus. The usual lifespan of such an event is only a few hours, yet
it goes through several phases: the original message, people saying
"get me off this list," people telling each other about the viruses,
explanations of the problem, people saying "stop sending messages to the
whole list," people saying "stop sending messages saying 'stop sending
messages to the whole list' to the whole list," and silly nonsense and
evangelizing. Quote from a middle phase of this cycle: "I realize I just
sunk to the same level by mass emailing, by the way." Quote from the last
phase: "i like hamburger."
I've hit a new absent-minded low: losing my keys while sitting
inside the car.
Today my interactions with people at work ranged from mildly fulfilling to
highly aggravating. I'm better now. The second half of my shift was
better, since I got to shelve.
Shelving at its best is a solitary pursuit of order and form. My work,
like that of Andy Goldsworthy, is by its nature ephemeral; customers
cascade like the tides upon the books and sweep away distinctions. But
when I get an hour to sort a shelf, to make it neat and complete, then I
can bask in my accomplishment for a little while, before the next high
tide.
# 05 Aug 2002, 10:47AM GMT+5:30:
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are." I should read Penny Arcade more often.
I finished Nicole Krauss's Man Walks Into a Room. Good writing in general, if sometimes indulgent, and an interesting plot, if a bit lacking in the ending.
# 05 Aug 2002, 10:58AM:
I moved the cat's food dish recently so ants wouldn't get at it so easily.
I tried to explain this to the cat by holding the dish where it used to be
and then leading the cat with it to the new place. Leonard voiced-over
the cat's dithering: "Well, this is all very interesting, but now I think
I'll go back to where the food is."
# 05 Aug 2002, 11:09PM:
How do I put out cat food such that other life forms (e.g., stray cats and
ants) don't get at it?
# 05 Aug 2002, 11:46PM:
Surprising things occurred today. I saw Anirvan, Michelle, and Christina,
and glimpsed Matt Holohan, all at Cody's. I finally got a MacGuffin I'd
been trying to get for a while. And I picked up a children's book that
feels like modern Cormier. I'll tell you how it goes.
# 06 Aug 2002, 01:53PM:
I've asked some people for advice on the catfood problem. My next-door
neighbor suggested floating the food bowl in a basin of water to
create an ant-proof moat. The fella buying cat food in my checkout line
at Berkeley Bowl told me about
an extremely effective ant poison that one can only obtain in
Chinatown. Less creepily, he suggested moving the food bowl to different
locations so that it wouldn't be in one place long enough for ants
to find it.
I welcome more suggestions.
# 06 Aug 2002, 04:13PM:
Kris suggests putting ant traps/poison between the ants' entry point
and the cat food that attracts them. Relatedly, Leonard helped me by placing
ant posison slow-release devices in relevant locations. I can't stand being close enough to
insects to deal with them effectively, e.g., by placing the traps where the ants are, but I'll try.
# 06 Aug 2002, 10:02PM:
I wrongly remembered some song lyrics and couldn't remember the title or artist.
Me: Something something, always getting faster, something something, like a roller coaster...
Leonard: Is that a TV theme song?
Me: No!
Leonard: It sounds like it should end with "Ducktales, a-whoo-oo!"
# 07 Aug 2002, 11:01PM:
I am assuming that Susan Calvin did not believe in robot predestination,
as per her behavior in the story "Robot Dreams."
# 07 Aug 2002, 11:41PM:
Having pets inures a petowner to gross icky work, smoothing the
path to successful reproduction and care of offspring. I guess this
is good for society as a whole.
# 08 Aug 2002, 12:03AM:
I had dinner with Anirvan and dessert with mutual friends Michelle and Christina. Anirvan told me, among other things, that BookFinder now has a company weblog ("Information Week had a cover story on weblogs [for businesses] three weeks ago"), and quite soon will roll out the beta internationalized version. Christina and Michelle told stories and gossiped. Of Michelle, Anirvan, and me, I'm the only one who isn't putting in major time with a nonprofit. Gotta fix that.
# 08 Aug 2002, 11:10AM:
The September Cody's Events calendar is out! Jeremy Rifkin, Sarah Vowell, Tom Hayden, and David Edmonds (author of Wittgenstein's Poker) are among the luminaries making author appearances.
# 08 Aug 2002, 04:37PM:
At some point in the future, Leonard and I are going to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Not this one in New Orleans. Best quotes:
Ten aquarium visitors, including four children, fell into a shark tank and thrashed around in terror for up to 15 minutes with the animals swimming beneath their kicking feet before they were pulled out.
No one was seriously hurt, though one of the children, a 2-year-old girl, later woke up screaming in the night.
The visitors fell in Wednesday night when a catwalk over the water collapsed.
...
Erin Rooney, 14.... "I never wanted to go near the sharks, and the worst part is I was scared to go on the catwalk and people were making fun of me for not wanting to go on it."
...
Officials said the guests were in little if any danger.
"We didn't have `Jaws' in the aquarium or anything like that," said Ron Forman, president of the Audubon Institute, which runs the aquarium.
# 09 Aug 2002, 10:56PM GMT+5:30:
I have to wash my hands every few hours when I work the register. I guess that's what happens when you handle filthy lucre.
Primary reading, about fifty pages per day: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. As Anirvan helped me understand, Rushdie did these magical-realism and time-switching narrative gimmicks first, and best, and other Indian diaspora writers redo them badly. But I read those hacks before I read Rushdie, so I immediately recoiled when I saw the tricks in force in Midnight's Children, and then had to let myself relax and like the book anyway.
Secondary reading today and yesterday: a rereading of my favorite bits of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Tip: if you know a particular scene is going to tear you up, don't read it as you while away the hours at the register! Also, I wish Rowling would get us the fifth book already, but at least the pause gives me leverage to shill for Philip Pullman.
More secondary reading: Pauline Kael interviews. Neat! More later.
# 10 Aug 2002, 11:11PM:
Congrats Susanna
from one newly inducted bike-rider to another.
As per the suggestion of my neighbor and a woman at the Berkeley Farmer's Market,
I have constructed a moat around the catfood dish. Also, store brand wet cat food at
Whole Foods is pretty cheap, as far as I can tell, at 39 cents a can.
As I told the cashier, "I hate cats, but I like the price of this cat food."
# 11 Aug 2002, 12:15AM:
A million years ago, back in the nineties, I applied for a job writing
ads. I would have written seductive proposals that would open the wallets
of corporate clients and lure them into contracting with my company
to arrange luxury events. I didn't get the job, but here are the
sample
proposals I wrote, one for an evening in a hotel ballroom, and one for a
cooking class.
HOTEL:
Treat yourself to a glamorous celebration of the good life.
Just for a night:
You're dressed to the nines in your best evening wear, the one you never
take out of your closet even though you know it makes you look great.
That four-course gourmet meal dazzled you; now, the desserts, cordials,
and coffees relax you enough to look around again and take in the perfect
atmosphere.
Candles softly light the way to the dance floor, where couples sway to
the piano and cabaret.
Touches of perfume and cologne complement the scent of the flowers at your
table. You and your companion, noticing, pause in your conversation, as
you had earlier to appreciate the hors d'oeuvres and dinner.
As he passes between you and the open bar, you signal a white-gloved
waiter to bring you a glass of wine.
"Make that two," you smile across the table.
COOKING CLASS:
Did Kitchen Confidential make you hungry for more insider tips
from
professional kitchens? In this luxurious, one-day cooking class, you'll
learn the tricks real cooks use to make home cooking as fast and tasty as
the cooking in your favorite restaurant.
We take care of all the details for you. We provide the ingredients and
equipment, set the table for your lunch, and clean up the mess. We even
pick you up and drop you off at a well-appointed kitchen, where you'll get
personal attention from world-class sous chefs.
All you have to do is learn, cook, and enjoy the results! You'll get to
do that right then and there, at an elegant and healthy four-course
luncheon, and later, with the new skills and the recipes you take home.
Media-literacy analysis of these ads is forthcoming. Meanwhile, I'm now using the marketing skills that I exercised in writing these
samples -- I've been writing snappy recommendations to hang near books in
the store. "Funny pictures of penguins" and "and I don't even like
football" for Mr. Popper's Penguins and Friday Night
Lights, respectively.
# 11 Aug 2002, 10:27AM:
I dated a gamer, Dan, for almost three years. (Ga'mer; n.: one who uses tabletop, live-action, or computer role-playing games for recreation. Connotation: usu. to excess.) His gamerness was virtually dormant for the first few years that I knew him, until he moved in with an active gamer and, by extension, a clan of them. I will not say that I learned nothing from dating a gamer. For example, Dan just pointed his readership to the quite funny gamer-centric Knights of the Dinner Table cartoons, which perform the niche comedy function quite well. (Zack showed me a KOTD comic book containing a parody/homage, Understanding Gamers, of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.) I get the joke, and I wouldn't get it if I hadn't dated Dan.
Dan has a weblog now, a year and a half after I started mine (while I was with him). Until now, I always thought that he disdained such things. Just goes to show: another way that we misunderstood each other.
# 11 Aug 2002, 11:29PM:
I hereby ask my Bay Area readership: who is willing to take care of two
regular cats, Junie/Paul and Little Kitty, for two weeks or even just a few days? I
need a breather. I'll give you or pay for food, transport to and from
my place, any other expenses. Just get those damn cats out of my
house.
They need food. I put out food and ants get at it when the moat evaporates. Or the cats, not knowing or caring how hard I work to set up the moat, get food and water all over the place.
They can't eat antsy food. I move the food and they have a hard time finding it but ants don't. If I leave less food so they eat it
right away, then they jump all over me when I come home.
Junie meows for no reason or because he wants petting. I hate petting them since I don't know
where they've been.
I don't live here, I work here. Please help.
# 11 Aug 2002, 11:42PM:
Sour note on 'American Idol' might be music to your ears,
writes the Chron At Work editor in a grabby yet useful analogy.
He says that the contradictory hunger and scorn of American Idol
participants for expert feedback parallels ordinary workers' contradictory
spoken desires for more feedback from their bosses and fear and scorn
of performance reviews. Sensationalist, yet insightful.
Coming soon: Sumana shills for a book!
# 12 Aug 2002, 11:13AM:
One of my coworkers has a slow, deep voice. Whenever he does the ritual closing announcements ("Cody's is closing at ten o'clock, ten minutes from now. If you have purchases to make...") some of my coworkers say, he reminds them of late-night disc jockeys. For me, he calls to mind muezzins calling prayer times from the minarets of mosques. "Prayer is better than sleep."
While writing this entry, and checking that "muezzin" is the correct term, I found out about IslamSoft, which gives you prayer times (it does not pray for you, as I had originally thought). Also, a pretty non-objective "Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam". "Chapter 2: Some Benefits of Islam. (1) The Door to Eternal Paradise. (2) Salvation from Hellfire...."
# 12 Aug 2002, 11:33AM:
The Islamic Garden Story of Cinderella. I've seen retellings of fairy tales that empower the heroine, but never quite like this.
# 13 Aug 2002, 12:51AM:
A relatively uninteresting day (shelve shelve shelve, info desk info desk,
shelve shelve) turned into a really great one when Seth, Michelle, and
Seth's high school friends Josh and Michael showed up at Cody's this
evening. A bunch of us went into the Berkeley hills up past the Lawrence
Hall of Science and watched the Perseid meteor showers for a bit. I saw
some nice meteors. Seth says the Leonids are even better. I'll have to
see them, then.
The drive was eventful. I'd never driven on winding roads at night
before. Josh was quite helpful when I encountered problems. Thanks,
Josh!
I should stargaze more often. It relaxes me.
Today I had a great moment in customer service. I was placing some books
on a display table near the front. Near me stood a man and his sons,
obviously seeking something. I asked, "Can I help you find something?"
The man asked if I knew where The Tipping Point was. I said,
"Ah, yes. By
Malcolm Gladwell, I think?" as I moved towards the other side of the
table, picked up a copy, and handed it to him.
In gratitude, he kneeled on the floor and bowed to me twice. I laughed
out loud, it was so great.
Also, the ants and cats and plants seem under control. So everything's fine in the heart of my neck of the woods.
# 13 Aug 2002, 10:03AM:
A great guidance in my life has been the principle: Don't act as stupid
sitcom characters do.
This was brought to mind by a weird dream last night involving the
characters of
Mad About You. Ironically, I adored Mad About You, as
its characters were not excessively stupid, and I learned by example from
the relatively healthy marriage of the main characters.
# 14 Aug 2002, 01:09PM:
How Leonard thinks. (like "How Clocks Work" or some other kids' book)
# 14 Aug 2002, 11:47PM:
Most days that I work, I put in a shift at the register. Many people
pay using credit cards or ATM cards with credit card logos. I am
the front lines against credit card fraud, and some people who experience my diligence aren't nearly glad
enough. Just as I, driving on I-5, steam about the inconvenience of
driving on the same roads as large trucks, and disregard the more profound
convenience and infrastructure provided by transcontinental shipping of
goods, my customers sometimes seem unhappy or recalcitrant when asked
for I.D., instead of considering my contribution (and theirs!) to the
integrity of our financial system.
# 14 Aug 2002, 11:49PM:
Mark Morford's Stephensonesque ramble reminds me of how glad I am to get a minivacation this weekend. (Whales!)
# 14 Aug 2002, 11:57PM:
Think up what you can remember about that old, obscure book, possibly in French, that you've been meaning to find for a while. Then go to the BookFinder Beta and try it out.
Also: more info in the BF weblog.
# 15 Aug 2002, 12:12PM:
Happy Indian and Pakistani Independence Day!
I've thought similarly, but I don't have a webcomic. Also, Elise says I should train the cats. I hope I have the discipline to get them disciplined. Ah, well, it's only a few more weeks.
# 16 Aug 2002, 01:28AM GMT+5:30:
Shill: I got to read an advance copy of a little book,
Afterglow, a long interview with Pauline Kael conducted a bit
before her death a year back. Good stuff. When it comes out, read it --
it's short and fun. Yummy facts: Kael liked The West Wing and
the film criticism at Slate and Salon!
Spoiler: Susanna is
wrong and Andy is
right, I decree. How can you not like the ending of Book IV? Okay,
yes, if you can't go read Book V right away, as none of us can, then it's
annoying to end with so much unresolved. But this is the epic plot arc,
and it's great! Harry and the danger to the universe are finally maturing!
Susanna and I do agree that it's a cliffhanger; I suppose that Susanna and
I just don't share a taste for cliffhangers.
I spent the post-work hour
eating frozen yogurt, wandering, and picking brambles out of a blanket
with Michelle. Today I'll see a Guster concert with Adam and other
friends. I work forty hours a week at a bookstore and I ask "paper or
plastic?" I guess this is my life, but I don't recognize it. I feel like
a database that has changed faster than its index.
# 16 Aug 2002, 02:50PM:
A kid today asked one of the cashiers, "Do you know where the bathroom is?" Extremely cute.
Years ago, I patronized a library that gave out such classic bookmarks as "41 Ways Books Are Better Than Drugs." (This may have been in Missouri.) I remembered this book recently, possibly while ringing up a book on cannabis cultivation (danger! search requests! danger!), and I thought of various items on the list that I now considered untrue, e.g., "When someone comes to visit you don't have to hide your books; you can leave them on display on the coffee table" or "No one ever went to prison for selling or buying books." Good ol' Margaret Sanger puts the lie to that last one, I think.
UC Berkeley orientation starts in a few days and classes start in about a week and a half. The freshmen remind me that I gotta move out of this college town someday, if I don't want to live the rest of my life half-dead with wistfulness. But at least they're good for business.
# 16 Aug 2002, 02:57PM:
I've found a few versions of the aforementioned "Books Over Drugs" list online. Funny addenda:
# 17 Aug 2002, 10:38AM:
Well, a few days ago, I took up a spontaneous invite to see the Perseid meteor shower with Seth and his posse, and I can't really ask more from such an expedition than a commendation in Seth's diary.
Also, from Seth's description of the Microsoft booth at a Linux expo:
On another day, I walked back into the booth to ask about Palladium. (I didn't want them to see my name,
because supposedly
"The best technical description [of Palladium] is the summary of a
meeting with Microsoft engineers by Seth Schoen of the EFF", and
being Seth Schoen is therefore inconvenient when you want to ask
basic and uninformed questions about Palladium.)
# 17 Aug 2002, 11:03AM:
Here, finally, is the long-promised analysis of this entry.
First of all, I realized only after I posted it that some might take "back in the nineties" literally. I actually applied for the job a few months ago, but it felt like a million years ago. "Back in the nineties" is a reference to Waiting for Godot via this Modern Humorist piece, a quiz. Excerpt:
"Please put away that old straw basket."
Directive from Pozzo to Lucky in Waiting for Godot
or
Directive from [the shopping magazine] Lucky to its readers to replace their worn flaxen totes with lightweight, colorful bags
But the analysis. Well, the cooking class ad is pretty straightforward, I think. By far the more interesting one is the ad for a night in a swanky ballroom. Note that it's gender-neutral ("evening wear"). While writing it, I consciously remembered those ads I studied from the 1920s Jazz Age while reading The Great Gatsby in high school. Very cinematic, visceral, placing the reader in the heart of the action. Oh, and you (the reader) are the one in the position of power -- you get to command the waiter as you lounge in your seat after dinner.
Perhaps most open to interpretation is the relationship between you and your companion. One person thought the command to "make that two [glasses of wine]" only connoted friendship between the two characters, who had possibly just met that evening. Others saw erotic or at least romantic overtones. Again, I intended ambiguity, like a centrist politician who also wants to hold on to his party base. What do you think and why?
# 17 Aug 2002, 11:56AM:
Today is Comedy Day in Golden Gate
Park (free stand-up!), and I'm not going, but you might.
Actual Book Titles: Yankee Doodle Dead (a mystery, of
course), The Pig and the Skyscraper (a history of Chicago; note
Organism-Artifact form), and Branding.com (marketing, of course).
Cody's Deals: We carry the Patrick Nielsen Hayden sci-fi
anthologies, Starlight (III is the newest). Also, I've seen some
neat biographies (e.g., Jack Kerouac) and film guides and the like
upstairs, on our bargain shelves. These are unused, often hardcovers,
often for $6 or so. I've seen J.G. Ballard's Crash there, and
D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, and cool cookbooks. Do remember
to go upstairs.
Oh, and Anirvan, thanks for showing me upstairs that first time!
News of the Incongruous: Don Marti has a LiveJournal
now, which is kinda weird -- next thing I know, Jeana'll have a
Badvogato account.
The Guster concert: Yesterday I got off work early, thanks to a
lenient
boss, and hoofed it to the Greek Theater on campus. As I walked up
Piedmont, I saw workers making progress on resurfacing a playing surface,
and I saw happy students talking and laughing, and I caught a glimpse of
the Campanile for the first time in a month. "Hi! I love you!" I found
myself thinking to the campus. "How are you? I've missed you!"
When I was a student, I had hundreds of little social interactions with
friends and acquaintances every day. Everywhere was progress and
intellect and groovin'. Now I'm disconnected from that network. No wonder
I've been lonely.
I found Adam and his friends (Dana, Edo, and Rachelle) in the line.
Later, we found Matt gabbing away on a cell phone to some friend,
directing him not to take a particular route to join us: "Don't go
there, it's a parking lot." He sounded like a New Yorker, which he is.
On our way in, staff herded us like cattle. All bags had to be searched
(I thought for guns and bombs, Adam said for booze).
When Matt asked who had a cell phone, everyone in our group, except
Adam,
produced one. Poor Adam had to discover that we were all agents of the
dark side. And it only got worse inside; it was "like spotting shooting
stars" to look up at the stands and see hundreds of people talking on cell
phones with one hand and waving at some far-off person with the other.
One woman somewhat near us exemplified the usual sequence of waves.
- First, the big side-to-side semicircle wave, a.k.a. "the
windshield wiper."
- Next, the jumping-up-and-down with the palm facing out, possibly
moving slightly forward and back. I term this the "Omigod it's
N*Sync!!!!" wave.
- Finally, when visual confirmation has been achieved, the come-hither
whole-arm motion, or "guiding the airplane."
People waved as they walked down the ramp into the theater. I felt
like a papparazzo at the Academy Awards.
I am a relative concert novice, vis-à-vis Adam. So he and I
conferred on protocol and so on. He had told me earlier that earplugs
would be good to bring, and so I did. It's eerie looking at a huge crowd
and not hearing it. Perhaps this isn't really happening,, one
says, not knowing which sense to believe. Also, I asked whether there
would be moshing. "You can't mosh to 'What You Wish For'!" he responded.
I disagree -- where there's a will, there's a way -- but, in any case,
people did not mosh to Guster.
They did smoke pot, though. Evidently I should have expected
this. The fumes were much worse at the Ozomatli concert in the Greek a
few years back (I had to leave), but certainly concertgoers openly smoked
marijuana in the pit. I saw pot smoking, with my own eyes, for the first
time! Yay?
A band of some sort opened for Guster, and it was fun.
Guster. I enjoyed the concert. Many of us sang along to several
songs. I danced. During "Demons" I thought of lies that I regret (I'm
sorry), and was sad.
Yes, the drummer is amazing. I don't have the words to day how awe-inspiring he was. Wow!
The lead singer made mention of the classical architecture of the Greek
theater. "Didn't Yanni or John Tesh or somebody play the Parthenon or the
Coliseum? Well, if we were a cooler band, we would so bust out with a
Yanni cover right now ... I don't even know any Yanni songs..."
Later, when we booed their impending exit: "Et tu, Berkeley? ... I feel
like I should be saying, 'Oh, Prometheus,' ... I don't know."
After Guster played, some of us left the pit and sat in the bowl. Adam
and Rachelle and I didn't really enjoy John Mayer's act (he should quit
smoking; his voice is to Tom Waits's as Christian Slater's is to Jack
Nicholson's), and left after several songs. I enjoyed his speech more
than his music. Excerpts:
"Let's hear it for homeostasis!"
"You ever think of something that really bums you out, and then you're
just
walking around bummed out, and then you can't remember the thing that
originally bummed you out?...That's what this song is about."
He also rambled for a minute about how cool we were, since we were the
sort of people who stayed on the back patio during parties. He developed
a deck-based taxonomy of party coolness, which was much more interesting
than the song that followed. You see? I'd watch him do stand-up, but not
sing.
A lighting technician tried really hard to enhance all the bands' music with psychedelic color patterns, but as I sat in the stands, my favorite lighting effect was the sight of random camera flashes in the audience. Pretty!
I found it a lot easier in the stands to see the whiteness of the crowd. White! I can't recall the last time I've seen more white people at once. (Well, maybe in St. Petersburg.)
One of John Mayer's songs was a Police cover ("King of Pain", I think),
and another song was one that seemed to sample from "Walking on the
Moon", and that I wished were "Walking on the Moon" instead of what it
was. Adam noted that "he sounds like Dave Matthews covering the
Police."
After the show, Adam and I went to Caffè Strada and walked most of
the way home together, and discussed our summers and upcoming birthdays.
We also saw Jade on the street, which was cool. I wish I lived even
closer to Adam and Jade. Maybe I can look for a place in that area when I
move next month.
Overall, a great and exhausting evening. Tomorrow: Whales!
# 18 Aug 2002, 09:17PM:
Leonard and I done went whale-watching today. We're a little sunburned and rather tired. Tip: Highway 1 is more fun and beautiful when you're a passenger.
Another tip: the rocking motion of the boat may make you seasick -- or sleepy! I spent a good third of the expedition asleep.
We passed by the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium on the boat, and the captain told us that one room in the Aquarium once served as Ed "Doc" Ricketts's lab, as slightly fictionalized in Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Neat! I'll have to reread that book before Leonard and I go there. (Someday).
Okay, I'm feeling a weird reverse seasickness now, so I'll go to bed.
# 19 Aug 2002, 11:18PM:
It's a PHC Joke Show -- on Kuro5hin! If you want to read a bunch of jokes, look no further.
I enjoyed a not-really-racist joke and this one:
Werner Heisenberg was driving down the Autobahn and got pulled over. The cop walked up to the side of his car and asked, "Son, do you know how fast you were going back there?"
To this he replied, "No, but I know where I am."
More funny jokes here and here.
# 20 Aug 2002, 10:55AM:
On Sunday after whalewatching I took about half an hour to closely read the Sunday Chronicle's Books section. It's often useful, since people will come to the Info desk looking for a book with only a vague description and "they reviewed it in the Chronicle yesterday." I also want to start regularly reading the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books, and the NYT Books section.
Once again, I have homework.
# 20 Aug 2002, 11:11AM:
From Camworld:
The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) is a group of prominent
citizens who offer advice to the President on sensitive intelligence matters.
This article lists who has been appointed to this Board by Bush. The
journalist also questions why this information was determined to be secret, and
then released only after the White House realized that it has never been withheld
before.
That's our administration! Yuk-yuk-yuk!
# 20 Aug 2002, 02:46PM:
Only a few days ago did I discover that the band "Linkin Park" in fact spells its name that way. I had only heard it previously. In remotely related music news, Slate says that the conventional wisdom on the new Wilco movie is completely wrong! (Careful, Slate, you'll turn into Salon! At this point I wish I could link to my old Segfault story "Gangbangst: Rejected Salon Stories", but it's lost and possibly gone forever. Hey, if you count that as a Guster ref, that's three bands in one para!)
My friends who know way more about music than I do, and who have educated me about music over the past two years, include Leonard, Adam, and Sabrina. Well, I'm leery of calling Sabrina a friend, since we've met a total of once, but I read her weblog regularly, and I saw just now that she links to me in her weblog's navbar, so you can take that for what it's worth.
# 20 Aug 2002, 02:59PM:
What in the world is Bush doing in this cartoon? Or in any of Conrad's others?
Oh, another things about Sabrina's weblog that I admire: just as I struggle to maintain consistency in not using "President" immediately before "Bush," she maintains an admirable consistency in her profane moniker for Dubya. Sorry, SafeCensorCyberSurfSitter users.
# 20 Aug 2002, 03:12PM:
Recently I got paid and almost immediately headed off to The Missing Link
to buy
safety equipment for my bike. I bought the "Planet Bike 5000XR as
depicted here," as
Zed recommended, for my headlight, and a CatEye 4-mode taillight (Super
Bright LED) that a saleswoman recommended. Also, I bought a classic
ding-ding bell for my handlebar, and Missing Link gave me (gratis!)
several reflectors to mount on my bike's spokes and front and rear.
The purchases are timed well, since Nandini is back from Europe[0] as of
yesterday, and now I can ride my bike to and from work even when I work
The Late Shift, even though I don't host a comedy show.
Last night I rode from work for the first time. Telegraph is so well-lit
that I don't really need a headlamp. Therefore, I'd rather ride on
Telegraph than on side streets with less traffic. It takes about as much
time as the bus, and I'll finally be getting some exercise (besides
shouting at the cats).
[0] Yay! Nandini and I get to hang out and swap stories this afternoon,
which is great. Nandini is a warrior, returning to work the day after
her flight. Qa'pla!
# 21 Aug 2002, 12:22AM:
Anirvan went so far as to seek me out to gloat with me: Edward Tufte loves Bookfinder! Yes, the Edward Tufte, Mr. Usability-before-there-was-usability Tufte, Visual Display of Quantitative Information Tufte, says that Bookfinder "just does a straight-forward and beautiful job; it is one of the finest developments of the internet technolgy."
Hooray!
# 21 Aug 2002, 12:34PM:
From Blogdex: Cadbury's
ad upsets India. Cadbury's put up ads -- on Independence Day! comparing
Cadbury's chocolates to Kashmir -- both, you see, are "Too Good to Share,"
as per the company slogan. I guess this makes Fruit By the Foot like the Gaza Strip.
# 21 Aug 2002, 04:09PM:
I happened upon Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!,
The James Bond site. Evidently the next movie is "Die Another Day."
Also, the creators of the site don't mention Pauline Kael in reference to
their title:
What's in a name?
The term "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!" has long been synonymous with
James Bond. The exact origins of the term constitute a minor mystery
in the history of the character, but Bond fans "in the know" recognize
it immediately. It was precisely this combination of historical
significance, enduring mystery and "insider" appeal that made it the
ideal appellation for the site, identifying it immediately as one
created by serious Bond fans for serious Bond fans, or for anyone on
the way to becoming one.
Wow, I had no idea that "serious Bond fan" was synonymous with "snotty and evasive."
I used to be a Bond fan. I saw almost every existing Bond film ten years ago
when my sister and I, alone and bored in a house in Bangalore for several
days, rented videos from the shop down the road. The only English-language flicks
they carried were Bond movies. Also, our VCR didn't have a pause button.
I thought this said something profound about the Indian consciousness (linking
it to the timeless wisdom of the "No Fear" t-shirts I saw all around me in middle school), but it
probably didn't.
# 23 Aug 2002, 12:16AM GMT+5:30:
Current reading: 21 Dog Years by Mike Daisey and The Chain of Chance by Stanislaw Lem. I'm not sure what the Lem is about yet. 21 Dog Years is a text version of a one-man show Daisey did about his years at Amazon. It's quite funny. So far, it's certainly less epic than Microserfs, but its lack of pretentiousness also means that it's never as annoying as Microserfs might be in its sententiousness. Also, I never think while reading Daisey, "This might have worked on stage, but not on paper." It actually works on paper, which is a pleasant surprise after reading celeb bios.
# 23 Aug 2002, 12:28AM:
As young college grads go, I live a pretty straight life. I work
forty hours a week, I read, I visit with friends and boyfriend,
I get enough sleep. My expensive vices are few.
But now that I earn my own dough, and my 'rents can't control how I
spend it, I find myself going to Andronico's to buy boxes of Fruit
Roll-Ups and eating six or ten in the course of a day.
This money is mine! Mine! And I'll eat as many Fruit Roll-Ups as I
want! Ha! Take that, Mom! Neener-neener-neener! *snarfsnarfsnarf*
I expect to get over this in less than a month. I hope.
# 23 Aug 2002, 12:36AM:
My sweet ex-roommate writes,
Your web log gets me into a lot of
trouble at work because I find myself laughing out loud at your narration of
the feline follies, which is NOT at all proper in the O-SO-SERIOUS bancroft
library.
I think Mark Twain would be okay with it.
Today In Cats: they meow at me all the damn time. Little Kitty is especially
jealous of the bike. I can't hardly spend two minutes trying to mount
a reflector on there without Little Kitty prowling among the
screws. Perhaps she's perturbed that I concentrate so zealously on
some project that isn't her, although I doubt it since she doesn't do
that when I read.
It only now occurs to me that she acts as a stereotypical flirty
female might with a male mechanic, hanging around the garage and coyly
preening to get attention. But she's been spayed, so that can't be it.
# 23 Aug 2002, 09:23PM:
I only found this while trawling for Fruit Roll-Ups obsession material: General Mills Joins The Force. "Go-GURT Star Wars Edition marks the first time glow-in-the-dark technology has been used in the dairy industry or on any tube snack." Read the whole thing -- it's worth it.
# 24 Aug 2002, 01:26AM:
Adam and Josh and I spent some time this evening talking and laughing.
We visited a local grocery store. In the produce department we saw:
"Et Tu Caesar" Salad Solutions Authentic Greek Salad Kit.
Also today, I moved my UC Berkeley ID card from the front of my wallet.
Now that my summer bus pass has expired, it's almost useless. For
four years it sat there, pulled out a few times a day, and now "student"
doesn't identify me anymore. None of my cards really does.
I've surprised myself with how vertiginous that little change has
proved.
# 24 Aug 2002, 09:05AM:
Of course it shouldn't surprise me that Wil Wheaton is, well, anything in particular, but it turns out that he's easygoing, yet furious.
# 24 Aug 2002, 09:05AM:
NPR Weekend Edition always knows how to make me cry. Death, neighbors who
become friends, that sort of thing.
I rather amused Josh and Adam last night when I said "John Ashcroft" when
I
meant "John McWhorter." Also when I ate about six Fruit Roll-Ups.
# 25 Aug 2002, 12:34AM GMT+5:30:
I haven't even finished 21 Dog Years yet -- even though it's
less than 200 pages -- because I only read it during breaks at work.
Still, I can wholeheartedly recommend it if only for a perfect
and hilarious scene over halfway through the book. All I can tell
you is that it involves the narrator, a temp, and toy reviews. I
laughed out loud in the employee break room (which is the working world's
version of "laughing out loud in the computer lab") for more than a minute.
Now that I don't hang out with friends every single day, and I don't
go to school, most of my recreational meatspace conversations take place in that
employee breakroom. A few days ago I realized both this and the fact that
this situation is the norm for many proletarians. You live alone,
maybe with cats, and at work you talk to your fellow employees
and people put funny pictures on the bulletin board. And those people
become your friends.
# 25 Aug 2002, 10:28AM:
At first I didn't understand what silly bit of my sister's Leonard was
referencing. Then I thought it might be the scene from Joe Klein's
Primary Colors that Nandini and I imitate, where one person
worries about keeping the left-liberal base and the other mocks such
concerns by humming the All Things Considered theme.
I finally realized that the "ah ah ah" symbolizes the weird non-laugh
laugh that Nandini makes in response to a pun. I think it's a mockery of
my laughter or my parents' and uncles' laughter, but I'm not sure.
Now playing: "Fred Jones, Part II" by Ben Folds. I listen to Ben Folds'
Rockin' the Suburbs a great deal. I like
the CD, and (unlike with other albums) it doesn't force me to listen to
it, yet it rewards attention. So I play it a lot. Benoit once said to
me, "you know, there are other CDs," which reminds me of Leonard's
gripes wrt Armageddon. "MIT is a fine school, but there are
others."
# 26 Aug 2002, 11:58AM:
I don't have to take care of the cats anymore, for reasons I can't
disclose. Yay!
A few nights ago, I helped Shweta move some stuff in her apartment. I met
other friends of hers, such as Becca and Vynce and Alyssa. Alyssa became
distraught upon realizing that when her hair was up "I look like Laura
Ingalls Wilder! Look at me! Laura Ingalls Wilder on a bad hair day! Or
Swiss Miss! Or Princess Leia or something!"
At one point, while the males ordered pizza and talked sci-fi, the females
helped Shweta in a costuming confab for a Dickens Fair. Becca, who works
in theatrical costume design, could actually help with such commentary as,
"Well, if you pattern your skirt like on the left but symmetrically,
that's high-class Renaissance....add a bustle in the back, and you're
around 1880...sure, they wouldn't have used that material, but yellow is
fine...the problem is that your bodice is really a Renaissance bodice,
since they wouldn't have used three-quarter sleeves..." or other such
rather well-versed expertise. I, feeling (what's the feminine equivalent
of "castrated"?), eventually went into the living room to
hear Vynce hold forth on Stand on Zanzibar, which evidently I
must read.
Zack wasn't feeling well enough to go pick up the pizza, and I had a valid
driver's license, so I drove Zack's car (with a bunch of guys talking
language design). I had never driven an SUV before. I felt as someone
might if she gained two hundred pounds overnight -- unsure of her own size
and momentum. Aside from a swerve to avoid a reckless driver, we made it
home without incident and with pizza.
During the pizza-serving, I heard many questions being asked, some in
response to questions, and foolishly I asked, "Are we playing Questions?"
Hoo, boy. Just as you shouldn't offhandedly mention karma in a
conversation with a philosophy major (as I learned freshman year), you
shouldn't implicitly suggest a game of Questions around linguists. Shweta
and Vynce went at it for about half an hour. It went from cute to
annoying to weirdly calming. I found myself making
conversation with the others, asking them questions for the sheer pleasure
of getting statements back. (e.g. "You want another slice of pizza?"
"Sure.") Of course, Vynce and Shweta disagreed as to whether certain
sentences were questions. I thought that Vynce's sentences were a bit too
formulaic, while Shweta was more creative. Example:
Vynce: [some question]
Shweta: Zack, [Vynce's question repeated]?
Zack: [answer]
Shweta: Vynce, does that answer your question?
Zack: Well played!
The game only ended when Shweta got a phone call that took a rather long
time -- she had to convince someone that she, a GSI, wasn't going to
strike -- during which Becca and Vynce communicated in American Sign
Language, which is pretty cool.
I got home a lot later than I thought I would, but at least I got to
verify that Zack isn't actually sick. I get rather maternally worried
about him and other male friends of mine. Maybe I do have a uterus after
all.
# 26 Aug 2002, 11:56PM:
Zack, as per Vynce's and his suggestion and (Zack says) my encouragement, actually wrote up a quite funny
sleep-deprivation effects table suitable for use in your role-playing
game. Seth dreamt
an amazingly cool dream (cool as in insightful and provocative). And
my Leonard had a very neat and good idea.
Today I amused at least one co-worker by referring to Krishna as "Big
Blue." I also finished 21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com by
Mike Daisey, which I encourage you to read. The ending is better than any
other ending I've read this summer. It's like a more comedic and
accessible Microserfs.
Coming soon: Sumana's minireviews of Midnight's Children, The
Chains of Chance, and a not-yet-published set of small-town
vignettes!
# 27 Aug 2002, 04:05PM:
Today I saw Adbusters Magazine in the checkout line at Berkeley
Bowl.
# 28 Aug 2002, 04:30PM:
The Truman Show follows in the tradition of Clueless
as a movie that doesn't seem as cool when I show it to someone else.
My mom is visiting tomorrow. Maybe that's why I'm depressed.
# 28 Aug 2002, 11:00PM:
Various people I know are starting school again, or embarking on
new relationships or escalating their existing relationships, or
taking on new responsibilities at work. They have exciting beginnings
and I am just...in the middle, middling. I need to start some
exciting new project to keep me interesting and interested.
# 29 Aug 2002, 10:34AM:
Recently I've had the privilege of witnessing a few really heartwarming
moments.
- On the BART. We've just stopped at a station. A black man gets up to
leave. The white man who was sitting beside him shouts, "Sir, your
jacket!"
The black man realizes he's forgotten his coat and goes back to get it
before he leaves the train.
- In the bookstore. A boy, about ten, evinces confusion about some line
in a book about "blind, hairy-palmed werewolves." His mother explains to
him, "People used to believe that if you masturbated, you'd go blind, or
you'd grow hair on the palms of your hands. But obviously that isn't
true, because almost everybody masturbates, and so then everybody would be
walking around blind and with hair on their palms! Masturbation doesn't
hurt you."
We as a society have come a long way, and I'm ever so glad to remember
that.
# 29 Aug 2002, 10:35AM:
While I was at the Shweta Moving Stuff Extravaganza, I made two memorable
suggestions. One was that Shweta could influence negotiations between the
university and the clerical workers' union with "strongly worded letters,
that sort of thing." This was a memorably stupid suggestion, evidently,
and it was scorned and scoffed.
The second one did better.
Me: What if someone wrote a program like "Eliza" that played Questions
with you?
Zack: Doesn't the original do well enough?
# 29 Aug 2002, 11:53PM:
Yee-ha and a shoutout to Dan, who has a job,
applying his physics ken no less!
Funny juxtaposition in the sociology section: What's the Matter With the Internet? next to
Technopoly.
# 30 Aug 2002, 12:26AM:
Hey Seth, remember that night half a lifetime ago that you came over to my place and watched that awful 7th Heaven Very Special Episode with me? Terrific sum-up: "This scene actually made me miss 'Isaac and Ishmael.'"
[Main] You can hire me through Changeset Consulting.
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