Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2003 September

# 03 Sep 2003, 04:04PM: I Am James Van Hise: As a youth I devoured books about Star Trek. The local library held several reference works about Trek by one James Van Hise, the referent of this title. My mom always knew what gifts to give me, and on my thirteenth birthday she gave me The Star Trek Encyclopedia as we sat on an airplane on my birthday. I probably read the whole thing.

Leonard and I watch a heck of a lot of Next Generation and a good bit of Deep Space Nine these days, thanks to TiVo. Leonard is especially fond of Morn (the longfaced silent bargoer in Quark's) and of the way Geordi says "Damn!" It's so earnest. One can easily imagine LeVar Burton saying "Damn!" that exact same way in the middle of a Reading Rainbow. I refer to Gul Dukat as Gul Deceit, and propose that Deanna Troi is not telepathic at all. She is desperately faking it with cold readings ("He's hiding something, Captain. Also, you are about to embark on a long journey") and fearing that she'll be out of a job if discovered.

This is the purpose of watching lots of Star Trek: accumulating in-jokes. The classic example: in an episode of Enterprise, in trying to counter some Vulcan argument about how humans aren't ready to explore space, Archer starts a little speech: "When I was in my early twenties on a trip in East Africa I saw a gazelle giving birth...." And he goes on to compare humanity to that baby gazelle, but at first it seems a complete non sequitur. Now, whenever a character starts some edifying anecdote, one of us pauses the show so we can say, "he saw a gazelle giving birth."

Have I mentioned that TiVo has saved our marriage, er, relationship? Leonard loves to talk while watching TV. He really dislikes one-to-many entertainment where the many are supposed to stay silent (e.g., concerts, stand-up), and loves to comment on what he's experiencing, but I hate missing dialogue. So now he just keeps his finger on the big yellow pause button and he can make me laugh with crazy obscure jokes and Comic Book Guy impressions and then we can continue watching. And if he forgets to pause first, then I give him a reproachful look and hit the rewind-eight-seconds button. Only watching recorded TV is awesome.

# 04 Sep 2003, 09:16AM: Culture Gun: High culture, low culture, bacterial cultures, we've got 'em all!

Lynn Harris writes about vulvodynia, women's genital pain, in Salon (free day pass or subscription required): "...16 percent of women will experience chronic vulvar pain, described as a burning, stinging or stabbing sensation, either constant or on contact, ranging from annoying to disabling, and lasting three months or more." That sort of pain is not normal -- there is a cause and there is probably a remedy.

Leonard and I were watching a cooking show. The hosts were making corn flapjacks and added both cornmeal and whole corn kernels. Leonard added, "creamed corn, cob of corn, corn plant, amber waves of grain, a cornpone musical, the band Korn, high-fructose corn syrup..."

Have pop singers forgotten how to find a note and stick to it? I get sick of all this warbling singing. If I want that, I'll sing into a fan.

Months ago, Steve Schultz found himself on the receiving end of my life story. I scrawled a world map on the whiteboard -- an indented box for North America, a huge rectangle for Eurasia, a jutting triangle for India. Steve noted, deadpan, "You forgot the Azores."

Filed under: Comedy

# 04 Sep 2003, 05:15PM: AdWords Tells All: "Organize" means The Container Store more than it does "Joe Hill." "Organise" doesn't mean anything at all.

# 05 Sep 2003, 04:22PM: Idea: Recipe Party. (Discovered while idly googling "party recipe.") Obvious implementation: Everyone brings several copies of a favorite recipe, and if possible the finished product. Amusing implementation: you must pretend to be a recipe for the duration of the party, or for some portion of it. Bizarre implementation: a story in which the recipes are having a party.

# 06 Sep 2003, 01:35PM: Angel Is Here!: Yay! My friend Angel is here and we're spending the weekend together. She got to meet many of my friends last night at a small party. I was urged to save for posterity (here) the sentiment that George W. Bush gets more vacation time than all of France combined.

# 08 Sep 2003, 10:27PM: Trying to write. Time will tell whether weblogging has strengthened or weakened my essaying skills.

# 09 Sep 2003, 04:52PM: Author: I'm getting published in Salon. Later tonight my State-of-the-Trek piece on Star Trek Enterprise will go up in the Arts and Entertainment section. I saw it in pre-publication form, panicked and thought it was awful, then calmed down after reading a few funny bits to Leonard.

I'm pretty nervous, as this is probably going to be the most-read piece I've ever written. It's like being on stage but you don't even have to be there for the audience to throw rotten tomatoes at you.

Here goes.

# 09 Sep 2003, 06:32PM: Zippy Would Be Proud: The new head of tech is concentrating on the important things.

Filed under: Comedy

# 09 Sep 2003, 07:52PM: Bam!

"Enterprise" doesn't have a gimmick. It has a premise, an interesting question to answer: How did humanity go from the bottom to the top of the galactic totem pole?....isolated low points can't mar this show's accomplishment: After hundreds of hours of Trek movies and TV episodes, "Enterprise" is making the franchise new again, creating fresh stories and possibilities.

# 11 Sep 2003, 10:18AM: Enterprise Followup: At least one reader disagreed with my piece about Enterprise, arguing that Enterprise simply is not canon. One explanation, which does make a kind of sense: this is the timeline as changed after Zefram Cochrane met the NCC-1701-D in the film First Contact. Another explanation, favored by cynical fans: there will be a Big Reset Button narrative cop-out.

I heard the new theme song last night, which is WORSE than the previous one! I do not want to listen to a country song while watching Star Trek, Roddenbery's vision of "Wagon Train to the stars" notwithstanding.

And then I feel awful for even caring about the theme song to some TV show. God, I still can't believe those terrorist attacks two years ago. Sometimes I remember and have to remind myself that yes, this is the world we live in.

# 11 Sep 2003, 10:39AM: Selling My Car: A resident of Los Angeles records his experiences learning to live carfree. Hurray!

I take BART to and from work (occasionally Muni trolleys for variety). I almost never use my car. Leonard and I could coordinate to shop for groceries together in his car. Ergo, I really want to get rid of my car. It's nothing but a money hole. After some repairs, I'll embark on the arduous task of selling a good high-MPG car with 70,000 miles on it in a city where no one in their right mind wants a car, either.

Why do I have a car? Because my parents gave it to me, despite my years of vehement declarations that I Do Not Want A Car, and it was useful when I was moving, and I haven't bothered to sell it yet. That's all.

It's a 1999 Toyota Corolla, in case you're wondering.

# 11 Sep 2003, 11:16AM GMT+5:30: Currently reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, an alternate-history time-travel literary detective story. Reminds me of Connie Willis in that you see academics doing time travel in modern England, only it's not as annoying. Verdict in a few days.

About to read: Jake, Reinvented, the new Great Gatsby takeoff by Gordon Korman. I have probably talked more about this book than anyone else who does not work for Hyperion Books. Well, Korman and Fitzgerald are two great tastes, etc. If you don't have anything to be enthusiastic about then you're dead inside. I have Korman, Good Eats, and the possibility of writing another article for Salon. The stand-up bug is nagging rather than encouraging, in case you're wondering.

Filed under: Reading

# 13 Sep 2003, 06:39PM: Wotch.com Is In A Whole Nuther Category: Spam subject lines are sometimes very straightforward. You want sex and money, don't you? Free cash, free sex. Oh, and you can be thinner. Sometimes I see a Lose four inches in one week! right next to an Add four inches naturally!.

But they branch off as the spammer tries to outmaneuver you. The Spammer, a collective entity, tries your every defense in hundreds of simultaneous games of chess. Do you think that you don't need a larger penis, since your current one satisfies your lover? She Says It's Fine But She Is Lying! or Don't Wait Till She Leaves You! These subject lines are non sequiturs, except that obviously, since they are in my SpamAssassin folder, they are about penis size.

One colleague was puzzled at Your Neighbors Will Be Amazed!, a subject line in this tradition. I also hope that my neighbors would not be amazed at the promised development.

Those that falsely call for my pity and compassion irk me. As a customer support rep, I have to open HELP and ASSISTANCE URGENTLY NEEDED even though they are all from Miriam Abacha or Charles Taylor's daughter. On the up side, I know far more about current African politics than I did before I had e-mail.

Some are nonsensical or funny. A Wotch.com subject line is always a treat (though I never read the body). Crouching Bunny, Hidden Rabbit! The Poop-Shoop-Moop-a-Loop.

Some try to fake you out. You left your umbrella, or the server is down. I am tempted to open the ones that pretend to have very highminded purposes. Post-Communist Eastern Europe. Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". But SpamAssassin knows better than I, and into the trash they go.

Every once in a while a subscriber writes in from [some number]@hotmail.com, in all caps and in HTML, cussing over his problem. I fish this message from the spam swamp. But how long till spammers extend their efforts enough to make up subject lines that sound more reasonable than real ones do? And, alongside that, how long until spam is completely indiscernible from legitimate email? The AI sends you a believable email asking you for some information, responds to your response plausibly, and only after two or three cycles of replies makes the pitch. Next step -- replicants who blend in among us solely to influence our purchasing habits!

Didn't mean to get this involved. Here's a silly subject line for your trouble: I didnt say it would be easy. I only said.. twlrazpjcocztls

Oh, and challenge-response solutions (e.g. SpamArrest) don't make sense in the long run.

# 15 Sep 2003, 03:29PM: Helping Zack move occasioned me wishing we were all Anarresti from Le Guin's The Dispossessed so moving would be easier. This applies to me as well, as I have moved four times in the past two years.

Zack now lives a block away from a prominent Muni line, which encourages me to use Muni more. I prefer Muni to BART for time-flexible rides within the city because the aboveground routes help me learn my way around SF. Soon I'll get a monthly Muni FastPass, which is also good for BART rides within the city (incl. my commute). A deal!

I live near the Balboa Park BART station, one of the endpoints for several Muni trolleys. Problem: the entrance to the Muni portion of the station is poorly signed. Today I had to take the J Church, but fortunately it was rush hour, so I was able to find the get-on-the-train area by finding the crowd of waiting riders.

# 17 Sep 2003, 01:33PM: Maybe I Could Embroider His Apron: If you want to knit a sweater to give to your beloved by Christmas, then you should start very soon. But beware The Sweater Curse!

Also, last night I was watching an early Good Eats, where Alton Brown stuttered and looked to be seventeen, so open and vulnerable. I realized that Alton Brown is a food deity. It comforts me to pray to Alton and think that he is watching over my triumphs and mishaps, foodwise and otherwise. As Leonard says, he "looked upon it and saw that it was ... Good Eats."

# 18 Sep 2003, 03:11PM: Blog Twins: Notes From the Mystery Department and Stereolabrat could be by the same person in two universes. A funny bit from the former:

"We were walking around on our lunch break yesterday and found a really big feather. Next to the feather was a squirrel. By using Occam's Razor, we determined that we had found a squirrel feather, and spent the rest of lunch trying to convince the reference department."

# 18 Sep 2003, 03:22PM GMT+5:30: Books: Reading Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground, which has so many quotable lines. The fragment that really affected me when I read the first few pages, years ago: "...in that fever of oscillations, of resolutions determined for ever and repented of again a minute later..." Now, I'm fond of this one: "My jests, gentlemen, are of course in bad taste, jerky, involved, lacking self-confidence. But of course that is because I do not respect myself. Can a man of perception respect himself at all?"

I'm considering his discussion of action and justice, which reminds me of the Bhagavad-Gita.

Just read The Eyre Affair by Fforde (a gift from Nathaniel and Shweta), which I enjoyed, and Changing Lanes by Le Guin (a gift from Zack), which I really liked, and Making Book by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, which I liked most when she talked about copyediting.

Filed under: Reading

# 18 Sep 2003, 03:41PM: Six Impossible Things Before Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty: Krugman on his career and becoming an economist:

I have a self-serving theory: interesting ideas have very little to do with interesting life experiences. According to this theory a person who has grown up in eight countries and speaks five languages, who has taken a dogsled across Siberia and a raft down the Amazon, is no more likely to have a deep insight into social science than someone who grew up in a safe middle-class suburb reading science-fiction novels.
I hope this theory is true, because I have an utterly conventional background....

I would like to believe his theory but years of reading Salon tilts you the other way.

# 19 Sep 2003, 04:00PM: I got to meet Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen last night. Leonard and I went to the Berkeley Sur La Table kitchen supply store, where he gave a class.

Christopher Kimball, when cooking or talking about cooking, really has the competent, no-nonsense demeanor I admire. I may not see eye-to-eye with him on the matter of eating raw egg, but on the whole I love his philosophy and admire his work.

I got pretty fangirlish and possibly squealed when I got to cook beside him. I rubbed salt and pepper into a hank of meat, sauteéd it, rolled it around in hot maple syrup, and put it in an oven (highly supervised, thank goodness). Evidently I did a good job for someone who has never cooked meat before.

As so many people have discovered, I find it unpleasant to cook for one. As I have discovered, Leonard is a good cook and likes to cook for him and me. So I ain't cooking as much as I did last year. I don't know whether that will change.

Update, next day: Leonard has told his side of the tale and put up pictures. You may derive Kimball's stereotypical gesture from my favorite.

# 19 Sep 2003, 05:59PM: Tired and demoralized. Endless email.

Update ten minutes later: I reread The Preacher's Story and that helped.

# 20 Sep 2003, 02:32PM: The Party Game: Last night I went to a Salon party where subscribers met Joe Conason, one of our most popular writers. I took it upon myself to circulate and mingle with guests, since the event was pretty unstructured beyond "meet other subscribers, hear five minutes of speeches, and meet Joe Conason." Other Salon staffers, more glamorous and famous ones, probably felt more at home there than I did.

Once upon a time Dan explained to me that many people have a tough time socialising with strangers, or even with friends, at unstructured events. That is why we have party games, and dinners, and group excursions to movies and concerts. Like crystals, conversations need seeds before they can coalesce. This is why we have small talk. We do not make small talk as an end in itself, but to discover whether we could talk about something more interesting. Those who are uncomfortable with short silences (say, in elevators) use it to fill those silences, but at parties small talk is primarily a discovery tool.

Many people last night could talk with strangers and held merry conversation, probably starting with small talk (e.g., "How far did you come to get here?" "How long have you been a subscriber?") and progressing into more hearty topics. But I saw some marooned people and went and talked to them, tried to make them feel welcome, and asked them whether they had any problems with their subscriptions. Almost all of them did not, which is great. What a relief to remember that there are subscribers whose subscriptions are working fine!

I suppose the party could have developed a destructive focus, such as a huge Clark v. Dean v. Kucinich shouting match. Still, "unstructured" does not always lead to "relaxing." Some people need the structure. Remember this for your next party.

Oh, and a few losers (mostly party crashers) hit on me, surprising me with their creepy attempts. They caught me off guard, and thus I did nothing more clever than courteously brush them off. Is this the standard macking strategy - catch the prey off guard with the attempt, not with the grace or charm of it?

# 20 Sep 2003, 04:13PM: Filk Request: Who wants to apply a song about a dead logger love to the world of online journals? If Andy Holloway were still reading this journal he'd be a prime candidate. I used to think that Andy and Brendan Adkins were the same person, you know.

P.S. Not really.

# 20 Sep 2003, 07:14PM: A subscriber emailed with the subject line aren't I a member, which reminded me of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"

# 20 Sep 2003, 09:29PM: He Has Only Surprised Me Like That About Three Times Ever: Earlier today, I discovered that Alton Brown had already done an event in San Francisco. I let Leonard know that he would also be doing something in San Mateo that I couldn't go to, but that Leonard might enjoy. Leonard said nah. In fact, he called a little later and said he would be taking a nap.

I just arrived at his home for dinner and Leonard showed me something interesting. It is his copy of I'm Just Here For the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown, inscribed on the title page: "To Leonard & Sumana: May the food be with you! AB"

I stared, uncomprehending, for seconds.

"You took a nap."
His head shook.
"You didn't take a nap."
Nod.
"You went! You said you wouldn't go, and then you went!"

And then I gibbered and made him recount his conversation with freaking Alton Brown to me twice. Here is his side of Celebrity Chef Week and boy oh boy did he surprise me.

# 21 Sep 2003, 09:53AM: Schultzariffic: Steve Schultz! I haven't been able to get an email through to you because worm emails are loading your inbox to capacity. So here is the letter I wrote to you.

So lots of people have been experiencing the same thing as you. It is a common problem and the best way to stop it (or at least to stem the tide) is to set up a filter which directs those virus or worm mails to the trash. Most of them have Microsoft in the subject line or somewhere in the email address, so you can use that as a rule for setting up your filter. This doesn't stop you from receiving the mail, it just helps so you don't have to deal with it as much. After the worm dies down, or its effects do, you can turn off the filter. Microsoft basically never emails people directly anyway, so the false positive risk is extremely low.
I have read your updates and enjoyed them. Am I as whacked as all the Asian-American women you meet? I have always figured I don't count because I am "Indian, not Asian," and I don't see pretty Indian girls in trophy positions, but I could be wrong.
Affectionately,
Sumana
P.S. Played DDR with a young white man named Cliff last night. By 'with' I mean 'next to.' I was wearing a party dress. I hope we entertained the crowds sufficiently. I suppose this is what I care about a lot, entertaining the crowd, whether the crowd exists or not.

# 22 Sep 2003, 12:15PM: America's Embarrassment Kitchen: I asked two questions whose answers made me slink in my chair during the Kimball event.

One recipe had egg in it, but there was no mention of heating the egg. I asked whether he was at all worried about eating raw egg. He laughed that he had almost gotten through a week in California without having to defend eating raw egg, and then talked about how low the risk actually is. Evidently, today's eater first asks the question, "Will this kill me?" which is not the first question that Kimball would have them ask.

As it turns out, the egg in this case was not completely raw. But still.

Also, I pointed out that the TV show has fadeouts and fadeins indicating long waits (e.g. an hour of brining in the fridge). What do the cast and crew do during those waits? "We fooled you!" Kimball gleefully sang. Indeed America's Test Kitchen actually does the same thing as the other cooking shows and has a ready item waiting, e.g., a bird that has already been roasting for two hours, so the cast doesn't have to wait around. I feel so taken.

Yesterday Leonard saw, for the first time, the ATK episode with hot smoked salmon and cucumber salad. This includes Christopher Kimball reading off a cucumber "Food Facts" which is a description of how one uses zombie cucumbers and the ground-up bones of dead children to turn someone into a zombie. "And, thus, America's Test Kitchen," Kimball concludes. "So that's what you did to me!" Julia Collins responds. And then they go on making the salad.

I think it's brilliant. Leonard was a little freaked out.

# 22 Sep 2003, 03:47PM: Neal Stephenson Outing: I'm going to see (I hope) Neal Stephenson at Cody's on Thursday. Anyone care to join me? There could be dinner.

# 22 Sep 2003, 04:44PM: What do you get when you add insult to injury?

Filed under: Comedy

# 22 Sep 2003, 05:56PM: Is "I Apologize For the Inconvenience" Better?: I am guilty of (18) "I'm Sorry You're Having Problems".

There it was: "you're having problems". This is the formula for pretending to apologize while insinuating that the person that you are non-apologizing to is a feeble person who is responsible for whatever problems there might be. This is so obnoxious. Now, I do know where it comes from, having worked in a couple of jobs that required me to deal with "the public". It comes from the fact that a certain proportion of "the public" use customer-service people as a captive audience to inflict whatever feeble dramas are going on in their heads. So people who deal with "the public" have evolved a repertoire of defense mechanisms that they apply to everyone whether they deserve it or not. This is one of the downsides of mass society, where institutions arise that constantly bring people into contact in the most superficial, instrumental, rule-bound, disembedded, transient ways.

# 23 Sep 2003, 06:50PM: Recently I have been failing miserably at waking at 6:30. Today I slept through NPR's broadcast of Bush's speech to the UN. That doesn't explain all of today's dreams, but it does explain the bit where I get all fanboy about spotting Colin Powell.

I should try cold water for the waking up. I still can't believe I am regularly sleeping through hours of NPR.

# 23 Sep 2003, 07:00PM: The Essay Separators Are Trilobites: I recently recommended Dr. Despot's Guide to Life to Brendan.

...If you think one person or thing will solve your problems, just shut up! You are wrong...
... If someone can take you for granted, they will. Always. Acting like a dick gets you more attention than acting nice....
Some people are charming: they can talk to anyone, in any situation, and they can make whoever they are talking to feel like the most witty, interesting person in the room. If you meet someone who is charming, that doesn't mean they're a good person or even that they like you. It's just a technique they use....

# 24 Sep 2003, 11:05AM: Web Sites Don't Usually have At-Signs: Today's phone conversation that caused my cubicle neighbor to compliment me on my patience: I explain to a Salon Premium gift subscription recipient what the Internet is, how the Web is different from e-mail, how you can tell an email address from a Web address, that Hotmail is a special case, and what (in the barest essentials) Salon does.

Fortunately, the subscriber has someone in the family who can help with immediate "what button do I click" problems. We are not all so lucky.

# 24 Sep 2003, 11:06AM: Another Spam Speculation: Already businesses use incentives to get customers to refer friends as potential customers. A dry-cleaner might give you a free pound of wash-and-fold, a web site might give you a free month if you refer a friend who becomes a subscriber. (CrushLink is basically a referral pyramid scheme, right? I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.)

And you have already seen spam that purports to be from a long-lost friend, who manages to mention her husband, new job, kid status, and oh, this new ink cartridge outlet you might like!

Speculation: spammers will go from fake referrals to real ones. Like spies paying anonymous passers-by to deliver the MacGuffin to the secret drop*, spammers could micropay humans to falsely refer friends, or to use their legitimate, real-human email accounts to spam.

Also, I wonder about the spam arms race. Could there be a neutral mastermind plotting to drive the state of email somewhere it has never been? A triple agent, working only for himself...

* Currently reading: Declare by Tim Powers. Gift from Nathaniel and Shweta. John le Carré meets Philip Pullman.