What happens when a lovable bounty hunter can't escape from a trap he helped set? What happened during those fades to black? Why was Anomen trying to wield Keldorn's two-handed sword?
For the first time on audiobook, hear the "traitor" of Baldur's Gate 2 in his own words!
"Was it the geas or gas? After three cheesecakes, it was hard to tell the difference."
"She never knew how much I loved her. To be verbally berated by her was like the gentlest caresses of silken ropes, at once enchanting and ensnaring. Her necklace bespoke power and invitation. Oh Edwina, I offered you my love, but you kept Minor Spell Turning it away!"
"It was all an act, at least at first. Minsc was a fucking genius. Easily INT 22. But that WIS score... poor bastard. Had a problem with potions of strength. Roided out. Then turned to potions of defense. By the end, he was drinking cursed potions of anything. Boo was a bad influence."
Reviews:
You must pick up this book before venturing forth! - Elminster, author of Meddling and Muttering Magic
For a guy who swore a geas to unspeakable evil without giving it much thought, his prose is pretty smart. - Irenicus, New York Times Book Review
Let's be honest. I sucked as a replacement. I just got the job because I was the PC's sister. Yay nepotism! - Imoen, The Heritage Foundation
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Lactose intolerance and me
Believe it or not, this and the previous entry are linked, somehow.
I never officially got a diagnosis of lactose intolerance. But growing up with my mother and my older aunts, discussions about stomach ailments were legion. Digestive digressions. Medical terms half-remembered, out of context, but ominously inflected. "Heliobacteria." "Ulcer." "Sigmoidoscopy." Self-reported ratings of upper vs lower GI examinations. (Evidently the lower is more challenging, though the geography still escapes me. Is it counterintuitive, in the way that the definitions of Lower and Upper Egypt were? Is the analogy of the river correct? What precisely is the source and what is the delta in this strained metaphor?)
So I did grow up with some paranoia and perhaps even hypochondria regarding things stomach-related. These seemed to be borne out by a tendency to fart intensely at school. Rare was the audible, public trumpet, though I sweat now, dear Reader, when I think about that terrible afternoon in the high school library when I was suddenly surprised by a loud one, leaving me hovering two inches above the unforgiving wooden chair, my face the only answer needed by the thirty faces turning with a united question.
Less publicly, but no less to my shame, was first period sophomore year. World History Honors, first period. I sat near the front, and the damnable infernal chairs were made of hard plastic and metal. No cushions. I tried valiantly to preserve my classmates from what seemed like roomfuls of foul fumes, especially as these represented the brightest and, in many cases, most attractive members of my graduating class.
If they ever let on, they never told me. I feel especially sorry for Julie. I think you sat behind me, either directly or one chair back. So if you ever wondered
IT WAS I
I was the flatulent fiend
I was the malefactor of mists
I was the Boyd bombardier
I was the doubled-over, thrice-damned doofus
I was the gastard
I was the shart attack
I was the World War I recreationist
If you didn't get an A in that class, I was probably the reason.
I don't know how I connected my challenges to the milk I was drinking in the morning (accompanying a reasonably priced and nutritionally questionable school breakfast). But at some point, before graduation, I did, and didn't look back. What lay behind, other than shame, smells, and stains?
So yes, if you are facing the perils of lactose intolerance, I empathize. Like the smog of 1970s Los Angeles, it colored my experiences in high school, its social and psychological scars lingering like a brown dog, at once familiar and repugnant. This was pre-Lactaid (or at least pre- my understanding of medical options). Consider yourself blessed that opportunities abound, not only for probiotic remedies, but also cow milk substitutes.
There may come a day when public and unremitting flatulence is no longer a source of shame, and perhaps even a source of some energy. But today is not that day. Learn from my mistakes, educate yourself, and do your best to live a normal, healthy life.
I never officially got a diagnosis of lactose intolerance. But growing up with my mother and my older aunts, discussions about stomach ailments were legion. Digestive digressions. Medical terms half-remembered, out of context, but ominously inflected. "Heliobacteria." "Ulcer." "Sigmoidoscopy." Self-reported ratings of upper vs lower GI examinations. (Evidently the lower is more challenging, though the geography still escapes me. Is it counterintuitive, in the way that the definitions of Lower and Upper Egypt were? Is the analogy of the river correct? What precisely is the source and what is the delta in this strained metaphor?)
So I did grow up with some paranoia and perhaps even hypochondria regarding things stomach-related. These seemed to be borne out by a tendency to fart intensely at school. Rare was the audible, public trumpet, though I sweat now, dear Reader, when I think about that terrible afternoon in the high school library when I was suddenly surprised by a loud one, leaving me hovering two inches above the unforgiving wooden chair, my face the only answer needed by the thirty faces turning with a united question.
Less publicly, but no less to my shame, was first period sophomore year. World History Honors, first period. I sat near the front, and the damnable infernal chairs were made of hard plastic and metal. No cushions. I tried valiantly to preserve my classmates from what seemed like roomfuls of foul fumes, especially as these represented the brightest and, in many cases, most attractive members of my graduating class.
If they ever let on, they never told me. I feel especially sorry for Julie. I think you sat behind me, either directly or one chair back. So if you ever wondered
IT WAS I
I was the flatulent fiend
I was the malefactor of mists
I was the Boyd bombardier
I was the doubled-over, thrice-damned doofus
I was the gastard
I was the shart attack
I was the World War I recreationist
If you didn't get an A in that class, I was probably the reason.
I don't know how I connected my challenges to the milk I was drinking in the morning (accompanying a reasonably priced and nutritionally questionable school breakfast). But at some point, before graduation, I did, and didn't look back. What lay behind, other than shame, smells, and stains?
So yes, if you are facing the perils of lactose intolerance, I empathize. Like the smog of 1970s Los Angeles, it colored my experiences in high school, its social and psychological scars lingering like a brown dog, at once familiar and repugnant. This was pre-Lactaid (or at least pre- my understanding of medical options). Consider yourself blessed that opportunities abound, not only for probiotic remedies, but also cow milk substitutes.
There may come a day when public and unremitting flatulence is no longer a source of shame, and perhaps even a source of some energy. But today is not that day. Learn from my mistakes, educate yourself, and do your best to live a normal, healthy life.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
You're a Communist, Charlie Brown
What if Peanuts is a metaphor for the Cold War?
What if Charlie Brown was Soviet Russia, and Lucy was America?
Charlie Brown, always pursuing the (nuclear) football, only to be thwarted by American spycraft?
Charlie Brown, seen reaching out to minorities within America to demonstrate the contradictions and hypocrisies within American democracy?
Charlie Brown, who insinuated himself into the hearts of others via the cat's paw of an affectionate dog? Snoopy? To snoop?
Charlie Brown, whose Snoopy agents facilitated the hippie/counterculture movement, culminating in Woodstock?
Charlie Brown, eventually eclipsed by an ascendant Snoopy (China), who sought to assert his own identity and destiny by becoming the true leader of Communist power?
Charlie Brown, whose unrequited flirtations with Peppermint Patty reflect the uneasy relations Soviet leaders had with East Germany, an athletically dominant but restive and ultimately uncontrollable satellite?
Charlie Brown, ultimately rendered impotent by his many internal contradictions and divisions?
If so, then what does that make Lucy? The domineering, physically aggressive, narcissistic force of wrath and vindictiveness?
Ready to diagnose problems in others while offering no useful insights, but charging for the time?
Dragging a younger brother Linus (Great Britain) into conflict after conflict, using the blanket (nuclear umbrella) as leverage?
Completely self-unaware about her own flaws?
Flirtatious with Schroeder (Europe), and yet rejected by him over and over again because her nature was so at odds with his own?
Poor Sally and Linus. They would find love, if they were not pawns in the Great Game. At least the lesser nations always believe so.
What if Charlie Brown was Soviet Russia, and Lucy was America?
Charlie Brown, always pursuing the (nuclear) football, only to be thwarted by American spycraft?
Charlie Brown, seen reaching out to minorities within America to demonstrate the contradictions and hypocrisies within American democracy?
Charlie Brown, who insinuated himself into the hearts of others via the cat's paw of an affectionate dog? Snoopy? To snoop?
Charlie Brown, whose Snoopy agents facilitated the hippie/counterculture movement, culminating in Woodstock?
Charlie Brown, eventually eclipsed by an ascendant Snoopy (China), who sought to assert his own identity and destiny by becoming the true leader of Communist power?
Charlie Brown, whose unrequited flirtations with Peppermint Patty reflect the uneasy relations Soviet leaders had with East Germany, an athletically dominant but restive and ultimately uncontrollable satellite?
Charlie Brown, ultimately rendered impotent by his many internal contradictions and divisions?
If so, then what does that make Lucy? The domineering, physically aggressive, narcissistic force of wrath and vindictiveness?
Ready to diagnose problems in others while offering no useful insights, but charging for the time?
Dragging a younger brother Linus (Great Britain) into conflict after conflict, using the blanket (nuclear umbrella) as leverage?
Completely self-unaware about her own flaws?
Flirtatious with Schroeder (Europe), and yet rejected by him over and over again because her nature was so at odds with his own?
Monday, July 13, 2015
Opus is Back
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| https://www.facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/photos/a.114529165244512.10815.108793262484769/1004028256294594/?type=1&pnref=story |
It's been 8 years since he last published a comic.
He's the creator of the Bloom County, Outland, and Opus comic strips. The comics cover the adventures of a band of misfits, and center around a jovial and neurotic penguin, Opus.
While Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes informed my philosophy, and Jim Davis' Garfield shaped my precocious pessimism, Breathed's Bloom County served as a political/current events primer. This was especially useful/weird for a kid who didn't discuss politics at home. Who was this C. Everett Koop, and why is it funny that he gets killed by tofu and bean sprouts?
The timing of his return can't be coincidental. And if I had to guess, it has to do with Donald Trump.
One of the main long-running stories that emerged in Breathed's comics centered around the brain transplant of Donald Trump into the body of Bill D. Cat, the gross, anti-Garfield tongue fetishist. (And possible proto-Hodor: his vocabulary consisted of Ack! and Thbbft!)
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| "Billthecat". Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Billthecat.jpg#/media/File:Billthecat.jpg |
Yeah, there's a lot of sophomoric humor. Maybe that's why I love it so.
Anyway, it's interesting to see Bill transform from bizarre cat to, well, Donald Trump in a cat's body. But between the laughs, there's some good commentary. I still remember this comic.
Welcome back, Berkeley Breathed. This might be just a way to fund your powerboating habit. But maybe, just maybe, you see that there is a need for your type of satire.
Anyway, it's interesting to see Bill transform from bizarre cat to, well, Donald Trump in a cat's body. But between the laughs, there's some good commentary. I still remember this comic.
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| http://welcometoyouredoom.tumblr.com/post/104760707206 |
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Roosevelt illustrates the differences between France and America at the turn of the century
In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt was engaged in a speaking tour of Europe, following his Smithsonian-led, Carnegie-sponsored African safari. Roosevelt was in Berlin, speaking with Kaiser Wilhelm, when he received a telegram. President Taft asked Roosevelt to represent the United States at the funeral of the British King Edward VII. What follows is an excerpt of Roosevelt's interactions with the French minister of foreign affairs, Stephen Pichon. Below, italcized text represent Roosevelt as quoted by Edmund Morris in Colonel Roosevelt; standard text represents Morris' writing.
[At a wake prior to the funeral, Pichon] got me aside and asked me in French, as he did not speak English, what colored coat my coachman had worn that evening. I told him that I did not know; whereupon he answered that his coachman had a black coat. I nodded and said Yes, I thought mine had a black coat also. He responded with much violence that this was an outrage, a slight upon the two great republics, as all the Royalties' coachmen wore red coats, and that he would at once make a protest on behalf of us both. I told him to hold on, that he must not make any protests on my behalf, that I did not care what kind of coat my coachman wore, and would be perfectly willing to see him wear a green coat with yellow splashes--"un plaetot vert avec des tauches jaunes" being my effort at idiomatic rendering of the idea, for I speak French, I am sorry to say, as if it were a non-Aryan tongue, without tense or gender, although with agglutinative vividness and fluency. My incautious incursion into levity in a foreign tongue met appropriate punishment, for I spent the next fifteen minutes in eradicating from Pichon's mind the belief that I was demanding these colors as my livery.
[The next day, at the funeral procession]
Friday, 20 May 1910, was a day so beautiful that all London seemed to want to be outdoors and see the procession scheduled to depart from Buckingham Palace at 9:30 A.M. Hours before the first drumbeat sounded, a mass of humanity blocked every approach to the parade route along the Mall to Westmisnter Hall. There was little noise and less movement as the crowd waited under a cloudless sky. Green Park was at its greenest. The air, washed clean by rain overnight, was sweet and warm, alive with birdsong.
Rosevelt arrived early in the palace yard, where horses and coaches were lining up, and was again accosted by a furious Stephen Pichon. The Duke of Norfolk had decreed that because of their lack of royal uniforms, they could not ride with the mounted mourners. Instead, they were to share a dress landau. Pichon noted, in a voice shaking with rage, that it would be eighth in a sequence of twelve, behind a carriage packed with Chinese imperials of uncertain gender. Not only that, it was a closed conveyance, whereas some royal ladies up front had been assigned "glass coaches."
The landau struck Roosevelt as luxurious all the same, and he admitted afterward, in describing the funeral, that he had never heard of glass coaches "excepting in connection with Cinderella." But Pichon could not be calmed down:
He continued that "ces Chinois" were put ahead of us. To this I answered that any people dressed as gorgeously as "ces Chinois" ought to go ahead of us; but he responded that it was not a laughing matter. Then he hadded that "ce Perse" had been put in with us, pointing out a Persian prince of the blood royal, a deprecatory, inoffensive-looking Levantine of Parisian education, who was obviously ill at ease, but whom Pichon insisted upon regarding as someone who wanted to be offensive. At this moment our coach drove up, and Pichon bounced into it. I suppose he had gotten in to take the right-hand rear seet, to which I was totally indifferent.... But Pichon was scrupulous in giving me precedence, although I had no idea whether I was entitled to it or not. He sat on the left rear seat himself, stretched his arm across the right seat and motioned me to get it so that "ce Perse" should not himself take the place of honor! Accordingly I got in, and the unfortunate Persian followed, looking about as unaggressive as a rabbit in a cage with two boa constrictors.
[...]
Roosevelt sat well back, with the strange reticence that sometimes overcame him on ceremonial occasions, avoiding eye contact with the crowd. There was no indicating that he was being subjected to a further Gallic tirade:
Pichon's feelings overcame him.... He pointed out the fact that we were following "toutes ces petites royautes," even "le roi du Portugal." I then spoke to him seriously, and said that in my judgment France and the United States were so important that it was of no earthly consequence whether their representatives went before or behind the representatives of utterly insignificant little nations like Portgal, and that I thought it was a great mistake to make a fuss about it, because it showed a lack of self-confidence. He shook his head, and said that in Europe they regarded these things as of real importance, and that if I would not join him in a protest he would make one on his own account. I answered that I very earnestly hoped that he would not make a row at a funeral (my French failed me at this point, and I tried alternately "funeraille" and "pompe funebre"), that it would be sure to have a bad effect.
A Franco-American accord (Persia abstaining) was reached before the landau made its first stop at Parliament Square. Pichon agreed to wait and see where he was seated later in the day, at lunch in Windsor Castle, before making his placement a casus belli that might prevent France's attendance at the future coronation of George V.
-Colonel Roosevelt, p. 65-66
[At a wake prior to the funeral, Pichon] got me aside and asked me in French, as he did not speak English, what colored coat my coachman had worn that evening. I told him that I did not know; whereupon he answered that his coachman had a black coat. I nodded and said Yes, I thought mine had a black coat also. He responded with much violence that this was an outrage, a slight upon the two great republics, as all the Royalties' coachmen wore red coats, and that he would at once make a protest on behalf of us both. I told him to hold on, that he must not make any protests on my behalf, that I did not care what kind of coat my coachman wore, and would be perfectly willing to see him wear a green coat with yellow splashes--"un plaetot vert avec des tauches jaunes" being my effort at idiomatic rendering of the idea, for I speak French, I am sorry to say, as if it were a non-Aryan tongue, without tense or gender, although with agglutinative vividness and fluency. My incautious incursion into levity in a foreign tongue met appropriate punishment, for I spent the next fifteen minutes in eradicating from Pichon's mind the belief that I was demanding these colors as my livery.
[The next day, at the funeral procession]
Friday, 20 May 1910, was a day so beautiful that all London seemed to want to be outdoors and see the procession scheduled to depart from Buckingham Palace at 9:30 A.M. Hours before the first drumbeat sounded, a mass of humanity blocked every approach to the parade route along the Mall to Westmisnter Hall. There was little noise and less movement as the crowd waited under a cloudless sky. Green Park was at its greenest. The air, washed clean by rain overnight, was sweet and warm, alive with birdsong.
Rosevelt arrived early in the palace yard, where horses and coaches were lining up, and was again accosted by a furious Stephen Pichon. The Duke of Norfolk had decreed that because of their lack of royal uniforms, they could not ride with the mounted mourners. Instead, they were to share a dress landau. Pichon noted, in a voice shaking with rage, that it would be eighth in a sequence of twelve, behind a carriage packed with Chinese imperials of uncertain gender. Not only that, it was a closed conveyance, whereas some royal ladies up front had been assigned "glass coaches."
The landau struck Roosevelt as luxurious all the same, and he admitted afterward, in describing the funeral, that he had never heard of glass coaches "excepting in connection with Cinderella." But Pichon could not be calmed down:
He continued that "ces Chinois" were put ahead of us. To this I answered that any people dressed as gorgeously as "ces Chinois" ought to go ahead of us; but he responded that it was not a laughing matter. Then he hadded that "ce Perse" had been put in with us, pointing out a Persian prince of the blood royal, a deprecatory, inoffensive-looking Levantine of Parisian education, who was obviously ill at ease, but whom Pichon insisted upon regarding as someone who wanted to be offensive. At this moment our coach drove up, and Pichon bounced into it. I suppose he had gotten in to take the right-hand rear seet, to which I was totally indifferent.... But Pichon was scrupulous in giving me precedence, although I had no idea whether I was entitled to it or not. He sat on the left rear seat himself, stretched his arm across the right seat and motioned me to get it so that "ce Perse" should not himself take the place of honor! Accordingly I got in, and the unfortunate Persian followed, looking about as unaggressive as a rabbit in a cage with two boa constrictors.
[...]
Roosevelt sat well back, with the strange reticence that sometimes overcame him on ceremonial occasions, avoiding eye contact with the crowd. There was no indicating that he was being subjected to a further Gallic tirade:
Pichon's feelings overcame him.... He pointed out the fact that we were following "toutes ces petites royautes," even "le roi du Portugal." I then spoke to him seriously, and said that in my judgment France and the United States were so important that it was of no earthly consequence whether their representatives went before or behind the representatives of utterly insignificant little nations like Portgal, and that I thought it was a great mistake to make a fuss about it, because it showed a lack of self-confidence. He shook his head, and said that in Europe they regarded these things as of real importance, and that if I would not join him in a protest he would make one on his own account. I answered that I very earnestly hoped that he would not make a row at a funeral (my French failed me at this point, and I tried alternately "funeraille" and "pompe funebre"), that it would be sure to have a bad effect.
A Franco-American accord (Persia abstaining) was reached before the landau made its first stop at Parliament Square. Pichon agreed to wait and see where he was seated later in the day, at lunch in Windsor Castle, before making his placement a casus belli that might prevent France's attendance at the future coronation of George V.
-Colonel Roosevelt, p. 65-66
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Comedy Review: Sunset Room, Oct 22, 2013
It was Ladies' Night: four female comics were booked to perform. It was supposed to start at 10pm, but ended up starting at around 10:30, possibly due to trouble tracking down a DJ. 10pm is already pretty late for a Monday, and the delay pretty much guaranteed that people would leave during the performances.
Whether people left for that reason, or their indifference toward the comedy on display, is uncertain. What is clearer is that the opening and closing of the door rattled some of the comedians. I don't know their history, or how long they've been doing it. And it's tough to shut out at a small venue (there were only about 20-25 people total).
I'm not a comedian, and I'm not a professional critic. I'm just a guy that likes stand up comedy. Even that is limited to a handful of visits to comedy clubs and Youtube browsing. I have a tremendous respect for people who go up in front of a crowd and try to make them laugh. It takes tremendous courage. I think it's also unfair to compare them with the leading comics of our time: Louis CK, Chris Rock, etc. However, there do seem to be certain laws of comedy that are common to effective routines at all levels, and it is fair to see whether or not their comedy works according to these distilled principles.
Here are some principles I think were broken (or in Bernal's case, followed):
Be prepared.
Standup comedy is not improv. Good standup can take advantage of things in the room, and improvise off that. (Things in the room can be funny because they are shared experiences, which reduces the chance of a joke not being understood.) But at some level there still need to be jokes. It can't all be personality, or completely dependent on things happening during the routine.
If a comic is prepared, she can resist the temptation to go off script if jokes fall flat.
If a comic issuper, duper prepared, she can calibrate delivery or material as needed.
If a comic is unprepared, he or she makes a comment like "Let's see... what else do I want to talk about?" At least two comics did this.
Another comic had decent energy and promise, but her routine went a bit off once she started actively using her note sheet.
If you have a note sheet, it indicates a lack of preparation. Worse, if I know you have stuff written in front of you, my expectations for your delivery and material skyrocket, perhaps to impossible standards.
Consider how the material works with the rest of the perforrmance
From what little I know, many comics have a set routine. It's unclear then that adjusting that routine is at all feasible, or makes sense. But I think it does pay to know your audience, and figure out whether a gig is right for you.
There was also a guest male comic, who, based on the intro, has acheived some note at the Laugh Factory. Unfortunately for him, his routine seemed even more misogynistic than it would ordinarily at a Ladies' Night. Some of his jokes were designed more for shock than humor in any case. But they seemed especially mean given the context.
Maybe I'm not a fan of his type of humor. But I think I would've enjoyed it more if it weren't delivered at a Ladies' Night. Some parts were just a bit too jarring given the context.
Things that happen in the room can be funny - but don't use them as a crutch.
The male comic made fun of a guy by calling him "Charlie Brown", playing off a drunken heckle and the fact that his shirt had a horizontal zigzag pattern. It was pretty good. But a couple of the comics came back to the "Charlie Brown" thing when their routines were flagging. For whatever reason, it seemed like they were using it as a life preserver, and it showed.
I know that comedians generally find someone (or a couple someones) they can pick on in a crowd, especially if the person is pretty good natured. ("Charlie Brown" was a good sport.) But there has to be more than pointing to "Charlie Brown!" It gets tired if the person has no connection with the jokes.
Stay with the energy of your bit.
One of the things that I think distinguishes a good comic is that he or she stays in the energy of a bit. They don't break character. They don't (necessarily) depend upon the energy of the room. They bring their own energy. Conversely, weaker or more inexperienced comics do respond, and even take personally, the apathy or non-responsiveness of a crowd.
As the routines went on, many of the comics seemed a bit unnerved at the lack of response. Their tone It's entirely understandable. But it's the kiss of death.
Bernal did this the best of the comics performing tonight. She was greeted with the same sort of apathy that the other comics experienced -- perhaps even more, given the general fatigue everyone was feeling by the last act. But she brought an energy to the stage and maintained it throughout her routine. She didn't depend upon great responses -- though it always helps. She stayed with her high-energy, larger-than-life personality, and it worked. It won us over, such that when she did tell a stinker, we were willing to forgive it as an aberration.
Of note: she faced a drunk female heckler who said, among other things, "You're not latina" and "You're not funny". Bernal seemed pretty unfazed; she initially engaged, and when that didn't work, continued with her routine without skipping a beat.
Performers have to "stay in the bit". This applies to classroom teaching, too. If you let your energy slip, the kids pick up on it, and the lesson suffers.
Try not to insult the entire audience for no good reason.
It's clear that some of the comics were struggling, and got a combination of nervous, pissed off, and frustrated. One in particular got a bit petulant and sarcastic, and basically insulted the crowd at the end of her routine by sarcastically praising us for being a great crowd.
Whether people left for that reason, or their indifference toward the comedy on display, is uncertain. What is clearer is that the opening and closing of the door rattled some of the comedians. I don't know their history, or how long they've been doing it. And it's tough to shut out at a small venue (there were only about 20-25 people total).
I'm not a comedian, and I'm not a professional critic. I'm just a guy that likes stand up comedy. Even that is limited to a handful of visits to comedy clubs and Youtube browsing. I have a tremendous respect for people who go up in front of a crowd and try to make them laugh. It takes tremendous courage. I think it's also unfair to compare them with the leading comics of our time: Louis CK, Chris Rock, etc. However, there do seem to be certain laws of comedy that are common to effective routines at all levels, and it is fair to see whether or not their comedy works according to these distilled principles.
Here are some principles I think were broken (or in Bernal's case, followed):
Be prepared.
Standup comedy is not improv. Good standup can take advantage of things in the room, and improvise off that. (Things in the room can be funny because they are shared experiences, which reduces the chance of a joke not being understood.) But at some level there still need to be jokes. It can't all be personality, or completely dependent on things happening during the routine.
If a comic is prepared, she can resist the temptation to go off script if jokes fall flat.
If a comic issuper, duper prepared, she can calibrate delivery or material as needed.
If a comic is unprepared, he or she makes a comment like "Let's see... what else do I want to talk about?" At least two comics did this.
Another comic had decent energy and promise, but her routine went a bit off once she started actively using her note sheet.
If you have a note sheet, it indicates a lack of preparation. Worse, if I know you have stuff written in front of you, my expectations for your delivery and material skyrocket, perhaps to impossible standards.
Consider how the material works with the rest of the perforrmance
From what little I know, many comics have a set routine. It's unclear then that adjusting that routine is at all feasible, or makes sense. But I think it does pay to know your audience, and figure out whether a gig is right for you.
There was also a guest male comic, who, based on the intro, has acheived some note at the Laugh Factory. Unfortunately for him, his routine seemed even more misogynistic than it would ordinarily at a Ladies' Night. Some of his jokes were designed more for shock than humor in any case. But they seemed especially mean given the context.
Maybe I'm not a fan of his type of humor. But I think I would've enjoyed it more if it weren't delivered at a Ladies' Night. Some parts were just a bit too jarring given the context.
Things that happen in the room can be funny - but don't use them as a crutch.
The male comic made fun of a guy by calling him "Charlie Brown", playing off a drunken heckle and the fact that his shirt had a horizontal zigzag pattern. It was pretty good. But a couple of the comics came back to the "Charlie Brown" thing when their routines were flagging. For whatever reason, it seemed like they were using it as a life preserver, and it showed.
I know that comedians generally find someone (or a couple someones) they can pick on in a crowd, especially if the person is pretty good natured. ("Charlie Brown" was a good sport.) But there has to be more than pointing to "Charlie Brown!" It gets tired if the person has no connection with the jokes.
Stay with the energy of your bit.
One of the things that I think distinguishes a good comic is that he or she stays in the energy of a bit. They don't break character. They don't (necessarily) depend upon the energy of the room. They bring their own energy. Conversely, weaker or more inexperienced comics do respond, and even take personally, the apathy or non-responsiveness of a crowd.
As the routines went on, many of the comics seemed a bit unnerved at the lack of response. Their tone It's entirely understandable. But it's the kiss of death.
Bernal did this the best of the comics performing tonight. She was greeted with the same sort of apathy that the other comics experienced -- perhaps even more, given the general fatigue everyone was feeling by the last act. But she brought an energy to the stage and maintained it throughout her routine. She didn't depend upon great responses -- though it always helps. She stayed with her high-energy, larger-than-life personality, and it worked. It won us over, such that when she did tell a stinker, we were willing to forgive it as an aberration.
Of note: she faced a drunk female heckler who said, among other things, "You're not latina" and "You're not funny". Bernal seemed pretty unfazed; she initially engaged, and when that didn't work, continued with her routine without skipping a beat.
Performers have to "stay in the bit". This applies to classroom teaching, too. If you let your energy slip, the kids pick up on it, and the lesson suffers.
Try not to insult the entire audience for no good reason.
It's clear that some of the comics were struggling, and got a combination of nervous, pissed off, and frustrated. One in particular got a bit petulant and sarcastic, and basically insulted the crowd at the end of her routine by sarcastically praising us for being a great crowd.
Cleverness that extends for more than five seconds is a breath of fresh air.
Bernal has a great singing voice, and she used it to parody both "Part of Your World" (Little Mermaid) and "If I Only Had A Brain" (Wizard of Oz). They stood out in an environment of one-liners because they were clever all the way through. Instead of the chuckle-silence pattern of one-liners, she got us to laugh for a half-minute, and cheer afterwards.
***
I do think that each of the comics tonight has the potential to be better than some of the opening acts I've seen at The Ice House and Harrah's. (These may not represent the pinnacle of success, but it's a standard that I think means gainful, regular employment as a comic. And the Harrah's folks were godawful - nobody, especially a headliner, should comment during his routine that he can hear the ceiling fans.) I think Nicky Bernal could, with luck and a longer routine, go even farther.
But between here and there are a lot of small clubs with cold crowds.
Bernal has a great singing voice, and she used it to parody both "Part of Your World" (Little Mermaid) and "If I Only Had A Brain" (Wizard of Oz). They stood out in an environment of one-liners because they were clever all the way through. Instead of the chuckle-silence pattern of one-liners, she got us to laugh for a half-minute, and cheer afterwards.
***
I do think that each of the comics tonight has the potential to be better than some of the opening acts I've seen at The Ice House and Harrah's. (These may not represent the pinnacle of success, but it's a standard that I think means gainful, regular employment as a comic. And the Harrah's folks were godawful - nobody, especially a headliner, should comment during his routine that he can hear the ceiling fans.) I think Nicky Bernal could, with luck and a longer routine, go even farther.
But between here and there are a lot of small clubs with cold crowds.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Great people, including presidents, read in the bathroom
I searched the train for him and finally discovered him in one of the white enameleed lavatories with its door half open.... He was busily engaged in reading, while he braced himself in the angle fo the two walls against the swaying motion of the train, oblivious to time and surroundings. The book in which he was absorbed was Lecky's History of Rationalism in Europe. He had chosen this peculiar reading room both because the white enamel reflected a brilliant light and he was pretty sure of uninterrupted quiet.
-- Lawrence F. Abbott, traveling companion and secretary for Theodore Roosevelt during his European tour, from Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
-- Lawrence F. Abbott, traveling companion and secretary for Theodore Roosevelt during his European tour, from Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Whose Line Is It Anyway: Aisha Tyler and the Challenge of Women in Comedy
Whose Line is it Anyway I'm reminded of the challenge of women in comedy -- not just the challenge of for woman in comedy, but the challenge faced by their male counterparts.
Like it or not, women are treated differently. I'm not completely sure why, but I can speculate. One reason is that we, the audience, expect women to be treated differently. Though collectively women and men are treated more similarly than in the past, there remains a clear difference in expectations by the audience.
Jokes at women's expense are not considered funny, and are often considered rude. (Wife jokes remain an exception.) When's the last time you've seen a commercial that made fun of the stupidity of a woman, versus a man? I'm not complaining about it -- just observing that, by and large, we feel far more comfortable in making (white) men the buffons now than in ridiculing a woman in an advertisement.
Of course, the expectations for what a woman can do comedically are different from what most think men can do. For whatever reasons, when Louis CK talks about how shitty his daughter is, it works. But if a female comic did the same, it seems... different. Is this my (and our collective) gender double-standard? Do I somehow need or require women to be more nurturing, loving, and less funny? I don't know. But I don't think that's the dominant factor here -- it has to do more with how the cast feels they can treat her, and not about our audience expectations.
I could be wrong -- I haven't checked out her comedy, and maybe she's really vulgar. Joe Rogan is hilariously filthy as a stand-up, but usually plays it straight as a TV host. Perhaps Tyler is getting pretty strict guidance from the producers about what is and is not acceptable.
Carol Burnett somehow managed to be really funny. I remember, as a kid, quite dimly, the Carol Burnett show. But she was perhaps helped by the fact that she was the star. Lucille Ball also was funny, though she did keep within the expectations of her time.
In any event, I'm inclined to think that a lot of the chemistry lacking between Aisha Tyler and the rest of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast has to do with uncertainty or discomfort about how much the cast can pick on her. They can't call her fat. They can't pan her for a terrible movie she starred in. She is attractive and bright. These old guys probably, if anything, instictively want to protect her, not put her up for ridicule. And even if they did poke fun at her, would it seem fair? Even if, intellectually, we believed she could take it, would we really, on an emotional level, find humor in older men making a joke at her expense?
I haven't even touched on race yet. Could Colin Mochrie or Ryan Stiles really make a joke about her and feel comfortable about it on a racial level? I've seen enough of the old (American) Whose Line Is It, Anyway? to remember a few moments when Drew made some slightly off-color racial jokes with Wayne Brady. To Brady's credit, he managed to play them off as if they weren't a big deal -- and, I'm assuming, they weren't.
We've seen this evolution in TV commercials. At the moment, it's pretty much a given that, if the commercial involves a couple, it's only safe to make fun of the husband. Better yet, it's only safe to make fun of white guys as a bit buffonish. Maybe it's the legacy of Homer Simpson and Al Bundy, which underlined (but did not incite, for that ship had already sailed) the rise of the father as an object of ridicule and humor.
A decade ago, Drew Carey was the perfect whipping boy of sorts. He was a white male, fat, wealthy, had geeky glasses, a great fake-pissed off look, and an attitude that made it clear he was willing to be ridiculous. He even had the middle name Allison! He didn't take himself too seriously. And although not a gifted improviser, he made his relatively amateurish participation doubly hilarious by being adorably self-conscious about his lack of proficiency. It's fun to laugh at him in the same way that it's fun to laugh at Louis CK -- these are guys that look like the guys we could (and did) make fun of growing up. And yet it's fun to laugh with them because they have an underdog aura that makes us cheer when the boy does good.
I don't know what this means for Aisha Tyler and the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast. She enjoys the skits and the off-color jokes. But she does seem more like an audience member than a quasi-participant. There's no banter. What could they joke about? Youth? That's perhaps a safer bet than anything remotely touching gender or race, but even that could come across as looking chauvinistic -- the old men telling the young woman how the world really is.
Maybe they just don't know each other well enough. They are different generations. Aisha spent some time hosting, which, while not unrelated to sitcom/improv, is a different world. For similar reasons, maybe this is why Joe Rogan wouldn't be a great host for a comedy show, despite his career as a stand-up -- too much time doing other things in television, and hanging out with a social group far different from the improv/stand-up circuit.
It's also worth noting that the first American Whose Line show did start with a British host, later to be replaced by Drew Carey. Maybe every show needs a season or so to test things out and decide what works, and what doesn't.
Anyway, I will try to catch some more of the newer episodes. If I feel like it, maybe I'll tackle more of the differences between the previous and current incarnation, and speculate as to its success.
Like it or not, women are treated differently. I'm not completely sure why, but I can speculate. One reason is that we, the audience, expect women to be treated differently. Though collectively women and men are treated more similarly than in the past, there remains a clear difference in expectations by the audience.
Jokes at women's expense are not considered funny, and are often considered rude. (Wife jokes remain an exception.) When's the last time you've seen a commercial that made fun of the stupidity of a woman, versus a man? I'm not complaining about it -- just observing that, by and large, we feel far more comfortable in making (white) men the buffons now than in ridiculing a woman in an advertisement.
Of course, the expectations for what a woman can do comedically are different from what most think men can do. For whatever reasons, when Louis CK talks about how shitty his daughter is, it works. But if a female comic did the same, it seems... different. Is this my (and our collective) gender double-standard? Do I somehow need or require women to be more nurturing, loving, and less funny? I don't know. But I don't think that's the dominant factor here -- it has to do more with how the cast feels they can treat her, and not about our audience expectations.
I could be wrong -- I haven't checked out her comedy, and maybe she's really vulgar. Joe Rogan is hilariously filthy as a stand-up, but usually plays it straight as a TV host. Perhaps Tyler is getting pretty strict guidance from the producers about what is and is not acceptable.
Carol Burnett somehow managed to be really funny. I remember, as a kid, quite dimly, the Carol Burnett show. But she was perhaps helped by the fact that she was the star. Lucille Ball also was funny, though she did keep within the expectations of her time.
In any event, I'm inclined to think that a lot of the chemistry lacking between Aisha Tyler and the rest of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast has to do with uncertainty or discomfort about how much the cast can pick on her. They can't call her fat. They can't pan her for a terrible movie she starred in. She is attractive and bright. These old guys probably, if anything, instictively want to protect her, not put her up for ridicule. And even if they did poke fun at her, would it seem fair? Even if, intellectually, we believed she could take it, would we really, on an emotional level, find humor in older men making a joke at her expense?
I haven't even touched on race yet. Could Colin Mochrie or Ryan Stiles really make a joke about her and feel comfortable about it on a racial level? I've seen enough of the old (American) Whose Line Is It, Anyway? to remember a few moments when Drew made some slightly off-color racial jokes with Wayne Brady. To Brady's credit, he managed to play them off as if they weren't a big deal -- and, I'm assuming, they weren't.
We've seen this evolution in TV commercials. At the moment, it's pretty much a given that, if the commercial involves a couple, it's only safe to make fun of the husband. Better yet, it's only safe to make fun of white guys as a bit buffonish. Maybe it's the legacy of Homer Simpson and Al Bundy, which underlined (but did not incite, for that ship had already sailed) the rise of the father as an object of ridicule and humor.
A decade ago, Drew Carey was the perfect whipping boy of sorts. He was a white male, fat, wealthy, had geeky glasses, a great fake-pissed off look, and an attitude that made it clear he was willing to be ridiculous. He even had the middle name Allison! He didn't take himself too seriously. And although not a gifted improviser, he made his relatively amateurish participation doubly hilarious by being adorably self-conscious about his lack of proficiency. It's fun to laugh at him in the same way that it's fun to laugh at Louis CK -- these are guys that look like the guys we could (and did) make fun of growing up. And yet it's fun to laugh with them because they have an underdog aura that makes us cheer when the boy does good.
I don't know what this means for Aisha Tyler and the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast. She enjoys the skits and the off-color jokes. But she does seem more like an audience member than a quasi-participant. There's no banter. What could they joke about? Youth? That's perhaps a safer bet than anything remotely touching gender or race, but even that could come across as looking chauvinistic -- the old men telling the young woman how the world really is.
Maybe they just don't know each other well enough. They are different generations. Aisha spent some time hosting, which, while not unrelated to sitcom/improv, is a different world. For similar reasons, maybe this is why Joe Rogan wouldn't be a great host for a comedy show, despite his career as a stand-up -- too much time doing other things in television, and hanging out with a social group far different from the improv/stand-up circuit.
It's also worth noting that the first American Whose Line show did start with a British host, later to be replaced by Drew Carey. Maybe every show needs a season or so to test things out and decide what works, and what doesn't.
Anyway, I will try to catch some more of the newer episodes. If I feel like it, maybe I'll tackle more of the differences between the previous and current incarnation, and speculate as to its success.
Friday, March 8, 2013
teaching physics to high school students - a true story
I've told this story before. But it's good enough to immortalize.
I used to teach high school physics (in addition to six other subjects every day) at a private boarding school. It was a pretty rotten job for a number of reasons, though the students themselves were pretty funny. The vast majority were from mainland China, though we had a couple Koreans, a Russian, a Dane, and two Americans.
Even though nearly everyone was not from "here", certain aspects of humor seemed universal.
I was trying to teach some of my students about rotational motion. This is often cited as the most difficult part of mechanics, and, for some, the most difficult part of the entire course. It was an algebra-based course, so it didn't involve cool integrals of nonuniform shapes or utilize nonuniform densities. Everything was pretty boring -- a rectangular prism, a sphere, a rod, a disk, a hoop, a sphere, and, occasionally, a hollow sphere. (That reminds me - I should look into calculations for a right cone. That would probably blow my mind.)
I was explaining the different rates of speed achieved by different shapes. Because different objects have different moments of inertia (an expression for how the mass is distributed throughout the shape that affects rotation), they split their energy in different ways between translational motion (moving in linear direction) and rotational motion (spinning). So a disk, a sphere, and a hoop, all with the same radius and mass, will move down a ramp at different speeds because they have different moments of inertia.
I drew something like this:
Needless to say, as a first-year teacher, I was unprepared for the howls of laughter. I looked at this and saw the finishing order for a sphere (gray), a disk/cylinder/can, and a hoop.
They, of course, saw a cock and balls.
Atwood's machine was also troubling:
Anyway, I ended up putting the question involving rotational motion down a ramp for a sphere, a cylinder, and a hoop, all of mass M and radius R, on a quiz. One particularly lazy/uninspired student answered this question, and this one only. He answered it by drawing the picture above, eight times in the space provided for an answer.
What was I to do? He was technically right. So I gave him full credit. Besides, that was the only thing he had written on the quiz, and I didn't feel like handing out a zero that day. He still failed the quiz and the class.
The moral of the story: high school boys are very much the same across cultures.
I used to teach high school physics (in addition to six other subjects every day) at a private boarding school. It was a pretty rotten job for a number of reasons, though the students themselves were pretty funny. The vast majority were from mainland China, though we had a couple Koreans, a Russian, a Dane, and two Americans.
I was trying to teach some of my students about rotational motion. This is often cited as the most difficult part of mechanics, and, for some, the most difficult part of the entire course. It was an algebra-based course, so it didn't involve cool integrals of nonuniform shapes or utilize nonuniform densities. Everything was pretty boring -- a rectangular prism, a sphere, a rod, a disk, a hoop, a sphere, and, occasionally, a hollow sphere. (That reminds me - I should look into calculations for a right cone. That would probably blow my mind.)
I was explaining the different rates of speed achieved by different shapes. Because different objects have different moments of inertia (an expression for how the mass is distributed throughout the shape that affects rotation), they split their energy in different ways between translational motion (moving in linear direction) and rotational motion (spinning). So a disk, a sphere, and a hoop, all with the same radius and mass, will move down a ramp at different speeds because they have different moments of inertia.
I drew something like this:
Needless to say, as a first-year teacher, I was unprepared for the howls of laughter. I looked at this and saw the finishing order for a sphere (gray), a disk/cylinder/can, and a hoop.
Atwood's machine was also troubling:
Anyway, I ended up putting the question involving rotational motion down a ramp for a sphere, a cylinder, and a hoop, all of mass M and radius R, on a quiz. One particularly lazy/uninspired student answered this question, and this one only. He answered it by drawing the picture above, eight times in the space provided for an answer.
What was I to do? He was technically right. So I gave him full credit. Besides, that was the only thing he had written on the quiz, and I didn't feel like handing out a zero that day. He still failed the quiz and the class.
The moral of the story: high school boys are very much the same across cultures.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Sample of what goes on in my head
Stuff that goes on in my head
(Morning, going to pharmacy and tutoring appointment)
Gotta go pick up this medication, even though it doesn't work, because Mom will keep nagging me otherwise.
Sigh -- hope that student is ready to learn today.
Speaking of which, what do you need to learn?
I guess I could learn some more programming.
Ugh.
Do you still have that IDL book?
I bought a new one to replace my professor's.
Was he a dick that he didn't give you one outright?
I don't know. He did put his name on it. Maybe it was his?
But there were no notes inside. And you brought your own funding!
Fuck it -- I'm not revisiting this.
Well, what about programming?
Sigh... I probably do know IDL better than I think. Maybe I should pick up a good C++ book.
Do you want to teach?
Maybe. Gotta send out those CC applications.
Will they take you? You don't have any curriculum! No syllabi! No teaching experience!
Hey, fuck you. I'm supposed to be more positive now.
You know, a good course would revolve around the car.
Yeah, yeah, you've said this before.
Huh. I probably should study a bit about that. The engine could be modeled as some irreversible thermodynamic reaction.
Yeah, you need to figure out how to explicitly make the connections to other subjects.
And, uh, the, uh, steering wheel thingy--
Power steering, dumbass?
Shut up! Yeah, that. I guess you could use a rotational model involving some sort of frictional torque.
Have to be a function. A constant wouldn't work.
Yeah.
Speaking of mechanics, how about giving tensors another try?
I still don't really appreciate the difference between that and a matrix.
Yeah, that kind of makes you relatively retarded compared with other physicists.
Saul Teukolsky would say "retarded" when we were doing special relativity in Electrodynamics class.
*giggles*
Stop that! It's inappropriate.
What's inappropriate is that I'm still trying to pretend to be a physicist.
Well, until you decide to drop that mantle of legitimacy that you cling to like a chewed teat, you probably could afford to revisit them.
I still don't know how I passed GR senior year.
Or how you got an A in that fields class.
Yeah.
You know what was a good tensor? The antisymmetric tensor.
Yeah! That made cross-products a bit easier.
And Lambda, or whatever it was called, that was the four-dimensional tensor used to keep track of the sign differences when talking about time and space.
Yeah. Those were the Good Ones.
Yeah, that was before you got way in over your head with Gamma functions and other shit you didn't understand.
Again fuck you.
Cross-products? I gotta review magnetic fields.
Speaking of which, how awesome is it that Tesla's on currency?
Yeah, we'd never have a scientist on currency here.
Maybe Edison.
Exactly. Edison was an asshole.
Actually, you're assuming that based on what little you've read about Edison and Tesla.
I read enough.
Huh. Aunty referenced Washington's birthday yesterday. He was born in 1732, right?
February 22, 1732. Though it was recorded differently because they used some shitty weird Julian calendar during the Colonial era.
Yeah. Say, wasn't he put on the quarter in 1932?
Yeah. Come to think of it, Lincoln got put on in 1909, a hundred years after his birth.
What about FDR?
Not sure. And I don't know whether 1938 was a significant anniversary for Jefferson.
God, you WERE a coin nerd at one point.
Numismatist, please!
Do you think your FB friends would care enough to read about the transition on coins from Columbia to Presidents?
Do you think I care enough to research it?
Probably not. But it does look like some function whereby the time between when they were born/died and when they get their face on a coin decreases with time.
But what about Jefferson?
Oh, right. Forget about it.
Kennedy got a coin the year after his assassination.
Wonder how that was pushed through.
Oh, wait. We're here. Time to buy medicine.
(evening, going to Panera before another tutoring appointment)
Wow, that girl sitting outside is hot.
[redacted]
You're too old! Jesus.
What's the cutoff?
Berlin Wall.
What?
Die Schandmauer. Has to be born before it came down.
That's what... anyone over 24?
Yeah.
Sigh. I'm broke and out of shape, anyway.
Yes. Yes. That's why we can't have nice things. Go in, fucker.
(enters Panera)
Huh, this is the wrong entrance.
Where's the bathroom?
Huh, that's not the right one.
Damnit, that server totally thought you were awkwardly checking her out.
She was in the fucking way! Besides, I made extra sure to be looking over her head.
Are you always so self-conscious?
Shut up. Time to pee.
(Goes into restroom, pees)
Goddamn it, you didn't shake enough times!
You're not supposed to shake more than twice; otherwise you're playing with it.
Fuck that shit. You're getting older. You gotta hold and squeeze at least four times now.
Wonder if I've got prostate problems.
Fuck. Are you really gonna put this on your blog later?
Yeah, probably.
You're fucked up and an attention whore.
Thank god you're wearing black pants. Why'd you wear a suit today, anyway?
I don't know. I think I wanted to see how the haircut would look with a suit.
That's stupid. And you didn't get one.
Well, Eugene's Hair Salon was closed.
But you walked into that other place. What happened?
Well, they didn't have Time magazine.
So?
All they had was weird tattoo mags and other crap.
Wow, how classist of you.
Shut up. Besides, I thought about it, and I don't think either of the stylists there could cut Asian hair.
You're probably right. That's why you didn't go to the old Mexican guy that cusses, right?
Yeah. He cracks me up and he's cheap, but I get a few patches on the side.
That's because you've got a lumpy head.
Mom shouldn't have told me about those times I fell out of the high chair.
Make you self-conscious?
Well, what if it made a difference?
You're an idiot. Go order some food.
(gets in line)
Huh. What's that? Looks like a nameplate that says "Republic of El Salvador" on that table with those two youngish guys.
Weird. Model UN?
"Excuse me."
Oh, I'm in the way of someone carrying dishes.
Oh! She's incredibly hot!
[redacted]
I think I'm about to say something.
"Oh, sorry."
Ok. Done.
Wait!
Why am I about to say more things?
"Excuse me. Is there a Model UN going on here?"
What the hell are you doing!?
"Uh, what?"
You know what, that's probably a binder that you're viewing edgewise.
"You know, a model UN. I'm not sure myself. See that sign?"
That makes you kind of an idiot.
"What?"
"Er, never mind. I'll ask them myself."
(she smiles, and walks away)
What the hell was that shit?
Uh, I don't know.
Did you have to act like a blathering idiot in front of an attractive woman?
Does it matter that she was an attractive woman? It was weird to say anyway.
Oh, well, THAT justifies it.
Shut up. Do you care about that name tag anymore?
No. Do you?
No.
Besides, who the fuck doesn't know about Model UN? Fuck her!
You barely did it in high school, fucker. Maybe she didn't do it.
Maybe I didn't enunciate.
WHO THE FUCK CARES?
MAKE BABIES
NOT WITH HER
Ok, I'm done.
Good, because you've done enough weird shit already today.
Go sit down and write.
But I haven't bought anything yet.
Fuck it. I need to get out of this line.
(Morning, going to pharmacy and tutoring appointment)
Gotta go pick up this medication, even though it doesn't work, because Mom will keep nagging me otherwise.
Sigh -- hope that student is ready to learn today.
Speaking of which, what do you need to learn?
I guess I could learn some more programming.
Ugh.
Do you still have that IDL book?
I bought a new one to replace my professor's.
Was he a dick that he didn't give you one outright?
I don't know. He did put his name on it. Maybe it was his?
But there were no notes inside. And you brought your own funding!
Fuck it -- I'm not revisiting this.
Well, what about programming?
Sigh... I probably do know IDL better than I think. Maybe I should pick up a good C++ book.
Do you want to teach?
Maybe. Gotta send out those CC applications.
Will they take you? You don't have any curriculum! No syllabi! No teaching experience!
Hey, fuck you. I'm supposed to be more positive now.
You know, a good course would revolve around the car.
Yeah, yeah, you've said this before.
Huh. I probably should study a bit about that. The engine could be modeled as some irreversible thermodynamic reaction.
Yeah, you need to figure out how to explicitly make the connections to other subjects.
And, uh, the, uh, steering wheel thingy--
Power steering, dumbass?
Shut up! Yeah, that. I guess you could use a rotational model involving some sort of frictional torque.
Have to be a function. A constant wouldn't work.
Yeah.
Speaking of mechanics, how about giving tensors another try?
I still don't really appreciate the difference between that and a matrix.
Yeah, that kind of makes you relatively retarded compared with other physicists.
Saul Teukolsky would say "retarded" when we were doing special relativity in Electrodynamics class.
*giggles*
Stop that! It's inappropriate.
What's inappropriate is that I'm still trying to pretend to be a physicist.
Well, until you decide to drop that mantle of legitimacy that you cling to like a chewed teat, you probably could afford to revisit them.
I still don't know how I passed GR senior year.
Or how you got an A in that fields class.
Yeah.
You know what was a good tensor? The antisymmetric tensor.
Yeah! That made cross-products a bit easier.
And Lambda, or whatever it was called, that was the four-dimensional tensor used to keep track of the sign differences when talking about time and space.
Yeah. Those were the Good Ones.
Yeah, that was before you got way in over your head with Gamma functions and other shit you didn't understand.
Again fuck you.
Cross-products? I gotta review magnetic fields.
Speaking of which, how awesome is it that Tesla's on currency?
Yeah, we'd never have a scientist on currency here.
Maybe Edison.
Exactly. Edison was an asshole.
Actually, you're assuming that based on what little you've read about Edison and Tesla.
I read enough.
Huh. Aunty referenced Washington's birthday yesterday. He was born in 1732, right?
February 22, 1732. Though it was recorded differently because they used some shitty weird Julian calendar during the Colonial era.
Yeah. Say, wasn't he put on the quarter in 1932?
Yeah. Come to think of it, Lincoln got put on in 1909, a hundred years after his birth.
What about FDR?
Not sure. And I don't know whether 1938 was a significant anniversary for Jefferson.
God, you WERE a coin nerd at one point.
Numismatist, please!
Do you think your FB friends would care enough to read about the transition on coins from Columbia to Presidents?
Do you think I care enough to research it?
Probably not. But it does look like some function whereby the time between when they were born/died and when they get their face on a coin decreases with time.
But what about Jefferson?
Oh, right. Forget about it.
Kennedy got a coin the year after his assassination.
Wonder how that was pushed through.
Oh, wait. We're here. Time to buy medicine.
(evening, going to Panera before another tutoring appointment)
Wow, that girl sitting outside is hot.
[redacted]
You're too old! Jesus.
What's the cutoff?
Berlin Wall.
What?
Die Schandmauer. Has to be born before it came down.
That's what... anyone over 24?
Yeah.
Sigh. I'm broke and out of shape, anyway.
Yes. Yes. That's why we can't have nice things. Go in, fucker.
(enters Panera)
Huh, this is the wrong entrance.
Where's the bathroom?
Huh, that's not the right one.
Damnit, that server totally thought you were awkwardly checking her out.
She was in the fucking way! Besides, I made extra sure to be looking over her head.
Are you always so self-conscious?
Shut up. Time to pee.
(Goes into restroom, pees)
Goddamn it, you didn't shake enough times!
You're not supposed to shake more than twice; otherwise you're playing with it.
Fuck that shit. You're getting older. You gotta hold and squeeze at least four times now.
Wonder if I've got prostate problems.
Fuck. Are you really gonna put this on your blog later?
Yeah, probably.
You're fucked up and an attention whore.
Thank god you're wearing black pants. Why'd you wear a suit today, anyway?
I don't know. I think I wanted to see how the haircut would look with a suit.
That's stupid. And you didn't get one.
Well, Eugene's Hair Salon was closed.
But you walked into that other place. What happened?
Well, they didn't have Time magazine.
So?
All they had was weird tattoo mags and other crap.
Wow, how classist of you.
Shut up. Besides, I thought about it, and I don't think either of the stylists there could cut Asian hair.
You're probably right. That's why you didn't go to the old Mexican guy that cusses, right?
Yeah. He cracks me up and he's cheap, but I get a few patches on the side.
That's because you've got a lumpy head.
Mom shouldn't have told me about those times I fell out of the high chair.
Make you self-conscious?
Well, what if it made a difference?
You're an idiot. Go order some food.
(gets in line)
Huh. What's that? Looks like a nameplate that says "Republic of El Salvador" on that table with those two youngish guys.
Weird. Model UN?
"Excuse me."
Oh, I'm in the way of someone carrying dishes.
Oh! She's incredibly hot!
[redacted]
I think I'm about to say something.
"Oh, sorry."
Ok. Done.
Wait!
Why am I about to say more things?
"Excuse me. Is there a Model UN going on here?"
What the hell are you doing!?
"Uh, what?"
You know what, that's probably a binder that you're viewing edgewise.
"You know, a model UN. I'm not sure myself. See that sign?"
That makes you kind of an idiot.
"What?"
"Er, never mind. I'll ask them myself."
(she smiles, and walks away)
What the hell was that shit?
Uh, I don't know.
Did you have to act like a blathering idiot in front of an attractive woman?
Does it matter that she was an attractive woman? It was weird to say anyway.
Oh, well, THAT justifies it.
Shut up. Do you care about that name tag anymore?
No. Do you?
No.
Besides, who the fuck doesn't know about Model UN? Fuck her!
You barely did it in high school, fucker. Maybe she didn't do it.
Maybe I didn't enunciate.
WHO THE FUCK CARES?
MAKE BABIES
NOT WITH HER
Ok, I'm done.
Good, because you've done enough weird shit already today.
Go sit down and write.
But I haven't bought anything yet.
Fuck it. I need to get out of this line.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Shitty dates
I've told people these stories in person, but never typed them out.
I haven't really "dated" much. I've hooked up a couple times, or met people in other contexts. But actual "dates" just don't work for me. In case you're wondering, I have had some good dates. But they're a lot less fun to talk about, and sometimes involved me being the only party aware that it was a date.
I've gone on dates with a diplomat, who, oddly enough, was a terrible conversationalist -- the kind of person who would be content to eat dinner in complete silence, which is what would happen if you didn't occasionally attempt to offer a humorous anecdote, or inquire into their life, or do anything to mask the giant sucking sound that is all the atmosphere and energy being vacuumed to a place with people who actually care about living. I tried going on a date twice with this woman, who, on top of it all, was probably 50 pounds underweight and had weird acne scars all over her face. Maybe that makes me superficial, but when there's no fucking substance, superficial is all you got.
And I think I've mentioned my first and last attempt at dating via OkCupid. I chatted with someone and bounced a few emails back and forth. We set up a date. I drove an hour to meet her in small-town Upstate New York. The first thing I noticed when I picked her up was that she was at least a hundred pounds heavier than I expected, based on her significantly outdated profile pictures. But, as I had foolishly believed myself an old-school gentleman, I accepted immediately that this wasn't a problem, and took her to an Italian place. I ate some really shitty spaghetti, though, to be fair, the shittiniess of the spaghetti might have been due to the fact that I was learning all about her incredibly depressing life. I learned that her family was shit; her school was shit; her friends were shit; her ex-boyfriend was shit; her computer was shit. I tried to make her feel better, but at a certain point I nearly choked on a shit meatball in order to prevent myself from laughing at the absurdity of the avalanche of shit I was hearing on a first date in a town that was ground-zero of a shit bomb of Rust Belt capital flight.
At the end of it all, she asked to borrow a hundred bucks. And yes, I gave it to her, because I felt sorry for her. When I tell this story, I often lie about this bit in the story, as some of my friends will give me tremendous amounts of shit if they know that I actually agreed to her request. Well, now you know that I've got a rescue complex AND I'm a liar.
That, by the way, wasn't the worst date I've had.
This is.
***
I met a girl at a party. She was a PhD student in English -- which should have been enough of a flag, but either I knew less about that particular career path, or I was drunk on mulled wine and didn't give a fuck. Being me, I tried to impress her with my surface knowledge of Yeats and other poems/novels, because I'm an idiot and my benchmark for well-readness is "I read a couple books in addition to the required reading in K-12 education over the course of my lifetime." As it turns out, she was more interested in the fact I was an astronomer because she was a sci-fi dork. We went outside to chat -- I still remember one of my friends saying "goodbye" to me in the knowing way that indicated he thought I was going to go home with her and didn't potentially prevent me from making the worst mistake of my life. Asshole. Well, I didn't, and that turned out to be A Good Thing. We exchanged numbers, and I promised to call in the morning.
I picked her up in the morning, and the first thing I notice is that she was... well, not that pretty in the face. Or anywhere else. Hate to say it, but she had a bit of a Helen Thomas vibe about her, though in fairness to the disgraced doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, Helen Thomas is fucking old. Again, I blamed the wine for this predicament. But, again, I thought that the cover doesn't matter so much, and that as long as we got along well, everything would work out. (How goddamn noble of me.)
We went to a hippie coffeeshop -- Gimme! Coffee, for you Ithaca folks, and sat down.
I know that rules of etiquette generally dictate that politics, religion, and money are off-limits in polite conversation. (Probably should probably add sex to that list, especially on a first date.) But, naif that I was, I thought that it shouldn't really matter. Besides, we're talking about me. What the hell else am I going to talk about? The 2006 analogue to Kim Kardashian?
So, we talked politics. It was early 2006. George W. Bush was president at the time, and Ithaca was, and remains, a pretty liberal community. (This, despitethe fact that Cornell gave birth to a lot of the famous neoconservatives. Ann Coulter is a fucking feather in your cap, second-tier Ivy League.)
I forget what we were discussing precisely, but she was going off on some predictable and not-very-nuanced-or-deep rant about Bush and the Iraq War. One of the few things I hate more than conservative pablum is liberal pablum, mostly because I expect better of fellow lefties. Don't worry -- that belief and the belief in being a gentleman have long gone, no doubt replaced by other, more dangerous cognitive biases.
But, all of a sudden, she had to reaffirm her solid support of Israel. (She was Jewish, and had visited Israel as part of that program that helps fund young Jews abroad to visit.) She started saying some pretty bigoted things about Muslims. I asked for clarification using a hypothetical situation, in which she made it clear that she'd feel uncomfortable about law-abiding Saudi doctors living on her street.
Ooookay, I thought. No, that's a lie. I really thought, "What the FUCK is this person saying? How the FUCK did I end up with some sort of weird selective wingnut?"
I tried to deflect. I started a discussion about family. I happen to have a cousin I cared about (and still care about, even though we disagree on a HUGE range of policy issues) who studied engineering in college, but ended up dropping out as a junior to go to a Bible college and become a youth leader/minister. This immediately triggered a tirade about Christianity -- even though I had made it clear that I loved this cousin and respected his choice. Again, pablum. Also -- what the fuck? I just said someone close to me chose this path. Were you even listening? Was she really a prototype of some sort of chat bot, scanning for keywords, going into an automatic program once one was said? Is she what's on the other side of those chatbots that try to convince me to join a porn website? Gross.
Now, I'm used to defending Christianity. I'm used to defending science. Maybe all that defending will make me defensive. I was about to prepare what I hoped would be a nuanced rebuttal that didn't involve me getting my nuts violently ripped off my body. But I didn't get a chance to do so, as things were About To Get Interesting.
A fortysomething woman came over to our table, and interrupted politely. "Excuse me. I just happened to be sitting there overhearing this conversation. I'm an ex-Catholic myself. But I just came back from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I met a lot of wonderful people who were deeply religious, and even though I didn't share their beliefs, we found some common ground and were able to do some wonderful things. Really, I think you should stop talking, because this is representative of what is wrong in America right now."
I believe this is a very accurate rendering of what she said. I should know because my dawning awareness of this crowning moment of awesome seared this into my consciousness like the explosion of a million suns. (Or technically a million 8 solar mass stars. Because stars like our Sun don't explode. Unless you count the evaporation of the outer hydrogen layers in late stellar evolution as an explosion. Back to the story.)
There was silence. I think I said something about how I know plenty of awesome ex-Catholics. She smiled, and excused her self.
Now, if you've been following the narrative, you might have caught that my date hadn't responded to what, I would have to say, was a very pleasant-looking woman with lovely salt-and-pepper hair. So guess what my date did then?
She responded. To me.
"Well... well... I just wish she would have given me a chance to say what I think!"
And so I got to hear what she thought.
Instantly, my thoughts went back to first grade. It was in first grade that I became interested in the volcanoes of the world. Did you know that Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano on Earth?
I sat there, and honestly don't remember what she was saying. But about a minute or two in, she paused, and said,
"You're grimacing."
I did that check that one does to sort of gain better kinesthetic awareness of my face without physically touching or moving said face to determine if she was correct. She was. But, being polite (or scared), I decided to play it off.
"Grimacing?", I asked rhetorically, grimacing. "I'm not grimacing! This is just how I look when I smile."
I can't believe she bought it, but I suppose she wanted to run along with whatever she was babbling about.
I also can't believe I faked having an ugly smile to cowardly dodge whatever the hell awaited me if I did have to explain that I was grimacing at the sheer volume of incoherent worthlessness emerging from the bowels of her distended face.
At some point, I overheard some employees, on break, in a nearby booth. One pointed his foot in our direction, and muttered something about "having a When Harry Met Sally moment". Haven't seen the movie, but I imagine it has to do with some date awkwardness. May need to check it out at some point.
Also, fuck you, employees, for your isolationist stance. I was in need of armed intervention, and you did nothing. Where's Wilsonianism when you need it?
Obviously, somewhere in this process, I seriously wondered why I hadn't followed that other woman out the door, even if she was older than me by at least 20 years. She even looked better than my date.
After all that, we went walking around in the snow. I don't think I offered my arm, but she took it, and I didn't recoil in horror. Again, I was afecking eedjit masochist gentleman. I don't remember what was being discussed -- we stumbled by the planet walk, and after the clusterfuck of other conversations, I was tremendously relieved to be talking -- talking! without histrionic interruptions! -- about boring things like Mars.
She thought it was a great date, and kissed me on the cheek good night. Contrary to expectations, it didn't leave the Mark of the Beast.
I didn't schedule a second date. At some point, she did contact me via AIM; we had a brief conversation that ended up with her arguing with me when I was trying to agree with her -- probably something about the unemployability of English PhDs.
It was as if Fate was making absolutely sure that I knew that, no matter how lonely, or horny, I got, I was not to go anywhere near her again.
Anyway, with the passage of years, I found some pity in my heart for her. For life is not going to be particularly kind to a physically ugly, emotionally unstable, abrasive, bigoted, narrow-minded English PhD.
I'm also grateful because I've gotten far more joy retelling this story, to the amusement of my friends, than I would have ever gotten dating her.
If you're out there, lady, I hope you've become a better person. But failing that, fuck you for ruining mulled wine and Irish poetry for me.
I haven't really "dated" much. I've hooked up a couple times, or met people in other contexts. But actual "dates" just don't work for me. In case you're wondering, I have had some good dates. But they're a lot less fun to talk about, and sometimes involved me being the only party aware that it was a date.
I've gone on dates with a diplomat, who, oddly enough, was a terrible conversationalist -- the kind of person who would be content to eat dinner in complete silence, which is what would happen if you didn't occasionally attempt to offer a humorous anecdote, or inquire into their life, or do anything to mask the giant sucking sound that is all the atmosphere and energy being vacuumed to a place with people who actually care about living. I tried going on a date twice with this woman, who, on top of it all, was probably 50 pounds underweight and had weird acne scars all over her face. Maybe that makes me superficial, but when there's no fucking substance, superficial is all you got.
And I think I've mentioned my first and last attempt at dating via OkCupid. I chatted with someone and bounced a few emails back and forth. We set up a date. I drove an hour to meet her in small-town Upstate New York. The first thing I noticed when I picked her up was that she was at least a hundred pounds heavier than I expected, based on her significantly outdated profile pictures. But, as I had foolishly believed myself an old-school gentleman, I accepted immediately that this wasn't a problem, and took her to an Italian place. I ate some really shitty spaghetti, though, to be fair, the shittiniess of the spaghetti might have been due to the fact that I was learning all about her incredibly depressing life. I learned that her family was shit; her school was shit; her friends were shit; her ex-boyfriend was shit; her computer was shit. I tried to make her feel better, but at a certain point I nearly choked on a shit meatball in order to prevent myself from laughing at the absurdity of the avalanche of shit I was hearing on a first date in a town that was ground-zero of a shit bomb of Rust Belt capital flight.
At the end of it all, she asked to borrow a hundred bucks. And yes, I gave it to her, because I felt sorry for her. When I tell this story, I often lie about this bit in the story, as some of my friends will give me tremendous amounts of shit if they know that I actually agreed to her request. Well, now you know that I've got a rescue complex AND I'm a liar.
That, by the way, wasn't the worst date I've had.
This is.
***
I met a girl at a party. She was a PhD student in English -- which should have been enough of a flag, but either I knew less about that particular career path, or I was drunk on mulled wine and didn't give a fuck. Being me, I tried to impress her with my surface knowledge of Yeats and other poems/novels, because I'm an idiot and my benchmark for well-readness is "I read a couple books in addition to the required reading in K-12 education over the course of my lifetime." As it turns out, she was more interested in the fact I was an astronomer because she was a sci-fi dork. We went outside to chat -- I still remember one of my friends saying "goodbye" to me in the knowing way that indicated he thought I was going to go home with her and didn't potentially prevent me from making the worst mistake of my life. Asshole. Well, I didn't, and that turned out to be A Good Thing. We exchanged numbers, and I promised to call in the morning.
I picked her up in the morning, and the first thing I notice is that she was... well, not that pretty in the face. Or anywhere else. Hate to say it, but she had a bit of a Helen Thomas vibe about her, though in fairness to the disgraced doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, Helen Thomas is fucking old. Again, I blamed the wine for this predicament. But, again, I thought that the cover doesn't matter so much, and that as long as we got along well, everything would work out. (How goddamn noble of me.)
We went to a hippie coffeeshop -- Gimme! Coffee, for you Ithaca folks, and sat down.
I know that rules of etiquette generally dictate that politics, religion, and money are off-limits in polite conversation. (Probably should probably add sex to that list, especially on a first date.) But, naif that I was, I thought that it shouldn't really matter. Besides, we're talking about me. What the hell else am I going to talk about? The 2006 analogue to Kim Kardashian?
So, we talked politics. It was early 2006. George W. Bush was president at the time, and Ithaca was, and remains, a pretty liberal community. (This, despitethe fact that Cornell gave birth to a lot of the famous neoconservatives. Ann Coulter is a fucking feather in your cap, second-tier Ivy League.)
I forget what we were discussing precisely, but she was going off on some predictable and not-very-nuanced-or-deep rant about Bush and the Iraq War. One of the few things I hate more than conservative pablum is liberal pablum, mostly because I expect better of fellow lefties. Don't worry -- that belief and the belief in being a gentleman have long gone, no doubt replaced by other, more dangerous cognitive biases.
But, all of a sudden, she had to reaffirm her solid support of Israel. (She was Jewish, and had visited Israel as part of that program that helps fund young Jews abroad to visit.) She started saying some pretty bigoted things about Muslims. I asked for clarification using a hypothetical situation, in which she made it clear that she'd feel uncomfortable about law-abiding Saudi doctors living on her street.
Ooookay, I thought. No, that's a lie. I really thought, "What the FUCK is this person saying? How the FUCK did I end up with some sort of weird selective wingnut?"
I tried to deflect. I started a discussion about family. I happen to have a cousin I cared about (and still care about, even though we disagree on a HUGE range of policy issues) who studied engineering in college, but ended up dropping out as a junior to go to a Bible college and become a youth leader/minister. This immediately triggered a tirade about Christianity -- even though I had made it clear that I loved this cousin and respected his choice. Again, pablum. Also -- what the fuck? I just said someone close to me chose this path. Were you even listening? Was she really a prototype of some sort of chat bot, scanning for keywords, going into an automatic program once one was said? Is she what's on the other side of those chatbots that try to convince me to join a porn website? Gross.
Now, I'm used to defending Christianity. I'm used to defending science. Maybe all that defending will make me defensive. I was about to prepare what I hoped would be a nuanced rebuttal that didn't involve me getting my nuts violently ripped off my body. But I didn't get a chance to do so, as things were About To Get Interesting.
A fortysomething woman came over to our table, and interrupted politely. "Excuse me. I just happened to be sitting there overhearing this conversation. I'm an ex-Catholic myself. But I just came back from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I met a lot of wonderful people who were deeply religious, and even though I didn't share their beliefs, we found some common ground and were able to do some wonderful things. Really, I think you should stop talking, because this is representative of what is wrong in America right now."
I believe this is a very accurate rendering of what she said. I should know because my dawning awareness of this crowning moment of awesome seared this into my consciousness like the explosion of a million suns. (Or technically a million 8 solar mass stars. Because stars like our Sun don't explode. Unless you count the evaporation of the outer hydrogen layers in late stellar evolution as an explosion. Back to the story.)
There was silence. I think I said something about how I know plenty of awesome ex-Catholics. She smiled, and excused her self.
Now, if you've been following the narrative, you might have caught that my date hadn't responded to what, I would have to say, was a very pleasant-looking woman with lovely salt-and-pepper hair. So guess what my date did then?
She responded. To me.
"Well... well... I just wish she would have given me a chance to say what I think!"
And so I got to hear what she thought.
Instantly, my thoughts went back to first grade. It was in first grade that I became interested in the volcanoes of the world. Did you know that Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano on Earth?
I sat there, and honestly don't remember what she was saying. But about a minute or two in, she paused, and said,
"You're grimacing."
I did that check that one does to sort of gain better kinesthetic awareness of my face without physically touching or moving said face to determine if she was correct. She was. But, being polite (or scared), I decided to play it off.
"Grimacing?", I asked rhetorically, grimacing. "I'm not grimacing! This is just how I look when I smile."
I can't believe she bought it, but I suppose she wanted to run along with whatever she was babbling about.
I also can't believe I faked having an ugly smile to cowardly dodge whatever the hell awaited me if I did have to explain that I was grimacing at the sheer volume of incoherent worthlessness emerging from the bowels of her distended face.
At some point, I overheard some employees, on break, in a nearby booth. One pointed his foot in our direction, and muttered something about "having a When Harry Met Sally moment". Haven't seen the movie, but I imagine it has to do with some date awkwardness. May need to check it out at some point.
Also, fuck you, employees, for your isolationist stance. I was in need of armed intervention, and you did nothing. Where's Wilsonianism when you need it?
Obviously, somewhere in this process, I seriously wondered why I hadn't followed that other woman out the door, even if she was older than me by at least 20 years. She even looked better than my date.
After all that, we went walking around in the snow. I don't think I offered my arm, but she took it, and I didn't recoil in horror. Again, I was a
She thought it was a great date, and kissed me on the cheek good night. Contrary to expectations, it didn't leave the Mark of the Beast.
I didn't schedule a second date. At some point, she did contact me via AIM; we had a brief conversation that ended up with her arguing with me when I was trying to agree with her -- probably something about the unemployability of English PhDs.
It was as if Fate was making absolutely sure that I knew that, no matter how lonely, or horny, I got, I was not to go anywhere near her again.
Anyway, with the passage of years, I found some pity in my heart for her. For life is not going to be particularly kind to a physically ugly, emotionally unstable, abrasive, bigoted, narrow-minded English PhD.
I'm also grateful because I've gotten far more joy retelling this story, to the amusement of my friends, than I would have ever gotten dating her.
If you're out there, lady, I hope you've become a better person. But failing that, fuck you for ruining mulled wine and Irish poetry for me.
Friday, January 11, 2013
The history of cheating at cards: FDR and the war
(From No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, p. 159-160)
The 76th Congress had been a tumultuous gathering. So trying were the conditions, observers noted, that, just after the final House vote on conscription, Speaker William B. Bankhead died of a stroke. (He was replaced by Sam Rayburn of Texas.) But in the end, despite the blunders, divisions, and dillydallying, the Congress had granted the president the legislation he needed to begin the process of mobilization, and with it the revitalization of the American economy after a decade of depression.
It was the president's custom each year on the night that Congress was due to adjourn to host a poker game in his study. The game would begin in the early evening, and then whoever was ahead at the moment the Speaker called to say that Congress had officially adjourned would be declared the winner. On this night, Morgenthau was far ahead when the Speaker phoned, but Roosevelt pretended that the call was from someone else and the game continued until midnight, when Roosevelt finally pulled ahead. At this point, Roosevelt whispered to an aide to go into another office and call the study. When the phone rang, he pretended it was the Speaker and declared himself the winner. Everyone was in high spirits until the next morning, when Morgenthau read in the paper that the Congress had officially adjourned at 9 p.m. He was so angry that he handed in his resignation. Only when the president called and convinced him that it was all in good fun did Morgenthau agree to stay. Morgenthau should have realized that Roosevelt was not above a little deception if it helped him win his bets!
The 76th Congress had been a tumultuous gathering. So trying were the conditions, observers noted, that, just after the final House vote on conscription, Speaker William B. Bankhead died of a stroke. (He was replaced by Sam Rayburn of Texas.) But in the end, despite the blunders, divisions, and dillydallying, the Congress had granted the president the legislation he needed to begin the process of mobilization, and with it the revitalization of the American economy after a decade of depression.
It was the president's custom each year on the night that Congress was due to adjourn to host a poker game in his study. The game would begin in the early evening, and then whoever was ahead at the moment the Speaker called to say that Congress had officially adjourned would be declared the winner. On this night, Morgenthau was far ahead when the Speaker phoned, but Roosevelt pretended that the call was from someone else and the game continued until midnight, when Roosevelt finally pulled ahead. At this point, Roosevelt whispered to an aide to go into another office and call the study. When the phone rang, he pretended it was the Speaker and declared himself the winner. Everyone was in high spirits until the next morning, when Morgenthau read in the paper that the Congress had officially adjourned at 9 p.m. He was so angry that he handed in his resignation. Only when the president called and convinced him that it was all in good fun did Morgenthau agree to stay. Morgenthau should have realized that Roosevelt was not above a little deception if it helped him win his bets!
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Lawyer Humor
A conversation I had with a church patriarch/lawyer and his lawyer daughter.
Me: When are you going to do yours?
Dad lawyer: My efforts to convey humor in the courtroom have not been well received. The one time I did, the judge said, "Humor does not flow to the bench. Humor flows from it."
Me: I would have responded that something else typically flows from the bench.
Daughter lawyer: That's a given.
Monday, December 24, 2012
'Twas the Night Before Cliffmas
'Twas the night before Cliffmas, when all through the House
Not a creature was stirring, not even a louse.
The committees, hamstrung by the dimwits' despair,
In hope that St. Norquist wouldn't be there.
Cantor and Price nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Speakership danced in their heads.
Obama with Blackberry, and Reid with his trap
Had just settled their brains for this partisan crap.
When out in the markets there arose such a clatter,
Traders sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the terminal those trades like a flash,
Tore open the pensions and burned up our cash.
Lobbyists on the breast of the Washington ho
Gave the lusty noon quickie to citizens below.
When, what to their wandering eyes should appear,
But a sleigh of hand, and eight shifty financiers.
With a little old driver, so frothy and sick
I knew in a moment it must be that prick.
More rapid than vultures his backers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.
Now Adelson! Now Scaife! Now Perry! Now Koch!
Now Perenchio! Now Rowling! Now Griffin! Now Loeb!
To the top of the donors! With unmitigated gall!
Now go to hell! Go to hell! Go to hell all!
As vomit flows before the pissed drunk heaves dry,
When they meet with an obstacle, they mount an ad buy.
So up to the House top the donors they flew,
With the sleigh full of pledges, and St. Norquist too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on Fox news
The prancing and pawing of each of those spews.
As I threw up my lunch, and was turning around,
Down the Beltway St. Norquist came with much sound.
He was dressed all in fire, from his head to the sod
And his sickle all crusted by moderate blood.
A bundle of pledges he had flung on his back
And he looked like a dickhead, and spoke through his crack.
His eyes how they frowned! his donors how scary!
His cheeks were like Brillo, his body like (old) Drew Carey!
His mad little mouth was drawn with some words
And the spittle of his chin was as white as bird turds.
The stump of a dogma he held tight in his teeth
And the smoke it encircled policy like a wreath.
He had a mad face and a hatred of babies
And shook when he raged, like a raccoon with rabies.
He was chubby and plump, a right prickish old git
And I cried when I saw him, and my pants did I shit.
A twitch of his eye and a twist of some heads
Soon gave me to know all had much to dread.
He spoke tons of words--would his plan work?
And filled all the op-eds, and threw bombs like a jerk.
And laying his knives aside the country's throat
And giving a nod, on Sunday shows to gloat!
He sprang to his perch, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the screeching Nazgul.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Cliffmas to the poor, and to all, FUCK YOU, I'M RIGHT!"
Not a creature was stirring, not even a louse.
The committees, hamstrung by the dimwits' despair,
In hope that St. Norquist wouldn't be there.
Cantor and Price nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Speakership danced in their heads.
Obama with Blackberry, and Reid with his trap
Had just settled their brains for this partisan crap.
When out in the markets there arose such a clatter,
Traders sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the terminal those trades like a flash,
Tore open the pensions and burned up our cash.
Lobbyists on the breast of the Washington ho
Gave the lusty noon quickie to citizens below.
When, what to their wandering eyes should appear,
But a sleigh of hand, and eight shifty financiers.
With a little old driver, so frothy and sick
I knew in a moment it must be that prick.
More rapid than vultures his backers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.
Now Adelson! Now Scaife! Now Perry! Now Koch!
Now Perenchio! Now Rowling! Now Griffin! Now Loeb!
To the top of the donors! With unmitigated gall!
Now go to hell! Go to hell! Go to hell all!
As vomit flows before the pissed drunk heaves dry,
When they meet with an obstacle, they mount an ad buy.
So up to the House top the donors they flew,
With the sleigh full of pledges, and St. Norquist too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on Fox news
The prancing and pawing of each of those spews.
As I threw up my lunch, and was turning around,
Down the Beltway St. Norquist came with much sound.
He was dressed all in fire, from his head to the sod
And his sickle all crusted by moderate blood.
A bundle of pledges he had flung on his back
And he looked like a dickhead, and spoke through his crack.
His eyes how they frowned! his donors how scary!
His cheeks were like Brillo, his body like (old) Drew Carey!
His mad little mouth was drawn with some words
And the spittle of his chin was as white as bird turds.
The stump of a dogma he held tight in his teeth
And the smoke it encircled policy like a wreath.
He had a mad face and a hatred of babies
And shook when he raged, like a raccoon with rabies.
He was chubby and plump, a right prickish old git
And I cried when I saw him, and my pants did I shit.
A twitch of his eye and a twist of some heads
Soon gave me to know all had much to dread.
He spoke tons of words--would his plan work?
And filled all the op-eds, and threw bombs like a jerk.
And laying his knives aside the country's throat
And giving a nod, on Sunday shows to gloat!
He sprang to his perch, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the screeching Nazgul.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Cliffmas to the poor, and to all, FUCK YOU, I'M RIGHT!"
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
"I Voted" sticker variants
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| The classic version, good for discounted booze, a sugar cookie, and discounted oysters if you live in the Los Angeles area. |
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| Sadly, I was beat to the creative punch by about four years by this guy. But it inspired the next sixteen. |
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| True story. |
18 stickers, one for each electoral vote Ohio is using to hold the entire country hostage. Have fun today!
Friday, November 2, 2012
How I engaged in voter coercion
I was nine years old when I first "voted". It was 1992, and H. Ross Perot was shaking up the political establishment with his funny ears and his aggressive, detailed critiques in his infomercial ads. I liked him, and I encouraged Mom to vote for him. I went in with her to the booth, and made sure she voted Perot.
When I was 13, I enjoyed watching Norm MacDonald play Bob Dole on Saturday Night Live. In particular, there's a skit about Bob Dole living in the "Real World" house. Sadly, the clip appears to be lost and not on the Internets, but here's a transcript.
Bob Dole: Who the hell ate my peanut butter?! Peanut butter!
Chris: I guess I did. Why?
Bob Dole: Yeah, well, now it's gone! Next time, ask! Nobody eats Bob Dole's peanut butter without asking!
Chris: Whatever..
[ cut to Annabel summarizing the scene ]
Annabel: Bob needed to work on his "people skills"..
[ cut back to the scene ]
Bob Dole: You wanna chip in, that's a different story. Otherwise, keep your grubby hands out of Bob Dole's peanut butter! [ throws the empty jar across the floor ]
[ cut to Annabel summarizing the scene ]
Annabel: So I called a house meeting..
Needless to say, I pushed my mom to vote for Bob Dole in 1996.
So, there are two cases in which I coerced a Democratic, minority woman's vote and caused her to vote against her economic interest. I'm sorry.
When I was 13, I enjoyed watching Norm MacDonald play Bob Dole on Saturday Night Live. In particular, there's a skit about Bob Dole living in the "Real World" house. Sadly, the clip appears to be lost and not on the Internets, but here's a transcript.
Bob Dole: Who the hell ate my peanut butter?! Peanut butter!
Chris: I guess I did. Why?
Bob Dole: Yeah, well, now it's gone! Next time, ask! Nobody eats Bob Dole's peanut butter without asking!
Chris: Whatever..
[ cut to Annabel summarizing the scene ]
Annabel: Bob needed to work on his "people skills"..
[ cut back to the scene ]
Bob Dole: You wanna chip in, that's a different story. Otherwise, keep your grubby hands out of Bob Dole's peanut butter! [ throws the empty jar across the floor ]
[ cut to Annabel summarizing the scene ]
Annabel: So I called a house meeting..
Needless to say, I pushed my mom to vote for Bob Dole in 1996.
So, there are two cases in which I coerced a Democratic, minority woman's vote and caused her to vote against her economic interest. I'm sorry.
Monday, October 29, 2012
West Dorm, and why I'm owed around $17.
Update: It has been brought to my attention that the Class of 2004 would have graduated by the time I allegedly -- allegedly, mind you -- partook of these activities. Evidently, I was so shitfaced I failed to remember what year it happened.
Evan Cohick, humanitarian, human teddy bear, and general All-Round Good Guy, highlighted this article for me:
Huffpo: The Least Beautiful Campuses: Princeton Review List
The picture at the top of the story is of West dorm at Harvey Mudd College, my alma mater.
It looks pretty bad - and I wish I could say this was a particularly bad day. But, if anything, it is cleaner than I remember.
Story time kids! (Actual kids and young adults - this story is in no ways an endorsement of alcohol consumption or associated lapses in judgment/memory.)
West dorm is an interesting place. It single-handedly makes the correlation of alcohol/drug consumption and GPA positive, even counterbalancing North's contribution. (For those who don't know, four of our dorms are referred to by the names of a cardinal direction, roughly - very roughly - corresponding to their actual orientation. I feel slightly sorry to the people who donated real money for their names to appear on the side.)
During my time there, there was a party called 101, in which participants shoot a shot (1 oz.) of beer once a minute for 101 minutes. For those with rudimentary math skills - and even a drunk Mudder could divide by 12 - this is about 8 1/2 cans of beer. That's quite a lot, and not everyone goes the full way. For what it's worth, I believe Mudd has the fewest cases of alcohol poisoning, per capita, of the Claremont Colleges -- though this might also be a falsehood repeated to rationalize consumption.
Anyway, shortly before my graduation, I partook. I may or may not have been finished with my thesis, or a lengthy EU space policy paper I was working on, but I ended up getting both done before graduation thanks to Mountain Dew.
Whatever my academic state of affairs, I balked somewhat at the expense, per unit alcohol, of beer. I also hated most beers. So I hit upon the idea of buying a fifth of relatively cheap charcoal filtered vodka (Smirnoff, I think). Naturally, I wouldn't drink 101 shots of the stuff.
Needless to say, I started with a couple shots, and at some point abandoned the use of the paper cups altogether. My friend Jake may or may not have taken a swig off the bottle either. At some point I had a megaphone. I also may have kissed an almost certainly female classmate who was ridiculously out of my league -- though I may have dreamed that.
Anyway, I was absolutely shocked to find that my bottle of vodka was neither present in my room in Atwood (another dorm), nor in the courtyard next to the slightly singed, molding couch where I had started the evening.
I am willing to accept a pro-rated compensation for my lost spirits, and believe I am entitled to $17. I'm even correcting for inflation there. If it goes to arbitration, I would be willing to be compensated with a half-drunken bottle of vodka of comparable or superior quantity, as long as it was also accompanied by a messy make-out with someone substantially out of my league.
It is my hope we can reach an amicable settlement. Hopefully, a member of the class of 2004 will contact me in a timely manner.
Evan Cohick, humanitarian, human teddy bear, and general All-Round Good Guy, highlighted this article for me:
Huffpo: The Least Beautiful Campuses: Princeton Review List
The picture at the top of the story is of West dorm at Harvey Mudd College, my alma mater.
It looks pretty bad - and I wish I could say this was a particularly bad day. But, if anything, it is cleaner than I remember.
Story time kids! (Actual kids and young adults - this story is in no ways an endorsement of alcohol consumption or associated lapses in judgment/memory.)
West dorm is an interesting place. It single-handedly makes the correlation of alcohol/drug consumption and GPA positive, even counterbalancing North's contribution. (For those who don't know, four of our dorms are referred to by the names of a cardinal direction, roughly - very roughly - corresponding to their actual orientation. I feel slightly sorry to the people who donated real money for their names to appear on the side.)
During my time there, there was a party called 101, in which participants shoot a shot (1 oz.) of beer once a minute for 101 minutes. For those with rudimentary math skills - and even a drunk Mudder could divide by 12 - this is about 8 1/2 cans of beer. That's quite a lot, and not everyone goes the full way. For what it's worth, I believe Mudd has the fewest cases of alcohol poisoning, per capita, of the Claremont Colleges -- though this might also be a falsehood repeated to rationalize consumption.
Anyway, shortly before my graduation, I partook. I may or may not have been finished with my thesis, or a lengthy EU space policy paper I was working on, but I ended up getting both done before graduation thanks to Mountain Dew.
Whatever my academic state of affairs, I balked somewhat at the expense, per unit alcohol, of beer. I also hated most beers. So I hit upon the idea of buying a fifth of relatively cheap charcoal filtered vodka (Smirnoff, I think). Naturally, I wouldn't drink 101 shots of the stuff.
Needless to say, I started with a couple shots, and at some point abandoned the use of the paper cups altogether. My friend Jake may or may not have taken a swig off the bottle either. At some point I had a megaphone. I also may have kissed an almost certainly female classmate who was ridiculously out of my league -- though I may have dreamed that.
Anyway, I was absolutely shocked to find that my bottle of vodka was neither present in my room in Atwood (another dorm), nor in the courtyard next to the slightly singed, molding couch where I had started the evening.
I am willing to accept a pro-rated compensation for my lost spirits, and believe I am entitled to $17. I'm even correcting for inflation there. If it goes to arbitration, I would be willing to be compensated with a half-drunken bottle of vodka of comparable or superior quantity, as long as it was also accompanied by a messy make-out with someone substantially out of my league.
It is my hope we can reach an amicable settlement. Hopefully, a member of the class of 2004 will contact me in a timely manner.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Awkward facial expressions post VP debate
Joe Biden wasn't the only one with some interesting facial expressions tonight.
Jonathan Martin of Politico and Sam Youngman of Reuters discussed the VP debate with Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff at the PBS News Hour.
The analysis, as always, was informative. But I was struck by how young and green these guys appeared, even though they seem to have lots of experience covering politics. Were they just excited to be on PBS?
I know, I'm being shallow and petty, but I can't get over the awkwardness. Call it appreciation for kindred spirits.
Again, let me emphasize that I thought they did a great job. But I think there's some irony in the fact that two reporters covering a debate marked by facial awkwardness couldn't help but show some of their own. Honestly, it sometimes looked like a weird prom photo.
The whole video, worth watching is here. This particular segment begins at 9:47.
Jonathan Martin of Politico and Sam Youngman of Reuters discussed the VP debate with Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff at the PBS News Hour.
The analysis, as always, was informative. But I was struck by how young and green these guys appeared, even though they seem to have lots of experience covering politics. Were they just excited to be on PBS?
I know, I'm being shallow and petty, but I can't get over the awkwardness. Call it appreciation for kindred spirits.
Again, let me emphasize that I thought they did a great job. But I think there's some irony in the fact that two reporters covering a debate marked by facial awkwardness couldn't help but show some of their own. Honestly, it sometimes looked like a weird prom photo.
The whole video, worth watching is here. This particular segment begins at 9:47.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
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