I Glory in my Pathetic Principles

I've just spent 20 minutes bickering with American Express over an (outrageous! indefensible!) $4.05 charge they're trying to stick me with. Anna says I must enjoy this on some level. Maybe she's right.

They're sending up a special report to the back office over my $4.05. Should I derive satisfaction from wasting at least three corporate employees' billable time on this, or should I feel stupid for wasting my own?

---UPDATE----
They refunded my money. Score one for pointless bickering.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do (Part II)

So I called Tivo again (see my previous attempt). This time they're giving me three months of free service. Who wants to buy a Tivo with three months of free service and the second season of Weeds on it? I'll give you a good deal!

End of an Era

My friend Scott sent me some pictures of a shocking and graphic nature recently. Our alma mater has caved to aesthetic and popular pressure and finally decided to demolish the horrific dorms we lived in as freshmen and sophomores. Butler College, "the Butt," had several buildings dedicated to the university classes of 1939 - 1942. It was widely rumored that the construction was designed to make inmates--that is, residents--feel like they were in the middle of a concentration camp.

Ironically, the picture of demolition below is our actual room. We lived shared those five rooms as an 8-man suite my sophomore year. Oh, bright college days.

Great Moments in Criticism

Two zingers from the July 9 + 16 New Yorker:

Caplan is the sort of economist (are there others? there must be) who engages with the views of non-economists in the way a bulldozer would engage with a picket fence if a bulldozer could express glee.

At last [Michael Bay] has summoned the courage to admit that he has an exclusive crush on machines, and I congratulate him on creating, in "Transformers," his first truly honest work of art. Not that he needs my plaudits; as a passerby exclaims in the midst of the film, "This is easily a hundred times cooler than 'Armageddon'!" To be proud of your achievement is one thing, but to plant film critics inside your movie and review it favorably as you go along: that takes genius. Where it leaves, real critics--rusty old Concepticons, with failing firepower--I hate to think.

Interactive Fiction for All of Us

Digg has raised this Choose Your Own Adventure flash game to the top of the webosphere. It is brilliant.*

*Not suitable for those uncomfortable with depictions of women on a moral par with Italian daytime TV or for friends of the manticore.

Desperate measures in a time of illness

I’ve been feeling sick for the past couple of days, which (I feel) entitles me to certain privileges. For example, I no longer use my brain, choosing to operate in an ibuprofen-cushioned haze. Also, I’ve been sitting next to the radiator, and tea consumption is on a strong up-tick.

But the real issue here is crumpets. This morning, after hauling my sick ass out of bed for a long day of teaching and teaching-related activities, I ate the last two crumpets. The coffee wasn't ready yet. It was cold. I couldn’t breath through my nose. I felt good about my decision.

It turned out, statistically speaking, that I had eaten 75% of the crumpets, and that Anna had abstained from crumpets the day before (for reasons obscure to me) and was saving them for this morning. How was I to know?

Somehow, I was supposed to. The aftershocks of Crumpetgate continue to rock the gentle rhythms of our mid-week routine.

And what will I eat for breakfast now?

IKEA Walkthrough

It's probably just late but I found sections of this quite hilarious:

=============================================================
IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1

=============================================================
IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized.

The mysterious Californian Fall

I still find the weather out here a little unworldly. It's late October and I'm still tempted to wear shorts on many days. Back East this would be right around the time the first truly icy blasts would wend through the elms/urban canyons/Route 1 traffic, reminding me that the annual Stalingrad Campaign was just beginning.

And yet, oddly, there are moments of fall here. The occasional confused tree sheds leaves in exciting colors. Sometimes for a few hours in the evening the temperature to light ratio dips into the chill temperate zone and the smell of wood-smoke wafts from a neighbor's chimney.

Also, we live in the Amazing Uninsulated Apartment, so the cold-footed pleasures of winter awakening are available every morning. BYO slippers. In the summer, when the apartment was improbably hot instead of incomprehensibly cold, we got the maintenance guy to turn off the pilot light in our central gas heaters. So now there's no heat, until I either call up the landlord again or start poking around the gas lines myself with a lighter. Anyone who knows me knows what I'll try first...please give half of my inheritance to charity and blow the rest on a foam-themed disco roller party. I know I can count on you.

There is no point to this little ramble about the weather, except to mention that I find it alarming to live without the violent weather cues I'm used to. In my childhood monsoon season was a reliable indicator of the passing of time. The flooding and April snows of New Jersey worked the same way. Now the only indicator of change is the return of network television--subtler, and less likely to chap.

Well, at least it's an election year. I'm keeping my eyes open for November, fellow citizen Arnold. That's right--you work for me now.

My world of periodicals

Recently, the print media thing has been getting out of control. At least in our apartment, where we now receive The New Yorker, Wired, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, Smart Money, Cook's Magazine, and, last and least, the Graduate Student Council Newsletter.

This is a lot to read. In fact, it is a lot to recycle. Every time one arrives, Anna eyes them balefully as they lie in shrink-wrapped innocence on the kitchen table and threatens to light them on fire. Fearlessly, they persevere.

Not only is my world-view informed by these publications, it is defined by them because I don't have time to read or watch anything else. In a way, it's comforting to have a huge stack of reading material lying around. I always associated piles like that with well-informed people and--oddly--horn-rimmed glasses. And yet, there's the pile every night, staring you in the face, asking you when you're going to take on the pressing high-culture issues of the day, or if you're just going to crawl into bed like a pathetic, brainless invertebrate.

Typically, I take the route of shame and sleep, but every once in a while I cave to the voice of the pile (whispering darkly in an Edward R. Murrow way) and try to claw through another episode in the mainstream media subtitles to my life. Then, when I'm in casual conversations, I have the impulse to say things like "Ah, that reminds me of this pompous article I read about an obscure book that has no real bearing on anything."

So, um, thanks for reading this blog instead of diving into your own pile.

Catullus, old friend

A new(ish) translation of Catullus gets a great write-up from Joy Connolly, a classics prof at NYU. She's right on about the way his poetry engages the tumultuous, weightless feeling Romans must have felt as the imperial roller coaster passed its apex and nosed triumphantly downward. Which is why, as Connolly notes, he makes such great reading today.

I still have the edition we read in high school, and everything you needed to learn about Catullus was right there on the cover. First you saw a a beautiful young woman cradling a little bird in her hand. Then you realized her dress is transparent. It's really great stuff.

And don't miss the The Charles Bukowski Memorial Center for Classical Latin Studies.

Hey, these guys are funny

I think the world needs more idiosyncratic, personal descriptions. I myself am guilty of the media-military-industrial complex genre of automated, balanced, cautiously unenthused writing which is supposed to say "intelligent, fair and factual" but silently screams "drain your life-source for immediate processing." So I am very pleased to link to w00t, a site that posts one deeply discounted item every day. I'm not clear on the economics of this thing, or if it's really just some sort of crafty scam, but the descriptions are great. Thoughtful, witty, opinionated little snippets bring a little life to the dark, coupon-cluttered corners of our consumer psyches.

There's a book to be written about the evolution of marketing and consumerism. Southwest will have its own chapter, and this place will too. In the exciting imaginary world where all the book ideas I come up with get written, that is.*

*This world also includes stiff fines for thesaurus abuse and anti-gravity belts for all. Batteries included.

Fresh from the spam pits

This just in:

Sir/Madam,

Your current case has been evaluated to the obligatory boards, and upon vigilant forethought, we are able to tender to you the next prospect.

Based upon vigilant forethought you meet the criteria to acheive a handsome revenue on your primary property investment.

By completing the next attached form in a timely manner we will be able to settle our assessment, and we feel certain you will acheive not only a better rate of interest, but also a cash return that will implement all your holiday needs and more!

Well, for a while there, I really wasn't sure if the obligatory boards (especially the College Boards, Corporate Board Member Magazine, and the people who decide what movies rate an "R") were going to come through for my primary property (which, in my present financial situation, must mean my matched set of pedigree racing chairs). Thank god, though, for their vigilant forethought (I'm thinking head-lamps and rotating shifts here).

Right. I'm going to get back to implementing my holiday needs now--usually I prefer the backhoe, but for smaller presents and stocking needs I tend to implement with a rock chisel.

Typewriters

I have no particular reason for posting this guy's photo of his typewriter collection except that I like it. The same impulse that drove him to collect so many machines and organize them on shelves has led him to note the make and model of each one in the image.

I really am an amateur when it comes to obsessions.

West African couch scams

So Anna and I are trying to unload a bunch of our furniture on Craigslist. Right now we're trying to move the big-ticket item, our pull-out couch. Would you sell your couch to this man?

Hello, how are you well am [Name withheld].i was browsing and i saw
uradvertisement.well am from miami in fl, but now on a business trip
toscotland in uk, which will take me up to amonth there ok. Wellam
highly interested in buying ur For Sale: Really great red couch for
sale - $400 perfect condition that you want to sell plsjust get back
to me if u are interested in selling for me and how muchwill you will
sell it last for me ok. Well am paying through acertified cheque
through of one my client in USA .and i have myshipper who is from West
africa that will come there and pick it upok. hope to hear from you
better soon ok
bye
[Name withheld--a DIFFERENT NAME--to protect the GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY]

Halo 2, check

On Sunday I beat Halo 2. Please, spare your applause. I was a little surprised to find myself at the end--it just wasn't that hard on "normal". No, really--anyone who's played the old first-person shooters will recall numerous seemingly impossible levels, and this game only reached "sticky" on the game-o-meter only a few times, never approaching "Deep Blue would find this ridiculous" like the classics did. Which is ironic, because now you can play Doom 3 on the Xbox...perhaps I can finally beat it.
The other reason I was surprised is that there are a lot of cliff-hanger moments in Halo 2's closing scene, leading me to expect at least another level. Apparently, I'm not the only one mystified by Halo's intricate plot. I have to say the game did break some new ground, narrative-wise (well, if not new, new to me) in that you switch personas as the first-person player to pursue different threads of a single story-line. More interestingly, the people you switch between are Halo the First's protagonist and antagonist. I think they could have done a little more with the idea, though it's hard to fault them. Challenge issues aside, the levels were gorgeous and very long, so you really got a sense of moving through vast spaces.
It was a tough adjustment for me, shifting from the old keyboard and mouse setup to this controller thingie. The thumbsticks are, well, there's a reason they don't call them joysticks, and it was a big mistake to use the "south-paw" setup on the controllers. Given the choice, I'd still rather use a mouse to aim my implements of death, so I'm thinking that future Xbox game purchases should explore new genres that don't involve aiming crosshairs. Too bad I'm not into the sports thing, because it must be great for sports games. Maybe Jade Empire. Any game company that hires a linguistics grad student to create a new language is worth a look.

A trilogy in five parts

Last night we went out to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with two friends, Sarah and Ian, and it was great to delve back into the world of Arthur Dent (brilliantly played by that guy who's on the Office and, since I've never seen it, also plays the stand-in for the porn star in Love Actually). Ian and I got to share the Chair in Intergalactic Douglas Adams Studies since we'd actually read the books, years ago.
The movie, miraculously, lived up to expectations. Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, and a sweet mod vibe to the entire flick. We're definitely in a mod era (Puma, Apple, and Andre 3000 spring to mind), and the movie comfortably extends that reign past the end of the world and into the land of Zaphod Beeblebrox. But the best part was diving into the laid-back wackiness of The Guide.

The movie won my heart by its wholehearted embrace of the book's doofy humor. Arthur saves his friend Ford Prefect's life as the latter stands his ground, hand extended, before a speeding vehicle. Ford, you see, was new to Earth, and after some study decided give himself an appropriate name and tried to make contact with the planet's dominant life form.
The whale, the petunias, the mice, Slartibartfarst--it's all there. Many have spoken to Rockwell's inspired rendition of a two-headed Dubya-channeling President of the Galaxy, but it's worth saying again. Anna heard somewhere that Rockwell doesn't like to be in movies if he doesn't get to dance at least a little bit. The soft-shuffle secret footshake he performs with Mos Def at their stylin' reunion, on its own, has guaranteed my business for Rockwell's next movie (you too, Mos, if you play your cards right).
Anna is going to buy the "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" song on iTunes. I think she'd like the Trilogy. The Guide has spawned such a universe of adaptations (including a game I've always wanted to play), it's sort of hard to reach back to the books themselves without thinking about Babelfish or Trillian. And only now, perusing Amazon, did I remember Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a book that surely deserves some credit for I Heart Huckabees. I tell you, Douglas Adams is everywhere.
Adams (rest his loony soul) wanted the story to be made into a movie very badly, and it's nice to see it done in style. I remember the experience of reading the books--I had a huge hard cover with the whole five book shebang ("the increasingly inaccurately named HHGTTG trilogy," as Adams called it). Now, I read some real dweeb books at that age. But Adams made it ok to be a sci-fi reading dweeb because they were so untechy, so easy and humanly funny, that they could make anyone laugh.

A rock band you can take home to meet your parents

Last night Anna and I saw the Shins play live at Webster Hall. It was a great show, and it made us feel old and young at the same time--young enough to crowd into a Bowery standby, concert hall by night, sleazy club by, uh, later night, and as I just discovered, a potential death trap. But we also felt old enough to notice the bright-eyed college kids squeezing through those greasy hallways to see their favorite band. It was like seeing the show with a thousand over-eager sophomores who had once taken an senior seminar with you.
Somehow, the Shins had that rock-is-my-second-major aura about them too, despite looking thirty. Their keyboardist had this sweet, dorky, suburban charm, complete with the little wave you used to give the ice cream man when you were five. He kept asking if everyone was having a good time like he'd invited 1200 people over to play monopoly.
Yes, overall, I have to say that the Shins were earnest. Even when the doofy one tried to be a bad boy by pretending to take his pants off, to demonstrate his on-cue vomiting, or to play guitar: utterly, painfully earnest. And amazingly, it works.

Keeping it real builds a foundation for the Shins' far-flung licks. The music is part Beatles, part screaming glam-rock, but it works because of a solid grounding in stage-show humility. The band set the tone with low-key dark t-shirts, heartfelt thank-yous to the crowd, and a long, solid set, at the end of which their cherubic cheerleader apologetically announced "we only know one more song! We're working on a new record now..."
The illusion is dented, but not shattered, by the band's website. "Relocated from Albuquerque to Portland, OR, Mercer and Sandoval (as well as Crandall working with the band from Aluquerque) lost Langford to his true passion, professional hot air ballooning." Though, on closer inspeciton, they haven't completely dropped the college vibe. Which is a relief, because however they do it, personally, promotionally, pseudovomitoriously, they should keep doing it, because they do it good.

Soviet art, and the soviet hole

BoingBoing links to a great archive of Russian architectural drawings from the 1920s-1950s. What's that? Not the most thrilling news you've heard all week? Hold that scorn and check out the proposed Palace of Soviets or the Aeroflot building.
I'm fascinated by the empty space our arch-enemy has left behind in the world. Their imperial wet dreams are so bizarrely different, it's sometimes a wonder we're all the same species. Is that why they failed, because they just got human nature wrong? Yet millions of communists were inspired by mother Moscow for decades, and it wasn't all irony and propaganda. Passion went into these improbable designs. And what's going to happen to the millions of people in post-Soviet countries, anyway? The victors of the Cold War aren't exactly seizing the chance to integrate them into the world of capitalism.

Playing the iPod

This totally blows my mind. Some guy who wanted to write software for thet iPod needed to figure out how its input/output systems worked. But he couldn't do that without knowing how the "firmware", the built-in software on the machine, worked. So he figured out a way to get the firmware to "play" itself on a piezoelectric element inside the iPod, and he recorded the sounds. He got the iPod to play itself as an instrument--not suing the headphone output, but an actual moving part inside the belly of the beast. It told its story for eight hours to a microphone inside a sound-proof box, and then this guy converted the audio recording back into code.
Intense.

Wily Bostonians

A couple of weeks ago, Anna got into Harvard. Anna, being Anna, has pretty much rejected the crimson terror for being "too cold." But earlier today she got another email from the admissions office...with her new Harvard email address. At first we thought to ourselves, "man, they ARE cocky to assume that everyone who gets in will go." But then we realized what a clever marketing ploy it is for those waffling top-notch applicants. Who can resist an @harvard email address? It's like test-driving a Beamer. "Just try it out. See what your friends think. Check out the look and feel, settle into the rich leather interior."
So Anna has a Harvard Law address, at least for another few months. What fun we could have!

Assorted Jumble

It's been a hell of a week, and we're not even halfway done here. Here are a few items of interest on my road map of chaos.

• Last weekend I went to Philadelphia for 22 hours to see my two best friends from high school. I went to boarding school, and I can think of no better examples of the ideal than Hiram and Byron (yes, Hiram and Byron). They can make even a bottle of sherry seem normal.


• Last night Anna and I hung out with a college friend at Hallo, Berlin, where (in true New York fashion) a South Asian couple serves up the best damn bratwurst I've had on this continent. And hefeweizen.


• Lent begins. Did you know the ash is supposed to come from the previous year's palm fronds? I had no idea.


• Breakfast. I should really go eat it.

Museum of Funeral History

We've been watching a lot of Six Feet Under recently (thanks a lot for the first season on DVD, Anna's coworker--I guess it's only fair after we got you addicted to Alias). So I am thrilled to announce my recent discovery of the National Museum of Funeral History, courtesy of BoingBoing. Hooray for the pageantry of death!

The Tivo revolution

Anna and I have joined it, presiding over our bevy of remotes like Lenin over a gaggle of reallocated peasants. The winter may be long and cold, but Tivo will sustain us with its ample bosom of West Wing reruns.
The Tivo Revolution also offers "suggestions," which are gradually edging away from Spanish soap operas ("I still really think you should give it a try!") and into more intriguing offerings. Soon it will start voicing its beliefs in stronger terms. Suddenly we'll find ourselves in reality TV reeducation camps...
The remote also comes with little thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. So far we've used them more on each other than the TV, but it is nice to have a little Forum Romanum control over the Circus Maximus that is basic cable.

And a bottle of rum

Pirates always have a safe berth here at parlay...drunk pirates not excepted. Thanks to Alston for first pointing me to Modern Drunkard, a publication with a clear editorial mission. The writing, you may be surprised to learn, is solid, and in one article they offer a great perspective on the piratical arts. An excerpt:

Sometimes they were forced to go sober for reasons beyond their control, and those were rotten days and nights. At other times they had such a wealth of hooch that they managed to screw up their lives in rather grand fashion. Bleary-eyed pirates beached their ships on sand bars and tore their hulls out on coral reefs. Intoxicated decision-making lead to raids on uninhabited islands and set-tos with larger and better armed military vessels. One gang got loaded on purloined French wine and killed the only guy on board who knew how to use a sextant. They sailed around in circles for days. Another time, the captain of a pirate ship got too deep in his cups and slept though his ship’s capture by the British Navy. He was so shitfaced, in fact, that his captors had to hoist his carcass from the hold with a block and tackle.

Back in New York

Yes, I have returned to my native land. It is cold. It rains. There is work. I'll get into the travels later, but for now, something completely different.
To get here, I had to take planes, a mode of transportation I love and hate in equal measure. If you're like me, no logistical detail is too insignificant to micromanage, no transit is too brief, no corner is too small to cut. So imagine my glee at discovering SeatGuru. No doubt the site will be shut down soon as a boon to terrorists and those families of eight with the nested luggage collections, but in the meanwhile, it's a fantastic resource. You can look up the configuration of every plane in the fleets of all the major U.S. carriers and important international ones. Besides, how many websites do you know that actually list a phone number?

Assistant Secretary for Whimsy and Caprice

The West Wing last night started out with Josh Lyman accidentally ramming a Prius with an SUV. The press were asked to direct their questions on the meaning of this metaphor to "the Assistant Secretary for Whimsy and Caprice." It's certainly true that it takes a loooong time to get a hybrid car, even if you want one. No doubt the lines and the waiting only encourage those who view such vehicles as the thin edge of the Communist wedge anyway.

Race to the finish

The final hours of the 2004 campaign are all over the news. But my question is, what would happen in a real race to the finish? It could be worth maybe 5 electoral votes. A 5k. Who would win? I think we're all agreed Bush would be quicker off the block, but would Kerry's lanky frame, relentless New Englandness and bright-toothed competitive spirit carry him through?
Cheney and Edwards could set up a water stand and hand the candidates those little capsules of Gatorade goo. The press corps would be allowed to jog behind to the best of their ability. Nader and the other third party people should be in on it too, but, as in real life, there's no prize for second place (or equitable distribution of the votes). So I say that the first one to break the ribbon and collapse in a sweaty puddle on the electoral college floor should win the race!. For five electoral votes. You know they'd do it for the votes.

Tough New York love strikes again

From the NY Board of Elections website, next to a banner reading "Vote. Or liberty is history."

"If I Register To Vote, Will I Be Called For Jury Duty?"
Jurors are drawn from lists of state taxpayers and licensed drivers as well as from voter registration rolls. Do not give up your right to vote in the hope that you will avoid jury duty. Chances are, if you pay taxes or drive a car, you will still be called. Besides, serving on a jury is a privilege, one that permits you to personally stand up for all Americans' right to a trial by a jury of their peers.

Turn the prow: a moment of web zen

I Googled "turn the prow" on a whim just now, and came across this wonderful page for a first American edition of Melville's Mardi. If you have a spare $3,800, the two volumes can be yours.

"Now, I am my own soul's emperor; and my first act is abdication! Hail! realm of shades!" -- and turning my prow into the racing tide, which seized me like a hand omnipotent, I darted through.

Ed Finns of the net

After coming to the sad realization that I am the source of most of the traffic on this site, I've decided to expand my focus a little bit. Instead of bringing you news and views of this Ed Finn, I'll bring you the others. Perhaps by promoting the other great Ed Finns out there, one day something good that's supposed to come to them will come to me instead. Or at least my Ed Finn karma will increase. (Though, probably, doing something for the karma loses you the karma. Whatever.)
So here's the list. First, we travel to the #1 ranked Ed Finn, who runs Ed Finn's Geneology Center. Probably a relative, even if his ancestors are from Castlerea, which I don't think is where mine are from. He would know better than I.
And then there's Ed Finn, Senior Editor of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ("Think again!"). The most recent post I could find was from February 2003, and it featured the bold assertion that all social and eocnomic problems are caused by an unfair distribution of wealth. Now this is policy bordering on existentialism. Perhaps the real problem is knowing your relative social status--if only we all labored under the illusion that we were the richest, most succesful people in the world.
The next Google entry is also from Canada, potentially the same Ed Finn. This one is Detective Constable Ed Finn, who "will no longer have any involvement with" a rape investigation. Let's just leave that one alone.
On a different tack, there are some fictional Finns out there too. Of course, there's Huck, but I also came across a quasi-fictional Ed Finn who presided drunkenly over his family in a Pennsylvania mining town in the '50s. His first appearance in the story: "When Tinkerbell was dying, Mary Martin begged viewers to clap if they believed in fairies; the Finns clapped, including Ed Finn who had remained sober for the occasion, and they all helped bring Tink back to life. It was a fine time in the Finn household, and they all enjoyed a night on Broadway."
Moving back into the professional world, there's Ed Finn the senior VP and general counsel of a real estate company.
One of my most famous alter-Eds is (was?) the editor of Barron's, and was accused of some serious expense account plundering in 2002, according to this CNN coverage of a Court TV expose. "In one of the voice mails provided to Courttv.com, the president and editor of Barron's, Ed Finn, cancels a golf outing with Allocco because he has been invited by Jim Ottoway Jr., a senior vice president with Dow Jones, to go to a play, David Hare's "Amy's View," starring Judi Dench. The only hitch: He needs four tickets." Dow Jones fought the charges, and I haven't followed up to learn how things were resolved. But, potentially, this was a very bad Ed.
And, in a final flourish of zen, here's what Googlism thinks of ed finn.

Language of politics

This amazing video mashup of the Republican Convention is making the blog rounds today. It's a simple idea, but this little film is incredibly effective. It's remarkable how many times we repeat ourselves in political conversation--watching something like this makes you realize the discourse in the collective American political mind isn't much more sophisticated than your average rat brain.

the problem with digital goods

Apple's iTunes is catching heat for pricing its songs differently in different European countries. According to this Forbes story, the Brits are up in arms because it costs 79 pence, or about $1.41, to download a song. The same song costs $.99 here, or $1.21 (.99 Euros) in France and Germany. Of course, nobody complains if Amazon.co.uk decides to sell a book for a different price than Amazon.de. Not to mention McDonalds, which varies its pricing based on what it think the local market will bear. Some economists use this Big Mac Index as a simple way of measuring purchasing parity across different currencies.
In a bigger sense, this is the same problem that plagues prescription drug manufacturers who'd rather have their customers pay U.S. prices than order the pills from Canada. As information and UPS packages flow more freely, it's going to get harder and harder for companies to exploit local markets. At least in the freewheeling west, anyway. Personally, I really miss Thailand, where a dollar went a long way and made more of a difference as it went. According to these guys, you'd have to work at a Thai McDonald's for 2 hours and forty-five minutes to get enough baht to buy yourself a Big Mac. You'd have to spend about 26 pounds to get that much music on iTunes.uk.

everyone's candidate

According to the tentative list of 2004 Primary candidates in New York City, Joanne Minsky Cohen is running for a judge position in Kings County on three separate tickets. You can vote for Cohen as a Democrat, a Republican, or a Conservative, but since there are no other Republican or Conservative contenders in that race, it's only fun if you're a registered Democrat.
I'm sure there's some rational explanation for it....well, pretty sure...but doesn't it seem odd? Should someone be allowed to represent three different parties at once? I guess coalitions are nothing new for the rest of the world, but typically you get elected first and make your coalition second. Maybe she's been endorsed by the Republicans and Conservatives. But then why bother entering into a primary battle with a Democratic challenger? Don't the Republicans and Conservatives feel a bit like fifth and sixth wheels, respectively, when Cohen's off flirting with the Democrats? Could two different parties choose the same candidate for national office? What if the Green Party chose George Bush (due to his love of nature, as evidenced by his frequent fishing trips and keen interest in getting more Americans to spend time in the Alaskan wilderness)? Could we vote for George Bush in Green and Republican flavors, on two different parts of the ballot? Or would he become a sort of turquoise elephant, combining the best of both?
Presumably there's some wisdom to not putting all your Cohens in one basket. Anyone know what it is?

The bizarre world of...

Amazon reviewers! They have rankings, smack-talk, bad poetry, and publicity photos, not to mention personal bios: "I have 2 dogs, a cairn and a pom, and four cats. Oh, I have a 21 year old..."
These people are serious, and seriously strange. Maybe this is how I should be expanding my writing gig--impressing the masses with gloriously well-turned reviews online. Soon, freelance contracts will just start pouring into my mailbox.
See, life is so easy once you figure out the little tricks.

step into the limelight

According to the BBC, a two-legged dog that has learned to walk upright might snag a role in the next Harry Potter film. Another triumph for the underdog? Only Warner Bros. can tell.

the internet is bizarre

I'm doing some new research, and I've come across this website where the FCC lets you look up all sorts of product information. They have the manual, photos, and all kinds of data for my cell phone. My favorite part is this document, signed by Hyundai's Ki-Soo Kim, attesting that my phone meets radiation absorption standards.
It's a wonder more people haven't figured this out as a way to look up product information on the Internet. Though I guess you do need to know your phone's FCC ID number. I had to take out the battery to find mine. The evil clown which possesses it from time to time wasn't too happy about that. But I guess he'll have to wait for a post of his own. Noisy little bastard.

yet further adventures in science

This really brings a new perspective to the "why???"
of some animal behaviors.

My favorite example of such an experiment with beavers is Wilsson (1974): It turns out that beavers hate the sound of running water and will cast about frantically for something--anything--that will bring relief; Wilsson played recordings of running water from loudspeakers, and the beavers responded by plastering the loudspeakers with mud.

further adventures in science

You know, some animals look really weird. And sometimes, they really are that weird:

The fish that made the neurochemical finding possible is the plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus), best known for its singing in shallow salt water at mating time. Most of the noise comes from male midshipman fish of the type I variety, which vocalize for hours under rocks to attract females. When type I males' courtship songs are successful, females briefly visit the nests to deposit eggs, then leave the type I males to fertilize the eggs and raise the young.
Sometimes, however, the type I males' songs have an unintended effect, attracting a different kind of male of the same species. Called type II or "sneaker" males, the visitors are distinguished by three things: their inability to sing like a type I male (although type II males can grunt, as can females); their smaller body size but enlarged reproductive organs; and the type II males' habit of sneakily fertilizing eggs left for the type I males.

learnin' & bloodlust

I just found this great Viking game from the BBC. When I raided the monastery, I captured twenty artifacts and sold eight monks into slavery! Now that is a satisfying five minute's work.
BBC - History - Viking Quest Game

Old Westerns

I always thought Old Westerns were simple battles between flawless heroes and (fl)awful villains. But it seems like they get kind of complicated. Look at this IMDB summary for Law and Order 1942:

Plot Summary for
Law and Order (1942)
In this entry in PRC's "Billy the Kid" series (aka "Billy the Kid in Law and Order" but known nowhere as "Billy the Kid's Law and Order") Billy the Kid (Buster Crabbe) and his pals Jeff Travis (Dave O'Brien as Tex O'Brien) and Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John), are arrested and brought to Ft. Culver, where Billy is amazed to discover that he and the post commander, Lt. Ted Morrison (Buster Crabbe), are exact doubles. Learning of a plot to swindle Aunt Mary Todd (Sarah Padden), a rich, blind relative of Morrison's, by marrying her off to imposter Simms (Hal Price) instead of her sweetheart George Fremont (George Morrell) who is on his way to her ranch, Billy and his pals escape and head for the ranch. Mil Crawford (Charles King), head of the gang scheming to get hold of the blind woman's fortune through Simms, has two men hold up the stage and kill Fremont and Morrison. Finding the bodies, Billy impersonates Morrison, and Crawford is furious when he sees Billy and mistakes him for the nephew, figuring his men had failed.The next day Linda (Wanda McKay), the niece of Fremont, arrives for the wedding and Billy meets her stagecoach and arranges for her to denounce Simms as an imposter.

Robert Fulton Day

I'm fact-checking a manuscript, and one of the details is the date of the first steam boat. Turns out Robert Fulton demonstrated his on the Hudson River on August 17th, 1807. There should be fireworks every year, or at least a gaudy floating casino. Anyway, this wasn't Fulton's first floating demo, only his most successful:

When the American government proved not to be interested in Fulton's canal schemes, he turned without success to the French. Again changing his focus, the next year Fulton submitted to the French admiralty plans for a submarine, Nautilus, intended to slither beneath the hulls of British warships and leave a powder charge to be exploded later. Napoleon Bonaparte's government did not support the idea, but the stubborn Fulton built it at his own expense anyway in 1800 and improved it in 1801. He conducted trials on the Seine River and finally obtained French sanction for a demonstration, but wind and tide conspired to bedevil his display. In the end, the French navy soundly rejected the idea of submarine warfare as a dishonorable way to fight, even against the British.

The slow death of my laptop and America

My laptop is dying. Every day, it becomes a little harder to adjust the screen so that it functions properly. Sometimes, it's little speckles obscuring the text. Other days, it's pinstripes or vaguely Early Modern lines. And then there's the times where it seems to be ok but you can't read any text.

Anyway, I think what's happening here goes beyond my storied relationship with Dell. My laptop is pining for its country. Yes, it may have been constructed in Mexico. Sure, some parts came from Taiwan, others from Bolivia and its guiding spirit from the fevered mind of Michael Dell. But it's an American laptop, dammit, as American as call centers and planned obsolescence. And it's clearly upset about the widening gap between our country's rich and poor.

Bill Moyers gave a stirring speech at NYU in June, titled This is the Fight of Our Lives. There are a lot of interesting statistics in there, but I think I'll quote an outraged metaphor instead.

Astonishing as it seems, no one in official Washington seems embarrassed by the fact that the gap between rich and poor is greater than it's been in 50 years - the worst inequality among all western nations. Or that we are experiencing a shift in poverty. For years it was said those people down there at the bottom were single, jobless mothers. For years they were told work, education, and marriage is how they move up the economic ladder. But poverty is showing up where we didn't expect it - among families that include two parents, a worker, and a head of the household with more than a high school education. These are the newly poor. Our political, financial and business class expects them to climb out of poverty on an escalator moving downward.

Egad!

Recently, the Internet seemed to break down here on the Turkish coast. Websites outside the country wouldn't load, but Google worked fine. My only explanation for this is: WE WERE HAUNTED BY GHOST THUMB. And his wife, BRIDE OF GHOST THUMB. AAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!

plastic: shiny

I signed up for a new credit card today. It's the strangest experience, taking the telemarketers' fight back to them. Like practising jujitsu on a mannequin. Anyway, aside from the quiet, tragic sound of a human being reduced to voice prompts and a keyboard (hmm...sounds like working from hom...), there were the bizarre scripted moments. "I’d like to share some information with you,” confided my mid-western Dante as she led me further into the MBNA inferno. But no, it wasn't terza rima, just sordid details about APRs and an unsubtle reminder that MBNA keeps everything we bought together if we ever break up--arbitration my ass.
So that's the news from ApartmentLand. My days as a Victorian housewife are growing more limited as the apartment fills and my checkbook empties, but tomorrow I have one more bustling triumph: the moving men will bring our couch. Or so a Seaman's robot told me on the phone.
All this makes me wonder: should I register our new phone number on the Do Not Call registry? Somehow I just know that list will end up being sold to telemarketers in ten years when the fed is really strapped for cash. But at least we'll have lots of shiny space weapons to comfort us.

green, mean city

Oh New York. I just got a chipper, threatening automated message informing me that soon, if I don't recycle properly, I'll get fined for it. Morally, I'm all for this program, especially in New York, a city that is in many ways the selfishness capital of the world (in most other ways, LA is reigning champion). But to call me up? With an automated message? I guess it's cheaper than mailing things, and greener. But when will I be able to recycle wasted time?

Media Ecology

I met a guy a few days ago who's doing graduate work at NYU in Media Ecology. Now, when I first heard about this, it sounded interesting. He's working on the implications of copyright law--something that's going to have a profound impact on how people live their lives in the next century. The more we regulate content and protect companies from having their work repurposed, the more we stifle innovation.
So anyway, it all sounded great. But then I looked up the NYU site, and boy does it sound like my worst nightmares of academia:

The doctoral program consists of a four-year sequence of experiences limited to a highly selective group of students. Each year the doctoral program forms a learning community, composed of approximately eight doctoral students, exploring various areas of media ecology: media history and systems theory, media literacy and creativity, and media criticism and research. There are three major research areas available: communication and culture; mass media and society; and symbols, texts, contexts, and meaning.

Troy in 15 Minutes

Courtesy of BoingBoing, a brilliant abbreviated script for the action movie that, I hear, is somehow loosely based on some sort of poem or something. Anyway, Achilles' tent is described as the Hut of Wanton Nudity. Let's cut to the scene:

Hut of Wanton Nudity, Some Village

BOY: OMG Achilles you're late you gotta get up Achilles OMG!

ACHILLES: Dude, I just nailed twins. Call me in the morning.

BOY: It IS morning.

ACHILLES: Oh... fuck.

Tarantino: Shake, Don't Stir

According to trusted sources (Sci Fi Wire--the very name earns my confidence), Quentin Tarantino, flaneur of Kill Bill and the weirdest guy in cinema, has expressed interest in doing a Bond flick one day. This is like Will Farrell and Cheri Oteri asking a local high school if they can coach next year's cheerleading squad. Slavish, ironic mimicry is one thing. Just making the film is another.

But, you say, the Bond series is so overloaded on buns and puns already, it has to crank up the irony to survive. Yes, it's true they have to add a little more irony every time to explain those implausible bikinis. But the series needs a fine balance of kabooms and distanced humor to keep Brosnan looking witty and wicked instead of brutish and bland. (On a side note, I've always felt Brosnan did a fantastic job of showing what a real-life Bond would end up like in The Tailor of Panama). So whoever directs the Bond films either has to miss the irony enough to believe in characters like Christmas Jones, or that person has to delicately balance modern irony and the old vodka tonic elixir. Tarantino has displayed many excellent qualities as a director. Restraint is not one of them.

Cybertransubstantiation

The BBC is carrying a fascinating look at an experimental online church. Now this isn't the "Church of Mammals" parody from Alias, or even the real equivalent (where you can become an immediate minister "without question of faith"). It's an online world where they hold a church service every Sunday, and people march their little avatars into the pews and kneel and take communion (or so it appears), and even SING. Fascinating.

MOBA

Courtesy of the pirate, a fantastic museum website: the Museum of Bad Art. I'm especially fond of the "Unseen Forces" exhibit. In fact, this website is just about the only thing preventing me from taking a bat to the fax machine in the cubicle next to me. It emits a gruesome squeal ("What's that, Betsy? You're calfing early?" quipped one coworker) every time it moves paper through its sulfurous, hellspawn maw. So thank you, MOBA.

Mouseuselah

At 4 years old Yoda, left, is the equivalent of a
136-year-old human. His companion, Princess Leia, is
responsible for keeping him warm."

Who could ask for more?

Deserted Islands

Byron has provided another classic Internet document: this excellent travel guide to the Lost Islands of the World. Who knew that such desolate places still existed? It is sort of shocking, however, to realize how few of them are left.

Visiting scientists have reported a few downsides: "It's not just that there's no fresh water. The climate is quite unbearable." The topography is rough and pitted, "something like Swiss cheese with an enormous number of holes . . . an early explorer said that it takes four hours to walk a mile." And the island is literally crawling with scorpions—three different species, in fact. Should this not count as a benefit in your book, just remember: where there are scorpions there are no cruise ships.

more fun with quizzes

"You must remember this, a kiss is still a
kiss". Your romance is Casablanca. A
classic story of love in trying times, chock
full of both cynicism and hope. You obviously
believe in true love, but you're also
constantly aware of practicality and societal
expectations. That's not always fun, but at
least it's realistic. Try not to let the Nazis
get you down too much.


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