I recently had a birthday. Due to a quirk of the calendar, my birthday tends to fall on days early in the week. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays particularly (next Friday or Saturday birthdays: 2004, 2005 and 2010). So generally I don't do a lot on my own to celebrate it. But occasionally I'll get some things for my birthday that are particularly unusual. Like the time I got to buy dinner for two even though someone else had invited me.
(This is the point where I start complaining about some slight that happened years ago, but over which I still harbor some small resentment. This is one of a number of small but indelible stains on my soul that will ultimately keep me from attaining spiritual purity, deny me nirvana, and force me to be reborn again and again and again! Will my soul never know peace?! But anyway, here's the story in question...)
A couple of years ago, my then-girlfriend decided it would be good to take me out to the Olive Garden, but refused to drive after sunset (it's a long story). Which meant I had to drive. Which meant she could have a glass of wine. Or two.
With her cold medicine.
After which she passed out at the table. Stone cold asleep. Out like the proverbial light. Fortunately, the waiter who had found a candle to put in my birthday cheesecake saw the situation and carefully and quietly brought me the check so as not to wake the girl. Needless to say, she wasn't in any condition for much birthday fun afterwards. Dammit.
(That's about all for the harping on the past. It's bygones now. No big deal.)
This year I caught a head cold and got the dirtiest look I've seen in the last seven months. The cold I probably caught from being exposed to a parade of over-worked, under-immunized and over-tired English students. The dirty look I got from a Russian prostitute who was apparently off duty and enjoying a little shopping with her friends. Maybe my necktie was too offensively knotted for her...
I also got a bunch of really cool books and toys and music from the people I know who aren't Russian prostitutes and exhausted language students. Someday I'll develop photos and post them. Until then, why don't you make do with this instead?
Anyway, happy birthday to me.
30 September 2002
16 September 2002
What's the point of social science?
To talk about people's habits and stuff, but act like it's really something quantifiable and predictable.
For example: The Heisenberg Certainty Principle.
A grant proposal is in the works.
To talk about people's habits and stuff, but act like it's really something quantifiable and predictable.
For example: The Heisenberg Certainty Principle.
A grant proposal is in the works.
I live in an apartment that has been used to house foreign teachers for some time. There were at least four different people who lived in this place at one time or another. And each of them seems to have left different types of things here. Some of it was fairly innocuous, some of it was just garbage, and some of it was highly personal. Like books.
A person's choice of books or music is almost like a relief map of their personality. Certain assumptions can (and will) be made about them based on their preferences. If there's nothing but romance novels on the shelf, it's safe to guess that it probably wasn't a football loving guy. And if it's all military history and investment books, it's probably not the property of a dreamy young woman. Of course, if more than one person has left things, it's a little harder to guess what kind of person left which stuff.
For example:
There were a couple of Kurt Vonnegut books left here. Well, a lot of people like Vonnegut, so that doesn't narrow anything down very much. And a couple of Heinlein books. Inexplicably, a lot of people also like Heinlein, but they usually tend to be guys, so that doesn't narrow it down much.
[Theory 1: At least one guy lived here]
There were also some cookbooks. A lot of people like to cook. Or think they're going to learn to cook. Since I haven't seen anything like a food stain on any of the cookbooks, I tend to think that they belonged to someone in that second category.
There was also a couple of Agatha Christie books. And a couple of spy novels
More specifically, there were three John Gardner books. Including "On Becoming A Novelist" and "The Art Of Fiction." So there was one person here who was probably an English major at school. An English major who was planning on becoming a writer. An English major who was probably planning on getting a novel out of their experiences in Japan.
[Theory 2: One guy and one English Major]
There were also a couple of well reviewed, recently published novels. Novels that were mostly about young, resilient women dealing with a man's world that they had to break the rules in.
[One guy and one female English major]
But there were also a couple of magazines, all from fall 1997 or spring 1998. Two Newsweeks, one Atlantic monthly, and a Maclean's.
[One of them was probably a Canadian]
Two issues of Shape magazine.
[So the female English major was the Canadian...]
Two Victoria's Secret catalogs and a copy of Cheri ("Nipple Hickey Lesbos Leave their mark"?!)
[...or not.]
And on and on it goes. Who left the copy of The Basketball Diaries? Who wrote notes about all the words they had to look up in The God Of Small Things on the inside of the front cover and explanations of what they thought were important thematic points in the margins? Was it the same person who left a handwritten note in a copy of Memnoch The Devil describing (what I can only consider) a profoundly crappy idea for another vampire-coming-of-age story. I guess I'll never know. And in a way, that's probably best. I don't really want to know whose life and dreams filled up this apartment before I moved in. And I really don't want to know what kind of person chooses such shitty books to schlep across the Pacific ocean.
Come on, four Agatha Christie books?
A person's choice of books or music is almost like a relief map of their personality. Certain assumptions can (and will) be made about them based on their preferences. If there's nothing but romance novels on the shelf, it's safe to guess that it probably wasn't a football loving guy. And if it's all military history and investment books, it's probably not the property of a dreamy young woman. Of course, if more than one person has left things, it's a little harder to guess what kind of person left which stuff.
For example:
There were a couple of Kurt Vonnegut books left here. Well, a lot of people like Vonnegut, so that doesn't narrow anything down very much. And a couple of Heinlein books. Inexplicably, a lot of people also like Heinlein, but they usually tend to be guys, so that doesn't narrow it down much.
[Theory 1: At least one guy lived here]
There were also some cookbooks. A lot of people like to cook. Or think they're going to learn to cook. Since I haven't seen anything like a food stain on any of the cookbooks, I tend to think that they belonged to someone in that second category.
There was also a couple of Agatha Christie books. And a couple of spy novels
More specifically, there were three John Gardner books. Including "On Becoming A Novelist" and "The Art Of Fiction." So there was one person here who was probably an English major at school. An English major who was planning on becoming a writer. An English major who was probably planning on getting a novel out of their experiences in Japan.
[Theory 2: One guy and one English Major]
There were also a couple of well reviewed, recently published novels. Novels that were mostly about young, resilient women dealing with a man's world that they had to break the rules in.
[One guy and one female English major]
But there were also a couple of magazines, all from fall 1997 or spring 1998. Two Newsweeks, one Atlantic monthly, and a Maclean's.
[One of them was probably a Canadian]
Two issues of Shape magazine.
[So the female English major was the Canadian...]
Two Victoria's Secret catalogs and a copy of Cheri ("Nipple Hickey Lesbos Leave their mark"?!)
[...or not.]
And on and on it goes. Who left the copy of The Basketball Diaries? Who wrote notes about all the words they had to look up in The God Of Small Things on the inside of the front cover and explanations of what they thought were important thematic points in the margins? Was it the same person who left a handwritten note in a copy of Memnoch The Devil describing (what I can only consider) a profoundly crappy idea for another vampire-coming-of-age story. I guess I'll never know. And in a way, that's probably best. I don't really want to know whose life and dreams filled up this apartment before I moved in. And I really don't want to know what kind of person chooses such shitty books to schlep across the Pacific ocean.
Come on, four Agatha Christie books?
09 September 2002
This just in:
Poor nations screwed again
America: "Did someone say something? I wasn't listening..."
The UN Earth Summit is over, and nothing is being done. Again. Even though there's countries that will probably be gone within less than a century.
What are you going to do about it?
What can any one person do about it?
Poor nations screwed again
America: "Did someone say something? I wasn't listening..."
The UN Earth Summit is over, and nothing is being done. Again. Even though there's countries that will probably be gone within less than a century.
What are you going to do about it?
What can any one person do about it?
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