Garrett Moritz is being very silly. What a waste of an expensive education…

So last night I went to the Smith-Holy-Becker “In With the Old, Out With the New” party¹. It was an educational evening, to say the least:

• Julie is engaged! That’s one of those things that I think I was supposed to know, but didn’t, probably because I was told and then promptly forgot. Don’t worry, I covered for myself admirably. Nobody will ever know.
• The famous and delicious combo of putting a hunk of cream cheese in the salsa can trace its lineage directly back to the Becker twins, not Nancy as I had previously thought. So let’s see… twenty years of putting up with Pat and Sam, versus the cream cheese and salsa combo. I dunno, I think they’d better pull another ace out of their sleeves pretty soon.
• There is a very simple way to describe how the whole second-cousin-once-removed business works. Cousins share a grandparent, second cousins share a great-grandparent, and so on. As for “once-removed”, that just means “how many generational levels do you have to move up or down?” I’m sure this was not news to some of you, but it was a Clarifying Moment for me.

Unfortunately, one thing nobody knew is the weight of a typical (Argentinian) ant. We guessed that one person would weigh about as much as fifty million ants, but that was the best we could do. Strangely, Google reveals only one obscure reference that says in passing, “a million ants weigh a few kilograms.” Let’s leave aside the fact that the author conflates “mass” and “weight”. I’m starting to wonder about the bigger question: could there be some kind of ant conspiracy? How much do ants weigh? How many ants are out there? And what are they up to as they toil in the dark?

Where’s E.O.Wilson when you need him?

1. Or is that the other way around? I can’t remember.

ESPN is saying that the Niners will go 13-3 this year! Good news indeed… although I can’t help but scratch my head over author Gregg Easterbrook’s decision to present his predictions in haiku form. I should note that Easterbrook claims to be “the first Brookings [Institution] scholar ever to write a pro football column.” That might very well be true. After all, there is some precedence for the confluence of the sports world and academia. I’m sure we all remember Keith Olbermann’s brief and ultimately tragic stint at the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy. Well, I’m sure those poor Micronesians haven’t forgotten, anyway.

Now if you want good haikus, you can do no better than the Periodic Table of Haiku. Yes, they have every single one. Yes, even dysprosium! (Everyone and their mother yammering about dysprosium these days, driving me crazy.) Heck, they even have haikus for undiscovered elements, including Ununoctium (oy, the scandal). Now that’s thorough. By the way, since I know everyone is worked up over the hot, hot Ununoctium scandal: does it make any sense, any sense at all, to falsify one’s data? I don’t know what this Victor Ninov fellow was thinking. Wasn’t it Lincoln who told us that you can’t fool all of the nuclear physicists all of the time?

Finally, don’t these guys seem like a really fun bunch of real-estate lawyers? I mean, don’t they? Eh? Well, maybe it’s just me. (Link, err, stolen from Who Stole the Tarts?.)

Bryan Keefer of Spinsanity has politely informed me that my Links page is incorrect; Ben and Brendan are indeed from Swarthmore, but Bryan actually went to Stanford. Fact-checked by Spinsanity, ouch! Well, Bryan is a fellow South Bay native, so hopefully we can both forgive each other much.

Speaking of links, I’ve found a weblog that I like enough to add to my Links page… Jeff Cooper of the University of Indiana. Good stuff. See, for example, his analysis of the White House counsel’s opinion on the President’s authority to invade Iraq without Congressional authorization. I’m hoping he writes more about his experiences teaching law this year. Maybe I should write him about that.

Finally, I had lunch with old high school friend Kathy today at a Vietnamese place near her work. I just wanted to note for the record that Kathy forgot to leave a tip, and so now we can’t show our faces in that place for at least the next six months. I am hoping against hope that there might be one or two more establishments in the Milpitas area that will serve our Pho needs in the meantime. I know the odds are low, but it’s all I’ve got to cling to.

Well, my plan to learn Spanish instead of listening to those old sourpusses at NPR has hit a snag. The tapes I bought don’t stand all by themselves. They’re just pronunciation tapes — they don’t teach vocabulary or basic phrases. You’re supposed to read the book that comes with them. That’s all fine, but now I’m stuck listening to the news again.

Not that NPR news can’t be funny, in a subtle sort of way. For example, yesterday, one of the the correspondents was reporting on the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. If you’ve been following the case at all, you’ve probably heard about the strange outbursts and bizarre behavior of the man on trial. Recently, it’s been, “What’s he going to plea?” First it was innocent. Then it was guilty. Then it innocent on some charges, guilty on a few others. Now I think it’s back to innocent again. Anyway, where was I? So the main anchorperson asked the correspondent how Moussaoui was comporting himself on that particular day. The correspondent replied glibly, “Actually, today he’s been very calm and reasonable, by Zacarias Moussaoui standards.”

I think that would make a good general catchphrase. “How’d you like the movie?” “Well, the plot made a lot of sense, by Zacarias Moussaoui standards.” “How’s traffic going to be this weekend heading down to the Gilroy garlic festival?” “Oh, by Zacarias Moussaoui standards, it’ll be smooth sailing.”

From the That word… I do not think it means what you think it means department: I ran across an interesting UPI article on the economics of spam. Here’s a fun quote:

According to the Direct Marketing Association’s guidelines, quoted by PC World, not responding to an unsolicited e-mail amounts to “opting-in” – a marketing strategy known as “opting out.” Most experts, though, strongly urge spam victims not to respond to spammers, lest their e-mail address is confirmed.

Hmmm, someone seems to have reversed the definitions of “opt-in” and “opt-out”. Here’s another stunner:

Spammers, it emerges, have their own organizations. NOIC – the National Organization of Internet Commerce – threatened to post on its Web site the e-mail addresses of millions of AOL members. AOL has aggressive anti-spamming policies. “AOL is blocking bulk e-mail because it wants the advertising revenues for itself (by selling pop-up ads)” the president of NOIC, Damien Melle, complained to CNET.

Or possibly AOL is anti-bulk email because their paying customers are screaming for them to do something about it. (Not that the spammers should complain so much… I haven’t heard that AOL’s filters are all that effective anyway, but hey.) Fortunately, NOIC is almost certainly too chickenshit to try anything like that — AOL would immediately take them to the cleaners. (Yay for big corporate legal teams!)

Still, this is the caliber of people we’re dealing with. If you don’t reply to our emails, you’ve “opted in”. If you don’t let us spam you, we’ll post your personal info in public. Cripes, how do these people sleep at night? No, no, don’t tell me… no doubt it’s “on top of a big pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.” Bleah.

Paula Poundstone said about Dr. Laura, “How do you just decide to be her? When do you wander around the house and say to yourself, ‘I’m just so damn right about everything — I ought to have a show?'”

Are we “bloggers” all Dr. Laura’s children? Are weblogs and journals just a pointless exercise in narcissism? [cue the theme from ‘Sex and the City’]

To tell the truth, I’ve worried about this. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t enabled comments on my entries — why the heck would my random musings be worthy of Serious Discussion? (To be fair, Mark retorts that it’s the height of arrogance not to enable comments, because that means I have the first and last word on everything.)

Maybe I should stop worrying and love the narcissism. In fact, M’ris has even been kind enough to posit a universe where this narcissism would be justified:

“New headline [in the Mercury]: ‘Bush urges diplomacy in tense South Asia’ replaced by ‘Evan explains: no war for me, thanks.’ Musharraf will be quoted as saying, ‘We thought Evan would be all for nuclear holocaust on the Indian subcontinent. Now that we know he isn’t, we’ve both decided to leave the Kashmir region. We wanted him to stay on longer to tell us what to do domestically, but he had to fly to Israel to knock some heads together, and I think the sub-Saharan countries were next.'”

Let me be perfectly clear, for the sake of Musharraf, Vajpayee, and all other regular readers of this website: I am categorically against any and all nuclear weapons exchanges. Anyway, M’ris continues:

“For some reason, Evan as Benevolent ‘Suggestor’ amuses me. I’m imagining posters with your smiling face on them, with slogans like, “Evan says, ‘Stop shooting each other!'” and ‘Evan doesn’t like child prostitution!’ and ‘No Creed for Evan!'”

Hmmm… of those three Public Service Announcements, I’m honestly not sure which one is the most important.

Ok, ok, enough tomfoolery. Here’s the real reason to keep a personal website. Today I got an email from Jason. I haven’t seen Jason or his wife Megan for at least six or seven years. But Jason searched and found me on the web. I am totally stoked. Of course, he found me by searching for Eric and finding my name instead… but hey. I’ll absorb that blow to my ego and carry on somehow.

Adiv informs me that Hebrew has a few more words that English is missing:

“stahm”

For no good reason. Usage:

• “Why didn’t you call before you came over?” “Stahm.”
• “Did you have a reason to be hanging out at the mall?” “Stahm, I wanted to look.”

“davka”

1. Just to spite you (very often fate being the one who spites you) 2. As a matter of fact
3. Even if you didn’t think it was so. Usage:

• “I can’t believe you bought that shirt!” “Davka, I thought you would like it.”
• “Son, why did you pour the ink into my shampoo?” “Davka.”
• “I’ve been all over the city looking for a copy of this book. I’ve called 30 different stores
  and davka now, when I find it, I discover my credit card is maxed out.”

So mere days after my petulance about the Space Shuttle, NASA
announces that its Space
Launch Initiative (the next-generation shuttle) has reached its first milestone review.
Currently there are three candidates. Some of designs include:

• reduction in payload cost from $10,000/lb to $1,000/lb
• more reusable booster rocket system
• increased safety: catastrophic failure reduced from 1 in 500 to 1 in 10,000
• possible pilotless operation
• ability to achieve high Earth orbit with secondary booster system

So that certainly obviates many of my objections. The project should finish in 2012, just
when the current Shuttle fleet has to go into retirement. Only ten years away…

Finally, I’m heading off to my college reunion this weekend. Nancy has been making fun
of me for going to a “5 year” reunion, but as it turns out, I. Don’t. Care. I’ll also be seeing
Eric & Susan, and Jessica & Ashley. So all in all, the weekend is shaping up to be
a lot of fun (even though I will have to pretend it’s not, just to get under Brian’s skin).

About this month’s sidebar… I take it all back. Yes, I’ve remembered why
I read Andrew Sullivan: it’s because he
points me to articles like
this one at Dissent Magazine. Andrew, baby, I’m sorry! Forget all those
mean things I said. I think we can work things out.

And since I’m taking things back, I have to issue another Official Retraction.
Ryan writes to inform me that I was incorrect
to say that he was starting to slow down in his
old age. In fact, now that he is getting more exercise:

…I’ll have you know, I only USED to get winded after a half-hour of dancing. Now
I’m back up to par and shakin’ it with a vengeance for 2+ hours every weekend.
🙂 So put that in your journal and smoke it.

Ryan, I apologize for misrepresenting you like that.
Listen up, everyone: I want you all to know that for the record, Ryan is a lean, mean,
dancing machine. Watch out, ladies!

Yesterday Mom and I went over ideas for her website. I’m going to be helping her out
with it from now on. She even bought her own domain name (hencigoer.com) and everything.
Does your mom have her own domain name? I bet she doesn’t…

In related news, Mom’s book, The Thinking
Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, just earned out its advance. Not bad! It usually
spends its time hovering between #1000 and #3000 at Amazon, which is pretty good, considering
that they carry well over a million titles. Anyway, you absolutely must get this book if
you’re pregnant, Or if you’re thinking about getting pregnant. Or if you know someone who’s
pregnant. Or if you know someone who’s thinking about getting pregnant.
Or if you know anyone at all who could end up being pregnant in the future.

Incidentally, when I went to Amazon to check my Mom’s book’s stats, I also checked out my
Recommendations section:

• Books: The Divine Comedy
• Music: “Iowa”, by Slipknot
• Video games: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3
• DVD: PBS’s “The Greeks – Crucible of Civilization”

So according to Amazon, I’m a Late Medieval poetry-loving, heavy-metal listening,
PBS-watching skate punk. Yup, they’ve got me pegged.

I’ve decided to switch webhosts.

It wasn’t last month’s several hours of unannounced and unapologized-for downtime.
It wasn’t the numerous typos on their help pages.
No, I think what did the trick was the bill I received for $4,211.20 for
unpaid web services. To accumulate that bill, I would have
had to have been delinquent for 188 months, or since mid-1986. (That predates
the Mosaic browser
and the HTML standard, although not
the TCP/IP protocol.)

Anyway I think the procedure is pretty simple:

1. Register with new host
2. FTP files to new host
3. Get NetworkSolutions to change their nameservers
4. Cancel service with old host

So if all goes as planned, the changeover will cause no interruptions to this site.
Oh, damn. I’ve probably jinxed myself right there. I’d better move on before
I do any more damage.

Last night Nancy and I went to Bill’s for dinner. His
sister Patty was there, along with Jennie and a nice Belgian couple,
Sophie and Ward. The problem with the dinner: I can’t say anything
else about it. See, Bill is currently obsessed with my silly little website that maybe
ten people bother to read on a regular basis. All evening it was,
“Don’t put that on the website!” “That’s off-the-record!”
This must be what Bob Woodward’s social life is like.

So I think the only thing I can talk about is the wine. So here it is,
another Winelog entry:

Stag’s Leap, Napa, 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon: BRAVISSIMO!!

In Other News:

“Reassurance is good. Cash is better.” – Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the
United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, on long-term American
support for the nation (from Newsweek.)

Fawzi should take heart: if President Hamid Karzai doesn’t get the
support his country so desperately needs, he can at least
knock
us dead with his fashion sense.

Edit, April 2003: Well, it’s pretty clear by now that we’ve screwed Karzai pretty good. I guess fashion sense isn’t enough.

Friday night Pat, Courtney, Amber, and I went out to see
Mulholland Drive.
Now, the movie theater was great.
It’s in Oakland, and it has big comfy chairs and tables and couches — couches!
And you can order pizza and fancy nachos and beer.
As for the movie itself… it was a bit much. I think that unlike, say,
Memento,
Mulholland Drive cannot be reassembled into something that makes
sense in the light of day. Which bothers me. Pat and Courtney
and I talked about the movie on the way home, and I think we all
agreed on which parts of the movie were real and which parts
were dream/fantasy. But as for the niggling details — what was that
blue box? The monster in the alley? The old people? Well, who knows?
Unlike Memento, where it was fun to pick over the details
and marvel over the movie’s clever intricacies… the same process
in Mulholland Drive just makes me think that I’m wasting my
time. That there’s no there, there.

Which reminds me — I just sent a short story, “Ogress”, to
M’ris
for a critique. My main concern was whether the story made sense:
there’s a fair amount of backstory, and I tried to get some ideas across using
couple of flashbacks. Frankly, I’m wary of the flashback
device, let alone the dream/fantasy device. I want to tell my story, not dazzle
the reader with Stupid Narrative Tricks. In this case, I wanted the flashbacks to
provide the reader a few critical facts, while keeping the story from growing
much, much, longer than I wanted it to be. And as it turned out, M’ris
understood the story just fine. If she hadn’t,
I would have had to completely rewrite the whole thing.

Unfortunately, rather than polish up “Ogress” and ship it out, I’ve been finishing up the
Sandman saga.
I finally went out and splurged, bought all the books I was missing. Now that I’m done, I
have to say it was a heck of a story. I can’t see how Neil Gaiman could have told this
story in any other medium. I wouldn’t go quite as hyperbolic
as some of writers of the introductions did — and I’m thinking of Harlan Ellison in
particular — the Sandman comics were not Great Art. They were, however,
really good art. Which is good enough for me.

Finally, I’ve decided to start a Winelog. (Not to be confused with
Winerlog.) No, see, I have this
problem: I buy wine, drink it… and then
forget about it. And so I end up buying the wines I didn’t like again —
because here in California we are blessed and cursed with an enormous wine
selection everywhere we go, including Safeway. Which is where I get
all of my wine. Safeway, occasionally Trader Joe’s, and when I’m really feeling
like The Man, Ridge Vineyards.

Henceforth, I will keep a record of the wines I’ve tried. Now, first off,
let me say that I have no wine education whatsoever. I can’t even
grip the wineglass by the stem and swirl the wine properly — I have to cheat
and clutch the glass around the rim from the top. I don’t know what “body”
is. I couldn’t care less about letting the wine “breathe”. I evaluate
wine in the same way I evaluate doughnuts. I try it and decide right then
and there, “Yum!” or “Yuck!”

So here goes with the first one:

Bella Sera, Italy, 2000 Merlot: Yuck!

Hey, that was easy enough.

The Florida vote count is in. Looks like by any criteria you choose, Bush would
have barely won, unless you hand-count the entire state, in which case Gore
edges him out.

Two conclusions that spring to mind:

• If Bush had accepted Gore’s criteria (just count the four disputed
  Democratic counties), Bush would have emerged victorious. On the other hand,
  if Gore had not played it too-clever-by-half, and instead
  insisted on counting the entire state, he would have won. Conclusion:
  both men were chicken-shits.

• The election was decided by a margin of a few hundred votes.
  The total number of votes was on the order of a hundred million.
  To determine the results accurately, our measuring devices would have
  had to get the count right to better than one part in a million.
  Conclusion: If you want accurate measurements, A) think carefully
  about the parameters of your experiment and B) be prepared to shell
  out for some better hardware.

Anyway. It looks like I’ve managed to
annoy M’ris.
I should have known better. Marissa has been fighting the good fight,
defending the Midwest
against all snooty East Coast and West Coast comers… it was only a matter
of time before I got caught in the crossfire. Just a flip comment about
“visiting snow”. Damn.

As far as I can tell, the reasoning goes something like this:

1. Evan said he likes to visit snow, but afterwards, he likes to go home where there is no snow.
2. The Midwest has snow.
3. Therefore, Evan’s opinion of the Midwest is, at best: “Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there.”

Which is actually not that far off from the truth, although I certainly don’t
single out the Midwest in that respect. The Midwest absolutely seems like a fine place to live.
As far as I can tell, there are plenty of interesting things to do and people to meet over
there. But right now, I’d rather not live there. California suits me just fine.
Others have said this far
better, really.

Marissa points out that when you’re used to snow, it changes your food, clothes, leisure
activities, and thought processes. Kewl. So does living in a Mediterranean climate.
She also mentions there’s a kind of “sharpening,” an “intensity to January” that
I am missing out on. Yup! Okay by me.

And then, out of nowhere, she gets it all wrong:

Visiting snow is like saying, “Oh, I’ll spend the weekend in Atlanta, and then I’ll know
all about those wacky Southern families.” It just doesn’t work that way.

No, no, no. How to say this…? I don’t visit the snow so I can
draw uninformed conclusions about Midwestern culture. I visit the snow
to throw around a few snowballs. Maybe ski a bit. I don’t take snow seriously.
I can even go years without it. For me, Snow is Just For Fun. That’s all.

On a related note, I did spend a few minutes scanning her text for a hint of the
old “weather wimp” argument. You know, the one that goes, “Pu-ny Californ-ian!
That which does not kill you, makes you stronger!” Usually punctuated with a
hearty “YEAARGH!!” and the waving of battleaxes. However, though the needle
on the detector moved a bit, the results were negative. So she managed to
narrowly avoid pushing one of my buttons. Nimble as always.