March 2002 Archives

Where was my self-confidence in junior high school, when I needed it?
All day today, and I do mean alllllll day today, I've been normalizing data on the Soaps In Depth websites. Trouble is, the tables I'm working on are already populated with data, and it's really really really tedious. But I'm learning to normalize much better, so that's good. And my good friend Kieran Downes has launched his personal website, ilinxaudio.com, and has put up a new song that I've been listening to over and over again. It's a really cool song, and as I've been sitting here normalizing data, I've been thinking about what I'd like to do while accompanied by this song. I've decided that I'd like to slick my hair back, grow a pencil-thin mustache, wear some tight, loud, plaid polyester-blend bermuda shorts hiked WAAAAY up with black knee socks, and strut around Soho with a boom box on my shoulder playing this song and a beatific smile on my face: "Look, everybody, I'm dressed like a completely retarded John Waters clone and I'm STILL WAY COOLER THAN YOU!!!"

So it's a pretty good song, as you can imagine, even if my retarded-John-Waters-cooler-than-you button is easily pressed. It's called "Sprinkles"; if you have a fast connection, go check it out!

PS. I could wear the Bermuda shorts in my new Mini Cooper.

Mini cooper! Mini COOPER!! MINI COOPER!!!
Must... resist... power... of... incredibly cool... small... car...
resistance weakening...
http://www.miniusa.com
If you log in as username "tikaro", password "tikaro", you can see the Mini Cooper S that I'm running towards across a sunny, sun-flooded field of poppies:
"John!" "Mini Cooper!" "John!" "Mini Cooper!"

Just go to "Build Your Own", then "retrieve a saved mini." It's racing green, and has GPS navigation.

Downstairs, [My employer] creative director Steve Farrell has had to handcuff himself to the sprinkler pipes to keep from running out and buying one.

I've been traveling up and down from Philly to New York to Boston a whole lot in the past couple of months. On Monday, of this week, for example, I woke up in Philly, traveled to Boston for the day, and went back to New York for the night. Today, Wednesday, another day trip to Boston. It's only tiring in a cumulative sense: Amtrak's Acela service has passed some sort of comfort threshold, and you really don't notice that you're on a train. It's not just the nice cars, either. The track is smooth and shiny, and there's very little vibration. Together with the tables and the cafe car service, I'm actually much more productive on the train than I am in a cube.

Landmarks along the way:

A really nice minor-league ballpark in Bridgeport, Connecticut, smack dab in the middle of a rough-looking town.

A lawn entirely full of lawnmowers north of Stamford.

The "Boat Valet" in Cos Cob; some sort of thing that plucks yachts out of the water and swings them onto rolling trailers so they can be neatly shrink-wrapped with thick white plastic.

The tunnel outside of New Haven, where we go into it so fast your ears pop. It's like slamming the doors in an old Volkswagen Beetle.

Some kind of crazy standalone-brick-wall and giant-acoustic-trumpet affair at a chemical plant outside of Providence that looks, for all the world, like the acoustic weapon Professor Calculus got kidnapped to Syldavia for. (Or was it Borduria?)

The fifteen-minute elevated flight above the South Bronx on the way in, spinning above all the chinese restaurants.

The best part is that I'm earning a prodigious amount of Amtrak Guest Rewards miles. Soon, I'll have enough to get the SuperDeluxe Family Sleep Suite that takes up the whole back end of Amtrak's Viewliner. Only problem is: where to go? Who to take?

like Sebastian Flyte said: if you look like you need it, people won't want to give it to you.
Also, baleful stares don’t help.
Due to our fond memories of the Exton mall, Kate and I thought we'd try to get our wedding rings there. Hey, it's a metal band, how ghetto can it get? Pretty ghetto, it turns out. It's funny how you filter out things you're not interested in, then as soon as you're ready to shop for wedding rings you realize that there are FOURTEEN JEWELRY STORES at the Exton mall, all selling marquis-cut Princess Bands with plastic certification cards from the Independent Gemological Society and the Gemological Association of America, all of which sound-like-but-are-not-quite the real independent certification body whose name I forget.

There's no getting around it, we discovered: cheap jewelers are depressing. I wasn't trying to be an asshole when I went in, and I certainly wasn't trying to go slumming: if the Internet industry spits me out for good, the jewelers at the Exton mall will become the correct price point for me. However, the plastic placards proclaiming "Platinum: As Pure As Your Love", and the outrageous, knuckle-duster size of the "Gentleman's Classic Three-Diamond Wedding Band" were kind of hard to take. Also, most of the jewelry is manufactured by ArtCarved, the same company that manufactures high school class rings "...in durable, affordable gold-toned Electrium^tm!"

Kate wasn't having any more fun than I was: apparently, mall jewelers and mattress salespeople take the same hard-sell kung fu classes. After fixing us with a baleful, sheeps-eye stare, a woman behind the counter demanded of us "What can I do to earn your business today?", while a man in a polyester tie glared at her from the other side of the store, apparently ready to award her the set of steak knives or fire her, depending on our answer. The same lady, later: "the wedding is in June of this year? Oh, MY!" Not noticing us rolling our eyes, she continued: "You'll need to buy the rings right away, to get them sized."

Get them sized? Get them sized? Jesus Christ, lady, we build space shuttles in this country! If this were a hardware store, you'd have all the sizes in stock, with different versions for right-hand-thread and left-hand thread-thread, plus a separate version with a Teflon liner! I'm 100% sure that ArtCarved keeps some kind of giant pre-sized ring warehouse in Kansas, with a huge staff in golf carts and fleets of UPS trucks idling at the loading dock.

Which is to say, I guess, that she didn't earn our business, and we're going to give dissembling mall jewelers a miss in future. Unless we get a hankering for durable, affordable gold-toned Electrium^tm.

That night, at dinner, our personable college-aged waitress was much more successful in giving us the hard sell. "Would you like to try the baklava? If I sell the whole tray tonight, I get a free case of beer!"

I had two pieces.

If you told me at seventeen that I’d be sentimental for a mall, I’d have biffed you in the nose.
Kate and I both grew up in the same part of the country -- Whitford, Pennsylvania, about thirty miles west of Philadelphia in the Great Valley. We both remember trips to the Exton Mall as kids, where there was the old-style Gap with the rope-and-creosote Western theme, the "Baker's Garden" restaurant with enormous exotic wicker egg chairs, and large fiberglass sculptures of abstract, brightly colored seals (Kate thinks they were dinosaurs) in the kid's court for sliding on. It was a pretty cool mall at the time, and it's since undergone a renovation to tear out all the dark brown seventies brick facing and put in blond wood and glass.

It's a decent mall now, but it's not near the top of the suburban mall pecking order. The King of Prussia mall has all the shiny stores: Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom's. Plymouth Meeting has all the outlets: Ikea, DKNY, and several running storefront-miles of others. The Exton mall is left with Things Remembered, selling cheaply engraved metal decanter hangtags, and Spencer Gifts, selling Fundies ("Underwear for two!") and a small cardboard box marked "Mexican Horny Toad", whose contents I'll leave to your imagination (You'd be right.) Spencer's is also where you go to get resin statues of bearded wizards holding crystal balls, every concievable variety of black light fixture, and the "Haulin' Ass" poster. When I was ten, Spencer Gifts was like the older brother I never had, there to tell me lies about the Secret Mysteries of Adulthood.

So, while the Exton mall doesn't have the best stuff, it's the sentimental favorite. The local operators haven't been priced out of the market in Exton. On weekends, you can see hot-rod kids from Coatesville at a rolling booth selling bright red car stereo speakers and SUV breather snorkels. And the life hasn't been polished out of the store staff: the kids behind the counter at the Allied Hobby Shop have bright green hair and lip rings, and you better know how to tell a Gundam from the other kind of big-robot-fighting-thingy when you go in there. I don't go in there, but I'm glad that their turf is sacred to big fighting robots, not to big Tiffany dollars.

I was getting jiggy with my wireless connection on the Amtrak train last night, connecting to my Bauer bulkmail server over a telnet connection, broadcasting the latest news about ABC's plot lines ("Heavens! Death comes to Port Charles!") Meanwhile, the train was crawling along at a snail's pace -- someone had been hit and killed on the tracks ahead. Eventually, we rolled past several large rescue vehicles, all their lights strobing. Ten feet from my window, I saw Amtrak workers zipping up a body bag and lifting it from the tracks (no kidding; I arrived at the precise TV Cop Show moment.) The engineer said that it was the second death on the tracks that day. Meanwhile, my bulkmail server kept chugging along, broadcasting messages through the air to a remote SMTP sever.

Essay questions: choose one (20 points, 45 minutes):

• React to the author's juxtaposition of the trivial and the timeless. Is soap opera bulkmail idiotic and ridiculous when compared with "real" events, or do all areas of human endeavor have their own dignity?
• Does the small backpacking tent in the montage below act as foreshadowing for the body bag on the tracks? Does the author wish, symbolically, to be hit by some sort of metaphorical train? If so, which train is it? Is it the Gravy Train?
• Will the departing soul of the deceased mix with the CDPD bulkmail packets coming from the author's Sierra Wireless AirCard antenna? Does it mean anything that these packets contain theories about who on the ABC soap Port Charles is going to die? Would it suck if these thousands of email transmissions blocked the soul from reaching heaven? If so, who will get haunted by an angry mutilated ghost: the author, Bauer Publishing, or Soaps In Depth newsletter readers?

More fun with an empty apartment:
(animated GIF, ~300K):

I was torn, this morning, between writing about:

1. The bad ten dollar bill a bagel-and-coffee vendor gave me this morning,
2. The fact that the cafe attendant on the Acela Express train was watching a bootleg copy of "Showtime" on the big video screens, or
3. The hard-core introspection I did in my empty apartment last night.

All about Quaker Performance Anxiety >>

My friend Alejandro Rubio has decided to extend his stay in Antarctica, spending the winter (until late August) surrounded by galvanized aluminum, Polartec fleece, and cool-looking Star Wars vehicles. And shut off from postal mail, UPS, and Amazon.com deliveries. I think it's super-cool; Alejandro's at the age when young men should be gathering cool stories to bore their grandchildren with, and he's stockpiling them like crazy. I have every confidence that, at some point in the future, Uncle Alejandro will pull into the driveway, and my (future) kids, attracted by the Irresistible Power of Coolness, will race out the door and cover his car like the baboons at Six Flags Wild Safari.

That, and to get away from my own stories about Rommel Kott Cuellar, the Crazy Blond Mexican Plastic Surgeon With Ties to the Mafia.

Anyway, check out his site: www.jasperridge.com!

I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.
Well, no, but I did move several notches up the spammer ladder today, as I learned how to broadcast the lastest news about Nick Carter and the "cute boy collectible MEGA posters of Aaron, Fred Durst, Sub 41, O-Town, Eminem, and 'N Sync", available in this month's issue of M Magazine. M is one of Bauer's properties, and as the internet go-to guy, I've been tapped to run their bulkmail. So I exported all 114,000 email addresses from the website's SQL database, imported them into the Worldcast program on my laptop, chose a DNS server, and spammed away. It's churning right now, as a matter of fact, and has completed 26,000 of 114,000 users in about 45 minutes. About 10% (2158, right now) of the addresses are invalid, which seems like an average number.

It's not spam, really -- this is an opt-in mailing list, with a clear "remove" link at the bottom, and my program validates the addresses before sending -- but there's something of a weak illicit thrill to it, like lighting up a cigarette at a high school reunion.

Also: One-tenth of one percent of the people on this mailing list (112 of them) have the word "bootylicious" in their address.

For the past month or so, my Logitech QuickCam image has been getting darker and darker. I switched it for my Lego Vision Command Camera today, which seems much better. Plus, it has cute little bug antennas. I wonder if the QuickCam had hardware trouble -- did the CCD just give out? I'll have to try it on another machine and see. Did I nuke it with constant Low Light Boost?

The Lego cam doesn't have a tripod mount, though, so the angle is a lot lower. Where should I put the camera? Suggestions?

There's nothing so corrosive to romance as a cellphone conversation on an Amtrak train. Office cubicles are bad enough, but at least there people know you -- and you can always get up and find an open conference room if you suddenly find the need to call someone "shmoopie." Among strangers, for some reason, I revert to the eighteen-month period during my early teens when I forced my mom to whisper in public. "John, do you like these pants?" "MotherrRRRR! ShhHHH!" Apparently, I was petrified that total strangers would learn Important Secrets about me, like for example whether I liked those pants or not.

On Friday, I traveled from Philly to Boston and back for business, spending a cumulative total of, like, ten hours on the train. During which all my cellphone conversations went like this:

Kate: You want to go to the movies this weekend?
John: [barely audible] sure, that'd be great.
Kate: Okay, I miss you!
John: [even quieter] y.s, m.ss you t.
Kate: I love you, sweetie!
John: [inaudible]

It's kind of odd, I guess, seeing as how I am willing to be seen eating macaroni and cheese in an unflattering way on my webcam (photo on request), that I'm so shy about getting overheard on the phone. And it's only for personal calls; I can do business just as loud as any other type-A Acela jerk.

Today was the worst, as train 180 to New York was stalled on a side track with the lights and ventilation out, turning our car into a sepulchural aluminum can. You could hear other commuters breathing two rows away, so when Kate called to tell me that she's fond of me, etc., my replies were so quiet as to reach the point of telepathy.

Kate: I can't wait to see you!
John: [glares beetle-browed at phone]

Jeez, how do I get over this? Am I doomed to confine my feelings to Instant Messenger windows? Should I practice a booming Gomez Adams "Cara Mia!" in front of the mirror every morning? Hell, I'd probably be doing the othe Amtrak commuters a favor, right?

Kate: How was work today?
John (Loudly, with Pepe Le Pew accent): Ah, my leetle white pigeon, my leetle plum dumpling, I cannot wait to once again hold you in my arms and wheesper ze sweet nothaings...

Yeah, THAT'd get the commuters' attention, all right. I like those pants, by golly! You hear me, world? I LIKE THOSE PANTS!!!

Here's the house!
So this is the house Kate and I are buying. We got word last night that the sellers came down half of the amount we wanted; at this point, they probably feel slightly screwed, and we feel slightly screwed. Which, I'm told, is often a sign that the price is fair. So we've faxed in the addendum to the agreement of sale, and it's all over but the shouting!

We close on April 11th, after which we get a roofing contractor in to replace the subroofing, grade the foundation, paint the kitchen cabinets (unless we decide we like the green color; check out the photos), replace the hollow-core front door, install a UV microbe-killer in the furnace ductwork, and generally eliminate all of our liquid income.

We'll join all the other late-twenties-early-thirties couples pushing rolly carts through the Downingtown Home Depot on the weekends, picking out tile, frowning at paint chips, and marveling at the colossal fourteen-foot jacuzzis. Anyhow, have a look at the pictures from the real estate agent's website. "Freshly painted!" Uh, thanks. How many coats of paint do you think it will take to mask the red bedroom? Oh, and mark your calendars for the big barbecue in the back yard!!!

Like Daphne Zuniga in Tim Robbins' Car
Philly drivers stink. They're less aggressive than New York drivers, but they're more passive-aggressive. In New York, if you leave a gap in front of you, a cab will cut you off, but it's nothing personal, and no one makes a big deal about it. Philly drivers emote a lot, and what they emote is ugly.

Take honking: New York has one honk, pretty much: the admonitory "get out of my way!" honk. To that, Philadelphia adds the punitive honk: "hey, you were in my way!" It's a whiny and infuriating honk, and deserves only one response.

To wit: Kate and I were at a one-lane intersection, waiting to turn right. A semi tractor was blocking the lane we wanted, so we couldn't pull out yet. The car behind us, going straight, tapped the horn. Then tapped it again. Then a third time, at which point Kate turned around and made a standard "hey, what can I do?" shrug.

So the truck moves, we pull out, and the car pulls around us and gives us the Philadelphia Passive-Aggressive Punishment Honk: "Hey, you slowed me down! Honkitty honk HONK!" What happened next, Kate describes as "losing her ladylike composure", but I think is the only appropriate response in the situation: she turned around and administered the Five-Star Punishment Honk Antidote with both fingers. It was well-timed and well-administered: frankly, I think Miss Manners would have advocated it.

Unfortunately, however, the truck hadn't pulled up that far, and we drifted gently into the bumper guard, cracking the turn signal and the headlight. Which means, if the other car saw it, they win: but if they didn't see it, we win. The truck, on its part, didn't even notice.

What happened next was more astonishing to me: Kate drove three block's to Jimmy's garage, where Carol -- the woman behind the desk -- cheered her up with funny stories and Jimmy himself came out to take a look. Five hours later, Carol called Kate to tell her the parts were in. It's getting fixed right now.

So, on balance, I think that Jimmy's garage makes up for the Philadelphia Punishment Honk. And the stylish, direct, and forceful manner in which the Five-Star Antidote was administered was a joy to behold. Key takeaway: I'm marrying the right woman.

Like the ranch house in "Litte Shop of Horrors"
(because of the picket fence, not the Black Mildew)
Another piece of big news: Kate and I are buying a house! Or in the process of negotiation, rather. It's a small white ranch house, single-family, in West Chester (that's West Chester, PA, not Westchester, NY.) If you were to draw a cartoon of a starter house -- white brick, with metal awnings over the front door and the kitchen door -- you'd be right on. It's small, clean, and cute, with a fairly big back yard that even has a stream in it!

At first, buying a house seemed a lot easier than renting an apartment in Manhattan. The people are friendly, the competition doesn't seem as cutthroat. However, the welter of details involved is adding up. We made a first offer, heard the counter-offer, made a third offer of our own. We signed the agreement of sale, which gives everyone a certain amount of time to get their ducks in a row. I coughed up a first deposit and a second deposit, and then we called in a brigade of insurance representatives, housing inspectors, termite inspectors, roofing companies, et cetera: I half expect to see a parade of young boys marching down the street after our troop of inspectors, towing their little red wagons and making a Norman Rockwell parade.

Anyhow, things are getting more complicated: the house turns out to have black mildew in the subroofing, which is a Bad Thing. The nightly news, apparently, runs Special Reports on the Scourge of Black Mildew, and how it's gnawing at the very core of our civilization and family values. So we'd need to replace the roof, as well as some other things -- fixing the vapor barrier in the crawlspace, grading the yard to keep water from ponding at the foundation, et cetera: all of which would involve enough money to buy a small Korean sedan. So we announced that we'd like to lower the selling price of the house by the amount it would take to by a small Yugoslavian car, and we hope they agree.

It's hard to know what to do: on the one hand, we could take the house as is, but we'd kinda feel like we're getting hosed, then. But if we walk away from the house, hey! We liked that house! So we'll keep our fingers crossed.