Voodoo Time Dot Com

Remember that time about four years ago when you were tying your shoe and the shoelace broke? Or how about the time, that same year, when you were stuck in traffic behind the same car for an hour and you thought you’d never forget its license plate number? No..?

Remember that moment, about four years ago when you heard the Twin Towers were gone? I do, quite well. You might even remember what you were wearing at the time; which I do not. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what I wore yesterday. This is a memory gap that causes me some anxiety, as I occasionally get an uneasy feeling that I may have been wearing the same clothes for several consecutive days. And of course, you can’t trust anyone to tell you these things. A bizarre and comical quirk of human nature is that, for whatever reason, most people are reluctant to inform their neighbors of bits of twig in their hair, spinach between the teeth, or the conspicuous presence on the face of an errant nasal escapee.

(That last bit was just a fancy attempt to avoid using the word “booger”, which, now that I think of it, was rather out of character for me.)

So why is it that we remember some things for our entire lives while other things are forgotten almost immediately? Why can’t I remember my eighth birthday, but can still remember what our home telephone number was at the time? And why do some things that seem worth remembering at the time fade into oblivion while things I wish I could forget are seared into my cerebrum forever? The motivation behind this question is best illustrated by two similar experiences.

In college, I had a particularly difficult time with Finance 302. I came to hate that class. I would study nearly everyday, and when exams came around I couldn’t remember anything I had read. It was terrible.

Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum had a jingle they used to play in their television commercials (which you are now humming as you read this). I came to hate that jingle. I would hear it nearly everyday, but if there were an exam in which I was asked to write the lyrics to the Juciy Fruit jingle, I could do it. It’s terrible.

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if we could remember everything - every word we’ve heard or spoken, every e-mail we’ve ever written, every bowel movement - all as if they had just happened. Some people seem to have this ability to remember everything (my wife would have me believe she does). It seems like this would be an immensely useful evolutionary advantage if for no other reason than to cut down on the amount of smalltalk between acquaintances.

“Hey, remember that time when I ate that really big sandwich?”
“Yes.”
“Er… Of course you do.”
…
“Well, I’ll see you later then.”

Also, the game show Jeopardy probably would not exist.

In the interest of science, I’ve decided to try to fool my brain into memorizing a really mundane event, like clipping my toenails or washing my car, and see if I can still remember it twenty years from now. Or maybe I’ve already done that, and just don’t remember.

Bye for now.

As I mentioned several months ago — twelve (zwölf) months ago, to be exact — I am learning to speak German. My studies began in earnest only a couple of (ein Paar) months ago when I purchased a self-paced audio package. Even if you’ve never done one of these courses before, you already know how it goes.

“Viederholen Sie, bitte: Gunther habe kein Geld.”
“Gunther has no money.”

“Ich weiß nicht, wo meine Frau ist”
“I do not know where my wife is.”

…and so on.

By now I’ve logged something like twenty (Zwanzig) hours in my car repeating various phrases meant to teach me the fundamentals of German speech. The course is quite good, and already I am pleasantly surprised by the variety of phrases I can construct with only the tiny bit of the language I’ve learned so far. And at the same time, I am learning loads about German culture.

For example, in lesson two (zwei) I learned how to communicate my cravings for beer and wine. And the subsequent lessons have had me informing waiters, friends, hotel clerks, and whoever will listen that I would like to drink a beer. Or wine, please. Not until lesson seventeen (siebzehn) did I learn how to ask for water. But it is well known that the German people have a passion for beer. No surprises there.

There also seems to be an inordinate amount of socializing going on in and around hotels - especially between acquaintances of the opposite sex, and involving alcohol. Take, for example, this exchange from a recent lesson.

Hello, Gunther.

Yes, at the hotel.

If all goes well, I hope to visit Germany later this year and speak to the people in their language when possible. Unfortunately, I don’t see much chance of being able to sneak my most practiced phrases into casual conversation. Given my current marital situation, I don’t imagine I’ll have the opportunity to approach a young lady and ask, in my best German, “Excuse me. I don’t know where my wife is. Would you like to drink wine with me in my hotel?”

Auf Wiedersehen.

In an effort to make our apartment look less like a dorm room, and more like a home of people approaching their thirties, my wife and I have decided to purchase a dresser, with drawers and everything. I hear that all the cool people are putting their clothes in dressers instead of cardboard boxes. It sounds kind of trendy to me, but my wife is into it.

So we took a trip to Ikea today. I normally hate shopping (especially furniture stores), but I have a particular affinity for Ikea. I like the contemporary / modern design sensibility for which Ikea is famous. I like that it doesn’t cost as much as “real” furniture. I like that if I accidentally spill something on my Ikea furniture, or nick the wood, I haven’t just ruined a $2,000 piece.

And they have Swedish meatballs there. Cheap.

As one might imagine, we own a lot of Ikea furniture. As I look around the living room, everything that can be sat upon, or can have stuff sat upon it is from Ikea. Our chairs, the TV stand, the bookshelf-thingie with the drawers and little wicker baskets - all Ikea. Even the computer desk from which I am writing this entry was assembled from a flat-pack with just a screwdriver and an allen wrench (included) by yours truly.

But as much as I love the whole idea of Ikea furniture, the reality is a real pain in the ass. I always begin with the best of intentions and following all best practices. I begin with a tradition handed down to me by my step-father. The ceremonial spirit (a fermented mixture of various grains) is consumed. I then utter the traditional invocation: “This box better not be missing any f***ing pieces!”

In typically manly fashion, the final step in the ceremony used to be the disposal of the instruction manual, but I have abandoned this final gesture. This is not to suggest that the manual is all that useful. There is no text, English or otherwise to give context to the simple graphics that fill each page. But, as useless as the instructions may be, I keep them around for reference - but mostly for a handy paper surface on which to catch the blood that will inevitably trickle from my hands before it stains the floor. Assembling Ikea furniture makes me bleed… and curse. This episode was no exception. In the process of constructing this chest of six drawers blood was spilled and expletives were spoken.

So after much bleeding and cursing, I sit here nursing a rum and coke held in blistered palms. The dresser is assembled and in place in the bedroom. It has been consecrated with liquor and blood, and various oaths were uttered over it. As a result, I suspect it is now imbued with voodoo magic. It is too soon to know whether this is scary or cool. I’ll be putting my clothes in it later tonight, including the pants I plan to wear to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving festivities.

That means tomorrow I’ll be wearing my voodoo pants. Oh yeah.

Bye for now.

Wie Geht’s?

I thought I’d check in and clear out some of the cobwebs around here. Lately, I’ve been keeping myself occupied with a new project. For some unknown and completely arbitrary reason, I’ve decided I want to learn to speak German. Maybe it is for reasons of heritage. My father’s father is German. Maybe it is because German is widely regarded as one of the easiest languages for native English-speakers to learn, as both spring from a common West Germanic proto-tongue. But more likely than either of those reasons, is because anything you say sounds cool in German.

Die Katze ist unter der Flugzeug!!

It’s true. Anything said in German automatically assumes an air of authority and urgency. Perhaps this is merely a result of Germany’s aggressions in the first half of the last century. But I think it has more to do with the intrinsic nature of the language itself; switching back and forth between staccato and glottal consonants, and umlauted vowels. There is a reason why police and the military often train their dogs in German - because it sounds really scary.

But whatever the reason, I’ve picked up some materials and am in the process of getting in touch with my inner Teuton. But even as I begin, I know I am destined to fail; but not from lack of ability. Afterall, I am fluent in English. It only took a few years to learn. I learned Spanish in high school, and was quite conversational at the time. I can even read and write L33t! (in several dialects). And from what I hear, there are toddlers in Germany who have managed to pick up the fundamentals, so how hard can it be?

No, I will fail because I am one of those people who can’t finish anything they start. It’s not that I have a short attention span. In fact, for someone of the second TV generation, I am able to sit still for surprisingly long periods. I have read books of over 1,000 pages in length. And, perhaps most impressive of all, I am completely comfortable putting down the remote control while watching a television show. But for some reason, everytime I start a project I will inevitably set it all aside for something else. My track record is pretty dismal. Guitar? Out of tune. Physics books? Collecting dust. Weblog? Neglected for weeks at a time. (Sorry about that.)

I can only hope I have the tenacity to stick with this - at least long enough to order ein Bier properly should I ever find myself in der Vaderland, and to find my way to the restroom afterward. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. In fact, lately I’ve kind of been thinking of taking up the guitar.

Tschüß.

So I was reading the news today, and happened upon a couple of articles in the Health section that got my attention…

Frequent Sex May Cut Cancer Risk

Research Shows Video Game Playing May Help Surgeons

I don’t know how many millions of dollars were poured into these research projects, but I’m going to go on record as saying that it was money well spent.

Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m late for my PlayStation therapy.

Bye for now.

My wife and I are avid readers. We each go through a book about once every week to two weeks. Over time, this becomes an expensive habit, and the monthly amazon.com bills are really starting to add up. But as it turns out, there’s this place in town that has thousands of books that you can borrow for like two weeks at a time, and it’s free! Just pick a book, read it, then bring it back. So yesterday, we made an exploratory visit to this “Public Library” and it did indeed contain many thousands of books. We even brought two books home, and no one has called to ask for them back yet, so the system appears to be working as advertised. I wonder why no one thought of this sooner?

Anyway, this is not about the library itself, but rather about what we found when we arrived. There is lettering attached to the building in such a way as to spell out “PUBLIC LIBRARY”. Only, somehow an ‘L’ has come up missing, so it now reads “PUB IC LIBRARY”. I suspect this was not an accident. In fact, knowing what I do of human nature, I have come to believe that this ‘L’ was deliberately removed in an act of vandalism. And though I am no detective, I believe I can construct a reasonable profile of the perpetrator - an adolescent male.

How do I know this? I used to be one. In my experience, I know that adolescent males have a propensity towards vandalism, and a love for toilet humor unmatched in any other demographic. This tends to manifest itself in many unique ways such as:

  Drawing of external genitalia on anatomical diagrams of the human reproductive system in high school textbooks.

  Prank phonecalls to every listed telephone number belonging to a Mr./Ms. Butts, Cox, Dick, Gaylord, Johnson, Peters, and Wang.

  Construction of large snow phalluses (though, to be fair, the first time I ever saw this, was in college)

  And, my personal favorite, the Magic Marker defacement of an advertisement for the “Museum of Art” into “Museum o’ fArts”

So, to the anonymous teen now running around with a silver letter ‘L’ on his keychain: Please bring it back. Just drop it down the after-hours book drop - no questions asked. Let’s all just put this silly little episode behind us. Believe me, 10 years from now, you will not look back on the time you made the library sign read “PUB IC” as a defining moment in your life. No one is laughing. Put the ‘L’ back.

Now, “Museum o’ fArts” on the other hand… that’s funny.

Bye for now.

I’m blogging at work
There’s nothing to do
I’m normally busy
At half after two

But everyone’s gone
No one is calling
With system errors
Or programs stalling

In my server room
Green lights are flashing
No software errors
Or hardware crashing

So my gear’s packed up
I’m ready to leave
’cause no work gets done
On Thanksgiving Eve

My wife and I recently got cable TV hooked up in our new apartment. I’m not a big watcher of TV generally, but my wife would divorce me if I didn’t order it. And I concede that I would eventually miss Food Network and the History Channel before too long. I’m a fan of edutainment television. I figure if I’m going to lie down on the couch, staring slack-jawed into the blinking lights, I might as well be learning something. I really don’t have much use for network television anymore. There is rarely anything worthwhile on the networks. I would cancel all the local channels, but my wife would divorce me… and then kill me.

We had cable TV at our old apartment too, but it was a pretty basic package. Not counting all of the foreign language channels, sports channels, home shopping, and all those channels that show nothing but reruns of Law & Order all day long, there were only a handful of channels worth spending any time on at all. In our new place, we got a better package. It includes about a thousand channels and requires a hefty remote control with many multi-colored buttons that I’m afraid to press for fear that I may accidentally order a $10 pay-per-view porno movie.

Honey, it was an accident! I was confused… Honestly!

So when we got hooked up, I decided to take a tour of the channel lineup by just clicking the + button that scans through the channels. It took about half an hour to roll over back to Channel 2. At first I thought that was pretty cool. More channels = more choices, non? I’ve since come to realize it’s not as cool as I’d previously imagined. There’s too much stuff on all the time. It’s like walking into the ice cream shop and choosing a flavor. By choosing one, you miss out on all the others. So sometimes I find myself agonizing for several minutes before finally committing to a program. This whole TV thing was much easier when my choices were chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

Anyway, I have to go now. I want to make sure I’m not missing anything good on the other 999 channels.

Bye for now.

So I mentioned ants in my previous post. As it turns out, our new apartment is loaded with them. They live in the kitchen, or more likely under it. We’d been living in ignorance of them for most of the week until we set out a bunch of bananas on the counter one afternoon. The next day, our kitchen was covered in ants. They were trying to carry the bananas away on their little backs, and I think some of them were even working together trying to open the refrigerator door.

Neither my wife nor I have a real problem with ants per se. If we see a few around, we generally leave them alone. Unfortunately, where there are one or two ants, thousands lie in wait just below the surface. If they would just live in happy little families of four or five, I’d be cool with them. But living with ants is like living with all of Manhattan under your sink. And once they start getting into everything, the vermin must die. But being as we had just moved in, we had nothing handy that even nearly resembled bug spray. The previous tenants had left behind some spray starch (who uses starch anymore?), so I hosed them down with spray starch. It worked. (Though later experimentation proved that almost any chemical sprayed in sufficient quantities will do the job.) That not only killed the ants, but left them frozen in place across our counters and cabinetry. The scene was reminiscent of some kind of myrmecological Pompeii in the wake of Vesuvius. My wife wiped them off with a paper towel. I wanted to leave them there as a warning to others.

Instead we bought some ant bait. The idea behind this is that it smells and tastes like something ants like to eat, so they swarm all over the stuff, and take it back to the nest to share with the group. Only, the joke’s on them because it’s made of poison! Anyway, they jumped on that like a hobo at Thanksgiving dinner. At first I kind of felt bad for tricking them like that, but I got over it. It’s really stupid when you think about it. What if you were walking around and found a triple-scoop ice cream sundae on the ground? Would you eat it?

This kind of thing is precisely why humans don’t typically eat random stuff they find laying around on the ground - with the exception of mushrooms, which are close enough to poison as far as I’m concerned. Things that only grow directly on top of moist dead things do not have any business in my mouth.

Bye for now.

If you’re looking to get some insight into a weird pet, perhaps you should consult the Zodiac. I haven’t been able to find any pet horoscopes yet though - which is disappointing but understandable I guess. I suppose there’s not a lot of potential for variation in a dog’s life.

Aries: Your restless spirit may drive you to sniff around the house for any food that may have been dropped on the floor. However, you should try to take some time to enjoy the simple joy of licking your own butt. Prepare for conflict in the afternoon; mail carrier plays a part.

Taurus: Misunderstandings are probable today, so it’s best to avoid casual sniffing of others’ private parts. Instead, enjoy the quiet solitude of a roll in the mud. Reestablish boundaries by urinating on anything stationary.

You get the idea…