Lunchtime Battles

I'm sitting in the Indiana University Student Union, eating my lunch, reading a magazine, and I can't help but notice that the two guys across from me seem to be discussing some really interesting, next-level stuff. Something that seemed to a mix of computer programming, geometry, and visual cognition. They dropped terms like "data packets," "recursion," and talked about how the past 50 years of computer programming might have been going at it the wrong way all along. The professor several times said to his grad student "Wait, slow down, I don't think I really get what you're saying." The student said "Maybe I'm not explaining this properly." The student had ideas that the professor didn't seem to get. There was no sense of rank between the two of them. They seemed genuinely interested in what they were doing, as if what they were talking about might actually be the most interesting thing in the world at that moment.

A man emptying the trashcan walks up to me and says "Is today Thursday?" Today is Wednesday. I tell him this. He says "Crud, I thought today was payday."

Respect the D.A.D.

I tried to call my dad for Father's Day, but then my mom reminded me that my dad is in Brazil right now. I sent him an email, but I'll have to admit that I did miss hearing his voice today.

Happy Father's Day, P.D. I hope you know how much we love you. Thanks for the good genes. Aside from those bumpy spots on the backs of my arms and that hiccuping thing, I really can't complain.

Is it still like this down in Brazil?



I really love the look on my dad's face in this picture. What a handsome and cool guy.

Spoon Collection is Straining Your Relationship? Facebook's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"

Is it just me, or does anyone else get this weird spoon collection ad when they log on to Facebook? For me, the ad on the left of the page is usually something seemingly based on my "personal" data, an ad that is weirdly targeted to whatever their fuzzy logic determines my demographic to be, something like "find hot single over-30 women in your area." I just logged in to the 'book right now, and it gives me an ad for Nike shoes. I do love shoes! Spoon collections though, that's what gets me.

Is this the new generation of ads? Is absurdity the only way to catch people's eyes anymore? Is this the "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" of the internet era? I didn't click on it because I don't want them to think that it's working. I don't want to fall for their trick. It's just a more sophisticated version of too-easy-to-be-true "Which one of these people is Brad Pitt?" banner ads that they use on other more visually-assaulting websites. That being said, as a social networking site, Facebook has kind of a shady history of not being discreet with people's info, so I'm a bit skeptical (funny coming from the guy who once posted his entire passport info on the interweb), but now I kind of regret not clicking, although I'm pretty confident that the results would be expectedly disappointing. A Google search of "let your friend know that his spoon collection is straining your relationship" (in quotes, of course) only reveals other people puzzled by this ad.

I guess what it comes down to is that it's not actually about catching people's eyes anymore, since all it takes is a set of boobs or an annoying animated graphic to do that. These days it's about clicks, and I guess that's what makes this ad theoretically effective, because people are like "WTF?" and then boom, they're trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, mission accomplished for the web ad people.


But forget about that, here's what's more important:

Andrea Rosen was just on VH1 again. Jackpot! This time she was talking about how "I totally lost my V" to "More Than Words" by Extreme. This confirms that Andrea Rosen is my ultimate celebrity crush.* And, I mean, come on, she's not really even that big of a celebrity. Yet. There was that yogurt commercial, and there was her neighbor role on Stella, and she was Michael Showalter's roommate, but yeah... To me she is the star of stars. Oh Andrea, why does it have to be this way? This will probably show up on her Google Alert, so I might as well include a personalized message. OK, here goes: Andrea. Seriously. Quit frontin'. I'll gladly be your house husband while you bring home the VH1 bucks. I want your witty commentary about everything, all the time. You could roll your eyes at me and make spot-on hilarious comments about the way I make dinner or pay the electric bill or whatever. With you, every dish washing session could be the Best Dish Washing Session Ever. Top 20 Everyday Moments of the 2000's.

* The first exposure I had to celebrity crushes was my 5th grade teacher Mr. Mugg, who claimed that if MacGyver appeared at her doorstep and asked her to run away with him, that she would immediately leave her husband and children with zero hesitation. I always wondered if she would truly follow through on this claim, it puzzled my young mind. And I was a huuuuge MacGyver fan.

Rube Goldberg 2008 Video: "We've Got Medieval Going On"

I was lucky enough to go to Purdue's annual Rube Goldberg Contest in West Lafayette this year, and my pics that I posted on the MAKE blog even got picked up by those jerks at the warring nerd havens Gizmodo and Engadget. Anyway, I was there with the Nineteenth State Collective crew, and we made this little video ditty. And yes, the youngster with the fake beard who you see there in the preview background does get interviewed.

• Make: Blog: Rube Goldberg 2008: The Makers and Their Machines (Video)
• ルーブ・ゴールドバーグ2008：インタビューとマシンの紹介（ビデオ）

Why Are You Crying? Were You Born That Way?

An Example of Nice Japanese Stationery

This is a letter that was sent to me on my mission, I would guess in 1997. It's from Kitano Yoko. I really appreciate the handwriting on this one. When I was home in Lafayette yesterday, I went up to the attic to get a few boxes of my stuff, because my parents are trying to clear some space up there now that the stuff from my grandpa's house arrived. I found a box that had every letter that I received while I was on my mission.

There were so many letters from my family (especially from mom, probably hundreds), letters from friends (such as: Jerry Atwood, Fumiko and Hazuki Chino, Jade and Lauren Yoho, Craig Sopata, Jaimee Reifer, Shannon Swartz, Melanie Craig [who despite breaking my heart my freshman year of college, wrote me 17 times while I was in Japan], Celeste Peterson, Mark Ertmer, Ursula Eagly, Malisa Hopson, Becca Hopson, Ryan Stahl, and Brian Strahl). One thing that seeing all these letters made me realize is that email is a substandard means of communication when it comes to the nostalgic quality of these letters. The feeling of getting letters, touching letters, even smelling letters, seeing someone's handwriting, etc., is just beyond compare. They are so beautiful, and it's so wonderful to hold something on your hands that is from ten years ago.

Letters were all I had, there was no phone, (pretty much) no email, no texties. It's funny to see just the one side of these conversations, since all I have is the letters I received. I sometimes struggle to remember what I could have written to these people.

I could write a book about these letters, and expound upon the meanings behind what these people wrote to me, the stories behind their lives, the meaningfulness of everything and anything, their words still living on pieces of paper. The globe, the world still felt huge, the bigness of it all, and the sincerity of all the friendships and times that were shared, it's all such a precious and beautiful thing to have been a part of.

I could spent a year writing about these letters. Maybe that is what I'll do. It makes me feel really lucky to read these words that people have written. It makes me feel incredibly loved. Thanks to the writers of the letters. Your handwriting meant a lot to a lonely mohinder.

Pre-roll.

Natto-zushi, before the roll.

I know what you're thinking... It's not dirty: It's brown rice. What can I say, I'm a hippie. And I did trim the edge of that nori, I know it's too long. It was good stuff, even though I had to resort to using the stray packets of leftover soy sauce that were in the silverware drawer when my "real" bottle of soy sauce ran out.

I was always kind of mad at whoever kept putting those condiment packets in the silverware drawer (Hector, probably), but within the past week they have really paid off. I used to think "Seriously, who will actually use this Taco Bell mild sauce later?" and more than anything, I was just kind of confused as to why the silverware drawer was the place to store these items (because where I come from, they are kept in the butter compartment of the fridge, which makes even less sense, but whatever). Wouldn't you know it, this week I was beautifully saved (TWICE!), first by some ketchup packets (I somehow found myself with some lonely french fries that needed ketchup, and the cold ketchup in the fridge seemed all wrong to me at the time, my palate demanded room temperature ketchup), and then also by the aforementioned soy sauce, so it just goes to show that sometimes if you don't at first understand something, you just gotta have faith, faith, faith. (Cue George Michael Music). The meaning will be revealed to you my friend, in the most profound and meaningful way. Ketchup for your lonely fries, soy sauce for your pretentious sushi rolls.

There is harmony in the universe once again.

The DIA's Weird Mural

F.G.E.O.T.P. correspondent Maggie Paino delivers the goods with this snap from that creepy Freemason mural at the Denver Airport. Word on the street is there are more where this came from. Freemason meeting ground for the new world order of reptilians or not, the DIA is one of the most weirdly decorated airports out there.

Wee Wee See?

There's some urban legends show on the Discovery Channel right now, and they just debunked that one myth about there being a chemical in pools that will turn urine red.

I guess I never really questioned that legend, but it certainly makes sense that it isn't true. If it has been mentioned on a TV show though, it might as well be true, right? This legend was immortalized in the "Splashdown" episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, where the chemical was called "Wee-Wee See" (<- the whole episode is there on Google Video!) and it was manufactured by the ubiquitous Krebstar brand. But here's the thing. What this TV program said was that although this legend is false, we all benefit from the fact that children still believe this story because it keeps them from peeing in the pool. Basically what they are saying is "Let's keep it that way" and I think I might just agree with them. There are worse things that can get be deposited in a pool (Baby Ruth, anyone?) but I'd rather just not think about the pee in there, ya know. Like Santa Claus, a little lie that can scare little kids into being good might not be such a bad thang.*

*Speaking of the word "thang" I once worked with a guy whose name was Thang. He was from like Laos or Vietnam or something. This was at the height of this word's popularity. We all got a real kick out of embedding his name into simple little jokes that were spoken in honkified Snoop Dog parlance.

Recently Viewed Movies

So, school is out and movie-watching is in. I'm not sick of it yet, so I've been "feeding" my "brain" with a steady stream of movies via my revived Karagarga* account and a free month of Netflix.

My five word reviews:

• The Lives of Others -80's East Germany totally sucked.
• My Kid Could Paint That - Dad helped? Genre bogus anyway!
• The White Diamond - Gotta love intense German men.
• Paris, je t'aime - Even bad ones over quickly.
• Baby Mama - Your friends: Wingspan and Banjo.
• Ironman - Big budget, boring experience = meh...
• American Teen - Warsaw, Indiana felt very important.
• Triumph of the Nerds pt. 1 - Young Jobs resembles Tim Kinsella.
• Down and Derby - Pat Morita barely in it.
• That new Indiana Jones - Spoiler alert: There are aliens.
• 10 MPH - Dude rides Segway long distances.

So yeah, I signed up for Netflix. At least for the first free month (thanks K.V.!). I'm trying to get as many movies in as possible during that time, and then I might bump down to a cheaper plan or cancel, depending on what I think. You can add me as a friend there of you want, I am like such a loser on there right now, I'm like the new kid at school or something. Have pity on me. Have any good recommendations? I only have 50 movies in my cue (most are Northern Exposure season 3 and Dr. Katz discs, so help me out here).

*A word about Karagarga, it is a "private bittorrent community specializing in arthouse, alternative, cult and classic movies" and it's so wonderfully snobby that they once revoked someone's account for uploading High Fidelity. And that is why I love it. Sure, Tommy Boy is one of my favorite movies, but Karagarga has more weird and interesting indie movies from around the world than I would ever be able to watch in a whole lifetime, and their downloads are ridiculously fast. When I watch my computer as movies are downloading from there, I think to myself "I didn't know that my internet was capable of going this fast," like, whole 1.4 GB movies in 20 minutes, etc. Getting an account on this site was more trouble than applying for college (for example, I had to write an essay explaining what I could bring to the community, etc.), but it has been totally worth it. Snobbery has very high standards, and that is why I love Karagarga.