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I probably shouldn't post after drinking so much

2007-03-26T17:47:00.000-05:00

I've been coining new words at TNR.

Gaybie. n.
/gay-be'/

A gaybie is a fetus (or "unborn baby" if you're the kind of person who pickets chez Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that has been genetically determined to be gay. Should you abort it? Seek to change its sexual orientation via genetic engineering? Or love it at a person, and maybe play a little Barbara Streisand during the delivery? The answer depends on which ideology you choose to blindly follow.

oPod. n.
/oh'-pod/

An oPod is a techie who's fallen victim to the irresistible lure of Barack Obama. Apparently there are a lot of them. I like Obama, but the fuss people make over him is a little silly. I mean, just because the guy was crucified and then rose again after three days to redeem the Democratic party, people think he's like Jesus or something.

I'd appreciate it if everyone reading this blog started using these words whenever possible.

Sacha Zimmerman (one of the hottest "off-air media females" in DC) actually threw 'gaybie' into one of her blog posts after I referenced it. My heart went pitter-patter.

I know I'm inconsistent

2007-03-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

Let's see, my last post was in September of 2006 -- I guess I'm not much of a blogger. But since I didn't make any New Years resolutions this year, I think I'll make one for St. Patrick's Day: post more here. I honestly think writing is the best way to organize your thoughts and sharpen your mind; my mind could use a great deal of sharpening these days.

In a little over two weeks I go on vacation in Rome. More on that later. Also to be discussed: the impending death of my Moroccan adventure, my possible upcoming purchase of a condo, and girls I think are cute.

Ramadanoblog, D+1

2006-09-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, yesterday marked the start of the Holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims honor Allah by not eating and also by getting very, very irritable. As an American agnostic living in an Islamic country, I’ve decided to try partaking of the fast myself. Maybe it will help foster cross-cultural awareness and understanding. Also, I could probably stand to lose a few pounds around the whole stomach region. Win win! So, this is the inaugural post of my new feature: Ramadanoblog!

During Ramadan, Muslims are forbidden to eat, drink, or smoke during the hours between sunup and sunset. From what I can tell, most Moroccans don’t eat a lot during the day anyway, but they sure as Hell smoke and drink tea all the time. So sometimes Ramadan isn’t pretty: have you ever seen a committed smoker jonesing for a cigarette but unable to have one? Well, if you haven’t, just keep watching this blog.

Now, a little confession: I’m not keeping strict Ramadan hours. Specifically, I’m not getting up before fuckin’ dawn for Mohammad, Jesus, the Buddha, L Ron Hubbard, or anyone else (except the US Army, hooah). So, here’s my Tom Wilson specific rule: the fast begins after I wake up in the morning (usually 0715), smoke a cigarette, and have a glass of water. Maybe I’ll eat some Wheaties or something too, if I’m really hungry. After that, no food or drink until sundown.

So what’s the point of Ramadanoblog? I guess to chronicle the effects of no food, no water, and no nicotine on a perpetually hungry and thirsty half-a-pack-a-day smoker. In the interest of science, of course. I’d like to put myself in the same place as the Moroccans around me and see if I can see things a little from their point of view. Any significant conclusions – and many insignificant ones – will be detailed here.

Incidentally, I was a little sick yesterday so today is my first true day of fasting. I've got about one and a half more hours left! My initial conclusion: man, Ramadan blows the big one. Good God am I hungry and nicotine-deprived. At this rate, I'll be surprised if I make it through D+5 without cracking.

World affairs, Barney-style

2006-09-18T15:54:00.000-05:00

My mission in life is to simplify current events so that even children can understand them. Therefore, I have conveniently summarized the current uproar over the Pope's remarks about Islam.

The Pope: Muslims should stop being so violent! They should coexist peacefully with the rest of the world, much like the Catholic Church has done for, oh, going on several years now.
Moderate Muslims: How can you so such things?! We are very angry about this. In fact, we are much more angry about this than we are about Muslims being violent.
Extremist Muslims: He called us violent! Let's retaliate by burning down a few churches and maybe murdering a nun!
The Pope: Okay! I apologize for upsetting you. I'm so very sorry that you got so angry about my remarks. I will never say anything like this again because we're kinda running short on nuns lately.

That's about as far as we've gotten so far, but I expect that the next move will be for Muslims to stick their tongues out and maybe give the Pope a wet willy.

There was a time in my life when I would have blamed all this silliness on religion and its ability to make grown men act like petulant children. As I've grown older and arguably wiser, it has become clear to me that grown men will act like petulant children for any number of reasons, and if you take away their religions they will surely find another excuse to yell at each other and set fire to buildings.

Obligatory 9/11 post

2006-09-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

Five years since September 11th, 2005, and I can still remember vividly where I was when I heard about the attacks. It was Army basic training and our drill sergeant had called us together as a platoon to break the news: planes had crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon. He even singled me out.

Private Wilson, you’re a damn intelligence analyst. [Of course, I was no such thing at the time; I was a basic trainee, with as much intelligence experience as the next guy] What do you make of this?

Ummm, terrorism, Drill Sergeant?

I hadn’t learned yet to always respond with confidence.

We went to the gym after that and they let us turn on the radio, which was usually forbidden. I was doing pull-ups when the word came that the second tower had collapsed. Everyone felt sick. There was so much confusion everywhere and we were twice as confused as most, because we had half the information. Rumors swirled through the barracks that night: people said Camp David had been hit, the President was missing, DC was in rubble. One guy was weeping in his bunk. We had all enlisted in peacetime and now we were facing the prospect of war. But when and where, and against whom? Nobody knew.

Well, we know now: Afghanistan and Iraq. And those are just the hot spots; the war on terrorism industry has spread its tentacles across every continent and facet of life. I don’t mean to be cynical, as much of it is well intentioned and some even useful. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that we are all cogs in the machine of our own protection. We fight the terrorists so that they won’t kill the people who fight the terrorists.

I never did fight anyone, never fired a shot in anger. Instead of Iraq or Afghanistan, I went to Monterey, California to learn Korean, and then to Korea, and then (inexplicably) to Texas. How many of my basic training class ended up driving HMMWVs down twisting Baghdad roads? How many died there? Were their deaths worth it? At the end, did they feel they were making a difference or were they counting down the days before they could go home to their wives and husbands and sons and daughters?

There aren’t any easy answers, except for politicians and ideologues. There are people who would pronounce every last one a hero and others who will brand them all war criminals. The truth is that they were just people – just boys and girls, really – from Montana and Georgia and New York, jobless or hoping to get an education, wanting to better themselves, trying to keep out of jail, bored and restless, maybe consumed with hatred. Five years ago today they just wanted to get out of Basic Training and drink a beer or smoke a cigarette.

Question!

2006-08-03T12:51:00.000-05:00

How big is Donald Rumsfeld's penis?

Answer:

Thanks, New York Times, for giving me the easiest penis joke of the day. I'm surprised Wonkette hasn't blown (haha) this one open yet.

Got those lost passport blues

2006-08-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

For those of you not already "in the know," I lost my passport over the weekend. Did it fall out of my pocket? Did some thieving scoundrel pick my pocket? Did I sell it in the medina for a kilo of hashish? The world may never know.

Attention Security Clearance People: that last option was just a joke.

Anyway, I seem to have the situation under control. After two days of running around like a chicken with its head cut off who had also just lost an important official document, my replacement is being printed up in the States as we speak and should be in my hands in ten to fifteen days. I'm supposed to be leaving country on the 19th; it's cutting it close, but I should be okay. Moral of the story: never, ever loss your passport overseas.

Also, I think I'm losing any desire to join the foreign service. The consular affairs officer who helped me out was very professional and understanding, but man that job's gotta suck. It may have a certain Graham Greene-esque bureaucrat-in-a-foreign-land romance to it, but that probably doesn't make up for the fact that you spend your days stamping paperwork in a barely air conditioned office full of hot, angry people.

Other news from my life: I'm going back to school! Not real school, of course...internet school! The University of Maryland University College, to be specific. Considering that I have, let's see, roughly 126 credit hours to my name (86 from Reed College as a philosophy major, ~40 from DLI in Korean), I should be able to get my degree in a year or so. Well, maybe a bit more, because I don't have time to take a full course load. But still.

The downside is that I'll have a BA in "Humanities." Humanities! That's what people study when they can't cut it in philosophy but still don't want to get a job when they graduate.

Also: happy 63rd birthday, Dad!

Bathroom Mathematics

2006-07-29T10:37:00.000-05:00

In the interest of improving the overall quality of human life, and also of filling up an hour of free time, I have conclusively proved that men should leave the seat up after using the toilet.

First, let’s construct a simple model. In this model, which resembles real life closely but not exactly, there are two types of people, male and female. To make calculations easier, let’s say that the populations of these people are identical – there is the same number of women in our model as men – and they both use the bathroom at the same frequency. Furthermore, there are two activities that these people engage in: we’ll call them number 1 and number 2, both of which are conducted an equal amount of times. Both before and after conducting said activities, the people have the option of lifting the seat, dropping the seat, or leaving the seat in place. For the sake of convenience, let’s say that there is one woman and one man, and that they both do number 1 and number 2 each once a day. We’ll call them Ellen and John.

We will state that when Ellen conducts either activity 1 or 2, the seat must be down. When John conducts activity 2, the seat must be down, but when he conducts activity 1, the seat must be up. The goal is accomplish these conditions with the lowest expenditure of energy. In our model, let us say that the act of moving the seat up or down costs exactly 1 unit of energy.
As you can see, when a person enters a bathroom in our model, there are four possibilities.

1. Ellen wants to do activity #1.
2. Ellen wants to do activity #2.
3. John wants to do activity #1.
4. John wants to do activity #2.

Each of these possibilities feature a starting condition: whether the seat is already up or down.

Condition 1, seat up:
1) Ellen/Activity #1: Ellen must put the seat down. Cost: 1eg.
2) Ellen/Activity #2: Ellen must put the seat down. Cost: 1eg.
3) John/Activity #1: John leaves the seat up. Cost: 0eg.
4) John/Activity #2: John must put the seat down. Cost: 1eg.
The total cost for condition 1: ¾ (3 units of energy out of a possible maximum of 4).

Condition 2, seat down:
1) Ellen/Activity #1: Ellen leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
2) Ellen/Activity #2: Ellen leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
3) John/Activity #1: John must raise the seat. Cost: 1eg.
4) John/Activity #2: John leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
The total cost for condition 2: ¼ (1 unit of energy out of a possible maximum of 4).

But we’re not done yet! There is another part to our simulation: what Ellen and John do after they finish their business. In the first scenario, John puts the toilet seat down when he finishes activity #1, so the end state is always TS-down. In the second scenario, everyone leaves the seat exactly where it is. It is these two scenarios that we will be comparing.

Scenario 1, TS-down:
1) Ellen/Activity #1: Ellen leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
2) Ellen/Activity #2: Ellen leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
3) John/Activity #1: John must lower the seat. Cost: 1eg.
4) John/Activity #2: John leaves the seat down. Cost: 0eg.
Total cost for scenario 1: ¼ (1 unit of energy out of a possible maximum of 4).

Scenario 2, TS-neutral:
No one does anything. Total cost, 0 (0 units of energy out of 4).

Okay, now let’s do some very basic math. Here’s our energy calculation formula: ProbCond1(EnergyCostCond1) + ProbCond2(EnergyCostCond2) + EnergyCostNxtM = TotalEnergyCost.

That is, the probability of encountering condition 1 multiplied by its energy cost, plus the probability of condition 2 multiplied by its energy cost, plus the energy cost of the next move (i.e. putting the seat down) equals the total energy cost of the given situation.

Given scenario #2 (TS-Neutral), when someone enters a bathroom they will encounter condition 1 (TS-up) exactly 1/4th of the time. Why? Because out of four possible combinations of participant and activity, only one results in the seat being left up. So our equation looks like this:

¼(3/4) + ¾(1/4) + 0 = 3/16 + 3/16 = 6/16 = 3/8 = average energy usage in scenario 2.

Now, let’s take scenario 1, where John must put the seat down after he concludes activity #1. In this case, no one ever encounters condition 1, because the seat is always down.

0(3/4) + 1(1/4) + ¼ = ¼ + ¼ = 2/4 = ½ (or 4/8) = average energy usage in scenario 1.

Clearly, the average energy usage in scenario 1 (1/2eg) is greater then that in scenario 2 (3/8eg). The reason why is easy to understand once you think about it. In scenario 1, a unit of energy will have to be expended exactly 1 out of 4 times. The benefit you get from this is that you never have to cope with condition 1. But in scenario 2, condition 1 only costs 3/16! So in order to save 3/16, you expend 1/4. That’s not good business.

Or, you may think of it this way. In scenario 1, Ellen never has to expend energy (her seat is always down when she enters, and she never changes it). But John has to expend 2 units of energy exactly half the time he goes. If he needs to do #1, he will ALWAYS have to lift the seat up and then he will always have to put it back down.

In scenario 2, Ellen has to expend 1 unit of energy exactly 1 quarter of the time. She always needs the seat down, but there is a 1 in 4 chance that John was in before her doing a number 1. John, on the other hand, expends 0 energy 1 of the time, and 1 energy the other half. That’s because he has a ½ chance of doing a number 1, at which point he has a ¼ chance of encountering the seat already up. There’s 1/8. He also has a ½ chance of doing a number 2, in which case he has a ¾ chance of encountering the seat down. That’s 3/8. 1/8+3/8 = ½.

Scenario 2:
1/4(1) [ellen] + ½(1) [john] = 1/4 + ½ = ¾
Scenario 1:
0 + ½(2) = 1

In case you didn’t notice, the ratio 1:3/4 is the same as ½:3/8. Expressed in more conventional format, 4:3. For every 4 units of energy expended in the world of scenario 1, only three are expended in scenario 2!

So, let’s examine the advantages to scenario 2 over scenario 1. Less energy is used, of course, but what does that mean? Well, the less energy Ellen and John expend, the less food they have to consume, saving them money. Since each energy-using action also takes time, you’ll see that scenario 2 also saves time. In each case, we’re talking about only a tiny fraction….but over the course of a lifetime, this adds up! Say we considered each movement of the seat to take 1 second. Well, we already know the ratio, 3:4. If every day John and Ellen together use up 4 seconds moving the toilet lid under scenario 1, they would only use 3 if they switched to scenario 2! That’s a one second saving per day, 365 seconds over the course of a year, or just over 6 minutes. Ten years give us 3650 seconds or just slightly over an hour. Now if there are ten million couples like John and Ellen, that’s one million hours of life lost every decade for no good reason! And one million extra units of energy as well.

Furthermore, scenario 2 is clearly the more equal of the two in terms of distributing labor. In scenario 1, John does all the work while Ellen does none. Scenario 2 redistributes the labor so that John does 2/3rds of the labor and Ellen 1/3. While this is not truly equal, it is certainly better than the other option.

I find this evidence to be incontestable. Men of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but the extra energy you expend by lowering the toilet seat!

Baby please don't go

2006-07-23T09:02:00.000-05:00

A lot of people don't realize this about me, but I'm actually a very moody person. And by "moody," I mean that every once in a while I'll dip into a funk that will last for several weeks, or even months. Usually this will be followed by a period of sunny optimism and eventually I'll settle back into my usual even-keeled emotional temper. I used to be rather bad about dealing with my little depressive episodes -- I'd withdraw from people, stop going to school, fuck up my relationships -- but in the Army I learned to glide through them without going off the deep end. I'd say that, all in all, I'm a fairly emotionally healthy person now, just one who occasionally feels the chilly walls of mortality closing in, or whatever.

Over the years, I've discovered a few methods of cheering myself up when I'm feeling down. For instance, you can smoke a pack of cigarettes and drink a bottle of bourbon. Or you can leave everything behind, drive a hundred miles in a random direction, and spend a few weeks moping in isolation. But both of these options have significant drawbacks, like hangovers and the loss of your job. So instead I immerse myself in the blues.

I fell in love with the blues in the summer of 1995, right before my senior year in High School. I remember the incident clearly: I was walking home from downtown, where I had been doing God only knows what, and I stopped in a little used record store on Connecticut Avenue, just north of Dupont Circle. I have no idea if it's still there. There was a twenty dollar bill in my wallet itching to be spent, so I picked up "The Bends" by Radiohead and, finding I still had a few bucks left over, two ancient CDs from the cut-out bin. They were both "Best Of" collections, one of Muddy Waters and one of Howlin' Wolf. I was hooked instantly. It took me a few more years to get into Radiohead.

Anyway, it was all downhill from there. My senior year, when I wasn't skipping class, I was often holding forth on the subject of Lightnin' Hopkins humor or the travesty that is virtually all covers of John Lee Hooker songs. I was a blues nut, and it didn't take me long to discover the great social advantage of the genre: it is unassailably cool. Nobody can deny that the blues is awesome and it gives you an edge in every conversation about music:

Me: Got any new records?
That jerk JP: Yeah, like, "Dookie" by Green Day.
Me: Oh, well, I've mostly just been listening to Pink Anderson lately.
Cheerleader girl: Oh Tom, that's hot! Let's have sex under the bleachers!

Okay, I made that last line up. But still, the blues is a trump card in every game of musical oneupmanship, and the only way to win against it is to whip out Miles Davis or to realize that musical oneupmanship is essentially moronic.

But while the beauty of the blues is its simplicity, that's also its downfall. There's only so far to take it and after a while it all starts to blend together. There are plenty of good contemporary blues artists -- Taj Mahal is my favorite -- but even they sound like watered down versions of the old masters. Soul is a good step forward, and bit more diverse, but it lacks the brutal truth that lies at the heart of the best blues songs. Sometimes artists from other genres will tackle the blues in a new and surprising way, but only the rare few (read: Tom Waits) can incorporate the sound into their own style without coming off as foolish or condescending.

So I'm no longer the blues nut I once was. Maybe I've matured or maybe I've just lost the willingness to bask in the misery of others. But every few months, when I start to feel depressed or lonely or trapped, I break out my collection, including those same two "Best Of" collections I purchased back in the summer of '95. Nothing soothes the pain quite as well. And I hope that a new generation of misfit High School students will take a chance on some cheap records from the cut-out bin.

Love letter to Moroccans

2006-07-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

As I was leaving the office today, I got into the elevator with two Moroccan guys who I had never met before. In the time it took for us to travel from the 4th floor to ground level, we had exchanged names, discovered that I was from Washington and they were both from Casablanca, and discussed the differences between the various Moroccan cities. And then, as I left the building, one of them wrote down his name and his phone number, handed them to me, and told me to call him if I'm ever in Casablanca.

I doubt there are more than five people in all of the US who would invite a foreigner they have known for five minutes to visit them. And yet over the last six weeks I've had lunch, dinner, tea, or invitations to such things from countless people, many of whom I had known for only a very short time. It's not so much that Americans are unfriendly, it's that we're cynical and suspicious, and we have less of a tradition of hospitality (rumors of 'Southern Hospitality' are greatly exaggerated). It may also be a function of our relative positions in the world. Americans are taught to believe that everyone must want to come to America; Moroccans have no such myth, and are consequentially surprised and charmed by the very fact that you want to visit their country.

Whatever the reason, it's a facet of the culture that I think takes many Americans by surprise. Don't they hate us? Don't they envy our wealth and freedom? A lot of Americans operate under the assumption that they should keep their national identity secret; I've been counseled by a few people to say I'm Canadian if possible. But while many Moroccans disagree with US government policies, I've yet to meet one who has held it against me personally.

There are plenty of things I dislike about Moroccans: they drive like maniacs, they refuse to stand in lines, and God knows it wouldn't kill some of them to bathe a little more frequently. But none of these things matter much compared to their open and generous attitude towards everyone.

Breaking news: trouble in the Middle East

2006-07-13T17:11:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, Israel, as I'm sure you all know, sent troops into Gaza to rescue a kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit. As usual when armed men move into unfriendly territory -- even for the best of reasons -- a whole series of horrors have followed in their wake. Warplanes are dropping bombs, tanks are rolling into towns, naval ships are blockading ports, Hezbollah is attacking from Lebanon, and scores of people are dying on both sides. All for proximate cause of one soldier who had the bad fortune to be grabbed by Hamas militants.

I don't blame Gilad, and I regret that he will have to live with these events on his conscience for the rest of his life, at least if he is any sort of human being. I don't blame Israel for refusing to leave him rotting in some Gaza strip safehouse. And I even have a hard time blaming Hamas for fighting Israel with the only tools that they have at their disposal. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether 'blame' or 'guilt' or 'right' are words that even apply to the Israel/Palestine question. All sides are guilty, which is just another way of saying that all sides are innocent.

As the violence escalates, I am reminded strangely of World War I. One shot in Sarajevo brought the end to millions of lives and the destruction of the political structure of the time. Seen in hindsight, there was no discernible reason for the powers of Europe to sacrifice an entire generation of their youth in the service of virtually nothing, but the actors at the time played their parts rationally. And here we are again, waiting for the logical denouement. Whatever happens, I hope Gilad suffers less for his part in this play than Sarajevo did for its part in the earlier version.

Dispatches from the surface of the sun

2006-07-12T13:23:00.000-05:00

So for the five or six weeks I've been in Rabat, I've been fairly impressed by the moderate temperature. I was under the impression that the climate world be sweltering, Sahara-style, with old men frying eggs on the sidewalk and veiled women fainting from heat stroke as they shopped in the market. But as with many of my preconceived notions about Morocco -- formed mostly from Casablanca and the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby film Road To Morocco -- I was disappointed. With a cool breeze usually coming in from the Atlantic, the heat actually wasn't that bad.

Until today.

Today the thermostat topped off at 41 degrees Celsius. Converting to Fahrenheit, that's (41 * 8/5) + 32 = really fucking hot. Also, the air conditioning at the office decided today would be the perfect day to stop working.

We work in a Moroccan government building that's only about four or five months old. How a new facility can have so many problems is beyond me. We usually get two or three days of running water per week. The elevator regularly stops working, sometimes, maliciously, with people inside of it. And now the AC quits on the hottest day in the entire history of the universe.

Okay, that might be a little overstatement, but it doesn't feel like it. Even the Moroccans are fanning themselves and looking miserable, and these are people who regularly wear giant overcoats and scarves when the temperature drops below 70 degrees. There is a pool of sweat forming in my pants that could drown a small child and I think my tie now officially qualifies as a liquid. It's gotten to the point that I'm even considering wearing a short sleeve dress shirt tomorrow and risk looking like a chump.

Plans for tonight: swim, shower, bask in reliable Hilton air conditioning.

[Ed note: this entry was written at work, but not posted until now due to the absolutely fucking extreme slowness of the office Internet connection. No AC and ~200 bytes per second transfer rates!]

My triumphant return!

2006-07-11T14:51:00.000-05:00

Please, please, hold your applause. I know it's been hard, but you give me too much credit. Yes it's true that, absent my moderating influence, The New Republic and DailyKos nearly destroyed each other with nuclear weapons. And, yes, I wasn't here to prevent Slate from disfiguring itself into an even more unreadable format. But somehow you all managed to muddle through. Give yourselves a hand, people! I promise never to leave again.

Meanwhile, without the distractions of blogging, I've been free to acquit myself more productively. For instance, I've had the time to spend many, many hours lounging in the sun by the pool, trying to read but mostly staring that the blonde French woman who sunbathes topless. Also, sometimes I go to work.

Not today, though! Today my stomach was seized by a hostile invading force which demanded that I remain nearby a toilet at all times. So I sat in my hotel room -- wearing a tie even, to further the illusion that I was working from home rather than nursing a rebellious gut -- and taught myself a little Visual Basic. I need to write some web applets for work, you see. It's been probably ten years since I've done any programming, aside from a little shell scripting here and there, but it comes back quickly, especially with something as easy as VB. Four hours worth of wrestling with VB Step-By-Step and what little I remember from AP Computer Science yielded the world's largest and most functional "Hello World" program. Man, what leet skillz I have.

The problem with programming is that I have very little patience for the grind. Once I've figured out how to do something, I have no interest in actually writing the code to do it. This, of course, is merely a symptom of a larger issue that has haunted me throughout my life: intense, unrelenting laziness.

I've been reading A Perfect Spy by John le Carre, an author who seems almost too appropriate for Rabat. Philip Roth, via the back cover blurb section, has declared this book to be "the best English novel since the war." Perhaps he means Gulf I or maybe he was making an ironic comment on the state of British literature. APS is an excellent book -- at halfway through, I'm prepared to say it might be le Carre's best -- but I wouldn't put it in the same realm as Graham Greene's top-notch work. Still, recommended. After all, there's only so much Graham Greene out there, and only half of it is very good.

Apologies

2006-06-10T14:06:00.000-05:00

Obviously I'm not updating this very much right now. Mostly I'm being kept busy living in Morocco, learning my job, and drinking free Scotch from the Hilton "executive club." That's not necessarily a more productive way to spend your time than writing blog posts, but it sure is more fun. Today I was supposed to go to the beach, but one of my coworkers monopolized the rental car and I didn't feel like paying for a cab.

As soon as something blogworthy happens, I'll let you know. I promise.

Boring useless political entry

2006-05-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

As you can tell, I haven't been very good at keeping this blog up. Work's been busy and all my creative juices are flowing into a harmless email flirtation that requires me to maintain a steady stream of wit. However, I would like to take a quick moment to express to you how much I FUCKING HATE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES.

Okay, that's a bit extreme. Actually, they're usually very nice people in person: good neighbors, friendly at work, trustworthy. Still, I really can't fathom their incredible hatred of gays.

I bring this up because it seems that there are now only two issues that get this segment of the population aroused: abortion and homosexuality. I can respect being against abortion. In fact, I sit the fence myself on the issue, and swing back and forth between the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" poles depending on my mood. Frankly, I think some people aren't incensed enough about abortion. If you truly think that it is murder, if that's what you really believe, then complacency with our current system is like, well, those guys who went along with slavery or the holocaust.

But I really don't understand why anyone would get so upset over homosexuality. I mean that literally; it makes no sense. You may think it's gross...hell, I find it a little bit icky. I don't want to see two dudes making out on the street. But I also don't want to see those ugly hairless dogs either, but I don't get offended when someone walks one in the park. Obviously there will always be people who think with their guts rather than their brains, but it's amazing that there are enough of them to form a mass movement.

None of this is new, of course; it's all been said a million times. I just had to get it off my chest following a very weird discussion at work. Sorry about that and I promise to return to cute pictures of birds soon.

The birds and the bees

2006-05-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

A fat momma robin has built herself a nest over the gutter by our house. She's been calling it home for a few weeks now, but just today I noticed that she has chicks. They're hidden by the nest except for when she's feeding them and they stick their skinny little heads up for lunch. Living in the city, sometimes you forget that there is a separate world going on outside of human society. Besides the robin and other birds, there are gangs of grey squirrels, a family of possums, the occasional raccoon, and numerous house cats, all of whom stop by our backyard from time to time.

Here she is in her nest:

And here she is perching on our fence:

I haven't been able to take any photos of the chicks yet, since they only rarely make an appearance. I'll keep you posted on how they're doing. Her nest seems relatively cat safe, so hopefully they'll survive to adulthood.

Also, here's a rose from the garden:

Pretty nice, eh?

Intelcon eats its own

2006-05-12T19:36:00.000-05:00

Long time no update! I've been pretty busy this week at work, having suffered through two days at Intelcon (Intelligence + Conference = IntelCon. It's not one of Optimus Prime's enemies). Unisys sponsored a booth there and since very few actually qualified people were able to attend, I got to man it.

Intelcon is basically a trade show, not too different from similar such events for industrial lubricant manufacturers or computer accessory providers or what have you. There was a big conference with lots of interesting people giving presentations on biometrics and data mining and stuff like that. That's to lure people in, who are then supposed to wander the exhibition hall looking to buy "solutions" from the various vendors in attendance. The only problem was that Intelcon was a relatively small event; all the real movers and shakers were at DODIIS in Dallas. So instead of intelligence officials wanting to buy things I know nothing about, I was approached mainly by other vendors wanting to sell things to Unisys that I have no authorization to buy.

It was disconcerting because everyone else assumed, by virtue of my attendance, that I was a highly placed Unisys employee. People kept introducing themselves as "CEO" or "Executive VP" or "Managing Partner." Yeah, hi, I'm Tom, I'm a systems analyst, I've worked here for four weeks, and I make roughly .001% of your salary.

At our booth we were demoing a biometric application, which Unisys has developed in partnership with a company called ImageWare. This was pretty cool: I got to see some nifty Mission Impossible type stuff, like an iris scanner. ImageWare had sent a salesman named Bill to set up and run the demo. Bill is the kind of person who talks compulsively about his private life with complete strangers. Over the course of two days, I learned:

1) that ImageWare makes the most robust biometrics suite on the market,
2) that Bill doesn't much like Bush and will vote for McCain in 2008, and
3) the names, personalities, life histories, and sexual characteristics of every woman Bill has been involved with recently.

It's more women than you might think, incidentally. I'm glad that Bill was there, because his non-stop girl-stories made the time go by. Good luck this weekend, Bill, wherever you are!

There was also another representative from Unisys who was there during some of the conference. Pete is a pretty high ranking executive and seems to know virtually everyone in the intelligence community. He's the kind of person who can tell you how George Tenet's personality changed after 9-11. And, unlike a lot of the other people (from various other companies) whom I talked with, Pete really seemed to know his shit. I like Pete even more now, because today he sent me an email praising my work during the conference, and he CCed my boss and the head of my department.

In other news, it now seems that I won't be going overseas until the second of June (roughly). The plus side is that I'll get to attend my sister's college graduation.

All hail corporate dissidents

2006-05-03T17:32:00.000-05:00

There's an underground Bush-o-phobe lurking in my office! I went to send a fax today and all of the preprinted cover sheets looked like this:

In case you can't read that, it says "Save Our Freedom, Impeach BUSH Now!" I guess that counts as a "special instruction."

Since I didn't feel like getting fired after not even four weeks on the job, I printed myself up a clean one. But three cheers to the man or woman with enough guts to endorse impeachment on an official Unisys document. Keep up the good work; maybe tomorrow all the faxes from the third floor will endorse intervention in Darfur or higher fuel efficiency standards for SUVs? Just a suggestion.

And in another triumph for sanity, Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It's the little things that restore your faith in the jury system, sometimes.

Always look on the bright side of life

2006-05-01T17:33:00.000-05:00

Little things that make life bearable:

1) Waking Up At Night And Discovering You Have Plenty Of Time Left To Sleep.

This list is dedicated to last night when I woke up having to use the bathroom and discovered that it was only 4 am. What an incredible feeling! I still had three hours left to sleep! I was so overwhelmed with joy that, right there on the spot, despite being groggy and only half awake, I decided to write a list of wonderful things.

2) English Accents.

I'm primarily referring to the voices of those BBC announcer guys, not cockney, although it's pretty cool too. For some reason, sounding British automatically confers believability on a person. I think the primary reason we're in Iraq is that Tony Blair said it was a good idea. Have you ever heard a Brit say "controversy?" They put the accent on the second syllable! con-TROversy. Delicious!

The only thing better than Brits are Asian girls who've studied in England and have those clipped, precise Oxford accents. God that kills me.

3) People Who Are Friendly In Traffic.

The other day I was stuck in the usual backed up Beltway rush hour traffic. I was smoking a cigarette, so my window was open and consequentially everyone on the Inner Loop could hear Neko Case blasting out of my stereo. A couple pulled up next to me in a convertible and the woman leaned over and said "Hey, I love that album!" Then traffic started to move and I lost them.

4) The Annual Member Sale At Politics & Prose.

Twenty percent off of everything! Yesterday, I bought:

Blind Spot by Timothy Naftali
Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher
A Pretext For War by James Bamford
The Unfolding Of Language by Guy Deutscher
Take Care Of Freedom And The Truth Will Take Care Of Itself, edited by Eduardo Mendieta

All for 64 bucks! What a deal! That last one, incidentally, is a collection of interviews with Richard Rorty, who I really ought to get better acquainted with, apparently.

Four items are all I can think of right now. Eventually I'll probably do a (much longer) list of things that really piss me off. Number one: waking up at night and discovering that you have to get up in two minutes.

Sorry, non-broadband readers

2006-04-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

As promised, lots of pictures! When I left Korea, I stopped off in Hawaii for a week with my friends Chowsky and D, who were both also being reassigned back stateside. The military actually runs a very large, very nice, and very cheap resort for servicemen who want to vacation there. Your tax dollars at work, folks. Here's Chowsky headed out to sea:

And D contemplating breaking the rules:

And few others of Hawaii:

Unfortunately, after Hawaii I had to go to El Paso, which is probably the ugliest place in the United States. If you're curious about what West Texas looks like, here's a representative picture:

The best view in all of El Paso: I-10 East on your way out. As you can see, I've developed a bad habit of taking photographs while I'm driving. My old camera is filled with about 100 similar shots, taken all over the country.

The Southwest does have a sort of rugged and dramatic beauty. There are times -- when you see the sun setting over the desert, or the flowers are in bloom on the mesas -- when you can appreciate how it must have looked to the Indians who lived here or the first white settlers. Unfortunately, the landscape now is marred by about 50 thousand Walmarts.

If you go West into New Mexico, which is just a stone's throw away from El Paso, the scenery actually improves quite a bit. For one thing, New Mexico is a lot greener. I imagine this is because God has punished Texas for delivering into an innocent and unsuspecting world the blight of George W. Bush. This is from right outside of the charming town of Las Cruces:

The mighty Rio Grande. If you look closely, you can see a Mexican stealing one of our jobs!

This is from the Trinity site, where the first test of the atomic bomb was conducted. I like to think that the black mass of rock, which looks like cooled lava, is actually a remnant of the blast. But given the distances involved and the relative weakness of that first bomb, I doubt that could really be true.

This should make French kissing more interesting

2006-04-27T07:51:00.000-05:00

Man, just when I get out of the military, they start doing some crazy cool shit.

I went to a job fair yesterday. Not as an applicant, but as a person looking to hire! My boss took me along to help him try to find some very senior level networking and database folks. Of course, very senior level people generally don't wander around job fairs, but we found a couple possibilities. At any rate, it was weird being on the other side of the table.

Hint: when you go to job fairs, don't be rude to the people there. They hate it as much as you.

Dinner with the intellectuals

2006-04-23T22:35:00.000-05:00

I went with my friends Meier, Susie, and David to Mark's Duck House for dinner tonight. I've known the three of them since I was studying Korean at DLI and they're all great people, but they're also all smarter than me. That can be irritating, but it does make for interesting dinner conversation. Tonight we discussed rationality and genocide over some delicious duck.

From left to right, David, Susie, Meier.

David and Meier in the restaurant.

For anyone who is ever in the DC area, I recommend the Duck House; it was some of the best Chinese I've ever had. The decor isn't much to look at and the chairs are kinda hard, but man that's some good duck.

I found myself arguing that most of our actions and motives are pre-rational and that our conscious thought system is merely a shroud that we use to cover our primal instincts. I think I may have come off more extreme than I meant to, but I am finding myself more and more cynical. It's become very difficult for me to continue to believe in what formed the basis of my philosophy when I was younger: objective morality, the primacy of rational thought, and the basic goodness of mankind. According to Meier, I've adopted wholesale the thinking of Richard Rorty. I read Rorty a little when I was in college and don't remember much, but apparently he rubbed off on me.

Even Rorty, I assume, could appreciate roasted duck with sour ginger and pineapple.

I love DC in the spring time

2006-04-23T22:11:00.000-05:00

I forgot how beautiful this place can be in April and May.

I'd apologize for being so tardy in updating, except that no one actually reads this blog enough to care. I've got more pictures coming, stuff that has been sitting around on my old camera for ages. Hawaii, El Paso, and a few shots of Korea. Stay tuned.

Mapusaurus is the lamest dinosaur name ever

2006-04-19T18:53:00.000-05:00

According to the New York Times, scientists have discovered the bones of a new carnivorous dinosaur even larger than T. Rex. Well, large is fine, but how is he at stomping people?

Well, pretty damn good actually, judging by this extremely scientific looking diagram.

Thumbs down to Sable Island

2006-04-18T16:53:00.000-05:00

My sole contribution to American letters is a book review for Salon.com. Despite this, I don’t think I’m very good at evaluating writing, because I tend to like almost everything I read. This may be partly because I’m picky about what books I buy, but it’s also because my brain is, to put it charitably, synthetic rather than critical. Sure I can identify poor writing, clumsy ideas, inept organization and all that, but I rarely walk away from a book with the feeling that it was a waste of my time. There was even a nugget of enjoyment buried deep in the dark heart of The Da Vinci Code, although you’ll never catch me admitting that out loud.

All of this is just to make the point that when I dislike a book, it must be really, really bad. And when I dislike a book as much as I disliked Sable Island by Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle , it must be because the author(s) set out with the intention of pissing me off, right?

It felt like it sometimes. You can’t call them talentless, because it requires extraordinary skill to take a subject as inherently interesting as Sable Island and produce a book about it that is so uniformly dull. The subtitle is “The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic.” Sable Island’s origins are strange and its history is curious, but it’s hard to care about such things when they are lost amongst so much tedious prose. When the writing isn’t tedious, it’s purple, and sometimes it reaches inane. Sometimes they just list shipwrecks without any accompanying narrative. Remember the catalogue of ships from the Illiad? Neither do I and that because it was the most boring part! Imagine taking it, expanding it to book length and selling it for 15 bucks in the non-fiction section! The only spark of vitality comes from the frequent inclusion of first-hand accounts, some by people only halfway literate and almost all livelier than the authors.

There is also a conspicuous lack of any organizational principle and I repeatedly found myself lost in time and space. The book jumps between centuries and explorers and settlers at random, both within chapters and between them. People and events appear, disappear and then suddenly reemerge 100 pages later. I’m sure some structure or pattern must exist, but finding it would require spending more time with a book I already had to force myself to finish.

Sable Island also suffers, somewhat unfairly, from comparison with the book I started reading when finished it, William Langewiesche’s The Outlaw Sea. The book is partly composed of a series of articles Langewiesche had written for the Atlantic Monthly, some of which I read and greatly admired. Langewiesche is a functional yet stylish writer and a superb reporter. We’re fortunate to see him here at the top of his game, tackling a subject of immense importance and interest. Highly recommended, although it will keep you up nights, both by gripping you in the narrative and scaring you awake with the facts. If you want to sleep, I recommend Sable Island.