I had another Washington, D.C. related entry all ready to go when I received an email from my brother about my last post. I felt compelled to share both the email and my response. After some consoling remarks about the sad, sad freezer affair, he added:
And fyi, "jew down" is considered offensive by many people.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jew_down
I know you're not antisemitic, and I'm not offended, but I know that you generally try to avoid being offensive, unless it's absolutely necessary.
Now, I know where the phrase "jew down" came from. It's sweet that my brother assumed that I didn't know rather than think me an anti-Semite. Or is it insulting that he thought I couldn't figure it out? We'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, "jew down" comes from the stereotype that Jews are cheap. There are lots of these sorts of phrases, and I do tend to avoid them in polite conversation. But yesterday, I did knowingly use a term which could be considered offensive. I wouldn't use it in conversation with the President or a rabbi or Josh's mom, but I did use it on my blog, which is open for the President, rabbis, and Josh's mom to read.
I will tell you why. Some people say they can use slurs because they belong to the insulted group. I belong to the trait. If Jews can use "jew down" because they're Jewish, can I use it because I'm cheap? I personally think that being thrifty and having negotiating skills is WONDERFUL. These things rate very highly in my value system. It's not just about getting offbeat and unique stuff at thrift stores, this outlook is a lifestyle to me. I've read books and made active efforts to cultivate these skills in myself. To me saying that Jews are cheap is like complimenting them. Good for you, children of Israel, way to stretch a buck!
I'm not trying to advocate avarice or say that frugality should always trump generosity. The stereotype probably came from people being miserly, as opposed to just being coupon cutters. You can go too far. But I feel like most people are afraid of being thought of as just plain "cheap." Not stingy or greedy or even the positive-spin words like thrifty or frugal, but cheap. I am not afraid of that, and I applaud others, whole ethnic groups of them, who stand with me on this podium made of re-used cardboard boxes, thrift store appliances, and chairs found in the dumpster.
But my brother makes a good point. While he knows I'm not an anti-Semite and now you know that I think saying Jews are cheap is like saying that Asians are good at math, I won't have the opportunity to defend myself to every person that wanders here. I could link back to this post every time I use the phrase, but honestly, I'm not that attached to using it.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm going to go ponder what he meant by that last line. Maybe if I can come up with an entry where it's "absolutely necessary" to offend the Jews, I can use "jew down" again.
9.10.2008
9.09.2008
a place for ground beef.
Josh is squatting on the wet floor of a kitchenette in a Washington, D.C. studio apartment, holding open the flap that covers the freezer in the dorm-sized fridge. The fridge is empty of food, but has a large roasting pan on the bottom shelf, half-full of water. Kate is behind him with a mop, patiently soaking up the water off the floor and then draining the mop into a bucket and doing it all again. I am standing next to him with a two liter plastic pitcher three-quarters full of hot water. I am flinging the hot water into the freezer compartment.
This is one way to quickly defrost a freezer. I don't know if it's the best way, but it sure is a lot of fun. Also, the kitchen floor gets sparkly clean.
It was only coincidence that the Jim Henson exhibit happened right before Kate moved out of the country. We were glad to see her before she left this side of the Atlantic. Since she is making such a drastic move, she was trying to get rid of all of her stuff. Books, food, plates, whatever we wanted, she urged us to take it. It was like spending the night at an estate sale.
On our first night, I was sitting on the couch and I spied the freezer, a half-sized Frigidaire chest deep freezer. It seemed an unlikely occupant of the apartment. "Kate, you have a freezer!"
"Yes, do you want it?"
"Yes, please."
I deeply, deeply wanted all nine cubic feet of its frostiness. I had wanted a freezer for months. My learning to cook had coincided with reading The Tightwad Gazette, and it had occurred to me that I could not be a true tightwad without more than the paltry freezer in my fridge that I had now. I needed my own separate appliance for preserving food. How was I supposed to buy ten pounds of ground beef on sale if I had nowhere to store it?
"How much do you want for it?" This part was tricky. I mean, it was tricky for me. For most people, it would be totally easy, because normal people would just agree to pay whatever she was asking, having already committed to buying it. But we're not talking about those people, we're talking about me, and I had just said I would buy a major appliance off of someone without knowing the price. I had been hasty. What if she wanted too much? I had passed up a similar freezer at a yard sale a couple months ago because the people wanted $100. No way I'd go above $50, and really, that was definitely the high end. Would I have to negotiate? I'm not good at social stuff, but I'm pretty sure jewing down your good friends is bad form.
"I was asking $30 on craigslist."
"Sold." Phew. That will pay for itself after thirty pounds of sale priced ground beef. Muppets and a deal on a freezer? Best vacation ever.
The reason that Kate had an extra freezer is because she has a tiny dorm fridge that has a freezer space of about three cubic inches. Okay, it's more than that, but it is wimpy. You could fit about twenty pounds of ground beef in there, but then where would you put the bacon? Of course, Kate's a vegetarian, but she could still only fit about six bags of frozen vegetables in there. But if I was going to take away her freezer, we'd have to transfer the stuff in the big freezer to the little one. Luckily, most of the stuff in the freezer did not need to remain frozen as long as she ate it in the next week. What did need to be frozen could probably be forced in there. I helped out by eating a frozen fruit pop.
We lifted up the flap in the dorm fridge to start moving stuff in. It was then that we noticed that about three-fourths of the space in there was taken up by a mini-tundra. This is apparently what happens to tiny freezers when you neglect them. We would have to defrost the freezer in a short enough time that the stuff in the fridge wouldn't go bad. And that's how we ended up flinging hot water around and then mopping it up. Making a mess on purpose is fun.
The next morning, Josh and I carried my new freezer downstairs and up the block to my car. I drive a sedan, but I wasn't worried. We estimated that the freezer was about the same size as Josh's bass amplifier cabinet, only taller, and I'd hauled that thing more times than I could count. I'd been stuffing all manner of crap into that car for years and she'd never let me down. Many yard sale hosts had looked skeptically from my new purchases to that car, only to be surprised later when I managed it just fine, thank you very much.
I could describe the shoving and heaving and rearranging and sweating and muttering and pushing and slow sinking feelings of despair, but I'll just skip it. The freezer did not fit. The door frame was large enough, the back seat was large enough, but the door wouldn't open far enough. Before you ask, yes, we tried the front door and the trunk, too.
Are you crying and aching for me? I'm starting to tear up just remembering it. My poor tightwad heart was broken that day. I was despondent, and only minimally cheered by the fact that we were able to fit three bookshelves in there. I wrote Kate a check for the shelves, which she immediately tore up. It was a great symbolic gesture, except for the fact that little check pieces kept falling out of her pocket and spreading pieces of my identity on the streets of our nation's capital. She probably would have given me the freezer for free, too, but I try not to think about that.
Eventually, I will find a good deal on a used freezer, and I will be happy. I will buy lots of meat to put in it, because I am not a vegetarian. But I bet I will get it in a totally boring manner instead of in an evening of improbable defrosting hilarity with two of my favorite people ever.
Also, I'll have to find another way to get it home.
This is one way to quickly defrost a freezer. I don't know if it's the best way, but it sure is a lot of fun. Also, the kitchen floor gets sparkly clean.
It was only coincidence that the Jim Henson exhibit happened right before Kate moved out of the country. We were glad to see her before she left this side of the Atlantic. Since she is making such a drastic move, she was trying to get rid of all of her stuff. Books, food, plates, whatever we wanted, she urged us to take it. It was like spending the night at an estate sale.
On our first night, I was sitting on the couch and I spied the freezer, a half-sized Frigidaire chest deep freezer. It seemed an unlikely occupant of the apartment. "Kate, you have a freezer!"
"Yes, do you want it?"
"Yes, please."
I deeply, deeply wanted all nine cubic feet of its frostiness. I had wanted a freezer for months. My learning to cook had coincided with reading The Tightwad Gazette, and it had occurred to me that I could not be a true tightwad without more than the paltry freezer in my fridge that I had now. I needed my own separate appliance for preserving food. How was I supposed to buy ten pounds of ground beef on sale if I had nowhere to store it?
"How much do you want for it?" This part was tricky. I mean, it was tricky for me. For most people, it would be totally easy, because normal people would just agree to pay whatever she was asking, having already committed to buying it. But we're not talking about those people, we're talking about me, and I had just said I would buy a major appliance off of someone without knowing the price. I had been hasty. What if she wanted too much? I had passed up a similar freezer at a yard sale a couple months ago because the people wanted $100. No way I'd go above $50, and really, that was definitely the high end. Would I have to negotiate? I'm not good at social stuff, but I'm pretty sure jewing down your good friends is bad form.
"I was asking $30 on craigslist."
"Sold." Phew. That will pay for itself after thirty pounds of sale priced ground beef. Muppets and a deal on a freezer? Best vacation ever.
The reason that Kate had an extra freezer is because she has a tiny dorm fridge that has a freezer space of about three cubic inches. Okay, it's more than that, but it is wimpy. You could fit about twenty pounds of ground beef in there, but then where would you put the bacon? Of course, Kate's a vegetarian, but she could still only fit about six bags of frozen vegetables in there. But if I was going to take away her freezer, we'd have to transfer the stuff in the big freezer to the little one. Luckily, most of the stuff in the freezer did not need to remain frozen as long as she ate it in the next week. What did need to be frozen could probably be forced in there. I helped out by eating a frozen fruit pop.
We lifted up the flap in the dorm fridge to start moving stuff in. It was then that we noticed that about three-fourths of the space in there was taken up by a mini-tundra. This is apparently what happens to tiny freezers when you neglect them. We would have to defrost the freezer in a short enough time that the stuff in the fridge wouldn't go bad. And that's how we ended up flinging hot water around and then mopping it up. Making a mess on purpose is fun.
The next morning, Josh and I carried my new freezer downstairs and up the block to my car. I drive a sedan, but I wasn't worried. We estimated that the freezer was about the same size as Josh's bass amplifier cabinet, only taller, and I'd hauled that thing more times than I could count. I'd been stuffing all manner of crap into that car for years and she'd never let me down. Many yard sale hosts had looked skeptically from my new purchases to that car, only to be surprised later when I managed it just fine, thank you very much.
I could describe the shoving and heaving and rearranging and sweating and muttering and pushing and slow sinking feelings of despair, but I'll just skip it. The freezer did not fit. The door frame was large enough, the back seat was large enough, but the door wouldn't open far enough. Before you ask, yes, we tried the front door and the trunk, too.
Are you crying and aching for me? I'm starting to tear up just remembering it. My poor tightwad heart was broken that day. I was despondent, and only minimally cheered by the fact that we were able to fit three bookshelves in there. I wrote Kate a check for the shelves, which she immediately tore up. It was a great symbolic gesture, except for the fact that little check pieces kept falling out of her pocket and spreading pieces of my identity on the streets of our nation's capital. She probably would have given me the freezer for free, too, but I try not to think about that.
Eventually, I will find a good deal on a used freezer, and I will be happy. I will buy lots of meat to put in it, because I am not a vegetarian. But I bet I will get it in a totally boring manner instead of in an evening of improbable defrosting hilarity with two of my favorite people ever.
Also, I'll have to find another way to get it home.
9.08.2008
experimental film.
I think this will be the last entry in the Henson video series. I could post Henson-related videos for years, and I would be happy to, but at some point, I need to let people explore their own Muppet obsessions. If you haven't seen the other works, then maybe it's because you are not an enthusiast. We probably could never be close friends.
The real point of the exhibit was not to display Kermit and Rowlf. Everyone already knows that Jim Henson created the Muppets, and they probably all have fond memories of watching Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show. But at some point, those people grow up and stop thinking about puppets. It's kid stuff, right? But it's an art form, too, and this man was a visionary. There are a lot of artists out there that I think are probably geniuses, even if I'm not sure why. I frequently don't understand visual art, as hard as I tried when I was dating an artist. And I enjoy music, but I can tell that it doesn't affect me the way it does others. But I feel like I get puppets, and as I think about it, I realize that it's the same as all the things I really love - the combination of art and engineering. Clever dialogue, witty jokes, and interesting stories make my right brain happy. Thinking about how they're doing it makes my left brain happy.
Okay, enough puppet worship. You all think I've really snapped the tether this time, so let's just move on to the videos. This one was my favorite part of the Henson exhibit, because it really let me in on a side of the man that I never knew existed.
This is Time Piece, an experimental film from 1966. Jim stars in it, in case you didn't recognize him as a strapping young man. There's a lot of stop-motion animation going on. There is a stripper, so wait until you get home to watch it. Unless your boss is into Muppets, then I bet you could sell him on it.
And this is The Cube, written by Henson and longtime collaborator Jerry Juhl. It was actually on television back in 1969, before they had anything else to air, I suppose.
Just one final note that the University of Maryland has an archive of Henson's video works. It's free, but you have to be on campus to view it. Don't be surprised if I plan a trip to Baltimore soon.
The real point of the exhibit was not to display Kermit and Rowlf. Everyone already knows that Jim Henson created the Muppets, and they probably all have fond memories of watching Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show. But at some point, those people grow up and stop thinking about puppets. It's kid stuff, right? But it's an art form, too, and this man was a visionary. There are a lot of artists out there that I think are probably geniuses, even if I'm not sure why. I frequently don't understand visual art, as hard as I tried when I was dating an artist. And I enjoy music, but I can tell that it doesn't affect me the way it does others. But I feel like I get puppets, and as I think about it, I realize that it's the same as all the things I really love - the combination of art and engineering. Clever dialogue, witty jokes, and interesting stories make my right brain happy. Thinking about how they're doing it makes my left brain happy.
Okay, enough puppet worship. You all think I've really snapped the tether this time, so let's just move on to the videos. This one was my favorite part of the Henson exhibit, because it really let me in on a side of the man that I never knew existed.
This is Time Piece, an experimental film from 1966. Jim stars in it, in case you didn't recognize him as a strapping young man. There's a lot of stop-motion animation going on. There is a stripper, so wait until you get home to watch it. Unless your boss is into Muppets, then I bet you could sell him on it.
And this is The Cube, written by Henson and longtime collaborator Jerry Juhl. It was actually on television back in 1969, before they had anything else to air, I suppose.
Just one final note that the University of Maryland has an archive of Henson's video works. It's free, but you have to be on campus to view it. Don't be surprised if I plan a trip to Baltimore soon.
8.28.2008
large cheer!
What does a Muppet look like live and in the foam?
About what you'd expect.
Only without legs.
About what you'd expect.
Only without legs.
8.27.2008
quick cooked in dragon fire.
We're still doing Henson videos here today, and next are the commercials. Note that The Ladybug Picnic does not endorse any of the products shown below. Except that I do have some La Choy soy sauce in my fridge.
While funny commercials are pretty standard now, apparently back in the 1960s, it was quite a new idea. Henson came up with a series of nearly two hundred 8-second ads for Wilkins coffee. They remind me of the Geico commercials because of their breviy. These are a little violent, so much so that it's almost shocking that they were on TV. It's a little like watching Tom and Jerry now, wondering why you never had a problem with a cat being cut precisely in half when you were a kid.
I think my favorite is when the Washington Monument falls down on the guy because he does not drink Wilkins coffee.
There were also some commercials for Pak-Nit.
I love when the announcer reads the sign, even down to the "close parenthesis." I guess I'm just not used to these types of commercials, where there are characters and a story line disguising the advertising. I feel like I've seen stuff like this in modern commercials, but it came off being cheesy. Maybe things from the 1960s are just allowed to be cheesy.
And here's one for Wilson's Meat.
Of course, it doesn't make me want to eat Wilson's Meat at all, because it apparently gives you astronomical gas.
I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Cookie Monster originated as an ad gimmick.
He must have turned to cookies when it became hard to find Munchos. Apparently, you can find them in the Midwest.
And here's Nutty Bird, who should also look familiar to anyone who has ever seen any episode of Sesame Street ever. His friend is named Sour Bird.
What's most interesting to me is that they're pushing RC Cola as an energy drink. Now, of course, sodas are just soda, and energy drinks are something else entirely.
You can find lots more commercials on YouTube just by clicking around the related videos to the ones I've shown here. But let's get to my favorite. It's the La Choy Dragon!
Anything that says "Quick-cooked in dragon fire" in such a deadpan voice is a winner.
While funny commercials are pretty standard now, apparently back in the 1960s, it was quite a new idea. Henson came up with a series of nearly two hundred 8-second ads for Wilkins coffee. They remind me of the Geico commercials because of their breviy. These are a little violent, so much so that it's almost shocking that they were on TV. It's a little like watching Tom and Jerry now, wondering why you never had a problem with a cat being cut precisely in half when you were a kid.
I think my favorite is when the Washington Monument falls down on the guy because he does not drink Wilkins coffee.
There were also some commercials for Pak-Nit.
I love when the announcer reads the sign, even down to the "close parenthesis." I guess I'm just not used to these types of commercials, where there are characters and a story line disguising the advertising. I feel like I've seen stuff like this in modern commercials, but it came off being cheesy. Maybe things from the 1960s are just allowed to be cheesy.
And here's one for Wilson's Meat.
Of course, it doesn't make me want to eat Wilson's Meat at all, because it apparently gives you astronomical gas.
I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Cookie Monster originated as an ad gimmick.
He must have turned to cookies when it became hard to find Munchos. Apparently, you can find them in the Midwest.
And here's Nutty Bird, who should also look familiar to anyone who has ever seen any episode of Sesame Street ever. His friend is named Sour Bird.
What's most interesting to me is that they're pushing RC Cola as an energy drink. Now, of course, sodas are just soda, and energy drinks are something else entirely.
You can find lots more commercials on YouTube just by clicking around the related videos to the ones I've shown here. But let's get to my favorite. It's the La Choy Dragon!
Anything that says "Quick-cooked in dragon fire" in such a deadpan voice is a winner.
8.26.2008
Sam and Friends
Jim Henson had a Washington, D.C. public access five-minute television show called Sam and Friends. The show ran from 1955 to 1961. Five minutes is really, really short. I'm having a hard time coming up with an equivalent in today's viewing. I saw an interview with Henson who said it took about half a day to film each show. These shows feature an early Kermit. He's missing his jagged collar, but otherwise looks just like him.
There a full episode of Sam and Friends here(the original poster does not allow embedding in blog posts - harrumph).
I like the news anchor sketch. Obviously, they just took a clip of the actual news anchor introducing himself and then edited it to fit the questions. Particularly clever was the way they took "New York" and turned it into "Yorick." And check out Kermit's noticeably southern accent. Henson was from Mississippi, so this is to be expected, but it makes me smile to think of Kermit as a good old southern frog.
This next sketch was shown at the Smithsonian exhibit. It features Kermit again and a character called Harry the Hipster (whose voice sounds a lot like Rowlf the Dog).
A later version of this sketch appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. This time, Kermit is the hipster, and instead of jazz, they talk about abstract thinking.
I love Kermit's outfit. Finally, there's one last incarnation of this sketch. This one was on Sesame Street.
Disclaimer: No promises on how long these will be available, as I'm not in control of YouTube.
There a full episode of Sam and Friends here(the original poster does not allow embedding in blog posts - harrumph).
I like the news anchor sketch. Obviously, they just took a clip of the actual news anchor introducing himself and then edited it to fit the questions. Particularly clever was the way they took "New York" and turned it into "Yorick." And check out Kermit's noticeably southern accent. Henson was from Mississippi, so this is to be expected, but it makes me smile to think of Kermit as a good old southern frog.
This next sketch was shown at the Smithsonian exhibit. It features Kermit again and a character called Harry the Hipster (whose voice sounds a lot like Rowlf the Dog).
A later version of this sketch appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. This time, Kermit is the hipster, and instead of jazz, they talk about abstract thinking.
I love Kermit's outfit. Finally, there's one last incarnation of this sketch. This one was on Sesame Street.
Disclaimer: No promises on how long these will be available, as I'm not in control of YouTube.
8.25.2008
muppetational.
"How were the Muppets?"
Three people who I don't really know all that well asked me that on Saturday night. I was sorta embarrassed, as I hadn't realized that Josh had spilled my secret: I have a Muppet problem.
The secret is out now, so I might as well go all the way about it. The reason anyone asked me that question at all is because I went to Washington, D.C. last weekend specifically to see an exhibit about Jim Henson at the Smithsonian Institution.
Yes, I saw Muppets. I even took pictures of two of them, until I happened to see the sign that said I was not supposed to. I saw Kermit, Rowlf, Bert and Ernie, King Goshposh and Featherstone. I saw Mahna Mahna and the two Snowths.
But really, the exhibit was about Henson. So while there were the actual puppets, there was a greater focus on the designs. Next to a picture of Animal was a sheet featuring early sketches of him that were then given to a puppet creator to make him. There were tons of storyboards and scripts from TV shows, movies, commercials. There were half a dozen descriptions of projects that were proposed and designed but never created. Everything seemed to start out as a doodle on a piece of scrap paper and then ended up as a fantastic creation.
There was also a children's resource room where little kids could play and create. Along the wall was a series of foam blank faces with foam eyes, ears, noses, mustaches, eyebrows, and mouths. You could take the parts off and rearrange them in a sort of Mr. Potato Head style. This is how many Muppets are made. Their bodies and heads are blank canvases that the puppeteers stick face parts onto to create whatever sort of character they need. Along another wall was a long desk with blank storyboards for kids to make up stories and set up scenes. Finally, there was a small puppet stage where kids could put on a show. In front of the stage was a camera that fed directly into a screen on another wall. There were kids of all ages at each area.
The gift shop was a disappointment. I came prepared to drop some serious money on Henson memorabilia, but everything being sold was stuff you could find at Toys 'R' Us. What I really wanted was a DVD of the old stuff - the experimental film and the silly coffee commercials. But there was nothing at the store that was specific to the exhibit, not even t-shirts. I bought an Electric Mayhem button and left grumpy.
The exhibit is traveling and free. If you happen to be in any of the cities that are showing it, you should go. No, seriously, go. You'll like it.
I told my mother about the exhibit, and she proceeded to find a bunch of online video related to the things I saw at the exhibit. I did not know she possessed such YouTube skills. So I'm going to be posting some Jim Henson related videos in the next few days. But seriously, go to the exhibit.
Three people who I don't really know all that well asked me that on Saturday night. I was sorta embarrassed, as I hadn't realized that Josh had spilled my secret: I have a Muppet problem.
The secret is out now, so I might as well go all the way about it. The reason anyone asked me that question at all is because I went to Washington, D.C. last weekend specifically to see an exhibit about Jim Henson at the Smithsonian Institution.
Yes, I saw Muppets. I even took pictures of two of them, until I happened to see the sign that said I was not supposed to. I saw Kermit, Rowlf, Bert and Ernie, King Goshposh and Featherstone. I saw Mahna Mahna and the two Snowths.
But really, the exhibit was about Henson. So while there were the actual puppets, there was a greater focus on the designs. Next to a picture of Animal was a sheet featuring early sketches of him that were then given to a puppet creator to make him. There were tons of storyboards and scripts from TV shows, movies, commercials. There were half a dozen descriptions of projects that were proposed and designed but never created. Everything seemed to start out as a doodle on a piece of scrap paper and then ended up as a fantastic creation.
There was also a children's resource room where little kids could play and create. Along the wall was a series of foam blank faces with foam eyes, ears, noses, mustaches, eyebrows, and mouths. You could take the parts off and rearrange them in a sort of Mr. Potato Head style. This is how many Muppets are made. Their bodies and heads are blank canvases that the puppeteers stick face parts onto to create whatever sort of character they need. Along another wall was a long desk with blank storyboards for kids to make up stories and set up scenes. Finally, there was a small puppet stage where kids could put on a show. In front of the stage was a camera that fed directly into a screen on another wall. There were kids of all ages at each area.
The gift shop was a disappointment. I came prepared to drop some serious money on Henson memorabilia, but everything being sold was stuff you could find at Toys 'R' Us. What I really wanted was a DVD of the old stuff - the experimental film and the silly coffee commercials. But there was nothing at the store that was specific to the exhibit, not even t-shirts. I bought an Electric Mayhem button and left grumpy.
The exhibit is traveling and free. If you happen to be in any of the cities that are showing it, you should go. No, seriously, go. You'll like it.
I told my mother about the exhibit, and she proceeded to find a bunch of online video related to the things I saw at the exhibit. I did not know she possessed such YouTube skills. So I'm going to be posting some Jim Henson related videos in the next few days. But seriously, go to the exhibit.
8.13.2008
butter flavor.
We left late and arrived with time to kill. I'm not sure if I will ever get the hang of musician time. You'll be told to arrive somewhere at a particular time, and my inclination is to arrive five minutes before. But even if you arrive an hour late, you'll still have to wait on something else. The only coping method is to just go with the flow, chill out, lighten up.
Every time we come to Wilmington, I think about how I'd like to go there some weekend and just explore. There are about ten restaurants that look like they must have delicious secrets, not to mention a bunch of interesting-looking boutiques. Wilmington reminds me of Boone, only it's next to an ocean instead of a mountain.
So after receiving the information that we didn't need to be anywhere in the next hour, we put the bass guitar back in the car and headed toward the boardwalk. We stopped at an excellent ice cream shop, where I surprised myself by ordering butter pecan, a flavor that my parents used to buy every once in a while but that I never fully appreciated until now. I will confess that it never before clicked in my mind that it's butterscotch flavor, not butter flavor.
It was almost sunset, and downtown was crowded with tourists. Most of them were crowded around some sort of music festival, so we went in the opposite direction. We held hands some, but hand-holding has been a large failing experiment in our relationship. We're the same height, but his arms are longer. I don't remember what we talked about. Something silly, I think.
We reached a bridge and took seats on a bench. There were not very many people out walking on this end, mostly scattered couples and young families. A little girl and her mom walked by, the kid unabashedly staring at my ice cream. I knew what was coming. "Mama, I want ice cream." The mom looked around and saw me, guiltily looking back. They moved on while I continued my butterscotch enjoyment.
"That's the good thing about being an adult," I said in between licks.
"What is?"
"You control your own ice cream."
Every time we come to Wilmington, I think about how I'd like to go there some weekend and just explore. There are about ten restaurants that look like they must have delicious secrets, not to mention a bunch of interesting-looking boutiques. Wilmington reminds me of Boone, only it's next to an ocean instead of a mountain.
So after receiving the information that we didn't need to be anywhere in the next hour, we put the bass guitar back in the car and headed toward the boardwalk. We stopped at an excellent ice cream shop, where I surprised myself by ordering butter pecan, a flavor that my parents used to buy every once in a while but that I never fully appreciated until now. I will confess that it never before clicked in my mind that it's butterscotch flavor, not butter flavor.
It was almost sunset, and downtown was crowded with tourists. Most of them were crowded around some sort of music festival, so we went in the opposite direction. We held hands some, but hand-holding has been a large failing experiment in our relationship. We're the same height, but his arms are longer. I don't remember what we talked about. Something silly, I think.
We reached a bridge and took seats on a bench. There were not very many people out walking on this end, mostly scattered couples and young families. A little girl and her mom walked by, the kid unabashedly staring at my ice cream. I knew what was coming. "Mama, I want ice cream." The mom looked around and saw me, guiltily looking back. They moved on while I continued my butterscotch enjoyment.
"That's the good thing about being an adult," I said in between licks.
"What is?"
"You control your own ice cream."
8.08.2008
my shiny red and blue spandex.
I went to a small shindig recently that my friend Sarah was throwing. We were all sitting in the living room and talking about the internet. I've already covered that I don't do Facebook, and so I don't really get it. People who use it seem to be constantly checking it. I don't know what they're doing with it, but it seems to be addictive, which makes me curious about it and against it at the same time.
And then they were talking about their blogs. I don't talk much about my blog in conversation. In fact, I was listening to the conversation when Sarah piped up, "Sandra has a good blog!" to which I replied, "No, I don't." See, I was being sneaky there. I was actually just denying that I have a good blog, which is called being modest. But other people probably interpreted it as me denying that I had a blog at all. I didn't want to talk about my blog to these complete strangers, so it was my intention for them to jump to that conclusion, which is called being misleading or possibly lying.
The whole conversation weirded me out. To talk about your online entity seemed almost taboo, like you were giving away your secret identity. It would be like Clark Kent walking around with his dress shirt half unbuttoned, revealing his shiny red and blue spandex.
But I think I'm probably just weird about my blog. For a long time, I never let anyone read anything I wrote. Then after I started the blog, I never told anyone it existed or where they could find it. I've slowly gotten comfortable with the idea of others, strangers and friends and family alike, reading what seems to me to be personal. Even when I'm talking about something that isn't personal at all, it feels that way because I guarded my writing for so long. Also, I hold back very little.
It throws me off when someone talks to me in person about a blog entry. They want to discuss something about me in a familiar fashion, as if we'd already had a conversation about it. But I never had such a conversation with them. How do they know? HOW DID THEY GET INTO MY MIND??? But then I remember that I wrote a blog about it. That second of confusion and paranoia happens every time, and honestly, I feel off-kilter for the whole conversation.
But I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I started writing on a regular basis, and I'm glad I am sharing it. It's an excellent medium for me to get stuff out there, and I swear I think I'm becoming more introspective because I'm constantly thinking about turning everything into a blog entry. And it fosters relationships. I know that people feel closer to me when they read it, when they know the little things going on in my life and when they read thoughts that might not come across in conversation. And while it doesn't happen as often as I might like, I do get emails and comments that start conversations that might not otherwise have occurred.
I started the blog to get a book deal. Okay, not explicitly to get a book deal, but I saw that sort of thing happen for other bloggers and the idea was sorta hanging out in the back of my head that that would be a pretty cool thing to happen to me. But I am not famous, and I don't have that many readers outside my family. I could print everything out and staple it together, and my mom would think it was awesome, but that's not the same. Oh well.
And then they were talking about their blogs. I don't talk much about my blog in conversation. In fact, I was listening to the conversation when Sarah piped up, "Sandra has a good blog!" to which I replied, "No, I don't." See, I was being sneaky there. I was actually just denying that I have a good blog, which is called being modest. But other people probably interpreted it as me denying that I had a blog at all. I didn't want to talk about my blog to these complete strangers, so it was my intention for them to jump to that conclusion, which is called being misleading or possibly lying.
The whole conversation weirded me out. To talk about your online entity seemed almost taboo, like you were giving away your secret identity. It would be like Clark Kent walking around with his dress shirt half unbuttoned, revealing his shiny red and blue spandex.
But I think I'm probably just weird about my blog. For a long time, I never let anyone read anything I wrote. Then after I started the blog, I never told anyone it existed or where they could find it. I've slowly gotten comfortable with the idea of others, strangers and friends and family alike, reading what seems to me to be personal. Even when I'm talking about something that isn't personal at all, it feels that way because I guarded my writing for so long. Also, I hold back very little.
It throws me off when someone talks to me in person about a blog entry. They want to discuss something about me in a familiar fashion, as if we'd already had a conversation about it. But I never had such a conversation with them. How do they know? HOW DID THEY GET INTO MY MIND??? But then I remember that I wrote a blog about it. That second of confusion and paranoia happens every time, and honestly, I feel off-kilter for the whole conversation.
But I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I started writing on a regular basis, and I'm glad I am sharing it. It's an excellent medium for me to get stuff out there, and I swear I think I'm becoming more introspective because I'm constantly thinking about turning everything into a blog entry. And it fosters relationships. I know that people feel closer to me when they read it, when they know the little things going on in my life and when they read thoughts that might not come across in conversation. And while it doesn't happen as often as I might like, I do get emails and comments that start conversations that might not otherwise have occurred.
I started the blog to get a book deal. Okay, not explicitly to get a book deal, but I saw that sort of thing happen for other bloggers and the idea was sorta hanging out in the back of my head that that would be a pretty cool thing to happen to me. But I am not famous, and I don't have that many readers outside my family. I could print everything out and staple it together, and my mom would think it was awesome, but that's not the same. Oh well.
8.07.2008
heroes on the half-shell.
I believe that you can tell a little something about a person based on how they feel about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When the old show first started airing on Saturday mornings back in 1988, I was in the target audience.
I've never seen the movies. I've seen part of the beginning of the first one, which I watched with my friend Brandi, whose parents had a TV in their van and who let her watch movies with bad words. My parents were not like this. I remember watching it and wondering why it was so dimly lit and why the costumes were so crappy. Eight years old, and I was unable to get past the fact that I was watching a grown man in a turtle suit. Then Raphael said the 'S'-word, and I felt a little betrayed.
I watched the TV show long after I had seen all the episodes. Really, I probably had aged out, but I watched them anyway because we didn't have cable. Five channels and not a thing to watch. Then I watched an episode that Josh happened to have in his video collection, left over from his grade school days. You know how some shows work on multiple levels such that when you watch them again in your twenties, they're still as good as you remembered? TMNT is not one of those shows. It's awful.
But everybody watched it at that age. And so I think you can tell a lot about a person by their favorite ninja turtle. Now, obviously, Donatello was the best one. He was always building these crazy inventions that completely saved the day. Donatello was turtle ex machina. He solved problems with his mind.
But I've heard that other people, for whatever foolish reason, do prefer other turtles. I can sort of get on board with Raphael, who made all the sarcastic commentary. Raphael always seemed a bit bitter to me, though, like a turtle who'd lost hope. And Michaelangelo might be fun at a party, but he lacked depth. Yes, yes, I enjoy pizza and dancing, too, Mike, but can we sit down and talk about some good books we might have read lately?
I played ninja turtles with a cousin that I had for a while. Can you have temporary cousins? I did. She was a foster kid who lived with my aunt. She was roughly my age, and I remember playing with her one summer while our families were both visiting my grandparents' farm in Kansas. We were probably about nine. And she liked Leonardo. This totally blew my mind. I mean, really, who likes Leonardo? Yeah, he was the leader, but his main interests was apparently teamwork. His favorite book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (his favorite is number six: synergize). Leonardo was a nice guy and an effective leader, sure, but he was just so bland and boring.
I hope that my nine-year-old self never said, "You like Leonardo? Really? People do that?" That sounds totally like something I would have said. Hopefully, I was caught in the dilemma of wanting to convince her of the superiority of Donatello while enjoying the fact that I didn't have to fight over getting to play Donatello.
Of course I didn't think your favorite ninja turtle said anything about you then. I didn't even really understand why people liked turtles other than Donatello; I assumed that they hadn't really thought about the issue carefully. But I think now about my peers and I feel like I can almost pick out who their favorite turtle would be. I also understand all too well that a lot of people don't automatically associate smart with ultra-super-cool. And I think about my temporary cousin, who had been shuttled around to who knows how many different families. Maybe all she wanted was someone stable who would take charge of her life once and for all.
I think I have just composed the most profound piece of writing on the subject of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the history of time. Turtle power!
I've never seen the movies. I've seen part of the beginning of the first one, which I watched with my friend Brandi, whose parents had a TV in their van and who let her watch movies with bad words. My parents were not like this. I remember watching it and wondering why it was so dimly lit and why the costumes were so crappy. Eight years old, and I was unable to get past the fact that I was watching a grown man in a turtle suit. Then Raphael said the 'S'-word, and I felt a little betrayed.
I watched the TV show long after I had seen all the episodes. Really, I probably had aged out, but I watched them anyway because we didn't have cable. Five channels and not a thing to watch. Then I watched an episode that Josh happened to have in his video collection, left over from his grade school days. You know how some shows work on multiple levels such that when you watch them again in your twenties, they're still as good as you remembered? TMNT is not one of those shows. It's awful.
But everybody watched it at that age. And so I think you can tell a lot about a person by their favorite ninja turtle. Now, obviously, Donatello was the best one. He was always building these crazy inventions that completely saved the day. Donatello was turtle ex machina. He solved problems with his mind.
But I've heard that other people, for whatever foolish reason, do prefer other turtles. I can sort of get on board with Raphael, who made all the sarcastic commentary. Raphael always seemed a bit bitter to me, though, like a turtle who'd lost hope. And Michaelangelo might be fun at a party, but he lacked depth. Yes, yes, I enjoy pizza and dancing, too, Mike, but can we sit down and talk about some good books we might have read lately?
I played ninja turtles with a cousin that I had for a while. Can you have temporary cousins? I did. She was a foster kid who lived with my aunt. She was roughly my age, and I remember playing with her one summer while our families were both visiting my grandparents' farm in Kansas. We were probably about nine. And she liked Leonardo. This totally blew my mind. I mean, really, who likes Leonardo? Yeah, he was the leader, but his main interests was apparently teamwork. His favorite book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (his favorite is number six: synergize). Leonardo was a nice guy and an effective leader, sure, but he was just so bland and boring.
I hope that my nine-year-old self never said, "You like Leonardo? Really? People do that?" That sounds totally like something I would have said. Hopefully, I was caught in the dilemma of wanting to convince her of the superiority of Donatello while enjoying the fact that I didn't have to fight over getting to play Donatello.
Of course I didn't think your favorite ninja turtle said anything about you then. I didn't even really understand why people liked turtles other than Donatello; I assumed that they hadn't really thought about the issue carefully. But I think now about my peers and I feel like I can almost pick out who their favorite turtle would be. I also understand all too well that a lot of people don't automatically associate smart with ultra-super-cool. And I think about my temporary cousin, who had been shuttled around to who knows how many different families. Maybe all she wanted was someone stable who would take charge of her life once and for all.
I think I have just composed the most profound piece of writing on the subject of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the history of time. Turtle power!
7.25.2008
godzilla vs. gene kelly.
"You know Oklahoma!?" Josh asked me last night.
"Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains? Yeah."
"Well, you know that scene between Jud Fry and, uh, the other guy, the hero."
"Curly."
"Yeah, Curly. Well, you know that scene-"
"Wait, how do you know Jud Fry's whole name?"
"It's in that song." He starts singing, "Poor Jud is dead, poor Jud Fry is dead."
"Wait a minute. You know songs from Oklahoma!?"
Josh does not like musicals. We've talked about it several times - how he hates musicals, can't stand to watch them. He doesn't even comment anymore about how I'll occasionally burst into a showtune, should I be reminded of it somehow. He's acknowledged that I will someday make him watch all the musicals I own, but I haven't yet, because I know he won't like them. The whole musical thing is covered ground in our relationship. Except for the fact that at no time, did he ever mention that he knows all the songs from Oklahoma!.
"Well, I mean, I've seen it. I can remember the songs and stuff."
I start testing him out.
"Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry..."
"When I take you out in the surrey."
"I'm just a girl who cain't say no..."
"I'm in a terrible fix."
"Ever'thin's up to date in Kansas City..."
"They gone about as fer as they can go. They went and built a skyscraper seven stories high. 'Bout as high as a building oughta grow."
I look at him, amazed. I do not know this man.
"That doesn't mean I like musicals. I don't even like Oklahoma!. They're silly and there's no continuity, the way people burst into these songs that don't have that much to do with anything."
I agree with him. There are truly great musicals, with beautiful writing and depth, with real stories that the music only complements. Fiddler on the Roof is a wonderful movie of any genre, period. My Fair Lady has incredible dialogue, because you can't go wrong with Shaw. Oklahoma! is mostly just cheese. It's not deep or clever or anything, just people dancing and singing, and many musical movies are mostly the same. But I grew up watching those movies. The other eight-year-olds knew that capital T rhymed with P, but did they know that it stood for "pool"? I thought "Some Enchanged Evening" was the most romantic song ever written and spent middle school Social Studies classes dreaming of crowded rooms full of handsome strangers. I had a crush on Gene Kelly, and I was heartbroken when he died.
"They're like Godzilla movies," I tell him. I bet you did not see that coming. No doubt you think I have lost my mind. Luckily, Josh understands me when I say nonsense like that.
Josh watched a lot of Godzilla movies when he was growing up. And now, also. I watch them with him. They're not good movies. They're silly, with crappy special effects, heavy-handed messages, ridiculous plots, and very strange dubbed dialogue that I can only hope makes sense in Japan. He loves them. And so if he gets a kick out of a guy in a monster suit, stomping around models of Tokyo, I can enjoy men in matching, brightly-colored shirts dancing on a spinning log.
Of course, now that his secret is out, don't think I'm going to let him forget it.
"Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains? Yeah."
"Well, you know that scene between Jud Fry and, uh, the other guy, the hero."
"Curly."
"Yeah, Curly. Well, you know that scene-"
"Wait, how do you know Jud Fry's whole name?"
"It's in that song." He starts singing, "Poor Jud is dead, poor Jud Fry is dead."
"Wait a minute. You know songs from Oklahoma!?"
Josh does not like musicals. We've talked about it several times - how he hates musicals, can't stand to watch them. He doesn't even comment anymore about how I'll occasionally burst into a showtune, should I be reminded of it somehow. He's acknowledged that I will someday make him watch all the musicals I own, but I haven't yet, because I know he won't like them. The whole musical thing is covered ground in our relationship. Except for the fact that at no time, did he ever mention that he knows all the songs from Oklahoma!.
"Well, I mean, I've seen it. I can remember the songs and stuff."
I start testing him out.
"Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry..."
"When I take you out in the surrey."
"I'm just a girl who cain't say no..."
"I'm in a terrible fix."
"Ever'thin's up to date in Kansas City..."
"They gone about as fer as they can go. They went and built a skyscraper seven stories high. 'Bout as high as a building oughta grow."
I look at him, amazed. I do not know this man.
"That doesn't mean I like musicals. I don't even like Oklahoma!. They're silly and there's no continuity, the way people burst into these songs that don't have that much to do with anything."
I agree with him. There are truly great musicals, with beautiful writing and depth, with real stories that the music only complements. Fiddler on the Roof is a wonderful movie of any genre, period. My Fair Lady has incredible dialogue, because you can't go wrong with Shaw. Oklahoma! is mostly just cheese. It's not deep or clever or anything, just people dancing and singing, and many musical movies are mostly the same. But I grew up watching those movies. The other eight-year-olds knew that capital T rhymed with P, but did they know that it stood for "pool"? I thought "Some Enchanged Evening" was the most romantic song ever written and spent middle school Social Studies classes dreaming of crowded rooms full of handsome strangers. I had a crush on Gene Kelly, and I was heartbroken when he died.
"They're like Godzilla movies," I tell him. I bet you did not see that coming. No doubt you think I have lost my mind. Luckily, Josh understands me when I say nonsense like that.
Josh watched a lot of Godzilla movies when he was growing up. And now, also. I watch them with him. They're not good movies. They're silly, with crappy special effects, heavy-handed messages, ridiculous plots, and very strange dubbed dialogue that I can only hope makes sense in Japan. He loves them. And so if he gets a kick out of a guy in a monster suit, stomping around models of Tokyo, I can enjoy men in matching, brightly-colored shirts dancing on a spinning log.
Of course, now that his secret is out, don't think I'm going to let him forget it.
7.24.2008
filtered.
Did you know that Josh played his guitar in an iPod commercial?
Or maybe I just discovered that color filters are fun.
7.22.2008
a story about someone else.
Down in Spivey's Corner, North Carolina, there is an annual hollerin' contest. A coworker of mine from out of state heard about this contest, declared it ridiculous, and decided it would be fun to go and see the local color. He took along a couple of city slicker friends, one of them named Sandra. It was not me. I am not a city slicker, and I have known about the hollerin' contest for a long time, and as you will see, this Sandra did not.
Sandra decided to enter the hollerin' contest, because she knew she had a big, loud voice. She was second to holler. The first entrant, who was undoubtedly wearing overalls, did some loud and weird sound and the audience clapped. Sandra got up on stage, introduced herself and said that this was what her mother did when it was time to come in for supper.
"SANNNDRAAAAAAAAAA!"
Now, I know you're still thinking that this Sandra is me, but it's not. When it was time for supper at my house, my mother yelled "SUPPPPERRRRRRRR!" which is totally different from what this other Sandra's mother did. See? This story is obviously not about me.
After that rousing yell of her own name, the audience sort of looked confused, and then clapped politely, because they were good Southern folks. What these city slickers did not know is that this contest is more for things like pig calls, not for calling wandering children in for supper. It's almost like a special kind of yodel so that your pigs will know it's you, but your neighbor's pigs will disregard. And so the rest of the contestants did more weird loud noises that didn't sound anything like anyone's mother calling them to supper.
I heard this story several months ago from my coworker. At a party I attended this weekend, I happened to meet a girl named Sandra who knew the same coworker. It did not occur to me until afterwards that this was the same Sandra who had gone to the hollerin' contest. I only wish that I had remembered, so that I could ask her about it. And I hope now that you are convinced, once and for all, that this story was not about me.
*For more information about the National Hollerin' Contest, please go to their semi-official website. There, you will learn that only one winner of the contest (the 1970 champion) came from outside the county. Poor Sandra (not me) never had a chance.
Sandra decided to enter the hollerin' contest, because she knew she had a big, loud voice. She was second to holler. The first entrant, who was undoubtedly wearing overalls, did some loud and weird sound and the audience clapped. Sandra got up on stage, introduced herself and said that this was what her mother did when it was time to come in for supper.
"SANNNDRAAAAAAAAAA!"
Now, I know you're still thinking that this Sandra is me, but it's not. When it was time for supper at my house, my mother yelled "SUPPPPERRRRRRRR!" which is totally different from what this other Sandra's mother did. See? This story is obviously not about me.
After that rousing yell of her own name, the audience sort of looked confused, and then clapped politely, because they were good Southern folks. What these city slickers did not know is that this contest is more for things like pig calls, not for calling wandering children in for supper. It's almost like a special kind of yodel so that your pigs will know it's you, but your neighbor's pigs will disregard. And so the rest of the contestants did more weird loud noises that didn't sound anything like anyone's mother calling them to supper.
I heard this story several months ago from my coworker. At a party I attended this weekend, I happened to meet a girl named Sandra who knew the same coworker. It did not occur to me until afterwards that this was the same Sandra who had gone to the hollerin' contest. I only wish that I had remembered, so that I could ask her about it. And I hope now that you are convinced, once and for all, that this story was not about me.
*For more information about the National Hollerin' Contest, please go to their semi-official website. There, you will learn that only one winner of the contest (the 1970 champion) came from outside the county. Poor Sandra (not me) never had a chance.
7.21.2008
software engineering.
During my final semester of college, I took four high level math classes and one computer science class. No class got the attention it really deserved. My last period as a student was a shoddy one as I coasted by doing only as much as I had to to keep my grades up. I really didn't care anymore.
The one computer science class I took was Software Engineering, a lone practical course in a curriculum full of theory. It was boring, full of homework, and seemed pointless. Or maybe I just had a poor attitude.
We were divided into groups of four to complete a part of a larger class project. We were given the coding task, but before we could do it, we had to define it in a big document. And then after we did that, but still before we could start writing code, we had to design what we were going to and write a big document about that. And finally, we could start writing code, but along the way, we had to stop and have meetings about our code and review the code of our partners. We also had to stop and make changes to the documents we'd written, because the other teams would make changes in their plans and so we had to adjust accordingly. Finally, when we were actually done writing code, we had to have another meeting about our code and what was good and bad about the project, and of course, there needed to be a document about that, too.
Poor attitude or not, does that sound like much fun to you?
We had been learning how to write code, how to program, but this was about engineering software. It had a process which had been developed after lots of people had lots of meetings and wrote lots of documents about how projects had gone badly in the past. Those people determined that this process was the most effective way to develop software quickly and with as few bugs as possible.
As I went through this class, I mostly thought it was a lot of bull. How could anyone hope to get any coding done if they had to have all these meetings and write documents and then have meetings about the documents?
Of course, you've figured out by now, as I did by the end of my first month in the industry, that this class was the most accurate in terms of how programming is in the real world. I don't think my being a better student would have really improved how I applied the lessons of this class in my working life. But I just wish they'd been more explicit about the whole thing. "Hey, you dumb kid. You don't have to listen. You don't have to agree with all of this. But know that you will have to do it every day. You think I'm teaching for the pay?" I didn't feel unprepared to do the paperwork and the meetings, I felt unprepared to be assigned to do it. It's like I was surprised that I wasn't going to be assigned to write programs that drew triangles made of asterisks or played Yachtzee!.
And so, because I feel a need to fill the gap in the education of many young and naive computer science students (and also because I like to write in a bossy tone), I'm going to tell you what software engineering is all about.
You will have to work with other people. In college, everyone is assigned a Yachtzee! program. And so everyone has to produce their own version of Yachtzee! People don't work together. You don't have one kid write the dice roll part and then another kid write the scoring part.
While I knew some kids in my classes who would have been happy to have a few teammates, I'm hear to report that it's not all riding on coattails. There are three possibilities here. One is that your teammates are smarter than you are, in which case you can't pull your weight and you're going to have to get by on working really hard and being charming to make up for your natural deficiencies. The second is that your teammates are idiots and then you're going to have to make up for them, because 99% of the time, they do not know they're idiots and they won't be told. The third possibility is that you're equally matched. And whether you're both idiots or both geniuses, you're still not going to think the same way.
Those other people will not think the same way, they will assume the bugs are yours instead of theirs, they will change your precious code, they will write code in a weird style, they will not put spaces around their equals signs and they will never write clear comments explaining what is going on in their ridiculous, obfuscated code.
You will not necessarily be working on anything even remotely interesting. Think about the software you use every day. Somebody wrote that, obviously. How do you picture that person? When you use Excel, do you imagine someone really passionate about spreadsheets? Even worse is when you start getting into niche software, like, oh, truck diagnostics. The disillusioned and frustrated programmer who wrote the routine to test your gauges may not even care about your truck. Not even a little bit. How do you stay interested in your job when it's about something you don't understand, nor desire to understand? I don't have the answer to that.
Requirements Change. What if, about halfway into the Yachtzee! project, your professor comes by and said that she wants you to use a set of dodecahedron dice instead of your regular six-sided variety. Of course, that means the rules are going to change in the game, and you'll have more rounds, which will affect scoring.
"You can't do that! You already made the assignment and I've already started working! What's the point of not waiting until the last minute if you're just going to change your mind?"
In school, you could probably make that claim. But your boss will just advise you to bring a picture of your wife into work so that you don't forget what she looks like while you're working all these long hours. Requirements change at any time and you have to deal with it. Sometimes it's because of poor management or overzealous sales members, but sometimes it's because Microsoft just released a new service pack.
Meetings and paperwork are part of the job. A common question to ask when you're applying for a job is the percentage of time that you'll spend coding. They'll probably lie to you about the answer, but the fact that it's a question used at all is pretty telling. I have friends from college who don't code at all. It seemed pretty ironic to me at first that a job so based in technology would have so much paperwork. I don't hate the paperwork itself, as I paid enough attention in software engineering to see how it's useful when properly applied. But sometimes it's BS. Different projects require different amounts, and more paperwork is not always the answer.
And meetings are the same way. You'll have to attend meetings that have very little to do with what you're working on. You'll have to attend meetings where people spend an hour arguing over something like the color of the Yachtzee! dice. You'll attend meetings and sit there thinking about all the work you could be getting done. But then you'll attend meetings that are useful and productive and maybe helpful in attacking a task that you were unsure about.
I say I wish someone had told me these things, but I know I wouldn't have listened. I wonder sometimes why they don't tell you before your last semester what being a professional programmer is really like; then I realize that everyone would change their majors. It's not so bad. If you find a good place to work where there is a high genius to idiot ratio, a reasonable boss, high coding time percentage, and work that you're interested in, you'll probably be pretty happy with your situation. No career is perfect. Even the Ben and Jerry's testers get headaches sometimes.
The one computer science class I took was Software Engineering, a lone practical course in a curriculum full of theory. It was boring, full of homework, and seemed pointless. Or maybe I just had a poor attitude.
We were divided into groups of four to complete a part of a larger class project. We were given the coding task, but before we could do it, we had to define it in a big document. And then after we did that, but still before we could start writing code, we had to design what we were going to and write a big document about that. And finally, we could start writing code, but along the way, we had to stop and have meetings about our code and review the code of our partners. We also had to stop and make changes to the documents we'd written, because the other teams would make changes in their plans and so we had to adjust accordingly. Finally, when we were actually done writing code, we had to have another meeting about our code and what was good and bad about the project, and of course, there needed to be a document about that, too.
Poor attitude or not, does that sound like much fun to you?
We had been learning how to write code, how to program, but this was about engineering software. It had a process which had been developed after lots of people had lots of meetings and wrote lots of documents about how projects had gone badly in the past. Those people determined that this process was the most effective way to develop software quickly and with as few bugs as possible.
As I went through this class, I mostly thought it was a lot of bull. How could anyone hope to get any coding done if they had to have all these meetings and write documents and then have meetings about the documents?
Of course, you've figured out by now, as I did by the end of my first month in the industry, that this class was the most accurate in terms of how programming is in the real world. I don't think my being a better student would have really improved how I applied the lessons of this class in my working life. But I just wish they'd been more explicit about the whole thing. "Hey, you dumb kid. You don't have to listen. You don't have to agree with all of this. But know that you will have to do it every day. You think I'm teaching for the pay?" I didn't feel unprepared to do the paperwork and the meetings, I felt unprepared to be assigned to do it. It's like I was surprised that I wasn't going to be assigned to write programs that drew triangles made of asterisks or played Yachtzee!.
And so, because I feel a need to fill the gap in the education of many young and naive computer science students (and also because I like to write in a bossy tone), I'm going to tell you what software engineering is all about.
You will have to work with other people. In college, everyone is assigned a Yachtzee! program. And so everyone has to produce their own version of Yachtzee! People don't work together. You don't have one kid write the dice roll part and then another kid write the scoring part.
While I knew some kids in my classes who would have been happy to have a few teammates, I'm hear to report that it's not all riding on coattails. There are three possibilities here. One is that your teammates are smarter than you are, in which case you can't pull your weight and you're going to have to get by on working really hard and being charming to make up for your natural deficiencies. The second is that your teammates are idiots and then you're going to have to make up for them, because 99% of the time, they do not know they're idiots and they won't be told. The third possibility is that you're equally matched. And whether you're both idiots or both geniuses, you're still not going to think the same way.
Those other people will not think the same way, they will assume the bugs are yours instead of theirs, they will change your precious code, they will write code in a weird style, they will not put spaces around their equals signs and they will never write clear comments explaining what is going on in their ridiculous, obfuscated code.
You will not necessarily be working on anything even remotely interesting. Think about the software you use every day. Somebody wrote that, obviously. How do you picture that person? When you use Excel, do you imagine someone really passionate about spreadsheets? Even worse is when you start getting into niche software, like, oh, truck diagnostics. The disillusioned and frustrated programmer who wrote the routine to test your gauges may not even care about your truck. Not even a little bit. How do you stay interested in your job when it's about something you don't understand, nor desire to understand? I don't have the answer to that.
Requirements Change. What if, about halfway into the Yachtzee! project, your professor comes by and said that she wants you to use a set of dodecahedron dice instead of your regular six-sided variety. Of course, that means the rules are going to change in the game, and you'll have more rounds, which will affect scoring.
"You can't do that! You already made the assignment and I've already started working! What's the point of not waiting until the last minute if you're just going to change your mind?"
In school, you could probably make that claim. But your boss will just advise you to bring a picture of your wife into work so that you don't forget what she looks like while you're working all these long hours. Requirements change at any time and you have to deal with it. Sometimes it's because of poor management or overzealous sales members, but sometimes it's because Microsoft just released a new service pack.
Meetings and paperwork are part of the job. A common question to ask when you're applying for a job is the percentage of time that you'll spend coding. They'll probably lie to you about the answer, but the fact that it's a question used at all is pretty telling. I have friends from college who don't code at all. It seemed pretty ironic to me at first that a job so based in technology would have so much paperwork. I don't hate the paperwork itself, as I paid enough attention in software engineering to see how it's useful when properly applied. But sometimes it's BS. Different projects require different amounts, and more paperwork is not always the answer.
And meetings are the same way. You'll have to attend meetings that have very little to do with what you're working on. You'll have to attend meetings where people spend an hour arguing over something like the color of the Yachtzee! dice. You'll attend meetings and sit there thinking about all the work you could be getting done. But then you'll attend meetings that are useful and productive and maybe helpful in attacking a task that you were unsure about.
I say I wish someone had told me these things, but I know I wouldn't have listened. I wonder sometimes why they don't tell you before your last semester what being a professional programmer is really like; then I realize that everyone would change their majors. It's not so bad. If you find a good place to work where there is a high genius to idiot ratio, a reasonable boss, high coding time percentage, and work that you're interested in, you'll probably be pretty happy with your situation. No career is perfect. Even the Ben and Jerry's testers get headaches sometimes.
7.17.2008
a taste of strawberries.
I really haven't eaten very many strawberries since I left the nest. That's because my mean, rotten parents grew strawberries in their garden and thus spoiled me from ever enjoying one that I might purchase in a store. I consider this to be part of their incredibly elaborate plan to make their children come visit them more often.
The strawberry patch moved around some, but I liked it best when it was in the orchard. We lived at the top of a big hill, and I would have to climb the driveway every day after being deposited at the bottom of the hill by the school bus. The orchard was about halfway up. It contained various fruit trees that never produced and died off one by one at a slow, but steady rate. The rest of the orchard was mostly just unkempt grass with a smattering of wildflowers. Later, there were blueberry bushes that I think were planted specifically to have their fruit eaten by deer, because we got more blueberries than we could handle from the dozen bushes at the top of the hill. And for a couple of years, there was a strawberry patch. The strawberries came into season at the end of the school year. I would regularly stop on my long and hated hike up the driveway to pick and eat every ripe strawberry I found. I was never told not to do this, so either we had enough of a harvest to support both me and my mother's jam needs or my parents never knew I did it. Perhaps it was all apart of their dastardly plan.
Store-bought strawberries are fine, as long as you've never tasted real ones. They're just slightly off in a lot of ways. They're not juicy and tender, but sort of hard and dry. They're sweet, but it's a sort of fake sweet, like drinking diet soda. And they're not red in the middle. I don't understand these weird berries which are beautiful and red on the outside, but bright white on the inside. It's like the ripeness of the outside doesn't match the ripeness of the inside. Store-bought strawberry beauty is indeed only skin deep. I bet there are people in this country who have never had a real strawberry, and I am sad for them.
I woke up with a hankering for strawberries one Saturday morning in late May. I knew they were in season, and I'd seen them at the grocery store on sale. I'd been tempted to buy some several times, knowing that I would be disappointed. There had to be another way. Then suddenly, it struck me.
Josh and I arrived at the Farmer's Market in the afternoon, when the heat was mixing with the smell of fresh, ripe fruit and honest dirt to create a pungent aroma to stimulate the taste buds and the wallet. We were there with a purpose - to obtain farm-fresh strawberries - and then we saw the gigantic sweet potatoes and the unblemished snap beans and the plump tomatoes. There was asparagus and zucchini and yellow squash. We spent $15 on local produce, two-thirds of that was on strawberries (haha, you have to do math!)
Then we got home and had a heck of a lot of strawberries to deal with. So we made these.
Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
Allrecipes
The funnest part of this recipe is sticking the strawberries upside down in the styrofoam. It looks like a tiny forest that you might find inside Willy Wonka's factory.
Now, I'm not a chocolate person. I enjoy chocolate, of course. But I can have a piece of it and then stop with no problem while Josh finishes the rest of the bar and then every other chocolate thing in the house, including any baking chocolate I might have in the pantry. However, I discovered that my capacity for chocolate increases exponentially (more math!) if you stick a farm-fresh strawberry inside it. We were gorging ourselves on these treats when Josh sighed and said he'd had enough. I was confused, because there were more chocolate-covered strawberries left, so how could he be done? It just didn't make any sense. But I sighed and stopped, too, because I knew if I ate even one more, the whole lot of them would be down my gullet before he could say "Hey, save one for me!"
Later, I made strawberry shortcake and just generally ate a lot of strawberries. Take that, parents!
The strawberry patch moved around some, but I liked it best when it was in the orchard. We lived at the top of a big hill, and I would have to climb the driveway every day after being deposited at the bottom of the hill by the school bus. The orchard was about halfway up. It contained various fruit trees that never produced and died off one by one at a slow, but steady rate. The rest of the orchard was mostly just unkempt grass with a smattering of wildflowers. Later, there were blueberry bushes that I think were planted specifically to have their fruit eaten by deer, because we got more blueberries than we could handle from the dozen bushes at the top of the hill. And for a couple of years, there was a strawberry patch. The strawberries came into season at the end of the school year. I would regularly stop on my long and hated hike up the driveway to pick and eat every ripe strawberry I found. I was never told not to do this, so either we had enough of a harvest to support both me and my mother's jam needs or my parents never knew I did it. Perhaps it was all apart of their dastardly plan.
Store-bought strawberries are fine, as long as you've never tasted real ones. They're just slightly off in a lot of ways. They're not juicy and tender, but sort of hard and dry. They're sweet, but it's a sort of fake sweet, like drinking diet soda. And they're not red in the middle. I don't understand these weird berries which are beautiful and red on the outside, but bright white on the inside. It's like the ripeness of the outside doesn't match the ripeness of the inside. Store-bought strawberry beauty is indeed only skin deep. I bet there are people in this country who have never had a real strawberry, and I am sad for them.
I woke up with a hankering for strawberries one Saturday morning in late May. I knew they were in season, and I'd seen them at the grocery store on sale. I'd been tempted to buy some several times, knowing that I would be disappointed. There had to be another way. Then suddenly, it struck me.
Josh and I arrived at the Farmer's Market in the afternoon, when the heat was mixing with the smell of fresh, ripe fruit and honest dirt to create a pungent aroma to stimulate the taste buds and the wallet. We were there with a purpose - to obtain farm-fresh strawberries - and then we saw the gigantic sweet potatoes and the unblemished snap beans and the plump tomatoes. There was asparagus and zucchini and yellow squash. We spent $15 on local produce, two-thirds of that was on strawberries (haha, you have to do math!)
Then we got home and had a heck of a lot of strawberries to deal with. So we made these.
Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
Allrecipes
- 16 ounces milk chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons shortening
- 1 pound fresh strawberries with leaves
- Insert toothpicks into the tops of the strawberries.
- In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and shortening, stirring occasionally until smooth. Holding them by the toothpicks, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture.
- Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool.
The funnest part of this recipe is sticking the strawberries upside down in the styrofoam. It looks like a tiny forest that you might find inside Willy Wonka's factory.
Now, I'm not a chocolate person. I enjoy chocolate, of course. But I can have a piece of it and then stop with no problem while Josh finishes the rest of the bar and then every other chocolate thing in the house, including any baking chocolate I might have in the pantry. However, I discovered that my capacity for chocolate increases exponentially (more math!) if you stick a farm-fresh strawberry inside it. We were gorging ourselves on these treats when Josh sighed and said he'd had enough. I was confused, because there were more chocolate-covered strawberries left, so how could he be done? It just didn't make any sense. But I sighed and stopped, too, because I knew if I ate even one more, the whole lot of them would be down my gullet before he could say "Hey, save one for me!"Later, I made strawberry shortcake and just generally ate a lot of strawberries. Take that, parents!
7.14.2008
super yucky.
I was at my brother's house for dinner a while back, and I heard that there was a new house rule: No complaining about the food. Perhaps there'd been a lot of bellyaching about dinner lately. I could imagine my poor sister-in-law, the house chef, trying to take into account the tastes of five children (the littlest having presumably having no complaints about the breast milk). I asked the oldest kid, aged ten, why he thought his parents had made such a rule.
"Because they didn't want to hear any complaining."
"Do you think they were trying to make you appreciate the fact that they work hard to serve you home-cooked meals every day?" I asked.
"Uh, yeah." He was doubtful and he's probably right. Me, I don't have any children, so I'm still full of long-term goals like teaching children gratitude instead of everyday goals like making them shut up. The parents just got sick of the whining.
There is a famous story in my family of the night that my mother tried to branch out her recipes and make sukiyaki. Her cruel, ungrateful children (I wasn't born yet) called it "super yucky." I don't remember there being a lot of complaining about food in my childhood home, other than the occasional squabble over the hot dog pieces in the macaroni and cheese. However, I bet if we had started whining, my dad would have promptly shamed us into grateful silence. Then he would have finished our leftovers.
Daddy must be a pretty easy man to cook for, in that he always seems to like whatever is on the table. Maybe he doesn't explicitly compliment the food, but he doesn't complain about it either, and he always cleans his plate before cleaning the plates of any little brats. He compliments the smell of the cooking if he happens to pass through the kitchen, making lots of loud, enthusiastic "MMM! MMM! MMM!" noises and occasionally cuddling up to Mama to sing the chorus of "Hey, Good Lookin'" while she works at the stove.
I think of this because I made brussels sprouts the other night. I'd found an interesting recipe and bought some frozen veggies without bothering to ask Josh how he felt about them. To me, brussels sprouts are tiny cabbages that want to be broccoli, and seeing as how Josh likes cabbage and broccoli, I couldn't figure how he'd have any sort of problem with them. But when I asked him, he said he didn't like them. We had a small argument about whether or not they taste like broccoli, and then I conceded, "Well, okay, you don't have to eat any."
"You're not going to be that easy on my kids, are you?" His kids, isn't that cute?
"Of course not, they'll have to eat their age in brussels sprouts. But you're a grown-up. I'm not going to make you eat twenty-five brussels sprouts."
"I'll eat brussels sprouts."
Later I was filling up the plates with food, and I put a single brussels sprout on Josh's plate, because I'm a smart aleck. He came into the kitchen and protested, loading up his plate with an eight-year-old's serving. After we'd been eating awhile, I asked him how the sprouts were treating him.
"I like them. You've converted me."
Girls are stupid, and we believe a lot of untrue things that boys tell us, but I was not to be fooled. I was midway through a protest when I realized that Josh had complimented everything I'd ever served him. Surely he hadn't liked everything.
"You're never going to tell me that you don't like something, are you?"
"Sure I will. I mean, not right away. Later, when you start talking about making it again."
I guess Josh's family had a rule about not complaining about food, too. He's always very appreciative when I make him any kind of food at all, even brussels sprouts, and so I suppose it worked. It must be a pretty good rule. Maybe you can teach kids to be gracious and get them to shut up at the same time.
"Because they didn't want to hear any complaining."
"Do you think they were trying to make you appreciate the fact that they work hard to serve you home-cooked meals every day?" I asked.
"Uh, yeah." He was doubtful and he's probably right. Me, I don't have any children, so I'm still full of long-term goals like teaching children gratitude instead of everyday goals like making them shut up. The parents just got sick of the whining.
There is a famous story in my family of the night that my mother tried to branch out her recipes and make sukiyaki. Her cruel, ungrateful children (I wasn't born yet) called it "super yucky." I don't remember there being a lot of complaining about food in my childhood home, other than the occasional squabble over the hot dog pieces in the macaroni and cheese. However, I bet if we had started whining, my dad would have promptly shamed us into grateful silence. Then he would have finished our leftovers.
Daddy must be a pretty easy man to cook for, in that he always seems to like whatever is on the table. Maybe he doesn't explicitly compliment the food, but he doesn't complain about it either, and he always cleans his plate before cleaning the plates of any little brats. He compliments the smell of the cooking if he happens to pass through the kitchen, making lots of loud, enthusiastic "MMM! MMM! MMM!" noises and occasionally cuddling up to Mama to sing the chorus of "Hey, Good Lookin'" while she works at the stove.
I think of this because I made brussels sprouts the other night. I'd found an interesting recipe and bought some frozen veggies without bothering to ask Josh how he felt about them. To me, brussels sprouts are tiny cabbages that want to be broccoli, and seeing as how Josh likes cabbage and broccoli, I couldn't figure how he'd have any sort of problem with them. But when I asked him, he said he didn't like them. We had a small argument about whether or not they taste like broccoli, and then I conceded, "Well, okay, you don't have to eat any."
"You're not going to be that easy on my kids, are you?" His kids, isn't that cute?
"Of course not, they'll have to eat their age in brussels sprouts. But you're a grown-up. I'm not going to make you eat twenty-five brussels sprouts."
"I'll eat brussels sprouts."
Later I was filling up the plates with food, and I put a single brussels sprout on Josh's plate, because I'm a smart aleck. He came into the kitchen and protested, loading up his plate with an eight-year-old's serving. After we'd been eating awhile, I asked him how the sprouts were treating him.
"I like them. You've converted me."
Girls are stupid, and we believe a lot of untrue things that boys tell us, but I was not to be fooled. I was midway through a protest when I realized that Josh had complimented everything I'd ever served him. Surely he hadn't liked everything.
"You're never going to tell me that you don't like something, are you?"
"Sure I will. I mean, not right away. Later, when you start talking about making it again."
I guess Josh's family had a rule about not complaining about food, too. He's always very appreciative when I make him any kind of food at all, even brussels sprouts, and so I suppose it worked. It must be a pretty good rule. Maybe you can teach kids to be gracious and get them to shut up at the same time.
7.11.2008
flavor friends.
Watermelons were a summertime treat in my childhood home. They didn't appear at our table very often, because they were expensive when out of season and pretty unnecessary. But every once in a while, my mother would bring one home. It would sit in our kitchen floor for what seemed like years, but was at most a couple of days. It taunted me with its very presence, because I was little and not in control of my own watermelon destiny. When it was there, I asked Mama every single day, "Are we gonna cut the watermelon tonight?" I don't remember for certain, but I'm willing to bet that she always said, "We'll see."
When it was cutting time, we cleared off the kitchen table completely to allow for however many kids to have a place. You had to eat watermelon at the table, because it was messy and because there was a rule about not eating on the couch anyway (a rule that was stretched to allow for popcorn and Coke nights). We spread out newspaper on the table, as if we were going to be housetraining puppies up there. The unsuspecting melon sat innocently at the head of the table, turned so that its long side faced the executioner. My dad took the biggest knife we had and went at the melon with a mighty WHACK! right down the center.
I know you're supposed to thump the melon and listen for hollowness, but I say that you can never really tell how good a melon will be until that first cut. I don't guess I've ever had one that wasn't ripe enough, but I've had the disappointment of a watermelon past its prime. You can tell from the color, from the sweet cracking sound it makes when you WHACK! it, from the smell that comes wafting out.
Once the first WHACK! was over, Daddy cut through the rest, splitting our feast in half. Then he cut half slices from one side and passed them out to greedy, soon-to-be-sticky hands. When he got too close to the end to make a decent slice, he'd cut the rest of that half of the melon into quarters. Those were the best pieces, because they didn't fall over. In the middle of the table would sit every salt shaker in the house.
Did you know that some people eat their watermelons with salt? Did you know that some people do not eat their watermelons with salt? Me, I grew up in a salted watermelon house, and I really thought it was like putting ketchup on fries or pickles on hamburgers or ranch dressing on everything. Watermelon and salt are flavor friends, it's like scientific fact. But I got out into the real world, and there are people out there do not put salt on their watermelon. This realization was akin to finding out that my friend Estelle's family ate the whole rind. I ate right down to the white, and I was considered weird for it in my own family. The bottom of the red is a flavorful area with no seeds to slow you down. I used to collect the discarded rinds of my siblings and eat that last inch of red that they had left behind. Eating all the red is smart, but eating the rind is downright barbaric, and not using salt makes it seem like you don't understand about flavor friends.
We ate our fill of the watermelon, and I don't remember ever being told to stop. Watermelon, when it was there, was not like soda where you were allowed to have half a glass and only after drinking a full glass of milk. Of course, you had to be careful about eating watermelon right before going to sleep, because you might wake up in the night with a bed full of watermelon pee. Whatever was left of the melon was covered in plastic wrap and put in the fridge, where it would wait for me to eagerly pull it out again. My mom would do that too. She cut all the red part from her slice into cubes, salted them, and then ate them with a fork from a recycled cool whip container.
Rinds were collected in a big stainless steel pan and then taken out to the compost pit in the middle of the garden. In the summer, giant, sprawling watermelon plants would grow from our discarded seeds. They took over the pit such that you couldn't even see the multitude of coffee grounds in there. Every year I hoped, but was disappointed, that those plants would produce something worth eating. It's probably just as well, because if I'd had access to unlimited watermelon, my hands would be permanently sticky with sweet and salty juices.
Now I am a grown-up, and I am in control of my own watermelon destiny. I know which of my knives is best suited to give that initial WHACK!, and I've got a little patch of woods where I can fling rinds secretly from my apartment balcony in the dead of night. I have three salt shakers. I live alone, and so it is up to me to eat an entire watermelon (but not right before bed). I don't mind telling you that I am up to the task.
When it was cutting time, we cleared off the kitchen table completely to allow for however many kids to have a place. You had to eat watermelon at the table, because it was messy and because there was a rule about not eating on the couch anyway (a rule that was stretched to allow for popcorn and Coke nights). We spread out newspaper on the table, as if we were going to be housetraining puppies up there. The unsuspecting melon sat innocently at the head of the table, turned so that its long side faced the executioner. My dad took the biggest knife we had and went at the melon with a mighty WHACK! right down the center.
I know you're supposed to thump the melon and listen for hollowness, but I say that you can never really tell how good a melon will be until that first cut. I don't guess I've ever had one that wasn't ripe enough, but I've had the disappointment of a watermelon past its prime. You can tell from the color, from the sweet cracking sound it makes when you WHACK! it, from the smell that comes wafting out.
Once the first WHACK! was over, Daddy cut through the rest, splitting our feast in half. Then he cut half slices from one side and passed them out to greedy, soon-to-be-sticky hands. When he got too close to the end to make a decent slice, he'd cut the rest of that half of the melon into quarters. Those were the best pieces, because they didn't fall over. In the middle of the table would sit every salt shaker in the house.
Did you know that some people eat their watermelons with salt? Did you know that some people do not eat their watermelons with salt? Me, I grew up in a salted watermelon house, and I really thought it was like putting ketchup on fries or pickles on hamburgers or ranch dressing on everything. Watermelon and salt are flavor friends, it's like scientific fact. But I got out into the real world, and there are people out there do not put salt on their watermelon. This realization was akin to finding out that my friend Estelle's family ate the whole rind. I ate right down to the white, and I was considered weird for it in my own family. The bottom of the red is a flavorful area with no seeds to slow you down. I used to collect the discarded rinds of my siblings and eat that last inch of red that they had left behind. Eating all the red is smart, but eating the rind is downright barbaric, and not using salt makes it seem like you don't understand about flavor friends.
We ate our fill of the watermelon, and I don't remember ever being told to stop. Watermelon, when it was there, was not like soda where you were allowed to have half a glass and only after drinking a full glass of milk. Of course, you had to be careful about eating watermelon right before going to sleep, because you might wake up in the night with a bed full of watermelon pee. Whatever was left of the melon was covered in plastic wrap and put in the fridge, where it would wait for me to eagerly pull it out again. My mom would do that too. She cut all the red part from her slice into cubes, salted them, and then ate them with a fork from a recycled cool whip container.
Rinds were collected in a big stainless steel pan and then taken out to the compost pit in the middle of the garden. In the summer, giant, sprawling watermelon plants would grow from our discarded seeds. They took over the pit such that you couldn't even see the multitude of coffee grounds in there. Every year I hoped, but was disappointed, that those plants would produce something worth eating. It's probably just as well, because if I'd had access to unlimited watermelon, my hands would be permanently sticky with sweet and salty juices.
Now I am a grown-up, and I am in control of my own watermelon destiny. I know which of my knives is best suited to give that initial WHACK!, and I've got a little patch of woods where I can fling rinds secretly from my apartment balcony in the dead of night. I have three salt shakers. I live alone, and so it is up to me to eat an entire watermelon (but not right before bed). I don't mind telling you that I am up to the task.
7.10.2008
super girlfriend.
Long ago (seven years) and far away (Boone, NC), I bought a church organ for $35 at a yard sale. Some of you may be surprised to hear this, because nothing that you've ever heard about me indicated that I might be in the market for a second-hand organ. In fact, you're pretty sure that I can't read music and don't play any musical instruments at all. You think to yourself that the only interest I've ever shown in playing music at all is to be interested in boys who...oh.
So now you know why I bought a church organ. It was a well-received gift, and I came out like Super Girlfriend. I love coming out like Super Girlfriend. When my boyfriend starts conversations with "Guess what Sandra bought me!", it's a good day.
Not that long ago (last month) and pretty near here (like ten miles away), I bought an electric bass guitar and a guitar amplifier for $80 at a Red Cross yard sale. I came out like Super Girlfriend. We could have gotten half off the price if one of us had given blood, but honestly, we felt like we were stealing it as it was. I sorta wish we had done it anyway, just so I could say that I bought a bass for $20 and a pint of blood. Do you know anyone who can say that? Me neither.
The bass had no strings, which is better for puppets than it is for guitars. As we were driving the new bass home, Josh decided that he wouldn't tell anyone about it until he had bought strings for it and gotten it fixed. He would just stroll into band practice one day with a shiny new guitar. Twenty minutes later, he said, "Guess what Sandra bought me!" to the first person he saw. He's a crappy secret-keeper.
Later, he said "Guess what Sandra bought me!" to his dad, the man completely and utterly responsible for his sons' obsessions with rock and roll. His padre was very impressed, and later bought Josh a case and a set of strings, demolishing the bass' hopes of ever being a real, live boy. The case cost more than the instrument. His parents congratulated me that all those years of yard saling had finally paid off. I smiled knowingly as I thought about the church organ and felt like Super-Duper Girlfriend.
That night, Josh strung the bass and played it unplugged for half an hour. I watched him get to know it. He periodically remarked about how it was easier to play than his old bass and how it sounded really good. I admired the deep red finish, the color being pretty much the only thing I can appreciate about a musical instrument. Then I admired the bass player, who was so cute and so happy because of his Super Girlfriend.
Why does Kermit drink Bavaria? 'Cause it's green, silly.
So now you know why I bought a church organ. It was a well-received gift, and I came out like Super Girlfriend. I love coming out like Super Girlfriend. When my boyfriend starts conversations with "Guess what Sandra bought me!", it's a good day.
Not that long ago (last month) and pretty near here (like ten miles away), I bought an electric bass guitar and a guitar amplifier for $80 at a Red Cross yard sale. I came out like Super Girlfriend. We could have gotten half off the price if one of us had given blood, but honestly, we felt like we were stealing it as it was. I sorta wish we had done it anyway, just so I could say that I bought a bass for $20 and a pint of blood. Do you know anyone who can say that? Me neither.
The bass had no strings, which is better for puppets than it is for guitars. As we were driving the new bass home, Josh decided that he wouldn't tell anyone about it until he had bought strings for it and gotten it fixed. He would just stroll into band practice one day with a shiny new guitar. Twenty minutes later, he said, "Guess what Sandra bought me!" to the first person he saw. He's a crappy secret-keeper.
Later, he said "Guess what Sandra bought me!" to his dad, the man completely and utterly responsible for his sons' obsessions with rock and roll. His padre was very impressed, and later bought Josh a case and a set of strings, demolishing the bass' hopes of ever being a real, live boy. The case cost more than the instrument. His parents congratulated me that all those years of yard saling had finally paid off. I smiled knowingly as I thought about the church organ and felt like Super-Duper Girlfriend.
That night, Josh strung the bass and played it unplugged for half an hour. I watched him get to know it. He periodically remarked about how it was easier to play than his old bass and how it sounded really good. I admired the deep red finish, the color being pretty much the only thing I can appreciate about a musical instrument. Then I admired the bass player, who was so cute and so happy because of his Super Girlfriend.
7.09.2008
squelch the sigmangler.
I had to read someone else's code today. It wasn't too bad, because there was a healthy smattering of comments thrown in. If you already know about comments, please feel free to skip the following section.
/******************************************************************
Some smart programmer long ago decided that it would be nice if people could put regular text into code. Something that a person could read, but that a computer would know to ignore. These are comments. They were a Good Idea.
Even for those of us who know how to read code, reading English words (or Dutch or Swahili) is still pretty much easier. And so rather than have to read a piece of code, you'd rather read some text that just tells you what it does. At that point, you can decide to trust that the code does what the comment says it does and skip reading it. The code may not actually do what the comment says it does, but it at least usually states what the author meant for it to do. It's the thought that counts.
So instead of having to figure out this:
int product = 0;
for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {
product *= i;
}
you can just look at this:
// finds the product of all the numbers from 1 to 100, dummy
It's not as big a deal when you're only writing programs that find 100!, but unfortunately, I usually have to write stuff more complicated than that. Sometimes I have to find 200!.
Some people do not put comments on their code. When I was a young, naive college student, I didn't use comments very much. But that was because I could turn in an assignment after two weeks and never look at it again. But now I have to come back to code that I wrote last year, and I don't remember what it did. I write comments for the mental health of my future self. Oh, and also any colleagues that might have to look at my work. But mostly just for my future self.
******************************************************************/
I find that my personality starts to show in my code through the comments. Sure, I recognize bits of me in the code itself, but that's more recognizing my coding style. The comments show the regular me that has nothing to do with programming. I can hear my own voice saying the words. You can see a programmer's mood through the comments. Whether they are feeling frustrated, fatigued, or smug about their code, it will come through.
I find that a few goofy comments will keep me sane. They're sort of fun to write, but then they're really fun to find again. So if I have to come back to some code that I wrote and then forgot all about, an amusing comment will cheer me up. It also completely wrecks my train of thought, but usually it's worth it.
I've been looking through some other code today, and I've found evidence that there are others in this world who feel the way that I do about comments. These are all from the Perl debugger. I don't know what all of them mean, but I feel a connection to the programmer who wrote each and every one of them.
# squelch the sigmangler
# Why -1? But it works! :-(
# Old stupid way...
# O Happy Day!
# Alas, poor unfortunates
# I just *know* there are men without -M
# Just exactly what part of the word "CORE::" don't you understand?
# mysteriously vaporized
# Here begin the unreadable code. It needs fixing.
And just for my own amusement, here is a comment I wrote. I try not to laugh too loudly to myself since I work in a cube farm, but I simply couldn't help myself.
// create our search hash...mmm, search hash
/******************************************************************
Some smart programmer long ago decided that it would be nice if people could put regular text into code. Something that a person could read, but that a computer would know to ignore. These are comments. They were a Good Idea.
Even for those of us who know how to read code, reading English words (or Dutch or Swahili) is still pretty much easier. And so rather than have to read a piece of code, you'd rather read some text that just tells you what it does. At that point, you can decide to trust that the code does what the comment says it does and skip reading it. The code may not actually do what the comment says it does, but it at least usually states what the author meant for it to do. It's the thought that counts.
So instead of having to figure out this:
int product = 0;
for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {
product *= i;
}
you can just look at this:
// finds the product of all the numbers from 1 to 100, dummy
It's not as big a deal when you're only writing programs that find 100!, but unfortunately, I usually have to write stuff more complicated than that. Sometimes I have to find 200!.
Some people do not put comments on their code. When I was a young, naive college student, I didn't use comments very much. But that was because I could turn in an assignment after two weeks and never look at it again. But now I have to come back to code that I wrote last year, and I don't remember what it did. I write comments for the mental health of my future self. Oh, and also any colleagues that might have to look at my work. But mostly just for my future self.
******************************************************************/
I find that my personality starts to show in my code through the comments. Sure, I recognize bits of me in the code itself, but that's more recognizing my coding style. The comments show the regular me that has nothing to do with programming. I can hear my own voice saying the words. You can see a programmer's mood through the comments. Whether they are feeling frustrated, fatigued, or smug about their code, it will come through.
I find that a few goofy comments will keep me sane. They're sort of fun to write, but then they're really fun to find again. So if I have to come back to some code that I wrote and then forgot all about, an amusing comment will cheer me up. It also completely wrecks my train of thought, but usually it's worth it.
I've been looking through some other code today, and I've found evidence that there are others in this world who feel the way that I do about comments. These are all from the Perl debugger. I don't know what all of them mean, but I feel a connection to the programmer who wrote each and every one of them.
# squelch the sigmangler
# Why -1? But it works! :-(
# Old stupid way...
# O Happy Day!
# Alas, poor unfortunates
# I just *know* there are men without -M
# Just exactly what part of the word "CORE::" don't you understand?
# mysteriously vaporized
# Here begin the unreadable code. It needs fixing.
And just for my own amusement, here is a comment I wrote. I try not to laugh too loudly to myself since I work in a cube farm, but I simply couldn't help myself.
// create our search hash...mmm, search hash
7.04.2008
lasagna gratitude.
We were having lasagna. Josh's parents had been in town and had taken their two sons to Sam's Club, where they bought them a lot of food and toilet paper. They are concerned about their sons, and think that they eat ramen noodles every day. Josh actually eats pretty well. He gets homemade bread and chicken pot pie and salmon, and that was just last weekend. But I suspect that his parents' fears are not without grounds when it comes to his brother. The boy eats a lot of Chef Boyardee.
So the lasagna was a giant frozen one. I got there at 6 pm and by 7, I was starting to get the irritability associated with hunger. The lasagna took two hours to make. I could have made one in one hour. I complained more loudly than I should have about that fact.
Finally, it was ready, and I attacked a giant piece with gusto. I love lasagna. It's all the best stuff in an Italian dish, plus it's layered. Isn't it nice when your food is orderly? I took the first bite and suddenly, it all came crashing back to me that store-bought frozen lasagna does not taste the same as what I make. In fact, it's a lot like Chef Boyardee, but in a giant foil pan. But I ate it without complaint, because I was hungry, if not gracious.
Later, Josh and I were alone, and I was unable to hold it in any longer.
"That lasagna wasn't nearly as good as mine."
"Thank you for not saying that during dinner."
I was insulted. Did he really think that I would have said something so ungrateful? What kind of person does he think I am? And besides, didn't he agree that my lasagna was a million times better than the stuff we had just eaten? I thought back to the processed and fake taste of the lasagna, how I'd had to struggle not to comment about how awful it was compared to...
"You know me pretty well."
He started laughing. "You were really fighting it the whole time, weren't you?"
"Well, it wasn't very good, now was it?"
"No, you're right, it wasn't." He kissed me, and I felt like I won, because even though deep down inside, I really am a terrible ingrate, I have someone who knows that and loves me anyway. It must be because I make such awesome lasagna.
So the lasagna was a giant frozen one. I got there at 6 pm and by 7, I was starting to get the irritability associated with hunger. The lasagna took two hours to make. I could have made one in one hour. I complained more loudly than I should have about that fact.
Finally, it was ready, and I attacked a giant piece with gusto. I love lasagna. It's all the best stuff in an Italian dish, plus it's layered. Isn't it nice when your food is orderly? I took the first bite and suddenly, it all came crashing back to me that store-bought frozen lasagna does not taste the same as what I make. In fact, it's a lot like Chef Boyardee, but in a giant foil pan. But I ate it without complaint, because I was hungry, if not gracious.
Later, Josh and I were alone, and I was unable to hold it in any longer.
"That lasagna wasn't nearly as good as mine."
"Thank you for not saying that during dinner."
I was insulted. Did he really think that I would have said something so ungrateful? What kind of person does he think I am? And besides, didn't he agree that my lasagna was a million times better than the stuff we had just eaten? I thought back to the processed and fake taste of the lasagna, how I'd had to struggle not to comment about how awful it was compared to...
"You know me pretty well."
He started laughing. "You were really fighting it the whole time, weren't you?"
"Well, it wasn't very good, now was it?"
"No, you're right, it wasn't." He kissed me, and I felt like I won, because even though deep down inside, I really am a terrible ingrate, I have someone who knows that and loves me anyway. It must be because I make such awesome lasagna.
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