Good People to Know

In April 2008 a man identifying himself by the name of Wesley Wyndham-Price stood to make a comment in the Salt Lake City Council and berated them for their lack of emergency preparation. His chief complaint was that the city had no plan in place to deal with a zombie outbreak. The City Council, for a variety of reasons, including the date, did not take him seriously. They have not had reason to regret this yet, but they might.

Like them, I do not have a specific zombie plan, but I have at least thought about it and even gone as far as to read some of the literature available. Honestly, though, I'm something of a procrastinator, and I haven't quite gotten around to working on the problem. I have, however, made a list of those people who would be most useful to stick with in the event of a zombie outbreak.

It is an important question. When the zombies rise you're going to need a variety of skills and abilities to survive, but large groups are hard to hide and more susceptible to hidden carriers. So you want to pack each person in the group with the most skills you can. Anyone who can do many things will be more valuable than the person who is useful for only one. You just have to make sure there's overlap so the loss of one member won't cripple the group.

I'd want Sarah with me, of course, she's an excellent shot. Holly can drive anything from bike to bus and her husband Wade is really good with tools, so they'd be welcome. They'd probably want to bring their son, but humanity needs a future so that's okay, too, I guess. Ex-ranger current-cop Lockard seems like an easy pick, but then again if he gets turned on us, he'd be a really hard zombie to put down. Still, I think the ranger training would outweigh that danger. The list goes on.

In fact, this week, I added another person, my brother's girlfriend Ellie. Bill has always been on the list and his recent firefighter experiences only make him more valuable (he's chainsaw certified!). Ellie is even better. I spent a weekend with them and my father at a Wilderness First Aid class and every story I heard from Ellie just further demonstrated her fitness for a zombie survival group. She's a former EMT with significant wilderness medical skills (she was recertifying as a Wilderness First Responder and one of the most knowledgeable people in the room after the instructors). Besides that, though (remember, a variety of skills in each person is key), she can maintain and repair pretty much any automobile you throw at her. Perhaps most importantly, she has demonstrated an ability to adapt to a variety of evolving situations, keeping a cool head when it's most necessary, as it certainly will be during a zombie outbreak. I must admit, I'm pretty excited to add her to my zombie survivor group list.

It's a pretty good list. I'm pleased with it, with one glaring omission. I'm not on it. I don't offer many of the skills that would be required to survive the outbreak. Zombies haven't been shown to be deterred by attractive product design, I'm afraid. Thinking about it further, though, I have realized that I do have one thing I can offer and it's pretty crucial. I have the list. Think about that when the outbreak comes and you're gathering your band of survivors. Call me first. Please?

Game Faces

For my first post back in much too long I wanted something profound and fascinating to talk about. Recently it has occurred to me that seeking such a topic has added at least a few months to the delay (same reason it takes me so long to respond to birthday emails from friends I haven't spoken to in a while). Therefore, in the interests of simply getting started again, you're not getting "profound and fascinating," you're getting whatever I'm ready to write now (which is at best "curious and mildly amusing").

I play video games. I particularly like multiplayer games (several players fighting each other) and I especially like cooperative games (several players working together to fight other things). As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a good way for my separated friends to spend time together.

The two most recent games to serve this purpose are Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead. Gears of War 2 continues the original Gears story of testosterone fueled warrior-thugs fighting testosterone fueled alien-thugs (who may not actually be aliens). It’s a shameless exercise in bad-assery. Left 4 Dead, on the other hand, skips the testosterone clichés and instead focuses on zombie movie clichés. Indeed, it’s pretty much based on zombie movie clichés, deliberately and proudly so.

But I’m not really interested in comparing the games. I’m more interested in comparing the avatars we use to play the games. Both games do avatars a little differently than other games we’re used to. Most shooter games I’ve played, like Halo, give you a character model and let you choose the colors to adorn it. Other games give you a set of tools to craft an avatar yourself. Most of my friends use those tools to craft cartoon approximations of themselves.


Both Left 4 Dead and Gears of War, however, have already made the avatars for you and all you can do is pick one. This allows them to offer detailed character models that are also dramatically different from each other while still fitting into the story context. Considering that each game is highly dependent on cooperative gameplay, this makes sense. I can pretty much tell at a glance who I’m looking at and know immediately who to yell at for getting in my line of fire (or, more accurately, who I should be apologizing to). In the heat of the battle we’ll use character names if we can’t remember who the human player is behind the mask. “Cole you’ve got incoming on your left!” is much easier to both say and interpret than “Red guy with the yellow skull symbol.”

We do try to be consistent, though, because “Diehl” is even easier to interpret than “Cole.” So we play the same characters whenever the games permit. In Gears of War, Diehl is always Cole, Pennock is always Tai, and I’m always Baird. The goal is to reach a point where I see “Cole” and I think “Diehl.”

Apparently we’re being consistent across games, too. It wasn’t planned, which makes it even more interesting. Now two games does not constitute a trend, but I’m going to treat it as one anyway. In Left 4 Dead, Diehl plays Louis and Pennock plays Francis. For those of you who are not familiar with these characters, let me provide you with some pictures:



Curious. Diehl always plays as a black man, and Pennock always plays as the tattooed guy. I wonder what that says about them? Is it video games as wish-fulfillment? Or could be video-games as a chance to be “other”?

Perhaps I shouldn’t wonder too hard. After all, I play Zoe.

They Call Him Doctor Fancysocks

My good friend Penrock has successfully defended his dissertation. It was a pretty rough defense, and he needed all of the tricks he learned in school in order to survive the ordeal. Apparently, that myo-sim karate class we took in undergrad really came in handy. I wasn't at the defense, but I bet it was ferocious. His attackers included ninjas, monkeys, and even an astronaut with space dementia!

Fortunately, Penrock, or Kenrochet as we sometimes like to call him, is brilliant. He withstood his attackers (they made the mistake of picking the shotty-snipers gametype) and defeated them soundly. Mike is magnanimous and, as a symbol of his graciousness in victory, would probably have been willing to make reasonable changes to his thesis, but the fallen foe was too cowed to even ask.

Mike's advisor (who will probably be played in the movie by James Gandolfini) begged him to remain and help them rebuild. Mike simply put his hand on his advisor's shoulder and told him: "Now you run on home to your department head, and tell him... tell him everything's all right and there aren't any more guns in the valley." Then Mike got on his horse and road away. His advisor ran after him, calling him to come back, but Mike didn't turn around.

We here in Atlanta are all very proud of him. Well done, Doctor Fancysocks!

Johnny Lee!

Johnny Lee is awesome. More awesome possibly than even I am. That's pretty awesome. Want proof? Watch the video below.



I spotted this on one of the design blogs I read (Core77, if you must know - their writeup on the video is a nice compliment). I sort of skimmed past it, but the name caught by attention and I backtracked. It was indeed my friend from UVa! I was very excited to see someone I know. Then I watched the video. Then I shared the video with every person in my class, probably twice. Then I read his website, checked out his projects, and browsed his photos. A day later, one of my professors passed around a copy of Make magazine during a discussion and there, on page 84, was Johnny's $14 steady cam. I'll say it again, Johnny Lee is awesome.

Who is Johnny Lee? Many of my readers know him, or have met him even if they don't remember it. I went to UVa with him, we were both in the Rodman Scholars together and shared a number of classes. Even before he got there, he had already patented a 360 degree camera and continued to awe the Rodmans from that point forward (a pretty impressive group themselves). Watch carefully at the minute mark in the video above and you'll spot the electric cello he designed and built in a group project our freshman year. He's at Carnegie Mellon now, pursuing his doctorate (it doesn't stand a chance). Aside from being incredibly intelligent, he's also one of the nicest people I know (and I know a lot of nice people). I'm delighted and excited for him that he's doing so well.

With this video, it's entirely possible he just revolutionized video gaming. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Sadness

On Thursday morning, I received a phone call from Traci letting me know that our friend Matt Hodges had died the previous night.

I met him at the same time I met Holly and in the same way, at the trivia nights Diehl and I attended at Fado's my second year in DC. The trivia group was already fairly well established, but Matt welcomed us easily and made us feel part of the group quickly. It was a talent he had. When the trivia group lost its momentum, Matt became one of the core members of the dinner group that made up my social life during those years I lived with Diehl and for some time after. He hosted the last dinner event I was able to attend before I moved to Atlanta (an able griller, it was a good dinner). We teased him about his age (as did he), but it was with tongue in cheek, he was only a few years older than the rest of us.

When we weren't doing dinner together, we would go swing dancing. He had learned some steps in his Aggie days, Diehl and I had learned some at UVa. We combined forces, taught other members of our group, and then went out to find places to dance. We also took some dancing classes together to broaden our repertoire. All great fun.

Matt was also a regular attender of our parties, the New Years semi-formals and, of course, the Blades and Booze Party (his costumes were always entertaining and I believe he won more than one honorable mention). At one particular party, he used his welcoming talent for my personal benefit. I had known Sarah for maybe three weeks and invited her to the party. She had no idea what she was in for and, thanks to a series of forgotten props and missed messages, I was not at the party when she arrived. She knew no one at the party, although I had my brother looking out for her. My brother did a good job, but Matt did a better job. He made Sarah feel comfortable and got her involved in the party (initiating her into both the rumpling tradition and the newly formed ice luge tradition). His ability to make Sarah feel comfortable is even more impressive considering that Matt was wearing a large pair of fake breasts at the time as part of his "girls gone wild" costume (Matt's girlfriend Kourtnee was there as the photographer). By the time I got there, Sarah had gone from "what the heck have I gotten myself into" to "This is awesome." I owe Matt a huge thanks for that.

Matt and Kourtnee got married shortly afterwards (they came to the next B&B party as a shotgun wedding couple, complete with t-shirt tux and beer hats). Holly moved away and the dinner groups started to fade out. I did not see Matt as often but he continued to remember and give me birthday cards. He also gave me a number of tips on getting a girl's (favorable) attention, tips that proved remarkably effective. The man knew what he was doing. In the picture above, he is actually sprawled across three women. He managed to end up in quite a few of those poses at picture time.

I have not seen much of Matt lately, the last was at Bonnie's wedding where I spoke briefly to him. There were other people at that wedding I had known longer and seen less recently, so I spent more time with them.

He was in law school (he went back to school the same time I did), working hard, but still playing hard. Matt has always been an active guy. We went hiking together several times. Recently he trained for and ran in the AIDS marathon in 2005. More recently he joined a recreational flag football league. This is what he was doing when he collapsed Wednesday night. They called an ambulance but he died at the hospital, a result of a hereditary condition known as Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) or thickened heart. Kourtnee called Traci the next day and Traci spent a fair amount of time calling friends from the dinner crew to let us know initially, and then to keep us informed of the details of the funeral arrangements. It was a shock and then just weird and difficult to contemplate. I'm still not sure I've quite taken it in.

Matt was a good friend. He and his family (and most especially Kourtnee) are in my thoughts and prayers.

Appropriate Measures

Penrock recently established a metric for judging the quality of my blog. It was, however, not a very good metric. He's measuring quality by number of entries. Fortunately for you, I can see past the actual metric to the ultimate goal. Whether I am meeting that goal is debatable, but so far I have refrained from taking the easy way out by pandering directly to the metric.

Metrics can be useful; with a good set of metrics you know where you stand and how far you have to go. Metrics give you something to aim for, which is sort of the problem. It's too easy to just aim for the metric and ignore the overall purpose. Thus it is important to make sure that your goals and the metrics that support them are completely aligned. Metrics that are poorly defined can be met without actually bringing you any closer to your goal. In extreme cases, poorly defined metrics can act counter to the original goal.

For example, consider my friend Dave. Dave designs software that is intended to help get species off the "Endangered Species List." Now, as it turns out, there are two ways in which a species can be removed from that list. The first is for the animal to increase in numbers until it is no longer considered endangered. This process is what Dave's software is intended to track.

Dave, who is a very helpful person, claims that he is so dedicated to this cause that he uses his spare time to help remove species from the list. He's doing what is within his power as a private citizen, so instead of a computer he claims to use a rifle (or in the case of baby seals which may or may not even be on the list, a club). He figures it is easier to get animals off the list by pushing them out the bottom than by attempting to carry them up to the top.

Now before you start sending Dave hate mail, it is worth pointing out (for those of you who are not familiar with my friend) that Dave's stories have roughly the same relationship to truth as Penrock's. So odds are good he's not actually spending his weekends trying to tip endangered species into extinction. However, that's technically a valid response when the goal is to reduce a metric solely defined as "number of species currently considered endangered."

So, metrics are important, but it is more important to have the right metrics. Faulty metrics can be ruinous. Dave's example might be a little extreme, but there are plenty of actual cases of such dangerous metrics (the No Child Left Behind Act springs immediately to mind). This is true for personal projects and it is certainly true for public policy . Unfortunately, since the ultimate metric in public policy is the vote, we may be in trouble.

Michael Says

Mike P. has begun keeping track of my blog updates. He now has a marker in his side bar that indicates when my last post was updated, and does the same for the other Mike as well. He claims this is a public service for those people who want to read all three blogs, but don't want to waste their time checking if there have been no updates. His blog will tell them if there have been updates so readers only need to visit "Completely True" to also see the status of "Contemporarily Insane" and "Rocky Mountain Wahoos."

Also Mike has taken the liberty of evaluating our updating habits. At the moment of this writing, my ranking is "disappointing." This is not acceptable to me.

So you can thank Penrock for my renewed determination to update this blog on a regular (read: not disappointing) basis.

While my semester continues at its current pace I will not be able to produce anything too extensive, but I am determined to produce something (on the assumption that it's better than nothing).

I recognize that acquiescing to Mike's demands may send him the wrong message, but in this case his desires happen to coincide with my own (and presumably yours) so I'm going to risk it.

I have not posted a post in some time. This much is obvious. I have grand plans to fix all this, but as usual, am not following through. Fortunately, Mr Fancysocks is here to pick up the slack for me. Well, not here... here. He calls it "Everything in this Blog is Completely True!!!" which aside from the confusing use of the factorial symbol, is an excellent example of what we in the writing industry like to call "sarcasm." Also "lies." Fortunately, they are entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer, is no. Also, I'm not going to apologize for ripping off the Simpsons in that last quote, I mean if they apologized for everyone they upset, they'd have no more time for writing shows. So they're not getting my apology.

Mr. Fancysocks, aka Kenrochet, aka Penrock, aka Mike (and sometimes Michael) is doing a brave thing attempting to make the internet entertaining once more. I suggest you check his posts. Especially if you like New Kids On The Block.

In the meantime, that's one more incentive for me to return to the limelight. I'll see what I can do.

GOOD FRIENDS HELP YOU MOVE, GREAT FRIENDS HELP YOU MOVE BODIES

I should be talking about my move. This is the weekend it went down, after all, and while this post is being written well after the date it's filling, the events of this weekend are still fresh enough and significant enough that I should have a lot to say. And I do, I just don't want to.

This move covered greater distance and more unknowns (physically, mentally, emotionally, academically, ecumenically...) than any previous move and with that came greater stress. So I don't really want to talk about the move.

I want to talk about the movers.

I owe (and am using this forum to provide) a big thanks to the people who helped me move.

I did wine and dine them for their efforts (well "beer and pizza them" would be more accurate, if less poetic) but regardless, thanks are in order.

So thanks.
Thanks a lot.
You guys made a difficult event much easier and your presence (whether you realized it or not) helped me stay in touch with reality long enough to see the job through.

Mike and Sarah (who had already provided most of the boxes), Melissa, Bruce, and Alex helped with the loading (and I have my share of heavy furniture plus more than my share books so it was certainly not an easy process) and, in more cases than should have been necessary, they helped finish up the packing as well. I "supervised" and they handled most of the actual arrangement within the truck. In the roughly thirteen hours that truck spent on the road, only one item was damaged and I did that closing the rear gate before we had even left DC.

Bruce and Bonnie both helped out on days they had to work. In Bruce's case, he lifted heavy objects then went to work (and was the last person to use my shower in that apartment - for whatever that's worth). In Bonnie's case, she had to work a full day first, then showed up later. She arrived after the bulk of boxes had been loaded, but made up for missing the grunt work by providing several goodies for the tired crew.

At the other end of the trip, the Pennocks helped unload everything. This was after they helped me find the apartment in the first place, and after they put us up for the night at their place before I could actually move into the new apartment.

And of course, I have to thank my Sarah. Before the move she helped pack the boxes, including but not limited to almost my entire kitchen. That the plates survived the trip is her doing, and also her influence that the rest of my small stuff did, too (she's the one who convinced me to use the packing paper supplied by Mike and the other Sarah). She helped throughout the day of the move, and then drove my car while I drove the truck. It took us thirteen hours through varying levels of traffic, and the next day she helped unload the truck. Then she stayed four more days to help me unpack, find my way around the new campus, and just begin the process of settling in. Several times she found me just staring at things, unable to decide what to do next, a little shell shocked and she prodded me out of it.

Without the assistance of so many (and I'm including here the support and well wishes of the people who could not be present for whatever reason to provide physical assistance), this would have been a much more difficult transition. I appreciate everything you all did to make this easier for me.

Thank you.

RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

This past weekend, I attended my five year college reunion.

It was a strange and interesting event. Mmy first official reunion, although it's not the first reunion to which I've been invited. That honor goes to my five year high school reunion. But that one was kind of slapped together at the last minute ("whoever is in town for Christmas, let's all meet at Senor Pancho's") and I already had my plane tickets when the "invitation" came out, so I missed it.

My five year college reunion was a little different. They had both aspirations and a budget to match. It was an Event.

They offered seminars, dinners, brunches, gatherings, dances, and so on. All this came, of course, at a price (considerably greater than, say, Senor Pancho wanted for a pitcher of margartias) but was worth it, even though I skipped out on some of the parties (and consequently missed Alex's proposal to Bonnie, which occuurred during the fireworks - congrats to them!).

I spent much of the weekend showing my girlfriend where I had my classes, where I ate lunch, how far I had to walk between one and the other. She performed a passable imitation of "someone who is not bored" and I certainly appreciate that.

I also introduced her to the various friends, acquaintances, and ne'er do wells who spiced up my college years. These people are the real reason I was there. You know... that whole "reunion" concept. I did not get to see all of the people I wanted to. The only person to show up from my first-year suite was the one person I would have bet money would NOT be there - seeing him was a pleasant surprise, but I missed the others. Fortunately, I did see plenty of other people I had been hoping for, and some I had not thought about in a long time. I was even able to catch up with several others who were in or passing through Charlottesville for other reasons (if I were to run my own personal reunion, it wouldn't be based on which year you graduated...).

Besides the people I knew I knew, I also spent a good deal of time looking around and trying to remember WHY certain other people looked familiar. Did I recognize that guy because we shared classes and projects together, or was it simply because he and I tended to have the same eating schedule and he was always about five places ahead of me in the lunch line? Did I recognize that girl because she was in the beginning karate class I helped teach, or was it simply because she sat next to the cute girl in my comm class who I asked on a date once? One answer meant that person could be approached and engaged in conversation. The other meant they would be weirded out.

I did get into a few of these conversations, the kind where we exchanged earnest updates on our lives and careers since college while one or both of us was furiously struggling to remember what, if any, association we had and when, if ever, we had spoken to each other BEFORE this reunion.

Like I said, a reunion is certainly a strange and interesting event. The atmosphere is certainly unique. There's nothing like a reunion to make everything seem both old and new, both familiar and alien, both cherished and distant - all at once. It's a strange experience and one I recommend heartily/cautiously.

THANK YOU, NANCY

This is not the only place I chatter. Those of you who know me know that my general failure to update is not the result of a failure to have anything to say. I have lots to say and the fact that I don't say it all here only suggests that there are other places where I spill my thoughts.

One such place is a journal I have been keeping almost as long as I’ve been able to write. Every so often I will get the urge to read through my old entries and not too long ago I did just that. Specifically, I was looking up a trip I took in high school to Oklahoma for a student government conference. (For the gentlemen who never participated in student government: you're all fools. We were outnumbered three to one by the girls on this trip.)

I read through the pages of my journal that covered this trip and was disappointed to find that I never mentioned Nancy. Perhaps this is because I did not have a crush on Nancy. I have found, in perusing my high school entries, that if I did not have a crush on you, you didn't get much face time in my journal. Nancy did not get mentioned at all.

I did not know Nancy before the trip and I never saw her again after it was over, but for that week we were good friends.

Nancy, and I sat together on the bus from Tulsa to Branson, Missouri and decided there was something “off” about the trees in Oklahoma. We couldn’t figure out what it was, but they just looked wrong. We also decided that there was way too much open space and that when we were old enough and rich enough, we would return to that area of the country and build a single tower, paint it purple, run lights up and down it at night, and build no roads to get to it. The idea was to let people see it (force them to, really) but refuse to tell them its purpose or ever allow them to get near it.

We determined that the people running the shows in Branson, Missouri obviously had no idea what they were doing when it came to billboards and that the best way to get the money for our tower was to hire ourselves out as ad writers. “We could go into advertising in Branson” one of us would say, to which the other would respond, “Someone certainly should.” We also concluded that Branson itself was what happened when you crossed Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale. For the record, we decided we do not recommend crossing Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale.

Along the way there was the world’s second largest McDonald’s and an enormous hunting store where we took pictures of ourselves in front of a stuffed grizzly bear. There was the American Cowboy Museum. There was also an outlet mall and a real mall partially under construction where I bought my first pair of non-dorky clip on sunglasses. Of that trip I remember the first half best, all the touristy really random things we did, and I spent most of that time with Nancy.

Nancy introduced me to the joy of brushing a girl’s hair (Girls, take note, I brush hair. Guys, take note, most girls seem to dig that). She also, by having me brush her hair, got me the in I needed to brush the hair of the girl who I did have the crush on. As I said, I did not have a crush on Nancy. Perhaps if I’d been smarter, I would have. Perhaps not. She was no more interested in dating me than I was in dating her. Actually, I’m pretty sure she had a boyfriend.

Nancy was never catty or manipulative. Nor was she shy and fragile either. I wish I had written about her at the time because that would enable me to tell you now what she was, rather than what she was not. If I try now, though, I’ll assign her attributes I think she should have had and they won’t necessarily be the right ones. All I can really say is that she was real enough and meant enough to me then that I still think of her now after having only known her for one week nine years ago.

Do not misunderstand me, I do not sigh wistfully when I think of her and wonder what might have been. This is not a "lost love" story. It’s the story of a good, if brief, friendship that I would like to honor. I named a character in one of my books after her. It’s not a good name for the setting, though, so it’s not going to stay. I’ll have to find some other way to honor her. Until I find a story her name does fit, this will have to do.

SINGLE-SERVING FRIENDS

Some people exist as moments in time. They're temporary, showing up in our lives long enough for us to notice then exiting stage left (or stage right, depending on which side of the stage they came in on, I guess). I'm thinking, in particular, of a pair of girls my brother and I met when we were on a cruise last summer. Now they may have a different take on the whole thing, they may, if they recall us at all, consider US the temporary ones. But since I knew them for maybe forty minutes of my life and have no proof that they still exist while I'm reasonably certain both my brother and I still exist, I am going to exercise my authorly powers and declare them to have been the temporary part of this particular relationship.

It was late-night buffet night on the ship. Actually, every night was late-night buffet night, but on this particular night they made a bigger deal of the buffet than usual (even giving it a fancy title which I cannot recall). It was, in fact, beautiful. Several ice carvings sat along a VERY long set of tables. The food itself was no less attractive than the ice carvings. The chefs had taken pains to cut and arrange the food into some absolutely delightful designs, plus a few bizarre ones (if you've never seen a mermaid carved out of a watermelon, you're missing out). There was an aquarium of fish in the middle of the table and it took me several minutes to realize that the fish were made out of cantaloup, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables. Certainly prettier and much more creative than any of the sculptures I've made out of my mashed potatoes.

This whole set-up - the size of the buffet, its general location, and the mass of people gawking at it - interrupted the typical table arrangement in the dining room so the staff came up with a new arrangement. As we came off the line they funneled us, with speed and efficiency, to the nearest available table of their choosing. My brother and I found ourselves sitting across the table from a pair of high school girls. I can hear some of you rolling your eyes already. (Yes, hear. I can't very well see you from where I'm sitting, but enough people have rolled their eyes at me that I KNOW what it sounds like...)

Now for those of you who are not rolling your eyes, I should probably explain why the others are. See, it has become something of a running joke amongst my friends that my girlfriends tend to be younger than I am. Now this might be because I dated a freshman each of my four years at college (college freshman, you sickos!). I did, also date girls my age or older during this time, but for the purposes of mockery, my friends (even those who I actually dated, or tried to date as the case may be) conveniently manage to forget such things. Hence the collective eye-rolling when I mention that my brother and I met a pair of highschool girls on a cruise. It's unjustified, in this case (and really in any case involving highschoolers). I'd like to remind everyone that I had nothing to do with the choice of seats.

I don't remember most of what we talked about except for their theory about jello and dreams (alright knock it off, this was an entirely platonic discussion). They claimed that if you eat jello right before going to bed, you have some really freaky dreams. They try to do it as often as possible (and were, in fact, eating a fair amount of it as we talked). Thinking about it, I have to agree with their theory, although I'd say ice cream instead of jello. That might be because I buy ice cream fairly often, but really haven't made jello in a while. So my experience with the jello dream phenomenon is rather limited, but I can tell you ice cream right before bed does make for some weird dreams. Try it sometime.

Really I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I just remember it was a lot of fun. The four of us sat there talking and laughing (about some really dumb things) for a long time. And that was it. We left and went one way. They left and went another. Never saw them again (and on a cruise ship that's quite a feat - part of the reason I'm convinced they only existed for those moments we talked with them). To be honest, I had no real desire to spend any more time with them. I'm pretty sure that with more exposure they would have gotten pretty annoying pretty quickly (kind of like me). But for that brief moment in time, the four of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

WHY I LOVE VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine's Day is coming. For those of you with significant others, that usually means some sort of night on the town and a gift or two - the more significant the other, the more impressive the dinner and the gift. Admittedly many people are largely indifferent to this holiday, but there are some for whom it is a Big Deal, people who plan their year around this one day. These people fall into two categories. The first group (and here I am referring to girls) is the delirious group. These are the people who begin planning months in advance to make sure they have the Perfect Day. They do this by watching romantic movies and reading novels you can buy in a grocery store until they believe that this is the way the world actually works. These are the same people who are singularly responsible for driving the wedding industry. The other group (and here, again, I am referring to girls) hates the first group. These people also have very elaborate Valentine's Day plans. These often include a gathering of like-minded individuals who spend the evening mocking the poor sods who actually buy into the holiday, making brownies, and occasionally burning effigies of the opposite sex. Some historians think the Salem Witch Hunts began as a result of one of these gatherings that got out of control (though other historians have argued against this by pointing out that the Puritans didn't celebrate Valentine's Day because Hallmark didn't exist at the time). Despite the mutual antagonism of these two groups, their members switch places often. The intensity of their allegiance to the new group is usually inversely proportional to the amount of time it has been since they were members of the old group.

I, too, await the holiday this year with great expectations. Though, being male, I fall into neither of the aforementioned categories. My interest in the day is an indirect result of the relationship of two of my good friends, Erik and Molly. The priest who married them probably thought Valentine's Day was covered under the bit about "for better or for worse." I think he should have mentioned it separately. The two of them seem to have difficulties with Valentine's Day, or indeed any romantic day in which gifts are exchanged. This happens for a number of reasons. First, Molly fits into the first category of Valentine's celebrators, although, in her defense, she is one of their less fanatic members (but I do believe it is possible she only got engaged to Erik so she would have an excuse to look through wedding books). In other words, she has high expectations for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, Erik is male and while this is useful enough in other aspects of their relationship, it does not help his judgement regarding gifts. This is further compounded by the fact that along with being male, he is also a computer scientist. Now I know that there are lots of male computer scientists out there who do just fine when it comes to buying gifts for their significant others. Erik is not one of them. This is due in large part to the fact that he does not have a clear grasp of the concept of "romantic."

Exhibit A: The gift he gave Molly for Valentine's Day the first year I knew them. He gave her, and I am not making this up (not even exaggerating a little), a statue of a hooded death figuring looming over a grave and raising a skeleton-soldier from the dead. The whole thing is about half a foot tall. Needless to say (for everyone but Erik), this isn't exactly what Molly was hoping for. As far as Halloween statuettes go, it's pretty cool. As far as Valentine's Day gifts go, well...not so much. She kept it at his apartment...

Exhibit B, three years later. He hasn't gotten a whole lot better. For their anniversary that year, their sixth since they started dating (I think), he bought her a triple segmented silver ring that covers her entire finger, accented with blue gems and ending in a claw. Very expensive and very cool, but again lacking in the romantic department (though she did actually keep this one at her place). By this time, however, Molly knew what to expect and had her own gift picked out with that in mind. She bought him a color changing angel for the top of the Christmas tree. For most couples, this would have been a lovely gift. Except that in this case, Erik is atheist and believes in neither angels nor Christmas trees.

And it is exchanges like this that make Valentine's Day such an exciting time for me.

BRAKE FOR BRUCE

My friend Bruce is a large man. He is, you could say, larger than most people. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Bruce knows this. It is something he takes into account in his actions, like moving through crowds. Bruce wades through crowds. He doesn't push or shove, he just walks forward and those who notice him automatically get out of his way. I, being a somewhat smaller individual, do not have this imposing influence upon others. Those who do notice me rarely feel any primitive compulsion to move aside. When it comes to crowds, I don't wade through so much as slip between. Or I just follow Bruce, which is generally easier. It's nice to have a large friend. There are other times, however, when it is vaguely alarming. For instance, crossing roads.

Bruce, for some reason, appears to have come to the conclusion that since he is bigger than most drivers he must also be bigger than most cars. He doesn't generally challenge semis on this and he'll usually concede some of the larger SUV's, but for the most part, when it comes to crossing the road, Bruce tends to walk first and look later, or not look at all. His concept of the right-of-way laws (and here I am paraphrasing an actual comment) is that A) right-of-way laws are absolute and everyone WILL stop when they are supposed to and B) he always has the right of way ("All others are number two or lower"). He has told me on multiple occasions, when I try to debate this point with him, that he is likely to do more damage to the cars than they are to him anyway, so it's up for them to watch out for HIM. Now, like I have said, Bruce is a big guy, but he's not THAT big. Thus far, however, his philosophy has not been challenged. For a variety of reasons, which I think might have more to do with insurance premiums than any fear of Bruce, every car he was walked in front of has stopped without hitting him.

I have another friend, this one named Mike (which doesn't tell you much, since most of my friends appear to be named Mike), who has been hit by a car, even though he was doing all the right things at the time. He was in a crosswalk, and had the walk signal. All the cars were stopped. Theoretically, he should have been safe. About halfway across however, Mike notices that the car to his right is verrry slowly rolling forward. Mike turns, looks at the driver, meets his eyes, and gives him a Look. (Those of you who know which Mike I am referring to will know what I am talking about when I say "a Look." The rest of you should just feel free to make something up). The driver looks back at Mike, notices him, and completely fails to stop rolling forward until after he has already bumped into Mike's shins. Mike was shocked, but unhurt. The driver was still oblivious. For his pains, Mike (and through him, his friends) got an amusing story to tell. We have no idea what happened to the driver, but we're hoping reality has caught up to him by now.

So, quick recap: Mike stays in the crosswalk, waits for the walk signal, waits for cars to stop, and still gets hit by a car (albeit very softly). Bruce crosses where and when he pleases, ignores oncoming traffic, and gets off scott-free. Maybe Bruce has something there. I think, though, that I'll wait to see the results of a few more trials before taking up the practice myself.