What in the hell is wrong with me this week? Bad, bad luck. I have been foiled again. Thus far:
1) Refrigerator is dying. Made valiant attempt to prepare by eating rapidly rotting food to prepare for new fridge, only to find that the new one will not be delivered until next Wednesday.
2) Latest two southern blots: one looks great, suggests I have at least two positive clones; the other makes absolutely no sense, and suggests that all the clones are the same.
3) After a long search for all-day wearable boots suitable for work and scootering, the "perfect" pair's calves have stretched out so much in three wearings that I'm going to have to figure out how to keep them up.
4) Bought a bunch of kitty food that I thought he was eating; next day, it's on sale, and he no longer prefers that flavor.
5) Busted my buns last night to get to a good viewing point on Mt. Tam to see the short-lived Zodiacal Lights, only to find that there was too much ambient light from SF and Marin. At least I didn't bother to set up the telescope.
And the latest insult:
5) Timed end of procedure perfectly so that I could go downstairs to watch the free campus movie only to find that the email announcement was wrong and the movie started 45 minutes earlier.
Lest my unlucky streak break soon, this doesn't bode well for my first-ever trip to Vegas next weekend!
CRAP CRAP CRAP NEWS FLASH!!!
So as I'm packin' up to go home, seriously just having finished writing the above, I casually go to my love-from-afar indie band The King of France's website to see if they're ever gonna come to SF for a show, and I SWEAR TO GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE FREAKING HERE TONIGHT PLAYING LIKE RIGHT NOW 5 BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE!!!
I repeat: What in the hell is wrong with me this week?!
23 February 2006
the open road
It has been cold, cold this last week, but it seems we're on our way to a warming trend now. This is bad news, because the lure of scootering in a very non-commuter fashion is proving irresistible. I've found myself diverting a little on the way to work -- when the traffic has calmed down and the skies are clear and bright and the air is cool enough to keep you alert but not so cold your helmet fogs up, conditions are perfect for a little scoot-sightseeing. And seeing the City from a scooter perspective is fun. Hills provide thrills, and the roads provide just enough obstacles to make the ride challenging, and each neighborhood has an intensely different smell...well, it's just glorious. It is quite tempting to avoid the vexations that await me at work and go for a little ride. When you're getting 70+ miles to the gallon, it'd be a shame to not let the little beast run free for a while, right?
09 February 2006
when is eight enough?
Ok, so it's taken me a full day to recover from Tuesday night's events. I had to repeat my stories at least four times yesterday, so I honestly couldn't bear to write about it until now.
Speed dating was, well, as my last date of the night opined, "a life experience". Whatever that means. It's definitely going to be an experience that's hard to forget.
Opening Act
I managed to find parking on the far side of the Modern Art museum at 7:00: a bad sign. This meant this was the luckiest I was going to get all evening, me being a devout practicioner of "limited good" philosophy. I met Liz and Matt at the entrance to the Metreon. Mo, the evening's mastermind, had not made it off the waitlist (apparently more men than women sign up? another sign) so he was going to sneak in at the beginning to wish us luck. Liz looked fab as always and Matt didn't wear a tee-shirt.
We registered at the event, which entailed picking up the modern version of a dance card and filling out my nametag: first name followed by a "random" three digit number. The "tips" on the card ranged from "Keep an open mind" to a list of fallback questions ("Do you keep up with current events? What's your favorite drink?"). Matt and Liz and I picked up our first drinks of the night at the bar then settled down to strategize and warm up for the evening. Somehow the conversation moved from personal ads to "missed connections" ads. I explained that I’d considered looking to see whether my latest flirtation with a stranger had inspired such an ad:
Me: “So I was in line at the hospital cafeteria and the grill chef asked whether I wanted everything on the side of my quesadilla. When I said ‘no guacamole’ the cute scrubs-clad guy in front of me said, ‘I’ll take her guacamole’ to which I replied, ‘Hey, you can have my guacamole any time.’ He was quite attractive, but I doubt that kind of interaction would have him writing something in the school newspaper.”
Matt: “You said that?!? You’re my new hero.”
Mo showed up just a few minutes before the event started, looking dejected. We all were upset he wasn’t going to join in on the “fun”, wishing we could’ve seen him in action. Though we’ve all seen him organizing action, this would have been quite a different experience.
Scene: at a bar
The format was this: my dance card had eight numbers on it, signifying the numbers of a table (or half-table; sometimes a table for four was shared by two couples) at which I would sit for date #1, 2, etc. for an eight-minute encounter with the person who was also randomly assigned to my table for the session. After eight minutes of enthralling conversation, a bell would sound the end of that date and I’d move on to another table. After four dates, we had a fifteen minute break during which I could have used the restroom or chatted up other guys. Instead, Liz and Matt and I headed back to the bar for round two. (Interesting side note: we ordered the same drinks as we had before the event. First round, I bought, and the tab came to $12. Second round, Matt bought, and the tab came to $10. What the hell?!?)
Though I won’t go into details about the dates to respect the privacy of those eight sad individuals, I will say that it became immensely clear that the reason most of those guys were there was that they were some combination of shy, socially awkward, living in a dismal Bay Area town (sometimes with Ma and Pa), and/or cluelessly repellent. And I, being the nice and not-so awkward person that I am, tried very hard to draw out my dates and keep a light, amused manner. But every single date was not worth pursuing. Only one actually asked what I'm studying as a grad student...every one else gave me a glazed-eyed shudder when I told them I'm trying to get my Ph.D. Had I had any interest in a second date or “friendship”, I could have logged on to the dating service website to see if any of my dates had a similar interest in me.
Interestingly, Matt had some success with the women. He declared they all had been “normal” and he was interested in pursuing a few new connections. Most of the women were San Franciscans, while all but one of my dates had been from out-of-town. Clearly there was a very interesting divide between the two gender pools for the night. The only criterion for the event had been that attendees were from 25-35 years of age.
Dénoument
Liz, Matt and I “debriefed” at a nearby bar afterwards. Liz and I had shared two dates that night, so it was interesting to find that though we’d had very different conversations, that our impressions were quite similar. We toasted to “love” or “next time” – I can’t recall – and eventually talk degenerated into the usual student politics and state of higher education discussion, with a dash of juicy gossip for good measure. By the end of the evening we were all in a bit of a daze – I couldn’t bring myself to swallow my last bit of Hefeweisen and for some unknown reason I found myself stripping my onion rings of their battered shells and eating just the crunchy batter. Yes, it disgusts me now but after that evening it just seemed to make sense to eat them that way.
Finale
As I walked to my car, the phone rang. Little brother was calling me. I’d told him what I was doing that night (at which point he told me about the “Sex in the City” ep where Miranda has more success speed dating when she stops telling her dates she’s an attorney and instead says she’s a flight attendant) the previous Saturday (when I got to see him in action – eew) so I gave him the run-down. Though he was sympathetic, he tried to cheer me up by declaring that clearly the women there were most likely all intelligent, ambitious women who don’t have the time or inclination to go cruising through bars to look for men while the guys were all the ones who don’t have success in bars and are desperate. God bless little brothers. Of course, now he thinks he ought to give it a try knowing he’d shine like the sex-and-rock god he wants to be in such a crowd.
I recounted my experiences several times to my co-workers yesterday, and through the various retellings two observations arose:
(From Dave, on Men and Women): “Maybe the difference in these things is that women have higher standards in what they’re looking for in a guy, but most guys really don’t care.”
(From Me, on Me): “I don’t usually think of myself this way, because I usually just think of myself as a loner, but I’m extroverted, too. I’m an extroverted loner.”
Speed dating was, well, as my last date of the night opined, "a life experience". Whatever that means. It's definitely going to be an experience that's hard to forget.
Opening Act
I managed to find parking on the far side of the Modern Art museum at 7:00: a bad sign. This meant this was the luckiest I was going to get all evening, me being a devout practicioner of "limited good" philosophy. I met Liz and Matt at the entrance to the Metreon. Mo, the evening's mastermind, had not made it off the waitlist (apparently more men than women sign up? another sign) so he was going to sneak in at the beginning to wish us luck. Liz looked fab as always and Matt didn't wear a tee-shirt.
We registered at the event, which entailed picking up the modern version of a dance card and filling out my nametag: first name followed by a "random" three digit number. The "tips" on the card ranged from "Keep an open mind" to a list of fallback questions ("Do you keep up with current events? What's your favorite drink?"). Matt and Liz and I picked up our first drinks of the night at the bar then settled down to strategize and warm up for the evening. Somehow the conversation moved from personal ads to "missed connections" ads. I explained that I’d considered looking to see whether my latest flirtation with a stranger had inspired such an ad:
Me: “So I was in line at the hospital cafeteria and the grill chef asked whether I wanted everything on the side of my quesadilla. When I said ‘no guacamole’ the cute scrubs-clad guy in front of me said, ‘I’ll take her guacamole’ to which I replied, ‘Hey, you can have my guacamole any time.’ He was quite attractive, but I doubt that kind of interaction would have him writing something in the school newspaper.”
Matt: “You said that?!? You’re my new hero.”
Mo showed up just a few minutes before the event started, looking dejected. We all were upset he wasn’t going to join in on the “fun”, wishing we could’ve seen him in action. Though we’ve all seen him organizing action, this would have been quite a different experience.
Scene: at a bar
The format was this: my dance card had eight numbers on it, signifying the numbers of a table (or half-table; sometimes a table for four was shared by two couples) at which I would sit for date #1, 2, etc. for an eight-minute encounter with the person who was also randomly assigned to my table for the session. After eight minutes of enthralling conversation, a bell would sound the end of that date and I’d move on to another table. After four dates, we had a fifteen minute break during which I could have used the restroom or chatted up other guys. Instead, Liz and Matt and I headed back to the bar for round two. (Interesting side note: we ordered the same drinks as we had before the event. First round, I bought, and the tab came to $12. Second round, Matt bought, and the tab came to $10. What the hell?!?)
Though I won’t go into details about the dates to respect the privacy of those eight sad individuals, I will say that it became immensely clear that the reason most of those guys were there was that they were some combination of shy, socially awkward, living in a dismal Bay Area town (sometimes with Ma and Pa), and/or cluelessly repellent. And I, being the nice and not-so awkward person that I am, tried very hard to draw out my dates and keep a light, amused manner. But every single date was not worth pursuing. Only one actually asked what I'm studying as a grad student...every one else gave me a glazed-eyed shudder when I told them I'm trying to get my Ph.D. Had I had any interest in a second date or “friendship”, I could have logged on to the dating service website to see if any of my dates had a similar interest in me.
Interestingly, Matt had some success with the women. He declared they all had been “normal” and he was interested in pursuing a few new connections. Most of the women were San Franciscans, while all but one of my dates had been from out-of-town. Clearly there was a very interesting divide between the two gender pools for the night. The only criterion for the event had been that attendees were from 25-35 years of age.
Dénoument
Liz, Matt and I “debriefed” at a nearby bar afterwards. Liz and I had shared two dates that night, so it was interesting to find that though we’d had very different conversations, that our impressions were quite similar. We toasted to “love” or “next time” – I can’t recall – and eventually talk degenerated into the usual student politics and state of higher education discussion, with a dash of juicy gossip for good measure. By the end of the evening we were all in a bit of a daze – I couldn’t bring myself to swallow my last bit of Hefeweisen and for some unknown reason I found myself stripping my onion rings of their battered shells and eating just the crunchy batter. Yes, it disgusts me now but after that evening it just seemed to make sense to eat them that way.
Finale
As I walked to my car, the phone rang. Little brother was calling me. I’d told him what I was doing that night (at which point he told me about the “Sex in the City” ep where Miranda has more success speed dating when she stops telling her dates she’s an attorney and instead says she’s a flight attendant) the previous Saturday (when I got to see him in action – eew) so I gave him the run-down. Though he was sympathetic, he tried to cheer me up by declaring that clearly the women there were most likely all intelligent, ambitious women who don’t have the time or inclination to go cruising through bars to look for men while the guys were all the ones who don’t have success in bars and are desperate. God bless little brothers. Of course, now he thinks he ought to give it a try knowing he’d shine like the sex-and-rock god he wants to be in such a crowd.
I recounted my experiences several times to my co-workers yesterday, and through the various retellings two observations arose:
(From Dave, on Men and Women): “Maybe the difference in these things is that women have higher standards in what they’re looking for in a guy, but most guys really don’t care.”
(From Me, on Me): “I don’t usually think of myself this way, because I usually just think of myself as a loner, but I’m extroverted, too. I’m an extroverted loner.”
04 February 2006
i know i'm going to regret this, but...
two guy friends might have successfully talked me into joining them for a night of 8-minute speed dating. Right now, I can't imagine a bigger waste of $35, and it's highly likely anyone I'm paired with will feel the same about their lost 8 minutes with me, but oh, the stories I'll be able to tell the next day...maybe it will be worth it.
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