Mile Zero

June 3, 2010

Look, I'm not saying George Clooney's character from Up in the Air is right about wanting to unload all personal relationships. I don't have that many to spare, after all. But getting my worldly possessions down to a backpack (and then ditching the backpack)? Reducing my carbon footprint, my level of mindless consumerism, and my reliance on cheap, over-designed crap created by underpaid factory labor? Great. Let's do it.

..in theory, at least. In practice, it is tough to get rid of stuff. Learning to live frugally is a multi-step process.

Belle started with a simple rule for our apartment: if you bring something in, something else of equivalent size has to go out. This is a great rule, if for no other reason than that the apartment is very, very small and we can't stuff anything else into it without learning to stack the pets like Tetris blocks. And it incentivizes sustainability by making it easier to use trading/swap services than to buy new books/games/movies.

The second step has been learning to embrace digital media. I still buy a few CDs and paper books, but not nearly as many as I used to, and usually only if they're something I'll want to loan out, or if they're not available online. And we almost never buy DVDs--Netflix has that covered. While it has taken some time to get used to not 'owning' my music or movies, maybe that's the point--'ownership' shouldn't be the defining characteristic of cultural engagement.

Next up is learning to be happy with last year's model. This is not easy to do, especially given the constant deluge of electronic follow-up that companies can leverage these days. Most recently, for example, TiVo sent out messages offering new versions of their DVR box to subscribers at a discount. That's tempting: we've still got the old Series 2 box, the one that came out in 2006, and it doesn't do HD, or Netflix streaming, or... well, lots of neat features. But do we need that? I mean, we don't have HD cable anyway, and it doesn't really bother us. We've got the XBox for streaming, and we'd have plenty of space on the current TiVo if we'd stop using it to store whole seasons of Damages. There's nothing wrong with it to justify a replacement, so we'll stick with what we've got.

At some point, I want to start simplifying--giving away, selling, or (as a last resort) trashing the objects that I only keep out of habit. You know what I mean: old purchases that you don't use anymore, but you keep just in case it comes in handy somewhere down the road. Ruthlessness is the key--you're never going to turn that old Super NES on again, and you know it--but I probably lack the outright willpower. So instead I think I'll get a roll of those little green dot stickers, the ones they use to mark prices at flea markets, and put them on anything I haven't touched in a while. If it actually gets used, I'll take the sticker off. Anything with a sticker still on it at the end of the year has got to go.

Which brings us to the toughest part: our book collection. Already, heavy boxes of books books are the moving experience we dread most. But paper texts have another type of inertia, a weight derived more from their intellectual and emotional impact than their actual mass. Especially if you love books--and we do--it's hard to discard them. It's like throwing away knowledge! And yet we'll never read many of them again, and some of them we bought and may never read in the first place. Everyone would be better off if they were donated to the library or recycled. Of all the steps for reducing our material footprint, cutting the number of books sitting around on our shelves will no doubt be the most painful, but it may have the biggest impact.

Belle and I will probably never get our lives down to the point that they can fit in a backpack, or even an overhead luggage compartment. In reality, we probably don't actually want to get there--we're not monks or masochists, after all. Yet just as the best essay can benefit from judicious editing, I think it's appropriate to take a critical scalpel to our lifestyles from time to time. There's a lot of pressure out there to accumulate, to the point that "consumer" has too often become synonymous with "citizen" or "person." That pressure has consequences, in the labor system, in the environment, and in our financial stability. It may be true, as Slate's Farhad Manjoo insists, that we can't actually opt out from American materialism, but maybe we owe it to ourselves to try.

January 4, 2010

• Celebrated five years together with Belle, an achievement for which few words would be sufficient. Thanks, babe!
• Mostly followed my gaming resolutions from last year. Definitely played more indie titles, skipped tedious grinding, and avoided console shooters when possible. Did not get around to trying an MMO, which was probably for the best.
• Bought a Kindle 2 and an Android Dev Phone. Became a developer for the latter, much to my dismay.
• Wrote about a quarter of a game engine, then quit when I got to the parts that aren't instantly gratifying (preloading, faux-threading, AI). Still managed to learn way more than anyone should know about high-performance Actionscript optimization.
• Survived a congressional session, a corporate purchase, and a promotion.
• Survived a mild case of extensor tendonitis, and resolved to take better care of my hands.
• Rewrote my personal subset of Blosxom in PHP, increasing the speed of this blog by an order of magnitude. Resisted the urge to convert to a real publishing platform like Wordpress. Purged a number of old entries, while I was at it.
• Read a fair number of books, including a long, miserable slog through Chris Anderson's Free.
• Began taking breakdancing classes, which (after six months) qualifies me as something of a b-boy-in-training, I guess. Lost about 20 pounds in the process, but failed (so far) to conquer a general deficiency of flavor.

Reviewer's notes: The special effects may be showing their age, and portions seemed rushed or in need of additional polish. But overall, 2009 delivered a solid annual experience, not to mention a definite improvement over previous franchise installments. Possible candidate for Year of the Year. Score: 9/10

June 30, 2008

Everyone has an employer-from-hell story, but I think mine ranks pretty highly. Right out of college, I took a job with an AV contractor in Chantilly, VA. At the time I had just started getting into sound as a hobby with my band. I figured this was a cool opportunity to learn more about audio tech.

The company, Custom Fit, was run by a guy named Steve. I didn't know it at the time, but this was apparently Steve's third company or so. He had a habit of starting new ventures, which he would then run into the ground, ruining the credit of whoever he'd conned into providing funding. Originally Custom Fit had been a beige-box computer builder for people who couldn't spell "dell.com" (hence the inexplicable domain standardparts.com), but Steve soon figured out that there was more money in bilking local government organizations for publicly-bidded contracts. So that's what we did.

Working at the World Bank could be ethically ambiguous at times, but for me it never compared with dealing with Custom Fit's clients: building managers for town meeting halls and government facilities laboring under the mistaken assumption that they were going to get a pristine new sound system or video projection setup. As far as I could tell, Steve had no interest in doing that. Instead, a significant portion of his business simply combed government sites for contracts, then figured out the bare minimum that he could possibly bid in order to undercut the competition, while using cheap parts and substandard design to ensure profitability. Of course, I was the one who had to break the bad news to the client when things inevitably started to go wrong. I should have stood up for myself sooner, but I have to admit: I was totally unprepared for the possibility that my boss was a borderline con man.

Oh, the stories I could tell: the accountant that I once inadvertently caught browsing porn (I whistled when I walked around his part of the office after that). The time I tried to order supplies for a job only to be turned down because we hadn't paid our bills on previous orders. Having to constantly go back for more training on the company's home-grown inventory database because Steve (perhaps believing that humiliation builds character) refused to teach anything in sessions longer than five minutes ("Come back when you think you've got that under control," he'd say after showing me how to work a single menu option).

In retrospect, it should have been a warning sign when one of the interview questions concerned XLR cabling, and Steve said that my answer was "wrong, but a good try." I looked it up later. Everything I had said was basically correct.

I learned a lot about how (not) to manage people at Custom Fit. And I learned it well. After two weeks, I gave my two weeks notice (at which point my employment experience actually improved significantly). My parents probably freaked out in private, but they were very supportive of me, and I soon found a new job at the Bank. I got lucky: about a month later, the IRS raided the company and Steve was forced to close shop.

Here's the funny part, and the reason I'm writing about it today: the experience at Custom Fit was so traumatic for employees that many of them have kept in touch to this day. It was a bonding experience, like being taking hostage by terrorists or having Comcast as your cable company (ba-zing!). There was a mailing list for Custom Fit refugees. People hosted reunion picnics. Today I got an invitation to the "Survivors of Custom Fit Inc." group on Facebook.

Let this be a lesson to employers large and small: thanks to the Internet, you will be remembered by an organized group of people, possibly with axes to grind. When Steve tried to relaunch the Custom Fit webpage, word went around quickly, and someone (not me) quickly wrote a script to send his page-counter skyrocketing, just to mess with his head. Don't be like Steve. Treat your people well. Misery may love company in general, but it doesn't have to love yours.

April 28, 2008

Should have put this up a long time ago: The Song Chart Meme.

By flickr user xianjessen.

October 10, 2007

...because we don't keep this cat around for her brains.

Yesterday I got a package, wrapped in those little sticky pull-tabs, which I removed and left on the table while I opened up the rest. From what I can tell, Neko must have wandered up onto the table, explored the remains of the packaging, and then sat on the tabs. Stupidity ensued.

My favorite part comes at around 1:16 in, when she runs under the stepladder and becomes startled all over again at this invisible thing that has clamped onto her haunches.

June 28, 2007

We need a better word for "meme." It's not a good word, apologies to Dawkins. When read, it looks like "me, me," which may be appropriate but isn't flattering. When spoken aloud, it sounds like half a word (since it's based on the Greek mimeme, I guess it is).

Besides, the blog version of a "meme" is not really a contagious idea. It's a chain letter that's had the most irritating parts (the superstitious promise of good luck coupled with a veiled threat of catastrophe) removed, replacing those with the digital equivalent of a rapport-building exercise. That's not a meme, it's a well-meaning pyramid scam. Maybe we could call it a 411-9? (Yeah, if we wanted to restrict its audience to obscure wordplay.)

On the other hand, it's kind of clumsy to say "Lance just hit me with a well-meaning pyramid scam:"

1. I went to GMU with my Communication major declared from the start, but I didn't really decide to become a writer until my third or fourth year. Before that, I wanted to work for the Travel Channel. I thought I'd make a good host.
2. It's not that I hate children. It's that I don't like people, and children just embody most of the things I don't like about them.
3. Belle made me take one of those Myers-Briggs personality tests a couple of weeks back, and I came up INTJ. She had trouble understanding the introspective component until she saw me at a work party a few days later, and whenever she glanced over I was standing by myself--usually next to one of the food tables. Awkward and lurking, that's me.
4. I played clarinet in middle school and high school band. I was a decent player, but it was all thanks to my ear--I never really practiced. I think that might be the first instrument that I was formally trained to play, that or piano. I still have the clarinet, which was a decent wooden model instead of the usual resin-molded starter instrument. I like keeping it, even if I don't play so well any more, because I grew up in a house filled with instruments, and I'd like to have that myself. It feels very inviting to me. Both my parents were brass players in college, and my dad worked as an instrument repairman for a time. We had a bassoon hanging over the stairs in our townhouse, which I thought was really cool.
5. I am not a frakkin' cylon.
6. Most people who know me know that I don't drink as a matter of habit. But I only recently loosened up to the point where I'll use alcohol--usually white wine--for cooking, even though the heat evaporates all the alcohol right out. It still kind of gives me the creeps, but the flavors are rich enough that I can suppress those feelings while I eat.
7. I'm the youngest person in my division. I might be the youngest person in my vice presidency. Luckily, I doubt that I am the youngest person at the World Bank.
8. I do think that European Nutella is better than the American, despite evidence to the contrary.

Do I even know eight people who will do something like this? Eight people online, who are both willing to do it and know I'm alive? Let's find out. Here's a tag for Wheat, Brinstar, Josh, Athenae (that's a long shot), Corvus (and/or Rachel), Dan, Orac, and Deacon.

April 19, 2007

In which I inflict more pictures of my pets on the world.

But seriously, they're just getting a little too close to each other lately.

They're beginning to synchronize. I think they may be plotting something. Besides, look at this cat:

Remind you of anyone?

Be afraid. BE VERY AFRAID.

February 15, 2007

Michael Chiarello's Best Button Mushrooms are a pretty tasty Valentine's dinner, if I do say so myself. Seen here with roasted baby potatoes, hummus, and some kind of white wine that Belle said was pretty good for $7. The green tea root beer, unfortunately, was a little weak.

I'd show you the mango ice cream with triple chocolate sauce, but we had to devour it before all of the chocolate hardened, and then we just sat around for a while muttering because it was too rich to finish.

Wait, was there something I was supposed to do today? I took unscheduled leave because of the weather, but I just feel like there was something...

"Ooooh, dreamweaver..."

Was it something at work? Because I already sent the e-mail to let people know I wouldn't be in, and as far as I know I don't have any urgent projects right now. I'll have to put a podcast together tomorrow, but that's easy enough. And of course a couple of videos were going to be posted, but they're still well within their deadlines. Man, what was it?

"...I believe you can get me through the niiiiight..."

Something around the house maybe. Was it the package I'm expecting? I thought that wasn't supposed to be here until tomorrow. No, as far as I know, today I'm just hanging out with Belle...

Belle. I feel like she had something to do with it...

"Dreeeeeeeeamweaver..."

That can't be right, though. Because I wouldn't have forgotten something related to the best girlfriend on the planet, the girl who makes waking up each morning such a joy, right? I would never let something slip my mind and risk such a bright smile and dark, shining eyes. Why, if only there were a day specifically for our significant others, one day reserved for expressing just how they make us feel, perhaps through cheesy Photoshop gags. Something like Val-

Oh. Right.

"...I believe we can reach the morning lii-iiiiiight!"

Happy Valentine's Day, Belle! Now you know why I was googling pictures of Tia Carrere this morning!

January 12, 2007

Catty.

Future - Present - Past