tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62417254889599919062024-03-05T08:58:24.226-08:00scraps and rapsSGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-61806889186606372732010-05-19T13:00:00.001-07:002010-05-19T13:31:24.586-07:00Semi-FinalI went into the game with Terry and Dave. I was happy to get the Yankee Stadium category out of the way first. But then my first ring-in was to name a pope who said Mass there in 1965. I took a guess at a '60s pope, saying John XXIII, and I was wrong. I've been wrong on $1,000 clues before, but this was my first ring-in of the game, and in my eighth game, it was the first time my score was negative. I managed to get back up to $0 by the first commercial break and put it behind me.<br /><br />In Double Jeopardy, I hit my first Daily Double of the tournament. I had $3,600, and I had planned to wager half of it, but when Alex prompted me to wager, $1,600 came out of my mouth instead. No matter, it's only $200. It was easy enough, and I got it right. I continued playing as it went, and at the end I was at $13,200 to Terry's $17,200. Dave was still a factor at $7,800.<br /><br />My initial thought on Final Jeopardy wagering was that I would have to choose between keeping my score high enough to beat Terry if he and I got it wrong (assuming Terry bet to beat me by $1), or staying above Dave if he and I got it right (assuming Dave bet everything). When I calculated how much I'd have to wager to beat Dave ($2,401), I realized that I could have it both ways (if wrong, I'd fall to $10,799, and I expected Terry to fall to $7,999 on an incorrect response). Then I got scared that Terry might expect me to wager small just to beat Dave, and also wager small to counteract that. So I considered the largest wagers I could make. To stay ahead of the $7,999 I projected Terry would fall to if he answered Final Jeopardy wrong, I could wager up to $5,200 (I cut it down to $5,199, just in case) and stay ahead of Terry if we were both wrong. I realized that this was more than enough to get ahead of Terry, and decided I could just wager to barely surpass him. Going for $4,001 seemed the simplest, and it was guaranteed to win me the game if Terry was wrong and I was right.<br /><br />After locking in my $4,001 wager, I thought about the scenarios in which I would win or lose, given my wager and the ones I predicted for Terry and Dave. I lose to Terry if he gets it right, no matter what else happens. I win if I get it right and Terry gets it wrong, no matter how Dave does. I win if everyone gets it wrong. I lose to Dave if he gets it right. I figured we were more likely to get one that stumped everyone than we were to get one that I'd get and Terry would miss.<br /><br />When the clue was revealed, I tried to think of any 20th century Frenchmen I could. Proust was the first to pop into my mind, but it didn't seem right. Camus didn't seem right either, because I thought he might already have been dead by the time mentioned in the clue, but I stopped thinking there and wrote down his name anyway.<br /><br />Alex went to Dave first. "Who was Sartre?" was correct. I started enjoying my final moments on the Jeopardy stage, sighing and being happy for Dave beating me—then his wager of $213 was revealed. He had wagered to beat Terry, but I knew at that moment he wasn't going to beat me. I was stunned. Alex came to me, revealed the response I knew was wrong, and revealed the wager that I knew would at least keep me in second place. Dave was at $8,013, and I had $9,199. Then he came to Terry, sounding doubtful. Terry hadn't gotten it either, but he did make the wager I expected from him, dropping to $7,999. In the moment Alex announced me as the winner, I almost smacked my podium, but I stopped myself because I had done that at the end of my fifth game and I didn't want to be caught doing the same thing twice. Terry hugged me (which is as incredible an experience as winning on Jeopardy), and I caught the hugging bug and turned and hugged Dave. "It should have been you" came out of my mouth, and I immediately wondered whether it was the appropriate thing to say. (Dave took it well, not the way I worried he would.)<br /><br />I was herded (can one person be herded?) to a row of seats in the audience all by myself, where I would sit and watch the other two semifinals and try to let it sink in. Half an hour later, Jason joined me. We went to lunch with contestant coordinator Robert and the last semi-final winner. Two more games.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-88804620334319997042010-05-16T18:27:00.001-07:002010-05-17T10:47:07.032-07:00The Morning of the SemifinalsI was able to sleep a little longer, because our time to meet in the lobby was later (presumably, with six fewer people, and with everyone having already been briefed, there was less contestant prep time). But I got a wake-up call sometime after 6 am, which wasn't what I wanted. I still managed to asleep for a while longer after that, until the call came at the time I had intended.<br /><br />I got dressed, ate my sandwich, grabbed my extra clothes, and headed down to the lobby to meet everyone again. Christine was there, just to say hi to everybody and wish us luck. I liked that.<br /><br />The rest, I can't quite work out the timeline in my head. Here are a few things that happened, not necessarily in the order they occurred.<br /><br />I ran a category (I think against Dave and Andy) in the rehearsal game.<br />I had a terrible coughing fit in the makeup chair (it seemed like every breath I took coated my throat in flesh-colored dust). Lisa had to get a water bottle for me.<br />It was announced that I was playing against Terry and Dave. I noted that the three male five-time champions were together.<br /><br />What I know came last: on the way out of the green room, I said "see you in the finals" to Jason, then Andy, then every contestant my eyes fell upon. I think including Terry and Dave.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-87790871884970485692010-05-16T17:34:00.000-07:002010-05-16T18:25:35.117-07:00Quarter-Final and AfterwardsJason, Vijay, and I finally got up there. I went in believing that I could at least rack up a wild card score, and that I'd be happy and have fun. My plan was to be jubilant when introduced, and that went off without a hitch.<br /><br />There isn't much I can say about the game, but I lived with my bum ear, and focused enough on the game that my head didn't bug me. The rest just whizzed by. I was in the lead for quite a bit, and noticed as the last $800 clue came up that I was $400 behind Vijay, and I could guarantee myself at least a tie for the lead if I got it. Then Jason beat me to it. And as the last clue, worth $400, was revealed, I figured I could tie Vijay. Then Vijay beat me to it. So it goes. The lead wasn't necessary.<br /><br />I had $14,800, and I had gone in thinking I needed to be in the $12,000-$16,000 range for a wild card. Then I bumped my minimum to $12,225 just in case someone else had the $12,000 plan. And decided I wouldn't let myself fall below $13,000 if I got above it before Final Jeopardy. So with $14,800, I decided it was best to attempt to clear the $16,000 mark, so I wagered $1,225, which was fine because I'd be safely above $13,000 still if I got it wrong.<br /><br />The clue was revealed, dealing with a state whose rainwater drained to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay. My only strategy was to name a midwest state I thought would have a river that went to New York (I read Hudson Bay and thought Hudson River, a mistake I didn't realize until I told my brother about the game that night).<br /><br />Jason was in third place, and his response was revealed first. He was right (Montana) and bumped his score up to $11,500 (an amount I worried about). I was wrong with Ohio and fell to $13,575. Vijay, who had been $800 ahead of me, got it wrong, but only wagered $500 and won. He walked out and joined Alex on the stage, and Alex said, "And here are the wild cards, the four high scores among non-winners..." followed by the consternation of the people running the show. Alex was supposed to introduce the four winners of the previous games.<br /><br />Jason and I remained in suspense as Vijay returned to his podium. (I was afraid that Jason, who could have won with a bigger wager, would fall short with his score. I was more concerned for him than myself, although I let doubt creep in about my score too.) They taped Vijay walking to Alex again, and Alex said, "Vijay will be in the semifinals with this week's other winners..." and the victorious faces introducing themselves appeared on the monitor (this was from when we said our names and hometowns before any of the tapings). And now at the appropriate moment, he introduced the wild cards again. Nick and Dave Belote appeared on the monitor, and then Alex started talking. That was the moment of realization, and then Alex said that Dave's score had been $4,999, and Jason and I knew that we were both through as well. I celebrated, being relieved not only at having done what I came to do, but also at Jason's low wager having turned out well for him.<br /><br />The worst part of winning the games in my original run was knowing that I was depriving my opponents of their only chance at the same. I think I apologized to more than one person in my moments of victory. There was nothing to apologize for this time; we were all successful, and moving on.<br /><br />All fifteen contestants gathered on stage to take a group picture with Alex, and yell some stuff for promotional material. As the previous contestants came on stage, it dawned on me that not everyone had been as successful as the trio I was in. Ryan was the first one I remember seeing who I realized hadn't shown up as a winner or a wild card. Then Stephen, Christine, Patrick, Joey, and Regina Robbins. Stephen was in a daze, alluding to what happened to him. (He wagered $16,350 out of $16,400 from a tie for second place on Final Jeopardy, and got it wrong.) I fear I reacted with an exclamation mark and a question mark, and Stephen added, "I don't want to talk about it." The happiest moment of my Jeopardy career was followed by wishing we all could have moved on.<br /><br />After everything was done on stage, we left the studio. I greeted my cheering cadre and hugged everyone I could. Then I saw 1997 (and onward) Jeopardy champion Bob Harris. I thought he might be there (Christine's Winner's Blog mentioned that he was a friend of hers, and I was hoping he'd be back for her ToC), and had brought my copy of <i>Prisoner of Trebekistan</i> (his book on his Jeopardy experience) and a Sharpie. I accosted him and asked if he could sign my book, and he seemed pretty thrilled about it. I shook his hand and hurried off to the van back to the hotel.<br /><br />My head hurt again, and I thought I might crash the moment I got into my room. But I didn't. I stayed up, watched Regina's first Jeopardy episode, and ate a big dinner at the hotel restaurant. I ordered more than I could eat, and had half my sandwich boxed up. I went back to my room, showered, shaved, and tried to sleep.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-7293940193105201922010-05-12T13:24:00.001-07:002010-05-16T18:20:54.227-07:00Meeting Contestants, Sitting in Green RoomTuesday morning I woke up, got dressed, brought an extra shirt, and headed down to the lobby. I was early, but not the first one there. I can't remember who showed up in what order, but I remember the atmosphere: it was like a high school reunion. One where you remember everybody, with the strange detail that you're actually meeting all of them for the first time. I remember Liz Murphy, beyond conversation distance, smiling and waving and saying, "Hi, Stefan!" I said, "Hi, Liz!" back to her. That was the first thing we said to each other. When Ryan Chaffee showed up, I heard him say hello to Stephen Weingarten (who defeated him in December), and I thought he sounded like an evil character greeting his arch-nemesis. (But his voice sounds like that all the time. Maybe he was injecting further evil, or maybe I was just hearing what I wanted to hear.) He asked me if I was nervous, but I felt pretty okay. I was just enjoying the experience.<br /><br />When we had everybody, we piled into a van. I sat next to Terry Linwood (who looked like the picture of cool in his hat and shiny suit). I can't remember what we all talked about, but it was a pleasant ride.<br /><br />At the studio, we went into the green room for the usual briefing by Maggie. We were all seasoned professionals, so it didn't go as long as at regular tapings. Therefore we got to ask all sorts of questions, mostly pertaining to our various curiosities. Vijay Balse revealed himself to be as well versed in the little details of Jeopardy history as I was.<br /><br />I can't remember where it fits into the timeline, but two or three of us at a time went out from the green room onto the stage, where we were interviewed for the website. They also had us force a laugh. (Some of these laugh shots, but thankfully not mine, can be seen in the ToC promo, also on the site.) I may have babbled a bit, but I mostly had good things to say.<br /><br />When the time came, the first three (Ryan, Liz, and Patrick Tucker) left to play the game. The rest of us were left to watch a movie in the green room, and <i>Talladega Nights</i> was quickly chosen.<br /><br />Time went by, groups of three left the room, and I was still in there with diminishing company. <i>Talladega Nights</i> ended and <i>Tropic Thunder</i> was started. The lunch break came, and the seven of us remaining (Justin, Christine Valada, Vijay, Joey Beachum, Jason Zollinger, Kevin, and me) had to stay in the green room, eating sandwiches, salad, and fruit. I started realizing that I wasn't fully recovered from being sick, and my early morning and ear weirdness was doing funny things to my head. I tried to relax after Christine, Joey, and Justin were called. I'd be playing against Jason and Vijay in less than an hour.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-51264156191877801752010-05-07T21:23:00.000-07:002010-05-08T18:53:25.969-07:00Further Prologue: HotelAfter going to a clinic the Sunday before the Tournament of Champions taped, and learning that at least my ear wasn't infected (although I had felt pressure in it to the point of pain earlier that day), I packed for the hotel. I was local, but I wanted to enjoy the hotel for as long as Jeopardy had reserved me the room. Sunday through Thursday was the plan, and I was sticking with that.<br><br />I didn't know what kind of amenities there would be, so I brought a few things with me. An alarm clock came along, because I knew waking up on time would be paramount. I brought my mp3 player, and because I didn't like the idea of shoving a little speaker into my poor ear (not to mention falling asleep with it there), I brought some small computer speakers as well.<br><br />I arrived at the hotel and checked in. I went to my room on the 18th floor, which, due to hotels' convention of not having a 13th, was really the 17th floor. Some have heard about my affinity for the number 17 (in my first two games, my winning totals contained three 17s: $19,917 and $17,017), and I was taking what I could get. I know that if I had been on the floor actually called the 17th, I would have ignored the fact that there was no 13th. As it was, I ignored the fact that two subterranean floors were also counted, even though they went by names and not numbers.<br><br />I got to my room, and discovered immediately that not only was there an alarm clock, but it also had a jack for mp3 player input; it plugged right in where headphones go, and I could listen to my music on better speakers than the ones I had! Being in the hotel room made the whole thing real for me. I jumped up and down, leapt onto the bed several times, and ran back and forth between the door and the window (which, by the way, had a little balcony on the outside).<br><br />That night and all of Monday, I spent mostly not knowing what to do with myself. I ate a big breakfast at the hotel restaurant Monday morning. While I was sitting at the table, I saw fellow ToC-er Justin Bernbach being led to a table. I think we noticed and recognized each other at the same time. We shook hands and chatted a bit; he asked me if I had studied, and looked surprised when I said I hadn't. He ate at his table, and I stayed at mine and relaxed after deciding I'd had enough of the breakfast buffet, reading poetry and waiting for him to finish so we could talk for a little while longer. He pointed out another ToC contestant, Christine Valada, sitting at another table, but she was reading and we decided not to accost her.<br><br />In the afternoon, I took a bus into Beverly Hills and ate at a Chipotle. (A ritzy hotel near Beverly Hills, and I take a bus and eat at a fast food chain. I savor the incongruousness. That's what L.A. is all about.)<br><br />I hung around in the lobby some more. I recognized the most recent College Champion, Nick Yozamp, and called his name. I don't know if he had seen me on the show, so I introduced myself to him and his parents. We talked about how exciting it was, and he laughed a lot. Dude's got a perpetual smile on his face.<br><br />I did a lot of going up to my room, going back down to the lobby, exploring the grounds, and engaging in general aimlessness. I wanted to meet more champs, but talking to Justin and Nick, having a brief glimpse of Christine, and recognizing three-time champ and alternate Kevin Joyce (with enough uncertainty that I didn't attempt to talk to him) was all I got that day.<br><br />I watched that night's Jeopardy in my room (playing along, as had been my routine for about a year and a half at that point—and doing quite well, I might add), went back down to the hotel restaurant and had a good dinner, then went up to my room, showered, ordered a wake-up call, and tried my best to go to sleep (it seemed that whenever I was doing nothing, I would be seized with fits of coughing).SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-15196312197091035262010-05-07T21:00:00.000-07:002010-05-07T23:12:57.077-07:00Epilogue/PrologueAfter I lost on Jeopardy, I was unhappy about it. I thought maybe I could channel that unhappiness into something better, perhaps by throwing myself into studying for the Tournament of Champions I felt I'd inevitably be invited to. I got a five subject notebook, and I was sure I'd fill it with anything and everything I thought of or noticed around me that I felt would be useful on the show. And when I was told my job would be ending in two weeks the Friday after my losing show aired, I was glad to have tons of time to fill it.<br><br />All I ever wrote in it was a handful of subjects I thought would be good to study, and Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, and Utah. And on the last page months later, when I started working again, some bus times.<br><br />I got called near the end of February (in fact, on the anniversary of when they first called me last year), and learned I was indeed invited to compete in the ToC. My time had wound down, and I decided that since I hadn't studied at all, this was no time to start. I became determined to have as much fun as possible with the whole experience, and to just let it happen.<br><br><br />Two Saturdays before the taping, my family had a St. Patrick's Day party. We ended up leaving my aunt's house late. I didn't tell anyone, but I had hoped to get to work Sunday morning; I had called myself a "maybe" for overtime work that day (I originally gave a categorical "no," but changed my tune when I got scoffed at by my supervisor), and I made sure to get up really early so I might get over there for 8:30. (This happened to be the Sunday morning that clocks were set forward.) I awoke miserable, realized that there was no way I could get to work on time with Sunday morning buses, and gave up, but I didn't go back to bed.<br><br />After surviving that day tired, I didn't think much about it until that Tuesday night. At choir practice, I sang in falsetto at a part that our director encouraged the men to sing with the altos, and discovered a rasp to my head voice. By the end of that night, my throat hurt.<br><br />I felt worse on Wednesday, and worse on Thursday. I was better on Friday and Saturday.<br><br />(Speaking of Friday, something else that was nice that day was getting Chinese food. In my fortune cookie was this slip of paper:<br><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 380px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAITZ9Di0Ue8pHu_2G5Ob7OjLswWLNTC_oRShEAaTmMgDpqGoDhRb2LSgJqa0MAdizd0H_5xvseJ1SNnrv8AZ1K5Q8ykDoZH8IQ5YnRpJCUPDPRncLAel8kehJUKILczma3jupKaatNkw/s400/fortune.jpg" border="0" alt="IN BED"id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468776398411658130" /><br>I put it in my wallet, and it's been there almost continuously since.)<br><br />And then I woke up Sunday hardly able to hear in my right ear. This would last for weeks, and the taping was two days away.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-38871264115775428952009-07-22T17:15:00.000-07:002009-07-22T17:18:14.962-07:00SuddenlyI'm the Jeopardy guy now. I thought I could win on the show, but I wasn't prepared for two runaway games right out of the gate. Everything's going nuts. It's exciting and overwhelming.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-27239584266780305092009-04-09T03:43:00.000-07:002009-04-09T04:03:04.579-07:00TRB RIPI take a bus south on the 405, through the Sepulveda pass, to get to work. On the uphill portion of the pass, the ground surrounds the freeway as it occupies the lower portion between hills. I started noticing across the road, on the hill by the shoulder of the northbound side, a white cross. I saw numbers and letters, among which were "RIP."<br /><br />It was always just a little bit too far for me to see clearly, plus the motion of the bus meant I only had a matter of seconds to see it at all. But it was in my mind whenever I noticed it that I should make note of the numbers (likely birth and death dates).<br /><br />Eventually I would write the digits down. I got them slightly wrong the first time around, but took another look a day or two later, and fixed my error. When I was at work and thought about it, I punched the birth date and the death month (it didn't allow for exact death date entry) into a searchable Social Security death index online. It turned up several people, but only one whose death date matched the one from the cross. And he was the only one who had died in California.<br /><br />I searched Google with this name, and found a news posting. He crashed his motorcycle into a truck one afternoon late last summer, and died on the northbound 405.<br /><br />I'm posting about this because the cross has been removed; I first noticed its absence a few weeks ago. As I was writing this, I stopped to think if I could remember the numbers. As I brought them to the front of my mind, I realized that today is his birthday, the first since his death. The little marker by the 405 is gone, but I still remember Thomas Brough, although I never knew him.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-30968065343262894942009-04-05T22:19:00.000-07:002009-04-05T22:41:12.797-07:00ComebackIt's been a long time since my last appearance. Not that it particularly matters, since I <i>still</i> have yet to tell anyone about this, but 7 months of silence after 10 days of activity is pretty extreme.<br /><br />I grew my facial hair through September and October, then shaved all but my beard off and put on some oversized Goodwill clothes so I could be Shaggy from Scooby-Doo for Halloween. I don't think I'll be growing out my face again. It was neat to look different for a while, but I prefer the bare-faced thing.<br /><br />Still doing the night thing, still traveling by bus to get there, but I discovered that a specific set of routes, suggested by the city's public transit web site, which I dismissed as having too much extra distance, was actually the better choice for travel time. I'm learning not to think like a walker/bike rider in planning how I travel via non-foot/bike means. It turns out that a little bit of easterly movement at the start of my generally south-southwest travel helps me avoid my previously described frustration most of the time.<br /><br />I had a big day outside of work last week. I can't talk about it much at the moment (it'll be months before I can; see you in the summer), but I exceeded my expectations in a challenging situation. Much like I've done with some karaoke or open mike performances, I look back and find it hard to imagine that it was me.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-62320596699221984642008-08-28T03:05:00.000-07:002008-08-30T04:02:19.089-07:00My mp3 player saves meRiding on the bus (and generally being car-less and license-less in this town) requires a certain degree of letting go and allowing what will happen to happen. This is fine for me. I can sit there and watch people on the bus or in nearby cars, and I'm fine being alone in the crowd with my thoughts.<br /><br />Unless I'm late.<br /><br />All those annoyances I mentioned in last Tuesday's entry are ten times greater to me, and I start losing my mind at every little delay. Normally when I get to feeling this way, I end up being a jerk to my family until I realize that I'm being a jerk, at which point I try to shut up and take control of my emotions. In this case, I've only got total strangers around me, and I can't be a jerk to them, no matter how much they bother me with their unreasonable desire to get off at the stop most convenient for them. Therefore, I never impose it upon myself to not be so bothered. As a result, in the past I've gone silently nuts and then felt like hell upon disembarking.<br /><br />Then sometime during the summer when I was going to be late again, I remembered my mp3 player in my backpack, and quickly got it out and put it to a song that I've found to be invigorating ("Aphelion" by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/fridgemusic">Fridge</a>. I've linked to their myspace page, where you can listen to it. Be warned: it's a ten-minute instrumental). Lo and behold, my mind relaxed its strangling grip on everything I'd have perceived moments earlier to be a slowdown, and I just listened to music and looked at people and let my mind wander again.<br /><br />Because I tend to know I'm going to be late before I get on it, the last bus I ride is a pot in which I can potentially stew for at least twenty-five minutes. Once I realize my brain has begun its spiral of annoyance and impatience and frustration, I pop in my earphones and let it stretch out. I'm no less late than I was going to be, but at least I'm thinking straight when I get there.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-72763497998118579272008-08-24T03:24:00.000-07:002008-08-24T03:36:37.757-07:00A dose of fallibilityI discovered (probably re-discovered; it seems like a familiar fact) that <i>interruptor</i>, a word I used in an earlier entry, is not a dictionary-recognized word (at least as far as Google cares). On the other hand, <i>interrupter</i> is. I think that's bogus. A verb ending with -pt should totally have -or as the standard suffix to make it into a doer of the verb. For no reason other than I deem it should be so. If <i>raptor</i> is spelled the way it is (okay, okay, I know it has nothing to do with the nonexistent pastime of rapting), and <i>adaptor</i> is acceptable both ways (I'll take the -or ending, thank you very much), why can't we have <i>interruptors</i>?<br /><br />I'm off to edit that entry.<br /><br />By the way, I was surprised to find in the recent past that <i>raptor</i> does not solely refer to dinosaurs; in fact, it is considered almost exclusively a term for birds of prey. A hawk is a raptor, but a Komodo dragon (which I might have been misled to believe was one, based on the reptilian raptors of prehistory) is not. I know you're disappointed.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-72550435864393315572008-08-22T04:16:00.000-07:002008-08-22T04:25:44.128-07:00I watch the 9-to-5s go homeIt's bizarre, but despite my having a work schedule considerably offset from the norm, I still feel bad about being up past 4 am, even though it's been less than three hours since I got off work. I feel equally bad about waking up past noon. It's as though offsetting my sleep schedule, even in conjunction with work, is not allowed. Maybe I'll feel better about it when I'm living on my own.<br /><br />And hey, though I feel bad, at least I don't feel like a worthless lump, as I would when staying up past 4 and waking past noon in my jobless state. This is a "sigh and shake my head" bad feeling, not a "stare paralyzed at the vast blank page that is my future" bad feeling.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-38404582598221069762008-08-22T03:17:00.001-07:002008-08-22T03:20:56.574-07:00Just be glad I'm not the one writing themThere's an old Christmas card in our house. It has a black and white photo of three grinning kittens, with crowns drawn on their heads and the caption "The Three Wise Kitties." In addition, each one has a speech balloon. From left to right: "I brought gold!" "I brought frankincense!" "I brought catnip!" Every time I see it, I lament the lost opportunity in the third balloon. I think it would have been much better if the third kittie had brought pyrrh instead.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-66070697345950018702008-08-20T05:01:00.001-07:002008-08-20T05:14:27.663-07:00The rugged typeI've decided to attempt being bearded. I figured that now that I'm not working with kids, it's okay to look unkempt for a little while as I go through that transitional period of merely looking unshaven. Plus, I feel better about the idea now that I have a job. During my stints as a stay-at-home son, I felt obliged to be presentable in lieu of being productive, so I wouldn't feel like a total slob. Now I'm going out every day and working (in an industry whose workers tend to look... alternative, so I don't think I'll stick out too badly), and so I feel okay about trying this out. I grew my hair past my shoulders in college just to give it a go, and I think my face should get a turn now. This experiment shouldn't take years like my hair did, and when I'm done with it, I can take care of it myself.<br /><br />I think I still look gross after about five days (can't remember when I last shaved... Thursday or Friday?), but it'll take longer to find out how it will really look.<br /><br />I'm still shaving my neck, though. I'd be happy if I never grew hair there again.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-53892789040261266312008-08-19T02:25:00.000-07:002008-08-24T03:37:10.829-07:00Wouldn't you know it, sometimes things bug me!I ride the bus to work. A cool deal with my job is that they offer bus passes to those who don't get parking passes, so non-drivers like me can take any buses necessary to get there, at no cost. And then I have the added perk of free bus rides even when I'm not going to work. It's a very pleasant arrangement.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I'm not the most pleasant of people (though I generally make efforts against that). I sometimes let minor things annoy me (not just on the bus!), and it's usually stuff that other people do. Public transportation = plenty of other people. Someone is bound to annoy me at one point or another.<br /><br />Exhibit A: People who wave for the bus to stop. Guess why it's called a bus stop, folks! And this isn't at stops served by multiple buses, where one would conceivably have to tell a driver, "Hey, you're running the one I'm looking for." (I've been passed by at such stops because I was distracted, didn't see the bus coming, and gave no indication I wanted on.) It could be absolutely clear that only one bus will ever stop there, and yet people will wave at the bus as though their mere presence at the bus stop isn't an indicator that they need the bus to stop.<br /><br />Exhibit B: People who don't realize the "request stop" cord has already been pulled. The cord need only be pulled once between stops to indicate that someone wants to get off. As such, only the first pull of it causes the "ping" noise to sound and the obnoxious pre-recorded voice to announce a stop has been requested. The LED sign at the front of the bus will continually say "STOP REQUESTED" on it, and some buses also have a light come on behind a sign with the same text. Nevertheless, people will pull an already-pulled cord, then start yanking on it waiting for sounds to be produced (and occasionally, for good measure, get up and walk to the other side of the bus and yank the cord there. One inexperienced bus rider actually walked up to the driver and asked him to stop because she couldn't make the noise happen). I'm in no position to cast the first stone, since I've been distracted at the time the cord was pulled for the stop I needed, and unnecessarily pulled the cord myself. But once I did that fruitlessly, I looked up and saw that the signs were lit and realized the error of my ways. I don't understand how people can be unaware of their surroundings like that.<br /><br />Exhibit C: Time interrupters. This relates to the LED sign mentioned above. When it doesn't display "STOP REQUESTED," it shows the date and the time. I like to stay abreast of the time, and until recently (I found a watch on the bus), the LED sign was my only way. However, it won't display the time if a stop is requested. I understand that people have to get off the bus, but it has happened that I've gone miles on the bus without seeing the time, because people would pull the cord for stop B the moment the doors closed at stop A. It's a minor inconvenience (especially now that I have a timepiece of my own), but it always makes me a little nuts when the sign is <i>just about</i> to show the time right when someone pulls the cord.<br /><br />I don't get as bothered about this as these huge paragraphs might suggest. But when the little, slightly bothersome things happen often enough, it becomes easy to go on at length about them. I didn't intend to convey myself as a 25-year-old curmudgeon when I created this blog, but there you go. At least I'm not a curmudgeon out loud (about this, anyway).SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6241725488959991906.post-5433886691905664242008-08-18T02:44:00.001-07:002008-08-18T03:20:00.120-07:00And so it beginsI always like discovering a blog in progress (prog blog?) by someone I know, after a nice backlog of posts has accumulated. I sit and read all the old entries at once. Therefore, I intend to do the same favor to my will-be readers by not telling you about this blog until later. So this entry will probably be a bit old by the time you read this. The bread is stale, but hey, I'd rather have a stale slice than fresh crumbs.<br /><br />My summer has just ended. In an unusual turn of events my days will be <i>less</i> packed as a result. (Well, not unusual for me; all my autumns since I graduated from college have been less packed than my summers. This will be my first September as an employed non-student.) What happened was that I got a software testing job in May that I had no intention of quitting. This was followed by a month of agonizing about my old summer job, to which I have something of an emotional attachment. Unwilling to have my cake without eating it, I switched to the night shift at my job, and took on the summer job for three days a week.<br /><br />The upshot of having your cake and eating it too is the unpleasantness of regurgitation. My unpleasantness consisted of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays that began around 7 am and ended on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays respectively. What's more, I had to endure two of these three days on less than five hours of sleep.<br /><br />Somehow I survived. I slept in on Tuesdays and Thursdays; on the other three weekdays, I fed off the energy of the children I worked with, and afterward I kept myself going with the occasional nap on the bus to my "day job," and the less occasional dose of caffeine and/or aspirin. (I wouldn't do this year-round, but I could do eight weeks of this again. We'll see what my professional life is like next year.)<br /><br />And now the summer job is over, and I'm back to one job. I switched to the night shift the same day my summer work started, so this will be the first time I can really enjoy the different schedule. I have to sacrifice a thing or two, but I fit better with the 5 pm-1:30 am crowd. (If the times were the only factor, I could go either way, but the environment in the evening is more comfortable to me.)<br /><br />A new blog (with a new readership of people who are physically present in my life, I hope), and a new experience of work. Here they go.SGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18155327398629748612noreply@blogger.com0